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hargrove-mayfields · 3 years ago

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Just A Dream Away

Chapter 1/13 read here on ao3!

my piece for @harringrovebigbang!

Art and moodboard from my amazing team, @monochromegee and @shewritesdirty respectively, to come soon!

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Six months. Six months and twelve days.

That’s how long Billy has been in the hospital. In a coma. His health rapidly deteriorating.

After one month it was required he be put on a ventilator. Two and his wounds started getting infected. By month three, the hospital asked that a representative be chosen for him, just in case he didn’t pull through.

Neil Hargrove refused. Barked into the receiver something along the lines of, “What do I care if the boy wanted to go and get himself killed?” It was entirely defensive, his voice cracking as he finished his sentence, but the hospital still never contacted him again, not for updates or bills or anything. His wife was far too busy taking care of one grieving child and a lazy husband already to worry about an additional burden.

All of Billy’s extended family was still in California, had written him off years before they’d even left home for Indiana anyways. The moment his mother walked out the door, nobody else wanted him either, so they were off the table too.

The town of Hawkins had been turned inside out by the deaths of more than thirty community members, some of which were still being reported as missing so many months later. Nobody had the time, or in many cases the heart, to take care of the lone survivor.

That left only one person. The one who’d been taking care of him even before he’d fallen into a coma. The one who’d understood him better than anyone else, who’d given him a chance, who’d loved him more than anything.

Steve gets a call from the hospital, the way he is usually woken up these days. Every other morning, as soon as visitation opens, a nurse calls him for a quick update. The duties of a representative for someone unconscious, for his Billy in a coma.

He’s beyond exhausted, dragging himself to and from Hawkins General day in and day out, sometimes bringing Max or a few of the other kids along with him. Mostly because every day is the same thing, walking through the halls, facing the polite smiles from nurses who deal with this on the daily, don’t understand the way it feels to see the one you love on that bed.

If he does hear anything new, it’s usually not good news. He knows Billy is getting worse, but still he sits in that room for countless hours, watching and waiting for the moment he’s struck with a miracle, and he comes back to him.

The hospital is not quite as patient though, and since about month four of Billy’s hospital stay, they’d been encouraging Steve to consider his wards right to die. After so much time had passed by without signs of improvement, the nurses had started hesitating in the doorway when he was around, and offering kind little suggestions that were supposed to push him towards the decision to let Billy go.

Things like, “It’s not really him anymore, honey.” and, “He’s getting worse by the minute, poor thing.”, and Steve’s favorite, the one that made him leave the hospital in tears, “If he wanted to wake up, he would have done it by now.”

But no matter how true what they were saying may have been, Steve really did not want to hear it. The only reason the thought of letting Billy go had ever crossed the minds of doctors and nurses was because of what was on the news, all these up and coming stories about hospital ethics committees that were popping up all over the country recently.

They were being selfish, willing to let Billy die just because they were scared they wouldn’t be able to stand the heat that would come from keeping an eighteen year old boy on life support for as long as they had. Whether or not they actually thought they could save him was a question for another day.

So they would mail Steve countless papers and claims and pamphlets to try to reason with him, to persuade him that the best thing to do was to kill Billy because they didn’t want to deal with him anymore. It made him sick to his stomach, to think that people who were supposedly trained to help people were so hellbent on giving up on a patient.

He wonders sometimes, if they wouldn’t be so hasty to pull the plug had he been an easier case. If his father was more supportive and his biological mother present, or if the government hadn’t worked so hard to cover up the origin of his injuries. Maybe even if his representative was a nice young woman instead.

But there’s nothing he can do about it, so he just crumples the papers and ignores their premature condolences, and goes to visit Billy at every moment he can.

The drive to the hospital that particular morning feels like it takes a whole day instead of the 20 minutes the route actually is, Steve feeling like he’s suspended in time. It doesn’t seem real, taking the stairs up to the second floor, elevators were a no go after the free fall he took at Starcourt, and taking a visitor sticker and a bunch of papers from the woman at the reception desk.

He’s walked this route more times than he can count, but this time he can feel that something is wrong, different. On the top of the very first sheet the desk lady hands him, in bold black letters, are the printed words “Right-to-Die” and Steve already knows what is coming.

The woman gives him a half sympathetic look and reads off her scripted spiel. “The Hargrove boy has been unresponsive for six months now, with no signs of improvement in his condition. The recently instituted hospital ethics board wants you to seriously consider the contents of these forms.”

The words are so hollow, the look on her face mostly bored. Steve guesses this same speech was probably given to a thousand other people who’d come through this hospital, and it makes him feel nauseated just listening to it, her less than genuine pity as she reads off her clipboard, making it seem like she doesn’t even care what she is asking of him.

“It’s of course among your rights as representative to say no, but we want to remind you that he has no quality of life being artificially kept alive, and it might be best to let him go.”

“No, they told me he couldn’t feel anything. He’s not suffering.” Steve insists, and as much as he believes that he is right, the confidence in his voice is false. This was something he’d been thinking about every day for the last half a year. “You’ve kept him alive this long, right? That’s got to mean something.”

“Still, this is about him. We just want you to think about if keeping him alive is the right thing to do anymore when we can’t be sure what he’s going through. When he isn’t himself.”

Of course this was something he’d considered in his own mind, six months is a long time, and it was inevitable that a few times on his worst days, he’d have to think about pulling the plug. It was just so different hearing this nurse who didn’t know Billy insisting on it, it was just so impersonal, and it made him think about the hospital's greed, and how they probably just wanted to save money on ventilators and open up another bed.

Without saying another word to her, Steve walks away without the clipboard of papers, and off to room B-216. Of course he'd known this was coming. They’d been trying to drop hints since the moment Billy stopped being able to breathe on his own, but he’d been in denial. As long as Billy's heart was still beating, Steve had hope that he would recover if the doctors would just try.

Still, as he sits down in the chair next to Billy’s bed, he decides he doesn’t want to call Max today. He takes the desk woman's advice, as angry as it made him, and takes the time to truly reflect on the boy in that bed, with the feeding tube down his throat, the respirator breathing for him beside his bed, the IV in his neck, there because the veins in his arms had been so overused.

His hair is much longer now, just past his collarbones, but without maintenance, his blonde curls are knotted and dull. His skin is unnaturally pale, his freckles faded to nothing, and his whole body is littered with angry, dark red scars. The hole in the center of his chest still isn’t all the way healed, and the nurses are constantly fighting to keep it free of infection.

When he wakes up, they say he will be in immense pain and that he will have forgotten how to walk and talk and probably even breathe on his own. There was a chance too that his memory will have gaps in it, which could mean anything from forgetting what happened to him in July, to not even knowing his own name.

Basically if, no- when he wakes up, he won’t really be Billy.

Steve had always heard about and seen in the movies coma patients who twitch their fingers or moved their eyes, or who really give any signs of life, miraculously waking up and being themselves again, but Billy, he had only done the opposite.

At some point, he has to accept that Billy won’t be like one of those other patients, and, in the condition he is in, all pale skin and open wounds and zero signs of responsiveness, they were only prolonging his death. They had tried just about everything they could thanks to Steve’s willingness to cover the expenses, and, although he didn’t want to believe it, maybe just couldn’t accept it quite yet, it was, as the nurse had said, time to think about letting Billy go.

Not today though. He’d spend today with him at the very least, trying to push those thoughts to the back of his mind while he still could. The nurses used to say, when Billy had first been admitted and they still thought there was a chance of recovery, that Steve and Max, whenever she could come, should try talking to him, and Steve always did.

He never really has a whole lot to say, not since everything has been calming down recently. There were no more funerals to attend, no more grieving families to take a hot dish and his condolences to. The kids didn’t need him to watch them anymore, and Family Video had decided to lay him off until he didn’t have to make daily hospital commutes and he could work again. Basically, Steve’s entire world was Billy.

So it was only fair that Billy was what he usually talked about, reminiscing about everything they’d gotten to do together before the accident, telling him about what was happening with his sister now that she was getting older, and giving him updates on how many days it had been and how much he missed and loved him. One of the nurses had heard him say that once, seen him lean forwards and press a kiss to Billys forehead, but she had only turned away, pretending she hadn’t noticed.

Today though, it was much harder than usual to think of something to say to him. He always tried to leave all of the bad stuff at the door, didn’t think it would do Billy any good if he could even hear, to be listening to him always complaining or moping about their situation, but with death weighing heavy on his mind, what else was there to think about?

The anger and the remorse and the depression would be for when he went home tonight and downed a whole bottle of Fireball, Billy’s favorite whiskey, and called Robin drunk off his ass at two in the morning to tell her about how terrible he felt.

It was because he loved Billy with all of his heart that he wouldn’t put him through that. Even if it hurt more than anything else to see his love broken down and dying, which was, in Steve’s opinion, the worst thing that had ever happened to him, he always wore a smile on his face every day he walked into that hospital room.

As hard as that was, and as guilty as it made him feel to admit, Billy's sickness wasn’t the only thing making Steve miserable. He had also been through some unimaginable things himself while trapped in the Starcourt mall, and he didn't come out the other side the same.

Nightmares plagued him constantly, so that when he would eventually come back home from the hospital, he didn’t sleep more than fifteen minutes through the night. Being alone for too long warped his perception of reality, made him think everyone he knew and loved was gone, that he’d been abandoned or all his friends killed. He would constantly call to check on them, most of the time drunk and panicking, but they’d stopped picking up after the first few times. There were so many triggers too that could send him back to that night in an instant, where he’d just get stuck again.

And perhaps that is exactly why he can’t let Billy go so easily, because even if it is heartbreaking and makes him feel so empty inside being there with a version of his Billy who couldn’t speak to him or who he couldn’t hold, he was still alive. If he died now, Steve would have nothing. It would be no different from the losses everyone had suffered, the death of the chief of police and at least thirty other community members robbing them of their soundness of mind.

Letting go of Billy would just be another blow, to him and to the tight-knit community who had come so close together after the accident that rocked their little town. You wouldn't be able to tell from the fact that his room was always empty except for Steve or his sister, but the papers had revered him as a hero. Who he’d become after being hospitalized meant his death wouldn't just affect loved ones.

But more than any of that, he just didn’t want to give up on him. Pulling the plug meant sacrificing so many more moments they could have together, losing the chance to move on from what had happened. How could Steve ever know when it was the right time to do that?

When was it safe to say that Billy wouldn’t ever recover, and that they were just stretching out the inevitable? When could he feel right in letting his very best friend and the love of his life die? Deep down, past his initial reaction of shock and heartbreak, he knows he’ll never truly be ready to say goodbye, but that now was that time regardless.

Just like the nurses said, he wasn’t really Billy anymore. Who he’d been was a teenage boy with too much energy to burn, always getting into trouble and always in motion, bouncing his knee, twisting the ring on his middle finger or the locket around his neck, chain smoking cigarette after cigarette. It used to drive Steve insane how he wouldn’t sit still for anything, but now he would give anything just to have that back.

There was no personality left in him, no stupid jokes to cheer Steve up, no pestering his sister and her friends like a big brother does, nothing left in him at all that made him distinctly Billy. Steve wondered if maybe he had already given up.

If maybe, Billy wasn’t even in there at all anymore, and they were holding on to nothing just to feed their own selfishness. Steve wasn’t the most emotional of people, usually panicking before he got upset, but he could feel tears pricking at his eyes now, as he watched the slow rise and fall of Billy’s, or not Billy’s, chest, and listened to the beeps and hums of the machines that kept him going.

He knew what needed to be done. Just not today.

For now, he holds Billy's hand, unmoving and just warm enough that he could tell he was alive, and whispered to him anything that came to his mind.

If Billy could hear him, he knew he was probably tired of hearing the same stories over and over, thinking of Billy waking up and complaining about Steve being too boring made him chuckle to himself. An instant pang of regret tightens his chest, feeling guilty for being happy.

There was a really sweet nurse about the age of his mother who always checked in on him at the same time everyday, like he was the one with tubes and machines sticking out of his body. Her name was Dale, and she always peeked her head into the room around meal times to ask if he had been down to the cafeteria yet. Usually he hadn’t, and sometimes he still forgot to eat anyways, but it meant a lot to him.

Today though, she came all the way in the room, a sad look on her face, and he had to avoid her gaze entirely to keep himself from breaking down, choosing instead to focus on Billy’s slender fingers where he’d laced them through his own.

“Steve, honey, I know this is really hard for you, it’s hard for all of us when something like this happens, but you need to take care of yourself.” She was just being kind, but he wouldn’t hear it.

If this was going to be the last full day he’d ever spend with Billy, he was going to make it count. A soggy sandwich in the dingy old cafeteria wasn’t worth spending a single moment away from the other boy's bedside. He feels vaguely guilty about it, but he ignores the well meaning nurse, even as she says her generic condolences that all of them were trained to say.

He smooths out Billy's hair, brushing the part that always hung in his eyes to the side carefully, something Billy himself had always seemed to do when he was nervous. It reminds him of the time they tried to do each other's hair and Billy taught him how to make a braid, so he tells Billy about it.

When he hears the distant roar of a car's engine from the open window, it reminds him of the first time Billy drove him home in the now totaled beyond recognition Camaro, so he talks about that. A bird landing on the windowsill reminds him of sitting on Billy’s bed and talking about the seagulls and the beaches back in California where Billy had grown up, so he tells Billy that story too. The phone ringing at the receptionist's desk down the hallway reminds him of the time Billy had called him in the middle of the night to invite him out to the quarry, where they’d kissed for the first time and Steve clumsily asked him to make things official, so again, he told Billy all about it.

It's mostly a comfort to himself, keeping his mind off of the reality of the situation, but then the desk lady announces over the overhead system that visiting hours are over, and it’s time for him to go.

They had been giving him a lot of leeway here at Hawkins General, allowing him to visit every single day and sometimes with a 14 year old, which was strictly against the rules of the ICU. The end of visiting hours was a rule they always stood by though, and despite how much it crushed him to leave Billy by himself overnight, he always did it.

On his way out, he grabbed the stack of papers the receptionist tried to give him off of her desk. He would call Susan in the morning and ask her what she thought. He would try to involve her in the choice, since she’d technically claimed Billy as her dependent after her marriage to his father, who had given enough verbal and written agreements that he wanted nothing at all to do with his son while he was hospitalized that his wife could, and had, stepped in.

He went home that night with the thought in his head that this was the last time he’d do this, and by this time tomorrow, Billy would be dead.

#harringrove big bang 2021 #harringrove #steve harrington #billy hargrove #billy x steve #ej writer #story by ej!#so excited to start sharing!#chapter two will be on tumblr later today!#it’s up on ao3 already if you wanna get ahead!

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sapphic-sasuke · 3 years ago

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So i was watching those fillers about kakashi’s anbu days and an question came to my mind Why did tachi directly choose to kill the clan instead of trying to warn their parents and/or the uchiha clan first did he think they were too prideful to back down or completely leave the village or maybe he didn’t trust his OWN family

I mean if i was in that kinda of a situation (or heck even in any kinda of situation) the first thing I would’ve done; go to mom dad warn them/ask them what should i do, what should ‘we’ do and cannonically speaking itachi was 13 at the time and fugaku really seemed to be the most reasonable person to go to(while other uchihas were unnecessary being harsh to civilians during taking them into custody fugaku was the one to warn them) so itachi either, A) was kinda of an idiot who didn’t really think things through (wich I don’t think so cause he was supposed to be a genius at the very least a very smart person) or B) he was so arrogant thet he thought (an exceptional 13yo kid A FUCKING CHILD) he might be more suited and experienced! to handle the coup instead of going to his parents and I know ppl say that he got manipulated n stuff but c’mon wasn’t he basically the king of manipulation I don’t understand how he couldn’t thought anything besides killing everyone, wouldn’t taking sasuke and running should’ve been an option to what do you think

Also sorry for the long ass ask and I just realized ur one of my favorite fics authors i hope u update looking for forgiveness soon didn’t read such a good fan fic in a while i like ur writing sm <3

HI!! don’t ever feel sorry for long asks i love reading long stuff . and AHHH WOW thank you so much i do plan to update my fic very soon. the chapters almost done but i had some rly funky writer’s block hope u like it <3

no ur so right anon the way itachi handled the massacre was so strange? and that’s why i like to headcanon that itachi had a really strained relationship with his parents (albeit slightly better with fugaku) where he never came to them with any of his emotions/problems growing up and internalised that until the massacre. i think the second option is more probable. we know he didn’t like most of the clan members and we even see him fighting some. what with all his achievements as a shinobi and his anbu status, itachi seems like the kind of person.

i think taking sasuke and running away would have halted the coup, with the clan heir and second son gone, however i am of the belief that the coup would have been inevitable. maybe due to strained relations or danzo’s machinations, konoha doesn’t help out much with trying to find itachi and sasuke and that increases tensions even further. we know that uchihas love fiercely and it could even lead to the clan more determined to go forward with the coup and then use further resources to find sasuke and itachi. it seems like a short term solution to marginalisation that’s been simmering for decades. it’s a far better alternative to him outright committing genocide however.

maybe itachi did think telling them he was being pressured into killing the clan would have gone badly. he’s very against the coup and has made this clear with his antagonistic actions after shisui’s death. i’m almost certain people in the clan didn’t trust him at all. he was definitely of the belief that more vocal members of the clan would use that as a further incentive to go ahead with the coup, even kill danzo and the elders. (danzo’s root however would be a major obstacle)

i think fugaku would have listened to itachi though. the uchiha coup is one that could be interpreted as a last ditch retaliation from a clan who were shoved to a corner. fugaku clearly loves the village—the coup was intended to be bloodless if it went according to plan. the elders wouldn’t even be aware of it if itachi stayed silent. (but i do think the other clans would not support an uchiha hokage because their reputation worsened after the kyuubi attack) and let’s be real, the elders were insanely corrupt. (but I am of the belief the corruption is only possible because of the shinobi system in place but then that’s a whoooole other topic) itachi’s spy status already puts him as a traitor to the clan which would be a huge betrayal for fugaku who believed in itachi when others didn’t. itachi would be disgraced by his people for even being considered as someone who would be asked to kill them, you know? in that sense, itachi must have seen everything as a lose-lose scenario and went with the option that wouldn’t hinder konoha that much and as such the “peace”

leaving the village is an interesting option. i feel like unless the uchiha clan find a secure place to hide (they do have those hideouts) that ultimately konoha is the safest bet for them at the moment but the possibility of even konoha being unsafe is very real with the threat of danzo. the fact that the elders even considered genocide shows the uchiha’s standing in konoha. hidden villages must have loads of safety measures in place to stop shit like kidnappings for bloodline limits (hinata’s kidnapping attempt was only possible to happen because of the treaty being signed) and state secrets, that i’m sure the uchiha clan have. in short, the uchiha are way too intergreted into the village’s foundations to simply leave without repercussions. it’s interesting because they aren’t actually intergreted into the village at all. i’m sure they don’t know that many actual secrets about the village. they aren’t trusted—tobirama mentions this. but if they ever decided to turn against konoha or join another village their insight into how konoha shinobi and clans work as previous comrades would be invaluable. essentially, the only way for the uchiha clan to survive if they decide to leave would be to go into hiding, really insane crazy genjutsu hiding (which i believe is possible with such a strong clan) in that case, then Yes, the uchiha clan leaving would work. but i think itachi’s of the belief that uchiha pride would prevent them from ever considering hiding. so i’m more inclined to agree with the second option B

the genocide just doesn’t fit with a child who supposedly loves his clan. you don’t kill a clan you love for the village. moral standing aside, solving peace with violence isn’t peace. how can he call himself a pacifist but then have so much faith in the system he’s willing to kill his own people for it? i’s stupidity. there’s so many inconsistencies to itachi’s character because if he really did all of this for sasuke then why torture him? that’s unnecessary mental damage. he could invoke hatred without torture. he’s stated to have the wisdom of a kage at 7 but then makes really stupid decisions that don’t fit in with his whole master manipulator like you mentioned. with all of this ive just come to the conclusion that itachi was probably originally intended to be an antagonist but shit Happened like a popularity jump or smth and suddenly the narrative’s calling him a hero lmao, way to go against the original anti establishment themes from part 1 naruto kishi u bum

this got long really fast omg im sorry? but i hope my insight helped in some way? (or not i tend to ramble a Looooot) anyways ty for the ask i could honestly talk about the uchiha clan all day

#asks #uchiha clan #analysis?#naruto analysis #uchiha clan deserved better #guys feel free to join the discussion my asks are open #this topic is actually quite interesting

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petri808 · 3 years ago

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Bakudeku canon divergent, vampire quirk AU

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

For the next several days, Bakugou stopped in towns along the train route that were in the easterly direction to see if any other strange reports had been made. He wasn’t sure if the first man’s attack had anything to do with his friend, but in the towns, he was able to confirm a sighting of a green streak, there were coinciding reports of attacks in the days preceding them. Always a similar story, late at night, didn’t see the attacker, and bite wounds on various parts of the body such as the arm, shoulder, or even neck. The other thing they had in common, were the victims were found in drunken stupors. Was it a coincidence? What was another coincidence, is after the first victim, the rest were all what police classified as problems. With or without quirks, they were bad men who had lists of crimes under their belts. That meant whatever was causing the attacks now appeared to have a specific target.

Bakugou stood in the Ena township police station, tapping his foot to release some of the pent-up energy. “Yesterday,” he questioned the desk sergeant, “are you telling me that attack was just yesterday evening?”

The man nodded. “The victim is still in the hospital being treated for low blood levels. They’ve had to keep him sedated through the IV infusions because he wouldn’t stop screaming about a man with green eyes.”

“And there’s no other incidences?” The officer shook his head. “That means the attacker could still be here.”

“Wait, do you know who it is?”

Bakugou shook his head no. He wasn’t about to tell some beat cop who he suspected it could be. “It’s just based off the pattern I’ve been tracking. There are usually a few attacks over the spans of one to three days, and then they just end. So, if this was the first, it means there will be more.”

After speaking with the cops and getting a map for the area of the latest attack, Bakugou staked out the scene. There are no traces left behind to say who or what had caused the attacks, but what he did notice of the area is it was a seedy side of town. The victim said he’d been pulled off the main street into an adjoining alley way around 1 am, too quickly to even get a scream out. He remembered the time because the bar he’d just left had hit its closing time. The alley was narrow, and empty save for a few dumpsters for neighboring shops, no doorways or lighting, perfect for hiding in.

‘Tonight, is still a new moon…’ Bakugou noted, which added to the dark cover of night. After his reconnaissance, he went back to his tiny hotel room to get a few hours of sleep. It was going to be a long night.

It was a decision he didn’t know if he would come to regret someday, but in the end, the blonde hero realized that his flashier costume would make him stand out way too easily. So, after foregoing his costume, Bakugou dressed all in black for the undercover work. He climbed to the roof of a building, dead center of the area the attacker might choose in the hopes that the green lightning seen by eyewitnesses will be the tell-tale sign he’ll be able to use to track the person. Patience wasn’t exactly his virtue, but it was the only way he was gonna catch the guy.

The first night’s stakeout yielded nothing. No sightings, no attacks. Which could mean anything or nothing. Previous attacks didn’t always take place every night in a row, but it could also mean the attacker had moved on. Did they catch-wind of him being there and fled? Damn he hoped not! This was the closest he’d come to catching up to the green lightning! Two nights later, Bakugou was growing disillusioned. Every day he checked back with the authorities to make sure no other sightings had been made in town or in surrounding cities, and with the answer being ‘no’ each time, there was a small glimmer of hope he was still in the right place at the right time.

But as he laid on a rooftop on the night of day 4, a lot of thoughts were plaguing him because there was nothing to do while waiting but think. Sometimes he would run the events of that AFO fight though his mind trying to remember any little details that may help him. Other times, it would be about Midoriya and what could have possibly made the man run off like this. Those thought’s either left him broken or wanting to strangle the guy for causing them so much pain. Midoriya better damn well be ready to do a hell of a lot of apologizing to their friends and family!

Bakugou grimaced at the last thought. Such personal emotions he would rather lock away into some box deep within the recesses of his soul than to admit the truth. He told himself he was doing this for their friends. He tried to convince himself that he was doing this for aunty Inko and to make All Might proud. These were a part of the search, yes… but not the full reason. The blonde had to admit he missed the stupid nerd. Midoriya was his childhood friend, and no matter how much shit he gave the guy, he was the one person he could count on. He was still determined to beat the mouse and become the Number one hero… but he was also proud of how far Midoriya had come in the last three years. It would be a shame for it all to be thrown away now.

Just as he was ready to call it a night, Bakugou heard a muffled scream from a nearby street. He rushed over as quickly as possible, racing into the alley way just as the unconscious victim’s body is being laid down. Bloody hell he was right all along!

“DEKU?!”

All he could see was the person’s back, but he’d know those red shoes anywhere. The mousy green hair looked even wilder than normal. Midoriya still had on his costume, but it was torn up with a raggedy cloak swaddling his upper body. Simply put, his friend looked like a homeless man off the streets. The figure froze for a second, then without turning to face off against Bakugou immediately flashed with green and took off into the sky. Green lightning!

“DEKU YOU, FUCKING ASSHOLE!!!” Bakugou blasted off after the man. Damn it, his gear would have helped with the propulsion! He couldn’t remember him being so quick before, what the hell was going on? Midoriya was streaking away, zigzagging along roof tops, and heading towards a section of industrial warehouses. If it wasn’t for the quirks electrical output to tell him where to go, he could easily lose sight in the darkness.

He gritted his teeth and pushed his quirk to its limit. There was no way Bakugou was going to screw up this opportunity. So, if he couldn’t catch up, he could knock the nerd out of the sky! “ARRGHH!!!” He sent repeated AP-Auto shots towards Midoriya at medium power, growing angrier as the man dodged the first few volleys. “THAT’S IT!!!!” In his rage, Bakugou increased the spread like buck shots of crackling fire ringing around the fleeing figure, and he kept up the pace in rapid succession.

“AHHHHH!”

The scream pierced the night and Bakugou saw several hits knock the man off course, barreling the body straight for the ground. It wasn’t his intention to hurt, but damn it, Midoriya shouldn’t have run in the first place! He turned on the turbo and reached the man just as he was trying to get back on his feet.

“Don’t fucking think about it!” Bakugou grabbed the man’s shoulder and whipped him around. “Goddamn it Deku! What the fuck is your problem?!”

“K-Kacchan, wh-wh—”

“Don’t you Kacchan me, you bastard!” He gripped tightly so that Midoriya can’t squirm away easily. “Did you think I wouldn’t come looking for you idiot!”

“Yes.”

It was as if the wind had been knocked out of him. Okay, he should be surprised by that answer. When had he ever acted like he cared when it came to Midoriya? But that didn’t mean such a quick and blunt response wouldn’t hit him like a brick to the head. And you know what, he has shown he cared in his own way. Damn it! When has he ever just left the man behind? His fist balled up and cocked back, striking Izuku hard on the chin and sending him back to the ground. “Stupid fuck!” Bakugou spat the words out before dropping to his knees on top of the man. “I ought ‘a beat the crap out of you right now for even thinking that!”

But Midoriya shoved back trying to push the man off. “What the fuck are you talking about?! You don’t give a shit about me, never have! When the hell did you start caring?!” He kicked and twisted, fighting the larger male. “Get the fuck off me! I can’t stay here!”

“You are coming home with me Deku whether you like it or not!”

“NOOOOOO!!!” Midoriya activated his quirk up to 70% and bucked Bakugou off him. “It’s too dangerous, Kacchan just get away from me!” He took a stance to spring himself back into the air, but the blonde scrambled and jumped on top of him, pushing him back to the ground. “Get off, I don’t want to hurt you!” Midoriya screamed. This was getting out of control. Exhausting so much energy on Bakugou was stirring up his hunger and if that happened, he didn’t know if he could control himself.

“What the fuck ya gonna do, drink my blood too? What the hell is going on with you Deku?! Goddamn it tell me what the fuck happened in that forest!”

“Y-You know about that?”

“How do you think I tracked your ass down?!”

The pain is his stomach was rising fast. Midoriya winced as the rush of blood sounded off in his ears and other tell-tale signs progressively made its entrance. This was not good! “Kacchan please,” his voice whined and pleaded through the aching throb in his core, “let me go before something happens.”

“I don’t care what it takes Deku, I can’t lose you again.”

“I-I’m so sorry Kacchan.”

Bakugou’s eyes widen as he saw a dark red sheen enveloping the whites of Midoriya’s eyes. Is this what happened when he’d attacked all those men?

Every last nerve was fighting against control. It was an option Midoriya didn’t want to use, but if he could control it just a little longer, all he wanted to do was give himself a head start. “Please,” he begged one more time, “just forget about me Kacchan.”

“Get it through your fucking head! I’M NOT LEAVING YOU!”

That was the last thing Bakugou remembered…

#bakudeku #katsudeku #bakudeku fan fic #bkdk #ktdk #bakudeku fan fiction #bakudeku canon divergent au #vampire quirk #decchan #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku

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the-moon-prince · 4 years ago

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The Last Of us~Kurapika x Reader ~Chapter IV

AN: Hi my lovely fellows!

A new chapter! I tried my best to develop further the self insert character and clarify more its backstory and clan! I have somethings planned I hope you’ll enjoy. Thank you so much for all you support and I thank you for reading!

I wish you a pleasant read, and I hope you’ll enjoy the new chapter of my story. (Chapter I) (Chapter II) (Chapter III) (Chapter V soon!)

Paring: Kurapika Kurta x GN! Reader

Word count: 2 307

TW: None!

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Everything in life has a continuation. Kurapika and (Y/n)'s relationship is also subject to this law. An undeniable detail was that the lives of both subjects were terribly busy and loaded. Notably, the activities that Kurapika was involved in were lightened. (Y/n) held their word to assist him in his cause, as their work turned out to be advantageous. Primarily when it came to retrieving scarlet eyes. Kurapika even recovered two more pairs not long after by the dint of their research.

Another point in common was that the two were- Or at least when they wanted- very organized. The majority of encounters took place after they departed their jobs with the Nostrade. Consisting most frequently in small walks in nearby parks, have coffee or read together. Accommodating conversations that permitted them to know each other.

"What is the reason behind your decision to study psychiatry?" It occurred to Kurapika to bid during a walk. The situation was atypical; people with profitable prior careers didn't take the Hunter exam, not to mention how extremely young (Y/n) was, being just a year younger than him. But knowing the introversion of his partner, he decided to go little by little.

"My grandad was one. I aspired to be similar to him.

He had a treasury full of medicine and psychiatry titles I loved to read, I also sneaked into his conversations on the subject!" -(Y/n) gloated, with a tiny rocking and a smile.-"I find the functioning of the brain stimulating! And I like to help, it makes me feel useful. One of his acquaintances invited me to be his apprentice several times ago. I just accepted."

It was not rare for them to get together in the same room for each to work on their matters. They spent time in each other's presence. It was what mattered to them.

In the beginning, (Y / n) was the one that expressed questions the most. Especially details that many would judge insignificant.-"What is your preferred flavor of ice cream?" "Your favorite color? Mine is (Fav .color)" What musical genre do you prefer? I like (Fav. genre), I'm particularly a David Bowie fan." The answers to those questions were vanilla, light gray, and jazz. (Y/n) liked to accumulate all the possible details about Kurapika. More than once he was surprised that the (hair/colored) remembered, like what candy he preferred from the local store, that he liked his water slightly cooler than room-temperature or they reminded him to take a break from using his contact lenses. (Y/n) was also very vocal, consciously or not, with what they liked about Kurapika. They made him blush more than once with "you look pretty today", "you are kind, thank you" or "I love your eyes, they are blue dog's eyes". He had no clue what the latter meant or where were their origins, but (Y/n) said it so lovingly that he couldn't help feeling like it was the greatest of compliments.

Kurapika relied most on studying (Y/n) body language to approach them. He soon realized that while their face was not very expressive, the rest of their body tended to be. When they were waiting for something that excited them, they tapped the table with their long nails. They used to hold the door for the person behind them and him. And the two things that Kurapika found the most adorable of all, they tilted their head when they thought of something and flapped their hands when they were excited-even if they tried to suppress it on occasions. Something that Kurapika was not anticipating at all, particularly considering its dexterity and exactness from the time they fought, was (Y/n) clumsiness. They took bad or silly postures and never tied their shoes- Kurapika suspected them to not know how-.

He loved to tease (Y/n) with it. Expressly when they caught a light pole in the road, for not paying attention while they talked.

(Y/n) reminded him so much of Pairo, shy, a tad playful, and caring.

Pairo...

He would have liked to meet Yorknew. Observe everything Kurapika had seen. He sure would have liked the cinnamon rolls and the city lights. It was cruel and wicked.

"Kurapika"- a quiet voice took him away from his thoughts. His head stung.

"Here's your tea, sunshine"-(Y/n) placed a cup full of steaming cinnamon tea in front of him, and proceeded to sit down.-"Are you fine?"

"Yes, I was just... just thinking."- Kurapika mumbled and looked at his cup.

"I see. It is not wrong to miss someone. It simply signifies you love them, and they're important to you."-They mumbled, also looking down at the tea, as if they were capable of reading his mind. They certainly didn't read minds. Just missed someone too.-"If we don't remember them no one else will."- (Y/n) muttered as if the statement was also for them. They wanted nothing more than to comfort him. In one effort they dubiously lifted their hand and started to gently rub his back.

Kurapika turned to see them.-"You call me sunshine now?" He wanted to tease them. It didn't work.

(Y/n) nooned with pride.-"Because of your hair, the color evokes a ray of sunshine. Without sunlight, the flowers do not grow, therefore it is important. You are valuable to me."-Completely overlooking the other man's intentions. Kurapika covered his face with his hands and started laughing. He felt better.

"You are sickly sweet!"- he exclaimed, shaking his head.

"I am. And you're sneakier than you seem." (Y/n) similarly joked. They rested their heads on the hand, drinking tea. They maybe were sappy, but in the end, Kurapika loved it. He had someone to comfort him and with whom he could play. How he had missed this!

"Your piano is nearly the only furniture you have in your living room, and I haven't seen you play it yet."-continued taking a sip of his tea. He didn't know if (Y/n) played the piano, but they certainly prepared good tea.

"I am not very skilled. I am incapable of composing anything, and I haven't played for a long time. I was taught how to play some melodies, and that's what I play."

"May I see?"-Kurapika requested, for (Y/n) to approach the grand piano. They opened the tone's cover and he started to play. Sol-Fa Re Si-Fa Re Si ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f81rM4BKODw ). It sounded like a child's song, sweet and simple.

"My grandad was better. Verily, the instruments make me nostalgic, I have them essentially for that." They babbled once finished.

"You're not awful either." The blonde assured-"Did he teach you?"

(Y/n) agreed with a smile. "We fancied dancing and singing. My people liked artistic activities, we were somewhat hippies." they joked with a melancholic undertone.

"And the Kurta?"-their interests were genuine

Kurapika was surprised, it was the first time anyone had asked him. He couldn't help but respond excitedly.- "Well, I traveled with a friend, his name was Pairo. We transported ourselves on the backs of huge birds called Pikos! It was really fun... did you had something similar to travel?"

(Y/n) stared at him for a moment, tilting their head "We were the animals...", to them, the answer was a bit obvious. Why would they mount animals for transportation if they could transform themselves into animals?

"That seems lawful... I quite omitted that detail." Kurapika notified. I forgot that people like (Y/n) were part beast. They hardly ever mentioned him and he hadn't seen them in their other form either.

(Y/n) Laughed-"And we used normal cars. Uniliums didn't live very detached from humans. Our community was like 40 away from the city and most adults worked in it. We just maintained our animal figure in private. Most humans didn't have a clue they were fraternizing with us." They were delighted to talk about their peers. Like when you talk about a family member you haven't seen in a long time.

"What kind of animals were they?"-.Kurapika's curiosity about the group only increased. Besides if he knew more about them he would also know more about his (Y/n).

They hummed, -"Well... we were all mammals. Most were preys, for each predator, there was an average of 13 preys. Of 126 members, we were 10. There were mice, rabbits, deers. But no one was sure how to determine which animal would be an offspring."- They cheerfully explained, general information. But nothing about themselves.

Kurapika would have to question directly.-"And you?"

"I am the cat. But I was raised by wolves, like Romulus and Remus. Who knows? I might establish my own empire!"-(Y/n) played.

It was the first time they mentioned it. But now that he reflected, (Y/n) resembled a cat. They had particularly long fangs and claws.

"I didn't know your parents were wolves!" Kurapika felt he was finally learning a little more about his lover's past. But the reaction received was not the one he expected. An ordinary person, he included, would be glad to remember his parents.

(Y/n) quitted smiling and leaned their head into their folded arms. The atmosphere in the room had changed.-"They are average humans. As we mix with humans, it was not uncommon for some to marry them. My grandfather's mother and my grandfather, who were Uniliums, married humans. My mother was human and married another human."- they mumbled. Kurapika felt that the topic was not very pleasant for them, and considered it appropriate to stop that conversation.

"I comprehend..."-and changed the topic-"Kurtas were further separated. It was difficult to get outward of our village. This to guard us. Controlling the scarlet eyes and our emotions was not easy. Many panicked when they saw them."

(Y/n) seemed to quickly forget the preceding topic and willingly listened to their beloved again.-"I understand that. Some humans were also afraid of us, they believed we were demons or beasts. The funny thing is that the deluded wouldn't recognize us."-they mocked-"Sentiments could also influence our appearance. But our parents taught us to be cautious since cubs."

(Y/n) had seen Kurapika with his scarlet eyes, but he hadn't seen them in their beast form. The most he had seen was that night when they saw him straight in the eye, and their pupils were contracted, like a cat's, and the (e/c) had almost fully spread.

"You have never revealed your cat form to me. I bet you're adorable!"- He expressed in an attempt to satiate his curiosity.

They sure weren't anticipating that request, following a moment of hesitation, they lilted "I presume I get accustomed to wearing this shape."

Kurapika wanted (Y/n) to have confidence in him. He understood the concern in showing foreigners such aspects. After all, they had both been marginalized and punished for their looks.-"It's not going to be unpleasant to me. I like cats." he offered them a sweet smile.

At the moment he blinked and reopened his eyes, (Y/n) had a pair of fuzzy (color) cat ears, the right one with a tiny darker spot on the tip, a fluffy tail, and their hair was slightingly fuzzed up. Maybe the most remarkable thing was their feet, long and standing on the tip.

Their eyes changed again, and their hands were slightly larger with wider claws; to ultimately have the appearance of a cat-humanoid. They didn't look so different and they were still (Y/n).

Kurapika didn't see anything devilish about the person in front of him. Rather, he saw an exotic beauty, like fantastic creatures from magical books. He felt lucky to be able to witness something of that bearing and have that experience. What was so special to him was that this being was his partner.

"You certainly are a kitten. That's something you can do in that form?"-Kurapika interrogated.

(Y/n) took a minute to consider, head tilted as usual- the only difference is that their ears moved delicately-. They raised their open hands, showing some very pink set to digital pads, advanced towards him wagging his tail, and cupping his face with a cute smile.

"Your hands are very soft, darling."-Kurapika giggled at the silly idea. (Y/n)'s grin grew wider, closed its eyes, and in complete pride said "I have paws, honey!" That was true. Not many could say they had paws. Especially a so soft and warm pair. (Y/n) appeared happy and relieved, as if they had been discharged from a weight or they were finally doing something they had repressed.

"And you also have marshmallow cheeks. Can you do something particular under that form?"-As Kurapika enjoyed the softness of the caring touch, his question was not precisely answered.

(Y/n) separated their paws from his face, and showed its claws. "I have retractile claws, like, well, a cat. Under this form my strength and speed increase. My bite force equals that of a Jaguar. Ultimately I'm capable of using a more potent nen's technique since my aura flow grows. Although, you know I'm a pacifist. I tend to be softer..."

"You look like a big plush doll. Yet, this appearance may be tricky. You absolutely are a cat."- Kurapika could recognize why (Y/n)'s clan was killed to extermination. Many collectors would be filled with sick and devious pride to have such a creature. He was happy that at least (Y/n) survived. For the first time, he was happy that he too survived.

#kurapika x reader #hxh #hxh x reader #kurapika kurta x reader #kurapika #Kurapika kurta #hunter x hunter #kurapika imagine #kurapika hxh #hxh scenarios

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eleanor-devil · 3 years ago

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Boruto: Sacrifices [Remade] | Chap.14 - Tears of Regret

Written by: Eleanor-Devil & @mirage-05

Naruto was reading the complete report on the interrogations, Shikamaru standing beside him, neither of them speaking. With each word he was reading the blond was feeling his heart getting heavier. "I... absolutely, completely messed up..." he mumbled finally, shaking his head. "Naruto..." his advisor began with a sigh. "Don't be so hard on yourself..." "And how can I not?!" he exclaimed as he jumped to his feet and began pacing back and forth. "It was my responsibility to keep that child safe! And I failed, I couldn't protect him from those bastards..." There was a pause before the Hokage painfully added. "Or from the villagers..." "You couldn't have known..." "Shikamaru." Naruto gave him a knowing look. "Lame old excuse, and you know it." The Nara didn't say anything else to that. Naruto paced for some more, and turned again to look at him. "I want to hold a second meeting. Inform the clans and tell them that attendance is mandatory, we will tolerate no excuses." Shikamaru nodded. "Any preferences of when?" Naruto thought about it for a minute. "I would've loved to have them dragged out of their beds right now, but let's have it at sunset. Everyone will be present by then."

"On it." Just as Shikamaru walked towards the door, it opened suddenly, making him come to a sudden stop. Seeing the person standing in the doorway, Naruto immediately walked over. "Sasuke..." "Lord Seventh." Shikamaru bowed his head slightly before walking out. As soon as he was out, Naruto asked in a low tone. "Where is Orochimaru?" "I followed him, like you wanted." the Uchiha said seriously. "He went to his son's apartment, and he didn't come out." The Hokage was still tense. "That means he saw those graffitis..." "Oh, he did." The look in the obsidian eyes hardened. "He stared at them for a good while, too. He decided to take no action, but I don't know for how long this silence will continue." The blond closed his eyes for a moment and let out the breath he didn't know he was holding until then. "We have to keep an eye on him. If he decides to strike..." "It is not like he doesn't have good reasons." At the look his friend had given him, the man huffed. "But in any case, I am going to keep close tabs on him. I will keep you informed." The Hokage nodded. "We will have another meeting at sunset." Sasuke didn't say anything, simply nodded. When he opened the door, he almost bumped back into Shikamaru. "Naruto..." the advisor said, almost breathless. "The trackers are back." The blond's eyes widened for a moment, and before he knew it, he was already pushing through his advisor to get out of the room. In front of the office building, he found out that already a dozen people had gathered. And indeed, the trackers were approaching, Konohamaru in the lead, carrying an... unconscious...? dead...? He couldn't be sure, but he was carrying a woman, and something about the look on his face... made Naruto almost cringe. There was also another prisoner as far as he could see... He walked forward to meet them, his eyes on the woman who was on her feet. "Is she...?" "No." the answer came from Konohamaru, and hearing his voice... the blond now knew that something was indeed wrong. "Yoshida Suzume was this person." he indicated the woman he was holding. A moment of silence fell upon the gathered. So many questions came to Naruto's mind, but he didn't voice them just yet. Instead, he turned to one of the jounins. "Take that woman to the hospital." Then another one. "And take the other down to the interrogation rooms." Then he turned to the trackers. "I expect your reports to be delivered tomorrow at the latest." "Yes, Lord Seventh." they said in unison. "You may leave." As they turned their back to go, Naruto spoke once again. "Konohamaru... I would like to speak to you for a moment." The young man nodded and turned around to follow him into his office. The Hokage was watching him intently as he closed the door. "What is wrong?" he asked at last when he turned around properly to face him. "Excuse me, Lord Seventh?" the brunet asked, sounding genuinely confused. "I can see it in your expression... What happened there? Something is troubling you..." There was a pause. "I... I’d really rather not get into this right now." "And I’d really rather not have you in this state of mind.” His look softened. “You know you can tell me.” Another pause. Naruto just waited patiently, hands clasped beneath his chin. "You know, Lord Seventh..." the brunet said at last, not looking up. "We are trained as ninjas, capable of withholding our emotions. But sometimes... sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way. For me especially, tonight..." Naruto didn't say anything for a moment, but felt a small lump forming in his throat. "Konohamaru..." "That woman said he... h-he..." the jounin gulped, it was only too clear that he was having a hard time to continue. "She told me that in the end, he was crying..." Shock reigned supreme on the blond's face as he registered the jounin's words. "H-he... what...?" He was trying, hard, to regain his composure, but it had become a hard job... almost impossible... "She told me a lot of things... Just to bring me down, I guess, but I knew those words were lies... but... When she said that, I knew it was true... What they did to him... What we did to him..." "Konohamaru..." Naruto sighed as he brought two of his fingers to pinch his nose... Honestly, it was all that took him to remain calm... He could understand only too well what could have gone through the poor boy's head... How many times had he felt so heart-broken that he just wanted to run away and never look back? How many times had he felt like he was suffocating under the weight of all the hatred? He had promised himself... the moment he had accepted the boy into Konoha, that nothing like what he had gone through would happen again... That was exactly why he had put up a decree even before the child arrived, forbidding anyone and everyone to cause him harm... He felt like he was falling apart to see that he failed... and not just only a little, he had failed miserably... Trying to ease his mind out of those thoughts, he concentrated his attention on the young jounin again. "You can't let this get to you." "Can’t I?" Konohamaru continued, and his voice came out tired, strained... even with a bit of self-loathe if he had to guess, which made the Hokage frown slightly. "How was I any different toward him compared to the villagers? Did I treat him right, did I make him feel wanted?" His voice faded away as he closed his eyes and shook his head. "What good am I as a sensei...?" The blond sighed again and closed his eyes for a moment before getting up and walking towards the jounin. "You are the best sensei I could ever think of for them," he said firmly, causing the brunet to look up at him. "There were no other options. And I never regretted my decision." He grabbed his shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. "So you made a mistake, everyone does. All you have to do is keep believing in yourself and get right back up." "Some mistakes are not easily reversible though, are they?" Konohamaru said, with the hint of a bitter smile himself. Knowing that no words he said would help and only being sure that time alone could ease the heavy burden on his shoulders, the Hokage let him go and stepped back. "We will have a second meeting at the sunset..." "I will be there." the jounin said, almost in a cold tone. Then he sagged a little. "Lord seventh, if you may... I'd like to... go see him..." Naruto nodded. "You may leave." ... The raw rays of sunshine embraced the hospital building, as if to completely cover what the darkness of the night brought, to right the wrongs. The man's steps were neither too slow nor too quick, he was just striding forward as if a divine order was directing his steps. He quietly made his way to his student's room, his heart thumping loudly. Was he still there? He had to be there, right? He had to hear the news, he had to know he wasn't forgotten, he had to know he was cared for... He stopped for a minute before the room and gazed inside, just to make sure. Their positions weren't changed. Mitsuki was still lying motionless on the bed, the only thing reassuring them being the steady sounds. Boruto sat with his back to him, straight and unmoving. Sarada was sitting by his left side, facing the sensei, her head on the bed, although Konohamaru could see her eyes were open, just staring at their friend. It was a surprise to him that Shikadai was still there too, sitting next to Sarada, but a pleasant surprise. Gathering the courage that he didn't know had suddenly vanished, Konohamaru grabbed the door's frame and slid it open. The three pre-teens turned at the sound. "Sensei..." whispered Sarada. "Hey..." it was all he said as he approached them, pulling out a chair and finding a spot to sit next to Boruto. He stared at his youngest student for a long while, the night's events playing in his head, marveling at how brave this boy had been... reckless too, yeah, there was no denying that... But to face those monsters, completely isolated... He put his hand over Mitsuki's, careful about not touching the IV. A broken smile etched on his face and he had to gulp before he whispered, "Hi there, kiddo." "I…” he heard Shikadai say, and the boy paused for a second before continuing. “I will just be waiting outside…” He could only very clearly hear the reluctance in his voice, even when the Nara started to rise from his chair. Konohamaru was surprised for a moment but that quickly went away as the soft expression returned. He smiled a bit at the young boy before shaking his head. "No..." he said. "I want him to know that we're all here." Shikadai relaxed back in his chair while his students didn't utter a single word, simply staring at their sensei and then back at their friend. The look in the jounin's eyes hardened a little as his gaze, too, drifted to the unconscious boy. "You better prepare yourself for a good scolding when you wake up, Mitsuki." The children were clearly taken aback, both by his words and tone, he could see the shocked expressions on their faces. "W-what do you mean, sensei?" Sarada asked, gulping. "Why...?" "He was attacked..." Shikadai said cautiously, eyeing the sensei wearily. "It's not like..." "It's exactly what it sounds like." the brunette explained simply. "Your friend here thought it was a brilliant idea to engage five jounins in battle for the safety of the village." There was a deafening silence. "...five...?" the Uchiha mumbled finally in a tiny voice. "But that... was he...?" the blond wasn't even able to put together logical sentences. "You mean to tell me... What kind of stupid logic was that?!" he finally burst out. "Why would he do that?! How could he even believe he could win against such odds?!" "That's something only he can tell us... I can't wait to hear the whole story from him, either." Konohamaru went silent again as he looked back at Mitsuki, trying to gather his thoughts. "We did it, kid," he continued. "We got the last member of that damned squad..." Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the kids shifting, now interested. Sarada's fingers curled a little more around Mitsuki's hand. Konohamaru tried to choose the right words, just gazing at the blue haired boy's face. "I'm sorry..." he whispered after a second. "I am sorry we weren't there soon enough. I am sorry you had to face them alone, even when you shouldn't." He sighed. "And I'm sorry... that you ever felt you were truly alone..." This certainly caught their attention. "Sensei...?" whispered Sarada, curiosity but also worry filling her ebony eyes. Shikadai also shifted in his seat, sitting up straight, a frown in his features. "What do you mean... he felt truly alone...?" The young man looked between their faces sadly, this was going to be hard for them. He closed his eyes for a second as, unwelcome as it was, the woman's words about how Mitsuki was... crying... came back to him. He opened his eyes again, looking at the child lying on the bed and lightly squeezing his hand. "One of those damned ninjas..." he began, his voice broken. "She had the power to block sounds. Together with a strong genjutsu they trapped Mitsuki in a place where we couldn't even hear him... couldn't even know he was fighting for us..." He heard the three slightly gasp as their attentions immediately drifted towards their sleeping friend. Konohamaru had to sigh before continuing. "But it seems that he didn't... know about that trap… so they taunted him... about how no one was coming to his rescue, even though he was so close to us..." He felt his lip tremble for a moment but he quickly regained his composure. "Mitsuki... believed that no one was coming to help him... that he was completely alone..." “Damn…” the Nara mumbled, forgetting momentarily the presence of the jounin. Sarada brought a hand to her mouth, the other still tightly grabbing her friend's hand, and tears began to fill her eyes. "No..." she whispered, unable to truly comprehend how that must have felt. They had completely ruined him... The villagers, those ninjas... No one coming for his help... She started shaking with sobs. What did Mitsuki ever do to deserve these...? Boruto was trembling, and tears filled his eyes as he tried to gulp. "How could you ever think we would leave you alone...?" he whispered, so quiet that his voice barely reached his own ears. For a moment Konohamaru let go of Mitsuki's hand before wrapping one arm around Boruto's shoulders and extending the other arm to touch Sarada's hand. He smiled brightly at them. "That's why we need to stick together, to let him know that we're all here for him. Alright...?" "Mitsuki..." Sarada began, trying to pull herself together. "We... we are all here. We are with you... We will see this together..." Her voice trembling, she couldn’t go on . "We will always be here for you..." Shikadai supplied, finally finding his voice again, although the mere effort hurt as he spoke. "Even if you get bored of us at one point, we will stick by you anyway," Boruto said with a strong determination, also trembling a little. It might have been their imagination... but the moment they said that, it felt like the heart rating machine's beeps rose for a moment before returning to normal. Had Mitsuki heard them...? Had he felt that? The sensei gave a small laugh at that, gazing fondly at his younger student. "That's right, kiddo... You are never alone." He didn't know how much time passed, but after a while, he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and got up. "Get some sleep, you three." he said, but he wasn't sure if they would listen. Boruto couldn't help himself as a small, sad smile adorned his lips. "Sensei..." he said, not taking his eyes away from his best friend's face. "Thank you." ... Hanabi was preparing to greet the new day, her mind smoothly, effortlessly going over the daily ordeals she expected to face with the Hyuuga. Not long before Himawari had dropped in - not that she stayed long, only long enough for a quick breakfast with grandpa, and then she was off with her friends from the clan. She really didn’t expect anything big to happen today. The general atmosphere in the clan was pretty mild considering the past few days, and she was content that none of her brethren betrayed her decree about obeying the Hokage’s orders regarding the recent hostility around Konoha. She really didn’t expect any visitors either. That was why the knock on the door came as a surprise. She walked briskly to the entrance, and for a moment was at a loss of words when she saw who it was. “Konohamaru…” she mumbled, still not knowing what exactly to say. It had been precisely three days since they last talked. She knew it wasn’t really a big deal, their brief disagreement in the meeting was just that… brief and insignificant. It had been on her mind for a while actually to make things up with her lover. But the blank expression on his face now, one that sent chills down her spine, made it clear to her that that wasn’t his purpose right now. The jounin raised his head barely to meet her eyes. “I didn’t want to go anywhere else…” And then he began to slump forward. “Konohamaru!!” the woman exclaimed, now truly alarmed as she adjusted herself to support the weight of the brunet so she could carry him inside. That was when she got a good look at his back, and a gasp escaped her lips. She didn’t know he had been on a mission… the cuts didn’t look too deep but definitely needed some disinfection. The jounin didn’t react much as she carefully carried him to the sofa. It was when she made to get up and get some supplies that his hand grabbed her wrist, gently but enough to make her stop. “Stay… I’m fine…” “You’re hurt.” she tried to reason, but didn’t pull her hand back. The look in his eyes was so… tired, so lost that the woman started to get restless… just what was going on…? “This is nothing.” Konohamaru mumbled finally, and then averted his eyes. “Nothing compared to…” “Konohamaru…” “He very nearly died… they didn’t even care he was just a child… He was so severely injured… he almost died…” the man had begun shaking, while Hanabi found it almost impossible to breathe with each one of his words. “And now the medics don’t even know whether he will wake up or not…” The Hyuuga was so shocked that she couldn’t even find her voice. “W-what…” she gulped. “Who are you talking about…?” “And all because he decided to fight…” he continued as if he didn’t hear her. “Mitsuki… as always, he put everyone’s safety before himself and decided to fight… even when we made him run away…” His voice caught, and his next words were almost lost. “Even when I made him run away…” “Oh my God…” Hanabi whispered, bringing her hand to her mouth. She didn’t know the full scope but… what he was telling was horrible… And Konohamaru was still not meeting her eyes. Instead, his gaze was fixed on his trembling hands. “Hana… what have I done…?” And just like that, the woman couldn’t hold back her tears. Sitting gently next to him so as not to hurt him more, she put her arms below his and hugged him tenderly. “Sorry… Oh my God, Konohamaru, I’m so sorry…” After just a heartbeat, the Sarutobi put his hand over hers. Neither of them said anything, they didn’t need to. They just let the still morning serenity engulf them. “I don’t know how to live with that… I should’ve protected him against even the village but I did the exact opposite…” Hanabi’s hands tightened a little more. “Don’t… don’t be so hard on yourself, we all made some hard decisions… But I never thought it would actually come to this point…” “I don’t think any of us did.” was Konohamaru’s soft reply. The Hyuuga snuggled a little more to her lover as silence once again dominated the space in between them. “Is… is there anything I can do for you…?” she finally whispered against his back. “Just stay… please...?” The jounin’s voice sounded so fragile then, almost like that of a frightened child’s. It was almost hard to watch the ever so collected Konohamaru crumble like this… Knowing him so well, Hanabi could see that what he had witnessed had really ruined him… Feeling like her heart was breaking into pieces, she leaned in gently to place a kiss on his hair. “Always.” Pulling back slightly to tend to his wounds, it became unnecessary to talk any further. After a short while, she felt him beginning to relax and lifted herself from the sofa, making him lie back down so that he could sleep off the night's events. ... It was about two hours later that Himawari came back. The young woman was shocked when she heard the door bang open and stomping footsteps made their way inside. She quickly looked at her boyfriend but he hadn't even flinched, out cold. She quickly made her way out of the room and silently closed the door just as she heard Himawari's angry yell. "And don't you ever come back! I don't wanna play with any of you anymore!" Hanabi winced when the door slammed shut, loudly. When she got there, she saw her niece was literally fuming. "Hima! What happened?" "They are all a bunch of idiots!" the eight-year-old cried out in frustration. "I never want to see them again!" And with that, she stomped to her room. After a moment of stunned silence, Hanabi decided to follow her. The youngest Uzumaki was sitting on her bed, arms crossed and a serious pout in her features. The young woman slowly sat on the mattress. "Hima... what is it?" "It is those boys! Like they know anything better!" "Why don't you tell me from the beginning? But it's better if we try to keep it down, okay? Konohamaru-san is here and he is sleeping..." "Oh..." Himawari blinked, and bit her lip. "I'm sorry... I just thought, seeing that onii-chan is never around nowadays... they had training or something..." Hanabi gulped inconspicuously, not knowing what to say. The dark look returned to the blue eyes of the girl after a moment, and she began to speak. "It's about Mitsu-nii... It was all good at first, we were just playing some games, but then that stupid Shoji came and asked me whether or not we were still speaking with Mitsu-nii and I swear, auntie, I didn't think anything of it! I said of course we are, me and onii-chan regard him like a brother, and that was when another one laughed and said we should better say goodbye to him then!" For a moment, the Hyuuga felt her blood running cold. "W-what did they mean by that...?" Surely, the news shouldn't have reached yet... If they did, though... "Some nonsense about how he should get out of Konoha, how he doesn't belong here! Ha! As if!" Her voice had risen again. "And I told him to shut his mouth, that Mitsu-nii does belong in Konoha and a brat like him has no sat in it anyway!" Her look became even darker. "That's when he said... they already had their say in it." "And by that..." "They boasted about how some of the older children ganged up on him yesterday night and how that was what he deserved!" The girl was so angry that she was shaking now. "And I didn't mean to... Well I did, but... I hit one of his chakra points. Serves him right, though." She frowned again, deep. "Don't worry about that now." Hanabi was angry... really angry... Yes, they had agreed for the exile but not for these despicable harassments, she had made it very clear! How dare any Hyuuga disregard this?! But she couldn't let her emotions show now... "I wish I could go see him now," the girl continued, oblivious, sadness in her tone. "He must be feeling really down... He will need some cheering up, and I know I'm the only person!" The woman now had a lump in her throat. "Himawari..." "I know, I will go find onii-chan, I'm sure they're just hanging out somewhere... It's so unlike onii-chan to pass up a chance to visit you though, auntie, so I wanna know what's keeping him, too..." Then she smirked a bit. "Maybe he's just busy helping Mitsu-nii against those jerks." Finally, Hanabi just reached and pulled her in a hug, burying her face in her hair. "You will know soon, sweetheart..." But it would be best for Himawari to hear it from her parents. ... The sun had lowered its position in the sky, dying the heavens in shades of crimson and pink. The people who entered the hall were talking to each other in hushed voices, gazing at the front to where Naruto sat behind his desk, his head bowed a little forward, resting on his hands clasped in front of him. Even from a distance it was clear that he was wearing signs of weariness, and a grave look adorned his features, making him seem older for his age. The serious and sad aura he seemed to be reflecting was almost contagious, as every single person standing around him kept their silence, too, almost as if the scene was not a meeting, but the gathering by someone's deathbed. The people looked at each other curiously, but didn't say anything more as they sat down. Honestly, the young Nara couldn’t help but admire Lord Seventh for his near perfect composure. Yes, they were all trained to keep their emotions bottled. That was the first rule after all if you wanted to become a ninja. Still, after yesterday's events, a night that almost ended up in a tragedy, even his father had asked him not to attend the meeting, just like how Sarada was excused. But no... Shikadai especially wanted to come. He needed this, he needed to look in the eyes of each and every one person who had been so supportive of his friend's exile, of the countless harassments that drew him very nearly to his death. He needed to look at them and remind himself his reasons to become a top-class ninja. His reasons to protect these people because otherwise... it felt like he might as well quit right then and there. “Hey there, loser,” he then heard a voice, signaling that his resolve was going to be put to test much sooner than he expected. “You really wouldn’t want to mess with me now.” the boy muttered in a low and tight tone, so that only Ichiro and his teammates could hear him. “Awww, and why is that? Don’t tell me your girlfriend dumped you? Where is she anyway?” "Is that really all you can think about right now?" His snarl was so unlike him as he turned to face the Sarutobi, who was visibly taken aback by his hostility. "You are a chuunin, your village just received an attack and all you can think about is harassing people and making petty talk? While people put their lives on the line?" He turned his back with a disgusted sneer before folding his arms. "What a joke." Seeing that Ichiro was about to make a very angry comeback, and a few people sitting nearby turning around, his other teammate, Namida, stepped in between the two boys and put her hands on the older boy’s shoulders to restrain him. “Enough with this. We’re obviously here for a very serious reason. Don’t turn this into a mess.” Well, at least his teammates were smart girls, Shikadai should give them that. Naruto looked at all of the people who had gathered over his fingers, having a much despised dejavu as he took in the faces. A couple of minutes passed in silence. He lowered his hands. "How was your day?" he asked in a low voice, a voice which was almost devoid of emotions. His words were met with an even denser silence. Naruto stood up slowly, and walked to the front of his desk. "How was your day?" He repeated, this time loudly. "Was it sunny? Windy? Was there rain? Tell me." Everyone looked at one another, completely taken aback. Why was the Hokage asking that kind of a question all of a sudden? "It was... nice, I guess." someone said finally. "It rained almost non-stop from the night though." "Well the sun did come up - I think it was generally a nice day." Naruto nodded to himself while people kept murmuring. "I'm glad you, at least, can see and feel how beautiful the day supposedly was." He said and stopped, while the people in the meeting room just kept staring at him. "Because..." he continued, and his voice took a softer tone. "One of us was not able to see it. Not today. Maybe... not ever." There was a silence in the room, most in it not understanding a word at all. “What…?” Namida started to say, the first in her team to react. Before she could continue, though, her gaze caught the expression on Shikadai’s face. It was sad, so sad… almost heartbroken… His words floated back to her, people put their lives on the line… What did the Nara know that they didn’t…? "What... pardon me for asking my lord, but what is it that you mean?" Naruto opened his eyes and the look was so cold that it caused almost everyone's blood to freeze right there and then. They... had never seen such a look in their Hokage's eyes... so cold... so distant... "Konoha... made a very, very grave mistake..." Naruto whispered, in a voice which wouldn't be heard normally if it wasn't very quiet in the room. "The price of which was almost too high for us to pay." The villagers were more confused than ever now - the Hokage was sure speaking in riddles. The people exchanged glances, none of them daring to question what their leader's words meant. "The child... that more than half of you," he gestured to the clans present. "wanted me to exile over something beyond his control..." he continued before he faced them again. "Is, in this exact moment, in a deep coma after he nearly lost his life trying to protect our village from a barbarian attack." The silence was abruptly broken as once again, murmurings filled the room. Only a limited number of people in the room knew about the events of the evening, for others, it was a big shock. "An attack?" One of those among the Akimichi asked, baffled. "By whom?" In spite of himself, Shikadai couldn’t help but feel that his disgust only grew. The attack, it was all they can still think about… Not the boy who, no thanks to them, almost died to prevent it... "Rogue ninjas of the cloud and survivors of the sound," answered Kakashi simply, knowing Naruto had very little patience right now. "And the attack, like your Hokage said, was stopped by a thirteen-year-old boy." Naruto immediately cut in. "Who, if I might remind... left the village in the first place because of your clans' constant harassments." "Excuse me, Lord Seventh..." Naruto immediately recognized Sarutobi Kichiro's voice among the others, and he instinctively stiffened with the strong feeling of dislike. "But how is it exactly our fault? We didn't force that child to leave." His tone was practically indifferent, no regard for the child who was in such a critical condition... Naruto hit with his fist in such force against the table that it left a crack. "Not your fault...? You, Kichiro, have a big nerve in talking... because I have gathered proof that at least the Sarutobi were under YOUR direct orders to make that child feel unwanted!" He punched the table again, another crack... "Despite MY strict orders that Mitsuki was to be left ALONE and out of this matter!" “They… they have no proof my grandfather started all these,” Ichiro started in a simulation of his old cocky, superior tone, but it was all too clear that he was feeling uncomfortable. “We weren’t the only clan to-” “You were the most vocal though, weren’t you? Even right now.” It was still pure venom in the young Nara’s voice, no mercy, as more and more people turned to stare at their small group. Konohamaru was trying to keep his temper under control until this very moment, when his clan leader decided to speak, and right then, he just snapped. "My student..." He whispered, his tone so cold and hateful that Kichiro actually did a double take. "...just almost died right before my very eyes... They were about to announce him dead... So, by any right, tell me who has been mercilessly harassing him, so I know exactly who I will never have the misfortune to speak to again." Kichiro was sweating... hard... the frown on his face clearly gave away how guilty he was in the matter... Before anything else could be said, a clear, female voice rose in the room. "Lord Seventh," Hanabi spoke. "I was one of the few people that knew about what was happening yesterday and therefore, I have taken measures. The Hyuuga involved in those despicable harassments will be given the proper punishment, it does not matter if my clan voted in favor of the child's exile, I would never allow such a thing to go unpunished." She bowed. "I apologize for what distraught my clan caused to the child." "Excuse me, Lord Seventh, but... rogue nins? What business would they have, attacking a village as strong as Konoha?" It was a pretty valid question, although the subtext was clear enough. Kakashi felt the need to intervene before Naruto could say anything. "They aimed to disrupt the peace and assassinate Lord Seventh, therefore creating chaos in the village." Gasps rose in the air followed by whispers and mumbles. "Assassinate someone as strong as Lord Seventh? They wouldn't make it!" "Perhaps... but until they reached Lord Seventh, how many innocent people would have been lost? How many children would have died in a clearly planned out killing?" said Kakashi. "We have more than enough strong ninjas who would defend the innocent... It seems to me like the child's intervention was unnecessary..." "Not when you couldn't even hear their screams, you wouldn't be able to protect people." Kiba growled, his eyes hard as steel. "Correct me if I'm wrong, because I really... really hope for your sake that you are not trying to call the child stupid in front of me." "And what makes you SO sure that the child was not involved in the attack and was betrayed?" someone suggested. "You said yourselves, some were ninjas from the sound village, found by none other than Orochimaru, who, oh so coincidentally is the parent of that child." "You bastard..." Konohamaru was about to make his way over to the low life who had just said that, and two people, one of them being the Yamanaka in his own team this morning stopped him before he could move. Ryu turned to look at the person who had just spoken, a great distaste in his eyes. "I interrogated the two rogue ninjas that were captured myself. I hope none of you will ever have to experience such a thing happening to your child... How that boy was mercilessly taunted, beaten even after he was defeated and on the ground... and even then he wasn’t afraid to do what it takes to stop them." Having watched Shikadai all this time and noticing how almost all the color drained from his face, the haunted look in his eyes… Namida couldn’t help it anymore. Leaning forward, she put her hand on the young boy’s shoulder, just a reminder that he wasn’t completely alone here. She didn’t know the scope and extent of his suffering but in her eyes, no one should suffer such a big burden alone. At the unexpected touch, Shikadai flinched and turned back to look at her. His stiff posture relaxed just a little when he saw the intention was friendly, and although he turned back to the front of the room to continue and watch the unfolding of the events, he didn’t shrink away from her touch. "Well anyone betrayed would-" The phrase wasn't even finished... there was a huge "CRACK" which scared everyone in that room, what had that been?! "ENOUGH!" They heard a strong, female voice yelling. The faces slowly turned towards the direction to face a very angry Tsunade... hell, maybe very angry wasn't the correct way to put it... she was beyond pissed! Some even gulped... they knew well the former Hokage's temper... "I was there, I saw that child's life almost slip away between my fingers, I KNOW the gravity of those wounds and I guarantee you that if I could, I would make each one of you idiots, who keep mistreating a poor child, have those wounds for the rest of your lives!" The woman was seething, literally trying to calm herself but it was hard. "If anything... Show some respect for a child who almost give away his life so that you ungrateful morons could rest at your homes safely instead of fighting for your lives on a hospital bed! Be grateful for each one of your breath, because a child was selfless enough to take the brunt of a vicious attack that could've turned into a village-wide catastrophe!" Her fist was shaking, but she quickly controlled it. Naruto's eyes were hard as stone, his lips set in a firm line, he hadn't even flinched for a moment at the woman's outburst. Quietly he stood up. "I believe we have all made our point clear here." He started to walk away before stopping in his steps. "I don't think I need to say that those involved in the harassments will be punished for breaking the decree..." "H-Has..." There was a moment of hesitation which caused Naruto to turn and face the one who had talked. "D-Does Orochimaru know what happened...?" "Heh... so now you're scared..." mumbled Kiba under his breath. "He's the kid's parent, of course he was informed." The restlessness in the meeting hall was now perfectly tangible. Naruto felt sick that these people were more concerned about another possible threat rather than the well-being of a dying child. "So for all of our sakes... Pray for the child to be safe and for Orochimaru to not find out for what particular reason his son ended up in the hospital." And with that Naruto left the meeting hall, followed by the others. Leaving behind restless clans whose voices soon started being heard in a mix of confusion but which Naruto refused to listen and completely ignored...

#boruto:sacrifices #boruto #sarada #shikadai #mitsuki #konohamaru #naruto #boruto fanfiction #naruto fanfiction

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kuronokiseki · 5 years ago

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Best Misaki Moments (imo)

will do an usage and romantica version next

warning: very long post, lots and lotssss of large images

the moment where misaki became my fave character

misaki found him hawt in a suit ovo

vol 1 misaki is best misaki tbh nakamura what have you done

hahahahahahahaaaaa

nobody badmouths hubby! >:(

the scene that made 13 year old me shook and cry ;-;

BABY CRY ME CRY TOO :”(

misaki when hubby said it’s his first time going for a trip with someone for fun mann can i include the whole train chapter it’s sooo good

misaki’s subconscious hahahaha

OwO

misaki just spent a whole chapter thinking how to reward his hubby and his final decision was this

THEREFORE I SHALL OFFER MAH BODY

you tell him misaki! >:D

many ppl wanted misaki to top for once after this scene but me? POWER BOTTOM MISAKI

U NO TOUCH MAH MAN HES MINE #OAO

notice meeee :”(

usagi-san did nothing wrong I WANT TO STAY WITH HIM! DD:< (i noticed alot of ppl wished misaki would reject ijuuin in this fashion back then)

i love how nakamura ended this arc on a perfect note :”““)

usage: ive known takahiro for 15 years

misaki: AM I A JOKE TO YOU?! >:U

I HATE FUYUHIKO >:”“““(

the reason why misaki chose usage over haru :”“(

y no one loves me like misaki loves hubby :”“““““““(

misaki saved hubby!!! (a rare scene where the anime did it better, but welll hardly the anime did the manga justice)

giving someone chocolate during valentine’s day? yeahhh, totally doesnt mean anything :^)

if someone’s going to say misaki is a bad character im gonna stab them

i realized there is not a single fave moment in the mizuki arc even tho i didnt skip it while rereading (aka the WORST arc and the WORST COUPLE tbh the cousins are soooo annoying EVEN IN THE LATEST ACT 51 and everytime they appeared im having a second-hand embarrassment) finally a fave moment came right after they left nakamura istg if they are going to appear again in the future i hope their plane will crash

(i acknowledge this scene as the beginning of ijuuin arc and nothing have to do with mizuki arc)

annnnnnd misaki will repeat himself for many times regarding who he truly loves but guess who’s going to listen to him in-universe and in fandom

if nobody wants to listen then you say it with your body then b^w^b (it’s not a question abt who misaki loves anymore. it’s abt who’s misaki gonna BANG)

MISAKI’S DOMINATING ...not

(but nakamura pls fulfill misaki’s wish someday poor him)

misaki decided to thank usage by offering his body to the perv bunny

dont you think you can steal hubby away while misaki sleeps

usagi-san is S P E C I A L

:”0

hubby not jealous. misaki triggered D:<<<

MISAKI IS PRECIOUS BABY

when s3 was airing i was looking forward for this scene the most. i was confident that sakurai will deliver this scene perfectly... URGHH STUDIO DEEN I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR DOING MISAKI DIRTY

best kiss scene eva lol i love their banters xD

misaki being sweet

misaki pampering the hubby

misaki in this arc: rejected ijuuin many times, making love with usagi 24/7, fanboyed over ijuuin only for the goodies, made love with usagi, came to ijuuin’s house only bcs of work, and did i mention making love with usagi

some ppl: OMG MISAKI LOVES SENSEI MORE THAN USAGI!!!! D:<

i still remember how legendary this chapter is. too bad the anime failed to convey the feels just like in the manga

say what you want abt junjou but this is top notch writing

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

when ur landlord is brought up and the first thing you do is ask abt a couple struggling to stay together yeaaaahhh totally not suspicious misaki

bish what u say abt mah man hes mine >:(

prepare for me screaming in 3... 2... 1... AAAAAHHHHHHHH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

serious from this point 95% of misaki’s pov will consist of him angsting abt getting apart from his hubby in every chapter onward

misaki rejecting ijuuin for the 9749294694214692746829487th time

misaki hugs back :”O

tucking the hubby he cold :”““(

yea, totally not obvious ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

i love how blatantly in love misaki is with usage and everyone can see it. even ijuuin himself noticed

baby doesnt want to lose hubby :”“““( baby is scared

S H O O K

if you dont find this heartwarming you’re heartless

smart way to make him not spend more money ^v^

D”“““““““““““““““: me ded again

misaki being a badass >:D from someone denying his feelings for akihiko in the beginning to straight up telling the parents he’s going to stay with hubby that’s some awesome character growth bravo bravo

that’s some determined shonen mc resolution OvO

aanddd finally...

AND IIIIIIIIII WILL ALWAYS LOOOOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU -

#junjou romantica

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veiledpeaches · 4 years ago

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chance encounters | part iv: what it took to understand

Summary: Between pages of meddling friends and societal expectations, all she actually wants is to find a happily ever after with Doyoung, even if it feels like that is no longer possible.

part i x part ii x part iii x part iv x part v x part vi

word count: 5.2k

GIF originally posted by @lukhei

“Wait Mom, what do you mean you’re not coming? Aren’t you flying in on Friday?”

“He didn’t tell you? Youngho-ah, you’re scaring me.”

“What wouldn't he tell me?”

“Doyoung just called, he called to tell us that there isn’t going to be a wedding. He even apologized and said he would pay for our tickets and return the gifts. I told him there’s no need to, but he insisted. The poor boy kept thanking us for being concerned about him. He said he’s okay, but how can he be, John-ah? He was with her for 13 years.

“Oh sweetie, I can’t even imagine what his parents must be feeling right now. What’s going on? The wedding’s supposed to happen this Saturday. Was it wedding jitters? What happened between them? They were so good together, I can’t imagine what must’ve happened for them to break it off…”

It’s the fourth time his call has gone straight to voicemail, and Johnny gnashes his teeth in frustration. He quickly cancels the call via the touchscreen on his dashboard, sighing exasperatedly as he leans his elbow against the inside of the car door, his fingers in his previously nicely-gelled hair.

“He’s not answering any of my calls…”

“Johnny, calm down.”

“I can’t calm down!” His eyes are wild with worry, as he swerves into the next lane, his hand pressing firmly against the wheel, “Doyoung’s phone is never switched off. You can call him at 3am and he’ll pick up, that’s the kind of person he is. His phone is never switched off!”

Haewon falls silent, listening as Johnny takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry for snapping. I know you must be worried too.” He sighs again, biting his bottom lip. “He’s in hiding, Haewon. It’s not him, he doesn’t go MIA. The only time he was like this was a week before graduation, he suddenly went missing because he was panicking about the future and stuff.”

“Then it’ll be fine, he’ll pick himself up like he did before.”

Despite what she says, Haewon isn’t that sure. For the longest time, Inhee has been an irreplaceable constant in Doyoung’s life, someone who grounds him and takes care of him. It’s difficult to wrap the mind around the space she would leave in Doyoung’s life amongst the burnt shrapnel of their relationship, but it’s not completely unimaginable. Her mind inadvertently teeters between two possible reasons that led him to such a decision - one absolutely selfish, the other utterly heartbreaking.

“Why do you look like that?”

Haewon stills. “What do I look like?”

Johnny regards her suspiciously as he signals a right turn. “… I thought you said you didn’t tell him about Inhee.”

An omission of the truth is still a lie, the voice in her head tells her. When Johnny had asked her that night if she had told Doyoung about Inhee’s affair, she had shaken her head, said she was tired and then locked herself in her room until she fell asleep, her eyes still warm with tears. Subsequently, Johnny didn’t ask anything else, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that she had confessed and just how badly it had gone.

No one else knows this, but Haewon can’t bring herself to be pathetic in front of Johnny. She refuses to cry in front of Johnny, refuses to tell him about what happened that Monday. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Johnny, in fact, she trusts him too much, but she can’t tell him in the crippling fear of seeing that look on his face - the same look that had settled on his face when it registered that she was in love with his friend, the dimming of the light in his eyes in a moment of poorly-concealed sympathy. Johnny, who vowed to be her ‘rock, [her] absolute rock’, who has really lived up to his promise and been her rock for three and a half years - he’s not someone she wants to ever let down.

Moreover, while it is entirely possible that she could just be projecting and overthinking, what Doyoung had said the day she had tendered her resignation still clung like barnacles to her thoughts, making her mind whirl with unending possibilities.

“I didn’t, I’m just thinking about what might have happened.” She says against the mouth of her water bottle, gulping down to prevent other words from spilling out.

Johnny habitually chews on his lip in thought. “Maybe he realized he was in love with you- oh my God Haewon, are you okay?!”

Haewon laughs uneasily as she tries to hold back violent coughs and wipes her mouth.

“Wait, so… He did?!” Johnny raises both eyebrows.

“Of course not! What are you saying?!”

“Fine! Then don’t choke in my car!”

Johnny finally hears from Doyoung on Friday morning, the day before he’s supposed to get married. Needless to say, the conversation between them is somewhat chaotic, with Doyoung jokingly asking questions like, “aren’t you supposed to be in London at this time?” and Johnny stuttering an excuse before yelling, “ya! Don’t change the subject when we’re talking about you!” A smile finds itself on Haewon’s face as she listens quietly to their on-speaker conversation in the car, Johnny’s hands on the steering wheel as he drives both of them to work.

Doyoung had found his fiancée and her lover in the shower together when he had returned home at an unexpected time the previous Friday, an undeniably and surprisingly drama-like scenario. In a moment inspired by the swashbuckling protagonists Doyoung had read about growing up, he chose to face the incident with dignity and hero-like placidity, looking at Inhee dead in the eye and factually stating, “it’s over between us”.

As worrying as it is, it’s good to know that Doyoung’s safe. Upon breaking off the engagement and making all the necessary arrangements, Doyoung had returned to Guri for a week to spend time with his parents and attend to his personal and wedding cancelation matters, closing a chapter of his life as Haewon opens another of hers.

“When did he say he’ll be back?” Haewon asks now, watching Johnny loosen his tie as he crosses his legs and relaxes in the chair after dinner.

“He said tomorrow, but he isn’t sure.”

She nods pensively, sucking on the Melona ice pop in her hand.

A glint of mischief enters Johnny’s eyes, and he leans forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his thighs.

“Haewonnie, once he returns… It’s your chance.”

Upon safely locating Doyoung, Johnny had lapsed into his ‘y’all should get together’ rhetoric, encouraging Haewon to ‘seize the opportunity’, since it seems that life has presented her with a second chance. Haewon doesn’t have the heart to tell Johnny how she had actually taken her shot, the attempt collapsing lifelessly around her a couple of weeks ago and making her vow never to try again.

Instead, she brings her feet up against the couch, wrapping her arms around her knees and questions, “why do you want us to get together anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been rooting for this for the longest time, and you’re his friend.”

Johnny rolls his eyes, “please, I’m definitely being the good friend. Sure, maybe I hated Inhee and didn’t think she was deserving of Doyoung by any measure, but you know what would be even more deplorable?”

Haewon hums dismissively, twirling the red wine in her glass.

“Not bringing soulmates together.”

“You can’t be serious.”

He shrugs. “Besides, you guys have, like the worst taste in partners. The only way to ensure that you don’t continue fucking up in your love lives is to get together.”

“I do not!”

Johnny sits up in attention, crossing his legs on the ottoman. “Let’s not even talk about the guy who literally made you run away from him to Korea- What about the guy who made you do his laundry? And landline sex guy? Huh? Not to mention - mansplaining broker guy who cried when you guys had sex…”

“You heard that?!”

Johnny isn’t done. “The guy who cheated on you AND stole your money???”

“Okay fine, but in my defense… I mean, I didn’t really love any of them.”

“Of course not,” he smirks, finishing the rest of his Sangria, “they were just temporary replacements for Doyoung.”

She sighs exasperatedly. “That’s so not true-”

“A-ny-way,” Johnny’s attempt to silence her dissent by speaking even louder toes the line between irritating and downright hilarious, “against that backdrop, forgive me for being surprised that Doyoung caught your eye. You guys are so similar, I want it to happen, for my friends.” He leans back in a ‘mic drop’ moment, crossing his arms in front of him in gratuitous smug. “Plus, I can vouch that he’s an amazing lover…”

“What?!”

“I once heard him having sex with Inhee.” His face morphs into mock disgust. “I mean, I didn’t enjoy it, but… Her moans were, what’s the word for it – banshee-esque.”

“Please don’t go on.”

“Look, all I'm saying is-” he sits up as if he was addressing a serious issue, “you guys are meant to be, okay? Believe me, I know these things. You’re soulmates.”

“Who are soulmates?”

A familiar tenor voice rings from behind them, making both Johnny and Haewon whip their heads towards the open door, a heart-wrenching sight greeting them. At the threshold stands a casually-dressed Doyoung, blue hoodie and black track pants embracing his seemingly thinner frame. His usually gelled dark hair falls softly across his forehead in a rare sight, but it’s the small smile worn on his face that arrests her heart, especially the way it doesn't reach his eyes like it used to.

“Why do you look like that?” He addresses Johnny, “you gave me your spare keys, remember?”

Without a word, Johnny launches himself into Doyoung’s arms, a gesture that looks far more endearing than comedic despite the quiet ‘oof’ that emits from Doyoung’s lips.

“Hey,” he chuckles against Johnny’s shoulder, even though his eyes are on Haewon, “I’m fine, don’t worry. Who are soulmates?”

Haewon smiles softly, letting out a shaky breath as she finds herself incapable of speech.

“I mean, I don’t know who specifically, but you know who and who aren’t soulmates?” Johnny releases Doyoung, laughing uneasily. “Me and Miss Booblicious.”

Haewon’s jaw drops, reluctantly shifting her gaze to meet Johnny’s taunting gaze, Doyoung’s following hers.

“What?” Johnny giggles like he meant to surprise her, “I heard you calling her that to Mama Kang the other night. And yes, we broke up a couple of days ago.”

“You didn’t tell me!”

Doyoung frowns. “You were dating someone?”

“See?” Johnny glares comically, “this is why I didn’t want to tell either of you. You had too much on your plate. Besides, it’s fine, it wasn’t that serious…”

Not that serious my foot, Haewon thinks. You were about to get down on one knee.

Doyoung’s frown deepens as he turns towards Johnny, “okay, well tell me about it another time, I… uhm.”

“I actually came to speak to Haewon.”

She grabs a few bottles of soju Johnny recently purchased from the refrigerator, attempting futilely not to eavesdrop on their conversation in the sitting room. Unwittingly and somewhat annoyingly, her mind toys with the idea that she must mean something to Doyoung, since he’s here and seems to be reaching out to her. But she tries to shut that down, rummaging through the snack cabinet and stashing two bags of potato chips into her haversack before zipping her bag up and running out.

“Okay, I’m ready for ya-” she stops when she catches two surprised faces staring back at her.

She had changed out of her work wear into casual clothes after Doyoung had told her he wanted to talk to her privately and gestured with his car keys. Now, seeing their faces, she wonders if she should have just stayed in her baby blue button-down and pencil skirt.

Doyoung’s face breaks into a charming smile, “okay, let’s go”.

Haewon smiles back widely, following him out of the door after waving goodbye to a wide-eyed Johnny.

“This is arguably crossing the line of professionalism, but… I brought soju?” Haewon grins up at him, breaking the companionable silence they had shared all the way from the apartment to his car.

Doyoung laughs, but his smile still doesn’t reach his eyes. “No, it’s great, actually…” he pauses, revving up the engine and waiting for her to buckle her seatbelt before reversing out of the parking lot, “I think I’ll need it.”

She plays with the baseball keychain on her backpack zipper, unsure of what to say as she watches Doyoung’s fingers grip the steering wheel. She wants to ask him how he’s been, ask him how he feels, tell him how much she’s missed him the entire week, that she didn’t know how she was going to cope in America because not seeing him was somehow far more difficult than convincing herself to let go of him and move on.

She wants to tell him how many times she had passed by his office this week and wanted to walk in, hoping he’d somehow be there. The words press against the inside of her cheeks and threaten to spill from her lips, but she swallows them, knowing that there is a time and place for everything, and her time and place is entirely Doyoung’s tonight.

Instead, she presses her temple against the cool of the windowpane, smoothing the night out of her hair and waits for Doyoung to speak again.

“You know, Johnny has gone through more partners than the both of us combined,” he jokes now.

Haewon almost remarks back that Doyoung has really only been with one person since she’s known him but stops herself, knowing it’s too soon for something like that. She tries, instead, to find safe ground in this conversation.

“Well, he’s a romantic.” She says, sighing in relief internally when Doyoung laughs. “He won’t stop looking for his soulmate.”

“Remember Watanabe Aoi? I was honestly surprised when they broke up.” He quips, referring to the small bubbly Japanese model Johnny had dated for slightly more than a year, who had tearfully dumped him because of the long distance. Johnny had sworn himself off dating and relationships forever while binging himself on a tub of Ben & Jerry’s that night, but had then excitedly gone on a date with a girl from Haewon’s gym two weeks later.

Haewon smiles, remembering how Johnny had insisted, just a few days ago, that the topic of Aoi-san is still sensitive material.

“I was honestly glad. She didn’t love Johnny enough. He was willing to move to another country for her, but you and I both know she wouldn’t have done the same for him.” She sticks her bottom lip out, reminiscing how defensive Johnny had reacted when she had pointed that out thoughtlessly. “There were times he would wait for her to call the entire night, sleeping beside his phone, and then receive a nonchalant text from her the next morning about how she’d fallen asleep once she got home from work.”

Doyoung stifles a laugh at her unyielding tone. “Yeah but… I mean, relationships are hard.”

“Sure,” she nods, “but you should know your worth.”

This draws a curious glance from Doyoung, before he returns his eyes on the road quickly. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I mean… hmm. It’s like… Remember in college, finals season, everyone’s rushing to the library to study…” Doyoung makes an appreciative hum, “Well, imagine that, and your friend’s like, ‘oh I’m headed there too, save a seat for me’ so you do, but then it’s been close to an hour - and then two - and they haven’t turned up. Your bag is on the seat, and you’re thinking… If I continue to hog the seat, someone else can’t have it, but if I give it up, what if that friend does show up?”

“… You know what I think? I think… I think everyone should have a threshold, and when the waiting time exceeds that threshold, if someone else comes along… We shouldn’t be afraid to give up that seat.”

She twirls the tiny baseball with her fingers, pausing for a moment to let the words settle between them.

“Free ourselves up for something better, you know?” She says, finally looking up at him.

Doyoung hums thoughtfully, and they fall into a necessary silence.

They’re in dangerous waters, Haewon realizes. And as she watches Doyoung’s fingers dance across the dashboard to lower the AC, she briefly flirts with the idea that the stakes of action and inaction are, unlike what she had thought, barely equal. While Johnny had contended that telling Doyoung the truth would have put an end to their deceptive relationship, she remains convinced that if she had told Doyoung about Inhee’s affair earlier, chances are he wouldn’t have believed her, opting instead to trust someone he loved and had known for a longer time. Similarly, if she had not confessed that day, perhaps she wouldn’t be finding herself in the passenger seat of her ex-superior’s car, the atmosphere beholding a tension no one can cut through. But if she had not confessed that day, she also wouldn’t ever have had the courage to do so, and wouldn’t have known that in some manner, deep down, she meant something to him, no matter how little.

At the same time, however, Haewon gleans that she isn’t that much closer to an answer as she thought she would be. Instead, in the aftermath of her confession and the end of his relationship, she finds herself, pertaining to the situation of it all, simultaneously within and without.

It’s almost a cliché when Haewon finds herself on the grass facing the Han river, inhaling the salty river air deeply before unpacking the food and drinks from her backpack.

Doyoung lets out a tinkling laugh, watching her balance the soju bottles on her haversack lying on the grass.

“You’re so prepared, I even thought you brought a picnic mat.”

She sticks her tongue out, patting the clean but lightly damp grass next to her invitingly. So he smiles and crouches down to take a seat as she uncaps a bottle of peach soju for herself. Then, as if suddenly remembering, she fishes a pack of cigarettes from the bottom of the backpack and hands it over to him wordlessly.

“I haven’t had a cigarette in years,” Doyoung chuckles, but takes it anyway.

“I know,” she grins, “I stole this from Johnny. I thought it might help, you know, whatever you need to say. Let it out, boss.”

Before them, the streetlights on the Hangang Bridge shine relentlessly. The Han River is quiet for a Friday night, save for the muted honking in the distance and a chorus of cicadas rubbing their thighs together in the background. Haewon waits for Doyoung to start, feeling the tail of spring rubbing soft against her bare legs and watching as the heavy light from the bridge drape itself across the surface of the Han river like some form of condolence.

Doyoung lights a cigarette, the smoke curling out of him like a ghost.

“That’s what you wanted to tell me, wasn’t it?”

Haewon’s eyes widen.

“The whole day…” He says, turning to her with a gentle smile, “you were trying to get ahold of me to tell me that she was seeing someone else, weren’t you?”

She purses her lips and nod, taking a gulp of the soju in her hands. This is not the conversation she had expected.

“When you told me how you felt…” he exhales, “the next few days I kept thinking, ‘that’s not what she was gonna say’. I knew you wanted to tell me something the whole day, but that wasn’t it. You didn’t mean to say it, you weren’t prepared…”

“Thank you for overanalyzing my inability to form coherent sentences.”

Doyoung laughs breathily, shaking his head. “That’s not what I meant.”

“The day after the… shower incident, Inhee kept asking me ‘did Haewon tell you?’, as if it mattered. Besides, it wasn’t difficult to guess that you knew as well, your reactions towards her when I mentioned her name in the last few weeks have been very telling.”

Haewon relaxes, then her eyes widen again when his words sink in.

“Yes, Haewon, I knew about the affair.”

Haewon’s jaw goes slack, but she’s unable to speak, watching as he smiles wistfully.

“About four months ago?” He says, as if knowing what she's about to ask. “There was this morning, just before we left the house, her phone was on the table, and I accidentally saw a text from him.”

He attempts to uncap a bottle of grapefruit soju with the cigarette still in his hands, until he gives up and hands it over to Haewon.

“There comes a point when you can’t deny that something is happening, even if you try to lie to yourself.”

Haewon bites her lip, handing the uncapped bottle back to him. So strange that that had been exactly what Haewon had thought just a few weeks ago. So strange how different the circumstances have since become.

“You know, Inhee said I didn’t love her, so I didn’t deserve to get upset about this.”

Haewon’s heart thumps against her chest. “She… She said that?”

“No, it’s true.” He smiles, downing a fair amount of soju, “I haven’t been in love with her for a while.”

Her eyes soften, watching his dark hair blow gently in the air and the light on the water reflecting on his cheeks, illuminating his face.

“Well, I can’t say, if I ever really loved her. For the better part of the relationship, she was always the one taking charge. Do you know she asked me out in high school? Everyone was incredulous – and I have to admit, I was as well. I wasn’t some captain of some sports team, I was a random short distance runner who preferred spending most of my time with the school magazine team than the track team.

“But when I hesitated, everyone said, ‘what are you doing? She just asked you out!’… to the extent that I felt I needed to choose her because she chose me. Hmm. It’s strange, isn’t it?” He muses, “that even at that age, some sort of… ranking system, based on the ‘leagues’ we were accorded - given our physical attractiveness and personal interests - would emerge. And then future decisions - no matter how personal - could only be helmed by those ranked higher in the social hierarchy.”

He balances the soju bottle between his knees, taking a puff of his cigarette.

“I’m not going to chalk it all up to peer pressure – I can’t say I wasn’t drawn to her because of exactly those reasons. And as our relationship progressed, I saw that we were not always compatible. But I thought I was just picky, that I had doomed the relationship from the start with my skepticism and so could only see the parts of us that didn’t match. And when difficult things happened in the family – she was always there. When I needed someone – she was always there.

“I got too comfortable in the relationship. She was so good to me, and my whole family loved her, everyone loved her. She didn’t always support every decision I made, but she wouldn’t say a second thing once I made up my mind. We were so different, and she didn’t always see things the way I did, but I thought I didn’t need her to, you know? That these were things I could share with other people instead. ‘Your partner doesn’t have to be your best friend’, people told me that. So when my mother asked me when we were getting married, I… Well, I thought it was the right thing to do. So I proposed. And everyone was so happy. I mean, I guess I felt happy, that everyone was happy. I thought maybe the happiness was just belated for me.

“God, I made so many excuses to feel better, about not feeling better.” He frowns, but a laugh escapes his lips, and the laugh subsides into a hollow sort of quiet. “’You’ll be happy when you see her in her dress.’ I told myself. ‘When you see her walking down the aisle. When you’re actually married. When your first child is born.’ I was scared to admit that I wasn’t happy – and then, when I couldn’t deny it any longer, scared to do the thing I knew I had to, to be happy again.

“I’m always saying things like, ‘fuck other people’s expectations, who cares what people think’, but I can’t deny that I caved. It was comfortable, it was easy – so even when I found out that she could be cheating on me, I didn’t want to ruin the future I had fallen so easily in step with. I didn’t know why I was still running, but I was so afraid to stop.”

He downs almost half the bottle of soju, before exhaling slowly.

“Do you think I’m a coward?” He turns towards her.

She thinks about his question for a moment, and shakes her head. “No, I think what you just said is what makes us human. And the courage to acknowledge that you’re human, is what makes you a braver one.”

And finally, Doyoung’s face breaks into a smile.

“You always know how to make me feel better.”

Haewon looks at him for a long time, his eyes sparkling but not watery, his tender sorrow hidden behind a gentle smile. This is the Doyoung she’s fallen in love with, strong and courageous, bent but not broken. The Doyoung who would know how to fix himself even if he is broken. The same Doyoung who, whether she recognizes it or not, looks at her as if she holds the ways of the universe.

“I want to thank you.” He adds.

She lets out a soft smile, brushing strands of hair away from her face.

“Thank you, for holding back, for hesitating. I know you were worried about hurting me, but I’m really okay. And actually, on some level, I’m glad you didn’t tell me. If you’d told me, I might have ignored all of it, again.

“Standing in front of the bathroom knowing I was minutes away from confronting her… That was the wake-up call I needed. I knew I could run away again, leave the apartment, pretend all of it wasn’t happening like I’d done before so many times when a hint of the affair presented itself. But this time… I couldn’t. I had to see the truth, had to see it face-to-face to wake up and realize that this wasn’t right for both of us. It wasn’t fair to her, and it wasn’t fair to me as well.

“So thank you, for not saying a thing.”

She can feel the warmth in her eyes, thinking about what he had to go through and feeling, once again, that Johnny had been right. Despite what Doyoung had said, she feels guilty knowing that he could have potentially avoided such a cruel confrontation. But even with the feeling of something lodged in her throat, Haewon knows it’s not her moment to show these secondhand emotions, especially when the haphazard debris of his relationship is still warm, still smoking. So she swallows these thoughts and any arising tears back with another big gulp of soju altogether.

“You deserve the best, Doyoung.” She says after a moment.

He turns to look at her gently, studying her features, “what’s wrong?”

She sighs, calming herself down.

“I just… I didn’t know if I was in the correct position-”

“Well you didn’t have to say anything, but you are. You’ve…” He purses his lips, “you’ve always been. In the right position, in the right place. You’re…”

He opens his mouth, and then shuts it, exhaling. Then his lips part again.

“You’re very important to me.”

Haewon looks at him, feeling the breath knocked out of her lungs.

And there it is, another confusing statement of Doyoung’s bordering this time, on frustrating. While she cannot bring herself to call him out on it, she finds herself no longer able to accept these somewhat lackadaisical words from him anymore, not when he is so entirely aware of the feelings she still has for him. So she drops him a teary chuckle, finishes the rest of her soju and mutters a “well, I feel the same way” instead of what she wants to say, these kinder words delivered like an afterthought to find themselves, somewhere, in the spaces between them.

She can feel Johnny’s curious peering as she finishes the rest of her breakfast, her mind still running amok with Doyoung’s words last night. She wonders why he always does this, drops these tiny bombs that mess with her for the next couple of days before she finally wills them away and classifies them as unintentional. She hears Johnny call her name faintly, but can only bring herself to tear her thoughts away from Doyoung at his third call.

“I saw you get in late last night,” Johnny says, “is everything ok?”

“Yeah, he just wanted to talk.” She stands and takes both empty bowls, as well as the empty stew pot, into the kitchen, running the tap to soak the dishes in the sink.

“He knows,” she says, hearing Johnny step into the kitchen behind her as she turns the tap off, “that, I knew.”

“Oh yeah, he told me.”

She nods, turning to face him, her hands still clasped on the countertop.

“So are you… like, getting together?”

Haewon shakes her head. “No, no of course not. I don’t think… I don’t think it’ll ever happen. About what you said yesterday… I think you’re wrong this time.” His expression morphs into bewilderment. “I put everything on the line, John, but he doesn’t want me.”

Johnny studies her carefully. “You confessed to him?”

She bites her lip and nods.

“The day you told me to tell him… I couldn’t… I ended up…” she sighs in exasperation.

“You didn’t tell me about this.”

“Sorry, I was… I didn’t want you to think less of me.”

“Never.” He says, his eyes soft and unreadable. “Come here,” he gestures with his open arms, wrapping them securely around her when she settles into his embrace. Being around Johnny has always been comforting, Haewon thinks to herself, smiling when she feels a kiss on her temple. She hugs him tightly, inhaling the scent of his laundry detergent instead of his usual cologne.

“I love you, you know that, right?” He says, releasing her from his embrace but his arms still wound around her waist.

She smiles, nodding.

“I know.”

Johnny’s gaze is soft and slightly dejected, and a part of Haewon wants to ask him what’s wrong, not understanding why there is a quiet, slightly fearful resolution in his eyes -

- until he pulls her even more closely towards him and slants his lips over hers.

w/n: in case anyone was wondering, Watanabe Aoi was my Aikido sensei when I was young lmao. She was hot. I honestly just wanted a random name and was tired of searching for Korean names.

also, just to let you know ‘cause some people have been asking, tumblr works based on the number of reblogs! if you’re wondering why you can’t find chance encounters in the tags, it’s likely because people prefer ‘liking’ the post to ‘reblogging’ the post. this discrepancy can make a huge difference to my work, so if you really did enjoy the chapter, i encourage you to reblog it! :-) thank you for reading this!

COME SCREAM AT ME HERE!!! ask

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nathansqueak · 4 years ago

Text

many years ago, i was in a coven.

i joined when i was about 12 or 13, having found them through a classmate of mine that i found wearing a pentacle necklace. for many years it was a safe haven, a community that opened my eyes and my mind and my heart and poured in song and dance and hikes through the forest. these people became my everything, and in this community we had each other’s backs. together the coven were there for each other’s divorces and marriages, births and deaths, and anything else that could possibly come up. determined to be a caring and supportive community, radical against the capitalist mold of independence.

all this to say that it was beautiful. it truly was. and then it wasn’t

i left the coven, personally, when i was 20. this was a couple years before the inevitable downfall of the rest of the coven, but even then i think it was already coming. i had been living amongst them for a little over two years at that point. i moved in to the home of a priest and priestess of the coven and their toddler child only a month and a half before my 18th birthday, though it didn’t occur to me until a long time after that my first red flag should have been that they were taking in a minor. i had left my parents home for their transphobia and the members of the coven were just trying to be helpful....but still. They took me in as a child. I suppose this is important to keep in mind

over the course of my living with the coven i would experience some of the absolute worst anxiety of my life; i felt every single pressure to conform and perform, to do what was asked of me and to hold the same opinions as everyone around me. at this point in time the lead priestess had already begun her own downward spiral, in that she was beginning to be caught up for her history of transphobia and for asking for too much money from congregates, and then that she was caught turning people against each other and actively trying to tell members of the coven to cut off family and friends outside the coven, to devote themselves ONLY to the coven, to devote themselves to HER. while it hadn’t always been this way, she had begun disencouraging people from seeking proper mental health guidance, saying that there was nothing that other coven members couldn’t help with. she began delegating labor, physically and emotionally. she began to excommunicate and isolate coven members.

when i was 19, my mother died. as they had many times before with many other coven members, the coven rallied around me and showered me in affection and comfort. given my extraordinarily complicated history with my mother, her death impacted me in a severe way, and half a year later i was still depressed and nonfunctional. it was at this time that the covens compassion for me ran thin. first i was kicked from the room they had given me, that i had been paying rent for, into a corner of the living room with the promise of putting up curtains for privacy, and then later i was given an ultimatum to either find a new home or be homeless. no one in the coven would speak to me. im still not entirely sure why, except that i was in a vulnerable place and questioned the decision to put me in the living room and take my privacy, which then blew up in my face...but soon they would literally not speak to me. coven meetings would be held in the very home i was staying and they would all enter in and refuse to look at me. i was in the living room! there was no way to enter the home without seeing me! and yet.

so a month or so after my 20th birthday, i shoved all of my things into a 5’x5’ storage unit and began couch surfing. i would later go on to be actually homeless. i am now doing great and living in a stable home with my partner and his mom, but there were many years where i was very much not okay. in my mind i think, why did they take me in? why would they take in a vulnerable queer youth, only to then throw him out on the street when he became even more vulnerable? they should not have welcomed me into their home.

when i left the coven, i lost communication with everyone. these were people who had known me since i was 12. these were people who had watched me grow from a child. and suddenly it was as though i were dead to them. it should not have come as such a surprise to me, because i was not the first person they had excommunicated, but it hurt. my best friends mother, who had in some ways been like a mother to me as well, who had been close with my own mother and who had tried her best to help me when it was clear my mother was severely unstable, was among them to just drop me. im now 25 and i have not heard from any of them, even to check in that i am still alive.

anyways. a couple years after all of this fallout, i happened to be looking at facebook’s memories feature when i came across a comment on an old post of mine from one of the coven members. i clicked to her page out of curiosity, i suppose to see how she’s been doing. i quickly found a piece she had written detailing abuses she had seen within the coven, and specifically calling out the lead priestess. i did more digging and found a statement on the coven’s official page denouncing involvement with the now previous high priestess. as though washing their hands of her. as though she had been the problem.

and she was. don’t get me wrong. but every single one of those fuckers participated.

they helped excommunicate and isolate other coven members. once when i was 17 there was a campaign against one of the lead priests, and maybe they were right that he was making some people uncomfortable, but he had never made me uncomfortable. they convinced me that he was predatory. they convinced me that he was an issue. the next time he tried to interact with me, just to say hello and ask how i was, I ignored him and found a priestess to say that he had approached me and i was uncomfortable. i was the final straw for their decision to excommunicate him. he’d been a part of the community since the beginning. i still remember feeling weird and guilty as they stood me there in front of the others and had me repeat what id said, frenetic gleams in their eyes. i was their evidence that he was untrustworthy and unsafe.

he had never made me feel unsafe.

i still feel guilt that i participated in that, even if it was practically fed to me.

as far as i am aware, the coven still does not take responsibility for their part in everything that happened. it’s much too easy to point the finger at the person in charge! last i heard, they had rebranded and renamed themselves to disassociate with that priestess, who has, herself, gone on to continue her practice through online seminars. no idea if she’s still hurting people or if she changed herself at all. i hope so.

all of this is to say that, ive been watching the situation around @simonalkenmayer unfold from a carefully kept distance, and i am so fucking disappointed in all of you. y’all participated. if you’re mad, look in a goddamn mirror. if simon is an abusive cultish creep, y’all participated until this point. what did you do while apart of that space? what are you now not taking responsibility for? even i often think of myself as a victim in regards to my time with the coven but then i have to stop and remember that im the reason that man lost his place in his community.

on top of that, half the evidence y’all are using to say that simon is shitty is coming from...questionable sources, to say the least. people who are either outright creeps themselves or who have proven themselves as holding that same frenetic energy that the coven did when it was seeking out reasons to isolate members. if you’re angry, that’s understandable. if you’re seeking comfort from shitty people, you’ve completely lost me.

what the fuck y’all.

and for the record, the coven that i had been a part of was Come As You Are (CAYA) Coven in the San Francisco Bay Area. i don’t remember what they rebranded to. I think they may call themselves Wildflowers now or something like that.

#ive had so many thoughts the past few days because it just keeps reminding me so thoroughly of the coven #and how it collapsed #if you come to my inbox to fight i will probably ignore you #im not interested in debating. these are just my thoughts on the matter #as someone who had been following simon since 2016

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laurazepamwrites · 4 years ago

Text

The Chemicals between us ~ Chapter 13

After their visit to Pix Elle, Mei and Angela had tried the other addresses of the missing omnics without further luck. One had refused to let them in at all and the other address was abandoned altogether, the premises ransacked of what little possessions left. The only thing to remain was the strange Omnic graffiti again. After this Angela insisted on some downtime to collect their thoughts by going to the fashion museum then feeling inspired by this, went shopping for ‘just one new pair of shoes and a dress.’ The boot of the car now loaded with a number of high end bags, they made their way to the bustling Port of Calais to find answers at Hubs most recent place of work. Seagulls screamed overhead and the salt in the air was strong. Huge cruise ships and cargo containers lined the docks. They parked close by and followed the signs for the shipping and logistics companies further along. Mei looked around as they walked past surly looking men, huge cranes unloading steel containers and security droids scanning for anything illegal. She caught sight of a sketchy looking Omnic in shabby clothes who stopped to give her and her companion a look of suspicion. Mei glanced away quickly and kept her eyes peeled for the Global freight logo. Luckily she did not need to search far.

‘Hey hey hey you ladies cant be down here!” A large man wearing a hi vis jacket and hardhat shouted across to them in a french accent. “Cruise ships are on the other side! Bloody tourists..”

“Is this Global Freight?” Angela asked, ignoring him.

“You health and safety? You're not due to next wednesday.”

“My name Is Amander Muller and this is Lin Chang, we’re looking for Hub 0.5. We understand he works here?”

“You police?”

“Non monsieur, we’re journalists for the Connexion. Might I know your name?”

He scratched his stubble of a beard and looked them both up and down. “Too pretty to be pigs I guess..names Vic Dubrand. I'm the foreman here. Now why are you after that rust bucket Hub?”

“He may help us with a report we are working on but have unable to locate him. Even his wife hasn't seen him for days.” Said Angela.

“You think I have? Look lady, Hub came to work as usual then never shows up again. Far as i'm concerned he don't work for me no more. Already got a bot to replace him.”

“How was he? When you last saw him?” Mei asked

Dubrand smirked at her. “Its an Omnic sweetheart, you think they have feelings or bad days like we do? He comes to work, does what hes programmed to, goes home. Ah mind you, he did argue with some other bots down by the old containers last week. I think they were some layabouts with no jobs causing trouble.”

Mei and Angela exchanged glances. “When was this?” Angela asked.

“Dunno exactly, about two days before he disappears.”

“Did you see the Omnics he argued with again?”

“Non, they just come by, paint their stupid propaganda and leave. Hub scrubbed most of it off.”

“Where's the container?”

Dubrand turned and vaguely gestured behind him. “Somewhere over there, I don't give a shit about what Omnics get up to as long as they know their place. Not much else to tell you.” He adjusted his hard hat and began walking back to his site office. “You get hit with a falling container not my fault!” He added before shutting the door.

“Charming man..” Mei said bitterly.

It only took them a couple of minutes to find the container Dubrand mentioned. It had been scrubbed hard to dispose of the spray paint but the strange code was just about visible. It was the same they had found at nearly every site an Omnic had disappeared. “This cant be a coincidence can it?” Asked Mei, kneeling down to run her fingers over the paint which flaked off at her touch.

“Its certainly suspicious, but keep in mind there are posters and art everywhere for pro and anti Omnic. This could just be the latest one..see? look over there, there's a sticker that says ‘Humans cant be trusted.’”

“I think you're right, but I'm going to send Athena a picture of this code just in case.” Mei replied, taking her camera out and taking a few snaps.

Angela looked at her watch. “Good idea..we should head back, not much else to do until the rally tomorrow.”

They headed back along the docks and to the street where they had left the car. As they walked Mei noticed Angela glance around behind them. “Act normal Mei and walk straight past the car.” Mei frowned up at her. “Whats wrong?”

“We’re being followed. Look ahead and stay calm.”

Mei did as she was told and resisted the urge to look behind her, she had no idea who was following them or how far behind but she was glad Angela had experienced enough to know they were in potential danger. She followed Angelas lead and soon the doctor led them to an alleyway. Angela pulled Mei behind her and took out her gun, aiming it at the entrance then at the head of their stalker who turned into the alley seconds later.

“Whoa whoa whoa! Lady, that's a bit much!” The shabby, rust speckled Omnic Mei noticed at the docks threw his hands up in surrender.

Angela kept her pistol well aimed. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Sal! My names Sal, short for Shipping analysis lo-”

“What do you want!” Snapped Angela.

“Gee are you always this cranky? Can you put the gun down? it's making me very nervous.”

Angela narrowed her eyes at the strange Omnic and lowered her weapon but kept a firm grip on it. “Talk.”

“I heard you, back at the docks? You said you're looking for Hub..I know him.”

“You're not the only one so why follow us? What do you know?” Asked Angela.

“Know you’re not reporters. Old Sal here knows the media cares not for me and mine unless its something bad. You think they care if we go missing? If I had a mouth I'd spit!”

Angela began to raise her gun again. “If you have no viable information than..”

“I saw Hub get taken!” Sal exclaimed, cowering slightly. “He..he saw some strange omnics graffiting at the docks. He told them to clear off but they just stood there, Hub didn't move either! I couldn't understand what they were saying, we Omnics speak to each other in Omnicode but I couldn't understand this. It was like another language but Hub.. he understood. He let them go. I tried to talk to him after but he was acting weird..said he needed to ‘wake up’. Then Dubrand shouts at us to get back to work but I followed Hub home that night. I was worried..I watched him walk to the front of his apartment and the same image was there, he just stares at it and looked like he was waiting for something.”

“Did you try to talk to him at all?” Mei asked, feeling slightly unnerved by Sals story.

“I shouted his name and was about to go to him but a car comes round the corner, black windows. I couldn't see who was driving. Hub he..he just gets in! I think they saw me. They didn't drive away until I left. I can't go to the police, they don't care and then you ladies show up!”

“Can you read the code on the painting?” Mei showed him the picture she took at the docks but Sal just shook his head. “Nothing Ive seen before. We Omnics all speak the same code, its how we communicate. Its how the defected had such an upper hand in the war. But this? This is just gibberish!”

Angela holstered her gun. “Sal, I think you need to come with us. From what you have seen I think you may be in danger.”

Sal shook his head and back off. “No thanks lady, still don't trust you. You could be the bad guys for all i know..oh I think I made a mistake talking to you. See Sal you just need to keep ya head down and shut up. That's what Dubrand always told ya..Ol Hub is probably just fine.” He backed up to the end of the alley and briskly walked away muttering to himself. Mei looked from Sal to Angela. “Do we follow him?”

“It would draw too much attention trying to force a twitchy Omnic like that in the car, besides we need to get this information to the Commander as soon as possible. Has Athena come back with any results?”

Mei checked her phone for any contact. “No, not yet.”

“Lets go. We’ll head back to the hotel and write up what we know so far, this isn't good Mei. I dread to think what this could all mean.”

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

Ana and Satya watched each other intensely, waiting for the other to make their move. Satyas gauntlet glowed as she prepared to manipulate a cube of hard light between her fingers and Ana had her sleep dart aimed at her heart.

“Ill ask again..what are you doing?” Satya asked coldly.

“Would you believe me if i said i was the cleaning lady?” Ana smirked.

“You kill a vishkar employee and you make jokes?”

Ana tutted. “Oh shes not dead, just asleep. You are welcome to join her unless you power down that glove of yours.”

“You think to challenge me?” Satya scoffed. “Do you know who I am.”

“Yes my dear I know who you are. I wonder if you do.”

The question confused Satya and the lack of focus showed in the hardlight that quivered in her hand. Ana saw the lapse in concentration, she could have shot her there and then, wipe Satya’s computer and leave the way she came, but she decided not to. Instead she placed her sleep dart at her feet, kicked it away from her and raised her hands, all the while smiling at Satya. As quickly as the sleep dart had fallen still on the spotless carpet had hardlight binds wrapped around Anas wrists. Ana looked down at the near transparent, crystal blue solid light. It was hard not to admire the craftsmanship behind it.

“Well you caught me, and what will you do now I wonder?” Ana cheerfully asked. “Call security? Police? Maybe you and I can have a little chat before you do that?”

“Silence! Before I bind your mouth too.”

“A pity my dear, wouldn't you like to hear what an old Overwatch Captain has to say?”

The binds flickered for a split second but Satya held firm. She could not keep this up for longer. Focusing hardlight was incredibly difficult which made Architects highly valuable. Soon she would need to make the decision to call security, drag her there herself or release her and talk. She had surrendered after all and the curiosity over this womans strange actions were dulling her focus.

“Who are you?” She eventually asked.

“My name is Captain Ana Amari. I am not here to hurt you or anyone else Satya. I'm trying to prevent that from happening to anyone.”

“Why have you come here?”

“Because Vishkar are potentially a threat, and you are much easier to get to then Mr Korpal. I wonder dear..do you know who you work for?”

The binds cracked and loosened before solidifying once again. “How dare you.” Satya breathed hard. “Vishkar is building a better future for humanity, we have built home for the displaced, we-!”

“Impose martial law to control people? My dear you are not unintelligent, did you ever stop to think what Vishkar was doing was unethical?”

“We...I..I just want to make a better world.”

Ana smiled sympathetically at her. “So do we Satya, but i don't think you’ll get the world you want by being Sanjay's puppet.”

The binds disappeared completely in specks of light that glinted as they fell. A bead of sweat ran down Satyas face. “I owe him everything.” she said weakly.

“No dear, i think you owe yourself that credit.” Ana said, pulling the microchip from the computer. She handed it to Satya. “Take it. I don't think what I am looking for is here after all.”

Satya took it from her cautiously. Ana fished in her bag and pulled out a small notepad and quickly jotted down something, tore the page out and gave it to Satya.

“This is my personal number, listen to your gut feeling and you call me when you really want to change the world.” Satya stared at it, plagued by questions and her head swimming with confusion. She opened her mouth to ask Ana more but instead a soft “ Oh!” escaped her lips as she felt a quick sharp prick on her arm. Looking down she saw a tiny dart sticking in her skin like a small insect, she felt woozy.

“Im sorry Satya but I really must be going.” Ana said sincerely, like she had stopped by for a visit with an old friend. She gently took the Architect's unresisting arm and sat her down on the sofa. Ana brushed a loose strand of her behind her ear. “Nxt time you see Sanjay..ask him. Ask him about Talon. Soon you will understand.”

Satya mouthed silent words, unable to speak, her eyelids grew heavier and heavier. She heard the door to her office shut softly, the ding of the elevator as it arrived on its floor. She slumped softly onto her side.

“Am I a puppet?” She thought before falling asleep.

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

Mei tossed and turned in the hotel bed, struggling to sleep. It was more frustrating here, she was on a mission and needed to be rested. As soon as they returned from their strange meeting with the Omnic named Sal, Angela had called back to base and updated Morrison on their investigation. He was concerned with their findings and warned them to be cautious and to find out what they could at the rally. She looked at the time on her phone. It was almost two in the morning. Feeling the insomnia defeat her for now she opened up her messages to check for the millionth time if she had any feedback from Athena. As she expected there was none, but something did catch her attention. Athena had set up a private network for the occupants of the Gibraltar base to stay in contact when out in the field or on opposite ends of the building. Mei occasionally checked it for messages, usually very late at night. Most of the time she noticed Junkrat was also awake at stupid o clock in the morning, just like he was tonight. Mei considered messaging him but what would she say? Her first thought was ‘Haha turns out this mission was a lot bigger than you thought.’ But that wasn't very becoming of her, she thought maybe she could just say hi, but she felt awkward doing even that. Especially if he poked fun or even ignored her. Still, she did wonder why he was up so late and so often. Angela mumbled something in her sleep and rolled over, Mei yawned and decided it was time to try and sleep again before she got herself annoyed again over the Junker. Still, he did prove to be a good distraction as Mei was soundly asleep a short time later.

Mei woke up before her alarm the following morning, she had quietly slipped out of bed, washed and changed before heading down to the breakfast bar alone. She kept checking her phone, no update from anyone back at base. Mei took note of the time, It was nearly eight in the morning, another ten hours to go before they were due at the extraction site. She mulled over what they had found out from yesterday's leads and kept coming back to the strange conversation with Sal. Who were the Omnics who spoke to Hub? Had he really just left with them on his own accord? And what about the strange code on the graffiti? Did it connect to the strange language Hub apparently used? Mei had begun to wonder how much of Sal’s story was even credible. She jumped slightly as a coffee mug was placed on the table, jolting her from her thoughts. “Sleep well?” Angela asked brightly, sitting opposite Mei.

“I think so, how about you?”

“Hmm the pillows were too soft.” Angela complained, massaging the back of her neck. “Still, the mattress is a lot better than my one back at base.” Mei smiled in response and absent mindedly pulled apart the croissant in front of her.

“Nervous?” Angela asked.

“I guess? I'm worried how the rally will go. They start off with good intentions..but you know how some get.”

“If that happens we leave as quickly as possible. We’re not in a position for combat and we can't give ourselves away. Just stay with me and we’ll be fine.” She gave Mei a reassuring smile which Mei returned, the anxiety still gnawing away at her. They finished up their breakfast and headed back to the room to start packing their belongings. Mei trying to coax an angry snowball to go into sleep mode and to be placed in a large duffel bag again and Angela delicately placing her new clothes into her luggage with as little creasing as possible. It was past ten in the morning when they checked out and loaded the car with their suitcases. They planned to be at the rally location by midday to get a good spot for surveillance so had spent some time wandering the streets and had a light lunch at a local cafe near to the square where the rally was to be held. As midday approached they headed to the square, it was already filling with people and omnics alike. Some held placards with pro omnic slogans whilst others opted for banners and flags. The atmosphere was jovial as music began to play as sound checks were being made on stage. Angea and Mei inched further forward,opting to be close to the stage and the large marquee next to it which Mei assumed was for the organizers and guests.

“Over here Mei.” Said Angela, signalling to a free space by the metal crowd control barriers. “So now we wait.” She said, leaning on the barrier. “Chances are nothing will happen so may as well try to enjoy ourselves. There's a band playing after the speeches.”

“I’m not sticking around so you can have a dance.”

“You’ve really lost your sense of fun.”

“We’re working!”

“We’re blending in, go on - shout something pro Omnic!”

“Angela I really don't want to draw attention to my-Owww!” Mei whined and covered her ears as Angela winced, most of the crowd copied their behavior and complained loudly as the speakers on stage blasted a high pitch feedback.

“Désolé! Je suis désolé! Sorry everyone!” An omnic rushed to the mic to apologize for the noise. “Bad soundcheck but we’re almost ready to begin!”

“Huh, earlier than expected.” Noted Angela as she looked at her phone which had started to vibrate. “Hello? Jack?” Angela answered her phone and looked confused. “Hello?” She looked at her phone and pressed the screen. “Weird.” She said, hanging up. “Maybe he called by mistake.”

“What do you mean?” Mei asked.

“I couldn't hear him, just strange noises..maybe there's a bad signal here.”

“Maybe..” Mei hoped it was something that simple, looking around she noticed some omnics still recovering from the harsh feedback noise. Some were shaking their heads, others looked rather dazed. It must affect them more than humans. “What if he was calling about the code?” She asked Angela. The Doctor was already on it and had her phone pressed to her ear. “No..nothing.” She said hanging up. “Can you try?” But Mei had the same result, she even tried Winston and Reinhardt, stranger still was that she had full signal on her phone. Out of the corner of her eye she saw an Omnic stumble on the spot..her anxiety started to flare up and she barely heard the announcement on stage. She heard the crowd cheering louder and she glanced up at the stage, her eyes widening.

“Angela..its Liberte..!” But Angela was fully aware the presumed missing Omnic had made a sudden appearance. The crowd cheered as the artist came on stage. “Maybe it was personal reasons after all.” She looked up at Angela who was frowning at the Omnic, “What is it?” Mei asked, following her gaze. Liberte had reached the microphone and simply stood there, not greeting his audience, not saying a word. The cheering had died down and there was awkward laughter and mutterings from the crowd. “Maybe this is a live art piece!” Mei overheard someone say.

Liberte stood silent a minute more then very slowly his head began to raise, it jerked to the side suddenly as if he just got shocked. He began to speak. “Brothers, sisters. What a sad sight you are before me..” The crowd murmured, confusion rippling among them. “We have been victims from the day we were born from our Mother Omniums into this ravaged planet. We have been made scapegoats to Mankind's own failures. We have been murdered, mutilated and made into slaves by our oppressors!” Mei looked through the crowd, some were nodding their heads in agreement, others looking nervous. Some humans had already begun to leave, she saw some of the Omnics affected by the high pitch noise from earlier and felt her stomach knot. They stood completely still, heads down, no glow to their eyes. As if they were sleeping. “Angela…?” She said nervously.

“We’re leaving. Nice and easy and keep calm” The doctor said, taking Mei’s arm and turning her around. As they began to push back through the crowd Liberte continued to speak. “You traitors that slave under human rule.” His head jerked violently, his eyes flashed. “You cowards that live in fear of flesh and blood! We are the stronger race!” Liberte screamed and jerked. “ We are the cure! - Jerk- We will rise from the ashes of our dead and the bones of our oppressors!”

The crowd was getting stirred up as humans and Omnics alike tried to leave, there were shouts for Liberte to leave the stage and a bottle was even thrown at him, the glass smashing on stage yet he did not even flinch, shouts for uprising, shouts for a new crisis. Scuffling broke out nearby in the crowd and one of the sleeping Omnics was shoved hard, falling to the ground. Mei looked back and hesitated. “Angela wait!” She shouted, making her decision and rushing back to the fallen Omnic. She crouched by him and shook him but there was no light in his eyes and he made no movement. “Leave him Mei!” Angela grabbed her and half dragged her upwards on to her feet. She had her phone pressed to her ear again. “Dammit!” She shouted, still getting no signal to contact base. “This was planned! We need to get out of here before a riot happens.”

“Liberte! Angela look at Liberte!”

Liberte was jerking more violently, his eyes flashing from blue to red, he gripped the microphone stand to support himself and a burst of sparks flew from circuits on his neck. “The eye is lost but the eye will open! It's time to wake up.” A final jerk and his eyes went dead and his head slumped forward, mirroring the ‘sleeping’ Omnics standing like sentinels in the panicking crowd. Slowly his eyes glowed red and he raised his head, a strange sound erupting from the speakers. High pitched noises of different frequencies almost sounding like a song as it pulsated from the speakers. It took a few seconds for Mei to realize Liberte was making the noise. “Wha..What is that?”

The strange noise stopped and Liberte began to laugh as oil started to drip from his red glowing eyes, his omnic mouth and from joints in his body. “The eye is opening!” He screamed as his body jerked and crackled from exploding circuits within him as he slumped forward and fell from the stage.

“We need to get to him! Mei, head to the barriers.” They went back on themselves, finding it much harder as the crowd pushed back against them as they tried to leave. More projectiles were being thrown and the atmosphere increasingly heated. Mei saw the fallen omnic on the ground, his metal fingers twitching, she barely registered him this time, she was scared and felt incredibly exposed. Angelas hand on her shoulder was the only thing keeping her grounded as her small frame was shoved and pushed by those around her. She gasped and ducked as something smashed against a wall close by. The shouting was getting too much..she could hear sirens blaring and getting closer. “Keep going, almost there.” Angela said. Fuelled by adrenaline they reached the barriers, Angela vaulting herself over them and reaching back to help pull Mei over. She felt instantly safer with the barriers between them and the increasingly angry crowd. As she caught her breath she spotted Liberte sprawled on the ground below the stage, Angela was already rushing to him.

“Liberte? What happened? Who did this to you?”

His eyes had gone back to their normal blue, he was gasping like his body was in pain. “Where-am-I?”

“Sshh It's ok, its ok. We’re gonna help you, we’re getting you out of here.”

Mei’s head snapped to the crowd as the shouting suddenly began to change pitch to frightened screaming. More pockets of fighting were breaking out and others had started to rush the barriers, she backed up against the stage, broken glass cracking under her feet.

Liberte gasped and reached up, pulling at Angela's shirt. He rasped and gurgled. It was an awful sound, an awful sight, as the oil bubbled as it leaked from him like blood. His eyes began to flicker and dull. His voice crackled as he tried to speak. “The-They are-c-c-calling.”

“Who? Who's calling? Liberte..? Liberte!?” Angela shook him but his eyes were now dull. He was dead.

“Angela! Behind you!”

Angela felt something claw viciously at her back, She scrambled up, half stumbled over libertes dead body and fell against the stage, spinning herself she aimed her pistol and fired. One of the ‘sleeping’ Omnics fell heavily to the ground, a smoking hole between its eyes. Angela and Mei looked on in horror as the omnics that stood silent were now very much animated and attacking whatever was near them, their eyes glowing red. Mei watched as the one she tried to help had risen from the ground and was viciously attacking someone. She felt sick.

“Mei! Down there!” Angela pulled her along after her, pistol in hand, towards a small side street lined with boutique shops and cafes that had closed for the rally. The graffiti with the strange code was hastily painted on one of the shutters, wet paint dripping down the metal. Mei looked over her shoulder as she ran and faltered, stopping in her tracks as people ran past her to escape.

“Hub..?”

It was him. The gentle looking omnic from the photograph with Pix Elle, he staggered down the street towards her, swiping and grabbing at anyone that came near, a spatter of crimson blood across his metal face.

Angela fired and shot a red eyed omnic that had burst from an adjourning street, it crashed to the ground, its eyes slowly burning out. ‘ How many are there!?’ Thought Angela. ‘ Is the whole city affected?’ An omnic pushed past her and she aimed her pistol, it raised its hands and cowered before her, its eyes blue. She lowered her weapon and the omnic continued to run. ‘ Only certain ones ?’ Close by a shop window smashed and she heard more sirens and shouting back towards the square, the combat medic in her urged her to return and help the wounded but with no valkyrie suit or medical supplies what use could she be? No, get to extraction. Just keep moving. “Mei keep going, I’ll cover you!..Mei?” She was here, she was next to me!” . “Mei?!” Angela screamed, desperately trying to see her through the rush of panic and terror.

Hub shambled slowly towards Mei, his head jerking as Libertes did and he was struggling to stand. Whatever was causing this seemed short lived. The omnic weakly grabbed at anything that got to close as they ran past but his grip was too weak. Mei winced as he stumbled and fell to his knees, a lone drip of oil running from his eye and blending with the blood. Mei crouched down slowly, picking up an empty bottle left in the street and tentatively stepped forward.

“Hub..?” She said gently and took a step forward. “Hub, my name is Mei..I..I know your wife. Pix Elle?”

Hub stayed motionless, he remained on his knees and seemed fixated on the slow drip drip drip of oil as it fell to the ground. His head jerked at the mention of his wife's name.

“I don't know what's happening to you Hub.” Mei took another step forward. “But I know it's not your fault.”

Drip drip drip

“Its ok..we can help you.” Another step.

Drip drip drip

“We can find Pix Elle. We can try and stop this..”

Drip drip drip

Mei was close to him, he was ignoring everyone that rushed by now, she was sure he could hear her, understand her. She knelt in front of him.

“I know you’re in there Hub..I know you don't want to do this. None of you do..im so sorry this has happened..”

He slowly raised his head, oil now leaking from all eyes. He looked like he was crying. “Pix..Pix..Pix.” His head jerked with each word.

“We’ll find her ok? Lets find her.” Mei smiled warmly at him and slowly held her hand out. Hub looked at it and his eyes started to flash back to blue. “I..I..”

“It's ok Hub..” She said softly.

“I..”

She could hear the low hum of engines overheard and the crowds were getting thinner, maybe the French authorities were taking control of the situation. Close by a window smashed, Mei flinched at the sound and Hubs eyes flashed to red, He snapped his head at Mei.

“Hub no !” Mei fell backwards as he launched at her, she scrambled back desperately as he clawed at her legs, his metal digits painfully scratching her, Mei kicked him hard in the face, one of his eyes cracking from the force. She struggled back and attempted to stand but Hub snatched her ankle and pulled her down roughly, the side of her head hitting the pavement as she fell. Mei gasped in pain and instantly felt nauseous and her vision blurred, she was barely aware that she was screaming. She thrashed viciously and felt his grip weaken, using the opportunity to pull herself up more before she smashed the bottle down on his head with all her strength, his grip slackened and finally he let go. Whether she killed him or not she did not know, her mind race and before she knew it she was half running half feeling her way away from the Omnic. “Angela!” She tried to scream, her voice feeling hoarse. “ Angela!”

But she was too disoriented, she had no idea how far she had run and no idea where she was now. She felt people running by, the ringing in her ears adding to the confusion. Someone tried grabbing her wrist and shouted but without her glasses she couldn't tell if it was someone trying to help or harm her, she wrenched her arm free and ran once again but she was feeling more sick by the second, she stumbled on something and she reached to steady herself, feeling cool brick wall beneath her fingertips. Mei involuntarily leant against it and slid to the ground, catching her breath and fighting the urge to vomit. She was sure she heard her name over the distortion in her head, but the world was too blurry to make sense of, her glasses cracked and useless. The throbbing in her head was intense. She tried to sit up but the pain made her feel more nauseous. Over the ringing noise she heard her name being shouted again but maybe she imagined it. Mei blinked trying to focus, something was in her eye, she blinked again, It was wet and red and hot. Mei gave a startled cry, squeezing her eyes shut and tried once again to move, her body feeling like lead, panic bubbling in her stomach and chest growing tight as her mind began to catch up on what was happening. She needed to find Angela. With effort she braced her arm against the wall and attempted to push herself up, ignoring the urge to throw up and the pain pulsing through her skull. Suddenly hands were on her pushing her firmly back down, Mei yelled in alarm and lashed out, her fist connecting hard with whoever was in front her.

“Ow! Fucks sake woman, you wanna be left here?”

Her hair was sticking to the blood on her face as it began to dry. “J-Junkrat?”

“...Gotta keep still ok Mei, dunno how bad you are. Just focus on yer breathing before shock gets to ya alrite?” He gave her arms a reassuring squeeze.

Mei gave a small whimper in reply, trying to touch the bleeding wound on her head. Jamison grabbed her hand and held onto it.

‘Nope, no ya dont wanna touch that ok. Trust me it's not that bad, just a lil nick.’ He reassured her.

Tears now joined the blood streaming down her face as her choked on a sob. “I can't..I can't see”

“Yeaahhhh...ya glasses wanna bit o’ glue i won't lie. But don't worry about that kay? Lets just get you moving.” He reached up to his communicator. “Yeah hi, whoever's listening I found Frosty- I mean Mei! Mei! I found Mei..yeah she's ok, bit of blood. Maybe concussed to fuck...Uh huh..yeah..yeeaah..ok bored now bye!” He reached into one of the leather wallets on his belt and pulled out some gauze. “Sorry this might hurt.” He said, pressing the gauze against the wound.

“Ahh!” Mei squealed in pain.

“Told ya. Keep it pressed on coz we gotta move, Jesus Christ what the fuck happened here?” He crouched next to her, hooking an arm around her as she gingerly placed hers around his shoulders. “Ok on three..three-!” He vaulted her up onto her feet with ease but the sudden movement threatened her stomach and her head felt like it was about to split.

“Ahhhoowww oww owww! Why did you do that?” Mei whined loudly.

“Your up aren't ya? I don't fancy hanging around! Fucking hell you are tiny!”

“Can someone else come get me?” Mei whimpered.

“Ok down you go.” Junkrat replied bluntly as he began to lower her.

“No no no no!” Mei clung on to him in panic, her nails sharply digging into him.

“Yeah that's what I thought...”

#The Chemicals between us #Junkrat #meihem #mei ling zhou #junkmei #Overwatch #fanfic #Im aliiiiive!!

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enthusiasticmusicalquotes · 4 years ago

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QUESTION OF THE DAY #12: What is your opinion on theatre bootlegs? Spill as much or as little tea as you want.

MY ANSWER: it would be incredibly hypocritical of me to say there’s nothing good about them. i discovered a couple of my all time favorite shows through bootlegs, and when i was a high school/college-aged theatre nerd stuck in the midwest (which i still am, just a bit older now), they brought me a lot of comfort that i could relive my favorite shows again. that said, i can understand POVs re: they weren’t filmed with consent from the actors. however, actors who are speaking out against them need to realize that mainstream theatre needs to be made more accessible in one way or another for poor, disabled, and international theatre fans. tldr: bootlegs aren’t going to go away if celebrities disavow them, but theatre might be able to become more accessible if more of them talk on THAT instead of how evil bootlegs are.

SUMMARY OF ANSWERS: out of 41 responses: 21 were an enthusiastic heck yeah, 13 weren’t as enthusiastic but still along the lines of yeah i support them, 3 answers were like eh i can see both sides i guess/leaning towards no, and 4 people outright said nah bootlegs are not the answer. All the answers under the cut!

if you wanna fight or agree with anyone, refer to the # and send in an ask or reply to this.

also: while i agree with much of what was said under the cut, i will not come out and say which ones i agree with and what i don’t. my opinion is above and that’s all you need to know about what i think. i do not necessarily condone or agree with anything below. okay, enjoy reading.

1. Anonymous said: I may not be the biggest fan, but I totally get why they exist and have watched a few when they pop up

2. Anonymous said: for the qotd: bootlegs are godsends

3. Anonymous said: oh god i literally just went on a tangent on twitter just now but bootlegs good!!!! people willingly watch blurry footage of a show bcs they want to know what the show is like, want to experience it live. bway shows arent accessable for everyone (due to prices and distance) but ppl still want to know what its like performed on stage. bootlegs literally dont harm the community. ive seen poto boots, proshots and the tour yet id willingly pay 2 watch again. boots make theatre more accessable imo !!

4. Anonymous said: Boots are good to get a glimpse of different productions? Like even despite Proshots existing of certain musicals, I'd still be curious regarding other interpretations of it! And also besides this it definitely helps make shows accessable to people who physically cannot watch the show!

5. galactic-greens said: I truly see no harm in bootlegs as long as they are treated respectfully. While the creation and consumption is technically a crime, it by no means whatsoever makes you a bad person. It's essentially documenting theatre, and ensuring generations to come will be able to experience what could have been so fleeting. They maintain a community, and as long as NFT dates, masters, and general spread of bootlegs are respected then there really can be no problem. It's just a way to immortalize the art!

6. Anonymous said: On bootlegs: oftentimes they’re the only way someone could be able to see a show, because not everyone can afford the tickets or even the cost to just go to New York for a show. However, it should be acknowledged that filming obviously in the actors’ faces is pretty rude, but at the same time bootlegs at least give a chance for people like me to see shows I might never get to see otherwise.

7. Anonymous said: I love bootlegs because I don’t have the means to be able to travel to see shows or afford tickets, i also do theater and i feel like the point of the art is to share it as much as I can

8. Anonymous said: i've never seen a large-scale live show bc they are not accessible to me. bootlegs are amazing. truly glorious.

9. Anonymous said: i understand that this is a rather unique experience, but i live in nyc, so bootlegs never measure up to the real thing for me. i know that this isn't something everyone can be lucky enough to say, but live theatre could never be captured in the form of a bootleg-- i don't even like released proshots as much as the real thing

10. Anonymous said: for me bootlegs are fine for those who can't see it live because of the price and they are living from another country though i know there are a lot of actors disagrees about it

11. Anonymous said: as someone who can't afford to go to a professional production of anything, absolutely gimme a bootleg. obviously I wouold prefer, like, a proshot of a show and I really hope that becomes more of the norm (I watched the Newsies proshot on Disney+ and had the happy wiggles for hours afterwards, and I can't wait for the Hamilton one to come out) but until that starts happening I'll take a bootleg any day.

12. Anonymous said: I like that it helps people get into fandoms/musicals that they wouldn’t’ve otherwise but I would prefer if theatres professionally films them.

13. maycombhoney said: they will be a part of theatre culture until live theatre is made accessible for more people

14. Anonymous said: bootlegs are great and until the theater community decides to produce pro-shots i’m all for them

15. zoueriemandzijnopmars said: I would personally feel kinda bad for watching bootlegs, because it won’t directly bring money to the people who worked on the show. I don’t judge people who do watch bootlegs though, because let’s face it, bootlegs are not a replacement for actually going to the theatre and it’s not gonna lose the creators actually money. It might even make them money, because people will listen to the album/buy tickets anyway when they can. I’d just personally be more comfortable watching a proshot

16. Anonymous said: I don't pretend bootlegs aren't stealing but whatever harm they do is abstract enough - and my decisions are drop-in-the-bucket enough - that I do it anyway

17. Anonymous said: I’m totally fine with bootlegs. I’ve watched so many of them that it wouldn’t be fair if I wasn’t. The fact is most people just aren’t able to see shows. Either they live too far away or they can’t afford it, and if this is the only way someone can experience a show, it’s better than never seeing it at all

18. Anonymous said: i think bootlegs are important for accessibility but i really wish more theatres would release proshots. i wouldn't even mind if it were after the broadway run or after the original cast is switched out, but i think it's valuable to have those recordings out during the run of the show to get more people interested and actually wanting to go out and see it. plus, if they're worried about money, they wouldn't *have* to be free. just cheaper than tickets and travel.

19. Anonymous said: about the question of the day, honestly i think bootlegs are fine as long as they're done respectfully and the filmers aren't distracting with it

20. locke-writes said: For the question of the day: If there’s absolutely no way I can see the show live or from a professional recording then I’m going to watch a bootleg. Theater should be more accessible and sometimes a bootleg is my only way to access a show. Having been part of film crews who have shot live theater I think a lot of the lack of pro recordings is the idea which that theater is difficult to record. It isn’t. Give me a pro shot show over a bootleg anyday but I’ll take what I can get

21. Anonymous said: My opinion on bootlegs is I prefer professional recordings ONLY because bootleg quality is terrible for my auditory processing problems and I hate the washed out quality. But since professional recordings are rare (unless you are, interestingly enough, Sight & Sound Theatre); for everyone else: BRING ON THE BOOTLEG! ~ Stripe Conlon

22. Anonymous said: Bootlegs are complicated! As a fan/consumer I think they’re okay, especially considering how inaccessible theatre is for people living in other countries, people who can’t afford to experience shows live, and disabled folks. But as someone who also performs, i understand that it can be distracting and legally complicated for actors who are trying to do their best and did not consent to being filmed that night. I just hope that pro shots will become more common.

23. penguinated said: Bootlegs are fine. They don't cost Broadway a thing since people will literally never not pay to see live shows (except during covid of course). and for many people, seeing a certain show with a certain cast will NEVER be possible, so what's the harm in watching the bootleg? The bootlegs aren't the problem, it's the inaccessibility of live theater, ESPECIALLY Broadway shows. If more things were available to stream (i.e. BroadwayHD) there wouldn't be a need for bootlegs. Bootleg away, imo.

24. Anonymous said: until theatre is made accessible to everyone and there is a proshot released for every show, bootlegs are absolutely necessary for the prosperity of theatre

25. Anonymous said: It's so sad that people think bootlegs are necessary! and it's even sadder that in a way they are. however, too many people use them as an excuse to not pursue alternate affordable alternatives for theatre (such as broadway hd, pursuing local shows including high school and college theatre, and utilizing legally free shows online). In addition, bootlegs absolutely CAN be unethically sourced- recordings of locally produced shows can get theaters in trouble and bankrupt them with legal fees. and if you're recording something from Broadway (which is fine imo usually), if you're actually making people PAY for your illegal recording, that's profiting off the work of others and is both very unethical and exploiting the very people many bootleggers claim to work for the benefit of. When it comes to bootlegs, it's one thing to pass around shows that have finished their runs on Broadway for free- but there's too much unethical and even HARMFUL bootleg behavior and it needs to stop.

26. Anonymous said: since Broadway is too rich and doesn't wanna spend money(for some reason) streaming their shows, then bootlegs are the only option.

27. Anonymous said: Theater is so inaccessible that bootlegs are necessary for a lot of people because with a lot of shows you can’t get a good idea of the show just from the soundtrack but people that share nft boots are assholes

28. Anonymous said: Bootlegs do more good than harm. Those against bootlegs are elitist and don't understand some people cant afford hundreds of dollars in theatre and plane tickets. Bootlegs make people crave the live experience more, a dark and shaky video with shit audio doesn't satiate the desire to see a show live. And if the show is closed all the more reason to watch a bootleg!

29. lynntjeeee said: Theatre bootlegs are amazing and are why there are fans. I live in a country with no musical theater (except the occasional sucky original production with a local celeb who can't sing) so if it not for bootlegs I wouldn't be able to watch any shows and wouldn't be a fan (thus not spending money on cast recordings, etc). People need to realise this, bootlegs do not harm the theater, in fact it only helps it. If there were official recordings, there would be many more fans (and thus more profit!)

30. Anonymous said: Opinion on bootlegs: They wouldn't be necessary if the theater industry would get with the times and release professional shots of their shows on streaming services/cable.

31. Anonymous said: I think that people are really overreacting about bootlegs. ESPECIALLY bootlegs if shows that have already closed- you may never get a chance to see that show! Ever! Now there’s an affordable and accessible way to see shows that people would kill and die for. It isn’t losing Broadway money, in fact it is bringing more people into the medium. Maybe if full proshots were more common I would feel differently, but since there is literally no other way, boots are fine.

32. Anonymous said: Bootleg opinion: just go absolutely hog wild. Fuck it. Be gay do crime.

33. Anonymous said: Bootlegs are one of the few things that are keeping me sane right now, plus the fact that not everyone has dat cash money to see the shows live, so yeah they're good stuff (as long as they are available online w/ at least vaguely good sound quality anyway 😆)

34. Anonymous said: I see it both ways. I can understand why those in the profession are against it; it’s their hard work that’s getting pirated. But I’m also poor. I have no access to theatre outside of cast albums and bootlegs. I don’t watch bootlegs because I personally feel guilty, but I will not and do not judge others if they do.

35. whatdoscissorsdo said: I think broadway bootlegs r okay?? eat the rich amirite

36. Anonymous said: I trade and watch bootlegs and don't plan on stopping, but I've recently realized that it must be super uncomfortable for actors to be filmed without their knowledge or consent, or just to have to have on their minds that they might be being recorded at any time in a performance. Like, I've happily watched Many™ Spring Awakening videos in the past year, but I doubt Alexandra Socha is that thrilled knowing there are videos up on YouTube of featuring her nude at age nineteen.

37. i-am-having-an-emotion said: they will remain a necessary evil until theater is more accessible to the masses. seeing real live theater is always better than a boot but literally like 95% of people can’t access live theater, especially at a broadway caliber, so like..... do The Poors not *deserve* theater??? what are we supposed to do BUT make bootlegs?

38. ope-okay said: bootlegs are blessings from heaven and no one can convince me otherwise

39. Anonymous said: I think it can really hype up the want for the musical. And a really good boot release can bring new creations to an otherwise small fandom. Personally I’m more interested in seeing the musicals I’ve seen boots of than the musicals I haven’t

40. Anonymous said: On the topic of bootlegs, I think they’re great but like especially for people who do not have the means to go see the shows during their runs, I feel like if you do have the means to go see the show you should do that instead

41. Anonymous said: I have a REALLY hard time with bootlegs. Because artists deserve to be paid for their work, and there are a whole host of copywriter issues that come with the mass production of a show. In addition though, I understand the anger you feel at not getting to see a show live, however there are so many resources available to help people get the idea of their favorite show even if they never see it. Honestly Wikipedia is my favorite resource, as often that has a full synopsis of the show. I’ll read that and then listen to the recording a bunch so I can understand the story and imagine what it may look like. A lot of shows put clips on YouTube, the Macy’s parade, the Tony Awards, NBC does a whole broadway week, there are so many ways that you can get glimpses into these shows without resorting to bootlegs (which at this point are still illegal) I’m not a supporter of the “theater must be seen live” idea. While I LOVE live theater (and as a performer I like feeding off an audience) but I’ve see shows with just proshots or just the movie version and they are still just as good. Unfortunately I think the only way we’re are going to make theater more accessible to audiences is through time. Bootlegs I think only make people less inclined to record shows and mass produce them. There are a whole lot of legal things that go into that as well. What I can say is what I’ve done. Read up on the show, watch all the clips you can, sometimes scripts are posted online maybe read those, listen to the album, look at pictures. It SUCKS that theater is exclusive, but bootlegs are not the solution.

let me repeat: if you wanna fight or agree with anyone, refer to the # and send in an ask or reply to this post.

#qotd #bootleg discourse #theatre discourse #bootlegs #not a quote #this was a fun one

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handcat · 4 years ago

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NOPE. Book Tag

Source: here

thank you @sunel0 <3

Questions:

1. NOPE. Ending: A book ending that made you go NOPE either in denial, rage, or simply because the ending was crappy.

everything, everything, it has been years since i read that but that twist/ending was bullshit, i have never felt more rage in my life, fuck that book, fuck, i dont remember all of the details of it but in general it felt like shit, it just brushed away all of the stakes and demonized people with mental illnesses and generally felt like garbage, god i am pissed

2. NOPE. Protagonist: A main character you dislike and drives you crazy.

main guy of giovannis room i forget his name because im dumb, first of all, i love that book, i really do, im not saying i dont like it i just want to make that clear dfasafds, but i would kick main guys ass any day of the week <3

3. NOPE. Series: A series that turned out to be one huge pile of NOPE. after you’ve invested all of that time and energy on it, or a series you gave up on because it wasn’t worth it anymore.

this was awhile ago lol but the maze runner books, i loved the first one and then i got part way into the second and realized i hated where the story was going and stopped reading, that was in like middle school and i do not remember what i didnt like but i was pissed

4. NOPE. Popular pairing: A “ship” you don’t support.

idk, i cant really think of a specific one offhand, aside from like obviously gross ones but yeah idk, best i can think of is in trc when ppl ship kavinsky with people, or really like any dream pack stuff, but to each their own, i just dont vibe with all that lol

5. NOPE. Plot twist: A plot twist you didn’t see coming or didn’t like.

can i say everything, everything again? it really pissed me off, i still remember the pure rage i felt reading that

6. NOPE. Protagonist action/decision: A character decision that made you shake your head NOPE.

every decision made by zebulon in the death and life of zebulon finch, i love those books but he is stupid as fuck <3

7. NOPE. Genre: A genre you will never read.

okay i have read high fantasy before but generally i just don't vibe with it, idk its hard to get invested for me :/

8. NOPE. Book format: Book formatting you hate and avoid buying until it comes out in a different edition.

not super applicable but i CAN’T read ebooks, my brain just does not comprehend, similar thing with audiobooks, i only listen to audiobooks of things ive already read bc i space out a lot and miss chunks lol

9. NOPE. Trope: A trope that makes you go NOPE.

stories that are like super futuristic technology stuff with like tech genius characters??? is that a trope??? does that make sense??? anyway i hate that, i dont think ive read many books like that so ill use the mcu as an example :) it just feels like theres no stakes because everything can be solved by just inventing a new machine! also most uses of time travel, i forgot that one (exceptions would be like bill and ted or paper girls but they are rare)

10. NOPE. Recommendation: A book recommendation that is constantly hyped and pushed at you that you simply refuse to read.

i haven't seen it much recently, but captive prince, just the whole premise and shit that ive heard about it makes me very uncomfortable

11. NOPE. Cliche/pet peeve: A cliche or writing pet peeve that always makes you roll your eyes.

too many pop culture references and shit like that, i feel like i dont see it a lot in stuff i read, but like an example is more recent rr stuff, like it just rarely works and takes me out of the story and i just do not like it

12. NOPE. Love interest: The love interest that’s not worthy of being one. A character you don’t think should have been a viable love interest.

i couldnt think of one soooooo colin greenmantle! he’s a weak bitch who didn’t deserve piper and im glad she killed him!

13. NOPE. Book: A book that shouldn’t have existed that made you say NOPE.

all for the game... its bad

14. NOPE. Villain: A scary villain/antagonist you would hate to cross and would make you run in the opposite direction.

dr leather from zebulon finch!!!!!! why was he like that???? hweee.... fweee..... bitch ill kill you!!!! he was my first thought, idk if hes the scariest but he was fucked up!!! meat etiquette???? people garden????

15. NOPE. Death: A character death that still haunts you.

noah czerny, i do not see it <3

16. NOPE. Author: An author you had a bad experience reading for and have decided to quit.

cassandra claire, i started the mortal instruments in middle school but tbh with just everything ive heard about her and the content of her books... no

okay! now tagging people! i said i wouldnt tag more people but im actually curious so im going to! as usual no pressure! @audikatia @darkadam @pynches @gaynanlynch @adamparrishthot @czernydefencesquad uhhhh and anyone else who wants to! yeehaw!

#this was hard bc usually if i dont like something i just stop reading and block it from my memory lmao #also queueing this to post in the morning bc no one is online at night and if i dont get attention i'll cry <3 #tbh i have forgotten most books ive read adsfasdsfd #most of my books are at my parents house and i dont feel like waiting until i go home to finsish this <3 #but i thrive off of negativity and rage so this was fun!#also with a few of these i kinda feel like im swinging a baseball bat at a beehive but i should be fine...#i dont have enough followers for people to send me anon hate...#actually please do that i think it would be funny #tag game #my post

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redwoodrroad · 4 years ago

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tagged by

@krystha

to answer some guild wars 2 questions! putting it under a tag because i think it’ll get a little long <3 thank you for tagging me!!

1. Do you have an idea before or after creating a character? normally i have a basic frame for creating a character, but i primarily get most of the characterization beats after i’ve made them. i remember in making my dragon age characters, i had an idea for what they should look like, but i let the story take me through the types of people they would end up becoming, and for being my first introduction to making characters that would stick with me for many many years, i think i adopted the same process for making other game characters like my dragonborn and then my guild wars 2 fellas too

for instance, i knew when i first made Arkus way way back when the game first came out that i wanted a pretty green fella who threw fire, etc; then as i progressed through the character creation and through making personal story decisions, i realized i was being drawn towards a particular characterization for him, one that’s sort of a know-it-all who loosens up over the course of his arc, etc

2. Which race is your favorite to imagine a story about?

probably sylvari! there’s a lot of really interesting stuff about them, and i get a lot of soulmate vibes out of the dream ;u;

3. Which race is your favorite to customize?

i primarily play human and sylvari but dhfgdjfghk i really dont do a lot of customizing unless it’s for specific character purposes? im not sure i do have a favorite! all of my characters have an aesthetic or color scheme i attach to them, and i might update them sometimes to closer approach that aesthetic vision i have for them. Arkus is dressed in whites and teals with the occasional tiny detail of red, and his mounts follow a similar scheme (his raptor i actually made to look like the moon); Eridunis is dressed in red and gold with the occasional tiny detail of green, and his mounts, again, follow the same scheme, and some of them are made to look like the sun

across my other characters, ive done similar things, and i think theyre all really fun to customize in their own ways!

4. Does the profession play a role in the visual?

yes! although not always in like an obvious way. Arkus is a weaver, he uses a staff, he now has the bifrost, so his outfit in many ways matches that. Eridunis is a Reaper, he uses a greatsword, he now has sunrise, so that follows his sun motif.

5. Do you often use the same faces?

i dont have a lot of characters rip lol they all have pretty different faces. i have 2 sylvari, one guy and one girl; 2 humans, both guys but one is meant to look significantly older, so they have very different faces (and i made the older man out to look like a particular character from another game; 2 norn, both guys, one i modeled after my skyrim character and the other i definitely made to look very different; and 1 charr guy, so like. clearly he’s on his own haha

6. Do you often use the same skin colors?

for three of my human-looking characters, they have lighter skin, so i guess yes in that case, but two of them were based on other characters who themselves have light skin. the fourth is Eridunis, and i specifically designed him to look Cuban, to match my family

as for the sylvari, i definitely designed them to have very different aesthetics and very different skin colors. one is green, and the other is sort of purple-ish

7. Do you often use the same tattoos? only two of my characters have tattoos in guild wars 2, both of them definitely different

8. Do you use the sliders for the face or not? yes! i definitely adjusted some things around for i think most of my characters

9. Do you bother to pick colors for the starter armor or not? oh absolutely--like i said, i always have an aesthetic im going for with the character, and i might not actually know what that aesthetic is until i get to that stage of character creation. i try to make each very different anyway!

10. Do you pick carefully the choices for your character base story? for Arkus and Eridunis, yes; i always try very hard to choose things that will align with my ideas for their personalities. and i still wish we had those emotional responses too!! Arkus was always the diplomatic / crown persona; Eridunis was always the charismatic / heart persona with a little bit of the diplomacy later, as he gets more mature

11. If no, is it always the same choices (ie. easiest to complete)? for my other characters, i dont really do story stuff! so i tend to go with what’s easiest or what’s most neutral. although i did make the choice in Amnoon to side with Joko’s army once, and once without taking any help (my primary choice for Amnoon was to invite the Sunspears), only to forward that achievement in the hero panel

12. Do you not bother at all and only use a makeover kit once in game? ive only used makeover kits like..... potentially once. i used it to revamp my sylvari girl and give her a slightly different vibe. i like where my characters are at right now, but i’ve considered altering some of my other characters too a couple times. i might go through with it one day but im happy for now!

13. Do you like/use exclusive faces/hairstyles more? nope! i think i have an exclusive color on my aforementioned sylvari girl, but i’ve considered using an exclusive hairstyle for one of my nords, but i just havent decided it yet

14. Outfit or armor? both for different characters! Eridunis has worn the same outfit for some time now, but Arkus flits between several outfits and even one armor set (the outfits are for different environments, the armor is for when he’s in Research Mode). other characters i primarily have wearing armor, but most of them have like their “favorite outfit” that i might occasionally put them in

15. Do you stick with one armor for each character or do you change a lot? like i said in the last answer, Eridunis wears one outfit all the time and never changes (although i might update the colors sometimes); Arkus was wearing one armor set for a while and would wear an outfit in certain environments, and then i upgraded him to a different outfit, and most recently ive updated him to yet another outfit; the others i have even more flexibility with, i’ll sometimes change what they’re wearing if i find something i think will look good on them. sometimes i even look through the armor in the bank wardrobe, whether i have a skin or not, and i’ll internally plan out what i should work towards obtaining later

16. If yes, why? Is it for “RP” reasons or just aesthetic ones? aesthetic!

17. Do you have a timeline for your characters (ie. date of birth, armors throughout the story)? oh yes.... but only for Arkus and Eridunis primarily. Sibheal, my sylvari girl, sometimes fits in, but i haven’t worked out the details on her yet

18. Is there a title you use more than another? it changes from character to character, but yes for each

19. If yes, which one and why? Eridunis is “Romantic” but sometimes i put “Emissary of the Mad King” on him for halloween; other times i’ll use “The Inevitable” if im feeling spicy

Arkus is always “Archaeologist”, i know Morten is “Bounty Hunter,” and i believe Sibheal is “The Blazing Light.” the others i cant remember but i keep the same ones on them, each of them different from each other but mostly unchanging

20. What is a big difference from when you started the game to now in regard of characters creation (ie. going faster, going slower, making bold choices, settling on a particular style, etc)? again, i dont really create a lot of characters, but i’ve always taken my time... i think if anything it has become easier to settle on an aesthetic because i know i’ll be able to update things like armor and color later, to get closer to the vibe i envision. the last character i made was modeled after a character in a different game, so naturally i built his look to follow that particular aesthetic and wardrobe (after finishing character creation of course)

#thank you again for asking!!#i spent like well over an hour on this and had a lot of fun #redwoods words #gw2 #arkus tag #eridunis tag

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