#if you refuse to teach yourself basic things about the world at least have the decency to shut the fuck up about it and stop making it seem

[yugocar]

"you guys don't understand this about america!" followed by things that the majority of people absolutely understand about america

[he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle]

Get to Know Me Tag

Tagged by the feisty @lurkingshan, thanks Shan!

Do you make your bed?

Kinda. After my divorce, I bought lovely new bedding and happily made my bed every morning for like a year. Then I got lazy. I sorta half-ass it, where I fluff my pillows and pull up sheets and straighten the blankets and bed spread, but it's not photo-worthy or anything.

What’s your favorite number?

3. I like triads and trinities. In fact, I named my first dog Trinity. And I had three children!

What is your job?

I’m an author. I have 4 non-fiction books published under my given name and 15 fiction books published under a pseudonym. Many of my books were best sellers. Despite this fact, it is not enough to pay the bills. So I supplement my income with speaking engagements, teaching classes, and running a handful of websites, one of which is a wholesale distribution platform for artisanal imported foods. Basically, I'm self-employed and keep myself busy doing anything that interests me.

If you could go back to school, would you?

No. While I love learning and don't mind taking the occasional class to be introduced to a cool skill (like making stained glass!), I absolutely refuse to do any more higher education than I already have. I was sorta super nerdy at school because of an eidetic memory, so I collected degrees in Biblical Studies, Philosophy, Greek, Linguistics, and Russian Literature before I finally realized I didn't want to be a perpetual student.

Can you parallel park?

Nope. I learned how to do it to get my Driver's License over 30 years ago and have literally never had to use the skill since.

A job you had that would surprise people?

Hmmm. My job-jobs were all pre-children so people are surprised when they find out I ever had any since my last one was decades ago. But I didn't just have a few, I had a LOT of jobs because I finished school early and had to pay for my entire university education myself because of poor parents, and I think that's the most surprising thing. I was a waitress (14-16), a shop clerk (16-18), an acquisitions librarian's assistant (18-19), a bank teller (20), a digital librarian for a major software development company (20-21), a language tutor (18-21), an adjunct professor (22-24), a houseparent in a boy's home (24), and a cog in the county tax assessor's office (24-26). I also volunteered as a translator for Doctor's Without Borders and as a suicide prevention counselor for LGBTQ youth. At 26, I had my first child and became self-employed.

Do you think aliens are real?

Possibly, but I struggle to believe humans have ever interacted with any.

Can you drive a manual car?

Yes!

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Cop shows. I agree ACAB, but I love love LOVE the testosterone-fueled fantasy world of shows like Hawaii Five 0.

Tattoos?

None. I didn't want any at first because all the tattoos I'd seen on old people didn't age well thanks to saggy skin, wrinkles, etc. Now I kinda wish I'd had at least one.

Favorite color?

Dark azure.

Favorite type of music?

I LOVE IT ALL. If you live long enough, you discover awesome music in every genre. Like, I thought I hated heavy metal, but then I discovered the album Pale Communion by Opeth a decade ago and loved literally every single song!

Do you like puzzles?

Yes, but I don't make the time to do them.

Any phobias?

Heights. Absolutely terrifying.

Favorite childhood sport?

Cross country! I ran on my varsity team in HS and continued it through college.

Do you talk to yourself?

No. I am so quiet. On the weeks I don't have custody of my kids, I have sometimes had weeks where I work exclusively from home and don't interact with another human person beyond text messages and emails. When I finally speak out loud for the first time in days, the sound of my voice is jarring and unfamiliar.

What movies do you adore?

About Time. The Royal Tenenbaums. Shawshank Redemption.

Coffee or tea?

Coffee! I used to be more of a snob about it, but I recently fell in love with Korean instant coffees and THEY ARE SO GOOD. HOLY SHIZNITS.

First thing you wanted to be growing up?

A teacher in a foreign country.

I haven't been keeping track of who tagged who, so I'd like to tag @absolutebl @juneviews @twig-tea @sorry-bonebag @stefanyd @waitmyturtles @disaster-j @cooloddball @spicyvampire and @norahastuff If you'd like to play and I didn't tag you, please do!! Be sure to tag me so I can read your post.

[rikeijo]

Today's translation #526

Yuri!!! on Life official guidebook, Toshiharu Mizutani (Art Director) interview

Part 3.

-- For sure, there is a lot of small things in the designs.

M: When I look at just the line arts, I always think that they are drawn in a very loose way, and a lot of those small things are skillfully drawn in a simplified way/omitted. It's something that only somebody with a lot of practice can do. Even newcomers can draw precisely, if they look at a drawing and try to copy it, but the most important thing is not to draw something that is not necessary. If you have to later erase something that you drew, then you give yourself twice the amount of work, but only people with a lot of skill can simply not draw too much to begin with.

-- Then it must have been a good opportunity to learn for the younger staff members, I'd guess?

M: They were all very desperate [to get the job done] and working while on the brink of death.

-- The ice in the skating scenes is very realistic, too. Was it a request from the Director?

M: Yeah. Since the first PV. Even I have watched some figure skating on DVD, so it was something that was on my mind, too. In case of ice shows, the lights are very elaborate, and your eyes are really drawn to the ice, cut with blades of skaters' shoes. Because of how it sparkles. I was wondering if it would be possible to try to achieve this effect, but I thought that if I touched this subject, we all were going to suffer, so I kept quiet. But then I decided that I want to have those cuts in the ice, after all. All were drawn on the same layer, but then split into multiple layers. We put at least three such layers on the surface of the ice.

[Notes: Long time no rant, so...

((Just in case, newer readers may not be aware, that I'm a "fujo-hater" 😂 But fret not, I'm not against seeing relationship between Yuuri and Victor as romantic or against people reading BL, but I'm very much against fujos, who as it was in the case of YoI, try to "teach"/press the creators/other staff members to make the canon bend to their doujinshi tropes.))

The talk about staff members on the brink of death reminded me about that huge controversy about MAPPA that happened last year 💀 It's not a secret that Sayo was overworking animators during YoI and there are still screenshots of animators calling her names on twitter and say condolences to each other, bc of being involved with YoI. So, YoI fandom now hating MAPPA, bc "bad MAPPA, bad working conditions, poor animators...", while demanding that they should stop producing shonens, bc they should make YoI instead is well... an example of how spending time in an echo chamber and just following the crowd can make you a huge hypocrite.

It should also be said that it's not that those shonens are "just for boys" or anything like that if we talk about this topic, btw. GoYuu from JJK (Gojo x Yuuji) is so popular with fujos that it has now more views in total on pixiv than VicYuu, and gets more views in 10-30 min than VicYuu gets in 24 hours (a huge credit for that should ofc go to YoI's IP holders, as they've been trying to starve the fandom to death since 2018, basically...) It's really ironic that it's YoI fans who are so much against MAPPA making those popular shonens, bc so many Jp VicYuu fujos moved to GoYuu (it's basically the same trope "the most awesome, strong and cool man in the world the seme" x "fujoshi avatar the main character in the center of the universe the uke") - one of the reasons, why Jp fans don't attack MAPPA - they very much enjoy those shonens. (Another is that they can read and it's very easy to check who owns the IP.)

To sum up, as always, it's very unfair for YoI fans to call Otsuka CEO the greedy homophobic liar, while absolutely refusing to see the bigger picture.]

[karatekels]

Chef’s Kiss - Part 1

Original Prompt: (From dioswry on Ao3) I’d love for it to be kk3 Terry again! I want reader definitely to be innocent and inexperienced. I thought that they’d meet at some kind fancy rich event where she got invited for smth? and that at that time she’s also friends with Daniel so she knows that Terry’s currently training him (so she obviously thinks he’s a really good guy) She’s also interested in how the training goes so Terry invites her to watch them a few times and she’d fall for him in the process. though one day she’d visit without notice and see just how brutal, aggressive and different he can be with daniel, which scares her. wouldnt mind some dojo smut to happen at the end there hehe

---

I’m happy to write this, especially for someone who gave me such a generous review of my previous Terry exploits! Sorry for the wait on this, and part 2 will be up shortly (I’m always more productive when I’m avoiding actual work I have to do!).

---

“Will you hurry up and get dressed? We’re going to be late!” your mother snaps at you, a few plastic hair curlers still on her head. You groan in annoyance at her from where you were flopped on your bed, flipping through a stack of magazines.

“Ugh, why do I have to go?” you whine petulantly. You had had this fight with both of your parents a hundred times since the summer had started, and knew that arguing wouldn’t get you anywhere, but you couldn’t help it. You didn’t want to join your family’s accounting firm, you never had, but from the moment you had finished college a few months ago, your parents had been breathing down your neck about it, and you were getting sick of it. The minute you had saved up enough from your restaurant job, you were out of here, and you couldn’t wait.

“It’s about time you start joining us in the real world, dear,” your mother says with a sigh, tossing the bag with your dress for the evening at you on the bed. You knew that your mom meant well, but you needed your independence, and refused to let them lead your life for you. Still, you suppose you could keep things civil, at least while you were still at home.

“Okay, mom. I’ll be out in a few minutes,” you concede, trying to keep your annoyance out of your voice. Your mom smiles at you, cupping your cheek fondly, careful not to muss your hair or smudge your makeup.

“Thank you, Y/N. I promise, it won’t be so bad. You could actually have fun!” she says encouragingly, leaving your room to finish her hair. Your smile fades as soon as her back is turned, and you close the door behind her. Sighing, you turn to your bed, unzipping the bag that contained your dress. It was a floor length, silk halter gown done in a deep purple, with sheer glittery fabric flowing down from your cinched waist. Well, at least you’d look nice, you thought to yourself, fingers running over the fabric fondly.

As you get dressed, you think wistfully about all the stuff you’d rather be doing tonight. Trying out something new in the kitchen that would maybe impress your boss enough to move you up from sous chef, hanging out at the beach, or learning karate moves from your new friend Danny LaRusso, who had promised to teach you some basic skills in exchange for bringing some sandwiches for lunch. Formal events in general weren’t your favourite thing, especially not with a bunch of rich strangers talking about businesses you didn’t care about. You grumble to yourself as you put your earrings on. This was going to be a long, boring night.

---

You duck behind a rose bush at the sound of approaching voices, trying to remain hidden. You had been at the event for a couple of hours now, and while you had done your best to smile and engage in polite conversation, you had needed to get away from everyone. It’s not that you were an antisocial person, but you did enjoy having time to yourself, and definitely preferred solitude to talking to people who only seemed to be seeing what they could get out of one another. So, you had decided to step off the large balcony where everyone was gathered and down the steps to the massive gardens, hoping to have a few minutes to decompress before you were missed.

You’d always loved gardens; being surrounded by nature really calmed you, especially here in L.A., where so much of everything was hot and dry and covered in pavement. This place was massive; you hadn’t seen inside the house yet, but whoever lived here certainly had excellent taste from what you had seen so far. You wandered through the rows of flower beds, stopping to smell your favourites. The sunlight was fading, and it was starting to cool off, and you knew that you should head back to the party soon, but it was so peaceful out here, and it was so nice, finally being by yourself…

“Not a fan of these rich people shindigs either, huh?”

You whirl around to find the owner of the voice – you had been sure you were alone, that had been the whole point! – to find a man standing ten feet or so behind you. He was the epitome of ‘tall, dark, and handsome’: He must be nearly six and a half feet tall, with dark, curly hair slicked back in a ponytail and brilliant blue eyes, dressed in a perfectly tailored tuxedo that emphasized his broad chest and strong arms. You realize that you haven’t replied to him yet, and instead have been staring at him, trying not to drool, and snap out of it, blushing slightly.

“Yeah, uh… this isn’t really my scene. My parents are trying to drag me into the family business and made me come today, but I really don’t think I’m cut out for this kind of life…” you reply, trailing off when you realize you’re babbling about your personal problems to a stranger.

“You get used to it,” he assures you, shrugging with his hands in his pockets as he approaches you. The height difference between you becomes even more apparent the closer he gets; you have to tilt your head up to maintain eye contact with him. “For what it’s worth, you certainly look the part,” he adds with a glint in his eyes that makes you feel warm all over, and you smile shyly up at him.

“Oh, thank you! Uh… that’s kind of you to say…” You’re not used to men paying you compliments, especially not older (you’d guess he was almost ten years older than you), wealthy men. “I’m Y/N, by the way,” you introduce yourself, feeling foolish. “Y/N L/N.” You extend your hand towards him, having to take a couple of steps back to do so, and he takes it with one of his, giving you a firm handshake, but you could tell he was being extra gentle with you.

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N.” He closes the distance between you once more, lifting your hand to his lips to kiss the back of it, and you shiver slightly. He lowers your hand slowly, releasing it to you once more before shrugging off his suit jacket, holding it up to you – he must have mistaken your shiver for being cold. “May I?” he asks, gesturing with the jacket to your shoulders. His eyes haven’t moved from looking deeply into yours the whole time, and you don’t think you could look away if you wanted to; his eyes were hypnotizing.

It was still quite warm, but despite being inexperienced with romance, you’re not foolish enough to refuse the act of chivalry, and nod wordlessly. In a smooth motion, almost like he was embracing you, he drapes the silk-lined jacket around your shoulders. The material was so soft, and as you clutch the lapels in one hand to keep it around you, you inhale sneakily into the jacket, the scent of exotic cologne nearly making you moan in pleasure. “Better?” he asks, giving you an approving once over, and you nod shyly, nibbling your lip nervously.

“Yes, thank you,” you say, sighing happily before realizing that you don’t even know this man’s name, and he’s already got you wrapped up in his clothes. “You never gave me your name,” you say, more a statement than a question, and he looks down at you, head tilted to the side with his lips quirked.

“Call me Terry.”

“Okay. Thank you, Terry,” you say earnestly, smiling up at him. He returns the gesture before gesturing down the garden path.

“Should we head back?” he asks, and you do your best to refrain from frowning at the thought, but he definitely sees the emotion flicker across your face, and chuckles. “C’mon, we’ll take the long way,” he says, taking your hand and leading you through the garden.

You make your way slowly back to the event together, and you try to savour every moment. You had noticed that Terry moved slower, taking smaller steps to match your pace and not rush you, and had done a half dozen other chivalrous acts during the walk back. This must be what getting swept off your feet feels like, you think to yourself, biting back a smile. You didn’t really talk about yourselves during your walk, keeping the conversation light, but it had been incredibly enjoyable.

As you hear the din of voices getting louder, you shrug off his jacket reluctantly, holding it out to him. He stares at the article of clothing for a moment, as if contemplating something, and then accepts the jacket, folding it over an arm.

“I guess you have to go back to your…business talk,” you sigh, wrinkling your nose at the thought. Terry laughs at the face you’re pulling and shakes his head.

“You wanna come with me?” he asks hopefully. “It’d be nice to have a friendly face to keep me sane.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I think I’d just make things awkward, and I don’t wanna – oh, food!” you say excitedly, your eyes lighting up as you spot waiters carrying trays throughout the party. You were starving, and couldn’t help yourself, quickly putting together a plate, barely noticing Terry following you through the crowd, his soft laughter at your antics lost amongst the conversations of the other guests.

“Any good?” Terry asks, an amused twinkle in his eye as you sample the hors d’oeuvres. You shrug, trying to appear casual.

“It’s fine. The crabcakes could use more seasoning, and the bruschetta is a bit soggy.” He surveys you with an interested expression.

“You think you could do better?” he asks, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

You smile up at him, a little cocky, wanting to impress him a little. “Of course I could,” you reply, and you know you’re being honest. Cooking was your passion, something you were proud of, and the thought of being able to show, well, anything of value to such an impressive man was exciting to you.

“I’ll have to have a word with the kitchen staff if you aren’t satisfied with the food,” he comments, seeming to take in your horrified realization that this was his party with a great deal of enjoyment, grinning slyly down at you as your mouth falls open.

“Y-You’re the host of this party?” you stammer, feeling like an idiot. “Why didn’t you tell me?!” you ask, trying to shift the blame to distract from your own blunder. He chuckles under his breath, leaning down towards you with a reassuring hand on your upper arm.

“I couldn’t let you know I was blowing off my own party, now could I?” he says in his defence. He doesn’t seem to be bothered by your criticism at all, but you still feel the need to apologize; you are so embarrassed.

“Listen Terry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.” He’s shaking his head at you before you even get the words out.

“What, are you kidding? It’s nice to talk to someone real for once, without worrying that they want something from me, y’know?” Well, you couldn’t say you didn’t want anything from him, you think to yourself, taking him in with your eyes yet again without even thinking about it.

Before you can say anything else, his hand on your shoulder trails down your arm to take your hand, causing goosebumps to run down the path his hand had taken, and with a mischievous smile, he’s tugging you into the house, his house, though it was more of a palace than any house you’d ever seen. Terry ignores your questions about where he’s taking you and leads you down hallway after hallway until you eventually just give up asking, giggling breathlessly. Eventually, he swings open a door, revealing an industrial yet lavish kitchen. He turns around suddenly, his arms crossed over his broad chest, looking down at you with a stern, challenging expression.

“It’s time for you… to prove yourself to me,” he says solemnly. An intense moment passes between you, before he breaks into a grin. “Make us some crabcakes!”

“W-What? No way!” You protest, backing away from him, but he’s too quick for you, moving between you and the door and herding you further into the kitchen.

“Hey hey, you can’t do all that big talking you did out there without the chops to back it up! C’mon, Y/N, show me what you’ve got!” He perches in one of the stools beside the kitchen counter, his chin resting on his palms, batting his eyes at you with a silly expression. You roll your eyes in return, pursing your lips at him as you considered his request. “Pleeeeease?” He’s actually pouting now, and you find yourself giving in. You think you could see yourself doing that a lot where Terry was concerned.

“Alright, alright! But you’re going to have to help me find things, ingredients and utensils and junk. That is, if you’ve even used this kitchen before, Mr. Fancypants,” you say, your hands on your hips.

“Fancypants?!” Terry repeats with mock outrage, hopping off the stool and walking over to you. “Tell me whatcha need, doll, and I’ll get it for you!”

You rattle off a list of things, and to his credit, Terry does seem to know his way around this kitchen, handing you the requested items while you organize them on the counter. Having completed his task, Terry retakes his seat on the stool. “Now… wow me!” He says, leaning back with his hands behind his head as he surveys you. You giggle at his antics, and get to work.

Being around Terry was so easy. As you prepare the crabcakes, he asks you about cooking, what experience you had, and why you liked it so much. He was so easy to talk to, and was the first person who had genuinely seemed interested in your dreams and plans for the future – and you’d only known him for a couple of hours! You would never have expected this from someone you had just met, least of all from a very successful man.

Squeezing a fresh lemon over the top of the dish, you slide the serving of crabcakes over to Terry, along with a fork. You know that they’re perfect: crispy and not soggy, fresh and flavourful, but you’re still nervous. “Bon appetit!” You announce, nodding with confidence at the dish, and Terry eagerly digs in, his fork cutting off a piece of the crabcake with a satisfying crunch.

He brings the mouthful to his lips and takes a bite. His eyes close, and he actually lets out a soft moan of pleasure, and you feel your mouth go dry at the sound, your body flushing with heat. You shake your head, trying to get yourself together before Terry opens his eyes again. You refused to be jealous of a crabcake.

“Mr. Silver, there you are!” A primly dressed yet kind-looking older woman bustles into the kitchen towards Terry. “Mr. Saran has been looking for you to discuss–”

“Tell him we’ll have to reschedule, Margaret. I’m dealing with a very important culinary emergency!” Terry cuts her off, raising an eyebrow at you playfully as he takes another bite of the crabcakes, smiling blissfully at the taste.

“Hey, don’t cancel anything important on my account!” you say worriedly, using the time he has his mouth full to try to insist he do the professional thing. You’re having a great time, and feel pretty pleased with yourself, having impressed the man so much with your culinary skills, but he really should be using his own party to network, shouldn’t he? Plus, you needed to get yourself back under control – you had let a man you’d just met whisk you into his mansion without even knowing why!

“Margaret, try this!” He ignores your protests, sliding the plate towards the woman, who immediately takes a bite. “Pretty spectacular, right?” The woman nods approvingly, giving you a kind yet curious glance that you don’t know how to interpret as she finishes the mouthful.

“Wonderful, much better than the caterers for today. I’ll go and schedule something with Mr. Saran for next week then, Mr. Silver,” she says, looking between you two and excusing herself tactfully, leaving the two of you alone in the kitchen once more.

“See? Margaret is my most trusted employee, and I can count on her to be honest about everything. Your food is great!” He praises you again, but you suddenly find yourself distracted by something Margaret had said.

“Wait, your last name is Silver? You’re Terry Silver?” Terry’s smile fades slightly as you say his full name.

“Yeah, what’s it to you?” He’s trying to keep his tone light, but you think he gives you a calculating look.

“You’re helping my friend with his karate! Daniel LaRusso?” You ask, and you see him look relieved at your response.

“Oh, you know Danny Boy? That’s great!” He’s enthusiastic once more, his face breaking into a wide smile as he finishes his plate. “I hope you’re feeding him, too; the kid’s too small. He could use some of your cooking!”

“Yeah, we’ve got a deal; I make him sandwiches, and he teaches me a few moves,” you say, karate chopping the air with a grin.

“Hey, can I get in on that?” He asks standing to go put his plate in the sink. You laugh at his back, turning and leaning against the counter.

“Oh, come on! I’m sure you have an army of professional chefs at your disposal, you don’t need my silly sandwiches.” Terry turns, raising an eyebrow at you.

“And what if I’d rather have your silly sandwiches?” He asks coyly, closing the distance between you with a few long strides, boxing you in with his hands on either side of you on the counter. You’re forced to lean back to look up at him, and fight the urge to lick your lips.

“Umm…I…” you stammer, finding it difficult to form a sentence when he’s this close to you. He cocks his head to one side, his piercing eyes locked with yours as he seems to drink in every detail of your face.

“C’mon, Y/N, this would give us an excuse to see each other again,” he says, and his voice is just so persuasive, pulling you into him. “Plus, you could learn some training from a real sensei and not some kid! I’d be happy to teach you a thing or two…” He trails off, and you’re sure you’re not imagining the innuendo. You swallow, feeling your face getting hot.

“Fine, you win!” You make a show of rolling your eyes and ducking under his arm to get some space, trying to save a bit of dignity as you give in to his request. No one had ever made you feel like this before, like you were playing with fire and only wanting to get closer. Terry gives you a pleased smile, leaning back against the counter with his hands in his pockets, not seeming bothered by you worming your way out of his clutches.

“Hey… LaRusso doesn’t know about, well, all this,” Terry says, gesturing around him. “I didn’t want to intimidate him, right? Do you think you can keep this between us?” He steps into your personal space yet again, looking down at you with a pleading expression, blue eyes shining, and you once again feel the urge to agree with whatever he says, nodding silently.

“Thanks, doll!” He gives you a bright grin, relishing in his victory. “I’ll see you and your silly sandwiches in a couple of days then?” He seems genuinely excited at the thought, and you find yourself smiling back at him goofily.

“I’ll try to keep Daniel from eating them all, but you’d better hope you train me fast so I can fight him off!” You call back to him as you leave the kitchen, going to find your parents. You’d have to get yourself under control and keep yourself from breaking out into the brilliant smile you felt bubbling up inside you by the time you returned to the party.

“I’ll train you so fast it’ll make your head spin,” Terry says quietly after you, his words echoing in the empty room as he stares at the door you’ve exited through.

---

Over the next couple of weeks, you visit the dojo with Danny every day, a large basket of sandwiches and a thermos of lemonade in your arms. Daniel seems happy to have you there, a little eager to show off to you – his young age really showed when he did things like that.

Terry was similarly pleased, and you had gotten closer during your time together. He looked so different out of his tuxedo, in his karate gi or jeans and a sweatshirt when he wasn’t training to keep up his “disguise,” but he was no less attractive to you. You understood his desire to keep his true identity hidden from Danny, remembering how your own behaviour to him had switched when you’d found out who he was at the party. You had seemed to develop a good relationship with him since you started coming to the dojo, and found it a lot more comfortable than the formal setting you’d met at.

When you weren’t at the dojo or working the night shift at the restaurant, you were looking out for Daniel. More than once, Terry had thrown some money at you, and asked if you could go get some basic medical supplies to help patch Daniel up, and you were more than happy to help. You knew that his focus should be on Daniel, so you did what you could, not only helping to take care of the boy at the dojo, but helping him keep his training a secret from his mentor, Mr. Miyagi. You didn’t like the idea of lying to someone so kind and generous, but Daniel was an adult and able to make his own decisions, and you couldn’t bring yourself to do the right thing if it meant an end to your time with Terry.

Learning some karate from Terry had been fun; he had initially taken to showing you a few moves in a separate part of the dojo once he had assigned an exercise to Daniel in the main training area. Daniel needed to learn to rely on himself to focus, and not his sensei, Terry had explained to you one day as he was correcting your form, his hands lingering on your hips a little longer than necessary.

But then he had kissed you for the first time, and all thoughts of learning karate had left your mind. He had asked you to practice a new move he’d taught you on him, but after going through the drill a few times you had stopped, squaring off against each other. You had a light sheen of sweat across your body, panting heavily with your hair messy, and caught Terry looking at you, his eyes darkening to a shade of deep blue. You found yourself frozen in place as he stared, your chest pounding, forgetting to breathe altogether as your heartbeat thudded in your ears. You go to open your mouth – to ask what he’s looking at, to breathe, to do or say anything – but before you can he’s stalked toward you, his feet silent on the floor, moving so quickly and smoothly you’d thought your eyes were playing tricks on you. And then he’s grabbing the back of your head, fingers tangled in your hair, and pulling you face up to his, kissing you desperately with a passion you had never imagined before, let alone felt.

Your brain hadn’t been able to respond to the kiss, but your body had, gasping into his mouth and wrapping your arms around his neck, kissing him back until you were dizzy. Panting for air, Terry gave you a wicked grin that further served to take your breath away, before pulling you closer again.

Since that kiss, you had kept up the pretense of learning karate from Terry while Daniel was otherwise occupied, but really Terry would have you tucked in a corner at the other side of the dojo, teasing your body with his talented fingers until you were a trembling moaning mess. Terry would cover your mouth with his own, swallowing your moans and whimpers hungrily through the kiss, before shushing you, reminding you that Danny Boy was right on the other side of the wall and that you had to be quiet. He would watch you as you tried to compose yourself, his eyes glittering in amusement and with more than a hint of dark desire as he resumed his teasing, a strong hand ghosting upwards underneath your shirt and plucking at your hard nipples, making you squirm on his lap, his other hand coming up to cover your mouth, muffling your moans.

A few times you had come close to getting caught, and were embarrassed, but you couldn’t help but come back for more. Terry seemed to know this, starting to get more blatant with his attraction towards you, staring at you over Danny’s head as he guided him through attacking the training dummy and licking his lips suggestively, making you blush as a wave of heat ran through your body. Fortunately, you were able to chalk it up to the hot L.A. summer, and Daniel remained oblivious. Thank God for the naivety of youth, you thought to yourself, feeling your face go red as Terry’s lips closed around a strawberry, managing to make even an innocent lunch sexual. You’d have to be more careful about what food you brought, or he was going to drive you mad.

---

A few days before the tournament, you turn the corner to the dojo, a picnic basket in hand. You hadn’t accompanied Daniel over the past few days, insisting that he needed Terry’s full attention, but mainly you felt like you needed a break from the near-constant seduction to get a clear head. You had thought it over, and you were done with stealing kisses in the dark, and you were going to tell Terry. You didn’t need flowers or chocolates, or even for him to commit to you, but you were definitely over sneaking around Daniel; he was still a kid, after all. You were ready to give yourself over to him if he wanted you to, and to do that you needed privacy so that you were fully able to succumb to the feelings he was able to elicit from you. So, you had prepared a meal for the three of you for what would hopefully be the last time, and resolved to sneak into the dojo, set up your meal, and at some point take Terry aside and tell him what you needed. Shivering as your mind conjured up images of what you two could finally get up to alone, you walked down the alley and silently slipped through the unlocked back door to Cobra Kai.

Setting the picnic basket down on the table, you quietly start to set the table, when you hear Daniel let out a pained scream. Unable to help yourself, you tiptoe to the door to the main part of the dojo, peeking around the corner to make sure the boy was alright.

What you see horrifies you.

Daniel is wincing, his knuckles covered in blood, and Terry snatches up one of his wrists, bringing the bleeding fist closer to Daniel’s face.

“It’s blood. So what? Make believe it’s his!” Terry’s voice is harsh, and what you can see of his face through the door is cruel, and a bit maniacal. He guides Daniel towards a wooden dummy with a hand on his shoulder, and gestures up to the dummy’s head, where a flyer with another boy’s face has been glued.

“This guy wants to break you, humiliate you, stomp you into the ground!” Terry yells, and you feel your stomach roil with disgust. Was this how Terry had been training Daniel when you weren’t around? What had gotten into him?

“-And what are you gonna do about it?” Terry screams at Daniel, and you hear a loud thud as the boy strikes at the dummy, whimpering slightly at the pain to his already-damaged hands.

“You’re gonna need to learn to push past the pain, Mr. LaRusso,” Terry says, looking down at Daniel mercilessly. “I expect you to have done so by the time I come back.”

With that, Terry walks away from the boy, coming down the hall towards you. Panicking, you crouch down in the corner, hidden by a stack of unused mats, and clasp both hands over your mouth, trying desperately to not make a sound.

Terry enters the kitchen, keeping the door to the rest of the dojo open and standing with his back to the wall. He’s listening intently for something, and you stop breathing, thinking he’s heard you, but then noises come from the dojo – the sound of Danny’s hands and feet making contact with the solid wood, and his cries of pain – and Terry laughs under his breath, his eyes bright and his smile terrifying. He was enjoying Daniel’s suffering!

You feel your heart start to break, but it’s overwhelmed by the panic as you start to consider what will happen if Terry finds you. Terry stops laughing suddenly, his eyes moving elsewhere in the kitchen, and you follow his gaze to the kitchen table to your partially-unpacked picnic basket. He knew you were here. You force your eyes to flick back to him, trembling with fear, and are only partially surprised to see that his icy blue eyes are on you.

Your mouth falls open, and you try to make a sound – to explain yourself, to call out for Daniel – but nothing comes out but a faint squeak. He takes a silent step towards you, and you manage to scramble up to your feet, trying to make for the back door, but Terry’s arm instantly wraps around your waist, fully lifting you off the ground and clutching you to his chest, his other hand clamping down over your mouth and nose, silencing you completely and cutting off your airways.

You let out a muffled cry, knowing that Daniel won’t hear but hope that Terry might recognize you begging him to stop, and your legs kick out desperately against his shins. He doesn’t growl audibly, but you feel a rumble in his chest as he sets your feet on the ground. He releases your waist, but you’re too terrified to move, hyperventilating against his hand as he keeps your head in place.

Calm as can be, Terry gathers your hair over one of your shoulders, pressing a kiss to the flesh of your neck before replacing it with two fingers. The pressure on that spot on your neck combined with the lack of oxygen is going to make you pass out, and that seems to be Terry’s intent.

“You’re gonna thank me for this, Y/N,” Terry whispers into your ear as your vision goes black.

---

Part 2 here

[dearestones]

Yandere! America x Dictatorship! Reader Headcanons

Warnings: Yandere behavior, mental manipulation, slight power imbalance, etc. 

Anonymous Request: How would yandere America, who loves freedom and liberty, deal with an obsession that is a dictatorship or at least authoritarian?

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Oh, America does not like you.

At least, not at first.

As a Nation and a person, he firmly believes that everyone should have a chance to follow their beliefs and to live life as they want. However, while he can live with Nations who oppose him on certain ideas, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t hold animosity towards those who flagrantly survive off human rights violations. 

Of course, all Nations are beholden to their governments and their people’s way of thinking. You probably have a history, a downward spiral perhaps, of how you eventually became a dictatorship. Every Nation has no say in their governments; the only thing that they can hope to achieve is to keep themselves up to date and retain hope that their people—true patriots—will eventually come through.  

America can’t exactly blame you for that, can he?

He may look like a child—an upstart to some of the older Nations—but even he knows that he can’t see the world solely through a black and white lens. The hero complex that he has burdened himself with may rear its ugly head when it comes to you. After international summits, he’ll approach some of the Nations who are classified as dictatorships and he’ll mistakenly believe that they’ll be wanting his help. Sure, there might be a few who will entertain his ideas of a peaceful world, but there are others who would rather be left alone. Besides, it’s not his business now is it?

When he reaches you, you’ll find that even though he speaks at length about the virtues of freedom and the mounting allegations of crimes against humanity (whether true or not), his eyes hold disdain for you. If you’re the sort of person who is willing to be civil, you might be able to escape the conversation relatively unscathed except for a few verbal barbs that you have little hope of going over America’s head despite his pointed blustering. Then again, if you’re the type to fight back against any perceived insults, you’ll either feed into his ego or exchange fisticuffs before someone—likely Germany—pulls you both apart.

For the most part, that’s how this non-relationship of yours starts. He’ll badger you during meetings, fascinated with your reactions. Whether it be by your silent rebellion or furious shows of force, America will begin to prepare his political attacks in advance. Before meetings, he’ll spend time researching your history, your culture, and if enough time has passed by, he’ll begin to look into your private affairs. 

Why are you friends with this Nation? Why do you insist on strengthening relations with this country? How dare you share this many cultural ties with your neighbor? 

At first, America might be confused and maybe downright terrified of these thoughts. He doesn’t mean to sound like a monster, he just wants to help you see that the best way to rule yourself is not through dictatorship. However, as time goes on and the more you either refuse him outright or ignore him, the more America realizes that he wants to save you from yourself. 

Never mind trying the diplomatic route. What better way to reform your entire country than to start with the Nation’s human avatar? If talking to you during meetings won’t help you see the light, then surely it would be better if you were exposed to America one on one for days on end. 

It’s a plan months in the making and no one, including you, could have ever seen coming. When you finally wake up in one of his many houses in one of his lesser known States, he will gleefully start regaling you with all of his hard work and start teaching (brainwashing) you into thinking like him. It’s for your own good, he explains, as he has you reading through several books and documents about American history, the basics of human rights, etc.

If you ask why he didn’t bother sending diplomats or going through the legal channels first, he’ll shrug and impart platitudes about freedom and liberty. 

He’ll keep you with him, regardless if you finally see the light or not. In America’s house, he is always right and you have no say. The only thing that you can hope for is that your government sends out a search party soon because if you don’t, he might spin enough lies and create evidence that you’ll like your training sessions with him. 

And, if there is a revolution in your home country and you become one of the free Nations, America will still keep you around. The best way to make sure that you stay on a path that is straight and narrow is to keep you under observation, right? Don’t worry, he won’t insult you anymore for being a dictatorship. 

He will scold you for not being a “good” Nation from the start. If it weren’t for that, America would have been with you right from the beginning! 

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DISCLAIMER: I do not condone yandere behavior outside of fictional settings. Please don’t mistake the actions of fictional characters displayed in works of fiction to be considered harmless in real life.

If you want to donate a Ko-Fi, feel free https://ko-fi.com/devintrinidad.

HETALIA AXIS POWERS/WORLD SERIES MASTERLIST

[herunswithscissors]

I found one of those thinly disguised homework questions posted to r/biology the other day and annoyed them with this lengthy response that I’d like to share with you. Not an oracle or anything like that. But I think it has some truth.

First of all, I think you are losing out on the stretching of your mind and development of your knowledge web and will not grow in your intellect, stunted mental weaklings always studying for a test by asking reddit to answer your homework because people treat it like work to be finished instead of exercises and practices for our development as a whole person.

But that's like 95% of America who just refused to develop themselves after school stopped making them "work" at it.

so... since I'm not going to change your mind, I might as well alleviate your suffering.

Theropod dinosaurs like Trex or velociprators are the 2-legged bird-like types of dinosaurs whose relatives became birds after all the large animals were wiped out and they were able to evolve on their own in a new world with only other small creatures after the asteroid wiped out the bigger creatures.

There were always reptiles like turtles, lizards, and crocodiles living alongside the dinosaurs which also survived the asteroid.

Hey, I hate work too. And school really does suck. Because we really suck at teaching in our schools. And y'all are slackers. But you should be slackers for $15 and hour and almost no real family-supporting jobs to even try to go to college for. And even then it's years or even a life of debt that only uses your training in moving around code in Excel. Even if you become a criminally underpaid scientist and professor. F that noise.

Slack away.

Slack at everything supporting this terrible life they are shoveling at you while they go about extracting and oppressing and causing almost all human and ecological suffering in the world and then turn around and throw in some welfare to go with that $15/hr that you know will only get less with meaningless COLAS and inflation as you flee from master to master in search of just a tad more Freedom Dollars to rent a little shelter, food, and comfort and to maybe buy from them even the littlest of things to get even a modicum of the freedom and food, shelter, and luxuries like teeth. And maybe enough freedom and Freedom Dollars to live a little and to have enough to help a brother out (or sister or whatever) and to afford a win-win whenever they can. And maybe a lose a bit-win here and there when they can help a brother or sister or whatever out.

I just wish you were more curious.

It's a really fun out here and school sucks but at least it can introduce you to some of the cool stuff that you can explore for yourself. Just don't believe first impressions.

Writer gets longwinded a bit much from here on in and stop actually talking to the student but to the others foolish enough to waste their time reading ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

You get bad first impressions because our schools mostly suck at teaching despite the outstanding teachers doing impossible feats of education underfunded to a degree I hope our future generations have moral courage to find repugnant and repent of. Terrible schools full of impossibly foolish and idealistic teachers who think they might just make a difference in someone’s life and don't realize until they are old that they made a positive impact on everyone and for most of us of us teachers basically half raise us. For a lot of us they primarily raised and mentored, even fathered and mothered us all into adulthood in the most loving (almost always) and proper (usually, except for the predators) ways they could which they thought were proper and possible for them at that time.

Have a little compassion for the poor suckers. Especially have compassion for the many good but angry ones sticking in there because they can't abandon their kids even if the other schools would snatch her up and double her pay if they knew what kind of person they were. Aside from the predators, try to have compassion even on the very mean ones. (Most of them are not that mean. You kids don't know shirt about bad or mean or abusive and boring teachers. unless you are a minority, cause there's way too many Yt-nostalgic bullies and entitled Boomers who still neglect yall and do far worse things to y'all. even worse, even now, sadly, when the cowards can do it off the radar and off camera or in neglected SES's.)

But any way, about the dinosaurs and birds...The astroid impact wiped out all the large and specialist types of animals. All that were left had to be able to live on the decay and slowly recovering plant life.

Smaller creatures that didn't need so many calories to survive long enough to reproduce and most representatives of almost all of the very small creatures and all the more resiliant plants and fungi which all had seeds and spores in the ground to spring back after things settled down and the sky cleared up again. In a century or two the entire Planet would be green and alive again and full of all the tiniest representatives of all the creatures that had evolved till now.

Including the mighty dinosaurs. the behemoths and leviathans out of our myths and nightmares. Some of their descendants now poop breakfast and dig up my garden too often for their own safety.

But within a century or two. maybe a millenia all the ecosystems were up and running, full of excess resources and lots of new territory and niches to specialize in. there would have been an explosion of speciation and new traits that found perchase in this empty paradise.

But here was a brand new world. Basically a new creation of almost all life to more or less have a bunch of representatives of the various groups of vertebrates and other creatures and life forms like plants and fungi and archaea.

A whole new batch of critter starter kits have been released from their previous state of arrangements into a new world of preexisting plant, fungal, prokaryote filled established ecosystems. Plants of every conceivable type and resources unacceptable were available were widely available and freely given as food for a little batch of the the little things of this world.

Things like cockroaches, dragonflies, lizards, possum-sized mammals and bird-sized theropods (already covered with feathers they had evolved for warmth, display, or flight/gliding). Or the things like frogs or turtles that could take refuge in the mud for a year or two. Or crocodilians. Which are just so perfectly evolved as a family as to be indestructible even when smacked upside the head with God's errant baseball because like sharks, they had already colonized the entire planet. (this was a good and natural kind of colonizing by fitting into preexisting ecosystems and learning to adapt to their ways, Colonizer).

As the plants returned, the generalists began to find niches and natural selection played off random mutations along with a sprinkling of statistics and weird happenstance leads to each generation being filled with more of the individuals carrying the genes that produced the proteins that kicked off a chemical and physiological cascade of biological wizardry that results in particular traits having particular qualities the the environment and the entire ecosystem around them has opinions on its fitness. The ones with the best overall stats for the things of their world that matter most to reproduction and surviving long enough to pop off a bunch of fit offspring carrying those same genes, mixed with some other individual's unknown, but obviously fit genes (to have survived this long), making a brand new mix of some of the best genes nature could find for that situation.

So we get creatures morphing gradually in spurts and starts and plateaus over hundreds of thousands and then hundreds of millions more years as their environment and ecosystems and neighbors all change along with them in a stop motion animorph-like thing as a fish eventually becomes a philosopher. Who can understand how the basic structure of theropods with feathers can easily lead to my silly chickens poking curiously around my back yard.

The mammals, hairy and feeding their young off of secretions from glands on their ventral side sprung from a group of earlier 4-legged vertebrates that originally sprung from a group of fish like tiktaalik. And we can watch that little rat-like raccoon thing find food in new ways and was of surviving in groups using intelligence and communication and dexterity to get into things and tear things apart to get at the grubs inside or to get at the nutritious part of the root. Dexterity and development of hands so integral to their survival that they walked on 2 feet exclusively and learning to run, and intellect so integral to simple survival and to the growing new selective pressures found only in sentient creatures: "culture" and "tools" and "innovation" and "intelligence" and "morals" and "values" and "language" and such) , that they dedicated 25% of their scarce calories to their brains.

But here was a brand new world. Basically a new creation of almost all life to more or less have a bunch of representatives of the various groups of vertebrates and other creatures and life forms like plants and fungi and archaea.

A whole new batch of critter starter kits have been released from their previous state of arrangements into a new world of preexisting plant, fungal, prokaryote filled established ecosystems. Plants of every conceivable type and resources unacceptable were available were widely available and freely given as food for a little batch of the the little things of this world.

Things like cockroaches, dragonflies, lizards, possum-sized mammals and bird-sized theropods (already covered with feathers they had evolved for warmth, display, or flight/gliding). Or the things like frogs or turtles that could take refuge in the mud for a year or two. Or crocodilians. Which are just so perfectly evolved as a family as to be indestructible even when smacked upside the head with God's errant baseball because like sharks, they had already colonized the entire planet. (this was a good and natural kind of colonizing by fitting into preexisting ecosystems and learning to adapt to their ways, Colonizer).

As the plants returned, the generalists began to find niches and natural selection played off random mutations along with a sprinkling of statistics and weird happenstance leads to each generation being filled with more of the individuals carrying the genes that produced the proteins that kicked off a chemical and physiological cascade of biological wizardry that results in particular traits having particular qualities the the environment and the entire ecosystem around them has opinions on its fitness. The ones with the best overall stats for the things of their world that matter most to reproduction and surviving long enough to pop off a bunch of fit offspring carrying those same genes, mixed with some other individual's unknown, but obviously fit genes (to have survived this long), making a brand new mix of some of the best genes nature could find for that situation. So we get creatures morphing gradually in spurts and starts and plateaus over hundreds of thousands and then hundreds of millions more years as their environment and ecosystems and neighbors all change along with them in a stop motion animorph-like thing as a fish eventually becomes a philosopher. Who can understand how the basic structure of theropods with feathers can easily lead to my silly chickens poking curiously around my back yard.

The mammals, hairy and feeding their young off of secretions from glands on their ventral side sprung from a group of earlier 4-legged vertebrates that originally sprung from a group of fish like tiktaalik. And we can watch that little rat-like raccoon thing find food in new ways and was of surviving in groups using intelligence and communication and dexterity to get into things and tear things apart to get at the grubs inside or to get at the nutritious part of the root. Dexterity and development of hands so integral to their survival that they walked on 2 feet exclusively and learning to run, and intellect so integral to simple survival and to the growing new selective pressures found only in sentient creatures: "culture" and "tools" and "innovation" and "intelligence" and "morals" and "values" and "language" and such) , that they dedicated 25% of their scarce calories to their brains.

Then when we had figured out how to use those giant brains to build agriculture technology, language, culture, art, stories, creating metal from earth and used that metal to plow the earth to feed themselves and even to build an outdoor lab in order to take generations of purposeful selective breeding with real scientific understanding of genetics on some basic level but probably better they created corn from grass so long ago it was believed by Western science to be a native species until only recently.

We never looked because we were the experts a we lacked the respect for the ancestors of your people and your people and your people too. But hey, we did figure out how to use corn to get drunk and for that I thank you. They had a civilization of humans in south america who built a pyramid only recently discovered in the jungles of the amazon (one of many many huge and complex civilizations across the Americas in the BC (before Columbus/Colonization) that predates the pyramids of egypt herself because we never looked. after the earliest recorded footprints were just conclusively proven by one of the most set of strongest evidences short of the evidence for evolution and climate change to be ~20k years old and they were pretty far south so the first peoples have been here for at least that long.

and then those explorers and pioneers jogged down the glaciers settled down and created some corn and far later the backdrop of a foot fettish's vampire flick. while their old buddies and strolled past the hole in the earth left by the astroid that killed the dinosaurs while the others created a buffet of potatoes to make Sam Gamgee's eyes pop out, domesticated those spitting mean sob llamas, (while people in the Pacific were domesticating the dangerous dinosaurs we call cassowarries fyi) and managed to create the Amazon Rain Forrest and so many big civilizations that one of them decided to pile a shit ton of rocks into a pyramid to get closer to the heavens only 800 mothers after your ancestors fricken crossed an ice bridge and glaciers because they were too impatient to get to the New World they hoped and imagined could be on the other side of the hellscape of ice.

They hoped they would find new green lands to colonize (in the right way, with their new ecosystems) with their little family groups but maybe huge and well-ordered tribes and family groups.

You should know Africa was back there working on figuring out the finer points of using visual symbols to communicate and well on their way to developing the first complex written form of their language in a few millenia and would soon think a great way to use their new toy was to be writing snark on their oblisks as the aristocrats in their most "advanced" civilizations would have oblisk building competitions between neighboring cities before any recognized pyramid in the world.

So I doubt your amazing ancestors were just bumbling along like cavemen in elk skins. I'm sure they came as some kind of tribe or nation who planned an expeditionary operation and then methodically and purposefully crossed the ice because you don’t want your grandkids growing up in an ice field like you and want them to wake up to a green life. I'll bet your forebears hauled ass across crevasses of glaciers on a scale that dwarf any modern mountaineers in both technical skill and pure balls (insert Betty White quip here) and did things nobody in their right mind and a safe home should attempt.

Like a slow motion kung fu/baliwood flick on the Monkey King’s army they skipped across those glaciers.

But usually they only took that risky group endeavor (imagine all the babies, kids, and grannies regularly training/prepping to climb glaciers and then being told they are striking camp again and oh by the way, we have to do the glacier thing again. Because they did it all the time.

But only when they couldn't pilot their little fleet of ships they made on the fly any further south for now. They were preternatural daredevils and explorers with nowhere to go but forward now. But they weren't stupid and there's a lovely ocean road that's perfectly safe as long as you don't annoy the orcas and avoid the swimming polar bears.

They did that more than 20,000 years ago. To put that in perspective assume 4 mothers per century in a line of generations. one generation every 25 years. 20k sounds like a lot and it is a superheroic feat that was so unexpected by “Western Science” that we didn't think a couple thousand old footprint fossils could possibly be that old and never bothered to test them until just recently when a First Peoples became a Western Science-recognized archeologist. We never bothered to test their age as the sand blew them away in one of our national parks.

But 20,000 years is only 20,000/25 mothers ago. Only 800 mothers ago puts things in a real perspective.

800 mothers ago your people had already trucked over the ice age itself to set foot in a green valley with a broad stream.

I don't know why you came here. how come you didn't want to live in china? which is ridiculous. have you seen how magically gorgeous and rich china is? it wasnt any less magically glorious and rich a bit more of it covered in ice and snow up north. lots of nice mostly empty and habitable land without any ice.

But now there was the brand new road of to a new unknown north east and into the unknown. But perhaps green or warm blue life beyond the ice. That road is currently covered in glaciers for the next few thousand miles. For some weird reason some of yall crazy mfers like the cold and seal blubber. And are so metal they chased the glaciers back up north to keep up with their favorite level of ice and cold and blubber. Some weirdos like just the right cold and ice even though we have central heating and airplanes now. I commend you for how metal you are,

(Please grant mercy to the sentient whales. a mercy you wished had been granted you over all these year of oppression, and you also have grown and know better now and can grow beyond your fathers and further honor your whales by using the knowledge the colonizers ripped from the still breathing bodies of your beloved whales as they carved up alive for oil and perfume. to teach you how to honor them and yourselves and the hard work to recognize the whales as special for some reason. Choose mercy.)

 If you choose to live there you must be a very strong people.

Strong people ought to always choose mercy for the weaker or in need or endangered party. We all know that.

Everyone except the Colonizers.

And of course the occasional empire that gets carried away or the occasional savagely regressive mockery of a civilization like Spartans that just uses civilization's tools to conduct fascism and slavery and oppression of the weak. That is a civilization, but it isn’t Civilization.

True civilization assumes do no harm for the average person, regardless of status, even slaves. And only does harm in particular cases for cause. and expects the unjustly harmed party to be made whole by the offender to the fullest feasible level of justice given the circumstances for all involved. True Civilization, the ultimate goal of all good civilizations.

Off soapbox.

Within 400 mothers (more or less) yall had built pyramids in the middle of a jungle you built to eat your taters with your llama spitting at you as you tried to find spiritual realities. whatever might be out there.

You had another 400 mothers after that. you think the rest of those metal first peoples and the the families and nations and cultures of the 400 mothers before Columbus were all just refining rain dances like in the movies? They built massive complex civilizations with their own cultures and histories and feats of magnificence that lasted longer than America before being forgotten in history.

But there were a lot of advanced civilizations here. over and over.

and your ancesters were also among the first peoples who militarily resisted America. conducting complex and effective assymetrical warfare as well as commanding large well-ordered armies against Civil War trained and battle hardened (and tragically heart-hardened) American soldiers with all their toys and dirty tricks.

It took them centuries to exterminate you using those dirty tricks, broken treaties, and war crimes and crimes against humanity of such scale and cold regularity and glee as to make Henry Kissinger chuckle and Hitler weep. While we wore you down with numbers swelled by all the immigrants we could lure from Europe with the promise of new lives and opportunities to provide for their families and of course the promise of “free” land in The Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

America has dwarfed the evil of the holocaust on several occasions. From 1619 and the earliest English colonies, it only took us 6 mothers for the white slaver Founding Fathers to lead us to fight for our freedom against Britain. (England was going to ban slavery in her colonies and just focus on colonizing.)

Washington and Jefferson and the rest of the slave masters posing on your dollars got the good-hearted rubes to go along with them declare our independence from the tyranny of king George and "finally become free."

But look then how it took us another 4 mothers of chattel slavery of such depravity that even the archaic and cruel laws (by our standards) of Moses would would have served as a reformation that would be celebrated by the Blacks themselves as at least a significant improvement in quality of life for all slaves in America. At least that “mercy” could have cleared the way for a smoother and gentler reconciliation and resulted in less residual damages to Black and Yt folks and everyone else caught in Yt crossfire.

American slaver behavior would clearly have been disallowed and even punished severely and up to death for their mistreatment or murder of their slave. But hey, another 4 mothers of freedom for all* and then at 12 mothers post Jamestown we decided, to let our women vote and 14 mothers to let our Blacks vote after we made them beg and plead to let them vote and oh, btw, please dont kill us for making such a ruckus by asking nicely.

And it took 16 mothers for too many of us to still not blink an eye at "let our Blacks" and focus on right to vote. 16 mothers from 1619 until now. 10 mothers since our Freedom. Barely 2 mothers of being free under the law for the majority of us and even still that freedom is a farce in the face of unchecked power and wealth of America and her "peace keepers" or even moderately powerful Yts.

I hope the next few mothers find creative ways to win or give America back to the Americans and the Blacks in some more significant ways. We need new generations of mothers to help us better repent, make whole, and reconcile and as we [Yts] learn to live together with others and play nice with others, even if they are too different for our comfort. we need our immigrants and brown people to teach us that.

So yeah 800 mothers in America and only 16 under colonization. and only 10 under the united states of america. There is hope for America to be saved from the colonizers just by reproduction rates and demographics. And there is a hope so real you ought to be preparing your daughters to mother our civilizations through 800 generations of mothers more.

All those mothers were and are  and will be seeking spiritual truth and reality. They never get everything right of course. But they are looking. And to be looking is the most important part. even if it is just casting about randomly or purposefully seeking new ways or simply stuck using the same old reliable psalms and prayers you use to meet the Devine in this world right now. even if it is not the best religion that has some terrible aspects you ought to try to revolutionize. Seeking is a very good start.

She will meet you there. The Devine will find you and lead you closer to understanding all the good things a good person is and often understanding what kind of things they can expect of their good god(s). And certainly at this point we know what we should expect of a good God better right now in history than any other period in history because the entire past was mostly just a lot bland to go with all of the terrible mixed in with those heroes and good old days.

Bland and terrible Good Old Days sanitized by nostalgia. Like Boomer bland. Bland is not neutral, btw. Have you ever tried a few of the Yt Boomer's nostalgic candies and compared their legacy candy bars to any other candy in the world?! The Boomers only think they still taste good because they got nostalgia for a crappy treat in their crappy childhood where every thing made sense to them and now they got old and now can basically only taste salty or sweet at this point and they keep buying and chowing down that sweetened chalk and foisting it upon america and their own kids even though they clearly dislike it and mysteriously deciding to keep the Hersheys candy in business any bigger than a feature of their amazing theme park full of wage slave who should be slacking right now.

Do we really want a future of hershey bars and twizzlers? And Boomer values.

Anywhoo, it's getting late so...Your ancestors took 400 mothers to get from ice age nomadic nations to the point the one of them thought to build a pyramid while there were still fricking mammoths on this earth and Egyptians were still cribbing from Sumeria and Kush.

Your ancestors built the first pyramid on earth (that we know of in this world at this point in time) in Peru after they just finished building the Amazon Rainforest and eating a selection of their favorite taters.

They had another 400 mothers until that pirate and slaver Columbus discovered it for the colonizers by accident when he was trying to find a faster way to make money for rich people who wanted a way to get richer faster. Imagine what those 800 mothers created. Imagine what those 16 stolen mothers took from your peoples and be very angry and demand justice. (spare me. pretty please?)

But have a little hope to go with the rage. Imagine how many times your own empires oppressed their neighbors for 10 or 20 generations and you resilient magnificent bastards wouldnt stay down and would rise back up out of the ground with an injection of diverse genes from your former oppressors and go on to build brand new amazing civilizations once you got the oppressors foot off your neck.

Soon you along with the blacks, other minorites, poor whites, and a few good Yts like me will outnumber the colonizers. Then you can take back your countries.

I hope.

Whether it is this generation or in 5 doesn't matter. Look at your history. You aren't the dispossessed for long.

you are seeds. you are the little raptors that survived. Soon all this will be yours again and you will could recreate yourselves into something new.

Like the little creatures that survived by being generalists and just surviving you and the rest of the poor and oppressed of America are already in the majority and could already take back your counties and begin to grow and develop and live more freely if you could thwart the rich’s efforts to stymie your attempts to organize.

Cause my people ain't ever going to fix things even though we could.

If you can fix a few things and heal a few things, then everyone can have more freedom to choose what kind of better life they want, as long as they behave in a civilized manner.

The new cultures you become will adapt and find your niches in this new world of yours and build new cultures and civilizations for another 800 mothers until the colonizers are ghost stories about a terrible mythological race that swarmed the Earth.

A story of a monster that covered the earth and swallowed up the nations and the First Peoples should celebrate how they endured and rebuilt their numbers and developed their cultures and grew as people even under oppression by Yt’s.

now go make friends with the other oppressed people and win back your land without having to guess “alabaster” in a rigged tv game show. create your new future.

I don’t know what it will look like. But it is easily going to be better than this one and, knowing yall, it will be a lot better and kinder. So please. organize.

You know just when the best and brightest of civilizations past had helped all of us get to a point in time where, if there was any justice in this world, everyone could easily have plenty of food, medical care, education, vacation time, some hobbies, a modest house and a little land, something comfy to sit their ass on and some tv to watch with our well-fed families…

Just before we could all be relatively safe, comfortable, well-fed, and doctored in the same city our families lived in for generations, building up networks and strong communities…

Just when humanity was about to have Civilization, we got enslaved by Capitalism and the Aristocrats. Powers of the World that want good little voters and obedient workers. Worker bees who can think well enough to follow orders and not think for themselves much at all.

And so yall got really crappy schools which are slowly getting better in spite of the fascists best efforts to return education to the 1950s (which sucked for everyone who wasn't a White Christian Man with a lot of land, money, or a union job with connections.) And so school sucks for you and kills your spirit and curiosity. I get it.

Get your A and take a nap. But just imagine if you could see all that stuff above in your mind every time you saw a pigeon or heard a mosquito in your ear during your nap and appreciate all that came to make that beautiful and amazing little blood sucker. Imagine you could look at a prison yard or migrant workers and see hope for the future and put your past in context.

Because you can know all of that on a simple high school education if you pay attention and use your brain, neighbors, and teachers of all kinds to help your put all the obvious pieces together.

But at least imagine if you just tried to learn a bit for real along the way and try to make it all fit together so you can understand better how the world works and build a robust web of knowledge to build on. And then don't get mentally weak. Keep building that web and learning how to use it.

Any way lots of cool stuff that leads to this highly evolved fish to wax philosophical on reddit because, well, I got high (hey, it's legal, what's my boss or anybody going to do? call my parents?! please don't call my parents...) and I like helping a brother out whenever I can.

or sister or whatever. we should do that as a matter of habit as we think “how would I like to be treated if I were that schmuck talking to a dumb-butt like me” and try to find win-wins for all parties. Do that and kinda give a shit about what happens to other people when you burn fossil fuels for tax breaks and we could turn this whole stinking culture around.

Can we admit that even though most of us are pretty good intentioned and caring people, rich Wt Evangeli-Christian-centered Capitalist America kinda sucks? Maybe we should try to make it a little better for each other when we can.

And I especially like to help a brother or sister or whatever out when I get to explain cool stuff as I do it and maybe get too much on my soap box.

Sorry about that. My unwanted help comes with a penalty of ignorable meaningless snark, knowledge, and rantings on the injustices done by a few too many of the other highly evolved fish in our world that never wanted to evolve on "culture" because they were manipulative amoral predatory greedy mfers and/or thought there was some perfect Eden was in the past they were supposed to be getting back to.

Other penalty is being stuck with the fun of finding the unasked-for knowledge and wisdom I just dropped back there if you have the eyes to see it and/or compassion, kindness, creativity and courage, along with the education, needed to find it and were high enough to bother to read all my rantings.

[woednesdayaddams]

𝚞𝚜𝚞𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢  ,  𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚔𝚜  𝚊𝚛𝚎  𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍  𝚗𝚘𝚝  𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢  𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐  𝚝𝚘  𝚋𝚎  𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚎𝚍  𝚋𝚞𝚝  𝚊𝚕𝚜𝚘  𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐  𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚊𝚛𝚢 .  had  she  not  taken  risks  before  ,  she  would’ve  ended  up  being  just  like  the  others  ,  another  sheep  following  the  herd  not  knowing  where  she’s  headed  .  it’s  through  taking  risks  even  if  it’d  lead  her  to  her  own  destruction  that  she  had  gathered  the  knowledge  she  mastered  to  this  moment  .  and  yet  ,  there  were  some  precautions  which  couldn’t  be  shaken  off  from  her  mind  .  she  ,  the  raven  ,  could’ve  easily  faced  any  danger  ahead  ;  however,  not  the  same  could  be  considered  about  the  other  students  .  born  to  follow  society’s  rules  ,  when  wednesday  was  the  polar  opposite  ,  aiming  to  disobey  each  of  them  ,  to  become  a  pariah  that  society  needed  .  the  contradictory  pawn  in  their  game  .  by  the  time  she  approached  emma  ,  her  mind  had  already  been  made  up  .  perhaps  her  plan  was  flawed  and  that  influenced  the  impending  outcome  .  there  were  many  things  she  was  willing  to  give  up  on  ,  all  but  those  who  deserve  to  be  saved  .  like  the  nevermore  students  ,  like  emma  herself  .

🙶  exactly  which  part  of  the  negation  wasn’t  comprehensible  ?  🙷      she  uttered  ,  venom  dripping  from  her  tongue  .  simultaneously  engulfed  by  confusion  and  prepared  to  verbally  counterattack  anything  emma  was  going  to  hit  her  with  .  wednesday  cannot  risk  involving  too  many  other  individuals  ,  that’s  far  from  her  warfare  strategy  against  the  hyde  .  focused  on  the  plight  taking  the  shape  of  a  human  and  what  words  she  should  choose  next  in  order  to  make  her  decision  as  clear  as  a  dead  man’s  eyes  ,  she  had  almost  ignored  what  emma  was  saying  ,  not  giving  it  much  of  her  attention  anyway  .  until  she  noticed  the  crack  in  her  voice  and  her  physical  mannerism  .  aghast  gaze  remained  petrified  on  the  other  ,  a  sense  of  dread  taking  a  toll  on  wednesday’s  petite  frame  ;  as  if  commanding  others  to  stay  out  of  her  business  wasn’t  enough  ,  it  seemed  she  has  to  deal  with  human  emotions  as  well  —  a  knowledge  she  seemingly  lacked  and  refused  to  teach  herself  the  basics  at  the  very  least  .

🙶  going  to  battle  won’t  change  how  you  perceive  yourself  .  emotion  equals  weakness  and  that’s  what  gets  you  killed  .  if  you  proceed  and  let  emotions  overwhelm  you  ,  you’ll  be  staining  everyone’s  hands  with  blood  that  shouldn’t  have  been  shed  in  the  first  place.  🙷      her  notions  stretched  ,  despite  her  plural  utterings  ,  deep  down  ,  she  was  aware  it  was  singular  ;  that  it  would  be  her  fault  that  someone  ended  up  seriously  injured  or  even  dead  .  the  world  wasn’t  fair  and  ,  it  seemed  like  a  war  was  brewing  in  the  air  ,  not  a  clue  what  to  perceive  of  the  end  of  it  .  who  will  stand  and  who  will  fall  ,  it  would  only  be  revealed  when  it’s  all  done  .

@woednesdayaddams held emma back by the collar, “Oh no you DON’T... I WON’T allow it.”

If she wasn't so focused on the task at hand, she would've noticed that Wednesday had grabbed her collar. Or maybe it was Thing, she couldn't say for sure, but it pulled her back from starting to stand up off of her bed with vigor. "Wednesday, I am a perfect pawn to go in to the town. My father knows people, he taxidermies for them. He could help us."

They both knew though that her thoughts on helping Wednesday with the case of the Hyde were to distract the brunette from the fact that there were people, like Wednesday's family and Principal Weems, that knew who her mother was. It was some secret that Emma never thought of, she knew that her mother abandoned her and her father when she was so young that she couldn't remember. It was a secret that was kept from her for so long but she just stopped worrying about it because seeing her excel and not let the giant hole in her memory and life hold her back. She stopped asking about her mother when she was young. She was brought to Nevermore once her... gifts started to develop. She assumed that perhaps it was something that was part of her father's family, but also just assumed that she was just... well, given these things. Not that it was inherited. Her father was a normie, but he was her protector for so long. He took her to doctor's appointments and introduced her to the towns people. She grew up with them for so long before going to the school that she always was curious of but never questioned. Hell, she just figured she'd fit more in with the outcasts, people in the town gave her two looks anyways: sympathy and fear. Much like they would to the Nevermore students.

"Finally, I'm helpful--to you and to helping possibly save this school! I can finally stop feeling helpless and useless -- I can't sit by as you and the others do everything! I am not some fragile songbird who is here to sing welcomes and watch as everyone leaves! Let me help you!" Her voice was cracking at this point, tears welled in her eyes before the rough fabric of her sleeve wiped at them vigorously, "Please..."

[lets-get-kraken-boys]

Omg what would yandere class 1a think if yn was the ua traitor ??

Short answer is, they probably wouldn't even spare a second thought to the idea. No, it would never be you, not their sweet and adorable (Y/N)!

They monitor you so closely all the time--I'm talking around the clock stalking every hour of every day--that even if you could be the traitor, they would have seen you sneaking off to report back to the villains or you acting shady. They also so deeply believe in the idea that you the best thing that ever happened to them, that you would never betray your friends and secret admirers like that. You are too sweet, too gentle, and too much of a good person to be secretly slinking around with the villains.

If you aren't the traitor, then no harm and no foul! Everything can proceed as normal--sunshine, smiles, happiness, and all that good stuff.

However, if you are the traitor...that's okay too! They're so in denial about your heartbreaking betrayal, that they refuse to believe you would do it of your free will. The villains must be forcing you to do it! Maybe they're threating your life or the safety of your friends and family so they can get the intel they need from the Hero Society and UA from this defenseless student! Oh, you must be so scared, too afraid that something would happen to you or them that you never peeped for their help! How they have failed you...don't worry, they'll make it alright! They aren't heroes-in-training for nothing.

First, they would put you under lockdown. You are not leaving the security room they prepare for you ever again. The door has at least ten locks and latches sealing it closed. All the windows are forcefully bolted down so you can't open them. It's basically all babyproofed--floors are padded, no sharp edges on the furniture or walls, no glass (even the windows are a thick, practically unbreakable sheets of plastic), and no sharp objects that you could hurt yourself with! It is their version of paradise and your worst nightmare.

They would let the teachers know of the situation. After Aizawa does some digging to find out who the leader of the operation truly is, the staff of UA would proceed with exterminating the members and leaders of the villain group and cut any ties with any contact you have in the outside world. They aren't going to release the horrible information to the public as they don't want to completely destroy your life (or catch the attention of the press and cops of their kidnapping of you), but they also would not let you continue to train to be a hero. It's too dangerous, and they don't want to teach you anymore ways to fight back against them then you already know. Basically, you become the class pet, of sorts--hella spoiled but never allowed to leave their side.

Some of the less delusional individuals of the class like Shinsou and Bakugo are fully aware that you weren't forced to betray them; they know you did it of your own freedom, but they never mention it directly to you. Rather, whenever you catch their eyes, you can see the swirling hurt behind the glassiness of their irises. They hate that you would do this to them--give up your friends for a shot a being a goody two shoes for the villains. Hell, they almost completely hate you for it. But, it's fine. They still love you they always will, even though you've made it clear you don't feel the same about any of them. They just have to retrain you, teach you to know better so that mishaps like this never occur again. In time, you'll be the (Y/N) they fell in love with again. They can wait.

Every time they have their turn to hold or interact with you, they're just slightly more forceful in their movements and words than the rest of the class. They make sure you know that they could snap you like a toothpick and glue you back together again the way they want, if it comes to it. Eventually, they will lighten up and act the way they used to with you, but for those first few months after they discover that you were the UA traitor, the bruises their grip strength give you and the remarks about "behaving" properly they hiss into your ears aren't going away.

With Love,

Kraken 🐙

[spyoikawa]

still on that saiki k brainrot so hear me out-

metori, saiki, teruhashi, aren and hairo with an s/o who really loves to bake/cook-

no thoughts just Reader learning how to make coffee jelly for saiki (like maybe they make him a tower of coffee jelly for an anniversary or his birthday-). no thoughts just Reader cooking something for metori who pretends to not want to eat it cause it’s ‘peasant food’ but ends up really enjoying their cooking. no thoughts just cooking/baking date with teruhashi. no thoughts just teaching aren how to cook/bake and having a food trade with him, bringing him lunch/a snack to school. and no thoughts just hairo hyping Reader up while they cook/bake and making stuff for him to bring to class rep meetings-

thank you! <3

the excitement I got got I saw teruhasi- i don't see a lot of writing for her and I get happy when I get to do less than common things! Thanks!

I'm running low on creative juices, so please I hope you don't mind if I use the exact scenarios you suggested 💀

Note: some of the things I wrote felt really rude so please don't mind the tone tags in parentheses, also i have not edited this yet

Saiki, Teruhasi, Hairo, Aren, and Saiko with an S/O who can cook/bake

♡romantic♡

Saiki Kusuo (italics = saiki telepathy)

Although it was undeniably tasty, your boyfriend's obsession with coffee jelly was not only getting out of hand but also quite expensive-

I mean he spent 3,000 yen for one serving-

But yanno what it's ok, coffee jelly is easy to make, and this gives you an excuse to hang out (not that you need one)

"Ok Ku, i had an idea"

I like it, just make sure you teach me how to do it too

"Rude. I wasn't finished"

You did in your head

As endearing as it could be sometimes, Saiki's mind-reading could be a pain occasionally

You wound me.

"Good. (/j)"

After a long debate over recipes and serving sizes, there it was, in all its glory, your first batches of coffee jelly

it was heaven

You did end up sharing the recipe with him, but it still became a little tradition to make the coffee jelly together

It just tastes better that way :)

Kokomi Teruhashi

In the midst of your TV and cuddles date, Kokomi huffed and turned off the TV

But of course it was rude to just turn off the TV, so she offered to play a board game instead

You did play with her, but your curiosity was begging as to why she wanted to change the activity

"Hey Kokomi, this game is fun, don't worry... but why'd you turn off the TV so suddenly?"

"Oh, it was nothing! I just thought you would like this game, and I wanted you to enjoy yourself more!"

Now, that's the answer the most perfect girl in the world would give

But Kokomi is still human, there's gotta be something wrong

You spent a while thinking to yourself about what you were watching, you two agreed on a documentary, then after the documentary, the channel played a cooking show with a guest baker/cook Makoto Teruhashi- oh.

So that was it

At the end of the round, you stood up and offered your hand to pull up Kokomi with you.

"Hey, wanna make a bet?"

She looked up with a bit of curiosity.

"I bet you, I can make your favorite dish, far better than Makoto can"

She smiled a bit, "sure!"

Her favorite food was simple, so you taught her to cook it and added in some other things just for fun (and so she can't recreate it without your secret ingredients)

Now you guys have cooking dates often and always find ways to spice up foods (and beat Makoto at whatever he was doing on tv)

Hairo Kineshi

my thoughts and prayers go to you

we all saw what happened when he tried to make crepes

but in his mind, it was a learning opportunity

You guys were taking an after-school stroll, the weather was really nice, it would be a shame if you two just went home and did nothing. Walks like these tend to get sentimental and nostalgic, so your conversation subconsciously started to drift towards school life.

"And do you remember that time we had to get kuboyasu, kaido, and nendo to play on a baseball team? Oh my god thank god it didn't go too poorly, that one player really pulled through at the end..." you laughed out

"Haha I do remember that, I can't believe we got them to play, it really could've gone worse" He smiled as he remembered that day, but then his eyes drifted up to a bakery across the road. "Speaking of poor experiences..."

after he explained to you he and kaido's crepe disaster, you couldn't help but tease fun at him for a bit

but you did agree to teach him more about cooking and baking

he's a bit too passionate about cracking eggs, but hey, at least you can work faster

after many, many burnt crepes and pans, there it was, a fallen appart, incorrectly folded, but still a properly cooked crepe sat there in all its beauty

it kinda looked like this

Although he does learn many different things with you, crepes will be the thing he makes over and over again, even when he has it down to a science, just because it's the first thing you taught him, and he will keep that sweet memory forever (get it. sweet? Cause crepes? Im funny i swear.)

Aren Kuboyasu

He actually knows how to cook pretty well

He's not really sure when he picked up cooking, its kinda just stuck around, but he enjoys it, it makes him seem more goody

and he can treat you :)

I will die on my "aren lives for the most basic/domestic activities hill"

cooking with him is always an experience, he will play music in the background, and pull you aside to dance at random times

also does that really hot thing where he stands behind you, reaches around to hold your hands, and basically has you in a cage while showing you how to do something

it's one of those spontaneous things to do, if there's nothing else to do, might as well make something to eat

firm believer in "if you have to eat to live, you might as well eat delicious foods" so he will always try out new things with you if its healthy and tasty

"bab look at this show" you called out from where you were sitting, there was a cooking show/food documentary on, and it was showing a special food. "it says this chicken has a secret sauce they dip it in"

he walked over to the tv and watched it for a couple seconds, thinking a bit.

"...wanna figure it out?"

"yes. I'll make the chicken if you figure out the sauce?"

"deal."

will you ever know if you got the secret sause? Nope, but you did figure out a chicken recipe that is good as hell

he probably writes down all the recipes you "invented" together for safekeeping and so he can return to it later, but he refuses to show it to anyone

Saiko Metori

as much as I love him, we all saw in that one episode how picky he is while eating, and is probably a bitch to please while cooking/baking

so after a lot of convincing, you got him to sit in the kitchen with you so he can watch you bake for the two of you

in reality, all you have to do is give the dish a fancy rich-sounding name, you just have to be really careful with what you say

like this 💀

you decided to bake for him today, baking is a lot more "by the book" than cooking, so you thought he would take a bit of comfort in knowing it was done in a professional way

"alright tori, so I think I'll make a heavy pastry made with fine cacao and extracts, baked into a rich dessert for a fine sweet palette"

"you're making brownies aren't you"

"🧍‍♂️"

Told you, you have to be as specific as possible

He does eventually get interested in what you're doing though, as he never really sees his personal chef cook, and wants to help you by the end

He really did enjoy it! It quickly became one of his favorite treats

But funny enough, no matter how many bakeries he tried or how many times his chef tried, they never tasted the same

(you put in special spices as your own little mark on the treat)

so he ends up having you over for more cooking dates

Which he really does enjoy btw

as a tsundere he will look all annoyed and probably call you a plebe, but these are his favorite types of dates

[aminiatureworld]

Small Bits of Memory

Characters: Scaramouche, gn!reader

Word Count: 1,531

Warnings: None

Premise: Little moments between Scaramouche and the reader.

Author’s Note: Warning, I’m not caught up on the archon quest. I did skim the wiki (which made me kinda sad ngl), but if there are inaccuracies, that’s why. I also may have made Scaramouche a bit sappy because of this.  

I took “comfort” to mean “hurt/comfort” so if some of these are a bit melancholic it’s because angst brain does not turn off.

Scaramouche

Scaramouche is well familiar with nightmares. He knows the feeling of opening yours eyes in the dark, not moving, not crying out or sitting up; simply opening your eyes as the latent fear of your dreams finally catch up with you and finally your breathing starts to speed in your chest, as your finally realize how afraid you were. Thus on the first night he wakes to you staring intently at the darkness around you, still to the point of stiffness, he automatically understands what’s going on.

At first he’s too scared to wrap his arms around you, afraid that you’ll find the action frightening, or that you’ll instinctively reject him. He only reaches out his hand, secretly relieved when you entwined your fingers within his. Feeling vaguely sentimental in his tired state he whispers: “I’ll protect you from the dark, so stop staring and go back to sleep.” He hopes that you won’t tease him about it tomorrow, as some small part of him knows that it was a very silly thing to say.

Afterwards he grows a little bolder, inching closer to you, then letting one arm rest on your shoulder, fingers featherlight on your skin. Thankfully your penchant for nightmares isn’t too great, so it’s about two months before he wakes up the next day to his arms wrapped around you, you nestled within his sleepy embrace. Seeing you sleeping peacefully after the look of uncomprehending panic plastered across your features the night before calms him like few other things, and he sighs peacefully, letting his eyes flit closed once more. The two of you sleep in that day.

Scaramouche always panics slightly whenever you get hurt. It could be a paper cut, it could be a bruise, it could be a battle injury, his response is relatively similar each time. You might squirm as he cleans your cut off for the third time in ten minutes, assuring him that you aren’t going to die, but he isn’t truly listening to you. There’s a glazed look in his eyes, and it takes him a few moments to register that you’re calling his name. You worry about it sometimes, you wonder what might happen if you were to truly injure yourself. You hope he wouldn’t blame himself too much. Scaramouche has a surprising penchant towards self-flagellation, when he’s not telling himself that he’s superior to everyone around him.

Scaramouche has never horsed around in a river, never experienced a snowball fight, never watched a sunrise for the sake of it. He was not created for such things after all. It’s hard for him to imagine enjoyment in the little pieces of universal humanity, perhaps because he feels somehow separated from such a privilege. You start keeping a list of these sorts of things, small moments to enjoy. He finds the idea silly at first, but gradually grows to like the experience. Perhaps not the individual activities, but the experience as a whole. He might not understand the “universal human experience” as you call it, but the snow against his skin is cold and clear, and the sun looks like fire in the sky, and you’re smiling next to him, and all is well in the world.

Scaramouche doesn’t have much attachment to Inazuma, considering it a desolate land where the people survive despite, not because of, the land. He has no love for the plains, or the skinny forests, or the craggy rocks and hills. The flowers glow preternaturally, and the electricity that fills the air makes unpleasant crackling noises. Nevertheless he has to admit a fondness for the cherry blossoms that bloom on Narukami Islands. It’s as if a small sliver of beauty managed to scrape its way into the world. He’ll take you to see them sometimes, regardless of his status as a Harbinger and a general menace. Perched amidst the falling petals you remind him of some sort of spirit from folklore. If he could draw well at all he thinks he would make a portrait of you surrounded by those blossoms. Certainly there’d be nothing else worth painting.

The two of you like to read together, Scaramouche going over whatever plans he’s currently focusing on, you curled up with a book. If you find a passage or a quote you particularly like you’ll tap him on the shoulder, and Scaramouche will duly listen to you read it aloud. He likes the sound of your reading voice, the way it varies slightly from when you talk. Unfortunately he made the mistake of telling you that once, and you began to insist that he read for you. Though he secretly enjoys doing so, he still grumbles about it out of habit. The both of you know he’s only doing it for show.

Scaramouche once caught you using a broom like a sword. Though you looked very drunk he secretly found it endlessly endearing. He offered to teach you some basic sword forms (despite his weapon knowing swordplay is a basic requirement for all Fatui soldiers). You accepted eagerly at the time, unaware of how much you’d underestimated Scarmouche’s fervor when it came to training. It took a wooden sword snapped in half for him to lay off a little bit, but at least his troops started dropping hints at you that they no longer feared for their lives. Though you think they were joking, you were still glad for the learning experience. You two still spar every once in a while though.

Living up to his title of “Balladeer” Scaramouche has quite the haunting voice. Not particularly high, his range still has a natural warmth to it that belies his cold exterior. You almost never catch him actually singing. The first time it happened was when you had a migraine. Refusing to leave your tent – you hadn’t actually convinced him you weren’t dying – he seemed torn between boredom and worry. At first it was a mere hum, but soon enough it morphed into a captivating song. He refused to tell you the name of it, claiming he’d forgotten, and refused to bring it up the next morning. Still sometimes you’ll catch him now and then humming out a tune, usually when he’s reading or if you’re sick or upset. His singing is something you associate with comfort.

Scaramouche is a terrible letter writer. If you send him ten letters while he’s away he’ll send you three. Still what he lacks in quantity he makes up for in word count. Curt in his official reports, his letters to you are pure stream-of-consciousness, captivating whatever he’s thinking about at the time. Usually the letters are somewhat sappy (or surprisingly bold) missives on how much he loves you and misses you, somehow more honest than when he speaks to you face-to-face. Still you’ve also gotten quite used to a thousand words on how much he hates his fellow Harbingers. You don’t mind, keeping all his letters to you in a box. Though he claims to burn yours, he does the same.

Scaramouche always tell you the days he’s leaving and the days he’s returning. Sometimes he’ll have it down to an estimated hour. Though he appreciates the pomp and spectacle of appearing around others unannounced – something he does quite a bit when working – he refuses to keep you in a limbo of waiting. Secretly he’s also always afraid you might not show up on the docks one day, and every time he sees your face after a long time away a weight lifts in his chest, the pressure on his soul just a little easier to bear every time.

Scaramouche has always felt most comfortable at night. When the world sleeps, when he has the advantage of being awake, being alert, being more powerful. When there are fewer eyes on him, and he can even tell himself that he is the only one awake in the world, can indulge in those moments of wondering, wondering whether he has ever felt something, whether he is missing a crucial piece. Whether he has ever been happy, whether he wants to be so. He can be vulnerable at night, and thus is the reason it appealed to him so much.

Now the night is his favorite time of day because he can always be near you at that time. If you two are in the same land, then you will spend the night in the same room, the same tent, the same bed. Listening to the sound of your breathing, letting himself revel in your closeness, your arms wrapped around his waist, or his wrapped around you, Scaramouche feels truly content. Perhaps he is even happy, perhaps this is what happiness is, what love is. Perhaps it is something more than that, something undefinable, something too abstract to put into words. He loves you, he realizes to himself, he loves you so much. It is overwhelming, like a tidal wave, yet it does not frighten him. He could be struck by lightning and it would not frighten him. It will in the daytime, but now is the night, and now he can marvel peacefully at the fact that he truly loves you.

[justfandomtings]

Is murderface really a lazy man that is just bound by failure? I don't think so.

Something I noticed in the show is that the show always tries to make us the audience see Murderface as a lazy man that has no talent, no ambition, and everything he has is handed to him through luck.

But as of late I've been wondering is that really true? To start let's look at murderface's main skill playing the bass. Its a running theme that murderface isn't good at bass or can't play at all. Which I call bullshit, 1. If murderface was really that bad at bass why is he there? Why and how is he still in the band, even before the band was big they really cared about the quality of their music and was very picky with who joined the band. Even if they just needed a bass player for the time being, why didn't they replace murderface or find a player that was at least decent if murderface is apparently so bad at bass? 2. I refuse to believe that a man that found a way to play and instrument with nothing but his dick does not know how to play that instrument. The dedication and focus you need to be able to teach yourself to play with your dick? There's no way, murderface is obviously good or at least has the ability and understanding to play bass. 3. Side note, he knows how to play other instruments such as gutair and drums. (We were shown this in season 3 episode 7) murderface obviously knows about music and his knowledge goes beyond the basics. (Also him and toki made a whole song together that they made alone so like in 'dethsiduals' murderface knows how to produce music and all that other set up.)

Another thing about murderface is that he has a lot of knowledge about many things. Not random shit either, he's a notary, he has a wide range of interests in history, weapons, countries, government, ect.

These interests are not something that is easily picked up, it takes a lot of time to learn and understand. If murderface was truly as lazy and fails at everything how come he is always involved or has knowledge in these things?

The reason why murderface is seen as lazy is because everyone is always calling him lazy. There are too many people in his life that don't see any potential in him or even allow him to prove himself. Let's look deeper.

Him playing the bass. Who do we know in the band that has a terrible perfectionist problem and deletes songs/tracks if not met to his impossible standards? Yep, Nathan. Nathan is known to constantly delete songs, miss dead lines, and nitpick from recording to the design of the album. Who's to say that murderface is simply unable to reach the unreasonable expectation of the singer.

And comparing him to the other guitarist, Skwisgaar practices non stop while toki seems to have unnatural talent. But with murderface, everything he knows he had to learn manually. Most of his knowledge seems to be self taught as well. Is it really realistic to compare his skills to others that seem to have some sort of unnatural godly talent and the impossible perfection that his bandmates expect from him. And we learn that the band constantly deletes his tracks anyways having Skwisgaar play his part. So murderface never really gets a chance to learn and get better or let outsiders hear his playing.

This constant undermining of his own skill makes murderface eventually just stop trying, admitting to not even be playing half the time anyway. Because in reality, why would he? What's the point if all his hard work is going to just be deleted anyway. And the band uses him not playing as a example of murderface being lazy. But in reality it's from an outcome of not getting the chance to try in the first place.

Another thing about murderface is that he seems to have real bad anxiety. Like when hes in charge of something it overwhelming and he's unable to get work done. (Season 2 episode 11 dethrace) murderface is finally given a chance to prove himself and show the world his true talents. Problem is that he is riddled with anxiety. When murderface has to have a press conference he is sweaty, shaky, and can't focus. Pickles and Nathan try to help by giving him drugs but this only makes things worse. This leads down to the Nass car event becoming a failure. And unfortunately it's due to unintentional self sabotage. While high, murderface accidentally causes a car wreck ruining the race. But this may not have happened if Pickles and Nathan didn't give him drugs to begin with.

Murderface could've succeeded, but only if he had someone there to help him do the paperwork while he focus on the fun stuff. Murderface comes off as an artist wanting the focus on art and creativity of his ideas. But hates the business part that's involved.

He does get this right though in the Christmas episode when he has Knubbler beside him to let him do just that. In the Christmas episode, murderface worked so hard and actually let a lot of his original vision go to get this idea through.

Murderface to me seems like a very weird complex artist with a lot of weird and eccentric ideas. Unfortunately the world does not seem to be interested in said ideas. When Knubbler lists all murderface's ideas we can see the oddness yet creativity in most of his ideas. And they're all different, the problem is simply just the execution and lack of direction that murderface seems to really need help with.

But back to the Christmas special we again see people not have faith in murderface. Since he's not as popular or likable as his other bandmates there is immediate doubt. Despite this he keeps pushing, when he has a chance at getting funds for the special he allows for his original vision and story become completely changed to something that was not really his own anymore. But since murderface was so far into this and so many people doubted him he had to keep pushing. He had to prove to others and to himself that he can succeed in something.

When it comes to the actual special, it's a hit, people are laughing, the funders were happy, and murderface was doing amazing. Until its ruined, not by him. But from outside forces he could not control. Rockso, his bandmates, the mothers, all of them came in and destroyed the special. In the beginning murderface tried to salvaged the special, but untimely gave up and let everything run its course.

Murderface was so close to having one thing that he's done become a success and it's just simply destroyed. And despite him doing everything right before and having nothing to do with the down fall he's still punished and receives another failure to his list.

This seems to be a recurring thing for all of murderface's failures. It's not him that really fails its others that makes him fail.

When he was trying to become governor, toki messed up and used the wrong file embarrassing him in the process.

When he and toki make their own record lable, murderface broke his ass making the music and watching over a group of assholes. Toki does not sign the paperwork properly.

With the Nass car event, he was given drugs by pickles and Nathan.

And in all his other attempts there was either not good execution or no one was there to give him needed support. Something either goes wrong or someone gets in the way of him succding.

We look at the people around him constantly calling him a failure, lazy, ect. And honestly, would you yourself even personally even try at that point with everyone around you saying your no good? Would you realistically want to keep pushing if everything you do fails and the people around you affirm that? No, you might not, why would you?

Murderface has a lot of issues and a lot of other parts of his character that I won't get into now. But laziness and talentless are two things I wouldn't just slap on him without looking into why he's seen as those things.

There's also other things murderface never seems to give up on like flirting or trying to fit in. He fails at that too but my boy still tries.

That's it for this post, haven't made a post in a while. Also I'm not putting all the blame on the other parties like with the drugs murderface had a choice not to take it, and with toki fucking up he should've made sure everything was in check. But the Christmas special? No yea, totally everyone else's fault.

[robininthelabyrinth]

i'm both desperately curious about bird mom and desperately sad about jin rusong. perhaps you can finagle a way for jrs to end up on bssr's mountain?

ao3

When all was said and done, taking the child was a mistake.

She didn’t mean to take him, of course. If she had a choice in the matter, she’d probably leave him, child of a bad fate that he was: her mountain was no good for humans, not really. It was too high and too lonesome and in the end they all left, even though she warned everyone who left that re-entering the mortal world would put them back into the grasp of the destiny she sought to prevent.

It was not, as she knew some humans say, that all her disciples were cursed, or else that she was so arrogant and vain that she imposed a terrible doom on all those who chose to leave her – it’s really much simpler than that.

The children she took away with her were already doomed.

Her immortal mountain was not subject to the whims of fate, or indeed of chronological time; her children, as she thought of them, could out-pace the imposition of heaven as long as they remained with her. Her first child was the son of a warlord, a cultivator turned tyrant, and he would have died a cruel death when his father’s camp was overturned, pierced through and through with dozens of arrows – she’d still had a foot in the mortal world all that time ago, and had come across him barely breathing, life seeping away before it ever started. She had felt pity, for he had been a charming child, a happy one, unaware of the wickedness of his father or the hatred of his enemies. It was for him that she first set up the child-snatching array, the one that took away children with cruel fates; she had been young and arrogant then.

When, in time, he decided to return to the mortal world, she had let him go freely, preening to herself that she had done a good thing. The child she had raised was kind and gentle, entirely unlike his vicious father; surely, she thought, he would be able to make a good name for himself, and live happily.

In the end, the arrows still found him – and cruelty, too.

That was when she realized that she could not prevent fate, only delay it: it had been her first child’s fate to die pierced through by arrows unnumbered, and that fate had patiently followed him, step by step, for all those years that he had lived with her, growing and cultivating and being happy. And for each year that she had kept him safe, fate had calculated interest, too: the arrows this time belonged to all the cultivation world’s, not merely a few enemies, and there were so many more of them; there were enough to rip his body to pieces, forcing him to die in unspeakable agony, alone and hated and betrayed by everyone he loved, his final death even crueler than the one she’d saved him from, so long before and also no time at all ago.

After that, she tried to stop taking children.

But she’d been young, and arrogant, and in her arrogance had not anticipated the possibility that she would regret her actions later: the child-snatching array did not require her contribution to function, and so it continued to steal away those about to die through the unfairness of the heavens, the ones with the most thoroughly unfair fates, which to her relief only occurred once every few generation or so. She tried through every possible machination to avert their fates, sending them out almost as soon as she got them or refusing to let them cultivate, but nothing she did changed it.

By the time her second disciple left the mountain – not her second child, perhaps her seventeenth, but the second one she’d trained up properly as a cultivator, and more because the child wanted it than because she thought it was a good idea – she’d already resigned herself to the reality of it, and warned her child about her doom. Little Cangse Sanren, a wandering rogue cultivator doomed to die in obscurity and leave her family behind: she had been a nameless toddler, still at the point of crawling around enthusiastically without a care, when she’d snatched her away from the teeth of some beast, and if that was her doom prescribed by the fates, it would be the same in the end.

No one will see your death, she’d warned her bright and happy second disciple, the lively one who loved to laugh, the one she’d kept on the mountain for decades and yet no time at all. No one will care, no one will know. There will be no glory in it, no heroics. It will be meaningless, and cause those you love much pain.

She’d warned her of that much.

In the end, it was just as she’d said. If the little toddler that had so enthusiastically crawled away into the brush had died on time, her mother would have grieved and her father would have hurt himself weeping, but they would have gone on; when that inescapable fate came to the grown woman, her husband died trying to preserve her and her beloved son was left alone and starving and miserable for two years until he could be found, and the traces of her doom dogged him his whole life long.

No – if she’d had any choice in the matter, she wouldn’t have taken this boy, whose fate was so very unkind.

His father had given him the name Rusong, and had loved him, genuinely and sincerely – and in the end he had caused his death, ancient sins coming due to be paid in full through reckless selfish ruthlessness. The child lived five or six years in the mortal world before the order went out to kill him, and perhaps his father thought he was being kind when he ordered his obedient son to drink up the bitter ‘medicine’ that would blind him and then kill him; it was a gentler death, she supposed, than the gruesome dismemberment of his corpse that would follow once the gentle poison had robbed him first of sight and then of breath.

Such a terrible fate.

She didn’t even want to think about what his fate would be like after she’d raised him.

And yet – the child was here, and she was here, too; she had that old arrogance to pay for, and he could at least have some joy before he suffered the worst sort of bitterness, before he died blinded and betrayed by those that loved him sincerely and still struck against him, reckless and ruthlessness and selfish. She would raise the child for a decade or more, alone but thriving; she would teach him kindness and gentleness and all the cultivation that she knew. She would give him that time, years and years, and she would let him have the joy of that time.

And then, in the end, he would leave her and return to the mortal world, where time flowed backwards waiting for him to come back, and in the mortal world he would meet the fate that waited for him.

She didn’t know why time did that, creating inescapable overlaps, the past self always just missing the chance to meet the current self – perhaps it was simply that cruel fate once again, forcing the adult to die at the hands or teeth of the same creature that they had once escaped.

Her first disciple died pierced full of arrows, and his father’s enemy had been the one to incite the cultivation world against him.

Her second disciple died at the hands of a fierce beast, and it had grown even larger and more terrifying when it finally came to claim her.

Her third disciple – for he would be her disciple as well, this young child who already knew the basics of cultivation – would die in the future just as he should have died this day, though whether the cause of his death would be because of his father’s Jin sect or the mad dog of an executioner named Xue Yang that had carried out the original order to execute little Jin Rusong or both, she did not yet know.

She hoped, for his sake, that he would find some joy in the five or six years of mortal life he would have left to him when he returned. That there would be some happiness in it…that it would not be only suffering, suffering and pain.

“You will need a new name,” she told the child, who was already forgetting all his mortal life before upon drinking the waters of her immortal mountain. “It would be quite awkward if you came across yourself or some hint of yourself and knew it.”

The child didn’t understand, of course. He only smiled up at her, gentle as a moonbeam.

She thought about it for a while, and then nodded, deciding.

“Your name,” she said, “will be Xiao Xingchen.”

[mxsmwndr]

ALL HONESTY I DIDN'T KNOW IF YOU WANTED PRE ZOM-Bz OR POST ZOM-Bz SO I DID BOTH LOL @theratunderthesea

—

PRE APOCALYPSE:

ETHAN'S LITTLE SISTER IS AMAZING AND SHE LOVES YOU!!!! Please let me have this because I'm in love with olderbrother!Ethan ok thx

Like lil sis will take your hand and drag you upstairs almost as soon as you step foot into the household

and Ethan gets JEALOUS but he refuses to show/acknowledge it because he loves his lil sis too much to be upset and it is precious

But basically you'll just spend the entire day upstairs with her on accident playing dress up and yea party and shit

Ethan pouts after, of course

But y'all quickly make up because he literally cannot stay mad at anyone especially you

And also his family loves you

And of course your fam loves him too

your dad/paternal figure tried so hard not too, but it was impossible because Ethan is literally PERFECT and had zero flaws and he’s so sweet and precious

But like back to school and all, you go to ALL of Ethan’s baseball games

Literally all of them, no exception

And if you can't make a game you'll make an excuse, like "I have a doctor's note, leT ME GO!!!" only to have teacher respond with "(Y/n) we've been over this, you cannot write yourself a pass to leave class early because you're 'Ethan's emotional support s/o'" "BUT MR/S TEACHERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

Oh also you always run into his arms after his games

And OH MY GOD Ethan blushes a hella lot

And if you kiss his cheek his face turns cherry red so you make a habit of surprising him with cheek kisses because Ethan is ADORABLE and SHY and WAY TOO PURE

But don’t get me wrong, he blushes when you hug him too

So you do it randomly bc again, HE IS ADORABLE and soft and shy and aidjdjdjdj omg

And y’all have movie nights together!!!!

It’s freaking adorable

Y’all just kinda cuddle on the couch and share a blanket while watching movies together

Cause Ethan would much rather stay in than go out tbh

And you love it

But the only problem is that he always falls asleep

Like even during scary movies or super cool action packed movies

ALSO UNRELATED BUT HE FELL ASLEEP EATING ONCE because you thought he could stay awake if he's eating but noooooooo the next thing you know he's snoring with a chip laying on his chin

And you obv took a pic

But wearing Ethan’s sweatshirts?!

Omg

His sweatshirts are SO comfy

And they smell like him so it's even betterrrrrrrrrr

And also since he's like 60000 feet tall you practically drown in them no matter what your height is and it's adorable

Um... what else?

Oh!

Ethan can cook kind of good lol

His specialty is mac and cheese

But his favorite thing to do is binge eat junk food that he bought with you in his living room

Or yours — he really just wants to cuddle on a couch with you so he’s not too picky

But yeah, Ethan is precious and you love him with your entire being

OMG YOUR FIRST KISs??

Ethan was SO hesitant

He held your cheek and whispered “can I kiss you?”

And you were like FUCK YES

It was so innocent omg

But on the contrary i feel like Ethan secretly has a dirty mind lol

Like I can imagine him laughing at some hidden meaning silently and no one notices except you and you’re like “wtf man plz just be normal for like 5 seconds”

But yeah. Ethan is all cuddles and blushes

DURING APOCALYPSE:

Oh wow

Poor babe has so much guilt, even though he couldn't do anything to save them all (family, friends, teammates, etc…)

And you remind him of this, of course, but Ethan is going through a phase of self hatred and it's rough for everyone

You're the only one who knows about it though

And maybe Harry because tbh he probably picked up on it

But that's all. Harry doesn't say anything about it, too, because it's not his place and he knows it

Anyways

You like to sneak junk food to Ethan

His eyes light up and he looks like a kid on Christmas Day

It's too cute to not do

He likes to cuddle

Sometimes he gets nightmares and will silently show up at your classroom door

No words are exchanged then, but you motion for him to lay next to you and before you know it you're big spooning your baby boy and he's snoring softly

So you smile to yourself and whisper an "I love you, Ethan" before falling asleep yourself

And you don't know it but he smiles too

And whispers “I love you too”

And then he falls asleep AGAIN while thinking of how lucky he is to have you

So yeah

Also, he promises to make a home run for you, and you can't wait to be there to witness it

Also mocking him playfully

Because again, this boy blushes WAY too easily

Um... I think that's all? Basically it's just innocent and precious and you both love it, though it would def be easier without the whole apocalypse ordeal

POST APOCALYPSE:

Everything is kind of slowed down now

Like Ethan is still hella guilty for not saving his friends (bc now he has even more friends he failed to save) but at least he has you right

Yea no

You’re great and all but Ethan is just SO mad at himself ok

So you take him outside one day

And he’s like wtf but you’re like “teach me how to play baseball” bc he promised a while back when y’all stayed in that school together

And so he does

But he is still hella confused

And you’re not to great but that’s okay because Ethan is laughing and smiling and actually looks like he’s his age instead of older like he normally does

And so it’s a tradition to play baseball together when y’all have a break

But that doesn’t mean Ethan doesn’t have bad days

But you’re there for him, and that’s all that matters

Also there’s lots of freaking cuddles omg

And sleeping together? Like not sexually but just literally sleeping because Ethan is so warm all the time he’s like a heated blanket and pillow and everything you need/want

And y’all still sneak junk foods to each other but it’s mostly you so basically you still sneak junk foods to Ethan

And it’s all good

So you’ll do this a lot when Ethan’s not feeling his best

But yeah. Y’all are precious. Like each other’s light in the dark world you live in

And of course he makes that home run he promised lol

[raggaraddy]

Discipline- Hyung Line

How and why would Yandere Bangtan punish you?

Trigger warnings: Mentions of violence, mentions of abuse, descriptions of unhealthy relationships.

Alpha!Namjoon

You would find it hard to get Namjoon to react impulsively or rashly. There might be the odd look or feeling you get from him when you say or do something that he disapproves of, but he will never raise his voice or strike you. He is much too controlled for that.

However, that does not mean that your actions would not have repercussions. From the first day when he met you, he made sure to install a clear series of causes and effects. They came so gradually and his reasoning was so irrefutable that while the original you would have been disgusted at the idea of being treated like this, the you that Namjoon has crafted finds his rules and actions reasonable and necessary. They are set for your own well-being.

If you didn't eat well or drank too much, of course, Namjoon was going to scold you. He's just showing how much he cares.

You also need to be corrected when you're rude or disrespectful. Namjoon is an Alpha after all and he deserves your respect. A smart mouth, bad language, or disrespectful behaviour will earn you a time out to reflect on your choices.

And if you're bold enough to leave the house without him or without informing him, then he's made sure you know what consequences to expect. Sure, being bent over his lap like a petulant child is embarrassing, but Namjoon has shown you what kind of creatures exist in the world. It's your Mates' duty to remind you to be more mindful. Even If that means he covers you in bruises from time to time.

For every undesirable action, there exists a correction. All rules and guides are clear so you have no room to argue. If you happen to stumble into a grey area Namjoon will kindly explain your wrongdoing and inform you of the result should you re-offend. He always takes the time to make sure you fully see his reasoning as he would never want you to think he is unjust.

Although, there is one exception to this. Nobody touches you. No one makes any sort of advances towards you and you certainly do not reciprocate or tolerate those actions. That is absolute.

Like I said, he would never hit you out of rage. Another person however would not be so lucky. If you ever wanted to see the full extent of an Alpha's power, just blush or smile when that cute delivery boy asks for your number. Sure, he might lock you in a room and throw away the key, but seeing an Alpha shift in an open plan office is a once in a lifetime event.

King!Seokjin

This is a tricky one to answer because Seokjin isn't looking for a rhyme or reason to hurt you. He just will regardless of any behaviour.

If there are little failures or mistakes he will certainly utilize them for the chance to be extra cruel, however as mentioned, he doesn't need them as justification.

There is still plenty you could do to madden him. He is a King first and foremost and he will not tolerate any kind of disrespect or disobedience. Doing so would absolutely be an easy start to evoking his anger.

Jin is also not impetuous, everything he does, he does with purpose. So when he does hurt you in response to something you have done he can be truly poetic in the methods he chooses.

You dropped and smashed a cup? He'll use the pieces to cut you.

Did you interrupt him? He'll fill that mouth with one thing or another. Don't worry, he doesn't need you to speak anyway.

You did something as foolish as to refuse or fight him during one of your sessions? That's fine. The nearest servant will take your place. Let's see if you can endure their screams and cries, while he continually reminds them and you that their pain is your fault.

Assassin!Yoongi

How would he punish you? He has basically one method. Very simply, he would lock you away. He isn't looking to deal with any bullshit. So if you want to act up, fine. He'll just throw you in your room until he is ready to deal with you again. If you especially irritate him and he wants to make a point or really dissuade your behaviour from happening again he'll chain you in the basement. A two-meter chain, a toilet and a tap for water. With that and soundproof walls, he knows he'll have at least 2 weeks of quiet before you start to properly starve to death and he has to take you out.

Why would he punish you? That is less simple. His moods change too often for there to be any one answer.

You might have been too energetic, or maybe you weren't matching his excitement and it disappointed him. It could be that you were frustrating him by not participating and conversing when he wanted. Or maybe he was just feeling annoyed because he was hungry and tired.

Honestly, Yoongi doesn't know in the slightest what he wants, and while he doesn't truly expect you to be able to, he demands you anticipate his ever-shifting whims. He took you to be useful to him. So he sees it as your job to figure out what he wants, not his job to teach you.

Like when he told you he wanted you to be more proactive and initiate sex. That didn't mean that you could just choose any moment to come to him and offer to make the both of you feel good. No, it was important to wait until the exact moment Yoongi was also in the same temperament. And to make sure you approached him in the way he wanted. And to say the things he liked.

The only thing you can ever be sure of with Yoongi is that because you spend all your time trapped with only him, you will be locked away hating him while obsessing over ways to make him happy. Wishing you could be near him just to have some form of contact with another person.

On the rare occasions when you do see his true anger, it's good to keep in mind that he is a professional killer. He isn't phased with shooting you and leaving you to see if you survive.

Vampire!Hosoek

Like Jin, Hoseok is someone who revels in the pain and suffering of others. Hoseok however is less concerned with formality, obedience, or rules. Fight. Cry. Beg. Scream at him. Tell him how much you hate him, how much you wish he would die. He doesn't care. In fact, he enjoys it. It spurs him on.

There is nearly nothing you could do to truly anger him. Everything is a game for him, everything's fun. And you're his favourite toy. So when you fuck up, it's just another chance for him to play with you.

The only thing he is serious about, the only thing he is possessive of, is your blood. He has made it clear many, many times that that is his. His to drink and his to spill. Get so much as a papercut by yourself, or accidentally bite your tongue and he'll be utterly offended that you robbed him of something that should have been his. Not just the loss of blood either, but that he wasn't able to enjoy the sounds and faces you made as you injured yourself. And how dare you rob him of a moment that should have been his.

If any other person were to hurt you, purposefully or accidentally, or god forbid if any other Vampire tried to drink your blood.... well you would think Hoseok was downright gentle with you when you saw the things he did to them.

[soobadnoonecanstopher]

Touch it for Real, Part 9

Genre: Humor / Fluff / Angst / (Eventual) Smut 18+

Warnings: OMG they were roommates / slice of life / slow burn / mutual pining / crude humor / cursing / virgin!baek / idiots to lovers / unresolved sexual tension

Characters: Baekhyun X You/Female Reader

Description: You teach Baekhyun how to date. (Basically the Get You Alone M/V)

A/N: DO NOT YELL AT ME! It is going to be okay. 

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5 , Part 6 , Part 7 , Part 8  , Part 9 , Part 10

You had a secret.

For such an abstract and shapeless thing you could sure feel it sitting in there.

It was pulsing.

Your secret felt like a splinter lodged just under a single taste bud that sat in the center of your tongue. You could feel your white blood cells attacking it, trying their best to push it up and push it out, but still it clung tight with its sharp barbs lodged within your cell walls. You brushed your tongue against your teeth.

The secret did not budge.

What you knew about them though, was that secrets did not like to stay hidden forever.

Your fork slipped and clanked noisily against the ceramic plate and the bright orange carrot ball rolled across the smooth white surface nearly sliding over the edge onto the white linen. Whoever decided that your steamed vegetables needed to be shaped into spheres simply for aesthetics should be forced to come out here and explain how you were supposed to spear one of these things while also avoiding the risk of it shooting across the table and hitting your date in the face.

Ben turned out to be very nice. If you were into tall, handsome, clean-looking, and responsible guys who drove their own cars and also had things like health insurance and retirement plans. When you first saw him, you were struck by the firmness you felt when he shook your hand and smiled brightly at you. He had all of his teeth and a head full of hair. He was definitely walking around on his real legs too. He looked like the kind of guy who didn’t let the clean laundry sit in the dryer for longer than a day and changed out his toothbrush every three months. You couldn't see a single fault.

You were trying your best to make a good first impression.

Really, you were.

Well, while also keeping an eye on Baekhyun who sat beside you with his focus down on his plate as he sliced his food into bite sized bits. His control of the fork and knife felt so careful and so exacting, it neared obsession. He had not ordered the steamed vegetables. None of his food rolled.

Across from him, looking just as cute in person as her online dating profile pictures conveyed, was Mia.

Mia was fine.

She was fine.

You didn't want to get into it.

Her clothes were fine. They were exactly the kinds of clothes you had expected she would wear.

Her hair was fine.

She actually had a hairstyle that reminded you of one of the characters in an anime you watched with Baekhyun once and you wondered about the upkeep costs of that particular shade of blue that streaked through her hair. You wondered if she had to switch to blue towels and blue pillow cases or if everything in her house was just stained forever.

Baekhyun’s cheeks blushed when he shook her hand and his smile was bashful, if not a bit tight when she complimented his glasses. Your mind briefly considered the plush, expensive white towels you both owned at home and a flash of horror overcame you for a split second when you imagined those towels streaked with a blue stain from the shower.

He bought those glasses at a store. Anyone can go to the store and buy glasses. Did such a superficial compliment really warrant such a deep shade of pink on his cheeks?

You took a sip of your glass of wine and the sweet, cool liquid had a tart aftertaste that lingered on your taste buds long after you swallowed and you stabbed roughly at the runaway carrot again, impaling it with the prongs of your fork.

Finally.

“I got it,” you said out loud to yourself with a wide smile and you held your prize up in front of your face for a second. Long enough for your eyes to drift across your table to meet Ben’s and you caught the soft amused chuckle that puffed from his nose.

You’d already gotten through the backstory. Starting with the curious question from Mia about how you and Baekhyun got to know each other and you took a quick glance toward Ben as Baekhyun explained that you and he had been roommates for a couple of years. You caught the slight smile on Ben’s lips as he looked down into his water glass and you wondered if he was pleased that he already knew the answer to this question as you had been quick to tell him this important detail about your life as you chatted with him during the last week or so.

Mia on the other hand simply let her eyes drift over from Baekhyun’s face to land on yours for a moment and you offered a disarming smile by way of explanation. Not that either of you had any explaining to do. You could live with whoever you wanted to live with. It took her ten seconds to return your smile, although you didn't quite believe it, or believe that she was done with her curiosities about this topic.

You couldn't really blame her although you’d given her nothing to be suspicious about. Not in the last 20 minutes since you’d all arrived and nibbled on shared appetizers, at least.

Hell, you hadn’t even touched him all day. From before you both arrived at this fancy restaurant and just relinquished your coats to some stranger simply because she held a hand out and sported a severe enough hairdo and manic look in her eyes that was too frightening to question. From the morning when you woke up and wandered into your kitchen to make toast for one and you ignored the sound of his feet shuffling in, half-asleep to grab a yogurt from the fridge. You hadn’t even helped him style his hair; which looked stunning, by the way, with the waves and the faded brown color that absolutely looked like something the perfect boyfriend would let you play with as he laid on your lap. He hadn’t even asked for your help picking out his outfit. He’d simply done it all on his own and waited for you by the front door wearing those jeans and smelling like that familiar scent that he bought for your date with him weeks back.

When had this all become so awkward? You’d never been afraid to touch Baekhyun before but now, well, the touches hadn’t ever concealed quite so much meaning before.

By the time the entrees arrived the conversations had moved on to hobbies and interests.

Ben was a movie buff, and his favorites were mostly mainstream blockbusters of the Marvel Superhero variety. He enjoyed many of the genres of films you’d mostly seen just the previews of. His top ten contained a bit more horror than you were comfortable with. One in particular, a prolific film based on a Steven King novel, had been the kind of psychologically terrifying film that made your chest rattle and you had spent most of the second half of that movie with your face buried in Baekhyun’s arm begging him to just describe to you what was happening and to tell you when the scary parts were over.

When he asked you what your favorite movie was you hesitated for a moment before pulling the movie Forrest Gump out of basically thin air. Yes you had enjoyed the movie. Yes it was something you’d seen more than once and if it was on television right now you would sit down and watch it from start to finish and you would enjoy it. It was a respectable favorite to have. It was the kind of favorite movie you would not be embarrassed to show to your grandmother.

But it wasn’t actually your favorite and you could feel the burden of Baekhyun’s eyes as he turned his head to look at your face when you said it.

Something about naming, out loud with your own lips — the light and fun, mindless guilty pleasure of the film that was actually your favorite movie that you’d watched hundreds of times and returned to watch again and again every time you felt even a little bit upset; something about saying it out loud to this table of people with countless of hours of media consumption under their belts and opinions about things like prolific directors, production companies, hefty CGI budgets, and overused, tired tropes that absolutely should be dropped in 2021, well it just felt too vulnerable for you to say out loud.

You swallowed a sip of your wine and refused to turn your head to look at Baekhyun until you heard the sound of his throat swallowing the ice water he sipped.

When Mia changed the topic to Anime you felt Baekhyun come alive beside you and Ben slinked back in his seat a little as the two of them got to talking about something that was highly anticipated and was slated to be released next year. Rumors about artists and directors with names you could not know flew easily from their lips and Mia mentioned the name of one previous work that you recognized.

In fact you had watched the entire thing last year with Baekhyun and you remembered talking excitedly about it with Mia during one of your early text conversations.

Your face lit up and you happily joined in, excited to finally know what in the world they were talking about when you accidentally let something slip when you reminded her of what she had said about the anime before. Luckily you stopped yourself before you could admit that you had actually been the one she had been chatting with at the time.

Still, she caught it. She was very quick and sharp and you watched her face as she registered that you’d referenced something that only Baekhyun should know about. Had you just fucked up?

“Ahh, we,” you raised your index finger and waved it lightly toward where Baekhyun had stiffened up in his seat beside you, “he told me about what you said.”

There was a moment when her eyes widened and she looked at Baekhyun briefly before returning her focus to you.

“He...told you about me?” She lifted a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, straightened her back and leaned forward with her forearms rested in front of her plate on the table. Her off-the-shoulders number dipped when she leaned in and you caught a bit of black lace and the bunch up of her impressive bosom.

She smiled a coy smile aimed across the table.

You followed the smile and your eyes reached Baekhyun. He’d been hit with the smile and had been too stunned to return it. Instead, he lifted a hand and rubbed it over the back of his neck twice before reaching the same hand forward to grab the ice water he’d been sipping all night as he pulled in a mouthful and puffed his cheeks before covering his lips with his flattened palm and swallowing noisily.

“I also mentioned you to my friend,” Mia said not quietly enough for it to be just for him and you dropped your eyes down to the half finished chicken on your plate.

She was fine. Mia was fine. She’d done absolutely nothing wrong. She was nice and she was probably a good person, but you kind of wanted her to die.

“So,” Ben interjected suddenly and you looked across the table at him as you tried to conceal the surprise on your face to find him sitting there.

You noticed he was done with his food and his plate had already been cleared away by the super attentive waitstaff.

The negligence of your own date weighed heavily on you and you angled your chest forward to face him directly for whatever questions he had for you.

He was pointing toward Baekhyun and Mia with his extended finger and raised eyebrows.

“You two work in computers?” It was a work question. He’d gathered this much from the brief introductions everyone had given and while you had failed to offer any insight as to what you did for a living, Baekhyun and Mia had both mentioned computers.

“He’s a software engineer, and I’m a programmer. Similar but not the same,” Mia explained. You weren't sure of any of the details or of how they were different. You hadn’t really put much thought into it. You knew Baekhyun worked the magic with the keyboard and could fix anything that you happened to break.

“I’m in advertising. Just got scouted by Comma Entertainment and I’ve accepted.” Ben had a hand raised to his chest and his eyebrows were up. This seemed important to him and you let your lips form into an impressed O shape as you raised your eyebrows. His tone and the way he said the name of his new employer seemed to warrant the excited reaction.

You weren't familiar at all with his industry but you knew how to react like you knew what he was talking about. He certainly seemed impressed by himself. Who were you to discourage his enthusiasm.

“You’ve heard of it?” You sold it too well. Baekhyun had leaned close to you and whispered an aside question and you shot him a tense look with your eyes as a warning, but you quickly pushed your smile wide for Ben who was, deservedly, very excited about his new position.

“Of course, who doesn’t know Comma for advertising. That’s a very big deal. Is that why you were so busy last week? We hardly got to talk.”

Your subject change was so slick. If you hadn’t been the one to do it, you’d have been impressed by it. The disappointed pout on your face sold it well.

“Actually I was at the bank a lot last week. It was so weird. I had a few accounts that seemed to be hacked but then it turned out to be nothing. Had to change all my passwords though, so that was annoying.”

“That sucks. They didn't take anything did they?” Mia spoke up from beside Ben; concern written all over her face.

“No. Whoever did it just seemed to access purchase histories mostly. Some loser of a hacker. Didn't even get any money.” Ben’s lips pulled wide and he was laughing with his head thrown back at his perceived victory over the hacker that had been messing around in his bank records.

“You can learn a remarkable amount of information about a person’s bad habits from their bank history, Ben. Sure utilities and rent; that’s boring. You can find out how often someone gets hammered at bars. How many of those bars are also strip clubs. How many maxed out credit cards they make minimum payments on each month just to keep their head above water. Their gambling losses and the motel rooms they book in the bad part of town…”

Baekhyun was speaking up beside you. You turned and you looked at his profile as he spoke so candidly and with what you could only describe as a certain smugness on his voice.

The only reason he’d stopped talking was to catch his breath. It was the most he had spoken all night and you honestly felt taken aback by the suddenness of his words and more, the topic he spoke on. It felt weirdly pointed. It just felt so detailed; almost accusatory.

“What?” You hissed the question; focused it hard and as under your breath as possible to the man seated beside you.

His lips closed up before his eyes turned to look at you and you caught a quick blink of his eyes that preceded a softening of his features that had no business looking that confrontational in the first place.

“I’m not saying any of that stuff applies to Ben.” Baekhyun lifted a slim dismissive hand to wave toward your date. “It’s just an example. For all we know Ben’s only weakness is eating fried chicken every day.”

Ben’s lips were pulled into a thin line on his face and his jaw unclenched when you looked back at him. Then he was smiling at you and it was bright and convincing. You smiled back at him and shook your head at your wacky roommate’s antics.

“Actually it’s pizza. You caught me buddy, I’m a hardcore pizza addict. Every night.”

“Well, not tonight.” Baekhyun shrugged with an odd smile landing on his lips.

Ben’s tight smile flattened and the two men seemed to be staring at each other for longer than you thought was polite for a shared first double-date.

“So what is it that you do?” It was Mia who ultimately broke the tension and you looked across the table into her eyes. She had a pleasant smile on her face and was still chewing on a piece of bread, clearly unbothered by the strange standoff that had just been going on between the two men at this table.

Surely you weren't the only one to notice how odd it had been. Had you just imagined the tightness in Baekhyun’s fist that laid over his thigh and the hard glare in Ben’s eyes?

With Mia’s question though, you felt your own lips pull closed and your eyes danced around the table to the other curious parties who also were now looking at you to answer the question.

You’d prepared well for this date. You’d made sure Baekhyun had the detailed first date topics, questions and answers for perfect small talk, even the section on table etiquette. You’d made sure he knew you’d be here to steer the conversations toward topics he was comfortable discussing and you’d even set up a safety signal he would use if he wanted to bail and just go home.

You’d planned it all out, down to the detailed progression of the evening and how at the end someone might even suggest going together for drinks. And should one of the dates wish to split off, it would be completely okay as long as the corresponding person felt comfortable. You’d even promised that under no circumstances would you abandon Baekhyun to do this on his own if he didn't want to. Not even at the behest of Ben, your date.

They were looking at you and you'd gone quiet. You’d been so busy preparing for this date that it never occurred to you that you were also actively involved and that someone might possibly ask a question about you and your work.

Your work. Well…

“Uhh...I don't really do anything worth mentioning.”

You felt it. It was a warmth that had pooled in the skin around your nose. Your cheeks felt warm and you felt just insignificant enough for it to take your undeserved confidence and throw it out the window.

Ben and Mia were watching you. You pulled your bottom lip in between your teeth and bit down on the dry chapped skin on the surface.

“Nothing?” Ben said and his eyes were wide with a look of confusion on his face.

“Well, not nothing.” You were not completely unemployed. You had been quite impressive before. You’d been working with the best publicists of an entertainment company and had been in charge of crafting and perfecting the asset sheets of many of your company's highest profile artists. You’d been the best at it and at one time had been highly sought out for your expertise. You had a way with it. You could work some real magic. You could make a dud of a raw potato sound like a five star course in a Michelin star restaurant. Losing your position in the spring of 2020 had really been a huge blow to your confidence. You looked back at how far you had fallen. Boring data entry jobs to make ends meet. Taking on weird side gigs so you could afford tiny luxuries like your favorite scented lotion or the name brand tampons instead of the store brand.

“I do have a job.” You added lamely. “It’s just not at all interesting.”

Ben dropped his eyes from yours and Mia shrugged her shoulders and stabbed a carrot ball expertly on the first try.

“Yeah but what is it?” Mia said as she chewed daintily. The heat in your cheeks spread and you let your eyes wander away from hers over the various dinner items that covered this table.

Beside you, Baekhyun’s movement caught your eye and you turned to see him place an elbow on the table in front of him and he leaned forward.

“She’s a dating coach. She’s really good at it, but much too modest when she talks about herself.”

Oh no. He wasn't about to spill the beans was he? This was definitely not something in the approved list of first date dinner topics. Wasn't this topic too incriminating? Wouldn't Mia put two and two together and figure out that you had been coaching Baekhyun all along? Also, wasn't this new profession of yours too brand new to start talking about so freely like this? What the hell was he doing?

“A dating coach? What’s that?”

Strangely, Mia didn't seem to be looking at Baekhyun with wheels turning and sirens blaring. She was looking at you with her mouth empty and hung open with a look of genuine interest in her eyes.

“Do you like, feed them what to say in an earpiece?” Ben was speaking up from the other side of Mia and you laughed at the absurdity of such a silly rom-com movie cliche.

“Well no. I’m not a pickup artist. I am a dating coach. Think about it like a sports coach. I am teaching my clients the skills to play the game. Skills to overcome dating anxiety, or I’m teaching them to identity and move away from self-sabotaging behaviors, limiting beliefs, or preconceptions that are detrimental to a healthy relationship.

I have clients that don't even know where to begin. My goal is to strategize with them and place them effectively within the dating scene so they stand the best chance. It’s incredibly hard to be objective about your own love life, but I provide an outside viewpoint. I step in and intervene when I see something that isn't in line with their relationship goals or the vision they have for dating.

I’m not teaching manipulation or just telling them what to say. There are no love spells to make someone fall in love with you. I’m changing the way they believe in themselves so they can present themselves to someone else in the absolute best way to begin a real relationship with someone.”

You’d been leaning in as you spoke animatedly with your hands. You felt the genuine excitement building with your words. You were surprised at how much of your previous profession’s language applied to this new exciting endeavor you were embarking on, but there really were tons of overlapping similarities between the two fields. The explanations just poured out of you.

You hadn’t said any of this out loud before to anyone but the more you talked about it, the more elated you felt about what you were doing with your life. With how much you had been helping Baekhyun and how much progress you had seen in just one day of helping your clients — Baekhyun’s friends Minseok and Sehun. Sehun had finally, finally sent you his first selfie that wasn’t taken from his lap after you’d sent him many examples of good selfies taken from different angles. Minseok was already halfway through the materials you’d sent him to study and had been working hard on identifying and changing the self-defeating language he’d used in his rough draft dating profile.

“She has an app.” Baekhyun piped up from beside you. He’d leaned back in his chair as you spoke.

Both Ben and Mia’s faces mirrored each other’s. Their eyes were wide and their mouths hung in amazement and you quickly closed up your own mouth and grabbed anxiously at your wine glass, feeling a little bit embarrassed about having talked so much. You couldn't resist the chance to smash their misconceptions about what your goals actually were with helping your clients. None of these people were unlovable. They were all worthy of finding someone and you were going to give it your all to help them see their own value.

“Not at all interesting?” Mia spoke up, “that’s super interesting. That’s really, really cool. Can—Can I have your contact info? I have a friend that would be interested in your services.”

“You have an app too? This is something we could advertise online. It would do extremely well on certain kinds of reddit forums and definitely in most online gaming communities.” Even Ben sounded excited, if not a bit overly judgmental, and you heard a quiet, but hostile scoff next to you.

You ticked your head toward the sound but did not turn to look at him. You knew that scoff well enough to hear the annoyance in his voice at whatever he thought Ben might be insinuating about online gamers and the connection to the incels that haunted the forums of reddit.

“I think it’s a bit premature to think about online advertising. I’m still only one person.”

Ben smiled and shrugged off your quick dismissal of his idea to partner up and advertise your business to the desperately lonely and pathetic gamers of the world. Hell, the more you thought about it, the less inappropriate Baekhyun’s annoyance was. Ben could use some coaching on choosing less insulting words.

Thankfully the dinner was over and the check had been taken care of. You looked away from the palpable awkwardness that slapped you across the face when Baekhyun waved away Ben’s card and paid for the entire bill with his own.

“You can get me next time, buddy.” He definitely said this word sarcastically. It was out of line and you simply could not find the right moment to pinch his leg under the table to get him to behave himself in a discrete enough way that would not get you caught by the other two people at this table.

You let it slide simply because you had no way to stop it. He was ignoring the way you waved your finger frantically at him down by your calf. You knew he could see you in his peripherals.

No, Baekhyun. Stop that. Be nice. Your hand was saying. He wouldn't even look at it.

The dinner was over and the movie was starting soon. You’d picked a restaurant that was close enough to the theatre that you could walk.

You paired off. It was far from natural. You actually caught Baekhyun’s eyes as you stepped quickly and walked ahead of him, falling into step beside Ben and you left behind Baekhyun and Mia to bring up the rear. It took every ounce of self control not to turn around and look behind you to see how closely they walked to each other. To see if Baekhyun kept his hands shoved securely in his pockets or if he swung his arms at his side as he walked, inching a hand closer and closer to Mia’s swinging hand in the hopes of a back of the hand brush of his warm skin against hers.

Your steps must have stalled. You’d reached the theatre and you looked up to locate Ben, only to find him at the box office purchasing four tickets for the movie you’d all agreed to watch days ago. For the life of you, you couldn't remember what you were seeing. You merely followed where you were led and found yourself seated in a center row of a movie house sandwiched between Ben and Baekhyun. You noticed the center armrests had been lifted when you arrived and simply did not bother to lower them since everyone was too full from dinner for any movie snacks or drinks.

The house was mostly empty and then lights dimmed as the movie began. You searched your brain and nearly pulled out your phone to check your chat logs for the name of the film but decided against shining a tiny bright light in a dark room.

The movie began and you were quickly drawn into the narrative. It was a dark film and as the soundtrack began to take on more sinister sounding tones you recognized that your heart was racing and you were feeling the tension all over your body. It was not a gorey horror film, but it was leaning more toward the psychological suspense thriller genre. Not really something you watched much of.

To your left, Ben sat completely still; focused only on the movie screen. He looked so calm and nearly unaffected by the terrifying things happening on the screen. He occasionally shifted in his seat but did not react to the jump scare that flashed before your eyes and made you flinch hard in your seat. You’d reached the point in the film when the main characters were in genuine danger and you began to wonder if anyone would make it out of this movie alive. Was this one of those films where everyone was doomed?

It happened again, another jump, another loud shocking sound and another noise startled you and you dove to your right, hiding your face in the warm shoulder of the man sitting beside you.

The realization was instantaneous. The second you felt the warmth of his arm, and the smell of him hit your nose, you pulled your head up and you straightened out your spine, mumbling a quiet apology to Baekhyun for using his arm to hide behind as you removed any and all contact points you had with his body. You angled your hips and your knees away from him and even went so far as to stick your hands well under your own thighs and keep them there so you didn't grab for him again. You had been doing so well by not touching him at all today. Why did it have to be a scary movie?

Things grew more frantic on the screen. You held your breath and tried your best to keep from reacting as much as you could. How long was this movie? How much longer did you have to endure this? You should have paid more attention to the details of this part of the date. This was your own fault. You were acting like a big baby because you couldn't handle a little frightening scenes in a movie.

It was coming again. You could feel it building. You closed your eyes and terrible sounds were erupting all over. You would just not look. You could make it through if you just didn't look. With your eyes closed the sounds felt louder than ever and when you thought you couldn't take it anymore you considered committing the enormous sin of getting up during the climax of the movie to use the bathroom just so you didn't have to sit through this anymore.

There was a shift beside you then. You felt warm fingers inching down your forearm, traveling the path your hand took that led below your thigh and someone was reaching for your hand and pulling it out from where you’d been sitting on it. Someone to your right was gripping your hand with his own warm hand and you opened your eyes to look down between the hidden space between your hip and Baekhyun’s hip. There, you saw the grip of his hand that wrapped securely around yours.

He squeezed down once and you followed the length of him up to catch a glimpse of the side of his face. He was looking up at the screen. His eyes were open and he did not flinch at all. He was so still aside from the occasional movement of his lips when he moistened them with his tongue.

You could handle this if he lent you a little bit of his strength like this. Your eyes returned to the screen but your mind wandered back down to the secure comfort you felt in his hand.

You felt your own secret throb.

It made you flinch just a little bit and Baekhyun’s hand shifted then. He moved, lifting the tight grip for a moment and you wondered if he was done, would he take his hand back and leave you cold and afraid again? The lift was for the shift of his fingers and you felt the push of each digit between yours. He pushed his fingers between yours; interlocking your hands together with his and his thumb moved lightly over your own thumb, brushing comforting strokes again and again through the loud and scary and shocking scenes that played over that screen.

This time the racing you felt in your chest had nothing to do with the scary movie. He was touching you. He was holding your hand in secret. It felt forbidden with his date sitting right beside him like she was and with your date seated right beside you like he was. All of your attention was down on the slow pressure you felt from his thumb as it traced the shape of your own thumb down from the very bottom up to the tip, around again. The simple up and down had a slow and sensual rhythm to it. When he lifted his hand his thumb moved and you held your breath to feel that same very slow touching trace the outline of the palm of your hand again and again. He drew absentminded shapes into your skin with the pointed tip of his thumb and your eyes drifted closed as the longing grew within you. He followed the paths of the creases in your skin like a palm reader. He did not even need light to see them, he simply felt them and traced along the paths.

You let him.

You felt bewitched.

You loved him.

The credits rolled on the screen and the lights switched on. The change was abrupt. You were taken by surprise and shocked by it like you were from the jump scares in the film.

His warmth left you. His wandering light touch, his deliberate and careful exploration of the lines that made up the palm of your hand vanished.

Everyone was standing and everyone was walking out of the theatre house and your mind felt clouded and dazed but you followed where their steps led and you found yourself standing outside of the exit doors with the three other people who you entered with.

Baekhyun stood beside Mia and Ben occupied the space of the sidewalk square that you also stood inside.

It was the end of a night. You felt an overwhelming urge for this evening to be done so you could go home and shower and maybe eat something sweet and distracting and maybe made out of chocolate.

“Well this was fun,” it was your own voice that ultimately called it.

Mia had been looking at Baekhyun who had been looking down at his own feet as he lightly tapped his foot on the concrete below. Three taps.

Tap, tap, tap.

You felt a jolt of realization. Baekhyun had just tapped his foot thrice on the floor below him well within your sight and you recognized what that meant. He was feeling done. He was done with all of this exhausting socializing and being out in public with so many people around and he wanted to go home now. This was him asking you for help now as he wasn't sure how to end the date but wanted it to be over.

“What about...grabbing some drinks, maybe...” Mia was talking only to Baekhyun as she looked at him, “if you aren't too tired.”

“Hey Baek, isn’t your grandmother coming over early tomorrow? Do you still have to get ready for that?” You interjected suddenly and Baekhyun looked up into your face with his mouth open and you watched his eyes move slowly over your face as he recognized what you were doing. You were giving him an out. Mia had asked him to go for drinks and you were giving him an excuse, should he need it.

You both knew his grandma came every other Sunday. You both vividly remembered the wonderful visit you had at the beginning of the week with her and she wasn’t due to arrive again until next Sunday.

He could simply correct you if he really did want to go with her. He could call you a dummy and tell you that you had the wrong week again and playfully tap you on the head to jog your brain back into functioning the right way as he often did when you got something mixed up.

“Oh, yeah she is,” Baekhyun grabbed your convenient reminder from the air and smiled a rueful smile directed at Mia. His smile widened with the wince on his face, “that’s too bad.” He added and Mia took it well.

She smiled and nodded her head and there were well wishes for a safe trip home all around as you all parted ways.

Ben said he would text you later. Baekhyun told Mia the same and you waited until they both walked away to follow Baekhyun back to his car for the quiet ride home.

The silence was heavy, but it was comfortable.

Baekhyun didn't speak at all and you could tell by the way he carried himself that he was tired. He wasn’t normally an extroverted person and found it very draining to carry on a full conversation with friends he knew well. Strangers like he had been with tonight, well, you could see the fatigue in his movements and you knew he needed something warm to drink and maybe some comfort with a familiar favorite tv show to zone out in front of.

You handled it better. You were used to having to go out of your home occasionally and you even enjoyed socializing with your coworkers on the few days you went in to the office for work. You felt a bit drained but mostly you were preoccupied with watching how he was handling it and you were also burning with curiosity to know how Baekhyun felt about the whole thing.

He’d wandered into the living room and he found the sofa. You followed him close behind and grabbed the remote, flipping to a familiar and funny cartoon that you often saw him playing in the background as he worked on things. He didn't usually watch it that closely but it was comforting enough to stay on and keep his mind occupied for a while.

You didn't speak. Everything you had to ask him could wait. Even the scolding you had for him about how he acted toward Ben could also wait. You’d let the man breathe a little first.

You busied yourself in the kitchen making two cups of hot tea and when you returned you found his head leaning against the back of the couch with his eyes still glued to the screen. He had a passive smile on his face and he reacted positively to the wacky scenarios the characters found themselves in. He would occasionally speak out loud, speaking along with a funny line he knew by heart and you found it impossible to resist saying the follow up joke. You knew this show as well as he did.

He accepted the tea with a smile and had a few sips and you set your mug on the coffee table in favorable of the comfortable side of the sofa, the side with the pillows that allowed you to rest your head comfortably as you watched the big tv.

You were feeling pretty good. Baekhyun had now officially gone on his first date with a real girl who wasn’t you and he’d had a nice time. You could see from where you laid your head down how relaxed his face was as he giggled at the show.

You stretched and you felt his warm thigh with your foot. This sofa was long enough for you to stretch out completely and you only barely reached where he sat at the other side. You wiggled your toes, unable to resist the light messing with him that you often gave in to and his hand reached down to grab ahold of your foot, which he held in place as he paid attention to the tv.

Your phone buzzed in your pocket and you sat up a little bit to pull it out.

You saw a text message from Ben.

From the preview you got the idea of what kind of text message the man would be sending you an hour after your first, and apparently your last date with him.

-Hey you seem like a super cool girl, but...

The preview showed you enough to know that he was dumping you before you’d even gotten anything started with him.

You opened the text. Your curiosity outweighed your sense of self preservation.

-...but whatever’s going on between you and your roommate, well it doesn’t really seem like there’s much room for me. I just don't think I can start something knowing I’ve already lost. Thanks for inviting me tonight. The movie was fun. Good luck with everything. - Ben

You felt the sting.

You couldn't help it. You’d spent all evening watching Baekhyun interact with Mia with every ounce of your self control devoted to not letting your jealousy show at all. At one point you’d been so damn engrossed in them that you forgot Ben was even there. What an unfair and shitty situation to have put him in. You quickly keyed out an apology for your crappy date etiquette and thanked him for going out with you tonight.

You couldn't even blame him for anything. He had been sweet and he had tried his best to be the perfect gentleman. What had you expected?

You sent the last message you would ever send to Ben and tossed your phone roughly toward the coffee table. It bounced but landed in the middle.

The racket called Baekhyun’s attention and he turned to look at you with his eyebrows raised in question.

“Ben just rejected me.”

Somehow saying this out loud to Baekhyun felt better than hiding it from him. It felt less miserable than keeping it inside of yourself and letting yourself suffer the sting of the rejection alone.

Baekhyun’s lips pulled into a small frown and he took out his cell phone from his pocket and tossed it roughly on the coffee table beside yours. It took a similar bounce and your eyes widened in surprise at the sudden gesture.

“No way, not Mia too,” you said in genuine fear and Baekhyun shook his head with his shrug still well in place.

“Nah, I just can't lay down with my phone in my pocket,” he said as he wiggled on the sofa trying to get comfortable, “though in hindsight I can see how you would think that, sorry. Mia hasn’t texted yet.”

He was wiggling, finding no comfort in all the positions he tried and you caught his wandering eyes for a second as you lightly tapped a hand over your belly.

This…

This would be fine. This was something you both did sometimes. Baekhyun said your belly was warm and comfy and made the best noises and he liked to use you as a pillow when he was just too tired to go to his own bed.

He moved right away at your invitation and you let your legs part around his chest as he laid his head down right on top of you. He turned his head to face the tv and didn't even squirm too much before he sighed out loud. His arms laid on either side of your waist and you felt the constriction as he lightly squeezed around you.

You really hadn’t gotten to touch him all day. Your fingers found their way into his hair and you felt a low moan from the back of his throat travel though your body as you raked your nails down the back of his head to his nape.

“Peanut,” you said softly, feeling every little bit of the annoying little tickle of that stupid secret sitting inside of you.

You could feel the heaviness of his body as he gave in and relaxed his muscles on you. You felt every breath he took and they seemed to be changing as you played with his hair and he gave in to the relaxing comfort you offered him.

“Hmm?” He replied after a long while. You angled your face and could see that his eyes were closed.

“How was the date? Was it nice?”

You had so many hopes for him. You were trying your best to ignore the pangs of your own selfish jealousy and get past it all to get to something good for him. Something that would make him understand how incredible he was. How beautiful he was inside and out and how precious of a human being he was.

“Mhmm, I liked it.” He said softly and he shifted and you felt him tighten his hold around your waist briefly before he relaxed again.

“Did you really? Do you think you liked Mia?” You kept your voice strong. You did not allow your fears to overcome your voice. You were okay with this if he was okay.

He did not answer right away. You’d stopped playing with his hair and you kept your hand rested over his head. He was so warm. He was so lovely.

“Do you want me to like Mia?”

No.

Mia would be so good to him.

You did not answer. Your answer would have been no. It would have been selfish. You’d just been dumped by your date, how dare his date have gone so well. You’d both been on the same date. You could still see the way she looked at him. She found him just as lovely as you did.

You felt a thickness at the back of your throat and you swallowed it down.

“I’m trying, Bug. She’s very nice to talk to. Do you think I should like her?”

Was this because of his mistrust of people? Was this his shyness about letting someone he didn't know very well in close?

You couldn't respond. You did not trust yourself to do the right thing.

“You should go rest if you’re sleepy,” you said, you know, like a coward.

It took him a few minutes of laying on top of you before he realized that you were right and he would be much more comfortable in his own bed. He nodded and pushed up with his arms, and his eyes stayed closed and his head stayed hung down as his feet shuffled and he made his way into his bedroom, leaving his door open you merely heard the loud sound of him plopping down on his bed.

You were stuck where he left you.

Stuck in about as crappy a mood as you’d ever found yourself.

You hated everything about this. You hated how much you loved him and you hated how receptive he was to the idea of dating Mia. You hated how she looked at him and giggled at his small jokes and you hated HATED the way his cheeks blushed and the shy smiles he gave her when she talked to him.

You laid there and you stewed in your mood for longer than was good for you and the only thing that made your it up was the simultaneous buzzing that brought both of your cell phones to life on the coffee table.

You reached for yours. It’s as your dating coach app. Baekhyun had received a new message from Mia. The feelings that surged through you were taking over your sense of what was good and what was right and what was proper behavior for someone like you to participate in.

You swiped to read the message.

-Hi Baekhyun. Sorry I couldn't wait until tomorrow to text you. I had an amazing time tonight and I was wondering if you would like to meet up tomorrow after your Grandmother’s visit for coffee? I have something I’d like to ask you.

You felt as if your body was on fire.

You could feel it deep inside your chest, deeper still inside your belly where his head had been resting moments before. You felt it in the palm of your hand where his thumb had traced the patterns of lines there. You felt it in your lips that he had kissed and in your tongue ached inside of your mouth from your stupid secret.

You reached for your phone. You opened the app for the power he’d given only to you and you responded to her message as if you were Baekhyun.

-Hi, Yeah, that sounds fine. I’ll meet you at 1pm.

Your hands moved on their own. You moved to the internal commands of your app and you deleted both of the messages from the chat history. When you picked up his phone you saw the notification for Mia’s message vanish before your eyes and when you unlocked it and accessed his chat log, there was no sign of the unimaginable and unforgivable sin you had just committed against him.

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5 , Part 6 , Part 7 , Part 8  , Part 9 , Part 10

Tag list: @j-pping  @blahblahblah-boo  @his-mochi-cheeks  @amyeonzing@littleflowercrown13  @baekinmylife  @insta1010  @nana-banana  @f4ncyvelvet@bbhbeth  @totallynerdstuff  @byunbabybaek @maijinki @bbyunz@theclawofaraven @kingkushdealer  @uhobob @baekswifey​ @punchmebaekhyun @xlxbaekhyuneex

[robindrake93]

Kavinsky’s relationship with Ronan is so interesting when looked at from Kavinsky’s POV.

Kavinsky was skulking about Monmouth for Ronan before he knew that Ronan was a dreamer, which meant that he had some interest in Ronan as a person (which we know doesn’t happen because the dream pack and his family are...dreams). Kavinsky then finds out that Ronan is like him. They’re the same. They’re dreamers and Kavinsky has never met another one in the world. He went from being alone to being one of two. His whole world changed again.

Kavinsky spends like a year trying to tease the confession out of Ronan. Ronan is really only interested in finding the bottom of a bottle with Kavinsky (and racing and fighting with him). Kavinsky is the window in which Ronan’s bird tries to fly into repeatedly and violently. We can assume Kavinsky was met with failure because The Dream Thieves happens.

Kavinsky flirts and he insults in the same breath because he is the instrument that Ronan loves to hurt himself on (and he’s not a stupid boy who can’t read the fucking room - Gansey has a literal collar for Ronan; K isn’t pulling Gansey’s Dog from his ass). But Kavinsky isn’t the only one with sharp, cutting edges and Ronan (intentionally and otherwise) hurts Kavinsky too.

So time passes and Ronan is the same as he’s always been and Kavinsky gets impatient and desperate. He dreams Ronan’s leather bracelets, punctured with teeth marks like the ones in reality, the details noted carefully and lovingly.

“I know you” is what the gift says. “I know you’re a dreamer and I know you chew your bracelets when you’re unhappy and I’ve been paying attention because I care. Look.” Kavinsky leaves.

The next time they see each other, Ronan tosses him a pair of sunglasses. The ones that Kavinsky wears regularly. This is the acknowledgment, the “I know you too.” Except the tint is off, the lenses are slightly wrong (and oh I bet that haunts Kavinsky later, this tiny sign that Ronan isn’t as into Kavinsky as Kavinsky is him). But still. The fact that the sunglasses exist says that Ronan is accepting the gift, he’s returning it, and he’s trying. Which is more than Kavinsky got out of him before.

Things happen fast after that.

Because they’ve always shared dreams and been aware that they were sharing when Ronan dreams of Kavinsky, I’m assuming that the first one - the sex dream - featured a real Kavinsky (although I don’t think Ronan knew). Kavinsky falls asleep and into a dream where he’s fucking Ronan against the hood of a car. This isn’t Kavinsky’s dream, either. It’s Ronan’s. Ronan who controls his dreams. To Kavinsky, this has to seem like a sign that Ronan is very into him.

They’re both dreamers. Kavinsky lives surrounded by dream people and dream objects...why couldn’t they take a dream relationship to reality with them?

Ronan crashes Gansey’s car because of the night horror and Kavinsky shows up to save his life. Ronan’s life is valuable. Except Ronan isn’t grateful, he’s freaking out for no reason over the car. And there’s a moment where Kavinsky literally does not understand what the big deal is; Ronan can just dream a new one. It’s easy. He mentions that Ronan might have a head injury because he doesn’t know that Ronan doesn’t know Kavinsky is a dreamer.

But Kavinsky is going to take care of this and his stupid idiot boyfriend (what else would Ronan be? They courted, they fucked, dreams are reality). Kavinsky flirts on the drive over and Ronan sulks and Kavinsky says in words what he’s been saying in actions; I know what you are, you’re just like me.

Kavinsky is no ones dog. He doesn’t have a Gansey to distract him from his life. He lives with reminders of how bad life is and he’s an addict in a downward spiral. So the process of dreaming is something Kavinsky has had ample time and privacy to streamline.

Ronan doesn’t make cars because he’s keeping himself secret. By showing him the cars and that it’s even possible, Kavinsky says, “we don’t have to be a secret. You don’t have to limit and twist yourself into a tiny box. The world is literally ours.”

I’m not sure how they went from ‘let’s dream a new car’ to ‘let’s get drunk’ and can only assume that it was old habit to drink in each other’s presence but there’s a time skip where we next hear from them via Gansey. More specifically, via Kavinsky being at once jealous over Gansey (probably) being in a relationship with Ronan and where he both reassures Gansey and rips off the bandaid about the car. Kavinsky sends Gansey a dick pic with an Irish flag tied to his erection, a roundabout way of saying that Ronan’s already ridden his dick.

Kavinsky takes Ronan home after the field, they (or at least Ronan) drink alcohol and Kavinsky puts on a racing movie. Kavinsky texts Gansey his dick pick and the news about the car, and he’s not even next to Ronan. He’s giving Ronan space. I’d say the phone thing was invading Ronan’s privacy but Ronan doesn’t use his phone so...there’s nothing there to invade. When Ronan wakes up, Kavinsky tries to start a conversation. And it’s a pretty normal conversation; you handle your liquor well, oh hey you aren’t responding are you okay, wait you inherited dreaming from your dad?

Ronan leaves the room. He’s not very talkative. This probably isn’t going how Kavinsky imagined it would. Again, Kavinsky is an addict and his boyfriend is being more prickly than usual so he gets high. Kavinsky makes a joke instead of confessing to texting Gansey what was basically a “he wants me more than you” text. And Ronan responds with violence. Which Kavinsky points out and his only option is to lay his cards on the table. Kavinsky doesn’t want to play chase, he wants this thing between them to settle. So he spills that he saw Ronan dream the blood and he knew.

And all Ronan asks is how he did it. His hackles have finally soothed. Kavinsky almost literally jumps on the chance to teach Ronan and spend more time in his company; the company of someone like him in all the ways that matter.

There’s more beer to entice Ronan to stay, a little extra incentive to spend time with Kavinsky. Ronan’s first attempts aren’t interesting for someone who’s house is full of one trick magical dream items. Like I said above, Kavinsky has the dreaming process streamlined. He takes his pill, he gets what he wants from his dream and he dies for this. His heart stops for a few seconds. We don’t know if Kavinsky takes the pills to dream every time or if it’s just to make this fast and easy for Ronan’s training. If he does it’s because he’s suicidal, and if he doesn’t then it’s because he’s at the point that he’ll die for Ronan.

What does Kavinsky bring back? Something boring, like Ronan’s dream thing, but it’s complimentary. The cap to Ronan’s pen, the missing piece, that fits and matches perfectly. Which is what Kavinsky thinks they are to each other.

Kavinsky gets his jealous dig in about Gansey’s relationship with Ronan, which makes Ronan almost leave. This time, when Ronan tells Kavinsky to back off about Gansey, Kavinsky does. Because he wants Ronan to stay and he knows Ronan has a temper. Back to the safe stuff, to training, and this time when they dream together it’s intentional.

And when they get back? Ronan is still and he doesn’t react when Kavinsky touches him but he does open his hand when asked what he has. He laughs at Kavinsky’s joke, which doesn’t insult Gansey or insinuate that they’re in a relationship. Ronan laughs, a good sign, the best sign, and Kavinsky flirts. They open up a little, the first time that Ronan has shown any interest in Kavinsky’s home life, and then it’s back to dreaming together.

When Ronan dreams back a lit bomb, Kavinsky saves their lives by throwing it out the window before it explodes. They talk civilly and Kavinsky offers Ronan some cocaine; both to help him dream and because people who do cocaine just like to share with their friends and romantic partners (not diving deeper into this but trust me, it’s a thing).

They’re together so long that days have gone by. This is the first time that they aren’t fighting and antagonizing each other. It’s just dreams and each other. There’s still beer and cocaine because they’re addicts who are hurting, but they’re both comfortable with it. Ronan gifts Kavinsky with a twizzler, which Kavinsky takes because he loves Ronan.

Kavinsky thinks Ronan’s ready for the Camaro but gets angry when he realizes Ronan still doesn’t get how to dream. Ronan gets angry too, takes his failure out on Kavinsky because he just doesn’t get it. And Kavinsky points out how he’s been practicing.

So two things happen next. Ronan says he can’t go back without the car, to which Kavinsky replies to the effect of “then don’t.” He’s asking Ronan to stay with him. And Ronan replies that he’s going to try again, he’s going to dream with Kavinsky again, he’s staying. And that’s all that Kavinsky hears, he doesn’t realize that Ronan meant he was getting the car back so that he could leave.

A new pill comes out, one that keeps Ronan in his body but kicks his mind out. This is a pill that Kavinsky has tested before (once resulting in a girl overdosing) but now he’s got it perfected; this isn’t supposed to hurt Ronan. And Kavinsky re-enacts their first shared dream; Ronan against the hood, Kavinsky pressed up behind him, tracing the tattoo. They’ve already been here before.

But Ronan is gone, back to dreams, and when he comes to, he’s done it. He’s brought back the Camaro and it is perfect. Ronan’s success is Kavinsky’s success (which I’m sure he attributes to his magic dick and phenomenal teaching skills). They are perfect. This is a perfect moment for Kavinsky, a shining moment.

And Ronan crushes it immediately by telling him that actually he’s going back to Gansey; that he wasn’t going to stay. Kavinsky is so surprised that he stands in blank shock. Whatever defensive shields he has slam into place, a wall between himself and his boyfriend who refuses to stay. He can’t believe it.

Ronan mocks Kavinsky for thinking that they’d stay together and that this strengthened anything between them. But Kavinsky still tries to change Ronan’s mind by telling him he doesn’t need Gansey. And then Ronan breaks up with him. Ronan basically says that Kavinsky was nothing at all and he didn’t care about him.

Kavinsky is heartbroken. He says he’ll burn Ronan. He’s a jilted lover, spurned and ashamed and hurt. Ronan is leaving him. Kavinsky puts his finger gun to Ronan’s temple - one last touch - and says he’ll see Ronan later. The exact verbiage is “in the streets”, which might be a joke from Maggie about how they’re no longer seeing each other in the sheets.

But he doesn’t burn Ronan right away. He dreams him a car and lets Ronan know that he’s still jealous over Gansey.

The car gets no reaction and Kavinsky escalates in his attempts to Ronan’s attention. I don’t know how Kavinsky convinces himself that kidnapping Matthew was a good idea. But I want to know if it was before or after he realized that Matthew is a dream thing. When Kavinsky kidnaps Matthew? I bet he didn’t even have to resort to force. Just “hey kid, I’m Ronan’s friend, wanna get a milkshake?”

And he’d take Matthew to get a milkshake and sit in the booth opposite him and drill him with questions. And come to realize that Ronan dreamed him. Now that Kavinsky is actually looking at Matthew, he sees the signs of a dream thing; knows Ronan’s dreams intimately enough to recognize his handiwork. Kavinsky lives with dream things that are so real that no one can tell the difference. And Ronan did a really shitty job making Matthew. The kid has zero personality. He’s essentially a mirror: if K mentions he likes something then Matthew starts talking about it and he copies body language and speech patterns. He wasn’t just made to like people, he was made to be liked. (This was based off the snippet of CDH that was released and I don’t know if later installments negate any of this).

So if Kavinsky hands him a pill and says “swallow this” then Matthew does it and that’s how Kavinsky gets him into the trunk. He literally just asked. It’s that easy because Matthew was made by a child who had extremely base desires...who is very bad at realism.

Kavinsky sends Ronan texts from both his own phone and Matthew’s phone. This is what got Ronan’s attention; he calls. He’s never called Kavinsky before in his life, has never even texted him back before. So this is huge.

It’s important to note here than Kavinsky has replaced real life people with dreams and that he has to practice to get good at making something(one). People are replaceable. Dreams even more so. Matthew is barely a person, he’s a bad creation, and he’s replaceable. This is the key factor; Mathew can be redreamed. If something happens to this Matthew - like an explosion, say - then Ronan can always dream a new, better one. Kavinsky can help him. The point being that this is not actually a high stakes move for Kavinsky. This is breaking Ronan’s toy with the intent of gaining Ronan‘a attention and promising to buy him a new one (a better one, even).

When Ronan threatens Kavinsky on the phone, it’s nothing. Ronan has threatened violence before and it’s only fair for Ronan to make the same threats Kavinsky did. The important, takeaway is that Ronan is coming to see Kavinsky.

At the Fourth of July party, Kavinsky makes an entrance. He wants Ronan to see that he’s fine without him, better in fact.

But Ronan brought Gansey. And Kavinsky cannot resist a jab at Gansey, whom he feels stole his other half. He tells Gansey that he hopes Ronan can’t get it up for him. Ronan attacks him, demanding his dream brother back.

Kavinsky says he doesn’t know. This may or may not be a lie. Kavinsky brings up their relationship again, because that’s what this is about. He says, again, “I can’t believe you left me.” When this doesn’t get through to Ronan, Kavinsky asks Ronan to dream with him.

Ronan does.

Kavinsky is being attacked but Ronan came. He flirts, using a line he’s used before.

And it doesn’t work.

Kavinsky is being attacked by the forest and he tells Ronan that sometimes you have to take what you want; asking again if Ronan wants him, telling him that Ronan doesn’t need to ask before he takes Kavinsky. Again, he bears his heart to Ronan. He’s saying that Ronan is all he has because Ronan is so irreversibly tied to dreaming, dreaming is the only thing there is. Kavinsky says that if Ronan stays in the relationship, they’ll have each other.

Ronan tells him that it’s not enough, that Kavinsky is not enough. Here, Kavinsky begs that it’s not because of Gansey, that Gansey isn’t better than him. And then it comes out that Ronan would rather have a straight man than Kavinsky. A straight man who isn’t a dreamer.

Ronan says that there’s more to life and Kavinsky says that it isn’t true. Ronan says cars, sex, and drugs but he’s also talking about dreaming and that’s how Kavinsky takes it. Everything and a large portion of the people in Kavinsky’s life are dreams. He has no reason to think he won’t be continually replacing people and objects with dream copies. This is his whole life, it’s all he has, he’s made it from nothing. And this is when Kavinsky realizes that Ronan really doesn’t feel the same and isn’t going to return his feelings.

Kavinsky loses the will to live because he’d hinged everything on Ronan. Without Ronan, Kavinsky didn’t want to live. The last little thing he had in his life that was an equal, snuffed out Kavinsky’s flame. So Kavinsky summons a creature that’s essentially his heartbreak; not just this one but every heartbreak and all of his self loathing. This creature hates Kavinsky as much as it hates the rest of the world because it’s Kavinsky’s feelings manifested.

Kavinsky has escalated again. Now he’s threatening to kill himself. He looks Ronan in the eye and asks Ronan to stop him.

Ronan brings back an albino night horror. It fights with Kavinsky’s fire dragon and both boys just watch it. This is so interesting because Ronan’s only reaction is to tell Kavinsky to stop feeling. Stop having feelings for me. Kavinsky says that he can’t. Again, the dragon and the night horror are manifestations of Kavinsky and Ronan’s feelings; they’re metaphors come to life.

Ronan is still focused on his brother, though. Kavinsky even tells him that he’s missing the point of all this, which was to sort through their feelings (or fight through them like the dragon and horror were doing). Ronan finds Matthew, mildly drugged but fine and about to free himself anyway. And Kavinsky finally sees that Ronan really doesn’t care. So he stays in the path of their monstrous, overwhelming feelings made real and ignores Ronan’s pleas for him to get down because he knows Ronan will say whatever he needs to get Kavinsky to do what he wants.

And Kavinsky dies in flame, death via broken heart.