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le-fruit-de-la-passion · 5 months ago

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Two Hours - Chapter 2 - Shigaraki x Reader

After a little over three months, you had gathered a significant amount of information on Tomura Shigaraki.

He was smart, incredibly so, and an absolute genius with computers. He was probably the most hardcore gamer you had ever met and simply refused to lose a single match of any game. And, most importantly, he was kind of an asshole.

"Seriously? That's all the content you prepped for today? What am I even paying you for?"

He toyed with the greyed-out strings of his hoodie in boredom. "They were basically the same as the ones from two weeks ago," he grumbled.

"Well," you said as calmly as you could, "I could have prepared more if you actually did the lectures I asked you to do last week."

"They were useless."

"How could you know that if you didn't read them ?"

"I don't need to do something useless to be able to tell it's useless."

So maybe the jawline he hid under his layers of oversized black clothing was as sharp as it was delicate. Anyone could recognize an attractive jawline without making it weird. You certainly could.

"The idea is that we both work to help you, Tomura," you replied with much less bite than you would have liked. The look of superior smugness on his face didn't disappear.

Maybe the little mole under his lip looked lonely there. Like it needed to be kissed. That was a totally normal, platonic thought to have about someone you saw once a week and who did nothing but complain.

"I don't know," he grinned in a mocking sing-song tone, "I think you like helping me."

Ever since the afternoon you had spent playing video games with him, something had changed in your perspective of him. And he certainly wasn't the one who had changed: he was still very much a pain in the ass to work with.

No, the change was from you.

You couldn't remember the last time you had let anyone take a peek under your prime scholar's persona, much less someone who enjoyed it as much as he did. When was the last time you had gamed with someone? Told them about all your nerdy little interests without feeling rejected? Joked about something other than your thesis topic?

Poetry wrote itself in your mind every time you'd think of him. His skin was like cracked porcelain, pale and white, the marks marking his face doing nothing to dampen his beauty. If anything, it only made him more interesting, more enticing, and you wanted to trace each of his scars with the tip of your fingers.

You were going insane for a guy who had visibly never kissed anyone in the 3D realm, and you couldn't even find the will to care about it.

He stretched lazily, a sliver of skin showing an impressively toned stomach before it was covered back with black fabric. What else was he hiding under there?

Obviously, you hadn't gotten laid in too long. There was no other explanation as to why you'd feel so attracted to him. You tried to shake off the thought, reminding yourself that it was just a momentary lapse in judgment. But everything about him seemed to pull you in, a magnetic force you couldn't resist. Did you even truly want to?

"You know," Tomura said, his voice low and casual, "if you keep staring at me like that, people might start to think you're into me."

You blinked, snapping back to reality, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "What? No! I was just... thinking about your midterm paper. That's coming soon, isn't it ?"

He sighed loudly, slouching back in his chair, giving you the perfect opportunity to at least try to regain your composure.

"I don't know what I'm even supposed to write about. The teacher is so bad at his fucking job half the time I wonder if he's not some homeless guy the university pays to stand around and do nothing," he complained, and you couldn't help but let out a small laugh. After a second, like he had hesitated before saying it, he casually added: "You'd be way better at teaching the class."

You tried to hide your surprise at the unexpected compliment, failing miserably the moment you heard your voice come out as a shaky squeak: "Well, um, thank you. That's very nice of you to say."

"I don't say things to be nice. I say them because they're true," he retorted bluntly.

Damn it, you thought as you felt another pleased smile tug on your lips. Damn it all to hell. You couldn't let him dig his way deeper into your stupid little heart.

"You know," you said, desperately wanting to change the topic, "I could pull out my own paper I wrote back in the day for the class. I'm sure I have it somewhere back at the dorm. Maybe that could give you some inspiration!"

"Sure, just text me some pictures later," he replied, seemingly uninterested.

"Or we could go get it at my dorm now, and look at it together."

The weight of your words seemingly hit you both all at once like a 20,000-pound truck.

"Me," he stated, his thin eyebrows shot up in surprise. "At... your dorm?"

You had fucked up. You had fucked up so badly that perhaps your only choice now was to run out of the library, change your name, and leave the country.

If you took it back, and laughed it off as a stupid slip of the tongue, Tomura would no doubt take it badly. Very badly. And he was not the kind of person you wanted on your bad side.

If you rolled with it, pretended you had actually meant to invite him to a place with a conveniently lockable door and a soft pillowy bed, he might catch on as to the very bothersome feelings that you held for him. That wasn't a very good option either, but the lesser of the two evils was obvious.

"Well, guys aren't usually allowed in, b-but the security guy will let you through if I tell him you're with me !" you explained quickly, trying to sound confident.

The embarrassing truth was, you had never brought a guy back to your dorm. Fool around at some dude's apartment or in the back of his car, sure, but never inside your own private little space.

Tomura, on his end, looked like you had just asked him to go into an active war zone. "I-I don't know..." He hesitated, glancing around at every item in the library to avoid looking you in the eye. "Maybe just like five minutes? I have shit to do after, so..."

"Don't worry, we'll be in and out," you reassured yourself more than him, eager to be done with the entire situation, "It'll be fine."

---

It was definitely not fine.

The game was called Kira Kira~☆! Stories of Dormitory Love, which was a stupid name for an equally stupid game. Tomura was fifteen and he had discreetly bought it online using Kurogiri's credit card, because he had learned the hard way Sensei checked his account statements. If Kurogiri had noticed, he never said anything about it.

The synopsis of the game, if anyone could really call it a synopsis, was that you, the protagonist, were called to do repairs in an all-female dormitory. You'd go about screwing all the girls one by one as they'd throw themselves at your feet, begging to be taken with their round tits and perfect asses. Tomura spent that entire summer locked in his room playing it over and over again.

As it turned out, that scenario was much less pleasant in real life.

He felt the eyes of every girl they passed, judgmental and disgusted at the mere sight of him there. They huddled in little groups like scared chickens, muttering between themselves as they threw him worried looks. He glared right back at them, and one of them let out a small gasp like she would faint out of fear. Good. He hated it, he hated them. But to some extent, he couldn't fully blame them; he didn't belong here in the slightest.

Tomura's fingers held onto his neck protectively, his uneven nails digging as deep as they could into the skin. The pain didn't help; he was still definitely there.

And you.

You made it all so much worse with how nice you were to him, and how you laughed at every dumb thing he'd say, and how you licked your lower lip in focus every time you'd try to explain something-

He hated you for it.

"If you want, when we're done looking over my paper, we can play some Plus Ultra 2 on my computer," you smiled hesitantly at him, completely oblivious to how badly you were messing him up.

"I don't really feel like gaming anyway," he muttered between his teeth. It was a lie, an absolute fucking lie: he never felt like not gaming.

From the moment you had told him to fuck off under the rain, he had liked you. But you weren't any different from any of the dumb pretty girls he'd jack off to at night; at least not at first. You glared at him with fear and disgust, like you knew he'd spend the rest of the afternoon picturing you pinned under him and choking on his cock. And why wouldn’t you? No woman in her right mind would look at him and think he was anything other than a creep.

Until you did exactly the opposite.

You started smiling when you'd see him walk into the library. You'd laugh at his dry sarcasm and bad attempts at humour. You'd hang on to his every word when he explained the secret behind mastering a peculiarly hard combo, eyes filled with wonder. You'd look at him with pride and genuine joy when he finished all the lectures you had given him.

And suddenly, it wasn't just about how tight all your shirts looked on your chest, or how well your ass would fit against the palms of his hands. It was about everything else, all the cheesy shit he never understood and skipped in dating sims to get to the sex scenes. He despised how easily you had gotten him under your thumb, ready to do anything for you without even realizing it. He wanted you to think of him as much as he thought of you, more, even. You were an obsession he couldn't get rid of, and it itched, it itched, it itched- but not at his skin, no, much deeper, into the depths of his entrails and in a heart he didn't even realize he still had.

You turned back to look at him as if you felt his inner turmoil, a small pout tugging at your lips. He wanted to rip it off you with his teeth.

"C'mon, just one game? Last time you said you’d teach me how to triple combo with Present Mic."

"Whatever," he said instead, staring holes into the floor. Why was the floor so goddamn clean? Did girls clean their floors every day? Why was everything about you so picture-perfect?

Fuck you, he thought.

"Oh hey, Neijire!"

His head snapped back up. Oh no.

A few girls were sitting on an assortment of couches, watching some kind of stupid TV show. One of them replied to your greeting with a smile so bright it hurt his eyes. He wondered if all pretty girls gravitated around each other naturally.

The girl he could only assume was Neijire excitedly jumped off the couch, tightly wrapping her arms around your body. His lips tightened at the sudden sting of jealousy, at the fact that she could so easily touch you while the idea of holding your hand made him delirious.

"Hey, oh my gosh, you're here!" the overly energetic girl squealed. "Wanna watch some Love and War? We just started season 2 and the plot is so crazy-"

Then, she noticed him, and her bright demeanour fell slightly.

"Oh, is he... is he with you ?" she gently asked you, like she wasn't sure if it was safe to address him directly.

"Yeah, this is Tomura, one of the guys I tutor !" you replied.

'One of the guys ?' Tomura bitterly thought. Was he nothing more to you than one of the other NPCs you tutored? Did you bring the others to your dormitory too?

If you noticed how quickly his mood had soured, you didn't show it: "Maybe we could borrow the common room for a couple of minutes? I just need to go over some material with him really quickly!"

Neijire turned around to look at the other girls, the unspoken hesitation written all over their faces as they glanced at him.

"I don't know," Neijire softly started, "we just started watching TV. Maybe another time, if he comes back ?"

Please don't come back, was the implicit message under that sentence.

"No worries! We'll just go in my room," you said, and he noticed the worried fidgeting of your hands. There was no way you could feel as stressed as he did going into your room. You probably had guys in there every week, hell, every day for all he knew. What did you have to be nervous about?

As you both headed up a flight of stairs toward the second floor, Tomura couldn't help but feel some excitement in between the overwhelming sense of dread. Being in such close proximity to you, entering your personal space, stirred something within him that he couldn't quite comprehend. He had never, in his entire life, even gotten close to the inside of a girl's room.

'Toga doesn't count', his mind supplied unhelpfully. 'Toga would let a raccoon inside her room if she could.'

The moment you opened the door, it was dizzying: the flowery smell, the pastel pink walls, the books neatly organized together in shelves worthy of a magazine spread. It left a sickly sweet taste in the back of his mouth, and he tried to nonchalantly observe the room to savour every inch of it. It was probably the closest he'd ever get to tasting you.

The room was small, much smaller than his own back at the bar. A simple bed, a drawer, a suspended shelf, and a work desk with a foldable chair were the only furniture of note. As simple and boring as one could do.

But then as he walked in, Tomura noticed a few things much less visible from the doorway. Various trinkets laid around the room; a bag of takeout was haphazardly thrown into a small trashcan; a pair of mismatched socks were left on the windowsill, seemingly forgotten. On the furthest wall, there was a small but obviously cared-for poster of All Might, half of his classic I AM HERE catchphrase hidden by a laundry basket.

It was like all the girl's bedrooms he'd imagined but... different. Like someone actually lived there.

"Let me try and find that paper," you hopped away to the suspended shelf, taking out various coloured folders filled to the brim with papers. You clearly weren't kidding when you told him you saved every single one of your essays.

"You can just sit anywhere while I find it," you said without looking back at him, and his thoughts immediately went to the bed. The bed that you had slept in. The bed that you were sleeping in every night. The bed that you probably touched yourself in, and that he could justifiably sit in without looking like a creep.

He was going to go insane.

"I-I should probably just wait downstairs," he managed to stutter out. He could feel his face heating up; he had to get out of the room, and fast, or you would definitely notice.

"No no, wait, I found it !" you triumphantly exclaimed as you pulled out a stapled document from one of the many files. "There's not a lot of space on my desk, so we can just... sit next to each other on the bed and look it over?"

You smiled brightly at him, a tinge of red on your cheeks, unaware of the nuclear bomb you had just sent off in his brain. He had to say something to get out of there. Anything.

"People are going to think we're having sex," he blurted out.

Fuck.

That was unequivocally the dumbest thing he had said in his entire life. He was going to dump university and never leave his room again. He'd live as a hermit and survive off Mountain Dew and Lays chips until the ends of time. It didn't sound too bad, actually; at least that way, he wouldn't have to see your face ever again.

The look on your face stayed blank for a few horrifyingly heavy seconds. The silence felt deafening, ringing in his ears like the "GAME OVER" theme in an RPG.

And then, you laughed.

You fucking laughed at him.

Anger bubbled up inside him faster than he could control it. It itched. Everything itched.

Of course you laughed. You didn't like him, and you never had. You probably laughed at his jokes to get him to shut up. You brought him to your room out of pity, to mock him. All the girls downstairs were probably on it too, cackling in laughter at how stupid he was for thinking you saw something more than a scared-up freak when you looked at him.

"I'm fucking out of here," he spat out, storming around to open the door. The feeling was crawling up his arms, up his neck. It itched.

"Wait, Tomura!"

You grabbed his arm and he roughly shoved it away, almost making you fall down. Your eyes were blown in surprise, and perhaps, a little fear. Good. You should fear him. He'd never make the mistake of trusting anyone again. How had he even let himself trust you?

"I get it, I'm the joke. Ha, ha, you bring up the freak to your room, make him think he has a chance with you, and laugh in his face, everyone claps," he jeered.

"That's not what I meant, I-" you started.

"Is the idea of being with me that disgusting to you ?" he harshly cut you off. It came out sounding more hurt than furious. I'm so pathetic.

"Shigaraki. That's not what I meant," you said softly, as if trying to calm a wild animal. He wasn't having any of it.

"So now, you're back to calling me Shigaraki," he bit back bitterly. "The whole buddy-buddy thing was an act too, huh."

"Tomura, stop."

He looked at you now, properly looked at you, fury burning in his eyes, and you flinched.

You didn't look like you were having fun.

You looked... hurt.

"Tomura, I brought you here because I like you. As in, I really like you."

You were trying to bait him again. You wouldn't fool him twice.

"Yeah, sure," he snorted, voice dripping with irony. "That's why you laughed, right ?"

"I laughed because I was stressed out, I-I didn't know if it was appropriate to bring you here, because I'm tutoring you, and I didn't know if you actually liked me-" you rambled like a deer caught in headlights.

"You seriously expect me to believe that? That you were worried I liked you?"

"I laughed because I've been thinking about nothing but having sex with you for the last month and you're worried about people thinking we're having sex!"

The blunt admission caught him off guard. His breath hitched in his throat, his mind struggling to process your words.

"So you... think about me," he rasped out, a glimmer of vulnerability in his tone.

The weight of what you had just said seemed the catch up to you. Your cheeks tinted a deeper shade of pink, and you made an expression you had never made before in front of him. You were embarrassed. Genuinely, honestly embarrassed.

"And? So what if I do?" you mumbled, desperate to avoid his gaze.

"What do you think about me doing to you?" Tomura insisted. He was pushing his luck, he knew he was. But he had to know. He had to know if this was real.

Your lack of answer frustrated him, and he tsked in disappointment.

"C'mon," he taunted. "Where's the girl who told me to fuck off when we first met? Was that all an act too?"

Silence. I knew it, he thought bitterly.

Then, in a moment that defied all logic and expectations, you closed the distance between you both, and you kissed him.

---

It was messy, full of wet tongue and clashing teeth; it wasn't hard to guess it was the first time he'd ever kissed someone. But what he lacked in experience and technique, he made up in sheer passion, his body holding your own so tightly you felt like he wanted to swallow you whole.

You gasped for air when he pulled away, a single thread of saliva connecting your mouth to his. His eyes were blown wide, pale cheeks a deep crimson, mouth agape as if he had just witnessed an otherworldly miracle. Had anyone ever looked at you that way, so desperately raw and honest?

"Again," he let out a low, broken whisper, "do that again."

You couldn't tell if it was a request or a command, and it frankly didn’t seem like he knew either, but you immediately complied, pulling him back against you.

You guided his mouth to your bottom lip with your tongue, hoping he'd get the message. With precision, he copied the movement, watching you carefully for any reaction. You let out an approving moan and he seemed emboldened by it, deepening the kiss and wrapping his body over yours, trapping you against the wall.

When had his hand found its way under your shirt? You felt rough fingers drag along your skin, curious and possessive, grabbing at the flesh like he wanted to take parts of you back with him, like he wasn't sure this was real.

Knock knock.

"Anyone home?"

You both froze. Shigaraki looked at you like an animal caught in a trap, eyes wide and mouth still slightly agape.

"Move, move!" you hissed at him, pushing him off you. "Just a second!" you shouted at the door.

Shigaraki was still looking at you with the face of a confused child left alone in a supermarket. He wasn't going to be any help. You straightened your shirt and quickly combed your fingers through your hair before opening the door.

"Ah, Miss Kayama!" you smiled tightly at the dorm's resident advisor. "I'm sorry, is the TV too loud? I can lower the volume,"

"No, no, the TV is fine," she replied, peeking through your doorway. "In fact, I don't think your TV is even on."

You could have died right on the spot.

Miss Kayama tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear, straining her glasses. "I was just made aware you brought a guest over, so I came to remind everyone that there are no visitations allowed after seven."

"Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was seven already !" you stammered hurriedly. "I was just telling Tomura he should pack up." You turned around to give the man a look: "Right, Tomura ?"

Tomura was still standing against the wall, as unmoving as a rock. He looked as though he had been frozen in time after the kiss, like his mind had short-circuited trying to process it.

"Tomura," you repeated more pressingly.

The sound of your voice seemingly pulled him from his trance, and he nodded slowly, walking towards the door like an automaton. He bumped against Miss Kayama's shoulder, and disappeared without a word down the wooden stairs.

"I'll see you next week," you weakly called out.

He didn't answer.

Miss Kayama slowly closed to door behind her, her usually delicate features were scrunched in worry. "Sweetheart, what you girls do in your dorm rooms isn't my business, as long as you're being safe about it. But who you bring here is important to me," she added, her tone more serious than you had ever heard before. "Make sure you don't mingle with the wrong kinds of people."

You opened your mouth to answer, then closed it.

Was there anything you could even reply to that?

---

The next few days were not fun ones.

[You: Hey, sorry about the whole kicking you out thing, Ms. Kayama really means well but sometimes she's strict with the rules]

There was still no answer three hours after you sent the text, which did not bode well at all. Any time Tomura's hands weren’t on any kind of gaming console, they were on his phone. He didn’t go anywhere without it, and you'd gotten used to getting replies to your messages within mere seconds. You sent a second attempt:

[You: My TV excuse was pretty lame right]

You laid on your stomach as you kicked your legs against the bed, glaring holes through the phone. Maybe your Wi-Fi was unstable?

[You: We actually call her Midnight in the dorm, cause she gets REALLY cranky when anyone has lights on after that]

Still no answer. You felt absolutely ridiculous, a lovesick teenager waiting for her crush to give her any attention. He had kissed you. Or rather, you had kissed him, and he hadn’t exactly pushed you away. That had to count for something.

You sighed, turning off your phone before huddling in your covers and closing your eyes. He'd definitely answer by tomorrow morning.

But when you woke up, there wasn't a single new message from Tomura Shigaraki.

[You: Hey, I sent you pictures of the paper I told you about, hope it helps with your assignment!]

[You: Sent 4 images]

The day passed as it usually would. You washed your face and brushed your teeth, got dressed, grabbed a quick breakfast, and made your way to your morning lecture. The hours seemed to drag on as the teacher talked, his words going through one ear and out the other. And still, no text from Tomura.

The next day had come and gone without any more communications. Your messages sat alone in your discussion, unread. Soon, the weekend passed too, and still, no word from Tomura.

[You: Are we still on for tutoring on Wednesday? I can move it if you need me to]

To say you had been freaking out would have been an understatement. For as much as you tried to control it, you felt like a mess, barely able to go fifteen minutes without checking your phone for messages. Was he that mad you had to kick him out? Did he still think the kiss wasn't genuine? Did he leave the country to join a pro gamer team, just to get as far away from you as he could?

The questions ran through your mind like an endlessly spinning record.

[You: Just tell me whenever you can!]

Would he even show up on Wednesday? Would it be like the first time you had met him, waiting hours for him to come, except this time, he never would?

You grabbed your face between your hands. Enough. You couldn't let one kiss send you through a never-ending spiral of doubt. If he was there on Wednesday, then great, you would talk. If he wasn’t, well, you'd deal with your feelings then and ask the faculty for someone else to tutor him.

And if you left the volume for your notifications on at maximum for the next few days, well, that was nothing more than a coincidence.

---

"Hey."

The familiar yet unexpected raspy voice almost made you fall out of the library chair, the sound of your book dropping on the table echoing through the building. The librarian threw you a dark look you barely registered, your mind focused on the tall man with dark red eyes standing next to you.

"Hey," you hesitantly said, awkwardly fidgeting with your hands. When had you gotten so self-conscious? "I wasn’t sure if you would come."

He answered with a small grunt, still not sitting down next to you. Deep, dark circles sagged under his eyes, and you wondered if he had also spent his week barely sleeping every night.

"Well," you said in the happiest tone you could muster, "we can start by checking your draft for the midterm, and seeing what we can add-"

"I already finished the midterm," he interrupted drily. "I sent it in last night."

"Oh," you swallowed slowly. Your throat was starting to feel itchy. "I guess we can... start looking at your next lectures then."

"I don't want to," he objected. "Let's just go somewhere instead."

Out of everything he could have said, that was one of the sentences you least expected.

"Tomura," you answered with uncertainty, "I'm still supposed to be tutoring you."

"And I'll tell the advisor you're the best fucking tutor there ever was and this session was great, now, will you just shut up and follow me ?" he groaned impatiently, his right hand wrapping around his neck and scratching at the fragile skin. He was anxious.

"Alright," you said softly, gathering your things before getting up and silently following the man out of the library.

The walk there was not the comfortable, calming silence you had gotten used to around him. It felt clunky, awkward, the unspoken weight of last week's kiss like a dark cloud above your heads, ready to erupt in thunder at any moment.

Once again, he led you off the beaten path and into alleyways you had never taken before. What did you truly know about him, after all? There had been so many unanswered questions about who he was outside of university. What insurance did you have that he wasn't leading you to an abandoned lot to snap your throat and sell your organs off to the highest bidder?

He stopped walking so abruptly that you bumped into his back, immediately backing away in fear of angering him. But he said nothing, staring blankly at the sign above the building, the neon light of the word "ARCADE" turned off. A huge padlock rested heavily against doors that had once been painted into bright, colourful motifs that had faded into an unreadable mess over time.

"Tomura, it looks closed," you remarked slowly.

"That's because it is," he answered drily, pulling out what looked like a bent paper clip from one of his pockets, hands instinctively going for the lock. After a few seconds of fidgeting, you heard a distinctive click, and the lock fell to the ground with a sharp metallic sound.

He smirked at your obvious surprise, welcoming you in with a flourish on his hand:

"Come on in."

You followed him in with as much confidence as you could project, which was not much considering the probability of him murdering you in an abandoned building had just significantly gone up.

The arcade was much larger than it had seemed from the outside, and had clearly been marked by the passage of time. Though there was no light on or a single window, you could make out the shapes of turned-off gaming arcades placed haphazardly throughout the room, as if the owner hadn’t been sure where to put them. The walls were covered with wallpaper that had seen been days in the eighties, old water marks deforming the large flower pattern.

Suddenly, your foot caught into something, and you yelped in surprise as you felt yourself lose balance. A surprisingly strong hand caught your arm, steadying you back on your feet. You stared at Tomura with your eyes wide, heart skipping a beat when you realized he was still holding onto you.

"Thank you," you said gently, and he let go instantly, like the touch had burnt him.

"Be more careful," he mumbled under his breath, quickly putting his hands back into his pockets. "I can't always be there to save you if you're that clumsy."

Suddenly, somewhere in the darkness, a man's angry voice rang through the arcade:

"If you goddamn kids are trying to break in again, I swear to God-"

You froze in fear as a large figure emerged, dressed in a bright purple suit and holding what looks like a metal pipe in his hand. You screamed, paralyzed into place, but as soon as the man saw Tomura, he lowered the makeshift weapon, squinting as he adjusted the small round glasses on his nose.

"Oh, it's you," he said with disinterest. You tensed as he dropped the pipe to the floor to take a puff of his cigarette, the metallic sound confirming just how heavy the thing was. "The usual?"

"Yeah," Tomura confirmed, impatiently putting his arms on the admission counter. "Hurry it up."

The older man hummed, unperturbed, like he hadn't just almost killed you for breaking in. He walked to a larger machine in the corner of the room, and inputted a few numbers on the keypad. Suddenly, the lights turned on, their artificial glow blinding. Heavy wiring sounds echoed through the room as the arcades individually powered up, chirpy 8-bit music starting to pour out of various sound systems. The whole room had suddenly taken life, like an old beast waking up from a thousand-year slumber.

The man reached into one of his deep suit pockets, pulling out two dozen shiny silver tokens before slowly counting them, cigarette still tucked between his lips. He handed them to Tomura who immediately pocketed them, not throwing a single glance at the man in the suit. The man sighed, blowing another puff of smoke, before seemingly noticing you for the first time. His lips widened into a mellow smile, revealing a missing front tooth.

"Why, Shigaraki," he purred, running a hand through his short gray hair, "you've never brought company here before. Will you introduce me to the lovely lady ?"

"Keep it in your pants, Giran," Tomura grumbled, the warning clear in his tone. "Leave us alone."

The man sighed in disapproval: "Snappy today, aren’t we? Then again, when aren't you..."

Tomura went past him without a word, and you hesitantly followed, throwing an unsure look at the older man.

"Well, I'll be in the back if you need me, don’t forget to close up when you're done," he called out, picking up the metal pipe from where he had left it on the floor.

"Yeah, whatever," Tomura replied without looking back.

You followed him through the strange maze of glowing screens and bright cabinets as he moved forward with a clear goal in mind.

"So, um, who was that ?" you asked with uncertainty.

"Some guy I know," Tomura replied. "He owes me one, so he lets me play in here for free when the arcade is closed."

That answered absolutely none of your questions. If anything, it added more. Why would this shady-looking man in this barely still standing arcade let him roam around and do as he pleased, with nothing in exchange? What kind of weight did Tomura have in these backstreet alleyways?

"Oh... alright," you replied miserably, not wanting to press the subject harder.

"Stop thinking so hard, I can hear it all the way from here," he complained.

"Sorry," you almost whispered, feeling the embarrassment creeping in. Had you always been so easy to read, or was he just that good at seeing right through you?

"Whatever," he replied with disinterest, "look at this instead."

He had stopped in front of a peculiarly large machine, in a significantly better state than anything else in the arcade. The bright yellow of the cabinet, the familiar little tune that rang from the vintage loudspeakers unmistakable.

"No way," you gasped, in awe of the inconceivable treasure that stood in front of you, "that's an original 1991 Plus Ultra arcade cabinet..."

"With the original paint job and controllers," Tomura completed, absolutely glowing with pride.

You approached the cabinet slowly, admiring it like an ancient artifact from a museum. It might as well could be one: out of a hundred produced, only three were known to still be up and running around the entire globe. It was the stuff of legends, the kind of priceless gem most people would have to settle with only ever seeing in the confines of a laptop screen.

"That's so cool," you whispered, running your fingers over the worn-out buttons with reverence, feeling the age and wear of the machine. What was it even doing in this dump?

"You haven't seen shit yet," Tomura said with a mischievous grin. "Wanna take her for a spin?"

If you could have kissed him right then and there without making things more awkward between the two of you, you would have.

---

Unsurprisingly, Tomura was good at every game he touched: from shooting games to rhythm ones, it was like he understood the secret behind every machine, long fingers nimbly moving at the speed of light. He took great pride in every win, grinning smugly for each ass-kicking he handed you. And yet, you couldn't resent him for it; you were having the most fun you had in years.

It wasn’t just the games, either. It was him. It was the way his eyebrows furrowed in concentration when he shot 2D zombies, the way he'd mock you for getting a low score at the racing simulator yet always took the time to show you how to ace all the difficult maneuvers, the way he made your heart bump increasingly against your chest every time his arm brushed yours. It was all maddening, and yet you would have exchanged it for nothing else.

"Ah, shit, it's already eight," he said, bringing you out of your reverie. You looked in the same direction as he did, surprised to find a working clock suspended on the dilapidated walls. How had time passed so fast? "We gotta go," he added.

You couldn't help but let the disappointment slip through your voice.

"Oh, alright..."

Tomura didn't answer, long legs already heading towards the exit. You followed him like a lost puppy, looking around for the man in the suit you had met earlier.

"Shouldn’t we thank the owner for letting us play ?" you asked.

Tomura looked at you with confusion, seemingly perplexed at the very concept.

"Why? I told you, he owes me."

Without another word, he walked out the door, leaving you alone in the derelict yet brightly lit arcade. You couldn't help but yell out a "Thank you!" towards nowhere in particular, hoping your words would reach the elusive man. When no one answered, you walked out to join Tomura, throwing one last look at the strange room before the door closed behind you.

"Took you long enough," Tomura mumbled, putting the forgotten padlock back into place and snapping it shut. Just like that, it was back to being an abandoned building like any other, none of the lights or sounds escaping through the thick doors. There was something nostalgic about it, as if the arcade existed somewhere outside of time and space.

"Thank you for today," you said genuinely, locking your eyes into his. He obviously hadn't expected your earnestness, his pale skin quickly turning red as pointedly stared at the floor. "I had a lot of fun."

"Whatever," he replied in a way that made it painfully clear it was not whatever, and that was quite pleased with himself. "We need to hurry up, we're already late."

Late?

"Late to what ?" you asked.

"Stop asking so many questions all the goddamn time. You'll see when we get there."

"You're just bitter because I kicked your ass on the last round."

"I went easy on you because you're not used to arcade controls. Don't let it get to your head."

You could add ‘sore loser’ to the list of things you knew about him, you thought with a smile.

Whatever awkwardness had been there earlier had completely vanished, and you felt at ease walking next to him and letting your fingers brush against his. Of course, the kiss hadn't fully left your mind, but you felt like you could breathe around him again, like he had brought you both back to the way things were before the dorm incident. Maybe a friendship wasn't exactly what you wanted, but if it was what he wanted, you could respect that.

"It's here," he said, interrupting your reverie.

Much like when he had brought you to the arcade, at first, you thought there had been a mistake. This time however, it wasn't because it looked like an abandoned warehouse.

It was because it was the exact opposite of an abandoned warehouse.

The building was positively lavish, decorated from top to bottom with delicate mouldings and golden ornaments. The red marquis at the door shone with bright, warm lights, the entryway surrounded by a perfectly cut hedge and vases filled to the brim with red roses.

It screamed of luxury, opulence, and most of all, money.

"Tomura,” you started uncertainly, feeling fidgety at the idea of even standing in a 10-mile radius of something so expensive, “I can't afford this."

"Me neither," he shrugged, seemingly totally unbothered by the situation, "but I'm not paying."

He walked in and you had no choice but to follow, feeling somehow more nervous than when you had both broken into a building barely a few hours earlier.

If the outside of the restaurant had seemed overly extravagant, the inside was unfortunately much worse. The walls were all covered with those abstract paintings that cost an arm and a leg; the floors seemed to be made out of real marble, the kind with delicate gray veins and a pearly shimmer; in the middle of the room stood a large chandelier, from which dangled hundreds and hundreds of tiny diamonds. It was out of a fairy tale.

"Reservation ?" the maitre d'hotel asked, cocking an uncertain eyebrow at your duo.

Embarrassment shot back up into you as you realized what you both looked like. You weren't wearing anything peculiarly provocative, per se, but you looked so out of place when put next to the sea of suits and sparkling dresses that you might as well have been wearing a full clown get-up.

"Shigaraki," Tomura said plainly, like he was annoyed the man would even ask him that question. You were surprised a security guard hadn't kicked you both out yet.

The man's eyes widened. He muttered a few words of apology before turning around and almost running into the backroom. From the oval windows on the doors, you could see him hurriedly grab another man by the shoulders and ask him something. After a few seconds of back and forth, the man came back out, looking slightly nauseous.

"Of course, my deepest apologies for the wait," he stammered with a deep bow before motioning you towards the dining room. "Please, follow me."

The table he brought you to had obviously been carefully selected. The glass wall it was next to gave a beautiful view of the outside street and the setting sun. It was close to the live musicians, without being too close, and a little further away from other diners, like it was its own little world. It was impossibly… romantic.

The maitre d'hote pulled your chair for you to sit; you felt like royalty, if royalty wore shoes that had been 60% on discount during last year's spring sale.

The man left with another curt bow, and you attempted to open your mouth to ask Shigaraki just what exactly was happening. But seemingly out of thin air, another well-dressed man appeared, holding a large bottle of wine.

"You should have told me we were going somewhere like this," you whispered as the waiter poured you two glasses from the bottle, which, upon closer inspection, looked to be worth about your entire college tuition. "I feel… underdressed."

And entirely out of place.

Tomura seemed unimpressed, shrugging in disinterest as his lithe fingers toyed with the perfectly folded mouchoir on his plate, effectively ruining its shape. "You look fine. Who cares what some random NPCs think?"

"Still, this is...", you hesitated, glancing at the seemingly unending parade of crystals from the chandelier on the ceiling. Was that an indoor water fountain in the middle of the room? "...A lot," you concluded.

"You don't like it," he flatly stated.

"No, that's not what I'm saying !" you hurriedly answered. "It’s gorgeous, it's just... I didn't expect this for a… first date?"

A moment of silence passed, crimson eyes observing you with an unreadable expression, before Tomura said:

"Who said anything about a date ?"

Your heart dropped.

You swallowed with difficulty, finding that all your saliva had mysteriously vanished from your mouth. "It’s... not?" you hesitantly asked.

"I mean, it's not like it isn’t, but it's not a date either," he explained vaguely, looking away from your face, "it's just us, going out somewhere. To do a thing. Like the arcade. There's no need to make it weird."

"Ok," you replied, trying to hide your disappointment and the bundle of conflicting emotions this night had built up in you. One thing at a time. "Well, I like this... thing. Even though that glass of wine probably costs more than my entire salary as your tutor," you commented with the most honest smile you could try to muster.

Thankfully, the playful, snarky expression was back on the man's face: "All the more reason for you to drink it, then."

There was something pompous yet bored in the way he drank, like he had been raised on some sort of wine etiquette and still unconsciously followed its rules. You sipped the wine politely, afraid of angering some sort of wine diety by not properly appreciating what was clearly a great vintage.

"So, what made you choose this place ?", you inquired. "It's not exactly the type of place I expected you to frequent a lot."

"I asked a friend," he replied with little interest. "He said girls like that type of shit.” He licked a few drops of his lips, and you couldn't help but immediately remember the feel of them against yours in your bedroom.

Focus, you scolded yourself.

“Was it the guy from the bar? Dabi?" you asked, remembering the encounter with the ominous-looking man.

"Hell no, I wouldn't ask that guy for advice if my life depended on it," he scoffed. "He's some guy I know online. We play League together sometimes. He's alright."

"So, you asked a random guy online where to take girls on... things that aren't dates ?" You raised an eyebrow, feeling a smile tug at your lips.

"Stop saying it like that, and no, Spinner isn’t some random guy, I know him," he clarified defensively.

You couldn't help but let out a laugh: "His name is Spinner ?"

"His gaming handle is Spinner, just-" he interrupted himself, lips thinning into an accusatory pout. "You're doing this on purpose, aren’t you."

"Yeah, kind of," you admitted.

His lips stretched into a small smile, like he couldn't make himself stay mad at you for more than a few seconds.

“I can play that game too,” he replied with a half a grin.

Before you could say anything, a hand made its way to your thigh, and your leg bumped against the table in surprise. His palm was cold, refreshing against your skin which felt like it was warming up by the second. You barely managed to suppress a squeal when he squeezed his fingers into your flesh.

"Tomura..." you whispered, a mix of desire and apprehension in your voice.

The look on his face had gotten more smug, his eyes dark, cleared emboldened by your reaction.

“Relax, you're moving around too much. They'll notice,” he admonished you in a falsely sweet tone. His hand went up a few inches higher, sliding closer towards the inside of your thighs.

The chatter and music inside the restaurant had turned to pure white noise. His nails dug gently but firmly into your skin, his long fingers massaging the meat of your thigh. It was like you were back with him in your dorm room, your body burning like wildfire with the way he seemed to revere touching you. Time stood still for a moment, and you let yourself drunkenly sink into the feeling.

A foreign voice broke you out of your stupor and of the moment you were sharing, alarm bells going off in your head at the idea that someone had noticed you both. Tomura very reluctantly moved his hand away from its dangerous position, staring daggers at the intruder.

“Sir, Madam, would you like me to introduce tonight's menu?” the unsuspecting waiter asked, totally obvious as to what he had just interrupted.

“No,” Tomura replied, cold as ice. The waiter's eyes widened slightly; was it out of surprise, or fear? “Can't you see we're busy?”

“Of course, of course,” the waiter apologized hurriedly, taking a step back, and now, you knew for sure the man was scared. His body was rigid, holding onto the printed menus for dear life. You could fully understand someone being nervous when faced with a disgruntled Tomura, especially if they didn't know him, but this was something else. The man was scared shitless.

“My most sincere apologies. I-I would never have interrupted if I had known- Please do tell your father that-”

“Leave.”

You knew that tone. It was the one he had used when talking to Dabi the day you had met him. It was like the growl of an animal warning its prey of the incoming attack, giving it one last chance to run before it would pounce.

The waiter swallowed with difficulty, his terrified gaze stuck on the floor, and after muttering something that sounded like five different apologies strung together, he left the table so fast he might as well have vanished out of thin air.

The tension could be cut with a knife. Tomura's pale brows were furrowed in displeasure, the hand that had so fervently caressed you now wrapped around his neck. He scratched at his skin, rough and unforgiving, and you noticed you hadn't seen him bruise himself that way in quite a while, now.

You cleared your throat.

“So, your father-”

“Don't.”

His lips had thinned into a line, his crimson gaze lost somewhere beyond the window you sat next to. The scratching continued, practiced and mechanical, and you could see his pale skin turning an angry red under the pressure of his nails.

“Tomura…” you sighed. “I'm just trying to get to know you. I don't understand what you want from me.”

His eyes flickered back to you.

“One minute I'm kissing you,” you explained, “and you're kissing me back, but then you don't answer my messages for a week. And then you bring me to the arcade, and to the fanciest fucking restaurant I've ever been to, but you won't say it's a date, and when I ask anything to know you more you shut me down!”

You hadn't realized you had raised your voice before you finished your rant. You realized with embarrassment the two tables closest to you had paused their conversation to look at you. You could have dug a hole into the ground to bury yourself if you could. Why did you always end up feeling that way around him?

Tomura stayed silent.

Now, you were starting to get a bit more than frustrated. His eyes were fixated on your face, like he was trying to gauge something, but he still said nothing. You had poured, shouted your feelings out, and they had fallen on deaf ears.

Before you could gather the shreds of dignity you had left to get up and leave, Tomura finally spoke, voice raspy and deep.

“You want to know me?”

You could have thrown your hands in the air in exasperation.

“Yeah, I thought I made that pretty obvious,” you replied drily.

“Fine, then,” he said, leaning forward. “See the water fountain in the corner?”

You turned your head to face the direction he was looking towards, easily spotting the imposing water feature.

“There's some restrooms right behind that. The men's are fine, but the women's are better. Cleaner. More space.”

You wanted to ask how he knew that the women's bathroom was better than the men's, but you had more pressing questions.

“I don't get where you're going with this.”

He grabbed his glass of wine, finishing what little liquid had been left before shrugging, the hint of a smile dancing on his lips.

“Haven't seen anyone walk in there since we got here. I think it's empty.”

Why would it matter if the bathroom was-

Oh.

"Tomura, we can’t," you protested immediately, thoughts in your mind racing.

"You do what you want," he replied dismissively as he got up, his eyes never looking away from yours. Why was his stare always so intense, so enticing? "I'm heading over there. You can decide if you want to come or not."

Without leaving you time to say another word, or even formulate another thought, he was walking away, disappearing out of sight behind the fountain.

You couldn't tell if you were mad, confused, frustrated, or horny.

Tomura Shigaraki was a roller-coaster, and you didn't know how to get off it.

He was so profoundly different from anyone you had met, let alone romanced before. He was unpredictable, his mood swings constantly keeping you on your toes, but there was undeniably something you liked about that. About how unapologetic he was to be himself.

But you? You had spent your entire life building a fortress of perfection to hide behind. You got As on every assignment you were given. You finished on top of your class, in every class. You graduated with honours and three scholarships to boot. But was that you, or the person you wanted everyone to believe you were? When was the last time you did something stupid, for the hell of it? When had you been to an arcade with a friend and fooled around for hours without worrying about anyone else's thoughts?

You glanced back at the bathroom at the far end of the restaurant; no sign of Tomura. You knew he wasn't coming back.

You looked at your table, staring at your half-empty glass of wine, the liquid the same colour as his eyes. He was brash, and impulsive, and never let you catch a break. You thought back to Ms Kayama's words, back at your dorm. Everything about him screamed ‘bad idea’.

The choice became clear.

You chugged the remains of your glass, and, lightheaded but not hesitant anymore, you made your way to the bathroom.

—-

It took a grand total of three steps inside the women's restrooms before you were unceremoniously whisked away into one of the stalls, two hands crashing on the wall on both sides of your face.

"Knew it," he smirked wickedly, "you're a pervert like me."

For as much as he made himself look unbothered, you could see clear relief in his features. He was scared you wouldn't follow him.

"It's not like you gave me many options,” complained mockingly, his crooked smile contagious. “What was I gonna do, get up and pay the wine myself? I would be in debt for the next forty years."

"You always talk too fucking much. You need to learn to shut up.”

Dry yet increasingly familiar lips crashing into yours, closing the gap between your bodies. He was already a much better kisser than he had been a week prior: he was making full use of his tongue and teeth, tasting every inch of your mouth and possessively biting on your lips. You responded in favour, wrapping your arms around his shoulders to bring him closer. The ends of his hair tickled your fingers, soft and curly. When you pulled away to catch your breath, his pupils were blown wide, a drop of saliva making its way down his chin.

Beautiful, your brain supplied. The word you're looking for is beautiful.

"Can I…" he hesitantly started, and he was back to being the lost little boy who ran away from your room without a word, like he fully expected you to reject him. How could one man go so fast from self-confident and controlling to awkward and unsure?

"Tomura," you said, pressing yourself ever closer to him. His eyes darted to your cleavage pushing against his chest, and right back up, as if he wasn't sure if he was allowed to stare. The temperature in the room had gotten so warm it was dizzying, but you wanted to be closer, always closer. "I would not be in a restaurant bathroom stall if I didn’t like you.”

He swallowed with difficulty, one hand hesitantly gliding down your shoulder and stopping at your collarbone.

"I'm not going to warn you again, alright?" he muttered. "You can't just back out after this."

You grabbed his arm, firmly laying his hand on one of your breasts, before kissing him deeply. He let out a small sound of surprise, frozen in place. Then, it was as if he had awakened all at once, his fingers grabbing all they could hold onto. You moaned encouragingly in his mouth as the digits got rougher, possessively latching onto the supple flesh with the desperation of a starved man. When you pulled away for air, his grip on your chest did not lessen, instead being joined by his other hand. You muffled out a moan as he sharply massaged your breasts, the slight pain of his forcefulness unbelievably intoxicating.

"Fuck, your tits are so soft. I could shove my face in there," he rasped out. He was drunk off the feeling, off his own words, and you couldn't blame him, because you weren't faring much better. “No wonder that fucking waiter couldn't stop staring at them."

He pinched your nipples with the tip of his fingers, and you moaned. He looked positively delighted by your reaction.

"The waiter wasn’t staring," you protested weakly.

"Of course he was," he dismissed, twisting your hardened buds again to watch you squirm under him, "but it's too bad for him. I'm the one who gets to touch you today."

He pulled off your top so fast you wondered if he had ripped it. Nimble fingers took off your bra in a single try, and if you hadn't known better you could have believed he had had practice with this. You thought back to your afternoon at the arcade, how agile he was with his hands. How good they would feel grabbing your body instead of a controller…

Tomura watched the jiggle of your freed breasts with so much intensity and reverence you covered them with unexpected shyness, feeling your cheeks redden.

He frowned, grabbing both your wrists.

“Don't fucking do that.”

You let him guide your hands back around his neck as he bends down, and without warning, he wrapped his mouth around one of your tits.

"How are you so warm…" he mumbled against your skin, more to himself than you.

Through the thick fabric of his sweatpants, you could feel his erection rubbing against your leg. He was as hard as a rock, rutting more and more rapidly, and you wondered if he would cum untouched. While there was certainly something very flattering about that idea, that wasn't the way you wanted your first time to go with him. You wanted to show him you cared. You wanted to show him just how much you wanted him.

You pushed him gently, and he looked at you with dazed confusion, and a little annoyance, like an animal whose bowl of food had been taken away.

You gave him a small kiss on the top of his head to appease him before bending down and falling to your knees. You gently pushed his pants down, exposing boxers with a large stain of precum, the outline of his dick pressing against the material with desperation.

"Hey, wait, what are you..."

"Shh," you smiled up at him, "you talk too much."

If the restaurant patrons hadn't heard your hushed and whispered moans, there was absolutely no way they hadn't heard the ungodly sound that came out of Tomura's mouth when you wrapped your mouth around his length.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck-"

The taste wasn't as bad as you would have expected for someone who changed clothing as little as he did. The smell of musk and sweat wasn't pleasing, and neither was the lemon-scented cleaning product they seemed to have scrubbed the entire bathroom floor with, but god, was it worth it for that face. The skin down to his collarbone was bright red, his eyes rolling into the back of his skull, his lips opened into the first syllable of a curse he couldn't manage to push out.

His thighs started shaking uncontrollably, and even if you were certain this was the first time someone touched him this way, you couldn't help but feel some sort of pride at the idea of unravelling him so quickly. Unintelligible strings of words were the only thing that escaped his lips between raspy breaths, and he let out a deep groan when you licked across the thick vein on the side of his cock.

"H-how many times have you done that before, shit-"

You could already taste fresh precum on your tongue, and you doubled your efforts, determined to make him see stars.

"I'm gonna cum," he barely panted out, grabbing the back of your head savagely, "don't you dare fucking move away."

He was in too deep, the rapid movement of his hips making you gag, but before you could pull away he came, the warm liquid filling your mouth. You coughed, ready to spit it out, but he put his hand on your mouth, his eyes glowing under the fluorescent light of the bathroom stall.

"Swallow" he simply said.

He watched the movement of your throat with utter fascination as you obeyed him, the salty taste burning. He was already getting hard again, the idea of holding so much power over you clearly arousing.

He fell to his knees and kissed you deep, his hands back all over your skin, flickering his tongue against yours as if chasing the taste of his cum in your mouth. Maybe he was right calling himself a pervert. But then, you were also one for liking it.

“Can we… do that again?” he mumbled after a few minutes against your lips, voice strained. Strands of white hair had stuck to the sweat on his forehead, and you pushed them gently to the side. You wanted to say yes. You wanted to stay here forever.

But as the fog of sex dissipated from your mind, you were starting to remember where exactly ‘here’ was.

And exactly how loud you had just both been.

"Tomura…" you swallowed with difficulty, putting a hand on his chest to put some distance between the two of you, "there’s absolutely no way the entire restaurant didn't just hear that. We're in huge trouble. They're going to kick us out as soon as we step out of here."

Oh, God, forget kick you out, what if they were calling the police? Could you get arrested for having sex in a restaurant bathroom? Surely a place like this one had connections all over the city, hell, all over the country! What if they kicked you out of school? What if-

"They can't kick us out if we're gone" Tomura interrupted your rapidly derailing train of thought with a smirk.

"What?", you replied, stunned.

Wordlessly, he pushed the bathroom stall open and headed towards the furthest wall, bare except for a few ornate mirrors and one small window. In one surprisingly agile jump, he grabbed the ledge of the window, pulling it open enough for his body to slide through. He looked back at you from outside, a smug expression on his face.

"We can't just leave without paying for the wine !" you hissed, looking behind you in fear someone had heard the sound of his acrobatics and opened the bathroom door. But there was no one.

"Let them worry about that," he shrugged, "the reservation isn't under my name anyway. At least, not exactly."

"But-" you protested.

"Trust me."

It wasn't a question, but a statement. And deep inside your heart, no matter all the warning flags and unanswered questions, the abandoned arcades and fancy restaurant bathrooms, you knew it was true.

You took his hand.

#AHHHH FINALLY I'VE UPDATED THIS #thank you to all the lovelies who left comments on this both here and on Ao3!!!#shigaraki x reader #mha shigaraki #bnha shigaraki #my hero academia x reader

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nieded · 17 days ago

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Hi! Not an ask, more like a confession. I just really felt compelled to tell you that #RainbowRoad is the absolute best fan-created work i’ve ever engaged with, and i’ve been a fan of many things! You are an amazing storyteller.

I also felt compelled to reach out because my friends & family are perplexed. I am perplexed. Primarily because:

1. I started watching DTS. Excellent. Normal for me to try on a new Netflix show….mostly. But is it really? Sports? Me?

2. I casually check out streaming options for the real deal, because you know, i’m curious, and oh! Would you look at that…it’s almost the end of fall break….

3. I subscribe and what’s this….I am absorbing F1. Like i’ve been starved for a sport to enjoy my whole life. Replays. Free practice. Fuckin Tech Talk.

4. Suddenly, I’ve watched 3 seasons of DTS and a disturbing amount of F1 content and it’s COTA Sunday and i’m on the couch, surrounded by snacks, insisting that we have to watch the WHOLE qualifying session not just the highlights because we need to get a feel for everyone’s headspace going into the race.

5. Post-COTA; We have decided Sainz is our driver to watch. I’m also really intrigued by McLaren rn someone pls help. We’re shouting as we watch live as Ferrari pulls a 1-2 and wow. When’s the next race?

6. Mexico City. MEXICO CITY. Sainz has been our man now for 10 days and forever. I suppose i’ll have to dedicate myself to Williams next season but I feel conflicted about that and WHY do I have an OPINION on that already. Who am I? Also can I watch the whole race again just tuned into Russel’s radio? Did he really ask mid-race for tea on Verstappen’s timeout? You don’t have to answer either of those questions i’m probably going look that up as soon as I finish writing you this manic soliloquy.

I’m not saying that you’re to blame for this complex crisis of identity happening over here, i’m really not. I just….I know the difference by now when i’m transfixed by something that’ll surely pass and…well…when I find something that compels me to sit tight & take hold.

On second thought, yeah. From one internet stranger to another, this is your fault.

And i’m enjoying every second of it. ♥️🏎️♥️

P.S. If there is going to be another #rainbowroad story I will be more excited about that than I am about GO3. This summer has been hard and engaging with your work has made it so much less so. Thank you ♥️🏎️♥️

hello! thank you sooooo much. i'm excited that you've gotten so into f1.

couple of things:

1 - i love carlos. he is my favorite himbo. he is so dumb sometimes. all that boy knows how to do is drive but damn does he drive well! i have felt for a long time that he's a sleeper agent. he just goes under the radar. you should look up the circumstances of his first few podiums. some of his biggest achievements have been afterthoughts, sidelined by other drama in f1. for example, when he did all those crazy overtakes during the sprint race and ended up in p2, nobody was talking about it at all! drove me nuts. it is such a sainz thing to be winning races and still losing his seat at ferrari.

2 - williams is worth being a fan of. they are one of the most historic teams and are wccs! i know that's strange to think if you're coming into the sport now, but there are many, many reasons to love williams. the other cool thing about the team is their principal, james vowles, was part of brawn gp. since you're diving into dts, i highly recommend watching brawn gp on amazon prime. you will also develop a love for jensen button.

also, i'm sorry your summer has been hard, and i am glad i could shine some light for you. my summer also was rough, and i still feel like i am recovering. i do have a story in the pipeline. it's still very much in its early development so i don't know if i will write it, but it does exist in my head!

#ni answers #rainbow road #formula 1

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shinra33459 · 2 years ago

Text

My Issues With Helluva Boss

I have been a fan of this show ever since the pilot. I loved the concept, and I still love most of the characters. What I am not a fan of is that it tries to be a comedic slapstick show like Family Guy at one moment, and then be a serious melodrama the next scene. The show started with the premise of being a dark humored workplace comedy surrounding a group of demonic assassins from Hell, and then quickly amounted into what felt like a walking advertisement for fanfiction headcanons and shippers. My opinions are mine alone, and while I do enjoy this show, there is a lot that I feel needs to be done with the characters and overall writing of the show that would benefit the show greatly, tell a far more compelling story, and give viewers a far more substantial end-product than what we currently have.

If you like the show as-is, then I am glad that you find joy in what the show currently is. However, for many viewers of the show, whether they be long-time fans like me, or people trying to get into the show, there are a ton of compounding issues in the show that can and should be better handled than what they currently are. It isn’t “hate” to want a better product than what you are given, or to suggest ways to make it better. And before anyone says “it’s Hell” in a way to dismiss characters being shitty, I want you to go to your local penitentiary and talk to the people locked up there. Despite a lot of people there doing bad things, almost none of the convicts are cartoonishly evil people; there is a thing known as complexity after all.

Chapter 1 - Stolas and Blitzo

While these two are the main characters of the series, it’s honestly hard to find arcs in the story that don’t revolve around these two in some way shape or form. As for the relationship between the two, in the first several episodes of Season 1, it was originally written as if Blitzo wanted nothing to do with Stolas, and that because of the vast swath of imbalances between the two, they would never be compatible and that they were never meant to be. However, as the show went on, it became less about Blitzo and his relationship with the rest of IMP and their jobs as assassins, and more about the relationship Blitzo has with Stolas.

Both characters are presented in a way where everything that happens to them isn’t their fault; instead, it’s the fault of everyone else, and that everyone in their lives has been holding them back. Neither one is capable of taking accountability for their actions. Neither one is capable of being an adult and realizing that their actions have consequences and that they are the only ones to blame when things go wrong regarding the people close to them. The show makes everyone else who wronged them into the bad guys, and they can avoid their issues by it all just being written away instead of actually having any sort of closure. Instead of Blitzo realizing that the trail of broken interpersonal relationships and the wreckage of his past coming back to haunt him is his fault, it is written as if he is innocent, and everyone who hates him are the bad guys.

Stolas on the other hand is shown to be the innocent victim at all times. Any time he does something that is objectively wrong, like him constantly neglecting and ignoring his daughter in favor of pursuing his sexual fantasies with Blitzo or bashing Octavia’s mother right in front of her, it’s casually brushed to the side, and instead, characters like Octavia are villainized for standing up for themselves due to the poor treatment from him, all because “he’s trying” or that at the end of the day, he is the victim and can do no wrong. Whenever Stolas is 100% objectively in the wrong and due his comeuppance, everyone manages to forgive him instantaneously, or if he and a character had a falling-out (like him and Blitzo), they are back to acting like they normally would like nothing ever happened.

My solution: Have both characters get their due comeuppance. Have Stolas realize that Blitzo never loved him in the first place and was using him and have him deal with the consequences of him putting his own daughter on the backburner for his love-affair. Have him realize that his choices have ruined the relationships with the people he held closest to him due to his lust and greed. Have Blitzo understand that he is the sole factor in everything in his life going pear-shaped. From his lack of friends to people no longer wanting to associate with him because of how he behaves and treated people and have him at least try to make amends in an attempt to fix the damage he caused in his life and the lives of other people.

Chapter 2 - Lack of Development for Female Characters

Very few of the female characters in the show have their moments of development and character growth. The male characters of the show like Blitzo, Stolas, Moxxie, and the much of the male cast members have their backgrounds explored at length. The only female character in the show that has any sort of character development has been Octavia, which even then, it’s more so that she starts to resent her father for neglecting her, and then magically forgives him over the course of 20 minutes. Meanwhile characters like Stella, Millie and Loona don’t really have any character traits besides being associated with the male characters; like Stella being Stolas’s abusive ex-wife, Millie just being Moxxie’s badass wife, or Loona being Blitzo’s bitchy and abusive adoptive daughter.

Millie in several instances has had opportunities for character development and fleshing-out, however the writers have not really expanded on her background much, if at all, even in what was supposed to be her own episode. All that we know about Millie is that she grew up on a farm, has a lot of siblings, got into fights as a kid, is good at killing, and is married to Moxxie. Another character that has been woefully underdeveloped has been Stolas’s ex-wife, Stella. She has just been a one-dimensional villain because she has abused Stolas and hired a hitman to kill him after he cheated on her. She hasn’t been shown to have any sort of relationship with her own daughter and has almost no character traits outside of her being an abusive ex. Loona was only given one scene in the adoption center where she was shown to have had a rough life. It never gives her any motivation for why she constantly treats the ones close to her badly, or why she can talk to Octavia about Stolas trying to be a good dad, yet she will punt-kick Blitzo in the balls less than a minute later.

Octavia on the other hand has been completely trivialized, and her issues with her father are presented as if they can just be easily dismissed or that she has to forgive him. Instead of showing that her father neglecting her all the time, compounded by the fact that her father tore apart her life by cheating on her mother, has caused her to grow bitter and resentful of him, it’s dismissed, and all is forgiven at the drop of a hat. The issues regarding why she feels the way that she does and causes her to run away at times are never addressed fully or given proper closure.

My solution: Give the audience more in-depth reasons as to why Stella is the person she is. Make it seem like she isn’t just some one-dimensionally evil bitch. Her and Stolas’s marriage could’ve been great for a little while, but slowly turned resentful and distant over time. But most importantly, give her any kind of parental relationship with Octavia. Give Millie some proper fleshing out as a character instead of what she has been and give her more depth besides being the badass woman that Moxxie decided to marry. Give Loona an actual reason to be the way that she is in the present, not just growing up in an orphanage.

Chapter 3 - Horrible Gay “Representation”

This section is going to be shorter, but when it comes to the gay “representation” in the show, it usually comes across as fetishization of same-sex couples, with those couples being presented as borderline to outright sex-pests. Straight couples like Blitzo and Verosika, or Moxxie and Millie are presented as having normal relationships for the most part, while the non-straight relationships are presented as being driven solely by lust. Whether it be Blitzo and Stolas, or Moxxie and Chaz, all of the gay characters come across as dick obsessed yaoi stereotypes.

My solution: Gay couples are just people as well. We have the same type of relationship dynamics that you can find in straight relationships that can and still do still apply. Usually being that these are two people who love each other and want to see what life has to offer each other, together. Some couples are far more sexual compared to others, however, there is a distinct difference between a couple being more sexual, opposed to being a hentai stereotype of gay relationships. Present their relationships as normal relationships, not like the only reason they’re together is that they both have a penis.

Chapter 4 - Tonal Clashes

One thing that Helluva Boss tries to be is a slapstick comedy like Family Guy, characters being messy people like in Bojack Horseman, a musical, and a melodramatic serial drama, all wrapped in the package of gore and black humor. A good example is how the show portrays abuse. While abuse that is directed towards Stolas is presented as absolutely reprehensible and you should feel bad about it, meanwhile the abuse that is thrown towards Blitzo and Moxxie is shown to be comedic.

It has proven to be a repeating theme with the show. One moment we will have a scene that aims to tug on your heartstrings, while the next is a slapstick scene tantamount to Peter Griffin falling down the stairs, or some sex joke. In what way is this supposed to mesh together? How would this be any different than if a movie showed a guy and how horribly depressed he is after getting divorced and how he now has to figure out his life, only then to cut to a scene where his friend is taking a dump with comically loud fart sounds? The way how emotional scenes in the show are presented goes against the very nature of the show itself. If Helluva Boss is supposed to be a comedy at heart, that just makes the gut wrenchingly emotional and dramatic scenes just feel out of place and makes them feel difficult to take seriously.

My solution: Pick a genre and stick with it. Flip-flopping between what genre you want your show to be at one given moment is not conducive to good storytelling. In fact, the serious melodrama and slapstick comedy grind against each other pretty hard and don’t really mesh. It’s hard to find comedic scenes funny when you had a depressing scene just a few moments prior, and hard to take a serious moment seriously when you had goofy slapstick comedy and sex jokes before that. If you want your show to be a goofy slapstick show like Family Guy or American Dad, then go for it and stick to it, the same applies if you want to make the show a serious drama like The Sopranos.

Conclusion

Look, I love Helluva Boss. I mean would I write ‘x reader’ stories for IMP and have old Gmod screenshots with Helluva Boss characters in my portfolio of work if I didn’t like the show? I love the setting and a good deal of the characters, and I want to see the show actually stand out and succeed for all the right reasons, not fall into obscurity and ridicule because of what the show currently is. The concept and some of the ideas that the show has are brilliant and would be amazing if they were executed correctly. However, what I have noticed about the show is that good writing is substituted for fan-service, previous events are retconned to appease a rather small, yet belligerent sect of the fanbase, and both comedic and deeply serious themes are being undermined alike by each other.

I understand liking a show and wanting to defend it. Hell, I used to and still defend the Star Wars Prequels, but even though I love and defend the Prequels, I understand some of the jarring moments within those movies and how they could’ve been presented better. I feel that the fandom that Helluva Boss has needs to learn that nuance and critical thinking to better argue to the creators what needs to be changed, or what doesn’t: what works and what doesn’t. As the show currently is, there is a lot that should be changed to deliver a better project and it can make the show even better than what it is.

#vivziepop critical #spindlehorse critical #helluva boss critical #helluva boss critique #helluva boss criticism #helluva critical

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sleepy-apparition · 1 year ago

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New Feelings Unbound (Shenhe x Reader)

WARNINGS:None

A/N: Hi there! This is my first time writing and publishing something, so it won’t be great. Also, the title says ‘x reader’, but the relationship is platonic(for now). Word Count: 1.793

Shenhe has always found it hard to connect with other people. Even when she was still a little girl not yet burdened with the curse of calamity, interacting with other people didn’t come easy. You can imagine then, the trouble she’d have after near decades of living in the mountains with only Adeptai and the odd illuminated beast to serve as company.

Learning how to fit into normal, human society is a rather difficult task. Her distant and indifferent nature, combined with her impressive strength, leads people to avoid her. Whether it is out of respect or fear varies from person to person. This certain type of loneliness that comes with being the odd one out, brings…. a small amount of ache to Shenhe’s heart. After all, she’s only human. Not that most people would think that.

If Shenhe is kind, people take that as confirmation that she’s an Adeptus and hail her. If Shenhe puts them in their place, then she gets condemned and called a witch. That’s how all her interactions with humans have gone. All, until she met a traveler roaming the mountains of Minlin.

She had first assumed you were lost, just another person who foolishly overestimated their sense of direction. No matter, she’s dealt with plenty like this before, what’s another? As the moon takes its place in the sky, Shenhe approaches.

“Pardon.” Her voice caused you to jump from where you were kneeled on the ground, spinning to face her immediately. It appears her tone was too harsh; she’ll have to adjust it.

“You are lost, correct? Here, I will guide you to- “

“I’m not lost.”

There was an awkward pause after you cut her off. It only lasted a moment, but it felt dragged out by the rather eye contact you’re making towards her. This was not an expected outcome. She wondered if she should question what you’re doing here or if she should just leave, but you beat her to it.

“I’m sorry! For interrupting, I mean. I am not lost; I came out this far in search of materials for my work.”

“Oh.” Another awkward pause. This is getting tiring. “So, you do not need my assistance?”

You looked to your feet and say, “Well, no…actually, could you help me find a place safe from hilichurls and the like? I’m gonna be in the mountains for a while, and I need a safe space to set up camp.”

Your request made her raise a brow. Were you not aware that the Adeptai made these mountains their homes? She asked you just that, and you reasoned that since you had no intention to disturb them, that it was fine to be up here.

“Are you an adeptus...? Ah, I never got your name.”

You state yours, then look at her expectantly. All this attention was…strange. You seemed rather interested in her. Having someone be this enthusiastic to get know her formed a weird feeling in her chest. Weird, but not unpleasant.

She realizes she’d been spacing out and quickly brings herself down to reality. “My name is Shenhe, And I am merely an Adeptus’s disciple. Now, follow me. I will lead you to a safe place to settle”

‘This feeling doesn’t matter’, she thought to herself. Like most who’ve come face to face with her, you’ll grow to hate her, and then you’ll leave. That’s just how it goes.

But you don’t grow to hate her. In fact, your interest in her person only seems to grow as you spend more time together. And oh, do you prefer your time to be spent together.

At first, it was casual. Casual, but practical. Things like, ‘Why don’t you stay longer for me to make you food? It’s the least I could do for you.’, or ‘Would you mind showing me my way around the mountain? I’m not quite used to them yet.’, were common phrases on your lips. You were straightforward about your needs and wants, she quite enjoyed that about you.

Actually, there was a lot she found enjoyable when she was around you. Ability to make herbs tasteful aside, Shenhe finds that being around you is an easy de-stressor. Your work, and living style, she presumes, is rather simple. Not always easy, but simple. “I’m out here on commission,” you explain on one slow afternoon, skipping a rock across the lake the two of you stopped to rest at, “Some novelist wanted me to stay here for a period, and document what the great mountains Liyue were really like. For a new book I guess.”

“What’s there to document about a mountain? It’s essentially a giant rock.” Shenhe states off to the side, adjusting her braid that came loose during a treasure hoarder raid. This novelist sounds both dull-minded and indolent to Shenhe. To both not be able to think of the environment a mountain would have and being unwilling to experience it yourself, doesn’t make for a very inspired person in her eyes.

You just shrug and respond, “Yeah, I suppose. I didn’t accept the first time because I thought it was a scam. But then one of the Guild's trade routes got blocked right as a couple restaurants sent out commissions asking for someone to bring them food supplies.” You pause and move from sitting on a rock to the ground closer to Shenhe.

“Since both commissions required me to be at same place, I decided to take up the novelist on his offer. What’s a little journaling to fill some spare time? If it doesn’t end up being a scam, then great! Double pay! If it does…I’ll find a way to my money out of him, somehow.”

Silence fills the air after your last comment, so you assume Shenhe has nothing else to say. You both just sit there for a minute and gaze at the scenery in front of you. Then you see Shenhe turn to you out of the corner of your eye. You turn to her as well, curious about what she’s doing, and are met the most serious expression you have ever seen someone make in your life.

She puts one hand over her chest and begins talking, “Materialistic things such as money and mora have no meaning to me. However, common folk require it live healthy, stable lives.” The hand over her chest clenches into a fist. “With that in mind, anyone who dares trick you into wasting your time will surely regret doing so when they’re met with the sharp end of my polearm.”

Her tangent ends, and her former rigid posture goes slack as she waits for a response. You on the other hand, are staring slack jawed at her. Did Shenhe really just propose murder? In completely seriousness? It finally registers in your head that yes, she did, and you respond at quickly as you can at that point.

“Um, please do not kill anyone just for scamming me! Or at all, preferably.”

“Hmm? But is not most effective to remove the root of the problem completely?”

“I mean-Yes, but murder is against the law!” You yell out. Shenhe looks at you questioningly, “The law?” she says. Oh boy.

It was a hot day in Liyue, like many others, but today was a bit different. Shenhe wanted you to come up Mt. Aozang with her, to either teach you to fight or to watch her fight. Her phrasing made it unclear.

You were initially excited when she invited you to her to come with her. She was taking you to what was essentially her home! But now, two hours into a three-hour long hike, you justifiably began to have second thoughts. And it’s already getting a bit harder to breathe, so you even want to imagine what it’s like at the summit.

Shenhe isn’t breaking a sweat, expected from someone whose lived most of their life up here. Sighing, you speak up, “Why did you want me to come along again? I didn’t catch your explanation.”

Shenhe looks at you questioningly, “The law?” she says. Oh boy.

She doesn’t even slow down when she responds, “You mentioned being paranoid due to your lack of self-defense; I’m bringing you up here to teach you what I’ve learned from my master.”

An easy solution, she thinks. Something she can help with. Gathering aside, most of your work involves a of trade routes and specifics about people she doesn’t know, so she’s glad to finally be able to repay your kindness with by teaching you a skill that will most definitely be useful.

Behind her, you groan. “You know, I’m sure there are friends who brawl with each other for fun, but I don’t think I could take a single hit from and still be able to stand.”

She halts faster than you can realize, and you bump into her. “Is everything alright?” You ask. You sound worried. She turns around to face you fully.

“Sorry. Yes, everything’s fine.” Despite her reassurance, she stands there in deep thought. It’s kind of strange to see her like this.

“…Did you forget something and just now remembered that you forgot? Or…was it something I said?” She shakes her head, but other than that doesn’t respond.

She bites her lip unceremoniously then speaks again, “You consider us to be friends...?”

You falter, “Are we not?” You’re a more than a bit crushed, and about to apologize for assuming

when Shenhe speaks up again.

“No-I mean yes, I also consider you to be very dear to me, and I hold you in high regard. It’s just…” ‘Just that I have no knowledge on how to be a good member of society, let alone a good enough friend for you’ Is what comes to mind, but Shenhe doesn’t say it. Not like that, at least.

“I have no prior companions from the mortal realm, nor do I have any knowledge in the realm of friendship.” Shenhe sucks in a shaky breath, “Despite this, I quite like the title of ‘friend’. And I am more than willing to learn about it. For you.”

You’re left stunned. What can you say? You were never expecting such a heartfelt confession from her. A moment passes without you saying anything, and Shenhe starts to regret saying anything. Before she can turn around and write it off, though, you grab her hand. Intertwining your fingers together, you bring pair of your locked hands into view and smile.

“Thank you, truly. And know that all the work you do is appreciated.” You bring your hands back down to your sides.

Those words leave Shenhe feeling…lighter. As if the heavy ropes that restricted her emotions had loosened. Instead of the usual numbness she felt, she was…happy.

The two of you walked up the rest of the mountain hand in hand.

#shenhe #shenhe x reader #x reader #genshin impact #there was a lot more to this #but I had a deadline #so this all I got right #I might make a part two #genshin x reader

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ladyescapism · 2 years ago

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second choice - part 3

summary: azriel's long-time casual fling wants more, when she is rejected, she is pursued by a certain Autumn prince. will they remain fronds, or be torn apart?

a/n: here is part three to second choice. i didn't know if I was going to make a part three to this but here we are. I am going to make a part four to wrap everything up and it will be the next thing I post. beware, azriel is a real asshole in this one, more so than the last two.

warnings: violation of privacy, mentions of domestic violence, drinking, infidelity, and death

wc: 2,700

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three months had passed since Elain’s wedding, and everything had gone back to as normal as it could be. You signed the final contract with Rhys, selling the weapon and its manufacturing rights to him for an obscene amount of money.

You celebrated with the Inner Circle one night at Rita’s when our semester finished. There were some toasts in your honor that made you tear up. You had a night of fun and laughter with your friends. You talked about your travel plans. You wanted to go see the great libraries in the Day Court and attend the Harvest Festival in the Autumn Court. Everyone was supportive of your plans, and Rhys suggested writing to Lucien about skipping the waitlist to access the libraries.

Azriel didn’t show up.

At the end of the night, you found yourself walking back to your apartment with Mor, you having drank too much while she was still sober enough to make sure you got to the right apartment building.

“You’ll have fun, seeing the courts,” she sighed into the cool night air. “It has always been something I enjoyed.”

“I hope so,” you mused, the alcohol muddling your thoughts.

Maybe it was the alcohol or the friendship between you and Mor or the disappointment of Azriel not showing up for you that night that made you confess your feelings to her.

“I have other reasons for going to Autumn.”

She paused and looked over at you in confusion.

“At Elain’s wedding, remember how I danced with Eris and made Az super angry at me? Well, right before that he asked if he could start sending me letters. He did and we’ve been writing back and forth. When I go, I was planning on staying near or at the Forest House and spending time with him while I’m there.”

Staring at the ground and kicking at it with your shoes was a better option than looking at what was undoubtably betrayal and anger crossing her face.

“Just be careful when it comes to Autumn courtiers. They are a ruthless bunch, Eris included.”

“You’re not mad?” You looked up at your friend, shocked at her calm response.

“You’re a grown female, Y/N. I have no say in what you do or who you spend your time with. I can warn you about Eris and his ilk. But if you want to spend time with him, then you don’t need my permission.”

You wrapped your arms around the amazing female you called your friend.

“Thank you,” you whispered in her ear.

“No need to thank me, Y/N.” You released her from the hug. “It’s what friends do. Besides, look at what happened to Azriel when he tried to meddle with who you spend time with.”

You let out a long sigh and started walking in the direction of your apartment again.

“Az and I were – are – complicated. More than friends but never lovers. Not real lovers anyways.”

“Friends with benefits,” she offered, shrugging her shoulders a little.

“I suppose. But it seemed like his benefits outweighed mine. I mean, the sex was good, but I was a friend, a therapist, and a whore for him. And now he can’t bring himself to come to a celebration for me.”

“I’m still mad you never told me, by the way.”

“It was fun to keep it a secret for the first few weeks, but when he made it clear that he didn’t want people knowing about us, it was more embarrassing to admit I was with him just as a fuck buddy.”

Mor hummed in understanding in what it was like to have a complicated relationship with the shadow singer.

You and Mor reached your apartment building and hugged before saying good night.

Your apartment was the same as you left it, excluding the Illyrian warrior sitting on your couch.

You jumped when you noticed him, bringing a hand to your heart on reflex. “Mother on earth, Az! What are you doing here?”

“I came to talk to you.”

He looked at you like he did the night you ended things with him. Wounded and dejected.

“Give me a minute.”

You hurried and took off your jacket and put your things down, trying not to look at him as you did so. Azriel in your living room was not a foreign sight, but one you never thought you’d see again.

Having decided you were ready for this conversation, you turned to look at him.

“What did you want to talk about?”

“Don’t go to Autumn,” he rushed out. “It’s dangerous to be around people like Eris. Go to Day, Dawn, Summer, or Winter. Hell, go to Spring. Just not Autumn.”

“I am a grown female, Azriel. I make my own decision about where I go and who I spend time with. Not you. And how did you know that I was going to Autumn?”

“I sent the shadows to make sure everyone was safe, and they reported back on that conversation. And you’re right. But-” he stopped. “I am asking you, as a friend, don’t go.”

“If you were my friend then you wouldn’t ask me not to go,” you shouted. “I just told Mor that part of the reason I wanted to go was to see Eris, and she was fine with it. And she has more of a right to be angry with me about spending time with the male who hurt her in the past than you. Why are you doing this to me?”

“I am not doing this to you,” he shouted back. “I am concerned for your safety!”

“No! You are trying to control me and manipulate the feelings I have for you so that you can guilt trip me into doing what you want! Well, my feelings for you have changed. So good luck with that.”

“You’re not my friend anymore,” he questioned, his voice lowering to a whisper.

“I want to be your friend, Azriel,” you said, tears threatening to fall. “But friends don’t do this to each other. They don’t tell each other where they can and cannot go or who they can or cannot see. They don’t show up unannounced to make such demands. But I am willing to try, Az, because I care about you. But like I said that night, I can’t be your whore anymore. And this,” you gestured between yourself and him, “isn’t real friendship. This is toxic.”

“It is,” he agreed.

“I need time away, Azriel. Let me have it.”

“Just-” he sighed, “just be careful, Y/N. Eris is a courtier by nature, a cunning one used to getting his way. Don’t let him take advantage of your kindness.”

“I have been around the town a few times, Azriel. Thank you for the concern, but it can take care of myself.”

“Okay then,” he said, defeated.

“If that’s all, I want to go to sleep.”

“I’ll leave then. Good night, Y/N.”

“Good night, Az.”

And with that, he disappeared into darkness and shadow.

THE NEXT DAY

You sat down in the chair at your desk, careful not to spill coffee on the papers scattered everywhere. You would get organized, one day.

Your head was pounding but you needed to write three letters. One to Lucien asking to get into the libraires without having to get on the waiting list, one to your sister asking if the dates you had decided on worked for her and her family, and the last to Eris to confirm your stay at the Forest House.

The letters to Lucien and your sister had been easy. However, every time you went to write a letter to Eris, you stared at the page for at least half an hour before coming up with the proper phrasing.

You needed to reference something that he mentioned in a past letter. You reached for the box that you kept them and opened it. Thumbing through the box, you noticed that the first and second letters he sent you were in the wrong place. Just the two having swapped spots in the chronological order you kept them in. You knew because the dates on top of the letters Eris sent you were always in the same place on the envelope. You looked in there last night to count how many letters you have received from him and would have noticed if they were off.

No one had been in your apartment…

But Azriel. Unannounced. And he could have been in here for hours while you were away at Rita’s.

He wouldn’t.

Yes, a spymaster would look through letters between a foreign High Lord and a professor who just sold a high value weapon if he thought they might be conspiring, you thought. Or if he cared about the person receiving the letters and detested the one sending them.

Before you could think it through or calm down, you used a message box to summon Azriel.

Azriel,

Need to talk. ASAP. My apartment.

Y/N

He arrived a few moments later, a hand on Truth Teller and looking around the room to assess for threats.

Having deemed there was no immediate threat, he looked to you. You were just standing by your desk, letting the pure rage show on your face.

He looked to you, and to the box of letters sitting open on your desk and back to you.

“Y/N-”

“Did you go through my letters?” Your lips were quivering with fury and hot, angry tears were threatening to spill over at the overwhelming feeling.

“Let me explain,” he pleaded. “I needed to make sure you were safe.” He dragged his hands to his hair, pulling the locks back to reveal his face.

“So, you did then?”

“Yes,” he whispered, lowering his head in shame. “Before you got back here after Rita’s, I came in and looked at the letters.”

You didn’t need to know anymore.

“Get out,” you spat. “Now.”

“Let me explain more, please.”

“GET OUT,” you screamed, that voice having not been dragged from your soul in many, many years.

He held your gaze for a few long moments, before disappearing in the shadows.

You sank to the floor, bringing your knees to your chest and letting the angry sobs rack your body.

You stayed like that for the better part of an hour before pounding came to your door.

“Y/N,” a familiar voice called from the hallway. “It’s Feyre, Nesta, and Mor. Az was upset when he reported to Rhys this morning and Nesta found the message you sent him. Can we come in?”

You pulled yourself off the floor and padded your way to the door.

You pulled it open to reveal your three best friends standing there with concern on their faces at the look of despair on yours. And you broke down crying once again.

After recounting the details of your morning, Nesta was ready to kill Azriel. Feyre and Mor were ready to help her hide his body.

“I don’t know why he is acting like this,” Feyre said. “He isn’t normally like this.”

“What,” Mor questioned. “Obsessive? Possessive? Domineering? He was like that with me for 500 years. And after I came out and started dating females openly, he acted like anyone mentioning it near him was a personal attack. He was like that with Elaine, especially when she began exploring the bond with Lucien. He was also like that with Gwen when she told him she didn’t want a relationship. He was so convinced it was because she was seeing someone else that he had her followed.”

Nesta just huffed out a long, angry breath.

“I love Az, he’s been like a brother to me for centuries. But he sucks with females.”

“I second that,” Feyre said.

“The worst part of it,” you said. “I’ve been here before.”

The females looked at you in confusion. You decided it was time to offer up your past to the strong, brave females you called friends.

“My husband was like that. Obsessive, possessive, domineering. It was cute when we were dating and first married. How he would get jealous when I went out with friends or talk to other males in class or something.”

You took a deep breath.

“But as our relationship grew, he started isolating me from my friends and my remaining family. Then it got worse. He started reading my mail, even not letting me go shopping by myself. Then came the belittling and name calling.”

You sniffled.

“After half a century of hearing how worthless and stupid and horrible you are, you begin to believe it. You believe that you have to stay with the male that cheats on you and does all these things to you because no one else will ever put up with you.”

You watched as your tears darkened your pants with little circles as they fell.

“And when he hits you, your first instinct isn’t to run. It is to do everything in your power to make sure it never happens again. Which means never bring up the drinking or the other females. Quit your job so that you can keep a clean house and make sure dinner is ready for him when he gets home. But its never enough and you become a punching bag for the male that vowed before the Mother to love you till his dying breath.”

Feyre pulled you to her chest as you finished.

“And when he finally drinks himself sick and dead, you cry tears of relief and not sadness as you bury him.”

You looked to Nesta with a newfound determination as you said, “I will not live like that again. I refuse to live in fear of a male I am supposed to trust. I refuse to let another male control me like that again. I don’t think Azriel has it in him to hit a female, but if I stay on this path with him, then I will go back to living in fear.”

Mor pulled everyone into a group hug, much to Nesta’s annoyance.

“Thank you for sharing that with us,” Mor said, still holding on tight after the sisters pulled away. “It couldn’t have been easy.”

“I know it’s not like what you all have gone through. I didn’t run when people hurt me. When I got knocked down, I didn’t get back up. I kept my head down and took the punches. But it still affects me and the only way I know to make sure I never live like that again is to look for the warning signs and steer clear.”

“Drowning in 70 feet of water has the same result as drowning in 700 feet of water,” Nesta said. “But trauma and how each individual responds to it and heals from it is not something to be compared. It took me a long time to figure that out.”

You nodded in understanding.

The girls stayed for a while longer. Feyre drew you a bath and left you to cleanse the morning’s stresses away.

Once the water turned cold, you readied yourself and sat back down at your desk, preparing to write that letter to Eris.

The phrasing came easy to you after relaxing in the bath for so long. You rambled on for two pages about seeing your family and the Day Court and other trivial matters before cutting yourself off. Eris claimed to like it when you spoke about your day and any and all things affecting you. You never aired out your issues with Azriel to him, though. That would cause a bigger problem than it was worth.

You spent the rest of the day cleaning a few things around your apartment and getting ready to go to dinner with Feyre, Nesta, and Mor. Feyre sent a note asking to go out again a few hours after they left.

You took the letters you needed to send with you, deciding to drop them at the post office before you met the girls for dinner.

“Postage to where, miss,” the clerk at the post office asked.

“The village of Absinthe in the Night Court for this one, the Sol Place in the Day Court for this one, and the Forest House in the Autumn Court for this one, please,” you said, placing each letter on the counter as you stated their destinations.

“Someone is communicating with some important people,” the clerk said slyly.

You couldn’t help the grin that broke out across your face as you thought of the recipient of the last letter.

tags:

@feysandzoyalailover

#azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar #azriel angst #males suck #eris acotar #acotar

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cosmcther · 3 months ago

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GRIPS U aaron. tell me abt rosalina's wardrobe. i wanna know what she got what outfit styles she likes even if she wouldn't wear them herself. pop off >:3

squeaks like a toy as im gripped?? but okay fine you enable me and i am more than happy to provide.

First and foremost, Rosalina's wardrobe is plenty varied. it isn't just the same dress that you always see her in. Frankly, she considers that dress to be more of a uniform rather than what she'd properly wear around because she likes its style. Now, don't get me wrong, Rosalina is a theatre kid at heart. She has a love for the excessive and dramatic, she adores wearing dresses and gowns that billow as she walks, hovers, and what have you. She'd never say it out loud, but she sometimes enjoys feeling like a big deal.

As a woman who cut her own childhood short, much of her adult life is making up for what she didn't experience enough of in her youth. As such, these times are like playing princess. It's the simple pleasures of flowy garments. It makes her feel pretty~!

But, as stated before, dresses are far from all she has. Whenever there is downtime, she quite enjoys dressing down, as a matter of fact! Casual wear is not an alien concept to the woman. Though, she'll always keep it that slightest touch fanciful. There must be some sort of design on her clothes, she doesn't wear anything plain. Understated and minimalistic is perfectly fine, but let's not stray towards the realm of the boring.

An important note is this: most of her tops, as well as outfits in general, are loose-fitting. The crop-top hoodie or cardigan exposing the midriff will not be skin-tight. There will be a fine amount of space between herself and her clothes. So too will pants have extra space to move around in. There is give to her clothes, for she has lived too long to sacrifice comfort for style. She wears what she likes, not what others enjoy seeing.

These casual outfits are kept quite simple. Shirt, pants, and shoes. Accessories, too, are sparse. Her star earrings remain with just about every outfit worn, and she very rarely wears rings on her fingers. Perhaps an ankle bracelet if she pleases, but that's only if she's wearing some sort of short-cut pants.

But another important note: She always has her star brooch on in some way, shape, or form. For my Rosalina specifically, I headcanon that the star brooch adorned upon her regular dress is, for all intents and purposes, her arcane center. It is the culmination of her being.

As a child, when she died and reincarnated, the very first Luma she met transformed into the star brooch she wears daily. It can be equated to her soul. With the work of magic, it can become malleable. If a fanciful brooch doesn't work with her current outfit, she can turn it into a necklace of a smaller size and shape.

Finally, for the more out-there outfits, Rosalina likes to dress in a gothic style if she's feeling in the mood! Normally it's for some fitting event, she doesn't wear these clothes often. She'll dress for the occasion when we're in the month of October and nearing Halloween. Here, there may be room for things like a corset, showing off more of her frame, and introducing tighter clothes than what she would normally prefer. But this style of clothing is all for the aesthetic, so she's willing to make some sacrifices.

Even still, she still retains her fanciful style. Gothic queen is the vibe she shoots for whenever it's time to dress up. Asymmetrical dresses are the name of the game, black with red accents making up the color code. Even her mannerisms will change to be that touch more theatrical and melodramatic. She finds it fun, and... she'd make for a fantastic vampire, I assure you.

Gowns, casual wear, and gothic outfits are the main spread of her wardrobe, but there are intricacies within each category. In short, she loves to dress up! She has an interest in what she likes and isn't afraid to stray from what might be expected of her in order to wear as she pleases.

Some extra information:

Gowns over dresses, no need for petticoats. The classical poofy dress is Peach's thing, not hers. She is tall and lithe, she likes gowns that match her thinner, more willowy frame.

Enjoys shoulderless clothes. Or, at the very least, clothing that shows off more shoulder than the average fit.

Not big on showing her chest. Showing skin is fine, but it has to be up near the collarbone at least.

Some visual references:

Casual Outfit Reference / Brooch-Turned-Necklace Reference (Pictures 1 & 4): (★)

Gothic Outfit References: (★) - (★)

#(ANSWERS.) ''May I lend a hand?''#(HEADCANON.) ''Rewriting the constellations.''#(SAVED.) ''Trinkets through time.''#herogardn #((gimme an inch and i'll take a MILE do you hear me))#((i was this close to straight up making a number of image collages to give a more thorough visual of some of her outfits))#((but i just went ''no i just cant there's not enough time in the goddamn day''))

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married-2-the-music · 10 months ago

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K-pop Discography Deep Dives: Girls Generation / SNSD (Part TWO)

Here are my credentials: So, I’m absolutely a fan of Girls’ Generation, although I’m in that weird space where I’m more than a casual one yet not quite a SONE (a full fan), but just like with Sunmi, I have a feeling that this deep dive will make me one. I’ve heard almost all of their title tracks, and a decent amount of b-sides, but since they have over 100 songs, I’m sure I’ll find some new ones to love too. I’m also a fan of both Taeyeon and Tiffany’s solo careers.

I’m going to take a quick intermission to discuss some of SNSD’s Japanese releases here, which I don’t normally do. Mr Taxi, with its heavy autotune and electronic background, reminds me of a female version of SHINee’s Ring Ding Dong. One of the things I enjoy the most here (besides the roller disco, of course) is that the chorus is given space to breathe when they could’ve cut it for time. Time Machine is a sadder, slower song, and in lesser hands, it could be a snooze fest, but Girls’ Generation’s great voices turn it into a bonafide power ballad.

Paparazzi, as mentioned before, feels like it arrives on a red carpet rather than simply starts with its “ooh la la la”, which is perhaps fitting for a song about fame that features a snippet from Singing In The Rain. This one is probably my favorite of their songs in Japanese; it definitely takes inspiration from disco in the best way, and had me shaking my shoulders and wanting to get a pair of cat-eye sunglasses. Flower Power too is disco, but with a darker synth spin that feels more distinctly Japanese action movie.

Love & Girls takes after SNSD’s cutesier early discography with its colorful styling, poppy background, free-wheeling anti-drop summer chorus, sharp whistles, and peppy ad libs. Beep Beep too follows this thread, but I was won over, as I often am, with its catchy inclusion of several different languages (Italian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and English) and fun comic book style illustrations. I also quite like its bridge and last chorus.

So, back to the Korean releases! Catch Me If You Can follows in the footsteps of The Boys and especially Run Devil Run. It has a surprisingly youthful and bubbly pre-chorus, that’s unfortunately followed by the mother of all anti–drops. Unlike in the other songs of theirs that have used one, though, Catch Me If You Can doesn’t do anything interesting with it, and ends up feeling like a dozen other songs. The post-chorus does help it, but overall the track feels incomplete.

PARTY sees Girls’ Generation dipping their toes into a summer fun track, which is new territory for their singles. It’s a little toothless when compared to such iconic and important tracks like Gee, I’ve Got A Boy, or Oh, but it’s still a fun time and it’s a nice break to see them looking so happy. It’s not ending up on my Top 10 list, but I’m not going to skip it if it comes up on shuffle.

Opposite from Genie, which I assumed was much later in their careers, I’d assumed that Lion Heart had been much earlier than 2015, though I’m not sure why. This time, they draw inspiration from doo wop, and turn it into a satire of midcentury love-at-first-sight rom coms. Besides the (as always) great clothes, the MV got some good chuckles out of me with its ridiculousness, over-the-top sound effects, and 60’s dance moves that look right out of a Get Smart episode.

You Think is about as different from Lion Heart as it’s possible to get, with a far more “girl crush” image and a hip-hop beat mixed with synthpop. Funnily enough, I’d actually heard this song’s chorus before (“you think you’re real cool?” “You’re NOT!”), but I didn’t know it was an SNSD song, so that was a nice surprise. It veers a little close to an anti-drop, but thankfully avoids it by the skin of its teeth.

From the Lion Heart album, I really liked the venture into chill bossa nova in One Afternoon, the appropriately vaudeville-style flair and sudden speed-up in Show Girls (which was my hidden gem), the synthy fun of Fire Alarm, and the background guitar in Green Light.

Holiday starts with a guitar riff and an energy that doesn’t slow down to catch its breath until its 3-and-a-half minutes are over. It’s a lot of fun, and immediately makes you want to get up and dance with your closest friends, and besides that, feels like a nice summer vacation for Girls’ Generation too; a new and improved version of Party with a sunny beat straight off a Broadway stage. I enjoyed it much more than I expected to, truth be told, and it went right into my music library.

All Night is the second single from the album, and, although it’s also a dancefloor track, it takes a more minimalistic, sleek approach. The chorus, though I did like it, felt a bit out of left field to me with its tempo change, and the rap likewise didn’t quite fit, but overall I liked this one too, especially the bridge. It’s always a pleasure to see drag queens covered in sparkles on my screen, alright?

From Holiday Night, though I did like the dancefloor citypop of Fan, the expert mix of happy and sad in One Last Time, and the jazzy flair of Love Is Bitter, you can’t do much better for a hidden gem than the confident, movie-soundtrack worthy, anthemic Girls Are Back, which I think perfectly captures the magic of SNSD. Can you really beat “we’re gonna break some hearts tonight, we’re gonna make some noise tonight?” Nope.

Lil’ Touch isn’t exactly a Girls’ Generation song, as it was released with only five of the members, but it’s basically considered one, so I included it. As their discography goes, it’s not the most unique, but it’s still quite solid. Part of that is due to the girls’ vocals, of course, which elevate whatever material they have, but the chorus is genuinely catchy and got stuck in my head. I think that if it wasn’t up against such heavy hitters in their other singles, it would be more highly regarded.

Besides Lil’ Touch, Forever 1 arrives both five years after SNSD’s last comeback and exactly fifteen after their debut with Into The New World, and arrive it does. This was the song that made me a fan of Girls Generation, and for good reason. From the “we’re not stopping!” to the utterly, delightfully sappy profession of love both to their fans and to each other to the “I will love you in my next life”, Forever 1 is a gleeful celebration of friendship and a decade and a half spent in an industry almost impossible to succeed in. Really, it’s everything I love about k-pop in one song, so how could I not love it?

From Forever 1, the album, I wasn’t sure what to choose as a hidden gem. There’s the nostalgic Seventeen, the fast-paced beat of Villain, the chill synths of Paper Plane, and the constant genre shifting of You Better Run (which harkens back to I Got A Boy). It’s a very strong return. Lucky Like That wasn’t technically a single but BTS footage was released as a special video to mark Girls’ Generation’s 16th anniversary. It’s a pretty standard pop song, truth be told, but with the video, it's undeniably charming and made me feel undeniably nostalgic. It was great to see them all smile and have fun performing together, and I wish more groups would have videos like this. I saved it for last, and it was a great place to end.

My Top 5 songs are Into The New World, Hoot, Lion Heart, Top Secret, and Girls Are Back with Show Girls, Love Is Bitter, and Goodbye as honorable mentions. Girls Generation gets a 9.25 out of 10 from me, which I’m not surprised about. There’s a reason I wanted this to be my first review of the new year, and it wasn’t just because they’re a huge group, but also because I had a feeling it would be a lot of fun.

(Please enjoy this photo of the girls celebrating Tiffany’s birthday a couple years ago!) Next time, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming with a one-week boy group. I’m excited about this one, so I’ll see you then! Tchüss!

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novemberhush · 6 months ago

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🎃✏️

🦕🧛🏻‍♀️

ooh, i can keep the emojis big by just using a line break? NICE.

(i really hope they stay big now or i'll look silly x'D)

anyway, yes, for the ask game, those four, please and thank you! ♥

Hey! No, they stayed big, don’t worry!😘

🎃- what’s your favourite holiday?

Probably Christmas. Although (and I hate to sound like a cliché, but it’s true), it’s not the same as it was when I was younger. For a start, I barely get any time off work to actually enjoy it these days. We close Christmas Day and that’s it, so for some of us it’s right back at it on Boxing Day. I try to work Christmas Eve if I can because that means you get Boxing Day off, and I’d rather have it off than Christmas Eve, and I don’t care about working New Year’s, but still, every year I see people complaining about the liminal week between Christmas and New Year’s and how they don’t know what day it is anymore, etc, etc, and I want to bite them! Enjoy it while you can, you ingrates!

But, overall, yeah, I have some nice memories of Christmases past so it’s probably my favourite. I have some good memories of Halloween as a kid too, but I don’t really care for it as an adult.

✏️- what’s a word you can never seem to spell right?

I’m drawing a blank on this one. I genuinely can’t think of one. Not to brag, but I think my spelling is pretty good most of the time.

🦕- what’s a pet peeve of yours?

Oh, I am so glad you asked me this one because I have had a rant locked and loaded and ready to go for quite a while! Not to be a complete bitch, but fic writers of the world (and I’m sorry for singling out the Americans in particular here, but they do seem to be the main culprits), where are you getting the phrase ‘make due’ from?? Surely the phrase is ‘make DO’, no? You ‘make do’ with last night’s leftovers. You ‘make do’ with the scraps of affection they throw your way. You ‘make do’ with what you have. Maybe there’s a reason for it, maybe language has evolved differently in different countries, but, God, it drives me up the wall!

Also, and I know we’re not turning to fic for its realism, but the amount of casual drinking and driving that pops up in stories is wild! Taxis exist, rideshares exist, designated drivers exist! Your characters (and the fact I read for fandoms that often feature first responder characters who will most likely have dealt with accidents caused by drunk driving at some point makes it stand out even more!) do not need to be constantly drinking and driving, unless you’re trying to make a point about said character (for example, you want to illustrate how reckless they are with their own and everyone else’s safety, or maybe you want to show it’s actually out of character for them, but they’re having a momentary lapse of judgment because they’re under extreme stress or pressure, or that they’ve developed a problem they need help with).

And if your aim is getting them tipsy and alone with someone so they say more than they would have sober, well, they don’t have to be drink driving for that. Have them say it while they’re waiting for their taxi, have them say it as they walk home together, have them say it in front of the Uber driver who’s trying not to listen in, have them say it in front of their friend, the designated driver, who’s trying not to listen in!

Sorry, again, I know we’re not expecting 100% realism 100% of the time, and of course I don’t think someone who writes about doing something automatically does that thing themselves in real life, but it really throws me when I read about a character (especially normally responsible characters) going from knocking back whiskey in the bar or beers at their buddy’s place to walking straight out to their car or truck and driving away!

Okay, rant over. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest! (And apologies if I sounded condescending or patronising at any point, but I was asked what my pet peeves were and I answered honestly.)

🧛🏻‍♀️- what’s your favourite horror character/ monster?

I’m not a huge horror fan, but if we’re talking movie monsters I tend to lean more towards vampires than werewolves or zombies, etc, so I guess we’ll go with the daddy of them all and say Dracula.

Thank you for your ask!❤️

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pretentious-librarian · 9 months ago

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TW: misogyny & SA

Sometimes I wonder if it has something to do with patriarchy and the way that Sam and Dean express their gender identities in different ways. To be clear, what I'm theorizing about in this piece is a subconscious bias rather than an intentional one. Obviously there's tons of other huge factors that go into why someone favors one character over another, especially in such a complex and layered show. Lastly, as a disclaimer, it is all men. Even Sam. I consider myself a radfem,--borderline misandrist--and my compassionate views concerning Sam's relation to his gender and how it impacts the way he's perceived does not change that. Yet as someone who's hyperfixation is feminism, I just couldn't resist delving into this topic with my favorite character. Because while patriarchy harms women most, that doesn't mean it doesn't harm men too, even if to a much, much lesser degree.

(Note that when I use the word 'women' I am using it because it is a term more typically used when discussing the way patriarchy oppresses but in this piece, the word also refers all AFAB people and feminine-presenting people who struggle under patriarchy)

Regardless, the show itself recognizes and comments on both Winchester's masculinity. Dean's stereotypical macho-man stud characteristics are often played up, and our patriarchal society generally enjoys it and I daresay prefers it. In this case, we're able to do that, subconsciously or not, in good conscience because at the end of the day Dean is a good guy, or perhaps maybe 'righteous' would fit him better. I probably can't count on one hand the amount of times he sacrificed himself for the innocent or to save the entire world. Still, that doesn't take away from the fact that Dean is hyper-masculine and thus, more appreciated in this society that upholds patriarchal values and celebrates masculinity as being superior.

Sam, on the other hand, is still quite masculine but as the show points out time and time again through condescending jokes, he's not near as manly as Dean is. Sam is strong, but he's soft and thoughtful too--traits typically seen as emasculating for men to show too much of. His character tends to embrace qualities that many men generally snub. He's not a womanizer and he rarely engages in casual hookups the way most men are encouraged do in the name of using and conquering women. He finds beauty and joy in intellect while Dean scoffs at him and essentially calls him a bitchless nerd. Sam takes care of himself in ways that starkly contrast with Dean's behavior because apparently self care isn't masculine. Even when Dean irons his clothes with beer instead of water, viewers are meant to side with Dean because dean is manly, beer is manly, half-assing domestic labor is more manly than doing it right and anything manly is praised and encouraged; we laugh because it's supposedly funny when a man is incompetent. (But really, if we normalize men's incompetency it in turn excuses putting the often invisible burden of domestic labor on women. But that's a conversation for another time.) Dean always orders a burger--in this show, it's definitely a symbol of masculinity--and Sam always gets a salad, which has a sort of 'weaker' and dare I say feminine connotation to it in this context. While this is likely intended only to be a funny bit that shows the brother's contrasting personalities and relationship dynamic, it also has profound effects on how Sam is perceived within the show because of his 'lack' of masculinity. But patriarchy isn't just funny, condescending jokes at the expense of women and femininity. Patriarchy is violent and oppressive at its core. I'll come back to this point later on.

All things are relative. And relative to Dean, who he spends most of his screentime with, Sam comes across as much less masculine in comparison, and thus generally isn't taken as seriously by the fandom. God forbid a man express his gender identity authentically without feeling the need for excessive gender performance. Anyways, it's pretty clear how patriarchal society views femininity: weaker, sillier, more frivolous, and less valid, just like in the popular comparison between football fans and Taylor Swift fans (yes she's an evil billionaire, that's not relevant to this argument). Football fans who dress up in their favorite team's colors, throw superbowl parties, wear face paint, and spend exuberant amounts of money on tickets are respected for their dedication and are encouraged to have fun with their interests, whereas when teenage girls who attend Taylor Swift's concerts are dressing up in glittery outfits with bright, wearing colorful makeup, and trading friendship bracelets in celebration of their favorite artist, they are seen as silly, shallow, childish, time-wasting and more. Simply put, femininity is not respected, nor is it coddled in the way that masculinity is.

Thus, the femininity in the subtext of Sam's character makes him less respected and less favored than Dean because femininity is always viewed as less than--or unimportant at best--in patriarchy. We all know the show was initially made by men, for men and the fandom rightly criticizes the way this influence is glaringly obvious as it often reduces the roles of the female characters in the show to only existing to further the plot and growth of the men around them. There's no question that there's a good bit of subtextual and sometimes outright misogyny in the show, yet Sam's treatment both in the show and in fandom due his gender expression is often a key factor of that misogyny within Supernatural that is overlooked.

In terms of what op said, Sam's subtextual femininity is often the reason he's less favored and taken less seriously. Femininity has always been taken less seriously and been belittled. In the real world, women have to fight tooth and nail to get life-saving diagnoses, doctors don't take our pain seriously--it's even worse for women of color, we are largely excluded from scientific studies and even drug development trials. Hell, even my ADHD medication simply does not work during certain phases of my menstrual cycle because my medication was created with men only in mind, since apparently female bodies and their hormones 'complicate things too much' to be taken into account when creating and testing medications. (source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7500607/).

So, because of how our patriarchal society views femininity, Sam's relatively more feminine gender expression causes him to be taken less seriously, his suffering is minimized, and his more 'feminine' interests are ridiculed. Yes, I very much understand that as an attractive, straight, white man, he suffers a mere fraction of what AFAB people, including myself, face every single day. Yet I couldn't ignore the correlation between his gender expression and the way the fandom views him, especially in relation to Lucifer and Dean. To op's point, many fans loved Lucifer's character despite what he did to Sam, which is worrying and has real-world implications. (I am acknowledging that Lucifer's character is very well developed and he makes a fantastic villain, which is different from actually liking his personality.) This is where I revisit the point that patriarchy isn't just crude insults and social degradation, it's vicious and violent in nature.

Several times on the show Sam is sexually violated, just as many women are in real life. because of Sam's more feminine leaning characteristics, it is seen as more acceptable (nearly to the point of dismissal) for him to suffer sexual violence. His subtextual femininity primes him for the writers to put him in repeated instances of losing his bodily autonomy, including but not limited to Becky's sexual assault of him and the heavily implied r@pe he endured while in the cage with Lucifer.

Yet, many Lucifer stans conveniently ignore the heinous things Lucifer did to sam because Sam's proximity to femininity makes his pain and trials seem trivial, and on top of that, Lucifer is comparatively more masculine than Sam and thus given more grace for that reason alone. This is r@pe culture at its finest: defending and adoring the perpetrator while minimizing the trauma of the victim.

I will say this once again: Sam is part of the most privileged group of people on earth (maybe not financially, but let's not forget that he still had access to higher education as prestigious as Stanford.) Yet, it is undeniable that his perceived subtextual feminine characteristics allows viewers to brush off his trauma, to a degree, and make excuses for his abuser, just as patriarchy encourages us to do in real life.

So, yes; because we are conditioned to heavily favor and respect masculinity in a way that femininity is not, Lucifer would've almost certainly not received an ounce of leeway from the fandom if he had done to manly, macho Dean what he did to Sam in the cage. All because Dean is the epitome of masculinity and Sam just wasn't masculine enough to escape the dehumanization that comes with being too feminine and displaying too little masculinity by patriarchy's standards.

Oh, and don't forget that gender is a social construct rooted in patriarchy and created with the purpose of subjugating and oppressing women for men's benefit :)

and I'd like to thank op for this fantastic, thought-provoking, yet unintentional writing prompt.

Supernatural hot take that I randomly thought of:

If Lucifer did to Dean what he did to Sam, most of the fandom would hate him instead of calling him hilarious and adorable and misunderstood.

#it's 4am im sorry if this is repetitive and nonsensical #the winchesters #supernatural #spn #sam winchester #dean winchester #patriarchy #fuck the patriarchy #misogny #intersectional feminism #femenism #radfem

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kingexpl0sionmurder · 4 years ago

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Body Electric - Kaminari Denki - Smut

Author: @kingexpl0sionmurder Pairing: Kaminari Denki/F!Reader Rating: 18+ (contains smut) Words: 5,491 Warnings: Sex work (Cam boy/girl), Quirkless AU, Aged-up Adult characters (someone is in grad school! wow!), mentions of masturbation (both male and female), mentions of casual ShinKami, established KiriBaku, Idk they are all just really sexually liberated and don’t care about watching each other cum. Is that voyeurism? I’m bad at tagging things. Title taken from a Lana Del Rey song. AN: Another BNHarem collab piece! The theme was sex work, and I have wanted to do a camboy Denki for a long time so here we go. This was really smutty in my head but Denki makes me soft and it turned out really cute in the end, I’m sorry? He’s such a dork I feel like any sexual encounter with him would just turn out like this in some way, idk. Thanks to @unbreakablekiribaku and @sailorsero as usual for being supportive of me. Happy birthday to @lady-bakuhoe and @burnedbyshoto 🎂🎂 There is no one else I would rather be birthday triplets with!

Please check out the Collab Masterlist: HERE Look 👀 at My Masterlist: HERE Buy me a Kofi if you’re scared of clowns too: HERE

---

Sighing, you sat up on your elbows, squinting at the chat on the screen, willing your heart to stop pounding and your breath to even out. The donations were pouring in, the chat moving so fast you couldn’t even read it. “Alright, lovelies, I hope you enjoyed that. Be right back and we’ll chat a little bit, okay?”

Donations popped up, the chat slowing a little as the clients who only came to jerk off to you left, leaving those who considered themselves true fans. You stood and made your way to the bathroom to pee, rinsing your toy off in the sink and washing your hands. You went back to your room, pulling on a hoodie and settling in front of the screen again.

“Alright, I’m back! I have some time for a few questions and then I have to go for the night. Let me see what we got!” You scanned the chat, ignoring the normal inappropriate questions. Mindfucker: Do you know who Chargebolt is? Cause I heard he watches your stream.

Your heart, which had finally slowed to a normal rhythm, picked up again. You most definitely knew who Chargebolt was. You gave him a good amount of money from your donations when you watched his cam shows yourself. “I do actually, he’s pretty popular on here, isn’t he?” You sat back a little, furrowing your brows. “How do you know he watches me?”

RedDaddy: He did a Q&A and mentioned your channel! Told everyone to check you out.

You recognized the names of the viewers and knew they were also regulars on Chargebolt’s streams as well, so you believed them. Chargebolt was gorgeous and funny, just your type. The knowledge that he was interested in you enough to watch you get off on camera was flattering. You hoped your blush wasn’t showing on your face.

“I’m surprised he knows who I am!” You had missed the last Q&A he’d done, since it hadn’t been on his normal streaming day, and you’d been stuck at work late. Leaning forward again, you bit your lip, looking into the camera from under your lashes. “Can I tell you guys a secret? I watch him, too. Why do you think I never do shows on Thursdays? That’s Chargebolt day.” With a wink you sat back, trying to will the blush from your cheeks. Mindfucker: I knew it! I bet he’s watching right now. You smiled, shrugging. “I hope he enjoyed the show, then!” You tried to hold it together, suppressing the urge to burst into a fit of giggles at the thought, answering a few more silly questions from your regulars, before signing off for the night, promising to be back again the following week.

You let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding, leaning your head back and groaning. It was wild that the guy whose cam shows you watched on the regular, the one who had inspired you to start your own, who you thought of half the time when you were filming yourself getting off on camera for strangers, knew who you were and was one of your viewers.

It brought you down a whole rabbit hole for a second, wondering if he got off on you getting off. Why else would he watch? Did he ever donate? You assumed he had a secondary account so you wouldn’t know it was him even if you tried to look at your past viewers, just like you had a secret account so you could watch him as well.

Cracking your eyes open, you clicked to view the donation tallies for the evening. You’d made enough to pay the rent on your apartment for the month in just one night. Sometimes you wondered how you ever managed to survive before you started doing this. It was meant to be a temporary side job, but you’d been running this cam channel under the screen name Neko for over six months, and you had clawed your way out of debt in such a short time, it didn’t make sense for you to stop.

You viewed a few more visitor stats with interest, before logging off the computer and shutting the laptop. You had to get to sleep for your real job in the morning, so you figured it was time for bed, pushing thoughts of Chargebolt to the back of your mind for now.

It wasn’t until later when you were lying down to sleep, that you thought of him again. Your eyes closed as you ran through a scenario in your head, wondering if he would mention you on Thursday, and what would come of all this? You had noticed your viewer numbers had spiked that day, so it was definitely beneficial that you’d caught his eye. You just weren’t sure what would happen next.

Denki was grinning into the camera, wiping the cum off of his abs with the towel he kept beside him, his chest and cheeks flushed pink. He adjusted in his chair, tugging the toy out of his hole and chucking it to the side, pulling his boxers back up over his softening cock. “I hope it was as good for you as it was for me, babes.”

He chuckled at the comments flooding the chat as he reached for his water and took a sip.

Tapeman: As always, you never disappoint me, Chargebolt.

“Hey thanks, Tapeman! I appreciate you always coming to hang out...get it? Coming?”

Mindfucker: Ridiculous.

“Aw, you love me, Mindfucker.” He winked at the camera. “So, did you guys enjoy my Q&A the other day?”

The chat filled with praise, making him grin. He loved to talk to his fans, and sometimes they had some great questions for him. He knew a lot of people just watched him as a way to get off, but he liked to give a little piece of himself to them because he knew that most of the people who watched were probably lonely, and he wanted to help with that in some way. He kept things laid back, joking and laughing with his viewers before and after the show, taking requests and doing his best to remember some of the regulars. Some of the few who had been with him from the beginning he’d made into moderators to help with keeping things somewhat orderly in the chat. Some of them he actually knew in real life, like his roommate Hitoshi, who used the alias Mindfucker.

Mindfucker: So are we going to talk about Neko? Denki’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, you mean the stream the other day? It was…” He made the appropriate motion as he said it. “Chef’s kiss, immaculate. She’s so beautiful…” Trailing off, he let himself think back to the way your chest heaved and the face you made when you came. “I would do anything for her, man.”

RedDaddy: Dude, I agree! She’s also super sweet, like, the total package.

Sighing, he leaned his elbow on the desk, his cheek resting on his palm. “I am a simp, my guy.” He sat up, squinting at the chat. “She said she watches, right? Is she here right now?” He scanned the names of the viewers, frowning. “She probably has a second account. Well, if you’re here, Neko, you should hit me up. I read all of my DM’s okay?” He grinned, winking again. “Alright, I have to go feed the cats so I’m outie 5000, thanks for hanging out and I’ll see you guys next week!”

He said his goodbyes, ending the stream and sighing. He wiped off his toy with the towel and clicked through his stats for the day, smiling at some of the comments that came with the donations. Hitoshi came into his room a few minutes later, holding one of the cats, an orange tabby named Miso, in his arms. “I fed them, you don’t have to.”

Was it weird that his roommate watched him fuck himself on toys and jerk off on the internet on a weekly basis? Nope. Denki had forgone all sense of modesty when it came to sex a long time ago, and Hitoshi was the same. It helped that they fucked around on occasion, best friends who got lonely and lived together sometimes did that, he guessed. Or maybe they were weird. It was whatever, he didn’t like to think about it too much.

“What would I do without you, Toshi?”

“Kill the cats, probably.” He deadpanned, leaning in the doorway. “Burn all the toast you try to make, buy the wrong peanut butter, eat Cheese-Itz for breakfast every day, forget to pay the cable bill.” He raised his eyebrows. “I can keep going.”

“Fuck off, I got the all-natural peanut butter once, it was an accident!” Denki threw his soiled towel into the laundry basket by the closet and picked up the toy he’d used, waving it around a bit. “Did you enjoy the stream?”

Hitoshi snorted, eyeing the dildo warily. “I didn’t really watch, I had my eye on the chat. I was looking for Neko.”

“Man, I can’t believe she’s a fan!” He waved the dildo some more, watching as it jiggled. “I would let her do unspeakable things to me.”

“Look out, your sub is showing, Denki.” Hitoshi teased. “But I agree, she’s pretty great. I wonder if she’ll ever do private shows.” Pausing to scritch Miso behind the ears, he continued. “I’m sure they’d be in high demand.”

Denki stood, pointing at Hitoshi with the dildo. He really needed to put it down somewhere and stop brandishing it around like a sword. “Don’t even, I’d spend all my money on that girl.”

“I know you would.” He chuckled. “I did try to go through the usernames and see if I could find out who she could be, but I didn’t have any luck.”

“It’s okay! I’m leaving it up to fate now, man. If the universe wants us to know each other, we will.” He stuck his thumb towards the ensuite. “I’m going to wash my ass and then we can play Among Us if you want.”

Hitoshi, completely unphased as usual, nodded. “I’ll get a team together. Check the discord when you get out.”

Humming, Denki made his way to the bathroom, picking up his phone on the way. It buzzed as he closed the door, and he glanced down to see he had a message from his other moderator and friend, Eijirou, aka RedDaddy. Tossing the dildo in the sink, he looked down at the screen and opened the message.

Eiji: No luck on finding Neko on the stream, but she said she never misses a Thursday, so I bet she was there.

Denki: Thanks for keeping an eye out, man. I appreciate you. Among us in 30?

Eiji: Bet. I’ll ask Kats to play too.

Your next stream day had you feeling nervous. Chargebolt had talked directly at you on his last stream, asking you to slide into his DMs, and you had yet to take him up on it. You didn’t know what you were so scared of, Chargebolt was a nice guy. You chalked it up to the fear of the unknown. If you sent him a message, what would you even say? ‘Hey dude, nice cock?’ It was bound to be a disaster.

Pushing your nerves back down, you made sure you were ready for your stream, excited for the news you were about to drop on your viewers. You were needing a little extra cash due to some unfortunate car trouble, and you’d figured out a way to make up what you needed in record time.

“Hey everyone, welcome!” You smiled at the camera, waving your fingers. “Thanks for coming! I see a lot of familiar names here tonight. Hi Mindfucker, Dynamight, RedDaddy, Tapeman, LightningMcQueen!”

LightningMcQueen: Hey, beautiful! I’ve been looking forward to this all week.

Dynamight: Chill out, McQueen, you look desperate.

RedDaddy: Be nice, Dynamight. Hi, Neko!

Dynamight: Fuck off, Shittyhair.

Mindfucker: How’s your cat, Neko?

“Be good, Dynamight. You’re lucky I know you don’t mean that!” You giggled at the antics of your regulars, smiling at the question about your cat. “Ichigo is doing good, Mindfucker, thanks for asking! I’ll bring her on camera after the show if you want to say hi!”

Minfucker just sent a cat emoji and you laughed, shaking your head. “I’m beginning to think that you’re just here for Ichigo and not me.”

The chat went crazy with people denying it, telling you how much they loved watching you every week. You lit up, feeling more excited about your news.

“So I have something I want to discuss before we get started today. I’ve decided I want to try out doing some private shows, so I’m going to be offering up a few spots. I’m going to give some of my longest and most frequent supporters a shot first, and if all goes well, then I’ll open them up to the rest of you! I’ll be adding a signup link at the bottom of my page after tonight’s stream, so if you’re interested you can apply and I’ll pick a few of you and we’ll work out a schedule! How does that sound?”

Dynamight: McQueen already has his credit card ready I bet.

“Aw, you don’t want to play with me, Dynamight?” You teased, giving the camera your best pout.

Dynamight: You couldn’t handle me, Princess.

LightningMcQueen: Hush. You’re a bottom, Dyna.

Dynamight: Die you fucking extra.

LightningMcQueen: Love you too, blasty.

“I was going to let you pick the toy today, Dynamight, but if you can’t behave then I’m just going to have to let someone else have a turn.” You gave the camera a disapproving look, frowning. You’d picked up that these guys were friends, so you knew they were just messing with each other.

A donation popped up from Dynamight with a comment attached.

Let McQueen choose this time, babe.

“It looks like Dynamight is going to let you choose, McQueen. Which one?” You pulled over the box you kept your toys in and showed it to the camera. “Pick a color.”

LightningMcQueen: Yellow

You pulled the yellow silicone out of the box and showed it to the chat, smirking. “I call this one Chargebolt because it’s the same color as his hair. Are you sure this is the one you want me to use?”

When your stream ended, Denki leaned back in his chair, taking a deep breath. The fact that he’d watched you fuck yourself with a dildo that you’d named after him was the hottest thing he could have imagined. He was jealous of that piece of bright yellow silicone more than he should be. He’d still enjoyed it, if the mess across his abs and chest were any indication.

He cleaned himself up and pulled on a shirt, clicking on the link for the private show signup. It was pretty straightforward, listing the price and how long the show would be, and asking for his username and what he would be interested in doing or seeing and what day would work best.

Staring at the form for a moment, he contemplated his options. He could sign up with his LightningMcQueen account, and he might have a chance. He was the first one out of his friends to find your channel one night when he was bored and horny. Then he’d shown it to Hitoshi and then shared your info with Eijirou, Katsuki, and Hanta. He would be considered one of the longest and loyal viewers like you had said.

However, if you got a request from Chargebolt? What would you do? Would you ignore it?

“Toshi!” He called out, knowing his roommate would hear him without him having to get up. “I’m having a crisis!”

The door opened, and the purple-haired man stood in the doorway. “I am not prepared to handle your bi panic right now, Denki.”

“Are you going to put in for a private show from Neko?” Denki pushed on, ignoring his friend’s exasperation.

“I spoke that into existence last week, you know. You’re welcome.”

Flopping back in his chair, Denki closed his eyes. “Should I send in the request with this account or with the Chargebolt one?”

Hitoshi shrugged, watching their cat Sashimi wander into the room. “You’ve wanted to talk to her for ages, man. You could have messaged her forever ago and you wouldn’t be playing this game with her. Sign up with your actual account.”

“I mean, she must think I’m cute, right? Otherwise, she wouldn’t watch.” He sat up, logging out of his secondary account and into his main one. He had a few unread DM’s, so he clicked, his breath catching in his throat. “Dude, look.”

There was a message from you, short but sweet.

Hi, Chargebolt. I don’t know if you saw the stream today, but you should check it out if you haven’t. I left it up for you.”

“She wants you to see her use that dildo she named after you.” Hitoshi patted his shoulder, and then bent down to pick up Sashimi. “I signed up but I told her I just wanted to have a date with her cat. She probably won’t pick me.”

“She will, she loves cats.” Denki clicked on your page and scrolled down to the bottom where the signup was again, letting it populate his main account in the information, and writing ‘any day except Thursday’ in the section for the time that worked for him. “I’m going to get this girl to date me, just you watch.”

Snorting, his roommate closed the door behind him as he left. “I believe in you, Pikachu.”

Once his request was submitted, he went back to his DM’s and sent you a message back.

“I was there, Neko. I never miss a stream. I submitted for a private show, so I hope you’ll pick me. I’ve been one of your viewers since the beginning, you know.”

---

In your head, you tried to plan what you would say once you were face to face (via camera) with the one and only Chargebolt. Everything your brain seemed to come up with fell short. What did you say to this guy, who you’d been simping over for over 9 months, who lit up your screen every Thursday with terrible puns and panty-dropping smiles? You knew exactly what he looked like and sounded like when he came. It was a strange thing to think that you knew that but you’d never actually spoken to him before.

It made you feel a little better when you realized he knew just as much about you. That he watched you fuck yourself on a dildo you’d named after him, and then spent the rest of the stream showing off your fluffy white cat Ichigo.

It was time to put on your big girl panties. You could do this.

Chargebolt had been one of the few that you’d chosen to do these shows with. He was also the last one. You’d met with 4 others, the ones who were the most active in your chat, the ones you assumed were actually friends.

Your first one was with Tapeman, who asked you to call him Sero. He was cute, with the widest, prettiest smile you’d ever seen. He made you laugh, and called you beautiful, and spoke to you in Spanish. You didn’t feel uncomfortable once with him, and the experience gave you hope that the rest would be just as nice.

Mindfucker was next, whose name was Shinsou and lowkey your favorite one. He didn’t want anything sexual at all, which surprised you. You sat with him and drank tea and you got to meet his two fur children, Miso and Sashimi, while he told you about his roommate. You let him admire Ichigo, and talked about music. He was sarcastic, but not in a mean way, and you were pretty sure he was going to be your new best friend.

RedDaddy and Dynamight had asked to do theirs together since they were dating. You wanted to question why they both watched your stream but RedDaddy, who was actually named Kirishima, answered it for you.

“We’re both bi, and we think you’re cute!”

“Yeah, plus McQueen has a thing for you so we like to be in the chat to help him out.” Dynamite, aka Bakugou, added in his gruff voice, folding his arms across his chest.

“Aw, that’s sweet!” You smiled at them. “He didn’t request a private show though, so I guess he doesn’t like me that much.”

Bakugou coughed and Kirishima grinned. “Maybe he was nervous! I’m sure you’ll meet him in one of these someday!”

“Enough about that dumbass.” Bakugou leaned forward, his hand on Kirishima’s knee. “Give us a show and we’ll give you one in return. Use that orange and green one for me, Princess.”

And give you a show they did. You got lost in how they looked at each other while they jerked each other off, and you were pretty sure they forgot you were even there at some point. When it was over, you suggested that they start their own channel.

Bakugou scoffed, but you could tell he was blushing a bit.

“I don’t know, Neko. I don’t think I could share him with anyone else. Except you, you’re the exception.” Kirishima grinned, winking at you.

But now it was Chargebolt’s turn. You made sure you had everything you needed, making sure Ichigo was out of the room, and then signed into your account.

Chargebolt was online, so you made the private room and sent him the request. You felt like you were shaking, and you checked yourself in the camera to make sure you didn’t look like a wreck.

You barely had time to breathe before he entered the chat, his camera screen coming to life and showing you his smiling face. You melted a bit, biting your lip, gazing at how attractive he was.

“Hey, Neko!” Chargebolt was as vibrant as ever, tucking his hair behind his ears, the black lightning bolt in his hair dark against the bright yellow of the rest of it.

“It’s nice to see you, Chargebolt.” You tried to relax, rolling your shoulders back. “It’s kind of weird knowing you can see me too.”

He laughed, leaning back in his chair. You tried not to stare at his arms in the tank top he was wearing. Chargebolt had a small frame, but his muscles were defined. You’d seen him plow through an entire bag of chips on stream once, without pausing to breathe, so you assumed he must be one of those people with amazing metabolism that you envied. “You can call me Denki if you want, kitten.”

You choked on air at the nickname, trying to compose yourself. “Kitten?”

“Well, Neko means cat, doesn’t it?” He raised an eyebrow. “I won’t call you that if you don’t like it.”

“No!” You practically shouted. “No, I mean, it’s fine. I like it.”

“Sweet.” He grinned. “Man, I’ve wanted to get you alone like this for so long, and now I’m just feeling really nervous.”

“You’re nervous?” You were surprised. The always cool but super dorky Chargebolt was nervous because of you? “So am I.”

Chargebolt- sorry, Denki, rested his elbow on the desk, propping his head in his hand. “Well, glad to know I’m not the only disaster here. I’ve been trying to get the courage to talk to you for months, and then finally Hitoshi got me to talk about you on stream a few weeks ago, and now here we are.”

“Who’s Hitoshi? One of your regulars?” Knowing that you weren’t the only one who was sweating bullets had you relaxing a bit.

“Oh yeah, Mindfucker! You know him right? He did a thing with you the other day, didn’t he?”

Eyes wide, you stared at him. “Shinsou?”

“Yeah, that’s my best friend and my roommate. He said he showed you the cats.” He shrugged. “You picked all my friends for your private shows. Sero, Kiri, Bakugou, Shinsou.” He paused, smirking. “I forgot that you don’t know that I’m LightningMcQueen.”

“That’s you? I was wondering why they didn’t send me a request, but it all makes sense now.”

Denki shot you finger guns and winked. “Kachow!”

“Oh god, stop it.” You rolled your eyes.

He chuckled, grinning at you. “So, did Shinsou talk about me?”

You giggled, remembering back. “He told me a story about how his roommate mistook a fuzzball for a spider and spent the afternoon sitting on a table waiting for him to come home and kill it.”

“It looked like one of those freaky poisonous ones from where I was sitting. I was afraid to let it out of my sight in case it got away and then multiplied and killed me in my sleep or something.” He took a deep breath. “Spiders are terrifying.”

This man was amazing. “You are everything I always thought you’d be, you know that?”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.” He sighed. “You have to have some kind of embarrassing story to tell me so I don’t feel like a fool. You’ve got to make it even.”

“One year my dad hired a clown to come to my birthday party. He walked in the front door and I jetted out the back door and hid in the garden until he left. Clowns are just as terrifying as spiders.”

Chargebolt laughed, and the sound made your stomach do a somersault. It was just as bright and happy as he was. “That is the cutest shit I’ve ever heard!”

“I’m glad my childhood trauma is amusing you.” You deadpanned, trying to keep the smile off your face.

“Aw, don’t be like that kitten! I’m glad we can bond over our irrational fears like this, you know?” He

You shivered happily. “Okay, okay.” You cleared your throat. “So, you didn’t write anything down here for what you wanted out of our chat today.”

“Oh, okay, down to business then.” He sat up straight. “Well, I wanted to tell you myself instead of submitting it on the form.”

Intrigued, you raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t want to give me a chance to back out?”

Snorting, and shook his head. “Nah, I think you’ll like it, kitten.” He folded his hands behind his head. “I want you to tell me what to do. I’m at your mercy.”

Swallowing thickly, you blinked at him. That was...really hot. “You like being told what to do?”

“I would love nothing more for you to pull my hair and peg me within an inch of my life while calling me your little cock slut.” He stared at you with an eyebrow raised, looking pleased with himself when he saw your expression.

Your thighs clenched together involuntarily. “Fuck.”

“Yeah, right? I mean, I’m a switch, I’d do the same to you if you asked. But we can save that for next time.” He smirked. “So, you down?”

Next time? This man was going to kill you. “Take off your shirt, Denki.”

“Fuck yes.” He groaned, reaching behind him and tugging the garment over his head.

His chest and abs came into view, and you let your eyes linger on the barbells through his nipples. “Pants too.”

He pushed his chair away from his desk and shimmied out of his shorts, kicking them to the side. You gazed at him in his blue boxer briefs, eyes lingering on his thin waist, strong thighs, and the outline of his cock. He was a sight to behold, honestly.

You held the fangirling back, leaning forward to get a better look at him. “Do you have any toys, Denki?”

“Of course, Kitten.” He moved out of view for a moment, coming back with a box.

“Let me see.” He tilted the box towards the camera, your eyes flitting over the different colors and shapes inside. “The pink one.”

“Okay, hang on, let me-” He cut off, standing up and throwing the pink toy on the bed. He picked up the laptop and moved it, laying down beside it and angling the camera so you could see what he was doing.

“Did you stretch yourself, baby?”

He made a noise that sounded like a whine in the back of his throat at the pet name, obviously pleased by it. “Yeah, of course I did.” He glanced at the screen. “You should, uh, take your shirt off too.”

“I thought you wanted me to tell you what to do, not the other way around.” Teasing him, you crossed your arms over your chest.

He pouted slightly. “I’ve been good so far though, right?”

“All you’ve done is take off two items of clothing and move to the bed. You’re gonna have to work harder than that!”

Huffing, he lifted his ass off the bed and tugged his underwear down his legs, kicking them off, his hand already moving to wrap around his already hard cock.

“Did I say you could touch yourself, Denki?” It was getting hard to keep up the stern act you were putting on, but you knew it was what he wanted. You wanted to watch him touch himself, watch the way his eyes fluttered closed when his thumb brushed over the leaking head of his cock, and the way he would bite his lip when he moved his wrist a certain way.

You could be patient though, so you continued.

“If I was there right now, what would you want me to do first?”

He stilled, blinking at you a few times. “I would want your mouth first, I think.”

Humming, you sat back, pulling your shirt over your head, letting him admire the lacey purple bra covering your chest. “You’d want my mouth on your cock? Trace my tongue along that vein along the underside and suck on the head a little?”

Denki groaned, closing his eyes, his grip visibly tightening around his shaft. He looked like he was trying not to get worked up too fast. You were amazed at how your words were affecting him, so you pressed on.

“I’d take you all the way down until I was choking on it, and I’d let you hold onto my hair and fuck my face. God, you don’t know how many times I've dreamed about doing that for you. What would you say to that?”

The blush spreading down his neck and chest made him look so pretty. “Ugh, fuck kitten, you’re killing me.” He swallowed hard, opening his eyes to look at you again. “I’d tell you how good you made me feel, but I wouldn’t let you finish me off that way.”

“Oh no? Tell me what else you’d do.” You took the opportunity to move to the bed yourself, pulling off your leggings and panties all at once.

Eyes glued to you while you unclipped your bra and threw it across the room, he continued. “Fuck, um, I would...god, you’re beautiful.”

Flushing at the compliment, you looked down shyly, breaking character. “I’ve heard you say that before and I still don’t believe it.”

Denki scoffed. “If you need a daily reminder, I’d be happy to be the one to tell you, kitten.” You could hear the sincerity in his voice, and it made your heart do a little flip. “I might seem like a dumbass but I’m using this camboy money to pay off my student loans for my masters in English lit so I can quote you entire sonnets from Shakespeare without hesitation if that will help you believe me.”

Your eyebrows shot up, impressed. Realizing you’d ruined the moment, you sighed, covering your eyes with your hand. “I’m sorry, I’m crap at this. I really just want to watch you cum.”

Chuckling, you heard him shifting on the bed. “Okay, how about this? Forget the toys. Just close your eyes and listen to me.”

“Okay.”

“If you were here with me right now, just like that, I’d spend so much time exploring every inch of you with my tongue. I’d start with your lips, your jaw, your neck. Collarbones, shoulders, your chest, those cute nipples-”

“How are nipples cute?” You interrupted with a snort.

You could hear him trying not to laugh, his voice pitched a bit higher. “Shh, don’t ruin it.”

“I think you just did when you said ‘cute nipples’.” You’d never had this much fun with someone in a situation like this. “If I had a dick, my boner would have just died.”

Denki wheezed, and you opened your eyes to look over at him. He was gazing back at you, his eyes bright as he laughed into his palm. “God, I like you so much, kitten.”

Your grin softened, your heart pounding at his words. “Me too, Denki.”

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eachdawn · 2 months ago

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"It's how all the poor press people know something is going on, although I really feel they would prefer to be able to report how we cannot stand one another because enemies just read so much nicer as a headline than secret lovers. Those people get bored once it is no longer a secret," he replied in a playful voice, finger tapping against his cheek without ever taking his eyes from the taller man. "However, I am quite confident I could wear it just fine. Recently, I received quite a worrisome amount of gifts for events that seem to finally see what is hidden underneath fabrics. If they would ask you this, they'd learn there really isn't much interesting hidden."

Baek enjoyed playing with imaginations, only ever showing bits of skin to wake phantasy but never more. He reached out and picked up some more of the grapes, gaze casually wandering over the big names that only stayed because there would be another row of press for them to pose for just to find their names on a website no normal person cared about. "I shall behave then;" he winked. "I prefer short, actually," Baek joked: "But I cannot complain. My investments have been fruitful enough to let's say, I am considering to finally purchase a form of property. Now the only question that remains, is which country I choose." He tilted his head as he looked at Mingyu: "I am counting on you will not reject an invitation to come and visit me by chance once I do. I'll make sure to be home by the time it's purchased and your busy schedule allows for a free weekend." Oh, he loved their interactions like this, the thrill, the danger but he couldn't deny he'd love to more thoughtfully admire the beauty of this man, without any need not worry about being left as a mess.

"You can send your gratitude to me for wearing it instead then." Blurts out the idol captain quietly, ensuring that no one heard such cheeky words that were most certainly not idol like at all. His lips glaze over the rim of the glass he had before downing the sparkling wine and putting it aside so that the captain could run a hand through thick streams of dark brown locks. Mingyu had been growing it out, in preparation for another comeback with UNA1, a long awaited one considering reality TV had kept him away from writing as well as Daehyun, his vice captain who was also a part of that competition. It was a much needed vacation he thought for the group overall, they were at the very top of the industry and it was a struggle to maintain that crown and yet here he still was, here they still were.

Nudging Baek gently with his elbow, Mingyu flashes a playful wink before pointing upwards, stairs leading to the accommodation within this lush and extravagant venue. The fashionable elite had all rented out their own rooms here, and there were still some free ones. "The way you're looking at me, I think I know what you want... But let's try to enjoy this party more before finding somewhere to... Explore our friendship." He teases, nodding at some fashion stars that walk by who recognise the idol, winking at some and smirking at others smugly. Mingyu was nothing if not mildly narcissistic at these social events, he knew he was one of the best. "So tell me how life is going for you, my handsome little influencer."

#united as one #« reply; »#« baek; »

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roscgcld · 4 years ago

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DAYDREAMING!AU || new reality

;request: rn i’m obsessed with your writing & the daydreaming!reader<33 but i also love angst so what would happen if she ended up getting really hurt protecting another student - hope that wasn’t too weird.. again, i love your writing !!

note: ahaha, i am glad that a lot of people enjoy my daydreaming!reader works; she is also one of my babies as well >< and originally i wasn't going to do this cause i had no idea on what to write - but i had managed to layout a rocky plan before i got some bursts of inspiration lol. ended up becoming too loud though ><” I am sorry for that~

pronouns: she/her

daydreaming!reader masterlist

“There is a chance that she will never wake up from this.”

Shoko gave the others in the room a concerned glance as she glanced up from her tablet, hating how silent it was besides the quiet beeping of the machines around the occupied bed. Laying in the bed was Y/N, a breathing tube carefully inserted into her mouth with the ventilator beside her being the only thing that’s keeping her oxygen levels normal. “The amount of damage she took was quite large. And even though she had managed to regulate quite a strong barrier of Curse Energy around her at all times, it wasn’t enough to brace her for the impact of her being slammed into the build.”

The mission shouldn’t have ended this way - the first and second year students were sent on a mission to deal with a few Finger Bearers that had appeared in the city due to the lack of sorcerers on duty at the time. They were under the care of a few First Grade sorcerers, all hand-picked by Yaga-sensei to ensure the safety of the kids.

However, things rarely go to plan in the jujutsu world.

Yaga-sensei sighs softly as he leans back into his seat, his eyes glancing over at his student that was clearly battling to stay alive. Guilt started to eat him from the inside out, since this was technically his fault. Sure, everyone knows that there is no way that you can go on a mission without enduring some casualties. But the fact is that this was not what he had expected for the outcome to be.. “I am going to kill them myself.”

“G-Gojo-san!” Ijichi hissed out as he glances over at the white haired shaman in the room with wide eyes, the man having been leaning against the wall opposite from the hospital bed with his arms crossed over his chest. His head was tipped forward with an almost too casual expression on his face, yet anyone can tell the barely suppressed anger that lurked underneath. An anger that was only a few moments away from exploding. “You can’t - don’t say things like that!”

“And you expect me to sit back as they failed to save the children?” Gojo asks in a loud voice, effectively squashing whatever confidence Ijichi had built up inside of him. The hand that was resting arm tightened, the veins at the back of his pale hands started to protrude out as Gojo’s anger started to show itself. “I need a good explanation on how their incompetency put our student in this state. 5 First Grades against 3 Special Grade Curses? With 7 talented students by their side and they still can’t handle it? Give me a fucking break.”

“Not everyone can be like you, Satoru.” Yaga-sensei finally mumbles out as he rests his forehead into his hand, fingers pinching at the space between his eyes tiredly. “If anything, it was my fault. I had underestimated the brains of the Finger Bearers, and because of that, all my calculations were wrong. I put retrieving the fingers over numbers. So if you want to find someone to be angry to, the blame is on me.”

The room went quiet after Yaga’s explanation, both Ijichi and Shoko sharing a caution look before casting a glance over at the blindfolded man. After a few tensed moments Gojo pushed himself off the wall and walked out of the hospital room without another word, closing the door behind him quietly; a stark contrast to his usual habit of either slamming the shoji doors too hard, or leaving it open completely.

That out of character move definitely had Shoko sighing in concern. “That idiot...I hope he’s not going to do anything stupid.” She mumbles softly before she turned back to face the young girl laying on the bed, quietly reaching over to brush her fingers through the soft strands that had fallen over Y/N sleeping face. “You better wake up soon, sweetheart...I worry that this might finally push him over the edge.”

Occupying each seat outside of the small waiting area in the infirmary were the other students; wounds bandaged, yet their anxiety was palpable in the air. They had heard what had happened, yet were sheild by the other sorcerers who had called for back-up. Last they heard of Y/N was a scream before what sounded like a building collasping. “Do you think Y/N-senpai is alright?”

Yuji was the first one who dared to break the silence, glancing up from his clenched hands before him to glance at the others. “I mean...it must have been bad, since she was charted off as soon as back up arrived.” Yuji mutters softly as he tightened his fingers together, trying to stop them from shaking. He felt awful - if only he had spared a few seconds to glance over at his senpai, maybe she wouldn’t be in the condition she’s in now. “It’s not every day you’re rushed straight to Ieiri-sensei’s office...”

“...If there is one idiot who can pull through, it’ll be her,” Maki mumbles out quietly after awhile, looking away from her kouhai to stare down at the wooden floors of the building they were in. “Even if it’s bad, she always pulls through it...there is no reason why she can’t do it this time.” She mutters softly just as a pair of footsteps came towards them, causing everyone to look up at the approaching figure.

Gojo paused when he spotted the others, the question they wanted to ask was clear as day. And for once, Gojo wished that he was able to reassure them like he always does. For him to be able to put up the act that everything was alright, that everyone will be okay.

But he knew that it’ll do no justice if he did. “Is she...is she alright?”

The question that fell from Yuta’s mouth was left hanging in the air for a few moments, the sliver of hope they had moments ago slowly dimming with each passing moment. Quietly Gojo slipped his hands into his pockets, his blindfolded eyes downcast; too scared to see their reactions. For once, he wished that he was not the one to break the news to the students. “Y/N-chan...might not recovery from this.”

His words sent shock waves through the students, yet he balled his fists up in his pockets to continue with what he had to say. “She hit her head too hard...and if she was not subconsciously protecting herself with Cursed Energy all the time, the impact would have caused her skull to crack in two on impact. But it still took a lot out of her person, and Shoko said that-”

The sound of a metal chair being thrown backwards echoed across the room, causing Gojo to look up just in time to see Yuta standing up with wide eyes as he hastily tried to calm his friend. “Maki, you need to calm down.” He tried to reason with the girl, who had her backed turn to the group, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her jacket. “This isn’t your fault-” Yuta tried to reason, only to pause when Maki just silently started to walk away, leaving with no more but a loud slam of the main door that echoed down the hallway once more.

For a few moments no one said anything else, yet the first one to move was Megumi; who turned to face his sensei. “Can we visit her?” He mumbled out quietly, to which Gojo just glanced over at him with a slightly raised eyebrow. “Usually people talk to someone who is in a coma. Might jolt them awake or give them encouragement to fight harder...I am sure Y/N-senpai will get lonely if no one visited her..”

“Why not?” Gojo said after a few moments of thought, giving his students what he hope was a reassuring smile as he turns a little; nodding down the hallway. “Shoko managed to stabalise her condition. Just make sure to sanatise your hands at the door.”

Quietly the group of students followed behind their silent sensei, keeping close to one another as if they were trying to give each other comfort. The walk to the room seemed too far, the door seeming to grow further and further away from them with each step. It was if it was trying to stop them from seeing the truth; yet they didn’t stop. Yet soon they found themselves standing before the smooth door; the single grey name plaque with her name written in black resting in the silver plaque holder. “Right, here we are.”

After everyone was handed a blob of hand sanitiser and had wiped it onto their skin, the small group entered after a quiet knock to the door. “Y/N-chan, I’ve returned with the others...minus one, that is.” Gojo hummed out in delight as he made his way towards the bed, a silent gesture for the others to do the same. “You know Maki-chan though. Once she finishes beating herself up, she’ll come running back. She always does~”

Quietly the others made their way into the room, eyes scanning over the beeping machines and many wires connected to the sleeping girl. “Y/N...senpai..” Nobara mumbles out in shock, her eyes resting the ventilator; not believing that a girl that was bounding about the college earlier today now needed help to do something as simple as breathing. “No way...there is...”

A warm hand rest on the top of her head, Megumi quietly giving her a form of comfort whilst his wide eyes stared at the bed before him in shock. No one dared take a step forward, like they were standing on the other side of a fragile glass bridge that was moments away from breaking. “Y/N..”

Gojo felt the hole started to eat inside of him as he watches how his students were staring at their fellow classmate in shock. Quietly he settled down in the only seat at the corner of the room, watching from the shadows at how the others will react to seeing her in such a state. The first person to snap out of it was Yuta, who quietly places a hand on Toge’s shoulders before giving it a light squeeze. “Shall we go and say hello?”

Quietly Yuta made his way towards the bed, only to hesitate one step away from grabbing onto her hand. He stared at the frail hand, a simple IV needle carefully taped on the back of her palm for a few moments; a clear look of uncertainty on his face. Yet he took a deep breath, and with a trembling hand, carefully took Y/N’s cold hand in his. “I...Hi, Y/N...” Yuta mumbles quietly into the hospital room, voice barely heard over the constant beeping of the heart monitor. “Sorry...we took awhile to visit...and sorry that Maki isn’t here...I am sure she’ll drop by when she is ready though.”

The only response he got was the sound of the steady beep of the heart monitor, to which he just tighten his grip ever so slightly on Y/N’s unmoving hand. He could hear the soft giggle that Y/N would let out at his words, and if he felt tears welling up in his eyes as he hears her voice bouncing around inside his head.

“It’s alright, Yuta-san! I am sure you were busy before that. And I know Maki-chan will come after you leave - but you didn’t hear that secret from me~”

The silence of the hospital room made Yuta sick to the stomach, the idea that he might never hear Y/N’s voice again started to really sink in. Her usually warm and familiar touch felt cold and lifeless, causing Yuta to carefully tuck her hand underneath her hospital blanket; as if he was trying to warm it up once more. “I...I am going to go grab her favourite stuffed animal from her room. I am sure she’d love to have something of comfort whilst she’s here...if you’ll excuse me.”

Without another word Yuta just walked out of the room quietly, Yuji being the only one turning to watch his senpai leave with a look of concern. Out of everyone Yuji was definitely the one who seemed to be able to hold himself together the most, so it was no surprise when he was the one that went next. “Yo, Y/N-senpai,” Yuji greeted quietly as he walked towards the hospital bed, easily dodging all the wires and such. After all, this wasn’t his first time visiting someone he cares for in the hospital. “Can you hear me? I hope you can - or not Fushiguro might lecture me for being loud.”

The other sorcerer couldn’t even find his voice whilst Yuji continues on; his voice soft yet soothing as he looks down at his senpai with nothing more but a soft smile. “I know you’re trying your hardest go come back to us, and you’d probably tell us that we’re not the ones to blame. That you’re a big girl now, and things like this happen all the time.” Yuji continues, the only indication to his change of mood was the slight quiver that was hard to hide. Yet Yuji continued on anyway. “I hope you know we miss you...and we’re worried sick that you’re in the state you are now. But I know that you need some time to rest up, and soon you’ll be back on your feet again, right? ‘Cause..b-because that’s how you’ve always been.”

Silence enveloped the room once more, with Yuji just not sure on what else to say to her as he stared at her pale face. The other three in the room sort of just huddled together, all of them unsure of what to say to her. They weren’t the best with emotional words - beside Toge, who usually doesn’t use words at all - so asking them to keep their tone in check whilst referring to their unconscious classmate is a little too much for them.

So after awhile Yuji decided to lead them out of the hospital room, giving Gojo a parting smile before he closes the door behind him. Leaving him alone as he stared at the slumbering figure of his student as he rests his elbows on his parted knees. Quietly he rests his head in his hands, eyes closed as he tried to push back the light migraine that was coming on. He hates that it is his duty to break the news to the others - her parents, her elders. Heck, he has to give a call to Nanami and Utahime to tell them the bad news.

If it was anything else, he wound be more than excited to blow their phones up. But this? He wishes that the duty was handed to someone else - because he himself doesn’t even believe that this was happening in the first place.

He wishes that this was all just a terrible nightmare.

Maki quietly pushed the window open as she climbed in from the roof, the doors of halls of the infirmary long going silent; cicadas chirping away in the night sky. Maki quietly stuffed her hands into the pockets of her hoodie, eyes racking over Y/N’s sleeping form, to the amount of machines that were working by her side to make sure that she’s alive. “Hey, idiot...I’ve arrived.”

Quietly she made her way towards Y/N’s bedside, her eyes clouding over with an unreadable emotion. If she was being honest, she didn’t know how to react right now. On one hand, she was pissed - she is pissed off because she could have done something to help Y/N. Maybe if she was just faster, just a bit more aware, maybe if she was training to try harder. Maybe if she can just try harder-

A loud slap sounded across the room, Maki having pulled her hand out of her pocket to slap across her cheek hard to snap out of the spiraling thoughts. The burning sting on her cheek reminded her to return to reality before she started to trash the room out of anger, something that she and Y/N had been working on for some time now. Y/N would always say, “You should never turn to anger and violence to deal with your issues!”

Maki wonders what her reaction would be if she had saw Maki slapping herself so hard that there was a light handprint on the side of her cheek. “You’re so annoying, you know that?”

With a tired sigh Maki settled down in the seat that Gojo had occupied earlier in the day, keeping her eyes on the steady heart monitor; her eyes following the spike that indicates the faint heartbeat of Y/N. “Who the hell knew that it took an entire building to really get you hurt.” Maki sigh as she tore her eyes away from the screen, looking down at her boots quietly; examining all the scuffs and scratches on marring the smooth leather. “Call me stupid, but I really thought that it’d take more than that. Remember when you had jumped out the window of the 10th floor and left with no more but a bruise? You were crying about it ‘cause you couldn’t wear dresses for about 2 weeks.”

Maki let out a tired laugh at the memory of finding Yuta trying to reassure a crying Y/N when she found the bruise on her knee; Yuta just patting her head with the most amused look on his face whilst she cried her eyes out at the idea that she can’t wear her cute dresses until it cleared up. “Imagine what will happen when you wake up from this? God, that is going to be a pain.”

A soft sigh left Maki’s lips as she glances over at the stuffed sheep that Yuta had brought from her room; along with a few more random stuffed animals that surrounded her head like a halo. This caused her to smile sadly as she rests her head on her shoulder, watching her for a few minutes without saying anything. Maki had always been bad with words and emotions; with all the things she had gone through when she was younger. Wording how she feels and emotions are not Maki’s favourite thing to deal with, since she wants to keep this badass, strong woman front she has on all the time to prove something to her elders.

“You better wake up from this, or not I am going to kick your ass.” Maki mutters after a few moments, getting up with a tired sigh before she casts her another glance at Y/N. Without missing a beat, she reaches over to brush strands of hair away from her face, warm hand resting on her head for a few moments before she places a few parting pats on her head; something she had always done when she needs to leave for a mission or a meeting outside of school.

“‘Night, brat. Wake up soon, okay?” Maki mutters, and with a final sigh she made her way towards the window she climbed in once more, quietly shutting it behind her after she hauled herself over the railing. It was only in the dead of the night that Maki quietly lets her tears fall, biting her lip hard to stop whatever sounds that were threatening to leave her lips.

Because at the end of the day she is stubborn, and refuses to believe that this might be her new reality.

A week had passed since the day that the others found out that Y/N had fallen into a coma of a sorts, and everyone would visit at least once just to see if there is any sight of change. That there might be a sign that she was going to wake up soon. And there were slight changes; a few days after she had been admitted she was allowed to get off the ventilator and rely on oxygen instead. But she was still in bad shape.

Nanami tries to make time to drop by to visit as well, coming over to quietly read pages of the book that he was reading. Whenever Y/N was sick, she would call Nanami over the phone and ask if the man can read to her; something about how she finds comfort in his voice that puts her at ease. And since Ieiri had encouraged them to talk to her more for stimulation, Nanami takes the time to read to her after a long day of work. It brought him some comfort as well, listening to the constant beeping of the heart monitor and the humming of the other machines around her.

Gojo would sometimes drop by as well, only to berate Nanami for his ‘boring’ book choices; and an unconscious Y/N has to endure two adults arguing about book choices and how Gojo’s titles are definitely not appropriate to even bring onto school grounds.

Besides the occasional argument, sometimes Gojo will prop his phone up against a vase of flowers that Yuji brings so that Utahime can FaceTime him; the students from the Kyoto side being able to see and talk to the slumbering Y/N. For the most part, everyone was shocked that she was in the state she was in; having never expected such a bright and talkative person can fall into such a state.

The most distraught one was definitely Todo, who had almost jumped out of his seat and make a full on dash towards Tokyo if it wasn’t for Noritoshi and Mai joining together to restrain the man, along with Principal Gakuganji threating to hold him back from their planned trip to Tokyo the following week that had him calming down.

But barely - the man is still more than ready to just up and run across the country just so he can be closer to his ‘beloved Y/N-chan’.

Every day, without fail, Toge will come into her hospital room with a new accessory to pull her hair back into; carefully brushing her hair out and applying dry shampoo so it wasn’t greasy to the touch. Once he was satisifed he’d carefully style her hair back so it didn’t get in the way of her checkups, taking his time with everything so he gets to spend more time with her. He doesn’t say much, he usually finds that doesn’t whenever he is around her; so he takes his time when he does her hair in hopes that she can feel that he is there for her.

Yuta and Megumi will find time after classes to go and visit her together, telling her about everything that had happened whilst she is asleep. Sometimes Nobara will visit as well, must for the most time she’d come alone in the evening after dinner to just rant to her about everything that she found annoying that happened over the day. Nobara usually stay until Ieiri comes to kick her out, hoping that Maki might come in as well to visit Y/N.

But Maki never does - yet everyone knows that Maki finds the time in her day to go and visit her like everyone else. However, no one dared to ask her how or when she does it. They’ve accepted that it was probably a sensitive subject to her, and that it’s off limits to ask her unless you want her to ignore you for the rest of the day. Gojo had learnt it the hard way when he had teased her, only to be thrown out the window of their classroom by an annoyed Maki.

Even his Infinity is no match for that woman’s wrath.

Days soon led into weeks, with slow but not so encouraging signs of improvement from the young girl. The elders of her clan and her parents had visited the college as soon as they can, and had kept tabs with every single thing that is going on with her. There was no denying the fear of her suddenly relapsing once more, and soon it will become too much for her parents to bear. The idea of keeping Y/N around, knowing that she is in so much pain, just for their selfish want of keeping her alive was a reality they want to avoid.

The once vibrant and lively campus soon turned gloomy; the hallways of the school quiet without the familiar sound of bunny-themed slippers running across its worn-out flooring. The chime of a familiar giggle was missing in the air, along with a dreamy voice that just never seems to stop; no matter what time of the day it is. There were days where the others forget that Y/N was not there to make dinner for the night, or she wasn’t there when they want to ask her opinion about something. Her room, which once served as a sanctuary for the students who can’t sleep at night, now became too painful to even walk past on certain days.

Yet everyone tried their hardest to go on with their days, knowing that it was what Y/N wanted them to do. If they were to allow their grief to consume them whole, they knew the delicate routine they had rebuilt would crumble before them. And if there is one thing they can do to keep Y/N’s memory alive, is to live their lives to the fullest. To try and cherish each and every day, no matter how painful reality is without her by their side.

They have to try, for her sake.

It wasn’t until a month passed when Yuta had came running into the lunch hall, looking like he had seen a ghost as he tried to catch his breath. “Okkotsu-senpai?” Megumi asks in concern as he looks over at the older man, putting his tray down to try and give his panting senpai a hand. “Are you-” He asked, only to have Yuta put a hand up to stop him as he took a few deep gulps of air.

“A-Awake...Y/N...Y/N is awake.”

Within a few seconds the students were sprinting across campus, none of them believing what Yuta had said until they have see it for themselves. What is usually a 10 minute walk from the lunch hall took about four minutes with them sprinting, possibly annoying half of the cleaners of the school that they were breaking the no running rule. Yet they didn’t stop even at their annoyed outcries, the simple wooden door of the infirmary almost coming off its hinges at how hard Maki had thrown it open.

Maki was the one who pushed the hospital room door open, causing the people in the room to jump in shock. Including Y/N, who had let out a soft squeak of shock; her voice hoarse from not using it for so long. The others blinked in shock at the sight of Y/N’s bright eyes meeting theirs at the doorway, ones that blinked before she gave them the biggest smile she can muster.

“H-Hi.” Y/N mumbles softly, to which Nanami just gave her a rare smile as he gently rubs her back, Gojo smirking softly as he recorded the reactions of the others by the door. He had gotten over the shock a few moments ago. “Don’t strain yourself, Y/N-chan. Remember what Ieiri-sensei said about straining your voice.” The blonde man hummed before he turned his blue eyes over at the shocked students as well. “And that goes to you too. If you all stress her out, I am not against tossing you all out.”

Y/N made a noise and turned to try and reassure the older man, not noticing how the others were staring at her in shock. The first person to move was Maki, whose eyes look suspicious wet as she stormed into the room. “I am going to kill you.” She growled out loudly, to which Y/N jumped before she held her arms out for protection; feeling a shiver of fear go up her spine. Yet before she can make a move to stop her, Maki suddenly wrapped her up in a hug, the arms that Y/N held out to try and pacify her angry classmate freezing from the unnatural reaction from Maki.

Y/N blinks for a few moments before she smiles softly and wraps Maki up in her arms as well, gently patting her head as Maki silently wets her shoulder with her tears. “I know.” Y/N mumbles out softly before her eyes met the others, giving them a soft smile as she gently gestures to the others to enter her room. Soon there was just a huge ball of crying teenagers hugging one another on Y/N’s hospital bed; Gojo and Nanami having moved aside to give them more space for their reunion as they watched on from the other side of the room. “Should we stop them?”

“Nah, we might get murdered if we try.” Gojo said with a hum as he grins over the sound of intelligible crying, looking over at Nanami who had a ghost of a smile on his lips at the sight. “Besides, this is great content. I never had a video of Maki crying before.” Gojo admitted, to which Nanami’s smile dropped as he looked over at him in annoyance.

“Why am I not surprised at all?”

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alygatorwrites · 4 years ago

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can I request a lil something? during the end of the manga or after the timeskip if you haven't read it yet, reiner still has feelings for historia and reader has one-sided feelings for him.

pieck gives reiner a small hint, saying he's wasting time while there's someone close to him that cares for him and points to you. he doesn't understand at first and maybe is conflicted about his feelings for you because of historia. reader is cool about it as she doesn't expect him to reciprocate her feelings.

a rollercoaster of emotions later, maybe there is a happy ending tho? i am curious to see what you can come up with 😭😭 i have dreaming of this scenario before bed and i can't help but get jealous of his crush on historia abjdsndks maybe you can help reiner reciprocate reader-chan's feelings or not

thank u so much aly 💖🥺

reciprocation

pairing: reiner braun x reader

a/n: OMG yesss! honestly, i was kinda annoyed at how reiner still had a crush on historia. i know that isayama wanted to show how everything went back to normal, but i was hoping that reiner would have a bigger role in the allied nations instead of being "dumbed down" to having an obsession with her. MAYBE THATS JUST THE JEALOUSY SPEAKING LMAO 😭 i was hoping this would be longer, although school has been killing me so im really sorry!! i hope its okay 💗💕 thank you honey!

↳ to be added to my taglist, please fill out this ♡form♡

as reiner is handed historia’s letter, you fold your hands on the table and watch him without a word. when he reads the lines and smells the parchment - jean saying something snarky afterward - you say nothing.

you want reiner to be happy: you want to see him at ease like this more, face soft as the leaf of the page flits from his pinched fingers.

and so you let the man speak about historia like she’s a damn goddess, gushing over her handwriting, and keep your goddamn mouth shut. ignore your jealousy. your feelings.

the truth is, you’re in love with reiner.

you can’t even remember how it happened, but you can remember the first time you looked into those hazel eyes, and how you knew that they were going to stick with you for eternity.

you’ve come to accept his crush on the queen, though. reciprocation was never an option in your mind.

when jean begins to chew reiner out for lusting after a married woman, and reiner says something about jean being a horse, pieck’s gaze lands on you. “you’re rather quiet,” she says softly, resting her head on her palm.

you shrug, turning away from her. “i’m just tired.”

pieck catches your chin between her lithe fingers, and turns you to face her with a tiny smile. the young woman is very perceptive, and you’ve known her long enough.

that’s when you notice the twinkle in her eye. she’s planning something.

pieck releases your jaw then, sitting up in her chair. “you’re wasting your time, reiner,” she says suddenly. “there’s already someone you know who cares for you.”

you pretend to not hear pieck - and definitely pretend you don’t see her faintly point at you through your peripheral. the movement of her fingers is barely there, but you catch it.

damn you, pieck.

the way you’re now pinned underneath armin, jean, connie, and reiner’s stares makes your stomach tie itself into knots with bubbling reluctance. shit, this is awkward. you want to run away.

still, you peer over to study reiner’s reaction. he looks confused at first, the contours of his face unreadable. you swear you see connie facepalm at the man’s cluelessness.

then reiner’s expression slowly changes: his eyes widen in awe, lips parting slightly, and brows knitting together. he seems genuinely surprised - and conflicted.

conflicted? why?

there’s no time to explain yourself though, because the door creaks open and annie steps in. her words fall on your deaf ears, and when everyone stands up to leave, you’re the first one out of the room. work beckons you as always.

two days pass.

you’ve been busy filling out tons of paperwork pertaining to the allied nations, so when you’re finally given a day off, you take it with open arms.

freedom at last.

you lean against a bench outside of headquarters, enjoying the salty breeze that flutters along your skin. it’s dusk, the sky covered in a gradient of neon colors as the sun dips below the horizon.

you haven’t seen reiner since that day in the conference room. you wonder how he’s doing, what he’s thinking, how he’s holding up -

“hey.”

speak of the devil. you glance over your shoulder toward the voice, low and familiar.

reiner approaches you, clad in his uniform: the suit hugs his large frame perfectly, showing every flex of his muscles, and his blonde hair is neatly parted. the black tie looped around his neck just pulls it all together. it has you weak at the knees every. single. time.

“hey,” you answer, giving reiner a smile as he stops beside you.

and that’s when your heart lurches at the sight of him.

the sunset highlights reiner’s profile in gold, a heavenly shine that settles upon his blonde lashes and the flawless slope of his nose. the flecks in his irises sparkle – a beautiful mixture of soft browns and muted greens. the only thing you can do right now is admire the man.

his words are what breaks you out of your daydream.

“work has been crazy lately, huh?” reiner says, focused on the candy-floss clouds and their fluffy shapes.

“well - yeah, pretty much. i don’t want to look at a pen or a piece of paper ever again.”

“that bad?”

“you have no idea. i almost regret marley and paradis reconciling.”

reiner chuckles gently at the joke, but it’s strained. his forehead remains creased, and he’s not really smiling. the emotion there is more … doubtful. it’s like he’s having some sort of inner conflict.

hopefully reiner’s not acting cautious because of the other day. you know he doesn’t return your feelings, and that’s totally okay. you’re happy enough being with him like this. “i’m not mad or anything, y’know.”

reiner stiffens at that. there’s a white flash of teeth when he chews on his lower lip. “i know.”

“good,” you hum, breathing out a sigh of relief. your core twists with envy when you force a grin. bite it back. tease him like always. “so about historia … ”

reiner’s eyes go wide almost comically, and you hear the breath in his lungs leave his firm chest in one exhale. there’s a light blush staining his cheeks now. it’s funny; he’s so goddamn big, yet he’s such a teddy bear.

“y-yeah,” reiner mutters. you observe the way his brows pinch together as he awkwardly shifts in place. it takes a while before the man composes himself again, which is strange.

is he scared or something? what the hell?

“pieck,” reiner hesitates for a moment. the golden strands of his hair ruffle in the wind and he appears ... well, lost. “was she being serious?”

the question is a shocker - jeez, he could have at least let you prepare yourself. a firm ‘no’ almost slips out, but you’ve never been much of a liar. not to reiner, anyway. crossing your arms against your chest, you inhale sharply and nod. avoid staring at him face-to-face. “yep.”

“ … why me?”

reiner says the words with a mixture of spite and anguish, a casual and rumbling voice. you immediately turn your head, frowning. “what?”

“i’ve done so many horrible things.” reiner exhales heavily and stares down at his hands; perhaps he’s imagining all the blood they’ve been stained with. “i betrayed everyone. i killed innocent people - all because i was selfish.”

it’s no surprise that reiner is broken after everything he’s been through, but it pains you to know that he continues to suffer in silence. whatever war is raging inside his ribcage tears him apart piece by piece, and you wish you could carry the burden.

there’s probably nothing you can say to convince reiner that he was just a kid, a victim of circumstance. there’s nothing that can persuade him to see himself the way you do.

so you decide to tell reiner why you love him.

you explain the amount of admiration you hold for him. tell him that you love the way he just wants to be someone his comrades can lean on, like a big brother. tell him that you think he’s the most gorgeous person you’ve ever seen and how you think he deserves the world.

the way you spill your guts out snaps every nerve in your body. you don’t say everything you want to – but you tell him enough. a dark flush spreading across your face, you find the courage to look at him.

the world seems to stop on its axis when you find reiner staring right on back. the intensity of his eyes is stunning; they’re lit up with astonishment and affection.

god, the affection. you see it clear as day. maybe one of the greatest regrets in his life is how he forced himself to see you only as a friend.

that’s when he reaches out to you.

reiner retracts his hand twice, unsure, before slowly brushing his fingertips against yours. the touch is so feather-light that you almost can’t feel it. it’s a test - he’s waiting to see if you pull away. you can’t even move if you wanted to, because his fond gaze keeps you rooted to the spot before him.

when you don’t recoil, reiner finally moves to gently hold your hand; his palm is so much bigger than yours, and your fingers slot together perfectly, like a jigsaw puzzle’s final piece.

heart thrumming like a hummingbird has been stuffed into your chest, you’re almost at a loss for words and come to a realization.

this utterly amazing man likes you. always has.

but reiner shoved away the feelings for one simple reason; you deserved ‘better.’ focusing on the old crush he had on historia was a distraction - an attempt to convince himself to stop thinking about you.

because looking at you everyday and not being able to act upon his feelings was too painful.

“is this okay?” reiner asks lowly. there’s a slight pinkness to his cheeks, the color of a selfless love.

by some miracle, you manage to nod dumbly. “yeah, of course. it’s fine.” it’s amazing is what you actually want to say.

reiner squeezes your hand at the reassurance, a sigh escaping from his throat. “i really—”

you wait for him to finish, but he doesn’t. reiner just searches your profile for signs of discomfort, and then untwines your hands to bravely swipe a thumb along the length of your cheekbone.

there’s no time to speak because he’s already leaning down.

the sensation of reiner’s lips pressing against yours lights your skin ablaze; you can feel the curling flames of passion sear your soul, made even more intense by the warmth of the sunlight on your back.

it’s natural, it’s tender, it’s warm.

reiner’s breath rattles into your mouth when you rest both palms against his solid chest and deepen the kiss. the musky smell of his aftershave and cologne envelops you completely, and fuck, it’s so good. your arms wrap around him, fingers passing over the sharp slopes of his shoulder blades.

as much as you wish the kiss could go on endlessly, there are people gathering outside. avoiding any unwanted attention from nosy strangers is very much appreciated.

you pull away to nuzzle your nose into reiner, and he rests his chin on your shoulder, protective arms moving to loop around your waist. it’s such an intimate caress that it sparks your brain into overdrive.

as the rushing sound of the breeze comes back to your ears through the quiet, you tuck the kiss away to be remembered forever. that’s all there is to it. being close to reiner like this - swaying together like wildflowers in the wind - is more important than anything else.

“i like you,” reiner murmurs.

the suddenness of it makes you laugh, and you can feel the upward quirk of reiner’s lips - a whisper of a peaceful smile and a sweet, sweet promise.

#timeskip reiner still sexy asf #I just wanna hug and kiss him ugh #reiner braun x reader #reiner x reader #aot x reader #attack on titan fanfiction #snk x reader #reiner braun #reiner x you #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin

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