#at some point I’m sure I’ll ramble incoherently about how a lot of the issues ppl project onto tsukasa r issues he doesn’t experience

[scullydubois]

What about a time when mulder meets up with scully to go for a walk with queequeg?

i may have gone overboard here, but how could i not? this prompt is so precious, thank you.

----------------

Friday Night with Queequeg, 2.4k--set in season three

“I can’t, Mulder,” his partner insists, her voice dialed up a few intervals for dramatic effect. “I’ve got Queequeg to worry about.”

Mulder drops his Washington Nationals tickets on the desk in disappointment. How lame to be overshadowed by a dog. “That fluffy little guy?” he whines. “Or girl, I'm not sure.”

“He’s a boy.”

“Okay well, he reminds me of one of those Tamagotchi things, have you seen the commercial?” Mulder rambles while shuffling various stray papers from his desk into a single incoherent stack. He’s careful not to sweep the tickets into it. “It’s a pocket pet--”

“I know what it is, Mulder. I have a godson.”

“And is Queequeg not just a glorified version of one of those?”

“Yes, I suppose you could say that. He needs food and attention and care. But, in case you didn’t know, he is also real and capable of giving much of that back to you.”

“Eh, reciprocated affection is overrated,” Mulder jokes, though life would be a lot damn easier if he believed that. “And it’s one of the few Fridays where we’re not traveling or jet-lagged or wholly tired of each other.”

Scully purses her lips. “I see significantly less of Queequeg per week than I do you,” she mutters, and Mulder wonders whether some of her feigned contempt might be genuine. He’s used to being subtly disliked, but the thought sure makes him sad.

Seeing the passion in his face dissolve, Scully realizes that he’s backing down. It’s not like him to back down, no matter how frivolous the issue is. She knows this about him if she knows anything. It’s as if he’s giving up, and that strikes her more than anything.

“Haven’t you ever had a dog, Mulder?” she asks, ignoring the chair in front of her to perch on the edge of his desk.

“Once. After Samantha.” He laughs out of pure scorn. “I think it was my parents’ way of trying to replace her.”

Scully frowns. She should know by now that any journey into his past will turn into a probe of his eternal wound, and that’s no fault of his own.

“What was its name? And were you fond of it?” Scully feels like a therapist--hopefully a kind and supportive one.

“Sparky. I’ve got no clue where the name came from, or the dog for that matter. He was just kinda there one day when I got home from school. And then in a few months, he was gone in the same way. Taken to my uncle’s cause my parents couldn’t stand all the upkeep.”

A thought pops into Scully’s head that is evidently shared by her partner. “No, he didn’t “go live on a farm’ or whatever, I was old enough not to fall for that,” Mulder insists. “He really did go live with my uncle. Lived like seven more years.”

Scully raises an eyebrow. “But did you like him? Were you sad when he was gone?”

“I was sad about a lot of things at the time, Scully.” He opens his desk drawer and pops a piece of gum in his mouth. He’s out of sunflower seeds. “But about the dog? Eh, he was fine to have around but it wasn’t a quintessential boy and his dog moment. He was already a couple years old and well into his grumpy old man phase, if I remember correctly. And he was a mutt, so I think my parents hated him because he didn’t match the furniture.”

“Mmm.” Scully rolls her tongue over the roof of her mouth. It would be a shame to put Mulder through this whole conversation only to insist that she can’t attend the game. But she wasn’t just making excuses. Queeqeug has been home alone all day. and she always takes him for a walk when she gets home from work. He’s used to their routine now, sitting there at the door when she unlocks it like he’s got an alarm set. He gets his dinner when they get back home and falls soundly asleep. Scully’s convinced this is the only thing keeping him from rebelling for being on his own for ten hours a day, and she doesn’t want to test that theory.

Mulder glances at the office clock. 5:46. First pitch is at 7:05.

“How about this...” He props his feet up on the desk to give himself the air of confidence that he’s lacking. “I’ll run over to your place, walk him, make sure he does his business...the whole shebang. You can finish up here then take a taxi to the park, and I’ll meet you there. Sound good?”

The edges of Scully’s lips turn downward. Mulder notes that today, they are brushed over with a very nice coral. Must be a new shade.

“Do you really care that much about me attending this game?”

Mulder shrugs. Yes he does, but he’ll be nonchalant about it. “I bought the tickets cheap through a newspaper ad. I just thought it would be nice for the two of us to do something that’s not chasing phantoms.”

“Phantoms?” Scully’s left eyebrow arches. “Have I finally broken your spirit?”

Mulder smirks. “Sorry, I thought flattery might get me somewhere here.”

Scully taps a heel against the ugly linoleum floor. He’s so adamant about this...boyhood loves stick, she supposes.

“If it means that much to you, go ahead. But don’t come crying to me when you’re late for the start of the game. Queequeg takes his time.”

Mulder claps his hands together. “That’s fine, that’s fine!” Surely he can hurry the canine up. “You take one ticket and head to the seats, and I’ll find you.”

Scully pulls her lips into a thin line, a hint of humor gleaming in her eyes. “Okay, Mulder. Do you have your key?”

He nods, pulls on his jacket, and edges toward the door. “See you there, Scully!”

“Bye.” Scully smiles at the empty office. Her partner’s enthusiasm is endlessly endearing.

---------------------

Mulder has no time to register that he has no clue where Queequeg’s leash is, or if he’s supposed to bring some sort of bag to pick up any...ehm, droppings, or if there’s some special trick to walking a dog that makes it look easy when it’s secretly hard. In fact, he can’t recall ever walking Sparky. Thirty years old and never walked a dog before...surely that qualifies him for the Guinness World Record books.

Queequeg is alert at the door when Mulder opens it, and he’s glad the thing is more teddy bear than canine--he doesn’t have to deal with any barking or biting. He checks the coat rack for a leash, then begins rummaging around in the front table when he comes up short. It’s all old issues of girly magazines he never would have expected Scully to subscribe to.

Begrudgingly, he looks into Queequeg’s beady eyes. “Where’s your leash, boy? You wanna go for a walk? Show me where your leash is.” He uses a baby voice he didn’t even know he had.

Queequeg does nothing but paw the ground in annoyance.

“I know the feeling,” Mulder quips. He pulls out his phone and chooses Scully’s name from the speed dial list.

It rings and rings, then goes to voicemail. Mulder ends the call, grumbles, then tries the office number instead. She picks up after one ring.

“Hello?” her dainty voice projects through the line.

“Scully, you haven’t left yet?”

“I was just locking up the desk. Is there a problem?” she asks like she knew there would be.

“I can’t find Queequeg’s leash.”

“It’s by the pantry, next to his treats.”

Mulder sighs, heads into the kitchen. “And I suppose I have to take his treats too?”

“Uh-huh. And there’s plastic grocery bags in there that you can use to clean up after him.”

Mulder opens the pantry, sees the hoard. “I feared so.”

“We always go left down the block,” Scully tells her partner. “There’s a patch of grass that way he likes to chew on.”

“And how much does he pay you for such indelible service?” Scully doesn’t listen to a word he says, but she’s at the dog’s beck and call apparently.

There’s a bit of silence as Scully decides not to reply with a smartass remark. Then--”I’m leaving the office now,” she murmurs into the phone. “Better hurry up or I’ll beat you there.”

During this teasing, Mulder attached Queequeg’s leash to his collar. Now, as he tries to lead him into the living room, the dog refuses to move.

“Uh, Scully?”

“Yes?”

“I put his leash on, but Queequeg won’t budge.”

“Do you have the treats?”

Mulder shakes the treat bag and makes kissy noises to encourage the canine. (How humiliating.) Still, nothing.

“He doesn’t want to come with me,” Mulder says. “Even the treats won’t lure him over.”

“Are you sure it’s the right treats?” Scully asks.

“Since when are dogs picky about their treats? Treats are treats. And these are the only ones in the pantry.”

“Huh.”

“If you’re rolling your eyes, I can’t see it,” Mulder mutters.

“I’m not rolling my eyes, I just--we’ve never had this problem.”

“Has anyone else walked him?” Mulder wiggles the leash, which does nothing.

“My mom.”

“Well, maybe he doesn’t like men,” Mulder remarks.

“He lived with Clyde Bruckman…”

“Exactly.”

Scully takes a quick exhale. He has a point. “I’ll head over, okay? But I doubt we’ll make the game.”

“We’ll see.” Mulder sighs. He’s being...well, cockblocked isn’t the right word for it--but something like that--by a dog.

-----------------

Scully arrives half an hour later to find Mulder crouched on the kitchen floor rubbing Queequeg’s belly.

“Am I interrupting something?” she teases. The dog rolls over and leaps into excitement at the sound of her voice, abandoning Mulder altogether.

“Hi buddy.” She scratches his ears and dodges his attempts to lick her face. “You ready to go for a walk?”

Queequeg whimpers and sits as if she commanded him to.

Scully looks to Mulder with a brilliant, taunting smile. “I think he’s ready.”

Mulder stands up, every disk in his back rebelling against him. “That thing--” Mulder jabs a finger in Queequeg’s direction--”has a Jekyll and Hyde situation going on.”

“Really, cause you seemed to be having a great time until I came in.”

“No, no, no, don’t spin this. I had to get down on the kitchen floor because he wouldn’t move! What was I supposed to do while we were waiting for you, ignore him?”

Scully shrugs, tries to hide her smirk. “Well, if you were so bothered by him…”

“Whatever, whatever. Let’s just go for the walk, okay? I don’t want to miss this game, it’s against the Red Sox. It should be good.”

Scully takes Queequeg’s leash from her partner, gestures for him to go ahead. “After you.”

------------------

It’s a beautiful spring night--the perfect occasion for a baseball game, Scully will give Mulder that. The sun is drifting down the cloudless horizon, and the chill that has hung in the air for months is finally admitting defeat. The sidewalk is crowded with other dogs and their humans, eager to end the week on such a lovely note.

Queequeg trots blissfully in the usual direction. Scully lengthens her stride to keep up with him--for once she and Mulder are walking at the same pace.

“So this is DC on a Friday night, huh?” Mulder says, glancing around at their fellow pedestrians and bicyclists.

Scully nods. “If you got out of the office before seven, you’d know.”

“Doubtful. My usual impression of DC on a Friday night is the traffic on the 14th Street bridge, and I’m pretty sure I can witness that at all hours.”

Scully allows herself a sidelong glance at her partner. She had never realized someone could be too dedicated until she met Mulder.

“Have you ever considered getting a pet?” she asks tentatively.

His gaze snaps to her. He chuckles and sticks his hands in his pockets. “My complex has a hefty monthly pet fee. Rent is already bad enough.”

“Well it’s not like you go out often…” Scully starts, knowing this is short of a compliment. “You’re not a big spender, surely you have the extra cash on hand.”

“Ha, thanks,” Mulder responds. “Should I put that on my resume?”

“I just mean that…” Queequeg finds his beloved patch of grass, and they pause to let him chomp at it. “...you could use the companionship of a dog. Or cat, if that strikes your fancy.”

“I have enough companionship, Scully. More than I know what to do with. Have you heard my answering machine?”

“A woman from an 800 line is not companionship, Mulder. And you never actually answer any of your messages. Friends don’t count if you never see them.”

“Ouch.” Queequeg finishes up, and they resume the walk. “And what are your plans this weekend, Scully?” he asks, hoping to catch her in her own hypocrisy.

“As a matter of fact, I’m going to visit my mother tomorrow afternoon.”

Mulder busts out laughing. “You’re a real party girl!”

She ignores him, focusing on Queequeg. “But you get my point, don’t you? It’s not good to be alone all the time.”

“I seem to recall being told that we spend more time together than you and your dog,” Mulder wisecracks.

“That’s different,” Scully swears. “That’s work.”

“That’s the bulk of modern life, my dear.” He delivers this statement in an old-timey mid-Atlantic accent like some leading man of the 40s. It makes Scully smile.

“I have an idea,” she says, her eyes sparkling.

“Oh boy.” Mulder glances at his watch. 6:51. Damn it. “We’re gonna miss the game.”

Scully nods. “Let’s go to the animal shelter instead.”

Mulder stops. It makes Queequeg, and therefore Scully, stop too. “What?”

“You could make some dog very happy, you know. And Queequeg would have a playmate...I think it would be really good for you, Mulder.”

“Come on, I can’t just adopt a dog on a whim.”

“I did.”

“Shit.”

Scully laughs. “You’re realizing there’s no way out of this, aren’t you?”

Mulder grins. “Yeah, I--” He looks down and sees Queequeg taking a dump in the middle of the sidewalk. Scully readies the plastic bag she brought, then bends down and scoops the pile up like it’s nothing.

Mulder screws up his face. “On second thought…”

“Nuh-uh.” Scully ties the bag and taps it against Mulder’s arm. “You’re empty-handed, take this. It’ll be good practice.”

Mulder frowns but takes the bag. His partner’s huge smile is not lost on him, and it makes him smile despite himself. She knows how to get what she wants, and he has a feeling this one will benefit him too.

[guqin-and-flute]

what would the jin kids and jingyi do when someone would like make fun of jgy in front of them?

Anonymous said: do you ever think abt how jingyi stands up for jgy (along with his cousins)

Anonymous said:  for the 3zun does Jingyi and his army of cousins just stand up for anyone who talks shit abt JGY

You anons are of one mind. I began answering this at one point and was unsatisfied and so I didn’t finish, but here is my rambly, semi-incoherent, probably not as fun as you wanted answer! 😂

(Short answer: bite them. Long answer, under the cut)

At their current age (5-7) 

My feelings on this is that they will be able to absorb little bits of getting the idea that something is Different™ about the way that people treat JGY--people giving him disdainful looks at Cultivation Conferences, servant whispers down the hall that are vague enough that they’re not quite sure what they’re talking about, adults using dehumanizing language when referring to him and his origins [re: And A-Fu Makes 4 when Madam Jin says, “Like that could ever be a father.” A-Fu understood that she was being nasty and so argued back, but didn’t know the reason] but I don’t think it will be anything blatant a la Jin Zixun (dead) or Cloud Recess School Kids (they were teenagers talking about a peer [also it was expositional]). 

The kids would not hang out in very strange adult heavy areas for great lengths of time at this age. They would not necessarily be privy to a lot of gossip or drunken rambling, as these are more social situations that kids would just not be welcome in. If any adult were to be directly addressing these kids, I doubt that many of them would up and be like ‘Yo, your uncle is a bastard whoreson and he sucks’, if only because there’s no use in talking to a kid about that. 

Secondly, every adult is very aware of whose children these are--both their fathers are either blood or sworn brothers of JGY and have close relationships with him. Saying something blatantly nasty about someone who has powerful connections to said powerful connections’ very mouthy children would be politically very dumb. (Not impossible, I will concede! I’m gonna give a minor spoiler and say that there is a moment where A-Fu overhears something and goes to JGY and asks “What’s ‘whore?’” and that ends about as well as you might expect for everyone) 

Now kids on the other hand, have their own understandings of what their parents find disdainful. Certainly there would be some outer Jin disciple kids that might hear their parents/adults talk shit about JGY and if any of them were dumb enough to go up to the Jin heirs and shit on their favorite shushu, a single knock down, drag-’em-out fight will be enough to involve both parents, where the inciting incident will be revealed and the aggressor’s parents will have to be talking to Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan about this. Which, I feel, would be mortifying to the Jin parents and properly motivating to ensure their kids know how to shut the hell up on this particular subject.

A-Fu...has his own special issues in this area for being very vocal about having 3 fathers (though JGY being one of them doesn’t help). This will play into the story, so I’ll leave it at that :)

Lan kids get in very big trouble for gossiping and fighting, so I doubt problems would come from there re: A-Fu. Plus them and the Nie kids (of which I feel there are fewer?) would probably have their own opinions on how nice JGY is because of seeing him visit--plus they get in big bad trouble with Nie-zongzhu if they are caught using such words. 

TL;DR I feel that they’re a bit young at this point to be fully confronted with the whole sordid ordeal of what the general public thinks of JGY, but they know something is up. As important little kiddos, not many people talk shit specifically��about that. 

Tweens-Teenagers

Absolutely. They are very much willing to throw down with any asshole--be they rogue cultivator, random villager, fellow Junior, random disciple of whatever Clan--who says anything nasty about JGY. They know everything now and are ready for blood. Come at them, bro, their shushu/die’s ruthlessness is a learned trait--only they’re not hiding. 

[kurokoros]

some like it hot (2/4) | todoroki x reader x bakugou

Rated: T (bakugou’s dirty mouth, sexual humor)

Words: 9.2K

Pairing: shouto todoroki x fem!reader x katsuki bakugou

Summary: A Charity Fundraiser leads to you going home with not one, but two of the most popular Pro Heroes of your generation. They say some like it hot, and you certainly aren’t complaining.

AKA: a totally not self-indulgent threesome fic

Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | AO3

AN: It’s been a terrible week, but I still managed to pump out a chapter, so I feel accomplished! Also available on AO3. Ask to be added to the tag-list. Chapters will be weekly until completion! Thanks in advance for reading!  A note: the reader does have a name used only in dialogue because I hate using “Y/N” in fics. Both names are puns. “Yuna” = Y/N, and the kanji in “Hikai” means “fire time”.

Dubiously, you stare at the file Izuku is holding out to you. The look you send him is all but reproachful as you place your hands on your hips, your lips pressed into a tight line. Izuku fidgets under your gaze, sweat beading on his hairline, but his smile never falters for a second.

“Let me get this straight,” you start slowly. Maybe you didn’t hear him right. With all the muttering and nervous babbling he tends to do, it wouldn’t be a surprise for you to mishear a few things. Though, you have practically mastered the art of deciphering him at his most incoherent. Regardless, you press on, not even trying to mask the utter bewilderment in your voice. “You want me to run all the way to Shouto’s Agency to drop off a single file?”

It sounds even more bizarre when you say it out loud.

Izuku fiddles with the pen on his desk. “Yes?”

The questioning inflection of his reply only makes your frown deepen. Resisting the urge to rub your temples, you send him another hard look. “Aren’t you supposed to be seeing him and Bakugou tonight?” you ask, sure you heard him mention something about the three of them going out for dinner. “It can’t wait until then?”

“It’s important,” he tells you, only slightly more confident in his reply than he was before.

You know you shouldn’t roll your eyes at your boss, but you do so anyway. “I see. And you do realize I’ll be gone for at least two hours, right?”

“It’s very important?”

Your frown turns into a pout.

Any other day you might have agreed to go right away, always happy to see one of your favorite Heroes. But ever since that night at Momo’s, you’ve been doing your best to avoid both Shouto and Katsuki. It wasn’t on purpose at first. You planned on going out for drinks with Katsuki and Kirishima over the weekend like you always do, only to be slapped in the face with the reminder of what you told the girls. Mina’s jokes about a threesome came crashing back over you, and with the dirty fantasies floating through your head, you knew that being drunk around Katsuki would end in nothing but loose lips and an extremely awkward confrontation.

You didn’t even want to think about the possibility of rejection, so you called Kiri to cancel with excuses of planning the fundraiser—which wasn’t technically a lie.

Katsuki wasn’t happy about it, obviously, but you know how to handle him. You just need to make it through this fundraiser before making any life altering decisions including, but not limited to, trying to fuck two Pro Heroes that also happen to be two of your closest friends.

Avoidance was clearly the best answer to this.

Of course, your luck seems to have run out today thanks to Izuku. You have no idea where he’s going with this or why one of his sidekicks can’t bring Shouto this supposedly very important file, but seeing as the alternative is more phone calls and paperwork, you might as well go along with it. And you won’t lie and say you aren’t a little excited at the prospect of seeing Shouto today.

That being said, you aren’t above giving Izuku a little hell for it first.

“I don’t feel like I can leave you alone for that long without something terrible happening,” you say bluntly, careful to keep your mouth from twitching into a smile. Though you’re only teasing, a part of you does mean it. As great of a Hero as Izuku is, he’s also practically a walking safety hazard.

He really hasn’t changed all that much since UA.

The pout that forms on his face makes you feel like you’ve just kicked a puppy. “I don’t know what you mean,” he says, sulking. Those big, green eyes of his stare down at you from the other side of his desk, only adding to the effect.

You aren’t so easily swayed. “The last time I left you alone here, you managed to dislocate your entire arm,” you remind him, casting a pointed glance at said arm. Even now, you aren’t entirely sure how he managed that in the time it took you to grab lunch at a cafe not even fifteen minutes from the agency. You’re never going to let him live it down.

“That was an accident!” Izuku defends himself, flushing all the way to the tips of his ears. The color clashes spectacularly with the green of his hero costume.

Your tone is beyond dry when you say, “I’m aware.”

Izuku’s expression melts into one of distress, and again you wonder why this file is such a big deal. Whatever it is, it’s making your boss more skittish and awkward than usual, something you didn’t even think was possible. “Please, Hikai? This is really, really important! I don’t trust anyone else to do this but you!”

“This is manipulation,” you tell him, crossing your arms. Even as you say that, your heart swells with the sheer level of trust he has in you. Izuku must realize it too. There’s something cunning behind those puppy dog eyes.

He blinks at you far too innocently. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Well played, Deku.

Heaving an over-dramatic sigh, you hold out your hand and wiggle your fingers impatiently. “Give me the damn file.” A megawatt smile stretches across his face before the file is practically shoved into your hand. “Really, Midoriya, you have to stop leaving things until the last minute. One day it’s going to get you in trouble.”

He rubs the back of his head in embarrassment, ruffling the curly strands of his hair. “That’s what I have you for,” he tells you. The sincerity in his voice makes you soften. “Oh!” His eyes suddenly light up. “How’s everything been with planning the fundraiser?”

“About as well as you’d expect considering the short notice,” you muse, idly thumbing the edge of the file you’ve been handed. Surprisingly, you haven’t had too many issues beyond your less than friendly conversation with Mr. Fujikaze. Most other agencies have been understanding about the situation, and your contacts have been pulling through despite the time crunch. “I’ve contacted most of the agencies in the country like you asked and almost all have replied affirmatively, though some will only be making short appearances.” You glance at him. “Not everyone can leave the field for an entire night.”

Izuku nods, his brows furrowed in thought. “That makes sense,” he murmurs aloud, staring down at the surface of his desk. “Even with the crime rate dropping again, we can’t be too careful.”

Humming, you turn your gaze to the windows overlooking the city behind him. While not nearly as grandiose as some other agencies you’ve been in, you’ve always loved the view from Izuku’s office.

“Exactly.”

With the highly publicized nature of the fundraiser, you’re sure that some people will take the opportunity to commit crimes, violent or otherwise, but it’s nothing most Pros haven’t had to work around before. The event itself will have heightened security even with the amount of Pros attending. Frankly, you’re more worried about the general public, though you know they’ll be in good hands even without Heroes like Deku, Shouto, and Ground Zero. Izuku himself would probably insist on patrolling that night if he wasn’t the one hosting, but you know his sidekicks will be able to handle things for one night.

“How’s everything else going?” he asks. “I know you had to pull a lot of strings to make this work. Thank you, by the way.”

You wave him off and shrug, but offer him a small smile. “It’s my job.” And, hey, if this whole personal assistant gig falls through, at least you have a potential future as a wedding planner. “We have a venue and caterer lined up,” you explain to Izuku. “I’m hoping to hear back from my other contacts by the end of the day, but so far, everything seems to be going well.”

A look of relief appears on his face. “That’s good,” he says, breathing a sigh. At your raised eyebrow, he panics, thinking he’s said something wrong. “Not that I thought you couldn’t do it!” he’s quick to explain, quickly turning an even darker shade of red. “You’ve always been great at organizing things! Though this was super short notice, so I wouldn’t have been disappointed if you couldn’t put it together that fast. But I would never doubt you like that. You always go beyond! Plus—”

Mercifully, you hold up a hand to stop his rambling. You have work to do, and you know from experience that he would go on and on until someone stopped him or he ran out of air, and Izuku has quite the impressive set of lungs.

“Deep breaths, Midoriya,” you chide playfully, reaching out to pat him on the back. “I know what you meant. Thank you for having so much faith in me.”

“Okay,” he murmurs, going right back to beaming at you. “Thanks again for doing this—the event and the file, I mean.”

You gather your discarded purse and jacket, carefully tucking the file into your bag. “Well, it’s not like I had much of a choice,” you joke as he leads you to the door. “What would you do without me?”

“Apparently, I’d die.”

Your laughter cuts off as soon as you reach the door, your expression sobering as you remember the phone call you received shortly before Izuku called you into his office. You didn’t have the chance to tell him before he was practically shoving a folder in your hands and babbling something about you needing to see Shouto immediately. 

Izuku stops beside you. His expression turns to one of concern as he notices the look on your face.

“There’s one more thing,” you tell him, lowering your voice though it’s only the two of you in the room. “I received an answer from Endeavor’s assistant this morning.” 

The statement is heavy and laced with more meaning than so few words could typically hold. You can’t keep the bitterness from creeping in as you say the former Hero’s name, but Izuku either doesn’t notice or chooses to ignore it. 

Somehow, he manages to keep his voice light when he asks, “Oh? And what did he say?” Izuku’s gaze slides to the door and refuses to move. You can only imagine what might be running through his head.

“He’ll be making an appearance at the gala.” Absently, your fingers clench around the strap of your purse, knuckles turning white from the pressure. As soon as you realize what you’re doing, you sigh through your nose, forcing yourself to release your grip. “He may be retired now, but it matters a lot to the public that the former number one Pro Hero makes an appearance at things like this. Not everyone may like Endeavor, but most people do respect him. It’s exactly the show of support we need right now.” You turn to Izuku, and his gaze finally rises to meet yours again. “Similarly, All Might will be there as well, even though he retired almost a decade ago.” Your lips quirk upwards. “Though, I’m sure you’re already aware of that,” you tease, hoping to lighten the mood.

It works. Izuku is always an easy target to fluster. He sputters and makes a vague excuse while awkwardly waving his arms around like he isn’t sure what to do with them. You wait patiently until he’s done, used to this kind of outburst after so many years. When he’s finally calmed down, his eyes widen a little as he looks at you.

“Does Todoroki know?”

The question makes your stomach churn. “Not yet.” Your admission is soft as you rock back on your heels. “I just found out. Besides,” you look past Izuku to stare out the window again, “I thought it would be better to tell him in person.” 

When Izuku doesn’t respond, you clear your throat. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

He snaps out of his thoughts quickly. “Right!” Izuku reaches around you to open the door, holding it for you politely as you step into the lobby. Your eyes immediately drift to your desk, and you’re more than a little surprised to see a familiar, nervous face sitting behind it. When you stop, Izuku follows your gaze and smiles. “Oh! I’m sending Nakamura with you!” he explains as the hero in training waves at you awkwardly. “He’ll be heading back to UA after and I want to make sure you get to Todoroki’s agency okay!”

It’s a poor excuse if you’ve ever heard one, but you don’t have time to question it. Your eyes follow Izuku as he darts back into his office. He’s not fast enough to hide his ever widening smile though.

He’s up to something, you decide as you make your way to the flustered intern behind your desk. You don’t know what he’s up to, but you’re going to find out.

The train ride across the city was nothing short of awkward between you and Seiji. The poor intern didn’t seem to know what to say to you outside of a professional setting. He kept squirming in his seat and wringing his hands, glancing at you occasionally in a way that wasn’t nearly as subtle as he thought he was being. Clearly there was something on his mind, but you weren’t about to ask. You figured if it was important enough, he’d come out and say it when he was ready. 

Meanwhile, you took the opportunity to get some additional work done. Izuku may have kicked you out of the office, but you did still have a job to complete. The fundraiser wasn’t going to plan itself, and the date was rapidly approaching. You’d made good progress so far, but that didn’t mean you could start slacking.

It isn’t until the two of you are within a block from Shouto’s agency that Seiji finally perks up. There’s an additional bounce to his step that reminds you of an overexcited puppy, and it makes your lips twitch in amusement.

It’s only then that you realize he’s so much taller than you, gangly with long limbs that carry him faster than you can walk. He keeps getting ahead of you, only to freeze up when he realizes you aren’t there, quickly glancing around almost frantically until he spots you again. It’s absolutely adorable the way his eyes light up and he visibly relaxes.

“Hey, Hikai?” he asks once you catch up to him for what must be the fifth time. “What’s Shouto like? You seem like you know each other pretty well.” Those blue eyes of his are too wide with innocence, and you school your expression before you can flush once you remember what Seiji saw last week.

“You met him last week,” you remind the teenager, adjusting your grip on your purse and double checking that the file is still tucked into place. “What do you think he’s like?” There’s something disconcerting about discussing one of your friends that you’ve thought about fucking on multiple occassions with your boss’s new student intern.

Seiji’s eyebrows furrow as he thinks over your question. “He was nice,” he decides, glancing down at you. “Just… really quiet.”

A low hum of agreement escapes you. “Don’t take it personally. Sho isn’t much of a talker.” Especially in comparison to Izuku’s excited ramblings and Katsuki’s loud presence. “If you stay with Deku for a while, I’m sure he’ll warm up to you though.” You smile up at Seiji and pat him on the arm.

He flushes at the attention. And there’s no hiding the pride shining in his eyes at the insinuation that the Deku would take him on as a sidekick after graduation. To cover his embarrassment, he sputters out, “So, you’ve known them for a long time then? Shouto and Ground Zero?”

“Almost as long as Izuku. I met them through him. Deku has a way of adopting people.” You sigh. “Neither of them have changed much since UA.” 

“I see,” Seiji murmurs as you reach the front doors to the agency. He politely holds the door for you as you step inside, a look of deep contemplation on his face. His head cocks to one side as he stares at you, eyes narrowed just a tick before they widen. “That must mean you’re pretty close.” There’s an unexpectedly sly tinge to the statement, like he’s hinting at something more.

Your breath catches at the statement. Seiji notices. “I suppose so,” you say before turning your attention to the receptionist in front of you.

After a short greeting, she lets you pass, recognizing you from previous visits. You’re told that Shouto just returned from a patrol and is already waiting for you in his office, and with a parting smile you and Seiji head for the elevator.

It’s only after the doors close behind you that you look at Seiji again, confusion clear on your face as you remember what Izuku told you earlier. “Shouldn’t you be heading back to the dorms by now? I don’t know how long this will take, and I don’t want you to have to wait for me. You should go enjoy your afternoon.”

“No!” Seiji protests a little too quickly, voice cracking. He shakes his head almost violently. You stare up at him in bewilderment as those big blue eyes meet yours seriously. “Deku told me to walk you to Shouto’s office,” he babbles, struggling for an excuse. “We aren’t in the office yet!”

“I—” You shake your head, decide it’s not worth questioning as the elevator comes to a stop and the doors open. “Yeah, okay, sure.” If that’s what he wants to do, who are you to stop him?

An achingly familiar voice calls out your name as you and Seiji step into the top floor lobby. The smile that overtakes you in response is automatic once you see Shouto already waiting for you.

“Shouto.” You practically breathe his name, and it would be pathetic if there was anyone else around aside from Shouto, who’s, frankly, as dense as a brick at times, and Seiji, your boss’s dorky intern. Before you can do something stupid like staring at his toned forearms, you forcibly peel your eyes away from the sliver of skin at his throat left uncovered by his hero suit and look up at Seiji. “Can you make it to UA from here, Nakamura?” Your voice is higher than usual. “I don’t want you getting on the wrong train.”

Seiji smiles a little too wide. “I’ll be fine.”

“Good.” Turning to Shouto again, you nod towards his office. “Should we…?” You could just as easily hand him the file and leave with Seiji, go back to work, return the dozen phone calls you still have to make, and check to see if everything is still going smoothly in your short absence, but you’re rooted in place under Shouto’s fond gaze. You’ve missed him more than you care to admit—Katsuki too—and now that he’s in front of you, you can’t just walk away.

More than that, there’s something you need to discuss. The thought makes your stomach flip anxiously.

Shouto seems to relax at your suggestion and gestures for you to follow him as he turns toward his office. You wave to Seiji over your shoulder and are vaguely aware of him taking a seat in one of the leather chairs situated in the lobby area.

You shut the door behind you.

“I believe this is yours,” you say as you pull the folder from your bag and hold it out for him.

Shouto gives you a small smile. “Thank you.”

“How’s the case going?” you ask, gesturing to the file you’ve handed over. The two of you easily slip into a familiar routine as Shouto settles himself behind his desk and you lean against the side of it before hoisting yourself up to sit on the glass surface. “I was a little surprised when you called in Izuku and Katsuki for help. The last time the three of you worked together like this was…”

“Operation Vermillion,” he finishes for you, thumbing through the stack of papers. “That was right after we opened our agencies. I remember you leading the briefing.” His blue-grey eyes flicker to yours, and his smile widens a fraction. “My old man tried to give you trouble, and you shut him down. I’d never seen him so shocked before.”

Humming, you start to smile as well. “He never did like me much.” It’s a perfect segway into what you need to discuss with him, though you wish it wasn’t.

You lean back on your hands, watching silently as he idly flips through the files from Izuku. That knot in your stomach tightens. Your gaze shifts to the aged burn scar covering his left eye. Just another reminder of Endeavor. It makes you sick to think about, and this is the last thing you want to talk about right now, but you know he deserves to hear it before Friday night. Even so, your tongue feels thick and heavy in your mouth. 

Clearing your throat, you wait until he looks at you to speak. “I figured I should let you know that Endeavor will be at the charity gala.” Your gaze holds steady as you say it, gauging his reaction.

Predictably, Shouto stiffens. It’s slight. Anyone else probably wouldn’t notice it. Shouto’s always been good at burying his emotions and acting like he doesn’t care. But you can read him. And you’re close enough to hear him inhale sharper than normal. The tense line of his broad shoulders and the nearly imperceptible twitch of his fingers are your only warning before the temperature in the office drops drastically.

Goosebumps prickle across your bare arms, and you shiver reflexively. The ghost of your breath clouds the air as you exhale, but you don’t move from your spot on his desk even as frost begins to creep across the glass. It branches outward from his palm, slow and sluggish, and you wonder if he realizes he’s even using his quirk. 

The ice stops just shy of your fingertips. A heavy sigh falls from his lips. Your eyes flicker back to his only to find him already staring at you apologetically.

“I expected as much,” he tells you, a bitter tinge to his voice. When Shouto smiles, it’s rueful and nothing short of sarcastic. “It would look bad in the eyes of the public for the former number one Hero not to be there.”

You hum your agreement, having said as much to Izuku earlier. The temperature begins to rise again, and the thin layer of frost on the desk melts and evaporates before it can make a mess. You watch him carefully as you pick at a spot of lint on your dress. “How have things been lately?” you ask casually. “Between you and him.” 

Shouto is silent for a moment that seems to stretch on for hours, seemingly frozen behind his desk as he stares at his reflection in the glass. What he’s seeing there, you don’t know, but the torrent of emotions that flicker in his eyes makes your chest feel tight. It’s melancholy. Resignation. Bitterness. A dozen other things that come and disappear so quickly that you couldn’t put a name to them even if you tried.

An incessant need to pull him close buries itself inside you and takes root. You can feel it in your throat, choking you, urging you to move, but for now you ignore it.

“He’s… trying,” Shouto settles with. “But…” Those mismatched eyes hesitate before they meet yours, and you’re struck by just how exhausted he looks. Sighing, he stands and glances away from you, looking out the large window overlooking the city. “I don’t know,” he finishes bluntly, eyes finding you again. “It’s difficult. I understand that he’s trying, but I still…” he trails off again and shakes his head.

Shouto walks around the edge of his desk to stand in front of you, close enough that his leg brushes against your knee. His palms settle on either side of you, boxing you in, and heat creeps along your spine as you tilt your head to maintain eye contact with him.

Like last time, the scent of his cologne tickles at your senses. Automatically, you lean in closer, lulled by the heat rolling off of him in gentle waves. Shouto doesn’t pull away, and like always you’re pinned in place as those mesmerizing eyes stare down at you.

He wets his lips, and you unintentionally follow the movement with your eyes. “Izuku thinks I should forgive him,” Shouto tells you, voice lower than before. Deeper. His thumb brushes against your bare leg, just above your knee. It’s freezing to the touch and you swallow your gasp. “He says it would bring me peace.” The heat of his breath tickles your skin.

“Oh?” It takes more willpower than you thought to keep your voice even.

A low sound rumbles in the back of his throat. His thumb taps against your leg again, flirting with the hem of your skirt. Shouto’s eyes stay locked on yours. “Bakugou says I should tell him to shove it up his ass.” The faintest hint of a smile tugs at the edge of his mouth.

That doesn’t surprise you. Katsuki can be too blunt for his own good at times. He and Shouto are both like that. Clearly, you have a type, and it’s fogging your brain a little how close he is. A little voice in the back of your head that sounds suspiciously like Mina whispers how easy it would be to close that distance and pull him down to you, how good it would feel to have those hands of his sliding across your skin.

Now isn’t the time for that though.

“And what do you think?” you ask him in a voice barely above a whisper. His hand stills beside you, and the burning chill makes you shiver again. Surprise flickers in his eyes as he peers down at you through his bangs. “This isn’t about Izuku or Katsuki,” you remind him. “What do you want to do, Sho?” 

Shouto inhales sharply as you move. Your fingers find his left hand, still pressed to the glass, and slowly your palm slides up his arm until you’re gripping his bicep just like the other day. An anchor. Like he did before, you allow your thumb to rub slow, soothing circles against the tense muscle beneath your fingertips. In response, his right hand shifts so that he’s gripping your thigh in his palm, long fingers wrapping around you and squeezing.

“I don’t think I’m ready to accept him,” he admits, voice just as soft as yours.

“And that’s okay,” you tell him, brushing his hair away from his eyes with your free hand. Gentle fingers ghost against his cheek and the curve of his jaw, and you allow your hand to linger there, tilting his chin to better meet his eyes. Shouto leans into you. “You don’t have to do anything. It’s not your job to forgive him.” When he looks like he wants to argue you squeeze his arm, pinning him with a harsh stare. “It doesn’t make you less of a Hero.”

That strikes a chord with him. Shouto’s eyes stay locked on yours, refusing to budge as he searches your gaze. For what, you don’t know, but you hope he finds it. His grip on your leg grows tighter, a little bit colder, and you think about the ice that covered his desk without him realizing it. But he’d never hurt you. You know that more than anything.

And then, quietly, “Okay.”

The tension slowly drains from his shoulders as the two of you stay like that. The soft pad of your thumb rubs against his cheek, and you absently stroke the high point of the bone just under his eye. Shouto leans into your hand, lips pressing against your palm in what isn’t quite a kiss, but something close. In response, you squeeze his upper arm before letting go. There’s a noise of protest bubbling in the back of his throat, but your hand reaching up to cradle the left side of his jaw silences him before it can slip out entirely.

With your finger you trace the edge of his scar, smooth with age and familiar under your gentle touch. You try not to think too hard about the way he’s looking at you or the heat of his breath on your forearm. Raw instinct begs you to do something—anything. To lean in. To draw him down to you. To sink your fingers into his hair and pull.

Instead you smile and hope he can’t hear how fast your heart is beating. “If you ever need to hide a body, you can call me,” you joke, because you aren’t sure what else to say. You just want to make him feel better.

Shouto’s chuckle is low and throaty and it sends a shock down your spine. “Oh? Is that so?” He shifts his weight to his other leg but is careful not to dislodge your hands from his face. And you can’t bring yourself to release him either.

Your thumb brushes against his scar again, and you say, “I know a guy.”

His head tilts to the side, and he raises an eyebrow at you, clearly amused. “You do remember what my occupation is, correct?”

You should stop holding him like this—intimately—but the way he’s looking at you makes you feel like you have the whole damn world in your hands, and how could you possibly let that go?

“Are you going to arrest me, Hero?”

Shouto shakes his head, a small but genuine smile tugging at his lips. “You are so…” He sighs as he trails off, and you’re surprised when he releases your leg to wind his arm around you instead, pulling you into his chest. You go willingly. Tucking your head under his chin, your hands leave his face to wrap around him, returning the embrace. His heart beats loud beneath your ear, as strong and steady as his hands.

His lips find the crown of your head and his hand slides up your back so that he’s cupping the nape of your neck. “Thank you, love,” he murmurs against your hair, too quiet for you to hear.

You aren’t sure how long the two of you sit like that, but the next time you speak your lips brush against the cold buckle holding together the collar of his hero suit. “You don’t have to talk to him at the gala,” you remind him, returning to your initial conversation. The mention of Endeavor is sobering, and you hear him sigh above you. “And if he tries to talk to you, I can be your human shield.”

The offer makes him hum. “My human shield, huh? Will you have time for that on top of everything Izuku has you doing?” His thumb rubs against the back of your neck absentmindedly.

You shrug. “I can make time for one of my favorite Heroes,” you tease him, tightening your grip around his waist.

He stiffens. “I see,” Shouto murmurs. His fingers are still against the back of your neck, and you could swear you feel the heat of his hand begin to grow. “And what about Bakugou?” There’s an edge to his voice that you almost don’t notice, but when it registers, you pull your head from his chest with a small frown. 

Jealousy. That’s what it is, you realize as your eyes seek out his.

Your traitor heart practically skips at the mere mention of the other hero. Right, Katsuki. That’s another thing you have to figure out. Not for the first time you think about Momo’s suggestion. This time, though, you don’t force it away just as quickly as it comes. A part of you is desperate to know if it would work between the three of you, if it’s worth the risk. Because you can’t keep holding Shouto like this if you won’t do something about it. It’s not fair to Shouto or Katsuki to keep dancing around things.

But then your thoughts go back to the gala, and your stomach drops when you remember how much you still have to do, how much pressure you’re under, and how important it is that this event goes as planned. No slip-ups. No disasters. And absolutely no messy relationship drama.

It just has to wait until after Friday night.

“What about him?” you ask, hoping your voice isn’t higher than usual.

His expression shifts, his brows furrowing as he looks down at you. “I thought—” He cuts himself off with a shake of his head. Your stomach drops as he starts to unwrap himself from your frame. “Nevermind. It’s nothing.”

You’re left overwhelmingly cold as he slips away, and you follow him without meaning to, sliding off the desk and landing back on your feet. “Shouto?”

He avoids your eyes as he reaches for the file sitting on his desk. “Thank you. For dropping this off.” Shouto hesitates before he looks at you again, swallowing thickly, but then his expression goes carefully blank. “You didn’t have to go out of your way.”

Your heels click against the tile as you take a step towards him. “What do you mean?” A frown forms on your lips, confusion sweeping through you at the turn in conversation.

Whatever was going through his head a moment ago seems to have disappeared. Shouto peers down at you with a puzzled look. “Midoriya was going to give this back to me tonight,” he explains. You nod, having already known that. “He called and told me you offered to drop it off on your way home. He said you have a half day.” Shouto’s expression softens. “That’s good. You’ve been working too hard.”

“Oh. Did he?” A half day. Amazing how Izuku neglected to mention that little detail to you earlier. It seems like you’re due to have a little chat with your boss. You glance at the door to see a familiar head of dark hair duck out of sight and your eyes narrow when you realize Seiji has been waiting here the entire time. So much for going back to the dorms. “Well, I should get going,” you say, gathering your things. “I don’t want to bother you.”

Besides, apparently it’s your day off.

He’s shaking his head before you’ve even finished, expression nothing but sincere. “You never do,” he says as he walks you to his office door. And then, softer, “I like when you stop by.”

Your chest tightens at the admission. “I’ll see you Friday,” you tell him as he opens the door for you. There’s so much more you want to tell him, but now just isn’t the right time.

Shouto’s palm presses against your lower back and you readily relax into his touch, glancing up at him. Heat sinks into your skin and radiates through you until you can feel it everywhere at once, all consuming. “Save me a dance?” he asks, his breath tickling your ear.

Smiling, you nod. “Of course.”

“I’m telling you, Ochako, Izuku is scheming something.” You glance at her from across the table, idly stirring your drink, and your eyes narrow when you notice she’s biting her lip to keep from laughing at your assertion. “This isn’t funny, I’m being serious!”

This time she does laugh. “This is Deku we’re talking about,” she reminds you, waving off your concerns as she picks at her food. “You really think he would do something like that?”

“If he thought it was the right thing to do, yes. He’s kind of nosy.”

You ended up calling Izuku directly after leaving Shouto’s office, only waiting until you saw Seiji racing around the corner to get to the train station and frantically texting on his phone to dial your boss. He picked up on the second ring, like he’d been waiting for your call. It wouldn’t surprise you if he was. You could barely get a word in before he was babbling something about you deserving the rest of the day off and to do something fun before you were abruptly hung up on, only furthering your suspicions.

Hence, you called Ochako. Though, you’re beginning to regret that decision.

“I don’t know,” she drawls, quirking a skeptical eyebrow. “You seem to think people are much more invested in your love life than they really are.”

You scowl. “Oh, don’t give me that bullshit when you and Mina interrogated me the other night.” Not invested in your love life, your ass. You were perfectly fine ignoring your feelings until they brought up a threesome. Now, it’s the only thing you can think about. “Besides, why else would Izuku have his intern spy on me while I was talking to Shouto today?”

“I seriously doubt he was spying on you.”

“Izuku told us two different stories about why I was dropping off that file. That’s not exactly subtle.” For a Pro Hero it was a pretty lame move, if you’re being honest. “And Nakamura sat outside Sho’s office for like fifteen minutes while we talked. And he insisted on walking me up to his office. That doesn’t seem odd to you?”

Ochako shrugs. “Maybe he has a crush on you?” The suggestion makes you blanche and she backtracks. “I just don’t think Izuku would actively try to spy on you and Todoroki. That’s a little weird, even for him.”

“Maybe you’re right,” you reply, propping your elbow up on the table and resting your chin in your palm.

“See?” Ochako reaches across the table to pat the back of your hand, offering you a sunny smile. “Besides, even if Deku was trying to spy on you guys, you know he’s only doing it because he cares about you guys. He’d never try to make you uncomfortable or anything.”

“I know, I know. I just… I don’t get why, you know? According to you I’m incredibly obvious and Izuku already knows they like me, so I don’t understand why he’d go out of his way to make me see Shouto today unless—” Eyes wide, your gaze snaps to Ochako and you gasp, betrayed. “Did you tell him something about the other night?”

She almost chokes on her drink. “No!” she says just a little too loudly, drawing a few curious eyes their way. Ochako flushes and plays with her chopsticks as you continue to stare her down. “Maybe,” she relents, “but not on purpose! Like I told you the other night, Todoroki and Bakugou have been fighting because they’re jealous idiots, and Deku didn’t know what to do, and it just kind of slipped out, I’m sorry!” The apology in her eyes melts into a more curious look. “Anyway, have you thought about what you’re going to do?”

You sigh and shake your head, picking at your food. “Not yet.” Ochako makes a disgruntled sound, and you pout, glaring at her half-heartedly. “In case you don’t remember, I’ve been extremely busy planning a major event with little warning. I barely have time to eat, let alone seduce two men.”

Seducing just one of them seems like a daunting task. Katsuki is the more open flirt between the two of them, but he tends to clam up whenever you even hint at returning that affection, so actively trying anything could send him running. And Shouto can be difficult to pin down, if his open affection earlier today is anything to go by. He’s usually more reserved; the last thing you want is to scare him away.

“Oh, I don’t think you’d have much trouble trying to seduce them.” Across the table, Ochako’s smile becomes sly. “I mean, they’re both pretty blunt, right? So if you just went up and asked if they wanted to have sex they’d probably say yes. You’re just being a chicken!”

“I am not!” you argue, offended. “I just need this gala to be over before I worry about my love life. That’s all.” It’s been your mantra since girl’s night. Just a few more days. Everything will work out.

She snorts. “You keep saying that, but then you go and cuddle up with Todoroki in his office.”

“It wasn’t cuddling,” you correct her not for the first time today. “It was just a hug because we were talking about his dad.” A very long and intense hug that kind of made you want to let him have his way with you right then and there, but still a hug.

Ochako doesn’t look impressed. “Prolonged physical contact counts as cuddling.”

You throw down your chopsticks and cross your arms, leaning back in your chair. “Ugh, why did I call you?” You’re pouting, you know, but it’s hard not to when you can see her blatant amusement over your suffering. Why are all of your friends so mean to you?

She blows you a kiss. “You love me!”

Damn right you do.

Before she can keep heckling you over the complicated situation that is your love life, a familiar, gruff voice shouts, “Oi! Sweetcheeks!” from across the cafe. You stiffen in your seat as heat rushes through you, leaving you feeling uncomfortably hot. You blame it on the eyes that have shifted to look at you and not the disgustingly attractive Pro Hero stomping towards you.

You don’t dare to look at him as he approaches, sure you’ll turn into a stuttering fool if you do. “Katsuki, what have I told you about calling me that in public?” The correct answer is “not to.”

He scoffs, and you finally force yourself to look at him. He’s already glaring down at you. Why? You have no idea, but you match his look, holding his intense ruby gaze with a stare of your own. It’s a challenge. One he usually takes. But you’re surprised when he drops his gaze first and glares at the floor instead. “Whatever,” he grumbles, cheeks a little pink.

You’re a bit put out by the distinct lack of any flirty comments or obvious—according to Mina—bedroom eyes, but before you can ask what’s wrong, someone else cuts in.

“Oh, hey, guys!” 

It’s only then that you realize Kirishima is there too, and you’re only a little embarrassed about that.

But Kiri, bless him, is either entirely oblivious to you not noticing his presence, or just decides to roll with it anyway. He really is too good for the rest of you. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here, too!” His smile is wide and toothy as he rubs the back of his head, careful not to dislodge the bandana holding his hair back. “Midoriya suggested we stop by for lunch, what a coincidence, huh? I gotta say, it looks like a nice place. Hopefully we don’t get kicked out because of this guy.” He jerks a thumb in Katsuki’s direction, electing a sour look from the cranky man.

Your eyes widen as Kiri mentions Izuku, and you shoot Ochako a look that she ignores. Kirishima and Ochako begin to chat about the cafe, but you stop listening.

Okay, now you’re almost positive you’re being set up. The cafe isn’t anywhere near their agency, and it’s more than a little suspicious that they just happened to show up while you and Ochako are here. Coincidences, your ass. You should have known better than to trust Ochako. Of course, she and Izuku would be in cahoots. Assholes.

You glare at Ochako one more time before allowing yourself to stare unabashedly at Katsuki instead. He isn’t looking at any of you, instead choosing to glare at something across the cafe and pretend the rest of you don’t exist. You resist the urge to roll your eyes, instead using the rare moment to just look at him.

Katsuki is nothing short of eye-candy, though you never really get the chance to appreciate just how damn hot he is without the chance of being teased mercilessly in front of other people. Even now, you can see Ochako biting her lip to keep from laughing at you, but really who can blame you for just wanting to ogle him a little? Katsuki is by far one of the most attractive men you’ve ever seen. Years of training and fighting have covered him in lean muscle, and his features have become sharper since you were teenagers.

He’s nothing short of someone’s wet dream, and he damn well knows it, too.

Your eyes drag down his bare biceps slowly, silently thanking whatever gods are out there for his aversion to anything with sleeves. You stare a little longer before your eyes trail back up, lingering a moment on those broad shoulders before moving higher.

Red eyes stare back at you, and you almost choke on your spit.

Katsuki’s eyes narrow.

Like the hero he is, Kiri chooses that exact moment to turn to you in excitement. “Hey, how has the event planning been going?” His interest is nothing but sincere, and you can’t help but smile. “It sucks that we missed you this weekend, but hopefully afterwards you’ll have more free time, yeah? It’s super manly of you to take on all of this by yourself!”

“It’s going well, Kiri. Thanks for—”

“I need to talk to you,” Katsuki cuts you off, scowling. He shoves his hands into his pockets, when you don’t move.

You blink back at him, baffled. “What?” He rolls his eyes at your confusion. “Katsuki, I’m kind of in the middle of—Katsuki!” You call after him, gaping as he just turns around and walks away from you, heading towards the back of the cafe. 

“Hurry up, angel face!” he calls over his shoulder without stopping.

The pet name makes you flush. You glance at your friends, noticing their similarly dumbfounded yet amused expressions. “Ochako?” You aren’t sure if you should apologize or not as you cast another look at Katsuki just in time to see him round a corner.

She waves you off. “Take your time! Have fun!”

Resisting the urge to roll your eyes, you slip out of your chair and hurry after Katsuki. If you take any longer, he’ll probably bitch about it. Though, you are curious about what he wants, especially if he decided it’s something he can’t say in front of Ochako and Kirishima.

A less than PG thought flashes in your mind, but you force it away just as quickly, fighting down a blush.

You turn the same corner that he did, finding yourself in a dim hallway that has you searching for your favorite head of spiky hair. A hand lashes out, grabbing you by the arm. You gasp as you’re suddenly spun around so that your back is pressed flush up against the nearest wall. Just as quickly, a large pair of hands slap against the wallpaper on either side of you, boxing you in.

A pair of red eyes glare down at you, closer than before. Your breath catches, and your hands press against a well-muscled chest automatically. There’s hardly any space left between the two of you, but Katsuki manages to close that short distance even more until your bodies are just barely brushing against each other. It sets your nerves on fire, all of your senses suddenly attune to him.

He speaks before you can ask him what the hell he’s doing. “Damn Deku said you went to see Icy Hot today,” he practically growls against your ear. His breath fans against your cheek and you shudder.

It takes you a second to collect yourself, overwhelmed by the feel of his chest rising and falling beneath your fingertips. “I dropped off a file with Shouto, yes,” your voice trembles a little, but not because of anything like fear. No, you’re just stupid and horny and he’s close enough for you to smell the heavy caramel scent that clings to him because of his quirk.

You were already more riled up than you’d ever dare to admit out loud, and the heat rolling off of his body paired with the way he’s pinning you between his broad chest and the wall is doing things to you.

Whatever you were expecting from him, it certainly wasn’t this.

He huffs. “Figures,” he sneers, lip curling back. His eyes shift from yours to glare at the wall, and without his gaze on you you find you can breathe again. It only makes you more aware of the knee that’s pressed against the outside of your thigh. “Bastard would do it first,” he grumbles under his breath. You wouldn’t have heard him if he wasn’t pressed up against you like this.

“Excuse me?” Your mouth is dry. Your tongue is thick and heavy. And the heat radiating from him is making you dizzy. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you realize that, just like Shouto earlier, he’s jealous. Though where it made Shouto pull away from you, it only made Katsuki bolder than usual.

“Ask you to be his date to this stupid fucking thing.” His eyes snap back to yours for just a second before they’re raking down your body just like the other day at the agency. He leans in a little closer. “Ask you to dance.”

How does he know about that? “Katsuki?” 

When you don’t deny it, he makes a low sound in the back of his throat that has heat pooling low in your stomach. Your fingers fist in his tank top. Katsuki’s lips brush against the shell of your ear as he whispers, “Guess, I’ll just have to remind you that I’m better than Icy Hot.”

As turned on as you are right now, the mention of their stupid rivalry makes you want to roll your eyes. 

“Katsuki,” you say again. He’s so close that this time you notice the faintest hitch in his breathing at the way you say his name, sweet as honey. Despite the way your heart is pounding in your chest, you can’t resist the urge to tease him. “If you want me to save you a dance, all you have to do is ask.”

“Tch.” His lips brush against your jaw, barely grazing your skin. “Who’d wanna to dance with you anyway?” Katsuki is slow to lean back again, but only enough to meet your eyes.

You breathe a laugh. “You’re such a grouch.” Tilting your head to the side, you lean in close enough to press a sweet, fleeting kiss against his cheek. Katsuki freezes, sucking in a harsh breath. “I’ll see you Friday?” you ask, sliding your palms down his chest.

He lurches away just as your fingers reach his stomach, edging closer to his belt. “Whatever, sweetcheeks,” he huffs, not meeting your eyes.

Katsuki shoves away from the wall and stomps away without looking back at you once, but you still manage to catch a glimpse of his pink cheeks and the tiny smile he’s trying to hide as he disappears back into the main dining area. He’s flustered, and satisfaction floods through you at the mere thought of leaving him all hot and bothered.

Maybe Ochako was right. This seduction thing might be easier than you thought. 

That night, Katsuki leans back in his chair, nursing a drink and only half-listening to Kirishima telling a story to Kaminari, Jirou, and Mina. He stopped paying attention after his first drink, annoyed at being the fifth wheel among his friends, but he only has himself to blame for it.

He was supposed to meet up with Midoriya and Todoroki tonight to go over a case—the same fucking one they went to talk about last week only for it to turn into an argument. That was his fault too, not that he’ll ever admit it. He shouldn’t have cancelled tonight either, but Icy Hot backed out first, and the last way he wanted to spend his night off was listening to fucking Deku give him relationship advice.

The memory of your lips on his cheek makes his skin itch, and he scowls over the rim of his drink as he thinks about that Icy Hot bastard asking you to save him a dance at the stupid party coming up.

The sound of his name draws him out of his stupor.

“Ugh, finally,” an intoxicated Mina slurs, cuddling up closer against Kirishima’s side. “It’s about time one of them made a move. I thought for sure she’d be the one to do it after what she said on girl’s night, but I’m proud of them for finally doing something about it. Usually Bakugou and Todoroki are more emotionally constipated than that.” Apparently, she doesn’t remember that one of said emotionally constipated men is sitting right across from her. Or maybe she doesn’t care. Mina tends to say whatever the hell she wants when she drinks. No filter at all. Mina heaves an over-dramatic sigh. “If those three would just fuck already.”

Katsuki chokes on his drink. Wild, red eyes lock on Mina across the table. “What the hell are you talkin’ about raccoon eyes?” he finally manages to sputter out.

Kirishima and Kaminari look equally as shocked, and Jirou’s face has gone pale, frozen in horror.

And Mina, with no filter or hesitation, looks Katsuki dead in the eyes and says, “Just how Yuna wants to fuck you and Todoroki.”

“Mina!” Jirou snaps, glaring at her furiously and shaking her head. A silent conversation passes between the girls and then Mina gasps, covering her mouth with her hands when her brain finally catches up with her mouth.

A very tipsy Kaminari glances down at his frazzled girlfriend before he blinks and turns to Mina instead. “Like… at the same time or…?” he trails off.

“Don’t answer that!” Jirou lurches forward and slaps a hand over Mina’s mouth as she starts to answer. Despite being unable to speak, the other girl nods behind Jirou’s hand, happily spilling her friend’s sexual fantasies.

Kaminari’s question is like a punch in the gut to Katsuki, but the wave of interest and arousal that crashes over him is unexpected.

Jirou groans and peels her hand away from Mina’s mouth. “Fuck, she’s gonna kill us later.” She shoots a withering glare at Katsuki. “Look, Bakugou, you can’t tease her about this, okay? She’s stressed enough about liking both of you dumb assholes, and if you make her feel bad for it, I’ll make sure Denki lights your ass up like a Christmas tree.”

“I will?” Kaminari asks. Jirou glares at him too. “I mean, yeah I will!”

“Yeah, whatever,” Katsuki grumbles, staring down at his drink. He’s never been shy about wanting to fuck you, and he’s known for years that Icy Hot wants to fuck you too, but he could never figure out which one of them you wanted to fuck. Apparently, it’s both of them.

He can work with that.

Katsuki waits until the conversation shifts to something else he’s not interested in to pull his phone out of his pocket and find a specific name in his recent texts. He keeps the message short and vague, glancing over it once before hitting send.

‘Yo, Icy Hot. We need to talk.'

[writer-room]

Well, Could’ve Been Worse

AO3

Summary: No sane person would be calling at this house if it wasn’t important. His phone said it was two in the morning. Lovely. His phone also said Tim was calling. Also known as: not a normally sane person. If Tim had gone on another frenzied Red Bull-induced investigation and gotten himself stuck again, Kon was gonna kill him. Also known as: Tim makes stupid decisions when on a caffeine crash + sleep deprivation. Kon, sadly, has to deal with that at the worst hours.

Kon’s powers were...weird. Unstable, if you wanted to be specific. Not as bad as it used to be, but it still wasn’t the same as Clark’s. Thank you again, Luthor. 

Which means that if he’s conscious enough to check every now and again, he can do the whole ‘call my name and I’ll be there in about four seconds’ schtick, but it didn’t go so well when he was asleep. Cassie said he slept like the dead, to which Bart insisted that if there was ever food involved, he’d be wide awake faster than he could run across a room. 

Both were ridiculous, but whatever.

Tim, at least, had tried to assure Kon that surely Clark couldn’t hear disasters going on when he was asleep. Tim wasn’t one who was often wrong, but Kon was willing to play a risky betting game on this one.

It made sleeping a little anxiety-inducing for a while, knowing that if something happened. he wouldn’t know anything about it until he woke up. Tim had said that it was normal to hate sleeping because of hero business. 

Kon always thought of that comment every time he caught Tim awake at ungodly hours for days on end, staying up purely because of caffeine and spite. He should probably bring that up sometime. 

The point was, Kon didn’t hear things when he was asleep. Which could be a good and bad thing in its own right. He isn’t, however, impervious to an obnoxiously loud ringing going off by his head.

.

Kon snorted as he woke, his phone ringing eerily sudden in the quiet of the Cave. He groaned, sitting up from where he’d passed out on the couch in the Cave. He suspiciously remembered something involving Cassie and arm wrestling landing him here, but he was too tired to care about that now.

His phone was on the ground beside him, a wonder nobody had stepped on it, especially Bart. It rang painfully loud, though that was probably because it was the first sound he’d heard in the past...however many hours it’d been. Kon resigned himself to slowly reaching down and pulling his phone up as he leaned against the arm of the couch. No sane person would be calling at this house if it wasn’t important. 

His phone said it was two in the morning. Lovely.

His phone also said Tim was calling. Also known as: not a normally sane person.

If Tim had gone on another frenzied Red Bull-induced investigation and gotten himself stuck again, Kon was gonna kill him.

That’s a lie, he wouldn’t. Cassie, however, would kill him if he told her. So he could probably settle for that.

With a sigh, Kon mentally prepared to hear incoherent rambling he’d need to find Bart to interpret, and accepted the call.

“It’s two in the morning, Tim.” Was the first thing he said, letting his annoyance seep in.

“It’s like, two twenty-four,” Tim’s voice rasped over the phone, far scratchier than normal. “So if you woke up at normal times like everyone else, this wouldn’t be as big an issue.”

“You are not the person to be telling me how to go about my sleep schedule.” Kon scolded lightly. “So I sleep in till noon, so what?”

“You woke up at three--” Tim cut off with a series of coughing coming through. “--p.m yesterday.”

“Not the point,” Kon muttered. “Why are you calling? I thought you were still in the Cave?”

There was shuffling on the other line, and Tim’s voice came through more faded, like he was further from the phone.

“Oh, yeah, left a few hours ago on patrol,” Tim wheezed. “Thought I’d be back before Bart woke up. He’s been wakin’ at like...six a.m or something.”

“Tim,” Kon started.

“It was barely a patrol,” Tim puffed. “More like...doin' rounds and...grabbing something from Denny’s.”

Tim’s words were slurring here and there. He did so a lot when he started having caffeine withdrawal or was coming down from a Red Bull rush. Or was sleep deprived. None of those options were comforting.

“Did you find some villains?” Kon inquired, praying that there was a less ridiculous reason he was being woken up so late. “You need backup or something?”

“Woulda called like...the headquarters if I did, dude.”

Yeah, something was wrong.

“What’s this all about, then?” Kon asked, swinging his legs off the edge of the couch and standing. “Where are you?”

“Okay, okay,” Tim mumbled, his voice closer to the phone now. “Uh, you know...the Denny’s...but it’s by that weird tiny mall with the Starbucks?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m about...two streets over from that. By a bustop. Don’t worry, don’t worry, street lamps are out.” Tim assured quickly.

“The street lamps are out?” Kon repeated.

“Broke ‘em.”

“Course you did,” Kon sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he stood up. “Seriously, man, what’s going on? What happened?”

“M’fine,” Tim lied, poorly. “Just don’t like...tell Cassie. She’ll kill me. With her eyeballs.”

“Tim, I’m way too tired for you to dodge around questions right now.” Kon groaned. “What happened and why do you need me? If you're not answering this outright, I’m hanging up and going back to bed.”

That’s also a lie. A bad one, at that. He’d probably stay on the phone all night if Tim needed him to. Though he’d definitely try and wake Cassie or Bart to help him out, he’s not that loyal.

“I was getting to it!” Tim whined, and oh wow, he must really be delirious. Bart was gonna be so mad if there weren’t any videos later. “I just kinda...wasn’t payin’ attention n’ stuff.”

“Paying attention to what?” 

“The road,”

Kon froze.

“What?”

“Got hit by a car,” Tim slurred. “S’cool though, got outta there fast. Happened like...five streets back.”

“What the hell, Tim?” Kon nearly dropped his phone, remembering last-minute to grab his jacket off the floor as he started to race to the nearest exit out of the Cave. “You need to start with the ‘I got hit by a car’ part, not correcting what time it is!”

“There was time,” Tim mumbled. “I’m not dyin’ or anything.”

“You were hit by a car.” Kon stressed, already in the air. Thank you, inhuman speed.

“But I’m not dying,” Tim said simply. “Doesn’t count. Just hurts like a b--”

“Hang on, I’m nearby.” Kon talked over him, landing on a rooftop. The streets had grown recognizable fast, and thankfully, if Tim was right about his coordinates, he wasn’t that far from the Justice Cave. Probably wasn’t smart to fly at ridiculous speeds at two in the morning when he was barely awake, but he was too preoccupied to care.

“Oh, cool.” 

Kon shoved his phone in his pocket as he flew down from the rooftops, far slower this time. He scanned the streets quickly, almost skimming right over the bus stop Tim was at. The lack of light, plus his darker costume, was not helping matters.

Sure enough, Tim was where he said he’d be. He wasn’t even sitting on the bench. More like dramatically draped over it with his arms keeping him upright and legs strewn behind him. The nearest street lamps had been shattered, probably with whatever Tim carried in his utility belt these days.

And Christ, Tim was a mess.

He must’ve been wearing a concealer, or it was extra pronounced tonight, because he had heavy bags under his eyes. His hair was a mess and falling into his eyes, his mask slightly askew. His costume wasn’t in awful shape, but his cape was twisted around so that it hung sideways rather than regularly situated on his back, and he had a few small tears here and there. Aside from the palms of his gloves, those had bigger tears. Plus he had scuffs of gravel and dirt.

And blood, there was blood, too. Blood on his hands, knees, and smears on the side of his face. But all in all, he looked more dazed and bruised than anything.

“No big deal, huh?” Kon said, crouching down beside his friend.

“Had worse,” Tim mumbled, resting his cheek on the bench. “M’just tired, really.” 

“That all?” Kon sighed, taking off his jacket as he debated if it would be worth it to patch up the small amount of bleeding he could see.

“Breathin’s being weird, too.” Tim added, as an afterthought. “Think I fractured something.”

“Of course you did,” Kon groaned, reaching out and turning Tim around so he was sitting upright, leaning against the bench.

Tim hissed in pain at the movement, eyes shutting for a moment as Kon paused, anxiously looking him over.

“Please don’t tell me you broke a rib,” Kon begged, more to himself than Tim as he reached out to feel his side.

“Ow, ow, ow!” Tim yelped, cringing away.

“Hospital,” Kon decided with a nod and a grimace. “You need a hospital.”

“I’m Red Robin,” Tim complained. “Can’t go to hospital. Dad would kill me.” He insisted, dramatically thunking his head back on the bench and throwing an arm over his eyes.

“Medical attention, then.” Kon said. “At least until you pass out so we can take you to a hospital when you can’t complain about it.”

“You're so mean,” Tim whined, shifting his arm slightly to give Kon a glare. “Bart wouldn’t treat me like this.”

“Bart would probably be having a panic attack.”

“S’why I called you,” Tim mumbled, slumping down and off the side of the bench, leaving Kon to jump and support Tim’s head before it conked against the concrete. “Cassie woulda yelled at me.”

“She’s definitely going to yell at you now,” Kon agreed, gently keeping his hand on the back of Tim’s head as he pushed him back upright. “How did this even happen? Don’t you have ridiculously fast reflexes or something?”

“It was a hit n’ run, I know it was.” Tim rasped, weakly shaking a fist.

“You said you fled the scene.”

“Was still totally a hit n’ run,”

Kon sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to win this argument tonight. None of the bleeding was concerning, so instead he settled for dumping his jacket over Tim’s shoulders. He also picked up Tim’s phone from where it’d been discarded on the pavement, shoving it in one of the jackets pockets.

“Pretty sure you're just too tired to notice anything,” He muttered quietly, scooping his arms underneath Tim’s knees and back.

“Was gonna get more coffee, swear it.” Tim mumbled, letting himself go completely limp as Kon picked him up. “Came outta nowhere,”

“Next time I catch you pulling all-nighters, I’m sitting on you till you get proper sleep.” Kon threatened, giving Tim a half-hearted shake as he rose into the air. 

“If you catch me,” Tim said cheerfully, giving a crooked smile.

Would’ve been a lot more charming if it weren’t for the fact it reopened what was apparently a still-healing cut on his lip.

Not that it was charming to begin with. Injured best friend, not the time. Kon shook his head.

“I’m Superboy, it won’t be hard.” Kon boasted, flying at a grudgingly slower speed back to the Cave. It probably wouldn’t help Tim if he went back at the same speed he arrived, the base wasn’t that far, anyway.

“You miss things all the time,” Tim huffed, raising a weak hand to presumably poke at Kon’s face, but ended up just flailing it around.

“Psh, not that often.” Kon rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah, you do,” Tim insisted, letting his head hang back, staring upside-down at the ground below them. “Obvious things. Miss ‘em all the time.”

“Like what?” Kon pressed. “And you're not allowed to say anything about the Justice League, they don’t count.”

Tim went quiet. Kon wondered for a brief, terrifying moment, that Tim really had passed out from his adrenaline rush before they made it to base. But then Tim raised his head and he could breathe easy.

Tim stared at him for a moment, eyes narrowed. It was his ‘I’m not sure if you're being sarcastic or actually an idiot’ face, which, honestly, could be better classified as ‘I’m judging you for being an idiot’ face, considering the circumstances he used it in.

Kon met his gaze, more than a little curious. Normally Tim would’ve started rattling off all the things he’s oblivious to on a daily basis. The hesitation was...well, not normal. He chalked it up to Tim being loopy from his whole ordeal.

“Stuff,” Tim decided, his head falling back to its original position so fast that Kon cringed.

“Descriptive,” Kon sighed, grateful for the sight of the Cave, speeding their flight. 

“Shut up, I’m tired and broken.” Tim mumbled, his voice laced with drowsiness. 

“Then maybe, and here’s a thought,” Kon said, landing just outside the Cave. “You don’t go days without sleep to the point you get hit by a car of all things.”

Tim opened his mouth to protest, but Kon talked right over him.

“I know, I know, it’s very difficult to ask of you.” He said, his playful snooty tone lessened by the smugness that seeped in. “But with the right routine, I’m sure we could figure something out.”

“You sound like a horrifying combination of Alfred and Dick.” Tim grumbled, no less limp as Kon carried him inside the base. “I wish you had your sunglasses so I could break them--wait,” Tim raised his head again, squinting at Kon. “Where’s your glasses?”

“Didn’t really have time to grab them after, you know, you woke me up at two in the morning and stalled in telling me you were bleeding at a bus stop.” Kon snarked.

“It was two twenty-four,” Tim muttered quietly, drawing his arms up to his chest and looking away.

And dammit, Kon was almost convinced Krypto was rubbing off on Tim too much. The guy looked like a puppy after stealing food from the table. Which, frankly, was something Kon would also do if he had to eat the same thing every day. Clark hadn’t seen it that way, but whatever.

Kon held back a sigh, shuffling through the hallways. He could probably put Tim on the couch, right? Christ, Cassie was gonna bite off his head for waking her up.

“Just be careful, alright?” Kon murmured, resituating Tim in his arms. He got slippery after a while. “You don’t need to be up at all hours of the night to patrol,” He said, frowning to himself.

Tim reached up one of his arms and looped it around Kon’s neck, aiding Kon in holding him properly. His face turned to the side and pressed into Kon’s chest, huffing.

“You have your family to look after Gotham at night, anyway. That helps, doesn’t it?” Kon added.

“S’not the same,” Tim mumbled, his voice muffled.

Kon would’ve argued, really, he often does, but tonight just wasn’t the night. Tim was too battered for much of anything to sink in, and honestly, he was still tired. And he was pretty sure if he spent another ten minutes around Tim with nobody else to buffer, his common sense was going to finally kick in and make him start freaking out even more.

“At least take someone with you,” Kon settled on, craning his neck down so he could press his nose into Tim’s hair. It was still frazzled and greasy. “Bart’s already awake at ungodly hours. Jinny’s down for almost anything. Hell, I’d come with you if you asked.”

“You’d come without me asking.” Tim muffled, and Kon swore if he could see Tim’s face he’d be smirking. “Besides, you complain.”

“I complain, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do it.” Kon huffed, slowly moving his head back as he came to the couch he had, previously, been having a rather nice sleep on. “And honestly, if someone like you can end up getting hit by a regular car of all things, you probably shouldn’t be out on the streets on your own.”

“Piss off, it’s a bad night.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Kon rolled his eyes, slowly leaning down so he could place Tim on the couch.

“Ow,” Tim groaned, his arm tightening around Kon’s neck as he was set down, his other hand coming up to fist the side of his uniform.

“Scale of one to ten, how bad can you guess it is?” Kon winced, slowly slipping his hands out from under Tim.

“Mm, well, it's not broken.” Tim slurred, refusing to unwrap his arm from Kon’s neck, leaving the super to awkwardly bend forward. “Probably just cracked. If it was broken, I would've lost a lung by now.”

“Ah,” Kon hummed anxiously, raising a hand to unwrap Tim’s arm from him. “That...is a nice thought.”

“Just told you it wasn’t broken,” Tim grumbled, glaring up at Kon as his arm was pried free.

“Your way of being comforting isn’t the best,” Kon admitted with a tilt of his head, stepping back. “Now you stay here, alright? I’m gonna get Cassie.”

“Say your goodbyes now,” Tim groaned, pawing at his face until he caught the edge of his domino mask. “After today, I would’ve been better dumped in a ditch.” 

“It’s still nighttime,” Kon reminded.

“Details,” Tim waved his free hand, the other peeling off his mask and letting it fall to the floor.

“Whatever, just don’t move.” Kon warned, pointing a finger close to Tim’s face. His eyes were unfocused and hazy, and the sight of that only added to the pit that was opening in Kon’s chest.

“Aye aye, captain.” Tim mumbled, giving a half-hearted salute before letting his arm dangle off the couch. The other came up to clutch at the jacket still around his shoulders, turning his head into it.

Kon has never so badly wished he’d taken his phone out of his jacket earlier so he could take a picture. Never, he swears.

And, of course, he also wished Tim wasn’t injured. That was the main issue here, really.

Kon hesitated, stepping around the couch and glancing back. Tim was never known to stay put when asked, but it seemed this time he was being merciful. 

One friend down, two more to survive.

Could’ve gone worse, he reasoned as he creeped (in a poor attempt at being quiet) down the hallways towards Cassie’s room. A car was nothing. Except for a reminder that, unlike the rest of them, Tim wasn’t superpowered--but that was an anxiety for Tim to get offended about later. 

And if Tim woke up hours later in a hospital, with Dick on the other line and Cassie seconds away from cracking the rest of his bones herself, at least Kon could rest easy knowing that he wouldn’t be pulling that stunt again any time soon. Or at least be more careful. He’d take what he could get.

[hiddenawayforme]

Re your tags on a LXC and LWJ gifset - very interested to hear your interpretation of their relationship! Or which takes you don't particularly vibe with? (of course no pressure if you'd rather not 😊)

(The tags in question: #The Untamed#Lan Xichen#Lan Wangji#I just love their relationship so much#weirdly it's like my biggest NO point when dealing with fandom#I can tolerate a lot#but if someone doesn't get this relationship or misrepresents this relationship#I have no patience for it#I have blocked for bad takes before and I'll do it again)

Nonny, I know this is several days late at this point, but I hope you're still around. I didn't have a chance to properly answer this question, but here's some 2am incoherent rambling

So out of all of The Untamed's sibling dynamics, it's the Lan siblings whom I adore the most (here I'm focusing on CQL, but even in the novel they're my favorite). Their love for each other in the wreckage of their parents’ consequences and the trauma inflicted on their sect really matters to me not just on a personal level but also on a storytelling level.

Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji both stand apart from their peers in ways that we don't see the other sect heirs and cultivators behave. They have essentially been placed on a pedestal, living paragons of virtue and perfection. They carry the lofty expectations of others, not just from their sect but from the entire cultivation world. This separates them from their peers in ways that are not easily overcome. Even though they manifest very different reactions to those expectations, they are still the only two suited to understand the other's burdens.

And they both want so hard to ease the other's burdens! We see this in the way Lan Wangji insists on assisting Lan Xichen with sect issues. We see this in the way Lan Xichen tries so hard to foster Lan Wangji's friendship with Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji doesn't want his brother overwhelmed by the expectations. Lan Xichen doesn't want his brother to be alone. They know each other so well, can read each other with a single glance.

Lan Xichen loves his brother so much he puts down his sect duties to visit Wei Wuxian in Yunmeng. Lan Wangji feels comfortable asking Lan Xichen for guidance when he is struggling to make sense of the world. Lan Xichen allows Lan Wangji to bring Wei Wuxian back to Cloud Recesses and then he actively investigates Wei Wuxian's allegations against his dear sworn brother. He trusts Lan Wangji so much during the events at Jinlintai when Wei Wuxian is revealed. Even when they are in disagreement, they still so clearly care about each other. In all the years that Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao were sworn brothers, it does not appear as though Lan Wangji made any effort to befriend Jin Guangyao (again, someone very important to Lan Xichen). Lan Wangji didn't trust Jin Guangyao and yet when it was evident in the temple that things were going to end badly between Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao, all of Lan Wangji's focus was on his brother and making sure Lan Xichen made it out safely. He was committed to making sure Lan Xichen was supported in that moment.

I am interested in how their shared childhood trauma has manifested in different ways, but they are both so sensitive to how the other has adapted. While Lan Xichen is friendly and polite, Lan Wangji is cold and aloof. But despite these personality differences, they love each other so much! Lan Xichen even tries so hard to give Lan Wangji the space he needs to be himself, to the extent that he neglects to protect himself (hey, it's almost like older sibling sacrifices backfiring is a theme or something!). Lan Wangji also wishes he could protect Lan Xichen, whether that's through taking on sect duties or making sure Lan Xichen leaves the final confrontation with Jin Guangyao alive.

So any take that does not acknowledge the love these two have for each other is a take I do not vibe with. Like, any take that has a post-canon Lan Wangji only focused on Wei Wuxian while ignoring Lan Xichen's pain is not a take I can get behind. Of course Wei Wuxian's return was important to Lan Wangji. Of course he has lost time to make up. But he's not going to neglect his brother. On the same level, I do not understand any interpretation of post-seclusion Lan Wangji hating or blaming Lan Xichen for what happened. 

Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji grow up in rather terrible circumstances and that only makes their love for each other stronger. Even though they are very different people, they make the attempt to understand the other and provide the support and space they need to be themselves. Which is not an easy task among the Lan Sect. 

[infernal-panda]

ALTERNATE BEGINNING CHAPTER 16: REAL CHAPTER POSTED NOW

The next morning, not long after the sun started to rise, Natasha stepped on to the roof with two cups of coffee in hand, still wearing Tony's night shirt and sleep pants. Her hair fell in soft, slightly fuzzed waves over her shoulders, showing just how quickly she'd gone from the comfort of her bed to the kitchen, but there was a pep in her step unusual for the early morning hour.

The day seemed to match her mood, beautiful and bright despite the grey clouds looming overhead, and there was still a pleasant chill in the air. She looked around, unsure exactly where her little delinquent had fallen asleep then spotted the blankets in the shadows of the air unit.

The crunching of gravel beneath her shoes slowed as she got close, her eyes narrowing. There was not one, but two pairs of feet peeking from the blankets, and the small palette closest to the unit was abandoned. She was confused only for a moment before a bleary-eyed Steve's head lifted from the pillow.

Steve seemed confused as well, trying to figure out why the hell he was outside and what was pinning him down. The two met eyes and Steve looked down to where Peter was still snoring softly, mouth agape and sprawled out over him. So that answered that. Steve's face drained of color at his still-bare chest.

Natasha raised a brow. This was certainly a new development.

"I was just-" Steve started, but the sound caused Peter to shift, his brows furrowing.

Steve carefully worked to peel back the blankets, but apparently Peter was having none of it, his immediate response to nuzzle in closer into the warmth, burying his head against Steve's arm. Steve let out a quietly amused huff, his heart swelling in spite of himself, and after some very delicate maneuvering, he finally managed to wriggle himself free of his comfy prison.

Peter smacked his lips as he clutched onto the pillow Steve recruited to stand in his stead, and Natasha had to actively work to keep her stony expression, her cheek up-ticking with the effort.

Steve worked on pulling his shirt on as he stepped away carefully, rubbing his hand through his hair, trying to smother the troublesome strays. Natasha held out one of the cups.

"Get cold?"

It sounded like an innocent question, but even in her stoicism, the wryness in her voice gave her teasing away. It was obvious from her reaction that she thought their sleeping arrangement happened by accident, or perhaps not by accident, but definitely not with the intentions they had laid by each other with. He could have played it off, acted like it was something less than what it was, but there was no point in holding off.

Steve hesitantly searched Natasha's face, hoping she didn't notice the trifle of a blush rising up his neck, and squared his jaw mulishly. "Not exactly, no."

Natasha stared at him, waiting for Steve to explain further. He just took a long drink. "Is that so?"

Steve gave a single, trying-for-casual nod, but it just barely missed the mark.

Natasha found herself intrigued. Her eyes flashed back to where Peter was laying, his hair a wild mess. At first, she thought it was funny in a cute kind of way, but if their cuddling was purposeful, that was something different altogether. Not that she didn't expect this to happen eventually, but with the two actively acting like the most adorable dunderheads she'd ever met, she didn't expect it to be so soon.

Then something occurred to her.

She narrowed her eyes at Steve. "He wasn't drunk was he?"

Steve's nose scrunched up in disgust, there and gone. Of course not. He never would have let any of that happen if he was. Steve may have done some dumb stuff in the past, but he would never take advantage of Peter like that. "Completely sober. We were up for a bit before-before we talked."

"Good. I'd hate to have to string you from the side of the tower after I've grown so attached to you," she said easily.

"If he would've been, I'd have done it myself," Steve replied thinly.

Natasha hummed. "So you made up your mind then? About what Tony talked with you about."

Steve nodded again.

Natasha's glare lingered for a long moment then her lips slowly slid into a smug smile. She slapped a small hand on his shoulder, knocking him off balance, and took a drink from what was supposed to be Peter's coffee. "Alright then. Too bad for Kristen in Statistics."

Steve gaped incredulously as Natasha turned on her heel and walked back to the door, calling over her shoulder, "Tell Peter he's expected to be at lunch. You and the others too, but I'll let them know. I'm sure you two have a bit of talking to do."

Steve let his head fall back as the door shut and released a breath, feeling like a huge weight was lifted from his shoulders. That went so much better than he ever imagined.

He walked back over to Peter, settling back under the covers. He reached for his bag and pulled out his laptop, going through his unread emails to pass the time, but he couldn't seem to tear his eyes from Peter's face for too long. He found himself straying from his work back to Peter's sun kissed profile, eyes glancing again and again at the long beautiful lashes casting shadows on his sharp cheekbones, highlighting the feather-light freckles peppering his skin. His fingers itched for his sketch pad after the third time, and finally grabbed it at the fifth from where it lay abandoned on his own small palette.

Peter was an awkward sleeper, all gangly limbs and soft snores, but it didn't really bother Steve. Honestly, it only made him seem more adorable, like a quirky little puppy or maybe a strangely cuddly octopus, stretching out and falling asleep in any position possible. He wondered if he always slept like that, or if it was only when he was exhausted. They'd stayed up most of the night, just talking like they always had. It was comforting in a way, that things hadn't changed too drastically.

That thought grew, branching out into thoughts of the future as he drew. He wondered what his and Peter's relationship would look like. Would they be more like Bruce and Loki, or Natasha and Tony? How often he would get to wake up beside him? He wondered if any day could ever possibly measure up to the feelings coursing through him today, despite having thought that numerous times since having met Peter.

There would be issues, he was sure, not only with the complicated feelings between him and Bucky, but with the others too. He wasn't certain how everyone was going to take the news of them going together-or whatever it was they were doing-, and he still had his own fears to conquer, but he wouldn't let it get to him. He couldn't do that to Peter again.

Steve noticed the heaviness of his lines and shook his hand free of the thoughts. They would have plenty of time to worry about all of that. For now...

Steve's hand hung limply from his knee, and he thought, just for a moment, that he could watch It Peter sleep forever.

That is until he mumbled something incoherent in his sleep. It was nonsense, hardly even words at all through his sleep slurred speech, but there was something so sweet and innocent about it Steve couldn't hold back and longer, and he dropped his notebook to wrap his arms around Peter, pressing a soft kiss on his neck by his ear.

"Good morning," he crooned against his skin.

Peter blinked slowly at the familiar strong and steady timbre vibrating against his ear, eyes glassy and bloodshot, but his face lit up with a surge of pure exaltation when Steve came into focus. Peter was fully ready to accept the night before as a fluke, a poor lapse in judgement on Steve's part, but with the way those blue eyes were looking at him, it seemed to be anything but.

"Hey," he replied, his smile warm and sleepy-soft as he stretched against Steve. "How long have you been up?"

"Not long. Maybe half an hour."

"Ah man. You could've woken me up. I bet I was snoring all over you," Peter said.

"You were," Steve assured him, passing him his notebook. "You even sleep talked. It was adorable."

Peter barked out a laugh. "Did you just Edward Cullen me?"

Steve huffed, smiling at his strange reaction. "I don't know what that means, but I'll take your word for it."

"Yeah, maybe we will skip that one. The books aren't bad, but the acting for the movie is horrendous. Almost hilarious really, but it's kind of embarrassing to watch, you know? Unless you're into that kind of thing. It's MJ's guilty pleasure, even if she denies it to everyone else. Uhm, anyway," Peter forced himself to stop rambling. "How'd you sleep?"

Steve propped himself up on his elbow. Amazing. Fantastic even. No tossing and turning, no staring at the ceiling for what seemed like hours. It was the best he'd slept in probably years.

"Great. What about you? Miss your bed?" Steve asked with a lopsided smile.

"Nope. I actually slept like a rock."

"I saw that," Steve mused, running a hand down Peter's arm. "You missed Nat bringing you coffee and everything."

Peter perked, awed. "Coffee?"

Steve chuckled, rolling his eyes. He should have known that's all Peter would hear. The kid got excited about a lot of things, but coffee and science were two things guaranteed to get a smile. Steve sat up and plucked his own coffee cup off the ground and handed it over. Peter took it eagerly but he tilted his head slightly as he pulled the cup away.

It was sweet, but not overly so. Just the right amount of sugar, vanilla creamer and bitterness, so unlike his usual almost chalk white coffee.

"Is this yours?"

Steve nodded.

"Wow," Peter said, taking another drink. "This is amazing."

Steve took the cup, then dropped his head down to kiss Peter slowly, sealing their lips together softly before allowing his tongue to dip into his mouth, dragging across his bottom lip. Steve relished in the sweetness, and the slight intake of Peter's breath, then pulled away and licked his own lips. Peter's gaze was transfixed on the movement, his heart doing a painful little dance in his chest. Holy hell.

"Yeah. Tastes great," Steve agreed, eyes mirthful.

Peter blinked and swallowed loudly, his face warming. This time yesterday he thought he'd seen every side of Steve. The dorky, the confident, the good and the bad, everything, but man was he wrong. Sexy Steve was going to take some getting used to.

Not that he minded. Peter wanted more. Craved it. He could still feel the ghost of Steve's warm hands all over his body, the gentle rock of his hips, hear the sound of his labored breathing...

"Do you have any plans for today?"

"What?" Peter's voice cracked and he cleared his throat. "Oh. Me? Uhm. No. Nothing-Why?"

"Great," Steve said with a lopsided grin. He pulled out his phone to check the time, then tucked it back into his pocket. "That means we have plenty of time get in some training."

"Wait-what?"

"Training," Steve repeated, then raised a brow. "When's the last time you worked out?"

"Uhm, well. I-I guess it has been a few days," Peter said sheepishly. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't really remember. Everyone had been so busy lately, and Clint had caught him before he could go alone the other night.

"And you were making so much progress," Steve tsked. "How are you ever going to beat me if you keep slackin', Queens?"

"I was counting on your joints giving out or something, honestly, but I'm sure I'll manage."

Steve barked out a laugh. "Keep dreaming, kid. Seriously though. I'd feel a lot better if we got you back into regular training with everything going on."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Is it bad that I almost wish Hydra would just make a move already?" Peter asked, leaning back against his pillow.

"I'm glad they haven't. When they finally do, it'll only be because they're ready for it, and there's no telling how much damage they'll cause."

"As much as they can, I'm sure. Thieves and muggers, sometimes they are just on the wrong path, you know, but legit bad guys, they're are all the same."

"Like Death Eaters," Steve offered, absentmindedly running calloused fingers down Peter's arm. "Except they use science instead of magic."

Peter snorted.

"What was that noise about?" Steve asked. "I can't make film references?"

"No, it's awesome. I just can't wait until you are a full blown nerd."

"What does that come with? A medal? A spot in the hall of fame?"

"As if you don't already have one," Peter rolled his eyes playfully. "You're literally the world's first Avenger."

"Touché."

"Did I tell you I went to your exhibit? It was the Howling Commando one they had at the Science and History museum a few years ago, before all the Spiderman stuff. It was pretty awesome."

"Really? Did you learn anything?"

Peter shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck. "Nothing I didn't already know. You know how I am. When I like something, I research everything I can."

Steve tussled his hair, smirking. "I forget. You were a 'big fan.' Not the best thing to announce before a fight, just for future reference."

"That's what Tony said," Peter muttered, flattening his hair back down.

What would past Peter think if he could see him now? He probably wouldn't have believed it. Hell, two weeks ago he wouldn't have believed it.

"Speaking of being a big fan, though, I already have our next movie night planned. Ned has been bugging me to make you watch Lord of the Rings, so I was thinking maybe we could watch them tonight, or at least one of them. They're kind of long."

Steve considered it a moment, going over his plans for the day in his head. "I have a some things to do today, but tonight should be fine."

"Oh. Avenger stuff?"

"Yeah. Tony needs my help installing some new equipment," Steve answered vaguely.

It must be the cloaking device, Peter thought. If he was almost finished, it made sense that Tony would already be done. Peter should probably work on that some time today. He didn't like leaving Goggles decommissioned for so long. The testing should be done on the power pack, so all he would need to do is make sure that the device was functioning well on its own then he should be able to connect it to Goggles' processor and-

"We should probably head down if we are going to eat," Steve said, interrupting his thoughts. He stood up, offering Peter hand. "Buck is not a morning person, and he will probably maim us both if he wakes up early just to wait on us."

"Beaten by Bucky Barnes. It's got a nice ring to it. Write that on my tombstone."

[giggles-and-freckles]

I have one thing to say (make that two)

You are such a brilliant writer and I love love loveee your fics! They are absolutely wonderful even though they make me sad :( but in a good way :)

Point numero deux: ouch :(

Oh one last thing,

So for school, we are supposed to be thinking about a start for a short story we are going to write and I was wondering if you had any tips on how to think about plot lines, dialogue, anything?

<3

Oh my goodness, hello, this is so kind!! 🥺🥰 I’m happy to bring any sort of emotion–be it happy or sad...

As for writing advice–oooh. These are such great questions and I just feel so unqualified to answer because I’m chaotic evil when it comes to writing haha. I’m sure you can find way better advice from a multitude of better/more organised writers on here, but I’ll give it a shot, using the basic tips I tend to stick to! :)

Brainstorming: all of my brainstorming happens via sticky notes or the notes app on my phone. If I’m working, I scribble an incomplete thought onto a sticky note and stick it to my desk. If I’m going about my day in some other way, I open the notes app on my phone where I have a huge app with about 70 random fic ideas. 

What comes first: for me, it’s always dialogue, dialogue, dialogue. If you’ve ever read anything of mine, you probably already know how much of a crutch this is for me, but that’s just the reality I live in haha. I’ve been trying to challenge myself to write beyond that recently, but it’s tough. My wit is one of my only good qualities, so normally that wiggles it’s way in to my characters’ conversations. 

When I get an idea for an exchange of banter, angsty back-and-forth, or maybe just a great one-liner...I write that first. Dialogue is always my favourite so getting that on the paper first makes writing fun. For me, at least. Some people are incredible at painting scenes and establishing iconic metaphors or dropping some gut-wrenching descriptions. It’s just not my ish, sadly. But I’m working on it!!

A lot of wips look like this until I go fill in the gaps:

“Your lying skills have only deteriorated over time, young one.” Obi-Wan...in a tired but sassy way? Smiling maybe? Or too soon.....

“So has your hairline, old one.” Ahsoka. Smirk or grin?

Plot lines: ha. Yikes. So, I’m notoriously bad at plots, which is why I mostly stick to one-shots. But with the one multi-chapter I have going right now (so obviously not very experienced advice hahah), I made an outline. Which is just absolutely wild, considering I am the least organised writer ever. For this, I jotted out little plot points that I knew I wanted to include, leading up to the ending that I already had in place. For this particular fic, the ending is why I wrote it at all, so I actually ended up writing the entire last chapter first haha. But the first part of my outline looks like this–

Obi bringing ani home and awkward move-in (room switch?)

Breakfast? ‘what do nine-year-olds even EAT?’

Obi choosing not to cut his hair (bc of QG but he doesn’t realise that yet)

Obi giving ani a tour of temple and running into soka

Soka being blunt about the “old padawan”

Obi and ani argument over <something>

Obi wandering temple and thinking about qui-gon

Obi council meeting “worried about you” “im fine”

Obi runs into ahsoka on way back giggling in gardens with friends

Super incoherent and basic, but I wrote out a long bullet outline like that first and then grouped things together into rough chapters. Sometimes, I write more for a scene than I intended, so I’ll bump a tiny plot to the next chapter. But it helps me stay linear and focused. On that same document (beneath the outline), I have random bits of dialogue that I know I want to include, but don’t have a home for yet.

All in all, if your thing is super plotty, I think the most important bit of advice is to begin with the end in mind. Writers (me, I’m talking about me) have a nasty habit of thinking the plot will find them–and sometimes it does. But, personally, I’d rather have the plot skeleton there, so I can spend my extra efforts developing the characters and relationships.

As for thinking about plot lines in general: draw inspiration from things you love!! The multi-chapter I mentioned above is shamelessly a product of me watching Monster’s Inc. and cackling at how fumbling and awkward Sully is with Boo because what’s a child!!! But from that comes the absolute sweetest relationship. So I thought: what if Obi-Wan knew Ahsoka before TCW...when she was a youngling? What would that dynamic be like? And just kind of rolled with it. I hope that people reading that story don’t think to themselves ‘well this is just a Monster’s Inc. AU!!!!’ because it’s certainly strayed so far from that original idea. And since you’re a fellow creative, I sense you won’t have that issue either 😉

Anyway, that was a lot of rambling that probably wasn’t all that helpful, but I would love to open this up to any of my other writer friends!!! If you have things that work for you, please feel free to add on to this! I’m absolutely positive I’ll learn something new myself 🎉

And anon–when you finish this project...if you’re feeling brave, maybe consider posting it on here and tagging me! I’d love to read it!! 🥰❤️

[didsomeonesayventus]

okay long time spending in gestation but I imagine that someone out of the followers I have wants to know my onion on KH3 is 

Overall, good!

so consider wordbarf of very repeated and tired onions no one actually actively asked for below:

Alright so I’ve been trying to figure out how to make these words and what my opinions even are considering this game has been out for almost a year now (KH3 existing is wild imagine it turning a year old) so this will be. mostly bullet points + incoherent and unorganized rambling forgive me

BAD THINGS FIRST lets get the salt out of the way

Literally everything with Kairi was oof. I still feel her relationship with Lea is incredibly rushed given the last time they were interacting in canon he was literally kidnapping her but go off I guess nomura they’re brother/sister friendsy now at least the fandom can sell me on that better than you can. I seethe with rage recalling that they didn’t even try to hide that killing her off was a classic case of fridging (“You lack motivation” FUCK OFF) and I have been angry since the day I was spoiled by leak stuff accidentally. I wouldn’t have minded her getting her ass handed to her if they made it look like she tried and gave us some moments where she did defend herself and get some victories and not conveniently cut away from the actually badly needed training montage (surprise! this is why we have training montages!!!!) and I get she was instrumental in rescuing everyone and the fact she wasn’t THAT bad speaks for how much she improved but it still just. bites that she still feels more like a satellite love interest than ever. 

Kairi was bad enough to get her own thing but tbh everyone who isn’t Sora also.. really suffers. The writing is really Sora-centric here and that’s not inherently bad (see good list) but it leaves a lot to be desired, especially since they dog pile the extended cast moments in at the end. There was no big confusion at Ven and Roxas sharing a face, no talks between characters who would have interesting interactions given their histories and circumstances, no obvious sign of development from anyone except maybe sea salt family and Aqua. They’re here to be more one-note than usual and resolve their arcs. Ven in particular (I’m totally not biased clearly /sarcasm) I feel is a big example given he was kinda in a really rough mental state at the end of bbs?? and 3 is exceptionally vague on just how conscious ventus was during his nap so I can’t even answer if he was able to give himself therapy the past 12 years or whatever

Anti Aqua is a damn cool concept but ultimately kinda pointless and I think we could have received it better if it wasn’t spoiled in trailers and wholly out of left field. Plus Sora coming in after what was pretty clearly set up as a Riku moment- while it gave us the incredibly gay press triangle to Sora + use a big keyblade made from ur love moment -was uh! really cheap!!!! and ruined what was clearly set up for being Riku’s thing with an almost nonsensical SIKE ITS SORA (it’s saved from being wholly nonsensical by 0.2′s opening foreshadowing + it still kinda makes sense for sora to at least help but damn if the narrative wasn’t leading us towards a riku moment)

Also everyone was hit really hard with the nerf effect in-narrative so unless you’re the dream team you’re screwed I guess and that. doesn’t quite work since it makes everyone else look... not great. And I think this is kinda a miscommunication on part of Nomura and the fans (IM MAKING ASSUMPTIONS TAKE WITH SALT) in that we kept saying we wanted people “saved” but meant having their arcs resolved in a reasonable way that preserved their agency and power and relationships, but got interpreted literally as “alright Sora comes in and solves every problem, is tough on stains, and makes julienne fries”

And yet there’s also a lot of mean spirited “oh no sora’s dumb and helpless w/out a second braincell” which was kinda funny the first couple times and I failed to pick up on it first go I’ll admit, but honestly? Yeah. they pick on sora too much. Donald and Goofy are the most guilty, and everyone else by virtue of not seeing Sora that much actually in-narrative are off the hook from me because they probably didn’t know how much teasing he’d been getting from his pals, but it felt kinda like they didn’t know what to fall back on between the three besides “oh donald and goofy pick on sora” which is cute once or twice but the amount he gets and how it clearly leads to his breakdown at the end is uhHHHHhhhHH hm.

As always the pacing is pretty awful where the disney worlds are somewhat relevant at best and then the end is 0-1000 but that is a usual KH gripe so its pretty low on the bar

Attraction flow is cute and neat at first but it gets.. really wearing towards the end and in the serious fights at the Keyblade Graveyard BOY are they a mood breaker

the “repeat the plot” worlds- Tangled, Frozen, Pirates -REALLY stick out like a sore, ugly thumb compared to the worlds that went out and did their own creative thing, and Big Hero 6 was.. cute? but kinda maybe too much of a breather.

Frozen also get an extra award for “Audio mixer most in need of firing!” because who the hell allowed the do you want to build a snowman scene.

They did nothing with Scala and I want a refund on that aesthetic if they’re not gonna do anything besides a framing device with it

HEY WAIT THERE WAS GOOD THINGS TOO!

Good news point that may or may not come to pass: Re:Mind DLC might fix some of the above salt! We shall see and probably know by the time this post is a year old sfjhdsakjgh

SORA! Sora was actually a character again!!!! holy cow they pulled up from the utter nose dive that was DDD!! god i love this dork and it was really fantastic to see him back to normal.

The graphical upgrade lost a lot of the squish and stretch that the OG graphics had but you know what? pretty. tastey. good graphics and better at doing more subtle emotions and hey have i mentioned Pirate’s glow up? Pirate’s glow up. The details in Olympus to recreate the swirly aesthetic of the clouds and explosions and lava is a great touch.

Worlds as far as levels go?? really good! They feel legitimately like worlds and explorable and with their own flavors and I LOVE battle and field themes x2 its really great I’m down for less worlds if they keep the quality. Hell we have NPCs!! maybe even too many npcs.

Writing OVER ALL/ON AVERAGE I’d say has improved a lot! It’s still not a literary masterpiece or anything but I found the disney worlds really cute and easier to get invested in even if long term they were less relevant than I hoped they would be. In every world there was at least one scene I found myself actually invested in. Like there was something to the writing that was legitimately more endearing than usual on average, and toy box and monstropolis were strong contenders for really good overall imo

honestly there were moments that- as moments -were incredible. Wayfinder reunion scene will haunt me, and Sea salt’s was good too, final world and rescuing everyone was jaw dropping, getting the LoD Back was also good, Union X, Xigbar exiting left stage pursued by a bear, wayfinder trio making a grave for eraqus, all the gummi ship scenes had great chemistry, beach party ending, hanging out with rapunzel for the first half of Corona is adorable as hell, all the nods to scenes in the movies, the easter eggs, like the game is not consistently amazing but it is peppered with stuff that I feel in a bubble ignoring surrounding context just work really really well

Damn if the end boss rush wasn’t thrilling as hell and honestly??? really good. Hard to parse out first flush but I think this was a good decision and added a lot of blood roaring urgency and wild turns, and even if I want to overhaul a number of things about the endgame I think this can definitely stay

Kingstagram is a beautiful gift man

OST? A fucking banger all around and I love how they’ve made cutscene-specific tracks that play with the leitmotifs throughout KH’s illustrious musical history

Over all there’s some really glaring issues, but overall it’s KH really at its best. I’m not sure if it’s my favorite entry and I’m still really mixed + befuddled on just how exactly I feel and I think a lot of that is I had pretty high expectations and my own ideas of how it would play out since like. 2012. it’s really hard to detach from those feelings and ideas sometimes. But KH3 wasn’t bad! It could’ve really been worse, and the fact that it got out the door in the state that it was is a good deal

now here’s to the wait for Re:Mind and to see if it’s basically the content we’d get in Final Mix that could definitely bump up my opinion

[paperclipninja]

Younger Season 6 Official Trailer warm-up ramble

Ok, I have had every intention of writing a bit of a ramble about the Younger season 6 official trailer since it was released 3 weeks ago and now here we are, one week out from the premiere (how has the time gone so quickly?? But also, I have re-watched the entire series four times since last season ended and started an Instagram account solely dedicated to the show to get me through the hiatus so it has also been FOREVER...also I may possibly need to find some other hobbies (she says as she writes an essay about a promo trailer)...) So I thought I’d better dust off the ol’ over-analysing part of my brain in preparation for the new season because it has been a while since I’ve rambled or reviewed.

Frankly, there is so much to take in in that 2 mins of gloriousness that this is guaranteed to be incoherent at least some of the time, so let’s just start with the beginning and that moment on the brownstone stoop when Charles is telling Liza he has had feelings for her for 16 years and seriously, straight out of the gate, I’m not coping. I mean, I know in my brain that Charles and Liza are now a couple but seeing it, actually SEEING them standing there in broad daylight being all couply and flirty, my feelings were not ready. I am also not ready for the moment I have been waiting for with an absurd amount of anticipation, the Maggie/Charles meeting. Yet here is a glimpse, them sitting all comfy and barefoot on the couch just chatting away, Maggie giving him the bff once-over as appropriately ominous music provides the required effect of DRAH-MAH. I can’t wait to see that scene properly, I just have such high hopes for a Maggie/Charles friendship and I will be waving that flag this whole season.

Through the rest of the Maggie voice-over part of the trailer we get some Amato wisdom about two people who have been through a lot being perfect for each other or dragging each other down like anchors but honestly, at this point I’m finding it hard to concentrate because we have some ‘man coming up behind woman as she’s getting ready for work’ trope in play, which is very distracting for a number of reasons. And then there’s the Liza casually telling Charles she loves him thrown in and EXCUSE ME, for this I was 0% prepared (as was Liza it seems) and 26 seconds in, my deceased status is not boding well for actually making it to the June 12 premiere.

We also get confirmation that everyone at work finds out about Liza and Charles. I am HERE for the ‘it’s ME’ moment because who doesn’t love an open plan office workplace affair reveal (p.s. who ARE all those staff in the office? Where have they been the past 5 seasons? Do they know where Josh’s friends are?)? I’m loving the fancy looking event, this show rocks the glam and Diana, Enzo, Charles, Liza in a room together, seeing them all out and plus-1ing it, I want it all. 

I too want to hear about the regime change Redmond, thank you for asking and this Quinn situation looks every type of intense and I cannot wait! I just LOVE that they’ve made her book suck. The editing of the music to coincide with Quinn’s table taps in the restaurant is just too much, and honestly, the ‘guess who wrote a masterpiece, it will be our first release’ chant, that random lady joining in, Liza asking what’s happening = pure 24 carat tv gold. 

The Kelsey/Zane situation seems like it’ll continue to play out in season 6 and I hope we keep getting to see more sides to Zane because I felt like I was finally beginning to get a more filled out version of the character in season 5. Lauren continues to be Lauren it seems and that is exactly as it should be because she is perfect and I hope we see her do Heller good this season with all that ambition and drive she has.

The big cliffhanger from last season, the Josh/Clare baby ‘who’s the father’ scenario is still front and centre and look, I said it last season and I’ll say it again, I just cannot see why they would bring pregnant Clare back if the baby wasn’t Josh’s. It would be so unbelievably awful to Josh’s character, who just wants to love so wholly and is a refreshing representation of a young guy openly yearning to be a father, that I just can’t imagine the writers of this show going the whole ‘he thinks it’s his but then it isn’t’ route. And after the somewhat stagnant storyline for Josh’s character last season, I would love to see this character have the happiness he deserves and to develop as a stand-alone character whose purpose and development isn’t tied solely to him wishing he was with Liza. I big L LOVE Josh’s friendship with Maggie so I’m happy seeing him chatting to Liza and Maggie about what he should do. 

Which brings me to the scene I have joked about in the past but never thought I’d actually see and that is Charles and Josh laughing together (I’m assuming alcohol is involved) and I tell you, I want that image printed onto canvas and hung on my wall. I mean look, the writers of this show are smart and also, Josh and Charles have to at least get along civilly because otherwise the story is stuck. If Josh doesn’t want to engage with Charles or remains bitter towards him, then Liza is put into a really difficult position, as she would be if Charles took issue with her being friends with Josh or if he didn’t want anything to do with him. The show can’t move forward properly with that kind of set up IMO so I can’t believe that I’m now saying this and it could be a possibility (because I wrote about it as a far-fetched wish at one point), but I would love to see Charles and Josh strike up a friendship and I can actually imagine them chatting about fatherhood and there being a respect there for the fact they both care about Liza. I have no idea of the context of that laughing scene but I’m 99% sure that I will be playing it on a loop after it’s aired.

Ok, before we wrap things up (and lawd knows we need to, I mean, all these words from the trailer, heaven help us once the episodes start again!) there is an axe-throwing, police line up Diana and Kelsey situation that I am going to need much time to absorb once I see it in full but I already know that it’s going to be everything and nothing I expect *praise hands* 

Speaking of scenes that are everything and nothing I knew I wanted, whatever the dance sequence is with Liza in the white dress twirling into a very dapper Charles, I can only assume it’s some kind of dream/hallucination type thing (unless they somehow get roped into a dance competition somewhere??...will reserve my theories and predictions for another day) I am legit so excited to see it because it looks like nothing we’ve ever seen on this show before and after last season’s Cabaret gem, I’m all for these delightful nuggets and love that Younger continues to find new ways to surprise us 6 seasons in.

I think the big emphasis of the ‘you are running my ideas past Charles’/’are you questioning my loyalty?’ indicates some workplace tension between Liza and Kelsey and that Liza trying to balance her relationship with Charles and Kelsey is going to be a real challenge. Not to mention that ominous end to the trailer in which the music cuts out and we hear Charles say ‘I left my company to be with you’ *dun-dun-dunnnn*. My hope is that we see Liza continue to be the strong manuscript dropping boss woman from season 5 and to tell Charles that she never asked him to do that. I mean, I’m sure there’s a whole lot more to the convo, but where would the drama be in that?

As always, Younger have managed to cut together a premium trailer with the appropriate amounts of intrigue, suspense, misdirection and general excellence we have come to love and expect.  

So buckle in and get ready, the countdown has begun. Bring on Season 6!

[wintersoldeer]

ok here's some totally incoherent thoughts about endgame that i just have to write down or i might explode spoilers: i loved it also actual spoilers spoilers very spoilery spoilers

1. Steve and the goddddamn mjölnir!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!! when thor, iron man and cap were like 'aw yeahhh we're gonna fight thanos' i was like what the heckie is steve even doing there, supersoldier or not he's just a human. then thor drops his hammer and i’m like oh my gods please literally crossing my fingers. then thor’s fight is not going so well and oh no he definitely needs someone to save him! i’m like ohhhhhmygooddss. and THEN IT FINALLY HAPPENS I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR YEARS HELL YEAHHHHH

2. steve & peggy dance. yes. just yes. fucking finally. i love it. it was perfect i cried

3. clint should’ve died. (finally haha) he was my fave since before the avengers and i was so sure he was going to die back then, but then he didn’t and look what’s became of him since.......... i had a violent flashback to watching age of ultron for the first time and for the first time just hoping that my fave character (that would be clint) would just die, bc they’re screwing his character over so badly........ and most definitely it. should.  not. have. been. natasha. who. died.  that was such a bullshit i mean WHAT THE FUCK????  i mean maybe clint and natasha were the only remaining avengers that actually loved each other (?¿¿????¿¿¿?¿ tho that’s just flimsy, i’m just trying to....idek) and that’s why it had to be them on that stupid fuckin death cliff, but why did natasha have to die?? just because clint had a family (still with no actual characterization, not that i even care, or maybe i would if the movies had given me any reason to...) to return to and she didn’t??that fucking sucks and what sucks even more is that not only was natasha the only character that died (i’m not even counting tony, bc that was very Different) but she’s the only original female avenger AND it’s the same stupd fucking rock that the only original female gotg gamora died in such a bullshit way just last movie??? goddddd i hated that so much like maybe if she hadn’t been the first one to die and all the original avengers would’ve died as was i kinda hoping (tho i love happy endings so i didn’t actually hope that it would happen..), maybe then i would be okay with her being dead. now i am very much not okay, and that means very much not okay in a angry way, not in a sad way

4. speaking of death: to me tony’s was perfect. i might not be the biggest fan of how he always got the most screentime and a bigger role than other characters, but i can’t deny that he definitely is the heart of the whole mcu and it had to be him who saves the day in the end and what else could it have been that a very tony-like self-sacrifice..... god i cried. i loved that he got a funeral (even tho natasha didn’t...) and i loved his funeral with all the people and fricking harley and then the kid saying how much she likes cheeseburgers and the frickin ‘proof that tony stark has a heart’ and sfghkklkghhhh

5. i gasped audibly when i noticed that natasha was wearing the arrow necklace

6. i kinda forgot that vision ever even existed..... in the end i first thought that wanda was talking about pietro and then i was like ok well maybe not maybe she’s talking about tony or something WHICH MAKES NO SENSE LOL i don’t even remember what she actually said, but as was pointed out to me, she was probably talking about vision. who was a thing that existed... whoops

7. ugh i hate brucenat, i really thought we were over that shit already. i also very much disliked that they actually decided to go with professor hulk, but idk w/e i don’t care that much. but natasha’s death sucked tho and the one thing i do not want to see is bruce’s pain or whatever when the movie didn’t even give me the time or reason to actually grieve for her goddd that whole thing was such a bullshit

8. i did not like that thor was treated as a joke most of his screentime........

9. that stevepeggy dance tho. love it. it’ll probably take me at least another seven years to get over it

10. i fricking adored the whole going back in time thing, especially the 2012. the callbacks and the humor really worked for me, the elevator scene straight from cap2 but reversed and hail hydra and steve fighting steve and loki’s expressions when things go wrong and goddhhh i loved it all aaaaaaa, that was the moment when i was like ok i need to see this movie again immediately.... also the fact that their time travel rules were that they were just creating new paths or w/e i guess, and not actually changing what happened to them specifically... good. so many aus

11. that final battle was so perfectly epic

12. tho shouldn’t valkyrie’s (who really just doesn’t have a real name, now does she..) horse have died after being shot haha

13. i loved that clint had the gauntlet for so long, like he’s definitely the Least Qualified Person to keep it safe, why would that be his job, it was amazing

14. i hated natasha’s death with burning passion, but i loved how she and clint fought each other over who gets to throw themselves off that cliff. tho i really hoped that their ‘yeahh we know what we have to do’ would’ve rather meant that they decided to just throw red skull down bc who even knows if it even actually needs love sacrifice or w/e, a soul is a soul is a soul

15. i loved the human jarvis whatever-his-first-name-was cameo and i really need to finally watch/rewatch agent carter

16. i really liked the tony howard scene even if i thought it felt a bit iffy, bc i feel like there’s so much more to unpack w/ those daddy issues.... but maybe that scene means that there is that one universe where howard was actually a good dad. i want to believe that. yeah. (maybe not but let me dream)

17. i like how they totally forgot that sharon carter ever even existed

18. damn that moment when black panther comes through that portal

19. damn that moment when gi ant-man is giant

20. damn that final battle was so epic

21. damn that steve with mjölnir

22. this movie was SO GOOD when it was good and so mehhh when it was bad, and i’m really glad that it was just good enough that i can forgive overlook all of its flaws. (tho i will not forgive what they did to natasha, even if i can mostly ignore it when thinking about how good most of the rest of the movie was) but idk if it would’ve been perfect, maybe i wouldn’t have survived like there’s this One Huge Thing (natasha) that really brings down the movie that otherwise would’ve been just Amazing

23. i don’t know if my heart has ever beaten as fast as when steve finally picks up the hammer. never while watching a movie, at least

24. i love that carol has her short haircut, bc it bothered me so much in cpn marvel that she should not have been able to see anything when her hair was just constantly on her face haha

25. i feel nothing but seething resentment towards clint’s stupid family and that stupid family man role he is stuck with

26. why was natasha’s hair so weird and ugly. why can’t it just be red??

27. clint’s hair was weird and ugly too and i think i have finally kinda given up on mcu!clint (tho he has those small Very Good moments and i cry for what could’ve been.....we could’ve have it aaaaaalllll.... i think i’m going to watch swat (2003) again and still pretend it’s the clint backstory movie i deserve haha, it’s been ages since i’ve seen it idk if it would still work for me, i’m gonna try)

28. i love nebula tho

29. i loved the trip down memory lane! frigga!!!! the way the continuation of the avengers capturing loki just felt so natural and like it probably happened just like that! nebula and rhodey judging quill’s singing and dancing haha yes! everything! just as i was hoping it would be!

30. doesn’t really have anything to do with this movie but: i still firmly believe that coulson never died. i still firmly believe that pietro never died. 

31. falcon cap helll yeah!!

32. i guess i’ll never get my strike team delta movie with clintasha best friends soulmates and with buckynat and the red room.........  goddd there really should’ve been a black widow movie after cap2. like that was The Perfect Spot for a black widow movie, it’s really a crime that there isn’t one, and even if they make a black widow movie now, it’ll definitely be too little too late.

33. like..... a for effort..... for that female heroes girl power.... ughhhh.... scene, i guess, but that. does. not. cut. it. when you have just killed natasha

34. things i really wished they would say in some perfect moments: “hail hydra” “avengers assemble!” “i am iron man”. things they did say in those moments: “hail hydra” “avengers assemble” “i am iron man”, gogssgddd that was perfect (ok i also really did wish steve would’ve said the “i could do this all day” in the fight but couldn’t say bc the movie had just made fun of that.. i’m kinda sad but haha it’s not that big of a deal, maybe if he hadnt said it in civil war which i dont like but well...)

35. haha people are already complaining about the steve going back thing and how it’s definitely not moving on and erasing character development or whatever and HA. i finally got my stevepeggy dance i don’t care about anything else i am so happy!!!!!

36. i am so glad i managed to avoid any spoilers bc i hear that there was some pretty massive ones going around??¿?¿?

37. also: ok from here on out i am not here for any of you negative nancys complaining (probably very reasonable complaints idec) about the movie, god i really wish it was 2012 again

38. in final thoughts: i absolutely loved it and i love that it turns out that i’m apparently still very much marvel trash........ if natasha hadn’t died, especially in such a bullshit way, i would’ve been able to overlook everything else that was kinda meh about the movie and just purely and blindly loved it. i still did love it, a lot, but now there’s that bitter aftertaste.....

ok now, maybe that’s enough rambling and repeating myself....... i’m going to need to see it again asap

//EDIT

39. I FORGOT TO MENTION IT BC I FORGOT ABOUT IT but goooooooooodddd i loved nebula and tony playing that game in the beginning and tony letting nebula win ääääää

[derangedroyalfae]

May 27, 2019 3:20PM

I was feeling lonely and suffocated. I had just been around people, but it was probably what made the loneliness worse. When the people you’re with don’t make you feel included or like you don’t connect with them. Besides, I hardly consider drunk people as people worth having conversations with. They’re incoherent and random, filterless and unaware.

Last night, sometime in the evening while light was still out, I thought I would hang out with my family for a little in the hot tub. They’re always inviting me and I’m usually declining, so I thought maybe I would give them some time (even if I was invited this time around). I planned on sitting in the hot tub for only a little while, going inside to eat dinner, and then cleaning the house as a surprise birthday gift for my ma since it’s her birthday today. Immediately upon coming out, Bunny and my ma were elated, my ma especially, and ushered me in, invasively grabbing me and hugging me as soon as they could and spouting random nonsense. It didn’t take me long to realize these two blonde women were fucking drunk. My dad was out there too and the entire time I was out there, he was either being affectionate with his wife, or like me, trying to dodge being in the middle of the cat fights. My ma and sister had kept playfully getting at each other’s throat, a whole “I’ll throw you in if you to the pool if piss me off” mentality but in a jesting way. Haphazardly they’d slap at each other’s breast and get in each other’s face and have conversations posing as arguments that hadn’t needed to be a thing. At one point, they tried talking about how men don’t understand what it’s like having periods/ovaries, and at the same, women don’t understand having testicles (to which my tranny-ass was tempted to say something, but that’s just the exception, not the rule, right?) and around that point I was not wanting to put my hunger off any longer and decided to go in. When I started to leave, they were upset and asking me to stay, to which I responded I was hungry so they ushered me to bring my food out. They also insisted this was a good conversation for me to listen to. …THIS IS LITERALLY WHAT I STUDY: sex and gender. This is a MAJORITY of my conversations at school, maybe not only specifically those sex organs, but it’s the same topic. Besides, I would be fine having that conversation if it wasn’t sloppy-ass drunk people who were more rambling than conversing. I wasn’t having fun anyway.

Around 8PM is when I finally got inside the house to eat. While I was eating, I began making preparations for cleaning and mixed a pre-made salad for my ma since she asked me. My dad eventually came in too and began watching things on the TV, mainly a comedy firefighter show. No one seemed to be aware of what I was doing. A couple times, my ma and Bunny came in, but they were still soaking wet and obviously didn’t even try to dry off before hand. They were mainly coming in for split moments just to get something or whatnot. They leaked all over the place, I had to use a couple of towels to dry up the floor to keep myself from slipping and falling. After a while, I finished my cleaning (dishes, vacuuming, mopping, etc) and went upstairs, debating if I should start getting ready for bed.

I went into my bathroom and immediately closed the door, locked it, and then sat in front of it. My mood was all wonked and I felt lonesome. I didn’t want to be in this household anymore. It’s not like things are terrible, it’s not really abusive (aside one family member on an emotional/mental level), but I just didn’t want to live here. But the one place I want to live, I cannot, and it’s mainly because my metamour moved in, and she’s taking it for granted. I would have been able to get over my petty jealousy if she wasn’t taking her situation, the situation I wanted (at the beginning of this semester, I was going to talk to my girlfriends about the possibility of moving in with them over summer, but then my metamour officially moved in during January/February and thus there was no space for me to as well), for granted, and in doing so, hurting our girlfriend. I’ve gotten to a point where I honestly do not like my metamour, I’m only polite and chill around her for my girlfriend’s sake. She’s rude, inconsiderate, and has no manners. I do not like her, and it’s not just the jealousy speaking. My metamour sounds as though she’s moving out soon, but it feels wrong to immediately be like “can I move in” once she leaves, as I’m sure it will be too much resemblance of her moving in and my living environment isn’t bad enough to move in. Issues with my metamour aside, on the bathroom floor, I was desperate to find someone to talk to. Neither of my girlfriends were showing to be online and neither was my best friend. Besides, I felt like talking on a phone more than anything. I hate text. It was after 10:30, so I knew Kitty would probably be awake, but Hummingbird already announced she was off to bed. 

Suddenly, arguing between my family from downstairs started happening and I got nervous. At 10:39PM, I tried calling Kitty, but there was no answer (it didn’t even feel like it rang enough times). I tried making conversations with people on tinder, but kept in mind that it was getting late. At 10:42PM, I called up Hummingbird and got her on the phone for about 6min. Immediately fear and shakiness poured out of my voice when she answered. I was honest and told her what was happening, how I was lonely but something was happening downstairs. I couldn’t even pinpoint which blonde was fighting with my dad, but it was clearly one or both of the two from the hot tub and my father. I was eventually able to figure that all three were arguing, but not sure who’s side anyone was on or what the basis was. I didn’t let the conversation with Hummingbird drag on since I thought I was being paranoid and this would blow over soon and I knew she was trying to go to bed. I wished her a goodnight and hung up.

Shortly after, I saw Kitty was online, so I messaged her:

Royal (05/26 10:51 PM) Were you away from your phone? Kitty (10:51 PM) It didn't even ring? It's right next to me Hummingbird picked hers up, I heard you sounded upset What's going on? Royal (10:52 PM) Weird, I called it I don’t know I don’t know what’s going on At first I was lonely but then shit started to happen

It didn’t take long for Kitty to call me (10:53PM). She stayed on the phone with me for nearly 2hrs. Near the beginning, Hummingbird even messaged me:

Hummingbird (05/26 11:00 PM) I couldn't make out majority of what you said on the phone. If you need us we are here. Kitty is still up if you need to talk. If you need to get out, just say the word. I'm worried and I love you

Most of my phone conversation with Kitty was me relaying what was happening as it was happening. I also did let her in on my feelings of being alone. At one point, my ma tried yelling at everyone that we’re being kicked out and have 30 days to go. She then said she’d give up 60 days to be generous. My dad kept trying to reason with them but in a very argumentative and aggressive way. I found it dumb that he kept trying to make a drunk person listen and understand. I was often shaken and crying during most of it, but somewhere around the hour and half mark it was just frustrating and annoying to hear them arguing in cycles and cycles and cycles and cycles. You know what happens with you push a revolving door? It spins. They had moments where they’d go quiet and then just start back up again. My father yelled and screamed at the two of them to go, so my ma had decided to listen and told Bunny to pack up some stuff since they were going to go to a hotel. Bunny was hysterical and crying like crazy. At one point, I poked out of there and said “Please tell me neither of you are planning on driving.” Bunny immediately got on the defensive and jumped up and aggressively charged at me, screaming how I don’t even have a license and yadiyada on how I can’t say shit. My ma was fast to try and stop her and continued to usher her to get packed up. I rushed back into my bathroom as soon as I could. I of course was letting Kitty in on everything as it happened, as I was still on the phone with her at that point. It shocked me that Bear hadn’t gotten involved or that my niece didn’t have a reaction from all the yelling and screaming. 

Bear at some point did finally texted, about an hour after things got heated:

Bear (05/26 11:50 PM) How are you holding up?

Royal (05/26 11:50 PM) Trying to make sure ma or Bunny don’t drunk drive

Ma said to Bunny that they’re going to a hotel

So I’m listening in

(11:56 PM) There’s a huge part of me that really wants to call 911

But I don’t know

I don’t trust them anymore

I never know when people are going to get violent or hurt themself anymore

Bear (05/27 12:02 AM) I completely understand

Kitty was able to hear a lot of the yelling and screaming over the phone, though I doubt she could make out what they were saying. I know there were lots of “I HATE YOU,” “YOU’RE THE ASSHOLE,” and like exclamations. There were several times where I was concerned by ways they were saying and reacting to stuff, like there might have been a weapon or harm of oneself involved. I remembering breaking down on a different part of my bathroom floor, crying to Kitty how I wished they would all stop hurting. How I wish my dad knew he was appreciated and no one hate him. How I wished Bunny didn’t hate herself so much she always felt under attack and the need to be on the defensive. How I wished my ma wasn’t so miserable that she felt the need to drink so much. My dad actually tried saying to my ma that if she didn’t stop drinking, he wanted a divorce. Whilst, is something I can get behind, not best to try getting a drunk person to agree with. The entire time, I kept fighting the urge to tell Kitty to come get me right that second. It wasn’t going to be easy to get out without walking past all of them. My bedroom and bathroom is the farthest point from the stair’s opening and where most of this was happening (my parent’s room, Bunny’s room hallway area, the top of the stairs) was my only route to get downstairs and outside. It sounded like my ma was determined to leave with Bunny anyway, so it felt like overreacting if I were to leave too. Kitty tried to tell me that I shouldn’t feel unsafe in my own house, to which I tried arguing back how that wasn’t what was going on. I was scared for everyone else’s safety. After someone has almost been shot, after someone broke a glass bottle with the intent of turning it into a weapon, after someone has charged my door in an argument I was no involved in, after someone has tried killing and hurting themselves on multiple occasions, after someone has threatened to hurt themself to get their way, after someone has offered the gesture of hurting themself to make a point…I just can’t trust them anymore. When things had been quiet for a good while, I finally snuck myself into my room and let Kitty go. She reassured me that she would message me on Discord right away since we were having a hard time hearing/understanding each other with bad signals on both sides.

After some time passed, she hadn’t messaged nor shown any signs of being online and I could hear my parents talking again. I pressed myself against the wall to listen and messaged her:

Royal (05/27 12:55 AM) Sounds like they’re trying again, but less aggressively

My ma is still obviously drunk

I never want to be with someone I would argue with like this

Well shit...the irony is...now that I’m in my room, I have to go pee 😶

Royal (1:10 AM) My dad’s asking my mom not to leave, I think it’s mainly cuz he knows she’s drunk

I think she’s going to go

I think she’s going to get behind a wheel when drunk

I don’t know what to do

Why didn’t my dad plea more

Sounds like Bear is now involved

I think he just went downstairs to stop her too

I’m scared

That my ma might try to harm herself should she leave

But I’m just a coward hiding in my room

I don’t know what to do

I’m going out there

By this point in time, I had texted Bear “Ma is going to drive while drunk with Bunny“ around 1:16AM and I think that’s when she got involved. I went pass Bunny and down the stairs and into a point out of view.

Kitty (1:31 AM) I don't think you're a coward, they shouldn't be making you feel this scared to be around them

Royal (1:31 AM) I AM NOT SCARED FOR MYSELF

I AM LEGIT SCARED THAT MY MOM MIGHT BE DEAD IN THE NEXT 24HRS

Kitty (1:32 AM) Understood...

Royal (1:32 AM) I’m out here to make sure she does not step foot out that door

I honestly have no clue what the hell is going on down here...

My dad is doing something with a lift thingy

Taking something outside or bringing something in

I have no clue

My mom is sitting on the couch like a pouty child

Wine bottles???

I’m at a complete lost right now

I’ll tell you one thing: I will knock my mom unconscious if that’s what it takes to keep her from drunk driving

I know she can’t out run me with her bad knee

Kitty (1:38 AM)That's probably for the best...

What about wine bottles?

Royal (1:39 AM) I don’t even know my dude...I think my dad is bringing in wine bottles from outside but I honestly don’t have a fucking clue

Kitty (1:39 AM) O.o

Royal (1:39 AM) Holy wine cellar

Wait

I think he’s taking it OUT

He got rid of the wine cellar

Or is he bringing it in? But how did it get put in the first place? It’s iron and heavy...

Wine cage, whatever you want to call it

Bunny was just sitting upstairs by the railing with her head down, but I think she came down

My niece is crying hysterically

He’s bringing it in

Kitty (1:43 AM) :/

This is just a really weird scene

Royal (1:43 AM) But it looks like it was mostly emptied

Yeah, I have no idea how to accurately describe it

No, it still has a lot of wine in it, just the top part was emptied

My niece is very unhappy

I want to go in there and hold her

Kitty (1:44 AM) With all the yelling? I bet...

Royal (1:45 AM) But there hasn’t been any yelling for nearly an hour

She only now started

It looks like he’s bringing in crates too or something

Wine crates

My niece is quiet again

Bunny is starting to cry again, silently

My niece started again too

Kitty (1:47 AM) My first thought is he's going to dump them all

Royal (1:48 AM) It’s a scenario where it seems like he’s doing something to make a point to please her

Not to made a point to spite her

Kitty (1:49 AM) Hmm..

I only figured because of the "quit drinking or divorce" line earlier

Royal (1:50 AM) He’s already apologized for saying certain stuff while angry

Mainly about “getting out”

So at least I know neither of the blondes can try to sneak out right now, the 3 ways out (not including Bear’s room) are either in my sight or right by my dad

He’s putting the wine back into the cellar, I think the top portion was missing to make it lighter and not top heavy

Looks like my mom dozed off on the couch, my dad tried waking her to asking her to go to bed

My dad went to bed

I’m going to wait it out a little

It almost seems like they might still be planning on leaving, I can’t tell

Alright, maybe not

I think my mom is getting situated on the couch to sleep

Ok, I think it’s over for real

At least for tonight

I’m in my bed again

Kitty (2:01 AM) kk

You going to be able to sleep after all that?

Royal (2:02 AM) Who knows

Luna is here though, purring loudly as she’s snuggled up to me

My little guardian angel

Sweet li’l familiar

Kitty (2:03 AM) She's a good kitty

I had fallen asleep eventually, not sure what time, and woke up several times in the morning at decent hours. But I didn’t want to get up or do anything. Part of me just wanted to sleep today away, my ma’s birthday or not (also Memorial Day).

Hummingbird also messaged me to check on me this morning:

Hummingbird (05/27 9:17 AM) How are you doing? Royal (10:58 AM) I dumbly had the notion earlier this morning to try sleeping the day away Did Kitty catch you up on everything? Hummingbird (11:00 AM) yes she did. I now I want to steal you away even more ❤ Royal (11:01 AM) It’s been quiet all morning Hummingbird (11:01 AM) I bet, especially after the events last  night Royal (11:01 AM) Sorry I never responded to your messages last night, I was on the phone with Kitty Hummingbird (11:04 AM) np.  I was just worried. I was worried and  asked Kitty to reach out to you, hoping that she could hear better. Royal (11:05 AM) I feel like I need a “days since last incident” sign We had been doing relatively well I was at a point where I wasn’t scared for myself but everyone else And if I wasn’t there and something happened... I was physically safe But I wasn’t sure if someone would hurt themself (or stupidly do something that would hurt someone else) And my ma came very close to drunk driving Hummingbird (11:07 AM) yikes Royal (11:10 AM) Bear didn’t make any effort if anything until an hour in and it was her texting me to see how I was holding up, but then took forever to text back and when she did it was just a “I understand” in response to telling her I was contemplating calling 911, and then I think she got involved again after the 2hr mark after I told her that I thought ma was actually going to drive, but that seemed short lived anyway After everything went quiet, my niece had a reaction Hummingbird (11:22 AM) wow, that sounds intense Royal (11:22 AM) Kitty was able to actually hear the screaming and yelling at some points Hummingbird (11:27 AM) yeah, she mentioned that Royal (11:28 AM) Probably shatters the imagery of how quiet my dad is 😅 Hummingbird (11:28 AM) just a smidge

I don’t even know if Kitty and Hummingbird would want to come over today (as they were invited previously since it’s my ma’s birthday), but I don’t want to be left home alone with them but I don’t want to ditch either. I don’t know what to expect from the rest of the day. Everything is going on with my fam like none of this ever happened, as per usual.

[aknazer]

Nino: Missing Moments (The Collector)

For @baneismydragon, who is the instigator of the Nino: Missing Moments movement. Also for @thelastpilot, @tides-miraculouss and @seasonofthegeek, because they’re part of this too.  ;)

Call me.

Nino stared down at his phone with pursed lips as he contemplated the simple text message. Adrien had been yanked out of morning classes unexpectedly, which wasn’t unusual. Surprise photo shoots, extra fittings, or even random other events: Adrien’s dad had no respect for his son’s education. But even if Nino was now used to his desk mate and best bro disappearing randomly, the accompanying text message gave the whole situation a decidedly more ominous tone.

Covertly, Nino slid a glance towards Chloe: she didn’t look more pissed off than usual, so either Adrien hadn’t said anything to her yet, or Nino was blowing things out of proportion. Either one was possible, really. Glancing up at the clock, Nino decided that it was close enough to the end of class that if he left now, he wouldn’t miss anything he couldn’t snag from someone else later. After he excused himself to the toilet, Nino slipped out of the room and headed down the hall. 

The locker room was thankfully empty, and Nino plucked his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through his contacts, hovering over Model Behavior. Sighing, he pressed the button and held the phone to his ear.

“Hey, Nino.” Adrien’s voice was despondent in a way that only interactions with his father seemed to bring on. Piano music played faintly in the background, and there was an intermittent clack, clack-clack that told Nino Adrien was faking his piano practice while he spoke to him on the phone.

“Hey man, what’s up?” Nino asked, twisting the dial on his locker idly.

“Um, well…” Nino could almost see Adrien scrubbing a hand across the back of his neck as he sighed. “Remember that book I was carrying around? That was my dad’s?”

“The one you lost?” Nino felt a sinking in his gut.

“Yeah.” Adrien huffed out a sigh. “Turns out my dad caught me on camera taking the book-”

”Caught you on camera?” Nino’s jaw dropped. “What the heck man?”

“Well, I was in his office…”

Nino shook his head disbelievingly while Adrien continued talking. Sometimes, he really felt like his friend was living in some kind of weird, alternate reality. What normal person got into this kind of crap, anyway.

“-Wait.” Nino interrupted Adrien’s ramble as what was being said caught his attention. “You dad is pulling you out of school?”

“Yeah.” Adrien sounded downright depressed. “That’s what I was calling to tell you.”

“Only you could view being pulled from school as a punishment.” Nino muttered under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. But that wasn’t the real issue, and they both knew it.

Adrien was being pulled from school. It had been a constant threat, as long as Nino had known him. Something his dad used to yank his son around, something he hung over his head like the proverbial axe. Do what I say, or I’ll take you out of school. Dance to my tune, or I’ll take away what you love.

They’d joked about it before, even though it wasn’t really funny; because what else could you do? It was big and awful and not even a little funny, but laughter was the only option, so that’s what they did.

“Man, the bathroom again? Better get that under control or your dad’ll pull you from school.”

“Marinette? Yeah, she’s cute, but I think if my dad thought I had a girlfriend, he’d pull me from school to keep me from being corrupted.”

“It’s okay.” Nino heard himself saying, voice a lot steadier than he actually felt. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, you know that, right? You’re still my best bro, even if you’re not there to complain about history class, or keep me awake in physics.”

“Y-yeah.” Adrien sounded a little subdued. “I’m really good at sneaking away from Gorilla. You’ll see me so often you won’t even know I’m missing.”

They exchanged other platitudes: meaningless noise meant to bolster each other up and mitigate the enormity of the problem. They were still best friends. They would still see each other. Nothing had to change.

Lies. Everything would change, and they both knew it.

The bell over Nino’s head rang, signalling the end of the class period.

“Anyway, I had better let you go.” Adrien sighed. “I just wanted to let you know before I told Chloe.”

“Thanks man, I appreciate that.” Nino said sincerely. Chloe would undoubtedly wail it from the rooftops like the drama queen she was, and that wasn’t really how Nino would have wanted to learn about this. “Mind if I tell Marinette and Alya? I don’t think they’ll want to hear this via Chloe either.”

Adrien, who was well aware of the animosity between the three, laughed ruefully. “Yeah, thanks. That would be great.”

A quick good-bye later, and Nino hung up the phone, snagging his book and darting back towards the classroom to grab his bag and make it to the next class. Alya shared it with him, but he wouldn’t be able to catch up with Marinette until after lunch.

Then again, maybe he’d just leave that to Alya. After all, she was the professional Marinette herder, not him.

As it happened, neither he nor Alya got the opportunity to tell Marinette anything. She disappeared at lunch time with only a wave over her shoulder and a shouted explanation of running an errand, completely ignoring their calls. Unsure about what to do, Nino decided the best course of action was to stay out of it.

Adrien, on the other hand, had decided his own best course of action and had simply texted the situation, or an abbreviated version of it, to Chloe. Which was undoubtedly the best course of action, Nino thought as he watched Chloe wail over her phone after class. The dramatics were strong with this one on the best of days: anything Adrien-related was guaranteed to up the drama quotient by at least 10%.

Nino had settled in for the show, torn between pulling out his phone to video Chloe’s performance and ignoring her histrionics entirely, when Marinette wandered into the room.

“What’s up with her?” She wondered aloud as she looked at Nino.

Chloe, sensing a newcomer to her audience, chose that moment to wail about how Adrien was never coming back to school, ever, before she collapsed into sobs atop her cell phone again.

“His dad grounded him.” Kim chimed in.

“For life.” Max added, shoving his glasses back up his nose.

“What? Why?” Marinette asked, confused.

Apparently Alya hadn’t spoken to her yet. Where had she been? Nino wondered, even as his mouth opened to answer her.

“Something about losing this major important book that belongs to his dad.” He said, ignoring the twist of anger and frustration in his gut as he shrugged.

And that’s when things got interesting.

Historically, Marinette had zero chill when it came to Adrien. So Nino had fully expected Marinette to freak out. Stutter, stammer, blush - something. Even just an impassioned and outraged speech about how cruel Adrien’s jerk father was. Any of those would have been consistent with his mental library of Marinette’s Adrien-related reactions. Instead, she muttered something under her breath, uttered a sigh of relief, and then cheered.

Not that Nino professed to understand Marinette, or girls in general, but this? Was just strange. Worse, Chloe had heard her - everyone had - and had turned to stare at her incredulously while she babbled incoherently and backed out of the room, making a final dramatic statement in the doorway before turning and dashing away.

Nino blinked, confused.

“Ugh!” Chloe sneered, momentarily distracted from her tantrum. “What does she know, anyway?”

The words were meant to be facetious, but as Chloe resumed crying, apparently determined to get all her tears out before classes resumed, Nino had to wonder: what did Marinette know?

Something, apparently. The rest of the afternoon had gone fairly normally for Nino: classes, chatting, lamenting homework and taking notes. Marinette, however, was conspicuously absent.

However, a few hours later Nino received a call from Adrien himself telling him he was coming back to school, and Nino was too relieved to question it then. Questions would have to wait until later, after the rush of giddiness and relief had passed.

“Alya!”

Russet hair shone and her glasses flashed in the light as she spun when he called to her.

“What?” She called back as he jogged across the courtyard to her.

“Where are you going? Have you seen Marinette?” He asked as he approached her. “Has she spoken to Adrien?”

“Marinette?” Alya looked amused. “Speak to Adrien?”

“Well, yeah, I guess.” Nino shrugged. “She seemed, like, weirdly happy when she heard why Adrien got yanked from school.”

“...Happy?” Alya squinted at him skeptically.

“I know, right?” Nino shrugged again, for lack of anything better to do. “So I was wondering if you’d spoken to her.”

“No…” Alya said uncertainly. “I haven’t seen her all day.”

“Well, then, where are you running to?” Nino gestured aimlessly towards her.

“Oh! Well, Ladybug and Chat Noir were spotted heading towards the Agreste mansion a while ago.” Alya pointed towards Adrien’s home, and Nino frowned. “I was hoping they were still there. Or that Adrien knew what happened. Want to come with?”

Nino paused, uncertain. On one hand, it sounded like something had happened, and he wanted to make sure his friend was well. On the other...

“You think they’ll let us in?” Nino asked dubiously.

“Huh.” Alya blinked as she considered that. “Maybe? Maybe not. But I bet we can convince Adrien to come out!”

Nino huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, you’re probably right. If his dad won’t let him out, maybe he’ll scale the balcony again!”

Alya laughed. “Now that would be something to see! You in?” She held out her hand, eyes gleaming as she waggled her fingers in his face.

“Yeah.” Nino smiled, reaching out to take her hand and letting her tug him through the gate. “I’m in.”

[colleydogstar]

ADHD and Mental Health Stuff

The fun part about being ADHD is that when you try to sit down and write about being ADHD and mental health stuff, you get distracted and keep putting it off.  Regardless, I've wanted to talk about mental health issues and ADHD for a while, so HERE'S A NICE RAMBLY, PROBABLY INCOHERENTLY ORGANIZED, AND LONG WORDED PIECE FOR YA TO READ NOW.

(Tagging @neurodiversitysci cause that site is a damn good read for folks like us)

The human brain is weird, and often our own worst enemy. Mood swings, crashes, it hits us all differently. Not always a whole lot one can do when the world and emotions decide to plant themselves right on your head.  That fun part of the human brain that doesn't let us handle things the way we wish we could deal. Still, in the end, Brave heart. If you can find the strength to get through this life in something, grab it and don't let go. 

Some of us choose to express our issues more openly, others may internalize. Sometimes internalizing isn't always the worst idea, but you got to be really careful when doing it. Know the limits of what your body and morale can take from it. it can turn self-damaging real easily, and that won't do you any good.  One thing to remember, we're all insane. Gotta be to get through this shit. We CAN'T be sane. Have you seen all the stuff we gotta go through? It only makes sense we're gonna break and lose it at times. The trick is finding what part of insanity works in our favor.

Me? I retreat to fantasies in my head a lot, and I know that can't be entirely healthy. One of the reasons I latch onto cartoons, fantasy, and heroes so easily is the escape. For however long it's running I don't gotta deal with the problem. Doesn't help solve it, but will give a bit of buffer time to maybe try and figure out a new approach, steady the nerves. 

"Trey, why the hell do you have Paw Patrol figures on your shelf, that show is for little kids?" Because the biggest concern in that show is 'Will Mayor Humdinger steal all the prizes from the carnival?!' and after dealing with people who think the world is ending if their door has the tiniest, easily repairable scratch on it, you NEED simplicity. You need to be able to give your brain something it can decompress on. Cartoons work for me. Hell that Mr. Rogers Marathon last month was Relax-o-Vision for me. Your mileage will vary. 

There's something I picked up, from the original Twin Peaks of all places, that has actually helped me a lot. Once a day, do something just for you. Doesn't have to be big. A snack that you like, a tv program, a cup of coffee, 15 minutes to read a book or story. Just something that is entirely selfish for yourself. It can be a challenge to get yourself into the habit, but oh so worth it. For me, I try to read at least 4 pages of a book during my lunch hour at work. Dealing with ADHD in my adult life still? Not always a simple task. But, small steps get you there. 

There's a fear some have talked to me about with ADHD that sometimes your mind can feel like it is slipping, knowledge leaving you, and that you're going to get dumber as you get older. But you're not going to get dumber, you're not going to be brain dead. Anyone who tells you that happens is a damn liar. 

The thing about ADHD is that it isn't just a lack of focus, it's the hyper focus that makes people think you're unfocussed. latching onto something almost obsessively. You have to train yourself to deal with it, and I really wish i could describe how to do that better, but I'm not sure how I wound up doing it without my meds sometimes myself. With work? Try to find a work environment that you can turn the side-effects to your advantage. I work retail, have most of my life now. I turned my sudden need to move and walk into excuses to patrol the store grounds, hit up other departments to see what is happening in them and general meandering that still looks like I'm busy.

The hyper focus? Don't fight it, ride it out. Trying to deny it will make it worse. Listen to that song for 6 hours nonstop. Watch that show til you get tired of it. Search for that collector's piece to finish your set BUT COLLECT RESPONSIBLY. I've had the song Lake Shore Drive on loop for 40 minutes as I type this, as an example.

I would draw in class, or work on homework for other classes while taking notes for the one I was in. Drove my teachers insane. Are you able to multitask with it? Still keep your grades up while doodling? And when i say that, I mean C+ - B+ area are totally acceptable grades. If so, then rock and roll with the doodling. Just, you know, always be ready in case you get called on. There's wonderful smug moments if a teacher calls on you to solve something cause they think you're not paying attention and you grand slam that shit.

Your brain is going to be running 500MPH, all the time. It's going to cycle from Point A to point R, back to point A all day. And there's going to be annoying little voices in your head telling you dumb shit to make you feel bad. Those little voices in your head, give them a face, a sound, something you can then imagine telling to shut the hell up, or punch in the face. 

One of the most reoccurring one is going to be: "I really need to discuss this but what if that makes them turn against me in some form." That is the annoying bastard voice that will always haunt you. Even with your closest most trusted friends, IT WILL NOT LEAVE. That is especially annoying when you work retail and need to bring something to your boss' attention! What I have found helps with that?

When you do start talking, don't apologize like "Sorry for taking up your time/being annoying/ect." Try to remove sorry from your vocabulary and replace it with "Thanks for letting me talk about this/giving me a moment to talk/ect." Again, something that takes practice, but can help quite a bit. It can also trick the brain into not feeling bad about the discussion. The Sorries will trigger an instinctive "I'm being a problem." But the thanks yous help the brain go "Yeah, they were ok with this!"

And don't let folks shame you for your interests in comics, tv, and books. EVER. We live in an age were folks will go out of their way to find people who share those interests now. WE HAVE FANDOMS, CONVENTIONS, ENTIRE SECTIONS OF THE INTERNET devoted to stuff we love. When it comes to entertainment, age demographics are for Producers and Ad Execs to worry about, not you. See above with me enjoying cartoons meant for younger ages. (As a bonus, this also means I have on many occassions been able to help confused parents/grandparents in Target/ToysRUs when i walk by and hear them trying to figure out who the hell their kid likes in a tv show. They think I work there. HA)

C.S. Lewis used to talk about how he hid that he loved reading fairy tales growing up out of fear of what folks thought. And as he got older, he just stopped caring. 

"Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

Do you know how much reading that impacted my life? How much of a realizing of "I'm not alone in this?" that was? 

That shit right there helped me realize that there is no one definition for what being a Good Adult means. Cause in the end, there is no such thing as the Good Adult we're told about growing up. We are all, at most, mediocre adults. We win, we fail, we get frustrated, we move forward. There is not a single person out there reading this that has been a Good Adult. At most, they've learned to fake it really well, and that's an awesome skill to learn.

How do I end this? Really I'm not sure how to sum this up, because everytime I try I keep getting distracted by other things.

So... I'll simply say: For those of you out there thinking you're the only one dealing with weird shit in your head, you're not alone. You really are not alone, a lot of us are just scared of talking about it cause that's how people conditioned us, whether they meant to or not. But there's going to be those of us, like myself, my sister, and others who are going to be, "YO, LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS WEIRD SHIT!" You just gotta find us. We're here to help.

[alexpearlvauses]

I kind of need to throw this all out since I love Nichorello so much. So here’s me rambling about how I am still hopeful about their future. 

This is not at all a prediction as this show is unpredictable, but again, it’s just me being hopeful. 

Sorry that this is kind of long, probably incoherent at times, and lacks photos. 

(Warning: End spoilers.)

In equal parts as it was wonderful to watch, it was also painful to watch the Nichorello scenes. This season I thought they were really going to pull through and finally come together, officially. It certainly seemed that way during many of their scenes together.

In the end, however, we were left with Vinny actually coming through for Lorna and wanting to be there for her and the baby. She is finally getting everything she has dreamed of: a husband and a child of her own. It is the (strange) “fairytale romance” she’s always longed for. 

On the other hand, we were left with Nicky painfully letting her go and giving Vinny her blessing. I admit, this initially left me bitter and really upset as I believed they were done for good, but the hopeless romantic in me doesn’t want to believe it’s over.

For the entirety of the series, we have been shown time after time, that Nicky is hopelessly in love with Lorna. Lorna is the love of her life. She will accept all the good and the bad and love her unconditionally. In fact, Nicky loves her so much that even if it was unbearably painful, she decided to let Lorna go (romantically). She called Vinny and told him how to take care of Lorna the way she needs to be taken care of and loved. This method of loving her though is the way Nicky and only Nicky has always done for her. I’ll get back to this point later.

Vauseman Parallels

Nicky/Lorna have many times paralleled Alex/Piper in this series. They have been the pairs that have been established since the start. 

Nicky and Alex have always been steady about their feelings about the one they love. They are the ones who are constantly suffering because of their deep love. On the contrary, you have Lorna and Piper who have more than once been fickle in their feelings. Morello has always loved Nicky, but much like Piper with Alex, she hasn’t always prioritized Nicky or her feelings. What is interesting is you have a season where Lorna and Piper live without Nicky and Alex, respectively. Season 2 for Piper and Alex and Season 3 for Lorna and Morello. Maybe this is just a coincidence or some formula. Probably a coincidence? Who knows.

There are many more parallels but I don’t feel like digging them all up. They are there, however, and I think they’re important. I’ll only mention a couple.

In episode 7, you have Nicky crying over what happened with Lorna in the shower and Alex alludes to her also having issues with (”Worthy Cause”) Piper.  “Girls are the fucking worst.” Again, these two are always suffering in some way as their loved one always seems to prioritize someone/something over them.

Later in episode 7, after Vinny abandoned Lorna, Lorna finds Nicky with some random “hot” girl (Nicky knowingly stares at her hurt). She storms off because now she’s completely alone. Her husband left her and her prison ‘girlfriend’ doesn’t want anything to do with her. If we rewind all the way to season 1, we had a similar situation with Piper. After Larry left her, Piper tries to go back to Alex who ends up messing around with Nicky (though I can’t remember exactly if Piper sees this), still, Alex makes it clear (vocally) that she’s upset. Piper is left alone without Larry and Alex just as Lorna is left alone without Vinny and Nicky. (Though admittedly this S1 Larry/Piper/Alex bit also parallels Nicky/Lorna/Christopher, because at that time we didn’t really know the story with him, but Lorna chose Christopher over Nicky.)

There are more parallels mentioned when Red, Piper and Alex are in the hallway in episode 9 of s5. They’re a little different as they deal with Piper and Nicky being the ones to both mess around with this sudden appearing “hot” prisoner and the effect it had on the relationship they had with their loved one. 

At the end of season 4, you have Piper realizing that she hasn’t been there for Alex in the way that Alex has been for her. Then at the end of season 5, Piper comes to the realization that she doesn’t ever want to live without Alex. I brought all of this up because I feel that with all of the Vauseman/Nichorello parallels, many of which I haven’t even brought up, we could see something similar with Nichorello in the future. In my opinion, it makes no sense to largely parallel these pairs otherwise.

Where can we go from here?

It may seem small, but I think there is a lot of weight to Morello’s final scene in season 5. We see her looking around the bus, her eyes searching for someone, but then she looks sad, she didn’t find who she was searching for. It’s obvious that she was looking for Nicky, but Nicky wasn’t there. Again, this scene may seem small but I think it’s important for how Lorna will move forward from here.

As I said earlier, Vinny has come through. He will care for Lorna the way she has always wanted to be cared for by a man. Her vision of men and love will become sort of like they do in the movies. Vinny will come though in these ways, just as Nicky advised of him because he loves her. She will probably eat it up at first, after all, this her dream, right? But the things we dream for, aren’t always what we want. 

I think Morello will eventually realize that this love she’s getting from Vinny won’t feel right. She will finally have some man love her the way she’s always wanted and yet her heart won’t be content. I think she will find that she doesn’t want to be cared for in that way unless it’s by Nicky, which I think will finally lead her to realize that she’s in love with Nicky in that same way Nicky has always been in love with her. Except, Nicky won’t be there anymore either physically or romantically, I’m not sure.

I’m not sure because I don’t know how next season will go for the last 10 inmates in the pool. One or more may die or they will all be separated or their sentences will be extended. I don’t want to think any of them will die because I really love them all.

Again paralleling Piper, Lorna will come to realize that the one she truly desires has been in front of her all along. I feel this could happen in three ways:

1) Vinny loving her the way Nicky always has won’t feel right. 

2) It will take something drastic that makes her realize she can’t live without Nicky and she doesn’t want to live without her.

3) Both of the above.

It’s always Nicky who has been the one to show her unwavering love, but we haven’t really seen that from Morello. We know she loves Nicky but I don’t think she realizes how much.

I think the season happened in this way because it’s Morello, who needs to realize what she wants and who she loves, not what she thinks she wants and who she thinks she should love. 

I think it could have also happened in this way to have Nicky give up, that way later she finds out that she is worthy of the same love she has always given. That that love is reciprocated. We’ve been shown time and time again that Nicky will do anything for Lorna, I think it’s time we see that Lorna will do the same for Nicky. I think it’s time that the audience learns with Lorna, how she truly feels for Nicky and for Nicky to learn how Lorna truly feels about her.

It is important for Lorna, on her own terms, to realize that she wants to be with Nicky and not Vinny. 

I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. It’s just a thought I’m playing with. Unrequited love isn’t unbelievable in this show, it has happened before. At the very least, it would make a good fanfic… Of course, I need to accept the possibility that they are done for good, but I don’t want to believe that. Not after everything they have been through. 

[dstars96]

Not a day goes by

So much has changed. This world of ours. Friendships. Circumstances. Ideas. Values. Thoughts. Ideas.....so many substantial things. It's been over years since we last spoke. Slightly longer since I last had the privilege to look you in the eye. So much time. So much change. Yet one major thing hasn't changed, well, for me at least. I still love you. Yeah, I know I'm crazy. Literally everybody has thoroughly expressed this to me. Anyway, life likes to give me the old slap in the face. Dropbox emailed me the other day telling me account was being closed due to inactivity. This was news considering I didn't know I had one. So I signed in to this thing and BANG. Surprise mothafucka! Our entire relationship in videos and pictures. Talk about the old slaparoo. All those times you stole my phone and took about 350,000 selfies, videos of us arguing like a married couple at a bonfire, a while summers worth of videos at Taco Bell, you telling me my drums were scary, prom, and basically just us being...well...us. It just reminded how much I miss you. Your crazy matched my crazy and you're the only person that has ever both put up with my nonsense and understood me. You were always the only person Ive ever fully 100% trusted with anything and everything and given the opportunity I'd move heaven and hell to make you smile. To make you happy. To make you feel as special as you made me feel. I failed in so many ways and I just wish I could rewind the clock and fix my mistakes. I shouldn't have ever let jon back into my life. The way he treated you. Absolutely unacceptable. Granted I hated every word he said to you even back then. I'm not blind. The issue is that I let him be the asshole he was. I let the two of you fight. I let him come between us. I should've gone with my gut and just clocked his ass. I guess I put up with it because I just assumed everyone was kidding around...or at least that's what I convinced myself, but obviously I was wrong. Hugely. I can't even begin to apologize enough for that and I can't even begin to explain my regret. I should've put my stupid unimportant problems out of the way. You needed me to be there for you. To support you and be your retreat from the everyday chaos of life, but instead I selfishly just added to stress. The morale of the story is I made a lot of really stupid mistakes and I would absolutely sell my soul for a second chance. Hell, I'd sell my soul just have you back in my life. I've thought of texting you or messaging you just to remind you that there's someone out there that cares. That would do anything for you should you ever need anything. I know it's been over a year. I know so much has changed. I know you don't love me. In fact I'm almost 100% sure that you don't ever think of me or miss me. It seemed easy for you to let me out of your life. Selfishly I wish you thought of me as much as I think of you. That you feel as I do. The other part of me hopes it was incredibly easy and that you able to move on instantly so you could be happy. Anyway I'm off track here. Point is I know that so much has changed and that I'm just a dot in the rear view mirror and that it would be both wrong and probably creepy/shitty of me to try and slide back into your life. So I won't. On a lighter topic. Jacob is in town for the Green Day concert (my 5th in a year because I'm a lunatic). And we've been hanging out and we were talking about things and somehow critikal came up. So we've been watching old cr1tikal videos and just reminded me of that summer where all we did was watch them laughing until we cried. I can still here your voice quoting, "And just where did you come from you bizarre box of fuck?" I miss those times so much. Continuing my incoherently unorganized rant (Cut me some slack it's 4:30am and I'm operating off of no sleep) I wanted to touch on how I've tried to better myself and turn thing around over the past year. I like to think you'd be proud of me. I've been reevaluating my friendships. Looking critically at the people I surround myself with trying to decide if they align with my ideals. I'm not suggesting I only want friends who have the exact same viewpoints with me, that'd actually suck. I just mean I want to be around good people. People that are going to better me. People that are going to widen my views culturally, philosophically, politically, idealistically...etc. I recently cut ties with my fake friends, the backstabber, and the one I feel is a cancer in my life. So basically I'm back to square one with my one friend that I've known since I was 4. Hint he's the one here currently lol. Point is: I think I'm headed in the right direction that way. Furthermore, I've figured out what I want to do career wise. I know what I want in the next 5 years. I know where I want to be at the end of these 5 years and I'm taking steps to put it into action. Basically I just wickedly over complicated the fact that I have a 5 year plan. Again, I'm basically operating at the mental capacity of a zombie. Don't judge me lol. Hey on top of that I'm losing weight and that's always some good stuff. Soon I'll fit my old skinny jeans and black clothes again :D. Or is that out of style now? I'm not hip with the kids fashion...or any fashion really. Though this is obvious. Anyway, this has been reduced to me rambling like the madman I am. I know you'll never see this, but if by some miracle (well, not a miracle for you considering by this point you'd have suffered through my rumblings) you do see this. Just know that I still love you. Know that I still care about you and if you ever need anything no matter what it is, you can always call me and I'll anything and everything I can. Even if you just need someone to talk to I won't steer you wrong. I miss you. I love you. I always have and I always will. My door is always open.

[jjinomu]

in regard to tda edits and future plans

soz for another text post i had a long day n ive been thinking about things a while back i stated that after i do a gakupo edit, then i'll cease shitting out tda edits and i feel like!!??? i might need to explain why a lil bit (dw i changed my decision to end my tda streak but i'll address that later) 

keep in mind im not trying to shade people or be a dick about things, it's just a dump of my thoughts and reasons in case ppl were like ???? 

also long post because its my 12am thoughts again and u know how i am, i like to ramble about really weird shit at 12am 

edit: in case u don’t actually give a shit about anything that i’m about to start rambling on, i stated at the bottom that the wedding apocalypse is back on again so i’ll reply to everything tomorrow hehe (and i’ll still do tda edits, but they’re no longer my main priority anymore)

i listed it because only assholes list their reasons for being assholes and I'm an asshole for being like this

1. i have too many tda edits obviously gotta poke around other areas and by areas i mean my own scratch stuff

 2. ive grown a lot more sensitive over my tda edits as of recently as well (including my old crap) which isn't something i do very often (I'm also not even 100% sure y I'm like this suddenly it’s like IAB all over again except I'm not an ignorant, flaming, hyper-agitated 12 year old anymore)- probably a side effect of mass rule-breakage and then people giving me the "i dont understand your rules so i edited and unlocked them anyway without asking you to reiterate bc that seems totally logical in my tiny brain." that shit gets to you 

 3. main and probably the most realist reason why i reached the decision ive made: (this is gna be kinda sad-sounding almost but wateva just tda edits yo) 

as people may have realised (especially if you've stuck around since probably the beginning of this blog) i've spent a few years developing my own style of tda, that still remains recognisable as tda but is still personalised enough for my own tasting and aesthetics, whether people enjoy my own stylistic preferences is up to them (as a lot of you do and i totally and utterly appreciate that)

 nowadays with my flunctuating rules and the fact that some of my old models were editable or some models i've given people permission to edit OOC or whatever, i sometimes see an odd face edit of mine or my stylisation of Tda hair or my textures or whatever appearing on models and i don't actually mind or it doesn't concern me in the way ur probably thinking (like im not fuming mad or overly depressed about it) especially since i often take it as a compliment because people just like my style and adopt it and i think that's super sweet- but basically, in simple terms, i, especially as of recent, feel like i've lost that satisfaction of those years of me developing, experimenting and perfecting this tda style, my own personal aesthetic style for myself, to others- yknow wat i mean???? 

i guess in even more basic fundamental terms, i don't feel "original" enough anymore and my style and the hardwork i put into said gross style has vaporised and i can't continue doing these edits as much as i'd like to???? because i almost feel like it's been "stolen" i guess (harsh word but it's kinda like that in a sense). 

i don't mean that to sound so cruel and full asshole, because it all boils down to literally my own fault for being loose at first and then being super sensitive later on (hah weird euphemism) and as a result, i've kinda "lost" my "mojo" 

i mean i can still do tda edits but sometimes they no longer feel like they're mine or a total waste of my time- because heck anyone could take my face edits and make their own tda edits- and i sort of lose my motivation due to that dilemma (especially for the past few weeks, the only reason i was shitting so many tda edits was because i just had no internet- but it’s taken me longer to do (not even complete) the tda edits i currently have showcased than i usually do bc i just feel so......... yknow.......) as i don’t want to do something someone else has done (hence was the drive for me to do my own tda style in the first place, a mainstream model style with a unique aesthetic that’s different so i don’t match the other 1829310283 tda mikus or kaitos or meikos and i’m still free to do whatever i feel like doing without that strong kind of guilt- in a way)- but like i said, when someone does something i haven’t done..... especially if they do it in my style- then it becomes some weird existentialist crap like “who am i even”

idk what im saying but basically because of these three points- i decided to stop tda edits after gakupo (a while ago) but DW now i've changed my mind and i'll still do tda edits here and there, especially for more difficult vocaloid designs (as i love doing clothes)- but they'll no longer be my main priority (i.e. if you want to suggest a tda edit i'll more likely not do it, but if you suggest a scratch model- i'll more likely will) especially with uni on top of everything, i'll be more heavily focus on my scratch models and developing my own scratch style- from well scratch- rather than stay looped up in my tda issue and trying to figure out how to constantly change and improve my style so it remains different and unique (and still falling into my own aesthetic), i hope this decision is an ok compromise rather than just abandoning my tda edits entirely (i mean i love my shitty tda edits, they’re fun and quick to do and i feel super accomplished when i finish one in record speed and i like that feeling hehe)

i sincerely hope this doesn't offend anyone (and if it does- i'm really and truly sorry, i don’t mean to- this is just a thought dump and i doubt people are going to read it but i just need it outta my SYSTEM- just keep in mind it's nobody's fault but my own as this is just a me issue that i no longer know how to solve or?? i guess care about solving?? and i appreciate and still enjoy everything- be it people using my models or editing them in my style (alas i'll burn you at the stake if you credit incorrectly though)) but i wrote this up in case anyone really wanted to know my thoughts on situations and i guess- the inevitable downfall of jjinomu lbr- here it is laid out flat in my slightly incoherent, hazy state of truth and drowning sadness

in better news though the wedding apocalypse can finally be returned as of TODAY so i'll reply to everything tomorrow when i'm not exhausted and going though some weird existential crisis