#idk this would really be a rewrite ig

[dangans-ur-ronpas]

Chapter 24

why did this chapter kick my ass?? damn!!!

SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY

Some pre-chapter notes:

soz for the unexpected delay i was moving + starting a new job + lost my grip on byakuya's slippery psyche

playing with my own headcanons for hiro and his backstory actually. bc. well. the original just is not very good at all now is it

tyyy @digitaldollsworld as always!!

Content warning tags: blood, mention of razor (not in intentional self-harm context), minor injury, nausea, panic attack, toxic obsessive stalker Toko, insecurity, mentions of self-starving

< previous - from start - next >

Byakuya drops his straight razor, and it splashes into the basin of his sink. Followed by a few droplets, hot and ruby-bright as it tracks down his jaw, vanishing almost instantly upon contact with the water.

For a moment, he doesn’t move, frozen, one hand still half-raised to his face, still curved in that loose grip. Then he braces his hands against the porcelain edge, knuckles tensing as he tries to keep them from shaking. The cut on his jaw stings, still slowly welling blood; his razor, silver and distorted, warbles in and out of sight with the water’s ripples, his eyes struggling to track its shape. He makes no move to fish it out of the water.

This was his second attempt at shaving. The evidence of his first attempt still throbs on the opposite cheek, near his ear. Despite moving glacially slow, other hand pulling the skin as taut and still as he could manage, the hard edge of the sink digging into his hip as he leaned as close to the mirror as he could, it was still proving to be a fruitless effort. The elegant blade that his mother’s family had gifted him, that he had been using since he became heir, was now simply too large and awkward for him to use. A task that should have been easy after all of Pennyworth’s guidance was now fraught with pointless danger.

…Maybe it’s not worth the trouble, he thinks, numbly. But the hollow, shattered defeatism that comes with the thought is so unfamiliar that it makes him grit his teeth, and then reach slowly into the tepid water to pull the razor out. His stubble was patchy already, especially near his jawline, and any more delay would almost certainly warrant someone commenting on it - maybe Hagakure, who couldn’t seem to keep anything to himself, or Celeste, who would delight in pointing it out while masking it as polite concern - but, at the rate he was going, he was going to draw more attention with a bloodied face.

His fingers scrape the basin, searching at a glacial pace until the edge of his thumbnail taps against the handle. He draws it out gingerly, shakes off the stray droplets, then wipes the blade with a silk cloth. Drying it carefully, meticulously - as Pennyworth had taught him, ‘it’s as good as useless if it rusts’ - before folding it and replacing it in the cupboard behind his mirror. He dries his face with the towel hanging around his neck, ignoring the way the Turkish cotton scraped against raw skin.

I could always just try again later, he reasoned with himself. Not so much as a surrender as it was a tactical retreat; and the results were bound to be better when he was calmer, more composed. He could still do it - he just needed some time.

And as for anyone who might notice it…

…Well. It wasn’t like he was spending much time around anyone else these days anyways.

—

Even if he wasn’t trying to seek out anyone else’s company, he couldn’t help but take note of their own routines, how they settled into their lives after feeling the world shake around them. 

It doesn’t surprise him that Celeste and Yamada have continued on as if nothing had happened at all. Celeste still maintains her airy simulacrum of a mysterious princess, occasionally inviting Byakuya to tea or dinner or a game of Othello, which he declines each time. Yamada, when he wasn’t offering himself up to be bullied and ordered around by her, would be in the newly-opened art room, and Byakuya could occasionally pass by to hear sounds of shuffling paper and the scrape of pens, and the harrowed, heavy breathing of a man possessed.

Ogami and Asahina are similar, returning to their athletic routine, though clearly more affected by the deaths of their classmates. They were attached at the hip before, but now Byakuya never saw one without the other, always in each other’s company, often holding hands - if Ishimaru were here, he might have decried it, ‘No PDA in the hallways!’ in that annoyingly shrill, school-bell voice - once, Byakuya had even overheard the two of them occupying the bathhouse together, when he had passed by with the intention of checking on Alter Ego’s laptop.

(He’d left quickly when he realized what they were doing, leaving the locker unchecked, his face hot and uncomfortable. It was all well and fine for them to cope how they pleased, but couldn’t they have some more decorum about occupying a public space? He was almost beginning to miss Ishimaru.)

…Speaking of Ishimaru. Even Mondo had found something to occupy his time with, these days.

It seemed that after that night with Alter Ego, something had shaken loose inside him, and he was an entirely new person. In some ways, he was even more troublesome than when he was depressed and languishing; loud, piercing, and always appearing when he was least expected, or at least it felt that way to Byakuya. Somehow materializing nearby, demanding to know what you were doing, why you weren’t adhering to some vague, obscure rule that he might’ve made up on the spot. An overgrown hall monitor that acted like every little infraction could mean life or death.

(It was all in the name of protecting the AI, but it was also getting on everyone’s nerves, and it almost made Byakuya regret ever involving himself in the biker’s business in the first place.)

Makoto and Kirigiri were doing whatever it was they were doing. Byakuya rarely saw them, and when he did, he never made any attempt to speak to either of them. It didn’t make much of a difference from his previous dynamic with Kirigiri, but with Makoto, it was almost like a repeat of what had happened just after the first trial. But this time, Makoto never made any attempt to approach him.

Which was perfectly fine by him. Regardless of Makoto’s intentions, his betrayal was unforgivable. There was no reason to associate with him any longer.

And lastly, there was Hagakure.

It’s not clear if the self-proclaimed clairvoyant had given up on Mondo, given the overnight change in personality (at the very least, there was no more need for a suicide watch anytime soon), but he seems to have latched on to Byakuya, for no clear reason. Frequently calling out to him whenever they crossed paths, dogging in his steps like a very determined stray. Chattering incessantly, even when Byakuya refused to deign any of his ridiculous stories with a response, often trying to herd him into the cafeteria so they could “lunch together, bond, maybe share a cup of joe? Even rich guys like joe, right?”

“...Did you mean ‘coffee’,” Byakuya replies in a flat, deadpan tone that was more resigned than irritated, during what must be the dozenth time that Hagakure had intercepted him, and maybe the third time he conceded to the other man’s insistence; if only because Hagakure had been particularly persistent recently, and would probably end up following him and broadcasting to Fukawa or Monokuma or anyone else exactly where Byakuya was seeking refuge, when not in his room.

(Not to mention that he was a little hungry himself, though he could only imagine the kind of common swill someone like Hagakure might consider coffee.)

“Hey man, to-MAY-toes, po-TAY-toes, right?” Hagakure just shrugs, and half-guides, half-pushes Byakuya by the shoulders into the cafeteria.

It’s midday. The place is empty, with even Celeste missing from her favored spot at her table. Hagakure shuffles him into the kitchen, tells him to wash his hands, and then-

-shoves two things at him. One, round, pale brown and still damp, with a slight papery texture beneath the moisture. The other, a piece of smooth, green plastic shaped like a ‘T’, with something silvery running parallel to the top. He skates his thumb lightly over it, and finds the edge of it sharp; a tiny blade.

“Whoa, careful! Don’t hurt yourself!” Hagakure tugs the tool back out of his hand, inspecting his fingers. “Like, come on. I even gave you the vegetable peeler, this is easy mode.”

“...What?”

Hagakure doesn’t explain right away, instead occupied with rolling up his sleeves, tying the brambled mass of his hair back with a strip of white. Arranged on the kitchen counter is a selection of tools, a colorful assortment of vegetables, and a hunk of something dark and pink, occupying the cutting board. There’s already a pot on the stove, and Byakuya watches Hagakure’s hand fiddle with some dark, invisible button across the top of the oven, and a telltale blue flame clicks to life. “We’re making gumbo! And you’re my assistant for the day.” He announces, with the same cadence of a cooking show host. He’s beaming, as if he hadn’t just said something utterly, completely insane.

“...What.”

It’s hard to make out, but he swears Hagakure rolls his eyes at him. Which would be infuriating enough to comment on, if he wasn’t also holding out the aforementioned vegetable peeler out, handle first, towards him. “Gumbo. It’s kinda like, curry I guess? But it’s a lot more soupy.” Apparently not put off by Byakuya’s unresponsiveness, he pushes the peeler into his slack hand. “I mean, I guess I’m not surprised you haven’t tried it. It’s not Japanese, or like…fancy, rich guy food.”

That snaps him out of it. “What,” He repeats, emphatically, with feeling. “Do you think you’re doing?”

“Um, like I said, making gumbo-”

“No, I mean-” Byakuya waves the objects in his hands, and feels only a little ridiculous in doing so. “I’m not- using these.”

Hagakure winces at that. “...No offense, Toga, but, uh…” He hesitates. “It’s…not exactly a good idea to give you a knife right now, you feel me?”

Byakuya can imagine his eyes tracing down his face, to the still-pink line on his jaw from this morning, and feels his face grow even warmer, with nothing to do with the open-flame stove not a meter away from him. “That. Is. Not. The. Point.” He hisses, emphasizing each word. “And - don’t call me that - you said we were here to get coffee.”

He spits these words like they’re poisonous, and Hagakure is still for a moment. He thinks that he’s managed to get his point across, but:

“Aww, Togster…you really did wanna get coffee with me?” Hagakure sounds genuinely touched, one hand pressed to his chest. Byakuya was about two seconds from throwing the stupid root vegetable in his hand against Hagakure’s equally stupid head. “We can have coffee after we make food. Besides, aren’t you sick of the meals we’ve been doing recently? Like I’m not a picky guy, but ramen and bread every day for the past few days is getting kinda…bleh, y’know?”

The worst part of this was that Byakuya agreed with him on that front. Even with his newfound habit of only eating when there was no one else around, or when Alter Ego threatened to stop reading for him until he took a meal, the selection was paltry to begin with and had only grown more unappealing with time.

“Your job is easy,” Hagakure continues, and grabs something hanging off the handle of a nearby oven, and drops it over his face, obscuring his vision for a moment. He jerks backwards in alarm as it settles to hang around his neck, only to realize that it’s an apron - a pale, mint-green thing that’s one size too small, with some still-visible stains splattered across it, and Hagakure had somehow gotten behind him and tied the thing in place already  - “You just gotta peel the potatoes, and I just gotta cut everything up. The roux’s already done, so all we gotta do is dump the ingredients in and let it do its thing.”

Byakuya is still reeling a little from being forced (though, there wasn’t much he could’ve done in protest, with both his hands occupied) into an apron. The things in his hands are so unfamiliar to him that they may as well be OOPart pieces in the making.

Besides him, Hagakure was whistling away, chopping meat with the silver blur of a large kitchen knife. Completely oblivious to anything around him; and Byakuya realized, he could leave right now if he wanted, and it wasn’t like the fortune-teller, of all people, could stop him.

He’s about to do just that when the other man looks up, knife stilling. “Something wrong?” He asks, with a tilt of his head. And before Byakuya could explain that, yes, there was something very wrong with this entire situation: “D’you need help?”

“No.” He says automatically, and immediately kicks himself for it.

“Oh, then-?”

“I don’t-” Byakuya says at the same time, and frowns sharply at the interruption. “I. Don’t do this sort of…thing.” It comes out a lot less assertive than he would like, and sounds a lot more pathetic than he means it to be.

“Oh. Well, yeah, I figured.” Hagakure shrugs, as he scoops up the mess of pink on the cutting board with the edge of his knife and drops it into a metal bowl. It lands with a loud, wet slap, and the bowl rings as it shakes against the counter. “No time to learn like the present though, right?”

Byakuya feels his eye twitch. In some ways, talking to Hagakure was more frustrating than negotiating with most white-collar businessmen, and more akin to arguing against a very enthusiastic wall. “I’m not supposed to do this kind of thing,” He tries again. “I’ve never had to prepare my own food in my life.”

It echoes what he told Makoto, that night he dragged Byakuya to the kitchen to prepare him a meal. But this time, it feels much less like a boast, and more like an admission. Like he couldn’t even do this much.

If Hagakure noticed the grimace passing over his face, he made no comment. Instead, he plucks the items out of Byakuya’s hands. “No time to learn like the present, my man.” He twirls the peeler between his fingers, and it spins, a foggy green circle. “It’s like a pattern, you pull the peeler down, turn it again, and repeat.” He demonstrates, hands moving quickly, with practiced ease. “Don’t worry if you miss anything. We don’t need it to be super clean, we just need most of the skin off.”

And he offers the peeler back to Byakuya, a gleam of white teeth on his face. Deceptively kind, poisonously pleasant. “Think you can handle that?”

Byakuya shoves his hand away, his patience thinning to a thread. “Take the hint,” He snaps, reaching behind himself to try and undo the knot. “I’m not doing this.”

“What? But it’s easy!”

“I don’t care,” He yanks at the ties, feels them come no closer to being loosened, and feels his face reddening with frustration, humiliation. He needs to leave, now. “I’m leaving.”

“Aw, Toga, come on-”

Byakuya reaches for the knife, left abandoned on the cutting board, and there’s a clatter as Hagakure backs himself against the ovens. “O-okay, okay, sure! Sure, jesus, okay!”

Byakuya rolls his eyes at the overreaction, already tuning him out, then starts awkwardly maneuvering the knife to try and cut the apron off. Arms twisting awkwardly to catch the bladed edge against the side of the knot. It’s not easy - he could swear, the blade seemed sharp enough when Hagakure was using it to dice meat, but now it slides clumsily against the twisted cotton, dull as a stone -

“Jesus,” Hagakure says again, but less panicked now that it was clear his life was under no immediate threat. “Okay, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“I am not-”

“You totally are, man. Just - don’t slash me, please, and hold still -”

Hagakure gives him a wide, cautious berth, as if still worried he would suddenly turn into some violent, knife-swinging killer, edging until he’s out of Byakuya’s peripheral and standing behind him. A slight tug around his midsection later, and the apron is flapping loosely against his stomach.

To show his thanks, Byakuya sets the knife down before he pulls off the apron, not so much as handing it over as simply dropping it in the other boy’s direction.

He makes to leave, but Hagakure stops him - or tries to, throwing one hand out while scrambling to catch the apron with the other - “Wait, wait,” He still sounds jovial, but there’s a thin edge of nervousness to it now, residual after the earlier scare. “Listen, you don’t hafta help if you don’t want to, but like…can you just hang out? Here?”

“...You want me to stay. In the kitchen.” Where it was overly warm with a pot of water building into a steady boil, heavy with the smell of various condiments and spices, and pervaded by a general stickiness on the tile. “Why?”

“U-um, well…”

Byakuya sighs. He’s wasted too much time already. The coffee he was promised earlier was looking like a lost cause, and frankly, he wasn’t interested in eating anything anymore either. It would feel too much like accepting undue pity, somehow.

Apparently sensing his impatience, Hagakure finally blurts out: “Because-! I’m, um, scared! To be alone! So…”

Byakuya only stares. Even with his hair tied back, the shape of Hagakure’s head is still a round, dark splotch, albeit smaller than usual. And it bobs up and down like a dandelion as he ducks his head, hands clasped in an exaggerated plea. “Please, man, I literally can’t ask anyone else,” He begs. “Mondo’s all psyched-out and freaky serious now, Hifumi and Celeste were weirdos to begin with, and I’m sick of third-wheeling for Hina-chi and Saka-chi! And there’s no way I’m hanging out with Toko!”

He doesn’t mention Makoto or Kirigiri. Which, Byakuya assumes, makes sense, so he doesn’t bother to ask about it. “How do I know you aren’t trying to kill me,” He says instead, deadpan. 

Hagakure snorts. “Have you seen me?” And then immediately winces. “I mean - shit, sorry - but seriously, I’m pissing my pants every time Monokuma shows up. And at every crime scene, and every trial. You really think I could get over myself to off someone?”

“None of Monokuma’s motives struck a chord with you?”

“Well - I’d be lying if the first one didn’t make me nervous,” He nods. “But I divined how my parents were doing a bunch of times, and they were always alright, so that didn’t worry me too much. And the thing about secrets; well, mine is that I’m actually on the run from this yakuza boss I accidentally pissed off. I owe him a debt of eight million yen.”

Byakuya is certain he doesn’t miss the way Hagakure glances at him then, based on the way his ponytail twitches as his head turns imperceptibly. He decides to ignore the obvious bait, and moves on: “Fine, then. Then what’s your reasoning that I won’t try to kill you?”

“Oh.” Hagakure pauses. “...I didn’t, uh…think about that.”

Right. Byakuya can’t find it in him to be surprised about that either, though some bruised-up part of his pride does rail against the implication that he wasn’t dangerous. Like being blind meant he was harmless, helpless, defanged - he struggles against the implication, but only sickens himself more with the truth of it.

“I mean…do you want to kill me?”

Byakuya snorts. “I want to leave,” He leans back against the counter, feeling the hard, smooth edge of the marble dig against his back. “Obviously, I’m not crazy enough to spend the rest of my life here, waiting to kill or be killed.” He pauses. “And…I’ve been looking into possible causes for my…circumstance, and it’s looking more and more like it would require the work of a trained doctor, using specific equipment to resolve. Which this place,” He gestures around him. “Isn’t exactly equipped to handle.”

The other boy scratches his head. “Um, yeah. I mean I know that much. We all wanna get out and all, but like…do you want to kill someone to make that happen?”

Not in the slightest. He probably held responsibility for the deaths of multiple people at this point, but he had never had to kill them himself, nor witness the moment of their end. Dirtying his hands with someone else’s blood never appealed to him, and it was far more sophisticated to orchestrate someone else handling the messy work.

But his answer must show on his face, because Hagakure nods, satisfied. “Well, there you go! Also, I ran a divination on whether one of us would die today, and it’s not in the cards or the stars or divine intention, so we’re good!” He claps his hands. “Anyways. If you don’t wanna help, that’s all totally cool. All you gotta do is stick around.”

“You can’t be serious.” He scoffs. But he was getting sick of the earlier conversation - sick of talking about himself, sick of thinking about himself - so he stays where he is, crossing his arms as Hagakure busies himself with the ingredients. “How do your divinations even work, anyways?”

“What, you interested?” Hagakure flashes another white smile, and even through the haze Byakuya gets the impression that it’s a salesman grin. He could practically hear the cartoonish chime of a register. “My current going rate’s ten-million yen a reading, but for you I’ll throw in a buddy’s discount of twenty-percent!”

Byakuya gives him the most unimpressed look he can manage. “I’m not interested in wasting money on frivolities.”

“It’s not frivol-anything, man. They’re a hundred-percent legit! …Thirty-three-percent of the time,” He amends, sheepishly, at Byakuya’s withering stare. “But when they’re real, they’re real! With a hundred-percent accuracy!”

As he talks, his hands blur, moving with practiced ease. The small pile of potatoes changing from brown to pale yellow, to small, misshapen chunks, the green stalks of celery disintegrating under a knife, sharp-smelling and darkening the wood beneath it with its moisture. There’s a steady, fluid grace to it, and Byakuya watches on, feeling a sense of deja vu - faintly envious, partly entranced - the last he felt this way, he recalls, was being a child and watching his mother work in her studio, hewing faces out of stone.

He hasn’t thought about that memory in years, and he clicks his tongue sharply, irritated. Hagakure jumps at the sound. “M-maybe it’s more like a ninety-eight percent accuracy?” The fortune-teller tries, hurriedly. “Uh, it depends on how clearly I can convey it, I mean. Like how good the client is with understanding me…dialect differences and all that, though my English is pretty solid-”

“Why fortune-telling, anyways?” He cuts off Hagakure’s rambling. “I can’t imagine it’s an inherited position. You don’t seem the type to be taking up someone else’s legacy.”

“Oh! Well…” He turns to the pot, scrapes a bowl of brown slurry into its bubbling contents. “It was my dad who got me into it - not that he was a fortune teller or anything - but he knew stories about fortune tellers and priestesses and stuff, from where he grew up. It was pretty interesting, and I guess that’s what got me started.” He stirs, sniffs, tosses a handful of green shapes into the mix. “He actually bought me my first crystal ball, though it was just a cheap souvenir thing. I couldn’t’ve been older than, like, six or something.” He laughs. “Wow, I haven’t thought about this stuff in forever.”

“Am I dredging up bad memories?” Byakuya drawls, and Hagakure shakes his head.

“Nah, just old ones. But I got super into it; started begging my Ma to read me divination textbooks for bedtime, she thought I was going crazy. Dad just said it was normal for little kids to be a little crazy about something they like, though.” He shrugs. Another sniff, a sprinkle of red seasoning. “He was the first person I did an accurate divination for, actually. Like a real divination, not just for pretend.”

He goes quiet for a moment, wooden spoon scraping against the inside of the pot. Byakuya frowns. “And what did you ‘see’?” He asks, though only about half as sarcastic as he intended.

“Saw him in the hospital. And then leaving.” He replies simply. He turns, and scoops up the chopped ingredients in his hands, tossing them in with a hiss. “It was clear as day in that little glass ball, like I was watching a TV screen, except also kinda…I don’t know, wiggly? Like a dream. But I got shook up so bad I dropped it and broke the damn thing, and the next day my Dad went to the doctor for a check-up, and they shipped him to the hospital right after. Some genetic, hereditary thing, they wouldn’t even tell me what it was. I think Ma thought it’d freak me out if I knew, but I was just more freaked out not knowing.”

He reaches blindly behind him, searching hand patting at the counter, the cutting board. Byakuya hesitates, then grabs the bowl of chopped meat and passes it over. Its contents splash into the pot. “Thanks. Anyways, the weirdest thing was that I wasn’t, like, scared he was gonna die, or anything. For some reason I knew he was gonna make it, but I was more worried that he was gonna…hurt? Get even worse?” He pauses. “I kept on doing divinations afterwards with a tarot card set, just to see how he was doing, and each time it told me he was gonna be fine.”

His voice sounds a little thick, indistinct. Byakuya was beginning to regret bringing up this topic; he would hate it if he was suddenly expected to have to comfort a grown man. But instead of bursting into tears, Hagakure leans to the side, tucks his face into his elbow, and sneezes, gunshot loud. “Phew! Jeez, the paprika.” He sniffs, and Byakuya’s unease turns back into a comfortable sort of annoyance. “Anyways. Where was I…?”

“...Your father.” He hesitates for a moment. “When he passed away.”

“When he-?” Hagakure turns fully away from the pot to stare at him, mouth open, before breaking into a laugh. Doubling over so and wheezing like he just got punched. “Dude! No way, are you- did you really think that?!”

“What? Am I wrong?” Byakuya feels his face heating red again, with nothing to do with the steam. “Shut up. The way you were talking about it, you were acting like he kicked the bucket,” He snaps, and Hagakure stifles another laugh. “It’s the logical progression of things. You saw him get sick and die, and then-”

“No, no, dude, I said I saw him in the hospital, and then leave - oh, yeah, I guess I can see how you’d think that now.” He stands up straight again, swiping a hand across his face. “Oh man. No, I meant ‘leave’ as in literally leaving, like at an airport? He got better and swung back around, but got a job offer overseas right after, so he never really came back to settle permanently in Japan.” He turns back to the pot, turning the heat down low. “He sends postcards for me all the time, and he and Ma vacation together every year around the holidays.”

So that was it. Byakuya feels an irrational surge of exasperation, as if all his previous pity had just been wasted. “What does he even do? Your father?”

“He teaches quantum mechanics.” At Byakuya’s stunned expression, he snorts. “What, I’m not kidding! He test-runs all his lectures and speeches and stuff to me, and now I know way more about that stuff than I think most people ever need to!”

‘Prove it’ is on the tip of Byakuya’s tongue, but he holds back. He probably would never recover if Hagakure did somehow manage it and make him look like a fool. Hagakure stirs the pot in silence for a moment longer, before asking: “What about you?”

“What?”

“Your parents.” A shot of cold immediately runs down his spine. “Like, I know your dad’s a big rich unmarried bachelor hotshot, but what about your mom? Ah- ” Hagakure presses hand to his mouth. “She…is she, like…?”

“She’s not dead, if that’s what you’re trying to ask.” He replies, stiffly. “We’re estranged.”

“O-oh. Um. I’m sorry?”

“It’s fine.” He pauses, looks down at the tile floor. It was a mutual disavowment, around the time he made the decision to try for Togami heir. She was relieved to be rid of him, he was sure, and he was glad to be out of her house full of stone statues and hollow eyes. “I haven’t been in contact with her for several years. We’re as good as strangers.”

He really should just leave it at that. There’s no reason to elaborate any further, nor does he want to; he glares down at his feet, trying to count the tiles, and watches as the dark lines dividing them squiggle and disappear the moment he loses focus. And finds his mouth moving against his will. “My mother is Genevieve Delasol.”

“Cool.” A pause. “Wait, what!?”

Byakuya scowls and looks away as Hagakure turns back to him. “Like, the Delasol?! World-famous artist lady? With the sculptures? Miss Modern Michelangelo?!”

“Don’t call her that.” She had always hated that stupid nickname that the press forced on her, and so did he, though not for her benefit. It was a tasteless, and frankly disrespectful moniker. “But yes. Her.”

“Dude…” There’s awe in his voice, as if it were something impressive. “That’s crazy.”

“It’s not. She birthed me like any other human.”

“Still! Like, they talked about her in my elementary school art class. Her stuff is so-” He splays his fingers near his head, puffs his cheeks to mimic the sound of an explosion. “Like, I remember seeing pictures of her stuff for the first time, and it freaked me out. One of the older kids in the neighborhood told me she was freezing people into rock, that’s how real her stuff looks.”

“She’s a good artist, but she was an awful mother.” Byakuya says flatly, immediately draining the rest of Hagakure’s enthusiasm. “We’re not continuing his conversation.”

“Right, right. Um. Sorry.” He taps his fingers against the spoon, ladles some of it into a little dish to taste. “Okay, um. Could you pass me some dishes? From that cabinet in front of you - to the left - yeah, thanks.”

The concoction he scoops into the shallow dishes Byakuya hands him is…unappealing. At least visually - a muddy brown sludge that glops thickly off of his ladle - but it smells good, spicy and warm. One of the bowls is passed back, and there’s a conflict of sensation as Byakuya tries to decide if he’s hungry enough to risk it, something that he couldn’t even clearly oversee the process of making.

“You’re surprisingly well-versed in the kitchen.”

“Yeah, well. I get into hot water a lot when my fortunes don’t work out, especially with my, uh…higher class clients, so I had to get used to taking care of myself. Didn’t wanna bother my parents with it, ya know?” He flicks off the stove, covers the pot, and reaches to the right for the rice cooker. Opens it with a sharp smack to the lid. “Like, I don’t think I’ve seen my dad face-to-face in…it feels like two years. Maybe longer.”

He holds out his hand. Byakuya passes over his bowl, and he plops some rice into the center of it, before handing it back.

“I can’t finish this much.”

“Sure you can, you’re a growing guy.” There’s the roll of a drawer being pulled open, then a clatter before a spoon is being dropped into his bowl as well. “You better eat all of it, by the way. Every grain of rice has seven gods, so you gotta eat them all so you don’t get cursed.”

“...What kind of saying is that?”

“Dunno, but my Ma used to say it all the time. Come on, let’s go into the caf-”

He halts suddenly, halfway to the door. Byakuya nearly runs into his back, and just barely keeps from spilling his bowl. “What-”

“Um. Hold on.” The previous casualness of his voice is gone, and there’s a hard thread of unease running through it again. “Uh…wait out here for a moment, okay?”

“Why-”

“Dude, please. Just for a moment.” He sets his bowl down on the counter. “I’ll be right back.”

And then he’s out the door before Byakuya can make any protest, leaving him alone in the kitchen, now uncomfortably quiet without the soft hiss of the stove. He stands there, stunned, feeling a little bit stung - no, irked - at the sudden dismissal.

He wasn’t about to take orders from Hagakure, regardless of whatever weird pseudo-symbiotic-relationship the other boy thought they had going on. He walks towards the door, moving to elbow it open-

“I’m telling you, just leave him alone.”

He freezes, ducking his head down. Hagakure’s voice is high and scratchy with nervousness, but firm despite that. “For the last time-”

“I-I-I-” Someone else stutters. The voice is familiar, and Byakuya feels his gut drop in recognition. The last he heard it, it was seething with malice, spit like venom at his feet. “I j-just wanna l-look at him…”

Hagakure lets out a long-suffering sigh, indicating that this wasn’t the first time he’s had to deal with this. “Seven hells, Toko, I really don’t get you,” He grumbles. “You said you hated him, right? I mean, you said so at the trial, and you did…all that.” He coughs. “He wasn’t interested to begin with, and there’s really no way to turn it around after that.”

“I-It was t-to prove that we’re th-the same!” Fukawa shrieks, trigger-sudden and indignant. There’s a sharp thump as she stomps her foot, hard enough to rattle some nearby furniture. “If I d-didn’t do that, he w-would’ve never a-accepted what h-happened to him!”

Byakuya frowns at that, and sets the bowl aside in favor of sinking into a half-crouch, ear pressing up against the door, beneath the tiny window. What was she talking about? Not accepting my own condition? Don’t I know myself better than anyone else?

“That’s not up to you to decide,” Hagakure starts.

“I-It’s not up t-to you to p-protect him either!” She spits back. “Y-you’ve been keeping him a-away from me recently, wh-what’s with you? D-did you have some k-kind of awakening, or something?!”

“Hey, I’ll have you know that my type is none of your business - and anyways, ain’t it logical to wanna keep away from you?” He grumbles, then yelps. “C-calm down-! I just mean - you know, you…you don’t exactly give off warm and fuzzy feelings about hanging out with people!”

Toko barks a laugh, shrill and mirthless. “Wh-which makes him perfect for me,” And Byakuya feels disgust roll down his back. “I-I know I’m m-miserable, a-and unfriendly and unloveable,”

“Hey,” Hagakure says, a little more gently than before.

“B-but s-so is he! H-he’s just b-better at hiding it, p-pretending to be a, a perfect, white-horse prince,” She spits the words vehemently. “I-if he was p-perfect, th-then maybe, I c-could just be s-satisfied with - with being n-near him, with b-being used…”

She trails off. Byakuya fights the urge to physically cringe at the mere suggestion, instead gritting his teeth, nails scratching lightly against the door’s tacky surface. “B-but, he’s not perfect. S-so, that means I c-can reach him - i-it’s possible for someone l-like m-me to actually be with him,” She giggles, and the sound is far too childishly delighted to suit her mouth, and far too chilling to have innocent intentions behind it. “I-I dragged him off his p-pedestal, s-so now I can actually touch him.”

It’s vile, listening to her. The sound feels like a filth that clings to him, sliding into his ears, contaminating him from the inside out. Poisoning him, paralyzing him.

He’s only vaguely aware of his body sliding down lower, unable to maintain the awkward pose, curled over and unable to brace himself properly against the swinging door. He sinks into a squat, ears straining.

“...Um, ew.” Hagakure mutters succinctly. “Okay, first of all, no you can’t. Pretty sure Monokuma would have some problems about that, he’s all gung-ho about decency and stuff. Second, Toga’s still not gonna be into you. You blew that chance when you, uh…”

“When I w-what? S-strung up Chihiro?” She snorts. “H-he would’ve done the s-same if h-he was a-actually as perfect as h-he said.”

The contamination sinks deeper, claws curling cruelly into his chest. I would have never, He thinks through the tinny, lightheaded hum in his skull, but there’s a sickening sense of dread that twists in his stomach as he realizes he can’t even be sure of that. He might have. He would’ve had no use for Chihiro if he wasn’t blind, he would have barely even hesitated if the opportunity was there - to defile someone else’s corpse for nothing more than his own self-righteousness.

He’s probably had this realization already, but it’s revolting to hear it come from Fukawa. He should go out there, tell her to shut up, to leave him be-

“-a-and anyways, y-you still didn’t t-tell me why y-you’re so obsessed with p-protecting him.” She’s still saying, distantly, and it feels as if the door is suddenly several times thicker than it was previously, muffling the sound dramatically. “Y-you don’t have a-anything in c-common, I don’t s-see why you’d want t-to be near him, u-unless…y-you’re doing it for someone else, aren’t y-you?”

Hagakure doesn’t respond. Makes no sound to confirm or deny it. Byakuya waits, ringing intensifying, disease festering into his lungs. It was getting hard to breathe. His pulse thrums in his ears, too loud to think, not nearly loud enough to drown their voices out.

“I s-saw you with Makoto,” She continues, and the confirmation of Byakuya’s suspicion does nothing to make him feel better. “He- he asked you t-to do this, right? To protect him, h-how nice,” She snarls, disgusted. “L-looking out for his p-precious boyfriend, when he won’t d-do it himself-”

“That’s…that’s not it,” Hagakure protests, but he doesn’t sound convincing, voice so hesitant and soft that Byakuya barely catches it. “Mako-chi’s just…busy, right now-”

“Y-yeah, too busy trying to g-get out of here so Byakuya c-can get fixed, so he can s-stop f-feeling guilty - h-he doesn’t want to have to look at him, b-but he can’t help s-sticking his nose in anyways, he’s s-so sweet it makes me sick.” Byakuya legs shake, cramping, but he forces himself still, keeps his ear flattened to the door despite the nausea building in his gut, the light-headedness in his temples - “B-but it’s too much work t-to comfort him or drag him a-around, s-so he has to get s-someone to do it, right?”

He wouldn’t, is Byakuya’s immediate thought, but it’s weak, even in his own head. Makoto hasn’t sought him out all since that night in the bathhouse because Byakuya had requested it; had demanded that he leave him alone with as much vitriol and firmness as he could muster, and as with so many other things, Makoto had obeyed. But while Fukawa’s words are acerbic and biting, they’re also painfully, terribly logical.

He wonders now, how he must have looked to the others. Slowly falling apart, barely eating, rarely showing his face. So utterly different from how he tried to portray himself at first, an ill-fitted facsimile of how he used to be, how he should be; it’s no wonder Makoto would go behind his back to take care of him. Between disobeying him again and trying to keep him alive, the choice must have been easy.

The fact that that choice had to be made at all, however, made Byakuya want to…

There’s a thud as his legs finally give out, his knees smashing against the tile, but he hardly notices. Not while the sickness spreads, a physical decay in his torso eating away at him, swift and insatiable. He’s not hungry anymore, but he feels emptier than he’s ever been. 

The door swings open suddenly, bumping against his shoulder, and he sways, unsteady. Hands reach out, catching him before he can fall over.

“Whoa, hey,” Hagakure sounds muffled, underwater. He hooks his hands beneath Byakuya’s arms, trying to pull him upright, and only then does Byakuya realize that he’s not really breathing. Probably hasn’t been for the past few minutes. “Toga- I mean- you okay?” 

Of course not, he wants to snap, but talking would mean opening his mouth, and that would mean breaking down into tears like a petulant infant, so he clamps his mouth shut and tries to get as much oxygen as he can through his nose. Slow, stuttered, wheezing breaths, teeth sinking into raw, just-healing skin and breaking it bloody all over again. He leans away from Hagakure’s grip as much as possible and tries to brace himself against the wall, shaky hands against the cool bumps of the tile. Trying to count them, one by one.

“I,” He manages to grit out when he was marginally more calm, ignoring Hagakure’s worried clucking. His voice quavers, and he swallows hard around the shrapnel lodged in his throat. “I’m going to go.”

“Dude, come on-”

He lurches forward, clumsily dodging Hagakure’s attempts to support him, and walks as steadily as he can out of the kitchen. The moment he crosses the open space of the cafeteria and into the hallway, he breaks into a sprint for his room. As far away from prying eyes as he can manage.

__

(When he opens his door later that night, he finds a plastic container and a spoon sitting by the threshold, its contents long cold.)

(He eats it anyways and scrapes it clean, and leaves it sitting empty outside of his door again.)

< previous - from start - next >

[lesbianyosano]

legitimately what the fuck was that

[moonlight-records]

Rich Boys Don't Have Hearts I LN4 (Pt. II)

pairing: Jock!Lando Norris x Nerd!Reader

summary: Formula Ivy Academy, or FIA for short, is the most renowned private in the world who takes such a select few. Usually those from wealth with status and secrets and so much to lose. Yet, you are selected to join the FIA on a full scholarship. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain scares a lot students, especially their star athlete who will do anything to protect those he cares about. Though, he didn't expect you to have as much of a...bite to you for a little nobody.

warning: jealous!lando. also possessive lando again, ig. bestie!charles, MESSY!FRANCO!!! god it becomes SO messy!!! franco is so smooth too. mention of make out. mention of eating out & fingering (f receiving). um idk after, kinda dying like ferrari's strategy by not having it beta read

fc: none!

a/n: since everyone is asking!!! here’s a new part!!! also once again, i opened a ko-fi! feel free to show extra love 💕

wc: 4.5K

part 1 | current | part 3

“Has Lando’s attitude gotten any better since last week?”

“No.”

“Ha! Well, surely he’s been a bit better at practices, no?”

“That, he has. I think it’s because Max snapped at him and the coach backed Max up. Though he still gives me dirty glares during practice when he’s not speaking to me.” Charles shrugs, “though I am unbothered. I wasn’t the one who tried to bribe someone out of this school for people who don’t actually truly like me. Still baffles me that he did that considering how half the school talks poorly about him behind his back. Some are not as subtle as others.”

“Well, everyone has their reasons. Maybe he was more so worried about his friends. Max, Oscar, you—”

“I don't know if I would qualify as a friend anymore.”

“I would consider you a friend if I was Lando,” you admit with a small smile, “friends fight. That’s just the nature of any relationship, romantic or not. I bet he’ll let it go and muster up some apology for being such a dick to you.”

“And you.”

You let out a bitter laugh, “Lando apologize to me? My dear friend, are you sure you don’t smoke anything? Because that sounds like straight delusion. Did you find the delusion at the store? If so, did you get extra because I would love some.” You remark.

“Y/N. I’m serious here.”

“So am I, Charlie. Lando is never going to apologize to me for the shit he tried to pull on me last week.” You lean forward in your seat while making a face at the thought of Lando actually apologizing to you, “Him apologizing means that he was wrong and him admitting that he’s wrong is like hell freezing over or God admitting he was wrong to cast Lucifer out of heaven or like a guy actually knowing where the clit is or—”

“Y/N!” Charles almost shrieks before shuffling closer and murmuring, “you cannot just say things like that! You know how they are about language—”

“Oh bite me.” You groan softly while looking at Charles unimpressed, “The FIA only made that rule because Max was stupid enough to curse at his advisor. Though Marko totally deserved it, if you ask me. Besides.” You take a chance to look on either side of you before looking back at Charles, “we’re the only two here so I doubt anybody heard me. If they did, I think a lot of the girls would be agreeing with my statement and if it was faculty, I will happily take my community service hours because I am not apologizing for telling the truth.” You lean back in your seat with a shrug.

You watch Charles open and close his mouth as he tries to think of something to say and him growing increasingly frustrated because he really had nothing to say besides ‘you’re right, y/n’. You giggle seeing Charles huff and lean back in his chair, grumbling that “ you have some fair points.” You just nod before looking back down at all your notebook. You take a moment before tipping your laptop screen back as you go back to rewriting your notes as silence falls over you and Charles.

“I’ll be right back.” You tear your gaze away from your laptop looking at Charles who is gently pushing his books and laptop back onto the table. “I promised Arthur I would help him with piano and I have to meet him in ten minutes. I’ll be back soon,” Charles is rapidly telling you as he grabs his coat, hastily walking away. You stare, mouth a bit open before just accepting your fate and turning back around. Whatever, it’s fine.

You start finding your groove again as you see just a flash of color across from you. Still, you didn’t even acknowledge the other as you continued to take these notes down. You take a few more minutes to get through the section and let out a sigh of relief. That was one out of four, anyway. Leaning back, you rub your eyes and decide you can take a five minute break. Dropping your hands, you expect to see Charles sitting across from you once again. Instead, someone else sat in Charles' seat.

The universe just loves to test your patience. It has barely been a week since the incident with Lando that you had swore you were done. No more curly hair, greenish eyes, stupid contagious smile, friendly heartthrobs in your life. It was so oddly specific that you were certain the universe would listen but instead the universe decided to test you if you were really done since you now have curly hair, hazel green eyes, stupidly friendly and contagious smile sitting right across from you who was watching you with a gentle smile.

“Franco?”

“Y/N. There you are.” Franco leans forward and puts his elbows on the table, “Leave it to you to find the coolest hidden spot in the library.” He leans over to look at your laptop and then sits back down. “Are you rewriting notes? Gross. I am very sure you have an uh…” he pauses, “photographic memory. That is the word. You already know the things, please put the notes down and have social interactions?”

“Oh why thank you for thinking I have a photographic memory but I do in fact study a lot.” You giggle and feel a blush creep onto your face at the compliment. “I am having social interaction. Am I not talking to you?” You raise a brow at him smiling. “I can talk to you while rewriting my notes, you know.”

“Yes but I do not want you to do that but that means I only have half your attention,” Franco complains as he gently closes your laptop screen shut and grabs your hands. You look at Franco and feel your face turn as red as the school’s hoodie while looking at the other, “and that just will not do.” Franco brings your hand to cup his cheek while looking at you, “you’re always taking notes and talking. I want one hundred percent of your time. Just this once, please?”

You were not the universe’s strongest warrior. The way that Franco looked at you with those wide eyes and small pout. You had found yourself letting your resolve melt quickly as you gently shut your laptop, elbow on the table while resting your cheek against your palm. “Yeah,” you find yourself saying while smiling dreamily at your fellow classmate, “I can do that.”

“Wonderful!” Franco praises as he leans back slightly. “Now, where were we last time we talked?” Franco thinks trying to recall, “I think we were talking about Hamilton—”

“And Toto,” you add on with a grin.

“Right, right,” Franco nods while glancing around before leaning in slightly. “I’m going fucking insane. They have Hamilton coming in as the guest designer for the fashion students this year and they moved the fashion kids into the arts building after that fire. Which means,” Franco grumbles, “I have the fortunate bad luck of seeing Lewis four times a week almost all day.”

“Why is that bad? He’s like your biggest celebrity crush.”

“That’s the thing!” Franco hisses, “He’s a celebrity crush. A crush that was never to see my existence or anything. Now instead of kilometers separating us, it’s just one floor! You think a man that is perfect should be looking at someone like me?” Franco looks at you, horrified, “Y/N. Please. I’ve never been so stressed over my looks before going to class. I don’t know how much longer my fragile heart can take seeing Lewis in all his glorious outfits with all those lovely rings…and tattoos…and stay sane.” Franco drops his head in defeat before looking back up at you. “Well, what about you? How’s your celebrity crush on Toto?”

You sigh and look away defeated. “Sadly, he is no longer a celebrity crush. He’s…” You cover your mouth as you take a moment. You close your eyes before taking a deep breath in and out. “Toto Wolff is…off the roster,” you whisper dramatically while looking at Franco. Franco gasps loudly, covering his mouth.

“What?! Say it ain’t so! Toto Wolff has been on the roster since the day we created the rosters,” Franco stares in disbelief, “What happened? What did he do that was so…dirty that you had to take him off the roster completely.

You stare at Franco before looking away, shaking your head slightly. “He did the one thing that I was terrified of. The only thing that would have me kick a man such as Toto Wolff off the damn roster…he became a full time professor here.” You finally admit, covering your mouth again in disbelief that your worst nightmare came true. You hear Franco gasp again and you nod, “I know. It’s such a sad day. We lost one of our strongest.”

“Here lies Toto Wolff. That man saw the rise of your beautifully curated roster. A moment of silence for our beloved.” Franco whispers as he sits there with you. You two glance at each other and you two break out into laughter. You both lean in, giggling while trying to hush the other so you two don’t get in trouble for being so loud. “Though seriously, he became a full time professor here? Good for him but that truly is a shame. We got new eye candy but at what cost?”

“I know! But hey, at least his teaching style is unique so at least I am very engaged which is really a good thing plus him looking as hot as he does since he’s a psychopath. Who the hell has classes at eight in the morning? I can’t even be happy that it’s once a week because it’s a three hour class that starts promptly at eight in the morning on Monday. Maybe it is a good thing Toto became a professor because this is too much.”

Franco’s been laughing silently the entire time, silently getting more dramatic as you spoke so he wouldn’t scream in the middle of the library. You watch him for a moment before laughing as well, grabbing onto his arms as the two of you laugh.

You two calm down and lean back as someone clears their throat. The two of you look up and your face falls to horror when cold stormy green eyes land on you. You shift uncomfortably as you become defensive. Shoulder a bit further back. Back a bit straighter. Chin a bit higher. You force a smile at the British student while trying to explode him with your mind.

“Y/N.” Lando remarks while looking down at you with pure raging dislike, “Funny seeing you here.”

“I could say the same for you.”

“Ha.” Lando looks at Franco and relaxes slightly. “Dude. Come on. I’ve been looking for you for the past ten minutes, we have to grab Oscar before meeting up with Max and Carlos soon. I really don’t need Carlos getting on me for being late.”

“Oh sorry. I just got so distracted.” Franco tells Lando and stands.

“What were you even doing? Speaking to Y/N?” You glare at Lando. Franco is way too sweet to be dragged into your bullshit with Lando before looking back at Franco. It seems that the Brit has a soft spot for your fellow freshman or something because Lando clears his throat before he keeps speaking, “I didn’t realize you two knew each other. Didn’t mean to sound so rude…sorry.”

Holy shit. Did hell finally freeze over? Maybe it’s pigs flying. Or he’s finally getting laid. It really doesn’t matter the reason why right now because you were still in disbelief that Lando apologized. You never thought you’d live to see the day where Lando apologized in general but apologizing because of the rude tone he had when speaking about you? Did you end up in the Twilight Zone? No no this must be a joke. Okay, cut the cameras. Seriously the cameras can STOP rolling.

“Oh of course I know Y/N! We’re in the same graduating class and we have a few gen eds together. It’s just hard given our schedules but,” Franco grins, “We make it work. Though! Before I leave I actually want to know if you’d be interested in grabbing lunch with me tomorrow” Franco announces as he looks at you, smiling, “could be a date if you want?”

Suddenly the world just freezes and you’re stuck at the library table staring in complete shock at the turn of the events. You hadn’t even told Franco about Lando, not having the heart for his poor heart to be crushed by how Lando could be so nasty. Still, you’re trying to figure out how the hell this conversation got onto the topic of Franco asking you out on a date.

In the heat of the moment, you can’t help but turn to look at Lando as if he heard Franco correctly. Maybe you’ve just fallen asleep and this is some weird dream or something. You come to the shocking yet unsuspecting realization that this is not a dream when Lando meets your gaze having the same idea. You both look back at Franco in a state of shock and confusion. “A date?” You and Lando ask in union.

“Yes.” Franco laughs and smiles widely at you and Lando before looking back at you, “well? Would you like to get lunch with me? As a date?”

“Yes.” You smile while nodding, “I would love to get lunch with you as a date.”

You stare at Franco with a stupid smile. You hadn’t expected this was how your evening would go but you were more than happy about it. You were so happy, that Lando’s look of shock turned to disgust didn’t even phase you. Finally, you’re crashing back to reality when Lando annoyingly clears his throat while looking down at the two of you. “Well, lovebirds,” Lando forces a smile but you can feel the burn his venomous words carry, “sorry to cut the moment short but we really have to leave now, Franco.” Lando manages through gritted teeth.

“Right! Sorry again.” Franco gathers his things and looks at you, “I’ll text you later. Bye Y/N,” Franco waves before Lando sends him off, telling him he’ll be right out.

You watch Franco go off and sigh dreamily. You glance away for a moment before doing a double take. Your smile morphs into a scowl while looking at Lando who—hasn’t moved yet. Looking him up and down, you raise a brow. “Can I help you?”

“Why did you say yes to Franco?”

“You really think you’re entitled to that after the shit you pulled last week?” You raise a brow while clicking your tongue, “besides. Why do you even care?”

“Because Franco’s a freshman and I don’t need him distracted,” Lando snaps and you roll your eyes. Here he goes again about distractions and shit. Lando glances away and huffs. “Also because he’s a bit of a player.”

“Takes one to know one, yeah?”

Lando glares at you and sneers slightly. “So what? I wouldn’t want him wasting any of his time on you.”

“Why?”

“You’d probably bore him to death.” Looking down at you as Lando gives it a beat. “Also I doubt you’d know how to get him off for your first time. Hell, I don’t think you’d know how to get anybody off. Not even yourself.” Giving you a condescending smile, “I would hate for him to be a part of your body count.”

“Oh.” You laugh slightly, “That’s adorable. Well. You know what? I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

Lando’s a bit taken aback. “I—what?”

“You know. I’ve been doing some thinking. I think we didn’t quite see eye-to-eye.” You continue as you pack your things. “Which isn’t really fair because you were truly just looking out for your friends. Like you’re doing right now.” Standing straight, “which I just wanna say is the sweetest thing ever so. I want to thank you and I’ve figured out the best way to do that.”

“…Which is…?” Lando leans in slightly, waiting for your answer.

“Which is…letting you know in great detail not only how good Franco’s gonna fuck me this weekend but you’ll also have to listen how Franco’s not going to want anybody else when I’m done with him.” You feign innocence to Lando as you sling your backpack over your shoulders before walking away.

“Now, don’t you move a single muscle,” Franco kisses your forehead with a smile “You just focus on resting and I’ll handle everything for dinner tonight, okay?”

“Uh huh.”

“Good girl.” Franco winks before leaving your dorm. 

You lay in your bed staring where Franco had just left before rolling over, grunting as your legs failed to work with you. Fumbling around the messy sheets and pillows till you find your phone and immediately open the texts messages because you had to tell someone about the date you just had:

A MINX. HE’S A MINX I TELL YOU. - YN

WHO? WHAT? THE FUCK IS HAPPENING??? - CL

FRANCO. FRANCO IS NOTHING MORE THAN A MINX!!!!-YN

??????-CL

So Franco asked me out on a date for lunch today—YN

HE WHAT?! WHEN?-YN

Yesterday after you disappeared. He showed up and Lando came looking for him.-YN

LANDO? WHAT? Oh my god was he nasty to you? I’ll hurt him istg-CL

No. No he was…civil. Or civilish while Franco was around. But anyway, yeah Lando was asking like why Franco was talking to me cause we don’t really talk and like they had to go to Max’s place and Franco was like “oh we’re in the same graduating class” and stuff but before he left he was like “oh do you wanna get lunch with me tomorrow as a date?'“-YN

And I was gagged! I thought it heard it wrong so I looked at Lando who was LOOKING AT ME THE SAME WAY so we realize oh this is real. This is happening and Franco wants to grab lunch with me like a date. So I say yes, obviously.-YN

IN FRONT OF LANDO!?-CL

Yeah cause fuck him!!! If my happiness is his kryptonite to having a good day, then so fucking be it. But wait!! There’s more!-YN

TELL ME! TELL ME!-CL

So Lando hangs behind and Franco leaves. Then Lando looks at me all like “why’d you say yes?” Bitch what do you mean???-YN

Oh my god, he did not!!-CL

He totally did!!!-YN

Ew. Why does it have a jealous undertone?? possessiveness???-CL

It’s giving ‘you belong to me’ or like ‘nobody else can have you because I want you’ like some dark romance MMC. This is not a bully romance with a mafia subplot or some shit!!-YN

PREACH 👏👏👏. So what happened after?!-CL

Oh so I was like “i’m not telling you after the shit you pulled last week” and asking why he cares and he’s going on about how Franco’s a freshman and he can’t get distracted and how he’s a bit of a player, which he isn’t he’s just kind of a himbo, and I was like “oh takes one to know one, yeah?”-YN

YOU DID NOT. SHUT UP OH Y/N I LOVE YOU SO MUCH-CL

I did and that pissed Lando off. He starts going on about how I don’t know how to get anybody off and I’d bore Franco to death and how he would never want Franco a part of my body count. First off I got three bodies and I have pleased all three, thank you very much but also like fuck Lando!! His opinion? Doesn’t matter!! So I started bout how ‘oh we got off on the wrong foot’ and ‘you’re right’ to throw him for a loop before I told him I wanted to ‘thank him’ for ‘opening my eyes’ and his thank you is listening, in great detail, to Franco fuck me this entire weekend and then listening to Franco wanting nobody else 💋-YN

YNNNN!!! OH MY GOOOOOD I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!! Ugh yes that’s some queen shit. Though how does that tie into Franco being a minx??-CL

BECAUSE. It’s Friday. He has no classes. Mine got canceled so I decided, oh why don’t we stay in today, right? soooo like, we go to the cafe, i get food (that Franco paid for) cause he’s not hungry right now which is whatever, and then we head back to my dorm. We’re watching tv, we’re talking, and I finish eating. It’s great, right??-YN

Yes, correct.-CL

So as I’m talking, I start talking about Lando. Franco’s apologizing, I’m telling him he shouldn’t be apologizing. He’s asking if he should stop hanging out with Lando and you know me. I’m not gonna police people on their friends so I told him no. As long as he holds Lando accountable, then I don’t care. If Franco wants to drop Lando that’s his own doing.-YN

Anyway, we keep talking and laughing. We’re getting closer. And then…you know-YN

…What happened? 👀👀-CL

We start kissing. Then it turns into a lazy makeout. Hands start wandering, nothing real scandalous ya know?-YN

Uh huh…-CL

Then this mf pulls away and is like “Oh, I’m real hungry”-YN

FRANCO!!! WTFF!!!!-CL

OH WAIT!! Cause that’s what I thought. I was like “Oh really? Like now? I mean I guess we can go back to the cafe.” Meanwhile he’s actively getting off the bed. Then Franco pulls me by my ankles to the edge of the bed. so i'm thinking he’s really hungry so I go to sit up and he pushes me back down talking bout some “where’re you going mami?”-YN

SIR?? EXCUSE ME??? I can hear the accent now, oh my god that’s—wow-CL

OH BUT WAIT. THERE’S MORE!!!-YN

So first, don’t be calling me mami unless you plan on making me an actual mom. Second, I’m looking at him confused like “you said you were hungry” and he’s like “yeah?” and I was like “Oh I’m sorry, I just thought you’d want me to join you going to the cafe to get lunch” and he’s looking at me like I got ten heads before going like “the cafe? Why would we go to the cafe?” He’s actively like leaning over me while holding my thighs and slowly pushing them opening talking bout “I don’t need the cafe when I got a full five meal course right here sprawled out in front of me.”-YN

FRANCO!?! OH MY GOD—I have to fan myself. Wow that was—🥵🥵🥵🥵-CL

RIGHT?!?!-YN

WELL??-CL

…Charles when I tell you. I do not believe in god but I am pretty sure I was knocking on his door. Two hours. I was seeing god for TWO HOURS!!! Charles when I tell you that man had me screaming crying throwing up I MEAN IT. Charles, I'm still in bed. My legs are still shaking. I can’t feel them.-YN

What I wouldn’t give to be sucked off like that—CL

But wait. There’s a cherry on top of all of this.-YN

WHAT COULD TOP THIS?-CL

Franco really had to make sure everyone knew what was happening. I mean, he’s on his knee with my hips hanging off. He’s got one hand gripping my ass like it’s his lifeline to this world. He’s between my thighs and eating me out like he is a man up next on death row and I am his final fucking meal. He pushed all the pillows away. Got my wrists pinned to my stomach with his other hand. I am solely at his mercy and I cannot keep quiet for the life of me and he ate it up. I was so loud, I heard banging from upstairs.-YN

Banging?-CL

Yeah. Like someone was hitting a broom against the floor. To signal to shut up, which Franco and I ignored. More Franco than me, I couldn’t see straight and that was an hour in. Do you know, what the banging was though???-YN

A disgruntled upstairs neighbor???-CL

Yeah. Do you remember who my upstairs neighbor is?-YN

…OH MY FUCKING GOD, LANDO LISTENED TO YOU GETTING THE BEST HEAD OF YOUR LIFE?-CL

Yes SIIIIIIIIRRRRRR. Dude Lando got so mad he CALLED Franco in the middle of it and he answered.-YN

HE ANSWERED?!-CL

Yes. He answered. Pulls back enough to start fingering me and hands be a pillow telling me to bite down on it which I do without a second fucking thought. But tell me why Franco put Lando on speaker and Lando asking “what are you doing right now??” and Franco looks me dead in the fucking eyes going on bout “Oh I’m just having lunch right now with Y/N.” and Lando’s like “oh yeah? Is that so? Then why the fuck is she screaming so god damn loud? Huh? Thought it was a lunch date?” and Charles. I shit you the fuck NOT, Franco without missing a beat goes, “It is. She’s my lunch and my mother always told me to finish everything on my plate and I plan to do just that.” THEN HUNG UP THE PHONE AND WENT RIGHT BACK TO EATING ME OUT.-YN

Y/N…you are the luckiest bitch around. Holy fucking shit. I need a man like Franco—do we know if Franco swings both ways??-CL

He does. Though you might not like him. He’s got a huge crush on Lewis—YN

Never mind. You keep Franco. Gives me an easier chance to steal Lewis' heart. Or just get one chance with him.-CL

I think you can do it. I believe. Anyway, yeah so that happened and—YN

You accidentally send your message to Charles early when a new text comes through. It’s by an unknown number and you click on it.

Lacrosse field. 8pm. We need to talk.-Unk

You think for a moment trying to figure out who this could be. No names come to your mind so you think that someone texted the wrong number. Typically, you’d leave unknown numbers alone but you got the impression that this was something important and urgent that you respond.

Oh I’m sorry, you have the wrong number-YN

I don’t-Unk

Excuse me?-YN

You look up hearing the familiar broom hitting against the floor. You scowl at Lando and his antics before looking back at your phone. Huh. That was…too coincidental. You lay there for a moment before the banging came again, this time a bit more urgent. You send your message before realizing it.

Lando?-YN

The banging stops. Suddenly, your dorm is eerily quiet and you hold your breath. You watch the familiar three bubbles appear and disappear before appearing again as your heart sinks.

Bingo. 8pm. Tonight. Lacrosse field. Alone.-LN

tag list: @dripostsstuff, @tinyhrry, @formulaho, @green--beanie, @brekkers-whore.

@fat-meh, @landossainz, @jaydensluv, @carpediem241108, @rayaharper,

@bookishnerd1132, @asmoothoperator, @loloekie, @kawaiifurychaos

@st0rmzi3, @tygecjjd, @eclipsedcherry, @linnygirl09, @ln4-cl16-world

@poppymelonz, @katiascraft, @fangirl125reader, @taliya8346282844eliviahdgdajs, @norrisleclercf1

[wrintur]

cuz im lowkey sick rn ill rewrite sick suiana x caretaker gojoe (plus sephrioth appearance...?) @suiana

shaurry it took me 2 months to finish skewl beat my ass with stupid assignments, tests, and presentation till it was 3 weeks b4 midterms 🤬

"Hawk, hawk.... TUAH!!" (sneeze) sigh... ive been sick for sometime now... i wish it would magically go away! i havent even been able to take care of myself properly... just me, myself, and i 😢. my hubby wubby, gogojoe, is away at war... i told him i was sick and said he was "hehehe On My Way!" he told me that a couple days ago and theres no sign of him! i would know if he was here anyway...

speaking of it, i think i hear what might be my blue orbed king! "hehehe yowaimo... yowaimo!!!" wow! its him! a few seconds later i hear a knock on the door and go to open it. just as i expected 🤓, gojoe is here! i start to cry... i cant believe its him.. 💔💔

"H-h-h-hey whatre you doing here?" i asked shyly as i looked up to his tall, buff body. he was so huge compared to my cute and petite body! 😍

"well kitten... you told me you were sick, so im here to nurse you back to health.. ❤️" he leaned his body onto my door frame, GYAT! he knows what that can do to meh ;-;

"oh okey... welcome in! 😊"

he skibidi daddled in and dropped a grocery bag on my table. is that... medicine!! wow he cares so much for me... i havent been able to do much since i got sick so he really is a live saver! 🤣

"here kitten... drink some the nyquil i got u.."

"okey my king" he hands me the nasty medicine and i gulp it down. damn that shit taste like ass! the medicine naturally made me drowsy and i fell a sleep, sort of difficult with gojos big blue orbs piercing though me.

i wake up to see a white haired, blue eyed king... who was not gojo!?!? its sephiroth from final fantasy!!!!!???? he smirks as he notices my surprise and walks up to my kawaii self..

"hey beautiful.." he says to me while putting his hand on my face. i gasp, i cant be doing this! im in love with gojo...

"sephiroth... i cant do this.. im shaurry... i have to go now." i then run away without looking back. i can hear him falling down to his knees and crying. i have to return to my bf gojoe... i miss him.. at some point i return to reality back where i was resting. i feel so guilty, i find gojoe and tackle him down and kiss him all over.

"'im sowwy gojo... i wuv you"

"heh what are you talking about?" he chuckles.

"um noting.."

idk cheating scandal ig the fic is OVER

i forgot how the og fic ended so i made it end like this

[gamerbearmira]

Wish???? WHATTTTT

So this is different from my usual content but I randomly wrote this??? Very short snippet last night and did the drawing this morning.

Mostly got to do with the rewrite I wanna do; Asha's childhood would be a lot more relevant, especially her father. Like he was barely mentioned in the movie, and I understand he was dead and all, but dang, barely even a name drop is CRAZY

any uhhhhh have fun reading ig idk

—————

Asha sat on the large tree, its branches knarled and aged as she gazed out at the vast ocean. She looked upwards, the stars twinkling high above her. She remembered when her papa would sit next to her, singing and telling stories about the stars and wishes.

Wishes.

She never really knew what her wish was. Not really. But now that she was 13, and everything had changed so much in only a year...she knew what she wanted it to be.

But she knew it'd never be granted.

Never in the history of Rosas was a wish like it granted. To bring someone back from the dead. Sure, King Magnifico was powerful, but even Asha had her doubts abiut a wish like that.

But even then, she was sure her father wouldn't want that. Certainly not her mama or Saba. No, he'd want her to move on and be happy. He always talked avout how she should have a wish, a dream, and hold onto it tight.

She looked down at her hands. She fiddled with her curls before sighing and leaning back and looking up at the sky again. "Star light, star bright..." She hummed softly. Her eyes scanned the sky before they landed on a star that twinkled a little brighter than the others. "First star I see tonight,"

Asha stood, carefully keeping her balance as she walked along the branches, climbing higher. "I wish I may, I wish I might," she grunted, pulling her self up onto one of the higher branches. "Have this wish I wish tonight."

She stared at the star for a long time. Closing her eyes, she whispered something. Something on shr and the star above could hear. When she opened them, she swore the star shone beighter, just for a flicker of a second. She blinked, her hands gripping the bark and she leaned closer. Her lips parted as she gasped softly. But before she could say or do anything further, she heard bleating from below. She dropped down on the branch, leaning over the edge.

"Valentina! How did you get out if the barn?" Asha wuickly climbed down, her attention from the star distracted—but not forgotten. Once down on the ground, she picked up the goat, nuzzling her surprisingly soft but dense mohair. "Your getting big! Soon I won't be able to pick you up anymore," she laughed. It was true. Valentina's back hooves were nearly touching the ground now.

Valentina let out another bleat, nudging Asha before the girl let her down. "You always know how to find me. Of course, I'm always at the same placed," she said, walking off, with the goat trotting after her after munching at rhe small flowers that dotted the grass. As she walked, she glanced back at the star. It looked normal again. But for some reason, deep down, she knew it wasn't just a figment of her imagination. She could feel it, deep in her heart.

She sighed, walking down the path back to the village and to her house. It was late. Valentina walked beside her, her long, droooy ears flicking absently. Asha suddenly turned to her companion. "You know. One day, I'm gonna be a great wizard like King Magnifico," she bent down, picking up a long stick resembling a staff. She twirled, waving it around. "Just imagine. Me, Asha, weilding magic and making everyone's wish come true!" She laughed, turned to Valentina, who was watching her while lazily chewing on some grass.

With a soft sigh, she continued walked, her homey cottage coming into view. Valentina had already begun walking back to her pen, but Asha lingered outside her door, looking up st the sky one last time. "I swear it. I'll grant everyone's wish."

—————

Asha's young teen design keeps changing 🌚 not by much. Pretty similar to her kid design, idk.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for sending my mutual anon hate because it was the only way she would listen to me then breaking the mutual when she took anon off???

my mutual (f, like 16 to 18 while we knew each other) and i (genderfluid, 17 to 19) became mutuals back in 2021 since we had some shared fandoms. (genshin, bnha, naruto, etc). imma call her rose. rose seemed nice and pretty funny so i thought she was chill and we ended up adding each other on discord a few months into the mutualship. we were casual friends tho and only really talked abt fandom stuff

a big thing w/ her tho was that she thought she was hot shit for having 1000 followers on tumblr and she took anons super seriously cuz, in her own words, "i know anons can be anyone but most likely theyre one of my close followers and i want to be loyal to them". like she would call them smth like her "anon gang" and make posts thanking people if they sent a lot of asks. she was a wannabee infulencer on tiktok & insta so i think she translated that on tumblr too. but i quickly realized that meant she took what anons said seriously.

one time, i said she should change her theme colors because they were major eyestrain (bright orange background with teal text) and she told me "nah i like it this color, no one has complained." i waited two weeks... then sent an anon saying "im sorry ur theme is rly eyestrainy :((" and she immediately replied with "i looked up color palettes that are easier on the eyes and changed it!! i hope that helps"

and so basically after that, if i ever had an issue with her stuff, i would send an anon in instead of telling her because it would work. i need her to trigger tag smth? send her anon asking it, she would do it. do i think she needs to tag really long posts? send her anon, she would do it. do i think she has a bad take on a ship i like?? send her an anon, she would apologize and rewrite the post to be nicer / fairer. because otherwise she would just go "ehhh its fine" to my face and refuse to consider it because "idk thats just ur opinion im just doing my own thing"

but like a few months back ig she got into a bad fight with someone popular in a big anime fandom so /their/ followers started sending anon hate, so she got overwhelmed and turned it off. after a month i asked her if she was planning to turn it back on and she said she was actually gonna keep it off indefinitely cuz ""as much as i like my anon gang sometimes its nicer not having to respond to so many requests"

so i waited like a few weeks, quietly broke the mutual and unfriended her on discord because with the amount of issues i had with her blog / vibe was not worth it if she did not have anon turned on. i didnt send any rude messages, i always asked politely and i was always friendly to her face when we dm'd. aita???

What are these acronyms?

[fraudulent-cheese]

So i watched episodes 3 to 8 of Pahkitew Island

Again, watched these with my buddy @rockin-it-rusty! And, holy shit these episodes have got me genuinly wondering why Pahkitew's so hated.

I'll go over the negatives first; the challenges are kinda eh. The Truth or Scare one is great, and the cave one is interesting due to it's hints at the Fake Island reveal (as heavy handed as they were), but most of these were just pretty out there to me? They mostly felt like an excuse to put the characters in situations mostly. Just have Topher make a narration joke, give Max and Scarlett an interaction, have Sky and Dave dance around eachother all due to a thing the challenge made them do. I don't mind the first two much, but the last one gets super repetitive man. Glad they mixed it up a bit by making Shawn try to wingman Dave though, i like their friendship! im a bigger dashawn shipper now oops

ANYWAYS IMA TALK ABOUT THE CHARACTERS NOW BECAUSE LET'S BE HONEST, THE CHARACTERS CARRY THE SHOW!

Amy... Ok im very mixed on her. On one hand, she serves her role as the mean twin relatively well. But on the other, that's all she really is! Her one trait is being mean and hating her sister, and that's all she really does! Granted she has a thing? Where she gets sayings (?) wrong, or just gets words wrong (she says parfait is german. it's french. i would know) which! could hint at something! (maybe less smart than her sister?) but they don't do shit with her outside of her swimming back to the island in episode 5. god i wanna rewrite this season so badly now to give her a bigger role. idk shoutouts to Twinning with a Twist for redeeming her while still giving her some edge ig.

Rodney. i uh

I haven't thought about him since his elimination honestly. I just doooooon't care about him it's crazy. Most forgettable guy in the entire series.

Sammy! Ok back to the siblings rambles! I wish the show leaned into her scheming more. Girl in five episodes pulled identity theft and did nothing else. Why. Her relationship with Jasmine is adorable, and i wish she got Jasmine to call her by her actual name, and a personality too! It's really a shame man :(

Sidenote, but like her team fucking hated her for some reason??? Like what. I know it's because of that one scene, but really?

Ella!! My sweet girl Ella!!! She didn't do anything wrong man she just likes singing leave her alone!!! Chris really fucking hates her and it's pretty entertaining at least, but i'd say his beef with Topher's funnier. She has a nice singing voice, and i love how passionate she is about fairytales and stuff. You could do so much with the Prince thing and the show... didn't. Like what even was that. Conflict that wasn't one that lasts an episode. what

Gotta say though, her elimination was fucking ass, Max 100% should've been kicked instead of her.

Topher. Ah the opher. He's a special case, even in the context of Pahkitew Island itself! Because the dude's not here for the game. He's here to meet his idol, Chris Mclean (he really knows how to pick em, huh). I like the progression he's got, from wanting his approval to straight up wanting to host the game instead of him. I'll admit, my opinion's a little skewed since i am mutuals with the Topher guy on Tumblr, but i like him regardless!

His relationship with Chris is easily one of the more interesting parts of the season, mostly because a 30-something year old dude having beef with a teenage fan is hilarious, and you could definitely spin it in a sad way from Topher's perspective.

It also helps that he's genuinely funny! His few interactions with the other campers are also pretty fun, he dgaf about them it's great.

Im kind of mixed on Dave, i'll be real. On one hand, im glad they ditched the whole "he doesn't like anyone on this Island" trait three episodes in because that would've gotten. SO ANNOYING. SO FAST. (hell i'd argue it was already annoying), and him being a hopeless romantic could be a fun trait, if done right. It also helps that he's really pathetic and i find that funny. His friendship with Shawn's fun too!

But on the other hand... Yeah, even before the finale the Skave plotline's really boringgg. They just dance around eachother for half the season for like! No reason! Please just have a conversation, even if it takes other people to sit them down to have it! I know why they didn't because the finale needed them to not actually talk about it but at least have Sky tell him she'll explain later or have him not be a coward and ask her about it himself!!! ack!!

Also the thing with him and Ella went literally nowhere. I have 0 feelings about it because it's just there for some reason. Idk they just really wanted to shoehorn in romance for every girl this season huh.

Scarlett's a really underutilized character pre-Island reveal. The bulk of her interactions with the other campers are with Max, who has a ton of screentime for some reason (which i don't personally really mind but i'll explain later) which honestly sucks because she's a fun character! I want to compare her to Twilight Sparkle at the very start of MLP. She's smart, she knows it, she can communicate with her teammates just fine and just chooses not to usually. I like her alot! Im just... really disapointed that she's so in the background usually; if anyone's a wasted character in tdpi, outside of the Twins i'd say it's her.

Her legit wanting to kill Max is great though. That's how i'd react to him irl. Don't get the Max saying she had a crush on him three episodes in, or the quip Chris made during the team switching tho.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, MAX! I swear, i was convinced i'd find this guy annoying pre-watch but uh... I like this guy! No really, i do! He's like Mal, only the narrative doesn't take him seriously in the slightest and it's hilarious to watch! Im like Sugar in that one clip, i am laughing at this buffoon's intelligence, and his stupid catchphrase, and his "evil" plans, and his general delivery! Max is funny!

Even when the Scarlett "minion" thing kicked in i still found him funny! Don't get me wrong, i wish he'd gotten out earlier (ESPECIALLY when he was supposed to get kicked in the episode Ella got eliminated into) or just gotten less screentime in general, but in the season proper, yeah he's a funny guy! Big gimmick, but i like him! Please don't add nuance to him, i don't care

Jasmine... certaintly exists! I'd call her the Season's rock, the one character that's emotionally intelligent on the show. She's fun in general, and also the only one noticing things going wrong with the robotic island. As said before, her relationship with Sammy is great to see, and i wished we'd see more of her and Sky's friendship and uh. For there to be more between her and Shawn? Because the only things i've retained is that they blushed at eachother once and then trust issues party because he hit her once during a challenge and that completely broke her trust in him - which, could be an interesting aspect of her character to explore since if that's all it took for her to pull a 180 on Shawn, the girl must have a complicated relationship with trust. That's an interesting flaw! It also shows up with her rapport in Sky in the later episodes of this batch, and. GOD. I wish it was developped man!

The issue? Yeah it's dragged on so longggg man! It's frustating to watch frankly because i really wish they'd resolve this conflict quicker since it's like. The same thing every episode :( to my knowledge it's solved in episode 9, but it did NOT need to be dragged out for 4 episodes.

Unrelated to her charater, but her height difference with the other campers is kind of ridiculous. In some shots the characters look so small compared to her it's crazyyy

Ok, now. Sugar. I'll be honest? She's great! She's just a menace and doing her own thing and it's fun to watch! She's also interesting in terms of backstory since she's canonically a pageant queen; her relationship with Ella is greatly impacted by this, since she heavily suspects her of lying to her face when it's just. Ella being Ella. Similar thing to her opinion on Topher; she doesn't like him for his sucking up to Chris, the host (something that Rusty probably agrees with). I fucking wish she was more popular because then people would look into her more, but alas. She's a female, plus sized character in Pahkitew Island, so considering the Fandom's biases, it was never going to happen. U_U

OK TIME FOR ZOMBIE BOY. So, Shawn. He's definitely more present in these episodes than he was before, and, again, i think he's fun! He's a weird little guy. He's got interesting skills (his camouflage, legit parkour, general athleticism) and his personality's interesting as well compared to the other guys. The zombie thing is fine, actually, because they do different things with it over the course of these episodes. Not much to say about him, he's a solid character to me and i wish he had more interactions with the cast outside of Dave and his pining for Jasmine. Who he's talked to like, five times at this point? Again, they probably should've talked stuff out faster than this for me to actually enjoy it. Oh well.

And finally, Sky. She's an interesting case for me? She's fine, mostly. She's the Normal Person™️ of the cast to me, and that means she really struggles to grab me. It's made worse by her main plot being a basic romance plot where the gimmick is that she's a reasonable human being and Dave isn't. And neither are able to have a normal fucking conversation about it either. The mixed signals thing could've been interesting, but this is Fresh TV writters, so of course it didn't end up that way. I assume the episodes without Dave are the ones where her personality shines more? Because so far she's just been really reserved and calm. And said she'd "focus on the competition only" And then. Doesn't. Really. God i wish this season treated it's female characters better :(

OK SO OVERALL THOUGHTS:

Im mixed on alot of the character decisions

god i wished these people talked more

the screentime is not well split among the cast

the romance plots and pacing of the Island plot are the weakest parts of this season

the challenges are fine

Why does Chef have 5 lines total.

Pahkitew Island does NOT deserve the overly negative rep it gets in this Fandom, at least based on the first 8 episodes.

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

Hi, 👋 I’m currently in a writer’s block but also trying to note down some writing exercises to get me into the groove again. Do you have any exercise tips for writers?

PS: I just heard a cover of My Immortal (original song by Evanescence) and immediately thought of Good Omens. My brain is also connecting every song with Good Omens. Help!😅

Anyways, I hope you have a fantastic day/night whenever you’ll answer this!😊

HELLO ANON MAGGOT HELLO IT'S THE NIGHT AND I'M ON BLACK COFFEE AND YOU HAVE PICKED THE RIGHT PERSON TO ASK I'VE BEEN INHALING BOOKS ON WRITING FOR ALMOST AS LONG AS I'VE ACTUALLY BEEN WRITING.

OKAY NOW LISTEN YOUR LIL EARS UP. I'M GOING TO GIVE YOU SOME EXERCISES, AND THEN I'M GOING TO GIVE YOU ADVICE FOR WRITER'S BLOCK. GOT IT? KAY LET'S GO WRITERS.

FIRST, WRITING EXERCISES.

NOTICING. NOTICING, NOTICING, NOTICING. LOOK AROUND YOU AT THE THINGS YOU SEE, THE PEOPLE YOU KNOW, THE TEXTURES YOU FEEL, THE SOUNDS YOU HEAR, EVERYTHING. AND THEN WRITE THEM DOWN. JUST KEEP DESCRIBING. YOUR BRAIN MAY NOT BE ABLE TO COME UP WITH FRESH MATERIAL RIGHT NOW, BUT IT CAN DESCRIBE THINGS. A BONUS, THIS WILL REALLY HELP THE QUALITY OF YOUR DESCRIPTIONS, SINCE YOU'LL BE ABLE TO PICK INTERESTING DETAILS AND KNOW WHAT TO LEAVE OUT.

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS WRITING. THIS MAY BE A BIT HARDER, BUT JUST START WRITING ABOUT WHATEVER COMES TO YOUR HEADS. ANY THOUGHTS, PUT IT DOWN. DON'T BOTHER ABOUT THINGS LIKE PUNCTUATION OR GRAMMAR OR SENSE. JUST KEEP WRITING WHATEVER ARRIVES. IF THIS GETS HARD, YOU CAN MAYBE FIND A PROMPTING WORD TO GET YOU GOING. A BONUS, THIS WILL TRAIN YOUR WRITING TO BE MORE SPONTANEOUS AND NATURAL RATHER THAN ARTIFICIAL OR MANUFACTURED.

WRITE WITH A PURPOSE. PICK ANY INCIDENT FROM YOUR LIFE, SOMEONE ELSE'S, ANY INCIDENT WILL DO AS LONG AS YOU HAVE ENOUGH DETAILS OR CAN COME UP WITH THEM. NOW WRITE THAT INCIDENT DOWN THE WAY YOU WOULD DESCRIBE A SCENE IN A BOOK, BUT WITH A CATCH: FIRST THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO CONVEY. FOR EXAMPLE, IF THE SCENE IS JUST YOU BURNING BREAKFAST WAFFLES, COME UP WITH DIFFERENT PURPOSES. FIRST WRITE IT WITH THE PURPOSE OF CONVEYING YOUR CLUMSINESS TO THE READER. THEN REWRITE IT WITH THE PURPOSE OF DEFENDING YOURSELF AND BLAMING THE FAULTY STOVE. THEN REWRITE IT WITH THE PURPOSE OF CREATING A SENSE OF FEAR AND AN ATMOSPHERE OF HORROR. THEN REWRITE IT AS A COMEDY. A BONUS, THIS HELPS YOU FOCUS YOUR SCENES AND KNOW WHAT DETAILS TO GIVE ABOUT AN EVENT TO SERVE THE SCENE'S PURPOSE IN THE STORY.

OKAY I'VE GONE ON A LOT IDK MAYBE Y'ALL WANT ME TO SHARE MORE WRITING EXERCISES? SOME I'VE LEARNED AND SOME I COME UP WITH IT'S ALL WILD. IDK LET ME KNOW IF THAT'S SOMETHING YOU WANT. I NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT WRITING ONCE I START.

AS FOR YOUR WRITER'S BLOCK:

LEARN MORE. ROBERT MCKEE SAID IN HIS STORY THAT WRITER'S BLOCK IS MORE A LACK OF INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR STORY AND YOUR WORLD. DO MORE RESEARCH ABOUT YOUR WORLD, CHARACTERS, STORYLINE, ETC. TAKE THIS WITH A PINCH OF SALT I DON'T WANT YOU TO GO DOWN A RABBITHOLE OF RESEARCH AND NOT WRITE.

REVIST THE STORY AND PREMISE. ASK YOURSELF WHY YOU HAVE WRITER'S BLOCK. COULD IT BE BECAUSE THE STORY NO LONGER AFFECTS YOU AS DEEPLY OR IT ISN'T AS IMPORTANT TO YOU ANYMORE? ARE THERE THINGS YOU NEED TO TWEAK SO WRITING IT IS SOMETHING YOU CARE MORE ABOUT? THIS ISN'T ALWAYS THE CASE BUT STILL. IF YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR STORY IT'S UNREASONABLE TO EXPECT ANYONE ELSE TO.

WRITE SCENES OUT OF ORDER. OKAY, THIS IS HOW I FINISHED THE FIRST DRAFT OF MY DEBUT NOVEL. I JUST WROTE WHATEVER SCENE I FELT LIKE WRITING AT THE TIME. DURING THE SECOND DRAFT I REWROTE THE ENTIRE THING IN ORDER. BUT THIS WAY I KNEW I CARED ABOUT THE SCENE I WAS WRITING AND IT WAS AUTHENTIC. JUST SOMETHING THAT MIGHT HELP.

THERE ARE MORE BUT IG THIS POST IS GETTING LONG I HOPE THIS HELPED ANON MAGGOT GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR WRITING!!!!!!! IM SORRY THIS IS IN CAPS LOCK IT COULDN'T BE HELPED. HAVE A LOVELY DAY AND MAY YOU WRITE MANY WORDS.

PS: ALSO MY IMMORTAL JUST REMINDS ME OF @patoslover'S CURSED MY IMMORTAL X GOOD OMENS FIC NOW HELP

[certifieduruihater]

the karai and leo ship/dynamic is...so weird to talk about. first of all majority of the fandom just shuts down the discussion with INCEST which...i get it? but at the same time i also see why it wouldnt cross people's minds? im ngl when i watched the show as a kid, incest really didnt cross my mind for a number of reasons. 1. how the mutagen works is kinda finicky and not really well explained. so does being mutated by a donor's dna make you related to that donor? like when snakeweed was mutated by the plants, is he related to the plants now? when bradford was mutated, is he related to his dog? like karai is splinter's daughter, and the turtles are related to splinter because they were mutated with splinter's dna ..is that how that works? supposing the turtles do have splinter's dna embedded in them now which allows for their mutation and human-like features, idk if that's what the show was going for, because splinter's dna can't explain everything. like how do the turtles have such different eye colors then? how does leo have dark blue eyes while raph has nickelodeon slime green eyes? where were the genes for those? shen and yoshi (in human form) both had brown eyes. they could be carrying a recessive gene ig but still. or did they always have that eye color in turtle form? but those are exceedingly rare colors, and when they were children the turtles just had black stare-into-your-soul-eyes?? actually is it even confirmed that they were mutated from splinter's dna? or from someone else like the pet shop workers? idk?? i just never really thought about it too deeply (and i suspect you're not really meant to), and the show never really pushed it. and the distinction of the turtles being biologically related to splinter or not just never really mattered to me, because either way, it's clear that splinter views them as his kids. splinter and the turtle's relationship is a great depiction of family, regardless of whether they share blood. and honestly, i don't think any of the writers would have pushed leo and karai if it was actually incest. stuff like this is why incest never really crossed my mind on a technical level.

and 2. do karai and leo actually see each other as siblings? when its revealed that she's splinter's daughter leo sees her as part of the clan, sure. idk about karai. but do they actually see each other as siblings, or is this something the fandom just made up? i just remember their dynamic being really vague honestly. leo was super devoted to helping karai and finding her, treating her as one of the clan and devoted to helping her return. then there was this one line by leo to donnie that was something along the lines of he should know what its like because of april, which COULD have romantic connotations, or it could just be referencing the supposedly super strong bond the show likes to pretend april and donnie have. you also have instances where karai and leo dont actually seem romantically interested in each other, at least not anymore. i think leo even jokes to karai about it at some point, and KARAI is the one to look awkward, which to me signals that leo's over any sort of attraction he may have had. regardless, its not really clear if they explicitly see each other as siblings or if they feel something romantic.

side note: to all people rewriting the series to have raph and donnie clown on leo for falling for his "sister," you guys know that THEY were the ones actively joking about and thus perpetuating a romance between those two? they were the ones being weird about it! i know people are just using raph and donnie as author inserts to laugh at leo but it just doesnt work here.

MIKEY calls her sis (even this could be chalked up to his general use of language), but idk if raph or donnie ever really warm up to karai, let alone see her as their sister. and when people call them all siblings it really just feels like the fandom is squeezing these characters together, locking them in a room, and telling them to play nice. like wouldnt their dynamic be a lot more complicated than that? on the turtles side, this girl whos been trying to kill them, who they thought was the daughter of their enemy, is now suddenly their sister? talk about jarring. i can see mikey accepting it pretty easily bc he's mikey, but raph and donnie? i feel like it would take them longer to warm up to her, let alone get to a "sibling" level. slapping the sibling label onto karai feels like youre disregarding a lot of complicated emotions that would need to be worked out first. and honestly, even if they do work things out im still not sure theyd get to the sibling level. and there's nothing wrong with that, imo. this is not even talking about karai herself, who would also probably have A LOT of complicated feelings about being the daughter of the man she was raised to hate and being a part of his clan. add the "sibling" part onto that? oh boy. i feel like it would make karai distant and reluctant to get involved if they seriously started considering her a sister.

honestly what seems more likely to me is that the writers wanted to have their cake and eat it too. karai says to leo, just because i like you doesnt mean ill go easy on you. does she clarify what kind of like? of course not! maybe there were writers with different agendas or whatever, but either way you're left with karai and leo's dynamic just being really ambiguous and not really clearly addressed.

even if they're not related by blood/DNA, whatever, i know this is still a touchy subject for people because they believe that saying they dont see each other as siblings invalidates situations like step siblings, adoption, etc. but this is where i personally draw the line between fiction and reality. i think for this instance, fiction cant be a 1:1 representation of reality. this is a unique situation in itself. (i also dont think that this ship/dynamic is worth getting that heated about, nor is it worth putting much energy into honestly. it was not very fleshed out imo. my point is if you're looking for found family rep i dont think you should be looking at karai's relationship with the hamato clan. it's not the best example imo 😅 and if you're looking for a good ship with leo...idk this aint it chief.)

yeah i dont ship them. not because its incest, but because i just dont think theyd make good partners for one another. karai...girls got issues she needs to work out. i dont think shes very reliable, and she seems like the type to actively run away from responsibility. im not really too into karai's character as a whole, but thats a topic for another day. this may sound cliche, but i just dont think karai is the influence that leo needs. yeah she'll influence him sure...in the wrong ways. and i think leo would very quickly turn into karai's manic pixie dream boy who devotes himself to fixing all of karais problems which...i dont think he needs. dudes got enough on his plate.

personally, ill choose to believe that on both ends, what they felt for each other was nothing more than passing curiosity. MAYBE fleeting attraction, and that's a hard maybe, or at least it very quickly went away, because i remember the scene where karai was up in leo's space, and leo did not look into it all 😭 anyway leo felt undermined by his brothers, was tired of being responsible, and out popped karai looking for a good time. karai is karai. they were both distractions for each other initially. and leo chooses to believe in the good of people, so he kept talking to her. and then they found out she was splinter's daughter, blah blah blah you know the rest

[aloera]

Aloera hii came running when i got the notification, djdjd incredibly as always ❤ can i ask how much time did it took you to find that tone in ur writing? I mean they way you describe things and feeling without making them too "poetic"and corny like it often happens when one tries to write? Also i wanted to share with you the manga panels i searched after reading your fic just so idk gsjd the expressions and significance fjdjf (i love this face is so :() (second one their canon dynamic>>> fanon)

I know these last too have been brought so much times but idc this will always be iconic, the first high epic point in the manga, everything got set in motions after this(to me) wish with a follow up more substantial after this a hint of a conversation idk (a lot of people have move on from this but i will always remeber) sorry that this got so long i just wanted to share this with you excuse my english have a great week/end.

first off thank you so much!! youre so sweet :)

as to how much time it took ive been writing since i was like.. six. and im twenty now. so ig fourteen years skull emoji.. but in general i think i focus less now on trying to sound like... super smart? if that makes sense? sometimes i think what makes things sound kinda corny is when youre describing stuff that you dont actually know.. so i try to just focus on stuff that i do know!! like for example with similes and stuff i just draw from stuff that i see in my own life.. common things.. and the hope is that it comes across as familiar and people reading that go oh i know what that feels like. yk? instead of trying to like.. idk be the next shakespeare and be super poetic and delve into topics that are maybe beyond me or just not really suited to my style of writing. no shade to people who do that!! thats just what worked for me in terms of developing my style :) for dialogue as well i'll sometimes say it out loud to see if it sounds like smth a real person would say outloud bc sometimes... its not... and i rewrite it until im not like. cringing as i say it LMFOA but also mind u i think there will sometimes always be a certain level of corn bc we are writing fic. like it is inherently corny asf. but once you get over that you can have a lot more fun with it :D

KIRISHIMAS LITTLE FACE SHUT UPPP i love him. i love him so bad. he actually invented facial expressions its crazy. have u seen that one panel of him glaring at monoma i think about it everyday hes SO FUNNY

you r so so so write on canon>fanon w them. their canon interactions are just so lovely and so full of heart and so recriprocated like i just know they are the most annoying two people to be around but they dont even care bc they are having so much fun with each other!!! which is why i love them :)

also. yeah. you and me are very right where you left me coded re kamino. i will never be over it i fear. i will be like seventy years old talking about "it has to be you" "if i cant do this im not even a man" "come" "you idiot" LIKE THAT WAS CRAZYYYYYYY i feel like as much as i get annoyed ab horikoshi kind of forgetting ab krbk i will never fully be able to be mad at him bc he gave us that.... like That Moment seared itself into my personhood. kickstarted a hand fixation and an undying loyalty fixation and like. twenty other fixations. is what it is ig.

sorry this is so long omg i just had sm to say but in conclusion thank you so much for the ask!! i will always love talking ab krbk so i really appreciated getting to talk about them with you :)))

[svttingz]

can you write an nsfw alphabet for joseph quinn?

YES! (literally i had this done and my computer died so i had to rewrite it *Crys* ) for the record this is all my opinion! anyways on to the one the only JOSEPH QUINN!

-

A- Aftercare: Joe gives me the vibe of a total cuddler after sex (is cuddler even a word?????????) anyways he wants to make sure you feel loved and cared for after all the passion you guys just had.

-

B- Body part: Joe definitely loves your ass, so when you show off your ass in like some tight leggings around the house it usually always results in him bending you over the counter or anywhere to rail you.

-

C- Cum: He usually cums on your stomach but later in life when you guys are married, he loves to cum inside of you.

-

D - Dirty secret: he wants to try public sex, or ig more like sex in a public bathroom-

-

E- Experience: id say he's pretty experienced

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F- Favorite position: like i said he loves your ass so probably doggy style

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G - goofy: id say kinda in the middle he can be both serious and goofy at times

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H - hair: id say he is pretty well groomed down there

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I- Intimacy: In the moment it can be romantic id say.

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J- Jack off: he jacks off when hes away from you but most of the time you are there

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K- Kink: personally i see joe as a spanking kinda guy (is that even a kink idk)

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L- Location: pretty much anywhere is fine with him but he enjoys sex in your guys' bed the most, there is no actual reason he just does.

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M- Motivation: he can just look at you and get horny- like-

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N- NO: i feel like he wont do quickies because he prefers to have actual sex

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O-oral: he likes both giving and receiving

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P-Pace: sometimes hes rough and fast, others he is slow and sensual it really just depends.

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Q- Quickie: as i said hes kinda against quickies with you guys, because well you guys did it one time and he just wanted to actually have sex instead of just a quickie.

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R- Risks: usually he asks you before trying anything

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S-Stamina: he can usually last like 3 or 4 rounds then hes done for

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T-Toys: i would say he don't own any toys, but lets say you own a vibrator or something, he would definitely use it on you during sex as hes railing you

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U- Unfair: he LOVES to tease you he thinks its the greatest thing-

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V- Volume: i feel like he is very loud during sex, but he can be quiet as well

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W- Wild card: Joe is definitely a slow, sleepy, sex type dude rather it be night or the morning. idk why i just get that vibe from him

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X-X-ray: packing 8 inches. yep i said what i said

Y-Yearning: he has a pretty high sex drive

Z-ZZZ: after he makes sure you're asleep he goes to sleep pretty fast

-

[rose1021]

I know you did not ask and you can ignore if you like but whenever I see Garroth’s Betrayal Sucks I feel contractually obligated to speak on what I make it in my head because I hate that pat so fucking much and of it wasnt so intrinsically tied to the time skip I would burn it to the ground

I make it an Aphmau’s Fault Too thing. Garroth being the loyal guard he is tells Aphmau about someone trying to indoctrinate him and Aphmau just says. “We can use this.” and so a double cross plot is born but Aphmau never pulls the plug even as it gets more and more apparent they cannot make this work because everything has always worked out for her before even when she goes against peoples advice, and despite Garroth insisting they should stop he doesn’t disobey his lord, until it’s already too late of course.

That solves the “Well why wasn’t any blame placed onto Garroth?” issue as well as really adds to and clears up Aphmau’s desperation to bring him home.

It also makes Aphmau missing her children’s childhoods and her village crumbling partially her own fault, the consequences do not fit the crime but to me when it’s something that big and Aphmau being such a “Makes things happen” character it should be her own fault in some way.

(this also of course breaks Garroth’s trust in Aphmau, because he thought they were friends but she ignored every concern and let him be sworn into the Jury of Nine, an establishment she knows he detests)

No thank you for bringing this up! I completely didn’t think about it that way (probably the Laurmau bias 😰) but I definitely see that this works a whole lot better than the shithole that part is, especially the part where Garroth asks about the pendant and,, (I literally paused for a whole minute I forgot what happened) ok so I may be wrong but originally aphmau refused to tell Garroth about the pendants location however after the war she finally tells him that laurance has is. Considering she knew Garroth wasn’t himself and Ofc later finding out that Garroth immediately went and stole the pendant, that would definitely point guilt onto aphmau, also like girl he’s been “sick” and been looked after by a random stranger who walks in also was it cadenza who told Lillian abt Garroth istg first Zane about laurance now this ANYWAYS especially when tensions are high in the village and there is a traitor would you not hold slightly more concern?? I hate this part can we just idk make up a different reason they go to the Irene dimension 😭. Anyways I’m not 100% abt the indoctrination however there is absolutely mistrust between Garroth and aphmau which is completely their own faults in different ways, ultimately I think it’s Zane’s fault, and if I could completely remove that part I would but alas we have to fix everything in this series.

TLDR I think in my very future rewrite the betrayal arc will turn into a oh no he’s manipulated and under a spell arc (smth like that ig) basically keep the good (needed) parts (the time skip and relic absorption) and ditch the bad (the complete butcher of Garroth)

Tempted to write out Aaron but I guess he needs to be in to get Garroth out 🙄 or we can use aphmaus Irene powers or smth

[vypridae]

oook IDEAS!!!!!

i was looking the e handbook this morning and it’s all pretty straightforward, not a ton of room for interpretation except for looking at the wording of a few of them

throwing things at the wall rn pretty much so shoot down as needed as i’m not very attached to these ideas👍👍

we’re already utilizing 15 which is the two murders and two victims first one committed is punished also also side idea i had for chapter three, since we already have kiyo as the second culprit. what do you think about shoving miu or himiko or angie in there?

i’m leaning more toward himiko or angie now that i think about it rather than miu just bc of the angst potential especially combined with korekiyo being the one who’s gonna survive the trial and all. with himiko we’re already experimenting with a very upset tenko and i feel considering her whole thing with men in canon [did you wanna change up the characters a little btw? forgot to ask] that’s just gonna upset her 10x more than if it was just himiko as the sole blackened.

and then with angie i’m completely fine killing her off since we’re going with the simulation idea and implies the shinounaga siblings will still live after the whole thing stops, anyways anyways that’s a whole tangent. by that point it’s about the midpoint of the game, meaning we sacrifice some interactions but they still get a decent amount of time together meaning! ohhh the survivors guilt korekiyo will be left with man that’d be fun to experiment with [once we settle some major details i definitely plan on trying to write out some stuff for this <33]

anyways back to the rules, aside from the pool one there’s another one that i don’t really remember what was for? i think it was added from the ch1 trial since it was so close to the limit everybody was pointing at monokuma for artificially starting something. “#9. monokuma will never directly commit a murder.”

at the current moment i’m not entirely sure how we could utilize that? but if it helps at all it does imply that it’s possible he will assist like provide things/information but he will never land a blow on the victim

otherwise the rules are super straightforward and otherwise all encompassing and are just “hey go kill, go to bed at this time, don’t try to kill monokuma, body discover is 3 people” etc etc

man we’re two people and even with all the unsettled details we’re already building a better story than a whole team of writers wow

ooh ideas !!! sorry this is taking so long to answer btw i just now am actually getting around to using my brain properly BAHAJSDHKA

we’re already utilizing 15 which is the two murders and two victims first one committed is punished also also side idea i had for chapter three, since we already have kiyo as the second culprit. what do you think about shoving miu or himiko or angie in there?

OOOOOH DO YOU MEAN LIKE FOR THE FIRST CULPRIT? IM NGL I KINDA REALLY LIKE THE IDEA OF THAT BEING HIMIKO ACTUALLY, then again i think that would be lowk obvious because wasn't that how the og game went? i mean. well kind of, kork was trying to frame himiko for killing tenko so ig its different still. i love that idea i think we need to use that :3 we can keep angie alive for at Least one more chapter for u

also we can change the characters up a little!! i feel like with rewrites thats kinda a necessary thing to do in part because i feel like theres always SOMETHING you get rid of when you do rewrites yk? idr all of tenkos like, lore? but i think we should at least lower her Hate For Men (i personally have a hc that she has Four (4) men she likes from the get go or at least she hates them less and those are shuichi, rantaro, gonta and kiibo so we can do something with that maybe? idk i dont remember a lot about tenkos backstory so herkgsajkdfg)

OOOHOHOHO we could have something thats like monokuma is like the uuuuuuh . accomplice? no. yeah thats the word . we coudl ahve something like that maybe?? like he isnt caoable of directly laying a hand on the students but he sure as hell can help them come up with ideas and maybe thats something that happens WEHRFGAJKDHGF

i didnt think thered be too many rules we could utilize based on phrasing and stuff so this is about all i expected EBGJKDSHFJKG not in a bad way just like . i am not good at thinking outside the box

BAHAJSHJKASH we're just so good at this actually thast what it is

[lovewithoutresin]

Here’s my take, if you don’t mind my sharing it. It’s not that I’m looking to strip TGW of its original meaning. It’s that when it came out, I was like, “okay. Another song where Taylor is entirely at fault.” That’s not to say it’s a bad song, but that the theme is everywhere - Afterglow, peace, TGW, even Anti-Hero if you think about it all depicted Joe as this perfect figure who had to put up with Taylor’s many problems. It bothered me then and it bothers me now. That’s not to say TGW isn’t telling the truth, but that I wonder if there’s more to the story. A war takes two people. And I do think “maybe it was her” is probably the only time in her discography pre-YLM that she’s ever been like “maybe you did something too” about Joe. The rest of the song is about how he wanted her to trust him, how he was broken and blue, looking at her with honor and truth, and how she nearly lost him because of her poison.

Idk, maybe it’s just because I was never particularly interested in Joe so I found it to be missing some part of the story from the beginning. And we won’t know anything for sure until TTPD. But I don’t think questioning its larger narrative, narrated by someone very much unreliable due to her bias against herself and toward him, especially after Joever, is necessarily rewriting it or an attempt to ruin it.

No this is fair. And I do get how it would be a bit difficult to swallow that Joe was never really considered the villain in any of these songs. Obviously it takes two for a relationship to have friction and she obviously rewrote things in her head to blame herself a lot.

I think my thing is that like. A lot of Taylor's writing abt that relationship has been about her struggle with paranoia. And for a LOT of people (I don't know if you posted abt TGW or anything recently but if so I promise my post wasn't an indirect just ftr) it seems like Joever negates this character trait of hers in some way, because oh! She was right! Something was wrong!

And maybe that is the case, and we won't know more until TTPD, but like... as someone w BPD (here's where the personal bias kicks in), Taylor's openness about her paranoia and flight risk tendencies has been one of the things I've connected to the most over the years. So I guess it's a bit off putting to see some of the suggestions that this is suddenly not something that's genuinely a flaw of hers that she grapples with, and that it was just her lying to herself all along, because it's sort of like... first off painting paranoia/jealousy issues that she portrayed herself as working on getting over as something to demonize, ig? That's a specific tone I've only seen in a couple of posts/other people's asks though, not a broad thing. But then it also feels like it negates the idea that she may have been honest about dealing with this in herself, and it feels like people are just too eager to jump on that train.

I do like what Jaime said sometime in the last 24 hours abt it being something she genuinely dealt with that was then weaponized against her, though. And I think it's possible a more nuanced take is in order where she does deal with this, but it was made to feel like this horrible aspect of her instead of a problem they could face together, or he used it against her to paint her as overreacting when she DID see problems for what they were, or... any number of things, honestly. We can't know for sure yet! I'm just not so quick to jump on the train that she's never been afraid and wrong before, which is the tone I do see a lot of.

[exammole]

Obviously we know that the writers project their problems onto Chloé, and that’s ultimately the reason why she was replaced last minute by Zoé. But both girls are such wasted potential, and if the show was written by competent writers we could’ve had a really good arc for them both. Ig this post will be my unofficial character rewrite post for the both of them.

Link to my og rewrite post

Some of these ideas probably wont stick, especially with the ones with Zoé since a lot of them are in service to other characters. But ig this is my first draft.

I’d keep Chloé roughly the same in Season 1, she and Adrien are still close, her “friendship” with Sabrina and her admiration for Ladybug are still there. But I would probably change the way she bullies Marinette and have it done more secretly, especially after how Soqueline broke her phone last time she did it publicly. (She’s lowkey important now btw) And I’d also make her friendship with Mrs Bustier more important to her character.

There’d be moments in Season 1 that hint at a future one; but her arc would only properly start in Season 2 with the introduction of Audrey. Chloé would begin showing her vulnerable side, wanting to be seen as exceptional by her mother. She would be given the Bee Miraculous like how she gets it in the show, and would ultimately reveal her identity to prove her exceptionalism to her. Marinette would still lend her the Bee due to necessity, but the public identity rule would definitely be enforced with her and others afterwards.

Where I’d change her arc in Season 2, the changes would mostly lie with her views on her mother. She would first seek her approval whenever possible, but I’d have her realise that she would never be enough for Audrey and would stop caring about getting approval from her. I feel she would definitely start seeing Mrs Bustier more like a mother figure than Audrey too but idk. This would be around the same time Lila starts taking her place as a villain.

Season 3 would come the arrival of Zoé because I feel Season 4 is too late. Zoé would move to Paris after Audrey decides to live there permanently; and where Chloé wanted to be more close with Audrey, Zoé would want to be more close with André. In this choice, I’d want to emphasis how bad both the Bourgeois parents are in terms of parenting; and how the two sisters learn from eachother and bond over their shared experience. I imagine at the start they’re relationship is strained.

In this rewrite, I will have Zoé be the permanent Bee holder. But to make up for this. I’d have Chloé be the one to give her the Miraculous instead of Ladybug. And Idk the exact word for this, but I’d also make her almost a supplier/rich supporter(?) where she has her dad make this giant superhero base for the team where they can train, does that make sense? After that, I’d have Chloé properly better her relationships with Sabrina, Marinette, and Soqueline and Alya maybe.

Anything after Season 3, I can’t think of much when it comes to Chloé. Maybe I’d have her in Season 4 develop new relationships with other characters like Luka and Kagami for example. And with Zoé I’d have her slowly start to become more confident in herself and her abilities, kind of like a mirror to S1 Marinette. Zoé might still have a crush on her too, but I’m kinda conflicted on it since I imagine she’d be a protégé to Ladybug in this rewrite. But maybe it could still work idk.

This rewrite would end at Season 5, and I’d have it that the entire team would stop Monarch instead of just Bug Noire. This would include Marinette/Ladybug, Adrien/Cat Noir, Alya/Rena Rouge, Nino/Carapace, Zoé/Honeybee (because I don’t care for Vesperia), Kagami/Ryuko, and Luka/Viperion

[bloom-ribbon22]

Hi, hello, howdy, wassup, yo, it is I, Bloom Ribbon

so um, it felt like ages since I made anything Dinotrux related XD I know my last Dinotrux post isn't really that long but still- I kinda lost interest in the show for about a few weeks ago and just recently got my interest back...

Aaaaaaanywaaaays, I'm not sure if y'all remember but I did made a Dinotrux OC named D-Smantle A.K.A D-bros sis for an AU fanfiction requested by Dstroykin1 right here:

I'm really sorry if I haven't posted the fanfic yet, it's still unfinished but I'll continue it soon!! 😭 again, I kinda lost interest in the show so I lost motivation to finish it uhhhh yea

so the reason why I'm bringing her up rn is because I gave her a redesign and also some more info!

Ta-da!

and here's a few information about her and a bit rewrite ig????

•while I do find the split colored pattern(or whatever it's called) pretty cool, I unfortunately got rid of it since it sorta just didn't feel right for me?? idk it just feels weird, so umm yea she kinda looks a bit basic now but I'll prolly add more to her design, once I make a full body ref of course

•I still kept the warning tape scarf thingy and the patterns on her eyes that's supposed to be eyelashes

•likes stargazing, nothing deep, she likes staring at stars at night, keeps her relaxed like ya I know you can barely see stars irl, maybe it's just me idk

•she has a crap ton(-ton) of scratches all over her but no scars, I like to think unlike D-Structs and D-Stroy, she's not as aggressive as they are, never really picks a fight with anyone else when threatened. but still does get into a few fights and accidents also has scratches ON her eye which is almost too hard to see

•if she ever does have a chance to meet Ty and the gang, then unlike D-Structs and D-Stroy(well, specifically D-Structs) she wouldn't hate Ty that much, she doesn't really care if another T-Trux(unless when they're trying to challenge/attack her) is in her territory building whatevs, but she does find him weird and sorta annoying at times, again, she doesn't hate him so she won't try to get rid of him

•for Ty's perspective? I feel like if he does meet her then he'll also find her annoying, D-Smantle does have that attitude after all but he also won't attack her despite the fact she's literally related to the two trux that tried to kill him countless of times, if anything, he would be surprised to see that despite the attitude, she's way more chill

•left her whole family and started a new life somewhere else because surprise: she doesn't like them, she hated them. two of her brothers shits on her every day and rarely compliments/at least have a neutral conversation with her. as for her parents? they don't really give a shit about her, they sometimes look after her but they focused more on the D-bros so her ass brothers had to raise her(reluctantly)

•lives all by herself now, everyone avoids her cuz "T-Trux bad" but she's already used to it. as lonely as it is...to her, being alone is more better than living with her "family" ...

and that's all for now! I'll continue the fanfic later, tomorrow uhhhhh yea.

alsoooo...bonus human D-Smantle design!

anyways, feel free to ask questions about her in asks, reblogs, comments and I'll happily answer them <3

I hope you all stay safe! 💜