#is bc i’ve been feeling very self conscious about my characters lately

[idolsgf]

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[awpollar]

Drawing is hard and has always been daunting but lately it’s been less scary. Something about sitting down and making a conscious effort to study things I want to instead of stressing out about being perfect.

Below is a little bit of my process for self teaching on drawing transformers/diary entry for myself to look back on:

I’ve been doing a lot of fundamentals (I like to pride myself in being able to draw pretty decent circles now lol). In between that I’ve been trying to “study” artists I like and also trying to draw pieces of transformers from the comics repeatedly. I find breaking them into separate entities and drawing those bits multiple times while noting what I could improve is helpful.

For example, with Blurr I decided to try to draw his foot wheel thing. Once that felt ok (not perfect, just doable is the important part) I extended the sketch to his leg. The first time I draw a part I try to get general shapes down quickly, not trying to perfect alignment or proportion or even perspective yet. Then I’ll draw it again, this time slower with more attention to how everything fits together.

Repetition is important. fortunately for me, I don’t mind redrawing something multiple times. I think that’s why fundamentals was nice for me I could just draw circles and lines for hundreds of repetitions and be okay with it.

I haven’t posted my studies but those pages are FILLED with notes. It helps to take notes even if you don’t think a point is important bc writing it down can help cement it in your brain, which is helpful for technical terms or remembering where certain concepts are relevant. Also shifting focus from a topic to another can help reset your brain. I was doing gesture drawings the first half of the month and I honestly didn’t like it. I felt like I sucked at anatomy and proportion, so instead of supplementing my studies with gesture I decided to just draw characters I like. Taking that break from gesture has been nice, but I’ll be implementing them back regularly in a week or so.

Oh, also I learned proportions for heads and faces (very loosely tbh enough to get by) so I could feel more confident with drawing said characters. I definitely think I need to practice expressions and whatnot but gaining the skills to put together a face was nice.

Anywho, this is moreso like a little diary entry for myself, but maybe it could help someone :)

[espoir-et-reves]

Hi! I wanted to tell you that I just finished part 1 and 2 of "a stranger in time dancing in flames, whispering to the stars" and I enjoyed it so, so much. The way you write the characters is amazing, and I love the way you developed them! Naruto being more mature, smarter and quick-witted thanks to finally getting a proper education and a happy childhood is a lovely way to tackle the problems he had both in the shinobi academy and life in general, and Sasuke getting to be with his clan and study the techniques they've had for centuries while training with his family and friends and turning out to be a stronger and kinder version than the one that was filled with nothing but hatred and anger is a nice change of pace from the canon's "you're weak because you lack hatred", and I love it! The characters get so much development and go through moments that are so, so rough and painful in ways that tear them apart- yet it's never the pain that makes them stronger, but the unconditional support and love that others give to them, poor Sakura is going through so much and then people think to come to her thinking that she can somehow help them with problems that kid has no way to know how to help them with (Shin ik you're in a lot of pain and I'm so sorry but Sakura is NOT the best person to help with love problems, all she got from "love" was a literal hole in her chest). It's really funny how this Sasuke DOES like her but she's completely done with him bc of the other timeline that she never even notices the signs that, when she sees on people looking at others that are not her, she immediately recognizes, which now that I think about it may also come from Sakura thinking that no one would love her the way she is now, not even in a conscious way bc of thinking that she doesn't deserve it or anything, but simply putting herself out of the possibility of ever dating anyone unconsciously because she couldn't even imagine herself being in one because of the weight the world puts on her shoulders without knowing about it (and I'm so glad she has people to talk about it, because after all she IS human and has her own limits on her mental health, and those chapters after Shisui had died that had warnings about either death or self-harm had me worrying about her so much) your fanfic has been wonderful to read, and I wanted to thank you for making something so beautifully written

Hello, and terribly sorry for the late reply.

First of all thank you so much for your kind words! I’m really glad that you’re enjoying the series and the way I’ve portrayed the characters in their new/altered circumstances 💕

Naruto, even in canon, exhibited a level of emotional strength and such kindness that honestly amazed me considering the way everyone had been treating him. In my fic that existed as well in his first years of life, but now, him being part of a loving family and having close friends way earlier only works to amplify those traits, as well as mature him in different ways than in canon. He has people to lean on, so he can be vulnerable as well, but in the same vein, having people he cares about makes him want to be stronger in order to keep them safe.

The same goes for Sasuke. And since his family was never taken away from him, he’s allowed to be the kind, considerate, loyal son, brother and friend he couldn’t be in canon. I’m basing their personalities on what we know and have seen about them. Canon Sasuke as a child was downright cute, happy, kind and a bit obsessed with his brother 😂

You are quite right about Sakura’s feelings. On one hand she’s not even considering romantic love and dating because she has the greatest mission ever resting on her shoulders, but yes, she is also feeling… not unworthy of love per se but close to that. Her whole existence in this timeline is followed by secrets and deception. Even if it’s not to hurt others, the fact remains: no one but a very select few actually know her and love her for all she is. Part of her is scared for how the people she cares about would treat her if they ever found out that she’s been lying to them their whole lives. And honestly, her friends are still in a way the ghosts of theirselves she knew in another life.

Thank you so much for reading “a stranger in time” and I hope you’ll enjoy the rest of what’s to come! Until next time 💖

[sleeptowns]

first love, late spring: the autopsy report

some postmortem thoughts on conceptualizing, writing and editing the first half of my favourite project so far, partly for my own relationship with the "craft" and mostly bc writing this like a blu-ray bonus commentary was immense fun.

・・・・・・

in retrospect, it’s always a bit of a miracle every time i finish a fic.

it might not feel like it for a lot of them, but considering i’m a [spins wheel] kind of person in so many aspects, from writing to travelling to cooking, i sure have a lot of audacity falling headfirst into stories knowing full well that i don’t have a single clue where it will go until it’s all finished. i was very lucky with my 20-50k fics, especially since one of them was a dual narrative/parallel pov situation or whatever yours, mine, ours was. i was probably even luckier with the 70-80k ones, seeing as i was a broke college student in a new city acting like i can do something like a 27-year-old end-of-career actor justice. but to write 113k words’ worth of so many things i’ve never done before, with the same messy method of figuring it out as i go along — i don’t even know how that happened.

as it stands, i have neither a planning doc to look back on and unpack nor even a vague outline that i probably wouldn’t have listened to anyway. and that was all well and fine before; i’ve made peace with not having the kind of mind that knows to conceptualize arcs and secondary plotlines before i even write the thing. i know i work best when i let the characters do the heavy lifting for me as i’m writing: they tell me where something needs to go next, i listen, and if i listen long and hard enough, the one scene i initially wanted to write as a standalone becomes a much longer monster because it felt wrong for it to be anything else. and the kind of story that could not have possibly been anything but what it ended up as? that’s the writing i love best. it works out.

i am, however, trying to be a more mindful writer-person this year, and while there’s very little to be mindful about when the entire process has been seemingly mindless, it doesn’t mean i can’t at least try to look at this complete jigsaw puzzle i’ve ended up with by moving my eyes from one piece to another. will that tell me how i realized that so-and-so piece belonged in this spot? no. but will it inform what to look for in the angles and edges of a lone puzzle piece the next time i try to build a puzzle? i don’t know for sure, but it might, and possibility is a very hefty thing to have when you’re writing.

which, honestly, i’m only saying because i read matthew salesses saying a few months ago that “to become a better writer is to make conscious what may start out as unconscious.” and since it shook the very foundations of my self-pitying “i don’t feel comfortable claiming i’m a proper writer because everything i do is unconscious and i’m just fooling everyone into thinking i know what i’m doing because i know for a fact i do Not” mindset — this is me trying my best to move beyond the parameters of my chaotic writing non-process and reflect on how first love, late spring came to be what it is.

that said, i started this as a genuine attempt at being writerly about flls but then i got very uncomfortable and, looking at the end result now, it’s really more like one of those director’s commentary things that they include in the blu-ray, complete with division into small multiple parts and the writing equivalent of outtakes.

but this was still fun! and probably more valuable than not in the long run! so! here’s to making the unconscious conscious!

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01 | ROOTS & SEEDLINGS

i’ve had time to think about it, and i blame three things for first love, late spring.

① jay, who had to listen to my sleep deprived self break off in the middle of a spiel about restorative justice so i can wonder out loud what megumi would be like in a polisci class — and who somehow decided 5am was a good time to pitch a fun little joke of a college au where nanami is a philosophy prof and mahito is his unbearable teacher’s assistant

② jjk chapter 132.5, which caught me at a point of almost-breaking in the middle of the shibuya arc and soothed what it can with basketball player yuuji & turtleneck-clad, coffee-drinking, definitely-shops-at-muji megumi.

③ dash & lily, a netflix limited series from which i retained nothing except the song stay by gracie abrams. it played maybe once in the entire show yet haunted me for days after, looping could you hold me without any talking could you hold me without any talking could you hold me without any talking like some spell incantation.

a spell incantation that did its job frightfully well, because by the end of that weekend, i was at a bus stop in -13° furiously typing scraps of a scene into my google keep so it stops rattling around emptily in my brain:

Itadori’s eyes are wide when he opens the door, as if he hadn’t actually believed Megumi would be coming over.

He looks tired. Not in the sleepless way.

He stares blankly at the paper bag that Megumi has tucked under his arm.

He opens his mouth, but Megumi announces, "I have bath bombs."

"What?"

"My sister brings them to my place. I never use them. Here—pick one."

then two other scraps:

"We’ll get in the bath, then sleep. Okay?"

"We? Are you staying the night?"

"When have I ever not stayed the night?"

"Right, you’re the only one who always does." Itadori sounds absentminded. “But I mean—we’re not—tonight—"

"Why does that matter?” says Megumi. "I can take the couch. I’m not leaving you alone like this, Itadori."

That feels too honest, but it’s the right thing to say.

[…]

“Fushiguro?”

Megumi’s half-asleep already, but he shifts, makes sure Itadori slots better against him. Closer, more secure. "What is it?” he says, but it’s mostly a hum under his breath.

“Thank you.”

as with every time this kind of haunting happens, i felt immediately better after having gotten fragments out of my system. but also as with every time i listen to the need to manifest one of these, it finds a new way to follow me around. who are these people? why is yuuji coming over? what happened? why is megumi giving me “i will” by mitski energy here? what is their relationship, if they seem close & comfortable enough for yuuji to come over like this but still with enough hesitation that they can’t possibly be in an established relationship yet?

so then i started thinking about a scene that might come after the bits i wrote, and because i had a stray thought about what yuuji & toji’s dynamic might be like while i was in line at the grocery store, this is what came out:

When Megumi leaves his room, he finds his father sitting at the dining table — with Itadori.

“What,” he says.

“I met your boyfriend at the grocery store.”

“How do you even know what he looks like—“

“Oh, Tsumiki sent me a photo.”

Itadori waves at the collection of half-opened bags on the counter. “We just came here to split the groceries! I would have made too much if I was home anyway, so—”

which just complicated my question of what yuuji & megumi are even supposed to be in this world that my brain keeps trying to feed me. not boyfriends, definitely, but there are feelings and tried-and-tested intimacy there. fake boyfriends? friends with benefits? both?

the final, final straw was — because why not — a video on my fyp. a student living in tokyo was doing a series on their favourite restaurants nearby, and one of them had beautiful footage of a place called ukai toriyama. i looked it up out of curiosity for more, became enamoured with all the photos and videos i found, and thought, wow, this place would be nice for a wedding reception.

and because one plus one plus one plus one plus one equals five, i cracked under the weight of all the little things rattling around in my head, decided to hell with it, and sat down in front of a doc.

1.1k words later, the first scene of first love, late spring was set in stone, and the world it belonged to had me in the tightest chokehold that a story seedling idea has had in years.

only i would argue that this story wouldn’t be what it became without flls!yuuji being who he is, and that had to come a bit later, long after megumi had established what kind of world we were at first. because before yuuji, before haibara, before the scene and chapter that i think would define the structure of flls and what their relationship ultimately became about, i had to first go a few weeks back in time and figure out what megumi’s deal was.

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02 | THE SWEATER AND THE CUP

the thing is, though, i wish i knew why i wrote chapter 2 like i did, but i just really, really don’t. by this point, i hadn’t written anything in two years except news articles & the occasional personal essay, and i’d argue you can see some of the rust peeking in while i try to hash out what on earth is going on in this quarter-realized au. i was lucky that megumi’s perspective felt very natural for introspection, so i had a lot of space for exposition that was, to be honest, more for my purposes than any reader’s. my main objectives were to figure out what would have to happen to lead to the two fragments i had written out, and since i think i like to write based on one detail first, i latched onto how cold my room was at the time and started imagining scenes that feel similarly cold. i typed up a scene in a classroom at the top of an old campus building. that didn’t work after i shuffled through what i remember about the university of tokyo from writing 2 a.m. and realized i can see megumi going there but not yuuji. then i tried a scene at a party, but that wasn’t cold or winter-y enough; it was too much to start on, sensory-wise, and i knew i didn’t want the heat and lights of a party to be part of the ~aesthetic of a christmastime fic.

with that in mind, then, i tried something simpler: a cold apartment, the characters in it just barely starting their morning. and after i latched onto that and followed it a little farther, my head came back to me with a kind of cold that’s not just cold because it’s winter in the story and the floorboards are unheated and the windows are frosted — but cold because the bodily warmth is reserved for the space between night and morning, and this scene must then be a moment beyond that space. with a few more minutes of typing and twirling a pen while i talk to myself, this became: megumi out of bed, standing cold and not fully dressed in the middle of the bedroom; yuuji still cocooned, warm and half-asleep, in the middle of the bed; sunlight streaming in, steady and warm on the sheets, shining fully into the room and onto the bed but not directly on either one of them.

looking back, this is i think the first mention of light in the fic, and probably the precursor for all other mentions i write later on, whether consciously or not. if i am to pull out something deeper out of the intuitive stuff, i’d say that i put the sunlight in to maybe signal to myself that the warmth was there between them, literally and figuratively, but they’re not seeing each other in the light yet. which changes later on, when megumi sees yuuji waiting outside the subway station in the ✨ glow ✨ of the sunset, and again further on, once more a little differently, under the streetlights. but for now, to be completely honest, i also think i just decided to start with a sunlit room because it’s the easiest indication of morning coziness, and therefore the easiest thing to subvert and break.

so. visualizing sunlight in a bedroom means visualizing the rest of the room, and the laziest way to do that is to start from what’s already a given: the sunlight, the blinds, the bed, the wall, and then the floor, none of which has anything interesting about them worth jumping off on for the next paragraph — unless there’s something missing. the thought process went, probably word for word, a little like: “let’s say something’s missing. that would explain why megumi’s standing half-dressed. something of his must be missing, then. why is it missing? maybe he left it in the living room. maybe it’s under the bed. or maybe yuuji has a dog. a cat? what would its name be — oh, wait. sukuna is a thing. i don’t know what to do about sukuna.” as such, cat sukuna was unceremoniously born, and suddenly, not only was megumi’s sweater missing, it was also torn to shreds. because cat sukuna.

now i got megumi out of the bedroom and i needed him to do something, and while there’s intimacy in preparing coffee/tea for himself and yuuji, sure, that won’t really give the scene momentum. but i figured i could reuse the same logic i did with the missing sweater and this time add something that’s there when it shouldn't have been. and having a cup in a literal cupboard isn’t the most creative or shocking thing, i know, but because it had to be shocking to megumi somehow for it to be worth including — it was. it was, because (and i’m still so sorry about using you like this, yuko) it was for someone else, because it was permanence and invitation that wasn’t for him, and what more useful emotional beat is there to end a chapter’s opening scene on except tension over something mundane that wouldn’t be tension over something mundane if only megumi’s thoughts & feelings didn't work a certain way.

and when you’ve got direction like that, the thoughts and feelings themselves can start to find a place in the structure of the story. introspection is my favourite to write because it flows once i’ve justified including it; it’s comfortable and free and nice, and it forms the backbone of characterization while at the same time indulging thoughts i’ve had about canon. i’m guilty about starting nearly all of my pre-flls fics with shameless character-centric introspection, but because this wasn’t the case with flls (and continued to not be, for reasons i’ll get to later), wherein everything i wrote at the start was in medias res, i had to hotwire that justification into existing within the actual scenes instead of leading to them. not having introspection in the beginning, before the actual story begins, means i’m still in the middle of a scene during all of these blocks of introspection, and it had to make space for action somewhere. we had to return to the story somehow.

except, this made me realize soon after, there’s no story yet. there’s no spark that would make the tension from the cup boil over and let the actual story find its foothold.

luckily, though — bless her and whatever photo-taking technique she had that we never even got to see in full swing before she was gone too soon — nanako happened.

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03 | THE GOJO-GETO HOUSEHOLD

before there was a single cemented thing in this universe — minus maybe mahito giving eyeroll-edgy kinda nihilistic advice, but even he had to become a newsletter writer somewhere down the line — there was the ginormous network of people that megumi, at times grudgingly and resignedly, calls family. i knew this was going to be an everyone lives au, because what kind of college au would it be otherwise (and yeah, this at first included yuuji’s grandfather), and i went into it knowing that if nothing else, i wanted to write yuuji interacting with toji + megumi interacting with nanako & mimiko. (because why not. where else would i get the chance to explore those dynamics.) for the first one, i already had a scene fragment; i just had to get there. but for the second, it meant indulging in the concept of stsg raising the girls & the fushiguro siblings together, whether or not they were in a romantic relationship in this universe, and if i wanted to preserve at least a bit of the canon stsg backstory, it meant conceptualizing all the complications that would have led to even the well-established family we see in flls.

this would later turn out for the best, because stsg’s pseudo backstory running quietly under the main story formed the foundation for how i’ll characterize yuuji & megumi and their relationship. not because of the parallels, though there are those, but because even in the idyllic surface of being the product of a family instead of loss, megumi will still carry the burden of the kind of love he didn’t receive. which is not the same thing as not receiving love and care. he got that. he knows he got that. but as i hope i made a point to say in flls, receiving love broadly is not the same as having the kind of love you specifically need. and i don’t think that’s a point i would have been able to make if stsg weren’t there — if gojo wasn’t there to serve as a catalyst for megumi’s first decision to stay stubbornly brave for yuuji in ch 4, and if geto wasn’t there, in ch 6, to gently but firmly tear megumi apart.

but before all that, i just wrote the beginning of flls wanting to see a megumi that grew up with three sisters instead of one. i wanted monthly catch-up dinners at a ridiculously expensive 6LDK house near the university of tokyo, full of ridiculously expensive shit. i wanted the loud, chaotic household that i felt they deserved in this au. i wanted to see remnants of the dynamics they would have had as teenagers, from megumi being the sulking youngest to nanako being domineering and tsumiki being reasonable and mimiko being the healthy middle between them. i wanted a weary but affectionate geto. i wanted gojo that no one really sees as a guardian in this set-up but is somehow the person to benefit the most from having people in this gigantic house that he probably never would have bought thinking it will help raise four kids.

and so i tried writing a scene where all these dynamics collided like two trapeze artists that you think would crash against each other but doesn’t because this is a well-practiced routine and they all know each other very well, not because they were family from the beginning but because they’ve had time to learn to be a family altogether. but again (this is starting to become a running thing in this post, note to self), as with any indulgent choice, i had to justify its existence in the story somehow, to give it a place in the forward momentum of the plot. and so nanako’s social media came into the fray, and more and more people started entering the room as she confronts megumi, and the energy heightens — and at the center of it all is yuuji and a dating misunderstanding, and somehow boom, there we go, we finally have what the cool kids call an inciting incident.

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04 | FAKE DATING, I GUESS

i’m not a fan of billing flls as a fake dating story. like, that has to be a scam, right? they fake-date for about half a chapter at best. i’m genuinely sorry it was so blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, but the fruits of the trope were too central to what the first four chapters became for me to take it out — so there you go. fake dating it was, for like the three days before yuuji caved and confessed his heart out.

but. okay. i’ve had time to think about why i actually kept it and didn’t just find another way to play with what fwb tropes offered, and i think fake dating was only insofar useful to the story in how it didn’t do anything for them. i’m learning recently that there’s merit in that, too. in making a point, that is, out of a point that a trope can’t make for me. or whatever. what i’m trying to say is that — fake dating doesn’t change anything about yuuji & megumi’s dynamic, really. they kiss, they’re friends, they go on not-dates. and a younger me would have restarted and taken fake dating out altogether since it’s not introducing something new, but ultimately, i guess i kept fake dating because it reinforces what yuuji & megumi already are. what they already do. the level of ease and comfort they already have with each other. all these things they haven’t been honest to themselves about quite yet. haven’t been honest about it all meaning more.

and that’s all the use fake dating was, to be honest: bringing them both to a point of necessary realization. megumi alone at first, with asking for all of yuuji, with realizing no, he doesn’t want a fake relationship, and essentially just continuing the emotional beat that the cup started for him and will take us to a point of no return at the end of chapter 4.

but then i reached the end of chapter 2 and found myself wondering about yuuji’s side of things, about what he’s thinking, why he’s saying yes. i never intended for his pov to be in this story, and maybe flls would have been a lot shorter if it wasn’t, but i finished chapter 2 and immediately started writing the bistro breakfast scene in the beginning of chapter 3 and found a yuuji who sees his feelings for megumi with more directness if not clarity, with more understanding for nobara pointing out that he and megumi are pretty much just in a relationship at this point — which, i’d argue, is the first sign of all the contributing factors to how their relationship goes wrong. because of course nobara is right, and her being right means all of this is a convoluted mess, except yuuji is at this point the equivalent of someone getting home tired from work and finding his phone charger knotted and more nest than cable, but he’s so exhausted, and the charger still does its job as long as you plug each end to an outlet and to a phone, so why would you spend energy/emotional capacity you don’t have to untangle something that works tangled?

and that was the turning point for flls, i think. i only wrote a scene on the side to warm up, to feel more comfortable about writing yuuji — but instead i was left with a yuuji who feels so much, who had all these reasons for sleeping around just waiting for me to sink my teeth into, who already has a crush & maybe more on megumi, and man... how do you not give him his own chapter after that?

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05 | 胸がはち切れそうで

what even was flls before chapter 3 was a thing. i think a lot about what it could have become if this chapter isn’t how it turned out to be, but with the way things ended up, it’s the point where the whole story shifted on its axis and became something i never intended it to be.

i vividly remember taking a break after finishing the first attempt at the bistro breakfast scene and going on youtube; one of the recommendations was the therapy scene from fleabag, which is just one of those pieces of screenwriting that you can’t help but admire for everything it does in so little time. you can’t say the same for the therapy scene in flls, but there remains that the fleabag scene was the foundation for it, and, consequently, for yuuji’s entire arc in flls.

i also think a lot about how my younger self would have written this therapy scene much later in the fic. as a resolution of sorts, a guidance towards a happy ending. the same way i know i would have written something really loving and sappy for geto’s speech at the wedding. as it is, we don’t hear the speech at all, and the therapy scene comes in yuuji’s first chapter. it’s how we’re introduced to him, because the first and only thing we know about him otherwise is that a) he has no family, according to gojo, and b) that, based on what we can gather from the breakfast, his life is a little bit stuffed full and he’s maybe not doing the best.

with yuuji, there was no luxury of the same introspection that megumi has. i’ll deal with it later, in the chapter 5 switch to second person, but right now, yuuji doesn’t so much examine as he does just feel. and instead of the therapy scene becoming a resolution scene, it became exposition instead, with haibara doing the more analytical characterization that megumi at least gave me the space to do from within his head. in yuuji’s case, it had to be teased out, said out loud, a push-and-pull that painted, for me, at least initially, the picture of a boy who’s trying so hard to transcend his childhood and yet is very much a product of it.

but first, i had to decide who would be the therapist in this scenario, and because fleabag already gave me the prompt of having a therapy voucher (i did not google if those actually existed), the question became about who would give yuuji one. and since the first clear answer was nanami, it easily became: who would nanami trust with yuuji the way gojo entrusted him with yuuji in the light novel? who would he have had that conversation with? to whom would he have said “there is a boy whose feelings i want to be careful about, and i know you can do it”? and though there were other contenders before this, the only real answer had been haibara.

the dialogue for this scene came easily, in that i had a point of reference. at the time, i was in twelve-week therapy for something a lot more specific and not at all related to yuuji’s situation, but i found myself paying attention to my therapist’s pattern of guiding our sessions — the kind of questions she asks, when she asks them, how she asks them. the things she says to preface certain thoughts, the clarifications she asks of me.

apply this to how i imagine haibara’s sunniness would have mellowed out if he’d had the chance to become the kind, empathetic adult i like to think he would have been, plus throw in some thoughts about yuuji’s grandfather telling him to die surrounded by people in canon, and i had the bare bones of a conversation. a lot of the prompts there were narratively situational: what happens to a kid who had to watch his only family member left die alone, and be left, as a young teen, to live his life by himself? what coping mechanisms would have had to come out of that, and how do i connect that to the ways we see canon yuuji wrestle with his own thoughts and convictions in canon? and how do i justify the presence of yuuji’s pov in the story now? how does it connect back to megumi’s established arc in the previous chapter? does it?

it did, in the lack that yuuji was a product of, looping back to the loneliness that i realized megumi thinks about at length in chapter 2. i also didn’t want fwb tropes to be there only for the sake of fwb tropes; it wasn’t something i felt comfortable doing, and i was worried about ending up being indulgent when i don’t mean to. so i started thinking about why someone like yuuji, with already so much on his plate, would take the time to spend his nights with so many different people? what is the end goal?

i just wasn’t expecting that goal to be something as simple as being held.

flls came out of that therapy scene a changed story. if we stayed with megumi’s pov, it would have maybe been a lightweight story with, at best, an undercurrent of loneliness at its core — which is all fine, too, but i’ve written loneliness / homesickness / lonesomeness in a handful of different shapes before, and if this had been the case, flls would have been an abandoned wip, never to see the light of day.

but the haibara scene turned flls into something i’ve never tried writing before not only in having dual perspectives on the same relationship, but for that relationship and its dynamic to be the defining core of the story. on a very simplistic sense, we had a boy who keeps his world small and finds order in it that way, and we had another whose order is found in the big-ness he wants to maintain. loneliness is there, sure, but in different ways and only as catalysts to how they love each other — because they do, already, by this point. it’s been love, for a while, and love was itching to be the main focal point of flls. love, love languages, what it means, what it entails, how it can soothe in its smallest form and also harm in its biggest. i didn’t know that yet, in chapter 3, won’t know it until i go back to chapter 1 and realize i hinted at conflict between yuuji and megumi, but i also already knew that i wanted flls to be a relationship > character fic if i was gonna go through with it. and i figured if that meant taking a different angle on the romance than i previously have, then all the better.

the final nail in the coffin was the end of chapter 3, where i was exhausted writing a 20k+ chapter and thinking, “wow, it’s been such a long day, yuuji should have burst with something by now” — and then that became a serious thought, because it just hadn’t made sense, with canon yuuji’s tendency to blurt things out, for him to not react in some way to everything that’s happened that day. things have to come to a boil somehow, and for flls yuuji, that meant a confession.

a messy, unthought-out confession and easily the most fun & visceral of any i’ve ever written. up until flls, confessions were usually for the big, pre-climax moments after an entire story’s worth of romance, and for this reason, i’ve always kind of dreaded writing them. how do i make it fresh when we already know we want these people to be together? how do i make it a novel thing to hear, for the first time, that the person whose pov we didn’t get in the story feels the same way as the third-person narrator? maybe a “twist” moment like in 2 A.M. or the event in lie to make me like you?

but with yuuji in flls, it wasn’t going to be a surprise no matter what. we knew how he felt about megumi, we knew they would be together somehow prior to the wedding, whether on pretend terms or not, and i knew that the only reason this confession was going to be a thing is because yuuji’s had a long day and he’s done, so done, with not saying anything.

so we start small and specific, and we stay small and specific, with yuuji just realizing that love for him is wanting to hold someone and not just wanting to be held, that love is being home for another person instead of someone just being a second home for him on nights where his feels a little empty. in any other situation, the therapy scene would have prevented the pov character from confessing, from pursuing a relationship, but because it’s yuuji, his first instinct is to avoid the loneliness he felt briefly on the subway, when he realized he could just hide his feelings for megumi forever if he really wanted to, and so he blurts it all out. sweet (i hope), genuine and awkward. but also impulsive. rambling. unthinking.

in doing so, yuuji gave me a second inciting incident. one that feels more true to him. it’s equally reactionary as megumi responding to the screenshot situation, but there’s something to be said about how megumi was cornered by so many external elements into the spark that launches his arc in their relationship while yuuji blurts everything out from sheer urgency and exhaustion. which has roots in equally external factors, but the slight difference in their confessions will carry them through to the end — so, i suppose, from here on out in the story, we’ll always return to everything i unknowingly set up in chapter 3: the thoughts yuuji has in the breakfast scene, the truths pulled out of him in the therapy scene, the little things that come into play on the way to and at and after disneyland, and finally, what’s blurted out in the confession and how, why. the things they ask of each other, for each other. the things they want to do for each other.

(and it hurts my heart a little, i admit, to return to this chapter months later and see this same earnestness that will propel their story along, for better or for worse, and know it will have to end before they begin again.)

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06 | GOING BACK TO CHAPTER ONE

having cemented chapter 1 as a prologue of sorts, i had to go back to add yuuji’s perspective now that he, apparently, was going to have it in this fic. it felt safe to give him a scene with nanami in parallel to megumi’s with toji; it wasn’t my conscious intention to have these scenes end up being reflections of how they handle emotions as a result of what was maybe lacking in their childhoods, and it was just lucky that these two scenes will serve as a decent jumping off point for what i’ll decide to do when writing chapters 5 and 6.

looking back, too, the first scene stuck without a concrete plan because it had the bare parts of a full story: exposition with megumi’s family, a little hint at action with toji asking after yuuji, and, for reasons i can’t remember the root of now, also a show of conflict. i knew i wanted a christmas eve fight, and maybe dash & lily is to blame for that, too, but maybe i was also just itching to write a ~fight because it’s not something i’ve ever done before and i was pretty set on flls being the fic where i just keep throwing in things i haven’t tried with any previous pairings.

i also knew i had to set up nanami & yuuji’s relationship somehow if i was going to justify the therapy voucher in chapter 3, and the scene wrote itself with that in mind. i knew we were going to be somewhere inside since the megumi scene before it was outdoors and i don’t like staying in one place for too long, but everything else was all the tenderness intrinsic to nanami & yuuji’s dynamic rearing its head. that, and a few on-the-nose elements scattered around to set the scene for yuuji’s life — hot chocolate & fresh bread for warmth, yes, but also to show that he’s a regular visitor to nanami’s apartment; snow out the window because it’s Winter™ and we’re feeling a lil’ wistful; the hammer in the head paternal-ness of a guardian figure teaching you how to knot your tie. all things that yuuji didn’t have at a certain point in his life — or, more accurately, all things that yuuji lost and regained only years later. again, in the back of my mind, i was thinking, what does that kind of loss do to someone at that age? for what are we if not a series of responses and reactions to the things that happen to us? and i was thinking, too, that the opposite of love isn’t hate, is it? it must be loss. it must be lack.

i realized halfway that these thoughts echo something i wrote into megumi’s first chapter. and so i packed them away to think about later, letting only some of it bleed into the wistfulness that colors the warmth in yuuji & nanami’s first scene together. when i write chapter 5, i would joke to myself that it’s a “boil until tender” kind of recipe, but in retrospect, yuuji’s entire character is a slow boil. he was strangely mysterious to me, even as i was writing him; we know his trauma, we know his days are busy and overwhelming, but i felt that he could be more reactionary. he needs more momentum. not just for the story, which he accomplished when he confessed, and not just for megumi’s arc, which shows itself in his response to yuuji and yuuji’s problems, but for his own self, too. the haibara scene is only scratching the surface of who and what yuuji is, and the worst of it is still under getting ready to boil and bubble. and not just in the form of a panic attack in chapter 4, but something else. something bigger.

which had me looking back again to life and identity as a series of reactions and how the opposite of love is loss and lack — and that equalled to: isn’t the way we love also, by extension, a reaction? to what, though? to how we were loved? to how we weren’t loved? both. it’s both. and that brought up a lot of questions, all rooted in chapter 1: we see megumi and yuuji around father figures that care for them in their own ways, and one would argue they’re well-adjusted in the face of being loved — but are they? what would they fight about, then? sure, there’s megumi’s jealousy over ozawa but that’s too shallow. too cheap. megumi would never distrust yuuji like that. where would their differences lie, then? their love languages? their contrasting worldviews and life schedules? furthermore, why aren’t they in a relationship yet? why is yuuji only confessing now? neither of them are fumbling teenagers about the intimacy of their relationship, and yuuji was fairly clear in not expecting anything out of megumi. why is that? why is he leaving that space? insecurity? no. too easy an answer.

as it turns out, i didn’t finalize a single answer about any of these. not until chapter 5 and 6. but i knew, after having written yuuji’s perspective into chapter 1 and seeing it side-by-side with megumi’s, that their relationship can’t continue being fake with all the variables we have by the end of chapter 3. not with yuuji’s confession, not with the fight that i’m letting myself keep for no other reason than writing an argument would be thrilling, and not with the tension that won’t be solved just because they start dating. problems don’t end just because a couple is together. if anything, new issues to consider crop up once you put a label on it. it shifts the dynamic that’s there, and that will always come with its growing pains. any evolving relationship comes with growing pains. the matter here is figuring out what those growing pains look like for yuuji & megumi.

so first, i had to throw them into a real relationship.

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07 | DONBURI ON THE TRACKS

chapter 4 is so chaotic under the surface that it haunts me. this doesn’t mean i don’t like it, or that i’ll do it differently. i’d maybe argue that it was a necessary chaos, or at least that it was chaotic because it’s doing a lot in much less space than yuuji’s chapters do. there’s no moving from shibuya to kichijoji to work to disneyland to back home. there’s no takada & nobara to haibara to ozawa. it’s just megumi propelled along a thought process by nobara and into action by toji, from one evening to the day after.

with that, i’d maybe call it a bridging chapter? when i first started flls for real, i gave myself seven chapters to sort of act as guiding parameters — three chapters for them each, on top of the prologue — and opened up a blank doc. there’s no rhyme or reason for that count of seven; i guess i hadn’t expected each chapter to be around 20k words long, and even less that yuuji would be confessing by chapter 3. but it made sense, if there was gonna be a fight. it gave me enough space to bring their relationship through a healthy amount of conflict to get to the meat of the ~themes i wanted to write about, while giving an indulgently happy epilogue at the end.

(okay, clearly, these plans changed, but that was the reasoning at the time 😅)

i had a good chunk of chapter 4 vaguely mapped out somewhere in my head by the time i actually sat down to write it in full, but while i knew this chapter would have the first two scenes i wrote before flls was even flls, i still had to tweak them to fit the aftermath of the unexpected confession. i have a better idea who these characters are this time (not as much as i will yet, i think, because that part will come in chapter 5 and 6 each; we pretty much only have the foundations by this point), but i figured there was no point in keeping the story going if we don’t also get to know the characters even more as the story unfolds. the plot needs momentum, sure, i see that as i write this, but even now, that is only as valuable to me as how much that momentum parallels or, better yet, takes along the characters themselves. there has to be more layers to be peeled back; there has to be more to yuuji and megumi that we’ll only get to see eye-to-eye with in the later chapters.

the way i view it, plot or trope or twist shouldn’t ever be alone in being that. they should only be a thing in service or in response to a character being the way they are. this isn’t always the case, of course — but it’s the way i prefer to write. i’m heavily biased towards character-first writing, is what i’m realizing as i type this, which i honestly don’t see changing any time soon. characterization is a hefty chunk of the fun of writing for me. i love writing because i love my characters. even when they do questionable shit like fail to examine themselves before asking out the fake boyfriend they’ve been seeing for like five months now.

but alright. let’s backtrack. back to plot bowing down to character. the only way i could justify throwing yuuji & megumi into a relationship is if characterization necessitated it, and the only way i could justify keeping those two original scenes in some form is if they serve the plot. so: scenes are worth keeping if they are in service of plot momentum, and plot momentum is only what it is because of character, and character informs what the scenes look like, etc. i’ve always preferred thinking of writing as a circular diagram feeding off each other in turn, not a line graph. it has to be a juggling act, though not a complicated one. there’s a point where it feels right, and i think that’s what i mean about chapter 4 being necessary chaos. it’s the chapter where everything — almost audibly — clicks in place for the momentum of the rest of the story. it’s where everything kind of wisps up towards the top without surfacing quite yet. going off the juggling metaphor, chapter 2 and 3 were one ball each thrown into the mix. chapter 4 is the third ball, is the first time all the balls in the act are at play.

as an aside, i think it feels that way for their dynamic, too. writing their relationship from yuuji’s perspective always felt like a balancing act — because he had so many things going on, yeah, but also because all these precarious elements that shift with the evolution of their relationship are so much more apparent on his side. that isn’t to put the blame on yuuji for what happens in chapter 6. i was very stubborn about making sure yuuji isn’t portrayed as helpless because of all the shit he had going on in this fic. if anything, it’s him taking charge of himself and his understanding of how he’s doing that centres the fic into what it is.

and that was one of the main things i had to ensure this chapter. that his panic attack still feels like him, and not someone desperately in need of megumi’s help. i want him to be full of agency and strength here, something that i also had megumi reinforce in the end of the panic attack scene. it also would have been easy to make this subversion about “it’s okay to ask for help” — because it is, but that would have been too simple for this fic’s purposes. yuuji knows it’s okay to ask for help. he doesn’t always feel like he deserves it, but he knows he has received help from many of his loved ones and is very appreciative of all of it. he just works a little too hard to give it back tenfold. so, here, i wanted to frame megumi as someone that yuuji explicitly knows he shouldn’t ask help from. and, with that, megumi as someone who’s only one name in an entire list of people yuuji can ask.

and i wanted to bookend that with yuuji putting some distance between them after the confession. he doesn’t know why yet (and neither did i at this point, to be honest, haha) but the confession isn’t quite right with its timing. but then he has a rough night, everything feels like it’s piling up, and there’s really one person he wants to see. not to sleep with (and i imagine yuuji’s heart sinks for a bit when megumi offers to take him home, at least until he realizes megumi intends to just look after him and nothing else) but just to see, whatever that would mean. he just wants to be with megumi. he just wants megumi to be there.

and megumi is there, except he’s also battling with the sheer panic of having to be there for a person he cares about so much. i don’t think we acknowledge enough how difficult it is to be there for someone going through a hard time — how lost and helpless that renders even the person helping, and how tripled that might be for someone who sees the world and wants to find order in it like megumi does. and i took the chance to form megumi’s idea of strength and weakness through gojo and his implied backstory with geto, something that megumi might actually romanticize a little without even knowing. you can’t singlehandedly help someone, no matter how much you love them. there’s hubris, in thinking you can. there’s self-destructiveness, in that hubris. megumi is so focused on bravery, on strength, that he leaves yuuji in the bath alone, regulating his breathing for himself. he cooks for yuuji, cares for him in his own way, yet he doesn’t even realize yuuji might want to be in the bath with him. that he doesn’t care about his spilled food anymore. he’s done this before. this time, megumi’s presence is the difference, yet he doesn’t truly get it until they sleep — at which point he holds on tight and only falls into peace then.

that’s another thing i wanted to keep track of, in writing this chapter. that being overwhelmed to the point of cracking is a tried and tested routine for yuuji, that his panic attack wouldn’t be anything dramatic and intense. his breaking point was something so simple and mundane, just that spilled takeout onto the train tracks, but it’s enough to push him over the edge. and i think that captures the feeling of being too full for what life keeps giving, more so than any big trigger. more often, it’s the sudden last straws. a laptop crashing before you can save your work, even though there is such a thing as recovery and backup. biting your tongue in the middle of a sentence and finding yourself tearing up because you’re suddenly so fed up with the world. it’s that over-inflated lump in your throat. the heat behind your eyes that prickles more than it floods. and that’s what i wanted yuuji’s panic attack to look like. something almost resigned, because, again, this isn’t the first time. he knows he’ll get through it. but he’s just so, so tired and wants to be held. held by no one else but megumi.

megumi, who’s still reeling from his conversation with nobara at the top of chapter 4. i maintain that this fic doesn’t have enough nobara (part of it is that i was sure i was gonna be able to write a nobamaki storyline on the side, of which you can see hints peppered throughout), but i’m glad that the scenes of her that are there are very definitive. i always think that nobara is in such a difficult position in any version of itafushi, including their canon selves; she has so much insight to who the boys are in themselves, which you can really see in how she talks and thinks of yuuji and how she deciphers megumi, and while i’m frustrated that i had to relegate her to a Dispenser of Insight and Wisdom role in flls, it also had to be her. it had to be her to squeeze yuuji’s hand at the breakfast bistro. it had to be her, later, to have the pre-wedding talk with megumi. and it had to be her, this time, bumping into megumi at work and forcing him to sit down (literally) and think about how he sees yuuji.

this scene also serves as a breather — as close to one, at least, as flls gives. it’s an interlude, almost. a break right in the middle of the fic. it’s meant to recentre megumi, though that doesn’t really work when the chapter ends with him asking yuuji out.

but — again. scene, plot, character, all intertwined. they have to be in a relationship for plot purposes, but the panic attack scenes ensure that megumi’s characterization is pushed into the only decision that makes sense for him after that. which is, circling back, to ask yuuji to date him. i know a decision has clicked into the right place when it feels final, when it doesn’t feel like i’m forcing anything into being what it is. or, best case scenario, when it feels like the only way this could have gone.

i think the ending to chapter 4 is, unfortunately, the only way it could have gone. it would come back to bite them, hard and painful, but it made sense with their psyches the way they are in that moment. it’s the start of the end, this chapter’s ending, but it’s still a start at that, and i think, when you love someone as much those two did, that matters a hell lot more than anything else.

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08 | LOVE LANGUAGE INTERLUDE

do i like toji in canon? i do. i think he’s a great character in terms of his place in the narrative. do i think he’s redeemable as a father? in complete honesty — i don’t know. my answer changes every day. but i know that while there are plenty of fictional fathers that i strictly, coldly don’t want to entertain the idea of redemption or empathy or understanding for, out of stubborn very personal bias, toji is definitely not one of them. if only when it comes to him, i detest the idea of thinking there are easy answers. this doesn’t mean there is no right or wrong answer, just that whatever the final answer might be, there will be plenty of factors that go into it.

but i was very generous to him in flls. that much is for sure, from the prologue to chapter 4 to everything else that came after. even i was surprised with the nuance he ended up containing, if only insofar as a foil to flls!gojo in megumi’s life. i think he’s a fucked up man in canon, and i think he did and would have made a fucked up father no matter how good the intentions, a fact that i promise i state gently, but i also think that can coexist with him being a fucked up product of his fucked up upbringing. does that excuse or justify or redeem him for anything? no, but and outside of canon and in the indulgence of flls, which semi-started for the indulgent reason that i want to see what an exchange between yuuji & toji would be like, this did give me themes to hone in on in examining love and how we learn to love as we grow up.

because i feel like — there’s been a lot of talk about how understanding your partner(s)’s love languages is key in a relationship. but then, going back to the way we love as a reaction to how we’ve been or haven’t been loved, isn’t your love language — at least for some people — just a reflection of the love you lack(ed)? i don’t know how true this is on a broad sense, of course, but it certainly was for flls yuuji and megumi. and it’s where i was able to justify writing megumi into the family networks that i did. writing about gojo and toji as his parental figures was one of my favourite parts of writing flls, but i’ll get to that in chapter 6.

for now, i was heading into chapter 5 knowing that there was going to be a fight at the end of it. and that if i was going to go into it assuming that love languages are a product of what was lacking in childhood, the focus is going to be on the friction between where yuuji & megumi differ on that front. except these are things we already know, even if subconsciously. their differences are things we know from canon, things we can tell from these first four chapters. so how do i shift this understanding a little bit so it lands a little harsher, digs a little deeper to the point that it’s almost uncomfortable? where it would make sense when they fight at the end of chapter 5?

i knew it was going to take a while to find an answer, so i decided to post the first four chapters in one go for megumi’s birthday and sit on it so i can get to a distance where i’ll (hopefully) be able to reevaluate where i should take the rest of it. i have a soft spot for this fic that i don’t often have for my work, and i was so attached to the world that i didn’t want to stop writing it, but i also knew it remained true that i wrote 49k in around three weeks and just. didn’t look back. so i was anticipating a lot of loose unintended threads that i’d have to tie up in the remaining three chapters, and i didn’t trust myself to see all of them until i’ve had some time away from the story.

the break lasted a month, and it admittedly left me rusty and frustrated. returning to flls to write chapter 5 resulted in 12k words’ worth of deleted scenes — but a necessary 12k, i maintain, because eventually, my divine solution came in a moment of remembering that flls is free playground real estate and i can try even things that a lazier me swore once i wouldn’t try. and to this day, i still think i couldn’t have done that chapter in a way that i would have allowed to be published if i hadn’t thought to throw everything to the wind and try second person. it unclogged whatever needed to be cleaned out of the way — and set me down the path for the second cour of the story.

・・・・・・

note: this is all i've had sitting in my drive since march, but i do cover the latter half + some kind of we in a separate roundup post. 

[pluviophile-imagines]

LOWI CONGRATS ON THE FOLLOWER MILESTONE!! 🥺💞💞💞 u deserve it and so much more!! for the kiss prompt could i get 18 with shinsou ?? 🥺👉👈

TYSM SOFFFF so uh. I’ve been fuckin stupid dkfnskfb my dumbass rlly wrote Shinsou correctly on my master post like a week ago and then still managed to write for Shigaraki instead when it came to the actual piece 😳 so thanks to my handyman brainrot you get two—that’s right, two!—characters for the price of one ur welcome ♥️ I cheated a lil bit so shinsou;s not sitting in the reader’s lap it’s just his head but i think its cute 🥺 also Shiggy’s is like twice as long as ive been trying to write them oops i rlly like the jealous reader premise 👉👈 it’s under the read more bc of that and bc of kiiiinda spoilers? if yall arent caught up to the manga you won’t get it but if u are it’s canonical. Whew that was a lot! Enjoy!

Kisses where one person is sitting in the other’s lap

Shinsou

To say that your relationship with Shinsou is new would be an understatement. You’ve been friends for years—ever since the third year of high school when you’d been assigned to him as his support—but you’ve never been particularly close until recently when you’d once again found yourself working on his hero costume and support items.

He’d only asked you out yesterday after nearly two months of tension-filled glances and fleeting touches. Now, the two of you are watching a movie at your mutual friend Kirishima’s apartment, sitting quite awkwardly on a loveseat and pretending like you don’t want to get closer to each other. You haven’t told your friends yet about your new relationship status, but that’s not entirely what’s holding you two back. If anything, it’s run-of-the-mill first date awkwardness (if watching a movie with six of your closest friends around can be considered a date), too afraid to initiate anything.

The movie’s dull; the two of you have pulled out your phones to snark at each other through text, a strategy you’d begun weeks ago after being hushed one too many times by Kaminari because you were talking too loudly. The bright screens probably aren’t all that much better, but you two are in the back anyway; nobody can see it unless they turn away from the TV.

You risk a glance up and end up locking eyes with Shinsou. Your face heats up, heartbeat quickening, as he gives you a charming smile. You watch him glance around the room, unsure at first why he’s doing it until he turns his attention back to you and slowly, silently, moves over across the loveseat into your personal space.

Your legs are touching now, faces so close your nose is nearly brushing his. One of his hands has come to brace against the armrest you’re leaning on, allowing him to stay leaning in.

“Hey,” he says, little more than a whisper and clearly hushed so the others don’t hear.

“Hey yourself,” you respond, earning yourself a low snort.

Instead of vocally responding, he pushes himself back up to a sitting position and then moves his hands to maneuver your legs until you’re no longer curled up against the couch’s backing but sitting like a normal person.

Then he lays down, head resting on your thighs, and turns to face the movie.

You’re grinning uncontrollably. All possible self-conscious thoughts of the others seeing you are dashed from your mind; you like the weight of him in your lap too much.

You spend much of the rest of the movie like that, easily over half an hour. A few minutes in he reaches down to find your hand and bring it to his hair, encouraging you to stroke it. It’s even softer than you’ve imagined in the past, fluffy and thick and genuinely nice to run your hands though. There’s a surge of contentment that rushes through you, and maybe a little bit of pride at the knowledge that you can do this pretty much any time you want now.

By the end of the film, you’re pretty sure Shinsou’s fallen asleep. He gives you the scare of your life, however, when he grabs your arm as you’re trying to pull away. His eyes open, purple irises trained on you.

What happens next you blame on grogginess, him still not quite being awake. He blames it on you; whenever you mention it, he says he saw you and had become consumed with an overwhelming desire to just lean up and kiss you. Whatever the reason, it’s nice for you.

His hand comes up to the back of your neck, tugging you down just as much as he lifts up. It begins soft, kind of sweet, just lips as the two of you melt into each other—but it doesn’t stay that way for long. Within moments the two of you morph the kiss from a quick peck after a movie to a very passionate makeout, and frankly you’d be more concerned if they hadn’t interrupted the two of you.

You pull away when you hear Kaminari’s wolf whistle, left sitting on the loveseat with a burning face and your boyfriend in your lap, still half asleep.

Shigaraki

You’re not jealous.

No, you’ve been dating Tomura for months. You can’t be jealous when he’s, well, yours, and has been for quite some time. You’re his first relationship, his first everything, and it’s frankly foolish of you to feel this insecure just because some floozy is simpering at him from across the enormous room where you and the rest of the League are scattered about. It’s not like she really wants him, or even knows him; he’s just the hew big-shot leader and she’s decided being his lover sounds good. Too bad that role’s already taken.

Still, there’s a sinking feeling in your chest—an ache in your heart, a burning lump in your throat—that says now that Tomura is Grand Commander he’ll drop you for someone better.

You don’t realize you’re glaring daggers at the woman until she catches your eye. She has no business looking that smug; the only reason she’s allowed in the room is to give Tomura reports. You’re the one lounging next to him as she approaches; he has your legs over his lap, his thumb absent-mindedly rubbing circles on your thigh.

And when she bends down to drop the report on his lap (as if your damn legs aren’t there, you want to scoff) she draws the eyes of every League member except the one she wants, because you’re the one who has Tomura���s attention.

He’s wearing Father, but you’ve long passed being afraid when he looks at you from between those lifeless digits and you can see the expression beneath; those lips tugging down slightly in a pout, brow furrowed, eyes far softer than they have any damn business being while hiding behind the severed hand of his old man. He’s concerned, and a little confused.

Tomura plucks the report from your legs and sets it aside, reaching to pull you fully into his lap. To your surprise he takes Father off, too; he buries his face into your neck to prevent the outsider from seeing, lips just brushing your ear so that you can hear him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hm?”

“You’ve been pouting ever since the secretary came in, brat.”

Like hell you’re saying anything in front of her. You remain stubbornly silent.

He doesn’t like that, you can tell, but while the secretary’s interest is lost on him he knows you well enough to tell that you’re uncomfortable with her. Presumably that’s why he doesn’t press the issue and kisses you instead.

You don’t expect it. Tomura’s not exactly one to shy away from PDA (you’re sitting in his lap in front of the whole League, for fuck’s sake), but intimacy is something he’s never wanted to take beyond closed doors. When he’s in a sour mood you’ll kiss him sometimes, even in public (he’s invigorated by your affection in many way, but never anything you’d call heated.

This kiss, though, is. It’s anything but chaste, perhaps even downright lewd. He’s all but initiating a makeout with you while Miss Secretary is standing right there. Maybe his affection-motivated ways are rubbing off on you, but it helps more than it probably ought to.

You’re dazed by the time he pulls away. The sound of the door slamming closed snaps you from your trance. The secretary, ploy foiled simply by your annoyed expression, had left. It doesn’t matter. None of this was ever really about her in the first place.

“There,” Tomura says, audibly quite pleased with himself. “She’s gone. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

You sigh, leaning in to tuck your own head into his shoulder. Your voice is muffled when you speak, quiet so that only he can hear.

“It’s dumb.”

“It’s bothering you,” he says simply. There’s an underlying statement there: tell me so I can destroy it for you. In many ways, Tomura is a predictable man.

You know he’s not going to drop it, so you accept your fate. “She was making a pass at you.”

He tenses beneath you, holding you closer. You risk lifting your head from where it’s buried to see the way his nose is scrunched up. “She wasn’t.”

“Yeah, she was.”

There’s a pause, like he’s processing everything you’re saying. Then, seemingly finally registering what exactly is bothering you, his hands move to grip your hips and maneuver you to straddle him, sitting fully on his lap facing him. “Fine. Why’re you pissed about it, then?”

You lean in again, arms coming to wrap around his neck as you bury your face into his chest and try to ignore the tears that are coming. You’d never be able to live it down if any of the others saw you crying over the fucking secretary.

But you know more than anyone thanks to many late nights assuring your boyfriend he’s the only one for you that Tomura can empathize with this insecurity. It’s a little strange how the script has flipped.

“She’s a high ranking MLA member, she probably has some crazy strong quirk. I’m quirkless. I dunno. I guess I’m scared you’ll drop me for someone like her. Like I said, it’s dumb.”

He doesn’t speak for a moment. You sit there, listening to his heartbeat and matching your breathing to his. Then he speaks.

“Your emotions aren’t dumb. It’s okay that you’re feeling this way. Thank you for telling me.” He’s parroting you, you realize; this is what you tell him every time he comes to you for comfort when he’s gotten in a mood. You feel a little fuzzy, warmth flooding your chest. “But I think we both know they’re irrational.”

“Tomura… I—”

“I’m not interested in some lame-ass NPC,” he interrupts, no hesitation and entirely sincere. He doesn’t even need to think about it. “You’re my player two, my endgame. The only thing in this world worth protecting. You really think that secretary can hold a candle to you? I didn’t even notice her. Why would I when you’re here?”

You can’t help it, you surge upward and kiss him, just as passionately as he had you mere moments before. His right hand traces up your spine to find the back of your neck and pull you closer, sending a thrill through your body as your own arms tighten around him.

“Oi! Horndogs! Get a damn room, don’t make us see that!”

You break away at Dabi’s words, panting slightly, and if the sincerity of Tomura’s little rant hadn’t convinced you that his words were true, the look of utter adoration he’s regarding you with would have.

[dumbdemonslayertexts]

random excerpts from black girl time travel kny au

Pairing: rengoku / oc

note: lots of angst mostly. forgive me for this not being y/n format i have to work up the chops to be graceful enough to write that

tagging @dudeandduchess and @adoriable and @tengens-bunny bc they sparked the greatest muse i’ve ever had to write fictions since i was like 14 literally wtf you are my queens???!?!

even with her mind working double overtime to secure her discomfort, the serenity if the rengoku estate could not be diminished. imene tried her hardest to remember any time prior to her time shift where she saw the moon so brilliantly illuminating the earth below it. each blade of grass, every stone in the garden reflected its glow; the whole of her surroundings were accented with such a pure silvery lining, giving a beauty distinctive to the night alone. it was tranquil enough for her to eventually draw a cleansing breath through her lungs, which finally released some of the staleness of doubt and second guessing that had filled her self image lately.

“you are awake still, imene-chan?”

that voice struck her in her chest, shooting sparks of heat and flutters in her stomach. and the fact that she was hearing it meant he was home. safe. and home.

“imene,” she softly insisted, making him smile as though he were being teased.

“imene.” his voice was warmer when he said her name, she would swear to it. and it stirred in her heart almost painfully with the need to hold him forever.

“i couldn’t sleep,” she shrugged off her dilemma, far more preoccupied in the happiness of seeing him, falling into those gorgeously untamed eyes and sweet smile again… “i’m happy to see you!”

“kyojuro.”

when the depth of his rich tone interjected his name, it caught her by surprise. and, true to form, he hadn’t needed her to say a word before reading her thoughts and emotions with complete accuracy.

“wh–?”

he lessened the distance between them, tucking his chin to sustain her eye contact where she sat, “imene… would you say it for me?”

the shadow of pessimism in her brain was shouting. he was easing the lines of formality as a kindness—-it was his vibrant character and nothing more. why was she so dense as to not even understand that? why did a simple name make her world feel brighter, and have her smiling to him, lovestruck?

“kyojuro.”

he smiled. with utter bliss, he smiled at her, exhaling like she’d lifted a weight from him. “ah… i prefer that, i think… don’t you?" 

just like that, the playfulness was back in his voice and eyes. though, another element felt as though it had been added unto it. one she was far too daunted to even hope to name. so she changed the subject. 

"how’re you feeling..?” she asked, lifting herself to stand, “you’re not hurt anywhere, are you? did you get any sleep or did you come right–”

she’d closed the remaining space between them as she fretted over him. ginger, worrying hands grazed butterfly touches up his chest, and the moment she’d made the mistake of tenderly cupping his face, his grin vanished… along with the delusion of pleasant standing she had dared hoped for with anyone there. it took so very little, but reality struck her like frozen lead. 

the subtlest way she could, imene lowered her touch away from him, even as she felt stony ice fill her stomach at his reaction. she could feel how he’d stiffened just before she took her hands away. so then, at that very second with how clear things had become, finality settled into her. still, she wished he would have just lunged his blade through her gut instead; the pain would have been so much less. 

“i–” kyojuro tried his best to play off the disgust, to turn the awkwardness in any other emotional direction. the poor thing even had the courtesy to look remorseful—-very convincingly, at that. god, how noble could one man be to still be kind and gentlemanly even now, trying to play off repulsion as he so obviously was? “no, i am not injured, i am feeling well! but i wished to return home as quickly as i could once i’d fulfilled my assignment. so, yes, i made the decision to return directly. i hope you haven’t been up out of worry for me.”

he was even back to beaming a smile by then, close-eyed and cheerful. she could only give half the heart in her attempt to smile back, barely nodding to acknowledge his answer. the bolt of dejection was still scalding in her chest, trying its best to well tears into her eyes.

“what is it?”

he asked after she’d broken eye contact with him for a time. imene had needed the privacy to blink down the urge to cry. 

“i’m …ready to go back to oyakata-sama’s estate. but i was kind of worried of how much trouble it would be to ask if he would take me in a second time… i didn’t know if it would be rude to him,” she tried to sound as casual as she possibly could, asking softly, like it were nothing more than a passing thought over an inevitable eventuality instead of a conscious decision of hers. but from the look on kyojuro’s face, she may as well has torn a hole through him.

“has something happened?”

he was so concerned. kyojuro sounded so hurt and concerned that the prickling of tears threatened her lashes again. even with his aversion to her, she could not stand to see someone so sweet and kind be hurt. “no…”

“please, imene, if you were upset by anything that happened while i was away–”

“i wasn’t, kyojuro,” she insisted, pleading.

“are you unhappy?” he asked. and it broke her heart to hear just how willing he was to remedy whatever issue she may have experienced just by the tone of his voice, especially after just returning from a mission, “you don’t have to hesitate to tell me if I have failed to host you well.”

“you haven’t failed anything. i’m not unhappy. but I can–” dread made the words catch in her throat, but it was too late for her to retract anything now, “feel that I’m making everyone uncomfortable." 

she waited for him to say something, but the flame hashira only looked at her in pained confusion, stunned and churning his brain to unravel her meaning.

"your father does not want me in your home, kyojuro. i’m a stranger to him—-in fact, I’m pretty sure he can sense that i don’t belong here,” she explained. he was faintly shaking his head, but even with the urge to protest, kyojuro could not deny that truth. “and senjuro–”

“he adores you,” kyojuro desperately interjected. her lips parted to negate it, but he continued before she could. and suddenly, there was a visible glimmering in his sunborn eyes, “he’s told me. many times, everyday we spend together. you…” his face softened from the accosted state she’d frozen it into earlier, and he paused his hurried explanations, “ease him. from our father. even though it is nowhere in your responsibility, you comfort him.”

“him liking me is just going to strain things between the two of them even more,” she shook her head, trying physically to mash the stress out of her temples, “that can’t be worth it, i don’t know how long I’ll even be in this time!”

“you would be surprised at its worth, imene." 

her conscience screamed at her to look at him, and she refused for as long as she could… just for knowing how gutting it would be to do. decency prevailed over her to finally grant him enough to at least meet his eyes, though. and the way his soul cried out to her through them left her destroyed. 

"i’m so sorry to have made you uncomfortable in my home. you needn’t worry about speaking with oyakata-sama, that is my responsibility, i will take care of it.”

he was resigned and sullen. It was almost impossible to tell with how genuinely he retained a positive outlook despite anything, but imene could see the sadness shining in his fiery stare, even with how radiant his grin was. she could also note how the sure grip of his sword had lessened to self-soothing strokes with his thumb at its hilt. “In the morning, I’ll make the arrangements for you. …I hope you believe me, imene, about senjuro. It’s been some time since he’s had …a loving woman around him. he isn’t likely to remember our mother well. what you’ve given with your presence is precious to him. priceless, I would say.”

he gave her an elegiac curve of his lips, and the water blurring her sight conquered her at last, dripping tears so heavy they fell straight to the ground, without a trace left on her cheeks.

“as for our father… he has been this way for a while. it is him. or, it’s what he has become, not a result of your being here. his callousness falls onto senjuro and myself normally, but I suppose you provided a new outlet for it …” he sighed, “it doesn’t excuse my negligence, but i will speak to him, you have my word.”

when she swept her eyes free of more accumulating tears, she felt kyojuro’s palms encircling her arms. it was a touch she had been desiring from the moment these feelings for him had begun to surface, yet when she felt it, she recoiled as if she were burned.

“imene,” he begged quietly. she still tried to keep her tone even.

“but you, kyojuro.”

confusion seeped into the misery soaking his expression, and his brow curled again to search for some hidden meaning in her words. his hands were away from her, though, the instant she showed discomfort.

“you’re the most uncomfortable around me of the three of you. you’re disgusted when i come close to touching you, you can’t even stand to be near me, in the same room, you’re always double checking to see if i’m up to something down every hall and in every room, and around your brother—-i can’t stay here and make you feel like that in your own home! especially when you’re out saving people and risking your life constantly! why would you even want me here if i make you so ill at ease—why would you want to come home to that kind of feeling after all you do!”

she hated how much heat she could feel under her skin–behind her eyes, in her cheeks and nose, at her ears. even more, she hated the pinched and congested whine her emotive state rendered her voice to, like some indignant child. it was humiliating to say aloud to him—-to verbalize just how awfully her self-regard had been eaten away, and to at last face it herself. now her cheeks and chin lay adorned with sheening wet streaks. she couldn’t hide any of it any longer. stillness followed after. not a word spoken, only the amplification of her breaths rattling and struggling to calm against rengoku’s measured silence. 

when she could bear to raise her head again, imene could see him in what looked to be a deep epiphany. a terrible one. like his actions had only know processed into awareness for him, and had left him reflecting in horror. 

“imene.”

he lifted his eyes enough for her to come into view, and his own lashes were starry now, blacker with the moisture accumulating at their base, in spite of the soft grin he wore, “i’m afraid i have to correct you. you said i haven’t failed in caring for you well. but i have done exactly that.

"would you come and sit with me,” he propositioned when she said no more. he’d expected nothing less when she could only look away from him with clenched, leaking eyes, so clearly pained that it ripped his heart to shreds. kyojuro was patient to await her answer, and held out his arm for her when she surprisingly accepted. imene had assumed that they would both share the space on the engawa she’d taken before his return. instead, he lead them to a more secluded area of the estate’s garden, on a stone bench that provided ample view of the night time, and allowed an unstifled breeze to cool them both that she greatly appreciated. 

“i must apologize.”

“you did already.”

kyojuro glanced over his shoulder, hearing her delicate assurance. it surged through him, littering his skin in goosebumps. 

out of consideration of how small their shared seat would be, he had crowded himself at the corner by her side. it allowed them both room for their legs, considering how widely his sat apart, but he could admit there there was a high element of shame that made it more difficult to face her. “yes, and it is not at all adequate for how i’ve hurt you.”

every time he spoke, sounding like he cared, she could do nothing but weep more. somehow, in spite of everything, his sympathy hurt more than anything else. and made her feel horrible for not being acceptable. “you can’t help how you feel, rengoku-s–”

“kyojuro." 

his eyes met hers with stone solid conviction that she couldn’t understand. for someone who disliked her so palpably, he was intent on establishing friendly casualness between them that gave her a migraine trying to comprehend. his next words went far enough to bring a knot to her brow. "you’re right, i can’t. but to have acted on those feelings so poorly is shameful." 

"acted on them poorly?”

“you were manifested in oyakata-sama’s estate. a refugee he deemed to have been brought here for divine reason. he is our leader in this fight we have undertaken against evil. he is the head of our organization, to be honored and respected.”

“it seemed that way,” her faint voice commented.

“yes. for that reason, and more i can’t explain now. understand, if my master says to me that you are precious, to be cared for, i wouldn’t ever dishonor that, nor you.”

now he’d given her her own shocking epiphany. it was slow to unravel itself with how meticulously he explained, frustratingly peeling away with the more he revealed to her in this less than receptive state that her mortification left her in.

“i wished to fulfill the role of your caretaker as best as i could. but as a hashira, i am frequently called away for extensive periods,” he gradually began to turn himself round, now diagonally beside her rather than perpendicular, “you are out of my direct sight for so long that i force you to tolerate my overcompensating once i return. i want you adjusted well, to not be overwhelmed or confused, or grieved with being alone. i wished to watch over you closely in case you were to need me.”

“oh…”

“and your nearness…” he began again, “imene, you were brought here under my protection. not only for me to oversee your healing wounds, but for your safe keeping all together. you are my charge. but i took this upon myself before knowing you—-i was not prepared for you to be so gentle and loving, and to possess warmth that i have not felt in so many years. you emanate affection–your spirit could even bring out playfulness in tokito-san. and your strength is one i have only seen in one other in my life." 

she wanted to cry again, now. and was well on her way, hearing this perfect man speak of her so glowingly. out of nowhere. 

"your peculiar beauty was something i was prepared to disregard. i am from a family of uncommon features; i willed myself to overlook the uniqueness of your eyes as many do mine, and to not be stricken with the comeliness of your hair, or with the beauty of your delicate complexion—-one i have never seen, and that i now will never forget. i convinced myself of it only being the allure of one sent from the heavens. i was mistaken, and then overcome." 

"you—-” her voice broke, weighted with the sobs fighting to bubble out of her chest, “i don’t understand…”

“you are the most beautiful woman i have ever set eyes on, imene. my dreams could not even create anyone nearly as bewitching. and i swore to ignore it, until you showed yourself equally as beautiful in your soul.”

▷▷ part 2

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #332

i’m even more tired than before to try and think up song lyrics, i’m pasting from Word and then fucking off to bed lmao.

What was the last video message you received on your phone? I think it was a clip of Doris (Sara's beardie) eating and just being her perfect self? Was your last birthday cake homemade or store bought? Store-bought. One thing you miss about middle school? Shit, nothing. Middle school was the worst. Do you have any shirts signed by famous people? No. Have you ever entered an art competition? Yes. Would you ever pierce yourself? No. I am very much about having a professional do your body mods/art. Plus, I have tremors in my hands. Do you live in a safe neighbourhood? Supposedly. We haven't lived here nearly long enough to know. What is the last thing you did that shocked someone? /shrug Do you often find yourself questioning your future? Only always. Have you ever been for a ride in the back of a truck? Yeah. Do you like your license photo? I hate my permit picture. Are you into superheroes? Who’s your favorite? Not very, but I like 'em enough. I always say my favorite is Deadpool, but I know he's technically an anti-hero, but whatever. If you don't include him, uhhhh... maybe Spiderman. Have you started watching any new TV shows recently? No. Have you ever been able pet a normally wild animal, like a tiger or dolphin? No. :( At least, not to my recollection. Have you ever eaten snow? Yeah. There's actually a winter treat 'round here that you make with snow and sugar called snow cream. Good stuff. What is the messiest area in your home? Right now, the spare room/my wanna-be "office." What’s your favorite computer game genre? Still horror, like video games. Do you have any exes your parents never liked? No. Have you received financial help from your parents in the past 5 years? I'm completely financially dependent on them still. Are you a fast or a slow eater? I eat like, stupid fast, but without being messy. People *cough*Mom*cough* will absolutely point it out, but I seriously can't help it. Making a conscious effort to eat slow feels way too weird. What was the last thing you purchased from a small local business? I don't know. Is there anyone in your family/household whom you frequently argue with? No. Have you ever used chewing tobacco? Ew, no. Tell me what's on your mind? I've been considering yet again reaching out to some tattoo parlors and asking if they're open to hiring someone to handle the front desk and take care of business besides actually performing piercing and tattooing, given my tremors. My group therapy has kinda been encouraging me to use the possibility for social exposure, and besides, I'm very comfortable in the environment and just general aura of tat parlors. I'm sure I'd have to answer the phone, handle money, and obviously talk to costumers, but I know and accept that. I've been at such a stagnant point with my social anxiety in particular that I have to start pushing back harder, and doing this I feel would be one of the most relaxed, social job positions I can hopefully handle. I don't dare to even try this though until I get vaccinated to protect my immunocompromised mom. Writing this all out has actually been pretty encouraging about this idea... Do you wish you never dated someone you dated? Yeah, Tyler. It was such a "I'm lonely and he was nice in high school, so we'll try it" situation. I got nothing from it. Are you scared of growing old alone? Pretty badly. What are you listening to right now? I'm listening to/semi-watching John Wolfe play the remaster of Resident Evil 2. What breed was the last dog you saw? He was a German shepherd. Would you ever go swimming during a thunderstorm? No. Any time a thunderstorm was brewing and I was in the pool, I'd always get out. What is the next concert you will attend? Mom and I plan to see Ozzy when/if he reschedules his tour after he had to cancel with his Parkinson's diagnosis. What was the name of the last pet of yours that died? Teddy. :/ What's the highest science class you have taken? I don't know, actually. What makes you squeal like a school girl? No shame, seeing Mark and Amy do something cute together actually does this, lmao. What’s your favorite symbol? (i.e. the pentagram, the cross, etc.) Do fictional ones count? Because in that case, the Halo of the Sun from the Silent Hill franchise. I'm getting it tattooed somewhere at some point, I'm thinking the left side of my neck. I'm either gonna fashion it in a way where it looks branded on or carved into me. Have you ever been on anti depressants? For all of my pre-teen, teen, and some of my adult life. Apparently, I've only had one truly educated psychiatrist out of no less than a dozen I'd seen, because he fixed me right up. He taught me that those who suffer from bipolarity should avoid anti-depressants; they ramp up your bipolar symptoms. Instead, mood stabilizers are favorable. And what do you know, after I was prescribed a stabilizer and a catalyst for that medication, my depression decreased dramatically and became handleable. Have you ever starved yourself? Kinda. What’s the stupidest name you’ve ever given a pet? I had a guinea pig named Harry Potter. For no particular reason lmao. I'm not even a Harry Potter fan. Do you have nice legs? God no. Do you like fedoras? Okay so I know I am in the strong minority, but I actually do, haha. What is your favorite food group? Carbs. @_@ Have you ever got told that you should be a model? No, but one of the most flattering indirect compliments I've ever gotten was being mistaken for one. Jason's phone wallpaper was one of my favorite pictures of myself with my first snake, and someone asked him if I was a model. ;v;' What song is in a language you don’t speak, but you love it anyway? "Donaukinder" by Rammstein is one of my faves. Who’s a villain you sympathize with and why? SOBS Darkiplier bc his origins are so damn tragic and unfair. What book do you think should be directed as a film? Was The Giver ever made into one? I don't remember that book well, but I do recall it being absolutely beautiful. Have you ever found a stranger’s note somewhere? If so, what did it say? No. Have you ever edited Wikipedia? No. Have you ever edited any other wiki? Yeah. I have thousands on the Silent Hill wiki, where I'm one of the admins. I'm also a content moderator at the Team Ico (Shadow of the Colossus devs) one. Every now and again I used to go on the meerkats wiki as well, where I mainly fixed the fucking nightmarish grammar. Very briefly, I edited at the Dragons of Atlantis wiki as well. Do you get scared when you know some virus or sickness is being passed? Not very, but of course I still acknowledge the risk and am more conscious of hand washing and stuff. What popular social media platforms AREN’T you on? Snapchat, I don't actually use my Twitter, I don't have a personal Instagram... There may be more, idk. Is TikTok a "social media platform?" Because I don't have that, either. What was the name of the first porcelien doll you got? Never had one, given I was afraid of dolls as a kid. What’s your favorite Paramore song? "Decode." Would you be happy with a life without romance? To be entirely honest, I'd feel like I was missing something. Was your childhood happy? Mostly. What fundamentally matters do you? Love, kindness, peace, all that gooey stuff. Is true world peace ever possible? As much as I hate to admit it, I don't think so. The human population is far too big to come to a unanimous agreement on anything. Do you hold yourself to higher standards than you hold others? Yeah. Would you ever own a pet black widow spider? No. I'm getting more into the idea of owning invertebrates (I jabber enough about wanting tarantulas, and there are others, like mantises, I'm interested in as pets), but black widows, I'm not into the idea of having. Too venomous for me to be comfortable risking. If you have a job, what is the longest shift that you've worked? N/A Do you know all of the words to "Bohemian Rhapsody?" FUCK YES I DO. ^ Do you sing it with all of the different voices? sho nuff Do you own more than one copy of a certain book? No. Do you like interpreting poetry or just reading it for fun? Both. I love symbolism, so I get joy out of digging for subtle meanings in poems. Do you have a favorite Dr. Suess book? Yeah, it was always Green Eggs and Ham. Do you watch The Walking Dead? If so, favorite character? Not the show, but I've watched let's plays of the games, haha. In which case Clementine is inarguably one of the best female characters in a video game universe. Who has/had the most mature romantic relationship you’ve seen with your own eyes? Uhhh. I mean I never saw them much, but probably my late grandmother and her last husband. He was fucking incredible to her, and Grammy adored him as well. They helped each other so much and just obviously had the purest love between them. When was the last time you got something for free (legally)? What was it & have you enjoyed it so far? Lmao do balls in Pokemon GO count? Their occasional free boxes are the reason I can play the game because PokeStops are essentially non-existent here, so yes. What is the one fruit you can’t stand to eat? How about vegetable? The first one that came to me were oranges. I enjoy orange juice, but I just caaaaannot with the white veiny shit that you can't totally get off when peeling it. Without that, I might actually enjoy them, but idk. As for vegetable, asparagus is absolutely abhorrent. When’s the last time you actually recited the pledge? If you aren’t American, do/did you have anything similar in your country that you do during a time at school? Probably not since high school. Last person you shared food with? Ummm I have no idea. It's really just Mom and me here and we eat our own stuff. What was the last song you heard for the first time and enjoyed? I believe it waaas... "Down In The Park" by Marilyn Manson, maybe. If your life was a TV show, what would be the theme song? My inner high school emo just screamed "All Signs Point to Lauderdale" by AD2R. Who are some of your favorite female fictional characters, and why? Gahdamn, there's a lot. I don't feel like going through a mental list in my head and then describing why. A character (in anything) you wish hadn’t been killed off? Vol'jin; I think the entire WoW fanbase will forever be pissed about it. It was THE most "lul we dunno what 2 do w/ him anymore, let's let a totally random, unnamed, unimportant demon kill him" like what the fuck, Blizz. Most of his "oomph" was in the book, and I just really wish they'd done so much more with him in the game. Has anything “cute” happened in the past week? Off the top of me noggin, no. When did you last say “I love you”? Did you mean it? Yesterday to Sara. OF course I did. Is there someone who pops into your mind at random times? Hi, PTSD, how are ya. Have you ever slept all day? Essentially. When I was on a larger dose of my anxiety med, I physically couldn't stay up for barely even five minutes, and when I'd lie back down, boom, I was OUT. I stayed on that dosage for I think just that one day, it was so bad. Can you have kids? Well, I have a functioning menstrual cycle, so I would assume so. Doesn't mean I will, though. What colors of mascara have you worn on your lashes? Only black. Do you like eating sour things? Hell yeah, I love sour stuff, candy in particular. Do you like pickles? fuuuuck yeah Did you ever have a really close friend move away? Yeah, in elementary school. I feel bad I can't remember her name at the moment... What's the most creative thing you've ever done? I mean, I guess the things I've written in RP. What's the most creative thing someone has done for you? For me? I don't really know. Do you like to watch ghost-hunting shows? Sure, they're some of my favorites. What’s something you’d like to be better at? Social interaction. Have you ever stayed up to talk to someone who was sad? Yeah. Do you think you would make a good parent? No. I know I wouldn't. The only time I ever wanted kids was with Jason, and honestly, I really hope I don't end up with a man because I never want to deal with that urge again and make a mistake. I'm just in no way emotionally fit to be a mother. How many best friends do you have? Just one. What do you cry over the most? My PTSD, honestly. I never sob about it anymore, just shed some tears. What language did/do you take in high school? Latin for one semester, then all four available for German. Which sports do you follow? None. Who was the last person you talked about marriage or having kids with? About marriage, Sara. Kids, the subject was lightly touched upon with Girt, though "with" was never a part of it, but obviously implied seeing as we were dating with long-term in mind. Have you ever been in a house fire? No, thankfully. Have you ever made out for one straight hour? them is rookie numbers Are you any good at remembering phone numbers? No. I literally don't even know my own, nor my mother's. I need to fix that. Who is your best friend of the opposite sex? Girt. Do you have a bookshelf? If so, just one or how many? No. If I gave you twenty bucks what would you do with it? Save it to go towards Venus' terrarium. Is there a movie from your childhood that you still watch today? Well of course! I'm unashamed to watch any "kids" movie I enjoy, like Disney ones. Most "kids" movies tend to be better than those intended for adults, it seems... Are you afraid of mice? Oh no, I adore mice and I think had a pair as pets before I got rats. What type of souvenir do you usually purchase when on vacation? I can't really answer this; I haven't gone on nearly enough vacations to develop a theme. I can say confidently though it'd probably be something small. If you could see any musical on Broadway right now, what would it be? I don't enjoy musicals. Have you ever watched Doctor Who? One or two with Sara, yes. I know we at least watched the weeping angels episode. If you read, which book or series did you enjoy most as a child? Warriors by S.E. Hinton. Sometimes I wanna get back into them, but I am YEARS behind and more into Wings of Fire anyway, so. I don't read nearly enough for both. How do you get rid of your hiccups? Literally no trick seems to work for me. I just suffer lmao.

[dolls-self-ships]

🎫 here’s a gush pass ^^ feel free to gush about whichever f/o you want, however much you want, then send this ask to 3 other selfshippers

this has been in my ask box forever bc I’ve been saving it for when I have a LOT to say so I would like to talk about himb!!

this angel himbo babey, who I never in a million years thought I’d have any sort of emotional connection too until I watched All Hail King Julien.

So, I never really minded Julien’s character. He was funny and entertaining in the Madagascar movies, and yeah, more of an asshole in the POM series but still had his... I guess “likeable” moments (?) there too. I was always usually pretty indifferent to/tolerated him, until I finally decided to sit down and watch his show, which dropped in 2014 and ended in 2017 (so I’m a little late to the party but sjskslsnsslskssk anyways).

And I had a blast watching it!! Every episode from beginning to end was an absolute treat (aside from some questionable moments and one episode that was defineatly a product of one or two of the writers... “interests”). They made Julien so incredibly likeable, dare I say even loveable, while still being himself! I cannot express how well they did his character in this just MMM *chef kiss*. And they gave him more characters who were equally as interesting and enjoyable to interact with and bounce off of and honestly it all just really worked!! I loved Maurice, Clover is a well-written “strong” female character, Mort was... a choice, Masacaura was hilarious, Uncle King Julien was a sleaze ball but like.. a well written and entertaining one, and EVERY Lemur Kingdom civilian is so delightfully charming!

But I’m not here to talk about the show, this is about the Prince of Partying himself, so here’s what I like about him specifically!!

Honestly I have no fucking clue. Julien isn’t my type at all, at least not on the surface. Bc yeah, there’s characters that I f/o like Beetlejuice and Spinel that I guess would fit into the same category as Julien of “chaotic, but well-intentioned himbo that’s a bit egotistical and trying their best”. And yeah they gave him more sympathy, responsibility, and depth in the show, but his overall personality is still very much the “way in over his head and super confident in both himself and his stupidity party guy” that he maintains in both the MCU (Madagascar cinematic univese) and the POM tv series. But I think what really makes me like King Julien in this is that he has more... kindness. At least more moments of it. Also genuine relationships with the characters around him that give Julien more sides to him which makes a more compelling f/o for me. I also think it’s that, despite the fact that he’s a bit air-headed, he always means well, even though sometimes he can be selfish or impulsive, he always makes up for his mistakes in the end and learns from it. With the other two previous Julien’s, that was never a thing he did, so it kind of took away from the initial charm of him being a goofy and more or less egotistical king (at least for me).

THIS Julien however, has almost every aspect of himself from previous media’s, but added parts that improve him and even excuse some not-so-great parts of him. And I absolutely love it!! I’m still in a spot where I’m not 100% on f/oing him romantically but.. you know what, he’s cute, he has those moments that make me clutch my heart, he’s a bit of a flirt, and I find him charming and likeable, so I’ll excuse a little mutual (or one-sided) crushing. You feel?

Honestly, I have to partially blame my sister for this since she suggested that upon meeting me, Julien would try and put the moves on me like the absolute playboy that he is sksksjsjskssjsk. Picturing how he would do it just made me laugh (because let’s be real, he would be a total goof about it with no self-awareness or shame whatsoever), and from then on I was just interested in what our dynamic would be like.

I am also!!! Not very smart!! So I think we would make a decent himbo/bimbo power duo. He has a LOT more energy than I do, but I think if I tried I could keep up with him. I’m not shy, but there’s still lots of things that I feel awkward/self-conscious doing (ironically, dancing is a big one) and therefore just refuse to attempt, so I think Julien would definitely help me loosen up and not be afraid to embarrass myself. As long as I’m having fun, then who cares? He embarrasses himself all the time and does not give a fuck, probably because he’s oblivious to it, but still!!

Overall, I just have a lot of soft and mushy feelings for this lemur. They’re ambiguous and unidentifiable so far but they exist and I’m loving every minute of it!! Julien, in my opinion, is a pretty great king ❤️

[myriadimagines]

updates i guess

this is gonna be a long post so im gonna put it under a cut so i don’t spam people. tl;dr, i’m removing fandoms off my masterlist, mental health is hanging by a thread, trying to be more active so please send requests!! etc etc

(also i will be replying to all my messages shortly im sorry for being unresponsive)

fandom list:

i am removing atomic blonde, baby driver, the bold type, altered carbon, x-men, harry potter and 13 reasons why off my fandom list. i wasn’t getting requests for atomic blonde & baby driver anyway, and i had removed 13rw a while ago but hadn’t made an announcement. i love altered carbon & the bold type, but i just wasnt getting requests for them, so there was no point in me keeping it. for x-men & harry potter, i feel like has been a long time coming. i really just don’t enjoy writing for any of the characters because i am not particularly attached to any of them, and i feel like i just write badly when i do get requests for them. i thought about keeping deadpool on my fandom list, but for now i’ll be taking it off. 

divergent, the hunger games, arrow and black lightning are kind of on thin ice as well, but i’m keeping them for now. however, i may take them off later. i’m also not really attached to any of the characters for divergent and the hunger games, and i never really watched the last movies and don’t really plan to. as for arrow and black lightning, im so far behind on all the arrowverse shows and don’t really feel like catching up on them, even though i do really like some of the characters. i wanted to watch all the arrowverse shows, including the flash, but i may just want to focus on LoT and supergirl.

i may take off some other fandoms too, because i don’t know if it’s because my writing style is changing or what but i just feel like streamlining/focusing my blog more on fandoms that i genuinely love/am excited to get requests for instead of just trying to write for as many fandoms as possible (although i feel like i have been falling out of love with writing and so many other things in general which really sucks). while i do enjoy writing for a bunch of different characters/fandoms, it’s just been really hard to get inspired lately. i feel like im being hypocritical/contradictory because the whole idea of my blog when i first started was that i wanted to write for a lot of different fandoms (hence the url), but i don’t feel the same anymore. but again, that’s why i’m hesitant to take off more fandoms because this might all just be a phase that i’ll get over and i’ll be reinspired again

im sorry to those who were fans of the fandoms i removed. this all may change and i might add fandoms again, but for now, i just don’t feel inspired. i hope you understand, and im more than happy to redirect you to blogs who do write for those fandoms!!

masterlist

all masterlist links will be kept intact for fandoms that have been removed!

inactivity

you guys may have noticed (or not, bc i am so small and insignificant in this universe and what i do really doesn’t matter. yes, i am in that mood) that i’ve been less active. im not gonna get too into it because otherwise i feel like im complaining and i am very self conscious about that (even though i feel like this entire post has been a complaint so. whoops), but i do just want to say im sorry. my queue is currently at 3 posts a day, and i would love to get it up to at least 5, but i because of how little requests i get, i just can’t do that.

so, basically, i would love if you guys sent in gif imagine requests whenever you can! i honestly don’t mind if i get a spam of requests, i truly appreciate it! i’ve been wanting to open headcanon requests because i feel like that would help, but i just genuinely do not feel like i have the time/energy for that right now unfortunately

i’ve already mentioned this before, but how often i post is correlated to how many requests i get, so the more i can fill up my queue, the more i can post!

i am also close to a follower milestone (less than 100 away) so once i hit that i have an event planned that’ll hopefully increase requests!! just have to hit the milestone first lmfao

even though i may not have been writing as much, i have been trying to keep active on my recommendations blog @myriadrecs, so be sure to check out lots of amazing writing for other writers there!!

anyway, sorry this is long, i’m also not proofreading this because i have a headache and just want to get this post out there before i regret it and decide to stay quiet instead, so im sorry for the inevitable grammer/spelling errors that have probably riddled this post. i feel like i have a lot to be sorry for. life has been a lot. my job is stressful. im so tired all the time. and this post is very unnecessarily dramatic and im sorry about how whiny it is. but thank you guys for sticking with my stupid ass and i hope that you’re all doing well 💕

[knightmathias]

task 01: spring play audition ( macbeth ) !

notes: don’t give him macbeth thank u i want him to go batshit LMAO im kidding but rlly dont give him macbeth

i also couldn’t figure out how to put this in organically but mathias def knows that a LOT of the others are gunning for macbeth too!!! but he’s never been worried bc he knows for sure he’s always going to get the lead roles so he never really thinks about anyone else, i think it’ll be great for him to not only NOT get macbeth but not even a really big role full stop ? i don’t think it makes sense for heidi to give him a SMALL role maybe bc he IS technically really fuckin good but i also dont think heidi think it’s Best to give him a huge role anyway like she can see the Laziness in him and “acting for the wrong reasons” / not improving as an actor bc he’s never been in the spot to need to!!!!!!

Calling it a problem sounded so serious, you think derisively. Your hands are brushing over the small packet of coke you’ve placed on the desk, eyebrows furrowed. You’ve got ten minutes until your audition, and whilst Heidi doesn’t seem to be the type of person to appreciate tardiness, you’re not used to bending yourself to follow the rules. So you’ll be late. Big deal.

Calling it a problem, you continue thinking, getting your thoughts back on track. Calling it a problem was silly. An addiction would come in the form of your sister Ana, who could never stop herself. And even then, she’s fine. High every time you see her these days, maybe, but she’s fine -- Bad things don’t happen to the Knights. Only good things. Only good things.

Still, you sweep the bag into your desk drawer instead, out of sight. You don’t need it right now, the temptation was just a little too much when you have the bag in front of you; you’re certainly not nervous about this audition at all. Sure, you haven’t really worked on practising much -- but you never do, right? And sure, you’ve been more distracted as of late -- falling in and out of [the statue’s] bed, preoccupied by Orson’s death. But you either have the star quality or you don’t, it’s what your parents have always taught you. Working hard is good, but it’s for the ones that don’t have it, who want what you have. You’ve run through your lines a few times, you know it’s going to be good.

( And sure, you’ve taken to drinking more and smoking more and done a few more lines lately than would be considered smart. But you don’t talk about that. You don’t even think about that. What’s too much? What’s too far? When is enough enough when you’ve been like this, been around this, your whole life? It’s the glamourous life of theatre, baby, it’s just show biz. )

You take your phone out of your pocket to check the time. 4 minutes. Plenty of time then.

There’s a glass filled halfway of vodka and Coke on your bed stand, not quite finished from the night before. You pick it up and down it, even though it’s gone flat by now. The alcohol to take the edge off, but you won’t admit there’s an edge to you anyway. Liquid luck instead, maybe, but when have you ever needed luck? For the enjoyment, then, is what you reason. Why waste perfectly good alcohol?

By the time you arrive, Heidi’s voice cuts to you, unimpressed. “You’re twelve minutes late.”

“Had to make sure my hair was pretty,” you say charmingly, the cheek usually endearing to others. Orson would’ve loved your response, would’ve grinned and joked back, would’ve said something about the importance of appearance on stage. Orson would’ve ---

But it’s not Orson. It’s Heidi, and she doesn’t seem to think you’re being funny at all. 

“I think it’s best if you just start, since you’re running late.”

But you’ve already made your way onto the stage.

"Mathias Knight,” you say, stage voice on. Your teeth glint white in the light as you flash a professional smile, but Heidi doesn’t seem to return it. “I’m auditioning for the role of Macbeth. I’ve chosen to do Macbeth’s speech from Act 2 Scene 1 -- Enjoy.”

There’s no surprise on Heidi’s face at your announcement of choice, but you don’t let it deter you. Of course it’s predictable, to go for Macbeth and to do this scene, but does it matter what you audition with, when your talent will showcase either way? You want Macbeth and you’re going to get it, you always do. There was no point putting in more work than its worth, when performing Macbeth’s most famous soliloquy did the same job.

Heidi nods, so you take a deep breath and settle into your role effortlessly. You’ve heard the others talk about needing to have an emotional connection to the role they’re playing, and you’ve never quite understood it -- you’ve played characters you could hardly even fathom being similar to, but you’ve played them excellently nonetheless. Acting, for you, is not about the emotion, or the personal, or the leaving of your body behind. It’s about the skill and the technique and the way you perform it -- because that’s what it is, isn’t it? It’s a performance. It’s a performance and you’re conscious of that fact every moment you are on that stage, your own kingdom. You connect with the characters because you need to, but it’s always been on that surface level, knowing you are playing them. You are not Macbeth. That much is clear. But you’re a damn good actor.

“Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee...”

You’ve never known fear, or delusion, like Macbeth in this scene -- but that’s never been why you’re so good. You can push passion and emotion out of your voice so well that no one could ever see the difference, you can bend and contort your face in the same anguish and people will believe it. What is a tragedy to someone who’s never experienced the bad? It’s just: tragedy. It’s a word. It means nothing.

( Tragedy: a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character. )

( Of course you’re the main character, you’re always the main character. There’s nothing forgettable about the way you hold yourself, the way you speak, the way you move. The downfall of the main character. But you’ve not done anything wrong, have you? You didn’t murder Orson. What’s the worse crime you’ve committed? A few stolen grams of coke? Petty thievery, small crime -- who is hurting from your lack of consequences? No one. You were born indestructible. You’re pretty sure you’re going to die that way too. )

( An unhappy ending. Darling, your story is hardly far from over yet. )

When you finish the soliloquy, that powerful feeling that settles in your bones every time you perform, you half-expect an applause. You were objectively good and there’s no other way that that could be twisted. Instead, you look out and only meet Heidi’s eyes, facial expression unreadable. For a moment, you’d forgotten, waiting for Orson to tell you how brilliant you were. 

But Orson wasn’t here. Isn’t it funny it only hits you in the gut every time you want something from him? His approval felt like an applause from an adoring crowd. His approval confirmed everything you’ve ever known about yourself, and you didn’t realise you craved it so badly until you were faced with the absence of it.

Several beats of silence. You’re waiting for her to say something, but when she doesn’t, you say, “So?”

Finally, Heidi shrugs. “It was an impressive performance. Truthfully, one of the best I’ve seen today.”

At that, you square your shoulders, basking in the compliment. What’s the best part of acting for you? You’ve heard others say things like slipping out of their own body and mind, into someone else’s. No, for you, you bleed yourself out on stage for this: the roaring approval.

But Heidi isn’t done talking. She adds, “I just don’t know if it’s enough.”

You blink. “Pardon me, but what?”

“What do you think about when you’re acting on stage, Mathias?”

The question takes you by surprise. “I think -- I think about the role I’m playing.”

Heidi shakes her head. “The thing is -- I just don’t think you do. I think you’re thinking about the praise you’ll get.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” You don’t have a bad temper, you’ve never been forced to. But irritation ignites within you, an uncomfortable and unfamiliar feeling. 

She considers you for a moment, and you’ve never felt self-conscious in your life, least of all on a stage. She considers you for a moment, and you feel suddenly very naked, like she’s looking at something deep within you and she’s not liking what she sees.

“Thank you for your time, Mathias,” she says abruptly.

“No,” falls out of your mouth first, because you’re not used to being dismissed, not used to failing. She said it was one of the best performances she’s seen today, but suddenly it doesn’t feel enough. 

Her eyebrows raise.

“You said it yourself that I’m good,” you say hurriedly. “I’m the best, and you know it. You can dislike me all you like --”

“Mathias, I don’t dislike you --”

“But I know I’m good,” you continue, as if uninterrupted. “When I’m on that stage, it doesn’t matter who likes me as Mathias and who doesn’t; all that matters is that the audience does. I’ve been playing the lead my whole life for a reason, and they’ll all call it arrogance, but there’s nothing wrong in knowing that I’m good. That I’m the best. Who cares if I’m connecting emotionally to the characters? I’m one of the best actors on this program and it’s for a reason, and I’m sorry it’s not the reason you want it to be, but talent is a reason in itself. That’s what Orson told me. Orson said I have what it takes. Orson said I was going to do big things. Orson said --”

“Mathias,” Heidi cuts off neatly, and there’s something in her voice that you can’t place. Pity, maybe? But you’ve never been pitied before. What is there to pity in you? You’re the star. You’re always the fucking star. “I’m not Orson.”

The sentence guts you in a way it shouldn’t, and you blink at the aftermath of your outburst. 

“Thank you for your time, Mathias,” she says again, firmer. 

This time, you move off the stage, towards the door. The only thing you can think about is how badly you need a drink.

[wincore]

IT GETS BETTER WHEN I QUIT (╥_╥) until then i’ll just try my best 2 survive

“are you daring me to ruin my life for 2d men” yes 100% that’s exactly what i am saying. U GETTING 2D MEN BRAINROT... >>>>> ill seriously be waiting for the day 😌😌 atsumu is incredibly irritating u will love him. im going to manifest hq tiktok edits showing up in ur fyp JDJWJSJJ

OMGG i never watched coffee&vanilla but now i know not to so thank u LOL i can’t handle watching cringey dramas!! IM SO EXCITED FOR S2 TOO!! i’m not even a horror fan generally but the storyline was so different and mysterious i was hooked!! should i read the manga?? :o how diff would u say it was from the netflix adaptation?

NOO ME TOO!! watching a whole series takes so much brain power and attention 😭😭 esp when starting something new, sometimes i just don’t have the energy to learn abt new characters/a new world

I LOVE THE PREVIEW IM SO SO EXCITED!! “she wins mostly dw” WHEW!! we cannot have jaehyun winning this we can agree on 😫. LMFAOO WHEN I SAW DONGMIN I WAS LIKE :oooo No way.... no way.. that would hurt so bad for me 🙄🙄 perfect man is ur soulmate and u wont even end up together... goodbye.. (ok jaehyun u r ok as well i guess)

YES I REREAD 19K HDJWJJD IT WAS A POST-FINALS TREAT & U ARE AN ACTUAL AUTHOR!!!! also now im rlly curious abt what runway-taeyong’s yn will be like?!? esp in comparison to runway yn!!! give me crumbs pls

“i cannot picture him pissed off apart from that summer fight </3” STOPPPQJDJ ME TOO??? i think e2l with mark is impossible truly... it just doesnt make sense

“i love this characterization of him!!” IM SO GLAD LOL I WASNT SURE ABT MY WORDING!! sicheng rlly is perfect for these kinds of roles & im PUMPED for ceo sicheng for this very reason 👀👀

U HAD ME AT THEME SONG SINCERITY IS SCARY WTFFF!! “i don’t think i’m cut out to write that” i respect ur decision BUT im sure u are capable!!!! when u feel ready i will b here waiting bc i am in luv with just the vaguest concept of this piece! “so him having strong personality traits makes me go 🤔🤔 that man is overreacting” LMFAOOO NOT EVEN JK I AGREE... its disorienting to see him written as intense/broody when most of the time he’s just kinda has one main mode which is 🙂

YESSS FIC WISE BC OF U!!! im in the same boat abt it not working irl, i think if i had beef with a man i would just never interact with them ever again.... no man is worth the time... we are not gonna beef it out we will just cease to know each other. BUT YES BOTH TROPES WORK BETTER IN FIC LMFAO i love the #pining #hurt/comfort #angsttofluff HSJWJSJ

YESS THATS WHY UR VAMP FIC WAS SO REFRESHING!! BC IT WAS DIFFERENT!! if we simply stop pretending bites r enjoyable i think we can begin 2 reverse the damage that media has done to vampire aus

omg that’s a lot of things to do!! PLS MAKE SURE TO GET ENOUGH REST & EAT WELL TOO!! take care of yourself 🤍🤍🤍

- tata

i just started watching jujutsu kaisen and i might just ruin my life for 2d men once again <3 i feel like i wil have a whirlwind obsessive phase like my 15 year old self again goodbye (also. pls. this atsumu character is appealing to me way too much for someone with god level standards for irl men. every time a 2d man is annoying i go 😍💍👰💒 loml) ALSO OK WTF HOW DID YOU PREDICT THAT I’VE BEEN GETTING A LOT OF HQ TIKTOKS IN MY FYP LATELY LIKE I SCROLLED THROUGH 8 CONSECUTIVE ONES 😭😭😭 TATA DID YOU HIJACK MY FYP

sdjgdjs i’ve only ever watched cringe dramas if the man is good looking (but like only clips in this case) or i need to make fun of it with my friends . i like to indulge in horror when i’m anxious bc it somehow makes it better like 😭 at least i have it better than THOSE guys lmfao <3 but also i don’t like heavy gore ahaha. 

some parts of the aib live action i liked WAY better especially bc the actors did so incredibly well portraying the characters (and the 7 of hearts game... bye i took so long coming to terms with it it’s WAY more emotional in the live) and i liked the first game (different in the manga) way more in the live. as for the manga i HATE the ending but also the manga introduces side characters and their stories and i really like that about it! the whole tunnel distance game was actually a side story in the manga and i kind of don’t like them centering the plot too much around arisu (but .. also.. it’s yamazaki kento... and i like that man too much for my dignity..) and also.... i don’t like how they left niragi and aguni’s status undisclosed like that??? like [LIGHT MANGA SPOILERS] they play a very key role in the manga so ?!?! i just hope s2 turns out well netflix i am begging u

ANDSDHSKDJDSL PLS I AM SO SORRY but dongmin is in love with another woman 😔 maybe in some other life. jaehyun is out there being a himbo though so choose carefully what you wish for 🤩 every time jaehyun wins i got mad at myself like no way pilsbury dough boy is winning against miss i know everything

SDHSJD so far lookbook-yn is way more confident and assertive than runway-yn but more in a.. himbo-like way LOL if that makes sense. runway-yn was kind of self conscious and fueled by passion and the need to stand out in their field of work but this yn is more comedic i think lol!! she’s kind of critical and clever in her own way but also she will confidently tell u the wrong directions to the nearest grocery store if u ask bc she thought she knew </3

SDFJGDSJ IT LITERALLY STARTED AS ME DAYDREAMING TO SINCERITY IS SCARY <3 i don’t even have a title yet 🤧 i feel like im favouring this bread man too much but it’s fun to characterize him so <33 i would love for him to be heartbroken and bitter for once 😌 “most of the time he’s just kinda has one main mode which is 🙂” that emoji TOOK ME OUT DSJKDHSD it’s literally him??

men r literally never worth the time </3 either be a lovable himbo or go away 😐 WAIT BC OF ME??? IM STILSLDSHDSKHKDSLJDS ily ❣🌼🌙

why would they make bites to be some sort of sensual thing like literally any other animal biting us for blood would be either horrifying (demon) or just annoying (mosquitoes)

you take care of yourself too!!!!!! hope your job loosens a bit on you and you excel in academics enough to not worry about it 😌 eat well sleep well ily ❤

[0ffgun]

Oliver, I can see that LBC guys are really your type. I mean, Mark, Saint, Perth, Earth... you like them all. :D But who is closest to your real ideal type and why? (Sorry, I steal this type of question from the anon who asked you about the characters. :P)

I FEEL SO EXPOSED READING THIS NGL. It hadn’t really occurred to me but you’re right djfjgjg I guess I’m weak for the LBC guys. And okay this is seriously such a difficult question to answer. I saw this ask this morning while I was on my way to work so I didn’t have time to answer but I’ve been thinking about it ALL DAY and I’m still not 100% sure 😱 I’m definitely torn between Mark and Earth, that’s for certain! It’s very obvious that I have a lot of affection for Mark 😅 I love his personality he’s so confident and bashful at the same time? One minute he’s like “I’m so handsome!” And then 2 minutes later he’s shy and embarrassed and there I am on the floor sobbing. And he’s just so CUTE. He can be so awkward sometimes and I find that so ridiculously endearing.

But then Earth?? His personality is also amazing. He’s just so fun and aesthetic but also silly and whiny and I need that. I’m into guys who are comfortable to be around and who make me laugh all the time and do dumb stuff so then I don’t feel self conscious about being silly and dumb too. I love just letting go and feeling so at ease around someone that nothing else matters, and Earth would be great for that. Like literally this week most of his Instagram stories have just been him playing with those “what Disney character are you?” Or “what Harry Potter character are you?” filters and he keeps getting bad characters (his first character was Quasimodo and I swear to GOD the face he pulled) and doing this pouty whining thing and then he’d repeatedly DO IT AGAIN complaining bc he wanted to get Ariel (he EVENTUALLY did lmao) and he just kept getting bad ones and honestly I watched the clips like 60 times probably it was so cute. (He got simba twice and honestly it’s so accurate okay he’s simba) and idk that’s just something I would do too and it made my heart grow in size honestly.

I don’t even know if any of this is coherent I’m just really in love with these two!!!

Also you guys keep asking about my ideal type/who I’d like to date a lot lately I’m js 👀

[succubused]

is the character thing too old? tell me your favorite ienzo things.

literally it is never too late to give me an opening to post about ienzo i had to wait until i was home to use desktop bc images

favorite thing about them

there are so many but i will give three: 

1. retained some chunk of empathy when he was a nobody such that he was the only, the ONLY member of org 13 to express genuine discomfort with the fact that marluxia and larxene were using namine to manipulate sora and was also the only one to actually condemn axel killing vexen like boy hung on to a lot of morality considering he presumably had no heart at the time 

2. the fact that he just. zero reaction when he sees lea after they wake up. no animosity whatsoever. like last time you saw this dude he was contentedly watching the life drain out of you and you’re just. he’s like shrug emoji what’s a little betrayal and murder between friends. there being no grudge is extra god tier when you remember how appalled he was by the betrayals in the first place. and yet he’s completely friendly and normal. just completely going about his goth nerd business. i would die for him

3. i love ienzos STUPID VISION OBSCURING GOTH HAIR

least favorite thing about them

he can low key be a hypocrite esp when it came to objecting to marluxia etc using namine against sora but he then proceeded to basically use an illusion of sora/his feelings of guilt surrounding sora to manipulate riku like…..zexion baby things aren’t magically justified when you’re doing them yourself i still love u though

favorite line

“you think you can be forgiven?” and “you brought it upon yourself” because like…….are you condemning your opponent or yourself? do you even know?

brOTP

lea because it’s just…it’s catharsis ienzo appears to already have forgiven lea somehow i think he could be a very important voice for lea to hear telling him to forgive himself. and they’re both shitbabies. and they’re 2 of my favorite characters and i’m selfish. combine your powers assholes

also roxas because i always imagined them as friends and that it contributed to ienzo committing to help bring him back, & relatedly ventus 

OTP

tbh i don’t really have one, ienzos kinda off doing his own thing. i support ienzo x safety and happiness

nOTP

please for the love of god don’t ever put zexion with vexen. i shouldnt even have to say this never ever ever ive never been cursed with it personally but i know how people are on this site. if you do this i summon a flock of turtledoves to dive bomb your location killing you instantly

random headcanon

he conjures little spectral animals to keep him company when he’s up working late at night or can’t sleep (which I also imagine is a common issue for him). doves and foxes are his favorites. he also sings to himself when he’s alone because certain kinds of silence make him edgy but he’s self conscious about it and will shut himself up instantly if he thinks anyone is even remotely within earshot

unpopular opinion

god i don’t know if i have any unpopular opinions about him. i blame white ansem one hundred percent for what happened to ienzo if that counts

song i associate with them

jaws // sleep token

oh and I, I believewe are locked, caged and always provokedby prey left unattended

and I’m not here to be the savior you long foronly the one you don’tand are you watching me, with eyes of a predator?as you move towards the door

smoke & mirrors // hezen

it’s all smoke and mirrors shards in my eyes but I’ve never seen clearer I understand now oh I’m not heard the sentence has fallen what’s left of me when there’s no one else to see? 

those are just the most notable recently i have a whole spotify playlist for him though lol

favorite picture of them

this is my fav picture of all time of zexion because it radiates pure chaotic shitbaby vibes

and my favorite of ienzo is a gif because this particular head tilt is very important to me

in conclusion, i love ienzo kingdom hearts

[lunebinnie]

(1/11)Oh my gosh yesss I'm glad that you like long messages too because I talk way too much 😂 (And yeah about my friend and just hanging out w/ her more that's exactly what I was thinking 😂) It's actually kind of funny bc just yesterday I was hanging out at her house and her younger brother needed to go to Walmart and I was like 'I've been meaning to go to Walmart, I'll take you' and ofc since I have a bluetooth radio adapter the whole drive I had my Spotify going with some quality k-bops, lol

2)And as we were driving I noticed him kind of jamming and I was like 'Oh my god Mickey do you actually like this???' And he was Like 'yeah, these are some good bops 👍' I was shooketh. I had to go home before I had the chance to show him any music videos but he says he's open to watching some with me next time I see him. One way or another I'm going to turn someone in my social circle into a kpop fan you mark my words ☝ and then maybe we can team up and try to work on his sister some more 😂

3)I only started first getting into kpop last June so I'm still very new, but it's definitely super frustrating how so many ppl act like it's an inherently bad or cringey genre of music just bc it's kpop! The stigma is ridiculous! I also started out with BTS (lol) and since they're pretty popular in the US at least I was able to be like 'See, this isn't just a niche thing, lots of people know abt and like this group' but of course my dad still says 'Just cause it's popular doesn't make it good'

4)And I'm like? You're a band teacher, you of all people should understand that music doesn't have to be in your native language (or even have lyrics) in order for you to enjoy it, but go off I guess... It's the same with one of my college friends. They make fun of me for liking kpop but this is coming from some who still treats March 22nd (the day My Chemical Romance broke up) as a day of mourning. Like, no tea no shade no pink lemonade, MCR was a good band nothing wrong with liking them.

5)But like if you're 22 and you still haven't grown out of your emo phase do you really have room to pick on other people for their music taste?  🤷 Anyway that's the person who follows my main that I didn't want to know I had a kpop sb. I think I made it around July. Tbh it was pretty dead for most of 2018. But like I said I've started using it way more since I recently revealed that it exists, lol. Especially since that good good Astro cb 👏💗😩 But honestly Astro is such a blessing

6)Idk how I lived so long w/o them. When I first got into kpop I was planning on just sticking to BTS since the reaction to me being into kpop was so volatile. I was like 'I'm only into one group, ppl already are negative about me liking kpop so I'm just gonna stick to this and not become a full on multifandom fan' and then in Nov I accidentally let myself fall in love with Monsta X and that plan was foiled. And realizing I wasn't gonna be able to stick to just one anymore opened the floodgates

7)And I was like okay in that case, let's just start getting into *all groups* Lol. My story of getting into Astro was actually bc of my best friend's roommate (can you tell I have like one friend and my whole social circle kinda revolves around her? Lol) so this roommate when she heard me being sad about having no kpop friends was like 'oh hey, I'm kinda into kpop' and it turns out she didn't like very many groups and was one of the ppl who blah blah BTS is overrated, which ya know isn't ideal8)But I was just really desperate to have someone to talk about kpop with. And Astro was her favorite so I was like, okay I'll get into them so that I have something to talk about with her! So I started watching some videos and I fell in love with them pretty much instantly! And I was real excited bc #1 now I can talk about kpop with someone! And #2 this group is actually amazing? Bonus! ... And then they got in a big fight about their living conditions and the roommate ended up moving out RIP

9)So that didn't work out, lol (Your story about finding them during that internship sounds amazing though! Haha) But yeah, so this is my first cb too! And although I love them w/ my whole heart and would have loved to have them in my life even sooner what an amazing cb to be your first! The concept was wonderful, the album was excellent, the visuals were to *die* for. They worked so hard and I'm so proud of them and I'm so happy we got to see their work come to fruition and get them a win 🤧🤧

10)The dance practices though? You're so right omg 💗 Me and my Rocky bias *fully* understand 😂 All of them are such good dancers?? I never fail to be impressed. Of course you know who I always end up watching tho 👀 lol (̶i̶f̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶h̶a̶l̶f̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶t̶t̶y̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶R̶o̶c̶k̶y̶'̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶o̶t̶w̶o̶r̶k̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶a̶l̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶t̶t̶y̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶e̶y̶e̶s̶.̶.̶.̶)̶ ̶ I also love how at the end they always pause all dramatic for a minute and then start screaming 😂

11)It's like? Amazing talent *and* dorky personalities? What more could you ask for? Lol. In regard to your last question though Unfortunately I also won't be able to see them 😔 I live in the smack middle of the US and since they're only going to coasts all of the venues are way too far away to get to. Esp since it's the school year and I can't skip class to drive cross country for a concert much as I'd like to (Holy lord I talked over twice as much?? Why am I like this?) Talk again soon! -ASA

Okay SO I’m very sorry I haven’t had the time to answer everything until now bc I’ve been busy studying for midterms and also I was a lil trashy today since my uni closed bc of freezing rain so I slept in but I’m glad that FINALLY everything got sent like damn tumblr you really don’t want us making friends huh. 

Yessssss I love the feeling of seeing someone else also get into the same interests! I’ve been pretty lucky in the sense that I grew up around mostly other asian americans, so kpop was never something that was considered super “weird,” like some people were into it and some weren’t but even if you weren’t you still would’ve been familiar with the more popular groups from when you were younger. Even now, I have a bunch of friends also into kpop (one of them is even my roommate) so tbh I was definitely the one in my friend group late to the party aha. Even my university hosts kpop nights at our bar and I’m pretty sure we have a kpop dance team as well? So tbh if I met someone new there’s probably like a 50% chance they’re into kpop or at least listen casually. 

Tbh I used to be a little bit judgy too but moreso because of the obscene amount of money I’ve seen some of my friends spend (no joke one of my friends has spent probably like $500+ on Loona stuff in the past month and a half and another friend bought like 5 copies of the same album for herself like damn idk how do you have that much money).

I also really don’t like it when people bash other people’s music tastes, since I feel like it’s something so personal? Idk but for a long time I used to be really self conscious about sharing my music with other people and even now I feel like that sometimes. For me after getting into BTS I kind of expected to get really into other groups since I was in Korea anyway and I was already listening to a lot of other artists casually. For me it started with NU’EST (fell for them immediately at the same concert that I saw Astro at) and then after was Astro, and then I just started slowly getting into other groups after that (even though I haven’t totally been able to get into Got7′s music they’re SO funny and I just kinda fell for their personalities  you know). 

I honestly think that they did such a wonderful job with this comeback too! I like seeing their concept evolve and mature but they’re not straying too far from their original cute concept so I feel like it’s a nice middle ground that’s very unique to them, you feel? Also I feel like the visuals especially and the execution of the whole plant concept was just done so well?? Even my friend who’s not in kpop was like “k idk who they are but that was the prettiest music video I’ve ever seen”. What are your favourite eras and songs? For me I’d have to say either the Spring Up or Baby era BUT right now my favourite song is probably Again/Should’ve Held On though tbh my mood and my tastes change like every few weeks loool. 

I have no idea why I tend to be most attracted to the dances rather than vocals or rap (maybe has to do with the fact that it’s something I’ve always wished I could do but have always been bad at lmao). But Astro’s stood out to me for the exact same reason! I just thought it was so funny seeing them all break character at the end because you really get to see how hard their choreos are and you get a glimpse of their personalities like damn, how can you not stan these dummies?

That’s really unfortunate that you won’t get to see them either :/ They’re also coming to the closest city to me but it’s on a Tuesday, but I *hypothetically* looked up flight prices and tried to see if I could get away with just missing a day of classes if I flew back in the middle of the night since I have some friends who did the same thing and drove down to Buffalo but I seem to have underestimated the size of New York State LMAO. But apparently my university’s too far from the airport so it’s “not realistic” (and also I’m hella broke from travelling to Taiwan and Japan while I was in Korea but that’s a minor issue ig). I hope we do both get a chance to see them live though! Who knows, after the success of this comeback I’m expecting a lot more cbs and world tours out of them ;)

[thedepthsremember]

20 Questions: Choices fanfic writers edition 

Tagged in this by @breaumonts! Thanks :D 

1. When/what age did you start writing?   In elementary school, I wrote and drew my own picture books, which at that age I definitely thought was the best thing to do forever. In middle/high school, there was some self-insert Spider-Man and Harry Potter fanfic that I hope stays buried forever. I picked it back up more regularly during an awful period in college where I lost my love of drawing (unfortunate, considering my major) but still needed to express somehow. 2. What inspired you to start? Similar to my art it's been a way to express myself, to tell my side of how I'm seeing things. A lot of the time it's like solving a puzzle, what was that character thinking? And then I just keep chasing that thought. 

It weirds me out that writing feels more like..... excavating. Like it was there and I’m just uncovering it. Drawing doesn’t feel like that at all.  3. Where and when does inspiration usually strike you? I do a lot of driving, so usually then, or if I'm doing something repetitive at work and I can let my mind wander. While I'm getting a massage is a random one but I'm relaxed and my mind can just play without getting in its own way.

4. Where and when do you usually to write? Morning? Late at night? On the bus? In bed? Lately it's been my favorite way to procrastinate sleeping because it's like I'm being productive! Hahaaa

I'll write entire scenes in my head before I write anything down. Sometimes I'll dash down little parts on paper or in my phone to make sure I don't forget. 

5. Do you listen to music while writing? If so what genre/playlist? A lot of chill video game instrumentals are a good default, unless I have a playlist or an artist I know will set the right mood. I'm pop trash so usually that'll fall to the background enough that I can focus. 6. Which category do you like best? Angst? Fluff? NSFW? Other? I would love to wrote more fluff, but it seems to tend towards a lot of angsting and anxiety with some humor thrown in, I guess because that's how I deal with my own thoughts. I do get to give them happy endings, so that's nice! 7. Which category do you find most challenging to write?  Smut is really difficult and awkward for me, partly bc part of the appeal of the actual acts irl are they help me turn my brain chatter off, so it's hard to put that back into descriptions. Plus I'm just self conscious about how personal that is. 

Also anything with an actual plot. I can give you moments and that's about it. 8. If you had to pick your favourite Choices book, which one would it be and why? TRR is the one that sucked me in and stole my soul for whatever reason, BUT I can also admit a lot of that is for what it could be. It's a good thought playground. Like Harry Potter. 

Perfect Match is shaping up to be my jam, I live for sci fi and found families and all that "what is the nature of humanity" nonsense. It's like Dollhouse without being built on a base of creepiness. 

I also really love the ILITW cast, enough that it balances out how much of a wimp i am when it comes to scary things.  9. If your Choices LIs were real, which one (and only one!) would you personally want to be with? I've said before that Damien from Perfect Match is the closest to my irl type, but right now I'm kind of exhausted of that "I'm too cool to like things" sort of dude. Idk let's give older Lucas (ilitw) a shot. He's motivated but has a playful side, we might balance each other out. Especially after he figures himself out more in college. 10. Do you share any physical characteristics with your Choices MCs? Pics/selfies optional :) Riley is small and ready to brawl and I've basically given her an idealized version of my body type when I draw her. Uhhh like half of the others end up being long haired blondes because even though that's not my hair anymore it was like that for most of my life. 11. Which MC do you share the most personality traits with?   Perfect Match MC feels the closest, a lotta the other MCs are leader types, PM MC is like Alright yeah let's kick ass so we can go home and eat ice cream. Feels very purple Hawke. 

TRR MC in her more absurd moments also feels very familiar. I have a story about the fancy hats.  12. Which Choices character do you feel you have the best grasp of in terms of personality? I get Drake bc that fucker is every guy I've befriended who then caught feelings because he's not used to being treated nicely. :| He also has a “the people I care about deserve the things I want more than I do" thing that I am only now realizing feels.... awfully familiar....... :| …...let’s move on. 

13. What’s your favorite Choices pairing to write for? Obviously Maxwell x MC. I love pairs that have a good push and pull, where they can be silly but care about each other.

Sidedish of MC+Drake friendship because my wish fulfillment fantasy is those previously mentioned guys stop ruining a potentially good friendship with their moping and actually be a pal, dammit.  14. What is a pairing/s you hope to start writing for? Like anything else, lmao. More friendship stuff? Hana's only been in one of my fics which bums me out. 

Pretty sure some Damien x MC and Hayden x MC will be coming now that PM2 is happening. Something with more ladies. Eleanor x MC from THOBM! Ghost gf fitting into the modern world has plenty of potential. 15. What do you hope to improve in your writing? Current struggle is I keep trying to write smut and then distracting myself with what happens before/after. Gah. 

More actions / feelings. I feel like too much of my writing comes from dialogue with actions peppered in to meter the rhythm. 

16. Any pet peeves related to writing? So. Words have always been a finicky thing for me. Things will make sense in my head, and then I say them out loud and realize people aren’t seeing things from the same spot. So sharing my writing is A VERY SELF-CONSCIOUS TIME. 

In terms of the actual process: When I just wanna write something self-indulgent and I start actually trying, and then we're like 5 miles off track from the fun part. I also get pretty self-conscious that the OOC police or something is going to come for me. 17. Are you inspired by any IRL experiences when you write? Care to share? A lot of flaws or traumas I'll saddle my characters with are my own but tweaked, because I like the idea that someone can have them and still succeed. 18. Is there any particular piece of work you consider to be your ultimate writing goal? uhhhhh i. don't. know? If I could make someone laugh and cry in the same fic that's golden. 19. Did/do you write for any other fandoms? If so which ones? I have a bunch of drabbles for Dragon Age. I also just checked my ancient FF.net account to make sure the really old stuff is gone and found some Teen Titans and ATLA stuff I completely forgot about. 20. In your spare time (when you’re not writing) what other hobbies do you pursue?   Art mainly, I'm back into digital for the first time since graduation (I majored in animation/illustration) so that's kind of exciting right now. VIDEO GAMES. I like to bake but my housemates have way more self control than I do, meaning I always end up eating most of whatever it is, so that's dangerous. I do like to work out. Share and tag fandom writers! @riseandshinelittleblossom and anyone else who wants to! 

[frejako]

gooeysloth replied to your post “Absinthe, Doll, Statue”

I meant like, visual. Drawings/paintings/digital, etc

answering this late bc i needed to sit on it and think about it

so if we’re being totally honest, a very good chunk of my influences on lineart specifically are hentai artists haha (´-﹏-`；) however, there’s like. regular ass manga artists that i like too. miwa shirow has been one of my biggest influences in the last 10 years; dogs doesn’t have a huge fanbase but it really is one of my favorite mangas. their lines are so perfect and i wanted to be able to emulate that; i had a really hard time not doing sketchy lines/had a lot of feathering going on and they were a BIG influence on making them cleaner madoka kinoshita and all of her paintings made me much less self conscious about making ~cutesy anime shit and i’m glad i don’t really have any inhibitions about it anymore tbh, it feels great 

as for like tumblr artists, @kyammi is amazing and perfect with clean lines and the cutest style, i love everything she does and she’s wonderful @fishnbacon has been another long time influence, since i’ve been on tumblr~ super cute characters with nice proportions/silhouettes, and their use of color is 👌🏼 she’s much more active on twitter but @komunhorangi inspired me to be softer as a person and with my art, as well as being more adventurous with color  other soft artists that i love are @foreversoftcore and @valeriebastille i really can keep going but this is kinda just off the top of my head :v