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sabraeal · 22 days ago

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don't speak boyshit, Chapter 12

[Read on AO3]

If Maria thinks about this calmly— logically— the silence must only last a second. Two, if she’s being generous. Three, if she’s about to spiral. Just enough time for Kamitani to parse what she’s asked and decide, unilaterally, that she’s an idiot.

But that’s not what she’s going to do. Oh no, that’s for someone who can use the wrong kanji and still expect everyone to laugh it off. Someone who can forget to bring their textbook to class and have a seatmate offer to share. Someone like Yuki, maybe, who might blush and stammer at the board, but still takes one more stab at solving for x. But Maria—

Maria’s brain takes one glance at the glacial pace Kamitani’s taking to express anything— honestly, tectonic plates subduct and transform faster than his eyebrows furrow— and decides with all the gravitas of a doctor giving a terminal diagnosis that now would be an excellent time to panic. Anything to keep him from saying—

“What?” There’s not much table for him to squint across, and sitting catty-corner like they are, there’s even less, but Kamitani clearly has experience at summoning up long distance derision with a short runway. “What are you talking about? Right now?”

“No! Why would I—? I meant to the movies.” She hadn’t thought it was possible, but leave it to this stupid man-child to come up with a question even more inane than her own. “Obviously.”

His eyebrows twitch, matching the tic at his temple. “’Obviously?’ I was asking you whether this would be ‘hanged’ or ‘hung.’”

“Oh.” She leans over, making a valiant effort to decipher what he’s scrawled across his notebook— somehow his handwriting is worse in English than kanji; a feat that seemed impossible until she startled rifling through his past exams. “Hung. ‘Hanged’ is only for when, er…it is a person in a deceased state. Or I suppose, sentenced to be in a deceased state too.”

“Really?” He tugs the notebook back in front of him with a snort. “They’ve got a whole tense for that?”

And lack a sufficiently polite form of address, but Maria diplomatically replies, “Languages mold themselves around what matters most to the people who speak them.”

He grunts— hardly a polite sound, but it’s as close as Kamitani can bring himself to one; somehow both approving and curious, even if he goes straight back to ignoring her the minute he’s done making it. It’s probably better that way anyway; she’s supposed to be here as a tutor, not a fellow student, and the last thing she needs is him remember just how they got on this whole topic any—

“You can wear whatever you want.” Her eyes jerk over to where he sits, pen tapping absently against the paper. He clears his throat, glare fixed to the page, like it’s personally wronged him. “To the movies. They let you do that now, you know.”

“I know they’ll let you wear anything to a movie.” She may not have partaken in many social outings since middle school, but she’s been to the theater. Her parents have taken her, at least. “I mean…should I wear a dress? Or maybe a skirt? Or I guess it could be warm enough for shorts, but that might be a little too casual, and—”

“I wear what’s clean,” he says, as helpful as always. “Or what smells clean, at least.”

Maria was never much for rolling her eyes— rudeness, her father would always huff, is the crutch of a lesser mind— but her few forays into typical teenage rebellion have not sufficiently prepared her for how much it could ache if she did it hard enough. “I should have known better than to ask a boy.”

“What do you want me to say?” One side of his mouth rucks up into a sneer, like somehow she’s the obnoxious one here. “What you’ve got on is fine.”

She glances down— pressed white button-down, perfectly tied striped bow, charcoal pleats cutting across above her knees with ruthless efficiency— and informs him, “This is my uniform.”

“Yeah.” He jerks a shoulder up in what she assumes is supposed to be a shrug as half-assed as all the rest of his work. “And it’s fine. It’s not like guys care about that sort of stuff.”

“Guys don’t care…?”

He says it so casually, so confidently, as if Kawata and Yamane didn’t have a stack of magazines as tall as her arm to drag out at the merest mention of a crush. As if they hadn’t pored over every page, shoving entire articles about ‘female desirability,’ and ‘the discerning male eye’ in front of her, covers boasting ‘this one little trick’ to get a man to notice you.

“You really are the most useless person on the planet,” she informs him with a chill that could frost glass— if it wasn’t nearly summer, that is. “Everyone knows that men are the most visual creatures on earth! That’s why all those girls in video games are half naked, and why shonen manga practically advertises fanservice as a feature, and why”—the words stick to her throat, refusing to be anything but spat between them— “all men watch porn.”

She expects sneering, a cluck of his tongue, a token denial, yelling even— but not the lift of his eyebrows, nor the bald way he says, “Yeah, but all those girls are naked.”

Maria stares. “There is something uniquely wrong with you, and its origin is somewhere between your ears.”

His eyes narrow, annoyed. “Now you sound like the old hag.”

“Unbelievable,” she mutters, glancing down at his paper. “Also, your answer to number three is wrong.”

“Well, isn’t that what you’re here for, sensei?” His mouth twitches, and— and it’s stupid for her heart to pound so loud in her ears, like they actually had some sort of argument, instead of him just saying…just calling her— “So tell me the answer.”

The pounding abruptly ceases.

“I’m not going to tell you the answers! Recitation is hardly mastery.” A lesson she’d learned the hard way, more than once. Not that he needed to know about any of that.

Now there is the derisive cluck of the tongue she’s been waiting for, the sneer of disdain she knew was lingering in the wings, waiting for its moment beneath the lights. “What’s the point of this whole studying thing if you’re not going to help me?”

“I am helping you,” she snaps, her spine pulling achingly straight. “I could give you the answer right now, but that would only help you with this question. If you don’t learn to solve it yourself, well—it’s not like you’ll have me next to you during the exam, whispering the right choices. And then we’ll be right back where we started next time, only with more information to cover.”

He glares at her, forehead furrowed and frown rumpled, two storm fronts converging right over his nose, destined to leave only devastation in their wake— but instead he grunts, “Fine.”

Maria blinks. “Excuse me?”

The notebook slides across the table, spanning the space between them. “If you’re not going to tell me the answer, then at least show me what I got wrong.”

It’s safer to look down than up, isn’t it? To find problems rather than a solution. That’s how it’s always been for her, at least. But now Maria’s eyes drop, seeking some safe harbor pages in front of her, some sturdy ground to plant herself on, and— and it practically glares back at her, his hasty haystack handwriting blown across every line. Legible, though only just. Manageable.

“Well,” she says, summoning her most insufferably superior tones. There’s no point in being friendly, after all. Not when this is a business arrangement. “If you’re looking for somewhere to start, maybe you should make sure your p’s all face the same direction…”

Maria squints down at the screen, hand cupped around her phone case as if that might help with the glare. It doesn’t, of course— not with the recessed lighting hung directly overhead; her favorite feature of this kitchen until just ten minutes ago, when Tanaka-san sent her this video— the same tutorial she’d used to learn to roll an omelet two years ago, before her then-boyfriend became now-persona non grata. But now perfectly julienned carrots and geometrically pleasing onigiri can't make up for the fact that no matter how she tries to shift around the counters— even going so far as to lean over the sink in her desperation— she cannot view more than three-quarters of her screen at once.

“Maria?” The lights flicker over the rest of the kitchen, a quick off-on-off before settling into a bright blaze over the breakfast table. Her mother shuffles another step over the jamb, rubbing at her eyes. “What are you doing up so early?”

“Ah! Oh, um…” Two containers sit open on the table, the biggest compartments already filled with still-steaming rice, and for the life of her, Maria can’t think of how to explain both besides fumbling out, “Making my lunch?”

It’s a slow shift from bleary eyes to narrow ones, mother’s mouth bowing just enough to wrinkle at the corners. Skepticism clings to every fold, doubt deepening in their shadows, and alarms blare in Maria’s ears— CAUGHT, they shout, YOU’VE BEEN CAUGHT—

But then Mother’s nose scrunches too. Not suspicion, then, but distaste. Disgust. “You don’t need to do that. I’m perfectly capable of making your lunch.”

And perfectly incapable of enjoying the process. The boys at school loved to make a fuss about “obligation chocolate,” complaining about how true feelings make candy sweeter; as if it’s not a ridiculous demand for their female classmates to manufacture something like attraction when the boys in question still find bathroom humor the pinnacle of comedy, but…

But Maria can’t argue that duty does have a taste. And it’s hardly a sweet one.

“Well, yes, I know that.” I’m not saying you couldn’t, she nearly argues, but this is hardly the time to get defensive. Not when she’s trying to be as unassuming as possible; making lunch from utterly pure and reasonable motives, and not because she’s interested in the metrics of boy-mediated approval. “But, um…when I’m at university, I’ll be presumably living on my own, won’t I?”

Mother blinks at that, as if it had never occurred to her that if her daughter was actually going to attend one of those choice Tokyo institutions they had been aiming for, they might actually have to send her there. “Y-yes. That would be a…reasonable assumption, considering the commute.”

“And if I’m living on my own, then I’ll have to be able to provide meals for myself, won’t I?” Maria fits her hands on her hips, letting this sudden burst of unearned confidence lift her chin. “I thought it would be good to get used to making them now, rather than waiting until I’m by myself. Learning a new habit is harder when you’re under stress, they say.”

She could not, if pressed, say who ‘they’ might be, but Mother seems to find it convincing enough, nodding along as if she’d thought of the idea herself.

“That’s very mature of you, Maria.” It is, given more than a moment to think it over instead of desperately spinning it out. The sort of thing she should have been thinking of, if she hadn’t already been caught up in this whole…drinking the nectar of her youth situation. She’s almost proud of herself for stumbling into it, even backwards, letting herself take a moment to preen in her mother’s praise before— “I just didn’t realize university students made bento now.”

Maria blinks, a deer noticing the first paired pinpricks of headlights. “H-huh?”

“When me and your father were in school, we just bought everything in the cafeteria.” Her head tilts, thoughtful. “Or I suppose from one of the places around campus. There was a nice little conbini right around the corner, and I think your father must have subsisted off of their fried chicken for the two years until we met—”

“It’s a good way to save money,” she blurts out, nerves practically spilling all over the counter. “And, ah, healthier than eating conbini chicken every meal.”

It’s the exact sort of explanation that should satisfy her mother; she’s the one who always spearheads their vegetable-heavy menu, even if her father’s the one that ultimately cooks them. But instead that nostalgic smile falls to a frustrated frown, mouth pursing as she approaches the counter.

“I appreciate the initiative, dear, but you should know you won’t need to worry about that sort of thing. Your father and I are quite serious about supporting you during your studies.” Her brows knit as she surveys the counter between them. “Is there a reason you’re packing two bentos?”

“It’s easier to make two instead of one!” Her mother lifts an inquisitive brow, and ah— this might not have been the best tack to take with a woman who has been making them every day for nearly fifteen years. “I-I mean, that’s what I read, at least.”

“Hm.” An entirely too thoughtful sound, when she really would prefer her mother not have any opinion. “But bento are supposed to be made fresh. They’re better that way.”

“I-I know that,” Maria blusters, head giving a proud toss. “It’s just, um…Y-yuki-chan’s parents are out of town. So I thought I’d give the spare one to her.”

“Oh, Yuki-chan.” Mother’s posture visibly eases. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Maria.”

It would be, if it was true. But it isn’t— unless, by coincidence, Yuki’s parents are somehow out of town, and then—

“It’s good to think of other people, but make sure it’s not too much,” Mother warns, turning away to where the coffee maker sits, cold. “You wouldn’t want anyone to take advantage of how kind you are.”

Maria coughs around the bile building in her throat. “I don’t think I have to worry about that.”

Not when all this kindness is fictional, just part of the part she’s playing; a ruse to fool her mother into thinking she cares about her future and her friends rather than just impressing some boy who—

“I don’t think so either.” Mother smiles, slipping her coffee cup under the spout. “Yuki-chan is a nice girl, I’m sure she’ll appreciate the effort you put into your friendship.”

“Yeah,” Maria squeaks faintly. “I hope so…”

“You should go out with them more often.”

She blinks, swallowing past the burning in her throat. “What?”

“Your friends! Yuki-chan and those other girls. What were their names? Kawasaki…?” Mother shakes her head. “Anyway, I know it’s almost time for exams, but surely they don’t spend all their time studying.”

Unlike you, Mother doesn’t say, but she hardly needs to, not when Maria’s typical weekend plans involved making flashcards and studying exam booklets, and—

The siren breeze of opportunity wafts through the window her mother’s thrown open.

“Oh!” Her hands tremble as she grips the counter, willing herself to sound calm. Composed. Like a girl that has friends that go places with her. “T-that reminds me. I was invited to a movie this weekend…”

This can’t possibly work. She’s too nervous— even if Mother can’t hear her heart pounding, shouting LIAR with every beat, she’ll know by the way her knees knock, or the guilty flush on her cheeks, or— or something. Something that makes every bit of her breathe, I’m going out with boys, and then she’ll be grounded until she’s thirty.

“Oh, doesn’t that sound nice?” Mother settles onto one of the kitchen chairs, the gurgle of percolating coffee bright in the air. “Do you need any pocket money for the trip? I’ve heard snacks are expensive nowadays.”

“I…” Maria stares. This woman raised her. Surely she would know when her own daughter was lying to her face. About boys. “N-no. I think I still have money from my last exams. T-that should be more than enough.”

“As long as you’re sure.” Mother squints over at the stove, and oh, here it comes— “Do you need any help?”

Maria’s jaw closes with a snick.

“No,” she manages, after a moment. “I think I’ve got it handled.”

Were there ever a circumstance wherein Maria was forced— under extreme duress— to invent a positive trait for Yagi, she could at least say this: he doesn’t drop his bag with all the subtlety of an earthquake, like the rest of the boys in their class do. No, he delicately drapes the strap over the back of his chair, arranging the bag so that it sits neatly between their desks, not interfering with his ability to rummage through its contents, or knocking into her knees. It’s almost…polite.

And yet it still doesn’t keep her from flinching when he spins around, all princely smile, and hums, “Good morning, Inomata-san.”

It would be easy to glare, to answer with her customary, don’t you have someone else you can bother? Or even a very evocative, what?

But it’s Yagi who had given her the comprehensive primer on just what sort of dishes made for a good bento— for a boy, at least. For someone who rarely made a production of eating the ones he received, he had some firm opinions about what kind of grilled fish kept well until lunch time, or what pickled vegetables wilted too quickly to make a good accompaniment to rice. A better help than Nezu, at least; he might be used to taking Yagi’s cast-offs, eating all the finest bento 3-A can offer, but in terms of taste— well, she’d known garbage compactors with more discernment.

Maria grits her teeth and manages a mostly civil, “Good morning.”

Yagi’s eyebrows disappear beneath the fashionable fall of his bangs. “You’re in a good mood.”

For once, he’s too polite to say, but his tone does more than enough to imply.

“I’m in the same mood I am every morning,” she snaps, regretting every word before it even leaves her mouth. But it’s too late— rudeness spills out on reflex, a force of habit it’s impossible to stop. “Don’t try to read into it or anything!”

A prince’s mouth has to be made for smiles, but Yagi’s strains at the corners, creasing with the effort to hold it. “If you say so, Inomata-san.”

He starts to turn around, leaving her sitting there like a grilled tomato; flushed and tender and skin waiting to split at the slightest touch, and—

And it’s stupid how hard it is to just be nice. “Thank you, though. For the, er…advice. With the bento.”

His head snaps back over his shoulder so fast her own aches in sympathy. “So it went well? Your…hmm…experiment?”

“It’s ongoing,” she informs him loftily, “and the president of the Home Ec Club also gave me a few pointers too. So don’t think you’re the only one that—”

“But he liked it, didn’t he?” It’s subtle, the way Yagi leans toward her, but the searching look in his eyes is anything but. “He said it tasted good?”

Not in so many words. But, well, she wasn’t trying to impress Kamitani. “It was edible.”

She expects a grimace, a wince, a look of pity at least, but instead— instead Yagi grins. “So he ate all of it?”

“I…” A gout of their classmates flood through the door, mouths squealing as much as their school shoes do when they realize Yagi is already there, looking princely perfect in his seat. It’s only a hop, skip and a jump for their eyes to follow his, to see that she is the one he’s deigned to bestow his good favor. Maria straightens her shoulders, refusing to be cowed by their stares. “T-that’s not the point.”

The conversation should end there; other classmates have begun to filter in, ones beside Yagi’s fluttering fan club. People that must be more pleasant to talk to than a girl who can’t even seem to be grateful without snapping someone’s head off—

“It sounds like it’s going well,” he says with the unrelenting optimism of a boy who has never had to pack a lunch in six years. Or had his outdoor shoes thrown in the trash for taking the top spot two exams in a row. “Do let me know if you need any more advice, all right, Inomata-san?”

He turns the full force of that princely smile on her, sincerity shining out of him with all the blinding light of the morning sun, and— and she can’t help it, it just slips out—

“What do you think about clothes?”

The trouble with this whole bento plan has always been in the delivery; there’s a certain implication that comes with a young woman giving an equally young man a well-made lunch. One Maria’s eager to avoid considering that the one she’s giving it to isn’t even who it’s for. Or, well, it is, but not metatexually. He’s not the one meant to reap the rewards, or however the saying goes. Not for anything but the short term.

She might have had to chase him down that first day, coming into the classroom and hauling him through the hallways until he learned to behave, for once, but now that she’s established a routine, well—

Kamitani’s already lingering outside when lunch rolls around, his stupidly long legs stretched out, making it awkward for her to make this exchange in any sort of civil fashion. No, there’s nothing for it to but shove, forcing the box into his folded arms with all the grace of a bulldozer.

“Here,” she says, impatient, waiting for him to untangle enough to hold it on his own. “The rubric is already inside. Make sure you fill it out properly this time. And actually try the omelet!”

It’s the least he can do, now that she knows she’s made it right— she must have; she followed Tanaka-san’s tutorial down to the second. But instead of looking grateful, the way anyone else would when they’re handed a properly nutritious meal, he just stares at her, forehead already halfway to a furrow. “What, that’s it?”

“Well, eat the rest of it too!” It’s not like he needs her to explain lunch to him as a concept. For all his complaining, he’s been polishing off both tiers in twenty minutes. “It’s not like you don’t know how.”

It’s a feat to skirt around him— she doesn’t remember him having nearly this much leg in first year— but Maria is an expert in avoiding unpleasant realities. She cuts a neat path from one side of him to the other, shoes barely squeaking as she executes the hurried turn into 3-C—

Only for his hand to hook around the cuff of her short sleeves, holding her hostage. “That’s not what I meant.”

His palm burns where it sits against her skin— or, well, half against it, the other half pressing cotton flat like an iron. “W-what?”

He hasn’t budged an inch from where she found him, holding her just with the casual strength of one hand— it’s infuriating, now that she thinks about it. She runs the mile in physical education just like everyone else, and climbs the stupid rope, even if it takes her a few more minutes to huff and puff to the top. There’s no reason he should be able to just hold her like this, like she’s just some delicate little waif, and he’s—

He’s staring at her now, head turned so he can really get some good momentum down that nose of his. “You want me to eat this on my own?”

“J-just for today!” She shrugs out of his grip, annoyed and oddly breathless. “It's not like you don't have friends! I’m sure you’d rather eat with them anyway.”

His eyes narrow, a breath hissing out from his nose. “What's that supposed to mean?”

There's no reason for him to make this so difficult, not when he already spends most of their time complaining about how he'd rather be doing anything else. "I said exactly what I meant. Now if you'll excuse me"-- her chin lifts with a pointed sniff-- "I need to consult with the girls in your class."

His brows furrow sharply, matching the flex of his hand. "What? Why?"

“Because...”

Clothes? Yagi hums, thoughtful. I can't say I've ever thought much about it. Anything cute is always a pleasant surprise. Those animal pajamas-- the ones that are all one suit, you know-- or maybe even pumpkin pants--

She means on girls, Nezu informs him, resignation thick in his voice. The ones our age.

Oh. He offers her an apologetic smile. I can't say I have much of an opinion on that.

Her breath hisses out between her teeth, weary. “It turns out all boys are useless.”

“Mari-chi!” Kawata’s eyes widen as Maria hovers just beyond where they sit, trying to calculate the proper angle of approach. It would have been one thing in the classroom— she could have simply pulled up a desk, or quietly approached Yuki as she set out her own bento. But they’re outside today, the weather too nice to squander before it folds under summer’s coming heat, and there’s no natural way to ask— “You’re gonna eat with us today?”

Ah. Besides that.

“Yes.” She sets her bento on the table beside Yamane, already taking note of the number of inches available on the bench, and how much she might be able to squeeze into, so long as she was allowed. “If that’s all right.”

“Of course it is!” Yuki scoots over to make room, Yamane scurrying to follow suit. “Let’s just—”

“Let her sit on this side, with me?” Kawata deadpans, shifting her lunch over a few inches. “Come on, I don’t bite.”

“I-I wouldn’t assume you did,” Maria stammers, practically tripping to take her seat. “I just thought, um…”

Yuki and Yamane were more likely to accommodate her. Or at least do it without the sort of questions she knows are already buoying Kawata’s smirk.

“You’re always welcome to join us,” Yuki’s quick to assure her, smile blinding when she turns it her way. “You don’t need to ask.”

“Yeah, especially if you’re going to tell us what’s happening with all that boy research you’re doing,” Kawata hums, earning a shocked, ‘Rena-chan!’ from Yuki. “Oh come on, like you aren’t curious.”

“I know I am!” Yamane chirps, popping an octopus-shaped hot dog into her mouth. “Have you tried the neck thing yet? I think that’s a good—”

“I have not!” Maria refuses to clap her hands to her cheeks, no matter how much they burn, but it’s an effort, to be sure. “And I won’t. I was only…gathering information for future use.”

“And?” Kawata laughs, tilting her a sly smile. “Come on, Mari-chi. Yuki’s right, you’re welcome to sit with us any time, but I know you only got up the gumption to do it because you have something on your mind.”

“No, I…!” Under Kawata’s withering eyebrow, Maria folds like a paper crane. “I was just wondering if, er…there were specific types of clothes that are more appealing to boys than others.”

“What?” Yamane roots around for another slice of sausage. “You mean like lingerie?”

“Saki-chan!” Yuki’s palms clap to her own face. “Of course Maria didn’t mean that!” Her gaze slips toward her, curious. “Did you?”

“W-what? Of course not!” The news might say that high school girls are starting that sort of exploration younger and younger these days— prompting several awkward mother-daughter talks; or really not-talks, the way both of them dance around the topic— but Maria can’t even imagine kissing until after college. “I meant in a more rhetorical sense. Like for the movies.”

Yamane’s eyes blow wide. “Mari-chi, has someone asked you out?”

“W-what?” She might have expected that sort of shrewdness from Kawata, or maybe even Yuki, but Yamane? Another ice age seemed more likely. “No. I mean, as I said, rhetorically—”

“I didn’t realize that the movies was a common rhetorical device.” Kawata slides a too-knowing look across the table, one side of her smile twitching toward a smirk. “Maybe you only cover that sort of stuff in the Advanced Class.”

Heat prickles just under her cheeks, her last warning before it begins to show on her skin. “W-well, if you think about it—”

“Oh, did your club friends ask you to go?” Yuki bounces in her seat, eyes practically bursting with pride. “Oh, Maria-chan, how exciting! They seem like such nice girls!”

It’s a convenient excuse, one that would certainly keep Kawata and Yamane from prying— or getting the wrong idea— but—

“No, no. That doesn’t make sense.” Kawata stares over at her, entirely too shrewd for Maria to do anything besides break out into a cold sweat. “Mari-chi asked about what to wear in front of boys, which means…?”

Yamane’s whole body stretches with the force of her gasp. “A boy asked you out!”

Wide eyes pass around the table, and at this crucial juncture, it seems prudent to inform them, “It’s not a date.”

This, of course, is a tactical error on her part.

“Date?” Yamane sighs dreamily. “Mari-chi is going on a—?”

“Who is it?” Yuki-chan nearly leaps across the table to grab her, palms pressing tight around Maria’s suddenly clasped hands. “Is it…? I mean, do we know him?”

“I knew it,” Kawata crows, fists sitting so high on her waist her elbows jut into Maria’s side. “People can balk at neck kissing all they like, but it never fails to get a girl what she—”

“Have you kissed?” Yamane practically vibrates in her seat, the deep blue of her eyes suddenly sparkling and bright. “Or maybe even…held hands?”

“I think you’ve got the order wrong on that one,” Kawata snorts. “And usually all that happens after the d—”

“It’s not a date,” Maria repeats wearily, temples pounding. “It’s a…a group thing.”

“A group date?” Yamane gasps, and ugh, that’s worse.

“N-no! Nothing like that! I just…” Her mouth works, waiting for the words to come to her, to try to smooth over this whole misunderstanding, but all she manages is, “They were already going, and I was invited to join them.”

Yamane frowns. “And you’re the only girl going? With a bunch of guys.”

“Yes. Exactly.” Even numbers might imply a pairing off, but there's no romance in the way she's outnumbered four-to-one. Especially when the only thing interesting about her is her test scores. “And I wasn’t sure if I should wear what I normally would, or…something different.”

“Something different, huh?” Kawata’s mouth hooks into a smirk, and there’s no time to stop her before she says, “So what you’re saying is that you got invited, and there’s someone you like going.”

There’s a pause, a small lacuna of conversation where she could protest, where she could play utterly innocent— but she’s too slow to take it. Too surprised at being caught to invent something more benign, and now—

Now her ears ache from all the squealing.

“Who is it? No”— Yamane holds up a hand, pressing the other to her temple— “wait, let me see if I can guess. No, wait, actually, give me a hint first—”

“Really?” There’s a small wrinkle between Yuki-chan’s eyebrows, the tiniest hint of concern. “But I thought...?”

It’s Kawata who seizes the initiative. “Are you seeing a scary movie?”

“Er.” A good question; being invited had been such a novelty, Maria hadn’t actually bothered to ask about the title, let alone the content. “I’m not…sure?”

“If you are, pretend to get scared.” She says it so breezily, like it’s a foregone conclusion that Maria couldn’t actually be scared of anything that wasn’t covered in red pen. “Then you can get him to put his arm around you.”

“Oooh, yes!” Yamane claps her hands together, far too eager. “You can do that no matter what kind of movie it is, can’t you? There’s always something surprising going on. You just have to grab him and then—”

“I— I’m not going to do that.” The spectral weight of Kashima’s arm settles over her shoulders, hypothetically warm even through two layers of fabric, and oh, it says something about her that it’s so tempting. Just what she can’t begin to speculate, but something. “Resort to…to deception.”

“It’s not deception,” Yamane insists, wide-eyed. “It’s just tricking him into comforting you!”

“That,” Maria informs her, “is exactly the same thing.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Kawata says, waving Yamane off with a sigh. “Boys like it when girls act vulnerable. It makes them feel important or something. That’s why they all like Yuki-chan so much.”

“I’m not vulnerable!” Yuki’s cheeks puff out petulantly, only deepening her pout. “I’m just…indecisive.”

“Same difference,” Kawata deadpans. “That’s your problem, though, Mari-chi. You don’t seem like you need anyone.”

If that were true, she’d hardly be here, asking about boys and clothes and the hundred other things girls her age were born knowing. Or begging scraps off anyone that seems to have a halfway decent idea of how to interact with someone outside of a group project. But--

“I don’t,” she lies, fists trembling in her lap. “If some boy can’t handle that I’m a…er…strong, independent woman, then there’s no reason to get into a relationship in the first place!”

But it's better, isn't it, if everyone thinks it's on purpose? If it isn't just her fumbling through the dark, failing to find even one friend she can make stick. If boys don't like her because they're weak, instead of--

“But everyone needs someone sometimes, don’t they?” Yuki-chan frowns, that concerned little wrinkle deepening. “Not just a boyfriend, but— you can’t be strong all the time, you know? It’s not good for you.”

“I’ve been doing fine this far.” Friends didn't earn a top spot in the most prestigious Tokyo universities, and, if the girls in the academy were any indication, having a boyfriend seemed to preclude them. Or the ambition to try for one, at least. “I don’t see why I need to change just because a boy needs to feel useful, or whatever.”

It's terrible the way Yuki-chan looks at her, sweet sincerity making her eyes water so much they shine. "But, Maria--"

“You may not wanna change for a guy," Kawata continues, utterly undaunted. "But I'm sure we can figure out a way to make you look cute." She flicks her hand. "Come on, what do you have in your closet?"

Maria hesitates. “Well, I would say most of my wardrobe is skirts, but…”

Maria has never been personally complimented on her ability to read any given room, but Yuki lingers behind pointedly enough that even she realizes that she should slow down, letting her pace match the snail-speed one Yuki’s decided to take on. By the bright smile Yuki turns on her, thrilled with every foot they put between them and Kawata and Yamane’s backs, it’s the right thing to do.

At least, that’s how it feels until it’s just the two of them, standing in an empty courtyard, only the birdsong for conversation. This is where she’s probably supposed to say something, explain why she decided to keep after Kashima when even Yuki called it a lost cause, and—

“You know…” Yuki rocks onto her toes before settling back back on her heels, and ah— she’s nervous, just the way Maria is. “I didn’t really expect you to move on from Kashima-kun.”

“You didn’t?” Between the two of them, she’s always been the one to give up easier; the one who runs into one speed bump and needs to regroup. The one who's discouraged by a stray breeze and needs to be built back up. You don’t seem like you need anyone, that’s what Kawata had said— funny, since it’s only because of Yuki’s constant encouragement that she didn’t let this silly crush on Kashima go the way of the piano way back in first year.

“Of course not! That’s the way you’ve always been, Maria-chan. Determined.” It’s a nice way to say stubborn, at least. Just like she’d expect from Yuki, even if the heartfelt handclasp is…a lot, as usual. “I’m proud of you for taking control of your own destiny! Drinking the nectar of our youth. It’s just…”

Maria blinks. “Just…?”

Yuki’s smile stretches thin, a grimace rather than a grin. “Don’t you think you might be coming on a little strong?”

“Strong?” Between school and studying, she’d hardly had more than a few minutes to speak to Kashima the past few weeks, and though she’d maybe sent him some lingering looks through the daycare’s windows, she can hardly count that as interacting, not when she’s reasonably sure he hadn’t seen her. “I don’t think I’m doing anything different than I normally do.”

Besides her research, but well, Yuki doesn’t need to know about that.

“Ah, really? But…” Yuki glances at her, concerned. “You do come to the classroom every day.”

For Kamitani, she nearly says, but that’s the last sort of misunderstanding she needs to stumble into. “I don’t think he notices.”

Not to say more than a friendly hello, at least. He always seems much more invested in whatever strange shenanigans his friends seem to be up to.

“He doesn’t?” Yuki stares at her for a long moment, then sighs. “Maria-chan, leave it to you to pick a harder challenge than Kashima-kun.”

"I'm not! It's..." The same it's always been. "I'm better prepared."

“Can you just tell me if he’s…he’s nice to you at least?” she asks, strangely desperate. “Not, er…?”

Maria blinks. Kashima has trouble killing fruit flies, let alone being anything but unfailingly polite to anything with a pulse. “I don’t think there’s a mean bone in his body. Not ones he knows about, anyway.”

“Really? But…” Her delicate brow furrows. “Well, I suppose they do say love changes a person…”

“Yuki?”

“Ah! Never mind me.” Her hands squeeze tight around Maria’s. “As long as you’re sure, I’m here to support you. No matter what!”

A weight lifts from Maria’s shoulders; one she hadn’t even realized she was carrying. Yuki isn’t mad that she’s still stuck on Kashima. She isn’t disappointed she won’t move on. She isn’t jealous that she—

Maria hesitates. Why would she be? For all her research, it’s not like she has much to show for it. Not yet, at least.

“Thank you,” she says, her own fingers tightening around Yuki’s. “That really…means a lot to me.”

Yuki’s nose wrinkles, playful. “Of course. It’s going to take more than a boy to come between us!”

It occurs to Maria later— much, much later— that maybe she should have asked Yuki to be more specific on which one.

#inokami #inomata x kamitani #gakuen babysitters #gakubaby #inomata maria #maria inomata #hayato kamitani #kamitani hayato #my fic #don't speak boyshit #future fic #year three #idiots to lovers #slow burn #dating lessons #FINALLY WE HAVE MADE IT THROUGH THIS ROUND OF MARIA ANXIETY #next chapter is MOVIES. and Kamitani POV #and these two idiots unable to pick up a hint for the lives of them

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wssvshittymlpcomiclmao · 6 months ago

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Humble Slice of Death Pie (Valenshy POV)- short story #1

The loud whirring of her laptop caused her eyes to flutter open.

what time was it?

She didn't even remember going to bed.

Valenshy opened her eyes to see her game still running, barely at least. The time? 1.15am. Better than last time, she figured. She felt almost pinned under her laptop, it wasn't that heavy, it realistically should just slide off of her. But she couldn't move it, or rather, she couldn't bring herself to move it. The game was still on, the computer still whirred, and yet, all those alarm bells were just lulling her back to sleep.

Whirring of the fans means it's hot, right? She thought as her eyes began to close. Right, having a device suffocated by the sheets wasn't a good idea. That could cause a fire, right? A fire that could ignite said sheets, right? A fire that could then burn through her, right? Through her skin, through her flesh, right? A fire that could burn down the house, right?

Would today be the day she died? Would she really be okay with that?...

No seriously, girl, would you really be okay with that? Seriously? For the love of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, are you really that selfish? HOLY FUCK!! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU BITCH?? I MEAN SERIOUSLY?? THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU!! WHO CARE ABOUT YOU, BUT NOOOOO, LITTLE BITCH BOY VALENSHY GOT ART BLOCK AND SHE'S GONNA THROW HER SORRY LITTLE LIFE DOWN THE DRAIN. WELL GUESS WHAT, YOU PINK FUCK, THERE ARE PONIES OUT THERE WHO WOULD KILL TO HAVE THE MISERABLE LIFE THAT YOU HAVE, SO QUIT BEING SO FUCKING SELFISH AND MOVE YOUR DAMN LAPTOP.

Valenshy's eyes opened wide. She shut down her laptop and mustered the last of her energy to float the laptop over to her shelves on the other side of the room, vents up, so that it could sufficiently cool down.

No death for me today, she thought, or night rather.

She laid her head on her pillow properly, and yet sleep wouldn't take her. Her breath was too heavy, her eyelids not heavy enough. She felt a pricking sensation in her eyes, which turned into a choking feeling in her throat, which eventually lead to tears streaming down her face. Not even down her cheeks, like in the pretty movie kinda way, just into her mouth and onto her pillow. Her head became thick with sinuses. Why was she crying? Over what?

Like seriously, over what? Seriously, what the fuck girl, grow up, can't handle a couple of mean thoughts? Seriously? Oh! Boohoo!! My brain is being mean to me! Oh shut up!! Maybe you were right in wanting to die, lazy freak. Do us all a favour and KILL YOUSEL-

Before she knew it, she was being hit over the head with a pillow.

"Valieeeee," Comet Tail groaned, her voice muffled due to the pillow between her teeth.

Valenshy's alarm was going off, seemed like it was doing so for the past few minutes.

"You have work today right?" Comet Tail asked, slobbery pillow now on the floor, "Is Masquerade picking you up?" Valenshy was about to asked why, but Comet Tail was a few steps ahead of her, "I wanna go to the mall."

Valenshy just stared at Comet Tail, or rather, past her, right as that upside down laptop, hoping, praying, it would suddenly burst into flames.

OOC: SOOOOOO, HOW WAS IT?? :3 (if there's grammar errors, shhhhhh no there's not! /j)

It's actually super fun to write, i've been meaning to get back into it, but usually it just feels like too much pressure, so doing small stories like this is really cathartic!! If you have any other characters you would love to hear the pov of, imk!!

#wssv #mlp #mlp g3 #ask blog #why so shy valenshy?#valenshy #my little pony #mlp fic #mlp fanfic #fanfiction #short story #wssv short story 1 #tw depressing stuff #tw depression #tw derealization #tw dereality #tw derealisation #tw sui ideation #tw intrusive thoughts

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crossdressingdeath · 1 year ago

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Lord Enver Gortash: You and I initiated this plot. We discussed in depth the failures of our predecessors and how to avoid them. Lord Enver Gortash: We understood that if we were to unite, no one could stand in the way of the Dead Three. Lord Enver Gortash: So unite we did. First we obtained the crown; then we enslaved the brain. From there, it was but a small step to the most successful religious hoax ever perpetrated. Kyvir: What was my role in this plan? Lord Enver Gortash: In Bhaal's name, you set your bloody daggers to cause panic in the streets, killing in the Absolute's name. Lord Enver Gortash: You would have carried out that part of the plan, at least, had Orin not ruined your hard work. Lord Enver Gortash: Next, the threat of the Absolute's monstrous armies formed by Myrkul's general, Ketheric Thorm. Lord Enver Gortash: In such circumstances, people crave strong leaders. Leaders that bring law, order, and protection. Leaders like me, Bane's unyielding hand, author of justice. Lord Enver Gortash: You are soon to witness the people of Baldur's Gate granting me complete power over them. All out of fear of the Absolute. Lord Enver Gortash: The faithful will do anything in the name of their god.

Once again: we are having this conversation in front of all the most powerful nobles in Baldur's Gate. Gortash, I really think this discussion should be had in your office? Later? Maybe over tea? Not in front of everyone who's anyone in the city? Maybe don't blurt out the whole plan right here and now? I'm sure this'll be fine. I would've liked it if he'd put literally any thought into keeping his Top Secret Evil Villain Plan a secret, but I'll just work on the assumption he was so excited to tell Durge all about how clever the two of them were he couldn't wait.

That aside! I honestly didn't expect Durge to have been one of the architects of the whole plan. I knew they were Gortash's favourite assassin and held a position of sufficient respect and authority that they were free to do whatever they wanted around Moonrise, but I didn't think they were seriously involved in the planning phase; I figured that Gortash kind of just... pointed them at people as his assassin. Also, very curious how the two of them started working together. I figured Gortash planned the whole thing out and then went to ally with them once he realized he'd need them, but if they were part of the whole thing from the start that clearly isn't what happened. Did Bhaal and Bane point them at each other to get things started, did they just happen to run into each other for reasons other than divine intervention, did one of them learn of the other's presence in the city and seek them out? I have questions about this partnership! Also about General Ketheric "Third Wheel" Thorm; it seems like he wasn't there at the start, but no word as of yet on when exactly they brought him into the group.

I also love the Chosen of Bane talking to the former Chosen of Bhaal, his former partner in this little scheme to take over the world in the name of the Dead Three, about how the faithful will do anything in the name of their god. Especially with the irony of Gortash not knowing about what Durge's original plan actually was. Like... yeah, if anyone knows how far someone will go for their god it's these two!

#bg3 #bg3 durge #bg3 spoilers #enver gortash

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fizzyfizu · 11 months ago

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Accursed in the Lake’s Depths

Chapter 2.1 : The Taste of Freedom

Harry J. Potter / reader

MASTERLIST : The Archives.. ⊲ previous ༄.˚₊ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 ₊˚.༄ next ⊳

It was sweet: freedom. You were finally free. Conscious from the moment Bagman was busy hyping up the audience, you were free. Potter was it? Was that your saviour's name? Well, at least that's what the gruff voice owned by Potter’s professor told you. It doesn't take much to visualise what he looked like though, not when you could hear the voices of students constantly murmuring about a person who defeated Voldemort as a mere baby…and the occasional voice gushing over his looks; their shrill voice still haunts you to this day, you can feel your ears ring at the thought of it.

You heard of only two Potters during your time in the lake, but you guessed this one to be Harry Potter–the boy who lived, youngest seeker in a century, the boy who speaks parseltongue, the boy who saved a 1st year girl while in his 2nd year, the boy who passed out due to a dementor, among other things. If you were to list all the things you've heard about the boy you'd be talking for 40 minutes minimum. But now, you know him as the boy who freed you from your temporary prison.

As much as Professor Dumbledore reasoned to Dippet that they should keep you here for the safety of your well being instead of as a punishment, they could not deny how this was nothing short of a prison. But between the choice of being sent to Azkaban and being branded as a 14 year old criminal, and being temporarily held prisoner in the Black Lake, this might’ve been the better option...just by a bit (if you squint).

You knew fully well that you had regained control over your body ever since Harry had pulled your body out of the water, but for some reason your brain told you that playing dead was the way to go. To be frank, you could feel the obvious feeling of sorry for the boy as he carried you around princess style (also known as bridal style*).

It wasn't clear if he was struggling to carry you but regardless if he struggled or not you still felt bad. He is sufficient in magic, you know that, but for some reason he doesn't think to use it–or maybe he didn't feel like it. Whatever the case is, you don't know.

You wanted, no, needed to move. Needed to stretch your muscles, to move again, to recall how to walk again, to wave your wand like you used to, to run around freely. For once you missed your lessons. You were shy, and if you started an act, you struggled to stop playing the part. But right now? All you yearned for right now was to feel the feeling of movement once again.

And so you shoved that part of you, the part of you who couldn't break an act, away for now, and opened your eyes wide. This..Wow; the sky was so blue and vibrant..after all those years being stuck there in the Black Lake, you started to forget the common sights you used to take for granted. Opening your eyes has never felt so good.

You shifted your eyes to stare at the boy who is currently carrying you, your eyes were also no longer wide open, instead they were relaxed. You don't think he noticed how you were now awake; his eyes looked unfocused, he's probably just in deep thought.

Your arms were crossed and laid neatly on your stomach, your legs dangled freely; to catch his attention, you reached your hand out to poke his neck–no one likes being poked in the neck right? Regardless of your reasonings it worked as he jumped a bit at the feeling and whipped his head in your direction.

A/N: Finally able to write 2nd POV for reader, also is the spacing weird? During the editing phase I split my paragraphs into two, but I dont know if it looks better or worse, thoughts?

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madamemachikonew · 2 years ago

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Tuesday - Baizhu x reader (3k, romantic fluff, Baizhu's birthday)

A bit of birthday fluff for my favourite dendro man.

An excerpt from my Baizhu x fem reader fic, A Flower Without A Seed. I wrote this a while ago and had called the chapter 'Tuesday' to avoid having to commit to guessing an actual birth date, but coincidentally it did fall on a Tuesday this year.

The fic is fem reader, but there are no pronouns used in this chapter, so anyone can enjoy it (which is why I've used gn reader in the tags). Also, while this chapter is fluffy, the main fic contains some smutty chapters, so proceed with caution if clicking the link through to the main fic.

Enjoy.

---

Having surprised you with the sudden revelation of his birthday, you wracked your brain for ideas about how best to celebrate it at such short notice. You only had a few more days in which to come up with something. Should you take him out for a date in Liyue Harbour? If so, a fancy meal and some opera, or would he prefer something simpler and more relaxed like a meal at a storytelling restaurant in Chihu Rock. Or maybe he just wanted a cosy night in? What about inviting other people? While Qiqi and Gui would probably like to be part of it, what if Baizhu preferred something just the two of you?

You laid your head on Baizhu’s chest as he sat in bed reading a book. He held his book in one hand while his other arm was wrapped around you, holding you close. You took a break from your own book, folding it closed around your finger to hold the page.

“Darling?” you began.

“Hmm?” He looked up from his reading.

“Anything in particular you’d like to do for your birthday?”

“Ohh, you don’t have to go to any trouble on my account, little finch.” he replied.

“I know I don’t have to. But I want you have a special day.”

“Every day with you is special, my love.” He smiled and kissed your head lightly. You could see right through his ruse; he was trying to charm you into abandoning the idea or not make a fuss over him. And yet from Baizhu’s perspective, he meant every word.

“But Baizhu~” you whined, frustratedly. You felt his warm chest vibrate against your cheek as he laughed.

“But I mean it. Just having you with me will be quite sufficient.” He gave you a squeeze. You sighed with exasperation.

“Alright.” You said dejectedly. “Well at least tell me this much; is there anything that you don’t want.”

“Ah, now that’s very easy. No parties. Especially not surprise ones. Pure anathema.” he said, resolutely.

“Got it. And can I tell Gui and Qiqi your birthday?”

He cocked his head in thought. “Hmmm, alright then.” Baizhu yawned. “Shall we call it a night, my dear?”

“Yes, I think so.” you agreed. You put your book away on the nightstand, marking the page with a bookmark. Baizhu blew the lantern out. He held your face, then laid a sensual kiss on your lips. Slipping his tongue into your mouth, he took his time to properly indulge his senses. He released your lips and, stroking your cheek with the pad of his thumb, he gazed at you with a tender smile.

“Goodnight, my love.” he said softly. “See you in the morning.”

He waited expectantly for you to roll over, so that he could spoon you as he did most nights you spent the night together.

“Actually,” you said, “can I be the big spoon tonight?”

Baizhu laughed gently. “I would like that very much.” With a contented smile, he rolled over with his back to you. You snuggled close, wrapping your arm around him, with your face nestled in his abundant, fragrant hair. You sighed happily and gave him an affectionate squeeze, then closed your eyes to sleep.

---

When the day itself came, you greeted Baizhu with a gentle kiss when he woke.

“Happy Birthday, my love.” you whispered. Baizhu smiled, his eyes fluttering dreamily.

“Thank you, my little finch. Waking up to you certainly does make it a happy one.”

You presented Baizhu with his gift. You had bought a pair of intricately carved antique brushpots. They were made from tortoiseshell, the tortoise being a symbol of longevity. You knew how fond Baizhu was of doing calligraphy so figured they would make a fine addition to his stationery implements.

Baizhu sat up in bed and unwrapped the gift. He gracefully pulled them from the box with slender fingers.

“Oh my love, these are exquisite!” Baizhu was genuinely impressed and looked at each one closely, turning them in his hands to inspect the detail of the fine craftsmanship. “Thank you so very much. I shall use them right away.” He leaned across the bed, reaching to you and pulling you to him for a kiss.

You both got up and got ready for the day. You left Baizhu to finish his preparations and headed into the kitchen. When Baizhu found you, Qiqi and Gui were sitting at the kitchen table for the occasion. Gui leapt from his seat reverently and bowed deeply to Baizhu.

“Many happy returns Xiansheng!”

Baizhu chuckled, “Thank you, you’re most kind.”

Qiqi monotonously said “Happy birthday Baizhu.”

Then she presented him with a handmade card that you had helped her make. He took it carefully from her and seemed genuinely touched.

“Why thank you, my dear Qiqi. What a precious sentiment. I shall treasure it.”

He gave her gentle hug and a light kiss on the head. Then he put the card on display in full view on the kitchen dresser.

“Ok, breakfast is ready!” you called, setting down a portion of pancakes and fresh fruit at each place.

You had researched recipes and found one from Mondstadt which looked perfect for the occasion. Baizhu looked slightly abashed at all the fuss, but nevertheless quietly enjoyed himself in the midst of the happy chaos of his quasi-family.

---

Gui cautiously knocked on the door of Baizhu’s study and entered when he was called. He gently closed the door behind him and stood before Baizhu’s desk.

“Gui!” He said cheerfully, “Is everything alright?”

Gui took a deep breath. “Xiansheng! May I humbly offer you my wishes for your longevity on this auspicious day!” He bowed formally and held his arms out stiffly, presenting a small package, wrapped in tissue paper decorated with turtles. “May you live as long as Mount Aocang and may the adepti protect you!”

Baizhu went wide-eyed and tentatively accepted the package and set it down on his desk. He carefully unwrapped it and his mouth fell open in surprise when he saw the book. He let out a soft gasp involuntarily. It was a rare first edition of a medical treatise that Baizhu had tried on many occasions to track down, unsuccessfully.

Shaking his head, Baizhu whispered, “Gui…I can’t accept such generosity. This is too much.” He was genuinely moved.

Gui shook his head firmly. “Think of it as the equivalent of what I would have spent on all the birthdays since I’ve known you.”

Baizhu looked troubled and almost embarrassed. Unlike Baizhu, Gui was not wealthy, though he received a proper wage for his work. The gift would have been expensive. Baizhu made a mental note to give Gui a larger bonus for his Lantern Rite and birthday gifts; he resolved to repay the cost in a way that would not seem obvious or injure Gui’s pride.

Baizhu stood up and bowed deeply to Gui.

“Gui, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. It means so very much. I promise to cherish it always.”

“Xiansheng…” Gui was almost embarrassed at the sight of his mentor bowing so formally to him.

Baizhu sat back down and picked up the book to admire it. He gestured for Gui to sit.

“You know, I recently just missed a copy of this at the Wanwen Bookstore.”

Gui smiled mischievously and scratched his head bashfully.

“Ahhh, yes, that would have been me. I had been planning on giving it to you to commemorate the anniversary of me starting my apprenticeship under you, but I thought this would be a nice occasion instead.”

“Gui! You don’t need to give me anything for that! It has been a pleasure working with you all of these years. I can rest easy knowing that the pharmacy will be in good hands in the future. That’s the best gift I could possibly wish for.”

“Don’t say that as though you’re planning to retire soon!”

Baizhu smiled and shook his head.

“Not if I can help it. But it would be irresponsible to not plan ahead, don’t you think?”

The bell rang at the front counter. Gui bowed to excuse himself and left to attend to the customer. Baizhu sat, enthralled, looking at the book. He smiled softly as he reflected on the fact that Gui had used a birthday formulation for an elderly person. It was a subtle act of kindness and respect, for though while Baizhu was not old, they both knew he was closer to the end of his life than most. It was strange and bizarre to Baizhu’s ears to hear someone else call his birthday auspicious; the day had ultimately led to a path of tragedy after all. But without such misfortune, perhaps he never would have found himself surrounded by wonderful people.

---

You had decided to treat Baizhu to a romantic meal at the Liuli Pavilion, as a throwback to your first proper date together. While the waiting list was normally very long, it seemed that Baizhu’s name was enough to move your booking to the top of the list. Both of you dressed up for the occasion in formal Liyue style outfits. However, no sooner had the first course arrived when the manager of the restaurant approached the table, a grave look on his face.

“Doctor Baizhu, I must apologise for disturbing your meal but…”

As the manager bowed and talked discreetly into Baizhu’s ear you knew what was coming and your heart sank. Baizhu dabbed the corners of his mouth delicately with his napkin as he listened and nodded. As he got up from his chair he gave you an apologetic look.

“I’m so very sorry my love.”

You shook your head and forced yourself to smile for him. He pressed his hand to your head to comfort you as he passed your seat and went to fetch his overcoat.

As Baizhu prepared to leave, you called the manager over and asked him to box the meal to take away. He nodded compliantly. You gathered your things and made your way to the exit. The manager returned, laden with boxes in a paper bag. You accepted them and paid the bill. The manager then draped your long overcoat over your shoulders. When you got outside, Baizhu was already deep in a conversation with a frantic woman. It hit you that your inconvenience was very trivial compared to whatever emergency was going on in her life, not to mention the patient. Herbalist Gui stood aside, holding Baizhu’s kit bag, having sprinted from the pharmacy to fetch him here. You took it from him.

“It’s alright, I’ll carry it.”

You smiled. Gui looked at you, his face a frame of pity.

“You had such a lovely evening planned.” he said sympathetically.

He gently squeezed your upper arm to comfort you. You shook your head and bit your lip, forcing a smile. For some reason, hearing someone else be sad on your account made you want to cry.

“It’s alright, we can do it another day.” you said.

Baizhu turned to you, ready to leave, and observed the kit bag in your hand.

“Oh, you’re coming too?” he asked with surprise.

“Yes!”

“Oh! Alright then, if you’re sure. It won’t be much fun for you though. There won’t be anything for you to do except wait around.”

“That’s alright.”

“Very well.”

To save time, Baizhu hailed a rickshaw. The woman gave the address and directions to the driver and followed in a second one. The two of you sat silently, squeezed together. You held the bag of food and Baizhu had his kit bag on his knee. He opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but then didn’t speak. Instead, he put his hand on your knee and gave it a gentle squeeze. You put your hand on his and interlaced your fingers with his own.

The rickshaw arrived at a small house in the outskirts of town outside Chihu Rock and the two of you got out. Baizhu gave you his mora pouch to pay the driver and hurried into the house, where another member of the family was already waiting with the door open. After you had paid the driver, you went inside and heard the chaos. Someone was very obviously in pain. The head of the family had been out hunting and had been gored by a wild boar, leaving a serious wound that needed patching up urgently. One of the other family members led you through to wait in the kitchen and made you some tea. It was an awkward moment; you didn’t know what you could say to reassure them. After all, you weren’t the doctor. All you could say with sincerity was “He’s in the best possible hands. I know Baizhu will do everything he can.”

Baizhu eventually emerged into the kitchen, his sleeves rolled up and his hands covered in blood. He washed them at the sink and one of the family ran to hold a towel ceremoniously for him to use. He wiped his hands methodically and then accepted the cup of hot tea that was offered to him. He took a tentative sip before sitting down at the kitchen table opposite you. He smiled and reached his hand across the table to grasp yours. His pale skin was now spotless. It never failed to blow your mind how these lithe and gentle fingers had the power to manipulate life and death.

��How did it go?” you asked.

“All stitched up now, thankfully. But he lost a lot of blood. He should pull through though.”

“That’s a relief.”

Baizhu nodded. The woman who had found him at the restaurant tentatively hovered with a mora pouch in her hands.

“Doctor, how much do we…?”

Baizhu waived his hand dismissively. “Gui will deal with that in the morning when you collect the prescription. Everybody should get some rest for now. And besides, we need to be heading home.”

“Oh, of course. I’m very sorry we disturbed your evening.”

“There’s no extra charge if that’s what you mean.”

“Well, not just that. It’s just that it seemed like a special occasion.”

Baizhu smiled and shook his head.

“Please don’t worry. Every day with my sweetheart is special.”

You blushed at his words and he gave your hand a gentle squeeze. Normally he was very private about his personal life, yet tonight he was unashamedly flaunting you as his.

“Now, we really should be going.” He stood up to leave and they fetched his coat and kit bag.

The two of you left the house and started to walk back towards Chihu Rock. As you walked, hand in hand, you saw all the stars out. It was a clear night and the moon was up. The perfect night for stargazing.

“What an absolute disaster!” you sighed, half laughing. Baizhu playfully swung your clasped hands back and forth as you walked.

“It wasn’t all bad, my love. At least the fee covered the cost of the meal.”

“Speaking of which, I expect it’s gone cold by now.”

As you walked, Baizhu tugged your hand to pull you off the main path towards a small elevated patch of grass overlooking the harbour. The giant moon was reflected on the waves below. Baizhu set down his bag and laid his coat on the grass. He sat down, cross-legged, and patted the spot next to him for you to sit. Then he opened the bag of food and started pulling out the containers, inspecting the contents. You smiled and felt warm inside at his considerate attempt to rescue the evening. The two of you ate the food together, enjoying the view of the Harbour below and laughing between you.

When you had finished eating, Baizhu lay back on the grass. He drew you to him so that your head was resting on his chest, looking up at the stars.

“Do you know anything about astronomy?” he asked.

“Only the basics. Enough to get me home if I get lost.”

“That’s already an impressive amount.” He elegantly pointed at the sky with one hand, caressing your head with the other. You felt his warm chest gently rise and fall under your head.

“See that arrangement there? That’s your constellation. And that one there…that’s my star. The one I was born under.”

He singled out a dim twinkling star. It was not as bright as the others, but it shone with all its might.

“It’s beautiful.” You whispered, trying to memorise its location in the sky.

“It’s funny, Gui called my day auspicious this morning. But truth be told I was born under a very unfortunate configuration. It grants success but always at a terrible price. That said, life is full of surprises. Things have a tendency of working out.”

You both silently admired the heavens for a while until Baizhu said with a sigh, “Well, I suppose we ought to get back, or Gui will come looking for us. And as nostalgic as that would be, I’d prefer to save him the trouble.”

He stood up and shook the grass off his coat before putting it on. He fastened the buttons on your coat and fixed your collar. Then he held you by your upper arms and said sympathetically,

“I’m sorry things didn’t go the way you planned tonight, my love. I know you’d been so looking forward to it.”

You shook your head and smiled. “It’s alright, it wasn’t your fault. I just wanted the day to be perfect for you.”

“But it was perfect, my little finch. I had a very happy birthday indeed.”

“You did?”

“I did. I got to spend it with you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

“I had a happy birthday today too.”

“You? How so?”

You wrapped your arms around him and held him tightly, clinging to him so that your fingers almost dug into him.

“I’m happy that you were born. I’m happy that you’re alive.” You whispered. He smiled.

“I’m happy to be here, my love.” He said softly, caressing your head.

#genshin impact baizhu #baizhu #baizhu genshin #genshin baizhu #baizhu genshin impact #baizhu x you #baizhu x y/n #baizhu x reader #happy birthday baizhu #白朮 #genshin ao3 #白术 #原神 #baizhu x gn reader #but the main fic is baizhu x fem reader #genshin fanfic #baizhu fanfic

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aita-blorbos · 1 year ago

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(oc thing)

AITA for abandoning my world for 103 years?

Ok I know this sounds bad but let me explain.

I (NB, don't really have an age) am the creator of two worlds but only one is important to this story. The one that isn't relevant is more like a world-sized computer, but the relevant one is just your average world with life and stuff, and was the first one I made.

Before you mention it, I know there are guides and templates for life created by the God community. I know the best way to make stable life is to put a simple organism on the world and let it evolve to fit the environment. I know. Believe me, I know. But I certainly didn't know or care back when I made this world because I wanted to make everything from scratch. That was foolish of me. I know. I should have at least read a guide or something.

All this to say I made a bit of a mistake with my initial thought algorithm. Because thoughts work quite fast and I wanted to see everything so I could troubleshoot, I introduced an intentional "throttle" into the algorithm; it would wait for me to acknowledge the thought before it progressed. It's all fun and games until you forget to remove that throttle and create countless creatures all using that flawed algorithm. Yeah.

I didn't want to wipe everything out and start over because that seemed needlessly cruel. Applying patches to anything, especially something like brains, live is a difficult and risky process for the person with the brain. So I just kinda set up a "server room" of power that would just auto-acknowledge anything coming through. That was a temporary solution.

I spent a good couple centuries working out a method to patch the throttle out of my beings. The expansion of life was beginning to overwhelm my temporary measure. I was tired. So tired. I finished it and found blissful silence awaiting me. Wonderful.

In fact I was so tired I wanted to take a bit of a break. I'd also use the time I would be out to test and workshop a self-sufficient, hands-free (for me at least) way to keep my world safe from any existential threats. They're not common, but it's always a good thing to look out for.

So I decided that I would randomly give out my power to people, disappear completely (except for a couple recording devices that were hidden ofc), and come back in a year and see how things went. Then I'd adjust things accordingly. Simple right? What could possibly go wrong?

I think you probably get what happened, but I'll explain it anyways. I essentially had NO IDEA the flow of time was usually different between universes. I didn't know I was supposed to chrono-lock my universe and the universe I was in together to preserve the flow of time between them. And I just so happened to take my year-long vacation to a universe that was REALLY slow compared to mine.

So I come back, 103 years later. There was a war, and this lady somehow consolidated everyone's power and is now acting as the goddess of my world (which I'm honestly fine with, I was never one to take an active role in my world). There's a cult worshiping me, using the hijacked power of one of my observation devices to shield themselves from the lady who made herself the goddess and doing terrible things in my name. Things kinda sucked.

And I'm sort of thinking things would be a lot better if I didn't accidentally spend 103 years of my world's time on vacation. So, AITA?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality #cult mention

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yomiurinikei · 2 years ago

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rei mekaru (shocker i know)

we r ginger liker solidarity.... yuuki/yuki likers and rei likers need to come together and be allied...

~*~

My identity hc for them

oh shit tumblr is auto formatting in bullet points thats fun. uhhh w/rei i pretty much like any combination of ace/aro spec + lesbian. 100% lesbian rei? aro lesbian rei? aroace rei? all epic all amazing. i started hc'ing this back in like.. vv early sdra days. and i think its just part of who i am now... i think she doesnt really experience much attraction in general and has a bit of a hard time labeling how she feels because. of her general emotional trauma. so tbh i can see her kinda rotating through labels? i think she keeps it very to her self tho. she doesn't like people assuming she's cishet but she also doesn't want to come out as straightn't, so she just snaps at people who try and drag her into convos about identity.

similarly i think she struggles with really.. going "wow this is so me this is exactly what i am" when it comes to gender identity. i think she's very.. "well im Definitely not a guy, and i dont think im anything else, so..." ie, she's more prone to defining herself by what she isn't than what she is. which is perfectly okay!!! i don't think she'd consider herself trans, but she may occasionally like the label genderqueer. (yes i know that trans people r anyone who's gender deviates from what they were told they should be, but while it is an umbrella term, people can decide if they like it for themselves a lot! and i don't think rei would really like any label other than "idk man its weird", which she likes to use on/off) again tho i dont think she's very into sharing that with people, at least as a teen.

Thoughts on their home life/family

im so curious what her time was like when she was all alone??? i think that's something thats fairly unexplored, is her time between her parents not being able to care for her, and her becoming self-sufficient. ultimately i dont have much to say here, i like how linuj handled her backstory, i just think it wouldve been cool to see more of it, not that there was any good place to write it in, but i love bonus modes and would like to see maybe how the dra survivors coped w/what they learned in the sixth trial in a bonus mode about how the kisa foundation became what it is now.

How i feel about their canonical writing/handling

mmm... tbh. i like rei, i think her growth from dra to sdra2 was handled well- she still feels like rei, while also serving her narrative role- ie. there's not much you can do when shawty gets exploded in the prologue and then has to play second fiddle to tsurugis viola of fucking evil. sadly, we can't do much with the kisa foundation and showing how rei and tsurugi have changed and have the pacing of the chapter still be intact, when we see rei, its mostly just her being voice of reason because someone has to give exposition on what the foundation knows while tsurugi has a meltdown. i think her development feels authentic and natural, if she maybe feels a biiit.. i dont know how to word it, but she almost feels a bit too calm? less snarky at points than i'd think she'd be, and than what i'd like to see. but again, we can explain that as being due to the role she has to play for the story.

ultimately, while not necessarily my cup of tea, i'm just not prone to latching onto characters like rei a whole lot! i def think she's handled well, oddly well for linuj in general, and v oddly well for a female character written by linuj. i like her, im just not brain rotted about her

The one thing i’d want to make canon about them

hmmmmm... im not gonna lie i can't really think of anything? after thinking about it while i typed up. essentially the whole rest of this post, i think it'd be cool if she and kabuya were friends after sdra2. yuuki is... .... ..........lets not talk about what hes up to, syobai and iroha are just a whole fucking mess. theyre a bit busy dealing with heads in boxes. and tsurugi is just sooo normal he's too normal really.

so i think they could meet and chat about how Fucking Insane the games were, in a way that other kg survivors wouldnt get, since they didnt have to deal with divine luck and what it does to people. also seeing as akane saved rei in dra and then. ya know. Soruko. i think that'd be a interesting convo for them to have, both kinda understanding more about akane taira. i think that'd be really neat!

My number one favorite ship for them

hm.... reikako by default of i dont think much about rei ships, and they have a significant amount of canon material. i do wonder though what their relationship was like pre-despair, it feels like a lot of the school life info we have is on utsuro or tsurugi? buuut yeah. also as kinda established i think rei is uncertain where she stands on attraction/her thoughts change a lot and. yeah. so this is less a romantic thing and moreso i want inside linujs brain so i can know what he thinks except he like. officially has stated he doesnt know shit abt sdra anymore which is SO UPSETTING

…Now everyone else i ship with them

i think rei/kizuna/kiyoka could be cute!!! also i kinda just like giving akane gfs, and i don't really think they'd be that compatible, but i think if they had a weird little queercoded friendship for like. the duration of one year during their stay at hpa, and it leaves akane feeling more confident and comfortable with herself as her own person, and leaves rei with a LOT of questions, while they also never really cross the line between friends and something more, that'd be cool and fun. just normal gals being pals things.

The thing i will NEVER ship

im so sorry. 2020 sdrainsta has made me incapable of terurei propaganda. i support people who ship it as a matter of fact im so glad we r now in a place where people can ship it or not ship it and everyone can just be fine and happy. but i dont think ill ever be able to see the vision.

a dynamic/relationship i wish was explored more (in canon, or in fandom)

i wish in sdra2 we saw more on the dynamic that grew between rei and mikako in dra. i think it'd be cool to see that discussed a bit more seeing how it was. mikakos in game memories that formed the basis for sora iirc.

thoughts on their design (appearance-wise)

mmm...... why the fuck did linuj use so much blue in the dra cast color palettes... i remember i had this dentist appointment that was really evil and like. literal hours longer than it was supposed to be, and to try and distract myself i went through the cast and counted who had blue in their design and who didnt. it took a long time because i was in so so so much pain but like. iirc its just mikako akane and yuki. and also mikako wears blue in ch4. so. THATS NOT RELEVANT THOUGH.

uhhhh. im not a huge fan of her outfit just because i dont like the skirt. her og design was a school uniform and i think it kinda shows and im not a huge fan of it? my brain keeps getting mixed up on the length of her skirt but yeah. its just so vibrant and pigmented and so is her hair and its like. the lower half of her fit just feels so high school uniform and i dont really like it. i think her hair is super cute in the bonus sketch (the just-woke-up one) on her character sheet tho.

i also don't really like her fit in sdra2. i think the labcoat is super nice (i like the ombre effect it looks good) and while its not too practical i dont hate the vest short skirt tights combo. but im not a fan of the color palette, its just so dark, so u have her bright hair and the bright coat, but the dark grey and black, in vertical stripes just kinda dominates it in my brain. and i don't really like it? i really dont like the grey with her hair.

she is very pretty. but im not a fan of the fits linuj puts her into

A music-related thought- a song that reminds me of them, or what their music taste is, etc

hmmm.. this is a very foreign concept to me but i dont think reis huge on music. i think for the most part she listens to songs she has memories associated with- she doesn't seem huge on the arts or. ya know. emotional connection? so i think while she wouldn't really vibe with anything particular of her own accord, listening to music which was playing when something emotional happened to her both improves the music, and also. helps her with being in touch with her emotions and letting herself feel. if that makes sense?

#dra #sdra2 #rei mekaru #yomis ask meme #reikako #iroha nijiue #dont want to tag spam but i do want to be on the look out for tags people may have filtered

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quoththemaiden · 2 years ago

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I saw your tags in the poll comments and I had to jump into your ask box. If you want to reply to comments, don't be afraid to do it! People love nothing more than to interact with the author. People comment to express their love for your work, and I can promise nothing make them more happy than to have a reply from the author!!! It's a "my comment had been seen and made them happy, yeah!" feeling.

My tags, for context:

This poll is wild to me. Tumblr's interpretation of fanfic etiquette seems completely backwards from my internet upbringing.

Back on ff.net, where the number of reviews wasn't even a sortable field, it was still uncool for authors to respond to the reviews. Every fic would end with "Please R&R!!!" but actually interacting with reviewers was the kind of thing you were supposed to grow out of as you went from a socially clueless young teen to a socially competent older teen. Saying "That's exactly what I was going for!" or "Oooh just wait, you'll love it!" or "I'm so glad you liked it!" was really just patting yourself on the back for being awesome, and saying "No, you don't get it--" was too defensive. (Putting "I've been blown away by the response to this fic" in an A/N is sufficiently self-effacing if used sparingly, though.)

On AO3, looking at the comment section of a fic and seeing that an author has responded to every comment with "Thanks!!" or "❤️" feels similarly desperate to me--

--and not just cringey, but also vaguely unethical because it's artificially doubling the number of comments on a site that does allow sorting by comments. Like, let your fic stand on its own merits instead of trying to game the system with fake reviews.

But on Tumblr, there's those AO3 etiquette posts going around saying "kudos are for if you finish reading a fic; comments are for if you enjoyed it." And that just feels backwards. Shouldn't kudos be for if you enjoyed the fic enough that you think it should be boosted in the rankings so more people read it? Comments, on the other hand, are mandatory on every fic you read unless you can't find even a single good thing to say about it. (And you're still obligated to rack your brain a bit to see if you can at least pull out a "Wow, that was an interesting premise!" or "I really love this trope so thanks for writing this!" or "This was such a fun line!" and just try not to be too obvious about damning with faint praise.)

I've had authors respond to say, "Hey, sorry I haven't responded to your comments yet, but I've been reading them" and I'm always like... my dude, that's not how this economy works. You write fics and I leave comments. You don't have to write fics and respond to comments. Take a load off.

Obviously if I say something particularly insightful it's nice to hear the author's thoughts back, and I've had some cool conversations about their inspirations... and the friend I talk to literally every single day is someone where we both loved each other's fics 20 years ago and we got started talking because of it... so it's not like I think it's never okay to respond to a reviewer.

(And, frankly, a lot of my comments are a couple paragraphs long or I'm leaving a dozen comments in a short timespan, so it hasn't usually felt weird when authors do respond to me to comment on some highlights.)

It's just absolutely baffling to look at that poll and see that 88% of authors do or think they should respond to comments, so I'm clearly in the vast, vast minority.

It's absolutely, mind-bogglingly wild. And since it's purely a cultural thing, being in the minority means I'm wrong, and I need to come to grips with that. Like, I'm going to need to actively, consciously work on flipping my judgement-o-meter from "responding to comments is inappropriately clingy and must be actively avoided" to "responding to comments is good and expected" because the former is a social norm I internalized decades ago and now I need to go through the active work of completely flipping what's rude and what's polite -- which is a thing that happens all the time as we get older, of course, but it was a shock to encounter it here.

#9-to-1 implies it isn't even a relative thing like “it's rude for Americans to eat with their mouths open but fine for other cultures”#9-to-1 is OVERWHELMING and “no that's cringe and weird” wasn't even an OPTION on the poll #i'd say it's a generational divide but it isn't like the Tumblr userbase is young #so there has to have been some other kind of cultural shift in the decade i was away from fandom #so i guess i just need to get over it and get with the times #but it would definitely help if someone could explain what changed so i could internalize WHY responding to comments is now acceptable #like does it have something to do with the shift from “reviews” to “comments”?#like because it's socially unacceptable for movie producers to respond to movie reviewers but exchanging comments on social media is normal #or is it something else?#but the culture may well have changed a decade ago so who would even remember?#so i feel like any responses would be “saying 'thanks' to a compliment is polite”#which... yeah #but also no #because the author-reader relationship is fundamentally different since authors are providing a service #and readers are obligated to repay them with comments #so #argh #fanfiction #ao3 etiquette #ff.net etiquette #Am I so out of touch?.meme

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dweetwise · 1 year ago

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[Ace X Zarina] Bad behavior

I love them your honor. Rated Mature | 1.1k words | ao3 link

“I can’t believe you!” Zarina exclaimed. "How the hell did you think that was a good idea!?"

She stalked toward Ace while ranting, and he did an awkward half-dance, half-skip backward.

"Hey, now." Ace grinned and held his hands up. "I thought Dwight said we shouldn't put blame on a single person for—"

"We should if they fucking hide in the basement when people are dying on hook!" Zarina argued. “What's the point of even having rules if you're just going to break them every trial!?"

“Oh, you're one to talk," Ace shot back. "You really want to lecture me about rules, Ms. trespassing and illegal recordings?"

“That’s different!” Zarina argued. “It was in the real world and for a good cause!”

“Well—fuck!"

Ace yelped as the back of his knee hit something solid, sending him flailing for balance while he tried not to fall on his ass.

Zarina's hand shot out to grab a fistful of his jacket and pull him upright. She was surprisingly strong considering her size, and at least now Ace knew she wasn't angry enough to want him to injure himself.

Ace glanced around—they'd reached the campfire and he'd tripped on his own damn overflowing hoard of items—but none of the people hanging around seemed to be paying them any mind.

To be fair, it wasn't like Zarina yelling and Ace making an ass out of himself was anything out of the ordinary.

Ace winked and gave Zarina his most charming smile. "Thanks for the save, sugar."

"Uh-huh," Zarina said, utterly unphased by his sweet-talking. "And?"

"And, as I was saying…" Ace cleared his throat to feebly try to restore some of his wounded pride. "My basement excursion was also for a good cause."

Surprisingly, Zarina crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow instead of telling him where to shove the bullshit. “Oh?” she asked. “Let’s hear it, then.”

Ace's brain frantically scrambled for anything that would make a good excuse.

“Adding a toolbox to the collection?” he suggested.

“Ace!”

“—For the starving children!” Ace added, pointing to Renato and Meg sitting nearby.

Renato looked up at them and offered a confused, “Huh?” while Meg just sighed.

“Can’t you guys take this somewhere else?” Meg asked.

“Fantastic idea!” Ace said. “I was just about to go ask Jonah—”

“You.” Zarina gripped Ace's arm firmly before he could slink away from the conversation. “With me. We’re not done yet.”

Ace wagged his eyebrows at Renato and Meg as Zarina dragged him into the woods, earning a snort from Renato and the middle finger from Meg.

"The children are surprisingly ungrateful," Ace told Zarina.

"Shut. Up," she grit out.

Ace held his tongue and tried not to smile too much.

Zarina was somehow even more attractive when she was angry, but Ace doubted she'd appreciate hearing that right now. They'd butted heads ever since meeting—and somehow even more after Zarina succumbed to his charms and they became an item—but at the end of the day, she still always curled up in his arms and kissed him goodnight, so Ace usually tried not to push his luck too much.

Sometimes he just couldn't help himself.

Once they were sufficiently far away from the campfire, Zarina released Ace and turned to face him.

“So? Are you going to apologize?” she asked.

Ace tilted his head and blinked innocently. “For what?”

“Oh, for the love of—!”

Zarina threw her hands up and made a sound of pure frustration, before yanking Ace down into a kiss.

Ace smirked against warm lips and wrapped his arms around Zarina, caressing down her lithe back and toying with the hem of her shirt. Zarina’s response, nowhere near as gentle, was to push him against a tree and bite his bottom lip hard enough to make him feel it.

Ace groaned and wrapped his hands around her tiny waist to pull her closer. If this was supposed to be his punishment, was it really any wonder that he kept misbehaving?

Zarina released his mouth and stepped back. “On the ground,” she ordered. “Now.”

Ace scrambled to obey with such haste he probably should’ve been embarrassed. What could he say? She pushed his buttons just as much as he did hers.

Ace lied down on the filthy forest floor—he's a gentleman, after all, and it wouldn't do to get the lady dirty.

He watched as Zarina undressed, shimmying out of her tight jeans and pulling her shirt over her head to reveal mouth-watering smooth skin. Ace’s pants were already feeling several sizes too small and he figured he might as well try to speed things along. He reached for the button of his slacks, and…

“What do you think you're doing?” Zarina snapped.

"Uh," Ace said, his hands freezing.

Zarina's expression was cold and unimpressed as she walked over and stared him down, completely unbothered by the fact that she was now fully nude in front of him.

“You think you deserve to come after the shit you just pulled?” Zarina demanded.

An involuntary shiver ran through Ace and his dick throbbed even harder in his pants. Damn, she was in that kind of mood, huh?

If Ace knew what was good for him, he'd probably apologize right about now.

Instead, he propped himself up on his elbows and gave her a challenging smirk. “Well, considering my noble cause to save the children—oof!”

The air left Ace's lungs as Zarina planted her foot on his chest and firmly pushed him back down on the ground.

"Rude," Ace croaked out, because the alternative was to moan and ask her to do it again.

Zarina wordlessly sank down on her knees, straddling Ace’s chest and putting her full weight on him: an equally pleasant and efficient way to get him to stay still.

He opened his mouth to make a quip but Zarina clearly anticipated it, and the only sound that escaped Ace’s throat was a breathless whine as she grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked it.

“F-fuck,” he breathed, eyes stinging from the pleasure-pain.

“Shut up,” Zarina said, her hand twisting in his hair one more time before she let go. “Don’t you have something better to do with your mouth?”

Despite her harsh words and rough treatment, Ace could see the way her breath was coming in pants and felt the heat radiating from between her legs. It was always an ego boost to know that no matter how far he pushed, she'd always pull him right back in.

He eagerly settled his head more comfortably into the dirt, ignoring his own throbbing arousal in favor of the task at hand.

Ace licked his lips and winked, motioning for Zarina to straddle his face. “All yours, darling."

#ace visconti #zarina kassir #dbd fanfic #dbd #dead by daylight #dweetwrites #zarinace #i decided that's the ship name now

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bleachbleachbleach · 1 year ago

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11/6 - 11/12/2023

Everything is so much, all the time ToT and I feel entirely emotionally unraveled while I nevertheless continue to attempt to Meet All the Needs with increasingly diminished capacity. I want to walk into the woods and never return! Or maybe a lake. And I miss my friends on TUMBLR DOT COM and also my blorbos. I want to sink myself into something entirely and not come out, be that a fic, or a book, or a TV show, or Fire Emblem. (I mention Fire Emblem specifically because I have found that if I play Fire Emblem I do not eat or sleep much less work or idk, vacuum, so I am only allowed to play it if I have planned this well ahead of time lol. But the extremity of that is what I really want rn.)

Anyway, I still wanted to write this post because I had two thoughts I wanted to capture for posterity. Well, three: The first being that haphazardly collapsing into this doc for weird blitz sessions of writing fragments of conversation is functioning as my confirmation of life rn and it does something in my brain that makes me feel capable of maintaining corporeal form thank u R U K I A

#2: I've waffled about whether I want Kaien to appear in full flashbacks in this fic, which I've decided I do not. (He is technically in one, but it's narrated by Soujun, which feels sufficiently 'well, how much of Kaien is really being captured by this POV.') I think he should appear in summary--mentions of him, stories about him. There are some scenes from Rukia that are a bit more extended, but remain more summary/vignette than scene, which feels abstract enough to me, at least right now.

#3: This Renji/Rukia conversation I am writing right now is probably really five conversations in a trenchcoat. Part of it is probably the nature of the circumstances under which it was written, but I think more of it is actually intentional on my part. Like, I think they could have five different conversations at the same time and probably not blink twice at it. More accurately, probably, Renji and Rukia are carrying on four different simultaneous conversations with each other and Rukia is carrying on a separate one with herself. Whether I think it works, prose-wise, is a different story. I think it would work really well in a play! Like, I know how it could be staged effectively. Unfortunately, I am not writing A PLAY. So idk.

#stories for the sea

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bongo-clash · 2 years ago

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Ectobiology: Ectoplasmic Anatomy of Ghosts & Halfas!!!

Okay, I mentioned in my post about ghost taxonomy a couple things about ectoplasm that helped with the different category sections, and I thought it’d be nice to go over that stuff plus some other ideas in more detail!!! Please don’t mind too much if the science is a little wonky, because I love this kind of thing but I am not a STEM guy, and my only resource is questionable websites and my own brain!!! Anyway, let’s get into some of it!!!!

(Everything under cut!!! :D)

Before I start, I want to make a point of saying that I’m only talking about Ghost Ectoplasm™ specifically and not ectoplasm as a whole (i.e., atmospheric/ambient ectoplasm), and while I might mention it in a section or two in terms of how it interacts with Ghost Ectoplasm™, I won’t go into too many details on the stuff itself (Might do a smaller thing for that though too, if I ever get in the mood for ectochemistry I guess!!!)!! (I also mentioned mediums in my taxonomy post, but we’re ignoring them for now because this stuff doesn’t really apply to them!!! This is exclusively ghost and halfa stuff!!!)

But, now that that’s out of the way, here we go!!!!

Section 1: Ectoplasm’s Prokaryoticism

I’ll start with one of the things that came up in my taxonomy post- specifically to do with why ghosts that were alive at some point are classified as post-eukarya, which definitely raises questions to what they’re like now. Let’s talk about that!!

Post-eukaryotic kind of implies they’re now prokaryotic, meaning they lack a nucleus/membrane bound organelles. In the Domain category of taxonomy (the normal not-ghost one lmao!!), there are two other sections other than eukarya, which are bacteria and archaea. I bring these up because they kind of serve as a base to understand ectoplasm with!!! Post-eukarya ghosts’ ectoplasmic structure more closely resembles organisms labelled bacteria, whereas natural ghosts’ more closely resembles archaea. I wanted to make this distinction because it makes sense given their different niches:

(From the three-domain system wikipedia page)

‘Bacteria tend to be the most prolific reproducers, at least in moderate environments. Archaeans tend to adapt quickly to extreme environments, such as high temperatures, high acids, high sulfur, etc. This includes adapting to use a wide variety of food sources. Eukaryotes are the most flexible with regard to forming cooperative colonies, such as in multi-cellular organisms, including humans.’

An archaean-like structure makes a lot of sense for natural ghosts because of its ability to thrive in extreme conditions, since the Ghost Zone definitely counts as an extreme environment (for non-ectoplasmic entities at least). Bacteria-like qualities, on the other hand, make more sense for post-eukarya ghosts due to them being more likely go into the human world, and thus needing to be much more prolific cell-reproducers and restorers, having to be more ‘self-sufficient’ in that sense as a result of there being a lesser supply of ectoplasm to draw from.

So I feel like I should mention now that I’m not thinking of ghosts as single-celled organisms here, even though that’s how prokaryotic organisms usually are because!!! They’re not always!!! It’s been a least a little bit evidenced that certain bacterial species can aggregate together, which is what multicellular organisms do, and even though there’s a big debate about whether or not we can really call them multicellular, I’ve made the elective decision that we can for ectoplasm!!!! Because they have at least some adhesion even if they’re pretty easily and harmlessly separated (which we can see in most ghost fights), and because the cells can clearly communicate seeing as they all move as part of a body!!!!

Anyway, back to more structure stuff, I’m gonna focus on post-eukarya ghosts just because (though a lot of this could be applied vaguely to natural ghosts too) we’re gonna look into a more specific part of it now to do with the subsistence category- which if you didn’t read the taxonomy post, is basically how ghosts ‘get’ their energy- either by naturally absorbing the ambient ectoplasm in the atmosphere or by having to actively consume energy through any one of various methods.

I mentioned before that post-eukaryotic ghosts are more ‘bacteria-like’. But there’s also a further distinction in the ectoplasmic structure of ambient and active ghosts!!!! There’s a type of bacteria called cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae) which can perform photosynthesis thanks to them containing internal membranes unlike heterotrophic prokaryotes (that can’t produce their own ‘food’), as well as photosynthetic pigments. Ambient ghosts function in a similar way to this, able to absorb the energy from atmospheric ectoplasm rather than having to actively consume anything- also why most post-eukaryotic ghosts are ambient!!! It’s advantageous when taking into consideration the lesser ectoplasm supply in the human world; if they’re constantly, automatically ‘recharging’, then it’s easier to quickly recover from damage (though we’ll get onto the specifics of that later)!!!

However!!! Active post-eukaryotic ghosts also exist (like Spectra!!), so their structure is a little different!!! Their structure can vary more wildly than an ambient’s can, but the more common structural resemblance is to the bacteria Actinomycetota, which can have a kind of symbiotic relationship with their surroundings.

I think it’d be good to have an example for this, so Spectra’s ability is probably an easier way to look at it!!! Some kinds of Actinomycetota help out in ecosystems by converting nitrogen in the air into ammonia for plants, and in ‘return’ gain access to some of those plants’ saccharides. Spectra’s ability works in a similar way, even though the symbiotic nature isn’t mutually beneficial. She induces mood alteration (of the negative kind), and uses that to kind of ‘gain access’ to a target’s energy!!!! But not all active ghosts function this way- some can be beneficial like the kind of Actinomycetota mentioned before, and some are less symbiotic and just stay in the zone to ‘feed’ off its natural supply!!!!

Okay I’m gonna be honest my eyes are blurring looking at all this stuff about prokaryoticism so we’re gonna move on to a new section now for the sake of my brain staying not-melted!!!!!

Section 2: Anaerobic Classifications

Just to make sure I’ve got a definition down before we get into it, aerobic and anaerobic respiration basically refers to whether or not an organism respires with oxygen/uses oxygen for growth or not- aerobic is when it uses oxygen, anaerobic is when it doesn’t!!!

Ghosts are anaerobic!!!! The GZ doesn’t naturally contain breathable/sufficient levels of oxygen (although it can be found in higher contents in areas with a higher population of post-eukaryotic ghosts and portals!!), so it makes sense that they don’t actually have a need for it, however!! There are actually different classifications of anaerobe, and a ghost can fall into almost any one of those categories!!!! There is a little bit of debate about the accuracy of these categories as classifications, but rn we’re just going to ignore that because they work well enough for ghosts!!!

Anyway- there are three categories of anaerobes!!! They’re pretty easy to understand, so I’m just gonna put down what the Wikipedia page says!!! :

Obligate anaerobes, which are harmed by the presence of oxygen. Two examples of obligate anaerobes are Clostridium botulinum and the bacteria which live near hydrothermal vents on the deep-sea ocean floor.

Aerotolerant organisms, which cannot use oxygen for growth, but tolerate its presence.

Facultative anaerobes, which can grow without oxygen but use oxygen if it is present.

So, which ghosts fit what definition?? Well, no ghosts are actually facultative except halfas in their human form!!! Or, well, on the whole they’re kind of a weird mix of a microaerophile (which is fully aerobic but higher concentrations of oxygen are poisonous) but also maybe slightly facultative, which I know sounds weird but halfas are just super weird either way [and we’ll get into some of that weirdness more in the fourth section lmao]!! Mediums are full microaerophiles but I haven’t talked about them properly yet so we’ll leave them for another day!!!!

Moving on, the majority of natural ghosts are actually fully obligate with a couple of noteworthy exceptions like Clockwork, Undergrowth, Nocturn, and some others!!!! I know you might be thinking if you read the taxonomy post- ‘why is this not a section in the taxonomic classification system??’ And my answer to this is!!! Because if a ghost isn’t fully obligate, it can get pretty complicated. I say fully obligate because, in reality, all ghosts are obligate in a weird way, but some- namely, post-eukaryotic ghosts- have adaptations to help with this!!!!

I’m going to say the adaptation is kind of like. A protective layer of sorts??? They have a kind of ‘outermost layer’ of aerotolerant ectoplasm to protect everything underneath from coming into contact with oxygen, and it also works as a filter system for ambient ghosts so that the ectoplasm absorbed from the atmosphere is pure and any oxygen it might have reacted with is separated and left behind!!! It’s pretty quick to cover over again when a ghost is hit unless the damage is serious- I guess you could compare it to potassium metal!!! If you’ve ever seen a video of someone messing around with potassium metal, it’s got this kind of dirty-looking layer over it, and if you cut it the inside’ll go bright at first but it tarnishes super quickly, and it’ll soon look the same as the other uncut parts of the outer layer!!!

Speaking of which, this is a pretty good way to bring in how ecto-weapons work and why they hurt ghosts beyond just the force of the shot!!! Like I mentioned before (and Might get into more sometime in another post), atmospheric ectoplasm will react with oxygen!!!! This is important because that’s the stuff that ecto-weapons use; it’s not pure ectoplasm because you can’t find that naturally outside the GZ!!!

So, if the stuff is shot at a ghost through something like an ecto-gun, because it’s obviously forceful and makes contact at a high-speed, it can damage and even break through that aerotolerant layer and get oxygen into their system, which really isn’t good!!!! If the damage is just surface-layer/superficial, it can be recovered from pretty quickly (thinking back to the potassium analogy!!), but if the damage is more serious and that oxygen- even reacted with ectoplasm- manages to really get into a ghost’s anatomy, preventative measures need to be taken in order to ensure that it doesn’t reach the ghost’s core/the rest of their body, and this is where the next section comes into play!!!!

(TW: There's some pretty bad injury/medical talk in these next sections (Section 4 especially), so please be mindful!!!!)

Section 3: Programmed Cell Death

Okay when I said I was done talking about prokaryoticism I actually meant I was done talking about cyanobacteria and actinomycetota similarities. Prokaryotic organisms like bacteria don’t really have ‘immune systems’ in the same way most eukaryotic organisms do, so they sometimes can’t fight off things like infection if the infection isn’t manageable from the get-go. Instead, they initiate a form of ‘programmed cell death’ in order to prevent the pathogen from reproducing!!! And now here’s how that’s relevant to ghost injury!!!!

So!!! Long story short, if a ghost gets oxygen into their ‘inner system’ thanks to something like an ecto-gun, the area the injury originates at literally just dies off, and separates from the body before it can spread to other parts. For example, if a ghost was hit in the arm badly, that arm can literally just fall off and grow back like a lizard tail!!! This can be done with pretty much any part of a ghost’s body- the only aspect of a ghost that’s actually genuinely problematic to injure is the core, because most ghosts- provided they’re not already low-energy- can just regrow everything else, though they may need to head back to the GZ for the higher ectoplasm quantity if the loss is severe enough!!!!

Really short section, I know, however!!! There is a complication to this stuff, and this is where we get into the difficult bit!!!!

Section 4: Halfas

The problem with halfas is that they’re not totally ghosts or totally humans no matter which form they’re in, and this can cause a lot of complications when it comes to stuff like injuries- but first, we’re going to go into integration.

Ghosts are prokaryotic. Humans are eukaryotic. Halfas are…???????? Kind of both kind of neither????? There’s this one thing called a Parakaryon that we can’t classify as either eukaryotic or prokaryotic because it’s so weird, and it’s kind of like that, in that their cells have aspects unique to both types. This is probably a result of all their ghost stuff and all their human stuff trying to combine/integrate into one thing, and ending up as something almost entirely different in the process. This also means that their structures in both ghost and human form are weird, because halfas at least somewhat need organs, which ghosts don’t (other than a core if you count that as an organ), and they also need ectoplasm, which humans don’t.

Because of all this weirdness, there can be a lot of potential issues with a halfa getting injured, because humans can’t and don’t defend against harm in the same way ghosts do, and vice versa. While ghosts can just get rid of something and grow it back, that’s not a natural option at all for humans, and while humans can fight against infection in an injury thanks to their white blood cells, ghosts don’t have that in the same way. So what does that mean for a halfa?????

What I’m thinking is that, for most non-lethal but slightly beyond superficial injuries (slashes, broken bones, burns, etc.), they’re able to defend against them in a human way, since they still have a human-immune system. So, for injuries like that, especially if it’s caused by an ecto-weapon, it’s weirdly enough best to deal with those in human form, since they can be pretty easily recovered from and it’d really suck for your finger to just. Fall off because you hurt it pretty bad and stayed in ghost-form for too long so your ghost-recovery-system kicked in before your human one did. I’m almost completely sure it’d grow back, but that’d still cause a lot of problems, since you wouldn’t have a finger.

However, major injuries are a bit more… difficult. Because at this point your ghost-recovery-system would be kicking in regardless of what form you’re in. It’d want to activate programmed cell death and separate from the body, but human bodies just don’t do it the way ghosts do, and it’d be fighting to keep all your everything attached because separating could make it a lot worse. So major injuries aren’t just problematic because they’re major, but also because they present a whole new issue: necrosis.

Basically, the ghost stuff wants the whole injured section totally separate from the body, so when the human stuff doesn’t let that happen, it does what it thinks the next best thing is: having the cells sort of ‘spew their guts’ as like, a really weird and warped form of ‘separation’. The cell membrane ruptures and releases the contents of the cell, but because it’s such an uncontrolled release into a space outside the cells, it causes an inflammatory response in the surrounding tissue. This then gets the attention of the human white blood cells to get rid of the dead cells, which is all well and good, except that some kinds of white blood cells (leukocytes) release a microbial-damaging substance that ends up causing more damage in that inflamed surrounding tissue. That all ends up inhibiting the healing process, so the decomposing surrounding tissue and the dead cells can just build up around and cause even more issues (Like, gangrene in particularly nasty cases, which. Ah. Eugh.).

If it doesn’t heal on its own and does just build up, the only real way of getting anything better is to surgically remove the necrotic tissue. Thankfully, despite all the horrific stuff I’ve just said about halfas’ injury-response systems, they do actually have an accelerated healing factor thanks to the extra energy source (ectoplasm), so it doesn’t tend to get to this point in the first place. This is just what happens if that rapid-response system decides that the only way to solve the problem is to try and totally get rid of the problem, which I guess is just one of the downfalls of being someone made up of a combination of things that shouldn’t really exist together. A double-edged sword of sorts!!!

Maybe not the lightest note to end on, but either way, that’s all I’ve really got the energy to give you right now!!! This ended up even longer than my taxonomy post, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask because I love talking to people!!! I might add onto this at some point with another post- mainly because there’s some very brief stuff about atmospheric/ambient ectoplasm that I kind of want to cover (which, like I said at the beginning is more ectochemistry anyway, and I might do a separate post for that too)- but for now, that’s it!!!!! Hope you’re all having a good day!!! :D

#danny phantom #gore ment tw #medical tw #injury talk tw #ghost biology #ghost classification #ghost science #ectobiology #phasmology #ghost anatomy #Bongo's Ideas!!!#I've been meaning to post this for Ages and I finally got around to it!!#I think I'll do a post on ambient ectoplasm- mediums- or GZ history/evolution next lmao!!#danny phantom headcanon #dp headcanons #dp hc #Hoping the formatting doesn't disintegrate when I post this!!!!

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