#anyway this is just me thinking abt it briefly i could do better with time. obviously if you made it arainai you do have the opportunity to

[vigilskeep]

as a fellow rook de riva player i’m really curious how sol took the whole… house egrativi being founded with the specific intention of taking in orphaned kids to become crows. final nail in the coffin moment for my rook personally

this plot thread was the first and easiest target of my mental rewrites because it just... doesn’t make sense, to me? functionally, regardless of thematically. like, i think it suffers the most obviously from the writers not really getting into how the crow power structure works. crow houses are business ventures that require money and manpower. you can’t just start one with a name and a dream while everyone smiles approvingly. also, you can’t just not have belonged to one in the first place! i spent all game trying to figure out if he belonged to the de rivas or the cantoris or the dellamortes or someone else, and when he started his own house at the end of his arc (again, ???) it was very apparent to me that this is just a misinterpretation that there is a general force of crows and the houses are simply nobility among them. no, somebody paid for your training and they want back on that investment so they own you. also, taking in orphans being your grand new venture for the crows is both insane and doesn’t make sense because the crows already do that as one of their main recruiting strategies. teia cantori is standing right in front of you as the evidence!

my provisional rewrite which i think works fairly smoothly without losing too much is that jacobus & his cousin are the sole surviving heirs of one of the three houses whose talons were killed in the antaam plot in tevinter nights: balazar, valisti, and arainai. (my self-indulgent vote is balazar, because the tevinter nights context of the dynamic with teia and viago is juicy. there’s no real reason for it to be arainai and bringing in that name for no reason would be cruel, but you could definitely cook with it if you really wanted to go for it.) naturally, these kids already have a grudge against the antaam, one that teia and viago are struggling to corral while having to treat them like crow hierarchy equals (iirc a balazar or valisti would actually technically outrank them both), and the elder cousin goes and gets himself killed trying. we’re now forced to operate with one of the four houses present in treviso being led by an even younger grieving child who is obviously a liability. this should be good for paralleling lucanis’ immediate future and highlighting what the crows do to their younger generations. in my most ideal of worlds where the crows are truly crow-ish on screen, maybe you’d have a plot choice with no good answers like...

a) teia would present this option. you decide to take a risk on this kid and believe in him and let him stand on his own two feet, and this actually pays off with sudden help in your fight against the governor like it does in the game. he chooses this idealistic, childish direction for his house where they’re taking in kids who have lost their families like him and it will all be one big family again! and he says some suddenly very nervewracking things about how they’ll understand it’s the best place to be eventually and one of the kids got hurt in the governor’s estate but heir has promised they’ll take care of it and train them all so hard they’ll never lose anyone again. he’s going to make sure of it. you’ll see! they’ll take the best contracts until they’re godslayers just like you! there’s a final shot of him standing very small and very alone. and that’s on you

b) viago would present this option. you decide this kid is too much of a risk to count on while you’re trying to save the city and the world, and maybe you care that he’s also a danger to himself. you back house de riva to forcibly seize jacobus’ house and all its assets to get the job done with, while jacobus himself is locked up out of harm’s way until the fight is over. this route also helps in your fight against the governor, there’s no sudden chaotic helping hand but everything goes smoother and cleaner, and hey, there are no children in the fight, if that kind of thing matters to you. however, all the ferocity of jacobus’ grudges turns on you and viago. he hates you. and letting him loose afterwards and giving back his house would be viago, the most paranoid man in thedas, handing a knife back to someone who wants to kill him. (which is, i suppose, the utmost charitable interpretation of viago’s main reasoning to keep hold of a bunch of assets, but no less true.) so they’re just keeping hold of jacobus... indefinitely. and that’s on you

but that’s me being self-indulgent and making it a bigger choice lmao. in answer to your actual question about my rook rather than this massive tangent, yes it was dizzying to stand there as another child was given full crow status and already planning to train other children. the cycles are cyclinggg

[babybluebex]

i saw ur message abt angus tully requests and🙈🙈 if u feel like it i would love to read a first kiss fic, but honestly i'd read anything !!!!

as you requested... :) word count: 1k

When you first met Angus, you didn’t consider him as someone you could fall for. He was a little short-tempered, a little too sarcastic for your tastes, but he was smart— even though you didn’t go to the same school, he still came into town on Wednesday afternoons and met you at the library to tutor you in biology. Even though Angus could definitely be hard to deal with sometimes, he helped you get the grades that you needed, and you were endlessly appreciative of him. 

Your biology midterm was next week, and you and Angus should have by all means been studying, but you weren’t. You were listening to him talk about his school, the prestigious Barton Academy, and how the all-boys school wasn’t exactly conducive to finding a date. “Not that I even wanna go to winter formal,” Angus said, twirling his pencil in his fingers. “But my mom and stepdad say I should.” 

“Who’re you taking?” you asked. Your school also had a dance at the end of the semester, but you guys weren’t fancy enough to call it a “formal”. You were also in need of a date, and had briefly considered just going by yourself; you were better off on your own, anyway. 

Angus shrugged. “Not a lot of girls for me to ask,” he said. “Not that any girl would wanna go out with me anyway.” 

“Oh, whatever,” you scoffed, gently erasing your work on your paper and rewriting the answer. “You’ve gotta have girls swooning all over you.” 

Angus barked out a laugh. “You flatter me,” he grumbled. “You think girls give me the time of day? That’s really funny.” 

You lifted your eyes from your paper up to Angus’s face, and you scrunched your eyebrows. “I mean, why not?” you asked. “You kinda have that Bob Dylan thing going on; if you went to my school, you would be everybody’s favorite.” 

“Mm, but I don’t go to your school,” Angus hummed. “The guys at Barton think I’m just a pest.” 

“Well, I don’t think that,” you offered lightly. “I think you’re pretty cool.” 

“Thanks,” Angus said softly. “I think you’re… Ahem, pretty cool too.” His cheeks went red as he cleared his throat, and his eyes flicked down to your textbook to break eye contact. Suddenly, he was quiet, his face burning; you had never seen Angus be shy before. 

“Angus?” you said. He said nothing, his teeth nibbling on his bottom lip, and you reached out to him, letting your fingertips brush his chin, lifting his face to look at you. You tilted your head as you watched him squirm, but he made no effort to move your hand from his face or try to move you away. “You know what I mean… When I said you’re pretty cool, right?” 

Angus took a breath, and he nodded quietly. “I meant the same thing,” he admitted. “Only, I… I’ve never had a girlfriend before. I don’t know how to do this.” 

Your hand dropped from his face, and you took up his hand from the table, twining your fingers together with his. His skin was soft and cold, and his grip was immediate and strong. “I’ve never had a boyfriend before,” you told him. “A real boyfriend, at least.” 

“What’s a real boyfriend?” Angus asked, leaning forward in his seat to get closer to you. 

“I don’t know,” you whispered. “I mean, like… I’ve never had a guy get all shy around me or anything. Act like he really likes me, and isn’t just dating me to cheat off of me in history class.” 

Angus chuckled breathlessly. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that with me,” he said, and you smiled. “Umm… Can I… Kiss you? I’ve kinda wanted to ever since I met you…” 

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” you asked. 

“Have you?” Angus asked quickly. 

“I asked you first,” you smiled, and Angus huffed as he chuckled. 

“Um, no,” Angus coughed. “I’ve always gone to all-boys schools… Last time I had a girl I talked to regularly, I was in preschool. And that doesn’t really count, I think.” 

“Probably not,” you agreed. “I’ve kissed one other guy before. It was the boyfriend who would cheat off of me, and he kissed me sometimes, but… Never anything else.” 

“Okay, so you’re marginally more experienced than I am,” Angus said and jokingly rolled his eyes. “You can’t get mad at me if I’m a bad kisser.”

“I would never,” you told him. You both hesitated for a moment, trying to read each other’s minds, and, before you could speak first, Angus cupped your cheek with his soft palm and leaned in, pressing his lips to yours. You didn’t hesitate to lean into his kiss, reaching out and wrapping your fingers around his thin wrist, and he sank into you, letting himself relax. 

You finally broke the kiss with a big smile, and Angus chuckled, and you shifted away quickly when your teeth clacked together. “Was that good?” Angus asked, nervously pressing his lips into a thin line as his eyes stayed locked on yours. “Why’re you laughing, was it that bad?” 

“No, sweetheart, I’m not laughing at you,” you chuckled, shaking your head. You watched his cheeks go pink again at the pet name, and you said, “I’m just… Happy.” 

“Good,” Angus said. His hand reached for yours, pressing his fingers between yours, and he said, “Right... What were we talking about?”

“Well, we were talking about, like, biology and stuff, for my exam next week,” you said. “But then we started talking about your winter formal and my school dance, and how we didn’t have dates.” 

“Oh, right,” Angus said. “Umm… I-I guess, maybe, if you want, I could go with you to your dance.” 

“As my date?” you asked, and Angus nodded. “I think I’d like that a lot. And maybe I can be your date to the winter formal?” 

“As long as you can deal with the stuck-up pricks at my school,” Angus grumbled, and you grinned, leaning in and kissing Angus’s cheek. 

“Whatever you want, sweetheart.” 

[stellamancer]

niku (for the ask game) i wish you’d write a fic where reader is in grad school with gooj……..maybe a lil academic rivals to lovers….

gRAD SCHOOL WITH GOOJ.... and you can't just say MAYBE A LITTLE academic rivals to lovers to me. i cannot have just a little it MUST BE A BUFFET. 

UH ANYWAY. so actually, as someone who only did their undergrad, i had to ask the grad student i do know about the difference. and they actually ended up feeding me ideas. i can't take credit for their brilliance though.

> if theyre academic rivals to lovers then maybe theyre sharing an elective class that has a group project and theyre in diff groups

and also:

> well my apartment building has laundry in it > but imagine reader hauling their laundry to a laundromat n running into gojo > id shit > gojo sees u hauling ur laundry and follows u inside to bug u abt ur group project (separate groups btw) and he just sits there while u shove everything into the machine hoping he doesnt see ur underwear

i think being in separate groups for a group project would be fun. so uh, full disclosure i think i went kind of off the rails and i DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THIS ANY MORE. but uh. it got terribly self indulgent is and is just short of 5k which is is insane. so uh. yeah hahahaaHAHAHAHA. <- laughing to hide my tears.

anyway, as for my own idea. so uh, please ignore me for laying down some groundwork HAHAHA. so, reader and gojo ended up attending the same university for undergrad. it's a very prestigious school with a famously low acceptance rate (for reference, gojo was recommended for admittance and took the entrance exam for the funsies).

reader, who was used to being the top student, is somewhat surprised that, upon the results of their first major exam being posted, they are not first but SECOND. briefly, and I do mean briefly, they're kind of like ‘well this is a really prestigious school ofc there would be insanely smart people here that could best me’ but then they find out that the person in the top spot is satoru gojo.

and said gojo is known for being a filthy rich, insufferable slacker and because of that reader has no respect for him and gets MAD. especially since they've also heard the rumor that he's attending school for shits and giggles. so they study extra hard to try and knock him from the top spot only to wind up in second place AGAIN and the cycle continues.

gojo, on the other hand, doesn't really notice reader until a little later. he knows their name (he knows everyone's names) and that they're second place but he doesn't really pay them mind until the professor for their class has a ta conduct a free study period because they have a personal emergency to attend to. gojo gets very excited over this because it's finally his time to really shine as the top student in the class. he expects his classmates to flock to him for help with class material, and while a couple students do ask him for help, those who don't form groups of their own gather around reader. it doesn't bother him at first and he attempts to teach the students who have asked him for help but they don't seem to get it. which frustrates him a little. how can they not understand? Eventually some of them thank him for his attempt but go to ask reader and gojo is a little huffy about it. 

actually he's pretty huffy about it. 

after class, he approaches reader who is a bit 😑😑😑 at him because it's gojo, and he. Well. 

“must have been pretty nice having everyone ask for your help,” gojo remarks, derisive. “even though, i’m top of the class.” you scowl, annoyed. “well, maybe more people would have asked you if you were better at explaining things.” a couple of your classmates had mentioned asking gojo first, but couldn't make heads or tails of what he was saying. when you asked them to explain, you were able to understand, but only because you could reverse engineer his methods.  gojo shrugs, “not my fault they couldn't understand.” your jaw ticks. what is he on? “they asked you to help them, but you couldn't; of course it's your fault.”  “maybe they should have tried harder!” “maybe you should have tried a different teaching method!” you hiss before stomping off. 

and that's honestly the first time anyone has really argued with gojo in…. Well not a while, but the only one who ever challenges him like that is suguru. and he actually approaches suguru about the whole thing later and suguru basically agrees with what reader was saying which, gojo ultimately concedes to. 

so, he, begrudgingly, takes a different approach when the next class study session happens and is met with better results. gojo tries to gloat about it to reader but all he gets is a flat “good for you” and it upsets him because he worked hard, you know, he adjusted for everyone instead of everyone adjusting to him (like he's used to because he's a spoiled brat) and while it felt super good that so many of his classmates actually understood what he was saying this time he wanted reader to acknowledge him the most. 

again, he whines to suguru, who actually finds this all very funny, and suguru gives him a pat on the back too, but at this point gojo has become determined to have reader approve of him. 

which means gojo goes out of his way to interact with reader more but, is met with annoyance or hostility and normal people would just back off but not gojo. like he'll congratulate reader on their high score on the exam and reader will tell him to shove it and initially it kind of makes him mad (especially since reader is very cordial with literally everyone else) but eventually he starts to find it kind of fun to get a rise out of reader the way he does. (I think initially he thought the class was kind of boring but then he gets to look forward to antagonizing reader wtf is his problem). 

he does not get the approval he wants though, so at some point, he decides to double major— with one of his majors being the same as reader’s. this only bothers them more since now they see him MORE and he seems to handle the double major stuff flawlessly. 

anyway, reader doesn't manage to get better grades than gojo in any class by the end of their undergrad and gojo doesn't get the approval from them he craves. 

(I think there's an incident where one of them is accused by a jealous classmate of some form of academic dishonesty and the other defends them but I haven't decided on who. whoever it is though, probably starts to develop Feelings)

graduation comes and reader thinks that they are finally free of gojo, thinking he will go into the work force so he can ultimately take over the family company, bUT HE DOESN'T HE GOES TO GRAD SCHOOL. and reader is just appalled. like what the actual fuck. and so once again they have classes together but the only upside is that it's less often (since me grad school friend said that classes are more infrequent).

I like the separate group project idea so we are going with that. reader is fine with being a separate group from gojo until he’s all smiley at them and is like ‘looks like we’re competing again and reader is just like ‘fuck my stupid baka life.’

actually I feel like I put too much development thought into undergrad oh well. 

so since there is more free time in grad school so I'm thinking reader gets a job. maybe working as wait staff at a restaurant…. a fancy one. and gojo finds out when he goes there for a gojo family business dinner thing. reader has to keep a straight face and ignore gojo’s smarmy expression and how hot he looks in a suit (the suit is fan service for me).

during part of the dinner gojo excuses himself to go to the bathroom and happens to see reader joking around with a coworker. he's never seen reader with that expression before and gets a little annoyed/jealous (the jealousy is also fan service for me). 

gojo brings up reader's job next time they see each other for class saying he didn't know and reader's just like ‘why would I tell you?’ which makes gojo realize despite being academic rivals for years he doesn't actually know much about them. 

I think at some point they have a convo where reader is just like ‘why are you even going to grad school when you don't need to’ and gojo says that he doesn't have a lot of time left to do what he wants before having to fulfill his duties as the gojo family heir and he's the going to grad school because he wants to (keep seeing reader). reader actually feels bad for him when they realize the magnitude of the expectations placed on him and in this convo he mentions that competing with reader in school has made his college life fun. I think at this point gojo realizes he won't get to really see reader after grad school is over and that makes him sad. 

Mmmm. Maybe. They make a bet at this point gojo bets that if reader's group does better than gojo’s on the project he'll grant them any one desire they want and while reader is like ????? at first he explains that because of who he is he can do anything with his money and/or influence but if his group does better then reader has to do anything he wants and they’re like okay yeah sure whatever rich boy.

so reader does their best to encourage their group mates to well on this group project (which i have decided has a presentation at the end of the semester… it is a nice long semester long project). i’d say most of them at know of reader and gojo’s rivalry (or at least about gojo) and they’re pretty amenable to trying to show him up. 

over the semester stuff happens, you know extra relationship building stuff, with gojo constantly asking about the project. he'll occasionally annoy reader at work (and maybe try to shoo away the coworker he thinks is interested in reader), bug them at the library, drag them to dinner after class and. idk. despite gojo becoming less of a rival and more of an annoyance, reader starts to get endeared to him.

just as finals week, when they have to do their presentation, is approaching, reader is at the library and their laptop just. stops working. and they start to freak out because even though a lot of stuff for the project is saved to a cloud storage, they still have some things saved locally. gojo happens in as they're having a meltdown and calms them down and tries to assess what happened to the laptop. and like. 

you feel like you can't breathe. the realization that you've lost hours upon hours of work weighs down on your chest. can you possibly do it all again with what time you have left before the presentation? 

no. 

it's not a question of whether you can or can't: you have to, if not for you, then everyone else in your group. they're depending on you; you can't let them down.

“hey.”

if you call out for your next couple of shifts and pull a couple all nighters, you might be able to redo everything.

“hey.”

it won't be pleasant, but you have to do what you have to do. you don't want everyone to worry, but you should at least let them know what's going on. the thought of messaging the group chat, though, fills you with dread. 

someone flicks your forehead and you let out small cry. “what the hell!”

gojo looks petulant as ever and you remember you have to deal with him too. could this get any worse? his finger presses against your forehead as he asks, “tell me what happened.”

“i told you. it stopped working.”

“be more specific.” 

you groan, “just…. the screen went black and I pressed the power button but it wouldn't turn back on but it sounds like it's on.” 

gojo hums and leans down over the table, pressing his ear to the laptop. he hums again and nods to himself. “i think I know what's going on.” 

“are you the laptop whisperer or something?” you ask flatly. 

“something like that,” he answers nonchalantly, flipping the lid closed and pulling out his phone. he starts typing on it one handed. “but I think most people call it being computer savvy.”

“are you saying you can fix it?”

he shoots you a cocky grin. “who do you think you're talking to?”

you ignore him. “well?”

he huffs. “i can't believe you're doubting me here.”

“gojo…”

“just trust me, everything will be fine!” he says and starts to pack up your laptop. you protest but he doesn't listen. “but we need to have the operation at my place.” 

you scowl. “gojo, i’m not—”

“you don't have to come if you mind leaving your laptop in my care,” he shoots you a saccharine sweet smile and your frown deepens. he knows that you won't just let him take your laptop with him. crafty bastard. 

“ugh, fine,” you relent. 

gojo snickers in satisfaction and starts to call someone as you gather the rest of your things. from what you can hear, it sounds like he's calling his driver. 

ten minutes later, gojo is ushering you into the sleek black car that he gets driven around in. you expect gojo to talk your ear off during the ride to his place, but he's oddly quiet and glued to his phone. you're curious, but you decide it's better to not ask. 

soon enough you're both dropped off at one of the tallest high rise apartments you've seen in your life. gojo casually taps his phone to a panel by the door and walks in with you scampering after.

you want to be surprised when you both ride the elevator to the top floor, but admittedly you're not. of course gojo has a penthouse apartment, why wouldn't he? not only that but it's wildly high tech— you can only imagine how much it must have cost… 

“you hungry?” gojo asks as you both enter his spacious living room area. “i can order something; anything you want— my treat.” 

the offer startles you, but reflexively you shake your head. “no, i’m fine. i—”

“sushi, then,” he decides with a nod. 

“wait, no, i—” you start to protest, but gojo is already fiddling with his phone. “gojo, really, it's fine, i’m not hungry.” 

“oh too late, i already ordered.”

you sigh as he flashes you a conspiratory grin. well, you suppose it wouldn't hurt to have some when it arrives. free dinner, maybe, you guess. “okay so, how do you intend to fix my laptop?” 

gojo tuts at you and wags his finger. “all will be revealed in good time.”

“tell me or i’m leaving,” you hiss, glaring. you don't have the time to humor him if it turns out he's just been fucking around this whole time. 

gojo pouts. “you're no fun.” 

“i can't fuck up this project; not with my group mates depending on me.” 

you don't mention the bet. honestly, at this point you don't care if you lose as long as you can salvage the project enough to make sure your group gets a decent grade. 

he sighs. “I know, I know.” 

“so tell me, what are you going to do.” 

gojo leans against the wall. “just a simple extraction. seems like the motherboard died, but the data on your hard drive should still be intact, so we're just going to extract it.”

“you can do that?”

“wouldn’t suggest it if I couldn't,” he says with a shrug. “just waiting for something i need to do it but it should arrive soon enough.” 

you stare at him, unsure of what to say. it's awfully nice of him to help you. especially when he could have just walked away, left you there with your broken computer and despair, and yet… “thank you gojo, really.”

for once in his life, gojo looks absolutely speechless, widened eyes peering over the top of his sunglasses. you blink. is it just you or do you see the faintest shade of pink dusting over the tips of his ears?

“well, while we wait, why don’t i give you the grand tour?” he asks and his voice is unnaturally loud, moreso than usual. 

“i don’t need a tour.”

“come on,” he insists, moving over toward you and circling around to grab you behind by the shoulders. “it’ll be fun! i never get to show off my place!” 

before you can protest, gojo starts propelling you around his penthouse. his voice is filled with a childlike excitement as he shows you every nook and cranny of the place. it’s sleek, modern, and ridiculously clean, just like how you would expect the home of any rich heir to a corporate conglomerate to look. however, as you move to room to room, you see little peeks of gojo’s personality shining through.

like the display of pictures next to his computer setup (three screens is kind of overkill in your opinion though).

the legitimately impressive sunglasses collection he has in his bedroom (you had always suspected he had something like this). 

the almost terrifying array of candy and sweets he has lining the cabinets of his kitchen. 

while he's rifling through a box of imported american snack cakes to show you, you notice a cup of dry erase markers next to the fridge which has a board affixed to it. the board is devoid of any writing or marks and you can't help but wonder if gojo has ever used it.

he wouldn't mind if you scribbled something on it real quick, would he?

“whatcha doin’?” he asks as you grab a black marker from the cup.

“defacing your personal property.”

“huh?!” he exclaims as you pop off the cap. “hey, wait a sec—”

you do not. before he can try to stop you, you start to doodle a cartoonish rendition of him. large round glasses, a stupid big grin and… well, you try to recreate his hair but it looks more like a soggy sea star with too many arms.

“what the hell is that?” he asks. “is that supposed to be me?”

“obviously.” 

he clicks his tongue. “i'm way more handsome.”

you roll your eyes. “are you?”

gojo hmphs and steps over toward you, grabbing a blue marker from the cup. “of course i am.” 

you roll your eyes as he starts his own drawing next to yours. at first you think he's just going to show you up with a better rendition of himself, but you quickly realize that it's not him he's drawing.

it's you. 

gojo is a much better artist than you are (it probably helps that he's not trying to scribble it really quickly like you are) and his doodle of you looks much better than your drawing of him. 

“so?” he asks when he's done. “what do you think?”

if you're being honest, it's actually really cute. embarrassingly cute. “i… i think you’re just trying to show off.”

“...well, i am quite skilled in more than just academics, you know,” he boasts earning him another eye roll. “it's okay if you don't want to say it looks good, we both know the truth.”

“...shut up.” 

he snickers. “if you're done drawing all over my fridge, then there's one more stop on satoru gojo’s grand house tour!” 

you tilt your head and he motions for you to follow him. he brings you to what you assume must be a big window with the curtain drawn, but with the press of a button the curtains slide back to reveal the balcony. gojo slides the door open and gestures for you to go outside first.

the air outside is a little chilly but it's not too bad. there's some furniture set up for lounging, but otherwise the balcony is rather bare save for…

“it's beautiful…” you murmur as you stare at the view of the tokyo skyline, the lights of the city sparkling brightly against the darkened sky. 

“right?” gojo chuckles and there is something about it that makes you turn back to look at him.

he's staring right at you. 

the soft smile gracing his features makes your mouth feel very, very dry for some reason and despite the fact that you desperately want to look away, you can't bring yourself to. the air between you both is an odd sort of quiet that has you feeling all sorts of nervous and you try to think of something to say to feel that almost awkward void.

luckily for you, the doorbell rings just in time to save you. 

gojo’s head whips around suddenly and you think you see the ghost of a frown before he scampers toward the front door. you trail after, watching as he throws it open to reveal a handsome, but tired looking young man. you recognize him from some of the pictures gojo had by his desk; they must be friends. 

“satoru, isn't there someone who you personally pay to run your errands?” the other guy asks as he enters and you notice he's carrying a bunch of bags. “why ask me?” 

gojo tilts his head innocently. “why not?”

his friend sighs. 

“sooo, did you get it?” gojo asks as his friend hefts the bags onto the counter. 

the other guy looks at gojo like he's an idiot. “of course i did.”

gojo beams widely. “knew i could count on you suguru!”

said suguru rolls his eyes again before turning his attention to you. there's a curious spark in his eyes as he offers you a pleasant smile “i don't believe we’ve met before…”

“i’m gojo’s classmate,” you say before giving him your name. 

“ah yes, satoru speaks of you often,” he remarks. “i'm suguru geto, it's a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“um, same to you, i guess.” you're not quite sure what to do with the information that gojo's been talking about you to other people. you can't imagine he's said anything good.

so after reader and suguru introduce themselves to one another they either have a short convo where suguru roasts gojo (as is his right) or gojo interrupts before he can and they eat the sushi that gojo made suguru pick up (the sushi place is actually a small little shop, not anywhere really fancy, which reader notices immediately— maybe it’s somewhere gojo dragged reader to previously, but he’s a regular so they gave him extras lmao). 

gojo doesn’t actually eat though, because he’s too busy extracting reader’s hard drive from their laptop and when reader mentions he’s not eating, gojo tells reader they can hand feed them. reader refuses. lmaooo. it doesn’t take super long for gojo to complete the surgery and when he’s done he drags reader to his massive computer set up and plugs the hard drive (which has been converted into an external hard drive and it works!! and—

you hold your breath as gojo mouses over to the file folders to open the hard drive. as he does, some measure of relief eases into you as you see the familiar names of your folders and documents. 

but you can't breathe easy just yet. "which one is it?" gojo asks. "this one?" he hovers over a file that has the class name along with the words 'group project.' you nod and he opens it.  ordinarily, you'd be a little defensive about letting gojo see your project, but given the circumstances, you don't think you can afford to be. he scrolls down to the bottom and you can tell that the file isn't exactly up to date. it's missing about a page's worth of information you'd typed up.  but that's probably about fifteen minutes of work at most, much better than what you'd thought you'd lost.  the relief consumes you completely and before you can even really realize what you're doing, you're throwing your arms around gojo's shoulders wrapping him into hug. "oh thank god..." you murmur into the fabric of his shirt.   "...didn't think you thought that highly of me," he murmurs with a chuckle. immediately, you jump back. embarrassed, you clear your throat. "i don't, but you can have a pass this time around." "no, no i think you should keep showering me with praise." you roll your eyes and gojo rises from his chair, stretching. then he turns to you, with a familiar grin that makes your stomach do a flip. you don't think you're going to like what he has to say next. "so, what now?" you blink. oh maybe that wasn't so bad. "your laptop's shot, y'know." right. you grimace. you still have to finish your project. and you need a computer to do that. unfortunately, you don't own a desktop and you don't exactly have the cash to drop on a new laptop. "um, well..." you could use the computers at the school library, but it's way too late to go there now. "if you ask nicely, i'll lend you one of my laptops." "no thanks," you answer automatically. 'one of his laptops?' must be nice being rich. why would he need more than one anyway? "...i can just go to a net cafe." "a net cafe?" gojo exclaims in disbelief. "yeah, they're open all night and if i need to sleep there i can." he grimaces. "no, absolutely not." "it's not your choice," you say flatly. "i mean, wouldn't it be easier... and cheaper to just take one of my laptops?" he's got a point, but. "it's fine, you've helped me enough. i'd feel bad if something happened to one of your laptops." you doubt your luck is that bad. it's not like gojo couldn't replace it in a blink in an eye, but still. "then i can just give it to you, problem solved.' you almost choke. "absolutely not!" 

after some back and forth, gojo (with suguru’s help) convinces reader to not go to the net cafe, but reader refuses to take home one of gojo’s laptops sO THEY END UP sitting at the coffee table in his living room to work on their project. to reader’s surprise, he actually lets them work in peace (instead he annoys suguru). though at some point reader dozes off and when they wake up… they are in gojo’s bed. they freak out but it’s only them in the bed and when they leave the bedroom they find gojo snoring on the couch. Suguru, who also stayed the night, and is awake making coffee tells them that gojo carried to them to the bed and decided to sleep on the couch (suguru also slept on the couch it’s a big couch). he makes some kinda cryptic comment before he leaves and reader is just like ????? but shrugs it off as gojo’s bestie also being a weirdo and they try to thank gojo by making him breakfast but the freak doesn’t actually have anything to make breakfast with it so they just work on their project til he wakes up. 

when he does wake up reader does mention wanting to thank him by making him breakfast and he gets stupid excited and tries to drag reader off to the store to get stuff but reader is in the middle of some project stuff and, without thinking tells him to take an iou. and he gets weirdly serious about it, asking if they’ll really do it later and, reader’s like ‘um yes? why are you getting weird about this?’ and he just gives some non answer and doesn’t say THAT HE WANTS READER TO MAKE HIM BREAKFAST because like atp he is very down bad about reader (he and suguru actually were talking about this when reader was working on the project the night before). 

anyway, project presentation time and reader is a bit nervous and so is the rest of the group, but reader is confident that they will do well. and everyone in the group is like yeah, and then uh, gojo’s group waltzes in, oozing confidence and gojo is fucking dressed to the nines, in a suit and tie and his hair styled and reader’s like ‘fuck he’s hot wait what.’ and he comes over and and in his attempt at a rizzed up moment wishes reader’s group luck. one of the girls in reader’s group makes a super funny comment and reader is like ‘shut up.’

both groups do well and after the presentations are done, gojo drags his group and reader’s group to yakiniku or something that’s on him and everyone goes and. everyone but gojo and reader get drunk and gojo and they talk about the project and they both concede that the other did good and they actually aren’t sure who won. 

turns out they both scored the same lmao. so no one wins. reader takes it as a loss but gojo is pretty pleased and suggests that since it was a tie he’ll do something that reader wants if reader is willing to do something he wants and reader is just like ‘ugh fine whatever.’ so gojo asks what they want first and reader’s just like ‘i don’t really want anything i just wanted to beat you once.’ and gojo’s like ‘oh well… i’ll take an iou on a favor then’ and reader’s like ‘okay fine so what do you want?’

"well," gojo drawls, thoughtfully. "i gave it a lot of thought and at first i was thinking i'd ask for us to call it a truce and just be friends. but that's kinda boring, don't you think?" boring isn't quite how you'd put it.  "so i was thinking that instead, you could go on a date with me instead," he proclaims with a big grin. "that's fair don't you think?"

your eyes nearly pop out of your head. a date? he can't be serious.

"i'd pay for everything still, of course, can't risk the date going badly, you know." you scowl. "are you saying that i'd screw up a date just because i can't afford to go whatever fancy restaurants a rich guy like you is accustomed to?" he shoots you a mischevious grin. "well, no i didn't quite say that... but if you'd like to prove me wrong..." "fine!" you hiss. "i'll show you! it'd be the best date you've ever been on!" his smile eases into something, a little more gentle, a little more fond. "i'd love to see you try." 

(spoiler alert: he didn't want the date to go badly because he wants to actually date you but you'll find that out soon enough lmao).

[puertoark]

My experience with each Amnesia game which I need to share with the world

SO UM. Hi. I fell in love with this game series its been a while and I needed somewhere to talk abt it so here I am !

I'll be depcting my unasked opinion briefly for each game bc god I have sm to talk abt every single one of them

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Everyone loves this game right right I do too BUT I must say it was personally my least favorite of the series which doesn't mean I didnt fucking loved it. Almost everything abt it is nearly perfect - the ambience and sound design specially is something so so special and dear to my heart from this game oh my

I really enjoyed the narrative too its just that.. it didnt impact me like the others did and I think most of the complaints ppl have about Rebirth are applicable here aswell

I personally felt like the pacing was kinda odd too but thats probably just me anyway I rank TDD with 6 Alexanders and 2 Servant Brutes

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

Idk how safe it is to say that on the internet after 10 years but I enjoyed this game sm more than I did with TDD

I know why everyone dislikes this one (no inventory + no sanity + no mechanics + L + ratio) but I gotta say I enjoyed the safer walking simulator with occasional danger like gameplay

And I like how they did it too - This was the game to introduce the flickering light mechanic to when you're in danger and I absolutely love it?? Its more subtle and haunting than the roar + music start playing when you're in danger thing. its elegant and superb MY OPINION

Talking about haunting the HORROR aspect of this HORROR game is nailed aswell in more subtle things too! The atmosphere is so fucking bizarre and oppressive sometimes when youre just reading a fucking note and digging lore like christ. how. I really do enjoy Mandus's character as a creppy factor aswell as the manpigs designs too

Not talking abt Jessica Curry's score for this game bc everyone agrees its a masterpiece

I rank this one with both Edwin and Enoch

Amnesia: Rebirth

hey guys pls stop hating on games that are actual masterpieces plss

Ok now. I too have my negatives with this game. The jumpscares in the fear mechanics. And some scripted ones too but thats it.

Tasi as a character is amazing, I love her saur much I loved the mechaninc of dont "die" or else you'll be a ghoul in ten minutes and I love how talkative she is…. ik a lot of people don't like it but I think it works just perfectly with her character - esp since shes not "alone" like the other 3 and I LOVE her relationship with her pregnancy and Amari. By the end, her story had me in pieces like no ending was satisfactory enough and…. and…..

I LOVED the scenarios and atmosphere too Frictional nailed it with art direction and sound design as ALWAYS

Amnesia: The Bunker

My second fave of the series I rank with 9 Makkas and 1 lovely Amari

I am shaking, in tears, in pieces, trembling, floored, literally on your walls

God.

This game had no right in being this haunting and sad, literally… For me this game is the one that stands out the most in the franchise. I loved how most of the storytelling was on the scenarios and events of the bunker. A quiet, superb story. I loved every single detail abt it like I literally cant even describe it

The historical context, setting, ost, gameplay, CHARACTERS LIKE… HENRI AND AUGUSTIN I AM SO SORRY SOSOSO SORRY OMFG I could spend DAYS talking about them, talking about all the nuances of this game

Ofc they nailed the atmosphere and sound design but this time its better than its ever been. Feels so lonely and isolated being Henri on the bunker then you peek outside and theres a fucking WAR ready to take his life. The war that made his bff (prob his only family) a monster and took everything of them both. How scary it is to even use a gun sometimes… absolute masterpiece. Frictional peaked hard

I rank this one with one Henri one Augustin and one rabbit toy

thank you frictional games for ruining my life with horror games that for some reason had some of the best human and existential narratives ive ever experienced

Still have to play Justine tho.

[fagcrisis]

I have to wake up early to study and interview prep but i need your thoughts on a philosophical quandary my twin and I have been working through re rust cohle: could transition have saved her?

NO but it would have made for a more compelling show genuinely the entire time i was thinking. fuck if rust transitioned in the 8 yrs he was off the grid. this show would be perfect

like ok i know this show is about cops we Have to get past that stay w me here. rusts entire life is about being exploited and degraded, his dad trying to make him live out this survivalist dream, being undercover for 4 years bc his life doesnt matter to his superiors, having to put on this fake ass macho persona which btw gender moment when he goes back undercover to deal with ginger.

all this even before the show and then in the show well it really does not get better i think a shining moment of rust exploitation is when maggie fucks him to get marty to leave. and like, really marty does know that it wasnt abt rust. and for maggie it really was not about rust

anyway so i think itd be really compelling if like, present day rust was just like a woman shed probably cook her own estrogen or some shit shes quirky like that. i also dont think shed change her name or do voice training like i think in the like interview bit itd take a minute for the viewer to go . are those boobs. and then shed go on some kind of rant about how biological sex is not real in a way only someone whos read whipping girl but didnt really take it in can and then she gets into an arguement about how to gender herself or something. like shes still crazy

and itd just make the part where the cops start suspecting her so much more interestingggg bc where has she been. someone suggests she transitioned bc of some nefarious reason. like rust is already barely treated like a person by anybody including that woman he dates briefly and if she transitioned thatd hit so much harder

[m1ckeyb3rry]

DHDGSJSJS touching grass for an embarrassingly long time SORRY I fear this is not quite the end of the grass touching….it should be soon though within the next week or so then I can go back to being chronically online ugh

PLEASE get rid of that /j im /srs episode Karasu PLEASEEE I lowk wanna see more of him in action at Bambi Osaka omg I remember when people were still theorizing Kira comeback lowk kinda fun reading all of their “analysis” but fr like npcs are needed…no npc shaming here their unimportance is important LMAO

LMFAO WAIT SENDOU FITS SO WELL peaked boyfailure energy i lowk forgot about him oops

LMAOOO dw 2k event will be nagipalooza trust…also OOPS thought i read the otoya one was a req somewhere my b but either way wait speaking of how’s that going? The otoya inspo before Karasu inspo is really funny though LOL

I HAD A FEELING I was trying to pinpoint who the dead boy was and figured Niko was the only reasonable option even if it wasn’t exactly him LMAOO

RIN ISEKAID BY A SHOT FROM SHIDOU TO THE HEAD LMFDOAOAOAOAAO im crying that would be a really funny crack fic

YESS THATS THE AUDIO LMAOOO omg you get me!!! But LOLL imagine Niko taking notes on who has the most vibrant hair like “yup ok they’re a main character I’m not gonna play against them they’ve got plot armor” and fr the otoya chive strip overpowers the 80% white on his head would not categorize him as white haired LMAO

LMFAOOO the stop fighting tiktok has me laughing but also omg eightbit did that scene kinda dirty omg

AUAHAHA I SAW THE ISAGI DRESSED UP AS KAISER ONE it’s actually hilarious the posing sent me

Oh wait that Aiku edit kinda….ok if he fr just cleaned up that stubble I would’ve been an Aiku fan a long time ago I just cannot get over the stubble…..this edit fr being aikus wingman though….we’re still in the homeboy zone that stubble lowk is a dealbreaker rn I won’t allow it….

OSISUHDIS KARASUUUUUU bro his voice…HIS VOICE >>>>>> Karasu my number one eightbit please continue to feed us

CRYING THATS SO LORENZO CODED he would def do that in oaeu and even in canon LMAOOO

I refreshed the page so I could send in this ask and got jumpscared by that….that….emoji….????? You used in your latest reply I’m gone

- Karasu anon

ALDHSHAHSJ IT’S OKAYYY it’s midterms week for me this week to be honest so i’ll probably be somewhat mia as well 😭 we are in this together but trust we will both be back and better than ever soon enough!!

PLSSS okay because i would eat up seeing him in bambi osaka ngl ughhhh i love him so much he’s literally my man LMAOAO anyways yeah i’ve seen the kira comeback theories circulating idk i think at this point it’s not going to happen but some of them were cool!! agreed though sometimes npcs can just stay npcs it’s okay 😭 focus the backstory and development on characters that are actually important HAHAHA

no because i ALWAYS forget about sendou except for his few mentions in the oaeu but he lowkey fits the vibes insanely well especially given his egoist bible info like he’s just silly 😭 you’ll never catch me caring abt him but sometimes when you need a character you need a character yk

AHDHSHSH 2K WE CAN ONLY HOPE my next event will probably be 1.5k i think…ik people do 1.2k a lot but i’m already kinda close to that and i’ve posted ONE 1k event req so uhhh yeah i’ll wait until 1.5k i think every 500 followers is a good rhythm and gives me some downtime too because i have so many fics i need to work on for myself too 😫

ngl i’ve been very scattered in my writing attempts UGH haven’t felt truly inspired by anything in a bit…wrote a couple sentences for pursuit and then closed the doc…wrote a page or two for a 1k event req and then closed the doc…wrote a bit for nagi’s oaeu and then closed the doc…fixed a typo in the in-progress-since-june chapter of PEREGRINE 😭 and then closed the doc…so the going has been rough 😓 i was briefly inspired for the oaeu and aiku did come and speak through me for a bit which was nice (can always rely on him for that) but then i was just not feeling it 😔 i didn’t end up starting the otoya one shot but lowkey maybe i should just try working on that and seeing if i get anywhere 😰 worst comes to worst i’ll rewatch violet evergarden or smth and be inspired to write the most soul crushing one shot for someone or another

NIKO IS ALWAYS CATCHING STRAYS LDFJJSNDS bro cannot catch a break reader’s uncle was fr in his isagi era or smth…anyways yeah it was him!! i love throwing in sly little #hehe references every now and again

OKAY BECAUSE LOWKEY THE VISION HAS ME CACKLING imagine it has one of those cheesy ass titles like “My Rival Hit Me in the Head With a Soccer Ball and Now I Have to Save the Cold Unifier of Japan!” or smth like that LMAOAOAO hold on who are we picking though…stan rin in yukimiya’s body or ninja otoya (i’d include gardener karasu but that’s not a fair option because we all know who we’d pick if he was a choice)

WAIT SPEAKING OF GREEN the blue lock additional times have made me realize otoya’s eyebrows are also green??? so he’s canonically green haired TO ME like the white isn’t even there fr…LMAOAAO niko predicts chigiri’s awakening before it even happens because no “background character” would ever have hair that bright 😭

PLSSS lowkey 8bit did not come through for us icl 😔 at least they made karasu and OTOYA ESPECIALLY really fine…next ep is looking like there will be some nagi and yuki action i’m hoping that means we get better animation since 8bit is just like me and loves nagi KDHDJSSJ

NO BECAUSE THAT EDIT IS FR WINGMANNING THE WINGMAN idk what it is but it’s fr making me go hmm….agreed the stubble just isn’t it i can’t get over it!! it’s like how kaiser looks 10x better with his shaggy gold emo hair than with whatever tf he has going on like come onnnn you have potential but i just can’t fully see the vision yet 🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁

KARASU’S VOICE IS SOOOOO NAHDJSDBHDDHSJDJHDSBS anyways i’ve been getting SOO many edits of him and otoya lately it’s amazing my fyp is literally flooded and yk i save EVERY ONE 😭 they’re lowkey popular now they kinda missing the times when they were #secret and it was only elite people who liked them 😔 JKJKJK ofc i’m glad we’re getting more content now TRUST but like…i better not see y’all mischaracterizing my boys…😒😒😒 those are MY emotional support idiot lovesick losers DON’T MAKE THEM PLAYBOYS PLEASEEEEEE I KNOW OTOYA’S A DUMBASS FLIRT BUT HE’S SECRETLY A RIZZLESS LOSER PLSPLSPLS

HELP i love throwing in random reaction images every now and again…wdym you didn’t like it…😕😕😕 (<- joking)

[thisisegregiouuuus]

bro 😻

its actually so insane how i used to be so obsessed w the shining. like looking back on all that i was litereally going crazy--and like my interests/phases only last like a week or so but damn that one alsted like 2 months or smth, i thought it would never end so i was kinda surprise when i watched it for like the 5th time or something and i went 'damn...this is getting kinda old'

i genuinely felt sad tho. it always feels kinda sad falling out of a phase/interest kinda thing, especially one youve liked for a while. like with the shining its fine bc i know i still like it but it was just a crazy 2 month-phase, now i still like it but like, in a normal, non-crazed kinda way lmao, like im not silently talking to myself in my head abt the shining and begging for someone, anyone to talk to me abt the shining, i was legit on the brink of madness, i couldt contain myself thats how much i loved it lmao

anyway. for now its not compeltley lost, i still do like it, but idk, the last time i watched it i could jsut tell i wasnt as interested as the previous times, and thats when i was like 'damn it, this is it ig' and it was super sad. it felt like a big loss, but then again im happy i got out of it, like i said. maybe it was for the better! now i gotta find smth else to occupy me and my attention for the next couple of weeks or ill go insane!!!

this whole the shining phase ended like 2 or 3 months ago or smth. now im jsut mucking around. ive been watching th eoffice over and over again bc yeah i do love it but liek theres literally nothing else to occupy my attention with. and i feel kinda bad saying that, like i feel stupid saying i need smth to constantly be keeping my attention or like keeping me entertained, but like otherwise i just feel like i have no meaning or purpose or anything to keep me going, and i need smth! im not depressed or anything tho i swear 🙏

anyway I LOVE THE CATCHER IN THE RYE!!!! in history today my favourite book of all time was like very briefly mentioned and i wanted to explode when i saw it, i so badly wanted to mention it but there was no way id do it in front of anyone so yeah. holden caulfield is fr me, or he was most like year last year when i was like so alone at school and hated everybody. i still dont like most people but its not as bad as it used to be

anyway i feel really stupid writing this whole thing, idkw, but yeah, for now idk what ill do. i am going in an out of different writing projects/little stories that ive made up but i can never commit to just one thing. i am going back to my main project tho, and im really happy for once because im just writing. im not worrying about what other people might think (even tho i literally dont show it to anyone i legit just write for myself i jsut get rlly stupid sometimes,) im honestly just having fun and writing what i like, and i think thats what writings all about. its not about proving yourself to anyone or trying to impress anyone, or trying to make yourself seem all big and idk intellectual and all smartsy fartsy and stuff. its litereally just to express yourself and have fun and put all your amazing ideas down onto paper, i love writing so much, especially when i dont convince myself that my writing is shit and tell myself that it's not good enough and if people were to see it they wouldnt be as impressed as i want them to be

but anyways, thats all! its been a while since ive been on here so yeah. i know no one relaly sees these but theyre still fun to write. i just like expressing myself, i feel like im honestly kind of better off if no one sees these. like it would be nice to have like a tiny little community or some friends on here or smth since tbh even tho ive been on here for like a year and a half i still dont rlly fully understand how this app works </3 im just here for fun! so anyway

thats all folks! ski you later everybody! 😼

(sidenote, yes ik i dont know how to spell 'literally' i keep messing it up😻)

[hornime]

watch and learn | iwaizumi hajime x f!reader x team japan

there were two things they all had in common: the growing bulges in their pants that they were urgently trying to distract themselves from, and the fact that their full attention was on you.

warnings: 18+, timeskip!everyone, BIG MANGA SPOILERS BASICALLY, exhibitionism, voyeurism, orgasm denial

w/c: 3.1k

a/n: now i don’t know if iwaizumi hajime (27) athletic trainer learned about female orgasms when he was studying sports science at irvine BUT he def knows how to show a girl a good time which is reason enough for me to write this. also, i read this article to prep for this piece and it was super enlightening, so i do recommend giving it a read if you’re interested!

in the middle of his morning run, iwaizumi slowed momentarily to check the repetitive buzzing of this phone, curious as to who was messaging him this early. when he’d left the apartment, you were sleeping, and you had the tendency to still be sleeping by the time he returned, so who else could it be?

he unlocked his phone, quickly finding the source of the notifications: the team japan group chat.

[06:43 AM] miya: hey @iwaizumi—you know stuff abt the human body right?

[06:43 AM] miya: cus like you studied it in college and shit??

iwaizumi rolled his eyes. i spent four years in america to earn my degree, came back home to support my country’s olympic team, and dealt with the biggest idiots of volleyball, only to get treated like this?

[06:44 AM] iwaizumi: yes, miya. i took many courses on the human body. in fact that’s the purpose of my job. to know the human body. because i am a fucking athletic trainer.

[06:44 AM] miya: okay okay i get it. dumb question

[06:44 AM] iwaizumi: why? is something up? you need help or anything?

[06:44 AM] miya: uhhh kinda

[06:44 AM] miya: @hinata i’m not fucking asking this

[06:44 AM] bokuto: bro just do it

[06:44 AM] miya: @hinata @hinata @hinata 

iwaizumi cocked an eyebrow. what the hell are they going on about?

[06:45 AM] iwaizumi: so am i needed or...

[06:45 AM] hinata: YES

[06:45 AM] hinata: we had a question

[06:46 AM] sakusa: by “we” he means him, miya, and bokuto

[06:46 AM] suna: yeah don’t bring us into this

[06:46 AM] hinata: don’t listen to them! both suna and sakusa wanna know too

[06:46 AM] iwaizumi: okay. what’s up

[06:47 AM] hinata: we wanted to know how to make a girl cum

he chuckled in disbelief.

[06:47 AM] iwaizumi: you’re telling me that you guys are in your mid-20s, literal olympic athletes, and you don’t know how to make a girl cum

[06:47 AM] iwaizumi: have you never done it before??

[06:47 AM] miya: NO

[06:47 AM] miya: FOR THE RECORD IVE MADE MANY GIRLS CUM

[06:48 AM] bokuto: ME TOO

[06:48 AM] bokuto: i think

he laughed out loud, briefly startling another runner on the sidewalk.

[06:48 AM] iwaizumi: you guys are unbelievable

[06:48 AM] hinata: i mean she says she finished but idk what i did to make that happen

[06:48 AM] bokuto: ^^

[06:48 AM] hinata: so like i wanna know how to actually do it

[06:48 AM] suna: actually im kinda interested in this too

[06:48 AM] aran: i pray for your future girlfriends. this is painful to see. im out

[06:48 AM] kageyama: i’m with aran on this one. you guys are dumb

[06:48 AM] hinata: shut up. you suck.

[06:48 AM] miya: cmon iwaizumi, help a guy out

[06:48 AM] sakusa: it wouldnt hurt for you to give us some pointers at least

iwaizumi sighed.

[06:49 AM] iwaizumi: @miya @hinata @bokuto @suna @sakusa meet in the locker room after practice. ill give you guys a lesson in the art of pleasing a woman

to teach effectively, he needed a volunteer, though he was sure you wouldn’t need much convincing. you’d always loved the attention, and the biceps, of the pro athletes. he spun on his heel and jogged home.

you woke up to the sound of your apartment door opening, your boyfriend creeping inside, forehead damp with sweat.

“hey,” you said quietly, making your way towards him.

“hey, baby. sorry for waking you up, i was trying to be quiet.”

you giggled sleepily. “s’okay, haji. you spoil me too much anyway, always letting me sleep in for hours while you’re off doing god knows what.”

at that, his eyes crinkled in amusement, and as you tried to step into a hug, he shuffled back. “woah there, baby. i gotta shower, ‘m all gross from my run. and then,” he gave you a peculiar look that you couldn’t quite place, “i got a proposition for you.”

after his shower, he waltzed out of the bathroom, steam wafting out from behind the door. his tanned body made you feel things you definitely shouldn’t be barely an hour after the sun’s risen, and you reached out to massage the tension in his shoulders. “so, what’s your proposition?”

“well,” he hesitated. “it’s a bit... unconventional. the team asked me to show them how to make a girl cum,” he took in your intrigued expression. “and it’d be a lot easier to explain if i had someone to do a live demonstration with. so,” his eyes flicked up to you. “that’s where you’d come in.”

“a... live demonstration? like you’re gonna make me cum in front of them?”

“yeah, essentially.” he gave you a devilish grin. “you want that, baby? wanna show those boys how a real man treats a gorgeous woman like you?”

you rubbed your thighs at his words. “yeah,” you purred. “i do. wanna show them how good you are to me.”

and that’s how you found yourself nestled between iwaizumi’s muscled thighs, back pressed against his chest, completely naked, with five of japan’s best volleyball players staring at your body in awe.

practically an expert in his field, iwaizumi knew the human body inside and out. this had many benefits; of course it allowed him to catapult up the ranks and work with the country’s best athletes to keep them at the top of their game, but it also had a unique side effect: an overwhelming vault of knowledge on how to make a woman feel good anywhere. 

you’d seen the proof firsthand; he knew exactly where to push, prod, stroke, and tease to have you cumming in seconds, over and over, as many times as you wanted. he was amazing, and you were well-aware just how lucky you were to have such a talented man in the sheets.

“oi,” iwaizumi snapped his fingers, drawing each of the players’ eyes away from your glistening cunt. “pay attention. i know more than anybody that she’s hot as fuck, but you gotta listen to what i’m saying or else there’s no point to this.”

he lightly pressed his lips against your collarbone, slowly tracing them against your jaw, the contact making you squirm. “if you wanna make a girl cum, first thing you gotta do is make her comfortable. if she’s worried about how she looks or sounds or smells she’s gonna be too stressed to let go.” he moved his hands to grope your tits, his calloused fingers brushing over your hardening nipples. “so reassure her, tell her how irresistible she is, how pretty her moans are, how tasty her pussy is. shit like that. the sexier she feels the better it’ll be.”

he leaned into you, whispering into your ear. “feeling good, baby? we can stop whenever.”

you nodded weakly, afraid to open your mouth, barely holding in your whines as his palms worked wonders on your chest and stomach, sending shocks of heat wherever they touched. 

you craned your neck up to observe the men before you. atsumu was flushed red, wringing his hands as if he was worried they’d do something embarrassing if he didn’t keep them occupied. hinata was bouncing his leg up and down, wiping his palms on his shorts as he took in the plushness of your thighs. bokuto was basically drooling, greedily tracing your soft curves with his eyes. suna maintained his indifferent expression, but the reddening tips of his ears showed that he was a lot more hot and bothered than he let on. sakusa stood quietly to the side, leaning against the wall, mask tucked under his chin as if he’d just realized how much the temperature had gone up in the room.

there were two things they all had in common: the growing bulges in their pants that they were urgently trying to distract themselves from, and the fact that their full attention was on you.

"make sure to try different things; there’s multiple ways to make a woman cum. only like a quarter of women experience orgasms just from penetration,” someone made a sound of shock. “yes, the number is that small, bokuto.” 

his fingertip slowly trailed past your belly button, dipping into the mess between your thighs, causing you to slightly arch your back into the solid chest supporting you. “foreplay with the clit is your best bet; even stupid fucks like you probably wouldn’t screw it up too bad.”

hinata opened his mouth to speak, but iwaizumi anticipated his question and continued.

“i know you’re wondering where the clit is. it’s around here, under this hood of skin,” he slid his digit between your labia. “s’not gonna come with a label so you gotta explore a little bit. i know where hers is like the back of my hand, but for you guys, with your girls, you’re gonna have to move your fingers around. slowly. and pay attention to her expressions.” he began to rub in a circular motion around your clit, causing you to make small whimpers of pleasure and shift your hips to meet his movements. 

“if she clenches up or twitches when you feel a certain spot, like this,” your legs flexed as he increased the pressure, “that’s the clit. be kind, it’s not a volleyball. be gentle n’ make small circles, whether it’s with your fingers or your tongue.” 

he thought for a second. “speaking of which, oral’s important. very important. most women cum when they’ve been eaten out, so use your mouths for something more useful than just dirty talk. suck on the clit, maybe tongue-fuck her a ‘lil, but your main focus should always be the clit.”

he removed his hands from your sopping pussy, and you made a pathetic noise of frustration. “’m sorry, baby,” he muttered seductively in your ear. “don’t wanna have you finishing too early. lesson’s barely started.”

he turned his attention back to your audience, his lustful tone being replaced by a more instructional one. “there’s other places that’ll help a woman orgasm, too: her nipples, her neck, her ears—”

“her ears?” sakusa questioned. he blushed profusely as everyone turned to look at him, surprised that he’d opened his mouth. “what? we were all thinking it.”

“s’a valid question,” iwaizumi said. “yeah, you can lick ‘em if they’re sensitive. hers are.” as if to prove his statement, he licked a stripe on the shell of you ear, making you wiggle helplessly at the stimulation. “‘n leave kisses everywhere else. feels good for them just like it does for us.” he wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him and forcing your movements to stop as he traced patterns with his tongue all around your neck.

“something you should know about an orgasm is that it’s something called a positive feedback loop.” he looked up and was met with five blank stares. shouldn’t have expected anything from these dumb jocks, he lamented. “basically that means that, once you start releasing sexual tension, things will feel better and better until you climax.”

“oh!” atsumu chirped. “like how my sets get better and better throughout a game.”

“no, not really,” he quipped. “your sets suck throughout.” atsumu frowned at that.

iwaizumi exhaled exasperatedly. “the general idea is that the body gets more and more sensitive, muscle contractions become more and more frequent, and touches feel more and more stimulating until you cum. all right?”

they all made noises of understanding except for bokuto and hinata, whose eyes had glazed over at the first mention of an academic term. whatever, iwaizumi thought. they’ll get it through example.

"don’t worry about it too much if you don’t get it, that’s just an orgasm on paper. in practice, though, this is the crucial step: listen to her. she knows what feels good. never forget that you’re just an idiot with a cock.” he took a breath, gathering his thoughts before proceeding with his lecture.

“if she tells you to slow down, you slow down. if she tells you to go harder, you go harder. if she tells you to keep doing what you’re doing, you...”

“keep doing what you’re doing”, they all chimed in at staggered times.

“that’s right. don’t go faster or else you’ll mess up the rhythm and she won’t cum. and you wanna make her cum, don’t you?”

they nodded simultaneously.

“so if you keep up the tempo and force that feels good to her, you’ll be fine. questions?”

suna spoke up. “what about,” he choked on the word. “penetration?”

hinata hummed in agreement and bokuto jumped in. “yeah, what if i wanna make her cum on my cock?”

iwaizumi made a weird face. “that’s some pretty advanced stuff, but i guess i can go over it. when you try it, though, you have to be patient. with both of your bodies. s’not rocket science but s’not always easy. also it depends on the woman but sometimes she physically won’t be able to finish from penetration alone. just make sure you’re communicating.”

his swirled two fingers over your hole before shoving them in, your wetness making it easy for him to thrust in and out as your entrance stretched to accommodate him. “f—fuck!” your eyes flew open at the intrusion and you body lurched forward, but you were held back by his strong forearm. “ohmygod, oh my g—ah! feels s’good haji, s’good!”

“i know, baby, i know. you’re taking it so well.” he turned his attention back to the men, each of who were gulping heavily. if that didn’t signal to you that they were evidently affected by your moans, the way they shifted in their workout shorts did.

“boys, focus.” he curled his fingertips, brushing at the spongy spot at the top of your walls, ripping a pleasured wail from your throat and causing tears to prick at your eyelashes. “when you’re fingering her, you’ll feel an area inside that’s a bit soft and squishy. that’s the g-spot.”

you trembled in his arms as he mercilessly struck the same place over and over again with his fingers. “when you’re fucking her, try to keep the pressure building there, but it’ll be harder to make her finish since you can’t see what you’re doing.”

your breath hitched as iwaizumi’s incessant movements brought your body tantalizingly close to your release. he suddenly stopped and you almost sobbed in disappointment, until he plunged his fingers impossibly deeper.

a guttural scream of ecstasy came from within you, and your eyes rolled back as he began playing with another part of you, your body putty in his hands. “hngh, haji, ah! so good, s’good...” you threw your hands back around his neck, nails digging into the skin as you desperately tried to keep yourself grounded. your soft moans filled the air.

“stop clenching,” he hissed. “can barely move my hand.” you tried to relax but failed miserably as the tips of his fingers grazed your cervix. 

“holy fuck,” suna muttered. “you’re a god.”

“she sounds so pretty,” atsumu said in amazement.

“i wanna make a girl feel good like that, too!” bokuto sulked.

“you can do it, bokuto!” hinata hit him on the arm. “just listen to iwaizumi. clearly he knows what he’s talking about.” 

their eyes refocused on your figure, writhing in pleasure, prompting white hot waves of arousal to pool in their stomachs. 

“yeah,” sakusa said. “clearly.”

“stop talking,” iwaizumi ordered. “and listen. beyond the g-spot is the cervix, which is basically the end of the vagina. if you’re long enough,” he briefly scanned each of their faces, “which i’m sure you are, you’ll be able to reach it if you bottom out.”

“haji—hajime, please.” the stimulation was coming absolutely unbearable, and you could tell he was sadistically holding you at the edge, refusing to give you the satisfaction of finishing. “lemme cum, please. please lemme cum, please, please, i can’t—i can’t take it ‘nymore!”

“what was that? you can’t take it anymore? gonna cum?” you helplessly bobbed your head up and down, hoping that he’d give you permission. “well,” he growled, “we can’t have that happening, can we?”

he abruptly halted his thrusts, pulling his fingers out of you with an embarrassing squelch and popping them into his mouth. pearly tears rolled down your cheeks as you grieved the loss of contact and relief.

your viewers looked on in horror, feeling immense sympathy for you; you just looked so dejected from being denied yet another orgasm.

“why didn’t you—why didn’t you let her cum?” bokuto asked.

“why do you think?” iwaizumi snapped. “don’t want you guys to see her when she does. that’s for me, and only me.”

“oh, okay,” he responded, disgruntlement clear in his voice.

iwaizumi’s glare could cut glass, it was so sharp. the possessiveness that had enveloped his mind made him hyperfocus on just one thought: being alone with you. “so, any other questions? if not, we’re done here.”

you pouted at that, not wanting the demonstration to be over. “but haji,” you mumbled into his collarbone. “i di’nt get to cum. and i wanna.” you looked up at him, eyes wide with want. “please make me cum.”

iwaizumi sent a harsh glance to the players that nonverbally communicated his message loud and clear: get out. they shuffled awkwardly out of the locker room due to the hardness between their legs that they would most definitely need to deal with soon.

your boyfriend turned his attention back to you. “’m sorry, i know i had to deny you a bunch of times. i just really hated the idea of anyone but me seeing the cute way you look when you cum.”

you made a small noise of acknowledgement and a little whisper of it’s okay, haji. he looked down, sensing the way your poor, desperate cunt was pulsing around nothing, the erotic sight injecting him with the pure need to ravage you.

he shifted his head to kiss you passionately. “why don’t i make it up to you?” he breathed between your parted lips before picking you up by the backs of your thighs, forcing you to lock your ankles around his waist. 

he delicately situated you onto one of the recovery beds at the back of the room, before murmuring something that made your pussy throb in anticipation: “i’ll make you cum whichever way you want, however many times you want, all right? all you gotta do is lay back and take it.”

© property of hornime 2021. do not plagiarize any of my writing and do not repost/copy my writing onto any other sites.

[erimeows]

could I request some hcs for a shy autobot reader w a crush on starscream? maybe they try super hard to hide it but it’s like,, blatantly obvious and he teases them/gets suggestive abt it to fluster them? if not that’s totally cool and I hope u have a good day! tyy :)

I have a Starscream x Reader x Megatron piece in the drafts, but I've been meaning to write an individual Starscream piece for a while now, so thank you for this request! Also really into smug Starscream with a shy s/o, perfect dynamic. So yeah, here it is, hope you enjoy!

The first time you meet Starscream is when you’re on earth. You’re a part of Optimus’s repair team along with him, Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Ratchet, and Prowl; like Ratchet, you’re a medic, mainly tagging along to do both space bridge repairs and fix up any of the other bots’ injuries. During that first fight over the All Spark on earth, you don’t really get to interact with Starscream in full, but you do meet him briefly and are too panicked over your first actual battle (since you’re just, you know, a repair bot/medic and not a full blown soldier; most you had was some cadet training like Bulkhead and Bumblebee) to think much of him.

But then, you interact with him the next few times, and uh... It’s bad. You notice immediately that he’s physically attractive; tall, sleek build pretty paint-job, a scratchy but charming voice and way of talking, strong servos but long pretty digits and slender legs, glowing vermillion optics that feel like they’re peering into your soul... Yeah, it’s over for you. You’ve never really had the time for relationships with work and everything, so you don’t have any experience and are horrid at hiding the little crush that you quickly develop.

It’s horrible. Any time Starscream is present during battles, you get flustered and fumble over yourself. You can’t fight him and can’t fight anyone else when he’s within eye/ear-shot, so you’re usually in charge of helping evacuate humans or dealing with Blitzwing/Lugnut etc. 

Starscream, of course, notices it. He’s an older and well-seasoned bot, and though it’s very rare that anyone is actually interested in him, he’s seen enough relationships in his day to be able to pick up on a crush. His natural reaction, out loud, is “HAHA, of course you have a crush on the GLORIOUS, GORGEOUS Starscream! Why, it only makes sense that I’ve charmed such a pretty little Autobot without even trying, who could resist my charm?”. On the inside... He’s seriously flattered. You’re beautiful, you’re cute, from the glimpses he’s gotten, he likes your personality, and he thinks you’re just... Very good. However, he doesn’t really pursue a relationship with you at first as you seem rather righteous and he is rather devious. He won’t admit it, but he likes you too much to cause you any trouble with the other Autobots. He’s just happy that you like him so much.

It turns into a lot of teasing during battles and gets to a point where Starscream will purposefully pick fights with the Autobots just to see/spar with you, with no actual damage happening.

“Oh, my, if it isn’t my not-so-secret admirer again! Why don’t you try to take me down without the help of your friends this time?”

He likes touching you as much as he can in a rather fleeting manner; servos over your lower back, on your hands, face in your face, optics locked with yours, etc. He’s just very touch-starved and enthusiastic about the fact that someone is interested in him, but he won’t admit it. 

The other Autobots find it pretty humorous or are annoyed by it. Ratchet and Prowl roll their eyes at it and don’t get what you see in him, Bulkhead just feels bad for you, Optimus is very confused but always reminds you of the fact that he’s there for you if you ever want to vent about your “unfortunate circumstances”, and Bumblebee isn’t above trying to set you up with Starscream/making you two interact with each other whenever the opportunity arises because he thinks it’s cute/funny.

Eventually, things get a little less light-hearted when Megatron gets his body back and hires Lockdown to kidnap you. The main reason is that even though Megatron and his Decepticons usually do a great job of beating the hell out of the Autobots, you’re always there to fix them up, and that’s very inconvenient to him personally. So, Lockdown kidnaps you and takes you to Megatron, only for Starscream to... Come rescue you from the cell you’re locked in during the night?

You’re just sitting there, waiting for an Autobot when Starscream bursts into the room; “Why, if it isn’t my admirer, waiting for me to come rescue them.”

“Um... Starscream? What are you doing here?”

“What do you think, you glitch? Rescuing you, now quiet down before Megatron catches us!”

You’re super confused, unsure if Starscream has had a processor injury or if he has some other more devious plan with you, but he breaks you out of your cage and allows you to climb on his back so he can give you a piggy back ride until you’re out of the cave and in an open enough area for him to transform into his seeker mode, only to get caught by Megatron and Megatron alone while the others are recharging.

The two break out into an argument, fighting while you’re still on Starscream’s back; you’re trying to assist your crush by blasting Megatron from your position despite being decently injured from your battle with Lockdown, which is honestly the only reason Starscream is managing against the much more powerful Decepticon. You two work... Surprisingly well together, and in the midst of the argument, Megatron is spewing insults, calling Starscream incompetent, foolish, stupid, a failure, etc. 

Naturally, despite your shy nature, you hate hearing Starscream insulted as you’ve developed a weird sort of attachment to him, so you fire back; “Hey, he isn’t any of that! I know you don’t realize it because you’re an evil bastard, b-but he’s trying his best, and he has better ideas than you do- wasn’t he the one who blew you up?”

Megatron gets so angry that Starscream manages to escape with you, and he transforms into his vehicle mode with you riding in his cockpit... Ha.

Anyways, the two of you fly back to your base around the time that the sun is rising, but by the time you get there and Starscream transforms back into his robot form, you notice that Megatron beat him pretty bad and- oh, Primus, he’s unconscious. Yeah... 

Against your better judgement, you fix him up the best you can outside behind your teammates backs, knowing that if you brought him back to Ratchet, he’d be getting repaired while in stasis cuffs and then sent back with the Elite Guard to be imprisoned on Cybertron.

You sneak off into the forest and wait for him to wake up... Only for him to pull you into a heated kiss the second he does, thank you for being his “knight in shining armor”, and then transforming and flying away.

You return to base a shaking, blushing mess, and when asked about what happened, you tell your teammates (of which only a few are there, since the others are out looking for you); after Lockdown took you, Starscream came to rescue you, dropped you off by the base, and flew away, leaving out the part where you could have captured him. Ratchet fixes you up and gets onto you for “being smitten with such a troublesome mech”. 

And from there forms a beautiful relationship of you and Starscream pretending to be against each other in public the best you can despite your blatant crushes, with Starscream always teasing you and you being too shy to rebut, but secretly helping each other and sneaking off to meet up whenever you can. 

[fallindomino]

how i would have changed s2 of hsmtmts

obvious disclaimer but im not a screenwriter or anyth so im not claiming what i want is best, this is just for fun lololol

okay so first of all nini would still have dropped out of yac but she wouldn’t have gone back to east, she would have transferred to north bc she was too ashamed to tell anyone she left at first and maybe she still wants to explore who she is away from ricky and the others

nini could join north’s batb and this way maybe we could have some playful rivalry with lily and nini and more scenes with antoine shdhdjdj also it could have been a great opportunity to flesh out lily’s character so those scenes where she reaches out to ricky and her confession at the end of the season actually make sense lol

speaking of ricky ,,, i think he should have left the play at some point hear me out. he only joined in the first place because of nini and barely wanted to do it at all once he realized he wasn’t gonna be able to perform with her. he could have joined crew and been a manager with natalie or smth considering he rlly does see the theater gang as a second family. also this would leave so much room for ej and ricky development and bants since ej joined the av club and began to pursue film. they could have some convos where idk ricky asks ej how he figured out what he wanted to do after duke didn’t work out and ricky could actually develop some interests that arent the play or nini ,,, maybe fucking art club i mean he did p good on that centerpiece for carlos’ quinceañera.

with ricky not being the beast anymore i think seb should take his place that would be soooo good. and since seb isn’t chip anymore carlos won’t make those snide comments about chip being a small unimportant role and we can just cut that whole fight bc it was dumb and bad. we could still have seb being insecure that carlos is only dating him bc there aren’t really any other gay guys at school. in a heartbeat is great and i did like ricky being supportive in the background it was kinda funny too idk dhdjdjfj

ooh i almost forgot abt rini ahshdj okay so i still think they should break up. but in my version there’s no ricky pulling an ej 1.0 and deleting comments off of nini’s insta, cause with ricky in art club and nini at north trying to figure out what she wants i think one of them would realize that they’re going in different directions and only got back tgt because they made each other feel safe cause what they had was familiar. this could be triggered by ricky mentioning smth abt nini at yac and then nini breaks down and tells him that she dropped out and is at north and doesn’t know where she’s going. and then they can both realize they aren’t good for each other rn and have a less tragic mutual break up.

honestly i really liked the scene of nini taking charge after miss jenn freaked out cause with the character detail of nini giving every person in the cast of productions she’s in a thank you note she just seems really like someone who is suited to lifting others up. this could still be explored at north, maybe she could help lily through her issues that were briefly implied in ep 11 and nini realizes she wants to be a drama teacher and encourage kids to go off book and put themselves into their acting, something she couldn’t have at yac.

okay now ej ,,, so like i said in ricky’s section, more bants between them cause i feel like friendships kinda fell by the wayside due to all the relationships so more friendship !!!! also the scene where ej tells his dad he’s not going to duke shouldn’t have been an ending scene, it should have been fleshed out with his dad pushing back saying how he pulled all these strings to get him in and ej saying he doesn’t wanna go if his own hard work couldn’t get him there. and also more scenes of ej doing av club things !!! and realizing he rlly likes film and wants to do it OMG IT WOULD BE SO COOL IF HE BROKE THE FOURTH WALL AND ASKED THE DOCUMENTARY CREW ABT THE FILM INDUSTRY god i would love that. the only scene we rlly got of ej doing film things was at the quinceañera which made me kinda sad. uhhh also i just wanted to specifically mention how ej got mr mazzara that job at cal tech bc it really showed how he wanted to be there for people not just for gina, who he had a crush on, but for mr mazzara who supported him outside of romance, so i wanna keep that for sure.

gina !!! okay so i mostly liked her arc in this season, the only changes i would make would be to flesh it out a teeny bit (god this hypothetical s2 would have to be like 22 eps at least shdjdjdjfj) anyways besides ashlyn singing home to get gina to stay i think there should be a scene where they actually talk in her room abt how gina feels safer when shes on the run (second chance reference ilysm) hhhh and also a scene of her and carlos actually working out compromises for their choreo cause i liked that bit of development too and fleshing that out would make gina an even better foil for lily, who felt a need to hog the spotlight like gina used to. with gina’s own arc fleshed out her character would feel more whole independently from romance and portwell would be even more rewarding than it is in the current s2. the only thing i would really change abt portwell is that they would kiss !!! in the finale but thats bc im biased.

ashlyn should have gotten a more fleshed out storyline about being insecure about not being a good enough belle or the typical belle. there were some throwaway lines when north did their typical dramatics but the only two real scenes that showed it were when ash talked to big red about it and when she was telling nini she wanted to do a run in “home” bc lily did it. ashlyn should get more screen time where she has to grapple with the reasons she doesn’t feel good enough and big red can still support her but also gina too bc i would like more roommate besties interaction.

kourtney could still date howie, that harry potter shit was cute but there needs to be smth else for kourtney’s arc. idk she’s still into fashion so maybe she could be out here trying to create her own line or smth? this doesn’t have to be resolved in s2 like making a wholeass line takes time and she could work on it into a potential s3. kourtney just didnt get much outside of howie and the stuff at the beginning of the season where she said nini inspired her to be independent and that's why she got a job was just dropped?? so i think that fashion could fill that for her if she’s still dating howie cause like having her whole arc just be the pizza place kinda overlaps w big red’s mini arc abt how he wasn’t settling for hospitality, its what he wants to do with his life.

ik what ur thinking. anna, even if you added more episodes, where would u find the room to add all these plotlines?? well first we cut (most of) the seblos fight, so thats some time saved. honestly most of the time that we r going to gain is going to be from cutting ms jenn’s time. things like ms jenn’s and nini’s car ride would get cut, but mostly all of ms jenn’s romances would get cut down. considering she’s the teacher and isn’t actually a character with an arc how does she have THREE love interests this season?? like all of the weird tension between her and zack can be cut, like just some short scenes of them being competitive can stay. all of the stuff with ricky’s dad can go bye bye we don’t need it. i did like her w mr mazzara so most of that can stay i just didn’t like how he said he would give up cal tech for her, ew no that would be gone.

the MENKIES !!!! this is the last thing im gonna address cause in a perfect world every character would get a long fleshed out arc but then the season would be waaay too long and also im mostly trying to work within material the show gave so this is mostly made up of “realistic” deviations from what actually happened. lol idk what that even means it just makes sense to me. but anyways!! uhhh bro idk i thought them dropping the menkies was funny but it also made the finale really BAD lmao. in this finale, seb is the beast, east still had to deal w the fact that they’re underfunded compared to north but no one is injured, lily is less of a poorly written character and maybe ppl are even rooting for her, and wow i just realized i never actually said what role i think nini should have in north’s show. OOH she could be student director instead of lily cause lily both being in the play while also directing was weird considering omg i just checked and according to her wiki page shes a FRESHMAN?? and they let her be student director? lol hell nah. okay so with all that in mind ,,, the menkies should have been the season cliffhanger instead of portwell. east and north should both be nominated, both schools perform at the menkies, and then the award winner is about to be announced and THATS when it cuts to natalie and the end of the season.

one, this actually gives more tension for a summer s3 as we would be waiting to see the consequences of whichever school won. also i bet people would be wondering if nini’s gonna be transferring back to east or staying at north. people would also prob wonder if ej would be getting the scholarship if east won and what that would mean for his interest in film.

lmao that got longggg and idk if anyone’s even gonna read this but it was fun to do :D

[magireco]

Would love to hear more thoughts on how these girls have understandable teenage motivations (A+ tag analysis by the way)

1. Thank you!!!!!!

2. ALRIGHT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS (shuffles my papers). i’ve gone off about homura’s motivations in depth before but i think it was only in dms/groupchats? anyways i’ll go in order with All the girls bc i think about this all the time as a teenager who grew up mentally ill and had their perceptions skewed because of it, and also i don’t think it’s talked about nearly enough for the others, at least on my blog... so, buckle up!!! this is REALLY LONG!!!! 

3. i tried writing like, an individual thing for every member of the quintet all together in this one ask, but i ended up talking a little too much about homura and now i’m going to split up all the different analysis stuff for each character into the reblogs and work on it every so often! you’re free to kinda skim of course because i really did write a whole novel but here we go!! read under the cut. :3 this is literally essay length btw. i did NOT expect it to get this long but if you want to read it all i’d recommend it but i don’t expect most people to

First: Homura Akemi

okay so i’m going to kind of summarize everything but from the perspective of empathizing with her so if you don’t want to reread a whole recap you can skip to the ending few paragraphs

Summary

first of all, in episode 10, homura’s past is explained for the viewer. she was a shy, unsure girl who had been bedridden for a long time. she was clearly unsocialized, not to mention she went to a catholic school and those can be brutal, esp in japan... that’s all we know about her in that episode, but it’s revealed in one of the drama cds that she was bullied as a child(& further at mitakihara middle), her parents never were mentioned ever (i assume them to either be dead or neglectful, considering she lives alone and unchecked), and in magia record, homura says to natsuki that she’s never had friends before, she hasn’t been on vacation before until the beachside bonds event, hasn’t ever celebrated valentine’s day, has never celebrated new years, etc... 

clearly, she’s missed out on a lot not only because of her sickness and hospitalization, but because of her isolation as a child at school. judging by her demeanor and the way she reacts when madoka comes up to her without being asked to, something like that had never happened to her before. it’s clear to me that madoka was many of homura’s “first’s”, her first friend, the first person who reached out to her, the first person to compliment her name honestly(validating her, disproving her dislike of her name), the first person to regard her so kindly rather than judging her based off of her appearance and demeanor (like other students had apparently done, this is also shown when the other students at mitakihara middle make fun of her for being tired after only being able to run one lap). AND, madoka (and mami, but homura knew madoka better at that time) saved her life, even though homura was so willing to die, just in that moment... i’d assume it made homura feel like someone believed in her even when she was at her worst. it’s really clear by the glimmer in her eyes that these are nice people that made her feel happy and welcome... and then walpurgisnacht came. she didn’t know much about magical girls and just believed in madoka and mami to be able to defeat the witch because she saw them as strong and saw the witch as defeatable, despite its size. and then mami died, right in front of her and madoka... 

this kinda seems headcanon-y when i phrase it this way but it’s practically proven in her actions but i really think homura is scared to be abandoned, especially by someone who was as overtly kind and nonjudgemental to her as madoka... it’s in the way she cries her name and says “don’t go” before madoka runs away to fight walpurgisnacht. OH ALSO, i need to address this one thing really quick because people like to assume that homura didn’t care about mami from the beginning and only liked madoka. it’s not that she wasn’t sad when mami died, she was clearly terrified and didn’t want the same to happen to madoka, also mami LITERALLY WASN’T IN HER CLASS OR HER GRADE so i assume she spent most of her time with madoka considering they were in the same grade and class and probably shared most of their periods with each other... but also, once again, mami is older than both of them and homura probably saw her as more of a mentor/teacher that she needed to impress rather than madoka who was more on her level, i guess?

anyways, moving on... homura had to see madoka die (& experience the crushing guilt she felt for “letting madoka go” even though there was nothing she could’ve done) and literally says “i’d rather you had lived than saved someone like me” ... her self worth is below zero. she makes her wish to be strong enough to protect madoka(because she sees madoka, her first friend, who saved her life which she felt had no worth, as so strong and noble) which causes her to go back in time, etc. etc., you know the deal. okay before i move on to talk a little more abt the timelines and the personality change i’m going to address why it’s reasonable that she’d be attached to madoka.

i mentioned before that homura said herself that she had never had a friend before. just like, put yourself into her shoes for a second. this girl has no idea how to make friends; it was never taught to her. it’s literally rational that she’d get attached to her first ever friendship. it’s not “normal” the way she views madoka, but how could it be? this is her first time having a friend, she’s afraid of being abandoned by her, but she’s had to see her die over and over again anyway. she doesn’t want to lose madoka. even if she doesn’t go about it in the right way, there’s no way she would’ve actually known how to Do relationships. no one taught her. i think that needs to be empathized with more...

i kinda feel like i need to summarize all this just bc if i word it right it kinda reminds you & puts into perspective just how terrible and scary all of this was.

anyway Again, i would skip straight to the end of timeline 3 (where a New Flavor of trauma is given to homura) but i need to first address timeline 2 for a second. it was homura’s first time repeating the timeline, she trained with madoka and mami again, she was still hopeful despite what happened, etc. kinda just bonding further with madoka Again... and then it’s at the end of this timeline that she watches madoka turn into a witch, just in front of her very eyes... and realizes the true fate of magical girls. when she resets the timeline again, it’s up to her to start anew and break the truth to the group when she sees them again. when she tries telling the truth, sayaka immediately shoves this aside, claiming homura was just trying to split everyone up. it’s clear that that hurts homura. (also the little shinies in her eyes were wavering which is anime-code for sad) her feelings were immediately disregarded by sayaka and she couldn’t defend herself, but madoka did for her, and mami tried to diffuse the situation. 

after they all find out homura was right when sayaka turns into a witch, mami kills kyoko and ties up homura in her ribbons and aims a gun at her, and this, rightfully, ignited a fear within homura... madoka is forced to kill mami in order to save homura, leaving only the two of them to fight together. then, when walpurgisnacht comes that time, The Promise is made... madoka tells homura to go back in time and save her from becoming a witch (because she doesn’t want to curse the world that way, she still sees beauty in it) and homura agrees, saying she’ll never stop until she saves madoka, and then... homura has to mercy kill madoka before she becomes a witch. she cries loudly and shoots madoka’s soul gem... it’s literally so heartwrenching and (usually) brings the viewer to tears, or puts something into perspective for them...

then we assume the personality change happens in the timeline right after. this personality change causes a lot of discourse because sometimes it’s seen as kind of irrational, but personally, i think even moemura had at least SOME resent for the world around her considering what she’d been through. it’s madoka’s repeated deaths that finally push her over that edge. i could get further into the coolmura arc but that’d take a WHILE, so i’ll just kind of explain something briefly though -- why homura ended up becoming even MORE focused on madoka. and i’m also going to debunk the claim that homura doesn’t care about her other friends as fast as i can before moving on.

also, ONE LAST side tangent, for those that think homura really did do a 360 degree personality turn are wrong. it’s shown explicitly in homulilly’s labyrinth that there’s this... “core” homura, a shadowy purple silhouette with braids. every time the series depicts homura’s internal self, it’s always glasses+braids, symbolizing her “child” self, who she truly is. she never stopped being that person. she doesn’t want to kill. ...but i can get into that in a rebellion analysis later! this is also shown in wraith arc bc the person inside her soul gem has glasses+braids. anyway let’s get to the next part i’m going to rant about

Homura’s Love for Madoka, but Otherwise Apathy

homura has seen many different, yet all similar, versions of her friends. the first claim i’m going to talk about which i saw brought up quite a few times before is in regards to homura and mami. first of all, homura absolutely still cares for mami, and not just in the “i only care about your life if it affects madoka’s” way. one part that always gets me is when mami ties her up in the series timeline after homura frantically warns her that this witch isn’t normal, to which mami IMMEDIATELY brushes this off, without even giving homura a chance. then, when mami’s ribbons fade away, homura looks horrified and just goes “oh no...” and it’s kind of obvious to me that it was in response to mami’s death rather than madoka’s reaction. this is arguably up for debate i guess because i’ve seen different takes on that reaction and it’s ambiguous, i guess? but i’m about to get into something extremely similar and that’s the sayaka situation, where madoka throws sayaka’s soul gem onto a moving car. homura gasps and immediately pauses time and disappears, running in literal open traffic and climbing on top of a moving car to retrieve sayaka’s soul gem. one could argue that this is ALSO only just because homura wants to save madoka (and kyoko) the fear, but don’t you think her expression would be different? if homura truly didn’t care for sayaka’s wellbeing, wouldn’t she be making an expression more similar to like, “oh, this shit again...” instead of the frantic one she was making in the scene? this kind of thing Also happens when kyoko asks homura to leave while kyoko’s about to sacrifice herself in oktavia’s labyrinth, and homura looks up sadly at kyoko and then back down at madoka, and once she knew kyoko was dead, she just quietly said “kyoko...” to herself. she usually refers to them as [last name, first name], but she dropped that during that moment... it otherwise sounds like a bare minimum thing to do, but keep in mind the timeline we’re shown in the series is implied to be like, the 110th timeline, i think? like, this is the last timeline, she’s worn down, but she still does have empathy -- or at least sympathy -- for the others. she still loves them. 

homura promised to be madoka’s protector, she dedicated her life to her, and also she doesn’t have a choice not to dedicate her life to her anymore, even though that’s not fair to her... homura is in a really hopeless situation and madoka is her hope, and madoka is the one that judges her the least out of the quintet (like saying “i’m sure homura is good” to herself) upon first impression. also okay i mentioned this already in my last post (which you saw) but i’m going to bring it up one more time, homura is not mentally 26!!!!!! she is still 14 mentally!! in order to be 26, you have to have experienced 26 years of new life experience. maybe you acquire that through school, maybe you aquire that through friends, whatever it takes. but homura just repeated the same month over and over, and it’s not like her body (canonically) ages ever. she just kind of gets transported back into her body in the hospital again considering she’s back wearing her braids and pajamas... so, yeah. no mental development there. i also mentioned this here but i’m gonna say it again, that just makes it even harder for her to actually age correctly... it stunts her to 14. imagine being 14 for 10-11 years...

In Defense Of My Own Claims

btw before you think i’m just going full-on radical homura apologist, i’m not explaining all of this to be like “homura made ALL THE RIGHT DECISIONS because her trauma gave her an excuse!!” because like, Obviously, she did a lot of bad things, she killed people, did a lot of callous things, a lot of thoughtless things, a lot of things that make her seem emotionless, etc. but i just have trouble blaming her considering how things ended up, and it’s not like she enjoys killing people. she’s not sadistic... she ends up becoming short with all the others not only because of her (extremely) weakened trust in them, but also because the amount of times she repeated the timeline. i’d imagine it makes her feel like the others can’t truly die because she can just go back and see them again. (this is also why wraith arc/post-tv series must’ve been hard for her because she can no longer turn back time, things are permanent now, deaths are forever) she’s become so worn down that she’ll do anything to escape the loops... also considering she has no choice but to continue? although it shouldn’t be, it’s technically her job as a magical girl to defeat all witches and walpurgisnacht counts. it kills magical girls and tears up the whole city and she’s usually the only magical girl left... her choices, when defeated, are either to give up and die or to go back and try again, and she made a promise to her first ever friend to do just the latter... i just don’t understand how this isn’t easier for people to comprehend, that all of this trauma and stress and responsibility on top of an already traumatized 14 year old does not mix well. ever. she had to figure out all of this by herself.

TL;DR:

homura was a previously traumatized, unsocialized 14 year old with (very)low self esteem & self worth whose first friend (and first love, really, let’s be honest) died in front of her in horrific ways and she watched as she (and the other friends she came to make) drifted slowly apart from her in her endless and futile attempt in saving her from what proved to be an inescapable fate. also she’s 14 and also she’s (canonically) mentally ill and a lesbian. not a monster, not evil, not “psycho”. and that’s that!

[lloydskywalkers]

let me just start out by saying i love ever single one of your stories!!! i’m pretty new to the show and your works just add so much more feeling to everything and it’s sooo good!!! i don’t know if you ever do requests or not, so don’t bother with this if you’re busy!! but if you ever get a chance could you write smthg abt Jay and Kai? their friendship is so underrated but so good and i live for the moments in the show when Kai’s big brother instinct(tm) kicks in for him as well as Nya and Lloyd

aH thank you so much!! i’m so glad to hear that :D and this isn’t...exactly what you asked for, but Kai and Jay have this fun of dynamic that reminds me a lot of me and my brother, and i’ve been tossing around little bits of interaction between them for a while now, so i tried to make something coherent out of those :’D

Jay likes to think he’s pretty good at the whole compartmentalizing thing, for the most part. Mainly because he actually knows what it means, and it is not, for instance, locking your team up in a literal compartment while rushing off to fight the other compartment that is your resurrected homicidal father into submission.

“That was one time,” Lloyd will grumble, as if he’s only almost-died once. And then Jay will flinch, because that’s where his compartments come into play.

(Nadakhan gets one, Unagami gets another, the whole fun-times adoption reveal another, and everything else can get stuffed into the metaphorical attic since they won’t pay rent.)

Unfortunately, the attic is where the bad stuff lives.

Metaphorically.

If Jay had a nickel for every time he almost lost all of his friends, he’d have two nickels, plus another nickel for Cole falling into the fog, and another for Lloyd getting crushed by a roof, and another for Zane blowing up, and another for Nya in that awful dress with paling skin as her breathing stutters and the light in her eyes draining and —

And Jay is way, way too familiar with how it looks when his family dies, and all the nickels in the world won’t help that.

So while Jay likes to think he’s pretty good at compartmentalizing, he also thinks he’s got a valid excuse for the way he reacts when Lloyd goes down in the fight that afternoon. Sure, some vague part of his mind remembers that they’ve got a plan they’re running, and Lloyd should easily be able to handle a tiny little stumble — but Jay’s mind is stuck in glaring oranges and health bars, the unsteady gasping noise Lloyd had made before he went down, dissolving into digitized cubes just like everyone else, and Jay—

Jay can’t handle that, compartments or not, so he clears the space between them in a heartbeat just in time to take the bullet that comes hurtling Lloyd’s way.

It’d probably be a very noble and touching scene, if one) Jay didn’t make a hideous squeaking noise when it hit because bullets hurt, and two) the bullet would have missed Lloyd by a good two feet anyways.

Ah well, he thinks, as everything devolves into panicked yelling. It’s the thought that counts.

Except thoughts do not count when Kai is involved, apparently. Or any of the rest of the team, for that matter.

“What is wrong with you?” Kai hisses right in his face, eyes wild and sparking. “I was covering Lloyd, what were you doing?”

“Filling in for you, obviously,” Jay retorts. He has an excellent followup to that, real snappy and all, except that’s the moment Kai’s hand clamps down on the bullet wound in his arm to stop the bleeding, and Jay ends up stifling a shriek instead.

Great, he thinks, fighting back stinging tears of pain as he tries not to take Kai’s apparent wrath too personally. At least Cole looks worried, along the the rest of the team, who are dutifully concerned for his wellbeing like proper teammates should be.

“He’s going to need the hospital,” Zane informs them, his voice a lot steadier and calmer than his words make Jay feel. Zane’s eyebrows furrow as he studies his arm. “Stitches, probably.”

Jay swallows, trying not to curse. There’s a sharp scream as Nya finishes taking out another attacker just beyond them, and Jay figures that’s good enough.

“Okay,” Lloyd says, squeezing Jay’s wrist briefly. Either in comfort about the stitches or thanks for trying to cover him, Jay’s not sure. It’s a nice gesture, nonetheless. “Kai, Cole, can you get him there while we finish up? Sooner the better.”

Cole gives a sharp nod, and offers to take Jay from where Kai’s got him in a death grip. Kai shakes his head, and Jay’s stomach sinks. Sure enough, as soon as they’re clear of the scene, Kai starts going off.

“What did you mean, ‘filling in for me’,” he grinds through his teeth, clearly not about to let this go.

Jay bristles in response at his tone. “I meant,” he bites out, through a hot flare of pain in his arm. Kai’s always merciless with the bandages, even when he’s not in a mood. “That you weren’t there. So I covered.”

He should leave it at that, but Jay’s in a foul enough mood to finish with a condescending, “You’re welcome.”

Kai’s expression grows thunderous. “You didn’t need to. I was right there, you shouldn’t have — you weren’t needed, you should’ve held back.”

Jay feels his chest go tight. His head is clouding with anger, and the pain in his arm isn’t helping, but — ‘you weren’t needed’? Kai really didn’t skimp on the jerk juice this morning, did he.

“Oh, like you could’ve done so much better,” Jay glares. “Lloyd would’ve been toast by the time you got to him.”

“I could’ve made it!”

“Yeah right—”

“I would have, and I wouldn’t have gotten hit!” Kai snarls back. Something in Jay snaps. Or maybe it’s just the steadily increasing blood loss, but of all the nerve—

“Well you didn’t, ‘cause you weren’t there!” he snaps back. “You were too slow, which is real funny since your brain is too!”

It’s not his best comeback, he’ll admit, but Kai looks as if he’s about to light him on fire, if he weren’t stuck carrying Jay like the cover of some awful romance novel, blood getting all over his uniform as they both scream at each other. Maybe Jay will get lucky, and Kai will combust, and they’ll both go up in flames before they can remember that Cole is right there watching them.

“Cut it out, now!”

Oops, too late. For all the incensed authority in Cole’s voice, there’s still a traitorous falter that lets them both know they’ve screwed up. They fall silent, the atmosphere heavy with the lingering tension and new sense of guilt.

And the disgusting sound of Jay’s blood leaking through the makeshift bandage and hitting the ground, truly revolting, he hates blood.

“Just…no more. Please, shut up until we’re at the hospital.” Cole marches forward, snatches Jay from Kai’s arms, and proceeds to beat the fastest route to the hospital at a militant pace.

Jay still looks like some helpless romance cover heroine, dangling from Cole’s arms like he is. It occurs to him that he doesn’t even need to be carried — it’s his arm that’s hurt, he can still walk—

But any protests die rapidly at the look on Cole’s face. And at least this way, Jay thinks sullenly, he can fixedly ignore Kai.

Then again, Kai’s got a killer glare, and Jay’s always been garbage at ignoring people when his feelings are hurt.

* * * * * * * *

Despite the fuss everyone makes, Jay’s arm really isn’t that bad. They hook him up with some pretty sweet meds so he remembers zero of the actual arm-fixing, and he wakes up just in time to complain about being held in the hospital for ‘observation’ or whatever.

“It’s to make sure there’s no infection, or that you don’t rip your stitches out,” Nya tells him pointedly. Jay cringes under the look she gives him at that last part. Geez. You get kicked in the stitches one time after sneaking out early and suddenly no one’s got any faith in you. Typical.

“Why couldn’t we have just gone to medbay,” Jay grumbles. “Pixal gives way better stitches than this, anyways.”

“Gun wounds get hospitals,” Nya reminds him. “And it’s not fair to put that kind of pressure on Pix when we can avoid it.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

Nya glares at him. “It most certainly was that bad.”

“Oh, so when you get your arm crushed by a car, it’s fine,” Jay glares back. “But when I get a tiny little bullet nick, it’s that bad.”

Nya rolls her eyes, ignoring him. “Just think of it this way,” she says. “Now you have a little more time before Lloyd starts weeping apologies all over you.”

“Aw, no,” Jay groans, leaning back in the hospital bed. “Tell me he’s not blaming himself, Nya.”

“I think we had a promise about not lying to each other, or something,” Nya says, sympathetically. She winces. “Pretty sure he made the connection, too.”

Jay frowns. “What connection?”

Nya shifts, her eyes darting from side to side. “The, uh, the whole…Prime Empire, thing.”

Jay stares at her for a beat, trying to reconcile his blatant shock with the roiling nausea at the mention in his stomach. Nya looking at him all kind and sympathetically isn’t helping, either, because she might have made it down to the final two, but she was never all alone, and the reminder that she’d have been fine if Jay hadn’t gotten her killed twice is—

Bad. Real bad, not good, zero out of ten stars. Maybe he can take a bullet for Nya, next, and that’ll — that’ll help things, maybe. Equivalent exchange? Restitution? Some kind of fancy word that means Jay swears he’s gonna make it up.

In the meantime, he smothers the rising sickness in his throat and sinks lower into the bed, sulking. “It’s too easy to recognize trauma in this team.”

“I hear you,” Nya sighs, wearily. She nudges his shoulder, rising from her seat near the bed. “Speaking of. Someone’s got something they want to say to you.”

It takes Jay a second, but his eyes widen as Nya heads for the door. “Wait, wait wait wait, don’t you dare—”

“Love you,” Nya says cheekily, before taking her merry leave of the room. There’s a brief scuffle from outside, and the sound of Kai yelping, before Nya shoves him through the door, slamming it shut behind him with a damning click.

For a second, Jay’s tempted to hit the ‘call nurse’ button as hard as he can, in some desperate attempt to escape. Then he gets a good look at Kai, who’s turned a pale, queasy color that frankly looks awful on him, which is saying a lot ‘cause there isn’t much that doesn’t look good on Kai, but the expression he has on now—

Aw, man, now Jay’s feeling guilty and it isn’t even his fault. Stupid moral conscience center, he curses himself.

“So, uh…” he begins, because far be it from him to let this kind of awkward silence stretch on any longer. “Nice, ah, weather we’re having?”

Kai doesn’t respond, staring fixedly at the floor, and Jay sizes up the ‘call nurse’ button again. Just for the both of their sakes, of course.

But then Kai takes a deep breath, blows it out, and rocks back on his heels, fiddling with his hands. “I, um. I’m sorry.”

Jay’s jaw drops open. Which is probably an overdramatic move, all things considered, but unless he’s suddenly lost the ability to understand words, Kai just apologized to him.

Kai apologized. To him.

It’s not that Kai apologizing is some great big deal — Kai might have his pride, but he’s also an intuitive and good-hearted person who knows when he’s messed up. But to him?

Jay knows how he and Kai work. Kai knows how he and Jay work, and he’s breaking the rules. Because Kai and Jay don’t apologize to each other. Unless it’s some awkward expression of sympathy, they’ve never needed to. They fight dirty, aim for each other’s kneecaps, swear eternal vengeance and hatred at each other before storming off, then an hour later Jay’s bounding into Kai’s room to show him dumb meme videos and neither of them even remember what they were fighting about.

Acknowledging said fight with something as gushy as apologizing is not only useless since they both forget what they’re apologizing for anyways, but also useless because it’ll take too much time, and counterproductive on top, because it’ll most likely end in another fight about who apologized better. So for Kai to walk in and say sorry—

“Oh no, who did you kill?” Jay says, paling.

Kai spears him with a look, but it’s so pathetically watered-down and miserable that Jay forgets to glare back.

“Sorry, sorry,” Jay mutters. “I just—”

“No, no, I’m the one who’s sorry,” Kai interrupts. He hesitates, then sighs. “But that’s fair. I — I was unfair. To you, back there. Like, really unfair, in a bad way, ‘cause you were shot and I know you meant well, but you—”

Kai gestures wildly with his hands, his stream of words cutting off. Jay is left to stare open-mouthed at him again. Babbling like this is Jay’s thing. Kai is breaking all the rules today, huh.

“I just…” Kai trails off, ducking his head. “I don’t like watching you guys get hurt. I don’t — I don’t like watching you get hurt. And I get scared, but it comes out angry, and then I make a mess of things so I’m — sorry. Really sorry, for biting your head off.”

He exhales, a little shaky, fingers balled up in tight fists as his head hangs low, refusing to meet Jay’s eyes. Something softens in Jay’s chest, like gooey melting butter or something else equally pathetic. But it’s rare that Kai vocalizes this stuff, despite the fact that Jay knows he cares, and it’s nice to hear it, so he figures he’s entitled to all the butter he wants.

Jay’s own gaze falters, and the something starts to twist. He bites his lip, tugging half-heartedly at the bandages around his arm.

“Well,” he pauses, thinking of the way his brain had shifted to autopilot when he’d watched Lloyd falter, the razor-sharp shard of terror that always splinters through him when any of their teammates come too close to the awful images of death left in his head. He swallows. “I guess I don’t really have any room to talk,” he murmurs. “Be pretty dumb if I blamed you for that.”

He’s preparing to sink back into his own well of self-pity and loathing, resigned to spending the next few hours until they check him out of the hospital replaying bad memories in his head, when Kai’s next to him all of the sudden, shoving him over on the hospital bed.

“Hey, hey, what’s the big idea—”

“Move, c’mon. You don’t need that much room, you’re a stick,” Kai grumbles, before grinning brightly in success as Jay makes him space. The contrast in expression is enough to startle Jay into silence, and Kai takes advantage. “I know that look. But you already got shot, so you gotta cheer up now.”

“So you’re forcing me into cheerfulness by stealing my hospital bed,” Jay scowls, but the sting is lost in the sudden surge of affection as Kai elbows his way on the bed with him, a steady warmth by his side.

“I’m gifting you my presence, you should be celebrating,” Kai huffs, as he pulls his phone out. “Now stop looking so sad and watch this video I got of a bunch’a geese chasing Zane at the park the other day.”

“You’re such a jerk,” Jay says, but he’s already snickering as he leans his head against Kai’s shoulder to get a better look.

He’s forgotten to tell Kai he forgives him, but like most things between them — Jay doesn’t really need to say it out loud.

[passable-talent]

hey roe! i love ur work! could i request a zuko x reader where the reader and the zuko have history and they meet at the boiling rock because the reader was imprisoned (either during the invasion or at the catacombs or whatever you think works) and there's a lot of angst and it ends with a kiss or something? tysm!!!

tysm!!!! It means a lot

but u gotta think bigger anon,,, boiling rock was full of firebenders... how abt a childhood friend who defected long, long ago, and zuko could’ve never known? hmm....

in watching the boiling rock for this ask I realize that the bois get into guard uniforms and hide their clothes on the beach. so like,,, did these two dumbasses just strip on the beach and b like “hey yeah bro this is cool”. they think nothing through. HOW DID THEY EVEN GET THE GUARD UNIFORMS IN THE FIRST PLACE-

Sitting in a Boiling Rock cell wasn’t exactly one of Zuko’s top ten moments, but it sure wasn’t one of his lowest, either. He’d been tossed into a singular cell that as of yet didn’t even have a bed, the door shut in his face.

There came three quick knocks on the metal wall beside him, and he walked closer to it, curious.

“I heard you got thrown in for impersonating a guard,” came a voice on the other side, and Zuko regarded it with a healthy amount of susipicion.

“Yeah.”

“Nice,” said the voice, a little laugh following their words.

“What did you do?” asked Zuko, surprised that the voice sounded young, almost as young as himself, if he had to guess.

“Oh, I defected a long time ago. They weren’t too happy with my methods.” Zuko didn’t answer for a moment, and the person in the cell beside him took that as an opportunity to continue asking questions. “Seems like the warden wanted to punish you especially, putting you down here with this lot. Any idea why?”

“I dated his niece,” Zuko answered, his tone definitive, almost as though this information was obvious. There came a pause from the voice, and Zuko wondered what about this information was shocking. It wouldn’t be common knowledge who the warden’s niece is, would it? He thought that that would be safe information to reveal, without revealing his identity.

“Hey, how old are you?” The prisoner asked, breaking their silence. Zuko briefly considered, but decided not to lie.

“Uh, sixteen, why?”

“Zuko?” Zuko froze, and fixed his stare to the wall as though he could see through it if he glared hard enough.

“How do you know that?”

“It’s Y/N,” the voice said, and finally Zuko realized why the voice had seemed so young.

Y/N had been his friend, from academy, back before Zuko had turned twelve. Y/N was one year above him, but was a prodigy, studying under High General Bujing as young as ten years old. They were a dedicated student and a master of strategy as early as twelve- but disappeared at thirteen, never to be heard from again.

At least, by the young prince, whose father decided that telling the prince that his closest friend had attempted assassination on one of the high generals would fill the already ‘weak’ prince’s mind with ‘insubordinate ideals’.

And yet here they were.

“Y/N?” Zuko breathed, lifting his hand and pressing it to the metal, astonished. He had assumed that you were dead. “How are you here?”

“How am I here? I’m a criminal and a traitor, that’s obvious, how are you here?”

“Apparently I’m also a criminal and a traitor,” Zuko answered, and you laughed.

The assignment for the day was mopping, down in one of the lower rooms of the prison. You knew where to go, and yet the moment those doors opened you rounded the walls and hugged Zuko tightly.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” you whispered, and when you pulled away you noticed his scar. Gingerly you reached your hand upward, lightly laying your fingers against the skin, then resting the palm of your hand onto his face to fully cup his jaw.

“I knew that you’d been banished, but...” you trailed off, and slipped your hand around to the back of his neck to pull him into a tight hug.

“I wish I could’ve been there to save you,” you whispered, holding onto him. His arms wrapped around you in return, for just a moment, until a few guards shouted at the two of you to move along. Still, he walked beside you.

“What do you mean?” He asked, and you looked sideways at him.

“I knew your father was horrible, I knew the nation was horrible, that’s why I left it. But to do that to you, I...” you trailed off, and shrugged. “I guess I tell myself I should’ve brought you with me when I left.” His response was minimal, but you noticed it, the way he seemed intrigued by the thought, and slightly saddened that it hadn’t happened.

You had known of Suki, but you hadn’t formally met her until now. She was kind, and understood why another teenager was roped into the daring escape.

Sokka, on the other hand, wasn’t so pleased.

“Sokka, come on. Y/N has a better understanding of Fire Nation military strategy than anyone, even me.” Suki raised an eyebrow in your direction, to which you responded with a shrug. “We need them on our team.”

“The more we try to break out, the easier we’ll be caught. We can’t risk it.” You weren’t going to argue in your favor- in fact, the opposite.

“I’ve been in here for four years. I’m used to it, I’ll be fine,” you assured Zuko, but he shook his head. He grabbed Sokka by the shoulder and pulled him away, but underestimated your ability to eavesdrop.

“Look, we didn’t come here planning to break out Suki, but we are. Y/N is the same, for me, as Suki is to you. Okay?” Your eyes widened as you glanced to Suki, but she hadn’t caught it, and didn’t understand your surprise.

“Okay, fine,” Sokka said, breaking from Zuko’s grasp. He took a moment to ensure no one was around to listen. “I think I’ve got an escape plan.”

You’d stuck by Zuko when you were young, and you’d stick by him now, as traitors to your nation. Even if it meant giving up your only escape plan. He was loyal to Sokka, and you would be too, so you stayed behind, and bided your time, waiting for your next opportunity. Even if it meant listening to Mai scold Zuko through the walls. Sokka came to you with a new plan, though you had a sneaking suspicion you were the last of the group that he told, and when it came time to fight Azula on the gondola, you were one of the first to climb to the roof.

“Ah, Y/N, an old familiar face,” the princess said as she landed, taking in the sight of you and Zuko, side by side. “How quaint. An old traitor, and a new traitor. I’m ever so curious, Y/N, how you can claim to have any morality at all, betraying your nation twice now. Wasn’t it your own mentor you tried to kill?” You reacted in rage, and shot the first plume of fire.

The ride to the western air temple was a long one, filled as it was with jubilation, victory, and reunions. Zuko spent much of it trying to decide how to ask you in more detail about your past. You hadn’t said much to him about it, and he’d never been told, but Azula seemed to know well what had happened.

He didn’t want to push, but he wanted to know.

“Your mentor was General Bujing, right?” He asked, sitting beside you in the metal airship.

“Yeah,” you answered, your tone noncommittal.

“He was the general I stood up to. When I got banished.” Your gaze went to the young prince, and you realized just how little you knew about his past, since you left the fire nation. You also realized his tactic- to get you to share, he would share. You decided to cut him a break, and do it yourself.

You started with what he already knew.

“I lost my parents to the war when I was six. So I was sent to the academy, where they recognized my talent and rewarded me with apprenticeships and a home. Still, General Bujing was the closest I had to a parent.” You paused, and looked toward the front of the ship, where you could see clouds.

“But as I got older, and he put more questionable battle strategies on my exams, I began to see him not as a parent but as a person. And what I saw was, I assume, what you saw. Someone ruthless and angry, who didn’t believe in human life, or didn’t value it.” Zuko didn’t stop you, or interrupt. He merely listened.

“I was scared. And so I did reading, on what the Fire Nation was before Sozin, and what I saw was so much better than what I was raised in. I knew i couldn’t change much, but what I could do was get rid of an old General who would do the worst sort of things.” You looked down at your hands.

“It didn’t work. I was thirteen, of course it didn’t. But instead of killing me, he...” you trailed off, and turned your gaze away from Zuko.

“I was going to kill him, because I thought there wasn’t any good in him. And then he let me go. He spared me.” Zuko’s eyes widened, as what he knew of General Bujing, the man who would sacrifice a brigade of soldiers, did not seem to line up with what you were describing.

“I was arrested anyway, of course, but I thought for sure he’d kill me. He didn’t even challenge me to an Agni Kai. I still don’t...” you trailed off, and let your head thump back against the metal wall. “I still don’t understand.”

“People are complicated,” Zuko struggled out, seemingly trying to conjure some good-ol’-uncle-Iroh advice.

“Yeah,” you said with a breathless chuckle, and scooted a bit closer to him. “It’s good to see you again,” you said, leaning your shoulder against his. It was an odd situation to be in, because you’d last seen him when you were thirteen, and he twelve. But you knew, from what you overheard, that he felt something more for you. Something akin to Sokka and Suki, who you had noticed were clearly an explicitly romantic couple. Because of it you felt it appropriate to notice how much he’d... grown. He was older, now, and his hair was nice, and his cheekbones high, his jawline defined, not to mention an obviously master firebender. You envied that talent, as the only bending you had was leftover from your training, that ended at thirteen.

“It’s good to see you too,” he said, which you barely heard over your thoughts. You didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, as obviously Mai was a very fresh wound, but you knew his feelings were there, and wanted in subtle ways to make him realize that his choices were accepted, welcomed, to you.

You wondered if he was having similar thoughts, noticing how you’d changed since he last saw you.

The moon was high by the time the airship docked at the western air temple. You’d fallen asleep on the metal floor (you’ve slept in worse places), and Zuko decided to wake you up so that you could move to one of the bedrooms up high in the temple.

He crouched beside you, and nudged your shoulder. When that didn’t rouse you, he sat down, deciding to take a moment to study your sleeping face. He brushed back some of your hair from your face, silent in his appreciation.

He’d wake you up. In a minute.

For now, he wanted to lean down, and kiss your forehead.

When he pulled away, he noticed your eyes were open. A smile spread to your lips, and you pushed back your tiredness to respond to the moment in front of you.

“Want to try again, now that I’m awake?”

-🦌 Roe

[laughableillusions]

Farkas Meets Neloth

((AN: I wrote this at like 2am last night and I thought it was funny, I proofread it a little but of you find any errors just ignore them)) ((Also idk if this is a bit out of character for Neloth, but mostly I think he’d be at least a bit curious abt the LDB romance choices bc of research abt the magical aspects of dragons or smth))

Lindir wasn’t expecting a manhandling interrogation when he floated up to the top of the Tel Mithryn tower, he almost tripped when the old wizard rushed up to him; berating him with questions as he held his chin in a tight grip. Poor Farkas, he could tell he was a bit overwhelmed. Then again, how many times in a Nord’s life does he float about in a giant mushroom tower?

“Well you seem fine to me, or at least you’re still exactly the same as when I last saw you…” Neloth sounded disappointed.

“I-I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, I didn’t know you still needed m-“

“Who is this?” Neloth had now turned to Farkas, his yellow eyes narrowing as he eyed the Nord.

Lindir stammered, his protective instincts slamming right into him at the question.

“H-He…I-I got married remember?” Lindir managed, his charm automatically masking his nervousness.

Neloth’sbrow furrowed, he was ironically a few inches shorter than Farkas. But he examined as if he was some kind of strange insect, he walked around him looking him up and down. Farkas watching him stiffly, his hands balled into fists at his sides.

“Well, he certainly is quite the specimen.” Neloth concluded, halting back in front of the man.

Lindir was struck dumb. He didn’t know if he should be flattered or offended at the wizard’s remarks of his husband. I mean the approval of an old Telvanni Wizard was something to be proud of right?

Neloth didn’t seem to notice or care about Lindir’s reaction, only taking his hand and yanking Farkas’s face down to his level by the chin. He looked over him, turning his face this way and that, brow furrowed in concentration. The poor Nord only glanced fearfully at Lindir, awkwardly leaned down at the mercy of the dunmar. He knew better than to stop him at least, he trusted Lindir enough to know when to act and when to stay back. The half-elf knew how to charm and maneuver social situations as well as Farkas could hear a rabbit in the brush. So he would do what he did best, stand and be silent and wait until he felt it was safe enough to speak.

Lindir on the other hand was still caught up in his mind, he didn’t know if he should stop him or not. If he did he was half convinced he would be thrown down the long shaft of Tel Mithryn by Neloth if he protested. Usually if anyone even tried anything like that to Farkas they’d receive sharp consequences (be it verbal or otherwise). One could safely say Lindir was overprotective of his husband, he had the scars from multiple altercations to protect his honor to prove it. Farkas was no exception either, though he was long-cured of Lycanthropy. The possessive instinct to “protect his own” lingered, and it showed. There were many a man (and woman) who had the bruises to prove that too.

Neloth finally let go of Farkas’s chin, brushing the dust that had coated his face off his palms.

“Well, he doesn’t seem in any way special.” The old wizard half-sighed. “But I can see why you like this one, he is quite pretty if nothing else.”

Lindir flushed a deep red at that. His temper now flaring at the back-handed compliment. “This one” “specimen” “not special” it was all simply intolerable. He couldn’t allow any more of it. Farkas was probably the most special person in his life, and he wouldn’t have some old grouch determine his worth.

“How dare you speak to him like that!” Lindir shouted, his hands flying all about him. “Why do you care about who I marry?! It’s not any of your business anyway!”

Neloth didn’t even react to his tirade, which only fanned the flames of Lindir’s anger.

“You act like he’s not even a person while he’s standing right in front of you! How about you treat him like a normal person would and address him properly you wrinkly freak!”

Neloth gave the half-elf a sidelong glance of withering boredom. Sending Lindir sputtering uselessly for words and insults.

“Of course you’d say that, you’re his husband.”

Lindir let out a cry of complete and utter disgust, looking angrily at Farkas. The Nord met his eyes, obviously taking his look as a sign that ‘this was not okay, and he had to do something.’

“I think he married me for a reason other than just the way I look.” Farkas interjected firmly.

The look Neloth gave him silenced him instantly.

“Where did you find him anyway?” The wizard sounded like he was referring to a prize horse. “In Skyrim I know, but what province?”.

Lindir huffed.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself? He’s literally standing right in front of you.”

Neloth frowned, obviously he didn’t enjoy having Lindir be pouty with him. Not that he much cared for what Lindir felt, but it was much too noisy and it distracted him. But if it would shut him up, he supposed he would ask him.

He sighed annoyingly, turning back to Farkas.

“Where are you from?”

Farkas forced himself to look at him, he would hate to admit it, but the wizard scared him. He was always a bit wary when it came to magic, even when Lindir taught him some basic restoration spells he never really trusted it. But those countless burns he sustained from battles against mages, the fireballs shot straight at his face…it was enough to at least have some respect for the craft. He could never really picture going into battle without any sort of weapon, sure swinging a sword around took training. But even then anyone could pick up a sword and use it training or not.

Coming face to face with a master wizard, a wizard that probably studied his craft for more years than he had been alive; honed and perfected every spell so that even the twitch of his fingers would produce what he wanted. Farkas couldn’t fathom the ability this man had over magic, and it was awe-inspiring as well as terrifying.

Neloth was obviously getting annoyed from Farkas’s lack of answer. He could feel himself being read by the Nord, like those pale eyes tried to prod into him.

“Well?” Neloth barked.

Farkas blinked, glancing back at Lindir before pulling together an answer.

“Whiterun, Jorrvaskyr actually.” He choked out. “I-I’m with The Companions…”

Neloth nodded a bit thoughtfully.

“The Companions eh? As in the 100 companions of Ysgrammor...” He thought for a moment, looking Farkas up and down once again. “I suppose that means you’re his legacy hm?” He concluded.

Farkas decided to keep the obligatory Companion Value Lecture to himself, he only knew so much anyway, and didn’t care much for the history either. He just nodded, hoping it would appease the wizard.

It seemed to, and he finally turned away from him. Farkas let out a breath of relief, scooting closer to Lindir to try and recover himself. He didn’t know how much more of this interrogation he could take.

Lindir took his large hand and squeezed it, obviously feeling the same way.

“Well with that out of the way, what is it that you want?” Neloth now said, his back to them.

Lindir thought for a moment, he had gotten so carried away with protecting Farkas the reason for making this tedious trip had escaped him briefly.

“Oh right! Yes,” Lindir said, now completely composed once again. “I’m here about the black books?”

Neloth turned back to him, not even paying attention to the couple’s interlocked hands.

“I thought as much, now come…I have something to show you.” He said, already walking off and not waiting for either of them to catch up.

[cheekbites-moved]

One of my favorite Vanoé aspects is that the emotional support goes both ways. They help each other stand back up again and again. Do you think they could have that kind of mutual support with other people? Vanitas did help Jeanne when saving Chloé, but he was just repeating the words Noé said to HIM in the catacombs. And Noé didn't even seem aware of how deep Domi's guilt over Louis' death went.

gosh yes, i love love love their mutual emotional support. that is some Good shit right there, i live for that shit.

and to somewhat answer your question (i'll go into depth), i love that they are Learning to navigate their emotions with each other. it's really beautiful. i love a good "better when we're together because you taught me" couple god

anyway, the depth i was talking abt, i've talked at length before about how noe is a person who can read people easily. this is shown numerous times with vanitas, and it's also briefly shown in episode one with amelia, where he can tell something is wrong with her.

i feel like, given their long-standing friendship, domi would be an exception to his perceptiveness bc she's known him long enough to know how to bypass it, and she clearly doesn't like concerning him for her sake.

i really want them to have a talk, where they lay everything out after this and have a really nice hug, they both really need it. cause i don't think it's not noe simply "wasn't aware" of her guilt, it's that she purposefully hid it from him. so, she just needs to learn to let herself open up to him without feeling like a burden, you know? a come to cheek bite moment, if you will.

i definitely find it interesting that vanitas' portrayal of his lessons with noe so far his quite literally just repeating what he's been told by him. but, he clearly does listen to noe, and he takes his words to heart. which is very sweet to have such a blatant showing of. he's definitely learning about boundaries, and how to respect other people's feelings from him. so, i think it'll definitely lead to him having a healthier relationship with jeanne.

obviously, i've said before that i personally prefer vnjn as friends cause their romantic relationship is on such unstable foundation, but they could have a really beautiful friendship with the lessons noe has taught him.

[sneakydraws]

Well, here it is - a lengthy explanation of each card in my mdzs major arcana deck and what I meant to convey/what i would have changed in retrospect/what alternatives i considered! It’s a bit messy and my typing style is lazy but hopefully it will be an interesting read to some of you :)

And so you don’t say I didn’t warn you - jiang cheng’s section (11 justice) is absurdly long lmao

0 the fool  I elaborated on this in the post itself but yeah basically jin ling is kind of representative of all the damage and trauma caused by the past, and there’s a kind of danger there of him falling victim to the same vices as the older characters and repeating the same mistakes and perpetuating the cycle of war and misery (the cycle that we already see with how the jin sect became the new wen sect, and later with how jgy became the new wwx) and he has a lot of room to grow! He grows so much over the course of the novel, comes to realise the complexities of the past and gets a harsh life lesson in how nothing is as black and white as it seems. But ill save talking about his progress for the end, for now whats important is that he has room to grow and also a dog. I don’t really have a justification for the sun, i mostly just thought it looked sick? It made its way to the next card as well, where it makes a bit more sense, but then i realised it was a dumb motif to include 1 the magician I still very much like wwx for the role, and that illustration would have probably had him raising a corpse on his left and pointing threateningly to the sun on his right. I considered including the table as well, with some mdzs relevant items replacing the card suits. Anyway, like i said wwx got a few cards to himself already so i went with the alternative wq design, since i think she fits the card as well. Both she and wwx are highly skilled people, extremely driven once they set their mind to something. The card to me symbolises the creative mind as well as a general drive for action, which fits them both - wwx was famously a prolific inventor, and wq came up with a previously unheard of surgery, after all. This card strays pretty far from the rider-waite deck design, largely because i was still figuring out how i wanted to approach this series, but you can still see the influence. 2 the high priestess I was actually going to skip this card at first because I couldn’t think of a fitting character, but once i considered a qings character post death, it all fit pretty well. She was already a highly intuitive person in life, and in sharing her memories with wwx she is, in a way, relaying a kind of secret knowledge. Anyway she’s one of my fav characters so im glad i got a chance to include her. The coffins could be interpreted to be xxc and sl or xxc and xy 3 the empress Theres other mother figures in mdzs who got to be mothers for a longer time, but jyl definitely embodies the positive aspects of this card the best. She’s nurturing, kind, emotionally supportive, she already mothered wwx and jc quite a bit when she was young. Plus i liked that the rw card had both water and flowers, making an easy lotus connection. In retrospect the stars look kind of out of place and i should have replaced them with something more relevant... Also, i should have had her hold a lotus seed pod instead of a flower, haha 4 the emperor Like i said I considered jc for the role but hoching bullied me into admitting that nmj was better… they’re both more of an inverted emperor than an upright one but then again theres hardly any character in mdzs who would fit upright emperor so. Jgs was also considered but he’s even uglier than nmj so i couldn’t bear to draw him 5 the hierophant It was pointed out to me that lqr would have fit this card better and the truth if that statement haunts me to this day. Unfortunately I have no space in my brain for lqr so lxc got the role instead. My main reason was his role during the wen destruction of gusu lan, when he ran away with the contents of the library - this is why there’s bookshelves behind him. The keys, take, from the rider-waite deck, are meant to represent the gusu pendants that allow you to enter 6 the lovers Im sure many people would have chosen wangxian here but I uhh don’t really care abt wangxian personally? And also their love story is so convoluted that jyl and jzx seem idyllic by comparison lol. Also i didnt really have an idea for who to put in the angel’s place for wangxian… mme jin certainly did not get these two together in the end but undeniably she and mme yu did initially give them a chance to fall for each other so. Thats something i guess. Anyway the trees became their sects’ flowers and the mountain became the burial grounds - an omen of their tragic fate, basically 7 the chariot There might have been other characters who fit this card better but i couldn’t really think of another card for lwj and i thought it would be weird to not include him… anyway i don’t really care for current timeline lwj BUT i do like that he was clearly influenced by wwx to walk his own path in life based on his moral convictions rather than follow his sect’s rules blindly. The chariot is to me a card of self control, self determination and focused action, so it seemed fitting. The composition felt kind of empty without the actual chariot so i padded it out with the guqin, the cloud recess in the bg (it doesn’t look great but i tried to replicate the drama design….) and the bunnies which conveniently fit the colour scheme of the sphinxes in the rider-waite design 8 strength Like i said before, my interpretation of this card is more… morally ambiguous than the quote unquote official meaning, so i thought about manipulative or duplicitous characters more than kind characters whose strength is expressed through gentleness (though i did consider jyl briefly for the latter interpretation). As such, i considered both jgy and nhs, but ended up going with jgy largely because i couldn’t pass up the opportunity to put the nie sect’s beast as the lion. 9 the hermit My thoughts immediately went to bssr lol. It may be an overly literal interpretation but whatever, i like it just fine. And i like that i managed to echo the rider-waite silhouette in the mountain and the tree (and even in bssr herself) 10 wheel of fortune God i love the parallels between these 2… this card to me is about how you cant trust your current situation, good or bad, to last forever, and these 2 embody that perfectly imo. Wwx went from son of a well off servant and a powerful cultivator, to street rat orphan, to adopted son of sect leader jiang, to double orphan, to MIA, to terrifying but admired warrior, to terrifying and despised traitor, to dead, to, at the very end, suddenly respected and trusted again. The dishonesty and cheapness of whatever the public’s current opinion of him is is portrayed beautifully as far as im concerned. And jgy of course claws his way up to power only to instantaneously become public enemy number one, to the point that he’s probably blamed for stuff there’s no reason to believe he had a hand in. Wei wuxian’s silent astonishment at how quickly the cultivation world turns against jgy and towards him again is a delicious moment of thematic resonance.  11 justice I settled on this card for jc after he got booted from the emperor seat but i do think it fits, in a somewhat convoluted way. I turned both the sword and the scales into visual representations of the golden core transfer (can you tell im obsessed with it). According to biddy tarot, the justice card is partly about searching for the truth, and the scene where jc finds out about the transfer is of course a big deal. I was also very influenced by the reversed meaning again - which is about being reluctant or unwilling to face or accept the consequences of your actions. I feel on an intuitive level that this fits jc but I’m not sure how well i can explain it - it’s something about how he’s a little too comfortable scapegoating wwx for things that were also, if much less so, influenced by his actions, and also something about the way he keeps wwx at an arm’s length emotionally but still leans on him and accepts his support when he really needs it, and somewhat hypocritically expects wwx to put the needs of him and the jiang sect before the needs of others. And also something about the core exchange is the consequence and proof of wwx’s deep - terrifyingly deep, even - love and care for him, which is something jc doesn’t seem to let himself acknowledge. Maybe even something about how you could argue that the way all of the jiangs acted around wwx - jfm’s favouritism that left him with the feeling of a debt he needs to repay, mme yus insistence that he be a servant more than a brother to jc, prepared to give his life for jc, and jc’s own unwillingness - or inability, he was a child after all - to clearly acknowledge wwx as an equal to himself, enabling wwx’s self sacrificial and protective tendencies - that all of this was what caused wwx’s complete and unquestioning willingness to do whatever it took to protect jc, and therefore paved the way to the golden core transfer. And i don’t mean this to be scapegoating jc - especially considering how young he was when this all went down, it wouldn’t be fair to expect this level of emotional perceptiveness, awareness and maturity of him - but i think adult jc has to grapple with the fact that the chain of cause and effect was not as simple as wwx fucking everyone’s lives up to be a martyr, and that both jc and his parents had a role in that story as well. I don’t even necessarily think this is something that jc only realised in the current timeline - i think it’s something he felt on some level this whole time, and it probably led to a lot of feelings of guilt - but the suibian reveal definitely puts it in sharp focus, and i think he’s now better equipped to handle this introspection than he was as a recently orphaned, traumatised teenager, lol. ANYWAY the window with the fabric is both a nod to the rider-waite design and a reference to the destruction of lanling - i actually did some basic ass research for this, and it seems that in ancient china fabric would indeed be hanged in a window if the normally used paper was damaged. The design of the window, as well as the very idea to use it to imply the reconstruction of lanling, was taken from this great piece of jc angst by my pal moroll1! Oh yeah also the covered window kind of works as a denial of forgiveness for jc because it’s like a halo but covered up... Also I completely forgot to put a blindfold over his eyes which would be perfectttt because blind justice and the core exchange......... ok moving on 12 the hanged man I always have issues with this card because i cant find a satisfactory summary of what it’s really about. Best i can tell it symbolises a need to hit pause, surrender or let go of something… ive also seen it tied to sacrifice? So mo xuanyu doesn’t fit perfectly, but sacrifice is definitely there in a surface level reading kind of way, and the idea that you have to surrender or let go in order to achieve your goal does fit the whole deal of getting revenge but giving up your life in exchange and not being there to see it 13 death This is probably one of my favourite cards, definitely not because I have huge issues with change or anything…. I see this card as signalling the necessity of change or putting an end to something / leaving something in the past in order to start anew? At first i considered putting past wwx, mxy and current wwx here as a kind of transformation and one cycle flowing into the next... But firstly, I’d already used mxy in the very previous card, so putting him in again would feel like overkill, and secondly, the longer I thought about it the less convinced I was that this would even fit with the card’s meaning? Because coming back from the dead doesn’t like... trigger an internal transformation within wwx or anything? Anyway, fun fact: the design I ended up going with was actually originally intended for judgement! I thought I was being very clever with the whole “figure plays an instrument and the dead rise” parallel, but apparently I’d just completely forgotten that the judgement card had a completely different composition... Truly I was boo boo the fool... But yeah anyway at the end of the day I figured the design would kind of work for death as well, with Wen Ning and the theme of transformation, (since in his case coming back as a fierce corpse does actually mark a certain transformation in behaviour) and Wei Wuxian’s protection of the Wen people essentially signifying an attempt to break the cycle of oppression if that makes any sense? Like, wwx is trying to revolutionise the way the world works a bit, if you catch my drift 14 temperance  The centrist card! Again this is probably going off track from the “official” interpretation, but to me this card has a certain “don’t commit fully; do everything in moderation; don’t take either side” flavour to it that i personally find infuriating irl and that i very much assign to lxc. It’s entirely possible that I’m misinterpreting his character because i didn’t really pay him (and the 3zun in general) much mind while reading, but hell, I’m allowed to pick favourites and choose who i want to interpret deeply vs shallowly. Again, i wish id chosen lqr for hierophant because its so annoying for a character i don’t care about to get two cards…. But oh well 15 the devil My alternative idea for this was jgy as the devil and lxc plus nmj as the figures, but since all three had been featured already (multiple times, even!) i figured I’d go with xy instead, especially since he’s among my faves lol. I think the devil signifies something along the lines of unhealthy attachment, obsession or addiction, which isn’t 100% accurate in the case of xxc and a-qing, but if i stretch it a bit to cover toxic relationships in general, and especially manipulation or negative influence, i don’t think it’s half bad. My main struggle here was to choose who amongst the xxc/sl/aq trio to choose for the human figures. 16 the tower Arguably jin zixuans death and the following massacre of nightless city were the final and most direct reason for the siege of burial mounds, and the tiger seal is good shorthand for wwx’s loss of control over his powers, which led to the deaths of jzx and jyl. When reimagining major arcana i like to feature some kind of building in this card (spoilers for a possible future project but in my rose of versailles major arcana set the tower is bastille) and even if it’s not a tower, the image of wwx looming over the gathered crowd from atop a rooftop is so good i couldn’t resist 17 the star Struggled with this one - considered both jin ling and lsz for it, as symbolising a hope for the future, but that was kind of covered by the world so it wouldn’t make sense to include here as well... As usual when I struggle with interpreting a card (as opposed to understanding it but struggling with matching a character to it, like with death or moon) I went to biddy tarot and read all the details about its meaning. What i got was that this card signifies an incoming period of introspection and inner peace following a time of turmoil, as well as a general moving on into a new, better phase of one’s life or finding new meaning and purpose. The figure also suggests someone vulnerable, but possessing a keen sense of intuition as well as a good degree of practicality and common sense. Given all those, I settled for mianmian because IM LOVE HER..... I also kind of see her as a prelude to the “just one person is enough” theme present in tgcf!! And i think her decision to abandon her sect because she saw the toxicity and corruption in it is a very inspiring action - even if it didn’t make a large visible impact, i think the appearance of her and her idyllic family at the very end of the novel - paralleling and mirroring wangxian - implies that at the end of the day, it was a meaningful one 18 the moon Another card i ALWAYS fuxking struggle with - this time less because i can’t grasp its meaning and more because I can never find a character that fits it well. I usually get fixated on the “dreams and subconscious” part, but if i lean more on the “disguise, deceit, anxiety and fear” part, i eventually figured the whole yi city arc wouldn’t be a bad fit. I say the entire arc because it really does encompass all those themes if you include both the past and the present - xue yang’s disguise, his tricks with the villagers, a-qing’s lies and even xxc’s reluctance to talk about his past as well as xue yang pretending to be xxc all fit the disguise and deceit angle, and the general mystery and creepiness of the current timeline yi city work well with the anxiety and fear - the mist, the slow uncovering of the past, even a-qing being revealed to be an ally after scaring the shit out of the protags. I definitely struggled with including all the elements and characters, and even moreso with making them vaguely fit the rider-waite composition, but i think it ended up okay ish. OH and i completely forgot to draw mist swirling around them :( 19 the sun I was considering mianmian’s family for this one, but since I used her for star, I ended up with wwx and his parents instead. Once again I’m reinterpreting the card a bit - normally I think it symbolises incoming times of pure happiness and abundance, as well as a connection with the inner child, but I gave it more of a nostalgic or sentimental twist - wwx looking back at the brief glimpse of his happy childhood. 20 judgement another card that i struggle to interpret a bit... Here i actually used the tgcf tarot zine as a reference! In it judgement is summarised as “rebirth, following duty, absolution” SO i figured that nhs, mxy and wwx all together would fit pretty neatly... wwx achieving (public) absolution through clearing his own name after being reborn, and nhs sort of calling on wwx to expose jgy’s crimes... It’s a bit messy but not bad I think! 21 the world This ties very closely to my read on mdzs as a story - which is that it’s, at the end of the day, largely about cycles, and about how hard it is to break them, but how we gotta keep trying and have hope anyway. Or maybe more precisely, that the people directly involved with and influenced by the trauma of the past might not be able to get over said trauma and that the hope for healing from it will be shouldered by the new generation. Or something like that… Basically what i mean is that jc and wwx and lwj and lxc and nhs and jgy and all these people who were in the thick of the sunshot campaign and the siege are so profoundly affected by it that it genuinely feels by the end of the story like there is little hope for them to ever truly overcome that trauma and build a better future without repeating the same old mistakes - but there is a glimmer of hope in the new generation, specifically in jl and lsz. And it’s a bit paradoxical, because they have also been directly impacted by the past tragedies - lsz having his entire clan wiped out after wwx failed to protect them, jl losing both his parents to wwx’s mistakes - but despite that loss, and despite coming from arguably the two opposing sides of the past conflicts, they are both, in the end, capable of moving past that tragedy, of recognising the complicated nature of those conflicts (jl’s moment of clarity at the end is both heartbreaking and hopeful) and forging friendships between clans in the process. I honestly think that the extra where jl is struggling to assert his authority as sect leader, to treat his subjects well and to cooperate with other sects in a truly amicable way is the single hopeful ending note for the larger themes of the novel - it allows us to imagine that maybe these kids can learn from the mistakes of their elders rather than getting sucked in by resentment at those mistakes, and actually build a brighter future for the cultivation world. And sidenote, this is also why i have a soft spot for jin ling and lan sizhui as a ship... speaking of which their poses were directly referenced from the lovers card ehehe

Looking back, I’d like to add some symbol of jin ling’s trauma so that it mirrors baby wen yuan in the tree stump... maybe his father’s sword?