#good thing i like sound design otherwise this would be miserable

[boogieboba]

Guys my entire thesis film is due in about 15 hours

[dewdropdinosaur]

Smutmas Day 6 - For Goodness (Snow) Flake

Lucifer x Reader Summary: The annual molt has hit again, leaving Lucifer absolutely miserable. Luckily for him, his girlfriend has a solution. Warnings: Handjob, preening, use of names(ducky), sub/dom dynamics if you squint, cum, water play, etc. MDNI, 18+. You're responsible for your own media consumption. Requested by the pretty and perfect @primsgirl89

The grand halls of the palace Lucifer called home were always shrouded in a sense of elegance. Lavish, meticulously designed, and exuding an air of untouchable regality—it was the perfect home for the King of Hell. Yet today, Lucifer Morningstar found himself in a state far from his usual composed glory. Well, at least in more disarray than what might have been considered normal. 

The annual molting had started a week ago, and his prideful wings, normally a source of his striking authority, were now a source of endless irritation. Feathers littered his otherwise pristine floor, and the itchiness was maddening. He groaned as he tried to reach over his shoulder to scratch the base of his wing joint but to no avail.  

Y/N stood in the doorway, hesitant but determined. Her shy disposition usually made it challenging for her to speak up, especially around Lucifer, whose presence alone could send shivers down anyone’s spine. But seeing him like this—frustrated and uncomfortable—she felt a tug of sympathy and a little courage bubble to the surface.  

"Luci," she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper.  

His crimson gaze flicked to her, his brow arching as he struggled to maintain his usual calm demeanor. “Yes, ducky?”  

“You seem... uncomfortable. Would you let me help?”  

His lips curled into a smirk, one that held both curiosity and amusement. “Help? And how do you plan to help me with this?” He gestured to his wings, shedding yet another feather as if to punctuate his point.  

“Well,” she fidgeted with the hem of her sweater, looking anywhere but at him, “a hot bath might help soothe the itchiness. And I could... I mean, if you'd like, I could help preen your wings. It might make things more manageable.”  

Lucifer blinked, momentarily stunned by the offer. It was rare for anyone to approach him with such sincerity, let alone someone so gentle. After a moment, he smiled—less teasing, more genuine.  

“Alright, that…that actually sounds nice.”  

——————————————————————

The bathroom was a vision of opulence, with a marble tub large enough to swim in and golden fixtures of birds that shimmered under the soft glow of the chandelier. 

Y/N busied herself adjusting the water temperature, her cheeks flushed as the steam began to rise. This would be interesting, only about seven months into their relationship, she had never been quite this up and personal with the King of Hell himself. 

Lucifer watched her with amusement from a nearby chair, his long legs crossed as his eyes traced her every move. She was a curious creature, timid yet caring in a way that stirred something deep within him.  

“Are you certain you wanna do this?” he asked, his voice teasing but soft.  

She glanced at him, her cheeks pinker than before. “I-I think so. It’s just... wings, right? Nothing too difficult.”  

He chuckled, standing gracefully to shed his jacket and shirt, revealing the broad expanse of his back and the full glory of his wings, even in their molting state. His chest and stomach were equally as strong looking, shapely even. But what caught her attention the most was the carved V-line down to his very large—nope. Keep it together. Y/N’s breath hitched as she took in the sight, but she quickly turned back to the bath, willing herself to focus.  

Once the water was ready, Lucifer sank into the tub with a sigh, the heat immediately easing some of his discomfort. He leaned back, his wings draped over the edges of the tub, and closed his eyes.  

“This was such a good idea,” he murmured.  

Y/N smiled softly, glad to see him relax. After a few minutes, he tilted his head toward her, one eye opening lazily.  

“Oh yeah, right. Umm, you’ll wanna step closer and pluck one-by-one.”  

She nodded, sitting on a stool behind him, her heart pounding. She reached out hesitantly, her fingers grazing the base of his wings. They were warm and surprisingly soft, even in their current state. She began to carefully remove the loose feathers, her movements gentle and precise.  

Lucifer’s eyes drifted shut again, a low hum of approval rumbling from his chest. “You have quite the touch,” he said, his voice velvety but clearly enjoying the individualized attention 

Y/N’s cheeks burned at his praise, but she didn’t stop. She worked methodically, smoothing the remaining feathers and untangling the ones that had become ruffled.  

As her fingers brushed along the sensitive inner edges, Lucifer’s breath hitched. He bit back a groan, unwilling to let her know just how much her touch was affecting him. But she noticed the way his muscles tensed slightly under her hands.  

“Am I hurting you?” she asked, worried.  

His eyes roled by into his head, choking out a small sentence. “Far from it, ducky.”  

She did, her shyness giving way to focus as she tended to him. The once-pristine bathroom now bore traces of discarded feathers, but neither of them paid it any mind. All that Lucifer could pay attention to was the warmth of her touch, how soft her hands felt on his wings. How good they might feel somewhere else. 

His body tenses, his breath getting caught in his throat, as she works out another knot in his wings; unaware of his thoughts. Or at least he thinks she is unaware. As Lucifer closes his eyes and lays his head back against the marble, he feels the water stir. 

His eyes slowly open to see the movement, only to see her hand drifting lower into the water. A low, guttural moan creeps past his lips as Y/N starts to pump his throbbing member, his hips instinctively bucking toward her touch. Her touch is so delicate, almost feather-light, but hits all the right places. Pumping up and down, as her other hand still continues to preen, his senses become overloaded the moment her lips come to kiss his neck. 

He's almost lost for words, his mind clouded by a primal desire. He can barely think straight anymore, all his focus is centered on Y/n and what she is doing. 

“Fuck ducky, just like that—“

Y/N’s ministrations are slow and deliberate, working for her reward. Every movement is just barely on the edge of what Lucifer is moaning and begging for, practically humping into her hand. The way his cheeks turn a beautiful shade of red; his hands coming to grip the edge of the tub till his knuckles are white, it’s not too long before he is close. 

“Just relax…Luci…please?”

It’s all too much and soon he’s painting the tub with hot thick ropes of cum with a loud moan, floating to the surface to stain the water. Slowly working him through his high, Y/N removes her hand after a moment. Lips still hovering over his neck at the pulse point, voice low and soft. 

“Do you feel better now, Luci?”

God’s did he ever. 

[fountainpenguin]

Riddle watches New Wish - Post #7

"A Dinosaur in Dimmadelphia" - Full moon in the title card!

Hazel's parents are really engaged in having fun. I'm a little curious as to where this is going, since if we follow the OG lore, Hazel should lose Cosmo and Wanda once she's no longer miserable. I'm curious if they're going to push that direction or retire that bit of lore.

Also, C and W kind of snuck in under the radar and are retired otherwise, so Jorgen probably won't ride them as hard as he used to.

SLKDJF- It's a WHAT?

Obtuse Rubber Goose - 2001 B.C.

Of course she's more into the rocks.

/sweats at the billboard for Atlantis Condos even though it's painted in a mural. Cosmo... (Also I love the dinos by the water coolers in that image).

Man, this is a playground for both Cosmo AND Wanda's destructive histories!

I have feelings about the Fairlysaurus. I question nothing.

They're so cute.

The unfortunate thing about this show is that Whisper can tell me some scientists believe dinosaurs wore top hats and had electricity and unfortunately that's 100% possible in this world.

I like how Hazel's creature-hunting dad listens to Whispers Fred's podcast. That's gonna go well.

I like how Cosmo and Wanda can understand dinosaurs. She would be the type to understand them and wipe them out of existence anyway.

Confirmed 10k-year vacation through time!!

Hazel wishing "I wish people weren't afraid of dinosaurs" after bringing one to the future is one of the funniest things I've ever heard. Welp, that solves that.

sldkfj, Wanda proudly talking about the comet that wipes out dinosaur life as if she didn't personally launch that comet.

"If I can't send [the dinosaur] home, I'll do the next best thing: Get him a job!" - I changed my mind, that's even funnier. Hazel, why?

I love the background hills:

I like the implication that people are totally ready to accept the dinosaur as an actor because they're no longer afraid of him, so he can stroll in and not only are they unafraid, they also don't question it. Yeah, that sounds about right.

This vibe is very funny since Timmy usually tried keeping his wishes under wraps. Hazel's just been changing her surroundings and people play along.

I like that Whispers Fred and the museum guy had a bet about dinosaurs having electricity and the museum guy just sighs and pays it. Yeah, okay.

... Do I know that screaming man? Why does he sound familiar? Is he from "T.U.F.F. Puppy?" I know him... Is it Meerkat, my beloved?

-> I looked it up and Meerkat's VA is Daran Norris (Cosmo's VA). So... Yes, it was probably him using a Meerkat-adjacent voice, SKLSDJF.

Mystery mayor...

Is that #1 Dad in the crowd? Where is your baby?

SKLDFJS we're keeping the dinosaur. Okay.

"Fearless" time! - This title card has SPOT-ON Cosmo and Wanda in their old designs. Nice!

Did Hazel share a room with her brother, hence the bunk bed?

I like how Hazel's wardrobe is filled with identical outfits just like Timmy's closet used to be.

I like how the movies are also in 2D animation style.

Dev loves staring at Hazel and judging her in the background, doesn't he?

The kid on the voting poster reminds me of Imaginary Gary.

Note to self, include a trigger warning for this episode if I recommend it to anyone who doesn't like horror. It's no "Dark Harvest" or what-not, but they do a good job of making it creepy to kids, but... whoa.

I like the idea of Jasmine's fears coming to life as separate people outside her body, which is different than when Timmy wished he was fearless and became numb.

Hazel wishing for a Hazel stand-in to hold her place in class was smart. She and Chloe would be friends.

sldkjf, bug spray with the cockroach from "Wanda's Day Off" on it.

The plot about Jasmine having to be the one to face her fears is clever. Also, Hazel implied she has to avoid revealing magic, so it looks like she did get the basic rules explained (and they're still in play in this spin-off).

Wait, why is the girl who was reading "Shakespeare for Mimes" afraid of clowns?

I'm glad the crowns make metallic sounds when they fall since they're magnetic in the OG series.

OH SNAP- Hazel getting called out for "trying to make this friendship into what she had with her brother." That's rough, kid. Forcing Hazel to face her fears is a clever way to introduce her insecurities to the audience. I like it.

The list of champions on the school's wall goes up as far as 2019, and we can't be THAT far in the future since there aren't others.

I did worry where this plot was going, so I'm glad Hazel opted not to watch scary movies and instead pick something her friend wanted to do too :)

[switch]

look i'm definitely one of the people who's been saying that new TNT has been missing the forest for the trees with feeling the need to fuck with pre-existing old pet art before selling it when people very much just want the exact old pet art they remember, speaking as a mouthless shoyru enjoyer here who's mad they probably fucked that up forever, but the new halloween art is a big step up.

like this is just actually really good art and makes me feel significantly less skeptical about their recent "we hired more artists, we swear" statement. specific ones like the nimmo, xweetok, and maybe grarrl i really could actually see existing pre-conversion if they had gotten unique poses originally. the cybunny's cape only being visible on one side isn't ideal but is otherwise fine, and the ixi is unfortunately a little blobbish looking and probably needed another pass to get a better shape/silhouette, but it’s decently cute and i'm fully in favor of them addressing the "literally every ixi except like four or five of them are miserably ugly because those are the only ones that didn't follow their extremely unfortunate base model" problem. everything else is fantastic, i think.

except the aisha! again! they literally just cannot stop fucking up the aisha. they love fucking up the aisha. fucking up the aisha is new TNT's favorite hobby in the world. seriously, what is the fucking deal, aisha is one of their main mascot pets and they're the pet with the most devotedly insane fanbase by far. who is this for?! this is not for aisha diehards! are they capable of producing one singular good looking aisha?! blobbish, the miserable dinosaur tail is here again, directionless pose, not smiling for some reason, and why is the mouth open again, what is this art even trying to convey with this pose and expression? all the other new halloween art is conveying plenty of readable personality with its poses and expressions! the proportions are severely wrong regardless of if they were referencing the pre or post conversion art, the legs are too big, the antennae ears should get thicker at the top instead of being that bad looking twig thickness the whole way through, the ears are pointing the wrong way, why is that one ear snapped at such an awkward angle, bad silhouette, neck too short, head way too wide, eyes too big.... the literal singular only good thing they did here was toning down the eye masks to look more like the old art.

look, seriously, i genuinely think that the aisha and the shoyru being their primary mascots right now is subjecting them to way more specific and strict art directions than any of the other pets which is why they keep getting fucked up the worst by far. i think this is just what they want the aisha to look like now. something something marketing, branding consistency, something.

anyway, it's been noted that these are branded as "spooky hallowen [pet]" and not "nostalgic halloween [pet]," so there's speculation they may best-of-both-worlds the 'use old art no matter what even if it's stock and hideous' VS 'make new retro-looking art in unique poses' problem. the idea sounds nice on paper, but they've already gone, what, six waves mixing the two? would they only start doing it with future lines, meaning already released pets are permanently fucked either way? or are they gonna go back and retroactively add back in untouched art and change the designation on altered art? also, just the sheer amount of shit they'd be selling in the style department would be getting kind of ridiculous at that point. do we really want both 'mouthless blue shoyru' and 'blue shoyru b/w mouth' diluting the gacha odds even worse? man, i don't know.

[nomniki]

consume ━━ lee felix ⟡ tokyo ghoul au

★ wc 1.3k warnings tiniest bit of gore but it’s not explicit and some blood note nomniki writing cb????

     Being saddled with the closing shift never failed to tinge your otherwise passive demeanour towards work with bitterness.

Your coworker had taken off early again, some half formed excuse about meeting his girlfriend before he slipped out onto the street without so much as a proper goodbye. He was your senior, and a miserable one at that, but far be it for you to be the one to challenge him and his less than stellar work ethic.

You could imagine though, throwing the damp rag in your hands at his irritatingly stoic face and telling him to do his job for once, as you wiped down the countertop and loaded up the dishwasher with mugs long since cold and empty. The appliance offered a comforting background noise as you pottered around, completing the rest of your menial tasks with only a few sparing glances towards the clock mounted above the door. By the time you were almost finished up, all traces of the late evening sun had slipped below the horizon.

You slung your bag over your shoulder and snatched up the bag of biodegradable cups you'd gathered as you cleaned up; you were glad your workplace was making an effort to be environmentally friendly, but having to put them in a separate bin out back was just another chore tacked onto your list, which wasn't so ideal. You tied the bag up with a swiftness that came only from experience and allowed relief to relax your tired limbs as the door clicked shut behind you. Once the bag had found it's home in the designated bin, located at the end of the alley, you could truly relax—

Wait.

You worried your lip between your teeth, unsure of what good your intervention would do anyone. An old man's face, the owner of the your workplace, came to mind, and begrudging you shuffled down the alley, arms raised to protect your face if the situation called for protection or something. Stupid old man. If you got hurt, you hoped he'd feel guilty for indoctrinating you with his whole 'peace and love, help thy neighbour' bullshit. You huffed, your breath condensing in the bitterly cold air, and your lower back burned in anticipation.

The very air was heady with a taste that was distinctly metallic— blood, it’s blood— and the first thing you could make out was a head of dark hair, bent over the shadowy form of what could only be another person.

“Whatever the fuck you’re doing, don’t move another inch— turn around, slowly, and if you try anything I swear to God, I’ll kill you.”

You hissed, barely a whisper in the almost silent alley. The noises stopped— the sick squelching and chewing, the dripping of something against the slick pavement— and that hunched over form paused. From where you were stood it nearly seemed like they were trembling, and the only sounds in the alley was that of your own steady breathing and… sobbing?

Fear clawed up in your throat as they finally turned around, your face blanched of all colour, your eyes widening in what could only be sheer terror. It had been a long time since you’d ever felt fear at the sight of another ghoul, and you’d never felt fear like that that was settling like an anvil in your gut.

“W—What the actual fuck?”

You breathed out, taking an unsteady step back.

“Your eyes— what—“

In place of the onyx you knew to expect, the sclera of one of his eyes was a startling white, wide with a fear that seemingly rivalled your own. He only had one kakugan. Everything came into focus all at once; the blood smeared across the lower half of his face, the way his bottom lip trembled and tears ran wetly through all the red marring his pale skin.

“I— I—“

He blubbered, and the words came out wetly. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, hurriedly, and only managed to make the mess of blood and tears and snot worse somehow.

“I didn’t do this, I swear! I couldn’t— I couldn’t help myself, oh my god, oh my god I’m so sorry,”

He sobbed, the wet sounds of saliva and snot and sniffling that were pure agony upon your ears— you were a ghoul, but you weren’t heartless. You approached him cautiously, not stupid enough to not consider the possibility that it was all an act, but something told you it wasn’t. You shushed him gently, if a little awkwardly, and the sound of his anguished cries was something that rocked you to your very core.

He fought to catch his breath, and you took in the gory sight of the body he’d been hunched over. It was mangled, a mess of blood and matter you didn’t want to try and identify, despite the hunger gnawing at your stomach. ‘I didn’t do this,’ he’d said, and maybe it was naive, but you believed him. It looked like he was gorging on someone else’s leftovers, and you huffed— what were you supposed to do?

“Come inside with me. I’ll call someone, he’ll,” you paused, sighing softly and you buried your head in your hands, pressing the heels of your clammy palms against your eyes, “he’ll sort this out.”

It took more effort than you would’ve liked to coax the nameless boy to stand up, and even then his legs quivered like a foal. You locked the door behind you, eyeing the street warily for any bystanders, before you let the blinds return to their place and turned towards the boy.

“What’s your name?”

You asked quietly, approaching him slowly.

“Felix,”

He breathed out, sniffling; he looked up at you with those strikingly wide eyes, still glassy and puffy with the tears he’d been shedding since you’d found him.

“Alright. Let’s get you cleaned up then, Felix.”

You sighed softly, and spent a few minutes leaning against the sink, running a clean cloth under some warm water with the intent to clean his face yourself, like a parent would for their child. Felix lifted his head when you walked back over to him, and you steadied his chin with your hand, wiping the blood and snot and tears from his freckled— oh, you hadn’t been able to see those before, they were pretty— face with a gentleness you hadn’t known you possessed. It was almost therapeutic, and you thought absently that there was something ironic about cleaning away the blood and returning his face to something pretty and innocent.

“Better?”

You hummed softly, offering him a barely—there smile in some unspoken show of reassurance.

Felix nodded, and without warning, he wrapped his arms around your waist, burying his clean, and slightly damp face against your stomach. You froze, before resting your hands on his shoulders, rubbing them slowly in what you hoped was a comforting manner. His shoulders shook and it didn’t take a genius to realise he was crying again, and you let him muffle his sobs against your uniform shirt without complaint. When the crying subsided, Felix tipped his head up to look at you— his eyes were rimmed with red, and it was borderline instinctual to brush his bangs away from his forehead.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Felix breathed out, his breath shaking, and you chewed your bottom lip thoughtfully,

“I don’t know either,” you admitted, a little hesitantly, “but I— the people here, we’re going to help you, I promise.”

if there’s any mistakes don’t tell me ..

[once-vel]

more zakri fun facts. because i want to and i can

his qou body's hair has been like. very specifically and intricately designed to be as easy to take care of as possible. probably had kelzil's help with it. this is the only way i can justify giving him such long hair because there is no fucking way he would be able to take care of that much hair under any normal circumstances. even so, unnamed kiv probably helps with it a lot

his larval form definitely had significantly shorter hair (a bit past shoulder length at most). often keeps it in a ponytail, braid, etc. realistically he would have it cut very short for manageability but i like drawing his hair, so. alt!zakri's hair is also significantly shorter, though he just wears it loose

fidgets with his hair a lot. this isn't indicative of anything, it's just there and he does it without thinking. unnamed kiv likes to play with it, which zakri, surprisingly, doesn't mind (he actually enjoys it highly but will not admit it because he is zakri. unnamed kiv is very aware of this because he's bad at hiding it)

he had glasses or whatever the obesk equivalent to glasses were in his larval form

larval form had a ton of freckles/markings/etc scattered across his armor. i haven't quite decided what they look like but i think it would be fun to take inspiration from real bugs with markings on their shells for this. qou body also has a lot of freckles, but not as many

despite his grouchy persona he is also a vel through and through and is an incredibly very mischievous little bastard

the extra things on his face are eyes! i mention this one here and there i think but i'm adding it here for fun. he can't see out of them very well though, so they're mostly for decoration. they can have pupils i just can't be bothered to draw them

his freckles on his qou body glow a little tiny bit. not very much but. a little bit. i mainly draw them pink but sometimes i like to throw other colors in there for fun

if you're too nice to him he'll get like. visibly lightheaded. he will deny this happened afterward

pain tolerance is miserably bad. despite this, he has not turned off true pain in his qou body

he has like. obesk adhd. this is not on purpose and is more because i have adhd and it would take more work to write a character that doesn't have adhd

a lot of his qou body was made with kelzil's help. mostly because kelzil judged his qou body craftsmanship really bad and zakri went "ok fuck you fix the problems yourself if they annoy you so bad" and then they did

has a twitch (stolen directly from myself). claims it's a problem with his qou body, but he had it when he was larval too. kelzil and unnamed kiv both know this, but neither say anything. ranges from a mild hand or receptor twitch to entirely freezing up for a second and almost falling over. one time unnamed kiv said it was cute which he responded to with an insult but he did think about it for a very long time

loves coffee simulacrums

can be bribed very easily, the amount of shit you can get him to do if you offer him a treat is very high. kelzil uses this to their advantage often. he will always realize he is being bribed and he will complain the whole time but he'll still do it

voice isn't notably low or high and is quiet and monotone. has a mild tendency to trip over his words. has an odd metallic edge/generally synthetic sound post ascension. this isn't a super accurate comparison, but think a well tuned utau voicebank or an old vocaloid voicebank

will swear at things that annoy him, such as walls after he walks into them, or formerly, his own coat after he tripped on.

good at talking for a long time straight without realizing it, if you let him. unless he has a lot of thoughts on the topic at hand he'll probably get very off topic though. solid chance he will forget you're there

often wears like, 2 inch heels because otherwise his coat is just long enough that he will constantly trip over it

[diamondcitydarlin]

ok but ofmd and the way that it depicts following heteronormativity and societal expectation blindly as a cautionary tale

Stede ultimately leaves and abandons Ed because of the unresolved guilt he feels about having left his family (it has to have been a bad thing because it goes against the societal rules, right?) but the real push is in that final confrontation with Chauncey.

In a previous post I talked about how both Chauncey and Nigel Badminton are so obsessed with their hatred of Stede because of how loyally they both follow the societal rules of masculinity and conformity, how important those roles and designations are to them, and the frustration that forms towards Stede because he has literally never followed any of these 'rules' and seemingly continues to be far happier than any of the rest of them. Look at him there, picking flowers! Enjoying it!! WE'RE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT WTF (actually this was more specifically Nigel's thing, but Chauncey clearly had some bitterness about this as well that was mainly fueled by his brother's death)

So, because Stede does not and never has followed the rules, and not only that but seems to have such an effect on people as to encourage them not to follow rules either (read: express their individuality and true selves), it stands to reason in both the Badminton's minds and Stede's that there would eventually be a punishment for that; going against societal expectation couldn't possibly result in anything beneficial, after all. This is all just him being selfish and indulgent.

Stede Bonnet isn't doing anything good. He couldn't be. To accept otherwise would mean to accept that the rules that keep the Badminton brothers 'safe' in their corner of the world, and Izzy as well in a more pirate-y sense, don't actually exist and everything they've been taught is real...isn't real. That's their whole worldview, gone, and all three of these men are in far too fragile states to even begin accepting something like that. ('he's from my world, not yours' these designations are very important to them)

So therefore, Stede must be destroying things and lives with these selfish, rebellious actions; his family, both Badminton twins, the dread pirate Blackbeard himself.

And you know what fuck it, they're not wrong. Stede is destroying things; or rather, he's deconstructing them.

He, Mary and their children never knew true happiness until Stede chose to deconstruct and redefine their lives into something other than the societal expectation. With him out having adventures and them free to live as they choose with his money and land, they're all happier than they've probably ever been before. It's only when Stede comes back and tries to re-conform them to roles that only ever made them miserable do things really begin to go to shit. That's only fixed by he and Mary finally accepting that they aren't what society wants them to be, never have been, and who cares, who needs it? They've defined their unique family situation in a way that makes sense for them.

Stede deconstructed Blackbeard too. He knew him as Ed first and pretty much exclusively, he convinced Ed that he actually does deserve nice things and affection and safety and he can do so without the protective barrier the persona of Blackbeard has always afforded him. Ed hasn't been allowed to believe what Stede so effortlessly shows him.

Because Blackbeard plays an important role in society too, odd though it may sound. Chauncey says it himself when he chastises Stede for bringing 'history's greatest pirate to ruin' and is ultimately fine with allowing Ed to go free; if Chauncey is the good guy and hero in his own story, Blackbeard is the necessary villain, the worthy opponent that he must always have vicious and bloodthirsty to justify his own place in the world. I mean...without villains, who needs heroes? And without that clear designation of who is 'good' and who is 'bad', people might start second-guessing his own integrity.

And of course, Izzy needs Blackbeard too for similar reasons, a lot of which I believe is tied up in the ways he represses his sexuality, the ways he actually allows himself to experience his own sexuality so that it doesn't emasculate him. He needs Blackbeard calling him filthy names and throwing him around and feeding him his own toes; he needs a stronger, dominating masculine personality to take control. (This is a completely valid desire for someone to have btw, I'm not trying to say its inherently toxic AT ALL, just in Izzy's case I think it's tied up in some things)

I don't think it's even that Izzy doesn't like Ed, that more emotional, goofy side of him. Ed just...scares him, and not in a safe, sexy way. It's too much emotion and vulnerability on display than Izzy can even bear to recognize in himself so. No, that won't do at all, he's got to stuff Ed into a drawer and lock it tight. So to speak. But also maybe literally who knows.

And the Badminton brothers ultimately fall on their own swords. The metaphor is literal. Or gun- you get it. Stede had no part, no real blame in what happens to them, but he's been conditioned to shoulder the blame of anything that happens as a result of deviance from the norm.

(I need to write another post about my theory on Nigel's repression / toxic crush on Stede too bc that's fun and fucked up lol)

So I guess that's why I loved that Mary described Stede in the end as "finally free". For all intents and purposes the old Stede Bonnet we knew is dead now. As difficult to watch as most of his return home was, it was a necessary final step in his personal growth to see the true results of his own actions and not just those he's been gaslit into believing all his life so that he continues to play the role designated to him.

Stede Bonnet can now go forward in his story confident in the knowledge that yes, he does destroy things. He breaks chains and cycles of abuse and toxicity. He encourages others to want more for themselves and from the world they've been given, regardless of what the status quo deems they deserve.

[buckysgoldenheart]

The B****, The Favorite, His Sister & Her Lover

Henry Cavill x Reader

Summary: Henry is in love with you, but you have been avoiding him for a month and you are forced to face the repercussions of your actions when your brother brings him to family dinner. (Fluffy, sorta smutty)

Words: 4979 (Sorry ☹, but I hope you like it if you decide it’s not too long).

All you wanted, well, not wanted, but all you planned for was a simple, hopefully non-stressful dinner where your mother made her lasagna and your brother eased her not-so-innocent attacks on you with his charming personality. It was a Friday. Friday’s were supposed to be relaxing, and if you could ignore the ‘subtle’ digs at your lack of relationship you might even consider it a win.

You sat at the counter, sipping at wine as your small mother slid her lasagna into the oven with two large, rose-printed oven mitts. What should have been a simple task ended up as your mother spending an entire minute adjusting and readjusting the pan until it was dead center on the rack.

“You’re letting all the heat out, mom.”

Her nearly entirely gray-haired head was practically in the oven when she said, “It has to be perfect or it won’t bake evenly, Y/N. If you ever cooked, you would know that. Men like when a woman can cook, you know.”

You rolled your eyes and took another sip of the dark reddish-purple liquid when the doorbell rang. Fucking finally, you thought, Brother dearest to the rescue. You actually loved Johnny almost more than anyone. He was your best friend, and without a doubt, you could show up at his apartment asking for help hiding a body and he would drop everything to google the best place to do it.

Probably a little too eagerly, you set your glass down, jogged to the small foyer, and whipped open the door. “Damn it, Johnny, you’re late. Mom is—”

Your body froze. Johnny was smiling wide, holding up a bottle of gin in his hand and waving it at you like a prize, standing next to the one man you had been trying to avoid for the better half of a month. You closed your parted lips and slid your tongue over them to wet the sudden dryness.

“Where’s mom?” Johnny asked.

You nodded your head in the direction of the kitchen. “Where else?”

You brother slipped by you, disappearing around the corner as he called for your mother. A sharp squeal echoed through the halls a moment later, your mother’s high-pitched tone crying ‘my baby boy,’ over and over.

Looking at the man before you: the blue eyes, the dark brown hair, the plump lips with an uneasy smile, you tried to look welcoming. You were sure you failed miserably, but who could blame you. Avoiding him had been going so well.

“Hi, Y/N.”

You swallowed. “Hi…Henry.” Awkwardly, you opened the door a little wider and stepped to the side. He cleared his throat and brushed passed you, the toned chest you had tried to forget rubbing up against your breasts. “Just, um…” You pointed in the direction of the kitchen before you realized it would just be better for him to follow you. “Follow me.”

When you saw Johnny playfully twirling your mother around to music he had turned on at some point, you internally groaned. He really was the perfect son. Perfect enough to make up for your lack of achievements. Johnny paused, large grin still in place when he saw you and Henry.

“Mom,” He said, gesturing a hand your way, “This is Henry, a good friend. We work together.”

Her eyes brightened even more at the sight of him. Tall, broad, sexy; the perfect potential suitor for her pathetic daughter. You just prayed she could keep her mouth shut for a single night.

“Henry,” She said, taking his hand in hers. “So lovely to meet you. Please, take a seat. What would you like to drink? I can get you anything.”

Henry looked anxious at the sudden onslaught of attention. You knew the feeling, though it was often directed your way in a more negative manner. Before Henry could respond, your brother set a glass of bourbon in front of him to which he responded with a nod, a smile, and a ‘thank you.’

The scene in front of you was more and more beginning to feel like an episode of The Twilight Zone. Henry was sitting at the kitchen counter of your childhood home with a drink in his hand, chatting with your mother and brother like it wasn’t weird. He looked misplaced. He was too big for the room. His shoulders were massive, and he was so, so tall, and there was something about it that had you panicking.

“Johnny!” Your brother looked your way. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

Without waiting for a response, you turned on your heel and walked to your old bedroom. You shut the door with an annoyed huff once your bother’s body was barely on your side of it. He observed the room as if he hadn’t seen it a thousand times before then winced when he met your eyes, having run out of places to look. “Oh, don’t give me that.”

You crossed your arms. “What the fuck is he doing here!”

“He said he was going to be alone for the weekend and when I told him I was going home for the night, I offered for him to come.”

Raising an eyebrow, you scoffed. “And why would he accept that thrilling proposal?”

Johnny chucked and rubbed the back of his neck. “Funny thing—”

“Oh, is it?”

“I may have told him you were coming, too…”

“Is that so?” You said a little louder.

Your brother shrugged and sighed. “Look, Y/N, he loves you…a lot. I barely mentioned your name before he started to pack his overnight bag.” He chuckled at the memory. “Personally, I don’t get it. I never really felt like you outgrew that mousy, awkward phase, but I guess he sees passed that.”

Groaning, you grabbed a pillow off your bed and threw it at his head. “Johnny!”

He tossed the pillow back at you and you swatted it away. “He’s a good guy, Y/N. You could do worse. He could probably do better, but he did spend the entire drive here unashamedly asking about you, so he must think otherwise.”

“You’re an ass.”

“I’m the best and you love me.” Johnny walked to you and threw and arm over your shoulders. “Now, come on. We’ve left him alone with our mother. No one deserves that.”

----------

“Oh, I did see that…” Your mother snapped her fingers. “Oh, what was it? Uncle something, the uncle man, no that’s not it, uncle—”

“The Man from U.N.C.L.E,” Henry finished for her.

“Yes!” She smiled triumphantly as if she had come to answer on her own. “I quite enjoyed that one.”

“Well, thank you. That’s very kind of you.”

“My son says you’re Superman as well. Is that so?”

“Mom,” Your brother interrupted as he dragged you back in the room. “Leave Henry alone, alright? He gets questioned all the time. He doesn’t need it from us.”

Your mother swatted a hand. “Oh, nonsense. How am I supposed to get to know Henry here if I don’t ask questions?”

“Are you interviewing him for something?”

As she donned the oven mitts again, bent down, and pulled dinner out of the oven, your mother winked. “Maybe…”

You let out a quiet whimper, grabbed your glass, and downed the rest of your wine in half a second. Johnny nodded your way and handed you the bottle. You nodded back in appreciation and refilled your glass a little more than socially acceptable.  

“Ok, now, everyone at the table,” You mother announced.

----------

The lasagna was annoyingly delicious, but the conversation ruined it. You were definitely buzzed by now, trying to scarf down the last of your food. Maybe you could feign illness and dip out before dessert. The two hour drive back to your apartment at nine p.m., tipsy or not, sounded exponentially better than staying the night like you usually did. If only it weren’t illegal and didn’t mean potentially harming yourself or someone else. Johnny watched you sympathetically, so very clearly understanding your discomfort, until your mother drew his attention at the mention of his name.

“John has a girlfriend,” She said to Henry, then looked at her son. “Where is Margaret, Johnny?”

“Business trip,” He replied. When she raised her eyebrows, undoubtedly impressed that her son found a woman important enough to be needed around the world, Johnny elaborated. “Paris this month. She is collaborating with some famous designer out there.”

“She is so smart and beautiful, very driven. It’s extremely impressive. You must be so proud of her.”

Johnny smiled at the thought of his girlfriend. He did love her in a way he’d never loved any other and you knew how hard it was for him when she was gone, so you reached out and placed a comforting hand on his arm. “I am proud of her. I am, um…I’m actually going to ask her to marry me when she gets back.”

Your mother squealed and practically jumped out of her seat. “Oh, my goodness!” Then, she actually stood and trotted over to her son, wrapped her arms around him and kissed the side of his head. Henry met your eyes as you averted them from the spectacle that was your mother, seeming to be examining every feature of your face with an undetermined expression. You wanted to look away but found yourself unable. His stare reminded you too much of the last time you saw him. The way he had studied you then, it made you melt. It was as if he was trying to figure you out, like he thought you were some kind of otherworldly being with a uniqueness he couldn’t quite find the words to describe.

You watched as his lips slowly parted and your thoughts turned dark. You mother would be ashamed, but she quickly stopped them as she fawned more over your brother. “I’ll have grandchildren in no time!” She placed on last peck on your bother’s cheek before taking her seat again, folding her napkin back over her lap. “Henry, have you met Margaret?”

Henry’s eyes finally left your face. “I have actually.”

“Oh, isn’t she absolutely lovely? Just perfect for my Johnny. I wish Y/N would find someone.”

“Mom,” You and Johnny said at the same time. Here we go. But your mother ignored your protests.

“Someone like you, Henry,” She continued and rested her hand on his forearm. “You would be perfect. You are so charming and sweet and handsome; you’d be good for her. Y/N has a horrible history with men, absolute buffoons. They never treat her right. They never love her.”

“Mom!” Johnny shouted, thankfully trying to protect you, because with each word that passed your mother’s lips, you lost the will to protect yourself.

“But a man like you—”

The sound of your chair skidding across the hardwood drowned out any other noise. You stood, threw your napkin down and, without a word or glance at anyone at the table, left for your room.

Johnny blew out a breath and shook his head. “Mom…”

Her eyebrows rose and she shrugged, her hands out in question like a small child when asked where the last of the cookies went. “What?”

“You need to lay off. Honestly. Give her a break.”

That surprised look on her face quickly shifted. “Oh, please, John. She knows I mean well. When I find her a man, she will thank me.”

“Will she?” Your brother’s lips thinned out. “I’ll go talk to her.”

Henry dabbed his mouth with his napkin and stood. “No. I’ll go,” He said, but paused when your mother put her small hand on his arm again.

“Oh, Henry, dear, you don’t have to deal with her.”

“No, mom,” Johnny interjected. “Let Henry go. I’ll stay and help you with the dishes. I think dinner is over.”

----------

The knock at your door had you groaning. You didn’t want to see anyone, not even Johnny. There was nothing he could say to make it better, to make the entire night disappear as if it never happened. All you wanted to do was lay back in your bed and stare at the little glow stars you had stuck on your ceiling when you were five. If you turned off your bedside lamp, they would shine that bright alien-green color that once had you wishing you could live with some wild, extra-terrestrial being instead of your own mother. But then the door pounded again.

“Not now, Johnny.”

You thought your simple, aggravated tone was enough to persuade anyone to leave you alone, until a moment later when the door eased open. “Not Johnny,” Henry said, and your heart skipped a beat. “Can we talk?”

Keeping your eyes on the little ceiling stars, you said, “I swear to god, if this is about my mom—”

“It’s not.”

“If it’s about the other thing, then the answer is still no.”

Henry quietly groaned, shut the door, and stepped to the side of the bed. The room was suddenly warmer as you met his eyes, and he nudged your legs to the side so he could sit. “Why not?”

You took a deep breath and scooted your body up until your back was against the wall. He still looked at you; determined, you realized. He wanted what he wanted, and he clearly had no plans to leave without answers. “That was an accid—”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yes,” You said firmly. “It was.”

He rose a perfect eyebrow. “How so? Neither of us were drunk, we both wanted it. You told me—”

“I know what I told you.”

Henry nodded and swallowed, his eyes darting to the floor for a second before back to you. “Were you lying to me then?”

‘No,’ You wanted to say, but somehow, your lips could not form the word. Though even if they could, you weren’t sure any sound would come out.

“Tell me, how does it happen that two people can admit their feelings for one another, sleep together, and then one of those people decides to leave in the middle of the night and start avoiding the other.”

“Didn’t I just say—”

“Yea, well, I want to talk about it,” he interrupted you, and you didn’t miss the irritation starting to seep into that delectably deep voice of his.

The look on his face had you wishing you could rip out your own stomach to avoid the nausea it induced. At least I feel guilty, you thought. You could be one of those people who lies to get in someone pants and then avoids them. You didn’t lie, so there would always be that.

“Why did you leave?” He asked.

You didn’t even know. Was there actually a single reason, or where there so many little reasons that you couldn’t pinpoint one in particular. Either way, you couldn’t explain. You knew what you felt for him. You knew it scared you, and that you didn’t want to hurt him. But how do you make a stupid choice like unwrapping his arms from your body in the middle of the night while he sleeps so you could leave, and then ever be able to look him in the eye again. You weren’t strong enough for that, not when it came to him. He made you feel amazing and beautiful and loved, and you threw it back in his face.

“Y/N—”

“Can we please not do this,” You whispered.

“No, we are doing this,” Henry said, standing sharply. “We are definitely doing this.”

You stood as well, willing yourself to be as tall as him. At least then it would be fair, but he was inches above you, and you didn’t possess the magical abilities to make yourself grow after the age of 15, so… “Henry—”

He stared you down, stepping to you and forcing you back until your spine met the wall. “Just answer the damn question, Y/N. Is what you said to me a lie?”

“I…I’m…I don’t—” You stammered and, though tried to hold your ground, couldn’t stop yourself from looking away and to the tacky, blue carpet flooring. But Henry wasn’t having it. He crooked a finger under your chin and lifted until you had no choice other than to gaze into the ocean blue of his eyes and at the small brown island in the left one.

“Do you love me or not?”

Your mouth opened and closed like a fish. You wanted to say something, you had to, he wouldn’t wait forever, but—

“Yes or no, Y/N.”

…He wouldn’t wait forever…

“Yes or--”

“Yes.”

In the same breath, he cupped your cheeks and put his lips on yours. Tasting him again sent shocks through every nerve of your body. It felt like your first sip of water after surviving days without; like the feeling of sunshine on your skin after being trapped so long in the darkness you lost track of time. It felt as if his kiss held inside it everything you needed to finally be free. No more denial, no more loneliness or fear, no more avoiding him because he clearly wasn’t going to let that happen for one more minute.

When you finally gave in and parted your lips for him, Henry groaned. His tongue on yours created a fire that burst inside of you and soothed the chills his touch created, and before you had time to process another thought, you were pushing him back to your bed and straddling his lap. Warm hands traveled up and down your back until the moan you made at the feeling of his hard on pressing to your core had him wrapping his arms tight around your waist. So tight, you were not sure how you could still breathe.

You sneaked your hand between your bodies and worked to unbuckle the belt around his hips, but he pulled back just as you yanked it from the loops and tossed it to the side. You searched his eyes for any reason he may have stopped you, but all you saw was love. He reached up and brushed a stray hair behind your ear, then caressed your cheek and stroked along your cheekbone with his thumb.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, eyebrows still drawn together in confusion.

Henry smiled to slightest. “I love you.”

“…Still?” You looked away from him in embarrassment. “Even after avoiding you for a month?”

“Yes, still,” He chuckled. “Even after that.”

You let out a little whimper and touched your forehead to his. “I don’t know how you could.”

“Because it’s you, baby.” He put a hand on the back of your neck and pecked your lips once, twice. “I’ve been in love with you for so long.”

You lifted your head from his and he smiled, glancing at your lips before meeting your eyes. “How long?”

“Since your brother brought you to the Fallout wrap party.”

“Henry…”

“I know. I should’ve told you a long time ago, way before last month.” With one hand, he threaded his fingers through your hair. The other started to rub up and down your thigh.

He nudged his nose against yours and before he could kiss you again, you whispered, “I love you.”

Your words made him contentedly hum from deep in his chest, then he placed his lips on yours again, your bottom one between his two. He sucked on it and softly nibbled, and you slid your hands up his chest until you could wrap your arms around his neck. Grinding your hips down forced a groan from Henry as he went for the button of his jeans.

Your lips separated for a moment so you could hike up your skirt, and before he could, you slipped your fingers inside his pants and pulled out his cock, grasping it in your warm hand. His lips parted at your touch, his eyes staring hard into yours as you lifted up, tugged your panties to the side, and started to ease yourself onto him. His cock parted your folds and stretched you so deliciously wide that the familiar string from his size had you gasping.

“Oh, God,” Henry sucked in a breath, sheathed fully inside you. “So good, sweetheart.”

You nodded, lost for words. Nothing could describe the feeling of him inside you. He filled you the way no man ever could, in more ways than one. Every hollow part of you he sated; your body, your heart, your mind, all brought to peace just by being with him. How you let your fear get in the way of this for an entire month, you couldn’t understand. But as he held you so close nothing could get between your bodies, you pushed your thoughts to the back of your mind and started to rock your hips back and forth on his lap.

----------

“That is a lot of stars,” Henry said as you laid back in the bed and stared up at your ceiling, his arms still wrapped around you. He hadn’t let you go, even for a second. From the moment you said ‘yes’ to his question, his hands remained on your body, his skin always touching yours.

“I like space.”

“I know,” He chuckled, then pulled you on top of him. You overlapped your hands on his chest and rested your chin on them.

“Oh yea?”

“Mhm. I know an awful lot about you. I’ve been paying attention for a while.”

“I know things about you, too.”

“Oh yea?” He asked, mimicking you with a smirk and an arched eyebrow.

“I know that you’re obsessed with video games, you like to cook and you’re actually good at it, you want a family, and you love Kal more than anyone.”

“Almost more than anyone.” He smiled at you and brushed a knuckle down your cheek. “Don’t tell him though.”

You giggled but continued. “I know that you are supportive and determined and you always go after what you want--”

“Like I did with you.”

“—And there is no one in the world like you. You make me feel safe…and loved.”

He leaned closer and you rose to meet his lips. “You’re all I want.”

The corners of your mouth crooked up, but a moment later they fell and you sat up in fear. “Oh, my God.”

“What?”

“We’ve been in here,” You paused to check the small alarm clock on your bedside table, “For an hour.” Standing quickly, you looked around, wildly searching for your underwear that Henry had yanked down your legs at some point and tossed to God knows where.

He hopped up and threw his shirt over his head. When you handed him his belt, he nodded and thanked you with a smile before he began to slip it through the loops.

You sighed in relief when you found the dark blue lacy panties and pulled them up your legs. “My mother is gonna lose it. I bet the only reason she hasn’t barged in here is because of Johnny.” You ran around like a chicken with its head cut off, looking for garments and hurriedly clothing yourself. When you passed in front of Henry, he grabbed your arm.

“Babe,” He said, cupping your cheeks and forcing you to look at him. “It’s fine. Everything is going to be fine.”

----------

You stepped down the stairs and casually rounded the corner into the living room as if you hadn’t just had sex twice, to see Johnny sitting in one of two brown leather armchairs, sipping his gin and tonic. Your brother smirked when he saw your somewhat disheveled appearance, with Henry behind you, one of his large hands on your hip.

“Hey, sis.”

You rolled your eyes. “Don’t start. Where’s mom?”

He nodded his head to the couch you hadn’t bothered to glace at yet, where your mother’s body draped along it like a rag doll, a glint of drool at the corner of her mouth. “What the fuck?”

“Mom still cannot hold her booze.” He stood and watched your mother as she let out a loud snore. “Don’t worry, she didn’t hear you. She was too busy ranting about your lack of love life.” You swallowed and Johnny walked up to you. Raising one eyebrow, he looked between you and Henry, then took a gulp of the clear liquid in his glass. “The irony, huh?”

Before you could say a word, your brother slipped by you and patted Henry a few times on the shoulder. “Oh, and you’re free to go home,” Johnny called from the kitchen. “I have a feeling you’d both rather spend your night…well, not here, and I can look after our dear mother. You can thank me tomorrow.” He chuckled.

Henry looked down at you and smiled softly. “We can stay if you want.”

“Are you kidding?” You snickered. “Just give me a minute, then we can go.”

He grabbed your hand and brought it to his lips, kissing your knuckles. “I’ll go wait by the car. Tell Johnny I’ll see him Monday, yea?”

You nodded and as Henry left out the front door, you made your way down the tiled hallway that led to the kitchen. You found your brother sitting at the counter and typing on his phone with a smile.

“Margaret?” You asked.

Johnny placed his phone back on the counter and took a swig of gin straight from the bottle. “Yea.”

“How is she?”

“Good. She’s doing really well out there.” He smiled, though halfheartedly, and went for the fridge to pull out your mother’s devil’s food cake. Grabbing a fork, he walked back to the counter, put the cake in the center and dug right into the side of it. You stared as he devoured bite after bite. If it were you, you would have surely faced the wrath of the small, plump woman passed out in the next room, but Johnny ate without a care in the world. “I fucking miss her.”

You picked at a fingernail as you asked, “Is it awful…to have someone you love hours away from you for weeks at a time?” You hated to see your brother miss his girlfriend so much his insides hurt, and you had no desire to be in the same situation.

“Not as awful as it probably sounds. It would be easier with you and Henry, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He gave you an amused look that only barely masked his own pain.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he and I have to go wherever the production companies take The Witcher, but you can travel freely with your job and, believe me, he’ll take you everywhere he’s filming as long as you say yes. He also might try to superglue you to his side though, so watch out for that.”

You scrunched your eyebrows together, trying to not smile as much as your brother’s words were begging you to, then forced it down with a swallow. “Johnny…” He hummed, and when you didn’t continue, he turned his head to look at you. “Thank you. I don’t know that I would’ve talked to him again if you hadn’t brought him here. I would’ve tried to forget about it, and him.”

Johnny smirked as he poked at the cake with his fork. “Nah, Henry wouldn’t have let that happen. He’s, like, an idiot for you, but a very…determined idiot.”

“Really?”

“Oh, baby sister, you have no idea.” He rubbed up and down the side of your arm the way he used to as kids in high school when he thought you were being a little too naïve for your own good. “But I’ll tell you all about the nauseatingly, sappy whining he did over you another time.”

That was a story you were sure Henry would try to keep as far away from you as possible and the thought made you smile. The close friends he probably told, or ‘whined’ to, as your brother said, would undoubtedly have a ball trying to recount every detail just to see how red Henry’s cheeks could get.

You wrapped your arms around Johnny from the side, your head just meeting his shoulder, and squeezed. He wiggled his arm out of your tight hold to tuck you into his side then kissed your forehead.

“I love you,” You said.

“I know.”

-----------

Seeing Henry leaning against your car, patiently waiting for you, made something in your chest lighten. He didn’t seem bored or annoyed or itching to rush you along, but just content to stay in that one spot until you were ready to go. You’d never had that before: a man who didn’t force you to follow every minute of his schedule, who didn’t make you feel like you could never be an inconvenience without consequences, who didn’t hold you down by the boulder on your chest, suffocating you until you complied. It made you appreciate what it meant to be able to inhale and exhale for more than just the need to keep your body from dying. It gave you the chance to see that there are two types of breathing: There’s the breathing that keeps you alive, and there’s the breathing that keeps you sane. Henry allowed you to have both, and it took the smallest of gestures to give you that relief.

He smiled bright when he saw you striding over the front yard grass to him and took your hands in his once you were within reach. “You ready?”

You nodded and rested your head on his chest, inhaling the scent you memorized a year ago. “Yours or mine?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“If we go to yours, we can be having sex sooner. Mine’s an extra fifteen away,” You said and looked up at him.

“Mine it is.” He winked and then kissed you.

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

tags: Perm (let me know if you want on or off the list. Idk who prefers to be on what list anymore now that I have two.) @dugan365​ @moonlightimagination​ @pietrotheavenger​ @marvel-fanfiction​ @hawkeyeharrington​ @dani-si​ @wintersoldier98​ @then-there-was-me-emily​ @prxttybirdz​ @xceafh​ @jazzwoman897​ @fandoms-who @meganwinchester1999​ @ufffg​ @debra77​ @rebelliouscat​ @anise-d-castle6​ @projectxhappiness​ @buckybarnesappreciationsociety​ @lowkeysebby​ @quotemeow @notmyfault404​ @jjamesbbarness​ @guera31​ @sophiatomlinson23​ @thisismysecrethappyplace​ @hiddles-rose​ @vibhati123 @mywinterwolf​ @picapicapicassobaby​ @lokilvrr​ @sunshine-seven​ @agniavateira​

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Stalker X Stalker, Part 5

First

Previous

Next

Perma tag: @nathleigh

Stalker x Stalker taglist: @aespades @jayjayspixiepop @blueslushgueen @fan-written @seraphichana @nerd-nowandforever

Marinette listened in on Tim for three days.

Not actively, of course, she didn’t hang onto every word he said. She just let her consciousness drift in and out of the conversations he had while she worked on finishing up the outfit she had designed for Audrey...

And, yeah, she was getting to the point where she was willing to bet on him being an okay guy. Better than okay, even. He was just so… genuine?

The first two days he had come in sick. She knew the signs of working while sick by heart, the trudging around and the groaning and the constant banging your head on the desk when you pass out randomly, and damn she was pretty sure even she wasn’t as bad as him. He probably shouldn’t be working at all, to be honest, he was CEO and there was nothing stopping him from taking the day -- or even just a few hours -- off. But, no, from the sound of it he was drinking ungodly amounts of coffee and calling it okay.

And despite the fact that he seemed absolutely miserable, he hadn’t taken it out on anyone. She had yet to hear him be impolite to anyone, not even the people that worked under him. His secretary had made a scheduling mistake and he had not only assured her it was fine but didn’t even require her to fix it.

Even when he was talking to himself while working he never once said anything questionable. And he talked to himself a lot. It was like a podcast, honestly, just hearing him rattle off numbers and weird business terms she hadn’t learned because she was self-taught. He talked almost constantly and he should have slipped up by now, yet here she was three days later with nothing to show for it except for a whole lot of guilt.

Marinette hadn’t thought much about it on the first day, everyone had their good days from time to time. On the second day she said ‘oh, it’s a coincidence’, but on the third day she had to call it: her paranoia had been a little unfounded.

Literally the worst thing about him so far was that he didn’t seem to care much about his own health… and that wasn’t really a bad thing about him as much as it was a bad thing for him.

So, yeah, it looked like she had no real reason to listen in on him anymore.

… but…

Something about him was nagging at her. He was a nice guy and she’d like to be his friend… it was just that, sometimes, she could swear she recognized his voice.

And it wasn’t like there were a lot of people she knew in America, she knew who he probably was.

Her hand itched towards the tiny device hidden under her window seat. One click (and maybe a little researching) and she’d know for sure who the bats were. The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that, if she did know their real names, she’d accidentally call them by them once and immediately get thrown either into a cell or out of Gotham. She was a meta (kind of), she was already on thin ice. She didn’t need the paranoid idiots that were the bats being more wary of her than they already were.

So, she left it alone.

She kept the bug, though. Mostly just because she wanted to hear it directly from him rather than just guessing by his voice. After all, voices can be similar. If he were to directly talk about bat business while she was listening in, though… that would definitely be a point towards her theory, to say the least.

And, yeah, she knew it was kind of messed up. She could be listening in on some innocent guy for all she knew, but it was… morally kind of okay? The whole thing about stalking is that it makes your victim feel unsafe. If he was Red Robin then he had found the bug and hadn’t felt unsafe enough to remove it and if he was a civilian then he would never know about the bug and therefore couldn’t feel unsafe. Therefore, it wasn’t stalking, not really.

… yeah, that makes sense.

She glanced at her sketchbook and yawned. She really needed to get a new outfit idea soon. Good thing Tim said he was taking her out tomorrow --.

Shit, Tim was taking her out tomorrow.

She jumped up from her spot at the window and ran to her closet. What to wear, what to wear...

Frenchie: where are we going tomorrow

Spiderman: It’s a surprise.

Frenchie: fuck your surprises tim what do i need to wear

She heard his laugh crackle through her earpiece. Rude.

Spiderman: Casual clothes.

Frenchie: there are LEVELS of casual tim

Spiderman: Oh, so we’re breaking out the capital letters. This must be serious.

She scoffed. Of course it was serious.

Frenchie: just tell me what to wear

Spiderman: A t-shirt and jeans is fine.

Kwamis, send her strength. Like she was going to wear a t-shirt and jeans. Did he even know who he was talking to?

But at least she had a gauge on how casual she could go. She picked out a light pink button down and black shorts for herself and then, because she had a little bit of foresight, she added some black tights.

She smiled faintly and dropped back in her bed.

She couldn’t wait to see where he was going to take her.

She found out the next day. Because that’s how things work.

She raised her eyebrows. “There’s no way it’s actually called a ‘space museum’. You’ve gotta be lying.”

Tim shrugged, a grin poking at his lips. “Do you really think I’d make it up?”

“Well, considering your outfit, I’d say you aren’t the most creative of guys so maybe you did,” she teased.

Tim looked down at his outfit and pouted. He was wearing little more than a black turtleneck and pants under a white jacket. “Must you make fun of every outfit I wear?”

“Only the bad ones. Seriously, would it kill you to wear a little bit of color?”

He rolled his eyes. “At least I thought to bring a jacket. It’s thirty degrees!”

She had forgotten that Americans used Fahrenheit, sue her.

Of course, she was never going to admit to this. She stuck her tongue out at him. “Maybe I’m just not a wimp.”

He snickered. “Oh, so you’re not cold?”

“Not at all.”

“Then stop hugging that coffee cup.”

She looked down at the coffee cup that was her only source of warmth and happiness in this cruel world that had two different measuring systems (three if you counted Kelvin). She gripped it tighter. “... no.”

He rolled his eyes again and, after a beat of hesitation, shrugged his jacket off and offered it to her.

Marinette normally wouldn’t give in this easy… but she really was cold and his clothes were far thicker than hers were and she knew that her teeth would start chattering soon which would have been so embarrassing...

So she blushed faintly and slipped the jacket on. It smelled like ungodly expensive cologne. “Thanks.”

He grinned. “I’m taking your coffee as payment.”

“No --!”

~

After dropping by a cafe so Marinette didn’t kill him, Tim took her to the space museum (yes, that actually was what it was called).

He thought she would have missed the night sky. Gotham hardly ever had a clear night due to the thick smog that hung over the city like a curse. And they spent quite a lot of time outside at night, she must have been feeling a little homesick.

So, he rented out the museum for the day. Yes, the whole museum. He was rich and mildly famous and what was the point of that if he wasn’t going to use it to make the people he cared about happy? He doubted she would be able to enjoy the sights as much if people were constantly taking pictures of them and asking about their relationship.

She raised her eyebrows just slightly but otherwise didn’t acknowledge the lack of people.

They slipped through the rooms quietly in search of inspiration.

Many of the rooms were your typical museum things: exhibits showing off different space rocks and explaining stars and supernovas. They didn’t stop much here, obviously, there was little to be inspired by. The most that happened for a long while was Marinette stopping from time to time to take a picture of a nice color that she wanted to try and replicate later.

And then she had stopped to look at a spacesuit. She blinked a few times before breaking into a grin and flipping to a new page in her sketchbook. He could barely make out the name ‘Jagged’ from where he was fiddling with his camera a respectable distance away.

So, Marinette, at least, was having a productive time. Tim was… a little stressed, to be honest.

Tim was having a particularly hard time getting ‘inspired’.

It had been years since he had picked up his camera, which was certainly a problem but it wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that he had never been one to take pictures of locations or objects. Sure, there was the occasional picture of the Gotham skyline, but he had always had a tendency towards taking pictures of people. Batman and Robin working as a team to take out a bunch of thugs, Robin and Nightwing racing each other across the rooftops, Batman and Nightwing stopping for ice cream after a particularly long patrol… and now he wanted to take pictures of Marinette.

But that would be weird because a) the first day he had implied he took pictures of attractions in order to alleviate suspicion about why he just so happened to be on the same rooftop as her and b) she probably wouldn’t think they were close enough for him to take pictures of her.

He kind of wished he could just go back to the old days where his subjects didn’t know he was there and he wouldn’t have to worry about what they would think about him if he took a picture of them.

His fingers itched towards the camera hanging from his neck because she looked so cute with her tongue poking out of her mouth and her orange, yellow, and white colored pencils sticking out from between her fingers like little Wolverine claws and he loved the way his jacket looked on her and --.

“You can stop staring, I’ll be done as fast as I can.”

His brain shorted out and the only response he could come up with was a squeaky: “Sorry?”

She looked up from her work with an awkward smile. “I’m sorry it’s taking so long, I just… if I don’t do it now it’ll slip my mind. I’m working as fast as I can, though.”

He was rebooting. Give him a minute.

Ah, there it was.

Wait, she thought he was being impatient?

“Nononono take your time, it’s fine! I just...”

He trailed off before he could finish the thought because this was the second time they had hung out he couldn’t make things awkward between them already.

… but she was giving him a confused, vaguely concerned, look and he was pretty sure that if he didn’t come up with something soon it would be awkward anyways.

“IwasjustwonderingifIcouldtakeapictureofyou?” He blurted out before he could stop himself again.

She blinked once. Twice. And then a blush spread across her face.

“Oh. Uh… sure?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he said.

“It’s fine. A little sudden but… fine,” she said with a tiny smile.

Tim couldn’t keep the smile off of his face.

Not one to be blushy for long, apparently, Marinette flashed a wink. “Should I call up my friend Adrien for modeling tips or��?”

He rolled his eyes and schooled his face back into his usual grin. “It’s fine, just keep working. I’ll figure out angles and stuff.”

She tipped her head to the side confusedly. “Don’t you need me to be still?”

He didn’t look up from messing with the settings of his camera. “Not at all. You’re probably going to be one of my easier pictures.”

“... thanks…?”

“I do mostly nighttime photography. Capturing things in motion without it blurring requires a --.” He cringed. “Sorry, um… basically, when you want to take photos of things that are moving fast, you need a lot of natural light.”

“... you can talk about it more in depth, if you want.”

He shrugged. “I’d bore you.”

“I like your voice,” she said… then she seemed to realize the implications because she cleared her throat and did her best to backtrack: “In comparison to every other American I’ve heard so far, at least. Why do your accents… sound like that?”

“Ah, yes, because everyone knows that French people have the best accents.”

“Excuse you, I have been told by many people that my accent is actually very nice.”

He grinned. “By whom? Half-drunk men on the street?”

She gasped as if offended. “I get my information from much more reliable sources... like drunk women in bathrooms, thank you very much.”

“I see. My mistake. I apologize.”

“As you should.”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Don’t you have a design to make?” She looked down at her sketchbook and a silence stretched between them as she squinted at her design.

“You forgot what you were doing, didn’t you?”

She groaned and rested her head in her hands.

He took a picture of her exasperated pout.

~

Marinette ended up with two outfits.

One was for Jagged, based off of the spacesuit she had seen. She had figured that, with all the songs he wrote about being free, there was bound to be one about how he ‘finally had his own space’. It was good to be prepared.

The other was for Cassandra Wayne. Marinette hadn’t thought much about it, to be honest. She just knew that Cassandra liked the color black with designs on top of it, and that the planetarium had a nice star pattern that would work for that. It would be super expensive, what with all the gems she would need, but it wasn’t like the Waynes couldn’t afford it.

… and then she looked up to see Tim pouting.

She giggled, resting her head on her hand. “What?”

“My sister is getting a dress and I’m not.”

Oh, so he was an actual fan. Interesting.

She brushed that conversation aside in favor of teasing him: “You want a dress?”

“Yes! No? Yes? I --.” He huffed and took a seat in the chair next to her. “I have faith anything you make will look nice.”

She felt a blush rise to her face and she rolled her eyes. “Hm. Telling the person in charge of your wardrobe ‘I have full faith in you’ is a terrible idea.”

“Oh? I don’t think you, in good conscience, can make and give me anything bad.”

She squinted at him for a minute before breaking into a grin. “Wanna bet?”

He leaned back in his chair, scrutinizing her for a few moments, before smirking. “Sure, how about we put five thousand on it?”

She choked. She’d forgotten he was rich rich.

She was quick to backtrack: “Nah. With all your fashion choices so far I can’t trust you not to wear it to some Gala or whatever it is you rich people do.”

“Damn, there goes that plan.”

She grinned and looked down at her sketchbook. After a few seconds she flipped to a new page. She squinted at his outfit for a few moments before starting to doodle something.

“What’re you making now?”

“I’m making you something with some color.”

He huffed. “Excuse you, I’m a goth in a family of goths. I can’t wear color.”

“Yeah, yeah. Trust me, I know. I’d say Richard is the black sheep of the family in that aspect but he’s the one wearing color.”

He laughed a little. “So Dick is the white sheep, then?”

“Yea --.” She stopped and then squinted over at him. “Dick?”

“It’s what he insists everyone calls him.”

She looked down at her sketchbook for a moment, processing, and then shook her head. “Your brother has a degradation kink.”

Tim brought his hand to his mouth in stunned silence before pulling his phone from his pocket and definitely not informing the family group chat of his discovery.

She snickered and went to work on the outfit again. It was a simple one, because she didn’t want to go too far out of his comfort zone, but there was no way she was going to be friends with a monochromatic idiot.

She leaned over until her head rested on his shoulder. He tensed up just a little before resting his head on top of hers.

~

When she had finished he took a picture of the planetarium to keep up pretenses and they had made their leave.

… but first, they stopped by the gift shop. Because why not?

Tim could have bought everything there for Marinette -- and probably would have, if asked -- but, considering she had freaked out about five thousand dollars earlier, he figured maybe he should keep that more or less quiet.

Instead, he followed her around while idly bouncing a Saturn shaped bouncy ball. It was a terrible shape for a bouncy ball and he kind of loved it, to be honest. Not to mention the little smile Marinette made behind her hand every time the ball would try another mad dash for freedom was pretty cute.

And then they hit the t-shirt section. And her lips twitched as she reached out and picked up a bright blue shirt that said ‘May the F=MA be with you’ in white text.

“It’s awful. It’s perfect.”

He grinned. “Wow, look at you. You know one of the simplest physics formulas by heart, aren’t you smart?” He joked.

She bowed. “I know, I know.”

He held out a hand for it and she stared at him for a few seconds in confusion.

“I’ll hold it until we get to the front desk.”

She squinted at him. “I’m paying for my own shirt.”

“I can afford it,” he said with a sigh.

“So can I.”

“Either you let me pay for it or I’ll keep track of everything you buy while with me and add it to your commissions.”

“... either you let me pay for it or I’ll never make an outfit for you ever again. I know your measurements and style, Timothy, you won’t be able to get past me.”

They narrowed their eyes at each other, daring each other to call their bluffs…

And then his shoulders sagged. “Fine.”

He’d just have to use his connections to lower prices on fabrics for her. Did he mention that he was rich and mildly famous? Yeah. It was pretty cool.

~

She smiled as she leaned against the doorframe to her apartment. “Thanks for taking me out. It was fun.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and smiled back. She was determinedly ignoring the way his smile made little butterflies flutter in her stomach. She patently hated butterflies. They weren’t allowed.

“I had fun, too. Want to do it again, sometime?”

“... sure, I guess you passed my test.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Your test?”

“Oh, yeah.” She waved him off. “If you had made any creepy comments today I would have blocked you.”

He seemed a little relieved by this information, though she wasn’t quite sure why. “That’s a pretty good test to have in Gotham.”

“I know, I’m pretty smart,” she said jokingly.

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

Damn it, now she was blushing. Shit.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you flatter every girl you take to the space museum? Is this your strategy?”

He snickered. “Well, considering you’re the only girl I’ve taken, I’m going to have to say yes.”

She hummed. “I’m glad I’m so special to you, because that means you won’t drop me when I never give you this jacket back.”

He huffed. “You can’t just do that.”

“I can and will,” she teased. Then, because she wasn’t a completely cruel person, she reached up to her coatrack and pulled down a red scarf for him. “Here, take this so it’s more of a trade than stealing.”

“If I don’t?”

“Then you get to walk back to your house in the cold like that.”

He snorted. “What happened to not wanting to steal?”

“At least I offered!”

He rolled his eyes and leaned down so she could wrap the scarf around his neck.

She looked up at him, a blush spreading across her face, and then carefully draped it over his shoulders. “There. Now you have a splash of color.”

He smiled at her. “Ah, I see, this was all just a plot to get me to wear colors. It all makes sense now.”

“Of course.” She tugged him down more by the scarf to press a kiss to his nose. “You should wear red and black more often. They’re totally your colors.”

He smiled a little dopily. “You have no idea.”

She pushed his face away. “Weirdo. Go be cryptic somewhere else.”

“Fine, fine. See you in a few days.”

“See you then.”

~~~

Bonus Batfam group chat stuff

Timtamalam: What if Dick makes everyone call him that because he has a degradation kink?

LetMeLeaveTheChat: i fucking hate this family.

BloodSon: This is exactly the kind of lowbrow humor to be expected of you, Drake.

Timtamalam: I’m unappreciated in my time.

CAss: :0

Timtamalam: See, this is why Cass is the favorite.

YouDontSeeMe: DickJoke please respond

DickJoke: I raised each and every one of you and this is the thanks I get

LetMeLeaveTheChat: sucks to suck, dickwad.

DickJoke: That’s it when I get through all this dumb Heartless stuff I’m coming back to the manor and we’re all going to have family time

CAss: :(

ItsEggplantNotPurple: damn it

YouDontSeeMe: crap

LetMeLeaveTheChat: fuck. and an extra “fuck” on duke’s behalf.

BloodSon: Look at what you have done, Drake.

Timtamalam: Sorry guys.

[feralphoenix]

NO ONE IS HAPPY WITH THIS: Leitmotif & Sound Palette In “Sealed Vessel”

whats UP hk fandom i am back with—“more picante takes?” WOW YES HOW DID YOU KNOW!!!

CONTENT WARNING FOR TONIGHTS PROGRAM: today we are discussing the hollow knight boss fight, and all that entails for all the characters involved. relatedly this post does not have anything nice to say about the pale king, so if you’re very protective of his character, you may want to skip it.

FURTHERMORE, i would like to iterate that this essay is working from a place of compassion for ghost, hollow, radiance, AND hornet, because every single one of them is miserable at this point in the game and doesn’t want the events of this boss fight to be happening at all. this post is not an appropriate place to dunk on ANY of them. if you want to do that, please do it elsewhere.

thanks for your understanding.

ALSO, AS USUAL: if youre from a christian cultural upbringing (whether currently practicing, agnostic/secular, or atheist now), understand that some of what i’m discussing here may challenge you. if thinking thru the implications of radiance and the moth tribe’s backstory is distressing for you, PLEASE only approach this essay when youre in a safe mindset & open to listening, and ask the help of a therapist or anti-racism teacher/mentor to help you process your thoughts & feelings. just like keep in mind that youre listening to an ethnoreligiously marginalized person and please be respectful here or wherever else youre discussing this dang essay, ty

NO ONE IS HAPPY WITH THIS: Leitmotif & Sound Palette In “Sealed Vessel”

A while back @grimmradiance​ made a lovely essay about comparing and contrasting Hollow’s moveset in their Hollow Knight and Pure Vessel boss fights and using what can be gleaned from the differences to speculate about their psychology. (This essay is currently their pinned, but I’ll attach a link in a reblog.) It is extremely good, and it made me want to look at the Hollow Knight boss fight my own self through one of my own areas of expertise, meaning music!

As we are all well aware, Christopher Larkin's soundtrack to Hollow Knight rules ass. There are two specific ways in which it rules ass that are relevant to this essay: Leitmotif, and sound palette.

Quick rundown for folks who aren’t familiar with these terms: A leitmotif is a melody associated with a character or event or mood that's incorporated into songs in different ways based on what's happening in the story. Undertale is an example of a game with an incredibly strong use of leitmotif that’s really only possible because Toby Fox is both the composer and the game creator, so he can synchronize the subtleties of the writing with music and scene scripting too.

The phrase “sound palette” can have a lot of meanings, but in this case I’m using it to refer to specific instruments or groups of instruments that are associated with certain characters. If you’ve watched Steven Universe and seen interviews/production commentary by its composer team Aivi & Surasshu, you’ll hear them talking about part of their approach to scoring episodes being how each main character is represented by certain instruments: Steven with the triangle wave, Pearl with jazz piano, and so on.

Hollow Knight is a small team project rather than a one-person show, so Christopher Larkin can’t go quite AS over-the-top with leitmotif integration as Toby Fox can on simple virtue of Team Cherry having to communicate what they want to him. But Larkin is Hollow Knight's sound designer as well as its composer, so he folds leitmotif and character sound palette together with striking use of stems to create a very immersive and cinematic musical experience that enhances HK’s story and gameplay.

This brings us back to the track Sealed Vessel, which has EXTREMELY tight and cinematic sound design and uses leitmotif and sound palette to not just sock players in the feelings during a charged and dramatic boss fight, but also tell us a lot about what Hollow and Radiance are experiencing emotionally, especially with the gameplay in mind.

So, let’s play the soundtrack version of Sealed Vessel (and some other stuff) and talk about what’s going on in the game during it!

You may want to get out your copy of the OST or visit Christopher Larkin’s Bandcamp page so that you can listen along.

LEITMOTIF & SOUND PALETTE

Before we actually get into analyzing Sealed Vessel, let’s talk about the involved characters’ leitmotifs/sound palettes so we know what we’re listening for.

Both of these things are easiest to identify when characters have a distinct theme song. Ghost does not. However, the main theme of Hollow Knight (see: the title track, Hollow Knight) is used as a leitmotif for the vessels as a whole. Most pieces involved with a vessel character include this leitmotif somewhere. For instance, you can find this leitmotif and variations on it in Broken Vessel’s boss theme. The Vessel leitmotif is led by a cello solo here, so we can identify that the cello is the central part of Broken Vessel’s personal sound palette.

When the Vessel theme is associated with Ghost in specific, it tends to be performed by viola and/or piano, as it is on the title track and in other places like the opening cinematic.

Moving on to Hollow, their specific sound palette is established not in Sealed Vessel but in Pure Vessel, their pantheon boss theme. (Sealed Vessel was composed first, since the Godmaster DLC didn’t drop until over a year after HK’s initial release, meaning Pure Vessel was reverse-engineered/extrapolated from relevant parts of Sealed Vessel. But we’ll get into that later!)

The major instrumental fixtures in Pure Vessel are choir and tubular bells (i.e., those dramatic vertical fellas that sound like church bells or a carillon), with some soft background instrumentation: bass drum, woodwinds (appropriately led by flute in the main melody’s “falling motion” - flute is the centerpiece of TPK’s sound palette), strings, and high/mid brass. Hollow’s overall sound palette has a very Christian choir-esque sound (in the Pure Vessel theme this is very idealized and saintly: soft and slow and tragic) and the beginning of their leitmotif has a very distinctive climbing melody that mirrors their ascent from the Abyss. The Unbearable Vesselness Of Being leitmotif is absent from the Pure Vessel track.

Meanwhile, Radiance’s boss theme is a very fun expression of her character upon which Larkin evidently went ham. Her sound palette is expressed through full orchestra (plus choir and pipe organ) that has a special emphasis on the bass part of the brass section, which does not see much use in the HK soundtrack. Her leitmotif has also got cute and distinctive touches: It’s full of triplets to match her tiara-looking antennae, and also has a repeated “fluttery” pattern of background sixteenth notes as countermelody, often spiraling downwards.

The majority of the piece is loud and bombastic and in a minor key to play up the “resplendent and terrible” wrathful aspect of herself Radi is pushing during this section of gameplay, a very quintessentially moth intimidation tactic: Try to look as scary as possible to keep your enemies from messing with you, since you’re not built for fighting. These blasts of intensity from the brass section match Radiance’s strategy of Overwhelm You With Bullet Hell Spam To Make Up For Lack Of Battle Experience/Poor Aim. But in between said intensity spikes you can hear traces of softer instrumentation and major key, little glimpses of a gentle warmth we can otherwise only infer from her backstory and the implications of Moth Tribe lore.

0:00 - 0:41 - OPENING AMBIANCE

The Sealed Vessel track begins with the ambiance of the Black Egg Temple’s interior: The faint tones of the glowing seals we hear when we pass by them, the only light in a pitch-black world besides the floor lighting up under Ghost’s feet.

Then a slow string tremolo fades in, slowly growing louder. In the track new notes join the tremolo progressively, while in-game a violin joins the anticipatory chord every time you snap one of Hollow’s chains. Which, may I say: A+++++++ sound design!!!!!! Rules ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The tremolo reaches a peak in dynamics - all three characters present are extremely tense - and then cuts off to allow for Hollow’s boss battle opening, i.e. Radiance screaming. Team Cherry kindly demarcates each phase of the battle with a Radi yell.

0:43 - 1:39 - PHASE 1: HOLLOW ON AUTOPILOT

Phase 1 opens immediately with Hollow’s leitmotif in bells, but with brass, piano, and percussion backing them up; grand and tragic. In the background the bass section of the orchestra's strings flutter in a repetitive pattern of 16th notes, i.e. Panicky Radi Noises. The violins harmonize with Hollow's leitmotif as it climbs, but then join the rest of the string section in fluttering 16th notes, transmuting what in Pure Vessel is the flute leading Hollow back down (8th notes) to a slightly louder “a” from the backseat.

In actual gameplay, the only attacks Hollow uses are their basic nail skills. Building on grimmradiance’s analysis of the window their attacks provide to their psychology, and pairing that with the Pure Vessel leitmotif booming over the metaphorical loudspeakers, we can tell that this is Hollow reacting automatically to a threat the way that their father trained them to. Their conscious mind might still be making dialup noises at Ghost’s sudden reappearance jumpscaring them with murky childhood guilt and trauma, but that’s only let muscle memory take over. Slash, parry, charge and thrust. Their time spent at bee bootcamp (which we can assume because Hornet was trained at the Hive and Hollow’s form while nail fighting is identical to hers on their shared moves) has served them well.

Radiance, meanwhile, has frozen completely for this combat phase, and contributes nothing here except the anxiety of the string section.

As the strings continue to go “a” the piano (Ghost) and woodwinds harmonize on something between Hollow’s personal leitmotif and the Vessel leitmotif in the backdrop.

However at around 1:29ish, the key changes, building into an overall color change for the Sealed Vessel piece.

1:39 - 2:15 - PHASE 2: SHE’S AS SCARED OF YOU AS YOU ARE OF HER

In actual gameplay, the part of Sealed Vessel used for phases 1 and 2 of the Hollow Knight fight is the Entirety of 0:43 - 2:15, possibly because there’s no easy transition spot like there is between phase 2 and phase 3. But the changes to Hollow’s moveset are clearly tied to this specific part of the piece.

Phase 2 is where Radiance pushes herself past her freeze response and starts trying to hit Ghost. Hollow gains two attacks here, which we can tell are Radi because they’re often accompanied by her crying (a softer and more abbreviated sound than her full scream): These two attacks are the Infection blob blast and the Light/Void pillar attack that hits for a full 2 masks damage (which appear to be Radi’s take on Hollow’s Pure Vessel-exclusive moves, their grabby tentacles & silver knife pillars respectively).

In the Sealed Vessel track, this part of the piece is almost entirely Radiance’s fluttering. The strings start by following the descending motion of Hollow’s leitmotif but in 16th notes, then ratchet up to start spiraling down again while straying further from Hollow’s leitmotif. This section ends in a back and forth between hard blasts in a one-two-(rest)-one-two-three pattern and gasps of fluttering between, with piano and low brass building behind it. Eventually the nervous fluttering of the strings becomes less frequent between the blasts: Radiance is inexperienced with fighting and very very afraid, but she’s also FUCKING PISSED and prepared to defend herself.

The OST version of the piece punctuates the break between the first half of the piece and the second with Radiance’s scream.

2:16 - 4:04 - PHASE 3: “I’M HELPING! :)” SAID HOLLOW; “HOLY SHIT PLEASE DON’T,” SAID LITERALLY EVERYONE

Phase 3 opens with Hollow stabbing themself repeatedly, a movement pattern they repeat throughout the phase. It is shocking the first time you see it, and never stops being horrible and sad no matter how many times you do this part of the fight.

Here, Hollow’s mind has finally come back online after their own freeze response, and they choose to destroy themself and bequeath the duty of sealing Radiance to Ghost. Even if they can’t be the one to make their father proud, they can still make sure their directive gets carried out.

Radiance knows exactly what they’re up to and why, and she reacts to this by completely losing her head and mashing buttons in a panic. This is something we see out of her at the ends of her boss fights too, where she’s feeling too threatened and afraid to do anything but spam optic blasts. In the Hollow Knight boss fight this manifests in two horrifying-looking but easy-to-avoid new attacks: The Infection blob sprinkler and the ragdoll.

Ghost does not react visibly because we're in gameplay, but their horror and grief at their sibling’s choice is echoed in the BGM. The Sealed Vessel piece goes soft and sad, with Ghost’s associated viola leading the bass strings in the Unbearable Vesselness of Being leitmotif. At 2:51 the violin comes in with Hollow’s leitmotif, and gradually the choir appears in the backdrop. The ensemble’s overall dynamics build in a slow crescendo, and at the very end of this segment the other instruments begin to join in.

This segment of the piece is also used in phase 4, which occurs if you don't have Hornet’s help or miss your cue to Dream Nail Hollow. Phase 3 ends when Hollow reaches 0 HP; in phase 4 they are for all purposes already dead. But Radiance manifests an extra 250 HP out of terrified, unadulterated FUCK YOU FUCK THIS!!! even though all she can do is get Hollow to fall on their face trying to slash and ragdoll them around. The BGM continues to play as Ghost absorbs Radiance from Hollow and Hollow’s body loses its shape and dissolves into liquid Void.

And there’s one other place in gameplay Sealed Vessel (Unbearable Vesselness of Being) is used: The Path of Pain, the completely evil kaizo-level obstacle course which presumably featured in Hollow’s childhood training, and behind which the Pale King has hidden his last and most terrible secret—that he had realized on some level that Hollow was a kid with feelings who loved him and wanted to make him proud, and condemned them to death despite it all by using them to imprison and torture Radiance as he’d always planned.

The OST version of Sealed Vessel includes the music for both normal ending cinematics, so we’ll be looking at them too.

4:05 - 4:35: ENDINGS 1/2: NO ONE IS HAPPY WITH THIS

In the BGM for The Hollow Knight and Sealed Siblings endings, the Vessel leitmotif is played by violin, viola, and choir while the cellos and contrabasses—and then the brass bass section too—play a slower version of Radiance’s downward spiral. But once Ghost is pierced by the Black Egg’s chains and Radiance’s struggle to free herself ends in failure, the soprano and bass sections harmonize. The animation zooms out of the temple and the seal reforms. They are stuck together now until the end of Ghost’s life. Hooray.

The OST version of the track immediately segues into the BGM for Dream No More.

4:36 - 5:45: ENDING 3: THANKS, I HATE IT

Here, Hornet’s associated instrument, the violin, plays one long sustained note with a few notes of Ghost’s piano alongside as she wakes up.

TPK’s goddamn flute comes in at 5:00 with his leitmotif overpowering the backdrop Vessel leitmotif on piano while Hornet surveys the carnage: The temple has been destroyed, Radiance is dead, and what’s left of Ghost’s corpse is smeared across the floor. The Void may have taken umbrage with his horseshit and unceremoniously vored him, but the motherfucker still got what he wanted in the end; the Pale King has ended the Infection by completing his genocide of the moths, using the children he abused and abandoned as his proxies, and wasting two of their lives. Can I get a hearty THIS SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in the chat.

Given that Hornet herself is canonically unsure if bringing the fight to Radiance is really a just course of action, one can only imagine how she must feel when she sees the cost of that decision.

Our only real moment of catharsis is in this shit situation comes in at 5:13, where the flute gives way to a solo from Ghost’s associated viola, playing the Vessel leitmotif as the Siblings curl up and sink back into the mountain of their corpses. Goodnight, kiddos. You deserved better, and so did literally everyone involved in this whole stupid boss fight.

This is where the OST version of Sealed Vessel ends. Even without the gameplay and story context it slaps, but now that we’ve taken a look at how this 5:45 piece is wall to wall misery and fear on the part of literally every involved character, hopefully it will have even more impact!

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 11 first part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Goodness)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Okay! This episode is a real slice of healthy family dynamics, not triggering in any way. [Uh if this is your first Restless Rewatch: that is sarcasm, dear readers]

Goodbye to You, Goodbye to Everything We Knew

Nie Huaisang asks why Meng Yao has to leave and Meng Yao says "I killed a guy without permission, so your brother fired me." 

Ha ha ha ha no he doesn't. But he does give Nie Huaisang a sweet, sad smile; he seems touched by NHS's distress. 

Meng Yao carefully removes Nie Huaisang's hands from his shoulders and bows to him, wordlessly signaling the change in their relationship from intimate friends to formal strangers, while Nie Huaisang looks crushed. 

They will return to intimate friendship in the future, but falsely. Meng Yao believes that truly loving a person can include destroying their family and using them as an instrument in your murder plots as long as you don't directly harm them.  Nie Huaisang eventually learns to use people just as brutally, but he doesn't lie to himself about what he's doing. This farewell may be the last harmless moment between these friends. 

Jiang Cheng is distressed by what's going on, while Wei Wuxian crosses his arms and watches, fully in Sherlock Holmes mode, instead of his more usual concerned-for-my-friend mode. This may signal mistrust of Meng Yao, who refused his initial attempt at friendship, and not in a sexy, slice-your-face-off way.  Or it may mean that he's reserving judgement on a complicated family situation. He maintains his uncharacteristic reserve through the entire encounter. 

(more behind the cut!)

Nie Huaisang runs in and asks his brother WTF happened. Nie Mingjue says "he killed my subordinate without permission, when he knows perfectly well power must flow from the ruler; it's like he didn't even read that Foucault book I gave him."

Ha ha ha actually he just yells at his brother, as if NHS doesn’t have his own relationship with Meng Yao after being wonder twink powers with him for probably a couple of years now. NHS has to sit and process his loss and confusion in silence.

As a younger sibling who would make friends with my older siblings' girlfriends and then lose those friends if they broke up, for reasons having nothing to do with why I liked their girlfriends, I super feel Nie Huaisang's pain here.

OTOH, older siblings are entitled to have break ups and not explain themselves to anyone besides their lover because that's the nature of intimacy. The moral is, uhh...don't have a family curse that makes you unreasonably angry. 

Jiang Cheng steps up to advocate for Meng Yao, because Meng Yao is injured, and because Jiang Cheng is actually a born leader who knows better than to throw away a useful subordinate. For example, even when Wei Wuxian is at his drunkest and most defiant, Jiang Cheng tries to reform him, not kick him out, only drawing the line at having unpopular zombie friends.

Wei Wuxian continues to keep his mouth shut, waiting for Nie Mingjue to calm down, and speaking only about the tactical situation. He clearly knows there's more to this story but he's pretty good at keeping his head down in a family ruckus, and we're about to learn why.

Yunmeng Town

The Yunmeng bros go home to Lotus Pier, where they are greeted in town with bows, smiles, and free stuff.

We've mostly been seeing them in their roles within the cultivation community, where Jiang Cheng is grumpy and anxious, and Wei Wuxian is sassy and iconoclastic. Here among common people, they are both charming, friendly, and polite, like the imaginary good kind of gentry.

They hear the news from a local lotus seller that the small clans are coming to the Jiang Clan for shelter, but that otherwise everything's ok, which doesn't sound like everything is ok at all. He gives Wei Wuxian a giant bag of lotuses for his sister to make soup from.

Home to Lotus Pier

All the disciples practicing in the courtyard at Lotus Pier are excited to see them, and one girl goes running to tell Jiang Yanli. Thanks to the admittedly beautiful design of Lotus Pier, she is running for a long time.

A long, long time. Getting around on all these insane walkways must be a real drag if you're not the flying sort of cultivator.

Discipline and Punish

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian immediately go and kneel while they wait for their official punishment. Jiang Cheng is kinda worried about the punishment and Wei Wuxian is like, I'm good at being punished, just let me do it. 

Much later, and for a really long fucking time

He also tries to get Jiang Cheng to stop being mad, even giving him skritches while he says they should be brothers after they die.

Which they will, as it happens, although Jiang Cheng after the Wen torture is only mostly golden-core dead, while WWX dies for real.

When Jiang Fengmian shows up Jiang Cheng starts to explain that they were with Lan Wangji, but Wei Wuxian hushes him; he is still keeping the secret of the Yin Iron. Although he's keeping it in exactly the manner that a teenager keeps their weed stash secret: immediately tell literally every teen friend about it, but keep it extra secret from everybody's parents. 

Happy Families Are All Alike

Now we get to meet Yu Ziyuan, who is generally styled Madame Yu but who I'm going to call by her name just as if she was a male character. More on that concept in a minute. She rolls up looking, smelling, feeling like a million yuan, with her two murder bitches in tow.

Her marriage is an unhappy one, and her husband does his best to avoid her and avoid conflict, lying to the kids that she's tired and then sending her away later with the same line about being tired, which is a particularly gendered kind of gaslighting. She is obviously not tired, other than being tired of Jiang Fengmian's shit.

I'm not going to say she's the worst mother ever, because parenthood in a feudal society entails a wide range of skills, many of which she has in abundance. She starts off with a relatively tender greeting to Jiang Cheng, tuning up his always-amazing sartorial style, which is exactly like her own. They are all ready for the mommy & me fashion show.

That said, she dishes out hellacious verbal abuse to everyone in her family. She targets each one in turn, making Wei Wuxian the focus of most of her ire, but without ever directly speaking to him. He is not, in her view, part of her family. 

The Stages of Family Dinner

1. Try to fix it and defuse the situation

2. Yeah no

3. Just keep your head down and be glad it’s not your turn in the hot seat

This family meal hammers home how much Wei Wuxian is not, actually, part of the family. Jiang Fengmian adopted him into the clan, and told A-Cheng and A-Yi to treat him as a sibling, but he didn't give him the Jiang name, and he didn't get his wife's approval. He also doesn’t expect him to dress like any other clan member, apparently. 

Compare this to how Lan Wangji, actual good parent, fully integrates his own adopted son into his clan and family, starting with giving him the Lan surname.  

The hits just keep coming as she goes after Jiang Cheng for being less gifted than Wei Wuxian, Yanli for performing labor for Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Fengmian for possibly begetting Wei Wuxian.

On first watching this scene I took her question "Is this how you raise someone else's son?" to mean that she thought Jiang Fengmian was being too nice to a kid who was actually an outsider, taking resources away from the real kids. But on rewatching, it's pretty clear that she's saying his favoring Wei Wuxian is evidence that Wei Wuxian is NOT someone else's son; that he's Jiang Fengmian's bastard. 

Jiang Fengmian doesn't say a thing to this, or to her mentioning WWX’s mother. This shit is why WWX is running around in the world desperate for any crumb of info he can get about his Mom; he hears about her all the goddamn time at home, but only as insults to her character.  

A Bitch is Not Wrong

Here's the thing, though; a lot of what Yu Ziyuan says is correct. 

Jiang Fengmian should be a lot more concerned about the danger to the children, and should not leave it up to the kids to decide who's going to bear that danger.

Yanli does a lot of food=love, which is ok in the right doses, but causes her to pretty extremely lose face during the whole "soup for Jin Zixuan" debacle. And her doting on Wei Wuxian is...kinda excessive. I mean, yeah, she’s more like a mom than a sister to him, but still. Running out onto an active battlefield to look for him, frex, will be a skosh too much. 

I have a dictionary too, mom

Jiang Cheng, as the future clan leader, shouldn't let his attachments affect his decision making, and should let Wei Wuxian, who's the superior cultivator, fend for himself more often. We love Jiang Cheng for those moments where he puts himself in harm's way to protect his loved ones, but it's not a good strategy. He constantly yells at Wei Wuxian for the exact same thing he does all the time himself; he just limits who he does it for.

After she roasts the shit out of everyone for these failings, she leaves, and everyone sits around being miserable and not talking about what just happened. 

Not to be gender studies-y on main but: the awful things she says to her children are really not very different from the things that Jiang Cheng says to Jin Ling, although her targeting is more adept. JC also says a lot of mean things to WWX when he’s angry. When a man says cruel or insulting things, it's often presented as real love hidden under a rough exterior. When a woman does it, she's a monster.

If you enjoy this sort of interaction you should definitely have a look at Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and the plays of Eugene O'Neill.

Road Runner

Oh thank god, moving on

Lan Wangji is headed back to Cloud Recesses, and gets ambushed by the roadside with the most ridiculous trap this side of Wile E. Coyote.

Wen Chao thinks the "rug over a hole" trap is a good idea for someone who can literally fly.

Lan Wangji doesn't faff about with sword riding, he just fucking goes up in the air and stays there until he is good goddamn ready to come down. A hole in the sidewalk is really not going to be a problem for him. 

Wen Zhuliu does get in one kick before Lan Wanji yeets backwards away from him, in a moment that's scarier on rewatching, now that I know what Wen Zhuliu is capable of.

Wen Chao talks some smack to Lan Wangji, hilariously complaining about "your patronizing tone" to a man who has literally never spoken a word to him, IIRC, and certainly isn't speaking now. Maybe it's a mistranslation and should be "attitude," or maybe Wen Chao is just that dumb.

Apparently Wei Wuxian made a stack of talismans for Lan Wangji to take on the road with him. This talisman is a twin to the one Lan Wangji brings out way, way later in Yunping, when Wei Wuxian says "you even have kept it until now." Missing scene alert! What else did he make for him?

In Yunping this talisman is used to distract some random harmless street bullies. Here it is used against a seven-man murder squad.

This works.

Assault on Cloud Recesses

Forgettable disciple #1, Su She, comes rushing in to tell Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen that Cloud Recesses is under attack.

I'm pretty sure these dudes already know it, because they are meditating extra hard with a buttload of incense, and Lan Qiren is about to cough up some blood. So I think they're trying to hold the ward, rather than just, like, chilling while their disciples get stabbed.

Cloud Recesses is super on fire, you guys; it's going to totally burn to the ground; look at that conflagration, oh the humanity, etc.

Lan Qiren Rises to the Occasion

Ok, I like to rag on Failmaster Qiren and he is definitely an authoritarian dick a whole lot of the time, but in this scene he is fucking amazing.

He starts off worrying about Lan Wangji, not just out of affection but out of strategic planning, probably in equal parts. All three of these Lans take their clan responsibilities extremely seriously.

Then he calmly assesses the situation while imperturbable Lan Xichen freaks the fuck out. 

Lan Xichen is right to be alarmed, because he knows his uncle, he knows one of them is likely to die, and he knows that Lan Qiren will choose to take the hit.

I love, love, love Lan Qiren's physicality here; how centered and assured he is, as he holds his nephew steady and explains what is required of both of them.

Lan Xichen knows Lan Qiren is right. He is utterly fucking devastated, and all he can do to show his love...

...is to obey. 

This whole scene just. kills me.

Su She and forgettable disciple #2 are in the room for this whole conversation, and they join Lan Xichen in this deep bow. Note: I will be reminding everyone of this fact in Part 2.

Whew. This episode is a LOT. Part 2 Coming Soon!

Writing Prompt: What other goodies did Wei Wuxian put in Lan Wangji's care package before Lan Wangji hit the road without saying goodbye?

Soundtrack: 1. Michelle Branch, Goodbye to You 2. Ludacris, Stand Up

[pi-cat000]

BNHA: Kakashi dimension hops crossover (6)

Summary: Kakashi gets dumbed into the My Hero Academia universe through random plot devise.

Characters:  Kakashi Hatake

Fandoms: My Hero Academia and Naruto

WARNINGS: Mentions of violence/injury

START  / PREV / NEXT 

As predicted, the day following the seal’s application is miserable. His chest is tight with almost anxiety, pins and needles run up and down his arms making his skin itch, and he is increasingly lethargic. All symptoms of a chakra imbalance and to be expected when one’s normal chakra replacement rate was thrown out. The sensations would pass once his body adjusted as they had with his sharingan.

He is eating three square meals a day, doing the bare minimum when it came to exercise routines and avoiding excess chakra use. It had been literal years since he had had this much bed rest. If he were ever going to slap a chakra collecting seal on himself, this was a perfect time. Okay, so maybe he should have steadily increased the chakra drain over the course of a few weeks for a smoother adjustment period. Hindsight and all that.

What mattered was that he would be fine, and he just had to wait it out. Bright side? No one had commented on the seal yet. Oh, he has definitely noticed serval people throwing the odd confused frown at his shoulder, but that was as far as anyone had gone in acknowledging it. His oh so clever strategy of acting like nothing was wrong worked so much better when he wasn’t surrounded by other shinobi and medic-nin.

“Your blood pressure is still too high. Are you sure you haven’t been experiencing any additional fatigue or other symptoms? Is something about the hospital causing additional stress? If there is something wrong, we should work on strategies to fix the problem.”

Well… it worked on everyone who wasn’t Wada. The man was irritatingly persistent in his doctoring. Apparently, the pressure of adjusting to an increased chakra drain wasn’t doing his body any favours.

“Maybe it’s a part of my quirk. High regeneration. High blood pressure.” Kakashi shrugs loosely not bothering to look up from HEROES and HEROINES May Issue. Unlike his previous reading material, people gave him odd looks when they saw him reading these magazines which immediately upped their entertainment value 100-fold.

Wada undoes the compression sleeve he had been using to measure Kakashi’s blood pressure, lecturing as he goes, “From what I can tell your cells produce more energy-rich molecules, ATP, NADH, then is typical, increasing cellular functions. Where your cells are getting the energy to produce these molecules, I have no idea seeing as you eat about the same amount as any baseline human. What I can safely say is that it should not influence your blood pressure. If anything, your blood pressure should be a bit lower than average. Now don’t dodge the question.”

He pauses, waiting for Kakashi to cave and suddenly confess. Kakashi, an old hat at dodging medical questions, continues reading unperturbed.

“I’ve been at this for over 30 years. An attack like the one you suffered is understandably traumatic, not to mention the stress of severe amnesia. I’m sure, whatever is bothering you, I’ve heard it before.”

Kakashi very much doubts that. “I feel fine.”

Wada huffs, unconvinced, “Young men. You all think that admitting you have a problem is a sign of weakness. High blood pressure can damage your heart and lead to problems  later in life so finding the cause is important.” Good thing a shinobi life spans tended to max out around 30. The odds of him making it to an age where he’d have to worry about the long-term effects of anything were pretty low. He doesn’t voice this opinion, continuing to read.

Wada continues talking with greater gusto, “No matter, I’ll prescribe you something for stress hopefully that’ll help with your blood pressure. However, this is no replacement for healthy habits both physical and mental. You should consider professional therapy.”

Kakashi snorts. Yeah, that sounds about right.

“Oh, you think that’s funny do you,” Wada makes to grab HEROES and HEROIENS and he lets the doctor pull the magazine free from his hand. It gives him a good view of the man’s irate expression.

“No, of course not.” Kakashi attempts to placate and gets a light smack over the head with said magazine for his troubles.

“There is no shame in pursuing a healthy mind!”

“Weren’t we going to test my quirk today?” He complains to derail the current line of questioning.

“I have half a mind to put it off and have you rest another week,” is threatened before Wada’s stern expression relaxes, “Lucky for you, I’ve booked you into serval tests that can’t be rescheduled.”

Kakashi breaths out dramatically. He thinks Wada might have made a good medic-nin if he had lived in Konoha. Sure, he is a little too trusting, but he was also not above pestering his patients into taking better care of themselves. Sakura would approve.

The doctor, with the assistance of an attending nurse he hadn’t bothered to learn the name of, helps Kakashi out of his bed and into a wheelchair, ignoring his protests about his leg being all but healed.

“You’re to avoid putting weight on it until you start physical therapy,” Wada snaps at his continued complaints, “You’ll need to be careful, extended bed rest and surgery can leave your muscles weakened. Also, leave that magazine behind. You’re doing eye tests when do you think you’ll have time to read!”

Kakashi doesn’t push the matter further, resigning himself to being wheeled down the hospital halls like the invalid he was pretending to be. It is not like Wada knew about his frequent excursions to the roof or the fact that he has been running through strengthening exercises on his own time for several weeks now.  Best he keeps that information to himself.

Partway down the hall, he pulls out HEROES and HEROIENS from where he had slipped it into his shirt, enjoying Wada’s exasperated expression. Of course, he stops reading when the doctor threatens to start lecturing again. The man could definitely talk when given the chance.

Wada and the nurse take wheel him to a set of double-door elevators which take them down several floors below the ground level. The hallway they exit of a mirror of every other hospital hallway. Grey and white walls, pale blue lino floor and bright fluorescent overhead lights. The only difference is that this hallway is lined with heavy-looking metal doors. From snooping through patient files, he knows that all quirk tests are carried out in specially designated underground ‘safety rooms.’ That doesn't make him any more thrilled about being several stories underground. It cut down on his escape roots.

“These are some of the more secure recovery wards in the hospital,” Wada explains as their little group stops at a small reception desk where the doctor taps away at a computer screen, “they’re mostly for treating patients with unstable quirks.” Kakashi maintains a neutral expression, accepting the explanation.

Wada wheels him up to a steel door, swiping his ID card which also doubled as a key to many areas of the hospital. The heavy door is automated and slides open. A lot of the doors in the hospital operate this way and always made sneaking around slightly more troublesome.

Inside walls and floor are plain white and there is an odd number of tables and chairs pushed to one side out of the way. Everything stinks of disinfectant. On the far wall is a single solitary painting of a tree in a field, the only splash of colour in an otherwise depressingly sparse room. A poor attempt at living up the space. The opposite wall sports a rectangular, reflective surface which was probably some sort of observation booth. Well, if being underground hadn’t put him on edge, this obvious confinement room definitely did the job. Kakashi eyes the space. Worse comes to worst, he could use the kamui and remove the adjoining hallway wall then climb his way out through the elevator shaft. There are only two other people in the room with him and one woman at the reception desk, all were most likely unenhanced with quirks unsuited to combat, easily removed.  He doesn’t let his body language reflect his unease. He is just a little on edge because the new seal is messing with his body’s natural homeostasis. If this is a trap there would have been other signs of deception before now.

“Yes, I know it might seem like a whole lot of fuss just to run through a few flashcards,” Wada comments, oblivious to Kakashi’s poor mood. He waves to his assisting nurse who wheels over and lowers one of the metallic tables so Kakashi doesn’t have to move from his wheelchair. “But it’s a standard safety procedure when an unknown quirk is involved. Trust me, this is a lot easier than travelling to an external testing range.”

Wada stops to give Kakashi a once over, frowning, “How much do you know about your quirk sub-type?”

Kakashi shrugs, “Nothing much.”

“Ah,” The doctor’s frown grows, and he grimaces, “Of course you don’t.” A sigh.

“Typically, ocular quirks will act to enhanced sight in some way or improve base level memorisation and recall ability. It is also common to have a replicating function, allowing the user to produce some sort of copy of things they see. In rarer cases, ocular quirks result in precognitive abilities.” Wada explanation falters, “They can also have a line-of-sight emitter effect, such as laser vision, optical blasts, a few instances of mind control and other mental effects. These can also be incredibly dangerous if the user isn’t in control. There have even been instances where whole buildings have been levelled.”

“I see.”  He supposes Wada's irritation at this private 'quirk' testing made a bit more sense. A doctor faced with an unknown and possibly dangerous ability would be annoyed if said patient went about experimenting without taking safety precautions.

“I should have checked whether you knew the dangers instead of just assuming. Apologies. That is my own error.”

He peers at Kakashi, almost guilty now, “and you don’t have a phone either so there would have been no way for you to research quirks yourself.”

“Ah,” Kakashi rubs the back of his head not likening how torn up the other man seems to be seeing as Kakashi had ever been in any real danger. “Don’t worry about it,” he reassures.  

His reassurances land flat, the doctor still frowning, “I’ll see if I can get you access to the internet somehow.”

Privately, Kakashi adds 'research' to the list of functions ‘phones’ apparently provided and 'internet' to his growing list of terms to investigate.

Wada sighs again. “Regardless, let’s get these tests done first.” He places a thick folder labelled National Standard for Registration: Kit Type 3 alongside one of those portable keyboard-less computers the doctors tended to carry around.  “Hold on, been a while since I’ve done one of these. Need to find the rights files. Ah, here we go. First, these rooms are monitored, and all tests are recorded. The data collected is confidential, accessible only to the patient and physician unless doing so causes the patent harm. Information regarding quirk function and use is shared with the Registry Office. You have a right to stop testing at any point. You got that?”

Kakashi grunts, his already poor mood souring further. He is not sure he wants the hospital - or anyone - keeping records of anything sharingan related.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Wada continues unperturbed, a testament to his serval weeks of trying to doctor Kakashi, “remember to let me know if you’re experiencing any discomfort. Don’t want you busting anymore blood vessels.

Kakashi lets out a tired breath, “Sure.” The sooner they left this room the better.

“We’ll test memory and vision first to compare to your baseline, then we’ll run through the replication and precognitive tests just in case.”

The nurse, who had been on the opposite side of the room waves, “All ready over here.” There is now a large poster with letters of varying sizes hung on the wall. He recognises the chart from his previous eye tests.

“Okay, let’s start with just uncovering it. Make sure you’re looking away from me as a precaution.”

Kakashi resists rolling his non- sharingan eye at the obvious instruction, shifting his attention to the poster on the wall. He flips his padded eyepatch up with his index finger so it partially rests on his forehead. All the letters, no matter the size, immediately snap into sharp focus. Nothing spontaneously combusts under his gaze. When he glances at the painting of the tree, he can now see a lack of brush texture, suggesting that it wasn’t a painting but a print of some sort. With that useless information now forever etched into his memory, he turns back to examine at Wada.

The sharingan picks out all the wrinkles and pores lining the older face. It focuses in on minuscule muscle movements as the man’s expression shifts from professional and accommodating to curious. The doctor’s fingers twitch ever so slightly over his computer. Most likely an unconscious habit. The man’s breath is slightly uneven like his chest can’t smoothly expand, suggesting some sort of lung problem. A past smoking habit perhaps? Nothing threatening is revealed.

“Doctor.” Kakashi prompts when Wada spends a little too long staring back at him. The sharingun did have a weak hypnotic effect, encouraging extended eye contact to help catch targets in genjutsu. Kakashi rarely uncovered his eye in the presence of civilians so he doesn’t know if the effect is more pronounced or if Wada is just curious.

Wada blinks, “Well…I certainly see where the ‘wheel’ description comes from.” He spends a second more staring then turns to start writing notes and tapping away at his computer screen. “I wonder if those spinning tomoe are purely cosmetic or if they have some other function because they are certainly fascinating to look at. There is also faint bioluminescence to the eye which is a common feature of ocular quirks…”

Honestly, the blatant eye contact is weird. Even his closest allies tended to avoid looking at his sharingan out of habit - expect for Naruto who was an outlier in almost everything - for understandable reasons. He thinks the people here would also exercise caution if an ocular abilities included mind control or exploding a person through eye contact. But no, Wada just goes right ahead and stares. A few seconds later and the unnamed nurse is also looking curiously at his eye. … …

Aside from redoing a standard eye exam, Kakashi runs through a marathon of flashcards to test both his memory and then precognitive abilities. The tests are done with lights on then in the dark and Kakashi is given a perfect 20/20 and an enhancement score of ‘15 grades above average’ for both. There are also several pages worth of words and numbers in progressively complex arrangements to test his information retention. Of course, everything is easily remembered with the sharingun active.

“Well, it seems to give general across the board vision enhancement alongside perfect recall and retention,” Wada finally concludes as he records all Kakashi’s results, “Of course, we’ll have to re-test retention in a few days so see if the information degrades over an extended period and we don’t know whether your quirk effects your long distance eyesight, but, for now, this appears to be all. The link between your quirked eye and the regenerative side-effect is still unknown. Odd that we couldn’t trigger any ‘copy’ function considering the quirks name though  ‘copy’ could also be a reference to memorisation.  If any other features do reveal themselves make sure you alert a medical professional.”

… …

Kakashi despises the process of getting an MRI with a heated passion. He hates having to lie prone in a loud confined space. It is the height of discomfort, making him tense up and clench his jaw. It is only the fact that Kakashi had researched and mentally prepared himself for the experience that stops him from accidentally snapping someone’s neck.

“We’ll have the results back in a few days,” Wada informs once the trying ordeal is over with, “From there we’ll update the Registry so you’re properly in the system. Speaking of which, have you made any progress on remembering a surname? I need something for the forms.”

“Hatake,” he grunts, too irritated to bother evading - he just wants to return to his room and wait out the side effects of his seal in peace- the question like he had every other time the man asked, “I think I prefer Kakashi though.”

It wasn’t like the name meant anything here and, who knows, maybe someone would come looking for him. This way they would have a trail to follow.

NEXT

[fishmongeringstudies]

five: the ballad of the goose-girl

once upon a time there was a goose who wanted to become a man. or there was a man who wanted to become a goose. or there were both, or there were none, or there were many of the same spell. once upon a time there were ten thousand geese and they wanted to go south. why? because it was too cold up here, they said. too far from the equator. too lonely.

one of the geese was called jorge. jorge had been assigned the role of miserable family caretaker with an inferiority complex from birth but a brief spell of rebellion in their teenage years led to their official disengagement from the role and subsequently, the adopting of a new one. jorge was a philosopher. their favorite philosopher was kant. they had never read any kant because geese can't read.

dimitri could read. dimitri was a goose but there was, how do you put it, something a little off about her. sometimes dimitri woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, her blankets kicked to the other end of the room, babbling about microeconomics and the supply-demand curve for cross-continental flying gear. dimitri was in a mad, one-sided love that consumed her body and soul, but this wasn't that bad in the broader scheme of things because this gave jorge, who couldn't read, something to do.

sometimes dimitri would read jorge poetry. dimitri had memorized every book of poetry in the main branch of the national library when she made a stopover there in her youth and could now be called upon to recite almost any poem from memory, as long as she didn't hate the poet. for example, dimitri hated sylvia plath. no matter how much jorge begged and pleaded with her as they flew over the skyscrapers of new york, the masses of writhing trees and open fields dotted with cows and sheep and death, she would not change her mind. 'please,' jorge would say while they stopped to rest on the fender of some college student's beat-up honda civic. 'read me a poem. any poem.' 'you mean,' dimitri would say, taking a drag from her cigarette. 'read me a plath poem.' 'that's not what i said,' jorge would respond defensively, because jorge was the kind of goose that assumes the world is out to get them no matter what and sticks their head in the gift-horse's mouth and then screams down its gullet for five minutes. finally, dimitri would laugh. 'that's what you mean.' then the conversation would end.

one day dimitri and jorge got separated from the flock. this was not unprecedented, as dimitri had been lagging behind for a few days now and jorge, being her designated attendant, had stayed with her. but it was just as frightening for jorge as it had been the first time, fifteen years ago when dimitri had pitched out of the sky halfway across philadelphia like an anvil and jorge had found her sprawled on the fender of some sad person's fucked-up lamborghini, looking like an angel in a bad insurance advertisement. it was always the fenders. dimitri had a thing for fenders.

dimitri also had a thing for letting her long, healthy history of communication problems fuck up her relationships with other geese, a habit she had picked up in her youth alongside smoking, lying, and reciting poetry. she was doing all three of the latter as they circled around the deserted shopping complex a fifth time, the sun a blurry white spot a few feet beneath their heads. 'did you know,' said dimitri, a cigarette clamped in her beak.

'no, i don't know,' said jorge.

'asshole. i haven't started speaking yet.'

jorge observed the setting sun with a detached kind of panic. 'yes you have.' they brushed something out of their eye with their wing. the smoke from dimitri's cigarette kept getting into their eyes. it was making it hard to concentrate on not being sad. 'you said 'did you know.''

'that's not the important part.'

'then what is the important part?'

'the important part is-'

south meant many things to many creatures. depending on who you asked and what time of the day it was when you did, you might get anything ranging from 'the southern tip of malaysia' to 'nineteen-seventy-five'. right now, in this particular snapshot of time, south meant the following things. for jorge, it meant freedom. for dimitri, it meant-

'-is that every shopping mall is a little haunted.'

jorge was unimpressed. most things were haunted to some degree or another. it was a very old world and the people that lived in it were all very broken, but that didn't stop the broken things from wanting to hang around, even after their ribs had cracked open and their lungs were smeared with soot. they told dimitri as much.

dimitri cleared her throat, which was hard to do while lying and smoking and flying in a circle around a deserted haunted shopping complex but otherwise feasible for a geese as competent as her. she turned to look at jorge, the trickle of her gaze sliding over their white, wind-tossed body like a cool hand over a flame.

'what i'm saying is let's spend the night there.'

;

once upon a time there was a goose named dimitri who was in a mad, requited love that consumed her body and soul. her partner was a poet, of course, because all geese want to fall in love with a poet, but here's the catch. jie ting never told dimitri which poems were about her. dimitri spent years trying to coax the confessions out of her, making her breakfasts in bed, bringing home cute little mice with their tails tied up in butterfly knots, kissing the spot where her wing met the curve of her body with the kind of reverence worshipers reserve for the day they meet their creator, but jie ting was stubborn and beautiful and kind and dimitri could never bring herself to do the truly horrible thing, to walk into her study and crack open the journals she kept those intimacies in. in spite of this, well, this thing between them, they were happy. they puttered around making cups and plates out of wet clay. they told stories about their cousins who had gotten lost in rain forests in the amazon and streets in taipei. every year they made the long journey down south, and then flew back up in the spring. and then jie ting died, and then there was no one left to coax anything out of.

the doctors said there was nothing dimitri could have done for her. for every million perfectly preventable deaths there are two to three freak accidents, faultless failures, broken vessels. and for every broken body on the pavement, trampled by cars bigger than the both of them combined, there was a broken heart.

dimitri closed up their old haunt in the woods. she broke all the mugs and gave all the bones back to their grieving micey relatives, who were horrified, and then angry, and then sad. then she flew all the way down to singapore and learned every poem in every poetry book they had in the national library, a looming glass building in the heart of the business district, and dragged her battered body all the way back up north, through miles and miles of snow-kissed nothing, and then jorge returned home in the spring with the rest of the good ones, the ones who weren't fucked in the head, who still had hope to speak of.

she can teach me poetry, thought jorge.

they definitely went to a liberal arts college, thought dimitri.

neither of these things are true. but neither are the stories that led them to each other. a lie canceled out a lie and after the dust had settled and dimitri had recovered from the ghost of death on her shoulder, they found each other standing right where they had started out, on opposite ends of the same crooked street.

;

the perfume store smelled like sixteen layers of hell distilled into a single bottle of wine that had been left to ferment for a few millennia and then smashed in a pool of vomit but it was the only place that wasn't so overgrown with vines that jorge could clear out a place for dimitri to lie down. they did so with an efficiency that startled even themselves, brushing dust and old receipts aside with one wing and spritzing the whole place clean with the other. dimitri was then coerced into the little sacred spot, though she was deeply reluctant and jorge was deeply embarrassed about the whole thing. desperate times call for desperate measures. when there are two geese and one perfume store and nineteen shades of bergamot and lavender, one learns to quieten their demons.

the funny thing about geese is that they are about sixty-percent neck and forty-percent everything else and yet a goose lying sideways occupies two hundred percent of the previous amount because geese are conceited like that. dimitri took up more than enough space on the shelf in the perfume store from hell, but with a little maneuvering she was able to make enough space to pull jorge down beside her. the funny thing about geese is they have very big egos, and very small dreams.

'imagine i am your mother,' said dimitri, waving one wing idly in the dark. 'singing you a lullaby as you drift off, packing your lunchbox for school, turning out the light in your bedroom.'

jorge's eye twitched. 'huh? i will not,' they said. 'that's disgusting.'

'oh. you think i'm disgusting?'

'no, that's not what i mean-'

'-but that's what you said.'

'-i said the idea of you as my mother is disgusting.' jorge hid their face in their feathers but their beak was too long and stuck out in a highly noticeable manner, therefore ruining the effect altogether. they grumbled to themselves, then spent a few minutes contemplating the fifteen feet of nothing that lay before them. a field of snow, ash, or flowers. darkness could be whatever you wanted it to be. that was part of the appeal of closing your eyes.

'hey,' they said.

'mm?'

'why won't you recite a plath poem?'

the sound of something soft against the wall. dimitri was brushing the flat of her wing along the wall behind her, over the faded labels and the peeling tiffany blue paint. 'because i can't.'

'but you know them, don't you,' jorge pressed.

'i do.'

'then?'

'how old are you this year, jorge?'

'old enough to read depressing poetry.'

'but not old enough to have fallen in love.' she withdrew her wing from the wall. it came away caked in dust and old memories. rich, gold-kissed families with kids in little bow-ties, babies forgotten in well-lit dressing rooms, the occasional stabbing. 'am i wrong?'

jorge bristled behind her. 'what does love have to do with this?'

'because,' dimitri mused, and jorge felt every sound that she made in their chest, where the heart was working furiously to keep blood circulating without end. 'all poems are love poems.'

'you know,' said jorge.

'i don't know.'

'good. you shouldn't.' jorge curled themselves tighter, so the two hundred percent became a hundred and ninety-five. 'i'm going to sleep. good night.'

;

once upon a time there was a goose who would do anything for her lover and then that lover died. once upon a time there was a goose who was really good at literary analysis, so good she could have taught at harvard if she hadn't wanted to be closer to her lover, who worked in non-profit and spent most of her time abroad, and then her lover died. once upon a time there was a goose. and she knew a lot of poetry. it was the last thing she did for jie ting, with the gray-dusted coat and the heather eyes. do geese have heather eyes? fuck it. this one did.

once upon a time there was a goose who really wanted to go to a liberal arts college, but their dad gambled all their savings away on a business venture which went bust moments before the big cash-out and so the college fund became a college black hole, a college financial aid form which procured miserably few sympathies from the financial aid office, a college nothing. this goose was really quite smart, though they couldn't prove it to save their life. but the other goose knew. the other goose wasn't as smart. she'd just had more money. and worse luck.

this isn't a love story. in this story there are no love stories because in some languages every story is a love story, and if everything is something then there is really nothing, no takeaway at the end of the parable, no shard of glass in the sand. imagine you're walking along the coastline in a white dress made from diamonds and you step on that shard of glass. there goes your foot. what will you do? the world is ending.

in the morning dimitri wakes up first. she touches jorge's forehead with the tip of one wing, then the flat of it, then the side. there's a bar of sunlight coming in through a gap in the moth-bitten blinds and it falls across jorge's face in rivulets of gold-leaf, liquid wonder. she watches them sleep for a few minutes, their chest rising and falling and trembling with all that infallible youth, with the faithless determination of someone whose body has grown older but whose soul has stayed as faultless, as clueless, as divine. if god were a goose it would be jorge. says who? says dimitri, who has god's number saved on her phone.

once, a few months ago, she wrote a poem. this she read out to jorge, while they were flying over the rooftops of san diego, each word falling out of her mouth like stars, like things she should have really kept to herself and in the safety of untouchable darkness and yet jorge was looking at her. she was reading this poem and jorge was looking at her and it wasn't the kind of look you gave someone you found by the side of the road, someone who had helped you with your college apps and tied your tie on prom night. it was the kind of look you gave an angel you wanted to pin to the sheets.

'is this poem about someone?' asked jorge, who was for all their cluelessness and cruelty, quite terribly perceptive when one wanted them least to be.

panicking, dimitry dropped her cigarette. she shook her head. 'no.' she shook her head again, for emphasis.

once, dimitri had a fit of coughs so bad she passed out right there in the lobby of that high school. the doctors said it was her lungs. her friends said it was the cigarettes. jie ting, who was long dead by then, said it was the heartbreak. put it back together, said the ghost of her dead lover. you can put yourself back together. maybe i don't want to, dimitri said, a sheaf of papers falling out of the pocket of her coat.

once, she didn't go south. she went up north in search of forgiveness, and when jorge arrived in the spring, they were as lovely as she remembered them being while she had gotten nowhere. still stuck in place, spinning in slow circles, watching god die on a white-gold stage. still mourning.

'i'll write you a poem,' jorge said the other day. 'to thank you.' for being the first person. for being the first person ever.

'don't bother,' she told them.

'i'll do it anyway.'

'i won't read it.'

'you will.'

once there was a goose and another goose and they were all lovely and sad with long, elegant necks and hard, sharp beaks for cracking things open but all they ever did was crack themselves open, like if you hurt yourself enough times you could make the world give you back what it had taken away. but that's not how it works. you know this. you know this, don't you? dimitri? dimitri?

dimitri's still in that old perfume store. she's leaning closer and closer to sleeping beauty, with the lanky limbs and the merry-go-round smile, and she's whispering something, though she'll never tell you what and you'll never get the chance to ask, she's breathing like the air's made of glass. sea-glass. have you ever seen the ocean? she'll take you one day. your name is jorge and you're asleep. you're being kissed on the mouth by a very beautiful person. she's going to die.

but all living things die eventually, you counter. you don't get it. you are missing the point.

that's fine. miss the point. keep sleeping. the moon pulls away from you the way some people pull knives out of bodies, like she can feel every inch of distance she puts between yourselves in her chest, where the heart is working furiously to keep life alive. she pulls away and it hurts her, you know. did you know? you can fall in love twice. you can fuck yourself up twice. there's always room in the cupboard for more ceramic mugs. she made you one. she'll never give it to you. you never asked.

that's your first kiss. and your second, and your third, and as you grow older the kisses will meld together into this looming memory of touch, sensation, heat, softness, girls, girls, girl. girl with the cigarette between her teeth. girl with the sharpshooter eyes, the gunmetal laugh. girl walking you home, girl flying you across the starless city, girl singing you a lullaby when you're eighteen and the world hates people like you who give life everything you've got and have the audacity to think it'll listen.

girl walking out of the perfume store. girl stepping into the half-light. girl leaving you behind.

or maybe it's the other way around. this way you will be able to catch up to the rest of the flock, this way you will make it to the other side of the world before winter gets its hands around your ankles. she's giving you an opportunity. take it. i said take it.

south means a lot of things depending on who you ask. for jorge, it's freedom, new skies, sunsets drenched in whiskey. for jorge it's the second best thing about being alive. for dimitri, it's death.

once upon a time there was a goose and their name was jorge. once upon a time there was a goose and her name was dimitri. in another version of this story they meet each other before the accident and the hospitals and the house in the woods, the financial crash, the long, cruel winter. in another version they kiss with their eyes open, their hearts unspooling around the confession, the truth, the sacred thing that lets people be happy with each other. in another version of this story jorge says read me a poem and dimitri says i'll read you something sweeter, and then she reads them a love poem.

in this one, one goose dies, and the other keeps flying.

A smile fell in the grass. Irretrievable! And how will your night dances Lose themselves. In mathematics? Such pure leaps and spirals - Surely they travel The world forever, I shall not entirely Sit emptied of beauties, the gift Of your small breath, the drenched grass Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies. Their flesh bears no relation. Cold folds of ego, the calla, And the tiger, embellishing itself - Spots, and a spread of hot petals. The comets Have such a space to cross, Such coldness, forgetfulness. So your gestures flake off - Warm and human, then their pink light Bleeding and peeling Through the black amnesias of heaven. Why am I given These lamps, these planets Falling like blessings, like flakes Six sided, white On my eyes, my lips, my hair Touching and melting. Nowhere.

05.25.21

[chronic-claire-universe]

HI CLAIRE!!! I AM COMING BACK AGAIN TO JOIN THE MATCH UP 😩 I hope you don't mind!

CONGRATS AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEAUTIFUL CLAIRE!!! I hope Ran always come to your dreams every single night 😌💖 We should discussing our fantasy about him again soon 😌

And here is me! (I edited this so I can give you a complete description about me)

I'm 8w9 INTP sp/sx sun: Leo moon: gemini, my height is 153cm and I have a petite body. Mentally ill? Yes, I am bipolar and having anorexia (more like relapsing again after surgery). When I am at my manic episode, I almost kill my family at the car-crash because I got too irritated that I pulled my sister's hair while she was driving—luckily she's a good driver or I am gonna be in jail rn 😩 When I was a kid, I used to get into some fights with boys (I won ofc) but since my father died, I tried not to get into fight ( I don't want to deal with my mother's dramatic and victim-mentality ass ) and I (gladly) never fight again after that 😌 That's why I really good at sport ( as a female I always got the highest point—even when compared to the male, I still on the top 5 on sport ) I really good on art ngl that's the reason I am at uni rn because I got scholarship (I won several art competition)! Also, I did english debate competition back then, but we were this 🤏 close to get into semi-final but bruh we defeated by 0.20 point! 🥲 I can do all those things by self-taught!

When I feel sad or miserable, I punish myself by starving myself lmao. Or I will usually get quiet and cut people around me. 

My social skills? Fine I think. I weirdly get along with a lot of people (everyone kinda knows me) but I never talk to them first. Even though I have a lot of friends, I only have one close friend ( tragic right:") )

My personality is rude—blunt in the rude way(?), I do whatever I want to because I seek freedom of expression, LOVE debating about certain issues, and surprisingly I'm quite a wise person. But, I have no jam. Right, I couldn't make any jokes since I usually use the wrong tone in my voice :( I prefer to keep my joke inside my imagination or write it down somewhere. I always try to dominate my man, but I want my man to dominate me too ( do you get what I mean here? 😭 ) I love to be alone too. I HATE loud voices, reptiles, and crowds. I'm not the type of person who easily shows my love to anyone. I think because I have a really high pride *sigh. I felt like my kin actually is Rindou Haitani. But when I took the quiz I got Kazutora, Getou, Mori, Eren, and Dio Brando (that's the funny one)

I'm working as a graphic designer. Which somehow makes me currently don't have any interest. But I love listening to music (pop-rock and r&b ) . I love watching wwe/mma and hate romance anime/movies.

I'd like JJK and Haikyuu match up, please🥺  NSFW and I want male!

—Sorry for long ask :(

Hey my sweet plum, I read your request thousand times, let me say that I got worried and a bit sad hearing what you had to face in your life. I hope your mental health, despite your bipolarism, it isn't too messed up, lot of genius such as Michelangelo suffered bipolar disorder and see what he was capable to create! Ran woke me up this weekend, he wanted company 😁

Anyway, here your escort for my birthday party:

Jujutsu Kaisen - Megumi Fushiguro

Babe it was him or Nanamin, I opted that Megumi could be better since he has more patience than Nanami for your bratty attitude.

Megumi has the sharp mind to get through your facade, to understand your struggles and cope without problems with your rythm.

When you're manic episodes appear, he knows how to support every idea you get, even the strangest one. The first times he was worried to see you this active and in the mood to do things but now he got used to it.

Talking about these episodes, he enjoys when you're in the mood to debate with him or others.

He often suggest to watch some educative documentaries or biopic movies especially the ones that involves human rights. You get in a fiery mood when you watch it and try to explain why the things that the characthers had to endure are atrocious and illegally and how we should fight to eradicate them from the society.

Going to the other facade of the your personality, the depressive episodes are quite difficult to handle, you stay a lot in bed, you don't want to do anything.

He always brings you a cup of tea and cuddles you for hour, sometimes he gives you a paper to let you draw.

He hates when he needs to get you up for work, he knows you struggle and sometimes even cry but in the end when you get a grip you feel a little bit better.

In these cases, he brings you out for a jog or just a walk with his divine dogs or the little bunnies ready to pet.

Overall Megumi has a lot of patience with you but he's repaid when he sees the portrait and the things you cook for him, the struggle worths the prize in the end!

Haikyuu - Daichi Sawamura

I decided you definitely need a calm but strict man in your life and Daichi is perfect for this!

In Haikyuu universe you definitely play in the female team and you met Daichi during a combined training! You're a middle blocker in your team and you can't get me think otherwise!

You are strong and Daichi is astonished to see this, but when Nekoma came for the second time in Miyagi and Kuroo got on you, to give you some advices for a better tecnique, that's where Daichi got really jealous! He saw you for first and he definitely doesn't want, that roosterhead to hit on you!

"Marv go out with me!" it wasn't a question, it was a statement "I guess asking isn't in your knowledge, but Daichi there are proper times when to ask me out. Not when I'm sweaty and in a middle of a training!" you say with sharp eyes, Kuroo laughed at your bluntness and went away, but Daichi reply "Yep, sorry I got carried away and I felt to say it know" you smirk and say "Jelous are we? Ne Daichi don't blush!".

Your relationship is pretty natural, your dates consist in training and homemade dinner

You're pretty active and energetic in Daichi's mind, that's why when you went in one of your depressive episodes he got really worried.

As Megumi he took a lot of care of you, but the difference is that he prefers that you recover from yourself, also, if you have a therapy it's really difficult for you to take it in these moments and he obliges you to eat something and help you bring down the pill.

Normally you would hate these moments, but Daichi knows really well how to handle them, comfort foods such as pizza, tacos, ice cream, sushi are there for you to help you improve your mood and somehow it helps.

When you get a bit better, you can't go out training but you definitely draw or play sports with the Wii at home, this is definitely quality time for him.

Overall it could sound strange but Daichi doesn't hate these episodes, because he can see that you can do chores or just have fun, and this is definitely a proof of strenght for him!

He definitely loves Marv the warrior girl!

I finished! Babe hope this wasn't too sad for you, but I figured out that seeing you needed fluff and comfort, thanks for opening up and join the event, if you want to help me with a little gift here this is my Ko-Fi!

[prettyboymichaels-ao3]

Rewind, Rewire, Reword - Chapter 1: Where Did I Put That Map Again? (Pt. 1)

It’s the week before Wrestlemania 12, he’s preparing to give Shawn Michaels the fight of his life in their 60-minute Iron Man match, and his little brother has decided to drag him out to socialize on an otherwise perfectly ordinary Wednesday night.

Surely, this decision won’t take the course his life was on – and the course his relationship with Shawn was on – and send it into a tailspin.

(Bret Hart/Shawn Michaels ABO AU; NOT Kayfabe Compliant; Words: ~2k; Rating: M; Notes, trigger warning/s, tag list, and chapter under the cut!)

my massive bretshawn abo au is here! as I only have two-ish more scenes to write, and 10 chapters already written to publish on here (separated into smaller “parts” for tumblr, which means I technically have 21 chapters; they’ll be published fully on ao3), I’ve decided to try for an every other day publishing schedule to give myself more time to fully finish this book of the series. so. :) I’ve read and edited and reread and re-edited this more than almost any other fic I’ve written, so HOPEFULLY. I don’t want to edit it MORE after finally PUBLISHING it. sigh. anyway.

-

tw for: attempted sexual assault. it doesn’t actually occur, but this IS the jumping off point for the fic, and it will be referenced throughout. the tw “references to attempted sexual assault” will be used in any chapter that references it

tag list: @track12to13​; @piratewithvigor​; @sinderellanightwolf​. tell me if you want to be tagged for any future chapters!

-

It was times like these when he wondered why he ever bothered going out at all.

They’d gotten to California two days before, early, the way they usually did, leaving the morning after their last match to get a head start and not arrive completely burnt out. They’d spent those two days getting acquainted with their hotel room, their rental car, and the stadium gym they were going to be using the next two weeks. However, “California” didn’t just mean “new match”, it also meant “new towns”, which meant “new opportunities to make Bret socialize”. He’d told Owen, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, that the last thing he needed was a fucking wingman, let alone his happily mated younger brother as a wingman, but he’d just brushed off everything he’d said and dragged him out anyway. “You have almost two weeks to prepare,” he’d scoffed, forcing him to change basically as soon as they got back to their room. “When’s the last time you really let loose?” he’d offered, trying to hustle him out almost before he’d had his shoes tied. “I promised mom I’d try something the last time we talked so would you stop digging your heels in, please,” was his final explanation, as he was hailing a cab to take them out of the city and to some smaller town a little less than an hour away, where they’d be less likely to get recognized, because getting mobbed in a bar or a club was always… not great, to say the least.

But it just really wasn’t Bret’s scene. It just really, really wasn’t. He wasn’t twenty anymore, he couldn’t power through a hangover the way he used to, and he wasn’t in the mood anyway, the way he hadn’t been for the last two years Owen’d been trying to set him up. He’d gotten used to being single by now, he’d even gotten used to his mother’s passive aggressive comments about it every time he called home, and, yeah, being used to it didn’t mean he liked it, but trying to find a date at this point in his life wasn’t exactly easy, at thirty-eight years old, in his line of work, with his designation. Honestly, he didn’t know why Owen was still trying so earnestly; the odds of Bret finding a decent prospective partner at some random club in Somewhere, California was so low it might as well be in the ground.

As such, instead of socializing, the way Owen wanted him to, he’d nursed a glass or two at the bar, had a fairly interesting conversation with an older woman who happened to be the designated driver for a group of girls giggling on the dance floor, and eventually called it quits after hitting the bathroom two hours in. It wasn’t even ten-thirty yet, you’d think he could last a little longer, and he could, he was just… bored. His bar mate was corralling her wayward group to leave, and Owen was having a grand time failing miserably at darts with what looked to be a group of regulars, so he just told him he was heading back to the hotel, refused to be guilted into a game no matter how many times Owen batted his eyelashes or how disappointed he looked, paid his tab, and slipped out into the night with a sigh and his hands deep in the pockets of his jacket. It was only slightly cooler outside than it was inside, and it was much less crowded – a few smokers, on the other side of the street, and two people eating a pizza and using the box as their plate a little further down from that. Definitely less busy than Anaheim would be this time of night, and equally less well lit.

There was also, though, something he almost didn’t hear over the noise of the bar:

“…an’t change your mind now!”

“I agreed to go home with you, not you and your fucking friend–”

His foot still raised from where he’d been stepping to the curb to hail a cab, he cocked his head to the alleyway the voices had drifted from – and, there it was, he hadn’t been hearing things, because there was an incredulous laugh, a dull thump, and a pained grunt before another man said, amused, speaking over the rising growls, “C’mon, baby, you really think you’re in a position to turn us down? You’re the one about to go into heat, it won’t matter whose knot you’re taking soon enough.”

Bret was moving before the end of that sentence, rounding the corner to find three figures pressed up against the stone wall beside an open dumpster. They were mostly hidden from the orange street lamps outside the mouth of the alley, but he could still see rough impressions, and they weren’t very promising: two holding the third prone while the third tried to fight back, thrashing and almost snarling with how viciously he was growling, but he was getting nowhere fast, with how successfully he was being restrained. One’s nose was buried in this man’s throat, the other’s teeth visible in the low light as he grinned, and Bret felt his expression twist and harden as he stepped forward. “Hey! You’ve got three seconds to walk away before I make this a fair fight.”

That certainly got their attention, and he saw them all turn his way, their eyes flashing a little in the dark. Parts of their faces were highlighted now – the barest crests of their jaws, their cheekbones, their hair – but he could see the moment their nostrils flared and he was written off as nothing but a nuisance, which was only confirmed when one of them scoffed. “Run away, little beta, this doesn’t concern you.”

And then he turned right back around to continue scenting the man, the omega, who headbutted him so hard in the nose Bret could hear it crack from here. The man howled, staggering away and clutching at his gushing face with both hands, and Bret watched as the omega took advantage of the other man’s stunned disbelief to kick his legs out from under him and send him tumbling to the ground.

Bret didn’t waste any time. He stalked forward, hauling the one on the ground up by the collar of his coat and the waistband of his pants so he could toss him bodily into the open dumpster. The open, empty dumpster, if the clang of metal and yelp of pain were anything to go by. There was a choked off squeal from behind him, and he turned just in time to watch the omega’s leg come back down and the second perpetrator crumple into the fetal position, clutching his groin. That one quickly joined his friend in the dumpster, courtesy of Bret, and the groans and squeaks that resulted from that collision were incredibly satisfying.

He wiped his hands on his jeans before turning back to the omega, raising his hands placatingly when he, too, was met with a sharp, threatening growl. “Hey. You okay? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

There was an extended moment of silence. “…Bret?”

Oh, perfect, he’d been recognized– …Wait. He knew that voice. He squinted, edging closer, and fuck, now that his eyes had adjusted a little–

“…Shawn?!”

When it sounded like the men in the dumpster were starting to try and gather their bearings, Bret put his hand on – on Shawn’s shoulder and pushed him out of the alley and past the bar, letting his hand fall away and trusting Shawn to follow him as he lead them past another two buildings to turn the corner onto another block, and then a little further still, directly under a street light, far enough to see them coming if they tried it. After getting their asses handed to them so thoroughly, not just by their intended victim but by a little beta to boot, the alphas shouldn’t come sniffing around looking for seconds, but you could never be too careful.

“Jesus, Shawn, what the hell was that?” he hissed, shrugging his jacket off and settling it over Shawn’s shoulders in one fluid motion.

Or he would have, if the man didn’t take an immediate step back and bare his teeth at him, rubbing his arms. Bret scowled. “Can you stop being so stubborn for two seconds–”

“I’m two seconds from kicking you in the fucking balls, Bret, don’t test me,” Shawn barked, taking another step back for good measure. His voice was hoarser than it usually was, and Bret was a little worried about what he’d do if it cracked.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, sucked in a breath through his mouth, and blew it out through his nostrils. “Look,” he settled on, staring at Shawn hard, who stared right back. In the orange light illuminating them, he could more clearly see his rumpled clothes, his wrecked hair, his blotchy face, but if he could compare him to anything right now it’d be a cornered animal. “Just – put it under your nose, okay? I know I don’t have much of a scent, but it’s gotta be better than whatever the fuck they were giving off.”

Shawn scoffed, but flexed his fingers from where they were clutching at his biceps, moving his eyes to his jacket. “Gee, when’s the last time you took a high school health class?”

“In high school, asshole, now take it.”

Shawn curled his lip, looking ready to keep arguing, but, shifting his weight on his feet, decided it wasn’t worth the effort, and snatched the jacket from Bret instead. He paused once he had it, glaring at him like he was expecting him to say something, and when Bret just crossed his arms and gave him a look, he finally shoved it under his nose and took a deep breath. Half the tension in his body released in one fell swoop, and with it came a hitch as he buried his face in the leather completely, his hands starting to shake.

Bret, deciding to give him a modicum of privacy, looked behind Shawn to make sure they hadn’t been followed (they hadn’t) and moved to the curb to finally hail a cab. Two of them passed, occupied, before he heard Shawn move up next to him, his jacket still stuffed under his nose. His eyes were a little red, and a little wet, but his cheeks were dry. “I wanna puke,” he rasped, muffled into the leather, and Bret gave a humorless snort.

“If you’re gonna, do it here,” he said, waving at another taxi, and this one actually responded, starting to pull up. “I sure as hell don’t wanna smell it all the way back to Anaheim.”

That earned him a grumble, more lighthearted than anything he’d heard out of Shawn’s mouth tonight, and Bret hid his relief by walking around the idling cab to talk to the driver at his window, digging out his wallet. “You got a divider?”

“Sure do, brother,” the cabbie told him, jerking his thumb to the backseat and the tinted glass that separated him from it. “Got some wet wipes back there, too. Just don’t leave any stains, huh?”

Bret frowned, because that made it all too clear what he thought they were planning on doing in his backseat, but threw a handful of twenties into the driver’s lap anyway, enough to make his eyes widen comically. “That’s to get us to Anaheim. There’s more where that came from if you get us there in forty.”

“Hell, brother, I’ll get you there in thirty,” the cabbie exclaimed, and Bret straightened back up after giving him the hotel’s address, waving at Shawn to get in on his side, which he did one-handed, slamming the door behind him as Bret followed suit. The divider deafened the cabbie’s music to a low rumble, and, as they pulled off, Bret started digging around in the mesh pocket attached to the back of the driver’s seat until he emerged with the aforementioned wet wipes. He tore the pack open, pulling half of them out in one go and passing them over to Shawn, who took them automatically with the hand that wasn’t holding Bret’s jacket to his nose, but gave him a look that said he had no idea what Bret was trying to do here.

He gestured to his own throat. “For your scent glands,” he explained, and he could see the moment the light went off, because Shawn started scrubbing at either side of his neck like a man possessed. Bret used the rest of the wipes to clean his own hands and stuffed them into his pocket after he was done, sinking back against the creaky plastic seats like they might swallow him up, lack of give or no.

[hermannsthumb]

If you’re still doing summer prompts, could you do graduation for newmann?

15. Graduation

from (the very old) summer prompts meme here

enjoy some awkward pre-canon jaeger academy ~ROOMMATES~!! also I am pretty sure this message/prompt is from at least a year ago (if not TWO) but it was only today that I really thought about what I wanted to write for it and wrote in like a FRENZY. content warning for alcohol (no like intoxication tho)

--------

It was hardly to be expected that Newton would be mature over the whole thing, but Hermann finds himself in a perpetual state of agitation the final weeks of their enrollment at the Jaeger Academy anyway. Newton was very young, Hermann knows, when he graduated from university (at least he was young the first time he graduated), and he can only assume the man took it rather hard that he didn’t get to have the proper send-off he thought he deserved—all-night parties with kegerators and beer pong, one-dollar shots at dive bars, trips to the seaside with classmates. One wasn’t likely to invite someone who’d barely breached his teens and still had braces to those sorts of things, after all. It’s the only reason Hermann can think of as to why Newton has spent the month—the whole month—popping open champagne at all hours and organizing spin-the-bottle in the base rec room and generally being a great bloody nuisance to everyone they have the misfortune of sharing their graduating class with. Over-compensation is what it is.

Having Newton as his bunkmate adds a special level of unbearableness to it all. At least—and Hermann does thank the stars above for this—tomorrow marks the end of a very miserable month. A very miserable two years.

“Everyone is going to be there,” Newton says. He’s wearing an oversized pair of neon sunglasses over his regular glasses, for some reason, those abhorrently dated kind with the slatted lenses, and dangling from his left hand are two bottles of pink champagne. A bag of plastic cups dangles in the other. “Everyone. Not even just the k-scientists—the techs, the ranger trainees, the—”

“That all sounds very thrilling,” Hermann says, hefting a stack of button-ups into a cardboard box he’s labeled Clothing – Gottlieb. “You’re aware, I assume, that we’re meant to be moving out tomorrow, and you’ve not touched anything on your side of the room?”

“Dude, I have sooo much time,” Newton says. Hermann realizes now the seal on one of the champagne bottles is broken—which might explain some of Newton’s suspiciously carefree mood. “Besides, I barely even have that much shit here.”

This is patently untrue. Newton’s clothing is overflowing from his dresser; manga and monster action figures and vinyl records clutter up every inch of its top surface; there’s laundry under his bed, on his bed, his guitar picks on Hermann’s bedside table, dirty mugs on his own, half-finished reports and articles scattered over his desk… “Fine,” Hermann says. “But I haven’t finished, at any rate, so I won’t be joining you.”

Newton flops down next to him on his bed; the stopper on the opened champagne bottle wobbles dangerously, and Hermann moves quickly to push it in more firmly so he doesn’t have to add a load of bed linens to his To-Do list. “I think you need to unwind, roomie,” Newton says, grinning up at him. Both pairs of his glasses have slipped off his nose and onto Hermann’s bedspread. “We’ll have all day tomorrow after the dumb ceremony to pack, and you haven’t taken a break in, like, seven years. You’ve earned one.”

Hermann doesn’t want to take a break, or at least not in the way Newton is suggesting. Hermann wants to finish packing up his half of the room, then his designated workspace in the large k-science laboratory, and then take a shower to wash himself of the experience of being Newton Geiszler’s roommate and labmate for two years too many. Noticing his reticence, Newton adds, pleadingly, “Come for one hour? Just to do two shots with me? One shot?” He blinks, half-blind without his glasses, as if trying to discern whether or not Hermann looks likely to give in. “No shots? C’mon, Hermann, you owe me.”

“Owe you?” Hermann says, frowning.

Newton nudges him with the stack of plastic cups. “Y’know—for the sake of your ol’ penpal,” he says.

The reference to their letter-writing days jars Hermann, and despite his best efforts not to show it to Newton, his hand trembles as he deposits an unopened pack of white socks into his laundry box. He thinks it may be the first time either of them have brought it up in the entirety of their time at the Academy. It’s certainly the first time either of them have admitted to even the slightest notion of a shared history since—a week into their first year here, at an ice-breaking event for their kaiju-science peers—Newton had rolled his eyes exaggeratedly when someone attempted to introduce him to Hermann and said “Yeah, Dr. Gottlieb and I go wayyyy back.” Hermann did not admit so at the time, but the use of the honorific in place of his first name had been unexpectedly wounding—ridiculous of him, considering he made a point of referring to Newton in precisely the same way. Perhaps that little slip of the tongue had been why they were assigned as roommates scarcely a week later. An assumed friendship.

Hermann picks up Newton’s thick eyeglasses and carefully slips them back onto Newton’s upside-down face. Newton wrinkles his nose when Hermann’s thumb accidentally brushes against its tip. “I just don’t like parties very much, Newton,” he says. He’s not sure when Dr. Geiszler became Newton to him, or rather, became Newton to him again.

“Then we can do something together here,” Newton says.

He sits up and pushes the sealed champagne bottle at Hermann’s chest. “This is for you, anyway. Graduation present. Bury the hatchet, you know—odds are pretty fucking high we’re never gonna see each other again, so there’s no use hating each other forever.”

In spite of his better judgement, Hermann takes the champagne bottle. One drink won’t hurt him. And anyway, it might be a little relaxing—so long as it’s one drink only, because he still has an entire two years’ worth of research to pack away in his laboratory desk. “Do you know where you’re being assigned already, then?” he says. He was under the impression they wouldn’t find out until after the ceremony tomorrow—bit last minute, he supposes, but it’s not as if they’re making their own travel arrangements, and nearly all of their colleagues have already brought their families along with them to the Academy base.

“Nah,” Newton says, “but I wrote down a lot on my request form.” He motions for Hermann to hand him back the bottle, and he begins unscrewing the wire holding down the cork. “Tokyo—Peru—" He moves the bottle away from the bed as he pops it open with a grunt of effort, and a small bit of foam spills to the cement floor. Hermann grits his teeth and tries not to worry about cleaning it up later. “—Los Angeles. I worked on one of my PhDs in California, you know, a few weeks one July. Sea sponges. I learned how to scuba dive, I loved it—I think that’s one of the first things I’m gonna do if—once this is all over.”

He looks strangely maudlin as Hermann pours himself some champagne into one of the plastic cups and suffers through a sip. Too sweet. Hermann’s never liked sweet wines—bloody awful hangovers the next day, if one isn’t careful.

“Their entire ecosystem would be destroyed now, I guess,” Newton says. “Kaiju blue poisoning.”

“Whose?” Hermann says.

“The sea sponges’,” Newton says.

Hermann sips more of the champagne so he won’t have to respond. “I requested Anchorage,” he offers. Among plenty others, but he knows Newton will get a kick out of ribbing him for the dreary Alaskan climate. It seems to work—Newton lights up at once with a loud snort.

“Of course you did, ya weirdo,” he says. “Have fun freezing your ass off.” He takes a sip right from his bottle, then holds it out to Hermann. “Well, Hermann—you were an annoying lab partner, an even more annoying roommate, but a decent penpal, and I’m—well, I’m not gonna miss you, but I guess I can’t say I hate everything about you. Good luck with the jaegers. Good luck to whoever gets stuck with you next, actually, yikes, don’t envy them! Here’s to never seeing each other again.”

Hermann rolls his eyes, but knocks his plastic cup against Newton’s bottle. “Best of luck to you, as well,” he says. “And here’s to—well, surviving.”

“That’s cheerful,” Newton says.

They drink to their toast. Down the hall, someone puts on loud music to a chorus of equally loud cheers. Hermann reckons that’ll be Newton’s party. “You ought to head over there,” he says, turning briefly to glance at their door, which Newton has left cracked open. “Otherwise, they’ll miss—”

Newton kisses him.

Hermann doesn’t necessarily kiss back, but he doesn’t push Newton away, either. He’s more bewildered than anything. He might’ve expected this sort of thing to happen years ago—years, and years ago, before that dreadful first meeting in some dingy little Berlin coffee shop, back when a new letter from Dr. Geiszler slipped through his mail slot could make his heart thud like nothing else—but they’ve hardly been anything to each other but colleagues these past two years. Not even quite colleagues—that implies a civility they don’t possess. Professional academic rivals. He was under the impression that the man hated him, that the data when they underwent standard tests for drift compatibility was merely a fluke.

His empty cup falls from his hand and clatters to the floor. Newton slides a hand up Hermann’s jaw and keeps kissing him; he makes a small, needy noise into Hermann’s mouth.

“Newton,” Hermann finally mumbles. “What are you doing?”

Newton pulls back. A brilliant red flush is creeping steadily across his face, and he opens and closes his mouth a few times before anything comes out. “Oh, shit,” he says. “I didn’t mean—”

He stumbles to his feet. “Shit, dude, I’m sorry, I like—”

“Newton?” Hermann repeats. He feels about as dazed as Newton looks; he’s not quite sure what he’s meant to say. His lips are tingling from the kiss. “I—?”

“I’m gonna go to the party,” Newton stammers. “Sorry, dude, I—misread signals? I guess? Um—” He steps on Hermann’s forgotten cup and skids slightly, catching and righting himself on one of Hermann’s bed posts. The movement knocks Hermann’s cane (hooked there) to the floor, and Newton must bend down twice before he succeeds in picking it up. “Just—um—okay, bye.”

Hermann stares at the door for a long time after Newton leaves. Tomorrow marks the end of their two years cohabitating and working together—as Newton said, odds are high their paths will never cross again. Hermann had been counting down the days to their graduation in a little calendar he keeps pinned neatly to his wall, daydreaming endlessly of the first thing he would do once he was free from the suffocating cloud of Newton Geiszler’s presence—daydreaming of the like-minded non-Geiszlerian colleagues he would meet at his Shatterdome assignment, of a neat and orderly laboratory devoid of kaiju residue over every communal surface, of his own living quarters. He should be excited. He should be ecstatic.

Hermann touches his mouth and feels nothing but strange sort of hollowness in his chest—a black hole enveloping all else.

---

He doesn’t see Newton until their graduation ceremony the next day, an affair made all the more awkward by the seating chart’s alphabetical arrangement ensuring Drs. Geiszler and Gottlieb will be knocking elbows for the full two hours. Newton is late by nearly twenty minutes, and rushes in with badly unkempt hair and a backwards tie: Hermann has a feeling he’d been lurking outside their quarters and waiting for Hermann to leave before he dared dart in to get himself ready. He wonders where Newton spent the night. He wonders why he even cares. Likely passed out on the rec room floor after the party, judging from the confetti stuck to his left cheek—or perhaps he’d finally made a move on the fellow kaiju-biologist Hermann recalls him extolling the physicality of on more than one occasion, and spent the night with him—or perhaps he did neither, and merely wandered the base for hours, sleep evading him as it’d so entirely evaded Hermann. They don’t acknowledge each other for the whole of the ceremony.

Hermann is summoned to the office of the jaeger science program head (a severe woman with short hair) later that evening, shortly after he finishes taping up his very last box of papers in the vacant laboratory. He’s handed a small manila folder containing the details of his Shatterdome assignment: Hong Kong, as it turns out. One of his requests. “Since you and Dr. Newton Geiszler have displayed a strong work ethic when partnered together,” the woman begins, “as well as a very high level of drift compatibility—”

Hermann’s eyes snap up from his folder to her face.

“—we’ll be assigning him to Hong Kong’s kaiju science division along with you, under the assumption that together you will only continue to produce positive results.”

“Pardon?” Hermann says, weakly.

Newton has finished boxing up a majority of his belongings when Hermann drags himself through the door to their quarters an hour later. He glances at Hermann briefly, embarrassedly, and says, in a small voice, “Hey, Hermann.”

“Newton,” Hermann says.

He walks over and sits down heavily atop the pile of sheets on his stripped bed. Something pokes at his thigh, and he sets aside his cane to fumble through the sheet bundle to discover what: Newton’s forgotten neon shuttered shades. The sight of them sends his stomach twisting up in knots. “Oh, hey,” Newton says, as he wraps a Godzilla action figure with bubble wrap. He nods at the manila envelope clenched between Hermann’s fingers. “Where are they shipping you off to? I’m going to Hong Kong—should be cool. I’ve never been before.” He places the little Godzilla in a carboard box. Newt - Junk! the side says in purple Sharpie. “My flight leaves tomorrow afternoon—you’re right, I definitely should’ve started packing earlier, I have no idea how I’m gonna get this all done by then.”

Hermann stares at Newton in poorly-concealed amazement as he continues to ramble on about how to pack up his instruments and whether or not they’ll let him bring his first-ever kaiju sample with him (he’s attached to it, even though he knows it’s technically the academy’s property, but maybe he can find a way to smuggle it out in his checked bags or something). Does he not know? Did they not tell him? How could they let this fall on Hermann? “Newton,” he says, slowly. “I’ve been assigned to Hong Kong, too.”

Newton freezes. “No fucking way,” he says.