#one of the characters has an entire bird head that canonically has nothing to do with his quirk and you care about realism now?!?!

[mymarifae]

going back to these tags. this shit literally haunts me like i haven't touched bnha since watching the first season when it came out YEARS ago but i still lay awake in bed some nights grieving the loss of This story. i was watching it with my high school ex and i started complaining when all might told deku he'd give him one-for-all and my ex was like "but it'd be so boring if deku didn't get powers. the story wouldn't mean anything." and i was so in shock that i kind of wanted to kill him because WOW . we are not on the same creative wavelength AT ALL are we . like you're telling me you saw alllllllllll that build-up with deku being bullied for not having a quirk and everyone mocking his dreams of going to UA and becoming a pro hero - the build-up that culminates in the scene where he rushes headfirst into danger in a desperate attempt to save someone's life when all the so-called "heroes" with their "superpowers" stood around doing jack shit and you... still wanted him to magically get a quirk via the powers of Lazy Plot Convenience ?!??! you didn't start expecting a story about defying a world that hates you and wants you to fail... ?!?! that's boring to you? nothing about that resonates with you? at all¿!?

[beeboos-creativecorner]

artefact - an assassin's creed au

For day 2, I uncover an Assassin's Creed Kenway family AU I made back in 2021 for an English creative writing assessment. Everyone was none the wiser hehe. I adore this one for its concept, if anything, because after reading it over recently, I don't like the style it was written in, but that may be due to my skills and tastes changing over the last few years. The whole AU was inspired by fanart of Haytham Kenway in Assassin attire, taking on the role of what could have been if things were different AND the clean version of the song We're Good by Dua Lipa (specifically due to the lyrical difference from the original version of the song). Each character's names were changed, but it's pretty easy to figure out who's who from characterisation alone (a highlight of this piece imo !!) - aside from Avis and Wren, a couple of OCs I entirely made up there and then just because. Let's ignore the fact I copied a section straight from the Forsaken novel, shall we ? I look upon that bit with unmeasurable disdain and disappointment. I've rambled enough. Have at it <3

Fic under the cut x

TW for blood and canon typical violence

Mist curled around his feet as the world constructed before him, a recognisable venue fading into view. The tendrils of mist dissipated, the draught and eerie ambience easing off. An evening chill nipped at the bare fingers of the man scouting the abandoned streets. His breath clouded as he adjusted the faint-coloured tricorne upon his head, collecting his thoughts, preparing his speech wisely. To him, this was a regular occurrence, a meeting pre-planned, messages exchanged to arrange it in secret. So far, it was effective and the opposition hadn’t the foggiest clue of the gathering taking place. To him, this was normal, this was business. To his descendant, however, this was wrong, all wrong. 

—

Descendant: an observer, witnessing only the events that took place through this machine. He shouldn’t be back with this ancestor, he lived out enough of this man’s time. Where was the life he was meant to be reliving? Descendant could not affect space and time, though he could file a complaint to his team outside the machine. And that’s exactly what he did.

        “Guys, what’s going on? What- what’s happening?” he spluttered, refraining a panicked curse, failing to articulate his thoughts. Wait… he could speak now? A rushed response from his female companion, Crane, clarified next to nothing.

        “It seems we have stumbled upon some kind of glitch or something. I’ve done a couple diagnostics and- well… I can’t pull you out of the machine right now. It’s too big of a risk, we need to get back on track with the original timeline, but I gotta do it from the inside. I don’t know why we’re back here, with this ancestor specifically, since we were much further ahead yesterday. Anyway, my advice is to just play this out and see where it goes. I’ll work on repairing and rearranging the data, so we can go back to searching for the artefact.”

        “So what you’re saying is the machine has glitched, and I can’t go back to the previous save state?” Descendant asked, a question too evident now. “Huh, it’s kinda like a video game,” he added to himself, forcing himself to make light of a dim situation.

        “No, this is not like a video game, Des. A video game will glitch and often crash. This, this is more like you’ve suddenly discovered a secret level and you can’t get back to the main game until you complete it,” came another voice, more masculine, more matter-of-fact. Descendant’s other loyal colleague, friend second; his words. They called him Robin, believe it or not. None of these names were particularly inventive, considering being labelled after birds, but it was the best one could do whilst being a fugitive from a technology company that integrated itself so smoothly into society. Nothing was ever easy when one was dubbed as the ‘bad guys,’ despite being anything but.

        “Uh, okay. So, does anyone know how this actually happened?”

        “I don’t know how, but your brain is fighting the machine. I knew this could happen, though not like this. It appears your brain is subconsciously withholding information and is altering events to its preference. Maybe,” replied the technician, sharing her uncertainty and plausible theory.

        “Maybe?” Not all took her words with a grain of salt though. A well-known fact about Robin was that he was quite analytic, making him sound arrogant and pompous at times, which got on everyone’s nerves. Especially now, when everyone was feeling pressured to repair the errors that had mysteriously generated before them. “Even your car is in a better state than your theory, Crane.”

        “I don’t see you handing out any bright ideas,” she snapped, leaving no beat between Robin’s insult and her venomous retort. “Just play the thing out, Des. Hopefully I can get you outta this.” And, as the body of a familiar stranger, Descendant took his first step into a new world.

—

The roads weren’t well lit on this particular night, the only providers being a few oil lamps in the distance and the natural beams of moonlight, casting a soft glow on the cobblestone beneath Griffon’s tan boots. The resplendence of the streets at this hour were immense, considering the lack of bustle in the surroundings, though he hadn’t the time to appreciate such small moments alone. Missions to complete, people to report to. Busy, busy, busy. Much unlike the scene outside the venue.

        His chin tilted up to set his gaze on the building’s sign, cautious about the headpiece he wasn’t accustomed to donning. To Griffon’s distaste, this was a formal gathering, one not appropriate to wear bloodstained robes to. Also not one to bring an arsenal of weapons to, which came as another reason not to be attending the performance. But one man can’t have it all. Fortunately, if the worst case scenario comes into action, he’d be prepared. Besides, he could use the bare minimum - his hands - to disable an enemy. He would kill if need be, if a threat presented itself. He was an adept in the art of death; he was taught to be that way. He took no pleasure in it. Simply, he was good at it. When one was taught swordcraft as soon as one could walk, this was how one would see themselves. This was how Griffon’s brothers-in-arms saw him: a talented death dealer. 

        Anticipating the unexpected, the killer disguised as a nobleman entered a whole new atmosphere.

—

“Father,” Griffon hummed low, eyeing the stage and surreptitiously taking his seat at the booth. “What news on the artefact?” Both his father and sister had arrived at the meeting ahead of time, varied reactions between them. His sister, Branwen, clad in voluminous purple fabric, gave a tight-lipped acknowledgement to her younger sibling. Their father, Corbin, much more forbearing and glad for Griffon to join the party.

        “Your sister and I were wondering the same. How did your previous search fare?” His father’s eyes, flecked with steel, yet held such patience; this was a man that raised a strategic murderer. This was a man who could hide his true intentions behind a smile.

        “Fruitless, I’m afraid.”

        “Ah, no matter. Your sister, in fact, has found a lead.” Branwen smirked, arrogant, not catching her father’s stern eye as she did so. That was deliberately for Griffon’s notice, and hit its target dead on, a rippling effect of envy and fury spreading throughout his body. “Which is why we’re here today,” Corbin finished, setting his hands face down on the table. Griffon repressed a grimace. There it was. If there was one thing he could rely on about his father, it was that. There was never a family get-together without the mention of business. Not anymore, not since he was in his tender years. Corbin gestured towards his daughter and she took the liberty of presenting the information herself.

        “A flock of little birdies told me,” she paused, winking at her own awful pun, “that an influential figure is in possession of the artefact. As luck would have it, they’re said to be attending the performance tonight. Which is exactly why we’re here instead of the chocolate house a few blocks down.” Corbin’s lower lip jutted out at the mention of the chocolate house, his mind set on a hearty tankard of ale, which would never come to be.

        As soon as Griffon opened his mouth to further the conversation, a thunderous applause erupted from the audience, forcing him to cut himself short and turn his head. A woman cantered onstage, the band playing behind her incredible vocals. He was caught gazing upon her figure, though not out of lust. As upon her neck, was the artefact. She had the amulet. 

        This meeting wasn’t a waste of time after all, Griffon relished in that knowledge, bringing his boiling blood to a settled simmer. That brought him a sense of solitude, albeit a temporary one.

        “Oi,” Branwen elbowed her brother to attract his attention. “Does she look familiar to you?” He squinted, as if his eyes could zoom in on the performer, who was busy singing something about feeling distant from an old lover and how they weren’t meant to be. Not that any of this concerned him to any extent, he was trying to determine who this woman was. Squeezing his eyes shut and opening them, he focused in again, using the gift that he was endowed at birth. He could see her now. And then it collided with him head-on. By the Spirited Eagle, it was her.

        In an instant, she wasn’t any performer and these words she was spieling off were no longer meaningless. He cursed himself for how ironic this panned out. It could have been anyone, a wealthy aristocrat perhaps, or a corrupt member of Parliament, but no. It had to be his ex-lover, Avis, reappearing into the world after being declared missing seven years ago. Missing, that eventually concluded to the status of ‘deceased’ when he abandoned the search for her with reluctance. His jaw clenched, how dare she show her face again. His mind refused to register it, she was dead to him. She should be dead. Although, he couldn’t deny the flutter of hope that his heart manifested, that animated feeling he hadn’t felt in an eternity. No, he shoved it to the back of his mind, where the notion was meant to belong. For now, he’ll bide his time, watching, listening to the song that was - upon analysing - written for him. It was a song at the minimum, a message at the maximum. That’s what this was, he gathered: a message. A beckoning. He’d made his decision in a heartbeat. If he was being called, he was going to answer.

—

“Uh, we found it, guys. You can take me out now.” Descendant’s voice wavered, a tone of fatigue hitting his final word.

        “In your wildest fantasies, maybe,” Robin spat over the intercom.

        “You gotta keep going, the end of the memory is close. You’re doing fine, just hang in there a little while longer. I think I almost cracked the code.” Crane, however slight, was more optimistic regarding the conditions. Descendant groaned, throwing aside any composure he had in reserve.

        “Okay, quick question before I keep going: who’s the chick? You know, the one that has the amulet.”

        “From the scrambled data we can gather, she seems to be a past lover of Griffon’s, which doesn’t make sense because- well, his son- we already know the messy details,” Robin reported in a split second. He was in charge of linking these historic events, yet the way he pieced it together was unnatural and expeditious.

        “Maybe this is like the whole ‘memory inside a memory’ thing, except this is more your ancestor’s dream-like state. Basically what I’m saying is that your brain is fighting the programming, but it’s not you who messed up the machine.” Crane pitched in with another theory. Descendant sighed,

        “That’s a relief.”

        “I think this is what Griffon wanted to happen, instead of what really went down.” She sounded sure on that one. Robin grumbled a few profanities under his breath about her speculations. Akin to their first spat, Crane told Robin to shut his mouth, before she sewed it shut for him and bade Descendant to keep moving forward. Which he did, to avoid becoming a part of his friends’ disagreement.

—

“Father, sister, if you’d excuse me-”

        “So you do recognise her?” Branwen interrupted, with the air of a child who was desperate to know a secret. Corbin raised a hand to halt further questions, oblivious to their conversation.

        “Do what you must, son. I give you leave to go. Bring us the honour we deserve.” ‘I give you leave,’ that was a phrase Griffon wasn’t attuned to hearing. Straying away from his superiors for an extended period of time had allowed him to abide by his own laws. He never needed anyone’s permission on what leads to pursue and whose life to put an abrupt end to. For years, Griffon had played the role of ‘lone wolf’, and in that moment he realised, he desired to keep it that way.

        Corbin presented Griffon a discreet gift under the table: a feather-shaped blade that - in spite of the low lighting - winked at its new owner, welcoming the new partnership. The son grappled onto his newly acquired asset, testing its weight. He slipped it beneath his cape, to not arouse suspicion. He hoped that there wouldn’t be the necessary means for his blade to taste blood, nevertheless, it would suffice. Branwen intoned,

        “May the Spirited Eagle guide your hand, brother.” Her prayer fell on deaf ears, as Griffon was passing through the crowds, on the path to success.

        This path steered him down various halls, tracking the footsteps of his target. His advancements reduced the distance between them. Better yet, his prey was unaware of being tailed, giving him the upper hand. A wry smile contorted his features, drawing his hat lower on his face to obscure himself from any potential witnesses. He was able to detect her footfalls, his sharp hearing continued to prove valuable. Then, the rhythmic clapping of steps ceased. 

        Griffon skidded to a stop, scanning the surrounding hall. Everything looked the same in this accursed place. Panic surged through his blood, the pattern of his breathing matching that of a feral beast. I can’t lose her. Damn this interminable labyrinth! Unconsciously, he fumbled with the knobs either side of him, as if either would open and give him resolution. Neither did, as they were locked. On the verge of another outburst, his fit was prevented by a slam of a door in the nearby area. All his senses activated at once, bolting down towards where the sound originated, discovering a door in which the lock was absent. Without a moment to lose, the man shoved it open, coming face-to-face with the one he sought.

        “I suppose you got my message then.” It struck him that it was indeed her. Back from the dead, Avis. Distance couldn’t deceive him anymore.

        “Hmm, quite,” he replied, and he could never be so quick to sour. His sight went wandering from her complexion to the pendant resting on her chest. Her expression relaxed and she laughed, flitting a hand to a sunken-eyed pianist. They played a melodious tune, while Avis opened her arms, leaving herself vulnerable.

        “Once more for old time’s sake?” Griffon was plunged into conflict. Every muscle yearned to hold her again. Still, there was that nagging in the back of his mind, telling him to drive his blade through her heart, to punish her like she did to him. No, he assured himself. Now is not apt. Years ago, he vowed that he wouldn’t be fooled twice. And he was going to stick by it. Stepping into her embrace, he needed no words to affirm that he was to play her little game.

        They swayed to the music, the way they used to do as children. Whatever the pair shared in the past had diminished, nothing was the same. His hands crept upwards to her neck, her breath hitching at the contact. This was not a display of affection, in spite of her response. The dance was a ploy, his fingers were following his crafted method. His nail caught the knot of the amulet, having it within his grasp. The woman was almost distracted enough to dismiss the thievery. Almost, but wasn’t. Griffon’s fist retracted, coming away with his prize. Mission accomplished, or so he thought.

She wormed her way out of his clutch, an evident mark of betrayal etched on her face. The pianist hit a false note and sent a wary glance over at their employer, discontinuing to play once assessing the situation. Griffon passed the amulet through to the inside of his sleeve, putting on a ruse that he hadn’t nicked a thing. She shook her head, she wasn’t ignorant.

        “You’ll regret this,” she said, folding her arms over her chest as if to protect herself.

        “No, I rather think I won’t.” He reversed, exiting the room before overhearing the words:

        “Wren, get the boy.”

        Griffon had himself a new enemy.

—

“I ask for a simple trade, Griffon. Don’t make this difficult for yourself, or for the boy. Come on, where is it? Where is the artefact?” Avis barked, deluded. The wind whipped at her hair on the rooftop, an utter change in scene from inside the theatre. She was trembling, possibly because of the evening air or the young boy struggling against her arm.

        “Father, help! Help me!” The boy began to sob, choking against his words, the lock on him tightening. The child was about four, yet intelligent for his age, much like his father.  Griffon had reached an impasse: sacrifice his son for the artefact, losing the one reminder of genuine, pure love to save the world from being cast into eternal shadow. Or, save his son, surrender the artefact to her and fail his mission to endanger everyone. The kid wailed as his father devised a plan of attack. 

        His child, Corvus, was his treasure; a product from a feeling so broad, so true. His mother wasn’t present, hadn’t been for years and she wasn’t here, on this rooftop. She had remained in her own country whilst Griffon trained their son to fill boots too big for him. Irresolution struck him at point-blank, staring into the glossy eyes of his son to find some solace. What he did discover though, was that same raw strength and defiance that attracted him to his mother. Gathering these memories and feelings, he would use them, or at least try to. As much as he’d want to speculate how his son made it to the theatre, the clock was ticking so it would have to wait. The choice had been finalised, he knew what he had to do.

        “Alright,” he called, keeping his voice level in the circumstances. The amulet was out in the open once again, a pulsating glow spreading over his hand. “Here.” He tossed the artefact to her, watching it skitter across the surface like a skipping stone on a lake. She released the boy at the sight of the pendant, scrabbling at the floor to repossess it. Griffon wanted to laugh: she always used to be his little magpie. Used to.

        “Father!” Corvus scrambled over to his father, clinging to his leg with a leech-like grip. He caressed his son’s head, relief washing over him.

        “Corvus, I want you to go downstairs, back to your grandfather. Can you do that for me?” The lad nodded profusely, already out of view within the passing seconds. He prayed to the Spirited Eagle that Corvus would be seen home safely. Griffon would have followed suit, but he had some unfinished business to attend to. It seemed that Avis did too, as she was facing him again, the cord of the amulet dangling between each of her digits.

        “It’s funny, we’ve been at this for centuries - searching for these artefacts to keep them from the clutch of our enemies, to supposedly ‘save the world’. But, have you noticed, Griffon, that all it’s ever done is caused dispute? Wars that raged for years because either side refused to find common ground with those we deemed wrong for the world. Does it humour you that we insist on repeating history over and over? Or are you just as much of an imbecile as the ones you call brothers?” Griffon composed himself and denied himself the right to speak. “If we had an open mind, if we had it in our hearts to forgive our rivals for the mistakes of the past, would we be better off? Could peace be attained? But no, you and your ilk are the reason why peace cannot endure. You speak often of unity, but do you know its true meaning? Of course not, which leaves me one option left: this.” The amulet left her hand, tossed off the roof and began to plummet. Griffon stood both shock and awe of her action, seeing the glow dissipate and plonk into a stream metres below them. It was gone. Washed away with the flow of the current. He wanted to scream, thrash about violently, dive recklessly after it, but he knew it was hopeless. The sounds never came, nor the movements. He was stuck. More importantly, he had failed his mission, his family, himself.

        “Aren’t you burning with a passion to kill me? Aren’t you furious like your brothers of old that I have demolished your goals? Go on, draw your weapon. Kill me.” She was goading him, that was all too obvious. Then why was it he let the thought in? Why did he consider unsheathing his blade? She wasn’t the woman he grew up with, she wasn’t the one he spent endless nights with. She was a monster. A monster who’s incessant ranting filled his ears.

        “I’ll give you a head start,” she said, stepping closer to him. “Do you remember when we spent an entire night talking on and on about our future? How we vowed to live by each other-”

        “And die by each other,” Griffon finished, the words programmed into his brain by the stain of a memory. “How fitting.”

        “I’ve thought a lot about this day and what it stands for us now. Which is why I said that we’re not meant to be, that’s never going to change. So let’s at least agree to go our separate ways, huh?” It all clicked into place, her song. She had seen this play out beforehand, but how? “The decision is yours to make, but I think I already know which side you lean towards. I’ve played my part in all this, I assume you will honour yours. Let’s end this like we should.” Hunched over, she took a few more steps, being now in close proximity. Griffon’s head hung low as he procured the dagger from his cape, turning it over thrice before asserting himself. The artefact may be lost, but he could still finish the final stage of his mission. Applying pressure with the tip of the blade against her chest, he heard a squelch as he punctured through a vital organ. He was already lowering her to the ground during her dying breaths, focusing in on the crimson blood blooming from the void, his hands slick with it. She had space for her final words.

        “We’re good,” she burbled before the blood spilled from her mouth, and the last of her life ebbed away into infinity.

—

“Wow,” Crane exclaimed, baffled as anyone else about what unfolded. “You’re good now, Des. I can get you out. Welcome back.” The alternative reality dissolved, pulling Descendant back into the present day.

        “Man, that was insane. Does anyone have any idea of why that was so messed up? What kind of happy dream world was that?” Descendant rubbed his eyes, trying to make sense of it all. In fact, no one could gather a clear concept.

        “We don’t know, but I’m glad we got you outta there. Robin was worried about you.”

        “I was not!” Robin defended, flapping his arms about like a crazed octopus.

        “Anyway, I’ve rearranged the data and deleted some unusual codes I found while you were in there. We’ll be back to normal by tomorrow.”

        “Thanks.” Descendant gave his gratitude to his friends that had worked overtime to save him from another perilous situation. He lay down on a nearby mattress, allowing his aching muscles to relax. “By the way guys-”

        “Yeah?” Crane shot back. The escapee of the machine spoke the words that were at the front of his mind.

        “We’re good.”

[kharmii]

not sure if you have noticed but there is someone in the submas tag whacking the beehive with some mean sounding posts and honestly I think it's hilarious and I'm all in for it.

The fandom bullies need to be pushed off their high horses and brought back to reality that they are just some rude bullies on the internet harrassing people for having a different opinion on fictional characters

And honestly the person is also right: they are frustrated because Ingo in LA took a lot of the shine off the original cast of the game. It is a tragedy he's there but it's also a shame the other cast gets sidelined so much.

And the fandom makes it difficult for others to enjoy the content. It's basically that bird meme with the crow being submas fandom being so obnoxious and loud the other part of the LA fandom gets totally overshadowed.

And I say this as a submas fan. I love the twins a lot. But the fandom is on the brink of becoming unbearable. At least the loud annoying obnoxious part, I actually think the "unpopular" side is much more calm, chill and friendly. And much less in your face.

The fandom needs to get down off their high horse and become a more calm fandom again.

I didn't get along with either side of the fandom, and truth be told, I think a lot of them are the same group of cowards and hypocrites playing politics. This fandom is smaller than I thought. Recently, someone on the crazytrain tag inadvertently let me in on the spice Twitter of one of the very first antis who blocked me. The twitter has 'Proshitters DNI' on their pinned post, (hurr durr durr, get it? Pro SHITTERS. How cleever..) and yet the whole blog is full of fat furries with top surgery scars. FOR SURE that person has a blankshipping side blog FOR SURE.

Side note: I'm into men, but Rule 63 isn't bad if the female version is hot. There's nothing grosser, however, than seeing a male character made into a fat gross furry with top surgery scars and a vagina. IDC about your trans representation. That's GROSS. IDG why trans is such a prevalent social contagion when it's represented in a way that makes me throw up in my mouth a lil like, ..ew..ew..ew..ew..EWWW!!1!1 Why would you wreck him like that?!

Nobody on earth wants to see that shit unless they are into that specific fetish. I doubt even trans males want to see that shit. Hey, you want to be a real male, right? That's the ideal right? Then represent yourself as an actual male and not a gross looking morbidly obese mutilated biological female with a rank dog's head. Fandom is supposed to be escapism, so spare me your harsh, repulsive reality.

Anyway, not only does that person have a side blog, but I'll bet they were on the blankshipping tag putting the most stupid of stupidest head canons out there, like 'RICH WIDOW OMEGAVERSE INGO, YO!!' Where Omega Ingo is yeeted to Hisui, and everybody assumes his alpha (his own brother) is dead because his werewolf bite mark is fading. Everybody in Hisui is pressuring him into choosing a new mate so he can crank out a litter of ass-puppies from his bunge-womb and save Hisuian society from a population crash (Omegaverse totally isn't dog-fucking, but like all the terminology is dog-related).

Almost everybody in the blankshipping tag was into Omegaverse or general werewolf bullshit, so don't even act like you don't know what I'm referencing unless you joined this fandom last week. Other than that, it was annoying when people would use their autism to be obnoxiously antisocial (I only want 'likes' or conversations in tags), or like when people had an issue with me reposting slim beautiful bishounen twins from Asian artists off Pixiv or Twitter. People have been doing that since Tumblr began, -there are entire blogs devoted to it- and yet it only became a problem when I started doing it.

*checks* I think I found the blog this ask was referencing. It's a fun blog because it gets people talking. That and Emmet month has the fanart picking up. My drafts are packed. There's a lot I disagree with though, like how Ingo overshadows the other characters and makes them less relevant. Actually, people being into the Train Twins might make the PLA characters MORE relevant. PLA might have been a forgettable game to some people, but love for submas angst made the other characters grow on them.

Also, they complain that the PLA tags on AO3 are either full of Train Clown fics or Volo x underaged Akari. In the absence of the twins, Volo x Akari would be the ONLY thing you'd see on AO3. You'd probably see even less of the other characters. The Volo betrayal might be the most interesting part of the game for most people. -So many people got taken in by how he pretended to be your friend, tried to get Giratina to kill you, then made you feel sorry for him at the end.

That last part was a guess, btw. I've read very little of both Submas and Volo fan fiction on AO3 outside of the specific ships I'm into, and I've read very little of those too. Most fan fiction comes across as dismal and unpleasant, so I make sure not to read it. That's the responsible thing to do. If you read something in a description you don't like, then don't read it. IE: Not once have I ever clicked on an Omegaverse after holding the bridge of my nose and reading the description of what it is. It's still fun to take the piss though, like....hey maybe people would write more Adaman x Irida -or- Commander Kamado x Beni if there wasn't so much RICH WIDOW INGO MAKES A NEST TO PLANT HIS ASS-PUPPIES INTO11!!1!!!

Art credit: ばた@bataabiiru Twitter.

[limnsaber]

Mandalorian Gen Fic Rec List - Volume II: Clan of Two Part II

Hello all, and welcome back to Lim's SW fic recs! This is the second post about my favorite The Mandalorian gen fics-- and this post is just about Clan of Two. Check out the previous installment (Volume I!) and the upcoming volume about side characters & adventures and encounters. For shorthand, 🔐 means a restricted work and 💜 means an personal favorite, but they are all honestly must reads. Please let me know if you like&read them, and please give your love to the authors we owe so much to!! -Yours, Lim <3

Clan of Two

People Expect Big Things From a Man With a Jetpack by @cosmicoceanfic (Din & Grogu, Gen, 2k)

“It’s like watching a baby bird try and take off for the first time,” Cara says. She holds out a corn popper to the Child, who pauses in his singleminded quest to try and devour the pendant to eye it thoughtfully. “I could kill you any which way right now,” Din says. Cara chews, slowly and deliberately. “You could definitely try.” The Child takes the corn popper and stares at it. “Relax, part of practicing something new is getting your ass handed to you every now and again. It’s just my right as a person to laugh at you for it.”

Higher Education by JordannaMorgan (Din & Grogu, Gen, 0.7k)

Peli wonders if Mando might be overdoing it just a little.

💜 Child-Centered Approach by @devildoll (Din & Grogu, Gen, 32k)

In which Grogu goes to school on Nevarro, Din chaperones a field trip, and nothing could possibly go wrong.

In These Soft Places by Ruuger (Din & Grogu, Gen, 1k)

Din's injuries from the battle catch up with him. Set right after Book of Boba Fett Chapter 7 ends.

Baby's Bounty by @ooops-i-arted (Din & Grogu, Gen, 4k, Parenting Shenanigans)

Din must hunt down a valuable bounty, and there will be dire consequences if he doesn’t find his quarry…

🔐 Out of Time by @ginnyq (Din & Grogu, Gen, 11k, Angst)

When a last-minute pit stop on the way to Tython turns deadly, Din has to ask Grogu to do something he hoped would never be necessary. But even successful plans have unforeseen outcomes, and the consequences are worse than he could have expected.

🔐 under the moon and stars by @oathkeeperoxas (Din & Grogu, Gen, 1k, Post-Season/Series 03)

Din indulges Grogu his favourite food, and decides to try something new that his son might like too.

💜 He is his father’s son (series) by @hinderr (Din & Grogu, warning this one is sad as hell, Grief/Mourning, POV Grogu)

Prince of a thousand enemies.

The Way Home by @starryreys (Din & Grogu, Gen, 2.5k, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence)

“Hey,” Cara’s voice from behind him suddenly startles him out of his thoughts. He turns around to look at her where she’s still standing in the doorway. “Are you alright?” she asks. He looks down to the kid in his arms, tired and hurt, but safe and here. “Yeah,” he says, “I am. (Din and Grogu make it off Gideon's light cruiser together, and Din removes his helmet for an entirely different reason.)

The Father by @starryreys (Din & Grogu, Gen, 2k)

Din’s mother had given him a wavering smile before she hugged him goodbye. His father’s hands had been steady on his shoulders as he kissed his forehead. He hadn’t realized the strength it must have taken them not to crumble until now. Din watches the kid, his eyes never wavering, a small smile on his lips and a reassuring nod on his head. Din waits until his kid is gone from his eyeline.  Then he crumbles.

Unleash Your Creativity by wingedcats (Din & Grogu, Gen, 2k, Parenthood)

Din frowned. The silver-green smudge stared back up at him, revealing little. “It’s a self-portrait?” “Must be.” Cara hitched one shoulder in a shrug. “Lucky we’re chasing down a Jedi for him, not an artist. Doesn’t look like he’s got much of a future there.” “You don’t know that,” Din said, feeling unaccountably defensive. “He’s just a baby.” Din decides to give the Child an opportunity to explore his artistic side. With mixed results.

i can’t believe they just sent baby yoda off to boarding school by wellwhiskey (Din & Grogu, Gen, 2k, Post-Season/Series 02)

“Was it worth it?” Gideon asks now. Cara knows he isn’t directing the question at Reeves. “Somehow it doesn’t feel like it was.” i'm sick of it i'm sick of star wars

Belonging by DistantStorm (Din & Grogu, Gen, 2k, Post-Season/Series 02, The Book of Boba Fett, Luke Skywalker, 1.5k)

Luke believes he is observant, and yet— The Force itself seems to be laughing at him. Outside the stone framed window, Luke watches his student sit at the edge of the wildflower meadow near the stream, folded into a meditative pose. A white butterfly has landed on top of his head, and several more flit around him in a shimmer of pollen and sunlight.

🔐 Undying Sea, Unquenchable Dragonfire* by @renardroi (Din & Grogu, Gen, 10k, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fae & Fairies)

Kyramud, his mind tries to remind him. This is his enemy, this is the child-thief. But it seems even he is weak to the enchanting magics of the fey people, the allure of their wild beauty. They move and look and feel like a ballad that has come to life, a siren drawing him in so that they can drown him. Medieval Fantasy AU Mandalorians are a dying clade of knights, the jetiise are fey creatures.

(*I see the tags on this one but they aren't yet reflected in the work and the vibes are impeccable you'll just have to trust me)

The Last of His Name by @coffeequill (Din & Grogu, Gen, 36k, Alternate Universe - Fantasy)

“I don’t joust,” says Din, out of breath. “You do now,” says Cara, and she gives him a grin before swinging in again. He deflects it with a ring of the sliding metal. ---- After escaping the clutches of Moff Gideon, Din and his foundling travel the country in search of the boy's magical people, armed with naught but beskar and horse. As money runs tight, a return to bounty hunting seems their only option. Cara enlists his help in bringing in a difficult target, but help involves his participation in a tournament, competing for a handsome pay. To take care of his son, Din accepts, only to receive far more than he bargained for.

Boreas Sylvatica by @milokno (Din & Grogu, Gen, 17k, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Human Grogu)

Grogu stirs. His eyes flutter open, for just a moment, and he shifts closer to Din. He stares down at the kid. His own eyes soften. The sharp, jagged lines that divide his face don’t completely disappear, but they do fade. His legs still ache, and his exhaustion doesn’t loosen where it’s constricting around his ribs— digging into the bones that stick out, ever so slightly. All of it, though, becomes inferior to the warmth that spreads throughout his chest. OR While on a supply run, Din finds a child. They take care of each other.

💜 A Short Guide to Fatherhood by @burglarhobbit (Din & Grogu, Gen, 9k, Luke Skywalker, Ben Solo, Found Family, one of my favorites!)

“Well, development isn’t just for the child,” Skywalker says, inclining his head to Din. “It’s very good you’re taking the time to explain things to him that he may not yet understand, or to emphasise what he may already know but has not yet taken in very well. You can learn from him, as he does from you.” Din nods shakily, and Grogu, settled between his legs, leans into his body. Din’s hand ghosts over Grogu’s head, and he slowly pats the child. It feels awkward, with his gloves still on, but Grogu doesn’t move away. Skywalker moves on to the next parent in the circle, and Din feels as if he has passed another test of this so-called parenting thing. Or: Luke Skywalker does development circles with the parents of the students in his Academy. Din isn't yet sure if that's actually helpful or not.

home again, for the first time by @icecreambeach (Din & Grogu, Gen, 2k, Post-Season/Series 03)

It’s time for Din and Grogu to rest, but not before Din does his Dad diligence. (post-season 3 finale spoilers)

Apostates and Ever Afters by DistantStorm (Din & Grogu, Gen, 1k, Found Family, The Book of Boba Fett)

A clan of two, reprised.

build it together by @ckerouac (Din & Grogu, Gen, 2k, Post-Season/Series 03, Family)

The house itself is small, but the two of them have never needed much space. After the events on Mandalore, Din and Grogu start to build their life on Nevarro.

cookies (to share) by @hinderr (Din & Grogu, Gen, 5k, Family Feels)

Happy Valentines day. You are loved <3 - Four things that Din Djarin learns, and one thing that Grogu Djarin has always known

[raptorrobot]

hi hi hello it’s long ask anon, over here as prophesied approximately ten minutes ago :]

first: i LOVE the idea of gabriel losing his mind over the smallest shred of approval from daedalus. you saying he’d call gabriel “champ” made me think of the next step which is “son” (as like a generic term)…gabriel’s helmet instantly starts pouring with tears and daedalus is like “…did i break him???”

second: please absolutely feel free to take the icarv1el ship name!! also now i’m imagining icarus and v1 like. both just staring at gabriel no movement no expression. he is so unsettled XD

third: how would icarus feel if he knew about all of the humans who love him so much (the many violent sun fans)? would he be concerned? flattered? something else entirely?

fourth: reread violent sun chapter 18 recently. going insane over icarus tapping gabriel’s helmet and saying that a bird visits him every so often. like i know this man is an aroace king but somehow he’s still got insane flirting skills. how. somebody send help my object collision is failing just thinking about it

bonus round: both of your hideous mass videos made me laugh, thank you for posting them!! evil nasty lobster. it’s so mean…

(also i keep calling icarus “the ick” in my head now. i have been infected with the Ick Disease. i will not be seeking treatment /j)

thank you again for being so nice and friendly i really appreciate it! in case it wasn’t obvious i am a little bit shy so i appreciate the warm welcome to the Icarus Fanclub :D

my eyes comically lit up in delight when i saw 'long ask anon' in the preview of this ask . hi hello !!! welcome back !!!! i love this more than anything !!!!!!!

i want nothing more in the world than to be able to speak to my own character so i can tell him how many people love him . seeing people relate to icarus' struggles and adore him all the more for it makes my heart feel funny in the best possible way <3 and he would be so happy to know !!! because he has believed himself unworthy of connection and love for most of his life !!!! and knowing that he is loved so dearly by so many people might just change that :']

and, on another note; yes it is completely canon that icarus has insane rizz (icarizz, if you will) . it's just effortless for him due to the way he talks - he's very eloquent and poetic with his words and actions !! while a good chunk of it is unintentional, he knows what he's doing to gabriel, and that is riling that angel up to get a reaction out of him even if it's not driven from a place of attraction !! he still finds gabriel cute though. in the same way one would find a puppy or perhaps kitten cute

thankyou long ask anon for yet another pseudo-psychoanalysis of the Ick. i adore every word of them

[modern-inheritance]

Rank at least 5 characters in the order of how much you love them. Then do the same but with how much your au changed them compared to the canon ♥️

Ooo that's hard. We can start with the obvious and somewhat less obvious:

Loved Characters:

Arya. My girl, my badass crazy elf chick, my damaged string bean, the person who kicks me in the head at night, the character that got me into writing when I had spent my entire life abohoring writing my own words in all forms.

Brom. What can I say? He's everyone's dad.

Saphira! Sassy! Young, definitely wise beyond her years, but still young.

Here's where you typically lose me, or I lose you. but! we will indeed continue, with the ones that make people question my sanity:

4. Durza. Delightfully, deliciously evil, and just for the sake of being so. Many doors opened for me to explore due to this thing's depravity. 5. Uuuuuuuuuh. You know what? Yeah! Eragon! He learns! And he loves learning! How slow and painful his life would have been without the space, opportunity and means to explore himself and the world the way he did through his travels and training with Saphira! He hungers for knowledge, the hows and whys. And though he's young, and he makes mistakes, he learns from them and takes responsibility as he matures. And I have mad respect for all of that.

Rankings by MIC Character Changes:

Arya. Yeaaaah. I know we know very little of her true history and life, but MIC was sorta started as a way to explore PTSD and Arya's life. She's far more brash, wild and spitfire in MIC, but, when you look at how she acts when in 'public' in MIC (and I've not...really...written anything that shows this yet I'm realizing), she's damn near the same to her canon counterpart when acting as combat liaison officer in the public/court/official eye. But I wanted to give her space to breathe, I guess, and a chance to process and go through her trauma. Iunno. I prefer my version of her to the canon, but without the canon I would't have her!

Brom. There is a lot that you guys haven't seen or heard about Brom that I've had planned for years. A few moments that I have in mind: We get Brom's rage-revenge years in the pre-Eragon/pre-war era stories of Arya and the Squaddies. Brom causing the death of civilians, including children in a pinpoint focused drive to capture/kill an agent of a Forsworn that was using a town as a meatshield, so he lies to Arya about there being no one else in the building they need to target so that she'll agree to allow him to cast magic through her (conduit casting, useful for spellcasters who have a better understanding of a spell yet a weakened connection to magic but have access to a willing, stronger spellcaster who can open their mind to them to use their energy and 'scaffolding' in a way to channel the spell, or just to amplify a normal spell by 'bouncing' it around the 'scaffolding' and am i making sense it make sense to me i'll do more later sorry) but she senses the lie at the last moment due to their minds being linked which leads to an explosion due to the conflict between spell directing and yeah uh...things are bad between them for a while (this is the Thornwell incident mentioned in 'Collateral'). Brom, like Arya, is given a long stretch of time in Ellesmera and Eragon and Saphira's training where he has little to ground him or work to distract him and he eventually spirals into alcoholism, end of life ideation and is eventually chained to a toilet for a week or two to sober up and get his head on straight. Oh, and he lives. That's big.

Glenwing! We know absolutely nothing about Glenwing other than that he liked birds. I tried to give him a character, and while I do sometimes feel like I don't give him enough individuality, I'm trying to do that more often. He also lives, but like...only...if we're going by burn percentages for like body percentage then he lives only 91%. Cuz...the arm. Yeah.

I...don't have anyone really for four.

Eragon and Saphira! I know I don't show them much, but I feel like they stay fairly true to their baseline and merely branch out rather than be completely changed from their original. People can correct me on this though, if they can find enough posted material for either of them!

I can't even say I changed Durza, just...made him worse. Amplified his weird and ick and bad.

TORIN! JFC, I LITERALLY MADE ROSE GUY A CHARACTER.

I am low brain right now but thank you for your patience on this one, anon. It's very hard for me to actually pick up the changes after so long with MIC. I feel my versions are canon more often than not. Which might be why I'm having such a hard time finishing Murtagh.

Cheers mate! Thanks for the ask!

[zurajanaizurakoda]

A Villain With a Redemption Arc is Sometimes Still Just a Villain

Mature

Takazura NC Ginzura C

7285 words

non consensual/graphic depictions of violence/animal death/implied sex/explicit sex/implied rape/angst/series appropriate violence/canon major character death/child on child violence (non sexual)/hurt comfort/hurt no comfort/hurt with attempts at comfort/kids in a war/non consensual haircuts/healing/crossdressing/explicit language/sociopath Takasugi Shnsuke/top Takasugi Shinsuke/switch Gintoki Sakata/switch Katsura Kotarou/I’m trying to tag for everything I can think of/does anyone actually want this fic

In which Takasugi is a kid who breaks his toys and Katsura unfortunately fits his definition of a toy and Gintoki just doesn’t like to see Katsura hurt.  A very messy TakaZuraGin triangle with a surprisingly fluffy GinZura ending.  Starts at Shoka Sonjuku and goes past the end of of The Very Final.

---

It happens the first time a few days after they join the school.  Gintoki doesn’t get how things happened, really, they kind of showed up on their own and made themselves at home.  The one with purple hair is an exceptional asshole, he’s known that since before they joined, but the one with long hair is a total enigma.  All Gintoki knows about Kazura (Hashira? Something he can’t be bothered to remember) is that, like Gintoki, the kid is an orphan with no ties to the world, and unlike Gintoki, he’s got a talent for books that sets him apart from the rest of the class.  Gintoki can’t tell if the kid is a genius or an idiot, but he keeps to himself and seems to have a sadness that Gintoki somehow wishes he could help with.  Sensei saved him, he can help Zurrachi.  

But anyway, it’s a few days after they get there that Gintoki sees it first.  Katsuma is talking to one of the girls, probably about nothing, when suddenly Asshole stalks out of nowhere.  Makes a beeline for the two, marches straight up to Long Hair,  grabs a big handful, and pulls hard.  Lots of people tug at his hair, it’s playing, but this is different.  This is intended solely to hurt, badly.  The kid stumbles, his head pulled back so he’s forced to look at The Jerk, and they stare at each other for a few seconds.  Long hair glares.  Asshole glares worse.  Then Asshole lets go and walks off like nothing happened.  Long Hair watches him leave, confusion on his face, and then goes to fix his ponytail without a comment.  There was no need for that, Gintoki thinks, and feels a strange feeling that’s not quite pity.  He almost goes up to the boy, but doesn’t.  They don’t know each other.  Those two probably won’t stay long, they’re used to nicer stuff than this.

It’s about a year later that the next thing happens.  Zura (It’s Katsura, Gintoki knows that now, but hell if he’ll say it, that’s an old man’s name and Zura is no old man, even though he acts like one occasionally) has been taking care of a young bird he found out in the garden.  Its wing is broken, and Sensei helped him set it right.  He’s been so careful, scrounging for food and making sure to keep the box warm at night, and the bird seems to be improving.  It’s sort of sweet, Gintoki guesses, and is sort of glad that the weird kid has a hobby besides studying.  He doesn’t offer to help, but he finds himself keeping tabs on the box when Zura is busy.

So the next morning when the box is missing, he feels some of the panic Zura feels.  Offers to help him search the entire school, the surrounding grounds.  Neither of them finds anything, and Gintoki feels terrible when he sees the tears in the corners of Zura’s eyes.  He wishes he could do something.

That afternoon, the bird shows up lifeless on the porch.  It looks like its neck is broken.

Takasugi did it, Gintoki knows it, doesn’t know how he knows.  Wonders if Zura knows, considers telling him, thinks better of it.  He has no proof.  He offers to help Zura bury his pet, but Zura wants to do it himself.  He doesn’t cry, he cried while they were looking but now that it’s over he just seems sullen and resigned.  Gintoki watches him from a nearby tree and feels something confusing.  Not just sadness, but another feeling that seems to be specific to when he thinks of Zura.  He gets in a fight with Takasugi later that afternoon, lets his fists a little looser than he normally would.  It doesn’t help.

It’s not that Zura doesn’t think, Gintoki realizes eventually, it’s just that his thoughts go around in a different way, and sometimes something strange comes out.  They’re Zura thoughts, and they’re not really right or wrong, they’re just different.  Sensei seems to understand him best, and Zura is never happier than when he’s prattling on with Sensei about things no one else can seem to comprehend.  His smile makes those weird Zura-specific feelings come back sometimes, but it’s warm and happy, not like the twisted ones when Zura gets hurt.

Hair-pulling is something boys do when they like someone and don’t know what to say, one of the girls tells him, and if that’s true then Takasugi must have a mountain of Zura feelings bouncing around in him.  One day he sees Takasugi pull Zura’s hair so hard it drags him to the ground after Zura says something a little strange but inoffensive.  He punches Takasugi right in his stupid face, and they both get in trouble.  Zura brings him an onigiri while he’s in time out, but doesn’t bring one for Takasugi.  He likes that.

Zura fights back sometimes, but he never returns violence with violence, and he never goes to Sensei with his problems.  Gintoki thinks Sensei might have a suspicion, though, he seems to develop a sixth sense for appearing out of nowhere when Takasugi gets in one of his moods.  Takasugi never acts up when Sensei is there, Sensei seems to calm that part of Takasugi that makes him a total asshole.  Gintoki just wishes the effect didn’t wear off so quickly.

He hears a rumor a few months later.  Someone says that Takasugi kissed Zura that afternoon, back by the river.  Neither of them confirm it or deny it, but it sounds about right.  Gintoki feels Zura feelings and begrudgingly hopes they’re happy.  Sensei doesn’t say anything, but that night he rearranges the sleeping arrangements.  Zura’s futon is no longer next to Takasugi’s, but across the hall, with Gintoki.  Gintoki doesn’t like that, he hates the way Zura sleeps with his eyes open, but it seems a little weird that Sensei separated them.  Maybe he thinks they’re too young for these things.  If the kissing continues, Gintoki doesn’t hear about it.  Zura seems his usual, spacey self.  They certainly don’t act like a couple.  Gintoki wonders again if Takasugi feels Zura feelings, assumes he does, and wonders why they don’t make him want to be nicer to Zura.

The night Sensei is taken, Takasugi flips his shit.  Gintoki almost misses it because the world is fucking ending, but by the light of the fire he sees Takasugi go for Zura’s hair, pull him back until he’s almost bent in half, and punch him directly in the face.  “You did nothing!”  he screams.  “You just let them take Sensei!”  Zura was definitely crying before the punch, but he says nothing, just raises his arms to protect from further assault.  Takasugi pauses, screams in anger, and goes for another punch.  The second punch is worse, and they’re kids, they’re not too strong, but Zura is bleeding heavily from the nose as Takasugi lines up another punch.  Before Gintoki can even think, he’s by their side, pulling Takasugi off the other boy.

“No one could do anything!” he screams, pushing Takasugi to the ground.  Takasugi looks into his eyes, and there’s murder there.  He stands, and Gintoki moves instinctively to keep him from getting to Zura.  “It’s not his fault! The hell’s your problem?!”  Takasugi says nothing, just glares, and they both know there’s no reason for it.  Takasugi has something fucking in him for Zura, and Gintoki doesn’t know what it is, but he doesn’t like it.  He briefly remembers the kiss they might have shared, and doesn’t wish them happiness at all.  He wishes Takasugi would keep his fucking hands to himself.  Behind them, Zura fixes his ponytail, crying quietly.  He doesn’t say anything.

Gintoki catches them one day years later, while they’re supposed to be practicing.  Takasugi has Zura pinned against a tree, a big handful of Zura’s hair like usual, and they’re kissing deep.  Not the crush way, the lover way.  Zura’s grabbing the tree tightly with both hands like he’s afraid his legs will give out.  When they see him, they draw apart.  Zura’s face is red as he turns, fixing his hair.  Takasugi stares directly at Gintoki, and he hates it.  The Zura feelings are back, churning his stomach, and he almost calls out.  “Why this asshole?  You deserve better.”  But Zura is hurrying back to camp, and after a few moments Takasugi follows him.  Gintoki goes for a walk, burying his thoughts and feelings.  That night he moves his futon next to Zura’s, forget the weird wide-eyed sleeping.  This isn’t right, he thinks to himself.  This is wrong.

He doesn’t catch them again, and they still don’t act like a couple.  Zura still spends most of his time alone, studying.  He’s smart, Gintoki knows now, even if he can be a complete idiot and has terrible taste in men.  He brings Zura tea and waits to see if Zura wants to talk about his interruption, but Zura wants to study.

It’s not until the war that he gets the next bad feeling.  Takasugi and Zura left scouting in different directions, but they came back together.  Not really together together, but close enough they had to be aware of each other.  Zura is breathing a little heavily, his clothes look a bit disheveled for a scouting mission.  His hair is a mess, Gintoki realizes, and he hasn’t bothered to fix it.  He’s usually more careful about that.  Not just the Zura feelings but the this-is-wrong feelings are back in full swing.  Takasugi goes off on his own, Zura goes to his tent.  When he comes back out, he’s perfectly composed, no sign of distress.  He excuses himself to go to the planning tent.  On impulse, Gintoki grabs him by the shoulder, turns him to face him.  Zura’s eyes go a little wide, but he says nothing.  

“You deserve better,” he says, and feels disgusted with himself.  Zura just stares at him, those narrow brown eyes incomprehensible, and then turns away.  He wonders if he’d feel the same way if he didn’t want to kiss Zura too.  He’s pretty sure that he would.  They never speak of it again.

But it happens again.  Not often, but it does.  The sight of Zura’s hair messed up in his ponytail gets Gintoki riled up and he doesn’t know why.  No, he does know exactly why.  He just doesn’t know what to do about it.

Zura is off limits.  The new recruits often notice him, but he’s spoken for.  Everyone knows it, although no one knows quite how this knowledge is passed.  Zura spends most of his time alone, but sometimes when he’s not alone Gintoki notices Takasugi herding him off, keeping him separate.  Zura never joins the fireside for drinks after a battle, always goes straight to his tent.  Takasugi doesn’t even seem to want to spend the time together, he seems to just hate seeing Zura with others.  Gintoki’s not sure if it’s because of whatever the fuck their relationship is, or that part of Takasugi that just breaks Zura’s toys to hurt him, but it’s wrong.  He wonders how things got this way.  Sakamoto and him are the only ones who seem allowed to socialize with Zura outside of meetings and training, but Zura’s still spacey and often thinking Zura thoughts when he’s not reading.

The hair pulling should have gone away with childhood, but it doesn’t.  If anything, it gets worse.  One day, in the middle of a meeting, there’s an argument about tactics.  Takasugi wants blood, Zura wants safety for the troops. Neither is backing down, and the air is thick with tension, when suddenly Takasugi grabs a handful of the black hair and slams Zura’s head into the table at full force.  He holds it there, that look he gets sometimes that’s just seething hate, until the feeling passes, and then he turns and leaves without comment.  Zura’s fine, he’s always had the strongest forehead of anyone Gintoki’s met, but the glare he throws at Takasugi’s back as he fixes his ponytail definitely isn’t that of a lover.  Zura continues his presentation like nothing happened, and his plan is ultimately chosen.  Lives are probably saved.  Zura knows he deserves better, Gintoki thinks, and it somehow brings him some relief.  Gintoki brings him a bottle of pocari chilled to sherbert consistency  and waits for a while to see if he wants to talk, but he doesn’t.

Zura is a genius at getting information.  No one knows his methods, but he’s become a lead at intel.  He likes costumes, goes out in weird outfits sometimes.  One day he comes back to camp in a full western dress, complete with high heels,  fuck knows where he got them.  He walks well in them, even on the uneven ground of the camp.  It makes him walk differently, swaying his hips a little.  Gintoki doesn’t know if he likes it or not, but he follows Zura to his tent, transfixed.  Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Takasugi watching him as well, and when their eyes meet, Takasugi pulls his lips back in a sneer.  Gintoki hates that.  Hates it so much.  He finds reason to hang out around Zura’s tent until he comes back out in regular dress, happily showing Gintoki the small, round bombs he’s managed to steal from an enemy supplier.  His sleeves are full of them.  Gintoki feels the happy Zura feeling for the first time in a while.

—

It’s another night, deep into the war, when everything breaks.  They’re making their way back to camp separately after a battle, each on their own, when Gintoki hears it.  “No!  Shinsuke, no.”  He didn’t realize they were so close, just beyond some bushes.  He definitely didn’t realize they were together.  He turns, and through the leaves he sees Takasugi grab the other man by the hair like he always does, dragging him into a clearing, out of Gintoki’s sight.  Hand on his sword, Gintoki follows them, praying it’s not what it looks like.  It can’t be what it looks like.  Zura would have said something.  Zura would have said something to him, right?  His mind is suddenly going through a hundred conversations, trying to find a moment when he’d given Zura a reason not to come to him.  He trips on some roots, but the other two are apparently too locked in conversation to hear him crashing around.  He stumbles to his feet, cursing time lost.

“No!”  Zura repeats again, forcefully.  “It’s a fucking battlefield, Shinsuke.  Have some respect for the dead.”

There’s a sneer in Takasugi’s voice.  “You’ve always got to find something to bitch about.”

“I feel disgusting.  I’ve been fighting since morning.  No.”

“You’ve got a mouth, haven’t you?  Don’t go getting prissy on me now, Zura.  Be useful for a change.” 

“It’s not Zura, it’s Ka-!” there’s the sound of a heavy slap, and Zura must be going to the ground.  Zura’s a fighter, it takes a lot to throw him around.  Gintoki’s blood has been boiling for the whole conversation, but his vision goes red.  He rounds the corner to confront them.

Zura is on his knees, glaring at Takasugi.  His cheek is bright red and his hand is on the hilt of his sword, although he makes no effort to draw it.  Takasugi has his hand in Zura’s hair as usual, a big heavy fistful, and he’s holding Zura to his knees, close to his crotch.  Zura notices him first.  “Ginto-” he stops as the fist yanks him painfully, as Takasugi looks up.

“The fuck is this.”  Gintoki hisses, drawing his sword.  The hair on his arms is standing on end.

“None of your fucking business, Sakata.”  Takasugi drawls it out, like he merely interrupted a private conversation, but he throws Zura back to the ground.  Again, it’s not easy, it takes a lot of rage and muscle to throw the man and it must be fucking hell on his hair roots.  Gintoki finally has a solid image of how Zura’s hair ends up so tangled, and he’s furious. Takasugi’s sword is out, and his stance tightens when he realizes that Gintoki’s out for blood.  “Keep your nose out of things, Silver.”  They size each other up for a second.  In the back of his mind, Gintoki again wonders if Takasugi ever felt anything for Zura except the need to break, to destroy.  His blood rushes in his ears.  Zura gets to his feet.

“Gintoki, don’t-!”  It’s Zura’s plea for peace, of all things, that breaks his fury.  He swings at Takasugi, going straight for his heart.  Takasugi sidesteps, parries, thrusts.  They’ve fought before, even with live blades, but this is different. There’s no camaraderie, no sport.  This is life or death.  He takes a deep cut to the arm, screams, charges.  Zura tries to get between them.  Gintoki gets Takasugi in the side, turns his sword, goes for the throat.  Zura’s sword is drawn, but there’s not much he can do.  He calls again for an end.  

Gintoki is disarmed, and for a second it’s over, it’s all over, but he’s too fucking furious to die here and he launches himself at Takasugi, sword and all.  Knocks them both over.  Catches Takasugi off guard, straddles his chest, punches him full in the face.  Keeps punching as the blood spreads everywhere.  He’s going to obliterate that stupid fucking face, punch it until there’s nothing left, no skin, no bone.  He feels arms around his chest and almost takes a swing at Zura in his fury.  He’s dragged back.  “Fucking hell, Zura, let me go!”  he screams, thrashing to get back to his prey.  Zura is strong, as strong as either of them, and he pulls Gintoki off.  Gintoki screams in frustration.

“We need him!  We need him!”  Zura’s voice suddenly reaches him, and it’s such a fucking Zura response that it breaks him out of his stupor.  He looks at Zura, numb and broken.  “We need him,” Zura repeats, his eyes averted.  “He’s the best general we have.  His troops are unstoppable.”

“Fucking Zura…” he breathes, heart pounding in his chest, feelings screaming in his stomach.  “He…” he can’t find the words.  “He hurt you.”  he finally says.

“You think I don’t know that?” Zura replies, quiet and unknowable.  He doesn’t release his grip on Gintoki.  “We can’t have infighting like this, Gintoki.  We need to remain united.”

“How long? How fucking long?!”  Gintoki yells, turning and grabbing Zura by the shoulders.  “How long has he been-” he stops, teeth clenched.

Zura’s silence speaks volumes.  It’s always been like this, Gintoki realizes, there was no puppy love, no romance that went sour.  Because Zura always knew he deserved better and Takasugi never fucking cared.  It’s always been Takasugi claiming what he thought was his, breaking for the sake of breaking. Because whatever fucking beast got into him that sends him after Zura is always howling, be it for blood or otherwise.  And Zura, gods bless him, is just trying to make the best of a fucking terrible situation.  Maybe still trying to play the peacekeeper.  He thinks back to the day he found them kissing and wishes desperately he had killed Takasugi then.  

Takasugi groans behind them.  He’s done, he’s barely conscious, and Gintoki turns to him.  Picks up his sword, fully intending to thrust it directly into Takasugi’s bastard heart.

And then Zura is between them, sword in hand.  “We need him, Gintoki.”  he repeats.  “Please, don’t make me do this.  We have few enough men as it is.”  he shifts, feet going into an attack stance, and Gintoki knows he’s serious.  He’s dangerous.  “Don’t make me do this,” he repeats, voice wavering.  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Zura!!”

“It’s not Zura,” Zura hisses, “It’s Katsura.” he’s not backing down.

Gintoki goes through a thousand emotions at once.  He lets out a strange whine, finding no words.  Zura hesitantly lowers his sword slightly, steps forward.  His face is conflicted, like he’s seeking approval, god knows what for.  Zura’s been through fucking hell, he probably doesn’t want to lose his one real friend.

Gintoki grabs him by the wrist and runs.

“Gintoki, wait! Gintoki-” Zura trips after him.

He won’t allow it.  He can see Zura on his knees, treating Takasugi, washing the blood from his face, bandaging him with strips of his clothing.  Playing the goddamn peacekeeper because he doesn’t know how else to live.  He can’t take that, Gintoki knows.  He’ll go insane if Zura nurses the man from the wounds he got trying to hurt him.  He doesn’t stop running, doesn’t listen to Zura until they’re at his tent, safely back at camp.  He stops there and lets go of Zura’s wrist, and stands there uselessly, not sure what to say.  They both stand there, catching their breath.

Zura finally meets his eyes, seems to have questions, decides not to ask them.  He enters the tent without complaint and lights his lantern.  Through the fabric, Gintoki can see him sit at his trunk of belongings, combing his hair back into place like it’s any other night.  He reads before going to sleep.  Gintoki feels sick, feels furious, feels lost.  The Zura feelings are choking him and he doesn’t know what to do.  He sleeps outside of Zura’s tent that night.

Takasugi stumbles back into camp the next day like he’s drunk.  They fight again, but there’s no teeth to it, it’s just going through the motions.  Sakamoto breaks them up, and Gintoki makes sure to eat dinner with Zura, although they don’t talk.  He moves his tent next to Zura’s that afternoon, not really knowing what he’s doing.  Something has changed, something they can’t get back.  He just doesn’t want to see Zura hurt.

“I don’t hate him,” Zura says out of the blue one day, while they’re scouting.  He says it like they’re discussing the weather, and it takes a minute to realize who he’s referring to.  “I don’t like him, but I don’t hate him.  It’s complicated,” he drinks a can of Pocari.  Gintoki grunts, not knowing what to say at first.

“I hate him,” he announces.  “I’ll hate him enough for the both of us.  I’ll kill that fucker one day.”

Zura turns to him.  “Do you… hate me?”  he finally asks.  He’s thinking Zura thoughts, as usual, and he seems troubled in a way only Zura can be.  He makes eye contact, a rarity these days, and his eyes are full of secret conflict.

Gintoki snarls, goes through a levy of emotions.  Draws Zura into a hug before he realizes he’s doing it.  “Like I could ever hate you, you idiot,” he breathes, looking into the deep brown eyes.  Zura is still thinking, he doesn’t know what about, and he wants to kiss him more than he’s ever wanted anything but he doesn’t know how to ask and he doesn’t want to take, so he kisses Zura’s dumb forehead gently through the thick bangs and then releases him.  Zura continues watching him until he turns and goes back to camp alone.  Another understanding passes between them, though he’s not quite sure what it is, and Zura stops acting like he’s walking on eggshells around him.  Gintoki is silently grateful.

It doesn’t happen again, at least Gintoki doesn’t think it does, and he’s been keeping an eye out for it now.  He finds reasons to stay with Zura, even when they’re fighting.  Every time he sees Zura’s hair disheveled, bile rises in his throat, even when he knows it’s not Takasugi’s handiwork.  Takasugi continues to fight like a demon, his favorite distraction taken from him.  He doesn’t confront them, although sometimes Takasugi looks at Zura and it makes Gintoki furious.  He hates how cold the eyes are.  Takasugi’s never felt fucking Zura feelings in his fucking life.

He’ll kill that fucker someday.

But they’re all Shouyou’s students on the hillside, and he can feel Takasugi’s pain when he howls for their master.  He unties Takasugi first, gods know why.  He’s hurt badly, he needs to punch Gintoki.  Gintoki gets it, he really does.  A few punches will do wonders for him.

Takasugi pushes him out of the way and goes straight for Zura who’s still on the ground, still bound.  “This is your fucking fault!” he screams, his voice as broken as it was when he was yelling for Gintoki to stop.  “You were the one that got captured!  We were rescuing you!”  he grabs a huge fistful of Zura’s hair and pulls him to his knees, drawing his sword.  “This is your fucking fault!”  Zura doesn’t react.

He’s going to kill Zura, Gintoki thinks, heart in his throat.  Takasugi’s going to fucking kill Zura and I’m going to kill him and this whole fucking thing will have been for nothing.  It’s his own fucking fault, he knows fucking Takasugi has it in for Zura, what the fuck was he thinking?! He killed sensei for this! But as he raises, drawing his sword, running to help, his mind already focusing on losing the last two people he knows in the world, Takasugi pulls back harder and draws his blade through Zura’s long, beautiful hair.

The ponytail comes off in his hand, and Zura falls back to the ground, his face covered by his now short hair.  He doesn’t struggle, doesn’t even move.  Takasugi stands up, throws the ponytail on the ground and spits.  Gintoki doesn’t know why he did it.  Likely Takasugi himself doesn’t know.  He’s just  always had it in for fucking Zura, breaking things just to have them broken.  There’s something strangely intimate and violating in the action, something very Takasugi about it.  He’s always gone for Zura’s hair and now he’s taken it all.  Gintoki still rises, puts himself bodily between the two men in case Takasugi isn’t done yet.

But something has changed, something in Takasugi has snapped, even more than it had been.  His beast has grown too savage to be quelled by Zura’s blood, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.  When Takasugi speaks, he addresses Zura, not him.  “You’re no samurai.  You’re fucking dirt.  You’re nothing.”  he snarls.  “Don’t ever show your face before me again.”  he storms off.

Gintoki stays, unties Zura, who looks strange and somehow vulnerable with his hair shorn short and uneven.  Zura doesn’t cry, still does nothing. He thanks Gintoki blankly, looks at the handful of his hair like he’s debating picking it up, and then turns to go back to camp without it.  Gintoki follows and hates himself.

Zura goes back to camp to stay, goes back to his position, back to his job.  Gintoki sticks around for a few days, just to make sure Takasugi Isn't coming back. He’s not.  His reasons for staying are gone.  Zura evens out his hair, but it’s still a reminder of things they lost.  There’s not enough for even a small ponytail, and he seems unanchored, his hands twitching to the short strands often.  There’s a loss there he’s still processing, both tangible and intangible.  Zura thoughts.  They don’t discuss Sensei.  They don’t really talk at all.  Sakamoto has been gone for a while now.  Zura seems to spend a lot of time thinking Zura thoughts, and Gintoki suspects that those thoughts are bad.  It’s not something he can help with.

“I’m sorry,” he says, the day he leaves, his few possessions on his back.

“I’m sorry too,” Zura says before turning back to camp.  That’s what a general does.  The war is effectively over, but a general doesn’t abandon his troops. 

They don’t see each other for ten years.

—

Gintoki isn’t surprised at all to see Zura’s a terrorist, he’s seen the wanted posters the last few years, hasn’t he?  Zura’s buried hundreds, maybe thousands of comrades over the years, and it obviously still affects him deeply.  He’s still a goddamn general, lost war and all.  Gintoki is actually a little surprised that Zura specifically seeks him out, he figures he’s nothing but a very bad memory.  He tries to talk some sense into Zura, tries to get him to put down his unmanageable burden, and isn’t surprised when Zura bristles in response.  

He is surprised again when Zura remains in his world, albeit the very furthest reaches.   When Zura helps him rescue what he's begrudgingly beginning to see as his children. He gets a massive space duck, of all things, and somehow that seems to mellow him out.  The duck seems to be able to keep up with his weirdest thoughts the way no one but Sensei has, and they’re a dangerous pair but Gintoki’s glad he has a hobby that’s not twisting the knife in his own back.

The Zura feelings still bubble up occasionally, and sometimes, especially when Zura is being particularly silly, he’s surprised to find he still wants to kiss the man.  And sometimes, especially when Zura is being particularly silly, he gets a strange feeling that Zura wants to kiss him too.  He doesn’t act on it, doesn’t believe either of them ever will, but it’s nice.

He wonders idly what the duck would say.

Gintoki goes crazy when he sees the hair in Nizou’s hand, sees him rub it against his face.  He knows Zura isn’t dead, he can’t be, Zura’s gone through worse shit than this.  Gintoki has seen Zura’s intestines peeking through a slash in his stomach, prayed to gods he didn’t believe in, and grieved for the loss of his friend, and Zura has gotten better.  Zura’s alive somewhere, and he’s been savaged again.  Something’s been taken from him.  He’s probably alone, and Gintoki wishes he could be wherever that is.  He swings at Nizou blindly, he fights on instinct, he doesn’t really realize how badly he’s injured until the fight is over.  Zura is alone out there somewhere alone, while Gintoki’s friends care for him.

Then Zura’s on the boat, and he’s injured, but he holds his head high and his sword steady.  Gintoki knows something has transpired between him and Takasugi again, but it doesn’t seem to rest heavy on Zura’s shoulders.  They fight back to back for the first time in ten years, and Gintoki realizes he knows the familiar footwork like it was yesterday.  He’s hurt badly, but he’s enjoying himself.  He wonders briefly if Takasugi ordered his minion to take Zura’s hair, or if there’s just something about massive assholes and Zura’s topknot.  Zura doesn’t seem as bothered this time and Gintoki is just glad to see him in one piece.

Zura jumps off the boat, and Gintoki follows him, not quite sure what his plan is.  It doesn’t seem quite as stupid before he realizes they’re hundreds of feet above the water.  He clings to Zura for dear life and wonders if this is the end.

Then a parachute opens, and they’re gliding.  He continues his death grip on Zura as they float to the water.  Zura talks to him, words tearing away in the wind, something about their books from school.  Gintoki’s is gone.  He’s not surprised that Zura still has his.  Zura doesn’t let go easily.

They reach the ground, and Gintoki is slow to let go of Zura.  They’re both alive, against all odds, and he hasn’t felt this weird rush in years.  The parachute ride only seemed to intensify the feeling, and literally clinging to Zura’s body for several minutes has had an effect on him.  Zura’s hands are on his shoulders, but he’s not pushing him off.  They stay that way for a while.  

The Zura feelings are stronger than they’ve been since the war, and Gintoki doesn’t fight them, just lets them flow through his body.  He runs his fingers through Zura’s cropped hair and catches his breath, feels Zura’s chest heaving against his.  He still doesn’t know how to ask and he still doesn’t want to take, but when Zura pulls him closer their lips meet and something breaks and he’s clawing, grasping desperately for Zura, who holds him tight.  They kiss like they’re fighting, rough and needy, and nothing’s felt this right since before the war, since they were somewhat innocent kids against a heartless fucking world.

They make love for the first time in the rocks by the harbor, smelling of blood and sea breeze, loving and hurting and feeling, and it’s awkward and uncomfortable, but it’s wonderful.  He loves the noises Zura makes, the way he moves against him, the obvious need in his actions.  The tired smile Zura gives him at the end is amazing.

They don’t spend long there, they’re both bleeding out, and Zura’s men are apparently searching for them because by the time they reach pavement there’s a truck there with men and medical supplies and the weird massive duck that’s always following Zura.  Who knows how it got here from the ship.  He doesn’t really know what Zura’s up to these days, doesn’t really want to know, but he’s got enough power and connections to get a sterile blood infusion started in the back of the truck, and Gintoki badly needs blood.  Zura holds his hand while the liquid fills his starving veins, and it feels nice.  The hand, that is, he can’t really feel the blood.  Zura drops him off at his place with hospital grade antibiotics and painkillers that he thinks are amanto, but gods they work well so he doesn’t care.  Zura goes back to his insurgents and his duties and his space duck, and Gintoki goes back to his kids.  But there’s been yet another shift in his relationship with Zura, and this one seems like a really good thing.

He finds out later from the kids that Zura went after Takasugi, tried to talk to him like a comrade, and only got his head promised to the Harusame out of the deal.  Gods know what he was thinking, maybe about their childhood, maybe about Sensei.  Maybe just some missguided need to play the peacemaker again after all these years.  Maybe because, despite everything that happened, Zura doesn’t hate Takasugi.  It’s complicated, Zura had said, and that’s likely the tip of an iceberg that will never quite surface.  He doesn’t ask.

The sex happens a few more times, and they don’t really plan it, but it’s nice.  Zura shows up for no reason out of nowhere more often, space duck normally in tow, and that’s nice too.  Gintoki doesn’t like the war and doesn’t like that Zura’s still fighting it, but he does what he wants and he can’t really give Zura shit for doing what he wants.  Zura never stopped fighting, doesn’t know how to stop fighting, Gintoki knows.  But sometimes when he rests, he rests with Gintoki, and it’s nice.

One day he happens upon Zura, In full women’s clothes, again with the heels.  He’s off gathering information, somehow, but when Gintoki meets him they end up paying for a sleazy hotel even though both of them are flat broke.  Gintoki isn’t confused this time, he really likes the way Zura can walk in the shoes, the swivel it puts in his hips.  He laughs when Zura won’t let him tear the pantyhose off him, says he still needs those for his mission.  Zura laughs too, and Gintoki loves the sound as they both work to get the garments off without leaving runs.  He doesn’t mind a bit when Zura takes control of the situation and fucks him roughly in a skirt that barely covers his toned thighs.

He feels weird on Rakuyou when they meet up with Takasugi again, but Zura takes it in stride.  He spits in Sakamoto’s face just like Gintoki, and Takasugi doesn’t go after him like he used to.  His beast has shifted, smelling new blood, and he pursues Utsuro with his usual single mindedness.  Gintoki still keeps between them, feels his blood racing when they get close.  It almost seems unfair that Takasugi takes so little interest in Zura after all the shit he pulled.  Gintoki wonders again if he ever had feelings for Zura besides the desire to see him break, and it makes his blood boil.  Zura’s good, though, and if he’s having his Zura thoughts it’s not overwhelming him.  Gintoki’s surprised when Zura engages in some light flirting, but it warms his heart.  Life goes on, and flowers can bloom in the worst adversity.  He still hates Takasugi.

Something has passed between Zura and Takasugi again when he wasn’t looking, but he doesn’t get the chance to ask.  The assassination wasn’t real, Zura is still here, the feelings that he felt about Zura’s death are over before he has a chance to process them.  He thinks Takasugi’s taken something from Zura again, or at least tried to, but Zura’s gotten stronger.  He hasn’t given anything.  They run for the terminal, reunited as Shouyou’s students once more.  

He doesn’t approve when Zura decides to stay in the ship as it’s coming down, but he does his own shit and he can’t really say anything when Zura does his own.  Zura’s the lowest in the ship when it goes down, and it takes a while to find him under the wreckage.  He’s fine, not a scratch on him despite the literal tons of metal that fell around him.  His brown eyes find Gintoki’s, and he’s obviously still processing what happened.

Gintoki offers him a hand.  “Takasugi is dead,” he says, although he’s pretty sure Zura already knows, and Zura just nods absently in response.

“I didn’t hate him,” Zura replies after a long bout of very strong Zura thoughts, his hand raising to his hair and running his fingers through it distractedly like he’s surprised he kept it this time.  “I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t hate.”  he twists a finger in his long hair and he tugs it.  “In some ways, I pitied him.”

Zura takes his hand, and Gintoki helps him to his feet.  “I hated him,” he says, and finds it’s true even if it’s not as strong as it used to be, “but I think I understand him better.”

“He always had a beast in him,” Zura replies, head still very much full of Zura thoughts, hopefully not too bad, “even when he was little.  Something he couldn’t control.”  He looks over the wreckage with his eyes that always seem so old and wisened yet blissfully empty.  “You were right, Gintoki.  Sensei was still there.  I didn’t expect to see him again.”  He closed his eyes.  “Thank you, Gintoki.”

Gintoki smiles, feeling an openness he hasn’t felt in years, and impulsively places a kiss on Zura’s long hair, somewhere around his temple.

“Do you two need a moment?”  comes a voice from behind them.  He forgot he has his kids with him. He turns.

“Come on, you’re sixteen now!  That’s old enough for an R15 doujinshi!  You can handle a little kissing!” he protests, and then, because it feels like an important moment and he doesn’t want to let it slip away, he turns Zura’s face and kisses him properly on the mouth for good measure.  Kagura whoops, Zura blushes slightly, Shinpachi just seems like he saw it coming.  He puts an arm around Zura, both supporting him and being supported by him.  They’ve been through some shit, yet again.  This time, however, it seems like things will finally go back to normal, or a new normal.  And, hey, maybe Zura can be a more prominent part of this new normal.  “Are we done here?”  he asks Zura.

Zura looks like he’s burying a lot of things that needed to be buried, both in life and in his private Zura thoughts.  He smiles at Gintoki.  “I’m done,” he says.  They leave together, and Zura spends the night at the Yorozuya even if Gintoki doesn’t have a room anymore and they end up sleeping across the table from each other on separate couches.  Elizabeth shows up in the morning with lots of questions about the happenings after the assassination attempt, and the four explain it together.  It’s nice, Gintoki thinks, and feels the warm Zura feelings of childhood.

Zura (It’s Katsura if he really wants it to be, Gintoki has finally decided, he just doesn’t know how to break the news.  It feels like it has to be special, like pulling out a ring) is doing some weird vigilante shit, and Gintoki doesn’t really understand it but he guesses it’s fine.  Zura always had a lot of weird Zura energy and weird Zura thoughts, and they need an outlet, even if he’s conquered the country and reformed the government he was trying to change.  It gives him time with his precious duck, and that seems to be important for proper Zura enrichment.

The duck, by the way, turns out to be a more enthusiastic wingman than even Kagura is.

Zura’s still wanted, maybe, it’s hard to tell, but it’s difficult to arrest a guy who has coffee with the princess on a weekly basis and constantly texts Shimaru memes.  He doesn’t bother to wear disguises anymore, although he sometimes does for fun, and Gin isn’t a bit surprised when he comes to Zura’s apartment and sees a pair of red heels next to the sandals in the entrance.  Zura’s a champ in them, and they make his calves look nice.

He’s been spending a lot of time at Zura’s place.  Can you blame him?  He doesn’t have a room anymore.  They have sex, and sometimes it’s still frantic and needy, but sometimes it’s also gentle and silly.  Sometimes they just make out and watch reruns.  He’s learned the ins and outs, the scars and muscles of Zura’s body, and he finds it’s comfortable to just be with the man for the sake of being with him.  He gets the warm Zura feelings in his chest often, and he’s beginning to admit that it’s what he always suspected: love.

And Zura?  He still has Zura thoughts, a lot of them, and Gintoki doesn’t really understand them any more than he did when they were kids, but he doesn’t seem to have many of the bad ones.  He doesn’t just go away from himself for no reason.  He’s healing, Gintoki realizes, and maybe he doesn’t have to keep busy every second of his life just to keep from thinking bad thoughts.  Zura enjoys being with him just for the sake of being together.  Zura, Gintoki thinks, probably loves him at least a little too.

Sakamoto said that Sensei was living in the altana of the planet, watching over them, and that he wants them to be happy.  Maybe, just maybe, he’s smiling at the thought of his students finally finding some real happiness after all the shit that’s happened.  

And that’s not a miracle.  That’s just what Senseis do.

—

This is partially because I went trolling through Gintama doujinshi and most of the Katsura ones seem to be him in a fucking awful toxic relationship with Takasugi and that’s just the way it goes and I know that’s kind of the point of the doujinshi because that’s just how they are but it somehow got into my brain.  Then it went Ginzura because that’s the way my brain goes these days and I’m secretly terrified that Katsura is in love with Gin and Gin isn’t in love with Katsura and I just want my boy Zura to be happy (despite the fact that all my fics right now are about him being miserable)  I think the end is too fluffy for the beginning, but it’s hard not to get a little silly when you get into the actual series and I can’t just write Elizabeth off because I’m convinced Elizabeth is essential to Katsura’s mental health.  Speaking of Katsura’s mental health, I don’t have any official diagnosis but he’s definitely got some PTSD (who doesn’t in this series) and he’s definitely disassociating during some of his Zura moments but he’s also neurodivergent and probably genderfluid. Poor boy needs someone to understand him.

I’m going to be real, I have no idea what happened during the Prime Minister Assassination scene.  I’ve watched the movie and read the manga several times, but I’m not sure what’s in it for Katsura (He says they were working together?) and I’m not really sure if Takasugi came into it with an intention to kill, but it seems like he did?  But my boy seems to have gotten through it just fine?  I really like to think that Gin went in to kill when he thought Takasugi killed Katsura, although I don’t know if he even knew.

And I’ll be real, I didn’t really think about medically inadvisable grievous injury sex after the Benizakura Arc but I watched the movie version while I was writing this and you can’t tell me at least one of them didn’t get a boner during the parachute scene.  Even if they were both stone cold straight it would happen. 

Sensei totally ships GinZura.  Not up for debate.

If you like the idea of Katsura and Gin fucking more explicitly and with less angst, I’d recommend you check out my blog because I’m bad at math but I think it’ll be about a month before I get an invitation to AO3 so I don’t really know where to post fics.  Political Lessons are Only Important if you can Hold Your Listener's Attention in particular I’m proud of.

[chateau-dilf]

One thing about me is I will NOT waste an opportunity to yap about birds 👀

Firstly I narrowed down choices on a location basis, both to make my life easier and because I like the geographical accuracy. I spent a long time scrolling the Collins bird guide app with the location filter set to France, experiencing some jealousy lol, Continental Europe has so many gorgeous birds.

Edmond could only ever be a sea bird. I briedly considered shags and cormorants but they felt too sedentary. Pre-prison Edmond is excited to live & fulfill his dreams and something about the way terns streak through the skies, slender and elegant, their entire existence revolving around life at sea, felt very Edmond. Aside from that I knew I could make a good Edmond design from a sandwich tern thanks to their partially black heads, I personally find species with areas of black more fun to work with. I did consider finding something with a smaller beak to make potential mask disguises easier but nothing else suited him as well as a tern.

Fernand as a hoopoe happened for two reasons: the first is self indulgent and purely because they're orange and a bit prettyboy which is just me leaning into a certain type of character I'm very fond of (though it does suit him), but also I very heavily associate hoopoes with Spain. I took my first steps on a holiday to Spain as a baby, and my parents always remind me they saw a hoopoe there, and I like to think I technically saw it too. So to me, though hoopoes are found across Europe, it's a nod to his Catalan origins. Entirely coincidentally I have a hoopoe as a minor character in my personal project who is Spanish and I realised shares the initials FM, lol. I think I must be quite prone to associations.

Mercéd��s ties into my decision for Fernand also, I realised if I made him a hoopoe I could make her a bee-eater, since those two species are in the same clade, in reference to them as cousins in canon (shakes my head so the audience knows I disagree but I'm still giggling.) Depending on what I do with this au I'd consider changing that fact but it amused me to link them by species. Also, bee-eaters are gorgeous, and again I felt I could bring a good design for her out of one. Long hair is very hard to design when it comes to birds but it helps that bee-eaters already have a distinct red/brown head.

Villefort was the most fun to draw but the hardest to assign, Ross wanted a bird of prey but I couldn't find one that really felt very him and I also inexplicably dislike drawing raptors (love them, it's just really hard) but I was very drawn to the black grouse and capercaillie. This was mostly a colour association based decision, though their courtship behaviour suits him (that man has such unprecedented rizz??) and in deciding between the two I realised I had no idea how to draw their eye wattles so went with the capercaillie instead.

Danglars was also really fun to draw, I wanted him to be a thick beaked species for the potential for harm but not something with any real grandeur, he is only a baron after all. So a passerine felt right, and I've heard a story about a Hawfinch taking out a sizeable chunk of someone's hand before.

I'm yet to draw Haydée but she'll be a laughing dove. I suppose I could have chosen something with a 'more beautiful' song but I think they're really lovely looking birds, plus they're only found sparsely across Greece, Türkiye and further south in Africa so to the other characters would appear striking. I never like to only use the 'coolest' birds in my projects and I felt something more 'unassuming' for her would be nice, especially a pigeon. It's pro-pigeon propaganda. Plus nothing else particularly grabbed me for her, I might've considered a falcon of some sort if I wasn't averse to drawing them.

Hits them with the birdification beam 💥

[chaosnojutsu]

You're a Neji Scholar right. What the hell was up with his chuunin exams outfit. In particular. What were those two dangly bits supposed to be. the ones coming off of his headband (?)

dear anon i have been waiting for this moment

there’s a lot to unpack here. i have a lot of thoughts about his whole ensemble but i’m going to try to stay focused on your ask (unless you’d like to hear the rest)

first, the fit in question:

headgear: when i first saw neji’s design (the straps in particular), knowing nothing about his abilities, this is what my mind immediately went to:

a pilot’s aviator hat.

now there’s some fun symbolism we can dive into there (i.e. the goggles which would protect the eyes, which turned out to be the source of neji’s abilities; the “avi-” latin root referring to birds, and the direct connection to neji being a “caged bird” and also his interest in birds; etc.)

let’s briefly take it a step further and look at what a pilot would wear with a hat like that.

a heavy, neutral-toned coat with a wide collar and a zipper down the middle.

think about what a pilot does. a plane is no more a bird than neji is a canonical pilot, but the pilot is the one flying the plane. if neji is both the pilot and the caged bird, then he is in control of what the plane does. aka his entire genin character arc.

maybe his head straps were a fun nod to this design, but i don’t think that’s the extent of it.

so now let’s take a look at what another explanation may be:

the straps are actually connected to a secret head strap above his bandages and below his shinobi headband.

since literally no other character wears one of these secret headbands (including the ones who actually wear their headband on their head, like tenten and kiba and shino), i don’t think neji wears this head strap in any relation to standard shinobi-wear.

i think the head strap has to do more with the bandages hiding his curse mark.

the head strap *could* just be a measure to hold his bandages in place under his ninja headband, but there’s nothing securing any of his other bandages (or anyone else’s, for that matter). i think it’s more of a resistance thing than anything else. like, maybe his ninja headband keeps slipping off his head due to the fact that there’s no direct contact with his skin. the strap runs interference and gives his headband something to cling to so it stays in place.

and this line of thinking makes the most sense to me because guess what accessory neji loses in his glow up?

the head strap.

guess what else he isn’t wearing under that headband.

bandages.

he can’t get rid of the mark itself but he DID lose the shame associated with it once he realized that his life is in his hands regardless of what others may do to him, so he stopped wearing the bandages to hide it.

(the alternative theory here is that the bandages are only a necessity when the curse mark has been recently activated, implying that his clan really *did* start to change their ways as the series progressed… and that neji also had to do his first chunin exams while recovering from literal psychic damage.)

take that how you will :)

-char (Neji Scholar™️)

[razorblade180]

Actor Au 4

Number 3 <-

Adam:*strumming guitar*

Ruby:This is how he gets in character for monologue scenes. Sad Spanish guitar evens outs his mood to find the pace he wants to speak at.

Yang:*listening peacefully*

Ruby:This breaks Yang’s character as you can tell by the zero hate in her eyes for him right now. It’s all good though! Her scene with Blake is up next so it all works out!

xxxx

Interviewer:Is there any film magic you could share with people?

Mercury:Well I wouldn’t exactly call this film magic, but I do remember an interesting bit at the end of volume 5.

Emerald:Oh my god…*covers face* Here we go.

Mercury:So umm…hehehe the scene where the camera is super close up on Emerald right before she creates the big illusion, the audio is actually separate from video entirely because Emerald for whatever reason could not give a realistic distress filled scream.

Emerald:Don’t make it sound easy! Okay so listen, an emotional scream is actually really hard. It has to be loud enough, in character, sound appropriate; it’s a lot. And you don’t want to kill your voice!

Interview:So where did the scream come from, because that sounded like your voice.

Mercury:So we’re all taking a lunch break. Emerald was taking a breather; other scenes were being shot. *smiles* So I thought to myself “oh I know how to get a good scream out of her.” Then I book it to Tyrian’s trailer and ask “hey man, can I borrow Lilly for a moment. Emerald has to scream.”

Emerald:And for those who don’t know, Lilly is Tyrian’s pet python that he brings to set!

Mercury:He gave me the thumbs up and then got one of our kind audio staff members to already be in place. I put Lilly right in between the screen door and actual door of Emerald’s trailer.

Emerald:No no no, don’t sound less evil than you are. This…criminal.

Mercury:Hahahaha!

Emerald:Told me get his charger out of my trailer so he knew I’d be in and out within seconds. I probably only walked two feet inside before I turned around to see this big ass snake in my face!

Hazel:*off camera* Everyone stopped filming! I was mid line and then suddenly a murder was happening.

Emerald:Worst part, the scream is both mine, and what you hear from Salem but pitched.

Mercury:I call that two birds with one stone. Also she didn’t break up with me so clearly the bond is strong.

Emerald:Oh hush!

xxxxx

Climatic music!!!

Qrow:Ruby!!!!

Argus robot: *charging canon*

Ruby:*takes deep breath*

Gun jams

…….

Ruby:……Welp, guess I die.

Director:Cut!!!

Crew laughing

Ruby:Come on now! Of all the scenes! All the moments!

Qrow:What do mean, Ruby dies here now. Six volumes was all you got.

Ruby:Apparently! Imagine that. I’m all like “watch this!” Dies. Forget grimm, it’s the gun jamming that are the real killers.

xxxxx

Salem’s lieutenants sitting at the table.

Salem:*slowly walking to front*……All of you were supposed to stand so I can sit you down.

Watts:God damnit!

Cinder:See I thought I was crazy because I almost stood, but no one else moved!

Tyrian:First scene of volume 4, everyone ignores script.

xxxxx

Weiss:I’ve done nothing but uphold my family name. A name you married- don’t slap! Wait! Cut! *covers face* time out. *laughing*

Whitley:*off camera* What happened!?

Jacques:Pffft, what’s wrong!?

Weiss:You know what! Y’all can’t see it from this angle, but he’s wiggling his mustache!

Jacques:*laughing* That’s the sign for the slap!

Weiss:I wasn’t done with the line yet but saw your arm tense up!

Jacques:Hahahaha! I’m sorry, it’s just your face went from attitude to “oh shit” in a second! *pats head*

Weiss:Ugh…I’m so exhausted now.

xxxxx

Ruby:People always ask how I push myself further when stunts get crazy.

Neo:*in a wig* She pushes her recliner back and watches me!

Ruby:I do some of my stunts!

Neo:Barely! Anytime we’re in the same shot she panics because it’s all on her. Hehe, the day the director said we were fighting-

Ruby:I died a little inside. I was like “I can’t fight this!” And he laughed. “That’s the point!” He said.

Neo:You did good though. You didn’t get hurt like Blake.

Blake:Who needs to act out a slap when you can take one? Honestly I would write Adam back into the script just for more clown shit to happen on set.

xxxxx

V4

Ruby:*Watching through bushes*

Jaune:*training*

Sad music intensifying

Neo:*stands next to Ruby*

Ruby:……

Neo:*leans* Sad moment right?

Ruby:Pffft god damnit! Get outta here haha!

Neo:*walks off set* I’ll be here all week.

xxxxx

Jaune:*staring at statue*…..!?

Neo:*walks up*……

……

Neo:*looks at him* Shit’s fucked up.

Jaune:Pfffft Hahahahaha!

Neo:*smirks and walks away* Nuff said. Goodnight everybody.

xxxx

Interviewer:Who have you had the most fun working with?

Oscar:I work with Neo quite a bit behind the scenes. She’s usually the one showing me how the can tricks should look before I have to do them.

Interviewer:How long did it take you to get them down?

Oscar:I don’t have many drawn out fights so no more than three days. The biggest one was with Hazel! That took forever! Neo was actually so tired that was like “Sweetie we might actually brawl if you make me flip off this wall seven times.”

Neo:*run on screen* I’m sorry! I was tired!

Oscar:Haha it’s all good. I get my payback on screen.

Neo:He was scared to hit me! I told him just run and lean into it and he didn’t believe I would move in time.

Oscar:I didn’t want to hurt you!

Neo:Awww *hugs him* Oscar is a good kid. Very proud of him.

xxxx

Coco:Hold still!

Nora:*getting makeup done* I’m trying!

Salem:So how’s it feel being completely still so you can be put into character?

Nora:I do not envy your role. If anything I respect you more.

Salem:They might have to put more detail on for me but at least my outfit covers most my skin.

Nora:I gotta get me some sleeves. Next volume.

Salem:You’re gonna wear sleeves in the desert?

Nora:Oh I am doomed!

Coco:You’ll live.

xxxx

Ozpin:Wanna see drama behind the scenes. *points to makeup crew*

Oscar:How do I look?

Penny:*smiling* Is it weird fake bruises bring out your eyes?

Ozpin:No drama. Only tooth decay.

xxxx

Interviewer:Was there any part early on or even now that you dread during shooting RWBY?

Yang:I can not stress enough how quickly I started to hate my first outfit.

Ruby:Hahaha!

Yang:Don’t get me wrong! It looks cool and it has a special place in my heart. Stunts sucked in that top! Anytime I had to do flips or rolls I prayed the girls didn’t spill out on camera!

Interviewer:There was no support?

Yang:There was, but it never felt like it was enough. A full shirt was the first thing I asked for in the time skip.

Weiss:I never had many wardrobe problems thankfully.

Blake:Your problem is night shooting.

Weiss:YES! So it being nighttime isn’t necessarily the problem, but the constant adjustments to our lights in dark areas really messes with my eyes.

Ruby:I’ve seen her get really bad headaches, like after the apathy scene in the well.

Weiss:It’s sad because I don’t want to come off as pompous or anything but there have been times I told the crew not to get me until they’re absolutely sure they have the lights set up how they want it.

Blake:I’m gonna break hearts, but I’m not a fan of the ears.

Interviewer:What!? They’re so important!

Blake:I know! Ask anyone who has to play a faunus how they feel about their trait. Some of them have to move carefully so they don’t ruin a trait or it falls off. There’s countless tales of me doing stunts and an ear flies off!

Yang:I think it’s the best when you have a overhead swing and forget about the ears, so a hand just knocks them off!

Blake:Early on I figured out low crouching stances are for me. I feel so bad for people like Sun, because they aren’t asking him to do a flip. They’re asking him to flip high enough so the tail doesn’t hit the ground. Even when it’s not on and gets put in for technical scenes he has to reshoot because he stood too close to a wall so it looks like the tail will clip through it.

Interviewer:Yikes. Yeah I can see that eating up time. Ruby, are you about to tell the world you hate the hood?

Ruby:Oh I’ll wear that any day! I ask for more cape haha. However, I have one problem that will never go away in this show!

Blake:Ruby talks about Crescent Rose is like the ex boyfriend you can’t change but also doesn’t have to.

Ruby:Nononono listen! I love that weapon. It is by far the coolest thing I’ve ever had use. In most cases, I’m actually using this thing that fires live, hollow, rubber, air soft, or even blanks! Marksman stuff is an actual skill and a hobby of mine. All that being said, that gun has jammed on me so many times!

Yang:I have been offset and outside hearing her groan, and I know it’s because the gun jammed.

Ruby:There are funny moments where I don’t care it jammed and it’s not a big deal win it’s not the last bullet because I don’t notice or I have to use scythe next. It’s when it’s in the middle of multiple shots that it will ruin the choreography, or the kick back hits hard.

Everyone: *Wincing*

Weiss:I’ve seen her get bruises…

Ruby:*stands up* Everyone knows the pose here I stab the blade into the ground and I constantly crank out shots. That’s as fast as I can shoot without worrying about ruining a take.

Blake:You also swear by that weapon and call it a dream starter.

Ruby:Well it’s the reason I got the role!

Interviewer:Oh is it?

Yang:How have I not heard this story?

Ruby:It is. So contrary to popular belief, I was not promised the role of little red; it had nothing to do with my brother besides him telling me about the part. I actually had to audition like every other girl who wanted the part. The director gave us practice lines from an unfinished script but the real audition was in fact the red trailer.

Weiss:Yeah I heard that was rough shooting.

Ruby:*claps hands* Okay, so by this point everyone has done the lines and around twenty other women wearing the outfit. This is my first time really getting into the business and honestly I wasn’t doing well. Seeing how well others read their lines put dread on me. We’re outside; instructions, demonstrations, and everything has been shown for how to use Crescent Rose and the safety instructor even tells us “this thing has kickback.” I’m confident in my firearm skills and I had no lines in this trailer so I felt confident. The first shot hit me so hard I staggered backwards.

Yang:Yeah I would imagine!

Ruby:Safety crew was there to assist every actress. On my turn they were prepared with padding and rush in if needed, but before they could get to me after the shot, I swung the weapon behind me and stabbed it in the ground to catch myself. Freaking…umm Adam, what did I say after the director looked at me.

Adam: “Woooo! Guess this has thorns after all.” Then you just laughed.

Ruby:That is what saved that audition. I only learned that way later when the director told me “Yeah what you said and did combined with the skill is exactly how I saw that character.”

Blake:Aw that’s sweet.

Ruby:I wish I knew that months earlier because everyone finished their recordings and all the director said was “Thank you, you will know who’s Red when the trailer premiers.”

Yang:By far the evilest way to let a person know if they got a role.

Ruby:I was glued to computer that day it was supposed to drop and….ooo you can literally ask my mom and sis that when I tell you that I burst into tears as the camera panned up to get me in view.*tearing up* Like…I really wanted this but, I’m not joking when I say I saw the talent in that room and felt like phoning it in. I wasn’t ready to see my face on that screen.

Yang: Aww don’t cry *hugging her* Our big softie. You earned it.

Adam:I vividly remember driving her home and you looked at me and said “man, I don’t think I did my best out there.” It took me by surprise because yeah your lines were shaky but half of those actresses never got used to the gun. At least not quickly. Also, internet, I don’t pick who’s in or out. All I did was show her poster. Ruby got her breakout role on her own.

Weiss:Damn…and here I was looking at the silhouettes of “W” and thinking “that’s mine right?” Because everyone going for those roles had to do that pose.

Interviewer:Weren’t you approached for the role?

Weiss:I said I’ll think about it because I hadn’t done action stuff before and wasn’t sure how much I’d like it, but I got to see an advanced preview of the red trailer and went “This looks fun and I want to meet this girl.”

Blake:Then you saw the views on it and really wanted to join in.

Weiss:Oh hush!!!

Everyone: *laughing*

[anemo-writes]

hello travelers! again, thank you for putting up with my inactivity, it’s been hard to write lately haha. anyways, i thought this would be something fun to post and for everyone to enjoy, whether you celebrate Valentine’s Day or not :) (note: this will probably be more fanon than canon so please bear with me, i’ll make it as canon as it can be :’) i also kept this pretty short, so hopefully that’s okay too,, and sorry for this being late haha—i wrote this very late at night so don’t mind any typos you find please)

much love,

~ anemo-chan <3

(The Playable) Genshin Impact Characters on Valentine’s Day (Romantically)

super romantic; gifts you a bouquet of flowers and takes you out to eat at a fancy restaurant/cooks for you.

Diluc

He is nervous. He’s never paid close attention to the countless amount of people who have lined outside the tavern to ask him to be their Valentine, only to be rejected. There was absolutely no way that he would turn to Kaeya for advice, so unfortunately this was something he would have to figure out for himself. He figures that it wouldn’t hurt to go traditional, so that’s what he does; he buys a large bouquet of roses (which he had to get from Donna, seeing that at the hours that he ended work were very late and Flora’s shop was not open at the time—yeah, that was not fun) and presents himself outside your doorway, to which he invites you to join him for a late dinner—which he makes!

Lisa

She leaves a letter on top of your nightstand, paired along with a singular rose. The letter states for you to meet her outside of Good Hunter, where you find her sitting at a table with a candle dimly-lighting up the surroundings. She greets you with a warm smile, gesturing for you to sit down—the two of you enjoy a candle-lit dinner as well as bolognese she specially requested for Sara to make for the two of you to enjoy together why does this remind me so much of Lady and the Tramp,,

Tartaglia

Oh boy. It’s always a fun time spending a holiday with him, seeing that it could go two ways; one, he would be too busy to celebrate it with you on the day of, and he would take you out the day after, or two—have a store’s entire line of merchandise presented to you outside your doorstep, in which a very, very smiley Tartaglia hidden within the pile (after all, he was the best present!) After you’re done moving all of the gifts into your house (it took up the space of your entire living room), he tells you to cover your eyes and follow him. He takes you to one of the most well-known restaurants in Liyue (which currently doesn’t have a name because it is very late here!), and insists that you order whatever you want, and however much you want.

Zhongli

Over the years, he’s witnessed many, many couples celebrate this holiday and every year he’s wished to do the same. He finds the perfect opportunity to do so when Valentine’s Day is around the corner, and boy does he plan it out for the two of you. He’s even made sure to have his wallet on him at all times—it would be extremely rude for you to have to pay if he happened to forget his wallet. He makes sure to stop by to pick up a bouquet of flowers, as well as a bottle of perfume (not in a bad way, just to clarify) from Ying’er’s shop that he recalled you liked. He makes sure to pick you up early from your work place to make sure you made it to your appointment on time; after all, being late to an appointment was similar to breaking a contract, no?

surprises you with homemade sweets.

Fischl

Oh, she is so nervous—of course, she doesn’t show this. The entire week, she spent researching recipes to create a special batch of chocolate-dipped strawberries just for you—she even sent Oz to the nearby farms to “borrow” the freshest strawberries for the treat (the farmers were too scared to confront the talking bird who “borrowed” their strawberries, so luckily they got away with it). She dips them in a purple-colored chocolate (because what other color would she use, really?) and drizzles on a dark-chocolate syrup to top it off. She’s too shy to actually give it to you herself though, so she has Oz drop it off for her.

Ganyu

Even though she’s quite busy, she’s somehow found time to whip up a special batch of chocolate just for you! She shapes them into Glaze Lilies (which she found quite hard, which is why there are so few of them) and presents them to you in a neatly-sealed box. She’s quite modest when your eyes widen and tell her it’s the best chocolate you have ever eaten, claiming that she only followed a recipe, when she really made it from scratch.

Keqing

Like Ganyu, you have no idea how she finds time to create a perfect array of chocolates, which she made herself! However, with her tightly-packed schedule, she has to drop it off at your house in advance, to which you accept happily. She tried to decorate them with designs of cartoon-versions of your faces, but they’re a bit...messy. Nonetheless, they’re tasty, and to her relief, you enjoy them.

Mona

Somehow, she’s managed to scrape up enough mora to buy you a necklace; yes, a necklace, and a real one at that—none of that fake, costume jewelry stuff! She even added a pendant shaped like star, just so you could be reminded of her whenever you fiddled with it or even glanced at it. She’s quite flustered when she gives it to you, ignoring the way you ask how she managed to save this much mora to be able to buy something like this, changing the subject on how you should never-ever take it off (because it looks great on you.)

Noelle

One word: pancakes. (Have you seen the ones she makes for her special dishes? They’re frigging amazing) As a dutiful maid should, she wakes up especially early to prepare a homemade breakfast just for you, to which she serves to you just as your wake up in bed. The fluffy stack of pancakes are decorated with fruits cut up in heart-shapes, as well the words, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Y/N”, written neatly with chocolate syrup—it’s quite a sight to see, to be honest, and utterly delicious. Lucky you!

Xiangling

The day before, she tells you to meet her at the restaurant around noon. When you arrive, the restaurant is adorned with Valentine decorations, as well as a terrifying amount of food; she insists that she only made it for you, so you better eat up! Before she can show you the other dishes, the restaurant is suddenly filled with a strong, bitter smell—something burning. With a yelp, she runs into the kitchen, coming out a few minutes later with a tray of half-scorched cupcakes, their Gouba-shapes adorned with...a lot of burn marks. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, doesn’t it?

buys/makes a present for you.

Albedo

Without your knowledge, Albedo has been creating a collection of artworks throughout all the time you had spent together. The pieces include portraits of you, portraits of you and him (sucrose helped with this), as well as just random sketches of the little things that remind him of you, such as the bare, snowy-white terrain where the two of you first met, as well as its flora and fauna. If you request it, he’ll even make the painting come alive (literally), and the two of you run to Sucrose’s dwelling, who is very shocked to see the pair of you running from a Frosted Lawachurl when she peered out her window to see if she could pinpoint the sounds of distant screaming.

Amber

Is there anything better than a matching set of wind gliders? Not only that—they were homemade! She spent the last couple of weeks putting together a pair of gliders for the two of you, customizing them to your tastes (which she nailed!) She quite literally drags you to the nearest hill to test them out, and the two of you end up challenging each other on who can get back to the Knights of Farvonius Headquarters the fastest—spoiler alert: she did.

Barbara

Oh, she would make the cutest card for you—the envelope is decorated with cute stickers (some of them even had her face on it; there’s nothing like promoting merchandise, am i right? jkjks) She also pairs it off with a box of chocolates that she bought from Sara—however, what she didn’t know was that in the box was a special-edition spicy chocolate truffle. With your luck, that was the first one you chose—and boy, were you met a surprise (it was so bad that you were begging Barbara to use her Vision on you, which she refused of course). Fun times.

Chongyun

He’s real sweet. After his expeditions and commissions, he opens the freezer (yes he keeps them in there, don’t judge him) to an array of ice sculptures, shapes varying from flowers, hearts, and such—although it’s quite the simple gift, he’s put a lot of effort into them, even putting in the extra effort to cast a spell to make sure they would not melt; it’s all worth though, when he sees the absolutely giddy expression on your face, and the look of pure awe as you pick one up and study it closely, admiring all of the details and work that’s he put in.

Ningguang

She sends out informants to find out what you like, whether it be something that your gaze settled on for too long or something you’ve mentioned while talking to her—on the day of, you open your door to a mountain of gifts, with Ningguang herself peering out from behind it with a calm smile and a wave (which was the opposite of your reaction, because who has that much mora to purchase all of these gifts?!?)

Razor

He doesn’t have a clue on what the holiday until Lisa asks him if he’s planned something for the two of you during one of his lessons. When he shakes his head no, Lisa suggests that he make you something, to which he sets out on an adventure to do, looking for flowers and flower stems to weave into a pair of matching bracelets—they’re not the prettiest, but he is pretty proud of it; after all, it was his first time making something like that. He’s quite nervous to present it to you, afraid that you might not like it, but all feelings of worry melt away when you slide it on with a huge smile on your face, insisting that he wears his too.

Sucrose

At first, she considers gifting you a present that she created herself; of course, with her work being alchemy, she isn’t sure if that would be the safest option, despite being talented herself. And so, she resorts to buying a present for you—she is very picky with the present though, insisting that it should be perfect since she could not make one herself. She even consults Albedo when selecting some of the presents (he doesn’t help her unfortunately; he believes that she should figure it out herself haha). Like Razor, she’s quite nervous to give it to you, but lets out a huge sigh of relief as you thank her happily for the gift, wiping a bead of sweat from across her forehead (sucrose bby anything you give us would be perfect,,)

whisks you away somewhere sentimental, where the two of you can enjoy a special date.

Beidou

It’s ungodly early in the morning when Beidou presents herself in front of your doorstep, announcing that you’ll be joining her and the crew on a special ride. She tugs you along beside her until you reach the harbor, where you are met with the sight of her ship adorned with streamers and banners, varying between shades of pink and red. Onboard, there is a table filled with goodies the crew collected and made, and boy do they look delicious. The group sets out to sea, and you take your place next to the captain, who even lets you steer the boat (momentarily, at least.)

Bennett

He takes you to meet his dads; yes, yes—he knows that it’s not the most romantic thing to do on a day dedicated to lovers, but he figures it’s just as important. Besides, they’ve been asking about you for quite a while—they even set up a small party within the Adventurer’s Guild, with the help of Bennett, of course. You spend the day listening to their old adventuring stories, as well as bits from Bennett’s childhood (poor boy is flustered from all the information his dads are spilling, but he’s still happy either way; after all, he’s with the most important people to him.)

Kaeya

He quite literally kidnaps you; one second you’re walking in the streets of Mondstadt on your way to work when suddenly someone grabs you by the waist and pulls you into an alley way (that sounds so creepy but i swear he means it in a good way). He only chuckles and shields himself with his arms as you punch him lightly, retorting that he scared you. He doesn’t care that the two of you have an overwhelming amount of work to do—after all, Valentine’s Day only comes once a year, right? Surprisingly, he doesn’t take you the tavern, but instead...Dawn Winery! Diluc received quite the surprise when he is met with the two of you standing outside his gates, with Kaeya requesting a wine/grape juice taste-testing. Yeah...you guys didn’t get any of that, but you did manage to snag a couple of grapes on your way out! Good for you!

Venti

You wake up in your bed, opening your eyes to see a very-smiley Venti laying beside you, chin propped up against his hand as he watches you yawn sleepily as you force yourself out of bed. You’re then presented with a handpicked-bouquet of Ceceilias, the freshest of the bunch, if he may add. You barely have time to thank him before he hoists you up in his arms and out of your dwelling, gliding over the city of Mondstadt as he whisks you away to Starsnatch Cliff, where he’s prepared a special performance just for you (and no, you don’t need to pay.)

Xingqiu

While he’s not the most romantic, he does have a clue on what people look for on Valentine’s Day; after all, that’s what cheesy-romance novels were for, right? Unbeknownst to you, he takes you on a date very similar to the one the main characters in his favorite novels partook in—and you don’t find out until you catch him peeking into the pages while you weren’t (you were) looking. Again, it’s the thought that counts—

doesn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Jean

Sadly, she probably forgets about the holiday. She’s too busy holed-up in her office to notice the couples gathered up in the courtyard, sharing moments with their lover. It’s not until she walks out to take a breather that she notices the commotion—she immediately calls you over, apologizing frantically. Of course, to this you respond that’s it’s okay, but that you would much rather her take the rest of the day off to spend time together, to which she reluctantly agrees.

Xiao

“I do not have time to celebrate silly human traditions like that.” He would say as you bound up to him, exclaiming that it’s Valentine’s Day, the day where you can give sweets to your loved ones, and asking if he had someone special in mind to spend it with. He’s irked when your gaze falters and the grip on the object you’re hiding behind your back tightens—he only grows more irked as you mutter to yourself how you’ll give the chocolates you made to someone else. He scoffs loudly, avoiding your gaze as he lays out his hand in front of you to accept the chocolates (just because he doesn’t celebrate the holiday doesn’t mean he can’t get jealous!)

[sepublic]

Through the Looking Glass Ruins!!!!!

         …

         SO! Onto other things first…

         WRATH IS BRAXAS’ FATHER!??!!? HOLY SHIT, Wrath is a canonical dad, I’d always expressed my… OH MY GOD WRATH IS DAD! And of BRAXAS, that sweetie… How is Braxas such a sweetie with a father like HIM, also-

         Wrath was in casual wear? Either he has a day off, or he got fired by Belos/Kikimora after drawing Luz a map to Eda in Young Blood, Old Souls! Either way this guy has a sudden new level of NUANCE that I am reeling from, and yes I checked, that really is Wrath according to the credits! Dang this puts everything in a WHOLE new light…!

         AMITY HAIR OHMIGOD IT LOOKS SO ADORABLE SHE’S SELF-ACTUALIZING I AM FUCKING SCREAMING HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD!!! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD, it’s PINK and not green… They acknowledged it, Emira did! And they CHANGED IT I AM LOSING MY FUCKING MIND OVER THIS-

         She looks so BEAUTIFUL and I love the kind of foreshadowing with the bookends of our first shot of Amity having her hair down, and now it’s changed! And she looks adorable and EMIRA AND EDRIC BEING GREAT SIBLINGS I LOVE IT SO MUCH! This… THIS is everything I wanted! I was resigned to not much of them but HELL YEAH they’re being good siblings and we get a look at their rooms, we see them doing MAKEOVERS together this is everything from my favorite fanon content and MORE,

         Also Edric has a date?! Emira says ‘their’ mom… Unless the Golden Guard has a mom, DARN! Not gonna lie, I half-expected a big twist at the end that Edric was dating the Golden Guard, who was doing some sort of reconnaissance as his unrecognized normal self and/or screwing around with the Blights even further, but in a GENUINE sense… But then who knows Kikimora could be posing as GG’s ‘mom’, this is a stretch anyhow-

         JUST HELL YEAH Blight Twins! Blight Twins being sweet and mischievous and supportive of each other, Blight SIBLINGS being siblings, Emira being an older sister and giving advice! And AMITY, Amity mentioning how much Luz has changed stuff, I love that they acknowledge it openly how her life has completely shifted, and now… NOW…!

         No necklace! Red leggings! PINK HAIR?! Is this why Amity in the intro hasn’t been updated yet… She was getting TWO updates, so the animators decided to only animate a change after this final update?!

         King and Gus are also friends it seems, and they even recorded some fun together! I’m surprised at how much Bria and the others mock Gus’ illusion skills… Obviously Belos is kinda terrible but like; I don’t think he’d set aside an entire subset of magic into Illusions without reason! Also that nightmare trip… I LOVE IT, I love Gus applying the creativity of illusions in their ability to completely warp and distort someone’s sense of reality! And I called that dragon-thing being an illusion!

         A graveyard… I wonder if the Gallderstones (is that how it’s spelled) have any relevance or if they’re just neat? I hope Mattholomule and Gus help hide the Looking Glass Graveyard… Damn, that’s another Death reference with Gus, huh! Is it culminating in his respect for the dead, or will it continue further with Gus being a necromancer, or an Oracle who can commune with the deceased, and he has their respect as someone who treats them properly?!

         Also not to get dark but… What if all those Illusionists are dead because of Belos? I’m JUST SAYING…! And not gonna lie, every time someone insulted Illusions, I kept imagining the Illusion Head just suddenly waking up and feeling like there’s a disturbance in the force, as well as a weird compulsion to beat up some Glandus kids. It’d be even funnier if he had beef with the Construction, Plant, and Abomination Heads as well!

         Speaking of which, more confirmation on Construction Magic being related to earth! Glad to see Bria give us a look into that, which furthers my idea of Belos using construction magic… Also dang, Bria and the Glandus Kids really are the parallels/foils to the Detention kids! You’ve got the short ‘nice’ girl, the tall lanky kid, the furry… But the Glandus Kids start off looking nice and cool, but turn out to be rather nasty!

         Meanwhile the Detention Kids seem like bad news and delinquents, but no! They’re just demonized and actually very kind and chill! The Detention Kids are looked down upon, the Glandus Kids are appraised… The Detention Kids are dual-track, the Glandus Kids are singular; Glandus Kids from, well, GLANDUS, Detention Kids from Hexside… One’s ‘mischief’ is actually very neat and cool, the other’s is literal grave robbing.

         I guess that’s how the bleeding statues got past the censors- It’s technically just an illusion! Also more insight into how Glandus works with its Survival of the Fittest mentality, I wonder if we’ll get confirmation on which coven heads came from there, how that might influence them as adults…

         What is Glandus like, is it more whole-heartedly accepting of Belos’ rule, hence its harsh ideals? Was it made after Hexside? Does Bump hate it for being so cruel like that, or is it just school bias? And dang poor Mattholomule, I always had a feeling he sort of felt and knew that he wasn’t much, so he accepted and compensated by deliberately doing whatever he can for power…

         They confirmed he’s from Glandus, and I appreciate this new look at him! This new leaf turned… Hot take but he’s honestly not as bad as Boscha, his stint with Gus was a one-time thing that Gus was able to live with! And that seems pretty good to set them up as friends! Speaking of Boscha, Willow was injured by pixies? And the last time we heard of pixies, they belonged to Boscha and caused the school to get shut down… Did BOSCHA DO THIS I SWEAR SHE IS DEAD TO ME-

         (Also she’s mentioned in the credits for this episode but I don’t remember hearing her? I might’ve gotten distracted with so much other things.)

         Gus! I like the insight into his relationship with Illusions, and I appreciate how he’s considering other forms of magic… But this hesitation might just serve to reaffirm his believe in Illusions, which is okay! It’s all about choice… And yeah, it seems Gus also has a case of impostor syndrome like King, no wonder they get along so well! I love the glimpses into Gus’ house and the confirmation that he has a library card, no Perry though alas…!

         I appreciate how Gus feels overlooked, like he has no real substance, which is how his Illusions reflect a desire to draw attention, but also the idea that there’s nothing real beneath them… Again, very much like King! And Gus, he’s not a powerhouse like the rest, he’s SKILLED and smart, but strength isn’t his forte, it’s not brute force he operates on, but cleverness! Trickery, I like it…! It’s a nice callback to his last A-plot episode, SVSF, where instead of fighting Mattholomule physically, Gus’ solution is to think outside the box and pull the alarm!

         You go kid, not relying on brute strength but showing that some clever tricks and thinking are just as valid! Kinda wonder if this episode is lowkey a discussion on masculinity for young boys, especially with Gus growing older with puberty, though the latter is mostly because his actual VA grew… But maybe the writers rolled with that and incorporated it, or it’s just a very neat coincidence! Also, it is me or did Mattholomule’s voice change? And the gag that Gavin’s dad looks identical to him, even moreso because he’s NOT supposed to have a moustache… That’s great!

         Malphas! Love this reference to a classic demon, I wasn’t sure if Malphas was the librarian with glasses whom I’ve always headcanoned as a father figure to Amity… But maybe it’s actually this bird dude! He seems adept in Bard magic, and I love the reveal of his true crow appearance… Guess those theorists were right that the one-eyed figure is from the Forbidden Stacks! Also Malphas NOT COOL with Amity, but I’m glad Luz changed his mind, and I wonder how that adventure looked…

         Which- DAMN, the RSD with Luz! She looks so UTTERLY BROKEN when Amity mentions doing stupid things, and she didn’t mean it like that, but Luz just looks so completely shattered and you can tell she wants to cry but instead she bottles it up and tries to take it in stride, and that plays into her trying to overcompensate for her mistakes AGAIN… SOMEONE GET IT TO HER HEAD that she doesn’t need to! I’m scared for Luz, and I was SO scared this episode would end on a bad note…

         BUT DOAHLDdFAEONDKFHN LUMITY KISS LUMITY KISS! ONE-SIDED BUT THEY FINALLY FUCKING KNOW AND AMITY IS LIKE WHAAAAT AND I WAS WAITING FOR IT AND I COULD FEEL IT HAPPEN AND GAY KISS! GAY KISS ON-SCREEN!!! And the way Luz just FLOPS to the ground on her knees AAHJJFFKHGGK and no Alador nor Odalia to ruin this, UTTERLY PERFECT and the twins WATCHING OOOHHHHGGGG YYYEEAAAAHHH-

         This is EVERYTHING I ever wanted!

         What an AMAZING episode with wonderful characer beats and reveals! Again, Amity’s growth as a character, that brief insight into how Luz as a person is very chaotic and sometimes frustrating for Amity and forces her to reevaluate, but ultimately it’s good and Luz DOES try her best, and Amity clearly wanted to make things up for Luz and apologize, they’re BOTH doing things, just the little moments!

         Also, Alex Lawther voices Philip Wittebane! He has long hair and a vaguely british accent, he’s… He’s Belos isn’t he? And they got a new VA because having him voiced by Matthew Rhys would be really spoiler-y right? He’s got the long hair and he’s a nerd… And with how he talks of finding a way back home, maybe Belos really DOES just want to return home, after all? He talks of making a way back home…

         And we see a glimpse of the Portal, so it might’ve brought him there? Or did Philip succeed in making it, and that was his blueprint designs? Did he arrive by Titan’s Blood? What happened to the portal if it brought him there, or if he made it? Why the scar, why near Eda’s house, partially buried?

         Was it lost before he could finish his work, and Philip got side-tracked into something else… Perhaps going on a crusade, on behalf of a curse/demon that possessed him? A demon that killed King’s father…? Was the portal broken and he had to discard it, but then it naturally healed- Or did it just need to recharge, maybe Philip DID make it back home, WHAT IS THE ANSWER?! Is there some sort of doppelganger for Philip, is BELOS his doppelganger?! What is THIS WHAT-

         WHAT AN EPISODE!

[midearthwritings]

Without Me

You mourn Kíli's death.

Words Count : 967

Pairing : Kíli & Reader

Warning : Canonical Character Death, Grief

Author's Note : Again, this is a very personal piece. I hope you guys will like it.

I like this place.

The gentle evening breeze blows on him, making his hair wiggle timidly. He looks up at you with the same glint of happiness that never leaves his eyes, his eternal childish smile splitting his face in two. Beneath his cheek, the grass caresses his skin. You envy it. And you envy the wind and the last sun rays, and anything that touches him for you cannot do so. 

“So do I.” you murmur with a soft smile.

As Kíli shifts closer to you, you can almost feel his warmth enveloping your body. But you know it is only a memory. A wicked one that has decided to make you suffer a bit more than necessary. 

The prince is silently staring back at you. He is like a mirror, showing things you had not noticed before. But right now, you do not know what it is that he wants you to see. 

Slowly, your eyes travel from his face to his torso, stopping at the gaping hole adorning his chest. Blood pours from it, staining his tunic. It is red, almost black, and terrifying.

“Kíli?” 

At his name, he gives you a questioning hum. His brows are slightly furrowed, his face painted with confusion. The wind blows harder, brushing his bangs away from his face.

“You are bleeding.” you point out, still looking at his wound.

Kíli pushes himself up, resting on his elbows. His eyes follow your gaze, but he does not look surprised. Of course, he does not. After all, wounds were made to bleed, weren’t they? Even those of the heart.

Aye, I am. Is it a bother? 

The question, both in his mouth and eyes, is genuine. You feel silly for telling him. After all, it is not his fault if he had had to come like that. You had given him no choice.

Quickly, you shake your head, and he flops back down onto the soft grass. He sighs quietly and pulls at some poor flowers that had the misfortune to be growing there. When he throws them away, they vanish.

“Does it hurt?” you ask, the question burning your lips.

The thunderous laugh that he lets out startles you. It reverberates around you, bouncing on every tree, scaring some birds away. In your head, it had not sounded funny. And you were pretty sure that it was not. 

“Why are you laughing?” you question, moving to hit his shoulder. But you quickly retreat as if you had been burned.

The prince’s laugh only intensifies and his arms curl around his stomach, his back arching from the ground. You groan, almost offended.

My apologies, but I find this to be hilarious.

“Nothing about this is hilarious, Kíli.” you snap, turning your back to him.

Near your face, a small ladybug lands on a flower petal. She walks there, wandering on the colorful plant. You wonder if, perhaps, she is lost, too. 

It is.

With a sad sigh, you roll over to face him again. He radiates so much love and tenderness that it almost makes you uncomfortable. You could not be the only one whose heart was into pieces, could you?

“How so?”

Kíli rips more flowers from the ground and throws them at your face. Of course, they never hit your skin. Yet, you flinch, causing him to chuckle.

Because only you can decide if it hurts.

“I do not understand.”

The prince now looks at you with a smug grin. He knows that you understand. He knows you are not as stupid as you pretend to be. There is some mischief in his eyes, and you groan.

“I hate you.” you whine, throwing your arm over your face.

No, you do not. Else, I would not be there.

Inside your chest, your heart breaks a little more. It sounds like glass crashing against a wall, like the cry of a mother who just lost her child and a little bit like Kíli’s last words. 

You do not try to muffle the ugly sob that escapes your throat, nor to stop the burning tears from running down your face. 

If I am not afraid to leave, then why are you so afraid to stay?

He is lying. You can clearly remember the fear in his eyes as the blade had pierced through his body. It is only to reassure you, to make you let go. 

“Because I cannot imagine living a life without you by my side.” You choke the words out, feeling more tears spilling on your face. It hurts, but not as much as Kíli is hurting you right now.

Look at me.

Without question, you obey. He looks worried and exhausted, mirroring your misery. But he still smiles, because Kíli always does. Even at his lowest, he never stops smiling. Even dead, he still smiles.

I will never be far from you, that I can promise. As long as you remember my face, and say my name, I will still be somewhat alive, somewhat with you.

The tears fall from your eyes like a river of sorrow, cutting your skin and marking you with all the pain of the world. 

You do not believe him, not entirely anyway. How could he be alive when you had witnessed his burial? How could he be with you when he was decaying six feet underground? But you know he is right. Only you can decide how long it has to hurt. And as long as you keep him there, it will make you suffer.

“Alright then,” you finally whisper, forcing a smile. “I love you, Kíli.”

Always…

Taking a deep breath, you close your eyes shut tightly. Like a child afraid of the dark, you stop moving. When you reopen them, there is only you and the moon.

[pain-in-the-butler]

The time has come once again

The Bloodbath

“I’m simply one hell of a butler” says Sebastian as he starts cleaning as usual

Okay so Agni’s taking no prisoners

Work Nerd, Science Nerd, and Jock Nerd team up to form the Nerd Trifecta

Team One Brain Cell joins up with Phipps, who is quite possibly their only chance for survival

Ran-Mao remembers how Harcourt beat everyone in the unfortunately deleted round and said “Not in my backyard”

So far, everyone else has simply run away unscathed or grabbed a weapon they won’t use because the game doesn’t record weapons. Rip Tanaka

Day 1

Ran-Mao bringing the canon energy by adding a second weapon to her arsenal

Phipps somehow always turns into Team Dad during these, so I’m glad to see he’s finding time for his favorite hobbies

Undertaker up to his usual Sneaky Antics

It hasn’t even been twelve hours yet. Kind of impressive honestly

Considering Harcourt lost his mace, I’ll just assume the attack Grell “escaped” from was the vicious stabbing of his trim little schoolboy fingernails

Bad vibes

It appears that Lau also brought his canon game

Sebastian in the most recent chapters be like

I’ve actually never had this event come up before and it has to happen between two of the more innocent characters in the series;;;; god Lizzie you deserve better even in the Hunger Games Simulator

Where’s a Safety Nerd when you need one

What’s better than this? Guys bein dudes

This is probably what happened after Ciel left Weston

Sebastian will take care of this for ya, huh bud

Other events:

Agni practices his archery

Wolfram goes fishing

Othello finds a cave

Soma goes ‘splorin

Edward goes huntin

Day 1′s Deaths: Tanaka, Sieglinde, Lizzie, and Macmillan. Someday one of the ladies will win

Night 1

Butler slumber party in the woods, BYOYM (bring your own young master)

It takes a lot of energy to be this blond

I’m happy for her :)

Yeah I’ll bet you probably do Lau

A tonal shift so abrupt I got mental whiplash

Can we go back to when Grell was looking at the sky pls

Thought about science too hard. Got a concussion

Thought about Ciel dying too hard. Got an infection

Aww dad :( Hope you caught some fish tho

Looks like Harcourt won’t be winning this one, gang

I stg the hunger games simulator is misogynist because the ladies always DIE /j

Ran-Mao is hopefully here to prove the previous statement wrong

Other events:

Bard gets a hatchet

Undertaker also passes out from exhaustion

R!Ciel goes to sleep in a tree

Day 2

Oh you five are SO going in my burn book for this. It’s what Grell would’ve wanted

Ahaha just like in the real manga... right guys (;

Idk about you but I’m rooting for her

I don’t think the simulator could’ve picked four people who were less likely to team up than this

I would too if I saw my best friend was palling around with an opium dealer, a grim reaper with a lawn mower, and another grim reaper that the first grim reaper doesn’t like

Other events:

Othello chases Wolfram

That’s the only other event actually

That means today we lost O!Ciel, Mey-Rin, Harcourt, and Grell. ffs, I hope Ran-Mao kills all of you

Night 2

I’ve missed you, rare pair simulator

The “unknown sponsor” was Undertaker and the “fresh food” was O!Ciel

Confirmed: Lau doesn’t get high off his own supply

Once again a ceasefire between the strong hungry boys is formed

Girl, you don’t have to do that

“Did you kill Ciel?” Sebastian asks

“No that was William,” Othello says

Sebastian punches a tree so hard that it combusts. “God damn. Fuck” Sebastian says

Wolfram just realized I put him in the Hunger Games simulator

Other events:

Phipps thinks about “Are you winning son”

Undertaker gazes at space

Ronald becomes Lost Ronald

Soma passes out

Bard gets some water

Day 3

Damn Agni who haven’t you flirted with

Finny sees that Bard has water and thinks Bard cooked it himself, so he wants no part of that (might be burnt)

What did he even have that was worth stealing? A fish?

Well I can tell you who isn’t creating that smoke: Lau

“What’s worse than two young masters? No young masters. Now get over here and make a contract”

Everything about this sentence is a fever dream

Other events:

Undertaker decides he wants a slingy shot too

Edward chases Dad I mean Phipps

Othello gets some ouchies from picking berries

Night 3

When your young master dies, you just get an infection apparently

damn Finny’s playing hardball

I don’t think anything bad has actually happened to Bard yet. It’s just been a grand frolic the whole time

I barely remember reading the first Hunger Games but Ran-Mao’s the Foxface of this journey: she deserves to win and I just know she’ll die in the stupidest way possible

Sebastian’s like a cat that can’t reach the bird it wants to attack, so it attacks the nearest other thing instead. Poor Dad

Two white-haired anime boys and a not-white-haired anime boy talk about who will die tomorrow. Anime doesn’t exist yet so the white-haired anime boys don’t know their hair color automatically spells their doom

Other events:

Edward starts a fire, which means he’s capable of smoking opium

Ronald gets some medical supplies

Othello gets a hatchet

R!Ciel thinks about winning

Lau gets an entire explosive, but he won’t be able to light it, so no it’s no big deal

Day 4

In Soviet Hunger Games, white-haired anime boy kills you

But why murder someone when you could just mess with them

Other events:

Grey scares Bard

Finny goes hunting

Night 4

Have you four even killed anyone yet

The list of “people who didn’t start the manor fire and also don’t smoke opium” now consists of Lau and R!Ciel

The mood is too light now. Someone needs to die and it better not be Ran-Mao

At last, Father Phipps has chosen his son for this round

Agni gushes about all the hot guys he’s simultaneously in love with, giving Ran-Mao a clearer idea of who’s still alive

Day 5

Girl, it’s about time, go claim some trophies

Finny’s easily got the longest kill streak and it’s a little unnerving

Father Phipps finds a new secret fishing hole

Othello doesn’t

Lau continues to put in all the efforts of a kindergarten bully

Oh no. He’s a yandere

Other events:

Sebastian fucks around and explores the arena

Bard fucks around and hunts for tributes

Undertaker fucks around and sleeps

R!Ciel fucks around and picks flowers

Night 5

I’ve never met anyone who ships Sebastian/Undertaker but I know you’re out there

Okay, maybe these four are even less likely to team up than Phipps, Ronald, Undertaker, and Lau

Edward sees I’m making jokes about people who build fires and stays hidden

Day 6

Canonically, that is the only way R!Ciel would win a fight, so

I probably could have predicted this

I hope these are the faces they made when it happened

The “unknown sponsor” is R!Ciel and the “fresh food” is an ear that fell off his own head

I’m not sure if I should be concerned or unsurprised that Bard’s Hunger Games life is more chill than his canon life

the “unknown sponsor” was the fish and the “clean water” was “fish water”

Other events:

Ran-Mao gets her third weapon that she doesn’t want to use, which is a hatchet

Finny finds a river

Agni practices archery again, but he doesn’t kill anyone because he wants this to go on forever

Night 6

Ran-Mao I beg you please. Release us from this purgatory of mediocrity

And suddenly we’re back to canon Bard

I guess not everything can be canon

Other events:

Both Agni and Phipps pass out from exhaustion. It’s 2:50 a.m. so I should really be taking a page from their book, but unfortunately everyone refuses to die

The Feast

Finny has been a stone cold killer this entire match, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the girl I wanted to win would get eliminated by him, but it still hurts ✌️😔

If you cheat on Othello, he will overpower you, killing you

Everyone else decided not to go to the Feast. Honestly, I don’t remember what the Feast is, but everyone who did go either murdered someone or got murdered, so I guess that was probably a good call

Day 7

I’ve had enough of this dude

Jesus Finny I can’t wait to see how many kills you got, I feel like you and Agni were the only two who took anyone down

Bard, Undertaker, Sebastian, and Phipps all hunt for other tributes but they’re useless and don’t kill anyone

Arena Event: Volcano Eruption

In one fell swoop, we lose Sebastian, Undertaker, R!Ciel, and Finny, jeez. But... that means it comes down to.............

FATHER PHIPPS VS. BARD

FATHER PHIPPS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow... Unlike his manga counterpart, this boy coasted the whole time and won... He basically went on vacation and he actually won... But then again, it’s Hunger Games Simulator and nothing is sacred

Well I hope you learned a valuable lesson today. I hope you did at some point before you read my post, because you sure as hell learned nothing from this. Thank you for wasting precious minutes of your life with me 😏

[lotus-duckies]

Anyway I'm done catching up with My Hero Academia, here are my 2 cents:

Heroes shouldn't have families.

In my personal opinion, Tokoyami deserves more spotlight and development.

And I'm not just saying that because he's my favorite but he's the character who has been most alluded to as a crucial, interesting, or strong character.

Examples:

-To start, he's got a bird head and that apparently has nothing to do with his actual quirk. We don't see canonical examples of him exhibiting avian behaviors even though the fandom Really Wants It, so he's not like the characters whose quirk is "frog" or "rabbit". It doesn't seem to affect his entire body, just his head that is so strange. I want to know what his family looks like, if they're like the Todorokis and the Asuis and they all have varying degrees of bird.

-His actual quirk is Dark Shadow, which is unlike the other quirks seen in the series. He has a sentient being living inside him that can communicate and has feelings and he can Sometimes control it but can lose control of it. Not to mention it was suggested that Dark Shadow gets more ravenous when Tokoyami has negative emotions of some sort. He doesn't seem to actively 100% control Dark Shadow and asks Dark Shadow when he needs to engage in some kind of combat or attack. There is no indication of where it came from in terms of familial lineage.

-He is consistently noted as a very strong character, within the ranks of Midoriya, Bakugou, and Todoroki. He did very well in the entrance exam and the sports festival. No one ever escaped Fatgum's fat until Tokoyami did.

-On that note, Tokoyami had an Entire Thing about going to rescue Hawks because he cares so much about his master. He was crying over Hawks and yet he doesn't show up again until several chapters later. Why.

-Both Tokoyami and Bakugou were captured by the League of Villains because they had something of interest to them, but Tokoyami was freed.

-Almost everything about Tokoyami would give off the impression of someone who's malicious and evil. Very dark, avidly enjoys dark things, has a Shadow Monster living inside him and stronger in the dark. But he's fundamentally good at his core, not wanting to harm others.

-Also the fact he likes goth things and dark things but he can't really be in absolute darkness because of Dark Shadow. That's so ironic. He can't go out in daylight because Dark Shadow is weaker but he can't really go out in darkness either because Dark Shadow can Wreck Havoc.

-There are examples that suggest that Tokoyami and Dark Shadow know more than they may seem to lead on.

Tokoyami just has so much potential to be a critical character why haven't they done anything with him yet.

[nancywheelxr]

i'm not sure if you prefer more specific prompts but if you have any interest, something canon-era (compliant or divergence) in the realm of "ye baiyi & every- or anyone"? whichever characters you wanna include; a moment or moments where he feels like maybe there is a little more to the rest of his life than duty and death. it's not only warm food he's been starved of for decades. your writing is great, i hope you're having a good day!

hi! thank you sm! i love getting prompts regardless, honestly, the only difference is that more specific ones tend to get done faster if only bc I already have a loose idea where to go with it! anyway, this somehow turned into a fix-it. that being said, I hope you’re having a lovely day too!

*

i.

They’re so painfully young.

A bird chirps in a tree somewhere nearby and around the fire, Qin Huaizhang’s disciple throws the blanket on the Wen brat’s face. What set off his sensibilities this time, Ye Baiyi doesn’t know, it might have been the perceived coddling, it might have simply been the fussing– either way, it’s pointless. Does he not know the brat will simply wait until he’s asleep to cover him? Does he not know their ridiculous dance around each other is nothing but time wasted?

How do the young ever get anything done?

Foolish. Have they ever been that foolish? Changqing, he knows, was a most ridiculous man with even more ridiculous ideas– who’s the bigger idiot, then, the fool or the one who loves him? 

“Ye-qianbei,” the boy appears at his side, wide-eyed like a newborn deer and with legs as shaky as one too, “if you’re cold, we have more blankets.”

The absurdity of the situation– to ask Ye Baiyi if he’s cold! What’s the night chill compared to the snowy grounds of his mountain? To him, is this not warm weather? “Little fool,” he says, shaking his head even as he laughs, “you’d do better worrying about your idiot master and his idiot friend.”

The kid looks across the fire, grimaces. “I don’t dare, I don’t dare! My brothers used to tell me not to get in the way when my parents were arguing!”

What a ridiculous child. Ye Baiyi laughs again. “They’re not arguing, they’re being dumb. Watch this,” he flicks a little rock at them, hitting Qin Huaizhang’s disciple in the forehead and earning an outraged glare from the Wen brat. “Qing Huaizhang’s disciple, your disciple is freezing off while you’re fooling around. Is this how you the two of you are going to raise your child?”

Beside him, the kid makes a startled little noise like a scared little rabbit before launching into a stuttering denial, but it’s too late, Qin Huaizhang’s disciple has already turned to focus on him as if smelling blood. “Chengling, are you cold? Why didn’t you say so?”

“Ah, no, no, I’m really not,” he tries, but he is, he wouldn’t have known to worry about others if he hadn’t been feeling the chill himself. “Ye-qianbei! Ye-qianbei–”

“Ah, ah!” Wen Kexing interrupts, shaking a finger in his direction, “why are you calling him? Come here, have this blanket since your Shifu is being stubborn.”

The boy goes obediently, shuffling around and nearly tripping on the log, and allows the Wen brat to wrap the blanket around his shoulders. Predictably, once he’s tucked in, the kid beams, pulling it tightly around himself. 

“Chengling, if you’re cold, you have to tell us,” says Qin Huaizhang’s disciple as if that’s a scolding, as if he’s not fussing over the child himself, stoking the fire and throwing in more kindling. 

A silly child with even sillier parents. Ye Baiyi snorts, shaking his head, and for a fleeting moment, he imagines walking this path alone– searching for the truth on his own, a silent forest stretching all the way to Longyuan Cabinet, only his footsteps left behind to prove he was even there at all– whatever. Picking up Qin Huaizhang’s dumb disciple and his dumb companions might not have been his worst decision so far. 

Maybe he could have found the place already if he were on his own, but at the very least they’re entertaining. Ridiculous, he thinks fondly, shaking his head at the blanket the kid has left folded at his feet.

*

ii.

What a mess.

Rong Xuan, you little brat, he thinks. How long has it been since the boy had first toddled up to him, little hands grabbing fistfuls of his robes? Too many, an eternity, and now nearly all of the boy’s friends are dead, all but one, and Ye Baiyi has to pay his respects to this freshly dug grave in his place. 

What a mess.

If you were in trouble, why didn’t you come back? Questions, questions, it’s too easy to ask them now. Why didn’t you ask for help? Why didn’t you send for us? Why did you think it would accomplish, running away? Stupid child, did you think we would turn you away? 

No, there’s no use asking them now, no point in dwelling in the past. What is there to change, after it already happened? Life is a very long road and the past is a land too distant to travel back to; Ye Baiyi would rather focus on the now.

Avenging their child had not been part of the promise he made to Changqing, but Ye Baiyi found the truth of this matter as he told him he would and the truth of it is that someone poisoned his disciple, his child. This cannot go unpunished, so for a while longer, he’ll live.

Further still, a little ways down, is Wen Kexing, whose parents died for Rong Xuan’s mistakes. A child growing up in a harsh world on his own. This debt, he’ll repay too.

For all that he gives his promises away like currency, Ye Baiyi is not sure how he feels about the piling of them– they stretch his finally numbered days, always pushing the deadline further. After the Heroes Conference, he’ll be done with the Ghost Valley. After he finds Rong Xuan’s murderer, he’ll be done with this mess. After he repays Wen Kexing, he will be at peace. 

And then–

Well. And then wine. Warm food. That was the plan, was it not? Heavens, he’s beginning to sound like Qin Huaizhang’s silly disciple, isn’t he? This won’t do. Changqing, even you would laugh at them. Tell me, then, if you were here, what would you do? Ah, something nonsensical, most likely, like go watch the plum trees bloom.

Ye Baiyi shakes his head, laughs. Changqing ah, won’t you tell me what to do? Maybe this time I’ll listen to you.

*

iii.

What kind of nonsense is this?

In all fairness, as much as his opinion of Wen Kexing has been as changing as the seasons, his uncanny ability to be an annoying nuisance has never flickered. He was annoying when he was staring down Ye Baiyi’s sword and he was annoying when he kneeled on the forest bed in apology and plea. 

Surely, it’s no surprise that he is annoying now, allegedly dead.

And yet, Ye Baiyi had not anticipated this level of stupidity from him: the brat did not tell Qin Huaizhang’s disciple of his plan.

Children, honestly. 

Now, the hem of his robes is wet and a few feet away, Qin Huaizhang’s disciple is wasting perfectly good wine in an unnecessarily dramatic manner. “Whatever stupid thing you’re planning,” Ye Baiyi says, eyeing the broken jar by the rocks, the dullness around the brat, “don’t.”

Zhou Zishu whirls on him with all the grace of a dying wet cat as if he’s in any condition to be fighting anyone, as if his hands weren’t shaking and his steps didn’t falter. The sword, once elegant and proud, wavers. Stupid boy. “Ye Baiyi, you–”

“Have you lost your manners down that jar? Or just your common sense? Put that away before I knock it off your hand myself,” he sighs, shaking his head. He should have stayed in his rooms, like planned, until the Heroes Conference; none of this has anything to do with him, his role in this play is mostly over, he just has to wait it out the intermission. And yet. “What kind of nonsense were you thinking? That fool, Wen Kexing, ran around for days like a headless chicken trying to save you and for what? You to throw it away?”

“What’s the point?” Qin Huaizhang’s disciple laughs, cold as the mountains, “what’s the point if he’s not here? Tell me, qianbei, why should I care to live if my soulmate is gone?”

His sword is dragging up the mud and Ye Baiyi wants to call him disrespectful for it, but the sight of it alone dredges up a well of grief that drowns the words in his throat. Why, indeed. This terrible emptiness, Ye Baiyi knows well– the hollow silence that comes where once a familiar voice called your name, the cold where once there was warmth, a hand never reaching back. Snow, all through summer and spring.

“Because that dumb disciple of yours will not last a day on his own,” he tells him, watching the water run towards the cliff’s edge, “because Qin Huaizhang has only you to pass on his legacy. Because that ridiculous hairpin on your head.”

“That’s not fair,” Qin Huaizhang’s disciple says, sounding exactly like he had been about to do something incredibly stupid earlier that would render this entire charade pointless from the start.

Truth be told, few things are, least of all, fate. Ah, but Ye Baiyi had unchanging decades to come to terms with that, perhaps he should spare the boy the heartache, unfounded as it is. “It’s not, but enough is enough. What are you crying for? Did you think it’s that easy to get rid of that pest? He should be ashamed if a little tumble is all it took.”

“Qianbei… you mean?”

Ye Baiyi heaves a pointedly tired sigh. “Yes, yes, the brat is alive. Probably holed up somewhere in that blasted valley of his.”

Qin Huaizhang’s disciple is as wide-eyed as his baby-deer disciple and if he actually starts crying, Ye Baiyi will drag Wen Kexing out of hiding kicking and screaming just to push him down the cliff again for making him witness this. He’s too old, he has little patience for the dramatics of the young, and he’s supposed to be drinking the best wine from the Yueyang area. 

So before he’s pulled even further into their nonsense, Ye Baiyi turns away, back to town and his quarters where he can drink and meditate in peace and really, Qin-xiaozi, your disciple is even sillier than you. 

At his back, he hears Zhou Zishu call, but his voice is lost to the waterfalls and Ye Baiyi makes no real effort to catch the words. What’s there to say? Pah, he’s already done more than his share on this, at no point did he promise to intervene on their pointless little dance. Once this is all over, that brat has better pay for all the wine in the land. And make those dumplings, too, for good measure.

*

iv.

Nobody told him whose wedding this is.

Considering they are in this thrice-damned place, he’s assuming it’s one of the ghosts, but Ye Baiyi figures the brat would be more annoying if it was his and Qin Huaizhang’s disciple’s. Then again, his own presence here is unfathomable, as is the insistence with which the little idiot had asked him to come. What on earth has Qin Huaizhang’s disciple told that child? Give someone an inch and they’ll take a mile, truly– now that boy is running around thinking Ye Baiyi cares about these lunatics.

“Who let him in!” Wen Kexing is screeching from somewhere, and Ye Baiyi mourns his peace as the brat approaches with his purple shadow trailing after. Had she been there this entire time? He squints. No, he would have noticed it, she’s very loud. “Old toad monster! Why are you still here? Who allowed you past the gates?”

“Who are you to tell me where to go?” He scoffs, flicking his sleeves as he crosses his arms. Nearby, a ghost hastily scurries away. “And it was your dumb disciple who begged me to be here. For what? Will there even be a banquet? And you call that decorations? That lantern is so crooked, it’s offensive!”

The purple child bristles. “Ah! And who does that silly boy think he is, inviting people to my wedding! Old man, you! Of course there’s gonna be food! Master and Luo-yi have been–”

“A-Xiang!” The brat cuts her off, closed fan tapping her forehead, as if everyone and their grandmothers don’t already know he’s been running around making preparations. What face is there to save, shameless as he is? If Ye Baiyi was a lesser man, he might have rolled his eyes. “Stop running your mouth, what is your husband going to say? And you! What crooked lantern? You’re going blind in your age!”

Still, even as he speaks, a pointed glare sends the ghosts scattering like mice, rushing to check on the decorations. Ridiculous. “No wonder the girl has no manners. What, you only know how to be polite when asking for something?”

Wen Kexing grumbles. “This one apologizes, qianbei.”

Well, that’s certainly worse. Unsettling. If even Wen Kexing starts being deferential, then what has the world come to? No, Ye Baiyi finds he’d prefer the brashness. Stupid child, what’s the point in changing his tune now? Pah. “Girl,” he says to that purple wisp of a thing, “your master is a pest. Where’s the wine?”

Baffling enough, the girl laughs, tugging at her master’s sleeves. “Master, master, Zishu-ge was right! You did make a friend!”

“What nonsense is this! Don’t you know when A-Xu is teasing? Friends! As if–”

“What rubbish have you been filling these children’s heads with?” He shakes a threatening finger in their direction. Not that it matters, considering the girl has already stepped back, giggling as she sidesteps Wen Kexing’s fan. 

Leaving them to their childishness, Ye Baiyi slips out of the crowd, picking a jar of wine as he goes. The alcohol is good, burning down his throat, and he hadn’t thought he’d step foot in the Ghost Valley, not like this. Something in him will always recoil at this place, always lay the blame at the valley’s mouth, a yawning jaw that’s swallowed whole the people most precious to him with no mercy. 

And yet, Changqing ah, you bastard, look at it. They’re holding a damned wedding, and here Ye Baiyi is, drinking their wine. Are you happy now? Did you become a bodhisattva yet? Fate makes fools of them all, there’s no way around it. He pours the wine over the rocks, lets it spill and run like blood. Xuan’er, did I not tell you not to climb so high? That shifu wouldn’t always be there to catch you if you slip on the ice? Ye Baiyi laughs at the memory– always clear in his mind, suspended in time, unfading, even if his sight blurs with tears– that boy, always scaring them half to death, climbing up the frozen mountainside as a child, then crying in fright once he looked down. 

“Look at the mess you’ve both left me,” he says out loud, downing the rest of the wine, and the silence is never quite as loud as in the hollow space where another would speak. For so long, Ye Baiyi knew to leave room for Changqing’s teasing, for their child’s incessant questions, even Rong-furen’s tired voice. Then, nothing. “What do you have to say for yourself, hm? Typical. I’ll drink for all of us this time, then, how about it? Changqing, I’m keeping my promises, so you’d better keep yours or I’ll–” 

The jar breaks where it falls from his fingers and he shakes his head as if dispelling the murky thoughts from his head. Perhaps, coming here was a mistake. The ashes have already been sent back to Changming, so what business does he have in this place? To see it closed with his own eyes? Besides, a wedding or two, a handful of people, are not worth the bloodshed creating the valley has brought, no matter what Changqing might say. 

Is this a comforting story to be told later, if– by the bridge, in case– 

His thoughts grind to a halt, veering off suddenly into attention to his surroundings. Someone is coming. Indeed, from his place near the entrance, Ye Baiyi can see in the distance a mob climbing up the path, silent as thieves in the night, with only a blue streak of disciples in plain sight at the front.

So much for avoiding bloodshed. Did they even wait for the dust to settle after the monks left town? And what kind of harebrained scheme is this? Has this generation been born with no brains? Such a reckless, petty move! No honor, agreeing to something and then plunging the knife behind their backs. 

There is little time to curse their dishonesty, though, with their numbers fast approaching, so Ye Baiyi swipes a last look at the desolate landscape and slips back inside to sound the alarms. After all, heaven knows that little purple girl will be terribly loud if she doesn’t get her wedding, and Ye Baiyi is not looking forward to remembering what headaches feel like. Honestly, if these people would stop nearly dying for five fucking minutes–

*

v.

Today, the mirror showed a new patch of white hair, faint lines at the corner of his eyes. 

Time, it seems, is catching up to him.

It’s exhilarating.

The plum trees have already lost their blossoms, winter gone as swiftly as it came, the cold melting to the lingering warmth of spring. Today, he walks past blooming azaleas, purple and red radiant against the blue backdrop of the sky.

It brings him to little Qin Huaizhang standing beside Rong Xuan, trying so very hard to impress his friend’s seniors with all the desperation of youth. The poetry he had waxed about his sect’s gardens– Four Seasons Manor, blooming all year round! Ye Baiyi had found him so silly, blabbering while Rong Xuan beamed, so quick to pick the fights Rong Xuan dropped. 

At the time, had he not thought history was repeating itself, if kinder? The Baiyi sword, gifted with the promise to keep his dumb disciple out of trouble? He still remembers Changqing’s face, the hypocrite. So exchanging swords for cursed books is fine, but anything else and you draw the line? At least promises were as reliable as the person making them. 

Now, he has to admit, the silly boy had not been wrong– Four Seasons Manor stands in more color than Ye Baiyi had thought possible. If he’ll have time to witness all its blooms, he doesn’t know, but this spring, he’s here, and isn’t that enough?

At the gates, the young disciple lets him in without a word, bowing respectfully like his seniors have never done. Good. At the very least, those two good-for-nothing brats had the decency to forewarn their juniors of his arrival. How long has it been since Qin Huaizhang’s disciple woke up from the procedure? Aiyah, Ye Baiyi can’t remember, he had been traveling south at the time. 

Well, it’s long enough to be past the need for coddling, that’s for sure. “Qin Huaizhang’s disciple, what kind of Sect Leader are you that you won’t come greet your esteemed guest?”

“Not really a Sect Leader,” comes the voice from his left as Zhou Zishu rounds into view, his silly disciple trailing faithfully after him. He looks better now, death no longer draped over his shoulders like a shroud, smiling like he found peace somewhere in the months since that disastrous wedding. “Qianbei, this one is honored to welcome you to our house. You’ve come at a good time, A-Xiang is visiting with her husband too.”

“Who’s an esteemed guest here? All I’m hearing is a bunch of freeloaders!” says Wen Kexing from somewhere inside the building, just as loud and brash as always, and following his words, the thundering footsteps of children. 

Ye Baiyi snorts, shakes his head. Changqing ah, wait a little while longer, will you? I’m on my way, but I have some places to visit first. Meet me by the bridge, I’ll tell you all about it in a bit.