#oh my grumpy friend

[abyssruler]

cyno x gn!reader

“You’ll like him, I promise!”

“If he’s anything like you, I suppose.”

“Well…” You trail off, imagining you and your brother growing up and constantly being told how different the two of you are, from your personalities down to your looks. “Anyway! He can be a bit of a dummy, but he means well.”

Cyno nods, a thoughtful frown on his lips as he crosses his arms and waits for your brother to arrive at your meeting spot.

You spy the eye-catching ahoge from a mile away. You beam, raising your hand in a wave and turning to your partner beside you—only to blink as you realize that he left without your notice.

The sound of steel against steel in the distance blares an alarm in your head. Frantic, you whip your head to the direction of the sound and find two very familiar individuals duking it out.

Oh no.

“Big brother Haitham, stop!”

They both freeze at the sound of your voice for two completely different reasons.

Al-Haitham pulls you behind him and points his sword at your very confused partner, uncharacteristically slow to connect the dots. “Choose your next actions carefully, Cyno.”

Cyno completely lowers his weapon as he switches his gaze between the two of you as if in disbelief that Al-Haitham, the so-called Akademiya lunatic who he’s barely spoken two words to, is your older brother. You, the light of his life—but also an Akademiya drop out who only managed to get in through sheer luck after your random answers on the entrance examination turned out to be right—were related to him?

Impossible.

…Or so he would have thought a minute ago before his world was turned upside down and his partner’s brother wasn’t the most suspicious person in Cyno’s eyes.

My brother is really smart like you! He’s really nice and he used to help me study for my tests back when I still went to the Akademiya. A little, um, mean—but he’s actually a good person!

Hah, mean. A large understatement. It would equate to a scholar calling the General Mahamatra benign.

He suppose he should have expected it from you. You do have the tendency to think the best of people, even when they don’t deserve it.

“Brother.” You tug on Al-Haitham’s arm to bring his sword down, but he refuses to do so, unwilling to take his eyes off Cyno. Huffing in annoyance, you stomp on his feet and feel immense satisfaction when he turns his head to glare at you.

“This isn’t the time—”

“He’s Cynie!”

There’s a joke to be made about a pin dropping in the silence after your words and your brother’s dawning look of realization and the skepticism that follows.

He whirls his head to Cyno and points, “That’s Cynie?”

You nod with a growing smile, delighted that your brother finally lowered his sword so you can come up to Cyno and drag him close by the arm. “Cynie, meet my brother, Haitham!”

“…I told you not to call me that in front of others.”

“But it’s cute!”

“Only when we’re alone.” To this, he sends a baleful glare to Al-Haitham that your brother returns with a glare of his own.

“Oh, please. My sibling has told me everything that’s happened in your relationship,” then, as if to add salt to the wound, he strictly emphasizes, “Cynie.”

A muscle in your partner’s brow twitches.

“It’s great that you two are getting along!” You exclaim with a smile that could rival the sun.

They can’t say no to that face. They both have no choice but to reluctantly grumble a hesitant ‘yes…’ that has your eyes shining bright.

“I have our outing planned for today! I saw a promo in a restaurant that said if you can finish some kind of large meal in under an hour, you don’t have to pay for it! Not too sure how big it is, but I know I can eat it all. I also passed by this really cool place yesterday…”

They let you drag them by the arm across the city, shooting glares at each other and throwing subtle barbs when they think you aren’t looking.

You called that day the ‘brothers-in-law bonding day’. They hated every second of it and vowed to never talk to the other again.

Unless you asked them to, of course.

[fumifooms]

I think you made me start shipping Marchil

Your posts got me thinking about their dynamic then I wrote a fic that was supposed to be platonic but midway through I realized it could actually be interpreted as romantic too and now I'm just sad about how little time they'll have together

First of all, you have a lovely icon, second, I’m so honored… I finally read Not a bad way to go and it was soo so good like. My god!!! Pre-canon is underused and you did so many interesting things with it.

It sounded like a cruel joke, that the one who needed her concern the most was also the one least interested in it.

^^^ go read it go read it

Chilchuck was drunk enough that he needed to hold onto the walls not to fall, but apparently still sober enough to remember emotional vulnerability was his worst enemy, as he made sure to avert her eyes and said: “Namari made me come talk to you ” to make it clear he wasn't being nice voluntarily.

Yeah.

“Of course I'm scared of dying.” He scoffed. Did she really think so little of him? “But if I could choose, I would want to die doing something I love, like drinking. Or maybe fucking,”

Maybe you wish you didn’t know but my new favorite HC because of this is that Chil dies yes prematurely not of liver failure though but during coitus. Especially if marchil, the thought of him busting a nut and his heart giving out makes me laugh so hard. My god. Lmao. Oh god. Lmfao. Worst day of her life

Marcille knew Chilchuck wasn't a kid, but she often struggled to take him seriously as an adult because he was just so adorable and small. In this moment, however, she saw them exactly for what they were, even if it was just a glimpse. A sheltered, naive little girl trying to tell a tired, much more experienced man how to live the rest of his life.

Standing ovation

She tried to find an explanation to give him, but she couldn't even find one for herself. Why would she miss him? He was just Chilchuck, her coworker, Chilchuck who was cold, aloof, sometimes crass, evasive, and even outright mean. He who was level headed, reliable, trustworthy, perceptive and clever. He who had the least time left, even in a best case scenario. “I guess that despite your best efforts, there's still a lot to like about you.”

This fic goes so hard, standing ovation pt 2

“I just think it's better if we don't get too close. Don't you agree?” “I… maybe” she said, uncertain as he didn't know how to feel about that. Caring about people would only hurt her in the wrong run, she knew that, but unfortunately she couldn't help it.

I looove how they can be read to be similar on this aspect. My hand clenching around my phone as I rear up to rant about Marcille and the way she does keep people at an arm’s length subconsciously again my god my goood. Obsessed with this obsessed with this, underused for marchil. Terrified of loss through death vs rejection duo I love youuu

Brilliant ending I’m in shambles. I’m not gonna spoil it

You get marchil so much you truly do. The way they mesh, the way their views on mortality clash and both soothe & bruise… He doesn’t have much time left even in best case scenario (which Mr I won’t eat well I’ll drink and smoke a lot I’ll stress all day every day is determined to not make happen) which makes it all the more meaningful for Marcille’s arc when she learns from him to finally enjoy the present moments… It’ll only be a fraction of her life, but to him he’s giving her the rest of his life. What are some decades of love worth? Worth it, surely, if nothing else

[jessicas-pi]

The Shuttle AU where Nigel Anstruthers is even more devious and DOESN'T separate Rosalie from her family, and he pretends to be nice and good and even invites Bettina to spend her school holidays at Stornham Court one year.

(That last one was not his best idea, tbh.)

Through chance, circumstance, or maybe the weaving hand of Fate, Bettina Vanderpoel and James Hubert John Fergus Saltyre meet, speak, and quickly discover their mutual distaste for Sir Nigel Anstruthers...

Anyway I call this one Jem and Bett Ruin Nigel's Life (Ten Years Ahead of Schedule)

[melodiesblue]

I watched dungeon meshi.

I get it now.

[miminmimikyu]

Had a couple of shitty days so yesterday I decided on a whim to go to see the latest Haikyuu film in the cinema. ✨It was so fun✨! (mild spoilers, I'll put the more spoilery stuff in a reblog)

I'm 100% one of those "the book/manga did it better" people and I was so so skeptical that squashing 3 volumes into one film would kill that arc, but somehow it worked out???

I really loved the decision to frame the whole film using Kenma as the protagonist. I haven't seen the previous films so I don't know if that's what happened for the Aoba Johsai & Shiratorizawa matches too-- obviously all the opponent team flashbacks/introspection during matches in Haikyuu really lends itself to that format anyway.

Anyway, I think that this way this film somehow became accessible to people who are not that familiar with Haikyuu (which is wild to me, seeing that it's a story that takes place 30+ volumes into a series). Instead of it being the story of an underdog high school volleyball team working their way up through the ranks to face off with their historic/renewed rival team it became a much simpler story. Plus now you could kind of get away with cutting a lot Karasuno stuff for time. (I'm a Nekoma girlie but also a Karasuno girlie so ;_;) It's been a while since I last read this arc but, y'know, I'm sure Sawamura and Tanaka and even Kageyama had more.. hmm.. presence (?) in this arc in the manga?

But I think it was an acceptable trade-off for seeing some moments from this match animated the way they were in this film. I've found that at times (especially in the last season) the anime was a bit lacking in translating the Furudate's art (intensity/depictions of emotion, speed, tension) into animation, but some of the sequences in this film were absolutely jaw-dropping!!!!! The angles, the movement, the framing, the detail! Even the sound design was knocking it out of the park (wrong sports metaphor). Plus, the entire second half of the film is 100% balls to the walls action (..is that a sports metaphor? i don't want to know).

But above all it was so fun. I miss Haikyuu :')

[darabeatha]

/ apologies for the simpage over u guys' muses on main (it'll happen again)

[bloomingbluebell]

so mad at the thing in my brain that makes me freak out whenever there is something gorey or honestly just medically gross like. do you know how many games, movies, and TV shows are entirely inaccessible to me because of this? how many i've had to stop watching because they went a bit too hard in the gore/body horror department? how much money i spent on games i'll never play again? (regretfully looks at resident evil 7 and 8 in my steam library. at least 7 was on sale)

[bangcakes]

.

[dorkousloris]

waddles in and just.

hi, ive been playing SDV and. uh. mortujulita farming au like-

[empyreanmirror]

some unnamed feeling

[toastsnaffler]

my flatmate asking me the day before "do u want to hang out w me and [old friend] everyone else cancelled so I can invite u now" is not the heartfelt offer she thinks it is :^/

[whimsicaldragonette]

ARC Review: We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian

Preorder

Add to Goodreads

Publication Date: June 6, 2023

Synopsis:

[I have opted to remove the comps listed on Goodreads because they are nonsense.]

Nick Russo has worked his way from a rough Brooklyn neighborhood to a reporting job at one of the city's biggest newspapers. But the late 1950s are a hostile time for gay men, and Nick knows that he can't let anyone into his life. He just never counted on meeting someone as impossible to say no to as Andy. Andy Fleming's newspaper-tycoon father wants him to take over the family business. Andy, though, has no intention of running the paper. He's barely able to run his life--he's never paid a bill on time, routinely gets lost on the way to work, and would rather gouge out his own eyes than deal with office politics. Andy agrees to work for a year in the newsroom, knowing he'll make an ass of himself and hate every second of it. Except, Nick Russo keeps rescuing Andy: showing him the ropes, tracking down his keys, freeing his tie when it gets stuck in the ancient filing cabinets. Their unlikely friendship soon sharpens into feelings they can't deny. But what feels possible in secret--this fragile, tender thing between them--seems doomed in the light of day. Now Nick and Andy have to decide if, for the first time, they're willing to fight.

My Rating: ★★★★★

A few months ago he told himself that his choices—that any queer person’s choices—were either to hide or brazen it out, and that’s still true. But there’s another possibility: pushing back against the injustices that force people to make impossible choices.

*My Review and Favorite Quotes below the cut.

My Review:

I read this book in one sitting - while I was supposed to be reading an entirely different book. I picked it up meaning to read a chapter or two while I ate lunch -- because it's easier to read on a kindle than a paperback while eating -- and the next thing I knew I was turning the last page. I can't remember the last time I did that. I knew I would love it from the beginning; that was a given - it's a Cat Sebastian book. But I wasn't prepared for how much I would love it, or for how many feelings it gave me. This book is devastating in its quiet queer joy and relentless hope while living in the face of prejudice and hate. It's about a queer couple in the newspaper publishing world of New York City of the 1950s. It's about the slow realization of feelings, and the inevitable and infinitesimal merging of lives, and the way you can breathe easier when you have a community of people like you who understand you and know you. It's about the comfort and happiness to be found in the little things in life. And it's so soft and domestic, even with the uncertainty and the lies and the hiding. Which takes skill. I teared up several times, enough that it made it difficult to keep reading. I *felt* the truth in this story viscerally. Times may have changed (somewhat) but I could still understand the hesitance and the fear and defiant joy that make up a queer existence. In some ways it was starkly different than Cat Sebastian's other books, and yet in other ways it felt familiar. She straddled the line between quiet joy and simmering rage at the realities of queer life. It was intense and healing and beautiful. I didn't want it to end. I was bracing myself for tragedy as the book progressed, and I'm so glad that isn't the sort of story Cat Sebastian is telling here. That instead she is telling a story of people who just want to live their lives, and who find the courage in themselves to do so despite the fear and threats. Like Nick, I was dreading reading about another queer tragedy. The characters were beautifully drawn and felt so real. I came to care about them so much and feel like they were my friends. It was masterfully done. The setting also felt incredibly, painfully real. It was 100% believable. *Thanks to NetGalley and Avon for providing an early copy for review.

Favorite Quotes:

Nick has spent years making sure that when people look at him, they don’t see anything that sticks out like a sore thumb—they don’t see anything at all, they hardly even see a person, just a man in a suit.

---

Andy gives him this flat, disappointed look that Nick recognizes because Nick invented it and now he’s going to have to sue Andy for copyright infringement.

---

“Back in his day they didn’t have Band-Aids,” Nick continues. “They just slapped mud on their wounds and went back to drawing the news on the walls of their caves.” “I can still hear you,” Jorgensen says. “It’s nice when the elderly keep their hearing,” Andy observes.

---

“It’s the creme de menthe,” Nick says, eying the green liquid distastefully. “It’s like drinking toothpaste, if toothpaste got ideas above its station.”

---

“A heart doctor, though,” he says in a tone that suggests that getting jilted in favor of cardiologists is all anyone can expect. That maybe Andy should have considered medical school if he didn’t want to get jilted. That Emily did what she had to do, because who could turn down a heart doctor?

---

“I was going to make minestrone soup,” Nick says. “You like soup.” “I do like soup,” Andy agrees. “I take it that’s an invitation, not you taunting me with soup I don’t get to eat.”

---

He feels as if he’s been turned inside out, as if he just learned that a part of his heart is on the outside of his body, in the possession of somebody else entirely.

---

But somehow, a journalist being hurt because he’s on to a dangerous story seems less traumatic than someone being attacked for living his life.

---

Andy worries that it’s his lot in life to be mocked by elderly Italian women.

---

Andy isn’t expecting an epiphany at eight on a Monday morning when he’s still mostly asleep, when his first cup of coffee is still hot in his hand. Honestly, Andy isn’t expecting an epiphany ever.

---

A couple times a year, Nick finds a tale of gay misery and woe on his desk, because apparently Bailey has taken it upon himself to be Nick’s personal sad gay librarian.

----

“You have shitty taste in books. Would it kill you to read something that isn’t totally dismal?” “I’m paid for my taste in books,” Bailey says easily. “And I don’t mind dismal things. I’m trying to be your friend, aren’t I?”

---

Families might usually be bonded by blood, but maybe sometimes they’re bonded by shared secrets, by a delicate mixture of caution and faith, by the conviction that hiding together is better in every way than hiding alone.

---

That might be what turns the tide and makes Nick enjoy the book, at least a little. These men are finding time and energy to flirt and have queer parties and get jealous and fall in love despite bombs and injuries and death. That feels like the truest thing he’s ever read.

---

“Yes, well. I figured, you see.” He stops, looking suddenly at a loss. “People in New York have hearts, too, don’t they?” And Emily must really love him if she’s susceptible to a line like that.

----

A few months ago he told himself that his choices—that any queer person’s choices—were either to hide or brazen it out, and that’s still true. But there’s another possibility: pushing back against the injustices that force people to make impossible choices.

[appreciatingtokrev]

warrior cats hyperfixation era me was so close to figuring out she’s trans and aroace. so close.

warrior cats hyperfixation era me: ‘‘yeah i usually rp as male cats :) idk i just prefer writing them and it’s easier for me to think as them than as female cats? idk i just prefer them. but irl i’m a girl xD’’

GIRL YOU ARE TRANS.

THAT’S WHY YOU PREFER PLAYING AS TOMS. BC IT REPRESENTS YOUR GENDER MORE ACCURATELY

warrior cats hyperfixation era me: ‘‘my fav clan rank? definitely healer! they don’t have to fight, they just collect herbs and treat the wounded cats. sometimes they also hunt. also they aren’t allowed a mate or kits which is a stupid rule but most of them don’t want that anyway. and yes i love rping healers who just have close friends no mate no kits no forbidden romance no nothing! but i’m omniromantic :)’’

GIRL NO. YOU ARE LITERALLY AROACE

warrior cats hyperfixation era me was so so fucking close. she was so fucking close and she still didn’t realise shit

[rosykims]

nathaniel crushing on ella has never really felt right in my head bc they strike me as more platonic comrades but um. well. now im thinking abt nathaniel and ASHARA

[waloeders]

gm i forgor... what i was gonna say

[nerdie-faerie]

My entire uni process since I applied three years ago has just been accompanied by a series of my parents getting pissed at me about information they made up, like how are you mad at me about stories you created