#also you're allowed to hit me cos I worked on this instead of working on my final

[co-opmode]

I learned this just over a year ago because I started work as a billing clerk at a nonprofit medical facility and we gotta be SUPER upfront about the cost of every individual service, and if we find out later that we accidentally gave the patient an incorrect estimate, we write that shit off immediately - i really wish I knew about the No Surprises Act before this because i got hit with several $1k-$2k medical bills for my decrepit-ass body that I was never warned about, and it took me forever to pay them off.

Its also important to note that the No Surprises Act makes Balance Billing illegal. If you're unsure what that is, I'll explain, and I'll capitalize any word that has a very specific legal meaning. An hour-long one-on-one behavioral therapy session is often coded on your insurance claim as 90837, and we will use this for our example.

Medical Facilities (hospitals, dentists, your therapists office, etc) have to have the same Billed Amount for a given service, and that amount is determined by their contract with the Payor (your insurance company). So if the Medical Facility is contracted with multiple different Payors (like Premera, Medicaid, or Molina), they have to Bill based on whichever Payor asks for the most money. So, for example, if Premera decides 90837 costs $180 for that Facility, but Molina only says it costs $100, then your Medical Facility has to Bill $180 to all Payors, including Molina. However, theres something called the Allowed Amount, which is what takes into account each individual Payor decided to charge. So While the Billed Amount, and the Allowed Amount for Premera might both be $180 for 90837, Molina in this scenario would have a Billed Amount of $180, but an Allowed Amount of $100. so when Molina gets your insurance claim, they send an Adjustment of $80 to the Medical Facility, which means that when determining how much the facility will be paid, the service will be considered to be worth $100 INSTEAD of $180.

In this scenario, if you have a Copay of $30 (or if you have a Co-insurance of 30%), you would pay $30, Molina would pay $70 and your remaining Balance would be $0, because the Allowed Amount of $100 has now been fully paid. If you havent met your Deductible yet, Molina can say you need to pay 100% Co-insurance, and this would mean you pay the full $100 Allowed Amount and Molina doesn't pay anything.

Balance Billing is when the Medical Facility tries to get any amount of that Adjusted $80, or any additional amount beyond your Copay or Co-insurance. It should also be noted that even if your Copay is $120, and the Allowed Amount is $100, you would only pay $100.

So when you get a medical bill, you make damn sure you see a Billed Amount, AND the Adjustment subtracted from it, and THEN you find out what you owe based on your Copay or Co-insurance.

They make this complicated ON PURPOSE so that you're confused and just go along with it. So please ask me any questions you still have 💕

I’m seeing a bunch of posts that make me think most USAmericans don’t know about The No Surprises Act.

It was passed in 2021 (thank you Biden) and essentially states that if you don’t have insurance or your insurance doesn’t cover a service you need (or want) you are entitled to a Good Faith Estimate of the cost of care. (If your insurance does cover the service, you should be able to estimate the cost of care based on your deductible and co-pay.)

As a healthcare provider who does not accept any insurance, I am very careful to not violate The No Surprises Act. Why? Because for every penny more than $400 that the Good Faith Estimate was “off” (or if it wasn’t provided), you are entitled to a refund for that amount.

Y’all. Ask for a Good Faith Estimate. Get it in writing. Compare it to what you are paying. If you are not provided an estimate or if it’s wrong by more than $400, demand a refund.

[hansoeii]

Ohh look, it's the dead boy detectives!

[sytoran]

⋆｡°✩ GOD, YOU'RE INSATIABLE ✩ w. maximoff !

✩ pairing. sub!wanda x dom!gn!reader

✩ synopsis. (based on this ask) a formal work party goes wrong when wanda's co-workers hit on you, and your babygirl gets a little very jealous.

✩ cont. smut (18+), established relationship, smut, strap-on usage, jealous bratty!bottom!wanda, jealousy, orgasm denial, thirsting, degradation kink, humiliation kink, name-calling, r is mean but in a good way

✩ word count. 1753 (masterlist)

"god, you're insatiable, you know?" 

"shut up and let me ride you."

there the two of you are, going at it like horny teenagers, not even having made it into the bedroom of the house. wanda’s shoved you on to the couch, sat in your lap, short dress rucked up by your wandering hands. your pants are pulled down to reveal wanda’s favourite ivory strap, atmosphere heavy with libido.

how the hell you’d end up here, you might ask. well, it all started two and a half hours ago.

.

it was one of those formal-dress work parties, with the jazz band and the glasses of champagne. held by the law firm wanda worked at in celebration of their fifth anniversary, they were allowed to bring a partner, so wanda had brought you.

it was with much difficulty that you and your girlfriend made it out of the house in the first place, one too many kisses on wanda’s exposed neck as you zipped up her sleek, green velvet dress.

“w-we’re going to be late,” wanda said breathlessly, through your chaste kisses. you merely smiled, sucking a hickey onto her pale skin, tilting her head up to watch through the bathroom mirror.

“oh, fuck,” your girlfriend whined, pupils dilating as your tongue swirled over the newly-blemished skin, kissing and licking. 

“you’re right,” you say abruptly, pulling away just as wanda’s about to get into it. suppressing the smug grin that’s threatening to creep onto your face, you tuck a lock of her soft brown hair behind her ear, not missing her flushed face.

holding open the door as wanda steps out of the house, both of you already fifteen minutes late, you also don’t miss the extra sway in her hips.

not like you would complain, anyway.

“what’s a handsome stranger like you doing here?” 

the words of a woman catch your attention, turning around the meet the eyes of a blonde. you smile cordially, choosing to ignore her advances, instead reaching out to shake her hand. “y/n l/n, nice to meet you.”

the woman smiles quizically. you shift under her wandering eyes, feeling the bubbles of a very bad situation about to break out already.

“sharon carter, very nice to meet you. who’re you here with?”

“oh, waiting for my girlfriend. she’s gone to get some punch, i think.”

you don’t miss the way sharon’s face falters for a small second. you swore you could hear the evil chuckle of your girlfriend somewhere in the back of your head.

the awkward silence filled by the jazz tunes of the band is quickly replaced by sharon boldly stepping forward to adjust the collar of your shirt, almost as if with completely disregard for anyone else in the room right now.

“your tie’s quite messily tied. your girlfriend help you do it?”

your gaze darkens, and not in the good way. she’s invading your personal space, the scent of some heavy perfume making your nose scrunch nose. she’s insulted your girlfriend.

before you can even move to shove her hands away, a flash of brown streaks your vision and soon a resounding slap is heard in the area.

soon, all gazes in the room are on you, a shocked sharon carter, and a very mad wanda maximoff. 

wanda’s not even trying to hide it, you think affectionately, not at all bothered by the blonde clutching her cheek with her jaw dropped. wanda’s absolutely fuming, spitting out curses at said blonde, some strings of her native sokovian tongue rolling out alongside it. it’s kinda hot.

“so, sharon, this is wanda, my girlfr-”

“wife.” wanda hisses, and the deathly look she shoots you has you raising your eyebrows.

“we’re newlyweds now, i suppose.” you say lightly, but neither of them are laughing. you hear a distant chortle from wanda’s coworker, sam. you grin.

“now, if you’d excuse me and my girlfr- my wife, and i, we’ll be taking our leave.” you barely manage to get out, being physically dragged out of the place by an extremely furious wanda maximoff.

she tugged you through the crowd of her co-workers and bosses, not giving a damn about any of them, not when you were at stake.

“oh, so we’re married now?” you quip with a teasing smirk, hand resting on her lower back as wanda jerks your hand off with a huff, going to sit in the passenger seat, slamming the door shut.

okay, maybe the situation was worse than you thought.

or maybe she just wanted a good fuck.

“let me open the door, at least.” you groan, but wanda’s already unbuckled your pants, mouth watering when she catches sight of her favourite ivory strap.

“yeah, no thanks. if you fuck me in the open everyone who walks past can see that you’re not meant for anyone else.” wanda says snarkily, jumping up onto your torso, and you catch her underneath the thighs.

she’s really doing this, right now, in the front porch of your shared house. either she was that mad, or you had no shame, but all’s well that ends well.

that’s how you end up on the sitting on the couch, legs spread to give wanda space to sink herself down on your strap. her hands rested on your abdomen, hair already slightly dishevled.

you never thought she looked more attractive.

your eyes darken as you watch your girlfriend take the black silicone cock into her pussy, inch by inch. she was so irresistible, and you wanted nothing more than to let your hands do whatever they wanted with her pretty body, but practiced self-restraint only left wanda needing more.

“fuck,” wanda gasps, throwing her head back when the strap hits a particularly sensitive spot. you lick your lips, your hands never travellling further than the outer sides of her thighs.

letting your girlfriend do all the work by herself, watching her whine in frustration but cry in need, made your head spin.

wanda was only slightly hesitant, rocking slightly to adjust herself to your size. her eyelids fluttered shut, but then she would remember sharon, and she would get mad again.

“you’re mine,” she would growl, fingernails digging into the muscle of your abdomen as you hissed in pain. 

“really? or are you just a big fuckin’ whore, begging to be used like a doll?”

wanda only lost her big, bag demeanour when you leaned back, looking up at the ceiling, ignoring her statement.

your faux indifference had wanda spluttering - how dare you, pretend as if she was nothing - how dare you. it only fueled her to begin riding your cock, determined to make you pay attention to her.

“look at me.” wanda says firmly, clutching onto your tie. you don’t oblige, only your hands moving to rub up and down her thighs. 

she shivers, involuntarily gyrating her hips down onto your strap, little whines escaping her fast-fading facade. 

“look at me, y/n.” wanda tries again, less conviction in her voice but a ready effort nonetheless. you reward her with a thumb on the lower lip. wanda eagerly sucks as she gains more rhythm. 

your strap quickly gets moist, wanda’s slick dripping onto your thighs. it takes every cell of fight in your body to not flip her over and fuck your girlfriend silly. 

no, this time you needed to wait. you wanted to make her fall apart, then try to patch herself back up, only to realize you were the glue that held her together.

you needed her to need you.

your sweet mercy came soon enough, when wanda couldn’t get off without your dark eyes finding hers, without hearing your voice, without you.

“daddy, please look at me, please, please!” she breaks off into a loud cry when you finally look back down at her. your eyes are blown wide, without any trace of light.

“fucking slut, hm?”

the sight of your girlfriend - your wife - getting herself all hot and bothered, a fucking mess for you, made you lose your goddamn mind. with more energy she had ever exerted, wanda began riding you again with newfound vigour.

“m’ your whore,” wanda melts, mewling at your harsh plucks of her nipples. 

“yeah? cum for me, then.”

“shit, daddy!” it was only with your hands plucking at her nipples, and your voice muttering absolute filth into her blushing ears, that wanda could climax.

you were looking at her, so harshly and so demandingly, that all wanda could do was look at you through glassy eyes, mouth hanging open as she brought herself over the edge.

it was loud, with shrieks of your name, white going everywhere. you closed your eyes, relishing the moment of sacred beginnings.

it was only when you opened your eyes that you realized wanda had knocked herself out with such vigorous fucking. you could’ve laughed at her antics, running a hand through her locks of hair and pressing gentle kisses on the top of her head.

it was a few hours after you carried up into your bedroom that crept up once again, fishing in your drawer for the biggest strap-on you could find.

then, slowly spreading her legs in the dark of the night, catching sight of her glistening pussy. you bit your lip in anticipation.

it started slow, but then you grew impatient, and a growl of “pretty girl” bit your girlfriend out of her sweet slumber.

so all wanda could do was whimper and cry when you started pounding into her, gripping her pretty hips so hard it would bruise, fucking her into the mattress. 

in the dark of the room, your body weight pressing down onto her, your grunts right up against her ear. you told her then, as she moaned into the pillows, that you were hers and she was yours, because that was the only way your world could find its direction, the only way the earth spun beyond its axis.

wanda’s incoherent ability to form words only spurred you on further, forcing her to orgasm again and again, until she was a quivering mess. kissing up the column of her neck as she shook beneath you.

you loved her, you loved her, you loved her.

whether you liked it or not, wanda maximoff had imprinted herself into every inch of your brain, into every cell of your existence. the morning you woke up without her by your side would be the day the galaxies collided.

because you would always be hers.

no matter how insatiable.

sharon gets made out to be the villain in almost every fic but im not even sorry lol i need a bad guy... also this is the return of the ivory strap, which first made its appearance in slow hands, which is in my masterlist reblogs are appreciated :) main m.list

[nowoyas]

Koi no Yokan 9: don't startle the stray (Nishinoya Yuu/Reader)

First - Prev - Next - M.list - Ao3

A/N: MAN this chapter got away from me. enjoy some fluff!

Summary: The weekend at Nekoma comes to an end. You settle in for the ride home.

Warnings: blanket series warnings

Words: ~4400

The vibes are off and you're too tired to do anything but marinate in them.

Another shuffle of bus seats—three girls, two seats at most, but because it's at least daylight and you're alright with it, the others, including Takeda-sensei, have reluctantly allowed a single instance of co-ed seating on the bus, trusting that you'll hit Noya if he tries anything. (You'd gotten onto the bus after him, but you're pretty sure he threatened to fist-fight anyone who sat with him and took your spot. Taking the aisle seat didn't save you: he simply climbed over you to take the window seat.)

Surprisingly, he's not taken the opportunity to talk your ear off. He's kind of got the same vibes everyone else has had ever since this morning, the ones you can't place.

Tense, maybe? Moldy?

You try your best to sigh only internally, not fully willing to be forced to hash it out in an enclosed space regardless of who's decided to pounce on your mood. Instead, you stare at the same damn page of your book that you never got through on the way down here and don't process a single word.

Hinata… got too excited, you guess. Crashed right into Azumane because he wasn't paying enough attention to who the set was for. No one hurt, but then he started in about changing things (not a bad idea, in your totally-expert opinion as someone who has recently gained an entire half of an idea about how volleyball works but who also just spent the past day or so watching them lose), got totally shut down by Kageyama, and outright stated that what they're doing as a team isn't actually working. And ever since, this is what it's been: something pulled taut between the team, everyone on edge.

Something's gonna burst soon.

It's probably a good thing, you think? One of those throw-up-and-then-you'll-feel-better deals. They'll have, like, one big event that fixes everything, and it'll all go back to normal, and it'll be fine and the thing that gets you out of the house will stay fun.

Yeah. It'll be fine.

~

Mei had always been the weirdest Nishinoya sibling. Kaede was responsible (don't make trouble for Mom this month; she gets really sad around the time her ex-husband left); Satsuki was the troublemaker (I wouldn't have punched him if he weren't such a bitch). Yuu was the only boy, the baby, and only a bit less bad than Satsuki. But Mei?

Mei was quiet. She was a Nishinoya and she was quiet. Despite looking alike, the contrast between her and every single other Nishinoya sibling resulted in strangers assuming they were friends at best and that Mei was being harassed by strangers at worst. Jii-chan got to her too late, probably: all the shyness and all-consuming anxiety that Yuu learned to throw out, to set aside, to hold in for times when no one could see, remained her defining trait.

She didn't have any particular strong hobbies that she was willing to talk about. She cried seemingly at random. She spent long stretches of time doing what looked like nothing at all. She was smart and good at school, but where Yuu got to the test and found it almost impossible to focus long enough to finish in time, she'd sit down for an exam and be escorted out half an hour later, hyperventilating after talking herself into a panic attack. Where he'd learned to simply not give a fuck about academics because he was never gonna be good at them anyway, she was already good and stressed herself to tears.

It'd been Yuu who checked the college entrance exam results for her, Satsuki who screamed about her acceptance loud enough to wake the neighbors, and Kaede who baked a cake to celebrate. But before that, they had to bring home Soba.

Satsuki would kill him for saying it, but Mei was also his favorite sister. He had her to thank for teaching him to spot the onset of an anxiety or panic attack, and her to thank for being able to tell the difference between the two. It was Mei he learned simple, effective strategies for calming oneself for, and Mei who jumped to his defense when he brought home yet another shitty test score. It was hard to control his energy around Satsuki, just a year older than him and the most likely sibling to start or join a fight, and Kaede was kind and responsible but just didn't get it. Mei was the one he could sit silently with, decompress, just exist without feeling the need to be bigger than himself. He found that hard to do with anyone else, at any other time.

(It helped that Mei was the only sister who did not tease him for his height, being shorter than every single other Nishinoya sibling and the only boy.)

The day he found Mei crouching near an empty building in the pouring rain, he listened to her whispered instructions, and they stuck.

Don't push too hard. Crouch down, make yourself small so she doesn't think you're a threat. Let her smell you, but don't reach too fast or move too quickly. Don't shout or you'll scare her. If she hisses or shies away, back off. Be patient, and don't give up.

Admittedly, he's been trying to use the same methods that brought Soba home that first night to get close to you, and admittedly, he hasn't done a very good job with most of them, but you don't seem to have noticed when he breaks a cardinal rule by tackling you or shouting because he's excited to see you, and anyways you're not a stray cat and the two of you are more in the "befriending a nervous cat" stage, but the general strategy stands.

Mei's instructions after the two of them had gotten Soba home had been similar to the ones that got Soba out from under the porch she'd been hiding under, and following those instructions religiously were why Soba loved him and Mei and hated everyone else alive, save for you.

If she needs to hide, let her hide as long as it won't hurt her. It's not like we're trying to give her life-saving medicine, and we'll leave out the things she needs so she can access them on her own time.

Picture you, texting him multiple times in the middle of the night, asking for nothing but a picture of Soba with the sort of texting tone that indicated something was wrong. Picture you, refusing to explain what was wrong. Picture him, letting it go even when he can't shake the sense that you didn't just randomly decide you wanted to see his cat at four in the morning.

Try not to upset her routine. She's a nervous kitty, so doing things around the same time each day will help her get used to us.

This is how he justifies yelling your name and complimenting you every single morning. You're not quite as skittish as Yachi is, but he sees the way you walk yourself into conclusions in your head and he saw the way you spiraled directly into an anxiety attack that time you helped him Ryu and him study. And anyway, you smile when he tells you you look nice that day, so he's not stopping that anytime soon.

Let her come to you. Don't chase her down.

He's not sure near-daily marriage proposals qualifies for not chasing, so to speak, but he's really, really trying not to push any harder than you seem to be okay with.

This last one—other rules for acclimating the nervous new cat that he's decided also apply to courting the prettiest girl he's ever seen—is why, after the fortieth time since he slid into the bus seat beside you, he still doesn't ask why, exactly, you've been on the same page of your book for the past—he checks his phone—forty-three minutes, give or take.

There's no point to giving space to worry ninety percent of the time. If he can't change the outcome, there's no sense in worrying. It's not that he doesn't feel the worry—he just… sets it aside. It's easy to forget it's there if you switch focus to something else, and he's the champion of not focusing on anything at a given time. Shouyo gets too caught up in the game, he creates a new worry by smashing into Asahi's side, but no one was hurt, so forget about it—there's a set to play, a ball to bump, a point to keep in play until it lands on the other side of the net.

But here he is: four and a half hours on a bus, and his most frequent worry these days has been silent a different way from the usual. Yuu would like to think he knows the difference between your pleasant-quiet and your something's-wrong-quiet, and he would also like to think that this difference is fairly obvious considering how much of the past forty-three minutes of silence was you openly glaring at your book without reading it.

Part of let her come to you and don't chase means following cues and paying attention to how you react. You don't like when people worry over you. In fact, you do everything you can to make sure they don't have a reason to. It has the opposite effect, as far as he's concerned, but you take it to a new extreme. He even swears you try to hold in yawns until no one's watching you so no one thinks you're tired, even when the bags under your eyes are clearly running deep. And you're good at putting on a mask—he's seen you switch, the exact moments you decide to smile and talk sweet or otherwise mask some emotion you've decided doesn't have a place in the situation.

That being said, this latest glance worry-ways has him catching you before you sway into the aisle, a firm hand quickly grabbing your shoulder and guiding you back to safety.

Your eyes drift open as he tries not to laugh. "Mmgh?"

"You almost fell," he whispers. "Go back to sleep, we've got a while to go."

"Mmkay."

He shuts his eyes tight, presses a hand firm over his mouth to stop himself. Much like the first time Soba fell asleep on him, there's a life-changing pride that swells in his chest, spiking to what he's pretty sure counts as a cardiac event when you sway again, this time leaning over to rest your head against his shoulder.

"Uh—[name]-san—"

You turn your face into his shoulder wordlessly. You've already fallen back asleep.

Face burning, he shuffles to get comfortable, marks your page in your book, and sets it closed on your lap. Then, as an afterthought, he pulls up his phone's camera and starts a video recording.

"Before you fall back asleep, [name]-san," he whispers.

You wrinkle your nose, let out a tiny whine of acknowledgment.

"Marry me?"

You let out a breathy mumble that he's pretty sure is an attempt at the words stay still.

He won't argue with that.

~

You wake up with a sore neck.

You'd imagine it has something to do with the weight currently resting on your head, but you can't be sure and you're too tired to bother opening your eyes or moving. Instead, you listen to the ambient noise of the bus, which right now appears to be consumed with whispers more than anything.

"E-eh?" Yachi is saying to someone. "I-I can't just—that would be so rude—"

"Come on. You can always delete it if she asks when she's up."

"I-I'm sorry, Tanaka-san—"

"No worries. Here, let me just—"

You have a weird feeling about this. You shift, turn your face into whatever it is you've decided to use as a pillow for this bus ride.

This is about when you remember who you were sitting beside for the ride back.

"Got it! I'm just gonna—"

"Tanaka-senpai, if I open my eyes and I see you recording us in any form, I'm breaking your phone," you grumble, not bothering to unwind your arms from what you're pretty sure is Noya's midsection. You're also pretty sure that soreness in your neck has something to do with his head resting on yours, and you're absolutely certain that that's his arm around your waist. Put simply, any untangling right now is gonna wake him up if you're not careful.

All fine. You vaguely remember him catching you from falling into the aisle earlier. Given that he would appear to be asleep right now, you can't really blame him from shifting into a more comfortable position in his sleep, especially seeing as you can't see him moving your arms to wrap around his body in your sleep. That, and you know how often you wake up cuddling your pillow. For once, you're not going to kill him for something.

That being said, you're also pretty sure Tanaka can tell that you're not fucking around.

"Do me a favor and don't open your eyes yet, then," he replies simply. After a moment's shuffle: "Alright, now you don't have to break my phone."

Your phone—or maybe Noya's?—buzzes between you.

You'll bet actual money that he just sent whatever photo he took to one—or both—of you.

You open your eyes with a sigh, raising an eyebrow when you catch Yachi's sparkly look from over the seat back.

"Um." She takes a moment to collect herself. "Sensei says we'll be stopping at a rest stop soon, so everyone should be ready to get up and stretch their legs."

"'Kay."

Tanaka leers from across the aisle. "You can have the honors of waking your cuddle buddy up, [name]-san. Since you two are so close all of a sudden."

"I'm going to hit you."

"Lucky me, you'll need to wake him up to do that, and I'm pretty sure Noya-san will hold you back if you try."

You grumble. "Just watch me."

Finally, finally, you move to untangle yourself from Noya. Pat a hand on his chest in hopes of getting him to wake up. "Senpai. C'mon."

He shuffles a little. You shake him harder.

"Senpai."

He sighs sleepily, brings up his other arm to pull you against his chest in a crushing hold.

Tanaka stifles a laugh behind you. "By the way, he's got a bit of a death grip when he's still asleep. Good luck!"

"Don't you good luck me, help!" you hiss, wriggling in his hold.

"Promise not to hurt me for anything that's happened on this bus today?"

"Tanaka-senpai! After all I did for you—"

A hand reaches over the back of your seat, baps Noya on the head hard enough that it moves your head.

"Oi," Ennoshita says. "Get up. You're crushing [surname]-san."

A sleepy mumble. You feel the weight on top of your head shift, and you peek up at Noya, red-faced as you watch him process where he is.

Your one consolation is that he appears to become equally red-faced the moment he looks down at you. "Good morning, Senpai. P-please let me go so I can kill your best friend."

Impossibly, his hold on you tightens, sleep clearing from his eyes with frankly impressive speed. "What'd he do?"

"Irrelevant. I said please?"

He hums softly. "I'm not sure… we do need him for matches…"

Fuck. You need to get out of this before you combust. Not even just because this weird twist in your torso is starting to make more than just your neck hurt—every word from his mouth is rumbling through his chest, still sleep-tinged, and straight into you. "C'mon, Ennoshita-senpai can take his place, it won't kill you guys."

He studies you carefully, having apparently immediately grown used to the position where you've become a teddy bear. "Give me a strong yes and I'll think about it."

Alright, bet. Time to break out the big guns.

Looking at him with your best, sweetest puppy-dog eyes, you shift your voice into something just a touch cutesier than your usual. You'd normally never be caught dead with that tone, but desperate times call for desperate measures, right? "Senpai."

He blinks, expression going carefully blank.

"Please?"

He lets you go like he's been burned, and you immediately respond by launching yourself at Tanaka. Regrettably, Sawamura had sat across the aisle from the both of you as a pseudo-chaperone. He doesn't even look up when he sticks an arm out between you to block your path.

"The cleaning fees if you murder someone on the bus are ridiculous. All that hard work you and Yachi-san put in for donations would barely make a dent in it."

You frown, deflating a little. "I barely put in any work. Don't credit me for that."

He glances up at you curiously, but doesn't lower his arm until the bus pulls into the rest stop. "Tanaka, don't antagonize [surname]-san."

"Why am I getting yelled at? She's the one threatening me!"

Sawamura doesn't respond. You stick your tongue out and quiet down—Takeda-sensei's gotten up to address the bus.

"Alright, everyone, we're going to take some time to stretch and eat before getting back on the road. Feel free to get out, get some food, and everything, just please remember to be back at the bus in forty-five minutes."

Ukai nods along. "Don't make us hunt you down."

A round of affirmations stirs up in reply as your heart sinks.

You didn't bring any money.

No problem; you'll get off, bathroom break just so you can say you got off the bus, and then just get back on the bus and wait to leave. Maybe actually make progress on that fucking book you haven't been reading even though you've had at least six non-consecutive hours to read. It's getting ridiculous at this point.

You hop off the last step of the bus, scan the area until you find the large red and blue signs indicating the bathrooms. Before you can take more than two steps towards them, someone taps your shoulder.

There's Noya, grinning like always. "Where are you off to?"

"Bathroom. I'm pretty sure you can't legally follow, Senpai."

"Wanna grab lunch?"

"I'm not that hungry, but thanks."

He doesn't miss a beat. "I'll treat you."

"We've been over this, you don't have to—"

"Consider it payment for the exams I wouldn't have passed without you."

"You already got me chips and stuff."

"And now I'm getting you lunch. Come on." He guides you very deliberately towards the food court. "If you actually need to use the bathroom I'll let you escape, but if you hide there until we leave I'm picking food for you and buying it anyway."

"You're insane."

"You're stuck with me," he retorts, and, well, you don't have anything to say to that.

~

You get the Shunsai Curry and Noya gets a slice of pizza. He'd raised an eyebrow at you picking the cheapest thing on the menu, but let it slide when you pointed out it was a meal and you could have just refused to eat anything but gelato.¹⁸

He'd then insisted that afterwards, you get gelato. You'd insisted that he not buy you gelato. You've compromised, and now you're sitting across from him with a cup of gelato.

12:42. Be back at the bus in thirteen minutes. Give five minutes to walk, or three if you're willing to run, which Noya might be but you're not. Finish the gelato by 12:50. Easy enough, if you could make yourself take a bite.

"You alright?"

900 yen for the curry. 350 yen for the gelato. He's spent 1,250 yen on you in the past thirty-two minutes.¹⁹

Another glance at your phone. 12:43. You're going to be late getting back if you don't eat the stupid gelato, and you can't waste it. Not when he spent 350 yen on it.

This is so fucking stupid.

"[name]-san?"

A hand waves in your field of vision. You blink, snapping back into reality. Noya finished his gelato sometime between the walk from the stand to the table, while you haven't even tasted yours.

"Sorry," you mumble. You don't elaborate.

"I asked if you were alright. You're glaring at the gelato even harder than you were glaring at your book earlier."

"Oh. Sorry."

"One more apology, and I'm buying you a souvenir—"

"Stop," you snap, the anger startling even you. "Stop wasting money on me, Noya-senpai. You don't have to—I'm not a charity case, you know?"

He flinches a little, settles back in his chair. "Is that what you think I'm doing?"

"Aren't you? I'm not—I'm not destitute or anything, I just—I mean—Otoo-san has money, I could have just asked for money to spend on the way back, it's not—"

"I didn't think you were," he says slowly. "Poor, or anything like that. I mean, I've seen your house."

"Exactly!" you bite out as the first tears slip down your cheeks. "You've seen my house. You're probably just—I mean, everyone in the neighborhood probably knows that—"

He slips back into that gentle tone from before, the cat-coaxing tone like you're some scared animal. "Hey. Why are you crying? I'm sorry."

You drop your head, stab the gelato almost too hard with your spoon. "Do you seriously not know?"

"You're really going to have to elaborate for me to have any idea what you're talking about."

"…let's do this. Why do you go out of your way to be nice to me and buy me stuff?"

"You're the prettiest girl I've ever seen and I like being around you," he says, beginning to count on his fingers. "I'd say we've become friends, seeing as you actually started calling me Noya-senpai when I asked you to and we talk a lot, and I like doing things for my friends. Especially when they're pretty girls."

"…do you have a lot of pretty girls as friends?"

"Just the one!" He doesn't miss a beat. "Not only that, but a good senpai takes care of his underclassmen. It's my job to buy you and Shouyo ice cream and nikuman! Hm, what else… oh! Because I wanna spoil you! I said this before, but you've got a really nice smile, and even though you always try to stop me from spending money on you, you usually smile and you always thank me, which feels really nice."

Unbelievable. Actually unbelievable. Everyone in the fucking neighborhood knew about it. You spent weeks getting cards and flowers and fruit plates from well-meaning strangers. You stopped going to the closest grocery store because the owner kept giving you a pitying look and mysteriously forgetting to charge you for a few things. The only butcher shop you're willing to attend is because the owner has never even once commented on it, even though you're certain she knows. And Noya has no idea. "Is that seriously it?"

"Oh! Also because I don't think anyone should have to skip lunch just because they don't happen to have any money on them. I've got the extra to feed you, and Okaa-san and Jii-chan are both huge on the whole 'if someone goes hungry, you're failing them' deal. So right now I'm also feeding you because it's the right thing to do."

You study him carefully. You're not sure Noya can lie—he's refreshingly, frustratingly open at all times. He doesn't ever hold back. Even for stupid things like transparently trying to get you to let him try your cooking, he just admits to it when you confront him.

"…how good are you at keeping secrets?"

"Satsuki, my sister, has gotten into something like twenty fights in her lifetime and our mom has never heard of a single one of them. Does that mean anything?"

Fuck it. You've already broken down in public. "Do you want to come over for dinner tonight?"

He blinks slowly. "Yes. Absolutely. Why?"

"I… I'll tell you about it, but we really don't have the time right now, and I don't want to talk about it in front of everyone else in the club, so…"

"Dinner, then." He grins. Pats your head.  "Eat your gelato quick and try to get the sniffles out so we can run back to the bus without anyone asking any questions. I'll let you run my phone battery down with full access to the Soba albums once we're back."

You obey quietly: wipe your tears, eat your gelato. Noya checks his phone while you freeze your brain, and at 12:52, the two of you run back to the bus and pile into your seats at exactly 12:55.

Once again, you underestimated him.

Footnotes

18. In draft one of this chapter, I mixed up Nekoma and Shinzen's locations, so I laid out this whole itinerary for getting back from the weekend training camp to Miyagi and researched rest stops along the route they were most likely to take and settled on one in Tochigi before remembering that Nekoma was NOT the school based in Saitama and Karasuno would take a totally different route home. I had to re-write this section to accurately go off of what was available at the rest stop they would actually stop at, which makes me deeply sad for two reasons. One: the rest stop in Tochigi had lemon milk, which is now the second food item I have an aching urge to try someday as a result of research for this fic. Two: the sentence that originally started this scene was, "You get a karaage bowl and Noya gets the hamburger steak", which I personally prefer the general rhythm of. Unfortunately, neither of these items were on the menu at the rest stop they're actually at.

19. At time of editing, this comes out to about $8.55 USD. Just so we're clear about how much Noya's ruining his financial future with all this big spending. Prices taken from the menus on the linked site in footnote 18.

Tags: @deeplightgarden @idonthaveanameideayet @dusstory @kazunish

[destiny-in-the-universe]

Information for the new Ask Blog

Alright, good timezone, my lovely readers!

I'm writing this partially because today is my birthday and also because it just now hit me I'm almost at 100 followers, so this is a present for all of you as well!

As most of you already know, I have brainrot and a never-ending hyperfixation on superhero cartoons at the moment- and in honor of that, I wanted to make a collaborative blog! Now, it is going to be multi-muse which means I would be playing more than one character because yes, it is an ask blog. However, this is where you come in and I'm hoping I can get enough people interested in the day.

The plan is for some of you to come up with your own ask blogs that fit the theme and it's a joint project. I could also technically allow you to co-write on the blog, but I don't know if I'm comfortable with it. Instead, as part of the rules I plan on making, I do plan on following anyone who makes a blog as part of a crossover I'm working on, but also- I just want to do something fun.

Now, I did have two interested parties-

@oceandirtcountry and @sharperthewriter

I honestly do not mind which characters you guys write as long as it's another superhero cartoon; this can be anything from Ben 10 to Kim Possible (to me, it counts-) to Danny Phantom. Go wild, it can be villains and/or heroes. The sky's not even the limit. Now I do not have the whole scope of the plot so to speak figured out but it is going under the pretense that the superheroes are at least aware of one another, or will be aware of one another during the course of the blog.

Some Thoughts I Already Had

Hero Districts refers to the different cities that heroes reside in. As per old customary rules, the districts were meant to be kept separate so as not to get involved with other affairs and well, since not all of them were always districts (such as in Danny Phantom's case), there wasn't always need to enter those cities.

I know at least two of us are adults and despite my passive enjoyment for spiciness, this is not going to be the blog for that. One, it just wouldn't fit the theme I aim for and for another- my followers are mixed ages and I'd just rather keep some of my more mature content separately (unless it's angst and some forms of violence, but that's different-).

Due to some event, the heroes of certain districts end up meeting and it begins defying the original laws set in place by the very old school Dragon Council, but of course- it's eventually going to catch the attention of certain foes.

I do plan on keeping a masterlist of all the muses and universes that take place within the joint crossover. You are given free range to choose whoever you want, in whichever fandom as long as it's superheroes. I. guess even Rwby counts but I've never seen it- so, I'll leave that for you to decide.

The blogs are of course, a combination of character asks and for roleplay purposes. I know this is a lot to read, so I'll add more later- but if you're still interested, just tell me the name of your muse(s) and the fandoms they're a part of in the comments and we can go from there.

~ Mod Destiny (They/Them)

[cosmicfortuna]

Bright Conversations

Also wrote this for my school newspaper and posting it here. One of my longer works but, oh well.

Crediting @saradika for the border

Balls. The bane of my existence.

Not that I hate the concept of parties or grand events but the fact that I had to attend was kind of bugging down my mood. Despite being a star pupil and the adopted daughter of Vesper, the Evening Archmage, the king decided to reduce me and Piper to “talented magicians” for cheap parlor tricks in order to entertain the nobility. If I had the option to engage with flamboyant rich people for laughs or remain in the Twilight Wing of the palace studying the history of celestial entities and magic itself, I’d go with the latter.

The atmosphere was beautiful, I won't lie; only the best from the Orionis royal family. But the gold on top of gold chandeliers, railings, and table centerpieces reflecting warm light proved too much for my poor overworked brain. Maybe it was a side effect of being cooped up in the Twilight Wing for years on end or my affinity to the night's darkness. Perhaps both. If I had a hand in decorating tonight's event, I'd turn the ballroom into something attuned to a planetarium; stars scattered across the walls and silver cutlery along with the table centerpieces — more along the themes of the constellation that the kingdom is named after.

I gazed out into the crowd, sipping a bit of sparkling cider that was too bubbly for my tastebuds. The music that orchestra played was whimsical enough to rival Cinderella’s in terms of crowd pleasing. They moved so smoothly and elegantly, exchanging dance partners as if it was as simple as a handshake. Dresses weren’t tugged by the floor and were allowed to spread evenly and twirl about if they were silk. Oh, I envy them. Poor little me was stuck on the sides in a glamourized recreation of my uniform. It would’ve been nice if I could actually enjoy myself instead of reading horoscopes for pretentious people only for them to get upset about their future.

Out of nowhere, an older looking blonde nobleman approached me. Just looking at his snobby, stuck up appearance, I would have to play nice in spite of my annoyance.

"Good evening sir,” I greeted, smiling gently.

“Good evening, indeed,” he spoke with a little too much enthusiasm. Perhaps he had too much to drink and decided to chat up the only loner that was on active duty. “Algol, although you've most likely heard of me.”

If he phrased as a question, I would've been thinking of a more savory thing to reply with. The fact that this man insisted on it being an honest statement baffled me. I truly did not know this person.

“I'm sorry,” I said meekly, “I'm afraid not.”

His face grew a bit red; whether it was already from the drinks, embarrassment, or anger, I couldn't tell. Still, he didn't look pleased.

“Algol… Duke of Sigma Persei… ” he said slowly.

“Oh,” the realization hit me like a meteor. “you're from Perseus,”

“Well, of course,” he rolled his eyes, flicking a couple of stray hairs away from his face. “As the so-called ‘Cosmic Fortuna’, I'd figure you'd already know.”

The only response I could muster was rapidly blinking my eyelids; acting like he was supposed to get the hint and try his time with some other poor girl. Unfortunately, he failed and was still in front of me looking ever so haughty. Still, I had to save face.

“Apologies, I don't get many chances to talk to other noblemen outside of the kingdom,” I explained, leaving out the part where it's somewhat part of my own violation.

He scuffed, annoyed. “Well then, if you have no indication of my identity, how can you even properly divine my future?”

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to.” Is what I would’ve said if he didn’t walk away with his head held high and probably in a nicer tone of voice. Feeling defeated, I took another sad sip of my drink.

“You good, Cos?” My attention focused on the blue eyed girl with white crescent moons for pupils — Piper.

“Yeah, fine.”

She squinted at me then blinked a few times, a familiar sign of her not buying for the “I'm fine, let it go” song and dance routine. Again, books and reading.

I sighed, my grip loosening around the stem of the glass. In turn, Piper also sighed, getting the memo. Unlike me, she lived for the busy crowds and chatty with the bourgeois

She leaned in close, whispering amongst the beautiful ensemble. “The garden gate is unlocked. Tell Selene I said hi.”

A smile graced my lips. Piper leaned back, removing the cider from my hands and taking a sip. I swiftly nodded my head, my curled hair bouncing as I moved. She ventured back into the crowd — probably looking for a waiter with a tray of more bubbling drinks.

A little fresh air wouldn't hurt anybody, I thought.

Following suit, I made my way through the crowd of people towards the open double doors that led to the garden. It wasn't too crowded with people, a few stragglers peppered among the greens. Most likely also running away from talking to self-righteous rich people and needed a break from the stuffy atmosphere. Striding past them across the cobblestone path, I approached the wooden door that separated the wilderness from the carefully curated grounds of the palace.

The door itself wasn't very interesting — merely plain dark oak wood with a gold keyhole with a matching door knob engraved with our constellation insignia. I took hold of it and turned. It didn't not budge so it was unlocked. Before I pushed it open, I stopped myself. How did Piper know that the door wasn't locked? The gardener Fiona had always made sure that it was locked, especially at night when the little woodland critters were out and about looking for food. If Piper was inside the whole night, she'd have no idea.

Nevertheless, I disregarded the inquiry and pushed the door open, crossing the threshold. My breath hitched. A rush exploded from within me. A familiar rush that I’ve felt since I was ten. The exhilarating feeling of breaking unwritten rules and diving into one’s vices. I had to stay on task, though. Quickly, I closed the door behind me and took a breath of sweet relief to calm my senses.

Get a hold of yourself. I reprimanded myself. You’re barely set foot into the forest.

Another deep breath and swift exhale was enough to get me to keep moving. I took a few steps before realizing something -- my shoes. In order to blend in with the ladies at the party, Vesper insisted that I wear a pair of nice heels fit for dancing. Piper (like usual) smooth talked her way out of wearing traditional heels in favor of some riding boots. If only I had her level of confidence and deviance. Then again, here I was a mere two inches away from the door and a couple hundred feet towards freedom.

It’s not like I wanted to run away — Piper always had a knack for escaping into the deep wood — I just wanted some space. Some nice center of the woods all by myself and the stars space.

My eyes traveled towards them. They looked better out in the open, shining like no tomorrow. Not obscured by the royal blue curtains decorating with a golden scroll pattern. Not hidden away from the world… Something welled up inside my being; it wasn’t a good something.

Maybe I should just head back. I considered it. Yea, back to the palace…

It’s times like these where I remind myself that no one else was out here to see me — that everyone was inside fast asleep. But that’s not the case this time. Everyone is inside but awake, lively even. And that comes with a new risk of my nightly escapades: the threat of me getting caught. It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about it since I’ve begun indulging in my vice but that there’s a difference between a few guards randomly sleeping at their night posts and a couple guests lying around the palace grounds. Still, once again, I made it past the door. The door was the only thing preventing me from venturing out into the woods.

That’s it. I’m going. Even if my shoes make noise. I don’t care.

My mind finally felt at ease. Finally, after so many long nights, I was back in the ocean of the stars at last. I felt free. Free from socializing and watching and the overabundance of golden this and golden that reflecting golden hour levels of light with little remorse. It felt great.

And from there, I ran. Not caring if anyone heard.

Well, there was one thing that still bothered me. I allowed the wind to touch me, feeling the cool breeze tickle on my back and delicate wings. Giving them a few flaps, they woke up and readied at attention.

That's better.

Letting go of a stray breath, I hummed the ball's waltz. My arms raised with a mind of their own, my breath calm and controlled; my eyes fixed upon the starry night sky. And soon, I began to dance. Not so rigid like the shelter and stone cold higher class but not like the intoxicated earls, dukes, and whatnots relieving the stress of putting up fronts. A mere mix that laid straight in the middle — a dance of a girl who wants to be alone and is happy with it.

The stars got brighter. Shining and illuminating the heart of the forest that was my oasis. The moon casted a dim light reflecting the sun’s glow; trees highlighted with iridescent silver. Owls silently flying overhead but hooting a welcome message to the lady of the night. It was perfect.

A familiar feeling flowed through my body that I haven't felt for a few weeks: warmth. A warm glow. A warmth took me to the quiet place of my mind. I closed my eyes and continued moving, trusting the light to protect me during my sacred rite of relaxation.

My mind's eye painted the perfect scene. Not too different from the current setting but somehow more extravagant. The grass no longer laid beneath me and in its place was a lovely spring that remained still as my feet moved. Stars swirled in the sky like an oil painting, the light streaking in a controlled manner. I kept dancing, a smile making itself known on my face. Little wisps of periwinkle energy exuded from my fingertips, filling the area with magic. It was perfect. My own microcosm safely hidden away from the rest of the world. My smile grew and I could feel my feet departing with the ground, my wings carrying me higher. Euphoria swept through my entire being; the stars expanding and glowing immensely.

“Woah…” a bewildered voice interrupted.

My eyes snapped open, my beautiful art piece escaping me.

There he was.

Among the trees.

Gawking at my suddenly still body floating a good couple of feet above the ground.

His almost midnight blue hair would’ve hidden him completely amidst the night sky if it hadn’t been for his stunning gold epaulets and the dramatic cape flowing behind him.

I gasped, “Crowned Prince Rigel!”

Immediately, my body dropped onto the grass in a bowing position.

“I-I apologize that you have to see me in this state,” my face burned with embarrassment.

The prince stepped out of the trees and into my circle of twirling dim stars.

“Please, call me Rigel,” his voice was soft but low. “Don’t bow before me, Cosmic, I’m not your king yet.”

I rose up, dusting off my skirt and facing his royal highness.

“Yes, but as crowned prince, you command my respect.”

He shook his head, a smile brimming from his lips. “I thought titles never mattered to you?”

“In the case of my department’s employment, I’d say that they do.” Royal mages without ties to the royal family would just be regular old mages after all. Not that I think they could ever get old in the first place.

He laughed lightly. I sucked in a breath.

“Speaking of my department, you’re not going to…?”

He chuckled, waving a gloved hand. “Of course not. Far be it from me to tell the Evening Archmage that his daughter is skipping out on royal events.”

I released a sigh of relief but a feel of uneasiness still churned in my stomach.

Why hasn’t he said anything about my wings?

In good measure, I hid them again before he could ask.

“So…” Something I didn’t expect from the Prince of Orionis was him searching for a conversation starter. Most royals are very keen on small talk. “What made you leave the ball anyway?” he asked.

I looked down, fiddling with strands of hair that framed my face.

“I needed some fresh air.”

In response, Prince Rigel let out a hum mixed with a short giggle.

“I feel you,” he confessed. “Too many people with too much money and too much energy talking on and on about not having a good time.”

I raised a brow. “Isn’t that the point of these things?”

“Unfortunately not,” Rigel shook his head, his hair flowing with each turn. “The point is to find a spouse for poor unassuming young noblemen. Jokes on them, we’re very aware.”

I laughed but felt empty. Laughter is the best medicine for life’s unfairness — cheaper than breaking down and crying about how you can’t change it. Even the highest of highs cannot escape their predestined fates… Wonder what that says about the ones that choose to pursue the impossible…

“Well, um we should be heading back now…” I cleared my throat and moved to leave the dense wood.

He placed a hand carefully on my shoulder, halting me. “Wait.”

I turned to face him. “Yes, your highness?”

“I never said that I wanted to go back.”

True, he indeed didn’t mention his intentions of heading back.

“Then what would you like to do?”

The prince pulled away slightly, then offered his hand to me.

“With all that small talk, I didn't get a chance to dance with anyone yet…”

I stayed silent but eyed him carefully, flickering back and forth from his hand to the soft look in his eyes. He took my hand in his, raising it to his lips and placing a gentle peck.

“Will you dance with me under the light of the stars and silence of the night?”

[tuiyla]

Re: the mutiny scene... Was Buffy's plan to return to the vineyard too risky? Yes. Were the Potentials justified in rejecting Buffy's authority considering that they're in a life and death situation and that Buffy hasn't proved that she's capable of protecting them? Yes. I don't think she's 100% in the right.

However,

1) Why is Buffy the one being kicked out of HER OWN house? Dawn says that it's her house too and so Buffy should leave it, which is so absurd... Imagine thinking you have the right to tell your parent(al figure) - the one paying the bills and providing for you - to leave the house??? So ludicrous. If Dawn and the Potentials are unhappy with Buffy, they should be the ones leaving! Also, Buffy leaving is counterproductive because at the end of the day she is still the strongest Slayer and the group is weakened without her.

2) Why couldn't Willow and Xander pull Buffy aside and talk it out privately instead of allowing such drastic decisions to be made so abruptly? Why are they okay with Faith (who previously tried to murder both of them) taking over as the leader? It's not like they saw her redemption arc take place afterwards. (I agree with you that it makes no sense to bring up whatever Willow did in the past to criticize her in this situation, though)

3) Again, even though I don't think Buffy was 100% in the right, the way some of these characters treated her in the scene was infuriating to me. Anya telling her that Buffy is "luckier" than everyone and completely disregarding the pain and suffering caused by the responsibilities that being the Slayer entails? I think that's the only time in the whole show that I truly disliked Anya. Kennedy was also brash and irritating in the scene and Rona saying "ding dong the witch is dead" was soooo nasty, ugh.

So yeah, imo the 7x19 mutiny is actually more (a lot more) atrocious than the 3x02 discussion because, even though Buffy isn't entirely in the right in the former, the team kicking her out of her own house was completely out of proportion and multiple characters (especially Rona and Anya, but also Kennedy and to a lesser extent Dawn) were getting on my nerves vs. only Xander in 3x02. It's also different because I can personally cut Xander (and Dawn) some slack for what he said in 3x02 by remembering that he ultimately loves Buffy and has her best interests at heart, whereas Anya (even though I love her otherwise) and Rona don't care about Buffy in the same way, so their cruel comments always piss me off more.

I wanna preface this by saying I don't actually disagree with most of what you're saying, if any of it, and I appreciate that you took the time to write this out. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're not prev Anon haha and see this, this is something I can work with.

Before I reflect on any of your points I also want to say that I think the only reason my posts can come across as anti-Buffy in this context is because I dislike both the show's and fandom's framing of events and, I suppose, tried to counterbalance. Because the thing is, Buffy's friends' reaction is so over the top and her getting kicked out so blatantly ridiculous that yeah, there's an urge to come to her defense. But I think in discussions of the mutiny scene (from what I have witnessed) the nuance gets lost in the extreme measure taken. It's like this: person A and B have a disagreement. They're both your friends and you think they're both coming from a place of truth, even if one is maybe more right than the other. But it's a silly thing, until person B hits person A with "you should kys and I hope your pets die" and you're like, woah!! Okay that's simply just too far, you cannot in good conscience side with person B anymore, no matter how right they were before taking it way too far.

And it's a faulty analogy, sure, but hear me out. I'm a bit wary of the nuance of the mutiny situation getting lost because Buffy is so obviously outnumbered and so obviously wronged at the end there, of course she'll come across as a victim no matter what. And I don't think she deserved that! I don't think she deserved to be overthrown by vote of the Potentials and her friends and most definitely didn't deserve to be told to leave by her sister. Whatever her mistakes might have been and no matter how she misread the situation and somewhat dug her own grave here, the attitude she gets comes across and ungrateful and hypocritical. But questioning her also isn't entirely wrong, and that is the approach I've seen from fans ("she was 100% right") and lowkey from the following episode of the show itself.

Now, to your points.

Yep, 100% taking it too far. To be honest, I think this is a symptom of the show's slight main character problem. That is, everything has to relate to Buffy in some way or another and she takes precedence over other chs, always, including their arcs and actions. I don't think it's all that realistic that Dawn would exercise the symbolic right she also has as the only other Summers in the house. Do I buy that she would be able to see the Potentials' point more and empathize with their fear, sure. Even empathize with their concerns about Buffy's leadership. But she wouldn't kick her sister out just so they could be united in everything. Buffy needed to be kicked out to serve Buffy's story, ultimately, and the larger narrative. Not a single one of the other chs come off as a good guy after the encounter, arguably Faith being the closest. So yeah, ludicrous. But I'm hesitant to hold it against Dawn's ch or even take the action seriously because it feels very plot driven to me and the only ch driven part is Buffy herself, who gets to be proven right and elevated by Spike in the following ep. And because of that loss of nuance thing I've mentioned, it doesn't sit entirely well with me. Cause yeah, Buffy was unjustly treated here but that doesn't mean she was entirely in the right, either. The extreme situation just erases nuance.

Feel like I've already used up most of my talking points lol but let's reflect on all of yours. I would guess that the reason for Willow and Xander not supporting Buffy in this situation is a direct result of the previous ep. You can agree, you can disagree, but unlike with Dawn I do think this fits with their chs more than just being purely a plot thing. Xander was essentially maimed as a result of Buffy's orders and she's asking them to do the same thing again. All things considered, yes, Willow and Xander could have been more considerate of Buffy and, as her oldest friends and closest allies, prevented such an escalation. But I'm willing to cut them both slack here, unlike I was for Xander in 3x02. (3x02, to me, is a more outrageous instance of people ganging up on Buffy but this post is gon be long enough as is.) Besides, Willow and Xander are rather passive participants here. Willow's biggest contribution is admitting that she's not standing up for Buffy this time around and Xander doesn't speak until the end, even then he's more measured than Xander usually is in situations like this. On the Faith of it all, I think we were robbed of a proper Willow and Faith reunion on AtS and I agree that we should have seen more hesitation from them to trust Faith, but I also overall buy that they're so deflated they're willing to let the Potentials pick.

Again, agree. I think Rona was so, so over the line and Dawn was right to tell her off. I've mentioned previously that the overall attitude of the Potentials is that they're quite ungrateful towards Buffy, the sole reason they're all still alive. So I wouldn't excuse Rona or even Kennedy's self-righteousness, but the Potentials are also a bunch of scared little girls who had two friends die, and Rona's arm was fully broken at the vineyard Buffy proposes they go right back to. Her attitude is infuriating, yes, and she deserved more than a death glare for her witch is dead comment. I'm surprised Willow didn't also shoot her one. Nasty nasty, but you can kiinda see where the attitude is coming from. As for Anya, yeah, I do think she was out of line and, for once, her observation wasn't just blunt but flat out incorrect. Anya's characterization was sacrificed as much as Dawn's was here, imo, as just a few eps prior Anya was fully aware of the "short and brutal life" being a Slayer entailed. So it doesn't make sense that she'd be calling Buffy lucky now even if she is fed up with the superiority complex. Which Buffy admittedly does have.

Bottom line is that I agree, it was entirely out of proportion to kick her out. And that might just be my exact problem, because I feel like the only reason for it was to set up her then being right and in the victim position and negates the valid points and feelings of the other side. It can't be justified, of course not, but for people (not you) to then turn around and based on this disregard the reasons why Buffy got called out doesn't sit right with me, either. I do think the series itself lost sight of its nuance with that move and the subsequent episode's focus on Spike's indignant anger. I find it interesting that you bring up the 3x02 comparison and I already touched on it, and like I said this is way long already but rest assured I have thoughts on that as well. For me, personally, that was more annoying and I was way more unquestionably on Buffy's side because the conclusion was "both sides were wrong ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" when the ganging up felt way more unjustified. Xander himself comes across as way, waaaay less douchy here and I can probs understand his pov the most, as he was the one to inspire confidence in Buffy last time she rallied the troops and look where that got him. No wonder he doesn't have the capacity to bridge the gap between Buff and the Potentials this time around.

And then there's Faith's role in all of this. Which is a whole other story and one I'm probs more passionate and defensive about haha.

[notable-phlyarologist]

ok so me and a gf have been watching through my hero academia and like, wow, i thought it was forgettable when i watched it while doped up on pain meds in the hospital but now i hate it

heeeere's rambles

but theres one thing thats honestly really minor that keeps bothering me. every character follows anime level logic where if youre a character designated 'strong' you're arbitrarily quick, strong, and durable to suit whatever flashy bs youre doing in a fight. very typical anime stuff

but see, in most shonen settings, they either explicitly or implicitly say that their midichlorians also give a boost to them even outside of flashy techniques. Naruto has chakra, hxh has nen and is the best, bleach has reiki, dbz has ki, one piece has haki, and so on.

but in mha there is this continual emphasis that your Quirk is everything, that it is the thing from which all your anime powers derive, and in the typical vein of superpowers you only have that one Thing that you can do and you just need to stretch it around.

but we get shit like eraserhead clowning on those goons and remaining conscious through fifteen concussions, bakugou keeping up with midoriya in close combat when midoriya's whole thing is a big all-around boost, we get people with powers that have no justification for making them able to dodge gunfire or whatever. it rankles

its not even as though this is, like, necessarily a sin-- i mean, hollywood action flicks dont go out of their way to say that john wick has a whole lot of Cinema Juice in his blood or whatever.

the problem is the tone, because mha constantly tries to look like everything that's going on is through creative applications of powers, clever interactions with real-world physics like air pressure or whatever, and it does all this in a world very similar to our own. biological quirk drawbacks similarly signal that this show is trying to be neat and clever like if you woke up with superpowers tomorrow you could do this stuff too and it would work the same as it does here. yet it still has these egregious moments where Eraserhead is doing TAS combat gymnastics or bakugou is able to keep up with midoriya even though explosive propulsion really only gets you so far or random villains with shooty Quirks can take absurd beatings or keep up with bakugou and co themselves.

and this show loooves exposition, voiceovers, and flashbacks. we get them constantly and they ruin any emotional moment by not allowing you to sit with it and actually feel what's happening. instead youre just told everything thats going on. but that also means that this problem of anime action heroing would be the absolute easiest thing to fix in the whole entire world.

just fucking say that when you train your Quirk a lot you also start getting an all-around boost. then extend that into the reason why Quirkless people never show up to super fights-- they literally can't keep up when even Eyestalk Man can move twice as fast and hit twice as hard.

and in turn play this into the whole Quirkless discrimination thing we hear about but never see-- the narrative is that Quirkless people are vestigial! they're primitive, weak, stupid, barely even people, not like *us*. Look at how much crime they do, even when none of them take the leap into calling themselves villains! se have scientific studies that say definitively quirkless people are worse at everything!

those studies are of course grossly misrepresented-- any 'Quirk Boost' only really starts to kick in around the Pro Hero level of training and dedication. a Quirkless mma fighter could still absolutely whoop the ass of a quirked rando on the street. the difference in the lives of the vast majority of the population between Quirked and Quirkless is negligible. Like, this one little thing can improve three whole huge glaring bald spots in the canon! it's so simple! it makes everything better! how did you not do this!

[thesinglesjukebox]

AMAARAE - "CO-STAR"

Rachel Saywitz welcomes us to Co-Star Blurber dot net: it’s dot com!

[7.07]

Rachel Saywitz: "Co-Star" is for bad bitches, for cunty bitches, for lovely bitches, for me, I'm the bitch that will always be right out of Amaarae's periphery of paramours, because according to her, "Aries bitches bad / But damn, I'll pass please." It's hard to think you're a bad bitch on bad days, but "Co-Star" makes it easy -- the music sounds like it's a clear spring on a heavenly day, and Amaarae sounds like a goddess: she flutters, and teases, and sighs, and god, if I don't want to live in her delicate gasps and sharp tongue; she sings the chorus like she's distributing hot flashes on your skin. This is pop at its peak -- irreverent and sexy, perfect for dancing, fucking, for jumping alone in your room, for bobbing your head on the subway to get out all the nervous energy that comes after hanging out with a crush, for crying silently on the same subway after a bad day because you need to be reminded that you're a bad bitch. And I think the beauty of "Co-Star" is related to the latter, in its total acceptance of every sun and moon and star that you are -- no matter how much Amaarae teases, her motives are clear: she'll still have every part of you. [10]

William John: Maybe astrology is corny; maybe cramming a reference to each astrological sign into a three minute pop song as though it's an assignment for a creative writing class is cornier; maybe I'm ultimately far too entranced by the harp flutters and the pummelling, breathless chorus to care about corniness. [9]

Brad Shoup: Like "New Rules," but if it was only a hit on Twitter. [6]

Katherine St Asaph: This many astrological yuks and not a single Uranus joke. [3]

Hannah Jocelyn: "Mambo No. 5" with astrological signs instead of girls. Add two points for the Nina Sky reference, and one more for that kick drum, which lends the barrage of puns some actual weight and urgency. [7]

Michael Hong: Have you ever used Co-Star? The app is in no way just about horoscopes and prediction, but for the non-religious, it's a tool for connection. Astrological sign, like MBTI, isn't so much about understanding, but the invitation to understand -- "what's your sign?" is a shallow conversation starter in the same vein of "what school did you graduate from?" or "do you prefer cats or dogs?" When Amaraae runs through the signs here, it's like a roulette for her next interest -- the characteristics are unimportant, it's the connection that she's chasing after. "Co-Star" is passionate and heated the way any relationship built on astrological compatibility is. It's short and sounds like she's constantly chasing after immediate pleasure. Covered in sweat under the beat, the only thing left to say is, "I'm a Virgo, what's your sign?" [8]

Nortey Dowuona: Learning Cadenza was involved in this was excellent. He's produced "3210" by Jeshi, "Vibes" by Allan Kingdom, "Wet Vagina" by Doja Cat and "Where Did I Go" by Jorja Smith, which put her on the map -- at least for me. amaarae needed no such assist, she was already a star once she enlisted him, alongside KYU Steed and KZ the Producer to complete this song. All the above songs have loping, pulsing drum programming that feels hand played and slow despite the bpm, and Co-Star breaks from that to be a faster more driven song, slipping through 3 drum patterns -- afrobeat, tropical house and of course, amapiano log drums. (there's also an elongated bass line which is actually a trademark of his work.) And in a nice twist, the song is allowed to slowly close its curtains with the drums still twirling, the silky synth line settling onto the ground, closing with a stop -- but not a final one. [10]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: This year, when it was finally my turn to select the book for my queer book club, I picked Larry Mitchell's "The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions," a fantastical fable about faggots, faggatinas, dykelets, faeries, women, and others making their way through the treacherous world of men. "Co-Star," with all of its cosmic revelations, seems like it'd naturally be the soundtrack for that fictional universe: abundant with its astrology, bumping with its beat, and generous with its humor. [7]

Micha Cavaseno: Post-afrobeats gone neuro-funk that loves to dissolve into the ether in a delightful fizz, but somehow manages to keep a weird bottom to it that feels constantly disintegrating yet still too rigid at the same time. It's a hallucinatory tantalization for 3 or 4 different ideas to land, and nothing is ever coming close. A great little trick, but unsure if it's the best thing to do for a song. [5]

Ian Mathers: Look, this is absolutely a bop but it is very funny to be going "baby, just tell me" right after you've just run through all of the signs and why they are mostly horrendous. There is just no way that is going to end well! [8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: This is so damn frothy that I can't help but enjoy it -- it's not my favorite song off of Fountain Baby but I can't help but admire the way that she stacks her astrological puns, stringing them together like fighting game combos. Weirdly, though, I like the bits of "Co-star" where Amaarae gets away from her conceit better -- by the end, when she comes up for air, you almost want her to plunge back in again. [7]

Taylor Alatorre: I don't care for astrology, which is why I love this. I love that its conceit-based songwriting invites me to not take the subject matter too seriously, even as Amaarae herself clearly knows it well enough to write about it with such ease and finesse. By keeping things light and brisk and "air"-y at all times, she frees me from the burden of having to particularly care about the difference between a sun and a moon sign, allowing me to experience the lyrics as simply a fun little game of word association. The utter commitment to the bit, coupled with the level of confidence that it both requires and exposes, wears down any pre-existing resistance to being taken in by a gimmick, instead making me feel I've been granted entrance to a club I shouldn't be in. This is just nerdcore hip hop for women, and it pwns. [8]

Will Adams: Amaarae, on Libras: "Them Libra bitches horrible." Beyoncé, on Libras: "Fun like a Libra, he stays on my mind." I am being completely objective and unbiased in saying that I do not care too much for this "Co-Star" song! [5]

Dorian Sinclair: I experience some brief disappointment every time I hear "Co-Star" start up, because I am a sucker for interesting harp music and that conceit gets dropped almost immediately. I can't stay mad though, because I'm too busy being charmed by how hard Amaarae commits to her lyrical conceit. Basically every line in this song relates back to the core "astrology" theme, and that kind of adherence to message is something I can't help but respect, even if the song were not a bop (but it's a bop). Is that Sagittarius of me? I have no goddamn clue. But Amaarae would know! [7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: It's weird to have watched Davido spend the past decade constantly finding ways to stretch his brand of Afrobeats, and to now find his music extremely traditional (tone: neutral) alongside the continued ascendance of Amaarae, Cruel Santino, and Odunsi (The Engine). The problem, though, is that alté's hit rate has never been so high: the songs are largely intriguing in their fashionable Afrofusion, but they rarely have the hooks to anchor the ideas. "Co-Star" showcases this well, as it walks a terribly thin line between featherlight and vaporous nothing. Amaarae's voice is too wispy for the synth to be pogoing so carefree; we already have harps and hi-hats -- why not something deeper to round out the song? Still, her delivery is just prickly and playful enough to transcend pure vibes. There's also something profound about hearing her sing about rising water levels as the synth pads embody that exact scenario. She comes out the other end of it with the same beatific tone, like she's dancing in the rain. That she longs for an air is perfect. After all, a water can help one trust their heart, right? [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[papipopsicle]

AFTERTASTE PART SEVEN

Pairing: Archie Andrews X Reader

Summary: In which two best friends since childhood test whether sex and friendship can co-exist without causing conflict. Including OC's Flick and Cherry, a bisexual and lesbian in a sapphic relationship who are best friends of Y/N.

Song: Dream Boy by Waterparks

Warnings: swearing

Words: 2.1K

MASTERLIST

feedback is always appreciated

Y/F and Y/M Robins were far from perfect parents. Y/F had the mental age of a toddler at times, and being an estate agent who always has to go the extra mile- he often wasn't home when his wife needed him the most. Y/M, on the other end of things, had been a stay at home mum until Y/N turned 16 last summer, and now she helped with all the administrative work for Mayor McCoy. She was a maternal creature which, coupled with her brilliant sarcasm, made for some explosive conversations. The two met on the first day of university and got married a week after the last.

When Y/M first found out she was pregnant with little Y/S Robins, the two realised they wanted a quiet bubble of a town to raise their children and grow up with them. But it wasn't until their second daughter was about to turn seven until they found their forever home in the quaint town of Riverdale. Ten years passing before their eyes, and the picturesque place didn't seen all that anymore.

Jason Blossom's death had nothing to do with the short gunshot sounding over the waves of Sweetwater River, the noise which woke Y/N from her sweet unmemorable dreams every few nights. The summer days rolled into early August without anyone caring, Y/N spending most of them at Cheryl's side listening intently to her past adventures with her brother. Betty threw herself into an internship at a publication house; Flick and Cherry had volunteered at a summer camp, and Archie was helping his dad out more and more with constructions job.

Although it hadn't been the start to the relationship Y/N had hoped for- the nervous giggles and hand holding, short and sweet kisses on late night walks followed by poetry worthy cuddling. There was a magnificent silver lining as Archie's muscles gained definition, and he suited the sweaty builder look far too well.

[INSTAGRAM]

♡ 602 likes

y/n Humph!

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Cheryl busy being my own icon

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"Earth to my gorgeous queen? Y/N/N?" Cheryl quizzed her friend, who currently resided at the poolside of Thornehill Manor. Her mind was off on a glorious tangent about her rendezvous in the kitchen at two in the morning. Fixing herself a glass of water, when Archie slips his hand into her pyjama shorts, his other around her mouth muffling her needy moans.

The red headed beauty shoved her y/h/c friend playfully, warm skin sweaty under her pale touch. Y/N blinked innocently and sent her an apologetic smile, "What?"

"I asked if you've thought about dating anyone else since Clayton?" The fiery ginger girl enquired with her usual upbeat tone.

Cheryl knew she had a unique quality about her which made it almost impossible for Y/N to lie to her face. The y/h/c girl scrunched up her nose, hiding the smile the idea of Archie Andrews brought to her face. 'Yes. We started off as fuck buddies but never actually fucked. Then I drunkenly asked him to be my boyfriend, now a month later I think we may genuinely work out.'

"Maybe." Y/N bit her bottom lip, listening to her friend's squeal as she squeezed her sun tanned arm.

"I knew it! You have this euphoric glow you only get when someone else makes you climax." The redhead affirmed confidently, watching the Robins girl's eyes bug out before hitting her arm, "Y/N/N, you know your secret's safe with me."

"Fine." She sighed and took a sip of her fruity cocktail, "It started off as just fooling around, honestly I just needed to let off some steam after everything. I knew he was into the kinds of things I was, I mean he used to tease me about it non stop. And it was good, so good I stopped being a pussy and asked him to be my boyfriend."

"Holy freaking hell!" The Blossom girl grinned with excitement, "Dare I ask, who is it?"

Y/N deadpanned at her friend, "Guess."

"Please don't tell me it's that muscular oaf Reggie, he's pretty but there's not exactly much going on upstairs." Cheryl tapped her temples and rolled her eyes at the thought.

"Nope."

The ginger thought for a moment, consulting her liquid courage and splashing her feet around the waters edge, "It's Archie."

All it took was a side-eyed glance at the y/h/c girl's blooming rosy cheeks to know she definitely wasn't wrong. Y/N severely lacked the ability to lie, even if her tone held conviction, her features were far too expressive and told the truth all on their own. It's not like they were hiding it from anyone, but the past four weeks had gone far too quickly without any moments to spare for the world around them. They slept together each night, the majority of that time not actually spent sleeping, but they hadn't been given the chance yet to explore more romantic avenues.

"It's fucking Archie Andrews- you're fucking Archie Andrews and don't you dare deny it." Cheryl gawked in her gorgeous white and nude bikini, watching as her friend lay back against the hot marble slabs which encased the large pool with the largest grin adorning her plump lips.

"We haven't had sex yet, so technically you aren't completely correct." Y/N winked but carried on before the girl exploded with a hundred questions and could never be turned off, "Trust me, I want to, and I'm sure he does too. But you know, it's his first time, I want it to be perfect for him."

"Y/N/N, you really love him, don't you?" Cheryl gagged to begin with, but she found it sweet in truth. She wanted someone to hold, who would hold her right back just as tight for no other reason than needing to.

Y/N sat back up and paddled her feet, "You have no idea, Cher."

Arch 🧡

That new post should be illegal

Tiger 💛

Ooo

I like this reaction

Maybe I should post more

Like this one

Cheryl pushed me in the pool

And I may have had a drink

Or three

Arch 🧡

Well that's sexy

I swear nobody looks good like that how on earth

You're a goddess

But also

How's she holding up?

Tiger 💛

🥺😇

Broken

But she's strong yk

You coming over for dinner?

Arch 🧡

Yeah Y/D invited my dad too

Need me to pick you up from Cheryl's?

Tiger 💛

Awe cute we love a bromance, and it's all good my mommas coming now anyways :))

Hours had elapsed far too fast and soon the summer heat simmered into cool waves of wind brushing over sun kissed skin. Cheryl's arms were clasped around the blonde's shoulders in a tight embrace.

"Thank you so much, Y/N/N, I don't know what I'd do without you!" The Blossom girl professed with sparkling eyes and a brilliant smile.

Y/N beamed up at her, fingers carding through her damp y/h/c hair as she looked over her shoulder to see her mum pulling into the driveway, "You don't need to thank me, Cher, friends look after each other. Message me if you need me, okay?"

Cheryl promised she would and the two teen girls hugged goodbye, with Y/N soon heading home- listening to her mother gossip about Hal and Alice's screaming match last night, Y/N loved her inability to keep her mouth shut sometimes.

"Mom," The y/h/c stopped her mid sentence and received a side eyed glance in response, "I need to tell you something and you're totally not allowed to freak out while you're driving."

Y/M's eyes widened and her grip tightened around the steering wheel, her daughters very rarely confided in her. While she knew her youngest was safe in her promiscuity, neither of Y/M Robins' girls ever shared their secrets so for the most part she took finding out into her own hands.

"Honey," The forty four year old's calm tone was hardly comforting to the teenager, "if this is about you and Archie fooling around, your father and I figured that out a long time ago, like so long ago. Who do you think does your laundry? When your underwear starting looking like dental floss, we caught on pretty quickly."

Y/N felt like a deer in headlights, "Mum, what the hell?" Her cheeks heated to an inhuman temperature.

"It's nothing to be embarrassed about, as long as you're being safe and he's-"

"For the second time today, and I can't believe I'm saying this to you, but I am not having sex with Archie Andrews!" Y/N's high pitched voice sounded through the car. It truly was a blessing and a curse to have such open minded parents in situations like this. She thought about telling her mother the truth, but Y/M was a blabber mouth as well as a gossip, so Y/N chose to withhold certain pieces of information.

The Robins matriarch dropped the subject but didn't forget about her daughter's tone, and continued to ramble on about how odd she found Penelope Blossom and the whole Blossom family in general. "Like why on Earth is Rose in a wooden wheelchair? They know it's the twenty first century, right?"

As expected, the Robins household was once again filled with warm laughter and copious amounts of food. The topic of Jason was skimmed over, and Y/S found herself away from the dinner table. The eldest Robins sibling was currently pleading with Alice as she began shoving all of Polly's belongings in the boot of Hal's car. She couldn't comprehend life without her best friend, not after losing Jason. They were meant to be going travelling together for a year- working the worst jobs and staying up all night to watch the sun rise in different countries. But instead, Y/S's eyes were blinded by tears as she screamed down the street at the speeding car, with Polly Cooper taken out of her life indefinitely.

Y/N was oblivious to the dark inner workings of the Cooper clan, Betty's knowledge about her and Archie unbeknownst to the loved up teens. She'd spent every second not occupied by her internship trying to justify the romantic act as a fleeting moment of loneliness fuelled by alcohol. She wrote in her diary ideas on how she could win Archie back over, not knowing it was in fact, too late. Betty found herself hopelessly in love with the boy next door, unfortunately for her, the girl across the road was the only one his mind found.

Archie and Y/N washed up while their parents resided to the living room with three glasses and a bottle of white wine. The short girl turned the tap off after placing the last utensil on the draining board, flicking her sudsy hands at the boy's face. "What the-"

She didn't give him a chance to finish that thought, jumping up and wrapping her legs around his torso- planting a kiss onto his lips, then cheeks, then forehead. The two fell entranced by each other, planting pecks across nape of her neck and top of his head.

"Son," Fred's voice called out from the next room and the two immediately pulled apart, hearts beating in their ears, "we're going in a minute."

"Alright." He replied, placing his girlfriend on the floor once more.

"I wish you'd stay." Y/N pouted childishly, she meant the words entirely but hated feeling overbearing. Her life had been turned upside down this summer, it started off with her unable to fall asleep with another person next to her- now Archie's chest was her most comfortable pillow and is arms were the warmest blanket.

"Tomorrow night instead, Princess? I promised my dad I'd spend more time with him before senior year." The boy reasoned, holding her close and unknowingly feeling the exact same way, he adored holding her by her waist and pulling her close under the duvet.

"Monopoly night at yours?" She grinned and he nodded back in reply, the two sharing a final kiss in the kitchen before walking into the hallway.

Y/N felt at ease as she wished the two a goodnight and headed up to bed. She took off her tea dress and replaced it with Archie's bulldog t-shirt, managing to reach the same length on her thighs as her dress did.

Arch 🧡

I can still smell your perfume on my sheets

Tiger 💛

Marking my territory obviously x

Arch 🧡

I love it

Hope you sleep well baby x

Tiger 💛

Call me that tomorrow and we won't be sleeping so you better rest up tonight x

Arch 🧡

Whatever you say, baby x

Tiger 💛

Goodnight x

Arch 🧡

Night princess x

part eight?

wanna be tagged? just send in an ask x

[musette22]

Hey!

Firstly I’d love to hear your thoughts about the Josh interview ! And secondly I’m interested to see if you agree, from the recent questions he has received about playing Bucky (also brought up at the end of the Josh interview) I get the feeling that Sebastian is kind of done with his time at Marvel? Not in a negative way, it’s obvious that he’s super grateful and I’m sure if they ask him back he would (if his schedule allowed), but if they didn’t I’m not sure if he’d be that disappointed. I think he’s kind of closed that chapter in his life I guess? He’s happy with how his character ended and he has closure? I mean he was was like 28 when he first played him and now he’s almost 40; it’s also probably a lot different now that key people he worked with on those movies (Chris, ahem) have moved on and aren’t around anymore. do you get the same vibe?

Oh my god, I'm such an idiot 🤦🏻‍♀️ When I got this ask I was like "oh yes, must answer right away!" and then I forgot 😑 I'm so sorry!!!

But anyways, as for thoughts on the Josh interview: first of all, I just really love Josh, and how kind and welcoming and open he is, and how at ease Sebastian clearly feels with him. That’s always so good to see! And I loved that Josh opened with the old Tom Holland joke and Sebastian actually took the opportunity to be like ‘sometimes I’m like, what am I doing, has this gone on too long?’ 😂 Also, I felt for him when he was like ‘and then his movie obliterated mine’ - I know he was joking because obviously Spider-Man was going to do much better but still, I was a little like ‘ouch’ 😅

And also, it was interesting to see that when Josh asked him why Sebastian was drawn to these big personalities when it came to the roles he picks, Sebastian sort of deflected and started talking about how amazing his co-stars were and how that makes all the difference. I wonder if there was a reason he didn’t give a straightforward answer to that question or if he just got sidetracked while being his usual humble self. What he said about fame was also very interesting, I never really thought Sebastian was fame hungry, exactly, but I kind of felt like he liked being famous to some extent? And I guess he does enjoy some of the perks to fame, but hearing him speak about it in this interview he seemed almost turned off by it, you know? Which I guess is understandable given the shit he’s given on a daily basis, but yeah, it was interesting to hear him talk about it so frankly. 

And ALSO (sorry, I’m rewatching it now and keep seeing things to comment on) the things he said about him being 39 and having been around for a pretty long while and that it’s taken a lot of hard work and people helping him to get people to keep paying attention to what he’s doing... That really struck me, it just almost felt like he felt like he was maybe saying too much, and it really hit home for me how much Sebastian is just a normal guy with goals that he works hard to achieve, but who’s also frequently frustrated when things don’t go as easily or as quickly as he’d like. Idk, that just felt very honest and real to me and I liked it but also I feel for him because he’s also dealing with those same struggles and insecurities we all are (getting older, trying to get noticed and be appreciated and stay relevant and all that). 

And then there was the thing I mentioned in this ask as well, about being the internet’s boyfriend and instead of commenting on how insane some people get, he just said he was grateful and that he loves when people feel a connection to him. Ugh, this man. He’s a special one 💖

As for what you're saying about Sebastian & Bucky/Marvel; I've been getting that impression too for a while now, but I never know if that's just me projecting or not 😅 It's entirely possible Seb will announce another Marvel project soon, which he may or may not already know about himself, but part of me also thinks he's ready to move on, for exactly the reasons you mention. And additionally, his career seems to be gaining momentum at the moment, so I can imagine he'd want to make the most of that and take any new and exciting opportunities that arise. That's not to say he hasn't loved playing Bucky and being part of the Marvel family, but yeah, I don't get the impression he'd be very disappointed if they didn't ask him back either tbh. Let’s see what happens, I guess! <3

[artobotsrollout]

Transformers: Harbingers

The Pirate Scream AU

Before I talk about it you guys are the best thank you for indulging me and my AU from this post xjdjd. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

@badlydrawntransformers @cosmic0de @warrioroffandoms @measlyfurball13 And a bonus thank you to those encouraging me in the tags as well ❤️

I plan to do art for it as well as accompanying written bits and maybe even an animatic but till then have some general info under the cut.

Also there is transformers: Prime spoilers below so open at your own risk.

TRANSFORMERS: HARBINGERS

So this AU comes from the same place many AUs heavily involving TfP Starscream come from: the unfulfilled potential in our boy Scream. Now deeper discussion of that is not gonna be in this post. It'd be a whole essay.

It also comes from just how salty I was that the Team's kindness never really benefitted them much and they kept getting slapped for it. And OP really wanted to win over a con and Starscream kept wanting a partner. ALSO ALSO Optimus was portrayed as keeping his emotions in check and then never really gets a message that it's okay to be emotional so... I'm doing that here.

And the Starscream Pirate AU was born...

Aka Transformers: Harbingers (maybe idk if it's catchy enough djjsw)

Why Harbingers? ''It's just a SHIP Starscream chills in for awhile in the show' ' I hear you say. WELL HANG ON!! I got two very good reasons!! .

First off: Starscream, with the help of some Cybertronians who he wins over one way or another (Ill get to that), help him essentially use the remains of the Harbinger to put together their own functional ship. It's smaller than the Nemesis and will take some pirate ship inspiration. While it is a hardy beast it's a bit jury rigged.

Second of all:

Imagine being a fictional character living in a ship with a name that basically means 'Foreshadowed bringer of change' and then going back to Megatron and his bullshit. I'm gonna grab this and run all the way with it. Highway to Hell just came on my Spotify so... That may be an omen.

---------

NOW LISTEN

I feel like Starscream and Optimus could really have had such an interesting dynamic but we never really got to see that in TfP and I feel cheated. Also both could have mutually benefitted a great deal.

So what do I do? I shove them together to be sorta begrudging Co-Captains. As a result there's a lot of shenanigans to be had!

How this happens OP has some run ins with cons and, through a way I'm still deciding, has the opportunity to extend a hand to Starscream. Starscream, being kindness starved, doesn't entirely know what to do about Optimus being nice to him one whole time with no sarcasm or ulterior motive and sorta starts trying to get his attention.

Starscream and his crew are a bit of their own team at this point. MEANING sort of new LOGOS!

I'm yoinking the crossed out Decepticon logo from the Dark Energon Starscream and Dark Energon Knockout toys cause I mean... It's right there and also kinda like a skull and crossbones. It fits too well guys.

Starscream essentially manages to win over the autobots enough so they can sorta make a mutually beneficial, if strained, alliance to aid their aligned goal: killing Megatron and revitalizing cyberton. This is aided by some slight changes to the plot of course. It's also a benefit, much to Ratchet's delight, since they finally get some cybertronian tech to work with.

And so they gotta work together to take Megatron out and there's much bonding moments esp later when the autobot base is destroyed. Starscream extends his hand to them and offers them a more permanent position onboard. (rubbing in how unfortunate their situation is and how this is such a big favour but he's paying Optimus back.)

And insert team dynamic stuff!! Like cons teaming up with Bots, Starscream and Optimus trying to stick with it leading their own teams but keep accidently backseat-leadering one another. I will write some other ex-con and bot dynamics cause there's a lot of chaos to be had.

Optimus doesn't open up to his crew for morale sake and masks his emotions well, and Starscream is... well Starscream is Starscream so he masks what he truly feels a lot and doesn't share a lot of personal stuff besides complaints with his team either. So there's a lot of tension.... That is until Starscream has had it at just how good a poker face Prime has.

Because he's absolutely paranoid got a harmless curiosity about Optimus's ulterior motives and wants potential dirty secrets he can use as blackmail to have power over the Prime, he essentially puts cybertronian booze (but kid friendly version of course fbejek) in Optimus's energon heavily expecting him to spill the beans when heavily drunk. What he doesn't expect is that Optimus is just... LIKE THAT to his core. He's smart but very sad and guilty. And maybe a bit weepy and exhausted cause this man has not shown an emotion for eons now. /s. Starscream doesn't know wtf to do but swayed by how earnest Optimus is he sorta softens up and does open up. Might have helped that he took a swig of the tainted energon to get on his level though. But it also helps that neither is the others subordinate so they don't need to maintain their image as badly with the Co-captain as they do their team.

The ex cons sorta accidently absorb some of the autobot's morals over time. The cons help the autobots have some fun. There's a lot of stuff learned both ways. Also the cons realize how cool humans can be and after a lot of argument and forced time spent with the kids, they want to protect earth too.

Starscream, helps Optimus open up a bit more and allow himself to be emotional. He also shows him how to be a little selfish. Optimus in turn helps him with self confidence and making friends. Both help each other with the shit Megatron put em both through and overall boost one another up. (This also does change the start of the war a bit but I'll get to that in another post.)

Miko tries to fight all of the cons at first but quickly changes her tune cause "BOOYAH PIRATE CONS!!"

Other bits about this AU:

Starscream will eventually get a slight design change. It'll be less scrappy and look more confident and put together. It'll be minor

Because they are on a flying ship but have less energon than the Nemesis, everyone gets equipped with mods for flight. There is a jetpack upgrade one can get or Knockout can straight up help change their alt mode surgically.

I'm working up a list of who gets what flight mod but... Ya'll should know that Wheeljack dares Knockout to make him into a flying car. Largely cause I just got the image of Wheeljack flying above vehicons and just turning into a car and dropping on them. That and driving up the side of the Nemesis and confusing the fuck out of Megatron. Out of all the characters you know that would be a Wheeljack thing.

Arcee and Knockout grieve together.

Knockout loves bugging the hell out of Ratchet. It's extra fun for him cause Ratchet often can't do shit about it since they both need the room and tools.

Knockout and Wheeljack become an insufferable duo with the nicknames they have for everyone.

Wheeljack won't leave Starscream alone and keeps coming up with worse and worse nicknames like he did with Ratchet.

Starscream and Ratchet become complaining buddies.

STARSCREAM'S SEEKER SQUAD REJOINS. Well some of them. Skywarp, Thundercracker and maybe other peeps.

Miko manages to befriend Skywarp and Bulkhead now has to watch both Miko AND Skywarp. Wheeljack refuses to help Bulkhead round them up.

Raf hits it off with Thundercracker.

Knockout: "FINALLY a team with fragging MANNERS!"

Instead of Beeftimus Prime from the forge, Optimus actually gets access to a third alt mode and.. Idk something else primely. So he actually gets wings.

Starscream and the other fliers are greatly amused because Optimus, as great as he is at his poker face most of the time, hasn't yet figured out how to not emote with the pair of wings he gets from the forge. Thundercracker is the one who eventually informs him while the rest of the crew are booing loudly in the background.

I actually do have designs of TFP Skywarp, Thundercracker, and Ironhide in the works.

Fowler and Starscream have insult battles. Oddly both grow a weird almost fondness for these verbal sparring sessions

They frequently raid the Nemesis

Miko keeps talking in a pirate voice. Smokescreen has joined her.

AND A LOT OF OTHER STUFF I'LL GET INTO WITH MORE DETAIL AND ART. I'll also talk more in depth about some of these things that isn't a ramble like this post is. xnwjskw.

Feel free to ask about anything you're curious about.

[junko-and-riri-domain]

exam season ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ ni-ki

“you aren't wasting my time, and you need rest. please, ___ this isn’t healthy.” riki pleaded, and he seemed so genuinely concerned for you.  “I know we’re labelled as rivals all the time but I want to get to know you better. as someone who ranked 1 consistently, I wanted to meet the one person who managed to achieve the same thing."

or 

you and nishimura riki are rivals under the same company. after all, being the same age and pretty much the same level of talent made you and him quite unstoppable. the company thought it’d be a good idea to let you two meet and get along, but it turned out to be quite the opposite ordeal. though, this always remained to be a respectful rivalry. nothing petty.

warnings : overworked reader, insecurities, fainting from exhaustion, hints at negative body image ( good ending ) 

note : this is also off the top of my head, please ignore any mistakes !

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ rest under the cut

what were you supposed to think?

you had to admit it to yourself though, similar age and practically same amount of skill in dance would mean that this unit would be pretty much unstoppable. it’s just ;; the unspoken consequences of young teamwork at play. 

training for about half a year at belift, you’ve become quite popular among the trainees. they describe you as a dance prodigy. if you were going to be honest, it was kind of embarrassing. the spotlight was okay depending on the circumstances but, to be described as something so honorable made you feel like you weren’t worthy of it. on top of that, your vocals were always stable while practicing, making you stand out and always place #1 on exams. 

and so you started to practice harder, with the same thought of

‘i have to prove that i’m worthy to be labeled as a prodigy, otherwise why else am i here?’ 

to ni-ki, you were always so hardworking. sometimes, he thought it was too much. he’d pass by the room you were practicing in during lunch breaks and he would see you dancing your heart out, sweat threatening to fall from your face. he could tell you were tired, but due to the rules, he wasn’t allowed to talk to you. he considered you his opponent in a way, but it wasn’t to the extent of ruining your workflow. 

and to you, ni-ki seemed like a charming rival. the way he danced had always mesmerized you, his snaps and swift moves are always close to perfect. this motivated you to practice even harder, despite already achieving extreme skill. you often nitpicked on yourself and keep saying that you’re not doing something well enough, and that you’re not good enough and you have to try harder. you honestly thought he was kind of annoying. not only is he literally so tall, he's a dancing machine. everything that you wanted to be. ni-ki may have been your unspoken rival, 

but overcoming your extreme feeling to be better than the previous day is your true rival. 

coming home after training, you were always exhausted. as much water you drank, it never felt as if it quenched the thirst you brought upon yourself from working so hard. while doing homework you always zoned out, your concentration nowhere to be found. at some point, you even stopped messaging your friends as much as before, ignoring any notification that popped up and practicing till the sun peeked above the horizon.

this feeling of wanting to slip away into well-deserved rest never sat right with you.

'if I have time to do something, then I'll do it now. rest can wait.'

---

the week before, an exam was assigned to all the trainees. the exam was to be separated by gender, but you thought this was kind of dumb. and so what did you do? you asked the choreographer if you could take both of the choreographies instead of being categorized into one section.

"that's a great idea, ___! I'll allow it this once, since you always rank 1 anyways. in fact, why don't I ask riki if he wants to do an co-op exam with you? you guys are the same age right?"

all you could do was let out a hum and nod.

'nishimura riki... I hope I don't mess anything up.'

"he always ranks 1 in exams as well so I think it'd be perfect!" he continued, a bright smile flashed across his face at the realization of a great performance in development.

he walks off, and briskly walks to where riki usually practiced.

phew

you let out a breath you didn't even know you were holding. you've done many exams before but it had never been with another person. trying to convince yourself everything would be okay, your intrusive thoughts came in again.

'what if i embarass myself? what if I can't learn the choreo and mess everything up? what if he doesn't like m- wait. that doesn't even matter- ugh.'

you stood there for so long thinking to yourself about the future that one of the trainees had to tap you on the shoulder to make sure you didn't see medusa or something. repeating your little sorries and thank yous, you left the practice room and went on your way home.

you'd think that after weeks of non-stop overworking you'd hit your limit by now. the thing is, you never learn your lesson until you have to learn it the hard way. and that's exactly what's gonna happen.

---

back to the present, riki was currently doing a run-over of what he thinks you guys should do to make the choreography better. if there was one thing you and him had in common, it's that you always wanted to be ranked 1 through hard work.

however, you disagreed with some of the steps he created, and respectfully asked if you could show him what you were thinking of. in all honesty, riki was quite impressed. he'd never seen you dance up close since all he was able to do was take quick glances, but seeing you pour your heart into what you love and being absolutely great at it, it kind of gave him the feels.

yes. the feels. the butterflies. 🦋🦋🦋

though, in the next moment, butterflies was far from what he felt. his stomach did a full 180 and his face in such a shocked state as he watched your eyes roll back as your body practically shut down in front of him. he sped down to your side quickly and shouted for help, as he tried to shake you awake.

"please please wake up, I'm not sure if you'd wake up at all if you fell asleep so please..."

was the last faint thing you heard before slipping into unconsciousness.

---

beep , beep , beep

your eyes flutter open to reveal that you were in the nurse's office in the same building. to say you were relieved was an understatement, hospitals scared you a lot more since they'd have to call your parents.

looking around the dim room, it still resembled a hospital room, monitor, needles, riki, IV, wait. riki?

your eyes practically shot back to where he sat, head bowed down in an awkward position, closed eyes with phone in hands.

honestly speaking, it was kind of cute. but you knew it was uncomfortable. and you also felt SUPER guilty making him wait for you and practically ruining practice. he stirred a bit, easy to wake up due to the uncomfy position his neck was in.

in a couple of seconds you hear him ask, "___? you're awake?"

"riki.. what happened?"

"the trainer, our choreographer and the building's medical team were all here. they said that you were overworking yourself. not only that, you didn't eat, drink, or sleep enough. which I can only assume is because you're constantly practicing."

"... I'm guessing that has to be true then, if I'm already here. riki, I'm sorry."

"sorry for what?"

"for wasting your time. you didn't have to be tangled up in my mess if I wasn't an idiot and asked them for a different exam. we could'v-"

he cut you off, “you aren't wasting my time, and you need rest. please, ___ this isn’t healthy.” riki pleaded, and he seemed so genuinely concerned for you.  “I know we’re labelled as rivals all the time but I want to get to know you better. as someone who ranked 1 consistently, I wanted to meet the one person who managed to achieve the same thing. you didn't disappoint me, you didn't waste my time, in fact, it was fun watching you disagree with the things I said. but then you fainted in front of me. I had no idea what to do, but thankfully Jungwon-hyung came in and helped me. but all that aside, your body needs rest. I've talked too much."

"it's okay, your voice seems to be making me sleepy anyways."

he didn't know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult.

you handed him a spare pillow from your bed though, so he'll just take it as a compliment for now.

he didn't know what took over him in the next few seconds but he slowly put his phone in his pocket and reached his hand out to you, his hand resting on the bed right next to your waistline. as if it was beckoning you, your hand gravitated towards his, and the warmth of his hand and his comforting presence was enough to lull you back to sleep.

---

all the trainees in the floor were gathered in practice room #1, awaiting the announcement to see who got rank 1.

of course, they were expecting you and riki, but not together at the same time.

"nishimura riki, ___ ___. rank #1"

you and riki looked at each other in excitement, you could do nothing but listen at the moment, but celebration was in order later.

celebration? oh did you mean cuddles, making sure you're rested well and eating okay, hand holding, and a whole lot of light-hearted teasing? yeah.

[end]

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ written by junko

|blog masterlist|

[katsukikitten]

Warnings College AU sexual and adult themes. Yall know the drill okay

Chapter 2

Bugzapper⚡💔: i have a proposition to make. 

Jiro flashes Mina her phone as she sips iced coffee in the blessed air conditioning of the cafe.

"That's never a good sign." She comments, moon bright eyes glued to the phone as she thinks. 

"What's not a good sign?" Uraraka asks from across the table, the two girls fill her in. 

"Oh." She racks her brain on what that could be, "Okay well I'm dying to know, now." 

🎵Music to my soul 🎶 : What do you want airhead? 

Jiro's text sent a surge of excitement through Kaminari. It was exactly what he needed after three hours of begging and bribing Bakugou to allow the sorority in or at least invite them. His fingers fly across the screen setting up a date and time for a "meeting over lunch" to discuss the proposition in further detail.  

Meanwhile across campus, you huff, eyes narrowed as a rare emotion is pulled from your fingertips in the form of deadly ice. Pulling the moisture from the air to freeze it or pulling any water towards you to keep your flank safe as your opponent rushes you at breakneck speeds. 

You hated this fucking guy, cocky, brash, so God damn arrogant in the way he held himself, in the way he spoke. It made you nauseous just thinking of him.Had you known he was the male star of this university you wouldn't have transferred, yet you still needed to transfer didn't you? Anything to get out from under the shadow of a certain Todoroki. 

No one cared to admit or to notice, that your quirk was different from Shoto's. You could manipulate water towards you to freeze, and manipulate whatever was already frozen. Your ice was denser and more durable than his and dare you say it colder than his too. Yet no one gave a shit, his was ice AND fire. You were just a one trick pony and a trick they already saw. Your opponent's taunting doesn't help matters much.

"I've already seen this before Ice Brat. Did ya forget where I fucking went to high school?" His hand heats the ice as he activates his quirk before three deafening blasts ring out. 

As you allow him to break down the ice you act on pure rage, securing some revenge from the first time he signed your hair. Pointed icicles lie in wait and once the wall is fully down you give him a nasty smirk before sending the straight his way. 

You're supposed to melt your weapons before they hit your opponent, neither of you are supposed to go all out per the professor's and college's strict rules in the athletics department but Bakugou always does. Somehow his big stupid mouth spews something that eggs you on. As if someone were shoving bamboo skewers beneath your skin, under your nails, sending you into an unheard of rage. 

Normally you were as your quirk, icy, unbothered by the world but Bakugou, God you could wring his neck. Freeze his hot blood as you watch him turn into slush beneath your feet. 

He expects you to abide by the rules, to splash him with glacier water but he realizes it too late. That you won't he let's off a quick blast, shattering two of the four deadly points. One grazes his cheek as he just barely dodges while the other lodges itself into his arm. 

You have half a mind to twist it. You pull at his blood bringing it into your arsenal. Blood red needles and bullets surround Bakugou. 

"I don't think you've seen this before.." You say darkly ready to release your hold and shred him into, give him a taste of his own medicine. Maybe he would see how bitter and nauseating he was. He smirks, opening his mouth to retort but you send your ice his way aiming for non vital spots although the ice creeps closer to your heart begging it to hit something vital. The inside of your ice palace begins to reek of burning sugar and spice, he plans to let out an explosion to bring this whole place down from the inside out. 

Just as he is about to detonate and just as the blood and ice are about to pierce skin the professor bursts into the gym.  

"I step out for five minutes and this is what happens?!"

The ice and blood return to liquid splashing across Bakugou as his skin pops. The professor takes in the damage from your ice and his explosions, still better controlled than most of his other students quirks. 

"I gotta stop pairing these two together." He murmurs to himself before dismissing class. With a flick of your wrist the ice fortress melts, returning to the reservoir below the gym floor, ignoring the molten glare that is sent your way.

"You're such a bitch." Bakugou growls as you pass, flinging blood from his fingers as he wipes at his face. You offer him a fake pitying smile before heading into the women's locker room. 

"Fucking asshole." You hiss, forcing the sight of his garnet gaze out of your mind. Instead turning your attention to your buzzing phone in your locker. It's a few missed calls and some texts in the girl's group chat. Briefly you wonder if you ever should have joined that stupid sorority, it was small, non toxic, and would look good should you need to transfer again. 

Not only did you somehow get elected the president but you also became friends with the three other ladies despite your best efforts not too. 

Mins: Prez we might have a way to save the sorority...lunch after you're done with training? 

IceQueen ❄: Hope it's good, the Dean already put the house up for sale. Let me get ready and I'll be there shortly. 

Mina presents her phone to the crowd around her, Kirishima, Denki, Sero, Jiro and Uraraka do a small celebration. Denki more so than anyone else, he knows the combined car washes will be more than enough to fix up the house, he also recently learned that you had the power of negotiation on your side. Having just listened to Mina retell the story of how you got free food for a month from a bar for yourself and your friends. And not from some sleaze who wanted to sleep with you either, no it was from the owner himself. 

Denki is hopeful and so are the ladies indicating that this may be his best idea yet. 

You arrive at the small bistro early, spying your party on the front patio. The three men had seen you in person before, they knew you were easy on the eyes but up close you were breathtaking. Manicured nails but nothing gaudy, normally nude or soft shades, light makeup, mascara at most as far as they could tell and your outfit was well put together. You were what the world called plus size but everyone else called thiccc. Your confidence oozing in your light blouse tucked into your black skinny jeans, uncaring that you had a pouch. 

You needed that extra fat to keep from freezing by your own quirk. The only thing you needed society to worry about was your intelligence and your power. 

Both were SSR ranked so what did you fucking care that your body was ranked lower. They were stupid in thinking you'd skimp power in the name of vanity. 

You recognize everyone at the table and internalize the dread you're feeling. Scheming is afoot and you're the last to arrive. You can tell by their half finished drinks and picked over appetizer, still you sit and act unaware. Denki goes to hold out his hand first for a formal introduction causing a sly cat smile to settle over your glossy lips. 

"No need, I'm aware of who the three of you are. Sero we share our lingual class, Denki, our chemistry class, and Kirishima we share two classes, world studies and villain hero theory. Truly a pleasure." You tell then your name before ordering something to drink from the lingering waitress. Sitting stick straight with your shoulders backs has the men mirroring you. 

"Well ladies I take it the plan to save the sorority involves these fine gentlemen." You ask coolly and they nod. After a moment of silence Mina and Denki go to speak. Awkwardly encouraging the other to speak until Minai clears her throat. 

"As you know they are a newly formed frat with Sero as their president. They moved into their house about a month ago and they say it is quite large. So they have invited us to move in." 

"How do you propose we ask the college to have a co-ed house? What does this fraternity home even look like?" They knew you would be quick to ask questions Mina answers the first while Denki provides the answer to the second. 

"Union and Diversity. Forming close relationships now to carry over into our hero careers." 

"The house needs some work but looks a lot better than what it did." Denki shows you before and after pictures as you gesture for his phone. He passes you his electric yellow case with nervous hope tingling beneath his skin. You swipe through the photos. 

"You boys did a great job on the outside. Inside needs a lot of work. Hardwoods will be easy to fix, they are original but don't seen to be damaged, a good scrub will spruce them up. Wait, are those?" You zoom in on the photo of the living room, "Are those foldable camping chairs and a VHS tv?" 

They gulp loudly as they nod, your purse your lips in disapproval. 

"I can fix that." You pass Denki back his phone, assuming that all the roommates will be present, "I see the main focus was the kitchen but some of the appliances seem to be on their last legs. I can fix that as well." 

"Soooo….So it's a yes?" Jiro asks, feeling relief for the first time in months since they received the letter of eviction. 

"Gotta get the college to agree first." You think on it a moment, "But I'm sure we can arrange that. Uraraka can you draft an email to the Dean requesting an official meeting regarding our sorority? Be sure to explain in detail our situation, how we are being forced to disband by their account and the solution we have. Make sure it's an afternoon meeting too. The dean hates to miss golf with our rival university's dean." 

With the plan set in motion all of you return to your evening classes. Jiro nudges Denki in the ribs, listening to his heart race from their closeness. 

"When are we going to tell her about Bakugou?" She throws her almost lover a look that he seems to wither beneath. His jaw tics before he retorts. 

"I think we should wait to see if this even works first." 

After a week the important meeting arrives and as you thought the Dean is already exhibiting signs of impatience. He is more than ready to wrap this up and you already know his answer is going to be no. Already trying to get it out before the four of you can even have a seat. 

Still you weren't the Ice Queen on campus for nothing. You saunter into the room, mineola folder filled with your copies of counterpoints pressed firmly to your chest, you can already see he doesn't have the copies you sent him. You place the folder down and open it, leafing through the pages as you speak. 

"This request is going to be approved and here are the reasons why. An example of sexism could be made that a new fraternity was approved housing, new housing, after a decades old sorority was deemed "too small" both parties are similar in count. Second funding and donations are easily influenced with letters to alumni and especially by attendees to this university. My transfer from YAU has brought in revenue of roughly 2.6 million dollars, increasing your diversity for women when this is normally a male dominated school. I am aware that my transfer had even encouraged other students from YAU to transfer here. Which I'm sure is one of your favorite bragging points to tell Dean Fraunk during your weekly golf trips isn't it? So it would truly be a shame if these points would come to light in the investigation of my return to YUA just months before the university sports festival. I do look amazing in Ice Blue you know. Matches my quirk a lot better than Maroon." You put the ball in his court, he is visibly upset, eyes flying to the facts that you've presented. All important, viable facts. You were right MMU was known to be a male dominated school and the media would have a field day if they uncovered a mistake he happened to look over. Not to mention you were his main bragging point, Dean Yuzi always talked about how he had stolen you, the female star of rising heroes, from YUA.  The silence in the room is amplified by the ticking of the clock, seconds accumulating into minutes as it counts down his T time with his old college buddy and rival. He gulps nervously, knowing what he has to do in order to keep both his bragging rights and a law suit under wraps. He looks up to you as you wear your stone cold face, making him think of a loan shark who hasn't been getting their payments on time. He is fearful for your future boss.  

"I believe I have no choice but to approve." 

"Correct." You respond, "Now we have a bit more to discuss. I noticed that classrooms 456 and 215 are being remodeled. Those gently used flat screens will be given to our house since it is technically college property. Common space 3 and 1 are being renovated in dorms A and B. We will accept the leather arm chairs as they are in good shape but we demand a new couch. I know it is in the budget as I help plan the budget. I also believe it is time for an allowance for our hybrid house." The Dean shrinks away from your tenacity, nodding as that is all he can do.  

"Well this is a generous offer and should cover most of the basic necessities such as a new fridge and mattress. The aesthetic we will be raising funds for. Kindly spread the word, we don't want to take up more of your time and be late with your 'meeting' with Dean Fraunk." You place a flyer on his desk as you turn on your heel. The rest of the sorority, mouth agape following suit. Yuzi looks down at the flyer, head hung in a mixture of disbelief and shame as he reads over the neon paper advertising a co-ed car wash. 

He just hopes you and Bakugou are worth the trouble. 

[elizabeethan]

Forget What I Said (It’s Not What I Meant) 1/3

Happy New Year! The start of 2021 also means it’s time for ✨Captain Swan Neverland New Year✨ so here is my contribution! @neverlandnewyear

Thank you to my co-mods and friends @xhookswenchx and @donteattheappleshook for looking over this for me and also for helping to make my Neverland dreams come true 🥺🥰

This is part 1 of 3 (famous last words)

Rated E for smuts and language

~3200 words

Read on Ao3

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Neverland is worse than Hell. Emma’s never actually been to Hell, of course, but it’s an easy conclusion to draw based on the experiences she’s had so far. The heat and humidity is enough to drive a woman mad, and the constant buzzing in her ears from the random insects is becoming nauseating. If she has to swat at her own ear one more time she thinks she’ll snap altogether. But the thing that’s driving her out of her mind most severely is, well, him.

It’s so completely unfair how good he looks. He looks sweaty all the time, but it’s so incredibly sexy because it’s almost as if he’s glistening. The leather clings to his chest in a way that should be illegal, showing off the coarse hair that she’s been dying to run her fingers through.

She gets it, okay? She should be focusing on finding her son and getting the hell out of here. It’s irresponsible of her to be thinking about all the things she wants to do to Captain Hook while on a mission to rescue her kid from Peter Pan. She’s thought it all before. She hasn’t stopped thinking about it. She also hasn’t stopped thinking about him.

She recognizes that she’s behaving childishly. Ignoring him on the ship until he practically corners her in a room is childish. Constantly rolling her eyes at everything he says is childish. But it’s the only thing she can do to keep her damn hands off him.

It became really bad when he started chopping down vines during their trek to make a path through the jungle. The way he swung his cutlass effortlessly through the air until the branches snapped shouldn't have drawn her eyes to the muscles in his back, but it did. And the way he authoritatively led them through the island, begrudgingly telling them all that they needed to know despite how much he clearly hates being here, shouldn't have made her cheeks redden, but it did. Luckily, she can blame that one on the heat of the island.

Honestly, it was only a matter of time. A woman has needs, and when she’s trapped in a dangerous and emotionally exhausting situation for weeks on end, well, who can blame her for taking matters into her own hands… perhaps literally? She nearly loses what little self-control she has left when he starts breaking branches against his knee to use for the fire, his eyes boring deep holes into her own when he catches her staring. Something in her snaps when she wonders what else his strong arms can do.

She chokes down the water inside the coconut she’s (not) enjoying and stands abruptly, noting that her parents have turned in and Regina sits quietly by the fire, and walks past him quickly so that she’s almost at the edge of the clearing when she hears his deep, rumbling voice. “Swan?” he asks, making to stand from his spot beside the fire he always keeps lit.

“I need a minute,” she says under her breath, trying so hard not to turn around and drag him with her. She really just needs a minute away; maybe she can find a stream and splash her face with some water or something.

She’s almost made it out of the clearing when she hears him shuffling behind her, following closely enough that she can feel the heat radiating off of him. Or maybe that’s her. Whatever.

“Hook, I really just need a minute,” she insists. Sure, a part of her still insists on taking matters into her own hands, but what she really thinks she needs is to just be away from the source of her… affliction until she can get over it.

“I heard you, Swan, but it’s dangerous out here on your own. Just allow me to follow behind you to prevent you from falling into any source of danger.”

She rolls her eyes. The last thing she needs is for him to be gentlemanly right now, dammit.

She’s too on edge to argue with him. She thinks anything that comes out of her mouth will be a shout, or maybe that her voice just won’t work at all. “Fine, just... stay away from me,” she finally says, moving swiftly through the thick jungle.

He does something behind her, something between a scoff and a chuckle, and her left eye twitches slightly as fire races through her veins. “If the lady insists,” he says with a timber in his voice that genuinely makes her breath catch in her throat.

“God,” she says, whipping around to face him and finding him standing much closer to her than she expected. “Do you have to talk like that?”

“Like what, darling?” he asks, a smirk growing on his face. He juts his jaw out towards her as his tongue licks along his lower lip, causing her breath to catch.

“Like we’re living in 19th century England.”

“Not sure what that means, my dear, but,” he steps closer to her, raising one brow and smirking as he breathes, “I’m more than willing to let you teach me.”

“Please, you couldn’t handle it,” she says, letting her eyes flutter shut as she shakes her head.

“Perhaps you’re the one who couldn’t handle it.”

She clears her throat. “Fuck,” she breathes. He cocks his head to one side and narrows his eyes in a way that shouldn’t be sexy but so is.

“You need only say the words, love.”

That’s it. He just snapped her like the branches over his knee.

She grabs the lapels of his stupidly ostentatious coat and tugs until his lips are crashing against hers and she’s swallowing his gasp. It’s hot and rushed and wrong, but the fire in the pit of her stomach tells her that something that feels this good can’t be bad.

She slinks her fingers around his neck until they’re pulling at the soft hair at the base of his skull, tilting his head and hers so that the kiss becomes deeper. He groans at the sensations of her fingers running along his scalp in her desperation as his hand finds her jaw and his hook lands on her lower back to tug her against him. When her hips collide with his, she feels the evidence that he wants this as much as she does. Actually, he hasn’t been shy about that, and she’s been in complete denial, so it follows that he probably wants this even more than she does.

She moans far too loudly when he starts trailing his lips down her neck, biting and licking on his way until he reaches her collarbone. She pulls at his hair some more as his wrist continues to press into her back and his hook pokes against her ass. She can hardly breathe as he follows the valley between her breasts with his mouth until he’s shoving her shirt out of the way, likely stretching the fabric beyond repair. She doesn’t care. When his lips press firmly against her hardened left nipple through her shirt, she breathes out, “yes, fuck, yes.”

His hand traces feather-light patterns up her stomach as it reaches under her shirt and forces her bra out of the way until he’s breathing over her exposed nipple. He licks it lightly, just barely making contact but adding enough moisture so that the breeze of the jungle makes her shiver. He then begins sucking it into his mouth and alternating licks and nips until she cries out. She’s so keyed up that she wonders if she can come from this alone. “Is this what you want, Swan? Is this why you’ve been so captious with me lately?” She can’t breathe enough to respond to him verbally, so instead she moans and nods her head as he trails his tongue to her neglected nipple. “Is it because you want me to touch you?” She nods again. “You want me so badly that you can hardly stand to even be near me?”

“Yes,” she moans. He releases her nipple with a pop and moves his deft fingers to the waist of her pants, tickling her skin as he goes. “God, yes. Please take those off.”

He obliges, tugging at her pants until they’re around her ankles before he sinks to his knees in front of her and breathes heavily against her quaking core. She thinks he might press his mouth to her— she’s desperate for him to do just that— but instead, he lifts one of her legs and ducks so that he’s settled between her knees with her pants behind him, caging him close to her once he stands again. “And what will you have me do with you, love?”

She whimpers pathetically when he lifts her at the knees, her core not quite touching him but dangerously close, and she throws her head back and hits it against the tree she’s pressed to. “God dammit, Hook, just touch me.”

He hums out a laugh as he continues to support her weight with his hooked arm and reaches between them with the other, pushing her soaked underwear to the side and stroking a finger up through her folds. “So wet for me already, Swan,” he murmurs darkly against her neck. “Tell me what you want me to do to you.”

“Touch me,” she demands again. Then, with a bit more honesty, “make me forget where the hell we are.”

He kisses her deeply, his tongue dancing between her lips, then pulls away to ask, “do you want me to use my hand, or my cock?”

Her breathing stops. She pulls his hair at the base of his neck so that he’s looking at her and can see her pupils blown wide with arousal. “No time for hands,” she tells him breathily, reaching her own fingers down to the laces of his trousers and tugging them loose.

“No? Are you saying you're so wet for me already that you don’t require any... preparation?”

She shakes her head as she reaches inside his slacks and groans when she feels his marble length twitching in her grasp. How something can feel so soft and so hard all at once is astounding, but not as astounding as the amount of space his arousal takes up in her hold.

“Yes. Now would you just fuck me, please?”

“As you wish,” he breathes, guiding his hand to his length and tickling his fingers against her entrance to ensure that she’s slick enough for him to tuck himself inside (she is). When he plunges his cock into her, she cries out again at the pressure and the delicious burn of him stretching her. She was right about him being well-endowed judging by the irresistible feel of him inside her.

He gives her a moment to adjust, then begins to thrust into her at the perfect pace. She’s never experienced that before, usually needing to tell her lover to slow down or speed up several times before they finally get it right. But Killian seems to know exactly what she needs. It’s like he’s a machine, recognizing each of her responses and adjusting accordingly in order to bring her the most pleasure she’s ever felt.

Her shirt has fallen back down so that he no longer has access to her breasts, so instead, he latches his mouth to a spot just below her collarbone and marks her as his, at least in this moment. The way he continues to thrust deeply into her at the perfect angle while his lips roam across her skin sends a shiver down her spine, but when he presses himself more firmly against her to bear her weight so he can move his hand, she nearly screams. His good hand travels to her clit and starts rubbing furious circles against her as his thrusts maintain their steady, perfect pace, and she would be in awe at his coordination if she wasn’t seconds from reaching the most powerful orgasm she’s ever had.

He keeps up with the circles on her sensitive nerves and she tightens her belly and core around him as his velvet length glides through her. She’s never been so close to orgasm in such a short time, possibly not even at her own hands. She can’t stop the manic whimpers and moans coming from her lips as she tightens every part of herself around him before finally letting go as ecstasy washes over her.

He continues to pump into her as she rides out her high, not stopping until she’s a twitching mess before he stops to pull out of her. He holds her close to him as he works himself up with his own hand, somehow still supporting her weight against the tree, before she reaches down and takes over until he’s spilling himself onto the ground at his feet, his head resting against her neck. He kisses against her skin as he comes down from it, and she revels in the softness of his hair at her fingertips for a moment too long.

She realizes what the hell she’s doing once her brain turns back on and then starts wriggling in his hold until he releases the back of her knee and backs up slightly so that her legs fall. Her pants are still on under her boots and wrapped around him, so she’s nearly sent to the ground before he realizes what’s happening and catches her. He ducks down again so that he can free himself and then stands before her awkwardly, his softening length still hanging out of the laces of his trousers.

“That was, uh,” he starts breathlessly, scratching behind his ear.

“A one time thing,” she answers, shaking her head to clear her mind and pulling her pants up. “Don’t follow me, wait five minutes. Go get some firewood or something,” she insists as she starts back towards the camp, still working on her pants as she walks.

She starts to think about how it might be a very, very bad idea for him to get more firewood, based on the fact that watching him handle the branches is what brought her here in the first place, but before she can think too deeply into it, he says, “as you wish.”

Her heart starts racing, and it’s not because of the heat or because she just had an earth shattering orgasm or because she’s turned on by his physical appearance. She could handle those things.

No, this is something else entirely. And rather than deal with it, she does what she does best and pushes those feelings deep, deep, deep into herself, never planning to address them again.

(She really should just stop making plans.)

~~~~

They spend endless days and nights in Neverland. Time is impossible to keep track of, and it starts to make sense why Neal had kept tic marks on the wall of his cave. The only way she’s able to keep track of how many days pass is by counting the amount of time’s she’s had sex with Killian Jones.

She can’t seem to stop. It started as a one time thing, an itch that needed scratching, but she finds now that she needs the release he gives her more than she needs to sleep. So, each night when they find a place to set up camp, they wait for her parents and Regina to fall asleep and sneak away to find a sturdy tree to fuck against.

On the ninth night, she notices Killian talking to her parents suspiciously and they inform her that Neal is alive, allegedly. As if the prospect of her ex dying and coming back to life in the span of two weeks wasn’t enough for her, he pulls her aside on their way to the Echo Caves and tells her that he was hesitant to tell her because he wanted to spare her feelings until they could confirm that Neal was alive. She scoffs. She has no feelings when it comes to Captain Hook.

They get to the Echo Caves and she learns that he feels the opposite. He’s starting to have feelings for her. Real ones. She stares at him because there’s nothing else she can do, until the ground starts to shake and the bridge starts to build itself.

She tells Neal the truth. He hurt her so much, but she knows that a part of her will always love him. It kills her to admit it to herself, never mind to him.

She fucks Hook angrily that night, with him lying on his back atop his stupid coat and her riding him mercilessly until she feels some semblance of control over herself. They’re far too close to the camp for how loud she is, but when they return, she’s certain everyone is still fast asleep.

The two grown men fight over a lighter. Neal gets grabbed by a shadow and she’s frozen. Hook gets grabbed by one and she screams and summons enough magic to light the fucking candle. She ignores the feelings of relief at him being alive when they meet later that night, convincing herself that the extra long kisses mean nothing.

They get Henry back. As much as she’s grateful to be off of that damn island, she almost grieves the loss of her new nightly routine with the stupid asshole.

He knows exactly how to make her tick, so when he finds her on the deck and says something about how he never doubted her for a second, she kisses him just to shut him up. She can’t possibly listen to his praises, filled with emotion and longing and until I met you, so she pushes them aside in favor of the pleasure she knows he’ll bring her.

The truth is, she can deal with everyone else saying things like that to her. When her parents say it, she can rationalize that they’re obligated to encourage her. When Henry says it, it’s because he believes in everyone, not just her. When Neal says it, she doesn’t even believe him at all.

But then Hook says it. She doesn’t want to believe him, but she does. His honest and raw words unhinge her because she has no reason not to believe them. He owes her nothing and has nothing to gain from attempting to woo her because he’s already had her in his bed- well, jungle- countless times. So she believes him. And she’s terrified.

So she continues to do what she does best. She ignores her feelings until she can’t anymore, and she deals with them by replacing them with the pleasure he brings her. A part of her tells her that she can’t continue doing this, but a bigger part of her tells her that it’s okay, because once they get back to Storybrooke, he’ll leave in favor of the sea or of finding another realm to pillage and plunder. Once he’s gone, she can forget any of this ever happened and move on.

It’s a perfect plan, except it doesn’t work. Because he stays.

[ninja-librarian]

Thank you so much for answering me! Also, thank you for your hard work for AU! I’m happy that you still have it on your heart, even if it’s been a while and may still be a while till we see the end haha… anyway, I hope all my questions don’t overwhelm you lol - my first question has to be what future careers do the gang have? (AU)

You're welcome, and thank you!

Alright so...

Ichigo went to college for business and took over Cafe Mew Mew, expanding it and really getting it to take off. There's several throughout Japan as well as Cafe Mew Mews in London, New York, Los Angeles, and Beijing thanks to her.

Keiichiro and Rin are still the head bakers for the original Cafe Mew Mew, and all the head bakers at the other Cafes are required to do a year-long internship with them. They don't require any past culinary training from their interns, and some of their best students have been the ones they really took a chance on who had never picked up a whisk before.

Ryou goes back to focusing on biology, goes back to school to get a doctorate so he can do more legit things with his skill-set. Works with genetics and contributing research to fighting chronic illnesses and cancers.

Masaya and Homare both become zoologists and work in the field of conservation, and both are highly respected in the field.

Lettuce goes on to become a librarian. (Me, projecting on my favorite Mew Mew? It's more likely than you think.)

Pudding becomes a pediatric orthopedist. She was allowed to design her own exam room at her practice, and of course the entire room is covered in monkeys.

Zakuro continued to model for a few more years before retiring and now coaches aspiring models.

Mint joined the Tokyo Ballet company and danced for several years before retiring; she teaches ballet at the school that she and Zakuro co-opened.

Shinji played for the Japanese national soccer team; he went to the Olympics and played in two World Cups. He also played for a Spanish football club for a few years before returning to Japan to play in the J-League for F. C. Tokyo. After retirement, he coaches a university men's soccer team, then becomes an assistant coach for the U-21 men's team, and later becomes the head coach for the U-17 women's team--which his daughter plays on.

Riri and Rozu returned to Cynnth, where Riri becomes a Healer full-time and Rozu finished her military academy training. Yes, Rozu eventually does become the first female general of the Cyniclon Military.

Tart took what is probably the chillest job and just opened his own plant nursery. He's known throughout Tokyo as being some sort of plant whisperer.

Kisshu went into the field of archeology, trying to find more information about past Cyniclons' life and time on earth. He also becomes a leading expert in ancient Japanese weapons, particularly swords. (In the future, he has a particularly high-strung graduate assistant who has a twitchy eye as a result of his absent-minded professor ways but the payoff is worth it for what she wants to focus on.)

Pie... hit a bit of a burnout after the war. Tired of being told what to do by the military, there wasn't a demand for the weapons he used to build, and he was kind of lost for a while. So he still worked at the Cafe, but would do computer repair on the side for extra income. A customer asked Pie if he'd be willing to build him a computer, Pie couldn't think of a reason to say no, and next thing he knew he had a lot of people wanting him to build them computers or update theirs. He has enough business that he could have probably opened up a shop, but instead prefers to keep it small and simple and instead has his own workshop at home, predominately because he became a stay-at-home-dad when he and Lettuce started having kids. Also, it gives him a bit more freedom to work on his own projects whenever he gets an idea.