#anyways the line was so funny to me I know it didn’t elaborate on it much but I couldn’t help but picture this scene

[shroomerr]

minor spoilers for @mantequillamcwhoremick ‘s fic Chaos Plan, Chapter 20!!

How I pictured that one moment in chapter 20 when Kenny spotted Kyle and Stan

[legally-allowed-to-slime]

been receiving asks in various degrees of seriousness (you guys are very nice) so i might as well elaborate on galaxy duo before any actual toxicity leaks in

first of all. i could care less if you love galaxy duo and think they’re fluffy and cute. there’s only so much objective interpretation you can draw from literal cubes, so at a certain point it’s just your biases forming your opinions, same way you can’t build a house with two bricks. personally, i found them interesting, my interest dipped slightly in the latter half of WL, but who knows? their dynamic could change if/when there’s a new season.

a disclaimer in advance: if it wasn’t already apparent by the asks (anyway the only people who will see this are people who were following me already but this is jic), i am a pearl main. i don’t watch scott because i don’t like the editing. therefore my takes are exceedingly biased but so is pearl, so there’s that.

let’s talk about their dynamic pre-WL. for LL, i’ll accept that they were a cute wholesome duo. i didn’t watch LL so i can’t really say anything, but from what i’ve heard they were your regular alliance. and then in DL. well. the Horrors. i’ve said a lot about DL already so we’re going to settle and say, pearl absolutely deserved to be mad at scott. abandoning her and not even considering a polycule was not very open minded of him

anyway throughout LiL and SL she’s still angry at him and wants to kill him, which again, i find fair because of the tilly death do us part sacrifice (i invite you to rethink the implications of that line paired with what he did next. essentially saying “we break up when one of us dies” and then killing yourself. ?).

and then add in the element of gem in SL. trust me she’s relevant. gem and pearl have a thing going on, scott doesn’t like it because he sees it as gem nearly leaving their alliance for his ex, but still, because gem is Gem, he holds back on giving her the jimmy/pearl/joel treatment and still tries to be nice to her.

WL begins. it’s a lot. gem doesn’t like pearl because she viewed it as a betrayal and also she finds it funny to play around with her like that. scott doesn’t like pearl. pearl doesn’t like scott.

this is where it starts to get contentious, but also a hill that i will die on: the Gs were absolutely toxic, at least for the first four episodes. i don’t really feel like pointing out all the clips of the pointed comments, the veiled insults, the DIRECT QUOTE of “we’re a family whether you like it or not”, so i’ll use two examples, one for scott, one for pearl.

pearl borderline sold her alliance out. mumbo and skizz came up to pearl, explicitly told her that they were trying to kill her allies, and she not only agreed but engaged in friendly conversation with them for the entirety of their hiding. when the rest of the Gs came back (even joel commented on how pearl was alone at the base), mumbo even helped pearl cover up.

this is not normal alliance behaviour, and definitely not normal pearl behaviour. if pearl was happy in the alliance she wouldn’t have practically invited two would-be murderers to kill her allies. neither is she unjustified with how scott and cleo dismissed her feelings from DL. look, pearl is one of the most loyal lifers, to the point she faced a messy breakup with gem. even to mumbo she was reluctant to trash talk scott or cleo, but still, she let them make the hole, because plain and simple, the alliance was toxic.

as for scott; scott was more friendly to gem than pearl. see, i told you she was relevant. this is less black-and-white than the mumbo and skizz trap, but in social terms it means a lot. it’s like your bestie siding with your ex instead of you, which if you think about it was exactly what was happening. scott spouts a lot about loyalty, but he thinks about it very plainly: loyalty is killing yourself for your ally. but in fact what he did was push the “antagoniser” narrative onto pearl and reinforce and encourage it. gem said an inch, he said a mile.

not to say gem wasn’t the one who created it in the first place, but as pearl’s ally, scott’s first reaction shouldn’t have been to side with gem (he admits to pearl that he doesn’t know what she did, but that based off gem’s reaction he just assumes that pearl did something wrong, despite KNOWING that gem has beef with pearl from SL and is thus an unreliable narrator). as pearl’s (and impulse’s, but to a lesser extent because impulse kind of deserved it for going on about the cows) ally, he shouldn’t have brought it up at the start of every session and result in pearl defending herself furiously before he dragged pearl and impulse to apologise to gem.

this is not up for debate. wl!pearl did nothing to gem, or to anyone. scott tried to convince her to apologise to gem, for nothing. again, even gem points this out to pearl, and because pearl is loyal to a fault, she says that scott’s her ally.

anyway. the Gs were toxic for at least the first four episodes, full stop.

here’s where it starts to derail slightly (for me, at least): the sacrifice. but, you know, let’s examine the circumstances a little closer. as background information, pearl was the only yellow/red whose allies didn’t try to get them a kill. like, the Gs’ approach to gaining lives is not to kill others but to spend one session doing nothing before the guy with the most lives offers to kill himself. strange. lots of issues, these two.

anyway, scott offers the sacrifice, and pearl’s initial reaction is to refuse. the alliance talks it through, and decides it would take the target off scott’s back and give pearl a life. pearl and scott have pretty similar playstyles, in that while they do engage in more rp than say, grian or jimmy, they are also, in a way, sweats. the sacrifice was discussed logically, practically, and it turned out to be a logical decision because without it pearl would’ve permadied a few sessions too early.

here’s where i was a little thrown off, by the presenting that this would be somehow cathartic (iirc, scott uses this exact word) because pearl finally gets to kill scott. it’s funny because pearl does admit while they’re going back to base that she would’ve preferred a 1v1, but i don’t think her deal was ever over that she wanted scott to die. sure, she wanted scott dead, but it was because she didn’t have agency in the dl finale. in the same way, the WL sacrifice isn’t exactly because she really wanted the life (she refused it at first), or because she wanted to kill scott so badly (she said she wanted a 1v1), but mainly because both parties recognised that it was the most sensible decision to do in the circumstances that they were in (scott was dark green, pearl needed a life). to me, it didn’t address pearl’s lack of control over the season that she won, or scott’s distrust of pearl.

but whatever. they act friendly for the rest of the season, because technically their story’s been resolved, so there’s no aggression to be acted out. nothing galaxy duo there.

the ONLY OTHER thing of note is the?? matching hoodie?? not on my bingo card at all. i’ve spoken about it in some ask before but it’s just so random to me? like it never went anywhere, and i don’t see why scott wanted to match red hoodies with her anyway. like why her, specifically? pearl hadn’t killed anyone besides martyn, and that was to avenge her allies. they never address this so i suppose this lack of logic is what spurs on the majormoon truthers; that scott loves pearl so much that he wants to match with her so they can be like a #dynamicduo or something.

uhhhhhhhh. i dunno. it’s just so random and again, because it’s never brought up besides pearl’s cursory “oh, we’re matching” (which we now know was planned because scott asked for permission when getting the skin), it doesn’t have any narrative significance to me. maybe scott explains it in his video. idk

anyway, my problem was how a duo with so much bad blood (>3 seasons), to the point that they were at each other’s throats while in the same alliance, was just kinda. rushed? look, i know the life series isn’t scripted, and the players just have to make do with whatever improv they can do, and i do think scott and pearl did the best with what they had, but personally i was hoping that they wouldn’t go the “pearl finally forgives scott! yay scott for sacrificing!” route because it’s pushed under the rug so suddenly in the hopes of achieving any sort of closure.

again, ccs are fine, i think they were great, i wasn’t a big fan of how the story was handled. that’s it

[damthosefandoms]

ELABORATE ON UR SODA POST i love hearing ppl talk about him

(this is about this post which flopped for NO REASON btw it was really funny you guys are just mean)

So basically what it all boils down to is less about the joke of “Soda’s a virgin” and more about the fact I have this idea in my head that he tells Darry everything (which I touched on a little in that one fic I wrote that I’m shamelessly plugging here) and he lies his ass off to everybody else so that he can fit in. because idk, he’s a teenage boy. there’s a lot of toxic masculinity going on in this story lol.

Why do I think this? oh, you know. lines like “Soda smokes only to steady his nerves or when he wants to look tough.” Like how he smokes when he goes to try to talk to Pony about Sandy.

The thing is, even Pony points it out in a very roundabout way; I know Pony is an unreliable narrator, but Darry then admits to not realizing how upset Soda was, so it’s really intriguing to me that Pony implies that he thinks if something was up with Soda that Darry would know, because Darry is Soda’s big brother and he’s going to his big brother for advice about this kind of thing. unless there’s been a lot of other stuff going on at the same time to talk about first. Which leads me into this:

“Why didn’t he tell you? I didn’t think he’d tell Steve or Two-Bit, but I thought he told you everything.”

Of course Darry thinks that Soda tells Pony everything, because he’s Soda’s confidant, you know? Soda tells him everything and has probably mentioned wanting to open up to Pony too but that he has trouble with it. And, I mean. “Soda’s a virgin” LOOK.

Steve—and presumably Two-Bit because he’s in the room here—are under the impression that Sandy’s baby is Soda’s. Soda blushing and looking down isn’t embarrassment because “he got a girl pregnant” it’s because he knows he’s lied to his friends and now the story is spreading to Ponyboy and he’s ashamed of lying to Ponyboy because he wants to be honest with him, but he has trouble doing that and he can’t tell Pony the truth with everyone around anyway.

But Darry changes the subject. Calls Soda by that nickname. Because he knows.

And then let’s talk about the line there where Pony says Soda “was no innocent.” That Soda brags with the guys all the time about what he’s done with girls but never about Sandy! Sandy, the first girl Soda’s ever fallen in love with! The first girl he’s ever been serious about! But we know when Soda is around the guys that he’ll do things he doesn’t normally do, like smoke. Darry doesn’t think he’d tell Steve or Two-Bit that he’s not the father. But why would Soda be so shy about it to the guys if he brags about girls all the time? Unless he’s full of shit and never did most of the stuff he bragged about?

And. “He told me he loved her, but I guess she didn’t love him like he thought she did, because it wasn’t him.”

Here’s my theory: there weren’t really paternity tests back in the day, and if there were tests, I mean—you can’t really do that until the baby’s born, you know? And even if you could do you really think Soda or Sandy are gonna have money to figure it out?

How would they possibly know for sure that Soda wasn’t the father? The only way you could know he’s not is if he wasn’t sleeping with her.

“Don’t tell Darry, but I think I’m gonna marry her. After she gets out of school and I get a better job and everything.”

“She didn’t love him like he thought she did.”

“He wanted to marry her but she just left.”

think about how they live in a bible belt state and the time period and the fact that we know the Curtis family went to church once upon a time and how maybe the boys wouldn’t be religious enough to have it affect their views on a lot of things but there’s some… more specific values their parents might to try to get them to stick to considering how they ended up where they did and try to tell me I’m wrong.

Soda wanted to wait for marriage and Sandy… didn’t.

[ceilingfan5]

"Yeah I’m fully understanding the murder part, just not why you’re the one who needs to solve it??"

“So you’re not like, a cop? You gotta tell me, you know, legally you gotta tell me, if you’re a fuckin’ cop, my man.” Taako folds his arms, his shirt with the piñata fringe making this look a lot less serious than he intended. 

“I swear to you, I am not a cop,” Detective Kravitz says. “See, it says so, on my business card.” He hands Taako a business card with shiny red lettering on matte black, KRAVITZ. Private Detective for Hire. Not a cop. 

Taako flips it over. On the back is a glossy magnifying glass, highlighting his phone number. Taako snickers and pockets it. He tugs his holographic cargo skirt back up and squints at Kravitz. Kravitz poses awkwardly, trying to look serious, but not too serious, but not too unprofessional. Dork. Taako wants to eat him.

“Yeah, okay. You’re too stylish to be a cop.”

Kravitz beams, which makes Taako feel really warm suddenly. He shouldn’t be blushing. He kind of forgot he still could. 

“Anyway, I was wondering if you had any-”

“Hot clues, Scooby-doo?” Taako teases. He hops up to sit on the counter and surveys his thrift store kingdom. He crosses his legs, and watches Kravitz catch an enticing flash as he kicks his legs up. That’s right, dork, look. Look allll you want. 

“Ah, I was going to say insight, any insight into the murders committed outside your loading dock last night?”

“Aw shit, there were murders? I’m gonna barf.” Taako tries really hard to look distressed. This is sort of difficult, because he was the one who sort of exsanguinated those assholes. And they didn’t even taste that good. 

“I,” Kravitz blinks, taking out a notebook, and pulling a sleek black pen from behind his ear. God, this idiot is cute. It isn’t fair. “I was under the impression you were the one who called it in?”

“Um, nah,” Was he? Fuck. No, no, uh, he made someone else do it. Who was working this morning. “I think Magnus found ‘em, he was pretty shocked.” 

“Oh, sorry, I thought-” Kravitz scrawls something on his dumb little notebook. “Remind me your name, then, if you don’t mind?”

“Taako,” Taako says, instantly regretting not choosing an alias. He is sort of wearing a nametag, though. Not that he has to cooperate with this investigation. “Do we really have to talk about this? I feel like I’m going to pass out.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Taako, but I’m trying to solve this murder.” 

"Yeah I’m fully understanding the murder part, just not why you’re the one who needs to solve it?" 

“Well,” Kravitz puts down his notebook, pausing. He chews something over in his head. “I don’t want to say anything untoward about the police, but,” and then he looks at Taako pointedly, and Taako snorts. 

“Yeah, I mean, you’re right, but weren’t they like. Trying to break into the place? They-” Whoops, don’t incriminate your own dumb vampire ass! “Magnus said they had guns?” 

“Good to know,” Kravitz says, pointedly writing something else down. Taako sweats. He smells really good. Like, really good. Why the fuck does he have to be playing Inspector Gadget? Can’t he come keep Taako warm at night instead? 

“Anyway, I gotta put out some more inventory. Treasure Adventure isn’t gonna thrift itself.” And he hops off the counter. Kravitz looks at him, mouth a funny line. 

“Taako, are board games with missing pieces and bead purses from 2005 more important than lives, snuffed out, by some kind of murderer?” 

“Lot of other kinds of people snuffing out lives these days?” Taako snaps. “You wanna say monsters or dickheads next?” 

“Taako, is there anything you want to elaborate on?”

“No, I don’t think there is,” Taako says firmly. “Maybe I’m just feeling unsafe in my workplace, asshole, you ever think of that? It’s terrifying to- be- here! I gotta keep selling garbage? For minimum wage? Where something like that happened! What if those guys were coming to stick the place up and I was the one that got murdered, would you be as persistent about that case, Columbo?” 

“Yes,” Kravitz says, eyes wide. His heart is pounding more about the awkward situation than it was about the dead bodies. He has a little arrhythmia. It’s kind of cute. “Of course I would.”

Taako throws his hands in the air and exclaims wordlessly, and marches off, which is the only way he saw out of the conversation. Kravitz, to his credit, stands there looking sweaty, and then goes to bother another employee instead. 

Taako hides in the breakroom and pretends he doesn’t feel weird about it. He pretends he doesn’t care about it at all. 

Funny, how things might have been different if someone had cared to look into what happened when he died. 

But he doesn’t want to think about that. He wants to think about seducing that trenchcoat-wearing loser away from the lawful side. Yeah, that’s it. For sure.

[garagepaperback]

mistake

Malfoy’s a giddy drunk, giggly, a lot of energy. A lot. He can’t get hard the fourth time and insists they try some healing instead. He actually calls it that.

Cross-legged in bed, the lists are drawn up (he’s not embarrassed at all about it. He kisses Harry sloppily anyway, bleary, sighing oh well into his mouth. He slides two fingers in there too despite there being very little vacancy left - Harry's mouth is already quite full with Malfoy’s tongue and all the incessant talking. It’s unreasonably hot and if Harry wasn't equally rat-arsed, he probably would’ve been desperately hard about it.) after Malfoy comes back from finding a biro and a half-wet quill somewhere, even though this is Harry’s flat. 

Malfoy makes himself laugh twice and finishes first which surprises Harry none at all. He's barely made it to third year when Malfoy shoves his scrap of notebook paper down, covering Harry's. The quill punched through the page in some areas; using the mattress as a desk probably hadn’t been the best idea, but then again, the same could be said for every inch of the whole thing. 

Harry looks down.

The bathroom

Stealing my wand

quidditch

dying

6th year (bathroom)

It looks like he’s spent the majority of his time drawing little diamonds for the bullet points. They are, by far, the most elaborate thing on the page. Harry says, holding it up to his face. “You wrote bathroom twice."

“You fucked up twice,” Malfoy replies haughtily, a little bit laughing. His face is so pink. Like frosting begging to be licked off. “You didn’t do something and then you did do something. That’s two,” he holds a fist up to his mouth, blinking. It takes him a moment, maybe, to remember, “wrongs.”

The word 'quidditch' is closer to a hippopotamus-shaped smudge than to language itself. Harry puts the paper to the side and goes to grab for his own but Malfoys beat him to it. 

He does a shit impression of reading - he actually moves his head back and forth as he goes (Harry’s written: ‘bullying Ron’, ‘making fun of me’, ‘being racist toward Hermione’, ‘being a classist fuck’, ‘being a blood supremacist fuck’, ‘bootlicking’ ‘actively upholding a power structure you know hurts people just because it was beneficial for you’. Or, with the last one, he’s made the attempt. After power it sort of just dissolves into a wiggly, vaguely disappointed line.).

There’s barely enough time for him to get through half of it and Malfoy says “Pfft,” before he tosses the page off to the side. It floats gently down and stays quite near them both.

“You can’t just pfft this stuff.” Harry says, alarmed that he is sort of finding it funny. "It happened."

“I know that.” Malfoy says, and pats Harry's unfinished list condescendingly. “We can just keep it over here. We both know already - we don’t have to.” He makes a circular gesture, loopy, elegant hand, like, around and around. He gestures at the crumpled page again. "Those are just things that happened a long time ago." He looks far too pointedly at Harry, staring, and lifts a finger in the air. It lands on Harry's nose. "This is an alive thing. Happening."

A little baffled, lost and still ambiently turned on, Harry insists, “What about healing or whatever."

But Malfoy's already crawling over and on top of him, the pages a crux crunching under his knees. He does a clumsy and frustratingly hot job of kissing him. An alive thing, all over.

for day 23 of @microficmay

[cadavpurr]

ok here’s why I think that molly and the tardigrade might actually be the same character. very very big spoilers under the cut

from the moment that the tardigrade is introduced to us, we are given the information that despite him being immortal, he has awful memory. he doesn’t remember anything beyond the fact that he’s the owner of the museum of everything, and he’s supposed to be documenting everything that’s ever existed, even through he’s also forgotten a lot of what he’s documented too… he’s not frustrated by being forgetful though, he’s just kind of accepting of it.

“yeah, but most of these books aren’t important. or, just unsorted or something. that’s why they’re in the junk pile. see, like this?… *why do I even have this? did I make this? who knows!*” - the tardigrade, chapter 41.

the tardigrade relatively lax demeanor towards his own flaws is something that he actually has in common with molly, especially how they act in the comics first and second arc. I don’t really think I need to elaborate on how little molly really thought of themself in the earlier comic because arc 2 really makes sure that you understand… something something “lazy idiot and im happy that way”.

it may seem like mollys issues regarding their memory didn’t appear until chapter 44, but in chapter 38, she talks to leaf about how she can’t remember anything about seeing her future selves from her pasts point of view. she refers to her life before working at the museum to be a blur together in her memory. that’s 26 years of not remembering anything from her personal life. molly and the tardigrades lapses in memory is actually the most important part of this theory, they’re the only two characters that have this trait brought up multiple times throughout the story… it’s almost weirdly emphasized in a way.

alright this next part is like. a REALLY big hypothetical, and it’s also kind of hard for me to explain properly but hear me out here. what if your physical appearance at the end of time is based solely on how you perceive yourself? i genuinely have no “real” evidence for this beyond the tardigrades height inconsistencies. check how tall he is in chapter 2 vs how he’s mollys height in chapter 46 it’s kind of funny. sorry that was mean LOL. but anyways im saying this because I had this thought: when Jo and leaf eventually die, mollys going to be left alone with the tardigrade for a nearly incomprehensible amount of time. there’s a line of dialogue or a post that peyton made, I can’t remember which but ill come back to update this later when I find it, where the tardigrade explains how they find more stuff to put in the museum. he just goes out into the end of time and wanders until he finds something, and sometimes it takes *years.* so what if one day he just goes out and doesn’t come back? without the tardigrade, Molly won’t have anyone to remind them about who they are, or where they came from. the only thing they’ll be able to remember is that they’re immortal, and they’re in charge of the museum. so they turn into the tardigrade… thus making the story a loop. fucked up ain’t it.

(you could also make the claim that the tardigrade was never an actual tardigrade to begin with and it’s just a weird costume from one of those remotes but idk i like this idea better.)

there’s plenty of other instances of Molly and the tardigrade being eerily similar to eachother though. probably more than I can currently remember (it’s been a second since I reread mfm in its entirety) but this is one that always comes to mind when I talk abt this

anyways that’s all I can think of for now. ill come back to this later im tired lol… I didn’t know where to put this panel below but hey wouldnt this be cool if it was foreshadowing

[another-bad-driver]

As promised… Matsby!!

So a couple months ago, I was telling my mom about how I had just finished The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo because I really liked it. The conversation turned to “How would you expand on The Great Gatsby?”, and I had no real answer. My mom, however, came up with a concept almost on the spot:

How did Dan Cody become Dan Cody?

I asked her to elaborate because, of course, I was interested in what she meant. She said she thought it would be great if there was a prequel to Gatsby where we got to find out how Dan Cody gained all of his money. She kind of just wanted the life and times of Dan Cody. So we mused about that for a little while. And then it sort of… faded into oblivion for a month?

But last night, she told me that she’d been thinking about her “Dan Cody prequel” again, so often that she kept thinking it was canon. So, of course, I made her tell me everything she had in her head about it. And we built in a little extra lore together.

So, without further ado… welcome to the Gatsby novel my mom will never write!! (And… it’s not a Dan Cody prequel at all.)

So Dan Cody basically sets off a chain reaction when he takes in Jay. By this I mean Jay, after establishing himself and getting all the money he needs, becomes the mentor to another kid trying to make it.

And that’s literally all I know about Dan Cody because honestly my mom was really focused on the OC she created instead of Dan Cody

The OC is this kid who my mom calls “Matsby” and it’s pretty much short for “Mentored-by-Gatsby” cause she doesn’t actually have a name for him.

Anyway so Jay meets Matsby in England (literally I don't know why in England but that’s what my mom said) and pretty much just adopts him cause he’s like

“Whoa… Dan Cody mentored me… I can ALSO mentor a kid! I’m so glad Dan Cody taught me how to fit in with rich people so I can teach other people how…”

So Gatsby teaches Matsby how to act, how to “old sport”... you know. Basically from the ages of 14-19 Matsby is learning Life Skills from Jay and Wolfsheim.

Anyway so while the book is taking place, Matsby is like… somewhere else? Failing to fit in with other rich people? Concocting his own empire of bootlegging?

The point is he’s not in the picture because he’s on a trial business deal for the summer. Like an internship or something. I don’t know.

But Nick doesn’t even know about Matsby! So he can’t call him or anything for the funeral. So Matsby doesn’t even know about Gatsby’s death until Wolfsheim does, but Matsby doesn’t really know all of the details.

So Matsby mopes for a little while and then ends out that section of the story with something that implies there’s a promising future for him, even though Gatsby is gone…

ON TO THE NEXT SECTION!!

It’s been like 15 years. Matsby is VERY successful. He’s making money even though it’s the Great Depression. Everything is going great for him.

However, our least favorite couple (the Buchanans) is NOT doing so well… they lost a whole lot of their money to the market crash. Tom is given a tip to ask Matsby for help.

And you’d think this would be a point of contention, yeah? Matsby would refuse Tom? But Jay coincidentally just… didn’t really tell Matsby about why he was throwing all the parties. So Matsby doesn’t really have anything against Tom. He allows him into his ambiguous business. (Ambiguous because my mom didn’t actually name a line of business for Matsby…)

So Tom starts making money again, and he and Matsby are kind of pals. As much as you can be when you know one of you has the high ground.

Anyway one day Tom invites Matsby to come over for dinner to properly meet his wife and daughter. And so, at dinner, they start making conversation, and the night is going really well…Until Matsby off-handedly ends a sentence with “old sport”

Tom and Daisy just sort of look at each other funny for a moment and keep the conversation going in a marginally more awkward tone.

But a little later when Matsby does it a second time, Tom finally asks where he picked that up. Matsby tells him he used to know someone who said it often. Tom asks when Matsby knew this someone. Matsby tells him 15 years ago, before he died. Shot in his own pool.

Daisy and Tom really know they’re fucked then. But what can they do? Matsby’s their ticket to the luxurious life they want to stay in. Daisy makes a meaningless comment in an effort to distract from the silence, but the rest of the night is too careful, too tense.

And Pammy is just watching this all. She’s heard the whispers her parents think are too quiet for her to hear. She can piece together parts of the puzzle, but she doesn’t know all of what fits into where. Not yet.

Uhhh so eventually Matsby finds out that the Buchanans played a part in Gatsby’s death

He recruits Pammy and they’re basically pen pals (because she suspects her parents, too) while Matsby goes on a search for the truth about Gatsby

Because Pammy told Matsby about her mother’s cousin who used to be Gatsby’s neighbor (Nick)

So Matsby goes to track down Nick, but Nick refuses because he doesn’t want to revisit that summer and also because he doesn’t want to be indirectly responsible for the revenge Matsby is attempting to exact on the Buchanans

And that’s pretty much where my mom ended out. But I have my own ideas in this vein so like… stay tuned for part 2??

[lizhly-writes]

God, asking abt Yuhang made me remember the whole THING abt the mobster Haoran found KO'd on the street (bc last we saw Yuhang was when Haoran was??? Drugged???). Was there already a follow up piece to that or did I just have an elaborate fever dream abt Haoran getting this really poorly disguised stalker following him around? But honestly the way Haoran is (incidentally or otherwise) collecting the other male leads like pokemon is so funny to me.

AHAHA yeah that! I did, as it happens, write a followup. But it never made it to tumblr, and while I did play around with creepy stalker vibes, I was going to scrap it, since it didn’t quite vibe with what I was trying to plot out. I don’t believe you’re making this up from whole cloth though – I think you might be remembering bits from Chen Lihua’s stalker over here.

Well, we’re only at two love interests for Yang Haoran! Three, if you count Jiang Mingxi! Just enough for a Pokemon battle, but no more. I have not been planning on giving him more, but I will admit that I throw things in depending on whether or not I find it funny, soooo we'll see.

Anyway! Anyway!!! Your ask got me thinking about the followup again, so I started working on it. Here's a piece of it, under the cut.

Yang Haoran really thought he had successfully gotten away with it.  He’d been a bit nervous, but after a week with nothing out of the ordinary – well, more out of the ordinary than usual – he thought it would be fine to let his guard down.

He was so very, very wrong.

One day, as Yang Haoran was coming into work, he found a vaguely familiar man already at his desk, absently tracing fingers over the characters on Yang Haoran’s nameplate.

“...Hello, can I help you?” said Yang Haoran, whose memory for faces was not exactly the best.

It worried him that the man was vaguely familiar. Vaguely familiar meant that Yang Haoran had met him before, and he was a little too finely dressed to be a typical office drone – so, likely a higher-up that Yang Haoran had seen at a meeting or something similar.

Yang Haoran did not think there were very good reasons for a higher-up to unexpectedly be at his desk. Sure, Yang Haoran was a nepotism hire, so he couldn’t be fired, but nepotism only took you so far when the people who got you the position didn’t really like you very much in the first place.

“Was there a meeting this morning?” Yang Haoran said cautiously. “I don’t seem to remember getting an invite?”

“You saved my life,” said the man, and abruptly Yang Haoran figured out why the man looked familiar.  He looked a lot different under the office lights and not covered in his own blood.  

The first thought Yang Haoran had was, oh, good, I’m not in trouble.

The second thought Yang Haoran had was, I should have let him die. 

“What,” Yang Haoran said slowly, instead of fuck dammit, like he wanted to.

The man smiled. It was a nice smile, as far as smiles went, and Yang Haoran would appreciate it a lot more if it wasn’t caused by his own mistakes coming back to haunt him. “I’m sorry, I should introduce myself. I’m Wu Youxuan. You’re Yang Haoran.”

It wasn’t a question. Yang Haoran wished it was a question.

“Yes, I see you’ve read my nameplate,” Yang Haoran said. He should have left it home. It wasn’t as if It was a real nameplate, he wasn’t high-ranking enough for the company to actually give him one. No, this was a joke that Zhao Yuhang had presented to him, saying something along the lines of “You don’t think you’ll be important enough for people to know your name? But you’re so important in my heart, A-Hao! Everyone should know who you are!”

...Anyway.

Yang Haoran smiled – pleasant, professional, and puzzled. “I’m… not sure what you’re talking about. I think you might have the wrong person?”

Let no one say that Yang Haoran was a bad liar.

“Is that so? It’s just – your face looks very familiar. I was in, ah, a predicament a little while ago, and I could have sworn…”

“Are you sure it wasn’t someone who looked five to six points similar? Maybe I just have one of those faces.”

Yang Haoran knew for a fact that he did not have one of those faces. He was supposed to be a character worthy of the attentions of the female lead, capable of making the main character feel unworthy by merely existing. The young master of the Yang family, well-dressed, head high, hair swept out of his face, had an objectively striking appearance and presence, quite possibly aided by some plot-driven aura attached to his person.

The key was that Yang Haoran, messy-haired and with the style and demeanor of an average salaryman, didn’t.

[rambling-robot]

I have figured out Why Exactly something bothers me and will angrily elaborate on it.

TL;DR: I’m upset when people get mad at a pet for not perfectly understanding them, and especially when they also express surprise that a pet seems to have perfectly understood them.

I am bothered by people who give clear, enunciated instructions to their pets and then get genuinely upset when the pets do not obey to the letter. And I don’t mean, “the trained dog didn’t respond to the ‘sit’ command.” I am pulling from a very specific and recent scenario, where someone was playing with the cat (poking around the cat’s face, the cat was almost ready to swat their finger because she was excited and being poked at and that’s what happens) and they said, “I’m going to be mad if she bites me.”

yeah, man. she’s a cat, you’re poking at her, you’re playing, she’s gonna bite.

“No, I’m going to be mad if she bites me because then it’ll be because she’s angry. Playing is fine but I’m not going to tolerate angry biting.”

YOU. ARE PLAYFULLY POKING AT A CAT. A CAT THAT IS CLEARLY GETTING EXCITED. AND WANTING TO ENGAGE. WHAT? WHAT DO YOU WANT HER TO DO? POKE YOU BACK? ENGAGE IN WITTY BANTER? PULL OUT PLAYING CARDS? EITHER ACCEPT THE RISK OF BITING OR DON’T PLAY. SHE’S NOT A DOG. YOU CAN’T TRAIN HER TO NOT BITE YOU DURING PLAY LIKE YOUR PARENTS’ SHIH TZU. PARTIALLY BECAUSE PLAYING WITH DOGS INVOLVES TOYS THAT THEY ARE OTHERWISE OCCUPYING THEIR MOUTHS WITH.

And then. Then. The cat sniffs their finger, and gently bites it. And the person laughs and says, “Look at that! She must’ve understood what I said, because this isn’t angry biting. I’m surprised. She got me, haha!”

So you’re telling me. That you’re setting up arbitrary rules that the cat is not expected to understand in any real capacity, but she will be punished if she doesn’t adhere to them. But if she follows the rule she doesn’t know about, then it’s a “loophole” and you’re going to laugh, because she’s not really listening, that’s so funny to imagine!

And from the cat’s perspective? She’ll never know! Biting is okay! But only sometimes! If she ever gets the timing wrong—not that she’ll ever know the pattern—then she’s going to be smacked for it! By someone she rarely spends time with! (Pointing out that the cat is following natural behavior is considered “correcting” and “fact-checking.” And the other person only gets defensive and it won’t change what they’re doing/thinking.)

Maybe I’m just autistic and I’m projecting onto an animal. But you can understand why this bothers me, yeah? Why getting mad at a cat for breaking a rule she can’t possibly know is upsetting? When the cat is reacting to someone initiating play or intentionally irritating her and the response is to punish her because of what they’re doing?

Anyways. If you want a snuggly little lap cat to do nothing but cuddle with you and understand everything you’re expecting from it, don’t get a cat. They are individuals with varying personalities and if you get a cat thinking you’ll automatically have a cozy little friend, then you’re going to be disappointed. If you adopt a cat and also have to work all day, that’s fine, but don’t expect the cat to be your immediate best friend forever. Sometimes they are, and that’s awesome!!! I love fuzzy feline friends!!!! But don’t expect it. Don’t buy a cat because you’ve seen so many pictures and videos of other people’s cats.

And along the same lines, I also hope this person doesn’t have children. And that might sound really petty, but if you get irritated that your cat isn’t the precious perfect baby you hoped it’d be and now it’s forever banned from your room because of one accident, don’t have kids.

[valkyurii]

I thought the game was trying to reassure us actually xD In a manner like, "We know we've stated multiple times that Malenia is undefeated. But worry not. You'll be fighting a half-dead version of her! She's defeatable!"

I guess there's always room to argue how intentional the blooms are since it's vague enough. Though, my opinion is… hmm.. Regardless of whether Malenia actively chooses to bloom, I think significant feelings of despair will inevitably be present. Because it's only natural to despair on the brink of death, no? Unless she has zero survival instincts. And it's not as if she can find closure like Millicent. During the first bloom, she fights with purpose. During the second, she's not expecting a fight. In both cases, whyever would she instinctually willingly go down just because she's "not supposed to win"? Anyone else in her position would be resigned to carrying their resentments to the grave. But that doesn't happen for her since she harbours a parasitic time bomb which exploits the human condition. These are my current messy thoughts anyway. But I don't particularly care if she bloomed on purpose.

Maybe Malenia's combo of difficulty + novelty needs time for evaluating or adjusting to. Maybe that's why more people are coming round to her now. She's like an acquired taste in a way? Which also means some people just hold feelings of aversion towards her.

Sorry to give you an awkwardly late response. Sometimes I overthink what to say even when anonymous. Btw, my ask isn't an essay question with a limited word count :P rant if you wish. I enjoy reading your response. Thank you. And I too hope you're well.

Hey anon, so sorry for the late reply I haven’t been on here much this past week 😅

Oh you’re right though it could well be the game trying to reassure us I was mostly joking lol. What Gideon says about her being in the Haligtree, but potentially being dead would give us indication that she may not be in a good state when we get there. Also speaking of Gideon I always find it interesting how he never seems to elaborate much on her. There’s an option to ask about the others but not her or Mohg or Miquella. Mohg I get cause no one knows he’s the Lord of Blood. But I still think it’s funny how the All-Knowing knows nothing about the Haligtree or the twins. And then when we tell him about Miquella he’s like “maybe we should kill him because I do not want to be around if he wakes up”

I agree with what you say about the bloom. Despair seems to be a key factor according to Gowry and while I tend to take a lot of what he says with a grain of salt, he does seem to be on to something there. It certainly seems to be the case with Millicent given the two outcomes of her questline. I don’t doubt it would be the same for Malenia as well. During her fight with Radahn she was physically and mentally exhausted by the end, making it harder to fight off the rot, which we know takes a lot of willpower on her part. Then there’s the possibility of her failing to win the war. You put all that into perspective and it’s easy to see why she acted out of desperation like that. That feeling of despair is bound to set in. This is all just my speculation though as I know it’s a very controversial topic at this point. It’s hard to discuss these things at times as there’s so many people who think the war was over nothing and Malenia just threw a tantrum because she couldn’t beat the Big Man and she just wanted to maintain her undefeated status. It’s so funny I swear, if she didn’t have that line about never knowing defeat people wouldn’t be so upset over this.

"During the first bloom, she fights with purpose. During the second, she's not expecting a fight. In both cases, whyever would she instinctually willingly go down just because she's "not supposed to win"?"

Yeah this is something that’s always confused me with this fandom. Because I am genuinely curious as to how people think Malenia should have responded in either situations. People seem to think she should have let both Radahn and the tarnished win simply because it would have been easier for both us and him, instead of using everything at her disposal to try and take us both out. They act like she should have just lay down and died. I mean god forbid Malenia fights with everything she has. This is like that argument I saw a while ago that was like “why does Malenia attack us on site?” I mean are people really mad at that?? We break into her home and stand in front of her armed to the teeth looking for a fight. It’s hardly surprising she wants to kill us lmao. The amount of bosses that do the same thing and yet no one ever complains when Godfrey opens his fight by launching at us in a similar way.

Sorry this just turned into a rant post. I appreciate the message anon and again I’m sorry I took so long to reply and didn’t really have much to say <3

[icharchivist]

icha!! it’s been a while since I’ve sent one of these in but! I finally started summer troupe act 2! so. here’s my commentary lol. only gotten thru the first 8 episodes but so far my feeling is this: 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

that’s it. has anyone ever made the su(m)meragi pun yet. (I chose the first m in summer bc it’s the red m on tenma’s jacket)

ok for real this time I’ll go in chronological order but. I am naturally predisposed to like kumon I think bc seeing his sprite I immediately went oh I ADORE you in my head. like I saw him and was like YOU! I love you and I would kill for you. is that normal idc. also I had his bday card when I played a3 so special affection as he was the only rookie ssr I had. but it’s just! he’s just like :D how could I ever reject him?? he’s got such a lovely smile!!

these were the thoughts I had starting up and then. well and then I immediately bust out laughing bc.

me: nice to meet you kumon, my dearest, sweet summer child—

kumon, about natsugumi: “they only do comedy, right? no offense, but doing plays with nothing but stupid, empty gags sounds pretty lame to me.”

me: …ah. so you’ve chosen death, then.

just kidding I LOVE when characters r assholes. this doesn’t even make my initial impression wrong bc kumon is still such an absolute sweetheart but I think it’s so funny. immediately I was like. oh I cannot wait to throw tenma at him it would be hilarious. he’d take it as a personal challenge. and like he absolutely did so I was right lmao. juza chiding him immediately is very good. I do love how kumon is like banri hater #1 but speedruns his disinterest in like. 3 days it’s great. I just feel like even tho they’re very different ppl they actually would have things in common and hate to admit it. and kumon is like u have pretty hair! when he means to insult him lol. anyways the reactions to that comment r so good. yuki going “he sounds like a certain hack when he first joined” and then misumi doing an impression of tenma saying “im not a comedy guy” was sooo good, I definitely felt the voice was recognizably tenma even as I didn’t remember the line misumi was quoting so. that’s how u know it’s good.

I am sooo deeply interested in juza’s reluctance regarding kumon acting as well as how kumon brushes off his whole baseball team situation. like clearly it was more complex than him quitting. this is smthing I do have to say which is that I unfortunately got a little spoiled and so I know kumon has some kind of health issues, which I assume is the reason he quit. didn’t muku quit track and field due to a sports injury, too…? wild. but anyways the way kumon talks abt the baseball team and having that… settled is so. awkward and unsure and uncomfortable tho. made me remember like. ah. there’s a bunch of times I’ve not wanted to elaborate about suddenly fucking up something really badly, too…

idk. it’s very interesting bc juza clearly knows what’s up with kumon but seeing how he reacts to the baseball stuff I’m not sure if he knows… Everything? it makes me want to dig into their sibling dynamic a bit more

but then tenma steps in and invites kumon to the road show!! i clutched my heart I was like oh he’s come so far as a leader… sigh, even though summer troupe rightfully teases him, he’s quite reliable, isn’t he? im so going to extrapolate all of this into the tenma juza dynamic thoughts later ofc. but the way yuki and sakyo r both like “free labor” in response to tenma’s suggestion… adds one more point to my feeling that yuki probably has the like most financial knowledge regarding the troupe next to sakyo.

also ace pitcher for the baseball team!! that is really not something u just… quit. I am excited to see the full story there. it seems like kumon gets a lot of anxiety? which. extremely relatable i not only panic often but I can panic pretty hard. but tenma was so nice, being so oblivious like ah I bet u can’t sleep the night before a big trip! pfft. love that yuki knew he was looking up tourist info bc he could hear him muttering, but clearly since tenma didn’t know that he knew, it meant that yuki heard him and just. didn’t tell him to shut up. is he just used to ignoring tenma’s voice so he slept easily. idk.

like I said kumon and banri kinda feel similar in some ways to me. I rly love how they squabble. and that juza is like doing his own thing and they r like mutually fighting so jimins defense of his brother is kind of ineffective lol

i cheered when tenma was like oh guess I’m sitting with u kumon. and then I realized. ah. it’s rookie and leader as the leads. idiot. ofc they’re gonna set up a dynamic. the story was not responding to u wanting to throw tenma at kumon. (also, the train background also rly looks like an airplane?) but it’s been so long since I’ve seen the a3 kids and stuff that whenever tenma shows up I wanna reach through the screen and hug him. i love them.

also it’s so cute that kumon calls juza niichan. I get why the translation just has it as juza but. I can hear. and! kumon like almost immediately being proven wrong and apologizing was so fun. its also rly interesting to see how he’s sorta cautious and hesitant around tenma abt stuff while tenma is like. immediately nice! the kumon sprite when he’s nervous genuinely tugs at my heart so easily. it’s just like the side eye the uncomfortable vibes. please be okay. but I love seeing tenma be nice. like, kumon gushing over how cool juza is as lansky and then tenma praising juza’s fight choreography as due to his experience! he’s so. man he’s rly so. like it’s such a natural follow up to how very clearly tenma noticed and adored the specific quirks of his summer troupe in act 1… ofc he notices these things abt the other actors! not to get all teary abt it but. tenma… it’s kinda nice like this, yknow? to have someone that might be just excited abt what he has to say. although I love it when summer troupe teases him haha. but the way kumon was like oh wow! what was ur second play like! and tenma was like. we… we can talk about that later… like lmao no one wants to discuss sardine search.

again wild how ready kumon is to just square up with banri. I’m glad it did not actually happen. I was confused at first as to why kumon was to totally blown away by water me, and then I checked and it seemed like juza just came alone to see muku’s performance? tho muku obviously admires juza im kind of interested in exactly how close he was with kumon, since it doesn’t seem like they know each other That Well.

love how when homare is like let’s go to paris! for a road show, hisoka’s response is that it’s too far which is a pain. im taking the fact that he didn’t say anything else that he’s fluent in french and would be fine, so it’s literally just distance.

when kumon’s like asking to be tested to get in, juza tells him ”you can’t give up and quit in the middle like you did with your baseball team” which. I do think juza feels a lot of responsibility for mankai so I assume that’s part of him being a little harsh but I really feel the baseball thing is a bit more complicated. but yuki saying that kumon is tenmas responsibility… nice! honestly I was so surprised he actually had to ask to join natsugumi after he passed his audition bc like. I just assumed they’d adopted him already lol. anyways KUMON LIKES THE TRIANGLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they’re sharp and pointy like his brother! so sweet.

for the rehearsals kumons va was very good at showing how rough he is regarding acting! I feel like kumon in general has this like, overexcitement in his voice that rly bleeds thru like even when he’s improved a little? god I love the acting in this game. tenma coaching him was so good… the way like u could see kumon directly improve and then audibly smile when tenma complimented him… so sweet! tenmas gotten a lot nicer hasn’t he.

when igawa showed up I had a fear response just bc. I don’t like tenmas parents. I think tenma can deal with them fine but that doesn’t mean I like it for him. wish he wasn’t the lead. but an audition chance! very cool… the famed director that’s like known overseas is called shirasawa, and I have to wonder if that’s a reference to like. akira kurosawa films? like… kuro-sawa -> shiro-sawa -> shirasawa. just a thought lol bc he’s the only like. famous in the west japanese director i know, though the time period here is quite different. I made a lot of leaps. again kumon I feel is kinda hyper cautious? like he takes initiative to step back, worried he’s a burden, and then tenma is like. no. I’ll do everything I’m cool as hell. love him. also love chikage offering to set up covert bodyguards for him lol,, I rly feel like once he got over his this troupe is temporary I’m here to enact revenge! vibe he’s now like. ride or die for everyone lol. it is so funny to see yuki and tenma quietly talk to each other like. that’s… weird, right? subordinates? like it is so funny. outside of spring troupe how well does anyone sans hisoka know chikage.

I did like that when juza and muku were discussing kumons condition, juza being like. we’ll be there for him and let him make his own choices. development compared to when he was like muku stay away from me without even like. taking his feelings into consideration. the scene where kumon is like my brother has perfect abs and trying to. show them. he rly loves his brother lol. it rly got me tho when he was talking to muku and went “the closer I get to everyone and the more they help me out, the more I really want to become a part of this company” tho!! the translation didn’t specify but I definitely heard him say tenma-san and natsugumi so I checked yaycupcake and that’s who kumon specifies as “they”? which I thought was so sweet. I rly like their dynamic. my vision is kumon panics at some point, locks himself in the panic closet, tenma goes to find him, gets locked there too, and they don’t really even have a deep heart to heart but tenma falls asleep there and kumon is moved anyways bc he kind of understands how deeply he’s being cared for, to the point that even if he ducks up they still like him. tho I don’t know kumon’s exact issues.

was worried muku was gonna talk abt kumon’s condition to summer troupe secretly so I was very glad he just said he was pressured! which literally anyone could notice. and I thought it was cute how summer troupe cheered him on. the moment I read kazuko and I was like ah… they’re all cute girls! one more tick towards my “all female summer troupe play” vision. love sakyo being like he’s got a lot of drive unlike SOMEONE abt kumon. and banri is like yeah I wonder who…? it’s great.

and kumons audition!! he reminds izumi of sakuyas first moments!!!! thinking abt how tenma joined summer troupe due to a deep admiration of sakuya in the first place. thinking abt how he’s teaching kumon now. and tenma calling him “student of mine” love it.

juza: …

izumi: he looks happy that his brother passed the audition!

me: …I think you might need some expression practice, izumi

again it’s so funny that kumon has to ask to join natsugumi bc I had totally assumed he already pivoted there post-road show. still this is very cute. and it’s wild that tenma is like oh? like he’s surprised. like. it’s so obvious how much he likes u guys lol. once again tho kumon’s a bit hesitant abt it and tenma and natsugumi r all like hell yeah kumon welcome on board. paused here bc it seemed like a good place to take a break! I am… very excited for what comes next.

KIRIII HI!!!! it's been so long but it's always a pleasure <33 take your time always, but what a pleasure to see your takes again!!

AND HELP. Someone should definitely make that pun, it's right here. come on.

AND HELP. I'd say yes it's normal to love Kumon at first sight, he's just So Shapped. He has a lovely smile, he looks radiant like the sun, he's a ball of energy, he's just. Everything about him is SO endearing i adore him. I'm so glad you felt like that right away, he deserves all the love (and i'm so glad he kept you company in the a3 server when you were playing!)

DLKFJDLKFJDF WHAT A FIRST INTRODUCTION THEN LMAO.

But yeah Kumon really has a stellar introduction, he's sweet but the way he immediately dismises Summer is like. hold on. no wait you don't know them like we do hold on. and yeah i love how they point out right away that it's just like Tenma because, yeah! it's just like Tenma! and now everyone can clown on BOTH Tenma AND Kumon at once! congratulation everyone! But god yeah i love how Kumon immediately goes to Banri's throat and then mostly is chill around him. i love how he can't insult anything other than his hair and how Banri is genuinely more affected by Kumon's comments on his hair than if Kumon had thrown real insult. so funny.

aw waaa 🥺🥺 of course i won't say a thing about all that's going on with the Hyodo, i'll just confirm to you that yes, Muku did leave the track team because of an injury yes! But for the rest, there's still so much to discover. But also oof mood on the "not wanting to elaborate suddenly on something you fucked up" thing.

:3c looking forward your reactions to the whole Hyodo arc then.

BUT YES YES YES!! This chapter really shows Tenma's growth so well and the way he tries to work it out with Kumon (while at this point, while we know Kumon is the Summer rookies, no one knows it yet, so Tenma is just helping out just because!! Probably also seeing himself out of the whole anti comedy thing like "oh my sweet sweet summer child" (literally) it's so sweet).

and yeah so true i think Yuki is the one with the most knowledge on that front, aside from Sakyo of course.

eheheh :3c. AND HELPP YEAH!! Tenma is so sweet and i love again how his dynamic with Yuki shines through in that bit like. truly the roommates who know each other too well at this point. rip.

AND DLKFJDFKL. the Kumon&Banri&Juza dynamic really is hilarious.

but waaa so cute :sob: so true on the hugs though, they really seem so huggable, and Tenma especially is so good this chapter. Like yeah of course the leader/rookie dynamic is expected but it's so nice to see them go through it rather organically.

YEAAH i love how he calls Juza niichan too <333 the perks of being able to catch a few of the words in Japanese when spoken. AND YEAH… Kumon at least completely speedrun his "comedy is alright actually" bit that Tenma half denied most of his own arc god bless. and you're SO right about everything you say about Tenma. Like, it really showcase just how far he has come and how he came to really notice and appreciate the good quirks everyone can have and ahhhhh he's so good. and i love that he can be here for Kumon and while Kumon is uncomfortable for now (probably the mix superstar + "i kinda insulted his whole troupe's thing while now i see i was wrong" embarassment) it's really sweet to see how into it he gets when they talk about those things. and they should talk about the sardine search more. Dance kitty cat dance.

yeah Juza came alone to Water Me. Oh if ever you feel like it, there's Juza's New Year SSR ( " SSR - [Chilling Out at Home] - "New Year's with the Hyodo Family") in the Archive that is set before Kumon's arrival, which showcase a bit the Hyodo/Sakisaka relationship before Kumon joined Mankai. obviously won't say much more about Muku and Kumon.

DLKFJDFLKDF i love this. Everything is a good reason to read more into Hisoka's multilanguage attributes.

oh the whole Hyodo drama muah. I LOVE how the summer troupe immediately steps in for Kumon though :sob: they really did imprint him on him right away didn't they. AND YEAH ANOTHER TRIANGLE ENJOYER HELL YEAH.

YEAAH the voice acting in a3 is so good at conveying so much character in how good or bad the whole acting is, like, how much you can feel them, as actors, behind those lines. Kumon especially since he's the personification of the sun itself so he just spills out sunshine everywhere when he talks he's so cute. and i LOVe how good Tenma is with him, he improved so much and got so much nicer :sob:

mood for Tenma's parents. and! for the diretor, That's actually very likely, that'd make sense at least :o could be just a reference without it being supposed to be modern and all. god this arc is good. And YEAH FOR CHIKAGE. really went from "this whole company means nothing to me and i will burn it down" to "anyway what can i do for my precious company right now", best character development. AND HELPPP. Yeah, i assume outside of spring and winter people don't know Chikage much aside from "he bailed on us at some point and we all saw him date the director, what was up with that". Spring at least knew something was off with him and Winter knew something was off with Hisoka because of him. but for the rest?? Esp the kids??? god Chikage speedrunning from weirdo stranger to weird uncle is incredible.

Juza and Muku working together for Kumon's sake 🥺 it's really so cute and it does show how they evolved in term of problem solving with other people. Kumon is so cute. And yeah this is so sweet!!! Summer really is doing a number on him right away!! Like it's just really soft how, Kumon wanted to join the company for Juza, to be with Juza, and all of that and just… how quickly Summer grew on him that now he's kinda here for himself instead. and for those people who cheered for him then. It's so soft. I love your vision on how this arc would go aaa

Muku is handling the situation so well!! honestly he deals with Kumon's situation with so much care i almost forgot he was younger than him at a time, Muku really tries hard to take care of him as he can there as a senpai. AND HELL YEAH for the all female summer troupe play. They're all ready for this. dFLKJDFDF SAKYO. And Banri is that Garfield picture isn't it.

AND YEEEE ON THE IMPRESSION IZUMI HAS OF KUMON. associating him with Sakuya's enthusiasm and everything and having Tenma mentoring him… it's all very sweet.

AND HELP. hey maybe Izumi is right, we don't know (yet) what's in Juza's head! who knows!

AND RIGHT… Natsugumi really just took care of Kumon just because as if it wouldn't cause him to Be Attached just as quickly for it. it's so sweet.

Thank you once again for your detailled thoughts, it's a blast to read through and it makes me relive those arcs which is always so good. I'm glad you're having fun and are totally getting into the stuff that are being set up!! it's going to be a trip!

Always looking forward more of your thoughts, and thank you again for sharing <3333 Take care!

[jodilin65]

I ended up spending most of yesterday tired, but I feel good today. We’re going out to CVS later, now that I’m staying up throughout the mornings. After too many days stuck at home, I’m itching to get out, even if it’s just a quick run to the store. I don’t know how Tom could stay home every single day for months if he had to. Maybe I would feel the same if I had worked for so many decades outside the house.

Ever since I’ve known Tom, I’ve wished we were closer in age. If I didn’t go first, I wouldn’t have many years left to lose by following him. But then I realized that maybe it’s a good thing there is an age difference. I don’t know if anything worse may lay beyond, but cutting my life short by a decade or so would mean one less decade of life’s bullshit to deal with. Life is still rough at times, even when you have it easy. As I said, something worse could await me, but as soon as this life ends, there are no more sleep and health issues, etc.

I now see that I'm not going to lose weight by cutting sugar and carbs (as if I really expected to, right?). I think my calories are already low enough, and if I lowered them any more, I wouldn't feel good. So I'm just going to keep doing what I've been doing and hope for the best as far as my A1c goes.

Nothing more to update on, other than I found a really cool wallpaper app and had some weird dreams.

In one dream, I lived in an apartment building, and Christiane lived there as well. She mostly kept her distance from me, just like she did online before she dumped me. As I was returning to my apartment and about to unlock the door, I spotted her. She looked great for being in her late 60s, tall and slim with dark hair. She wore it straight and shoulder-length, with a lot of makeup as usual.

She looked at me hesitantly and then said, “Congratulations.”

I looked at her with confusion, and she elaborated by saying she would be met with good reflections. I don’t think her English is that bad in real life, but nonetheless, I asked her what she was talking about. She said, “Rainbow.”

Pretending not to have a clue what she was talking about, even though I knew she was referring to a text message I sent a while back about a new GF named Rainbow, I said, “Who is Rainbow?”

Then she looked even more confused and said, “Who the hell have I been talking to?” as she entered her own apartment.

Andy was in the next dream. I lived alone in some place that didn’t look anything like this. He was in a long line of people waiting for some event we were to attend. I was already in front of the line, seated on a bench, waiting for him. When he spotted me, he struck some goofy poses and made funny faces.

“You look so gay,” I told him with a laugh.

I knew he was going to be sleeping with me in my bedroom, which had two twin beds. I reminded myself to tell him that I now snore at times and that it might disturb him. Then I looked forward to seeing how the hell he managed to stand his full-face CPAP mask.

The last dream was the weirdest, and no one I knew was in it. Again, I was alone and in a cold climate. I don’t know how old I was, but I was on a ship and we had to ride it for some crazy reason standing on these wooden planks that were about two feet wide and extended out over the freezing, churning water. I stood on a plank with a couple of women in their 20s or 30s, terrified of falling off and into the water. We all hung on to each other and started to sway for a minute but quickly caught ourselves. I asked if they normally had anybody ready to rescue anyone who might fall into the water, and they said no. I figured they would freeze to death before they were rescued anyway.

Then we stopped somewhere, and I was taking a shower and then using this really weird-looking toilet. The rim looked painfully thin, but when I sat on it, it felt normal.

[suckitsurveys]

When you’re visiting a site, do you still type ‘www.’? I just google shit and click on whatever comes up haha.

Can you still read the time if an analogue clock doesn’t have numbers on it? I can hardly read it WITH numbers, buddy. One of my brain flaws.

To whom will/did you first talk about the first time you’ve had sex? I mean, I’ve mentioned it to friends but I don’t think I’ve told like, the whole story?

Have you ever fallen asleep while taking an exam? Nope.

Tell me something ridiculous about the place or country you live in: Ahahahahahahhahahahahaha where the fucking shit do you want me to start?

Did you know that ` is not an apostrophe? Are you guilty of using it? Yes I know that. I don’t think I’ve ever used it honestly. It’s on a weird, unnatural part of the keyboard. My muscle memory automatically uses the correct one anyway.

Have you ever gave the rejection hotline number to anyone? I don’t think so.

What is something you didn’t like about being thirteen? All of it.

What can you hear right now? The AC.

Do you think it’s okay for kids to have cellphones? Whatever.

Do you watch anime? If so, what are some of your favorites? I've seen a couple. My favorite is FLCL, which I recently learned there are new episodes of. I should watch those.

A quote/funny line from the last movie you saw? “Goodnight Barbies, I’m definitely not thinking about death anymore!”

Don’t you hate yes/no surveys? Or do you prefer the ones that make you think and explain your thoughts? I like it when there’s a mix so I don’t have to elaborate on every question.

Do you have a favorite curse word? If so, what is it and why? Fuck.

How well would you say you do in school? Do you actually exert effort or are you naturally good at your subjects? I hated school.

Or do you not care at all? Why? --

Do you have any siblings? If so which one of them do you get along with the best? I have one sister and I kind of hate her right now

What’s your favorite TV show? And who’s your favorite character from it? BoJack Horsemen is probably my all time favorite. Princess Carolyn is my favorite character.

Is there someone that you look up to? If so, who and why? Everyone, I’m short.

Do you take surveys on other sites besides Bzoink? Clearly.

When did/will summer start for you? It’s August 17th. There’s a month or so left of summer.

Do you have a poor eyesight? If so, what is the power of your eyes? I have horrible eyesight but I don’t know the number.

…do you use glasses or contacts for it? Glasses..

Have you violated any of the 10 Commandments? If so, what? Every god damn day of my life.

What would you consider to be your most valued possession? Why? I have a few of those because I am a sentimental bitch.

Are you ever satisfied? Or are you one of those people who always want more? Sure.

What were you like as a kid? Fucking weird af.

[kageyuji]

asking him how to confess to your crush (him)

⤷ oikawa, suna, bokuto, iwaizumi ; [gn!reader]

TAGS: fluff/crack if you squint, confessions

NOTES: please reblog or i’ll cry

━━ OIKAWA

you can’t miss the momentary look of sadness, but he quickly hides it with a cocky smile

he tells you the cheesiest possible way to confess to someone. he doesn’t even know if it’ll work on not

(he actually hopes it doesn’t, but he can’t just be an asshole and tell you something that clearly won’t work)

but once he realizes that he is the person you like, his mind jumps to several different places all at once

he’s happy but also he can’t properly form words, please bear with him </3

“Oikawa?”

He hummed a response to you, ghost of a smile on his lips. He always liked the way you said his name, even if it was just his family name.

“I have a favor... so there’s this guy that I like, and I wasn’t sure how to tell him. Do you think you could give me ideas?”

You don’t miss the pout on his lips, the way his eyebrows furrow, the hurt in his eyes. If one were to blink, they wouldn’t have missed it. He smiled and laughed, quickly trying to hide how much his heart ached.

People — in reality, only makki and mattsun — had asked you if you had feelings for someone. But you never gave them an answer, just a flustered smile and a shrug.

“Uhm... I don’t know, depends on the person. You can get a bouquet or something, and chocolates maybe?”

A smile lit up your face. He had looked so pained to say it; his nose was wrinkled up a little, one hand at the back of his neck, eyes looking anywhere but you.

“Oh, yeah! That sounds sweet, he might like that. Should I ask him what his favorite flowers are?”

“Yeah.” His heart sunk impossibly lower.

“Got it. So, what are your favorite flowers?”

He looked up from where he’d taken a sudden interest in the floor, looking around for someone else. But no one seemed to be engaging in a conversation with you — actually, he realized it was only you and him in the room.

“No, I meant ask this guy that you like.”

“I just did.”

He doesn’t say anything at first, eyes wide and lips parted. There’s something in his eyes that you can’t quite read. Shock, or was in confusion? There was also an undertone of hurt, like he couldn’t tell if this was some sick joke or not.

“You mean... me? I’m the- you have feelings for me?”

Your heart fell then — of course you’d been nervous to tell him. But with the constant flirting, you were beginning to think that maybe it wasn’t just harmless and playful anymore. That maybe even if it was still done playfully, there was truth behind those words, behind the smiles and the winks he sent you.

“If you don’t feel the same way, it’s fine, I just-”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. I was just a little surprised is all. I feel the same way, and you’re great, really, I just figured I wasn’t your type.”

“But you are.” You said, heating rising in your cheeks. Nothing could mask the smile he wore, even if he was trying not fight it.

“And you are my type. Guess we’re both lucky, hm?”

━━ SUNA

he is determined not to let you notice how his heart stopped in his chest

he still holds the same disinterested, bored look on his face as always, although he’s unaware you could see right through him

refuses to give you advice on how to go about confessing

in fact, the last thing he wants to do is be around you — he knows you were never his, so he can’t be upset, but it still turns his stomach

tell him before he can find an excuse to leave, or else your confession will be a lot more painstaking due to him dodging any interaction with you

“So uh... if you were to confess to someone you like, how do you think you would do it?” Your voice sounded so sweet, so genuine.

“Why? You have a little crush on somethin’?” He laughed.

“Yeah, actually.”

Oh.

You don’t miss the way his nose scrunches and the look in his eyes. He’s looking at the floor with narrowed eyes, almost as though the floor was the cause of his jealousy.

Well, not his jealousy — he wasn’t jealous, was he?

“Hm,” He hums, and you find him putting back on the same incurious face that he always wore. “I don’t know, elaborate confessions are pointless. Just tell the person how you feel. If they really like you, they won’t turn you aware for being simple.”

“Ah, that’s true.” You smile, though it’s fueled with nervousness. “So, one more thing I gotta say then.”

“Make it quick, I’ve to be somewhere soon.” Suna hates the bitter taste in his mouth.

He knows he shouldn’t care, after all he’s never worked up the courage to spill his heart to you, so he doesn’t have a right to feel like something is being torn — no, stolen — away from him.

“Right. You said simple, so... I like you, and I think you’re really sweet. And you’re funny and you’re so caring, even though you would never admit that. Um, I hope that was boiled down enough for you.”

“You’re kidding right?”

The tone in his voice is almost accusatory, although he doesn’t mean it to be, he just genuinely doesn’t believe you. When had you ever shown interest in him? Not that he was complaining.

“No. But it’s fine if you d-”

“I never said that. If you mean it though, maybe you can tell me the longer version of everything you like about me. Over coffee or something?”

━━ BOKUTO

ok first off, let me stop you right there, because baby boy is gonna get so sad :(

there is no hiding the hurt he’s feeling. he’s always expressive, even though he’s trying to hide it

please stop him there because his mood is only going downhill

actually tells you some elaborate, thought out thing that you assumed was from the top of his head

(although in reality, he’s thought about telling you how he feels on countless times)

but when he realizes that you’re talking about him he instantly does a 180, he looks like he’s in heaven

“Bokuto!” You call his name with a smile. You’ve found you can always get a matching one from him whenever you do so.

And of course he smiles back at you, the same excited look in his eyes as always. “Y/n!”

“I need advice.” You say.

His expression drops into one of worry at your tone. If there was anything that Bokuto hated in this world, it was seeing you upset.

“What is it?”

“I need to know how to tell someone that I have feelings for them.”

And just like that, you can see his heart break through his expression. His eyebrows pin up and he presses his lips into a thin line. You can tell that he’s trying not to show you how bothered he was by that one sentence.

He always was bad at pretending he was fine though. It was clear, if nothing else you could see his watery eyes.

“Oh... uhm. Can I ask who the person is?”

You’re hesitant to say it. But you don’t know why, because his reaction was your final bit of proof that he had feelings for you too. He hadn’t been subtle before, but now it was obvious.

“You.”

“What?” Bokuto said, although the word was breathless.

He doesn’t wait for you to respond to him. Instead, the wide smile he always wore appeared back on his face and he wrapped his arms around you.

Usually, Bokuto’s hugs are tight anyway. They’re filled with a need to be close to you and a need to convey the emotion of ‘you are the only thing grounding me right now’.

But this one was tighter. He buried his face into your neck, but you could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke. “I may have to confess to someone too.”

━━ IWAIZUMI

iwaizumi is a gentleman about it, as much as he doesn’t want to be

if anything, he wants to tell you right then and there about his feelings

but the fact (or rather, the thought) that you’ve taken an interest in someone else is all the evidence he needs to stop himself

the last thing he wants to do it mess with your emotions so he intends to stuff he feelings down to deepest parts of his mind in hopes that they’ll one day disappear

until of course, he realizes that he is the guy you’d been talking about

he gets giddy, believe it or not. he hates to admit it sometimes, but unbeknownst to you, you have so much control over his emotions

“So, Iwa?” You said, and he tried to overlook the cautious tone to your voice.

“Hm?”

“Uh, theres this guy that I kind of have feelings for. But the thing is, I don’t know how to tell him.” You sound nervous.

Iwaizumi assumes it’s from the thought of having to tell this person your feelings, yet he doesn’t realize that said person is him and it’s coming sooner than he’d realized.

He doesn’t say anything in response to you at first. His eyes narrow only slightly, then he takes a deep breath and turns back to you with his usual expression.

“If you’re going to tell them, do something sweet and simple. If you get all extravagant with it, it might freak ‘em out. Maybe... I dunno, buy a little gift and tell them?

He hid it well. The mix of jealousy, regret, and sadness in him was painful, but he clenched his fists and tried not to let his voice crack. If there was someone you knew that didn’t cry, it was Iwaizumi. Yet here he was, doing everything in his power not show how upset he was.

What was he even doing anyway? He was helping you find a lover that was not himself. Not that you even knew that, because in reality he’d never shown to you that he had feelings towards you.

That was something he was regretting a lot now.

“Oh I see, what kind of gift would you like?”

Ouch. As though this couldn’t hurt more. “I don’t know, depends on the person. Ask him, not me.”

“I just did, dummy.”

It took him a few seconds to process that, then another few seconds for the relief and happiness to wash over him. A smile rugged at the corner of his lips.

“That’s cute. You and I can go out somewhere this weekend and I can help you pick something out, hm?”

[prettyboykatsuki]

when you start writing for ushijima >>>>>>>>>>>>>

can you tell im begging?

»» — { ♡ } —— { ♡ } —— { ♡ } — ««

inevitable | u. wakatoshi

➳ tags ;; fluff n smut, getting together, first times together, unprotected sex, intentional lower case 18+

➳ wc ;; 1.9k (WHAT THE FUCK)

➳ a/n ;; ask n u shall recieve (i had rlly bad brainrot tn actually)

»» — { ♡ } —— { ♡ } —— { ♡ } — ««

if you had to describe ushijima wakatoshi in one word, you think the word you would chose is inevitable.

in·ev·i·ta·ble | /inˈevidəb(ə)l/ adjective certain to happen; unavoidable

of all the ways you could describe a person, it's probably not the best word. you could think of a laundry list of other ones to describe - really. hard-working, dependable, strong-willed, mindful, cautious. he's a lot of things and you think that's why he's so good at what he does. he's powerful but he he's brilliant at where he uses that power.

you would also use words like that to describe him, if you had too. if you had to give someone the run-down of wakatoshi - you could probably give them a whole speech about his accolades. he's probably the kindest person you know and he does that mostly on accident. he helps little old ladies carry groceries and lets your niece climb his arms like monkey bars with the most plain look on his face.

he's a lot of things - funny on accident, charming on purpose. but of all the things he is - to you, the thing he is most, is inevitable.

it's not hard for you to admit that you weren't exactly.. welcoming to ushijima when you first met him. you were a barista and he was well.. a big, pro-athlete who came to buy straight dark coffee every morning. after his work-outs (or what you figured was workouts since he always looked pretty sweaty) he bought himself precisely one pastry and a bottle of water and went about his day.

and it went like that for months. obviously you found him handsome - the way you could basically autopilot your shifts but completely broke down when he was there was evidence of that. he was tall, broad, handsome and nice. the kind of man who meets your grandmother, you think.

he always asked about you and you gave him short answers. too nervous to elaborate but he made you anyways, somehow and some way. and he comes back to you every week with details of your life you'd only mention in passing. he'd chuckle - a soft little smile at the way your eyes went wide. for someone so dense, he wasn't all that out of touch when it came to you. one morning your hands trembling just a little more than normal when you hand him back his change

(he tells you later he paid in cash just to see you stumble)

and he asks you with a plain look. observant.

"do i make you nervous?"

that's when you knew, really. you stood no chance against the all-consuming force that was and is ushijima wakatoshi. the subtlety and nuance in all of his actions left you worse for wear and any suspicions you had about how he might be treating you were to be confirmed much later down that line.

he's dense in the same way avocadoes are fruit. it's true, technically - but in a lot of ways and functionally it's just not the same. you think that the better word to use for him is selectively intelligent - like he doesn't bother thinking about anything that doesn't interest him for more than two minutes. but on the rare occasion it does interest him, i.e how you interest him - he becomes some kind of expert.

you've always been a little stubborn when it came to love. heartbreak does that to you - and you were overly cautious with ushijima. you let your heart walk on eggshells. you didn't let his gestures or touches or glances mean anything to you. you didn't let yourself be swayed by the smell of his cologne - sweet and woodsy on the back of your throat. not by the way he placed his hand on your lower back to walk past you on days off.

and when he took you out, to see the movies and stargaze, you told yourself it isn't a date. you tried your best really. because there is something really unbelievable about ushijima wakatoshi liking you - beyond the fact that he's some pro-athlete.

there's something about him that's a little unreal. not that he's perfect, but that all of his flaws make him more attractive. it almost bothers you but he doesn't seem to understand when you give him those lengthy explanations. hands making all types of gestures, flustered as he smiles. he doesn't take anything from your little lecture that day, just gives you a once over as he drives you home.

"oh, so you find me attractive?"

you didn't stand a chance. he was, and is, inevitable. everything about him has this powerful but subtlety all-consuming nature to him. you think the best way to think of it is like letting yourself float. the way you release the weigh in your body and inevitable give into letting it hold you. even if waves came - you'd probably stay in that state.

ushijima is like that. a constant presence and overwhelming force. you get swayed without even thinking. he could probably become president, if he really wanted. lucky for everyone else, he just wants to play volleyball. you think that it's a shame in equal parts that it's a gift but you digress.

the point is that you could never really be away from ushijima. and as hard as you tried to avoid the growing affection - you find that ushijima is always a few steps ahead. always reaching far beyond you with big, strong hands.

you try so hard, to avoid the inevitable. you do it with your whole soul. you're honestly just.. intimated. you've never felt something like him before - not once in your whole life. you're afraid of what'll happen when you succumb to the waves so you dodge the deep sea for weeks and weeks.

he found you after your shift one day after 3 weeks of dry texting and avoided phone calls. wearing a suit and a purple shirt and a nice watch, he has flowers too. and you're in.. a barista uniform with tousled everything and smudged mascara.

inevitable is really the only word. as you stop dead in your tracks, and as ushijima pulls you aside with the mostly gentlemanly smile. you kind of wanna cry when you look at him.

"i've waited a long time but i don't think i can much longer,"― he shifts a little. he almost looks nervous - it's the first time you've ever seen him look anything but overwhelmingly confident ― "i like you and i'd like to be with you,"

he doesn't really offer you much other than a confession and his hands. the frustrating thing is that he doesn't need to. it's the first time he's seen you cry but he handles you well, does it easily like he does everything else. like somehow he's just good at it, soothes you while you sob into his chest and melt into his presence and let yourself fall underwater.

in a probably not so surprising turn of events, you find that ushijima fucks with the same approach that he does most other things.

with careful consideration that seems effortlessly. it makes you feel a little hopeless that he feels good at everything. even at comforting you.

the first time you have sex, you take off his shirt for him. and he takes your hand and puts it up to his chest. gives you the most gentle look. his heart-beat is rapid.

"you make me .. nervous too. just so you know,"

the one thing about ushijima is that everything about him is big and wide and broad. he kisses you like he's trying to circle the solar system - there's a slowness to it. a vastness as he has you seated in his lap with his hands exploring up your body. his hands are everywhere. he's good with them. not too gentle but not too rough as the spread your thighs open.

he cups your pussy and it fits in his whole palm. his middle finger teases your slit as his kisses travel south, down your jaw and onto your neck. they latch onto your chest with a little breathless sigh - like he can't even breathe. it makes you clench when he talks to you - raspy.

"you're.... beautiful,"

he makes you shy. so shy as you lean forward a little and rock into his hand - a burning need nipping at you. and his eyes widen and his cock stiffens and his breath hitches and you think this is the first time you've caught him off-guard before. you wanna bask in it but you're too desperately so you latch onto his lips again.

ushijima does everything right. with knowledge in it. he kisses you and sucks on your tits and plays with your clit with this.. knowing. he likes seeing you fall apart he thinks. he likes how you get when he takes it much slower than he needs too - how he drags you through one orgasm to another with this lithe. he lets you lean over his shoulder when he fingers you - and his two fingers stretch you out like four of your own.

his cock is big. bigger than you think any person could ever take. you stare at it for a long while, gaping at it. your hands barely fit around it and that image burns itself into ushijimas brain like a permanent memory. your mouth falls open and your eyes look hazy and ushijima thinks that he's never wanted to be inside of something so bad before.

"it's so big," ― you whisper, hoarse ― "i-it won't fit,"

"i'll make it fit," ― is his only reply, kissing the crown of your head ― "sit tight,"

he does, by the way. make it fit. he makes it fit good - makes it stretch your pussy out but you don't feel like you'll break. there's a little pressure inside, and your clit swells with desire and blood - but it fits. and his eyes are glued to the way your cute little cunt seems to be swallowing him like it's nothing. it's enough to make him lose his mind.

"c-can i move?"

you nod and he does. slow at first. he draws the noise from you - a slow and soft moan leaving your lips as he drags his cock in and out of you. but it gets faster, goes much faster than you thought it could.

eventually he has you bouncing in his lap, on his cock, with such force that you feel like you can't breathe. it feels unbelievable, sets off a supernova in your gut like at any moment you could come undone. you feel like you're breaking and ushijima doesn't help, soft grunts and whispered affections.

"you're so beautiful," and "im so happy" that make you feel dizzy. you'd probably give him anything he asks for. he bounces you on his cock and lets his thumb just rest on your clit and you're so close you can almost taste it.

"cum for me," ― like he's begging ― "please,"

what choice do you have anyways? you cum on his cock with a silent scream, like your voice is tearing a blackhole into space and you shudder while he holds you in place. he finishes only seconds afterwards.

"did it feel good?"

you give him a wide-eyed look. he's dense at times. you don't know how to hate him for it so you just sigh and nod, cozying to him.

"y..yeah,"

he kisses your forehead, sweaty and tired.

"good,"

yeah. you were right.

you never had a single chance of winning against him.

»» — { ♡ } —— { ♡ } —— { ♡ } — ««

[spitfire-of-the-sea]

Okay, okay, okay.

Everytime I write Ace he's just running away with the story and I end up somewhere completely different to where I thought we'd end up. So here we are, with part 3. Which is mostly horny. And hopefully a little funny. Still not NSFW because I'm a whore for slow burn and I felt it was too quickly for them to jump each other. (I know, it's a dumb reason. v.v I can't help it).

Perhaps I need to set up a whole new scenario for the smut to make sense in my head. Or a series. Reader trying to keep Ace in check. And half-failing every time. Anyway. I'M SORRY. This is just more dumb/horny humor. And reader suffers. I'M SORRY. NO I'M NOT.

If you have ideas for a new series, drop me a note!! :D

Ace x reader SFW (with innuendos; the most porn word in there is "nipple", though. Sooooo...) 4.8k (I can't control myself apparently) Part 3 of the Volcano-series.

Part 1 - Holding On

Part 2 - Jungle Expedition

Eruptions

You come to such a sudden halt that Ace almost bumps into you. He stops just short of you and once again, you can feel him even if he wasn’t touching you. You don’t need your Observation Haki for that. When he is this close, he feels as if he is radiating heat like a freaking miniature sun.

Slowly turning around you simply stare at him, slowly shaking your head.

“You’ll be the death of me,” you tell Ace, still shaking your head. “You’ll be the death of me and I need you to know that I will come back and haunt your sorry ass for all eternity.”

He looks at you, blinks rapidly at your words, and finally cocks his head to the side – not unlike Pops’ dog when you talk to him and he seems to try and get better reception by fine-tuning his head’s position.

You didn’t expect the way a big smile slips onto Ace’s lips, his eyes crinkling as he regards you with so much focus you want to lift up one of the giant leaves surrounding you and slip underneath it, out of sight.

“Just as well,” he says and leans down slightly, bringing you closer. You will yourself to stay rooted in place, not giving an inch. Not to him, of all people! “I don’t like sleeping alone all that much anyways.”

You draw in a breath, your eyes going wide and your scowl dropping from your face and you quickly lower your gaze as if you’re trying to look for it among the underbrush. If you’re lucky, you might find it down there, together with the one or other layer of sanity you’ve shed in the last hour thanks to this man.

“As if I’d sleep with you,” you hiss at an innocent bush that is simply unfortunate enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s not even a lie because what you have daydreamed about an embarrassing amount of times has nothing to do with sleep per se and everything with other uses for pretty much any flat surface you happened across.

And whose fault was that?

His.

What business did he have, standing in the middle of the deck on a stupidly hot day, shirtless – of course shirtless, way too often shirtless – and glistening, drops of sweat mesmerizing you as they rolled down over his broad back, following the lines of his well-defined muscles? How was that okay…?!

“That’s fine too,” Ace says and shifts around until he’s in your field of view again – or at the very least his chest is and you snap your head up so fast you almost get whiplash. You meet his brown eyes and for a moment you get distracted by the way the sunlight filters through the trees and paints patterns on his stupidly handsome face – the strong line of his jaw, the freckles dusting his cheeks, the long dark eyelashes that lower as he looks at you.

Perhaps you’re wrong, perhaps it’s the other way around. He will haunt you for all eternity.

“It’s not like there’s nothing else to do, I can think of a lot of things to do instead that are more fun,” he continues and you look at him sharply. You can think of a lot of things too; you’ve had a lot of practice but you’re pretty sure your thoughts don’t exactly match his…-

“Way more fun,” he elaborates and it’s probably just your imagination but it sure feels as if he’s leaning closer at that. You steel yourself because you will not fall for that again. Even if his voice sounds suddenly husky. Even if your traitorous body gravitates towards him as if he’s the moon and you’re the tide and you can’t help his pull. Even if you can’t resist and take a tiny step to bring you closer.

“Yeah?” you murmur and lower your eyelids. You dampen your limps, your mouth suddenly parched. “Like what?” Only after the words leave your mouth do you remember that you’re currently mad at him and you force your feet to take a step back again. Like this, at least you end up without losing any ground, even if you’re not gaining any.

Having noticed how your tone has softened – how could he not? Any softer and you’d be purring – his smile widens and his eyes light up. An annoying trait of his, really; the way he just beams at people, making them feel all fuzzy and warm on the inside.

“If you were a ghost, you could probably go through walls,” he theorizes and you suppress a groan because of course he’s going to take a completely random train of thought to jump onto. “Which, hey, super handy! I mean, imagine the things we could do! You could take a look whether Thatch is in the kitchen and if he’s not, we can go and take all the leftovers to-… oi! Wait!”

You start walking because either you remove yourself from his general vicinity or you flick that bright orange hat from his head, push him against the next best tree – there’s ample choice, you’ll find one that fits – and show him exactly which fun things you have in mind. You’d like to shut him up in the only way that seems to make sense in your head: kissing him speechless.

A brave little brain cell that is doing its very best to stay focused on the task at hand – not letting Ace wreak havoc – tells you that is not the way to go, though, because for all you know you would traumatize the poor guy for life and you are not that kind of person. Just because all the other brain cells are busy fabricating images of much even better things to do with him doesn’t mean you have to act on it.

“Things is,” you throw at him over your shoulder, “I don’t need to wait for Thatch to be gone. I just ask him nicely and he feeds me.” Turning forward again you grasp a branch and push it out of the way and then, because you feel spiteful, you let it snap back toward him. “So I don’t see a benefit for me in that plan of yours.”

He catches the branch before it smacks him straight in the chest – with ease, of course – and his smile drops for a moment. “I know that you’re his favorite. You don’t have to rub it in.”

You roll your eyes. You are not, in fact, Thatch’s favorite. At least you don’t think you are. Thatch likes everybody and he gives everybody nicknames. You just have the benefit of actually being polite, never stealing from the fridge and having the ability to be damn cute if you want to. You can be extra cute when he just made fresh cinnamon rolls and you usually get him to give you as many as you want. “It’s called asking nicely. You should try it one day.”

He’s quiet for a moment – untypically so – and you throw him a glance over your shoulder and notice with surprise that he seems to be… pouting? His eyes meet yours for a moment before he looks to the side. “I doubt it’s just because you’re asking nicely.”

You blink in surprise and can’t quite figure out what he means by that. You do, however, notice that he’s following you and that in turn means that maybe now that he’s somewhat distracted you can get him back toward the harbor without him noticing. Toward the harbor, away from the volcano and closer to successfully fulfilling your task. Hah! Who’d have known you’d get a chance like this? Now… which direction is the harbor again?

You aren’t certain but you don’t dare to stop because if you stop that might give him a chance to realize what you’re doing and so you speed up slightly at the prospect of getting out of this torture in the near future.

However, after several minutes of Ace not uttering a word you are starting to feel freaked out and so you come to a sudden stop and turn to face him. He has clearly not been paying attention because he walks right into you and it kinda feels like being hit by a solid brick wall. You stumble with a little hiss of surprise, your hand shooting out to catch yourself on a brunch before you go down like a felled tree.

Instead, however, it lands on his upper arm at the same time as his large hand finds its way to the small of your back and pulls you toward him even as he is already closing the gap between you to keep you from falling.

Your heart leaps into your throat, your fingers dig into his biceps – not much, mind you, his muscles are too firm beneath your fingertips for that – and you gulp down a sound that is making its way up your chest and over your tongue just in time, too scared it might actually be a whimper. His hand on your lower back is doing things to you. It feels as though he is scorching you, the heat dropping right down between your legs and you’d have tried to extract yourself if most of your weight hadn’t rested on his hand right now.

Or so you tell yourself.

“Whoops,” he says, belatedly, and somehow doesn’t sound very sorry.

You lick your lips and – idiotically so, really – bring your second hand up to hold onto his other arm with it. For stability, you tell yourself, so you can straighten yourself and get back onto your feet. Your fingers land on the black ink on his arm, your index finger right on the A, your other fingers splayed over the rest of the letters. Like this you can feel the muscles in his arms shift when he puts pressure against your lower back, pulling you a bit closer still to help you regain your footing. Close enough for your thighs to brush against his knees, now that your completely useless feet are between his.

“You should watch where you’re going,” you blurt out in an attempt to push aside the feeling in your stomach. You feel like you might puke butterflies any moment now. You can feel your nipples harden with each breath you take, because each breath makes you more aware of his hand and the way his thumb seems to stroke over your back in a minuscule movement. He says nothing and so you quickly press on: “Do you have any idea how freaking solid you are? Mere mortals like me don’t have a chance…-“

“Why are you so angry with me?” Ace interrupts you and you snap your mouth shut. His eyes are fixed on you and there’s no escape, not like this. Not without loosening your grip from his arms – unthinkable – and extracting yourself from this position – impossible.

“I’m not angry with you!” you protest with a scowl instead.

“Well, you certainly look angry whenever you look at me,” he murmurs with a sigh.

You blink in surprise and mull his words over. Do you?

“No I don’t,” you protest almost automatically because maybe you are mad but more at yourself than at him. Was it annoying when he stumbled into the sick-bay with yet another wound you had to clean and bandage? Yes. Yes, because it made you feel flustered and on edge and that was fucking annoying for sure. After more than a year on the Moby Dick you didn’t get flustered that easily anymore. Usually. Plus, you felt kinda bad for being happy that he’d gotten roughed up enough to have to come to you.

“Yes you do,” he counters and frowns at you.

“That’s just what my face looks like!” you snap and realize yourself that you actually do sound angry. Softening your tone you shrug. “I don’t do it on purpose.”

He shakes his head, eyes still on you. “You smile when you look at Marco or Thatch. When you look at me, you scowl.”

That effectively shuts you up for a moment and you feel panic rising in you. Shit. Are you really doing that? And he noticed? Oh, you are so screwed! How are you going to explain this without sounding like a lunatic?!

Unable to come up with an explanation that doesn’t spell out because I cannot deal with the amount of attraction I feel toward you or the things you make me feel you keep silent. It’s even harder to explain considering he is still trying to kill your adoptive father, even if at least he has given up on the daily sneak attacks and everything is at least fair and out in the open now. Well, as fair as a fight against Pops can ever be, anyhow.

“Is it because of the one time I singed your hair?” he asks quietly and his gaze drops to your hair. You had to trim it somewhat after the incident but it honestly wasn’t that bad and you don’t care too much about that. You are far more upset about how your mind is holding onto the memory of Ace above you, his arms caching you in as he looks down at you with concern in his eyes.

“I am really sorry about that, I didn’t think he’d fling me that far and I think I lost consciousness sometime mid-air, otherwise I’d never have landed on you like that or risked hurting you,” he continues and his gaze drops from your hair to your shoulder for a moment. It is only now that you realize that the bikini strap there has somehow managed to slip down over your shoulder together with the strap of your top.

You don’t know what possesses you but you can’t help it, you tilt your head to the side, exposing your neck even more. His muscles beneath your fingers twitch and you can feel his second hand hesitantly land on your hip. Out of the corners of your eyes you can see his gaze roam up over your shoulder to your neck.

You lick your lips and his eyes immediately shift to your face. “That’s not it,” you manage to say because you don’t want him to think you’re upset over a having to trim the ends of your hair. “I hate to break it to you but I’ve been in much more severe scuffles than that and made it out just fine.”

It wasn’t a lie. Those scuffles, however, had definitely left less of an impression on you than the brief interaction with him – and they certainly didn’t give you thirsty daydreams time and again.

He hums in acknowledgement. “Is it because I’m fighting… Whitebeard?” he asks then, stumbling over the words and you wonder if he almost called Pops something different there.

You contemplate his words for a moment and wonder if you should latch onto this excuse. It made sense. It was as good as any. Still, you slowly shake your head. Sure, you’d been as upset as the rest in the beginning but it had actually been Pops who’d calmed you down after you’d gone off on a rant for ten minutes straight while preparing his medication. He’d picked you up and told you that if he wouldn’t let a pup like Ace test his mettle against him, how would that pup ever grow into a proper wolf?

Whatever that had meant, it had at the very least calmed you down enough to be only mildly annoyed at any following attempt to topple Pops.

“You’ve lost… what…? 68 times now?” you ask him, quirking an eyebrow at him and trying to ignore the way his fingers dig into the flesh of your hip. You fail at it, though, and you’re more than aware of how good it feels and how you might lean into his touch more than you’d like to admit. “You’ll never defeat him anyways. So, no, not anymore.”

“69,” the grinds out with a smile that reminds you more of a snarl. It doesn’t scare you, though. For whatever dumb reason you feel perfectly safe here with him, not worried for even a second that he’ll hurt you. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he says, sarcasm dripping off his words like syrup.

Feeling like perhaps you’re reclaiming some control over the situation you place your feet more sturdily on the ground, taking some weight off his hand that is still supporting you. His fingers twitch against the fabric of your back when you do. “Nobody can defeat Pops,” you inform him. That he hasn’t realized as much himself is laughable.  “The sooner you come to that conclusion yourself, the better.”

You’ve triggered something there because he’s leaning down now, bringing his face closer to yours and your breath hitches in your throat. The notion that you have any control whatsoever over the situation quickly leaves you. But then, you’ve always been good at faking that you had your shit together. So you square your jaw and stare right back at him.

“I still have 31 attempts left.” Ace probably doesn’t even realize it himself but he shifts closer and all of a sudden your knees bump against his legs and you dig your fingers into his arms in an attempt to steady yourself. You are close now, way too close. “I will defeat him,” he tells you with such conviction that you’d believe him if you didn’t know who he is talking about.

You raise your chin – it’s not much use, you still have to look up when talking to him, especially now that you’re so close – and do your best to regard him with a bored expression. You take a step back and away from him so you don’t have to crane your neck quite so much. He lets you, but his hands remain on you.

“Sweetheart,” you say with a chuckle, “you could have a hundred left and wouldn’t.”

Truth be told, even you can see that he’s getting stronger with each attempt. So while you are pretty sure that he won’t manage to defeat Pops with another 100 trials – you think that if he’s given a couple more years, he might actually get there. You’d sooner bite off your own tongue than tell him that, though.

Caught in your own thoughts you don’t realize the way he stills at your words, his eyes growing darker as he looks you over. He allows himself a moment before he speaks. “You shouldn’t be too sure about that. I might be stronger than you give me credit for.” His voice is low and if you hadn’t known him you might have felt threatened.

It’s pouring oil into a fire and you know it but you can’t resist. You lift your hand from his arm, brush your thumb over his cheek and finally pat his head much like he has done earlier to you. You’re positively giddy with the way his eyes are widening and the muscles of his arm flex below your fingers in surprise. “You’re for sure more stubborn than I gave you credit for initially. I guess that counts for something.”

Whatever ground you thought you’d won was gone in a single instant, he’s quicker than you thought possible. Within a single moment he has pulled you back toward him and you’re almost flush against him, your hand dropping from his head to his shoulder. An embarrassing startled squeak escapes you when his arm comes around you and presses you close, your nose touching his chest and his mouth suddenly right next to your ear.

It’s unfair, really, because if he’d not committed a war crime right there and incapacitated you with what you can only categorize as biological warfare, you might have been able to throw the one or other sarcastic remark at him. You are doing your best to keep your head straight – both literally and figuratively – and not nuzzle into the crook of his neck. It’s hard, though, and it gets harder with every breath full of his smell you take in. He smells of campfire and earth or maybe it’s just your imagination but even so it makes thinking almost impossible. And then there’s his body against yours, hard and hot and you want nothing more than to jump and wrap your legs around him and…-

He speaks and you can’t help the shiver that runs through your body when you feel his hot breath on the sensitive skin there. “You’re awfully cheeky for somebody so tiny,” he says and flexes his muscles and you know it is to underline his words.

You’ll be damned before you actually give in and admit defeat like this. So you swallow down your heart that has jumped into your throat and hook your arm around his neck, using it as leverage to tiptoe and lean up against him and bring your mouth closer to his ear. With some luck he won’t notice how shaky your breath comes or how meticulously you avoid to brush your breasts against him for fear that he will realize how hard your nipples are right now. “What can I say? You might not want to underestimate me. Size isn’t everything.”

His fingers dig into the flesh of your hip and you almost think that perhaps you’ve rendered him speechless but after a moment he tilts his head and his lips brush against your ear. You swallow, hard. “I’d never dream of underestimating you,” he murmurs.

You feel like you’re having the upper hand right now and you need to use the chance to finally direct him back to the harbor, hand him over to whichever commander you spot first and retreat before your panties were completely soaked through. Then you could take care of yourself… and perhaps regain some grains of sanity.

You settled back down on your feet, brushing against him again and impatiently rubbing your thighs together at the sensation. You withdraw the arm from around his neck and are about to grab one of his hands when you feel him lower his arm from around your waist lower still, barely touching you, down until it is just below your ass. Your eyes widen in alarm when you notice he has hunched down slightly. It is then that you realize you’ve broken one of the most important poker rules.

Never count your winnings because that’s when you start to lose.

“Sometimes, size does matter, though,” Ace informs you happily and lifts you up easily with one arm, throwing you over his shoulder. He does so gently, but quick enough to knock the breath out of you. “Like right now.”

He starts walking and when you start to wiggle off his shoulder, his arm tightens around you to fix you in place. You bring your arms out from underneath you to brace yourself against his back and already want to start snapping at him when you notice that the position gives you a very nice view of his rear.

You blink. His trousers are kinda loose and with each step he takes you become surer that he hasn’t lied. He is, in fact, not wearing any underwear. If you look closely enough, you can see half an outline of a perfectly shaped ass cheek with each of his steps.

You’re torn from your observation when you feel rather than hear him chuckle. “It’s a good thing you were walking us closer to the volcano before, huh? Look, it’s right there.”

With quite some struggle you manage to look past his side and indeed, you can see the gentle slope of the volcano emerging from between the trees. You can even spot the beginnings of the crater in its middle already.

Your face falls. This time it was definitely his fault. He distracted you enough to make you lose what little sense of direction you had and you just brought him closer to the damn thing!

You glower at his back and ready yourself. Oh, it is on, Portgas!

***

It is seven hours, 28 minutes and roughly 5 seconds later that you stumble back into town, your fingers firmly clasped around Ace’s hand as you drag him along behind you. Neither of you speaks a word as you make your way through the streets, ignoring the looks you are getting.

You enter the first bar you find and by chance it’s also the one some of the commanders and their crew have picked for tonight. Ignoring Marco’s raised eyebrows you pull out a chair and press Ace down into it, almost surprised by how readily he allows you to do so – you have no illusion, if he wouldn’t want to, you’d never be able to do it. Then you delicately place the crown of feathers Ace has been gifted by a native tribe down on the table.

Thatch’s chair makes a screeching sound as he pushes it back and stands up. You lift your hand to stop him from coming over to you, then grab the edge of your top and pull it up, wiping at the grime on your face, not caring that you’re showing a whole table full of crew members your blackened bikini top. When you’re pretty sure you’ve removed at least some of it from your face, you turn on your heels and stalk over to the bar.

“Two schnapps please!” you say and hold up two fingers. You feel Marco’s and Thatch’s eyes drill into the back of your head.

The bartender puts down the glasses in front of you and you down first one and then the other. He stares at you and you cough a bit at the biting taste, then indicate him you want two more. He hesitates, you glare, and he refills the glasses.

You take a deep breath and wonder how the hell Portgas D. Ace has survived so far. Could it really be his stubbornness together with dumb luck? How else could you possibly explain what had happened in the last several hours?

The volcano had somehow reacted to Ace’s presence – just as you’d feared. It had started spitting fire – not lava, fire! – and suddenly ash was raining down on you and your surroundings and while you were still arguing with Ace over how the fuck he could stop what he’d somehow started, a tribe of natives had burst from the jungle.

Neither you nor Ace understood a word they said, but you are pretty sure they were about to sacrifice the prettiest man you’d ever seen to the volcano gods – at least he was clad in white, carried on a makeshift little altar and looked all solemn. You are reasonably sure they weren’t just on their daily volcano stroll.

Either way, whatever they’d planned on doing, Ace was having none of it and somehow you’d ended up fighting an entire tribe while trying to evade fireballs raining down on you and little streams of lava that seemed to emerge from the ground.

You still can’t quite fathom how he managed to calm down the volcano, extinguish all the fires and stop the natives. You especially can’t quite fathom how apparently the elders had decided to consider him some sort of king? Or god? Or both?

Whatever the fuck happened… you managed to keep the volcano from erupting fully, you didn’t start a war and as far as you can tell nobody got sacrificed or killed in the process and sure, perhaps there was somebody in the jungle fashioning a statue of Ace from whatever material they could find, but you had managed your task. In a way. But still!

You heave a deep sigh, only then do you take the glasses and return to the table. Apparently you have left Ace alone for too long, because you can hear him talk to Marco and Thatch now.

“Yeah, she was pretty angry because I got her all wet,” he tells them. A grin appears on his face. “Don’t worry, though, I took care of it! I think it’s all good now, she’s just a bit worn out. Nothing that a little sleep won’t cure! Now that I think of it, it might be good to get her out of those clothes first, though.”

You freeze mid-step and stare at him. You feel Marco’s eyes shift to you and you raise one glass and down it. Ace notices you and lifts his hand to wave at you happily. You stare some more. Surely he hasn’t just said what you think you heard?

“Oh, by the way,” he says and turns back to the two commanders. “Do you have any idea where I can buy new underpants?”