#but also when he talks about how people might get annoyed with him if he called just to say hes changed addresses

[bitebitekxll]

Do they purr - genshin non-humans

៚ Zhongli ✧ Xiao ✧ Wanderer ✧ Albedo ✧ Venti

Notes: Holy hell how do I have 50 followers??? THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR SUPPORTING MY SILLY MUSINGS. This literally was just my way to learn how to write smut and post self-indulgent head canons but I’m glad people are enjoying this with me :DDDD

𝐙𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐈 ᥫ᭡

Yes, 100%. He will deny it every time but lay on this man’s chest, maybe press a kiss to his jaw, and his chest is going like a fucking engine. He will insist that it’s not a purr, it’s simply a content growl— or perhaps a rumble, at most. He isn’t some measly cat, after all, he is a mighty dragon, the Prime Adeptus—

It’s definitely a purr.

Get him a cat ear hairband. He will give you the most long-suffering, unamused look while he wears them, but he will wear them. Anything for his beloved ♡~

𝐗𝐈𝐀𝐎 ᥫ᭡

No, unfortunately. You have found no evidence that your stone-faced Yaksha is capable of emitting a purr, or purr-like sound (though certainly not for lacking of trying).

However… there is the matter of whether he is able to trill or coo like a bird, given that is his true nature.

He gets annoyed when you ask him, adamant that is not something he can do, and how dare you even entertain such a notion. Have you no respect for the adepti? Hmph.

…but you swear you’ve heard him chirp when you catch him off guard: kissing him without warning or praising him unabashedly.

It seems this will require further investigation.

𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐀 ᥫ᭡

Not purring, but whirring!! Got this idea from @seabirdtxt ‘s Glitch in Irminsul fic (it’s SAGAU focused on the diff vers of scara existing at the same time, go read it it’s great) and it just makes so much sense to me.

As a mechanical puppet, and an advanced one at that, Scara has tons of machinery going on inside of him. Though it usually can’t be heard, if you get especially close to his chest— a privilege only reserved for you and maybe Nahida during hugs —you can hear the whirring and clicking of his moving parts inside. It doesn’t sound the same as a purr, not exactly, but it’s pretty damn close.

Most of the time it’s pretty faint, but sometimes Scara might just make it louder— it’s got nothing to do with the way your face lights up or how you smile when you hear it, don’t be stupid.

Of course, the only way he can make the noise louder is by overworking his system, making the parts inside move faster than they’re supposed to. If he does it too much or for too long, well…

You’ll know it’s time to lecture him on taking better care of himself when he starts burning up. Overheating is the first sign he’s about to overload his system and shut down (or from everyone else’s perspective: pass out).

You’re the only one who can make him stupid enough to be willing to break his own mechanisms just to see that adorable ridiculous expression on your face. (He might come back to his senses in a petulant huff if you start calling him a cat, tho)

𝐀𝐋𝐁𝐄𝐃𝐎 ᥫ᭡

Sadly, purring is not a feature homunculi come with. But this is Albedo we’re talking about, he can definitely figure it out.

He won’t tell you just what idea you’ve sparked with your question— you always worry when he starts self-experimenting —but it’ll be fine! He takes all the necessary precautions, limits any risk, because there’s always some risk in life, and downs a concoction or two in his quest to see if he can change the makeup of his own body. As an artificial life form, he’s less delicate than an organic one, so he doesn’t need to worry about pesky issues like rearranging his (non-existent) organs in a fatal manner.

And it works! Well, sort of. You come back home to a boyfriend that is fully capable of purring!! And also!! Has, uh, cat ears…

Albedo would consider it a success— he accomplished his goal, even if there were a few side effects. And you get a pretty catboy equipped with the cute, twitching ears and a fuzzy blonde tail; everybody wins! ♡

Of course, there’s always the chance his experiment just turns him into a cat entirely… but it wears off after a day or so, so it’s not the worst thing Albedo’s done to himself.

Either way, congratulations, he can now purr for the next 24 hours. And regardless of his cat-to-boy ratio, he will be expecting pets. Get to it~

𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈 ᥫ᭡

He has bird vocalisations! Except he’s worse at hiding it then Xiao may or may not be. It’s not outright chirping, but it is a cooing trill in the back of his throat, too vibrational to be a regular hum.

It’s the sound he makes when he’s perfectly content, laying in a warm patch of sun on the soft grass, sat atop a roof with alcohol warming his veins, and curled up in your arms, round cheek smushed against your chest. He takes in a deep breath, filling his lungs with your scent, and then releasing it in a sigh, accompanied by the musical tones of his little trill.

He makes shorter ones when he’s pleasantly surprised; when you unexpectedly toss him an apple or pat his head. He’ll grin or lean into the touch and make that sound in his throat. Too quiet to be heard by the people around you over the din of the town, but you’ll hear it. It’s a sound just for you ♡

[luna-the-cretar]

Yall ever talk to yourself out loud as if you’re talking to an audience, and come to a conclusion?

Like, I was just talking to myself out loud about how it’s fair that people think that Twig is annoying and untrustworthy (I also think she’s pretty annoying at times), especially since she’s supposedly older than Gideon and runs her own fucking Inn, and yet acts like a child, and I said out loud something along the lines of “And yet around Gideon she acts like a 3yo, almost to the point where it’s almost manipulative”

Which, quite literally made me stop myself mid sentence, and repeat the phrase “To the point where it’s almost manipulative”

And now it fucking makes sense. She’s a warlock, and her patron is Baba Yaga (and now part of me suspects that she might actually be Baba Yaga based on the description of the Inn). It also makes sense why she acts this specific way towards Gideon and nobody else. I mean, Gideon got attached to her by the end of episode 19, and she fucking knows this. She only started acting like a child towards him once she realized that she has him wrapped around her finger. Which makes the trade-off between his groove and the sticks so much more sickening (especially since she seemed to know EXACTLY which stick was the wand).

And I think she “killed” herself on purpose, trying to get Kremy’s hat. She knew it’d upset Gideon. Maybe she hoped he would give up another thing just to get her back. I mean, it’s also odd that her puppet form just conveniently awakens when they need her? Like going into Thither, before going limp once more.

[uniquethingtastemaker]

I clapped my hands and squealed when I saw this! I love it whenever people talk about my ideas and characters. It's always so rewarding, so I have to give back to something that makes me so happy.

You're so right about him apologizing for his rambles. I just wrote the first part of the fanfic (again, it's subject to change. It's 3 a.m., but I feel pretty good about this one). I'm jumping off the scene where you first meet Rook. Even then, he apologizes for getting off track.

It's sad because he's so genuine. However, I do know that when he rambles. He goes ooooooon. I remember Vil saying in Chapter 6 that he went on for 5 hrs about how he would've acted in one of Vil's scenes. I relate to the feeling so hard. I do this, but I have less shame about it. Plus, I have someone willing to listen to my rambles because they love me and think my enthusiasm is cute. It's my boyfriend. I love him. He's a cutie. Therefore, I wanna give that experience to Rook. Thinking about it, my rambles have gotten shorter, lasting around 15-30 mins rather than a whole 5 hrs. The reason is because I have a steady stream of attention. Bottling it up will give you 5 hrs, but if you do it consistently, it'll be shorter. Big brain. I came up with that on the fly. Proud of myself. Congratulations, you got one of my signature rambles lol.

Wait, wait, wait, I have thoughts about Vil and Rook! I've never gotten to speak about this before, so I'm enthusiastic, like our favorite hunter.

They're interesting because Rook and Vil are equals. Rook treats Vil like an equal. Vil doesn't get that a lot. He either looks down on people (or perhaps gives the illusion that he looks down on them (unclear)), or others put him on a pedestal due to celebrity status. There aren't many people close to him that can say they're equal to Vil. Or maybe it's more accurate to say stand up to Vil, and he listens. Rook tells truths to Vil straight. Now, there's a reason for blunt delivery. He might be a little "mean" or "insensitive," but my god, Vil is thickheaded. He's so pompous that most criticism gets thrown away because he doesn't think they're credible. Rook has to be callous to get to Vil.

Now, this isn't Rook's normal behavior. I remember when our favorite hunter reassured and helped Deuce after he ran out of practice in the 5th chapter. He was helpful and kind then. Therefore, I'm under the assumption that with Vil, he has to be mean. He has to be rough for the blonde to even consider the criticism.

Now, a few other things are interesting about their relationship. First is how Rook approached Vil without reserve... You know... now thinking about it... He might have gone to him because he would be the only one to listen or discuss his interests. Hahahaha, I'm laughing because that's both sad and hilarious. I can totally see Rook approaching Vil specifically with the thought, "People love talking about themselves." Perhaps that's why Rook got close to Vil. Vil's self-absorbed, so the topic of the hunter wouldn't come up that often. It's a surefire way to have him talk about his interests without reservation. It also showed Vil that Rook was credible and his thoughts were good because he showcased value in their talks. Not only did he talk about the good aspects but also the bad. That's something a true fan does. I love that.

I also feel like he's less intimidated by Vil than Neige, because Rook looks up to the RSA student. I'll be a little mean here. Vil has been the villain in basically all his works with Neige. It's probably easier for Rook to separate Vil from his villain role. The hunter knows that just because he plays the antagonist doesn't mean they're bad. So because he wasn't a hardcore fan of Vil, it was easier for him to befriend him. As his friend, he supports and loves Vil, but the blonde isn't his ultimate idol.

Now, I take the whole butting heads thing to be Rook just doing his own thing, and Vil being annoyed that he can't control Rook's actions. Everyone knows Vil likes being in charge and in control. So Rook is different and the reason why Vil doesn't force his control is two reasons. 1) He respects Rook. It's obvious by the way Vil doesn't pry into his suitcase during chapter 5. During that scene, it also implies that Vil knows how much Rook values his privacy. So Vil respects Rook. 2) He knows if he ever did force him, Rook would stand up to him. If Vil didn't get his act together, Rook would leave. Rook does his own thing. He has a moral code and will that isn't swayed by outside factors.

I think Vil is also more often annoyed by Rook in an "official" capacity. Rook isn't bound by duty like Vil is. The hunter tends to go wherever his heart leads him. It's why he goes after Vil in Chapter 6 instead of doing his duty as the vice leader. Therefore, it makes him a little more incompetent in an official capacity. Again, look at Chapter 6. Vil scolds him as the prefect and then as himself, saying he loves the whole crew for coming to get him. I do think Vil can become genuinely annoyed and irritated in that aspect. However, as a friend, they love each other.

Another aspect is that they work well together. Vil tends to be overly harsh, causing a lot of conflict, but Rook defuses it. They work together in that aspect, and I think Vil knows this. He might be semi-annoyed, but I don't think he's super annoyed. He's probably just judgmental, which is Vil's baseline lol

Anyway those are my unfiltered thoughts. I'm sure I repeated myself multiple times, but it's 4 am, so... here you go lol

As everyone knows, I bounce between fics based on my creative inspiration and rn I’m writing a Rook x Reader fanfic.

Now, this one is interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this concept before…

The closest thing I’ve read is probably @solxamber’s Ruler of My Heart. It’s one of my favorite Rook x Reader fanfic of all time. She peels back the layers to Rook’s character, portraying something more honest and vulnerable. It’s fantastic. If you haven’t read it, do it now.

I read that fanfic and thought I could never even touch that level of artistry. However, I feel like I’ve come up with a solid base for something good.

I haven’t seen a lot of full fanfics where Rook feels threatened. I’ve seen some drabbles where he’s felt scared and is able to deal with the threat swiftly. However, those tend to be about MC being threatened. Even in the canon story, Rook is more concerned with the safety of others rather than himself. It makes sense considering his fantastic skills.

Therefore, the man tends to be unflappable. Even if he does feel unnerved, he covers it up expertly. He can manually adjust his heart rate and breathing. However, some people can see past the facade, like Trey. Look at the Halloween event for instance.

Rook has a weakness though. He’s a private person. He doesn’t like people knowing about his past too much. Other than what he portrays to the world, which is his more of his upbeat and over the top self, he doesn’t want people to know about him. That’s his weakness.

My fanfic idea is an observant reader. Someone that makes Rook feel uncomfortable and borderline threatened because they just guessed almost everything about him upon their first meeting. That is objectively terrifying. There’s someone who matches his level of observation. Unlike Trey, who’s low key about it, MC doesn’t know that, especially at first. They almost give away too much information. Rook deals with the situation but they both know what he’s done to intervene.

So, I plan to have the main inner conflict be Rook hesitating to trust the Reader. The external conflict will obviously be Vil. Once again, I have a strange obsession with Chapter 5. I think it’s because it’s the perfect set up. There’s so many different possible conflicts and resolutions. I also don’t have to think much in terms of coming up with my own situation and set up. It’s built in there. Work smarter not harder lol

Anyway, that’s my idea for now. Let me know your thoughts. Always love interacting with people about my works and ideas

I also have thoughts regarding Rook general behavior that might be interesting. However, I’m tired, so that’ll probably be a separate post. Let me know if you’re interested.

Tagging @es-sharezone because u love Rook lol

[i-merely-jest]

Welcome to the show, folks!

This site is really fun from what I've seen so far... although I do have to comment on the lack of other Cookies on it!

What a shame, truly... that means less people to talk to, y'know.

Oh, and it sure is boring just sitting around and waiting for something to happen. Alas, I am trapped inside some sort of labyrinth, and my options are limited.

But hey! There's always something new on the internet, amirite? Boy, are a lot of you dirty little liars... Hehehe...

//mod will remain anonymous and goes by he/they pronouns

the plotline for shadow milk cookie himself is after being freed from the silver tree, but then being put into a different form of containment afterwards. for some reason i wanted him to be in an ikea, so this different containment just so happens to be a fucked up version of ikea. shadow milk cookie is essentially stuck in the infinite ikea, but not exactly, since it's not an scp and it's my own take on the matter. basically, it's like the cookie run equivalent of ikea since it's made with materials seen in the cookie run universe, and he can't physically leave it usually.

it is unknown to others what entity sealed him away here, and even shadow milk cookie himself claims to not know what it is. given how he's unwilling to talk about it most of the time, he is either lying completely or only telling a half truth. furthermore, he's not willing to divulge much information about the place he's stuck in aside from ominous answers that leave people with more questions. if he ever has visitors, he's more than eager to toy with them a bit, especially since they're exceedingly rare. good luck getting out though...

when he does appear to others in the real cookie world, it's typically as an illusion or ghost-like figure from him using his powers to project himself back into reality, so he's translucent. furthermore, he can still do voice impressions, so sometimes he will only be a disembodied voice, as this is easier and more entertaining to him. it is also more common than an actual appearance of him.

he can still have some effect on the real cookie world and can choose to be tangible or not, but is usually the latter. it's incredibly taxing for him to use his abilities nowadays, so he has to remain in his alternate reality, constantly trying to find a way out. it's been so long that he can somewhat control the environment with his powers, but for the most part it seems like something else is in control of the space. sometimes he can forcibly open up a gateway out, but will always have to return since there's always this unknown force dragging him back...

general dni, but if i find you annoying i might block you too

no nsfw, but some flirting is okay (don't expect shadow milk cookie to reciprocate in a genuine way though; he'd likely just see it as a joke) shipping generally depends because i honestly have NO idea who's he's even shipped with but. yeah. feel free to ask or try to plan something with me in advance (edit: okay so after figuring out it exists, i am kinda favoring shadowvanilla as a ship...)

i'm generally okay with either silly or serious roleplays, so have fun! i won't bite, i promise. (unless, of course... i'm lying? who knows...)

i encourage oc interactions, as well as canon character interactions! i'm also fairly open to cross-fandom roleplays if it really comes to it

fun fact: this is THE most effort i have put into an intro post. credit for the eye dividers goes to sisterlucifergraphics, and credit for the other shadow milk cookie assets goes to phantasyze. is this blog kind of self indulgent? yes, and i freely admit this. i think he deserves to be in a hellish solitary confinement dimension though.

tagging system

♧ Snapped strings (ooc posts, but i will also tag them accordingly with other tags that say they're ooc just in case. also before any text there will be two slashes (//))

♧ Was it a truth or a lie? (answered asks)

might make a specific tag for text posts later

[skimmingmilk]

ooo now i'm curious, tell us more about drift! 👀

i'm assuming, like his name implies, he "drifts" around and just does whatever he wants?

You got it! Drift's name came from a couple of things. First, it's the game mechanic when you take tight corners while boosting as Sonic xD But also, it can mean being carried along by the wind or water, so fitting for a pirate world and also compatible with Sails's name :) And then the big thing is that he's so adrift in his own life. Just completely and utterly directionless.

Drift lives alone on an island in the middle of No Place. He can't swim, so he's not about to go live a life on the open seas. Most of the planet is under water, with scattered islands spread out across the ocean.

Now, he doesn't let it bother him! He doesn't need much, his island is lush and peaceful. It's okay that he can't really run anywhere, the island's not that big, he can cross it in less than fifteen minutes just walking. He likes living life worry-free, without a care in the world. He naps in hammocks all day long, plays his guitar, and eats seaweed salads and drinks out of coconuts xD He has absolutely no drive to do anything. No purpose. No point. And he's happy. He doesn't care that he's stuck in one place because his island is beautiful and he's alone! No one telling him what to do, no one expecting anything of him. It's just him, nature, and peace.

This probably doesn't sound too bad, right? Except, it's Sonic. An aimless Sonic who sees absolutely nothing wrong with lying on a beach all day, every day, alone, forever. He's Sonic's carefree nature dialed up to the point where he couldn't care less. Without anything to run towards, he doesn't run at all. Without anything to live for, he's not even really living.

He's also very talkative despite being alone. Drift got the whole slice of the talking pie xD Sharp might have a sharp tongue, but he also isn't compelled to say everything that's on his mind and Bur (originally Snare, but I think Bur works better for his character, like the little spiky seed balls that get stuck on clothes or in animal fur) is non-verbal. So it's safe to say, Sonic's most annoying qualities went to Drift, lol.

When Drift finally has some company - in the form of Rouge and Knuckles landing on his island for a change - all he's got to offer them are carefree conversations and coconuts, no way home in sight. Just miles of ocean.

"Haven't you ever wanted to at least see what else is out there?" Knuckles demanded. Eyes still closed, Drift lazily waved his hand towards the endless blue expanse beyond the edge of his beach. "Take a long look, pal. That's all there is." "You can't know that!" Knuckles smacked the palm tree with the side of his fist, the whole thing swaying along with the hammock and finally coaxed the hedgehog to crack one eye open and peer up at him. "If you've never left this island, how could you know that there isn't something more for you?" Drift clicked his tongue, a lazy smile spreading across his face as he folded his arms behind his quills. "You tell me, big guy. What could be better than this? Now d'ya mind? You're kinda blocking my sun."

Knuckles can't stand him xD Rouge is just annoyed and wants to find a way back as soon as possible. But the two of them give him a little more perspective, even if he doesn't outwardly show it - because it is pretty fun to annoy them, he's never had real people to mess with - and when Tails shows up, it becomes clear that Drift is fully aware of how he's not actually free. Not caring is his way of coping, convincing himself that he couldn't possibly want more because he can't have it when the world has nearly drowned. But after connecting with both Tails and Knuckles, Drift decides life's no fun without taking a chance or two, so he decides to go with them when they finally leave the island.

Then they'll run across a familiar pirate ship we all know and love, and Drift will find both a purpose and adventure waiting for him aboard <3 He and Sails hit it off almost instantly, to the surprise of absolutely no one, lol. They bond the quickest out of all the variants.

Drift likes to hang out in the crow's nest because "it's the farthest from the water that I can get" and that's where Sails likes to hang out, too, when he doesn't feel like partying and wants somewhere to tinker on his contraptions. Sails thinks he's funny and Drift thinks he's clever. They understand each other's longing for freedom and purpose, but they worry about the price. Drift doesn't want to be anchored to anything and Sails worries he's only valuable as a member of a crew, that on his own, he's nothing. They both fill a need they didn't know they had, and they recognize it straightaway.

"Well... if ye every feel like yer being dragged down here," Sails hummed as he looked out at the edge of the horizon, "I'll fly ye up and out." "Oh yeah?" Drift snorted, but his muzzle quirked in genuine amusement. "Wouldn't that be considered mutiny?" "Can ye really mutiny if ye don't even have a proper captain?" Sails sighed dramatically, coaxing a chuckle out of his companion. "It keeps changin' every day! They keep... they keep abandonin' us," he said, his voice soft, but there was a frustrated edge to it lying just beneath the surface. "Why shouldn't any of us leave?" "Then why don't ya?" Sails pursed his mouth thoughtfully. "I've only ever been any good as a part of a crew. Even if all I ever do is help throw parties and act as lookout. At least I'm doin' something for someone." "A fair point," Drift agreed idly. "Well, guess it'll just depend then. How far can those tails of yours carry ya?" Sails looked over at him and shrugged. "Don't know," he answered honestly. "But so far, they've gotten me where I've needed to go. Can't promise they'll do the same for ye, but... I can promise I'll try." Drift glanced at him, and the sea breeze suddenly wasn't all that cold as a warm smile spread across his face. "I'll hold ya to it," he chuckled.

I haven't written much for them, I still need to figure out exactly when in the show they meet (right now I have it outlined for right after the episode "No Way Out" but I haven't fully pieced together each sequence of events), but I know I love them and they're wonderful~

Thanks for asking about my other problem child Drift! <3

[mlmvoreconfessionals]

Hey! Can we get some vorish headcannons about your favorite superheros?

Sure! I'll just do something for all of the guys that I feel like I know enough about to work with.

S.pider-Man: I like teasing him and making him an observer with a weird fetish that everyone knows about. But as for actually interacting with vore? I like the idea of him picking off citizens every so often as 'payment' for keeping the city safe. He needs the food and energy, after all. That's if he doesn't have enough random goons to satiate himself with, anyway. He's really whiny as prey but I think he secretly likes it. Would rather die than admit that though (probably will).

V.enom: I mean this guy writes himself (somehow I still kinda struggle with thinking of things to do with him). But yeah he's just a big glutton. Being a 'hero' is less an act or morality and more an easy way to get meals (criminals and villains) that no one whines about when he does eat them. Doesn't mean he won't eat literally anyone but some meals are less annoying, y'know? He's way too cocky to be very panicked as prey--he'd be pissed, maybe, but still think he can overpower or escape even once he's fully packed away. His gruesome threats belie his panic though.

D.eadpool: He knows what this is. He knows why he's eating people. Thankfully, it feels good, and he's also a freak with a loose sense of morality so this doesn't bother him at all! In fact, he'll probably even lean into it just for fun. He is less enthralled to be the one on the receiving end of getting eaten, though. So he can be very whiny prey, though maybe not to the predator in question.

R.ocket Raccoon: He's just as bad as V.enom when it comes to his cockiness. He's confident and self-assured and just looooves to prove his dominance to prey. Especially bigger or equally cocky prey. He tends to just eat assholes and the like but he's a merc--he'll eat nearly anyone for the right price, and then he'll brag about it while getting drinks. Unlike V.enom, though, his confident crumbles fast when he's on the receiving end of someone's maw. He'll start panicking and getting nervous and try to talk his way out of it. No nearly as cool when he's staring down a gullet.

C.aptain America: Another one I think writes himself--dude is a genetically engineered super soldier. That's gotta require a whole lot of calories, and he was probably made with the anticipation of devouring enemy soldiers (and maybe even some of his comrades if need be). So even as a hero, he's gotta do lots of eating and there's lots of goons (and civilians) he can use for that. Think he'd be too self-sacrificial though. He'd let a comrade eat him in real dire needs like emergency rations. Course, if he's forced down even against his will, he's a big hunk of meat that will be tough to work over...not impossible though.

T.hor: He's a N.orse god, being feasts and meals are basically his thing. He'll happily sit and devour food and chug ale. Doesn't matter if that food is live or not. It's even worse if it's through his depression era and literally all he does is sit around and eat, then he's just casually snacking on everyone. And then he's a big belcher, too, and super shameless about it. I think that swings around to make it so anyone who does chug the god down will also be really gassy. T.hor probably doesn't recognize any danger from getting eaten being a god so he won't be too easy to work over if a person can just handle all that meat.

The H.ulk: Okay so I mentioned C.ap needs lots of cals due to being a super soldier, right? That's nothing compared to what H.ulk would need. He's literally powered by radioactivity, that basically requires a ton of energy. So he's gotta constantly eat, and people are a lot of calories so...yeah, very big on mass vore here. Depending on how smart he is, he either has stuffed planned out like emptying prisons or he doesn't and crowds of people might disappear depending on how hungry he is. As for prey, he's gotta be a real wreck on the guts, just a giant calorie bomb. Most people will probably regret eating Hulk and then really regret digesting him unless they're a weirdo that's into that or something.

I.ron Man: Another cocky one, there's a lotta those. The suit's gotta make it really easy to help mulch down his meals as quickly as possible though. Maybe it helps with energy, too? He's the kinda guy that definitely thinks he's at least owed the meals and probably enjoys them very casually, too. He's too self-assured as prey, though, especially if he gets eaten in his suit. Dude thinks that thing makes him invincible. He will be proven wrong and by then he'll have a little time in full-blown panic before he's digested.

S.uperman: He's an alien! Let him have a weird diet (like other men) and just not see it as weird. The sun gives him energy but so can other people, why not? He's still super friendly, I think all of his prey is willing and he doesn't really like having unwilling meals. Makes him feel bad. Similarly, I think he could be willing prey if asked by the right person/for the right reasons. But also he's good unwilling prey. K.ryptonite is not the only weakness he has. He's still made of meat, after all...

B.atman: Gruff guy, very frightening to people since others tend to go 'missing' when he's seen at night. This is for obvious reasons--batfood. Sometimes he's just gotta eat and sometimes that means someone gets rehabilitated though...force, one could say. He takes this very seriously. So if he does get-got, he'll go down wiggling and kicking and yelling. Never does lose that cool composure...even when he's digesting.

[ndrv3expert1]

The ending of Danganronpa V3: Not the cliché twist people think it is.

Probably the most controversial part about V3 is the ending. I love it. I love it so much I have a shirt of it. I can see why others don’t somewhat but at the same time I’m like why?

Many people say the fact the game is fiction makes it meaningless, but I strongly disagree. I understand that an 'it was all fake' or 'and then they woke up' ending is annoying and overused and, depending on what happens in the piece of media, just bad writing, but DRV3 isn't one of those endings.

And if you do believe the game was meaningless, then congrats you fell for Tsumugi's lies, hook line and sinker.

In the sixth trial, Shuichi talks about how even though the game was fiction, it still hurt him to see the people he cared about die.

Even though they are being told that everything they went through is meaningless, it is real to them; if they feel sadness and anger and love, it’s just as real; it’s just as meaningful as in the real world.

Another thing is the theme of the whole game is truth vs. lies, so wouldn’t it make sense for the final twist to be that what they thought was the truth is a lie?

In the first two games, the final trial ends with a battle of hope vs despair where hope always triumphs and despair is crushed, but in V3 it’s different.

Tsumugi wants them to continue the game. The fans want them to continue the game.

Choosing hope—sacrificing someone to go on to the next killing game—will just cause the cycle to repeat, but choosing despair is also bad; it causes people to give up and lose everything.

Shuichi doesn’t want Maki (and Kiibo) to have to go into another killing game, but they also don’t want to fall into despair. So he refuses to vote, and as much as Tsumugi begs and pleads, he stands his ground.

The viewers also refuse to vote, proving that fiction does have the power to change reality, a powerful message that is one of the main reasons this ending is so great.

Even though Shuichi Maki, and Himiko were fictional characters, they changed the outside world and stopped a whole franchise, a whole movement, and in real life, fiction can spread ideologies, beliefs, and concepts, and these things can spread to people like wildfire and bring people together in ways that normal methods, (like by mouth,) cannot.

That's why artists try to put messages in their art, musicians in their music, and directors in their movies and TV shows. They know that's the type of media that will have the most reach and spread the fastest.

Or even social media spreading information; it might not be the best source, but it still spreads rapidly.

Media has influenced our way of life for years, influencing our speech, thoughts, and cultures because of what it says; this is what V3 is trying to show.

Shuichi also talks about using his friends deaths and the lie of the killing game to change the world.

This is why it matters; this is the power of fiction.

Shuichi using his friends' deaths, which may have been seemingly useless anyway, to take down the show that has trapped them in a cycle of deceit and forced them to play their game.

It’s also great when you remember that Shuichi was afraid of finding the truth, and Kaede and Kaito helped him gain more confidence.

He vowed to Kaede he would end the killing game, and this man not only found the biggest truth ever, he not only ended the game, but ended the whole franchise.

If that's not character development, I don’t know what it is.

Another reason people hate the ending is the portrayal of the fans, the fans are portrayed as Danganronpa obsessed, and they are shunned by watching the senseless killing of people for entertainment.

It’s a world where everyone has become so desensitized to kids getting killed on TV that they gather around screens all over the world eager to watch the next installment; that’s why there are 53 seasons.

The fans in the ending are an exaggerated view of what Kodaka feared would happen.

It's not trying to bash the fans of today but the fans of the future if this continues and we don’t care about the deaths anymore, and we just want more because you can have too much of a good thing.

It also has good messaging about fans (and corporations) tearing a TV show or game series apart in compensation for more, deriving it from the original message.

For example, Squid Game a show about the flaws of capitalism and exploitation for entertainment, was remade into a reality show by Netflix, Mr. Beast, and Amazon Prime to capitalize on the success of Squid Game when it first came out, actively hurting real people in the process, just for the sake of making money.

The ending of V3 reminds us that the connections we make and the experiences we have give our lives meaning. And even if we only affect one person with our actions, it will be all worth it, and that's the greatest truth of them all.

It’s about freedom, the problems of beating a piece of media to death just to have more, using deceased loved ones' wishes to help move forward, and finding meaning in the things that seem meaningless.

The V3 ending is a roller coaster of emotions and a masterful experience. It serves as a great ending to a great series that keeps you on the edge of your seat, makes you feel sympathy for some fictional characters, and still holds up even eight years later.

I don't think this rant/analysis will fix the wedge in the fandom this ending has caused (we've argued about much more ignorant things in the past.) But I hope it at least resonated with you and re-kindled elements you remember loving about the ending for people who did enjoy it; and for those who didn't I hope this gives you some insight into why I and many others appreciate the ending.

So before your start to conclude that V3's ending was meaningless think to yourself-is that the truth or just the lie you were meant to believe.

[daily-hanamura]

[kumakuma-circus]

just randomly remembered that during my like 10+ attempts at the shadow yukiko fight i more or less consistently ran out of revival beads so yosuke was just dead (well unconscious but whatever) on the ground for like half the fight gfhfjvhfhfhd-

[batsplat]

the reaction to pecco/casey comparison post made by motogp acc on insta is kinda funny bc so many ppl are like “how dare you compare pecco to casey when pecco has the best bike on the grid and casey rode that garbage ducati” . but what about casey’s 2007 title run guys and how in some ppl’s eyes it wasn’t that legit or something bc of the bike advantage. like obviously comparisons between eras are often pretty pointless and devolve into pointless arguments and circle jerking for your fave guy but…..

lol oh man. here is the post for context

world's most boring discourse generator. the most predictable replies imaginable. did you know that. casey stoner. was very good... and had a bike that was tough to ride? did you know that. did you know the aliens were all very talented? did you know that casey's stats are very impressive? wow. you're telling me now for the first time

when I first saw the tweet, I did immediately go. *sigh* why are you setting pecco up like this. it's obviously interaction bait and, well, it does work every time. the phrasing "has equalled or outscored most of" casey's achievements at ducati is a bit unnecessary but like... god. who cares!! the only place stats like this belong is in spreadsheets proper hardworking fans made themselves to compare random shit for their personal amusement. bring back real fandom

and yeah, listen, I don't even really have the energy to engage with the merits of comparing the two sets of stats... it was a different time. you can say that casey had on average a less dominant bike than pecco did, which would be true - and he only had the clear outright fastest bike in one of his ducati seasons. you can say the level of competition was higher or lower back then, depending on whatever agenda you're pursuing. you can make arguments about when it was easier to rack up wins, given only around six bikes back then were even capable of winning races - something which is only kinda becoming true again now with the superiority of the gp24. you can point to the ducati back then being a considerably harder bike to ride. you can point to pecco's more impressive internal competition, you can point to casey's era having some undeniably pretty decent riders in the mix. you can do all of that. and it's a complete and utter waste of time. the main point of it is to have another bout of wanking about how much worse today's riders are, which, I cannot stress this enough, who cares!! literally. why does it matter. quality of viewing experience isn't directly linked to some imaginary talent-o'-metre, that's just not how sport works. everyone knows casey is one of the biggest talents this sport has ever seen! it is perhaps the single least controversial take in the whole sport. nobody's erasing casey's achievements. thank you to the random instagram user for securing casey stoner's legacy by bashing pecco. we've solved the crisis, guys, wrap it up

anyway, look. pecco's a two time premier class champion. nobody will die if he's mentioned in the same name as casey. people used to try and discredit casey's achievements... eventually the consensus morphed to acknowledge that he was obviously extremely good. once pecco's retired, the same thing will presumably happen to him. nostalgia comes for us all

[dreamedfyre-a]

ohh if ali.cent ever took hel.aena to visit oldtown she would be vibrating with excitement at the chance to visit the citadel. if they let her enter the library she would read every single book on every single insect there may be. and maybe there wouldn't be many but i figure if there's Facts about insects it'd be on the greatest repository of knowledge in the known world. and she'd devour all of it and forget there is an existence outside of reading those books

[skrunksthatwunk]

found out that rascal's owner took him again while i was out, and he's probably not gonna be back since the semester's almost over. i don't even know if his owner's coming back next semester, if i'll ever see him again. if he'll ever see me again. why do they wait until im not around to do this? why do they never let me say goodbye to him?

[redsray]

i do love the idea of the wayne kids giving bernard shovel talks about taking care of tim and all that but also give me batfam who are just as protective of bernard as they are of each other.

give me bernard, attending his first wayne gala as tim's significant other. having a suit custom tailored and funded by bruce even if bernard insists it's not necessary because he already has one. arriving at the gala anxious because of course he is, it's a goddamn socialite event, but being protected from every side by the wayne kids even when tim is dragged away.

Socialite: Oh, and who might you be?

Bernard: Oh, um, hi. I'm Bernard Dowd, nice to meet you.

Socialite: Dowd? I've never heard of your family before. Who...?

Bernard: I'm not here with my family, miss, I'm here with my boyfriend.

Socialite: ... Boyfriend?

Bernard: Yeah, I'm here with Tim.

Socialite, frowning: Tim... as in Drake-Wayne? He has a boyfriend?

Dick, coming up next to Bernard: He sure does! Bernard here is practically one of ours now, aren't you? He matters to Timmy, so he matters to us.

Bernard: Dick—

Dick: C'mon, let's get you back to Timmy. Farewell, Mrs!

Bernard: I could've handled that.

Dick: All the rules that apply to my siblings during galas apply to you too. I'm sure you could've, but you shouldn't have to. I've got your back too, now, yeah?

Bernard: ... Yeah. Thanks, Dick.

Jason, coming up to Bernard at the bar: Not to freak you out, kid, but there's a guy starin' at ya from the other side of the bar. Y'know him or should I encourage him to look away?

Bernard, startled: Huh? (looks around) Oh. No, I don't know him. Why... is he looking at me like that, actually?

Jason, scowling: 'S just how the slimy fuckers at these events are. Can't keep their eyes off anything that's small, young or pretty. Disgusting. I'll deal with him— where's your annoying other half gone, inferior blondie?

Bernard: Tim? He got pulled away for quote; 'something important' by some lady. He said he'll meet me here after he's done, so I've been waiting.

Jason: Huh. If I see him I'll point him yer way. Hey, don't be 'fraid to ask any of us questions or for help if ya need it. We know the best how daunting this shit can be.

Bernard, genuinely touched: ... Thanks, Jason.

Jason: Yeah, yeah. Don't tell Timmers I said that, though, he'll call me a loser.

Bernard, laughing: I won't.

Bernard, being talked to by several people at once and a bit overwhelmed by the attention: Uh— I'm—

Damian, stepping between him and the socialites: Dowd. I require your assistance.

Bernard: Um— hi, Damian— with what?

Damian: You will see when we get there. Follow me, Drake's more tolerable half.

Bernard: Okay... so what do you need from me?

Damian: Nothing. You seemed to dislike the attention from all of the nosy adults over there. It was the most efficient way of extracting you from the situation.

Bernard: Oh. Thanks, Damian.

Damian: Tt, don't thank me yet, Dowd. I am still criticising your choice in romantic partners.

Bernard: Didn't you threaten me with a katana to not dampen Tim's mood in any way shape or form?

Damian: Slander. I said quote 'if you make Drake more annoying by breaking his heart I'm going to maim you.' I don't see how you got the message you did from that.

Bernard, grinning: Sure, Damian. Sure.

[akimiiyo]

-> JEALOUSY

⌗synopsis : genshin men when they’re jealous.

⌗characters : diluc, kaeya, albedo, zhongli, childe, baizhu, xiao, thoma, ayato, heizou, wanderer, kazuha, tighnari, cyno, alhaitham, kaveh, neuvillette, lyney, dainsleif, dottore, pantalone, capitano, pierro.

⌗cw : gn!reader, not proofread, lowercase intended, probably ooc.

he’s a gentleman, he doesn’t get jealous often because he knows for a fact that he has nothing to worry about. you’ve never done anything that made him feel as if he had to watch out and he’s certain that you never will. although he can still get annoyed at the sight of another man flirting with you. it was his insisting even after you turned him down that angered him the most. nonetheless, he doesn’t let such people interfere with his composure. he’ll act mature and take you somewhere else once he sees that the man has no intentions of leaving you alone. as soon as you both get a moment alone together, however, he won’t hesitate to plant a few more kisses than usual. just in case, y’know?

diluc, zhongli, alhaitham, neuvillette, dainsleif, capitano.

he won’t admit it, but he gets jealous often. he doesn’t want to confront you about it because he believes it’s embarrassing and silly to feel that way. i mean, you’re his and he’s yours. you love him so much, there’s no need to worry, right? yet, he still can’t help but fume at the sight of strangers complimenting you. he can’t blame them, but he still would rather for people to be blind if that meant that they’d leave you alone. he’s aware of how unfair that would be, so he just stays quiet, either sulking or glaring at those people as you offer them a kind smile until you’re both alone where he’ll be needing your utmost attention.

xiao, albedo, thoma, kazuha, kaveh, baizhu.

he’s jealous and he’ll show it. hit on his partner? right in front of him? absolutely not. he might try to keep his calm at first, but as time passes and this scumbag is still around, he won’t hold back. not to worry, he won’t do anything extreme (unless he’s forced to do so), he just wants to make things clear to this guy. he’ll keep it simple at first, simply making subtle comments until he actually starts going straight to the point. after a while, he’ll take your arm and walk away with you, now being angrier than before. the way that guy was talking to him, but especially you, has him furious. be prepared to listen to his angry rant about that random dude. be also prepared to shut him up, you know how.

kaeya, childe, heizou, tighnari, cyno, wanderer, lyney.

this guy almost sees you as his property, his jealousy is unmatched. he won’t take anything lightly. if you’re trying to make advantages on his partner, then you’re asking for it. simple as that! he won’t let anyone think they might have a chance with you because you’re destined to be with him and only him. so obviously, he must make it clear to everybody to not even try. if someone is bold enough though, he’ll just stand beside you, piercing through this man’s soul with his icy gaze. thankfully, nothing ever escalated from that. not that he wouldn’t be capable of doing that, these poor souls simply knew better than to get against someone of that status and reputation.

ayato, dottore, pantalone, pierro.

⌗a/n : im not really proud of this, i might edit it once i have time. it’s 4am and i was supposed to be studying, but i ended up writing this instead. talk about procrastination 😪 let me know if i made any mistakes pls

want to read more? take a look at my masterlist!

©2024 akimiiyo. do not repost, translate, plagiarise, or modify in any way, shape or form.

[celestie0]

gojo satoru x reader | college au [18+]

kickoff ch.12 how you get the girl

ᰔ pairing. college au - soccer player! gojo x film major! reader

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is the most popular guy on your college campus. he's tall, funny, hot, not to mention he's the most talented soccer forward the school has seen in years. but he's also a frat dude, which puts him in a world very different from your own, as he spends most of his nights partying while you spend most of yours working on your annoying film major assignments. but when he reaches out to you for a favor, you realize that helping him out might have something in it for you too.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fem reader, fluff, angst, smut, college au, fraternities, sororities, partying, drinking/alcohol, romance, jealousy, pining, slow burn, opposites to lovers, friends to lovers, she falls first he falls harder, gojo being an idiot, marijuana use, sexism, sexual harassment (verbal only)

ᰔ chapter. 12/x (probably 18)

ᰔ words. 11.3k

a/n. man the color scheme for this chapter is kinda giving BRAT lolol...i mean gojo IS brat. anywho, i don't have much to say at the beginning of this chapter but i do have a LOT to say at the end of it sooo see y'all at the bottom!! hope u enjoy. also BIG THANK YOU to @whereflowerswenttodie who beta read parts of this chapter for me n convinced me not to scrap it lol

nav. masterlist

☾·̩͙꙳ moodboard no.1 :: ♬.*ﾟplaylist

11:03am you: hi! 11:03am you: good luck today 11:03am you: incase i don’t see you

11:05am Gojo Satoru: Why wouldn’t you? Aren’t you gonna be on the field for your newsletter shots?

11:07am you: i mean yes but idk where i’m gonna be stationed so 11:07am you: it might not be on UTokyo’s side of the field

11:08am Gojo Satoru: Okay then I’ll look for you before the game starts

11:10am you: no pls don’t. coach yaga thinks i distract you. i don’t want to get yelled at again. he scares me :(

11:12am Gojo Satoru: Haha you’re silly 11:13am Gojo Satoru: East side entrance at 2 11:13am Gojo Satoru: Be there

11:14am you: or be square?

11:15am Gojo Satoru: Yea whatever shape you wanna be in is fine cutie

It’s a bright sunny day outside, perfectly blue sky with a scattering of fluffy clouds seen outside the window of your shared room in your apartment, and you realize spring is fully here from the way birds chirp past the glass. You’re stuffing your camera case full of chilled Kodak film rolls, your last stash left, and it’s the last piece of equipment you pack before slinging the strap over your shoulder and heading out the door.

Mina had offered to give you a ride to the stadium since your car’s still at the shop, but you’re happy you opted for the bumpy bus ride and although you come close to low-grade concussions from the bang of your head to the window at every other speed bump, the music in your ears while someone else is operating a public transport vehicle helps you think creatively before shooting shots.

It was surprise enough that Mina of all people was going to this game, and when you questioned her about it in the morning, she looked at you like you were absurd to assume anyone from UTokyo wouldn’t be at this game, and sure enough, it’s all anyone on Instagram has been repping on their stories or talking about in the bustling minutes before lectures. Even Utahime was going to this game, and she hates all intercollegiate sports. You knew the game was a big deal, given the way Coach Yaga was yelled at via email by the Dean of UTokyo to make sure the team wins today because a multimillion dollar Nike sponsorship would be greenlit by the prospect (for some reason you were cc’d in an email chain among divisional higher-ups, but you weren’t opposed to snooping in on conversations that were entirely outside of your tax bracket).

It’s because it’s the second to last home game before the season ends, and apparently this has been statistically the best season the UTokyo D1 Men’s Soccer team has played since the new millenia. No pressure to the players on that fact, but failure wasn’t much of an option for them anymore. 

And you can feel the stakes the second you step inside the stadium. Packed would be an understatement, there were people flooding the aisles, overbooked for the sake of the university pocketing an extra buck no doubt, but spectators could care less since they were able to at least get in on the basis of that irresponsibility in the first place, despite the stadium’s capacity having long been reached before the pregame festivities even start. Banners and signs drape over railings with the school’s striking blue and golden colors, every single replay screen is lit up and brightly pixelated at every north, south, east, and west entrance for inclusive viewing. As you pass VIP security and make it into the lower field-level entry, the scattered chants from the crowd amplify in volume and you almost wince a little to yourself from the noise. The stadium felt like a living, breathing entity, pulsing with the collective heartbeat of everyone inside. 

You’ve never been more overstimulated in your life, except instead of finding it frightening, it was electrifying. And for once, you think you can understand what an athlete must feel when playing on their own home turf surrounded by those that are wholeheartedly rooting for them.

Hana is quick to spot you, panic clear across her face as she regards you with a couple pages with your assigned vantage points, a rushed briefing session, and then she’s darting down the sidelines to make sure equipment is set up appropriately where needed. She’s understaffed, given you told Utahime about Kai’s little intervention last week and she made a nasty point to the university (and possibly a handful of legal threats) and they relented in firing him. So now the three of you were down a photographer, and the extra work shows in the instructions she gave you as you skim the sheets. 

A glance at your phone tells you it’s close to 2pm, and your eyes take in the expanse of green on the field. UTokyo’s players practice kicking shots off to the right goal post, while YCU’s players practice shots off to the left. You can’t spot where Gojo is, but you faithfully head down to the East Side entrance like he asked you to. 

When you round the corner, you almost crash right into an Ichiko mascot, but swiftly dodge, and then you stop in your tracks when you see Gojo standing right at the concrete entrance. He’s leaning back against the adjacent wall, arms crossed at his chest, and he’s stretching his neck side to side with a creased brow, an intense look in his eyes, lost in serious thought, scanning the wall across from him like he’s mapping out plays in his head. 

When you approach him and catch the corner of his eyesight, he leans off the wall and flashes you one of his so extremely charmed to see you grins on reflex, and suddenly there’s nothing your senses seem to pick up on except him. Like everything else around you just disappears.

“Hey, you,” he says when he comes up to you, and you walk him like a dog back to a corner that’s tucked further away from noises and sights. You lean your back against the wall now, the coolness of concrete seeping through the fabric of your shirt, and he stands a step in front of you. Your hands toy with the strap of your camera.

“Are you ready to win today?” you ask him, and look off to the right into the flourishing seats that are still being filled to the brim, “clearly there’s no pressure.”

He breathes in deep, and releases it slowly, like there really was tension to relieve. “We’ve got no choice but to win.”

“Is that something Coach Yaga says to you guys often?” you ask him, because the man recited the same thing about five times in that email chain. “Also, apparently you take years off of his life.” Another thing he recited about five times in that email chain.

Gojo only addresses what he wants to address, as per usual. “Yeah, it’s something he says to us often.” 

“So,” you say, “what did you want to talk about?”

He looks at you puzzled, tilting his head to the side. “Nothing. I just wanted to see you.”

It’s hard to assume that he didn’t have something to talk about with the intention of telling you to meet him here, because this is the same place you confessed to him a few weeks ago, and so is also the place he so painfully rejected you. But maybe he doesn’t think about these kinds of things as much as you do. “I see.”

His tongue pokes to his cheek as he studies your anticipating expression, and then he sighs, his shoulders slumping slightly. “What are we doing? I mean, I like you, and you like me too, at least I hope you still do. Why don’t we—…why don’t we just give it a go already? I don’t see how we can move forward if you won’t at least let me take you out on a date.”

Your hands stop fidgeting with your camera strap from his words, and you lick your lips, suddenly unable to keep eye contact with him so your gaze drifts down to his chest in front of you. His uniform is clean, no smudges of dirt or grass, just pure white fabric underneath heat-pressed blue and golden accents, and of course, that signature number 10. You’re sure he’s all you’ll ever think of when you see that number now for the rest of your life. 

You know when you want something so bad you don’t know what to do once you have it? Because it almost seems too good to be true? 

“I just wanted to let stuff between us breathe for a little bit,” you confess, “it’s just, it was a lot to deal with. Being around you when I thought you didn’t want me the way I wanted you. I don’t know if this is odd to say, and maybe I’m overthinking it, but I just feel like somewhere along the way, I kind of…forgot who you were for a little bit.” This kind of vulnerability would have you running away with your tail between your legs with anyone else, but not with him. Not after everything. 

His expression softens, melting away that confrontational energy he had earlier, and he nods slowly. He opens his mouth to speak, but he can’t seem to find words. The presence of them is there, though, you can feel them. But what good are his thoughts if not voiced? 

“I just wanted to spend a little bit of time getting to know you again, I guess.” You squeeze your arm in reassurance of yourself because he wasn’t giving it to you. You let out an awkward laugh. “I don’t really know what I’m saying right now, to be honest.”

You can tell he’s at a crossroads, and you think back to this week and his efforts to get you to open up to him again. You know how he feels right now, because it’s exactly how you felt when he rejected you. Like when someone is so close, yet so far, you can feel that they’re within arms reach but never truly. And they’re slipping away for some reason that you may never know, but all you can do is assume that it’s a fault of your own. You’re not really sure what he can do to make you feel secure about this whole thing anymore, and you can see the slight panic in his eyes when he realizes that too.

“I don’t mind waiting,” he tells you, rushed with a desperation entirely contrary to his words, “what’s a week or two when I want to spend a lot more of those with you anyways.” But he takes a deep breath, like he’s already mentally preparing himself for an agonizing wait in his head.

There’s a sound over the stadium speakers, something technical and sporty and goes entirely over your head in dismissal, but to Gojo it seems to have a different effect, as he’s suddenly attentive and stands up straighter, that focused expression on his face from earlier resurfacing. You realize he needs to get back to the field. 

“Can we continue this conversation after the game?” he asks you hastily, already turning towards the center of the stadium. And he adds an obligatory, “sorry.”

“Yeah, sure,” you quickly agree, suddenly feeling like you’re taking up his time. 

He gives you a small smile, unsure in its presentation but pure in its intention. But he can only take one step towards the field before you reach out and pinch the fabric of his jersey to keep him still. He feels the tug of it and fully faces you once again. 

“Um. Just a sec,” you say, “I have something to give you before your game.”

“Oh?” he looks at you with interest, “I fucking love things.” 

“You have to close your eyes though.”

“…what is the thing…” He squints at you with a what are you up to expression.

“Just close your eyes!” you snap at him.

“Okay, okay, jeez,” he holds his hands up in front of him in surrender, shaking his head to get his hair out of his face and then he closes his eyes. “You’re scary as hell sometimes. Excuse me for being cautious.”

You roll your eyes, useless because he doesn’t see it, and then take a step towards him. You cup his jaw with the palm of your hand, his cheek twitching slightly from the unexpected contact, and then you raise on your tiptoes to press your lips to his cheek. It’s short and sweet with the sound of a peck.

“For good luck,” you whisper, then you quickly lower yourself back onto your heels, take a step back and tuck some strands of hair behind your ear. The ground suddenly interests you.

He opens his eyes, blinking a few times with shock and his hand comes up to brush the tips of his fingers against the spot you kissed him, and then his gaze goes comically dazed when he reaches out to hold you. “Alright, c’mere you,” he says, closing his eyes and puckering his lips as he leans down to kiss you but you laugh and push his face away.

“No no no, only on the cheek for now,” you say with a small laugh.

He does nothing to restrain his frustrated groan. “You can’t do something that cute and then expect me to be chill about it.”

“If you win, then, maybe I’ll let you kiss me for real.”

“Maybe?”

“Yes. Maybe.”

He’s close, towering over you near this bustling east side entrance that he seems to like so much, and his eyes drop to your lips. “Alright. I like those odds.” 

You give him a smile and slip away from him to get back towards the field, and you feel his eyes on you as you walk away.

The pregame events are a blur, with blaring music accompanied by the sounds of the sports announcers clipping across the speakers, finally quieted down in time for the players to line up on the field for the national anthem which was then followed by UTokyo’s alma mater. 

You’re stationed on the same side of the field as Minato, UTokyo’s side, while Hana is covering the sidelines of the opposite end with the opponents goal post. Minato’s filling up a cup of Gatorade for himself at the athlete’s station and then he comes back around to find you.

“Are you ready to take your shots? I see Hana wanted you to shoot on film today,” he says to you as he sloshes around Glacier Freeze in a flimsy plastic cup.

You twist your aperture dial with your thumb. “Yesss, all set. I’ll try to keep up.” 

He nods at you in approval.

The atmosphere feels nerve wracking. Something felt different about this game, the stakes feeling high. Well, of course they’re high, because if they lose today then they’re out of the tournament. But the stakes feel high for other reasons too, an energy you can pick up on but can’t quite discern. 

Your eyes drift across the field where you can see a referee placing a ball at the center of the field. Off to the right, you can see Gojo standing with a few of his other teammates, including Geto, Nanami, and Choso, and they’re all gesticulating to various corners of the field as they discuss what you can only imagine have to do with their plays for today. And you realize— it’s their last college soccer season. Their second-to-last official home match before the championship, and for those of them that haven’t qualified for the national league, it may be their second-to-last match of this caliber for the rest of their lives. One of the final chances that they have to prove something of themselves. The determination was palpable. 

The chief referee’s whistle cuts through the air with three short chirps, and that gathers the attention of all the players on the field. UTokyo wins the coin toss, choosing to kickoff, and YCU’s players choose to attack the left side goal.

Your stomach churns with anticipation, the crowd hushing too as all the players take their places on the field. If you feel nervous, you can only imagine how the athletes feel. There’s a rhythm that you’ve learned over the past couple of months getting to know the sport, where players stretch out their necks and kick out their feet and take subtle deep breaths as they survey the stands. Idle moments before the start of the match where they have no choice but to look forward and only forward, so they take a moment to stay in the present for as long as they can gather. You’ve never been much of a sports spectator, and perhaps you’ve only recently had some personal interest in the team, but you realize you feel pride in your school as you stand behind chalk sideline and see UTokyo’s colors scattered across the field in uniform. And fuck, you wanted them to win. You wanted them to win with fierceness and wrath, and it’s a desire you share with the crowd. 

Gojo spends a minute talking to the referee before the black and white striped man pats him high on the back in the good sport and urges him towards the center of the field. He lifts his foot up onto the ball, rolling it back and forth underneath the spikes of his cleat, and you can see it in his eyes, even from all the way over here, that he seems to have different ideas in mind for this game too. High stakes. Pre-determined, set with will, evident in the clench of his jaw and the concentrated furrow of his brow as he surveys the field with his eyes, and you’re lost in the sight for what feels like forever because you can hardly register the chirp of the ref’s whistle. 

And then the kickoff starts. 

The ball is tapped to Geto to start the play, and the first few minutes were intense as the ball was passed back and forth between UTokyo’s players, placing pressure on YCU’s defense as they inched closer and closer towards the goal. A pass between UTokyo’s #4 was intercepted by YCU and the ball was rushed down towards the left side, the crowd’s horror evident in the uproar as they raise to their feet in fearful anticipation, and with ruthless offense, YCU’s forward takes a clear sink shot towards the goal, and the crowd holds their breath before they watch Choso lunge for it in air, gloved hands firmly grabbing the ball and then pulling it to his chest with a possessiveness you can only expect to see from a skilled goalie, before he crashes down into the ground and the crowd releases relief in the form of rowdy roars.

Ten minutes in, with everyone on their toes, each team tested each other’s defenses. UTokyo were known for stellar offense, especially within the past few years with players like Gojo Satoru and Takuma Ino joining the league as powerful forwards, but UTokyo’s overall offense was still statistically second to none other than YCU. And the pressure YCU was putting on UTokyo’s defense was wearisome to say the least. You glance to see Nanami, who is UTokyo’s best defensive player, huffing and puffing as he stands between two light-footed YCU players in an attempt to guard, and fails an attempt to steal the ball before it gets to the feet of YCU’s striker #6, passed in a split second off to his teammate, with a fake so seamless that it has Choso just a couple inches away from touching the ball before it’s sent flying into the net. 

The noises from the crowd are still loud, but dampened in spirit. 

With the referees hand signal up in the air, the current score is confirmed. 0-1, YCU. 

Coach Yaga calls for a sub, in which he switches Nanami out for who you believe is a 2nd-year defensive player name Yuta you’ve seen around practice with a promising statistical record for interceptions, and you watch as Nanami takes the bench before he swipes the sweat off his face in exhaustion. God. Just fifteen minutes into the match, and YCU already has UTokyo’s defense winded from play. 

You bring your camera up to your face, forgetting for a moment that there was still a job to do here, and you position the direction of the lens towards the center of the field, where Gojo takes his place at the ball once more. Yuta briefly passes by him, signaling some play to him by holding up a number three, likely something Coach Yaga asked him to pass on to Gojo, and you see him briefly nod, his mouth slightly agape as he breathes slowly and pulls his jersey up to wipe at the sweat at his forehead. 

The referee chirps the whistle, Gojo taps the ball to Yuta, and the play starts. 

YCU immediately puts pressure on UTokyo’s offensive play once more, with eager movements to steal the ball, but it’s passed between UTokyo’s players with ease, more practiced and more sure. The kind of play that you and the rest of the school was used to seeing from them. However, Geto loses the ball on a left-back pass, but right when YCU makes attempts to cover field in a long-shot kick towards the left, Yuta intercepts the ball and swiftly passes it to Gojo.

The crowd immediately rises to their feet in anticipation, watching as Gojo shuffles the ball down the field, dangerously close to off-field boundaries, a signature tactic he uses because he knows there’s not a single player in the league that can match him in precision and control to keep the ball in-field on a steal, and he swiftly passes it towards Geto with a side-swept kick, beelining down towards the goal post, in perfect time for Geto pass-back to meet his feet and when Gojo was this close to a net, there was no stopping him. 

He draws his right foot back, and explosively kicks the ball forward, chipping the grass under it in the motion, and it’s sent flying towards the goal, and then threaded past the goalie right to the back of the net. The cheers that erupt across the stadium rumble the ground beneath you. 

1-1, even match.

UTokyo spends no time celebrating, other than a few pats to Gojo’s back as he nods in acknowledgement, no emotion on his face other than pure concentration and greed. The greed to win, like a righteous sin. He stretches his neck out, panting slightly as he takes his place towards the right side of the field and the referee chirps his whistle to signal YCU to start the kickoff.

They quickly make attempts in moving the ball towards their scoring-end of the field, but face push-back from UTokyo’s defense, unable to make it much further past the midfield line, and you bring your camera up to take a snap of Gojo, who you see is still standing off to the right side of the field. But when you position it and peer through the viewfinder, that space he once stood at was empty. You pull your camera down, and blink at the sight, and then the crowd is picking up in volume once more.

Gojo sprints down the flank, cutting past every defender, and moves towards YCU’s attacking goal, which was a shocking place to be for a center forward, but you could feel his desire and determination to steal this back-and-forth ball, and succeeds when YCU makes an open pass, thinking they were in the clear, only to have Gojo sneak in at the last moment and get the ball at his feet. 

The play moves by in a flash, a blur that you or anyone else in the stadium could hardly keep up with it, movements so fast you were shocked a human being was capable of even running that far in such a short amount of time, and in an almost embarrassingly easy play, Gojo makes a fool out of YCU’s defenders as he slips the ball through the legs of his last obstacle before he struck it with sharp precision, sending it soaring to the corner of the goal, past the outstretched arms of the goalie, and into the net. 

2-1, UTokyo.

It was electrifying, the feeling that strikes through the stadium, one that reaches you in your own blood. You’re shocked, standing here, after witnessing Gojo score two goals within the matter of minutes, against one of the top three teams in the league. It’s a shock that reaches everyone, including Coach Yaga who’s standing about ten feet down the line from you, his arms crossed, and you see his eyes for the first time as he takes his sunglasses off to get a better look at what he’s seeing.

You trail his sight, dragging your gaze across the field until it lands at Gojo, who is barely acknowledging the encouraging pats and shakes and goodhearted shoves that his teammates were giving him, because he was focused. It might sound crazy to say, but you swear his eyes looked like a fiercer shade of blue, like they were lit up, and you’re insanely glad you’re not one of YCU’s defensive players at the moment because you feel fearful of him even just standing on the sidelines. 

Your gaze trails back to Coach Yaga, who slowly puts his sunglasses back on but his brows are narrowed tightly as he crosses his arms over his chest tightly.

The “athletic zone”... You’ve heard of it before. A state of pure focus, of peak performance, where an athlete experiences optimal concentration and a sense of effortless control over their actions. In which they perform at their highest level, where time slows down, any and all distractions fade away, and they’re completely immersed in their sport at hand. At the task at hand.

Coach Yaga seems to pick up on the fact that Gojo was on the edge of tapping into that state. 

YCU makes a substitution, and you watch in anticipation as they begin the kickoff. 

There’s fire in their veins with desperation to even out the score once more, rushing the ball down the off-field line, one of their center forwards mimicking Gojo’s signature attack pattern, and Yuta struggles to keep up with the expert dribbling of a fourth-year player with more experience on him, so much so to where he completely leaves the ball unguarded and there’s an open shot, but Geto places pressure at the last moment, in a fierce battle for the ball, before YCU’s center forward loses the ball over the goal line. 

Choso picks the ball up, tapping on it harshly a few times as he surveys his eyes down the field, and all offensive players begin to shuffle towards their attacking goal in anticipation for the goal kick. He signals his hand down and then holds up two fingers in the air before placing the ball down on the six-yard box. He tightens the strap of one of his gloves, eyes squinting, and you follow his gaze down to a part of the field where you note UTokyo’s best aerial players are located and being guarded by YCU’s defense. And with complete trust in his team, that’s exactly where he kicks the ball. 

Geto makes first contact with the ball, his chest colliding with two other YCU players as his head comes out on top and he headbutts the ball closer towards the inner field, and Gojo immediately gains access to it with a bounce of his knee. The crowd holds their breath, fear that they’ll lose the ball to a steal in the split second it spends floating in the air, but Gojo urges it forward with a bounce off of his chest and then rushes it straight down towards the goal post. 

You wonder what sight he sees right now. Where you’re dead center, at no angle, lunging towards the sight of an open goal with a sole goalie standing in the center, anticipating to block your shot, and three defenders on your tail. There’s no room for error, no time to think, only instincts that you cultivate in the last leading milliseconds. They say that, in sports, athletes channel one hundred hours of practice in just a brief second on the field. A split second success that was years in the making. You can’t even imagine possessing that level of perfection in your body, or possessing that level of confidence that you can follow through with it in a moment as dire as this.

It was unreal, the way Gojo fades away from all the defenders, and faces no fear when confronted with the sight of the goalie in front of him while drawing his foot back to kick the ball. You lift your camera up at the last second, no time to think about aperture or ISO, just like he had no time to second-doubt a single twitch in his muscles, and his foot makes contact with the ball so harshly that you can hear the explosive sound even among the delirious cheers from the crowd, before he hook, line, and sinks it straight past the goalie’s head, rushing by like a scarcely deflected bullet, and into the net behind him. 

3-1, UTokyo.

The whole stadium is momentarily speechless, all players and referees and recruiters and reporters and coaches and employees alike, before the most deafening cheers you’ve ever heard in your life scatter across the stands.

There’s a moment of brief reprieve, where the players can catch their breath while YCU makes yet another substitution, as if they’re just trial-and-erroring it at this point, and the cheers in the stadiums remain idle as you can’t tear your gaze away from Gojo.

It’s one of those moments where you realize that someone who you thought was so familiar to you was actually someone you hardly knew at all. You knew he was a talented soccer player, everyone on campus knows it, potentially one of the best to ever grace the league, and the amount of times you passively watched his plays on a lecture hall projector screen as your professor enthusiastically broke them down during class, even before you met him, was good enough for you to realize that he was insane, a one-in-a-million, a talent you cannot replicate, one you have by divinity. One you were born with. 

And yet, somehow, getting to know him these past couple of months, he just felt so human. For someone so seemingly beyond you, he felt so…close? In those moments where it was just the two of you, it was hard to imagine that he was capable of such greatness, and that so many people were rooting for him with wholehearted tears in their eyes and cheers from their hearts, because most of the time, when he was with you, he was just a dorky idiot. You find that your heart is beating fast in your chest, that feeling of being unsure of what to do with what you’ve been wanting resurfacing powerfully. 

“This is insane,” you hear Minato say from beside you and you jump a little from your thoughts being interrupted.

You twiddle with your camera straps. “I know…almost done with the first half and we’re up 3-1…I thought YCU are number one in offense for the league?”

“Oh, yeah, I mean, yes, that is insane too. But what’s even more insane is that three of the goals so far have been scored by one player.” He tips his chin towards the right sight of the field and you trail his line of sight. “By Gojo Satoru.”

Your brow furrows as you watch Gojo, his hands on his hips and his mouth slightly open as he indulges in a few shallow breaths to gain energy while YCU prepares for kickoff. Three goals, by just one player. Your eyes widen when you realize that is insane, especially for a D1 semi-final qualifying match.

“You know what the divisional record is for most goals scored by a single player during a championship match, y/n?” Minato asks you as he lifts his camera up to take a picture of the area Gojo was standing in. 

You shake your head and wait for his response.

He drops his camera down and glances at the photo on his screen. “Four. During Keio Uni vs. Osaka Uni, near the beginning of the tournament back in 1997 by Osaka’s center forward number 24, Yuji Nakazawa. Meaning no one’s managed to beat that record since the new millenia, for a couple decades. Although a few players came close.”

You blink at him, and Minato is jerking his chin over in the direction of Gojo again.

“I think he’s trying to beat the record.”

You can only widen your eyes at Minato in realization, and then the chirp of the referee’s whistle draws everyone’s attention back to the field. 

The sports announcers go wild on the speakers, the crowd raving all the same, standing to their feet like the team just won the championship match.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!! We are watching HISTORY in the making!! Gojo Satoru, UTokyo’s very own 3-year consecutive MVP, has scored his 34th goal of the season, highest of any player in this year’s season so far, and is now on the road to beat the league’s long-standing record for most goals scored by a single player in a championship match since 1997!!” And the crowd roars even louder as you stare out at the field in awe.

YCU starts the kickoff following the prompt short chirp of the referee’s whistle, and with two minutes remaining on the clock for the first half, make desperate attempts to book it down the field towards their attacking goal, one of their midfielders making a clumsy attempt to strike the ball to the net in the final minutes of the half, and Choso easily catches it in his arms, right before the buzzer of the timer sounds, and the match moves into halftime. 

All of UTokyo’s players immediately flock towards Gojo in sportful glee, finally having a chance to surround him and harass him with harsh pats on his back and ruffles of his hair for his play in the first half. Choso even puts him in a headlock because they all don’t know what else to do with their excitement and adrenaline rushing through their bodies. Their win for today was basically confirmed with the way he was playing. 

You catch a glimpse of him through the crowd of people, and he has a boyish grin on his face, reveling in the embarrassing amount of attention from his teammates, that focused look from before dissolving into his normal self again. But you can see through him, as well enough as you’ve learned to at least, and you can tell he’s not satisfied. He’s thinking it’s not enough. There’s still more to be done, and it’s not time to celebrate yet. 

His eyes scan down the sideline until they find you. 

Your heart jumps a second in your chest. He stands up straighter, despite his teammates still clinging to him, and there’s a twinkle in his eyes when your eyes meet. 

Cheerleaders take their place out onto the field, performing their numbers with loud music blaring, and the recruiters seated at their white tables get up to roam across the sidelines in discussion with referees and with Coach Yaga and with whatever players they can sink their greedy teeth into, as well as sneak at refreshments while they’re at it. You can see off to the right that Hana has reunited with Minato and she’s showing him some of the shots she took over at the opponent's side. 

UTokyo’s players start to make their way to the benches to grab for towels and drinks of water and to sprawl across in rest, and you hear loud familiar laughter approaching as you watch the players sprawl across the benches, so you avert your eyes towards the source of the sound. 

You see Gojo approaching the benches, two of his teammates slung with their arms around him in some type of adrenaline-drunken glee as they talk dramatically and theatrically which Gojo entertains with his own drunk-off-of-adrenaline glee. And you raise an eyebrow at his demeanor when he makes eye contact with you.

“There’s my freaky little photographer,” he says, and he’s standing up straight and—wait, is he puffing his chest out as he makes his way towards you? Oh for fucks sake.

Gojo has always been confident around you, for as long as you can remember, but in the fair few moments he’s been cocky, he’s been a menace. And you can only assume the testosterone-induced high of being on the verge of breaking a league record in front of the entire school then subsequently getting homiesexually praised by his teammates for the better part of the past five minutes, not to mention with the crowd and the reporters feeding his ego with a spoon across the speakers, he’s been transformed into the final boss of cocky.

His teammates surround you too, their hands on their hips as they assess you and Gojo when he meanders right up to you, arms held out to hug you, a sleazy sight you’ve seen probably six times this week, and you feel a rush of warmth in your cheeks as you place a hand on his chest to keep him away.

“You’re sweaty and gross, please stay away from me,” you reprimand him, “this is an expensive lens that is not humidity-proof.” 

“Hey, you’re the girl that Kentaro socked in the face with a ball the other day at practice, right?” one of his teammates asks, leaning in towards you to take a closer look at your face.

“Oh yeahhh, ‘cause Satoru wasn’t paying attention,” another one of his teammates chimes in teasingly, hardly heard over the loud remix playing in the background as the cheerleaders continue to perform on the field. 

You shrink a little from where you stand. Gojo’s got an irritated look on his face and he’s shrugging his teammate’s elbow off of his shoulder.

“I really hope you’re getting my good angles,” his teammate to the left comments before winking at you, and you purse your lips together. 

The one on the right leans in too, looking at your cheek with an assessing look in his eye. “At least it didn’t leave a scar on your cute face—”

Gojo shoves the both of them back and away from you by elbowing them in the chest, and they make deep eugh noises before stepping away and rubbing at their sternums with pouts on their faces.

“Get the fuck away from her,” he grumbles, “she’s mine.”

Your cheeks flush slightly with warmth at the attention, and you watch as his teammates scurry away to adhere to some social hierarchy Gojo seems to possess over them.

You raise an eyebrow at him. “Yours?”

“Yes. Eventually. Whatever, did you see me out there?” he turns his torso towards the field and points behind himself with his thumb, “when I—”

“Oh god, you know what’s soooooooooo super sexy to me?” you interrupt him. “When guys are humble.”

“Oh c’monnn,” he curls his arm around your waist and pulls you to him, to where you stumble a little on grass and he holds you when you fall into him with more clumsiness than grace. “Tell me you aren’t at least impressed by me.”

You pout, because you are, and you’d really like to give him some reassurance and validation, but for some reason his cocky attitude is setting you off. “Satoru,” you sigh, wiggling a little in his hug, but he holds you tighter, “I’m working right now. Cut it out.”

He lets go of you at that, sober enough from the adrenaline to realize you’re being serious, but he steps into your space so only you can hear him. “What? Are you embarrassed?”

“Of what?” Your face twists with confusion.

“Of me. Are you embarrassed of me?” he asks.

“No. Why would I be embarrassed of you?” you ask with sharpness.

“I don’t know, just, sometimes I feel like you’re always annoyed by me,” he says with a sigh. “It’s like, you’re really sweet sometimes, and then kinda rude out of nowhere, and it’s sort of messing with my head.”

You pout. “You were messing with my head for weeks.”

“And I’m sorry about that,” he quickly interjects, like he already knew you were brewing up that counterargument, “but you don’t have to act like you’re all disinterested and indifferent just to get back at me for it.” He places his hands on his hips and wipes his temple on the round part of his shoulder when he feels a drop of sweat trickle down from his hairline. “You don’t have to act embarrassed around me either.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” you deny, and your cheeks feel hot, and for some reason you feel angry. “In fact, I’m the one that should be asking you that question. Because I still very clearly remember that time you said I was just someone you know in front of your friends.”

He groans and tilts his head back with frustration. “Can you just let that go? Things have changed between us since then. Move on.” 

“You kissed me and then pretended I was just a stranger to you in front of your friends,” you grit as you cross your arms. “That’s the level of sincerity that I know from you, Satoru.”

“Oh, okay, so there’s nothing else I’ve done that shows you that I’m serious about you?” he asks rhetorically with incredulity, throwing his hands up in the air in disbelief.

No. That’s not true, not true at all. But he’s pissed you off now and so all logic was to the wind. “Doesn’t matter. If you’re not embarassed of me, and if you’re really serious about me this time, then fucking prove it.” You’re speaking out of spite, and you fear you’ve just set him off too.

“Fine,” he says, and he grabs the microphone straight out from a passing reporter’s hand, replacing it with a gatorade bottle. The reporter stares at the bottle he’s now holding with confusion. “I will.”

“W-Wait—” you squeak out, feeling the hair at the back of your neck bristle in anticipation and a shiver gets sent down your spine. The cheerleaders are making their way off the field at the end of their routine, and you can hear the thumps across the loud boisterous speakers when Gojo whacks his palm to the microphone to make sure the thing was on before he jogs to the center of the field.

The crowd is already cheering, ecstatic to see the afternoon's star player and pride & joy of their school, and Gojo takes a moment to soak in all the glory in comical appreciation with bowing towards all 360 degree angles of the stadium.

“Uhhh,” you hear Choso from beside you, who’s strapping his thick goalie gloves tightly to his wrists, “Why the fuck does Satoru have a microphone while standing in the middle of the field.”

“It can’t be for any publicly decent reason,” Geto muses.

All you can do is watch.

“Hi, uh,” Gojo starts, static blaring slightly across the speakers and the crowd winces with him, “sorry. I’m Satoru, Gojo Satoru, you might know me from—uh, the game you’ve been watching?”

Cheers all around, because as if a single person wouldn’t know who he is. The stands were rowdy and most definitely drunk off of sidestep beers the stadium has been serving all afternoon long. 

Gojo is about to continue speaking, when he catches sight of the table of recruiters in the corner of his eye and he turns to face them out of respect. “Oh, yeah, uh, number 10,” he tugs his jersey up at the shoulder to stretch out the fabric, the 1 and the 0 flattened in view, “division player ID 233-997. Coach Yaga keeps my business cards in his purse if you want one.”

“SAAAAATTOOORRUUUU!!!!!” you hear Coach Yaga yell from somewhere in the distance.

“Anywho,” Gojo continues, and the music dims slightly, so he glances at the stop clock on the screen, which shows him he’s got roughly five minutes left to pull off whatever idiocracy he had in mind before the second half of the game starts. “Just here to say that there’s this girl I really like.”

The crowd gets louder, almost deafening, and sonically mostly feminine in (delusional) hope he’s gonna name call one of them.

Gojo’s voice is crisp and clear through the speakers as he clarifies. “She’s standing over there,” he says as he nonchalantly points to your exact latitude and longitudinal direction, “with the big camera slung around her neck that looks like it could pull her down to the center of the earth. Yeah. She’s super cute and I really like talking to her.”

“Uh-oh,” Geto murmurs from beside you, and you glance at him to try to get a read on the situation but you can’t.

Gojo starts to pace across the center of the field now, like he’s working the crowd. “But get this—she thinks I’m not fuckin’ serious about her!!!”

The crowd groans with him in unison. Yep, most certainly drunk. Or high off of glee. Either way, he’s playing them like a violin.

“Huh?” Gojo’s voice sounds distant now, away from the mic, and you can see on the large pixelated screen that he’s being interrupted by someone that looks like one of the videographers, “oh, what’s that? This is being broadcasted? Uh-huh. Oh. I’m not allowed to cuss? Oh fuck, okay. Er— shit, okay. Wait—shoot, okay.”

Choso’s smirk is heard from beside you, and you catch Geto and Nanami shaking their heads in your periphery.

“LIKE I SAID,” Gojo continues into the mic, “the girl I like thinks I’m just messing around, so. Uh. To show her that I’m serious about her, I’m gonna…” He looks up at the sky to ponder, and you can hear people shouting all sorts of suggestions of nonsense from the crowd. And instead of saying proclaim my undying affection for her through a romantic soliloquy straight from my heart in the presence of the entire school, he says—“I’m gonna strip. Yes. Down to my tighty whities, Imma strip.”

H–

Huh?!?!?

You don’t even have time to be horrified or scared, you’re just bewildered beyond belief that that’s what he came up with.

What the fuck kind of reassurance did you ask for. And what the fuck kind of reassurance were you about to get?

The crowd goes wild, it’s no surprise to say everyone and their mothers wants to see him naked, even the straight dudes would dig it for the gym inspo. And he points straight to you, sleazy look on his face and you’re going to ignore the fact that he just winked at you too as he crosses his arms to hold the hem of his jersey and pulls it up over his head in the most raunchy and slutty way a man can take his shirt off.

The music manager is quick with the bit, and is most definitely a fellow Gen Z college student, because Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack (ft. Timbaland) starts playing across the speakers and the crowd goes ballistic.

“Ayo why’s Satoru Magic Mike’ing the field right now?” one of his other teammates calls out through a mouthful of protein bar, “What the fuck did I miss?”

The cameraman does God’s work in a hella zoom-in of Gojo’s sweat glistened abs, then pans up the naked expanse of the perfect taut skin across his chest, and you can’t help but stare even among all your horror. It’s like when a male bird embarrasses the fuck outta himself to attract a female bird sitting on a perch, except instead of within the context of a NatGeo documentary, this was your real life. Everyone wants him, but he’s making a fool out of himself for you. 

He pretends to stretch his arms up into the air, a cover-up to flex his biceps, and then he kicks his cleats off, and the socks come off too. Entirely unnecessary, as showing one's ankles is simply too slutty, but alas he’s a whore. And when his thumbs dip into the waistband of his shorts, and there’s anticipating screeching from the crowd, he finally gets chased by security. 

Except he’s an intercollegiate D1 athlete, why the fuck wouldn’t he be able to outrun a bunch of dudes in black?

The camerawork on him is phenomenal as he runs across the sidelines of the field, eliciting a wave down the bleachers. So good in fact that you’re pretty sure the camera man could shoot for the Olympic track and field, with the way the stadium’s got a clear sight of Gojo mouthing the lyrics Them other fuckers don’t know how to act from the song still blaring with satirical rage on his face as he makes a fool of the men chasing him around the perimeter of the field.

And then he does it, drops his shorts, discards them with a kick, and he’s down to his tighty whities as promised. Cameraman has got to be displaying some previously undiscovered level of talent as he zeroes in on a shot of said tighty whities, with Gojo’s—forgive me, I need to be crass—huge bulge prominent in Big Dick Energy fashion except his tighty whities have little red hearts in rows across the fabric so do with that duality what you will.

He’s outrun security with a steady grin on his face as he eats up the drunken crowd’s cheers and riots and roars and you feel like you’re the only sane person in this stadium, or maybe you’re just not used to the fanatics of a college sports crowd. You peep the men in black trailed all the way on the left side of the field where they abandoned their pursuit of Gojo.

He taps imaginary pockets at his thighs, very muscular thighs you take indulgence in noticing, as if he expected to find something there, and he looks around when he doesn’t. He shrugs and grabs the microphone of the next passing sports commentator he spots, and then he makes his way back to you.

His breathing is a little shallow, and he inhales deep to catch his breath. “Baby.” The crowd SCREAMS at the way he purrs the word into the mic. “Will you do me the honor,” he’s huffing and puffing, heard across blaring speakers, “of being my lawfully wedded girlfriend?” And then he holds the mic to your lips.

“W-Wha—” you stutter, and there’s chanting across the crowd with words that barely make sense until you finally realize they’ve started to yell say yes! say yes! say yes! “Oh my gosh, okay, yes, fine, now please, for the love of god, put some freaking clothes on!”

The crowd goes wild with cheerful glees, and Gojo shoots fists up in the air in celebration as he runs all the way towards the center of the field with high knees, and you’re gawking at the sight, before he falls backward onto the grass and makes delirious snow angels on the ground. You see Coach Yaga’s vein popping in his neck from pure agitation as he storms off towards the center of the field to knock some sense into Gojo, but you know that Coach Yaga can’t kick him out, because they still have a game to win. The perks of being the most valued player in the league is getting to act like an absolutely insane idiot because you know they still need you in the end to bring it home.

You glance to the right, seeing his teammates nodding slowly then getting back to wrapping athletic tape around ankles and stretching out shoulders, with immediate acceptance of his actions like it wasn’t even out of character for him to do. And you realize again that you don’t know Gojo as well as you think you do.

And then the halftime timer is up.

You see Gojo approach the benches in a quick jog, squeezing some water into his mouth with his green gatorade squirt bottle, and when your eyes flit up to the screens on all four entrances, you see that the cameramen are still all focused on him accompanied by the continued buzz of conversation among the crowd following his public spectacle. But he seems to already be past any semblance of embarrassment as he takes the attention with ease, before he glances up to make eye contact with you and then lightly jogs right up to you.

“Did that prove to you that I’m not embarrassed of you?” he asks you, cocking a brow with a smug look on his face as he gets all up in your personal space. 

“I don’t know, but I’m certainly thoroughly and expeditiously embarrassed of you now,” you say, cheeks feeling flush when he leans forward so he can make eye contact with you at eye level. “I’ll have to move to a different country.”

His grin is relaxed. “Yeah well you asked for it.”

“Maybe. But I underestimated what a lunatic you are.”

“You’re my girlfriend now, you’ve gotta get used to it.”

Your heart skips a beat in your chest. “Satoru–”

“Tomorrow,” he cuts you off, “Hinode pier. I’ll pick you up at six. It’s a date, so wear something cute. And preferably easy to take off.” And then he’s attentive to the chirp of the referee’s whistle in the air before jogging backwards towards the feel and eventually turns on his heel towards the field while you’re left with warm cheeks and a heart that felt like it was moving at a mile a minute.

The timer for the second half refreshes on the screen while you loosely hold your camera in your shaking hands. It occurs to you that you haven’t taken a single photo of him before the start of the kickoff, and so you bring the piece of consolidated metal up to your eyes, peering through the viewfinder and focusing it on the center of the field. And there he was. Your muse.

Gojo lets out a breath, which you can see even from here that it’s shaky and staggered with resistance, and he lifts his jersey up to swipe at the sweat trickling down his face as he eyes the ball underneath YCU’s player’s foot just prior to the start of the second half. There it was—that look again of pure focus. 

3-1, forty-five minutes on the clock. And the referee chirps the whistle to start the second half.

It’s immediately evident that YCU has returned to the field following halftime with renewed energy, pressing high down the flank relentlessly past UTokyo’s defense, so fast it was hard for anybody to even keep a steady eye on the ball with the fluidity of their passes. The persistence pays off in the fake double-pass that slips past Geto’s feet, a moment of hesitation in the broken flow of UTokyo’s defense, and one of YCU’s strikers has the perfect line of shot towards the goal before digging his foot under the ball and sending it flying towards the corner of the goal post, scoring themselves a goal within just the first five minutes of play.

3-2.

The pressure mounts at the next kickoff, and with about seven minutes of solid play, with back-and-forth passes, multiple attempts at both goal posts to no avail on either side, it was clear that exhaustion was bustling in the veins of all the players.

One of YCU’s offensive players seems to capitalize on this, jumping on a defensive lapse of a pass Nanami attempted to make towards Yuta, and the ball is swiftly stolen then raced back towards the goal post. Choso prepared himself at the line, light on his feet paired with a solid stance, but in a millisecond of a moment, YCU’s offense unexpectedly passes the ball to a player racing up the midfield, and the player chips the ball neatly into the exposed corner of the goal despite Choso’s attempt to lunge for it in mid air.

Equalized, 3-3 game, momentary shock across the players’ faces, and the crowd bustles with something that sounds less like glee and more life fear. YCU was prepared to live up to and hold onto their title as the league’s number one offense, and as Minato explained to you during your time working in this job, an offensive team isn’t good at scoring goals, but rather exceptional at breaking down the other team’s defense.

Your eyes zero in on Geto, who stands in the center of the field for kickoff, and he’s huffing and puffing. He's the lead of defense for the team, and you can only imagine the level of pressure he feels right now. He glances around to his players, over to Nanami who seemed to share the same level of exhaustion, and then he glances towards Gojo who stood in front of him off to the right. Except you notice that Gojo looks relaxed, albeit still exhausted, but there’s a composed expression on his face even in the moment of heightened stakes. With locked eyes, Geto nods at Gojo and raises two fingers up into the air to signal a play, of which Gojo seems to respond to by closing more distance between him and the goal post prior to the kickoff, positioning himself almost directly in front of it, to which YCU’s defense immediately begin to guard him in a tight radius. 

The kickoff begins, with Geto making a few passbacks with Nanami as they close distance towards the field before passing it off to UTokyo’s string of offense and then receding back to their defending goal. UTokyo continues to close distance, raising stakes for YCU as their defense begins to falter under pressure, and the ball gets passed to Gojo, who only keeps it in possession for less than three seconds before he passes it back to Yuuji, a risky decision to make in the second half of a semifinal match, but the first-year swiftly unleashes a powerful shot that rockets past YCU’s goalkeeper, up towards the corner, except–

It bounces off the metal of the goal post, shot off with projectile speed back towards the center of the field, but with razor-sharp reflexes, Gojo headbutts the ball in air, twists his torso and strikes the ball with his foot past a dumbfounded goalie who can’t even move an inch to guard the ball that he already knew was going to sink right into the goal, and that’s exactly what it does. 

The stadium erupts with the momentum.

4-3, UTokyo. 

It was a sweet moment, one you manage to capture on camera of Gojo running up to Yuuji and ruffling his hair in reassurance, despite the missed goal. Your heart feels warm in your chest, feeling your own sense of melancholy that this was one of the last times they’ll ever get to play together on a team. 

Your eyes widen when you glance at the scoreboard, realizing that he’s tied. Gojo is tied for the most goals scored during a championship match. There were less than three minutes left on the clock. UTokyo either preserves their lead, or they risk moving into overtime, which, judging by the exhaustion on the UTokyo players’ faces in the wake of YCU’s relentless offense this entire game, moving into overtime would be a hefty, hefty risk. 

YCU’s center forward takes his place in the center of the field, fire evident in his eyes as he glances across the field. YCU are light on their feet, channeling everything in their bodies into these last moments of the game as they prepare to start the kickoff. You glance across UTokyo’s players, and although they look spent, there was a resolute look to all of them. It wasn’t the time to give up or feel at ease even near the end of this grueling battle. Now was the time to play. 

The referee chirped his whistle, and the kickoff began.

YCU immediately presses hard, as all their other plays have been all game, in their desperation to score. You can already see UTokyo’s midfielders move sluggishly in comparison to YCU’s offense, a drag to their feet as YCU pushes past the first layer of defense towards their attacking goal. Geto takes an aggressive approach, making moves to steal the ball while Nanami and Yuta guarded both flanks, and there was a relentless pass-off happening that ate up more than a minute of the remaining time.

Nanami succeeds in stealing the ball, but immediately loses it under his feet by a YCU midfielder, who makes a broad pass down the sidelines to YCU’s star forward who then powerfully kicks the ball towards the unguarded area of their goal, a dangerous shot that was clear towards the crossbar and Choso makes a leap for it, high into the air, his glove brushing against the ball, the entire crowd holding their breath in anticipation–

And the ball lands in the net. 

4-4, tied game. With one minute and seventeen seconds left on the clock. 

There was no time wasted in getting back to center field. No time spent dwelling in the horrific roars of the crowd as they watch with anxiety and fear. No time spent to process or consider or signal any plays. Not even a single second used to catch breath. When there is this much at stake, an athlete thrives on momentum. 

To your surprise, Gojo isn’t the one that takes place at the center of the field to start the kickoff. Yuta stands there instead, and you notice his eyes are erratic as he surveys all corners of the field. 

The referee chirps his whistle. 

Yuta immediately passes it off to the side to UTokyo’s midfielder, who curls it towards their attacking goal with a swift pass to Ino, who closes distance towards the goal, but one of YCU’s defender slips in, undoing any progress they had made in their offense by stealing the ball and sending it back towards mid-field. Forty-three seconds. The crowd’s roars heightened as YCU continued to push forward, thirty yards now from scoring, and UTokyo’s defense was desperate to stop them but their momentum was cracking in the wake of their exhaustion. 

It was a moment you don’t think you could ever fully or truly recall, one that you wish you had focused all your energy and attention to so that you could commit it to memory for the rest of your life. The image of Gojo pushing all the way to ten yards before their defending goal, a place where no center forward should really be at in a game like this, but it was exactly what their defense needed. It was exactly what the team needed. It was exactly what the school needed. For the ball to be in his possession.

With twenty-two seconds left on the clock, he steals the ball from right under YCU’s offensive feet, and then charges towards the opposite side of the field. The crowd rises to their feet, thunderous roaring that overtook any and all senses, as Gojo weaves through forwards, center forwards, midfielders, and defenders, covering the entire span of the field in lightning time. Fifty yards, forty yards, thirty yards, twenty hards, ten yards–

In a moment you couldn’t believe, he digs his foot underneath the ball, and sends it flying out towards the goal. There was not even a margin of an inch in which it slipped past the goalie’s hands, past his head, and swiftly flew right into the net.

With three-two-one seconds, the match was over. 

5-4, UTokyo’s win.

The final whistle blew, and for a moment, there was silence. As if the world paused to catch its breath. Then, all at once, the crowd erupted with glee that shook the entire stadium at its core. Flags waving, scarves held high, toasts of beer held up to the sky, it was deafening, and it almost makes you want to cry. Thousands of voices shouting in unison, celebrating the hard-fought victory of their school’s team. A type of pride that was fostered, and well-deserved, and long-lived.

You quickly glance towards the field again, and see Gojo standing right at the same spot where he had kicked the last and final goal, staring towards the net. You can’t see the expression on his face, but it surprises you how still he is. Like a statue, staring at the goal with the ball tucked into its corner. The very epitome of what it means to succeed in this sport was right in front of him, and it seemed like he wanted to soak the visual in for as long as he could.

His trance is abruptly interrupted when his teammates swarm in, rushing over like a wave of pure adrenaline. They slap him on the back, ruffle his hair, shout his name, the sounds of gleeful disbelief mixed with exhausted sighs of relief swarming into the air. And Gojo finally melts away from the tension of the match and into the celebration as he weakly returns the embraces of his teammates while he catches his breath. 

“IT’S OFFICIAL!! IT’S OFFICIAL!! UTOKYO’S VERY OWN GOJO SATORU HAS OBLITERATED OSAKA UNIVERSITY’S RECORD FOR MOST GOALS SCORED BY A SINGLE PLAYER IN A CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH!!” 

The speakers are blaring the voices of the sports announcers, along with ambient music to match the intensity of the match that everyone had just witnessed. 

You should probably be doing your job. You know, take a picture of the huddle of players on the field as they bask in the glory of a close victory, but instead your feet start moving on their own. Like a magnet drawn to him, you make your way towards Gojo, only a slight hesitation in your step as you stop about ten feet away, suddenly unsure. But when he makes eye contact with you, all that fear melts away.

He hastily pats the backs of some of his teammates, acknowledging their praise at the center of the huddle before tightly squeezing past them to make his way over to you. Your heart is beating fast in your chest, feeling an almost overwhelming sense of pride in your school’s team, but more importantly, in him. What was the acceptable thing to do? Run to him, into his arms, and hug him while he twirls you around? Tackle him to the grassy ground? Kiss him like your life depended on it? You have no clue what the acceptable or sane or normal thing to do is. But he’s made his decision for you when he walks right up to you, his hands holding your waist as he pulls you towards him. He smells earthy, of grass and salt and sweat and of all the hard work he poured into today, the wear and tear of the game evident in the wear and tear of his jersey. He only manages to huff out an exhale at the sight of you, like some relief washing over him just by looking into your eyes. Forget the fact that the crowd was all watching and that all of the screens you could see past his head were focused on the two of you, because all you could hear or see or think was him.

“I believe you owe me a kiss,” he says, huffing as he catches his breath but that doesn’t stop the smile that makes its way onto his face.

You nod your head, giving him your own version of a sweet smile as your arms slide up past his shoulders, crossing behind his neck, and he leans down to kiss you.

You hear a swell from the crowd, some teasing comments off in the distance from some of his teammates, you’re pretty sure you hear Coach Yaga yelling at him to get back to the benches, but it all melts away with the feeling of him smiling against your lips as he kisses you at the center of this stadium.

It was a moment so pure, so sweet, so picture perfect, and for once, you’re not the one behind the camera taking the photo. You’re the one that’s in it.

.

.

.

.

.

[end of kickoff ch12]

a/n. aaa thanks a lot for reading!! pls the fucking public stripping scene was so stupid i apologize on behalf of kickoff gojo for his behavior 😂😂 i’ll put him in his cage dw this chapter had some of what i consider to be the most challenging aspects of writing for me (internal conflict, grand public gesture, sports jargon) and so writing it felt like an uphill battle the ENTIRE time i wrote it and edited it. i considered scrapping it sooo many times cuz i just wasn't happy w it...but whatever i can't expect to be 100% happy w every chapter i put out there haha. i think kickoff has become a lil sacred for me since i've been working on it for a while now but likeee...sometimes u just gotta say fuck it we ball (tbh kickoff gojo probably says that to himself before a match) anywho, i am veryy thoroughly excited for what i've got planned for the chapters to follow, especially moving into the last angsty arc before the end of the series!! so i look forward to picking up momentum w this series again :0 honestly chapters 10 through 12 were the most difficult things i've written so far for a lot of reasons, but i have a feeling things will go more smoothly for me creatively going forward since what i've got planned falls well within my writing comfort range oh also there seems to be a little confusion about the number of chapters left, as i know i had originally said 12, but i anticipate that there will be about 18 chapters of kickoff total!! so still around six chapters left before the end :)) much lovee thanks for reading!!

OH WAIT ONE LAST NOTE I'M SORRY i didn’t really have a way of organically incorporating this into the story n i’m not sure if i’ll get a chance to in the upcoming chapters, so i just wanted to share this part of ch7 (gojo’s pov chapter) that is relevant to this chapter:

During the thrilling semifinal match between Keio Uni, Gojo’s father’s team, and Yokohama Uni during the end of his senior year, spectators witnessed a game that most college soccer enthusiasts would deem was a once-in-a-lifetime watch. Both teams engaged in relentless offense, and Gojo’s father was on his way to shatter the record of the most goals scored in a single championship match within the history of the league, but when he received a call from his wife during a timeout with the most life-altering news he could have ever heard, he abandoned everything on the field that day to go home and be with her. Grainy footage from the televised broadcast still exists online today—the moment he sprinted across the field, confused players glancing in his direction, amidst the uproar of the crowd. She called to let him know she was pregnant. 

the record that gojo broke in this chapter is the same record that his father almost broke before he got the call that he was going to be a dad :0 

➸ you're all caught up!

additional notes. please do not pressure me for updates or ask when i will next update (read rules); taglist is currently closed (consider subscribing to the story on my ao3 for email updates if you'd like! :0)

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[inloveandfear]

meanwhile Guy Who Has An Aggressive Crush on me has revealed two red flags and just. …..when I joked about how I need a man who is obsessed with me I didn’t mean just any man come ON