#THEY DID HIM DIRTY OKAY AND WE NEED TO RECOGNIZE THAT AS A SOCIETY

[skitskatdacat63]

[fexalted]

finishing off season 1 let's gooo

1x21 - the return of the archons

things i know about it:

brainwashing episode (‼️‼️‼️)

spock nun outfit

fun outfits for everyone really

but most importantly Brainwashing Episode 👁👁

i'm gonna be so normal about this i prommy

thoughts:

what do you mean i've been mentally pronouncing archons wrong for years

"they're the sweetest, friendliest people in the universe" oh yep they're a cult

ah i see they've learned from their misadventure at the airbase, they got their disguises ready before they beam down

what is this?? the purge???

[miette voice] "you MOCK the lawgivers?" "you SCORN festival??"

jim has no right to look as good as he does in that silly little outfit

hi landru i love your shiny robes

fascinated by this place being called a paradise free of crime and evil or whatever. bro you just had everyone going buckwild in the streets and breaking windows and shit

oughhg brainwashed bones :((

the fight is heartbreaking, don't make jim fight his bestie,, neither of us wants this

man i wish it was that easy to break down cults irl, trying to argue with them usually ends with *you* being the one to explode

i'm glad there's crew staying behind to like help them establish a normal society 🙏 i was fully expecting them to be like "well anyway bye" and leave all those people with no guidance after they'd spent their entire lives under mind control

oh so we don't get to see bones un-brainwashed huh? you're just gonna do that to me?? end the episode without letting me see my little buddy??? :'(

1x22 - space seed

remember:

KHAN

KHAAAAAAN

forgot:

"the last vessel of that class was built in the 1990s" you guys sure were optimistic about how much space travel we'd be doing in 30 years lmao

oh okay maybe not that optimistic considering we were supposed to be having a world war then

convenient that they wrapped all these people up in fishing nets before putting them in suspended animation

bones with a knife held to his throat being like "hey make it quick and cut the carotid" agdjsgdj man's got balls of steel

god, khan is such a good looking man. i'm still mad about into darkness btw they did him so dirty, hashtag not my khan

yknow it always did bother me that there's only one exit on the bridge. this is the exact type of emergency situation where you need multiple escape routes. what kind of building codes are they operating on in the 23rd century. someone get me a job with space osha

they're compressing jim like a jpg in there

shatner stunt double moment

kinda wild that jim gave mcgivers the option to be exiled with khan and his crew and even wilder that she said yes lmao, like girl i know he's beautiful but he's a war criminal dfjdhfksj

1x23 - a taste of armageddon

what i know:

haven't seen this ep and don't recognize the title so i'm going in blind!

thoughts:

right off the bat we've got an ambassador in the ugliest outfit i've seen all season

oh good they have better fashion down on the planet

"i am mea 3" and this is my friend logan 6

omg i was making a joke but it kinda is a bizarre logan's run situation

hell yeah you can't trick scotty that easily

hey why don't we ever hear more about the fact that spock can telepathically influence people thru walls, seems like that would come in handy a lot

"sir there is a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder" LMAO i love that that worked

oh i got so caught up in it i forgot to keep writing here lol

anyway good episode, love to see scotty get more screentime and enjoyed watching jim do the kirk karate chop several times 👏

when i had first started the ep i thought it was gonna be the birth control one (haven't seen that one either, can't remember the title), and like. can you imagine if the two plots were fused? government dealing with overpopulation manufactures a fake war where casualties are calculated by computer so people will be perfectly willing to walk into disintegration chambers and die

would that be fucked up or what

well anyway, moving on

1x24 - this side of paradise

remember:

sex pollen episode

spock climbs a tree

bones makes a mint julep

on another note, for personal reasons i find it v funny that the episodes with "armageddon" and "paradise" in the titles come right after one another. a little joke for the exvangelical in me

forgot:

"mr spock and i have met before" cut to spock standing there completely deadpan and silent lmao

oh these people are creepy

spock pollen allergy real

girl stop touching him you're being weird

"i've never seen a dragon" "i have" oh so we're just gonna drop that fun little factoid and never address it again huh

jim you were like one step away from getting pollen blasted, put a mask on or something

oh cool we've got plants on the ship already, this'll be fine

jim all alone on the ship :'( he looks so sad

OH SHIT HE GOT POLLENED

jim: gotta pack my cute green shirt

"aroused, his great physical strength could kill" shfjshfjksfkd

SPOCK WITH THE STEEL CHAIR

bones and his exaggerated southern drawl is killing me and i can't tell if it's in a funny way or a cringy way dhfjshfj

"would you like to see just how fast i can put you in a hospital?" fuck him up bones!!!

bones coming up on the bridge just to show off how good his eyeshadow looks in this final scene, i see you my man 👏

1x25 - the devil in the dark

things i know:

horta episode!!

bones is a doctor not a bricklayer

but by golly he's beginning to think he can cure a rainy day

thoughts:

remarkably flat floors in this cave

this poor guy's gonna get eaten

called it, rip schmitter v_v

sweet purple jumpsuit my guy

pondering that orb (egg?)

man i wish i could go explore some caves rn (real) (without monsters in them)

one redshirt down, rip

THERE IT IS

and it's gone

oh whoa the piece they cut off of it is still moving. also looks kinda like a meatball pizza

kirk you fool don't split up to check the tunnels, has scooby doo taught you nothing

okay genuinely, Extremely Cool vfx when it burns a hole in the rock and comes out of the wall

oh well well well, mr shoot to kill kirk isn't so quick on the trigger now that he's looking at the thing is he? (meanwhile spock's like "kill it kill it!" now that it's jim's life in danger lmao)

ough that mind meld. spock going thru it

the eggs :'(

spackle that thang, doctor

aw i wanted to see baby hortas

a+ trio banter at the end, i wuv them

1x26 - errand of mercy

what i know:

klingons in it

jim wears a cute shirt

the title is familiar but i think it's only bc i recently watched a tng ep where they were like "we're on an errand of mercy" lol (s3 ep "the high ground", aka the one with "the irish unification of 2024" line)

you would not believe the ordeal i've gone thru just to watch this one. the google drive i'd been using had a problem with the file for this ep and i couldn't play it, so i rented a dvd box set from the library. plugged in my dvd player that's older than some people on this website, then spent like 15 mins fighting with it bc i couldn't get the audio working (no dialogue, only bg music), and then i could only get it to play in spanish. finally got it sorted, but there's no english subtitles for these dvds so i've gotta use the transcript site 😭 i will press on but i'm upset and need everyone to know about my woes and miseries

thoughts:

jesus christ the music surprised me as much as that attack surprised them

this looks like the same place they beamed down to at the beginning of arena, just less exploded

was that goat green

how did they even initiate contact with this planet when they're like. fully living medieval times down here dhfjsjfk

"8 space vehicles have assumed orbit around our planet" okay how do you know that my man

aw spock gets a fun outfit too :')

boy that tos klingon makeup sure was...... something

"i have a tongue" "good, you will be taught how to use it" 1) did not realize that bit was from this ep, 2) goddamn the gifs / screenshots were not exaggerating the vibe of that moment at all shfjhdfkd

don't like the sound of the mind-ripper

KIRK FLYING SQUIRREL ATTACK

okay kirk and kor need to stop looking at each other like that shfshfkf

ngl i was getting some cult vibes about the organians at the start but i feel like whatever's up with them is in fact weirder

oh so they can just. force them to stop fighting. well hey that's a solution

"no one has died here in thousands of years" what

me when spock says "pure energy": omg he said the thing he says in that one song!! ("what's on your mind" by information society)

at the risk of sounding like spock i'm trying to hold back from saying it's fascinating, but i really love the variety in the types of extradimensional beings they've encountered, yknow? like:

every other episode: we're the fuck with you aliens and we're here to fuck with you this episode: we're the stop fucking with each other aliens and we're here to make you stop fucking with each other

anyway interesting ep, however mccoy wasn't in it so was it really worth the journey i had to embark on to watch it? 🤔

1x27 - the alternative factor

what i know:

nothing! let's go!

thoughts:

ooh pretty galaxy overlay effect

they've totally filmed at this location before lmao

omg look at that cute lil saucer

nice beard, guy

these special effects shfjshfks

bonessss i missed you :')

"i'm a bright young medic with a miraculous touch" hell yeah you are, babygirl ❤️

okay so. is this guy the thing? and he's like. fighting half of himself every time the phenomenon happens??

my brother you did not have to fall off the mountain like that, there had to be other ways of climbing down

bones: "he's not going anywhere, not this time" *bones immediately leaves the room, lazarus immediately gets up to leave* okay good effort team djsjfkshf

ohh it's a parallel universe, i see now. so you're saying we need to kill him

"he must be stopped, destroyed if necessary" ahfjsgkfsh i didn't expect spock to agree with me

bro i don't think handling those high voltage things with a little piece of cloth is gonna protect you. or at least, it shouldn't

OH SHIT JIM GOT ZAPPED TO THE NEGAVERSE

oh okay sending him back was easier than i expected

lmao the way jim fully gets lifted off the ground when he's fighting lazarus. stay back everyone your captain's got it handled

rip to the two lazaruses tho, time to move on and forget all about them

1x28 - the city on the edge of forever

remember:

bones accidentally injects himself with cordrazine, goes a little crazy, beams down to a planet, and throws himself back in time. just a regular tuesday

Edith Keeler Must Die

world's best hug immediately followed by world's most tragic car accident :(

forgot:

these transporter techs gotta stop standing with their backs to the door

lmao spock's offended face at "your science knowledge is obviously primitive"

agdjshfjsj jim trying to lie to the cop

spock you're taking over the whole room with that machine

the thing about this ep is that in my mind it's like "bones episode! :D" but in reality he spends half the time missing in action lol

anyway he's here now and just ripped the hat off that man's head shfkdjdk

oh. that guy just vaporized himself. well that surely won't have any impact on the future

oouugh edith leading bones away right as spock comes in so they don't see each other 😭 (real talk those type of moments agitate me so much in movies, i'm glad they only did it once here)

the ending continues to be sad as fuck. not even a little aftermath scene on the bridge to reflect about it, just "let's get the hell out of here," roll credits :(

man they don't even address like, what to do with the time portal. like you can't just leave it there for any random person to stumble into, but at the same time it's like, would you destroy the only machine of its kind?

well actually considering they did that to landru, i guess the answer is yes lmao, moving on!

1x29 - operation -- annihilate!

what i know:

spock gets blinded by mccoy and his big bright flashlight

but it's cool bc he has a third eyelid just like a kitty cat

do we meet sam kirk in this one? i can't remember if he's actually in the ep or if he just dies offscreen

thoughts:

not me mentally pronouncing "deneva" like "geneva" for the past decade agfjshfjsk

rip icarus

oh my god i've been pronouncing aurelan wrong too. why does this keep happening

aw man rip sam too v_v

goddamn they're dropping like flies in this ep

oh shit we got metroids

"captain, it doesn't even look real!" [shot of slime pancake on the ground] agdjsgfjhs yeah you're not wrong

YOU FOOLS YOU TURNED YOUR BACKS ON IT

they needed like four people to take down spock and they really thought those bed restraints were gonna hold him? lmao

spock is such a funny character, like "oh they're not letting me beam down to the planet, clearly the logical thing to do is knock them out so i can just go"

"what other properties does the sun have?" "it exists physically" so do most things spock that can't be the first and most important thing you have to say about it shfjdjfjfk

mcspirk squished into the doorway moment uwu

say goodbye to your eyeballs, boy

"bones it wasn't your fault" :'(((

AUGH the angst of it all, i'm biting my arm off

and of course when spock gets his sight back he just shrugs the whole thing off like it was no big deal, like sir we all saw how shaken you were, you can't downplay this

"please don't tell spock i said he was the best first officer in the fleet" personally i think all three of you should just admit you love each other and kiss already sgdjshfksmd

SEASON 2 NEXT TIME WAHOO GET READY FOR PON FARR NIGHT FRIDAY

watching tos for the first time since like, roughly 2012/13-ish? i don't remember what year it was, or why i only got thru most of season 1 before stopping

it's been fun to refresh my swiss cheesed memory with this tho so here's a semi-liveblog of the first 10 eps that i watched over the past couple weeks

1x01 - the man trap

things i remembered beforehand:

salt monster

"plum" uwu

that gay little run and crawl jim does when he's taking cover (it fills me with such delight)

things i did not remember:

how many people died, good god man it's only the first episode

1x02 - charlie x

things i remembered:

jim's bright red exercise pants

that stupid fucking face charlie makes when he uses his powers

not liking this ep at all when i first watched it, possibly due to me being around the same age as charlie at the time

additional thoughts: i enjoyed it more this time and felt more sympathetic for charlie. poor kid needed some parents, and also, like, a hug

1x03 - where no man has gone before

things i remembered:

bones isn't in it :'( (bored) (sad) (missing my bestie)

"James R Kirk"

that post i saw on here recently about how their contacts were made of glass

the only thing i could think about while watching:

their contacts

were made

of GLASS

(yes i understand this was how contacts were made back then. still freaked out by the concept of people putting glass in their eyes on purpose)

1x04 - the naked time

things i remembered:

sweat disease

sulu fencing

oh kathleen

"ONE-MORE-TIME!!"

"love mankind"

spock breakdown (extremely uncomfortable to watch)

bones casually ripping jim's shirt sleeve to jab him in the arm (extremely hilarious every time i think about it)

did not remember:

anything about them almost crashing into a planet lol

jim's little monologue when he gets infected (lmao)

time warp???

additional thoughts: hey remember when they reused this plot in tng and tasha and data fucked (<- literally the only thing i can remember about it) ((edit from future fex: i rewatched that ep. it was wild. tos did it better tho))

1x05 - the enemy within

things i remembered:

unicorn dog :)

evil kirk and poor little meow meow kirk

"I'M CAPTAIN KIRK!!!"

things not remembered:

dog dies :(

evil kirk's killer eyeliner

additional thoughts: say what you will about shatner / his acting but this ep is Peak shatner performance and a lot of fun to watch. he put his whole pussy into it, as the kids say these days

1x06 - mudd's women

things remembered:

could not forget harry mudd if i tried

the women are color coded like the powerpuff girls lol

they're also like, on some kind of drug that keeps them looking young or something

cool costumes tho

i don't have much to say about this one lol, harry's a fun character but the rest of the ep wasn't super interesting to me. did finally learn how to pronounce "ophiuchus" tho so i'll thank it for that

1x07 - what are little girls made of

things remembered:

is this the penis rock episode (it is)

uhhh i think kirk gets put into some kind of spinny machine that makes androids (he does)

more cool costumes (debatable)

things i find funny:

the number of planets we've encountered so far that are populated by like. 2-4 people

the way ruk (the big guy) just picks up and throws kirk like he weighs nothing

so much buildup with kirk and the penis rock and he doesn't even get to hit ruk over the head with it smh

also not a funny moment but i liked the way kirk was able to get a message to spock thru the android kirk, v clever

wait i just realized bones wasn't in this ep either. deducting 1/4 of a star from my mental rating bc i missed him (but apparently not that much)

1x08 - miri

remembered:

planet of children (bc everyone else died of terminal puberty)

"no blah blah blah!"

bones tests his newly discovered, untested cure on himself, in true mad scientist fashion (also spones moment <3)

saw this ep on a "what's your fave 'bad' episode" poll here recently and i can't remember if i thought it was good or bad when i first watched it lol

forgot:

another earth?? there's just a second, identical earth floating around out there?? and (of course) they don't mention it at all for the rest of the episode

300 year old children

oh these kids are so much more annoying than i remembered, however i may just be biased bc i don't like kids shfkshfk

1x09 - dagger of the mind

remember:

absolutely nothing! oh boy!

thoughts:

wow this ep is fucked up!

okay actually i don't think i've seen this one at all before?

usually there'll be moments that jog my memory but the only thing even slightly familiar to me was kirk going "helen don't go!" while in the neutralizer chair, but i could've just seen a clip/gif of it before

i remember skipping episodes in season 1 (i was impatient and wanted to get to city on the edge of forever) but i thought i'd at least made it to halfway thru the season before skipping any

anyway did i mention this ep is fucked up? (star trek really does love to drop an absolutely haunting 50 minutes of television on you and then never address it again, i understand this now. roll credits!)

1x10 - the corbomite maneuver

remember:

uhh

there's a thing out there

it's in the way

preventing them from boldly going, even

looks like an old windows screensaver

i might've skipped this ep too now that i think about it

thoughts:

cute mckirk moment in sickbay :3

i love that this cube has its own theme music whenever its on screen

oh shit it's the sequel to cube: orb

jesus christ that's a big orb

man they really said "okay we've got 3 music tracks and we're gonna get our money's worth out of them"

i gotta say this ep slaps tbh—WAIT HE'S A BABY???

LITTLE BABY MAN

LMAOOOOO

honestly great episode tho i'll stand by that

[theshandora]

EVERYTHING THAT'S WRONG WITH TOKYO GHOUL

Welcome to my series

EVERYTHING THAT'S WRONG WITH TOKYO GHOUL

where I just bitch about Ishida's choices and decisions.

First things first: to me manga kinda went shit after Arima's death. Like I honestly thought the whole One-eyed King thing could be played off nicely and that Eto and Arima will give Kaneki something to work with. But yeah... nevermind, he had to handle everything himself.

Now let's review some of the problematic points in the story:

- The whole island 'extermination of Aogiri Tree' operation. It honestly seemed like the Aogiri Tree which was feared by the CCG for the rest of the manga just fell apart like a house of cards. Why did Tsukiyama and other 20th ward ghouls appeared there to help them in the first place? Like, that turn of events was never clarified. 

- Touka's character in :re. Fuck you, Ishida. She wasn't my favorite in the first book, but I acknowledged her strength, her violent tendencies due to her childhood trauma and her desire to do better. And in :re all of a sudden she becomes this soft girl with a beautiful smile which does not appear in most of it and only enters again when Ishida decides that he has to force some romantic line for the main character. There is zero chemistry between Kaneki and Touka throughout the entire manga. It is pretty obvious from the start that Ishida wanted them to have some kind of romance, but he never followed through. Like, they don't see each other after Owl Eradication Op and then within a couple of chapters in :re they go from renewed friends to lovers to having a child and getting married? Nobody can convince that this is any kind of slowburn. That's a forced lazy arc. Besides... A CHILD???? "Fucckkking kidding". You are in the middle of the biggest crisis that ghoul society has ever faced. The ghouls rescued by the Goat are starving, Tokyo is filled with Furuta's Oggai army. Kaneki is traumatized (as always), overwhelmed with responsibility and trying his best to be the man that Arima believed him to be. SO YEAH, A PERFECT TIMING TO HAVE A CHILD. And there is not one panel where Kaneki questions if it is worth to bring a new life to this fucked up world. Yeah, Ishida, fuck you.  

Okay, now I know some of you will think that I just don't like a straight ship. So let's get it out of the way straight away:

- Kaneki didn't need a romantic line. At least it should have never gotten to the point of marriage and kids. It should have been a romantic interest at most. I hate the ending of the Hunger Games for the same reason. Katniss Everdeen having a bunch of kids and being a happy mom? Yeah, fuck that. - The only valid romantic line in this manga is Amon/Akira. They must be protected at all cost. And of course Ishida does not even bother to show them in the last chapter, lol. - I don't ship Kaneki with Hide. Their friendship is precious, and it makes me sad that people can't be friends without being romantisized (Johnlock stans, I am talking to you). - Shuneki. That's a tough one because I believe that Tsukiyama at some point did develop feelings towards Kaneki, but let's be honest it's not mutual.

Which brings me to the next point:

- TSUKIYAMA WAS DONE DIRTY. He deserved THE WORLD. I can't even find words to describe how unfair his character was treated. In the first book when he is first introduced his character is pretty flat. Yeah, he has charm, he's problematic and obsessive, and randomly inserts French words into the conversation. I know many people liked him even at that point, but let's face it: his character gains his true depth and meaning in :re. After everything we learn about his family and his relationship with Karren, Chie and the servants I don't know how can anyone not love him. The influence Kaneki's death has on his character development is enormous. First of all, it was such a strong moment when he decides that it is not his place to bring Kaneki's memory back? You can see how much struggle was there in his head. He recognized that he could have been wrong in the past, that Haise might be happier than Kaneki, and also he puts his family above his desires. Imagine: we went from Shu trying to have Kaneki to himself no matter the cost to Shu thinking that Kaneki is better off being Haise so that he doesn't learn about all the suffering and loss he went through. THIS WAS SO GOOD.

Now, the fact that even after regaining his memory Kaneki throws him off the roof is a bit controversial but understandable. After all, they weren't on the best terms, Ken didn't completely trust him in the past. Moreover, he never got to learn how much Shu suffered and how much he grew emotionally. And last but not least, I like to believe that he really hoped that Shu will survive the fall. I still see this part as a bit problematic because Kaneki would literally die for any member of the squad before, but at the same time I just feel sorry that he got himself in this situation in the first place. Being confused, not having his memories, wondering whether he should hold on to being an investigator - that was too much.

Okay, I got a little carried away. This is all great, but my point in this was how Tsukiyama was treated later when he was part of the Goat. Like the man literally forgave you, never doubted you once, did everything you expected of him and more and Kaneki never thanked him once. NOT ONCE. They never even had a conversation which concerned anything outside their goal. It honestly looked like Kaneki finally realized he can trust Shu with his life, so he just used him. This was so painful to watch. Ken literally never recognized how big of a part Tsukiyama played in him being the One-eyed King. This just makes me angry. And also Shu's non-existent reaction to Kaneki being married to Touka????

I don't even know what to say about Ishida creating that panel with Tsukiyama saying he just wishes to see Ken happy JUST TO END IT WITH A SICK COMMENT ABOUT TASTING THEIR CHILD???!??!?!? Ishida, why?

To summarize: Tsukiyama is a beautiful precious flower who did not deserve to be Kaneki's unappreciated errand boy. My soul was aching everytime he adressed him as "My King".

That's all I have to say in this post. This fandom is probably dead anyways, but I felt like screaming into the void.

[katsukidynam1ght]

KATS RANT TIME PART 2

forgive my formatting i have no memory of how i did part one and it is too late for me to care at all

big trigger warning on discussion of abuse and violence for this one! read at your own risk. this has a lot of potential to be upsetting especially because it’s late and i’m struggling to express things as neatly as i usually try to.

today’s topic: some of you are way too sensitive when it comes to physical violence

“kats this is a touchy topic. abuse isn’t okay ever” you are absolutely correct! abuse in any form is never okay and i do not condone it. do not hurt other people. just don’t.

but not everything is abuse.

try to understand what i’m saying here because it’s late and i’m tired but this is important stuff.

society is conditioning everyone to believe that any kind of physical act is abuse and honestly? no the fuck it isn’t. prolonged violence would be, yes. extreme violence would be, yes. if it is done to be abusive and cause harm, if it is done intentionally with that in mind, yes. if it is repetitive and unrepentant, yes!

(i am not saying violence as a whole is okay either do not take that away from this. violence is not okay but sometimes people are impulsive or haven’t been taught. that doesn’t make it okay, but it makes them human. you gotta cut people slack when it counts. that said: do not let yourself or the people you love be mistreated and if you recognize a situation then do what you can to remedy it.)

but look. (and oh, kats, baby, they’re gonna hate you for this one—) i got spankings growing up. yeah yeah, “you didn’t turn out fine kats look at you” but that wasn’t the spankings, i promise. my mom or dad swatting me on the ass two or three times did not give me Psychological Damage.

(granted: i have good parents who love me a great deal and take care of my needs. their discipline was not excessive and only enacted when necessary, and this is the kind of physical behavior i am referring to — i am not talking about parents who use discipline as an excuse to abuse their children. i am not saying spankings will never damage a kid’s brain. everyone’s different. my point is merely that something like what my parents did to discipline me does not qualify as abusive treatment.)

or how’s this — my brother and i have beat up on each other a bit throughout the years. once when we were preteens i pinned him down and smacked him with a pair of dirty socks that he threw at me. once when we were teenagers i stuck my tongue out at him and he smacked me hard enough my ear rang. once when we were itty bitty kids we got in a fight and he bit my shoulder so hard it bruised.

(and one time he accidentally cut the inside of my lip with a wooden stake. i still find this too impressive to be upset about tbh)

kids beat on each other. they do that. so long as you teach them “hey, that’s not okay, don’t do that” it’s cool! sometimes it’s roughhousing-turned-violent and sometimes you just gotta get the anger out somehow and it’s better to direct it at someone who’s stuck to you by blood as opposed to literally anyone else.

and that’s not abuse. (again, yeah, i got it. it absolutely can be. i’m not talking about when it is. please understand that and cut me some slack.)

so often in so many different fandoms, people get really hung up on the way characters interact with each other, and they get Really Hung Up on the violence. and i get it! violence isn’t okay and really people need to cope better.

but you have Got to put the characters in the context of their story.

we’re talking about teenagers — hormonal pubescent teenagers who are still learning to get a fucking grip and going through intensely traumatic experiences on a regular basis! they’re also training to be heroes, which, yeah, is a pretty violent field! there are going to be times where they will want to hit or kick or spit or scratch and It Is What It Is. they get disciplined when they go too far and they control themselves pretty much all the time. (and no i am not saying violence is ever excusable. if that’s your takeaway from this you’re wrong and i will probably block you out of annoyance. violence is not excusable, but it isn’t inherently worthy of the fandom’s wrath.)

so you have to think about it within the context. you can’t apply real-world standards of “acceptable” violence. (oh dear me that is barely coherent. forgive pls)

some things are very obviously abusive and not okay: take kotaro shimura’s treatment of tenko, or endeavor’s treatment of rei and shouto. those are not okay. those are abusive.

(this is absolutely not the time to say this because i’m sure plenty of people are annoyed already But! ayo i am Here for endeavor redemption. psa that you don’t have to let your abusers back into your life but it is okay and healthy for you to forgive them and let them become better people without you! abusers are in fact allowed to make progress. and that’s a good thing because we don’t want them hurting anyone else isn’t that right <3 i will not let those people back in my life but i hope they are able to become the people i wish they were when i knew them.)

but okay back to the teenager thing. like this — i don’t like monoma. he annoys the shit out of me and i really just want to punch him sometimes. but kendo smacks his head a lot to knock him down and shut him up.

and y’know what? i don’t see any fucking person claiming that’s abuse.

now — that’s either because they recognize “well, that’s not abusive. it might be a little mean, but that doesn’t constitute abuse” or because she’s a girl, and i hope it’s the former and not the latter. that’d be even more obnoxious.

so if you can do it in those circumstances, why’s it hard to do in other areas? why’s it so hard to look at a character and go “man, that’s shitty behavior, but it’s not really abuse and it doesn’t make them a bad person”? because it doesn’t feel that hard to me, but hey! i’m just kats and what do i know.

(now again: small physical acts can escalate into bigger violent and abusive behaviors. mind your red flags and don’t let anyone treat you badly.)

i’m not saying this from a standpoint of “oh kats but the only people who have ever been physical with you are people you love” not true! i am saying this from a standpoint of “i have experienced things that are physical abuse and also things that are not physical abuse”! so i do have at least a little understanding of what i am talking about.

“kats your objective contextual view of this subject is really annoying” thank you babydoll i understand viewing things inside of their context frustrates the real world application but at the end of the day it is a work of fiction and you cannot expect me to use real world standards on fictional world violence. blowing you a kiss for your troubles <3

gist is: not every small act of violence is abuse and holy hell some people really need to get a grip on what qualifies as abuse.

(babydoll i can even argue that my favs choking each other out doesn’t count as abuse given the circumstances. all about character pov and perception and as a writer those are skills i am required to have.)

anyways. you can’t be a “violence isn’t the answer. it’s the question and the answer is yes” person while still claiming every act of violence is abuse. or whatever. it’s late as fuck i want to sleep

rant over don’t hurt people even if it’s not abuse it’s not okay thanks goodnight

[justanobsessedfangirl]

The Sound of Silence - The Maze Runner Newt Imagine

Request from @ausblack: was wondering if you could write a newt x reader where she’s like the new greenie and the only girl. Everyone think she’s mute because she never talked and Newt decides to take care of her since he’s the only one she seems comfortable with. One day another glader attacks her making her scream and for some reason Newt recognizes that it’s her, he gets protective and helps her out. Eventually she speaks her first words to him and they both get together in the end 

Masterlist

Warning: Some mature language

Author’s Note: Sorry I haven’t posted in...a while. If it helps, you can think of me as a turtle. I’m damn slow and it’s pretty frustrating to wait but I’ll get there in the end! I hope I did this idea some justice because I thought it was pretty cool. Thank you for the request, I’m always open! (just remember the turtle analogy.) 

:)

Word Count: 3.6k

You stood in darkness. There was nothing in the darkness except for a quiet hum that rumbled the floor and the walls and the ceiling. It was power, some type of power that was running through this room and making it rise.

You stood in darkness. And you waited.

You weren’t alone, because your fear was so strong it had formed an icy hand, which wrapped around your throat, so tight it was hard to breathe. It took every ounce of your concentration to inhale, and exhale, and inhale again, and all the while the box hummed and rose, and you stood in darkness.

The hum cut off abruptly, the room halting with it. You strained your ears, and, through the loud beating of your heart, you could hear voices. Four heartbeats passed before the roof opened and the room was flooded with light.

You cringed away, raising a hand to block the brightness. Through squinted eyes, you saw boys encircling the room, level with where the roof would have been. Their voices floated down, gasps and shouts of “It’s a girl!”, and the sounds of shoving, bodies against bodies.

You took a step back, but there were boys above you there too. They were everywhere. One jumped down, making the whole box shake, and then you were turning around and around, looking for a break in the boys, a spot you could run through, someone to help, anything, anything, anything--

“It’s alright, love. We’re not going to hurt you.”

You whipped around to face the boy. He had his hands raised, and his eyebrows were knit together in sympathy. He had a kind face, with soft brown eyes.

Even so, any words you had were caught in your throat, caught by fear’s hand, trapped. Trapped, just like you. Your breaths came faster, your heartbeat quicker. Your hands trembled.

Across from you, the boy took a step back and looked up at the others. “Right, all you bloody slintheads need to back up!” He looked at one of the boys closest to the box. “Alby?”

The boy, Alby, nodded, then shouted, “Everyone, back to work!”

The crowd didn’t move. Your heart stopped. Your blood went cold.

Then, with a chorus of grumblings, the mob slowly dispersed. Boys peeled off this way and that, revealing grassy fields and large mountains in the distance. You peered closer. No, not mountains. 

Walls.

“It’s a strange story, love, but we’ll tell you all of it,” the first boy said. 

You couldn’t take your eyes off of the walls.

“I’m Newt. D’you remember your name?”

No. You’d realized in the darkness that you couldn’t remember anything. You felt strangely detached, like you were watching some other girl with no memories who was abducted and brought to a strange place. You felt pity for her. You felt sad for her. And you kept drifting along, only half-listening to the boy next to her, the one who said his name was Newt.

Newt stepped closer. You watched the girl watch him, watched his mouth move, watched the girl take light, careful steps to the edge of the box and climb out. You watched her stumble.

It was the feeling of Newt’s hand on your back, steadying you, that brought you back to reality.

“I’ll take you on the tour, love,” he said to you, pulling his hand back. In a soft voice, he added, “Don’t worry. You’re safe here.”

Your lips parted. Words sat on the tip of your tongue. Are you sure and How do you know and Please be right. And, also, lingering in the back, Thank you.

You swallowed and looked away from Newt.

He started walking. He kept a slow pace, both because of his limp and so he could intermittently point out buildings and people. “That’s Frypan, he’s the cook, and there’s the kitchen. Next to that’s the Homestead. You’ll be sleeping there.”

He spoke with such authority that you wanted to ask what his role in this little society was. If there was a cook, there must be a leader, and you hadn’t seen any adults around. But your tongue wouldn’t move, so all you could do was tilt your head to the side and look at Newt.

He scanned your face, then nodded. “I’m Second-in-Command. Alby’s in charge, but he won’t raise a fuss about you sleeping in the Homestead. We…” Newt ran a hand through his dirty blond hair before making eye contact again. “We haven’t…” He sighed. “You’re the only girl here. We don’t really know how the rest of those shanks will react.” Noticing your instinctive recoil, Newt hastened to say, “But you’ll be okay. Most of these lot are good guys. And the ones that aren’t...Well, they know the consequences. We won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

There was that fear again, running its hands along your arms, past your shoulders, to your neck. It squeezed painfully around your throat, so painfully that tears threatened to spring up in your eyes. You gave Newt a quick nod and looked away, into the fields he was leading you toward.

He read you like a book and quickly switched topics. “These are the Gardens. When I don’t have other duties, I like to come out here. It’s good work, but it’s also just a good place to be. It’s peaceful.” 

A short, round boy darted out of a row of tomato plants, cackling madly. Lumbering behind him was a tall boy with a shock of curly blond hair, who shouted, “Come back here, Chuck!” The younger boy, Chuck, gave no indication that he’d heard. He disappeared back into the plants, with the tall boy following him.

Newt sighed. “It’s mostly bloody peaceful,” he grumbled.

The smallest of smiles twitched your lips up. You forced them back down, reminding yourself that you were scared, that you couldn’t trust anyone here, and that the way Newt grinned down at you did not make you feel safe.

“We’ll have you start working here tomorrow, all right, love?” Newt asked.

You chewed on your lip, staring over the plants. Your eyes landed on the tomatoes, right where the boisterous duo had gone through. Flutters of anxiety filled your stomach.

“I’ll be with you. There won’t be anything to worry about.”

You raised an eyebrow.

“Besides waking up with no memory, that is,” Newt added.

Your lips betrayed you again. Newt grinned, and the butterflies that had been flying inside your chest slowly started to settle down.

Newt led you through the rest of the Glade. You saw the Deadheads and the Blood House, learned about the various jobs and Keepers, and, through it all, you didn’t say a single word. Newt never pushed you. Instead, he watched for facial expressions. He responded to any tap on the arm or flick of your chin. He lingered in the comfortable silences.

As you sat in your room in the Homestead that night, knowing that Newt was asleep in the next room over, you felt your shoulders loosen, just a little. The fear was still there. It still held your throat tightly in its grasp. But you felt a trickle of hope springing in the cracks.

You woke the next morning to a knock on your door. Opening it, you saw Newt.

“Ready to get to work, love?”

You nodded. The smile you gave him was uneasy and weak, nervous and gone in a flash, but it made Newt’s eyes shine with happiness. He smiled the whole way to the Gardens. Under the shining sun, you weeded plants, hoed new rows, and picked vegetables.

Newt stuck by your side. He explained more about the Glade; all you had to do was point to a person or a place and he’d run through it, even if he’d already explained the other day. A few times, you found yourself picking out things you already knew, just so you could keep hearing his voice.

“And then Chuck convinced Minho and Thomas,” Newt said between laughs. Behind him, the sun sat heavy on the horizon, haloing him in gold. “He convinced Minho and Thomas to take the rest of Gally’s clothes and--” Newt broke off, devolving into laughter.

You hadn’t met Minho and Thomas yet -- they’d been busy in the Maze all day yesterday and in the Runner’s Hut all last night -- but you’d heard a lot about them from Newt by now. You’d also heard about “Captain” Gally, and you figured he probably deserved whatever ended up happening to his clothes.

Beneath the cover of Newt’s voice, you felt comfortable letting out a small laugh. It was the first noise you’d made in the Glade.

Slowly, Newt’s laughter stopped. He stared at you, eyes soft, his lips pulled up in a small, pleased smile. He didn’t say anything.

You looked down at the basket in your hands, trying to stop yourself from blushing.

After a second, Newt said, “Before we go to dinner, there’s one last place I want to show you.” He took the basket from you and handed it off to Zart, the Keeper of the Gardens.

The pair of you headed off towards the far wall, away from the buggy Gardens, the dark woods, and the noisy kitchen, where a hungry horde of Gladers clamored to get their dinner.

“It’s not one of the really important places,” Newt said as you walked, “so I didn’t show it to you yesterday.” His hands swung awkwardly at his sides, as though he wanted to reach one out, maybe to guide you, maybe to hold you, but couldn’t decide whether he should or not. You couldn’t decide whether you wanted him to or not.

All you did was nod.

Newt continued, “But I think, maybe, it could be good.”

As you neared the wall, you felt your stomach drop at the sheer size. You craned your head back and back and back, trying to see the top, trying to see if any ivy led all the way up. How could there ever be a way out of those walls?

A warm hand touched your arm.

Your head shot back down, eyes landing on Newt’s. The faintest pink burned on his cheeks, a glow from the sunset, maybe, or... You shook the thought out of your mind as he pointed to the wall.

Carved into the wall in front of you were names. Immediately, your gaze landed on Newt’s. Next to his, Alby’s name was done in blocky letters. Thomas and Minho had made their marks. Chuck’s name was squeezed between the two, as he often was in real life, when he’d inject himself into their days. You recognized enough names to figure out that every Glader had been here once and had left a permanent memento of themselves. Some of those mementos, like the ones with a single sharp line running through them, had already outlasted their creators.

“I thought, I don’t know...I thought maybe seeing other names would help you remember yours.” Newt rubbed the back of his neck, looking down at the ground. 

Your heart felt warm in your chest. Yearning took over. You reached a hand out, tracing the closest names, looping through the letters, dotting the i’s, crossing the t’s. You wanted to remember.

Please remember. Remember for Newt. Remember for me.

You pulled your hand away and pointed to Newt’s side, where his knife was strapped. He unsheathed it out without a moment’s hesitation. When he handed it to you, his fingers brushed over yours and you could swear your heart stopped. You had to fight to keep your composure, especially with the feeling of his intense stare as he watched you carve the first letter of your name into the wall.

You felt, rather than saw, Newt step closer to you. Glancing at him out of the corner of your eye, his smile almost took the breath out of you. Your hand stilled as you finished the first letter.

Newt repeated it, sounding almost awed. “Keep going, love.”

Forcing your eyes away from him, you continued carving. Each letter of your name was done with precision, right below Newt’s. It felt fitting to do it there, like he was some guardian angel looking over you, keeping you safe. Being around him made you feel...the English language wasn’t sophisticated enough to describe it. You felt warm. And calm. And the kind of happiness that made your cheeks hurt and your jaw ache, even when you weren’t smiling.

When you finished, Newt said your name, his voice reverent. “Y/N.” He repeated it. He glanced down at you. “Am I saying it right, love?”

He’d gotten closer than you’d thought. His breath nearly hit the tips of your eyelashes. If you moved only a few inches you’d be touching him.

You nodded.

“Can I ask you something?”

You nodded again. He was so close you felt dizzy. You would’ve agreed to just about anything he said at that point.

“Are you able to speak?”

Your nod was more hesitant this time, slowed by dread for his next question.

“Why don’t you?”

You wanted to look away but his eyes had a hypnotic hold on you. You shrugged half-heartedly. How could you explain that every time you tried to speak your throat closed up? That your mouth went dry and you forgot every word you knew? That your heart started beating erratically, and your palms began to sweat, and it felt like walls were closing in, and you felt the fear again?

Newt nodded. He took a step back, the tension in the air dissolving. Jutting his chin at the wall, he said your name again. A smile crept onto his face. It was that soft, sweet smile that had gotten you through your first days in the Glade.

It got you through the next week, too. A week spent trying other jobs, where your lack of communication proved rage-inducing for a certain captain and ultimately landed you back in the Gardens.

It was rare that Newt wasn’t by your side. Today, though, he and Alby were caught up in meetings with the other Keepers, trying to figure out how to discipline a Glader who’d been making inappropriate comments and trying to instigate fights.

Newt had told you the basics the other day. You hadn’t wanted him to go into detail. He’d seen that on your face and quickly switched to telling you about the first crops they’d tried to plant, which had been such a disaster that the Creators sent up multiple books on farming the next month. The conversation was much lighter from then on.

Being with Newt was so easy. Most of the others pushed you too hard to talk, which only made your throat dry up and your tongue feel like lead. You wanted to talk with them, sometimes, but...you couldn’t get the words out. You couldn’t think of them when it came time to speak. You had a mental block, barricades set up to keep you from feeling too comfortable here. Part of you needed to feel the fear that came with trying to speak. If you stopped being afraid, you’d start getting complacent.

The sound of the Walls grating to a close struck the same feeling in you, even though you were safe in the Gardens, well away from the terrors of the Maze.

“Y/N.” Zart’s voice broke you out of your thoughts. “Good job today. Some of the other shanks left a bunch of tools out, could you bring them to the shed? I have to track down Chuck.” His normally placid expression morphed into a scowl as he shook his head, his blond mop of hair flopping over his forehead.

You nodded. The two of you split off among the rows, Zart’s cursing fading as you approached a scattering of trowels and rakes.

You pursed your lips in disappointment before stooping down and trying to gather everything. You ended up with two rakes and a hoe tucked under your right arm, a few trowels held close to your chest, and a sharp hand pruner held carefully in your left hand.

Boys.

You huffed as you headed for the shed. It was a crudely constructed building that was made in the first few weeks of the Glade’s existence. You’d heard some other boys say that the first Gladers originally slept here, but Newt hadn’t mentioned it so you weren’t sure how true that was. If they had slept there, you didn’t envy them. It was smaller than your room in the Homestead, which was a far cry from large. You supposed it was in a nice enough location, though; it stood on the edge of the Gardens, close enough to the woods to catch some shade, but not so deep that you were alone.

As you neared the shed, you saw that you actually weren’t alone. A figure paced next to it, head bent low, features hard to make out.

You purposely tried to walk louder as you came closer, hoping you wouldn’t scare him. At the sound of a twig crunching under your foot, his head shot up.

You’d definitely seen him before; he had thick, dark eyebrows and a strong jaw. The bruise forming under one of his eyes was new, as was his now crooked nose. You were pretty sure his name was Connor.

“Y/N,” he said, stilling in his tracks. He made no move to help you carry the tools.

You nodded, gave him a tight smile, and headed for the door. One of the rakes almost slipped from under your arm, but you squeezed it tightly and took a few hurried steps.

Connor crossed in front of you. You veered to the side. His arm shot out and grabbed your shoulder, hard enough to jostle it and send the rakes and hoe tumbling to the ground.

“You think you’re better than me or something?” He was speaking quickly, too quickly, you didn’t have a chance to respond or adjust the trowels that were slipping through your grasp or push him away. In one quick movement, he turned and slammed you into the shed wall. Two trowels dropped. You clutched the rest closer, your breaths turning into nervous pants.

“Is that why you don’t talk? You think you’re better than me? Than us?” Conor loomed over you. He glowered at you, his eyes afire with rage. “Answer me.” He slammed you back again. Your head cracked into the wall and you let out a soft whimper.

“So you can talk.” His grip was vice-like on your shoulders. His nails dug into your flesh like he wanted to tear you apart. “So why don’t you talk? Why don’t you fucking talk?” Again, he slammed you into the wall.

Were you crying? Were you talking? Were you making any noise at all?

Were you even breathing?

“You make this place even harder to be in. We don’t need some fucking mysterious mute bitch when we have to solve the Maze. Don’t you get it? You’re a distraction!” Every few words were punctuated with a slam. The air whooshed out of your lungs in a pathetic cry for help.

You’d never tried harder to talk.

But now there was so much fear in you. Not existential fear -- real, in-your-face danger.

One of Connor’s hands released your shoulder. It ached in relief until his fingers wrapped around your throat and he leaned in close to say, “Fine. Don’t talk.” And he squeezed.

Each second was an eon. Your lungs screamed for air. Blackness lingered on the edges of your vision, closing in, closing in, closing in, leaving only a pinprick of light. Your legs went numb, as if they’d just fallen asleep, and the feeling worked its way up your body, down your arms, to your hands, where the last trowel and the hand pruner were about to fall.

Hand pruner.

You had no more air, you had no more energy, and yet your body was moving and you were thrusting the sharp end of the hand pruner into Connor’s gut.

He let you go with a cry, curling over and holding his stomach. Air rushed into your lungs, only to leave a second later as you screamed, “Help!”

Connor groaned and straightened up enough to launch a clumsy fist at you. You twisted to the side. Your foot caught on a gardening tool, sending you sprawling to the ground, clambering away on hands and knees, still gasping for air.

A wet hand grabbed your ankle. You kicked, connecting with something solid, and yelled out, “Someone help!” The hand left your ankle for a second, then you heard something heavy moving in the grass, and the hand clamped down on your calf.

You tried to wriggle away. People were coming from the Gardens, you could see their black silhouettes as the sun set behind them. You heard your name, shouted by your rescuers and growled by Connor. You kicked at him again. His other hand caught your foot, using you to pull his body further onto your legs.

He was heavy. He slammed a fist into your back, knocking you flat.

“Get off of her!” Your rescuers closed in. They wrenched Connor off and surrounded him. Warm hands, soft hands, gentle hands, helped you stand. Connor’s blood rolled down the backs of your legs.

“Are you okay?” Newt asked, his voice frantic. He held you, his touch like feathers on your arms, as he scanned your body up and down, looking for any injuries. “Is that--” he started to ask, staring at your legs. Mid-sentence, Newt turned away, calling for a Med-jack.

“It’s not mine,” you interrupted him. The words were hoarse and quiet but audible, and Newt whipped back around to face you, eyebrows raised in surprise.

His touch slid down your arms, his hands enveloping your own. “I knew that was you yelling,” he said. His eyebrows lowered and his face grew serious. “I knew it was your voice. I knew it was you, love.”

Words hung on the tip of your tongue. Words you’d meant to say your first day in the Glade. Words you’d wanted to say every day since. Words that you could never get out. “Thank you,” you finally said.

Newt smiled, so wide and so bright that your heart started beating like you were sprinting. “I’ll always be here for you, love.”

The distance between the two of you was quickly fading. “I know you will,” you said, and then, again, “Thank you.” A second later, your lips met. And you felt like thanking him all over again.

[nineteensixtieschikadee]

Arya Stark & Femininity

This might turn into a mini rant, so bear with me here. A lot of times whenever I watch old GOT clips, (bc I hate myself) and read stuff about Arya on fansites, I realize that there’s been a lot of misconception about her and her character. Particularly about her being a woman. And a lot of times i see this sort of “justification” from her fans that the reason why she’s such a fan-favorite character in the show (and to some extent, the books?) is because Arya is esentially this “bad-ass ninja asassin tomboy who’s out for revenge against those who’ve killed her family.” And some of her fans and especially her anti’s will call her out expressing that “Arya’s only a child who doesn’t like girly things like dresses and boys and doing her hair. She “identifies” herself as a tomboy because she likes “boyish things” like sword play, and playing in the mud, and gore, wrestling, etc. I was scrolling through the Jonrya tag here on Tumblr, this is a comment I found regarding Arya:

The moment I read that I straight up just wanted to rant! Lol! Also, I’m sorry for the formatting, I’m writing this on mobile. :( Anyways, these people who make those claims about Arya, esentially only see her as this small girl who likes fighting and getting dirty. They completely disregard everything else that makes Arya, Arya. Pretty much just limiting her to her sex, understanding that because Arya likes boyish things, she’s NOT ALLOWED to inherit things, like the North, fall in love and get married, have a high position in the hierarchy and in politics. It’s because that these people see her as someone who hates needlework or everything that isn’t Sansa, everyone believes that she hates everything that makes her FEMALE. Everybody here knows that Arya’s my favorite female character in the books, so I just wanna talk about how the general public views her, and how their views tend to go against Arya’s entire character.

People have this view that she is the “exact opposite” of Sansa. And while that’s true in terms of their different characteristics, it doesn’t mean that Arya is against everything that makes Sansa, feminine. Now lemme elaborate here. Sansa is everything that represents “femininity.” Especially in terms of the inspired time period that ASOIAF takes place in. She’s very girly & lady-like, is mannerful, “soft-spoken.” She daydreams about boys and being a princess. She’s graceful and elegant. She knows her place in terms of society, and as a woman. AND YEAH, Arya is the exact opposite of that. Yes, she has this boyish nature. She’s wild and free spirited. Loud also adventerous. But that’s the thing: Arya has a lot of femininity in her. It’s just not the femininity that we’re used to. What society percieves as “normally feminine.”

Arya is not Sansa. And it’s because she doesn’t act like a “lady” that the audience sees her as this girl who “doesn’t want” or most importantly, should not want/get the same treatment as the typical noblewoman in Westeros should recieve. This idea was engraved into people’s heads because of the show, and that’s how we’re supposed to see her. As this cold hearted ninja assasin warrior who happens to be a girl, but doesn’t act like a typical girl. The audience pretty much places her in the “I’m not like other girls” trope. Which is honestly, so wrong to me. Because yeah okay, Arya isn’t like the typical lady. But god, she is far deeper than that, and is a much more complex character.

Here’s the thing, Arya does not reject being a female, and most importantly, she does not reject the typical ideals of what makes a lady feminine. Of course not. In fact, she actively encourages that women be included in all things, especially in things only made for men. She believes that women should not be held back or ignored because of their sex and femininity.

“The Lannister’s are proud,” Jon observed. “You’d think the royal sigil would be sufficient, but no. He makes his mother’s House equal in honor to the king’s.”

“The woman is important too!” Arya protested.

This excerpt is from Arya’s very first chapter in AGOT. It is also my favorite Jonrya moment, lol. And asides from the scene foreshadowing potential plot points for not only Jon & Arya, the scene introduces to us and examines Arya’s perception of society and more specifically, the women in society. In this scene Arya joins Jon in observing Prince Joffrey, talking about the Lannister/Baratheon coat of arms. Jon makes a point that while the Baratheon sigil should be enough to prove that Joffrey is of royalty, the Lannisters (Cersei) are a proud house, married into the royal family. So therefore Joffrey is of house Baratheon AND Lannister. That is why the Lannister sigil stands besides the Baratheons. Because they, specifically Cersei, should be seen as equal to the king.

And while Jon makes this seem like it’s wrong or not needed, Arya disagrees with him. She tells him that the women should not be forgotten, as they should be seen as equal to the men. That the women are just as important as the men, and that it would be of good conduct to not forget that. And with that being said, she never acknowledges that Joffrey’s mother is too lady-like or too feminine to be seen as an equal to the king. Nope. Although she does question later as to why if women cannot fight, why should they have a coat of arms. Though that is hardly the point of her argument.

Another point that makes people believe that Arya is not feminine or does not support femininity, is when she flat out says to Ned that she hates the idea of being a lady.

“Your mother and I have charged her with the impossible task of making you a lady.”

“I don’t want to be a lady,” Arya flared.

Alot of people misinterpret this as Arya not wanting to be a noblewoman, because she only likes to play with swords, and get dirty. Because acting like a lady is stupid and not her. This is simply not true. Arya has no problem with women, or being a lady. She is a lady. A highborn one. What she does have a problem with is that being a lady often means being trapped in the conformities of what society percieves to be the acceptable standard for women in this time period.

All of the acceptable standards is what Sansa is. And she is not like Sansa. She does not believe herself to be a lady like her sister or her mother. When she first reveals her true identity to Gendry in ACOK, he immediately apologizes to her for his behavior and calls her m’lady. :3 Arya unfortunately sees this as a form of mockery and an attack because while Gendry acknowledges that she is a lady, Arya doesn’t act like a typical lady or even look like one. That insecurity of not being a lady like her mother and sister makes her believe that Gendry is using her sex against her. Like a form of irony. But I mean, we all know that’s far from the truth, lol!

And Jon recognizes this too! It’s the reason why they are so close and tightly knit together. Because Jon understands Arya, and sees her insecurity like how she sees his. They are one and the same. Jon sees and understands Arya’s frustrations of sexism viewed in Westeros. He acknowledges that Arya is to become a lady. But he also sees that Arya is not the conventional type of lady wanting to stick to the norms. She is a different type of lady, and to him, that is okay. He may tease her for it once in a while, pointing out all the unfair limitations that women have to go through. But he accepts her for being this unconventional noblewoman, and often encourages her to pursue being different.

“Girls get the arms but not the swords. Bastards get the swords but not the arms. I did not make the rules, little sister.”

Later when Jon and Arya say their goodbyes, Jon gifts Arya with the swords. Needle. This is his way of saying, fuck all them haters, be who you wanna be. Solidifying the idea that he supports her and accepts her for who she is. Kinda like how Tyrion told him to use his identity as armour, Arya should do the same to herself. It’s okay to be different than the rest. Fuck the rules.

It’s not that Arya hates the idea of being a lady. It’s a far cry from that. It’s the sexism that goes along with being the typical lady that infruiates her. Arya loves running around, riding horses, playing with swords, being loud and adventurous. She has a firery temper to her. And just because she likes doing all of that, and is all of that, it doesn’t mean, shouldn’t mean that she isn’t a lady. That she can’t be a lady. All of those things shouldn’t limit her to being viewed as a girl, a highborn lady. She is a woman, and she identifies as one.

“Listen to him, boy.”

“It was the third time he had called her “boy.” “I’m a girl,” Arya objected.

That is why, even though she sees herself as a woman, she often tells herself and other people that she is not a lady. Despite others telling her that she is one. Her insecurity and her frustrations do not allow her to see herself as a lady because she isn’t a “conventional woman.”

But the thing is, even though Arya doesn’t enjoy most of the typical lady-like things, she still has a ton of femininity to her. And people often ignore her more feminine traits in favor of her more “badassery” side, which unfortunately are most often occupied by men. People forget and downright ignore that Arya is really intelligent. She particularly excels in math. It’s one of the few things that she’s better at than Sansa. She loves flowers—like her aunt Lyanna. The very person who she’s said to look and act like the most. And a really important one is that she has motherly instincts. It’s what helps her protect other kids throughout her journey. Her ability to empathize enables her to be more social with outcasts and befriend others without judgement. She is well-mannered and kind to strangers. (An example of this would be when she apologizes to a common woman who lent her a dress to wear, and she accidentally destroys it because she and Gendry were playing by the acorn tree.) She can also cook and clean just like any other woman—or any other person. All of those are feminine traits, and are traits that make her more human. And the show opted to get rid of all that and gave us some cold-hearted, angry, ninja.

The audience perceives that because Arya is this ninja warrior who rejects the common standards of being a lady, it means that she can’t have these other more female traits. Nope. She’s not allowed to have or want more rights and power because that’s not her. She’s a warrior and nothing more. She can’t find love because she has to be this bad-ass independent woman who don’t need no man. That’s not her, that’s her sister. We can’t have Arya be any more female than she already is because she rejects the idea of being female. Leave all that crap to her sister! Sansa’s the princess—and we can’t have Arya being a princess or queen. Arya’s only allowed to carry a sword.

And it’s the audience’s perception of her that goes against everything that Arya is, and everything that she believes in. Because remember, Arya hates the idea that being a lady means being trapped in the societal norms. And it can be said vice versa too. Arya still respects those who want to be more of the conventional type. Arya may not have the more typical feminine traits that make her a lady, but to hell with it! It doesn’t mean that she’s not allowed to have the other things that the more conventional woman would/should have. That goes against all of her views and beliefs. The audience puts Arya at an unfair standard because she doesn’t act like a conventional woman.

It’s the same thing as the audience saying that Jon Snow doesn’t want a title or power, because he’s devoted his life to the Nights Watch and is unselfish. False. Very false. Just like Arya. Arya’s young. She still has time to grow, and no doubt she doesn’t think of all those things now because of other priorities. But she’s slowly getting there. And there is so much foreshadowing of her finding love, becoming a woman gaining power, etc, etc. She’s not there yet, but that’s a part of her growth. Just because she defies the typical female standards, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t want or wont want all those things later.

Like com’on. Everyone knows that Arya is the only legitimate candidate right now to inherit the North. Everyone knows. The Northmen know, the Nights Watch knows, the people in Kings Landing knows. Hell, even the damn wildings know this. And it’s because of this knowledge that formed the majority of the northern plotline in ADWD. People are going to war for her. She is the true key to the North, and that’s why the Boltons lied and said that they have her. It’s why Jon went to war and died for her. I don’t think Arya will truly believe it if/when she finds out that people are fighting for her because she holds the power to the North. Unless Jon’s gonna be the one to tell her himself. The fact that she is being set up to inherit all this power, and yet people deny it and believe that she doesn’t want it because it’s “not her” in regards that she’s not feminine enough, is seriously infuriating.

I mean look at the type of women Arya respects and idolizes. Where do you think she got the name Nymeria from? Nymeria’s name originates from the Princess of Dorne herself, Princess Nymeria of Ny Sar. Princess Nymeria was said be very beautiful, strong-willed, cunning, and full of wisdom. She was a “warrior-queen.” From that alone, her femininity clearly did not matter. She was a woman whose goals were not held back because of her femininity and sex.

Arya does not hate femininity or things that makes women more feminine. She doesn’t truly hate wearing dresses or being a lady. It’s being conformed to the general standards that she hates. It’s her sex being used against her that makes her angry. It’s not being able to be herself that she despises. And thanks to Sansa and her mother’s judgement of her, Arya’s insecurity only heightened. Despite looking exactly like Lyanna, Arya herself believes that she’s not beautiful enough to even be considered a lady. Only Jon and Ned allowed Arya to be Arya. Only they called her beautiful, and only they encouraged her to be who she wanted to be. Arya loves her fellow women. And yeah, she also loves Sansa despite her being such a pain in the ass bitch, lol.

Arya’s character encourages women to just be women. She encourages us the audience to just be ourselves despite all the conformities forced upon us. Her character explores the limitations of sex, gender, and especially the loss of identity. Arya not wanting to be a lady doesn’t actually mean she doesn’t want to be a lady. She doesn’t want to be held back by the standards of being a lady. Her question, her argument is that why should women be limited only to being this or that. Women are far more than meets the typical standard, and if society can’t accept it, then fuck that! Women can be knights and still be a lady. They can be fierce and passionate and emotional and still be a lady. Women can be warriors and still be a lady. Just because there are some women out there who don’t fit the ideal standards of what it means to be lady, it shouldn’t make them feel like less than one.

[blanknamed]

trial and error pt. 3 [senku x reader]

I had a lot of issues writing this chapter for some reason. I think I ran out of creativity for a good few weeks so I kinda struggled trying to keep Senku in character. I really just wanted to get the third chapter out though so I hope you like it!

SHIPPING: SENKU X READER

PREMISE: [Name] had always known Senku was a little bit of an oddball but that’s what made him so interesting to her as children. Now in the Stone World, he’s only even more interesting what with his claims about shooting up to a million years worth of technology back, but some things never change with him; specifically on the concept of love. As a way to get him to think about it as something other than “disgusting feelings” she proposes for him to think of it differently, though it seems to be going in a direction she never expected.

PART ONE - PART TWO - PART THREE

{–*–}

CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS

He was standing near his base by the time [Name] was done. From the looks of it, he had tried to dress up as well, even if it looked like the littlest effort was made. His hair stayed as big as it was, but what seemed to be a makeshift bowtie was settled on his neck (albeit lopsided, but [Name] didn’t really expect much from him in the first place).

“Jeez, who dressed you up, the local village boys?” She asked once she was within hearing range with Senku.

Scowling, Senku only shook his head. Flicking the strip of rag around his neck, he said, "Chrome and the bumbling fools of guards obviously haven't gone on dates before."

"I don't think you have much room to talk. Besides I’m pretty sure that was obvious," [Name] replied humorously, remembering when Ginro couldn't even look her straight in the eye during her and Senku's first few months at the village. "Why would you ask them of all people anyways?"

Senku raised his eyebrow, as if finding the question peculiar. "Who should I have asked?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe the married men in the village?" [Name] suggested, watching as Senku furrowed his brows even more. Giggling, she shoved his shoulder. "So much for being a genius. What, were you so nervous to go on this date with me you forgot something as simple as retrieving data from the most obvious people?"

Senku rolled his eyes. "I'm busy with other things--saving the world from going back another thousand years in society, being one of them.” He reasoned as he turned his head away from her.

[Name] only laughed at him, pushing him to forward so they can start walking towards the woods. “Let’s just get this date other with, shall we? You didn’t forget to plan, I’m presuming?"

“Of course I didn’t. Do you take me for some idiot or something?” Senku asked as he peered at the younger girl, who only gave him a knowing look. Instantly, he shook his head. “No don’t answer that. It was a rhetorical question.”

“Oh, I don’t know…” [Name] trailed off. “Remember when you were so caught up in one of your projects you ended up putting too much laundry detergent in your washing machine?”

That day had been burned into her memory--it had probably been the only time she’d seen Senku visibly panic over something so mundane. They were helplessly watching the washing machine shake violently and become a soapy mess in it’s little area for almost an hour until Byakuya came home to a disgustingly sweet smelling hallway and two elementary school children covered in bubbled up laundry detergent from head to toe. 

“Don’t remind me; I smelled like laundry detergent for two months.” Senku muttered.

“It was funny, though. Definitely took thoughts away from my dad and brother.” [Name] replied happily. She didn’t need to turn her head to see that Senku had immediately spun his head toward her at the mention of her father.

A warm silence followed between them, no doubt Senku was thinking of something to say--should he say something about it? Should he brush it off? Senku had known [Name] enough to know that, while he never took anything like emotions too seriously, she wasn’t exactly emotionally attached to much either. He didn’t doubt for a second that [Name] thought about her family during those late night preparations she partook with him when Kohaku or Chrome couldn’t stay up past the 20th hour like they did.

He also didn’t doubt that she had done the same thing he had done once she thought her family over--understand the probabilities of seeing her mother and finding her father and brother’s grave were most likely slim and choosing to focus the task at hand: saving the world from total chaos at the hands of Tsukasa and his wildlings. So, she kept it silent, just like she always did.

Should I even mention anything about that? He wondered to himself as he helped her walk down a narrow junction between some large trees. They’d known each other long enough to understand each other without much verbal communication. Even after not having much contact once Senku entered middle school along with the whole thousands of years of being petrified in time, they still had a weird connection with each other. Maybe that was why he decided to free [Name] of her stony confindes; no one else could read his mind or understand what he’s thinking like she does.

Whatever route he took, it wouldn’t be awkward, he finally concluded when they reached the river. He let [Name] hop on the rocks that stood above the water before following suit. “Right, that was the day they got into that car accident.” He stated once they reached the other side.

[Name] hummed. “Mom was stuck at the hospital all day and wanted to take me with her; I couldn’t bear the smell there. It was too clean. So I went to your place thinking you might need something since you’re so useless--OW!” She rubbed her head as she glared over at Senku, who looked the other way, acting as if he hadn’t just slapped the back of her head so hard it made her hair flip over her head. “Anyways, I thought you needed me for something and apparently you did, but I don’t think an eight year old could have done much if a ten year old couldn’t do anything except stand around and watch the mess. It was funny, though. Mom and I laughed about it after a few years.”

“Glad to know my endless suffering and pure shock brought joy.” Senku said sarcastically, though [Name] could pick up the light heartedness behind it.

Elbowing him lightly so he can turn to look at her, [Name] smiled at him. “Well just so you know every time I think of the dad and brother, I also think of you with a bubble beard right after.”

Senku, for a moment, felt something turn before he wrinkled his nose. “Did you just family zone me? During a date?” He asked disgustedly. It was his turn to get a slap on the back of his head.

“Seriously? That’s what you took away from that?” [Name] asked, irritated. She decided to look forward as they kept walking, however it seemed as though they walked mindlessly through endless amount of trees. “Where are we going anyways?”

“Just a few more feet. There’s a clearing close by; I think you’d like it.” Senku said as he nudged her forward.

[Name] covered her eyes as she began to notice leaves becoming lower and lower to the point that she had to duck and sometimes even squat to get through some spaces. Man, if I knew this would happen, I would’ve worn something besides this kind of dress, she thought reluctantly as she watched the ends and edges of the dress get dirtied. Still, she persisted as she had been curious as to what the clearing had looked like. She hadn’t gone so far in terms of exploring for the past few weeks; winter was coming and Senku needed every available person possible to help prep the village for the freezing season. She spent hours lining and sewing furs onto their cloaks and coats to the point that she left little prick marks on her hands permanently.

“Okay, we’re here.” Senku announced once they both managed to stand again. Shaking a few leaves away from her head, [Name] looked up to see a green clearing, like Senku said. However, he never said how… Ethereal it was. Wild flowers, ones she vaguely recognized to be new versions of flowers from the past, spread across the spanse of the field. Lightning bugs flicked and glowed every now and then, being the main source of light besides the makeshift lantern Senku was currently crafting beside her.

“Whoa,” was [Name]’s only response. “Don’t tell you found this last minute just for a date, Senku.”

A snicker followed right after. “No. I found it a few months ago when trying to collect foxtail millet for the noodles. Let’s keep walking, though. This isn’t what I wanted you to see.”

It’s not? [Name] thought as she let Senku lead her further past the clearing, walking around the flowers as best as possible. The walk was silent, which surprised [Name] since Senku sometimes never did keep his mouth shut when it came to his little experiments. Could it be he's taking this date more seriously than she expected? She let that thought cross her mind as she watched him walk ahead of her. Not possible. If anything, he might just be keeping things a secret since I'm the test subject. [Name] thought to herself. Why would he even take this seriously in the first place?

"Look I know this is a date and all, but could you not glare at me?" Senku finally piped up, looking at his companion warily. "You look like you're about to plot my murder?"

"Who said I haven't already?" [Name] quipped, finally shaking herself from her thoughts. "Anyways, where did you take us, Casanova?"

She laughed as she watched Senku's face scrunch up in disgust at his nickname. He opened his mouth, ready to spew an insult before he stopped himself, staring at the shorter girl. Sighing, he just waved a hand forward. "Look above you."

"Above…?" [Name] questioned as she craned her neck. She sucked in a breath as she looked at the lightened sky above her. Of course, she's had plenty of nights where she stood outside to marvel at the stars and sky--she had never seen it so bright pre-petrification. She had thought that was the brightest and clearest she'd ever seen when she was in Senku's observation tower. 

That is, until today.

"It's so… So…" [Name] started, but couldn't quite put her words together. She felt Senku brush up against her shoulder as he finished for her.

"Beautiful." He complimented as he stared up as well. 

The sky was littered with various shades of purples, pinks, and blues. There wasn’t a coud in sight, which allowed the stars to litter across the dark plain above them. Faintly, she can make out certain constellations, pointing out the ones she wasn’t too sure to her companion, who nodded in confirmation to all of them.

"Who knew we'd get to see the sky as non-polluted as this." Senku said as they continued to keep watch over the sky.

"You took the words right out of my mouth." [Name] laughed. "I thought the observation tower was something else, but you really outdid yourself here, Senku. I didn't even expect you to walk this far without having you get carried by Chrome or something."

"Killing the mood." Senku replied, flicking her forehead, though [Name] made sure to take notice of his shortened breath he tried to hide. She pretended to feign ignorance even further when she let him walk behind her, catching his breath behind some bushes and then shuffling around until he finally brought a basket out.

"Suika should've given better instructions on where to find this thing." The spiky haired scientist said. "It looked like it got buried under a bunch of dirt instead of sitting plain out in the open like she said."

Senku opened the lid, raising an eyebrow as he pulled out two bowls of his notorious green ramen, wrapped tightly in large leaves to keep it from spilling. With it came a makeshift picnic blanket (though, it just looked like old scraps of dresses sewn together over the years; no doubt Suika had asked one of the older village women if she can borrow it). Together, they worked to keep the blanket down, placing heavy rocks at the corners to keep it from flicking upward since the wind picked up a little stronger from where they placed themselves.

"This ramen tastes gross." Senku groaned once he settled down, though it didn't stop him from continuing to eat it. [Name] only rolled her eyes as she ate it herself (though she did have to agree with Senku; the ramen was gross, but she put up with it anyways), basking in the windy air.

“I’m surprised you haven’t said anything yet about the information you’ve gathered for this date,” [Name] said. “Usually you relay the data to me once you get it all down."

“Can’t exactly tell the subject about the data I’m gathering about them.”

“Oh but you’re dying to tell me, aren’t you?” [Name] pushed. Truth be told, she was more curious on just how exactly he thought of the experiment. Sure, she had been the one to suggest it, but she had zero idea on what his plans are--what were his variables? Was he gathering information? Was he including numbers or was all of this just pure observation? There was no doubt in her mind that someone was observing them as well; most likely Kohaku since she’s better off at hiding and watching without being noticed once.

“Maybe. I’ll tell you after I’m done with this whole experiment.” Senku replied as he took a sip of the water packaged with them before handing it off to her. [Name] took it graciously, taking a few sips as she thought about his wording.

Quirking up her eyebrow curiously, she asked, “Wouldn’t that be tonight?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Senku confirmed. “You think one night will determine this whole thing? It might take more days actually--a few weeks even. I’ll gather all my information, relay it to you, and then confirm whether or not love is just a construct of emotions for me. Which it will be, from the information I’ve gathered.”

[Name] watched him in disbelief. There was no way she actually heard that correctly. Weeks? How’s that going to work? Would I even last a few weeks managing to go on more dates with this idiot? She questioned. “Wha-- I-- Don’t you have a grandiose plan that requires all your time and attention?”

She only received a shrug as an answer. What the hell does that even mean? She questioned herself as [Name] watched Senku stretch. He was the one repulsed by the idea of going on a date. Why would he extend this to weeks? She let herself wonder, pulling all the probable possibilities as to why he decided it so suddenly. Sure, Senku was right about not being able to gather enough information from just one date, but he could have easily just done one or two more nights of their little experiment dates instead of presuming it down to a matter of weeks.

Finally it finally hit [Name]: he was hiding something. What it was exactly, she’s not entirely sure, though she knew Senku was probably planning something stupid that could most likely put him in danger, or worse killed, which in turn would cause her to intercept and talk him out of it. He was probably using this date shenanigans to distract her from his death inducing plans.

Squinting her eyes at him, she decided to hold back on her on findings. After all, if he isn’t bothering to tell her what he’s gathering on her, she’ll do the same. Instead, she sighed, opting to make it seem as if she should have known. “You’re unbelievable.” [Name] replied.

“Oh, I know. That’s what gets you on your toes right?”

PREVIOUS PART - NEXT PART

[ilikemesometaetaes]

Forbearance

Kim Seokjin Oneshot

•••> Author: @ilikemesometaetaes​

•••> Summary: Give him a break, okay? Finding out his girlfriend’s bias wasn’t him is a pretty hard hit to the man’s ego. He has a right to be a little... possessive.

•••> Pairing(s): Seokjin/Reader

•••> Requested by Anon: “Hey love, I was wondering if I could request a oneshot where the reader is dating Seokjin, but he accidentally finds her old fangirl stuff and discovers he wasnt her bias and jhope was? And ya know he gets all jealous and possessive;) btw I love youu”

•••> Word Count: 4.41k [Unedited]

•••> Rating: 18+

•••> Tags: smut | Established Relationship | Seokjin!au | Boyfriend!Seokjin | Jealous!Jin | strangers to friends to lovers | fishing buddies

•••> Warnings: smut, unprotected sex, oral (f receiving), forced orgasms, oversensitivity, dirty talk, our jin is a jealous boy, possessive!jin, idol!jin, cursing, alcohol use

Copyright © 2021 ilikemesometaetaes. All Rights Reserved.

Thank you for the request, anon! I thought it was just going to be a drabble, but I guess not! I hope you enjoy :)

~#~

Seokjin called for you from your old bedroom, feeling insecure about going through the things in your closet.

“It’s okay, babe! It should be in there somewhere!” You yelled back, obviously busying yourself with tonight’s dinner before you moved your stuff into your boyfriend’s home.

Seokjin’s lips spread into a tight line, clearly uncomfortable with the action of prying into your life before you met him. He was never one to judge character nor the one to actively seek out every detail about you. He respected your privacy and your boundaries enough to never ask, waiting until you were the one speaking about it.

It was what sparked the relationship between you two in the first place. A respect for privacy and the skill of having patience.

You had met him at a fishing beach; the sun was almost fully set and it seemed that Kim Seokjin needed some time away from the boys and the spotlight.

You were sitting in a camping chair, waiting for the telltale signs of a fish nipping at your line when you noticed the man walking over to the next open slot of shore rocks just five yards to your right.

Conversation was minimal, but being in a setting where patience was what kept a person sane meant that you were fully capable of waiting.

It was strange how you hadn’t noticed it was him. Of course, he wore a mask and sunglasses along with a baseball cap, but Kim Seokjin’s personality was seemingly unique and quite noticeable. The man who sat next to you was someone completely different.

He was quiet, patient, reserved, and outright plain. After a short conversation with him about how the fish were biting that day, you understood that the man went there for quiet- same as you. So you gave it to him.

You just couldn’t help but notice that he continued to sit next to you for the days to come. He would come out every other day or so and sit next to you, regardless of the amount of spots available around. You would talk about the weather affecting the fish, ponder over the current position of the moon to judge the tide, and then resume the silence. It was almost as if you were basking in each other’s quiet presence.

His voice, a familiar tone of inflection, was evasive. It seemed as if he was purposely lowering his voice to distort it, but you could never bring yourself to ask why. Instead, you settled on listening to him speak as his beautiful brown eyes cast a wistful gaze into the bay.

From what you could see, he was handsome. You could see his eyes when he took off his sunglasses at night and the occasional tuft of hair that stuck out from under his ball cap. His shoulders were incredibly broad, stretching every jacket and sweatshirt he wore almost to the extreme.

He sat in his chair like he had run a marathon, slouching so far that his long legs were almost entirely off of the seat. It looked as if the man was dreadfully exhausted.

Light conversation seemed to pick him up from his slump but you didn’t want to press too far, knowing that the man was undoubtedly hiding his identity. You were okay with this, practicing the patience you had learned from fishing throughout your everyday life.

Each time you spoke, the conversation slowly got further and further. The day that you got to talking about what he did for the day, you learned that he lived an active and busy lifestyle. He came to fish for the calm and relaxation- a break away from it.

After a little over a month of meeting with the man to enjoy the silence, he disappeared.

You never got a name; never got an age; you knew next to nothing about him.

You continued to show up in your usual spot, hating when someone else sat where he would, but you couldn’t be rude and tell them to move.

You weren’t going to stop your hobby of fishing just because he did, but it seemed as though your reason for going to fish had shifted. You had gone expecting to see him walk up with his tackle box and fishing rod at his usual time. You only found yourself disappointed when he didn’t.

Several months passed with no sign of your mystery man. Eventually, you had forgotten about him, his presence a mere, fleeting thought whenever you looked at his old spot.

The day he returned, he was almost unrecognizable under the light of the moon.

The cool spring weather had morphed into hot summer evenings and transitioned to chilly, late-summer-early-fall nights while he was absent. Instead of the basic black street clothes of the usual fashion that the young men of Korea wore, he was dressed professionally and warm.

A long, beige peacoat hung from his shoulders in a way that the width of the shoulder seams did not stretch and, instead, looked perfectly fitted as the length fell to his knees. He wore a black turtleneck that was tucked into black skinny jeans, secured into place by a brown belt with a pair of brown leather dress shoes to match.

He didn’t even wear a hat, revealing his light brown hair. All that remained of his old style was the black mask that he wore to cover his face.

The man held no tackle box in his hand; a cooler hung from his fingers and a camping chair was nudged under his arm. In the place of his fishing rod in the other hand was a small bouquet of flowers.

“Oh, thank god.” He breathed. “You’re still here.”

“Of course I’m still here.” You chuckled. “I’ve been coming here for years.”

He sat as you spoke, repeating the same actions with his chair as you had pictured him doing countless times in the past months. Your fishing buddy was finally back and looking as handsome as ever.

“Have you?” He huffed as he sat back in his chair. “I only just found out about this place back in April. It’s quite nice.”

“Yes, it is.” You agreed, turning your gaze to watch the lights from the nearby city reflect off the surface of the water. He wasn’t changing his voice anymore and you couldn’t help but recognize it immediately.

For a moment, you processed his presence- he was actually here. Then, you turned to him again with your eyes trained on the cluster of yellow flowers sat atop his small cooler, attempting to keep your cool.

“What’s the occasion?”

“A celebration of friendship.” He laughed to himself as he grabbed the bouquet and raised it to you, avoiding your gaze.

“A friendship?” You asked, taking them from his grasp and looking down at them. “These are very pretty. Thank you.”

“I figured it’s been a while since we met and you seem to be incredibly kind, so why not be friends?”

“I don’t mean to be rude- I’m totally cool with being friends with you- but I don’t even know your name.” You laughed, hoping that this would finally be the day he revealed himself.

“I’ll only tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

“Easy.” You laughed. “My name is Y/N.”

“Please don’t... freak out or anything...” He muttered, raising his hand to take his mask off his face. Your heart beat wildly in anticipation.

As soon as he peeled the loop from his ear, your mouth slightly fell open on its own accord and you were suddenly starstruck by the fact that Kim Seokjin sat next to you.

“My name is Seokjin.” He kept his gaze lowered as if he was ashamed of his identity.

“I’m a huge fan.” You were speaking impulsively, unable to think about your words with the beautiful man so close to you. What else could you say?

“Oh, are you?” He asked, slowly lifting his gaze to meet your own.

“I am. It is very nice to meet you, Seokjin.” You were keeping yourself under control and you had no idea how, practically vibrating in your chair.

“And it’s nice to meet you too, Y/N.” Reaching into his cooler, he plucked out a bottle of soju and two shot glasses. “Care to share a drink over our newfound friendship?”

Grateful for the distraction, you took one of the glasses. “I’d love to.”

Your friendship with the idol bloomed. Under the strict condition that you never told anyone of your meeting spot- not that you wanted to or anything- you and Seokjin would continue to meet up on occasion and fish, sharing a drink or two and learning about each other.

When he found out about your love for his own band, he laughed and teased you for being a fangirl. When he continued to show up after the revelation, it exhumed ultimate trust that you couldn’t resist returning.

The other strict condition of your friendship was that you couldn’t meet anywhere but the beach. Six months of seeing the man you were gradually falling for in one spot became exhausting, but you couldn’t complain. Sure, you couldn’t go out for coffee or see a movie because of the fact that there were eyes everywhere, but you were okay with having your own little secluded paradise away from society.

It seemed that patience wasn’t one of Seokjin’s better traits, because even he came to complain about hanging out with you anywhere away from the brackish water.

One signed confidentiality agreement and an established set of rules later and he was being sneakily rushed into your already open front door so that the neighbors wouldn’t see him. It sort of reminded you of your younger days when you were sneaking a boy in so that your parents wouldn’t catch you.

His schedule wouldn’t allow you to see him more than two times a week, but it allowed for the two of you to retain a certain level of privacy that taught him more patience. Despite the lack of consistency, each time he came to see you sent butterflies into your stomach and a need to grow closer.

It only took a month of him visiting you before the media began getting suspicious of Jin’s whereabouts. His disappearances from his home to undisclosed locations drove the world into speculation of a solo career or a new music video- or a woman.

The more the rumors ran around, the less you saw of your friend.

It was hard to be apart from Seokjin, fully aware of the fact that you were falling for him. The idea that he could possibly have feelings for you was next to impossible to believe; all you were to him was a break away from the fame and cameras. Even as he rest his head on your shoulder with an arm around your waist while you watched a movie from your couch, you found it hard to believe there was a possibility for more.

You had the world in your embrace. How could you possibly ask for more?

A year of being friends with Seokjin proved to be the ultimate trial to test your patience. You never stepped out of line, hardly ever let yourself dream of being with him, but always imagined what it would feel like to press your lips to his gorgeously plump ones.

To say you passed the test was a decently literal way of putting it.

Exactly one year and two months of knowing Kim Seokjin, not including when he was a nameless man who you sat with, was all it took for him to start showing signs of more.

You sat in your usual spots on the beach, drinking soju, when he turned to you and asked if you ever thought of dating him.

“All the time.” You blurted in response, cursing under your breath immediately afterwards at your lack of hesitation.

Instead of responding, Seokjin burst out laughing. He tipped his head back and guffawed to the night sky but all you could do was laugh cautiously with him in confusion. Worry raised in your heart at the chance that you finally crossed the line even as you swooned over his endearing laugh.

“What are you laughing at?” You built up the courage to ask after he calmed a bit.

“I promise you that I am not laughing at you. I’m actually laughing at myself.” He wiped a building tear from the corner of his eye.

“Why?” You asked.

Instead of responding to your question, he turned to you with all hints of joking wiped clean by the serious expression on his face.

“Do you want to date me?”

You stopped breathing for a moment at his question, heart seemingly skipping a beat and fingers gripping your chair tightly in disbelief.

“W-what?” You stuttered.

“Please let me know if I’ve crossed the line, but would you like to go on a date with me?” He grabbed your hand in his and held it close to his body. Even in the cold weather, his hands were as warm as ever.

Kim Seokjin thought he was crossing the line? He thought he was shooting his shot to someone he had a minor possibility of dating? Being patient couldn’t have been more rewarding than in that moment.

“I’d love to.” You smiled.

Of course, the media was all over your first date with the man.

Even from inside the fancy restaurant you sat in, you could see the camera flashes from across the room in your secluded corner. Seokjn simply waved them off and continued to sip on his wine, telling you to pretend that they weren’t there.

For you, the pressure was intense. The entire world sat on your shoulders as they tried to scare you away from the man you loved.

Despite the harsh scrutiny and the offensive comments, your time of waiting on Seokjin had thickened your skin and reinforced your resolve. Your ultimate test of patience left you with a sense of serenity in the tense world.

You could wait for the attacks to die down. You could be patient- Kim Seokjin was worth it.

As time went on, people cared less and less about your relationship after realizing that you weren’t going anywhere. You had predicted as much.

To celebrate your two-year anniversary together, your boyfriend finally asked you to move in with him.

He was nervous, to say the least. Seokjin wanted you to live with him because he found your apartment to be quite small- it was about time to give you more.

Now, two days after the proposal to move in- on his free weekend- he was helping you move out of your apartment.

Everything was going smoothly, as he expected, up until the moment you told him to go into your closet and grab the box of clothes you had set aside to donate.

He wasn’t expecting to find a small box stuffed into the back of your closet with BTS in large sparkly letters decorating the top. After he pulled it out and dusted it off, he opened it to find photocards and trinkets of his brother, Hoseok.

Gingerly, he dipped his fingers into the box and pulled out a tiny, pink pouch that perked his interest- Seokjin never faired well with fighting his curiosity of material things.

Pulling out the small chain, he let a grimace riddle his features whilst he surveyed the six silver letters of Hoseok’s name adorning it.

“Oh.” He heard from behind him, causing him to jump and quickly drop the pouch and bracelet back into the open box in his lap. “So you found those.”

“What is all this?” He asked while gesturing to said box, an ugly inferno of jealousy beginning to curl inside his stomach and snake its way up his throat. All Seokjin could think about was the fact that Hoseok was your bias and not him. Sure, he never asked, but you could have at least told him that he had competition.

“I- uh-“ You stuttered. Your hesitation to answer warranted him to stand and approach you with an eyebrow cocked and a storm brewing in his eyes.

“Am I just a ploy to get to him?” Seokjin’s anger was obvious, yet you couldn’t help the lick of excitement as he became possessive over you- a trait you rarely saw on the man.

“No!” You were quick to answer his question, closing the space between the two of you to grab his hands in your own. “Babe, I swear! Those are from years ago! Before I met any of you!”

Although Seokjin knew that you were telling the truth, he still seethed in response and let his jealousy show. You seemed to like the jealous side of him, so he decided to maximize his advantages of the situation. It was also hard to ignore that he was growing slightly uncomfortable in his pants.

“Then why do you still have them?”

“Because my friend made them for me and they’re special!” You defended, wanting him to hold your hands. His fingers wrapped around yours tightly and pulled you so that your body was flush against his. You were left to stare up at his towering frame.

“Well,” He chuckled, letting go of your hands and bending down to throw you over his shoulder. You squealed in surprise but he only growled and smacked you on the ass with so much force that you yelped out in pain.

Seokjin threw you down on your tiny bed and you looked up at him in anticipation when you noticed the sly smile thinning his plump lips. He leaned down, placing a knee between your legs, as his gaze locked with yours.

“I’ll give you something fucking special, J-hope stan.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at the nickname, bringing your arms up to wrap around your shoulders as he pecked you on the lips and trailed his lips down the side of your neck.

Once he placed a kiss on top of your clothed nipple, Seokjin wasted no time in lifting your shirt over your chest to press his tongue and lips against you. You sighed, letting your eyes flutter closed as you tipped your head back and let him work over your areola.

“Does Hobi know how sensitive you are here?” He asked, licking your nipple immediately after. He brought his thumb to the other one as he kissed it again. “Would he even figure it out?”

Instead of answering, you threaded your fingers into his hair blindly, wrapping your legs around his waist while he lowered his mouth further down your body. The notion left you quaking in its wake.

His nose feathered down your stomach while he whispered his next question.

“Does he know how soft your skin is?” Seokjin pressed his lips to the skin of your waist and you craned your head up to look down at him, catching his gaze promptly. Seeing his lips against your skin had your legs pressing against his sides even tighter. “Would he even appreciate it?”

He backed up and pulled your underwear and shorts down your legs to bare your pussy to him, not wanting to tease you at all. He was on a mission and you wouldn’t stop him.

By the time he got his face between your legs, you were already spasming and dripping.

Your boyfriend looked at you with a smirk on his lips. “Could he get you this wet?”

His tongue pushed between your folds and flattened to rub against your clit to lap up once with a groan building in his chest before he pulled away. “Would he even taste you?”

You whimpered, dependent on Seokjin for pleasure as he pressed his tongue on your clit and slid two fingers into your depths to scissor you open. For a good minute, he pumped his two fingers into you and shoved his tongue onto your bundle of nerves as if trying to completely lick it off your body.

Your first orgasm was sharp and intense, causing you to cry out and dig your fingers into your boyfriend’s scalp. He pulled his lips away from you for a moment to look up at your heaving body.

“Could he even find how sensitive you are right-“ He brushed his fingers against the spot that had your mind reeling. “-here? Could he make you feel good? How would he even begin to try?”

The oversensitivity had your senses dulling and your lips babbling. “He wouldn’t. God, Jin. He wouldn’t.”

He continued to sink his fingers into you, harshly laving over your clit with his tongue in between his words as if he were fucking you already.

“You just-” Slurp. “-taste like-” Suck. “-fucking candy, baby.” You gasped at the loss of contact and squealed every time he returned his tongue and covered you with his plump lips to wildly swirl the hot muscle into you.

Being forced into more orgasms wasn’t new for you, however, it was always on his dick that you sobbed your way through countless climaxes. The pleasure of being pushed over the edge by his tongue was completely new and unabashedly erotic.

You screamed and writhed against Seokjin’s hand splayed possessively over your stomach, trying to get away from the contact but helplessly struggling against him. One after the other, you were painfully shoved into cumming, but it’s only when you squirted onto his chin that he finally let up.

“I bet he couldn’t make you squirt like that.” He darkly chuckled.

You, sweaty and breathless, lay under him with a bead of drool beginning to collect at the corner of your mouth. Mindlessly, you affirmed his statement.

“He couldn’t. He couldn’t.” It was almost as if you were chanting now.

“You’re damn right, he couldn’t.” Seokjin stood on his knees and quickly pulled his jeans down just enough for his dick to pop out before eagerly settling himself between your shaky legs once more.

Pussy raw and throbbing, you needed him to fill you properly to balance out the sensitivity on your clit. It was almost painful.

“This pussy is mine.” Seokjin grabbed his dick and looked down to slap his tip against your clit repeatedly. Your legs jerked in result, body responsive to the slightest touch on your nub. “You’re all mine.”

“Jin,” You whimpered. “Please.”

“I know, baby. I know. Be patient.” And he slid in slowly.

You dug your nails into his shoulders and threw your head back into the pillow again. The pleasure was blinding and you tensed your entire body at the sensation of him stretching out your insides.

“He could never know how tight you are.” Seokjin grit his teeth as he bottomed out. “How fucking warm-” You gasped and your eyes rolled back as he nudged his hips to try pushing himself further inside you, succeeding in dipping slightly deeper into your walls and crowding himself against your womb almost uncomfortably. “-you are.”

At this point, all you could do was sob in confirmation. “He couldn’t.”

“I’m not gonna lie.” He pulled out and thrust into you once, then twice, and then paused while heaving above you. “You got me all worked up with how cute you sound so I won’t last very long. I’m going to need you to cum one more time. Can you do that for me, love?”

You nodded almost immediately, knowing that all he needed to do was toy with your clit to send you over the edge.

With a harsh beat, your lover ferociously fucked into you and grabbed one of your thighs to widen your legs. With each clap of his skin into yours, you let out a small huff while he literally fucked the air from your lungs.

“Cum, baby. Cum right now.” He strained.

“I-” You cried, holding onto him for dear life as you desperately needed that last nudge to send you hurtling towards ecstasy. “I can’t. I n-need-“

“Hobi can’t fuck you like this, Y/N. Can’t fill you up and make you scream like I can. But you can’t cum for me?” He smashed his swollen lips onto yours and messily pushed his tongue into your mouth. When he pulled away, a string of saliva connected the two of you. “What do you need, baby? What do you need me to do?”

Your clit practically screamed for attention from your prior orgasms, but you were too focused on not actually crying to tell him. Instead, you snaked your hand down your body towards yourself and Seokjin followed your trail down to where your bodies joined, noticing immediately how swollen and red your clit was. His expression softened in realization.

“Oh, does my girl need her pussy touched?” He crooned roughly.

You nodded feverishly, sniffling.

“Okay, love. I’ll touch.” And he did.

Your orgasm was almost instantaneous. Your body, battered and exhausted, trembled as it seized up to accept his thrust for the last time that evening. In all its pain and bliss, your climax was glorious.

“Oh fuckfuckfuckfuck-” Seokjin growled as he dropped his head to the crook of your neck. “Squeezing me all tight like that. You’d never squeeze Hobi like that.”

Even through your pleasure, you felt him clutch onto you tightly, slowing his thrusts and sinking himself deeply to empty his release into you.

“That’s my girl.” He groaned after he stilled, slumping against you. For a moment, the two of you breathed and relaxed in each other’s presence.

You chuckled, turning your head to kiss his head. “That was pretty hot, babe.”

His head shot up from your shoulder immediately. “Not at all! How could you stan Hobi and not me?”

“Babe, I was so much younger. Of course, the one who is a literal ball of sunshine was my bias. You can’t get enough of Hobi.”

“But I’m your boyfriend…” His eyebrows turned up at you and pouted all the while his dick still lay wedged between your legs. Slowly, you pushed him off of you so that you could go clean up.

As you stood, you walked to the bathroom and laughed again. “Yes, you are.”

Even as you were walking away, you heard him mutter under his breath.

“Hobi would never walk away from me like that.”

All you could do was giggle at his statement, knowing that he would eventually get over it. 

Kim Seokjin was the one you loved. Who was Jung Hoseok?

~#~

If you’d like to read more of my work, feel free to check out my Masterlist!

[autumn-foxfire]

I don't know what it is about the "Dabi could've been a Nomu" plot that ticks me off so much. Is it because I expected his backstory to take place fully within the Todoroki House without Ujiko butting in? Could be, because the second half was my OC's backstory I wrote a good four years before Dabi got it! Maybe part of it is how crazy it is that Dabi knows all this yet he still hangs around Ujiko, around the League knowing all their issues. About what AFO is to Shigaraki. It's like joining a group and knowing all their dirty little dark secrets and being 😐 about it all. All his secret agendas and knowing he's different from the rest of them yet mingling around with them and showing? Some kind of solidarity with the League at times, while also being cold to them is driving me up a wall. It's not like I demand he show a reaction to this or anything, like "oh that's wild, this isn't okay, you guys good?" in fact I love that the reaction he does have is (*Shigaraki having a therapy session in Ujiko's basement*) (Dabi's face: 😒 :/ can I go home now?) I mean, who knows. Maybe he's thinking something inside, I make faces like that too, but he just reminds me of those isekai reader-insert fics where the OC had read everything about the manga and is casually interacting with the big names like it's all chill and they're a super genius and everyone has no idea~ about them~ Something about that is frustrating to me. It's one thing if it's a fic, totally other for it to be a canon character, especially when that character is Dabi who we did not see this coming for. I wouldn't have cared had he not known and recognized Ujiko, but it's the self-awareness that ticks me off. You're a fictional character, not a puppet master.

You know what. This whole thing would've gone over way better if Hori had just given HINTS that Dabi knew more than he let on instead of dumping it IN THE FINAL FREAKING ARC. It would've gone even smoother if we knew more about Ujiko and AFO's involvement with orphanages and their whole manipulating children and pre and post Shigaraki replacements and Nomu scheme instead of whatever we got in Vigilantes and a single line in the databook! Me? Complaining about puppet master tendencies in characters as a Hawks stan? Who show their true colors later? Well we at least knew about it from the start. It's not that I dislike the character type, Dabi needed better set-up, he was sidelined the ENTIRE MANGA until the Touya reveal. I adore him as a villain, but my god do some of Hori's choices really- Welp...I didn't come here for it to end up a rant, oops. I just saw a twitter clip where Dabi talks about Machia's quirks being "energy boost when excited or agitated" and "can't feel pain." All so he can keep fighting on the battlefield and I think. Yo, that's Dabi......and all this suddenly spilled out. It's not like Ujiko subtly made them possible in him too, no? But that's the kind of thing they'd call being born a twisted seed, the thing that would've made Dabi a good Nomu because it's part of his personality, the tenacity that would mix well with AFO's boost quirks and his pain receptors burnt by his quirk, a useful circumstance. I am once again asking how he can stomach this, Touya WHAT HAPPENED. When Endeavor said to make friends, this is not what he meant. How did your personality change so drastically.

He's been wandering around on his own for so long, eventually learning to make use of everything around him, he too is a villain, one of them, he fits right in appearance-wise, his quirk is strong, it doesn't matter in which circles he hangs around, even if it's AFO's cave as Spinner lets himself be turned into a Nomu, everything will come to an end eventually...okay, I can understand that. Dabi may not have had his own "loyalty to Shigaraki" awakening during My Villain Academia, but somewhere along the line his "I need to kill Shouto and Endeavor, this is for myself" turned into, "I need to tarnish hero society along with them" and then to "I sympathize with the rest of these guys who are also hurting and want their big revenge, let's do it together, this is our war. It's not just "me" that resulted from this society, but "us" over many decades of the rot and oppression building up." And I just want to know when and why. That's what would make this so much easier to accept rather than it just being.

The only thing about Dabi that Hori ever gives us is him talking, and talking, and talking. Which is full of lies and contradiction and general villain philosophy in between his honest opinions. Not exactly easy to sort out. Just once, I would really like some inner monologue from him, a solid self-reflection chapter. Every character has gotten one, EXCEPT HIM. And his backstory? Never once given to us by him. His life as a child and his death was narrated by Enji and Rei. His survival and "self" as Dabi was shown through Ujiko's eyes. We get pieces of Touya's personal feelings, but nothing on the journey of the present Dabi as a person. Maybe because there was nothing much in-between with his single minded focus on watching Endeavor videos and training for eight years straight, but. Surely something since the start of canon until now? Everyone else had character development, was he just a character lying in wait?

At this point, I would call the Touya reveal out-dated. Something in him has changed, and knowing what we learned there is not enough to understand his feelings about everything else. And I don't think we're going to find out until Endeavor finally connects with his son, until Touya is saved, and has that moment of clarity and peace to reflect back on all his actions as Dabi and what he really thinks about all this now that it's not buried under several layers of the Dabi persona he twisted himself into until it genuinely became him because he saw no other ending for himself.

Then, maybe. I can finally understand how to write his character as a good balance between what traits of the old Touya he kept, what he suppressed, what he lies to himself about, what empathy he has or what he ignores for the sake of being who Dabi is. Hoping his resolution doesn't come out from nowhere either, and I hope it's once again rooted in his feelings towards his family. It's too troublesome to mix it with the League, and PLF, and angry civilians.

Honestly I think you summed up Dabi's writing in one line perfectly: it wasn't set up correctly.

Hori tried to drop bomb after bomb about him during the final arcs and it's all just fallen flat beyond his reveal of him being Touya as there was nothing there previously for him.

He kept him too mysterious and now that he's trying to sell us his backstory with AFO and Ujiko, we're calling bullshit because it feels extremely shoehorned in. He's also been trying to make him come across as somewhat sympathetic towards the LoVs but his previous actions contradict this behaviour and just leaves the audience even more confused about him.

Dabi is just there for me at this point, he's a plot device for Hori to use to try and insult Endeavor and hero society but it fails time and time again. I'm honestly not looking forward to Dabi's ending because I very much doubt we'll feel like he deserved it, whatever it may end up being.

[linkspooky]

Shigaraki’s Plus Ultra

Chapter 281. The chapter is called “Plus Ultra” because Shigaraki is showing the same Plus Ultra determination the heroes always show. It’s the same scene. Deku screaming after the Muscle fight is a direct parallel to the way Shigaraki screams here the pose is exactly the same. It’s y’know, a parallel? Them boys are the same. Horikoshi loves setting up parallels. Now the villain of the story is parallelling the hero of the story, continuing to fight against an impossibly strong enemy even while his body is breaking down and everybody else is begging him to just give up already. Shigaraki is just another hero of the story, he has an origin that motivates him (like Bakugo, Shoto, Deku) he has a group of friends that he fights for, and now he’s going way beyond plus ultra to defeat the bad guy in front of him. 

1. Muscle Fight

There are several parallels to the muscle fight within this scene which was Deku’s first big solo moment as a hero in the manga. 

The first is that we’re getting a repetition of the idea that heroes hurt their own families to save total strangers. Deku is told directly that Kouta’s parents chose to die as heroes to save a random civilian rather than come home alive for the child who should have been their first priority. 

Yes, it’s not like it would have been right to let a random person die but still. The two parents knew being heroes was a high-risk occupation. They chose to have a child, then they chose to take that risk and not have the child be their first priority. Kouta’s bitterness is over the fact his parents chose to be heroes rather than be his parents. 

Shigaraki’s words and situation mirror Kouta’s, because Shigaraki is the analog of all abused children in the story. Himiko, Dabi, Hawks, Kouta, even Eri they are all meant to foil Shigaraki. Shigaraki is a victim of the current hero society, and he’s also a metaphor for all the other victims. He and Kouta says these things because they’ve both been through it. Kouta’s parents hurt him by not making him their top priority. Nana Shimura chose to be a hero, instead of retiring as a hero and being a mother to her son and going into hiding with him and that’s something Kotaro and then Shigaraki faced the consequences of. 

Shigaraki knows that hero’s don’t save people, and instead focus on punishing problem elements to maintain a status quo in society because he’s lived it. Kouta doesn’t see why his parents were out being heroes in the first place when they could have been at home raising him. Shigaraki lived in a busy town filled with heroes, and yet with a surplus of heroes running around on the street no hero even tried to save him.

It’s not because Shigaraki did anything wrong, he was a five-year-old kid. It’s because saving him would have been difficult, he was ugly, he was dirty. Shigaraki is saying that collectively hero society works by ignoring what the real problems are, and instead, everybody focuses on the glamour of heroes and pretends everything is okay. When heroes don’t even need to exist in the first place. That’s what Kouta says as well. His parents didn’t need to be heroes. If you choose to bring a child into the world, your first priority should be that child because they are completely dependent on you. The child doesn’t have a choice, the parents do. 

“Heroes hurt their families to help complete strangers” is also a rallying call to show that heroes aren’t protecting the people most in need of protecting, people like Shigaraki, Dabi, Kouta, who are all the biggest victims were also people who were literally related to heroes but didn’t get saved. Heroes don’t save the people they are obligated to save. We see this repeated time and time again. Endeavor cared more about being a hero than his own family, to the point where he neglected two children, let Touya die, and then beat up his own son in “training” for most of his life. Shimura Nana abandoned her child and left him with lifelong scars. 

It’s not just that the heroes are flawed though, or that they fail sometimes. If it was just that, then Shigaraki’s response wouldn’t be merited. 

Shigaraki, Twice, Dabi, and Himiko the people who have suffered under the system the most have been repeating the same criticisms again and again. One, the system still allows abuses to happen (Heroes hurt their own families) and two Heroes don’t actually fight to protect victims they fight to protect the system itself (Heroes don’t save people). 

If heroes don’t save their own families and the people closest to them, and they don’t save the people who are the biggest victims of the system then who are the pro heroes saving? 

Heroes are not defending people, but rather the hero system itself. The hero system convinces people that it needs to exist when it doesn’t keep general peace, and rather than actually trying to improve the society they instead keep the conflict between heroes and villains going because that conflict convinces the masses that the hero system is needed. It’s as Kouta says, people are going to keep calling themselves heroes and villains and fighting each other forever and it’s stupid. 

This system feeds into itself. Shigaraki is literally telling us what happens. People like Twice, Himiko, Dabi, Spinner all get cast out for not meeting society’s standards. They eventually get radicalized and fight back and retaliate against a system that has been violent to them. Then the heroes put them down. Then, more people get cast out. As Shigaraki says, this system is just going to keep perpetuating itself forever. Heroes don’t protect people, they protect the system that is in place first and foremost. 

Anyway, back to the Deku and Kouta scene. A hero tries to kill a child. 

Deku, even though he’s fighting all alone with no back up at all against an enemy FAR MORE POWERFUL than him, just WON’T STOP FIGHTING. 

Shigaraki faces enemies who are trying to kill him. However, just like that Deku, he WON’T GIVE UP, even when his body is far past the point of breaking. Shigaraki is told to die, just give up and die, over and over again by everyone around him but he keeps fighting against that. 

Deku’s number one priority is that he has to fight back against the villain who killed both of Kouta’s parents in order to save an abused child. 

Shigaraki is that abused child, fighting back. Muscle was someone willing to kill a child. Who is Shigaraki fighting against now? Three people who made a choice to harm children.

Gran Torino chose to do nothing when Nana abandoned her child, and then never checked up on that child after she died. He chose to help Nana, rather than helping the child she abandoned. 

Endeavor abused Shoto in order to make a hero that can surpass All Might. He chose to be the number one hero, rather than Shoto’s father. He also only chose to have a family to benefit himself and his ambitions in the first place.

Aizawa Shota literally had a friend die on a hero internship and knows the dangers of it, but he chose to let the kids all come along into a warzone and fight against villains who will be trying their best to kill them. 

Not only is Shigaraki Kouta, but there’s also a scene where Kouta gets victim-blamed. 

The question asked is who is at fault. 

We see the same victim-blaming behavior done by the heroes this time. It’s Shigaraki’s fault for being born, being kidnapped by AFO, for manifesting a destructive quirk, it’s what Shigaraki is told over and over again. 

And the abusers who Shigaraki is fighting against all have no reaction. Endeavor literally has no self-awareness when he hears Shigaraki say “My father told me heroes hurt their own families in order to save random strangers.” Even though... that’s exactly what Endeavor did. 

Gran Torino’s dying flashback shows us just that. He blamed Shigaraki, not because Shigaraki was at fault but because he just couldn’t admit that he was the one who made the wrong choice. Gran Torino is literally partially to blame for what happened to Shigaraki, the same way Kouta is directly confronted by the villain who killed his parents. 

Shigaraki is having his plus Ultra moment right now. He’s struggling against an impossible enemy all alone and trying to bear the conflict on his shoulders. He even physically parallels the actions of several heroes. He did the “Plus Ultra” pose with the wrong arm like Endeavor did after defeating the high end. (One step further, he parallels the High-End fight by getting up and continuing to fight even after being horribly scarred by the enemy). He is giving him all fighting against a villain, that villain is just all of hero society. 

2. Two Heroes

All Might suggested that what Deku is lacking in as a hero, he can find and make up for by recognizing that quality in someone else and working together with them. However, Deku’s problem isn’t really that he’s not obsessing enough over his personal strength. Like, get stronger has basically been Deku’s objective since chapter one. 

Bakugo isn’t the deuteragonist of this story, Shigaraki is. Shigaraki is the second hero that Deku needs to recognize. The reason why is simple, Deku has this strong urge to save people, but he doesn’t know what saving people really means. He thinks saving people is swooping in to defeat a bad guy and that’s it. 

Deku can’t tell Kouta anything of substance, because he doesn’t understand Kouta’s problems, which is exactly what Shigaraki himself says. The thing is Deku is participating in the victim-blaming here. Deku says that it’s KOUTA’s FAULT because KOUTA IS THE ONE REJECTING OTHERS. However, it’s the other way around. It’s Kouta’s parents who first rejected him. Then it was everybody who praised Kouta’s parents as heroes when they failed their responsibility for their children.  They’re incapable of understanding because they haven’t suffered it. 

Deku only knows his limited perspective of the world. He rejects the perspectives of people like Shigaraki. He says Shigaraki is someone impossible to understand but we know that’s not the case, because not only is Shigaraki Deku’s strongest foil in the story they literally have the same origin point, they both wanted to be heroes when everyone told them they couldn’t. The only difference is this, Deku got saved, and Shigaraki didn’t. As someone who got saved, Deku can’t understand the feelings of those who don’t get saved. 

However, it goes beyond that. Why does Shigaraki say that heroes are incapable of understanding the feelings of villains? The question to ask with structures of power is to look at who benefits. Endeavor faces no consequences for his actions towards his family, even though he at least admits that he made a whoopsie. Everybody else still sees Endeavor as a hero within society. Endeavor retains his position because society is built to keep heroes in place. Society is structured in a way that everyone will stay in the same position. The heroes remain, heroes, the muck remains the muck. The power structure has to stay in place no matter what, so people operating within society make choices to keep the power structure in place rather than doing what is right or wrong. 

People aren’t protecting people, but rather the structures in place. The structures that are in place, currently as they are benefits people like Endeavor. Endeavor is successful by all marks of society. He has a high case rate of solves, he is wealthy, he has enough influence to throw around that he can fast track his kid to the best school possible. Endeavor is what society tells us a good, successful person is like, but we know he’s rotten as a person. 

The society that Shigaraki talks about is already broken. It’s just the people who feel the most effects of society’s broken nature, are its biggest victims. Society already broke for Shigaraki, it already broke for Dabi, it already broke for Himiko. Deku and friends can pretend everything is fine and wipe everything under the rug because they haven’t suffered that way.  Even those who have like Shoto mostly keep quiet about their situations. Shoto’s path so far inside the hero system has been conforming with what his father wants of him, interning at his agency. Even those who genuinely have been hurt exist in an environment that encourages them to keep their hurt feelings quiet for the benefit of everyone and conform more. Everybody always telling Shoto what a good hero his father is, and generally being completely ignorant of what his father did to him, even people like All MIght, is a pressuring force that tells him to ignore how the system has failed him. Deku is surrounded by people who either haven’t been victimized at all or who are “good victims” which are either completely innocent children who present an uncomplicated image of an abused child to be saved. (Here’s a hint most real-life abused children act nothing like Eri, a lot of abused children develop violent tendencies, lash out, and act out because the violence they’ve endured literally stunts the growth of their brains). Or the people are “good victims” who like Todoroki Shoto still try to become heroes even when the hero system has failed them. Deku has no reason to question his actions or the actions of the people around him because as long as you’re a hero you are on the side the benefits for the most part. People who are secure of their position within their society don’t really need to question the feelings of those who are insecure. 

They haven’t been hurt. They also don’t really want to understand the feelings of those who have been hurt. Because, Hero Society is all about protecting institutions, symbols, and not actual people. THIS IS WHY we see something so ridiculous as Endeavor literally hearing “Heroes hurt their own families - my father told me that” and yet, SOMEHOW NOT REALIZING THAT THOSE WORDS APPLY TO HIM AS WELL. Even though that’s literally... exactly what he did. 

Not only does Hero Society only try to save good victims, but when Hero Society fails to save people, the bad victims are actively dehumanized and made out to be at fault for their own victimhood. Citation: The many many time's Gran Torino suggested five-year-old Shigaraki Tomura was just born evil, and therefore there’s nothing that can be done. 

This is because once again the actual focus of hero society is not in addressing problems, but rather blaming the ills of society on a few problem elements. If we could just get rid of those baddies who are causing problems for everybody else society would be fixed. 

So people like Twice are forced into impossible situations.  His parents are killed by Villains. He’s fired from his job even though he was obeying traffic laws and the person he hit wasn’t.  He ended up homeless on the street as a teenager.  What was Twice supposed to do then? Starve to death? Victims are put into impossible situations where retaliation is really their only option, and then they’re blamed for retaliating. Then those victims get punished. The society acts like the problem is solved, but it’s not because the society is still broken. It’s still letting people fall through the cracks. AND DON’T GO ‘NO SOCIETY IS PERFECT.’ A few social programs would have helped Twice a lot more than putting on a costume, calling him a villain, and punching him did in the end. Everyone is so in love with the idea of heroes they don’t try to fix what’s right in front of their eyes. The problem isn’t that society is not perfect. It’s that everone would rather ignore the problem, rather than address it and try to solve it. 

Deku’s biggest strong point is his love of heroes. His biggest flaw is his love of heroes. He is completely uncritical of the current system of heroes. Yes, he’s fifteen so it’s obvious he might not know better but there are times Deku shows a surprising lack of empathy. He just cuts it off if he’s facing a villain. Like for example here’s Koichi acting like a decent person.

O’Clock was trying to hurt Koichi, and yet when he sees the horrible condition that O’clock II is in, his first response is to ask if he’s okay, and ask him if he needs help. Because you know... he’s still a person? Even if he’s a bad person having half of his face burned off means he’s in horrible pain and he still needs help? 

Deku is just like the old lady we’re shown in Shigaraki’s flashback. He believes in heroes so much, he’ll ignore the suffering of somebody right in front of him. Is Deku obligated to sympathize with Shigaraki? I guess not, but Koichi does with O’Clock even while the other is barking threats at him. 

Deku’s naivete can hurt people even though he wants to help people. Deku declares that Shigaraki is unforgivable. However, Deku also before this arc started already seemed to have made up his mind to forgive Endeavor. 

 Endeavor is system APPROVED TM and Shigaraki is not. Deku divides people into good or bad people, and then doles out sympathy depending on who he thinks is deserving of it or not. Deku’s own prejudices are highly reminiscent of the way hero society functions as well. AND DO NOT BRING UP GENTLE. GENTLE was only going to crash a school festival. That’s like making Deku out to be a saint because he didn’t think a person who J-walked was evil. 

Deku’s blind naivete can hurt people too. How much did Deku’s careless words hurt Natsuo? It’s not that Endeavor needs to be forgiven. Endeavor has already been forgiven. He’s never been held accountable for his actions.   

Instead of Endeavor being held accountable for his actions, Natsuo is continually made out to be the bad guy for not forgiving Endeavor and moving on with his life. Instead of directly addressing the abuses, victims are instead silenced and told to move on with their lives. 

The reason I bring up Natsuo as a point is that even people who aren’t harming anybody, are made out to be the problem. People around Natsuo constantly imply that he’s the one disrupting the household. This behavior of telling victims to remain quiet, HURTS EVERYONE EQUALLY even those who don’t react in extreme ways like Dabi, Himiko, Shigaraki. 

Deku will never be able to sympathize with people like Shigaraki because he hasn’t seen what they’ve been through. Shigaraki however, has been just like Deku saving people all this time. 

It’s Shigaraki who has been getting close to the people hero society wouldn’t save, who’d never try to save, and saving them all along. Deku’s flaw, that he’s too naive to save the people who most need saving is Shigaraki’s feature. Shigaraki’s flaw that he can’t see a better world beyond all the destruction is Deku’s feature. 

Deku won’t challenge the world that is currently in place. Shigaraki won’t try to do anything to build, he just wants to destroy and be done with it. 

Deku protects. Shigaraki wants to protect but only thinks he’s good for destruction. 

They both only carry half of the answer with them. A better world can’t be built with the old world still in place. A better world can’t be built if your only focus is on destroying the old one, and not on healing. 

Shigaraki and Deku are woefully incomplete as heroes without one another. 

The story between Shigaraki and Deku will end not with two brothers killing each other, but with two brothers reconciling. 

The thing is... The chant isn’t. “All for One.” Or. “One for All.”  It was never about one answer being the best way to do things. The chant goes “All for One, and One for All.”  It was always both.  Both Shigaraki and Deku. This story has two heroes. 

[cacti-are-like-flamingos]

oooh requests are open!! <3 i looove your writing so much! can you do headcanons for aizawa, fat gum, & hawks with a chubby/plus size/thiccc reader? like how the relationship would look & how they would reassure their partner when they were being insecure about their weight/looks! -🍃 (tysm btw!! i love reading everything you write!!)

Aizawa, Fat Gum, and Hawks w/ plus size!reader...

Aizawa Shouta

ahh Aizawa

the first person i simped  for from MHA

the memories *wipes away tear from eye*

let us commence

a relationship with this man is, in all honesty, quite frustrating

Aizawa is the pure embodiment, or at least almost a pure embodiment, of logic and practicality

so if you’re a person who’s on the more emotional side, there will be clashes every now and then

however, i can somewhat see him with a spontaneous lover --- it’s 3 in the morning, darkness blankets the apartment. The only source of light is the warm golden glow of the city lights that shines ever-so elegantly through the small openings of the window curtains. Aizawa is taking a short nap beside you, laying on his stomach with his arms folded underneath his head. Inky-black locks cascading down the naked muscles of his back, contrasting with the paleness of his skin. 

he’s a masterpiece --- well, err. A masterpiece that runs on the love of cats and unsweetened black coffee

with small kisses, you run a trail of love up from his bicep. With each kiss, you breathe soft positive affirmations into the skin; your honeyed voice and kisses stirring him from his sleep. And as you near closer to his cheek, he can feel a smile tugging at the ends of his lips. With your body so close, he wraps one of his previously folded arms around your waist, his hands squishing your lovely love handles

“Shouta~,” you would sing out in a whisper, ghosting your lips over his eyelids. Humming in acknowledgment, he grunts out a quiet, “What is it now?” 

“Let’s go get some Panda Express,” you can feel his body stiffen. A bashful smile on your lips as his eyes finally open, a full-on glare on display.

“I have work soon,” “Yeah, but we can have Panda Express sooner,” “N-,” “We can feed the strays in front of it,” “...okay.”

now as for when you’re having those moments of insecurity

as I’ve stated before, Aizawa is a man of common sense and logic. So in his head, there’s no reason for you to feel down when there’s nothing wrong with you; however, he will recognize the emotional aspect of it and so he’ll do his best to comfort you

while on one hand he’ll just straight-up bully the love into you with words like, “It makes no sense to doubt yourself. Doubting yourself does nothing but harm you so why the hell would you willingly do that?” or “Stop being stupid, you’re fine just as you are, idiot.”

other times he’ll prove his love to you with actions

sometimes, when he sees that unsure expression painted on your face, he’ll stop whatever it is he’s doing and goes to grab a book. When he comes back, he’ll tell you to scoot over on the sofa before laying himself down in between your legs. Making sure to wrap your legs under his neck, he’ll snuggle himself into the pillows that were your thigh. And as he read, he would place gentle kisses into them.

he won’t talk or anything, he’ll just settle there and read his little book 

idk for some reason, I can see him doing this

Taishiro Toyomitsu

HHHHHHHHHH

I love this man so much

can I just have a hug, please?

although, that is one of the things you should expect if you’re in a relationship with this sweetheart

he loves being close to you in whatever way possible. Hugs, cuddles --- he’ll even carry you if that is what you so desire

a relationship with him is filled with so much laughter and joy that it’s almost sickeningly sweet

ngl i canon the sex to be full of laughs and giggles 

Ooo he’s incredibly polite like uhh lol whenever you tell him to do something for you, he’ll say, “Yes ma’am,” like you know what I’m trying to say?

another thing

he completely understands how you’re feeling when societies standards become too overwhelming and you find yourself drowning in self-doubt and self-loathe

he’s gone through it himself

and so, when he finds you standing before your mirror, your hands gripping at your tummy and a frown on your face, that is when he tells you words of truth

also expect lots of food-related pet names

“Now, now buttercup. You know how much it pains me to see you so sad. Makes my heart ache so bad--- I need you to understand that you are beautiful no matter what. There is nothing wrong with how you are and how you look. Now, how about we go and eat some Takoyakis? Heard they’re half the price right now.” 

another thing he does involves you laying on top of him

if he’s laying on the couch and you suddenly are nearby, he’ll stretch his arms and do the little “come here” gesture. Upon arriving, he’ll pull you on top of him, while always making sure that his grip on you is proper and that you’re comfortable

we’re gonna have to admit that with him being a big man no matter what form he is in, he will always be an actual mattress to you

to you, he is your pillow and blanket

and once he has you in his arms, he’s not even gonna let you go until you genuinely have to leave 

ugh he’s just so cute

Hawks 

before i write anything, I would like to point out that this is how HAWKS is in a relationship

this is not KEIGO TAKAMI

this is his alter-ego and that’s that

anygays,,,

being in a relationship with Hawks is an adventure for many, many reasons. Because, not only does he loves to absolutely love to ruffle your feathers, but he’s just so full of energy

he loves to tease you in any way possible. Maybe he’ll say a dirty little thing into your ear or maybe he’ll command one of his feathers so hide stuff from you. Such as that one time where you thought you had dropped that an earring and as you searched for it for a whole literal hour, he watched you. 

CAN YOU IMAGINE THE UTTER AUDACITY THIS MAN HAD

LIKE HE HAD THE FUCKING FEATHER FLOATING RIGHT BEHIND YOUR HEAD, THE EARRING JUST DANGLING THERE

WOW

but i must admit that he mainly does stuff like this to get a better view of your ass

he’s just so fascinated by its jiggliness

even when you walk he can see it jiggle

also please do buy him chicken related items

ngl he most likely has a drumstick little keychain thing

now then

how would Hawks comfort you?

hmm

tbh I don’t see him being of the vocal sort in either side of his personality--- he’s more of an action-based person, or at least that’s how I perceive him to be

whenever you’re feeling down, he sits behind you and pulls in between his legs. Wrapping his arms ever-so-gently around your waist before pulling you closer, his face burying itself into the crook of your neck as he in-take your scent. To him, you smell like home To him, you represent everything good in his life

and then, when he feels the tension in your muscles lighten, he’ll spread his wings as far as they can go before wrapping them around you. Enveloping you in a cocoon of sunset-hued feathers, their touch soft like silk on the skin.

it’s absolutely divine

...

(A/N): I’m not good at comforting whatsoever so apologies if it’s somewhat shitty, I really did try.

Feel free to request, just read the rules.

Hope you enjoyed!

[luxekook]

ego | jjk | harry potter au

⇥ pairing: gryffindor jeongukk x hufflepuff reader

⇥ genre: harry potter AU, smut, fluff, angst

⇥ summary: in which jeongguk is a cocky lil shit and the reader has to take him down a few pegs 

⇥ warnings: 18+, dirty talk, light smut, cursing

© luxekook. please do not repost, modify, edit or translate.

The wind whirled around me as I careened towards the glistening goal posts, imagining the opposing team’s Keeper darting back and forth in hopes of blocking the Quaffle that was currently tucked under my arm. I feigned left and the imaginary keeper followed suit. I threw right – Quaffle sailing through the rightmost gold hoop.

I smiled and dove down past the posts to catch up with my own throw. Even though it was still the first week of the new term, I was determined to prove my newly acquired captain-status. Hufflepuff hadn’t had a female captain in ages; and, paired with that, I was only a 6th year.

Luckily, I had a strong team behind me with mostly returning players who I knew would fiercely support me. Us Puffs stuck together. It was inherently in our blood to be loyal as hell to our own, and I thanked Merlin for that every day since receiving the captain’s badge.

As soon as I had hopped on the Hogwarts’ Express a few days prior, I had immediately been swept up in a giant bear hug by Jeong Yunho, one of the Hufflepuff beaters.

“Oh, captain! My captain!” he had dramatically cried, spinning me around. His Dead Poet’s Society reference was not lost on me since I had a muggle parent with excellent taste in movies. Similar reactions from the rest of the team followed suit over the course of the train ride and the Welcoming Feast.

Trials for our only open position of Seeker would take place this weekend with practices immediately starting Monday. We had high hopes for redemption this season after being crushed by Slytherin’s team of goons early on in the Cup tournament.

The Slytherin team’s head hooligan Kang Dokyun led his team with a nasty blend of intimidation and violent tactics. I was convinced that Slytherin didn’t even hold trials and that they just lined up the Slytherin boys, picking out the biggest of the lot. Basically, Slytherin was strong, but slow and slightly uncoordinated. We could beat them by exploiting their weaknesses – of that I was certain.

Ravenclaw would be a bit harder to conquer. Their team played with a level of elegance and intelligence that was so utterly Ravenclaw that even us Puffs got annoyed. Ravenclaw’s captain Yoon Jisoo constructed tactical plays so tricky that she was already recruited to play for Puddlemore next year. Their team was smart, but not completely unbeatable. The Ravenclaws sometimes got so ingrained in their methodical maneuvers that they failed to notice some of their opponents’ counterattacks. That was how they lost the Cup last term to Gryffindor.

Gryffindor was our toughest competition. Winning the Cup last term, the Gryffindor team was a nauseatingly perfect balance between brains and brawn. Their captain Jeon Jeongguk, now a 7th year, was renowned for his tyrannical practice regime that he put his team through. We’d only played Gryffindor once in the regular season last year, and we had held our own for a while until we started getting tired and they didn’t. Seems like Jeongguk knew his shit when it came to conditioning. Something that I was determined to emulate with my own team.

Jeongguk was also the best damn Keeper that Hogwarts had seen in a long time, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by the looks of the professional Quidditch scouts that avidly attended his matches. He was way bigger than a typical Keeper – extremely tall with broad shoulders and giant paws for hands. However, the only thing bigger than his stature and talent was his fucking ego.

He carried himself like he was the king of the school, and, unfortunately, most people treated him like it. Girls especially flocked to him – mainly for two reasons: 1) Jeongguk was undoubtedly hot, and 2) he held the promise of a rich future. Personally, I cared for neither of those traits considering his appalling personality and pride.

That damned ego would be his downfall this season. I would make sure of it, I thought as I circled around the stadium and then landed to get a drink.

I was definitely above average on the Quidditch talent scale. Holding the current school record for most assists in a season, I considered myself the glue of the Hufflepuff team – a fact that our Head of House obviously agreed with. However, no one really talked about the glue of a team, they talked about the flashy glitter and the gold stars. I was fine with that. Being the underdog was nothing new to a Hufflepuff, and I planned on using that to our advantage this season. Who said Puffs couldn’t be a little devious?

I smirked to myself as I grabbed my broom, ready to get back to practicing. This would be our fucking year.

“Hey,” a deceptively sweet voice rang out from above me, “You mind sharing the pitch? I need to practice.”

My mood soured. I knew who that was. Kicking off the ground, I flew to face him, “Sure thing, Jeon, just stay out of my way.”

It was almost as if I’d slapped him across the face, “Excuse me?” he choked out, “Do I know you?”

Unbelievable. Jeongguk’s head was evidently so far up his own ass he couldn’t recognize opponents he’d been playing for years. “I guess not,” I countered. And with a flick of my ponytail, I took off towards the opposite end of the pitch.

Unfortunately, he followed, “Are you a Gryffindor? If so, you should come to tryouts tomorrow. You’re pretty fast and we need a new Chaser.”

“Not a Gryffindor,” I called out, dipping low to the ground to scoop up my old practice Quaffle, “But I am a Chaser.”

Jeongguk was still tailing me, and I pulled to a stop to face him, “I thought you had to practice?”

He mirrored my position and crossed his arms. I tried (and failed) to stop myself from noticing how his biceps flexed and how a hint of his famed phoenix tattoo curled up his neck. Merlin, even I couldn’t deny he was hot as fuck. The recent summer months seemed to have blessed his skin with a glowing tan that accentuated the warmth of his dark eyes. It also seemed like he forgot what a haircut was as I watched the wind tousle his slightly curling hair.

“I do,” his eyes were narrowed as he cleared his throat, “I just have to make sure you’re not spying for another team.”

All thoughts of him being fine flew out the Owlery as I scowled. I refused to be intimidated by some arrogant asshole, “Did you not hear me when I said to stay on the opposite end of the pitch, Jeon? What kind of self-respecting spy would ask that?”

“You’re a Slytherin,” Jeongguk declared, his tone too sure for my liking.

He was really aggravating me now, and it took a lot for a Puff to get pissed off, “So, just because I have a semblance of a backbone, I’m a Slytherin? You need to brush up on your House knowledge.”

He was quiet, his expression contemplative, his jaw clenched. His eyes were scanning me with an intensity I was not sure I liked. And then he did something I liked even less: “I propose a game,” his mouth twisted upwards in a smirk, “You say you’re a Chaser?”

I gave a slight tilt of my chin in affirmation. He resumed, “Well, then you must know I’m a Keeper.” He paused, grinning wickedly, waiting for me to react to the double entendre. Eyebrows raised at my pointed silence, he continued, “And we both need to practice… So how ‘bout you try to score on me and for every shot I block you have to answer one of my questions.”

This motherfucker right here. I summoned my inner Helga to give me the strength to deal with this Gryffindor prick, “Say I was to agree to this, what would I get if I score on you?”

The laugh I got in response made all thoughts of remaining a kind and patient Puff evaporate faster than a weak Patronus.

He was still laughing when he noticed I looked ready to Avada him wandless, “Okay, okay. What do you want if you score?” He barely got the words out in between chuckles.

“To come to a Gryffindor practice.”

That shut him up real fast, “No fucking way. I don’t need you distracting my players.”

My nose crinkled, “Distracting? I would just be sitting in the stands, you prick.”

His jaw ticked as he rolled his eyes, “You could be on the furthest corner of the pitch and you’d still distract them, jagi.”

“Don’t call me that. And, pray tell, why I would distract them?” Our brooms were now practically touching as we had instinctively moved closer to one another. I could see the sweat glistening on his brow and the shadow of stubble on his jaw. Merlin, he was potent.

“Because,” Jeongguk paused, acting like this was the most obvious answer in the world, “You’re hot.”

I blinked. And blinked again, “Are you serious?” He opened his mouth to respond. “Nope, don’t answer that, Jeon,” I brushed right over his attempt to answer my rhetorical question, “So, do we have a deal or not? If you’re the esteemed Keeper that you clearly think you are, it shouldn’t be a problem for you to block all my shots, should it?”

My words echoed around us. He looked conflicted, but I knew his ego would not let my challenge go, “Deal. Five shots from the penalty mark.”

He flew towards the goal posts, “Looking forward to getting my questions answered, love,” he bellowed back at me.

I mentally flipped him off as I took off after him, clutching my Quaffle.

Sending out a plea to Merlin, Helga and everyone in between, I pulled to a stop at the penalty mark and pondered how I wanted to play this. He obviously thought he would save all five attempts. I spared him a glance and glower as I notice he was slouching on his broom with a lazy smirk, clearly not taking me as a serious threat.

Fine, I would just have to hustle him. He was asking for it at this point.

I got into formation. As much as it would pain me to mess up this shot on purpose, I knew that I had to in order to make my plan work.

Taking off towards the posts, my movement caused Jeongguk to finally move into a somewhat defensive position. I feigned right, doing so in a way too obvious manner. Hurling the Quaffle towards the top hoop, I watched expectantly as he deflected it with just a slight flick of his hand.

“Come on,” Jeongguk laughed, “You can do better than that, jagi.” He flew over to me and when I stretched to take back the Quaffle he now held in his hand, he shifted it out of reach, “Uh-uh, nope. It’s question time. What’s your name?”

How predictable. “It’s (y/n). Now give me the Quaffle.”

“Last name?” Jeongguk kept the Quaffle out of my hands.

“That’s a separate question, Jeon. You never specified that I give you my full name.” It was my turn to smirk as he threw the Quaffle back at me and headed back to the posts mumbling about loopholes and how I must’ve been a Ravenclaw.

I lined back up for the second shot. I had to make this one a little bit better than the last to show that I was trying, but not too much better that he’d be prepared for my final shots.

I ducked down, twisting around to head towards the right post with my full focus on the hoop. I launched the Quaffle. Jeongguk swooped up to catch it in a way that was entirely too elaborate for such a lame throw. He was clearly showing off – an action that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the meaning behind.

Jeongguk made his way over to me, grinning, “Second question, jagi. Full name, please.”

“(y/f/n) (y/l/n),” I muttered, eyes scanning his face for signs of recognition and hands grabbing the Quaffle away from him.

He looked puzzled, “(y/l/n)? Why does that sound so familiar?”

Before he could think on it further, I pushed his shoulder, “Back to the posts. You got your answer.”

Well, I had attempted to push his shoulder. He didn’t even flinch at my shove. His eyes darted to where my hand now laid on his chest. I removed it faster than a Wronski Feint, trying to ignore the tingles that shot up my arm.

Our eyes connected and his were blazing as his mouth crept into a slow smile, “Like your hands on me.” Before I could formulate a reply, he flew off and I resolved that I would make this next shot as if my life depended on it.

We faced each other. I shifted the Quaffle from hand to hand and took off towards him. I gave him no tells, no feints, nothing. This seemed to throw him off for a split second, but that second was all I needed to send the Quaffle sailing through the bottom hoop.

“What the fuck was that?” Jeongguk yelled as he got all up in my face.

I bit back a smile. “Beginner’s luck?” I quipped, loving how his face had darkened perceptibly, “Don’t worry. I’m sure I can pick up some more tips at your practice.”

Unable to keep my grin in check any longer, I smile widely as he lets out a stream of curses that would make even my old crotchety aunt blush.

We resumed our positions. This time he seemed more alert and watchful. He was getting wary of me, despite my claim that it was just luck. Maybe he knew better after all…

“That won’t happen again, (y/n). Don’t get used to it!” he shouted from the posts.

…Or not.

I took off. Luck be damned. I zigzagged back and forth towards him. Throwing the Quaffle up in the air, I quickly rolled off my broom, sharply grabbing its end and swinging it up to hit the Quaffle mid-air through the center goalpost. A perfectly executed Finbourgh Flick. Regaining my seat on my broom I sailed back to the penalty line and turned back to face Jeongguk.

He looked utterly gobsmacked, “Beginner’s luck? Beginner’s fucking luck? Who the fuck are you?”

I grinned victoriously at his wounded ego, “You know my name, Jeon. Now you can use it at two practices.”

“(y/f/n) (y/l/n), (y/f/n) (y/l/n)… fucking hell,  you’re the new Hufflepuff captain,” he gawked at me.

“Bingo, Gryff,” I laughed, “Took you long enough.”

“Why did I think you were a bloke? I would have remembered such a—” he cut himself off, “You hustled me! There is no way I’m letting you into my practices now.”

We were nose to nose now as I responded, “A deal’s a deal. I thought you Gryffindors were all about honor.”

His face was thunderous, “And I thought you Hufflepuffs were all about fairness.”

“We are,” I said plainly, “We just don’t take lightly to intimidation. Now come on, we’ve got one round left.”

A range of emotions moved across his face to settle in a heated look that I couldn’t quite decipher, “Fine, jagi,” his molten gaze darted to my mouth, “Give it your best shot.”

Swallowing hard, I shook my head, trying to clear my brain of entirely too inappropriate thoughts of me and Jeongguk. As much as I attempted to refocus on making my final shot, my attention wasn’t fully there.

And I fucked it up. Jeongguk dove to catch my throw mid-air, and he sped towards me triumphantly, “Slipping already? What was that?”

I blushed. He noticed.

“Come on,” he said, “I need a drink and then you need to answer my last question.”

I followed him to the ground, cursing my treacherous body for reacting so obviously. My subconscious battled:

‘He’s a player!’ the imaginary Dumbledore on my right shoulder boomed.

‘Kiss him. Now!’ hissed the fictitious Voldemort from the other side.

However, all thoughts evacuated my brain at the sight of Jeongguk peeling off his shirt and taking a long sip from his water bottle. My traitorous eyes flew over his torso. I took in his defined abs, his chiseled arms and his fucking beautiful phoenix tattoo that spanned the entirety of his left shoulder, left upper back, and a portion of his neck.

Then I noticed his eyes were watching me right back. And they were all to amused to be innocent… “Are you seducing me?”

He spit out his mouthful of water, laughing, “Why? Is this working for you?”

My eyes now resembled slits as I glared at him, “Is that your last question?”

“No!” His response came so fast I jolted back on impulse, “No, it’s not…”

He trailed off as he prowled towards me. I stepped back. He kept coming. I stepped back further.

“Why are you running, jagi?” his words were too soft and too intense for my liking. I took another step back and bumped up against the stands. His grin in response was predatory as he caged me in between the stands and his body, his arms on either side of my head.

“Nowhere to run now, little Hufflepuff…” he dragged a finger along the hollows of my throat. He definitely felt the rapid pounding of my pulse, his eyes darkening to the point that they almost seemed black.

I glared defiantly at him, refusing to be daunted by his size or his words. He smirked, “Your last question: do you want to kiss me as much as I want to kiss you?”

I stopped breathing. He waited, a look of uncertainty flickered on his face so briefly I almost thought I’d imagined it.

That little flare of vulnerability – that should not have been as appealing to me as it was – helped me to regain some of my bearings, “And how much do you want to kiss me? I need a scale of reference.”

He smiled crookedly as he leaned in even further, lips brushing against me as he whispered into my neck, “So fucking bad.”

His tongue darted across my skin as he dragged it up towards my ear. Biting it softly, he murmured, “Well?”

Fuck it all.

My hands latched onto his shoulders and his head snapped up. Raising to my tiptoes, I kissed him. He let out a rough groan, sounding like I was killing him. His hands slid down my body to squeeze my ass before hoisting me up. My legs circled his lean hips as his teeth caught my bottom lip in a faint bite. My hands tangled in his hair, pulling slightly. His hips pressed into mine, drawing a moan from my lips. He smiled against my mouth.

I nipped his lip now in retribution, but it seemed to only urge him on. One hand came up to remove my hair-tie, flinging it over his shoulder. I made a noise of protest, but he just kissed me harder.

How the fuck was he holding me up with one hand?

I prided myself on being a pretty thick bitch, and he was over here acting like I weighed nothing. My fingernails slid down his back, raking over the hard muscles and feeling how they flexed and shifted under my touch.

I don’t know how long we spent making out against the stands, but soon enough we heard voices coming from around the corner. Ripping my mouth away from his, I jumped out of his embrace, landing on shaky legs.

His arm wrapped around my waist as he steadies me. He was breathing just as hard as me and I could feel his heartbeat racing. I tugged away from him to retrieve my hair-tie from the ground and put my now wild hair back into its ponytail.

I could feel Jeongguk’s eyes on me all the while. I looked at him. His lips were swollen, his hair was a disheveled mess, his neck was displaying a rather nice hickey that I was sure was mirrored several times over on my own neck. A rare feeling of pride shot through me, and as he opened his mouth to say something, I shook my head and placed a finger over his lips.

“I’ll see you at your practice, Jeon.” I placed a quick kiss on his cheek, grabbed my broom and walked off.

As I strode away, I heard him grumbling under his breath: “Everybody warns you about the Slytherins. Nobody fucking warns you about the Hufflepuffs. Fucking hell…”

I smiled all the way back to the Common Room.

[melanielocke]

Conceal, don't Feel - One

Do you wanna build a snowman?

This is the first chapter of my Frozen Carstairs sibings AU

CW: abuse, toxic relationship, alcoholism

@alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 and I both came up with a similar idea separately from each other, so this is a story separate from hers, but if you like this one I recommend you check out Frozen Heart. I’m not yet sure how often I will update, but I’m currently working on chapter 7 and 35.000 words in (chapters are pretty long).

Taglist: @alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @foxglove-airmid @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @justanormaldemon @styxdrawings @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised @alastair-appreciation-month @writeordie-4 @amchara

I cannot seem to tag @lightwoodsimp, sorry

Alastair didn’t know where his parents were taking him. It didn’t matter. He would go anywhere, would do anything if it meant she could be saved. It was his fault she’d gotten hurt. He called out to her. Warned her.

‘You’re going too fast. Slow down, Layla!’

It had been too late. Cordelia was hurt. His fault. He’d hurt her, he’d hit her with his ice. His father had been furious, of course. He’d deserved that. His mother had been more gentle, had taken him into her arms and whispered that it was going to be okay. A lie. It wasn’t going to be okay because he’d hurt his sister and that made him a monster. Just like Father had been afraid of.

But Father knew where to go. Father knew how to fix this. A trail of ice followed their horses. Alastair barely noticed it anymore. It would draw attention. It pointed right to him, to his wrongness. Just like he deserved. Alastair didn’t know why he couldn’t control it anymore. He’d been too excited about it, had used it to play and have fun and build snowmen in the middle of the summer. But that was wrong. Ice was wrong and shameful and dangerous. And so was he.

They stopped in a small village hidden at the foot of the North mountain. Alastair had studied the geography of the kingdom many times but did not know there was a village here. He’d heard stories, there were trolls living here. That was why people avoided this place. Alastair would say he was too old to believe in trolls, but he was magic. Who knew what else was out there?

He descended from the horse, hiding behind his mother. He’d always been closer to her than to Father. He trusted her to keep him safe. Not that he deserved her protection.

A man approached. He was a little shorter than Father, with dark hair like Alastair’s, but blue eyes and light skin that was common in Arendelle. Alastair had never seen the man before, who was he? Certainly not a troll. There was a girl around Cordelia’s age behind him, stepping forward curiously to his sister. Cordelia had not woken since Alastair had hurt her.

‘Hello,’ the little girl said. ‘My name is Lucie, who are you?’

‘Lu, I don’t think the princess can hear you right now,’ her father said. ‘Don’t worry, your Majesty, I’ll get my wife. She’ll find out what’s wrong with your daughter.’

The man disappeared into one of the houses, but the little girl remained behind, poking at Cordelia.

‘She’s not going to wake up,’ Alastair said quietly.

His father glared at him, whereas his mother took his hand firmly. ‘Don’t say that, joon-am. Your sister will be fine.’

‘Who are you?’ Lucie asked him.

Alastair frowned. This was part of Arendelle, wasn’t it? How did someone not recognize the king and his family?

‘My name is Alastair,’ he said softly, not meeting the little girl’s gaze.

‘Come, Lu,’ Will said. ‘Tessa and Jem are going to take care of the princess.’

A woman with brown hair kneeled down in front of little Cordelia, a man with dark hair and eyes beside her. He looked familiar, but Alastair wasn’t sure why.

‘Jem, please help my daughter,’ Father pleaded.

‘Of course, uncle,’ Jem said. ‘You and your family are always welcome here, you know that.’

Alastair was confused. Jem was his cousin? But then why had they never met? He knew about the mysterious cousin, of course. His father had been the youngest of two brothers once, his older brother Jonah had been king before him. He’d had a son too, prince James. King Jonah and his wife had died though, and prince James had disappeared, during his father’s regency. When it became clear prince James was gone for good, his father had been crowned king. Alastair had always assumed he must have died. There were rumors king Elias had murdered his nephew so he could claim the throne. Alastair was glad to know those rumors weren’t true. But why had Jem been here all this time?

‘My wife Tessa can heal her,’ Jem continued.

Elias raised an eyebrow. ‘I though she was Will Herondale’s wife.’

‘All three of us love each other,’ Jem said and Alastair was intrigued. ‘Arendelle might not understand, but there is no need to conform to what society wants from us here.’

He’d always been taught love was between a man and his wife. Clearly Jem didn’t think so. He couldn’t find love, he reminded himself. He had his ice, his cold heart. It would be nice, to live here with a love, but that was not his destiny.

‘It is for the best you left, I think,’ Elias said.

‘Don’t be rude, dear,’ his mother said. ‘They can help Cordelia.’

‘There is ice in her head,’ Tessa said. ‘I can remove it, don’t worry. It’s good the magic didn’t reach her heart. A frozen heart is the one curse I cannot break, but the head can be persuaded.’

Alastair wasn’t sure what Tessa was. She was magic, like him, right? How did she know so much about the ice, about the frozen heart? Did that mean there were others like him?

‘Lucie!’ Tessa called.

The little girl sat down beside her mother. ‘Yes, mama?’

‘You want to help, darling?’

‘Of course.’

‘My daughter is the heir to my gift,’ Tessa explained. ‘She will learn in time how to remove ice herself, in case the prince has more accidents. But for now, we’ll do it together.’

Tessa and Lucie both put their hand on Cordelia’s head. Alastair held his breath, this had to work right? Otherwise he would have killed his sister. Alastair knew he was a monster, of course, but he didn’t want his sister to suffer for what he was.

‘I must warn you, there will be a side effect,’ Tessa said. ‘Messing around in her head will affect her memory. I am doing the best I can to contain the effects and limit the memory loss, but she will lose all memory of Alastair’s magic.’

Alastair frowned. ‘So she won’t remember I have powers?’

‘No,’ Tessa said. ‘But when you’re ready, you can explain it to her. I think it might be good to work on your control first and tell Cordelia once you feel secure you won’t hurt her again. Remember, fear is your enemy. You’re always welcome to stay here, with us. People think trolls live here and stay away, you would be safe..’

The offer sounded tempting. Away from his family, from the people he hurt…

‘No,’ his father said. ‘Alastair is the crown prince of Arendelle, he will be king one day. Power or not, he must be prepared for his role. We’ll limit our staff, close the gates to limit his contact with people, so no one will find out and no one else will get hurt. He’ll learn to control it, I’m sure. Besides, your lifestyle would be a bad influence.’

Alastair’s heart sank. Of course, he was prince too. Destined to be king. It didn’t matter what he wanted. Why should a monster like him be king, he wondered, but he knew his father wouldn’t budge on the subject.

Cordelia coughed a little before opening her eyes. ‘What’s happening?’ she said, a little sleep drunk.

‘You’re all better,’ Lucie declared. ‘Although I think you still have a strand of white hair. Otherwise your hair is very pretty.’

Cordelia smiled. ‘Where am I?’

‘My name is Lucie,’ she said. ‘Will you play with me?’

‘Of course,’ Cordelia said. ‘I like making snowmen.’

‘We must go home now,’ Father said sternly.

‘Oh, that’s too bad,’ Lucie said. ‘Will you come another time, then? I’d so love to have another girl my age around. It’s just me and my cousins here and they’re all older than me.’

‘Of course,’ Cordelia said. ‘I’ll play with you.’

‘I think it would be good for us to check on Alastair’s progress regularly,’ Tessa said. ‘It would be unsafe for me to leave this village, so please come here whenever you’re ready, or if you need help.’

In the end, Alastair never returned to the village where his cousin lived. Neither did Cordelia, not even to play with Lucie. A day later, she did not remember what had happened at all. As far as the people of Arendelle knew, that village didn’t exist. Tessa was a witch, after all, and so was her daughter. The people might turn on her, his father had explained. They might turn on him too. And he would deserve that. That’s why he needed to learn control.

‘You’re too sensitive, Esfandiyar,’ his father would say.

He’d learnt a rhyme over the years. Conceal it, don’t feel it. He repeated it to himself whenever he felt too much, whenever he was going to lose control. He’d received a pair of gloves from his father, something he claimed would help him.

It didn’t take long for Father to grow more absent though. Often he was sick. His fault, he was putting too much pressure on the family. All his fault. His thoughts were spiraling as they so often did, out of control as the storm inside. His fingers tingled, ice formed on the floor, on the walls. Conceal, don’t feel, he told himself. That was the only way to control.

When Alastair was eight years old, not long after the incident, his father was interested in how using the sauna would affect him. He’d never been, as he was too young and his mother wasn’t so sure it was safe for him, but his father insisted it was worth a try.

‘It might be the solution to your control problem,’ Elias had said. ‘The sauna could melt the ice.’

Alastair had been scared, but he’d been willing to give it a try. Most humans in Arendelle used a sauna from time to time, so why shouldn’t he?

It had been a nightmare. As soon as the sauna had been turned on and gotten warm, Alastair had started screaming. It was agony, fire burning his skin and everything inside, the ice begging for release.

He couldn’t use magic in here, and it hurt so much.

‘Let me out!’ he’d screamed.

It had taken some time until Father had given up and finally let him out. He wasn’t burnt, there were no signs on his body that he’d suffered. The pain had been real though. He was still so shaken he froze the entire corridor, for which his father had become angry. Later that day, Father had disappeared into his bedchambers with a bottle of a smelly drink.

Alastair would never get into the sauna again. Never. There was ice inside of him, and it didn’t like the heat. Perhaps he should try it, perhaps he should stay for longer and let it burn out the ice inside of him. Perhaps he could be free. But Alastair didn’t dare go inside the sauna again, he never wanted to feel that pain again.

***

Cordelia was lying on the floor of the ballroom. She was sure her mother would hate to find her here, but what else was she supposed to do? She sighed, would there ever be a ball here? There had been balls once, that much she remembered. She and Alastair weren’t allowed to attend yet, but they’d snuck out of bed to watch from the corridor together.

There had been so many people. Nowadays, it was only the staff, her family and Risa, her mother’s lady in waiting. Didn’t her parents understand she wanted someone to play with?

Once she’d played with Alastair almost every day. They would build snowmen and ride a sled and have snowball fights. But that had been a long time ago. Nowadays Alastair would barely acknowledge her. If he spoke at all, it was to tell her to go away and not bother him. He spent most of his time in his bedroom. Cordelia didn’t understand how one person could spend so much time in bed, especially considering he was not sick like Father. Didn’t he want to have something to do? She would play with him all day if only he opened his door.

But Alastair preferred the solitude, it seemed. He rarely even yelled at her to go away anymore. He just pretended she didn’t exist. He was studying to be king now, whereas Cordelia did not have such a responsibility. She guessed he was too mature and grown up for her now and she was just his stupid little sister. It was frustrating.

It had all started so sudden, and Cordelia had never understood why. One day they’d built a snowman together, the next Alastair didn’t even speak to her anymore. He only ever emerged from his room to eat, and to take walks on the palace grounds. Her mother didn’t want her to go there, for she might fall and hurt herself, or rip her dresses. It didn’t make much sense, because she’d followed Alastair from a distance once and there was barely anything to trip over. When Alastair had spotted her, he’d gotten angry and yelled at her to leave him alone, that this was his place, why couldn’t she at least let him have that?

Cordelia guessed her brother didn’t like her anymore.

‘What would you do, Joan?’ she asked.

No response. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. Joan, of course, was a painting in this room, a woman in armor riding a horse. The painting had always fascinated her, because Cordelia wanted to be a warrior too and carry her own sword. It was probably all very improper, a princess talking to a portrait, but what exactly did her parents expect her to do?

Father was sick all the time nowadays, and Cordelia would often sit with him and read him stories. Alastair came in sometimes, glared at both of them, and left. At least her father still cared for her. At least it was something. Even if he mostly ignored her when he wasn’t sick, or talked to her about a potential marriage alliance when she was older. She’d never even met someone around her age, how was she supposed to get married? Her mother didn’t have time for her anymore, she had to take over from father when he was sick and run the kingdom and whatever free time she had left she spend with Alastair.

No one knew what was wrong with Father, and Cordelia worried for him. She vowed to spend as much time with him as possible, to always be there for him, because even if he was sick, he was the only one in her family who still had time for her.

‘If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?’ she asked Joan.

No response.

‘That’s right, me too. Anywhere is better than here.’

***

When Alastair was nine years old, a year after the incident, he’d made little progress on controlling the ice. If anything, it had gotten worse.

‘You’re not trying,’ his father accused him. ‘Do you want to turn your bedroom into a snow landscape? Do you like the cold? Do you like that by freezing the bathroom, you broke all the pipes? It cost a fortune to replace everything, and I couldn’t explain what happened.’

‘I’m sorry, Father,’ Alastair had said, the fear he often felt around his father gripping him.

Would he be locked inside the sauna if he didn’t do better? He was trembling on his feet as his father grabbed his elbow and took him down stairs into an old dungeon.

‘When my brother Jonah was king, he stopped using these dungeons to hold prisoners. He believed keeping people in dark and dirty cells like this was inhumane. But we do not always have the luxury of choice.’

His father showed him to a cell with a pair of cuffs, chained to the floor, designed to fit around his hands. Because that was where the magic came from, that was why the gloves helped.

‘If you cannot control yourself and become a danger to those around you, I will have no choice but to use these. Do you understand?’

Alastair was shaking, snow escaped from his hands and twirled around him. He swallowed. ‘Yes, Father,’ he said weakly.

‘And don’t act so scared,’ his father scolded. ‘With that poison inside of you, you absolutely cannot feel.’

Of course. Conceal, don’t feel. That was the only way to keep it hidden.

That night, Alastair dreamt about the chains in the dungeon, about his hands being bound, his father leaving him there.

‘You’re too dangerous,’ his father said. ‘You must stay here from now on.’

Alastair pulled at the chains, tried to break free, but it was no use. He woke up in the middle of the night, lying in the snow. On his bed, he reminded himself, but everything was covered in snow and ice. He should clean this up, he determined. He did not know how to unfreeze anything, but he could sweep the snow up and outside of the window before Father found out and determined he should be chained in that cell.

He’d considered telling his mother about the cell and the chains and that he was scared, but ultimately decided against it. He was far too scared to find out that when it came to it, she would let it happen. Worse, that she already knew.

***

Alastair was thirteen when his father presented him with the family sword. Legend had it the sword was magic, but the properties of the weapon had been lost over time. No king of Arendelle had ever died in battle while carrying it though, and some speculated the sword watched over them, protected them. Alastair didn’t know what too believe when it came to cortana. He knew his sister wished she could be the one to own the sword, but Alastair knew as future king he was supposed to bear it. He was sure Cordelia could practice with it when he wasn’t using it.

‘Now, Alastair, this is an important part of the Carstairs legacy,’ Elias said. ‘If you can use this sword, you would be protected if people ever learnt of the ice that’s inside your heart.’

That’s what Elias often called it, the ice inside his heart. Don’t feel, Alastair reminded himself. He wasn’t supposed to feel, or he would upset the ice. Elias treated it as something separate from him, a demon that would strike if Alastair didn’t work hard enough. He didn’t think that was right, but didn’t dare say anything.

Elias presented him with the sword. Alastair had never held it before, had only admired it from a distance. He took the hilt in his hand and immediately dropped it, yelping in pain. As soon as the hilt touched him, a pain shot through his hand. His skin was red, blisters were forming where the sword had touched him. He’d sustained burn marks.

His mother came in when she heard him scream and rushed him to the infirmary immediately, where he’d gotten his hand bandaged and lied about what had caused the burn, claiming he’d wanted to help in the kitchen and touched a hot pot. A horrible shame crept over him and gripped his stomach. He was unworthy. He couldn’t even hold cortana. The family sword, the weapon that had been carried by all great kings and queens before him, had chosen to burn him.

***

‘I have a surprise for you, dear,’ her father said with a smile.

It had been ages since Cordelia had seen him so healthy and she was glad he was having a good day. She missed him. She’d wanted to go to his bedroom and read to him, but Alastair had told her she couldn’t. When she’d asked for more information, he’d refused to explain and just said she wouldn’t understand. Alastair often treated her as if she was stupid and did not understand anything, but Father never did.

She didn’t know what to do with her brother anymore. She’d loved him once, that she knew. Part of her still did. But she was fairly certain he didn’t love her anymore. He’d left her all alone. At least he still had her father, even if he was gone so often. It wasn’t his fault he was sick.

‘What is it?’ Cordelia asked.

‘It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, now would it?’ Elias said with a chuckle.

Cordelia’s dark eyes went wide as her father showed her to the room where cortana was kept. For years she’d begged to touch the sword, to practice with it. But the sword wasn’t hers. As heir, it belonged to Alastair. Even if he’d never shown interest in it, even if wielding cortana had been Cordelia’s dream for a long time.

‘I’ve discussed with your brother, and we decided that since you are so attached to cortana, it should be yours,’ her father said. ‘You are worthy of the sword.’

Cordelia picked it up. She’d never trained with it, although she did know the basics of swordplay. With nothing else to do, she’d watched the guards train from a distance and had copied their movements. It felt good in her hands, like it fit perfectly and had always belonged to her.

‘Now, a sword is a great responsibility,’ her father said. ‘Cortana has a sharp edge and a dull edge. You can always choose mercy, and that is what the old kings and queens of Arendelle became known for. Remember that.’

Cordelia nodded. ‘Of course. I will not let anyone harm us, but when I defeat my enemy I will always offer mercy.’

***

There was only one other person outside of his family and Tessa’s who knew about Alastair’s powers. It had been an accident, really. Alastair was allowed to go outside onto the palace grounds and practice. Cordelia wasn’t allowed to go there with him, so no one would see if he lost control. It was the only place where he could get some air. But it wasn’t enough, and sometimes the walls of the palace felt suffocating. He longed to get away, to disappear.

So one day, he’d made sure no one saw him and had snuck over the wall. It had been easy, really. He’d built a ladder out of ice. In the summer heat, it would melt and no evidence of his escape would be left behind. He could control the ice inside him when he set his mind to an explicit goal.

Honestly, the problem arose when he felt. Better to freeze his own heart. But he couldn’t help but feel when Father yelled at him, when he drank so much he couldn’t stay awake anymore. It was all his fault, he knew. Father wouldn’t have started drinking if he’d been better, if he had never hurt his sister. But he was a monster and he deserved his father’s anger.

He knew Cordelia hated him. He had accepted it. She would be safe and Alastair would never hurt her again. If that meant she hated him, it would be alright. Tessa had said once he could tell Cordelia about his powers when it was safe again, but Alastair feared it would never be. He had nightmares sometimes and woke up in a snow landscape instead of a bedroom. Sometimes the emotions just became too much.

On the other side of the wall was another forest, and here he could be himself. He would be alone, yes, but Alastair would always be alone. Most of the time he didn’t mind the solitude so much. At least here he wasn’t trapped within those walls.

He just walked, not sure where he was going. He would find his way back to the wall eventually, he told himself. A castle was hard to miss. He didn’t even notice the boy in the woods until he was right behind him.

‘Hello.’

Alastair was startled. He wished he could say he’d responded with some decorum, but that would be a lie. Instead, ice had shot out of his right hand, with which he had been leaning against a tree. He was stuck, frozen against a tree. Great, just his luck.

‘Are you alright?’ the boy asked.

Alastair wished he could have turned around, but his hand was still very much stuck, glove and all. There was only so much the glove did. He still had to control his own emotions. Conceal, don’t feel. He’d broken that rule, and for what?

He finally broke off the chunk of ice from his hand and turned to face the boy. He was around Alastair’s age, with brown hair and hazel eyes. There was a reindeer following him, sniffing Alastair curiously.

‘I’m fine,’ he said between his teeth.

‘Were you born with the powers, or cursed?’ the boy asked curiously.

‘What kind of question is that?’ Alastair bit at him.

‘I’m sorry. That’s what my aunt said is what distinguishes sorcerers. But you don’t have to answer. I just never met someone with magic like yours before. What’s your name?’

Alastair had to think quickly. The boy didn’t recognize him, didn’t know he was the prince. He couldn’t know, because then he would spread his secret and soon the whole kingdom would know the crown prince was a monster with ice in his veins.

‘Esfandiyar,’ he said.

It was his middle name, and a little known fact. It was a name from his mother’s home country, an ancient hero his mother used to tell him stories about. It was one of the few fond memories Alastair had of being young. So much had revolved around his cursed ice.

‘Thomas,’ the boy said, offering his hand. ‘Thomas Lightwood. And this is Sven, my reindeer.’

Alastair smiled weakly, refusing to take the boy’s hand. He knew he had to go home, but he hadn’t spoken to another boy his age in forever. He didn’t want to go.

‘Why are you here in the woods?’ Alastair asked.

‘Oh, I was just on my way home with Sven after delivering my mother’s cakes. I like this part of the woods. I always came here before I was allowed to leave by myself. Why are you here? Is it because of your magic? Are people scared of your ice?’

‘People don’t know,’ Alastair said. ‘And you can’t tell anyone.’

‘I won’t,’ Thomas promised. ‘But your powers seem so awesome. I wish I had powers.’

‘No you don’t,’ Alastair said. ‘No one would want to have ice inside of them. It’s very hard to control, and you can hurt people. Badly.’

Thomas tilted his head. ‘You’re not going to hurt me, are you?’

‘I don’t want to,’ Alastair said. ‘But that does not matter. The ice does what it wants.’

‘I’m not afraid, Esfandiyar,’ Thomas said. ‘That’s a beautiful name, by the way. I wish my name was even half so extraordinary.’

‘I need to go,’ Alastair said, determined.

He would not hurt someone else, he vowed to himself. Conceal, don’t feel. It didn’t matter that Thomas was the first person in years to see him and not be afraid.

‘Will you be here tomorrow?’ Thomas asked. ‘I always take this route after delivering my mother’s cakes. I can meet you around this time every day of the week.’

Against his better judgement, Alastair said yes.

He met Thomas in the woods everyday for nearly two weeks. He didn’t lose control of the ice anymore, not when they were together. Thomas was nice, and liked telling him about his life. He didn’t even seem to mind that Alastair avoided all of his questions. One day, Thomas had baked some extra cakes and shared them with Alastair. It was Alastair’s fifteenth birthday, and although he still hadn’t told Thomas about who he was, he had mentioned that his birthday wouldn’t be celebrated. Cordelia had given up on him a long time ago, and his parents didn’t have the time. It was sweet of Thomas to think of him, the only person who had in years. It was almost better than the cakes themselves. Almost.

‘I really hope my mom won’t find out, but these are the best cakes in the whole world,’ Thomas said. ‘My mother taught me how to make them herself. Well, my cousin Christopher likes the lemon tarts more.’

‘Your parents are both bakers?’ Alastair asked.

‘No, just my mom. My father is on Arendelle’s council, although I don’t think the king listens to him a lot.’

‘Oh, that’s too bad,’ Alastair said.

He wasn’t surprised his father didn’t listen, often he wasn’t even there for meetings. But his mother would, right? She’d always been calmer and gentler than Father. But she wouldn’t go against his father’s wishes.

‘And my uncle Gabriel and aunt Cecily sell ice. They travel to the north mountain and the frozen lakes at winter and cut off ice and transport if back to the city and sell it.’ Thomas smiled. ‘I always wanted to go with them when I’m old enough. But what’s the point of going all the way to the north mountain when you can just conjure ice out of thin air?’

‘Believe it or not, making that journey is probably less dangerous than asking me to supply the world with ice,’ Alastair said.

‘Perhaps,’ Thomas said. ‘But I’m certain there’s a way to control it. I haven’t seen you lose control at all since when we first met and I startled you.’

‘I feel less around you,’ Alastair said. ‘I’m not supposed to feel and at home I do that a lot. But with you, it’s better. I don’t think I feel anything.’

Thomas frowned. ‘Oh,’ he said and Alastair suspected something was wrong.

‘What is it?’

‘I thought you liked spending time with me,’ he said. ‘But now you say you don’t feel anything.’

‘That’s a good thing,’ Alastair insisted. ‘I’m not supposed to feel.’

‘Everyone’s supposed to feel, Esfandiyar,’ Thomas said. ‘If you don’t feel anything when you’re with me… I guess you don’t like my company as much as I thought. Maybe it’s better if I don’t come back.’

Alastair’s eyes went wide. His fingers started tingling. No, no. Conceal, don’t feel. Don’t let it show.

‘No!’ he said. ‘Please. I’m all alone, you’re the only person who understands. You weren’t meant to find out, but you did, and now you’re all I have.’

Thomas looked confused. ‘But that means you did feel something, right? If you truly felt nothing, you wouldn’t care if I left.’

Alastair shook his head. ‘No, when you said you would leave, I did feel. Please stay with me, Thomas. I don’t want to feel. Usually, it’s like a storm and I have to fight to keep the ice inside. You make everything better. With you I don’t feel the storm.’

‘I think you’re a little confused about what it is to feel,’ Thomas said. ‘You know it’s more than sadness and fear, and anger right? Happiness is also feeling. I feel happy when I see you in the woods.’

‘Perhaps that’s it,’ Alastair said. ‘Do you think it’s alright for me to feel happiness? Even if I’m not supposed to feel?’

‘Of course, Esfandiyar. What is the point, if you can never be happy? I have to go home before my mom realizes I’m late. But can I see you again tomorrow?’

‘Always,’ Alastair said.

The last day he met Thomas, the other boy was acting a little shifty. Alastair wasn’t sure what it was. It made him nervous. He knew to expect bad things when people acted like that.

‘Esfandiyar, there’s something I need to tell you,’ Thomas said.

His cheeks were red, and Alastair didn’t think it was from the cold. Alastair waited expectantly, but Thomas didn’t continue.

‘What is it?’ Alastair asked.

‘Well, you see,’ Thomas began, stumbling over his words, but he was not to finish them.

His father came stumbling into the woods, Alastair could tell from his demeanor that he’d been drinking. His fault, he should have stayed in the castle. Of course they’d notice he’d snuck out.

‘Alastair, where have you been?’ the king asked.

Thomas looked at Alastair, and then at the king. ‘Alastair? Oh heaven, you’re the prince, aren’t you?’

Alastair sighed. ‘Esfandiyar is my middle name. I’m sorry Thomas. I shouldn’t have lied to you.’

‘Who are you?’ his father hissed at Thomas, and Alastair hoped Thomas wouldn’t notice his slurred speech, betraying to a trained ear that he was drunk.

‘Thomas Lightwood, your Majesty,’ Thomas said softly. ‘My mother is a baker. My father is Gideon Lightwood, he represents the commoners on your council. I was just on my way home. I swear I didn’t know he was the prince. I am so sorry.’

‘Go home, Lightwood,’ the king said. ‘And do not let me catch you here with my son again, or I’ll have you thrown into the dungeons.’

Thomas took Sven and disappeared. Alastair dreaded what would come next. Father could be unpredictable when he was drunk, dangerous even. Alastair was terrified he would be dragged into the dungeons to those cuffs, or to the sauna.

‘I’m sorry, Father,’ Alastair said softly.

‘What were you thinking,’ his father snapped. ‘You’re a prince, not some peasant boy. How can you risk them finding out?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Alastair repeated. ‘He was nice to me.’

‘He’s a peasant boy, of course he’s nice to you if he thinks it’ll win the prince’s favor,’ Elias said. ‘You must learn these things, or you’ll fall for anyone with even a little bit of charm.’

‘He didn’t know I was a prince,’ Alastair protested.

Elias didn’t even look at him. ‘Of course he did. Everyone in the kingdom knows who you are. He lied to you to bring you into a false sense of security. You’re so naïve, to have believed him. I have sent for someone to come and teach you about ruling a country. It’s about time you learnt to be a proper prince.’

Alastair looked back once more, but Thomas was long gone. Alastair went back to the forest the next day, desperate to hear what Thomas had wanted to tell him, even if it was only once. But Thomas had been nowhere to be found, and Alastair had returned to the palace, defeated. He was all alone.

His father was right, it was time to be a proper prince. He was fifteen now, he was old enough to understand how the kingdom worked. His father couldn’t fulfill his duties anymore, not with his drinking eating away at him and his mother doing everything she could to fill in the gaps. It was time for him to step up.

[the-acid-pear]

I did my homework and i did my chores, time to tackle on the third book of this series, Son of Ogre

Chapter 1

Okay but the fuck is Baki planning to do if he stops fighting? That's literally all he has, he's not smart

WOOH THATS A BIT REALISTIC

PREHISTORIC ELEPHANT?!

King just went to have a snack. Also FUCK does that meat look tasty FUCKKK

This baby so cute 🥺

I'm so glad Yuji is doing stupid hilarious shit again it had been a while

Congrats on Baki for that mantis

Chapter 2

Who tf is this kid?

Poor kid lmao, i assume he will meet Baki

Look at my boyyy

HSTSRFAYDF DON'T CALL HIM A MANLET

Imagine Baki actually kills this kid HSJDYSSHCBT

Third comment with a ton of likes is "we do not condone child violence. We do, however, find it hilarious"

Chapter 3

AH SHUT UPPP KIDDO

But i like Baki memeing a round a lil

Chapter 4

🥺🥺 that's so sweet...

HELLOOOO STRYDUM MY GOD YOUR TITS GOT FATTER SIR 😳😳

Yujiro is such a fucking threat to society lmao

I love seeing Baki with his eyes open, he's looking more like his old self

Oh, shadow boxing incoming, alright

Chapter 5

Yuri? 🥺 /j

THE RETURN OF IRON MICHAEL?!

Chapter 6

I love how there's our silly little mains after every cover LUV em <33

Baki just dissociating his ass out and using it on his favor, the king

Why is Baki eating sour prunes aren't those meant to be sweet?

We all salivating

Chapter 7

Love to see there are even more swears there now

I can put my face next to my foot too tho

FAGDRJSEHARD YUJIRO CAN BEAT THE CANCER HOW ICONIC 😍

Also i would LOVE to see Yuji fight an Orca

WHAT?!

I love how everyone in the comments is calling out Rumina for not seeing issue going down to a dark hidden basement with a shirtless man older than him

Chapter 8

"piggy back me" USHSYFLFUDSY

This fight is going to be good

Chapter 9

Imagine Baki dies right here right know against an imaginary mantis lmao

Okay Baki getting damaged makes sense but the WALL?

Baki's dead (GOD IT HAS BEEN SO LONG SINCE I HAVE SAID THAT)

Ffs it's true Baki COULD create himself a stand 😰

Chapter 10

OH FUCK IT'S TRUE

Chapter 11

This fight is so boring i had to take a 6 hour break

Baki just can't win against nature eh

This reminds me of Garland pulling a suplex on that Anaconda

Chapter 12

I can't wait for the main cast to ACTUALLY appear, instead of just, you know, them in the covers

This fight is slow but cool but slow

To fight a mantis you must think like a mantis 😎

Though it's true in this manga you will most likely win if you steal your opponent techniques so

Chapter 13

I MISS IGARI FUCKKK

This is so dumb i luv it

That mantis be swearing lmao

Love it when Baki goes full Yujiro

Chapter 14

TOBA...

Holy fuck do mantis fly?

Secret Chapter?

Is this how Yujiro got born?

Idk girl i would have killed him if i was you

WHAT.

I KNOW THOSE FROGS THEY ARE FROM PUERTO RICO I THINK

I might just be sleepy but this is so confusing

AKSHSKGSKSGSJSG JUST KILL THE BABY IT AINT THAT HARD

Chapter 15

GAIA...

Why is he like this?

Is "he" with us right now?

...gotta admit that IS true...

I love Strydum sksgwhwg

Yujiro really went XD

I don't think my man Arun in the comments is aware how gay what he said is, though maybe I'm wrong

Chapter 16

GOD THESE FUCKING COVERS MAKING ME SO NOSTALGIC, LOOK AT SPEC!

ANIME KENNEDY?!

I can't believe Bush is dead

AN ASIAN BOY HAS JUST KIDNAPPED THE PRESIDENT...

8 of January? My god he's a Capricorn

I'm sorry, what?

LAHQIGWKQFWKSFWIWG 😭😭

I love Baki so much, THIS IS THE KID THAT I MISSED SO MUCH

This explains why Baki was in prison clothes in the anime teaser

Chapter 17

BIG NUMBER

That one mf like 😐

Glad Baki is 18 now at least 😌

Love to see Oliva back

Chapter 18

This page not even bothering to charge the pages anymore

I'm sure there were better ways to go to jail, well, actually, no, but still

Toba used to just chew that off

Baki did that mantis hit you in the head too hard?

I. I watched way too many prison movies and shows. I don't like seeing someone as young and pretty as Baki in such a place. I rlly don't.

Chapter 19

Yanagi baby i miss you...

IRON MICHAEL?!

Mfkhsjsys 😳🥴

Eh got my hopes too high

CHE BAKI PIBE... LA PUTA MADRE NI ACA ME ESCAPO DE MIS COMPATRIOTAS

I hope he swears too i want to see a boludo o pelotudo PLEASE

I mean para pelotudos lo veo a Yujiro todo el tiempo pero igual JSGWKEGWG me pone bien argento ver al Che carajo

Chapter 20

HE SAID BOLUDO SUAHWKWGAKSGSKSGSKGD

I can't take this omfg new fav I'm sorry Doppo but he just said boludo 😭

Pendejo is more used as pibe here but i will let it pass bc idk the lingo in Cuba and he spent some time there so

Why don't i speak like this too ffs? All i do is say eh and call it a day

He's cocky enough to call anybody any age pibe so I'll let that pass too

Por favor no lo hagas che sksgwj

Chapter 21

Che, pibe, it's a good day to die...

Chapter 22

GSHAGSTSG he should have said "no boludo"

I'm falling in love with this boludo myself

That's talented and brutal

OH RIGHT YOU LOSE YOUR BALANCE WHEN YOU DONT HAVE THAT

Chapter 23

Hm that's, cringe

YESSS HE SAID PELOTUDO

OAHWLGWKQFSKSGSJS SIII ROMPELO TODO CHE, ROMPELO TODO POR DECIRTE YANKEE KSGSSJGS

Honestly i too get pissed off when called American or European, though i won't throw shit to Baki, he's some random 18 yo japanese boy, no way he would recognize latinoamerican lingo lmao

King shit Baki boy

Chapter 24

Oh that's why he's called Jun Guevara, that's fair

I like how they are mixing a bit of truth and a bit of lie it's fun at least

Chapter 25

I like how they are drawing nipples now, occasionally

I can't wait for Viêt to complain about propaganda in the comments

OH SHIT

😳 :Y

He's sooo nice 😍

Chapter 26

Only three? You mean the third is... 👁️👁️

HAHA YEAH YUJI-CHAN <3

I can't believe he works for the USA I'm crying and shaking rn

What a progressive manga, the three strongest and most dangerous men and none of them are white 😍

GET HIS ASS BAKI

Chapter 27

Why is this guy sweating sm?

LDYDYSUGFUDT BAKI PLS

I like how the only time Baki was willing to kill a person was when he thought Sikorsky had hurt his girl

Chapter 28

I feel like Ian will die

Man i love how Baki is drawn in this book

Ffs i called it, i have watched way too many prison things to know how shit goes down

I have seen these three before in fanart but I'm curious to see what they can do

Chapter 29

Their faces remind me of Doyle

OH I CANT WAIT TO SEE EM IN THE ANIME

ASSHOLE DON'T CALL ME STUPID 😢���

I'm gonna struggle to tell em apart but i think I'll manage

Okay I'm not the only one who thinks they look like Doyle, fair

Chapter 30

The mouth vs Yujiro when?

Someone mentioned the have the same vibe as the dudes that worked with Gaia and like 👁️👁️

Chapter 31

Lmao someone in the comments recommended the same thing

These three must be great at sex (sorry)

KSHALDHDKD NEW FAV COMMENT: "go to Japan and look for the word "defeat". That way you won't feel cocky anymore"

Chapter 32

Hehe hello Junnn~

KSHAKDHKWGS

La luna

Chapter 33

LOS TRES...

Okay that's funny, hocico instead of mouth (hocico is used for animal mouths)

I'm so glad i know Spanish

The two things that drive me insane and make me ramble are Doppo's beauty and this stupid argentinian

OSHSKWGSKSG

Chapter 34

Imagine he's doing that illusion thing Dorian did

With his own blood, that's so cool...

Hoho...!

I did that once when i had a terrible nose bleed, didn't go well

Chapter 35

This book is fucking boring NGL

"now that you got no more urine left in you"

AH.

GAHDYR LMAO

Chapter 36

HO THAT TITLE, PLEEEASE I NEED SOMETHING, ANYTHING, TO HAPPEN

HHH he kinda cute...

Oww :(

JDJSJFRGAJ

God piantao is an old word i had never heard it before

AND he took a piss.

LOCO NO SEAS HOMOFÓBICO NINGUNA MINA ACA ES MEJOR QUE ESTE PIBITO TE LO ASEGURO SKSGSKGSJAAGS

Se me cayó un ídolo y yo que le quería dar 😔

ÑSHWQLSGOSGDKW

Let's see if he lied to Baki about just liking eh /j

Chapter 37

I luv Oliva lol

AJSGSKSLAGHS BAKI SNAPPED

I too wonder where the fuck Kozue is

Chapter 38

LSHSLDGSLSGSIEG

He is jealous of what you two have, it's normal, el Che just rejected his love after all ;/

Oliva is a king

OH A HANKERCHIEF I THOUGHT THAT WAS UNDERWEAR SHSGS-

Oh shit Oliva is like 45?! He looked so young

Te fuiste a la mierda, Che, el chabón estaba siendo re bueno con vos

Baki is just dead

Chapter 39

I love how realistic Che's fear is, he's rather smart, though not this time

POOR GUY AJSGSWJW

I didn't realize Che said "what more, it may be a woman!" but to be fair they ARE in jail so

Chapter 40

I'm feeling kinda bad for him ngl

I feel happy for him tho 🥺

Bruh they added one page after the ending of some naked anime girl tf 😐

Chapter 41

These prisoners having fun is kinda sweet

YO INSANE

Bitches be complaining about Maria's looks are just jealous 🥰

Chapter 42

Damn she lorge

He loves fighting naked eh

Only valid person is the one saying Oliva deserves better treatment which tbh true

Chapter 43

Fun fact i wear my jacket like El Che too, unless it's too cold

El che with the hair lose is so cute bro,,,

Something something fingering joke

Sikorski could fold a coin too

I bet the bandana will break

Chapter 44

I would have just fallen on top of him, how is he gonna counter that, eh?

Oh that super fun to know!

Oh the good ol dirty technique, i have seen this one before!

Chapter 45

NOOO MARIA DON'T DO THIS TO HIM

This fight is super cool tho i love these two characters

Chapter 46

They just keep changing the rules i think Itagaki is just flexing at this point

LAAOSFKAGSKAGSKAF???

Baki wants his protagonism back

I'm getting pissed off they keep putting semi naked underaged girls at the end of every chapter 😐

Chapter 47

Bruh just realized, the mouth got so hyped as this new cool villain and they died in their first appearance 😭

His damn bandana...

[pearl-blue-musings]

CAN I ORDER A MEDIUM WELL STEAK WITH FRENCH FRIES AND GREEN BEANS? WITH SOY SAUCE(sero)?? (ur sero angst made me tear up)

Hi yes of course I’m so sorry that angst made you cry 😭 but hopefully this will change those sad tears to happy tears!

To others with requests I’ll get to those! I wanted to do something not sex related cause that’s what most of the requests are 😅

Pairing: Sero Hanta x fem!reader there was just no way

Enjoy your meal~

~~~~~~~~~~~

Sero Hanta. Two semesters away from being a college graduate and applying his techniques from all his schooling into his pro hero work: soulmate-less. 

He remembers turning ten years old and seeing the magical red string on his pinky show up one day. The excitement he had at knowing he had a soulmate outmatched most of his friends at the time. He knew from his parents that little tugs on his pinky meant he and his soulmate were nearby and the tugs would increase, not to the point of pain, when they would finally meet.

He felt the first tug on his pinky a week or so after he got his string, telling him that there was indeed someone on the other end. But he never felt a tug after that. Sero didn’t let that shake him as he entered high school at UA. 

However, it did start to bother him greatly.

One by one, it seemed that almost everyone he met in his three years there found their soulmate in someway or another. Whether it was in class, at a festival, at an internship, or even on the job. Everyone had someone. Except him. 

Never him.

So by the time Hanta had turned 18, he had given up on his soulmate; the defeating blow coming after doing some late night pre-graduation research. 

Some people don’t even meet their soulmate

Sometimes if there hasn’t been any tugging for awhile, their soulmate could be dead and the string fades away.

Sometimes soulmates aren’t romantic and the person on the other side meets someone who isn’t their soulmate; very rare but it does happen.

He wanted to vomit. There’s no way they’re dead otherwise his string would have faded. But it might as well be that considering the odds of him meeting anyone new.  Sero exhales deeply as he shuts off his laptop and goes to bed. 

Although, there was a slight spark of hope in him when he decided to pursue his hero studies further before becoming a full fledged hero by applying to a hero university. However with his luck, it seems entirely unlikely. 

He slams his pillow over his head and tries to sleep away the sinking feeling at still feeling nothing on his pinky

***********

(Y/f/n). New hero law student at one of the best hero universities in the world and finished her undergrad early at the top of her class: soulmate-less.

She can remember the moment when she turned ten and that mysterious red string appeared on her pinky, feeling an immediate tug. It made her heart soar at the possibility of finding a love like her parents. However, her parents’ story wasn’t usual in the world of soulmates. 

Her mother’s original soulmate had died in a strange accident and she thought she would never love again. But then a couple months later a new purple string showed up and she found (Y/n)’s father. An unusual story but a lovely story nonetheless. She feared that her soulmate would die and she would have to suffer the same fate as her mother.

But no such color appeared, and tugs on her pinky were all but non existent. 

It was depressing for the budding young hero lawyer, but she knew what her goal in life was and that was to help heroes and civilians alike under the law. It’s not that she didn’t want to become a hero, but being a human lie detector she felt her quirk could be used to better society and help out the good people and put away the bad.

That’s why she knew she had to go to Japan, soulmate be damned! 

She knew of All Might, the notorious school U.A. and their students, along with the infamous League of Villains. Nothing like that happened where she was from so everything about that intrigued her. So naturally when applying to finish out her law degree, of course she’d choose a place where all the action was! She couldn’t wait to get her hands dirty. 

***********

With his final class of the day ending in the early afternoon, Sero left the lecture hall and went directly to the hero agency he’s been part timing at. Since he was still a college student, he couldn’t commit fully to being a hero so he took whatever patrol hours he could on top of the work he did (and don’t forget those smoke sessions to take off the load from school). He’s met with one of best friends from school, Kirishima, who also works at this agency established by his other best friend, Bakugou.

“You’re late, soy sauce face.”

“Sorry dude,” Sero chuckles, “couldn’t get on the early bus here.”

“Yeah yeah. Just get ready for patrol with Shitty Hair.” The ashy blond scoffs and walks off, returning to a phone call he was having.  Sero rolls his eyes as he heads to the locker room to change into his hero uniform, ignoring the twitching of his fingers. It’s still so weird how some people do and don’t recognize him at school as Cellophane. But that’s the way it has to be.

“Hey man, I don’t know if Bakugou told you this but we’re getting someone new.”

Sero pauses in putting on his hero outfit to look at the taller and buffer male. “Oh really? Another sidekick?”

“Actually no,” Kirishima beams, “some kind of lawyer type. It was decided after some hero managers and publicists were talking and the need for a hero lawyer, even one in training, would be good for us.”

“I totally get it,” Sero agrees, “considering Bakugou’s temper? Not surprised at all.” He finishes getting dressed and places his belongings in his locker. “So when are we meeting the unlucky bastard that has to look after us?”

“Either today or tomorrow. Either way, I think it’ll be great. You studied some hero law stuff, yeah?” Sero nods and the two men head out for patrol. “Maybe you two can talk and have something in common! You may never know.”

They turn the corner and begin on their way. “I appreciate you looking out for me, but I’m okay not having to meet my soulmate. I’ll just be single forever. It’s all good.” His fingers start to burn in a weird way but he shrugs it off.

The red head grunts, unconvinced. “Sure man. Whatever you say. Let’s hope patrol is relatively quiet, yeah?”

“Heh, when is it ever?”

*******

After getting settled into the apartment, you had gathered your belongings and hurriedly made your way to the nearest bus stop. You had your first meeting with the new agency you would be working at for hands on experience with hero law. It wasn’t necessary for your degree, but when you saw the opportunity arise, you grabbed it. 

Once aboard the bus, you sit down by the window and mentally go through your bag. You have your school credentials, any and all letters of recommendation, your resume and CV, plus a good head shot should they need it. You are on your way to meeting one of the rising heroes of Japan, Dynamight, at his agency. Since it’s a relatively popular agency filled with well known heroes, it makes sense that someone like you would be needed. You had wondered why they didn’t have someone who was already a certified and bar-passed lawyer, but you’re not going to complain. 

The bus ride went along pleasantly, not really looking at the people around you and focusing more on how to sell yourself to your upcoming clients. You’ve met with your advisor and she is letting you work with her firm via the hero agency. You’re pretty excited to say the least. However, the whole time you’ve been in Japan, a little over a week, you’ve been feeling that pull on your pinky.

Not wanting that to ruin your mood, or your bus ride, you ignore it and think it’s one of those rare phenomena where it’s moving wildly on its own. You’re so caught up in your thoughts that you hadn’t realized the bus had stopped moving and the passengers were all sitting closer to you. 

The poor bus driver shakes in fear and the two villains that have entered the bus, striking fear into the passengers. You spot the supposed leader who’s yelling into someone’s face when you gather your courage and stand up.

“Hey! Leave them alone, they’re not doing anything to you!”

Your loud voice caught the attention of the villains, one whose quirk has some sort of telekinesis as you feel your body being unknowingly brought toward the front of the bus.

The man has his face up close to yours and you can smell the nicotine on his breath, making you cough. “You got something to say to me little girl?” His cohort comes over to inspect you carefully, noting the money and jewelry they’ve already procured and you eye them sharply.

You cough in his face and continue, “yeah I do. What makes you think you can just come up in here and harass us?” You motion your back hand to the scared passengers to leave, remembering the doors in the back. You also didn’t know that the bus driver had already pinged for help from the nearby agency, alerting its patrolling heroes.

****** 

Both Sero and Kirishima feel their phones buzz with an alert. They look to each other and start heading toward the coordinates provided. There was a bit more sense of urgency to this for some reason that Sero can’t quite place. 

The closer they get, they see some fleeing civilians. Kirishima stops one and politely asks her what’s happened. 

“These two villains jumped on the bus and hurt the bus driver! They were stealing things until this young woman stood up to them. She told us all to leave but I’m not sure what’s happened to her!”

The two heroes nod and follow the direction of where the lady pointed. They run off toward it and stop a block away to assess the situation. Only a handful of cops are around as it has quickly turned into a hostage situation. The woman earlier was right, and that makes Sero’s heart race in fear. 

“I can sneak up to the side of the bus, head toward the back to check for an entrance.”

Kirishima hums and adds, “right, I can attack from the front, provide a distraction and if necessary close combat.” He breathes to collect himself, knowing they’ve done this a thousand times over. “Let’s do it.”

Sero nods and leaps into position. He takes his place on the side of the bus without alerting the villains or the hostage. The cool metal of the bus helps him to clear his mind and think carefully. His nerves must be getting to him because his fingers, more like his pinky, can’t stop twitching. He’s done this before, so why is this time different.

He almost gives up his position when he hears your voice.

“You’re just some low life petty criminals. I’m not too worried about you two.”

There it is. That little tell when you know you’ve got someone in your clutches. The mind based one seemed to falter and you knew he was going to act out in anger. And you were betting on it.

��Shut up stupid woman. You think I won’t do something to hurt you? Take you down a peg, huh? Because you look like you need to be tamed.”

Your time practicing cross-examining is paying off because that last statement terrified you. Villains are shameless and you know they’d have no problem defiling you in front of the police here; plus you were interrogating him. It got the people out and if you die saving some people then it would have all been worth it.

The two young heroes listening for the right moment give each other a look and both move in to do their parts. The loud red head getting the attention of the villains using his charm and personality to distract them while Sero sneaks into the bus, light on his feet to avoid detection.

Something in you sends shivers down your spine because you don’t even have to see him to know that he’s there. You, almost on instinct, duck down in order for Cellophane to apprehend both criminals and for Red Riot to keep them face down on the floor. You feel tape being wrapped around you and pulled toward the back, but the sensation should’ve come from your waist, not your pinky.

“Are you okay? That was extremely brave standing up to those guys and getting everyone out.”

His voice was unexpected but it drew you in, almost like it’s something you’ve been waiting for your whole life. The hero in question looks down at you and you feel him flinch. He takes off his helmet to get a good look at you and the moment seems to go on forever.

It’s not until you look down at your pinky’s is when it finally hits the two of you.

You had met the other end of your soulmate line. And there he is. His eyes go wide and you immediately get lost in their shape and shade. Is this the feeling your mother described when first meeting your soulmate? Magical? Indescribable? Gosh what is he feeling?

“You, you’re....”

“My soulmate...” you finish.

Sero hadn’t realized that he still had you wrapped in his tape from rescuing you but he doesn’t want to let you go. He spots the tears falling from your eyes and gently places his hand against your cheek and wipes them away. It’s like his hand was made for holding your face and he doesn’t want to let go. He wants to keep holding you like this because for so long, he had resided to being single but, you’re here and you’re real.

“Yo Cellophane, put your helmet on we’ve gotta talk to the police and- oh my god no way.”

The two of you are interrupted by Red Riot who had returned to check on his friend after he hadn’t come out with you, the hostage, yet. The two of you look to the buff man and then back at each other, and cute and embarrassed chuckle leaving your lips.

“I guess we should leave, I have to give a statement and all.”

“And get your injuries checked. Sorry if I pulled you too hard.”

“No no it’s fine! Uh, what’s your name?”

“Ah, uh, Cellophane. But my friends, and now you my soulmate mi amor, can call me Sero Hanta.”

He kisses your hand then and if you were in a courtroom you would’ve lost the case at the way your composure is failing you. It takes everything in you to not faint, because everything you had read was true about the first time you meet your soulmate. Out of this world. 

You’re brought back to reality, when a police officer comes in asking what the hold up was. You two were forced apart and Hanta reapplied his helmet. Even with it on, he can’t stop looking at you. And now that his soulmate is finally within arms reach he doesn’t plan on letting you go.

The four of you, including Red Riot and the cop, walk out of the bus. The cop directs his attention to you and gruffly asks. “So what were you doing on the bus? Why did you stand up for those civilians when you aren’t a hero?”

You looked at him incredulously. You understand he’s doing his job but what kind of question is that? “I was on my way to a meeting at Dynamight’s agency. I was preparing my reading notes as their knew hero lawyer and representative and I saw this happening! How was I supposed to stay back and do nothing?”

As the cop writes down some of your statement, the other two accompanying you are dumbstruck. “Wait, Kiri starts, “you’re our new lawyer?!”

Your eyes widen when you put two and two together. “No way, you work for him?”

Sero lights up, “work for him? We’ve been best friends since our days at U.A.! Who would’ve thought I would meet you today huh?”

You turn to him again, still shocked at the mere audacity of meeting your soulmate today, or ever. Stuck in a war with yourself, you reach out and tangle your fingers with his, just to have his touch once more. “I had given up on finding my soulmate,” you softly admit, afraid to meet his eyes.

He takes his helmet off again, away from prying eyes and focuses his attention on you. “So did I, corazon.” He had placed a hand onto your cheek like earlier and rubbed comforting circles on your soft skin. You hadn’t realized how close the two of you had gotten until he whispers, “May I?”

You nod, and gently lean into his kiss. If meeting each other was the appetizer, then kissing for the first time was like a meal and dessert. It was so chaste, yet so filled with emotions locked away that are now begging to be overflowed into the light. You two pull away, looks of awe and maybe love adorn you faces as you attempt to lean in again.

“I hate to break up the love fest,” Kirishima interrupts looking bashful. “But we’ve got some paperwork to fill out and all that so, we gotta go. And hey, we can take you to the agency after we’re done at the station, I’m sure Dynamight’s eager to meet you.”

Despite everything that had been happening, you had completely forgotten about your meeting, and hurry to call your new employer. You’re on the phone for only a couple minutes, but it gives Kirishima and Sero time to talk.

“So, who would’ve guessed you finally meet your soulmate today huh?”

“Yeah.”

“And I was right there too!”

“Si.”

“Are you listening to me?”

Hanta was listening, but was too busy looking at you and already thinking that he can’t wait to fall in love with you.

~~~~~~~~~~~

[zishustits]

oooooh ship bingo! i recently heard about these two concepts and would love to hear your take: ye baiyi and lan xichen, and xie'er and lan xichen <3

Oohhh okay, first I have to say I'm not actually into crossovers BUT let's forget about that for a little bit, these concepts are interesting.

First, Ye Baiyi and Lan Xichen. Let's see what they have in common.

They are both high skilled cultivators, very relevant figures in their respective societies.

They share common values such as righteousness, compassion, honor, service without waiting for anything in return, even kindness (more explicit in Lan Xichen).

They are not rigid in their principles though. Both acknowledge that most of the times you cannot judge a person as bad or good, nor a situation as black or white. They have struggled with it sometimes (i.e. Ye Baiyi considering whether he should kill Wen Kexing or not after knowing he's the chief of Ghost Valley, while also being aware of the difficult circumstances that led him to become that evil figure, which are indirectly related to YBY as Rong Xuan was his disciple. Also Lan Xichen caught between the evidence that Meng Yao has committed very wrong deeds and the kindness he has known from him)

Both have lost their loved ones forever.

Both have a tendency for retirement and solitude.

Apart from that, LXC has this noble and respectable aura that makes people feel calm and reassured when he's around, like if there's any problem it's okay, LXC probably knows how to solve it, he's diplomatic, also he will protect his people from danger, always keeping that composed calmness that's inherent to him (even if there's inner turmoil).

Now I consider, Ye Baiyi is very similar too, think of those scenes in the first episodes of WoH, when he gave Gao Chong the token of honor, then at the second Heroes Conference when everyone turned to him as a guide for what to do with the Ghost Valley issue, and also when WKX and ZZS fell from the bridge Cheng Ling felt reassured having YBY to help him. People feel relieved when he's around to lead them and solve problems.

So now, if LXC and YBY met I think they'd be a good match, like they would sense the similarities of their souls, especially the influence they have on others, now I can't find the words, but it's related to the righteousness and the high moral values and elevated cultivation they have achieved. Also they would perceive the isolation that comes with being far from the mortal realm for so long (for Ye Baiyi) and with being an important figure of the cultivation society that also has lost someone who was very important to him (in the case of LXC).

I believe they'd connect easily, like oh I recognize you, you are similar to me. And also they would enjoy learning from each other, YBY has reached the most elaborated martial arts skills and LXC is outstanding in musical cultivation (or whatever name it is). They see each other as equals and no one feels less than the other.

However, I think Ye Baiyi would break all of the Lan rules XD and be upset all the time, like why can't I just sit on the roofs at night to watch the stars while drinking alcohol? But as LXC is the Gusu leader (I think? Can't remember what he was at the end of The Untamed) and he is far from strict as LQR was, he would ignore it. In fact, I think he knows most of the rules are outdated and unnecessary, so they just keep following the rules that are actually related to master one's discipline, being righteous, respecting your elders and seniors and being kind to your sworn brothers and so on.

They might cultivate together. Keep each other company even as they are just sitting there in meditative contemplation or just enjoying the silence. Talk about ancient knowledge.

As for the type of relationship, I don't actually think it would be of romantic or sexual nature, like they were devoted to one partner in the past (probably more platonically than anything, at least on YBY part) and seem to me the kind of people that does not engage with anyone else after his companion has died, at least in the same way, like sometimes it's hard to reach the same level of deep connection with someone else. That doesn't mean they could not forge a close relationship, but to me it's not the same vibe as xiyao or rongye (or whatever the name of this ship is).

Following the bingo classification, I'd say Best friends, or Qplatonic at most. Also I'm intrigued to know what other kind of relationship people think they could develop. If you want to share with me, I'd love to know your ideas!!

Okay, probably for the next one I'll try to write less because I realized how long this is getting (it's just a bingo, please brain!!!), and I should finish some college stuff buut it's not less interesting to me I swear!!

So Xie'er and LXC. First, I think LXC would be aware of the good that's in Xie'er and his potential, mostly his inexhaustible willpower and determination, which have been until now directed towards, let's say, flawed goals? All that energy and intelligence wasted on another man's dream. It's unacceptable!!

The principal thing that comes to my mind and that struck me since Xie'er first appeared was the he seems to know who is everyone, like he saw ZZS and WKX together for the first time and he thought, why are the former leader of the Window of Heaven and the chief of Ghost Valley together wtf? While everyone else was like oh, two righteous wanderers, never heard of them before. Xie'er clearly knows how to obtain the right information, he has the mind of a researcher, and that could be put to good use.

Also Xie'er knows a lot about venoms and their antidotes, is that not another relevant and useful skill he has??? Again here, he is a researcher, as for instance he discovered the cure to the Meng Po soup was Drunk like a dream. Furthermore, he probably knows a lot about survival, hiding, disguising himself, being a shadow amongst shadows, fighting (especially dirty tricks), and leadership skills. He also has some knowledge on magic tricks (with the Drug men) that could be the simile to demonic cultivation.

All this knowledge and abilities could be put to good use, not to achieve other's goals, but to help people, for example, finding a cure to their poisoning or demonic possession (or whatever), instructing others on different facts that could be useful if they need to hide from a threat, survive in the wild for some time, coming alive from a fight with a nasty opponent an so on.

I mean, I haven't mentioned LXC until now but let's assume he is aware of everything about Xie'er's skills that I have described. Also, he realizes Xie'er has a good soul, it's something you can see right away if you spend a minimum of time with him. He has shown it with actions too, for instance, when he released Liu Qian Qiao and his lover, also that scene after the battle at mount Qingya (I'm still crying about Cao Wei Ning and Gu Xiang, my poor babies ;~;) when he left WKX and ZZS go (although he had a sword to his neck gssbsbsbsb), and of course everything he did for Zhao Jing, out of his love and affection for him.

Okay, he has done bad deeds, but he has kindness in him. A kindness that has not actually been nurtured but has developed there anyways. He has a tendency to serve others, that we see mostly with his yifu. Those are important values that might be developed and focused to actions that make an improvement on people's lives, and probably on Xie'er's own.

And LXC is determined to do that. Like he sees Xie'er's efforts to serve others because it's something that comes naturally out of him, but realizes it needs to be properly acknowledged as no one has done that before (we only got to see him do things for his yifu, who rarely showed any gratefulness for it, and only this time with Qian Qiao she almost got to say something nice to him, but Xie'er turned away swiftly, like he is not used to receive positive feedback on his good actions at all, so probably it's not something that he feels comfortable with).

I believe LXC would nurture this good side of Xie'er, praising those little (and bigger) services he does for others, which would act as a positive reinforcement. Also he would show interest in Xie'er's skills, and what he does in his free time (like no one has shown some interest in this before?), as well as his emotional state and stuff. Showing that he genuinely cares about him. That he appreciates Xie'er for who he is.

Also he would encourage him to persevere on those abilities he has and teach others, maybe the Lan disciples. So Xie'er would see that his skills can be used for some other things that are not killing or trying to become the king of the world.

As for Xie'er, he would grow to like LXC, finally finding someone who really cares about him, knowing for the first time in his life what it is to be seen and appreciated by someone who does not expect nothing from him in return. Learning that he deserves to be loved that way (and I don't necessarily mean romantically).

And that he does not need to kill for others anymore. He can become the person he wants to be, not what others want to get from him. LXC would show him he can do good deeds and they will be appreciated, even if he's doing it for others is something he inherently has done before, it nurtures his soul. He needs to experience more of that. And LXC would encourage it. He is patient, he is kind, he rarely lashes out, he has predictable reactions unlike his yifu (I mean, when Xie'er did something to please him but sometimes he would react nicely and many others he wouldn't, let's ignore if his actions were morally correct or not, the fact is Zhao Jing would respond differently to similar things).

Also Xie'er is able to discern what's good and what's harmful, and I believe that given he could choose freely, without thinking is this what my Yifu would do, he would be inclined to do the good thing. LXC encourages that.

Okay, I will not elaborate more, probably I've even been redundant several times. This relationship would definitely be great for Xie'er, for him to learn what is a healthy bond and to grow as a person.

But I don't think it would develop into a romantic or sexual kind of relationship. It just don't give me those vibes. LXC and Xie'er have different backgrounds, LXC is a sect leader and devoted to cultivation, Xie'er is the leader of a shady assassin organization and has developed other kinds of abilities.

Dunno, I don't feel them like equals, as it feels with YBY and LXC, for them the cultivation/martial arts skills are one of the main pillars of their lives and it's something they can share together, LXC and Xie'er are way too different. There might be some power imbalance too, and LXC would be somewhat taking care of Xie'er and not quite the opposite? (save from those little services Xie'er would do for him). Well, this is not probably a good reason because I like some ships with power imbalances too.

But I mean, they just don't click to me as a couple at least. More like a teacher/student relationship perhaps, or a friendship at most. Perhaps I just can't ship it any other way because of my strugglr with crossovers, but with YBY and LXC it was clearer to me that, well, it could be possible.

I'd love to know your takes on these two concepts too, whether you talk to me directly or in a post!!

@goldensprite