#cause i thought i was an outsider in the special education class. when i was literally In There to take advantage of those resouces

[abimee]

@wiihtigo HELP SAME. i was in special education in hgihschool but wasnt diagnosed as anything at the time and i got access to this like sensory room our class had made to help autstic students calm down/get focused to work and i remember always being like ''i really like being in the sensory room cause the lights are dim and its quiet and theres soft surfaces in there i like to lay on... but thats for autistic students who need it so i shouldnt try to reserve my time im taking away THEIR resource'' meanwhile my teacher was staring literal bullets into the back of my head trying to beam an autism diagnosis on me because she saw how i would have the 'Tism Meltdowns in any room with slightly too bright lights or too many people speaking LOL

[foldedchip]

Going to college has informed me of how strictly I was treated as a middle/high school student who had mental health conditions. I knew at the time that I was treated strictly, even harshly by some staff members, but it’s another thing to actually experience the difference.

I used to have frequent panic attacks as a kid, usually due to OCD or autism, and my school directly made it worse and worse. Today in class, I had a panic attack, went outside the classroom, and just stayed in one spot until it was over. I felt like I was going to explode, my thoughts had gone out of control and I felt terrified, I didn’t want anyone’s eyes on me, I wanted quiet, so I just moved outside to an environment where I could calm down in silence. No harm done at all. No one batted an eye when they walked past me, even if it looked a little strange for an adult to be sitting with their knees to their chest for twenty minutes. I was treated with more grace as an adult than I was as a child/teenager.

As I came back to myself, I kept thinking about what this used to be like in middle and high school, and how I wasn’t always afforded the freedom to get through such a debilitating experience in an effective way. Some of my teachers were better than others, they would let me step into the hallway, write me a note if I was going to be late for my next class, or re-explain instructions to me if I had missed them. They knew I was struggling but doing the best I could, they put a little trust in me (which I never ever took advantage of), and they were understanding without giving me special treatment. I’m grateful to them. Other teachers said I wasn’t allowed to leave unless it was to go the nurse’s office, but as a kid, I was scared to go there and just wanted to calm down. Several teachers gave me poor participation grades just because I sometimes had to leave the room with a panic attack. I only had a thirty minute lunch period, and only a ten-minute window to actually get a meal to eat. The cafeteria was overwhelming and the opposite kind of environment that would calm me down, so I missed lunch several times because I was having an attack and couldn’t eat until I went home. If I missed lunch, too bad, I wasn’t allowed to eat in their classroom. Sometimes they would only give me five minutes outside the room before forcing me back in with the others. These conditions made my OCD grow out of control, it made the panic attacks come back again and again, nearly every day, causing the situation to get exponentially worse. I was an eleven-year-old in my first year of middle school (or, during the second round of panic attacks, a sixteen-year-old in my first year of high school), and I was constantly well-behaved. I followed the rules perfectly, I was always very polite and respectful, but some of my teachers treated me like a troublemaker that they couldn’t trust out of their sight. Even if I had acted up a lot, I still should have been afforded some understanding. When I was twelve and I dropped out of school, guess what happened? The panic attacks stopped overnight. When I was sixteen and I went home for winter break, guess what? The panic attacks ended overnight. As it turns out, mentally ill students can actually have a chance at managing their conditions when they feel secure in their environment and are not treated like a prisoner (and that is not to say that I don’t support criminals’ rights.) I will always advocate for alternative schooling options so that every kid can get an education in a way that’s actually effective for them, as well as special education and other support programs in schools. I want people to support quality virtual school systems, because they’re not just a write-off for students who got expelled, they’re for any student who doesn’t go to a public or private building school, for any reason.

[i-write-hurt-not-comfort]

@yuukanaazu hi there! thank u for your question, i would LOVE to talk about this. i've thought about this so much and i love the who Mukami backstory. i would like to disclaim i'm not a history expert but i've researched this a fuck ton. whilst a lot of the Mukami routes have bits of the Romanian history lore scattered around, the most lore comes from Ruki's MB but especially his LE, so i'm going to be using that as my main source.

putting this under a cut here because it's very long. TW for discussions of the Romanian orphan crisis.

so right off the bat in MB, we see Ruki clearly has this trauma surrounding something which happened in an eastern european nation, as seen in this manga panel when he's sitting in class and the teacher is talking about an outbreak of orphans.

although they don't SAY Romania, it's pretty heavily implied that it's Romania as this was where the infamous orphan crisis occurred and we know the Mukami's met in an orphanage. the REAL confirmation of what actually happened in Romania comes from Ruki's LE.

credit where credit is due, rejet did alright with the Romania lore. in the 1960s, Romania was under a dictatorship by Ceaușescu. Ceaușescu's socialist policies had Romania and its capital Bucharest in declining conditions. wild-spread poverty caused children to run away from home so there were already some children on the streets. Decree 770 was enacted in 1966 which banned abortion and contraception with the hope of population growth directly leading to economic growth.

Ruki's father was supposedly a politician during the time of Decree 770 being enacted. it is implied Karlheinz convinced Ceaușescu to impose Decree 770 to cause wide-spread casualties particularly in children and use these for ghoul experiments. Karlheinz also convinced Ceaușescu to impose higher taxes and embezzle public funds.

it's unclear exactly when Ruki's father was dismissed from his political position, but we see it happen in LE and he becomes an alcoholic. over the next few years, birth rates would increase substantially, especially over 1967, 1968 and 1969 when the policy was still knew. parents who were unable to take care of their children gave them up to orphanages. by 1977, parents were taxed for being childless. potentially this is when Ruki's father dies and they all enter the orphanage.

children ran away from home due to parents being overloaded with children and poverty stricken. by the 1980s, conditions in the orphanages had significantly declined. Ceaușescu was killed in December 1989. supposedly, Kalrheinz was assassinated at the end of the revolution too, and was hung in public, but his corpse disappeared.

conditions in the orphanages were as follows:

Children did not have access to food, water, medicine or basic needs

Many were not educated and were illiterate 

Hygiene was below standard and sexual assault common 

HIV/AIDS spread throughout orphanages particularly in the 1980s 

Military run orphanages often saw violent child abuse 

Children self-harmed and abused aurolac, a type of paint inhaled as a solvent (commonly distributed around Bucharest during this period right through to common times) 

Gangs were formed inside and outside the orphanages which led to further violence

There weren't enough beds 

Some children were sold off as slaves for money or to be abused (Kou is an example of this) 

Disabled children were sent to special places and were treated the worst

the Mukami's lore is mostly implied from theories, and the bullet points i'm about to drop are only my perspective. though it is based off canon events.

here, we are going to assume the timeline matchup or make some kind of sense…

it DOES kind of make sense if you imagine the Mukami's to be born in 1966/67 due to the abortion ban

thus they would be around age 10-11 in 1977 when they all entered the orphanages

obviously the orphanages were overcrowded by this point in time, hence the conditions were so bad 

Azusa was at the orphanage first and when Ruki arrived, he followed him around

Ruki was creeped out at first but eventually came to see Azusa as a younger brother

then Ruki meets Kou when he's in the middle of trying to kill himself and calls him a loser 

Yuma joined the orphanage last, and became friends with everyone after meeting Kou in the punishment cell 

so the order is Azusa, then Ruki, then Kou, and then Yuma 

Ruki

Ruki's father was a politician… until he wasn't

when Decree 770 was enacted, he turned into an alcoholic and began abusing Ruki's mother

it's explained in Ruki's LE Maniac Epilogue and it's a bit vague but I do think the implication is that Ceaușescu imposing higher taxes (potentially the childless tax in 1977) is what caused Ruki's father's dismissal 

this means Ruki was a baby when Decree 770 was first enacted but he was pampered so he didn't know that was going on in the real world 

1977, Ruki's father was fired then committed suicide, his mother had an affair and ran off, and Ruki entered the orphanage

he was beaten up a lot for being an ex-aristocrat 

Kou

Kou was born to an aristocratic family but they were exiled when he was still young 

(i headcanon his parents being from another country, possibly Italy considering his name was Emilio) 

he was off-handed to a nanny but she abandoned him when he was young

she potentially abandoned him due to having to care for too many orphans (early 1970s)

kou spent most his childhood on the streets, at which point he was shown to beg for food and money

he exchanged this (IN CANON!!) for aurolac (which i write about here) 

eventually he was taken into the orphanage, right when some army officers shot some people in front of him 

there he was sold off to aristocrats, aka slavery, and gouged out his eye

continued using aurolac in the orphanage

Yuma

i will assume he ended up in Bucharest around mid-1970s

his farming family in the village which burnt down was poor due to socialist policies and higher taxes 

he was in a gang as the name Bear and was one day thrown into the orphanage when everyone else was shot 

his leader Lucks had been shown to be prostituting himself to get money for the gang

Yuma steals food from the orphanage and got into a lot of fights due to people insulting his gang

Azusa

Azusa was raised by Romani people

it isn't clear whether he was born into a Romani family or whether he was born accidentally and abandoned and then taken in by the Romani people 

i personally headcanons the former 

he was weak compared to everyone and Justin, Melissa and Christina beat him up a lot

one day they were killed for burglary and Azusa cried

then he passed out in front of a shop and was sent to the orphanage 

he enjoys getting beaten up at the orphanage and that's when he meets Ruki 

i am sorry that this is SO LONG. if you made it to the end, thank u and congratulations. i love this lore. if you want it saved somewhere, i have it all here (+ more information).

[tic-loud-tic-proud]

Some people are asking about the person I knew that used to post their own videos onto r/fakedisordercringe so here's a storytime.

I knew this person M in high school. I was in a really bad waxing period with my Tourette's at that point and the school was refusing to accommodate my IEP, tried to get me into a special education school, it was rough. The first day of freshman year I was in my 3rd period math class and nobody knew wtf was going on because they'd probably never met a person with severe Tourette's or coprolalia before. The next day the teacher ended up stopping class, having me sit on a chair alone outside the classroom, while she called the principal of the school to ask me to be removed from her class. I was upset but kept it together the best I could for the time being. M came out of the classroom and told me they had a tic disorder, and that it was super cool to meet someone else with tics. I was really happy and M and I became really close friends, even going to prom together a few years later. At the time they were the only person that wasn't afraid to talk to me, and seemed to have at least a basic understanding of what TS actually is. And I really do genuinely appreciate that, it's just everything else that happened afterwards cause our relationship to fall apart.

M mentioned that they were self diagnosed with motor tic disorder and dissociative identity disorder. But they mentioned they used to have a stutter and I said that could be a vocal tic, and they changed their self-diagnosis to Tourette's. I can't say anything about DID because I don't have it and I don't really know anything about it but I generally don't support self-diagnosis for TS especially when you have the means to see a neurologist (which M had the means to), but I try to be understanding when I meet self-diagnosed people because I don't know the whole nuance of their life. I thought that maybe M had been brushed off by doctors, because that's a really common experience for AFAB teens (which we both were at the time).

One thing that I noticed though was that M would never go out in public with me. I would ask about going to a restaurant or a park or the mall and they'd say they didn't like going out to those places, even though we followed eachother on instagram and I'd seen pictures of them with their other friends in restaurants and parks and the mall all the time. I felt like they were embarassed of being seen in public with me. That was red flag #1.

Red flag #2 was when my mom was driving us back to M's place and they were scrolling on Tiktok. They had the sound on and I was looking over at their phone (which was disrespectful and I shouldn't've done it) and I noticed every single video on their for-you page was people with Tourette's and tics. I didn't think anything of this at the time because I knew how nice it was to find community online if you don't have one IRL especially for people with TS but looking back it makes me wonder.

I used to have a self-harm problem and one day I rolled up my sleeves to wash my hands in the bathroom and forgot to roll them back down before eating lunch with M. M saw my scars and started talking about how cool they were, and that they were jealous of how "deep" I'd gone. Red flag #3.

M was just weird in general about my tics. They would laugh really loudly at them, even the slurs or painful tics. They asked me constantly what my "funniest tics" were and what "funny encounters" I'd had because of them. I'm usually fine with these sorts of questions if they're asked by other people with tics but they would ask me CONSTANTLY and it made me feel like they thought having severe TS is something that's fun. Once I was talking about how the Tourette's community tends to forget about people with coprolalia and M tried to relate by telling me that they had coprolalia too, they just "chose not to do it". Again I understand that most people can suppress tics but that was a really weird thing to say to someone who can't just "choose not to do it". Red flag(s) #4.

I was also struggling with anorexia at the time, and I missed the first week of sophomore year because I was in a treatment center. After I got out M told me that they had an eating disorder and wanted me to be their "anorexia coach". Red flag #5 and that was when I started trying to distance myself from them more.

We were hanging out at my place and I was really excited to start applying to colleges, talking about my plans to become a biologist and I mentioned that I was even thinking about the possibility of pursuing a doctorate. They interrupted to make the joke that for me, it would be a "doc-Tourette". That was the last straw for me because at the time I felt like that was confirmation that they didn't see me for anything other than my tics, and that they saw my tics as a joke instead of a disability. I entirely stopped hanging out with or talking to them after that.

A couple days later I was looking at the reddit r/fakedisordercringe. Nowadays I absolutely abhorr this subreddit with every fiber of my being and wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. But at the time I did look at it occasionally out of curiosity (and because people at my school filmed me a lot, and I wanted to know if I'd been posted). And I saw a video of M, doing a trend called "alters that would get me fakeclaimed". I was shocked and I wanted to text them just to tell them, r/FDC has a policy that if the original poster of a video asks the moderators to take the post down, they will. But I looked at the comments and someone had mentioned that the username on the video was the same as the username of the redditor that posted it on r/FDC. Looking at the person's post history this was definitely M that had posted themselves to the subreddit. They ended up changing their Tiktok username to something else and posted themselves, again, a different video this time.

I shouldn't've done this but I did go and look at their tiktok account, and they had multiple videos talking about me. One was them listing some of my "funniest tics" that they had heard. The most recent one said that I was the worst person they'd ever met and mentioned how mad they were at me for ditching them. All the videos used the 🤬 (swear word emoji) in place of my name and that really really hurt. That was yet another confirmation of my suspicion that they only saw me for my tics.

So that's what happened. I haven't talked to M in years and I never want to see them or any content from r/FDC ever again. I need to say though that this was a terrible period of my life where I was a complete asshole to pretty much everyone, and our relationship was toxic on both fronts. We were both bad apart but together we were absolutely terrible, we made each other worse. M was obviously dealing with very severe mental illness, their parents were abusive and they had drug addiction issues too. I believe that they definitely had/have tics and an eating disorder but I also believe that they shouldn't have treated me the way that they did. However I still feel really bad considering I did completely cut them off when they were going through a really tough time personally and I was one of their only friends. I don't know anything about their life now but I sincerely hope they're in a better situation now.

[briamichellewrites]

95

The media was trying to track Bria down. They took old pictures of her and created false stories about her using drugs and being an alcoholic. They even used pictures of her drinking while at a bar with Jason. She reportedly had to be dragged out because she was so drunk. He confirmed in a phone call to Mike that wasn’t true. Neither of them got drunk. He believed him because he didn’t have any evidence. She was not using drugs and she was not an alcoholic.

Rather, she was a twenty-something-year-old woman, who enjoyed drinking occasionally. Just like everyone else her age. Mike asked him when the last time he spoke to her was. He hadn’t spoken to her for a week because he didn’t know where she was or if she had her phone with her.

Why? Did something happen?

“Jay, she’s pregnant again.”

“Oh my god!”

“You didn’t know?”

“No, I need… I need to talk to her. How far along is she?”

“She just found out. I’m not going to go after you again because you’ve heard it before.”

Where was she? She checked into a clinic called, Luxe Recovery in Studio City. Did she have her phone with her? Yeah, she did. He was going to text her. During the intake process, she went through a physical examination where they checked her height, weight, and vitals. They also went over her medical history. She was late but she thought it was due to her miscarriage.

They did a pregnancy test and it came back positive. Mike was frustrated and freaking out. There was no way she or Jason could take care of a baby. If he had his way, they would choose adoption. Let him raise the baby. But that conversation would have to wait. She was estimated to be four weeks pregnant. It was too early to give an accurate due date. They made a treatment plan to help her through her pregnancy and mental health issues.

They wanted her to have a safe pregnancy for her and her baby. Since she just had a miscarriage, she was at high risk of having another one. She was encouraged to rest during her free time for her mental health and her baby. The reason why he hadn’t completely lost his mind? Misty. She was such a curious little puppy. He loved watching her explore her new surroundings.

She had a favorite toy squirrel. It was soft and had a squeaker in its stomach. She brought it everywhere with her, like a toddler carrying their favorite blanket. It also provided her comfort. As a puppy, she was scared of loud noises. Bark! He calmed her down and comforted her. She loved going outside and walking around. The first time he put the harness on her, she tried grabbing the leash with her paw. Unfortunately, they were too short.

She looked at him, making him laugh. Puppies were amazing animals. They were like little children in that they were curious about everything and they put whatever they could find into their mouths. They would have to have a play date with Phoenix, Chester, and Joe. Rob and Bradford could also join them if they wanted to.

Bria’s body was changing. She felt more tired and she had to use the bathroom more frequently, as well as having morning sickness and food cravings. During a session with her psychiatrist, they went over her mental health history. She was born under the influence of crack cocaine and was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for about a month. Her biological mother lost custody of her when she tested positive for the drug. She then signed away her rights, so she could be adopted.

Her parents adopted her when she was a baby. She couldn’t remember the exact age she was. As a child, she was diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety and depression. Her ADHD was thought to have been caused by the drugs. Was she in special education? No, she went to boarding school in Switzerland. It was great for her because she could go to the teachers and ask questions after school was over.

They helped her through her lessons and explained it in a way she could understand. They had a performing arts program, in which she participated in. She did voice lessons, dance classes, and piano lessons. Along with theater classes. It helped her channel her energy into something positive. Did she still have a relationship with her parents? No, they were killed in a car accident when she was eighteen. They were hit by a driver under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

She had so much love and respect for them because when they inquired about adopting her, they were told she would have developmental difficulties. They thought she would need around-the-clock care for the rest of her life. It was the early eighties, so they didn’t have the information they currently did. The psychiatrist agreed that was true.

What were her symptoms when she was going through withdrawal? Did she remember? She thought she had high-pitched crying, diarrhea, vomiting, and seizures. Her parents were open about what she went through. What about her birth parents? What did she know about them? She knew a little. Her birth mother had a very traumatic childhood. That was a huge understatement. Her father was a World War Two veteran with undiagnosed and untreated PTSD.

He was an alcoholic, who was physically and mentally abusive. She left home and became addicted to drugs. Somehow, she met a guy who was much older than her. He took her in and they used drugs together. While under the influence, he physically and sexually abused her. She was thought to be a product of the sexual abuse.

“I don’t remember what year it was. It was 1998 or 1999, she hit my friend and me while driving intoxicated. We both had minor injuries but she was arrested. She went through a mental health evaluation. We found out she was diagnosed with Borderline Schizophrenia. She is currently in a mental hospital. I’m at risk of developing schizophrenia because of my genetics. I have compassion for her because of what she went through. She never had a chance to have a healthy life.”

Her mother did the most selfless thing. That was giving her a chance to have a life she never had. She also gave her a chance to have a life without abuse. The psychiatrist agreed that was true. She did. What happened to her birth father? They didn’t know. After her mother signed away her rights, they both disappeared. She hoped he was dead because that’s what he deserved.

Hey. When you get a chance, text me back. Mike told me about the pregnancy. I’m not angry or upset. I just want to know how you’re doing. – Jason

Of course, he did. At least he’s not gossiping about me. At least I hope he’s not. Anyway, yeah. I’m in treatment because I had a really bad BPD episode and I self-harmed. I was in the hospital for seventy-two hours and now I’m in treatment. The medical staff is monitoring the pregnancy. I didn’t know I could get pregnant. I should have been more careful. I wasn’t and I’m sorry. Please tell me you’re not angry with me. I miss you and I wish you were here. – Bria

@zoeykaytesmom @feelingsofaithless @alina-dixon

[myafterlifeisbetterthenyours]

I'm reading too many fanfics and today I want something more cute than romantic, so I would like Stella with an S/o to be her personal butler who took care of her during her childhood and adolescence (bonus if S/o used to sing to Stella when she was a kid) . obviously the S / o must have a great preparation to be worthy of taking care of the daughter of the parents who were certainly one of the causes of Stella to be like this

Stella's personal Servant and S/O

You had spent years in preparation for when you would meet your mistress.

It was a common practice amongst the nobility.

You take a child from a lower house, train and raising them to become the personal servant to a child from a higher noble family.

You were of lower stock, your family heavily reliant on Stella's family, and being the youngest of your line, you found yourself chosen to be her servant.

Although the agreement basically surrendered one of there own to a life of servitude, it also brought prestige to there household, while also placing one of there own at the right hand of the next head of a powerful household.

Despite your years of training, you were still increadibly nervous upon meeting her, terrified you'd do something wrong and screw it up.

But much to your surprise, she wasn't some terrifying ice queen who could vapourise you with a glare.

She was just a girl. A young, normal looking noble girl. Seemingly not much older than you.

Your meeting was somewhat awkward, you being unsure how you should interact with her outside of the cold formalities you were taught.

Your relationship was an unusual one.

As while, yes you were her servant, you were also expected to be her closest allie and truest friend.

You were expected to take on every burden she had, to carry and guard them to the death.

A concept that hadn't fully registered in your young mind yet, but despite your age, you quickly acclimated to your new responsibilities.

You had, of course, been give training for your new duty, but much of it was learnt in the field.

You found yourself working into a schedule; wake up before her, get clean, have breakfast before waking her up at 7:30 sharp.

From there you would help her dress, something you were quite flustered about the first time around. Then you accompanied her to breakfast, then to her first lesson of the day.

You were often dismissed during her lessons, returning to her room to tidy up, or have her clothes cleaned.

It took time but eventually you were just as capable at cleaning and serving as any veteran servant of the household.

Now, initially Stella was quite... cold towards you. Treating you not much better than any other servant of the home.

But she did eventually warm to you, starting the night you heard her having a nightmare.

Much to her annoyance you had been moved into the room besides her, giving her 24 hour access to you, and you to her.

So you were easily capable of hearing her toss and turn in bed, her whimpers getting louder and louder. Until she awoke, with a scream.

You instantly shot into action, sliding into her room and pulled her into your embrace.

Holding her to your chest, you did your best to sooth her. Barely being a boy yourself you were quite inexperience with such things.

So you did the only thing you could, you sang to her.

You sung her the song your wet nurse used to sing you when you had a bad dream. Holding her for what felt like hours, gently singing to her until she fell back to sleep.

The next morning she insisted you call her Stella, unlike before when she demand the customary 'Lady' or 'Mistress'.

Not long after that she began addressing you by name. The two of you seeming to enter a level of mutual respect.

Similar events would happen several more times during your youth, each time you sang her the same song, holding her close and soothing her.

You brought up the nightmares to her parents, the two seemingly didn't care. Her parents just coldlt telling you 'They were something she needed to get over herself.'

And her parents weren't the warmest family, both her parents seemed obsessed with there appearances, placing politics over the well bing of there own daughter.

So you made her well-being your top priority, always asking if she was OK or if she wanted to talk.

In preparation for you new duties you had already received extensive training in everything from cleaning to first aid.

But as the the two of you grew, you began getting lessons in far more hands on fields.

As you were expected to be her faithful guardian. You were trained in various forms of combat, with everything from knives, to assault rifles.

Followed by several specialised first aid courses, each one dedicated to a different field of medicine.

You excelled through each course, taking the role as both servant and protector as your own.

Despite being younger then your charge, your mentality quickly matured beyond your years, willing and prepared to fight to the death for your charge.

You fully embraced you postion, putting aside everything you were and giving yourself to your new role, absolutely.

As the two of you grew older, you also grew closer and closer. And due to your special status as her personal servant, having less limitations put on you then a regular servant of the house, you could act as more of a friend to the girl. Acting as a trusted confidant for the girls troubles.

As you matured your skills, both physically and mentally, you learned to better dedicat your new skills to what would most efficiently aid your liege.

While you excelled in your training dedicating your self to the task before you, the main problem you faced was, Stella.

It may seem petty, but Stella being of a higher and more powerful cast meant she grew to tower over you by at least a foot.

Something she was sure to rub in your face.

And it may not seem like that big of a deal, but protecting someone much taller then you, was a constant struggle. As they were far more visible then yourself and could be targeted from angles you weren't able to see.

But you did your absolute best, going above and beyond as her steadfast companion, hapily waiting on her hand a foot.

It seemed like a blink if an eye and the beautiful young lady you once served had grown into a beautiful young woman.

And much to your shame, over the years spent together, you had developed a deep affection for her, an affection that went far beyond friendship.

Of course you would never publicly admit such a thing, your years of training alloweing you to keep such your feelings suppressed. Only allowing your affection to show through in what would be expected of a typical platonic relationship.

When Stella came to the age of 17, her parents decided to send her to an academy famous for its education of young noble women.

The problem was, it was an all girls academy. And you being her private servant, and right hand, the two of you could not be sepperated for such a long period of time.

It took a fair bit of political manoeuvring and more then a few favours to get you in, but by the end of it, you found yourself enrolled right besides her.

You were to attend every class as well as share quarters with Stella. You were not to leave her side unless absolutely necessary.

You were far from the only servant to accompany there mistress.

You found a variety of them, from Imps to hellhounds. You even saw a few succubus amongst them.

But the thing that really stood out, was that you were the only male, even amongst the staff.

Initially life at the academy went fantastic.

Stella, with her confident nature and families status thrived at the academy, easily rising the social ranks, making friends and allies.

The whole thing bringing a great sense of warmth to your black heart.

You stood back and proudly watched as she excelled amongst her peers, only having to step in to aid her in her day to day.

But unfortunately, problems did arise. And much to your shame, they were spawned from you.

Now, you had already received a fair amount of attention from the Student; Stares, love letters, lustful gazes. But you were there for Stella, the affects of there attention quickly dissipated as you focused on Stella.

Now you being a fairly attractive young man, in exceptional shape from years of work and being the only male in a school of a few hundred young hormonal women.

But initially, being Stella's servant stopped anyone from pursuing you, as relations with someone below them was punished severely by both the school and there families.

Unfortunately the question of who you were was quickly raised, Stella without much concern or thought, told them all about your special status as both a noble and a servant.

And that's were the problems really began.

You see, sleeping with another family's servant, was an excellent way to get yourself disowned by your family.

But a fling with a servant, whom was also a fellow noble... that could be tolerated.

You were greatly surprised to find just how tolerant the school was of such behaviour.

It would seem that despite there rather strict policy on student/Staff relations, that being pubished severely.

But the school was unwilling to take serious action against noble children for have relations amongst themselves.

It seemed they allowed the students to let out there rebellious phase in small ways, perhaps a method to help make them into proper nobles.

Needless to say, you had never been so happy you were Stella's servant.

You'd heard how some of them talked about you, and if Stella wasn't your mistress, your quite certain you'd be used as a tool for political gain, regardless how you felt about it.

Ironically, you found Stella becoming far more possessive of you, especially whenever someone began to show interest in you.

Now she had always been possessive of you to a degree, snapping at anyone who dared to treat you poorly or acted like you were supposed to serve them, something that happened quite often amongst nobility.

You liked to think it was her way of marking her territory, all the while showing you that she had your back. And with all the attention you were getting, it only made sense for her to be a bit more possessive.

Adding to your growing shame, seeing Stella becoming such a strong, confident woman had only strengthened your feelings for her.

In your mind, you had kept your feeling for Stella perfectly hidden. Only allowing your affection to show, through your friendly and platonic behaviour.

Apparently you were wrong.

Parties were surprisingly common on the school grounds, with a major party seemingly occurring at least once a month.

Stella being ever the socialite, was of course invited. The young lady flirtaciously telling you were invited as well. Following her to the party, you found a small herd of teens sipping wine from plastic cups, talking amongst themselves.

Playing nobility.

It was fun for the most part.

Everyone was dancing and drinking. And much to your surprise Stella was quite lax when it came to alcohol, drinking more than her fair share.

A little tipsy, she found you, demanding you dance with her.

Now you, on the other hand, did not party. You did not drink, you did not fraternise and you most certainly didn't dance.

You were her guardian, you were supposed to watch over her, not get drunk with her in some random dormroom.

But Stella ordered you, not having the will to refuse her, you complied.

You danced and drank and partied. And for the first time in your life, you let yourself he a teenager.

And you enjoyed it. You enjoyed being with Stella.

The mood quickly soured when, as Stella left to get a drink, some random girl grabbed you by the collar and rather aggressively tried to kiss you.

You were able to hold her back of course, even inebriated you were still strong enough to hold back a drunk teenage girl.

You were freaking out, unable to think of what to do, only for Stella to appear and violently rip her off you, beating the crap out of the her right there infront of all the other party goers.

She screamed at the girl, telling her to never touch what belonged to her again. Before without saying a word, grabbing your hand and dragging you out of the party.

She dragged you into a nearby allyway, ranting and raving about how dare someone touch you, you belonged to her and she was sick of having to remind people.

Her words becoming progressively more possessive, you just half drunkenly stumbling your much taller mistress.

Raising the question of her increasingly possessive language, you saw her entire body shift.

Walking up to you, she pressed her body up against yours, effortlessly pinning you to the wall.

It was pointless to struggle, as even with all your training she was still stronger.

With eyes you had never seen before, she stared into your own and asked if you liked her.

You were both shocked and terrified, you were so sure you had been careful.

You sputtered something out, trying to hide your feelings before she cut you off with a passionate kiss.

She held you close as she told you all about how she knew you liked her, about how she knew you always held yourself back.

But she understood why.

You were left stunned when she told you the reason she knew why, was because she'd been doing the same. She confessed she had fallen for you, but like you, she had kept her feeling secret because such a relationshi wouldn't be "proper"!

But she didn't care anymore.

She was sick of keeping her feelings for you a secret, sick of watching other women get to speak and act freely while she was forced to hold her tongue.

She wanted you and she was going to have you, no matter what anyone thought.

She dragged you back to your dormroom, although it was more like a small apartment before dragging you to her bed.

Sitting above you she asked if you wanted this, unable to think of the right words you just gave her another passionate kiss.

The two of you spent the night together.

Your relationship was kept a secret for the rest of her time in the academy. The two of you agreeing it would be best and with Your position already giving you the best possible excuse to be close together.

Once you both graduated, Stella's parents tried to have an arranged marriage set up for her, hoping to achieve greater prestige for the family.

But much to your surprise, she blatantly refused.

Instead she using her new-found political connections and usurped her parents, taking the family name and the role of head of household as her own.

Her first act, openly declaring your relationship.

You were deeply relieved the outcry was very minimal, contained to only a few already outspoke critics that apposing her anyways.

And so you stood by her ever since. As bother her loyal protector and faithful lover.

Hey hey, this one was a challenge, but I still enjoyed it. If any of you have a request or want to submit a prompt, go right ahead. Check out my master list for what I won't write and go for it. Thank you all for reading.

[alice-angel12x]

☁Alpha!Kirishima x rebellious!omega!reader

Omegas, the lowest rank and the most submissive... Well not all. 1 out of 50 omegas is an omega-R. Or called broken omegas, they have an uncanny ability to ignore an order from an alpha.

An Alpha order is a special ability they have to force submissiveness on the lower ranks, even some lesser alpha. So if an alpha tried to use his Order on an Omega-R, they would not submit. Or at least not very easily, they will feel the urge to obey. But they can ignore it and defy them. Other than that there is no real difference between the omegas.

So you could see why my kind is frowned upon. Not wanted and such. I was born an Omega-R from a pure omega couple, funny enough.  Know there is no way to tell if you an omega-R, till some alpha tries to order you into having s@× with them. Then the next thing that alpha knows is that they have a broken nose. Or they do a DNA test to see a small mutation in your omega genes.

News quickly spread about me being an omega-R, while most omegas found it cool with a few exceptions. Other ranks especially alphas did not like this. To them, an Omega-R is something unnatural.

"That's unnatural, such a freak of nature"

"Disgusting, that thing should know its place,"

"Life is gonna crush her spirits soon anyways,"

"I can't wait for her to sent to Omegan school,"

They would snicker those words behind my back. Omegan school is a place to teach Omegas how to please their mate. Being Alpha or Beta, whoever is willing to paying enough to have a 'trained omega' as a mate. I found it disgusting, and many omegas would agree, but in silence. Omegas have the most restrictions, they have curfews at night, only certain jobs are open to them. Or at all if their Alpha/beta allows them. All this to "protect the fragile omegas". Even though I have met many omegas with powerful quirks and skillsets. But are swept under the rug just cause of their second gender.

Despite this, I had one good alpha friend named Kirishima. He was gentlemanly and kind, the only one who treated me like an equal or at least like a person. Know that doesn't mean he was a pushover, he was a pretty formidable Alpha. The only guy who believed I could become a hero.

Many people in society believed that omegas shouldn't be hero's, that is a role only for betas and Alphas, they say. Omegas have only two roles, to be a perfect obedient housewife and used for breeding. Yet what I find only more messed up, is when the education system goes out of its way to try to prevent me from even attempting to get to UA. But thanks to the power of knowing the right people I was able to take the exam. And pass with flying colors, placing in number 6.

Know I have a pretty strong telekinesis quirk. I could crush a large point zero robots into the size of a small truck size metal ball. Yet even in this school, surrounded by good people in class 1A. I still couldn't escape the awful stereotypes. They mean well, but once in and while they would bring up the flaws omegas have, and how they shouldn't be in the hero course. I never told them that I was an Omega-R.

_______

It was a bright day and we were outside doing training. Aizawa placed everyone in one on one matches, chosen by a simple lottery. Y/n was up against Bakugou, a very strong and proud alpha.

He was a little too happy to fight y/n the omega. I wished they would stop referring to y/n only by her second gender. Bakugou never liked Y/n from the start, he believed that she should have gone to Omegan school like she was meant to. The others believed that becoming a hero is not safe for omegas. I just can't help but get pissed off about that, they think they can protect omegas by stripping them of their humanity and rights. Forcing them down a path that leads to them being locked away at home. Only there to please their mates.

The fight between Bakugou and Y/n was fierce. Every time Bakugou tried to get close to y/n, she'd simply push him away with her quirk. Eventually, y/n was able to pin Bakugou in place with her quirk. He was just a few inches away from the boundary line.

"LET GO OF ME, Omega!"  Bakugou ordered.

Y/n trembled at his voice. Bakugou was using his Alpha order to force Y/n into submission. Some of my classmates trembled too.

"This is why an omega shouldn't be a hero. Omegas can't help but obey an order," Mineta said simply.

"It's a sad truth, most villains are alphas. So Y/n could be easily forced to submit by a simple order. Some alphas can break free of order, but omegas can't," Momo added with a sorry look.

"Surrender omega! That's an order," Bakugou said with a cocky smile.

Y/n trembled in place, she was fighting against the order. Then suddenly Y/n started to run full speed at Bakugou. She jumped into the air moving forward from her momentum. She twisted her hip, recoiled her leg, then extended it right into his face. Kicking Bakugou out of bounds. Everyone was shocked, not because this omega bet Bakugou, but because she was able to ignore an alpha order.

"I may be an omega, but I'm not an omega you can order around. And I would never submit to the likes of you," Y/n said with her own piercing glare.

Everyone started to look at her oddly after that. Those Who were nice still talked to y/n, but many just stayed out of her away like the plague.

One night I entered her room, after a hard day she had. She was on her bed sobbing. It has been a rough week after word got out that an Omega-R was in the school.

"Are You alright Y/n?" I asked her.

"No," Was all she said.

I quietly walked over to her bedside and sat on the edge of the bed.

"What's wrong with being what I am?" She sobbed.

"There's nothing wrong, it's just many higher rankings like to be superior. Omega-R's are like a threat to them," I said sadly.

"Do I feel like a threat to you?" She asked as she looked over at me.

"No. But to be honest that's what I like about you. Don't get me wrong having a submissive omega would be nice and all. Yet that thought doesn't seem appealing to me. And my dad would take advantage of his rank all the time with mom and me," I explained

"I refuse to be like him. I... I'm going to be better than him. So I've been wanting to ask you," I hesitated. I didn't know if this was the best time to ask this question.

"What is it Kiri?" She asked as she sat up.

"Will... Will you be my mate. Not as Alpha or Omega, but just as Kirishima and Y/n," I asked.

Y/n was silent for a long time, till I felt arms wrapped around my shoulders.

"I would like that very much, Kiri~," she coed as she kissed my cheek.

[guqin-and-flute]

And A-Fu Makes 4--Ch. 3

[Happy belated birthday, Jingyi! 🥳]

[Ao3 Link]

Things got a little better in school. Not too much. What they were learning was so boring that paying attention didn’t really make it better even when he did use his new rocks so his ears woke up. His ears just didn’t like what they were hearing. When Yellow-Father visited the Cloud Recesses and gathered him up and asked him all smiley what his favorite thing from class today was, A-Fu scowled. “When I leaved. ”

Yellow-Father’s eyebrows went crinkly. “An education like this is a great privilege, Fufu. You’re very lucky.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t feel lucky. Not never.”

His father’s crinkles turned into a little frown and he said, all serious, “There are a great many people who never get to go to school, let alone have the life you’re going to have.”

“Then they’re the lucky ones.”

After that, Yellow-Father closed his eyes and took a deep breath before smiling and asking if he found any good bugs lately--which was such good timing because A-Fu had ! He got to show Yellow-Father the little house he had made for them in the back garden with mud and sticks and a couple rocks--unfortunately, only a couple had actually stayed inside. And maybe that was because they were too busy sleeping on their backs with their legs all curled up but that was okay, because he held them up all proud and Yellow-Father agreed that yes, they were a very nice find and now he could go and wash his hands. 

What actually really started to make school lucky was that they began going outside to train and use their practice swords more. A-Yuan may have been good at everything else and just a little bigger than him, but A-Fu was starting to feel great when he got to swing his sword around all strong and fast like his fathers. Up until now, no one at Cloud Recesses had let him whack anything, practically--it was all ‘hold it like this’ and ‘bow like this’ and ‘etiquette etiquette etiquette’. Blah blah blegh. Just another thing to forget. But A-Fu was finding out that his body was pretty good at remembering things, even if his brain wasn’t, and one time, even the teacher passed by and nodded, saying, “Just like that, Lan Fu,” and the sun came up in his chest all sparkly and happy. 

He grinned over at A-Yuan, who was concentrating really hard on swinging straight down and didn’t see him, but it was totally okay, because the teacher had told him that he was good! He was doing so good!

After class, he ran all the way home through the sun coming down through the trees to the Hanshi and told the whole entire thing to Blue-Father about 5 times as they walked to the secret bunny patch in the woods. He even stopped on the path to stand with his practice sword to show him his stance and everything. “I’m so proud of you,” Blue-Father had said with a wide, warm smile, waiting for him to catch back up. “You’ve been working very hard.”

“I have! Watch, watch--I can do it so fast! So much faster than A-Yuan! I’m gonna kill all the bad guys!”

Blue-Father shook his head, still smiling, turning to walk beside him with Shuoyue held behind his back. “We should use our swords to protect people.”

Right away, A-Fu copied him, holding his practice sword behind him with his shoulders all straight and his chest puffed out. Their footsteps crunched on the white rocks, every once in a while matching up on a step. A-Fu tried to make them match more, but Blue-Father’s legs were too long. “Yeah, from bad guys that I’m gonna kill! When is the next war?” he asked, looking up at his blue father, all calm and tall against the trees. “Are we gonna win it?”

“Wars are not scheduled, silly boy. Nor should we wish for them.” He held out his hand--A-Fu switched his sword hand and took it as they kept walking. “Your die’s have fought very hard to give you a world free of war.”

What? That was the worst news! “No more wars ? How is people supposed to be heroes, then? That’s not fair, all you got to be heroes! Die, you shouldn’t have ruined it for the rest of us.”

Blue-Father gave a small hum of laughter through his nose before looking down at him with a smaller smile, shaking his head again. “In truth, wars aren’t about glory or heroes. A good leader sees them as a last resort, not something to seek out. The ones who suffer the most are the people who cannot protect themselves and those left behind--and so we dedicate ourselves to the service of those who need us. That should be your goal if you want to be a hero, not the killing. It's what your Uncle Wangji does, when he can. He is known for being where the chaos is.” He looked out into the deep green of the forest shadows. “There is nothing wrong with a peaceful life.”

A-Fu rolled his eyes and leaned way over, hanging from Blue-Father’s hand. “Boooring. I wanna fight--kshh kshh ksshhew!” he added really loud as he reached out to beat up a rock right next to the path, whacking it so loud ‘tok’s echoed around them, scaring a squirrel up a branch.

Blue-Father’s hand squeezed and tugged him back carefully. “A-Fu, don’t treat your sword that way, use it with respect.” 

Sulkily, A-Fu stuck it behind his back again. 

“And you will have plenty of opportunities to fight, in the life we lead. What’s more important is to have empathy and kindness. Ah, Wangji.” He nodded to him as they finally stepped into the little meadow, bunnies hopping up eagerly to see if they had treats in their pockets. “A-Yuan!” He added with delight as A-Yuan raced up and grabbed onto his thigh with a big grin.

Excited, A-Fu pulled his hand away and wrapped around his other leg, linking his feet behind his heel. “Walk! Walk!” he hollered and so Blue-Father did, walking with careful straight leg steps all around the bunny patch while they both giggled into each others faces when they swung by and the little white puffballs of rabbits scattered in front of them.

A-Fu loved playing near the rabbit hutches with his family--it smelled like sweet hay the rabbits ate and the clean water smell of the stream nearby which made cheerful noises. Some sun came through the thick leaves, but not a ton, so it was green and shady, even on sticky hot days. The grass was thick and fun to jump around and dance and wrestle on. 

After 3 times around the whole meadow, Blue-Father shooed them off so he could sit, and A-Fu shyly went with A-Yuan over to go say hi to Uncle Wangji where he sat watching them with a guqin on his knees and a bunny nestled in the corner of his thigh. A-Fu showed him that he still had his rocks from school, tucked in his inner pockets, snug and warm. Uncle Wangji nodded with a little smile and A-Fu felt all shiny and bubbly and thought that this was maybe one of the best days ever. He sat right next to him, leaning on his leg, and told him what songs he wanted them to play when Blue-Father took out his xiao. The grownups played lots of music while they were there; dancey ones and pretty ones and boring ones they played all slow and sad. It was nice because the music was kept close by all the huge trees, like a private recital. A-Fu danced with A-Yuan to the fast ones, pretended to be underwater for the slow ones, then chased the bunnies around when there were too many of those--until A-Yuan made him stop.

Eventually, though, fathers started talking in between the songs, and that got long enough that the instruments just stayed in their laps and A-Fu got bored. Then, he had the greatest idea. He grabbed A-Yuan’s hand and pulled him up so his special speckley rabbit hopped out of his lap. (A-Fu had named it Poop-Eater and A-Yuan had named it Turnip and they both would not use each other’s name--A-Fu because he thought it was lame and A-Yuan because he thought it was gross--even though it was true , because he did eat poop, A-Fu had seen it.) Dragging A-Yuan over to where the grass was long and soft and pretty un-nibbled, he said, “Let’s do a dueling!”

A-Yuan held out his arms wide, showing him in his sleeves. “But I don’t have my practice sword.” 

“Hmph. Well, okay, I have mine...so the duel is who can swing the sword the best. You go first.”

A-Yuan scrunched his face up and looked back at where Blue-Father and Uncle Wangji were chatting quietly about something, both petting the sleeping bunnies in their laps. “Do I gotta? I’m playing in bunnies and I'm tired.”

“Yes, we gotta, for really real! We can play in bunnies after!”

After one more longing look at the rabbits, A-Yuan sighed. “Okay.”

They practiced, back and forth and back and forth, and since A-Fu was so good in class, he was able to tell his cousin that his hands weren’t holding it right. Then, that his feet weren’t right, and then that he wasn’t swinging it fast enough or straight enough. It felt great to be the one in charge, the one who knew all the right answers, for once. Eventually, he rolled his eyes and asked, all smug, “Did you even pay attention in class? It’s not that hard. Are you trying at all?”

Right away, he knew he messed up. 

A-Yuan’s face got all wobbly and red and his eyes went shiny. He dropped the sword and ran to Uncle Wangji sobbing, saying that A-Fu was being mean to him. A-Fu’s tummy dropped into his feet like when he had jumped off the too high wall. He ran to go hide behind his father--but, of course, he didn’t let him. Blue-Father found his hand and tugged him to his feet and made him stand up straight and tell them what happened. Uncle Wangji sat on the grass and held A-Yuan under his chin and listened to A-Fu explain with a quiet face that didn’t show what he was thinking at all. “I wasn’t making fun of him! We were playing!” There was a long silence, and A-Fu squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears. “I’m not lying!”

Blue-Father’s even voice said, “Then tell us, A-Fu.”

Desperately, A-Fu looked up at him where he stood, still covering his ears. He was looking down at him with a serious face, eyebrows raised. He wouldn’t let Uncle Wangji yell at him.

...Right? 

“Diedie… ”

“We need to take responsibility for the hurt we have caused. There is no getting out of it.”

“You were making fun of me,” A-Yuan sniffed, all miserable, turning in Uncle Wangji’s lap to look at him. 

Everyone else was looking at him, too, and A-Fu got all hot and squirmy and ashamed because now everyone was mad and hated him. “I was just...I was teaching him...he wasn’t doing it right…” he whispered, his eyes all blurry. 

He just wanted to be good at something. Why was he in trouble for being better than A-Yuan at something when A-Yuan had so many other things he was better at? It wasn't fair.

Uncle Wangji looked at A-Yuan, whose lip trembled as he said in a voice like a wobbly guqin string, “But you said it so mean.”

“I didn’t! That’s how they teach me !” A-Fu cried, pulling his hand down from his ear to scrub at his tears.

“Do you know it is wrong?” Uncle Wangji’s voice was quiet--which definitely wasn't yelling but it sure felt like it.

A-Fu just covered his face and didn’t say anything.

“Should you do it, if you are aware?”

“...No.”

Blue-Father knelt down beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You know that this is not how we treat people. You need to practice empathy--think of how he is feeling. If it hurts you, it will hurt him. What do we say to A-Yuan?”

When A-Fu looked back at A-Yuan, seeing him still crying made A-Fu start crying again, which made A-Yuan start crying again and they hugged and A-Fu said he was so so sorry and he would never ever say anything mean to him ever again. A-Yuan forgave him right away, like he always did and hugged him back super tight. A-Fu saw Blue-Father smile a little at Uncle Wangji--who gave a teeny smile back. (A-Fu was getting better at being able to see them. They were there! Just quieter.) Then they both curled up on Blue-Father’s lap and played with the bunnies while Uncle Wangji played more nice songs on the guqin and things just all got so much better. 

‘Empathy’ was a Blue-Father word--A-Fu noticed it popping up, like Blue-Father kept it in his pocket. Whenever he yelled when he got too mad or did something without thinking or talked before his mind caught up, it was ‘empathy empathy empathy’. Maybe it was his favorite or something.

Some of his other grown ups had pocket words, too--Great-Uncle Qiren’s was ‘Prohibited’ or ‘Impertinent’ and Yellow-Father’s was ‘Careful’. When A-Fu started looking, he kept noticing it more and more--when he played with A-Qiang a little too rough or balanced on the edge of the koi pond, he got a 'careful'. When he ran around right after a bath, he got a “Fufu, careful! ”

One time, he got a ton of ‘carefuls’ in a row, when he was in Koi Tower and he snuck out behind the nanny’s backs again. He went around and around in the halls to lose them until he was almost dizzy and when he finally stopped, he realized he didn’t recognize anything--there were no windows and more doors than usual,  dark and sturdy. The walls didn’t have as many fancy curlicues and dangly bits as the rest of Koi Tower, more plain blue with just some gold circles studding the pillars every once in a while. Well. A-Fu just had no idea where this was. 

He wasn’t worried, though, because when he poked his head around a corner, he spotted Yellow-Father facing away, talking to a black and gold someone in a doorway, so he dashed down the hall and catapulted into his father’s legs and yelled a hello with a big grin. It wasn’t until he looked up at his father’s face that he noticed he wasn’t smiling back like he usually was. His expression was all tight and unhappy, his eyes darting between A-Fu and the man he was talking to. 

The man was smiling down at him, though. But his eyes weren't friendly--they were dark and... waiting. They glittered like a snake and A-Fu even liked snakes--but he was pretty sure that people shouldn’t have the same sort of eyes.

Yellow-Father’s hand squeezed his shoulder as he tried to turn him around quick. “Fufu, you are not allowed down here, you need to--”

But A-Fu spotted something and he squirmed back around in his hands. “Why do you have that?” He pointed at the man’s hand where it sat on his hip with only the pinky covered by the black leather of his glove. “That’s weird.”

“Lan Fu-- ” 

The fact that Yellow-Father just full-named him flew out of his head because A-Fu decided right then and there that he didn’t like this guy when he said, “Wow, you’re a rude little shit, aren’t you?” Then, the stranger man tilted his head, his wide, weird smile growing wider and weirder. “Ooooh, is this Er-ge’s spawn?” 

A-Fu jutted his chin forward and folded his arms. “No, I’m--”

“That’s enough. I think you have somewhere to be,” Yellow-Father said. And A-Fu froze, looking up at him with wide eyes. Because Yellow-Father was never rude, no matter what--but his voice had been rough and cold like ice and he was staring at the snake eyed man. And he was finally smiling; all hard like a warning. 

For some reason, that seemed funny to Snake Eye Guy and his teeth peeked through. “You’re not even going to introduce us?”

“No.” Yellow-Father took A-Fu by both shoulders and turned him, marching him right back down the hall.

“Rude. Do you like sweets, brat?” Snake Eye Guy called after them.

A-Fu scowled back over his shoulder as Yellow-Father kept steering him in front down the hallway, almost tripping him on his feet. “Yeah,” he said, super tough, just like Gray-Father would. “Why?”

“Come find me if you ever want any.” Then, he laughed, delighted when Yellow-Father’s fingers tightened on his shoulder like claws. “Oh, what, Lianfang-zun? What do you think I’m going to do to him? It’s just candy.” His mocking followed them around the corner A-Fu had to take at a jog.

Yellow-Father had hustled them down the strange corridors until they found the sun again. He was still squeezing until A-Fu yelped that he was squishing his bones out, and he let go right away. When he stopped to kneel down and rub them, he started scolding with a worried frown, “Fufu, you cannot keep doing this. You need to stay with your nannies and out of places that are not meant for you. You have to be more careful.”

A-Fu just wanted to know who that guy was and why his hand was like that and why he was so weird and why was Yellow-Father so mad at him and did he really have candy?

And Yellow-Father wouldn’t answer any of his questions at all. He just kept saying, so serious, that A-Fu could never be around him again or talk about him and that he needed to be careful. And usually A-Fu was annoyed at new rules, but this one seemed to make sense. It would also be pretty easy to follow, because he gave him the creeps and he didn't really want to have to talk to him again. But he still wanted to know-- “Why?”

“He’s not someone a child should be around. If he ever tries to talk to you again, you come and find me right away, Fufu. Do you promise me?”

“Who was he?”

“Do you promise ?”

A-Fu had to think. “Yeah. Why?”

“Just...don’t worry about him. You shouldn’t see him again, but if you do, leave at once.”

“Are you mad? Why can’t I talk about him?”

“...Because it would be gossip. Gossip is forbidden.”

A-Fu guessed that made sense. Maybe. He reached up and grabbed Yellow-Father’s hat dangly, asking, “Are you mad? Are you mad at me?”

Yellow-Father sighed and rubbed his face and then finally smiled at him, all squinchy and small and harassed. “No. No, I’m not mad. I’m sorry.” He pulled A-Fu in close and squeezed, kissing his forehead.

“Is he a bad guy?” A-Fu asked Yellow-Father’s neck. “I can beat him up for you, I’m getting really good at swords.”

Yellow-Father huffed out a breath and smoothed A-Fu’s hair down. “I’m sure you are. But no. Just...just be more careful. Don’t come here again. Stay with your nannies.”

“Why? Careful what?”

Yellow-Father pulled back and rubbed his temple. “It’s time to go back, now--and no more escaping! You can’t be so naughty, what are you going to do to my heart, making me worry? I’m going to have to have a talk with your nannies….”

If ‘Careful’ was Yellow-Father’s pocket word, maybe one of Gray-Father’s pocket words was the grownup word 'Conviction'. A-Fu first learned about it when he went to stay at the Unclean Realm for a whole entire month in the summer. 

It was so much fun--he went into town with Uncle Huaisang a lot and hid in the sweet smelling fabric at the silk shops and got a little toy fan, just like Uncle Huaisang’s. Almost every day they went down and both got candied hawthorn sticks as they walked around and looked at things. A-Fu’s favorites were the toy stands--he got pinwheels for him and A-Yuan and A-Ling and A-Kui. He tried to get them in all the Clan Colors but they didn’t have red, so he got A-Kui yellow, too.

Sometimes, though, they would go into the forest and find a little stream where Uncle Huaisang would tie up their sleeves and they would try to catch fish with their hands. Uncle Huaisang was really bad at it and A-Fu told him so. He got so offended that he splashed him and got his robes all wet. And one day, they followed a little blue bird for-ev-er until A-Fu started complaining and scared it away. Uncle Huaisang had paid him in candy to not repeat any of the words he yelled at the sky as it flew off above the trees. Oh well. A-Fu liked hunting for things on the ground more anyway, like frogs or turtles. They couldn’t fly away and they were easy to stuff in his pockets or his sleeves. One time, he brought back, like, five toads and Gray-Father said the same bad words as Uncle Huaisang when they got on his important letters. From then on, toads were banned from the Unclean Realm, which made A-Fu grumpy. But at least he still had the 3 salamanders he found and he was learning new vocabulary words, like he did for school.

Other times, he would help weed and water the vegetable garden out behind Uncle Huaisang’s room. They had planted it together the last time that A-Fu had stayed a million years ago and things were still growing--but there were a couple beans and lettuce and carrots he got to munch on after they rinsed them off. It was kind of boring, but he got to look for worms and eat, so it wasn’t so bad.

Nie Zonghui, Gray-Father’s second in command, always had a nice smile and showed him how he could use his double sabers, which was the coolest thing next to Baxia. Now that he actually knew things about swords, A-Fu followed him around a lot when he was doing practice drills in the training yard with all the pink flower trees around it, copying his moves with sticks, since his practice sword was back in the Cloud Recesses. “I’m not certain I should be teaching you these,” Nie Zonghui said with a smile down at him as A-Fu hacked at a practice dummy’s butt. “Sabers and swords use different techniques and I don’t want to spoil your learning before you even start.”

“Well, if it’s my sword, I can use it how I want, right?”

“Mm. Not quite. You’ll be taught Lan skills.”

A-Fu frowned, wiping sweat off of his face with his sleeve, then shoving his headband up when it slipped. “Then I’ll get two--one sword, one saber and I’ll use them in two hands like you and it will be the coolest thing anyone has ever seened.”

Nie Zonghui grinned and looked over at the Nie shijie that was snickering nearby at the next dummy. “Uh, that will be a sight. I look forward to it.”

A-Fu nodded firmly at them. “Yeah, you do that.”

When Gray-Father stopped doing boring work talking to people and came out on the training grounds, A-Fu would challenge him to a duel and fight him with a Nie practice saber. It didn't always go so well because Gray-Father knew more moves, but when it got too complicated, A-Fu just whacked his shins and knees really hard and then tackled his tummy so they fell on the dirt and laughed. When Gray-Father wasn’t around, the cool Nie disciples sometimes let him whack them in the knees! He just had to promise to avoid the nards, which he thought was fair.

He would go walking and playing with Gray-Father on days where he was back from Night Hunting and meetings, riding on his back or one shoulder like he was Clan Leader--or even a King! When he sat up there, he was so tall, he could probably be in charge of anybody! Sometimes Gray-Father was grumpy and not in the mood for a lot of wrestling. Sometimes he told A-Fu to ‘calm down and cut it out’ when he got super bouncy or loud. But most times, he was happy to see A-Fu and threw him up into the air or pretended to eat him or asked him all about his day. And A-Fu was so super happy to see him too, because he missed him.

Sometimes, though, he got a little sad and missed Blue-Father and A-Yuan and his Cloud Recesses friends and the bunnies and Uncle Wangji and even Great-Uncle Qiren. Sometimes, he had nightmares where he woke up in a place he didn’t know and no one would look at or talk to him. Those times, Gray-Father would let him crawl into bed once he knocked on the door. He would hug him close to his chest and pat his back and say that he missed Blue-Father, too, and he wouldn’t ever leave A-Fu anywhere he didn’t know. The Unclean Realm was his home, just like Cloud Recesses and just like Koi Tower, but he just had a whole bunch more practice of Cloud Recesses. He was used to the night noises of the bugs and the shush of the tree outside his window when the wind blew. Well, he told his father, A-Fu just needed to stay here more often, that’s all! And he had smiled.

When Gray-Father heard about how good he was getting at swords in school, he was so totally proud of him. His father ruffled up his hair and smushed his cheeks and said, “Practicing a lot, are you? You’re going to be a fearsome warrior just like your die? Smite all the evil?”

A-Fu got that happy sparkly feeling bubbling up again. “Yeah!”

Uncle Huaisang grinned and fwipped his fan shut, patting A-Fu’s shoulder with it. “Ah, good job, good job! What about reading and writing, xiao-Fu? I bet your calligraphy is going to be impeccable!”

A-Fu wrinkled his nose--peckable? "We don't keep birds like that in the Cloud Recesses, shushu," he reminded him, all patient. Ugh, did he ever think about anything else besides birds?

His uncle and his father looked at each other. "Oh, of course! My mistake. But I bet with your shu-gong on your case, you're the top of the class!"

A-Fu shrugged, flapping his toy fan open and closed really fast, the way that made Uncle Huaisang wince (and he did). “I hate reading. It’s stupid and hard. I like doing swords way more, I’m better at stabbing. ” When he said it, he jabbed the fan forward with both hands toward Gray-Father’s chest.

Gray-Father did a complicated twisty thing with his hand and snatched it right from A-Fu’s fingers, bopping him on the head with it. “Good boy, practicing.” 

A-Fu wrapped both arms around the sting and scowled. “Hey!”

Uncle Huaisang sighed. "Aiya, another one. Promise me you'll at least still paint with me?"

Before he could answer, Gray-Father asked, “How are you with a bow and arrow? Have you started yet? Maybe we could try hunting sometime soon.”

Uncle Huaisang made a scrunchy face, folding his arms. “Da-ge, don’t you think that’s too rough for him? And... would Er-ge approve?”

Some of the happy went away from Gray-Father’s face and he looked over at Uncle Huaisang. “I went out with die around his age. And Xichen has agreed that he should have a broad education.”

“But he’s just a baby!”

What! 

Extremely offended, A-Fu puffed up and raised his fists. “I’m not a baby! I can hunt! Die, die, I can hunt, can’t I?”

“Of course you can. I can take you later today. How about it?”

When A-Fu cheered, Uncle Huaisang rolled his eyes and muttered something, fanning himself real fast. 

When they went, it was still a nice day but the sun was so bright when it peeked through the leaves, A-Fu had to squint against it and sweat kept trickling down his neck, even though the air was cool up in the mountains. They were both clopping through the forest on Gray-Father’s big brown horse, Leiting, with A-Fu perched in front on the saddle. He felt very important and tall and he kept very quiet just like Gray-Father told him to be, looking around with his practice bow in his lap. When he snuggled back against him, he felt Gray-Father chuckle in his belly and he reached down to pat A-Fu’s chest. Then, his father sat up, straight and quick, and twisted to the side, shooting his bow with a twunnnnng before A-Fu even knew what was happening.

And it turned out that Uncle Huaisang was actually right. 

Because when they got down and found the arrow butt poking up from the bushes, A-Fu’s tummy clenched up tight like a fist. The other end was stuck in a bunny. It was lying there all floppy with blood coming out of its mouth and nose. The one dark eye he could see was looking at the sky, reflecting the sun coming through the leaves. It wasn’t moving. It wasn’t ever gonna move again.

It was dead.

And all A-Fu could think was that this bunny wasn’t ever going to feel the hot sun again or eat a flower or anything.

He had heard about killing before, and he knew what dead was. Kind of. Sort of. He had just never thought about it for Really Real, actually happening. It was for stories and legends. It hadn’t meant anything before now. 

Suddenly, the nice day was horrible and awful and he burst into tears, startling Gray-Father and Leiting, who swung his huge head around to stare at all the noise. Then, he puffed out a breath and shook his head with a jangle. 

“Why did w-we gotta shoot it!? It’s j-just a bun-unny!”

Gray-Father frowned and knelt down next to him, a hand on his shoulder. “What did you think hunting was, child?”

“I do- hic- on't know! Why did you do that?!”

“We hunt animals and take them home for their fur and meat. For food.”

He stared down at the bunny’s big gray body, just laying there on the ground. “Food?!”

“That’s how we eat. What did you think was in rabbit stew?”

“I don’t k-know ! Bits! P-Parts!”

With a face screwed up, Gray-Father pinched his nose with his fingers, then looked at A-Fu again. “You thought we just cut parts of an animal off? That would be cruel, their legs and things don’t grow back. Chicken is chickens. Pork is pigs. We kill them and eat their meat, just like wolves and tigers do. It’s the natural order of things.”

This was the worst news in the world. All this time, he had been eating silly chickens and fluffy rabbits? They were dying? No wonder there were Lan rules about not eating meat or killing in the Cloud Recesses! He wrapped his arms around his tummy and yelled, “I hate it!! I’m-m never gonna kill an-nything ever!”

Sighing, Gray-Father picked him up. A-Fu put his arms around his neck and wiped his nose on his shoulder, smushing his face into his chest. He smelled like leather and the sun. With a thump, Gray-Father sat down on something, maybe a log, patting his back. “We are cultivators. One day, it will be your job to kill evil things--”

“Bunnies aren’t bad guys! They never hurt anyone! ”

Pat pat. “I never said that. Listen to me. You don’t have to like it, but it’s important to know what goes into your food. Everything in this world has its price.”

“I’m n- never gonna eat meat ag-gain!”

“Child--”

“No ! Never! It’s ho-horrible!”

A-Fu felt him heave another sigh as he kept pat-patting. “Alright, alright, deep breath. It’s your choice--you’ll be like your Blue-die and rest of the Lan. If this is what you decide, then we’ll make you vegetarian food when you come here...and I’m sure the cooks in Koi Tower will do the same. But you can’t be picky about what you eat, because you need to grow up strong. You’ll eat what’s put in front of you.” Gray-Father peeled him back and looked down at him with a serious face as A-Fu sniffled. “That means no more of Jin-shao-furen’s rib and lotus root soup or pork bao. No sneaking things with meat from the kitchen just because you get tired of it. If you have a conviction about something, you stick to it. It means nothing if it changes when you please--that’s not conviction, that’s convenience. Do you understand?”

This was obviously a way bigger decision than he had thought when he first said it. He scrubbed at his eyes and stared at the threads sparkling on his father’s robes in the sunlight as he thought. They were bright gold in the dark green, like the fish scales in Uncle Zixuan and Aunt Yanli’s koi pond. “...N-no more pork bao? Or bo-mu’s soup?”

Gray-Father raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Or chicken or fish or any sort of meat.”

He snuck another peek over at the arrow poking up out of the bushes, then stuck out his chin, crossed his arms and announced, “Yes. Never.”

With a big, rough thumb, Gray-Father wiped his tears away from his cheeks, then rested his hand on his shoulder. It was really warm. “Alright. Think more before you decide, because it’s a big change. And if you believe in something, I expect you to mean it.”

A-Fu wasn’t going to think more because he meant it, he really, really did. He didn’t even look at the body of the rabbit as Gray-Father brought it home and he hid behind his hands when they stopped by the kitchen to drop it off. When a golden Jin butterfly fluttered from the sky, Gray-Father scowled and lifted A-Fu down from Leiting’s big back and set him on the ground. “Go find Huaisang. I’ll be by later.”

Instead, A-Fu first wandered to his room and ate the rest of the sticky candied hawthorn that he had forgotten next to his bed and felt a little better. Then, he went and found Uncle Huaisang. He burst right into his room and announced how terrible hunting was. “Did you know they kill the animals!?” he demanded up at him. “Did you know that? I think everyone should!”

Uncle Huaisang pressed his lips together, looking at the door like it had said something rude. Then, he took A-Fu out into their garden and together, they threw seeds on the warm ground and watched the different birds come fluttering down, bright as little bits of colored cloth. He even showed A-Fu how to follow them from behind and reach down to catch it. He wouldn’t let A-Fu try on his own, cause he might grab too hard, but he let him hold one really, really gentle in his hands after he caught it.

It was tiny and smooth and he could feel its little heart beating super fast against his fingertips through its fluff as it looked around. It was so light and small that he all of a sudden got worried that he would squeeze too hard and kill it, so he let it go. 

The rest of the day while he played and ate and ran around and snuggled with Gray-Father, the rabbit totally wasn’t even in his head. 

But that night, after he was tucked into bed and the lantern got blown out, he laid there and thought about the bunny and death. What if they killed a baby bunny's mommy and now it was all alone in the dark? What if it was a Cloud Recesses bunny's cousin? What if they had just killed A-Yuan's bunnies’ A-Yuan? A-Yuan would cry and cry and cry all day if he had seen. 

Rolling over onto his back, he watched the branches outside wave against his ceiling in the moonlight, rustling outside his window in the wind that blew in the sweet smell of flowers. Death seemed to be what big, strong things did to littler, weaker things. It made sense--people were bigger and stronger than the bunny, so they killed it. Tigers were bigger and stronger than regular people, so they killed them. 

Were his birth parents small and weak? They had to be. Had someone shot them through the heart, just like Gray-Father did today? He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them, green and black speckled clouds of stars squishing around in the dark. Before today, they had just been a story Blue-Father told him. It hadn’t been real life. And he never really thought or wondered about them dying; they just were dead already. But he guessed that they didn’t just come that way because dead people couldn’t have babies. It was weird. 

It was better that he had his real fathers, now. They wouldn’t ever leave him and Gray-Father could beat up every tiger.

When he got back to the Cloud Recesses at the end of the month, he made sure everyone knew what hunting really was. “And the bunny just died!”

Great-Uncle Qiren sipped from his tea cup, then set it back down in front of him. “Yes, that is the nature of hunting. If you’re worried, it does not sound like the creature suffered.”

“Uh…” No, he hadn’t thought about that. “That’s good. I guess.”

Blue-Father squeezed the base of his neck, comfortingly. “That must have been quite a shock if you weren’t expecting it.”

“Yeah….Did my birth parents get shot by an arrow?”

Blue-Father took in a quick breath, but it was Great-Uncle Qiren who said, in a quieter, kinder voice, “No, Lan Fu. They died in battle, protecting their Clan. You don’t need to know more than that.”

“Why?”

“There is no need to trouble your mind with such knowledge while you are young. Know they did what they could to protect you. As Xichen does now.” 

“I won’t be troubled!”

Great-Uncle Qiren shook his head, mouth a tiny bit smiley under his moustache. “Enough.”

“Will you tell me later? When I’m older?” 

He tilted his head a little. “Perhaps.”

“7?”

“No, it will be many years. Do not ask again, I will not answer.”

A-Fu looked up at Blue-Father, who was petting the ends of his hair where it laid over his shoulders, watching him with a soft smile. “I’m never gonna go hunting again,” he said, firmly. “I’m gonna eat like a Lan always.”

Blue-Father’s eyes curved up and Great-Uncle Qiren made a little bit of a pleased face and nodded. “It is wise of you to consider the sanctity of life and purity of your body. It is why we have this rule.”

Huh! There were good reasons for rules! A-Fu never knew. 

When he told his class, some of them already knew about it, like the older kids and A-Yuan--which wasn’t surprising because A-Yuan knew everything. But a lot of them asked questions, which he did his best to answer while feeling very important. They asked him things like ‘did you see its ghost?’ and ‘was it scary?’ and he demonstrated being dead a couple times, then Gray-Father being the hunter. After a while, they all wanted to try and they ended up all taking turns pretending to die and kill each other in a big game around the practice yard, which was really fun! Until Teacher Lan Hai came back outside and had them practice tightrope again.

[dancingintheraindreamingonday]

The greatest miracle is love - Chapter 8

Author’s note: Just one more chapter and the story will end (like the series 😰). Thanks again for everyone who’s reading my story. And don’t forget: English is not my mother tongue 😛

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7

As you left the plane in Latvia you are greeted by none other than Bruce Banner himself. „What are you doing here?“, your eyes are widened by surprise. 

„Well…“, he grins with his huge mouth. „I got a call from Pepper who got a call from him.“ He points to Bucky. „Heard what they did. How are you feeling?“

„I’m good. No worries. The serum didn’t effect me that much.“, you look intensively at Banner.

„Thats good but I can’t remember you having a degree in medicine. Oh and I’ve got another surprise for you.“ Bruce steps aside and what you see makes your heart jump. 

You let Bucky’s hand go and make weak steps forward. Bucky watches you worriedly, afraid that you might just collapse. And you do. You fall on your knees but not because of your strength but to be on the same high as the boy who runs into your outstretched arms. „My baby.“, you coo as you cradle your son in your arms. 

Zemo observes this scene carefully as he steps next to Bucky. „Ah…family, something so special and yet so fragile.“ Bucky doesn’t respond but Zemo can see how tightly he clenches his jaw. Smirking because he knew that he got under Bucky’s skin he says. „We really need to go. Cant waste our time with this.“

Bucky walks to you and Alex and lays his right hand on your shoulder. „I’ve got to go.“

You turn around and get up from the ground. „Be careful.“

„I’ll come back to you…to you both. I promise.“

„Don’t make promises you cant keep.“ And with that you take Alex’ hand and leave the airport with Banner. And Bucky leaves the airport as well. 

~*~*~

„I didn’t know you had a lab in Latvia.“ You ask Banner. 

„I don’t.“ He chuckles. „But they can’t deny a request I made. I think they are a bit scared of me.“ He laughs loudly. 

You lay down. A doctor took a blood sample to check how the serum affected you. Alex sits next to you on a chair reading or rather looking at the pictures of a small book. 

„So. I’ve got the results and no worries all is fine.“ Banner walks into the room with several papers in his hands. „The antidote I’ve given you when you were pregnant with Alex is still in your system. It’s part of your DNA, so you are immune to the super soldier serum.“ 

You remember how difficult the pregnancy with Alex was. He was a super soldier baby but you were just normal and almost unable to survive. But Bruce and Tony developed an antidote for the serum and because of that Alex is a normal healthy boy. 

„And there’s something else and I think congratulations are in order. The baby is all healthy. So don’t worry about it.“

You look away from Alex and into Banners big eyes. „NO! I’m not pregnant. I lost the baby. I felt it. On the morning I got abducted I bled. I…thought I lost it.“

Bruce’s eyes soften. „Don’t know. But the results are clear. You are pregnant.“

„Again? I really need to attend a sex education class. Seems like I need to learn more about protection.“ You smirk but in the inside you’re screaming. „Thanks Bruce. For being such a great doctor.“ You thanked him and he leaves you to maybe enjoy the news.

James promised to come back to you and Alex but not to another kid. Your current feelings resemble the feelings 5 years ago. The happiness and the sadness. You will be alone in this but that’s okay. Tony taught you how to be a mother, he taught you to be a strong woman. 

„Is there a baby in your tummy?“ Alex’ soft voice interrupts the dark thoughts you had. 

„Yes. There is a baby in my tummy.“ You answer, lifting the blanket so that Alex can crawl into your bed. You caress his dark hair mindlessly. „You’re gonna be a big brother.“ 

„Will dad come home?“ You gulp not really knowing what so say. „You know that your dad is a superhero. He rescues people all the time. Thats not an easy job so he can’t be with us as much as he wants to. But he loves you. More than you can imagine.“

„And the baby? Does he love it too?“

„Of course my love. He loves it but for now this will be our little secret, okay?“

~*~*~

Bucky keeps his promise and comes back to you and Alex. But it is a strange situation and yet so comforting. Bucky didn’t talk much and so does Alex. Sometimes they just lay on the couch reading a book or in case of Alex doodling.They enjoy the presence of the other without the need of talking. 

„I need to visit Sam and bring him the suitcase.“, says James one night as you both lay on the hard floor. „Okay.“, you trail small circles on his stomach while looking at the ceiling. „You can join me. You and Alex.“

„A road trip? That sounds interesting.“ Bucky doesn’t know how to feel. He’s with you but you seem so distant which irritates him. Isn’t that what you wanted? Did your feelings for him change? But he doesn’t know what else to say.

The next day you, James and Alex are on their way to Sam’s home.

„Is Miss Atomic bomb still your favorite song?“, Bucky asks you softly. „Yeah. It always make me cry. I get so sentimental about this.“, you chuckle.

„Why didn’t you give Sam the money for his boat?“, you ask James as stretch your arms outside the window. „What money?“, he asks surprisedly. „The money in our bank account?“, you laugh. „It’s yours and not mine. I don’t spend money that isn’t mine“, he mumbles. „Well it’s not mine either. It’s Tony’s. A fair split between Morgan, Pepper, me and maybe even the kid Peter.“

„Have you read the letter yet?“. On Tony’s funeral Pepper gave you a letter. The answer of the question whether you are his child or not. But you were scared to open it. „No, not yet. Pepper told me that he never read the test results but he was like a father to me. And I like the idea of that. But what if he isn’t my father. All the problems and pain I caused him…for nothing. I will open the letter one day but not  now.“ Bucky caress your leg while driving. „Giving Sam the money he need is a really good idea.“, he smiles.

„Tell me about the argument you had with Steve.“ Bucky asks you after a while. The silence in the car makes him rather uncomfortable because it seems so unlike you. Road trips in Wakanda always resulted in you singing along to every song on the radio. You are surprised that he knows about it.

„Sharon told me.“

„Of course she did. Do you really wanna know? I was horrible to Steve.“ But you remember the fight like it happened yesterday:

You were packing your things to join Clint on his mission. Alex who was a small baby slept silently on your bed. „Why are you so angry with me?  I just want to help you. I promised Bucky to take care of you.“ Steve stormed into your room not understanding why you want to leave the compound. You stopped with packing as you turned around. „What about me? What about the promise you gave me? You promised me that you make sure he survives but he didn’t. You are here and he is not. You failed, Steve. But that’s what you do, isn’t it? When it comes to my husband you always fail. You failed him when he fell off the train, you failed him in Bucharest and you failed him in Wakanda.“ Steve looked like he just got slapped. „I’m deeply sorry, (y/f/n). I know how you feel. When I lost Peggy..“ You interrupted him. „Don’t you dare to compare my marriage with James with your crush on Peggy. Never. What I had with James was real. With its ups and downs and love, and tears, and sex and laughs. Don’t pretend that you know how I feel because you fucking don’t know how it feels when your heart gets ripped out and there’s nothing you can do about it.“ You screamed in anger. „I hate you. I hate the universe for choosing you over him.“, You took off your wedding ring and threw it to Steve. You take your backpack and a crying Alex in your arm and leave the room. Steve stood there for awhile not able to move. Eventually he kneeled down to pick up the small and golden wedding ring and read the engraving. „The greatest miracle is love.“

„Wow. That was tough.“, Bucky grins taking his eyes from the street. 

„Yeah. I was awful at this time.“ You hide your face behind your hands and giggle. „Luckily, Steve is such a nice guy and after I got the courage I apologized and now I’m a better person.“ The drive to Delacroix is relaxing. 

As you both arrive the city is milling with people. „Is this okay for you?“, Bucky asks which surprises you. „Yeah of course. Why wouldn’t it be?“

„You got abducted and you have nightmares. I’m worried.“ He looks into (y/e/c) eyes and caress your left cheek. „I’m fine. No worries.“ You fake a smile and instead of kissing Bucky you take a step back. „I think we should look for Sam. Does he even know we’re visiting?“ You hold Alex in your arms as Bucky takes the suitcase from Wakanda. 

~*~*~

You and Bucky sit in Sarah’s and Sam’s family garden enjoying the bonfire. „No wine for me.“ Sam knows that something is off. The test he saw in your house, the distance and the rejection of alcohol indicate only one thing. So he takes the chance when you went inside to freshen up. „You’re pregnant.“ It wasn’t a question. You nodded not knowing what else to say. „You need to tell him. The sooner the better.“

„It’s not that easy.“

„He loves you. Trust him.“, Sam comforts you. As you both walk outside he yells „Lets call it quits for tonight, Sarah. Lets leave the lovebirds alone for a sec.“ He winks at Bucky and before the leave the garden he turns around: “And no sex on my couch, understand?“

Lost in thought, you stare in the flames, knowing that the time to reveal comes closer. „Whats on your mind, my love?“ James’ voice is just a whisper. You look him into his beautiful eyes that mirror the flames. He looks vulnerable and almost scared. 

„There is something I need to tell you and I get scared shitless.“ You say after you took a deep breath. Your heart is hammering against your chest and you have difficulties to keep a steady voice.

„Are you breaking up with me?“

„No! Of course not but I want to give you an exit.“

„Is that a metaphor from this one series we watched?“ Bucky remembers a show where relationships are compared to freeways. „Tell me what’s going on.“

Like removing a bandaid: fast and with no hesitation, you whisper:

„I’m pregnant. I’m sorry. I didn’t plan this. You have to believe me. I know how you feel about it and I want to let you know that you can take the exit right now. You don’t have to be in this.“

Silence. Bucky doesn’t answer for a long time.

„Since when do you know?“

„I… uhm… a day before the kidnapping.“

„You knew all this time and you didn’t tell me earlier?“ You hear his disappointment in his voice. 

„Thats why they didn’t took Alex, right? You wanted to sacrificed yourself and the baby for Alex.

„I thought I lost the baby. They wanted to take Alex. They wanted to experiment with a super soldier boy. So I offered me.“ Silence again just the crackling of the bonfire.

„You not answering me tells me anything I need to know. It’s okay, James. I did it once by myself and I will do it again.“ And with that you turn around suppressing the tears when you realize you’re going to raise two kids by yourself. 

As you walk closer to the Wilson’s house a hand grabs you and turns you around. „I’m not letting you go again. I love you, (y/f/n). You can’t imagine how much I do. I’ll figure it out… how to be a dad. I want you. And I want this. I’m scared and nervous. But my love for you is greater than my fear.“

He kisses you passionately.

„But we really need to attend a sex education class.“, He chuckles as he hugs you tighter. 

Chapter 9

@inlovewith3 @jackiehollanderr @homesicam@dreamydreamerwriting @losers-club6 @gengen64@agentsofsheilds @crimson-darling @akkinda10 @xemine@bubblegumholland @chipilerendi @iamasimpingh0e @bbmommy0902 @madddiiee26 @teenagedreams-bucky @aya-fay @idontknowwhatthisisfam @w-wolfhxrd @useless-creature-213   @angywritesstuff @supernaturalcat7 @harrys-stan @geek-and-proud @pastel-boy-sungjae @austynparksandpizza @maxsaturdayhatesnarwhals @teenagedreams-bucky @auds24 @ah-blossom @supraveng @lady-loki-ren

[musicfeedsmysoul12]

Headcanon Stuff

 I realized I have a lot of headcanons how hero licenses work and I wanted to share them. Note: Some of this is based on Canada’s driving licenses. As well this includes what I call Quirk Permits.

Quirk Permit 

We see multiple cases of people using their Quirk in public- Inko one of them when she pulls her son’s toy to her. As such, I have thought up what I call a Quirk Permit.

A Quirk Permit is a permit that lets you use your Quirk in specific areas. For example: A learning permit allows children to use their Quirk in training areas to learn how to control them. 

The system goes like this:

Learning Permit: All kids get this. It lets kids learn to use their Quirk in specific areas and also at home.

Training Permit: Kids with unstable or dangerous Quirks or kids who want to be heroes get these. These permits allow the children to train their Quirk in specific areas or in their own home and backyard. 

In Home Use Permit: Inko has one of these. It allows her to use her permit while inside her home. In fact most of the population has these.

Job Specific Permit: Uraraka and Midoriya discuss this briefly. He mentions she can get permission to use her Quirk at her parents’ company which is what this would do. So if you can use your Quirk at your job you get this one.

Public Use Permit: A permit for the usage of Quirk in public. Now, these permits only go to people like Hagakure and Tokoyami- Quirks that are on all the time or those who have Sentient Quirks because they can’t help what their Quirks do.

Hero Licenses

Now we get to the licenses.

Provisional License: I honestly think this is like a learner’s for a driving exam. You only can use it with permission and while under the watch of an older mentor.

Intern License: Like a class 5 GDL (For Americans and others who don’t know- Graduated. Not an actual license yet, but close enough most of us stick with this for a few years or forever), this license is used for Interns who aren’t sidekicks but no longer need the supervision of someone more experienced. (Also, side note- I then headcanon part of the reason Mirio doesn’t take Eri with them is because technically he isn’t allowed to be the mentor for Izuku while he only has a provisional. Like everyone sends interns the first few days of casual patrols but otherwise no.)

Sidekick License: Like a Class 5 license, non GDL, they are a sidekick who doesn’t need to be supervised, and can mentor Provisional and Intern. 

Now this is where I kinda step away from what I’m used to.

Rescue Hero License: Self-explanatory, the licenses that a rescue-based hero uses.

Capture Hero License: A license that a hero based in capture uses (Meaning they restrain villains.)

Intelligence Hero License: A license an information gatherer would use as a hero. Also is known as ‘undercover hero license’ as heroes who work undercover also use this.

Combat Hero License: A hero who engages in combat would have this as a license.

All Rounder License: A license that lets someone work as rescue, capture, intelligence and combat. You can work your way up to this one- you just need to pass each license exam.

Underground License: Just the All Rounder license but you HAVE to get it to work underground. All Rounder License holders enter into the official records for heroes, but underground heroes don’t. This is also the hardest license to get as you MUST take all of the exams at once, as underground heroes have to often do all four at once.

Now- you can have two or more licenses. Most people have combat no matter what. It’s rare that a hero doesn’t. 

Thirteen for example has Rescue and Combat listed on their license. However, they aren’t a good fit for Capture as part of their duties, So when participating in raids they aren’t allowed to work with the capture squad. 

Mt. Lady has Capture, Combat and Rescue on her license. 

Kamui Woods has the Same

Now, then, we get into it more.

Someone can only have an Underground License but also work partly as a limelight hero. This is Sir Nighteye.

Most students who graduate from a Hero High School only have a Provisional or Intern license. It is very rare that people graduate with a Sidekick or Hero license. You can, it’s just rare. 

Some don’t even have a license at all.

 So then, this is where I play with the school system.

Hero School System

You have hero schools and then Hero Universities.

But this is where I really have fun.

Rescue Hero Schools: Schools that are based solely on training rescue heroes.

Combat Hero Schools: Schools that are based solely on training combat heroes.

Intelligence Hero Schools: Schools that are based solely on training intelligence heroes.

Capture Hero Schools: Schools that are based solely on training capture heroes

Now- there are a hundred at least EACH of these schools. They’re not rare.

But then we have the rare type.

All Rounder Hero Schools: Schools that do not focus on only training one type. This is what UA is. As well, typically underground heroes come from these schools and each school has at least one or two on staff to train potential underground heroes.

 UA has Eraserhead and actually another who is a Math teacher for Gen Ed. 

Now, when someone graduates from one of the above but does NOT have a license yet, or only has an Intern or Provisional license, they then typically go to a Hero University where they continue their education.

This is where I really mess with canon.

 As we know, a stat offered about UA is that only 0.2% of people who take the exam actually get in. I in turn call that statistic taken out of context.

0.2% is the over all amount of graduates per year FROM UA that come from the hero course Meaning- out of 20,000 graduates, only 40 come from the UA. 

 And before anyone goes that’s too high, it really isn’t. Japan in 2019 had 126.3 million people.

UA is actually the only hero school that almost always has students graduate who do become heroes. Shiketsu usually is about 50/50.

 Hero Universities are places students continue learning or actually start their journeys. You don’t need to have come from a hero course to enter a Hero University. In fact, some purposely focus on other things first because they A) need more time to work with their Quirk or B) had other reasons they couldn’t enter a hero based course in highschool.

There is also another school. It’s made for students who have the potential to be heroes but have serious attitude issues that cause plenty of problems for others, or they have criminal records (Nothing to serious is allowed, but theft, minor assault cases and the such is allowed. Drug dealer, sexual assault and murder no). This school is special as you are required to go to a hero university before being allowed to get any sort of license at all. 

Hero Licensing Exam Rules and Laws

I made this it’s own section because I wanted to include the Hero University stuff to.

Provisional Licenses are good for fifteen years. After that, you’re done. You don’t get to take the exam again. This is done because you then take the other licenses while you still have it. Let’s say you take the Provisional at age 18- you then have until you are 33 to try and get another. Provisional licenses are ONLY offered if you are part of a Hero Course High School or attending a Hero University. You MUST be either one. Or you must have attended one.

Intern Licenses are good for five years each, and you can retake the licenses four times- make it twenty years you can remain as an intern. You cannot renew, but can retake. You also NEED to have at least three months with a provisional under your belt. If you do not retake before the five years (plus a month in case of time issues), you drop back to a provisional. Intern licenses are handed through agencies or by a mentor hero. You must either have a mentor or an agency vouch for you.

Sidekick Licenses are good for five years, and you can renew. Failure to renew means you drop back to intern. There is NO limit to this. You can remain a sidekick for your entire career- in fact a lot of people do because they can’t get a hero license. To get a hero license is extremely difficult. Sidekick licenses are only offered once you have had an Intern License for a year. 

Hero Licenses are good for five, and you can renew. Failure to do so means dropping back to sidekick. There are no limits to hero licenses, however the test itself can ONLY be taken ten times. After that no more. You can’t take it again. If you can’t pass the test in ten times, they don’t want you to be a hero. You must have had a Sidekick License for two years before taking the test. 

Exceptions to hero licensing are if a student is getting more experience then normal. For example: Class 1A students have villains targeting them, so they might be allowed to get intern licenses early with the potential to land sidekick ones early to, and All Might received a Hero License early due to a lot more experience.

 Hope this all made sense for how I have things set up in my fics!

Heroic Law

AKA Random Laws that might be references (created mostly by @anastasian-dreamer but I use them to)

Hero’s Right To Privacy: Any hero, when not on duty, has the right to stay out of the public eye without consequence or being pressured to otherwise. The following law is the only exception.  

Public’s Right To Knowledge: If someone is suspicious that a hero is performing poorly outside of duty, be it illegal activity or societal indecency (?), the public has the right to demand a publicist investigation. This law can not be abused due to the previous law. 

Hero Executioner: In extreme situations, and only by no other choice, a hero has the right to kill a villain. 

    Note1: the hero must be ready for an intense, publicized inquiry into their actions

    Note2: If the hero uses this law 3 times at any point in their careers, they will be investigated for abuse of the law. 

        Addendum: Due to the Paralisa Inquiry1 in France, the Hero in question will be tested for unknown quirk developments before being investigated for law abuse. 

1: the Paralisa Inquiry refers to when the French hero Paralisa was investigated for Abuse of the Law. An unrelated quirk check revealed that her quirk, a paralysing neurotoxin gas, had increased potency over time and had become deadly. Paralisa was compensated for the trauma caused by the quirk development and the investigation. 

Hero’s Right Of Public Care: If a hero has reason to suspect that someone is being abused, the hero has the right to start an investigation and remove that person from the situation. 

    Note1: The hero must be ready to defend their logic. 

Hero’s Right To Defense: if a hero is attacked, verbally or physically, the hero in question has the right to defend themselves accordingly. 

Public Right of Dismissal: If enough of the public decides that a hero’s actions are sufficiently unforgivable, the public has the right to demand that hero be dismissed from duty immediately as long as the public has not relied on prejudice or gossip for their demand of dismissal.

Hero’s Right To Family: A hero has the right to have a family. A hero cannot be denied the adoption of a child due to their job. A hero has the right to retain custody of their child unless they have proven to be unfit, not because of a dangerous job.

    Note 1: A hero also has the right to marry who they wish.

    Note 2: A hero’s family has the right to remain private unless permission is given to the media to report on the family.

[amygdalagustd]

Kim Namjoon on Identity

Namjoon explores the concept of identity time and time again in his life and in his music. He tends to focus on how different parts of himself might be in conflict with each other, and the tensions and confusion that goes with that experience. People are filled with duality, sometimes to the point that it tears us apart. The question of “who am I?” seems a simple one, but underneath it lies a lot of complexity. Who do I want to be? Who do other people want me to be? How much of my identity is formed by my past? Can I change who I am? Can I be multiple things at the same time? Who is the real me? What does it even mean to be the real me?

The question of “who am I?” seems to both fascinate and terrify Namjoon. In this essay we will tackle the question together as I explore all the different ways that Namjoon contemplates identity in lyrics and interviews.

From his decision to become a rapper in the first place to the struggle of taking care of himself as a world famous idol to the questioning of what having an identity actually means, we will travel through Namjoon’s career and highlight all the moments that he asks himself:

“Who the hell am I?”

It’s no secret that Namjoon was a very intelligent and driven student who got good grades in school. In his earlier lyrics he often writes about the pressure that was put on him to succeed and follow a certain path in life. As someone who was good at studying it was expected of him to prioritize his education above all else. Namjoon fit into that role well, but behind the scenes his heart was longing for music. He discovered rap and decided that he wanted a different path for his life. BTS’s early work is filled with messages of following your dreams and not letting other people decide what type of life you want to live. Namjoon often talked about the struggles of living in between the expectations of those around him and his own desires for his future. Some of those conflicting feelings are expressed in Voice, the intro song to his 2015 mixtape RM:

Straight A student and underground rapper

I occupied myself all day with being graded with meaningless numbers like beef gets graded

I just wanted to succeed

because that’s the only thing I was told by others so much that I almost got sick of it

The mirage called happiness- I thought it would be held there

But, sitting at my desk, I was never happy, not for a single moment

I secretly hid a blank sheet of paper between the pages of my study book without my mom’s knowing

My identity that I wrote down along the sound of drums and bass

The feeling of breathing that is different from that of receiving grade reports

Even when I was the top of my class, my mind was never at ease

Is it absolutely necessary to want something that others want?

I secretly raise the volume of my voice

so that you can know, so that it can reach you

I again raise the volume of my voice

so that you can know, so that it can reach you

He also touches on the subject in Born Singer, which was released in 2013:

To be honest, I was scared that I was to prove myself after talking big

that I, who used to know only pen and book, was then to surprise the world

I dunno, that I and the world’s expectations are too asymmetric,

I was scared that I might betray everyone who trusted me

I stretch my burdened shoulders and step onto the very first stage

BTS and Namjoon will continue to talk about the pressure of society's expectations and the difficulty of following your own path in songs like No More Dream, N.O and School of Tears. Fighting back against the oppressive school system is a huge part of their message and mission in their early career. They ask their fans and themselves to look at the person that they are expected to become and question if that image is in line with their own dreams and desires. Namjoon wrestled with this question himself, and therefore has the experience and passion to guide others who might be struggling with their identity and the identity that is put on them.

Idol and artist

The concept of being an idol vs being an artist is one that comes back often in BTS lyrics. Namjoon is an underground rapper who ended up in a boyband, and the identity of being an idol is one that he has wrestled with quite a bit. Can you be both an idol and an artist? Does becoming an idol mean that you have to give up on being an artist? Does it matter if you call yourself an idol or an artist? Does it matter what other people say about it?

Namjoon mentions this conflicting identity in Awakening on his 2015 mixtape RM:

Every night I fight myself inside me

My heart pounds, and my colleagues stab me in the back

saying I became a cripple after going into a company

Yeah fuck you I’m an idol, yeah yeah i’m an idol

I hated it at one time but now I love to get that title

Unlike some keep denying [their identity] to the end on television,

I now fully accept myself, and I just do me

Whether I’m an idol or an artist- it actually never mattered

The way you guys look at me was what defined me

I was obsessed over titles and hung up on how people described me

Listen to the rap of the guy who became a bit smarter as time passed

Namjoon gets shit for being an idol from the underground rap scene and gets shit for being an artist from the idol scene. He is hovering in between, writing his rap lyrics with the power and authenticity of a hip hop artist while simultaneously dancing and looking like a full fledged boyband member. He responds to this dilemma with unwavering pride, the drive to prove himself and a fuck you attitude. This energy dominates a lot of early BTS music. They are still trying to find their place in the industry while not really knowing where exactly they belong. Songs like the Cyphers and Mic Drop highlight the anger they feel about the mistreatment they face from both sides of the industry while boasting about their accomplishments and pride in who they are. Just like Namjoon in Awakening, Yoongi also often mentions his struggles with the identity of being an idol in his solo work. In Idol, the title track of the 2018 album Love Yourself: Answer, BTS face the subject head on:

You can call me artist

You can call me idol

Or you can call me anything else

I don’t care

I’m proud of it

I’m free

No more irony

Because I’ve been me all the time

You can point your fingers at me, I don’t care at all

Whatever reason you have to denigrate me,

I know what I am

I know what I want

I never gon’ change

I never gon’ trade

Why do you talk loud “blah blah”

I do what I do, so mind your own business

You can’t stop me loving’ myself

Idol is a proud, joyful, wonderfully weird and confident self love anthem. It’s a celebration of who BTS are at their core. In the song, they have accepted all the different aspects of their identity and they don’t feel the need to fit in with just one label. In the future, they will go on to say that BTS’s genre is just BTS, and they see no point in categorizing themselves.

RM and Namjoon

In 2018, BTS released a documentary series called Burn The Stage. The series followed them throughout the Wings tour and was supposed to show a more raw version of them.

In episode 6, Namjoon said:

Being an idol star, you don’t have a choice but to have two identities. I invested a lot in my identity as BTS and RM, and this is really a dilemma. We need to find ways to overcome this, and I’m trying different things. I study, I read books. I need time to be wholly me, the original me that I know.

Everyone in BTS has a stage name, a person they become when they present themselves in front of their fans. On stage Namjoon is RM, a fierce and confident rapper, a powerful and charming performer, a dependable leader and someone who lives a fiery and intense life.

Behind the scenes, Namjoon is Namjoon, a man in his twenties who is trying to figure out how to be an adult just like everyone else. He likes to go on bike rides, take care of plants, go to museums, read books and spend time in nature. He gets lazy and reads webtunes for 5 hours straight and sometimes argues with the people around him because they annoy him.

Namjoon spends the years of his youth as part of BTS, in the public eye, and sometimes that causes tension between these different parts of himself; the stage persona and the private person. In Break The Silence: The Movie which came out in 2020, there was a lot of talk about identity. During one of Namjoon’s segments he said:

There is also the fear of how well I’m taking care of myself, the Kim Namjoon as a person. Aside from money, fame, and a sense of calling, what do I really have? When you have those things all other things start to feel really valuable. Those who don’t have them would find them really special. I think it’s a repetition of that, so for me, there is a fear about whether I’m faithfully living the story of my life to the fullest.

He also mentions this dilemma in Airplane pt.2 on the 2018 album Love Yourself: Tear where the lyrics go:

Who should I live as today, Kim Namjoon or RM?

25, I still don’t know how to live well

For Namjoon and anyone in BTS, there is no simple answer to this question, as the nature of their job puts them in a position that makes it hard for them to develop a sense of self outside of the work they are doing. Even though Namjoon is part of an incredibly successful band, that doesn't mean he got it all figured out. As he has poured his youth and his energy into becoming the best performer he can be, he now feels like the Kim Namjoon behind the scenes deserves some energy and space to exist too.

Rap Monster and RM

Before Namjoon was RM, Namjoon was Rap Monster, a stage name that he used until November of 2017. The name Rap Monster fits the fierce and somewhat angst-ridden style of music that Namjoon was making in the beginning of his career. He decided to move on from the name in 2017 because it was no longer representative of him and the music that he was making.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight Namjoon said that RM could stand for many things. He mentioned Real Me as one of the possibilities, but seems to prefer not to pin one specific meaning to the name.

In another interview with J-14 Magazine when asked what kind of advice he would give to himself in 2013, he said:

Hey Namjoon, Don’t name yourself Rap Monster. You’re a human. You’re not a monster. You’re a beautiful human.

Namjoon has often said that one of his missions in life is to love himself. This struggle to love himself often reflects in his lyrics, and now also in his decision to change his stage name, as the old one had some negative connotations to it. Perhaps Namjoons struggle with self acceptance, self worth and self love is one of the reasons that identity is such a big theme for him, as he is trying to figure out how to be a Namjoon that he can love. RM is a stage name that is more aligned with that goal as it leaves more room for flexibility and change.

Map of the Soul

The subject of identity is explored to the fullest in the Map of the Soul era that started with Map of the Soul: Persona in 2019, followed up by Map of the Soul: 7 in 2020.

Map of the Soul is inspired by the ideas of psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. The words persona, shadow and ego that are used in Map of the Soul come directly from his theory. BTS uses these concepts to examine different parts of themselves and their career over time. A lot of this era feels like a final examination of the question that Namjoon has been asking himself in different ways throughout his entire career: Who am I?

In Intro: Persona, the opener to both albums, Namjoon writes about his journey with identity in the first few lines of the song:

“Who am I,” a question that I’ve been asking myself for my whole life

A question that I will probably never be able to find the right answer for

If I were answerable with only a few words,

God wouldn’t have created all those many beauties

Namjoon realizes that he will probably never have a clear answer to the question of “who am I?” and he accepts that. He recognizes that his identity can’t be summed up by a few words or traits and that this isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes it can feel more secure to build our entire sense of identity around one aspect of ourselves (I am a straight A student, I am an underground rapper) but that puts us in a position without flexibility and without space for growth. As different parts of ourselves clash with each other we end up feeling scattered, unsure of who we are, and angry at ourselves. It’s only when those different parts of ourselves are allowed to co-exist that we can find peace and a true sense of self.

BTS will talk about this idea in other songs too, like in Idol, where Taehyung sings:

There are tens and hundreds of myself within me

Today, I greet my another self

They are all me after all,

so I just run rather than worrying

The notion also comes back in the speech that BTS held for the United Nations in 2018. The final message of that speech was to find your name and find your voice by speaking yourself. There was a lot of talk about losing your identity as a young child in favor of fitting in, and Namjoon encouraged everyone to be their own person and to find their own voice back. Throughout the speech he mentions how he is both an idol and artist, Kim Namjoon and RM, and also just an ordinary 24 year old guy. He is saying that he can be many things at once and strives to love all those different parts of himself at the same time.

In the final verses of Intro: Persona, Namjoon boldly and confidently claims that he is no longer ashamed of the different parts inside of him, writing:

Yeah my name is R

The ‘me’ who I remember and who people know

The ‘me’ who I created by myself to speak my mind

Yeah, I might have been deceiving myself, I might have been lying

But, I’m not ashamed of it, this is the map of my soul

The lyrics continue, focusing on duality, complexity and balance within his identity, accepting the different parts of himself that coexist together even if they clash:

Dear myself

You must never lose your temperature

because you don’t need to be warm or cold

Though I might sometimes pretend I’m good and sometimes pretend I’m evil,

this is the barometer of my direction that I want to set

The ‘me’ who I want to be

The ‘me’ who people want

The ‘me’ who you love

And the ‘me’ who I craft

The ‘me’ who’s smiling

The ‘me’ who’s crying sometimes

Living and breathing every second, every moment, even now

Within these lyrics there is a tone of direction and intent rather than one of being lost and questioning. This tone is very strong throughout the entire Map of the Soul concept, especially in ON, suggesting that maybe “finding” your identity isn’t about anxiously defining every single part of your personality, it’s more about choosing who you want to be and boldly pursuing the world as an incomplete human being. In the end, there is no simple answer to the question of “who am I?” and that’s okay.

All lyrics translations come from Doolset. Visit the website for additional notes and interpretations of BTS lyrics.

[amjustagirl]

Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven. ~ eight.

Word Count: 2.3k

Summary: Being with Miya Atsumu is like chasing a storm - equal parts exhilaration and danger. After all, it’s impossible to tame a storm. 

Masterlist here 

AO3 Link here

‘Y'know, when I asked you to manage 'Tsumu, I never imagined you'd manage him like this.’  Osamu states bluntly, eyebrow raised as Atsumu spends yet another evening seated right by her spot at the till, lobbing playful insults and jokes at her until she snaps at him to ‘shut up for the love of all that is holy and stop disturbing the other customers’ . 

‘Like what?!’ she splutters unconvincingly, her cheeks turning red. 

Osamu gives her a knowing look before he turns away to welcome in another batch of customers. 

Osamu closes the shop on the anniversary of its opening, and throws a small party at a rooftop bar that a friend of his owns. She’s told that her attendance is absolutely mandatory, so even though she has class early next morning, she finds herself with a drink in her hand, staring down at the crowds of downtown Osaka. If she squints, she can see a child pulling her mother to a stop, pointing overhead at the rainbow of neon street lights in awe. 

‘A hundred yen for your thoughts?’ She doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s Atsumu, his lazy drawl far more pronounced than Osamu’s. 

The child in the street below remains rooted to the spot, causing a buildup in the crowd despite her mother’s attempts to pull her away. It makes her think of the first time her parents brought her to visit the city more than a decade ago, and how overwhelmed she felt, surrounded by people and buildings tall enough to touch the sky, so different from her hometown of rolling hills and bamboo groves. 

‘Did you feel sad when you left home?’ she replies with a question of her own. 

‘Nah - was excited, really. Always dreamed of playin’ volleyball in the big leagues, so stayin’ home wasn’t gonna cut it for me, y'know?’ 

‘Heartless. Probably made your mother cry’, she accuses him, and he acknowledges it with a careless laugh. 

‘What about you? Thinkin’ about home?’ he asks, coming to stand beside her, eyes trained on the thin line separating building and sky. 

‘Leaving was necessary’, she responds simply. 

Especially with two older brothers blessed with both brain and brawn, far better suited to inherit her father’s steel forge. But while her father might spend most of the day teaching her brothers how to craft the sharpest knives, his evenings were spent at the kitchen table with her perched on his lap, learning to balance numbers in his account books. And with her schoolteacher mother drilling into her head the importance of an education, moving down to Osaka for an accountancy degree seemed less like a choice and more like an inevitable conclusion. 

He frowns at her silence. ‘Did you get kidnapped by aliens or somethin’? Usually you’d be snappin’ at me, or scolding me, or shouting at me for being a dick – completely undeserved, by the way’.

‘I just seem quiet because you talk too much. Has anyone ever told you that?’ she retorts. But there is no fire in her words, and he only chortles in response. 

They watch in silence as the crowd below them slowly starts to thin out as the dusk fades into night. The cold night air bites through her thin sweater into her skin, and she shivers, unconsciously shifting closer towards Atsumu’s warmth. He shoots her a look that’s halfway between a smile and a smirk as he slides his jacket over her shoulders, and she pretends the flush on her cheeks is from the alcohol in her drink. 

But she can’t help but lean into him, letting herself drown in the heat of his hand on her hip and the storm in his eyes. 

Osamu’s eyes cloud in disapproval when he finds out she and Atsumu are dating. ‘He’d better not run off my accountant, that’s all I can say’. 

‘Osamu! Atsumu’s your twin!’ she scolds, arm deep in a vat of rice water. 

‘Exactly’, he responds with a snort. ‘I’m not sure you realise how much of a dick ‘Tsumu can be, ‘specially when all he’s hungry for is chasing a win. I hope you’re ready to handle that.’ 

‘You’re just worried because you’re too cheap to hire a qualified accountant to do your books’ she grouses and he looks like he’s about to snark back, but the chatter of their first customers of the day entering the shop signals the end of their conversation. 

Dating Atsumu isn’t as bad as Osamu makes it out to be. She’s careful not to ask too much of him when he’s busy with training and competitions, and in any case her schedule is full enough with school and her job, but they make the effort of video calling each other at least twice a week if he’s travelling, and if he’s in town, they spend Friday nights with multiple boxes of pizza (Atsumu’s appetite is enormous) , bickering over what movie to watch next. 

He insists she watch as many games of his as possible, and he spends so much time crowing about his plays that she should be annoyed, but she finds herself charmed by the childlike enthusiasm in his voice. ‘That’s probably why you’re the only one that can stand him’, Osamu comments but she pays him no mind. He’s in the audience cheering for her when she graduates, and takes her out for a fancy meal when she lands her first job ( no, Osamu, working at Onigiri Miya doesn’t count, no matter what you say). 

Their paths might not always converge but when they do, there’s the quiet contentment of finding shelter in each other, and she quickly becomes addicted to the warmth of that feeling in her heart. 

‘Stop being a baby’, she scolds, as she peels back the sports tape on Atsumu’s back with deliberate care. ‘It’s your fault for going for practice with a strained shoulder and not listening to your physiotherapist!’

‘Don’t nag darlin’, I had to – it was Hinata-kun’s first practice with us!’ He’s practically buzzing in his seat with glee, and she can’t help the soft smile that grows on her face. 

‘There - all done’, she says, and she can’t help but run her hand to rest in the dip of his spine.  

‘What would I do without you?’ he asks, shooting her a roguish smile that distracts her long enough that he’s able to pull her into his lap. 

‘Idiot’, she huffs fondly, and he chuckles in reply, the sound warming her heart. ‘Hey ‘Tsumu?’ she says again, pushing his wandering hands away. 

‘You called, doll?’ he quirks an eyebrow at her, hands heavy against her hips. 

‘I love you’, she whispers against the broad expanse of his chest. 

‘I know’, he says with light laughter in his voice, and swallows her outraged cry ‘arsehole!’  by sliding his mouth over hers until her breath starts to stutter and she closes her eyes. 

There is a storm raging outside, but she pays it no mind. 

Her stomach churns when she sees the faint line on the test she bought in a panic during her lunch break, and she now wonders whether the nausea she’s been feeling the past week was not a bug she thought she caught, but actually morning sickness after all. That thought makes her feel like puking her guts out again and she does - unceremoniously every morning for weeks after that. 

Atsumu’s in the middle of a series of matches away from home, and she knows he’s warned her again and again not to distract him especially when the championship is within his team’s reach, but the rising swell of panic in her throat outwrestles any rational thought she has left in her head, so she finds herself blurting it out to him the minute they log on for their twice weekly call. 

‘You’re pregnant?’ he echoes blankly, rubbing a disbelieving hand over his face. ‘How?’ 

‘D’you remember the gala night for the opening of the season when I was on antibiotics for an ear infection?’ He nods dumbly, and she twists her fingers in her lap. ‘Yeah… Well I figure it must have happened then.’ 

The connection of their call crackles, and she strains her ears for his response. It doesn’t come. 

‘Tsumu?’ 

‘Right.’ he finally says. ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

‘I...don’t know,’ she confesses. 

They’re both barely on the cusp of adulthood, and the thought of bringing a new life into the world that she’d be wholly responsible floods her with a tidal wave of fear and dread and anxiety that does not ebb away. She’s not sure her boss will take too kindly to finding out she’s pregnant, much less so out of wedlock, especially since she’s barely a year into her job, and she doesn’t even want to think about the dishonour and shame she’ll bring to her family - though a part of her is willing to brave her father’s disapproval and her mother’s tears just to feel their arms around her again. 

But her hands are drawn to the slight swell of her belly, and perhaps it’s sentiment clouding her mind, she’s not sure she has it within her to stamp out the flicker of life budding within her after nights filled with dreams of a child with her smile and Atsumu’s eyes. 

‘Look - I’ve got to go. We’ll talk when I get home, ok?’ he mutters, logging off before she can say goodbye. 

But he doesn’t - not even when his team wins the championship and she finds out from the team’s social media that he’s returned back to Osaka. 

Her calls go unanswered, her texts remain unread, and with desperation rising in her chest she turns to Osamu - even though she initially swore to herself she wasn’t going to drag him into the messes that Atsumu tends to make. But the laws in Japan require the consent of the father if she wants to get rid of the problem (though it feels wrong to term it like that), and he’s the closest male friend she trusts enough to step up to the plate. 

‘Fuckin’ pig’ he snarls, slamming his fist down on the counter so hard it makes her jump back in shock at seeing the normally mild-mannered Osamu lose his temper and react with such obvious rage. But he calms down quickly to close his shop early and walk her home. 

‘It’ll be fine’, he promises her. ‘You’ll see’. 

She’s not sure she trusts Osamu’s definition of fine, not when Atsumu turns up on her doorstep that same night with a smear of blood under his nose and a purple bruise over his right eye. She stares at him, her arms folded across her chest.

‘What do you have to say for yourself, Miya?’, she says, and he winces at her use of his surname, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.  

‘I freaked out ok? Finding out that you got pregnant - that I’m going to be a  dad  made me panic ‘cos I’m totally not ready for that  shit  - even though Osamu’s right, I’m a piece of crap and you’re probably going through so much worse and I should do right by you -.’

‘Atsumu, what are you even saying?!’ She interrupts, exasperated. 

‘I’m asking you to jump off a cliff with me’, he says, lifting his chin to return her stare.

‘Wha-’ 

‘Marry me.’ He cuts in softly, bringing his hand to cup her face, brushing his thumb across the corner of her lip. ‘It’s gonna be one hell of a ride, but you and I - we’ll get through this together’. 

She’s struck dumb, suddenly reminded of how being with Atsumu is like chasing a storm - equal parts exhilaration and danger. While there’s the thrill of being near enough to witness the sky collapsing into a torrent of rain and hear the wind descend into howls of rage, there’s also the lingering fear that the next flash of lightning might mean pain, or even death. 

But Atsumu’s eyes are clear pools of light, and she can only see  hope  reflected within it. She wonders if it mirrors the hope in her heart too. 

So she says yes, and catches his smile in her hands. 

They hold a small wedding at the Miya family shrine with their respective families as quickly as they can before the swell of her belly is unable to be hidden by the folds of her shiro-muku, the traditional white of her kimono a stark contrast against the black and gold of Atsumu’s montsuki. Her face is hidden under the weight of her headdress and her hands tremble as she clasps her kaiken, a blade her father forged himself, and her mother’s bamboo fan to her belt. She does not breathe until she and Atsumu take their third sip of sake from the nuptial cup. 

Osamu is obviously appointed as the best man, and after the ceremony is over, he slaps Atsumu on the back before pressing a careful kiss to her cheek. ‘You’ve downgraded from being my accountant to my sister’, he tells her, and she has to hide her teary laugh behind her hands. But her heart is full and she throws her arms around his neck until Atsumu clears his throat playfully and she pulls away to greet her family. 

‘Take care of her’, her father says, the threat in his and her brothers’ eyes amplified by their wedding gift to her of their sharpest knives. Atsumu meets their gaze evenly and laughs, unfazed. 

‘I will’, he says, and he kisses her with his promise still on his lips. 

[lazysublimeengineer]

when gold clashes with blue

“Since when we have such a hottie in our school?” One of the female students whispered to her classmate excitedly after a young man posed a casual inquiry to them and continued walking along the corridors of the school.

“Going by his shoe color, he’s a 3rd year, right?” Her classmate whispered back enthusiastically as she stared at the young man whose golden highlights in his raven locks gleamed lustrously from the bright beams of the sun outside their school windows.

He could still hear their hushed voices from behind him as they weren’t even hiding back their excitement and gushing when he walked past them. Nevertheless, he paid no attention to them as he had more important things to settle on. Such as meeting the one and only Hanagaki Takemichi. The infamous new member of the Toman gang who punched Kisaki the other day. Word got out from some of the blabber mouths of their gang members that the guy had socked directly Kisaki’s face after the inauguration of Kisaki as the third division captain of Toman.

No wonder Baji punched him and put him on his place.

That Hanagaki Takemichi got some guts making a mess of that Toman’s important meeting.

Nevertheless, he was still curious of meeting him and seeing him in the flesh. Especially now that Hanma needed him as a witness to Baji’s loyalty initiation to Valhalla.

“…The ex-Moebius member are under Hanma, Valhalla’s No. 2. And the anti-Toman forced are under…The No. 3, Kazutora Hanemiya.”

He finally stopped at the front door of Takemichi’s classroom and he could hear someone discussing an information that piqued his interest. So, their gang and Toman were now included in the class lectures? He didn’t know that the world of delinquency was now included in the school curriculum.

Education these days.

His lips curled into a small smirk as he could hear them discussing him, Hanma and their members. He schooled his features once again into a feigned look of curiosity and indifference as he pushed open their classroom door, not giving away of how he basically heard everything of what they’re talking about inside.

“Eh?” His golden irises trailed over the five guys in front of him. “Is school over already?”

“Who the hell are you? You don’t look familiar.” A man with black hair demanded and walked over to him.

He smiled serenely at him. “That’s not very polite. I’m actually your senior in this school.” He replied in a casual yet patronizing voice.

“Huh? Who are you? Never seen you before.” The man replied rudely.

The young man with the golden irises stayed relatively casual and calm, still sporting that serene smile on his face. He decided in less than 5 seconds that this guy in front of him was an idiot and not worth getting his wrath upon on. However, he could see from the corner of his eyes that the other guy behind him who was wearing a pair of glasses was staring at him in fear after his eyes landed on his neck where a tattoo was situated there. Good. At least someone actually knew him and not talk back at him like he’s a goddamn pushover.

Glasses guy knew how to preserved his safety and life.

“Stop it Makoto! That guy is…” Glasses guy warned frantically behind him and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Huh? What is it?”

“Hey, you guys know Hanagaki Takemichi?” He cut them off smilingly.

Glasses guy turned around fearfully, his voice shaking as he called Hanagaki. “T-Takemichi… That’s him.”

“Huh?”

He followed his line of sight and it landed on a young man with a flaxen, gelled locks and startingly deep, blue eyes.

“Takemichi?” He called seriously, his stare was still fixed on the blond as if analyzing him.

“T-That’s V-Valhalla No. 3! Kazutora Hanemiya!” Glasses guy cried out as if seeing a monster in front of them.

Kazutora ignored their nervous and frantic looks as he suddenly rushed towards Takemichi’s direction animatedly.

“I’m so happy!” Kazutora threw his arms over his shoulders and hugged him excitedly.

He could feel that the blond tensed up and stiffened around him. Who knew that Takemichi was like a skittish cat? Kazutora grinned at the mere thought.

“Ack!”

“I had no idea there was someone in Toman one grade below mine! Okay, Takemichi!” Kazutora exclaimed happily.

“Eh?” Takemichi looked at him with those wide blue eyes that screamed incredulity and innocence.

Kazutora refrained himself from getting lost in those mesmerizing eyes and take him away into La La land. Seriously, this was the guy that cause ruckus in the past meeting of Toman? As they always said that looks can be deceiving.

Who knew that behind that harmless face and baby blue eyes was hiding a pair of sharp claws of foolish bravery? It’s time to put that claws into a test.

“Let’s go to Valhalla’s hideout.” Kazutora replied with feigned casualness and pulled him away out of the room.

“Huh? Valhalla?!” Takemichi’s voice rose in panic as he was carried mindlessly by Kazutora.

“Hey, I found Takemichi!” Kazutora announced happily at the two guys standing outside with their crutches.

Takemichi could only watched helplessly with wide eyes as he learned a disturbing information of breaking their legs despite these two guys being his trusted juniors.

“Hurry up Takemichi! Just relax since I’ll introduce you to everyone.” Kazutora called at him cheerfully from behind. He kept on walking ahead although he could see him from the corner of his eyes that Takemichi was just standing there with a conflicted expression on his face.

Oh? What was this? Did Takemichi lost his nerve and folded away like a scaredy cat? Has the idea of going to their territory and hideout daunted him and decided that he’ll go hide with his friends inside their classroom?

For some unknown reason, a pang of disappointment hit him at the passing thought but it wouldn’t surprise him if that’s the case since most of the people would logically be cautious in going with someone who practically invited them to a lion’s den. If Takemichi would bail out on them, then he’ll add him into a list of nameless people in the crowd who was just a poor, fancy thought of something ordinary falsely wrapped in a special, sparkling material.

Just as he was about to reach a conclusion that Takemichi will not follow them out of fear, he heard some faint but firm footsteps behind him. Kazutora glanced subtly from behind him and his lips curled upwards at seeing Takemichi followed them with a firm and resolute expression on his face.

He guessed that Takemichi was a diamond in the rough after all.

He can’t wait to see those hidden claws and what he’s really made of.

Several years later at one of the dark alleys in Tokyo…

“Fuck off, man! Bonten this, Bonten that. Stop mentioning their name in our shop man!” A swift kick was hurtled in front of a bruised man that sent him flying into a wall.

“Ugh!”

The huge guy who kicked him proceeded to corner him to a wall and grabbed his short, black hair. He gave him a sharp, murderous glare.

“Ya hear? Don’t ever come to our shop ever again!” He yelled at him before throwing him into the ground.

“We don’t wanna get involved with Bonten dumbass.” He added spitefully before leaving him there looking like a ragdoll.

‘Damn. Here’s no good either.’ He thought in dismay before he finally stood up and went to the spot where he usually finds Kazutora. For sure, that guy can certainly help him in finding more information about Mikey and the Bonten.

Or not.

“Takemitchy you gotta take it easy…” Kazutora looked at him worriedly.

“But!” Takemichi insisted stubbornly.

“Why are you such in a rush?” Kazutora demanded as he watched his face covered with fresh bruises. He also noted that his left shoulder looking mottled already and covered with purplish marks.

Just what has Takemichi gotten himself into now?

“You know Kazutora-kun this is the 4th place… I’ve went to all the Bonten’s hideouts that you suggested, but I couldn’t find a single clue about Mikey! There’s no way I can take it easy!” Takemichi cried out in frustration.

Kazutora could only watched Takemichi’s whirlwind of emotions flitting across his face, unable to say anything for a while. Despite the pain and helplessness written all over the blond’s face, he can still see it.

Takemichi’s determination.

Just like their first meeting a long time ago. In spite of that fear that’s crawling up within him inside, Takemichi still followed him there all alone in their hideout.

Wasn’t this one of his traits that made him interested and entrusted him some of his plans of making the Toman great again and save Mikey?

Takemichi still possessed those hidden, sharp claws behind that skittishness of a cat.

While it never failed to amaze him and grew fond of Takemichi because of that admirable trait, sometimes it has its downsides too. Just like now. And he’ll be damned if he will indirectly put Takemichi’s life in danger when he’s going to get married soon with Hina.

He decided to ignore the bile rising in his throat with that line of thought.

“…Those are Bonten’s official hideouts, no doubt about it! So, get deeply involved and you’ll get into trouble! I don’t wanna help you out on a suicide mission!” Kazutora berated him sharply.

“Hold on, Kazutora-kun!” Takemichi protested.

“Let’s end this. Your wedding is in 3 days, so no! If anything happens to you, I don’t know how I’d be able to face the others! Just lay low for a while!” Kazutora replied firmly, leaving no room for an argument and turned away. He didn’t wait for Takemichi’s response as he continued walking away.

He ignored the remorse and regret that started to engulf him and convinced himself that this was for the best.

Takemichi has always been trying to risk his life and happiness for them.

But now he had to do something right for him in return. If this will make Takemichi loathed him in the future then so be it. Because he can take it rather than the thought of him dying and perishing away from their hands when he had the ability to still make him safe yet he wasn’t able to do it.

He didn’t want to repeat his goddamn mistake with Shinichiro and Baji.

There’s too much blood on his hands now but he can still make things right for Takemichi.

He’s the saving grace from the dark stains of his life.

‘I’m sorry Takemitchy.’Kazutora thought with a sigh of defeat leaving his lips.

(A/N: I don’t own any of these characters from this franchise. Inspired by that happy scene of Kazutora marching up to Takemichi and hugging him like he finally met his idol and asked for an autograph. I know that it’s just a façade of drawing Takemichi into their hideout alone to have him as the witness of Toman during Baji’s initiation of his loyalty towards Valhalla. But then again, my shipping ass and overflowing ideas and inspiration couldn’t resist and expand it into more. I even made a parallel scene in the manga to compare it. That’s how hyper I am with some doses of coffee. Also, let me know what’s the official name of this ship? Kazumichi or Kazutake? Reviews are amusing. So, let me hear them from you.)

[sunseteyes]

FLUFFVEMBER DAY 03: KOUSHI SUGAWARA

prompt: first kiss (prompts are by @jojosmilktea)

word count: 1,179 words | theme/s: a little bit personal for me lmao but this is full of fluff

tags: @patricia-ceballos @giyuus-wife @animatedarchives (send a dm/ask to be added!)

rv: i certainly liked how this turned out so enjoy reading everyone!

✒︎ deserving

most people values who, how, and when they'd get their first kiss on the lips. for you, of course it was the same.

you never had anyone else before. as an only child, you pressured yourself into being the best student and daughter one could have, always landing on the top of the class lists or your batch. you were proud of how you gained success however, it didn't mean you had no sacrifices in order for those to happen.

it's not that no one showed interest in you, no. you tried dating a couple of times but as five first dates came by and they never came back, it didn't became a priority to you anymore.

the reason why second dates never happened to you were because it's either the guy was just overwhelmed at your standing at school or they felt like you couldn't focus on them just as much as you would to your education.

what's wrong with having a realistic mindset? you often questioned yourself. yet as your gaze drifts towards your friends or peers that eventually have partners of their own, of course you felt discouraged too.

after your fifth try, you promised yourself that you should not engage into anything romantic anymore until high school ends. after all, it would only take a few months before you all graduate and go to college. maybe by then, you'll get to find the person whom truly understands you and your priorities,

what you didn't know, is that he was approaching you already.

"are you perhaps (y/n) (l/n)?" his voice was not catchy, nor does he look any special at all. yet as you turned around to face the person who called your name, there was a tug by the pit of your stomach that told you something. good or bad, that you didn't know.

you became wary of koushi sugawara, the boy who called your attention to ask you to give your best friend, kiyoko, applicants of what seems to be from the volleyball club of your school, karasuno. it was not because you did not trust the boy or that you had a bad hunch about him. you couldn't point it out but, he was someone that you found sort of "memorable".

"we aren't really properly introduced, are we?" his face came in front of you again, a result of trying to visit kiyoko during one of the volleyball practices that she had to attend on. apparently, despite having months apart from your first meeting, sugawara seems to have never forgotten your merely-a-minute encounter.

"i'm koushi sugawara, it's nice to meet you!" he smiles, as bright as when someone eats something they like or when you were pleased of something you've accomplished or done. if you were to judge, he's like the icing on top of a cupcake, for some reason.

"i know." you say without thinking, pushing the thoughts of sugawara away from your mind as you proceeded to talk with kiyoko, blatantly ignoring the look that passed by the others' and sugawara's with your action.

"sugawara-san has been rejected!"

"no way! this is so funny!"

"but who are they? are they shimizu-san's friend?"

you could hear the other volleyball team members' whisper and mutter around you and you wanted to get out as soon as possible. but before you could even decide to follow your instincts, sugawara came. again.

"i'm afraid i didn't catch you name. is it.. (y/n)-san?" he inquires. and you could tell just by the look on his face and the tone on his voice that he was making up for the embarrassment he was caught on earlier.

"i never told you my name." you rebutted, smiling to kiyoko with a wave then.

"i need to go. see you tomorrow?" you say only to her, but as you turn around to walk away, sugawara's voice came singing behind you.

"it's nice to meet you, (y/n)-san! see you tomorrow!"

you bit your lower lip out of frustration, a low growl emitting inside of you as you turn your way outside of the gymnasium, saying goodbye to the hall as a way of promising to yourself never to step foot on its ground ever again.

ironically, you had to anyway.

"it's you again! hey there, (y/n)-san!" sugawara beams to your face once again when you barely had gotten inside of the gymnasium by the next day. apparently as a council member, you had to always monitor each of the clubs for their statuses, also as a way of helping each club adviser. unfortunately for you, you were assigned for that task and that you should do it every week—which meant you were going to see koushi sugawara once a week, the unexpected encounters by the halls doesn't even count.

you felt like the world had put a curse on you all of a sudden.

"why do you always show up in front of me, sugawara-san." you say all of a sudden, turning to face the boy with an annoyed look written all over your face, not even saying the words in a form of question as it should be.

he didn't back out, however, for a ghost of an amused smile passes by his lips before it suddenly curves into his usual one.

"you must be mistaken, (y/n)-san, i didn't mean to offend you. but i do admit you're cute when you're riled up."

the word "cute" echoed in your mind and you felt a rush of blood move up to your face, causing you to avert your eyes away and avoid eye contact. "c-cute? i-i'm not-i'm not cute." you stuttered, your feet begging you to run away right there and then.

"you are!" sugawara rebuts, "i was actually hoping i could take you out for a coffee, or in a meal, if you don't like coffee."

this time, you whip your gaze back, eyes wide open at his sudden offer. never in that moment have you expected the conversation to turn like that and it seems like sugawara had proven you wrong once again. however, instead of feeling annoyed by it, you felt a different kind of emotion that came out unexpectedly as well.

"y-yeah, i mean-sure. uh-when?"

"tomorrow morning. are you free?" he decides immediately, to which you could compare to your indecisiveness that made you agree to him eventually.

"don't worry, i'll make sure to be deserving of that first kiss!"

this caused you to stop on track and looked at the running form of sugawara incredulously, a smirk plastered on his normal but memorable face.

"kiyoko told you?!" you couldn't help but exclaim.

"not telling!" but you were only responded by such a vague answer with a laugh before he was gone. yet despite all of this, a smile slowly makes it way to your lips, curving up on the edges as a hopeful sighs escapes from your system, a flicker of positivity erupting inside.

it may just be wishful thinking, but you sure do hope he's the one too.

[pumpumdemsugah]

maybe it’s because i immigrated at 8 and my mother was those of course my kids are special types that routinely told us kids we were devastatingly beautiful(i said that in class after like a week in the country the girls(my teacher)was gagged lmao, i thank my moms vanity for my self esteem today though she knew)and smart just by way of existing(that education is the only way mindset for black immigrants has it’s own set of issues too ik)but outside of the regular shit(relaxing my hair, colourism, Not Like Other Blacks Syndrome as a kid) i ain’t never begged for white validation like black people do online these days. and im talking grown ups. it is so baffling watching black people, women especially, otherize and talk about themselves like Experiment 626. obviously white supremacy is inescapable but we still have to live? those types scare me because it’s critical levels of pathetic they really don’t see themselves as fully human and tokenize themselves and other BP as if we all crave whiteys okay or aren’t just regular like everyone else.

It is absolutely this weird form of tokenising Black womanhood but they go on about anti-racism so people aren't clocking and 90% this behaviour is targeted towards discussions of sexism cause these Black women are misogynist and sometimes rather dim and aren't concerned about the entirety of Black womanhood unless fandom comes up 🤒 they 100% threat being a Black woman like experiment 626. They've internalised the white male gaze as our own

A while ago I had all these crazy ass anons cause I thought the gone girl industrial complex shit was stupid and laughed at people being performative about it ( I still think it's deeply stupid and people need to get grip ) and what was so revealing is the anons accused me not getting over my token phase and worshipping my white friends. I'm a London babe lol there were few whites where I grew up and I've long finished my schooling so this implication I was still in school... It was straight up projection from a woc in uni or school that hadn't healed from that experience. That anon was pushing their life history on me.

I don't need to be that precious about my Black identity because I've never had a phase that anon was projecting onto me so why would I feel compelled to draw hard lines and have a moral panic about white women liking gone girl ? White women were not the only ones obsessed with the cool girl speech from gone girl. Most women were cause the speech bangs

Sometimes people accuse you of shit that they haven't forgiven themselves for or have much distance from. And I wish them the best but also fuck you

This new narrative that all poc grew up around white people and had a, I ❤️ whitey phase...why have the whites accepted this so fucking readily? And the poc pushing that this is standard...your experience is not universal. The aspects of Black womanhood people universalise are the ones that make us look rather pathetic and lowly and distances any discussion of a focus on sexism which what Black Feminist have fought against but now Black women claiming to be feminist are doing exactly that and for who ? It doesn't benefit us

I guess being a woc who didn't grow up around white people and threatening to throw a brick at a moc harassing you in your teens doesn't make for a good New York best seller where the WOC is talking about feeling inferior to white women. Growing up girls were jealous of other woc, even when the boys of colour were obsessed with white girls

The ones my age doing it lmao you're a big big woman. Are you not ashamed ? Glad the Black women I know aren't losers cause it's loser behaviour. It's desperate. Yuck!

I'm sorry how long this is lol

[rpmemesbyarat]

RP meme from Werewolf: The Apocalypse "Kinfolk: Unsung Heroes" Introduction & Ch.1

"I have normal human fears and frailties, despite my faith."

"I’m terrified I won’t be there when they need me, that I won’t be able to give fully of myself to save them when the time comes. And the price of my failure, for them, would be too high."

"It was like nothing else mattered, nothing else could fill my eyes like the sight of him."

"Now, of course, I realize I was in shock at the time clammy skin, disorientation, that sort of thing."

"That night misted over my senses; even now, it seems more like a vivid dream than anything else."

"I had to watch. I couldn’t turn away."

"That night, I saw I had to protect him. He needed me, and it’s just as simple as that."

"Let’s just say what I know has come in handy."

"The best folks give the most of whatever they can."

"Think about it — would you like to go through childbirth every nine months from age 14 to 50?"

"We’re human beings, dammit!"

"I’ll always do anything I can to help, even if I’m royally pissed; I don’t expect thanks or money, either. But it would be nice to get some respect."

"I'm not alone in saying that I hate being patronized."

"Give an inch, they’ll take a mile" is what some of them think about us."

"The rhetoric a lot of them use sounds like the same crap bigots give when trying to “justify” why women and minorities shouldn’t have equal rights."

"Just once, I’d like to feel like an equal, a partner in all this."

"Ever think about how hard things would be without us?"

"I see by your scowl that doesn’t satisfy you."

"Think of it as normal family responsibilities, magnified a thousand times."

"It’s practically medieval!"

"I mean, it looks like such fun to turn into a wolf."

"There are connections like you wouldn’t believe. Completely outside the law, these people can get dirt on the opposition, perform b&e without leaving a trace and provide muscle no other boss can beat. All they ask is some capital, some boltholes and a little legal cover. Sweetest deal in the world!"

"What do I think about it? Imagine what it’d be like for someone to call you and say you’d missed out on a million dollars because you got one wrong number on the lottery ticket."

"Some are too caught up in the things of humans —chasing after money to have what advertisers insist they can’t do without, living their soap-opera lives and not seeing what the world is really all about. I pity them."

"There is sweeter revenge than death."

"I laugh with joy thinking how your heart will burst should you ever have to face him in battle."

"It’s a great honor to be who I am, who we are. But it’s scary, too."

"Families can quarrel, snarl and cut one another to the quick, but in times of trouble, they’ll stick together."

"God, Allah, Gaia, the Great Spirit or whoever gave us this job, so we have to do the best we can with it."

"Blood also fetters our lives in hatred as well as love, I’m afraid to say."

"I’m not saying this is a fact, but if she was abused, it might explain some things."

"I’m sorry, I can’t quite imagine a moment of sensual passion with someone I don’t love, much less hardly know!"

"In other words, it’s the connections that’re vital, not the money or the mileage."

"Many have wealth, but not all; lineage, not money, is most important."

"That’s a heavy price to pay in a harsh world."

"Self-sacrifice is also important."

"Sacrifice comes in terms of emotional costs, too."

"It’d be pretty stupid for me to become a gun-toting mercenary, for example."

"To put a positive spin on all this, I guess I’d say it’s nice to be needed."

"I admit I don’t really understand what it is or when it’ll be, but many’s the Irish tale where a small oversight wreaked terrible disaster."

"So I got online and made a few phone calls and tried to get the “truth” in as many forms as I could."

"The word “family” has come to mean a lot more things than the 1950s concept of mommy, daddy and two perfect children."

"Raising children is no bed of roses, either."

"Kids love to test their parents and see just how far they can push and still get away with it."

"There’s no way this could be easy."

"Some days, I have to bite my tongue, and that does get old."

"I was just too stupid and blind to see it."

"I always felt like I was split, alone, part of something I couldn’t name."

"Listen, you have no idea what it’s like to watch someone you love slowly lose her mind."

"There are some, well, bimbos."

"You know, the ones that like to control CEOs and topple careers."

"Here, try a piece of this chicken gizzard. I get ’em real cheap down at the butcher shop. No one else seems to want these extra parts. I grill ’em with a little barbecue sauce and honey mustard. Delicious! Thanksgiving’s always the best time, though. Then there’s turkey necks for the takin’!"

"Our families are pretty big, and we figure even the most distant cousin or friend of a friend’s part of the group."

"I’m sure you know, working with people all the time, how far thanks and a friendly smile go when you’re dead on your feet. It’s like the sun’s come out on a cloudy day."

"I mean, some of that stuff is long outdated!"

"It’s more a matter of belief and pureness of spirit, if you ask me."

"The Network also has a lot of splinter groups that organize among youth, educators, environmentalists and so on."

"The Network also has a lot of splinter groups that organize among youth, educators, environmentalists and so on."

"We’re steadfast and steady, yet vibrant and alive, warriors, artists, writers, musicians beyond compare."

"I don’t know if we can save them, but we won’t give up."

"To be tested and accepted by the greatest warriors in the world — no greater honor can we ask for."

"Think of us as the tiny little parts that hold a machine together. Maybe it could function without us, but not without a lot of wear and tear on the system. You get my drift."

"If leader seems weak, I test him. He shows strength, I stop."

"They’re the ones who are causing all the problems by rebelling against the people in charge. They need to settle down and just be content with what they’ve got, if you want my opinion."

"Why should I worry? It’s a clear day. Traffic’s light, but walking’s fine. You get to see where you’re going. I’ll hit a little town ’fore dark and trade a song or story for some food and a piece of floor."

"Revolutions are intolerable and inexcusable."

"The aristocracy attained their positions for a reason, for only the most worthy were chosen to lead, after all. If the

lower classes overthrow the aristocrats, anarchy is the sure result. One need only look at history; Can the Russians truly say their lot improved after they murdered the Romanovs?"

"History has always been a beloved subject to me."

"I pity those souls, displaced by fortune, who are ignorant of their heritage. How can one know who he is without knowing where he comes from? A man — or woman — is the sum of all who came before."

"Money is not the issue; many great families lost their fortunes, yet retain their nobility."

"It’s a poor teacher who doesn’t learn from her student; in this way, the knowledge of both increases."

"Dreams, of course, are the pathways of our souls; here rest our secret desires, fears and hopes."

"You doubt me. You don’t speak against me, but I can see your heart is dubious."

"There’s no greater glory than to serve the destiny of the universe."

"The lacerations looked exactly like the work of sharp teeth, deep into his flesh."

"I won’t go s’far as to say there’s undying loyalty, but we do have a lot of respect for each other."

"Were I as capable as my ancestors, I’d kill you now and never spare a second thought."

"No atonement can replace those lost children."

"Thus far, we have been lucky, but it’s just a matter of time before someone we don’t want sneaks in. It’s not that I want to close ranks by any means; I just wish we paid a little closer attention to who came in from the cold."

"Yeah, yeah, I know you think we’re a dime a dozen. I’d like to believe we’re a little more special than most."

"We’ve built too much for a rotten apple to spoil it all."

"I don’t believe this guy; it seems almost too perfect to be true!"