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#i want them both to be canon so they can be the best friends of all time
howlsofbloodhounds · 3 days
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Is yugo a proshipper/neutral? Genuine question because they’ve done some… questionable things in the past (shipping frans, using slurs they can’t claim in a comic (the f slur).
I mean I came across a post that said they were pretty chill with someone shipping epic with freaking Xgaster in march of this year and I was like??????? (Dude?? 1. That guy is an alternate version of your abusive father. 2. He’s basically Cross’s father (y’know your canonical best friend?)  who also abused by him. like what????)
(here the link btw https://www.tumblr.com/yugogeer012/745992208927293440/im-very-interested-in-how-yugo-reacts-to-the-fact?source=share )
And I find it weird that they seem to chill about that, but if you try and bring up epic in any way possible they lose it since they have unbridled hatred towards him and his fans. (bonus points when someone talks about shipping epic and cross, heck shipping epic with anyone male tends to make them annoyed, despite some early art depicting epic FLIRTING WITH METTATON) 
(also here the link: https://www.tumblr.com/sanicpluushy/761634810556039168/can-we-see-epicsans-flirtin-i-do-imagine?source=share ,
and my thoughts : https://www.tumblr.com/talonsirgo/761779011986800640/this-is-even-funnier-when-you-scroll-down-to?source=share)
I'm pretty sure they wiped Epic and his papyrus out of the comic just so they wouldn't have to deal with them anymore.
At this point i've already blocked them for their hostility towards all things epic/epic being gay/shipping him with xgaster and the whole frans stuff. I mean dude, even comyet is grossed out by anyone trying to ship ink with a gaster or his fathers (who are gasters and aren't even related by blood. Not that it matter tho, it's stil gross).
Come on yugo. You're better than this
(oooh btw did you se my where i @ you?? I found some pretty interesting analysis on cross thats been agreed upon by jakie herself, unfortunately it was done by the creator of dreamswap eugh.)
I don’t know if they are or not, because shipping Frans (or used to) and using f slurs while they actively seem to really really hate any gay ships but is very okay with lesbian ships seems a little strange. Potentially fetishizing perhaps, although maybe they’re just annoyed if they were constantly bombarded with sans x sans questions and stuff.
I don’t know Yugo, haven’t finished reading any of the Epictale content and i haven’t scrolled all through the blog, so I can’t say for sure. Maybe someone with more knowledge on this can chime in.
Although, after reading one of the links you sent me, i think you might’ve misread something.
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The asker and yugo didn’t say they shipped Epic x XGaster or were okay with that, they say were okay with Epic Gaster x XGaster. No alternative sons being shipped with alternative fathers, although DILFs (im using this word just because they are both fathers not because i personally want to fuck them 💀) who are the same person are being shipped and yugo at least doesn’t mind or doesn’t care.
I don’t know what their issue is with their own characters and people liking them, but I think yugo probably needs to set some boundaries with fans if they haven’t already.
rather than getting annoyed when people inevitably ship best friends and one of them is their character who they make flirt with men, perhaps they should just ask people to not send them questions about sans x sans ships, or crepic if it really makes them that uncomfortable. and if anyone does, just delete the asks or comments or reblogs.
getting annoyed when people bring up or ask about the characters you made seems pretty strange to me, it’s just a sign that people really like your character enough to be obsessed with them, but i can understand if they got annoyed if epic was all anyone focused on and not any of the other characters. but in that case, they should probably just delete anything they get about epic (from fans) they don’t want to see or answer.
but to allow your emotions and fans like of your character to cause you to change a story, or erase or get rid of the character, just to spite the fans/character or just so you don’t have to deal with them seems very odd to me. perhaps yugo needs to take a step back from the Epictale “fanbase” and stop engaging with it.
they can’t control what fans do with their work and characters as soon as it leaves their own eyesight, and they’d be better off not stressing over it. and fans should respect them, and stop bringing fandom stuff to them like ships or asking their opinions on ships—no one needs a creator’s opinion on a ship.
epic is a different thing, since he’s literally a character in the story, and a sans at that—which of course means people will bring him up and ask about him. if they don’t want to answer anything about epic, they should make that very clear and then don’t answer. Not answer just to give annoyed, passive aggressive replies. I think it’s sad when creators allow a fanbase to taint and affect their feelings about their work.
{ @talonsirgo }
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jo-harrington · 1 day
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Become What You Were Meant To Be (Eddie Munson)
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Word Count: 2.4k
Themes/Warnings: Modern!Eddie, Older!Eddie, set in the mid-2010s, fandom lingo, nerd lingo, Star Wars, typical childhood bullying, angst, minor FOI reference, some canon divergence, coming of age themes, probably poorly written and not edited at all
Note: Happy Birthday to one of the backbones of this fandom, who supports and encourages so many of us, whose endless friendship I am so grateful for. Someone who has absolute endless creativity but doesn't give herself enough credit and grace, who is secretly sitting in the background pulling the strings on some of the best stories I've read and I've written. My muse, my life, my world, my cheeseburger. @fracturedarkness
Thanks to @dr-aculaaa for the beta.
You can find my masterlist here.
Please do not interact if you are not 18+.
Enjoy!
---
Eddie Munson was a nerd.
Point blank, end of story.
It was one of those badges he wore along with Freak and loser and...well, you get the gist of it. But it was a badge worn with pride. He owned his identity. Wasn't afraid to show everyone he came across who he was.
It hadn't always been that way.
There used to be a time when it felt like the worst thing in the world to be a nerd like that. The kids bullied him because he got overly excited talking about his favorite characters and favorite books that they found boring. They all teased him when he wrote stories about exciting heroes from fantastical worlds in English class, even though the teacher told him that his stories were ambitious and imaginative. And when he spent lunch doodling in his notebook instead of playing kickball or foursquare? Well, you get the point.
"You're so weird." They mocked him. "You're a freak. Draw normal things. Like normal things. Why can't you just be normal?"
It was cruel, in the way that children naively become perpetrators of cruelness. And it made Eddie sad.
Because what did that mean? He couldn't draw normal things, or like normal things, or do normal things. Then he wouldn't be himself anymore.
And that was the point where he decided normal was overrated. Why would he want to be normal when he could be...anything else.
He could pretend he was one of the Pevensies upon a throne at Cair Paravel. Or one of the Ghostbusters. Or a Jedi...
Of course, he couldn't actually be anything else; he was stuck being boring, old, nerdy Eddie Munson.
It wasn't until middle school--you know, middle school, when everyone decides to embrace who they are and become an individual--that he decided being Eddie Munson wasn't all that bad after all.
This epiphany definitely didn't happen after a Hot Topic opened up at StarCourt Mall. No sir. Not when one of the older kids that worked there, sporting armfuls of tattoos and a lip ring, told him the pen drawings on the toe caps of his sneakers were cool. Of course not. And not after he used the last bit of his birthday money to buy a cool band t-shirt and colored hair gel. Pssshhh...
So on the first day of 8th grade, he showed up rocking his dad's old leather jacket--the one that practically swallowed him--jeans that he ripped himself and a poor excuse for a mohawk, ready to accept the Freak label proudly.
He also accepted detention for breaking the dress code.
And a grounding from Wayne for cutting up a nice pair of jeans.
And a buzzcut because he'd done that poor of a job of cutting his hair for that mohawk.
But he'd gained a friend.
Several friends actually.
Ronnie Ecker and Doug Teague. They were both in the same grade as him, and shared many classes. And it might have been a little embarrassing, but a sixth grader named Jeff who told Eddie that he was his hero. That made Eddie feel like he was on top of the world!
They were friends that stayed with him all through high school, and when he repeated his senior year twice, even more joined the mix along the way.
Band kids and science fair nerds and...and...and...
He called them his sheepies, and he their shepherd clad in black band tees and ripped jeans.
And Eddie?
Eddie just got nerdier.
Got weirder.
Dug himself deeper into the pit of stark individualism that the close-minded town of Hawkins didn't know how to react to.
It was glorious.
He listened to music that made other kids cringe and turn away and neighbors complain about the noise; he liked it so much that he made his friends start a band with him. They played at every single school talent show until they graduated; they never won and sometimes people tried to plug their ears, but to Eddie and his friend, their sound and that stage was exactly what their hearts yearned for. To them, the auditorium might as well have been Madison Square Garden.
He started playing Dungeons and Dragons--started a club of his own design, Hellfire--when he found the guidebooks on a dusty shelf at the library. They were seemingly untouched since their initial publication in the 70s, but they were like a key that unlocked something inside of Eddie. Something that he seemed to have forgotten along the way of reclaiming the name "Freak."
Through DnD, the imaginary worlds that he left behind early in his adolescence opened their doors to him once again.
And his friends, his players, never made fun of him for knowing the ins and outs of the worlds of their fantasies. Worlds like Greyhawk and Faerûn.
Worlds like a certain galaxy far...far away...
---
Eddie's re-entrance into the world of Star Wars had been...an interesting one to say the least.
To Eddie, Star Wars meant the original trilogy. Cut, print, sign the check.
When he thought of Jedi, he thought of Luke Skywalker and Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan and a puppet Yoda. And of course he thought of the dreaded Darth Vader.
Yeah he had his books from the library, a whole extended universe with Mara Jade and Jacen and Jaina. But he'd missed out on the prequels growing up; from being a little too young to see them in theaters, to the whole fiasco of his mother's passing right before Revenge of the Sith had premiered.
As he got older, the need to see them just wasn't there, and hearing from friends and enemies alike that it wasn't anything to write home about was the nail in the coffin.
Until he met one Dustin Henderson.
It was the Jar Jar Binks t-shirt he wore on the first day of his freshman year that got Eddie's attention.
"What is that?" he flicked a finger against the graphic as he ran into Dustin and his friends in the lunch line. "Something from that new Star Trek movie?"
Cue a whole rant about the Gungans and the Separatists and an inter-galactic conflict that made Eddie happily fold Dustin and his band of nerds into the protection of the Hellfire Club.
Eddie still refused to watch the prequels, no matter how much Dustin begged.
"I like it when you guys talk about them," Eddie shrugged off the pleas. "Even better when you guys act out the whole fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan. I'd sell my left nut to relive seeing you and Lucas do that in Wheelers basement; it was the best day of my life Henderson, I swear to god. There's no way the movies could actually beat that."
He hasn’t expected that those little idiots would trick him into a movie marathon for Lucas's birthday.
Even Gareth was in on the whole plan. Traitor.
But it was the beginning of the end.
From the movies to the books to the cartoons, Eddie's love of Star Wars was rekindled. He even spent a short stint as a gamer playing The Old Republic on the old PC that was tucked into the corner of the trailer.
And when a new movie was announced, Eddie happily took his nerd-dom to the next level.
Yes, he was the one to suggest they all dress up for the midnight showing of The Force Awakens, but if anyone asked it was Mike.
He spent hours on a stupid Boba Fett costume. It was a different set of skills to the mini-figures he was used to crafting for DnD. He had to think on a different scale. Hot glue and spray paint and too much cardboard. Only to find real cosplayers used foam, not cardboard. His paychecks from Thatcher Tires went straight to the project, until he had something halfway decent for the premiere.
"What?" he laughed along with his friends when they joked about the hot glue spiderwebs that he'd been too lazy to clean up. "It's not like I'll have to do this again; we're not dressing up next time."
Or so he thought...
There was something so magical about sitting in a movie theater, in the middle of December, at midnight, surrounded by other people who decided to dress up for the occasion, and a few dozen plastic lightsabers all lit up.
To listen to the theme, to read the crawl on a big screen, to see the camera pan down into the vastness of stars...
This was what it was to be a nerd.
There was something extra special about finding a new favorite character. Something that touched something deep down inside of you when you saw something of yourself in them.
And Eddie had always been drawn to the villains. Whether in the media he consumed or the characters he created for DnD. He knew why; he wasn't totally oblivious. To be the hero of his own story, he often had to become a villain to someone else.
Besides, villains always had a little bit more fun.
So when Kylo Ren first made his way on screen, Eddie knew that he was done for.
The mask, the lightsaber, the Dark Side of the Force, the anger...how many times had he almost given in to the anger he felt at being mocked and teased. He'd overcome that time and again; what if he'd just given in?
There was also something about being Al Munson Han Solo's son.
Yeah. He could understand the anger there.
But then he was also Elizabeth Leia's son...the conflict.
It took Eddie a few days to get over the initial flurry of thoughts after seeing Force Awakens for the first time. That was when he realized he needed to see it again. And again. A matinee showing on Christmas Eve with Wayne, who he also treated to lunch. The last showing on a Thursday in January. Another outing with the guys, refusing to admit that he'd already seen it a few times between opening night and then.
Thankfully, this time, Mike was the mastermind behind their plans for the next movie as they waited for the previews to finish.
"So," Mike sat up straight. "I think I wanna get an early dibs on dressing up like Poe when Episode 8 comes out."
"I think I wanna try my hand at making an Admiral Ackbar costume," Dustin said with utter confidence, and then turned to Eddie. "What about you?"
It caught Eddie off-guard for a second; should he just say Kylo? Did they expect him to want to dress up as anyone else? Maybe they thought that he would want to be Poe, leader of their misfit group as he was.
"Eddie's obviously Kylo," Jeff piped up. Eddie's head immediately turned to him. "What? Don't think we didn't watch you drool over that lightsaber last time."
"And his ship?" Gareth cackled one seat over. "Fuck the Falcon. I swear, if you could turn the van into something that looked like that ship..."
"Oh my god, you're right!" Lucas cackled.
"Hey I think I could figure out a pretty convincing Snoke," Eddie argued, trying to deflect their teasing, but secretly pleased that he'd gotten exactly what he wanted.
And that his friends knew him so well.
---
For two years, Eddie worked on his costume.
Two. Years.
He was practically a different person by the time of the Last Jedi's opening night.
And yeah his motivation faltered, but he never quit.
It was strange, the need to perfect the costume. He’d almost given up many times. When there was a certain skill he wasn't good at or when he'd felt like it would never be finished. Every time, he felt like that silly kid who everyone just told to be normal. To like normal things.
He was growing up. He was a grown up! Shouldn’t he be passed all of this…silliness? Everyone else in the world seemed to think so, as they put away all the frivolities of childhood. Were they working round the clock and pricking their fingers on needles and burning themselves with hot glue?
Probably not.
Eddie found himself still stuck there, watching a world lose its joy and think that it was normal, and he always wondered if he should try to be normal too. For once in his life. The first time in his life.
But every time he thought about letting it all go, about putting his dream aside...something would come and drive him to keep going.
New promotional images, a new trailer. Especially the ones focused on Kylo himself.
"Let the past die," Kylo Ren grumbled in the voice over. "Kill it if you have to."
That became Eddie's driving force.
He owed it to himself to finish. He owed it to his younger self...not to let his dream die...to keep being weird and nerdy and happy.
"Let the past die," Eddie told himself as he stitched the hem of the tunic the week before opening night.
"Kill it if you have to," he said as he distressed the plastic helmet that he'd ordered, giving it the right amount of realism so it didn't just look like something so fake and commercial.
"Let the past die," his child self muttered, front teeth missing from the day Johnny B pushed him over on the playground because he was playing superheroes wrong. Eddie put a hand on his head and then stepped into his boots.
"Kill it if you have to," his preteen self urged him, self-assured, mohawk looking stupider than he realized way back when. Eddie flicked his ear good-naturedly before adjusting the cape on his shoulders.
There he stood--Eddie Munson, the young man, the freak, the nerd--in his bedroom before the mirror. He was adorned in pieces of foam and layers of fabric from the craft store, helmet tucked under his arm.
But in the mirror itself? There was Kylo Ren...there he was as Kylo Ren. In the hallway of a Star Destroyer, layered in armor and the shadows of the Dark Side itself, like he was ready for a battle with the Resistance.
Ready for the battle within himself.
But there was no battle, and the armor was actually Eddie's skin. This was his real self, his true self. All of his work came to fruition, all of the time and effort that he put into the craft. Not just two years working on a costume, but an entire lifetime poured into becoming an Eddie Munson who proudly wore the title nerd and freak and loser.
The destroyer melted away, and he was back in his bedroom once again. Surrounded by posters and books and drawings, by all of his crafts and his guitars and his endless clutter.
He smiled at himself, feeling lighter than he had in a long time.
Eddie Munson was a nerd, and as he lit the lightsaber and he was washed in a glow of crackling red light, he knew that this was who he was always meant to be.
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this is not a request or anything, you write what You want, but this idea entered my brain and i need to put it Somewhere so your inbox it is. dimension swap crossover between canon dbd and your msi au where something causes the two charleses to swap places
Oh, this would be fun!
MSI!Charles would be immediately 1000x more protective over an Edwin that didn't survive his ordeal and died at 16. I think there would be a bit of a learning curve with them adjusting to a Charles who is older (physically speaking) than canon!Edwin.
That being said, I can see Edwin being very flustered over an older Charles who wears a suit and maybe has a bit of stubble. Though since MSI!Charles isn't a ghost, he'd probably miss being touched by his own Charles.
On an angstier note, I imagine it would cause canon!Edwin a lot of uncertainty to realize that there's a universe out there where Charles survived his hypothermia and internal bleeding. Could his Charles have been saved? Had Edwin not been there, would Charles eventually have left the attic to get help? Did Edwin accidentally kill him with his act of kindness?
The Night Nurse would be very weirded out to be confronted with a Charles who suddenly respects her and doesn't refer to her as "Charlie." He does slip up and call her "Nursie" once and she feels like they're back on solid ground.
I think canon!Charles would be bewildered by the MSI. What do you mean, he and Edwin work for a secret sort-of government agency now? And what do you mean the Night Nurse is their boss? He has to wear a bloody suit to work? Why the fuck are Brad and Hunter his coworkers? Shouldn't they be in America? Or in Hell?
Also, why is twentysomething Edwin so fit? Why are his shoulders so broad? When the fuck did that happen?
I can see MSI!Edwin being charmed and exasperated by a perpetually 16-year-old Charles prone to throwing himself into danger with even more frequency and enthusiasm than his own Charles, as well as being horrified that there's a universe out there where his best friend died so young.
Canon!Charles would have feelings about the fact that in the MSI universe, Edwin has been sporadically hooking up with Thomas for years. If he finds out about the supply closet rendezvous, he might go hunting Thomas down with his cricket bat.
MSI!Crystal and Niko are delighted to watch a skinny teenage Charles following their Edwin around like a bodyguard. Niko doesn't know why this Charles hugged her for like 10 minutes when he first met her, but she thought it was sweet.
If both Charleses and both Edwins are briefly in the same universe, I can see the Edwins squabbling over who had it worse. "I spent seventy-three years in Hell." "Well, I spent ninety-five years someplace just as bad." "I *died*." "Charles drags me to office cocktail hours every month." The Charleses step back and let it happen.
First reason this could never actually happen in the MSI universe: canon!Edwin, with the benefit of having been studying the supernatural for decades more than MSI!Edwin and being an actual supernatural creature, could probably figure out what had kidnapped MSI!Edwin and how to stop it with an afternoon of research.
Reason #2: Not sure which, if either, of the Payneland pairings would have gotten together yet, but I can totally see one of the Charleses looking at the other Charles, thinking, "Huh, I think he's in love with his Edwin" and then getting slapped in the face with one hell of a realization.
For anyone wondering what the MSI is:
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wintr-wandr · 8 months
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[fanart 💛] I bought the art book for Octopath II/CotC. One of Partitio's scrapped designs was really cute and good!! I drew him being friends with his final design counterpart 💛
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possamble · 3 months
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I'm not allowed to be on social media for more than two seconds today but I just wanted to say that Laios will absolutely have his own reaction to all this as someone who would die for Falin but has also imprinted on Marcille as his Emotional Support Comphet White Girl Not-Girlfriend along the way
#a little creature#sometimes i look at the way i want marcille to be the closest thing hes ever had to a girlfriend but in a 100% platonic way and im like#is this what they mean by queerplatonic or have i just never had a dude best friend who wasnt like. a super fruity gay twink#anyway its gonna be as hard on him as it is for us bc he loves them both so much#the most important women in his life bar none#marcille probably slapped him when she got back tho. like she just saw his face and all the misdirected anger at him 'taking falin' just#rose up and burst again#its ok tho. you know she immediately broke down crying in his arms again blubbering incoherently bc she felt bad but also shes still mad#and she just doesnt know what to do with herself#the hardest part about this fic is that like. there are SO many juicy things going on offscreen#but. i have to breathe deep and keep calm and let them happen out of falin's POV#the ryoko kui method. what happens in the story happens and what happens outside can be explored in extras if need be#edit: also just figured out why ive been chafing a *little* bit against ppl assuming that it's the fear of falin dying that motivated#marcille's denial of her feelings so far#bc it's technically true but something just didn't sit right and i didn't wanna say anything until i figured it out#in little creature she has in part already realized that falin's passing is going to hurt no matter what she does right now#bc she's already passed the threshold of preemptive grief and sealed her own fate by how much she cares about falin#so it's not really... about that as much as it would have been during the canon story#it's just that. to acknowledge that she has romantic feelings for falin means recontextualizing their relationship in a way where#she has been the one hopelessly chasing while falin didn't realize/ignored her for the most part#and she couldnt allow that to be true both bc she couldnt bear to make falin the 'villain' in her love story#and bc she subconsciously knew the scope of pain would be too much for her to handle#so now my problem is. how do i make that clear in the fic from falin's POV without getting too heavy handed about it
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crimeronan · 1 year
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there's ALSO hilarity potential in the princess luz AU w amity being like "okay. so he's your cousin on a technicality but like barely acts like your cousin and is basically your brother but you don't call him your brother and you guys are a lot weirder and clingier than i've ever been with my siblings but you're also definitely not lovers so what..... what DO you call him" and luz being like "he's just hunter :) he's my special little guy :)" while hunter, who's been listening to and watching this entire exchange bc he's around luz All The Fucking Time, is like [inb4 amity can say it herself] "i'm her pet dog. woof."
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end-orfino · 5 months
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droners might have some flaws but i really think that if someone wants to write a proper rivals to lovers dynamic then they should study whatever hannah and corto have as a reference
#like just. i have heard a bunch of people complain about enemies to lovers dynamics sometimes accidentally turning out to just be toxic#because of the writers not nailing down the jackpot of the hostility from both parties being balanced#and also other reasons. and i myself have my own too. bcs its just not an easy dynamic to write#but genuiely so far? so far these two have none of these issues#their relationship goes from hating each other to considering each other a more respected rival to genuine friends in a great way that-#-doesnt feel rushed or unnatural#and they're unified by having far more similarities than you'd think they'd have at first glance. which was both why they hated each other#and why they work so great now that they're friends#AND their haterism towards each other back when they werent friends was very balanced and equal. they both hated each others guts lmao#and now that they're friends they still bicker but it was said directly that now its just how they act when racing is involved & theyre-#competing against each other. like that one 'best friends off court sworn enemies on it. athletes understand' meme#and outside of it they're genuiely friends and like each other#and EVEN DURING RACING. HAVE YOU SEEN THE MECHANIX RACE#their bickering during the race is pure fun for them they're LAUGHING TOGETHER it's so great#PLUS THE SHOW WENT OUT OF ITS WAY MORE THAN ONCE TO SHOW HOW WELL THEY CAN SYNCHRONIZE.#HOW WELL THEY CAN WORK TOGETHER.#i could say more. i could say more about them. but just know that the droners yuri is real#for the record though they're not. canon. i dont want to queerbait anyone on accident.#but i havent seen a single fan that wouldnt agree that they have something going on there#which even with a fandom this small is saying something
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welcometogrouchland · 2 years
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Darius 🤝 Willow
Beefing with the blights in complex, somewhat homoerotic ways
#ramblings of a lunatic#the owl house#willow park#darius deamonne#this has always been my vision of their dynamic/how they parallel each other#IF we are to believe the dana gallery nucleus art that positions them as parallels#it's like. if darius was confident and sunny and bright as a teen but had problems showing vulnerability#possibly afraid of losing status/respect#then that lack of vulnerability followed him into adulthood making him the aloof person we know today cause he never had his ftf breakdown#BUT ALSO. i think abt this too. blights are just like oops! I'm gonns give this person massive abandonment issues!#this will make me feel bad too!! i will suffer because of this but i don't know other ways to live!!!#(at least. that's how i envision the darius/alador breakup i know it's very vague in canon)#(but like. compare how happy they were as kids to how miserable they can both be as adults. they are worse off for this)#i think it'd be neat if willow was the person who nudged darius back towards alador#bc she knows what it's like being hung up on someone you're convinced hates you. it sucks!!#and she's so so forgiving as long as she feels like the person she's forgiving is actually going to put in effort to change#(hence how after Amity follows through on her promise from understanding willow to not let Boscha bully willow anymore-#-IN wing it like witches THEN we see amity get to be a part of the best friend montage. she followed through and that proves she's trying)#(and then obviously hunter stuck his neck out for them with nothing to gain after her hurt them and that showed her that he can learn-#-and change for the better and hence she gave him that opening if he wanted it)#(it's still his responsibility to be a good friend but she'll try if he will. willows forgiving but she's not a doormat)#(and i feel like she wants to know the ppl in her life see her as someone worth improving for bc of her self worth issues)#ANYWAY that was a long winded way of saying she'd have a valuable perspective to lend to darius who seems to be similar to her in many ways#anyway what if i cried abt them
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cringefaildiaz · 1 year
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Don't get we wrong, I feel hopeful too, specially with the whole network change because it means the series has an actual shot of going back to the way it used to be. I feel like lately the emergencies don't have that spark anymore, so I'm looking forward to see what ABC does with them. Also, let's cross our fingers and think that they'll actually give a damn about promo and they'll use (at least in social media) what attracts more attention... I mean, if the answer is a couple of firefighters that are raising a child together, I wouldn't mind.
However, what makes me mad is that by the time they were working on the finale they weren't sure if they were going to come back or not. From what it looks like, all the characters will get a sort of happiesh?) ending just in case, because again, the ABC move back then was not a sure thing.
They did that with The Resident. Sure, at first it was supposed to be a season finale, but they still did an ending that could be interpreted as both options: season finale or series finale. Well, it was cancelled so at the end they at least got a chance to leave the characters in a good place.
That's what will happen with 911 this season, I believe, because after almost six years the show at least deserved a decent ending if for one reason or the other they were not coming back.
My point is, we know that it's not going to be an open ending, and that all the characters will be left in a good place. I know there are a lot of possibilities, but we are talking about miss Kristen Reidel, it wouldn't surprise me if Buck and Eddie end this season with Natalia and Marisol, representing a "traditional" conclusion for both characters.
It wasn't hard to leave them single, if she truly didn't want Buddie to happen, but she just had to bring two random characters for the last four episodes of the season, right? If I follow her previous patterns, what will happen is that for the general audience, Buck and Eddie will end in "heathy" relationships with Natalia and Marisol, but they will share a significant moment together that's up to interpretation for the internet. Classic queerbaiting behavior me thinks.
I'm aware that now we are far from losing the war, especially if we consider that ABC has a different target audience and that they actually tend to listen to them. So, Buddie truly has a chance of happening now.
At the end, what I'm trying to say is, I feel optimistic for the ABC move, but I'm also frustrated because if that had been the series ending, that woman would have given a poor conclusion to Buck and Eddie just because yolo?) There was no reason to have those two random characters with them.
Buddie has a second chance, but I hope and pray to the universe that ABC will realize what they have in their hands and even if *she stays, they will overule her bad takes, not only on Buddie, but for the show in general, that move was not a cheap one. If they really want for the series to last, changes need to be made.
It's also sad to think that if they had stayed at FOX or if they had cancelled the series, we never really had a chance to win, huh. Homophobia will always prevail, no matter what.
The thing with this, anon, is that mostly I think it's a really fair reading of what's been going on. I just read the information we have really differently.
I definitely agree with you that the emergencies have been meh for a while now, but to me that's just a symptom of being 6 seasons deep into a procedural; a new network might breathe a little more life into it, and I hope it does, but I've never watched a show through a network switch so I'm pretty 🤷🏻‍♀️ on how much it's gonna affect the actual content. Def hoping for more promo though.
I get what you're saying about all the character's getting a "happy-ish" ending because they didn't know about season renewal but....isn't that always how it is? Like, I don't personally see much of a difference between where it seems they're gonna leave off 6x18 than any of the other finales we've had.
And I get why a finale where one or both of the boys are in a relationship with a woman would be disappointing if we're reading it from a "they thought this might be the last episode they were ever making" angle (but I am BEGGING someone to show me what KR has said or done that makes y'all believe she hates buddie. Because I was watching casually through most of s5, I missed all that. And from the show itself, I don't get that impression at all. I am genuinely asking PLEASE i need context). But, while I've always been a buddie girlie, 6b is literally the first time I've ever thought they might actually do it. And I've been really confident since 6x13 and the interview about the couch being in play until the very last scene of the season (and still am) that the closing shot of this season is gonna be the three boys on the Diaz couch. It's just the only thing I see as a possible resolution. Not to say you can't read that as a "open for interpretation" fan service moment, but until I know exactly why people think KR is fundamentally opposed the idea of buddie together, I'm gonna be reading it the way the text tells me to.
Because while I've become a bit of a buddie truther in 6b, they're not in a place where getting together by the end of the season would make....any sense. A lot of people disagreed with me on that, but that's been my stance since like, early s6. Just cuz there was no development for them in the first half of the season at ALL, and we knew how jam packed 6b was gonna be with other plotlines with other characters. They've got a lot of growing to do before buddie canon would even be satisfying imo. I just really believe we might be on that track now.
And with that in mind, here's my perspective on the ending IF they were writing it thinking they might never write another episode again: Buck can and should end up alone at the end of the season. He should really concretely know what he's looking for, in the way he didn't when he dumped Taylor. Having Buck explore the opportunity to date someone who is fascinated by his experiences but not actually interested in him is a great way to do that, imo. Him walking away from that and realizing he needs to find someone who will, in Oliver's words, meet him where he's at. I really cannot see Natalia being relevant beyond the finale at all, and if I'm wrong, I'm gonna start seriously questioning the writers, because they've told us she's not it for him (like, even my friends who watch the show very casually were screaming "NOOOOO!!!" at the screen every time she was mentioned in 6x15).
Eddie's more complicated though. Let's say, hypothetically, they realized midway through shooting 6b that renewal wasn't likely with Fox, and they didn't know whether or not they'd be picked up by another network. Eddie's been on this little journey of self discovery about wanting a partner, and has accepted the fact that he's lonely. Ending the show with Eddie in his single status quo would be sad as hell for the GA! We have to remember, we are not the only ones watching this show, and the vast majority are not seeing buddie as romantic options for each other. That can change, I really hope it does change, I am optimistic that it WILL change; but it hasn't yet. If they were trying to wrap things up nicely, with everyone in a pretty good spot, I can see why shoving relatively-underutilized Eddie with a nice girl would be a good way to do that. Easy to undo if they got a s7, but also a lot easier to convince the GA of a love interest for Eddie being good for him, just because he's not as big of a deal to the show (which I hate. I love Eddie I want him to have the world. But Buck is the main character on this show, let's be real)
That's not to mention that this is all speculation; we don't have any idea what's gonna happen with these two women. I'm standing pretty firm in my belief that they won't end the season in relationships, but I could be wrong. And if I'm wrong about Eddie, I can see why they'd make that choice and I'm not even a little mad at it. If I'm wrong about Buck, and he ends up in a clearly doomed relationship with Natalia, I'm less cool with that, but I can see the opportunities for s7 and assume that they were working under the assumption that they'd get a renewal somewhere. If Buck ends up in a seemingly perfect and happy relationship with Natalia, my faith in the writers is gonna plummet, not because queerbaiting, but because they told us it was doomed in 6x15, and it would make it clear to me that the writers don't even know what kind of stories they want to tell on a micro, episode to episode level. But I really can't imagine that happening.
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dutybcrne · 1 year
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One-sided Kaebedo idea. Not for angst, but for just the sheer absolute PUPPY MODE Kae would be in trying to make himself useful to Albedo and Albedo realizing okay yeah, maybe it IS kind of cool to have someone THAT dedicated to you helping out with shit-
#☆ ┆ ( .ooc. );#//Kae confessing to him while drunk or smth; Bedo politely (bluntly) declining bc he doesn't feel the same#//Kae; even mortified his drunk self revealed such a thing; asking if he could still SHOW/act on his feelings in the form of Acts of Service#//Bedo letting him after they both carefully negociate boundaries and do's/don'ts#//No angst bc Kae is DEFFO not emotionally ready for any relationship but content he can still show his love and be Useful to him#//Honestly; I think Kae would prefer that arrangement over being genuinely reciprocated anyways#//Even reassuring Bedo he doesn't ever need to give him anything back; just let Kae help him with stuff. That's all he'll ask#//Bc the best part is getting to actively take care of/help sb he admires without getting snarked over it/refused in a way that Hurts#//That's all Kae'd ever want out of the arrangement and gives Bedo no pressure to give more than he can bear/is able#//Bedo getting to see how dedicated and hardworking Kae actually is; realizing how much more work he can get through with his help#//And gets to have someone who will listen to his every word and soundboard for him (Kae DEFFO works to keep up with everything)#//Someone who would willingly write down everything he dictates including little thoughts and tangents#//Someone who keeps an eye on him and makes sure he isn't neglecting himself in his laser focus on his work#//Both getting to be better friends through being around each other more and bonding over their mutual care for Klee#//Kae would straight up make the arduous trips to Dragonspine as much as Bedo would need him to; just to help him#//Bedo keeping booze somewhere in his labs for Kae to thank him for jobs well done (Kae won't even protest the limit; happy to get them)#//The fact that Kae canonically outright says he's into Bedo got me brainrot once I saw it while checking to ref smth kjdfgg#//So have more thinkings#//Oh my god; Kae being Bedo's extrovert/social interaction shield#//That's another perk of this#//Being each other's plus one to events; Kae making sure to keep an eye out for Bedo and stepping in to spare him socializing#whenever he needs an out#//Or being there to give Bedo a line if he needs a bit of help in an interaction; always ready to help give him an opening in a convo#so he can talk about his research or otherwise be able to weigh in on things. Kae would NEVER let him go unheard if he can help it#//Aaaaand back to draft working I go#//I am getting through LOTS today let's goooo
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vaugarde · 2 years
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btw in this hypothetical mlp verse, twilight and sunset will have known each other since early childhood and were both celestias students at the same time
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hua-fei-hua · 1 year
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as soon as it's summer and i'm medicated again i NEED to write a series of essays covering my experiences switching from the broader social sphere of fandom which predominantly ships m/f ships to the social sphere of fandom which predominantly ships m/m, because i feel like a lot of what we say about the other social sphere is simultaneously true and false at the same time, and i've literally never seen anyone talk about it ever
#the m/m shipping sphere is different from the f/f shipping sphere but both are honestly like lowkey disdained by the m/f sphere#well okay the f/f sphere is lowkey disdained while the m/m sphere is like highkey disdained#but at the same time It Is True that the m/f shippers can get pretty bullied by people pushing their m/m ships!!!!#so it's like a historical beef; esp when considering the fact that a lot of the times our tastes in ships can be pretty informed#by the ships our friends/fan community members are getting into in regards to new canons#i wouldn't be surprised if it was common for some nebulous hypothetical concept of an m/m shipper to be like#'oh yeah in this us v. them argument the 'us' is ofc us gay people [m/m and f/f shippers together]'#but i do think it is worth drawing a distinction btwn the m/m shipping spheres n the f/f shipping spheres#many m/m shippers like f/f ships passively; i don't see a lot of f/f shippers get super actively engaged in m/m pairs even on the side#as a result their results on ao3 feel more likely to have a significant % of genuine slush#like in my experience looking through m/m ship tags it's full of slush (referring to fic that's just not to my tastes or poorly written)#but for the most part if a ship is tagged it at least plays a role or shows up in a fic#but if i'm looking for a f/f ship on ao3 god fucking heaven help me; i have to filter so hard it cuts out >50% of the results#and when looking for m/f ships back in the day it was usually shit like 'one-sided' or 'past' or just incredibly minor passing mentions#like complain all you want abt having to go through a massive slush pile of an ao3 tag listing for an m/m ship#but at least we don't have to literally just come together as a community to make an ao3 collection#just to have a repository of fics that are just ABOUT the pairing tagged w/o being forced to grovel through slush like that#like not even 'these are the best fics for this pairing' just 'these are the fics for this pairing'#also. my hot take. is that a lot of the times people who ship *exclusively* m/f ships Are being kinda homophobic to the m/m shippers#like at the very least the way they talk abt the ships or argue with the shippers sounds like it draws on homophobic rhetoric#like the m/f shippers themselves are not necessarily homophobic people. but. like. it's nuanced. there are trends. i have many thoughts#(meanwhile the gen social sphere exists beyond most of my own experiences but god do i feel bad for them when searching through ao3)#also like. this should go w/o saying. but i'm not trying to categorize individual people into 'belonging' to any one specific sphere#but we as people just generally have our fave spots to hang out n those spots have distinctive traits n flavors#n while we're in there commonalities in the people chilling there start to emerge#if we go to a different spot bc we like being there then different things will be had in common#we're looking at strength of overlap here; not individuals#花話#anyway obviously i have many many thoughts on this subject. this is bc it fascinates me greatly bc i don't see it talked abt#bc for the most part you don't really see people into m/m who used to really like m/f ships the way i did
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pipermca · 20 days
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New AO3 Tag Wrangling Policy and the Transformers Fandom
(This is a long one, folks, but I think it's important.)
A new tag-wrangling policy on AO3 has the potential to create some massive confusion and chaos in the Transformers fanfic community, with regards to fandom tags. There is a Reddit post about it here with a focus on anime fandoms, but I want to give some concrete examples for the Transformers fandom on why we DO NOT WANT this, and why I think it's a horrible idea.
The Problem
Basically, AO3 is looking to get rid of the "All Media Types" fandom tag across the board, either by dismantling them or just not maintaining them. The Transformers - All Media Types tag has been an all-purpose tag that you could select when your story doesn't fall into any one specific continuity. Additionally, all most (see below) TF continuities on AO3 are considered a subtag of the Transformers - All Media Types tag. For example, if you look at the link above for all works in the All Media Types tag, you will see fics that are also tagged ONLY with Transformers: Animated, because it falls under the All Media Types tag.
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One exception: With the upcoming Transformers: One movie coming out imminently, there will likely be a big influx of stories tagged with Transformers: One. In fact, there are several already. However, it hasn't been linked to the larger Transformers - All Media Types tag yet. I wasn't worrying about it though, because I know these things can take time.
With information about this new tagging policy, however, I'm now wondering whether it'll EVER get linked to the All Media Types tag. If that happens, and when more continuities are developed in the coming years (since you know Hasbro loves creating new universes) this has the potential to cause massive confusion when looking for stories to read.
Searching for Stories with the New Tagging System
So let's say the All Media Types fandom tag isn't accurate anymore, because it no longer includes ALL of the continuities (such as TF:One). You will need to include ALL the Transformers continuities when browsing for TF fics.
How many tags is that? Well, here are all of the tags currently listed under the Transformers - All Media Types tag:
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Note that this doesn't include Transformers: One since it hasn't been categorized yet.
You will potentially have to have 40 or more different fandom tags in your search, just in case the author tagged their story with something you weren't expecting.
This massively decreases the findability of a story.
Tagging with the New System
The email response from the Tag Wrangling group (see the linked Reddit post above) seems to be a bit flip in the response to the user's concern. "...encourages creators to tag with the media they intend."
While I appreciate what they are attempting to do, this policy change feels like a solution in search of a problem, especially in larger fandoms with multiple continuities, versions, and media types that are all cross-pollinated in both canon and fanon. While I'm focusing on Transformers fandom, imagine a creator in the DC comic universe writing a story that incorporates bits and pieces from a dozen different reboots.
For example, let's say that I am writing a fic about Ratchet. I am using the setting of the original G1 episodes, but I also am using the characterization of him as a bit of an old man grump. That characterization originated in the Animated continuity, but I want to incorporate bits of pieces of his other characterizations as well (old friend of Optimus from TFP, Ratchet ran a faction-free clinic like he did in the War for Cybertron series, he's got a Decepticon boyfriend like in IDW1 - or maybe even Cyberverse, etc.)
With this new tagging structure, I might potentially have to tag the story with ALL of those continuities. So instead of just slapping down the "All Media Types" tag (and maybe one other fandom tag that matches the characters as best I can), I'll have to analyze my story and try to figure out how best to tag for the characters I used.
And what if you're doing a completely AU version of the story? For example, a humanformers story, or merformers? Using the All Media Types tag along with a Alternate Universe - Human or Alternate Universe - Mermaid tag worked perfectly, since you weren't writing the story to fit into one specific continuity. But now, that might not be an option.
What To Do??
The first thing I would suggest is to contact AO3 (using the Feedback and Support page) and let them know (nicely) that you think this is a horrible idea. Give them some examples on how you use the All Media Types tag to find stories to read, or to help you tag a story. People outside of the Transformers fandom don't always appreciate how absolutely tangled the continuities can be with each other, and providing examples might help them see why this would be a really messy change.
Readers: Be aware that when you are looking in the All Media Types tag, it will no longer show newer continuities. And if AO3 starts dismantling that tag like they suggested they are doing, be aware that some stories won't show up in that tag like they used to. You can also create and then bookmark a custom search page that includes all 40+ continuities. REALLY annoying, but it's a workaround.
Writers: Until they start dismantling the All Media Types tag, ALWAYS ALWAYS tag your stories using Transformers - All Media Types... Especially for newer continuities. This will be especially important if you are writing a Transformers: One story. Right now, anyone who is only browsing the All Media Types tag will not see a story tagged only with Transformers: One. Make sure you're aware of how tags work and how they can affect the visibility and findability of your story.
Epilogue
Ugh. That's a lot of words for a long-weekend Saturday. And maybe I'm overreacting a tiny bit. But my work involves information architecture, and this change just absolutely baffles me. It's almost as though they want to make it harder to find stories. Considering that AO3 won a Hugo partially because of its fantastic tagging system, this change seems like AO3 is doing its best to shoot itself in the foot.
When you have a square hole, a round hole, and a rectangular hole… Yeah, you DO want each peg to go in the "right" hole. But if all of the pegs fit in the square hole, who cares? You got the job done.
I love you @ao3org, but please reconsider this change... Especially for IPs that are as old and are as varied as Transformers.
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Pick One: Magical Girl Show or Rom-com. You cannot be both.
Early in season four we get the episode Gang of Secrets. An episode that ends with Marinette outing her secret identity to Alya. A touching moment that sparked outrage across the fandom because it meant that Marinette had made the choice to reveal her identity to her best friend while keeping her hero partner in the dark.
This choice spat in the face of the exceptions that many fans had for the series. Thousands of pre-season-four fanfics feature moments where Ladybug and Chat Noir promise each other that they'll be the first to know each other's identities. After the Alya reveal, scores of fanfics were written to salt on Marinette's choice to tell the "wrong" person.
Most of these fics feature a betrayed Chat Noir quitting or otherwise punishing Ladybug for breaking their promise to be each other's first, thereby destroying his faith in their partnership. But that promise was never made on screen. It only existed in the realms of fanfic and, when Chat Noir finally found out in canon, his reaction was largely neutral. He never once blamed Ladybug for her choice or pushed for a reveal or even asked for the right to tell one of his friends.
So what happened here? Why did the fans have such wildly unrealistic expectations of canon? Were their expectations even unrealistic or did canon betray them? The answer to that is not as straight forward as you might think because it all comes back to one of Miraculous' many, many, many writing problems: Miraculous is trying to be both a Magical Girl Show and a romantic comedy, but those are not genres that mesh. You can only be one (or you can be a third thing that we'll get to at the end as it's the easiest way to fix this mess, but I want to mostly focus on where the anger is coming from and why the writing is to blame.)
To discuss this mismatch, we're going to do something that breaks my heart and talk about some of Origins flaws. While I love that episode and unironically refer to it as the best writing the show ever gave us, it's not perfect and its flaws are all focused around trying to set up both genres. Do note that I'm going to use a lot of gender binary language here as magical girl shows have a strong focus on gender segregation and rarely if ever acknowledge gender diversity.
Let's Talk Magical Girls
Magical girl shows are shows that center on young women and their friendships. While male love interests are often present in these shows, the boys tend to take a backseat and function primarily as arm candy while the girls save the day and carry the narrative.
A great example of this is the show Winx Club. This show features a large cast of teenage girls who save the magical universe from various threats with their magical powers. Each girl has a love interest, but the boys are usually off doing their own thing and only occasionally show up for a date or to give the girls a ride on their cool bikes or magical spaceship. I don't even think that we see the guys fight or, if we do, it's a rare thing. They are not there to save the day. They are there to be shipping fodder.
Like most magical girl shows, Winx Club starts with the main character making friends with one of the girls who will eventually become part of her magical girl squad. This brings us back to Miraculous.
Did you ever find it weird that Origins implies that Marinette has no friends? She doesn't even have a backbone until new girl Alya shows up to become Marinette's First Real Friend:
Marinette: I so wish I can handle Chloé the way you do. Alya: You mean the way Majestia does it. She says all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing. (pointing at Chloé) Well, that girl over there is evil, and we are the good people. We can't let her get away with it.
This is a bizarre opening because Miraculous is not about Marinette making friends or learning to stand up for herself. If you skipped Origins and just watched the rest of the show, then you'd have no clue that Marinette wasn't close with her classmates before this year. You also wouldn't know that Alya was new in town and you definitely wouldn't know that Marinette had never stood up to Chloé before this year. So why is this here? Why waste screen time setting up elements that aren't actually important to canon?
Miraculous did it for the same reason that Winx Club did it: magical girl shows traditionally start with the main character making friends with at least one of her eventual female teammates because Magical Girl shows are all about the girls and their relationships. The boys are just arm candy.
But Miraculous isn't a magical girl show. The writers have explicitly stated that it's a rom-com and romantic comedies aren't about female friendship. They might have female friendships in them, but that's not where the focus is. The focus of a rom-com is on the romance and Origins is very clearly all about the romance.
Origins as a Rom-com
Origins has a lot on its plate. It has to establish the villain's motivation for the first time, show us how the heroes got their miraculous, show us how the heroes first met on both sides of the mask, show us how they met their respective best friends, and show us how the heroes dealt with their first akuma. It would be perfectly understandable if this 40 minute two-parter didn't do anything with the romance. They have a full show to give us that!
In spite of this, Origins has some incredibly touching moments for both Ladynoir and Adrienette because romance is the heart of Miraculous. It is the main focus of the show. The driving motivation for both of our leads and the majority of the show's episodes. To tell the story of how their journey started without at least one of them falling in love would feel wrong. That's why we see both of them fall in love!
First we get Chat Noir giving his heart to his bold and brilliant lady, then we get Marinette's heart being stolen by the shy sweet boy who never once thought to blame her for her snap judgement of his character. We even get a touching moment where Chat Noir inspires his lady to accept her role and be Ladybug, leading her to boldly face their enemy and call him out:
Roger: I have a new plan, unlike you! Move aside and let the pros do their thing. You've already failed once! Ladybug: …He's right, you know. If I'd captured Stoneheart's akuma the first time around, none of this would have happened! I knew I wasn't the right one for this job… Cat Noir: No. He's wrong, because without you, she'd no longer be here. (they look at Chloe) And because without us, they won't make it, and we'll prove that to 'em. Trust me on this. Okay? Ladybug: Okay.
I love this moment, but it does lose a little of its power when you remember that we had an Alya-driven variation of this exact same thing five minutes prior:
Alya: HELP!! (Marinette suddenly gets filled with courage. She gets the case out of Alya's bag and puts on the Miraculous. Then, Tikki appears, happy to see Marinette again.) Tikki:(raising her arms) Mmmm! Marinette: I think I need Ladybug! Tikki: I knew you'd come around! Marinette: Well, I'm still not sure I'm up for this, but Alya's in danger. I can't sit back and do nothing.
This scene initially confused me because - if Miraculous is a rom-com - then why would you make Alya the reason that Marinette became Ladybug? Why wouldn't you have Chat Noir be the one in danger so that Marinette chose to fight because of her love interest and then encourage that bond with the later scene of him encouraging her? Why split the focus like this? Why give Alya so much attention?
In case you haven't figured it out, it's because Origins is trying to establish two different genres of show. Two genres that will continue to fight for the rest of the series (or at least the first five seasons).
Magical Girls Vs Rom-com
Why is Alya the one to shake off the nightmare dust and inspire the others during the season five finale? Why is Alya the one that Marinette trusts with all of her plans while Chat Noir is kept in the dark? Why does Alya and Marinette's friendship get so much more focus than Adrien and Nino's? Why was Alya the only temp hero who got upgraded to full time hero?
It's because Alya is Marinette's second in command in a magical girl show and magical girl shows focus on female friendships while the boys are just there to be cute and support the girls.
Why do most of Marinette's talks with Alya focus on Adrien? Why is Chat Noir the only other full time holder of a Miraculous for the first three seasons and then again for the final season? Why do Marinette's friends become more and more obsessed with Adrienentte as the show goes on? Why is the love square's identity reveal given so much more narrative weight than any other identity reveal?
It's because Miraculous is a rom-com and the love square is our end game couple, so of course the story focuses on their relationship above all else!
Are you starting to see the problem?
Circling back to our original question: no, it was not unreasonable for the fans to expect that the Alya reveal would have massive negative consequences for Ladynoir. That is what should happen in a rom-com and Miraculous is mainly written like a rom-com. But the writers are also trying to write a magical girl show and, in a magical girl show, Alya and Marinette's friendship should be the most important relationship in the show, so it makes perfect sense that the show treats the Alya reveal as perfectly fine because the Alya reveal was written from the magical girl show perspective.
When it comes to Miraculous, if you ever feel like a writing choice makes no sense for genre A, re-frame it as a thing from genre B and it suddenly makes perfect sense which is fascinatingly terrible writing! It's no wonder there are people who hate the Alya reveal and people who will defend it with their life. It all depends on which genre elements you've picked up on and clung to. Neither side is right, they've both been set up to have perfectly valid expectations. Whether those expectations are valid for a given episode is entirely up to the mercurial whims of the writers!
How Do We Fix This Mess
At this point, I don't think that we can, the show is too far gone, but if someone gave me the power to change one element of Miraculous, that element would be this: scrap both the magical girl stuff and the rom-com stuff and turn Miraculous into a team show where the friendships transcend gender.
At this point, I've written over a quarter of a million words of fanfic focused on these characters (the brain rot is real) and one thing I've discovered is that it is damn near impossible to keep Adrien and Alya from becoming friends. They're both new to their school while Marinette and Nino have gone to the same school for at least a few years. Alya and Adrien are both obsessed with Ladybug plus Adrien is a natural hype man who loves to support his friends and Alya loves to talk about her blog. Alya is dating Adrien's best friend. On top of that, Alya, Adrien, Nino, and Marinette are all in the same class, meaning that they pretty much have to be spending time together five days a week unless French school don't give kids a chance to socialize or do group projects. If so, then judging them for the first issue, but super jealous of the latter.
Given all of that, why in the world is does it feel like Alya is Marinette's close friend while Adrien is just some guy who goes to Alya's school? Along similar lines, while canon Marinette barely talks to Nino, I've found that Marinette and Nino tend to get along smashingly, especially if you embrace the fact that they have to have known each other for at least a few years.
If you embrace this wider friendship dynamic and scrap the girl squad, replacing it with Alya, Adrien, Marinette, and Nino, then the fight for narrative importance quickly goes away. It's no longer a question of is this episode trying to be a magical girl show or a rom-com? Instead, the question is: which element of the friend group is getting focused on today? The romance or the friendship?
A lot of hero shows do this and do it well. I think that one of the most well known examples is Teen Titans. That show has five main characters and the focus is usually on their friendships, but there is a very clear running romantic tension between the characters Robin and Starfire with several episodes giving a good deal of focus to their romance. I'd say that this element really starts in the show's the 19th episode - Date with Destiny - and it all culminates in the movie that capstones the series: Trouble in Tokyo. The character Beast Boy also gets a romance arc and, while it's more short lived, it's further evidence that you can have strong romances and strong friendships in the same show and even the same episode. You just have to own the fact that boys and girls can be friends with each other, a very logical thing to embrace when your show has decided to have a diverse cast of heroes instead of imposing arbitrary gender limitations on its magical powers.
I couldn't figure out a way to work this into the main essay, but it's relevant so I wanted to quickly point it out and give you more to think about re Origins. Have you ever found it weird how Origins gives both Adrien AND Marinette the "I've never had friends before" backstory and yet wider canon acts like Marinette has this strong amazing friend group while Adrien doesn't seem to care about making friends and instead focuses all his energy on romance? Why give both the protagonist and the supposed deuteragonist this kind of origin if it's not going to be a major element of the show? It makes so much more sense to only give one of them this backstory and then focus that person's character arc on learning about friendship.
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gladiatorcunt · 27 days
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- # LEMON SUGAR !
flew like a moth to you (sunlight)
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cw: weird pet play, reader has a vagina, large age gap (reader early 20’s & logan is…. not), HEAVY PISS KINK, dirty yucky icky gross vibes, xmen 2 coded logan, dad (father figure) bf talk and behaviors (old man, kiddo, dad, essentially lifestyle dom-ing you) anal plug mention, praise kink but one usage of ‘bitch’ and ‘toilet’, reference to a canon scene with jean but in this au she was just clowning on him as a friend, scogan crumbs, mentally ill & unhinged!reader, self objectification/dehumanization (?), reader: “i wish a/b/o was real :(”, pt.2 to . bc the dynamic might be confusing, implied unaware mutant!reader
do not copy, translate, or feed this work to ai
1k event. / please consider commissioning me
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Logan doesn’t slap his tip against your cheek more than a quick initial love tap (if a tight awkward handshake from a man decades older than you was a sexual act) but he loves to force your head against his crotch and really massage it into your skin. His other hand holds his dick like he’s aiming to piss, a slight scowl twisting his lips because he’s trying to concentrate. His cigar hangs out of his mouth and his bulky hips swivel as he grinds his precum into your face, cheeks, around your eyes, lips, check check check.
He doesn’t even necessarily want you to suck him off that bad and he’s not even trying to cum. orgasming is a slower pursuit for him these days anyway. He just wants to dirty his puppy up a little, enrichment and whatever the fuck. Maybe you can make a game of trying to catch the salty droplets on your tongue, see if you can spot them when they’re about to gush out and trickle down.
An activity can both be a perverted parlor trick and a form of indulgent self care that trivial things like ice rollers or under eye patches couldn’t replace.
“There we go, atta puppy.” Logan chuckles and ruffles your hair when you manage to lick away a bead of precum before it can drip down out of your reach.
“Daddy, don’t tease. ‘m trying to focus, that’s rude.” You give him a good shake, smiling wildly.
You’re already drunk and loopy just huffing the pure musk emanating from his uncut cock. You hum as the salty tang of his juices taint your tastebuds, luxuriating in the aftertaste like you were chowing down on a dainty macarron. He doesn’t really believe in eating or drinking anything special to make his crotch and the things it produces taste better. You couldn’t be more happy about that, the whiskey sour twang riding on the flavor notes were much more preferable than some biblical concoction of milk and honey. If only it was more acidic, that way it could burn a hole through your tongue and your cervix. Marking you so thoroughly from the deepest parts of your soul, you’d always be empty and every pang of pain would call for the man that caused it to soothe your burns with his saliva.
Intimacy with Logan feels like you’re reconnecting in whatever version of the garden of Eden can exist on Earth. Why can’t it be here? With you on your knees so close to barking into the skin of your old man’s cock, a fancy cushion settled under you with little golden tassels hanging off the corners. You are always so willing to be the best you can be for him, but he’ll never allow your service to come at the price of individual pain. Your eyes flutter and you take one of your many breaks to plunge your nostrils into his thick bush.
Wooden and spicy, your favorite perfume that is undeniably raunchy yet sensuous and romantic. Natural. You never thought you could be so in love with how a man’s pubes smell, but you can’t say that you thought that any part of this would have become your life’s purpose in more ways than not. Logan chuckles and pats your cheek, enamored with how clearly you seem to be enjoying suffocating yourself in his groin. He sharply inhales through his nose when you move up to trail your tongue along his happy trail, lapping at the thinner hairs because you adore each one just as much as every part of him.
“Bet you wish you could live off my dick, don’t ya, bunny?”
Of course you nod and moan as you let yourself be pulled back to where you’re supposed to be, the mothership calls you home and you answer happily with your phantom tail wagging all the way.
You pant, digging your nose bridge into the crease where his hip bleeds into his inner thigh, “Mmfh- hah… tastes good, Daddy. I could die here…”
You wanted to cut your voice break of ‘Daddy’ short, but you haven’t arrived at that particular station in your subconscious to shed your skin entirely. You’re having trouble forming a coherent line of thought and finishing your sentences now, but you feel sheepish about how easily he can box you into going nonverbal, so you clamor to stay afloat.
You forget that Logan knows your game by now, every step and caveat and every miniscule and complicated rule. It’s cute how you’re still ashamed of letting your dear old dad see you in all of your bunny-puppy-deer-kitty pet glory, when he clocked that shit the minute your shaky eyes fixated on his truck’s glove box rather than make a second of eye contact with him. You’re fucked up, there’s something fractured deeper in you that you keep under a diary shaped lock and key, but all these jagged edges have bows teetering on their precipices.
You’ve let him put them there, with a fond eyeroll and heaps of head pats. Thank your lucky stars that there’s something fucked up with his psyche too, buried under all his other baggage, because that first ride home with you didn’t end in tears and your nipples caught in his canines. You got to be a bunny settling down in their deserved cozy den instead of a rabbit relying on their prey instincts to throw the predator chasing them off their twitching fuzzy cotton tail.
You don’t get to hide and shrink in yourself. Not when the curled up needy angel hidden under the layers of you makes his jaw ache so ferociously that it’s borderline bestial.
Baby, you’ve gotta know that if he could, he’d pick you up with his teeth by your scruff so your feet would never have to touch the ground and grow ripe with callouses.
He takes a puff from his cigar and shakes the excess ash over your shoulder, out of your view because he also knows that you’d try to swallow the unhealthy specks down too. It’s a constant thing on his mind, the never ending job of pulling your leash enough to wean you off of engulfing whatever weird shit into your mouth you can see out of the corner of your eye. And if it comes from him or was in contact with him? Hell, the stuff might as well be damn catnip to you.
He thinks he feels the same way about you, that’s what he gets for being stupid enough to have an inch of his heart unguarded. You found a way and wormed your way through his arteries, and now he’d rather go sober cold turkey than let you squirm away. Which is what you try to do by pulling back and settling soft hands on his hairy and beefy thighs.
He’s got you hook, line, and sinker when he clasps a burly hand around the base of his thick cock in the poor imitation of a knot. He even squeezes in short pulses, bringing to mind what it would look like swelling up and pumping you full of potent cum. Breeding you with all the love of a man who wants more of you in the world because that might make him believe in it again. He wags his length in his hand to you, wordlessly offering you your favorite snack because you’ve been so very good for your old man.
“Come on, hun, want your treat? I know my puppy wants this big dick in their cute fuckin’ mouth.” He grumbles, stubbing his cigar out on his arms without even flinching or gritting his teeth and tossing it on the floor.
The burn’s already healed by the time you’ve gotten yourself and obediently let your tongue hang out of your mouth. He grunts, pleased, and dabs his sticky tip on the center of your tongue. It gives you the taste you crave while simultaneously depriving you of having your mouth filled like you desperately need to be able to get through the day.
You whine, Logan’s lips split on a wry smile but he doesn’t laugh this time. Nah, he’s too busy feeding his throbbing cock into your mouth, cutting off your whining and reducing a thunderous sound to a muffled crack of lightning.
“Theeeeeeeeere we go, kiddo, relax.” He says a few inches in, because your gag reflex is already tickling the back of your throat.
You breathe through your nose and distract yourself by playing with the hairs on his legs, drawing little hearts and stars as you take more of his length. Tears well up in your pitiful eyes but you brave through it. They eventually bubble over as your lips are forced to stretch, but Logan’s rough thumb dutifully wipes them away just like how you’d attentively cleaned his tip.
His head falls back with a slight crack and his sweaty pecs heave, “Drank a whole lot for you today, ‘m all nice and backed up just waitin’ for a pretty lil’ thing to relieve myself with.”
Suddenly you’re a bunny hopping off on a mission, no god could pull you off of Logan’s musky cock as you swallow around him. You don’t really feel like bobbing your head and humming today, you’re tuckered out from how late he kept you up late last night. He’s not going to just fuck your mouth without being asked, as much as he cares about you, you’re impossibly cute when you’re forced to do the tiniest bit of work.
If your mouth wasn’t so stuffed full of dick you’d pout, and the raised eyebrow Logan gives you means he knows that. You’re a good pet though, so you work yourself off of his length, take a deep breath, and immediately slide back down to the hilt. His full balls press against your chin and you rub the heavy sacks with both hands.
“Oh, fuck.” Logan groans, his fingernails dig into your scalp like he’s the one that needs to stay grounded. “Your gonna make your old man jizz his pants too quick if you keep fuckin’ playin’ with my balls like that.”
You don’t mind that at all, but there's still something else you’re after. You didn’t think much of how many bottles of water and glasses of alcohol he had thrown back today, maybe it was some sort of mutant thing that you just didn’t understand. Super dehydration or whatever, but the fact that he had been preparing a little surprise for his piss thirsty puppy made you want to give him your bloody heart right out of your chest.
His moans and growled promises of rewards and declarations of the rawest form of love a person could feel fade into the background. You hollow your cheeks and go for gold, wet ‘schlop!’-ing sounds bounce off the walls as you fuck your throat with his girthy cock. Not the longest in the world, another one of your blessings (you’ve heard mutterings about mission showers and some guy that shoots lasers out of his eyes taking that prize), but the way it fills up the space in your mouth to the point it could burst gives your clit tachycardia.
“Yeah, fuck, are you ready to drink up, bitch? ‘m gonna use you like a toilet, gonna cum too- god fuckin’ damn-”
You give his balls a solid squeeze as the golden shower pours down your throat and past the seam of your lips to the floor. You don’t stop your ministrations, you actually speed up your pace and bring your wrists into it. Your hands bumping against his imitation knot-hand as you move them in circles, jacking him off while your plush lips glide up and down his cock.
You’re rubbing your pussy against the cushion, it has corduroy buttons that send a tingle down your spine when they catch your clit. The emerald green fabric drags and moves as you hump it while you put your all into making your dad-boyfriend-everything cum. You’re outright bouncing his heavy balls in your hands now, they’re so full you know that one load isn’t going to be nearly enough. So you tell yourself to lock in and hum, sending vibrations down his dick.
Determined puppies get extra treats, and you’ve never gone without them. So you push yourself to make eye contact, flicking your eyes up to stare at Logan as you ruin your own throat via his dick like it was nothing more than your toy. You think it’s the sheer and essentially licentious mannerisms and the glaringly obvious truth that there are men who are not immune to watching a pretty pet posturize themselves on an altar of their own making just to paw at their owner’s legs.
“My baby bunny, too damn sweet to me, yessssss-” His mouth wrenches up almost in pain as he clings to the back of your head and pounds your throat on his own for the next minute.
“Drink it all up, let me feel you swallow it down f’r me.”
You purposefully yank yourself off of his mid stream and duck down to bob his balls on your tongue, lathering them in that pungent scent. You rotate your wrist around his tip, coaxing him to empty everything he has in him and give it all to you. Your hand becomes just as scent marked as his balls and the divots in your collarbone where drops of his piss and cum are forming tiny pools.
He groans at the sight, “Doing so fuckin’ well, collectin’ Daddy’s juices and hoardin’ ‘em all for yourself.”
Your mouth envelops his twitch dick once more, most of what Logan keeps cooped up for you belongs in your growling tummy.
“You better not hiss at me when I have to wash your mouth out later, baby.”
Thus, your perfect record remains intact, you beam around his still hard dick as you float in a starless sea of white and yellow. A coat rack for cock fulfilling its duties.
His piss isn’t too orange-y, you’re glad you don’t have to nag him about cutting back on the booze this time.
Sadly there’s no blood sticking to your scalp from his nails, but you embrace the sting their indents leave behind. They’re almost as breathtaking as the plug buried in your ass, Dad always likes to keep your holes stretched out and ready.
—————————————————————————
“Girls flirt with the dangerous guy, Logan. They don’t bring him home. They marry the good guy.”
With you, he was that good guy. Whatever it meant to be one after all these years and invisible scars. It’s indescribable, how much meaning you can find in having to gain the strength to take care of someone else completely. Be their Atlas and shoulder the world so they can waltz around you, their wings spread wide. He’s glad, deep down, that your wings don’t extend past the small house he’s stuffed you in.
Logan Howlett deserves a nice thing or two every once in a while, and he already got a bottle of scotch from Scott. Fucker thinks he’s so clever. You’d do just fine being the second nice thing. A shame that the nicest thing you probably have is that slick stained cushion, he’s not anybody to write home about. But you seem to have stitched your sides together when he wasn’t looking, sewn your identity into his until you had emotionally fused into one being.
It happened way too fast and when he thought he wasn’t meant for loving a little pup like you, but he’s tired of being some old grump about it. You’d probably snap and try to beat him to a pulp with the bats he keeps in the closet (for you to use in emergencies since you don’t leave), and he’d have to hunt you down through the
Anything else other than you meant about as much to him as a pile of cigarette butts.
And some time later when the dam bursts for the first time and you’re trying not to fall off that cliff, sisyphus-esque struggling through recurring hoarse sobs because Logan is uncomfortably stroking your back gently as if you were a person and not a corpse, you’ll start to feel the molten hot gold seeping in and filling the cracks.
Maybe one day you can tell him about the v-shaped scars on your back, the ones that look like they were created when something was ripped away from you. They’re slanted craters, almost, hard material resembling bone jutting out from your back. Hooks lacking their ornaments.
Hell snatch up your old fashioned grocery list (written with an almost completely dried out ink pen from the bank on a flimsy college ruled sheet of paper) and make a quick run while you heal more than just your body, submerged in another acid trip of a dream.
You wanted to make a lemon cake before the summer ended, it’s always been your favorite.
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tsxkkis · 3 months
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# tsukishima kei - perfect match
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a/n: watch me suddenly appear out of nowhere after the school year has finally ended to post something!! i'm sure absolutely no one is surprised that tsukishima is the centre of this fic, but tbh idk how to feel about it (it's definitely longer than my usual ones but i didn't proofread it, so idk if the lenght is an advantage or not) but i hope you'll like it ^^ with school being over for the next two months i'll finally have time to write, so expect more works soon!!
summary: you and tsukishima decide to help your friends get together, but the plan is long forgotten when you realize what your own feelings are.
warnings: nothing really, canon yamayachi (my loves), some light swearing, bad writing
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tsukishima kei did not expect any of his friends to bother him in the middle of the night. hell, he didn't even expect any of them to disturb his alone time at all. and yet at exactly 2.34 in the morning, right as he was about to turn off his currently binge watched tv show and go to sleep, he felt his phone buzzing on the nightstand. 
his eyes focused on your name, written in white font on his phone screen, surely shocked by the sight.
'why are you calling me at 2 in the goddamn morni-'
'is yamaguchi interested in anyone?'
your question caught him off-guard even more than the call itself, his brows furrowing in a weirded-out look. 
'if you're asking for yourself, i'm positive that he is not interested.' 
tsukishima heard a sigh of annoyance on the other side of the call and could only imagine the exact look on your face in this very moment. 
'well, thank god, because i'm not asking for myself.' you said. there were muffled sounds of someone preparing food in the background. 'i'm asking for yachi.'
the blonde boy smiled unconsciously.
'he does like her.' the boy stated, turning off his laptop as he put it back on the desk. 'so much so, in fact, that it can be kind of annoying sometimes.'
you squealed with excitement, a giggle leaving your mouth at tsukishima's remark. 
'perfect! now, listen carefully.'
that singular phone call created an alliance between you and kei. an alliance with only one goal; getting your two best friends to finally confess to each other. to both of you, it was almost infuriating how blind they were; how they didn't notice just how obvious it was that they both shared the same feeling. constant blushing at as little as a mention of the other's name, the stolen glances, the very obvious pining - all of it seemed to be non-existent in the eyes of both yamaguchi and yachi.
but lucky for them, you had a plan.
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his eyes lingered on you for a few seconds, as if awaiting a sign from you. tsukishima still thought of your 'master plan' as rather silly, but seeing the determination on your face, and the frown that appeared when he called your idea stupid was enough for him to sigh and go with it this once.
the four of you were currently occupied with studying for a math test coming up next week, everyone nose deep in their notebooks. well, everyone except for kei.
the boy cleared his throat almost theatrically, drawing the attention of the three of you.
'yamaguchi, i think i'll have to pass on the movies this weekend.' he said, the tone of his voice as lifeless as ever. 'akiteru insisted that i go to one of his games, so i guess you'll have to take someone else.'
the freckled boy looked a little troubled upon hearing the information. both you and tsukishima were well aware that the tickets to the cinema were already paid for; yamaguchi would definitely be sad if it all went to waste. 
'well, i guess i can ask hina-'
'yachi, didn't you tell me last week that you wanted to go to the movies with someone?' you barged in before the boy could even finish his sentence, your friend freezing in her spot at the mention of a conversation you had not that long ago, cheeks flushed pink at the mere thought of going somewhere with yamaguchi one-on-one. 'maybe you'd fill in for tsukki?' 
the girl glanced at you, panic in her eyes as an awkward silence filled the room, everyone waiting for her to answer. you gave her an encouraging smile, as if trying to non-verbally tell her to go for it, to use this as a chance to get closer to the boy she liked for so long. 
'if yamaguchi doesn't mind...' she mumbled quietly, head turning to face the boy who was already shaking his head. 
'of course i don't.' yamaguchi smiled, his small dimples showing up in the process. 
you glanced over to look at tsukishima, a triumphant smile on your face as if you just won a volleyball tournament. his hair was slightly messy, and his glasses were sliding off his nose, two of the top buttons on his school uniform unbuttoned, showing a bit of his collarbones. surprisingly enough, the blonde boy smiled back; a small, quick smile that your eyes barely noticed. you had no idea what it was, but something about that singular smile made your heart beat faster. 
don't. the main focus of this entire thing is to get yachi and yamaguchi together. not to think of tsukishima and how attractive he looks- 
shit.
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developing a crush on tsukishima kei was certainly not part of your plan. 
at first, you tried ignoring it as much as you could, focusing solely on your friends and getting them to date. as time went on and yamaguchi and yachi started getting closer, you almost felt a sense of relief - you could finally stop spending so much time around tsukishima, which made your chances of getting over your stupid crush higher. 
but it wasn't as easy as you thought. tsukishima was intelligent, pretty, and his snarky remarks and judgy personality actually drew you to him even more with each passing day. through the countless conversations and numerous phone calls, he proved himself to be more than just a salty, mean guy that everyone viewed him as.
'soon enough, they won't even need our help.' you mumbled to yourself as you opened your bento box, a smile on your face as you noticed your mom homemade onigiri inside. 'i don't know what i'll do with myself then.'
tsukishima scoffed, closing the textbook in front of him.
'maybe start focusing on your own love life for once.'
'hey! it's not my fault that i'm a good friend.' you stated, mouth full of food, as you looked up at your friend sitting on the opposite side of the table, looking through the tasks assigned for next week. 'besides, it's not like i'm the only one.'
tsukishima adjusted his glasses, looking up at you for a mere second before focusing back on his notebook.
'touché.'
'oh, come on.' you whined out, dissatisfied with the lack of response from the blonde boy. 'you won't miss this even a little bit?'
alright, maybe just a bit-
'no.' tsukishima stated firmly, fixing his posture as he highlighted one of the important sentences written down. you heard a bit of hesitation in his voice, and the few seconds of silence before hearing an answer couldn't help but make you wonder. you decided to ignore it this time - he was focused on something else right now, there was no need to disturb him. 
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'do you think yachi will like my outfit?'
tsukishima was sitting at the edge of his best friend's bed, mindlessly scrolling through his phone and occasionally looking up to see the twelfth - no, thirteenth shirt that yamaguchi has tried on already. the boy sighed, turning his device off. 
'it's your first official date, i'm sure she doesn't mind what you wear.' he stated, gaining a frown from yamaguchi.
'you didn't answer my question.'
'alright, i think she'll like it.' the blonde haired boy said, reaching out for a bag of chips, opening it with a loud sound. 'but i'm sure she'll focus more on the date itself rather than what you're wearing.'
ever since announcing to their friends that they're going on their first official date, both yamaguchi and yachi were full of stress, constantly overthinking every little detail from their outfit to whether or not the date will go well or not. tsukishima found it rather comical - it was only a date after all. why stress over it so much? he never went on one, obviously, but he always thought that when the day came, he'd approach it calmly.
'do you have any tips on how to not freak out?' yamaguchi asked suddenly, catching his friend off-guard. 'during the date, i mean.'
'how can i know? i've never gone on one.'
the freckled boy looked at tsukishima, a confused expression on his face as he processed his words.
'oh.' he paused for a second, his voice quieter when he continued speaking. 'i thought you and y/n were, you know, a thing.'
huh?
to say tsukishima was shocked was an understatement. he genuinely had no idea what to say; he never even let a thought of you and him being more than friends, 'partners in crime', as you loved to say, slip through his mind. never did it occur to him that someone from the outside would see your relationship as being something more than a merely platonic one. 
well, maybe there was something to it after all. 
yamaguchi's words made him wonder - although he did find you annoying at times, it was only occasionally and to a very little degree. that in itself was very rare in tsukishima's eyes, as he found most of the people surrounding him at least normally annoying. you, on the other hand, were a completely different case. your jokes, no matter how awkward or downright cringe, made him crack a silent laugh more often than not, and every time he saw you smile, his lips uncontrollably curved up into a small, barely noticeable one themselves. 
'oh, no, absolutely not.' the blonde blurted out after a long minute of silence, the tips of his ears turning a bright shade of red. 'there is not a single bone in my body that would want to date her. now get up idiot, or you'll be late to your date.'
the moment tsukishima opened his bedroom, after walking his friend to the bus stop, he immediately plopped down on his bed, phone in hand, instinctively opening messages to write to you. surprisingly enough, a message was already waiting for him.
'yachi almost cried because of how stressed she is T-T'
'do you think we should spy on them to make sure it all goes well?'
he found himself smiling at the words on his phone screen, quickly typing back an answer. 
'do you really not have a life of your own?'
'idiot.'
only after a few minutes did he get a response from you.
'can i come over?? i'm bored :33'
a harmless message, one might think. in reality, tsukishima was freaking out at the mere thought of hanging out with you for a reason other than setting up your friends, his cheeks a light shade of pink as his eyes kept digging a hole through his phone. 
you weren't any better than him - hands slightly shaky as you awaited a response for what felt like hours, but was actually just a few minutes. you had no idea what took over you; was it a sudden wave of bravery or rather an idiotic spontaneous choice to ask tsukishima that. but nonetheless, when you finally got the response, you felt ecstatic.
'alright.'
'bring some snacks.'
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'kei, i think yamaguchi is he- oh, that's certainly a new face.'
you stood in front of the door with an awkward smile, facing tsukishima's older brother, akiteru, his eyes scanning you from head to toe. to say he was surprised was an understatement - he looked as if he'd seen a ghost. as if a friend that's not yamaguchi coming over to tsukishima's house was so out of the ordinary that it could become a national holiday. 
'come in.' the younger male appeared in the back of the hall, an oversized dinosaur shirt and shorts on. his expression was softer than usual; not until he looked at his brother, whom he gave a sharp stare, signaling him to let you inside and don't make such a fuss about it. 
you sat down on his bed, awkward silence filling up the room. not wanting to make the conversation about your friends as per usual, you slowly realized you don't know what to talk about, trying to think of something, anything, as you began unpacking your bag filled with snacks. 
surprisingly enough, it was tsukishima who spoke up first. 
'wanna watch a movie?' he asked, opening his drawer to pull out two bottles of soda, hidden there so that his brother doesn't devour all of them. 'unless it'll make you even more bored than you were before.'
'well, if you have a boring taste in movies-' 
'says the one who looks like their favorite movie is mamma mia.' tsukishima scoffed under his breath, turning his laptop on and starting to search up movies. you looked at him, a dramatic expression as you pretended to be offended. 
'and you look like you're about to mansplain the godfather to me.' 
a short silence filled the room before you heard the blonde boy let out a short, muffled laugh at your comment. 
'you couldn't be more wrong.' he sat down next to you, a small smile still on his face. 'i found it kind of boring, actually.'
'what do you like, then?'
'horror movies.' tsukishima stated, eyes focused on the screen. 'but tadashi gets easily scared, so i often don't have a chance to watch them.'
'same with me and yachi.' you said, unconsciously scooping a bit closer to the boy as you tried to get a better look at what he was searching up. 'i love them, but yachi jumps at every small scare on the screen. sometimes, she even gets scared when there's nothing happening at all.'
'they really do match each other.' he mumbled, putting the laptop on the bed as he pressed play on a movie he chose. his eyes quickly glanced your way to get a nod of approval on his choice.
'yeah, they do.'
and we could, too.
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'are you and tsukishima dating?'
you almost spat out your drink, the words coming out of hinata's mouth catching you so off-guard you were close to choking. 
the three of you, along with kageyama, were currently cleaning up after volleyball practice, the boys racing on who would clean more balls off of the floor.
'no, we're not.' you said in a clearly sad tone with an obvious hint of dissatisfaction in your voice. 'what the hell made you think that way?'
the orange haired boy stopped in his tracks, his signature smile disappearing for a minute as he got lost in his own thoughts. 
'oh! i remember now.' he said after a short while, his grin coming back. 'yamaguchi told me that you two are close.'
'he did also mention that he seems happier around you.' kageyama added, joining the conversation. 'seeing tsukishima happy must be pretty scary.'
not really, you thought. but at the same time, what confused you more was what kageyama said right before. 
he seems happier around you.
yamaguchi has been kei's friend for the longest time, so any of his observations must be true, or at least that's what you liked to believe. but would that mean that tsukishima kei, the salty, closed-off guy whom everyone finds intimidating could possibly like you? was there truly a possibility that he enjoyed spending time with you? 
as you finished cleaning up the hall, saying your goodbyes to your two friends who ran off to practice volleyball somewhere else, a familiar, tall figure appeared in the doorframe, sharp eyes staring at you with an expression that you couldn't exactly decipher. 
'want me to walk you home?' he asked, hands in his pockets. 'it's getting late.'
you looked at him, trying to hide the blush creeping up onto your cheeks before quickly nodding as an answer.
'sure, let's go.'
most of the walk was filled with silence on both parts, exactly as you expected. even though it might've felt awkward for some, you did enjoy his presence in itself enough that a conversation wasn't necessary. 
the boy stopped in his tracks mid-way, reaching into his backpack and pulling out his phone and an old pair of white, wired earphones, showing them to you as a silent question of whether you wanted to listen to music with him or not. you agreed without a second thought, a small smile on your face as he put on one of his playlists. 
'i really like this song.' you mumbled, eyes lighting up upon hearing the familiar melody. with both of you wearing the same set of headphones right now, you were practically forced to walk closer to each other - hands constantly brushing against one another, a faint blush on your face as you tried to ignore it and focus on the music. 
tsukishima, on the other hand, couldn't shake away the thoughts roaming around his head. he felt as if what he was doing now was incredibly unlike him; and maybe it was. but for some reason, he didn't mind being like this around you. less cocky, sarcastic, mean and more... gentle.
he could feel his fingers brushing against yours from time to time, and it drove him crazy. should he go for it and play it off nonchalantly, or just ignore it? should he even make the first move or wait for you to do it?
before he was able to decide, tsukishima felt your hand reaching for his, heart rate immediately speeding up as your fingers shyly intertwined with his, looking the other way to hide your anxious expression.
his hand was much bigger than yours, but somehow it fit perfectly with yours. as if they were created solely to hold one another and nothing else. the plan to get your friends to be together was long forgotten by now - your mind was clouded with thoughts of tsukishima only, and little did you know that his wasn't any different. 
you glanced his way only to find his eyes already on you, hiding his true feelings behind a nonchalant look. only now did you notice that the two of you were standing in front of your house, the boy adjusting his glasses as he waited to see what you'll do next. 
'i guess i should go home now.' you mumbled, but you still didn't move an inch, hand not leaving his. 'see you tomorrow?'
his hand squeezed yours tightly before taking it away, an unusually warm and welcoming smile on his face. 
'sure. see you tomorrow, idiot.'
but as you slowly made your way towards the door, tsukishima couldn't shake away the feeling in him, telling him to go for it. and as much as he tried to resist it, he just couldn't anymore. 
'wait.’
before you could fully turn away, tsukishima kei's lips were already on yours, a sweet, long kiss that felt as if he was waiting to do it for years. his hand traveled to your waist and it didn't take long for you to react; lips moving swiftly with his, noses bumping into one another before you pulled away, a giggle escaping your mouth as you saw just how red tsukishima's face was.
‘don't laugh at me, moron.’ he said, immediately catching the reason for your laughter as he flicked you in the forehead. ‘your whole face is red, too.’
‘i didn't expect you to do this.’ you mumbled, eyes focused on his as you reached to hold his hand again. ‘didn't expect my feelings to be mutual, either.’
‘i'm glad we feel the same.’ his face leaned in closer to yours, a wave of confidence taking over him as he placed a short kiss on your forehead. ‘but i would still prefer to properly ask you out. if you'd say yes, that is.’ 
‘of course i would.’ you smiled, ‘i'd be stupid not to.’
‘should we bet on how long it takes the others to realize we're dating now?’ tsukishima smiled at you, eyes not leaving yours for even a spare second. you laughed at his idea, giving his hand a squeeze. 
‘get ready to lose, kei.���
‘you wish.’
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