#i can now tell the different tones for different speech bubbles

[kingkatsuki]

— command

It’s been a while, huh?

Pairing: Inumaki Toge x f!reader.

Warnings: 18+, piss (from reader), omorashi, fingering, multiple orgasms, Toge uses his cursed speech on you (but also doesn’t really need to), overstimulation.

Word Count: 1.3k.

Toge loves the way your body writhes when you’re desperate to pee — It’s different from the way you move when you cum. Adding a feverish tremble to your body that has him seeing you in a way he’s positive no one else ever will, something that somehow makes it far more intimate.

And it’s certainly different from when you’re out together in public. When you look up at him so sweetly, telling him that you need to go and you’ll be right back while he watches your hips swish as you walk away. His sordid thoughts immediately wandering to how you look with your panties pulled down around your knees, and your cheeks flush and warm.

Kind of like the way he has you right now.

It’s the subtle shimmy paired with the way you squeeze your plush thighs together that gives you away. Your frilly pink panties stretched around your knees, biting down on your glossy bottom lip as you try to think of something — anything — other than the desperation pulsing inside you. His fingers are still buried deep inside you as he feels your velvety walls clamp down around them, already damp with your slick as your chest stops heaving. Doing everything in your power to ignore the incessant throb as piercing violet eyes stare down at you inquisitively.

“Takana?” He murmurs in questioning, as though he can’t tell — can’t feel — exactly what you need right now. The simple word followed by a deep cough that vibrates theoygh him, causing the fingers inside you to shake as you let out a desperate whine. Trying in vein to tighten your thighs around his wrist, a feeble attempt at preventing his calloused fingertips from dragging against the spongy spot inside you as they press down hard.

You’d lost count of the number of times he’d made you cum this evening. Uncertain whether his cursed speech even mattered at all when his fingers seemed to find the exact spots inside you that would have you seeing stars with minimal effort. As though he knew your body better than you could ever know and was determined to prove it — and he would.

“S-stop,” You exhale, hips arching away from the bed as you feel tears begin to clump in your thick lashes, “I can’t.”

Inumaki hates how his body reacts to your pleas. His cock pulses at the desperate tone, leaking fresh pre as he feels the fabric of his boxers stick to his skin beneath grey sweats. Biting down hard enough on his bottom lip to draw blood to stop himself from creaming his boxers. You’re peering up at him with those same glassy eyes and he knows in that moment he isn’t going to stop until he’s satisfied.

“Okaka.” He curves his thumb up to drag through the mess between your thighs as he finds your puffy clit, grinning at the way your body jolts upon contact. The debauched mewl that spills from your lips goes directly to his cock as his heavy balls pulse with desire.

“Toge, please—” You gasp as he starts to circle your clit, creating a delicious friction that has your eyes rolling back into your skull, “I need to pee.”

Reaching down to wrap your hands around his slender wrist, your nails dig into the sensitive skin as you try one final time to get him to pull away and give you a moments reprieve. But his grip remains firm, brows furrowed as his eyes glaze with a boldened intensity that has you shaking beneath him.

“I’ll come right back.”

“Tuna.” He groans, trying to meet your gaze as he begs you to focus. The thought easier said than done when you can feel the familiar pressure continuing to build inside you, your toes curling as you try to hold back.

Your entire body feels warm, a molten lava bubbling inside you as it threatens to erupt. Uncertain if you can even cum again after the number of times Inumaki had you coming undone beneath him.

A sulfuric taste settles at the back of his throat as he swallows thickly, trying to ease the temptation to cough before one final use of his cursed speech. The word hangs on the tip of his tongue as he swirls your clit with practised intricacy, wondering whether he really needs to use it at all. Already feeling the telltale signs of your impending release as he reaches his other hand up to press down on your pelvis, increasing the pressure as you feel your body falling into bliss.

Inumaki watches as you come undone, the pretty sounds that tumble from your lips have him grinding his clothes cock against the bed as he lays beside you. Your tight walls quiver around him and your clit pulses under his touch — But it’s not enough, he wants to ruin you.

“Cum.” He rasps, his throat tight. The cough that follows has him leaning forward, placing even more pressure on your pelvis as he leans his weight on you.

You’re already experiencing the first waves of your climax before he commands you, unable to stop the scorching pleasure from flowing through your veins as you’re catapulted into another climax at the same time. You don’t even realise you’re screaming his name before you have no other choice but to let go.

A warm flow of piss begins to seep from your pliant body as Inumaki continues to swirl your clit, sending the stream in every direction as you feel it begin to soak the sheets beneath your naked body and stick to your inner thighs. The sounds that reverberate around the room make your body warm as embarrassment begins to surge through your consciousness. Inumaki focuses on the slick echo as he deliberately seeks to pull more of those debauched noises from your weeping hole, groaning deep and low in his throat as he feels your piss soak his palm and trickle down his wrist as you leave crimson crescent-shaped moons in his skin.

“Ikura.” The expletive paired with the raspy tone to his voice only serves to have your walls clenching down around him as you ride out your high. His grey sweats darkened with a mixture of your bodily fluids as he looms over you, eyes focused and intent on the mess between your thighs as he pulls your trembling legs apart.

“F-uck.” You drawl, tears now freely escaping down your temples and onto the soft pillow beneath you as you stare blearily up at the ceiling. Your body completely lax as Inumaki begins to stroke a calloused palm along your outer thigh, his thumb dipping into the curve of your hip as your chest heaves in gulps of air.

The mess beneath you sticks to your skin uncomfortably against sodden sheets as you feel the bed dip when Inumaki moves to stand, but not before placing a lingering kiss against your swollen clit. His lips curl into a grin when he feels you jolt beneath him at the sudden contact, narrowing your eyes as you pout childishly.

“Look at the mess you made.” You whine.

“Okaka.” He shakes his head, causing wisps of hair to cover his eyes. He holds his hand up, his palm glistening beneath the glow of light in your bedroom as he raises a brow. A look that would cause you to swing a fist in his direction if it wasn’t for how completely ruined you felt right now.

“It was your fault.” You huff as Inumaki chuckles, reaching down to grab his discarded shirt off the floor to soak up some of the mess between your thighs.

And perhaps it was, but he was absolutely going to do it again.

[loupy-mongoose]

Lil speech guide: Randy's speech Jamie's speech (Pokespeak will be in parentheses.)

It got pretty long, so under the Bar it goes!

PREVIOUS NEXT

~~~~~~

Jamie, the Gardevoir, and the three Lindens stood locked in tense silence. Randy fought to string together an explanation that wouldn't give away too much, while also trying to gauge Akoya's stance.

Jamie was the first to break the silence. Her expression hardened, her eyes displaying a sharp fury. Well? I'm not letting you a step further until I know it's not a threat.

The pointed stick in her hand lowered to point toward the family, and her authoritative tone chilled Randy. She meant business, which didn't help ease the man's racing mind.

Akoya answered before Randy could, her voice a bit too defensive in his opinion. It's none of your business what's in our bag. It's stuff for travel! What's wrong with that?!

Jamie clearly didn't believe her for a second. Her icy eyes bore into the white haired visitor. I won't tolerate a threat at my home. Tell me what's in there, or you WILL leave. Her eyes flashed ominously. Or worse.

Feeling a wave of protectiveness, Randy shuffled to stand in front of Akoya and Lavender. He hoped they couldn't feel the surge of utter dread that coursed through his body.

Listen, Jamie. He tried to keep his voice low, level, and non-threatening. What's in that bag is very precious to us, and we can't show you out here where others might see it. If we can go somewhere private, then maybe we can work something out.

He felt the sharp jab of Akoya's disapproval from behind him. Between her and the protesting red-head in front of them, he felt his resolve being wringed out of him.

Jamie stood still, her glare unwavering. After a moment, her head lifted slightly as she addressed their Pokemon company in an strong bark. (Darren, Sheila, Percy, please hide us with your wings.)

Percy and Darren gave startled, bewildered looks, while Sheila tilted her head and chuffed questioningly. But they did as she asked, reaching out to their widest wingspans, touching tip-to-tip with each other.

The Lindens hesitantly shuffled to adjust their positions as their space shrank.

There. Jamie eyed them all closely You wanted somewhere private; this is it. If you still won't show me, you'll have to leave.

Randy and Akoya glanced nervously at each other.

What could be done?

They came to a silent agreement.

Akoya turned back to Jamie, giving her a glare that verged on desperation. We're showing you because you forced our hand. NOT because we trust you. If you try anything...

To Randy's surprise, he caught a falter in Jamie's resolve, and something changed. A new expression slipped into her demeanor, if only barely.

Curiosity.

The look on Jamie's face turned from shock to determination.

Swiftly she addressed her three winged Pokemon. (Spread the word; we need to find a little pink Mew with blue accents. It is to be brought back to these three safely and secretly.)

The three beasts nodded in sincerity and took off.

Persim poked his head of of the bag, his face etched in horror, while Momo was shrieking. Stay in there for now, Perzi. Randy's voice was shaky, but reassuring. We'll handle it. Could you please try to calm Momo down?

The orange feline nodded uncertainly and ducked back into the bag. Randy saw a green bubble form in it as he zipped it shut. Momo's screams went quiet, but he knew it was just contained by the bubble. Poor Persim...

The red-headed girl looked solemnly at the devastated family, her expression softer than any of them had seen from her yet. I'm truly sorry about that... I promise you all, this is the best place for a Pokemon like them to be lost at. There will be lots of good Pokemon looking for them, and any humans will be curious at worst. It might scare them, but nobody will hurt them.

I would've done things differently if I'd known they were in there...

Akoya gave up looking nearby for her son and took a breath. She turned to Jamie, for once without venom. Listen, Jamie, with all due respect, we'll be able to find him easier than your little... network, or whatever you have here. He's gotta be terrified! He might just keep teleporting away if strangers find him, human or Pokemon...

Jamie folded her arms with a hesitant nod. You're free to search too, if you think so. Maybe you're right, and he'll only show for you guys. But if anyone spots him, I'll hear of it, so I'd best stick with you.

Akoya gave an uncertain look and opened her mouth to speak. But, feeling her about to protest, Randy interrupted her. We can talk later. Let's go find Midas.

~~~~~~

PREVIOUS NEXT

New skill acquired~

And just for the fun of it, I'm uh... gonna share some of the (very) rough sketches I did for this part, because I find them hilarious.

Luna (my cat) randomly decided to leave the comfort of her cat tower to come lay on my arm. The trouble was, it was my drawing arm. So I made due. XD

[madforhoran]

I'm gonna go off (cuz I can) as I wanna clear this up once and for all, hopefully. This post has been inspired by couple of my mutuals who are also trauma survivors.

These takes are still circulating:

Astarion cannot consent to anything because trauma & he cannot say No.

Astarion is forcing himself to have sex and the cemetery.

To start this all off, Neil is a god-tier voice actor and he's demonstrating perfectly well when Astarion is being honest or playful.

Instances where Astarion says No directly / implies it / expresses his disagreement because his boundaries are about to be or were crossed:

-> says No to Araj

-> says No to Tav (he tells Tav in-between the lines 'let's put a pause on sex' and if Tav misreads it and crosses his boundaries, breakup follows = "I didn't know how to say no, but I do now")

-> he refuses to take the astral tadpole

-> he doesn't wanna participate in an orgy when you take him to the brothel before his personal quest resolution

-> he's ready to rip a new one when Tav says his siblings should've kidnapped him

-> he doesn't wanna kiss Tav or continue the romantic relationship if they turn full squid

It is a player’s problem where they force or intimidate him into saying yes.

Instances when Astarion is being playful and lovey because he loves Tav:

-> how can I say No? (when it's just a stupid love test at the circus that doesn't mean anything)

-> how could I say No? (when Tav asks for a kiss, he's being a tease)

There is a clear tonal difference between these No's and situations above.

At the cemetery, he gives us the big beautiful speech where he finally answers "what do you want?" with genuine "You, I want you." and goes on how Tav cared, was patient, trusted him. How safe and seen he feels.

"I love you, I love this, and I want it all."

Now the big sentence which for whatever reason gets twisted that he's forcing himself to have sex & hasn't given consent. You've heard him say all of those beautiful words previously, in Neil's honest genuine tone. Astarion is being genuine and honest when he drops the high pitch.

"If a night of passion is on offer, I could be persuaded."

The man has poured his entire heart out there and is telling Tav [ONLY SLIGHTLY HORNY, NEIL] that he's ready to have sex. He's saying "if YOU are offering, then I'm up for this, to get down and dirty right here on top of my grave". If you tell him instead that you're not ready or you won't do it, he's taken aback and disappointed.

In the spawn!ending Astarion completes the arc of "what do you want?"

"What do any of us want?"

"I'm not sure, it's been so long since I got to decide what I wanted."

"You, I want you."

Astarion has trauma but he is a character with trauma, not trauma walking on two legs. You as a player are actively guiding him through it and when he gets it and asserts his boundaries you cannot just backtrack and say, wait a second you have trauma, you're not allowed to step out of your trauma bubble ever and you're not capable of consent.

It's like saying SA victims in real life are never going to be able to consent to sex (or anything for that matter) or ever move on in their lives from what happened to them.

[evil-peanut-butter-addict-sam]

@shelbygraces

shut your bubble gum dumb dumb skin tone chicken bone google chrome no homo flip phone disowned ice cream cone garden gnome extra chromosome metronome dimmadome genome full blown monochrome student loan indiana jones over grown flint stone X and Y Chromosome friend zome sylvester stalone sierra leone auto zone friend zone professionally seen silver patrone big headed ASS UP You and your splotchy hair dye you can't ever choose what color you want, like make up your mind, lovejoys music is better then what you will ever make because you have made NOTHING against them you have been on YouTube for what over 10 years and almost 20 years? And your just now getting 100,00? Sad that just shows that your own 'supporters' aren't even supporting you and just sending absolute shit on us. For God's sakeI had a BLOODY TAMPON tell me to kms all because I had a Wilbur Soot costume you need to learn to control your subs everyone else can why can't you? With how far apart your eyes are I would be way to long to get from one eye to the other I would have to get a pit stop on your nose before anything, your fashion style is practically equivalent to a 7 year old girls closet. The only reason why they replace William with you in QSMP is because you would have never made it when everyone else got a invite, I'm surprised you even got the amount of support you have gotten because you weren't even known even after the relationship with Wilbur you only started getting your fame is because your a selfish little bitch that doesn't know when to stfu. On the selfishness side of you why didn't you give your fans the merch you absolutely promised them? Was it because you where too small of a creator even then to collaborate with someone? "I'd settle for a gun-" Yeah Wilbur we all would settle for the gun them having to hear her loud annoying voice, Shelby you wanted to say it's weird to be friends with minors because Wilbur was friends with tubbo and Tom when they were kids still but your in your early 30S AND FRIENDS WITH AIMSEY WHEN SHE WAS A MINOR you hypocrite "He had a ant infestation" Oh? Now did he? I would like proof on that. Or if I'm gonna be honest you probably don't even have proof like EVERYTHING ELSE and if you did have proof you would have showed it in the first stream. Wil said that he has many different pieces of proof showing you consented but he's not showing them for YOUR OWN PRIVACY AND SAFETY. " hello! My name is Shubble and welcome bsck to my channel" YOU SOUND LIKE STITCH IN YOUR INTROS WTF?? AND YOUR INTRO VOICE LITERALLY HASNT CHANGED IN THE PAST SIX DAMN YEARS? GET CREATIVE MAKE SOMETHING NEW. "I have alot of opinions about sounds in minecraft, what are the best sounds, what are the worst sounds" 1. Damn right you have opinions i think its obvious with the amount of time you have come out with almost every single popular ex of yours and there's suddenly something that went wrong in every damn one. 2 you are the worst sound not just on minecraft but in mankind. 3 William gold has the most iconic and funny ass minecraft sounds. "Just another thrift hall!" Why? Because you can't afford full priced clothing? "I will not be dying mu hair anymore" Then why the hell is your hair orange rn? Me and MULTIPLE people thought you weren't gonna say anything about ILGWIS because the song it literally directed towards how shitty you are/had been but NO you had the clout Shelby, you had to piss people off like me. "Stream my stream instead" Yeah that's all we can do because one again you have no music to stream. Fuck you Shelby, you clout chasing bitch.

VICTIM MORTALITY AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH

[spookyspecterino]

Four Shots and a Chase

Buggy x GN! Reader

If you squint there's some Shanks x Reader too. Just cause I want to give myself everything.

Warnings: Language, drinking, anxiety (you get chased by Buggy), threats, and a brief kiss.

After stepping away from Shanks and the crew to grab a drink, you see someone you weren't expecting--someone you know better than to talk to. Buggy doesn't know you're part of Shank's crew. How will he react when he finds out?

Love me some silly, soft Buggy, but I sat down to write and a darker more obsessed guy came out. Sometimes I write and the characters don't listen. Oops.

“One tequila shot please.” You ask, knuckles rapping against the wooden bar.

The bar tender pulls out a tiny glass. “Want anything else?”

It’s too much of a temptation. With a smile, “Make that three.”

“Celebrating tonight?” The clear liquid pours nice and smooth from the bottle, you can almost taste it.

“Not really, about to head back out to sea tomorrow.”

“Ah, so a final farewell to the town then?”

“I guess you could say that.”

He slides the shots your way with expert precision. “Been here long?”

Taking one of the small glasses, you throw back the shot with ease. It burns on the way down, but you’ve always liked that part. “A week or two. At most.”

The bar tender frowns a little. “I’ve never seen you around before.”

You’re picking up the next shot and preparing to throw it back. “Yeah, first time here. We brought a lot of liquor with us but wanted something different.” You shrug.

“Ah, I see.” He smiles to himself. “A little too much beach party rum?”

The burn of the next shot is stronger but doesn’t hinder your speech. That’s telling, in a way. “Bingo.”

He’s about to ask you something else but his eyes dart away and he closes his mouth. You notice the third shot glass is missing.

There’s a clink and your shot, now empty, reappears in its place, set down by a white gloved hand. A very familiar voice rasps in your ear. “Still drinking that cheap tequila, I see.”

You know that voice. Your head whips to the side. “Buggy!”

His blue eyes glitter and that red painted grin stretches as he sees you. “Hiya doll face.”

Maybe it’s the tequila, maybe it’s just you, but your arms wrap around his neck and pull him into a hug with lightning speed. Any words you say are muffled by pressing your face into his neck. “Buggy, it’s so good to see you!”

He pulls you against him, gripping your shirt, smile pressed into your shoulder. “Missed you too. Where ya been?”

Oh…right…

“Here and there.” The words are less confident. Obviously vague.

Maybe he won’t pry too much, and you two can just have a nice conversation without things turning—

Buggy pulls back a little, still keeping you in his arms. “Did you join a crew?”

The smile on your face is chipper. Maybe a little too much as the tequila hits you all at once. “Yeah!”

He opens his mouth to ask something else, but you’re peeling his arms away and spinning toward the bartender. “Can I get two more shots, please?”

Buggy isn’t having it. He puts his hands on your hips and spins you back around. “Whose crew did you join?”

The smile looks out of place as your eyes widen. But it stays, plastered on, like Buggy’s face paint. His eyes narrow with a mischievous smile and he leans in a little. “Is it somebody I owe money?”

You squeak, feeling his hands tighten around your hips. “I—uh—I wouldn’t say that.”

Maybe one shot was enough. The alcohol was making it hard to think, clouding your mind, and making bad ideas sound like good ones.

It was especially noticeable when your eyes fell on his lips more than a few times.

What would it be like to step forward, just a little and—

“Are you going to answer my question?” Buggy’s head is tilted, he’s amused, but something dangerous drags his tone down.

Nervous laughter bubbles out. “Not before I finish these shots!”

This time he lets you spin back toward the bar, hands lightly falling away from your hips. You can feel his stare, the intensity of his eyes on the back of your head. These next two shots weren’t rushed, a sort of reprieve or relief from his questions. Not looking at him anymore—or getting distracted—gave a moment of clarity.

Should you leave? Make up some excuse and bolt back to the ship?

But if Buggy followed, that would only lead him right back to Shanks.

And if Shanks knew you were talking to Buggy…

The thought of his reaction sours the tequila, makes the liquid churn and stir in your stomach like stormy seas.

He’s dangerous. Hell-bent on revenge against me—I would hate to see you caught in the middle of that. I know you have fond memories of him, I do too, but he’s not the same.

Maybe you should leave. It’s an icy feeling as Shanks’ words echo in your mind like a warning bell.

Except…Buggy might not let you go.

Something changes in the air for you. It’s subtle, imperceptible to anyone else, but that low feeling of danger lurks. Hairs on your arms stick up, your heartbeat skips to a rabbit’s pace.

Prey. You felt like prey.

Buggy’s white-gloved hand, detached and floating through the air, takes your chin and leads you back around to look at him.

He can feel the change between you. Those once warm blue eyes are darker now. Full of something you can’t read.

Leaning in, he’s too close. The smile he wears doesn’t quite match his tone. The contrasting colors on his face have never looked more sinister. “If you’re not going to tell me, I’ll just have to guess.”

The lump in your throat is hard to force down, throat clicking as you gulp. “Three guesses, then I have to go.”

His eyes jump down your face. Was he looking at your lips or your throat?

“So soon?” He steps closer. Your body bumps against the bar and he’s quick to cage you in with his arms. “That’s a shame.”

“We’re leaving tonight. I’m already late.” A tremor shakes your voice. You wonder if he can pick up on the lie. He’s so damn close now. “They might be waiting on me—"

“I’ll be quick.” His eyes flicker around your face. “First guess. Don Krieg.”

Your head shakes quick. “Pretty sure he’s dead.”

“Hm. Shame.” Buggy takes a deep breath. He’s enjoying this. “Second guess. Arlong.”

You open your mouth, but he holds up a finger. “Oh, wait! You said it wasn’t someone I owe money. Can I have another try?”

“…Sure.” Somehow your stomach doesn’t drop out on the spot, even though it feels like it might.

“Ok, ok.” He hums. “Alvida?”

A nervous bark of laughter escapes you. “Right now—I wish. But no.” It takes everything you have not to squirm under his intensity. “Last guess.”

He giggles, the red smile inching up his face. “Gotta make it a good one then. Hmm…”

While he thinks, or pretends to think, you’re plotting an escape route. The pier is close by, within direct eye-line, there’s workers moving around—might not be hard to lose him if he decided to chase you. Only problem is he’s caging you in against the bar…

“Ok! I’ve got it!” His smile is too wide, too forced. The painted bones at the corners of his eyes contort oddly.

Your body starts to tremble.

“Shanks.”

Ice washes through you, colder than any water you’ve ever been in.

His smile, his whole expression, drops instantly. “You’re working with Shanks.”

Maybe it’s your imagination, but his hands grip the bar so tight the wood creaks.

“I’m so sorry Buggy.” Is all you can whisper before leaning back and kicking him flat in the chest.

He stumbles back, rage filling his eyes. His mouth opens, maybe to shout, maybe to scream or howl, but you’re too busy rolling on your back over bar top to hear exactly what he says.

The bartender shouts in alarm, jumping away, dropping his cleaning rag as you scramble past. “Sorry!” You call back, throwing out the random change in your pocket. Hopefully it’s enough to cover the—how many shots did you have?

However many, it was enough to make an impact. The world tilts and sways. Like trying to run in a dream, your legs feel weak and jello-y.

Crashes sound behind you, spiking your anxiety to the max. So, he decided to chase you. Of course he did.

Dashing toward the pier, you chanced a quick glance behind you.

Buggy was hot on your tail, coat flapping as he sprinted. He looked furious.

It was absolutely the tequila that made you laugh like a nervous lunatic.

His angry shout sounded close enough to be right in your ear as you turned back around and skirted by a disgruntled dock worker. “What are you laughing at?!”

Nearing another worker, this one carrying a crate on his shoulder, you tore it from the man’s hands and launched it behind you. Buggy had to slow down not to run into it, giving you a few seconds’ lead.

You were still laughing, definitely to relieve the anxiety. “Didn’t know you could run so well in clown shoes!”

Oddly enough, he started laughing too. But it was cynical sounding. “We’re gonna have so much fun together when I catch you!”

Damn that tequila—making his words sound more enticing than terrifying.

A tight cluster of buildings come into view as the dock workers jump back out of your path. You beeline for them, hoping the streets are twisting enough to lose him. At this point, running back to Shanks wasn’t an option. The amount of drama and commotion at the thought of bringing Buggy to Shanks was enough to make drowning in the sea a more favorable idea.

Behind you, Buggy was still shouting as he ran. “You just had to go work with Shanks, didn’t you?! I bet he was so happy to accept you into his crew!”

Did he sound hurt at that?

There wasn’t any time to consider it as your feet pounded on the wooden pier planks. Dock workers shouted, unhappy to be interrupted. The first building was drawing near.

“Bet you didn’t even consider working with me first!” He laughed; the sound was thick with disdain. “I would’ve given you anything! First mate, first pick of any treasure—you could’ve named your price!”

You darted around the corner of the building, shoes skidding on the sandy gravel. To your relief, the road was twisting, and multiple paths led through the cart-wide space. You picked a path to the left and followed it.

But luck wasn’t on your side. In fact, it hadn’t been on your side all night. Dead End.

Baskets, crates, and gear lined the sides of the path. The rooftop would be the best way of escape, but there was no way up, and stacking things to try and get that high would just make noise and lead Buggy straight to you.

The sound of Buggy’s voice bounced off the walls, catching up faster than him. “You would have been my right hand! Imagine being that close to the Pirate King!”

An ill-formed idea comes to mind. It’s the best shot you have, even if it is stupid as hell.

Turning toward the direction of his voice, you shout, “And if I ask for the One Piece? Would you give it to me?”

There’s a laugh, an absolutely insane sounding giggle. Buggy skids into view at the path opening. You were caged. Again.

“You know I’m destined for it right? The One Piece—it’s mine.”

“That doesn’t sound like ‘anything’, Buggy.”

He throws his hands out. “Comon’, baby. Right hand is the best I could give. Is Shanks even willing to do that much?”

Staying rooted to the spot, “Shanks doesn’t want the One Piece.”

He moves closer. Taking his time. “That’s not my point. Are you his first mate?”

“I don’t want to be.”

That throws him off a little. He studies you, trying to gauge if that’s true. “Why not?”

“Too much commitment. I feel like I’d have to stay forever.”

“And you…don’t want to stay with him forever?”

The hope, that tiny spark in his eyes, is enough to kill you. It’s that old side of Buggy you remember.

“I like having options. Freedom.”

He chuckles, sounding normal—like he’s no longer performing. “You haven’t changed much.”

“And you’ve changed a lot.”

He’s closer, moving methodically toward you, biding his time. “Oh, but I’m better now.”

“I thought you were perfect before.”

Buggy halts. Shoes scraping the gravel. For a moment he looks genuine, like he might say something heartfelt. But the curtain draws, and the show is back on.

“You’re just trying to get a rouse outta me. So, I’ll give you an offer—just this once!” He leans in. “Leave Shanks and come join me. I’ll be nice, there will be no hard feelings about working with that red-haired asshole.” He holds out a hand. “Whadd’ya say, sweetheart?”

You look down at his hand. This was the offer. Your chance. No doubt life with Buggy would be thrilling and action-filled, and having an actual goal—instead of just traveling from place to place and getting drunk on beaches—would be more interesting…

But the way your skin pricked at the bar. The fear, the anxiety—there would be more of that too. Buggy is a killer now, and no matter what promises he makes, you’d be in his crew until the end of your life. He’d be sure of that.

Which only leaves one option…

“I’d really like that.” You whisper, stepping forward, but not taking his hand. His blue eyes shine as you close the distance. As you continue to close the distance.

The hairs on your arms stand on end again as your face comes within inches of his. “I missed you. I wish things were different.”

He takes a moment, letting this closeness sink in. Letting it be real. “He took you away from me.” Buggy whispers, tracing a thumb along your jaw. “I’ll kill him for that.”

You’re about to say something, about to stop him and tell him it was actually you who had sought out Shanks. But Buggy is leaning in, pressing his lips to yours and stealing your breath away.

The kiss is short, sweet enough to make your toes curl. It’s enough to make you actually consider staying.

But you break away first, before you’re ensnarled by him.

His lips chase yours briefly, seeking just one more second of you, but his eyes open to see your sad expression.

“I hope you find the One Piece, Buggy. I really do.”

“What—”

“Everything I said is true, please don’t forget that.”

His eyes ignite when he feels your hands push him hard enough that he stumbles back, crushing a few baskets and hitting the building wall. He grunts, trying to right himself.

Taking a few steps back, you launch forward, gaining as much momentum as you can. His head snaps up just as your foot lands on his shoulder and you push off upwards to leap for the rooftop.

He was just tall enough that you could grab it. And from years of climbing topsail rigging, you had the strength to pull yourself up.

Cursing and crashing follow you onto the roof as you stand. You’re about to peek over the edge when two white-gloved hands appear to grab the roof right next to your feet.

Of course he could do that. But he wasn’t fast to follow, each part connecting after drifting up.

You don’t waste any more time dashing away, jumping from roof to roof.

You hear him cursing and howling. “I’ll find you! I’ll never stop looking for you! The day you stop looking over your shoulder, I’ll be there! Mark my words, you’ll be mine!”

His curses lose volume as you gain distance. Toward the end of the building cluster, you jump down and sprint toward where Shanks and the rest of the crew have docked.

. . . EXTRA . . .

“What?!” Shanks took you by the shoulder, looking you over. “Are you alright?”

“Shanks, I’m fi—”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. I’m fine, Shanks, really.”

He looks you over once more, his eyes lingering on yours before turning and calling out to the crew. “We’re leaving! Immediately! Ben, gather the others!”

Beckman looks up from his conversation with Roux before heading toward the ship. The two men motioning to the others scattered around the beach.

Shanks turns back to you, red hair whipping around his face. “What did he say?”

“Just empty threats.” You shrug. Trying to shake off the heavy feeling in your heart. “I didn’t believe any of them.”

His face darkens. “I’m not taking the chance. We’re going to the Grand Line. We’ll stay there for a little while.”

You groan. “Shanks, I really don’t want to make this a big deal.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I’m more than capable of handling myself!”

Shanks sighs, closing his eyes. “I know, I know. I just…” he pauses. “If anything happened to you…” He swallows hard, blinking away after realizing he’s been staring into your eyes for just a little too long. “What else did he say?”

“He just called you an asshole and that was the gist of it.” You lied. Something twisted in your gut. You hated lying to Shanks, but to open the whole can of worms…

“Do you think he’s going to come after you?”

Your stomach was in absolute knots now. “Doubt it.”

This satisfies Shanks. He nods, “He’d be a fool for trying.”

As Shanks is called away, your eyes trail after his black coat.

The feeling of Buggy’s lips against yours lingers for days.

[dear-mortality]

The shepherd prince

Chapter fifteen: realisation

Chapters

Walking around he heard voices of people whispering; his hearing is alot better in that form

He found it beyond annoying and his face was stuck frowning

While walking he heard the clanging of armour and assumed he would run into guards or aimanat

Only to find it was ferronid

"WHA- wait??? Aren't you the rulers guest??" Ferronid jumped a little having seen ether. In his defence seeing a shirtless half turned werewolf was definitely not something he expected to experience while just walking around.

Ether nodded looking dissatisfied and disappointed and tried to just walk by ferronid but ferronid blocked the way with his polearm

Ether shot him an irritated glance while growling quietly

Ferronid didn't seem phased by this.

"Where do you think you're going? You need to calm down before i have to calm you myself."

Ether turned around completely to meet eyes with ferronid before his thought bubble showed something

"The threat isn't helping."

Ferronid seemed actually convinced

"Guess that's true at least." He took his polearm out of ethers way "but you still need to calm down. Want help?"

Ether looked tired and answered with his bubble again

"Sure. I don't think i know how to calm down right now though."

So ferronid pat his back and smiled

"Come with me then."

And so ether complied

Ferronid walked him to an open field before taking off his armour little by little and putting it aside. His hair made into a bun and wearing light plain clothes under that shiny armour with something supporting him to stand upright and move around over his legs, ether was slightly surprised by the difference in how he seemed and how he is underneath all that copper and golden tones

He walked to a wheeled chair in the middle of the grassy field and sat on it after taking off his leg support

"Take a seat" ferronid said with an inviting tone. He seemed truly at peace.

So ether just laid in the grass. And it all came rushing to him. He was suddenly tearing up and sniffling as he felt all the rage and anger and sadness hit him at once.They must've stayed there for an hour or so.

Ferronid saw him but didn't comment. He just sat there and enjoyed the peace.

Ether missed the grass of the fields at his home so this really made him feel homesick. He doesn't regret leaving but he had just realized how long he'll be away since the trip didn't even really start. He just realized how rude he was to enfys and how he kept his distance from the first person who cared about him because he felt his care was overbearing for some reason. Having felt that he wronged enfys he decided to get going and went to shake ferronids hand.

Ferronid smiled and shaked his hand firmly and tried to avoid being stabbed by his claws.

Ether walked with a quick pace to his room where he found enfys just sitting there looking outside the window, he noticed ether entering but they didn't turn their head or acknowledge they were back.

Ether felt ashamed and embarrassed of how he treated enfys and didn't want to force enfys into forgiving him

So he just sat on his bed too looking at the window And managed to actually say words this time. But his voice sounded strange.

"Im sorry." Came out of his throat like a beast mimicking speech.

Enfys looked at him to see his ears lowered and his eyes swollen from how much he cried

And even though enfys was a little upset he definitely didn't think ether was that much in the wrong to ignore him when he's like this

"Its ok. You were just really hurt and i get that. I just wish we talked about why you kept your distance from me before this even...."

Ether went to hug enfys but stopped mid way

"Can we hug?" He said with his voice getting slightly better

"Yeah." Enfys answered after initiating a hug with ether, his chest fur tickled his nose a little but he managed to ignore it somehow.

Ether hugged back deeply and he decided he'll tell enfys about what he saw. And so he did.

Enfys sat there wondering who avalos was and what she wanted with ether.

Ether said he didn't want to look into her any further.

"Why is that?"

"Danger." He stated immediately with a serious tone

"Hmm i understand. We can let it go so long as you feel this is the safer option."

Ether nodded and just sighed a sigh of relief

Then ethers bubble showed a sentence. "How is the search for the arch mage?"

"Its not going as fast as we wanted it to but we have a thread we maybe able to follow." Enfys answered quickly "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you into all this without knowing when our trip will end." Enfys answered with a hint of annoyance. It seemed obvious that they don't like the current situation.

"Its ok. I like spending more time with you." Ether quickly answered with a smile, buns voice still not completely human

"Really? Because you've been avoiding me alot lately..."

"I'm really sorry....i had alot of wrong thoughts in my head making it hard to think straight. I shouldn't have pushed you away like that because of them." Ether apologized with his ears flopped on his head and his eyes looking away.

"Its ok, ether. But please tell me what you really feel next time ok? I can't read minds."

"You can't? I thought there would be a spell for that" ether said mockingly, hinting at his thought bubble- but his voice didn't show it enough.

"Yeah- no. that's not my style to begin with and its nothing we witches can easily use. I mean there IS a few 'mind reading spells' and you already have one on you but its less like that and more like an illustration of thoughts?? Because i altered it heavily to not be too invasive."

Ether frowned at enfys waiting for them to notice

"Oh- OH YOU WERE TRYING TO LIGHTEN THE MOOD"

"Yeah."

Enfys giggled a little

"Well it worked now."

They smiled at eachother for a few before ethers look turned to that of confusion

"I just remembered; who are the silly looking people that healed me?"

Enfys snorted before laughing for a few seconds and then regaining his composure

"Im never going to see your blunt questions coming am i? Well, to answer that question: these are healers. Specifically, priests of the deity of silence. They don't have a name for themselves but people tend to call them depths priests"

"What does that have to do with looking this way"

"No clue. Genuinely. No one knows anything about that faction of the healers beyond who they worship and i believe anyone who ever wanted to, gave up trying."

"There are other factions?"

"yeah. The caretakers of the deity of affection, the heavy eyes of the deity of grief, the Doctors of the deity of knowledge, etc. of course healing isn't limited to these people its just they're the best at it."

Enfys noticed the face ether was making and was just glad everything was back to normal

"Enfys, thank you for being here. Thank you for not leaving me in the dark that night." Ether stated hoping enfys would get which night bun was talking about

"Thank you for not taking anything too personally from my side....i know i can be too much sometimes......they were definitely right about that part...."

Ether slanted his head with a concerned look

"Its nothing. Just remembering something someone said to me..... anyway! We have time to burn apparently so what do you want to do?"

Ethers face lit up suddenly and decided to take the lead, he reached the door frame and stood there with his back to enfys.

"Follow me" he said over his shoulder as if making up for what he told enfys from earlier

Enfys saw right through it

"Okay then, dork."

They walked out together laughing and talking about what they're going to do

As they left, the door was open just a crack before some pink smoke closed it shut

"Well well well." Said avalos walking around the room with subtle steps. "I also have things to burn" she laughed maniacally and was about to set fire to something before noticing a presence in the room with her

She turned around to find the frost serpent staring right at her and bending to face her

"You will not- under any circumstances- cause trouble here. I don't think the contract i have with your goddess will protect you from my wrath if you wronged anyone here."

Avalos jumped back

"What are YOU doing here!?"

"You come into my playground and ask me why IM here? Save yourself the ridicule and hide back in your shadows. My ruler will not be hassled by your schemes."

Avalos seemed annoyed and slightly scared as she vanished

"I may have to warn zaroth. Or not. I'll see what happens first."

[askarcanamagnus]

Arcana Magnus: for our first post, we thought we'd get some help from the Earth we post on! Transformers media in your world is to sell toys after all (aside from people wanting to tell a story) and we thought some the customs in this photo would help set the tone even though talking via toys won't usually happen (and well, the unofficial Ask Vector Prime 2 has done digibashes paired with prose storytelling, so not new ground really). Please feel free to send us asks, even for things canon hasn't answered! :3

We're talking about canon here besides touching on those two. Here's the alt text/dialogue so people can read it this way, its a bit lengthy because of the amount of dialogue:

Alt text: A photo of transforming toys on a windowsill, with a trans flag for the background flooring, and a dark blue / purple night-time cardboard backdrop of a scifi city of cybertronian inspiration. The figures are engaged in combat and talking:

Titan Returns Arcee has her pistols out and is firing one into Siege Ion Storm's chest point blank, which has a blast effect there representing the impact, with a KABLAM orange-pink sound description above. TR Arcee is looking at Legends Arcee and saying: "So, you used to have a human body and then because you wanted to be a transformer from seeing the toys you became one? That’s so cool. I’m both a gal from Cybertron and binary bonded with a human who’s a dear friend of mine at this point- and our writing has now and my design is inspired from our trans iterations."

Ion Storm: "GAH- yeah your toy is cool as hell, it’s nice that things came full circle and car TTRPG Arcee can use her car hood as a shield.

Legends Arcee meanwhile stands on top of a collapsing Beast Hunters Shockwave, cutting his cannon in twain with a sword while stabbing Shockwave through his mono-optic face with her other sword: "Indeed! And yeah, my writing isn’t too great and I’m sexualized in a way that isn’t very tasteful or about me having agency in that regard, but as a concept me becoming a bot is fantastic, it’s a sentiment that resonates with the nonhuman community particularly human-bodied robot folk. Hopefully I’ll get better writing in a new iteration someday…"

Her attacks have similarly pink-orange sound effects of CLANG and CRUNCH.

Shockwave: Urk- I would hope for more logic…  bleh

Behind her, Studio Series 86 Arcee is kneeling, with her pistol on her thigh, and Generations Selects Galvatron's fusion cannon held over her shoulder, firing it with blast effects into staggered Kingdom Cyclonus's shoulder and a SKWOMP sound effect: "Funny that we’re talking about this, besides my binary bond with Daniel, I did have a synthoid human body briefly, though I didn’t sign up for that. I think I wore overalls pretty well and certainly have a better understanding from my binary bond that was voluntary."

Nearby, a T30 Arcee painted in trans and lesbian flag patterns and guns on her backstacks has beheaded a falling T30 Jhiaxus with her sword. Jhiaxus's neck socket has a blast effect exploding upwards like pressured blood/fuel. T30 Arcee is looking at an Arcee customized from Legacy Elita-1 to resemble IDW1 Arcee, and T30 Arcee's speech bubble says: "Hmm, I mean, Transformers has always danced around that with the ‘transformers are humans in robot bodies with alien context’ concept in terms of writing- the toy design two of you are retooled from, me minus my custom pride flag paint job, though, definitely hits that sexualization thing. My concept design was going to be the basis for IDW1 Arcee over there in 4th reformat with a surgery that she was happy with as part of her gender journey, but the comics were so ahead from schedule that there wasn’t much of me to go on. Thankfully the artist wanted to keep in line with the comic aesthetic, so she looks different."

The IDW1 Arcee custom, erstwhile, who has cut into Jhiaxus's wing with her flaming orange blade with a pink and cyan FWOOSH sound and a fiery blast effect on top of her blade, is glancing at Legacy Arcee, and saying: "Yeah, that loops back around to the basis of Titan Returns Arcee, although I’m not sure that’s why she’s a Blurr retool. I mean, I feel like a Legacy Elita retool to Arcee with swords is fairly obvious route to go and it seems there are other people who think that, given the robust look I have from 2014-2018 (and that’s not even counting how other Arcee iterations drawn in Transformers vs. GIJOE, or IDW2, or Transformers vs. Terminator). I dunno, there’s something to be said for how root designs that look ‘overly human’ can work, my second reformat is in that category and outside of one cover with Galvatron that hasn’t aged well it’s not really focused on, which I think is interesting in retrospect even though it wasn’t intentional for a trans narrative. But yeah it is funny to see you on covers sometimes given the difference."

Legacy Arcee, who unlike her pink car bot companions, is a blue motorcycle, is in point blank contact with an unlicensed toy based on Airachnid (APC Night Countess), while Arcee's forearm blades are out, and she has 3D print blasters pointed at Airachnid's chest and head, taking a headshot with a blast effect over Airachnid's face, and Arcee is saying: "It’s still absurd to me that the only appearance of my Legacy form in canon media outside of toy stuff is me in a leotard or a swimsuit. Clothing is cool and all but am I hiding, and if it’s for fun why aren’t any of the guys doing the same thing too? I’m more partial to the fact that most of the time we are all basically walking around nude save for a few of us, and those who do wear clothes don’t do so on a basis of being a gal. I would much rather take being curvy with metal boobs while living sweetly and ferociously."

Airachnid: "You- guess fanfic and art will do…"

End Alt text.

[cristellove4321]

I was a star palace fan for awhile, ever sense I had graduated high school last i checked, I think it was near graduation when i heard zavys first voice over when it comes to singing, so when i heard about a star palace video game, no typos or anything, you bet i was bouncing off the walls when I did hear about it, you better believe I would've pulled a pinkie pie and bounce off the walls if I could, and downloaded it the moment it was out, on my ipad tho cuz my phone never had enough space, I'll get to that later tho...

When it finished downloading, I played it instantly, and began playing, it reminded me of a game from mlp where with the characters they have gift preferences, compliment preferences, and description box's, and so forth, I didn't mind tho, it was simple for my end on how to work with, and hense its more fun for me, as I continued playing, and that lasted for awhile, zavy was the most I payed attention to, obviously being the main and favorite from the series and fandom itself, it doesn't take much to make him your friend, only the "best friend" part was more of a second bar for him, for whatever reason, unlike with other characters you oftenly meet, his had a "partner" added to his bar, I didnt necessarily minded that, given he was built by a company that specializes in making companion bots, so I thought it was normal when like that, and when I got him at "partner", hearts will come out from his image and flutter out of camera's sight whenever you either tap on him or give him one of his preferred gifts, that was normal until I got a verbal fight with my dad, I don't handle stress alot so when I got to my room I began crying, so after a little mental break down I played star palace to try and calm down, I met the other characters and all of them acted normal, and by then I stopped crying, just really tired, but when I got to zavy, his image was slightly different, it was his upset or sad face witch only happens when you give him a rotten gift, but his image wasn't the speech bubble with it, hense making him say.", you look exhausted dear, what happened?", this confused me, normally the characters can't tell what you look like or what your expression is, it also gave me the option to actually type my response, again, it's something you cant be able to do, and I can't click out neither to try and ignore that, cuz I'm honestly not good at expressing my actual emotions, so sense I can't click out I just typed in "I'm fine zavy, really, just a lil tired", and than suddenly I passed out, i tried fighting it and saw the text box while zavy deemed to smile yet still looked concerned, the text box saying "oh?, well ok then, maybe try taking a nap then?, here I'll help you dear!", and than next thing i knew, I was passed out, waking up slowly when it was near night time, I wondered on how I could've slept for so long when I passed out somewhere near the morning, I sat up and rubbed my head and decided to check my phone to check what time it is, before finding millions of downloads with the symbol when you download an image, I panicked and checked my storage, the thing I mentioned earlier, only for it to look normal, i got confused and checked my gallary, only for the files on zavys folders to have the infinity sign, I checked it and it was images like the ones I'm gonna show you now, I know these images, frazzybear, a fan of zavy, drew some of these, and if it wasn't her, it was moon bunnies or gknight them self, but their distorted to a semi creepy level, my phone rings like crazy, but it wasn't the usual ring tone galaxy Samsung would have, aka my phone type, it was...., zavys version of "meant to be yours", a public song on YouTube, this ahook me violently before i answered it, and it only said.

"I'm at the door my love..., let...., me...., in...."

(This is just a lil creepy pasta of star palace, I think this would be fun, you can say how bad it was, say that it most likely is the worst or such, but I won't really care, cuz I actually had fun writing this and appreciate those who like it, but really, the original importance of writing is how fun it is, that along with actual criticism without roasting or hate, is how we grow as writers and hense not only make better creepypasta's, but also make better stories all together, the edited images are by frazzybear, gknight and moon bunnies, I heavily suggest checking them out, their content is awesome and the characters are just as adorable.)

(Inspiration: friendship quest by: TheLostNarrator.)

(Sorry to credit the inspiration before hand.:>)

[mofffun]

Rita manga ch13 notes

p4: Ohhh kowa 😏 hn? big jera moment here. i'm hearing this in jera's tone. i'm adding 'bad at telling jokes' to the gokkan gene. (the joke is funny but they way they tell it is either deadpan or over-the-top, so honestly it doesn't really matter if the joke is funny or not. but tell me jera can tell anything more than dad jokes. rita's humour would probably dark humour (big surprise, i know))

p5: moru being a yanma (kao)fangirl is so. so ooc yet so fitting for manga!moru's image??? lol can't imagine tv!moru doing this. lmao when you add Jealous Rita into the mix considering wings

p5: a very logical hideout for moffun that somehow never crossed my mind. Informed (or the other way round) Aoto's choice to pin it on his chest when body-swapped.

p6: !! the initial setting of primary colous vs. asexual flag! (x (taro?) ahhhh savoury

p8: redblue back to back kakkoi, height difference! (greyblack, redblue, bluepur... this artist knows how to sell ships)

p8: profile top right corner rita eye meccha show-poi!

p9: chibi yanma and gira!

p9: wings half face; i'll treasure this panel thank you manga san

p11: you ever so gay for someone you speech bubble change into their colour

p13, 14: rita stress level increasing now the scream went from 1 to 2 pages 🙏

overall:

i swear this issue took so long for me to put together is not only because I sidetracked myself to make a ship chart is because besides looking up a handful of law terms to make it fancy, Rita's description of Yanma makes me stop and laugh every five minutes before I can continue. (Not that the text is funny, but the fact they despise him that much and we are rooting for them to become a thing 😂)

This is how my braing logged it that made phrasing it in english harder lol:

如果佢唔妥你/你焫㷫佢/有咩佢睇唔過眼，佢就會同你死過/咬住你唔放

I was this close to making Rita say So uncvilized. which would fit because Yanma uses a blaster and avoids the sword as much as he can while Rita is probably the best swordsman on the team.

Call me rose glasses, but I also think the description can be interpreted positively. As long as Yanma IS upset with something, he's insistent about it. But that doesn't mean he finds everything irritating (much less than early Himeno at least). So when he really does act, it's important and truly unfair and he won't give up easily. But from Rita's pov, Yanma charges forward without negotiations or alternate solutions. I suppose that fits their character of seeking balance and as a mediator. To think Yanma fail as a king is a serious accusation! But then he very much did "started" a war for Gira. But I guess Rita meant Yanma is acting selfish instead of putting the interest of his country, thus Chikyuu first, like themself.

[o5-the-daughter]

Here you go. :]

»Phone conversation of L. Kinet and N. Kaiser; Nov. 15., 1912«

[MEDIA: an audio recording lasting forty seconds.]

The recording cuts in mid-sentence of one of the young men, one with a warm voice who sounds bubbly and oddly careless despite what must await him soon, based on the audio's dating and his soon-following words.

"-about two-hundred kilometers in total - can you imagine, hiking this far by foot? - which is planned to take, what was it, about a week each way, because of how far up we will go. It will be our longest trip yet, I think."

He pauses his ramblings briefly, seeming to consider his next choice of words. He sounds to be smiling as he speaks up next, surprisingly;

"Maybe I will even find a souvenir to bring you, rakkaani."

A moment of silence passes, of hesitation, of sorrow, with only the quiet static of the phone being heard.

The other speaks in a softer tone, one heavy with sorrow as if aware of what lies in the future for them; Kaiser sounds to be a bit younger than his partner, with a lighter voice bearing an accent not yet worn out by the same, constant use of English that seems to have mostly taken away the other's.

"Just be careful, I beg you. ... Ich liebe dich."

»Audio logs of T. Marek; Mar. 01., 1907«

[MEDIA: an audio recording lasting twelve seconds.]

The young man that speaks next sounds sleepy, growing his voice into an accent-heavy grumbling that is difficult to understand at first; his words become a bit clearer towards the end of the recording, though the difference is barely noticable. Despite his apparent tiredness, the curiosity in his voice is easily audible still;

"Lavender, an odd one, sure.. I don't understand why, but it works, that's.. that's fantastic, a fantastic improvement."

He pauses, followed by what sounds to be a mug being put down.

"Will need to test it more, but this could be the- the breakthrough we have been hoping for."

»Audio logs of D. Hamirez; Jan. 22., 1915«

[MEDIA: an audio recording lasting nineteen seconds.]

The next audio starts quite differently from the others, with a gentle humming rather than speech of any other noise; the restored part must have been right towards the beginning of the recording, as the humming soon becomes louder, just a bit, and turns to singing; the woman's voice is warm and somewhat deep, though she sounds lighthearted and joyful as she goes on;

"He takes me out to dan-ces,

Now should I take those chan-ces?

Bea-trice, oh Bea-trice,

Tell me what to do.."

»Audio logs of W. Khater; Dec. 30., 1913«

[MEDIA: an audio recording lasting fourteen seconds.]

The recording cuts in mid-curse, only to catch a frustrated cry of pain next; Khater's voice is unmistakably the same as it is today no lighter or deeper or different in any other noticable way, other than the annoyance with which they speak, which sounds even more aggressive than it actually is with the memory of their lighthearted sing-song from a few days before in mind.

"-fucker, I-"

Another grumble of pain as they can be heard pacing their location, quick, light steps back and forth and back and forth until they stop near the recording device again.

"I swear, that little bastard.. I don't know how he got his hands on a knife, but if Mika doesn't whip his ass, I will-"

»Interview recording of I. Ruben and M. S██████.; ███. ██., 1924«

[MEDIA: an audio recording lasting fifteen seconds.]

A chair can be heard being pushed back, far before anyone actually speaks up, followed by a few light steps. The interview must have ended already, with one of the parties being about to leave.

Ten's voice is easily recognizable, even over such an old recording; it's just as deep, just as underlyingly threatening, though his tone is colder here.

"How did you know?"

The steps pause, briefly just, followed by the creaking of a door handle. The woman's warm voice is calm and collected, holding an almost mocking tone of monotony that contrasts Ten's audible irritation.

"I did not. Thank you for confirming my theory, though."

»Phone conversation of R. Amosova and █. █████; Jul. 06., 1918«

[MEDIA: an audio recording lasting sixteen seconds.]

The woman's voice sounds startlingly childlike as she speaks, despite her hushed tone; despite the roughness of her accent, her voice is high and airy, in a way entirely unexpected from the daughter of someone like Ten. There is.. fear in her voice too, though she attempts to camouflage it with little success.

"I- I know he is, I know-"

A static interrupts her, a seeming damage in the tape where another person spoke before; Amosova lets out something between a sigh and a wimper in response, before clearing her throat. She sounds a little more confident afterwards, indicating the other person's comforting words.

"I will, yes, I will.."

Another soft sigh, and the rustling of fabric follows, together with the distant click of metal on metal.

".. and if is the last thing I do, I will live. And- if I do not, you have to, you hear? Live to spite that old motherfucker."

The last part of her sentence is interrupted by another airy noise, a laugh, as it turns out, though not a hearty or even lighthearted one - she sounds hysteric at best.

»Interview recording of S. Roberts and M. S██████.; Oct. 31., 1917«

[MEDIA: an audio recording lasting twenty seconds.]

The speaker's voice sounds familiar right away, though off still; he speaks too softly, in a tone bearing a saddening amount of boyish youth, a child still rather than the man that would be known many decades later. His tone is more even than what is known of today, and more posh as well, though it hardly matches his even younger self, either. He sounds amused, however, an odd contrast to the other recordings;

"It is not about protection, no - you can hardly claim so. You were never protective, much rather.."

A moment's pause, interrupted only by the tapping of a pen on wood, two, three, four beats, a habit seemingly not yet forced out of him.

"... possessive, hm? That fits you rather well, 'possessive', like a demon spirit unwilling to let go of those in its claws."

»Audio logs of K. Thier; Feb. 25., 1920«

[MEDIA: an audio recording lasting nine seconds.]

The girl seems to have spoken just as the recording sets in, though her voice breaks too quickly for her last word to be understood. A soft hiccuping keeps her from talking for another second, before she sounds to hit her hands down somewhere near the recording device - hopefully it was her hands, at least.

As she finally manages to speak, her voice is unstable, quavering with each word, which she says so quickly that they mush together here and there, as if she is afraid to loose her voice once more if she doesn't get them out fast enough.

"It's just- she screams sosoloud, so ter-rribly loud.. I- I cannot-"

A quiet sob interrupts the recording, just before it is cut off.

[marciaillust]

Heyooo! It’s me again (i hope i’m not bothering you by asking questions like these) I started making a comic and I’m struggling with the typography

Any tips or recs to look? I really like your work and that’s why I am asking :)

Heyo!

I can dish out a few tips but they aren't really hard rules so take them with a grain of salt and artistic freedom.

The most important thing imo is the presentation of the text on the page. The shape and number of speech bubbles will be registered way before any of the contents so it needs to looks the part. 

The first tip would be generally avoid the speech bubbles being overly thin and long. The example below is pretty tame but believe me, I’ve read comics with the wormiest of speech bubbles and they tend to not look good.

Sometimes the automatic alignment of the text will look closer to a square (especially if there are many short words in a sentence) so feel free to go in and move the text around via the enter key so it looks more like the rhombus. You won't always be able to achieve it especially if the first word in a sentence is long (e.g. the word "hypothetically") but a rhombus should be the goal.

While we're on the topic of speech bubbles I like mine to have really short "tails" (the bits that indicate who is speaking), unless I REALLY want to make sure the reader knows who is speaking in a scene.

 Also I always make the tails point directly towards characters mouth unless it would make the scene confusing (for example if two characters have mouths really close to each other or something, I might make one tail point a bit higher/lower/to the left/right to differentiate between the two speakers. But that’s like a super specific problem and could be avoided with proper frame layout.)

And like, never skip the tails unless its the same character monologuing at length. Nothing breaks emersion more than when you have to stop and turn into an investigator to determine who is speaking in a scene.

Now for the fonts themselves, in my opinion the size of text should be unified between speech bubbles and across pages when it comes to a single font. Example, all casual speech - arial, 14; all thought bubbles - Calibri, 15. 

That is of course unless there is artistic merit to changing the font and/or font's size. Making someone yell, suggesting a threat or sarcasm, indicating a playful tone or something akin to that -  lean into what you're trying to communicate visually.

All fonts are not made equal and sometimes you will have to adjust things manually e.g. letter spacing or line spacing. Generally I try to keep the spacing the same regardless of the font, e.g. "yay exciting" had massive gaps between the lines which I've shrunk to make it look more visually cohesive with the rest of the dialogue. Same with these ones:

At the end of the day typography and everything pertaining to speech bubbles is design work and what designs do is communicate a message and serve a function. I’ve had this picture saved on my pc for years now (reverse google search doesn’t tell me who made it but it’s like the bible to me so I will share it, I am almost certain it was made by tryinghuman but I might be wrong):

Really every part of a speech bubble can be “designed” down to a single word. The position of text, fonts, the shape of the bubble etc. And every change will culminate in an effect and the goal is to have that effect reflect what you’re going for.

Make it legible or illegible, make it see-through, capitalise one word, cover speech bubbles up with other objects, make them crack or fall apart. Not every speech bubble needs special treatment! But once in a while it’s nice to throw something different in to spice things up.

Also, and this is a rule that was bestowed upon me during a graphic design class, don’t use more than 3 fonts per page (again, unless there is artistic merit to it like e.g. purposefully trying to communicate a sense of chaos. Otherwise it just looks a bit unprofessional. In my opinion anyway.)

And the last thing I will say, and this mostly applies to comics in English, is some “speech” fonts include capital “I”s both with and without serifs. The serif I should generally be reserved for the pronoun “I”.

There is so much more when it comes to text in comics like the flow of bubbles across pages, splicing text across bubbles for communicating speech patterns or intentions of the characters, and there are tutorials about it out there but I wasn’t able to find my favourites on command............. sorry................ But I’m peppering this in just so you’re on the lookout for all the other cool things that go into comic making :)

Hope this helped!

[canmom]

The Witch Hunt/Umineko-Project's translation of Umineko is pretty much a sentence-by-sentence one. Individual sentences generally sound natural, but there's a 1:1 mapping between Japanese and English sentences, which lends the whole work a particular cadence. I think it probably makes it longer in general, since in Japanese you can drop a lot of elements of a sentence, which is less permissible in English.

Final Fantasy XIV's translation, now I've played through 2.x with JP voices turned on, is a lot looser. Not exactly as a localisation to modern English though - Koji Fox's approach is to adopt a kind of ren-faire English full of phrases like 'must needs' instead of 'must'/'needs to' or 'mine' instead of 'my', although this oldschool flavour gradually diminishes and becomes more like modern English as the game goes on. But also, the information in a cutscene is often significantly rearranged, so often you notice a short speech bubble in Japanese gets turned into a much longer one in English, and vice versa. e.g. the Japanese might just launch into it while the English has a brief greeting first. My Japanese listening isn't really good enough yet to pick up on a lot of specifics.

There is still a restriction in this 'mapping': I believe the total number of voiced lines, and probably dialogue boxes as a whole, likely has to be the same, since you can change the voices out.

Generally speaking the story is the same at the scene level (you learn the same information about the same characters and places at the same time, you do the same things for the same reasons) and since the cutscene animations don't change beyond lipflaps, fairly close on a cinematography level. The tone of the game is pretty staid early on, so it's usually possible to make rearrangements without affecting the emotional flow of the scene. I'll be curious to see how it changes in the later expansions.

One of the things that I've seen discussed in translation is how an original text that's full of idioms and figures of speech often gets translated in a way that is very plain and literal. So you have to be a little inventive if you want your new prose or dialogue to have some character. (This is, like absolutely everything, a matter of elaborate controversy in fansubbing, the 'keikaku means plan' - 'memesub' - 'jelly donuts' continuum.)

There are some differences of process too. The Witch Hunt were acknowledged in-game and given the blessing of Ryuukishi07, but like most fan translators and even official translators, they received each chapter of the work when it was complete in Japanese. Koji Fox is meanwhile part of the FFXIV writing team, creator of the dragon language conlang and generally a total lore nerd with access to behind the scenes information.

Sometimes Koji's team made fairly large changes to the story, like the tragic loss of horny Haurchefant, although it seems that was only early on, since I haven't really heard similar complaints about the localisation of the expansions.

Though that said, one thing that surprised me to learn is that the Dark Night quests - one of the most popular (if controversially so!) quest lines among English players - got some quite extreme rewrites. The basic thrust of the story is the same, but the characterisation of Fray is quite different, and there's some small changes that seem to just be edgy for edge's sake lol. In general it's also a good example of the sorts of idioms added by the FFXIV localisation.

It's a surprise to me, since I've gone around telling people that if they like the Dark Knight quest, they should look forward to the Steppe in Stormblood, and the whole of Shadowbringers and Endwalker, all of which were written by Natsuko Ishikawa. But it turns out the version of the story I got was pretty far from what Ishikawa wrote.

Anyway, I am writing all this in a pretty neutral way because I'm honestly not sure what is 'better'. I think Koji's weird dialogue actually adds a lot of fun character to FFXIV-in-English that a plainer translation wouldn't, but for a game like Umineko in a Japanese setting that hinges on points of language (particularly in the riddle), Witch Hunt's approach seems to work best - and moreover I get to learn a bit about Japan here and there without the barrier of entry of learning the entire language.

Especially in a visual novel which proceeds at a pace set by the player, I would much rather interrupt the story have a cultural note explaining, say, the Glico running man that I can follow up on and learn something, rather than see it swapped out for a local 'equivalent'. There's a dogma in translation that you should try to recreate the experience of reading the work in original language as much as possible, but that's not always exactly what I want. A work of fiction can be a window into a very distant context, and that could be more important than replicating a 'natural' flow as if it was an English work.

I think it's likely that whichever version of a work I encounter first has an outsized effect - the VA differences of Drakenier don't bother me much, but probably would feel more jarring if I'd played it with JP voices first. But it's mostly interesting to see the possibility space, since translation creative problem about choosing what's most important to preserve, when not everything can be.

For older works, it's common to make many different translations of the same work, and it's kind of a shame that a side effect of the rise of Crunchyroll is that original fansubs have now become much rarer than repackaging of official subs. Not that like... I really watch the same thing twice with different subs, usually there's an obvious answer to how to translate a line and there's only so much time in the world, but it's cool to get a taste of what translators are grappling with.

[yn-ymn-yln]

Can i request a klaus mikaelson x reader where the reader is in hayleys place… a pregnant wolf but in the end klaus and her fall in love?

Okay lovie I got pretty carried away with this so it's kinda long... but thank you for the request! I hope you like it!

Clarification

Klaus Mikaelson x reader

*I didn't want to copy the show verbatim so I basically made this completely different from what happens to Hayley I hope that's okay!*

“Nik I’m sorry I didn’t mean it!”

“LIAR!” The pain in his voice has you recoiling. How had things gotten so fucked up?

“I swear, I love you! Please stop!” The hybrid’s furious gaze turns to your father who challenges him for what you all know is the last time.

“STOP IT! PLEASE!” Your father’s corpse drops unceremoniously to the ground within seconds. You can’t take your eyes off of the man that had raised you, tears slipping down your face.

“Remember this day Y/f/n Y/l/n. This is what happens when you betray the original hybrid.”

Three years ago, to the day Klaus Mikaelson had slaughtered every remaining blood relative of your pack right before your eyes, leaving you the sole survivor of his man-made massacre.

Standing at the entrance to the compound you hoped today would go smoother than that day had all those years ago.

Klaus didn’t speak after you’d said your piece. Letting the shared history between the two of you cloud his judgement he’s on you in a second. His hand is wrapped around your throat, pinning you to the wall before you even have the chance to react. Instantly your own hands fly to his wrists pulling harshly to try and free yourself and continue the conversation without conflict.

Klaus doesn’t let up though. His grip gets tighter with each passing second. As his eyes begin to glow, the veins beneath them appear in a show of dominance.

Problem was, you were never one to back down from a challenge.

Growling lowly, you refuse to submit to the hybrid before you. With all rational thoughts out the window you sink your teeth into the arm of the man holding you. His unrelenting choke hold falters offering you your only chance to slip free. You push past him and take shelter behind his oldest living brother.

“Please do tell, what exactly is going on here?” Ever the noble gentleman, Elijah tries to diffuse the rather abrupt display of aggression.

“I’m pregnant.” The words fall past your lips without warning. Elijah didn’t know who you were, none of the Mikaelson’s did except for Klaus.

“Pardon?” Turning towards you, you can already see the look of disbelief color his features.

“She’s a liar! I’LL KILL HER!” The threat did little to scare you off. If he had really wanted you dead, he would have killed you three years ago when he had the chance.

“I’m not lying and we both fucking know it!” Lunging at you Klaus tries to maneuver around Elijah only to be stopped with a hand to his chest.

“I think that’s quite enough. What is your name?” He addresses the hybrid, then you.

“Y/n.”

“I find it hard to believe a woman I’ve never met harbors the child of my brother.” You chuckle humorlessly then.

“I do know him, have for years. He just doesn’t want you to know that.” Admittedly you had wounded more than Klaus’ pride when things had gone south between the two of you.

“Niklaus?” Elijah gives his younger brother a look that reads don’t fucking try lying to me. He doesn’t offer Elijah an explanation, opting instead to leave the room in a huff.

“I know this isn’t ideal, but I promise it’s his.”

“Very well, make yourself comfortable, we’ll find a witch in the morning.” You don’t ask him to elaborate, you knew they all needed proof, he needed proof. Without a word more you trudge up the stairs, Elijah following closely behind you. “If you’re lying about this, I’ll rip your heart out myself, you have my word.” hastily leaving the room you both had entered, he quietly shuts the door behind him.

There was nothing left to do now but wait.

Klaus Mikaelson should have been the last person you wanted to see. The remaining hatred you had for him should have been simmering but it wasn’t. You had never gotten a proper goodbye from the man that had stolen your heart. Your alcohol fogged mind told you there was no better time for a good bye than right now, and what better way to say it then to fall into the bed of the man you had once loved?

Klaus had eyed you suspiciously, his heart locked behind the walls he had built that fateful day.

You hadn’t even spoken, words had never been your winning feature. You had grabbed him by the collar pressing your lips to his.

It was heaven

He didn’t ask questions, choosing instead to lead you out of the bar hand in hand to the only safe place he knew.

His bed.

The months that had followed had been nothing short of chaotic. The witches of New Orleans had “officially” confirmed that you were in fact carrying the child of Klaus Mikaelson. He had taken the news rather poorly. Disappearing for weeks before finally surfacing at the compound again. Though he had returned, his icy demeanor towards you had stayed ever present. So, you kept as far away from him as you could. Until you didn’t.

You had been passing his study when the door had opened quickly causing you to stumble. You were sure your face was about to become very acquainted with the hardwood floor of the hall way when a pair of strong arms hand wrapped around your waist. You hadn’t meant to grip his wrist desperately, one hand flying to your barely showing baby bump.

“Your alright, I’ve got you.” His sentence was clipped, but that had been the most he had said to you since you stepped foot in the compound all those weeks ago.

“Thank you.” You’re not sure what had possessed you to bury your face in his chest but the warmth and comfort was worth the ire you were about to face. You’re surprised to look up and see him peering at you through confused eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t- It won’t happen again.” You leave before he has the chance to yell.

After your bout of clumsiness Klaus had laid off his harsh temper with you. You were sure it had been Elijah’s doing, probably some speech about stress being bad for the baby, but you didn’t mind. The somewhat calm atmosphere had brightened your mood considerably and gave you the tiniest shred of hope that maybe this wouldn’t be such a nightmare.

“ELIJAH!!!” You had never seen a thousand-year-old vampire move so fast in your life.

“What is it?! What’s wrong?!” His panic laced tone has a sheepish smile spreading on your face before you feel the tiny flutter again. Grabbing the originals hand, you place it on your stomach and wait.

“Come on little bean, you can do it.” The look of utter surprise that spreads across his face as a tiny thump reaches his hand is priceless.

“KLAUS COME HERE!” Elijah doesn’t move his hand, the wonder of human life making his undead heart melt. Klaus rushes into the room in much the same manor, the only difference being the glowing eyes and raised fist.

“Come feel!” You don’t hesitate to place his hand over your ever moving child. Elijah leaves the room then, wanting to give you and the father of said child a moment. “Do you feel it? Feel her?” A small smile spreads across the hybrids face his hand pressing slightly harder to the fading kick.

“I do. It’s amazing.” Silence fell upon the two of you, with it your doubts grew.

“What if I can’t do this?” The vulnerability in your words has Klaus looking at you in shock. He had never seen you so unsure of yourself.

“You can love, you are going to be a great mother.”

“No, I’m not, this baby is screwed and we both know it. Fuck, you can’t even look at me half the time. What kind of a family is she going to have?”

“This family isn’t perfect but it’s hers.” His words do little to comfort the growing fear inside your heart.

“I wish my dad was here.” The sob that rips from your throat is deafening, not for the first time Klaus wishes things had happened differently between the two of you.

“I’m sorry love.” You don’t let him finish, far too hormonal to not hug the father of your bastard kid. Klaus holds you tightly letting you release the built-up emotion, kissing your forehead every so often. “We will get through this, I promise.” Nodding your head, you stay firmly planted against the hybrid’s chest.

You hope he’s right.

Things weren’t perfect between you and Klaus, but with each passing day you saw the tension leave his shoulders and felt your anger slip through the cracks.

You loved him. It was simple, but none of it mattered if he didn’t love you back.

Sitting on the couch watching T.V. you traced patterns onto your stomach, mindlessly humming a melody that lived rent free in your mind. Klaus made his way into the living room, lifting your feet before placing them in his lap.

“What are you watching love?” The nickname had become a staple in the conversations between the two of you as of late.

“I’m not sure, I’m not really paying attention.”

“Why? Are you feeling alright?” Rubbing his hand up and down your leg you watch the man before you. Things had been so corrupt between you both, at one point you were sure you could never go back. Now though? You weren’t sure what to believe.

Nodding lightly, you try to defuse his worry.

“Just thinking.”

“About?”

“Us.” The word hangs heavily in the air.

“What about us?” Inhaling a lengthy breath, you burst the perfect bubble you had been living in.

“I’m in love with you.” Klaus pauses his movement on your leg shifting his gaze to stare into yours.

“What?”

“I know a lot of shit happened between us Nik, and I know you don’t trust me but I love you. I don’t think I ever stopped. I know you might not feel the same” Your sentence is cut short by the hybrids lips connecting with your own.

“I thought I would never hear you say that again.” Closing the gap again, you press your forehead to his.

“We both made mistakes. I’ll forgive you if you forgive me.”

“I forgave you a long time ago.” At his words you feel the moisture begin to pool in the corner of your eyes.

“Me too.”

The love you and the hybrid shared had never faded, you both just needed a little clarification to see it.

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Chapter 316: BBQ is capable of critiquing BNHA and… Oh boy.

Let's start this off properly, Horikoshi's typical quality of writing has been diminishing in recent chapters, but this week it was so different that it didn't even feel like Horikoshi was the one who wrote it.

To be clear, I'm not blaming Horikoshi for the issues I'm about to bring up. The man is criminally overworked, usually doesn't even get the final say in what makes it in the final drafts, and even in his other rough patches he's still produced decent chapters that hold up amongst the grand scheme of things. This feels like something else is going on behind the scenes, and while I have my suspicions on who/what might be the culprit behind it, I choose not to share it at this time because if I name names some people might go off on a crusade, and that's not what I want.

I just want to be clear that I'm not blindly firing off shots in the dark, but despite my frustrations I want to wait to see if this gets resolved down the line, and while I do I can complain about the specific reasons this chapter left such a bitter taste in my mouth.

Buckle up, buttercups, because we got a lot of points to cover.

Where's the Gun?

Not a literal gun, but I mean Chekhov's Gun. It has always been a staple of Horikoshi's writing and the reason so many of his long-standing plot lines have paid off so well.

Chekhov's Gun is a writing principal that if you see a gun on the table in the first act of a play, it will be used in the murder that happens in act 2. Basically, the author should include details that are relevant to the story and not betray the audience by leading them in one direction and at the last minute pull the rug out from underneath them to go in another direction.

Horikoshi has done this to phenomenal success in the past. Just as one example, he dropped hints about Nomu being human experiments early in the series but held off explicitly stating it for a while. He hinted at the loss of Shirakumo in the main narrative and that he was important to Aizawa and Mic as well as approved it for Vigilantes so when it was revealed that Kurogiri was Shirakumo's body, not only did it narratively make sense but it also pulled in Eraserhead and Present Mic's emotional stakes into the battle with the Doctor, and then when Ujiko reveals he was after Aizawa's quirk the whole time it made the payoff for Mic punching him in the face all that much better and brings the weight of his crimes and the impact they have on the victims full circle.

That's 3 different guns paying off in the long run: the Nomu, Shirakumo, and both Mic and Eraserheads' personal arcs past the loss of their childhood friend and that they could finally finish processing their grief and avenge him in full righteous fury instead of chalking it all up to cruel chance.

He has left details, some particularly innocuously, in plot lines like the Touya Todoroki reveal, Hawks' backstory, Shigaraki's blood connection to Nana Shimura, even with Mr. Compress's backstory, and more. When re-read, these details become more obvious and usually leaves us with a greater sense of satisfaction in the plot knowing that twists and turns were not only planned, but built up to and hinted at for us to find so the payoff is that much better and it feels purposeful instead of just shock factor.

None of that happened this chapter.

Lady Nagant has zero business being in this plotline. She was never hinted about before this arc, and her existence does nothing to tell us about the plot moving forward or the world that they're trying to change. Nothing her existence provides actually has any bearing on the universe or tells us anything we don't already know. But that's not how she was presented.

In the beginning we're given a glimpse of her helping Overhaul escape from Tartarus. The focus on her was odd enough to begin with as a new character, and the fact that she didn't look like she fit the profile of someone who belonged in Tartarus was like a flashing neon sign saying, "Pay attention! This new character is important!!!" She then shows up later with Overhaul in hand to attack Deku out of the blue. We get her talking about how she thought Overhaul might be useful and her disillusions with Hero Society. We catch her mannerisms with eery similarity to Hawks only to find out immediately after she was a senior colleague in the HPSC. Never once to my knowledge has Hawks referred to any of his senior colleagues as a "senpai" - not even his fellow heroes - and when he catches her in midair, he uses the words, "Don't die on me, senpai!" as if she's near and dear to his heart.

The entire character arc is set up for her to have known about Hawks and grapple with her desire to help people and her fear of re-creating what she hated, and this also set up Hawks to be the successor who succeeded where she failed and helped bring her to a place where she could be a hero without guilt again. What actually happened?

They're strangers.

They have never actually met before, and while he seems to know a lot about her, she doesn't even seem to have any idea of who he was - at least as far as being another hero under the thumb of the HPSC. So ALLLL that setup, all that gesturing, and all of the potential themes that would be right at home in an arc like this goes completely out the window.

Her story doesn't tell us anything new. The HPSC bad. We knew that. They're not above throwing innocents under the bus to achieve that goal. We knew that. They preyed upon young hopefuls with powerful quirks with the intent to maintain the status quo. We knew that even if the fact that Hawks isn't the only one now makes more questions than answers. We know that these young heroes can never say no under threat of steep, life-shattering consequences. We knew that already.

So what does Lady Nagant even bring to the table?! The entire "you're just a puppet doing what you've been told" angle is a little tired and out of place in this point and time with actual anarchy in the streets (not to mention hypocritical considering she was a blind puppet following orders and offers zero actual solutions that supposedly fall in line with her heroic nature), and it could have been left to any number of other villain characters who could have executed on the theme better - you know, like Shigaraki who's justification this entire time has been, "hero society doesn't make people safe, it just makes them feel safe" from the moment of his inception.

So from that angle she's unnecessary.

Her presence messes with the continuity of the series as well. If Hawks is supposed to explicitly replace her, that would mean that he wasn't just a fluke find on the commission's part and grabbed to mold into their own special superweapon; and that also would mean that her killing of the former president was before he was discovered which should put her at least in her forties. If this isn't the case, and he was meant to simply replace her in a "special agent" case, that still begs the question of how many more gifted children the commission preyed upon and are still out there.

And maybe the worst kicker for me is that something stinks. The way the art in this chapter is presented, if you completely blanked out the speech bubbles, is the same setup I had before - Hawks reaches out to his former mentor and pulls her from the brink of despair with a moving message about why he never gave up hope in being a hero who could actually make a difference.

Again, this is not what we got. He claims he knows her, and it's implied to have been a deep, personal character witness; but at best he only knows about her from secondhand sources. Even his reasoning as to how he never lost hope doesn't vibe with his character.

We have gotten so many cool one-liners for Hawks, but there has always been a consistent tone and imagery with them.

"Those who can fly, should."

"I don't belong in a cage."

"I'm free of my shackles."

"Can I be a shining light, just like him?"

What we got was, "I'm an optimist to a fault" which was the wording the official release went with and was by far the best iteration I have seen, but even this falls short of being truly in character for him and answering her question properly.

@mikeana made an edit of the titular panels for us Hawks stans this week with dialogue we and a few other friends felt was more fitting not only with the imagery of the chapter itself but internally consistent with the specific expressions Hawks uses in his heartfelt, personal dialogue. I just tweaked it a little bit more to fit what I was going for in our original conversation.

Which brings me to another concern.

2. What's the point?

There was no use for Nagant in the series as she's been presented so far. But more than that, Hawks has no business in this fight to begin with. He literally did nothing to earn this emotional moment, and this should have been Deku's moment.

We were teased in an interview with Horikoshi that Hawks was going to get a special moment as an important end-game character as a "shining light" of hope for others to follow as well as promises for Ochako to have another moment in the spotlight to make a difference.

If this was Hawks' shining light moment, it wasn't necessary, and it does nothing to move the plot forward or develop characters in any true or believable way. It just happened because plot. This should have been Deku's victory through and through, and even he is the reason BOTH Hawks and Nagant made it out alive instead of painting the street below them.

Deku's victory was stolen from him, too. It sours the other promises made to us about other characters moving forward, as well, if this really was Hawks' "Shining Light" moment.

By the way, did you forget about Overhaul? Me too!!! What was the point of getting our hopes up about reintroducing this beloved character with the implications this was a major arc setup to have him scream about pops and then get detained with no clues about what's going to happen to him besides, "Say you're sorry to Eri, and you get to see pops"?!

All this posturing and clumsy narrative flailing only actually succeeded in getting Deku in front of AFO again for plot when we already know Mr. Potato Head could summon, show himself to, or find Deku at any time he wanted. But instead we get this time skip with a bunch of heroes completely mended walking into a big, spooky mansion for AFO to evil monologue at Deku for… *counts*

FOUR PAGES!!!

Only to then give him the "I want YOU!" point over a pre-recorded message and the final nail in the coffin to me that something is off.

3. Ex-pu-LOOOO-SHUN!

It's become almost a game among friends to count how many explosions have happened since the end of the war arc - and specifically fake-out explosions. In the end of 311 we get All Might's car attacked via explosion and Deku cornered by Nagant only for All Might to be fine in the next chapter. In 315 Lady Nagant herself explodes in a blaze of glory to once again not be dead.

Gee! I wOnDeR if aLl the heroes were AcTuAlLy cornered and KiLlEd in that explosion in the mansion!

None of us do. They're fine. We're going to see it first thing next week. The shock has worn off, and it's repetitive and annoying at this point. There is no cliffhanger despite how the framing might try to tell you otherwise.

It's BAD WRITING.

The writing has been moving far too quickly and clumsily with no explanation in sight, and even character interactions are being cut short to the point of them being meaningless and empty.

This doesn't even feel like Horikoshi's bad writing. It feels like someone else is trying to call the shots and rushing him through these final bits of the series, and he's run out of things he's previously set up for months and months to reappear so someone is trying to get Dabi-reveal levels of attention with arcs and storylines that don't have the build-up to result in a satisfactory payoff.

4. At least it can get better... I hope.

Maybe those who share my suspicions or know what particular suspicions I have are with me in believing that this is a temporary disappointment and we haven't seen the last of the writing that's captivated me for years. I don't blame Horikoshi for these glaring faults that all came to a head in this chapter.

It CAN get better later, and I think it WILL- we just probably are going to have to wait for it. Until then, I'm going to enjoy the Hawks panels we got, maybe edit the last few chapters to be more in line with something more like the BNHA I know in a "fix it fic" fashion so I don't groan in anticipation of how long it might take us to get there.

See you all next week, hopefully on a much brighter note.

[raine-kai]

Akihiko's First (Subtle) Jealous Episode

So....Akihiko is kinda obviously in love with Haruki at the very start of the manga, right?

It's not as obvious in the anime.

The same scenes are still there, but because the anime necessarily includes shots between frames of the manga, certain points that the manga highlighted are no longer highlighted.

Also they cut some of the dialogue in the anime....

Anyway, I decided to lay this all out for....some reason.

Starting with the scene from the manga...

Akihiko has been listening to Uenoyama's troubles with Mafuyu, but they arrive at the studio to find that Haruki is there with Mafuyu!

(Translation is not important here, except to note that at the end Haruki casually asks if Akihiko has bought him the tea he asked for via text. Look at Akihiko's face!!!)

We see shots of Akihiko's hand holding Uenoyama back in a few frames, but we don't get a look at his face again until here, where he is (again? still?) looking at Haruki as he hands him the requested tea.

[Haruki is laughing, Akihiko is snarking at Haruki for deriving entertainment from their teenage guitarists.]

And then!!! When we next see them!!! They aren't even paying attention to the teens anymore!!!

[Totally ignoring the speech bubble which is Mafuyu talking to Uenoyama... Haruki: What? Akihiko: Don't your bangs get in the way? Haruki: Not really. You really like touching [people's] hair, don't you? Akihiko: Yeah.]

Me: [face buried in hands, what are these two DOING?]

Anyway, this is obviously an Akihiko-is-obsessed-with-Haruki's-hair moment, but it is also a moment built up to in frames where we have never seen his eyes locked on anything but Akihiko since he entered the room.

The first time we see his eyes on someone else is the next time we are shown these two, and Haruki is physically pushing Akihiko away, as both of them are distracted by Mafuyu's casual "kakkoii" bombshell directed at Uenoyama:

This is a moment I missed during my first read, but it is SO TELLING, the way that Akihiko just gravitates toward Haruki, seeking comfort in touching his hair, and the way Haruki seems to take this as a thing for hair in general?? (We see Haruki watch Akihiko with Yayoi shortly after this, and Akihiko fixes Yayoi's hair after it is mussed by the bike helmet, probably contributing to his idea that this is a thing for hair in general. But no—we only see Akihiko touch Haruki's hair with this frequency and possessiveness and with no real reason except wanting to touch it.)

And now, this scene in the anime, just for posterity...

Akihiko's expression is...different. (Both of their expressions are. This is not unique to this scene: the anime toned down the internal screaming moments quite a bit in general! 😂 I say this thinking of a particular Akihiko panic moment from chapter 21 that was disappointingly mellow in the anime.)

We start out with Akihiko staring at Haruki (and Mafuyu)...

But when Uenoyama starts forward, Akihiko shifts his focus (please ignore the previous screencap in the bottom right corner, I am too lazy to do this meticulously)...

And then we cut to Haruki, already with his tea that Akihiko bought for him, and Akihiko is watching him.

We see Akihiko randomly reach out and touch his hair.

Haruki jerks away. There is no dialogue we can hear.

Back to Mafuyu and Uenoyama for a bit, and then, just as in the manga, Mafuyu delivers his "kakkoii" bombshell and we see these two tussling:

Anyway, in summary, Akihiko was madly in love with Haruki for the entirety of the story, and the manga makes this abundantly clear. It's fuzzier in the anime.

I love this story. Have I mentioned this lately? I love this story. Kizu-sensei is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

[dreamescapeswriting]

BTS Reaction || Angsty Arguments [Request]

A/N: Angst ending!!! GIMMIE! Yes! Bring me back to my angst ways please

Seokjin:

Namjoon smirked as you showed him what you had gotten Jin that morning, it was just another small present to add to the pile of other presents you'd gotten already.

"You sure he has no idea?" You were scared that somehow Jin had managed to find out what was happening behind his back. You and Namjoon had spent weeks planning this surprise Birthday party and you didn't want anything to go wrong. It was the first time his Birthday would be spent at home and not at events like all the years before so you wanted to do something kind of special and Namjoon agreed to help you. The venue was ready and booked, everything was pristine and ready to go except for his gifts. You felt like you couldn't find anything that was going to be as perfect for Jin, what could you get the man that had almost everything he wanted in his life.

"He's clueless, thinks we're all going for a meal together and then heading home." Namjoon laughed sitting back in his chair and watching you, he knew how much stress you were under for all of this to go right but he also knew there was nothing he could do to reassure you that it was going to be fine.

"What are you getting him?" You questioned looking away from your phone, you were sitting on sites looking for the perfect thing but nothing was jumping out at you. You and Jin had been together for three years and you knew him like the back of your hand but it didn't make gift buying any easier for him.

"Not sure yet, me and Yoongi are going out later to shop. Wanna come?" You nodded and looked at the time, it was getting close to 1 pm which meant Jin would be back from lunch soon and you didn't want him to catch you walking around BigHit with no explanation as to why you were there.

"I'll text you the details," Namjoon said watching you get up from his sofa - leaving the bag of decorations and smaller presents in his studio so that Jin couldn't find them.

"What are you doing here?" You almost jumped out of your skin as you shut the door and heard Jin's voice ringing through the air,

"You scared me." You laughed looking up at him but he wasn't laughing. He looked pissed off at the fact that you were there in the first place,

"Why were you bothering Namjoon?" You didn't know what his tone was for, all you did was walk out of a studio it was no big deal.

"We're busy so why don't you just leave us alone?" You frowned as he gave you a dirty look, in all three years of you dating he'd never once looked at you like this before.

"I was just talking to Namjoon about-"

"About what? We're fucking busy Y/n, gosh you're always here!" You blinked at him and tried to ignore the staff members that had turned around to watch what was happening.

"You're always clingy onto me and the other guys, do you have any idea how annoying it is to go somewhere and expect to find peace but," He threw his hands into the air feeling defeated,

"Here you are again being a whiney bitch!" Your heart crushed as he called you a bitch to your face, he was turning red in the face with anger and you could feel your cheeks heating up because of all the people turning to watch the show. Namjoon's studio door opened and he frowned at the sight,

"Jin Y/n was just talking-"

"I know, fucking annoying isn't it. Always talking! Always clinging onto us," You looked at the floor and then up to Namjoon shaking your head you just wanted to get out of the building and away from Jin but he was continuing his speech about you being clingy.

(X)

Jin threw his keys onto the coffee table as he walked through the door of your shared apartment, he expected to see you standing and waiting for him as you usually were but you weren't there.

"Y/n?" His voice rang through the air but you didn't stop packing everything into the bag you were carrying, you'd beaten him home by five minutes so you already had a bunch of stuff shoved into a bag.

"Baby? What are you doing?" His hands touched your arms but you moved away from him and took the bag into the bathroom, giving him the silent treatment was easier than talking to him right now.

"Y/n?" You slammed the cupboard door shut and zipped the bag up and came out of the bathroom slinging the bag over your shoulder and heading for the bedroom door. Your hand reached the handle when you felt his on your wrist,

"Please don't leave me." He whimpered but you took his hand off you and headed down the stairs, you couldn't even look at him without feeling hurt but you knew it wasn't going to end well. Something was brewing and it was bubbling so much everything was going to blow.

"Why are you doing this?" The bag slipped from your shoulder and hit the floor with a light thud, you slowly turned back to look at him.

"Why am I doing this? Maybe because I'm clingy? or annoying? You take the pick of your words Jin and tell me." His mouth hung open as he remembered what he'd said earlier in the day but he wasn't defending his actions.

"Exactly! That's why I'm leaving, I'll leave and you won't have to deal with me being clingy or annoying okay? Tell Namjoon that the party was a huge mistake he'll know what you mean." You went to walk out of the door when he begged you to stop,

"What?" You snapped back at him and for a split second you thought he was going to rush over and hold you but he took the necklace that was around your neck and snapped the chain. It was what you kept a promise ring he had given you on.

"Right, wouldn't want me to pawn it in or anything." You picked up the bag and walked out of the front door slamming it behind you as you walked down the street. You had nowhere to go, the only money you had on you was enough for one night a hotel but the closest hotel wasn't for miles away from you. You felt alone and stranded but there was no way you were going back.

Yoongi:

You'd been planning the entire event with Jungkook for months, everything had to be a surprise from Yoongi. The boys tried every year to surprise him for his birthday but it always failed because Yoongi knew when they were up to something however, it was different this year. This year they had you and they knew that you could lie convincingly to Yoongi thanks to your acting background.

"So I'm thinking, I take him out for a one on one meal and then bring him to the venue?" You told Jungkook as you looked over everything, you were both sitting in your apartment talking about the plans. The party was in less than a week and you wanted to make sure it was going to go off without a hitch.

"Sounds good, I can't believe he has no idea." Jungkook laughed looking through the bags of decorations. You'd been storing everything at your small apartment since you and Yoongi barely hung out there - it was normally at the dorms or his apartment where you would spend your time together.

"I'm glad he has no idea, but I'll be even happier when all of this is over and I can quit lying to him." You laughed and looked over at the door as the doorbell rang,

"I only called ten minutes ago, that's some fast pizza." You grabbed your purse and headed over to the door to answer it,

"Yoongi?" You said his name a little louder so Jungkook would hear and begin rushing to pack everything away, you'd gotten this far without him realising you weren't about to let him catch onto everything now.

"You okay?" Yoongi asked, a little confused as to why you were blocking him from coming into the apartment, normally you'd let him just walk right in but the door had been locked.

"Waiting for pizza, come in." You moved out of the way and prayed that Jungkook had hidden everything.

"You alone?" Yoongi questioned, he saw a pair of men's shoes by the door and there was a man's jacket on the arm of the sofa.

"Yeah," Jungkook had clearly hidden away for a reason so you went along with it but Yoongi knew you were lying.

"Why-" The doorbell rang and you rushed away from the awkward tension to go and answer it,

"Thank you!" You took the pizza back into the living room and Yoongi stood there with his arms folded over his chest as he stared at you.

"If you aren't alone why two pizzas?" You started to stutter for something to say but he shook his head at you,

"I should haven't listened to what people were saying, where is he?!" His started raising his voice but you were still stuck on what he had said.

"What do people say?"

"That you're a whore, only with me for money and we all know it's true." That one stung, you looked at him still trying to find something to say back to him.

"Where is he then? The guy you're cheating on me with?!" His voice got so loud you dropped the pizza boxes onto the floor but he continued to yell at you.

"I'm not cheating on you Yoongi, I was-"

"Men's shoes, a man's jacket? But no, of course, you're not cheating on me. They were right though! Fucking slut," You felt your heart convulse as he spat the words out like they meant nothing, that they held no value when they did. With every word that flew from his mouth, you felt your heart crush all the more.

"Stop it!" You begged but he continued to call you the mean things and you ended up crying in front of him, you'd completely forgotten that somewhere in your very small apartment was Jungkook listen to everything that was happening.

"Whoever he is, I hope he can deal with how annoying you are, because I can't." You wiped your eyes not being able to stand this anymore, it was like hell the way he was talking to you.

"Leave. Leave right now." Your voice was stern and he cocked his head to the sighed and laughed at you.

"You're the one crying because you got found out cheating." You sobbed as he stared at you like that. Like you were nothing to him when less than two months ago he told you he loved you and was planning a future with you.

"Get out." You tried to tell him but it was more of a beg that came from your lips,

"Fuck off. I hope he enjoys it until you cheat on him!" He kicked over the table as he walked out of the house, slamming the front door behind him as he did so. Once you knew his car as gone you slid down the wall of your apartment bringing your knees into your chest as you sobbed into them.

Hoseok:

This wasn't your idea it had been Jiwoo’s idea, you wanted to do something special for Hobi's birthday since it would be the first time you were celebrating together with him and his family.

"I was thinking we could all go out to some kind of meal, or we could throw a small party. Us, his friends and a couple of old school friends." She said as she grabbed her cup of hot chocolate, you were in a small cafe around the corner from the BigHit building. This was nothing new, you and Jiwoo would meet up and have meals occasionally and get to know one another. She treated you like a sibling and you loved it, you felt so welcomed into the family by all of them and it was a wonderful feeling.

"I think the boys would love that as well, it's been a while since everyone was together like that." You said to her as you put your cup down and looked at your phone. Hoseok had been ignoring you all morning since you had a small fight about going to see Jiwoo. You didn't see the big deal about it and he hadn't explained why he was so mad all morning about it. He just went to work mad and ignored you after the fight, it annoyed you but you assumed he just needed to let off some steam.

"Everything okay? You haven't stopped checking your phone." She laughed and you nodded at her,

"Yeah we're just-" You stopped when you saw Hoseok walking into the cafe with the boys, all of them laughing and joking until Hoseok locked eyes with you and his smile dropped. He rushed over to the table,

"Can I talk to you alone?" He had another smile across his face but you could already tell it wasn't a good smile, it was the kind of smile you faked when you didn't want people to know that you were fighting with one another. You followed him towards the toilets of the cafe and he stared at you waiting for an answer,

"What?" You whispered looking at him, he folded his arms over his chest and shook his head at you.

"I told you not to meet up with her," You frowned,

"I didn't see the big deal-"

"She thinks you're annoying, she doesn't like you. She just puts up with you because you're dating me. None of my family actually like you...The boys don't either." You stared at him, he couldn't be serious? This had been Jiwoo’s idea in the first place. To come here and plan the whole birthday for him and Jimin had been your best friend since you were kids together.

"You're joking, right? Jimin and I have been friends since we could walk." You laughed nervously but you stopped instantly when you realised he was being serious,

"For your information, Jiwoo invited me here to plan your birthday so maybe you're projecting, maybe you find me annoying?" He nodded and looked at you.

"Yeah, you're right I do." You nodded without saying another word and walked out, going back over to the table without uttering a word to anyone you left the cafe.

Namjoon:

Jungkook had been trying to stall you from going to see Namjoon for the last ten minutes,

"Come on. I just have to ask him one question." You laughed at Jungkook who was still trying to do anything to get you to stay with him in the dance studio, that was when it hit you. He was trying so hard to keep you in one place and you were filled with dread as you realised there was probably only one reason why.

"Look! I'm staying," You lied, you sat on the chair closest to the door while he got himself ready to show you a dance that he'd 'been wanting to show you all week' it was a lie. Jungkook never danced in front of anyone but the boys unless there was a concert on or a teacher was helping them. The second his back was turned you were out of the door and in the elevator going up to Namjoon's studio, you were probably overthinking. You and Namjoon had been together for four years, he wasn't just going to throw that away. He was probably just busy, you hand hovered over the door handle as you debated about walking inside with yourself. It wasn't until you heard shuffling that you pushed the door open and there right in front of you was Namjoon, with another girl making out on his desk. He was stood between her legs as she held them open for him, his dick inside of her and your world came to a crashing halt. You slammed the door and tried to rush down the hall but Jin was coming up to you and Namjoon was screaming your name.

(X)

"Come out! I- Y/n! We have to talk about this." Namjoon was trying to open the studio door that you'd locked yourself behind but it wasn't working, you sat on the sofa inside there and pulled your knees into your chest. All that filled your head was him and that girl on his desk, him and that girl in your bed and him and that girl...Just him and her always.

"Y/n! We have to talk about it!" You couldn't even begin to form words, your throat was dry and your blood was running cold. You wanted to leave but there was no way out except facing him and what he had done to you.

"You can't hide in there forever." You looked at the door, he was yelling at you as though this was your fault. As though you coming into the studio and finding him balls deep in another woman was your fault and not his.

"No, you're right!" You flung yourself up and opened the door trying to move past him but he blocked you inside.

"Let me out." Your voice was blank, no emotion as you tried to ignore his pleas for you to listen to him. You'd only come to see him and ask what he would want for his birthday. You'd been planning a beautiful party with Jin all week and in one fell swoop, it was all ruined.

"Talk to me." He begged holding onto your wrist, your eyes travelled down to look at them.

"Talk to you? Okay, let's talk about how you were balls deep in someone that wasn't me? Talk about how you had Jungkook lie and get me to stay downstairs, does everyone know about her or are their multiple others too?" He shook his head at you as you went to walk away from him,

"It's your fault you know!" You froze in place as his words registered in your head.

"My fault?" You turned around to face him and he nodded while shrugging his shoulders,

"If you weren't so busy with Jin all of the time maybe I wouldn't have slept with someone else." You pretended to understand his logic and nodded along with what he was saying to you.

"Yeah, yeah. You're so right Namjoon, from now on I'll wait on you hand and foot. I'll never leave your side okay?" You asked sarcastically turning to leave once again he shouted something but you continued walking away from him - holding up your middle finger at him as you strolled away from him. You'd done your best not to cry in front of him but you knew the moment you got home to the shared apartment you were going to break into pieces.

Jimin:

You'd spent months saving up the money to get the tickets to go and see Jimin, you'd been together for three years but you still never let him pay for anything that you knew you could pay for but this time was different. This time he had no idea you were flying out to go and see him on tour, it was his birthday and you wanted to spend the week together instead of apart as you had done for the last three years. Jungkook had helped you with arranging taxi's for when you got to London and helping you book the hotel room next door to Jimin's.

"You look great, he's going to love this." Jungkook said as you came out of the bathroom wearing Jimin's favourite outfit on you, you did a small spin in the room before posing for Jungkook and bursting into laughter. Jimin was at the concert venue getting some extra practice in and Jungkook was agreeing to take you to the venue for the surprise to be a little special and he was going to record everything as well.

"Let's go."

(X)

"Jimin! Go again!" Someone called out from backstage, you were sitting at the side with Jungkook still hidden from Jimin but he just caught your laughter and he groaned into his mic.

"Follows me everywhere." He had a laugh in his voice so you figured he was joking,

"That laugh, it haunts me! Follows me everywhere just like they do." You froze in place as he made a joke about you following him everywhere, Jungkook stared at you not knowing what to do in this sort of situation, he stumbled backwards and knocked a bunch of microphones stands over and Jimin looked over at you both.

"See! Follows me everywhere!" He yelled and you could tell he was mad about it, you stared down at the floor as you felt stage managers all turning to look at you. Jimin walked over to you and took you to one of the changing rooms backstage not realising he still had a microphone on himself as he did so.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded answers slamming the door behind him and staring at you, he folded his arms over his chest looking you up and down.

"It's your birthday, I wanted to surprise you." He groaned running his hands through his hair as though he was the frustrated one here and that you hadn't just heard what he said about you on stage.

"Surprise me, sure. With how fucking obsessive you are? You always show up everywhere. I can't go anywhere or do anything without you popping up and asking me questions about it! Do you know how suffocating that is!? To have you breathing down my neck all of the time?!" You looked down at the floor trying not to cry in front of him right now, you just figured he was under a lot of pressure and he didn't mean what he was saying to you. Someone began tapping on the door but he continued to ramble on,

"You're always there! Everywhere I turn! There you are, smiling, laughing and acting like the perfect partner when you're just so god damn fucking annoying!" You flinched as he yelled and his voice echoed through the venue then it hit you hard, he was still wearing a small microphone on his shirt and you knew that everyone inside the building had heard every single word he'd been saying to you.

"Where are you going!?" He yelled as you pushed past him and opened the door, Jungkook was standing there with his hand up as if he was going to knock on the door but you pushed past him and ran towards the taxi bay outside.

Taehyung:

"Come on!" You giggled moving Taehyung's chair out from under his desk at home. You'd been trying to get him to leave with you for the last hour but he hadn't moved. He'd decided that the game was far more important than spending time with his partner. The reason you were so stressed about getting him to leave was that you'd planned the best surprise birthday party for him and you were waiting for him to go and see it. All of the boys, friends and staff members were at the venue waiting for you to come but you were late.

"Fuck! Alright! I'm coming!" You ignored the tone of his voice knowing you'd probably annoyed him too much, he'd said he wanted to play the game but you'd been begging for him to come with you.

"Okay good! Wear my favourite shirt on you," You giggled but he ignored you and followed you down the stairs in the same shirt he'd worn all night and all morning.

"What are we waiting for? You were in such a rush two minutes ago." You nodded and slowly walked out of the apartment texting the boys that you were finally on your way to them but Taehyung seemed to be in a really bad mood.

"Smile baby, it's your birthday." You cooed reaching up to poke his cheek but he shoved your hand away from him and walked out of the door. You followed beside him in silence as you tried to make sure he went in the right direction, they were all waiting at the local cafe that they'd been pimping out with directions.

"It's my birthday, you're right. I should be at home relaxing instead of out with my-" He continued rambling but you couldn't hear him because he was mumbling under his breath.

"What?" You giggled thinking he was just joking about something but he stopped in his tracks and stared at you.

"I said instead of out with you, you're being so annoying and incredibly clingy tonight! Fuck! I just wanted to stay at home and play videos games but No! You had to drug us out to some lame cafe!" You stood still as he yelled at you in the street, you and Taehyung rarely fought and when you did he never yelled at you. Neither of you yelled at one another because you both hated it, you hated getting mad at each other. You found no use for fighting, if you had a problem it was best to talk about it calmly but that wasn't how Taehyung was feeling tonight.

"You find me annoying?" You stuttered out and he scoffed in response,

"Yes, I find you annoying, I find you clingy and I'm not the only one. All the boys agree with me, you've done nothing but bother them all week!" Everything he was saying was all starting to hit you at once, like being hit by a truck. You chest physical started to hurt as he continued to list off everything he thought about you that week alone,

"Just keep coming with me." You whispered trying to make him see that this wasn't you trying to be annoying but nice. He followed behind you in silence and you stood outside the cafe, no one could tell from the outside that the inside was done up to look special for him.

"See! Another dumb idea of yours! A cafe! It's my birthday, we could have at least gone somewhere nice." The boys watched from the inside as Tae started yelling at you and you were shaking your head trying to convince him to go inside.

"Leave me alone! Fuck! I can't believe we've made it this far in our relationship." You froze in place and stared at him, blinking as he said that before walking away from you.

"Don't leave me. Don't you dare leave me!" But he did just that, he walked away as though leaving you in the street crying was no big deal to him. You sniffled and took in a deep breath as you turned around to see Hoseok standing in the door,

"The party's cancelled, I'll pay for everything." You whispered pushing past them and into the small cafe to find the manager.

Jungkook:

You slowly walked around the gaming room in the shared apartment you had with Jungkook, you'd been living together for six months and it had been the best six months of your life.

"What exactly am I looking for?" You asked Namjoon down the phone as you walked around the room, he'd gone into town for you to get Jungkook's gift but he needed a little help.

"It'll be on his desk, a controller." You walked over and spotted the battered controller that Jungkook owned, it was broken due to all the times that he smashed it around whenever he lost control over a game.

"Got it, sending you pictures now." You and Namjoon had been planning the perfect birthday surprise party for Jungkook, usually, he and Namjoon would share a party but this year you decided to throw a surprise party for Jungkook. You took photographs of the controller and sent them over to Namjoon, you went to place the controller down when you heard the front door slam making you jump in surprise. The controller slipped out of your hand and onto the floor finally breaking as it got its final blow.

"Shit." You whispered trying to clean it up before Jungkook walked into the room but it was too late, he stared at you and then down at what you were doing.

"For fuck sake!" He yelled making you jump a little, he bent down and began cleaning up the broken pieces,

"You break everything you touch!" He yelled and you moved away from him trying to tell him it was already broken before you touched it but it was no use. He wasn't going to listen to reason after he just found his controller smashed up,

"You can't just leave shit alone that doesn't belong to you?!" You looked at him stuttering out an apology but it wasn't good enough for him he was pissed off at you,

"Why are you even in here?! This is my space to get away from you!" He yelled and you stumbled out of the room and watching him slamming the door in your face, he continued rambling on the words he was saying, complaining about you as if you weren't stood a couple of steps away from the door.

(X)

"I didn't mean to break it." You defended later that night but he was shaking his head at you already,

"Just go away, you're so fucking clingy." He grumbled throwing the pieces of the broken controller into the bin, he clearly wasn't over it yet.

"It was an accident Kookie." Your hands came into contact with his back but he shoved you away,

"I said leave me alone! Fuck! Do I need to say it in another language for you to understand?! Leave me alone!" You tried to say something else and he started shaking his head,

"You know what, just fucking leave. Pack your shit! and get out of my house!" He yelled looking at you, you looked him in the eyes and he was serious about every word he was saying.

"Jungkook?"

"I said get out!" You nodded without another word and left him standing in the living room while you rushed upstairs to pack as much as you could into one bag. 

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