#i do not have enough mental energy to make it more comprehensible at the moment

[nonsensical-shitposting]

I am currently reading your AO3 Magnus crossover fic and I really love it so far!

It is honestly one of the best (if not The best) crossover fic that I have ever read!

I also left a few comments on the individual chapters, if you want to see my opinion and thoughts about each chapter that I have read so far!

I would love if you looked at them and told me what you think about my thoughts! (You don't have to of course!)

Just showing my love and appreciation for you and your stories!

Cheers!

Hey, thanks, I really appreciate it! The sheer ambitiousness of TSWP has always made it the one fic I'm the most anxious about "getting right" from start to finish, so it's always reassuring to be told I'm doing a good job.

I've only read a few of your comments at this point, and while I do intend to read all of them and properly respond, I will say right now that from what I've seen you're asking the right questions and also noticed some important minor details that I don't think anyone else has. I'm... admittedly not sure when I'll be reading through the rest of your comments and properly responding, though, because where I live has spent an extended period of time in the clutches of This One Specific Type of cold, dry-yet-somehow-also-damp weather that tends to wreak havoc on my joints and make me an achy irritated exhausted mess, so I'm not exactly feeling up to providing said responses at the moment.

[perhaps-in-anotherdream]

These calls accompany Victor’s Confrontation Date, and set the premise of the date itself. So, I’m posting them first~ ❤️

⌚ This post contains detailed spoilers for content yet to be released on the global server! ⌚

•─────⋅◍♡◍⋅─────•

【1st Call】

[Note]: This call takes place some time before the date, and is crucial for the premise of the date—

—

Victor: Didn’t you say you’d be working overtime?

MC: Yeah–– ahh–– can you not hear me typing vigorously?

Victor: All I can hear is a certain someone’s anguished wailing in search of excuses to avoid work.

Victor: If you have the time to call me for crying, why not finish up your work faster and come home?

MC: Can I understand this sentence as CEO Victor wishes that I come home sooner?

Victor: [laughs helplessly]  I see that your comprehension ability still needs improvement.

MC: Sob, sob. Victor, you’re so cruel. I’m tired and want to goof off for a while. Just talk with me and give me some motivation.

Victor: Oh? Who was the one that righteously declined my offer to have dinner together this afternoon, claiming that no temptation could shake her determination to work hard tonight?

MC: …I’m really a dummy.

Victor: [chuckles softly]  That self-reflection was done quite fast.

MC: I’ve been reflecting on it all evening. This is more than just dinner. It means I’ve tacitly allowed work to take away our time together.

Victor: Seeing how you’re babbling away so vigorously, it seems like you’re not tired.

Victor: However, your mental state does need to be paid attention to.

MC: So, when this busy spell is over, let’s go to the moon!!

Victor: [indulgent, dramatic sigh] Weren’t we talking about going to Mars yesterday?

MC: Let’s go! We’ll go everywhere! Let’s travel around space!

Victor: [exceedingly doting laugh]  Sure. Where else do you wanna go?

MC: There’s a new concept of a role-playing game focusing on “confrontation.” Hehe, I wanna play it with you.

Victor: Is it on Earth?

MC: …in Loveland City. No, I’m being serious about this! I just stumbled upon a recommendation for it on a review website and found it intriguing.

MC: Shall we go and relax together when the time comes?

Victor: Are you sure this “confrontation” game, as you mentioned, is relaxing?

MC: Blowing off the steam can be a form of relaxation too. Besides, we don’t get to participate in activities like this often, so it could be a nice change of pace to try it out occasionally.

Victor: Then go ahead and make a reservation. I have time after this spell.

MC: Great! I’ve already entered our names the moment you said yes!

MC: Oh yes, this game’s duration is three days and takes place in a Manor. The game organizers will take care of the accommodations and meals.

Victor: [knowing soft laugh]  You’re very skilled at diverting the conversation from the main point.

Victor: Well, it’s good anyway. Three days should be enough for a certain someone to blow off her steam.

—

—

【2nd Call】

This call takes place after the events of the date:

—

Victor: Weren’t you off playing with that group of college students? It ended so quickly?

MC: Don’t mention it… these students have too much energy. I ran out to catch my breath.

MC: Victor, you know, the script we played today in the murder mystery game is very similar to the ancient-style one we played a few years ago!

MC: The one where you played the role of the King of Liang. You still remember, right?

–

[Tidbits]: MC is referring to their 2018 Qixi date (Qixi Festival Date on EN)!

–

Victor: A certain dummy didn’t let the cat out of the bag immediately and get discovered by others, did she?

MC: Don’t underestimate me! I effortlessly uncovered the assassin in no time!

MC: However, it was over quickly ‘cause the script was too simple. They didn’t find it satisfying enough and are already preparing to move on to the next one.

MC: But I’m a little tired and don’t want to play anymore…

Victor: Then just tell them no.

MC: Uhh, I feel a little shy about it. Also, if I leave, there will be fewer people, and they will need to find other people…

Victor: Don’t say no, then.

MC: Sob, sob. But I’m tired! And I really miss you–– I miss you so much––

Victor: Ah, it must be really hard for you then.

Victor: Despite missing me so much, you still went out to play with those college students?

MC: Hehe, Victor, if you’re feeling jealous, you can just say it directly~

MC: Didn’t I ask you before, and you said you didn’t wanna play?

Victor: That’s not the same thing.

Victor: Some people “only value others for their own advancement and discard them once they are no longer useful.”

Victor: You must have called me only because you couldn’t find any other reasons, right?

MC: You really do know me so well~ TUT If I were to say that I have to work overtime, it’d be a bit too abrupt. After all, I had already told them I had a lot of free time recently.

MC: After mulling it over, it seemed like my boyfriend could be the only solution. Could you play the role of my clingy and cute boyfriend––

Victor: [LMAO the way he cuts her off]  I am your boyfriend. There’s no need for me to play the role of one.

Victor: So I guess I should be taking responsibility for being your “clingy and cute” partner, shouldn’t I?

Victor: Tell them–– your boyfriend thinks that you’re not happy going out by yourself and he wants you to come home as soon as possible––

Victor: I suppose you’ve already had that excuse ready in advance, right?

MC: Says who? At best, it’s just that I really miss my boyfriend, and he really misses me too–– so I’m going back home~

Victor: If that’s the case, why are you reporting to me?

Victor: Go and say goodbye to your little friends.

────────────

[azan-writes]

Faded (kotlc fanfic)

I found this in my docs. This is from over a year ago but I really like it tbh. The idea was originally from @kale-of-the-forbidden-cities

Also I added an extract from book one to make it more comprehensible. The preface starts directly where the book scene ends

----

Extract

  “What are we even looking for?” [Dex]

  “No idea. Just look for anything

that looks elvin and we’ll go from there.” [Sophie]

  “Easier said than done,” Dex grumbled.

  He was right. The lanterns were covered in elaborate carvings and decorations—some even with statues. They’d barely covered half the bridge when the sun sank below the horizon. They would need to find somewhere to sleep soon.

  She was about to call it a day when she spotted a small, curved line at the base of a lantern toward the center of the bridge. An elvin rune—one she could actually read.

  “Dex, get over here,” she called. She pressed on it, searching for the edges of a secret compartment, but found nothing.

  “Did you find it?”

  “I found something.” She pointed to the rune. “That means Eternalia. This has to be what the note wanted us to find.”

  “How does it help us get home?”

  “I have no idea.” Her eyes examined the lantern inch by inch, finally focusing on the tip of the highest lamp. “Look, Dex—there’s a crystal. None of the other lanterns has that.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah. I know these lanterns by heart now, and this is the only one that has it.” She squinted, smiling when she saw the crystal only had a single facet. “It’s a leaping crystal—and I bet it leaps straight to Eternalia.”

  “You did it! We can go home.” He threw his arms around her and spun her around. A second later he jumped back, blushing from head to toe. “Sorry. I’m just happy.”

  She shrugged, hoping her face wasn’t as red as it felt. “No problem.” Her smile faded. “But we still don’t have nexuses. How are we supposed to get home?”

  “People leap without them all the time.”

  “Yeah, people who don’t need them anymore.”

  “We’re close enough—and we’ll concentrate extra hard when we do it. We might come back a little faded, but that only lasts a few days.”

  Easy for him to say. His meter had been three quarters full. She wasn’t even to the half. If simple mathematics applied, that would mean she’d lose more than half of herself, which might make her fade away.

But it was their only option.

Preface

"There's not much sunlight left," Dex observed. "If we're going to leap we have to do it now."

"You’re right." Sophie decided that this was the only way they could ever get home. She gave her head a hard shake for some extra confidence and grabbed Dex's wrist.

"Ready?" She asked, looking at him. He looked nervous too.

"As really as I'll ever be." 

They both took a deep breath and walked into the light, glittering away to Eternalia.

Sophie concentrated on protecting herself with a mental aura. She concentrated hard. And it was working. She wasn't fading. It was going fine, better than fine even. Until she felt Dex beside her. He seemed to be slipping away from her. 

That's not possible, she thought. Dex couldn't be slipping away, they were light-leaping after all. Unless…unless he was fading. 

The realization hit Sophie like a ton of bricks. It was all she could do to not lose concentration. 

She had to do something. She had to save Dex. So she focused her mental energy on Dex. Wrapped him in her mental energy like you might wrap someone with a blanket. A blanket to prevent him from dying. It worked, his presence felt stronger beside her.

It wasn't until they reached Eternalia that Sophie realized she felt...weird. Weightless. She glanced down at her legs and saw that they were translucent. The shape of her legs were barely visible. And it didn't seem to be stopping. Her waist was losing opacity fast. It took her only a moment to register all this.

Dex looked over at her and gasped. "Sophie, you look like you’re…" His lips formed the word fading but Sophie never heard it.

[plan-d-to-i]

Plan, saw someone criticise lwj for the scene where wwx ask him in bm if there's other road. They said wwx asked for a solution & lwj didn't even answer & left bm. Do ppl really read the book? That person was a novel reader who write metas here so it's weird that they'd read certain scenes in a way that isn't intended by the author. Must be the victim mentality influencing their reading comprehension & making them do selective reading.

Fr. It's so odd when people try to blame either of them in this situation. WWX's question reads as rhetorical. He obviously knows he doesn't have a core so he can't cultivate any other way, esp if he is to have enough power to act as a deterrent to those who would harm the Wens, esp after publicly cutting ties with YumengJiang for jc. jc who was the person who most should have done something, and was in the best position to do something being both a Clan Leader and the beneficiary of Wen Ning and Wen Qing's aid. Instead he publicly cut ties w WWX and confirmed the worst rumors about him to the cultivation world, calling him their enemy. But back to LWJ, he obviously didn't know that WWX didn't have his core when he kept questioning him about his cultivation choices; and the bulk of his worry stemmed from how WWX's mental and physical wellbeing would be affected by his continued use of resentful energy. Not because he was bliNdEd by his rules 🌝. LWJ's ideals didn't change drastically over time, he more just had to come to terms with the fact that WWX would make his own decisions even if they might harm him. After all LWJ was drawn to WWX precisely because he was that type of person who prioritized innocent people. Idk why fandom keeps trying to rob LWJ of his goodness and morality and act like WWX is the one who instilled/inspired them in him. They're both special people! They're drawn to each other precisely because their world views match! LWJ always went where the chaos was. That's his thing, which even WWX admits is not as easy as it sounds:

When Wei WuXian heard of Lan WangJi’s reputation for being wherever the chaos was, he didn’t think it’d be too hard, but right now as he tried it in person alongside Lan WangJi, he discovered that it was truly a test of one’s resolution.

LWJ took the beating for breaking curfew right along WWX and didn't heal himself. LWJ walked form miles on an injured leg, miserable because he didn't know if his brother was still alive, knowing his home was burned and that his father was dying and he still defended MianMian ~

However, one of the GusuLan Sect’s disciples on the side had been trembling as he listened to Wen Chao’s threatening words. He finally couldn’t hold it any longer as he rushed over, grabbing MianMian, and prepared to tie her up. Lan WangJi’s brows stiffened. He immediately struck the disciple to the side.

Although he didn’t say anything, the way he looked at the disciple was more than imposing. What such a look meant was clear to everyone—it truly is a shame that the GusuLan Sect has taught a disciple like you!

LWJ had his own sense of justice from beginning to end, and it was usually in harmony with WWX's. As MXTX wrote -

(translation : & great post from @suyanzhi )

LWJ respects WWX's agency in the end; his decision to continue cultivating as he has, and to protect the Wens, and he respects it again after Nightless City when he returns him to the Burial Mounds even though he most likely knows how it will end.

"A moment later, Wei WuXian spoke up, “Lan Zhan, you asked me if I intended on staying like this from now on. To be honest, I’d like to ask something as well. What can I do apart from this?”

He continued, “Give up the demonic path? Then what about the people on this mountain?

“Give them up? I won’t be able to do it. I believe that if you were I, you wouldn’t be able to do it either.”

He continued, “Nobody can give me a nice, broad road to walk on. A road where I could protect those I want to protect without having to cultivate the ghostly path.”

Lan WangJi gazed at him. He didn’t reply, but both of them knew the answer in their hearts.

There was no such road.

No solution existed.

Wei WuXian spoke slowly, “Thank you for keeping me company today. Thank you for telling me the news about my shijie’s marriage too. But, let the self judge the right and the wrong, let others decide to praise or to blame, let gains and losses remain uncommented on. I, too, know what I should and shouldn’t do. I believe that I’ll be able to control it as well.”

As if he’d anticipated such an attitude since a long time ago, Lan WangJi nodded slightly and closed his eyes.

And that marked their farewell."

It says right there, there was no nice broad road, and they both know it; As things stand WWX could either have a safe(r) life or he could protect the Wens. There's no perfect solution. This wasn't a request for aid, but more a request for understanding from a person whose righteousness and integrity WWX also believes in and respects.

[andromedasstarship]

i could not choose between 77-80 so i overbearingly ask u to use each of them with spencer reid if u wish 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

80. “Your comfort and happiness is more important to me than some stupid dinner.” + 77- “If you want to leave, we can leave.”

send a prompt + character from this list! 

pairing - spencer reid x gn!reader

warnings - stress?? mostly fluff 

a/n - tysm kenna for requesting this i love you and i loved writing this. i also went overboard on this one bye! ive also never posted something this long in an ask reply before so if this looks weird BYE!

Your car had long gone cold, but you still couldn’t find the energy to pull yourself out yet. It was futile to try and wrestle your emotions into a tightly sealed box; as soon as you crossed the threshold of the town-home you shared with Spencer, you knew he’d be able to read you like a book. Damn genius profiler skills.

Taking a quick look at the time you knew you had to suck it up and go inside; you were pushing how ‘late’ you could be without him worrying something had happened on your commute home. With a deep sigh, you grabbed your bag from the passenger seat and exited the car; taking your sweet time with locking the car behind you and digging your house keys out of the bottom of your bag.

To put it simply, it had been a difficult year. It was the final year of your Phd. program and while- all things considered- you had had an amazing time, the past few months had been both physically and mentally draining. What was once your lifelong passion had suddenly started to feel like a chore; a chore you felt you weren’t even good at anymore. Almost every day was spent either in your own classes or teaching undergrads. Almost every night was spent on the final edits of your thesis or grading work from your students. The few moments of freedom you found were spent doing the boring parts of adult life: housekeeping, getting your car fixed, calling elderly family members, etc.

Neither of you had formerly addressed it, but you knew it was taking a toll on your relationship. Spencer being busy was a constant, but it was normally balanced out by your typical 9-5 schedule. But recently, even on the nights he was home you’d be too wrapped up in your own work to even sit down and eat dinner with him. By the time you crawled into bed he’d be long asleep and in the mornings you’d been leaving for work earlier and earlier in order to get research time in at the university library. It felt like the two of you hadn’t even been awake in the same room for weeks, let alone do anything relationship-y.

Tonight was supposed to change that. Kind of. His team was having a fancy dinner to celebrate some major milestone that you couldn’t remember. It’d been on the books for months, but kept getting pushed back by surprise cases. It felt like everyone held their breath this week, waiting for a case to pop up, but instead everyone was left pleasantly surprised when no such thing happened. It was going to be a great night: classic Rossi pasta dish, all partners and kids invited. Even though the two of you wouldn’t be alone, it’d still be a perfectly good excuse to get out, put on some nice outfits and have a fun evening with friends.

Spencer had been particularly excited. The past week, you felt as if it was the only thing he ever talked about. Not that the two of you were having extensive conversations. He kept talking about how great it would be to get out of the house and how much he was looking forward to having a totally work free evening. His excitement warmed your heart.

Which is why you were taking so long to find your keys. Today had been one of the hardest day you’d experienced in a long time. The thesis meeting you had with your advisor- that you’d been staying up late every night editing for- had gone horribly; it was as if everything you prepared was wrong. Almost every student in the class you taught scored poorly on the latest assessment- on a unit you considered yourself an expert on-, something you viewed as a failure of your ability to convey the info. And to top it all off, even though you felt as if you’d spent hours upon hours working yourself to the bone the past week- in order to clear space for tonight-, you still felt as if you had piles of work to catch up on.

You knew the stress and tension of the day would read clear on your body as soon as Spencer got a look at you. And with how excited he’d been, you absolutely didn’t want to ruin the dinner. You’d hate for him to feel as if you were being selfish or that you couldn’t even prioritize him in your schedule.

You took one last deep breath, before going to put the key into the doorknob. Just as you touched the handle, the door swung open from the other side.

“Jesus!” You exclaimed, one hand clutching your chest as you nearly jumped out of your skin. In front of you was Spencer, smiling down at you with that irresistible grin of his.

“Did I scare you? Sorry. I thought I heard you car pull up earlier and when you didn’t come in I thought maybe something was wrong so I wanted to come check-”

You quickly cut him off- even though you did find his worrying a bit endearing- by pressing a quick kiss to his lips. 

“A good song came on just as I pulled in, couldn’t just get out.” You lied, adding a small laugh for effect. It was an on brand situation for you, something certainly believable. If Spencer had any doubts, he didn’t question you, simply moved out of the doorframe so you could step in.

Inside the house, you set your bag down by the front door like you always did. While kicking your shoes off, you pulled your jacket off, smiling when Spencer had his hands already open to hang it on the rack. You knew he had that ridiculous memory- and you had a pretty set routine-, but it still made your heart swell every time he anticipated your next move and went the extra mile to be helpful.

“So, how was your day?" Spencer asked, as the two of you made your way to the kitchen area. “What’d Professor Addams have to say in your meeting?”

You clenched at the handle of the fridge, grinding your teeth before pulling the door open. When you turned to look at Spencer, you saw he made himself comfortable on one of the countertop stools.

“Went well. They gave me some uh, um, some comprehensive revisions.” You said flatly, turning back to face the fridge; missing the skeptical look Spencer was throwing you.

“That’s good?” He said slowly, before adding, “well how was class? You just wrapped up the last unit didn’t you?” You both knew he knew the answer, but was just attempting to further the conversation. Had it been any other day you would’ve found it endearing, but today just wasn’t that day.

You slammed the fridge door shut, just hard enough to be cause for concern. “I thought tonight was absolutely no shop talk. Huh? Why don’t we just start that rule now.” You said, a slight edge to your voice. It’s not his fault, it’s not his fault.

“Are you okay-”

“Yes! I just don’t-”

“If there’s something wrong, you know you can tell-”

“There’s nothing wrong-”

“Do you need to stay-”

“Stop!” You exclaimed, bringing an end to the constant cutting each other off. “Everything is fine. Okay?” You said, unable to maintain eye contact.

Spencer slowly nodded, though you could tell he didn’t believe an ounce of what you had just said. Luckily for you, he seemed to let it go, falling back in his seat.

“I’m gonna go shower and get ready and then we can leave, alright?” You asked rhetorically. When he just nodded again, you very quickly walked up to him and pressed another quick kiss to his lips. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

---

The ride to Rossi’s was silent, something that normally wouldn’t have bothered either of you had it not been for the borderline argument you had in the kitchen. As you pulled up a few cars down from the house, you caught Spencer staring at you from the passenger seat, a slightly concerned look on his face.

“Stop doing that.” You huffed out, but there was no real bite in your voice.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked gently, reaching out to push a piece of your hair away from your face. God that was sweet.

You quickly nodded and threw a very forced smile his way, not quite meeting his eyes. “I’m fine. I promise, come on.” You said, killing the engine and pushing open your car door.

Before you could fully open the door, Spencer’s arm shot out across your body and pulled the door back shut with a bang.

“Spencer!” You yelped, startled by his sudden movement. You turned and gave him a bewildered look.

“You always look over my head when you lie.” Spencer stated.

“Oh I do not-” You started, but letting the sentence fall flat as soon as you realized you currently were looking over his head.

“Your favorite song came on the radio, twice, on the drive here and you didn’t react at all either times.” He said. When you still didn’t say anything he continued. “What’s going on? You know you can tell me.”

The look he was giving you was making you feel all sorts of guilty. Of course he cared, that’s why you loved him so much. You just didn’t want to ruin something that’d been in the works for so long, all because you had a bad day.

“Spencer,” you started, giving him a very pointed look and making sure to hold eye contact, “I’m fine. Can we just go in?”

Spencer shook his head, externally searching your face for more clues while also internally thinking back to any clues from your kitchen fight. “We aren’t going anywhere, until you talk to me.” He urged.

It probably wasn’t the best move on his part, seeing as you both were incredibly stubborn. The two of you were unrelenting, both staring blankly at the other; hoping the other one would break first. After nearly 5 minutes of silence, it became very clear that neither of you were standing down anytime soon.

Spencer reached his hand out again, gently cupping your cheek; internally you cursed your body’s natural reaction to lean into his touch. “What’s going on?” He asked, voice much softer than earlier.

You were internally screaming over how caring he was. Damn him! You cursed yourself for not being able to just play the role of perfect partner for one night.

“I’m exhausted.” You said, voice quiet. “My meeting went horrible day. I absolutely failed at teaching my students the last unit. I’ve been bringing so much work back to the house I haven’t even been able to give you a second of attention. And now we have this dinner that you’ve been looking forward to for months and I don’t want to ruin-”

This time, it was Spencer that quickly cut off your rambles with a kiss.

“Do you want to leave?” He asked, as if it were the most simple thing ever

You gave him a shocked look. “Spencer, you’ve been talking about this dinner for weeks. I, I can’t ask you to put this off, you and the team rarely get time to-”

“If you want to leave, we can leave.” He said. His voice was so sincere it made the whole thing that much more difficult. He was too good.

“Spencer, no.” You said, putting special emphasis on the ‘no’. “We haven’t even walked in the door, there’s nothing to leave yet. I’m not going to ruin the dinner we’ve all been planning on for months. I’ll be fine for a couple hours.”

He didn’t answer, instead pulled his phone out and quickly started to type out a text.

“What are you doing?”

“Texting Rossi, I’m gonna tell him you aren’t feeling well and we can’t come anymore.”

“We’re outside his house! It’s not a big deal-!

“Your comfort and happiness is more important to me than some stupid dinner!” Spencer cut you off, giving you a very pointed look. You weren’t sure your heart could take the swelling much longer.

“Spencer, you’ve been planning-”

“I don’t want to hear it-”

“You’ve wanted to get out of the house for so long!” You stressed, giving him a ‘duh’ look.

“We can go do something else!” He replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Just us, no pressure to be ‘on’ in front of anyone else.” That did sound good- No!

“I’m not gonna be the one who keeps their boyfriend away from his friends-”

“I see them every day. Every day. One dinner means nothing.” Spencer said confidently, clasping your hand tightly between his.

You contemplated for what seemed like hours; though it couldn’t have been more than twenty seconds. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of something in my life.” Spencer said, giving you a very mock serious look; you couldn’t help but laugh at that. “There you are.” He said, smiling to match yours.

You turned the car on, clicking your seatbelt back into place. “So, where to pretty boy?” You asked.

“Well, I heard of this new ice cream place that just opened up. Their ‘claim to fame’ is they make over 50 flavors in store every single day. Did you know on average it takes nearly three hours from start to finish to make a single batch of ice cream? Or that when ice cream-”

You shook your head in amusement, chancing a couple glances in his direction as you were driving. You loved his excited ramblings and animated hand motions as he further explained the history of ice cream; as well as all the random facts about the place he was directing you to. As you got closer to your new destination, all you could think about was how lucky you were to, to be loved by someone who always knew just what to say.

---

permanent tags - @sunflowersandotherthings

[stillness-in-green]

MVA In Memoriam (3/5)

The Comprehensive Account of the Butchering of My Villain Academia

(Introduction and Part One, Episode 108: My Villain Academia) (Part Two, Episode 109: Revival Party)

Part Three, Episode 110: Sad Man's Parade

Chapter 229 – All It Takes Is One Bad Day

• The full first page, of Jin getting mobbed by Puppet!Jins, them tearing his mask off, and flinging it and then him away. Saved them a bit of budget, I suppose, but it’s a shame to lose the drama and the violence of Twice having his mask pulled away, since it’s decent foreshadowing (indeed, possibly intentionally so, on Skeptic’s part) for the violent bewilderment he’ll be subject to shortly.

• Re-Destro’s line, “Not when he’s using his meta-ability to puppeteer, unless you want another nagging lecture.” They didn’t keep the first nagging lecture, so of course they wouldn’t keep this. I’m still annoyed, both on general principle and at the loss of RD’s implication that these nagging lectures are a regular occurrence, especially if one tries to bother Skeptic when he’s using his meta-ability. Has RD himself been on the receiving end of one? Possibly so! But you’d be less likely to think so just from the anime.

• Re-Destro’s line, “This allowed our warriors to momentarily hold back and stay out of danger.” Because why would the audience need to know that Skeptic planned for and Re-Destro cares enough to observe something like that lol?? Obviously the MLA is perfectly content to just throw their peoples’ lives away because, whatever, more where that came from! Dammit, anime, the fandom believes this enough as it is without confirmation bias from your cuts!

• Skeptic’s “fufufu” laugh, because the anime is allergic to the MLA having fun.

• The police officer’s line, “Sure, but in a case like this, you’re still to blame.” The rest of the exchange hints at it, of course, but there’s a horrifying callousness to a police officer just saying straight to the face of a teenaged orphan facing his first offense, “Yes, you were obeying the law perfectly and this guy just ran out in front of you, but it’s going on your criminal record anyway, whatever.” A weight the anime lost, and another that makes me very suspicious of the patterns behind what, precisely, was put on the chopping block.[1]

• Jin’s narration, “That police officer couldn’t have known. Me neither.” Demonstrates that Jin doesn’t really hold his fall against the one policeman. It’s a consistent thread with Jin’s character that, while he’s very jaded, he’s not actually vengeful, nor is he looking to enact systemic change. While he’s very defensive of his friends, people who hurt Jin himself are never in any real danger of him coming to collect his pound of flesh in return; he just rolls with it as part of how the world works, in the way of someone who was never given reason to believe any different. This line is a good example of that.

• From Jin’s old employer’s angry rant, deletes the note that the client that called is angry, and that the client said, “That young punk of yours did this!” It’s nothing that wasn’t obvious from the rest of the conversation, but I do I think cutting it loses a sense that this guy is just unloading all of his frustration and fear on Jin. The length of the screed, the extra details—it clearly communicates that Jin’s boss is so angry and upset he’s not paying any real mind to filtering, but just recounting every point of contention the moment they come into his mind.

• In modern society, when you’re someone without roots… Well, not a lot of people can relate to that.” It isn’t just the police that failed Jin; it’s a whole society that’s distrustful of people who don’t have a place in the fabric, and thus are unwilling to try and bring them into it. Like Tenko, there are a thousand little places where someone could have reached out a hand, but no one ever did. The audience can intuit this, but I feel it’s better to be clear about it—it’s not just the legal system that screwed Jin over; it’s every other person that never tried to help him because they were afraid of his eyes or distrusted a guy who had no connections. When Shigaraki comes, he’s not going to be coming for heroes alone; he’ll be coming for this entire tapestry of indifference and timidity.

• Skeptic’s lines, “Hrm? Fighting back? I was sure he’d either flee or cower in place... We didn’t anticipate such unity between them.” This gets at two things. Firstly, and once again, that the MLA did their research; that they came into this with educated expectations and a definite plan. Secondly, an in-character observation of what the arc has been showing the audience all along: that the League isn’t just a disparate gang of hoodlums anymore; that they’re developing real bonds. Those bonds mark them as unusual—Re-Destro comments on it in 223, as did Overhaul in 147; even Mr. Compress remarks disapprovingly on Twice’s “habit” of getting overly attached to people. It’s striking that, even though the MLA knew from Giran’s records that the League was uncommonly well-bonded, Twice’s devotion still fell outside Skeptic’s parameters.[2]

• Again Skeptic’s line, “Now his legs.” The drones don’t actually get this far (though you can see them gearing up for it on the next page), so it’s a reasonable enough cut, but it does emphasize the ludicrous, over-the-top extremes Skeptic in particular is willing to go to in securing what he wants. If, you know, “Kidnap the doubler so we have a method to make copies of the Grand Commander at our leisure,” wasn’t bonkers enough.

• Twice’s line, “Even against Gigantomachia!” It really highlights just how much mental energy Twice has been dedicating to avoiding injury, that he was able to keep it in mind even fighting a foe as overwhelming, and for as extended a period, as Machia. And like, the anime blitzed over the Machia fight so quickly, and with so little visible wear and tear to the League, that it really could have used all the reminders it could find room for about how intense those six weeks were.

• Twice’s line, “I won’t watch a friend die!” Such an important line that the composer named an entire track for it, not that the anime gave us that track in the moment it was clearly scored for. They added in a new line later in the scene which mostly gets the important sentiments back in, but loses out in being slightly less fitting to his breakthrough. See the Additions portion of the write-up on Chapter 230, following.

Framing Shifts

• The policeman in Jin’s flashback looked up at him in the anime, where in the manga, his eyes stay down on his paperwork the entire time. I realize that anime can’t just still-frame every panel of a manga and call it an adaptation,[3] so characters will do things like move and look around in different directions just in the course of inhabiting a room, Still, in this case, it has the effect of making the officer look more alert and engaged than he was in the manga, and given that this whole chunk of backstory is about Jin slipping through the social safety net, it feels appropriate to me that the officer should be completely checked out.

Additions

• A new shot of Jin(s) in his pre-massacre doppelganger army days. Didn’t tell us anything we don’t already know—it’s little more than a new angle of the gang in the truck—but it was nice to see.

Bonus Note

• They left Re-Destro’s phrase, “My company,” alone when he was talking about the micro-transceivers Skeptic was using. That’s accurate to the manga, but I’d like to remind everyone that, at that point in the anime, viewers whose only reference is the anime itself have no idea that Re-Destro is a businessman. The show skipped the commercial, RD’s intro, the dinner scene where his company comes up, and Giran’s association of RD with Detnerat; it will further go on to skip Shigaraki recognizing him from the commercial. The news report mentioning Detnerat was ten full episodes prior to Episode 110, and was followed up on in not the faintest degree. For heaven’s sake, would it have been so hard to have Hirata Hiroaki say, “My Detnerat’s,” instead of just, “My company’s”?

Chapter 230 – Sad Man’s Parade

• Deleted the MLA members that are attacking Compress as they get pushed off by the Twice wave. Not the first time, and not the last, that the anime didn’t animate the random MLA people on the street. It’s hard to take the threat of their numbers seriously when the anime kept deleting them from what are supposed to be crowd scenes, you know?

• Mr. C thinking worriedly about Dabi as he’s mulling over Geten’s strength and disregard for catching his own people in the collateral damage. It’s just a, “Dabi—!” but it’s yet another tiny cut that shaves away at the manga’s clear depiction of Leagues’ concern for one another—even Mr. Compress, who claims that such things aren’t very villainous.

Framing Shifts

• Changed the random MLA’s exhortation to kill all the Twices to a generic, “Damn—!” I know American censors have often taken issue with the words “Kill” and “Die” in kids’ cartoons, but I was never of the impression that that was the case in Japan. And it’s not like the show made any bones about Curious planning to kill Toga. A rephrase to save a second and a half on dialogue, maybe?

• Had Skeptic give his lines about failure on the way over to the elevator instead of stalking over in silence, and then dumping the whole monologue all at once. The manga’s extended silence over three identically sized panels is much funnier and more characterful. I grow ever more confident in my assessment of Skeptic as the second-most ill-treated MLA character in this adaptation.

• The return of the Doom Choirs for the Twice Parade. I really wish the anime would lay off slathering Doom Choirs all over everything, especially a moment like this: a triumph for Twice, and, true to form for Twice, also crammed to the gills with visual and verbal gags. The Doom Choir is out of keeping with both the victory and the comedy—Mine Woman, later on, served the Parade much better.

Additions

• Gave Twice a new line, “I will protect my comrades!” It was nice to make up for his, “I won’t watch a friend die!” but the latter is more characterful, especially since a more literal translation is, “I won’t kill my friends!” Which is, you know, relevant to the fact that Twice has problems telling himself apart from things that just look like him, and he just had to intervene to stop some of those look-alikes from killing one of said friends. At least it got his use of nakama back in.[4]

• A new little cut of animation as the action went back to Geten and Dabi. I suppose the Dabi fans liked it, and it was nice to see more of Geten’s ice dragon, but I’d have much preferred they could keep the scenes we already have before adding new ones.

Chapter 231 – Path

The scene of Hawks wondering why he hasn’t heard from Dabi and his subsequent flashback to the last time they spoke were relocated to the beginning of Episode 102, the first thing the audience saw after the prior episode ended with Shouto inviting Bakugou and Deku to come intern with him at Endeavor’s. In the manga, of course, it’s not “a few weeks ago in Kyushu,” it’s “meanwhile in Osaka.” Also, the order of the scenes was flipped—the episode led with the flashback, then returned to the modern day. It really makes the timeline needlessly confusing—the viewer has no real context for what we’re seeing and when, especially since the anime neglected to specify how much time passed between the two scenes. You have to assume it was enough time for an outcry to be raised over Jeanist’s disappearance, but the random shot of a bird flying over was not at all helpful there.

          Alterations included (as usual, outright removed material is in bold text):

          1. Cut Hawks’ thought, “That’s why you keep calling,” and his line, “What’s the job?” I know I should give a breakdown here about Hawks’ mentality and training, but I’m afraid I don’t have it in me to complain about any lines Takami Keigo loses. God knows the anime gives him plenty enough bonus material.

          2. Spliced in the flashback scene of Hawks reporting to the Commission from Chapter 243, but subtly changed it to suggest that it took place after the phonecall in which Dabi demanded Hawks kill a non-Endeavor top hero, rather than it taking place right after Hawks and Dabi’s first contact, which is what the manga implies.

          3. Deleted several key shots in the Jeanist apartment scene, with the effect of making Hawks way less creepy. We got an anime-original shot of his eyes, narrow and serious, but not either of the shots of his big, off-putting grin and widened eyes as he pulls a feather-blade on Jeanist. We also lost a shot of Jeanist turning to face him, framed between extended primaries of Hawks’ Fierce Wings. It’s not like the anime dropped the fake!Dead Jeanist plot, so I’m not sure why the shift, unless it’s just that they wanted to keep Hawks likable for the merch-buying crowd, not creepy and unsettling. And while I personally never believed that Hawks really killed Jeanist, a lot of people thought it was plausible, no doubt based on how off-kilter he comes across in this scene. It loses a real frisson, to just play it straight.

• Shigaraki decaying a missile in mid-air. So Dabi can get those little animation flourishes but Tomura can’t, huh, anime? I see how it is. I. See. How. It. Is.

• Spinner’s little side comment about all the ice everywhere. A nice demonstration that Geten and Dabi’s fight really is affecting huge swathes of the city; that’s certainly apparent already in a bunch of the wide shots showing exactly that, but it’s helpful to have the more zoomed-in moments, too. Also, I do enjoy those little side quips wherever we get them, and the anime often removes them.

• Thinned out the crowd guarding the route to the tower somewhat (it’s particularly noticeable on the mid-distance rooftops) and, as best I can tell, removed Shigaraki and Spinner from the shot. Why keep all the lines harping on the 110,000 number when a) it’s not even accurate to the MLA’s forces, just the League’s assumptions, and b) the studio doesn’t even have the resources to adequately convey the numbers the manga does portray?

• Somebody in the crowd being defiant about Twice’s multiplication and vigorously declaring that the League are all just sacrifices for the MLA’s Revival Party anyway. The background nobodies? Allowed to express even bog-standard over-confidence? Well I never. How dare those people think their lives count enough for them to get dialogue.

• Spinner’s, “This keeps happening!” Of course he couldn’t have that line in the anime, since the anime cut the other big place Trumpet clearly used his power to rile up his followers. What other times were you even talking about when you said, “Every time he talks,” Anime!Spinner? That scene was the first time we even saw Trumpet since he welcomed you guys to town.

• Twice calling Re-Destro a cult leader. He just called him a damn moron (bakayarou) in the anime; he uses the considerably more specific baka kyouso (Google Translate gives “guru”; jisho gives “founder of a religious sect”). He uses the same term again immediately afterward—Viz’s translation gives, “More like chrome dome cult!”—which the anime also deleted.

          So here’s another example of the anime doing everything it could to erase the presence of cults in the HeroAca world. The easy assumption to make is that this was tied to broadcast standards about the depiction of what Japan refers to as “new religious movements,” which—and pardon the brief swerve into real life historical horrors here—have been very unpopular in Japan since Aum Shinrikyo and the sarin gas attacks in 1995. But were these elements removed because the anime didn’t want to represent anything that smacks of new religious movements at all, or because the depiction of both the MLA and particularly the CRC are explicitly villainous and calling religious movements, even made-up ones, evil on TV leads to a lot of angry phone calls?

• Re-Destro’s line, “Unlike my good Miyashita, there’s nothing charming about you.” Of course they’d cut this, having cut the Miyashita scene, but I hate it anyway. As I said earlier, RD’s invocation of Miyashita in front of two people who are going to have not the slightest clue who that is tells me that Re-Destro really does miss and feel bad about killing the guy. Cutting the reminder that RD still feels that sting makes it much too easy to assume that Shigaraki’s right about RD hiding up in his tower, uncaring of the blood shed on his behalf, when if you read Re-Destro with even the slightest of attempts at good faith, it’s clear that those losses weigh very heavily on him.

          Incidentally, and not to harp on the art again, but in the manga, Stress is still visibly spread down from RD’s temple to the ridge of his brow over his eye socket. The anime returned it back to its normal resting state, again suggesting that the death toll mounting in the streets below (as well as, possibly, the new stress of confronting a quirk as powerful as Double) left RD completely unmoved. The spread was back in the following shot, so it was probably just an art error, but it would be nice to have had fewer of those, especially when they impact characterization as much as what RD’s Stress blots are doing at any given time.

Framing Shifts

• Had Machia doing this weird cannonball skim just over the ground, when in the manga, he’s still half-buried, spraying earth and stone everywhere. The manga never namedrops Machia’s Mole quirk during the story itself, but it’s important to know for later that Machia can not only tear through obstacles, he can tear through obstacles extremely quickly.

Additions

• Gave Hawks a few new lines about how too many unexpected things happened for their last arrangement, and that Dabi should have given him more warning. Largely seemed to be there to give the anime an excuse to flashback to the High End fight, in case the viewers had completely forgotten about Hawks and Dabi having a clandestine meeting and sniping at each other in the aftermath of that event. An understandable addition, but deeply frustrating in the context of all the lines that got cut.

Chapter 232 – Meta Abilities and Quirks

• Dropped a third instance of Twice calling Re-Destro a cult leader. I don’t know what the S&P restriction is on this, but given that the movie was allowed to create and villainize an entire international terrorist cult, it is really incomprehensible that the MLA doesn’t get to keep their designation as such. Why?? Because the movie involves going out and defeating its cult, but the series is going to engage in a more sympathetic treatment?[5] Because the self-selecting movie crowd is less likely to complain than the TV audience? Did they just not want to draw attention to how much the movie was ripping off the MLA’s whole shtick? What??

• Missed that RD’s swole arm swipe wipes out the puppets Skeptic left behind; they just vanished from the scene entirely after Twice’s arrival. It’s hard to blame the anime for this; the manga also seems to lose track of the fact that they’re right there in between RD and the elevator—they’re nowhere to be seen anywhere between the end of Chapter 231 and the aforementioned arm swipe, where you can see them getting obliterated. Both versions could have stood to be more attentive to this; indeed, the anime could have fixed it, small error though it is.

• A sort of twitchy sparking around Shigaraki’s hand right after he decays the tower. This is foreshadowing that Shigaraki’s big AOE decay attacks are hard on his body, which will become extremely apparent after he unleashes it on the city at large during the climax, and factors into his decision to accept the mysterious power Ujiko offers. The damage Shigaraki sustains there doesn’t come out of nowhere; Horikoshi is, on the whole, extremely good at layering in foreshadowing many chapters before the foreshadowed elements come fully to light. It makes the writing look much messier than it actually is—more convenient, more pat—to delete this stuff.

• Shigaraki recognizing RD from the Detnerat commercials. Well, they ditched the Detnerat commercial, so of course they ditched this. Still, it lost one of the indicators that Shigaraki is, despite not receiving a formal education, actually quite up to speed on current events—even, apparently, when those current events are happening while he’s been fighting Machia in an isolated stretch of mountains for six weeks! I already suffer enough through fanon characterizations of Shigaraki in which he’s a basement-dwelling feral manchild glued to his gaming console whom AFO bans from accessing information about the outside world, anime! I don’t need you dropping the scenes that most clearly demonstrate otherwise!!

• In the anime, Baby!Chikara’s face was unmarked, just a normal infant face—you’d never even know the kid had a meta-ability just to look at him. In the manga, the skin of his face is clearly darker, contrasted against the paleness of his mother’s hand. It’s obvious that he’s not “normal” looking, and thus equally obviously would have attracted negative attention in his era.[6] Also had his mother smiling; her face in the manga is too shadowed and vague to make out an expression, befitting the murky tragedy of her story and the fear she must have been living with.

Framing Shifts

Additions

• A little thing: they had Twice echo, “Cushion?” when Clone!Shigaraki told him to get ready to cushion Giran’s fall. If anything, Re-Destro and his little thought-bubbled question mark is probably the one who should have had this reaction line.

• Added a visual for Clone-araki catching himself on the window. A perfectly reasonable way to fill screen time while a dialogue beat was ongoing.

• Added a panning still over a reaction shot from a bunch of Twice clones when the tower came down. It had a few good faces in it.

                                                           ---

So, generally, this episode was better. I definitely still had issues with it, but compared to what came before, when they were trying to cram 5+ chapters into the episodes, there were far fewer cuts, and what cuts and tweaks there were, were relatively minor. Definitely nothing that made me want to throw chairs Jerry Springer-style the way 108 and 109 did.

Sadly, I can't say the same for the remaining two episodes. Come back next time for Part Four, Episode 111: Shimura Tenko, Origin.

FOOTNOTES

[1] After witnessing the massacre that was Episode 108, I was convinced they were going to cut the policeman scene entirely, and just go right to Jin getting fired for hitting someone with his bike, letting the audience think it was his fault completely rather than cast aspersions on police and the justness of the law. I was pleased they kept it at all, but less pleased with the steps taken to soften the sharpness of its accusation.

[2] Of course, it’s not like the MLA themselves don’t understand the willingness to give everything for the people who matter. They just label those feelings Devotion To The Cause, and don’t think the League is capable of such resolution.

[3] Netflix’s Way of the House Husband, be told.

[4] Nakama is, of course, a shonen standby, but, to the best of my knowledge (which is admittedly limited; I don’t follow a lot of shounen series), it’s pretty rare to hear the word coming out of a villain’s mouth! Jin calling the League his nakama ties into how the League are both sympathetic villains in the larger story and also the protagonists of the current arc, thereby operating under a lot of protag tropes for the duration—foreshadowed by Spinner’s earlier talk of Shigaraki and his boyish, dream-chasing eyes.

[5] Sometime after the mass arrests, one hopes.

[6] This could well be a coloring error in the manga, but if so, you’d think they’d have corrected it for the volume release. Especially given that, again, the color is in a different shade/screentone than the shadow that covers most of his mother’s face, and her hand stroking Chikara’s chin isn’t shadowed at all.

[echo-bleu]

hello! I saw one of your previous asks and I was wondering if I could ask you for some writing help too! I have an autistic character that i love, but I'm not sure how to convey that this character is autistic in a way that feel aunthentic and organic instead of stereotyped, specially since she's a girl and I haven't seen many (accurate) representations of autistic girls in the media. I've seen videos about autistic people and they've been very helpful on what not to do, but + I would still love

to get some of the 'do's' what i have so far is that she has a Fixation on the sea, she has a hard time reading sarcasm and/or emotions in others, and she has an overall seemingly 'detached' personality (even if I wouldn't call her that, since she cares about the people she loves, she's just bad at putting it into words). I jsut want to make sure i'm on the right path! thank you so much for listening and I hope this is not a bother!

Hi Anon! I’m not bothered at all and I’m happy to answer this kind of ask. As always, I can only speak for myself, but I’ll try to give you a few pointers. (The previous ask mentioned is this one.)

First, it’s lovely to hear about an autistic girl! I’m not sure if you’re speaking about an adult or a child/teenager, but either way, it can be interesting to read about how autism can look a bit different in women. The gender distinction that has often been made is something I don’t agree with because I feel that it’s an unnecessary shortcut, but a number of autistic people, in majority women and people socially perceived as female, learn to “adapt” more to neurotypical standards by masking their autistic traits a lot, and might not be detected as autistic until adulthood. Masking takes a lot of energy, which can translate as feeling “socially exhausted” all the time and lead to burnout. This article list traits that can be found that are less common and obvious. It is far from perfect imo, but it can give you new ideas!

You didn’t really say if your character is a main or a side character (which changes the amount of detail you’ll want to go into) but so far to me you seem to be on the right track! Having a hard time reading people is something a lot of us struggle with. It might not just be sarcasm, btw, understanding metaphors and jokes can also be hard. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have a sense of humor: it’s entirely possible to be able to use sarcasm and struggle with noticing it when it comes from other people, and a lot of autistic people have a very developed and specific sense of humor that can be seen as odd.

The “detached” personality is something you may have to handle with care because lack of empathy is a harmful stereotype. Maybe look up the difference between cognitive and affective empathy. Some of us do struggle with empathy, many of us struggle with expressing it in a way that’s comprehensible to neurotypicals, but it doesn’t mean that we lack it. It’s fine for your character to struggle with it, but be careful that she doesn’t end up seeming cold/robotic if she’s not the POV character.

Now for some “do’s”: I’m only going to talk about autistic traits here and assume that you’ve fleshed her out with an actual personality outside of her autism, just like you would any other character.

- I agree that it has to come up organically, but it would be a lot better in terms of representation to make her explicitly autistic, ie use the word autistic. It doesn’t have to be at the beginning of the story. If you’re in a fantasy setting or for some other reason you can’t use the actual word, then describing something like neurodiversity would be a good way to make it explicit. In fanfic, I personally think that tagging “autistic [character]” is enough if the fic is short(ish) and the word isn’t used in the story but the character’s autism is fairly clear, but in an original story, you don’t really have that possibility.

- Something I like to do when coming up with original autistic characters is to choose a few specific stims from them, that regularly come back in my descriptions. It falls under the same umbrella as choosing mannerisms, it gives characters their own specific flavor. You can choose a happy stim, a nervous stim and a bored stim, for example. Autistics stim a lot and in a lot of ways, but I think most of us have a few stims that come back often. It can be things like chewing on a toy/finger, flapping in a specific way, rocking on their heels, twirling hair, fidgeting with a toy or jewelry.

- Sensory differences. It’s also something that you can choose for your character: maybe she likes to listen to music very loudly, and often speak a little too loudly, or on the contrary she’s hyperacusic. She might wear sunglasses outside, or need lights on all the time. She might need subtitles to understand a movie, or be super distracted by sparkly things. She might not make eye contact, or make it too much, or seem to make it by looking somewhere close to the person’s eyes. She might find touch painful or difficult, or seek it constantly, or both (can depend on the moment, how tired she is, or if she trusts the person).

- Like I’ve said before, meltdowns/shutdowns are a delicate thing to portray if you’re not autistic yourself, but overloading can and does happen without going all the way to either of them. It’s actually fairly frequent, and happens when there is too much sensory (or emotional) stimuli at the same time or a too long day or something. From the inside, it can look like struggling to think, feeling like your skin is crawling, feeling like everything is too much, and struggling to initiate actions/figure out the steps to do something. From the outside, it can look like the person is rejecting touch, needs to isolate themself, is irritated, might struggle to speak/be very quiet. As long as the character isn’t mocked for their behavior, I think it’s something you can portray without too much risk.

- A specific interest about the sea is a nice idea! The sea is a very large subject, though, so she’ll probably have a predilection for some things. Is it water currents? Fish species? Underwater plants? Beaches? There’s a lot of options to choose from here.

- Maybe think about co-occuring conditions, because most of us have at least one. Some are very hard to distinguish from autism itself, like dyspraxia or ADHD, because they’re linked or similar to autistic traits. A lot of us are also disabled in some other way:  for example there’s a clear (though unexplained) link between autism and hyperflexibility, which can lead to joint pain, gut issues and chronic illnesses like EDS. Many of us have mental illnesses, growing up autistic in this world is honestly traumatizing and it’s hard to find autistics without some kind of C-PTSD or anxiety (on that subject, this post points out that the current diagnostic criteria can probably only diagnose traumatized autistic people anyway).

- A pretty good portrayal of an autistic girl (and to my knowledge the only one where the actor is also autistic) is Matilda in Everything’s Gonna be Okay. I didn’t actually watch until the end and I’ve been told the last episode isn’t great, but the start was pretty good. She’s a teenager, and at one point gets a girlfriend who is also autistic and has a service dog. In Elementary, while Sherlock is only autistic-coded, there is at one point (season 4 I believe) a recurring character named Fiona who I thought was a pretty good portrayal as well. She’s an adult, and she’s stereotypical in some ways but it’s better than most portrayals I’ve seen or read.

I would advise you to have a look through the blog @cripplecharacters. They answer asks about disabled characters, and I know they have answered a number of questions about autism and have at least one autistic mod. Their answers are usually very interesting!

[sylph-feather]

Title: Ectoplasmic Fossils

Summary: "Actually, Dad?  I wanted to be a paleontologist."

Prompt: Prompt is the same as the summary. Prompter is gaunttwister, team halfa. 

Wordcount:  2453

Notes: Can you tell I was a dinosaur kid.....

For a Danny in familiar world, his first positive thought after becoming a ghost and learning ghosts existed (after, of course, a litany of terror), was as follows: imagine the new world I could explore. He considered this while staring into the swirling portal that lead to places unknown, and in his mind he compared it to the vast and beautiful unknown of space.

This Danny, in this less familiar universe, was less impressed by the portal itself; of course, he was in awe of it from a technical perspective, but nothing that deeply riveting, that personal spark of exploration— not from its wrought metal or whirling green center, that is. No, this was his thought, in replacement of the other spark: if ghosts exist, what things have been made ghosts over the years? What old life could be discovered? 

Danny, you see, did not desire to explore space in this universe. No. He was fascinated by paleontology. Star books were replaced by compendiums of dinosaur species, models of rockets and stations replaced by scientifically accurate models and bones, diagrams of ships replaced by diagrams of feathery, toothsome things. You get the picture. 

Where these obsessions came from… who was to say? Why one fixation over the other? Did this Danny latch onto his parent’s obsession with the dead and translate it into this, rather than translating it into the more vague idea of exploring the unknown? Or was it as simple as an exposure to different things; a cartoon with scientifically inaccurate dinosaurs rather than a ridiculous sci fi premise, or perhaps watching Jurassic Park too young rather than Star Wars…? The child’s mind is prone to flights of fancy that stick— that’s the  the final conclusion, no matter the exact cause of specifics. 

Regardless, his parents engaged in it; provided him with aforementioned objects— models, posters, etcetera— and generally encouraged his interests. The most annoying was when they tried to sell him on ghosts by using dinosaurs as a sort of bribery; they talked of the possibilities of discovering undocumented species and anatomy with the ghost forms of creatures from long ago, a sort of tempting what if, to lure Danny to their side. 

Up until today, when a portal had electrocuted half the life out of him, Danny didn’t believe it. 

Sam, Tucker, and Danny were all reclined in Danny’s bedroom— all fully human, though Danny still felt a bit… simultaneously charred and charged, which he supposed made sense given he’d just been fried by a nasty shock (to put it lightly). 

His two friends were sending him worried looks— also sensible, given not half an hour ago Danny was significantly ghostier, and significantly panic-ier. Now, though, while Sam and Tucker sent each other concerned glances to communicate wordlessly, Danny was simply considering the possibilities. Gooey species of jellyfish and slug-like creatures that hadn’t been preserved! Confirmation of the placement or use of bones, especially controversial ones like the hollowed crest of the Parasaurolophus or the gastralia of many beasts! Behavior that could only be guessed at via anatomical features! The degree to which feathers coated their body! Colors! 

...And so on and so forth. It was all enough to bring a wide grin to Danny’s face— which was a bit creepy given he’d just died. 

“Dude,” Tucker grimaced, snapping Danny out of his reverie, “are you, like, coping well—“ 

“We have to go into the Ghost Zone,” Danny cut him off with excited urgency. 

Sam blinked at him owlishly. “Now? Why?” 

“Not now, I guess, necessarily,” Danny brushed off, filled with excited energy. His eyes were shining when he turned them to his new friends— “imagine what ancient things we could find as ghosts.” 

Tucker facepalmed and groaned. “Of course the first thing you’re thinking of is dinosaurs.” 

Sam eased a bit, brushing off her initial assumption that Danny had some weird, ghostly pull to the green portal. “Well, at least you’re seeing the bright side,” she huffed sarcastically. 

Danny crossed his arms in a pout. “I’m not just thinking of dinosaurs.” No, he was thinking of other eras of ancient things too, of course. 

Tucker shot him a look, but broke it with a laugh and didn’t prod further. 

  xXx

  It was, of course, a disappointment when the first ghosts that came through were too formless to tell what they had been, if they were anything but raw emotion. It was an even bigger disappointment when the first fully-formed ghosts were largely human-shaped. With the exception of dragons— which Danny definitely did not count— there was nothing that bore any resemblance to extinct creatures. 

On top of this, Danny had sort of let go of the go find dinos in the Ghost Zone NOW mentality, because… well, despite insatiable curiosity, he didn’t know his way around the place at all. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, or if he was even expecting it to be easy to begin with, but going into a directionless green abyss where orientation did not exist… well, needless to say that Danny knew he could not find his way to whatever ancient beast ghosts were there, if they did even exist in the first place. And he certainly didn’t want to risk his life knocking on doors of who-knows-what, or drifting around ghostly islands in the middle of who-knows-where. And that’s not even touching that technically Walker wants his arrest for a reason Danny only sort of remembers because it was so dumb. 

And so, for the first handful of months of his existence as a halfa, Danny contents himself with theorization. It’s hard to think too much about dinosaurs anyways, because it’s hard to think too much about anything— despite being a teen and thus being prone to sleep deprivation, the ghost fighting combined with high school has lead Danny to a new level of exhaustion, one that he is still adjusting to. His grades hurt for it, as do his passions. 

Slowly, though, he does adjust— enough to be confident to go in the Zone, and enough to have actually smart thoughts without his brain fizzling out. 

In the moment where Phantom and the Red Huntress found themselves in Skulker’s lair, Danny was largely scared and exasperated at alternating points. It wasn’t until that situation was… resolved (and thank goodness both hunters didn’t pulverize him) that Danny was slapped with a marvelous idea of tangential connections.

Skulker is a hunter. The Zone’s greatest hunter, he claimed, though Danny didn’t know if he believed that much. Still. The point still stood that it was a reasonable bet that Skulker was into rare and dangerous prey, if his arsenal and his fleet of pelts were anything to go by.

All this to say that Danny thought that maybe, just maybe, Skulker would know about dinosaur ghosts. That miniscule spark of hope was enough; Danny felt he deserved to see what he’d always so desperately wanted to see after the thought of dinosaur ghosts entered his mind as a believable thing. 

Danny had to ask— even if there was a high chance Skulker didn’t know or did know but wouldn’t tell, and the fact that asking Skulker was at great risk of being at best, involved in their typical scuffling, and at worst, captured. Danny only had dinos on the brain, though, and maybe he wasn’t awake enough to consider the full consequences of the impulsive thought. 

So he enacted his plan as a teen enacted anything: rashly, suddenly, and without much forethought. Even calling it a plan alone was generous; all the half-ghost did was float into the Zone in the general direction of Skulker’s island, foolishly calling out to Skulker as he floated through. Naturally, he came prepared— not with weapons, or maps, but with a bag containing his phone, a journal, and his comprehensive dinosaur book… just in case he did end up seeing any. 

The mechanical suit showed his flaming mug quite close to his island. Bright, solid green eyes blinked, and Skulker— who had not had the time to pull up hs egotistical Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter speech in his shock— said in a surprised tone, “don’t you have other things to do?” 

Danny did. He did this in favor of an important English essay on 1984 that he had— Danny had tried wrapping his mind around thought crime and contradictions, and once he put the book down he immediately decided I can think on all that and, I’d much rather find dinosaurs. So here he was. 

Skulker shook himself out of that surprise, and levelled a laser that popped out of his arm at Danny. “No matter! Prey is prey, and you are good prey!” 

“Wait!” Danny barked, confident enough (and strange and out of place enough) to give the other ghost pause, making Skulker lower the laser just slightly, a modicum of movement to say go on, or at least indicate curiosity. “I want to see dinosaurs,” Danny said authoritatively, simply. 

Skulker stared, weapon still whining slightly. His slightly slack jaw and slumped arm just screamed huh? 

And thus began a ramble— “I’ve always wanted to see dinosaurs, and once I realized ghosts existed, I figured ghost dinosaurs had to exist, right?” Not waiting for an answer, Danny ploughed ahead. “And I thought of all the ghosts I’ve met, you seem like you maybe, hopefully know where any ghost dinos are, with the whole hunting schtick—“ 

Skulker cut off Danny’s rambling with honesty: “I’m not sure if I should be amused, flattered, or honored, ghost child.”

“As long as you’re not violent?” Danny said slowly, tipping his head, still assessing Skulker as though to try to suss out whether he was a threat still or no 

Skulker himself was still trying to figure out the answer to that question— did he want to be a threat, want to hunt Phantom? Or did he want to pause and take a moment to indulge the bright, sparkling curiosity in his eyes…? 

Skulker gave an awkward cough, a sort of choked harumph sound. He started slowly, unsurely, “I suppose.” He added hurriedly— “to reward you for being such good prey.” 

Danny huffed. “Way to make it weird,” the halfa grumbled— but he wasn’t able to keep up a petulant persona for long, because the excitement shone through too brightly to conceal. Because dinosaurs. “That means you know where to find them?” Danny’s voice was approaching something that could only be described as a squeal. 

Skulker once again paused for contemplation, because those islands were one of his prized hunting spots… the dinosaurs regenerated (as most strong, full ghosts did), but they still were a great joy to hunt. Among the dinosaur-ridden chunks of land, there were also significantly less interesting hunts— the cambrian period areas, for example, didn’t have much that provided a very thrilling chase… they just sort of scooted around. Then again, it was clear the ghost child cared not for the hunt, so Skulker supposed he could share. 

Skulker made a gruff noise, internally considering that of course he would hunt down the halfa anyways, and Danny didn’t regenerate like full ghosts— so it wasn’t like he had to share for long. Granted, it wasn’t like a hunter to lead prey into anything but a trap, but Skulker didn’t have much to argue against that thought, so he just… didn’t think about it, justifying it with a vague “honor” tangent in his mind.

To answer the question after much internal debate on sharing, his own softness, etcetera, Skulker simply said, “yes, I know where to find them. Follow me.” 

The halfa was lost in excitement, doing flips in the air and going on a ramble that the mechanized ghost utterly drowned out as they jetsetted through the Zone at rapid speed. 

I could skewer him right now, Skulker thought over the whine of his jetpack. The thought had no heat to it, though, especially when Skulker took a pause to look at the exuberant teenager. 

It wasn’t long to consider thoughts of said skewering, anyways. The Ghost Zone was a strange place; once someone had been somewhere and knew the way, the green abyss would fold out of its own way to get them there again when they wanted it. Skulker had long stopped questioning it, if he ever questioned it in the first place, but Phantom was quite in awe of the quick travel, and the way their scenery had subtly compressed then stretched into a new horizon around them as they flew— only now was he realizing the complete change in surroundings. 

Skulker just hovered and watched as those luminous green eyes darted from unfamiliar door to unfamiliar door until they settled on the main attraction: a vast set of islands, incomprehensibly expansive and swirling around each other in a compressed way special to the Ghost Zone’s laws of space.

Danny’s eyes widened, and he let out a sound of pure, concentrated excitement. “This is it,” he said, and it was partially a question but mostly seemed to function as a statement to convince himself. 

Danny shot immediately to the nearest island, a chunk of land covered in a swampy rainforest and thick ferns. From the brush, a large thing burst forth, chittering and cawing. 

Danny took in the huge, feathered raptor— feathers of blue and green, as with all ghosts, but otherwise so… different. It was so different, seeing it in the… well, not flesh, ectoplasm, but the point still stood. Danny hovered above that island, frozen with awe, and the creature stared back at him with eyes that were not slit and were observant, and it clicked its lizard-like mouth around its sharp teeth and flared its feathers with some degree of fright… and Danny could think of nothing better than that moment of pure, extreme joy and awe and sheer wonder. 

Skulker saw all that on the teen’s face and thought again, this time with heat: I could skewer him right now. Their little agreement was over, the debt of providing a good chase repaid, and now it was time for the halfa to become prey once again. A laser charged up—

Beep, beep, beep. The laser cut off with the notification, and Skulker gave a surprised grunt. 

Danny made a noise. “You scared it off,” he groaned, but even that couldn’t get him down, because he went plummeting off towards the fern forest with a joyous laugh. 

Gorilla feeding time, Skulker’s suit informed him in the meanwhile. 

“No,” he barked uselessly, already jetting away, “I thought I’d gotten rid of this—!” 

The last thing the mechanical ghost saw was Phantom, plunging into the underbrush, crowing with laughter, dinosaur dreams fulfilled.

[ashxketchum]

50 TyHil

This prompt is just so perfect for these two, this is only one out of thousand scenarios I could write for them with this prompt!

Thank you for sending it 💖

Prompt no. 50 : "putting a hand over the other’s mouth to shut them up"

x

“This is a disaster.”

Of course it was, Tyson rolled his eyes, he wanted to turn around and tell her that she shouldn’t have expected anything better from him, but it was late and he was tired of walking around in circles and they were so lost. So he decided to save his energy and continue onward without paying any attention to Hilary and her timely outbursts. If he could just bring himself to concentrate on his surroundings and recall any thing that could hint him towards the correct route that would lead them back to their camping cabins, and hopefully some warm food.

“I can’t believe I trusted you to read a map correctly.” Hilary spoke up again, her tone getting antsier by the minute, almost starting to feel like a drill digging against his skull, “I also can’t believe that you left your phone back at the cabin-”

“Hey, you left your phone back at the cabin too.” Tyson spun on his feet, fixing her with an intense glare, to which she replied by folding her arms across her chest and shrugging nonchalantly, as if her actions were more justifiable than his, “And might I remind you,” He added through gritted teeth, “That the only reason we’re lost is because you said you heard the sound of water and led us off the trail so we could look for a non-existent stream.”

This time she squirmed under his glare, shifting her gaze downwards as her ears turned red in embarrassment over his statement, satisfied with the effect, Tyson turned around and began to lead the way once again.

They couldn’t have gotten very far from the main trail, Akebono Forest Reserve wasn’t even that big of an area, so Tyson was sure that if they stuck around the path that he remembered to be closest to the trail they were supposed to be following, they’d run into the people looking for them. At least he assumed that there were people looking for them, since it was already past 9 and the dark clouds in the sky indicated that there was a high possibility for rain. His brother and his friends, albeit annoyed by the long (and extremely loud) argument Tyson and Hilary had had throughout their bus ride here, were not cruel enough to leave the two stranded in a forest during heavy rain.

Suddenly Tyson felt the back of his jacket being pulled sharply and came to a sudden halt, his train of thought breaking as he tilted his head back to see Hilary grasping tightly onto his jacket, bent over as she attempt to control her panting by taking deep breaths.

“You’re...walking too...fast.” She managed to speak after a few minutes, looking up at him with a pleading expression on her face and Tyson felt slightly guilty for being too lost in his own thoughts to pay her any attention.

“Sorry, I’ll slow down.” Tyson replied, smiling sheepishly at her, to which she just replied with an exasperated look.

But as they started their aimless walking again, Tyson felt that his jacket was still being held onto. So after taking a few steps he paused, and tilted his head yet again to find that Hilary was still clutching onto it, even more tightly than earlier, and he ended up raising a questioning eyebrow at her.

“I don’t want to lose you.”

She murmured, her voice soft and devoid of the demanding tone it had held all evening, surprised Tyson and he felt heat rush into his cheeks as the double meaning behind her words register in his brain. Watching his reaction, Hilary too felt the weight behind her words and turned a similar shade of red as she defended herself hastily, “I meant lose sight of you again, don’t be such an idiot Tyson.”

Tyson shook his head in response, and they started their charade of finding the correct path once again, but this time there was a slightly giddy feeling in his chest every time he felt Hilary’s grip on his jacket. Whatever the meaning behind her words or the situation they were in, he liked hearing these things from her. He made a mental note to thank Max and Hiro later, since it was quite obvious that the two had rigged the drawing lots to make sure Tyson would end up with Hilary as his trekking partner and the two would patch things up before the training camp started. Even if it had led to the two of them walking towards their potential deaths, at least Tyson got to see Hilary flustered over saying something cheesy to him.

It was only a few minutes later that they arrived at a sort of clearing, that Tyson recognized from earlier in the day, and it took him quite the effort to not jump up and down with excitement over the thought of being close to making it back to where the rest of the team were. His natural instinct remind him that they were in a forest and loud noises could attract trouble during the night, so he calmly turned around to inform Hilary that they weren’t too far from the main trail now, but it seemed that she’d made the connection too, as her ruby eyes shined brightly taking in their surroundings. However, Hilary’s natural instincts must’ve told her something else, because she’d let go of Tyson’s jacket and had clasped her hands together excitedly.

“I remember this!” She cried out, “I remember this from-”

Tyson’s hands moved on their own and before he knew it he’d put one hand against her mouth, muffling any sound that may escape from it, and the other on her shoulder, gripping it tightly to hold her steady. He sent her a warning look, gesturing to their surroundings with his head in hopes of silently explaining the situation to her, but when their eyes locked, he saw that there was no comprehension in hers, only shock. And a moment later, Tyson hoped that the moonlight wasn’t playing any tricks on him, and that what he had seen flicker through her eyes was in fact, anticipation.

It was also in that moment, that Tyson became aware of the fact that his hand was pressed against her lips, and how their softness left a tingling sensation on his palms, that travelled through his fingers to the rest of his body, or that every time she exhaled, he’d feel her warm breath against his fingers.

Tyson knew he should let go of her now, that at the least she’d understood that she wasn’t supposed to make any noise, or that the absolute silence surrounding them indicated that they were safe here for now and nothing would jump out of the bushes to attack them.

But still, his whole body remained frozen in place, he was unable to move away from her, unable to look away from her eyes. Had her eyes always been so alluring, so easy to get lost in, he wondered to himself, his own breathing turning a little ragged as his hand that was gripping her shoulder moved slightly and came in contact with her bare collarbone and felt her gasp against his palm, and Tyson took that as the final sign, she wasn’t shocked or upset by his actions, she wanted more.

Well if she had led them to their deaths by going off the trail, the least Hilary could do was pay him back with a kiss. Tyson slowly slipped his hand away from her mouth and towards her chin, tilting it up towards himself, and just as he had hoped, instead of jumping back or shouting at him, Hilary responded by licking her lips and letting him know exactly what she wanted.

Tyson smirked at her, before leaning down towards her, moving his other hand away from her shoulder and wrapping it around her waist to pull her closer into him, her eyes fluttering shut as their noses touched tips, their lips only just an inch away from colliding.

Suddenly there was a blinding burst of light, and both Tyson and Hilary pulled themselves apart as they raised their hands to shield their eyes in an attempt to get a look at the interruption.

“Well, if I knew you guys would’ve been making up in that sense, I wouldn’t have bothered to come looking.”

Standing a few paces away from them, at the opposite side of the clearing was Max, holding a large flashlight in one hand and his phone in the other, a cheeky grin plastered all over his face as he added, “Oh don’t stop on my behalf, I’ll treat you guys to something nice with the money I’ll get from Rei and Hiro once we get back.”

x

[rpbetter]

"writes dubcon therefore is a freak who should be bullied off the site" ho boy i'm fed up with people acting as if consenting adults writing [insert "problematic" fictional thing here] is the worst thing in the world. seen way too many people justifying harrassment of REAL PEOPLE by "they write thing that triggers me". ok, and? mute the tags or don't follow! "it triggers someone" is not a valid reason to ban a topic. piano music triggers me yet i don't go around demanding everyone stop playing the piano.

Anon, not only is everything you said absolutely valid, but also, thank you for demonstrating that triggers are incredibly varied and as such, we cannot predict everyone's triggers. Making the entire "point" of banning for possible triggers invalidated as hell.

We should be aware of things like the most commonly occurring phobias (things like arachnophobia and coulrophobia that are, additionally, easily triggered by imagery) and tag them. We should be aware of very obvious triggers, that are, again, easily set off by imagery, like blood, eye trauma, and depictions of domestic violence. And we should always read and be aware of our writing partners' stated triggers so that we can tag them appropriately or even decide that it isn't going to work because our muse, canon story, or interests are going to present an unfair situation in this partnership.

But triggers can be highly unusual, as well as activated differently (even at different times) for everyone. I'm not triggered by seeing hotel rooms in pictures or movies, I'm not triggered by writing scenes that take place in them, but I'm triggered to some degree by being in one. It's outrageous oversimplification to act like all triggers are the same, they all display the same way, they're all going to trigger someone on the same basis, everyone's going to react the same to their triggers. There is absolutely no way to prevent 100% of possible triggers for 100% of the population, 100% of the time.

Add to this that way too many people trivialize triggers by throwing around that term to justify the banning of something that makes them uncomfortable or that they take a personal, moral issue with. "I don't like this" and "I'm grossed out by this" and "this makes me feel uncomfortable" is not being triggered. It's just a good way to weaponize the better nature of other people so that they comply.

Most people legitimately do not want to trigger someone, especially if they have triggers and know what it's like. Just like no one wants to be accused of cruelty towards trauma survivors in general, or be designated a pedo, rape apologist, or fascist. They're all things to weaponize in order to isolate, shame, and control. And that's really fucking gross. These are serious, real things that have no business being trivialized to police content, win internet arguments, or garner popularity.

The potential for someone to be triggered isn't a reason to ban anything; we have tags, we have blacklist.

While I'll be the first to say that tumblr's blacklisting can be as shitty as everything else on the site, the primary issue with running into content you don't want to see comes down to two factors: no one tagging/tagging correctly and actively exposing yourself to that content. Going through people's properly done tags and blog warnings about their content in order to "call it out" is actively exposing yourself by choice. You actual walnuts.

Calling people on on their "problematic" content is bringing those topics to the attention of other people. That's the whole point of this gross behavior: look at the freak pedo abuse apologist I found, they write dubcon!! Don't look if you'll be triggered uwu

Buddy, pal, my guy...you just put that on blast for anyone to run across. Maybe their blacklist catches those words in your callout post, maybe it doesn't. Maybe they think you're a safe space because you promote yourself that way, so they click it anyway. Point is, you just willfully and irresponsibly exposed people because it's more important to you to demonize a rando on tumblr RPing something you take issue with. Good job!

Furthermore, dubcon itself is such a hilarious issue to take. Do they realize that isn't always sexual, or? Not? I'm thinking not. Funnily enough, one of the oldest posts I've been working on for this blog is about exactly this topic, the myriad situations that are dubious consent. That doesn't have to be sexual, and neither does it have to be intentionally predatory. You can come up with some amazing character development with a lot of muses in the RPC with dubcon because almost everyone's muse has some manner of trauma that might negate their perception of their own consent...and what do you do then? Is it removing more agency from that muse to shut them down, or is that always the better option? Can you separate your opinion as the mun from your muse's natural reactions? How does this impact the muses involved not just that moment but the next year?

Point is, dubcon isn't always some rapey situation. Even if it was, even if someone is writing it that way, it's literally not your business or your problem.

There's one mutual-in-law on my RP blog that really bothers me. They write things that I find fetishizing, incredibly rapey, all around shit that bothers me. I don't want to see it, some of the things they write makes my damn skin crawl. This person doesn't know it, we certainly don't speak and I don't think they like me very much, but I've repeatedly defended their right, specifically their right as a person with some long-term callouts on them, to write what they want to. I have them blocked and their urls blacklisted so I never have to see my mutual reblogging their threads. It's not a problem because I don't click "show anyway." Why would I, if it genuinely bothers me so much?

That's how you handle things that bother you; you use the tools available to not interact even by accident. Not by launching a morality crusade.

If any of us want to write what we enjoy, we have to allow others that same freedom. It's always a matter of time before this policing grows to include more and more topics, it's been used multiple times to get well-meaning people who don't fall into the general demographics to police queer, BIPOC, and other marginalized groups off of platforms. We've been fortunate in most of the RPC that it implodes on itself before it gets all the way there, but even so, you can see it.

It starts with things that produce a visceral reaction in the great majority of people, positions this with a repeatedly condemned idea presented as solid fact that fiction is reality, and you've got the start of something awful. Today it's something you don't like, maybe even something that triggers you, so you either support it or you quietly allow it to happen. Who needs to write that "freak shit" anyway, can't they just be gross privately? Six months from now, it's something "problematic" that you enjoy like violence that's canon-typical for your muse, or your OTP because they're gay and that's fetishizing, they're cis male and female but one or both is bi and that's bad representation, or they canonically have a rocky relationship so that's romanticizing toxic/abusive relationships.

If you can't care for any other reason, you really should care about how it is going to impact you sooner or later. In an environment like this, you can stay in your space, put warnings on your blog, and tag properly and you're still going to get a callout if the wrong person finds your blog. Just takes a single person with more time, energy, and skewed ideas of justice than they have reading comprehension or common sense.

Again, I cannot encourage people enough to give warnings, but it's difficult to ignore why those warnings are slipping; they're a way to be found, designated as a Problem, and called out. Look, it's another reason why callouts actually make things worse, not better! People put that shit in their rules so you can avoid content, they're being responsible and interested in promoting a safe RPC. Let them do it, damn.

You can't tag everything, and if you've never experienced what a giant series of repetitive tags is like on a screenreader you probably should before you tag seven paragraphs of possible issues. You can tag for visuals, you can tag for the obvious things, and you can tag for what's in the rules you agreed to when you followed/followed back. But you should also warn people that you write "dark topics" on the tin, and expand on that in your rules for specific things like graphic violence, toxic relationships, dubon, and addiction.

That's how responsible adults, not over-aged children, make better decisions about their mental health and general comfort. Not by appointing themselves the watchdogs of the damn RPC, here to protect you whether you want to be or not, find that incredibly insulting or not when you're in one of their categories of people who must be protected, by forcibly banning Problematic Everything. Problematic, of course, being entirely in the eye of the content police.

It's fiction. No one and nothing real was harmed. It's great that you are so invested in the fictional world and people that make you happy, but take a fucking big step back into reality. The real people you're harming with your bullshit had every right to peaceably exist. If what they're writing is triggering to you, stay. away. from. it.

Without any coincidence whatsoever, that's how you get from the base-point of Problematic Material to Problematic Mun. Yeah, it's just fiction, it's just RP, but I also took something out of context OOC or was upset by their tone on their own blog or couldn't exercise the minimal adult logic to remove myself from their presence OOC as well. So, now, you've got OOC behavior being added to the callout, if it wasn't already. Everyone is now ableist, transphobic, racist, and a misogynist because it lends that visceral reaction to the callout and ups the game from just being "y'all so gross you aged up a cartoon character to ship" to "this is REAL and it won't be tolerated! OP is actually a pedophile, they told a sexual joke in a discord server with a minor present and I have the receipts!"

What are the most storied callouts in the entire RPC? I'm absolutely certain the same names came to mind no matter what fandoms you're in, and one of them was "Matt." Another was probably "Ares/Snow". They're all successful and keep being brought up out of the closet anytime people are bored enough because their primary punch is the mun themselves being a predatory threat to the community. The mun is verified to be a bad person. Well, of course, that's got to be repeated, it worked. (Even if it did not, at all, work and only made it harder for people to avoid any of these muns.)

Are there people in the RPC who are legitimately a problem? Absolutely, yes. We're all supposed to be adults, however. Part of being an adult is having and acting upon one's agency. If someone is coercing you into things you are not comfortable with, shut it down. If you have difficulties being certain of those situations, run it by a trusted, honest friend or available, impartial source in the RPC for a second opinion. If you can't handle any manner of confrontation, there really are situations in which it's perfectly alright to block someone without any discussion. It's just the internet, you're in control of your space. Own it.

Minors are a whole other can of fucked up worms I'm not even getting into right now except to say that because a minor exists in a space they were told to stay out of does not mean we ban all topics inappropriate for their consumption.

tl;dr: banning shit doesn't work anyway, the whole idea is predicated upon some incredibly problematic takes IRL, and no, there's no justification for it outside of intense personal problems with one's own importance. That energy would be infinitely better spent volunteering one's time to help real people in crisis or after surviving one, or even oneself in developing some healthier approaches and thought patterns.

[alexandarsoundarrajan]

How the journey of Alexandar Soundarrajan has started from scratch to brilliance?

“Success is founded on Success,” therefore let go of all those fantasies and sentiments. A HERO may be created from ZERO. Start where you are, with what you have! Timing, persistence, and ten years of effort will make you appear to be an instant success. Alexandar Soundarrajan is in the same boat. The early stages of any company’s life are one of the most exciting moments. You scrounge together enough money to pay a few staff, fund the business on your own, and work tirelessly to make it a success. Perseverance is something that these entrepreneurs and professionals are well-versed in. They have experienced the financial challenges of beginning a business or overcoming a business difficulty to attain success. This is something that everyone can do. The issue is that many businesses begin with strong intentions of establishing a new mentality system, but ultimately fall short. Making that method a part of your routine is the solution. Don’t put it off any longer. Don’t squander your time longing for a “better” start. Instead, make the most of the current and true starting point you have. Even though I am a young leader, I came to it somewhat late. I have a unique viewpoint, thanks in part to my family and in part, to the work I performed for 10 years: negotiating trade deals and working on aid programs in Southeast Asia. Young people’s voices must be heard at all times. We can’t just sit back and listen to the discussions concerning our future. We must take action and shape the future in the way we choose.

What was Alexandar Soundarrajan’s first occupation?

On November 2, 1985, Alexandar Soundarrajan was born. Dr. Ambedkar Global Law Institute awarded him a BA, L.L.B degree. He is endowed with such a fortune that he acquire a leading role in his only film Vengayam. It’s not about mimicking someone else when it comes to acting. It’s about finding the similarity in what looks to be distinct and then finding myself there. Without curiosity and comprehension, acting is nothing more than a business. As a consequence, it changes into creation. The best acting is done from the heart. It’s not intellectual, mechanical, or mechanical; it’s instinctive.

On the inside, an actor must be heated, yet on the exterior, he or she must be tranquil. Remembering that we have control over our thinking and that everything begins there is one of the things that help us get through difficult situations. This is all about having a good attitude. The performer’s physical appearance must be improved and Alexandar Soundarrajan has a handsome physical appearance. The actor’s voice should be better. However, the actor’s mindset is the most important consideration.

Why did he decide to work for Makkal TV as an anchor?

Alexandar has a strong belief: don’t be angry and resentful about what occurred, even if you have a solid right to be. Put your energy into ideas and actions that will help you in your day-to-day existence. He has been in a few television programs and has served as an anchor for Makkal TV (a Tamil language television station).

What was Alexandar Soundarrajan’s role in the movie Vengayam?

Alexander starred in his debut film, Vengayam, in 2012. Sankagiri Rajkumar directed Vengayam, in which Alexandar played the lead role, and Mr. Cheran Pandian is a Winner of the National Film Award and was released on March 23, 2012. The plot centers on a hamlet full of bogus godmen. The film received positive reviews from critics but was a commercial failure. “The films very much follow the format of vigilante flicks but adds several unique elements to the table — for one, the protagonists are hardly ones you would anticipate in such a film,” the Times of India noted. Nowrunning.com’s Rohit Ramachandran gave it a 3/5 rating, considering it a decent try. It received an excellent rating on Sify’s Moviebuzz. Vengayam, according to Indiglitz, was an attempt to raise awareness. The Behind woods Review Board, on the other hand, termed it “More than simply trivialities.”

What function does Alexandar Soundarrajan have in the business world?

He began assisting his father in the establishment of his family company in 2013. Dr. M. Soundarrajan, his father (chairman of Hijau Group of Companies established in 1987.) Hijau associate Pvt Ltd is a business development consulting organization that provides different outcomes for those strategies as well as the implementation of business approaches that help with business growth.

This organization employs innovative and well-proven methods to provide clients with actionable results in a quick, efficient, and cost-effective manner. In a nutshell, they have a thorough understanding of who their consumer is and what they value; this is how to think about innovation.

Hijau Agro Fresh Food

believes the conviction that the success of small and marginalized farmers is of enormous value is at the heart of Farmer’s Fresh. They had the idea five years ago to create an organization that would empower and enrich the lives of small farmers. They aimed to assist them in increasing output and improving the price of their agricultural commodities. Today, they are happy to have made a tiny difference in the lives of 1200 Tamil Nadu families.

NRI Legal Services (Needhi Foundation which is the largest foundation in South India) and Hijau Associates Pvt Ltd are managed by Alexandar Soundarrajan. NRI Legal Services is a premier global legal management organization that specializes in providing services to Non-Resident Indians and persons of Indian ancestry living abroad. They specialize in providing specialized legal services to the Indian diaspora located overseas on matters relating to immovable and moveable properties. After two decades of dedicated service to the Indian diaspora in the United States on land/property/finance issues, they are now considered “experts” in this subject. Their staff is well-versed in all elements of the law, giving us an advantage over other legal experts who may be equally trained but lack expertise solely dealing with NRI or abroad Indian concerns.

He is also the Managing Director of Glube.In Southeast Asia, Glube is a well-known brand name and a well-established participant in the specialty oil and lubricants market. Specialty oils and lubricants are available from us. Lube cam Traders Sd Bhd made it, and Hijau Associates Pvt Ltd powered it. We import raw materials (i.e. base oil) mostly from the Middle East, additives are purchased locally from select multi-national organizations, and waxes are procured locally and imported from other nations for our specialty oils and lubricants products. He is also a board member of the Food Corporation of India, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.

What have you taken out of Alexandar Soundarrajan’s struggles?

There is one thing that must be done for a business to be successful. Without it, one is doomed to fail. That is a job. I haven’t given you any new information. Everyone understands that you can’t be successful in anything without putting in the effort. Why isn’t everyone employed? Because some guys lack the one quality that motivates them to work: zeal. No one can provide you with it. You must obtain it for yourself, and the only way to become passionate about something is to have a complete understanding of it. You’ve never encountered a man who was eager yet sluggish. Alexandar Soundarrajan’s life is a magnificent life lesson. Life owes you nothing since you already own all you require. But you owe it to yourself to make the most of the situation.

Alexandar Soundarrajan’s success hack is as follows:

The secret to having a happy life, according to Alexandar Soundarrajan’s life, is to pay more attention to the beginnings than the ends. So many people claim to want a new life, but then take the one they have for granted every minute. Do not subject yourself to this. Don’t cling to things that aren’t there anymore. Don’t wait till the end of your life to know how valuable the current moment is. The wonderful life is here, and it starts right now when you stop wishing for anything else. Three simple words can set you free from your problems and lead you ahead. These are the words: “From now on…”

                             “When We Give Someone Our Time

                       We Give a Portion of Our Life that We Will Never Take Back”                 ________________________________________________                                            The Great Alexander

[izzielizzie]

could u do a short Rosalind and Tommy fic?

This is by no means short and also it’s not that great but enjoy anyway! Also? the football coach? Definitely took some inspiration from my soccer coach. 

Tommy was having, to put it plainly, a terrible day.

It had started that morning, when he awoke to the most obnoxious bang he had ever heard. Not fully awake yet, Tommy jumped, falling out of his bed.

"Where's the canon?" Tommy mumbled, running his fingers through his rumpled dark hair. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn't talking to anyone. Tommy made the effort to scramble off the floor and venture out of his room, calling for his parents as he looked into the rooms of his house. Empty. He glanced out of the kitchen window and saw his older brother Nick in the driveway. "Nick?"

"Out here Kid!" Nick called back from the driveway.

"Obviously," Tommy mumbled. Nick was back from the military for a two month long vacation, something that had been as much of a surprise to Nick as it had been to his loved ones, and in the past three days Nick had managed to cause general chaos on their beloved Gardam Street.

Tommy pushed through the side door, bypassing the coat rack on his way out. This was his first mistake.

He stepped into the frigid early December air to see Nick staring into the hood of his car.

"What was that noise?" Tommy asked, stepping up next to his brother.

"The car, I -"

"Hello," a voice called from across the street, interrupting Nick. The brothers turned to see Rosalind, Skye, and Jane Penderwick trekking across the frost covered street to their house, Jane in the lead, waving at them. "Whoops," she said as she nearly slipped. Tommy saw Skye roll her eyes at Jane, but he looked past her at Rosalind. Tommy smiled at her, despite the intense shivering that overtook him. She looked adorable in her beige peacoat and black cap that looked a little like a beret, sitting jauntily atop her curls. Rosalind raised a hand to wave at him, and Tommy waved back.

"You're going to get a cold," Rosalind said as a way of greeting when the sisters reached Tommy and Nick.

"No I'm not," Tommy responded, pulling her into him for warmth anyway. She giggled and rested her head on his chest, her arms around his waist.

"So what happened to the car Geiger?" Skye asked, punching Nick in the shoulder gently.

"Not sure," Nick says truthfully.

"Maybe the battery was stolen. We know how to put it back," Jane said, peering into the car, mimicking Nick's stance.

"No we don't banana head," Skye said, kicking at Jane's slippers with her own. Unlike their older sister, Jane and Skye were still wearing pajamas underneath their heavy sweaters. "We know how to remove one though," Skye added as an afterthought.

"Maybe not mention that out loud," Tommy joked as the rest of the Penderwick family approached them, Batty and Ben in the lead, Ben holding his sister's hand.

Nick instantly turned to swing Ben high above his head. "How are you doing on this fine morning Bravo-Echo-November?"

"Golf-Oscar-Oscar-Delta," the boy giggled as Nick placed him on his shoulders.

"Ugh Nick, don't encourage him," Rosalind said from her place in her boyfriend's arms. "He's been using that alphabet for the past two days."

"Buck up Rosy, Ben's learning how to spell," Mr. Penderwick said, clapping Tommy on the shoulder.

"Car trouble?" Iantha asked pleasantly, the last one to arrive. Like her step-daughter, she was dressed in her day clothes.

"It would seem so Iantha," Nick said solemnly. He brightened instantly though. "How's the baby?"

Iantha smiled like she did every time Nick asked that question. "Very good at sapping my energy," she said with a smile as she put a hand on her stomach.

"My brother's gonna be as cool as you!" Ben informed Nick with a little clap.

"Ben dear, the baby might be a girl," Rosalind said, shaking Ben's little foot from his high perch.

"No," Ben said in his stubborn voice. Rosalind rolled her eyes, but Tommy knew she was not actually upset. She loved Ben too much for that.

"Well, how will you get to school Tommy?" Batty asked, speaking for the first time. Both Geiger brothers looked at each other, not considering Tommy's options for getting to school.

"Are your parents at work?" Mr. Penderwick asked. He was dressed for work too, and Tommy noticed the car keys dangling from his hand. Both boys nodded. Tommy turned to Rosalind.

"Can I go with you Rosy?"

Rosalind's face fell. "Oh Tommy I'm sorry, but I'm not going to school remember?"

Oh. Rosy had taken the day before winter vacation off to drive to Rhode Island to take a self-guided tour of Brown, a college on her list for years.

"I remember. It's okay."

"Tommy if you're ready Iantha and I can take you on our way to the university," Mr. Penderwick said.

"It'll have to be right now though," Iantha added. "We have to go to the kindergarten and the elementary school first to drop off Ben and Batty."

Tommy looked down to his pajamas and his bare feet, which were becoming numb. "I might not be ready in time," he said.

"Why you can walk with us!" Jane said brightly. “And tell us about Russian class and your football team!”

Skye rolled her eyes again. As a freshman, Jane was still too excited about being in high school, and her excitement oozed into everything she said and did. 

“But we need to leave soon too. I have a question for my physics teacher,” Skye added.

Tommy agreed, and the two families dispersed, leaving Tommy to quickly pull on his warmest clothes and brush his teeth. He decided to forego breakfast, since Skye was ringing their doorbell incessantly. 

“Hey Nick, where’s my hat?” Tommy called to his brother, who was getting ready to go back to bed after calling the towing company. 

“Mom sent it to the cleaners!” Nick called back over the doorbell. 

Right, Mrs. Geiger - fed up with the mud Tommy got on his winter clothes - decided to send all of his outerwear to the cleaner, forcing Tommy to wear one of Mr. Geiger’s old jackets. Tommy - after realizing that he could search for the hat and annoy Skye and himself or just leave - called goodbye to his brother and stepped out. It somehow had become even colder than it had been earlier. 

Tommy walked to school behind the sisters, letting their conversations drift towards him as he shivered violently. As they neared the school, Jane looked back at him. 

“Are you alright?”

“Just cold.”

“Shall I bathe your forehead?”

“Jane stop with the forehead bathing. Not all ailments need you and your cold washcloths,” Skye said giving Tommy an apologetic look. 

“Why do you always ask?” Tommy asked, genuinely curious.

“Because no one ever said yes,” Jane said irritably. 

Tommy shook his head at Jane as his stomach rumbled. He ignored it.

He spent the next three and a half hours ignoring his stomach until his lunch block. 

“I have never seen you walk so fast,” Brendan - one of his football teammates - said as they headed to the cafeteria. 

“I haven’t eaten all day,” Tommy responded.

“Why?”

“Long story,” Tommy responded as he fished around in his school bag for his wallet. Tommy searched for a few moments, growing more and more panicked until he realized that his wallet was always in his gym bag which was always swung over his left sh-

Wait.

“Brendan have you seen my gym bag?” Tommy asked frantically as they stepped forward in the lunch line.

“No, you didn’t have it with you in class.”

“Oh no,” Tommy said, realizing that he had put his gym bag in Nick’s car. 

“What?”

“It’s in Nick’s car.”

“Can’t you go to the main office and call him? I mean he remembers how scary Coach is. He’ll drive it over.”

“Yes he would, except his car was towed since a pipe burst or something.”

Brendan nodded wisely. “Always the pipe.”

Tommy shook his head in exasperation. “What do I do?”

Brendan put a placating hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “The team will pool our money, don’t worry, and we’ll deal with Coach when we cross that bridge.”

Between Brendan and their teammates, they managed enough money for an apple, a bag of pretzels, and a carton of milk, which Tommy only managed to eat before the bell rang for their next class.

“Alright students, pull out your group projects, we’re presenting today,” their history teacher was saying as Tommy and another of his teammates - Jackson - entered the room.

“Group projects?” Tommy asked Jackson as they sat in their seats in the middle of the room. Tommy usually sat in the back, but Rosalind was in the class and she liked to sit in the front, so they compromised. 

“Yeah. About the Silk Road? Remember? You worked with Rosalind.”

“And she’s not here,” Tommy whispered harshly, briefly wondering how his day could have gotten this bad. 

Jackson made a face of comprehension. “Sorry Geiger, you’re on your own.”

They turned to their teacher as he started speaking. “Going alphabetically, Tommy Geiger and Rosalind Penderwick are first to present.”

With a sigh, Tommy raised his hand. “Yes?”

“Sir, Rosy - that is, Rosalind isn’t here today.”

Their teacher sighed. “Then present on your own please.”

“But, Rosalind has the project.”

“Why didn’t she give it to you?”

“She must have... I mean, I must have forgotten.”

“You forgot?” The look Tommy was receiving was worse than any of Rosy’s withering looks. Tommy sank down in in his seat a little as Jackson flinched sympathetically next to him.

“Yes sir.”

“Well, I hope you understand this will be reflected in both of your grades.”

“Yes sir, I know sir,” Tommy said, mentally kicking himself. He didn’t care much for his grade but Rosy had worked so hard, and he hated for her to not get the marks she deserved. 

Tommy passed the next two classes in a blur tired hungry, cold, and more importantly, incredibly angry at himself for letting Rosy’s grade slip. 

He let himself wallow in self pity until he stepped out into the football field and realized - to his dismay - that it was snowing. And not the delicate flurries that had been falling on the walk to school. No, this was the heavy, wet snow, the kind that could block roads and make passing drills rather difficult. 

“Alright boys, into your workout clothes. Snow never stopped football players!”

“Have fun telling Coach,” Jackson said, referencing Tommy’s missing gym bag.

“We’ll wait for you in the locker room,” Brendan added more kindly. 

“Thanks,” Tommy mumbled as he headed towards his coach. “Coach?”

“Geiger! Into the locker room!”

“Yes sir, I will sir, but um...” Tommy trailed off, shaking his hands to get the cold numb feeling out of them. 

“Speak up!”

“I don’t have my gym bag.”

“Why?”

“It’s um, in Nick’s car? And it broke down?”

“Is that a question?”

“No? I mean... no.” Tommy kicked at the snow with his sneakers, not meeting his coach’s eye. 

“Well then, you can run laps.” 

Tommy looked up. “What?”

“You’re not getting a free pass Geiger.” Coach looked down at Tommy menacingly, as if he thought very little of people who tried to get out of football games. Not many things scared Tommy, but Coach was most definitely on the short list. 

“No sir. But what should I wear?”

“Jeans are fine.”

Tommy opened his mouth to ask another question, but his coach was already walking away. With a sigh, he went to the locker room to put his bag away. Thankfully, Brandon offered him one of his sweaters so Tommy would have only a slightly less chance of getting pneumonia. 

“Coach was brutal today,” Brandon announced three hours later as the boys headed to the parking lot. Tommy, trailing after them, shivering so violently his teeth were chattering. 

“At least you’re not Geiger,” a team member said, doubling back to clap Tommy on the shoulder. His knees nearly locked. “Sorry!”

“It’s f-f-fine,” Tommy responded as they neared the line of parked cars. 

“Want a ride home?” Brandon asked.

“He doesn’t need one,” Jackson said. 

“What?”

Jackson pointed to an old blue car at the edge of the parking lot, where a figure in a beige peacoat and a black cap was sitting on the hood of the car. Upon seeing the group of boys, the figure slid off the car. 

“But Rosy is in R-r-rhode Island,” Tommy said in disbelief. 

“Apparently not,” Jackson said with a grin.

“S-s-see you later,” Tommy said suddenly, breaking into a run despite his protesting legs. He barreled towards the car at full force, stopping only to grab Rosalind in a hug and swing her around, despite his screaming muscles. He could hear his teammates cheering somewhere behind them, but he was too busy hugging Rosalind as tight as he could. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked into her hair.

“The roads were closed so I cam back home. No point in being stranded in the middle of nowhere.”

“I missed you.”

“Gosh Tommy you’re so cold,” Rosalind said in response, pulling away.

“It’s been a long day Rosy,” Tommy said, brushing snow out of his girlfriend’s hair.

“Wait, tell me in a moment, let me grab something.” Rosalind reached into the car and pulled out a garment bag from the Cameron Dry Cleaners. She unzipped it to reveal Tommy’s jacket, hat, and gloves.

“How did you -”

“I remembered your mother brought them in last week and I needed to pick up some stuff for Batty and Jane. I thought you might be cold without them so I got yours too.”

With a laugh, Tommy reached forward and kissed Rosalind, long and hard. “Thank you. But did you pay?”

“Yes but don’t worry about it.”

Tommy nodded, secretly resolving to pay her back. He knew her family’s finances worried her. Unfortunately, Rosy knew him enough to know what he was thinking.”

“Stop worrying Tommy, really. Here, put these on you’re going to get sick.”

Rosalind helped him into his jacket. He pulled his gloves on, and with a giggle, Rosy pushed his hat onto his head. It didn’t fully sit on his head properly, but she looked so adorable standing on her toes to reach his head that he had to pull her in for another kiss, forgetting about the cold and the snow.

“Thanks beautiful,” he whispered to her.

“Any time. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

Tommy took his usual spot in the passenger’s side, and Rosalind slid behind the wheel. “Oh, one more thing.” Rosalind pulled a thermos out from the back seat cupholder. “I made hot chocolate. I didn’t get to taste it but-”

Tommy cut her off by pulling her into him in a tight hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you Rosy.”

Rosalind pulled away, laughing. “Of course. I knew you’d be cold. Especially since I heard about your disastrous day.”

“You did? How?” Tommy asked, surprised, as Rosalind started the car and backed out of the lot. 

“Skye and Jane told me. Apparently you got yelled at during history?”

“It was project presentation day,” Tommy supplied. Rosalind glanced over at him. 

“Don’t worry about the grade. I’ll talk with him.”

“I feel so bad,” Tommy admitted.

“No, it was my job to remember to give it to you. Anyway, it’s winter vacation. Just enjoy the time off with your brother, okay?”

“And you,” Tommy said emphatically.

“And me,” Rosalind agreed. She cut a glance over to him as they turned into the chaos of Gardam street. “I love you Tommy.”

“I love you so much more. You have no idea.” 

Rosalind smiled. 

[drxwsyni]

Healing (pt.1/3)

Yandere Chisaki Kai/Overhaul x quirkless!f!Reader

Part 2︱Part 3

a/n: please do not read this piece if themes of poor mental health are upsetting to you. i am in no way attempting to romanticize these issues, having dealt with them in the past and knowing all too well how serious it is. i have never endorsed the harmful actions of people in my work and never will. please take care of yourselves and read at your own discretion. also this is a repost because it disappeared from the tags for some reason?

warnings: mental health problems, injury

4.2k words

_____

This is for your own good, he said.

The world is a disease ridden place, and remaining in it has left you broken.

You weren’t broken, you were fine. Sure, handling the pressures of simply existing as a result of being born without a quirk were tasking. People had not exactly been kind to you growing up, and that may have affected your health significantly. But you were handling it just fine.

While you couldn’t disagree with the fact that people did seem to enjoy using you, whatever had developed as a result of him discovering this reality wasn’t better in the slightest.

He said you needed time to heal, both physically and mentally. You could trust him, he was the only person who saw how faultless your existence was.

At some point you felt like you deserved to be mistreated by everyone around you, given how common of an occurrence it was. So when the yakuza leader came to you himself, going on about how unfairly you’d been handled all your life, it was hard not to trust him.

Now, you realize just how big of a mistake doing so was.

To be fair, he did live up to his promises. Kai said he wanted to help you heal, and what better way to do that than to move in with him. He had all the necessary equipment, and more than enough money to provide for you during your rehabilitation process.

However, he failed to mention the lengths he was willing to go to ensure your ‘good health’. Thinking you would stay with him until you got better, and then go back to living on your own once any pre existing issues had been taken care of slowly started to become an unattainable dream.

Upon arrival at the yakuza’s base, Kai instructed that it’d be in your best interest to not leave the premises. There was plenty of courtyard space for fresh air, and anything you needed would be picked up for you. Your room had been spacious enough, luxurious almost. Aside from the underground network of facilities, you were permitted to have free range of the base. The only condition was that you kept an escort with you at all times. Generally, these terms didn’t seem too bad.

It wasn’t until you sat down in his office to go through the rest of your new living plan that you realized just how committed he was to seeing your health improve.

Everything was planned to a T. When you’d wake up, take medication, bathe, eat, go to bed. He had taken into account any intolerances or allergies and developed a comprehensive meal program that catered to them. The most important element was the checkups scheduled twice a week to monitor your physical health.

While you didn’t enjoy the idea of being examined so regularly, you couldn’t argue that you’d neglected many problems over your lifetime. Sure, blood tests and vaccine administered supplements weren’t fun. But for the sake of rehabilitation you supposed that it was just another necessary evil.

What was concerning was his policy on electronic devices, specifically for recreational use. According to him, having a phone would only hinder the process, and therefore it wasn’t something you needed.

“Should you require anything you need only to ask either myself or a subordinate. Seeming as you should always have an escort there will be no issue with the matter of not being able to contact anyone.”

Kai truly had everything covered, and with how reassuring he was it became hard to see any flaws in the plan.

And so you took up residence in the leader’s base, grateful for the opportunity to live without being weighed down by society's corrupt expectations.

_____

The first few weeks went fairly smoothly, using the time to learn the layout of the establishment. Not that you could ever get lost, with one of his subordinates trailing you in case you required assistance. You quite enjoyed the company of Chisaki’s underlings, along with that of the man himself.

Every day you’d spend time in the courtyard, or go for a walk along the path against the inside edges of the base. Oftentimes Kurono would accompany you, and the two of you would make small talk over menial subjects. Later on you’d return to Kai’s office where you’d sit on the sofa positioned to the side of the room, reading a novel he’d selected while he worked at his desk.

Generally, your experience went fairly smoothly. The distance you’d put between yourself and the reality outside those tall concrete walls had done a lot of good. However, not everything can be solved with simply removing yourself entirely from a bad situation.

Although your living quarters were comfortable and welcoming, there was something unfamiliar about it that was off putting. To combat this, you decided a quick trip home to pick up a few belongings couldn’t hurt.

It’d only taken you roughly twenty-five minutes to travel back on foot to your small, cheap little single floor house on the edge of town. Another ten to gather some items, and then you walked back to the base. However, upon returning you’d come to understand how badly you’d messed up.

It was early in the morning before you’d left, and there were no examinations scheduled either. Not wanting to bother anyone with your needs, you had left the base alone without notifying Chisaki.

That was your first mistake.

He was waiting for you at the front entrance, arms crossed with an aggravated look on his face, although it was hard to read given the mask hiding a good half of his facial features. But if that didn’t give away his anger, then the death grip he placed on your forearm as he dragged you to your designated bedroom did.

He practically threw you inside the room, slamming the doors behind him. He only took a second to compose himself before speaking. “I thought I made it very clear that you were not to leave the premises, let alone by yourself.”

You knew Chisaki was quite the stern man, seeing first hand once or twice with how he treated his subordinates. But this was new, he’d never gotten mad at you, let alone get physically aggressive.

“I didn’t think it’d be a big deal, I was just grabbing some things to make my room a little more comfortable.”

“Did I not tell you that whatever you needed would be picked up for you?”

His demeanour suggested that the question was not rhetorical. “You did, I know. I just didn’t want to bother Kurono or anyone else to go with me so early.”

Something about your open concern for others seemed to pacify his rage, letting out a sigh before moving to sit on the short couch next to him. Leaning forward, elbows propped on his knees, Kai responded. “Staying inside the base is a crucial part to your healing, I can’t let you leave knowing the danger you’d be putting yourself in without protection. You should refrain from doing something so reckless moving forward.”

You moved from your standing position to sit down next to him, of course keeping a respectable distance knowing his abhorrence to bacteria, and generally people as well. “I’m sorry for making you worry, I was just a bit homesick is all.”

The yakuza turned his head to look at you, brows furrowed in a somewhat inquisitive manner. His amber eyes pierced through yours, seemingly searching for answers to questions that couldn’t be asked. “I hope you’re aware of how important someone like yourself is to my cause. Those without quirks are growing increasingly rare, and it’s causing more issues than the world can keep up with.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “I believe it goes without saying that I’d be deeply upset if anything were to happen to you. Normally I couldn’t be bothered with such a thing… but you’re the exception.”

Chisaki stood up and walked toward the bedroom door before facing you again. “Take a bath and then return to my office with your book. Kurono will be waiting outside your door to escort you.”

You watched him leave the room, waiting for the door to completely shut before letting out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding all this time.

Whatever that was, you never wanted to encounter it again. Maybe, you thought, I’d be better off getting out of here sooner rather than later.

_____

After the first incident occurred you presumed things would return to normal, but of course that would be too convenient. It seemed that there was now a slight increase in security around the base. The development was immediate, making it hard to miss. Any exits leading outside―those literally outside, say to the courtyard―and gates to exit the compound were guarded by one of Chisaki’s underlings.

On top of that, he had one of his men stationed outside your bedroom 24/7, whether you needed an escort or not. He never bothered to notify you of this change in particular. It only came to your attention after hearing the verbal exchange of two men outside your door, doing what you assumed was rotating shifts.

It was unnerving, to say the least. The incident had been minor as far as you perceived it, but the unspoken changes around you demonstrated otherwise.

Aside from that, you thankfully regarded the steady improvement to your health. Your energy had returned significantly, likely thanks to the mandatory eight hours of sleep. The daily walks had eliminated the general weakness and lack of stamina you experienced. Even your face took on a warm glow, eye-bags almost non existent and blemishes quickly fading.

It would seem that your departure from this temporary rehabilitation would come sooner than you expected.

Yet the more your condition improved, the stricter Kai became with your routine. Not only that, but he also seemed to be growing more comfortable having you near him.

Now, with any normal person this familiarness would only be expected. But you knew better, and a voice deep in the back of your mind was telling you that this new predicament wouldn’t end well.

_____

The next incident seemed to be the thing that set him off, solidifying your future.

It had been roughly a month and a half since you accepted being cared for at the yakuza’s compound. By now the problems which put you in this situation were almost entirely taken care of, but that didn’t stop Kai from enforcing his rules more than ever.

Frankly, the repetitive, unwavering routine you’d been following was starting to create its own problems within your health―you were going a bit stir crazy.

After the last warning, you’d be lying if you said the main thing keeping you from leaving was fear for how Chisaki would react. Now however, it’d been too long since you experienced the real world, and even if it was only for an hour, you desperately needed to go outside the walls of the compound.

You took the issue to Kai during the time you spent reading in his office. He was going to have to let you do this, staying cooped up any longer wouldn’t be good for you and even he couldn’t ignore that reality.

After what felt like an endless back and forth discussion, seemingly getting nowhere on either side, you started to believe that he really didn’t think the situation was an actual problem.

But you knew he had a soft spot for you, and eventually the man did cave to your request.

Accompanied by one of his more trusted subordinates, you were allowed to leave the base for two hours. You took this much appreciated freedom to do some window shopping here and there, at one point stopping to buy latte―of course not before fighting with your escort over how Kai would disapprove of you doing so, the caffeine apparently being bad for you.

You were nearing the end of your time limit, and still you remained unsatisfied with what felt like an all too brief reintroduction to society.

Pushing your luck, you headed to the center of the downtown area, hoping the bustling life and bright colours would be enough to satiate your need for external stimulation.

Before you had left the compound that day, Kai had stopped you for a moment at the front entrance. The statement was quick―he advised you to stay out of any heavy populated areas. According to him it posed too high of a risk to your safety, and you should heed his words if you knew what was good for you.

However, now that you were out and getting a taste of everything you didn’t even realize you were missing, those warnings were the last thing to concern you. Oh, how foolish you were to even believe there was nothing wrong with going against him for a second.

You heard the destruction before you felt it. The cause of it was unidentifiable, as before you could steal a glance from the source of exploding brick and concrete next to you, an unseen force sent you flying across the pavement and out onto the road. Thankfully traffic immediately came to a halt once onlookers realized the situation, effectively preventing you from being run over. But that did little to console you as painfully, you comprehended your now significantly injured state.

Giving your body a once over, it was clear that the force that threw you away from the building was from the blast of air pressure likely due to an explosion. The damages weren’t too severe, but you were still now sporting a throbbing headache, and what appeared to be a sprained ankle. Aside from that, only developing bruises remained as evidence of the violent event as far as you could tell in your shock induced state.

Understanding you had to get yourself away from the violent, still ongoing conflict, you feebly attempted to stand up. It was a good effort, and if it weren’t for the head injury that was proving to be much more serious, you most likely would’ve been able to get away.

But luck was never on your side to begin with, and only a few seconds went by before black spots appeared in front of your vision. A moment later and you were out cold.

_____

A hospital room was what you expected, what anyone would expect after being nearly blown to pieces.

Pulling yourself out of unconsciousness to assess exactly where you were was a trying task, but the fear growing in the pit of your stomach served as more than enough motivation.

You remembered being downtown. An explosion. Pain. Then darkness. Taking in your surroundings, you identified the room to be that which you sat through examination after examination in the yakuza’s base.

But Kai was nowhere to be seen, and that only made the feeling of distress worse.

You had no idea how you got there, figuring the likely outcome would be you in the care of an actual doctor. Except that wasn’t the case, and instead you were laying on a bed, wearing clothing that you did not have on before blacking out.

It appeared to be a fairly loose but comfortable sleeveless knee length dress, with a long sleeve sweater overtop of it, both shaded with a pale light blue. In the midst of examining your new outfit, your eyes laid upon a heart monitoring device lightly clipped to your index finger.

Amidst the sudden realization of your current predicament, you failed to notice the steady increase in your heartbeat. But Kai hadn’t.

At that moment one of the two doors of the room, the other attached to a bathroom, swiftly opened. Chisaki stood in the doorway for a moment, seemingly evaluating your now awakened form for a moment before entering, closing the door behind him.

You questioned him before he even had the chance to come near you. “What the hell am I doing here? Why aren’t I in a hospital?” He approached you as you spoke, taking a seat on a wheeled stool next to your bed.

Unfortunately you couldn’t control the shaking in your voice, and it served as a clear indication to the man at just how uneasy you’d grown with the situation.

“My subordinate alerted me of the attack after he found you unconscious. You were brought back here amidst the fighting so I could tend to your injuries, which fortunately are not life threatening.” He spoke in a calm and consistent tone, pausing momentarily before continuing. “There was no need to bring you to a hospital when I’m more than capable of taking care of you.”

Not life threatening? You looked over your body, assessing the damage for yourself. It appeared that you had injured your ankle, as it was now wrapped in some form of brace. Along with that were bandages woven around your knees, and more that you could feel constricting your upper arms where you landed on. Lastly was the dull pain in the back of your head, bringing you back to the moments before blacking out when you experienced a similar sensation.

“I think I should still go see a professional, no offense of course. It’s just I’d feel more comfortable with an expert opinion on the whole thing.” You truly didn’t want to set him off, not after what happened the last time you went against his advice. However, this was not something you could just take lying down, despite the fact that you were literally lying down in bed at the moment.

“I’m going to have to insist that you remain here, it’s the best option for your recovery which may I remind you has not been completed as of yet, and will only be delayed due to this. Not to mention that in your state excessive movement to bring you to a hospital would not only be quite difficult to manage but further damaging to your body as well.”

If it weren’t for the unsettling, stone cold stare he was giving you as he spoke, you would’ve likely retorted with a defense. Yet under that gaze you felt it was impossible to remain strong willed. You’d let him have his way for now, there being only so much time remaining in which his care was necessary.

With that you agreed to his concerns, and perhaps if he wasn’t wearing that obnoxiously large mask you would’ve seen the smirk of satisfaction appear across his face.

_____

Later that day Kai returned with your dinner, a task he normally left for his subordinates to complete. He set down the tray atop the sliding overbed table, a clipboard in his other hand. Sitting down on the rolling stool next to your bed, he began talking, you listening in silence as you ate.

“I hope you don’t mind but I took a blood sample while you were asleep in case your injuries were more severe than outwardly observable.” He flipped through a few pages on the clipboard before continuing. “It would seem that the supplements are steadily improving your overall condition. It’ll still take some time for certain levels to reach a normal amount for someone of your physique, but this is still good news nonetheless.”

You hummed in response, not wanting to be rude by talking with your mouth full. Chisaki moved to place the clipboard on the counter to your left before facing you again.

“I’m sure by now you’ve taken note of the change in your attire from that prior to being injured.”

You stopped chewing, looking worriedly in his direction. You hadn’t forgotten about this reality, it was more like you chose to ignore it for the time being, hoping nothing would come of it between the two of you.

“You should know that I had one of my female underlings do this for me, the fact of the matter being your clothing was partially destroyed from the explosion and was therefore prohibiting necessary medical attention.”

The pulsing of your heartbeat quickened, having an idea of where this conversation was headed, much to your apprehension. You stared down at the meal in front of you to avoid eye contact at all costs.

“I was able to properly tend to your wounds, but I’m sure you understand when I say that I couldn’t help but notice certain… remnants. Those of past trauma, along with others I didn’t directly observe, those that my subordinate notified me of.”

It was obvious that to access the bruises and cuts sustained from being thrown across the pavement, Chisaki would inevitably see parts of your body that you were all too familiar with just a few years ago.

Things had gotten better since then, they really had. You would never even think about using those same coping methods anymore. But that didn’t change the fact that those memories weren’t something that could just fade overnight, nor would the physical damage they left behind.

It was the last thing you wanted to discuss with Kai right now. He already knew, albeit vaguely, that you used to struggle with your mental health. Not that you weren’t still struggling, it was just now you had healthier ways of handling it. The only thing you could do now was deter him from pressing you further on the matter.

“Listen Kai, I know what you’re referring to, and I understand why you’d be concerned. It’s just… you don’t need to bother with it. I’m better now, at least in that regard. I get that you want to help me, and you have, but this isn’t something you need to worry about. I’ve already taken care of it, I promise.”

Glancing up at him after finishing, you saw more emotion than you’d ever thought someone like himself would be capable of. Although to most it would be insignificant, his intense stare coupled with the furrowed eyebrows, looking as if he truly wanted to comfort you in that moment was reassuring.

He exhaled loudly before responding. “That’s fine, (y/n).” You watched as he removed those white gloves that he seemed to wear like a second skin, placing them on the counter. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you during that time. Someone like you should have never been subjected to such treatment, and if I had known you back then I would’ve made sure such an occurrence never took place to begin with.”

Now this was… jarringly out of character.

If there was ever a red flag that you missed before, the ensuing events would surely be enough to make it blatantly obvious what exactly was going on.

Wide-eyed and dinner long forgotten, you followed the movement of his hands as they went to gently hold that of your left.

The yakuza waited for what felt like an eternity before carrying on, doing what you could only assume was anticipating the disgust of coming into contact in such a way with you, absent of his constant protective articles.

But the aversion never came.

“All I can do now is ensure you’re never dealt the same treatment again.”

Another moment of silence, stillness.

He gave your hand a small squeeze before releasing his hold, standing up and retrieving his gloves. You were too dumbfounded by the events that just unfolded to respond, so you continued to sit in silence while Kai gathered his belongings.

“Finish your dinner, Kurono will come later and turn off the heart monitor for you to get ready for bed.” He finished pulling on the gloves, picking up the clipboard once he was done and headed towards the only exit of the room.

“You’ll be remaining in this room while your injuries heal. I’ll keep one of my men posted outside if you need anything.” Kai placed a hand on the doorknob, pausing before looking back in your direction.

“Also, you should know that an alarm will go off if you remove the heart monitoring clip on your finger. There’s a button on the side of the bed you can press if you need assistance turning the machine off, say if you need to get up. Otherwise please leave it as it is.”

At that moment he left the examination room, the door closing with a heavy metallic thud that reverberated off the walls.

The feeling in the pit of your stomach was subtle, almost overshadowed by the persisting hunger from abandoning your dinner. But you knew it well to be fear.

A fear that you only suspected would grow the longer you remained in the confines of Chisaki’s compound, the confines of his so-called ‘care.’

(End of Part 1)

[galaxycosplayart]

A Man on a Roof

A simply short story I wrote heavily inspired by a dream I had. I tried my best to do research on 1920's fashion and culture, as well as try to make the New Orleans theme authentic. Constructive criticism is appreciated! (There's also some lgbtqia+ representation in here since I'm basing this off my dream where I was the narrator and I am in fact LGBTQIA+) ---

The sound of jazz resonated throughout the rather extravagant hotel venue, loud and upbeat. People swung along: dancing to the sweet melodies like there was no tomorrow. The band’s performance was booming with energy, passion and life; the colourful music painting a perfect picture of the ‘20s in all of the attendee’s minds. The dance floor was packed of all different shapes, ages and sizes. This gathering was one you wouldn’t forget. The sights, the sounds, the feeling; this 1920s themed extravaganza surely did live up to that title. I would know. I was smackdab in the middle of it all.

I’m going to be honest: I don’t really like parties. Too populated, too loud, too obnoxious – but I can’t say no to some swing. This party really was worth coming to, and for once I have to say I had the time of my life. Something about the general aesthetic, the beaming faces of everyone there, the historical backstory, it just made me swell up with joy (and excitement!). I was on my own, my parents were probably off making friends with other adults. In my hand was a glass of non-alcoholic champagne. I am but 13-years-old, after all. I continued to sway, careful not to spill my drink, when I happened to notice a boy leaving the party. He caught my eye, not for attraction, but intrigue. He looked to be a young man, around 16 or 17, but he was somewhat tall and lanky. Unfortunately, I didn’t get enough time to take a proper gander. Fortunately, nothing stopped my compelled urge to follow.

---- He was going to the roof. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry. No, he trotted nonchalantly to the elevator, his footsteps in sync with the music. He seemed to caper with the pleasant melodies coming from the venue. As he entered the elevator car, he lingered on to the tune with each step. The door closed before I could join him, and I watched the floor-level indicator above the gate gradually flicker to the roof of the building. Now, I know tailing people isn’t very polite, but I had taken a liking to the man’s... energy. Once taking a separate car up and searching a bit, I spotted the man near the edge of the flat roof. He continued to tap, now bathed under the glow of the full moon, illuminating his dancing figure. Since I could finally see his face, I can tell you he certainly was a rather attractive man. His warm amber skin basked splendidly under the moonlight; his eyelids shut. His low-ponytail of curly black hair swayed with him as he stepped, the music taking control of his body and mind. His outfit was truly vintage: a neat white dress shirt beneath some dark brown suspenders, the shirt tucked into his black dress pants. He also wore a dark chocolate-coloured bow tie and a light-grey longshoremen cap. Strong jazz could be heard, slightly muffled from the floors below, but that didn’t stop the young tapper from Charleston-ing his way around the roof.  Listen, I’m no professional dancer, but I like to have a bit of knowledge in any given topic. My little knowledge prompted a question in my head, “Aren’t you supposed to have a dancing partner for this particular swing?” I said nothing aloud though, for my focus was on observing this man’s joyous pep. I leaned against the wall, quietly enjoying the stranger’s strut, when the moment was cut short by the sound of giggles. He opened his eyes, revealing mahogany brown irises, only adding to his beautiful appearance. He and I both turned to see a group of young women, looking to be around his age, goggling the boy. I mean, you could say I was too, but I didn’t interrupt or jest at his actions; I merely gazed politely. The nearest girl walked up to him and began to chat, which ceased his dance. This disappointed me, he seemed to be enjoying himself and they decided to throw off his rhythm. He appeared uninterested in talking too, giving the girl a bored look and responding in short answers. From what I heard, she was clearly chatting him up, probably attempting to make a move on him. However, this encounter was also interrupted; for it was his turn to spot me. We made eye contact; his line of sight aimed downwards at my short figure. I immediately panic, thinking, “Crap. How am I supposed to explain why I’m here? ‘Hello sir, I followed you upstairs, I liked the vibes?’ Hell no.”  As I ran through all the possible excuses or justifications for why I decided to basically stalk this man up the hotel, I didn’t notice him making his way towards me. Nor did I sight the annoyed look of the girl he just left behind. He comes up to me, and soon realizing I was lost in frantic thought, gently places a hand on my shoulder. I snap out of my frenzied state, jumping at the touch and looking up once more to see him a lot closer than he was a couple of seconds ago. “Hey, you alright? You seemed frozen in time, dere,” he said with a gentle smile. His accent was faintly reminiscent of downtown New Orleans, which explained how his energy matched the parties so perfectly. It was smooth and peppy; an endearing tone. “Oh, yeah, of course,” I say quickly, still trying to find the right words. “I- uh- I liked your dancing,” was all that came out of my mouth, and I mentally facepalmed with the awkwardness that came with the broken statement. Instead of cringing at this display, however, he instead laughed. “Thank you, cher. And what are you doing, all alone on this here roof?” he asked kindly. “Just... exploring. I happened to notice you dancing when I got to the roof, so I kind of... watched for a bit,” I replied sheepishly. I mean, I wasn’t lying. I did explore the roof a bit before I found him, and I did spot his Charleston when I did. I just happened to omit the details of following him up the elevator car. And through the lobby. From the party. No biggie. “That so? Well then, can you dance?” he asked, extending a friendly hand and dishing out a genial grin. I panic again, but this time for a different, more trivial reason. “Oh, no, no I’m not that good at dancing-” “Really? Ya seemed to be enjoying it down there at tha’ party.” “...You saw me there?” “I watched you follow me, sha.” “...” Well, this was incredibly embarrassing. If I wasn’t already blushing from this whole ordeal (which I incredibly doubt – my face felt very hot), I most definitely was now. I should be thankful for his carefree attitude, because when my spluttered apology attempted to vocalize itself into comprehensible words, he simply waved it off and laughed once more. “Oh, it ain’t nothin’. Don’t worry ‘bout it,” he assured light-heartedly. “Still, I wouldn’t mind if you joined me. It’s fun to have a dancin’ partner, ya know?” “I- well... I guess a bit of dancing wouldn’t hurt,” I admitted. He extended his hand once more in invitation. I hesitantly accepted, and as soon as my palm fit into his, the grip strengthened as I was whirled to his side in the open area near the edge. As the next song started to play, and we couldn’t help but get lost in the music, I heard one phrase be exclaimed from the still-anonymous boy beside me, “Laissez les bons temps rouler!"  ---- I had easily resumed my cheerful demeanour by dancing with the man, enjoying our time to the fullest. Despite my lack of expertise in cutting a rug, we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. It was more of feeling out the music and letting the rhythm take you, relishing a fun stranger’s presence. Sadly, this enjoyment was often interrupted by a third party, who continued to loiter around on the roof; each individual taking their turn in attempting to woo the boy. Louis, as I now knew him, also kept up his trend of giving the girls a cold shoulder, and we exchanged a cheeky grin each time one would storm off huffing. However, something did confuse me slightly. Well, the women were exceptionally beautiful. They also didn’t seem rude, or arrogant; they actually seemed rather kind and friendly. Some even referred to Louis by name, meaning he was probably familiar with the ladies. They simply were shooting their shot, and Louis would keep refusing one after the other. Obviously, he wasn’t obliged to humour any of their advances, but it’s like he didn’t even acknowledge the idea of dating them. I am a curious – and frankly, unfiltered – soul, so as the last dame trudge off to the group, I turn to my new friend and say,  “Hey, mind if I ask you something?” “Sure, what's on your mind, cher?” he replied smoothly, as we both watch the gaggle of women finally exit. “You know em’? The group there, I mean,” I clarify, though there wasn’t such a need for it anyway. I just have a bad habit of... shedding light on things that aren’t as dark, you feel me? “Yeah, they’re good friends of my brother’s. Why?” “Oh, well, they seem awfully interested in you.” “Yeah, they do that now and then. I’m used to it.” “Can’t take a hint, huh?” “Yeah, you right.” I decide to sit down as the current song begins to fade out, allowing myself a small break before the music resumed. Louis takes a seat beside me, sighing. I press further, while simultaneously pondering why I was so curious about his decision to dismiss these dates. Looking back on it, it was really none of my business, but something about the rejections just felt oddly... familiar. Still, I probably shouldn’t pry into other people’s matters. “May I ask why you constantly say no? I mean, they seem like lovely ladies. Are they just not your type?” He doesn’t reply at first, so I immediately jump to the conclusion that I upset him in some way. He’d be justified in feeling so, but I soon come to realize he was thinking of how to answer. After a few moments, I got the reply. “Sort of. I mean... in a way? They don’t know that though,” he says with a smile, to which I respond by giving him a quizzical look. What was that supposed to mean? I’m pretty embarrassed I didn’t realize it sooner when he sees my expression, and states, “Oh. I’m gay.” I stare at the boy for a few moments, blinking. I then burst out into laughter. What a heteronormative approach I took to my questioning. Me, of all people! He was amused with me, and we share a joyous laughing session to the realization.  “Ah... no wonder I related to your rejections,” I say with a cheerful grin. He quirks an eyebrow, and asks me with a curious twinkle in his eye,“Hm? What are you talking about sha?” “I’m bi. And non-binary. That’s partially why I found it so ironic that I didn’t get that sooner.” We chuckled once more, now aware of how hysterical the situation was when the final song of the evening began. He gets up first, helping me up, and we find ourselves dancing our way into the night.

[twinkleallnight]

I am sorry for the long break and thank you if you are still there looking for the update.

Marshmallow

Story till now: Drake has build up his individual life as a veterinary and is working at the royal palace. His childhood friends Liam( having a social season), Max ( sponsoring Riley) and Olivia ( a mystery, may be they had a past) are moving on in their lives. Drake has met Hana and is attracted to her but is confused. At the Beaumont bash he is seated with Hana and Olivia for dinner. God help him.!

For previous chapters: Catch up here

The Debate

Book: The Royal Romance AU

Pairing: Drake x Hana.

Word count: 1,681

Disclaimer: All characters belong to pixelberry.

Rating: Mature

Thank you @yourmajesty09 for beta reading!

“Hell, this is going to be one crazy night!” I shuffle in my chair with discomfort.

“Why now, Mr Walker? You seem to have forgotten too soon all the fun we had. Together.” Livy raises her left brow, an indication of an impending doom she is about to cast.

Hana clears her throat, making Livy shift her gaze and she aims at Hana now. “A very good evening to you too, Lady Hana! Your presence has not gone unnoticed. I wonder what your parents have to say for your blooming relationship with a commoner.” I wince at that but I think its better to ignore.

“He has shown more integrity than any of the nobles here. I am sure they will be pleased to meet him, not that it is any of your business.” Hana retorts.

Hana 1, Olivia 0.

I make a mental note and quietly sip the hot and sour soup in front of me.

The next moment Hana’s eyes are warm as she smiles at me. Her hand rests on my thigh. “He is a thorough gentleman. I have known him for six months now.”

“And I know him since I was six years old.” Livy says in a cold voice.

Olivia 1

“I am not counting quantity. It’s the quality time that matters. And I am blessed to have it all.” Hana keeps looking into my eyes, totally ignoring the fiery duchess. I try giving her the pleading look, in an effort to tell her about the unconquerable Nevrakis. In vain!

Hana 2 Olivia 1. I quietly stick to counting.

Hana seems to be unstoppable today as she continues, “We can talk anything on earth with each other.”

Livy cuts through, “We never felt the need to talk, it was understood.”

I groan but the girls are not even noticing me anymore. Livy continues her attack, “You sound like that stupid girl Anna hardly knowing her fake Prince Hans.” My eyes go wide, it’s unlike Livy to be quoting a fairy-tale. But she is not giving me any heed, and rather fans her hand casually at me with her sharp words. “Just because he moves around with a prince doesn’t make him a prince material”.

Hana “Why does only a prince complete a fairy tale? I am proud to have the one you call a commoner, to sum up my tale. And it’s not just about knowing him. It’s the comfort he gives me.

This is really hot and sour; I don’t know if I am relishing the sour taste of the soup or the heated talk between the ladies. Wait, how is this happening? Since when did I become so much important between ladies? Wasn’t this Liam’s routine?

I lose the count of the score of the debate.

----------

As the dinner wraps up, we are still at the end of the hall, standing near our table. Bertrand is bidding farewell to the king and queen as the formal party comes to an end. Liam is standing next to him with Riley on his side. They share a joke and smile at each other, lost in their own world.

Hana winds her hands around my arm and is unable to contain herself. “Aww they are so sweet together!”

Livy standing on my other side, still in bad mood says, “What’s sweet about it? Giggling like fools all the time.”

“That’s what love does. Makes you happy.” I finally speak. Livy's eyes narrow down on me and she storms away to stand with Madeleine ahead.

“So much for a peaceful dinner!” I sigh. “What’s gotten into you?” I chuckle at Hana.

She sniggers, “I wish she accepts herself. I don’t know what she is trying to hide behind her fierce look. She is sweet inside, isn’t she?”

My gaze settles at Livy's tall figure standing at a distance. Many fond memories of the soft- and warm-hearted girl I knew once, flood my mind. “ Yes, she has been the most caring and loving girl I have known as I grew up.” I place my free hand on Hana’s hands that are still clinging on to my arm.

We all move to the Grand hall for the after dinner festivities. It is more of chaos with everyone engaging in the revelry.

As Hana is pulled into a zig with Max and Riley, I excuse myself to the bar. Liam joins me in some time. “Enjoyed your dinner?” he smirks.

“Seems the king takes pleasure in pain of his subjects.”

He gives out a hearty laugh. “Your expressions were quite comprehensive. You should be glad you were left in one piece after that interaction with the Nevrakis Duchess.”

“I don’t know what I have done, to be her target all the time!”

“She is going through something, I guess. She should be back soon. Don’t worry.” Liam reassures.

“I wish I could help her.” I sigh. “But right now, I need to concentrate on something else.”

“Something or someone?” Liam asks.

“Yes, someone I mean.”

“And does this someone happens to be Lady Hana?”

I roll my eyes. “Yes boss! Hana it is. Since her last conversation with her parents, she seems to be more bold, more rebellious and aggressive.”

“And what are you scared of? Commitment?”

“I don’t know exactly. She is here on her parent’s behest who are looking for some prince or Duke or a lord as a match for her.”

“Well even my parents expected that. Marrying into a noble house. Yet, here I am…” he says fondly looking at Riley.

“Hana belongs to a very different part of the world, Liam, where it’s union of families and not just two people. The equations, the restrictions, the complications are all whirling up and my own feelings feel like being curbed under all those expectations.”

“Why don’t you take one step at a time? Start by speaking out your feelings first to the lady. You can deal with other matters later.”

“Hmm.”

“I think time to stop pondering and take some action.” He looks across my shoulder. I turn around to find Hana walking towards me. “All the best.” Liam whispers in my ear and walks away.

Hana sways smiling at me. “Hana, how much did u drink?”

“ Enough to forget the worries and enjoy the moments.”

I look around and find that most of the guests are falling off one by one. I sit with Hana at the bar as she continues saying silly things in her tipsy mood. After few more shots, she manages a sprig of mint from the bartender and starts plucking out the leaves. “He loves me, he loves me nottt, he loves me, he loves me….”

“Hana, what are you trying?” I interrupt by holding her fingers plucking at the leaves.”

“Shhh! I am trying to find out if Drake loves me.” She whispers a note higher.

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“He won’ttt tell me.” She says with extra emphasis on the T.

“How do you know that if you never asked him?”

“His horse told me. You know his favourittte one. Amber. She told me aaaall.” Hana dragged her last word.

“And just how did this Amber tell u all?”

“As a matter of facttt, she neighed.” Hana explained in worldly wise manner. How can she be so cute and stupid at the same time, I thought? Drunk Hana is cute!

“She said that he won’t tell?” I am finding this charming.

“Yessss.”

“Well, I think you should try asking him once. I am sure he won’t hide.”

“He won’tttt.”

“Nope.”

She suddenly straightens up, “Drake Walker, do you…”

“Not here, Hana. Not now.” I literally snub her. I am rather taken aback by her action. I am scared. I need to accept.

She pouts her lips and slumps back on her stool. I cover her tiny hands with mine and look into her honey orbs.

“Talk to him when you are sober and I promise he will open up to you.”

“Promisss?” Her eyes sparkle.

“Promise!”

Soon it’s just the hosts, Liam and Hana left around me.

Hana takes another shot that Max offers. “Hana, I think you have had enough.” I try to warn her but she is distracted by Max as he starts bragging about his peacocks that he has as pets.

“Aww, that must be so cute.” Hana squeals like a child. “Wǒ ài xióngmāo. Tāmen zuì kě'ài”

“Hana, English please. None of us understands Chinese.”

“Panda, I would love to have pandas as pets. They are cute."

Riley hugs or I may say literally hangs with her arms around Liam’s neck as she purrs, “No one is as cute as my blue -eyed beauty.” She pinches Liam’s cheeks.

Amused, Liam looks at me, “Guess we are the only two sober here.”

“I am awake and in senses too.” Max

Hana swings on my arm. “Would you like to have pandas?” She bats her eyes innocently at me.

“Sure, we can talk about it later. We need to get you back to the palace now. It’s late.” I push towards the exit.

Riley is ecstatic as she stands with Max to see us off while we get into the limo.

Hana cuddles up to me and Liam sits across grinning at me.

Hana’s eyes are almost drooping as she lifts her head and nails it, “Drake, I wanna be your duck!”

I slap my forehead and instantly plead, "Hana, you are better talking Chinese please.”

Liam has covered his mouth and is unsuccessfully trying to control his laughter. Max is doubled over, laughing out while Riley tries to decipher what just happened. I wish everyone was as drunk as Hana at that moment. She tilts her head on my shoulder and shuts her eyes blissfully. Thankfully the vehicle moves and I am relieved.

By the time we reach the palace Hana has passed out. Liam helps me by directing us through the backdoor entry so that no one notices as I carry Hana in my arms to her room.

I tuck her in her bed and quickly retrieve to my room.

My phone buzzes with a message alert.

I keep my phone aside and crash down in the bed. I groan and speak to the walls, 'Good night Livy. Dont have the energy right now for the debate.'

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[reyescarlos]

there’s no way (that it’s not going there)

for my love @sulkybbarnes on your very special day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARA! my goodness, i’m so glad the universe created you. how lucky we all are that you exist! 💕💜

word count 3.6k || read on ao3

We just dance backwards into each other Trying to keep our feelings secretly covered You touched me and it's almost like we knew That there would be history

As he sits with Michelle inside the Ryders’ backyard, the heat of the late summer evening still kissing his skin, Carlos smiles in contentment at the sight of all his colleagues turned friends and even perfectly good strangers all bound by their shared love for Grace and Judd. It’s because of them that they’ve all gathered today, to celebrate the Ryders’ vow renewal. It’s the perfect atmosphere in every sense, one of joy and festivity.

A few feet away, the happy couple mingles with the small gathering of their family and closest friends. Grace’s melodic laughter soars a note or two higher than the jazz music playing. Judd’s arm is slinked around her waist and Carlos can only stand back and admire the ease to which they orbit around each other. This is what years worth of love looks like. Carlos knows it can’t always have been an easy road, that all marriages— all relationships for that matter— are never without their hardships. But if it leads to something even vaguely resembling this, Carlos wants it at whatever cost.

He’s always been a hopeless romantic, swept up in the belief that finding the right partner could be a salvation. It’s not a sentiment the men he’s seen care to ascribe to. The world of dating hasn’t always been kind to him with Carlos almost always chasing after people who proved themselves adverse to being caught.

He’s vowed to himself repeatedly that he won’t fall down that rabbithole again. But what he hadn’t accounted for was meeting TK Strand, a man that makes Carlos willing to make an exception. TK has only been a part of the fabric here in Austin for a few weeks but he’s already managed to work his way into Carlos’ heart and mind. He hasn’t been able to shake his thoughts about the firefighter since their night at the honky tonk. The attraction he had for TK was instantaneous out on their call earlier that night but it’d only strengthened as they danced later. Ever since, there’s been this energy between them that neither has addressed. But it exists as a third party, living in each stolen glance, each quick retort traded between them like currency.

He and TK have been at this for weeks on end, this constant back and forth where they say so much without actually saying anything at all.

That’s all it ever takes, just one look to light the match. It’s a wonder they haven’t both been consumed by the flames though Carlos would argue he’s been coming dangerously close these last few weeks. At first it was fun, a casual flirty game between the two of them but now Carlos has been getting restless.

He takes in the sight of TK standing with his father under the back awning. Carlos can’t stop himself from giving him a once over, eyes roaming from top to bottom shamelessly. It’s truly a pleasant view with TK dressed up for the ceremony and looking far too attractive than any man has the right to.

“Carlos, if you stare any harder you just might strain those pretty brown eyes for good,” Michelle teases, her hand cupping her chin as she rests her elbows on the table, following where his eyes linger.

Carlos sighs and ruffles his hair slightly, forcing himself to look away from TK and back at her.

“Is it really that obvious?”

Michelle snorts out a laugh, covering her mouth and laughing even harder as Carlos groans.

“Aw, come on, no, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh but my god, Carlos. Do you really think either of you have been subtle this whole time? Anyone that’s spent so much as ten seconds around you both since he blew into town could call it.”

Carlos lifts a brow. “So you see it from him too? It’s not just me, right?”

“Absolutely not. To be honest, I’m actually shocked you guys haven’t hooked up already. It’s long overdue, my friend.”

Carlos picks up his glass for something to do as he thinks it all over.

“I think I just want it to mean something. Maybe that’s dumb, I don’t know but I really like him and we’ve been...in this weird limbo with each other. I don’t know what his endgame is here.”

Michelle tilts her head to the side, casting her glance off Carlos over to TK once more. He’s still caught up in conversation with Captain Strand. The younger Strand must have said something hilarious because Owen cracks a hearty laugh.

“You could do the totally crazy thing of actually talking to him and finding out what his deal is. He seems really into you. He’s been staring at you all night when you aren’t looking and who could forget that night we all went out? I think you got him hooked pretty fast. Reel him in already.”

Carlos chuckles at the analogy but even he can admit Michelle makes an extremely valid point here. This hasn’t been all in his head. Even if they’ve both managed to successfully avoid talking about it, it’s clear that there is something that they’ve been eluding from the moment their paths crossed.

“Screw it. You’re right. I’m going for it.”

Before he can lose his nerve, Carlos sets his glass down and rises from his seat. He can feel the reassuring press of Michelle’s hand on his forearm just before he leaves the table and begins the short but daunting walk over to where TK is standing.

Captain Strand notices him approaching before TK does and the man makes a move that Carlos isn’t expecting. He locks eyes with Carlos and in that brief bit of contact, there’s recognition of some kind and Owen seemingly excuses himself from his son.

Owen walks towards him and gives a polite nod of his head. “Evening, Carlos,” he says as he passes, not slowing down at all and leaving a clear path to TK.

Carlos doesn’t have the time to mull over the implications of this gesture but he makes a mental note of it, marking it as something to investigate later. His main pursuit now is a particular firefighter who has been weighing so heavily in his thoughts for weeks now.

This unspoken thing between them needs to be addressed once and for all. TK looks far too good tonight for Carlos to keep this little game of cat and mouse going any longer. Coming on too strong has more or less always been his problem but this is something he desperately wants and Carlos knows he can’t hold back beyond tonight.

TK soon notices him and stays in place, a slow smile inching across his face. By the time Carlos nestles in beside him, it’s a full on grin. It’s so reminiscent of the first time they ever hung out outside of work. Then, much like now, they were surrounded by this crowd of coworkers and people he’ll more than likely never see again. But it’s all just background noise, so inconsequential in comparison to his primary focus right now.

“Hey,” Carlos greets. It isn’t exactly the smoothest or most captivating thing to say but it had been enough that night out the bar and Carlos is hoping that it’ll prove itself useful enough again now.

TK looks briefly at the party at large, eyes pulling away from the throng of people dancing to Carlos and Carlos’ sense of déjà vu threatens to overwhelm him for the briefest of moments. But he focuses up once more as TK looks at him fully, a soft smile tugging at his lips.

As always, the man’s expression is playful as ever, as if he knows something Carlos doesn’t. Carlos has no doubt that TK is taking a trip down memory lane right now, too. How they were always finding themselves in a scenario like this was beyond Carlos’ comprehension then but it hardly matters. It serves as the perfect ice breaker for them now, a nod to the night that truly set things in motion for them. It makes this feel like a full circle moment, as if everything over the last few weeks has been leading to this.

“Wanna dance?” Carlos asks, tipping his chin towards the other guests bopping to the music.

TK’s eyes roam over his frame but Carlos doesn’t waver or back down. It’s merely part of the script they’ve been reading off of for weeks now. He’s confident that TK will accept, just as he had that night at the bar. The only difference now is that TK’s display of reluctance isn’t him genuinely debating the merits of taking a chance and saying yes, at least Carlos hopes that is the case. They have enough history between them at this point that Carlos feels safe in guessing that they’ve moved beyond that. Now it’s simply banter, a call back to that night.

“Yeah,” TK says after a moment, his perfectly white teeth trapping his bottom lip.

Carlos doesn’t even attempt to downplay how much he notices this, his own lips parting slightly before he pulls his focus back to the task at hand.

Carlos leads them to the makeshift dance floor just as he had that night of the honky tonk. TK falls into step with him, the two dancing along to the uptempo number playing throughout the yard. It’s all too easy to tune everything and everyone else out as he feels both their guards lowering even further. TK is all smiles and it’s the most infectious thing ever.

They dance for a while together, their smiles growing bigger with each new song that plays. Carlos is breathless and yet he can’t seem to stop himself from moving. But a new song comes on, the opening tone far more subdued. Carlos looks to TK, his face covered with a slight sheen of sweat. It makes Carlos’ breath hitch and he can’t help but to want to keep going, even though this is a different terrain than they’ve been dabbling in thus far.

“Do you still want to—,” Carlos begins to ask but TK answers in actions, not words as he slips his arms up over Carlos’ shoulders and begins to sway to the music.

This part is the variable, the break from their usual bit. Instead of dancing around each other with no real contact, they’re now wrapped up closely with TK hugged to his frame, their bodies pressed together, enough for Carlos to feel the firmness of TK’s chest against his.

This feels right in a way that Carlos can’t even begin to put into words. He wonders if maybe everything feels heightened because of where they are and what they’re celebrating tonight. But that still doesn’t change what he’s experiencing now, the rush of having TK’s warm body in his arms, more alive than anything. Even though they’re now moving slower than they have all night, Carlos feels the most electric now. It only instills what Carlos has known all along. This is so much more than a crush, it always has been, but now it feels like a tangible thing, a very real possibility and a step up from the hypothetical.

TK peers up at him as they continue to rock gently and Carlos can feel the man’s breaths as they fan across his face like the gentlest, most subtle breeze. The longer Carlos stares back at him, the more he realizes how uneven TK’s breathing actually is, the way it stalls and starts. The only explanation is that TK is nervous. Carlos is well-versed in reading people. After all, he literally gets paid to assess situations. He’s seen countless people he’s interviewed on a call panic and grow uneasy. He’d know the telltale signs of an anxious person anywhere.

“Relax,” he murmurs quietly, just low enough that the words get trapped between the two of them, safe in this private bubble. His hands hold even more firmly, more reassuringly to TK’s hips as if to remind him that Carlos is truly right here holding on to him, keeping him upright and present in this moment.

TK blinks twice and licks his lips. Carlos tries to take his own advice and settle his racing heart but even without meaning to, with doing something as mundane as wetting his lips, TK is getting under his skin. There’s something about this hazy summer night that’s making his mind feel like it’s drifting, floating like the fireflies that flicker on and off in the yard. It’s as if they’re under a spell of some kind. Carlos can’t remember the last time he’s felt a pull this strong towards someone, as if they’re a planet and he’s a helpless moon sucked into their gravity. And yet still, TK makes him feel grounded.

“Carlos, what is this?” TK asks, his voice barely above a whisper. But Carlos catches it all with how close they are to each other, with how much he always seems to hang off TK’s every word.

It would seem that Carlos isn’t the only one keen on getting answers tonight.

“The beginning of us, I hope,” he replies.

Carlos isn’t sure where that boldness comes from but with the words out there, there’s no way for him to snatch them back or undo them. And frankly, Carlos realizes that he doesn’t want to. Clear cut answers. A line drawn in the sand. Clarity. That’s what they need now. Tiptoeing around feelings or pretending as if they aren’t there at all is no longer something that he can accept.

TK eyes him for a moment before slipping his arms off of Carlos’ shoulders, letting them fall at his sides. Speaking outright about this thing that’s been brewing between them is in clear violation of the unspoken rule, he knows but if TK was bold enough to ask, Carlos figures he was right in matching that. Yet now TK is pulling away and Carlos fears he’s said too much, his bravado from only seconds ago now dwindling. But before he can dwell on it for too long, TK is grabbing hold of one of his hands and tugging him off the dance floor.

Carlos knows better than to ask questions then. Wherever TK wants to take him, Carlos will willingly go. TK leads him out of the yard, ignoring the piqued interest of their coworkers who no doubt have questions and assumptions about where these two are headed off to. But Carlos takes a page out of TK’s book and tunes them out as well. Instead he focuses on how easily their hands slot together as if they were designed to hold on to each other.

They come around the side of the house to the front of the Ryder household. A few guests are milling about outside, chatting among themselves. Carlos doesn’t recognize any of their faces, the entire lot of the 126 now left behind in the yard.

TK keeps moving forward, beginning to walk down the block, raking a hand through his hair.

“TK?” Carlos ventures, starting to grow a bit concerned.

With an abrupt stop in his tracks, TK turns to look at Carlos before taking a seat on the curb. They’re only two houses down from the festivities and can still hear the revelry of the reception but it’s distant enough that Carlos feels far removed from it all. TK looks up at the sky, his face bathed in a wash of moonlight, half his features thrown into shadow from the lamppost a few feet away. Carlos settles in beside him, wrapping his arms around his legs.

The silence between them is heavy and with how unmoving TK is now, Carlos knows he’ll have to be the one to breach it if they’re going to get anywhere with each other.

“I know I’m not losing it here, am I?” Carlos asks. “I haven’t been imagining this vibe between us, right?”

TK looks down at his hands and shakes his head. “No, something is definitely happening. I just...it’s starting to feel real now and that’s not something I was expecting to find out here in Austin.”

Carlos considers this for a moment. “But is that necessarily a bad thing?”

It’s then that TK focuses back on him. “That’s what I’m still trying to figure out. It’s one thing to BS and flirt but it doesn’t feel like a game or a tease anymore. If it gets serious, there’s no going back and I don’t know what that’ll mean.”

Carlos’ brows furrow. “And you don’t know if this is worth it?”

“It’s so much more than that,” TK sighs. “Long story short, I left behind a lot of baggage in New York.”

Carlos knows what that’s code for. “What's his name?”

“Alex,” TK mutters, a hint of disgust coating the two syllables. Carlos doesn’t press for details. He simply nods his head in understanding and stays quiet for a beat.

“I can’t speak to this guy and whatever went down between you two but from what I know of you, I think you’re amazing. I’m sorry he made you feel like you can’t take chances or fall for someone again. But, I’m here, TK. I’m here and I’d like to see where we could go from this point.”

TK frowns and fiddles with his fingers again. “If you knew everything, I’m not so sure you’d still feel that way.”

This is a different version of TK than Carlos is used to but he welcomes that. Gone is the facade, the carefully crafted demeanor the man maintains in public. Here with just the two of them on a quiet street under the night sky, Carlos feels like he’s getting to the heart of TK and he likes what he sees. Certainly the man is in a self-deprecating mood, a complete shift from the confident guy out on the dance floor. But he’s being forthright about himself and Carlos can respect anyone that’s being candid. It’s an admirable trait and makes TK even more real to him.

“Maybe you could give me the chance to decide that for myself? Or to show you that I’m serious about this.” Carlos cringes a bit then, worried he’s coming on too strong considering TK’s hesitancy. “I don’t...I hope you don’t feel pressured here. I’m sorry if I’m—”

“No. Honestly, you aren’t making me feel like that. If anything, it’s the exact opposite. You make me feel...free. To possibility, to everything. I don’t know. There’s something about this town and the people here. Nothing is going at all like I expected it to, which is a very, very good thing.”

Carlos smiles softly at this. “Glad I could play a small part in that.”

TK knocks his shoulder lightly against Carlos’ and that tiny bit of contact sends his heart racing.

“Not a small part, believe me.”

Carlos bites back on the corner of his bottom lip and holds his hand out in the small space between them, palm up towards TK who smiles at him before accepting it. They sit in companionable silence for a moment before TK rests his head against Carlos’ shoulder. The reception is still in full swing with voices and music carrying over but Carlos couldn’t be happier with where he is now.

It makes him think loosely of that Oscar Wilde quote. He is quite literally in the gutters with TK now and yet there’s such a beauty to it as they both watch the stars beside each other for a short while with TK still resting on him.

“I could be good for you. Whenever you’re ready. If you’re ever ready,” Carlos amends, stroking his thumb along the back of TK’s hand.

TK sits up and Carlos shifts to face him. TK’s normally bright eyes are darkened now, his expression calculating as if he’s trying to make his mind up about something. Before Carlos can ask what’s on his mind, TK is leaning in, his lips pressing gently against Carlos’.  There’s no rush to it, no haste as if TK is trying to prove something by kissing him. It feels more like an exploration, a tentative dive into uncharted waters.

Carlos matches his pace, leaving this all entirely in TK’s hands but he’d be lying if he said his mind isn’t already spiraling, his thoughts running away from him to the point where all he can think about is the mouth keeping time with his own. TK’s ability to make himself Carlos’ sole focus reaches new heights with this now. Carlos wants all of him, to swallow him whole and keep every bit selfishly for himself.

TK deepens the kiss and Carlos follows his lead, his hands grasping gently onto TK’s hair. TK responds in kind, his nails dragging down Carlos’ back. TK kisses him hungrily and Carlos serves it right back. This is weeks’ worth of tension bubbling to the surface, completely unfiltered. It makes Carlos feel delirious, his breath catching and blood pumping in his ears.

TK lets out a small whimper and pulls away sharply, both of them breathless and panting.

“I’m sorry,” TK says, licking his lips and pressing his fingertips against his mouth.

Carlos shakes his head, waving him off politely. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

TK breathes out shakily, lowering his hand and searching Carlos’ face with urgency.

“I still want to take this slow. I just got a bit carried away there for a second.” Even in the dark, Carlos can see the slight pink tinge to TK’s face.

Carlos leans in and gives him a soft kiss on the cheek, taking his hand again and entwining their fingers.

“Progress is progress no matter the pace,” Carlos says simply. “Point is, we’re moving forward together. That’s all I could ever ask of you.”