#my brain was not working well at the time lol

[mariasont]

Strictly Medical Reasons - S.R

it started as concern. a few check-ins, a handful of visits, just to make sure you were healing. but somewhere along the way, the line between duty and something deeper blurred, and spencer wasn't sure he wanted to redraw it.

pairings: spencer reid x reader warnings: gn!reader, flirting, mention of some undescribed rescue (imagining it wasn't too much trauma because there is too much flirting going on lol), reader has stitches, pre-relationship pining, definitely blurring some unhealthy attachments, mild codependency?, injury/wound care, but this is all fluffity fluff wc: 1.9k request: here

It was supposed to be procedural.

Another life salvaged, another story neatly archived. He had done this before, so many times, in so many places, that the specifics bled together, watercolors smudged by the passage of time. Their faces softened into abstraction, names reduced to reference, tucked away for when necessity dictated. That was the nature of it — the job. He helps, he leaves. They move on, and so does he.

Except this time, he hadn’t.

It didn’t hit him in the moment. Not when the case wrapped up, not when he boarded the jet, not even when he returned to his apartment. It wasn’t until much later — until he was supposed to be focused on a book he had read three times before, until he was staring blankly at his own notes without processing a single word — that he realized he hadn’t moved on. 

He could still remember the exact shade of your shirt, the way the material had wrinkled when you crossed your arms, the way you had cracked a joke — not forced, not out of shock, but because humor was your instinct, the same way facts were his.

The logical part of him knew this was excessive. Maybe even bordering on inappropriate. Checking in once? Reasonable. Twice? Understandable. But five times? Six? He wasn’t even sure anymore. Somewhere between the habitual morning texts and the I was just in the area visits that were only technically lies, he had lost count.

Somewhere along the way, it had stopped being just about your well-being and started becoming something else entirely, something he didn’t want to analyze too closely. Because even if he did, the compulsion remained the same — his fingers hovering over his phone, rereading messages for subtext that probably wasn’t there, scanning your voice for micro-inflections, subtle hesitations, anything.

It was crazy. For someone who spent his life dissecting human behavior down to its most fundamental parts, Spencer found himself struggling with the most basic equation of all: what was it about you that had rewired every rational impulse he had?

“Dr. Reid?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think I can take these stitches out myself?”

Spencer’s response time dragged as he attempted to process whether or not you were joking. There was no sound reason for you to even consider that — removing sutures too early could lead to dehiscence, increased risk of infection, and possible hypertrophic scarring. He ran through a dozen potential responses, none of which adequately conveyed the "are you out of your mind" sentiment currently flooding his system.

“What?”

“My stitches. They itch like crazy,” you complain. There’s a rustling sound, a shuffle of movement, then a sharp inhale, like you’ve pressed too hard. He stiffens. “I know they said to wait, but it’s been — what? A week? That’s long enough, right?”

Spencer pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, it’s not long enough. And unless you’ve recently acquired a medical degree I don’t know about, you should absolutely not remove them yourself.”

A small, defeated sigh. He didn’t have to be there to know what you were doing, absently picking the edges of the injury, mind already debating whether to listen to him or your own impatience. He knew exactly how your brain worked. Possibly too well. 

“Okay, okay, doctor.” Your voice now had a teasing lilt, dissolving his irritation like sugar in tea. “I’ll keep them in. For now.”

He should have told you to go to urgent care. It was exactly the kind of advice he would give to anyone else. He even opened his mouth to say it.

But urgent care meant you’d be sitting in a cold, sterile room, and Spencer already had all the proof he needed that you did not handle pain well, so he could only imagine the absolute scene you would cause the second the doctor so much as touched you.

You had made it through an entire armed standoff without a scratch. You had been fine. Perfectly fine. And then, the second you were safe, you tripped over your own feet on the gravel, went down hard, and immediately announced, “I think I’m dying.”

(You weren’t. It was a two-stitch injury. He knew that. You knew that. But that hadn’t stopped you from squeezing his arm like you were bracing for war.)

So yeah, he wasn’t about to subject an innocent nurse to that level of unnecessary suffering.

“...I can come by and take a look.”

He hadn’t told anyone he was leaving and hadn’t bothered with excuses of half-hearted justifications. You had agreed without hesitation, voice light, pleased, and before he could even process what that meant — what it meant that you wanted him there — the call had ended and his coat was already on, his body moving as if his mind had no say in the matter at all.

Which was how he ended up here.

At your door, eyes drawn, as always, to the welcome mat. Stay Awhile. Too sentimental. A little too on-the-nose. The kind of thing he would generally dismiss with a passing thought, another surface-level attempt at warmth, mass-produced and impersonal. Except lately, it was starting to feel like a directive. 

Before he even knocked, the door swung open. He froze, fingers still half-curled into a fist, blinking as if he had somehow miscalculated the timing of reality itself.

“Hi.” You stepped back without hesitation, the invitation clear.  “Come in.”

Spencer hesitated for a fraction of a second, thrown by the fluidity of it all.

“Sorry, it’s kind of a mess,” you added, pushing the door behind him. “I had to work online today, and, uh, turns out, when you don’t have to leave the house, basic organization becomes more of a suggestion than a rule.”

His eyes skimmed the room, cataloging the so-called mess. A blanket, half-draped over the couch, slumped like a figure in mid-collapse. The pillows sat uneven, as if they had been rearranged in restless indecision. A coffee mug, streaked with the last remnants of caffeine, stood beside an open laptop. A pair of socks had been cast aside in the corner.

Mess, you had called it. He fought the urge to tell you that, statistically, people who lived in slightly cluttered spaces tended to be more creative. Somehow, he figured you already knew that.

His gaze tracked downward, instinct eclipsing intention.

The stitches were still in place, neatly spaced, and there were no signs of infection. So far, so good. But the skin surrounding them was angry, irritation blooming in uneven splotches where your fingers had worried the flesh.

“You’ve been scratching them.”

Your eyes flickered toward your arm, then back at him, guilt tucked behind a small, lopsided smile. “Not badly.”

Spencer sighed as he set his bag down with a thump. “Sit on the counter.”

“What?”

“The lighting’s better,” he muttered, already making his way toward the kitchen. “And I’d rather not crouch on your floor to assess how much damage you’ve done.”

You hopped up without argument, legs swinging as you grinned at him. “Do I get a lollipop after this check-up?”

Spencer stepped between your legs, hands settling lightly on your knee for balance. He hadn’t really thought this through — how close he’d have to be, how your leg would brush his hip, how he would be able to smell faint traces of your shampoo. 

He exhaled a dry laugh. “I don’t know. Do you think you deserve a reward for actively making my life harder?”

“Sounds like a you problem, Dr. Reid. If you weren’t so obsessed with checking up on me, you wouldn’t even know I was doing anything questionable.”

Spencer sighed, tugging on his gloves, the latex snapping against his wrist like punctuation.

“You make an excellent point.” He pulled out the disinfectant next, carefully flipping the cap open. “An annoying one, but an excellent point nonetheless.”

Because if he didn’t check up on you, he wouldn’t even know about the irritated stitches. He also wouldn’t know that you never make it through a full cup of coffee before it gets cold, or that you always read the last page of a book first, just in case, or that you leave the bathroom light on when you get up in the middle of the night because you hate walking through the dark.

He wouldn’t know you, not in all these strange, fascinating, tangled ways. And for some reason, that thought startled him more than it should.

When you started, Spencer barely had the cotton pad against your skin, “So I was reading this article about how — ow!” You flinched, shooting him a glare. “That stings!”

Spencer pressed his lips together, barely suppressing a laugh. “I did bring a numbing agent, but I figured you’d want to tough it out. For, you know, bragging rights.”

You huffed, lips turning into a tiny, reluctant pout. “Yeah, okay, I’m fine.”

Spencer’s grip on the cotton pad faltered just slightly before he recovered. He shouldn’t find that cute. He shouldn’t. But he absolutely did.

He continued cleaning, carefully blotting at the wound. Another wince. Another barely-contained reaction.

“Tell me about the article.”

“So, I read this study about how humans actually need physical touch to regulate their nervous systems.”

Spencer hummed in acknowledgement. “I’ve read about that. Social bonding releases oxytocin.”

“Right!” you winced, inhaling sharply through your teeth before continuing. “And it’s not just romantic, like, even casual touch can lower stress levels. They did a study with people holding hands and — ow — measuring their cortisol levels. Turns out, human contact makes everything more tolerable.”

Spencer’s brain decided right then to process every point of contact between you. 

Statistically, you weren’t wrong. Scientifically, it was a well-documented phenomenon.

“Interesting,” he said, clearing his throat. “Sounds useful.”

He could cite three separate studies off the top of his head, break down the neurochemical pathways, and explain in excruciating detail why humans physically needed each other. But he liked the way you described it better.

“You saying you wanna hold my hand, Spencer?”

The antiseptic pad definitely didn’t need as much pressure as he just applied. “You’re very chatty for someone in pain.”

“You act all put out, but you keep showing up. What does that say, Dr. Reid?”

“That I’m too intelligent to believe in lost causes, but not intelligent enough to avoid them” Spencer rolled his eyes as he pulled off his glove. He patted your thigh lightly before stepping back. “Alright, all done. Try to behave so I don’t have to do this again.”

You clutched your chest theatrically. “Are you saying you don’t enjoy our little quality time sessions? That hurts, Spencer.”

He busied himself with picking up his bag. “I’m not dignifying that with a response.”

You hopped down from the counter, and Spencer instinctively reached out — like he thought you might be unsteady, like it was his job to ensure you didn't wobble. His hand brushed your arm for a half a second before he caught himself and pulled away.

“Text me if anything looks worse.”

“What, so you can rush over again?”

His ears tinged slightly pink. “Just… let me know if you need anything.

You softened, nodding. “I will.”

As he stepped outside, Spencer pulled his phone from his pocket, half-expecting — half hoping — to see a message from you before he even made it to his car. He shook his head at the thought, at himself. This was becoming a problem. A habit. An inevitability.

And despite knowing this, here he was, already running through excuses in his head for why it would be perfectly reasonable to check in again tomorrow. Strictly for medical reasons, of course.

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[evilincoperated]

I will Fall In love with you, over and over again

Paring: Spencer Reid x gn!reader (No use of y/n)

Summary: Spencer is clingy after prison, and you just want him to open up

Fluff and Hurt/Comfort

cw: Mentions of prison

A/N: My first time ever writing a fic so please be nice, and bear with me. Not Proof Read lol

Spencer was different, well that goes without saying. He had been imprisoned falsely for three months, he didn’t even want to tell you what was happening with him. He was broken. But he knew one thing, he could never hurt you, not you, not the one light in his life. Before Spencer was fairly independent, he wasn’t huge on physical touch, but he didn’t mind it, he just never really initiated it. But now he’s attached to you. Emily made him take a few months off of work, and ever since he got home he’s been like a puppy, always with you. He wants you next to him at all times. He’s always asking to cuddle, always kissing you like it’d be the last time, and he learned how to text better just so he could text you every half hour at least while you’re working. You want to help him, you want him to be honest, tell you what happened, communicate, and let you help. But he never could, he couldn’t taint you, couldn’t risk dampening your light.

It all came to fruition one night. You had just gotten home, and like a moth to a flame Spencer ran to greet you, enveloping you in his arms immediately, like his life depended on it. “Mm, missed you” he mumbled, “felt like you were gone forever.” “It was just an eight hour work day, we’ve been apart longer” you said teasing him, trying to get him to dig into why he’s been so desperate for love lately. “I know.” He waited until you got your shoes and coat off before leading you to the couch, sitting down and gently pulling you down so you could be right up against his side. “How was work? I missed you, I think we need to take a vacation-” He started rambling as soon as you sat down, only stopping when he saw the distressed look on your face. “What's wrong love?” “You hate vacations, you say hotels are germ breeding grounds and that you spend enough time in them as it is.” You look at him and adjust so you’re face to face with him, grabbing his hand. “Can you talk to me, Spence? And I mean talk to me, I need to know if you’re okay, you’ve been acting so different-” “I was in prison love, of course I’m different.” “Well I know, but you haven’t been acting the way the therapists predicted you would.” “Have I ever acted in a way anyone could predict?” He said smiling, trying to lighten the mood. “Spence, I’m serious, I’m worried and you won't talk to me, you’re just always trying to make sure I’m okay, when it should be the other way around. You went through something, not me.” He sighed, “I know, I know I went through something, but I can’t let anything ruin this. You’re all I have left, the only thing I have in my life that I know will never hurt me- not that you’re a thing- sorry I’m not saying this right. All I know is that I can’t risk showing you that I’m broken, you might leave, I’m not the man you knew.” He looked as if he was about to cry. You couldn’t stand it, you kissed him gently, he responded quickly, tenderly kissing you back. “You’re not going to scare me away Spencer. I love you, I don’t love the man you think you should be, I love the man you are. No matter who that is right now. You can always talk to me, always.” You whisper against his lips, before leaving a trail of kisses from his lips to his ear to whisper, “you can trust me.” He swallowed firmly, starting to cry, your heart broke. “I know that logically, obviously I know that, I trust you, I love you. There’s just that part of my brain that says you’ll leave, you’ll see that I’m not worth it.” “You are worth it Spencer, you’ll always be worth it.”

He started crying harder, pressing his face into the crook of your neck, his tears staining your shirt. “I guess, I just don’t want to be apart from you anymore. I spent three months only being able to see you from behind a glass wall, never being able to touch you. I never thought I’d miss just holding your hand, how warm you are. And now that I’m back, I just need to be near you, I need to know you’re there, that you're here with me. And it feels like the only way to do that is to be your perfect man” He sobbed into your shoulder, hugging you tighter. “Hey, hey, I am here. And you are my perfect man, no matter what, or how long we’re apart, you’ll always be that guy.” You start running your fingers through his hair. “And how about this? I’ll take time off of work, but instead of going on a germy vacation, we stay here. We’ll have Doctor Who marathons, watch romcoms, make popcorn, and never leave this apartment unless we need to get something.” You suggested this with a grin, “I’d like that, I’d love that.” He pulled away and kissed you gently, putting his hands on your face. “I’ll call my boss in the morning.” And you laid there, just the two of you, for what felt like an eternity.

[thesoftuglywrites]

brat (affectionately)

Here is my submittal for @unintentionalseductress's Valentine's Day Blind Date Event!

Written for the lovely @flaneur001 (I hope you enjoy it and my selection for your blind date)

(This is my first time participating in this kind of event, as well as my first time ever writing for our beloved King of Curses so I hope I did the event and the character justice lol)

Disclaimer: No content warnings that I can truly think of to label them here. Fem!Reader/Modern!Sukuna/human!Sukuna/no curses au/Sukuna being a massive tsundere, is emotionally constipated and doesn't know how to show affection for the people that he loves and cares about... but he tries/he's got the tattoos, but not the facial ones.

WC: 8.6 K

Enjoy!

“I can’t believe that you talked me into this,” you grumbled, pulling your winter coat closer to your body as you closely followed behind Shoko, batting away a puff of cigarette smoke that she had exhaled out and that you had accidentally walked into. “I don’t need to go on a blind date right now, I should be studying for final exams.”

The cold winter air bit at your exposed skin the longer you followed Shoko to the supposed meetup spot that she had preselected for you and your blind date. Why she decided to do this for you, nay, to you, was something that was way beyond your comprehension at the current moment. When she initially had told you that you were going to be going on a blind date tonight, you had laughed in her face, thinking that she was joking; you were sorely mistaken when she didn’t laugh and instead grabbed your jacket and your wallet and threw them at you, clearly indicating to you that she wasn’t joking and was, in fact, serious about this. 

Shoko let out a snort, and shot you a look over her shoulder with a lit cigarette clamped  in between her teeth as the two of you trekked through the labyrinth that were the back alleyways of metropolitan Tokyo. She plucked the cigarette out of her mouth, and swung her body around to face you, but continued to walk backwards so she wouldn’t break her pace. “Girl, the first time I met you, you had your nose in a book and were a month ahead on assignments that your professors had already put out. If anything, you already have the material written on the inside of your eyelids and inscribed into the sulci of your brain. You’ll be fine taking one night off. Besides, you need this.” She twirled back around, facing forward once again. 

You were a third year university student who had been lucky enough to spend your autumn and spring semesters in Japan at the University of Tokyo as an exchange student. You had done everything in your power to prepare yourself for your travels by studying up on the language, both the verbal and written aspects, the culture, etiquette, the inner workings of the university that you would be attending, and among various other things that were at your disposal before you would embark on your travels.

Shoko Ieiri was your dorm mate. She was the first person that you actually, truly got to meet, and really the first person that took you under her wing. The two of you did your best to communicate, given the fact that neither you nor Shoko really was fluent in each other’s languages. With time, however, you eventually found even footing when it came to communication between the two of you. Shoko was the one who had taken you around the city, introducing you to many eateries, bakeries, and cafes that she would visit, along with miniscule spots that she would spend what little precious free time that she had.

She had also been the one to introduce you to her circle of friends, as she had quickly noticed that you had a tendency to stay in your shared dorm. You didn’t join any clubs, you didn’t go to any campus parties or mixers, citing the main reason being that you simply wanted to focus on your studies so you wouldn’t flunk out of the classes in a university that you had fought tooth and nail to get assigned to. To be fair, it wasn’t a total lie.

While you were apprehensive at first, mainly having anxiety about meeting a group of people that you had no idea existed while they already seemed to have a great deal of information about you, you agreed to meet them nonetheless, over dinner and drinks. Those worries were immediately quashed the second that Satoru Gojo threw his arm around your shoulder and pulled you close into his side, as if you were lifelong friends instead of strangers that had just met seconds prior. Suguru Geto, who side-eyed Satoru with how touchy he was being with you, kept the exchange flowing by asking you questions about you, your life, your country, if you were taking a liking to Japan, etc. Kento Nanami, quietly listened to what you had to say, and continuously poured your sake for you throughout the event, granted he was a few years older than you and he constantly shot down your efforts to try and pour his drink for him; even though he didn’t take much of an active participation in the conversations that were happening around you two, the silence between you two wasn’t uncomfortable–it was even welcomed. 

The only person that you truly had an issue with connecting with, was Sukuna Ryomen. 

He didn’t say much of anything to you with the exception of a curt nod in your direction when you first made introductions to each other. He sat at the end of the table, slamming beer after beer after beer, but never once did he partake in the group dialogue. He sat quietly, watching everything unfold around him. 

There were two things that you remembered from that whole meetup. The first being the fact that his eyes never left you. If you weren’t distracted by something or someone else, you became acutely aware of it–so much so, that it almost made you extremely self conscious; the way that he was staring at you made it seem like he was analyzing every move. The second thing, was when you had gone to pay for your dinner and drinks, the server that had been attending to your table had told you that your tab had already been taken care of; when you asked who it had been for further clarification, they responded: “The gentlemen with the pink hair requested that anything you ordered be applied to his bill, ma’am.” 

You couldn’t even thank him or pay him back for it because he had taken off much earlier before everyone else was finished with their food and drinks. When you next saw him again after that, you tried to bring up the topic of paying him back, and he immediately wouldn’t hear the rest of what you had to say. 

“I wanted to pay for your meal,” he said to you. “You don’t need to worry about paying me back.”

Since then, you two really haven’t interacted. He hadn’t made any effort to get to know you better or talk to you one on one whenever there was a group hangout, simply choosing to ignore your existence and engage with the others; and you were perfectly content with that. 

Fast forward to the present moment, you and Shoko rounded the corner around a little dumpling and takoyaki stand that was operated by an elderly couple, bringing you two back out to the main street, and you could make out four figures standing near a streetlight in the distance. The closer the two of you got, you could make them out to be Satoru, Suguru, Kento, and Sukuna.

“This is fuckin’ ridiculous,” you heard Sukuna growl the closer you got to them. “This is a complete waste of time and I don’t need to be doing this!”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Kuna-Tuna!” Satoru chided, pushing his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose. “You’ll have a great time with your date.”

“Okay, how many times have I told you to stop calling me that?” Sukuna straightened up, almost nearly squaring up with white-haired, blue-eyed man that was clearly past the point of annoying him.

Satoru being… well, Satoru, didn’t pay any mind to the hot headed man that was growing increasingly agitated in front of him, and kept up with his nonchalant, playful attitude. “Oh… since the second year of secondary school? Frankly, I don’t know why you keep trying to get me to stop calling you that when it’s pretty clear I’m not going to,” Satoru chortled.

“Hey, lover boy,” Suguru cut in, before Sukuna could respond–or rip Satoru’s head off, either one could work–and flicked his chin towards the direction that you and Shoko were approaching from. “I would think real carefully about your next move. You wouldn’t wanna scare off you dare, now, would ya?” 

Wait.

Wait.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, what?

Sukuna was your date?

Where there was once annoyance and irritation, it was quickly replaced with anxiety and apprehension; you could feel your heartbeat quicken, your mouth went dry, and your palms go clammy the closer and closer you got to the others. It wasn’t like you were afraid of him… but you certainly weren’t close with him to begin with; he was just intimidating. He towered over you, easily standing at six feet and five inches and was built like an ox. He swore like a sailor that had just gotten back into port, and did everything in his power to make himself appear larger than he actually was and take up as much space as he possibly could. Sukuna acted without a care in the world, and he certainly cared less what others thought of him.

For lack of a better word, Sukuna Ryomen was loud, and crude, and brash; everything and everyone around him could either tolerate him for who he was and what he stood for, or they could fuck right on off. In a way, you did have some sort of respect for him, though. To be your own individualistic person in a conservative, collectivist society like Japan certainly couldn’t have been easy. 

“Ah, there you two are!” Satoru called out, greeting both you and Shoko as you approached them. “We were wondering how long it was gonna take you guys to get here.”

You kept your gaze downward as you could feel the heat flush your cheeks, feeling more self conscious than ever before, rivaling the time that you were about to meet your current friend group. From your peripheral vision, you could see Sukuna maintain his gaze on you. 

“Hope you guys weren’t waiting too long.” Shoko plucked the cigarette from in between her teeth, exhaling out another puff of smoke that you accidentally walked into again, causing you to unintentionally breathe in the toxins. You were too anxious to really pay attention to it, too lost in thought as you dreaded the next several hours that were to come.

“No, thankfully not,” Kento responded, reaching up to push his hair back into the neat side part that he always sported. “We would have been here a bit sooner had someone–” Kento threw a menacing glare in Sukuna’s direction, causing Sukuna to scowl back in return – “not put up such a big fight to get him here in the first place.”

Shoko paused, the cogs in her head slowly turning as she realized that Kento, Satoru, and Suguru all had disheveled appearances the more that she inspected them. “Did… did it take the three of you guys to get him here?”

“Yep,” they all simultaneously answered all at once.

“We nearly had to pick him up and carry him to get him here,” Suguru grumbled under his breath as he reached up to rub at the back of his head, his fingers threading through his hair. “Nearly pulled a chunk of my hair out, too…”

Oh. Great, you thought to yourself. 

He clearly didn’t want to be here, just as much as you didn’t want to be here, either. 

You turned to Shoko, keeping your voice low. “Shoko, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean… does it just have to be the two of us?” 

Shoko detected the hesitancy in your voice and pulled you off to the side, a bit further away from the rest of the guys so that you could speak a bit more inconspicuously. “Are you nervous?” she whispered, her eyebrows furrowing as her eyes looked at you with concern.

“A bit. I just, I don’t know, I don’t know Sukuna very well and I don’t think he likes me all that much…” Your voice trailed off as you voiced your worries. 

Shoko fought off a snort. “You don’t know the half of it when it comes to Sukuna, Y/N. You really don’t.”

“Shoko,” you quietly moaned, borderlining on a whine. 

“Listen, if you’re really all that nervous, we honestly don’t have to go through with this. Satoru, Suguru, and I thought it would be good for the two of you to hang out with each other one on one,” she explained. “Plus, Sukuna likes you a little bit more than he lets on. I promise that he does. He’s just… not very good at showing it.”

You let out a dismayed sigh, not wanting the actions of the other boys to go in vain, seeing as how it took some effort on their part to get Sukuna here tonight. “No, I’ll do it. Just–just keep your phone on standby in case things start to go south.”

“Of course.”

Satoru was the first to break the tension. “Welp!” He clapped his hands together once to get everyone’s attention on him. “Sukuna, we leave our beloved Y/N in your care. Take her to a night out on the town, get dinner, drinks, maybe visit that new arcade that just opened up in downtown Harajuku?” he said, slowly backing up as Shoko, Suguru, and Kento followed suit, leaving you and Sukuna by yourselves. “Have fun, you two!” 

They rounded a corner, officially leaving you and Sukuna together.

By yourselves.

Alone.

Sukuna turned to you, his eyes looking you up and down as he took in your appearance. “You look nice,” he complimented, unsure of how to start the conversation between you two. He could, however, sense your unease. “Better than I do, actually.” 

Though he wasn’t in earshot of the conversation that happened between you and Shoko, he had a pretty good idea of what it was about.

“Thank you,” you softly chuckled. You kept your gaze down, looking at his feet rather than his face. “Though, I wish I wasn’t wearing my glasses.”

His head cocked to the side slightly, genuine confusion coloring his features. “What? Why?” 

“I just prefer to wear my contacts, really. I haven’t been to visit the optometrist here and I’ve run out of my yearly supply, unfortunately. I’ll probably have to do that over winter break once exams are over.” 

Sukuna let out a low hum, digesting your words. 

You raised your eyes to meet his, looking at him quizzically. “What is it?” 

“Well, firstly: thank you for finally looking at me.” He chuckled, a soft smile forming on his face. A rarity if you ever saw. “And secondly: I think I prefer you with glasses. You look rather cute, if I do say so myself.” 

A flash of heat burned your cheeks at his comment, before you tried to save yourself a night of needless agony. “You know, Sukuna, you really don’t have to humor me if you don’t want to be here,” you said, not beating around the bush anymore. “We can just go our separate ways and if the others ask about it, we can-”

“Who says that I don’t want to be here?” he interrupted, his eyebrow raised. 

You deadpanned. “Gee, I don’t know, maybe the fact that it took three grown men to get you here in the first place, and also taking into consideration that you put up such a fight, too.”

He threw his head back as a loud, boisterous laugh rang from his diaphragm. “That was before I knew that it was you, brat.” 

“Brat? Seriously?” 

He chuckled, and walked past you, waving a hand over to indicate that he wanted you to follow him. “Affectionately, of course. Now, c’mon. There’s a new ramen spot that just opened up not too far from where we are now and I’ve been dying to try it out.”

You looked as he started to stalk off in the direction where the ramen bar is, watching his back retreat the further and further that he gets away from you. Against your better judgment, and the annoyance that was starting to swirl in your chest at the mention of being called a ‘brat’, you follow him. 

The train to downtown Tokyo is packed full with the evening rush of salarymen and women that are just getting off of work, to the point where it felt like it was a tin of sardines rather than a train car. Sukuna, using the full scale of his body and height to his advantage, blocked you into a section of the car where your back was up against the side of the car, but maintained his distance in order to prevent others from encroaching on your personal space. This was the most up close and personal that you’ve ever been with him, and with careful eyes, you observed all of the details that your date had to offer you. From the hem of his shirt, you could somewhat make out the darkened lines of black ink that resembled tattoos that just barely peaked out, where it wasn’t obscured by his jacket. He had a bit of peach fuzz on his chin, indicating that he maybe had just shaved. His hair, though slightly spiky, was smoothed back into a neat fashion, in some sort of measure–maybe that was Suguru or Satoru’s doing, who knows. Your eyes fell to his ears, noting that he had small black gauges in his earlobes. Were they new or had you just never noticed them before?

“What is it?”

His question brings you out of your train of thought and you realized that his eyes were on your face, looking at you with a curious expression.

“I’m sorry–what?” Your words tumbled out as they left your mouth.

“You’re staring at me. What is it, brat?”

You glanced away, not paying attention to the fact that he called you a brat again. “I–it’s nothing. I swear.” 

His eyebrow cocked at that, not believing what you were saying for a single second. He leaned down to meet your eye level, putting his face closer to yours than what you deemed necessary. “Are you sure about that?”

You could feel the heat flush your cheeks again as you backed further into the plastic and metal side of the train car, trying to create distance. “Y-yes, I’m sure!” 

He smirked at how flustered you were becoming, before silently shrugging his shoulders and closing his eyes, a silent way of saying: “Alright, then.” He straightened back up to his full height, but the smirk on his face remained.

When the train finally reached the desired stop, Sukuna had placed you in front of him, enclosing his jacket around you so that you were quite literally tucked against his chest. Once again, he used his height and size to his advantage, and began to walk the both of you forward through the crowd of passengers. Once out of the train car, he let you out of his jacket and continued to lead the way, but maintained a close enough proximity to you where your hands were nearly touching.

It was a ten minute walk from the train station to the ramen bar that Sukuna was so highly eager about. In the near distance, you could see the red paper lanterns decorate the outside with fairy lights strewn across the top of the entrance, and kanji characters that you most certainly weren’t going to be able to decipher. The hostess greeted you two with a bow and immediately sat both you and Sukuna in a booth that was public enough to put you close to the kitchens where you could see the chefs cook and create the meals that other patrons ordered, but private enough to where you could have your own conversations without the fear of others eavesdropping in on them, and the lighting dim enough to where no one else could truly see you unless they were actually stood at the edge of your table.

“So? What do you think?” Sukuna asked, the smug smirk having really never left his face since the departure from the train car.

“Of the restaurant? It’s nice. It seems fancy, all things considered,” you murmured, as you took out your phone to scan the QR code that pulled up the menu, only to be sorely disappointed to see that there were no English translations available for the food descriptions, and that it was all in katakana. “God dammit,” you muttered under your breath. 

Sukuna noticed your distress. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not very good at reading the Japanese alphabet,” you muttered. “And there’s no English translations available on this menu for me to figure out what I want.” 

“Let me help you out, then.” He waved an open palm towards you so he could look at the menu with you. 

You turned your phone to Sukuna, sharing the screen between you and him. His eyes scan the options that are listed. “What kind of ramen do you like? Are you a miso girl? Seafood girl? Cold noodle broth? Or do you like spicy ramen?” His eyes glanced at you as he listed your options. 

“Um… spicy ramen is fine.” 

“You want spicy ramen? You tryin’ to be adventurous today?” 

“What do you mean? I like spicy food,” you protested.

“You like spicy food, but you can’t tolerate it. And besides, this is the kind of ramen spot  where when they say a particular dish is spicy, they actually mean it.”

You sat up a bit higher in your seat, slightly offended by his observation. “How do you know what I can and can’t tolerate?”

Sukuna snorted. “Did you forget that I was there when Satoru dared you to eat the hottest spice level at that Korean fried chicken place we all went to once? You were practically dying while Kento, Shoko, and I practically had to raid that convenience store that was next door to get you milk products and ice cream to help alleviate your pain.”

“Maybe I’m trying to expand my palate and build up on my spice tolerance,” you rebuked, your eyes glancing off to the side as subtle embarrassment made its way to the forefront of your mind as you reminisced on that moment.

He leaned forward, his brown eyes intensely focused on your face. Even if you weren’t directly looking at him, you most certainly could feel it. “You really want to take this night as an opportunity to do that?”

“... I’ll have miso ramen…” 

“Good girl.” 

At the mention of being called ‘good girl’, the heat returned to your cheeks tenfold and the flusterment hit you like a freight train all over again. 

The server approached your table to get your orders input into the kitchen. Sukuna ordered for both you and him, speaking in a fast paced dialect that you couldn’t keep up with. You could make out some words, but the rest of it all jumbled together. The server bowed, and swiftly turned away and returned to the back of the kitchen. 

“I got you water to drink, if that’s alright with you?” he asked, as he leaned back into his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“That’s fine.”

A small silence settled between the two of you before you decided to bite the bullet and start asking your date some questions. 

You started off small. “You have tattoos… right?” 

Another smirk formed and he nodded his head once. “I do, in fact, yes.” 

“May I ask what they are?”

He reached down and pulled up the sleeves of his jacket to reveal two black rings around both of his wrists. “You may or may not have seen these before. I know that I typically wear long sleeves around you whenever we’re out and about doing something with the rest of the group,” he mused. “Can’t fuckin’ stand the shit that this hellscape society thinks that I’m goddamn yakuza just because I have tattoos.” He pulled his sleeves down again and then reached up to pull at the collar of his shirt to reveal two thickened lines that were bilaterally placed on both sides of his shoulders. “And then these two lines start at my pectorals and then go all the way up past my shoulders and down my back.” He released his shirt and let his hands rest on the table, mere inches from yours. “I’ve got more I could show you, but then I would have to undress myself in order to do that,” he chuckled. 

A giggle escaped you. “Do they have any significant meaning or are they just because they look cool?”

He shook his head. “In a way, yeah. I mean, they are supposed to represent the brandings that criminals would receive in pre-Edo Japan, but I like how simplistic they are.”

Your head slightly cocked to the side. “Why did you want to get the brandings of pre-Edo criminals on your body?”

“Why wouldn’t I want to get the brandings of pre-Edo criminals on my body?” He shrugged his shoulders and crossed his arms again. A thoughtful look crossed his face as he decided to change the subject of conversation. “Will you be around during the summer season?”

“I’m not entirely too sure,” you answered, folding your hands together on the table, resting them there. “I’d have to see what my visa would allow for me considering that the school semester would be over and that’s really the only reason why I’m allowed in this country to begin with. Why?”

“The group and I like to visit private onsens up in the mountains during the summer season. Can’t really do the public ones because of the tattoos, ya know? It’s also matsuri season, too. I figured that you might wanna stick around for that and experience it, too.”

A smile formed on your face as you thought of the future prospect of experiencing a summer festival with the group of people that had so graciously accepted you into their circle. “I’d like that.” 

“I figured that you would. I remember you talking to Shoko and Suguru about how you always wanted to attend both the Gion and Sanno matsuri festivals.”

You squint your eyes at him, surprised. “Wait, how did you know that? I said that ages ago…”

“Call it a photographic memory, brat.” 

“Oh, yeah?” A wisenheimer grin formed, as you sized him up, ready to have him put his money where his mouth was. “What else have I said, done, or did that you can remember, you wannabe Savant?”

“Oh, where does one begin with you?” Sukuna sighed, rubbing his chin as he looked up to the ceiling as he racked his brain to carefully answer your question. “Well, for starters: you just told me that you prefer to wear your contact lenses over your glasses–which, to be frank with you, I find to be incredibly ridiculous as I think you’re very cute either way. I also remember you saying that you prefer to dress a bit on the formal masculine side when you go out–very chic, by the way–but really you would rather stay inside and indoors than go out and wear comfortable clothing. Baggy t-shirts and sweatpants, I’m assuming? What else…? Oh! I also remember you saying that you like to sing, but you wouldn’t do it when we all went to karaoke–which, I’m going to assume is because you either don’t feel comfortable singing in Japanese or because you have stage fright and don’t like singing and putting a performance in front of others, either or are plausible–but I have heard you hum before. You hummed the melody to Howl’s Moving Castle, which makes sense considering the fact that you’ve said that you’re a fan of Studio Ghibli films; your favorites being Howl’s Moving Castle and The Wind Rises. I’ve also noticed that you don’t like grand, extravagant gestures–basically anything that Satoru does for you–but you do have a soft spot for much smaller, and intimate ones; ones that are well thought-out and take careful consideration for you and what you want.” His eyes drifted down from the ceiling to meet yours once again. “...How am I doing so far?” 

The grin slowly but surely faded from your face the more and more that Sukuna went on with his answer and it became abundantly clear to you what Shoko was talking about earlier, saying that Sukuna liked you a bit more than he initially let on. He paid attention to you, from the most macroscopic level to the most microscopic detail that you have offered him, whether it be intentionally or unintentionally. This man quite literally just read you like you were an open book, from the first page to the last. What had him so intrigued about you, you had no idea. 

You were stunned.

His smirk deepened the more he looked at you and the more that your silence filled the table. “What? No witty remarks? Cat got your tongue?” 

“No–I mean, yes, I just…”

“At a loss for words at how much I’ve noticed?”

You dry swallowed. “Yeah… I guess that’s it.” 

Your server approached the table, setting the drinks and bowls of ramen in front of you. They promptly bowed, telling both you and Sukuna to enjoy the meal that the chefs prepared for you. Sukuna reached into the circular tin at the edge of the table that stored the chopsticks, grabbing two packages. He ripped the packaging off of yours and effortlessly broke the sticks apart, before handing them over to you. 

You positioned the sticks in your hand, ready to dig in just before you heard a chiding: “Ah, ah, ah.” You glanced up to see Sukuna looking at you with a disapproving look on his face, his palms pressed together at the front of his chest.

“Oh, right. My mistake.” You set your chopsticks down to the side of the bowl and mimicked his position, pressing your hands together at the center of your chest. 

“Itadakimasu!” you both chanted, your voices blending together as you bowed both of your heads together simultaneously. 

“Ladies first.” Sukuna gestured to your bowl, giving you to go ahead to start eating before him, even though you were fairly certain that he was older than you. You didn’t question it.

“What did you order, if you don’t mind me asking?” 

“Sapporo ramen. Felt like it would do me some good on this winter night,” he replied, before swigging down several gulps of the tall pitcher of beer that he ordered as his drink. “Go ahead and eat. Let me know how the miso dish is, yeah?” 

You nodded, using your chopsticks to break the dish and stir the contents around your bowl.

Uncertainty began to churn in Sukuna’s abdomen as he looked at you, noticing that you weren’t really looking at him… or talking to him; like all of the other interactions that you’ve had with him prior. He hated feeling like this–like he needed to be walking on eggshells around you. “I haven’t… made you uncomfortable, have I?”

The question caught you off guard, making you look up at him from your bowl to see his eyebrows furrowed as he gazed upon you with a somewhat concerned expression. “N-no. I promise you haven’t.”

He let out another low hum, his chopsticks twirling around in his fingers like it was a skilled craft that he had learned at the dinner table as a young child and had perfected the motions throughout his years. “Can I ask you a question, then?”

You mutely nodded; the aroma of the ramen bowl reached your nose, nearly causing your mouth to salivate.

“Did you not like me when we first met?” he asked, officially throwing all caution to the wind, fighting through the embarrassment and self-consciousness that began to plague him. “You never really chose to interact with me unless you absolutely had to, always choosing to go with either Shoko, Satoru, Suguru, or Kento.” God, he felt like such a little kid asking this question. He could feel his cheeks heat up, his face beginning to flush red, but he was choosing to attribute that to the alcohol that he had consumed, rather than his own emotional state of being. 

If it was with anyone–legitimately, anyone–else, he wouldn’t have cared if they liked him or not; why were you suddenly the exception to his own ego and self esteem?

“I feel like I should be asking you that.” 

Now it was his turn to be caught off guard. “What?” 

“You kind of did the same thing, too…” you sheepishly replied. “You never really interacted with me, either. Plus, I found you to be quite…” You hesitated to say the next word, afraid that you might insult him.

“Found me to be quite… what?” Sukuna prompted; he honestly wanted to know what you were thinking.

“Okay, don’t be mad at me when I tell you this, but I always found you to be…” if there was ever a time to be honest, now was the time to do it, “...unnerving.” 

“Oh.”

You hated his one word answer; he seemed dejected at the most minute level that you were able to detect and you absolutely despised the possibility that you might be the cause of it. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you.” 

“No, I’m not upset–I just don’t know why I expected anything different, to be honest.” 

You internally cringed at his answer, knowing that, in some way, shape, or form, he was indirectly calling you out for your behavior towards him; you realized that you hadn’t been very fair to him, much like had anything or anyone else was in his life. It unsettled you to know that, in a way, you somewhat contributed to judgment, much like the rest of Japanese society had done to him. 

You knew better than that. 

“I’m really not upset. Honest. Please don’t think that I am,” Sukuna uttered, noticing your internal monologue play out on your face. He set down his chopsticks on the hashioki that was beside his bowl and grabbed your hand, trying to convey his sincerity to you. You looked down and saw that his hand completely enveloped yours, his lightened skin tone contrasting yours. “Listen, I know that I don’t exactly give people a warm, fuzzy appearance when they first meet me. Plus, the reason that the others continue to hang around me is because we’ve known eachother since early childhood–they’ve known me and have dealt with my bullshit for the longest time; I should have known better when it came to meeting you, and I’m sorry that I didn’t make much more of an effort.” He gingerly squeezed your hand, his thumb slowly swiping along the ridges of your knuckles. 

“Maybe we’re just both failures at being sociable,” you dryly chuckled, trying to add some humor to the somber moment. 

Sukuna snorted. “Maybe we are.” 

The entire dinner was dealt with in a comfortable silence that settled between the two of you as you both ate your meals together. The discomfort and anxiousness that you initially felt at the start of your outing was long gone, finding yourself to be a bit more at ease with your dinner companion. It also helped that the meals that you both ordered were absolutely delicious, the broth from your ramen filling you with a warmth that you knew was going to last you throughout the night. When it came time to pay for your meals, you attempted to reach for your wallet, but Sukuna was much quicker with the money than you were, giving you that same disapproving look that he gave you at the start of your meal.

As soon as you both stepped outside of the restaurant, the winter air assaulted you once again, making a shiver rip through your entire trunk, rattling you to your core. 

Sukuna immediately noticed this. “Are you cold?”

“A bit,” you answered, wrapping your arms around yourself in order to preserve what little warmth your body could conserve. 

Without hesitation, Sukuna shrugged off his coat, placing it around your shoulders, making you do a double take at him. “Won’t you be cold?” you asked, concerned. 

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” he cooly responded, trying to fight off a laugh that bubbled in his abdomen at how you were practically drowning in his coat. “You drink enough alcohol and eventually it’ll keep you warm. Plus,” he grabbed the collar of his coat, pulling it tighter around you so that it hugged your body a bit more snugly, “if I do get sick, you can always take care of me and nurse me back to peak physical health.” 

You barked out a laugh. “I think you’ll be sorely disappointed at how badly I play nurse.” 

“Please. I’m sure you’re a lot better than you think you are,” he said, wrapping an arm around you, tugging your body into his side, his hand rubbing up and down your arm to try and create friction based warmth for you. “Besides, you can’t be any worse than Satoru is. I got food poisoning once from 7-Eleven sushi that must have gone bad on the shelf, and I asked him to get me some clear broth, something that would be easy for me to digest after being violently sick for god knows how long–the man decided to get me a full scale meal from McDonald’s instead. He’s like a child that has the shortest attention span, I swear.” 

Sukuna began walking you forward, you assumed back to the train station so that he could take you back to your dorm where you knew Shoko would be waiting for you. You passed an alleyway where you could see an entryway to a little night market had been set up when it previously hadn’t been before. 

“Hey, do you wanna see what that’s all about?” you ventured, craning your head to look up at him. You weren’t entirely too sure if you wanted your date to be done and over with just quite yet. 

“Sure, why not.”

He turned the both of you down that alleyway, where you passed a bunch of stalls and minishops that were selling various goods and services in preparation for the upcoming holiday season. You maneuvered your way out of his grip, feeling unbearably hot as Sukuna’s body heat began to seep through both yours and his coats. “I think I’m warm enough now,” you murmured, putting a bit of distance between you two, but still stuck close to him. 

You both approached a little art section where people were paired off, one person sat in a posed position while the other faced them in the other direction and attempted to draw them. 

“Come on. I wanna draw you,” Sukuna declared, pulling you towards the festivities. 

“Like one of your French girls?” 

“Ha.” He robotically laughed, finding the reference in poor taste. “Ha. Ha. Ha.” 

He grabbed your hand and led you to an open seat at the very far end, where there another seat had a selection of paper on an easel and a variety of pencils and markers available. 

“Since when do you draw?” you asked, taking the seat opposite of where Sukuna was sitting. 

“Brat, I’ve been drawing. You just never really bothered to ask in the first place,” he retorted, shooting you a playful smile. “I just recently took an apprenticeship at a tattoo shop that’s not too far from the university campus and I’ve been needing to work on my portrait skills, anyways. Now–” he grabbed the easel, placing it in front of him and selected the desired lead grades for the pencils that he wanted to use after careful consideration, “–turn your chest slightly to the side, but still keep your eyes on me.”

You followed his instructions, and held the position to the best of your ability, watching as Sukuna got to work. You don’t know how long you sat there for, but you observed Sukuna in his element, staring him down as he continuously glanced to you and away from you; though you couldn’t see what he was illustrating, you could see his hand that expertly gripped the pencil in between his fingers, fly across the paper. The cold, winter air continued to bite at your exposed skin, making your body want to shiver in retaliation to the elements, but you did your best to remain as still as possible, wanting to be a good muse for your artist. 

“Have you always wanted to be a tattoo artist?” you wondered, holding steadfast to your stationary position.

He silently nodded, but his gaze was still focused upon his canvas; his eyes were strict with the attention to detail that he was placing upon the paper in front of him. “Wasn’t good enough for university, but I was always pretty good at crafting art and drawing random shit when I was a kid growing up. Figured I could make a career out of it.”

“What would you want to specialize in?” 

He glanced up to you, shading in several more patches in between the lines. “Black and gray realism.”

“Yeah? Why is that?”

“You know, for someone that’s supposed to be a statue right now, you certainly are asking a lot of questions,” Sukuna teased, as he fought off a smile from forming on his face. “But, to answer your question, I like the attention to detail that that style requires. Now, no more questions, or talking in general–I’m almost done.” 

Five minutes later. “Aaaannnnd, done!” he announced, carefully taking the paper off the easel as he set the pencils off to the side. 

“Let me see it!” you said excitedly, jumping off the chair, eagerly making your way over to him so you could see what he drew for you.

“Nope,” he responded, his lips popping on the ‘P’. He held the paper above your head and carefully folded the paper so that he could tuck it away in the back pocket of the jeans that he was wearing. “I’ll give it to you when you get back to your dorm.”

“What? I just sat here for like twenty five, thirty minutes and you’re not even gonna let me see the final product? Rude.”

He chuckled once again, “I’m not saying ‘no’, brat. I’m simply saying ‘not right now’.”

“You’re still calling me that? How would you like it if I called you Kuna-Tuna?”

He reached up and ruffled the top of your hair, threading his fingers into the strands of your dark, brown hair. “Affectionately, of course. Plus, there’s a stark difference with that nickname coming from you versus Satoru and Suguru.” He sighed, ascertaining how late it was and that he needed to get you back to your dorm before the subways would shut down for the night. “I need to get you back to your dorm. It’s already late and I don’t want to pay the inflated rates for a taxi.”

“Oh. Right.” That one simple sentence brought you back down to reality, and you could feel a slight sadness begin to take hold in your chest. You didn’t want this night to end; you actually ended up having a lot more fun than you initially thought that you would, and your relationship with Sukuna was no longer on the rocks. You could actually see yourself becoming a lot closer with him if things continued to progress the way that they were after this. 

“Hey, don’t look so down,” Sukuna spoke softly to you, his voice taking on a tender edge that you’ve never heard from him before. “After exams, you’ve got winter break, yeah? We’ve got plenty of time before that, and then some after. I figured I could take you to the Ghibli museum, if you’re not going back home, that is.” He looked unsure as he said that, hoping that you would prove him wrong and still be in Japan over the break. 

“Like… as another date? Just the two of us?” you questioned, your eyebrow raising slightly.

“If… if you’ll have me, that is.”

You enjoyed seeing him flustered. It was a nice change of pace to the arrogant, smug facade that he always bared to the rest of society. You reached up and playfully, but gently punched him in his left pectoral muscle with a closed fist. “I’ll always have you, Kuna-Tuna.”

You shrugged off his jacket, handing it back to him before you two made the journey back to the train station. Just as you got back to the main street, you were about to walk on the outside, closest to the edge of traffic before Sukuna tugged on your coat sleeve, making you trade places with him so that he would be on the edge of the sidewalk, rather than yourself. When you got to the station, waiting for the car that would take you back to campus, a group of drunk, rowdy salarymen got too close for comfort for both you and Sukuna. Being the guard dog that Sukuna was, he pulled you tighter into his side and shot the men several glares that would have decimated them if looks could kill–strongly implying to them that they should keep their distance if they knew any better. Thankfully, even through their inebriated stupor, they took the hint and ventured to the far side of the station, keeping their distance from both you and Sukuna.

Once on the train, it was just you and several other passengers that were evenly spaced out in the car; a complete contrast to when you first rode the train to the ramen restaurant. You both sat in silence, just enjoying each other’s company for the current time being. From your peripheral vision, you continued to observe him some more. His head was leaned back up against the car window, his eyes were closed–to some, it would indicate that he was asleep, but you knew that he was just resting his eyes. His Adam's apple was prominent from the way that his head extended backwards, and–

“You’re staring at me again, brat.”

“Your eyes aren’t even open, how the hell can you tell?!” you demanded.

“Call it a sixth sense. I’ve gotten really good at detecting when people stare at me.” Sukuna cracked an eye open, looking at you from the corner of it as a half hearted smile began to form. 

“Oh, of course you have,” you muttered, turning to your head to face forward so you were no longer looking at him anymore.

He let out another boisterous laugh at your remark, leaning forward as he did. The other passengers glared at him, finding it rather annoying that Sukuna was disturbing their peace. He could have cared less in that moment, paying them no mind. 

It wasn’t long before the two of you were standing in front of your dormitory building. You took several steps up the staircase that led to the front entrance, before you turned to face him, now standing eye level with him. You placed out an expectant hand, your palm facing upwards. “May I have my drawing now, please?” 

Sukuna reached into his back pocket, placing the folded piece of paper in your hand. “Here you are, like I promised,” he said. He raised his eyes to meet yours. “You know, for what it’s worth, I’m glad that Satoru, Suguru, and Kento dragged me out to meet you tonight.”

You giggled at that. “I’m glad I didn’t put up much of a fight with Shoko… it’s not like I would have won, to begin with.” You glanced down at the piece of paper, before glancing back up to meet his eyes once again. “I had a good time tonight. Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

“And, for what it’s worth,” you said, reiterating Sukuna’s words back to him, “I’m glad I got to know you a bit better.”

A red tint colored his cheeks for the nth time that night. “Yeah?”

You nodded, a small smile formed. “Yeah.” 

A beat of silence passed between you two before he asked you, “Can I try something?” 

You looked at him, questionably. “What is it?”

Sukuna took a step forward onto the first stair on the staircase, placing him at a higher height than you so you were no longer eye level with him. He reached towards you with a single hand, tenderly placing it on the side of your neck. He paused for several moments, gauging your reaction to see if you had any objection, to which you had none, before pulling you forward so that he could gently place a kiss to the crown of your hairline. Your breath hitched in your throat at the feeling of his lips on your forehead, but you remained still, basking in the physical affection that he wanted to give you. It only lasted for several seconds before he pulled his lips away and took his hand off your neck and stepped backwards off the first stair, so that you were eye level with him again. 

“Have a good night, Y/N-chan. I’ll see you at the next group meetup, yeah?” Sukuna said, taking several steps backwards, but still maintaining eye contact with you. He reached up with one of his hands to rub at the back of his neck.

“Y-yeah. I’ll see you,” you stammered, your eyes locked on his retreating figure.

“Good. Get some sleep, yeah?”

“Y…you, too.”

Sukuna chuckled for the last time that night before he turned away from you, facing the other way so he could begin the venture back to his home. 

You stumbled up the stairs, nearly tripping over your feet as you did, inputting the code into the locked door before it granted you access back into the dorms. 

You unfolded the piece of paper to see the portrait that Sukuna had drawn for you and your breath caught in your throat when you first looked at it. There was such careful detail in what he had sketched out for you. From the way that he had shaded in your skin tone, to the meticulous line work that he had done for your face, specifically around your eyes, nose, and lips. He had drawn your hair to where it gently cascaded down your back, and wisps of stray strands softly wrapped around your face. To you, this sketch had felt like this was something that he had done with his heart and soul, rather than as a heat-of-the-moment thing to do simply because it was there. In this drawing, there was a gentleness and a tenderness that you felt like it couldn’t be replicated if he had tried to do it with someone else. 

He sketched you so beautifully in this; it was as if he had perfected his craft when it came to you. Had he done this in his spare time before? Was this truly how he saw you and interpreted you and your existence?

You turned to look through the window on the door to see Sukuna’s body frame get smaller and smaller the more that he walked away from you and put more distance between himself and the girls dormitories. 

Sukuna Ryomen was a man who was not good with his words; his actions, however, were far louder.

[fullofwoe5321]

Hi Weylers!! Today we have Tyler's monologue to analyse.

I was inspired by @itshype and @cosmic-lullaby posts:

I really like Tyler's monologue in the police station. I love the colors, the music, the acting, the reveal... eveything! BUT what I love most is how clever those writers were. Their intention was always to create ambiguity towards Tyler (and the fun fact that Tyler is a Gemini makes me cackle every time! LOL).

They threw all the hints about Tyler being genuinely fond of Wednesday, but they've never confirmed anything. They wanted to make us to believe he was lying all the time and break our hearts. That monologue was the validation for their idea. And well.. it worked out. One of many question the show raised is: Did Tyler genuinely like Wednesday? or Was the Hyde or Tyler in the scene of police station? Up to now, nobody knows for sure and on Season 2, the truth is going to be revealed.

HOWEVER the brain rot is taking over me again (when did it ever leave though?) and I decided to rewatch Tyler's monologue and take some notes to share with you. Shall we?

After being rejected, trapped and tortured by Wednesday, Tyler decided to confront her the way she would hate the most: mocking her. But before I start, I must say my opinion about Wednesday torturing Tyler: she was hurt. I'm not defending her actions, I'm just bringing this up. She was hurt because he continued playing the fool and lying to her face after she unmasked him, but above of it, she was trying to inflict pain on him the same way she felt because it was clear she liked him. She decided to believe she could be loved and accepted by someone, by him, but he was pretending all the time. So that was the way she knew she could take her revenge. Well, that is her pov and I still believe she continues believing he played her about his feelings in the past.

HOWEVER the thing is Tyler had real feelings for Wednesday, but she turned her back on him the moment she found out he was the Hyde. From his perspective, she never even considered the possibility that he was a victim, not just a monster. Instead of trying to help him, she tortured him, chained him up, and treated him as nothing more than a dangerous creature. That had to sting.

When he mocked her with his "You still think I'm the victim?" monologue, it wasn’t just arrogance—it was pain disguised as bravado. He had to act like he didn’t care because the truth was, he did. Deep down, he might have wanted her to believe in him, to fight for him, but she didn’t. She saw him as an enemy.

His mockery was his way of lashing out, covering up the fact that her rejection hurt more than he wanted to admit. Because if he really never cared about her, why would he need to mock her at all?

Another interesting point is Tyler's behavior might have been influenced by the Hyde side of him. The Hyde is a violent, uncontrollable force, and it’s clear that when Tyler transforms into the Hyde, he loses his sense of control. But even though the Hyde's actions are monstrous, I think there's still a part of Tyler—his humanity—that influences how he behaves.

When Tyler mocked Wednesday, there’s an argument to be made that it wasn’t purely the Hyde speaking. The emotional hurt and betrayal he felt as a person likely contributed to his words. The Hyde may have amplified those feelings, but the core of his mockery comes from Tyler himself: feeling rejected, misunderstood, and manipulated by Laurel Gates. The Hyde’s transformation doesn’t erase the fact that Tyler is a person with feelings, and I believe he was hurt that Wednesday—who he genuinely cared about—turned her back on him without trying to understand the full picture.

So while the Hyde may have twisted his emotions and actions, I don't think everything he said came from the Hyde alone. Tyler’s hurt and pain were very real. His mockery was a mix of his vulnerability as a person and the Hyde’s influence taking control.

The part where Tyler is on the verge of crying is such a significant detail. It shows that, deep down, Tyler is still grappling with the pain of everything that happened, even though he's in Hyde mode. When he sheds that tear at the end of his monologue, it's a rare glimpse of the human side of him breaking through, even in his darkest moment.

The Hyde side of him, while powerful and destructive, doesn't erase the fact that Tyler was manipulated, betrayed, and hurt. That tear is almost like an admission of how lost and broken he feels. He’s not just angry at Wednesday for not believing in him—he’s also grieving the loss of her trust, and maybe even the loss of who he could have been if he hadn't been manipulated by Laurel and transformed into the Hyde.

In that moment, the tear is like a crack in the facade of his anger and bitterness. It reveals that beneath all of his mockery and the Hyde's violence, there is a person who still cares, still feels pain, and still regrets what’s happened.

=(

P.S.: My analysis is longer than I expected. Sorry! I'll try to make it shorter next time!

[bronx-bomber87]

Good evening my incredible readers and wonderful fandom :) First off wanna thank everyone for the love I got for 7x08. Holy cow. That was the best reception. You are all the best. I am so happy to be back and that our beloved show is back after a short hiatus. Although the decompression was good I missed our ship and show.

This was a fantastic episode through and though. Keep saying writers are killing the game. It's because they are. We got a couple sweet moments in this one despite it being Harper driven. (Which I loved) Just wasn't expecting to get anything for them to make me squee. But the giving season keeps giving. Let us start.

7x09 The Kiss

We start out with our lovely ship being discharged officially. Getting some homework to help heal their smokey lungs. I've had to do that yellow ball thing. it is HARD LOL Let us note the very little gap between them as they walk together. After 6x07 I crave that little to no space between them. It's the little things as always that make me happy. I adore Lucy picking Tim's brain about it. Although he has zero clue if it'll help them or not ha It still leaves me feeling content.

Can I say how much I love Lucy bringing up their dance? The smile on that man's face. Oh my lord. It’s reminiscent of his smile in 5x10 when he was thinking of her in the green dress. That dance memory in particular making him beam with happiness. Just look at him when she brings it up. His joyful smile has me reeling. Even though they were fighting their feelings at the time, tooth and nail, Tim can look back at what a good moment that was for them. It's one of my fav episodes of that season for a reason.

Gah. Tim remembering her dress in detail. My damn heart. She really can bring this man to his knee's with just her outfits. I mean she did it in 3x14, 4x18, and we know how much he enjoyed her dress in 5x10. I just adore him remembering stuff like this. Sure he actually wanted to say 'That sexy dress you wore.' But instead settles for 'The shiny stuff.' I love you Tim Bradford. I just do.

The heart eyes galore too. My goodness sir. You are at work and don't even care. On their dash cam as well. Tim is just full of them this entire scene. Hell this entire season really. He's so cute stumbling around for the right words and lands on shiny stuff. This goober. I adore him so much. Lucy is enjoying his stumbling as well you can see it in her expression. She loves this idiot sitting next to her so very much.

Then he tells her she looked amazing and my heart stops. Serves that lovely line up with a heaping side of heart eyes. Just look at him before he delivers that line. That man is such a soft puppy for her it blows my mind. He loves her so much and isn't afraid to keep letting her know this fact. 'Not holding back' Tim is rapidly becoming a favorite of mine. This man has changed so much and I couldn't be prouder of him. So open and forthcoming about how he feels about her. Lucy is smitten af with his compliment. I mean she is all red. I would be too. Goodness. Just a touch of hesitancy still but she is cracking.

We all knew Tim had feelings back then. Found her beautiful. But to hear him verbalize it is everything. Holy cow. She is slowly thawing everyone. Take a gander at the slow melting above. I love that it’s now Tim cracking her wall. The full circle of it all makes me delirious with glee. Also there is a wonderful beauty to Tim continuously doing this. Of him showing up for her time and time again. Letting her know exactly where he stands. It's reminding Lucy he’s still madly in love with her. Which in turn is prepping her IMO. Why and how you ask?

Because at some point it’s going to drive her ‘why’ insane. Thinking if Tim is still this in love with me, seemingly even more so now than before, then why did he break up with me in the first place? The more Tim continues to show her he’s here to stay. That this new open Tim is here for the long haul. The more she’s going to need to know the why of it all. To hash it out. To finally be ready for that adult convo that Tim is so very willing to have now. We are inching our way there fandom I promise. It's going to be so extremely satisfying when we arrive at our destination.

Their lovely moment is interrupted by dispatch. We get some field crack. Least it's that way for me lol They are flawless in action and I never get over it. It’s a chemistry no one else has and I can’t get enough of it. Eric and Melissa are a treasure. They are effortless through out this chase. Not once hesitating or panicking when they lose their guy. They are crazy calm and it is fascinating to watch. Said this many times before and it still holds. They are poetry in motion.

I love Tim's response to Lucy's worry about Grey being mad at them. Trying to lighten the moment the best he can for her. I mean he's not wrong. Yes they lost Connor BUT they did save a senior citizen from a gruesome death in a crosswalk. Lucy isn't fully satisfied because they are still working on her.... Her worry and empathy just coming off her in waves.

We catch up with who we think is this woman's daughter. I mean to know those kind of details about her... Why would they question her any further? It's so sad she won't make it. Breaks my damn heart actually. Legit innocent bystander in the way. You can see it’s shaking Lucy.. It was shaking me ugh. That slight hesitation she does as they walk away. You can see the hitch in her gait as they do so. Killing me softly with that stuff Melissa.

I adore Tim checking in on Lucy. Clocking her stress and heartbreak over this. Her empathy sapping it out of her right now. So he makes sure to check her temperature. I knew this would wreck her. I do love her confiding in him about her frustrations. Tim doing his best to apply some logic at first. Side note I love when he uses words like 'Ascribe.' *fans self* Don't why but it just does it for me...*ahem* Anyways Tim is hoping his logic will be the salve she needs.

It does help in terms of her opening up to him more. Lucy continuing on about how this job sometimes makes her feel like they solve one thing at the expense of another. That it's almost like a judicial debt they'll never be able to balance. I can't say that I wouldn't be just as aggravated as her. Tim's empathy kicking in shortly after this comment. Even finishes her sentence for her. (Love this)

Replying with something I know is dear to him. Protecting those he loves. Lucy being one of those people. His top priority as he stated in the last ep. The eye contact they make when he says this. *happy sigh* The way she looks up at him asking if they should check on Harper? Just leaning on him for answers and guidance when she can. It makes me smile.

What a turn in this case. Good lord. I wasn't expecting it in the least I'll say. Pretty gross of both of these women. More so of the daughter really when we find out about the will. I do love the shared looks through out this scene. If you watch their eye line it's mainly at each other. They’re always crushing it with the silent communication.

Friggin love Lucy just taking charge and Tim stepping aside to let her do so. Putting that woman in her place about her mother's belongings. Then we top it off with sharing a look with Tim after. That field goodness shinning through. Makes me happy to witness.

This scene made me laugh so much. Tim embodying Aaron's line from 5x06 about how he is like the old dude from UP. lmao 'Don’t know. Don’t care.' Oh Timothy, my grumpy old man. I do enjoy you so very much. He most definitely does not care about what show it is. Unless it's Top Chef heh

Always fan myself with a good Tim takedown. *phew lord* gimme gimme. Something so god damn attractive about it when he pulls it off so easily. Mmm. I will take that all damn day and not complain.

Of course Nolan knows the name of the show LOL This made me chuckle quite a bit. Little levity in this intense episode. Also that’s a terrible name for a show haha Chenford's initial reaction to John's show reply had me laughing so much. They couldn't be more confused. Tim especially. Wondering if he hit his head or something. Lucy is kind in her reply even though it was unnecessary info haha

Once again must point out the lack of space between them. Damn near touching in that hallway. Which makes me happy considering that brutal convo in 6x07 took place in there. Slowly healing that shipper wound. I love Tim's smile when he hears she's going back to the hospital. That changes when she tells him it's actually for Kylie....

Honestly it's the most Lucy Chen thing ever to go sit with Kylie. She’s only one who’s thought of her for most of this episode besides Celina. This is why Tim is so damn gone for her. That endless compassion she has for others. Thinking of people that no one else has. He may be giving her shit in the moment but internally we all know how much he adores her empathy.

Admires that sunshine heart of hers. Wouldn't be Tim if he didn't give her a little crap for it though. Toss in some light flirting while he does so. Lucy doing a little flirting back herself with her competition line. Damn they cute. I love them sfm. Solid way to end the episode for them.

Thank you forever and always to those that like, comment (they make my heart so happy. Come talk to me haha), and reblog these. It brings me joy like no other. You're all amazing and I adore every single one of you. Shall see you all in 7x10 :)

~~~

Sides notes-Non Chenford

I loved Lucy and Harper holding hands and hugging. I need more of these two together.

Celina getting a nice little drug bust as a P2. Well done madam.

Mekia killed it good lord. I knew she would. Love seeing her get this time to shine. Shawn too that scene was so good and very sad. I love them giving more to Shawn this year he's crushing it.

Such a sweet moment in the hospital for James and Nyla. So raw and real my goodness. I love them getting some real problems as well. This SL this was so good for them I enjoyed it quite a bit.

I don't usually do gifs in my side notes. Or make ones that aren't Chenford related. But I had to with this scene. It. was fantastic. Nolan making me feeling things again. They’re writing him so much better this year. They really are tapping back into why I enjoyed him in the very beginning. Also Nathan reminding us he can bring it emotionally. He had me tearing up with his speech. Way his voice hitched and broke.

Another reason I wanted to do a gif of this was because of the amazing character that is Nyla Harper. Other than Lucy she is my absolute favorite female character. Hands down. I love me some Angela Lopez don't get me wrong. I just friggin love Harper so damn much. Maybe it's because she is the female version of Tim hahah But Mekia could not have been a better addition to this show. She came in s2 and has knocked it out of the park since. I legit forget about Talia every time until I rewatch s1. Because feels like Harper has always been here.

No offense to Talia but she had no where near the depth and grit Nyla Harper does. Just wanted to gif this because Nolan's speech is so fantastic and accurate. We all love this BAMF of a woman. She had Nolan as her rookie and turned him into a good cop. So we know she's a resilient bad ass. I loved him paying homage not only to what she did for him as his T.O. but just her as a person. This was really well written and acted. I loved it.

I missed their dynamic honestly. Was part of why s2 as a whole was so good for me. How far they've come to get to this moment. This hug was so nice. Made me teary. Nice to see her finally lean on someone in this episode. I think Nolan was the right choice especially with him having been the one to witness that kiss. The writers have really come to play this season. It makes me very happy. Because I do love this show as a whole. They're bringing it back to it's roots and this day one Rookie girl is quite pleased with it.

[skzdust]

Thank you for the tag!! 🫶🫶

origin of your blog: I go by Stardust online and I just put that together with SKZ loll

fave fandoms: SKZ and Ateez right now, but I've also been really into Five Nights at Freddy's, Sanders Sides, and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, and I also love Disney movies and doll collecting and the communities for those have been so sweet from what I have seen as well 🫶

otps: My brain neverrrr shuts up about Matz, Minsung and Woosansang are up there too!

fave color: purple!

fave game: been playing wuthering waves a lot, but I also love FNAF Security Breach!

song stuck in your head: Down Bad - Taylor Swift (this was my top song on Spotify last year... I listened to it 599 times)

weird habit/trait: I have unusually short pinky fingers

hobbies: sewing, writing, painting, drawing, gaming, reading, crocheting, clay/sculpting, doll collecting, photocard collecting, CD/record collecting. I do most forms of art you can think of lol

if you work, what's your profession: This summer I'll be doing research with a prof at my university on Real Housewives fan podcasts, does that count?

if you could have any job, what would it be: my actual DREAM is to be a speechwriter teehee, or to sew/fashion design

something you're good at: coming up with ideas!

something you're bad at: finishing those ideas!

something you love: God I love writing so much

something you could talk for hours about off the cuff: Do not test me about fnaf lore I have a 124 slide powerpoint that takes two and a half hours to present I will yap about it ALLLLL day

something you hate: my gf is in Japan rn and it's so tragic T-T

something you forget: laundry! I hate doing laundry so I avoid it lol

what’s your love language: all of them really but I love cuddling

what were you like as a child: Very positive and also a know it all

favorite subject in school: anything writing, I'm taking a novel writing class rn!

least favorite subject in school: Don't really have one tbh? I'm a very curious person so I've been able to find something interesting in anything I study!

favorite animal: bunnies! I have always been tied a lot to bunnies and I love them so much

are you musical: I love music!! I own a bass guitar but I haven't played it in a sec T-T

best character trait: I like to think I'm thoughtful. I remember little things my friends tell me and get them stuff and make them stuff

worst character trait: manic/depressive episodes, they suck for me and everyone around me lol

if you could change any detail about your day, what would it be: I was thinking about going to the Disney store and I didn't and I wish I had lol

recommend one of you favorite fanfics: Depraved-- mind the tags please but it's an incredible fic!!

This was so fun thank you for the tag again!!!

No pressure tags: @silverstarburst @kpop---scenarios @jeonginsleftcheek @sp4ceboo @palindrome969

get to know your mutuals! (new thread)

ty @st4ytiny for tagging me!! the og post was so long so i just made a new one😭🙏 i loved doing this!

what’s the origin of your blog? ➜ my best friend actually came up with the name for me! i love vampires so she was like what about vamp city? we just replaced the c with a z to make it cool!

favorite fandoms: ➜ atiny, zerose, stays, once, as well as anime fandoms! i also love monster high & love and deepspace too! OH and animal crossing!

OTPs/shipname: ➜ jikook, chanlix, woosan & haobin! i love their friendships sm they’re all truly the best of friends who grew up together and i love that for them! i love comparing my own friendships to them 💔

favorite color: ➜ black and red! i also love baby blue and baby pink! such cute colors hehe

favorite game: ➜ it tends to change but i wanna say any spider-man game, mariokart, mario party, and animal crossing!

song stuck in your head: ➜ devil game by zerobaseone & deer hunter by &team!

weirdest habit/trait? ➜ i make weird noises OR sing a random verse out of no where LMAO. i also can make my voice really deep for no reason

hobbies: ➜ i love photocard collecting, singing, dancing!

if you work, what’s your profession?: ➜ retail…

if you could have any job, what would it be?: ➜ forensics!

something you’re good at: ➜ yapping people’s ears off, singing and dancing!

something you’re bad at: ➜ tbh focusing on one thing. my attention span is literally out the window..

something you love: ➜ driving, kpop, dancing, dogs, sword art online

something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: ➜ conspiracy theories!!! i love them

something you hate: ➜ SPIDERS!!! i hate them!!! i also hate when people always try to one up you or are just rude for no reason at all. also ppl who actively try to make a rise out of your dog after you tell them he’s overprotective !! ugh.

something you forget: ➜ to eat. i constantly forget and not on some ED type beat i just genuinely forget until im lightheaded and shaky LMAOO😭

what’s your love language? ➜ gift giving and words of affirmation! i will literally spend my last 3 dollars on somebody like

favorite movie/show: ➜ sword art online & the nightmare before christmas

favorite food: ➜ loaded fries, mac and cheese and pizza

favorite animal: ➜ cows, i LOVE cows😭

are you musical? ➜ yes!! i’ve been in choir from 6th -12th grade as well as musicals! i was in marching band during highschool and i’ve also been apart of a kpop dance group! :)

what were you like as a child? ➜ quiet but also kinda weird? my mom had my brother bc she said i kept talking to myself so that alone should answer your question. i still talk to myself actually LMAO. but i was quietly chaotic. i didn’t like talking to people but around ppl im comfortable with im a whole extrovert

favorite subject in school? ➜ social studies & science

least favorite subject? ➜ math.

what’s your best character trait? ➜ i’m super empathetic, it’s kinda bad for me but it’s good for others haha

what’s your worst character trait? ➜ i get angry over nothing very quickly

if you could change any detail about your day right now, what would it be? ➜ i wish i was tearing down some dominos cheesy bread rn

if you could travel in time, who would you like to meet? ➜ michael jackson!! i wish i could’ve gone to one of his concerts before he died tbh

recommend one of your favorite fanfics (spread the love): ➜ omg i have a few but the way to his heart is by far MY FAV series!!! i always recommend it. angie truly did her thing with this!

no pressure tags! @lov3yv4mps @desirehorizon @everyonewooeverywhere @rvereri and anyone else who wants to do it!

[deoidesign]

For my birthday... read my webcomic! It's literally free! (Unless you want books. Those are not free)

It's beautiful, it's gentle, it's funny, they're canonically t4t and gay... And it's about time traveling vampires solving supernatural mysteries!

I've spent thousands of hours writing and drawing it, and it's really good! I'm not biased!

It's on hiatus right now and coming back in 2 months, so it's the perfect time to get caught up

[min-xie]

help i cant stop drawing fem neuvillette

[l1f3l]

New pjsk group leaked real not clickbait ⁉️⁉️⁉️

Lol but fr hello i finally finished all 4 chibi sprites. Here s more of them

I wanna make intro posts for them soon, but i think i ll do that when i finish their sekai fits fullbody drawings. For now here s some basic info bout em under the cut:

Group of outcasts and troublemakers somehow end up in eachothers lives and start making music together, to convey the feelings they can't vocalise.

Mayumi - He's an aloof boy that doesn't listen to anyone and is difficult to converse with due to his weird, roundabout way of conversing with people, if he replies to you at all. He loves fashion and music, spends a lot of time trying out different instruments but he has an electric guitar at home that he plays often. Oh and he usually wears his hair behind his ears and no band aid, but he has a lot of piercings and doesn't wanna get in trouble at school, because it'd be a nuisance.

Ayase - Ray of sunshine that won't stop can't stop- but despite being so friendly and easy to get along with, he doesn't seem to have many friends. He always gets in trouble for breaking the unform code.

Haru - Transfer student with infinite confidence that doesn't back down from a fight. He's chill for the most part, as he doesn't really speak, ever- but if you try to fuck with him you will regret it. Got expelled from his previous school for various things like skipping class very often, breaking uniform code, fighting students and teachers, and generally being a menace.

Yuuta - World's largest chiuwawa. Is scared of everything and everyone, and has a stutter. He doesn't actually attend school irl, his anxiety turning him into a shut in- but in his free time he loves going around town and doing grafitti. He makes double triple sure nobody will see him though, because if he gets caught he will probably combust and die. Grafitti is the only thing that's worth the anxiety to him though.

Their whole story as a group is finding reasons to keep trying- as all of them have given up, in one way or another.

[chill-vibes-but-rainbow-panic]

Finally back, with a lil more of Chill's Artist Admiration Sketchbook; making fanart for blogs I like :D

@kingspacebar

Accessoires and colours my beloved <3 <3 <3

[bikananjarrus]

if yord had lived he'd be leading the hunt for qimir and osha and we would've gotten the most delicious tension between him and qimir. qimir would start out frustrated that yord got away, intent on finishing what he started. and yord, once hunted, now hunter, once an exemplary jedi, and now solely focused on revenge disguised as righteous justice (which it is also a bit of that). and qimir starts to enjoy the game, the chase. and in this timeline, sol still dies, osha still goes with qimir, but yord was unconscious, recovering in a bacta tank, so all he knows when he wakes up is that qimir is out there and took osha, his friend, away. so then you also have the tension of that confrontation, the realization that osha has willingly turned, and that maybe yord can't blame her for that, because what has he been doing these past many months, years, maybe, but give in to the selfish desire to finish what he started too?

[vargaslovinghours]

And never let you go ♥

Bonus without the overspill lighting:

[stabbyfoxandrew]

Meet the Polycule!

Isa:

He's the seventh son of a seventh son of a seventh son. (Third generation seventh.)

As such, he's expected to be a very powerful wolf.

His first name is actually Isaiah but he doesn't like it. Because it's his dad's name and his grandfather's name. :/

Met Aaron when they were both eight (Isa was about to turn 9) and knew immediately they were meant to be together forever.

He didn't keep it a secret either. He wasn't shy. He and Aaron were attached at the hip growing up!

When Micah brings home his friend Ashley, Isa is hit with the 'holy shit, that's my mate' feeling. Again. And he stresses about it until he talks to his dad and is told it's okay. Some people have more than one.

He has two hands! Yippee. Two mates<33

Big bad scary wolf who gets carsick if he's in the backseat. :(

Had an anxiety problem as a kid but grew out of it.

Aaron:

Was found by Isa's oldest brother (Elijah, age 19 at the time) while he was on a morning run through the forest.

After explaining her situation, Elijah asked if she'd come to his house and tell his mom. So she reluctantly agreed.

He carried her through the woods to his house and sets her down in the yard, then heads inside to get his parents. He explains what she told him, that she smells like vampires, and that she's alone.

They decided to take her in until her parents got back, but they never did.

Became instant-friends with Isa and Micah. The three of them were inseparable.

Isa told them his family's secret a couple months in and then they grew up wanting to be a wolf.

Came out to Isa in the middle of the night at age sixteen and had him chop their hair off. (It was a total hackfest but they liked it.)

Wakes up one night with fangs and glowing eyes, scaring the shit out of Isa.

Ashley:

Grew up with a single mom who really didn't care much about anything, especially him.

Was desperate for her approval so he'd always do his best at school, but was never really noticed.

At age thirteen, he witnessed his mom's death— her boyfriend Mitchell shoved her down a flight of stairs during an argument. He heard everything and knew what really happened but no one believed him, except his best friend Micah.

A couple weeks after the funeral, Mitchell starts trying to get handsy with Ashley. When he takes it too far, Ashley accidentally burns the house down.

It's a miracle he survived, says the EMTs who arrive on scene. But it wasn't a miracle, Ashley knows. The fire didn't come near him at all. It was as if he had a protective bubble around him— because he did.

He goes into foster care for a bit then the wolves snatch him up. (He was over at their house constantly and they're well liked in town so getting custody wasn't super hard.)

Shares Micah's bedroom.

He has some scars on his upper arms from cigarettes being put out on him. (One of his mom's old boyfriends used to call him Ashtray.)

The three of them are all holding hands 5ever and they'll also kill over each other if they have to. :3

[bisexualfbiagents]

One night he wakes Strange look on his face Pauses, then says You're my best friend

CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF THE X FILES Day 7: 30th Anniversary Extravaganza ❤ A tribute to my favorite partners, to the tune of You Are in Love by Taylor Swift (insp)

[comradecowplant]

*** weewoo weewoo, Severance rant incoming, avoid or gather 'round depending on your preference, weewoo weewoo***

oofda Severance went from what's gotta be the best episode in the series-- visually, emotionally, character drive, general plot development, etc.-- to probably the weakest. Dgmw, I absolutely adore Patricia Arquette's performance as this sad off-putting woman and was eager for a Cobel check-in, but back-to-back bottleneck episodes leading up the finale was a TERRIBLE pacing choice, just completely missing the mark in a season that has already been plagued with pacing issues-- I'm lookin' at you, beloved by many but meh to me bc I have never been a melly shipper & thought it was a frustrating cut-away from the previous episode's dramatic final moment, Woe's Hollow-- & did not really provide much new information/plot momentum to make up for it-- yeah yeah Cobel lifelong Kier cultist, child labor & mommy issues, groomed & exploited scientific prowess, Lumon ruining anachronistic ether-huffing towns economically & spiritually; didn't really dig deeper or meaningfully build on anything we already know of in a away that needed to be a full break-away episode for, imo. Coulda & shoulda been the b-plot to a Milchick's continued spirit breaking/background to Ms. Huang (which would have very much thematically tied together to each!) -focused episode. And considering how short the episode is compared to the rest, I kind of suspect it might have began production that way but it was changed for some reason further along, but that's purely vibes based speculation.

These pacing issues paired with the knowledge that there are only nine episodes a season in this silly era of television, I am increasingly nervous about the finale, particularly considering ms dipshit mama bear super sibling withOUT a background in neuroscience who thinks she knows better than the scientist who was already digging around inside his noggin Devon followed through and reached Cobel 🤦‍♂️ like, clearly there are cracks in Cobel's Kier worship/Lumon militancy-- I think she has an ego that 1) cannot forgive how tossed away she was, especially with the newest detail of her being the overlooked inventor of the severance technology, & 2) despite the indoctrination, she has enough self-preservation to bridge the cognitive dissonance that rationalizes Lumon's abuses now that it's HER that might get locked away in the mind wipe torture basement-- but you're watching a different show in a different universe if you think we've gotten any evidence to strongly indicate that she is actually trustworthy. As the inventor of the chip she could be the perfect person to help Mark with the final reintegration steps... or, as I suspect will be more along the lines of what will happen, she could activate any of the other "modes" that have so far been only eluded to/cause further brain damage/betray mark & ragbhari to leverage herself into a better position with lumon/whatever will benefit her in her quest for... well, besides survival & credit for her invention, I really can't say for sure what her motivations currently are, but legitimate compassion & concern for Mark/the innies certainly are not among them.

Idk, just overall I think this season has put its hands in too many plot pies, especially now that the other outies have been given more character development time, a choice I've liked overall but that has not been 😏 integrated 😏 well with the rest of the story, largely because (forgive my repeating myself) of the pacing/9 episode limit-- we've gotten the central Mark reintegration plot, then we have melly romance b-plot, dylan emotional affair with his own wife c-plot, outie irv + his relationship to the testing floor & whatever the fuck is going on with burt/his husband d & e-plot, milchick being racially micro-aggressed f-plot, ms huang & the spectre of child labor g-plot, nasty lady helena eagan & her sinister side swept blunt bang h-plot, whatever cobel's deal is i-plot, the general overarching What Evil Mysterious Schemes is Lumon Up To j to whatever plot, and finally, the most pressing plot point to me that has been frustratingly shelved until episode 7, What's Happening to Gemma plot. I don't expect nor want wrapped packages with bows, but satisfying narratives involve give and take, and I simply don't have much confidence in the real estate provided by the 49 remaining minutes of the season that we'll get much of anywhere (except mad over what bad things are likely about to happen to Gemma, that is one thing I have begrudging confidence in 😔)

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: ALWAYS COMING HOME by Ursula K. Le Guin.

The people have Spoken, so I'll be reading this 618-page brick next! The cover page credits the author, an artist, a composer, a geomancer (??), and the author of the intro, so. I suspect I'm in for a Ride™. I am both Excited and Intimidated--will report back on how this goes!