#its just not a part of the face i recognize as important.... despite them being very much so imo

[autism-corner]

they hate me for my swagger

[jackiepackiee]

𝒟𝑒𝓂𝑜𝓃 𝒮𝓁𝒶𝓎𝑒𝓇

𝐻𝒶𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓇𝒶 𝓇𝑒𝒶𝒸𝓉𝓈 𝓉𝑜 𝑅𝑒𝒶𝒹𝑒𝓇! 𝒟𝒶𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒢𝑒𝓃𝓎𝒶

𝒲/ 𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝐻𝒶𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓇𝒶

GN! Reader expect for Tengens part

𝒮𝒶𝓃𝑒𝓂𝒾 𝒮𝒽𝒾𝓃𝒶𝓏𝓊𝑔𝒶𝓌𝒶 - 𝒲𝒾𝓃𝒹 𝐻𝒶𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓇𝒶

Contrary to a lot of headcanons I’ve seen, Sanemi would be happy about this

Obviously not outwardly smiling and laughing, but a reserved and peaceful relief

He wants the best for his younger, and now only, brother

And he wishes for nothing more than his happiness and has always hoped for a lover for him to make happy

Family that Genya could have that wouldn’t leave or be tainted like he was

Kind and loving

Now… he wasn’t expecting this lover to be a fellow demon slayer

Especially another Hashira

Sanemi and you, before all of this, get along fine

He respects the other hashira, and obviously sees your strength and drive

But he’s not overly kind, he’s just himself and standoffish

When he does find out about this however, don’t expect a huge reaction

Because he doesn’t know how to react

It’s most likely that you wouldn’t tell him outwardly, and Genya doesn’t speak much with him

Whatever the situation may be, he looks at the two of you for a second

Genya, having grown up with him, recognizes the look in his eyes

It’s the look he’d have with their mother and younger siblings

Yet much fainter now

Sanemi is protective, and this new fire is to cradle you two with your feelings

He wants the best for his brother, and you’re perfect for him

Kind, incredibly powerful, and strong willed

Another person to look out for Genya while able to give him the affection Sanemi fails to deliver

For the sake of happiness, let’s say Sanemi and Genya speak more

Sanemi tells Genya to not be an idiot and treat you right

Before a date he’ll sometimes silently approach Genya and fix his little arrangement of flowers with a huff

“Make sure they put them in water…”

As for your relationship with Sanemi

It’s more like you two are enemies and comrades at the same time

You’re upset at his harsh behavior, talking back at him when he berates anyone

but also willing to die for Genya just like he is

Although he’ll make sure that never happens

Unbeknownst to you, you’re now on his protection radar too

How can Genya be at his best without you?

Lucky you! Dating Genya and getting his scary brother as your new bodyguard

𝒢𝒾𝓎ū 𝒯𝑜𝓂𝒾𝑜𝓀𝒶 - 𝒲𝒶𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝐻𝒶𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓇𝒶

Giyuu is, like most things, indifferent

He’s happy for you, and happy that you could find love

It’s admirable how you find time to balance work and a more domestic life

But… he’s him

And won’t pay it too much mind

Not wanting to get into your business

To add a little more to this, let’s make a scenario!

You and Giyu are on a mission

And on this mission you’ve been instructed to assist at a small village

Multiple lower rank slayers have gone missing

Sooooo, you both make the journey

Only to find out Genya is a victim to a lower moon

Along with a bunch of other lower ranks of course

You and Giyu make quick work of the smaller demons, but the lower moon obviously poses a challenge

It’s relatively normal until he sees the demon go directly for Genya

It had read your feelings and went for your most important emotional connection

Just before the sharp nails reached Genya, Giyu severed the hand off

He wasn’t sure what made his body move on its own, but seeing you happily embracing your boyfriend after the battle was enough to pull a small smile onto Giyu’s face

Willing to do anything to assist his fellow hashira

𝒦𝓎ō𝒿𝓊𝓇ō 𝑅𝑒𝓃𝑔𝑜𝓀𝓊 - 𝐹𝓁𝒶𝓂𝑒 𝐻𝒶𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓇𝒶

Despite being only slightly older than you and Genya, Rengoku acts like a big brother

Laughing (in his way, not a mocking way) while patting Genya’s back

Genya of course blushes and acts like it’s something to ignore

Rengokus enthusiastic response makes him embarrassed!

Now this man is probably one of the first to know (because Mitsuri gossiped to him and his brother over lunch)

And while his energy is over the top, he won’t share the secret

He’s a smart man, and very in tune with emotions

So he knows that it can’t be easy for you

Demons are enough of an issue, no more pressure trying to keep a secret as big as a relationship

Now he loves to talk just as much as he loves to listen

You’re like a little sibling and he’ll listen to all your rants

“The way he wore his hair today. It curled up after the rain and..!”

He won’t judge you for your blushing while recounting the events

Instead he’ll try his best to make that situation happen again

Genya happens to have his hair like that everyday now?

It’s because Rengoku told him that leaving his hair the way it is after air drying is healthy!

(He totally lied, he just knows you think it’s cutest right after it dries)

And Genya believes him, always taking the advice

Which leads to cuter and kinder Genya and more often occasions of you swooning

𝒯𝑒𝓃𝑔𝑒𝓃 𝒰𝓏𝓊𝒾 - 𝒮𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹 𝐻𝒶𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓇𝒶

Oh boy…

You’re both in for a ride

Tengen is probably also one of the first people to know

The man has three wives, he knows what it looks like when two idiot teens are in love

Especially when one of them is you who’s never been distracted from training expect when Genya is with you

And with Genya who seems to train even harder to not only impress Sanemi but now you too

Speaking of his wives, they’re probably the reason you know they Tengen found out

It was some “secret flashy plan”

It was early in you and Genyas relationship

And Suma, Hina, and Makio suddenly snuck up on you and stanched you away into the sound hashita estate

They gave you a makeover

Makio and Suma picked out a pretty outfit while Hina gently did your hair and a little bit of makeup

The entire time you four all gossiped, which ended up in your blushing while blabbering about Genya and your early stages of dating

Genya… he wasn’t so lucky

Tengen stole him away and was on his “make over” duty

Not that Genya and Tengen are bad in their respective rights, it’s just…

Genya is a hard around the edges boy and Tengen is Tengen

But he eventually cracked and gave him some serious advice that wasn’t just “I have three wives, I’m a ladies man”

All while helping him find an outfit that isn’t his uniform

“Girls… they’re less complicated than you think. And that one, she’s in for the hell of it. So you have to treat her nice, and she’ll do the same. You’re both good kids, you’ll be fine.”

This all leads to you looking like an angel by your makeover and him blushing furiously

And… Tengens plan may have just set up the date when you two had your first kiss!

𝒮𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑜𝒷𝓊 𝒦𝑜𝒸𝒽ō - 𝐼𝓃𝓈𝑒𝒸𝓉 𝐻𝒶𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓇𝒶

Shinbou is very intelligent

She knows patterns and human behavior

And she’s familiar with Genya after his demon consumption

So it’s very obvious to her what’s going on

Especially after he’s the first to visit you and visa versa

She remembers the day she really found out though… wasn’t a good one

Genya had eaten demon flesh again, even if instructed by everyone to stop

Gyomei said it was immoral, Sanemi said it was stupid, and Shinbou said it was unhealthy

But you, you hated it the most

Seeing him become something he’s not

You loved him, not a demon

And hated the danger it proved

So when this night came, hell broke loose

He had eaten demon and transformed for the night

It’s just that you saw him right before sunrise

And we’re unsure if he had transformed back into a human before the sun

Leading you to leave the battlefield, covered in bruises and pushing past every slayer who tried to speak to you

When you met Shinbou, you started crying

Genuine tears one only cried after the loss of their life

Being herself, she hugged you

And tried to help by inquiring your emotions

“G-Genya! Sniffle Is he here? He was still a demon minutes before sunrise.”

She understands and ushers you someplace

Genya is fast asleep, making a cute face as if he was dreaming

You never outwardly told her, but she’ll never forget the fear at the thought of losing him, and the relief in your eyes and you feel to the ground in tears at his survival

𝑀𝓊𝒾𝒸𝒽𝒾𝓇ō 𝒯𝑜𝓀𝒾𝓉ō - 𝑀𝒾𝓈𝓉 𝐻𝒶𝓈𝒽𝑒𝓇

Unbothered king

Now he’s friends with Genya but both are rather reserved people

Not the type to share much about their lives and feelings

Let’s pretend this is after his memory is restored

Muichiro is a good kid, and your friend as well

But is pretty unaware of romance and honesty not that interested

Not that he won’t listen

You could talk him ear off about anything and he’d hum in acknowledgment

He just doesn’t have much input

You three do hang out together sometimes

If you’re more extroverted it works well

You pull them along to do fun things

You three really getting to act your age and mess around

If you’re more introverted this is one of the chillest groups ever

When Genya is around people he trusts (his lover and friend who are both Hashira) he never yells or acts over the top

He’s actually rather quiet just like Muichiro, especially when in his presence

The one real involvement of Mui in romance is Genya asking if the flowers he picked are good and Mui nodding even though he knows absolutely nothing about gift giving or flowers

𝑀𝒾𝓉𝓈𝓊𝓇𝒾 𝒦𝒶𝓃𝓇𝑜𝒿𝒾 - 𝐿𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝐻𝒶𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓇𝒶

Either your best dream or worst nightmare

She is more enthusiastic about this relationship than you are!

Expect weekly letters inquiring your dating status

Have you had your first kiss?

He held you hand?

You had a sleepover?!?

And the second she sees you she’s bouncing in excitement

Pulling you to the nearest place to sit and interrogating you

For being the love hashira, she’s pretty clueless

She always wants to know every cute detail

“You kissed his cheek? The scar or the other side? Did he blush? He always blushes around you!”

This is what I mean by dream or nightmare

Either you get embarrassed about the question or love the gossip about your lover

She’s the more supportive, giving you amazing date ideas

Even if most of them have to do with eating

She’s the first to know about your first kiss and this girl wants the WHOLE story

She definitely tells Obanai too (if you’re okay with it)

She doesn’t talk to Genya much though :(

Especially since the first and only time she tried to ask about your relationship his face lit up bright red and he seemed to freeze

“All I did was ask about your relationship and he didn’t respond! The conversation was fine before that!”

But he is never surprised when he gets a visit from her crow with a letter of all your new favorite foods, places, and items

She’s an excellent gift giver and wants to help him

As if he didn’t already know all of that, he genuinely appreciates the effort

This girl is your biggest fan!

𝒢𝓎ō𝓂𝑒𝒾 𝐻𝒾𝓂𝑒𝒿𝒾𝓂𝒶 - 𝒮𝓉𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝐻𝒶𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓇𝒶

Gyomei knew first

He’s a wise older man and a observant mentor

And while you may be off most of the time, Genya is always training under him

And he doesn’t fail to notice Genya always hitting that much harder whenever you are gone on a long mission

I’m saying this man knew Genya had a crush before Genya knew that himself

And he was moved, brought to tears and not paying attention to Genyas huffs of embarrassment

Genya would never yell at him of course

Gyomei is a smart man

And with that he knows a lot about kids (he considers you both kids)

So he’s well aware of your dancing around your feelings

And that upsets him

Your time on this earth is very likely to be short as demon slayers, so you both shouldn’t be wasting it

That is why, as the oldest hashira, he gets some plans in motion

Why are you suddenly on more missions with Genya?

Why do you both end up at the same wisteria house?

Why is it that you both happen to have the same days off?

Gyomei Himejima is why baby

He wants what’s best for the people under his care, even you can take care of yourself

And if he has to put in some forced proximity? So be it

𝐼𝑔𝓊𝓇𝑜 𝒪𝒷𝒶𝓃𝒶𝒾 - 𝒮𝑒𝓇𝓅𝑒𝓃𝓉 𝐻𝒶𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓇𝒶

Obanai does care

Not some bullshit of him being uninterested with other people’s lives

He sees you as a child (you’re obviously around Genya’s age) and knows that only so many things could make a child in the demon slayer corps happy

He knows neither of you have had good lives

If you had, you wouldn’t be in this damn job

That being said, with how withdrawn he is you’d probably think he didn’t even know you and Genya were an item

But he’s observant

And cares for his fellow hashira just like everyone else

He won’t have much to do with anything

But best believe he listens to both Sanemi complain and Mitsuri babble about you two

Sanemi is trying to seem tough

[bamsara]

Howdy! I just want to take a moment (or two…or three..yeah this is longer than I thought it would be) to talk about your characterization of Narinder in your TRoD fanfic, specifically his grievance over what he perceived the lamb to be and betrayel.

I like to think Narinder repeatedly calling Lambert a traitor (I think at least once a chapter actually lmaoo) over and over, is trying not so subtly to avoid thinking about the why behind the betrayel and the pain that comes with it. Especially since he'd already spent an eternity wondering about the previous betrayal of his siblings. How emotionally torturous it must feel to be in this cycle of rejection, from the people he depended on, even now from his own followers who don't recognize him. And then, when he and Lambert finally appear to be on the same page about something, Lambert goes and spares Leshy, reminding Narinder once again that his divine commands hold as much weight on the Lamb as they will decide to hold.

It isn't up to Narinder to decide how the lamb will act, as much as he wants to. It's one thing for Narinder to have people listening to him, but it's another to actually be heard, and after an eternity of silence during his imprisonment he's absolutely desperate for some form of control and impact. For someone to truly hear him. Which is a shame, because Lambert does, but Narinder cannot recognize it since they don't always give Narinder what he wants (since being a God is all about what you want), and instead are more interested in giving him what he needs.

I assume at this point, after being revived into a mortal form, he's actively given up on trying to understand why everyone just keeps "betraying/rejecting him" and would rather use his own inferences of their behavior as explanation, once again, for that feeling of control, since he's utterly mortified of hearing those words come from their mouths instead of his own (doesn't help that he can actually read minds either). He'd rather kill his siblings than hear the why (not saying the siblings were justified ofc, but understanding one's motivations is, y'know, important to effectively communicating with them in a way that's healthy) Despite needing to be heard, he's internalized that many won't bother listening unless he has control over them in some way, like he did before when he was powerful. When he mutilated his siblings, had Lambert create a cult in his name, being heard isn't just an emotional or mental aspect to his wellbeing, but is literally part of his power as well.

He was/is a God, he's used to followers prostrating themselves just to hear the time of day, giving their all to listen, hear, and follow him. It's why he struggles to separate the aspects that are ingrained in a follower, from those who are a friend. Unless they're also God he can't comprehend much of a difference, and expects them to be of the same or similar standing. He was friends with Lambert when he was Godly, yes, but he still saw himself as above Lambert, and expected them to lay down their life to him like a follower would. Yes, Narinder didn't want to cut them out of his own life in their death, but still expected them to just..die for him. He didn't ***just*** see Lambert as a friend, he saw them as a friend that was also his follower. An exceptional follower he loved, but not an exception. There was a power imbalance that Lambert now sees.

It's why Narinder's utterly baffled and offended, fearful even, at Lambert, someone he deemed as "traitorous", investing their time into still trying to talk to him..listen to him.. for virtually no gain…at his lowest point...when he himself is now "lesser".

Narinder tries so hard to not become invested in those he deems as "lesser" or "traitors" but its near fucking impossible, because like it or not, his desires and needs are so inherently mortal and genuine (desire for power, companionship, love, understanding, control, etc) that if he doesn't close himself off, he may have to face falling into the same pit of disappointment and failed expectations he fell in with Lambert/his siblings once again. So he doesn't, and hides away in his shack until Lambert comes knocking.

And now, as the cherry on top of this emotionally constipated bundle of angsty cat woes, he has to live and breathe as the very thing he deemed as "lesser". Being forced to invest in these mortal needs, now that they're a necessary component to his survival. This is also why I believe he goes on these little crusades with Lambert in the first place as well. Not only because they return to him a sense of routine and normalcy (also pining, coughocoughghhrbogh who said that?), but also because it allows Narinder to forget about investing in his own wellbeing for a while.

He was a God, he didn't have to go through the work it took to just do your laundry, eat, brush your teeth, or take care of yourself since he never had to. The thrill of adventure and battle, the adrenaline rush of near-death experiences, can't hold a candle to the mundanity of work. So when he's not crusading, he just..sleeps..wanders around..the fact he's not socially accepted by his own followers doesn't encourage him either. I mean fuck, he such a complete wreck after Lambert spared Leshy, he crusaded and neglected his health for so long he passed out.

His life is all work now, investing in himself, in others, being forced to have his ego get knocked down a few pegs, and care again despite how much it hurts. None of these things are "given", Lambert's love is not just given (as in, blindly follow) and that's what I believe will be an eventual "eureka" moment for him.

Living is work, but it's worth working for

He ain't hot shit anymore, but that's ok.

Anyway, sorry for the long-winded ramble this was all actually just a very roundabout and ineffective ploy for me to talk about how I relate the song "Don't Speak" by No Doubt, to your Narinder's character. Happy belated New Year, hope you're doing well. :]

LKSDHGKLSDHGD HELLO. This is such a well articulated analyzation of Narinder holy moly, I hope you don't mind me answering this with not much to add on because WOW I'm really vibing with your takes on him and I wanted the world to read this too slkdghlksdhgs. I have a lot of my own takes on Narinder and how he'll progress to be as the story comes along, and eventaully some of this will be talked about in TROD either with the lamb and/or with other characters, particularly Ratau, as he comes to an understanding that others are understanding.

I have not had coffee yet this morning but I could go on for a day and a half about Narinder being used to getting what he wants as a god and the entire process of how actaully lonley and isolating it can be to be continously pedastaled and worshipped verses being on equal, human level with other beings and how long it takes for him to realize that.

HAPPY BELATED NEW YEAR

[nayziiz]

No Way | LN4

Summary: Lando Norris, an F1 driver for McLaren Racing, faces persistent attention on his single status. In an attempt to appease fans and quell rumours, his management suggests a fake relationship with a popular Portuguese model. However, Lando's PR manager, Natalie, disagrees, believing fans would see through the ploy. As an alternative, Lando's management notices the genuine bond between him and Natalie and proposes they feign a relationship for authenticity. Initially hesitant, they agree, given their existing friendship and professional connection. The fake relationship takes an unexpected turn as Lando and Natalie grapple with burgeoning real feelings, attempting unsuccessfully to conceal their growing emotions.

Pairing: Lando Norris x Original Character (Natalie)

Warnings: Mentions of physical and emotional abuse; SA; fluff; crash

Masterlist

CHAPTER 8

The paddock buzzes with excitement, the air charged with the fervour of the qualifying day. Fans are scattered throughout, their enthusiasm palpable as they eagerly seek out their favourite drivers for a momentary connection. For Natalie, the team's PR representative, this bustling atmosphere is both a spectacle and a challenge.

As she navigates through the crowd, fans stop her and request photos and autographs from Lando, the team's charismatic driver. It's a routine part of the job that Natalie finds somewhat tedious. She understands the importance of fan interaction, recognizing that their unwavering support is crucial for the team and the sport as a whole. However, her professional instinct often urges Lando to hasten to his car, focusing on the impending race rather than engaging in prolonged fan interactions.

Despite her slight impatience, Natalie acknowledges the significance of these moments for the fans. It's a chance for them to connect with their racing idol, to capture a memory that will last a lifetime. Lando, ever the amiable and accommodating personality, graciously takes the time to fulfil their requests. The constant interruptions can be trying, but Natalie realises that this fan engagement is a vital aspect of maintaining the team's rapport with its supporters.

Earlier in the day, a barber paid a visit to the team's garage to tidy up Lando's unruly curls. Natalie observes this routine ritual with a mixture of amusement and affection. The sight of Lando in the barber's chair, his wildly curly hair being meticulously trimmed and shaved, is a spectacle she enjoys. It's not just about the physical transformation; it's the subtle nuances in Lando's demeanour that captivate her.

As the barber works, Lando tilts his head from side to side, a playful gesture that showcases his relaxed and carefree attitude. The act of getting his hair groomed becomes a performance in itself, with his jawline popping teasingly, creating a lighthearted banter between him and Natalie.

Her mind, however, is momentarily diverted from the racing ambience to the memory of Lando's freshly shaved sides. The image lingers in her thoughts, and a playful smile tugs at the corners of her lips. She contemplates the practicality of his new haircut, realising that there will be less hair to playfully tug onto when they share intimate moments. It's a fleeting and somewhat cheeky thought that adds a touch of personal delight to the professional whirlwind of the racing environment.

As they finally reach the haven of Lando's driver's room, Natalie takes a moment to catch her breath. The transition from the bustling paddock to the more private sanctuary of the driver's room provides a brief respite from the external chaos. The air in the room is filled with the scent of adrenaline and anticipation, creating an atmosphere that is both charged and focused.

“How do you have so much energy this morning?” She bluntly asks as she starts handing him caps to sign.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fact that my girlfriend kissed me awake this morning.” He teases as he scribbles his signature on the caps.

“You just love saying that, don’t you?” Natalie chuckles. Lando, not missing a beat, glances up at her with a sly grin.

“And, you love hearing it, don’t you, baby?” He teases further, enjoying the light-hearted exchange.

“Stop it, silly.” Natalie whispers, playfully nudging his shoulder with her hip. 

As the banter subsides, they seamlessly transition back to their official duties, the caps now adorned with Lando's signature.

“How’re you feeling about quali today?” Natalie inquires, shifting the focus to the impending qualifying session.

The teasing banter momentarily takes a back seat to the more serious aspect of their roles in the racing world. Lando's demeanour shifts, becoming more contemplative as he considers the question.

“Confident.” He replies with a determined nod. “The car feels good, and I’ve got a good feeling about today. Oscar and I need to keep the momentum going.”

As if on cue, Oscar makes his entrance, tapping his knuckles against the open door with a playful "Knock knock." His presence injects a light-hearted energy into the room.

“Did I hear my name?” He asks, clearly intrigued.

“You did. Lando was just saying you better not start at the back of the grid tomorrow.” Natalie jokes.

“Oh, no way. You know we’ve got the third row locked down between the two of us.” Oscar retorts.

“I like your confidence.” Natalie laughs.

Natalie and Lando turn their attention as Lily appears behind Oscar, innocently waving at them.

“Good, you’re here! I was going to text you to find out if you’d like to go to dinner tonight if you’re not busy?” Natalie asks her.

“That sounds great.” Lily, pleased with the invitation, agrees with a sweet smile.

“And, the boys can join if they’re bored enough.” Natalie assures, noticing Lando's deadpan reaction to her spontaneous invitation to Lily.assures Lando when she sees his deadpan reaction to her invite to Lily.

“Ah, I see how it is. Inviting Lily to dinner and just assuming we'll tag along because we might be 'bored'?" He feigns a hurt expression, earning a playful roll of the eyes from Natalie.

“Oh, come on. What else could the two of us possibly be doing without our girlfriends anyway?” Oscar chimes in, adding to the banter.

The paddock erupts in cheers and jubilation as the qualifying session for McLaren unfolds brilliantly. Lando, displaying exceptional skill and determination, secures pole position for the upcoming race—his fourth pole position of the season. The accomplishment is a testament to both his talent and the team's dedication to pushing the limits of their performance.

Oscar, not to be overshadowed, puts up an impressive performance as well, securing the third position on the grid. The McLaren crew is elated, their hard work and meticulous preparation evident in the outstanding results. The garage is filled with the sounds of celebration, the team members sharing high-fives and exchanging smiles, their confidence soaring.

The crew, convinced of the team's potential, started discussing the strategies and fine-tuning details for the race day. The prospect of Lando securing his second F1 win is a source of great anticipation and excitement among the McLaren ranks. The garage, moments ago filled with the adrenaline of the qualifying triumph, now becomes a hive of activity as the team channels their energy into preparing for the race that lies ahead.

As the crew rushes out to join the jubilation and congratulate Lando and Oscar on their exceptional qualifying results, Natalie chooses to stay behind in the garage. While the sounds of celebration fill the air outside, she remains surrounded by the echoes of the team's achievements within the confines of the garage.

Her face adorned with the biggest smile, Natalie is a picture of pride and contentment. She watches the live telemetry and monitors the team communications, staying connected to the unfolding celebrations while savouring the intimate moment in the garage. This is a familiar scene – the culmination of countless hours of hard work, dedication, and the shared pursuit of excellence.

Natalie knows that for Lando, this pole position holds a special significance. It represents more than just a starting position on the grid; it symbolises the culmination of relentless effort, the thirst for victory, and the unwavering commitment to excellence. Lando has been fighting valiantly for that elusive race win, and Natalie senses that this could be the moment when the stars align.

Her pride is not just for the team but especially for Lando. She recognizes the determination in his eyes, the resilience at every turn, and the skill that has brought him to this point. Natalie knows it's his time, a moment that feels long overdue. The smile on her face reflects not just the thrill of the current achievement but the anticipation of what lies ahead on race day.

Lando is lost among the sea of people as his McLaren team swarms him and Oscar. Despite being overwhelmed by his performance and the people grabbing and pulling at him, there’s one set of hands and eyes he doesn’t see anywhere. Once the excitement dies down, Lando pulls off his helmet and balaclava before rushing into the garage to find Natalie eagerly awaiting his arrival.

Amidst the sea of people celebrating and the overwhelming swarm of the McLaren team, Lando finds himself lost in the midst of the jubilation. The cheers, high-fives, and congratulations from the team members and well-wishers engulf him, momentarily making it difficult for him to discern individual faces in the crowd. Despite the joy and chaos surrounding him, there's a subtle awareness that one set of hands and eyes is missing.

Once the initial excitement begins to subside, Lando takes a moment to catch his breath. As he pulls off his helmet and balaclava, a sense of curiosity and longing tugs at him. He looks around, scanning the crowd, but the one person he's been unconsciously seeking remains elusive.

Driven by an instinct that transcends the adrenaline of his success, Lando makes his way back into the garage. The familiar surroundings offer a temporary escape from the chaos outside, and there, eagerly awaiting his arrival, is Natalie. She stands in a quieter corner of the garage, a calm presence amid the residual excitement.

Their eyes meet, and a smile spreads across Lando's face as he rushes towards her. The noise of the celebration fades into the background as the two share a moment of connection. In that instant, the garage becomes a haven where the intensity of the race and the exuberance of victory meet the personal joy of shared accomplishment.

Lando's joy radiates as he pulls Natalie into his arms, a genuine and infectious smile lighting up his face. With an exuberant burst of energy, he swings her around, and her laughter echoes through the garage, a harmonious melody to the excitement of the moment.

“Pole position, baby!” Lando exclaims, his voice filled with elation. The exclamation catches the attention of the mechanics and engineers who are still basking in the afterglow of the team's success.

As Lando revels in the joy of the pole position and the celebratory moment with Natalie, there's a subtle shift in the dynamics of their relationship. Despite having maintained a low-key approach to their displays of affection during their months of pretending to be in love for the public eye, Lando senses the significance of this particular moment.

Feeling an overwhelming desire to make a statement and officially claim Natalie as his girlfriend, Lando decides to go big. In the midst of the cheers and applause from the team, he gently sets Natalie down and takes a step back, looking at her with a twinkle in his eye.

With a mischievous grin, Lando decides to break from their usual understated approach. He sweeps Natalie into a passionate kiss, the kind that speaks volumes about the genuine affection between them. The display of affection catches the attention of those around them, including the mechanics and engineers who momentarily pause in surprise before breaking into cheers and supportive applause.

At that moment, amidst the whirlwind of emotions and the celebratory atmosphere, Lando takes a bold step to publicly declare what has been brewing between them for months. It's not just a victory celebration; it's a proclamation of their connection, an acknowledgement that goes beyond the pretence for the public eye.

As they pull away from the kiss, Lando's gaze remains locked onto Natalie's, a silent affirmation of the depth of their bond.

“You’re incredible!” Natalie gushes, her eyes reflecting genuine admiration and pride.

“You’re my lucky charm, baby.” He declares, his words carrying a warmth that goes beyond the celebratory atmosphere.responds, his smile not faltering.

“I’m so proud of you.” Natalie continues, her voice filled with sincerity.

Natalie seamlessly transitions back into her professional role, whisking Lando away from the exuberant team and guiding him toward the media pen for interviews. The adrenaline of the qualifying success still lingers, but now it's time for Lando to articulate his thoughts and emotions for the eager audience.

The interviewer directs the first question to Lando, “Walk us through how you’re feeling right now.”

Lando takes a moment to gather his thoughts, a mix of excitement and gratitude evident in his expression.

“I’m overwhelmed, you know. This isn’t a track we’re normally great on, so having both teammates in the top three is insane. I’m ecstatic, though. This is truly a testament to the work the team has put in and the upgrades they’ve brought in. They deserve every ounce of success.” Lando explains.

“What does this mean for you tomorrow?” The interviewer continues, probing into Lando's expectations for the race day.

“A win, hopefully. It’s been a long time coming for me to get my next win, but they say good things take time. As always, I’m grateful to the fans who have supported me all these years and the team who keeps pushing, but I’m even more motivated to get this win because I’ll get to share it with someone special.” Lando's eyes light up with determination as he responds.

As Lando speaks to the interviewer, Natalie looks up at him with a mixture of surprise and flattery. It's a moment she hadn't anticipated – Lando openly acknowledging her in the context of a race or qualifying interview. While he's been vocal about their connection in more relaxed settings, such as podcasts or late-night shows, this public acknowledgment feels different.

The cameras, attuned to the dynamics unfolding in the media pen, catch Natalie in that unguarded moment. Her expression reveals a mix of genuine surprise and a subtle blush, a testament to the unexpected but appreciated recognition from Lando.

- THE NEXT DAY -

As the race unfolds, tension and excitement grip the audience, and the commentator's voice echoes the sentiments of everyone watching.

“This has been a nail-biting race!” Martin Brundle exclaims, capturing the drama and intensity of the on-track action.

The commentator's words resonate with the heart-pounding moments, close encounters, and strategic manoeuvres that have defined the race. Each lap adds a layer of suspense, keeping spectators on the edge of their seats as the drivers navigate the challenges of the circuit.

The unpredictable nature of motorsports, coupled with the high stakes of the race, intensifies the atmosphere. The commentator's exclamation becomes a shared sentiment, connecting viewers worldwide in their collective anticipation of the race's outcome.

Amid the nail-biting excitement, Lando, supported by the relentless efforts of the McLaren team, races with determination and focus. The pole position, achieved during the qualifying session, becomes a crucial advantage, but the unpredictable nature of Formula 1 ensures that every moment is fraught with possibilities. After a disastrous pitstop thanks to being slowed by a pitting Mercedes, Lando has dropped down several positions and is fighting to regain the race lead.

As the race intensifies, Natalie stands in front of the screens, her nerves palpable as she watches Lando fiercely fight for third and then second position. Max, Lando's father, Adam, and Natalie share the same anxious stance, their eyes fixed on the unfolding drama on the track.

The tension in the room is thick as the top five cars approach the hairpin turn. The atmosphere is charged with anticipation, and each passing moment feels like an eternity. The spectators hold their breath, knowing that any slight misstep could alter the course of the race.

In a cruel twist of fate, the cars around Lando collide, creating a domino effect of chaos. The impact is forceful, sending the McLaren in third position spinning into the air and ultimately crashing into a wall. The screens capture the dramatic scene, freezing the heart-stopping moment in time.

Natalie, Max, and Adam watch in disbelief as the race takes an unexpected turn. The collective gasp in the room is drowned out by the sounds of the collision on the screens. The elation that fills the air during the earlier stages of the race is replaced by a sombre atmosphere, and the gravity of the situation sinks in.

“Oh, dear, lots of contact around that hairpin corner. And, there’s a massive accident taking out the top field. Looks like there’s a car on its head against the wall there.” Brundle reports, the gravity of the situation evident in his tone.

“Oh, my God, no.” Natalie's gasp of horror echoes through the room as the cameras capture the papaya-coloured car smashed against the wall, its roof now the unintended point of contact with the track. “Oh, my God.”

Her eyes remain fixated on the devastating image on the screen, a vivid representation of the brutal reality of motorsports.

The room falls into a stunned silence as the gravity of the situation sinks in. The once-promising race has taken a tragic turn, leaving everyone in the room to grapple with the harsh reality of the risks inherent in the sport. Natalie's exclamation resonates with the collective concern and sorrow in the room.

The cameras, in a sombre shift, redirect their focus away from the scene of the accident. Instead, they capture the cars re-entering the pitlane as the race is red-flagged. The visual transition from the chaotic aftermath to the orderly return to the pits underscores the abrupt shift in the dynamics of the race.

In the heavy atmosphere of the room, Max, understanding the weight of the situation, gives Natalie a reassuring tug on the shoulder. The gesture is a silent acknowledgement of the shared concern for Lando's well-being and a comforting attempt to provide support in the uncertain moments that follow.

As they wait anxiously to hear about Lando's condition, the room remains in eery silence. The reassurance from Max offers a brief moment of solace amidst the worry and anticipation.

“Lando, are you OK?” The tension in the room reaches a peak as Lando's race engineer desperately calls over the radio

“Oh, my God. He’s not moving.” Natalie breathes, her worry palpable. “He’s not moving.”

“Lando, are you OK?” The engineer calls again as he turns back to stare at the speechless crew in the garage from the pit wall.

The seconds feel like an eternity until, finally, a response crackles over the radio.

“Yeah.” Lando groans, his voice strained and filled with pain. The relief in the room is palpable, but Natalie's concern doesn't fully dissipate as she hears him moan in pain.

The sudden silence descends upon the McLaren garage as the safety marshals rush out to the impacted cars, bringing the race to an abrupt and solemn halt. The atmosphere is tense, with an air of concern hanging over the team as they await updates on both drivers involved in the accident.

Oscar, having emerged from his car relatively unscathed, rushes over to Lando's car. The quiet in the garage is broken only by the distant sounds of the safety marshals and the hum of the halted race. Oscar kneels beside Lando's car, a palpable worry etched on his face.

A few seconds later, Oscar throws up a thumb, a gesture that now carries immense weight in the motorsport world. The collective breath held in the McLaren garage is released, but the air remains heavy with concern. Oscar's indication, while positive, also hints at the severity of Lando's condition.

The team now huddled in a silent show of solidarity, exchanges glances filled with a mix of relief and lingering apprehension. The familiar camaraderie that defines the McLaren family takes on a new depth as they rally around their teammates in a moment of shared concern.

As Natalie lets go of a breath she didn't realize she was holding, tears stream down her face. The gravity of the situation hits her, and the emotional release is palpable. The screens, which had been a source of exhilaration and excitement just moments ago, now convey a scene of sombre intensity as the safety team works to extract Lando from his car.

Adam, recognizing the emotional toll on Natalie, pulls her into a half-hug. The gesture is a silent reassurance and a shared acknowledgement of the concern for Lando's well-being. Together, they watch with bated breath as the safety team carefully carries out the extraction process and loads Lando into an ambulance.

The paramedic fires questions at a disoriented Lando, assessing his condition in the aftermath of the accident.

“Are you in any pain?” She inquires, her trained focus on gathering crucial information.

“My fingers are tingling, and my head hurts.” Lando quickly responds, providing insights into the sensations he's experiencing. The paramedic, now armed with valuable information, continues her evaluation. “Please, can I see my girlfriend? Please.”

As the medical team continues to evaluate Lando, a call comes through to his race engineer. The urgency in the voice is palpable as the engineer radios Natalie, delivering the crucial message.

“Nats, he's asking to see you. Please make your way down to the medical centre; they're on their way there now.” The engineer relays, the words carrying a mix of concern and the need for immediate action.

Natalie, her emotions already on edge, nods in acknowledgement. Without hesitation, she begins to make her way down to the medical centre. The atmosphere in the McLaren garage remains heavy with anticipation, the concern for Lando's well-being eclipsing any lingering thoughts about the race.

The call serves as a stark reminder of the intimate connection that exists within the racing community. In moments of vulnerability, the professional boundaries blur, making room for the personal relationships that underpin the dynamics of the team. Natalie, now carrying the weight of both her professional and personal roles, must navigate through the paddock with a sense of urgency, her thoughts consumed by the well-being of the McLaren driver who has asked for her presence in a moment of distress.

She arrives just in time to witness the medical team offloading Lando from the ambulance on a stretcher. The scene is a mix of controlled urgency as they wheel him into the medical bay. Natalie's heart pounds in her chest as she takes in the gravity of the situation, the racing world momentarily fading into the background as her primary concern shifts to Lando's well-being.

The medical centre, usually a hub of activity during race weekends, now becomes a temporary sanctuary where the focus is solely on the health of the drivers. Natalie, with a mix of professional composure and personal worry, follows the medical team into the bay, ready to offer whatever support Lando might need in this vulnerable moment.

“Nattie!” Lando's voice, pained but determined, calls out for Natalie.

Without hesitation, she rushes to his side as he lies on the stretcher. The urgency in his plea adds a layer of vulnerability to the high-stakes atmosphere of the medical centre.

“I'm here. I'm here. You're fine; you'll be fine.” Natalie reassures him, her voice a steady anchor in the uncertainty. As she walks alongside his stretcher, she holds his hand, offering a tangible connection that transcends the clinical setting.

As Lando is wheeled into the medical bay, Natalie remains by his side, her demeanour a mix of frantic worry and determination. She's out of breath, but her focus remains on Lando, her grip on his hand unwavering. In this moment of uncertainty, the connection between them serves as a source of reassurance.

Feeling Lando squeeze her hand, Natalie glances down to meet his bloodshot eyes. The shared gaze conveys a multitude of emotions – fear, relief, and a deep-seated trust in the bond they've formed amidst the challenges of the racing world.

“It's okay, Lan. You're okay.” Natalie reassures him once again, her words a soothing balm amid the chaotic scene.

The tears continue to stream down Natalie's face, an involuntary reaction to the overwhelming emotions coursing through her. The gravity of the situation, coupled with the fear and concern for Lando, manifests in the raw display of her emotions. However, as the medical team intensifies their efforts to tend to him, Natalie finds herself forced away, the urgency of the medical procedures taking precedence.

The medical team, focused on their critical tasks, guides Natalie away from the immediate vicinity as they hover over Lando. With precision and speed, they rip open his fire suit and attach pads onto his chest, their actions a testament to the urgency and meticulousness required in moments of crisis.

Natalie, though physically removed from the immediate medical procedures, remains a silent observer. Her heart pounds with every step away from Lando, the overwhelming desire to be close to him and offer comfort evident in her eyes.

“Hi, Lando. I'm Dr. Zimmerman. We need to take you to the nearest hospital for scans to rule out any internal injuries, is that fine?” The doctor informs him, presenting a straightforward plan for further assessment.

“Please let me see my girlfriend.” Lando, in his vulnerable state, pleads with the doctor.

The desire for the familiar presence of Natalie serves as a testament to the emotional anchor she represents in this critical moment.

“In a minute.” The doctor replies, his focus unwavering as they continue to run several checks and administer a relaxant to aid in the necessary medical procedures.

As the medical team continues their procedures on Lando, Natalie is left watching helplessly from the side of the medical bay, her panic palpable. The sounds of medical equipment and urgent conversations create a disorienting backdrop as she grapples with the weight of the situation.

Every instinct in Natalie screams to be closer, to offer comfort and support, yet the clinical efficiency of the medical procedures keeps her at a distance. The vulnerability of the moment intensifies, and she is left to navigate the emotional turmoil while restrained by the boundaries of the medical bay.

The contrast between the urgency of the medical scene and Natalie's powerless position on the sidelines underscores the challenges faced by those connected to the racing world. In this moment, the usual composure of the McLaren PR representative crumbles under the weight of personal concern and fear for the well-being of someone she cares deeply about.

“Miss Feldt?” A nurse asks, causing Natalie to snap her head to look at her. “They’re getting Mr Norris ready to be transported to the hospital. McLaren have arranged for a car to take you there as well. Please follow me.”

- LATER AT THE HOSPITAL -

“Natalie!” Adam's voice echoes through the hospital corridor, drawing Natalie's attention.

As she spins around, she is enveloped in a tight hug by Lando's father and best friend. The embrace carries a mix of relief and shared concern, acknowledging the emotional toll the recent events have taken.

“They won't let me see him.” She tells them, her voice hoarse, the tears still evident in her eyes. The weight of the situation, coupled with the frustration of being kept away from Lando, surfaces in her words.

As Adam disappears down the corridor, Max steps in to console Natalie, offering a supportive presence. They share a moment of shared concern, the weight of the situation evident in their expressions.

A few minutes later, Adam returns with a doctor in tow. The appearance of the medical professional adds a new layer of anticipation to the atmosphere. Natalie's eyes fixate on the doctor, hoping for information about Lando's condition. The doctor, with a composed demeanour, becomes the bearer of crucial updates.

“Hi, I’m Dr Schultz. You can go in and see Lando.” The doctor informs Natalie, providing a pathway to reunite with him. She nods in gratitude, her steps following the doctor as they make their way toward Lando's room. “Please follow me. He’s been sedated. He came in complaining about his head hurting and his fingers tingling. The MRI and CAT scan came back clear, but we are worried about bruising around his cervical spine. We’ll be keeping him overnight for observation and should be discharged tomorrow after a final evaluation.”

The doctor stops outside the door to the hospital room and opens it for Natalie to enter. As she steps in, her eyes find Lando lying in the hospital bed, connected to multiple machines that emit a rhythmic symphony of beeps and hums. The sight of the medical equipment emphasizes the gravity of the situation, and concern washes over Natalie once again.

Lando, sedated and resting, becomes the focal point of the room. Natalie takes a moment to absorb the scene before approaching the bedside. The quiet beeping of the machines serves as a backdrop to the fragile stillness in the room.

“It looks far scarier than it is.” The doctor reassures Natalie as she enters the room, acknowledging the intimidating array of medical equipment surrounding Lando.

The comforting words offer a perspective shift, reminding Natalie that the visual complexity of the machines doesn't necessarily correlate with the severity of Lando's condition.

“The sedation should wear off in the next half hour. If you have any questions, please let one of the nurses know to contact me; I'd be happy to assist.” The doctor adds before disappearing again, leaving Natalie with a sense of guidance and support.

With a deep breath, she pulls a chair close to the bed, a mix of relief and worry etched on her face. Natalie takes Lando's hand gently, offering a silent reassurance through the simple act of touch.

The contrast between the usual vitality of the McLaren driver and his current state is stark. Max and Adam, while remaining at a respectful distance, share a moment of shared concern, their eyes reflecting the weight of the situation.

“Fuck, that was a bad crash.” Max's comment about the severity of the crash hangs in the air, prompting Adam to nudge him as a subtle reminder of the sensitivity of the situation.

“Not now, Max.” Adam whispers, his focus on providing support in the present moment.

“He sounded like he was in so much pain.” Natalie speaks softly as she caresses Lando's hand. “I’ve never seen anything like that happen before.”

“It could have been so much worse.” Max adds, attempting to provide a perspective of gratitude. However, Adam, keenly aware of the delicate balance needed at this moment, scolds Max once again. “Alright, sorry. Let me get you guys some coffee.”

As Max disappears from the room, Adam takes a step further, sharing a moment of vulnerability and reflection with Natalie. The emotional weight of the situation permeates the quiet hospital room.

“He's lucky, this boy of mine.” Adam comments, his voice carrying a mix of paternal pride and concern. The connection between father and son becomes evident as Adam opens up about the past.

“I met his mom when I was a teenager and still very much in love with karting. Then one day, I rolled the kart, and her face was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.” Adam reminisces, his tone carrying a touch of nostalgia.

“I don't think I've ever seen someone look so scared. Until tonight when you were watching them extract him from the car.” Adam continues, drawing parallels between past experiences and the recent events. The admission of fear in both instances underscores the vulnerability inherent in their shared passion for racing.

“Please never stop worrying about him.” Adam implores, the sentiment reaching beyond the confines of the hospital room. In this moment, the barriers between personal and professional relationships fade.

As Natalie gazes at Lando, fast asleep in front of her, the events leading up to the race replay in her mind. She doesn’t even hear Adam leave the room and shut the door on his way out. The memory of Lando's laughter, echoing through the moments before the race, lingers in her thoughts. Though she can't recall the specific reason for his laughter, the vibration of it remains etched in her memory.

The weight of fear settles on Natalie's shoulders as she recalls the intensity of the emotions during the crash. The fear of something going terribly wrong, the dread of an event that could potentially alter Lando's career or, even more devastating, end his life, creates a profound sense of vulnerability.

The memory of the crash replays in her mind—the deafening silence that enveloped the scene, the collective hush that fell over everyone as they waited for some sign from Lando. In those agonizing moments, the racing world, with its roar of engines and tire screeches, fell silent, giving way to an eerie stillness that mirrored the collective breath-holding of those witnessing the unfolding events.

Natalie's recollection captures the essence of the racing world, where triumphs and setbacks coexist on the same razor's edge. The fear she experienced is a poignant reminder of the inherent risks and uncertainties that come with the pursuit of speed and victory.

“Are you crying?” Lando mumbles as his eyes flutter open, catching sight of Natalie sitting next to him.

“No.” She quickly responds with a reflex denial that she quickly corrects. Her honesty prevails as she wipes away the tears from her cheeks. “Yes.”

Lando lifts his hand, and without hesitation, Natalie takes hold of it, their connection a silent reassurance in the hospital room.

“I'm sorry I scared you.” He apologises, a genuine expression of regret in his voice.

“Please, no. Don't apologize.” She assures him, her voice still carrying the rawness from earlier moments of intense emotions. “How are you feeling?”

“Great.” He chuckles before groaning, the humor punctuated by a twinge of pain.

The small joke from Lando triggers another wave of emotions for Natalie, prompting her to start sobbing again just as Max returns with a coffee.

“I leave for ten minutes, and you're crying more now than earlier.” Max comments, his attempt at lightening the mood as he pulls Natalie in for another hug, offering his support.

“Baby, I'm fine.” Lando reassures her, his grip on her hand a tangible expression of comfort.

Max raises an eyebrow at Lando's use of the word 'baby,' an observation not lost on him. The unspoken understanding between the two friends is evident, and Max decides to leave the room, giving them a moment of privacy.

“Come here.” Lando instructs Natalie, pulling her down to him. In the shared vulnerability of the hospital room, he reassures her with his presence. The simplicity of the gesture speaks volumes, emphasising the connection that goes beyond the complexities of the racing world.

Natalie gently rests her head on Lando's chest, finding solace in the comfort he provides. Her uncontrollable sobs continue, and in response, Lando kisses her forehead multiple times. His gestures of affection and reassurance become a source of calm in the midst of her emotional storm.

“I'm fine.” He tells her once again, his hand running through her hair with a soothing touch. The repeated reassurance becomes a mantra, a reminder that they have weathered the storm together, and he is here, present and unharmed.

In the aftermath of the crash, Lando reflects on the vivid sounds of Natalie's distress—her screams, the panic in her voice when she couldn't see him, and the tears that followed when they denied her immediate access. The echoes of her emotions reverberate in his consciousness, painting a poignant picture of the depth of her concern.

He recognizes the unwavering support and determination in Natalie's actions. The realisation settles in—he knows where things stand with her. She would fight tooth and nail for him, an ally in the face of adversity, and he reciprocates that commitment without hesitation.

In the quiet of the hospital room, their unspoken bond becomes even more pronounced. The shared experiences and the vulnerabilities laid bare strengthen the connection between them.

“I thought you…” Natalie trails off, her words carrying the weight of the fear and uncertainty she experienced.

“Nattie, look at me.” Lando tells her, prompting her to lift her head off his chest. His eyes meet hers, an earnest expression in his gaze. “Accidents happen all the time, and look, here I am.”

“Yeah, but it's you.” She mumbles, her vulnerability laid bare. “I can't lose you.”

In this candid exchange, the depth of Natalie's emotions comes to the forefront. The fear of losing someone she cares about profoundly is a sentiment that transcends the complexities of their roles within the racing world. Lando, with a reassuring gaze, acknowledges the gravity of the moment and the impact of their shared experiences.

The weight of Natalie's words settles in, conveying the depth of her emotions and the genuine love she harbours for Lando, irrespective of the pretences of their fake relationship. The authenticity in her expression resonates with him, transcending the boundaries of their agreed-upon roles.

Her breath hitches, and in a poignant realisation of the significance of her words, Natalie leans in and plants a kiss on Lando's lips. The kiss becomes a tender exchange, her salty tears mingling with their shared moment. In this intimate gesture, the unspoken understanding between them takes on a new dimension, weaving a narrative that goes beyond the intricacies of their relationship.

“I can’t lose you, either.” Lando tells her once they break the kiss.

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

Taglist: @noneofyourfbusinessworld @scopeiguess @tbsloneely

[devieuls]

The way of love pt.VIII

Neteyam Sully x Tayrangi Fem Reader (Na'vi)

Warning of the Serie: MDNI. Dom Neteyam x Fem Reader; SMUT; ANGST; FLUFF; Dirty Talk; Fangs; Bites; Blood; Spit; Power Play; Jealousy and Possessiveness; Foreplay; violence; Swearing; Teasing; Unprotected Sex; Enemies (because of you, Neteyam treats you well). Aged characters: Neteyam 19 y.o / You 18 y.o. SERIE

Synopsis: After a great loss happened in your family, you are forced to take a role that before did not belong to you, following a path that you will feel like your only in time. Just when you thought you were finally overcoming the loss, your clan shows up with those you blame for the great offense received. You are the daughter of the first Olo'eykte of all clans and are about to take your mother’s place to lead the Tayrangi clan, but first you must follow Neteyam (the eldest son of the man you detest with all your heart) To train him, despite your contempt for the Sullys and everything about them, you inevitably bond with the boy, unknowingly falling in love with him.

CHAPTER WARNING: ///////

Lenght : 4.6k

Notes: I’m praying that you like the series, because it’s getting closer to the end. Leave a comment to make me understand how it’s going, luv u <3

NA'VI WORDS: TANHI: Star; KARYU: Teacher; 'ITE: Daughter; kenten mì kumpay: a sense of being in an environment where you’re prevented from acting naturally or doing what you want to do; nga yawne lu oer: i love you

Character Cast: NEY'NARI: Your dead sister; IKEYNI: Your Mother; TSENTEY: Your Father; YÌMKXA: Your Ikran; ULEYTE: Your bestie; TUL'PEY: Your future Mate

PART: 1 ; 2 ; 3 ; 4 ; 5 ; 6 ; 7 ; 8 ; 9 ; 10

· · ─────── · 𖥸 · ─────── · ·

"Does she know?" Lo'ak’s tone became serious for a moment. "No, not yet. I’ll tell her about that when the time comes. " "Our father will skin you alive,bro" said the youngest. " Probably…" The conversation turned to the end.

You had taken a basket of Spartan fruit and steamed Teylu; you would have liked to hear the conversation between Lo'ak and Neteyam but most of the words were a mix of Na'vi and that language you couldn’t understand. When you were ready you came out of the hut, you looked at the boys with a slight blush on your face. "I took what I came looking for… please, take the water…" You whispered with a thread of voice as you passed the two boys. You could see out of the corner of your eye that Neteyam had tried to touch your elbow when you passed in front of him, but he retracted his hand after his brother’s gaze fell on him. You didn’t give much importance to this detail, taking it for granted that he had made this choice in order not to make you feel further uncomfortable with his brother. When you returned to your family’s hut you noticed that your mother and Neytiri kept talking about some strange event they had faced when they were young; Jake arguing with your dad about warrior stuff while the one you recognized as Tuk and Kiri were talking to each other. You put the basket on the table and then you were invited by the little one to sit with her and her sister, at the beginning you were reluctant to approach them but then you had the courage to sit down with them; Kiri hadn’t looked at you most of the night while Tuk was anxious to meet you.

"I’m Tuktirey! You’re Neteyam’s friend, aren’t you? Your hair is so beautiful, wow!" the voice of the little girl was ringing but pleasant to listen to as she touched some of your braids, admiring the small jewels that were wedged between them. "I love your clothes and your jewelry! You are really beautiful, y/n!" she continued, making genuine and sincere appreciations on every part of you, only to be stopped by Kiri who could feel your slight embarrassment as you thanked little Tuk. "Tuk, if you keep this up, she’s gonna run like a hawk" said the girl who must have been about your age, as she touched Tuk’s braids, making her peel off slightly from you. "I am Kiri, but I think you know us at least by name, Neteyam never misses the opportunity to talk about us" her eyes rolled as if she already knew that 100% he had done it, in fact she was right. "Coincidentally he did it just today, It’s not like we had a lot of time together outside of class hours or formal events," you bit the corner of your mouth slightly as your eyes fell on the floor. Kiri noticed that there was something deeper, but remained silent to not make you uncomfortable, after all she had just met you.

At that moment the two young Sullys also entered the hut with some Dapophet leaves that contained the water all of you would need for the long night. The lanterns that were placed inside the hut began to light up with the arrival of the eclipse of the day, while the two boys took their seats near you and the two sisters.

Neteyam sat between you and Tuk, often holding her when she needed the affection of his older brother. You found out that Tuk was particularly close to Neteyam, you could tell by how she whined at the thought of going back to the Omatikaya clan without her brother, and how she complained that Lo'ak couldn’t braid her hair like Neteyam, or by her laments for how Lo'ak always prohibited her from following him into the woods. It softened you the dynamic between them, you could see yourself so much in Tuk, at least 'the old you', the one a little rebellious and mischievous, but endured by the older sister. You also laughed at the way Lo'ak was reprimanded by Kiri when he said something extremely stupid or when he appeared in the stories as a powerful warrior. After a long time you felt happy, you no longer had the burden of thinking about tomorrow or your duties, In one night, your shoulders shook thanks to those who until last month considered 'demons'. The thing that left you most enchanted was how Neteyam smiled and tried to keep all three brothers quiet, almost like a father to them. When it came your turn to speak you found yourself bickering with Neteyam, as he was too modest to be complimented on his skills or improvements; Sometimes you two find complaining and contradicting eachother about some funny scenes that happened while you were training, like the fact that he almost drowned that morning while trying to stay under the water as long as possible.

Suddenly Tuk opened her mouth to talk, drawing your attention. "Neteyam, you and y/n are mated? Becaus-" Lo'ak plugged Tuk’s mouth with Teylu, getting a tender pout from the little girl. "Tuk, you’re talking too much, eat something" Lo'ak said embarrassed as Neteyam blushed and looked slightly away as he scratched the back of his head. "No, just friends. We’re just friends, Tuktirey" you said smiling, while Lo'ak held back a smile that was certainly containing a laugh. Your eyes shook him in the moment, while Kiri had managed to connect the dots in her mind. Kiri looked first at Neteyam and then at you, noticed how the brother swallowed in embarrassment and tried to hide the blush on his cheeks, and how you looked at Lo'ak badly for his expression and embarrassed smile. The marks on Neteyam’s chest and the small scratches behind his back, and then he noticed some hickeys in the upper thigh and closer to your intimacy. She nodded in silence, while a dark veil covered her face after realizing, feeling bad for you, since most likely you did not know yet. "Friends? You seem so close though" Tuk said with his mouth still full, as Lo'ak sighed with relief as he hadn’t mentioned that little detail that only Neteyam could have told you. "is because I am his Karyu, in this month he spent more time with me because of the lessons that with the other Na'vi of the village" Neteyam’s head nodded agreeing.

The evening continued along the same lines: funny stories, Tuktirey insisting that you and Neteyam were a couple, Lo'ak and Neteyam trying to silence her in their strange language and Kiri maybe contemplating death and then talking to you gently. Towards the end of the evening, the Sullys went to sleep in Neteyam’s hut, as they would leave the next day late in the afternoon. You were happy to have met the Sullys, you had discovered how they were simply Na'vi with their flaws and merits; it made you laugh as Jake seemed so trained when Neytiri spoke over him or corrected his grammar, you found them tender… Now that you were lying in the part of the hut dedicated to you, you couldn't help but smile as you looked out of the window hole, still lying on your carpet, talking quietly to the stars and the wind. This was something you often did when you needed to vent both positively and negatively, it made you feel so close to your sister, and you hoped she would hear you tell her about your experience with the Sullys. A gentle breeze came into your room and made you smile, thinking it was Ney'nari’s answer, interpreting that breeze as your sister’s encouragement to move on and continue to bond with that family you were afraid of before and disgusted with.

"Y/n… y/n, are you awake?" a voice coming from outside made you get up from the ground and look out the window, and then notice Neteyam looking for something on the ground, as to hit the window to attract your attention. "I’m awake. What are you doing here at this hour?" you said noting the late hour. Neteyam’s face rose and smiled as he looked out the window. "I told you, I can’t sleep if you don’t say good night, Ma Tanhì," his voice was slightly lowered, so as not to attract the attention of sleepers in the village. He approached your window, albeit slightly higher from where he was. "Skxawng, go to sleep. If they found you there they would skin you" you whispered, trying to make your voice heard only to him. You had to hold back a smile for that gesture as foolish as it was sweet, which had particularly impressed you. "Then say good night, so I have quiet dreams." His eyes chained to yours, watching the little smile that was born on your face. "Goodnight, 'Teyam," you said quietly as you put your cheek on the palm of your hand, noting how happy and uplifted Neteyam seemed after your words. "Good night, ma eywa," you blushed when he called you "Eywa," you didn’t expect it and he knew it. He looked up to you as you smiled like a carefree child thanks to him. After seeing you smile like this, he would surely have had more than golden and serene dreams.

Your gaze fell on him again, his eyes open as he watched you as if you were his entire universe, so much love in those golden eyes that made you blush and smile. You looked at each other in silence for a few minutes, while he was mimicking you with sweet words that you could understand even without hearing his voice. "ma eywa, sweet dreams… nga yawne lu oer" The boy’s voice made all the love and adoration he felt for you, making you smile. You sent him a kiss with your hand, which he took theatrically and carried to his heart, doing the same with you before leaving. Now your back was leaning just below the window, while your hands were resting on your chest, at heart level, squeezing that flying kiss that Neteyam had left you. Neteyam had become the cure you needed after all the years you spent hiding your unhappiness from the world; small gestures like these simply brought you closer to that precipice that was love. You should have been afraid, you were a woman already mated for years, soon the rite of Tsaheylu with Tul'pey would have come, but your mind was poisoned by Neteyam. You fell asleep with a sweet smile on your face, asking Eywa to pass the night quickly so that you could see Neteyam again as soon as possible, you were already missing his sweet touch and scent.

Eywa welcomed you into the dream world and granted your wish, bringing the morning quickly. When your eyes opened, the rays of the two suns hit your face, and for the first time it didn’t even bother you. You got out of bed with a smile on your face and when your parents saw you so sunny they were strangled, they smiled at you and you needed some berries and fruits that they had gone to get from the shed. "Ma'ite, today you shine more than the suns." Your father’s voice made you smile and nod as you savored the sweet juice of the Yovo fruit. "It’s true, what delights your heart so much, ma'ite? We haven’t seen you like this for years." Your mother continued, before passing a hand through your braids and giving you a maternal smile. It was true, Ney'nari’s death had marked you in everything: the smiles were false and if they were true you noticed with how much weakness you held them in face; your character more off and calm to emulate that of your sister, totally making you another person; the way you seemed to sprinkle joy and tranquility made them think for a moment that their sweet, rebellious and old y/n was back. "It’s just a beautiful day, no big deal." You whispered with slight blush on your cheeks as you squinted under your mother’s caresses.

After breakfast, you changed your clothes and rushed out of your hut, hoping to see Neteyam soon. You arrived in front of his hut and welcomed by Tuk, who had apparently just woken up, but did not deprive you of her sweet welcoming smile. "Looking for Neteyam? he went to the village with Lo'ak a little while ago" Her sleepy voice made her even more tender, made you think if Neteyam had the same tenderness as a child. " Thank you Tuktirey" You answered her and then laid a hand on her head, slightly upsetting her braids, while she laughed softly. You thanked Tuk before going to the center of the village to look for the two brothers. You met Lo'ak right away, and he seemed quite insistent on not letting you go looking for Neteyam, not understanding why he was so ambiguous. "Lo'ak, please, let me go find Neteyam" you said gently, repeating yourself several times before abruptly departing from him, following the sound of two voices, one of which sounded vaguely like Neteyam’s. Once you got to where the voices came from, you could distinguish Neteyam’s shoulders and back, but not with whom he was speaking, even though the female voice was unequivocal. "Shit, I tried to stop her…" Lo'ak said once he reached you, spinning Neteyam and showing the figure of a beautiful and tall Na'vi, with long black braids adorned with feathers and flowers typical of the forest; Her clothes were obviously well-made, and you could tell she was of a high status other than that she was definitely a warrior. Your eyes passed from her to Neteyam, failing to understand who Na'vi was close to him.

"Who's she?" Your voice was slightly absent as you looked Neteyam in the eye, looking for sincere answers, but reading only embarrassment and fear in those golden pools. "'Teyam, w-who is she?" you repeated again, not understanding why he didn’t answer right away, and why he wasn’t reassuring you "MaTanhì… she is…" His voice was broken as he searched for words he could not find. Your heart beat in your throat as you felt Lo'ak gently take you by the wrist, as if to take you away from there. "His mate. I am Reyin'al te Sxeke Ninat'ite…" Replied proudly the woman who before was behind Neteyam and who now wrapped her hands around his arm. "… Tsakarem of the Omatikaya" The surprise crept into your gaze, your eyes widening in disbelief before the stark reality that was revealed before you. "Tsakarem of the Omatikaya…" You yanked your wrist from Lo'ak’s grip, as if to get rid of it. Your heart seemed to have stopped like your breath, your eyes that were before on the woman, now they returned to the face of Neteyam who did not have the courage to look at you.

All the happiness that was before in your body evaporated like water under the scorching sun, your eyes went out of disbelief and it hurt you that Neteyam now didn’t even look you in the eye, giving you a tacit statement to what the girl had said. You would have wanted him to say 'No, it’s a misunderstanding' or something to cheer you up, but he didn’t. You searched in vain for his gaze for endless seconds, and then you tightened your jaw and nodded at the Na'vi who answered you, and then you turned around and left as your heart fell apart. You heard footsteps behind you following you, but you didn’t turn around for a second, because you knew if the steps were Neteyam’s, you would collapse in front of him. You found yourself immersed in a whirlwind of emotions as you ran away from him, a tumultuous tornado that tore your soul apart. A wave of pain swept over you, like a fist to the chest that left you breathless. Your heart, first filled with joy, broke into a thousand pieces, leaving a deep wound burning inside you while. The feeling of emptiness warmly welcomed you, as if something essential had been ripped from you. Anger enveloped you like a burning fire, a flame that blazed in the depths of your being. The bitterness is mixed with tears running across your face, cursing you for not being strong enough to hold them. The confusion struck you, and along with it the overlapping questions in your mind, looking for an answer that can make sense of what you heard. You felt lost in a maze of conflicting emotions, unable to find a way out. Sadness envelops you, a heavy mantle that oppresses you and makes you feel deaf to the words of the boy who was following you. Your world has fallen with such speed that even your certainties were dissolved.

A warm hand but too strong to be Neteyam’s kept you from running away. Once you turned to the owner of the hand you noticed that the person who followed you was Lo'ak, and a sense of desolation covered your face. "Y/n… I tried to-" Lo'ak’s voice snapped when he noticed your shiny, slightly red eyes, immediately realizing he had no excuse. " He would have told you… he was waiting for the right moment." He said before he looked away from you, lest you feel uneasy at the tears that streaked your face without your will. You swelled your chest several times, trying to regain the gift of the word, which had been taken away from you by that storm of emotions that had exploded in you. " Isn’t it too late for that? He had plenty of time to talk to me about her." Your broken voice made an idiot hear the boy in front of you, as if anything in his brother’s defense would be in vain. "Y/n.. I understand, I tried to keep you from looking for Neteyam because of that, because I knew he wanted to talk to you first," he continued, letting go of your wrist. "If so, he would be in your place now." Your tone was sour and poisonous, to this statement of yours Lo'ak did not know how to respond without looking like a complete idiot.

He knew you were right, you were absolutely right to feel that way and to be angry. Before he snapped to follow you, the look of Neteyam watching you leave gave him the courage to do what his older brother couldn’t. He was sure Neteyam would tell you, he wasn’t a liar, you could trust him and his word, but Reyin'al’s sudden arrival had ruined all the plans. Neteyam had never loved Reyin'al, they had grown up together, known by the whole clan as the two strongest and most admirable warriors, Mo'at had paired them from an early age saying that their union would bring greatness to the Clan. Despite this, Neteyam had always seen Reyin'al more as a friend than a mate, he had grown up with the love stories of Neytiri and Jake and dreamed of meeting his soulmate like them. He had always felt too close in that relationship, so much so that he had never really tried to make it work, he wanted to try 'true love', fight to meet it and have a sweet ending like his mother’s. Neytiri had always supported his son’s dream, clashing with Jake who agreed with the decision of the elderly Tsahik, reminding him several times that she was destined for another man but still chose her partner. And Neteyam had finally figured out how his mother felt about her father when he saw you, falling in love with you day by day.

"Just yesterday he was under my window, sending me kisses and sweet words, and then…. receiving this poisoned knife. Don’t tell me you’re gonna tell me because I don’t believe a word of it." You hissed before you walked away from Lo'ak, hearing him say something remotely like "Kenten mì kumpay…" Blood was boiling in your veins for trusting him. The pain spread in you like a fire burning in your chest, a feeling of weight that oppresses your breath. Every beat of your torn heart seems to recall the bloody wound that made you lose your breath, a excruciating pain that spreads in every fiber of your being. Feeling you vulnerable as your knees found peace on the grass, near the precipice where it faced the sea.

A reluctant hand landed on your shoulder as you growled. "Lo'ak, go away." Your tone was high, it was releasing all the pain that was building up in you. "Ma Tanhì… I-" You walk away from that delicate touch as if you were struck with burning iron when you realized that voice belonged to Neteyam and not to Lo'ak.

Neteyam had found the strength to follow you and his brother only after a few minutes of derealization and shame, but when he managed to reach you you were already gone and it was Lo'ak who showed him the way to find you. His remorseful look was on your back, hoping to see your face and explain the situation. "Go.away." You spelled it with clenched teeth, giving him your back as you wiped away tears that seemed not to want to stop coming out of your eyes. He swallowed, taking a long breath to start talking. "Ma Tanhì… let me just explain, please" His voice was broken as he tried to explain himself, seeking your consent to speak. You rose from the ground and looked him in the eyes with contempt and disappointment, your shiny and slightly swollen eyes destroyed him more than your words could. You shook your hands in a fist to try to condense your anger as Neteyam’s gaze became increasingly guilty.

"Explain? What do you want to explain. You have a partner and you didn’t tell me." Your words hit her skin like arrows. "You knew about Tul'pey, and you didn’t tell me about that 'Reyin'al'." Your voice was filled with hate as you yelled at him against words that scratched his skin and soul. "I wanted to-" you stopped him with a wave of your hand, and then growled at him. " You lied. You lied and deceived me." Neteyam’s jaw twitched as he listened silently. "You made promises." You started pushing him backwards.

The tension was now palpable in the air, not the usual pleasant tension, a destructive and cramped. Your eyes burn with anger and disappointment, your hands hit hard on his chest making him back, trying to vent all his frustration and pain in one blow. Driven by the anger and wound that had crept into your heart, you struck his chest at other times, letting each blow be a cry of protest against his actions. Each punch, slap or push was accompanied by sharp words, screams of pain and growls that intertwined with your anger. But unlike Tul'pey, Neteyam accepted your desperate cry and took each blow in silence, letting you vent on his body if it would help you feel better. "I hate you. I hate you, Neteyam. I hate you with all my heart," you yelled at him in the face as you held back every tear, as your fingers sought a foothold on him, scratching his chest before pushing him again. He wanted to hug you and let you cry over him, but he understood that now your wound was still fresh and bleeding brutally.

"I want you to leave. Now. Never come back. Go away with your parents today. I don’t want to see you again." You said to then walk away from him, while your hands were still shaking from the rush of emotion that passed through your body. "Go away. Take away your promises and your partner. I put myself at risk for you…. and you ruined everything! " This time Neteyam’s hand approached you, and then was struck by your hand. "Everything I said, I really meant it. Every promise, every compliment, everything was true… She's not you. I never wanted her, I want you, ma Tanhì…" Your eyes still looked at him with disgust as your heart betrayed you by beating so hard for those words. " You lied. You’re a liar. I don’t believe you." You answered with clenched teeth, before screaming to relieve the tension. "I didn’t lie to you… please, ma Tanhì, listen to me." His voice was broken as he tried to get close to you, being rejected. He felt guilty, he promised never to make you cry again, love you and make you happy, but now he was holding in his hands the pieces of your broken heart. "Go away. I said you have to go away!" You yelled at him, his eyes lowered to the ground. He didn’t know whether to listen to your request and let you go or be deaf to your voice and insist on his position.

Neteyam took a deep breath, approaching you and taking your arms, looking you in the eye. "Ma Tanhì, listen to me and if you want I’ll leave. I never wanted to be with Reyin'al, we have been mated all our lives, without choice. I fell in love with you, just you and every aspect of you. I feel horrible, a monster, seeing that I hurt you so much, it was not my intention… I swear to Eywa" A tear twisted Neteyam’s face and laid his forehead on yours. You took a deep breath, repressing all those feelings sent from your still bleeding heart and growled at him. " I would have told you, I swear, I would have… Reyin'al came unannounced and ruined everything, believe me. Let me fix this… I-" "Do not touch me. Don’t touch me anymore." You said growling, then try to get away from his grip. "I'm begging.. Don’t reject me" he whispered in a tone of voice that died in his throat and let all his pain shine through, but also the desire to keep you close. "Go to your partner. Just go." you made sure to spell the words, then feel his hands let go and hesitate before leaving. " Go. GO AWAY!" you yelled at him again, clenching your jaw and struggling with the conflicting feelings that were being born in you.

It was clear that Neteyam wanted to continue the speech, you could read it in his face: his shiny eyes that hesitated on your hands and then your eyes, as his jaw twitched, the way his tail sent you specific signals, or the way his voice died in his throat. He accepted your request and disappeared into the forest, while you dried your tears and your hands spoke the cold ground beneath you, as if to seek some comfort. You wanted him to stay, but at the same time you wanted him to leave; to kiss you, but you wanted to hurt him, to hear his words, but you were deaf. You spent a few hours in that place, letting nature embrace and welcome you, remembering that you could ask for advice and receive comfort from your sister by making Tsaheylu with one of the voices trees that was placed just a short distance from there. You needed guidance and someone who understood your emotions, so who better than your sister to help you figure out the way to go?

[arminreindl]

So something that a lot of people are seemingly unaware off is the "rostral boss" or simply face bump seen in some American Crocodiles (Crocodylus acutus). I've seen it a few times now that folks are really surprised to see it, so I think its worth sharing a bit on that and its importance to understanding how crocs came to America.

For starters, the rostral boss is a large bump that is located on the snout of some crocodiles just before the eyes, covering the back of the nasal bone and areas of the prefrontals, lacrimals and parts of the frontal bone. This boss, among modern crocs, is most prominent in the American Crocodile. Sidenote, I know its a pain, but here American Crocodile (capitalized C) means Crocodylus acutus. When meaning the crocodiles of America, I'll use Neotropic crocodiles. Also tho I'm usually liberal with the term, here crocodile specifically refers to the genus Crocodylus. Good? Good. Anyhow, this kinda gives them a look thats been likened to the Triassic phytosaurs and makes individuals with said bump really distinct. Below are some pictures which show different indivudals with less and more pronounced bosses.

Now this feature is not unique to American Crocodiles (again meaning C. acutus, I know the terminology is confusing), but can be seen in at least some other neotropic Crocodylus species. Now I've yet to see images of either Morelet's or Orinoco Crocodiles with the same and they don't appear to have been recognized with them by older literature, but there are some Cuban Crocodile skulls also showing a slight boss. If you look at the two photos below, you can see an American Crocodile skull on the left and several skulls of Cuban Crocodiles on the right (from the Quaternary Sawmill Sink on the Bahamas). It's comparably subtle in the Cubans, but there is a boss present in these skulls.

The fun part is that this isn't just a random trait that these crocodiles got out of nowhere. No, the rostral boss is actually a trait thats likely to be ancestral to ALL Crocodylus species of the Neotropics (so again, Morelet's, Cubans, Orinocos and Americans). The oldest known Crocodylus species from the Americas is Crocodylus falconensis from the Pliocene of Venezuela. And guess what, it had that very same bump on its face.

But that's not where the trail ends. No. Back in the 1940s a crocodile was found in Miocene sediments of Northern Africa that had a similar bump. Meaning on the other side of the Atlantic. This was largely ignored at the time, despite the similarities to American and Cuban Crocodiles and their rostral bosses being known back then. But more recently, scientists have taken a second look at this species, Crocodylus checchiai, and concluded that it is a likely ancestor to today's Neotropic crocodiles.

We already knew that African crocodiles (Nile Crocodiles and Sacred Crocodiles) were more closely related to Neotropic crocodiles than to Australasian ones (like Salties, Freshies and Muggers), but this essentially provided some really solid evidence for how crocs got to America. Sometime between the Miocene and Pliocene, Crocodylus checchiai (or a relative or descendent) swam across the Atlantic and landed in the area around the Caribbean, spreading and giving rise to the four true crocodiles that still inhabit the region. Which I personally think is really cool.

[tobiasdrake]

We go from the best fight in the X-Men filmography thus far straight to Charles Xavier sitting in a room, looking into the camera and explaining the plot. Okay guys. XD

One of the main jobs this film has is to bridge First Class, which became more or less a reboot, with the original trilogy. So they can go in new directions and do different things with the characters without outright saying, "The original movies up through Origins: Wolverine aren't canon anymore, sorry."

Days of Future Past is what's commonly referred to as a soft reboot, where continuity gets to start over from scratch but with an explanation offered in-universe that connects it to the previous continuity.

Time travel and multiverse shenanigans are often the go-to for carrying out soft reboots. The Chris Pine Star Trek films, for instance, take place in an alternate timeline created when Spock and a bad guy traveled back in time and messed up the series canon.

The Marvel multiverse is basically designed to allow Marvel writers to make continuity-free re-imaginings of the Marvel universe and then go "That one is Universe 42069, it has its own canon somewhere out there in the multiverse unrelated to the mainline comics."

DOFP intends to do that for the Foxverse, liberating the cast of the newer X-films from the shackles of the old canon and letting them spin out in a new direction.

But before we can do that, Charlie Boy needs to explain the plot that will get us there.

Magneto chimes in to explain Mystique's powers, like Bobby and Kitty don't already know her. XD

Actually, come to think of it, Kitty only formally became one of the X-Men in Last Stand, the movie that took Mystique's powers away. And Bobby wasn't really an X-Men X-Man until that same movie, despite being present for the whole trilogy. They actually might not know who Mystique is.

Huh. Objection retracted.

Then again, Colossus recognizes her. And he was no more involved in X-Men Stuff than Kitty was.

Xavier goes on to assert that he, too, has watched First Class and thought it was pretty sweet. Don't let the face of Patrick Stewart fool you; Despite this personal history having never come up in the original trilogy, it is still an important part of the two characters' relationships with one another.

As an artistic note, I love how she shapeshifts into a human form when he says, "I knew her as Raven." A subtle call-out to their conflict from First Class - or, at least, what it was supposed to be in First Class even though the film doesn't convey it well.

We're told, in the film, that Xavier never appreciated her natural mutant self and preferred that she try to pass as human. They kinda botched their attempts to show it, but it was the clear intent. In a subtle reference to it here, when Magneto talks about her we see her in her true form, but when Xavier reminisces on how fondly he remembers her, she shifts into her human guise.

These two men both fondly remember Mystique, but they have very different memories of who she was.

(Where is she, anyway? Did the Sentinels get her? Is she still mutant-cured?)

Yeah, Xavier's good at that. Remember that time he was losing a tense negotiation with Magneto and Jean so he just started throwing punches, basically forfeiting the argument and pushing Jean into Magneto's arms as hard as humanly possible? Not so different from what happened with Mystique when you think about it.

Xavier offers a sanctuary for mutants on the run from the dangers of the world, and that's great. But his powers of persuasion leave much to be desired.

Logan gets all sad and grimly reports that Mystique killed again after that. Bit of a weird moment. Like, it's performed as if he's referencing the death of another character that was important to him. Something we would instantly recognize and be like, "Oh, fuck, my heartstrings."

I have no idea who that might be, though. He didn't even know her in her youth to be sad about who she became. One time she beat him up and then he stabbed her, and then another time she tried to trick him into having sex with her under false pretenses. That is the entire extent of their relationship.

Why are you so sad about Mystique killing people, Logan? Who did she ever kill that could be haunting you like this? Don't you have enough ghosts already? Do you really need to borrow Charlie's?

The Sentinels are using Mystique's powers to acquire Sunspot's heat powers and Colossus's steel plating and Iceman's cryokinesis.

Meanwhile, poor Mystique can't do any of that. It sucks when people steal your powers and then get whole new abilities you didn't possess out of them.

You know, you'd think in the decades she was hanging out with Magneto, the two of them would have done something about this. Did the fact that humans captured her and performed invasive experiments to steal her powers just... slip Mystique's mind?

"Less than 50 years." My dude, that is a long-ass time to be working on one project. XD These things were in production hell for half a century.

Xavier's like, "When Mystique killed Trask, it convinced the world that they needed his program. And then the humans stayed mad about it for FIFTY YEARS."

FIFTY YEARS. Two generations later, it was still just Trask that they were mad about. Nothing else that happened in that time, nothing in the entire original X-Men trilogy, ever moved the needle one way or the other. It was always about Trask. They were very slowly building the Sentinels the entire time and nothing else mattered.

Senator Kelly's entire anti-mutant career was pointless because humanity already had made up its mind to kill mutants with Sentinels. Trask is the one and only bullet point of history that matters. XD

I understand why this is so janky. Stopping the assassination of Trask is meant to be the emotional goal of the film. We have to stop Mystique from becoming a murderer, because that sets her down the road to being evil.

But "We have to stop her from killing the man making Genocide Machines" wouldn't be a compelling narrative on its own. Because. Like. Fuck that guy. Mystique did nothing wrong.

So the assassination also needs to be the apocalyptic cornerstone around which the fate of the universe revolves. Killing Trask has to directly cause the creation of the Sentinels, but the film also wants to be set in the 70's and has to account for the fact that none of this was a thing in the original trilogy.

So. The humans just. Stayed mad about Trask for fifty fucking years while working on the slowest weapons development project in the history of the arms race. Which has the knock-on effect of meaning that none of the mutant-human relations stuff from the original trilogy mattered, 'cause the humans were building the Sentinels behind the scenes that whole time.

That is an incredibly bleak revision. @_@

Nobody tell Charles, but if there was enough hatred towards mutants to sustain a fifty-year grudge over Trask's death, it wasn't really about Trask's death.

[spectrum-core]

hi if you don’t mind me asking I’d love to hear more about serrated duo parallels?

Alright, just to make sure we are on the same page because I'm not sure if many people know who am I even talking about when I say serrated duo, I mean this pair of goofballs who I love very much.

Fuckass essay about them and how this thing even came to be (which is not what you asked for but it's still important I think) under the cut, as a warning though this is EXTREMELY long, i'm also writing it assuming the readers have played ruina to completion, have at least glanced at the ruina artbook once and are decently familiarized with the pjm universe and its terminology.

"But Spec", you may (and reasonably so) say, "these guys show up in different story tiers, one is a glorified ranged attack tutorial with a minor lore exposition attached to him and the other doesn't even have anything going on due to being a general reception, what the hell".

So let's get into this, more meticulously organized than some essays I've submitted for my uni classes because I care that much about these guys (don't be like me and do your uni projects, please).

Table of contents:

How the fuck did this even come to be 1.1. Me yapping about character dessign

Liwei as a character 2.1. The surface 2.2. Emotional internal nature 2.3. Resentment

Dong Hwan as a character (sorry can't separate him into many categories bc there's NOTHING THERE man i'm absolutely grasping for straws here i KNOW it, but please bear with me)

Summarizing parallels

If you don't feel like sitting through my attempts to contextualize how this ship came to be and me desperately grasping for straws, feel free to skip all the way down to part 4

1.- How the fuck did this even come to be

Honestly the whole thing started as a sleep deprivation shitpost I rolled with because yeah i like these two guys a lot (if you read that one post talking among other things about why I like liwei so much in the first place, the short reply also applies to dong hwan and... Yeag, the only thing that's better than one hot guy is two hot guys and so on).

There was also an interesting aspect about this because maybe it's just me but based of liwei's dialogue lines and keypage text he suggests not trusting, or even liking/admiring/looking up to, high graded fixers (despite feeling that he's supposed to). With an emphasis put into colors because, I mean, he fucking died because he met one at the wrong moment, but I feel it's a general thing he feels for grade 2s and above.

With this in mind, putting him to interact with a grade 1 is... at the very least it has the potential to put them into a funny mutual vitriol kind of dynamic with lw constantly thinking "what's the deal with this guy? does he expect me to praise him just for having a high grade? well, tough luck, i'm no bootlicker" and dh constantly thinking "what's wrong with this man? is he unable to recognize greatness even if it punched him in the face...? should i punch him in the face?", but it becomes far more interesting when you try to imagine (and, with dong hwan being an absolute background character we can only assume things of from extremely vague hints, pretty much all we can do about him is imagining) what made them both special enough for each of them to think "wait, hold on, i actually like this guy" of the other.

After the initial shitpost stage was over, we (the guy who came up with serrated duo while sleep deprived and me) started talking about why we liked both characters and we essentially concluded that, at least dessign wise, they are the same type of guy (ofc I also added a couple of characters I like and who fit the criteria to my post but this post isn't about them).

1.1.- Me yapping about character dessign

On top of that, if you pay attention specifically to liwei and dong hwan in there, you can notice that there's a pretty neat balance of common and contrasting themes in their dessigns, almost in a two sides of the same coin way, so here's a non exhaustive list:

both characters have a primarily monochrome/dark aesthetic going on, with their eyes being the primary colored element that stands out in their dessigns (yeah, you could say that dh has brown hair too but it's a dark shade of brown that doesn't catch the eye nearly as much as the bright-yet-deep shade of red of his eyes)

on top of that, liwei's eyes are blue while dong hwan's are red (i thought they were reddish brown at first but that's just an effect of the transparency, if you separate the sprite in it's different parts, you'll notice his eyes are actually red), which happens to link with a certain trope about two-sides-of-the-same-coin pairs... (will elaborate on this later trust me).

despite the previously mentioned similar monochrome aesthetic, there's a clear contrast between their styles and how they wear their clothes, with liwei having a much more "only informal if it's more practical that way" type of look, with a focus on practicality over trying to stand out too much (for the most part at least, he was dessigned with the idea of a cool guy in mind after all), while dong hwan is essentially wearing a business suit in the most fucked up way possible (really, what the fuck dong hwan), which of course makes his dessign incredibly memorable. To further elaborate on this (and to add details that don't really follow this formal until unpractical/informal AND unpractical pattern): -Liwei's clothes stay in similar shades of grey and black giving him a more uniform look, while dong hwan uses more contrasting shades in his clothing (despite wearing primarily black clothes, that light grey shirt absolutely stands out, and by extension he does) -Liwei wears long boots, while dong hwan wears regular shoes -Liwei wears a long coat, while dong hwan wears a short jacket -Liwei has a fully buttoned dress shirt with a tie, dong hwan wears his shirt unbuttoned, in an universe where clothes are basically like armor this is essentially him saying that he's confident that his opponents won't be able to hit him in the chest, or that even if they did he wouldn't get too hurt from it, and it's a dessign detail that absolutely stands out in an universe where most characters only show skin in their head, neck and hands at most, as we know since its stated in multiple keypages and cutscenes, if a character shows more skin than the absolutely bare minimum, then that means that A. they are inmensely strong, and B. they are even more confident in their capacities, with this being a tactic to intimidate potential enemies for many factions -Liwei wears fingerless gloves while dong hwan wears regular gloves, while at first glance this detail seems to subvert the pattern, let's be real here... have you tried to hold any object and using it properly with gloves? unless you're wearing latex gloves or something made of very thin fabric that shit's absurdly hard, of course i assume there's weird city tech involved in dh's gloves but at least that's my own personal impression of that particular contrast)

and going back to common but not really details: both characters have something noteworthy in their ears (this is most likely just a result of the characters being visible as chibis in game so the best way to give them memorable dessigns is by slapping somewhat unique stuff in their faces and heads BUT IM GRASPING FOR STRAWS HERE OK) with liwei's earpiece (which serves a practical function) and dong hwan's earrings (which look cool as hell, going in line with both characters' general priorities)

similarly, both have something in their opposite eyes, with liwei partially covering his right eye with his hair and dong hwan having the scar going through his left eye.

the right-left motif is actually very relevant in their dessigns. You see, most character sprites in ruina switch the hand in which they're holding their weapons for certain frames (or at least, this is not uncommon to see), either for rule of cool, clearer silhouettes or whatever reasons. However, in every frame in which liwei is visibly holding his knife, he holds it with his left hand (and when he uses his pistol he holds it with both hands), suggesting that he may be left handed. On the other hand (see what I did there?), dong hwan consistently holds his knife with his right hand, in every. single. frame. of his sprite, suggesting that he's right handed instead.

And of course, both of them have elements in their opposite legs too, with liwei having these two stupid fucking belts (affectionate) in his right leg while dong hwan has... whatever the fuck that thing is, in his left leg.

Of course I'm not here saying that they were given contrasting dessigns on purpose, but all these details end up making both of them looking really cool when put together, specially with how their dessigns emphatize their personal preferences and priorities, something I will elaborate upon in each character's section later.

2.- Liwei as a character

Liwei is one of my favorite pjm characters as a whole, yes i like him more than ayin, yes i like him more than angela, yes i like him more than carmen, yes i like him more than dante, yes i like him more than your favorite sephirah/patron librarian/sinner, no im not saying i think any of these characters is bad or poorly written and in fact i think pjm has made an amazing job with protagonists so far catching my interest even with characters i thought i wouldn't vibe with at all, but i have a thing for unremarkable background guys.

As you may have guessed, this means that i have a lot, and i mean A LOT to say about him.

This also means that I have a very specific interpretation of him, this interpretation, while clearly taking bases from what we can see of him in game, is entirely fanmade and i'm not trying to claim this is what anyone intended to convey with him, but it's what makes sense for me.

This interpretation also strays away from some other fan characterizations I've seen of him. So if you think he's actually, at his core, a serious, formal, emotionally detached and unbearably professional, even outside work hours, guy who's deeply dedicated to the honorable task of murder and who is in good terms with the shi association or holds them in high regard? sorry, but for me he's nothing like that.

2.1- The surface

"But Spec", you may say again, "he does act emotionally detached during his cutscene, he even says that people die all the time! are you sure you are actually reading this character right?"

Of course I'm not, I'm just saying that I'm reading him in a way that makes enough sense to me, but I do have reasons to believe that the serious and emotionally detached attitude is an akward mixture of a facade he puts up to be taken seriously by others and an incredibly unhealthy coping mechanism, so let's start by analyzing his artbook profile...

Wait a minute, is that..?

Ok, I'll see myself out and continue writing the actual character analysis this is what people are here for.

Anyway, going back to the character profile, you may be inclined to see it and assume "well, that actually just proves that he's a serious and formal dude" at first, until you realize that artbook profiles, due to their in-universe explaination being that they were compilled by roland and angela from the information they could take out of the guests' books, are most likely to be about what the guests perceive themselves as/would say to describe themselves rather than what they actually are when looked at from an outsider's perspective. Further proof of the artbook profiles being subjective comes from how the profiles change almost erratically for distortions and ego users, with people in the middle of both states simply not knowing how to describe themselves, the fact that we lack any information about the agents of the head as they were never booked, or how characters such as tomerry have...

This, which I mean, it's very clear that's just tomerry talking about themselves.

Now, liwei's personality traits, or at least what he'd use to describe himself, are "Meticulous, Efficient, and Sharp". We know that he has to be efficient at the very least, considering the nature of his job and guns in universe, the same thing goes for meticulous, we can assume he wants to do things the right away so that he gets paid, sharp as a personality descriptor can take multiple meanings and frankly i don't know which was the original korean word used to describe him so i can't tell which is the right one but most of them seem pretty accurate, at least when looking at him from a surface perspective.

To be honest, I don't think any of the traits mentioned there is precisely wrong, I simply don't think that they are the main or core ones, but they are the traits liwei tries to show, at least.

Another interesting detail is that all full stop fixer artbook profiles have food related items for the likes and and dislikes sections, except for stephan disliking dangerous jobs.

Not particularly noteworthy for this category in particular but still tangentially linked to a point that I believe is also a core characteristic of all three full stop fixers and that is key to understand all three of them, their dynamics and the choices they make during their reception: they are Poor As Shit, because guns and bullets are expensive of course, we also get to see this in stephan's obssesive fixation in money (come on nobody actually checks their bank account as a hobby... right, guys?), and of course this ties in with wanting to be seen as someone serious and professional people will trust with their money AND with the idea of them having the need to maximize efficiency to... well... you... you know... not end up even worse than they actually are.

2.2- Emotional internal nature

Alright, and here we dwell into the actually spicy part of the essay, at least for liwei's character: the moments in which the mask of a professional and emotionally detached guy cracks and he shows his more emotional, and mostly caring, side. This is focused in the way in which he treats stephan and tamaki (compared with how several other faction leaders treat their underlings).

While I should probably need to read all the dialogue in the game to make sure this is a particularly notorious detail, something that inmediately caught my attention is... the fact that liwei never uses a single honorific when refering to other people, neither he's bothered by stephan's more informal speech and the fact that he doesn't refer to him by any honorific or title either (sure, you could say this is because they were in a life or death situation but also y'know, it says something about you that the people below you don't feel the need to use formalities when talking to you), the only person he calls by title instead of first name is... well, the blue reverb, whose real name we can assume he didn't know, with also him being someone perfectly capable of killing not only him but the guys standing beside him as well, you'd want to be as respectful as possible when talking to a guy like that and trying to negotiate.

(even then he doesnt use any sort of honorific towards him, at least in the english translation of the text, he simply refers to him by title)

He neither uses any title or honorific when talking to angela, despite keeping a formal/respectful attitude, i honestly believe that he is genuinely formal and respectful but... you know, that's not the beginning and end of who he is.

Of course, this isn't a major point, but I think it's worth mentioning considering how important honorifics can be to establish the speaker's relationship with the people a message is directed to, they can be used to distance oneself from others. So in a way it could be seen as him putting himself at an "equal" position relative to stephan and tamaki, as opposed to trying to assert that he's their superior (at least in the context of the mission they were working in, since his title is merely fixer, not operator, president, director or anything implying some form of leadership on his end).

Another extremely important detail is his inmediate first reaction once argalia shows up and ruins their plan is... not coming up with a plan b, not trying to fight him in any way, not doing anything about trying to save what little money they can, he quite literally tells stephan "forget about money, we need to survive now".

His initial reaction is directly just yelling at his team to run away, and this stays consistent once he:

Notices that stephan and tamaki are beginning to argue over the future of their mission and how much money they lost.

Realizes that they can't outrun argalia as long as they're wielding their heavy (and again, extremely expensive) equipment. This says a lot as it shows that he cares enough for the people under his care to let the office go bankrupt if it means they can live.

Needless to say, stephan and tamaki refuse to do so and while he clearly isn't precisely happy about the inevitable confrontation with argalia, he doesn't argue about this, he does understand their concern about money, he's not like the other authority figures who will ignore their underlings' concerns at best and ditch them once they outlive their usefulness at worst (at least, that's what i imagine he thinks as he makes these choices).

Not to mention, once they are in a, if only slightly, safer situation in the library, his inmediate response is trying to comfort stephan and tamaki, things dont look good but theyre at least alive, for now.

And there's this line which... doesn't seem to fit at first glance with the idea of him wanting his office to survive at all costs... right?

That is until you realize that he says that line during yet another argument between stephan and tamaki, as an attempt to get them both to calm down, this could also fit in with him trying to keep or restore the cynical, stoic and serious act, but then again we get to see his more emotional and sincere side once he:

Gets killed, quite literally saying that he didn't want to die yet, at least to me this line alone is enough to pretty much confirm that he didn't really mean it when saying that trying to delay their deaths was pointless, but if you need more, he also acts against that same line when he...

Sees his allies die, and inmediately starts freaking out.

Wins the reception, in which case his inmediate first concern is, again, not money, lost ammunition or anything, but rather if stephan and tamaki are okay and if they will be safe once they return.

I don't think that line was him fully lying though, it does say something about him that makes enough sense to me and fits with the rest of the characterization: that his cynism runs much, much deeper than stephan's.

Tl;dr he is extremely caring and emotional deep inside, and even though he tries to suppress that side of himself it always finds a way to show itself, I feel like in other contexts this makes him prone to emotional outbursts and generally make him an unpleasant person to be around... save for people who are already familiar with his personality quirks and the fact that he is Like That.

2.3- Resentment

Of course, this dissonance between the person he tries to pretend to be to fit in/keep his job and the person he actually is made him grow a pretty strong disliking of... well, everything he considers related to the fact that he has to act like that to get enough money to feed the people in his office.

I also feel like he feels genuine guilt over the fact that his job is essentially just glorified murder, I have no base for this other than the more detached way in which he refers to the church of gears, it almost feels like hes forcing himself to not care because its them or him and his office, and that he has genuine self-hating tendencies because of it (which he also uses his stoic act to hide, he doesn't want to worry his office and become a burden to them, after all), in a way he may be trying to overcompensate by being nice to his office to feel like there's people he can help/protect.

But this hatred towards himself also manifests in the form of hatred towards anything he can blame over him being the way he is and working the job he has.

As I said before, I don't think liwei likes colors, or most high grade fixers for that matter, you may also extend this to figures of authority, influential organizations or even the city's society as a whole (and honestly? i do personally, i don't think he's actually capable of forming any particularly healthy bond with people outside his office because of this, and even then saying that the relationships he has with his office are healthy is... generous to put it softly, this is not to say that he secretly hates the other people in the office, but rather that he fears that they may secretly hate him, because he's the highest graded member of the office, he hates people sitting above him so it only makes sense that people below him hate him for being above them, right?), and of course I'm not saying this because I'm projecting or because I think it's cool and edgy and sad but I actually have bases for this from what I can see in the game.

The first example of him not trusting high grade fixers AND influential organizations being one of the very first things he says when being introduced: that having an important person, from an important organization, belonging to an important section of said organization, approach him and give him a request was shady as fuck.

And he turned out to be right, as Yujin was planning for him and his office to get sent to the library and die there so she could read their books and find some passage saying shit like "well we were found by the blue fucking reverb and our only choice was to come here and die even though we were royally fucked either way life sucks see you all in hell my final message 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕" so she could use that on her favor.

In this topic too, I'm personally firmly opposed to the idea of full-stop office being affiliated to the shi association and this is the hill i'm willing to die on, but I digress.

We see this same resentment on an even deeper level in his keypage where he talks about colors (and we can assume this view extends to other high graded fixers, and to a lesser extent to the hana association), he doesn't sound like he wants to become a color, he doesn't sound like he even likes the concept of colors being a thing that exists in the first place.

The most important lines from these fragments to me being the following:

"A color is the dream [...] of all fixers who wish for freedom.", freedom is a VERY relevant concept in project moon and ruina makes a very clear point about how nobody is free in the city, roland says it, most plot relevant guests say it, some patron librarians say it too... a huge part of the story is how angela comes to terms to the fact that turning human wont grant her freedom and how she ultimately becomes free by embracing her nature as a machine (so free indeed that the head decides to kick her and the entire library out of the city, not only shes a machine that acts like a human, which is already a major city wide taboo, she made a choice that no human in the city should ever make). Essentially, liwei seems to see colors (and im assuming that by extension high graded fixers) as the ultimate example of an impossible aspirational class (think of these "self made" enterpreurs who received extremely generous financial support from their rich parents to start massive companies as the closest irl equivalent, except that obviously not the same, i will elaborate more on this later).

"They put forward the colors as great and successful people that other fixers will look up to. They dream of earning wealth and fame, and to be free like them one day." Why would he be talking in third person here if he too admired colors, or wanted to be like them, or thought that were free in any way? Also that separation between money and fame (something that colors objectively do have since they can afford exclusive high tech weapons and armor) with freedom (something that is debatable, but liwei seems to assume colors don't have) feels too much like a deliberate choice to further push towards that point of him seeing colors as not only an impossible goal to achieve for the average fixer but also that the ideal of a color as someone who is free is something impossible to achieve even if one were to become a color.

"Colors are assigned by the 'Hana Association'. [...] The title of a color is forcibly given to fixers who qualify essentially. Can a fixer be truly happy with freedom that was forcefully handed to them?" This particular fragment, specially the last sentence, is absolutely key for Liwei's characterization, and the final and most important part of him saying "wait, no, colors aren't free, because nobody is" to me. It is also worth noting that this fragment can be read in multiple ways, all of them are important and accurate for his characterization.

He thinks that the responsability and risks that come with being handed the title of a color are far greater than the prestige that comes with the title, can you really say that someone who cant afford to decline requests due to being contacted by the most important organizations in the city, whose closest friends or family WILL be regularly targetted by rivals either to extort them for money or just try to attack them to the point in which most high graded fixers abandon any personal attachment to others, who will have to see the horrible things that happen in the city in an almost day-to-day basis and will likely have to do even worse things in the name of corporate interests is free? Can you really call it freedom if you can't refuse it? Essentially he is saying "actually every single aspect of being a color is terrible and to make matters worse that life is forced on them after they go through extreme miseries in the hopes for a better life but all they get is more of the same if not even worse, they aren't free and shouldn't be refered to as such."

He thinks that in order to become a color (or any highly graded fixer, really), you must essentially lose yourself, which is to say abandoning all friendships or familiar bonds, only keeping shallow interactions with people, desensitizing themselves to whatever horrifying shit they may have to see, abandon all sense of morality as they never know what their next request will be and "im sorry but i dont do xyz, it does against my personal morals" isnt an argument that will work in a place like the city, this also fits into the whole "actually having a much more chaotic emotional side he's trying his absolute hardest to supress but failing" theme mentioned in point 2.2., someone who is so deeply emotional and whose actions are ultimately defined by what is the most likely to keep the people around him alive is obviously not going to like the idea of keeping his distance to them, or to dispose of people with lower grades than him because they were supposed to be expendables anyway.

I don't remember the exact quote and i dont feel like looking for it but in one of gebura's cutscene she claims that all power in the city only serves to strike those below but never up. You have to climb to get stronger and then you'll only be able to assert dominance (through violence) over people weaker than you are, and she grew to dislike this, as she wanted to protect others but was never able to do so because of how the city was dessigned.

Of course, liwei reached the same conclusion but he took the much simpler but much more unhealthy approach of assuming "well, if things are like that, then that must mean that everyone in a position of power (over me) must be responsible for this".

Of course this also comes with the side effect of him being as caring for the rest of the office as he can because he doesn't want to be like other figures of authority as i mentioned in point 2.2, but thats not to mean that things are all fine in the office, i feel like there are several moments in which he internally curses his position of authority but not quite (bc i don't think he's actually The Big Guy In Charge of the office, really), most obviously the aforementioned moment in which he yells at tamaki and stephan to drop their guns so they can run away and live when they clearly dont want to, i feel like at moments like that he feels like they only do things because he tells them to and they "can't argue" (except that they do, fortunately for him the enviroment in the office is healthy enough for the rest of full stops to not abuse this fact, but the "what if"s are absolutely eating him from the inside). As ironic as it sounds his earnest desire to not be Like The Others is the same thing stopping him from being the perfect and efficient leader he wishes to be, and he probably isn't sure of which thing he values more than the other (it's staying true to his own morals and keeping the people under him safe).

However, there's a key detail here that's worth noting: liwei has a tendency to treat everyone else as equals, sure he is formal and respectful when doing so (pressumably even when talking to people he'd rather never interact with if we assume his conversation with argalia was actually how he is and not him just walking on eggshells to not get killed) but he doesn't bother trying to make a clear distinction of who is above and below him, no matter what their title and rank may be, and for people who are used to being looked up to by everyone else this will be seen this as him insulting them in some way, it may come from a sincere desire of him to come off as insulting while not breaking any (major) social convention in an act of malicious compliance or just the type of person he is, that's up to you to determine.

"But how the hell does any of this relate to dong hwan?" we'll get there right now.

3.- Dong Hwan as a character

This is kinda... the hardest point to talk about, because sure I can yap all I want about him but... it's hard to without going "Source: I made it up" too much.

So, looking at his combat sprites you may notice one thing: he is unbelievably hot for real what the hell he has an incredibly smug aura, most people who care about him to some extent i've seen tend to depict him as a very prideful person, and honestly i dont think differently either.

HOWEVER, i feel like despite this he's still a levelheaded guy who can aknowledge his own flaws. On top of that, i think he's a pretty charismatic guy and he's capable of noticing other people's strenghts, and he'll let people know about their own strenghts too.

Also, to contrast with his smug and cheerful exterior, his combat lines depict him as someone very serious when at work, he doesn't even react emotionally to getting killed.

His first "on kill" line is also particularly interesting, as it shows that he prefers to work on his own (unlike everyone's favorite monochrome moody boy), which makes sense considering that he comes alone to the library when you fight him, he may belong to a one-man office (which is the closest a fixer can do to be fully independent, as far as we are aware).

His keypage story also fits this more serious and analytical personality but not much of it is particularly noteworthy from a character analysis perspective, it doesn't say much that you couldn't notice from his combat lines anyway.

Another important factor to me and to contrast him to liwei is... okay, this may be the fact that he's a solo fight and he is, pressumably, an independent fixer, so he's not titled as a member of a particular organization, instead his title (for him, his reception, his keypage and his book) is "dong hwan, the grade 1 fixer", which i mean, again, is most likely just so we dont fight this guy with zero context on who he is and what hes even doing in the library in his own is he stupid? but i like to imagine that the in universe explaination is that he has tied his perception of himself and his own self worth to his grade, to the point in which using both his name and grade is what comes naturally to him when introducing himself, since books are essentially physical manifestations of the soul, then it just makes sense then that his book will give both his name and grade the same importance. This may come from a need to compensate for something else and i actually like to imagine that's the case because it adds yet another layer of parallels with liwei (source: trust me).

Another point is... remember that I mentioned how food was a very consistent thing in the full stops' likes and dislikes sections in the artbook? this point is also not relevant but dong hwan is frequently assumed to be the owner of that pub that shows up at that short side story about roland and angelica which i never watched because i Literally Can Not Care about angelica sorry, but, hey, it's a cute detail, i think he should cook for the full stops.

I feel like there's something to be said about dh's red eyes because in pjm when a character has red eyes you know that means one thing: they will be a big deal, but dong hwan, other than looking incredibly fucking cool and carrying me through the snow queen suppression (FUCK THE SNOW QUEEN ALL MY HOMIES HATE SNOW QUEEN) and star of the city tier 1 (thank you dong hwan i love you dong hwan)… he is rather unremarkable on the grand scheme of things, he's a general reception so you don't even need to defeat him to beat the game, and he only serves to give us some insight on who the fuck was the vermillion cross, and even then he does a terrible job at explaining who he was other than "well, he was a guy i guess" and honestly, the relevance of both liwei and dong hwan is ALSO an important factor in these parallels, as with one being the guy who introduces the concept of colors and the other being the guy who introduces one particular color fixer by casually mentioning being friends with him, both feel like characters who would be much more narratively important in any other story, but here they... aren't.

4.- Summarizing Parallels

Aka the part you may want to skip to if you don't care about me analyzing characters with little background info about them.

So, basically a list of personality (and background, i guess) traits they have in common and how they're different:

Both characters are putting some sort of facade, with liwei trying to act serious and stoic so he's taken seriously while dong hwan... i dont think he even knows what the facade he's putting even is, he's been putting an act for so long that his mask became his true self

In both characters' cases, the first impression they give isn't really the kind of person they truly are (in lw's case this is a deliberate choice and in dh's case i assume that's just the type of person he is), HOWEVER, while liwei acts serious and analytical (and to some extent he is), his true self is far more emotional and prone to form deep bonds with people, while dong hwan has a more passionate, smug and cheerful external attitude but he's much more serious and levelheaded deep down

Both characters have different, conflicting views about their grades, however these differences ultimately lead to both of them being able to treat each other as equals, or as close to that as possible in the city, i feel like liwei can see dong hwan as someone of worth so to speak for reasons unrelated to his grade, while dong hwan does see liwei as a good person (well, good is a subjective term specially in a place like the city) and far better at teamwork than most people in the city, in a way both value something in the other that the other never stopped to consider "hey this is actually a good thing i have"

Both characters are (pressumably?) trying to compensate over something, with liwei putting his professional and formal act to compensate for his sentimental self while dong hwan puts a strong emphasis on his high grade for... who knows, really, i just like this parallel being there because i think it adds a lot

Both have problems forming relationships, with liwei being a generally unpleasant person but being capable of forming deep, meaningful relationships with the people capable of seeing through it, while dong hwan is a charismatic guy liked by almost everyone he's met, but whose relationships tend to be shallow

Not really a personality thing but both characters have a thing for being remarkably unremarkable guys, dong hwan is obviously forgotten by most ruina playes because he's a general reception and the biggest impression liwei leaves in most players is "OH SHIT HE HAS A GUN", even though both are pretty intentionally dessigned with the intention of making them look cool however ive very rarely come across full stop or liwei fans (by which i mean people who like them particularly instead of "actually the entire pjm cast is cool and that includes them) and dong hwan fans are.... yeah, i think ive met like, 4 of them at most (thanks guys i owe you my life)

Something about their combat styles including their passives, liwei's only visible passive is called Concentration and gives him extra strenght for the first turn of a fight, after which he relies in the fact that his attacks weaken the enemy, so he comes off as the sort of guy who prefers to keep his distance and figure out the opponent's weak spot(s) (something he canonically is good at doing) to keep an upper hand at combat, however despite this he's still lacking in both strenght and technique, being only a grade 4 (which i mean let's be real the grades go from 9 to 1 and i feel like a majority of fixers are in the lower grades so he's still pretty much above average but he isnt doing all the cool shit you see the stronger characters do, because that's not the kind of character he is). On the other hand dong hwan's passives have much more cooler sounding names (Fervor, Carver of Scars, Toughness...), all of them focused on either inflicting bleed (status ailment that gradually makes the opponent lose hp)/buffing him against enemies with bleed or buffing him as he gains emotion levels, and his focus is just inflicting bleed like crazy, as well as delivering harder blows against people with bleed, prioritizing raw damage over strategy (but likely being able to figure out an opponent's weaknesses as well, brute strenght alone are most likely not enough to get you far in a world where the powerful people are INSANELY strong bc physical enhancements are commonplace)

I feel like in a way both admire each other, liwei admires dong hwan's capacity to keep a cool head at all times when at work and not letting his feelings have too much weight over his desicions, but dong hwan admires how honest liwei is about himself as well as his capacity to work in a team taking in consideration what will be best for the team as a whole even if it's perjudicial for him in particular.

In Conclusion

Your honor, two of them

[idlerin]

WRAPPED AROUND YOUR FINGER

guitarist! suna rintarou x assistant!f! reader

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | extra

the ikarus incident (band au)

+ word count: 5.4k

note: i may or may not have exceeded the word count i aimed for, enjoy my lovelies, extras next!

suna rintarou, your boss, your friend, the one you had feelings for (unfortunately)

SUNA RINTAROU was doing what you wanted. He didn’t talk about your kiss in the parking lot and he acted normally the next day— normal as in, his usual annoying flirty self. The following day was your flight to the next country they’re holding their concert at, and the next thing you knew, you were hopping from country to country to continent within weeks, months! Time passed by like nothing happened. Just as you wanted.

Right?

The ringing of your phone interrupts your thoughts and you shamelessly reach for it in the hopes of it being a certain someone, despite it being almost 3 in the morning. Your face falls to see that it was just Atsumu.

You still answer in case he has something important to say, you know they (the four of them and some of the male staff) went out drinking yesterday evening since it was one of the days where they didn’t have an immediate flight out, their ‘boys' night out’ as Atsumu hollered yesterday evening.

“Hello—”

"[name]! Good thing you answered!" Atsumu shouts from the phone, making your ears ring. He sounded drunk, but then again he always sounded like that.

"What is it?” you place down the hot cocoa you were making because you couldn’t sleep and decided that a sweet drink would totally help.

"Uhm its Suna,” Atsumu says as you hear crashing noises in the background.

"What was that?" you frown, you were already getting your wallet, thinking, i have to get an uber, it’s a good thing you knew the address of the club, asking Suna about it yesterday since you weren’t going to come with them, it was for security measures.

“Uh nothing a glass just fell— anyways, yeah so er sorry Suna’s so drunk and he just won’t go to the hotel, says he wants you to take him home and stuff,” Atsumu laughs sheepishly, “I totally get it if you can’t since it’s not really your responsibility—”

“I’m coming,” you say, already locking your door. You ended the call with Atsumu as you waited outside the hotel doors, it didn’t take long for you to get a ride, the streets were always alive at the hotel you guys booked for the band.

Soon enough you were battling a mass of highly intoxicated people for movement. You asked the guard at the front for directions to the private rooms (showing your ID and how these were your workmates, the guard still being skeptical but you still managed to convince him after a lot of proof) but you can’t process a thing with all the bodies, flashing lights, and loud music.

When you finally freed yourself from the crowd you were glad to spot a familiar face, “Akaashi-san!” you place a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. He turns to you, a drink in his hand and a cap on, a little startled, looking around probably thinking his cover was blown. The people around you guys were too preoccupied to notice a celebrity among them though.

“[L/N]-san,” he said, “Are you here to pick up Suna?” and now they were making you sound like his guardian.

“Yeah, I can’t find the room,” you half-shout, he nods before signaling you to follow him, leading you to the room they booked. There was security in front of the door that acknowledged Akaashi and you, then opened the door. You were immediately greeted by equally loud music but a smaller crowd of people, some didn’t pay attention to the door opening while some who recognized you and waved.

You turn to thank Akaashi for his assistance but he was already out the door, he seemed in a hurry. Well okay, now where was Suna—

“What took you so long,” suddenly, there was a head resting on your shoulder and a cool voice speaking directly in your ear.

“[name]! Really sorry, you must’ve been sleeping already,” Atsumu shows up in front of you, not paying attention to the sleepy-drunk Suna on your shoulder who had a hand wrapped around your waist as if he wasn’t doing anything unusual in front of them and the other staff, “He just really won’t let the driver drive him to the hotel, kept insisting on calling you.”

"[name],” Suna says, trying to turn your attention back to him, “Can we go now," he grumbles. You take his head off your shoulder— he immediately whines but you tap his cheek to shush him as you inspect his appearance. Cheeks flushed, eyes bleary, and a little delusional.

"Why did you guys let him drink so much?" your brows furrow, you pinch Suna’s cheek as a slight scolding, he frowns but says nothing about it.

“Let’s go home,” Suna mumbles, head falling to your shoulder again as he tries to bury his face in the crook of your neck, “[name], let’s go,” he persists.

“Yeah, wait a moment,” you say to him, patting his head, you can sense the other people in the room trying desperately not to look in your direction. You weren’t going to be shocked if tomorrow there would be a new rumor going around about you among the crew.

“By the way,” Atsumu says, leaning in as if he was going to tell you a secret even though Suna could hear it perfectly fine, well, if he was even in the state to listen properly, "Did you guys fight or something, he's been a little out of it for days."

“We didn’t,” you say, dismissing him. You sigh, and grab Suna’s hand who now found entertainment in poking your cheek, "We’ll get going now."

Atsumu looked like he wanted to ask more questions but tossed you the keys of one of the cars nonetheless. You tap Suna by the shoulder to get him to stand up straight then you search around for his stuff, spot his cap and phone on the table, quickly grabbing it, excusing yourself since there were people on your way there. You go back to Suna who was now leaning on the wall and watching your movement with lidded eyes, clearly battling his sleepiness. You put on his cap enough to cover the upper portion of his face before dragging him to the parking lot.

Desperately trying to not remember certain things that happened between you two when you were alone in a parking lot.

"[name] are we going home?" Rin asks as you guys successfully evade people and walk out the bar, pressing the key to find where the car was parked.

"I'm going to take you to your room."

Silence.

You open the car door for him as he gets on the passenger’s side, but before you could close the door he blocked the action with his feet, “What do you think?”

“What do I think of what?” you ask, confused.

“I tried to.. suppress my feelings for you,” Suna leaned his head back, you almost trip on air (someday he was going to give you a heart attack) “Because I know that’s what you want,” he sighs.

You blink, back to this question again, was it what you really wanted? It feels like you couldn’t breathe. Instead, you reach a hand out, attempting to cup his face but stopping at the last minute, letting your hand fall to your side, “I’m sorry.” You were sorry about a lot of things.

“You know I would do anything you want me to do,” Suna says, staring at you intently.

You let out a small smile, certain he was telling the truth, you were too afraid to say it, but you would do anything for him too.

“But I don’t think I can do this one thing you want,” Suna says softly, “This,” he points to his chest, “And this,” he points to his head, “Only wants you.”

You knew he only had the guts to say these because he was drunk. You bite your lower lip but still can’t help but smile, “Rin..”

He covers your mouth with his hand, stopping your words, “Shh don’t answer.”

You were confused but you comply.

“I just wanted to say that I’ve always thought this.. but.. I’ve never got to say it before..” Suna says, “I think you have a pretty smile.”

He’ll be the death of you, really.

You were a little delirious and soaking wet, out of your mind for running to the studio while there was a storm raging, but you didn’t care. All you wanted right now was comfort and you wanted that comfort to be from Suna.

You knock incessantly at their studio door.

“Food!— [name]?” Atsumu was the one to open the door. He took one glance at your tear stained cheeks and soaking wet clothes and in no less than a second pulled you in. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Where’s- where’s rin?” you say between gasps, still crying.

“He went out to buy food with our manager. Come inside, let me get you a blanket you must be freezing,” Atsumu walked in with you, your eyes were on the ground and were not in the mood to acknowledge the other two people in the room.

A hand reached out to give you a towel, you looked up to see it was Sakusa. You accepted the towel and tried to dry your face with it.

“Is rin coming back soon?” you ask weakly, desperately trying to stop your tears, you hate that you were crying in front of them, your pride can’t take it.

Atsumu walks right back in with his promised blanket then puts it over your shoulders. Just as he was doing that the door opened, along with the sound of shuffling plastic.

“Here’s the food you fucks,” Suna says before he finally spots you standing in the corner, “[name]?” there was concern in his tone.

You looked up and the tears came back again, “Rin,” was the only thing you said.

He walks towards you and pulls you to his chest, the food forgotten on the ground, “What happened? Hm?” he says, just for you to hear.

“It didn’t.. go..” you inhale, “..very well,” you shove your face into his chest as you feel his hands on your hair, patting your head and you start crying even more. Today was a day off given to you by Suna, and you were supposed to meet your parents the first time after a huge fight you’ve had with them, but the dinner turned into another big fight with them ending up putting you down so much you couldn’t take it anymore.

“Shh,” Suna says, “It’s going to be okay,” he holds your head to his chest, “They don’t deserve you.”

“They really don’t,” you manage to even laugh a little. Being here, wrapped in his arms, made you feel better.

He takes your head off his chest to get a proper look at your face, he was holding your nape as he inspected the red of your eyes and nose, along with your tear stained cheeks. He uses his other hand to wipe the remaining tears away.

“I probably look awful right now, don’t I?” you ask once you finally calmed your breathing.

“Yeah, your eyeliner is all smudged, you look like a panda wannabe,” he says, smiling at you, you frown and hit him on the chest, he laughs, “You’re a very pretty panda.”

You smile back at him, “Thank you.”

“For calling you a pretty panda? Sure, you’re welcome,” he says.

You turn away, beginning to feel shy, “For cheering me up.”

Now you were starting to remember where you were, you turned your head to the sides to try and find the people in the room but they were nowhere in sight.

“They left with the food a while ago,” Suna explains.

You nod and step away from him, “I don’t think it’s possible for my parents and I to make up. They’re still disappointed I didn’t take the job they wanted me to do,” you inhale, “It’s okay, I don’t need them to dictate every single thing in my life.”

You felt arms wrap around your shoulders from behind you, “Let’s get you a change of clothes first okay?”

You were thankful for the change of topic. You were thankful he didn’t mention how intimate you two were being. You were thankful he was here. You were thankful for a lot of things.

That day was the day you knew you couldn’t escape these feelings you had for him. But you were still going to try.

After his declaration around last week, that same afternoon he acted like a usual person would when they’re hungover, groaning about a headache. It seemed as if he didn’t remember anything he said and did, you thought that until he began being more bold with his actions.

More than usual.

The other day in a solo promotional interview where he sat on a chair while people from behind the cam were asking him questions, you were with the said people behind the cam holding your usual notebook and checking this off on the schedule for today. It was going well and the staff adored him for being charismatic even off stage.

Some of the staff even talked to you and said how lucky you were that you got to work for a handsome guy and got to see that glorious (their words, not yours) face almost every day, not to mention going to their concerts for free (most of them were fans). You waved them off but silently agreed.

“When do you feel most creative?” the interviewer asked. This was already in the middle of the interview.

You scratch your eye and try to stay awake, you’ve been lacking sleep a lot these past few weeks.

You watch as Suna leans back on his chair and acts like he was thinking deeply about something, “When I feel most creative.. I guess I can’t say.. it just happens randomly, when I’m in a certain experience or inspired by something, it just comes to me naturally.”

An image came to mind of Suna on his couch, scribbling something in his songbook as you bring him snacks and drinks because when he gets in the mood to write he forgets about everything else. He would let you join in brainstorming with him, asking you for your input and even playing you some of the stuff he was yet to release.

“This is something submitted by your fans, they wanted to know what your ideal type is,” the interviewer laughed. You stood frozen in your place and blinked a few times, curious as to what he would answer, as awake as ever as if you weren’t about to fall asleep right there on your spot a few seconds ago.

“My ideal type? In what?” Suna tilted his head to the side but you knew he already knew what the question implied just with the glint in his eyes only you could read.

“In a partner,” the interviewer elaborates, followed by a chuckle.

“Ah,” Suna nodded, “Someone cute with a pretty smile,” he smirks, as if thinking about something, not hesitating with his answer.

Your face suddenly burned and you hoped no one was looking in your direction right now. Suna wasn’t looking at you but it felt like his eyes were boring onto you, his words from days before rang in your head ‘I think you have a pretty smile’.

“Recently, you’ve been shipped with actress Kiyoko Shimizu, and have even been rumored to be seeing each other when she was spotted at your concert at the start of the descent tour. Is there any truth to the rumors?”

Oh.

You saw the articles, it’s not like there was any truth to it, you should know, of course. But you couldn’t help but feel a little tinge of jealousy, although you hate to admit it to yourself. What else could explain this awful feeling in the pit of your stomach? It’s not true, not true at all, and yet at the back of your mind you think Suna would fit being with girls like her more. Ack, you were being ridiculous again.

“Ah no, I’m sure she’s a great person and stuff but we haven’t even talked to each other,” Suna shrugs, immediately shutting them down.

After the interview, when you guys were in the car on your way to leave he grabbed your hand and placed a soft kiss on the back of it. You turned to him in confusion as he just flashed a boyish smile at you, “You do know you’re exactly my type, right?”

“What,” you pretended that didn’t give you butterflies as you gave a pointed look towards your driver who was peacefully driving back to the hotel.

“He didn’t hear a thing, did you, June?” Suna says, tucking your hand in the hoodie he changed into.

“What was that, sir?” June plays along and presses a button to raise the divider and give you two privacy.

“See?” Suna says, you roll your eyes at him and think that was the end of it.

Not until you were in the middle of updating his social media apps when he suddenly pulls you closer towards him and uses his other hand that wasn’t holding yours to pull your head down and made you rest on his shoulder, “You should rest, you’ve been working hard the past few days, you might get sick, we can’t have that,” he hums.

“It’s my job.”

“Yeah yeah, your job is also to listen to me and I say you should rest.”

“You should tell yourself that first, you’ve been overworking too.”

“It’s okay if I don’t, you’ll take care of me if I get sick, so you need to rest, what if we get sick at the same time, who would take care of both of us?”

“What? First of all, your logic is messed up and second, your fans would be upset if you get sick.”

“Just my fans?”

“Yes,” you say, closing your eyes and giving in to his warmth.

He jinxed himself. Weeks later.

You shake your head at his groaning figure on the bed. It was early morning when you found Suna in this state.

“Everything hurts, [name],” he complains.

The first sign was the extra crappy mood he was in yesterday morning, followed by the coughing and his obviously paler than usual stature. It was even more obvious during their concert yesterday evening, but when you brought it up to him he brushed you aside and said he was fine. Look at him now.

“Drink this medicine,” you say, bringing in a tray with a glass of water and a tablet. He complies, not having the energy to do anything else. You knew that all he wanted was to lay down and sleep, but he can’t really do that. There’s a concert tonight too, and you know he’s stubborn enough to still go on stage to not disappoint his fans.

You put your palm on his forehead and brush his hair away from his face, he was burning. He was nodding off at your touch, “Rin, how about you don’t participate in the concert?” you suggest softly.

He immediately shakes his head, “No. I can go on later, I swear, I just need to sleep,” he says. You already knew this was what he was going to say but it didn’t hurt to try convincing him otherwise.

You were anxiously standing by the door of the dressing room as you waited for Suna to step out. It’s now 30 minutes before the start of the concert and you were really really worried. The buzzing of the crew around you accompanied your anxious self.

A click.

“Relax,” Suna says, then coughs, “My fever’s down now thanks to you, I told you I just needed to sleep,” he says. Now dressed in his outfit for the day. He did look healthier.. but you guessed that was mostly because of the makeup.

You were still skeptical and looked him up and down, “I’m still not sure, Rintarou.”

He smirks, “You care for me that much, sweetheart?”

You knew he switched to trying to annoy you to distract you, a cheap tactic, but it usually worked. Not this time though.

“Yes,” you reply, which he didn’t expect. So what? He already knew that. You were just.. saying it out loud now. You couldn’t look him in the eye after saying it. From the corner of your eye, you could see him with a hand on his forehead, as if that could hide the way his ears turned red.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he mumbles, funny how you think the same way about him.

He was being really reckless, but this wasn’t the first time he’s done reckless things. Like that one time you were on break from your job, then he suddenly called nearing the end of your vacation asking if he could go to where you were since you were coming back to work the next day anyways saying why don’t we just come back home together? It would seem normal if it wasn’t for the fact that you were in a different country at that time. The wonders of money.

“After this, promise me you’re going to go easy on yourself, okay? I’ll clear your schedule so you can focus on taking a break,” you say, it was convenient that there was going to be a weeklong break without another concert, but there will still be the long flight that could wear him out and the meetings with some brands that could always be rescheduled.

“I’ll be all better tomorrow,” he claims confidently, even though you can see how tired his eyes were, it’s a wonder that he even has energy right now. “I don’t want to be stuck in the hotel room all the time.”

You nod, “Drink water,” you hand him his tumbler. A tumbler you bought for him the first year you started working as his assistant, it was a christmas gift (that same year he gave you a designer bag, to say you were overwhelmed wasn’t a surprise, you said you couldn’t possibly accept it but he was relentless).

“When I said I wanted you to dote on me more, I didn’t mean like this,” he jokes, but drinks the water anyways, “I was thinking along the lines of a kiss here and there.”

You check your watch, “It’s time for you to go.”

Before you could regret your decisions in life, you stand on your toes and give him a quick peck on the cheek, he didn’t have time to form a teasing response because the other crew were on him then and ushering him to his spot.

Once you were alone, you cleared your throat, that was a moment of weakness.

You were finally going back to Tokyo.

They’re going to hold their final concert to end the descent tour. You were certainly going to miss traveling, but things always had an end, there was always a next time. Plus, you got a lot of souvenirs so you were satisfied with that. The flight back was a bit quick, it felt like that because you were asleep through most of it.

“You need to get up soon,” you say to the person currently resting on your lap. The both of you were in the privacy of his personal van on your way to his penthouse as he scrolled on his phone.

“Hm, we should go on a date,” Suna suddenly announces.

“Excuse me?” you were taken aback. You say one thing then he says something completely different.

“Look at this place,” he shows you his screen where a restaurant’s pictures were displayed, the restaurant looked fancy. “It’s newly opened and Akaashi said he’s friends with the owner, we should try it out,” he waves his phone.

“I- okay? When?” date? you were still in the middle of processing it.

“Right now,” he moved so he could sit properly. “Kaito, go to this place,” he shows his personal driver his phone and Kaito nods, already knowing where the place is, “You’ll take care of our things, yes? Ask Masaru for help,” pertaining to the guy at the front desk.

“What suddenly brought this up?” you ask him, fidgeting with your hair.

“Can’t we go on a dinner date?” Suna shrugs, leans on the car door as he stares straight at you.

“I don’t even have nice clothes on for this obviously fancy restaurant,” you say, looking down at your lazy airport fit consisting of a plain white t-shirt and trousers. He was also wearing a similar outfit but he managed to still look like he came out of a magazine.

“You do,” Suna argues, deciding to make a point by looking you up and down.

“I don’t,” you deadpan.

“You always look nice anyways,” he mumbles before staring out the window.

And that’s how you ended up at one of the high end places in tokyo with none other than Suna Rintarou, your boss, your friend, the one you had feelings for (unfortunately), after months, and months, and months of overthinking about where these feelings would lead you to. It would bring you happiness, for sure, but what’s to say it also wouldn’t give you immense pain?

“Care to tell me what’s on your mind?” Suna says in your ear, lips grazing the outer shell and making a pleasant shiver run down your spine.

The both of you were looking over the view from the railings of the top floor of the restaurant Suna wanted to go to, he rented the whole floor out so the both of you could have some privacy. You were currently waiting for the food you guys ordered to arrive.

The both of you stay in comfortable silence for a moment, then you opt to look into his eyes and ask, “Are you sure.. about this?”

His eyebrows furrow, “About what?”

“You know,” you take a sharp intake of breath, pointing to him then to yourself, “us,” you purse your lips, “me,” you hate the way you sounded so insecure right now, you hated showing weakness, but you knew when it comes to him you can’t really hide your true emotions.

Suna takes a step closer to you and drops his head on your shoulder, “I’m in love with you, [name]. That night, I meant it when I said I was falling for you.”

You leaned against the balcony’s railings, Suna’s hand on your nape and tilting your head to the side to kiss you deeper. How did you guys get into this situation? You were merely talking a few minutes ago, and then.. and then.. you were staring at his lips and he was staring at yours.

It was so unprofessional.

But it felt so good.

You let your desires take over that night.

“I think I’m starting to fall for you, [name],” Suna sounded like he was teasing as usual. Joking. You couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not, what you should even be believing in. If he did mean it, you were going to take him seriously.

He doesn’t mean it.

You think, as your boss soon apologized for things escalating as they did. You also apologized and said the both of you were completely conscious adults and knew what you were getting into. You said you guys should just never do it again.

Then the two of you got closer, got more attached, and you liked him, liked him so much. But you had to remember your boundaries.

The setting boundaries plan didn’t really work much, since you couldn’t stay away from him just as much as he couldn’t stay away from you.

“I..” you struggle to form words.

“I’m so in love with you that some days I can’t go on without hearing your voice or seeing your face, it’s awful,” he confesses. 

“Rin..” you say, pulling him off your shoulder because you wanted to look at him, he silently waits for you to continue, you take a sharp intake of breath, “I want to kiss you.”

He reaches for your hand as confirmation, you stand on your tip-toes and softly press your lips against his.

Shouts and clinks of wine glasses were everywhere, along with a celebrity or two holding them. It really was a little too crowded for an exclusive party, you think. So much so that you can’t find Suna! You’ve been searching for him for almost an hour now, ever since you’ve arrived at the place the celebratory party was held. You saw the familiar faces of your coworkers along with very influential people in the industry. But there was only one influential person you were looking for and he was nowhere in sight.

Feeling suffocated from the amount of people, you search for a balcony instead. Finally letting out a breath, you tug your dress down a bit, it slightly rose when you were excusing yourself through a mass of bodies. You lean over the balcony to see a view of the pool where people were already laughing and swimming, you squint to try and see if you could spot Suna’s figure.

“I knew you’d be here,” the cool, familiar voice that always made your insides feel funny.

You turn and give him a glare, “I was looking for you, I called you a lot but you never answered.”

He raises a brow, standing by the door of the entryway to the balcony, “I was looking for you. And I forgot to bring my phone,” he raises his hands to show he was empty-handed as he walks towards you.

The two of you decided that after your dinner date you would be staying at your own apartment while he goes home to get ready for the concert the next day, after which, the both of you would meet up again at the celebratory party.

You cross your arms at him as he places his hands on your waist and pulls you closer, “Did you miss me?” he asks, giving you his mischievous smile.

“I saw you 3 hours ago,” you say.

“That’s not a no,” he leans in to kiss you on the forehead.

“You’re unbearable, just wait for me to hand in my resignation letter,” you roll your eyes.

“Sure, you liar.”

You laugh before reaching a hand out to cup his face, “Congratulations,” you say, for the success of their tour, you were so proud of him, you even cried at the end of their show earlier (yes, you bought tickets again) but you would never let him know that.

“Where’s my ‘you’re amazing, rin’,” Suna grins, teasing with the sign you made for the start of their tour. You can’t believe he still remembers (you can believe it, but you would rather not), you feel your face burn even hotter because of the memory, he would never let you live that down.

“Don’t you want something better?” you say, wrapping your hands around his neck and giving him a coy smile.

“Something better? Hm? What could that possibly be?” he plays along, his fingers purposefully brushing the skin of your thigh just below where the fabric of your dress ends, leaning in again to start chasing your lips but you put a finger on his lips to stop him which in return he gives you a frown.

He was going to say something, probably going to be a complaint- but you were quicker than him.

“I love you, Rin,” you say with a warm smile on your face, you can feel the way he froze at your words, you never said it back on your dinner date after all. You regretted not saying it back, but really, you were speechless last evening.

His expression turned into his usual resting face as he told you, “Say it again.”

You bite your lower lip, “I love you, Rin.”

“Again,” he says.

You laugh, “I love you, Suna Rintarou.”

“I knew you were obsessed with me,” Suna said once he recovered, “I love you too, [name].”

“Aren’t you going to ask me out?”

“But we’re already dating?”

“What? Since when?”

“Huh? I thought we were already—”

HEADLINE:

lead guitarist of ikarus suna rintarou spotted on a date with non-celebrity girlfriend? who is this unknown woman!

note: and that concludes it! see u in the next ikarus band member’s story. hint hint secret relationships

ps. clingy suna is the best, i love him

[yetanothergreyjedi]

Ghosts of Our Pasts: pt 12

DP x DC crossover

Damian Wayne and Danny Fenton Sibling AU

Ao3

Masterpost Previous

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Mistakes a Mother Shouldn't Make

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Oh Dears, you didn't think I was going to immediately tell you what's happening with Danny and Dami, did you? Sorry not sorry

---

Talia was looking for her children. They hadn't appeared yet this morning, which meant they were likely finding mischief. Fine as long as they weren't late for lessons, fine as long as it did not intrude on anything of importance.

It was too early for training, yet they were not in their beds and the halls were quiet. She had been searching for several minutes and still no trace of them. Not that that was particularly alarming, children trained for stealth tended to be skilled at it. They had the advantage of their size and the fact that most did not look down when anticipating threats. Add to the fact that they knew the methods for changing the guard and they could disappear as effectively as any assassin.

Her guards had not seen them. They had not come when she called. She hoped they hadn't fallen asleep in a crawl space again, it might be hours before they woke and realized they needed to return, and Father had been keeping a close eye lately. Dany was already in a dangerous position, if he believed her eldest was stunting Damian's potential...

She was worried about Danyal. He was growing... unsettled. His progress had stagnated for seemingly no reason, and it wasn't out of limitation. She knew what Dany looked like when he'd reached his limits, when he'd reached past them. This felt deliberate. Of course she had no way to prove he'd been aiming off center, or that he'd misstepped on purpose, or that he failed to see an opening he'd see without fail every single time they'd tested it last year.

Ras was not close enough to see the choice. This was a good thing. She did not know what punishment would exist for her son if her Father knew.

Then there were the pranks.

If this was truly the height of Danyal's progress, Ras would find it disappointing, but the League would still have gained from it. But Disloyalty? That would not stand.

Perhaps it was time, she had always considered sending her sons to her Beloved. Part of her loathed the choice. Bruce would not encourage loyalty to the league and his presence held the very real threat of defection. But if Danyal had already made that decision...

Then her beloved was the only one who could save him.

This was the last thought before the wall clicked. She had her weapon drawn before she processed the opening, the passage. She hadn’t known this one existed. Seams she had never recognized opened into a door, and out stepped her youngest.

She registered the blood and dust and tear tracks down his face before any true thoughts could form.

1.) Check behind him. No threats made themselves immediately known. Nothing in the secret hall, no footsteps giving chase.

2.) She knelt, quickly scanning Damian for injuries. Nothing immediately visible.

"Are you hurt?" She demanded.

Damian hiccuped another sob, but shook his head. What he did say, however, was, "D-dany,"

If her blood was cold before, now it was liquid nitrogen. "Damian, where is your akhi?"

---

Maddie couldn't remember the last time her cooking had made herself this sick.

Between Jazz recognizing when something was too far gone, the food coming to life then escaping, and her own iron stomach, the last actual case of food poisoning hadn't been since the portal. This being the thing that caused it... it didn't make sense.

The meal had been prepared with fresh foods, smelled delicious, and had not a hint of undead twitching. There was only one thing that could've caused it, one that didn't by any accounts make sense.

Ectouranium, despite its frightening name, was perfectly safe for human consumption. Should've been perfectly safe for them. Yet here she was, standing over the toilet just like Jack had done an hour ago.

Hoping the worst had passed, she rinsed her mouth from the sink. The water had the ever so slight taste of electrified old pennies, and Maddie knew why her attempts to decontaminate the kitchen had failed; because even the tap water tasted like ectoplasm, and she suddenly craved it. She flushed the toilet with a sigh, she should've known. Of course they were too contaminated for a simple fix, Danny had been registering as a ghost on every scanner—Danny.

Danny had eaten dinner with them.

She practically flew down the stairs to a star dappled bedroom, empty. And that wasn't surprising, she could only hope that he hadn't decided to disappear again tonight.

She checked the bathroom next. Its door was still ajar. The relief she felt that he had stayed home was squashed by the way Danny huddled on the floor. He was gasping for air in short pained starts, pressed into the corner where the wall met the tub as if trying to melt into it.

"Danny!" She ran to him, and her heart broke as he tried to shuffle away from her despite the fact that there was nowhere to go. Instincts from his past or something else, she didn't know. It didn't matter, the movement turned ragged breathing into deep chest coughs that had Maddie reaching to call an ambulance before she saw the blood.

But her phone wasn't here, it was still plugged in on the bedside table where she'd left it. And Jack would be asleep with his earmuffs and—

"Mom?" A bleary-eyed Jazz said, "what are you..."

"Jazz, call an ambulance!"

---

Talia stalked through passages she only half knew. She was equal parts proud and dismayed that the trail the boys had left was so subtle. She was equal parts relieved and terrified that the unused halls were too dusty to leave no trace. She moved as quickly as she dared, unwilling to misread the subtle signs.

Until the signs were less subtle. Her eldest's struggle was painted clear crimson for a hallway, and then it stopped. And it was clear what had happened, even if the illuminating green had faded like a dull cracked glowstick.

Dany was no longer in danger of that death, but the deaths that would no doubt follow behind her were still as real as before. There were six drying bootprints before her son had realized and taken measures to prevent them. Thus Danyal's mind was clear. Good, even if the trail became harder to follow. Not perfect, the hard stone became dirt and hiding footprints was nearly impossible. He'd doubled back at least twice, intentionally or because he'd taken a wrong turn?

Pride and betrayal and fear and hope all swirled in her heart but now was not the time to dwell on them.

The end of the tunnels came and went, the wilderness stretched in front of her until it gave way to civilization and the trail went cold. Perhaps she did not check all the places a child could hide that an adult could. Perhaps she overlooked a camera's blindspot.

She had no way of knowing if the assassins her father sent would know to not to do the same.

She did not find her son.

No one told her if anyone else had either.

---

Maddie cradled her son in her arms, encouraging him to keep fighting for breath. Jazz had disappeared a moment, an eternity, exactly fifty three stuttering wet gasps and 5 lung tearing coughs ago.

Then she returned, not talking urgently with an operator, but holding a beaker full of electric green-white.

"Jazz, no."

"It is not poison for the dying, or the dead." Her daughter quotes her son.

"It's still—"

Jazz silences her with a glare, her eyes reflect the eerie light. She doesn't need to say it, Maddie knows that it's Jazz who's memorized Danny's contingency plans, who knows his rules for when the hospital is and isn't an acceptable risk.

"Okay," Maddie shifts to let Jazz take her place by Danny's side. She tips the glass and he drinks what should be poison.

He improves but does not heal and Maddie tells Jazz why. That this amount of ectoplasm can only counter ectouranium so far, that she had forgotten that the 'contamination' was what kept her youngest alive.

Jazz did not lecture her this time, it felt worse than when she did.

They brought Danny down to the lab and Jazz sat them down next to the open portal. It was a chill down her spine and an ache in her bones but neither of her children seemed to fear it, and she would not leave them now.

Danny's breathing had gone quieter after the ectoplasm, so she hadn’t exactly noticed when it stopped. He turned and looked at her with eyes that were not reflecting the portal. How many times had she tricked herself into believing they were?

"Danny?"

"Mom," He breathed in after saying the word, but did not exhale. She wasn't sure he needed too.

"I'm sorry," She whispered.

He huffed a laugh, "Not the first time I've been poisoned,"

Jazz facepalmed behind him.

"For more than that," Maddie said, because Danny had never seemed less human than this moment, and she couldn't apologize and ask at the same time.

He dropped his head on her shoulder, he was cold as ice, but Jazz was at his other side and would've said something if it was a problem.

"Just don't do it again," he requests, meaning more than just adding things to her cooking.

"I won't," Maddie promised, and felt the weight of something binding in her own words. It wouldn’t matter. She intended to keep her word.

So perhaps the FentonWorks ghost security was dismantled and destroyed by the end of the week. Perhaps symbols drawn by teenagers proved more effective. Perhaps their son would sometimes pass through the front door instead of opening it.

Some questions don't need to be asked.

Some questions shouldn't be.

---

Talia was often grateful that her son was a public figure. It meant that instead of wasting manpower on a subtle check up, (and that would be made more complicated of course, her beloved would not allow it), all she had to do was a quick search of his name to find out anything the public might know.

It wasn’t always enough to feel comfortable, particularly when Robin was reported to be injured, but it was far better than if the Wayne's had been just another face in the crowd.

Drama was the usual, but she was surprised to see some of it focusing on Damian instead of the other family members... Apparently someone had run from him, he had given chase and the details devolved into theories from there. It didn't sound like something Damian would do in her opinion, but with every passing year the Damian she remembered existed less and less.

She scrolled through the comments wondering if they had simply misattributed the action of one of the others. Damian running through the streets shouting after them? Her son would know better ways than that. But then her eyes fell onto another comment.

"I saw him," The person with a pink cat for a profile picture said. "He was yelling 'Daniel'."

The world seemed to stop. Not Daniel, Damian had been yelling after Danyal.

-

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Notes:

There are a lot of reasons you shouldn't train small children as assassins, most of those reasons are ethical. But I'm stuck on the idea of giving stealth training to small children… bring them into one(1) department store and POOF they gone!

Tag list pt1

@spectralstardustandphantomnights @avelnfear @idfk-man10 @blackroserelina @candeartist422 @mur-ururu @luer-mirin @insufferablecatenthusiast @skulld3mort-1fan @alonedustspeck @voidbornposts @meira-3919 @marshmello @aethernorwood @mimilikey @undead-essence @cloudminder @markus209 @everything163 @latheevening226 @roman4517 @moobloomrights @battybatbat @lumosfeather18581 @werv @ahyesanerd @pyramaniac @lexdamo @princessbelix @bun-fish @deeannthepan @edgyboi10000 @thatrandomsarahchick @busterkeel @aconitewolfsbane @spoopyspoony @bright-shade @spidey29phangirl @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit @keimiwolf @u-a-wizard-jamie @gay-puff @bicerise @itshype @blackfoxsposts @icanneverdecide @lolottes @chubbypotato @jovialherringtacoghost @saltyladynightmare

[maybe-boys-do-love]

The Trainee, episode 4:

1. The genres of it all!!! So fun, not only because they’re so fun and cheesy with the over-the-top romance and spy and body-swap, but because they were used for the purpose of deepening characters! Like, of course Pie lives inside of a narrative that involves super high stakes and strategizing with little trust in others. Ba-Mhee’s was obvious, but I’ll get back to it in a moment. And Pah’s body-swap is simply hilarious but it also shows how a) he connects so easily with others and b) these interns really are super fresh faces in this office that the employees don’t necessarily have strong relationships with yet, which gives us the question of whether that means these interns are going to be treated as dispensable or with respect and potential even though people don’t fully know who they are yet or what they’re capable of.

2. The production on this episode was incredible!!! Watch how many cuts, pans, and zooms happen as Ba-Mhee races to seduce Jane! It was all so clean and paced so well for the comedic beats. Also the color coordination during the split-screens in the calls was gorgeous (the colors in general on this show are so vivid, giving a comedic feel without ever feeling campy, which I find impressive)

3. And then the music!!! There’s a reason they cue us in to the idea of listening to multiple parts through the headphones and split screens! (You even get a moment of audio feedback when Tae talks while riding the motorbike, to remind you how important sound and sound quality is! It’s also the reason Ba-Mhee realizes he’s not wearing a helmet) They set up the genre’s so obviously, but the scoring that they use for them is what carries it through the rest of the episode. First, they bring the scoring of those genre scenes back-up as comedic sound cues when Pah insults them later. Then, the drums and upright bass followed by the strings and electric guitar from the spy theme start scoring immediately as the plan gets underway, letting us know how, despite being dismissed, Pie’s planning and genre are still a part of this team effort. Then vocals strike up when Ba-Mhee needs to play her role with Jane. Vocals were only a part of the music from her romance scene. But I lost it when instead of bringing in a sitar like the music she imagined, they throw in a kazoo as she’s forced to go down the slide to make it in time, altering her genre from straight romance into romantic comedy at best 🤣

4. I also just wanna give some kudos to Ba-Mhee and Piploy for finally getting to start to blossom in this episode. I was cackling so hard at her facial expressions.

And her timing was so spot on for the comedy. Excited to see her character get to develop, and I think that’s the point that we’re supposed to see in her romantic fantasy—how helpless she sees herself as, when in actuality she’s the active one always trying to help her man. It will be interesting to see how she gets to grow and recognize her strengths and put them into her career world. Already we saw her actually do a job because there were emergencies that she felt responsible for and Tae wasn’t in the editing room for her to fawn over instead! Also just excited for her to get to do more comedic stuff like this that’s less about her being clingy lol

5. And that feminist empowerment brings us to the sexual harassment stuff, which was cool to see the show attempting to discuss its occurrence in the industry even if I’m not sure that I feel it was a totally successful way to depict it in terms of the show maybe replicating some of that sexual harassment with the visuals. However, I think they probably showed something more close to reality than an ideal situation. It was stark but meaningful. It also gives room for them to develop this issue further in the series towards something more positive and gives room for the Pie and Ba-Mhee to develop in how they understand and deal with the problem itself and the feelings that living in a world saturated by misogyny in media, workplaces, and everyday life have harbored in them. The fact that these two were the ones whose fantasies we got to see into is especially meaningful with this in mind.

6. It must’ve been nice for Gun to have time off lololol. But actually, loving this as a workplace comedy first and foremost and a QL second, just because they’re doing the first part soooo well. But bring on the workplace romances, and I can’t wait for the episode when we get to see how HR at a production company works because everyone has to disclose their new relationships so HR has to reassign chains of command 🤣🤣🤣

[only-lonely-stars]

A Bride for the Prince (Chapter 6 - Hide and Seek)

[Prologue] // [Chapter 5 of 9] // [Chapter 6 of 9 - you are here!] // [Chapter 7 of 9] – (FFN) (AO3)

Part of the @ninjago-fairy-tale-au!

Summary:

Once upon a time, there lived a faithful and hardworking girl named Pixal Borg, who worked every day to satisfy her demanding stepmother. For years, she cleaned and cooked, giving no argument, until the day came when she met the prince. A Pixane Cinderella retelling.

Chapter summary:

The third day of the festival arrives, and Zane asks an important question.

On the third day of the festival, Pixal acted as she had the two days prior, her family none the wiser. The previous night, she had concocted a plan for her day, and she was determined to see it through.

As first order of business, she helped her stepmother and sisters prepare for the festival and saw them off. Columbine and Begonia spat yet more biting remarks about Pixal and how they were to catch the prince's eye, but Pixal shrugged them off. Unbeknownst to them, they meant nothing to her; the prince could not care less.

As they were about to leave, Amaryllis stopped Pixal in her tracks just as she was about to turn and go back to her basement room.

"Pixal, wait."

"Yes, Stepmother?" Pixal asked, dread roiling in her stomach as her traitorous mind told her every way Amaryllis could have learned her secret.

"I want you to be studious in your cleaning today," Amaryllis said. "Prince Zane may show interest in one of your stepsisters yet today, and should that be the case, I will not be shamed by a dirty home."

Pixal faltered for a moment. "I understand."

"See to it that the estate is spotless!" her stepmother continued. "I have not missed how things have deteriorated in my absence. Scrub until even the floors shine."

"I will," Pixal responded, the lie sitting on her tongue with its coppery taste. "Enjoy the festival."

"We will," her stepmother retorted. Then Amaryllis turned and left, entering her carriage and settling herself between her bickering daughters. Within mere minutes, Pixal was alone once again, and the next part of her day's plan could begin.

For her second task, Pixal pilfered another forgotten gown from one of her sisters' closets and donned it. This gown was unlike either previous one, having more fabric and detailing than either, and it flattered her figure such that she scarcely recognized her reflection.

The gown was a pale blue, embroidered with white and green thread in an intricate pattern on the skirt and sleeve hems. Pixal twirled in front of the mirror, watching the hem as it swirled and turned. Unlike the others, this dress was quite low-necked, yet not so low as to be uncomfortable nor too revealing– completely ladylike in all aspects, but so lovely that Pixal scarcely believed either sister could discard it. However, that worked to her benefit, so she thanked them for it. After she was satisfied with her choice, she donned her snowflake necklace and did her hair, making her appearance into that of a proper lady.

There was but one final addition to her person. It was a blue scarf the color of ice, made of a gauzy fabric, which Pixal set in her pocket for later use. It had belonged to her mother, Astrid, and she had almost forgotten about it after Begonia had snatched it for herself when they were children. Now, however, she would be taking it back.

As the third and final step in her plan, she needed to transport herself to the festival. Pixal took her spellbook and another bunch of herbs and prepared her spell, creating the plume of sparkling smoke with which she had become so familiar. She stepped in without reserve, boldly facing the smoke as it enveloped her, but then stopped short on the other side.

Despite everything being identical to the previous day, at least to her knowledge, Pixal was nowhere near the pavilion where she had found herself the previous two days. Instead, she was by the jousting arena, across the festival grounds. While the location was not as it had been the previous two days, it would be workable.

A smile made its presence known on her face as she reasoned through the matter. If things progressed today as they did the previous two, then this was the most convenient place to be when she returned, since she could stay to watch the tournament. Perhaps she would be able to watch the evening jousting and see the prince there! Then she could give him a favour and somehow be able to watch him joust with it, showing it off to all those who attended.

Once she realized how her thoughts had turned, embarrassment filled her. The prince was not a quarry for her to pursue, and she knew that very well. She had to remember that he was simply someone with whom to share the last day of the festival. She would not delude herself into thinking that she could somehow cultivate a real relationship with him, nor develop feelings. That would end poorly and painfully. As such, she would not allow herself to hurt either of them in such a manner.

After hiding the spellbook, Pixal wondered what she should do next. It was most logical for her to return to the pavilion where she had met Prince Zane both days prior, to continue the pattern. It was a fair walk from the arena, although manageable, and would not be a hardship. By all reasonable estimation, she would have to travel quickly if she were to get there as early as she had been the day prior, so she did not delay in beginning her trek.

As she had suspected, the time it took Pixal to walk to the pavilion was long enough to throw off her timing from the prior day. When she reached it, however, she found it just as it had been the two previous days, filled with whirling colors and people. Though she found it less tempting, it was nevertheless still enticing, and she considered joining the dancers for a few moments. She searched the crowd and saw no sign of the fair-haired prince, and her heart sank.

Pixal looked everywhere in the nearby area, but did not see Zane. Her heart sank the longer she searched, but she did not allow it to discourage her, and searched more carefully. A little while later and after seeing her distress, an organizer for the festival came up to her and cleared her throat.

"Pardon me, young lady. Are you looking for someone?" the woman asked, her gravelly voice sounding aged.

Pixal turned in surprise, then nodded. "Yes ma'am."

"Might I be of some assistance?" the woman asked, silver hair close to falling in her face as she smiled.

"Perhaps." Pixal smiled self-consciously and looked down, a light blush dusting her cheeks. "I fear you would judge me for my answer."

"Nonsense, dearie. Tell me about your trouble."

"Very well." Pixal looked up to meet the woman's gaze. "I'm looking for his Highness, Prince Zane. I had the pleasure of meeting him the previous two days, but not today, and I expected to find him here."

The woman nodded knowingly. "Of course. Every marriageable lady here seeks to meet him– that is understandable."

"It isn't like that!" Pixal protested, raising her hands. "I simply wish to talk to him– I know he would never consider me, nor I him."

The woman hummed in contemplation. "Ah, very well. I can help you, young lady, but you must help me first."

"What kind of help do you require?" Pixal asked. "I can do whatever you need."

The woman beckoned her near. "Come with me, and I will tell you. If you are so considerate of the prince, then I'm sure you will be very happy to help me with this task…"

-----

On the third day of the festival, Prince Zane found himself anxious as he waited for the day to begin, unable to focus due to his preoccupation.

He woke early in the morning, fretting about how best to present himself. He washed himself in freezing water, dressed, and visited the memorial to his brother. The sun was barely risen, but he left the castle anyway, eager to supervise and perfect everything before the time came for him to meet up with Lady Pansy.

For several hours, Zane burned the time he had by working, hoping to ease his nerves. Despite everything that would assuage him, he found himself adrift on a sea of anxiety, so incredibly unlike himself. He tried to reason through it, and for a little while it worked, but only so long as he did not stop to think about Pansy.

When the time came, Zane rushed to the pavilion, although doing his utmost not to appear too quick to arrive. His heart beat loudly in his chest, louder with every step, every breath feeling colder even as he grew warmer and warmer.

When he arrived, however, Pansy was not there.

Concern worked its way into the prince's mind as he searched, looking into the crowd of dancers as he tried to catch a glimpse of her fair hair. Where was Lady Pansy? From what he could tell, it was not her habit to be tardy.

Perhaps he had come too early. They had not set a time to meet, and he had been awake since before dawn.

The city clock tower struck ten, discarding that idea. It was not too early, for this what when they had met the day before. Still, he did not find her.

After a little while of searching, Zane went to explore the near area, hoping to spot her. As he went farther from the pavilion, the sound of the music faded, replaced with speech and children's laughter, distracting yet not unpleasant. The latter grew louder as he walked, and Zane stopped to look at its source.

A hundred feet from him, a crowd of children laughed and cheered, having been playing games. They crowded around each other and pushed toward several adults who supervised. These adults were giving them treats- candied fruit, toys, flowers and more.

As Zane watched, he smiled. Then, his heart began to race, as he noticed one of the adults had the fairest hair he'd seen that day. The woman turned to speak to some children in his direction, and Zane knew immediately that it was Lady Pansy. She smiled and spoke to the children, giving them treats and paying compliments that sent them into happy peals of laughter. When her basket of gifts was empty, she put it aside and spoke to an old woman with gray hair, who dismissed her.

Pansy turned, but then paused as she caught sight of Zane. She smiled, and Zane had to smile back. Cautious of the children under foot, he approached her, and when he reached her, he kissed her hand.

"Lady Pansy. I was wondering where I might find you," he greeted.

She smiled, embarrassed. "My apologies, your Highness. I did not intend to make the task difficult for you."

"It was no issue for me," he replied, already putting his trouble finding her behind himself in favor of the current moment. "You are a lover of children?"

"I am. They have such potential," Pixal replied, glancing at the children playing with a smile.

"They do." Zane smiled back. "I take it that you volunteered to help?"

"Madame Mystake asked for my help, and I could not say no." Zane's smile made Pixal feel lighter than air, and she did her best to hide just how happy it made her feel. "Do you love children, too?"

"I do, though I fear I am not as capable with them as you are, my lady."

"Perhaps so, perhaps not." Pixal looked off into the distance, in the direction of the dancing pavilion. The sun reflected off her snowflake necklace, and its appearance brought a smile to Zane's lips. "There have been many things during this festival that I am not accustomed to."

"The same is true for me. A festival of this magnitude is rare." He offered his arm. "Perhaps, if I might be so bold, you would accompany me for its final day?"

"I would be honored, Prince Zane," Pixal said, taking it.

"You may call me by my given name if it makes you comfortable, Lady Pansy."

"You wish for me to call you such?"

"Indeed."

"Then you may call me by mine, Zane."

The two shared a smile. "Very well, Pansy." With that, the two set off.

-----

For several hours, the two walked and talked, just as they had the previous two days. They spoke of many things, not the least of which family and love, although never in such terms as toward the other. Throughout the day, they spoke of all lovely things, and shared many anecdotes from their lives. Questions were frequent, and answers were entertaining. However, Pixal felt as though she could not truly share some things, for shame of her true position in her household, so she carefully told her stories as to not betray her status.

Despite Pixal's carefulness with her stories, however, she found herself ever closer to the prince. For the majority of their time together, they walked arm in arm or side by side- if not those, then they sat right next to each other, no farther than a few feet apart. Their tendency toward connection was unmistakable.

As their day passed, Zane took mental note of the qualities he saw in Lady Pansy. She was reserved, yet had interesting opinions and did not hesitate to speak her mind. She was clever and wise, yet did not boast in herself. She was hardworking, yet gentle, and though strong, not brash. In every aspect, he saw the most remarkable things, and in such fell deeper into admiration for her.

As the sun reached its zenith, high above the earth, Zane knew it was time to ask her one of the most utilitarian of his questions. Thus, as they sat together underneath a maple, he brushed her hand with his to catch her attention.

At the touch, Pixal turned to look at him. He seemed anxious to some degree, though she could not fathom why.

"Pansy," he began, his usual surety missing from his voice.

"Zane? What is the matter?"

"I must ask you a question, though I fear I should have asked this earlier of you."

"I am sure your timing is no issue," Pixal assured him. "What is your question?"

Zane felt chilled, but pressed on despite how belligerent he felt, and took her hand in his. "Pansy, if I may be so bold as to ask, you have not told me your family name. Might I know what it is?"

For a brief moment, Pixal's heart stopped. "You wish to know my family name?" she clarified.

"If you would let me know it, yes. I wish to know of your family."

Pixal could not meet his eyes, her mind racing. "I do not mean to assume, but Zane- Prince Zane- there would be but one reason for asking in this context. You couldn't possibly mean such a thing. It does not make sense."

"I know what such a question means." He sought out her gaze. "Lady Pansy, you are a most remarkable woman. It is a pleasure to simply know you, despite how slim our time has been. I would think no more nor less of you for your name."

"No, you most certainly would think differently." She broke away from him again. "I cannot tell you. You cannot know."

Zane's heart sank. "Pansy…" he uttered, the name sounding like a plea.

Pixal's heart clenched in her chest, the sudden reality of emotion clearer than a summer sky, her mind the eye of the storm. "Zane, you are a prince. My prince. If you are to- to consider a lady, she should be from some high and respectable station! I have no such thing."

"I do not care for station! Neither does my father." Zane took her hand in both of his. "Pansy, he declared this festival such that I might meet someone fitting, regardless of background."

"That matters little to me, either, but you would not find a proper lady in me, should you know my family. You would not see the woman you wish to see."

"The eyes deceive. Pansy, do you think I am shallow?" he asked, pain in his eyes.

"Of course not, your Highness." She drew away from him. "You are a man with integrity. I am not a lady to meet such a standard."

"How many times must I say it? The standards matter little to me." He put both of his hands on one of hers, enclosing it.

"I know this," Pixal said, looking down at their hands. "Nevertheless, you deserve better than me."

"I hardly believe such a woman could exist."

Pixal looked up sharply, and the intensity of Zane's gaze was nearly too much to bear. So much emotion was on display, she could not comprehend it, only knowing that it was tender, with his heart on his sleeve. She sighed, breath catching in her chest, feeling as if her spirit was caught in his gaze.

"You are not the kind of prince I believed our kingdom to have," she said after a few moments.

Zane chuckled, caught off guard. "What kind would you believe, Pansy?"

"None so willing to follow what he seeks, despite rebuff," she responded, a smile pulling at her lips. "Zane, you are… extraordinary."

"As are you," he responded. He gently raised her hand to his lips, kissing it. "Pansy, is there no way I might convince you? At the very least, I would like to continue our friendship, even if you wish for nothing more."

The gesture made Pixal feel flushed, and she racked her mind for an answer. She had no heart to deny such a plea, but no strength to allow him to see her true colors.

"I suppose there might be one way," she eventually whispered.

"What might it be?" he asked, hope coloring his voice as it bloomed in his chest. His grip on her hand became stronger.

She sighed gently, gears in her mind turning quickly as she concocted a plan. She spoke softly as she told him. "If you are able to find me, then you may know my name."

"Find you? Where? How?" He bowed his head toward her, ever so slightly.

She smiled despite herself. "I live on an estate not far from here. If you are able to find me, then you shall know." She tried to ignore how guilty it made her feel to grant him such a task, and worse, for him to still not know her first name– the one she still kept.

Zane contemplated this answer, wondering about her motivation but finding no sufficient answer. "You wish for me to seek out your home...?"

"That is correct." She nodded. "If you find me, then you shall know my name- then, too, you will also know all the other things you seek."

"I accept your challenge," Zane responded at length. He looked into her eyes and their emerald hue, memorizing the patterns of their variation. "I will find you, Pansy. No matter the difference in station, I believe we are compatible."

"You and I are compatible?" she parroted.

"That is what I said."

"Oh."

He laughed quietly. "Is that your only response?"

She blushed, her traitorous heart beating loudly in her chest. "Zane, I do not know what to say." The distance between them seemed small, and for a few moments it felt like she did not need to hide. "You are… simply incredible."

"As are you," he murmured. "If I may I even say it, you are the most beautiful flower I have ever laid eyes upon. If pansies are to indicate thoughtfulness, I can think of no more fitting owner of such a name."

She blushed and looked away. "You flatter me, Prince."

"Perhaps." He smiled. "I will find you, Pansy."

Her heart clenched in dread and anticipation. "I'm sure you will." She looked back at him, unwilling to consider her emotions any further. "Tell me, the day is still young. Might we enjoy it a little longer?"

"By all means." He offered his hand. "It would be my honor to continue such a fine day with you."

"The honor is mine." She took his hand and they both stood, so close and yet so far apart. "It is a privilege to have met you at all."

"I must say the same."

-----

The day's hours came and went, their daily pattern uninterrupted by the chaos in the hearts of men and women. Birds sang, the clouds drifted, and the wind blew. Even the insects kept to their habits, with bees in hives and ants in nests. Mankind was not so affected, either, for the festival continued in its pattern, with cheerful people doing business and having fun. Dancers danced, merchants bought and sold, and celebrators milled about.

For the rest of the day's younger hours, Pixal and Zane still did not part. Despite how much time they had spent together the past two days, they found themselves to be closer still, unwilling to attend to any business besides each other. Despite the mysteries between them, each found their bond to be enticing enough to tempt half-thought impulses which they studiously ignored. Several times that day, Pixal found herself needing to re-fasten her hair clip, finding it loose and slipping from her hair. Despite her troubles, however, it did not fall.

Throughout the day, they talked and walked, often stopping in shaded places. At one point, they returned to the pavilion for a few dances. Faster than either would have liked, the hours passed.

When the sun dipped near the horizon and the bell tower rang, both knew it was time to separate. At that time, Pixal took Zane's hand, deciding to ignore the inevitable.

"You are jousting again tonight, are you not?" she asked him.

"I am." Zane turned his hand to clasp hers. "Will you watch me?"

"I will. I have something for you." She smiled and put her free hand into her pocket, pulling out her blue scarf. Melded with white and sparkled with silvery thread, one of her last mementos from her mother, it sparkled like ice and snow.

Zane looked down at it, then up at her. "You would favour me?"

"I would." She put the scarf in his hand and clasped his fingers around it with utmost gentleness. "I do."

Zane held it gently. "You honor me, Pansy," he said, voice hushed like prayer.

"It is the other way around." She smiled. "Care for it well?"

"I will." Zane folded it gently and put it in his pocket.

"I will watch your jousting, and I wish you luck." With that, she threw caution to the wind and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Now you may show the world."

The smile on his face made Pixal's heart race. He brushed a lock of hair from her face, his touch gentle and light, almost worshipful. "I will, with pride." Then he took her hand and kissed it. "I will find you, Pansy."

"I know you will," she responded, trying not to dread such time as he was right.

-----

After leaving Pansy's side, Zane moved quickly. Their parting had taken longer than he expected, but he still had a bit of time before he had to begin jousting. As such, he hurried to prepare himself, but he could not stop smiling.

The day had not gone entirely to plan, he supposed as he entered the arena. Pansy had been so resistant to telling him her family name, to the point that she had fully refused to do so. He wondered what it could mean. Was her family disgraced, or of low stature? Perhaps she believed the caste system was valuable, and such, she was not of high enough upbringing to be an acceptable princess. If such an idea was the reason, then he simply could not believe it, for she was too well-mannered to be such.

What was the reason, then? Embarrassment? She clearly did not dislike him, nor was she reciprocating his advances out of fear of refusal. No matter how he framed the idea, he simply could not find a suitable reason for her refusal.

With so many thoughts swirling in his mind, Zane entered the room where he was to dress himself with his armor. There, Cryptor awaited him again, already holding the armor.

"There you are, Prince Zane!" he greeted. "You have cut your time closely today."

"My apologies, Cryptor." Zane bowed his head hastily. "I was preoccupied."

"I'm sure you were." Cryptor stepped forward, holding out the first pieces for Zane to step into. "Were you with Lady Pansy again?"

"As a matter of fact, I was," Zane replied, buckling on the armor.

"That would be the explanation, then. Would it not?" A smile was evident in his voice, even though Zane could not see him.

"Yes," Zane admitted.

"Have you learned about her family, then?" The advisor brought the next piece for Zane to don and buckle. "You were most adamant to do so when we spoke yesterday."

Zane hesitated. "No, but I will learn it soon."

Cryptor sighed. "The festival is nearly over, and I doubt the lady would stay past the jousting to speak to you, no matter how willing or unwilling she is. How will you find a chance?"

"She asked me to find her, Cryptor. She said that if I did, she would introduce me to her father." Zane sighed faintly. "Unfortunately, I do not know why she said to do so."

"Perhaps because she is ashamed?"

"Perhaps."

"Have you any leads, then? Something to start your search?"

Zane ran down the list on his fingers before putting on his gauntlets. "She lives near the city, in an estate. She mentioned no family, but fair hair and green eyes is a rare combination. That should be at least enough to narrow down my search."

Cryptor buckled on his breastplate. "If it is not, you will not find her. I trust that you know that."

"I do." Now fully armored, Zane took his lance in his hands. "I also know that she is not fully against the idea."

"How might you know that? She has not yet given you a favour."

Zane smiled. "In that, dear Cryptor, you are mistaken." He took Pansy's scarf from his pocket.

Cryptor examined it in interest, feeling the soft fibers. "I stand corrected. This is a fine gift– she could not possibly be from any lower station than a minor noble."

"I agree," Zane replied, tying it to the lance. "I have no reason to suspect she is of low stature, but even if she was, I would not think any less of her."

"Then you will look for her?" Cryptor asked. "Even if the nobles of our kingdom find fault with her?"

"I choose my bride, and no other," Zane responded, taking the opportunity to mount his stallion, Shard. "They will simply have to accept the lady I choose."

Cryptor smiled. "You are more certain about this decision than many I have seen you make, Prince Zane. The confidence suits you well." He put a hand on Zane's knee. "Have a good joust, your Highness."

Zane nodded in thanks, bringing down his visor. "Thank you, Cryptor. For everything."

"You are most welcome, though I suspect I will be helping with your search."

"Most likely." Zane chuckled, the sound echoing in his helmet. "The lady is elusive."

"She is indeed." With that, Zane trotted onto the jousting field, to the sound of the cheering crowd, lifting Pixal's favour high into the air.

-----

The sound of the festival crowd was loud enough to shake the earth. It was an unabated roar such as Pixal had never heard, louder even than the bear that had once wandered onto the Borg estate, and fiercer than her father's cry of war as he drove it from the property. She covered her ears as she adjusted to the feeling.

The jousting tournament had been going on for a while before she arrived, yet there was still a place low in the stands where she was able to stand. Unbeknownst to her before she found her space, she was near the king's viewing box, making space rare and highly sought. However, not one man nor woman inconvenienced her, nor asked for her to move, which she considered providential. From her vantage point, she saw every joust at a prime view.

The first of the few jousts Pixal saw was between two experienced knights. The first knight bore a favour in the form of a red veil on his lance and a crest belying the Gordon family– it was emblazoned with stars and moons, with a mace in the center. The knight had to be Sir Cliff, patriarch of the family. The other bore no favour that she could see, yet held his lance high. His crest was that of the Powers– a compass and quill next to a pike, making him none other than the newly-knighted Sir Clutch.

The jousters came at each other at the sound of a loud bell, lances raised. Sir Cliff scored a solid hit on Sir Clutch's shoulder, but the knight did not fall. Instead, he rolled his shoulder as they came about for the next impact.

The next strike was Clutch's, upon Cliff's chest plate. The sound of the strike rang out, and the crowd cheered. In his reeling from the force, he tumbled and fell to the sand.

Pixal marveled as Cliff got up and dusted himself off, the joust already over. He bowed to the king's viewing box and then to the crowd before re-mounting his horse, then rode off to an opening in the wall and exited.

The speed of the joust took Pixal by surprise, even as the crowd lauded him. She watched in quiet awe as Clutch took off at a canter, circling the arena and raising his lance high. When he came closer, she realized he had a minimal gray scarf tied to the handle of his lance. Then he pointed it at a lady in silver in the stands, indicating she was the owner of the favour.

Pixal froze. She had given Zane a favour, thinking it was anonymous, and had not told him where she would be as she watched. Would the prince find her and single her out? Her family would know she had lied if they saw her. Would they recognize her scarf? How could she do anything to protect herself from their wrath?

As she contemplated this, a flash of silver caught her eye. Another knight entered the arena, clad in shining silver armor, more ornate than any she had seen before. It boasted strong, artisanal plating, and the pauldrons bore a crest. So too did the shield, and as he neared, she recognized the falcon and falling snow. Finally, upon his lance was tied a blue and white scarf, matching the paint of his crest.

Pixal's heart caught in her chest. There was Prince Zane, in all his glory, bearing her favour proudly. Strong and resilient, despite being hidden from head to toe, he was the model knight. The crowd grew wilder than any she had heard so far, and she heard murmurs from women near her about the scarf. Some shouted, others whispered, and all mentioned Pixal's scarf.

Zane canter around the arena, circling to a place before the king's box- and despite his lack of knowledge, before her. Pixal watched as he paid respect to his father, and resisted the urge to wave at him, giving away her position. Nevertheless, it felt like his gaze was fixed upon her, and a chill ran up her spine.

After the few moments had elapsed, Zane turned and went to his mark, where he waited to joust against Sir Clutch. According to a herald, they were one of the final pairs for the tournament, and it was to be Sir Clutch's last joust of the night.

A bell sounded, and the two were off, Pixal's heart beating faster than their horses' hooves.

With a mighty clang, Zane's lance struck Clutch's chest. Clutch was knocked back, but stayed astride his steed.

The crowd cheered. Pixal whispered a silent prayer for Zane.

The second attack was much like the first, loud and majestic. Clutch was struck on the helmet, and his head turned fiercely, but he did not fall. Both jousters stayed upright.

Zane returned to his mark at the sound of yet more thunderous support. Pixal watched her scarf flutter in the wind.

The third attack began, and this time Zane was struck, the blow glancing off his pauldron.

The crowd gasped as he was pushed back in his saddle, and he put a hand to his shoulder. Pixal breathed a quiet prayer as he looked as if he was to fall. Then, after a moment, the prince righted himself, triggering more cheers, and Pixal sighed in relief.

The fourth attack came with undeniable finality, as Clutch was struck fully in the chest and fell to the side off his mount. From the force of his attack, Zane continued forward, circling around the rail central in the arena.

Pixal watched in openmouthed awe as Zane slowed to a stop, the crowd quiet. He turned his steed around, and the horse neighed in the empty air. The prince was still for a few moments, and then slowly raised his lance, scarf fluttering.

The crowd exploded into cheering. Pixal applauded him, heart pounding, as he came before the king. Zane looked up at his father and bowed his head. The king raised his hand in approval, clearly proud. The crowd celebrated again.

A smile crept into Pixal's face as she watched Zane. For a few more rounds, he jousted several knights. Not once did he fall, and only once more did he stumble, completely sure in his skill. The crowds celebrated him every time, and every time he would circle back toward his father, as if he knew she were up there, watching. At the end, he spoke in the ear of a servant, who ran from the field, and she wondered what he said.

To Pixal's joy and dismay, the tournament did not last forever. She knew she was on borrowed time, for her family would return home soon, so she readied herself to hastily leave the arena. As such, she was just about to escape when the king made an announcement, hushing the crowds as he dismissed the same servant from before that had been whispering something to him.

"My people, I thank you for your enthusiasm for this tournament," the king began. "I hope that you have enjoyed the festival!"

The crowds roared in appreciation.

"Good, good! There is one last announcement for you, on behalf of my son, Prince Zane." Pixal's heart caught in her throat as she struggled to spy the king's smiling face. "He would like to inform the world that he has chosen a lady, but that he cannot find her."

Chaos exploded in the arena. Pixal heard several cries from nearby women. She watched, heart pounding, as the king explained the prince's search for her.

"Now, my people, please. I will tell you what she is like, that you may help my dear son. The lady he is seeking has the fairest of hair and green eyes. He does not wish to disclose her name– let it only be known that the name is short. He seeks to return her favour, as thanks for the luck it brought him. Anyone who aids in her discovery will be handsomely rewarded."

Throughout the announcement, the crowd stewed in mixed confusion and excitement. After it finished, they vocalized their emotions, such that the king could not calm them. Pixal smiled to keep up her charade, but it hurt to breathe as she listened. Before order was restored, she took her opportunity and left the stands as quickly as possible, running to find the place where she had hidden her spellbook.

Despite her clear memory, the search for the spellbook was not easy. When she at last found it, the stands were mostly empty. Her family was doubtlessly on the way home, before she was, and were likely to return soon! It was clear that her time was running out.

After casting her spell and returning home, Pixal wasted no time in tearing down her charade. First she ran to her sister's room, returning the gown and jewelry like she had found it– not a difficult task, given how messy her stepsisters were. Second, she ran to her own room, taking down her hair and hiding her fine things in the wallboard, which seemed to be looser than it once was and swung quite freely on the connecting nail. Third, she grabbed her cleaning supplies, going for the dirtiest of jobs in order to hide how clean she was and how she had just arrived.

For a little while, a hesitant peace descended upon Pixal's mind as she cleaned, the repetitive tasks soothing her. She began to be able to reason through the ways she would be able to hide, should she need to do so, in order that Amaryllis would not realize her deception.

Finally, Pixal came across a task that she was not strong enough to do, having spent all her energy at the festival, and decided it was the proper moment to use magic to aid her.

It was not until she asked for its help that she realized her enchanted hairclip was gone, fallen from her hair.

[rikas-things]

Diabolik Alcoholik Part 1

•••IMPORTANT MESSAGE•••

|||Hello! It is I, Rika. I've decided to post some of my fanfics here since the site I use is no longer "usable" until I find another place to put them. For now, please enjoy this silly little story I made long ago.

Table of contents for if you want more:

"How could something like this happen?!"

A girl in pink yelled at the top of her lungs.

She was in the middle of nowhere, in the rain, with no umbrella- just a suitcase and the clothes on her back.

"I wake up and the next thing I know I'm outside! It's freezing and raining and I'm hungry!!"

She glared at the trees ahead of her as the mud-soaked into her brown fur boots.

"I don't even remember getting dressed! This sucks!"

She looked around, calming herself down by doing breathing exercises.

"Where am I anyway? There's no sign of a soul in sight."

She shivered and raised her brows with worry.

"I hope I don't get sick..."

She stopped her stroller temporarily to look down and felt at the cold metal of an ornate rosary around her neck, fiddling with its ruby-red gemstone.

"Come to think of it, where did this rosary come from? I don't remember Papa owning such a thing."

She shook her head.

"Curiouser and curiouser."

She resumed her trek, trying and failing to shake the mud off her boots in a vain attempt to make it easier to step in.

"In any case, I should look for-"

She stopped again, only this time keeping her eyes forward; just ahead was a lone mansion with trees and bushes planted all around it.

Despite the fog and ominous aura emanating from the ancient yet lovely building, she walked faster than before, happy she could find a place to rest while it rained.

"-House."

She clasped her hands together as a smile grew on her delicate face, her big pink eyes widening with excitement.

"How lucky☆!"

This girl is Yui Komori. She doesn't know it yet, but she is about to enter a world of adventure.

An adventure that will eat away at her body and soul until it has swallowed her up completely.

But, again, she doesn't know it yet.

Not yet...

After Yui struggled to get her bag up the steps, she took a breather before going up to the large wooden door and knocking on it merrily.

"Hey, is anyone there?" She called out loud enough for someone to hear but not too loudly despite the pounding of the rain.

"I was wondering if I could use your phone. I promise I'll leave after I'm done! I won't bother you after that!"

There was a pause which caused her to raise a thin blonde brow for a moment until the large door slowly...

Carefully...

Creepily creaked itself open.

The shrill whine of its hinges made her shudder even after it stopped, the door pulled open just enough for her to slip through with her bag and all.

She nervously examined it, and physically pulled back from the noise.

She then shrugged.

"Well alright then."

She proceeded to enter.

The interior of the mansion was just as breathtaking as the outer; a grand candelabra hung on the ceiling, serving as the only lighting source of the room.

The hall that led up to the stairway was draped in a fancy red carpet that had ornate wooden handrails on either side of it.

A few walls were decorated with pictures of various people Yui didn't recognize in 16-century clothing as well as random scenery.

The thought put her in the mind of a gothic art gallery.

Or a haunted house.

She shook off her anxiety about the slightly dark feeling of the house and wondered if she was breaking a trespassing law for just walking into this mansion without being invited by someone first.

Then grinned slyly as an idea came to her mind.

"Wait! This is exactly what I wanted!"

She puffed up her chest like a superhero.

"If anybody sees me, I can just get them to call the police and then my dad'll come to get me, problem solved! Easy peasy!"

Deciding to put her plan into action, she wandered deeper into the mansion's living room before getting bombarded by a hologram text that flashed in front of her.

The text read like a poem:

The more I love you the more I would like to eat you.

And once I become one with that body, would this ache, this thirst, be healed?

There was more but she turned away from it before she could read anymore; it was enough to make her feel nauseous.

What the hell was that and why was it in the middle of the mansion?! She thought to herself, a hand on her temples.

Maybe~ it wasn't a good idea to step into this place after all?

Before she could solidify an answer she heard a soft groan to her left that was coming from the living room couch.

Slowly moving towards the sound, she saw it was a boy that looked slightly older than her, his fiery purple-red hair caressing the gentle frames of his beautiful sleeping face.

His school clothes were askew, though his pose was relaxed, with one arm behind his back and the other lazily hanging off the couch's seat, with one leg bent and the other following the rule of his arms.

He looked so peaceful.

Yui held a gasp as she quietly placed her hands over her mouth, analyzing how precious he looked in his slumber.

"I wonder if I could plan something with him?"

She says with a tempted look in her eyes, her cheeks flushing red.

She then tiptoes closer to him, ever so carefully trying not to wake him up.

Calmly...

Quietly...

Stealthily until she was standing directly over him.

Then she proceeded to yell at the top of her lungs, startling him to the point that he fell off the couch almost immediately, all while holding a grin.

Yui used to do this as a kid with her older brother whenever she wanted to talk to him or play with him but he was still asleep.

Despite doing that every time, he held his anger to see what she wanted.

But that was so long ago...

The boy got up and rubbed the bump on his head before he shot her a glare, his lime-green eyes burning with rage.

"What the fuck is your prob-"

Before he completely flipped out on her he cut himself off, his face changing from rage into surprise.

After that, he sniffed her like a bloodhound.

At first, Yui just put her hands behind her head and smiled.

"Hey, I'm Yui! I'd like to use your phone, or better still, you could call the police! I'm fine with either!"

He silently sniffed her, not saying anything.

She stood awkwardly, taken aback by his lack of response and realizing his strange behavior.

"...Huh?" was all she could nervously utter as he did so.

Once he stepped back, she regretted saying anything.

Or waking him up in the first place.

His dark grin was more than enough for her to want to leave.

He placed a hand on his chin, still holding that danger in his eyes and mouth as a fanged tooth peeked from it.

"Say, you mentioned a phone, eh?"

She immediately backtracked, frantically waving her hands as if to deny anything she said as she sweated bullets.

"N-no, no! That's alr-right! I'll go get my phone call somewhere else...!"

She tried to turn away to run but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her body under him.

He pinned her arms and legs with his own.

In normal circumstances, Yui would have found it hot, but in this case, she was utterly terrified, and his deranged toothy grin didn't help.

She flinched when he leaned close into her ear, his grip tightening.

"Don't worry," he rumbled, "Cause you won't be needin' it where you're going!"

[applesontheground]

Your head still rang from the evening before, but you figured it’d save a bitch fit to do this.

It wasn’t close to dawn, not even touching the spaces between the trees when you stirred. Luckily, the two of them had been tangled in each other, the covers and embracing all to themselves. You didn’t mind with recollections on how they would talk about one another behind closed doors – only when the other couldn’t hear, though. In a fucked up way, they did love each other. Couldn’t live without him, as Darla may say when she knew he was out of earshot.

Vilmer had nearly torn everyone in the house’s head off over the fact his batteries weren’t charged for the machinery that powered his leg. You weren’t necessarily sick of hearing it, but you were sick of watching everyone pay for something he could easily fix himself. All in the same strain, you knew it was a pain to have something so important be neglected.

The thing was that he didn’t want to fix it himself despite the pressing matter of powering an entire extremity, so who exactly would it fall on then? Certainly not Leather, and certainly not W.E. They had enough going on for themselves, or at least you told yourself that.

You were a fairly new part to this equation, this "family", but you sure as hell would try to be a welcome one while you were here and still had a heart beating in your chest, or a face kept on your body. You were all the same tangled in the affair between Darla and Vilmer all the same despite getting neglected yourself here and there. That was the way of the world, perhaps.

Maybe they meant it, but the fact you felt unstable in the grand scheme almost brought you comfort. Standing in the living area in just the baggy t-shirt that you had brought to sleep in, something best kept in the car when coming by this shoddy house, you yawned another demand to go back to bed off and plugged another battery in to charge.

Some of these cables were your own, but you wouldn’t hold it to the man. He let you sleep with his girlfriend, and even took you a few times himself. He was incapable of a recognized, loving warmth towards you, or towards anyone without that thick grime covering it, screaming out in sick lust and a need to have the power. Again, you merely stomached it as you didn’t see this arrangement as something that would matter down the line, just rather something to help curb loneliness while you were new blood out in Texas.

You sure didn’t feel lonely when brought home to such an extravagant family. The smug thought made you look up, stare into nothing with a tender prick in between your legs. It was all still raw from last night, not taking well to the open air underneath nothing but a shirt, a coiled telephone cord ripped from its home tickling the inside of your knee as you shifted on your feet again.

“What’re you doin’?”

The drawl being recognized meant your eyes stayed down on the work, and you replied quietly, “Charging your batteries since you had a meltdown over it.”

Machinery breathed between its pistons and whirred, signaling he was walking into the room from the corridor of the house. Even disheveled, fresh from sleep, he had it all going -- working to a certain extent. You turned to look at the machine as it came to shuffle up behind you, not at him, and innocently asked, “Need a charge for it?”

“No.” He stated plainly, “You should answer. Why are you out of bed right now? You and Darl don’t work today, now do ya?” You ignored the question, turning around to keep plugging batteries in. He had so many, and everything was so goddamn cluttered. A sharp pull of loose, disheveled hair from the back of your scalp shook you from the charade, and finally you looked at him, eyes widened and breath still husky from sleep but hitching all the same.

“I see. You're trying to butter me up?” He was surprisingly careful with his actions after the fact, releasing your hair as quick as he had grabbed it, seeing another one of his weird gadgets in your hands and choosing to slide a hand around your behind instead of the usual tug and grab that sent anything and everything you were doing out the window.

You shook your head, eyes going down to his hips as they closed in, lining up against your backside with hands on your hipbones coming around the front.

“No, just want you to have one less reason to bite when I see you.” You responded rather gently, and he merely laughed before his mouth found your neck, the spot it liked to gnaw on under his teeth in a heartbeat despite the kind sentiments surrounding you. Wincing, you weathered the teeth and the laughter against your pulse for maybe three seconds before demurring.

“Vilmer-“ You began, trying to sound annoyed, but he just shushed you from the side of your ear, nearly nipping at even more skin in the process and making you fumble.

“Hey, hey. None of that. No need to be so quick to call it a day, little girl.” He teased, grinning against the side of your face before turning you around in a reprise of ferocity, going on as he hoisted your hips onto the tabletop you had been working on, a crick in his nod as he reminded you amongst a careless slide and clatter of many miscellaneous batteries and remotes. “It ain’t even a damn morning yet.”

You tried to protest, smiling despite the complaint on your tongue. There was a sharp hiss from the machine working his leg to get him down, below your waistline and fumbling the shirt to slide fabric up your stomach.

You huffed at him, “Please, you don’t-”

He sneered, “Why don’t you shut the hell up, we know what a good girl like you needs.”

Before you could answer, that sharp tongue was sliding between the folds, finding all the spots that still hurt, and making you squeak and wriggle under his hold. Again, it was for power, but power laced with a gratitude he could only show an act of kindness like the one you were doing.

Your eyes fluttered at the thought, ignoring the blemish that was this relationship for just a moment of kindness that was hard to come by from a man like him.

[callistolivia]

Hey! Hope you’re well. What would you say are the characteristics of a scorpio mars in the 5th house? It is my dominant placement along with my Uranus in Aquarius in the 8th house

I’ve heard mixed opinions and strange assumptions like, “masculine ppl are attracted to them”, “they’re angry people”.

Hi there,

A key component to recognize about the fire houses (1, 5, 9) is that they have a lot to do with one's identity. The 5th house illustrates an individual's ability to create as well as parts of themselves that they seek (being the precursor to the 9th house' purpose). Sometimes we seek ourselves through others hence why the 5th house is associated with attraction, it shows desire and what we are drawn to. The things we are drawn to play a part in aiding or building our identity. So with this all in mind, your 5th house says less about this sense of "other" where there's a group or type of person attracted to you, but more so what you're attracted to and people that share a relatability with you. There's a harmony at play because of the 5th house' relationship to your ascendant or 1st house. It would make more sense that you're attracted to martian type people. This could be masculine people, but it can be broader than that– it can be ambitious people, people with a very active lifestyle, maybe someone who's kind of edgy, someone who is willing to take risks, and so on. In response to “they’re angry people,” Mars in Scorpio is a lot more subdued in their expression thanks to being in a water sign. Mars in the water signs makes for expressive complexity for sure though. Aspects would be more telling of what this looks like as an average functioning person isn't likely to be just an angry person. There's usually a root to anger, or a proneness to being angry that I would search for in the chart before labelling a domicile Mars in the chart an angry person signifier. Aspects to any of the other personal planets with Mars for sure tells a story about someone's relationship with anger. In general, Mars in Scorpio when faced with conflict can be cunning and eloquent in their solution. In its negative expression– jealous, vengeful, self-sabotaging, and manipulative. Unlike Mars' other home placement in Aries, Scorpio is NOT reckless. Risks are not taken without very careful consideration of the outcome. Mars represents one's life force as well. So the house its occupying will tell you what you do in order to maintain your life force. Mars being in the 5th house means you need consistent hobbies in order to stay sane and feel good physically. There's likely a strong interest in Martian hobbies (and this is a broad bubble of things... could be cars, sports, fitness, anything that involves building or constructing, martial arts, and so on. With Scorpio being involved, there might be an occult or edgier touch in your hobbies/interests). A strong social life is important too, particularly romantic connections. a watery Mars in the 5th is drawn to substances, particularly alcohol. Despite this feeling great for maintaining one's self, obviously practice caution with this vice.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Writing Patterns

Rules: Share the opening of your last ten published works or as many as you are able to see if there are any patterns!

I was tagged by @ajna-eye-cogitations, thank you!!

[A note that when I picked the last 10 published, I skipped over all my short one-shot collection fics that I've been posting for years now, since those are cases where each chapter is its own individual story. So I just stuck to stuff outside of that!]

where the real road lies

Grief doesn’t feel like anything. Or— well, it feels like a lot of things, but nothing you can pin down. Maybe it’s one of those human experiences that can only be talked about in metaphor. Like, it feels as if my heart’s being ripped out of my chest, or it feels as if someone’s scooped me out, left me hollow, plunged my very soul into darkness. It feels as if, as if, as if.

(can't) get back again

It’s not a decision either of them is actually making. That’s what Michael tells himself when it happens for the first time, that he didn’t decide and Alex didn’t decide and in fact fighting the inevitability of it would only be adding more pain into a world already saturated with suffering.

small town halloween night

Maria gets home before Rosa, on Halloween night. They’d both picked up shifts for their parents, Maria at the bar and Rosa at the diner. It’s not the worst shift Maria’s ever worked, but she can’t help but feel a little melancholy on her drive home. A whole night of watching people her age, people she went to school with, cluster together with their friends, doing cheap shots... A year ago, that had been her. A year ago, dressed up with her skin out, doing shots in her friends’ kitchen, laughing at the movies and getting rice in her hair.

tell me that we belong together

September 2011 Michael always gets a little nostalgic about Roswell right before leaving it behind for a while. School’s starting in just a couple days, and that means saying a temporary goodbye to mornings like this one, lounging in their favorite booth at the Crashdown, the sounds of Arturo making their breakfasts carrying through from the kitchen, jukebox playing some song Michael only recognizes because he’s heard it playing in this very diner countless times over the years. They have their local haunts in Albuquerque by now, but he’ll always be a hometown boy at heart, and for better or worse, this is his hometown.

a work of fine art

Quentin Coldwater has fuzzy arms. It’s one of the first things Eliot notices about him as his volunteer life model settles down on the couch, crossing said arms across his chest in a nervous, nearly defensive move. It’s like he’s trying to fold his body into an origami box so all the outside parts will be on the inside, safe from Eliot’s eyes. But looking at the man in front of him is rather the point, so Eliot looks his fill, careful to catalogue every detail, despite how he can practically feel the waves of energy coming off of Quentin’s body, the frozen full-body cringe as he attempts to deflect the attention. Eliot indulges in it, keeping his face carefully neutral instead of giving in to the smile building up inside of him at the rather lovely display. Squirmy, awkward, cute naked boy, and Eliot gets to stare at him for a full uninterrupted evening. It must be his birthday.

tales from a bookshop

The bookshop has always been something of a sacred space for Crowley. Scratch that— not sacred, certainly not sacred, who the hell said sacred, honestly. And no more is it Hell’s cosmic opposite, profane, it’s only that— well, blast it, it’s only that A.Z. Fell & Co. booksellers has always been an important place for Crowley. Significant. Precious, maybe, though even the taste of such a word makes him want to scream profanities at someone who doesn’t deserve it, just to get the tickle out the back of his throat.

Shelter

The first thing Quentin did most mornings was locate the most excitable, energy-filled dog he could find in the kennels, and take the little terror out for a brisk, damp jog. Damp, because the Seattle air always seemed to be damp no matter the temperature. Brisk, because Quentin was not a jogger and a solid twenty minutes was usually as much as the lucky canine in question was likely to get out of him. He did this because he was usually the first person to arrive at work and he didn’t feel like making awkward chit chat with the night shift people, and also because it seemed a kindness: by the time his bosses Margo and Fen had shown up after their leisurely morning coffee routine, the most excitable of their furry residents had already had some of their energy burned away by Quentin’s efforts.

under the desert sky

Beyond basic necessities, the items Alex brings with him on their trek to the Grand Canyon are a fully stocked iPod, car charger, and a stitch-bound notebook slipped into the front pocket of his backpack. Michael brings his restored Nikon FM 35mm and six rolls of film.

the lengths that i would go to

Summer 2010 It’s early, so early that the sun isn’t up, the air around him still and quiet. Alex is awake, and for a second he doesn’t quite know why. His body is conditioned to wake early each morning, but this is something different. There’s a strange awareness, where paranoia meets familiarity. Alex knows, as consciousness filters into his brain, that there’s someone else in the room with him. He also knows, without having to open his eyes, that there is no threat, because it’s Michael. The bed shifts, and Alex blinks into the dim light, looking down to see Michael crawling up the bed towards him.

it might change my memory

June 2022 It’s Bonnie, of all people, who calms everybody down. Not Isobel with her power to mentally soothe, or Dallas with his preacher training and inviting sensibility. Not Liz with her practical, scientific mindset, or Michael, the one person in this room who theoretically has all the pieces of the puzzle and actually has a chance of knowing what the fuck is going on. It’s Bonnie who cuts through the excited, confused, unintelligible babble and says, quite loudly for such a small woman: “Okay! Seems like we have a situation! Everyone should sit down. I’ll make tea.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wow, okay, this was really interesting to see! It looks like a very common approach for me is "short, catchy sentence" followed by longer paragraph expounding on it. Like -- "Grief doesn’t feel like anything." or "The bookshop has always been something of a sacred space for Crowley." or "Quentin Coldwater has fuzzy arms." This is true across all the fandoms I write in!

It's crazy that only one of these ten examples has any dialogue in it at all, because I tend to think my dialogue skills are really sharp! I should start more stories off with it lol.

Tagging whoever writes and wants to participate! @portraitofemmy, @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions, @awildwickedslip, @spiders-hth-is-an-outlier, @r-dtoblack