#On nowadays politics & they were too small in 2019

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

also insane that i graduated school 6 yrs ago and now i can be considered old n boring to teens

designing graduation albums must be one of the cringiest thing ever kids im sorry i know if u'd see it u'd feel sooooooo cringe

[letterboxd]

Siren Song.

Undine writer-director Christian Petzold talks to Reyzando Nawara about modern-day mermaids, Tinder culture and finding the magic in life.

“Love stories always change. A kiss in Berlin 1933, for example, is not gonna be the same kiss in Berlin today, right?” —Christian Petzold

“If you leave me, then I’ll have to kill you.” Undine’s threat to her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend Johannes, after he has told her that he has met someone else, seems at first like an over-the-top reaction to the breakup. But it is a curse that Undine must fulfill, for she will become human only when she falls in love with a man who is doomed to die if he is unfaithful to her.

From Splash to Ponyo to The Lure to Song of the Sea, mythical water spirits, usually female, sometimes horse, have powered many film plots. The sixteenth-century European myth of Undine, in particular, lies behind many screen adaptations of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, though the Danish writer was not the first to popularize the fairytale in his century. Decades earlier, around 1811, Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué of Germany had produced his romantic novella, Undine.

And it is to Germany—specifically modern-day Berlin—that writer-director (and fellow German) Christian Petzold transports Undine in his contemporary magical-realist take on the myth. There, she does not take the form of a mermaid or siren, but a beautiful young woman (played by Paula Beer), who works as a historian at a museum, where she guides tours of Berlin’s architecture and its reconstruction. The breathtaking cinematography, by regular Petzold collaborator Hans Fromm, crystallizes both the romance and the beauty of Berlin, while Petzold’s leads root every scene in reality, even as aquariums explode and giant catfish drift past.

Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski fire up the streets of Berlin in ‘Undine’.

Water may be the dominant element in Undine, but Beer and her co-star Franz Rogowski bring fire to their scenes together. Where Beer brings charisma and intensity to the titular role, Rogowski, as Undine’s new love interest, an industrial diver named Christoph, offers charm and sweetness.

In the frenzy of Parasite’s world domination, it is easy to forget that Petzold’s previous feature, Transit, appeared in two of our 2019 Year in Review lists—the 50 highest-rated films and the highest-rated international films—and was one of the top romance films of the 2010s. His riveting Phoenix is still his highest-rated film on the platform—one of many to center a complex female character in search of love at a time of personal and/or political crisis. In Undine, Petzold does it again, a welcome departure from other adaptations, including the Colin Farrell-starring Irish romantic drama Ondine (2009), that have mostly told the myth from the perspective of its male characters. Petzold also revises the fairytale, by giving Undine a chance to try to emancipate herself from her curse.

We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Petzold about his fascination with water, the magic of Berlin history, modern dating and of course, his ongoing collaboration with Beer and Rogowski.

Spoiler warning: this conversation contains plot details regarding the ending of Petzold’s film ‘Transit’ (2018).

Your movie is inspired by the myth of Undine, but you reinvent it by giving it some modern twists. How did the main narrative for the film come about? Christian Petzold: I think the idea of the story first came to me around twenty years ago when I had a project in Germany. It was together with Claire Denis and also Kathryn Bigelow, and everybody had to make a ten-minute short film for a project based on the museum near the Rhine River. I had written a little dialogue—oh, by the way, Steve McQueen was also part of the project—and it was the scene that we can see in the movie in the first few minutes where Undine’s boyfriend, Johannes, said that he doesn’t love her anymore and that he wants to leave her and she said to him, “If you leave me, then I’ll have to kill you.” Then she goes back to work, and later when she comes back to try to find him again, he isn’t there—so she knows that she has to kill him now.

Then when I made Transit with Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski, I told them after a very lucky and happy time of shooting, that I had written a short story and wanted to make a 90-minute feature movie out of it together with them. I wanted to keep working and making movies with them because we’ve had an amazing experience together in Transit. This was basically the start of how the movie and my collaboration with these two actors came about.

Paula and Franz are actors who didn’t come from the basic German acting school; their backgrounds are dance and theater. But they both have so much curiosity about cinema—when I met Paula for the first time, for example, she told me that she had bought 50 movies by Alfred Hitchcock and wanted to see all of them, and to me, this is the best kind of school to learn about cinema.

So to some extent, Undine is a spiritual sequel to Transit? Yes, you’re right. It has so many things to do with Transit. Marie, Paula’s character in Transit, finds her own death in the sea—she’s drowned. And Franz’s character, he’s waiting at the land, hoping that she may come back from the land of the dead. So I said to them, “Okay, the next movie is gonna be about a woman coming out of the sea and going to the land to search for love and also about this young man who is a diver, who is going underwater, to find love as well.” So to some degree, it’s a sequel, you’re right.

Beer and Ragowski in ‘Transit’ (2018).

You mentioned earlier that you had a great experience working with Paula and Franz in Transit. Can you tell us what it was about these two actors that you thought would capture the story you wanted to tell in Undine? Paula is a very young actor—she was 23 when we started Transit, and she was around 24 when we made Undine—but when you’re filming her, she has this ability to make her characters much more mature beyond her real age. In one second, she’s 45 years old, with a whole experience of someone who’s had a hard life and has gone through so many bad things, then one second later, she’s thirteen and innocent. And to have that kind of ability—to go from one point to another—is just really fascinating to me. I’ve never seen other actors do this before in my life.

Franz was a dancer, and if I remember correctly, I think he was also in a clown school for a circus, so he can do everything with his body. It’s unbelievable what he can do. He has this amazing physicality that I admire and haven’t seen before in other German actors. When they’re together sharing a scene, they dance with each other. And this is the thing that I like so much about them and the thing I need in Undine, because I need actors who can float from one scene to another as if they’re dancing underwater.

In literature and pop culture, the myth of Undine has been mostly told from the male perspective. You reframe the narrative, to give Undine the opportunity to maybe emancipate herself from both the male figure in her life and the curse. Tell me more about that choice. Two or three years ago, I had a retrospective in New York, and I had the chance to see some of my previous movies again—[laughing] I’ve actually never done it before, revisiting my own movies. And at that time, I realized that I’ve always tried to rewrite the stories centering on women, which were made by men in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, from another perspective: the perspective of the women.

When I was in Venice for the first time, Claude Chabrol [was] in the same hotel as me, and he had a Q&A. I wanted to say hi and tell him how great he was but I couldn’t do it because I was very young and too shy for those things. I heard what he said when asked why in his movies, the women are always the main characters. His answer was, “Men are living, women are surviving. And cinema is about surviving.” It was such a fantastic answer.

All the movies I [have] made, including Undine, are about surviving. Undine wanted to survive her curse—she tries to, every time, since centuries ago. In so many iterations of the myth, Undine always has to go back into the lake and to the life the curse has set for her. I really wanted to zoom in on that, to liberate the character of Undine from the myth and the curse.

In the movie, Undine works as an historian at a museum, and in her tours, she talks about Berlin’s architecture and its reconstruction throughout the years. How is this related to the romantic aspect of the movie? Everybody says you can take a love story and put it in the sixteenth century or the nineteenth century, and it’s always gonna be the same kind of love story. But I think that’s not entirely right. Love stories always change. A kiss in Berlin 1933, for example, is not gonna be the same kiss in Berlin today, right? Therefore I want to take the historical aspect of Berlin architecture and its reconstruction to tell the story of two young people in Berlin nowadays, to see the evolution of both this love story and the myth of Undine itself.

What’s the significance of all the buildings Undine mentions in the movie? The buildings serve a very important role in the movie because Berlin is between two rivers on an island, and the city is built on dried-out swamps, so the element that Undine is coming from, which is the water, is destroyed in Berlin. It doesn’t exist anymore. And therefore Undine doesn’t have any habitats, so she has no choice but to adapt and to live on the land.

In some way, I always think that the modernization in Berlin erases history, and when there’s no history, there’s no magic, which means magical creatures like Undine won’t exist. That was the main idea of the architectural elements in the movie.

Is that also the reason why there are two locations in the movie: Berlin, and the small town where Franz’s character, Christoph, works and lives, which is still full of swamps? To show that in this small town, magic still exists? That’s a good question. The romance and the myth of Undine is a part of German and European history. It’s a unique enchantment. But in Berlin, where modernization and civilization keep growing and changing, there’s no enchantment anymore. So I want to show how in this small town where everything is still kept as closely natural as possible, the enchantment and the charm of Germany are still there.

There’s a beautiful and romantic poem by Joseph Eichendorff that says, “You must find the right world, so everything can sync again.” To me, that line encourages us to find the magic of the world back. We live in this world surrounded by retro buildings and retro behavior and retro music, but it’s all actually just an illusion of magic. The real magic, that’s something that we have to find—either by movies or camera positions or poems or even by preserving the naturality of a city. And the Undine myth actually has a lot to do with this.

Another thing that fascinates me about the movie is how the dynamic between Undine and Johannes, in some way, reflects the state of modern dating. Is this something that you also wanted to capture when you wrote the script? [Laughing] Funny story, when Paula read the script for the first time, she told me that she liked it so much because the story reminded her of Tinder and modern dating. And on some level, it’s true; part of Undine is about modern dating. I always think that in the era of dating apps, everything gets much simpler—you meet someone, you have sex (or perhaps not), and if you feel like this someone is not handsome or beautiful enough for you, you can keep scrolling until you find someone new. So, dating right now is like going to the supermarket.

Johannes leaving Undine to be with another woman, who for him is better-looking than Undine, reflects the culture of Tinder. And the line I mentioned earlier, “If you leave me, then I’ll have to kill you,” is the opposite of that kind of dating life. And Paula, who hates Tinder, loves that line a lot. Some of the actors are on Tinder, I’m sure, and that’s understandable. Actors are sometimes very lonely because for six to eight weeks, they are deep inside of a character, and when they’re on break, they’re in some sort of “black hole of loneliness”.

Writer-director Christian Petzold.

Undine being a water nymph, of course, makes the water element very important in this movie. But water has actually been heavily featured in some of your previous features as well, like in Yella, Barbara and Transit. Can you tell us why you find water fascinating? I’ve seen a documentary by Agnès Varda, and in [it] she said, “The place where one element is touching one another is the place where cinema builds its stories.” That’s why she loved the beach, because on the beach, there’s water and there’s the earth and there’s also wind, and they’re touching each other. So to her, the beach is the perfect place where you can tell a story.

For me, however, the reason I like featuring water or the other elements in most of my movies is because it has something to do with seeing my characters coming from one element then going to the other elements; to see them act and react in a new and sometimes uncomfortable place. Also, when you see pictures or paintings, so many of them are about people looking deep into the sea. I always feel like that kind of painting is actually about a desire. And most of my movies, at [their] core, are about desire. That’s why water is so important to me. Deep under the water, there’s the place of desire.

What’s the first movie that made you want to become a filmmaker? The first movie I loved very much as a kid was The Jungle Book, but the first movie that made me want to become a filmmaker was by Alfred Hitchcock, The 39 Steps. I was fourteen or fifteen years old when I saw the movie for the first time, and I loved it from the first moment. The movie is about a man and a woman who are bound by handcuffs, and they don’t like each other, but because they’re on the run, they have to communicate and come to an understanding. And the love story starts because of that communication, not because of looks, and I love the movie so much for that reason.

If you could program a double feature with Undine, what movie would you pick? Good question. I would say The Night of the Hunter. Also maybe Creature from the Black Lagoon or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or The Son’s Room by Nanni Moretti. These are the movies that I would recommend for a double feature with Undine.

Related content

More ‘Little Mermaid’ adaptations: a list by Katherine

Paula Beer strolling around towns cinematic universe

Diogo’s mega-list of Mermaids in Film

Horror’s History with Scary Mermaids: a Bloody Disgusting list

Follow Reyzando on Letterboxd

‘Undine’ is in theaters and available on VOD in the US now.

[calamity-bean]

Aziraphale/Crowley Fic Recs

AKA “There is SO much Good Omens fic nowadays, with more being added at SUCH an incredible rate, that I keep forgetting to bookmark things and thus completely lose track of what I’ve read and what I liked and which ones to watch for updates and which ones I might want to read again and etc etc. So, for the sake of my own sanity, I have made A List.”

And I thought, hey, might as well share.

I’ve divided this list into WIPs and Complete Works, but otherwise, it’s a jumble: canon-verse and AUs, short and long, ranging in rating from G to E and incorporating various tropes and headcanons. I tend to gravitate toward happy endings, so there’s probably nothing too dark or soul-crushing, but as always, buyer beware, pay attention to tags and content warnings and your own personal tastes. Works are listed in chronological order of first publishing, simply as a neutral and objective way to list them, and more will be added intermittently as I read new ones or rediscover ones I forgot.

Hope this helps someone find some good reading and directs more attention to some well-deserving work!

-- WIPs --

On Espionage and Prophecy (or How to Accidentally, but Wholly, Fall in Love With a Soho Bookseller) by RockSaltAndRoll (June 15, 2019)

1941 is the London Blitz and the year that MI5 really comes into its own with the now infamous ‘double cross’ system. The service keep tabs on suspects, root out enemy agents and try to turn them into doubles.

Anthony J Crowley is fucking great at this job. He can be sneaky, underhanded and damn ruthless but also charming and kind. It’s what makes him good at turning.

Aziraphale is just a regular Soho bookseller who loves his shop and books and good food and wine when he’s approached by a woman claiming to be MI5, wanting to recruit him for espionage. The poor man is too trusting and gets the shock of his life when he’s approached by a charming but dangerous-looking man also claiming to be MI5.

Crowley recruits Aziraphale to double cross a double crosser and Aziraphale takes to espionage like a duck to water.

Danger, hijinks, and sex ensue.

Show Me a Great Plan by WriteDreamLie (June 17, 2019)

A.J. Crowley is an eccentric "business man." A.Z. Fell is a bookseller who refuses to sell any books.

After Fell (unwillingly) helps Crowley out of a sticky situation, the two become oddly fixed on each other. And their relationship could just be the thing that saves them both.

icing on the cake by Etheostoma (June 18, 2019)

Between the black attire, swaying hips, slouching pose, and affected “devil-may-care” attitude that actually belied an incredibly sensitive nature, A.J. Crowley was a walking puzzle—and one that Aziraphale, when he allowed his thoughts free rein, wanted desperately to solve.

That being said, at the end of the day Crowley was also technically his employer, and therefore even the thought of anything more was decidedly not a Good Idea.

Vita Nova by AMidnightDreary (June 18, 2019)

“Angel, bloody hell. Hi. You doing okay? Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

It was quiet for a few seconds.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said then, still polite, but a bit perplexed. “Who is this?”

Crowley, upon finding that Aziraphale does not remember him, is very much Not Okay with the changes Adam made after the Apocalypse That Wasn't. He can't do anything but try and make the best out of it, though. (Which is a lot easier than it should be.)

Sparse Clutter by ItsClydeBitches (June 26, 2019)

A fic bingo collection featuring twenty-five, one word prompts. Whole thing is probably best described as "Ineffable husbands stupidity with a hefty dose of gen world building," but I'll chuck brief summaries below as I update!

Strange Pilgrims: Being the Account of a lost Angel, the Journeys of a Demon, the meaning of Free Will, of the Unravelling of a Prophecy, and of Being Unravelled by it in Turn by sousverre (June 26, 2019)

"Aziraphale going missing" would be quite enough drama for Crowley to be getting on with, thanks very much - even without a prophecy that seems to be implying the significance of Feelings, and especially with every gargoyle in London trying to reunite them.

But when he does find the angel, Aziraphale has lost his memory, his wings, and insists that he is happily married to some kind of investment banker.

Right. So the first step is to fix all that, somehow, and then - and then - and then everything can go back to normal, like it was before, which is all Crowley wants.

Right.

How do we fix this?

Put Out The Fire by Aleakim (June 27, 2019)

Aziraphale finds himself in a very awkward position as some sort of spell makes everyone merely glancing in his direction instantly fall deeply and desperately in love with him.

Absolutely everyone.

Well, apart from Crowley, that is.

And while both angel and demon search for a solution to this fairly unique problem, Crowley can’t help wondering whether Aziraphale might finally figure out some things he kept hidden for so very long.

Ink Blots and Forget-Me-Nots by gutsandglitter (July 3, 2019)

Ninth Circle Ink was hardly more than a stone’s throw from the flower shop; Aziraphale knew from past experience that it took less than thirty seconds to go from door to door (forty-five if you had to wait for a car to pass). It had been a perfect arrangement in the beginning, when they were just starting out.

aka the flower shop/tattoo parlor (human) exes AU that nobody asked for!

You Can Have Your Cake by eragon19 (July 4, 2019)

Aziraphale has been working as Anathema's assistant at her wedding planning service for near on a year now. He thinks he's seen it all, from meddling parents to nervous brides, and in one case an ex with a penchant for arson.

What he isn't prepared for is a reluctant groom with a liking for black leather and a smile that has Aziraphale's mind going to places it most certainly shouldn't. Especially since the man is getting married, no matter how awful his fiance is...

To the Stars by StarRose (July 9, 2019)

The happy ending Titanic!Au no one ever writes but everyone always imagines in every possible fandom. Aziraphale is being forcibly sent to America to be forcibly married to Gabriel. Crowley is going to forcibly screw that up.

A Matter of Convenience by ylc (July 15, 2019)

There comes a time when even the most fervent enemies must call a truce and what better way to cement such truce than a marriage? And if the involved parties happen to be the most troublesome members of the ruling families… well, that’s all for the best, isn’t it?

Barriers, and the Breaking Thereof by Cardinal_Daughter (July 16, 2019)

Ezra Fell has long been comfortable in his loneliness. He’s content to simply run the Soho Public Library and otherwise keep to himself. However, when a handsome stranger bursts in one evening with a baby, frantic and in need of help, Ezra finds those carefully constructed barriers he’s long maintained begin to crack.

Perhaps it’s time to let them fall.

Series of one-shots focusing on the lives and developing relationship between Ezra Fell and Anthony J. & Adam Crowley. Human AU.

Lavender, Chamomile, and a Rather Permanent Arrangement by southdownsraph (July 17, 2019)

Crowley owns the flower shop across the street from A. Z. Fell's tattoo shop, and can't help but be intrigued by the slightly eccentric, yet incredibly friendly tattoo artist. When Crowley does finally pluck up the courage to talk to him beyond the occasional pleasantries, he kicks off the beginning of a friendship that could so easily drift into something else entirely.

Pride and Prejudice and Angels by SanSanFanFan (July 20, 2019)

Hampshire, England, 1809

Miss Crowley's plans for a small temptation near the South Coast go awry as she realises that Aziraphale is not only a guest of a neighbouring landed gentlelady but also suffering under some kind of malady.

Match-making! Balls! Fainting! Happily Ever Afters???

Celestial Bodies by LieutenantLiv (August 3, 2019)

The year is 1923. Aziraphale's friends at the gentlemen's club invite him for a weekend away in Devon. He asks Crowley to join. It gets very silly and very messy very quickly.

That's just how things were in the roaring twenties.

Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by Nnm (August 9, 2019)

As soon as Aubrey Thyme, psychotherapist, had opened her office door and seen her new client, Anthony J. Crowley, sitting in her waiting area, she was observing and assessing him. At first glance, she paid attention to the following:

--His clothing was expensive and stylish; --He wore very strange but noticeable cologne; --His relationship to the seat he occupied could only, very loosely, be described as “sitting;” --He looked angry; --He was wearing sunglasses.

What Aubrey Thyme, a professional, thought, upon first seeing her new client was: you’re going to be a fun one, aren’t you?

-- Complete Works --

Anthophilia by FortinbrasFTW (July 7, 2014)

Anthony J. Crowley's life seems like it's finally falling into place: his floral shop has begun to gain an undercurrent of appreciation in the design elite of London, and he might have even finally found a boyfriend who looks just right lounging on his Tenreiro sofa. Things seem almost perfect, until one day the empty shop across the street is leased to frumpy fellow Oxford alumni, who doesn't seem to remember Crowley nearly as well as he remembers him, which really shouldn't bother him as much as it does - it was ten years ago after all, and it wasn't even that good of a kiss.

The Rose Thief and the Priest by ImprobableDreams900 (January 8, 2018)

When horticulturist A. J. Crowley sees a rare breed of rose in a churchyard, he decides he won't stop until he can get a cutting—even if he has to go through the church's stuffy priest to do so.

Running in the Shadows (Damn Your Love, Damn Your Lies) by soft_october (May 10, 2019)

"In plain terms, Mr. A. Fell was a man of impeccable conduct and unusual habits, and in a similar manner to many of whom bore the first two traits, he must also take up the third: dire loneliness. Yet it had not always been thus. Indeed, there once was a time when it seemed as if he should never know solitude or want of suitable company for the rest of his days, but the circumstances by which Aziraphale might have unwound the knot that now bound up his heart had long since dragged themselves, mortally wounded, to die in the shades of regret. Their ghosts hung in his past, growing in consequence with the singular passing of each year until they eclipsed even the death of those who had the foremost hand in their making, and had the effect of separating the sequence of his days of into a gentle, blooming Before, whose painful beauty made the egregious scars of the After that much more appalling."

What Aziraphale does not know is that, from across the ocean, Mr. Anthony J. Crowley is returning to England with his newly aquired wealth, wanting nothing more than to rebuild his life after a terrible shock and, perhaps, discover why he had been abandoned by his fiancé ten long years ago.

You Might Think I’m Crazy (All I Want is You) by soft_october (March 29, 2019)

'“Look I understand, you’ve got to check up on the new occupants, make sure I’m a proper ‘fit’ for the neighborhood or whatever euphemism you’re going to use this time, 'the greater good,' I saw the film, I get it. But I peeked in at the place next door the agent mentioned and if you aren’t bothering him I really don't think you should be-”

“I’m your neighbor,” Aziraphale interrupted. “I own that place next door?”

“Oh.”'

Since the next shop over closed down, Aziraphale's had a peaceful few months, barring those unpleasant interactions with the men in cheap suits who keep trying to persuade him to sell his shop. But now a (handsome) new owner has taken up residence beside him and, horror of horrors, he wants to open up a coffee shop.

A Home at the Beginning of the World by stereobone (June 6, 2019)

"Oh," Aziraphale says. "I think Crowley might have moved in with me."

creatures of circumstance by attheborder (June 10, 2019)

Anthony J. Crowley, Jr. is the prodigal son of CrowleyCorp, the UK’s most powerful, dangerous, and controversial technology company.  

A one-night stand with a mysterious man who calls himself Aziraphale tips his hopeless life upside-down into a dangerous obsession.

And somewhere else entirely, a girl-shaped creature is presiding over the back room of a bookshop in Soho, where an angel and a demon lay unconscious on the floor…

Bending Space and Time by Draco_sollicitus (June 11, 2019)

Crowley could never have envisioned a miracle quite like making an angel smile.

And when that angel is Aziraphale, well, he'll do whatever he can to experience that miracle again, and again, and again.

(Crowley spends the twentieth century bringing books to Aziraphale in an effort to make his angel smile a little more)

the words of the prophet are written on the subway walls by volantium (June 11, 2019)

Aziraphale and Crowley do the twenty-first century. (Or, Aziraphale and Crowley, dorks in love, post-Apocalypse).

a picnic plan for you and me by theapplepielifestyle (June 12, 2019)

“It’s angel food cake,” he said. He waited. When Aziraphale did nothing but nod politely: “It’s funny, see, ‘cause-”

“No, no, I get it.” Aziraphale nodded again. “Very funny.”

“Oh, shut up, it is-”

“May I ask what brought this on?”

Crowley paused. “Can’t a guy just want to try baking?”

(Or, Crowley makes Aziraphale food after the world doesn't end. It has absolutely nothing to do with how much he wants to make Aziraphale smile.)

with urgency but not with haste by Sanwall (June 13, 2019)

Aziraphale moves to the South Downs and gets bees, and Crowley gets into one of his moods.

The Play’s The Thing by volunteerfd (June 16, 2019)

“Who was at the very first rehearsal, hmm? Who read over Shakespeare’s shoulder as he put ink to parchment? If anything, I know Hamlet just as intimately as I know you.” Aziraphale picked up his teacup again and looked at Crowley over the rim of it. “Maybe even more.”

Crowley was tempted to ask if he’d fucked Hamlet.

****

Aziraphale is cast as the lead in a community theatre production of Hamlet, a lifelong dream of his and a lifelong night terror of Crowley's. But, as the hapless Crowley helps him run lines, it becomes a mystery why anyone would let Aziraphale on stage. Tears are shed, skulls are crushed, monologues are butchered, and through it all, Crowley remains supportive. After all, the show must go on--even if it is the fifty billionth production of stupid, overrated Hamlet.

Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy by 13thDoctor, JHarkness (June 17, 2019)

5 times Aziraphale and Crowley were mistaken for a couple, and the 1 time they weren’t.

A Regular Rip van Winkle by aurilly (June 20, 2019)

After almost an entire century spent asleep, Crowley wakes in 1888 to find the world more changed than he thought possible. His first order of business is to find his angel.

Also concerning the origin of the Baroque gavotte (spoilers: Aziraphale was feeling thirsty).

A bookshop is not a business by anactoriatalksback (June 22, 2019)

In which Aziraphale has no intention of selling books to anyone at all, let alone this infuriatingly persistent customer. No matter how nice his cheekbones are...

like a prayer for which no words exist by lipsstainedbloodred (June 23, 2019)

“What do you want, angel?” Crowley asks before Aziraphale is even properly in the room.

“Hullo my dear,” Aziraphale sounds cheery but also awfully worried, “I hadn’t seen you since - well, since-” Since they’d swapped bodies back; since Crowley had turned tail and ran from St. James’s Park like the Devil himself had been on his heels.

(in which Crowley and Aziraphale do not dine at the Ritz after that nasty business with Heaven and Hell, and Crowley has an existential crisis instead)

far too much in love to see by imperiousheiress (June 25, 2019)

“Hello, can I help you with anything in particular?” Aziraphale asks. And then, he freezes.

Inexplicably, impossibly, it’s the same man who had entered the shop the last time they’d been open. He’s sure of it. The man who he’d felt a rather insistent urge to garrote.

(Or, one of Aziraphale’s regular customers takes a little too much interest in Crowley, and Aziraphale feels somewhat unfamiliarly unpleasant about all of it.)

The Holiest by merle_p (June 26, 2019)

So when Aziraphale hears, through the grapevine, that an exorcism is supposed to happen on New Year’s Eve in Major Gruber’s flat, he knows that despite his general distaste for exorcisms, this is where he is going to be, on the slim chance that the demon Major Gruber and his spiritist friends have found is the same one Aziraphale appears to have lost.

Hope Is The Thing With Feathers by Gefionne (June 26, 2019)

Because they can’t see each other more than once every few decades, Aziraphale suggests that he and Crowley write to each other to pass the time apart. As quills for their letters, they exchange wing feathers: a gesture of great intimacy that Crowley is convinced only he perceives the depth of. But time will tell that it’s not just him who sees it that way.

Night and Day by Gigi_Sinclair (June 27, 2019)

Five times Aziraphale and Crowley encountered queer historical figures who know more about them than they do, and one time they actually have a clue.

Needed a break, gone to France x by sleepymccoy (June 28, 2019)

A week or so after the nopocalypse Aziraphale takes a holiday that, unfortunately, sends Crowley into a bit of a tailspin about where they're at

In Holy Matrimony by Myracuulous (June 29, 2019)

From the private journal of Alisha Jones, wedding planner, concerning the nuptials of Anthony J Crowley and Aziraphale and the planning process thereof, containing an account of chosen decor, guest list construction, and the holy war against the Antichrist that nearly ruined six months of professional organization and a very nice dinner.

Acts of Service by seekwill (July 2, 2019)

After receiving direct instruction from God, village reverend Aziraphale leaves his countryside congregation to serve the underserved and in-need at an urban church in London, a transition made all the more complicated by the mysterious and handsome Crowley, who always seems to appear when Aziraphale least expects him.

greatest hits by attheborder (July 2, 2019)

“But my dear, I just can’t believe you never told me that you had joined a musical group. I would have come out to support you— at your gigs!”

“First of all, never say ‘gigs’ again. Second of all, not my fault you never noticed when I showed up to dinner with a great big guitar case slung over my shoulder.”

(Aziraphale accidentally discovers Crowley’s secret: he was in a band in the 90s. And he wrote a whole album of love songs…)

Nanny Knows Best by DictionaryWrites (July 5, 2019)

Being a nanny, that should be simple. Simple. Easy as pie.

Crowley wished that were true.

human childcare for the occult (and ethereal) by suzukiblu (July 10, 2019)

The Dowlings miraculously need a nanny and a gardener at the same time, and Aziraphale suggests they flip for it. Crowley takes one moment to picture Aziraphale nannying anyone and calls dibs. It’s not that Aziraphale’s terrible with humans, he’s just, well. Terrible with humans. Truly, truly terrible.

He doesn’t want to deal with Aziraphale getting metaphorically guillotined or kicking up security’s paranoia, basically. A gardener can be a little odd, and no one will notice or care. Except Warlock, perhaps, as the only other person with any real reason to spend much time out on the lawn, but Warlock’s the one they want noticing so that’ll be fine, Crowley’s sure.

Even if it does make him cringe a little, leaving Aziraphale in charge of the plants.

keep me close by Iselmyr (July 17, 2019)

Aziraphale was expecting to see a talented but otherwise ordinary performance of Les Misérables with a genderswapped cast. Aziraphale was not expecting who came onstage.

Crowley was expecting an ordinary second night show, because Aziraphale always goes to opening nights, and Crowley never performs on them.

Except, this once, Aziraphale missed the opening, and came to the second night. Everything else snowballed from there.

lit in the darkness by ToEdenandBackAgain (July 17, 2019)

Aziraphale returns to Crowley's flat for the night after Armageddon. After all, it's hardly the first time they've shared sleeping arrangements. Or: Times throughout history Crowley and Aziraphale have shared a bed.

Reflect What You Are by Owenjones (July 17, 2019)

It's a year after the almost-apocalypse. Aziraphale makes Crowley go see a therapist.

“Have you been having any issues in particular?”

“Issues? Such as?”

“You tell me.” She could tell he had something on the tip of his tongue.

Crowley sat for a second, then blurted out, “He thinks I’ve been sleeping too much. He’s worried.”

An Answer to Prayer by Jupiter_Ash (July 20, 2019)

Prayers can be answered in a multitude of different ways. When it came to a certain cottage in the South Downs though, no one had expected it to be answered by the squealing wheels of a classic Bentley and Queen's Princes of the Universe.

All Karen wanted to do was sell a house.

The Ineffable Temptations of Oysters by gimpy_terry (July 20, 2019)

Wherein Aziraphale sometimes invites Crowley to dine on oysters with him and Crowley definitely takes him up on that offer.

did you open up your heart there? by weatheredlaw (July 21, 2019)

or were you quiet and afraid? — Aziraphale and Crowley meet over and over and over again. Aziraphale doesn't know what Crowley is, or why their souls can't seem to be parted, but he is a creature of love, and he's not going to argue with that.

A Machine for Living In by pineapplesquid (August 6, 2019)

All Crowley wants is to see the inside of the bookshop so that he can get this design for the building next door done so the clients will be happy and his bosses will stop yelling. What A.Z. Fell wants, apparently, is for Crowley and the project that’s he’s working on to disappear. Permanently.

One of these might be more attainable than the other.

[iwillsinkwithmyships]

The Love I Meant to Say 1/3

Steve Rogers was found much earlier, so was Bucky Barnes, and since the two of them had nowhere to go, Howard Stark took them in. Now the night of Tony's graduation fights occur, misunderstandings happen, and everyone ends broken-hearted. Canon AU.

A/N: Hi! This is my very first Marvel Fic, this has been floating around my head in my head for a long time. It was actually supposed to be part of the WinterIronShield Big Bang 2019, but I am not complete sure what happened, so I decided to just publish it as it is. This all occurs in the 90's, Tony is 21 and graduating from MIT, the boys can't communicate well and shit hits the fan. Kudos and comments welcomed!

Titles taken from the TV Show SMASH, mostly second season songs, since that's all I listened to while writing this.

Chapter 1: Sorry, that's the word I want to sing to you...

To say that Tony Stark had a strange life was the understatement of the century. He was the only son of weapons manufacturer Howard Stark and socialite Maria Stark nee Carbonell. At the age of four he had built his first circuit board At the age of 15 he began attending MIT and now at the age of 21 he had just graduated at the top of his class with a two Masters and a Doctorate. The young Stark internally sighed as he pretended to listen to whichever one of the board member that his dad had invited to his graduated party. His job at this event was to grin and bear as his parents paraded him around like some trophy to show off. He was no better than the expensive painting his mother purchased to show to her friends, no better than some article written about the empire his father had built.

Tony sighed and shook his head, there he went being the drama queen his father always called him. He just had to endure this party and then he'd be free to go celebrate with his friends. They were his favorite part about MIT. Rhodey had been his assigned roommate and had quickly became his best friend, his brother. He was always patient with him and his constant engineering binges. He kept people who would take advantage of the dumb young Stark kid and introduced him to his other best friend: Carol Danvers. Carol was a sarcastic, stubborn asshole. Which meant she and Tony got along like two peas in a pod. Rhodey liked to complain that he was a babysitter for the two of them but when it came down to it Rhodey was just as bad as the two of them, and he always covered for them. He came back to himself and realized that Old Guy McBoring was still talking...jeez...

He excused himself and found his way to the garden, surely they couldn't miss him for a couple of minutes...

"Leaving your own party huh? I don't think your mom will be too happy about that tomorrow." Tony startled and turned only to get the breath knocked out of his lungs. There stood another inexplicable part of Tony's life.

When he was just three years old his father had returned from one of his usual long trips with a surprise for Tony. That surprised had turned out to be Captain America himself, who after being suspended in ice a for almost thirty years was still alive thanks to the Super Soldier Serum. Steve Rogers had introduced himself to Tony by coming down to little Tony's level with a kind smile and a warm hand extended for a handshake. Tony had loved Steve instantly and followed him around like a lost puppy. Tony still remembers being a six year old and sitting in his huge library reading with Steve. Steve who never raised his voice at him and always answered all of Tony's questions with patience and a kind voice. Steve had been one of Tony's favorite people together with Jarvis and Aunt Peggy.

Years after that, Sergeant James "Bucky" Barnes had been found. No one had ever explained to Tony what had happened to Bucky, only that he needed to give him space. Tony had been 10 at the time, but he still remember the hunted look in Bucky's eyes, the way he seemed to lean on Steve for support and it had taken no hesitation on his part to go over and introduce himself. Steve had been alarmed and had looked at Tony with wide panicked eyes when he had burst into Steve's wing of the house. Tony remembers seeing Bucky tense and looking at him with wary eyes, but Tony also remembered how much it meant to him to have another friend besides Jarvis and Ana. So Tony vowed to become Sergeant Barnes's friend.

So a determined Tony had walked into the wing his father had given Steve and did what he always did while visiting Steve. He'd babbled. He had first introduced himself - because his mother and Jarvis had raised him to be polite - and then launched into a long description of what he'd done while Steve had been gone all the while throwing himself onto the couch across Steve and his friend were sitting. For some reason that had worked and soon Tony had found himself visiting the two heroes he had grown up listening stories about, first from Howard and later on from Steve, who had mainly focused on all the shenanigans he and his best friend had gotten up to, and soon Sergeant Barnes became Bucky.

And so Tony had grown up with Captain America and his Trusty Sidekick Bucky Barnes - Bucky doesn't exactly love being called the sidekick and so the Steve and Tony love to tease him about it - and at some point that hero worship had transformed into an embarrassing crush on the two super soldiers. Tony is smart enough to recognize that it was inevitable. After all, the two of them were the peak of human perfection and he knew from personal experience that they were also incredibly smart, kind and hilarious. It hadn't really surprised Tony when they'd told him that they were a couple, since the two of them just...made sense. It still didn't stop him from blushing every time he saw them nowadays.

It was mortifying.

"Hey!" good god his voice cracked! "I didn't see you guys come in!" Both men smiled at him fondly and all Tony could do was hope their heightened senses didn't let them hear his damn heartbeat.

"If you think we are subjecting ourselves to those vultures, you don't know us at all Tones." Bucky drawled as he joined Tony at the bench he was sitting at and threw an arm over his shoulders, "I love you, but I am not subjecting myself to that." Tony relaxed a little as he laughed and turned to Steve who sat on his other side.

"We wanted to congratulate you, but I also didn't want to take the focus from you. This party is to celebrate your accomplishments." Tony rolled his eyes.

"This party is so that Dad can brag to his friend about how smart his son is," Tony tried for a bored tone but the pinched look that the two older man got was clue enough that he'd failed, "But I'm used to it so don't worry about it. So what did you get me?!" He finished excitedly.

"And who says we got your spoiled ass anything you punk." Bucky slapped the back of his head as Tony laughed.

"Please! You guys love me! Plus, we both know that Captain Goody-Two Shoes would not show up to my party without a gift, so hand it over!"

"If you are going to make fun of me because I am polite then maybe I shouldn't give it to you," the Captain grumbled. Bucky and Tony both laughed at him as he pulled out a small box even as he spoke. Tony took it from him and opened it. Inside lay a necklace with an oddly shaped pendant. It had a beautiful gem at the base and an intricate design going down, it reminded Tony of something but he couldn't think of what.

"It's beautiful," he murmured, raising his eyes to meet two warm stares.

"We are glad you like it," said Bucky and then he got up and walked back into the house, not a minute later he was back with a large ornate box. "We were really hoping you did otherwise this would be awkward."

"What he's trying to say," huffed Steve, and pulled a necklace from under his dress shirt it look pretty similar to the one they'd given him, "is that it is part of a whole. You have always been a part of us Tony, a really important part. You were there when I was shoved into a new decade and learned everything alongside me, and you were there when I got Bucky back." He grabbed a hold of Bucky's hand and held it in that way Tony had always seen, like he was afraid he'd disappear at any time. Tony ignored the now familiar pang on his chest. "You helped me get him back from somewhere really dark and scary, and we will never be able to repay all that to you."

"Guys-"

"Sweetheart," Bucky said softly taking hold of one of his hands. "If the next words out of your mouth are something about how you didn't do anything then you are not nearly as bright as we all give you credit for." Steve laughed at the indignant look in Tony's face.

"Anyways, back to what I was saying, you are important to us and we can't picture a future without you, and we hope we don't have to. Bucky and I, we've lost so much to time that...it scares us to not have anything to remember the things we love the most. So, we thought we could do kind of a time capsule of sorts. Something that the three of us can come together to look at and reminiscence." Steve took of the necklace around his neck, and Tony noticed that Bucky was doing the same thing. Steve took Bucky's necklace, gently plied Tony's from his hand and put the three together.

"It's a key," Tony gasped. Steve smiled and used the key - secret key! - to open the box in Bucky's hands.

"We were hoping to make plans to meet later this week to get together and put in things that have brought the three of us together," said Bucky. "We already have ours, but we figured you'd need some time to decide." Tony nodded absently as he looked at the items already in the box. There were drawings Tony had worked on with Steve in his younger years, a small hat that Bucky had knit him years ago and that he'd thought lost, books they had read together. The first circuit board Tony had built, which until today Tony had thought his father had thrown away. And a cassette with songs that Ana liked to play while her and baked. Tony remembers being 15 and humming along to all the songs in this cassette as he followed Ana's instructions to making a pie. His parents had been away on a trip, having forgotten that Tony was coming home for the holidays, but Jarvis and Ana had not. They had stayed for him - despite Howard's protests - and invited Steve and Bucky, who had moved out of the Stark Mansion around the same time Tony left for MIT, and Aunt Peggy. Tony's vision blurred as he saw pictures, drawings, and other seemingly insignificant things that represented some of Tony's best memories.

"I don't - I don't know what to say this is..."

"Just say thank you honey," Steve said with a chuckle and ran his fingers through Tony's curls.

"Yeah, look, let;s get together this weekend and we can pick a place to bury this thing." Tony let out a chocked laugh, and closed the box again, while setting it next to him. He threw his arms around Bucky, who didn't hesitate to wrap his arms around him too, and felt the familiar warmth of Steve behind him as he joined them in a hug, and this was Tony's favorite place in the world, being held in their arms he felt safe, warm and loved.

"Tony?" Tony jumped away from the two super-soldiers in surprised - he decided to ignore the upset look on the two other men as he leaped back - and relaxed when he recognized the person that had interrupted them.

"Obie!" Tony ran and over to his Godfather. The other man laughed and threw his arms around the younger man. "I thought you were on a trip!"

"What?! You thought I'd miss your graduation party. Please, and look, I even got you a present." Obadiah handed Tony a wrapped package

"What is this?"

"This my dear boy... is the future, but you'll probably want to open that later, I see that you are otherwise engage at the moment, gentlemen." Obie finished with a smile and an extended hand towards Steve and Bucky. In their end Steve and Bucky returned Obadiah 's greeting politely. Steve and Bucky had never really warmed up to Obadiah, something that Tony had never understood. Obadiah had always interested in seeing Tony's new inventions and thoughts on the future for Stark Industries. He'd even visited him while he'd been at MIT and walk though all of his projects with Tony.

Yet, Steve and Bucky remained distantly polite.

"Mr. Stane, good to see you again," Steve said while giving Obadiah's hand a quick shake. Bucky simply nodded.

"The future?" Bucky drawled with nod towards Tony and the package in his hand.

"Yes," Obie said, smile firmly in place, "Tony mentioned that he was interested in advancing medicine, and I found some notes by some of Medicine's top researchers. Figured our Tony here would like to see where we currently stand in medical advances."

"Thanks Obie! I'll take a look at it tonight," and with that he put his present away. His hands itched to open it and start reading it, but he'd understood Obie's hidden warning.

For the past 6 months, Tony had asked Obie to look for whispered legend, a project called EXTREMIS, research into bio-mechanics that Tony wanted to help with. To try and understand it and use it to find the cure to many incurable diseases. He knew that if he could take a look at the data he could help unlock it. The researcher, Maya Hansen, had suddenly gone underground and Tony had been unable to reach her, but if anyone could find her it would be Obie. So he'd asked Obie for help, and in exchanged Obie had only asked for opinions and improvements into some designs. However, he knew that there were rumors running around that EXTREMIS was another go at the Super Soldier Serum that had given Steve, and later on Bucky, their abilities. Tony could not be less interested in that, he just wanted to help people.

"Well I'll go inside and greet tonight's guests. It's only a matter of minutes before Howard comes and takes me away anyway. Gentlemen," he nodded towards the other two men, and clapped a hand on Tony's shoulder, "Tony, again congratulations. I hope you enjoy my present and let me know if you have any questions." Tony hugged Obie in thanks one more time and watched him walk back inside, but when he turned he saw the two soldier glare at Obie's back.

"Ok, what is it with you two against Obie?" Tony asked exasperated.

"We just don't trust him doll," Bucky said, not even trying to defend himself and Steve, "And you shouldn't either."

"Why not?" Tony warily asked, "do you guys know something I don't?" Obie had never been anything but kind and understanding with Tony, but if Steve and Bucky knew something...

"No," Steve replied this time, "no, Tony, we just.... have this gut feeling, and we'd rather you didn't really associate yourself with him.

A gut feeling...Seriously?

"Wha- A Gut feeling?! Steve, you and Bucky are just being overly protective for no reason. Obie has always looked out for me and he has never given me a reason to mistrust him. I am not going to just not talk to my Godfather because you and Bucky-bear here have a gut feeling that he might not be a great guy." Tony snarked with an eye roll.

"Tony" Steve warned with a slightly hurt look, that immediately made Tony feel guilty.

"We are just looking out for you kid," And wow, Bucky should not have said that, because now Tony was right back to angry, "we don't want you to be taken advantage of by some shark."

"Why? Because I am just some dumb kid, that doesn't know how to look out for himself? I need you two as babysitters?" he spit back.

"That is not what we are saying Tony," Steve said sternly, and he seemed to want to drop the fight, but his partner looked ready to put Tony over his knee and spank him for being a brat...and wasn't that an image.

'Focus, you dumb slut,' a voice that sounded suspiciously like Carol's said in his head.

"Stop twisting our words, you know that's now what I meant. This is not about you, it's about Obadiah Stane being nothing but a snake oil salesman, who will not hesitate to drop you the minute you stop being useful to him!" came the growl, and Tony saw red, he couldn't even stop the word vomit that came from his mouth.

"Oh that's rich coming fro the two of you! You two split the moment I was accepted to MIT and not once did you try to contact me. Not a call, or letter, or much less a fucking visit! I only saw you whenever I came over back home to visit which was maybe once a year! You know who did visit? OBIE! Obie was there for me, he called me regularly to check on me, made sure I was comfortable, came in and listen to me babble about robots for hours! And I am suppose to not trust him?!" Tony swiped a hand through his face and ignored the slight wetness in his eyes, because he was not crying like a fucking baby.

"Tony," Steve croaked, and when Tony turned back he saw that the other two men looked pale and stricken, "Tony we just...Tony we had already taken so much of your childhood, we didn't want to impose on your college experience too. Jesus, Tony is not because we don't love you!" Steve walked towards him and dragged him back into the bench, where the two men he loved carefully wrapped him back into their arms.

"Tony," Bucky said and paused to press a kiss to his forehead, "I am so sorry, if we made you feel like we...didn't care, God, that's the furthest thing from the truth. We just wanted to give you the space and not feel...smothered. You were in college with people closer to you age and who are almost as smart as you and we didn't want to ruin that for you." Steve hummed in agreement and raised one of Tony's hands to his mouth to give it a kiss.

"I was lonely, all the other kids wanted nothing to do with some weird 15-year-old rich boy. Hell, half of them thought I had bought my way in." The arms around him tightened, "but then Rhodey came and he brought Carol with him, and Carol has this girlfriend Maria, and then I wasn't alone. But I still missed you guys. It kinda felt like you were done with the snotty little kid that wouldn't leave you alone."

"Honey, no. We missed you too."

"Those times that we saw you? During the holidays? Those were precious to us, we were so glad to have you back if even for a little while."

"SHIELD just about lost it every time we denied missions just to come over and see you." Tony's heart warmed and he closed his eyes letting their reassurances wash over him. This was where he wanted to spend the rest of his life, in their arms feeling loved....

"Why don't you open you present? You seemed really excited earlier, let's see what you got." The way Steve had said it, so casually, could've fooled anyone. It sounded bright, optimistic, and just the right amount of curious. But Tony had known Steve for years, he'd known him and Bucky better than he knew himself...

...which is why it hurt when he saw the lie in his eyes. He wasn't simply changing the subject, he was lying to see what was in the package.

'Liar!' came the thought full of pain and disbelief.

"I think I'm good actually." He bit out coldly while he ripped himself away from them.

"Sweetheart," Bucky tried.

"Are you serious? You think I can't tell when you are lying?! You really think I am that stupid?!"

"Of course not! Tony we meant everything we said and you are the smartest person we know! But the world isn't kind to kind-hearted people like you, and I am sorry that you can't see that we are just trying to protect you!" Steve was on his feet and Bucky followed at a slower pace.

"Tony," Bucky sternly took over, "you know we think the world of you, and we would gladly lay down our life for you. And you are right, you know us, you've known us for a long time. So you know that we mean it when we say we love you and we just want to protect you...just like we know when you are hiding something from us. So just tell us, tells us what it is that Stane has you working on, and if it's something dangerous, let us help you."

"Are you listening to yourselves? You sound insane right now! What Obie has me working on? I am not working on anything for him! Yes, I do give input on some designs but that's insignificant, and what does it matter if I do anyway, I am going to be designing for SI soon enough!" Tony was surprised no one had come out with how loud they were being, but it was for the best. Steve and Bucky had a wild look in their face and Tony couldn't stop the angry tears in his eyes. It was humiliating.

"Then what did Obadiah just give you?!" Bucky asked accusingly and pointed at the package.

"Tony we are not stupid either, stop lying to us!" Steve yelled, and yanked him closer by the arm...and that broke Tony. Steve and Bucky had never hurt or yelled at Tony. They always treated him gently, spoke in measured volumes, because they suspected his parents didn't extend him that courtesy. Tony loved them for it. And now...

"Stop it," Tony sobbed, "you are hurting me, please..."

Steve let him go as if he'd been burned, Bucky took a step back. The anger washed out of the captain and his sergeant quickly and left behind wide eyes and pale faces.

"Tony," Steve croaked brokenly, "I am so sorry!"

"Yeah, you've been saying that a lot tonight," Tony said as he brought his arm closer to himself.

"What is going on in here?!" Someone had finally heard them.

"Nothing Jarvis," Tony said hollowly, "This conversation is over." With that he ran towards the exit ignoring the calls for his name. He should meet Rhodey and Carol anyway.

[gumnut-logic]

We’ll Be Home For Christmas 1.1

Title: We’ll be home for Christmas

Day One – A Tale of a Fateful Trip – Part 1 (Prologue)

Author: Gumnut

8 Dec 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: The boys can’t fly home for Christmas, so they have to find another way.

Word count: 3490

Spoilers & warnings: language and so, so much fluff. Science!Gordon. Minor various ships, mostly background.

Timeline: Christmas Season 3, I have also kinda ignored the main storyline of Season 3. The boys needed a break, so I gave them one. Post season 3B, before Season 3C cos we haven’t seen it yet.

Author’s note: For @scattergraph

This is my 2019 TAG Secret Santa fic and it is a big one ::headdesk:: I hope you enjoy it. I know I have thoroughly enjoyed researching a gorgeous corner of this planet.

Many thanks to @vegetacide and @scribbles97 for cheering me on and their wonderful support through this craziness. And to @onereyofstarlight for geeking out with me over the setting.

And as always, thank you all for creating such a fantastic fandom. Thundernerds rock! I hope you all have a wonderful festive season. Thank you all so much for everything.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

 Day One: A Tale of a Fateful Trip

Virgil was miserable.

Pain was minimal as long as he didn’t move too much. He didn’t really even need any of the painkillers that he was given to take with him at the hospital. It was just that he knew his brothers were tired, and despite the attractions of the beautiful city of Auckland, all they really wanted to do was go home.

His brothers could quite easily do just that. The ‘birds were at the local GDF base, it would be a matter of minutes and they would be home. But Virgil wasn’t allowed off the ground, they wouldn’t risk him and they wouldn’t leave him behind, no matter how many times he told them to do just that.

The glare Scott raked him with the last time he suggested it had been scathing.

Didn’t make him feel any better.

Grandma, of course, sensed his sadness and was known to slip up behind the couch he was chained to and wrap her arms around him. She kissed his hair and mumbled reassuring words in his ear.

He was ever so grateful, but he was still miserable.

Balled up cartridge paper lay about his feet. His pencil just wouldn’t create anything of value. Creating gave him a boost, and he desperately wanted to feel something positive, so he persisted, but the pile of balled up paper at his feet just got bigger and in the end he threw the pad and pencil aside, wincing when the pencil hit the table and likely destroyed the lead inside.

With a groan he levered his feet onto the couch and curled up into a flinching ball of misery.

His brain conveniently listed off all the positives about his life, everything he should be thankful for and all the reasons he shouldn’t be feeling sorry for himself. That just made him angry and annoyed that he was so pathetic.

God, he hated this.

He wasn’t really that ill. Just had some small difficulty moving and couldn’t fly to go home.

His family was suffering and it was all his damn fault.

“Hey, Virg?” The voice was soft, but it was definitely Scott testing to see if he was awake.

“What?” So he was grumpy, big deal.

“You’re awake.”

Well, yeah. He didn’t answer that.

Scott edged into his line of sight. Maybe his brother sensed his foul mood.

Of course, that thought just made him feel worse. The word ‘burden’ came to mind.

He closed his eyes, took a second, and then forced himself once again upright. Familiar hands reached into help, gently holding his shoulders until he was steady. “I’m fine.”

Scott shifted the detritus over on the coffee table and sat down in front of Virgil, his long frame folding neatly and a lot smoother than Virgil had any hope of achieving at the moment. “How would you like to go home?”

Virgil looked up at him. “How? I can’t fly.”

“Flight is only one way to get to Tracy Island.” He smiled. “We have a very versatile aquanaut on our team.”

Virgil stared at him. “Thunderbird Four? It’s just as pressurised as Two. Carries the same risks.”

The smile softened. “No, Virgil, Gordon can pilot more than a submarine. He’s bought us a boat.”

“A boat?”

“Actually, technically it is a yacht and a luxury one at that.” Gordon’s grin was broad and eager as he entered the room. “All aboard for Tracy Island, bro. She’s got all the perks and enough under the hood to get us there in time for Christmas.”

Virgil stared at him. Then stared at Scott. “Really?”

Scott’s smile was a sight. “I really don’t know why we didn’t think of it earlier.”

“Because all you pilot types live in the clouds.” Gordon strode up to his eldest brother and dug him one in the ribs before turning to Virgil. “So, what do you say, Virg? Up for a little cruise? Should take us about three days. Kayo and Grandma have gone Christmas shopping and will likely haul half of New Zealand’s food supply back in Two. Scott’s already stashed One and Tracy Two can stay until we need to pick her up.” Gordon had obviously worked out all the details. His brother was literally bouncing where he stood. But then it wasn’t often the aquanaut got to ferry his family around.

Virgil stared at his brothers. “Us three?”

Scott’s smile became a grin. “No, us five. All of us.”

“Five bachelors cruising on the open sea.” Gordon waved his hand across the room as if peering into a far horizon.

Virgil arched an eyebrow at him. All of them. All five brothers. Together. On a boat. For three days. His gaze turned to Scott. “You sure you want to do this?”

There was something in his brother’s blue eyes. “I’m sure.”

Virgil straightened where he sat. Surprisingly, he felt lighter, more positive. Could be the energy radiating off Gordon. His brother was always a bucket of sunshine in the rain. “Okay. When do we leave?”

“Yes.” Gordon actually fist pumped the air. Virgil couldn’t help but grin. “Now, big bro, pack your bags, we are going now.”

Virgil’s eyes widened. “Now?” That explained why he had been alone all morning.

But Scott had already started moving, Virgil’s meagre pile of supplies being shoved into the overnight bag that had sufficed for his hospital stay. “Well, we want to be home for Christmas, so we have to get going.”

Virgil moved to stand up.

Gordon stepped in front of him. “Hey, no, you stay there. This is a full service operation, Virg. We’ve got this.”

Another arched eyebrow was an answer to that, but Gordon was as good as his word and before Virgil could think twice, he was in a car, luggage in the trunk and on his way to the docks.

-o-o-o-

Scott was tired. It had been a long...well, everything. International Rescue never stopped, Tracy Industries never stopped and apparently, his brothers never stopped.

Virgil had scared him.

Okay, so nowadays appendicitis was a mild inconvenience, but in the past it was a killer and a painful and sudden one at that. Perhaps it was because it was something innocuous, something not related to a rescue and so out of the blue that it knocked Scott around so badly. But what worried him more was that his brother had ignored the warning signs of serious illness in favour of International Rescue. It wasn’t the first time and he wasn’t the only one of the brothers to do such a thing. Hell, Scott himself had done it. Lives had been saved despite injury and illness many times. But perhaps this was a louder warning. Perhaps they should be taking better care of themselves.

Grandma’s scathing words had driven it home. The Tracys were taking this Christmas off. They were due the time, they were tired, Virgil was ill. Any of those three on their own were cause for concern. All three together forced their matriarch to lay down the law.

Scott knew his place.

And she was right.

But their dilemma was a frustrating one. None of his brothers, particularly John, could fully relax away from home. There were celebrity issues to begin with, and this forced idleness rankled badly.

So, when Gordon suggested they go home via sea, Scott jumped on the idea wondering why he hadn’t thought of it earlier. Three days on the ocean. They would still be idle, but they would be away from restrictions, out beneath the blue sky and they could be home for Christmas.

And how long had it been since all five of them had been together like that? Had it happened since they were children on one of Dad’s road trips?

Scott swallowed as the car with himself, Virgil and Gordon made its way down to the docks. The sight of the ocean lifted his spirits more than he would ever admit to his aquanaut brother.

The vehicle slipped through a security checkpoint and into a private area.

“Isn’t she a beauty?” Gordon was bouncing again, this time in his seat. The aquanaut was going to have the time of his life over this little trip. Scott couldn’t help but smile at his happiness.

And yes, the boat was a gorgeous craft, even to a flyboy like himself. She had clean lines and looked fast sitting still. White with a streak of yellow down her length...no doubt, very recently applied along with the name on her bow, A Little Lightning.

She was large, but not huge. Just big enough for five tired brothers to live in comfort and fly fast over the waves.

Gordon was spouting off her specs to a politely interested Virgil. Scott tilted his head to one side...no, that spark in his engineer brother’s eyes spoke of genuine curiosity. Scott smirked just a little. Might need to watch Virg for the first couple of days to keep him out of the engine. He could pull it apart and put it back together once they were home and he was better.

Scott lent his brother a hand to get out of the car. He was still walking slowly, careful of his incisions, but he was a touch straighter than a couple days ago and he was off medication - though that was no surprise. Getting him to take any medication at any time was a challenge.

“She’s beautiful, Gordon. How did you find her so fast?”

Their brother grinned. “I have friends, Virg. You know, those people you can share a drink with from time to time.”

Virgil’s flat eyed glare was more fond than exasperated. “How much money did you throw at these friends?”

A shrug was all the answer he gave. “It’s worth it.”

“Give me a number and I’ll throw it your way.” Virgil was sincerity itself.

“Forget it, bro. Not required.” The hand waved in Virgil’s direction was entirely dismissive. “Just have a look, Virg. This girl has speed!” And the discussion devolved into specs again as the two of them walked towards the pier.

Hmm, apparently, Scott was cabin boy today.

To be honest, he didn’t care.

Loading himself with luggage, he followed their slow progress onto the dock.

-o-o-o-

John wasn’t much of a sailor, but when Gordon suggested the trip, he jumped on it.

Out in the middle of the ocean he could see the stars unhindered, it would be quiet except for the wind, water and their boat and, to be honest, it would be good to just be with his brothers uninterrupted.

And besides, on Earth, the ocean was the closest he could get to the weightless freedom of space.

So the astronaut was happy to help prep the boat. Being a resident of Tracy Island required at least some marine knowledge for safety’s sake and it felt good to exercise it for a change.

Alan was a little less enthusiastic until John mentioned a new video game recently released in beta. He had meant to mention it to his littlest brother some weeks ago, but life got in the way. Years ago, the two of them used to tackle each other in various games and they hadn’t done so in ages. John had contributed to this game at the request of a couple of associates from college. It was a high level space simulator matched with an adventure storyline. It should have a good enough mix of reality and fantasy to keep the hi-octane teenager amused in those moments of too much quiet.

Gordon had already allocated some time to some extra-curricular activities around the Kermadec Island group south of Tracy Island, so there would be plenty of the softer sciences to go around somewhere in their second day of the voyage.

John smiled at Gordon’s reaction to the term ‘softer sciences’. He hadn’t known his younger brother actually knew the definition of the word he used. Then again usage didn’t always prove understanding. A few more words in Swedish at a later date should clarify that situation.

As he placed the last of their food supplies into refrigeration, he heard the first distant rumble of a familiar voice, followed by the excited chatter of his aquanaut brother.

His smile widened and he made his way out onto the deck. Virgil had an arm tight against his belly, but his expression was excited as Gordon rabbited on about the engine specifications of his new boat.

Well, John, Alan and Scott had contributed to the cost of the boat, but it really was Gordon’s regardless. None of them really cared about it other than it getting them and their brothers home safely. Gordon was the one who loved a good ocean-going vessel and this was definitely a brilliant contender.

John rolled his eyes at Virgil as he offered him a hand getting onboard and his brother grinned at him. A few solid steps and the engineer got his feet securely on the boat. His brown eyes caught John’s and he suddenly found himself caught in one of his bear hugs. Perhaps not as rigorous as usual, but just as warm.

John couldn’t help, but hug back.

“Hey, where’s mine? This was my idea, after all.”

Virgil laughed and wrapped his arms around Gordon. “Thanks, fishy.” It was brief, but all three men were grinning as the two brothers separated.

“Well, that’s sweet and all, but some of us have to work for a living.” John smirked as Scott arrived at the water’s edge draped in luggage. A quick leap onto the dock and he helped him shed bags and the odd suitcase and with Gordon’s help, lug them onto the yacht.

Virgil was hugging Alan, who had emerged from the cabin.

John nudged Scott. Under his breath, “He okay?”

“Seems happy enough about the boat.” A sigh. “Looked miserable enough to sink it before I told him.”

“Let’s hope it cheers him up.”

“Let’s hope it cheers us all up. It’s Christmas, for crying out loud.” Scott grabbed the bag with Virgil’s art equipment, which had been added to without the artist’s knowledge and clambered onto the boat and headed in the direction of the cabin assigned to Virgil.

Gordon had dragged Virgil up to what he called ‘The Bridge’, what Scott called ‘The Cockpit’ and what was blatantly and obviously the control centre of the yacht - it would be flyboys versus fish for the entire voyage, no doubt. Said fish could be heard still babbling excitedly to his engineer brother.

John made a note to rescue the invalid if necessary.

Between John and Scott, they unloaded the last pieces of luggage and sent the driver on his way with a generous tip. John ran the supplies list through his head. Gordon had managed all the permits and regulations an international voyage by sea required and there were quite a few. There was less red tape in space.

Of course, when your daughter is an AI, the red tape moves just that little faster. And yes, he did smile to himself. He couldn’t help it.

-o-o-o-

A Little Lightning left dock just after the tide turned midafternoon. It would have been better to leave early in the morning, but time was what it was and they set out when they could. It had been decided that between the autopilot and four out of five brothers and no, Virgil, you are not piloting this ship, so forget it, they could make up the time overnight.

“It’s a boat, Scott.”

“Semantics, Gordon.”

“Reality, Scott.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Are we going to hear this discussion the entire way?” He had stashed himself in a comfortable seat at the back of the ‘bridge’. He had a great view of Waitemata Harbour as they cruised slowly past the CBD of Auckland itself. The weather was fantastic and the sea calm as glass. The forecast said the same for the next three days and the only stormy hints were in his brothers’ eyes.

“Regardless of the type of craft, Virgil, you aren’t able to drive a car at the moment, much less pilot a boat.” Emphasis was put on the word ‘boat’ as his eldest brother glared like a petulant child at his aquanaut brother.

“Fine. I’ll be chauffeured.”

Gordon snorted as he directed the yacht between past an incoming liner. “Now you know how it feels.”

“Know what feels?”

“Not being allowed to drive.”

Virgil glared at his brother, but couldn’t think of an adequate retort.

Alan snickered.

“Shut up, Alan.” Okay, so perhaps Gordon had a point. “She’s my ‘bird, Gordon.”

“It’s okay, Virg. We understand, don’t we, guys.” Gordon grinned back at him. John smiled. Alan rolled his eyes.

Scott shrugged. “I don’t have a problem. Virgil doesn’t hesitate to let me fly Thunderbird Two.”

“You’re hardly ever on Two.”

“So? Virgil doesn’t have a problem with me flying Two, do you Virg?”

Four pairs of eyes stared at him in challenge, but not all from the same perspective.

“Er...”

“You think Scott is a better pilot that the rest of us?” Alan was always the direct one.

Virgil opened his mouth, but his eldest brother beat him to it. “I am a better pilot than all of you.”

“What?!” It was an offended scoff from the two youngest.

“Though I will admit that you each have your specialities with your ‘birds. Virgil is much better with Two than I am, for example.”

“And you are totally pathetic in Four, let me tell you.” Gordon was staring out across the bow, but there was still a smirk on his face.

“Excuse me?”

“Who buried my girl in sea sludge recently?”

“That was unavoidable.”

Gordon spun on the spot. “What?! You’re still claiming you had no choice? I gave you recommendations on comms, you ignored them and look what happened, oh mighty pilot. You may be the greatest in the air, but you suck underwater, Scott, face it.”

“And I can run rings around you in Three, trust me on that.” Alan folded his arms and stuck his nose in the air.

“Hey!” Virgil shouted and cut off the discussion. “What the hell? You’re all damn good and fine pilots, no matter the craft. So, I’m a control freak with my girl. You’re all the same. When was the last time I piloted any of your craft? I’m fully trained and fully capable as any of you are, but she is my ‘bird and while I’m alive and kicking, I will fly her. That is no reflection on your capability, only on mine. And for god’s sake, get over it.”

Okay, so he got a little angry. It wasn’t his best attempt at diffusing an argument, ever, but the dumb ass looks directed at him were at least silent ones.

“Now stop fighting and let us enjoy this trip.” He blinked. “And Gordon, you might want to avoid that oncoming container ship.”

The aquanaut jumped and the yacht swerved as he shifted her quickly to the left to give way to the massive cargo carrier bearing down on them. The sharp dirge of the ship’s horn emphasised her captain’s ire at their deviation into his vessel’s path.

“Sorry!”

It was a vain apologetic gesture of his little brother’s part. It did put an effective end to their argument nonetheless.

There were many islands at the mouth of Auckland’s main harbour and it was extremely scenic, particularly the volcanoes.

Virgil was intimately familiar with volcanic structures and had visited several as part of IR, he understood their power and had witnessed it first hand, but the artist in him never failed to be caught by their symmetry and their mystery. They still caught his imagination and stunned him.

As they accelerated around the islands and out into the bay proper, the sea opened out into a beautifully flat expanse of watery blue. They were still surrounded on all sides by distant patches of green. Another little volcanic island reared up and they cruised past. A couple of dolphins danced along in the wake at their bow. John helped Virgil climb up the stairs to the railing at the front of the boat. He twinged several times, but ignored it despite the frown of Scott following up behind him.

It was worth it to stand up the front, the wind in his hair, a brother either side of him. The last of the islands passed by and the ocean opened up in front of them.

Dolphins continued to keep them company.

Both Scott and John kept a grip on an arm each, wary of him stressing himself in any way. Virgil turned his face into the wind and closed his eyes, letting the sensations fill his mind.

“Better?” It was a whisper from Scott, barely heard above the rush of air over his ears.

Virgil smiled.

“Better.”

-o-o-o-

End Day One, Part One.

Day One, Part Two

[architectuul]

Is It Possible To Exhibit Architecture?

A few years ago, I was asked by a group of experts surrounding an artist to curate a national pavilion during the Venice Biennial of Architecture. 

I don’t remember exactly how the artist had been selected, but I’m sure it was on a democratic basis, and the people around him were all of great quality. Though, I had problems understanding what my role and curatorial tasks could exactly be, as the artist had already written a clear concept and produced detailed drawings for the forthcoming exhibition. My curriculum vitae had probably two interesting points to offer: as a foreigner I would have brought a nice touch of internationalism and, as an architect, a legitimation for an artist to participate to the architecture biennial. Though, being unable to define exactly my position and feeling not really essential, I refused that kind proposal and lost an opportunity to promote myself.

Read also “Moments of Transition”

But the thing that annoyed me most was the questions lifted by the whole story. Why should an artist represent a country during the architecture biennial? Why should a curator be the last participant in such a project? Why, at a time when borders between disciplines are blurred, should we question the links between art and architecture? Each of these questions deserve at least a 300-pagethesis but they should always be in our mind when we visit the Venice Biennial. And I could also add: What is the exact role of an exhibition designer? What are the real powers at play in a time when public institutions are depending more and more from private founding? What does it mean to build temporary structures that will, afterward, only exist as images?

I might sound conservative but I think architecture is here to address social problems, to shape an idea of living and to enlighten its users and visitors. If, on top, in turns into stone the problems and culture of its time, it will become a masterpiece. But, instead of that, Venice gives us too often spatial experiences for VIPs by installing some kind of three-dimensional machinery that pretends to change their perception after two Campari-Spritz and a bunch of small talks (think about the cheap environmental questions, the pseudo-political engagement and the new-age philosophy that surrounds most of Ólafur Elíasson productions).

We all know that exhibiting architecture is a more than difficult task. If I exhibit art, I hang on walls, put in space or install outside the art objects “themselves”. The visitors will come to see the artworks in their reality, they will share their presence at the same time, in the same place. But if I exhibit architecture, I deal with plans, photographs, façades, sections, models. All those things are representations of architecture, not the thing itself. It’s probably why, in 2014, in a more than radical gesture, Rem Koolhaas decided to reduce architecture to its elements: floor, roof, stairs, window, etc. to be able to exhibit those parts in real, as in a large hardware store. No representations can replace the experience of visiting a building and not all the visitors of an architecture exhibition are able to spend time figuring space looking at two-dimensional drawings. Of course, the last years have seen an increase of 3D models, interactive videos, or Augmented Reality tools. (And even if low-cost flights have democratized trips, one should not overestimate our ability to travel, especially today.) We need architecture exhibitions to address questions and topics, not to experience a pseudo-psychedelic light-show à la Elíasson. Because nothing can replace the smell of freshly oiled wood in the Fisher House by Louis I. Kahn, the violent summer sun over the Barcelona Pavilion in a July afternoon or the welcoming old lady that generously opened her door and shared her life with me in her patio house from Arne Jacobsen in the Berlin-Hansaviertel.

We face a double problem: artists behave like architects by building installations and large-scale projects (without being able to address the real problems of architecture) or architects behave like artists by enjoying the freedom that their everyday business doesn’t allow (without being able to produce a real work of art). That’s probably why, as a matter of fact, a lot of pavilions in Venice turn towards interior design or utopia projects when it comes to exhibit architecture. And those who refuse those strategies simply translate the content of a book into space (with too much text and documentation, a mistake that “elements of architecture”did).

Proposal for the French Pavilion at the  XLIV Venice Biennial of Art. | Project © Jean Nouvel,  Emmanuel Cattani & Associes; photos © Georges Fessy

If, tomorrow, I was asked to curate a pavilion in the Venice Architecture Biennial, not as the last participant in the project but as the first one generating its concept, I will be confronted by a serious problem. I might then probably use the same strategy as Jean-Louis Froment who, in 1990, invited Jean Nouvel, Philippe Starck and Christian de Portzamparc to propose three projects towards the reconstruction of the French Pavilion. Nouvel conceived a whole scenario that will have lasted four years and, at the end, meant that the building from 1912 by Faust Finzi and Umberto Belloto would have been entirely replaced by his own. It was a brilliant proposal that dealt with architectural regulations (and another “cold case” as it was neverconstructed), and it would be a chance for the contemporary artists to exhibit in a space that fits their actual needs and requirements. If the whole process and concept proposed by Nouvel had something from Gordon Matta-Clark—and therefore of an architect behaving like an artist—the result would have also been a political statement and national symbol: France would own nowadays a brand-new pavilion with up-to-date technique and space, constructed by a contemporary architect. And the architect would have exhibited and done what he is supposed to do: a construction.

***

VAB 03: Thibaut de Ruyter

Photo © Bella Sabirova

Thibaut de Ruyter is a french architect, curator and critic. He has been living and working in Berlin since 2001. His interests are based on new media and their archeology, the relationship between art and architecture, and the artistic scene in post-soviet countries and particularly in Central Asia. 

His latest projects are a travelling exhibition for Goethe-Institut in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Die Grenze (with Inke Arns) who was displayed in 11 cities between 2017 and 2019 while his exhibition A Song for Europe was presented at the V&A, London 2017 and Schauspielhaus, Stuttgart 2018. In 2019, on the occasion of the 100 birthday of the Bauhaus in Germany, he co-curated with Marjolaine Levy the exhibition 26 x Bauhaus that was to be seen in Berlin, Bremen and Munich. 

He edited or co-edited the books: Zeitgeist (Archive books, Berlin), Industrial on tour and Industrial Research (Revolver Verlag, Berlin) and Stadtbild (Verbrecher Verlag, Berlin). As an art and architecture critic, he writes or has been writing for the magazines Artpress, Il Giornale dell’Architettura, Fucking Good Art, Frieze d/e, L'Architecture d’Aujourd’hui and Architectuul. In 2015 he co-founded ALUAN, the first Kazakh art magazine, with Gaisha Madanova. He has been a member of the French section of AICA (International Association of Art Critics) since 2008.

[faintblueivy]

"Those cherry blossoms show your real beauty." and "Cherry blossoms line is so overrated, please say something more original or pick another flower." BoruSara request if you willing to accept it, you can pick any setting you want. BTW I don't see the reason why I should make herself anon, so here I am! Your clumsy fan Kirumi ;)

Hi everyone! I’m finally done with this sequel of Starting Again and can’t wait to share it with you all! Thanks to @karinrumi for this amazing prompt and also to @mirachaann for beta reading it! My submission for Borusaraweek 2019! Day 3!

Prompt: Flowers

Word Count: 4k

Genre: Fluff

It’s Your Flower

“I’m late! Damn!”

Boruto hisses under his breath as his feet pound against the floor loudly. As he races through the stairs and then the corridors, he sees that barely a few people pass by him, noting how the school was almost empty now. As soon as the plank of 2 A comes into sight, his speed slows down and he pushes the door open immediately. There she was, sitting on her seat calmly in an empty classroom. The curtain of her dark hair was blocking her face from his gaze.

“Sarada!” He calls out and she immediately whirls around to look at him.

“Oh, you’re here,” she says nonchalantly.

“It’s late! You shouldn’t have waited for me!”

He crosses the distance between them, plopping on the seat in front of her, still slightly out of breath.

“You asked me to, didn’t you?” She laughs.

“Err…I didn’t think I’d be this late. You should have gone home.” He insists again, peeking over the notes sprawled on her desk.

“Hmm, but you still came to check.” She gives him a knowing smile, “And you did run!”

Boruto immediately averts his gaze, “I didn’t! I just did exercise!”

“Sure. Exercise.” she says with a smug smirk.

They immediately lock down on a glaring contest which - Boruto notes – was becoming quite a norm nowadays. And to be honest, he didn’t mind…peering into her eyes – which were so beautifully expressive, capable of projecting her delicate feelings. He is the one to blink away first, unable to handle the heat creeping up his neck.

“Come on. Let’s not stay here.”

He doesn’t even give her the time to respond as he slings her bag over his shoulder and proceeds to exit the classroom. He chuckles at her protests as she scrambles up, gathering her notes and running after him.

“Give me my bag!” She pouts, still trying to balance the notebooks and sheets in her arms.

“Nah. You carry that troublesome package.” His hand waves at the mess she’s carrying. “And leave this to me.” He points to her bag hanging on his shoulder. She narrows her eyes but doesn’t argue anymore.

They trudge down the same stairs that he had raced up a few minutes ago when Sarada asks, “Where are we going exactly?”

“Our secret base, of course,” he exclaims gleefully and Sarada suppresses the incessant urge to roll her eyes. Despite it all, a tiny smile curls upon her lips helplessly.

The ‘secret base’ he was referring to was their bench. Yes, that particular bench where she had treated his injuries and well, the place where they became friends, so it was theirs.

It was some distance away from their school, in a deserted park and barely any people passed by. It was a place where they could sit and relax together, without a worry in the world and know a lot more about each other. A safe haven, and a place to go to for them. 

As they walk through the school premises, Boruto waves to those who greet them and Sarada gives them all nods of acknowledgement and polite smiles.

Only eight minutes later, they are at the park. Boruto deposits both of their bags on the side and plops down. Sarada immediately follows after, placing the notes in between them. She rummages through some of them before pulling out a few sheets of paper stapled together and shoves them to him. At his questioning brow, she commands simply. “Read.”

“Tanabata is celebrated to commemorate the romantic story of two lovers represented by the stars Vega and Altair who are only allowed to meet each other once a year as long as the skies are clear.

It is celebrated on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, which is July 7th in the modern calendar. Some places in Japan celebrate Tanabata on August 7th in accordance with the older Chinese calendar, which is where the legend originated.

The most famous of all the Tanabata festivals is celebrated in Sendai on August 7th, but most of Japan recognizes July 7th.”

Boruto stops, taking a breath before reading further everything on her notes with wide eyes.

“Tanabata originated from a Chinese legend called Qixi and was brought to Japan in the 8th century. This is the story of two lovers. Princess Orihime, the seamstress, wove beautiful clothes by the heavenly river, represented by the Milky Way. Because Orihime worked so hard weaving beautiful clothes, she became sad and despaired of ever finding love. Her father, who was God of the heavens, loved her dearly and arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi, the cow herder who lived on the other side of the Milky Way. The two fell in love instantly and married. Their love and devotion was so deep that Orihime stopped weaving and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to wander the heavens.

Orihime’s father became angry and forbade the lovers to be together, but Orihime pleaded with him to allow them to stay. He loved his daughter, so he decreed that the two star-crossed lovers could meet once a year–on the 7th day of the 7th month if Orihime returned to her weaving. On the first day they were to be reunited, they found the river (Milky Way) to be too difficult to cross. Orihime became so despondent that a flock of magpies came and made a bridge for her. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata-”

Boruto halts reading out-loud, his eyes sweeping over the page. All it said was more about the story and rituals related to the festival.

“…Sarada?” He questions, vaguely gesturing toward the sheaf of papers in his hand, “We’re supposed to write a play here…not an essay.”

“I know that!” Sarada glares, half hissing and half yelling. “Read the next page idiot!”

He nods and turns the page over, eyes skimming through the material and then widening with each next page.

“You wrote the entire play all by yourself?!” He asks, feeling both in-credulousness and – if he were to be honest - quite impressed.  

“Most of it,” she says nonchalantly. “A few girls helped me through.” She admits, and Boruto has an inkling as to how much the girls might have ‘helped’ her. He shakes his head at her fondly and then pays attention to the rest of the reading left to be done. And he has to admit, every new line is nothing short of excellence.

“This is going to be a blast!” He exclaims excitedly. “We just need to execute it properly.”

Sarada nods in agreement, but when he questions, “Who’s going to be Hikoboshi?,” she can’t help but raise up her brows, a smirk dancing upon her lips.

“Class decided,” she shrugs. “You’ll be.”

“Oh– wait? What?! Why me?!” He wails, angry that he was chosen again.

“Everyone said that they wanted their hero to be the Hero of the drama.” Sarada snickers.

“But I don’t have enough time!” He yells, frantic.

“Everyone said that they were willing to wait after classes,” she says quietly, as if prepared for any excuses he had. 

“Arghhh! Now I can’t even have fun! I am overburdened. Thanks to a certain someone’s decisive vote to make me class representative for the festival.” He glares at her.

“Now, now, Boruto! Be a man!” She taps him on the shoulder patronizingly. “It will suit you, I’m sure.”

“Why-” he leans closer to her, blue eyes narrowing, “-do I feel like there was definitely some meddling done by a certain someone?”

“Oh? Are you trying to accuse me of this now?” She smirks, a playful look overcoming her features.

“I never said it was you,” he says as a matter-of-fact. “You admitted yourself!” He finishes, waving his arm with flair of triumph.

“You insinuated it.” She stood up from her seat, slightly turning her head to look at him. “But what if I do admit that it was me?”

The question hangs in the air for several moments before Boruto yells, “I trusted you! But…you! You betrayed me! Why Sarada? How can you do something like that to me?”

“Well, I just figured… the more busy you got the less trouble you’d cause? Hehe!” She laughs a little, feeling a bit proud of herself for the small game she had played.

“Hehe.” He mimics her and she knows that she has to instantly run or it’ll be trouble for her.

“You! Come back here, now!” He shouts, hot on her tail as he chases her through the entire park. Their notes, books, and bags left behind on the bench, the empty park filled with their yelling and the shrieks of laughter. The vibrant orange sunset and their happiness together beautifully meld into a fond memory that deserves to be cherished forever.

…

“I was thinking…” He appears beside her out of nowhere on her walk to school the next morning.

“A very dangerous pastime,” she comments, hiding a smirk. He glares at her but she ignores it like a pro who has mastered the said art.

“About the script,” he continues, successfully catching her attention.

“What about it?” Her head tilts towards him in curiousity. 

“Maybe we should change it? Slightly? The scene where Hikoboshi first meets Orihime,” he suggests.

“Hmm? What do you want to change about it?”

“I was thinking about the cherry blossoms scene,” he says. “As well as that one line where he compares her beauty to the cherry blossoms around them.”

Sarada hums in understanding as they reach the classroom. She slides into her seat and retrieves the bundle of papers from her bag. Flipping through the pages she finally finds the part he was talking about.

“'Those cherry blossoms show your real beauty.’ this one?”

Boruto peeks over her shoulder and nods immediately.

“Yup! Cherry blossoms line is so overrated. Please say something more original or pick another flower.” He remarks.

Anyway, before she could say anything, the school bell chimes, echoing through the classroom.

“Hey, come on! The assembly won’t begin without us! Boruto grins, helping her stuff the papers into her bag again and then proceeding to grab her arm to drag her out of the class. 

…

The entire day passes by and Sarada still does not understand why Boruto doesn’t want cherry blossoms in the play. They were beautiful and delicate flowers, symbolizing spring and beauty, as well as fleetingness of happiness for Orihime and Hikoboshi. And she cannot think of anything better to express their tragic love story.

Cherry blossoms also meant renewal which felt like a gracious nod to the promise of meeting each other again every year for the star-crossed lovers. Cherry blossoms were perfect for the play, no doubt. But he probably had his reasons for not wanting them.

When school was over, she waits for him in the class like she normally does. He is by her side in a few minutes and both of them climb down the stairs. He is whistling nonchalantly but Sarada has her mind shooting questions.

“Why don’t you want the cherry blossoms?” She whispers, and then looks up at him, trying to observe any minute detail that might show his discomfort, “Is there a reason you don’t like them?”

He blinks twice before muttering, “It's… not that I don’t like them. It’s just that… they are not your flowers.” He explains as if she was supposed to know that.

“Oh,” she frowns a little before realization hits her “Wait. Wait, Boruto? Are you…under the impression that I’m the one playing Orihime?”

“You’re… not?” He questions, brows pinched in confusion.  

“No, I’m not. I forgot to mention, didn’t I? Sorry about that.” She shakes her head.

“It’s alright,” he says, flustered. “But who is Orihime then?”

“Sumire-san.”

“Ehhhh??? The class rep? Why?”

“Um, we thought she fits the image of a beautiful, delicate and sad princess better than anyone. And traditionally, the Princess had long hair and Sumire-san definitely is the one with the longest hair among all of us. And well… a bunch of other factors as well.”

“I-it makes sense now… I guess. But I-I really thought that you were playing Orihime.” He nods enthusiastically, eyes never staying in one place, his cheeks still a little pink, and his arm comes up to rub the back of his neck.

“Anyway, I do not have that princess beauty to be honest.” She confesses, startling him for a second before he hums gently.

“Yeah, now that I think about it…you don’t.” Boruto agrees, and for some reason, Sarada feels a sting of pain shooting through her heart. But then he gives her a look, blue eyes softening.

“Your beauty is more like that of a warrior.”

That faint admiration in his eyes makes a blush bloom on her cheeks.

“Well, if it’s class rep then cherry blossoms are fine,” he says with utter nonchalance before giving her a curt nod.

She nods in agreement before what he said finally registers in her mind. She halts in her steps. 

“What do you mean by that? Oy, Boruto, where are you going? Why are cherry blossoms fine for class rep but not for me?“ She yells at him but he’s already running down the corridor, shouting rambunctiously and roughhousing people like he ordinarily does.

…

The next morning when they meet, she voices out her questions.

“Why… why did you think cherry blossoms suit class rep and not me?” She does not want to admit it, but it felt unnerving for some reason.

“Wait… did I offend you or something?” He exclaims, slightly panicking, bending down to look at her.

“No! No! It’s nothing like that!” Sarada waves her arms defensively. “It’s just…I thought cherry blossoms are beautiful. I think…I was surprised?”

He straightens back, looking thoughtful, as if taking time to arrange his words carefully.

“It’s not that I don’t find them beautiful…well, it’s more like, the delicate beauty of cherry blossoms, when I see it, it doesn’t remind me of you. You need something bolder, more vibrant. I don’t know why I think like this, but I do.”

“So, you mean, flowers remind you of certain people?” She questions, her head tilted to a side.

“Definitely! Like, when I see lavender, it reminds me of my Mom.” He says gently before bursting out loudly,“And then, the sunflowers! They are so bright and colorful that they scream Himawari to me!” He grins like a happy kid and Sarada is unable to hold back a smile.

“So, you suppose that there must be a flower for me too? Something that reminds you solely of…me?” she asks, with slight hesitation and slight hope.

“I don’t know…which it is yet.” He admits. “The flower that reminds me of you…but I promise I’ll find it! Your flower!”

…

Sarada watches from the sidelines, speaking up her part when needed otherwise. Boruto was playing his part stunningly. She hadn’t imagined that he would be such a stellar actor. But then again, he’s always been unpredictable. 

And Sumire was no less. Her gentle demeanor and gracefulness fit well with Orihime’s soft and woefully tragic longing. The two of them together were absolutely captivating! The audience seemed to think that as well, with their wide eyes and jaws hanging.

There was a stirring caused up in audience when the Emperor of the heavens - Orihime’s father unleashed his anger towards the young couple separating them, and Sarada had to admit that Inojin played the role perfectly. He looked beautiful in his elegant clothes, and wrathful in his disposition.

The scene of separation was a painful one, but Orihime’s pining for her loved one was even worse. Sarada grabs the mike again and speaks her part.

“Months passed, but the princess could not return back to her weaving. The designs she made looked soulless now, her eyes dull with sadness. She would not speak, nor smile. So was her longing and love for Hikoboshi. Her father, the Emperor, could not bear seeing his precious child like that anymore. All his attempts to entice her with exquisite jewels, fine silks and lavish gardens failed. So, he finally made a decision~”

The next parts of the play went smoothly and all of the hard work they’ve put together in the making of this play seemed to work. The spectators clapped like crazy in the final scene where the two lovers were finally able to reunite.

As all the cast collects on the stage to present their gratitude to the viewers for their patience and cooperation, Boruto darts down the stage, grabbing Sarada’s wrist and drags her back to the main stage, a big wide grin on his face. When a lot of spectators immediately recognize her as the narrator of the play, she feels her heart thrum into her ears in resonance with the lovely cacophony.

And when Sumire, who was standing on the other side of Boruto gives her an encouraging smile which Sarada immediately returns and together, holding hands, they bow down to the audience and receive another heavy round of applause making Sarada feel as if all her efforts had received justice.

…

She walks through the decorated hallways of the school. The play was in for an immense success and every person they encountered seemed to praise their work. Sarada is elated. After working for continuous hours, at the end, they felt relieved now to finally be able to enjoy the cultural festival. Getting Sumire out of her elegant Kimono was a strenuous task but they had finally managed it without any serious mishaps.

Different classes had different scheduled stuff and Sarada could not wait to take a look around. The bag on her shoulders was heavy since it was loaded with hamburgers that class 1 C’s stall was selling. As she arrives near the classroom that had been given as the boys’ dress-room, almost all of them exit at once whining about how hungry they were. Her eyes flick around to catch a glimpse of a mop of golden hair but to no avail. Instead, she is noticed by someone else.

“Sarada?” Shikadai calls her out, gaining the attention of every boy in the group. She slides the bag off her shoulder and tosses it to him.

“Burgers.” It’s the only word she utters out before they attack the bag like rabid dogs, and she’s glad for a second that she’s not the one holding it anymore.

And in less than a minute, the bag is emptied.

“You guys didn’t save any for Boruto!” She complains to Shikadai and he smirks knowingly, jerking his chin to the small paper bag she had in her right hand.

“I would have saved him one if I hadn’t known that you’d already kept some for him away.”

Caught red-handed, Sarada flushes instantly and Shikadai laughs before gesturing to the room, tossing her bag back to her.

“He’s inside,” he says and leaves, waving a hand back at her.

…

When Sarada slides the door open, Boruto is in the middle of changing. His pants ride low on his hips and his back is turned towards her as he pulls his shirt up. Sarada feels color bloom upon her cheeks, biting her lower lip to ignore how his well defined muscles contour and move with his actions.

That’s when he notices her.

“Sa-Sarada?!” He squeaks and she yelps, jumping out of the room and slamming the door back into the place.

In merely thirty seconds, the sound of the door opening reaches her ears and Boruto comes to stand beside her. She is averting her gaze in shame from him.

“You know,” he taunts, “girls peeping on boys is as shameful as boys peeping on girls.”

“I wasn’t peeping,” she snaps, eyes flicking over his face and feels a weird happy rush in her stomach seeing how red his cheeks were.

“Sure you weren’t.” Even while blushing, his sass wasn’t going anywhere.

She pushes him inside the classroom in fake anger and shuts the door behind them.

…

They’re sitting together comfortably, him on the desk and Sarada on the bench, both of them having a burger in their hands as they calmly chew, eyes appreciating the beauty of the sun that was about to set.

“Thanks!” He raises his burger and talks with his mouth full, but Sarada does not have the energy to chide him.

“You did well, in the play,” she compliments, smiling gently. “Never messed up a single line and conducted your part very smoothly. I am impressed.”

He smirks and bows, “I aim for nothing else but to please, Ma’am.”

The silence stretches between them, devoid of any specific conversations but she feels content. Being with him was… like living with a box of surprises. Sometimes he’d be a whirlwind of activity and other times he’d be a quiet thinker. Whimsical, she’d say.

It is him who breaks the silence. “Hey, the other day, I visited Inojin’s mom’s flower shop,” he says, softly, as if not wanting to ruin the peace between them.

“Hmm?” She was not sure where he was going with this.

“I found it. Your flower, I mean.”

She whips her head around fast, eyes wide, and he just grins before jumping off the desk he was sitting on. He crosses the distance of a few seats to reach his own desk and starts rummaging through his backpack.

She watches him with curious eyes, feeling her heart beating rapidly. She wondered what kind of flower made him think of her. She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn’t realise when he came to stand beside her, his arm wound around his back to hide whatever he was hiding.

She peers up at him through her lashes, excitement barely hidden in her eyes. And then he finally extends his arm in her direction. There, sitting on the top of his palm was…

A red camellia.

She feels her breath hitch in her throat, overwhelmed for a few moments before looking up at him again.

“Camellia is a spring flower, isn’t it? And the red color shows how spirited and passionate you are about your goals and also your bonds! The moment I saw this,” he smiled nostalgically, “I thought of you.”

Sarada feels a deep red blush painting her cheeks, her mind running mile a minute. She was no stranger to camellias. They were gorgeous flowers that always somehow soothed her heart. Especially, the red camellias… she knew what they meant. These red flowers had meaning - an amalgam of passion, desire and… Oh!

Oh!

Did he know?

“Y-you know,” she stutters, her onyx eyes fixing themselves on the beautiful red flower in her cupped palms “Red camellias…mean one more thing.”

It takes him only a fraction of second to curl his arm around her waist to pull her in. Sarada yelps loudly and he blurts out a ‘sorry’ before smashing their lips together. It takes her a moment to register what had happened but he’s already pulling away.

He never averts his gaze away from her, even as he is embarrassed like hell. His blue eyes, shimmering with warmth and affection make her lean into him even more. And the flower is still clutched in her hand.

“I know the meaning,” he tells her, still peering down at her. “Do you?”

Sarada does not hesitate to fist his shirt and drag him down to meet her lips again. This time, they are both prepared. Their lips move in perfect synchronization, tasting each other and melting into each other’s embrace. But the lack of oxygen makes them pull away soon after.

Sarada giggles, huffing for air.

“Do I?”

A moment of stunning quietness follows before they both burst out laughing, unable to hold it together. Sarada is deliriously happy, because how can she not be. This idiot was hers now.

He surprises her though, grabbing her slender wrist which held the flower and bringing it up to him. His lips gently brush her soft fingers, eyes still intently on her and she feels a tingling sensation rush all through her bones.

He smiles.

“It’s your flower.”

“Yes.” She smiles too.

It is mine.

…

Well? I’m super excited to know about your thoughts for this fic. I wrote this in parts with a lot going on in my real life and honestly, I felt as if I had lost touch in. writing BoruSara. I hope this story was enjoyable enough to you all!

Btw, everything I mentioned about Camellias was true! Red camellias do symbolise passion or desire and of course, romantic love as well. They are even coupled with pink camellias to present romantic love.

And all the stuff about Tanabata? I got it from here!

This story was fun for me to write, I hope it was for fun for you all to read as well! A cookie for for thoughts!!!

[soraegeeks]

Favorite BNHA Fics

I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of fanfics and I’m starting to lose track of my faves. I’m going to make a few posts to log recommended fics. I’ll update them as I finish fics/start new ones. 

This post will be dedicated to all of my absolute favorite Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia fics.

[Change log:

7/13/20: Removed “Other Pairings”, added more relationship headings, and created a menu of links]

BakuDeku | TodoKiriBakuDeku | KiriBakuDeku | TodoBakuDeku | KiriBaku | TodoDeku | TodoBaku | BakuOchaDeku | ShinBakuDeku | EndHawks | EraserMight

BakuDeku Pairing

Not Another High School AU - By MellowWrites (NSFW) - In progress Alternate universe, American high school, Quirkless kids

The New Year's Kiss - By HoneyBeeez and MellowWrites - In progress “Their second year at UA is coming to a close, and with the League of Villains MIA, Izuku and Katsuki have more time to focus on their training to become future pros - and what exactly they mean to one another.“ 

You're so Hot - By SecretKiwi (NSFW) “Two boys + One cold winter evening = something hotter than a kotatsu“

You're Still Hot - By SecretKiwi (NSFW) “Two men + One scheme = a chance to reignite a fire. (oh, and there's a kotatsu, too.)“

What's Next On My To-Do List? - By SecretKiwi (NSFW) “The house is a mess. Katsuki wants to clean but Izuku just wants to get a little dirty.“

Blood Moon - By Lalazee  (NSFW) “The Thank-Fuck-We-Aren’t-Dead Sex had started then, and had never really stopped. Then came the feelings and the fights. The ego, the pride, the jealousy. And then there was Us.“

Devil in Me - By glamour_weeb (NSFW) “Katsuki's usually the one getting into fights over Deku when they go to the club, but this time, his Omega's the one that starts a fight over him, but he doesn't stop there. Deku's determined to mark his territory.“

Paradise Circus - By glamour_weeb (NSFW) - In Progress “In the far future, Omegas have managed to establish a society of peace built on the ruins of a society torn apart by Alphas. Now the Omegas are in charge and Alphas have become little more than breeding stock and status symbols to those that can afford them. Recently elected to political office, Izuku decides to treat himself to an Alpha for his heat.“ 

Perfect Partner for You - By Seeress - In Progress “Deku is of an age to get married. But he lives in a small town where there is a distinct lack of suitable partners so he asks Katsuki to help him find the perfect partner in the big city. Great plan, right? What on earth could go wrong?“

“Just for Love” series - By Shiro_Kabocha (NSFW)

Predictive Cues - By MellowWrites (NSFW) “Predictive Cues: a sensory stimulus that accurately predicts a subsequent event.Sometimes, however, these cues may cause false predictions. Especially if you’re worried and expecting the worst.“

Crybaby by Lalazee / @atomicblonde (NSFW)  - In Progress That awkward moment when you have phone sex with your childhood best friend and neither of you realize who is on the other end. A love story.

BKDK Party AU - By L1nka (NSFW) - In Progress A fanfic comic on Twitter set at a house party at the UA dorm.

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You series- By Seeress (NSFW) Three years into their friends-with-benefits arrangement, Izuku begins to behave oddly. And Katsuki has difficulty dealing with it.

Despacito by cosmikuri The Bakusquad and Deku go Salsa dancing. 

"Tales My Mother Never Told Me" series by Seeress.

Final Applause by Avialle. Katsuki is tired of running away and decides to truly make his presence felt in a world, he never wanted to be born into. He has nothing left to lose and one thing is for sure: When he leaves, he leaves with a boom!

Somebody's Gotta Uncle by brichibi. (NSFW) Chapter 11 in "You Can’t Spell “Kink” Without “October"." Katsumi finds her parents' toy and Uncle Kaminari's imagination runs away with him.

Once Upon an Instagram Story by capncapnk. Idiot. For fucking once, in the worst possible moment, he forgets to log into his private account, the one he shares only with his friends where he posts stupid videos like this one. In which, Deku goofs.

Give a man a mask - by Saysi (NSFW) It wasn't an easy decision, but Izuku knew it was the right one to make. Deku's time as a top hero was over, he was going to have to step aside, to leave it to the friends he trusted. It was time to live a relaxing life, an early - ridiculously early, admittedly - retirement. Like every hero always wanted, right? Of course, it's hard to hang up your mask when your feet move on their own.

Costume Party by Saysi  (NSFW) One Halloween Bakugou Katsuki put together a passable wolf costume, and ever since, he has worn the same outfit for every costume party he was dragged along to. This time, though, he finds himself face to face with a very drunk Midoriya Izuku, who has ingested more than enough liquid courage to have some fun with Bakugou's costume. Who would have guessed Bakugou was into it the whole time?

Empty Spaces by Saysi Almost a year after graduation, Class 3-A meet up for dinner and drinks. There, Katsuki is forced to face the crush he's been hiding for nearly two years. Valentine's Day 2019

Little Sh*t (Kidfic) series by Saysi A series of fics in which various members of the BNHA universe are hit by a de-aging/Age Regression quirk and the others are left to deal with the aftermath.

8 Simple Rules (for screwing my childhood friend) by Saysi (NSFW) When one is super horny and pent up, who else does one turn to but the friend who has been there your entire life? The friend who can keep a secret, who can be discreet, and most importantly, who seems to want all the things you want. What could go wrong, right? Lay down some ground rules and let's do this thing.

As Fate Would Have It World series by ScientificallySinful (VampireGaaraCheesepuffs) (NSFW)

Claim Me by ScientificallySinful (VampireGaaraCheesepuffs). (NSFW) - In Progress Being an Alpha has nothing to do with Katsuki's success as a Pro-Hero, the same way Deku's Omega status hasn't kept him from becoming Number Two. Secondary gender doesn't mean anything nowadays and “mating” is an antiquated practice. So when Izuku, his rival, asks Katsuki to Claim him in the middle of the night, there is only one logical thing to say. “What the fuck?”

Brand New Colony by ScientificallySinful (VampireGaaraCheesepuffs). (NSFW) 200 years ago the first child with animal characteristics was born. Now, over 20% of earth’s population is accounted for by “hybrids,” or humans with varying degrees of animal characteristics. Midoriya knows what life’s like for a hybrid. He’s grown up with the stares, the comments, the weight of proving everyone wrong. At least, he thinks he knows hybrids. Until he meets a mysterious Alpha wolf under less than desirable circumstances. Suddenly Izuku is drawn into Katsuki Bakugo’s gravity and he doesn’t want to leave. Unfortunately, Izuku needs to to make a choice. Does Izuku choose his human side, his animal side...or Katsuki? 

open your mouth, boy (show me what you got) by SageMasterofSass (NSFW) Izuku makes the mistake of stealing something from Katsuki for, uh, reasons. Katsuki comes to collect.

Bakudeku Secret Santa series by Unoutan 

Get on My Level series by Mikacrispy (NSFW)

Izuku's Home for Wayward Pets by glamour_weeb (NSFW) - In Progress Izuku works at the Bureau of Companion Protection as a rehabilitator for abused and abandoned Companions, animal-human hybrids. He’s seen his fair share of cruelty cases and even fostered a few Companions, but he’s never had a Companion of his own, until now. After rescuing Katsuki from a life in an illegal, underground Companion fighting ring, Izuku must take in the wolfdog that no one else can handle.Eventually, Katsuki comes to love his new home, as well as his new Master.

Eyes on Fire by glamour_weeb (NSFW)  - Hiatus The Dread King Katsuki, the savage Alpha that’s conquered most of Yuuei with the help of his dragons and his barbarian horde, has arrived at Izuku’s palace. With no way to repel the invaders, Izuku hatches a dangerous plan to seduce the Dread King and, much to his surprise, it works. Manipulating his new mate won’t be easy, though, given that Izuku can’t understand a word he’s saying, but the language barrier is the least of their problems. Izuku and Katsuki have to navigate the dangerous world of court politics and all the while, an ancient evil is stirring across the desert.

Beyond Sea and Storm by Celestialgunfireopera (NSFW) Ancient curse, destined mates, kingdoms rise and fall, and through it all, two young men learning to love.

Ink Stains by hokimri (NSFW) - In Progress Izuku Midoriya - a 17-year-old teenager from the Eastside of Kamino on the threshold to adulthood. His hobby? Drawing comic books about heroes. Katsuki Bakugou - a 21-year-old man from the Westside. A tattoo artist struggling to make the ends meet. Add ink-stained sleeves, coke, two caffeine-driven minds, skeletons hidden deep in the cupboard and get a story about changing yourself before changing the conflict-stricken town governed by drug dealers.

Forestial by MiraChaDoodles Katsuki laughs outright, a harsh and sarcastic sound. “That is what I mean. You know exactly what I’m asking, and yet you lie,” he challenges. “You’re not fae.” Izuku turns to look at him, irritated. Their faces are closer together than he expected—the blond must have leaned in—and he’s hypnotized by those piercing crimson eyes yet again. They narrow at him. “I am,” he pouts, sitting back to collect himself. Katsuki raises a brow, devil’s smirk back on his lips. “Not entirely.”

The Spell in Her Name by Merrywetherweather - In Progress Bakugou Katsuki returns home to Japan after his 3 year contract runs out with his agency in America. Unfortunately, the house he had contracted to be built by the time he got back has had a few setbacks and his closest friend, Kirishima, just shacked up with Ashido. Rather than live in a hotel for another month, he tries to crash at Deku's place. He arrives at his door uninvited. But Katsuki wasn't expecting Deku to already be living with someone. An adoptive child au where Deku took in and raised a little girl someone left on his doorstep.

Reparations by Merrywetherweather When Izuku was a child, he was told to never enter the woods. But being in possession of the shortest attention span a four year old is capable of, he ignores his mother's warnings and stumbles after a very pretty butterfly. What he finds, instead, is a friend. His first and only friend. Izuku is in his twenties now and he no longer runs to meet with the childhood friend who pushed him away so long ago. His mother and their village are on edge because he's way past his presenting years and he still hasn't had his first heat. He's defective. An omega who can't present can't find a mate or have kids, not like he's ever been inclined to find someone or have children. After leaving the confines of his small minded human village and wandering out into the woods once again, in search of a better life, that all changes when he runs into the one person he hoped to meet but never thought he'd see again.

Quiet Rapture by lalazee (NSFW) - In Progress That ABO fic where cocky Alpha Bakugou falls in mate-love at first scent, while Midoriya is just a poor bookstore-owning Omega who got his nose punched in is a kid and can't smell a damn thing. Also known as: That time an Alpha had to use his actual personality to woo his mate instead of relying on his scent.

What a damn hero by Saysi (NSFW) When Izuku comes across an account full of photos captioned "send this to guys who won't leave you alone" it seems like the perfect way to get clingy suitors off his back. What he doesn't expect is a spiral of stupid actions that leads him to asking the man to play along. Nor does he expect to find out the buff angry dude is a pro hero.

Look to the Stars by erza_mikazuki At the age of 34, the weight of the future weighs heavy on Izuku’s shoulders. Getting lost in his work, the pressure of being the number one hero leading the future is no easy task. Sometimes, he needs a reminder that he needs to keep looking to the stars.

Iridescent by dekubunny After Katsuki learned Izuku’s secret about One For All, he said that things would be different from now on. The two of them learn how to stand on equal grounds and be proper rivals, and that gradually leads them to evolve into something more – or, rather, they start to realize what was there all along. Because what’s left after all the bitterness and misunderstandings are gone? Affection. By the time they reach their third year, they can’t go a day without seeing each other. Eventually, they start pining over one another. Katsuki secretly works through his insecurities in order to accept his feelings for his childhood friend, but it goes haywire once he realizes that he doesn’t know how to apologize for the wrongs he has done.

The Shrinekeeper and the Harvest God by bkdkwritingsdump Izuku keeps the shrine of the harvest god, a minor god mostly worshiped by farmers and ignored by everyone else until the yearly harvest festival. During a spring thunderstorm one year, a mysterious man named Katsuki shows up at his shrine seeking shelter from the rain, but ends up over staying his welcome by a few months. In that time, Izuku not only begins to become suspicious of his identity, but finds himself longing for something more between them

Amateur Ghost Hunters by bkdkwritingsdump Izuku, aspiring film producer and fanatic of the paranormal, somehow convinces Katsuki, a staunch skeptic, to start an internet series with him where they investigate supposedly haunted sites. And with both boys attempting to hide their feelings for each other, one has to wonder if it's true what they say about horror and romance…

In the Eye of the Storm by CheshireButton Izuku Midoriya is a scientific prodigy seeking a cure for a rapidly spreading neurodegenerative disease. A potential clue in his research points to a fabled island, guarded by an eternal storm from which no travelers have ever returned. He navigates through the hurricane and discovers an island that is anything but uninhabited. He must adapt to survive against the natives who place intruders in three categories: warriors, mates, or meat.

Rehabilitation by InkspillsNotebook - In Progress It had only been one day off, not even the entire day if he was being honest, so how had things gone so wrong? This wasn't supposed to happen. They would get through this, he had to get better. It would take time, but Izuku wouldn't fail him, not again. A near death encounter changes the every day life of Izuku and Katsuki as injuries need to be mended and time may not be on their side.

Home. by fexillusion Katsuki and Izuku had a rough falling out four years ago when Katsuki’s band went on tour, leaving Izuku behind. With his return, he runs into the omega.... who’s been hiding something.

Chances Are by catbel - In Progress Midoriya Izuku is a popular hero journalist who has a reputation for finding up-and-coming heroes, as well as skyrocketing the popularity of any hero he interviews. When he starts to receive death threats from an unknown villain, he is re-introduced to his childhood friend Bakugou Katsuki, also known as the soon-to-be number one hero, Ground Zero.

Kacchan by KyuukaKoinu (NSFW) Sometimes it’s about winning an argument. Other times it’s about acknowledging your feelings. And in rare cases, it’s about trying to make sense about your ex-childhood friend making out with you in your mother’s kitchen when he swears that he hates your guts. But most of the time, it’s about growing up and understanding what makes the difference between a boy and a man. Both Katsuki and Izuku are finding this out, and they are figuring it out in the hardest way. ---Or: Izuku always called Bakugou "Kacchan" growing up. But when peer pressure from others and society get in the way, the two boys grow distant and the nickname is buried. While Katsuki is running away from his emotions, Izuku is stuck trying to figure out how to cope with a broken heart. Kai Chisaki steps in to show the boy a new path. Will Katsuki figure out his own feelings in enough time to save him from the mysterious man?

“witch & shifter” series by SageMasterofSass (NSFW) After eight months of being collared, Izuku is finally free. But a dark, stormy city is no place for a lonely shapeshifter on the run.

In A Sky Of A Million Stars (Who Cares If One More Light Goes Out?) by Stringlish (NSFW) - In Progress He could never forgive himself.It was his fault. He’d planted the idea like a seed he’d never known would grow. (Or: What if Izuku jumped?) (OR: The one where Izuku jumps and lives and Katsuki visits him every day and Class 1-A not-so-secretly finds it adorable that their designated angry pomeranian brings flowers to his comatose childhood friend.🌻)

To Stand By Your Side by aeronines (NSFW) One student, one hero, and a whole lotta pining. Or, the High School Bakugou/Pro Hero Deku slow burn I need in my life.

Playful Rationality by bkdkwritingsdump Izuku Midoriya, born Izumi Midoriya, has always had two identities: the gentleman he wished he was, and the lady he was forced to be. However, no one has ever thought them two separate individuals until Mr. Katsuki Bakuogu, a young, rich, and unmarried man, moves in not too far away and first meets him on his morning ride – the one time of day he gets to be himself. In an attempt to court him as Izuku, however, he ends up tricking the man into believing that his female counterpart is his younger sister, who is rivaling for his affections. Katsuki prides himself for his intellect and loves Izuku for that same quality, but when will he be smart enough to see that his love triangle is actually a straight (or perhaps not-so-straight) line?

Those Blasted Freckles by Esselle Katsuki is an accomplished painter, called to the Midoriya Estate on a commission to paint the young duke who has just succeeded to his title. Upon meeting Midoriya for himself, he can't help but find him utterly compelling; and he soon discovers the interest is a mutual affair. When Midoriya asks Katsuki to stay and teach him to paint, Katsuki agrees despite himself—not least because he's eager to learn the exact blend of captivating green hues that shine in the duke's bright eyes.

Not Another Glass Slipper by Crandberrycrush and paigetaylor (NSFW) Katsuki’s life was no fucking fairy tale. He wasn’t some damsel in distress, and he did not need some fucking knight in shining armor to save him. So what the hell was Prince Charming doing showing up at midnight and begging for his help?

Summer Daze by erza_mikazuki After Izuku moved away as kids, he and Katsuki reconnect and soon find themselves inseparable on social media. As summer hits, Katsuki finds himself bored on vacation with his parents at a beach town far from home. However, a twist of fate leaves Katsuki in a daze.

Read {between} Your Lines by greatcloudninja (NSFW) Midoriya Izuku, up-and-coming actor, has finally hit his big break: he's been cast as one of the leads in a film based on the first book of a best-selling novel series. Even better, his co-star is none other than his idol, Bakugou Katsuki, who has been acting for over twenty years. However, Bakugou seems to have it out for Izuku, leading to tension both on and off set. When some incriminating photos surface, the studio suggests an extreme form of damage control: having Bakugou and Midoriya fake a relationship to get ahead of the rumors. But not all of Midoriya's fans are accepting of the relationship...Can the two of them get through filming without killing each other first, or will hate turn to passion along the way?

The Space Between by Kanae_vR (NSFW) - In Progress Holding his expensive camera tightly between his hands, Midoriya Izuku looked up at the once-white letters displayed on the black storefront banner. “The Hard Luck Bar,” he murmured to himself, unsure if he was getting ready to enter or flee.Amateur photographer Midoriya Izuku is stuck in a rut and desperate for a change of pace. Deep in his city's grimy underbelly, he finds exactly what he's looking for in the form of an underground punk sensation on the verge of their big break, fronted by a foul-mouthed firework of a human being.Loud, brash and passionate, Izuku may have just found the creative spark he needed, as well as something new to set his soul ablaze.

Stygian Fire by LadyGreenFrisbee Izuku's Quirk manifest at the tender age of five. It's strange that he would have a fire Quirk given what his mother's Quirk is, but he initially chalks it up to genetics on his father's side.Then there's a familiar stranger in the kitchen, and everything changes.

Grief Counseling by Merrywetherweather (NSFW) Katsuki remembered the first time he had failed to save someone, watched helplessly in horror as an elderly man had been crushed beneath the girth of a thrown car. He had already propelled himself forward to grab a small boy when he noticed, too late, the car fly by overhead. Two other heroes had been on the scene at the time and had assured him. There was nothing that could have been done. Most of class 1-A had already gone through a similar experience. The only one left with a clean track record in the rescue department had been Deku. Well, except for today. A slowburn fic where Kacchan tries to convince Deku to take advantage of the grief counseling provided for free to heroes experiencing their first failed rescues. Lots of flirting. Healing their relationship comes first. The romantic bit where they fall helplessly and stupidly in love comes after.

Lovebites by mynameis152 (NSFW) Katsuki Bakugou was going to hate this summer.He thought he'd hate it because he was being forced to leave home and work for his mother's friend in a small, seaside town. He thought he'd hate it cause he was being punished for burning his room to a crisp. He thought he'd hate it because he hated change. But it turns out, he hated the Supernatural Turfwar between four species that shouldn't exist but do a whole lot more....Or The one where Katsuki is forced to move in with Inko for the summer and finds himself falling for a particular bloodsucker....

Macarons by mzmirrorz “It’s no problem,” the man says moving closer, “must have been a hard night at work. Thanks for that and everything. The protection and shit.”Colour starts to creep across the man’s pale cheekbones and he starts shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably. This is the closest Izuku has ever been to him and the faintest waft of caramel reaches his nose, coming from the man. Izuku finds the man’s embarrassment adorable and it causes a small grin to stretch across his face, making his 3 am all the more entertaining. you, but its not necessary, seeing everyone safe is thanks enough.” “Oh, well, thanks anyways but I’ve got to head off now, I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess? 3 am?” “You got it, it’s a date,” Izuku says, finishing with a wink and heading inside to his apartment, missing the bright red that flushes all over the man’s face as he turns in shock and almost runs to his car in haste. It takes Izuku’s work addled brain the entire trip up to his apartment to realise just what he said to his very attractive neighbour, slapping his cheeks in surprise at his stupidity. Or Izuku is tired and inadvertently smooth, but Katsuki is smoother.

Do I? by Phayte (NSFW) Midoriya and Bakugou get black out drunk... and somehow married.((spoiler-- they can't get it annulled))

Parking Wars by RicaIncheroo A blonde guy stole Izuku’s parking space. Izuku retaliated by pelting the blonde’s multi-million yen Ferrari with a few hundred yen worth of eggs. Apparently it turned the blonde on, because the next thing Izuku knew, the blonde asked him out.

i was a little bit lost (but i'm not anymore) by starkteasfic (NSFW) Struggling as a single parent sucks. Especially when he had so many other responsibilities. So when Izuku asks his best friend to help him find a better job, he doesn't expect that to lead to becoming the sugar baby of the Symbol of Victory himself, Ground Zero.

Actions Speak Louder by TsunaidaMay (NSFW) - In Progress When Bakugou Katsuki meets Midoriya Izuku at a Pro Hero fan-event, he's intrigued by the intricate way Izuku's hands move, emphasizing every word and phrase. After another chance meeting, Katsuki will soon come to learn that sometimes, actions speak louder than words.

Don't Bite by bkdkink Katsuki always spent his ruts alone in his family cabin out by the mountains deep within the woods.Then he found a body covered in blood and snow, and it's far more alive than he first realized.

“Cosmos” series by Larxicana Not all villains scheme in the darkest corners of the world, in abandoned warehouses or underground lairs. Some live in your neighborhood, wear the faces of people you know, and rest in homes that should be considered safe.

Revive Me by Szr101 and ViolentButterfly There are instances in life where you have to evaluate who you are. Not just who you are, but WHAT you’re doing with it. Who you’re meant to be. Those very contemplative times come when you least expect them too. Being the son of a multi-billion dollar criminal organization hasn't exactly been a blessing for Katsuki Bakugo. Yet, he's the one that will be inheriting this empire created between two prominent criminal families. There are secrets, and enemies behind every door, and every smile. He trusts almost no one, and the pressure that's laid on him physically and mentally has him ready to explode. In fact, half the time he feels like he's going crazy. After getting kidnapped, however, he's helped by an old friend and he begins to question everything.

A Salty First Kiss by DarkMachi - In Progress Izuku Midoriya's family beach trip went awry when an attempted act of heroism lets to an unexpected first. ~o~ Jumpcut to twelve years later: Izuku was struggling to stay afloat when his stepfather threw him a chance. What was meant to be a reprieve turned into something else entirely when he finds someone washed onto the beach. A memory he should have buried long ago, a kiss he could never forget, and a debt he could now repay. Or. What do you do when you have an angry Merman in your bathtub that speaks a different language? Or again. What do you do when a stoopid hooman rescues you and then proceeds to start courting with you?

Some Wannabe Hero! by Superior_Moustache - In Progress Katsuki had bullied Izuku for nearly all his life for being deaf and Quirkless. After middle school, they went their separate ways, never to see each other again. Ten years later, however, when Izuku moves back into his old neighborhood, a familiar face jumps back into his life. But neither of them are sure if they want to reopen old wounds.

Procreate by katyastark - In Progress When Katsuki sees him again while patrolling on his usual route in the city proper, he’s a little stunned. Not because Deku looks different—even though he does. Not because he dresses better, or that he looks healthy and fit and happy. It’s not even the slightest bit of fear he sees in his expression when their eyes meet, though that’s just as out of place—even when Katsuki was mean and violent and absolutely ruthless, Deku never looked at him like that. No, it’s nothing as simple as that. It’s the little boy on his hip, a toddler with skinned knees and a smattering of freckles, curly blonde hair and piercing green eyes.

Unto the Breach by Sensiblytainted (NSFW) - In Progress Izuku Midoriya is thought to be quirkless. It's not true. He has a quirk. He has death visions. His mother - terrified Izuku would be taken away because of the rarity of psychic quirks - teaches him to keep it secret and tell no one. But Izuku needs help saving the people he can feel dying in his visions and asks for help from the strongest person he knows: Katsuki Bakugou. Little did Izuku know, Katsuki has his own secret - he's being abused. Their secrets bind them together and a deep friendship is born. By the time they apply to UA, their feelings have begun to develop into something much stronger. But can their love survive through all the challenges ahead of them?

Incinerate by KyuukaKoinu (NSFW) - In Progress Bakugou Katsuki is a workaholic cop hell bent on never dating again because it's too much of a 'distraction'. Enter Midoriya Izuku: A walking contradiction that is giving Katsuki an actual lethal goddamn migraine along with a mysterious set of arsenal crimes that walked right into town with him. But the most frustrating part is that Katsuki can't seem to get his fucking mind off either.

Ingenium by Crandberrycrush (NSFW) - In Progress Katsuki has prepared for this his entire life, a master’s degree in engineering followed by five years military experience with over one thousand in-command hours of piloting jet aircraft and he’s ready to make the jump out of the atmosphere as pilot astronaut on the first Jupiter mission. It’s a dream he’s had since he was young, and one he shares with the five other crewmen who have been selected. Barely thirty and he is going to be traveling four hundred and eighty million miles toward the gas giant, a feat that will put him and his crew further into space than any other manned mission to date.

Total Knock Out KyuukaKoinu (NSFW) It was love at first punch. In which Katsuki is a cocky alpha who needs to be taken down a peg, and Izuku is just the man willing to give him a bloody nose.

eighty proof by antisora (NSFW) The mood of the dance floor shifted from playful to dirty in a matter of seconds, the ocean of people all around them finding their partners or friends and pressing close. Very close. Izuku may have been kinda awkward, but he was no prude—that being said, some things were better off behind closed doors.Unless some things were in reference to a certain blond Izuku knew of, in which case he’d do said things in places that would deeply disappoint his mother.In which a chance meeting at a popular nightclub is all Katsuki and Izuku need to get sucked into each other's orbit.

Cosmic Kiss by TheChatWithClaws When Katsuki is hit with a quirk that causes him pain whenever he’s away from the person he loves most it results in his sweet quirkless boyfriend no one knew of spending a week amongst the class 3A students. Problem is he hasn’t come out and really isn’t in the mood to. Plus maybe Izuku has his own reservations too...

Change of Plans by Mikacrispy (NSFW) Life doesn't care about how you want things to go. Alpha Pro Hero Bakugou Katsuki never planned to get married to some random omega but what he wants isn't an option anymore. One for All wielder Midoriya Izuku has suffered injustice too many times and doesn't plan in allowing his secondary gender to dictate how he must live his life.Falling in love was never in the plans.

Sunlight Moving by peredhils The night air was cool but not as damp and depressing as it had been when leaving England. The sea breeze was refreshing and it was crisper than it smelled standing from the shore. Although the rocking of the boat made him a bit nauseous, coupled with the unease that came with being unable to see any land on the horizon, Katsuki liked it more than he thought he would. Standing at the ledge and looking up at the stars, all so bright and clear, was easing the day’s troubles.He wasn’t alone for long.—Katsuki, a duke organizing the creation of a new university in England, meets astronomer Izuku on board a voyage overseas.

the ocean sings by bittermoons When Katsuki Bakugou moves to both away and towards his ghosts, he meets someone he thought he’d never see again and learns what it means to be human (or at least how to be himself).

Pint-Sized Homewrecker (A Wholesome Love Story) by VibeTribe (NSFW) He didn’t think his love life could be this depressing, in fact he wasn’t really searching for a significant other to begin with, so when 17 year old Midoriya Izuku suddenly got confessed to by the troublemaker neighbor kid he’s been babysitting since forever, he can’t help but think fate is playing a cruel joke on him.“I like-like you, Deku.” Bakugou Katsuki, the 10-year-old tyrant of Musutafu, Japan declared.In order to get Katsuki from chasing after him, Izuku gets Todoroki to pretend to be his boyfriend, but it sets off chain reactions of violent fan clubs, a disappointed mom Inko, a cheerleader mom Mitsuki, and several attempts where he's falsely labelled a pedophile. Bakugo slowly ages up as story progresses. Last chapter up with legal aged up Katsuki being smutty with Deku. Non Shotacon. 

Happenstance by Merrywetherweather When Katsuki was just a child, his mother, the King of Lucia, took him to enact diplomacy with the Midoriya's, the royal family of the neighboring country of Tayloria. After that day, his fate was sealed, his marriage arranged to the Midoriya's elusive omegan child.At the age of twenty, he leaves for Tayloria again, this time, to finally wed his fiance and cement the allyship of the two kingdoms indefinitely. Only, his fiance turns out to be the child he had met on his very first visit, a naive, idealistic young prince who wants nothing to do with marrying the prince of Lucia.Good thing he just assumed Katsuki was only part of his fiance's entourage.An arranged marriage between two princes aob au where Katsuki tries to abide by Izuku's desire for a natural romance to develop without letting Izuku know his true identity.

With Harvest's Moon by Serah_chan During the night of Friday the 13th, during a beautiful full harvest moon, Izuku Midoriya has an encounter with a naked man drenched in blood.

Sucker Punch by warschach (NSFW) But, whatever, Disney Boy over there was—Prettying up real damn good that Katsuki got kind of distracted—totally understandable, like god those CGI pine eyes—and didn’t see the straight path he made for the metal trash bin in the center of the area until he was tipping forward and waist deep in discarded bottles, plates, balled up tissues sticky with he prayed was chocolate ice cream and nacho cheese.Mina howled behind the gate. “Look, Katsuki returned to his home.”(or Katsuki works security at Six Flags and moonlights as a derby dude and continuously looks uncool around Izuku)

(Un)Marked by angel_baby Being marked was considered as an honor in the world of lycanthropy. It was known as an intimate connection between two individuals (either it be Alphas, Betas, or Omegas) whose souls were immediately bonded for a lifetime.It was once Izuku Midoriya's dream to be marked with an Alpha who'd love him unconditionally and was powerful enough to protect him from all dangers. Unfortunately, bad luck was on his side soon crushing all hopes and dreams of being marked.After unintentionally trespassing into another pack's territory, the Omega encounters the bad-mouthed, cruel Pack Alpha who just so happens to be a familiar face from the past.The chances of this particular Alpha mending the Omega's heart is literally zero.However, fate has a funny way of sorting things out.

Juggernaut by warschach What had four legs, a tail, fur all over, and went 'woof woof' in the dead of night?Katsuki's soulmate, Izuku Midoriya, the werewolf.Which is funny-if you're fucked up in the head and you're going to get real fast why Katsuki was a special Frosted Flakes brand of 'fucked'- because Katsuki's profession clocked out monsters' time card early.It should be fine.Narrator: It was, in fact, not fine.(or Katsuki meets his soulmate at the worst time and under the worst circumstances, tries to deny his feelings while battling monsters, attending class-yea,no-, and trying to piece together the giant gaps in his past. so adulthood except everything does want to kill him.)

F.U. by warschach (NSFW) Izuku smiled; Katsuki understood why people warned that the devil wore a Sunday hat and fine clothes because deception worked better if no one expected it.Not anymore. He knew Izuku’s evil ways, and his ass might be a 20 on the hotness meter but Katsuki held grudges.“Izuku,” he sneered; he too could be evil right back.(or Katsuki's a football player; Izuku's a cheerleader; they have a rivalry until it isn't one)

Drinking Watermelon by warschach (NSFW) For whatever reason, maybe divine fate, Izuku turned and looked over his shoulder and waved to them.Katsuki’s heart full on stopped right then, and his fingers forgot their duty on the rails, and his body neglected its job to keep Katsuki balanced.Izuku’s summer sweet smile fell into concern as Katsuki went airborne and cracked his skull on the porch.or Katsuki works as a camp counselor, and Izuku is a boy made of summer heat and sunlight.

Gravity by warschach (NSFW) Izuku is back in his hometown and plenty hasn't changed much from the 8 years he was gone. Except, Katsuki Bakugou, the alpha king of their small town. He's hotter- because that's fair, right, God? -, stronger, a now-famous pro fighter, and noticeably nicer this round.Not that he cares, pfft.Ha, Izuku Midoriya caring about Katsuki Bakugou, thinking he's pretty cute and not half bad once you get past the asshole persona; though that gargantuan ego of his could take a dive off a very tall cliff.(Fine, he cares.)

Before Midnight by DriftingGlass (NSFW) Izuku Midoriya takes the same train to and from school Monday through Friday, morning and night. His only company during these lonesome hours comes in the form of another boy his age—a teen with scarred hands and blood gem eyes, a stranger with ash-blond hair who walks in a shroud of danger and mystery."Would you stop with that fucking muttering, idiot?"And before Izuku can find his footing, his life becomes a full-blown collision course thanks to walking cannonball Katsuki Bakugou. (And along the way he may have found the missing fuel to his fire).

Album Title in Progress by bkdkink (NSFW) "I mean, technically, sure. Anyone able to sing can sing. But am I good at it?" Deku left the pen alone so he could gesture as though he was weighing two different invisible objects. "...Yeah, I'm okay."Now that got a chuckle out of Katsuki."I wouldn't call that just 'okay'." -- OR; Izuku's singing makes Katsuki realize sex is Real™ and uses those feelings to make a bomb-ass(lol get it? cuz his quirk is...) album while also helping a self-doubting Izuku realize how fire his mixtape is.

Metallurgy by Beeeteee (NSFW) - In Progress Where Izuku gets a quirk naturally and Katsumi is too introspective for her own good.

Someone Borrowed by mynameis152  (NSFW) It felt like hours that he stared at Izuku, coming to terms with the fact that a man, his childhood best friend, whom he hadn’t seen since their senior year of high school, was there in front of his very eyes. Then his brows furrowed and his jaw clenched before he uttered through gritted teeth the very name Izuku had longed to hear for years.“Deku.”

On my terms by Phayte  (NSFW) Bakugou Katsuki is a workaholic cop hell bent on never dating again because it's too much of a 'distraction'. Enter Midoriya Izuku: A walking contradiction that is giving Katsuki an actual lethal goddamn migraine along with a mysterious set of arsenal crimes that walked right into town with him. But the most frustrating part is that Katsuki can't seem to get his fucking mind off either.

Fanboy & Zero series by tsukithewolf  (NSFW) Blogger AU where quirkless Izuku is Ground Zero's number one fanboy and runs a blog strictly about him. Katsuki just follows him for his fight analysis posts, he swears. He just happens to really like talking with the guy too. And maybe he's kind of sweet. And maybe Katsuki kind of... doesn't mind that this guy is thirsty for him.

Side By Side by Bennyhatter Mitsuki Bakugou brought Kyrin home as a puppy when Katsuki was eight years old. None of them knew exactly what she was back then; she was just a tiny ball of fluff, malnourished and weak and clearly abandoned. She looked like a husky mix of some sort, but that was all they knew. It wasn't until she started growing that they realized she wasn't just a normal mixed breed. Katsuki bonded to her immediately, nursing her back to health almost entirely on his own. He loved the half-wild little creature, and it was abundantly clear that the feeling was mutual. They grew up side by side, each of them a constant in the other's life. He trained her himself, and from the very beginning, her level of intelligence was beyond anything he'd ever known in any other dog.

Group 1: Alkali metals by mzmirrorz “What. The. Actual. Fuck.” “Well Denks, they did actually do as they said, they took us to the pool.” “Yeah but Eiji they never said the pool would look like this!” Denki whined, arm sweeping out to direct everyone’s attention to the pool, as if everyone’s attention wasn’t already on the pool. Turning to Izuku and Katsuki angrily, Denki yells at the couple, “What the fuck guys, I want a different payment for carrying all those boxes down that stairs now! It’s so hot I needed to cool down! I thought you guys never told us about your super-secret apartment pool because it was so fantastic! Not because- because, oh what the fuck, what the actual fuck iS THIS?!”

Blessed Be by LevySutcliffe (NSFW) Katsuki helps Izuku prepare for and celebrate the festival of fertility, Beltane!!

Shameless by whack_blight (NSFW) “I’ve got a dick appointment that’s been on the books for months. So thanks for comin’, but get the fuck out." Deku throws a party. Katsuki just wants to get wrecked. Birthday fic for the explodo-boy.

The Prologue, the Sequel, And then Everything in Between series by JayD A love story about Bakugou Katsuki, his childhood sweetheart, and how Endeavour ends up in jail somewhere in the middle of this cliche.

Bakudeku Are Great Parents series by Tokiji

Co-op series by Mikacrispy (NSFW)

Imperial Retrograde by mynameis152 Owning a dragon is a capital offense. The barbarians in the East use them for battle. They decimate the countrysides and send stragglers to the capital of Lusun with wounds that will never heal. And in Lusun, If you own a dragon, it dies and so do you. Izuku finds a dragon egg to no effort of his own, and its rightful owner comes searching. As he marvels the hatchling, he’s taken— kidnapped by a barbarian for crueler and far more dangerous than he could have imagined. Now, he must learn to fight, he must learn to ride the hatchling that imprinted on him, and he must do it all for the people he despises. But as he plans his escape, Katsuki Bakugou pulls him further into the Drōgfolk way of life. And soon, Izuku must determine who the true enemy is, and whether the dragon riders are worth saving. And he needs to do it before his own country calls for war.

The Red String that Binds Us series by tsukithewolf

there's glitter on the floor by dumbdaisies A kiss at midnight (it's been a long time coming). Izuku’s lips quirk. “Are you happy, Kacchan. With me?” For a horrible, fleeting moment, Katsuki considers shrugging it off. Trying for nonchalance, apathy. But Izuku’s too smart for that, deserves better than that. He’d see through it. Or worse, his face would crumple and he’d back off. And Katsuki has never felt more like he’s being tenderly urged to pieces, layer by layer, by the light pressure of Izuku looking at him with scant centimeters between them. So he tells the truth, because the truth is the only thing he knows, the only thing he can trust about himself and all of his inconceivable wants. “Yeah,” he rasps, “I’m happy.”

mise en place by SageMasterofSass (NSFW) Who knew breakfast foods could bring people together. aka, the kitchen au nobody asked for

Puppies Puppies by Esselle Katsuki thinks he has everything he needs in life: a successful pet shop, an occasionally reliable assistant, and the unconditional love of the twenty puppies he’s raising for adoption. But when the tattoo parlor next door hires Midoriya Izuku, a hot sailor with an affinity for dogs, it makes Katsuki wonder if he might need something more. Like… a piece of that ass. Maybe. He’s figuring it the hell out as he goes.

TodoKiriBakuDeku

All The Trope Things by SurelyHeavenWaits (NSFW) Todoroki Shouto only ventures out into the winter storm to find a quick snack but he stumbles onto so much more.A job, friends, a place to belong. Also, his coworkers a mind-blowingly, disgustingly, stupidly hot. And they're all in love with each other but it doesn't stop them from befriending him.

No, Deku, You Can't Just Adopt Every Single Stray by todorokitops  (NSFW) - In Progress In which Izuku can’t stop taking in new ‘strays’, and Eijirou is surprisingly willing to indulge. Presenting to you - ripped Izuku in an apron, Eijirou with longer hair, angry yet domestic chef Katsuki and club stripper Shouto. Also featuring jealous teen Izumi Kouta, because he’s a snarky little shit and I love him.

Home (Naive Melody) by stereonightss (NSFW) “Deku. You’re early.” From what little he can see through the doorway, Bakugou’s room is surprisingly welcoming. There are All Might posters on the wall behind him, action figures and shelves of books and a game console and a nice set of speakers. Familiar-unfamiliar, it’s not so different from his childhood room. And familiar-unfamiliar is Kacchan in the doorway: familiar eyes, familiar powerful body, but a banquet of unfamiliar details. “Yeah. Hope that’s okay.” Details like: he’s well endowed and leans slightly to the left, visibly half-hard in his skin-tight boxer briefs. “You just couldn’t wait, huh?” Bakugou is almost naked, and Izuku likes it.

KiriBakuDeku

Three Can Play That Game by DanaEliza (NSFW) “What do you mean you guys still don’t get along? I was sure you two would’ve made up by now and have like a gazillion babies together.” ... Bakugo and Midoriya get constantly asked why they are not together, but perhaps that was because something was missing.

Godsmack by warschach Izuku's new roommates are gods.

The Seven Sins (And More) series by The_Busy_Beee (NSFW) Izuku Midoriya has decided that now that he's 18, it's time to stop intruding upon his mother's newlywed life, but he's definitely not sure about living on his own. Kirishima and his family (of choice) live in a dormitory-style house and welcome him with open arms. There's just a few secrets, though...Or: Izuku is a troubled young adult, trying to figure out life, and some demons want to help him get better.

Out Of Body by BrightEyesEren (NSFW) Midoriya Izuku, a fairly shy omega, decides to take pole dancing lessons from his friend Kirishima Eijirou. Except... things get a little complicated when he ends up with two alphas instead of one.

Pieces of Bright by grayclouds A King, a Sultan and an Emperor walk into a bar.

TodoBakuDeku

[+BakuBowl] “Fire in the Mountains” series by  EllaBesmirched (El_Bell) (NSFW) - In Progress Bakugou Katsuki harem, Fantasy AU

A Lingering Finish by moonbabyscoot (NSFW) Pro Hero power couple Todoroki Shouto and Bakugou Katsuki are out to dinner at Tokyo's best Italian restaurant to celebrate their five year wedding anniversary. Izuku Midoriya cannot believe he gets to wait on the sexiest men in the country. Are they...flirting with him?

The long way home by allslurp Back in his hometown to visit his parents, Bakugou runs into a face from the past. Years down the line, the memories are still as clear as on the first day... and so are his regrets as he is left to reminisce about what was and what could have been, knowing all too well there’s no way back. It’s too late.But he is not the only one who remembers, and the past does not stay in the past. When Bakugou tries to make up for his mistakes, he sets them on a course neither of them expected – because there's not just the two of them to consider anymore.

“Powder Keg” series by Ajaxthegreat (NSFW) Bakugou really, really, really didn’t want to be trapped in an elevator with Todoroki and a fireproof dildo. Todo x Baku x Deku. University AU.

Fuck, but he's hot though by Grufflump Izuku was ready for just about anything. He was prepared - emotionally, physically, spiritually, All Mightily - for just about anything but a brash, aggressive, annoying, thoughtful, kind and sometimes...flustered Bakugo Katsuki.

KiriBaku

Spice, Not Sugar by KTG (NSFW) Bakugou was fired from his last job for having a "poor fucking attitude".What the fuck ever.Unfortunately, he needs money to eat, and to get money, he needs a job, /stat/.After getting hired at RIOT, the agency own and run by the number-twelve pro hero Red Riot, Bakugou quickly learns that his boss isn't an average hero--or an average sugar daddy.

TodoDeku

Everyone except You by CakeyDill (NSFW) AU where Midoriya Izuku is a college pre-med student and Todoroki Shouto is a fireman and EMT. Upon meeting during Izuku's attempts to save the life of his professor after a cardiac arrest, Shouto and Izuku can't seem to stop meeting each other in increasingly dangerous situations. Their very different lives are suddenly meshed together as they discover something about themselves at each chance meeting.Can these two men find something special? Maybe all it takes is several terrible incidents, a few heartbreaks along the way and true determination to bring these two together.

“Thanks for Saving Me” Series by Esselle Midoriya Izuku is a university sophomore, a fanboy, quirkless. On the list of things he is not: a hero. That's why he's more surprised than anyone when he rescues Todoroki Shouto, his favorite pro hero, from a deadly villain attack. His actions fling him into the media spotlight, grabbing the attention of the entire country, including Todoroki himself. But Todoroki actually wants to get to know him past the headlines. Izuku finds himself living a story straight out of a fairy tale, one where the mysterious, handsome prince is played by the real-life superhero he has always admired. But Izuku is convinced he's the ugly duckling, not the swan; could he ever be remarkable enough to get his happily ever after?

#bakudeku by rageprufrock This is not a #bakudeku story, but if Izuku hadn't wanted Todoroki to give him shit about it, he probably should have thrown away that doujinshi Jirou had bought him.

TodoBaku

Raise the Bar by Esselle Shouto receives some unexpected (and much needed) assistance in looking after his infant daughter on an international flight.

BakuOchaDeku

Like the Mighty Roar of Thunder by Serah_chan (NSFW) - In Progress Izuku Midoriya, a strong and proud warrior priest, faces off Katsuki, a supposedly ruthless Viking leader. The brave warrior loses his first fight against the Viking, but is spared. He doesn't know why, but he knows he won't be allowed to die easily. Izuku tries to fight, he tries to hate the man who reduces him to a mere slave... yet he ends up discovering things about the blond Viking that just don't add up to the villain he wanted to paint said man as. Perhaps, given time, the blond can be reasoned with. Perhaps he can escape... or maybe he'll find that he may not need to see Katsuki as an enemy, but as someone he can trust.

Where I Want To Be by jaegerbombastic (gabrielle015) NSFW “Okay,” she says, barely above a whisper. “But promise you’ll hear me out first. All the way. Don’t interrupt.” There was resolution in her voice, but he could hear the wavering. He kept his position in the chair adjacent to their couch his girlfriend was occupying. “Won’t say a fucking word ‘till you’re done,” he states. And for a second, Ochako feels a hot rush of anger throughout her body. Because he is just as fucking responsible as she i- “Alright,” she begins, readjusting herself on the edge of the couch she was sitting. “I’ll start I suppose.” “You should,” Bakugou bristles, gesturing loosely in her direction. “Go ahead. Explain to me why I was balls deep in you and had to listen to you moan Deku’s name instead.”

ShinBakuDeku

Return by Baltic_Breath (NSFW) Their pack had been on edge the whole fucking day. There was the faint smell of blood and organs in the air around their territory but nothing else. No trace of location, no trace of foreign wolves, no trace of dead animals being the source. Until Katsuki goes to wash up at the river bank for the night and comes face to face with a bloodied, gored up omega with a pup on his hips and a litter in his belly and Katsuki blanks at the sheer submission he experiences. This is a wolf that went feral and probably killed a few alphas while defending his pups. This is, for sure, Katsuki's mate. A Prime Omega.

EndHawks

Perihelion by horny4hawks (Wy95) and Shigure_xx (NSFW) "My fierce wings, my loyalty, or even my life, if this is what you ask of me—”Hawks raised his eyes, determined, looked straight into Endeavor’s own. The scent of alcohol escaped his mouth in light puffs of breath, and lingered in the hot space between them. He took off the jacket of his suit, and threw it to the sofa.“I will give you all that, and more.”

On my terms by Phayte Enji is drawn to a certain coffee shop for the coffee and gets more than he ordered.orThe College, Coffee Shop, Business Man, Sugar Daddy, and SLOW BURN AU only my fandom wife is gonna want!

EraserMight

The Yagi Family series by Dnote147 What happens when two Pro Heroes rescue an infant after defeating a powerful villain and discover that the baby is an orphan?A whole bunch of cute, fluffy and wholesome shit transpires, that's what!

[lastsonlost]

Aziz? redemption ?

AZIZ DIDN’T FUCKING DO ANY GOD DAMN THING WRONG!!!!!!

God, I love being white,” said Louis C.K.

“Here’s how great it is to be white,” the comedian went on: “I could get in a time machine, and go to any time, and it would be fucking awesome when I get there. That is exclusively a white privilege.”

The bit, part of his 2008 special Chewed Up, was emblematic of C.K.’s approach: poking fun at the inequalities of American society, while simultaneously acknowledging the ways they benefited him.

Contrast that with a set he performed in December 2018, a little over a year after he admitted to masturbating in front of women without their consent. During the December appearance, apparently at a comedy club on Long Island, C.K. joked that Asian men are “all women” and poked fun at school shooting survivors and gender-nonconforming teenagers, according to BuzzFeed News.

“They tell you what to call them,” he complained of teens who use the pronouns they/them. “Oh, OK. You should address me as ‘there’ because I identify as a location. And the location is your mother’s cunt.”

Imagine thinking the best way to resurrect your career after admitting to sexual misconduct is to mock trans people and Parkland gun violence survivors.

2018, during which his standup special and the wide release of his film I Love You, Daddy were canceled, seems to have wrought a change in C.K. Where once his comedy offered a fresh look at established power structures, he now seems set on ranting about kids today and their pronoun choices.

Fellow comedian Aziz Ansari has followed a similar trajectory. He once decried sexual harassment in his act — and addressed the issue in a nuanced way on his show Master of None. But in 2017, a woman told the website Babe.net that he had pressured her for sex — Ansari said he had believed everything that happened between them was “completely consensual,” and that he was “surprised and concerned” by her account. 

After the incident, his comedy took on a different tone: In a fall 2018 appearance, he made fun of online debates about cultural appropriation and complained that nowadays, “everyone weighs in on everything,” according to the New Yorker.

The bigotry in C.K.’s set is disturbing, especially coming from someone who seemed at one time to have a relatively clear understanding of how power works in America. But what is also striking about C.K. and Ansari’s post-#MeToo material is its banality. Before they were publicly accused, these men wrestled with thorny questions of identity and power in ways that, while not always satisfying, were usually thought-provoking. After the allegations, they began parroting tired complaints about political correctness.

Of the many people accused of sexual misconduct as part of the #MeToo movement, C.K. and Ansari seemed like they might be uniquely equipped to reckon with the allegations against them, perhaps even adding something to the public conversation around #MeToo. Instead, they have retreated into boring and offensive stereotypes, perhaps playing to those who never thought they did anything wrong.

We’re all worse off for their decision, missing out on the art C.K. and Ansari might have created if they’d been willing to really face their accusations, and robbed of the opportunity to see two intelligent and thoughtful men really wrestle with the implications of #MeToo. In a time when more and more of the accused mull their comebacks, it’s natural to wonder what real redemption — complete with an acknowledgment of harm and a commitment to atonement — might look like. Apparently, Louis C.K. and Aziz Ansari will not be the ones to show us.

Louis C.K. used to talk about violence against women. Now he makes fun of genderqueer teens.

Before #MeToo, Louis C.K. was beloved by many for his often self-lacerating comedy. In his standup and on the autobiographical FX show Louie, he portrayed himself as a sad-sack weirdo disturbed by his own sexual urges — he once called himself a “prisoner” of “sexual perversion.”

C.K.’s work could be offensive, as when he complained that he missed being able to use a homophobic slur (and claimed, unconvincingly, that the way he used it had nothing to do with homophobia). But some hailed his comedy as feminist, and he showed a remarkable ability to mine humor from the dangers and biases women face — a difficult feat for a male comic.

“How do women still go out with guys when you consider that there is no greater threat to women than men?” he asked in a 2013 special. “We’re the number one threat to women! Globally and historically, we’re the number one cause of injury and mayhem to women.”

But C.K. was also the subject of long-simmering sexual misconduct rumors — and in November 2017, four women told the New York Times that he had masturbated in front of them or asked them to watch him masturbate (a fifth said that he masturbated while on a phone call with her).

In a move that remains unusual among men accused as part of #MeToo, C.K. admitted to the allegations against him. “These stories are true,” he said in a statement to the New York Times.

“I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want,” he added. “I will now step back and take a long time to listen.”

But as many have pointed out, the listening didn’t last very long. C.K. was back onstage in September 2018, less than a year after his pledge to step back. In an October appearance at the West Side Comedy Club in New York, he addressed the fallout from his sexual misconduct revelations, saying he’d been to “hell and back” and that he’d “lost $35 million in an hour.”

While many were critical of C.K.’s comeback attempt, West Side Comedy Club host AMarie Castillo told the comedy website LaughSpin that the comic “was so genuine and reflected on how weird his year was” in his October appearance. “Sounds to me he is owning up, acknowledging, and trying to figure it out,” she said.

But in a December set, he didn’t sound much like someone trying to figure anything out. In audio posted on YouTube, apparently from an appearance at the Governor’s Comedy Club on Long Island on December 16, C.K. poked fun at gender-nonconforming youth, Parkland school shooting survivors, and Asian men, among other groups. (The club was unable to confirm to BuzzFeed that C.K. was there that night, though multiple people posted on Instagram that they had seen him perform there.)

“You know why Asian guys have small dicks,” he said at one point, according to Patrick Smith and Amber Jamieson of BuzzFeed. “’Cause they’re women. They’re not dudes. They’re all women. All Asians are women.”

C.K. also said he thought it was ridiculous that the term “retarded” was now viewed as inappropriate, Smith and Jamieson reported. When some listeners appeared shocked, he responded, “Fuck it, what are you going to take away, my birthday? My life is over, I don’t give a shit.”

C.K. has not responded to a request for comment from Vox.

Aziz Ansari once included a sexual harassment storyline on his show. Now he’s complaining about Twitter outrage.

Ansari’s comedy has always been more lighthearted than C.K.’s, but he hasn’t shied away from difficult topics. In a 2015 Netflix special filmed at New York’s Madison Square Garden, he asked women in the audience to raise their hands if they’d ever been followed by a “creepy dude,” according to Eren Orbey at the New Yorker.

“Yeah, that’s way too many people,” he said when hands went up. “That should not be happening.”

The second season of his Netflix show, Master of None, also included a storyline about sexual misconduct. Ansari’s character, Dev, teams up with celebrity chef Jeff Pastore (Bobby Cannavale) for a show called Best Food Friends. But Dev is forced to make a choice when a female crew member reveals that Chef Jeff repeatedly harassed her. The episode, which aired before #MeToo gained steam in fall 2017, felt true to life, as Isha Aran pointed out at Splinter, “from the fears victims face in going public to the misogynist skepticism they’re met with when they share their stories.”

But in January 2018, a woman going by the name Grace told the website Babe.net that Ansari had repeatedly pressured her for sex while the two were on a date. She called it “by far the worst experience with a man I’ve ever had.”

“We went out to dinner, and afterwards we ended up engaging in sexual activity, which by all indications was completely consensual,” Ansari said in a statement on the allegations last January. “The next day, I got a text from her saying that although ‘it may have seemed okay,’ upon further reflection, she felt uncomfortable. It was true that everything did seem okay to me, so when I heard that it was not the case for her, I was surprised and concerned.”

“I continue to support the movement that is happening in our culture,” Ansari concluded, presumably referring to #MeToo. “It is necessary and long overdue.”

By fall 2018, however, his tone sounded different. In a Connecticut stop on his “Working Out New Material” comeback tour, he complained about Twitter users debating whether a teenager’s prom dress constituted cultural appropriation, according to Orbey.

“Everyone weighs in on everything,” he said. “They don’t know anything. People don’t wanna just say, ‘I don’t know.’”

He also decried “the destructive performativity of Internet activism and the fickle, ever-changing standards of political correctness,” according to Orbey. He compared left-wing Twitter users to Trump supporters (“at least with the Trump people,” he said, “I kinda know where they stand”) and accused them of competing with one another in a game of “Progressive Candy Crush.”

“One might have hoped that, nearly a year later, [Ansari] could find a way to reckon with one of the movement’s messiest lessons: that even men who wish to serve as allies of women can, intentionally or not, hurt them in private,” Orbey wrote. “Instead, like other men who have reëmerged in recent months, he seems to have channelled his experience into a diffuse bitterness.”

Ansari has not responded to Vox’s request for comment.

If C.K. and Ansari can’t reckon with the allegations against them, can anyone?

Allegations of sexual misconduct against C.K. and Ansari hit fans hard in part because of the thoughtful nature of their comedy — these were supposed to be the good guys.

The accusations prompted fans and critics to reevaluate both men’s work. At Splinter, Aran notes that despite its sexual harassment storyline, Master of None’s second season displays some underlying misogyny. Dev’s relationship with love interest Francesca, in particular, sends the message “that a woman’s initial reluctance can be chipped away at, that indifference is a wall to be torn down.”

C.K., meanwhile, had been telling masturbation jokes for years. As Melena Ryzik, Cara Buckley, and Jodi Kantor reported at the New York Times, “he rose to fame in part by appearing to be candid about his flaws and sexual hang-ups, discussing and miming masturbation extensively in his act — an exaggerated riff that some of the women feel may have served as a cover for real misconduct.” His film I Love You, Daddy, which was initially scheduled for release in November 2017, dealt with a relationship between a famous filmmaker and a 17-year-old girl.

And C.K.’s December set does recall some of his earlier work — the man who complained about teens today and their pronouns is clearly the same one, for instance, who expressed nostalgia for a time when he could use homophobic slurs without being criticized.

Still, C.K. and Ansari were somewhat unusual as male entertainers willing to delve into issues of power and privilege and talk about the ways men hurt women.

That’s what makes their current material so surprising. Ansari and C.K. aren’t just avoiding the subject of #MeToo — they’re going in the opposite direction, complaining about political correctness and outrage culture when their comedy once sent the message that women were absolutely right to be outraged.

Their new work is reactionary — crude jokes about Asian men wouldn’t be out of place at a Trump rally — and it’s dated. C.K.’s complaints about they/them pronouns aren’t just offensive; they’re also tired, well-worn platitudes parroted by everyone from psychologist Jordan Peterson to TV host Piers Morgan. C.K. may think his new material is edgy, but his rant about young people today sounds like it could come from Grandpa Simpson.

Some have speculated that C.K. is consciously courting a more right-leaning audience with his new material after losing the trust of his previous fans, and it’s certainly possible that he and Ansari are pivoting to please the people who were eager to explain away the allegations against them — those who think sexual misconduct only matters if it rises to the level of the allegations against Harvey Weinstein, or who believe that men who are accused deserve swift and unconditional forgiveness.

Whatever the case, the trajectories of C.K. and Ansari are doubly disappointing — first, because men whose work had a feminist bent were accused of hurting women, and second, because they let those accusations destroy the nuanced social awareness their earlier work displayed. Apparently, C.K. and Ansari were only interested in challenging the status quo when they remained unchallenged — once women spoke out against them, they performed the comedic equivalent of packing up their toys and going home.

That’s sad for all of us. We don’t get to see the comedy these men could have created if they’d wanted to face, rather than flee from, our current moment in history. And we don’t get to see two thoughtful entertainers bring their talents to bear on a project that matters to all of us — figuring out what it should look like for men accused as part of #MeToo to apologize, atone, and move forward.

Ever since the #MeToo movement gained mainstream attention in 2017, there’s been a lot of talk about what accused men can do to redeem themselves. Now, more than a year in, it’s certainly possible to imagine some of the accused truly reckoning with their pasts — Dan Harmon’s apology for sexually harassing a writer on his show offers a view of what that might look like. But it’s hard to hold out much hope for such a reckoning on a large scale when two men who seemed like they, of all people, might be able to look deeply at their own behavior have instead chosen to pander to those who would excuse them.

______________________

AZIZ DIDN’T FUCKING DO ANY GOD DAMN THING WRONG!!!!!!

[mariposalass]

That One Important Question

Summary: Ron and Hermione have finally tied the knot, but their best man and childhood friend Harry has another surprise for everyone in store.

Notes: It’s the Gingers and Books wedding and the Love Beyond Magic proposal story in one. While not mentioned in this story, Harry and Issa are actually going to have a small intimate wedding back at San Francisco by either late June or early July, sorry folks: it’s their choice not to have a big fat wedding. The ring involved looks like this. A special cameo and shout out to @self-shipping-angel and my good friend from deviantART JENNY-87 with Sayeko, Levi, Erwin, Mike, & Hanji’s and Jenny & Snooper’s guest appearance here.

Setting: A Hotel and a Garden event venue in London, England; March 29, 2019

Tags: A wedding and an engagement in one event, Ginny has an angst-riddled epiphany here, Mari, Jenny, & Sayeko’s worlds will collide, self shipping crossovers, screw some of the senseless Battle of Hogwarts deaths: Fred, Remus, and Tonks are still alive in my SI’s world (and the same can be said for Sayeko’s too)!

“Forever can never be enough for me, To feel like I’ve had long enough with you, Forget the world, we won’t let them see, But there’s one thing to left do, Now that the weight is lifted, Love had surely shifted my way...” - Train, Marry Me

Mari was pacing up and down the hallway of the hotel the wedding party and select guests were staying in London as the preparations of her adopted big brother Harry’s friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger’s wedding were ongoing. She was being nervous about this for months on end due in part of Harry’s unpleasant experience dating Ron’s little and only sister Ginny after the Battle of Hogwarts. Mari has always been wary of Ginny for years as she was the main reason why Harry was scared of dating another woman until her friend and his girlfriend Issa started dating him, changing it in a different direction. Some good friends of their, Jenny and her cat detective husband Snooper, decided to join in the fun more than a week or two ago and the 8 of them traveled on an afternoon United Airlines flight from San Francisco to London a few days ago so Harry get ready for the wedding and spend some time in the city & the Wizarding World there despite some opposition from unsavory wizards and witches in the area.

She, Jenny, Issa, and Kairi had their makeup done earlier and they were already dressed up in simple cocktail dress, just killing time wondering what’s going to happen during the wedding. The previous time Harry went to a Weasley wedding, it ended in a total disaster near the end with Death Eaters haunting him down like it was open season hunting and wrecking havoc in the reception. Today however, it is different: Ron and Hermione won’t have Death Eaters to worry about ruining their big day, and Mari couldn’t be any happier for them and, of course, her big brother being there for them as they will say their vows soon.

As she went by walking frantically, she could overheard a soft gentle voice catching up on her as if it was drawing close to her, “Hello there. Harry had just informed me, Levi, and the rest of the Corps about you and your friends long before today’s event. Are you Mari Tan?”

Mari turned to see that a well-toned woman (approximately Harry’s age) already made for the wedding, dressed in mint, and with lilac hair which reminds her similarly of another of Harry’s friends, Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin, who was also invited to the party with her husband (and Harry’s friend/mentor) Remus and their son Teddy, waving back at her. Speechless that someone would know her name despite just meeting for the first time, she had an internal panic attack with little words to speak of before regaining her composure to talk to the lilac haired stranger, “Yes, I am. I’m his adopted little sister to be exact: the Shobe if you want the Hokkien definition. I’ve heard that Ron and Hermione have known you for a long time and Harry shared the same birthday as you. What’s your name please? I can’t call you Miss Jane Doe for long.”

The woman giggled a bit before continuing their talk, “You sure have quite the mouthful of things to say. Actually, I’m married, although I can see why: Levi’s meeting with the guys right now delivering Hermione’s gift to Ron along with the rest of our group.”

“Okay… Apologies for that,” Mari blushed from embarrassment at her mistake of getting the woman’s civil status wrong.

“Don’t feel bad for yourself though, I never knew that Harry have sisters before until he broke the news to a majority of us after the Battle of Hogwarts,” she calmly reassured her, “I can relate to his adoption story too as I was taken in by Hermione’s family as well. Anyway, I’m Sayeko Ackerman, Lieutenant in the Survey Corps. Levi’s both my commander in the Corps and my husband, and we’re also good friends with your brother. I’m also the bridesmaid in the wedding as well.”

“Why, gee thanks!” Mari felt like blushing again before she chatted up a storm again, “We even had another sister in Kairi. She was orphaned like Harry (albeit through different circumstances) as well during the attack of her home realm before coming over to the States and being taken in by our family.”

“Did you just mentioned me, Mari? I heard talking from you and, oh… Hello stranger,” Kairi asked as she dropped in the chat between the two women with Issa, Kirby, and Philip walking up to them when she (and the others) saw her older sister talking to someone they didn’t saw before.

“Hey, Mari. Who’s that lilac haired woman chatting with you?” Issa inquired on her talk buddy.

“Why… This here is Sayeko Ackerman: she’s an old friend of Harry and Hermione’s adopted sister,” she introduced Sayeko to the group.

“Hiii!” Kirby waved back at her with his tiny arms.

“So I see we got some company right now, isn’t it, Mari?” Philip cheekily noticed Mari’s new chat mate in a friendly manner.

“Either way, I’m Kairi, Harry’s other adopted sister,” the youngest of the siblings introduced herself to Sayeko.

Issa went next and continued the intros, “I’m Isabelle Miravelez, but please call me Issa. I’m dating your friend Harry for nearly 10 years soon by September.”

“Oh wow, that’s nice to know. I do remember that he wasn’t in good terms with Ginny these days, though amendments are on their way for sure,” Sayeko nodded back.

“Kaa-bii! Kabi, Kabi, Kabi!” Kirby squeaked in joy as he jumped up and down on the floor.

“And I’m Philip Hamilton,” Philip greeted back politely, “Your friend had accidentally brought back me back from the dead with another friend’s tablet two months ago.”

Sayeko’s eyes grew wide in shock upon hearing those words coming from Philip’s mouth, her hair and eyes changed color accordingly to that emotion before regaining her sense and replied back, “Erm… I don’t really know how to react to this properly without freaking out; I honestly don’t recall Harry bringing someone back from the dead, let alone by accident, until what happened to you months ago. I do apologize if I acted inappropriately to your situation right now.”

“Oh no, it’s fine, Sayeko, we’ve moved on from it nowadays,” he reassured her as her normal blue eyes and lilac hair returned back to normal, “Even Ron and Hermione were surprised as well since they weren’t with us when it happened. They only knew when we met them up via video chat on my birthday last January.”

“And they too recovered from the shock as well?” Sayeko asked about the soon-to-be-married couple’s reactions to which Mari nodded back as a reply when two more joined their little talk.

“Hey guys, we just heard you guys talking to… Oh hello!” Snooper came in as he and Jenny walked towards them to the lobby when the couple saw Sayeko was with them.

“So you guys must be Mari’s friends as well?” the lilac-haired Survey Corps lieutenant asked them out of curiosity.

“We sure are, Jenny and Issa have been best friends since the latter to moved to the States years ago,” Snooper replied back.

“That’s nice to hear about,” Sayeko replied, “It’s like we’re in a small world right now: knowing each other through some mutual connections.”

“No kidding,” Mari gasped with joy when Issa was checking on her phone, noting the time it was displaying.

“Well, we should better be going to the venue soon, don’t want to be late, do we?” she reminded the group, putting her eyes away from the phone for a short while.

“You’re on that point, Issa, we need to get going, though we better get Levi, Erwin, Mike, and Hanji quickly before they get left out here,” Sayeko agreed as the group headed out to find Sayeko’s husband and their friends.

“Poyo!” Kirby squeaked.

The venue where Ron and Hermione’s wedding, a garden with a gazebo as the centerpiece, is being held at was decorated rather simply but quaint enough to hold the amount of guests their families invited, though it would’ve been too cramped for their own good than expected hadn’t Mrs. Weasley had some self control on who to invite. Lanterns lined the aisle, bunches of yellow and white flowers were tied up to the first chair at the both sides: the mood has been set to get people ready for the day two individuals will tie the knot. Mari sat down with Kairi, Issa, Kirby, Jenny, Snooper, and Philip by her side, waiting for the event to start; right behind were the Survey Corps folks in Levi, Mike, Erwin, and Hanji who waved back at them, and even the mostly stoic Levi gave them a shy noticeable smile to boot: Sayeko had to leave earlier in a separate vehicle with the rest of the bridal party.

She can also spy with her own chocolate brown eyes some of the Golden Trio’s friends like Neville Longbottom who waved back at her and has brought along a date with him, Remus and Tonks whose their boy Teddy the ring bearer who ran around the venue out of boredom (only for Remus to pick him up to get ready with the rest of the wedding party), Hagrid and Olympe Maxime were also present when they spotted Mari and mouthed out a hello which she accepted, Xenophilius Lovegood was also present while his daughter (and the Golden Trio’s friend) Luna was with the bridal party, and Kingsley Shacklebolt was sitting in front of her and her group.

Some of Ron’s siblings were there too such as Charlie coming back from Romania and Percy with his pregnant wife Audrey, though Bill and Fleur were not in the area just yet as they were busy trying to prevent their girls Victoire and Dominique from having flower girl meltdowns, Ginny was a bridesmaid, and the twins Fred & George were the groomsmen. There is even Viktor Krum who still remains Hermione’s pen pal and greeted her earlier when the guests were starting to enter the place, as well as a partially scarred Lavender Brown who has finally made amends with the couple previously a few years ago.

As the last few guests sat down, the music began to play out in the background and the procession began: Ron’s parents and Hermione’s mom sat down in the first row of seats, Ron walked down next, then came the groomsmen (Fred, George, and Harry) and bridesmaids (Sayeko, Luna, and Ginny) as they walked down the altar as pairs, dressed rather casually in white dress shirts, mint ties, gray slacks, & leather dress shoes and mint dresses respectively. Teddy toddled behind with the rings on his guard with Victoire and Dominque tossing flower all over the place as their parents assisted them in any way possible. There is a brief moment of silence before it gave way to the bride Hermione, dressed in a simple ivory dress with subtle bead work on the bodice, and her father by her side walking down from the steps of the main event building to share this tearful moment.

Issa swore that she can see tears running down from the eyes of all parties, but none so much outside the parents and Harry as the bride and her father walked toward the gazebo where Ron and the minister officiating awaited with the bridal party stand by each side of the gazebo. Soon Hermione broke away from her father as she continued her journey down the aisle until she finally reached the gazebo with Ron reaching out his left hand for her to grasp onto and her father sat down with the mom.

With that part ended, the minister then began his part, speaking up, “Dearly beloved, we’re all gathered here today to witness a union of two persons, Ronald and Hermione, as one. The two would like to thank you all for coming here today. Many have came near and far to be their witnesses to this special moment, as well as they are remembering those who can’t be with them today, they too played a special part of their lives...”

While the minister went about his talk to the couple, Mari was more concerned with any possible moment of Ginny possibly hurting her brother in any way, her eyes aiming at her like a sharp-eyed hawk: if she had her own way, she would undeniably punch that red-haired brat in a heart’s beat should Ginny decided to stop playing nice for the couple’s sake and Harry’s sanity. So far, she’s behaving rather well and Mari hoped that it will stayed that way for the rest of the day: all the worries went on a halt though when the minister took a moment to pause before informing the guests the next part of the event, “I may ask the couple to have some words to say to each other as they begin the next chapter of their lives.”

Hermione went first, bringing out a long piece of paper from what seems to be out of nowhere, and despite said paper’s long length, her vows were short, sweet, and straight to the point as she read out her vows to Ron, which left the red-haired groom bursting tears of joy upon hearing the words from her mouth. When Ron’s turn came, he couldn’t help fighting back the tears as he mustered up the courage to speak up, with being nervous choking him a bit. Nevertheless, he still managed to pull it through that part, and his words further warmed Hermione’s heart more.

“Now, can we have the Matron of Honour and the Best Man bring forth the ribbons for the handfasting?” the minster called out, alerting Sayeko and Harry to bring out a small box and open the lid, revealing two satin ribbons: one being mint and the other yellow.

“With these ribbons as the symbol of your souls being intertwined together, you have made the promise to be there for each other even at your darkest moments, to support each other’s endeavours, and to help each other for better or for worse,” the minister spoke to the couple as Harry and Sayeko wrapped the ribbons onto their hands: Harry tying the mint ribbon on Hermione’s and Sayeko wrapping Ron’s hand with the yellow ribbons, once they were done, he concluded this part, saying, “Let this bond between the two of you never break, nor should conflicts get the best of you. Now, onto the rings.”

Teddy walked up to his godfather Harry with his dad assisting him in carrying the wedding rings, both in gold and previously Ron’s parents’ bands, as Sayeko assisted in taking out the ribbons from her soon-to-be brother in law and her adopted sister: Harry then picked up the rings and passed it on with the minister who then gave the couple each a ring. Hermione has Ron’s ring on her hands and slipped it into his ring finger; Ron has her wedding band on his hand and he too slipped it into her ring finger, on top of her ruby engagement ring.

“Is anyone here not wanting to acknowledge this marriage now?” the minister questioned the crowd, only to get no rebuttals, he then turned to the couple and say, “Very well: I may now pronounce you Husband and Wife. Ronald, you can finally...”

He didn’t get to finish his words when he noticed Ron and Hermione already locking lips and kissing each other, knowing that the ceremony is finally concluded and they were aware that people were getting to become bored and hangry at any moment. The crowd cheered on as the couple made their way out to have some down time to sink in the feelings and the reality that they are now a married couple.

At the reception hall at the garden not far from the ceremony area, it was now lunch time and people were settling in for the party: both Ron and Hermione had settled onto their seats, choosing not to dance for they knew that Ron couldn’t survive the dance floor on two left feet; everyone began to dig in the food served in family style: chatting while taking a few bites at a time. Mari and her group were seated along with the Survey Corps. right besides the dance floor, whereas Sayeko and Harry were seated at the bridal party table. They shared stories about their lives and how Harry essentially brought them all together, albeit it took so long to finally to meet each other. Levi even told Issa that her name had reminded him of an old friend he and Sayeko used to know from Wall Maria who perished a long time ago, which she was blushed at the coincidences.

The guests were finishing lunch and Jenny, Snooper, & Philip was entertaining Kirby when Erwin did brought up one question to Mari over something he and the Survey Corps remembered seeing that morning, “Mari, I was wondering: why is your brother keeping a box in the pocket of his pants?”

“Well, Erwin: He dragged me, Kairi, Ron, Hermione, and Kirby into a shopping spree in New York last December; he didn’t want to explain himself over this thing,” she answered to the concerned Survey Corps. commander.

“Same here: when we met up with him earlier at the hotel, he didn’t want to spill the beans to us either,” Hanji agreed as she adjusted her eyeglasses a bit.

“Yeah, that’s true, Hanji. Harry has his lips sealed when we asked him over the box in his pocket situation earlier this morning,” Mike added in before taking another sip of water.

“Even if he’s a my godbrother, Harry doesn’t want to tell me anything about that box since you guys arrived in London. He isn’t that secretive all the time,” Levi sighed, “What is he hiding right now?”

“He has been hiding something inside of the box for months,” Issa explained.

“Geez, I wish I know what is in his head...” Mari sighed.

“Me too, sis,” Kairi nodded in agreement before she mumbled about a weird scenario, “Can you imagine him stepping on the center of the dance floor and asking Issa for a dance, with the box in his pocket?”

“Kairi, please don’t bring up too much...” Mari was cut off from her talk when Harry took to the stage and began to speak up nervously through the microphone, “Uh, excuse me. I just had something to announce today. I know this is weird to put a hold to a wedding, but this is really urgent.”

“Oh God, did I predicted something?” Kairi whispered to the group.

“So what’s next then?” Philip asked as he, the Snoopers, and Kirby finally took notice of the move.

“I would like to ask Isabelle Miravelez to come over to the dance floor, because I have something to ask her right now,” Harry then clarified the nature of the impending announcement and asked for Issa’s presence.

“Me, me?” Issa was even more confused as she proceed to walk up to the floor while Snooper brought out his video camera to capture the moment unfolding.

“Ohhh… Do I think this moment is coming?” Jenny’s eye began to well up in tears of anticipation, which further confused Mari further.

All eyes were glued to Harry and Issa as he then pulled out the velvet box from his pants pocket and finally spoke to his long-time Filipino girlfriend for nearly a decade in, “Well, Issa. It finally comes to this: being stared at by confused people in a wedding of all places. When my sister Mari first introduced me to you, I wasn’t in a good place at the time with all the troubles I went through in troubleshooting a failing relationship and I came out of it even worse after that June day over hot water of the figurative and literal kind.”

The last words alarmed Ginny in the heart: she knew deep in her heart that she had pursued the Boy Who Lived, or rather, an idealized version of him much longer than Issa did with the real guy, only for the two to crash and burn, and sank down to her seat further in shame. Tears were escaping her eyes, threatening to damage her eye makeup, as Harry continued his speech, “I didn’t think then that she will bring us together and I was too scared to fall in love again, yet here we are almost 10 years later. The time we have together isn’t all sunshine and rainbows with jealous exes, people thinking that we’re off our heads in this inter-fandom relationship, having petty ‘fights’ here and there, and even having doubts ourselves if we made the right decision to push through with it. And yet, we managed to grow with time and learning to accept each other, and loving each other unconditionally.”

She didn’t know why, but Mari could feel tears running down her cheeks. Now the librarian wasn’t too sure if she is happy or sad then, but she was too engrossed with the speech to care, and the same applied with Kairi who was now shedding tears as well and Philip, despite not having a clue of what’s going on to his defense, who quietly shed tears. The Snoopers were bracing for that one moment to come, feeling it is about to happen any time now, while Kirby, being a little puffball, was at awe at the moment, jumping up and down in excitement. The Survey Corps, including Levi who couldn’t help but to smile in advance, were also drawn to the speech that continued in as Harry went down on his right knee, taking a deep breath and giving himself a little pep talk, “Alright, Harry. This is it: you’re really going to do this...”

The plot then thickened when he finally opened the box that he had been hiding from most people for nearly 4 months, inside there was a dainty thin gold ring holding a small central midnight blue sapphire, which is flanked by 4 smaller diamonds and 2 small pearls on each side (2 diamonds to 1 pearl). Ohs and ahs filled the room as eyes took notice of the mystery ring Harry has on his hands. Issa couldn’t keep her composure stable as she gasped at the sight of the ring, cupping her mouth with her hands in shock, people were bracing themselves. Relieved that she reacted to it positively, he got the chance to pop that one important question, “Isabelle Miravelez: will you marry me?”

It took her such a long time to pull herself together and compose her thoughts, but sensing the full sincere thoughts her wizard boyfriend has and how serious he was with the proposal (as the big surprise as it was), but Issa couldn’t wait any more to give a quick, “Ay naku, Harry! I’m in a loss of words now. I have no idea why you hid that ring from me for this long, but you know what? I’m really going to accept it! So it’s a yes!”

The star news writer wrapped her arms around Harry tightly as many guests gushed and enjoyed the moment. The Tans, Philip, the Snoopers, Kirby, the Survey Corps, & Ron and Hermione finally understood the surprise Harry was able to hide: after all those nearly 10 years, he has come to accept that he was really heads over heels for Issa no matter what his younger self thought of then. Yes, he can be a hot mess at times (more so in his teen years), but he’s way better than he was when he came out of a toxic relationship with Ginny. Issa knew she didn’t have magic powers compared to her half-blood beau and the 2 pureblood exes he dated, but it didn’t matter at all: she was the shining light that he was looking for aside from his adopted sisters and there is nothing that can break them apart.

As Harry placed the ring on Issa’s left ring finger, Mari could hear cheers from the guests present. Sayeko and Levi cheered in joy, happy to know that their friend has finally gotten his happy ending; Mike gave Erwin and Hanji a big hug while screaming his heart off in happiness, while Philip did his best to keep his composure intact as he wiped his tears away. Meanwhile, Jenny and Snooper sent out in a sigh of relief with Ron and Hermione tearing up in joy, finally getting to see their friends getting engaged, Kirby squeaked in joy as he happily danced about in his famous Kirby Dance, and Kairi gave Mari a loving hug, knowing that their brother is going to settle down soon. She even saw the looks of happiness and pride in the Lupins, the Lovegoods, Neville, Hagrid, and Mr. & Mrs. Weasley’s faces too. The same can be said for Fred & George, Bill, Fleur, Charlie, and Percy (although the latter 2 didn’t want to let that be obvious).

And yet, Mari can hear something else too: it was sobbing from the bridal party table and she turned around to see Ginny slumped onto the table and crying her eyes off, murmuring in gibberish she couldn’t decipher. She guessed that the Weasley girl was regretting turning Harry off and pushed him away from her for so long that their relationship has become irreparable. Not even magic could save her from the years of despising him, she wept. For once, the librarian felt some sympathy for the girl who broke her brother’s heart, but it was sadly too late for both women to make some form of reconciliation on the red-haired woman’s part: almost 10 years too late… Ginevra Molly Weasley was a hot mess of regret, anger, and yearning in the inside.

The End

[shadow-and-quill]

.:Human Folly:. (AU2)

Characters: Zhang Ru (weapon spirit, AU Ritsuka), Torioi Shinya (cultivator, AU Sari)

Warning(s): Mention of blood. My shitty knowledge of ancient China and cultivation practices.

Origin Date: 18 April 2019

In the wake of the attack on his sect’s grounds, the spirit of the bow Endian can’t help but wonder why his mind is stuck in dreams of his past life as the famous artificer.

(Part of the AU2 arc with @ninetales-carbuncle )

----♦•♦----

Despite not requiring sleep in these days, the dreams still find Zhang Ru. The spirit is proud of his awareness of what’s about him even within the yew bow that is his home now. His master is a kind boy, one that needs someone to watch his back. And Zhang Ru is glad to do that as much as he kneaded his nose in frustration after some failed social event. The last thing he needed was the distraction brought upon him by the mix of dreams and memories.

 But it’s when Torioi Shinya sleeps that the ancient spirit finds himself restless. Even more so since the visit of Akiyama Touma and…that Ghost City representative. Hai Shen. There was a mutual disdain there of one another even if they had hardly passed words. Why? They didn’t know each other in their past life, not that he could remember.

 Why was he even thinking this? Pale hands wrung about the crescent moon painted fan in his grip. This evening Zhang Ru had taken to sitting in Shinya’s window, looking down at the melting snow of Katsuragi Peak. There was also a full moon out, setting the white stone structures of the sect into a beautiful glow. It wasn’t as if he could go terribly far from his physical vessel of the weapon anyway.

Oh yes. Because he couldn’t rest. Sometimes he still wished he could sleep. If he could, at least humans had moments of sleeping so deeply that they didn’t dream. And he oh so wished for that right now. Lavender eyes, always so harsh, were unguarded in their weariness as they gazed over the landscape.

 How many years, centuries, had it been and that night was as vivid as if it were hours ago? A wry smirk. Well, everything but /his/ face. Perhaps it was aftereffects of his desperate actions to seal himself inside /something/ to live on while his flesh died. Magic worked in emergency situations hardly went well, even with such a level-headed mind as the artificer. That delicate fan he held had been his lifeline.

 A small sigh, such human habits still. The deep black of his hair fell over his shoulder, loose in a feigned attempt at rest. His layers of lavender and deep violet had been shed to a simple cream underrobe and slacks. It was pitiful, really. Pretending to be human, mirroring his master’s wake and sleep patterns. But it kept him sane. It kept him from descending into a detachment that led to weapons becoming unstable or sealing themselves.

  It had been winter then, hadn’t it?

 His brows furrowed, the fan going to tap against his chin as he glared at the moon. No, don’t think of this again.

 They’d both been dressed in fur-lined cloaks. He’d forgotten how much of a chill could creep into the Huangshan’s rocky peaks. That man had laughed and simply teased that he’d been away ‘playing noble’ for far too long. But he was no noble. Just some backwater village brat with a keen mind that had wanted to protect his friends and family.

 The mountains’ treacherous ways prevented cultivators from patrolling close or answering calls for aid. As a result the unnatural things were free to pick off souls from Zhang Ru’s home and they lived in fear of the dark. His own parents had been victims, friends of the family taking in the young boy. Maybe it had started off as bitterness but then he’d become enthralled with the concept of using physical items to assist on augmenting one’s qi. With such things, cultivators weren’t needed. They could protect themselves.

His inventions became more and more sophisticated, the tiny village no longer cowed by the undead or wrathful spirits. Enough that it had earned attention from the cultivation sects and beyond. And that was how Zhang Ru’s name had spread throughout the region. Many came to him for help, for advice, and he continued to develop ways for the common man to protect themselves and become self-sufficient. No more living in fear.

 But with such success always came a dark path. His tools were taken to be used for profit, sold in hidden markets, disassembled and reassembled. And life had become a drudge to keep these wicked souls away from the pure intentions of his creations. Tired…he’d become so tired of humans’ greed. Perhaps it had been meant for them to be preyed upon.

 So when an old friend came to visit him, a reminder of simpler times, Zhang Ru had embraced the familiarity with heart, soul, and body. Looking back with a jaded mind now, the artificer had entered that relationship far too quickly. He was a shrewd man by nature, he should’ve known.

 But it had felt real. For years he shared his heart and bed with the man whose face was now hidden from his memories. It had been a sanctuary, a place where he didn’t need to hold himself tall and strong, where he didn’t have to have impeccable manners and eloquence, where he could rest in peace with his head on the crook of another human’s shoulder and simply enjoy the silence.

 Zhang Ru had had many suitors. It was no surprise with his quickly accumulated wealth and fame. But he wanted none of that. So when that dear friend (he couldn’t even remember his name now, it died on his tongue) had proposed after all those years, this was the one time such words didn’t feel him with apathy and disgust. No, he’d smiled. A bright smile that only /this/ man had ever seen on his face ever since they were children.

 And he had said yes.

They were to marry back in their home among the Huangshan mountains. Something private, discreet, away from prying eyes. The artificer hadn’t been able to free himself from social engagements for months. And waiting had driven him to a nervous wreck behind closed doors as he waited the chance to return home to a simpler place. Hells, he’d even taken to nibbling those perfectly curved nails and pacing about his chambers.

 Frost had descended upon the valley when he’d finally arrived. Though not a cultivator by training. Zhang Ru’s abilities were augmented enough to let him travel by flying sword, a gift from a trusted advisor in the courts. One of the few souls he could count as being sincere. After all, one needed the guidance of a proper cultivator to make his tools as efficient as possible. As soon as his boots had hit the ground…

 ----♦•♦----

 ~ That smile was unguarded. Only /he/ ever saw it. Even though it was so DAMN cold, Zhang Ru didn’t care. Buried under furs and heavy layers of robes, the blade was swiftly sheathed and he hurried into the shelter of the tall skinny trees. There was a path up there. Unchanged since he was an infant. It led to the cliffs that held the shrines of the village below. A bundle was held against his chest and Zhang Ru felt he could feel ambient warmth off of it. Silly, this wasn’t enchanted or crafted with any of his power! Well…besides his own fingers and hours of needlepoint by candlelight.

He must have looked a fool with that grin on his face, still dressed as a noble of the capital city. The waist-length hair, deep black as a raven’s wing, was up in a proper bun and secured with an amethyst pin. His attire was richly tailored, the boots polished leather, and he carried no less than five of his inventions on his person. And here he was traipsing about in these FREEZING mountains.

 Zhang Ru had arrived early, of course. Punctual by nature this event had made the artificer show with even more leeway than he normally allotted to himself. Breath (oh he couldn’t even remember how it was like to /breathe/ anymore) fogged in the late autumn air as he’d hurried up the wooden steps and passed trees that hung heavy with frozen droplets. Fog obscured the peaks in the distance. It would be a marvelous sight if Zhang Ru hadn’t grown up here, desensitized to the natural marvels of the region.

 Up and around and by the time he’d reached the top of the stairs he doubled over to catch his breath, a familiar catch in his chest. He’d been frail of health as a child, some ailment of his lungs. Wonderful treatment in the capital had eased the symptoms to negligible levels but the cold and exertion in his excitement tickled a bit.

 No time for that!

Pale cheeks rosy from the cold at least Zhang Ru had the mindset to give a proper bow to the stone monuments tucked away in the curve of the mountain. Well, the best he could with a parcel under one arm. No matter how far he traveled, tradition was tradition.

 And then it was time to wait. But his patience was hardly as strong as it normally was. Goodness, he was a mess, wasn’t he? The parcel was opened. Long pale fingers ran over the red cloth. He was used to weaving and sewing from a young age. There wasn’t much money to go about the small village, especially so with the attacks. Mending clothes and such was normal. But this…this was something he’d put all his heart and soul into. Cheeks pinkened further. Here he was acting like some bashful bride! Him! The fearsome and icy Zhang Ru, creator of qi cultivation for the common man! A ‘hmph’ and the long veil was pulled from its protective paper.

 The thin cloth was transparent, its rich red stark against the white and grey of the world about them. Gold thread lined the edges and Zhang Ru pulled it close about him and over his head. Unconventional this would be, but dammit, he was going to enjoy it! There weren’t many things the young man could enjoy nowadays with the constant politics and squabbling and paranoia that came with power. A childish giggle left his lips that would have left the stoic man mortified at one point.

 Not tonight.

And so he waited, sitting on a nearby wooden bench. He remembered when these were made, a place to let villagers below enjoy the comforting sights of the shrine.

 And he waited.

 In time nerves began to grow. Had something happened? Did he get the date wrong?

 Had…he been left to stand here in the dark, abandoned?  ~

 ----♦•♦----

 And then there had been the sound of boots on the stone.

 Zhang Ru rubbed his face. No, he didn’t want to remember this again.

 And he’d turned, a smile on his face and a scolding on his lips. That familiar handsome face wore a smile as well.

And gods taken him, he’d been so enamored, so eager for this, that he’d missed that intent hiding in that smile.

 The dagger had sunk into his chest without a protest. How could he have known? The artificer had dealt with multiple assassination attempts, greedy men attempting to steal his designs and knowledge. But…why here, why now?

 His mind still refused to work even in the pain. He hadn’t pushed away the other, he was frozen as warmth trickling from the blade. Comforting warmth crept down his chilled skin.

 Why? It left his lips, rang in his eyes.

 Why?

 Greed. The folly of mortals.

 Even as he laid dying in the snow, that red veil about him, his body had been searched for anything of value. The trinkets, his journal, his sword. All taken. And they had left him as the snow began falling, tears in his eyes.

 Why?

 Numb inside and out. But Zhang Ru was a man of determination and will. His mind pushed past his heart’s shock and betrayal. No. His work, his legacy, it wouldn’t be left like this. Fuck the rest of those men. He was still him. Shaking bloody fingers had found the one thing the thieves, /assassins/, hadn’t taken. A simple hand-painted fan tucked inside his robes. It had no power, just an average little item. And with his last breaths, Zhang Ru trusted his life to it.

To this day he had no idea who’d originally found the fan. His soul had slept, dormant. But the artificer had been fortunate enough that he’d never been discarded. He was shuffled from owner to owner throughout the centuries until he was taken in by the Torioi clan. The Katsuragi sect was impressive in its glory days of growing China and their cultivators keen and disciplined individuals. Thus his presence had been found and transferred into the impressive collection of enchanted weapons within the Peaks’ vaults.

 Once he’d woken it had taken a few years for him to remember his origins. With the aid of the multiple masters he’d been assigned to guard in the sect, Zhang Ru was baffled to see zero mention of his name in texts. What had happened? He’d been erased utterly and completely. Nothing of his achievements and deeds. His seals didn’t appear on any of his creations and inventions.

 It had been a shock. But there had been no time to ruminate on what had occurred over the time he’d slept. In a twist of irony, the keen Zhang Ru was now a weapon himself. He’d been transferred to a beautiful whitewood yew bow named Endian, ‘grace.’. His first master had been a strong young woman of the Torioi line, that white hair and pale skin a clear indicator of the true blood in her.

 And so his new history had begun. Master through master for a good century. And now he was in the hands of Torioi Shinya.

 Another sigh in the stillness of the night. No breath left his lips. He hadn’t taken to physically manifesting this night. Shinya had amazing qi reserves, unnaturally so. It was why the proud cultivator family had adopted a stranger into its bloodline. Still, there was no need to tax his master for no reason but his restlessness.

 What would happen now? The Akiyama were here. The Ghost City was also poking about much to Shinya’s fear. When Endian had been entrusted to Shinya when he was still young, Zhang Ru had bonded with him as expected and he’d seen the torture that the child had been put through at the hands of merchants in the Ghost City. He’d been set to be cut into pieces and sold off for his strong spiritual energy. The poor boy had already had an eye taken from him before Lady Torioi had found him and spirited him away.

 His master’s unease as well as that ghost, Hai Shen, were things he didn’t like. Those lavender eyes darkened, near violet, as he thought of that figure. There was some instant, immediate hostility between the two of them. Not that Zhang Ru was exactly personable to begin with. He hadn’t been in life and it had only become more jaded as a spirit entity.

 The fan was tapped against his chin again. There were going to be changes about. The Katsuragi had fought to maintain its isolationist cultivation practices in the modern day. People simply didn’t believe in such ways anymore, didn’t have the heart to adhere to the many rules. And now something out there was wreaking havoc on important places and people in the cultivation world.

 There was a war on the horizon.

[airoasis]

Why I Choose Bitcoin Cash

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/why-i-choose-bitcoin-cash/

Why I Choose Bitcoin Cash

I prefer a Peer to see digital money over the whole lot. Correct now the first-class form of this comes in the form of Bitcoin cash, which holds the ticker BCH on virtually all exchanges. My title is Collin Enstad, i’ve lived in the USA my entire lifestyles. I am a freelance director / cinematographer / steadicam operator. I first heard about Bitcoin in 2013 in the course of its bubble, the place it peaked at $1200. I consider my first purchase was once around $one hundred fifty however I only bought a bit bit, as much as I might find the money for being a broke school pupil. I made some cash and purchased matters with it, like this bizarre digicam rig. Of course part of the adoption of bitcoin is brought about via men and women speculating trying to generate income off of it. But i noticed I had actual utility, I could use it as money. An investment that’s liquid as hell. Excellent. I requested an harmless query in late 2015 on the uncensored bitcoin subreddit, /r/btc: ELI5: Why achieve this many individuals insist on a small block size?. I got first-rate answers, similar to Blockstreams function in taking up the progress, how Peter Todd remains to be seeking to these days to kill 0-affirmation transactions, and how the Core devs have been proscribing the bottom layer to push a 2nd one that they claimed would be even higher than the actual blockchain.All of these aspects nonetheless maintain proper to nowadays. I even respect a number of the names within the thread from again then with persons I still speak to in these days. I even had some put up calling out theymos, the king of censorship, round this time. How things have no longer transformed. The extra I dig up the more obvious the manipulation of public opinion. Once more, this was once in 2015 this was all being called out, 4 years ago. Thats close to 1/2 of bitcoins lifetime. Crypto is really just politics, but on a time scale which appears hundreds and hundreds of times faster.I was once continuously a huge blocker. 1MB is tiny. Its less knowledge than a 2d of this video. It gave the impression a majority of the community back in 2015 was once for bigger blocks too. How a small crew of Core developers took over and sabotaged the bitcoin experiment with never-ending small blocks will be rather the exciting case be taught in historical past class. Im nonetheless seeking to utterly wrap my head around how Gavin, the character Satoshi entrusted with the keys to the bitcoin code, used to be pushed out and ostracized for looking the logical answer, higher blocks.Its a narrative that takes a long time to tell, and entails a false Satoshi. Im currently engaged on a feature size documentary about the shitshow that’s bitcoins history. The real down and dirty bitcoin politics, no longer some loud mouth troll showing up on tv spouting nonsense. So the fork happened in August 2017 and the large block version, Bitcoin cash, didn’t win over the hearts and minds of traders. Instantaneous ridicule from the Core persons ensued, as used to be par for the path. Bcash is trash was once their mantra, in an try to rip the word bitcoin out of its name. Now take into account, theymos fairly ramped up his censorship on /r/bitcoin in 2015. Reddit used to be THE spot to talk bitcoin, and theymos actions make him, individually, the only greatest affect on this whole Scaling warfare. Go to any publish from again then about theymos increasing moderation and appear at how many individuals vehemently adverse it.One of bitcoins most important residences is censorship-resistance, however apparently whenever you go away the protocol layer you additionally abandon all of its ethos. When your methods hotel to silencing the opposition you understand your arguments aren’t on stable floor. If they were, they might let all of the dissent come their approach and evaporate before them in the face of truth. However no. The block and ban buttons are used as a type of religious piety. This itself was once a tremendous red flag that some thing used to be wrong with Bitcoin. As a latest concrete instance of manipulation, My ultra-modern video criticizing the lightning community was once the top put up on /r/btc, except every week historic news story broke in regards to the Twitter CEO, Jack, purchasing a hardware pockets all of a sudden unseated it. This Jack story was once in a antagonistic sub and it won the highest spot in an hour. Mods deleted the submit shortly after. The account had a history of vote botting. Proof Of Social Media. Par for the course for those against peer to peer money. And this this is the place I just get angry.BTC does no longer work as a trustworthy form of money, but its still pushed on unsuspecting noobs, many who now go to the bcash sunday service. These social media influencers have 10s of hundreds of thousands of followers that they preach the nice word to absolutely this many folks wouldnt listen to any person who was just basically unsuitable! This market is immature and albeit, just dumb. I really awoke to all of this when instantly I was paying $1 for a transaction rate in early 2017. This isn’t what I signed up for. My money will have to not disappear every time I need to move it. When Bitcoin cash forked, I was all in, actually with my nonetheless tiny stash and figuratively from an ideological standpoint. Does this provide me investment bias? Almost always, however again, Im now not talking tremendous cash right here.Irregardless, I do my research and its the one coin i can confidently put my cash in. I do know what it is trying to do is the reason bitcoin was created in the first place, which is what once more? Oh yeah, to offer each person in the world an possibility to be their own bank. To give humans the potential to transact with anyone in the world with out the necessity of a 3rd celebration, even if they make not up to $2 a day. That is bitcoin. I kept diving deeper into the rabbit hole. Undoubtedly each person couldnt be this deluded however they were. Advocating for the shrewd factor of raising the blocksize and how BCH is a reliable variation of Bitcoin on social media has been tiring. I dont know the way a few of these trolls are so lively and simply hostile.I grew up with the web, part of the primary iteration that had social media for his or her whole middle and excessive institution experience. However these bitcoin guys man, the most poisonous i have ever seen. You have to have thick epidermis when you even believe about having impartial idea in crypto. Its sad. I haven’t any doubt there are individuals whose full-time job it is to sow up disagreement and strife within people who want to see Bitcoin be the arena money. Theres even proof of In November of 2017 I made a industrial for BCH with the support of the Bitcoin money association. It used to be a excessive high-quality industrial in a barber store which showed bitcoin getting used as cash. Response from the group was once nice, and i located myself in Tokyo a pair months later shooting the Satoshis vision convention, where a few of the Bitcoin cash group attended.I interviewed lots of the prime leaders in BCH for the period of that point interval for my documentary together with Craig Wright. This man appeared to come out of nowhere and was once a large suggest of Bitcoin cash. He had charisma, unquestionably, even when his Satoshi claims have been iffy. I consider the BCH neighborhood sided with him on account that he was once so anti-core. An enemy of an enemy is your buddy. And on the grounds that this buddy was very aggressive and outspoken in the direction of the purpose, many were inclined to let his shadiness slide.However very quickly after this convention actual bitcoin devs, who in reality work on and comprehend the bitcoin protocol, began calling him out on his lies. It was once rough to confess youd been duped, but right here we all are. Then, of direction he forked off into his possess coin months later, and his fraud lives on. Then comes the altcoin arguments. For those who dont like BTC so much simply use nano? Dash is the real peer to see cash! Lol noob do you even cardano? Well, considering BCH has the identical transaction historical past relationship again to the genesis block in 2009, one could argue the distribution of the coin is more decentralized than any of the altcoins, due to the fact that it has been around the longest.Im a strong believer in Proof of work as well. Even though BCH has a lot less hashpower than BTC, it has been shown how a gigantic portion of hash would transfer to BCH in safeguard of a malicious actor, like we noticed within the hashwar. The miners like Bitcoin money, however they generally follow gains, and this means mining BTC and BCH on the same price as the fee ratio between them. Now that BCH is free from its former crippled blocksize, most things the altcoins can do, BCH would enforce itself. Even things just like the lightning community would work muchhhh higher on Bitcoin cash as a result of the small charges to open and shut channels. Bitcoin was once intended to be the one crypto that ruled all of them, absorbing the quality altcoin facets. Vitalik Buterin found out this was no longer the case to any extent further, and he ran off to make Ethereum in 2015 after a lot combating with the Core devs. So right here I to find myself, in March 2019, nonetheless a supporter of Bitcoin cash. That you may believe the creative and grassroots power of individuals who just wish to construct. I hear the Bitcoin OGs say its the same spirit that bitcoin had it in its early days.Persons that CARE about making bitcoin exceptional again. And of path, the small blocks made building apps problematic for devs, because the excessive charges and sluggish confirmations might disable some functions who relied on inexpensive and speedy transactions. Full blocks rationale unreliability. And if youre a dev and need to construct an app, why within the hell would you use a base protocol that can instantly price $50 for a single use. If BCH stops being the excellent type of P2P money, make no mistake, i’d drop aid. Im no longer a blind follower and am at all times watching to mission my beliefs. Tokens, Decentralized handles, Badger wallet, suggestions.Cash, CashShuffle, Satoshidice the record goes on. So many of those projects are simply now hitting the Bitcoin cash market, and wallets are looking to catch up and implement these elements as speedy as they may be able to.Its nonetheless early in Bitcoin Cashs development existence, and the power within the community is the equal one I felt once I first received into it, vibrant, filled with hope for a greater future, and now with an added tenacity to make certain that no dangerous actors can once once more spoil the imaginative and prescient of Peer to look cash for the complete world. .

[batterymonster2021]

Why I Choose Bitcoin Cash

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/why-i-choose-bitcoin-cash/

Why I Choose Bitcoin Cash

I prefer a Peer to see digital money over the whole lot. Correct now the first-class form of this comes in the form of Bitcoin cash, which holds the ticker BCH on virtually all exchanges. My title is Collin Enstad, i’ve lived in the USA my entire lifestyles. I am a freelance director / cinematographer / steadicam operator. I first heard about Bitcoin in 2013 in the course of its bubble, the place it peaked at $1200. I consider my first purchase was once around $one hundred fifty however I only bought a bit bit, as much as I might find the money for being a broke school pupil. I made some cash and purchased matters with it, like this bizarre digicam rig. Of course part of the adoption of bitcoin is brought about via men and women speculating trying to generate income off of it. But i noticed I had actual utility, I could use it as money. An investment that’s liquid as hell. Excellent. I requested an harmless query in late 2015 on the uncensored bitcoin subreddit, /r/btc: ELI5: Why achieve this many individuals insist on a small block size?. I got first-rate answers, similar to Blockstreams function in taking up the progress, how Peter Todd remains to be seeking to these days to kill 0-affirmation transactions, and how the Core devs have been proscribing the bottom layer to push a 2nd one that they claimed would be even higher than the actual blockchain.All of these aspects nonetheless maintain proper to nowadays. I even respect a number of the names within the thread from again then with persons I still speak to in these days. I even had some put up calling out theymos, the king of censorship, round this time. How things have no longer transformed. The extra I dig up the more obvious the manipulation of public opinion. Once more, this was once in 2015 this was all being called out, 4 years ago. Thats close to 1/2 of bitcoins lifetime. Crypto is really just politics, but on a time scale which appears hundreds and hundreds of times faster.I was once continuously a huge blocker. 1MB is tiny. Its less knowledge than a 2d of this video. It gave the impression a majority of the community back in 2015 was once for bigger blocks too. How a small crew of Core developers took over and sabotaged the bitcoin experiment with never-ending small blocks will be rather the exciting case be taught in historical past class. Im nonetheless seeking to utterly wrap my head around how Gavin, the character Satoshi entrusted with the keys to the bitcoin code, used to be pushed out and ostracized for looking the logical answer, higher blocks.Its a narrative that takes a long time to tell, and entails a false Satoshi. Im currently engaged on a feature size documentary about the shitshow that’s bitcoins history. The real down and dirty bitcoin politics, no longer some loud mouth troll showing up on tv spouting nonsense. So the fork happened in August 2017 and the large block version, Bitcoin cash, didn’t win over the hearts and minds of traders. Instantaneous ridicule from the Core persons ensued, as used to be par for the path. Bcash is trash was once their mantra, in an try to rip the word bitcoin out of its name. Now take into account, theymos fairly ramped up his censorship on /r/bitcoin in 2015. Reddit used to be THE spot to talk bitcoin, and theymos actions make him, individually, the only greatest affect on this whole Scaling warfare. Go to any publish from again then about theymos increasing moderation and appear at how many individuals vehemently adverse it.One of bitcoins most important residences is censorship-resistance, however apparently whenever you go away the protocol layer you additionally abandon all of its ethos. When your methods hotel to silencing the opposition you understand your arguments aren’t on stable floor. If they were, they might let all of the dissent come their approach and evaporate before them in the face of truth. However no. The block and ban buttons are used as a type of religious piety. This itself was once a tremendous red flag that some thing used to be wrong with Bitcoin. As a latest concrete instance of manipulation, My ultra-modern video criticizing the lightning community was once the top put up on /r/btc, except every week historic news story broke in regards to the Twitter CEO, Jack, purchasing a hardware pockets all of a sudden unseated it. This Jack story was once in a antagonistic sub and it won the highest spot in an hour. Mods deleted the submit shortly after. The account had a history of vote botting. Proof Of Social Media. Par for the course for those against peer to peer money. And this this is the place I just get angry.BTC does no longer work as a trustworthy form of money, but its still pushed on unsuspecting noobs, many who now go to the bcash sunday service. These social media influencers have 10s of hundreds of thousands of followers that they preach the nice word to absolutely this many folks wouldnt listen to any person who was just basically unsuitable! This market is immature and albeit, just dumb. I really awoke to all of this when instantly I was paying $1 for a transaction rate in early 2017. This isn’t what I signed up for. My money will have to not disappear every time I need to move it. When Bitcoin cash forked, I was all in, actually with my nonetheless tiny stash and figuratively from an ideological standpoint. Does this provide me investment bias? Almost always, however again, Im now not talking tremendous cash right here.Irregardless, I do my research and its the one coin i can confidently put my cash in. I do know what it is trying to do is the reason bitcoin was created in the first place, which is what once more? Oh yeah, to offer each person in the world an possibility to be their own bank. To give humans the potential to transact with anyone in the world with out the necessity of a 3rd celebration, even if they make not up to $2 a day. That is bitcoin. I kept diving deeper into the rabbit hole. Undoubtedly each person couldnt be this deluded however they were. Advocating for the shrewd factor of raising the blocksize and how BCH is a reliable variation of Bitcoin on social media has been tiring. I dont know the way a few of these trolls are so lively and simply hostile.I grew up with the web, part of the primary iteration that had social media for his or her whole middle and excessive institution experience. However these bitcoin guys man, the most poisonous i have ever seen. You have to have thick epidermis when you even believe about having impartial idea in crypto. Its sad. I haven’t any doubt there are individuals whose full-time job it is to sow up disagreement and strife within people who want to see Bitcoin be the arena money. Theres even proof of In November of 2017 I made a industrial for BCH with the support of the Bitcoin money association. It used to be a excessive high-quality industrial in a barber store which showed bitcoin getting used as cash. Response from the group was once nice, and i located myself in Tokyo a pair months later shooting the Satoshis vision convention, where a few of the Bitcoin cash group attended.I interviewed lots of the prime leaders in BCH for the period of that point interval for my documentary together with Craig Wright. This man appeared to come out of nowhere and was once a large suggest of Bitcoin cash. He had charisma, unquestionably, even when his Satoshi claims have been iffy. I consider the BCH neighborhood sided with him on account that he was once so anti-core. An enemy of an enemy is your buddy. And on the grounds that this buddy was very aggressive and outspoken in the direction of the purpose, many were inclined to let his shadiness slide.However very quickly after this convention actual bitcoin devs, who in reality work on and comprehend the bitcoin protocol, began calling him out on his lies. It was once rough to confess youd been duped, but right here we all are. Then, of direction he forked off into his possess coin months later, and his fraud lives on. Then comes the altcoin arguments. For those who dont like BTC so much simply use nano? Dash is the real peer to see cash! Lol noob do you even cardano? Well, considering BCH has the identical transaction historical past relationship again to the genesis block in 2009, one could argue the distribution of the coin is more decentralized than any of the altcoins, due to the fact that it has been around the longest.Im a strong believer in Proof of work as well. Even though BCH has a lot less hashpower than BTC, it has been shown how a gigantic portion of hash would transfer to BCH in safeguard of a malicious actor, like we noticed within the hashwar. The miners like Bitcoin money, however they generally follow gains, and this means mining BTC and BCH on the same price as the fee ratio between them. Now that BCH is free from its former crippled blocksize, most things the altcoins can do, BCH would enforce itself. Even things just like the lightning community would work muchhhh higher on Bitcoin cash as a result of the small charges to open and shut channels. Bitcoin was once intended to be the one crypto that ruled all of them, absorbing the quality altcoin facets. Vitalik Buterin found out this was no longer the case to any extent further, and he ran off to make Ethereum in 2015 after a lot combating with the Core devs. So right here I to find myself, in March 2019, nonetheless a supporter of Bitcoin cash. That you may believe the creative and grassroots power of individuals who just wish to construct. I hear the Bitcoin OGs say its the same spirit that bitcoin had it in its early days.Persons that CARE about making bitcoin exceptional again. And of path, the small blocks made building apps problematic for devs, because the excessive charges and sluggish confirmations might disable some functions who relied on inexpensive and speedy transactions. Full blocks rationale unreliability. And if youre a dev and need to construct an app, why within the hell would you use a base protocol that can instantly price $50 for a single use. If BCH stops being the excellent type of P2P money, make no mistake, i’d drop aid. Im no longer a blind follower and am at all times watching to mission my beliefs. Tokens, Decentralized handles, Badger wallet, suggestions.Cash, CashShuffle, Satoshidice the record goes on. So many of those projects are simply now hitting the Bitcoin cash market, and wallets are looking to catch up and implement these elements as speedy as they may be able to.Its nonetheless early in Bitcoin Cashs development existence, and the power within the community is the equal one I felt once I first received into it, vibrant, filled with hope for a greater future, and now with an added tenacity to make certain that no dangerous actors can once once more spoil the imaginative and prescient of Peer to look cash for the complete world. .

[mcrmadness]

you are a bit distant and seem mysterious to people but you are actually very kind and polite but your sensitive nature makes you cautious around others (strangers especially) ; you mostly wear black and other dark colours and you prefer boots over sneakers

Ask game: judging by my tumblr, post in my ask box what you think i’d be like in real life

Wow, either you're a psychic or I'm too openly private on this website :DDD I think you nailed this one, I hope to seem polite and kind but I'm afraid I sometimes come across a bit rude just because of how distant I am, as you said.

And like you said, I'm sensitive and altho I am very good at reading people and especially sensing their emotions etc., I'm usually very cautious with especially strangers. Partially it's because I'm very much introverted (or even an ambivert), but also partially it's just very typical for a Finnish person. (And because I've had loads of bad experiences with past friendships that did not end too well, so nowadays I also have lots of trust issues etc.)

This is also what you got right: I wear only black. I have a couple of dark blue shirts which I originally bought for wearing at work during summer, as I was outdoors a lot in my horse job and being in the sun while dressed in only black can get painful even. But otherwise I wear only black, but like combining it with a small details or usually red and/or white.

I've never liked sneakers, and currently own 3 pairs of something you probably could call as boots lmao. I randomly started to like the idea of wearing thick-soled boots with my jeans inside the boots, and I'm really liking that look now. Like this, these are my newest addition for the winter especially:

Supermarket photos FTW

My number 1 summer shoes, however, are my New Rock shoes. I bought them about 10 years ago and I still absolutely love them, altho they always take a bit of getting used to when wearing them for the first time after winter + they are not the most comfortable shoes for long walks and I had so many blisters in my feet when I visited Poland in 2019 and had no other shoes than those with me there; but I still love the shoes :D

Since I was a little kid I had some weird aesthetic obsession with shoes with thick soles. I was always staring at other people's shoes and got so happy from seeing someone wearing such. I just think they look really neat, and I remember being 13 and seeing this exact same brand(?) of New Rock shoes being worn by someone from a band that was my favorite at the time, and I just found the shoes SO cool looking that I wanted to have a pair too one day. But they were always so expensive, so it took me years to finally find an online shop, in Finland, that was selling these for an affordable price. I probably still paid over 100 euros for them, but it's totally worth it because they're still perfectly intact, apart from the decorations that did not like the Finnish winter. (I stopped wearing these during winter after the first year actually, they are not the safest shoes on snow and ice.)

Even from the inside they are still perfectly fine, normally shoes would start shredding sooner or later or the sole would change from all the walking but not with these. You can see that they are used, but if you clean them and apply a bit of oil, they look almost brand new again.

Thanks for sending the ask! It was super interesting to read!

[pasteurizedchicken]

Just Writing

The last time I reblogged something, it was around December 2019. That’s really not too long ago, but it feels like SO MUCH has happened. At the same time, COVID hit in March 2020. As a result, NOTHING happened. Time’s been so strange the past 2 years. I could sit here for hours just writing about things that have happened the past few years (from cults to interventions, new relationships and friendships, new sports and hobbies, new job and new location). But that’s kind of lame and lengthy. I saw a ‘Things I like and Things I don’t like’ list I wrote out years ago. Going to write out a new one. 

Things I Really Hate: the ‘biological clock’ in women, when someone fails to say ‘Thanks’ after you hold the door open for them, this one person who works at my office, hormonal changes from my monthly PMS (primarily mood swings), being ignored, men, gender roles, office politics, an untidy/cluttered apartment, loose string or lint on hardwood floors or tiles, my slowing metabolism, the fact that a trip to the gym now is SO MUCH different than a trip to the gym back in college, lack of pockets/pocket space in clothes made for women, climate change, plastic pollution, unethical farming practices, too much alone time and being alone with my thoughts, and the incredible amounts of ads there are on youtube nowadays. I could use adblocker for youtube, but I mean, I want those artists to make money too, ya know? 

Things I Like: laughing, new journals with cute covers, all sorts of animals and wildlife, ice skating, 12 hours of sunlight, evening walks along the beach on the sidewalk, fresh cups of coffee, floor to ceiling clean glass windows in a small apartment, providing great customer service, providing support to friends feeling down, long H2Hs, genuine compliments, men, listening to loud music while driving, new hoodies/sweaters, having a good time playing craps, new connections, warm un-littered sands on beaches, and reusable cups. 

I really miss when things were more simple. And I know my life isn’t even hard or complicated. ‘Simpler’ I guess. I’m so pathetic. 

[catalinacimpoesu]

Visual manipulation

Beware of the what you actually see

Nowadays is very common to post our thoughts on social media and compare them with others, usually seeking validation. Equality leads to lots of uncertified opinions spread throughout the Internet (Clark & Sikkink, 2013) which play a significant role in the society’s perception about a specific subject. 

Without going further into details, we can say that especially when a worldwide problem is discussed, the chances of creating fake news and spread rumours are quickly increasing. Approaching the variety of events that happened in the past year, I started observing from a distance the created sides and their shared opinions. Furthermore, with the existing accessibility of social media, we, as social creatures, have online platforms that are transforming themselves in “mined territories” in a blink of an eye, when populated by non-experts.

Moreover, having an opinion represents a human right, but spreading rumours that are not based on statistics and proved knowledge can cause real chaos (Suzor, et. al, 2019). Regarding the recent pandemic, I have started seeing multiple posts about many conspiracies that had photoshopped images as “proof” for the mentioned arguments. The problem was that not all people have the ability of spotting a retouched image, due to their lack of knowledge in this domain.

I immediately started questioning myself if is it legal to use editing programs as a clickbait in the support of an argument and how useful is social media in decreasing these scenarios that can confuse the audience. While scrolling on Facebook, I realised that many people were influenced by the lack of credibility of their sources of information and by copying someone else’s behaviour because of their trust put in that person (Meel & Vishwakarma, 2020). This kind of behaviour encourages people to become more suspicious and usually, they have problems with discovering a pattern that covers the false news, ending up losing themselves in a polluted web content.

Double-check the “normality”

This habit exists since the beginning of the creation of the digital era and in over 20 years its outcome is gradually becoming sued for creating false stereotypes. What am I talking about? Adobe Photoshop and excessively photo manipulation. The software’s purpose is originally meant to retouch photos just to recreate the 3D live feeling a photographer is experimenting while taking the photo and choosing its subject, into a 2D from where all the senses, except the sight, are decreased to the lowest presence level (Kelby, S. 2016).

Over the years, this aspect dramatically changed and the usage of photo manipulation software created high-standardised guidelines exposing the public to many internal disorders based on their aim for reaching people’s admiration (Schirmer et a., 2018). Many magazines became known for using too many effects and strong retouches on their pictorials, changing the models’ features while underestimating the power of desiring the “common beauty standards”.

Disinformation can be created by anyone able to understand the functions of Adobe Photoshop or any other similar software. In simple terms, anyone can spread fake news and use overly-edited photos to manipulate a mass. The created rumours can and are usually debunked by professionals and not only, making the sectors fluctuate into a constant movement (Krafft & Donovan, 2020). 

But can people use Adobe Photoshop to create rumours about a worldwide topic? Is this even legal? And more important: What are the implications of design in this kind of cases? The answer: Almost none. In fact, graphic design has nothing to do with spreading rumours, hence its purpose of visually educating the public and not taking advantage of its manipulative power in no other way except a creative one. 

In addition, promoting fake news using graphic design’s proprieties is in theory illegal, but in the present moment the highest penalty received by the creator can be from the specific platform used for spreading his materials, in the form of blocking the user and ban his misleading information from reaching many more innocent people. Due to the freedom of speech there are no existing legal attributes added to the online removal and in my opinion this should require a revision of terms, for decreasing the created damages, in the future.

Overall, taking advantage of using graphic design for generating false information can be eliminated either by technology and the use of the powerful teams that own the main social media platforms, or directly by people and their social responsibility founded on asking hard questions (Busari, 2017).

To conclude, considering all available manipulation techniques, graphic design can be considered the owner of a small contribution in misleading viewers, but until legal terms will be renew, this aspect should be analysed in-depth with accredited sources.

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Busari, S. (2017) How fake news does real harm. TED Talks (Online Video) Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwVYaY39YbQ [Accessed: 26th December 2020] 

Clark, A.M. and Sikkink, K. (2013) "Information Effects and Human Rights Data: Is the Good News About Increased Human Rights Information Bad News for Human Rights Measures?", Human rights quarterly (Online) vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 539-568. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24518073 [Accessed: 26th December 2020] 

Kelby, S. (2016) Why We Retouch People in Photoshop TED Talks (Online Video) Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDq-NiKBxi8 [Accessed: 26th December 2020] 

Krafft, P.M. & Donovan, J. (2020) "Disinformation by Design: The Use of Evidence Collages and Platform Filtering in a Media Manipulation Campaign", Political communication (Online) vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 194-214. https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.1080/10584609.2019.1686094 [Accessed: 26th December 2020] 

Meel, P. and Vishwakarma, D.K. (2020) "Fake news, rumor, information pollution in social media and web: A contemporary survey of state-of-the-arts, challenges and opportunities", Expert systems with applications (Online) vol. 153, pp. 112986. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2019.112986 [Accessed: 26th December 2020] 

Schirmer, N.A., Schwaiger, M., Taylor, C.R. and Costello, J.P. (2018) "Consumer Response to Disclosures in Digitally Retouched Advertisements", Journal of public policy & marketing (Online) vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 131-141. Available from: https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.1509/jppm.16.188 [Accessed: 26th December 2020]

Suzor, N., Dragiewicz, M., Harris, B., Gillett, R., Burgess, J. and Van Geelen, T. (2019) "Human Rights by Design: The Responsibilities of Social Media Platforms to Address Gender‐Based Violence Online", Policy and internet (Online) vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 84-103. Available from: https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.1002/poi3.185 [Accessed: 26th December 2020]