#might post a few crumbs of it sometime soon

[thel0v3hashira143]

❝ 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐀 𝐂𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐄! ❞

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ yuuji megumi gojo nanami n choso ☆ how jjk men act when they have a crush on you!

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⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ fem!reader, black coded but anyone can read

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ notes: ahhh the comeback post!! let's just say my old works were...less than coherent. but im here and ready to slay the day after 2-ish years!! take these crumbs while i try and find my footing again. stay hot lovies 🎀🎀

yuuji itadori 🌸

my babyyy (sob sob) yuuji would def try to impress you with his athleticism, bc girls like that stuff right? (gojo told him that...save him)

he frequently challenges you to friendly competitions when sparring to showing off his skills.

he def let's you get quite a few hits on him and he may even let you win from time to time (seeing your smile makes getting knocked on his ass worth it)

he might act a bit bashful, but he's straightforward. he knows he has a crush on you so why would he hide it?

expect nice gestures like him wanting to carry things for you, buying you food, watching all your fav movies, ect.

speaking of which, movie hangouts!!!

every friday usually you, megumi, nobara, and yuuji all get together and watch a movie

buuuttt if he's feeling especially brave he'll invite you to his dorm to watch the newest movie in your favorite series! (yes, he keeps track of when they come out)

he loves that it becomes y'alls thing and he loves it even more when you lay your head on his shoulder and doze off <;33

he also gives hella compliments cause something in my gut says his love language is words of affirmation.

anticipate many "isn't [name] just the coolest?" or "you look great today [name]!"

im telling you he could never run out of nice things to say to you, whether it be about your looks or personality

as soon as he realizes he likes you he takes down those pin up girl posters in his dorm

he also obviously thinks you're more beautiful than jennifer lawrence argue wit ur mama

he is also obviously a personality over looks guy so dont act surprised if you see him looking at you with a lovesick grin if he catches you doing something kind for someone

expect him to confess his feelings sooner rather than later

"yeah, why wouldn't i have a crush on [name]? shes beautiful and badass! but don't tell her, okay?"

megumi fushiguro 🌸

megumi, unlike yuuji is quite reserved, even with his friends

honestly gives no indication that he likes you at all 💀💀 he stares at you pretty intensely at first (to admire your beauty) but quickly catches on that you think its weird..

once you two get closer though, megumi would frequently express his crush through small gestures

he strikes me as a reader so i can see him recommending his favorite books to you or even lending you some of his.

you two exchange books often and he highlights quotes that remind him of you

i can also see book shop hangouts where you two sit and read together in some small bookshop he found in the city.

(he's just admiring you read)

he's not a huge compliment/affirmation guy but quality time is a big one for him

whether it be on missions, sparring, or out with the rest of the first year's, he enjoys any time he can have with you.

megumi is also very protective but like...subtly

he secretly watches out for you during missions, making sure you're safe without drawing attention to it

he'll insist you two split up but send one of his divine dogs to accompany you to wherever you go.

even when you're out and about in tokyo he always likes to stay close to you. he follows you around (not in a creepy way more like a lost puppy way)

follows you into stores you like even if he has absolutely no interest.

all in all he's just a shy guy who's whipped for you <3

"i enjoy spending time with you. a lot."

teen!satoru gojo 🌸

gojo...you bastard...(affectionate)

erm ngl i can def see him being a bully to you at first...

not like a bully bully but he def teases you a lot and it gets under your skin sometimes. (you hate him)

but in reality hes jus a spoiled litte rich boy in love.

once he realizes his feelings he still pokes fun at you sometimes, but tones it down hard and turns on his charm.

gojo's approach is confident and playful. he teases you, always with a charming grin, creating a dynamic that keeps things lighthearted and enjoyable.

he'll find excuses to spend time with you, whether it's offering to train together

unlike yuuji he doesn't care if he likes you this son of a gun will NOT let you win istg

it's like he's trying to rile you up, saying ridiculously cheesy one liners as he dodges all your attacks.

"thats the best you got? oh [name], we'll never get to be together if i keep beating you!"

one thing he does enjoy doing with you however, are snack runs.

gojo is a big back in disguise with too much money to spend so you already knows most of that goes towards food.

he has a huge sweet tooth so i can see you guys browsing multiple sweets shops in the city. if he sees you even look at something for too long he'll buy 10 of them.

every trip you guys both leave with full bellies and full hearts <3

gojo wants to be around you, and he makes sure it's fun for you both

his confession is likely to be straightforward. ccompanied by his trademark smile and his sparkling blue eyes peeking from his shades.

"you know, i've been thinking... i'm kind of into you. what do you say we make things a bit more interesting?"

teen!kento nanami 🌸

my emo boy ❤️‍🩹

nanami, with his composed demeanor, expresses his feelings (though you were unsure if he even had any) through thoughtful actions.

he remembers every. single. detail. of anything you say to him.

your favorite attist dropped an album today? he already bought you the cd/vinyl. you never got a chance to go to the store to get your favorite snack? he went 2 days ago.

he revels in the fact that he knows so much about yousnd the surprised look on your face gets him every time.

(haibara claims he's seen nanami smile at you multiple times but he vehemently denies it.)

despite his serious appearance, he'll occasionally crack dry jokes when it's just the two of you

look at that man and tell me he doesn't have a dry sense of humor 😭😭

you help him to relax and he feels he can truly be himself around you. when you two are alone its like hes showing a different side to his personality.

like megumi, i can see quality time being a big thing for him since attending jujutsu high leaves him quite busy

hes also not a huge talker so whenever you two do spend time together its probably somewhere intimate like your dorm or the library.

no words, just vibes. which he appreciates since he's around a bunch of yipper yappers all day.

nanami's confession is understated but sincere.

"i appreciate the time we spend together. it's made me realize there's something more i feel..."

choso kamo 🌸

my babyyyy no. 2 (i need him biblically)

let's get one thing straight tho. choso is a curse. in my opinion curses have no idea of love in a healthy, positive way so let's just say bb is confused.

he obviously knows what love is. he loves his brothers but he doesnt wanna kiss them...and cuddle them...

he goes to yuuji for advice (was it a bad idea? perhaps.)

"bro you totally have a crush on [name]!"

"a crush?"

after some further investigation hes pretty much got the gist of it.

one thing he becomes quite fond of doing is giving you small gifts from his missions.

these aren't typic gifts persay, like food, clothing or jewelry but more like knickknacks such as shells or rocks.

these tokens become a way for him to express what words might fail to convey.

i headcannon choso likes nature documentaries and after seeing that penguins mate for life by gifting a rock to their mate he's hooked.

idk but i also feel like he's very touchy.

he always has an eye on you in public and ik he does the thing where he guides u with his hand on the small of your back or he locks pinkies with you UGHHHH

with him being protective, he also subtly keeps an eye on you during missions.

he's not one to voice his concern directly but prefers to ensure your safety from the danger.

choso's confession might catch you off guard, but it's filled with honesty and sincerity.

"i've found myself caring about you more than I expected. it's strange..."

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⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ omg i actually really like this...(watch me hate it in a week) but reqs are open!! i have 1 or 2 more pieces planned to get me in the swing of things but take this before then. love y'all!!

𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐲 ♡

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𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚!

𝙘𝙤𝙥𝙮𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙡0𝙫3𝙝𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙧𝙖143 2024

[canyouiimagine]

Showed Me | CS55 x Black! Reader

PART 1

Masterlist

✧ Paring: Carlos Sainz jr x Heiress black!reader

✧ Warning: Mean reader, cursing, mentions of cheating.

✧ Summary: In which reader is a bad person but a good friend.

✧ A/N: I obviously don't know Carlos Sainz, this is just for entertainment. <3 Also, English is not my first language so 👉🏾👈🏾.

You and Anna had always been polar opposites. She was nice, you weren't. She was sociable, you weren't. She was passionate, you weren't. But there is one thing you guys had in common, you both hated losing.

Your best friend was currently curled up in your bed. The same bed she hadn't left since she came knocking at your door 2 days ago, bawling her eyes out. For a man. Carlos Sainz - the man she was crying about - was handsome, you'll give her that. But the man was a fluorescent red flag, you could see he was trouble from a mile away. You told her to be careful, but she didn't listen. 

Anna was an optimistic person, you weren't.

Anna and Carlos met almost two years ago at a private party in Ibiza. She had just graduated Valedictorian and wanted to celebrate with a weekend on the island.  It was love at first sight she said.  She was minding her business, dancing to the beat when suddenly she felt someone rubbing up on her and trying to grope her. She turned around to give the person a piece of her mind, but he got mad and raised his hand to hit her. Anna braced herself but nothing came. Instead, she heard – in her words - "a deep sexy voice speaking sexily in Spanish" and saw a tan hand holding the arm of her harasser. 

They started dating shortly after and Anna was over the moon.  To her, Carlos was sweet and caring. He flew her out places, bought her expensive gifts, and gave her his time whenever he could. She was rich, she didn’t need trips and gifts, but she appreciated the thought. To you, he was a prick who had convinced your friend that it would be better to keep their relationship a secret so he could feed her crumbs and use it as an excuse. Carlos was a Formula 1 driver, so they were apart a lot. Sure, she would sometimes attend races, but they couldn’t interact in public. Apparently, the media and fans had bullied his ex-girlfriend into breaking up with him and ever since he had opted to keep his love life private. 

A few months in their relationship he had given her the keys to his mansion in Madrid. “For whenever you miss me” he had said. “It’s our home” he had insisted. Anna went there as often as she could. So often in fact that she knew every corner of it. And the one this Instagram influencer was posing in was no exception. At first, she thought “it has to his cousin or something” but after clicking on her profile and scrolling through her feed she accepted the hard truth, he was cheating on her.  There were pictures upon pictures of her at the same places she had flown to meet up with Carlos. Pictures upon pictures of the same hotels and homes they stayed at together. But the worst part was the timeline of it all. All the posts were made a few days before or after she had been there. Carlos had been cheating on her, perhaps the entire length of their relationship.  Coming to that realization had her spiralling. She didn’t even know who was the side chick, was it her or the other girl? Had he met the both of them at the same time? Were there other girls? She tried asking his housekeepers for answers but all they did was give her looks of pity and sad smiles. She called and tried to confront him but as soon as he understood what was happening he hung up and blocked her.  Carlos was an asshole, and you couldn’t resist the urge to say -

“I told you so.” “Y/N!!” She cried out to you. “But I did, didn’t I?” This might seem harsh but you knew Anna more than anyone and you knew what she needed right now was a slap back to reality. You had let her cry and wallow in her pity for a few days but now she had to get herself together and be the bad bitch she knew herself to be.  “You’re supposed to be supportive! I gave him two years of my life. Two years!” You had been supportive. You had listened to her talk again and again about that man when you didn't even like him! Instead of replying you let out a sigh and caressed what you presumed was her head under the blanket.  

After a few minutes she finally let her head out to look at you, mischief written all over her face.

“Y/NNNN?” She said, smiling. “No.” You replied, giving her a pointed look.

You already knew where this was going. You tried to get up but she grabbed your wrist.

“We can’t let him get away with this, Y/N!” She whined, letting go of your wrist to put your hand in between hers. “We?” You looked at her incredulously. You didn't remember this being a "we" problem. “Who’s we?”

“We need to make him pay Y/N/N.” She said, frowning.

The minute she used your nickname she knew she had won.

Anna Lang was emotional, you weren’t. But Anna was your best friend and there was little you wouldn’t do for her.  She wanted revenge and she knew revenge was what you did best.

Hope you enjoyed it 🥹💖

Here's my ko-fi in case any of you want to support me by giving donations 🥰: https://ko-fi.com/canyouiimagine

[thewintersoldierdisaster]

a/n: hiiii miss me? sorry about the lack of posting but june was a batshit crazy month for me and i’ve been dealing with a bit of writer’s block. i hate this title but 🤷🏼‍♀️ @making-it-big had prompted a fic where andrei was facetiming the kids while he’s away and this is what came of that idea! hope you guys enjoy 🥰

word count: 3k

tw: none! this is just some soft family cuteness

summary: while he’s on the road, andrei never misses a facetime call with you and the kids

The one thing you never forget though, is the nightly FaceTime with Andrei when he’s on the road. Every single road game is different when it comes to the call - sometimes they’re late at night and shorter, other times he’ll have time to talk for a while before they leave for the airport. It doesn’t matter where Andrei is, he FaceTimes you and the kids every day.

Tonight, the team’s in Columbus, after flying in from Detroit earlier in the afternoon. They have the night off before their game tomorrow. You only know the schedule because you have it all written out meticulously on the giant calendar in the kitchen. You had made fun of the calendar when some of the other older and more experienced WAGs had told you about it, but now it’s your saving grace. Otherwise you’d have basically no idea where in North America your husband is unless he’s next to you.

The kids are buzzing, excited to talk to Andrei and update him on the past few days. Evie and Alina jostle for their favored positions on the couch, eventually deciding that Alina gets to be wedged against the arm and Evie gets the other 2/3 of the couch cushion. You’re not sure how that ended up being the deal, but you’re not about to get involved in the careful negotiations between sisters. Kira, the ever unbothered middle child, wanders in and out of the den, various toys and snacks coming and going with her. “Hey,” you call out to her, stopping the five-year-old in her tracks. She looks up at you with wide eyes. “That’s the last Oreo,” you point at her, raising an eyebrow and crossing your index finger over your heart, your code with the kids that you’re serious and that they better promise to listen.

Kira blinks innocently at you and chirps, “yes, mommy!” in a tone that has you getting up from your squatted position at the coffee table and moving into the kitchen to take the family-sized pack of Oreos from a lower cabinet and moving it to a cabinet above the fridge. Kira pouts at you, clutching her remaining snacks in her hands.

“Remember when your tummy hurt because you ate too much cake at D’s birthday party and you puked on Daddy’s lap?” You ask, adjusting Maks in the carrier attached to your chest. The three-month-old yawns and presses his cheek to your chest, little eyelids fluttering shut.

“Oh,” Kira pulls a face, looking just like Andrei, “I didn’t like that. Puking was gross.”

You point at her, grinning, “too many Oreos before bed will make your tummy hurt and you might puke again.”

She looks scared, her eyes opening wide, and you almost feel bad for her. But then she looks down at the two Oreos clutched in her hands and shoves them both in her mouth, spewing crumbs as she shouts, “I don’t wanna puke, Mommy!” while running back into the den and around the dining room table.

“Your sister is such a little weirdo,” you murmur affectionately to Maks. The baby burrows his face close to your chest and you check the time over the stove - 6:43 - which means he’ll be up for a feed soon enough. Hopefully he’ll be awake while Andrei’s still on the call. Turning back to the den, you start to say, “girls, let’s give Daddy —“ stopping short when none of your children are in sight. Evie and Alina are gone from the couch and Kira isn’t in the room, although you can hear her singing to herself from behind a few walls. If you had to guess, she’s doing princess twirls in front of the full length mirror in the foyer.

You shake your head and mutter, “where the hell did they all go?”

Dimitri toddles into the room, blocks clutched in his chubby little baby hands. “Mama!” He shouts, holding the blocks up. “Yook!” You grin at his little speech impediment - he can’t say his Ls yet and they all sound like Ys. “Bocks”

“That’s right, buddy, blocks! Were you building something?” You take the blocks he offers you, holding the pair of them in one hand and taking his hand in your free one, leading him over to the couch so you can hopefully get this FaceTime call started.

“Bi’ding for mama,” he says proudly and you press a kiss to the top of his head, inhaling the scent of baby shampoo.

“Mama loves your building, but how about we call Papa?” You pitch your voice higher, infusing excessive excitement into your tone. Dimitri giggles and claps his hands.

“Papa! Papa!” He chants and while he’s distracted you reach over and tap at the screen of the iPad, swiping Andrei’s contact information and bringing up the FaceTime screen. Dimitri fidgets on the couch for the entire thirty seconds it takes for Andrei to answer, but once he sees Andrei’s face fill the screen, Dimitri shouts, “Papa!” and his face splits into a huge grin.

Andrei’s face is wearing a matching grin and he shouts back, “Dimka! How’s Papa’s big boy?”

You lean against the back of the couch while Dimitri babbles to Andrei, watching as your husband’s entire face lights up while they chat. Dimitri is Andrei’s little clone, if the baby pictures Elena sends are any indication, and when their faces are side by side like this, you can totally see it. Every so often, Andrei’s gaze slips over to look at you and he smiles, winking. You return the expression, one hand resting over Maks’s back. Dimitri could chatter about anything and everything, using his limited toddler vocabulary, and you shout up the stairs for the girls, still wondering where the older two went. Maks continues to sleep soundly, even after you’ve shouted for them twice - the fifth kid really learns to sleep anywhere and under any conditions.

“Coming!” Evie shouts back and then there she and Alina are, traipsing down the stairs in too long sweaters that you recognize from Andrei’s closet. They’re holding the hems of the sweaters in their hands like they’re princesses wearing ball gowns and it’s adorable. Both girls are tall for their age - the Svechnikov genes at work - but even still the sweaters hang to their ankles when they release the knit.

“What are you two doing?” You ask, pulling Alina back by her shoulder so you can twist her long hair up into a bun on top of her head. The seven-year-old is always wandering around with her hair in her face and you hate it, always worried she’s going to fall down the stairs because she can’t see anything.

Alina struggles under your hands, trying to get away from the bun, but you’re faster than she is and tie it off quickly before she runs off to the den, throwing herself onto the couch and interrupting Dimitri so she can start telling Andrei all about her day.

You turn to Evie and she looks a little shifty, but also extremely pleased with herself while she twists her fingers in the sleeves of Andrei’s sweater. “We just wanted Dad to know, like, because he wears the bracelets me and Al and Kira made for him when he plays in other places so we know that he misses us. We wanted to wear his sweaters when he calls so he knows we miss him,” she explains in a rambling, breathless monologue that has your tearing up with the sweetness of her gesture.

“How did we get so lucky with you?” You murmur, cupping her chin and kissing the top of her head. “Sweet as iced tea.”

She beams, happy with your praise, and runs off to join her brother and sister. You can hear her interrupt Alina’s story, talking over her sister to tell Andrei that she picked the sweaters special because she’s the oldest. Kira appears from somewhere, a juice box in her hand, and you shake your head. The four kids are piled on the couch, all talking over each other and not letting Andrei get a word in edgewise. From your spot behind the couch, you have a full view of his face and the completely adoring expression on his face. He’s smiling and laughing, trying to pay attention to all four of them at once and making it look easy.

Maks fusses against your chest and you look at the time, nearly 7:30, so while the kids are distracted and with Maks still strapped to your chest, you adjust so your breast is out and Maks can eat, wincing a little when he struggles for a second before latching on. The general chaos coming from the couch starts to cool off and one by one, the kids run out of things to say, starting to peel away from the screen. Kira disappears, as is her M.O. as the middle child, and Alina wiggles to the floor to start doing somersaults.

Dimitri is flat on his back on the couch, kicking his feet in the air, dangerously close to Evie’s head while she recounts the play date she had the day before. “And Mom said we get to watch the game tomorrow at Auntie Nykki’s so we get to see Gigi and are you suuuuure we can’t get a dog?” she finishes, deploying giant puppy dog eyes.

“I’m sure,” Andrei laughs, shaking his head. “It’s not fair to Mama, to have to take care of a dog and you crazy little goblins.”

“Buuuut….” Evie winds up to start begging, but you cut in.

“Eve, we talked about this. No puppy until you’re older, now time to say goodnight to Dad and head off to bed,” you ruffle her hair a little, bracing your hand against the back of Maks’s head when you lean forward a bit.

Andrei jumps in before Evie can protest, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay zaychik? Spokoynoy nochi.”

“Spokoynoy nochi,” Evie replies, blowing kisses through the screen. Alina and Kira appear for virtual goodnight kisses too and you hoist Dimitri onto your hip and give Andrei the ��one-minute” gesture while you usher the girls upstairs and get their teeth brushed and tucked into bed.

With Dimitri still clinging to you like a koala and Maks fast asleep in a milk coma, you finally return to the den and drop down onto the couch. “Hi,” you grin at Andrei. Dimitri rests his head on your thigh and runs a toy car over the cushion, clearly fading but reluctant to sleep. He’ll be out in a few minutes and you’ll transition him to his bed.

“Hi,” Andrei grins back. “Miss you.”

“Miss you too,” you card your fingers through Dimitri’s fine blond hair. “They were on something different tonight. And just so you know, both girls are sleeping in your sweaters.”

He shifts from sitting on the hotel bed to lying back against the pillows, tucking one hand behind his head and hiding the colourful braided and beaded bracelets that Evie, Alina, and Kira had made him. A soft smile makes his dimple pop. “We got lucky with them,” he says.

“We did,” you adjust Maks in the carrier, pulling aside the fabric covering the back of his head so Andrei can see him a little better. You’re getting warm having sixteen pounds of baby strapped so close to your chest. “How’s Columbus?”

“Boring,” he snorts a laugh. His smile turns a little sly. “What are you wearing?”

You laugh a little, until a new and familiar voice chimes in. “Oh fuck no,” Martin Necas yelps. “You’ve got five fucking kids, don’t tell me that you’re still chatting her up like a twenty-something idiot.”

Marty’s been your husband’s roommate on the road for years now, but you didn’t realize that he’d been around while the kids were talking to Andrei.

On-screen, Andrei smirks, a cocky expression taking over his face, “how do you think we got five kids? The stork?”

A towel flies into view from off-screen, whacking Andrei in the face while he laughs. You giggle at their antics and Neci comes into view, poking his head in front of Andrei’s phone. “Don’t let him talk to you like that, you’ve got all the power. He’s fucking whipped,” he teases, ruffling his hand through damp hair.

“Don’t worry,” you grin. “I’ve got babies attached to my hip and spit up all over my shirt. No chance he finds this attractive.”

Andrei’s expression turns hungry and he scrubs a hand over his bearded chin, the rasp of his fingers over the hair sending a shiver down your spine. “Neci, cover your ears, I want to say something adult to my wife,” Andrei teases. “It’s not for the ears of children.”

“Fuck you,” Marty whips a pillow from his bed at Andrei. It lands with a hollow noise on Andrei’s stomach and he exhales heavily. “One, I’m older than you and two, your literal children are right there. You’re gonna be disgusting in front of them?”

You smother a laugh with your hand. “Dimitri is passed out,” you say, angling the iPad down so they can see the conked out toddler spread out starfish style on the couch, toy car held loosely in one hand. “And Maks is definitely out.” You show them the infant, his little rosebud mouth gaping open and his eyelids twitching as he dreams. “So you’re good to say whatever you want.”

“No, do not encourage him,” Marty groans. “I have to share a room with him.”

Andrei tosses the pillow back, but Marty was expecting it and catches the pillow in mid-air. “You know, I’m the Captain. I don’t have to share a room,” Andrei says.

“You’d miss me too much,” Marty grins, waggling his eyebrows. “If you two are going to be disgusting, I’m leaving.”

“Good, leave,” Andrei deadpans.

You click your tongue, “be nice! What kind of leadership are you displaying?”

“Yeah, listen to your wife,” Marty teases, getting out of bed and shoving his feet into a pair of slides. “I’m telling Roddy that you’re a shitty Captain.”

He shoves at Andrei’s shoulder on his way out, waving to you. The door clicks shut behind him and you shake your head at Andrei, “you two are terrible.”

Andrei waves a hand in the air, grinning. “Neci’s dealt with worse from me on the road. I ever tell you about the food poisoning incident?”

“No,” you wince, “and I don’t want to know.” You yawn and apologize. “Sorry, baby. I’m exhausted.”

“I’m sorry I’m not there,” he replies, rubbing at his chin again. He pauses and you’re both quiet for a bit, just soaking up the other’s presence. Dimitri’s hand goes completely slack and he drops the toy car to the floor. You kick it slightly under the coffee table so you don’t step on it later. Andrei coughs a little, “it’s only been a couple days, but it feels like they’re different. Bigger.”

“The only one that really grew this week is this guy,” you pat Maks’s diapered bottom. “Gained another pound from his last checkup.”

Andrei grins. He sits up and pushes his hair off his forehead, leaning closer to the screen. “That’s my boy,” he chuckles. “How big is he now?”

“Sixteen pounds,” you laugh, shifting him against your chest. “He’s in the eightieth percentile for his age, Drei.”

“Big boy,” Andrei replies.

“Takes after his Daddy,” you blow him a kiss, yawning again. “I know it’s not even nine, but I really need to sleep for a bit before tiny Hulk wakes up for his next feeding.”

Andrei nods. “I know, I’m sorry I kept you up. I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” you tuck Maks back into the carrier so you can bring boy boys upstairs easier. “But you’ll be home in two days and then I’m happily passing off parenting duties to you.”

“I can’t wait, solnyshka,” Andrei says seriously, eyes twinkling at the prospect of being back home. “And once I handle parenting, I have a few things I’d like to do with you.”

You laugh, “those adult things that you kicked Marty out of the room to say?”

Andrei hums and affirmative. “I never even got to say them.” His lower lip pokes out in a pout, a childish expression in direct contrast with his beard and blown pupils.

“I’ll use my imagination,” you assure him. “I love you.”

“Love you,” he puckers his lips at you in a kiss and you tap the screen, ending the call. You skimp back against the couch for a minute, resting, before you get to your feet and lift Dimitri’s toddler dead weight into your arms to bring him up to bed. Once you’ve checked and reassured yourself that all five kids are asleep and tucked in bed, you finally crawl into your own bed and pass out for a bit before getting up to feed Maks. You’re so ready for Andrei to come home.

When he does come home, two days later, he bounds through the front door full of energy, swinging you into a kiss that makes you laugh and swooping the two closest children - Kira and Dimitri - up into his arms. They squeal with excitement that Daddy is home. The older two girls are at school and Andrei insists on being the one to pick them up, buckling Kira and Dimitri into their car seats and taking the fully loaded Navigator to the school.

He has the windows rolled down and the three of them wave at you while he backs down the driveway. Andrei at the wheel of the Navigator with all the children in tow is a much different picture than Andrei behind the wheel of his string of ugly coloured Lamborghinis.

His grin though, that full, missing-toothed, dimpled smile? That grin is the same on your thirty-six year old husband as it was on the twenty-one year old golden retriever of a boy you fell in love with.

[merakiui]

For that ask game, i'll be answering it genuinely and with how i truly feel when it comes to your writings. Forgive if it's long-- Here goes:

👀👀👀👀👀 putting you on notif even; always a joy to see your new thoughts everyday

⏰⏰⏰ Sometimes you drop two or more bangers on such a sort span like, ma'am-- how do you do it??

💀💀💀💀💀 few examples that haunt me till today is DRU and promising young man; the fear i got from reading them are so delicious

💌💌💌 always nice to read extra tidbits and extra headcanon, or just seeing your ask posts in general <3

🤡🤡🤡 and boy, there are times when i feel like i have a clown nose ready to plaster onto their faces; clownery and irony are sisters in some ways

💖💖💖 your writings are so delicious i'm actually tempted to read the ones outside of twst, specifically the ones abt scaramouche (thank u for introducing mouchey to me <3)

🥵🥵🥵🥵 literally horny gripping my thighs for dear life--

💔💔💔💔 i remember having to douse my head in cold water after HBE; anyway, yes, your angst gutted me more times than i could count--

🍓🍓🍓 When you write fluff they always got me soooo >_< they're downright diabetic!!!

🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸THIS. THIS BE THE MAIN REASON I"M DRAWN TO YOUR BLOG LIKE SHARK TO BLOOD

🎀🎀🎀the same with the fluff, the way you write these scenes always give me butterflies and got me sooo 🥺🥺 <33

���🧠🧠🧠🧠 methinks your brain should be studied and put on display in a museum <3

🌺🌺🌺 even when all the death/bad end flags are there, i still hope the otherwise because i want them to survive so badd

🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄 i'm insane about how you write them actually, loving the mental gymnastics i go thru whenever i read them <3 you really bring the freaky out of these freaks uwu

🩰🩰🩰🩰🩰 not exaggerating, but the first time i found your blog i felt like finding a hidden gem and has been in love with your writings until today (and i suspect for an even longer time <3)

🌞🌞🌞 and sometimes they turn me into an emotional mess and make me insane (affectionate)

⭐⭐⭐ not only they draw me in immediately, they refuses to leave my head; they're living rent free as we speak--

🎨🎨🎨 plenty times i have to look up meanings and symbolism from your writings and it's so much fun gaining new knowledge!

💡💡💡some of your fics really do got me thinking "How did you come up with this???" and i am always INTRIGUED

🧸🧸🧸 how can i not when they're THAT good?? They's comfort fics! (and said comfort fics have not given the characters comfort AT ALL)

🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀 the emotional rollercoaster you put me thru everytime i read your stories is real; i don't think i'll be getting off soon.

📗📗📗 THEY SHOULD BE BOOKS IN MY OPINION ACTUALLY

🧩🧩🧩 oouughh it's got me acting like that one meme of a guy with his whiteboard

💐💐💐i ADORE how you write your MCs, each one of them has such a distinct personality and a refreshing point of view!

🧶🧶🧶 they flow so nicely and smoothly >_< especially love it when you write bickerings like old-married couples

🧊🧊🧊 even when said character may not act like this in canon, the way you write them actually feels like they might??? Somewhere in the multiverse of this specific character, there's this character acting just like how you write them--

💎💎💎 and i especially love it when they're unreliable narrators and/or slowly descending into madness <3 but yes, i just love you write thought processes of each characters in general

💧💧💧both tears of agony and joy, definitely. The butchered got me bawling actually, getting so attached to Marisa even though knowing she won't survived... OTL OTL

🌌🌌🌌🌌 some i wish you'd elaborate more, like that aein in ant hill fic with floyb because i'm honestly curious with worldbuilding of that one

😱😱😱 and you make an amazing build-up towards it too! They're not so sudden and you can even pick the crumbs as the stories go. love it when my suspicions are proven to be correct

🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵 like a moment of epiphany; and i have to say, "Good Luck, Babe" would make a good fem!rido song--

🍇🍇🍇 very very great taste i must say, they're like *chef's kiss* ✨✨✨

🍆🍆🍆 considering they make up the majority of your writings, AAAAAA yes i do love how you write them >_< (they're very much canon in my heart)

🪀🪀🪀 they're definitely not a quick read to me, but they're highly enjoyable!!

🔮🔮🔮 i can't say how many times your plot twists make me feel like getting hit by a baseball bat-- (in a good way) and sometimes (many times) i have to put down my phone and go "....hUH? WUH???"

💣💣💣💣 countless times you've put me on the edge of my seat and got me bouncing me leg in anticipation >_<

🎬🎬🎬🎬🎬 they way you write your stories are so vivid that it's so easy seeing them portrayed scene by scene in my mind (sometimes i like to even imagine them in a visual novel game format)

🎱🎱🎱 and they blew my mind every time <33

🎩🎩🎩 everytime you update new chapters, i like to re-read the previous chapters in order to refresh my mind and see the current plot in its wholeness

🧛🧛🧛 so much that i'm dropping everything i'm doing every time you posted a new fic <3

In short, i bow before your throne of godly writing skills and rejoice for the feast you kindly bestowed upon us <333 again, i'm sorry of it's long >_<

(ask game)

KHEYY, YOU ABSOLUTE MADLAD!!!! YOU DID ALL OF THEM AND PROVIDED EXTRA THOUGHTS????? Sending you lots of kisses and happy vibes in a package because WAAAAAA THIS IS SO SWEET AND KIND OMG?!??!?!?!?! ｡°(°.◜ᯅ◝°)°｡ thank you so very much!!!!! I am cradling this message in my heart forever and always,,, 🥺💖 please don't apologize for the length!!! These positive vibes added so many years to my life!! (〃´𓎟`〃) I am incredibly honored to be a blog worth putting notifs on for,,, and to say my works should be books, that they can be imagined in VN format, that many aspects and more can be enjoyed so thoroughly....... AAAAA OMG YOU'LL MAKE ME CRYYYYYY!!! T^T

These pictures illustrate how I felt reading every one of your lovely words. I'm so flattered,,, orz orz uuuwaaaa I will continue to cook up the most delicious of feasts!!!!!! ᕙ( •̀ ᗜ •́ )ᕗ

[pinkiedevv]

The Butler and the MOD Ch. 1

I 'unno if ya'll all use AO3, so I figured I might as well start posting here too :3

HUUZAH

Word Count: 1,211

Next: Ch. 2

Summary:

When Harry Potter, freshly four-hundred (or so) years old, came to this world, he had not been expecting to fall deeply in love with the dashing gentleman that routinely visited the café from where he drank his tea.

Of course, that was not to imply that Harry would do less than his utmost to woo the object of his sincerest affections.

The Bats were in agreement: whoever this "Harry Potter" was, they didn't like him. At all. Who'd this twenty-something year old think he was?! Like hell they'd let their Alfred get stolen away from them by some no-good, seducing little punk.

-----

Harry celebrated his four-hundredth birthday with a cup of Earl Grey tea and a green and gold frosted cupcake.

In truth, it might’ve been his three-hundred and ninety-second birthday or quite possibly even his four-hundred and twenty-third. It was unbelievably easy to lose track of time after having lived so long, especially since he hadn't exactly stayed within the same dimension or even timestream. Sometimes, he’d celebrate his birthday too soon or too late depending on the shifts in times, since he always celebrated on July 31st regardless of whether it had been a true year between the last or not, but, on admittedly more than a few occasions… he’d simply forgotten to celebrate at all. It wasn’t as if he was missing out on any milestones, considering that he’d stopped aging at a crisp twenty-five.

The bell to the café he was currently sat in rang out to signify a patron’s entrance, and Harry brushed the last of the crumbs off of the lapels of his pressed suit, taking another sip of his still-warm tea. He glanced up to see who had come in, and he could privately admit that his heart traitorously skipped a beat. 

Harry had only been in this world for under a month, having left the last after aiding a pair of brothers and - of all things - an angel in stopping the apocalypse (a task made easy when Harry was the Master of Death), and he’d decided to come to a world with a more… heroically active climate. He enjoyed these types of worlds - for a multitude of reasons. The heroes were often fascinating to observe, of course, and the worlds themselves were often more interesting because of their presence, but Harry also took a quiet relief in knowing he could bow out from the spotlight himself. That wasn’t to say that he was constantly forced into it in worlds without a superhero presence, nor was that to imply that he refused to step in if a world already had its own designated saviors. Simply, in the former situation, Harry often had no choice but to come forth should disaster strike, since there was no other who could resolve the situation as effectively as Harry himself could - if at all. However, this meant that the whole planet’s eyes turned to him as their savior, regardless if he attempted to hide his presence or not; the people searched for him, knowing an outside force had saved them, and it always seemed to end with Harry either being found and hailed as a hero or an outsider, or him having to seclude himself to not risk being discovered in the first place. 

With heroes being present, however… He could take a pause. He could waylay the shedding of his own obscurity, or perhaps halt it entirely. Even in the cases where he found himself still having to intervene when the world’s heroes were unable to win alone, it was much easier to hide his presence amongst them and to let the heroes take credit from the populace with a bemused sort of acceptance amongst themselves. 

All of this to say, Harry was quite content in this current world, which was taken care of by the apparently well-renowned and celebrated Justice League. Even better for Harry himself, the very city he lived in was watched over by its own collection of vigilantes, all of whom hailed from the famed Dark Knight - the Batman. 

Harry realized his thoughts had gotten quite sidetracked, and he blinked rapidly in the direction of the center of his attention, thoughts coming back into focus with startling clarity. 

Yes, Harry had not even been living in this world for an entire month, but he had somehow already found himself ensnared by the presence of another. 

He avidly watched as the man cordially greeted the young attendant behind the counter, who already had the order ready - just as it had been during each of the past few times Harry had seen the man come in. 

Harry’s lips couldn’t help but part as one of the gentleman’s fine, silvery strands of hair fell free from its perfectly coiffed, gelled back position, and a muted flush rose to his cheeks as a weathered, neatly manicured hand rose to smoothly push the strand back in place as if nothing had ever been amiss at all. The only other sign the man made of having noticed his slip was the slight twitch of his thin, neat moustache. 

“- that will be all, Miss,” the gentlemen farewelled pleasantly, accepting the proffered sack of selected teas and goods and slipping the straps of it up to rest at the crook of his elbow over the sleeve of his black, pressed suit.

The man turned on his heel - all swift movements with a grace that belied fitness and aged experience - and his inky black bowtie did not so much as tilt from its perfectly tied position even as its owner turned his head just so to meet Harry's eyes.

For the Master of Death, it felt as if time had decided to still itself just for this singular moment. Crystalline blue eyes that held the same depth as a bottomless spring connected with emerald greens that were not unlike a forest of rich trees in full bloom, and the fraction of a second seemed to stretch out like pulled taffy.

All too soon, however, it was over. The gentleman’s trimmed brow arched near imperceptibly, he gifted Harry with a genial nod, and then he was gone, having left through the door in three long, clean strides with only a single, forlorn-sounding chime to signify his departure.

Harry exhaled slowly, only now having realized he’d been holding his breath, and he brought one hand up to cup his flushed cheek as he used the other to swallow down the last dregs of his now-cool tea. 

What a buffoon Harry must’ve looked like, he inwardly castigated himself, his blush rising against his pale skin with an embarrassed vengeance. He couldn’t have helped himself, though - not much, at least. The feelings he had now were practically foreign to him after having gone so long without. 

Oh, that wasn’t to say he hadn’t dallied here and there during his centuries, but it had been… difficult, to form a deep, genuine connection during his times. His longest relationship had been with Ginny, and even then, it had not even lasted a decade. Practically a drop in the ocean for how long he’d been alive now. 

But there was something about this gentleman, something that had Harry’s heart thumping in his chest like a bumbling schoolgirl with a crush. It was something that gave Harry the incomprehensible feeling that, this time, there may actually be more to what he could have than an unfulfilling, ingenuine tryst. That somehow, someway, this man would be able to understand him, to accept him, to bridge the gap between them despite all odds that would suggest otherwise.

And now, thanks to having caught a glimpse of it on the package as the attendant passed it over, Harry had a name to go along with the dashing man he’s been admiring from afar:

Alfred Pennyworth.

-

I adore hearing your thoughts!! :DDD

Next: Ch. 2

[waltwhitmansbeard]

hello! a few hours from now, the epilogue of go on, claim my heart, the my fair lady sequel, is gonna be posting, so i wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who has stopped by my lil corner of the internet to read what has become my largest writing project to date. i had no idea what i was getting myself into when i first started writing mfl, especially not half a year of feverish, near-obsessive plotting and writing and rewriting this story that would not leave me alone. a lot of things fell to the wayside as i wrote mfl and gocmh, and i don't regret any of it, because i can safely say that this is the writing that i am the most proud of.

i want to thank @romeoandjulietyouwish in particular for her graciously allowing me to play in her sandbox. no one's mind works like lis's, and as i have said before, she comes up with so many fucking stellar ideas that she leaves crumbs for the rest of us, so i'm super grateful that she's so kind about letting us take those crumbs and make them our own. mfl wouldn't exist without you, lis, so thank you, thank you, thank you.

i also could not wrap this series without calling out the two best readers a girl could ask for, @ravendruid and @crispysnake. y'all are fucking unhinged, but it is the exact energy that every writer needs to keep going. i can't tell you the number of times a drabble or chapter posted that i wasn't particularly fond of that you two completely changed my opinion about. you two are the kindest, most enthusiastic, most generous readers, and i'm so lucky that you're also my friends. please continue to be absolutely batshit in my tags; it's the only thing that keeps me going.

(also @otterlycaleb made fucking ART about this shit, what the fuck what the fuck what the FUCK—)

a hopefully but probably not quick note about the future of mfl: today, like literally right now, i am in the middle of my first day of work at a brand new job, one that will require me to move my entire life halfway across the country, back to my hometown. it is big and scary and exhilarating and everything i've been hoping for, and i feel so, so lucky. this does mean that for the next little bit, while i learn a new job and pick up my shit and drive cross-country, i will probably be less able to write long or short fics, so i hope y'all don't mind me shutting up for the first time in forever. that being said, while i have absolutely no plans to write a third installment in the mfl 'verse, that doesn't mean there isn't more to say (as y'all will find out in like three and a half hours lol). i fully plan on still writing tmwiw drabbles set before, during, and after mfl/gocmh, and i will still be accepting prompts and requests for drabbles set in this 'verse until i say otherwise. mfl will always occupy an inordinate amount of my brain space, and i refuse to not share that with y'all.

additionally! starting very soon (like, maybe tomorrow? we'll see how busy i am, lol), i will be posting to ao3 the entirety of the mfl 'verse in chronological order. every chapter, one-shot, and drabble, in the order that they happened. another massive shout-out to @ravendruid for being my own personal lore-keeper on this; she read every single mfl chapter, tmwiw drabble, and one-shot to help me get this shit in order. the ao3 work will be titled i've come a long, long way (also from "my fair lady" by kaleo, are we seeing a pattern here?), and the plan is to post five chapters a day until the whole thing is up (although, again, with the moving this might get a lil wibbly wobbly). there will be some additional proofreading edits to these chapters (sometimes i can't spell!!) but nothing about the substance of these chapters will change, so this is just for people who like their stories to be told chronologically (fucking weirdos). this work will only be available on ao3, although it will be linked on my mfl masterpost.

ok, i think i am done for now. i have taken up enough of your time, in so many more ways than one. thank you again, if you read every single installment of the mfl saga or if you just read a paragraph. all of it means the world to me, and i know i never would have continued past the first chapter if i weren't part of such a wonderful, loving, generous, brilliant community. i've only been watching critical role for just over a year now, part of the fandom for even less than that, and i can't believe i haven't always had y'all in my life. please continue to love and support each other, and thank you for loving and supporting me.

[haunt0ravensong]

The House Guest

Summary: After a falling out with the entire gang, Kieran went off on his own and found a cabin for sale just outside of Emerald Ranch. Rumors had circulated the small ranch he works in about the cabin and how the previous owner said little people lived in their walls. He didn't think it was true until he met the tiny man himself.

Author's Note: This is an AU, obviously. Everyone is alive and had gone their own way. Arthur, Sean Lenny, and Kieran deserved better than what they got. I'm still new to writing on here so I hope you guys enjoy this :3

@pirate-pizza-party I got one done finally 👀

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eyes watched a critter skitter about in the rundown house's kitchen. For now it's only Kieran in the new place he found himself in. It isn't much, just a lonesome cabin that was for sale just outside of Emerald Ranch. He bought it for himself when Dutch's gang had their falling out.

The previous owner died of old age, but apparently was senile as well and was mocked by their wild stories of a tiny sized man living in the walls.

Well, it seems that the elder wasn't senile after all.

 Kieran had heard stories of these tiny people- Borrowers, if he recalls, from a former calvary man in the army. Borrowers aren't entirely human looking, sometimes having some animal features to better suit their needs. But most of all, Borrowers are usually terrified of people and will move to a different place if seen. 

To be honest, Kieran never believed it, but… now he's proven wrong. If the calvary man was still alive, he'd apologize for not believing, however he decides to watch the tiny being.

From what Kieran could guess, he'd say the little one is around three, maybe four inches tall. He's assuming it's the tiny man that the elder spoke of so he's going to say "he" until told otherwise. Aside from his height, Kieran spotted what looks like a long and fuzzy tail picking up a crumb and putting it inside a very small rusack hanging off his side.

One thing that amazes him is that the little one hasn't even felt his gaze yet. At the same time though, he doesn't want him to notice he's there. If he can find a way just to talk to him, maybe he won't leave.

Kieran stayed lost in his thoughts until a tiny yelp and scattering of the silverware left on the counter got his attention. He had been finally spotted.

By the time he looked to where the tiny man was, he was already inside the mouse hole by the sink. Kieran felt terrible for scaring him off although that would've happened anyways just because of him being a scary giant.

"I'm sorry for scarin' ya," he softly whispered once close enough to the mouse hole. "I didn't mean to. Here-" he fished out a small piece of chocolate he had, "- you don't gotta accept it. It's just a peace offerin'. I'm movin' into this cabin soon so if ya stay, ya might be seein' more of me. Just know that… I'm not gonna hurt ya. Ever."

He stepped away and went upstairs to see the rest of the place so he could see what needed to be done. It was in rough shape, but nothing he couldn't fix, he remembered having to fix many posts or tents with the gang.

After finally moving in and fixing up the stable and house, Kieran began to notice that the tiny man seemed to be slightly more comfortable with being seen by him. The tiny man hasn't introduced himself yet, but he'd been either giving waves or leaving small items like pieces of silver or jewelry out for him to see. He believes that they're gifts so he accepts them and leaves out bits of food and water for him in return.

This cycle had gone on for a few weeks, and while Kieran was thankful that the man hadn't left, he still felt a little… sad that he won't get near him. He understands though and refuses to try and rush knowing him. He himself was more reserved as well.

Kieran is getting ready to head back into Emerald Ranch for his job when he spotted the tiny man watching him from atop his dresser. He smiled and waved to him, and he got a wave back along with a long tail wagging like crazy. He chuckled thinking of it being more akin to a whip than a dog tail.

He carefully stepped to the dresser and bent down to get a closer look, "Hey there."

 "Hi!" The man responded back, shocking Kieran a moment before smiling even more.

 "Seems like yer excited." He softly chuckled, "Got plans today?"

 This question seemed to change the mood slightly. Not in a bad way though. The tiny man looked down to his feet and curled his tail enough around him to begin fidgeting with it. Was he… nervous? Kieran doesn't blame him one bit. Here he is a giant looking down-

 "I…I wanted to ask if I could come along?"

  His train of thought went blank, thinking he didn't hear that right. He subtly licked his lips to ease the dryness but made sure the tiny man didn't see so he wouldn't think anything of it. He didn't want to scare him.

 "You…you want to ride with me?" He wanted to double check if he heard correctly. When he received a nervous nod in response he smiled, "Sure, I don't mind. I gotta warn ya though, I'm headin' to my job so it might be a while before we get back."

The tiny seemed prepared for this and used his tail to point behind him, "I packed! The elder used to bring me out and well… I'm a little bored staying here."

Knowing that his mind is made up, Kieran gently placed his hand upright beside the man, and he climbed on after throwing his pack on his back. Kieran was slow and steady getting him up to his shirt pocket on the front and let him slide in. With how warm it is outside, he decided to not wear his new coat.

 As he walked downstairs with his riding buddy, he introduced himself, "My name's Kieran Duffy. What's yours?"

"I'm Gray. No last name though, I don't have one."

 He felt that there was a story behind that, however he decided to leave it be. There was no need to press for personal information this early on in their budding friendship. Kieran will ask questions in time, but mostly, he'll wait until Gray chooses to be more open with him.

[crowniko]

Me writing today for my shinji/reader fic

I wanna have a few chapters polished before I post the first one 👀

here's a little taste though: the story is set in the main storyline. It'll jump around from the current timeline to flashbacks and all of that. The reader is gender neutral and used to be the 5th seat in Squad 5. They have a friends to lovers dynamic, but it's very slow burn bc shinjis a bitch.

anyways, expect drama since I have fomo so of course the reader is gonna be a part of an incident that went down 100 years before the current timeline.

They might also have some interactions with hueco Mundo bc I love the concept of it and want to explore it more.

Also, something important to note, is that I'm gonna try to leave a lot up to imagination reader wise. like I won't say hair color or body descriptions. it'll be vague for y'all. but there's one thing that won't be vague: the reader's Zanpakuto. it's a critical part in the plot so I couldn't create one up to interpretation. it'll have a name and a whole description, but that's it.

I'm going to try to keep each character's personality accurate, but sometimes it might get a bit ooc. mainly that'll be me exploring a part of the character that I didn't see enough in the manga, like I wanna give justice to shinjis strength (he deserved more in tybw 😭) and his kindness. also orihime is a sweet child that deserves no harm. she went through trauma that isn't nearly recognized enough. I'll also explore Zanpakutos more since I love that shit. (and personified hollows like White Ichigo)

Finally, the reason why it's taking me a bit to get this out is bc I'm currently rewriting it/starting from scratch. I do have 200 pages of content, but it's all in first and third perspective with my own OC. It's also old and has a lot of things I would change now, but I'm using it for ideas/rewriting it in a second perspective. I can always post a chapter of it if y'all want to see something. a crumb.

that's all, sorry for another rant. I've been rewatching bleach, writing, and realized that this account was going to get dusty if I didn't post an update soon (my bad)

-Nico :)

[thehomothings]

Analysis of Kite's conflicting moralities, relationship with death, and the toll reincarnation may take on one's psyche

So, today I decided to compile all the thoughts I have had about Kite's interesting worldview since the first time I saw him into one post, mostly for my own sake, really. If you're familiar with the few posts I've made, you know it's gonna be a mess, but hopefully a comprehensible mess.

A heads up, this is going to be spoiler-heavy, and very much deal with subjects of death and dying as a whole. Also, some of these conclusions are drawn from my own experiences and close brushes with death, I'm not going to go into much detail but it might get personal and definitely dark. I'm not even sure if I can call this a meta-analysis, and I'm obviously no expert, so mayhaps take all of this with a grain of salt.

Been getting into drawing lately, and during the more simple and mindless part of the painstaking process of dotting every single star in this, I let my thoughts wander through the latest part of the fic I'm writing, and I got a better grasp on what exactly made Kite such an elusive character to me.

I'm not quite sure why I got so attached to Kite. Perhaps it was the air of tragedy surrounding him, how despite his sordid past he remained still open and gentle even if outlined by a healthy dose of cynicism.

But sometimes, I think it's the fact that he is so paradoxical. He's brave, yet fears death to such a degree that creates a whole Nen ability around it, is a pacifist yet will not hesitate to spill blood for his own sake or someone else's. Despite the many ultimatums and warnings of 'I will not protect you', he gave his arm and then his life to save Gon and Killua. He approaches each hunt and battle with a clear plan of action in mind, but his Hatsu takes the form of a roulette that gives him random weapons which are never what he wants, but what he seems to need for that exact situation, which he cannot dispel without using. When he draws a weapon, the decision is locked in and his or his opponent's fate is sealed. That's why each time he dubbs his weapon a bad roll. Every time he has to gamble, he sees himself as having run out of luck. When it comes to having to choose between himself and somebody else...well, there had never been a choice. In fact his aversion to using it may feed into its sheer power that we, unfortunately, saw too little of.

Let's go over his very first appearance when he saves Gon from the mother Foxbear.

It's not hard to see the strain searching for Ging has put on him; he's rash, prone to anger and punching a child for daring to get into trouble. In his mind, he's failing at his most important task, has not yet earned the right to call himself a hunter despite being in possession of his very own hunter license.

After killing the mother Foxbear and raging about having done so, he says this interesting line:

So yes, he finds killing for any reason rather irksome as most would do, yet I think something deeper caused him to absolutely lose it in this scene:

He had not been aware of Gon's identity, and despite being an animal lover and a naturalist, he made a choice to save the human instead of allowing nature to run its course. In fact, he says: 'No beast that harms a human must be allowed to live.'

How does one weight one life against another? How is the worth of it determined? The value of life... an impossible choice he's faced with and a choice which he seems to regret to some degree.

The Foxbear cub.

Here, he's speaking from experience, a tangible loss he has felt himself, and a hard and bitter life he does not want to impose on the cub.

His backstory is exclusive to the 2011 anime adaptation but there are hints alluding to it in the manga, for example, the fact that he does not seem to know his birthplace, or:

The choice of words is chilling.

Reading between the lines, one could draw the conclusion that he is an orphan. Something supporting this hypothesis is how he visibly deflates after Gon tells him his parents have (presumably) died.

So we see he is willing to go against his own moral code of not killing as to not doom another living being to the life he led, a lonely, hopeless existence that could barely be called one. He saw it best to put down the cub rather than leave it to die a painful, slow death.

The reason Kite himself isn't as cynical and cold-hearted as one would be after witnessing cruelty in its rawest form is those small crumbs of human kindness which he may have found in Ging.

It was not only a chance at an honorable life being Ging's apprentice gave him, but it also 'saved' him from being broken and twisted into what he hated and worst of all, death.

If we take that one minute of backstory as canon to his character-which I find myself inclined to do- these quirks of his make much more sense. He lived on the run. He lived on the knife's edge between giving up or pushing forwards. He lived as so a wrong move could be the difference between survival and the end.

Between rock and a hard place creates a mentality of black and white, absolute good or extreme evil, this or that. Except in reality, it's much harder than that. Deciding who to save and who to strike down is a heavy burden to bear.

It's almost easy to see how struggling to keep surviving could lend itself to a crippling fear of death and subsequently developing a Nen ability which once more goes against his own moral code in order to give himself a second chance...yet something about it strikes me as unlikely when I look at it this way.

Living life knowing it could end at any moment has the opposite effect, at least for me it did. One comes to accept that it is fleeting and while not eager to let it go, when death eventually and inevitably does come, there is no fighting it.

Especially when there is no hope that tomorrow will be a better day than this one.

Frequent near-death experiences numb one's fear in a way, even if it drives them to take precautions that render it unlikely to happen again and results in c-PTSD, but still, it does. It sparks a certain nihilistic view of 'if it all can end so easily, then what's the point of it all?'

Unless there are things to live for, a sure promise of a better future, and Ging gave Kite that. When he faced the threat of losing his second chance at life:

Really, what else could lead someone to develop the ability of 'the hell I'm going to die like this'?

I think a separate event, an even more brutal near-death experience that almost cost him his life as the hunter he so strived to be set him off to develop the secret roll of Crazy Slots, what I call Roll No.0, Ars moriendi. Unlike other weapons, it cannot come up in random and is directly summoned by him, or better said, summon by his overwhelming will to keep going and hopelessness of fighting a losing battle. I don't believe roll No.3 was the weapon that allowed him to reincarnate. I've named that one Wand of Fortune, a sort of armor instead of an offensive weapon since I find it hard to believe Kite, a Conjurer, would not focus on defences as well, and I will go into both mechanisms of these weapons hopefully in his backstory.

Despite knowing this battle to be a pointless one and being acutely aware of his soon to be demise, he did not immediately draw Ars moriendi, no, he stayed back and fought for the sake of the boys, kept Neferpitou occupied until they could reach safety. We can see evidence of this in the aftermath of the battle that seemed to have gone on until dawn, a torn apart landscape only signaling a fraction of the devastation that was Kite's power unleashed. It still wasn't enough.

In the anime sub I watched, when Gon apologizes to Ging about Kite's death, Ging said a sentence that infuriated me, because it belittled the utter suffering of the NGL trio.

"He would not die in your place." (No screenshot, sorry)

And I remember practically shouting at the screen, screaming 'how could you possibly say that? Of course he did. He absolutely did die in their place. How could you not know your own apprentice? Why-'

It was only last night that it hit me why Ging would say that.

Once upon a time, maybe Kite would not have given his life for anybody under any circumstances, even if he had a way out of it all. He would still need to die to come back to life.

His Thanatophobia could be attributed to the (possibly untreated) PTSD of the near-death experience in his later life, being so certain of dying that finding himself alive afterwards drove him to never want to go through that again. He quieted his fear by creating a sort of a loophole, that even if he lost the battle he would remain. Ging remembered that, but as evidence shows, something changed. Maybe he healed a bit, perhaps growing up dulled his fear to a certain degree, but eventually when it came down to his life or another's, he didn't choose himself.

Now, I can hear you saying 'but he didn't die, so what are you going on about??' And so I reply: Yes, he is alive, but he did die. He experienced that painful, horrible moment of staring death in the eyes and thinking 'This is it, this is the end', went through the actual process of having his soul removed from his body. And that moment stretches into infinity, ten lifetimes condensed into the mere seconds before oblivion.

Dying isn't so hard if one stays dead.

It's not so easy to open one's eyes and find oneself alive again after that, no matter how much that is the heart's desire. It's difficult, nigh-impossible to reconcile with life and walk amongst the living when everything had been so final, when death had been accepted to its fullest.

So Kite awakens, the twin of Meruem and back from the dead, his mind and identity both intact and fractured. In that he is Kite is no mistaking, yet he is not the same gentle pacifist whose first reaction upon sensing a monster's aura was to shield two kids from it at the cost of his arm.

I don't think many of you are familiar with Zoroastrian ideology, but Togashi is known for loving his religious imagery, and it's not only Christianism he derives inspiration from (evidence of which can be seen all over Kite's character and resurrection).

In Zurvanism-a branch of Zoroastrianism- there is talk of the twin spirits: Ahura Mazda -epitome of all that is good- and Ahriman -epitome of all that is evil-, the parent god Zurvin decides that the firstborn may rule in order to bring "heaven, hell, and everything in between."

Upon becoming aware of this fact, Ahriman forcibly tears through the womb to emerge first. Sounding familiar yet?

Zurvan relents to this turn of events only on one condition: Ahriman is given kingship for 9000 years, and then Ahura Mazda may rule for eternity.

Meruem ruled for 40 days, his death leaving the throne vacant for ant Kite, wearing a dead girl's face and seeming to be brewing some nefarious plan. No more is there any sign of that unrelenting pacifism and the sanctity of life he held so high, losing his own may have only served to show him how meaningless the pain and suffering he went through had been, dying only to be reborn as a member of the species that killed him. It may be that he has no desire to rule over the remaining Chimera ants or create an army of his own-

Yet I dread to think what a broken mind possessing limitless power might do to the world.

And that's it. If you made it this far, thank you for reading! If you found it interesting, stay tuned, as I think a lot and I will make it your problem.

[mystic-juminhan]

Random assumptions I’ve inferred about Toji because Akutami has given us literal crumbs:

This is just a short post to list a few things that I feel like may be true based off the analysis I have done on Toji’s character that have been on my mind for a bit. As a literature and psychology student it’s always in me to get to the characters deeper meaning so here we go :))

Disclaimer: Anything mentioned is just some thoughts I had - I don’t intend to give any accurate psychological judgements.

Toji’s arrogant and cocky demeanour is a carefully crafted facade that is used by Toji as a self defence mechanism. I think this behaviour allows him to deflect the hurt, resentment and self esteem issues that arose from being denied a place in the Zen’in clan. He only keeps it up in front of others but soon drops it when he’s away from the eye of the public.

I had this thought a little later but when Gojo meets Megumi for the first time when he was a kid he mentions to him something along the lines of, ‘your dad left the clan in order to have you’. I was thinking whether this meant that Toji was either dating or married to Megumi’s mother whilst still a part of the clan and when he learnt she was pregnant he left the clan? Or did he fall in love with Megumi’s mother and decide he wanted to leave the clan in order to start a family with her? Either way, I think it can be inferred that Megumi and his mother did play a role in his decision to leave the Zenin clan.

I would presume that Toji giving away Megumi largely arose from feelings of inadequacy and incapability. After Megumi’s mother passed away I presume he didn’t deem himself capable or even worthy of taking care of a child all by himself. So he passes him on to people who he thinks would give him more of a worthy life of living. Not to mention that Megumi’s mother death probably hit him quite hard.

Contrary to some beliefs, I actually think Toji would prefer a sweet, soft hearted and tender sort of girl in contrast to his own rough demeanour. I believe Megumi’s mother probably fitted this description.

Toji’s recklessness of moving from woman to woman and spending his money just as quickly seems more like someone dealing with depression rather than someone who is a ‘player’ as sort. Either way, I think Toji uses these kind of actions as a way to stop himself from feeling and reinforcing a sense of carelessness in appearance.

In regard to his carelessness I actually think he harbours deep disgust towards himself but tries to convince himself that he lives with an attitude of apathy towards everything to disregard these feelings. The whole, ‘I don’t care anymore, I don’t care anymore’ sentence in chapter 113 is a reinforcement of this whenever he comes to deal with a part of himself he dislikes.

Toji forgetting Megumi’s name in my opinion was not that he didn’t care to remember but rather an act of repression. The brain can sometimes repress memories that bring out emotions such as sadness, trauma or any other grief like emotion. So I think Toji was able to repress this memory in order to come to terms with sort of ‘abandoning’ Megumi which I don’t believe was as easy as he makes it seem.

I believe it was probably Tsumiki’s mother who proposed that they get married and Toji probably went along for the convenience of it. In essence I think the only person he ever loved was in fact Megumi’s mum and he did not hold that same affection for Tsumiki’s mother. He probably thought that it would help Megumi out by having a mother before he decided to take off. I believe Tsumiki’s mother probably took off a little while after (this is just a hunch I might be wrong)

Well that’s all I have for now. Let me know if you guys have any of your own assumptions.

[its-tie-kir-ra]

As someone who is a full-time inukag shipper, I totally get where your coming from w/ the inukag scenes where Moroha just "accepts" her parents.

I think though that most inukag shippers are no longer watching YH (myself included), and that we have collectively decided to ignore the context behind the inukag scenes and just focus on those individual scenes as a whole. That's why we haven't really questioned why Moroha just goes w/ the flow, because:

1) we actually want to relish the few inukagmor crumbs we get even if it is a little pathetic

2) we take certain aspects about those scenes, like InuKag being loving parents and Moroha being a happy daughter, as actual canon because it fits with how we always imagined an inukag family to be in post-canon, even before YH.

And 3) we know Sunrise, especially Sumisawa, are not smart enough to write about a rational, emotional struggle as big as coming to terms w/ finding your birth parents and what that might realistically do to a person. We've accepted the fact that the writing is shit and that a realistic portrayal of such an emotional struggle is too good a concept to be written into such a shitshow like YH, so why make a fuss about it anymore?😪

That's just my theory at least. I know I'm taking InuKag being loving and doting parents, with Moroha being a happy daughter as one of the only actual canon things from YH.

I've seen some YH fanfics that dive into that particular struggle tho, if you ever wanna look them up on FF.Net or Ao3.

This is a response to this post. It's about how the show doesn't handle adoption/child abandonement well, and I used the example of how Inukag are going to handle this going forward and how the scenes feel really hollow to me as an adopted kid. I'm not trying to crack on Inukag shippers for liking it. Like what you like.

Anyway.

You realize that making a fuss over those scenes is sending the message that this show has an audience and it will keep going, right? Like you're allowed to do it, but don't pretend that it's ultimately not sending the message that you're ready to spend money.

I don't understand this. Fandoms scream and cry and beg for shows to be brought back. When they're brought back, the fandom usually hates it, except for a few parts which they get excited over (which I have a whole theory over how eventually you just run out of story to tell). Then they beg for more. And the cycle continues. Like read fanfic if you want to get that Inukag hit so badly. Like fandom prides itself on being very "Canon, who cares" and then as soon as the creators announce more is coming they turn into Oliver Twist. Is the validation that important to you?

It's like the live action thing. Everyone is out here getting so excited over the ATLA live action, but I'm dreading it, because when has there ever been an anime to live action that's good? Mulan, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Beauty and the Beast, THE LION KING, all were adaptations that were pretty freaking terrible, both in adapting their works and making a new story, but that hasn't stopped like 6 more being announced this past year and them bringing in billions of dollars and every time people are like "IT'S GOING TO BE GREAT!" So I don't get it.

Watch another damn show. Those sequels and live action adaptations are not about making you happy or bringing the fandom together. It's about making money.

I'm not trying to be an asshole but Jesus Christ sometimes I feel like I'm losing it watching this, because like, my favourite anime is FMAB, and everybody wants a sequel, and I don't. Because the ending was perfect. Why would you want to mess it up? It's way more fun for me to imagine what happened in my head or read a fanfic than pay someone to tell me what happened that will ultimately be treated as "more official" (which isn't a bad thing because I also believe that we should be respectful of original creators because they're fucking human and they're eventually going to run out of ideas and it's potentially going to be bad). All a sequel will do is disturb the tranquility and ruin whatever better ideas that the fandom came up with. (Because there is no way in hell they'd let Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, be the house husband he was destined to be.)

(LOOK AT THEM 😭)

Adds "talk about sequels" and "talk about adaptations" to list of video ideas because I have way too many opinions

(I don't doubt that Inukag would've been great parents. Y'all can fight me on that. But when I see comics about Ayame and Koga raising Moroha as "Aunt Ayame and Uncle Koga" (which is BS in itself, Koga and Ayame are her parents in that situation and I bitched about how much I hated Koga raising Moroha for 10 minutes in my video because I don't care what y'all say he wouldn't be a good parent to a quarter demon but ULTIMATELY HE IS HER DAD) and everybody going aweeeee that's exactly how it happened, like, you're treating it like it's canon. Stop pretending you're not. You're not ignoring the context.)

(I feel like an overinvested crazy person right now.)

[amyscascadingtabs]

the way you keep the world at bay for me

post-the set up, a.k.a jake taking care of hungover amy, hungover amy taking care of sad jake, and mac caring mostly about himself because he’s a baby 😌

read on ao3

Jake doesn't get a lot of sleep that night, and for once, it's not even Mac’s fault. It's not even due to the pizza parlor simulator game either, although he does play a couple of rounds when Amy's finally snoring next to him after ranting to herself about the babysitter’s club for a solid ten minutes, but not even that can fully distract him from the dull sense of doom that's made itself at home deep in his chest. 

This is bad. Holt wants to see him tomorrow, and Jake knows there will be consequences. There has to be. There should be. He made a mistake, and he's going to get punished for it, and there is nothing he can do but accept his defeat. He already knows what he has to do; the nerve-wracking thing is the fact that it's still hours away, and his brain is spinning too fast for sleep.

He really wishes he could talk to Amy. She's sleeping on her stomach with her mouth open, arms straight out to the sides like she’s trying to push him out of bed, but he still can’t be mad at her. He hasn’t seen her this drunk since before she got pregnant, and he’s seriously worried about the hangover she’ll be sporting tomorrow, but he also knows she did it for him. Because they’re a team. Because she trusts him, sometimes even when it turns out he was wrong.

He wrongfully arrested someone. The sentence keeps repeating in his head, appears pasted in bold font on the inside of his eyelids if he tries to go to sleep, and displayed in luminescent letters on the ceiling of his bedroom when he gives up and opens his eyes again. He should have known better, has learned his lesson time and time again since his early days of constantly glorifying his job and letting his impulsivity get the best of him, and he still made a mistake.

  /

He just wants someone to tell him it doesn’t make him a bad person. If only Amy wasn’t so drunk he’s scared to wake her up right now, Charles wasn’t so devotedly biased in all questions involving Jake’s role as a detective, and Mac wasn’t, well… so completely unable to grasp any of the concepts involved in the question.

Amy lets out another mighty drunken snore, and Jake hopes she will consider it a testament to his love for her that he doesn’t voice record it. He turns his head instead and picks up his phone to go back to the pizza game. Maybe just a few more virtual customers will be able to lure him to sleep.

 ~

 He must have fallen asleep eventually, because when Mac does start babbling to himself over the monitor, the morning sun is shining through the windows, and Amy’s stopped snoring. She’s only moaning uncomfortably to herself now, and Jake’s guessing from her strained grimace that the headache has kicked in hard.

“I’ll get you coffee and aspirin as soon as I’ve checked on Mac,” he whispers to her with a kiss to her neck, and he thinks he sees the hint of a smile as she reaches out for him in what’s probably an attempt of a pat on the back, but ends up more of an unintentional slap to his butt. Or maybe she’s still drunk, and it is intentional. It’s hard to tell.

  /

Mac may have no clue about what’s currently going on with Jake, but at least it’s impossible not to smile when he hauls himself up and rocks back and forth on unsteady feet in excitement over the fact that someone’s coming to get him. He greets Jake with that wide grin that shows off all of his four teeth – two up and two down, and they’ve kept everyone up at night for weeks, but they’re so pearly white and cute so maybe it was worth it – and a laugh that’s been Jake’s favorite sound on Earth since the first time he heard it.

“Good morning, bud,” Jake tells his son as he lifts him up in his arms. “What do you say we get you a bottle and mama some coffee? Hmm?”

“Bah,” Mac repeats. Jake decides to give him the benefit of the doubt and say it means he agrees on the bottle.

“Bottle, exactly. You're so smart,” he says, booping his little nose and smiling as it makes Mac giggle. “Let's try another one. Dada.”

There's a tense moment of them both just staring at each other, and then finally, his son goes,

“Bah.”

“One day,” Jake says with a sigh as he carries Mac out of the nursery. “As long as you say me first, okay? We’ll get there. We’ll practice.”

  /

He puts Mac in the high chair while he tries his best to work the coffee machine and the bottle warmer at the same time. It's trickier than to be expected on almost no sleep, but at least he manages to pour the breast milk from the freezer bag into the bottle and not into his coffee this time. He's only made that mistake once (fine, maybe twice, and he kind of liked how sweet it tasted but he's never gonna tell anyone), but he suspects Amy's never gonna let him live it down. He gets Aspirin from the medicine cabinet while he waits, and puts a couple of slices of toast in the toaster. His own day feels already pretty much beyond saving, but at least maybe he can improve Amy's.

  /

Though, when she stumbles out of the bedroom, still in her pajamas with her huge glasses and hair on end and looking like she's either seconds from being sick or going straight back to sleep, he worries whether she might just be beyond saving, too.

“How are you feeling?” He asks as she gives him one drained look before walking up to the couch and face-planting on it with another pained groan.

“I think I might be dead.”

“That's called a hangover, babe. I think you used to be familiar with the concept once upon a time, but I guess it's been a while.” Jake grins at Mac, who only reaches his chubby hands out for the bottle out in response. “Toast?”

“Do I have to?”

“It's going to help.”

“Fine.” Amy pushes her head off the pillow to look at Mac. “He's not drinking the milk I pumped yesterday, right?”

“I poured that out for you. I know they say moderate amounts of alcohol are fine, but, well, you were speaking British.”

“Good call,” Amy mumbles as he puts the coffee, aspirin, and toast down in front of her. “See, this is why I married you.”

Jake just hums, but he does smile to himself as he goes to grab his own cup of coffee.

  /

“I wish I could call in sick to work today,” Amy says between bites of toast, and Jake looks up from where he’s absentmindedly brushing crumbs off the countertop while finishing his own. “My head feels like it’s going to explode.”

“I mean, you did very much go through contractions while managing an entire precinct during a blackout once. You could think about that?”

“No, this is worse than giving birth,” she states confidently, and Jake has to try very hard not to laugh. “Don’t tell my past self I said that. Or my future self if I ever give birth again.”

“Yeah.” He grimaces. “I’m pretty terrified to go, too.”

“Why?”

“Because yesterday? All of it?”

“Ohh.” Amy sighs. “Right. Maybe we should both just stay home.”

  /

Jake’s about to tell her how much he wishes that was an option when Mac drops the finished bottle against the tray, immediately starting to twist in his seat. Jake unclasps the belt and lifts him out before he manages to rock the chair – that kid’s shockingly strong – and Mac immediately crawls away towards the walker. He doesn’t use it to move yet, but he’s been pulling himself up with it for over a month, and the anticipation is high every time he lets go with one hand only to sit back down on his booty the next second. Sometimes Jake could swear his son does it for attention. At least Mac doesn’t seem to have inherited his impulsivity, Jake thinks, and then he’s back to beating himself up in his head.

  / 

“I just don’t know why I did it,” he mutters as he sits down on the floor next to Amy’s head on the couch. She nods slowly, and Jake takes it as a sign she might actually be able to listen to him now. “I should know better, right? These are, like... the kind of mistakes I used to make. I thought I’d gotten better at this kind of stuff. Smarter. Less impulsive. Less of a bad cop. But instead I arrested and tailed an innocent man, all because I thought I had a gut feeling and thought I was being set up.” He shakes his head. “I guess that FBI jerk was right about gut feelings.”

“You’re a great detective,” Amy says without missing a beat. “A lot of the time, your gut feeling is right.”

“That doesn’t excuse it. I still shouldn’t have done it.”

“No.” Amy sighs. “You shouldn’t have.”

“It sucked.”

“Yeah. It did. But there’s nothing you can do to change it now.”

“Do you think I’m a bad person for it?” The question comes flying out of him, and Amy frowns.

“Why would I think that?”

“Because it was a shit move! And because I’m definitely gonna get suspended for it, and that’s going to lose us money. And then we’re not going to be able to save as much for Mac, or pay for his baby music class or baby gymnastics. And then he’s going to end up broke and untalented and it’ll all be my fault, and then you’ll be ashamed of me and leave me and I’ll die sad and alone in a ditch.”

“And you don’t think you’re spiraling just slightly right now?” Amy asks. The smile on her lips is one of amusement, and it humbles him, bringing him out of his cycle of self-pity.

“I don’t know. I didn’t get a ton of sleep last night.”

“I don’t think you’re a bad person,” she says, and that does make him feel a bit better. “I think you made a really stupid mistake. There's no getting away from that. I’m not happy about it. But… I know you'll take responsibility for it. That’s already a whole lot further than a lot of people care to go.”

  /

Her fingers brush through her hair, calming him as she speaks. The hangover has made her voice a little scratchy, Jake notices when she's this close. It reminds him of mornings after long evenings out before they were parents, a time that always feels far longer ago than it was. Sometimes he thinks everything before Mac might as well be another lifetime.

  /

“And we'll work it out if you do get suspended,” Amy continues, talking over the obnoxious melody playing from a toy Mac has found. “It's not great, of course. But we can save lots of money on daycare if you stay home with Mac. That helps.”

“Like a paternity leave,” Jake says. He does like that thought.

“Oh yeah.” Amy laughs. “You’ll be just like one of those hip Scandinavian dads who get to stay home with their kids because they live in countries where they don’t hate people for having kids. And you two can go to all of the cool classes and playdates together. You’d be the sexiest dad at baby swim class for sure.”

“Wouldn’t I also be one of the only ones?”

“Good point. Make sure to mention your wife a lot. But hey, Mac’s going to love it.”

 /

As if wanting to confirm Amy’s point, Mac crawls over to Jake and tries to climb up on his knees to sit in his lap. He does this sometimes when he’s playing on his own; retreats to their arms for a hug or a quick cuddle, only to try and wriggle out of their grip and go back to whatever it is he’s doing in the next moment. Jake thinks it might be one of their son’s sweetest qualities. Mac rests his head against Jake’s chest, almost hugging him like that, and he wonders, not for the first time, how a person that’s not even one year of age can make every other issue in the world seem so insignificant. Even if it's just for a moment, it's a pretty damn good moment.

 / 

Fueled by the most powerful motivation of all – their son’s love and attention – Amy sits down on the floor too, patting her knees.

“You want to come to mama, Mac?”

Mac squirms for a moment in Jake's arms, and Jake lets go of him. Using the couch as support, for a second it looks like he’s almost about to take a step toward her. Both parents gasp in anticipation, and it must confuse him, because he reacts by giving Amy a shocked look and sitting right back down on his butt. Jake laughs as their son crawls away again, heading for the soft building blocks outside the playpen.

“He's such a tease.”

“He gets that from you,” Amy says, and Jake huffs in mock-offense. “Are you sure we shouldn't just stay home from work?”

  /

Jake thinks of his upcoming meeting with Holt. He's been fearing it for so many hours now, and he's starting to wonder if the anxious anticipation might just not be worse than the meeting itself. He already knows what he has to do; the only thing left is to rip off the band-aid.

“I don't think it will make anything better if we don't.”

“Yeah.” Amy sighs, closing her eyes and leaning on his shoulder. “I love you.”

“Love you too. And you should probably shower and put on makeup unless you want everyone to know exactly how hungover you are.”

“I know you're right, and I hate it.”

Jake grins and strokes her hair before getting up from the floor. “I’ll go get Mac ready for the day.”

  /

“Jake?” Amy calls out before he can leave for the nursery with Mac in his arms, and he turns around. Her voice is still a little hoarse.

“Yeah?”

“It's going to be okay, babe. We’ll figure it out.”

 / 

Jake brushes his fingers through Mac’s already unruly curls. He thinks of playground dates, the storytime for toddlers their library holds every Wednesday, and how much time he’ll have to make sure Mac says his name first now. Then he thinks of the bigger image; of daring to set a good example for this child, even when it's hard. If he wants the world to be a better place for his son, he's going to have to start by taking responsibility for his own actions.

“Yeah. I know.”

  /

For the first time that day, he dares to believe it.

[secondhand-trash]

The White Persian: the supreme among cats

A/N: first cat in our list of felines👀I wonder who this might be...

This isn’t your cat? Then click here to see check your story with the other jjk cats

You did not intend to become a cat owner by any means, it just happened to select you as a target and never left your house once you let it in.

You met the white pile of fur on a rainy day, when you were dragging your tired frame through the streets of Tokyo that were illuminated by nothing but the faint lights behind the heavy rain. You were cold, and the hems of your jacket were already soaked. It hadn’t been a particularly good day, and in honestly it hadn’t been a particularly good time in a long while. You just woke up, head to work, came home, and start over with a single trace of emotional fluctuation.

It was all silence except for the cracking of the rain on the hard concrete floor, the puddles splashing out with each step you took but you didn’t pay it much mind. You just wanted to get home quick, and then take a bath, maybe drink a can of beer or two before falling asleep.

What slightly resembled a shriek caught your attention.

“Reow~~ reeeeeowwww~~”

You could never forget the day you met what would soon become your cat, nor the shock you felt when you looked into the soaked paper box at the side of the road to see a tiny head poking out of the rim.

What kind of weird ass stray comes with a mini pair of sunglasses sitting on its nose?

It only seemed to get louder when you neared, sitting up under the droplets that wet it’s coat when you kneeled down to get a better look. It basically took up the entirety of the box it was in, its fur damped and clinging to its body but still enough for you to imagine how majestic it must have looked before being thrown out here in the rain. Dirt tainted it’s coat, patches of brown dusting on what was a canvas of white.

You were cautious as you slowly brought your hand out and it seemed to be delighted when it bumped your palm with its nose. It was probably not a stray, you couldn’t really imagine the sunglasses being anything but the direct consequence of human interference.

Poor thing being thrown out in the rain. The thought of taking it home flashed before your eyes briefly as it purred, rubbing its face on your hand, but the knowledge that you couldn’t afford to keep a pet around bested that sudden impulse quickly.

“I’m sorry...” you mumbled at the cat that is still being almost oddly affectionate towards you.

The cat froze when the hand it’s rubbing against suddenly pulled away, it’s eyes slowly looking up when you covered the box with your coat and left.

It blinked, and blinked again.

This was not how it had planned for this to go...

-

Your tiny umbrella did not help much with the rain that only got heavier and heavier, and you were shivering by the time you finally got home.

You sighed, thinking of your coat that was left with the cat.

You hoped it would be taken in by someone nice soon.

“Reow!!”

The sharp scream made you jump, and the sound of scratching that followed only had you even more confused.

What in the—

The scratching did not stop, only getting more and more frantic as you stood there. Your mouth parted in bewilderment when you found the same cat that you had left pawing at your window, extending its body by standing on its back foot to try and reach the handle of your window frame.

It let out a happy meow when you opened the window, hopping down through the windowsill like it owned the place before finding its place at the cozy corner of your couch. There were footprints of water all along the floor, and the long furs that were sticking together and dripping wet already become a mess against your cushions. It did not seem to mind at all, looking far too elegant to match its current state as it stretched its limbs out.

You stared, baffled by the situation you found yourself in as it laid down, shaking its head until the tiny sunglasses fell off of its nose.

You were at a list of words when you stared right into its eyes that were so clear that it saw right through your soul.

“Meow?”

Oh god, this is one utilitarian cat.

But you couldn’t look away either.

You palmed yourself, knowing that you could not bare it in you to send it away now that it’s here basically gripping at your coach.

Guess you’re a cat owner now...

-

When people say that all cats are demons, I would say they are wrong and that cats are lovely creatures, but cat gojo is the absolute worst lmao

The kind of cat who goes strutting around the table and swiping things onto the floor with its tail because it just doesn’t know how long it is

Screams at ungodly hours just for attention

Gets cranky when you proceed to not give him attention

Unfriendly to people who visit

Very good at killing unwanted bugs and other related creatures though

You still haven’t figured out where his sunglasses came from and he always manage to find it no matter how well you hide it up

Goes out for walks sometimes and occasionally you can find him walking around several other kittens

You came home to find several kittens piled up around him one day and nearly had a heart attack at the possibility that he had taken in other people’s kittens

Also seems to get along with the neighbourhood strays very well

(You see him hang out with two other cats all the time, but he doesn’t look too happy when you try to approach the other cats)

Has expensive taste, will absolutely not even sniff cheap cat food

(Or he’ll sudden stop eating a brand when he was eating it just fine hours before, god I hate it when cats do that)

Long body

Very long body

(Search “nobiko” that Japanese cat, that’s what I imagine cat gojo to be like)

You posted a pic of him on Instagram once and it probably went viral

He’s on his way to become the #1 internet cat model

Have you screaming “SATORU WHAT ARE YOU EATING” at least once a week whenever you bring dessert home

Gets super curious whenever you eat anything sweet and is always begging for crumbs

You tell him that his only strength is that he’s pretty, to which he always give a few grumpy hisses

Surprisingly good at sensing emotions and he’ll come curl up around you when you’re down or is feeling anxious

It’ll usually end up with him using this chance to get extra pats, but we do not talk about that

[bedtimebrain]

EXO Baekhyun: Speedpost!

(while i've been having fun with all these drawings in my past few posts, i must admit i almost puked when i looked at this one as i was uploading today. for the sake of our eyes will nicely put a stop to this soon :,D)

Char: baek x u Genre: military baek, fluff!, needy (?) reader Description: you thought you could do just fine with baek in the military, but it seems like you actually need him a little more than you think Word Count: 1.3k Track for feels: Avril Lavigne, Wish you were here

You honestly thought you were the kind of strong and independent girlfriend. The kind that would do absolutely fine when your boyfriend enlists.

But truth be told, you barely scrape past this week, and it has only been a week since baek enlisted. Doubts, doubts. Could you even hold it together for another 2 more weeks? You remember just the day before baekhyun's enlistment, he deliberately teased you with fake sobbings,

'babe, will you cry if i'm not around? you might miss me so much it's too much for you to bear right? if you..'

you simply scoffed and cut him off

'ya, byun baekhyun, i'm afraid i would have to disappoint you. i am very much a busy and independent woman. i will do just fine with you enlisting. plus we will probably get to call once in a while, i can live with that'

you smugly folded your arms, sending an attack to his ego

In hindsight, the attack went out like a boomerang and came right back at you. You can already imagine baekhyun playfully gloating

'Strong independent woman, jagiya?'

Perhaps it might all be better if a wreck package hadn't self-invited itself to your life this week.

First of all, your boss decided it was a good idea to throw your proposal back in your face. Next, your very considerate across-the-globe client planned a conference call close to sleeping time in korea. As if it all couldn’t be worse, you overheard a juicy conversation your colleagues were having about you in the washroom.

All these just made you want to run right to baekhyun. To lie on his lap, throw punches at him and hear him flame your life perpetrators with the most nonsensical phrases.

During the day, all you looked forward to was your phonecalls with baek. But who knew even a phonecall date would be as hard to fulfil as climbing mount Everest.

Apart from the first day, every other day the past week was met full of hiccups. Either you were caught up with conference calls and work, or baek was cutting too close to lights out for a long call.

You call it baek crumbs, yes you were surviving on baek crumbs.

There was still sometime left before your phonecall date tonight. You yanked open your refrigerator in search of your alternative destress mechanism -- chocolates. You sighed at your depleting chocolate stash, physically indicating how badly you needed baek.

Back on the sofa, you swallowed down Freddo and you plugged in your earphones like an emo teen, randomly choosing a song radio to play.

As if Siri heard your inner thoughts, the radio chose to play Avril Lavinge's Wish You Were Here. Before you know it, you were a crying mess.

It's not even like you guys were breaking up, but the lyrics were literally stabbing into your heart But right now i wish you were here.... Damn, what i'd do to have you here ...

You were pathetically brawling away when baekhyun's call came in. Suppressing your heavy sobbing, you picked up the phone after a couple of rings at this untimely moment.

'Jagiya, i've 15minutes today! How have you been? You wouldn't believe what happen today! Jagi? Are you there?' His animated voice died down and he held a pause.

'Are you crying? y/n why are you crying? what happened?' you hear a hint of panic in his voice

Baekhyun was fast at catching on things, your quietness, shakey breathes and suppressed hitches were more than enough to indicate a red flag to him.

You had intended for tonight's call to be a fun and not your emotional health hotline help. Taking a deep breath, you tried to put up a front, and with your most stable voice, replied him

'ya, what crying? so what happened with you today?'

'ya, stop bullshitting me. you're crying, what's up with you?' turning all serious, he wasn't going to let you dodge this

you bit down hard on your lip, you couldn't get a syllable out of your throat, afraid the moment you did so you would break down completely.

'damn it, i would totally break the law just to bring a camera phone in so you cannot hide your face from me. tell me please?' he sounded urgent and frustrated, but gentle in asking you to tell him

'baekhyun ah, i can't do this anymore. i thought i could, but why is it so difficult' your voice cracked and you burst into hot tears

'i haa-d such a bad week and i just want..want.. to tell you about it every night. but our time together is always so short that by the time it got to my turn to tell you about my day.........the call ends. and.. and.. i don't know..... what to do about all these on my own..with--without you' you were wailing and possibly incomprehensible by now

'ya..y/n-ie, mi an hae. jeongmal mi an. i just realised i hadn't even heard about how your day went this entire week. i always got so carried away telling you about me, i wasn’t considerate enough.'

Almost running out of tears, you regain your composure quickly

‘Jagi, I’m not blaming you. Please don’t take it that way, it’s just.. I really wish you were around.’

The call suddenly went silent on the other sides, then you heard some low shouts in the background

‘Baekhyunie?’ You guess it was probably an early roll call again

A few moments later, baekhyun was back on the call.

‘Jagi, I’m sorry, I’ll probably have to go soon, the sergeant’s checking my barracks next.

Anyway, I actually had something I wanted to give you the night before I enlisted, but you insisted you were an independent and busy woman....’

His sentence was left broken with a sudden series of clattering like his phone had dropped. You heard louder shouts this time round, then a hurried whisper from Baekhyun

‘Jagi, check the right drawer under your table alright. I got to go now, mi an.’

‘Ah, okay.. saranghae’ and the call was dropped.

You know it was beyond Baekhyun’s control when he had to end the call. But it still didn’t stop you from feeling down at the abrupt goodbye.

Forcing a smile on your face for the sake of your own, you went to your table as baekhyun had told you.

Right drawer under the table?

Pulling open the drawer to find a floral patterned metallic box.

Was baek referring to this?

Popping open the metal box you gasp at the contents scattered within. With a hand over your mouth, you could feel your eyes welling up with tears again.

Chocolates. Lots of chocolates. Fanciful chocolates. Notes... byun baekhyun actually wrote notes for you?

He never once made you cards no matter how hard you ‘jaebal’ for him to. He would just say

‘Too difficult’

‘Too bothersome’

‘Suck at handicraft’

You pulled out the longest note in the entire box and couldn’t help but chuckle when you saw his scrawls

Annyeong Jagi! I bet you would choose this to read first cause it’s the longest. Did I guess it right?ㅋㅋ i wrote a letter to my beloved EXO-Ls, and I thought, how could I not leave you with one? Y/N, you see the chocolates in this box? I went to the candy store that day and picked them individually for you. Because I’m not around, I thought you might need them more. If you have a hard time when I’m away, take a chocolate and a note, enjoy them and think about me. Thank you for waiting, nae sarang, very soon I’ll be with you again. ^^

On the table, your phone vibrated and your screen lit up.

A msg from baekhyun:

Found my speedpost? Saranghae, wool ji ma(dont cry). Let’s call again tmr, goodnight!

You were smiling and crying like a fool by now. With a vision blurred by your tears, you typed a reply

Ya byun Baekhyun. Gumawo.... saranghae

Surely, you must have saved a nation your past life for you to meet byun baekhyun.

———

I was watching EXO arcade and this super random thought came to mind, do yall think their new album concept actually came from EXO arcade?

Like maybe they had been planning a season 2 all along and a new album. But they couldn’t think of a concept, so tada! Arcade, games! For their album concept~ Is there any talk like this circulating, hahah, hope I’m not late to the party then.

[plant-flwrs]

Eternal Spring // wolfstar

Chapter One: Calholme

masterlist!

series masterlist!

series summary: Remus was fine being alone until a mysterious and loud man crashes his motorbike into Remus’s life.

a/n: hi!!! i have a series!!! i’ve got a couple of series and chapter stories in my drafts, but i’ve never really had the courage to post them. i have put so much into this story, though, and i really hope you all like it :) leave me some feedback! i’ll probably post more once i know that its not a complete and utter flop. also, i’ve posted it on my ao3 so you can go read it over there too <33 

(1.9k)

It was a drowsy, subdued place, in Remus' opinion, every moment of the year except for spring. Where he grew up, and where he currently resided, the entire town took a green glowing hue for the season. It was cold in the mornings, so when Remus went outside to spread chicken seed on the dewy grass, he put on a sweater. It warmed up as the sun rose, and from the time it took the sun to travel from the horizon to the middle of the sky, Remus was comfortable in a t-shirt and loose-fitting jeans. When the sun was at its peak, Remus might start to sweat through his shirt, maybe going as far as to change into shorts if he was outside, which he usually was. He couldn't stand to be inside during spring.

The gravel driveway that led to a dirt road was sprouting an abundance of weeds and weeds that looked like flowers. The trees captured light, glowing, instead of the way they seemed to absorb and trap light in winter. Remus's backyard was a large forest, and Remus had never taken the time to check where his property line ended, so as far as he was concerned, the entire forest was his. If you went deep enough in any direction, you would come to a clearing where the knee-high grass dove into some grass that only tickled your ankles. After the ankle grass, there was an unnaturally blue and unnaturally large lake. Remus' mom had told him that the lake was so blue and so large because it was natural, that no person could ever make something so beautiful, and Remus found himself agreeing as he got older.

With his mother and father gone to live somewhere where it was spring weather all the time, living on a vast farm with no animals and a huge lawnmower that his father comfortably sat on every weekend to trim the fields, Remus now lived in his slightly renovated childhood home. It was only slightly renovated because it was a great deal messier and almost every surface was covered in coffee or tea stains and a book. Remus also got a television that he rarely used and turned his old bedroom into some sort of reading room/ garden. So, slightly renovated.

Past the gravel driveway littered with weeds and imposter weeds, past the dirt road that served as a crossing and sometimes rest area for the wild animals in the area, was the more populated town. Calholme had two public libraries; three hardware stores, one of which sold exclusively fishing supplies; a psychic who did palm readings and sold handmade jewelry and was rumored to have built the house she did aforementioned things in herself; three gas stations, one on each side of the outskirts of town, and one right in the center; two banks, one of which was relatively new that not many people frequented due to either a lack of trust for banks or simply because it was new; a multitude of fruits and vegetables stands with products grown in the area, delis in which the products ate the grass not 20 miles away, and bakeries that sent a sweet aroma into the air; a record shop that doubled as a coffee shop, candy store, and sometimes a furniture store when the records weren't selling too well; a car repair shop called Matt Mocks's garage that also repaired tractors and other broken farm equipment, and if the right guy was in that day, you could get your television repaired, too; and any other storefront that the simple people of Calholme thought they needed. They were quite resourceful in that sense.

So, down one end of the road was Calholme, and down the other were a few scattered cottages and large farmhouses, and even further down was a paved road that brought Sirius Black into town.

---

Remus had opened the window in his kitchen and stood in front of it as he waited for his tea to steep. It was that wonderfully chilly morning, so he shivered a little as the cold air clipped his crooked nose and sharp chin. He wrapped his long arms around his body to give some sort of comfort but found his lack of sustainable body fat and bony arms were more of a hindrance than not. Sighing and turning away from the window, he retrieved a cardigan that was draped over the couch, shaking off some loose crumbs before putting it on and returning to the window. He passed the sink on the way, a large white ceramic hole in the counter that looked more like a tub than a sink, and filled up a cup of water for the plants on the window sill. The house was in disarray, as usual, but Remus kept his plants alive. Most of the ones on the sill were herbs that he cooked with, with one or two flowers mingled in. If he kept the window open all day during this time of year, butterflies would come to the flowers and find themselves fluttering around the kitchen until they could find the window again. Occasionally, they just make themselves at home.

Window plants watered, arms covered and no longer shivering, tea fully steeped and mixed with the right amount of milk and honey, Remus stood in front of the window again. He could hear his chickens clucking by the other side of the house, and the rustle of the trees, the faint hum of a tractor miles off as people started their day. Then, he heard the roar of a failing engine. Not long after that, he heard the harsh sounds of metal scraping and a yelp of surprise that soon turned into groans of pain.

Remus ran to the door, tripping over his discarded rainboots, then running his shin into a coffee table, then shouldering the wall before falling on his face after tripping on some more shoes. When he finally got to the door, the chickens were louder, and so was the groaning.

His driveway wasn't too long, but it was still long enough and curved enough so that the house couldn't be seen from the road. The gravel crunched under his feet, eyes surveying the weeds, hands warmed by the mug he had forgotten to put down and somehow, miraculously, had not dropped on his way out.

There was a lump that may have been a human body or may have been a Greek god that had fallen down to the earth. Besides this was a discarded and seriously fucked up motorbike. A few feet away was a duffel bag with its contents spilled out onto his driveway. Telling from the skid marks, Remus guessed that this Greek god had lost his footing, or maybe hadn't seen a pothole, and veered into his driveway for somewhat of an easier crash than what would have been in the woods. The marks also told Remus that the driver was coming into town.

"Are you alright?" Remus tried, taking the groans as a sign of life and creeping closer to the body.

"Oh, fuck," they groaned, "fuck, fuck, fuck."

"Do you need help?" Remus knew it was a stupid question, one with the answer right in front of his face, as they began to writhe around the ground and get their wits about them.

Remus moved over to the scattered possessions, setting down his mug and gathering the various items back into the duffel. He ignored the magazine with David Bowie on the cover, ignored the criminally small shirt that had tears in the collar and Remus knew would make the Greek god look even more godlike, ignored the eyeliner pencil, and politely folded things when necessary before putting them away.

"Where the fuck am I?" the body had moved into a sitting position, feet on the ground and legs bent at the knees. There were rips in his black jeans, blood seeping into the denim, and a tattered hole in the sleeve of his leather jacket that also left red dripping onto the gravel. His face wasn't too scuffed, just some road rash on his cheekbone and jaw. Greek god confirmed. Fallen from heaven, straight from Olympius, carved by the hands of Zeus himself.

He was strikingly pale, which made his eyes and hair striking as well. His eyes were a deep blue, blue like Remus' lake, and his black hair was long and cut into a choppy sort of shag with lots of layers. He looked disheveled, obviously, because he was just in an awful motorbike accident, and Remus was staring at him.

"Just outside of Calholme," Remus almost called him 'sir', despite the fact that he hadn't called anyone but his teachers and his father 'sir', and this boy was obviously close to Remus' age. But the boy had a commanding presence, one that made people want to call him 'sir', and tremble with nerves as they did so.

Shuffling a bit, still sat down, he surveyed the damage. No longer groaning nor writhing, he was somehow even more attractive. His brows were furrowed-in pain, concentration, just pure Greek god sternness? Remus could not tell- as he pulled at the new holes in his jeans. He didn't wince, but he did scowl, and his fingertips ran through his blood for a moment before sighing. He twisted to look at his arm, and he winced then, but only because of his beloved jacket.

"Motherfucker," he mumbled, taking care to slip off the arm of the jacket and pinch the torn edges together as if they would magically stitch together.

Remus realized he was still holding the boy's duffel, so he dropped it gently on the gravel between them.

He cast his eyes up to look at Remus for the first time. "Thanks," he said softly, pulling off his entire jacket now.

It was cold, and Remus was wrapped tightly in his cardigan, and this boy was bleeding, his motorbike dented and silent even though he had never taken the keys out of the ignition.

"Can you walk?" Remus asked, surprising himself with the nervous tremble in his voice. Remus didn't talk much during the day, besides to his chickens and the lake and the flowers and the butterflies, and occasionally to the stray cat that would make the long trek from the neighboring properties. This boy was a little different than talking to those things.

He struggled to his feet, easing gently on his knees and not putting his scraped hands on the gravel. He bent his legs, only grimacing a little, and said, "Yeah."

"Do you want to come inside? It's warmer."

The boy craned his neck, looking at the heavily forested area around him, his bike, and Remus. He looked at Remus a little longer than these other things and nodded briskly.

Remus grabbed his mug and turned to walk up the driveway, listening to the crunch of the boy's footsteps behind him. They were strong and sure, despite the trail of blood he was leaving.

"This your house?" The boy said from a few paces behind Remus once they got close enough to see it. He sounded neutral, not apprehensive or suspicious of Remus, but not grateful or relieved. Remus found it a little unnerving, especially with his back to him. He shivered and turned to face him, nodding and opening the front door.

[drunkserval]

A Fresh Canvas: Incomplete Preview

Quite some time ago I did a silly little thread on Twitter, and I’ve always wanted to take that and actually make something out of it. Well it was a little harder than expected, but it’s coming along!

When I have the entire thing done I will be uploading it to AO3, but for now it seemed seasonally appropriate to at least drop this.

I wanted to have this posted yesterday but festivities kept me busier than expected! Story is below the cut. Keep in mind that this is still technically a rough draft, and will receive its final beta pass before the full story hits AO3.

(Tentative) Title: A Fresh Canvas Fandom: Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System by MXTX Rating: G, No Warnings Apply Summary: Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan are neighbors in the same modern apartment complex who, despite looking similar enough to be mistaken for each other, couldn’t be any more different. Or so they think.

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

Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan were neighbors in the same apartment complex. They lived on the same floor, in the same hall, and were often mistaken for one another due to this proximity combined with how similar their appearances were.

But there were key differences, as both would readily point out to their neighbors. Shen Jiu’s hair hung shy of his shoulders while Shen Yuan’s was shorter and lighter in tone. 

And still the mix-ups kept happening, particularly if they were at some distance or facing away. The misunderstanding would very rarely last past the first glance since Shen Jiu would snap and take immediate offense, and Shen Yuan would just sigh and say, "Sorry, wrong one."

Shen Yuan had no idea why Shen Jiu got so offended over it. Surely he didn’t look that bad, come on!

The neighbors eventually started learning to look at the clothes first--or to at least look for Shen Yuan’s thick-rimmed glasses. 

Both men carried and dressed themselves so differently. Shen Yuan dressed in hoodies and jeans--well, if he was planning on going any further than the mailbox, that was. Otherwise why bother changing out of pajamas or sweatpants?

On the other hand, Shen Jiu didn’t touch anything that wasn’t from a known designer. 

Shen Jiu spent proudly--and why shouldn’t he? Because he at least earned his money!

That Shen Yuan kid down the hall? Rumor was that his parents were paying his rent and he'd never had a real job in his life.

But because he never went out, Shen Yuan was one of the only people still hanging around the apartment complex when Shen Jiu went around knocking during a major holiday. 

In Shen Jiu’s arms was a box containing two fluffy black pups.

Shen Yuan’s eyes widened at the sight of them and he completely forgot to greet his neighbor until Shen Jiu cleared his throat. The dogs were like little storm clouds with feet and stubby tails, staring back at him with big black eyes. One started wagging its tail with such vigor that its whole back end wiggled about.

It took Shen Jiu a moment to find his voice as he followed, such was the state that his neighbor had chosen to answer the door in. Hideous cucumber-print pajama pants, a tacky anime shirt covered in snack crumbs, and unkempt hair had greeted him. But the continuous movement of the box in his arms reminded him of his mission. 

“I found... ” Shen Jiu shifted the box in indication as Shen Yuan shut the door behind them, “these, out by the garbage.”

Shen Yuan blinked as the other passed by him, “Have you tried calling any nearby shelters?”

“Of course I have,” Shen Jiu scoffed at the implication that he was so simple. “You try getting a real person on the phone today, though. It’s impossible. I could only leave messages.”

Shen Yuan put a finger to his lips, “Oh, right. Today is…” Glancing at a wall calendar almost as ugly as his shirt he nodded, “Right. Right.”

Did this kid ever so much as leave the building? Shen Jiu was starting to wonder. Shen Yuan dressed like he’d just rolled out of bed in the latter part of the daytime. And he hadn’t realized it was a major holiday. And then there were the countless odorous takeout boxes covering every available surface in his apartment.

Shen Jiu wrinkled his nose but still asked in spite of his rapidly growing doubts, “You don’t know anyone who can take these little mutts in for a day or two, do you?”

Shen Yuan shook his head and heard Shen Jiu sigh. His neighbor set the box down to give his arms a rest… but Shen Yuan couldn’t seem to rip his attention away from one of the pups. It hadn’t stopped staring at him, or shaking its fluffy little behind, for a moment.

“What if we take them in?”

Shen Jiu’s tone was flat, “What.”

Shen Yuan picked up the excited little pup and it immediately started wiggling in his grasp. Not struggling, however--just trying to get closer to his face, paws waving in the air and its little pink tongue darting out to reach for him even though it was still well outside of range. He had to fight back the urge to laugh at the silly little storm cloud. 

“The building allows us to have one animal per unit, right?” Shen Yuan shrugged, “so what if we each took one, even just long enough to find them new homes?”

Shen Jiu frowned. Taking in a dog, or really any animal, had never been on his agenda. He liked his nice clean apartment and intact furniture unlike a certain someone. Plus he was more partial to cats. He moved his gaze from the overexcited animal back to the box. Though the pups looked identical on the surface this one was clearly the calmer one. It looked up at his scowling face but put forth no such ridiculous display… thank goodness.

Who knew? Maybe Shen Yuan’s idea wasn’t so bad. And if it was, it was only a temporary arrangement, in the end. He might be able to get rid of the animal as soon as tomorrow if it was truly intolerable.

Tentatively, Shen Jiu reached out to pick up the dog…

And felt tiny teeth close around his fingers.

Jerking his hand backwards, Shen Jiu sneered down at the animal. “What, you ungrateful little beast!” 

Shen Yuan finally stopped cooing at his own pup to look over and said, “Maybe he doesn’t like your cologne?”

“And what’s wrong with my cologne?” Shen Jiu snapped, voice raising.

Stepping back, “Nothing, nothing!”

“It was a gift, you know!”

Shen Yuan barely avoided tripping over a haphazard stack of game cases as he kept moving away. “P-perhaps it’s just too strong for a dog’s nose, that’s all!”

This time Shen Jiu moved quickly, snatching up the dog by its middle before it could get its ridiculously tiny muzzle around anything, and he stared directly into the animal’s eyes.

“Do that again, and I’ll put you back out in the cold where I found you. Understood?”

The dog stared back at him, placid and indifferent… until its tongue darted out and licked the end of his nose.

“...good enough.”

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

It was a few days before the two of them crossed paths again. 

It’d seem they both had decided to keep their newfound pets and they were both out that day to take the dogs for walks.

The air in the park was warm, so they sat themselves on a bench to enjoy it for a bit longer and soak up some of the sunlight that was so rare that time of year. Shen Jiu’s pup sat like a sentry at his feet while Shen Yuan’s pup curled up on his lap the moment he sat down. 

It was through the ensuing conversation they realized they both gave their dog the same name by sheer coincidence.

One was too lazy and the other was too stubborn, so neither changed it. At least they’d bought different-colored collars. But this brought to light a new revelation, and Shen Yuan just had to ask…

“How did you come up with it?”

“It was just the first thing to come to mind,” Shen Jiu had explained, “from something I’ve been reading, probably.”

"Wait, you read that too!?"

As he suspected! That name was from one of the top-rated web novels that year, from its stallion protagonist: Luo Binghe!

Shen Yuan couldn’t imagine someone as outwardly prim as Shen Jiu reading trashy webnovels, but it turned out to be true. It was just a quick, easy way for him to kill a few minutes of downtime at work, Shen Jiu reasoned in his defense.

Whenever they met up from that point forward, Shen Yuan talked his ear off about his various grievances with Proud Immortal Demon Way.

‘Villains that dig their own graves but don’t bother finishing! Women that lead the protagonist on a three-chapter long subplot just to get to their lewd scenes, only to never see them again! And every single character lost all of their intelligence when the protagonist came around!’ 

And yet he had nothing but praise for said protagonist… almost excessive praise. 

Shen Jiu is annoyed at first but he starts enjoying the company. Which is good because the dog turns out to be a menace.

Well, both dogs could be counted as menaces, just in different ways.

Bing-mei (as they come to call him) would start whining so pitifully when Shen Yuan shut the door between them, thus he often just gave up and took the dog with him whenever it was feasible.

Bing-ge, on the other hand, broke his toys within days, climbed around on furniture he wasn’t allowed on--sometimes when Shen Jiu was looking right at him, too--he barked, he scratched furniture, he tore up pillows.

Despite all the trouble he was causing for his master, Shen Jiu would no longer entertain the idea of giving him up. Not after Bing-ge tore up three separate muggers on three separate occasions and growled at the person who kept taking his parking space until it never happened again.

But the biggest takeaway from their conversations, for Shen Jiu, wasn’t webnovels or dogs. It made him start to realize how lonely he'd been. 

The only other person he really spoke to was halfway around the world for their work and they only spoke a couple of times a month. Now that Shen Yuan was around, Shen Jiu actually started to have things to look forward to besides the monotony of work--knocks on the door, long walks with the dogs, the occasional cup of tea afterward on colder days...

Shen Jiu was never the sort to be up-front with his feelings, so he found a way to show his gratitude by helping Shen Yuan with his confidence issues. He started encouraging him to go out more, and to put a little more effort into his looks when he did. This morphed into helping clean up his squalid apartment since Shen Jiu could barely stand to look at it when he came over. 

Months later, Shen Jiu’s recommendation had helped Shen Yuan to land an entry-level job. That, and a steady habit of going out once a week, gave them something else to do and talk about.

Progress was slow, but visible. Shen Yuan seemed a little less awkward in public with each passing week.

One night they were leaning on Shen Yuan’s balcony. It was a night of celebration, for he’d just earned his very first promotion, and Shen Jiu had brought over wine for the occasion.

He found himself leaning closer to Shen Jiu, telling himself it was just to get a better look at him in the dim light of the city night. His focus wasn’t the best even when he was sober after all. Yet Shen Yuan didn’t stop. And when Shen Jiu turned to look at him in confusion, and their lips met, he didn’t withdraw for several seconds.

Neither did Shen Jiu.

Shen Yuan tried to flee as soon as he realized what he’d done only for Shen Jiu to pull him back saying:

"Don't run, take responsibility. We talked about this."