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starryalpacasstuff · 1 month ago

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The Absence of India in Discussions on Queer Asian Media

So, yesterday @lurkingshan tagged me in an ask she got from @impala124 about the absence of India when we're talking about queer Asian media. I was intially just going to reblog it with my thought, but as it kept growing I figured it'd be best to just make my own post. Please read the ask linked above first so this makes sense.

*cracks knuckles* this is going to be the most fun I've had writing a post in ages. (For a little background, I'm a queer Indian, born and raised)

So, this is a very interesting question on a subject I've been rotating in my head for the past several months. There's a lot of different variables that contribute to the noticeable lack of discussion on Indian and South Asian queer media in general, so I'm just going to talk through the ones I've noticed a little randomly.

Talking about Asian media in general, it's well known that the mass popularity of kpop and anime has contributed massively to the increase in popularity of Asian media. If you've been in the Asian media fandom for any amount of time at all, you'll have noticed that media from Korea, Japan, and China gets by far the most attention from international audiences; all East Asian countries. There may be several reasons for this, but in particular, it's no secret that the fetishization of East Asians is a massive proponent in the popularity of media from these countries, while there's no such interest in South Asians. If we shift our focus to queer media specifically, media from these three countries is still extremely popular, with the addition of Thailand and the Philippines to some extent; both South East Asian countries. From what I've seen, there's very little international interest in media from South Asian countries (although, if we're talking about India specifically, I can't exactly say anything. Bollywood has not been good lately). If we talk about queer South Asian media, the scope of interest falls even further. If you'll notice, MyDramaList, one of the most commonly used websites for finding and tracking Asian shows only allows for East and South-East Asian shows. So, that's one reason—there's just not much international interest in Indian media in general. As Shan said in the initial post, it's partially because of a difference in priorities. Korea is notorious for using media to gain global standing, the role of the 'soft power' of Thai bls in the recent bills for equal marriage in Thailand has been widely discussed, the list goes on. Could racism also play a part in the massive gulf of interest in media from East Asian versus South Asian countries? Probably. But I'm not going to get into that too much.

Moving on, there's obviously a massive lack of queer media in India. I think this is greatly exacerbated by the fact that it's very hard to support the people making queer media beyond buying and/or streaming their work. The majority of people engaging with Indian queer media are queer Indians, and a lot of us have to do so in secret because of the society we live in. This means that creators that have to push through several obstacles to publish their work often receive little incentive to continue doing so because of the lack of engagement. Because of the lack of media, international fans are less likely to become interested in queer Indian media, and the cycle continues.

I will say though, contrary to what Shan said, I think Indian media, particularly anything that came out post 2019 might actually be on the easier end of the spectrum when it comes to access. This may simply be bias, so forgive me if I'm wrong here, but from what I've seen, a lot of queer Indian shows are in fact available on streaming sites, and at most you'd need a vpn to access them. I think the two main things that actually hold back queer Indian media from becoming more popular are a lack of noise and it's relatively lower quality.

The main way we find out about new shows in this space is through either word of mouth (well actually, post) or because we follow production houses known for producing media. Because of the sparse nature of both the media and the consumers, there's very few people who learn enough about the media to want to give it a shot. For example, there's a film on netflix called Badhaai Do (hindi for Congratulate Us) that I've been meaning to watch for a while. It centers around a lavender marriage and I've heard a lot of good things about it, so I was slightly surprised to see that most of the people on tumblr I interact with who have been engaging with queer media for far longer than me had never heard of it. There's also a, Indian BL from 2017 called Romil and Jugal that I've written about before here, and I would've never learned of it's existence if not for a friend hearing about it from another friend of hers.

Because there's so little queer indian media, it's natural that the quality leaves much to be desired. The main issue is, because the queer asian media market has become so saturated lately people are becoming a lot more selective with what they watch, and for good reason. This means that queer media from india is simply unable to grow and improve over time, leaving it stagnant. Back in 2016-2018, the overall dearth of queer media from Asia meant that a lot of people were willing to watch shows that were average or even worse. Thailand particularly seems to have benefitted from this, being able to grow and evolve its queer media due to the successes of shows like SOTUS, 2gehter, TharnType and more even recently, KinnPorsche. Queer Indian media will have a much, much harder time with this because of all of the factors I've talked about and more, meaning that it is much harder for queer media to evolve. Honestly, though I haven't been able to watch/read much queer media from India, the stuff I have seen is really quite decent, it's just that it tends to fail in comparison to some of the brilliant stuff we're seeing from other countries. A while a ago, I bought four queer books by Indian authors, and of the three I've read so far, I'd genuinely recommend two, albeit one with quite a few reservations (I'll be writing about them sometime in the future, just haven't found the time yet). While talking about this with @neuroticbookworm, she brought up the excellent point of how Indian media in general has just been of fairly poor quality lately. It seems to me that a lot of it is catered to more conservative audiences, which results in people like me becoming disillusioned with Indian media and simply moving onto things from other countries. It has been a long time since I've watched anything worthwhile come out of Bollywood. So, it becomes even harder for queer Indian shows to be found at all; a majority of their target audience has already forsaken Indian media as a lost cause.

So, those are a bunch of reasons because of which there's not a lot of discussion about queer Indian media in fandom spaces like Tumblr. Something else I'd like to point out is, it's very hard for queer shows in India to gain much traction whatsoever. Live television slots are ruled by the infamous Indian serials, the majority of the audience being people in their late thirties and older, particularly women. And while homophobia is just as prevalent amongst the youth of India as it is amongst older generations, younger people are far more likely to be engaging with queer media, in India at least. This means that it would be near impossible for queer shows to air on live television the way they do in countries like Thailand and Japan. The majority of Indian youth use global streaming services to watch shows, hence the greater concentration of queer shows on service platforms. (Romil and Jugal is something of a dark horse here—I don't believe it was ever aired, but it was produced by a producer who has a few decently popular serials under her belt and is available on an Indian steaming service—another reason I'm determined to research how tf this show ever came into existence) If we talk of movies, the industry is limited by the iron fist of Bollywood, another reason it's very hard for queer movies to be produced and why they're generally found on streaming sites.

There's just not a lot of people who have the balls it would take to make a queer Indian show/movie and push it to the Indian public beyond a streaming service. I mean, we're all seeing what's happening with the Love in The Big City drama right now, and believe me, public backlash in India would be the same, if not much worse. And if no one in India is watching these shows, why would anyone in any other part of the world? There's barely any public figures that would be willing to participate in such a project, so queer media stays underground. Currently, Karan Johar is the most popular—and one of the only—out celebrities in Bollywood, and, well, he's treated as something of a laughing stock by the public. He has one or two queer adjacent shows under his belt as a producer, but once again, they're barely known and available only on Netflix. There was a movie called Dostana in which he played a straight guy pretending to be gay but, well, that speaks for itself. And well, I can't exactly blame him for it, knowing how the Indian entertainment industry is.

To talk a little more about the specific comparison between India and Korea, I think you're fairly accurate in saying that the two countries seem to be roughly on par in terms of homophobia, although that's an extremely vague statement that's rather hard to either prove or disprove. While the difference in international attention towards Korean and Indian media is certainly a major component of the difference in discussion about the queer media from these countries, there's obviously other things that go into it as well. There's this video I watched some time ago on the progression of queer representation in K-dramas that's quite well researched. It's an hour and a half long, so in case you don't have the time to watch it (though I do recommend it), it basically talks about some of the dramas with queer rep that have aired on Korean television and their impact. While it's hard to gauge the level of impact of these shows on the availability of bls and gls in Korea, they certainly had an effect, if only telling the queer population of Korea that they are seen and heard. To my knowledge (although I may be mistaken), no such queer rep has ever aired on Indian television, meaning that there's nothing to push creators to put queer media out there. There have been old movies and shows that depict queerness, but none of them ever reached the sort of the scale where they may have some sort of impact on the industry. As I mentioned earlier, the widespread popularity of K-dramas (and k-pop) does make it easier for creators to make queer media since there's a much higher chance of the shows being successful thanks to the international audience. Bringing back Love In The Big City, the success of the book abroad and the high probability of the show being well received internationally is probably one of the reasons it was able to be produced amongst domestic backlash.

Now, I've been talking a lot about how it's difficult for queer Indian media to gain any sort of international recognition with domestic attention. However, it's not necessarily the case. Here's where I start rambling (I say, as if this post isn't verging on 2k words). It's been proven that the presence of the international market allows for greater creative freedom in spaces beyond television. The best example comes from Korea's very own 'soft power'; K-pop. There's a K-pop group called Dreamcatcher that debuted in 2017 with a rock sound and horror concept that was extremely rare in kpop at the time. They succeeded mainly by focusing most of their promotions to the foreign market, knowing that their concept would not be well liked in Korea. And they succeeded. Today, Dreamcatcher has a sizeable fandom and has even been growing in popularity in Korea, with the Korean public warming up to their genre and having influenced other girl groups to try out similar sounds. We've already talked about the lack of international attention for Indian media, but there's also the issue that the producers of queer Indian media aren't marketing to foreign audiences, which remain ignorant.

That's all I have, this is so long good lord. All in all, there's a bunch of factors that feed into each other creating a cycle which means that, unless there's a break somewhere, queer Indian media will remain unrecognized. I'm excited to see what other people have to say, because this is a topic close to my heart and I'd definitely enjoy seeing more discussions around it.

#yet another 2k post by yours truly who apparently Does not Have Self Control #this was fun though!#uffff im tired #this is not edited so forgive me if there's error or i repeat stuff #how do i even tag this #queer indian media #queer media #desiblr #fandom #bl meta #ql #meta #indian media #asian media #asian dramas #asian lgbtq dramas #bl industry

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garoujo · 1 year ago

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saetoru is talking abt you on her private blog (@/clorindes) yuckkkkk

CW BULLYING, LITERALLY IMMATURE HIGH SCHOOL DRAMA, SUB POSTING.

hi nonnie, thank you for letting me know! since i’m leaving this blog & this platform for the foreseeable future i figured i might aswell get a few things off of my chest before i go. i apologise in advance for the vibes this post will probably bring, the discourse & the posts that will ofcourse follow, but i honestly i am not the first person to be targeted by this creator and i’m sure i won’t be the last considering the amount of creators that have been bullied off of this app by them.

first off i’ve had multiple blogs that would be considered bigger blogs such as @/hvnlydmn, @/atsymu + now this blog which is the biggest of all 3. i think there’s a sort of unspoken responsibility that comes with being a bigger blog which i know is no fun but it’s also because it can be super harmful on a site like this, when people weaponise their following.

on that note i’ll start this post by saying that i’ve known tee for probably around 3/4 years, maybe? we were mutuals on hvnlydmn & atsymu and we continued to talk on discord even when i was off of tumblr. i will honestly admit to this day i have never had a negative interaction with tee to my face and she was genuinely supportive of me during any discourse i was involved in. i am not some angel, i’ve had my fair share of crap on this app (of my own doing) but this post is not meant to come across like “oh she doesn’t like me so i’m calling her out” no. im sorry if this doesn’t line up with my brand and my ‘victim complex’ but i’m not gonna lie down and let someone on a power trip on a hobby app drag me through the mud.

first off i had began to get some off vibes from tee when i had started writing on garoujo, notably when i’d just hit my first milestone which was probably around 1k. during this i had decided to move my instagram theme from my main blog to my writing blog.

i’d noticed tee subposting (on main and on her personal blog which i followed at the time) about someone basically using the same theme as her, which after then clicking onto her blog i realised was an instagram theme. i didn’t think much of it, again me & tee were friends and she hadn’t came to me directly so ignored it. i was still a new blog and trying to solidly an aesthetic (before the beige lol) so i changed my theme / masterlists / layouts a lot.

a few more sub posts later i decided to message tee about it because with every thing i’d change / post on my blog, there always seemed to be another post. so i messaged her and got this response in: (i’ve blurred out my irl name btw) open up pics for convo!

so i let it slide, kept posting & that was that. probably a few days / a week later, tee had soft blocked me which then eventually led to me being hard blocked. i was upset ofcourse because i genuinely considered tee a good friend but i’ve always been a big advocate in controlling your space.

this was when, one of our mutuals in common (the first of many may i add) approached me on discord to say that just like now, i was being ripped to shreds on tee’s personal blog:

again i was notably upset about this because i was being accused of not only copying her theme but also her writing & masterlists, we did have a lot of mutuals in common so it was also upsetting knowing they would all be seeing these posts aswell. i allowed myself one sub post about “creating a narrative” because i was particularly frustrated but tee then also subposted about this, even though she had me blocked?

i would also like to say regarding our mutuals in common that this was not the first or last mutual to approach me regarding tee. i’ve had multiple people tell me that “they’re only mutuals with her because it would be more damaging not to be” “it’s easier to be on her side”. also i am not saying this is okay but i’ve had multiple of her current mutuals send me not only her posts, but screenshots of her private, personal instagram & also tell me about how all of them and their friends had a running joke / theory that tee made up her boyfriend (ex-boyfriend?) for attention.

regarding the accusations from tee i’d like to first comment on the instagram themes, again i had done an instagram theme on my main blog but it seemed to only be an issue when it was on my writing blog that was gaining traction. if the timing was off and it seemed like i copied her, i genuinely have nothing to say except it’s not the case— it’s instagram (which tee already admits she doesn’t own above) also the hanma writing? i’m still not 100% sure which drabbles she was referring to but i can only assume that 1. is when i posted a drabble about hanma fucking you outside of his subordinates house — this was a almost completely word by word rewrite of a suna drabble i done on my old blog @/atsymu i literally just changed the concept to fit tokyo revengers themes. i can post screenshots of this suna drabble also from my google docs dated February when i deactivated. the other one may have been some basic concept about him fucking you against the window.

she also mentions in the very first recent screenshot at the beginning of this post that i have apparently stolen concepts of fics / posts from her mutuals. what i want to say regarding this is, do you believe that i would have made it this far on stolen work? i don’t know any of the mutuals she’s referring to apart from 1 which i’ll get into. but every single accusation i’ve ever received has always come from someone associated or in contact with tee, she has always been at the root of it all but i have yet to receive a single anon or ask about me copying or taking inspiration from anyone’s work.

i know there was apparently a blog and an ex mutual of mine, who i had a lot of respect & time for who was under the impression i’d stolen their concept for this gojo fic. the whole premise of this fic is honestly not uncommon considering how many times people losing control of their techniques / powers / quirks during orgasm has been done in fanfiction. this concept was completely my own, i had originally posted shitposts about him losing control of his technique & also him putting you into a mating press / breeding before i’d decided to smoosh them together into a fic. we all read from the same workbook, we all have the same material to work off of — two people in a fanbase of THOUSANDS having a similar idea is not unheard of.

now onto the masterlist banners. the screenshot on the far left are the comparison photos that tee made herself— i’m sure you’ll be able to see them in better quality when she makes her own post about it; because obviously that’s going to come. first off i will say, i will admit i took inspiration from her official art masterlist banners — i thought hers looked good and i needed a masterlist so i used official art. fair game there although i only kept them for a few days before i changed again.

but onto the grey masterlist banners, i can honestly say i did not even know tee had this masterlist, also the only comparison i myself see is the colour. the only reason i chose grey was because i had started to use a grey / white overlay on my manga panels for my layout (as you can see far right), and as you know— i’ve always kept my colour scheme pretty consistent. on that note, regarding the actual layout of the masterlists— i’ve added screenshots from atsymu (that i could find due to it being deactivated) that shows the layout of my old masterlists, which was what i took inspiration from for my current. although the title font for each heading like headcanons is different, i had used the sort of old style, basic font that everyone uses before i had deactivated so it would match my fic headers i just don’t have photos obviously.

anyway on the back of this there was then discourse over me apparently copying tee’s kinktober masterlist, which again was not the case. but again due to tee’s following i had received multiple death threats into my asks the morning after i posted mine. as far as i was aware, the only similarities were the fact we both used gifs in our headers & the layout listing thirsts, hcs & fics (which is very common during kinktober but i admitted below i could see that similarity). unfortunately during all of this discourse was when ffflowers, my hate blog also came into the mix which then lead to tee reaching out to me in dm’s from her old blog.

the interaction between me & tee was pretty good, again she was nothing but nice to me directly despite the way she obviously spoke about me in private above. but as you can see below, tee herself told me that basically most of the similarities all made above were brushed off as basic. we spoke about the ig themes & i apologised, saying i could understand where she was coming from and that was that. i unblocked her & she unblocked me so i could reblog her post, it’s been that way since.

it is not my place to comment on other people’s experiences on this app but i would need more than 2 hands to list the amount of people that i’m sure have had similar if not worse experiences with tee. i know i have had multiple mutuals who have been bullied off of this platform & had their safe space ripped from them for little things such as: liking a character that this group selfship with, tee and her friends not liking their characterisation. they’ve even went as far as to go through other larger creators notes to check for minors so they can make excuses as to why they’re thriving.

i also know of a blog who was ‘blacklisted’ from tee & her mutuals as they self shipped with arataki itto at the time, one of tee’s friends also did, so they blacklisted this creator and had all of their mutuals block them for this which then in turn drove this creator off the app. there has been other notably bitchy things that i’ve heard but i have no receipts for therefore i don’t see any relevance in starting rumours.

i would also like to say i know plagiarism is a horrible thing, we have all been through it— myself included but it’s got to the point where being accused of copying tee has become a canon event. notably, bigger platforms have been ruined and driven off of this app for little things such as mdni dividers, similar colours schemes etc. and it’s the reason i’m also leaving.

i will say i have met some amazing people through my discourse with tee, notably people who have been in similar situations and i also apologise to any mutuals who we still have in common who are now sort of stuck inbetween. no hard feelings. although to tee: id be careful of the people you trust because it seems the loyalties they have to you are not as sincere as you may believe. you can also go to her personal & read the other things she was saying about me like how she was always so ? at how many people seemed to like me.

so that’s all i have to say, i’m sure dash will get a few responses from this but i’ll be logging out & turning off asks because honestly? couldnt care less. the only thing i’d change about my experience on this app would be i wish i’d blocked tee sooner.

i’d say have a nice day, but instead, have the day you deserve.

— emmie :)

#i apologise in advance to my mutuals & the innocents #i probably had more to say but yk i was rambling atp #anyways see u guys 🖤 love most of u !

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glitterquadricorn · 1 year ago

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Another Leclerc - social media

+ summary: When rumors go around about another Leclerc joining the f1 grid, people automatically assume its Arthur, completely forgetting about y/n leclerc. She'll do anything for a formula one seat. Even if it meant going behind a certain driver's back. +pairing: none. + warning(s): sexism, google translate (I don't speak Italian nor French but if I have something wrong, let me know), like one curse word.

face claim: Lindsay brewer

+ author's note: for a while now I've been wanting to get back into writing, but writing fics stress me out, so I figured making social media/instgram posts will be a lot easier to put together. I've also decided to change how I do social media posts and I'm trying to figure things out, so in the meantime, bear with me.

itsy/nleclerc

liked by charlesleclerc, scuderiaferrari, and 20,102 others

itsy/nleclerc: *insert Sebastian Vettel quote here*

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charles_leclerc: isn't that my jacket? ⤷itsynleclerc: If I said no would you believe me? ⤷charles_leclerc: give me back my jacket or I'll tell mom ⤷itsy/nleclerc: go ahead and tell mom, you snitch

user1: Charles and y/n is exactly how my sister, and I are whenever she burrows my clothes.

patriciooward: when are you going to let me drive your Ferrari?⤷itsy/nleclerc: never. ⤷josefnewgarden: she won't even let me drive it and I'm her teammate! ⤷12willpower: she's let me drive it ⤷patriciooward: Y/N! I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME!! ⤷itsy/nleclerc: other than my beloved Ferrari, I only love my bed and my mom I'm sorry!

user2: this made me feel ✨poor✨

scuderiaferrari: you have great taste, miss leclerc ⤷itsy/nleclerc: thank you! :)

user3: you look real good in red liked by itsy/nleclerc

user4: I so badly want her to race for Ferrari with Charles! liked by itsy/nleclerc

arthur_leclerc: is there something you want to share with the class?⤷itsy/nleclerc: nope 🤐

user5: y/n clearly knows something we don't ⤷user6: you don't think she's the leclerc deuxmoi is talking about, right? ⤷user5: I hope not because Arthur honestly deserves that f1 seat more than her.

ScuderiaFerrari:

liked by itsy/nleclerc, charles_leclerc, f1 and 3,689,758 others.

scuderiaferrari: two-time indy 500 winner & one-time indycar champion and the first woman to be in formula one since Lella Lombardi, y/n leclerc joins Ferrari in 2026!

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itsy/nleclerc: this has always been a childhood dream of mine to race for Ferrari! grazie per questa sorprendente opportunità! (thank you for this amazing opportunity) liked by scuderiaferarri

carlossainz55: you can't be serious

charles_leclerc: papa and jules would be proud ⤷itsy/n_leclerc: I know 😭😭

pierregasly: Congrats little leclerc! ⤷itsy/nleclerc: thank you, mon frère (my brother)

josefnewgarden: I'll miss having you around ⤷itsy/nleclerc: you and misses are always welcome to come to Monaco ⤷josefnewgarden: we might just take you up on that offer

lewishamilton: hopefully this is a step in the right direction in making the paddock more inclusive and welcoming for everyone! liked by itsy/nleclerc

user1: y/n doesn't belong in formula one. ⤷user2: and the fact that she's replacing someone that didn't need to be replaced is astounding! ⤷user3: the pressure will be too much for her and she'll fail like past women who've tried to make it in f1 ⤷user4: I predict she won't make it to summer break before she quits ⤷user5: why is it so hard for you to comprehend a woman being in formula one? I mean, if you hate women, just say so.

user6: my daughter has expressed interest in karting because of y/n

12willpower: I wish you nothing but the best, kid. ⤷itsy/nleclerc: thanks, old man! 😘

user7: y/n signing to Ferrari is great and all, but I'm over here asking myself what tf is in the water in monaco because it should be illegal to be this good looking! ⤷user8: you're out here asking the real questions ⤷user9: all I'm saying is God bless mama Leclerc

Chili man🌶️ How could do this to me? I thought we were friends.

Mini Leclerc What do you mean?

Chili man🌶️ Don't play dumb, y/n. You know exactly what you did.

Mini Leclerc Yes, I did sign with Ferrari. Yes, I did take your seat. You didn't sign an extension and they reached out to me. I saw an opportunity and I took it.

Chili man🌶️ I was getting ready to talk to Fred about an extension.

Mini Leclerc Early bird gets the worm?

Chili Man🌶️ You're a real bitch, you know that?

Mini Leclerc You think that's the first time a man, much less anyone has called me that? You know as much as I do that Formula one is a competitive sport and in order to get a seat, you may have to do some unspeakable things. Let me ask you a question, though. If the roles were reversed and you were me, would you have done the same thing?

*read*

Mini Leclerc you leaving me on read lets me know you would've. But I'll never apologize for my actions, Carlos. If you have any interest in IndyCar, I can give you some resources to help you out. Good luck in any of your future endeavors, Carlos.

---

thank you to @lorarri and @majaverse for helping me out. they didn't have to do that, but they did, so this is dedicated to them! :)

tagging list:

@letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @patzammit @yagirlmexic @tinycyberhacker @keenmarvellover @mrspeacem1nusone @lendeluxe @alexxavicry

if your name is crossed out, I couldn't tag you.

I'm going clean out my tagging list again, so if you want to stay on it, let me know.

#f1 x reader #formula one x driver!reader #formula one imagine #formula one x y/n #formula one x you #charles leclerc x leclerc!reader #arthur leclerc x leclerc!reader #f1 x y/n #f1 x you #f1 x female reader #f1 x driver!reader

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hotheadedhero · 7 months ago

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Ok question how would the tmnt bros (all 4) react to someone having a crush on them, and they confess, but the turtle rejects at time... but later on he realizes no wait I actually do like them!

But theres already been like a good month or more since the confession and their crush has been sorta avoiding them by hanging out with the other turtle bros and though still being polite, they avoid like being alone with their turtle crush and try to act like they don't have a crush still(but they do)

Sorry if I didn't write the request right! and thanks for your writing I love how you write the turtles!

Frothing at the mouth. No words. Speechless. Thank you so much anon! This request is absolutely amazing and tugged at my heart in all the good ways, you beauty. So glad you like my writing tyty <3 Apologies for the wait btw :] I might have meddled with the idea a bit depending on the turtle but I hope this is the kind of thing you were hoping for! May even make a part 2 continuation because there was just so much to write, this was really a lot of fun so thank you again :P I let fate decide which version to base this on and we got Bayverse!

Rejection, Realisation, and Regret

Warnings: bad language, grovelling turtles for their idiocy, angst with this in mind, oh these boys are some real idiots

Bay Turtles x Reader

Leonardo

Turns you down as gently as he can but it still feels like a sucker punch to the gut. It may sound calloused but he's a ninja, a mutant, a protector before anything else and that includes being someone's boyfriend. With a constructive discussion on the matter, he can only hope that you understand his position. You assured him that you did.

So, then, how is it that he barely gets a conversation in with you these days? And why does that fact burn a hole in his stomach? This pit, although metaphorical, weighs down heavily on him. Assumably, he’s missing one-on-one with a friend until it truly occurs to him just what exactly is going on. There's a lesson to be learned here, he's sure - a saying that goes around as if taken from an ancient script: you don't realise how good you have it until it's gone. You're not gone perse but you make a point of avoiding him individually. As well-mannered as you try to be, he's noticed and he's noticed the hurt in his belly that comes alongside it.

He thought things were okay, that despite the rejection, you would still be able to comfortably continue your friendship without any issues. It seems he managed even to fool himself. Being so caught up in what it means to be one of New York's self-acclaimed protectors, he was completely absentminded to the feelings that had been bubbling up inside him all along. No wonder he's been losing focus on his training as of late. He has attempted to try and talk to you about it but to no avail. Has your heart really been that broken?

For once, he doesn’t know what to do, or what decision should be made. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. Who's the one person he can turn to at a time like this? Come on. Who else would it be?

"Sensei, you know better than anyone that our position comes with complications. That we as ninjas are sworn to certain oaths.”

"Yes, the duty of yourself and your brothers is indeed a heavy burden. Responsibility comes with risk and consequence as I am sure you are well aware of by now.” Splinter watches his son bow down as he thoughtfully strokes his beard. "However, sensei, rat, master; alongside all of these things, I am foremost a father who wishes to see his sons be happy. You're in love, are you not?"

Leo’s attention quickly turns up from the floor to his master. How had he figured it out? Must be that parental instinct. Either way, he’s thankful for that in some respect. It makes this easier. Less complicated.

The turtle nods and breathes out, "I am, Sensei."

"That's what I thought." His father lays a hand over Leo’s shoulder before it taps him against the side of his head. "Now, what are you waiting for? Talking to me isn't going to change the situation."

Splinter is right. It's high time for him to get out of his funk and strategise the best way to make amends. He can only hope he isn’t too late.

Raphael

Rejects you thinking it was some sick prank curated by his youngest brother or something. There's no way you have a thing for him. He's a mutant and you're a human. How could someone actually be in love with a freak like himself? That's why he blows up in your face when you attempt to pour your heart out to him. Whatever joke you thought would be funny, isn't.

He may have taken things out of proportion. This much is made obvious enough by the poorly thought-out excuses you make just to avoid being alone with him. Yeah, that's right, he thinks. You should feel ashamed for trying to pull a stupid stunt like that, for trying to mess with him. He's standing firm on his self-assurance. Don't think for a second that he's going to lose sleep over what he said that day.

However, life has a very funny way of playing its own game. It all comes to fruition when you're laughing with the leader of the brothers. When your hand landed on his forearm, Raphael was struck with something fierce. The shot of jealousy to his heart almost takes him for a wild spin but he disregards it for typical Leo/Raph rivalry. Until that night, anyway. This man is tossing and turning in bed, ruminating on that sickly feeling in his chest; losing sleep over it. No. Surely not. He isn't in love with you. This isn't something that's been in the making for however long now. So what if you managed to calm him down quicker than anyone else he's ever known? Big whoop if you used to make a point of checking up on him when no one dared to go near him. It’s no big deal that you’d hype him up and cheer him on before each mission.

Fuck. He's been in love with you this whole time, hasn't he? Oh, you have got to be kidding. This was probably the only chance he had at something close to normal in his life and he trampled over it like it was nothing. That's assuming it was even genuinely meant from your end to begin with. He still has his doubts all things considered. Either way, he can’t just sit in bed and wallow in his head all night. He needs some air.

"What crawled up your shell and died?"

Great. He had hoped to get some peace and quiet. Not that this city knows the definition of either word but that isn’t the point.

"Not now, Jones. I ain't in the mood."

Casey's head rolls against his shoulders and he sighs, "Hey, if this is to do with (Y/n) ignoring you, what do you expect? 'Can't just make someone cry and expect things to be okay after without an apology."

Raph's mask slowly descends and hoods over his eyes, those of which are now staring down the detective.

"Oh, shit. You didn't know?"

No. No, he did not. He really made you cry? Why would you-? Ah. Two things smack him up the head at this moment: you meant every word of what you admitted a month ago and he is an absolute asshole. Despite already living in the sewers, he feels like the scum of the Earth.

That's it. No more holding back. No more being chicken. He might have ruined his chance but he can at least try and make things right by you.

Donatello

Aloof. Absolutely aloof and utterly clueless to the fact that you were even trying to admit your feelings for him. Yet, the way that the whole situation plays out makes it seem as though he had denied you. His head is usually stuck in a book or on one of the many screens that litter his quarters. What can you really expect of him? Unfortunately, this isn’t something that comes to mind nor is taken into consideration when you attempt your casual proclamation. With his eyes glued to his computer, his inattentiveness could only be read as uninterest to which you find it’s probably best to withdraw yourself.

In the weeks to come, it still doesn't even occur to him that you were confessing. The only thing that dawns on him from your weirdly abrupt absence is how strange it feels without you around. You still engage in your regular visits to the lair but are always elusive to his corner. Had he missed a memo? He can't quite place a finger on your change in behaviour. Then he realises just how much he enjoys and misses your presence. Even just how you'd pass by his little section of the lair and do something as small as asking him what he's working on. The small details should always get their chance in the spotlight but he managed to miss them when they were right there in front of him. When you were in front of him.

Subsequent to this steady progression of fluttering heart palpitations upon the thought of you and his drying throat when he tries to speak your way, he decides to take some action. At least, that’s the plan he has in his head. You hardly look his way, so he needs to find a way to gain your attention. There must be some way. With somewhat of an idea in mind, he dials a number through his computer and lets it ring.

The other side of the line picks up and there’s a voice. “If this has anything to do with goons, aliens or whatever trouble you guys have gotten yourselves into, I don’t want any part of it.”

“Relax, Vern. This is something that entirely requires your expertise without life endangerment. I need to ask about women,” Donnie confirms, cutting right to the chase.

There’s a pause. "What-?” Another longer pause and then an inhale. “Can't you just ask one of your brothers or something?"

Yeah, right, because his family of sewer dwellers are so well-equipped for this matter. Even asking for Vern's aid is pushing the boat a little but it's better than nothing - a baseline structure of what to expect is all he needs. The internet would probably be more reliable but it doesn’t include that vital real-world experience.

"You engage in frequent courting. By all accounts, you're the only person I know who has enough field experience to give advice."

This might be giving Vern too much credit but this is a surefire way to get what he wants. Feeding a man's ego can accomplish many things. Call it manipulation of the circumstances if you will but no harm done.

"You know what?” There’s a brightness in his tone, an uptilted cadence in Vern’s rhetorical question. Bingo. “You being the smart one has never been more accurate, Don. Alright, I'll help you."

The notes he takes are unfathomable but he wants to make sure that everything is thought out with careful precision. That's not even taking into account that he needs to muster the courage to ask you out in the first place.

Michelangelo

One would think that this guy would be jumping with unparalleled joy to have someone confess their feelings for him but he's got eyes for someone else. April O'Neil is his one true babycake, his angel face, the first love he had ever known. He turns you down in the friendly way one would expect him to if not a little cocky. Who wouldn't want a piece of the MC Mikey? There aren’t any hard feelings though, right?

Well, no but the sting that follows is still too much for you to handle. Too much in fact that you decide it's best to recoil into a shell of your own and spend less time with the loveable terrapin. Such a shame as well considering you're missing out on your regular gaming sessions together. It probably sucks big time to be rejected but he meant no harm by it. He thought you could still hang out as you normally would. Perhaps you just needed some time. That’s what he reckoned until the days turned to weeks and those weeks to almost two months.

He’s subjected to playing bystander when you hang out with his family, barely getting a chance to have a word with you alone. If this treatment is good for anything, it gives him a chance to spectate and watch how you interact with those around you rather than directly with him. He recognises how much he adores that sparkle in your eyes, the playfulness of your tone when you crack out jokes with his brothers, how you light up the entire lair when you make your presence known. There is this unshakable spirit within you that he somehow never noticed until a few days prior when you took the liberty of playing an incredibly bold practical joke at Casey's expense. Man, this turtle's heart sored higher than it ever has before, which is saying something considering he had to jump out of a plane once.

Well, colour him surprised. He was so sure of himself that New York's favourite journalist was the only one for him but it seems he was wrong. Oh, man. He's feeling pretty bad now. He can surely make up for what happened though, right? Hopefully. There's only one way of finding out but he has one thing he needs to do first before talking to you.

"I'm sorry, angel face. My sights have been led astray. My loyalty shouldn’t be doubted but it’s for someone else now.”

The way Mikey is knelt down, head lowered with April’s hands in his own is a perplexing sight if not curiously amusing. His feelings and the pronounced “dibs” on the reporter have been no secret but his recent infatuation with you hasn’t been much of a secret either. Not to her anyway but she likes to think she’s good at picking up on these things.

“Just know that you'll always have a special place in my heart,” he finishes, ending the overly dramatised display by holding a fist to his chest.

"Considerate as always." Her expression is somewhere between humoured and endeared, fighting the shake of her head at how adorably ridiculous this turtle can be. "Thanks, Mikey."

Now that's out of the way, he can go into this with a clear head. Although, the only thing really going into this is going to be all of his heart.

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theboombutton · 6 months ago

Text

Ok so Alex was the main writer for this casement, and obviously he knew we would latch on to incidental characters that seem a lot like Jon and Martin.

The questions I have are: first, whether it was a prank on TMA fans; and second, if it's not a prank, what he intended to convey by including them. Alex doesn't seem like the kind of guy to leave jmart fan service for its own sake; if those are truly alternate Jon and Martin, I suspect they're there for a story or setting reason.

Was it a prank?

I'm inclined to answer no. Darrien didn't just describe them, he wondered aloud while recounting his story if what happened to him also happened to them. That's not out of the question for prank red-string-bait, but the more you harp on incidental characters that seem like Jon and Martin, the more plausible it becomes that they are. People red-stringing over things that the author draws a circle around and writes "look at this!" next to isn't funny - it's just analysis.

Prank is still on the table, but it's not my preferred explanation.

If they are alternate Jon & Martin, what does their presence here imply?

One thing it probably implies is that we're dealing with more than one alternate universe here.

So far we've only had evidence of two: the Protocolverse, and Celia's home universe. We're reasonably sure that Celia's home universe is the Archiverse, because the character voiced by Lowri in TMA only took the name Celia after she lost her memories in the Eyepocalypse. And if Darrien comes from a universe where Martin worked reception at a therapist's office and Jon was a client, then he didn't come from the Archiverse. He came through from another, until-now-unknown-to-us universe.

Wild speculation ahead

Turn back now if you only want thoughts that are well-evidenced

There's also another possibility we could stack on top of the implication of a third universe. This is primarily supported by Doylist reasoning, rather than in-universe evidence.

Alex wrote ?Jon and ?Martin in close proximity to Darrien's universe shift. He brought attention to the fact that Darrien didn't recognize either of them - ?Martin being a new hire, and ?Jon being a new-enough face to be worth pondering. This would imply it was fairly likely ?Jon and ?Martin's first meeting - likely even their first time being in a room together. And Alex, through Darrien, further invited us to wonder if ?Jon and ?Martin had been pulled across universes as well.

Is it possible that the universe shift happened because of Therapyverse's Jon and Martin being in close proximity at the time?

Jon and Martin are apparently cosmically important in at least the Protocolverse, given that they manifested as two of FR3-D1's voices. What if something in the Protocolverse is pulling in Jons and Martins from other universes? It might be easier or more efficient to find or to pull them when they cross paths, and Darrien just got schlurped up with them this time.

Who would be interested in collecting alternate Jons and Martins? I can think of a few possibilities:

The Fears. They've got Jon and Martin reading case files, maybe they need more Jon & Martin to make FR3-D1 go.

The OIAR. Lena said some entities are benevolent, most aren't, and they're trying to maintain a balance. If Jon and Martin are their "benevolent entities," then maybe they think pulling additional copies into their universe's fear-space strengthens them. Maybe they're even right.

The Magnus Institute itself. It was still around at the time of Darrien's shift, given that the case is from the Institute's files. Jonah Magnus may have figured out (or found out) that Jon and Martin had something to do with his ascension in another universe, and started abducting alternate versions of them as part of his research.

Maybe Chester and Norris started talking a year ago because someone or something finally pulled enough Jons and Martins (and J2s?) into an extradimensional JMalgamation to give them the necessary power.

Maybe Darrien got spat out practically starved to death because he couldn't feed on fear, nor were there versions of himself that could that he could amalgamate with.

And who the fuck is the second J?

#tmagp spoilers #tmagp 17 #tma spoilers #tmagp #the magnus protocol #tmagp speculation #tmagp theory #tmagp theories

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muffinsin · 18 days ago

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muffin! Muffin! I just saw something interesting. Babies ears are more developed by 25-26 weeks and can hear and recognize voices and sounds especially of the parents.

And I got a request if you can, can you do the sisters talking to their unborn child that is still in the womb of their female s/o and how they react when the baby kicks when they hear the sisters voice.

Oh? That’s cool, hon! :) Absolutely🙌 :)

Let’s get into it📝

Masterlists

Bela

Bela is there throughout your pregnancy, every day, day and night

She sticks to your side, helps you through everything that has happened and all that is yet to come

She understands, this is difficult for you and will do all she can to make it easier for you

And really, she is an incredible help, easing pains and satisfying cravings within minutes

But, pregnancy is not only a discomfort

The two of you find the joy in it, too

Of course, both of you look forward to your unborn child

Sometimes, the two of you like to joke around, listing names the little one might receive when they’re ready to come out

Sometimes, your little one joins in on this

Bela giggles every time her voice causes a kick. You two figure it either means the baby loves, or hates the name she proposes

Doing this turns out to be one of your favorite activities

After all, not only does it distract you from your struggles and grants her a break from work, but it also gives you both the opportunity to bond with your little one already

Often, you’re sat up in bed or on a sofa, giggling as she caresses your stomach

“How about….Mary?”, she asks, having already decided the child’s middle name to be Alcina, should it be a girl

No kick, and both of you giggle when your lover pouts

“What abouuuut, Anna?”, she asks playfully

Feeling a kick, you write it down on a list of names the two of you have collected over the past days

“What are we thinking about…ugh, please don’t give us a kick, little one…Daniela?”, Bela asks this time, sticking true to her promise to not immediately rule the name out after her sister woke both of you up in the middle of the night, insisting it would be such a perfect name for your unborn child

You laugh, holding your stomach as a series of little kicks follows

Bela is sure; it’s just because of her voices and playful tone!

Still, you note the name down

“Let’s try Susan!”

No kick, and you quickly turn Bela’s frown into a smile when you pull her in for a kiss

You both smile, whispering gentle love confessions as the little one within your stomach kicks again

Just when she’s about to try another name, you interrupt;

“What if it’s a boy?”

Bela looks shocked for a moment, as though utterly surprised at the mention of the other gender

Ah, yes, she nearly forgot about that

Giggling, she speaks; “Daniel”

Cassandra

When thinking of this particular Dimitrescu, words such as “gentle”, “loving” and “parental” don’t quite come to mind

Alas, this is exactly what the sadistic woman is with you

After all, she does not like pain she doesn’t cause you, of course

But, more importantly, she feels so very strongly towards your unborn child already

She loves them so very much already, feels so protective of them already

She loves you and your little one more than anything else

And your little one loves hers

The sound of her voice seems familiar to them already

Each time she crackles loudly as she chases her sisters or some poor maid throughout the castle, the sound echoing loudly, your little one gives a happy kick

And every time she sleeps by your stomach, her hand and face near to protect you and the baby in all cases, and small purr-like sounds come from her, the baby is blissfully calm

Almost as if they recognize their mother and feel equally calmed by the sound

When you tell Cassandra about this, she immediately takes the opportunity to spend time with you and your unborn child

Often, you need to remind her not to share battle stories

You doubt the small thing can even understand words- in fact are sure of it- but with Cassandra’s DNA…you don’t want to risk it

The two of you also uncover another thing, though:

Cassandra’s voice not only alerts the baby, but calms it, too

Often, the little one will be kicking wildly just around bedtime

It’s frustrating, somewhat painful and annoying when you’re just in need of sleep

Cassandra gets by your side immediately, stroking your hair and stomach, trying to calm the little one down

She speaks calmly, whispers gently as she talks

And it helps

The little one, despite being unable to make out what she says, quiets down at her voice and calm, quiet tone

She jokingly calls herself the baby-whisperer

Daniela

Loving as she is as a partner, you knew she would be just as sweet with your little one

Even in the womb, Daniela already is head over heels in love with the little one

She knows, she will love and care for them forever and protect them for eternity

The first time the two of you find out the baby recognizes her voice, both of you are blown away

You feel so tired, resting in bed, clutching your stomach and whining at the little kicks happening just about every time you close your eyes

You’re at your limit, it seems, whining and groaning

You’re so tired…

You smile exhaustedly as Daniela slips in bed with you, stroking along your bare stomach lovingly

“Hey, little one”, she whispers quietly

“Why don’t we let mama have some rest? Or else she’ll take it out on me”, she adds, giggling when you smack the back of her head playfully

To your surprise though, the sounds of her giggles has the little one kick

“Oh? You like that?”, Daniela coos, giggling more as more kicks follow

“You like when mama smacks me around?”, she gasps playfully, giggling when another kick comes

The two are so precious, you feel as your eyes water already

You love them so incredibly much

“I think they got that from their aunt Cassie”, Daniela whispers, giggling when another kick comes

You feel her adjust your position, allowing you to lay down comfortably

“Now, why don’t we let mama get some rest, you little stinker?”

A last kick, no more follow when Daniela stops talking

She curls up by your side instead, stroking your stomach until you fall asleep

Not wanting to draw another kick from the little one, she stays quiet

Instead, her fingertip trails against your stomach, lightly drawing out a shape

A shape of a little heart

#cassandra dimitrescu #bela dimitrescu #daniela dimitrescu #dani go brr in my head

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cosyvelvetorchid · 4 months ago

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We get so much JealousBuck, but I'd like a little JealousTommy. I feel like Tommy would be more threatened by women flirting with Buck, maybe make him question if Buck might not go back to exclusively dating women because it's "easier" and more socially acceptable.

I'm not gonna lie to you - I made myself cry with this one. Thank you for the prompt, I really enjoyed writing this. 🩶

*****

"We can't keep having this same conversation, Tommy." Buck said, exasperated. "Men and women flirt with you all the damn time and I don't freak out about it."

"That's different." Tommy argued.

"Why, because you've always known who you were and I didn't?" Buck argued back.

"No. Yes. I.." Tommy didn't know how to answer that. It was, admittedly, partly because of Bucks' lack of experience with men. He was so quick to date a man he could, conceivably, be quick to go back to dating a woman. It would be the easier choice. Certainly, the most familiar to him. But it wasn't just that - Tommy was falling for Evan, and it scared the shit out of him. There was only a tiny sliver of his heart left to open up, and when it did, there would be no going back. "You've said it yourself how impulsive you can be - how do you know that you won't meet another woman and jump into that like you did with me?"

Buck looked at him dumbfounded. How could Tommy even say that to him? Bucks argumentative voice softened.

"How could you even think that?" He asked, his big blue emotion filled eyes looking back at Tommy. A vine of guilt was slithering its tendril around Tommys stomach and squeezing tightly. "I don't know how many times I have to tell you that I am with you and want to be with you, before you believe me."

"I do believe you." Tommy insisted. "I believe that you believe it. But you don't know how you'll feel in a month. Six months, a year from now."

"Yes I do." Buck said firmly.

"How? How could you possibly know that?"

"Because I trust me. I trust myself. I guess you need to decide if you trust me too." Buck told him. He slowly walked out of Tommy's kitchen and out the front door. Tommy slumped into a seat at the island and put his head in his hands.

***

Tommy parked the car at the station and tentatively walked inside. Chim was the first person to see him.

"Hey, Tommy. What are you doing here?"

"Is Evan here?" He asked looking around.

"Uh, no. I thought you were supposed to be going out tonight."

"Is Eddie here?"

"Upstairs. Is everything al-" Tommy didn't wait for Chim to finish his sentence and immediately made his way upstairs.

"Tommy. You here with Buck? I thought you had a date night?" Eddie asked as Tommy walked into the kitchen. Clearly, Buck hadn't told him about their fight. Good.

"Can we talk?" He gestured with his head to the sofas at the other end of the living area.

"Uh, sure. Everything okay?" He asked as they sat down.

"Evan and I had a fight." He told him.

"Okay. Uh, I feel like I need to remind you that I'm his best friend. I mean, you can talk to me, obviously, but I'm not sure how he would feel about that."

"I know you're his best friend, Eddie, which is why I've come to you. I figured if I'm the asshole here, you'd be the person who told me."

"Fair point. So what happened?" Eddie asked. Tommy explained everything about the women flirting with Buck at the bar they were at and the fight they had afterwards. Eddie was quiet for a moment as he absorbed all the information.

"Well, I think it's quite simple." He explained. "The question you need to ask yourself isn't 'will Buck go back to dating women?', it's 'do you trust him when he tells you you're the one he wants to be with?'. Because if the answer is no, from my perspective.. Buck isn't the problem. The call seems to be coming from inside the house, Bud."

Tommy thought about Eddie's words for a moment before sighing and letting his body fall back into the couch. He was right. Tommy needed to decide if he trusted Evan enough to know what he wanted.

***

He sat in his car outside Evans, building for almost an hour before finally going inside. As he approached Evans door, he still had no clue what he was going to say. He just hoped that seeing him in front of him would help him figure that out. He took out the key that Evan had given him a few weeks ago as they hit six months together and unlocked the door. Evan was leaning against the island facing the door. Tommy wondered if he'd been waiting there for the last few hours for him to walk in.

"Hey." He said quietly and closed the door behind him. "Evan i-"

"Stop." He held up his hand and took a few steps forward, stopping a few feet in front of Tommy. "I need to say something be-before I lose the courage." He took a deep breath. Tommy nodded, giving him the go-ahead.

"I know that us dating was a big leap of faith. For both of us. You've been hurt by guys who couldn't, or wouldn't, come out of the closet, and obviously, I've never dated a guy before. It was a risk. For both of us. And i know I walked into this not really knowing what I was ready for. But-but i took that risk because i wanted to. And-and there has not been a moment, not a single second, that I have regretted that decision. I will take that risk every day to be with you because.. because I love you, Tommy. And I know it sounds stupid, but, I think.. I feel like.. like a part of me loved you before I even knew you existed."

It was the single, most beautiful thing Tommy had ever heard. A giant, thick surge of emotion shot from his heart and lodged itself in his throat, catching his breath on the way. Water filled up his eyes, and he swallowed, trying to still himself.

"You are not the first guy on a list of guys I'm going to date, Tommy. You.. you're it for me. And yeah, I know, everyone will probably say that I'm just being the same old Buck, all reckless and impulsive, and it'll probably blow up in my face, but I don't care. I would risk that happening every day for the rest of my life if it meant I got to spend one more moment with you."

Never, in his 40 years on earth, had anybody ever made Tommy feel the way he was feeling right now. Every fear he had about this relationship, every insecurity melted away. Evans face - his gorgeous and open and earnest face - looking at him was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He had walked into Evans's apartment, not knowing how he felt or what he wanted to say. But now he did. Now, his feelings were crystal clear. And nothing in the world was going to stop the next words from coming out of his mouth.

"Marry me."

Bucks eyes open wide in unison with his mouth.

"T-tommy.. I wasn't.. that's.. " Buck was stumbling over his words more than he ever usually did. Tommy stepped forward, taking his hands in his.

"Evan, I know this seems like I'm being.. Well, being all 'Buck'.. but.." He took a breath "..and I'm not saying we should get married anytime soon - I'd wait 10 years if it's what you wanted. It's not about when we do it, it's about just how much I fucking love you, and how it would make me so God damn happy to know that you want to be my husband." Evans eyes were beginning to fill up now. His hands were shaking in Tommy's, who held them tighter.

"I was an idiot, and I am so, so sorry, Evan. What I was thinking and feeling before was entirely because of my own fear. My own stupid insecurities. I never in a million years thought I would ever find someone like you. Someone who is so beautiful inside and out, someone who makes me feel like I'm worth something. That I'm something precious that you have and -" The tears he was trying so hard to hold on finally fell down his cheeks. "-and I want to spend every second of the rest of my life making you feel as precious as you make me feel."

"I... you're right -" Evan said after composing himself. "You are being all 'me'. Proposing after barely being together for 6 months is definitely impulsive and reckless." He said, wiping the tears from his cheeks. "Would it also be impulsive and reckless if I said yes?"

Tommy felt like someone had lit fireworks in the centre of his chest. Those illegal ones that are far too big and dangerous. The ones you know could blow up, taking your limbs with them, but you buy them anyway because they're so beautiful they're worth the risk.

"Really?" He held Evans face in his hands. Tears were still caressing Tommys cheeks, but he didn't care to wipe them away. He'd happily look at Evan through wet lashes forever.

"Yes." Evan replied. Tommy pulled him forward, hard, crashing their lips together. They both whimpered at the force. Tommy wrapped his arms around Evans neck and held him as tight as he could, as though if he let go, Evan would somehow disappear like smoke into thin air. Evan pushed his face into Tommy's neck and sighed with such contentment he thought he'd float away. They stayed like that, in the middle of his kitchen, for a while.

"Evan Kinard. I like the sound of that." He spoke into Tommy's neck.

"Me too."

#tommy kinard #911 abc #bucktommy #911onabc #911 #buck x tommy #911 buck #evan buckley #evan buck buckely #bucktommy prompt #bucktommy fic #911 prompt #cvo prompts

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coffeeghoulie · 3 months ago

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Hiiii!! I love all of your fics, especially the way you write Swiss 😌😌😌

If you want to, could I ask for some fluffy Swiss content, just literally anything where he gets some kind of comfort lols!

Hell yeah, fluffy Swiss content. This does have a little bit of my personal lore for him that he doesn't go by Swiss until most of the way through his first tour, but that gets resolved fairly quickly.

About 1.4k of Aether and Mountain putting together Swiss's first summoning day present.

divider by @ghuleh-recs <3

The new multi-ghoul isn't as slick as he thinks he is, Aether notes. He sees the way his eyes trail when they pass by the jewelry stores on the off days spent exploring. How he locks on longingly at the delicate gold earrings and cuffs, shakes his head and moves on.

Aether pulls Mountain aside halfway through the tour, the Cardinal discussing something animatedly with the multi-ghoul.

"Do you see it, Mount?" Aether says, voice not quite a whisper. Mountain hums as he glances up from his book, shifting in his seat next to him. "Multi keeps looking like he wants them, but he never gets any."

"Right. He's not adorned, though I've seen he has the piercings for it," the earth ghoul says. He nudges one of his antlers against Aether's pronged horn. "I mean, Frit's pierced six ways to Sunday and he wears a couple rings in his braid. And if he came through a fire portal and survived, Multi might be the same way. Might be a fire ghoul thing."

"Wonder what happened to his jewelry, then," Aether says, not glancing up. From where he's talking to the Cardinal, he looks back at the two of them, gold eyes glinting. "He'd look good in it. Gold would be a good color on him."

Mountain agrees with a low hum. "I will keep it in mind. You want me to get the others involved?"

"Ooh, good idea. Keep it on the down low, though. I don't know how Multi'll react if we just. Spring this on him, you know?"

"Absolutely," Mountain agrees, turning a page with a rustle.

They spread the message to the others, Cirrus and Cumulus turning to each other with delighted grins, Rain and Dew nodding at each other, determined. It's slow going as to not arouse suspicion, but one by one, each ghoul slips aside to buy jewelry, various charms and rings, all in gold.

During that time, the multi-ghoul comes to the rest of the pack, a little skittish and completely out of character. "Figured it out," he breathes, scuffing his spat-covered shoe against the carpet of a green room in some venue. "I heard some of the humans calling me something and I want it to be mine. My name's Swiss."

Aether grins, grabs his shoulder kindly. "It's very nice to meet you, Swiss. Welcome to the pack again."

Swiss smiles, that blinding thing that has the full force of the sun behind it. The tour gets easier, now that he's coming into himself, exponentially more confident Up Top. But he still stares longingly when he thinks the rest of the ghouls aren't looking. Aether and Mountain share a knowing glance, knocking their shoulders together.

The tour ends a few days from the first anniversary of Swiss's summoning. Aether slips into each ghoul's room, cautiously collecting each offering. But even with his caution, the Cardinal pulls him aside.

"I hear you are collecting jewelry, eh?" Copia says, mismatched eyes scanning over Aether's face.

"Yes, Cardinal," Aether says, brow furrowing slightly. "For Swiss."

Copia nods and reaches into a pocket he didn't notice in his cassock. When he pulls his hand out, there's the glint of gold in the palm of his leather gloved-hand. "I would like to add to your collection. My own sort of welcome, si?"

Aether swallows, smiling. "Thank you, Cardinal."

"Ah, don't mention it," he grins, a little sheepishly. "Cannot have him think I am leaving him out, no?"

"Never," Aether says, reaching out to accept the earrings from him. As he gets a better look, his breath hitches at the sight of two delicately wrought gold grucifixes on French hooks, a tiny, sparkling ruby in the center of each inverted cross. "Cardinal. Thank you."

Aether makes sure he catches Swiss alone on his summoning day after dinner. Mountain's made a cake, and Dew had lit the candle in the center. The flame had glinted in his eyes, reflecting the glee there as he glanced throughout the pack, grinning.

Aether takes Swiss by the bicep as he heads out of the kitchen, Rain shooing him away from the dishes. He's gentle, knowing that Swiss is still a little bit jumpy and prone to snapping. But as it stands, Swiss just turns to face him with a question in his expression.

"We have something for you, Swiss," he says, voice low and even as he leads the multi ghoul to the common room. "The entire pack's been working on this for months, but don't feel that you have to accept it, okay?"

Swiss makes a questioning noise in the back of his throat as he lets himself be led by the bigger ghoul. Aether sits them both on one of the loveseats, opening the drawer on the end table and pulling out a package wrapped in tissue paper. He hands it to Swiss.

"For me?"

"Yes," Aether says. "We all pitched in for a summoning day gift."

Swiss takes a deep breath, trying to subtly rub his eye before he starts to unwrap it. The gold glints in his lap, and he covers his mouth with a big hand as he takes it in. "You- you got me-?" He can't finish his sentence.

Aether carefully sets his hand between Swiss's shoulderblades. "We noticed your piercings, and how you didn't wear any jewelry in them. The fire ghoul who used to be in our pack, Ifrit, wore a lot in the Prince's name. And since we know you came through a fire portal, we thought you might like some adornment."

"I- I'm not-" Swiss looks up, and Aether feels a horrified pit sink into his stomach at the distraught look on his face. His gold eyes are wet and red-rimmed. "I haven't- I haven't worn adornment for Him in- since my-" He cuts himself off, and Aether knows better than to push.

"You don't have to for our sake, though," Aether assures.

"No!" Swiss says, a little louder than he must mean, because he shrinks back a little bit. "I mean. I want to. Makes me a part of the pack officially. And if I'm serving Him, I may as well look it."

Aether smiles kindly, hand rubbing a small circle over his spine. "May I?" Aether asks, reaching for the pile of jewelry in his lap. Swiss nods and passes it over before sliding off of the loveseat. He sits himself between Aether's spread thighs.

He winds a cuff decorated like sprawling leaves and vines around one of his locs, threads a golden cloud charm through the end of another. A pair of studs shaped like suns go through a set of piercings in his cartilage, and the teardrop shaped ones go through the holes next to them. Aether shows him each piece, letting him decide if and where he wants it. Slowly, Aether adorns him with every piece of jewelry the pack had squirreled away, hoops and studs and dangling charms in elemental symbols and sigils, all glinting gold against his warm gray skin and dark hair.

All that's left are the grucifixes, and Aether gently shows them to Swiss, the inset rubies glinting in the warm lamplight. There's a long silence, and Aether worries that he might have offended him in some way.

"Yes," Swiss breathes. He tenses a moment before craning his neck to look up at Aether over his shoulder. "Actually, will you let me put them in?"

"Of course." He carefully puts the earrings into Swiss's palm. Aether pretends he can't hear as Swiss starts to whisper to himself as he threads each earring into the lowest piercing on each lobe. Tone quiet, reverent. His own soft prayer to the Prince Below.

It takes a moment, but Swiss eventually takes a deep breath and looks up. "Show me what it looks like?" he asks hopefully.

Aether stands and pulls Swiss to his feet. The two of them head to one of their bathrooms, and Swiss grins in the mirror over the sink. Aether's only known him for a year, and this is the first time he's seen him wearing jewelry, but he knows.

Aether smiles back at him. Swiss looks more like himself than he ever has.

#scheduled for when i'm out of town #i've been working a lot on my swiss lore. there's going to be a full length fic about it but idk when that will be done #but gold is his color and i will die on that hill #dot's writing #the band ghost #the band ghost fanfiction #swiss ghoul #mountain ghoul #aether ghoul

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steddieas-shegoes · 4 months ago

Text

homework

for @corrodedcoffinfest prompt 'let's talk about that'

rated t | 990 words | no cw | tags: therapy, gareth pov, personal growth, self-discovery

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Gareth hates therapy.

Okay, hate might be a strong word.

He dislikes it strongly and wishes he could just write in a journal or something.

“Let’s talk about that some more,” the therapist, Jessica, smiled encouragingly.

“Talk about what?” He genuinely has no clue what she wants to hear more about.

“Your need for validation from your bandmates.”

Oh. That.

He wouldn’t really call it a need. He just doesn’t ever do anything that they’d dislike him doing. Even if it would make him happy.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You mentioned that sometimes you have ideas for songs, but you know one of them won’t like it, so you don’t suggest it. Why don’t you give it a try even if they don’t like it?” She clarified.

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

“Because Jeff and Eddie basically run the band. They come up with most of the shit we do, I just add the drums,” he explained. “It’s worked that way this long, why disrupt the flow?”

“Do they tell you not to give your opinion?”

“Of course not. They always ask what I think.”

“And you choose to not give them honesty.”

“I…”

He didn’t realize that’s what was happening. And he hates that it took a therapist to figure it out.

“I’m not lying to them!” He rushed to say.

“Maybe not. But you’re not being completely truthful, either. Do you think they’d be upset if they knew that you were holding back to maintain the peace?”

Gareth hates therapy.

If Steve hadn’t insisted they all go twice a month, he wouldn’t even be here. If Sam hadn’t backed Steve up, a knowing smirk on his face when Gareth and Frankie argued they didn’t need therapy, he would be sitting on his couch or behind his drums.

“I guess there’s a chance they would be a little upset,” he finally admitted. “But not nearly as upset as if I disagreed with them and we argued.”

“How do you know a disagreement would lead to an argument?”

“Because all disagreements lead to arguments. Arguments lead to fights and silence and cold shoulders. Cold shoulders lead to people not wanting to be around each other anymore.”

Damn, Jessica was fucking good at her job. He didn’t even mean to say all that.

He didn’t even know he felt all that.

“Is this a pattern you’ve experienced before?” She set her notepad aside, all attention on him.

“I guess, yeah. My parents. My older brother and my dad. My grandparents and my mom. My first best friend.” He shrugged. “Just easier to go along with things. It’s not like I’m not happy.”

“Settling and being happy are two different things.”

“I am happy. Really.”

He is. He’s never been happier, actually. He gets to do the coolest job in the world with his best friends, he has a boyfriend he loves more than anything, and he gets to drink his favorite coffee every morning. Life is great.

“Do you think that happiness stems from the peace you’ve forced yourself to accept or from being content in your life?” Jessica leaned forward.

“Do you do this with everyone? Is this magic?” He asked, suddenly having the overwhelming urge to cry or run or both.

She laughed. “No, it’s not magic. It’s just understanding my people. You don’t give me much to work with, but sometimes something sticks out and I can run with it.”

“Seems like magic.” He sighs. There’s no way out of this conversation. “What am I supposed to do? Cause problems until no one wants me in the band anymore?”

“No. Do you want actual advice or do you wanna try to figure it out yourself?” She leaned back in her chair. “I’m pretty sure you won’t like my advice.”

“I don’t like most of what you say.”

“Fair enough.” She smiles. “I think you should try being honest next time there’s something you have a different opinion on. No one is going to hate you or want you out of the band. They value your opinion or they wouldn’t have you there to begin with.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Not necessarily. It’s only as hard as you make it.” She makes a note in the planner next to her. “I’m expecting you to give me at least one example of doing this by our next session.”

“Homework? I’m busy enough!” Gareth didn’t want this to get in the way of tour prep. They were starting rehearsals next week and had a few last minute adjustments to make on their album before the tour started.

“And it’s the perfect time to speak up,” she raised a brow, daring him to continue arguing. When he didn’t, she spoke again. “I’m not expecting you to do it all overnight. Just once.”

“Fine.”

****

The first rehearsal was a shit show. It always is, but everyone’s nerves were shot today after barely sleeping and a flight delay keeping two of the tech managers unavailable for an extra few hours.

Frankie snapped on him earlier, but he walked away. That wasn’t the time to follow Jessica’s advice.

Eddie stormed from the room a few minutes ago, said he needed a break to call Steve. He’d been arguing with his guitar tech over which of his five guitars to use for a song.

Gareth started to speak up to give his opinion, but Eddie was already too frustrated.

See, Jessica? This is why you should stay quiet.

But Eddie came back a few minutes later and asked Gareth what he thought.

“The one you use for Blue Night is probably what you should use for Invade. Sounds are similar enough for those songs,” he said without thinking.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Eddie agreed, knocking his shoulder against Gareth’s. “Thanks, man.”

“Dunno why he listens to you and not me,” the guitar tech grumbled.

Gareth smiled.

Okay, Jessica. Maybe you were right this time.

#corroded coffin #corrodedcoffinfest #gareth stranger things #eddie munson #jeff stranger things #unnamed freak stranger things

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so-mordor-itis · 2 years ago

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Through Her Eyes

Synopsis: Ada observes you and Leon as you trek through the village and castle of Los Illuminados, only to realize he wasn't her little loyal pup anymore.

A/N: I wanted to try something different! I saw a lot of people writing jealous reader or jealous Leon, but I was like "No one has done an Ada POV yet, I could give it a shot. I might do a part 2 with the rest of the game if you guys would like!

Read the sequel here!

Taglist:

@izuniias , @spookluckpuck , @uhlunaro , @inaflashimagine , @amatxs , @aussiepineapple1st , @honeysoakedbandages , @boundinparchment , @tosuckmyweenis , @airanke

It was interesting, watching you two communicate. Leon had this way of shrugging his shoulders whenever he spoke, sometimes tossing his arms into the air to somehow solidify his point. You, on the other hand, were a bit carefree with your body language, Ada noticed. Quite the opposite to your companion. Perhaps it was because you were more comfortable with him, maybe you have worked with him for a longer time than she estimated. You two were discussing a plan, but Ada couldn’t get the absolute details. If she did, she would’ve most likely been seen–at least heard. The environment was rough and rocky, full of sticks and branches that easily could be broken or snagged against her outfit. She knew better.

Though she did catch a brief moment with you two when she was forced to get closer–she had grabbed her binoculars to observe some of the villagers ahead, they were carrying pitchforks and axes, glancing around like mindless dogs. How cute, such obedient little pups.

“We could split up, maybe we’d find Ashley easier that way.” You suggested, maybe adding a shrug of your own shoulders.

“No, I don’t think splitting up would be the best idea,” Leon said instantly. Ada felt her chest coil at the sound of his voice. It was deeper now, more scratchy, rugged. He had definitely seen more than what he was forced to at Raccoon City. She figured that would be the case, now being the President’s little weapon, being kept under his nose for his every beck and call. Wesker made sure to do some research on him, in case he would be a nuisance in the process of delivering the amber. You, on the other hand, were a new, unexpected addition. Perhaps another lackey the President kept hidden. But Ada couldn’t help wondering why only two people? The President’s daughter was taken here, wasn’t she? She would’ve thought Daddy would come to collect his little girl as soon as he could with an army of men at the ready. Or, he’s truly that worried for his image and was desperate to keep this under wraps because of what was at this location.

“Stuck to me like glue, huh?” You quipped. Ada heard Leon scoff, the sound of a gun being reloaded echoed throughout the area.

“I’d rather you be here than in the dirt somewhere I can’t see.” Protective, she noted. Interesting. You two must’ve been friends, at least. Then again, what did she know? He could’ve been like this with a lot of people. He definitely had a habit of being friendly, of asking questions.

“Hunnigan said the path to the lake was beyond a windmill, right? Then I guess that’s our destination.”

Ada cursed under her breath before launching herself off the roof of one of the houses. She would’ve been out in the open, easily spotted. She hunched over a barrel, checking her own guns. A few bullets had been used earlier when she rang the church bell. She didn’t know what compelled her to come back to the village area, but she found herself here, observing. Too late to complain now, the damage was done. She would book it for a different direction the moment you two were out of sight.

She poked her head out slightly, watching as your shadows came into view and then your figures. She had stopped paying attention to what you two were talking about, that wasn’t in her job description. Though she couldn’t help eyeing Leon for a second longer. His physique had certainly changed, too. He had more muscle, his eyes were tired, small gray circles under them. You were trailing behind him, holding your pistol with a tight grip. Ada noticed your eyes darting back and forth, now extremely cautious. From what she could note, you were the observer type and she had to be extra alert for anything that could cause a sound.

“Wait,” you said, stopping in your tracks. “There’s a path up ahead.” You started trekking towards it, footsteps were heavy with movement. You were in a hurry. Leon seemed to be startled slightly but quickly followed suit. Ada felt a smirk forming on her lips. He was following you so fast, like a lost puppy, just as he did with her. You had him wrapped around your finger and didn’t even realize it. Ada was convinced if Leon had a tail, it would surely be wagging. He was under your spell.

“Still a good boy, huh Leon?” Ada murmured to herself.

–

After saving Leon from nearly being crushed to death by a taller man–Luis called him the ‘big cheese’ of the village–Ada had lost track of you two by the time night fell across the village. This was good. It allowed her to carry through with the delivery of the amber with no trouble. No more distractions.

At least, until Luis found himself caught in between two messes.

From a rock, Ada discovered what seemed to be a battle for survival in a nearby, abandoned house. She noticed your figure and then Leon’s, and then her little carrier pigeon. You three were scrambling around one another, fighting off Gnado after Gnado, scraping by with the skin of your teeth. Ah, she would’ve helped, surely, but she had bigger priorities. She knew Luis could handle himself and if it truly was time for her to rescue someone she’d do what she needed to. She had at least one grenade she could spare if she truly had to.

It wasn’t necessary, you three pulled through somehow. Ada had told Leon he had some unique version of dumb luck, and it seemed it still carried through.

Luis found her later, desperate to catch his breath. She reminded him of the deal, of the amber. He was annoyed, clearly, but he knew what he had to do.

Once Ada arrived at the castle, she started to notice some little attributes of you and Leon. The both of you were a good team–you have saved him countless times, pulling him towards you when an axe was about to slice his throat, shooting over his shoulder when he couldn’t see an enemy. Ada had to admit you were skilled, and it was no wonder you two were there to protect little Miss Graham. The girl was petrified of the whole thing. She reminded Ada of a doe-eyed lamb, sheltered from the dangers of the world until only recently.

Before Ada encountered Leon in the castle, she had accidentally found you two–not three, the girl must’ve been taken away, the two of you probably running yourselves ragged trying to retrieve her again. Ada quickly hid in a spot she knew she wouldn’t be found. You had requested Leon stop for a second, sliding down the wall of a hallway to catch your breath.

“You alright?” Leon asked softly.

“Just peachy,” you snapped, gritting your teeth once first aid spray hit raw skin. You had an open wound, skin sliced open, red flowing to the floor. “Sorry, it just hurts like hell.”

“No, I get it,” Leon said he didn’t have much on him but guns and some herbs, but Ada watched as he grabbed a tablecloth from one of the stands. “Surely they wouldn’t mind if we borrow this?”

You looked at him with big eyes full of gentleness and wonder, of awe and inspiration, the same way he had to her, and she realized that it wasn’t just Leon that was under a spell. Though you immediately hardened your gaze when you realized he was now looking at you.

“There, that should hold you. For a while, I’d hope. Wouldn’t want you to bleed on their fancy carpet.”

“Oh, the horror.” You feigned concern.

Did you two even realize you were flirting? Did you even realize that when you were scourging through your bag, Leon had a softer look on his face? Was watching you with such intent, with such curiosity?

Ada sighed, loading her pistol. She wouldn’t be able to drag him with her this time, but that was fine.

She could find some other way.

#resident evil x reader #resident evil 4 #resident evil imagines #resident evil #resident evil 4 remake #leon kennedy resident evil #leon kennedy imagines #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy #leon x y/n #leon x you #ada wong #ada wong resident evil

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sen-ya · 6 months ago

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part 4/7

the lil law bein held by luffy is v important to me

[op comic masterpost]

[pg1] Panel 1: Law: ...

Panel 2: Law: ...Bepo knows. Luffy: Penguin and Shachi too I assume? Law: They better not. I swore Bepo to secrecy. He only knows cuz he's the one who figured it out. Luffy: Got it

Panel 3: Luffy: So you wanna start with the pros or cons? Law: Pfft, you know. Luffy: Okay. I don't think it would make you feel very good. Law: I'm already sick all the damn time. Luffy: You know what I mean Law [talking over Luffy]: I know what you mean.

Panel 4: Luffy: We sail on different ships Law: I don't know obstetrics Luffy: My family doesn't have a great dad track record Law: Most of my crew doesn't know that I'm trans, so I'd have to come out Law: We're pirates Luffy: You can't count that, there's already kids on my ship Law: Fine Law: We can't make our crews stay together just because we want to. Law: People might think my crew is under yours and that would not go well. Luffy: So if we wanted to stay together we'd probably have to leave for awhile like Usopp did. Law: What if she's got white lead disease?

Panel 5: Luffy: You already cured tha-- wait did you say she? Law: Oops. Luffy: Oops? Why oops? Law: Listen, I needed all of the available information. Luffy: Any more to share? Law: Um. It's been about 12 weeks. Luffy: Since what? Law: Okay nevermind I have no more information that will mean anything to you.

Panel 6: Luffy: ...Why does that make it different? Law: ...I don't know, but it happened to me too. Not that it means it's a girl. But assigning a pronoun...I think I've gone soft. Wouldn't have meant anything a decade ago.

[pg2] Panel 7: Luffy: Me too. I think this'll be easier if we just say 'it.' Law: You're right. But I tried. And even when I do, when I close my eyes I just see this kid that looks like you.

Panel 8: Luffy & Law: ...

Panel 9: Luffy: Fuck Law: I know Luffy: You can't just say shit like that. Law: I'm sorry.

Panel 10: Luffy: Well now we know it's an option. We could always plan for it later. Law: But it also could be a fluke. Honestly with all the shit I do to my body it's a wonder she made it so far without me knowing. Luffy: It's cuz she's mine.

Panel 11: Law: Fuck Luffy: That was supposed to be an inside thought Law: You don't have those. This is a terrible idea. Luffy: I agree Law: So we agree we shouldn't do this.

Panel 12: Law & Luffy: ...

[pg3] Panel 13: Luffy: Everyone expects us to be docked here for a week. So I don't think we have to decide right now.

Panel 14: Law: Yeah. Yeah good point. Law: And if I can just use the Sunny's library...I'm sure Kaya's got some books in there that would...offer perspective.

Panel 15: Luffy: And we can keep thinking of pros and cons!

Panel 16: Law: And at the end of the week we can both write down what we think we should do Law: and we can compare answers.

Panel 17: Luffy: It's a plan! Law: It's a plan.

#my art #lawlu #law x luffy #luffy x law #lulaw #cw dysphoria #cw unplanned pregnancy #cw implied discussion of abortion

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gleamingyu · 1 year ago

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hits different.

part I of the midnights series. inspired by taylor swift’s midnights. part II

pairing: music-producer!seungcheol x lawyer!fem!reader [exes-to-lovers]

genre: romance. slight angst. drama.

warnings: she/her pronouns for reader (but no specific physical characteristics). mentions of a pretty rough breakup. slight angst. some light cursing. mentions of death (jokingly though). terrible knowledge of law stuff (thank my brief interest in htgawm). yearning. loads of miscommunication. slow burn. cheol & reader are both stubborn. mentions of drinking. alternating povs. lower caps intended [if there’s anything i missed, please let me know!]

word count: 4.7k

notes: this is the first part of a new series i thought of! this is also my first time writing (or more like, finishing writing) something, so please be kind! any comments, reblogs or likes are welcome. and thank you to whoever decides to give this a chance :)

summary: still recovering from a not-so-fresh breakup, seungcheol leans on his friends to get back on his feet. it turns out to be much easier said than done, especially when his record label recruits the help of a law firm to deal with a recent scandal, which just so happens to be the same firm his ex works at. just his luck.

if anyone could see the scene in front of mingyu, they’d be severely concerned, much like he is at this very moment.

seungcheol is quite literally buried under a pile of blankets on his bed, the only visible part of his body a tuft of his dark brown hair. the floor of his bedroom is covered in clothes and empty food containers, and the air feels so stale and hot, it’s taking everything in mingyu not to gag. there is no light coming into the room except from the lightbulb shining in the hallway where mingyu is standing, and… is that… phoebe bridgers he can hear playing from somewhere?

mingyu glances down at his feet where kkuma, seungcheol’s devoted dog – and only girl who’s ever truly loved him, according to him – is sitting staring right back at him, a look on her fluffy face that mingyu swears looks just as depressed as her dad.

“this is way worse than i thought,” mingyu sighs, finally stepping into the bedroom. “okay, enough of this!”

mingyu grabs the blankets on the bed and pulls them away, revealing a very aggravated seungcheol. “what the hell are you doing?!”

“i’m not sure yet, because this,” mingyu gestures around the room, “is a lot. but it starts with you getting your ass out of bed and into the shower. immediately. this place smells like there’s a corpse somewhere in here.”

“yeah, it’s me. i’m the corpse. or i wish i was, because that would mean i’ve finally died,” seungcheol groans, turning away from mingyu and effectively shoving his face into the bed.

mingyu sighs, turning around to start collecting some of the dirty clothes on the floor. he finds himself regretting not calling jeonghan or joshua to come with him, because seungcheol might have been more easily persuaded to stop moping with them around. the reality is, they all thought seungcheol was doing better; he was back on his grind at work, finishing several albums he had been producing for, he was making progress in his jiu-jitsu classes, and he even joined the rest of the guys on their trip to australia last month, with minimal persuasion from his friends.

looking at the shell of a man laying on the bed in front of him, mingyu realizes he should’ve asked. he should’ve asked his friend how he was really doing, what he was feeling, what he could actually do to help him move past this.

better late than never.

“listen,” mingyu starts, going to sit on the edge of seungcheol’s bed but reconsidering. who knows when he last changed these. “i’m sorry if we haven’t really been there for you. i know a thing or two about breakups and heartbreak, so i guess i should’ve figured you weren’t alright, not like you said you were. you don’t have to keep all you’re feeling locked up. you can talk to us.”

seungcheol’s head moves slightly to the side, peeking at mingyu from the corner of his eye. he sighs, and turns on his back. mingyu tries not to cringe at seungcheol’s sullen face, his eyes red and still wet, as if he was still crying when mingyu arrived at his apartment.

“don’t beat yourself up, gyu. believe it or not, i was actually doing better. but a few days ago, i … i was cleaning around the closet by the entrance and …” he pauses, and mingyu thinks he might burst into tears. seungcheol breathes in however, closes his eyes, and continues. “i found one of her old hats. you know, the yellow crochet bucket hat she always used to wear in the summer? i bought it for her birthday when we had just started dating and … i don’t know, i just broke down. it hit me again that we’re over. like really.”

you and seungcheol broke up … four, five months ago? seungcheol shakes his head, he feels like time hasn’t passed the same since. days pass him by where he just goes over and over your last conversation – which was more of a fight, really – and he always ends up regretting everything he said that day. regrets resenting you for always working late, for never asking him to accompany you to firm events… regrets accusing you of some unspeakable things.

looking back, he can’t believe how big of an idiot he was. no wonder you left and didn’t even bother to come back to get your things. you left everything behind, all your clothes that still smelled of the lavender detergent you used to buy, your makeup haphazardly thrown into one of the bathroom drawers, the cooking books you always bought “for inspiration” but never, ever actually opened… and the yellow bucket hat you got from seungcheol for the first birthday you spent together. seungcheol had left everything where it was, a tiny part of him hoping you two would work this out somehow. but weeks went by with no word from you, and when he had tried reaching you, he came to the grave conclusion that you had blocked him on all platforms, cut him off from your life like a dead limb. back then he thought he deserved it. he still does.

“i’m sorry, hyung. i really am,” mingyu shakes seungcheol from his reverie, reaching a hand to pet his shoulder. a beat passes between them. “have you tried… calling her again since?”

“no. i don’t know what good it would do,” seungcheol sighs. “even if she answered, i doubt all the apologies i could offer would fix anything. i said some pretty fucked up shit.”

“yeah, i know. if you remember, i was there the next day ripping you a new one,” mingyu teases, desperately trying to cheer up his friend somehow. he swears he can see seungcheol’s lips twitch a bit. “but who knows… now that you both had some time to yourselves, you might actually be able to overcome this calmly. and if… if it doesn’t work out in the end, at least you’ll both have some closure.”

closure. that’s a funny word, because seungcheol wants the furthest thing from closure. he wants you back in his bed and your arms around him, he wants your indie artists he’s never heard of playing around the apartment in the morning, he wants your laugh echoing in the halls. he wants you.

he knows that the only way this ending could even be a possibility would be if he actually took mingyu’s advice and called you up, but another part of him is terrified of the other possibility: the one where you pick up and tell him to go to hell and fuck himself and never call you again or show his face around you. so for now, seungcheol opts for a third option: emotional limbo, with a side of trying-to-move-on.

he gets up from the bed and asks mingyu if he could help him straighten out the place. mingyu, bless his sweet heart, of course says yes and gets to work after sending seungcheol to clean himself up. just as he’s about to close the bathroom door, he hears mingyu’s exasperated voice.

“oh, for the love of god, where is that god-awful music coming from?!”

seungcheol can’t remember the last time he laughed so heartily.

the bar you find yourself in is bustling with people, laughter and cheerful conversations filling the space. you’re only half listening to whatever topic your two best friends, yunjin and chaeyoung, are discussing – something about “that bitch” in yunjin’s department at work that’s been giving her a hard time – instead reveling in the pleasant buzz of the champagne you’re nursing.

it had been a while since you were able to enjoy a nice evening with your girls. the past few months had been filled with endless meetings, client-induced headaches and sleepless nights, but thankfully, today you had managed to finally strike a deal for one of the firm’s most important clients (to be read as filthy rich), which you had been working towards all these months. naturally, upon hearing the news, chaeyoung and yunjin had begged you to join them at a bar in the city, “to celebrate your newfound freedom.”

you splurged on a bottle of champagne for the three of you and decided that tonight, you were going to have fun. you were going to relax, enjoy some drink, and catch up with your friends who you hadn’t seen in weeks.

and you will not, under any circumstances, bring up seungcheol.

you like to believe that in the last two months you had gotten better at shutting out any thought of your ex-boyfriend. in the days – more like weeks, if you were to ask chaeyoung and yunjin – following the ugly breakup, you were quite the literal mess. finding yourself alone and with nowhere to go, considering you had left the apartment you shared with seungcheol with nothing but your work stuff (how on-brand for you), it wasn’t surprising that your mental and emotional health had taken a massive hit. thankfully, at the insistence of yunjin, you agreed to crash at her place while you put yourself back together and took time off from work – something you had never done before.

to the surprise of your friends, it only took you two weeks to go back to work and start looking for your own place. two weeks after that, you were moving into a new apartment and claimed that you were feeling much better since the breakup. or at least starting to. chaeyoung and yunjin didn’t want to argue with you on this – even thought they 100% believed the front you were putting up was a load of crap – but in the end, they didn’t even have to, because the first time you went out with them again since the breakup, you had your first meltdown.

but was it really your fault that the man sitting two seats down the bar from you had ordered whiskey neat, just like seungcheol always used to? and was it really your fault that he was wearing a maroon leather jacket similar to the one seungcheol always used to wear in the fall, which you absolutely adored?

could they really blame you for bursting into tears right then and there and wailing about how much of a jerk seungcheol was for never understanding your dedication to your work? how much of a hypocrite he was for expecting you to just dip from the office when he suddenly had some free time, when he had never done so for you?

that night, chaeyoung and yunjin quite literally dragged you back to chaeyoung’s place and held you while you cried yourself to sleep, and in the morning, when you had embarrassingly admitted that “no, you weren’t really doing fine,” they held you again and offered soft-spoken words of support, opting to keep the classic we told you so in their thoughts.

four months passed since that incident and now, you could confidently say that you were truly feeling better. you weren’t quite over seungcheol per se; there were nights when you still thought about the smell of vanilla that filled the room whenever he was fresh out of a shower, the way he always got so giggly when you brought home a tray of cherries… yeah, you still found yourself missing him terribly sometimes. but the more time passed, you realized that seungcheol hadn’t tried reaching you at all in the months since the breakup, and so you thought he might be moving on as well.

it is true you had blocked him on all social platforms for weeks after you stormed out of your place. but on a particularly bad day, when all you did was cry and cry and cry after him, the thought of calling him up and asking him to go back to how things were crossed your mind, and you unblocked his number. unfortunately, your pride had set itself in your way, convincing you that it was seungcheol that needed to make the first step, considering he was the one who quite literally cornered you into a fight. so you didn’t call and instead prayed to whatever forces exist in the universe, that seungcheol would try your number again.

he never did.

“soooo, cheers to the lady of the hour! finally free from the clutches of corporate law!” yunjin cheered, clinking her glass against yours and knocking you out of your reverie.

damn it, seungcheol, i said i would not think of you tonight!

“yes, cheers!” chaeyoung joined in. “how do you feel? are you going to get a big ass bonus for the amount of time you put into this asshole?”

chaeyoung was probably right, you probably did deserve a huge ass bonus for the deal you pulled for the client you were handling. when you were in law school, you had never imagined yourself working for sleazy, corporate pigs who behaved like none of their actions would bite them in the ass eventually, and expecting others – like yourself – to clean up after them. but, as your boss grimly explained to you the day you had complained about your client, everybody has to start somewhere. “and junior partners don’t get to choose cases, sweetheart.”

life at the firm wasn’t always terrible. you were lucky enough to be part of an amazing team, and the firm worked with plenty of influential and big personalities, so you almost never had to worry about your income. but sometimes, some of the people you were asked to represent brought you to the brink of just quitting your job altogether.

“i just feel relieved,” you say. “if i had to hear the incessant whining and nagging of that idiot for one more day, i might have gone insane!”

“well, thank god you’re a stellar lawyer and managed to get rid of him,” yunjin teases, taking a sip of her drink. “do you already have anything else lined up?”

“god, no! i have a few days off just to take care of paperwork, maybe help out some of my colleagues around the office… but nothing big for now, thankfully.”

“oh, that’s amazing! which reminds me, this means you can actually join us on that weekend spa trip we were talking about last week,” chaeyoung happily suggests, as she’s already pulling up the website of the spa retreat.

“i guess a spa day would be nice,” you say, looking over at chaeyoung’s phone. you feel your body already going lax at the thought of a hot stone massage.

“oh, that would be so nice!” yunjin pouts. “we haven’t gone on a girls trip in so long! i miss going away, just the three of us… do you guys remember that trip we took to croatia two years ago? that was the best one we ever did, i swear!”

while chaeyoung joins yunjin in reminiscing about all the trips the three of you took over the years, you feel your phone buzzing in the pocket of your dress paints. pulling it out, you see an email notification…

“oh, no…” your voice trails off, reading over the email you had just received.

“what? what’s the matter?” yunjin asks, her conversation with chaeyoung coming to a halt.

“my boss just emailed me. he wants me in the office tomorrow morning. some big case that just came in,” you explain, already feeling a headache coming in.

“but tomorrow’s saturday,” chaeyoung frowns.

“i know… i know.”

when monday rolls around, seungcheol really wished that he had died before mingyu had found him the week before.

the day started normal enough. he woke up at 5 a.m. and took kkuma for a walk in the park near his apartment building, just like every morning. by 8 a.m., he was already set up in his studio inside the PLEDIS building, ready to work on the tracks he was supposed to finish mixing by the end of the week. seungcheol liked the buzz of the label, people from all different departments running around trying to stay on their schedules; it motivated him to also do his part diligently, and reminded him that he was extremely lucky to be doing one of the things he loves most: music.

seungcheol should’ve guessed something was up today the moment the clock struck 11 and jihoon, the other in-house producer of PLEDIS, and one of his oldest friends, hadn’t come by his studio. he and jihoon had known each other since their college days, having met in an audio engineering class they apparently shared, and had been friends for 8 years now. during their last year of college, they were recruited by a record label that was just starting out (which became the PLEDIS of today), and despite all warnings from their families, they decided to take a leap of faith together and join the company. it all worked out for the better, it turned out, as PLEDIS only grew and soon became a household name in the music industry.

as the only producers that have stuck around PLEDIS since the beginning, they developed several… traditions, or rituals over the years, one of which was jihoon’s 11 a.m. coffee run, which they’d spend sharing ideas and notes over each other’s work, and, if jihoon was in a particularly good mood, engage in some office gossip (not that either of them would ever admit it). today, however, jihoon is a no-show and seungcheol can’t help but wonder what his friend is up to.

when he shoots jihoon a quick text, asking if he’s alright, his friend only replies with a “just busy,” and tells seungcheol not to wait up for him at lunch, as he’ll probably be stuck in the studio all day. this doesn’t surprise him that much, seeing as jihoon might be an even bigger workaholic than he is, but he still can’t shake the feeling that something must be up with his friend. he decides that instead of going out for lunch, he’s gonna pick up some takeout and join jihoon in his studio. he wouldn’t be able to rest easy knowing his friend will go a day without eating anything.

once lunch hours begin, seungcheol takes a quick walk two blocks down the street to the restaurant mingyu works in, who’s already waiting for him with the food seungcheol had requested for him and jihoon. on his way back to PLEDIS, he texts jihoon again, just to make sure he’s still in the studio, but there’s no answer, and now seungcheol is seriously starting to get worried. he jogs the rest of the way until he’s back inside the building, and takes the elevator to the 6th floor where jihoon’s studio is stationed.

walking up to the door that reads UNIVERSE FACTORY, he stops in his tracks when he hears more than one voice from the other side of the door. he easily recognizes jihoon’s voice, but the other voices – two other men and a woman – are harder to make out. except… except the woman’s voice is eerily familiar, and without a second thought, seungcheol grips the handle and swings the door open, four pairs of eyes whipping in his direction.

his eyes land on jihoon, who looks like he wishes he was anywhere else in that moment, and then scan the rest of room, recognizing mr. han, their CEO, and… you. it’s you.

seungcheol feels like he’s going to faint. mr. han does not look the least bit happy about seungcheol’s intrusion, and he really wishes the man would slap him just so he can know for sure if he’s dreaming. if you’re surprised to see seungcheol, your face shows no sign of it, and seungcheol can’t help but stare at you. you look so beautiful, so put together; your make-up is soft, almost unnoticeable, your hair pushed behind your ears, and you’re wearing a dark green suit… oh, how he loved you in green.

you were the picture of grace and professionalism and he was… not. he really wishes he hadn’t come to the studio in sweatpants right now.

“mr. choi, what a… surprise,” mr. han exclaims, standing up from his seat, you and the other man – who seungcheol has no idea who he is, but he knows he doesn’t like the way he’s standing so close to you – following suit. “i didn’t know mr. lee was expecting you,” mr. han continues, glancing towards jihoon, who turned red as a tomato.

“i wasn’t, actually,” jihoon squeaks, avoiding both seungcheol and mr. han’s gazes.

“i apologize, i was… i was just bringing jihoon some lunch. i didn’t know there was… a meeting happening,” seungcheol says, looking towards you, and he’s almost thrown back by the way you’re just… staring directly at him.

mr. han sighs, but remembering the situation, he quickly puts on a polite smile as he turns towards you and the other man. “mr. choi is one of our other in-house producers. mr. choi, this is mr. jeon and miss L/N. they’re helping us with some… legal matters.”

so that’s why you were here. and who the other guy was. but what legal matters? and why was jihoon involved? and why didn’t he tell seungcheol?!

before seungcheol can ask more questions, mr. han gestures towards the door he came through and says “now, if you don’t mind, you can come back in a few minutes, mr. choi. we’ll be done soon.”

soon. soon, his ass!

seungcheol had been pacing the hallway outside jihoon’s studio for the past 20 minutes (he checked, he wasn’t exaggerating!), trying very hard not to eavesdrop through the door, and thinking of every possible reason why jihoon would need legal help and why you would be here.

jihoon was definitely in some kind of trouble. for the CEO to be involved as well, it for sure must be something that could affect the whole label. seungcheol just can’t understand why jihoon wouldn’t tell him if he had any kind of problem. they were colleagues, but most importantly, they were friends. he would’ve dropped everything to come to his aid.

now, when it comes to you… seungcheol knows you’re a lawyer, obviously he does. he met you when you were halfway through law school, and he was there for every failed and aced exam, for your graduation (he was so proud of you that day, it was the first time you’d ever seen him cry), for every measly job you had before finally securing the one you currently held at one of the top firms in the city. he also knows you’re a damn good lawyer, seeing how hard you work and how dedicated you are. he supposes it’s not surprising you were chosen to represent jihoon in whatever mess he got himself in.

he feels bad now that he remembers how he held these things above your head during your last fight. how you were working late so often, how you never asked him to join you at office parties, despite how eager you always were to go out with your coworkers for drinks, how you always asked him to wait for you outside the office building, as if you didn’t want people to know you had a partner...

he knows that both of you were to blame for how things went down between you, but since he started the argument in the first place, he thinks he could’ve brought all this up in a better way, at a better time.

his thoughts are interrupted when the door to jihoon’s studio opens again, and he finds himself regretting waiting in the hallway because now he has to face you again and he’s not ready and he doesn’t know what to say and he still looks like a hobo and –

“mr. choi!”

he looks up to see who he imagines is your colleague – mr. jeon – step towards him, as you and mr. han step out after him, discussing something. you glance once towards seungcheol before turning back to the conversation, and seungcheol feels his heart clench.

“mr. jeon, i’m sorry once again for interrupting your meeting,” seungcheol says, extending his hand to shake mr. jeon’s.

“don’t worry, no harm done at all. i’m actually glad you stuck around, because i had something to ask you. seeing as you and mr. lee are close, would you be available for a short talk with us, sometime in the next days? we’ll have to build a strong case for mr. lee and, well, some insight from his colleagues would be very helpful,” mr. jeon explains, fixing the thin-rimmed glasses perched on his nose.

seungcheol is taken aback by the man’s soft tone. his sharp eyes and cold look on his face made him look pretty intimidating, but his voice is the complete opposite, putting seungcheol weirdly at ease.

“o-of course, anything for jihoon,” seungcheol quickly replies. “can i ask, though, what exactly does he need help with?”

“plagiarism.”

“PLAGIARISM?!”

“you’re being sued. for plagiarism.”

“yes.”

“and you just found out last friday.”

“yes.”

“last friday when we all went out for barbeque and you didn’t even think to mention it? not even once?!”

“will you stop pacing and sit down? you’re making me even more nervous than i already am,” jihoon sighs, dropping his head in his hands.

seungcheol sighs as well, muttering a sorry, and sits down on the couch opposite jihoon’s chair.

jihoon continues. “i didn’t mention anything because i didn’t want to piss on everyone’s good mood. it was joshua’s birthday… besides, i didn’t know all the details of the situation at that point. i thought it was another baseless accusation, you know? but they’re serious about it. they wanna take me to court.”

“what? that’s insane,” seungcheol says. “i feel weird even asking, but did you even plagiarize?”

“no! of course not! i don’t even know the people!” jihoon exclaims, flopping down on the couch next to seungcheol. he lets out a long groan. “this is just what i needed.”

seungcheol pats his friend’s back, thinking of some encouraging words. jihoon was the most talented and creative guy he knew. to think that someone would accuse him of using somebody else’s work was a concept seungcheol couldn’t even entertain.

“don’t worry. that jeon guy looks like he’s already got a game plan.”

“and Y/N,” jihoon says.

silence falls around the two of them, until jihoon stirs from the couch, sitting up to look at seungcheol.

“are we just not going to acknowledge her or what?”

“no! that’s not what i…” seungcheol sighs, hanging his head. “i just wasn’t expecting to see her. i don’t know how to feel.”

“that’s understandable. you guys haven’t seen each other in a while, right?”

seungcheol shakes his head. “did she… did she say anything to you?”

“oh, no. she was super professional, went straight to business. but…” jihoon trails off, debating whether he should say what he was thinking.

“but? but what?!” seungcheol grabs jihoon’s shoulders, shaking him a little.

“but i think she was just as rattled to see you as you were. her hand kept shaking while she was writing, after you left. i guess she was just better at hiding her surprise,” jihoon continues. “now let go of me, you animal!”

seungcheol sighs. could it be that you were just as much of a mess inside as he was? the hopeful part of him thinks you might have thought of him all these months, just as he thought of you. the other part of him thinks your hand might as well just have been shaking from anger.

“you know, this might be a good thing,” jihoon says, getting up and sitting back in front of his computer.

“what, you getting sued and her being around?”

“yeah. maybe this way you’ll finally grow some balls, put your pride aside, and actually fix things,” jihoon deadpans, and seungcheol knows the conversation is over.

yeah. easier said than done.

#📁 lexie.works #🌙 midnights #seventeen #choi seungcheol #choi seungcheol x reader #seungcheol x reader #seventeen fanfic #seventeen imagine #svt au #seventeen angst #seventeen fluff

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eatingfireflies · 6 months ago

Text

2.2 is coming and if I don't write this now, how can I get jossed later?

This is the moment when I started to wonder if their 2.0 conversation was a role play.

Like, we know this issue is a sore point for Ratio. The fact that this guy he called a loud peacock in 2.0 made a joke about his failure to get into the Genius Society and all he said was 'I was being sarcastic'?? Babe, is something wrong? You barely touched your sharp and witty comeback.

(Btw I checked both Cn and Jp, he says 'It was just a joke.')

And I don't want to bring up the voice acting because the way voices sound is subjective and what I hear might not be what you hear, but the Double Indemnity scenes with Ratio are probably the most relaxed we ever see Aventurine ever. (I'm talking about the Cn version, but I played in Jp audio and I could hear it there too.) He's playful and his voice is higher pitched, so different from what we've seen of him so far.

It sounds like Ratio and Aventurine have known each other longer than they want us to believe in their 2.0 convo.

I mean, the implication here is Ratio did some research on Aventurine's background recently and that's how he found out about Aventurine's past. So we make the assumption that they haven't been working together for long.

Look, they even did a Penacony remix of their Final Victor conversation

But honestly, you'd think Ratio would have figured out if he trusted Aventurine or not at this point, considering he came back for more after Final Victor (lmao??)

Also, we know Aventurine had been planning for Penacony since his call to Topaz, where he asked for her help. It's hard to believe that he went through all the trouble of asking two different Stonehearts to lend him their cornerstones and then went to Penacony and the Dreamscape with Ratio, whom he barely knows. That's too much gambling, Aventurine!

We know the Family won't let anyone from the IPC to enter the Dreamscape and Aventurine only gets a pass because of the Watchmaker's invite

But Himeko is wrong here: Aventurine didn't go inside the Dreamscape alone and he does have someone backing him up. It just happened that almost no one else saw Ratio in Penacony and the one scene where we did see him talking to Aventurine was 2.0, where he got angry and left Aventurine babbling to himself.

But now that we're here, what did Ratio do in Penacony aside from bicker and betray?

His initial job is to gather intel, afaik. Aventurine tells him to go look into things in 2.0 before he left. And he does give Aventurine updates in 2.1 (Aventurine finds out about Firefly from Ratio) so good for you, professor!

Ratio is Aventurine's connection to his colleagues outside. Once Aventurine's plans enter the Dead phase, Ratio is the only one left to tell Topaz and Jade if the plan had been a success or not. (Aventurine also makes a joke about the Genius from the Council of the Mundanites offering to be his undertaker. In the Jp version, he says 'So the Genius from the Council of the Mundanites wants to claim my corpse? What an honour.' So there's also that... Uh. Idk how dead dead Aventurine really is, but at least we know someone's looking after his body while he's gone lmao??)

But also he's Aventurine's bait to Sunday, the (fake) weak link in Aventurine's plans that Sunday thought he could exploit.

And the 3rd one is a bit complicated, because it is a gamble. Remember Aventurine's E1? Prisoner's Dilemma? Yeah, it's kinda like that. I talked about it before, but let's copy paste it here for easier reading (and because this post totally needs to be a wall of text)

Let's zoom out a bit again and remember that Aventurine was sent to Penacony because Diamond thinks this whole affair could still have a peaceful resolution. Meaning: Aventurine is the kind option. The IPC could have sent Opal instead, but it sounds like that means there would be a body count.

And I think that's why Ratio is here and why he agreed to cooperate. Because if Aventurine's plan works out, only Aventurine's life will ever be in real danger. (And we know from Ratio's note that he also took steps to increase the chances of Aventurine coming back.)

Ratio being there is important to the plan because

Him being from the Intelligentsia Guild removes some of the heat from the Family. If Ratio is coming in as a plus one, the IPC (in this case, I'm assuming it's Aventurine because he's the guy in charge of the operation) chose the best person for the job. It makes the Family happier knowing there are not two IPC envoys walking around the Dreamscape and Aventurine has a buddy who can move around more freely than another IPC employee could

But because Ratio is an outsider, he's also the weak link in Aventurine's plans. Another IPC employee will probably not betray Aventurine, but the Guild has no particular horse in this race. We were also led to believe from their 2.0 conversation that Ratio doesn't like Aventurine very much. This is what I meant when I said Ratio is a bait: Aventurine was pretty much dangling him in front of Sunday, making Sunday think he could use Ratio to ruin Aventurine's plans. The important thing of course is the trust the two of them have for each other (yay, Prisoner's Dilemma). Ratio could ruin Aventurine's plan if he wants to (very bad for all involved because I'm guessing Opal is the next step) and Aventurine could fail (not as bad for everyone involved after 2.1 because the IPC has already won regardless. There's still a Phase 2 in Aventurine's plan and Ratio seems to want him back after that, so I guess he'd consider it a failure if Aventurine doesn't return?), but trusting each other means they win.

Tl;dr Ratio's presence in Penacony is a bit of a gamble on Aventurine's part but it worked well for him so far. Ratio is here to make sure everyone stays alive. (And maybe the Phase Flame? I honestly don't know if the Annihilation Gang will ever come back again, but for now I'm going with the obvious and assuming Ratio is here because he thinks Aventurine's plan will work and work with the least amount of pain for everyone.)

Thank you for getting this far. Why do we think they deserve Oscars?

Aside from the movie references (we'll get to that), we have 3 different instances where Aventurine mentions acting / the 'script'.

The most direct is the conversation with future!Aventurine in the garden maze: future!Aventurine praises Ratio's acting while Aventurine says 'Or he might not be acting at all' (the inability of these two to admit they are friends, but more importantly they don't think the other person thinks highly of them, is2g).

The next one is hidden in the mission description

And the other one got lost in translation. This was translated to 'You catch on quickly' in En. In Jp he says something like 'You have a good sense for drama, professor' (Sorry Idk what this is in the og Cn)

Finally, Double Indemnity. I haven't seen the movie, but it seems to be about an insurance salesman who gets seduced by a hot wife femme fatale into helping her get rid of her husband so she could claim his insurance. Double Indemnity refers to this clause where the insurance gets doubled if the person suddenly dies of an accident.

I've thought about this so hard, let me tell you. What could this possibly have to do with Aventurine and the mission? (For example, 'Hot wife Sunday seduces Ratio the insurance salesman into helping him get rid of Aventurine' etc.) And I honestly still don't know but one detail does help my theory so I'm pulling it out:

The relationship between the insurance salesman and the hot wife femme fatale was known only to the two of them. To the insurance claims adjuster, who was investigating the case and trying to prove the husband's death wasn't an accident, those two are unrelated people who might have seen each other once or twice. The claims adjuster suspected the wife, but had no idea of the insurance salesman's involvement. The truth is, they actually knew each other a full year before the plan was set in motion. Hey, doesn't it actually fit nicely now?

(Spellbound otoh, I still don't know. I have a Sunday and Gallagher reading of it, but Hvy keeps telling me no and making it gay instead so Idk.)

#honkai star rail #dr ratio #aventurine #d metas #ratiorine #this meta is written by a ratiorine and i can't take my shipping goggles off fully sorry if that bothers you

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adventuringblind · 11 months ago

Text

Flowers in your throat

Lando Norris x Reader x Oscar Piastri

Genre: Angst

Summary: the problems of unrequited love

Warnings: hanahaki disease, blood, coughing

Notes: idk what this is... Does anybody wanna spam my inbox with things to write over break? Logan is on the list, but I'm blanking on ideas for the boy T_T

Masterlist

Flowers. Beautiful things that each have their own meanings. One that even color plays into.

Beautiful amd deadly things, these Flowers. She can't even stomache the sight of them anymore. Not when they are the source of her current misery.

A misery she has yet to understand. Is one not enough for her? Will Lando hate her for loving more then just him? Is she really that greedy?

Her driving had suffered because of her lack of focus. She's coughing over the radio now and her engineer has started to notice. Her trainer even more so with how sick she looks.

She doesn't want Lando to find her like this. Maybe she doesn't even like Oscar and this is because of the loving looks and gentle touch he's been sharing with her boyfriend. Is she jealous? In a way yes, but she wants that from both of them. She coughs up another petal at the thought.

Hopefully Lando isn't awake. She'd been on the floor of the Hilton bathroom for at least an hour now. Her mind running through all her options. How she might be able to fix this.

Death is the easiest option in the long run. The surgery would hurt Lando as she would struggle with any kind of love afterwards. Oscar loving her back is another, but again, how would Lando react?

She'd yet to even open up to him about the idea of polyamoury. To scared from past encounters and getting hurt. Easier just to ignore anything else. The words of her last partner rings through her ears. 'It's either one or the other' but never both. How can she have such a love for two people to the point it's killing her?

The door creaks open. She panics and tries to hide from Lando's worried gaze. He still ends up on the floor with her.

"Please talk to me."

"I can't. You're going to leave me."

"Whatever this is, we'll figure it out, okay? But we can't even begin to work on it if I have no idea what's going on." And he's right. For as chaotic as he is, Lando has always wanted to work through things together.

"I'm not - well - before I start I should say I love you dearly with every fiber of my being."

"Is this a break up?"

"No!" She shouts a little to loudly and quickly. Lando looks a bit startled but calms we he sees just how panicked she is. "I don't want us to break up - I just know that you won't want me anymore."

The thoughts of Lando leaving her flood her mind. Having to watch him and Oscar be teammates while she watches from afar. Her body wracks with coughs again as another petal comes up, pretty but splatters in red.

"Is that-?"

"Hanahaki, unrequited love."

"But I do love you so then..." He takes a moments to process. "It's not me is it?"

"My parents always told me my heart was to big." She inhales shakily. "It's Oscar."

"Since when? How long do we have before-" He doesn't finish the sentence.

"A have a few months left maximum. I'm already two months in."

"Silverstone."

"I'd already been fond of him before that but watching the two of you smile together like that." Tears slip past her eyes as she tries to stop the burning in her chest. "I'm so sorry and I understand if you leave. It's not like you signed up for this."

"I'm not leaving you. I don't care who else you love as long as I'm here with you. Plus, it's Oscar, I'd be lying if I said I don't have any feelings for him." Lando Admits with a shrug.

"Really?"

"I know you love me, too much, probably. If this is what loving you means then I'll be here every damn step."

She throws herself into Lando's arms, curling into the warmth of his body. And for the first time on two months, she cries in relief.

~~~~~

On the other side of things, Oscar isn't fairing any better. The constant scratch of his throat has started in August. Over the summer break when he had to bare witness to Lando and his girlfriends pictures.

He couldn't tell who he was more jealous of, or if he was jealous at all. Both, he was jealous of both because he wants to be with both of them. It's illogical, he thinks, that he should want two partners so desperately. They are committed to each other, why would they want him as well?

Lando is once again on the podium his female counterpart part there to congratulate him. Eyes shining as they smile at each other. The itch in his throat is to much. It burns in his chest as his lungs try to fight for air.

He runs back to the garage after getting weighed. Just in time to collapse onto the floor of his driver's room. Petals fall from his lips. Beautiful and soaking in red fluid.

He's still struggling to breathe when his door flys open. Logan amd Liam swim in his vision and ears. They drag him off the floor and get him upright again.

They clean him op and sit with him until Kim comes to get him for debrief. The older male looks horribly concerned. Lando also looks at him with something he can't pinpoint while sitting through the meeting. It's enough to make his chest burn again just knowing Lando is even looking at him.

Logan and Liam come knocking at his door that night. They want answers and rightfully so. He tells them, coughing on the bathroom floor while doing so.

"Have you talked to them?"

"No, why would they want me Lo?"

Liam hands him more water and pratically forces him to drink it. "Have you seen the way they look at you?"

And no, he hasn't, only how people say he himself looks helplessly in love.

How would they look at him now? In disgust? Maybe pity?

Shame he may never find out.

~~~~~

Another hard race. Las Vegas had messed them all up in some way shape or form. She couldn't breathe knowing Lando had crashed to hard. She coughed an entire petal up during the yellow flags just thinking about how he must be feeling.

She's been coughing up whole flowers recently. Tonight was no exception. Lando, despite being on heavy painkillers, was desperately trying to help her through a few larger ones.

She was barely eating anymore. Couldn't breathe. Her teammate had even noticed the drastic change in her appearance. Max and Christian had both been on her case. Third seemed so far away now as Lando tries to get water down her throat.

"I don't want you to die."

"And I don't want to live without love."

Lando manages to pull himself off the floor to answer the door. Mumbling about how it's probably Jon making sure he's alright.

She can hear the familiar voices of Oscar and Logan through the thin walls.

Oscar sounds rough. She blames it on the long race he had. He'd looked so tired coming out of the car, hands running through his hair.

Her lungs burn again. It's more so this time. Her entire body is on fire. She can't even cough properly and wails as she has to pull out whatever is in her throat.

A stem. One with thorns.

Lando is frantically pleading with Oscar and Logan for something. Oscar is also coughing. Enough that is worsens her own.

She coughs again. Another stem feels like it's tearing her open from the inside. She wails at the stinging pain. Panic overcomes her as it seems to never end.

The door swings open. Lando and Logan drag in a coughing Oscar.

He's in the same boat as her. He's been suffering this whole time.

"Logan who is it?! Please, I need to know." Lando is begging now. The sight of what's happening can't be helping his nerves.

"It's you two, both of you I think. He didn't say exactly."

She tunes out anything else. It's them. He is feeling this because of them. She coughs up the rest of the stem and the burning starts to fade.

But then the exhaustion hits. She wants to tell Oscar everything. Enough so he doesn't have to cough up thorns like herself.

She passes out before she can.

~~~~~

Oscar wakes up in bed. One that definitely isn't his own. He tries to sit up, but his body is depleted still. Noticeably, his lungs feel lighter then they have in months. The ache in his chest has lessened, but his love for the two is still there. If this isn't the work of a surgery then-

He sits up frantically, searching for something. Someone, more like. A hand on his shoulder pushes him back down.

"Relax, we're still here." It's Lando and his partner is on the other side of Oscar. She's dead asleep and rightfully so after what he witnessed her cough up.

"Where's Logan?"

"Asleep on the couch. He didn't want to leave you."

"And you - do you and her - are we?" His words are broken. He can't think properly.

"Caught feeling a while ago, mate. Her before I realized myself. She loves hard, enough to cough up flowers, apparently." Lando crawls into the space between Oscar and the female. Oscar, in his sleepy haze, latches onto Lando. He feels better being apart of whatever cuddle pile this is.

He falls back to sleep so easily. Only to be woken up later by a few frantic coughs. Lando is immediately trying to get the female out of bed and to the sink. She claims she's fine and it's confirmed by the lack of petals.

"It's from what the thorns did." Her voice sounds wrecked. Oscar tries to get up to help only to be pushed back again by Logan. Curse his exhaustion.

The American gets everyone water. Oscar is grateful for it as it soothes his still sore throat.

"So does this mean you three are going to be together then?" Logan raises an eyebrow.

"If either of them say no after this, I'm throwing hands. After the hell they've put me through I will force them to cuddle if need be."

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