#so glad you asked actually

[celerielovescelery]

that clock guy u keep reposting looks rlly cool... can u explain his characters and the media hes from :3 /pos/nf/genq

AAHH YOU MEAN DANTE!!!! OKAY SUREEEE! Im not 100% informed on the lore but i'll do my best!!!

First off, the game they come from is called Limbus Company. It's like a gacha game but not? It's a very f2p game thats 4 sure, and its I think a like continuation of another game made by the developers called Lobotomy corp?? The game is hard to explain, theres story elements like a visual novel but at the same time theres fighting parts.

(I WILL TELL YOU RN, If your like me and doesnt like the same fighting thing over and over and would end up just auto-ing it the entire time, don't play the game and instead just watch a playthrough. Imo the fighting itself is boring because the game hardly explains the mechanics to you so you're just fumbling about the entire time)

Dante is basically a "self-insert" protagonist for the game but their not rlly a self-insert. The fun thing about them is that they actually have a personality and arent a blank slate like many other gacha games. Though Dante has amnesia and knows nothing of who they were b4 they got their clockhead lol.

In limbus company you "play" as Dante, their basically jsut the mc, and they are a manager for 12 other people, called sinners. They are bound to the 12 sinners by some kinda like deal or something, and with their clock they can rewind time and heal the sinners up.

The main goal of the game is to go through different areas called wings (i think?) and collect "golden boughs"

Thats it for now :3 i dont know hwat else to tell you that wouldnt be major spoiler territory lawl

[a-rabbit-obsessed-queer]

Aspec men deserve much more respect and recognition in the aspec community than they receive. They often face a different form of aphobia specific to them ("men are naturally sexual they can't be ace" "all men are unromantic that's not unique") this rhetoric is spouted by many, even members of our own community and I hope for a day where that is no longer the case. As an ace and demiro woman (demigirl but that's beside the point) I want to encourage folks to take the time to give the aspec men in their lives support and to the aspec men reading, you are who you say you are no matter what people say and you deserve the world. I'm sorry for the ways in which toxic masculinity has harmed you. You are a valued member of the aspec community and the queer community as a whole. No ace or aro person is broken and neither are you. I'm sorry if anyone has ever told you otherwise.

[keferon]

The tac net crash chapter is one of my favorites so far~

Ah and. Guess what. I just discovered that including this post, I made 50 pieces of fanart for Mistakes on mistakes until.. I’m so sane and normal about this story can you tell👍

[chloesimaginationthings]

Why is he kinda...

These two asks were right next to each other, and I think that’s beautiful

[noodles-and-tea]

YOUR MERTHUR ART GIVES ME LIFE!!! <3

THEY’RE SO!!!

[deoidesign]

"what do hands mean about a character?"

Their hands mean they love eachother

(webcomic)

[immult]

it's crazy to me that the only way you can fail the matron's test is by trusting your best friend or mother and caring for their plight. but not as crazy when you know they're a follower of the betrayer and a ruidusborn though, right?

imogen sounds so defeated when she asked if trusting her mother was bad. then imogen repeating the same again to the hells with this really helpless look. because the matron, a near-omniscient being, has written off her mother as something too rotten to be trusted.

"you know your mother best in the end" the way that does not change the fact that YOU have viewed her mother in the worst light. it's killing me but i have to love the consistent portrayal of the holy, at every level of the realm, putting the burden on others to find goodness or redemption in ruidusborns. but until proven otherwise they are personally fine with reducing ruidusborns to caricatures of an evil turncoat.

the matron of ravens was not there when the gods, despite luz/sarenrae's insistence to give it a chance, decided to distrust the rotten fruit and plucked it right off from its tree, setting off their own end.

[chamoemileclown]

So what other Parkcour World Building have you thought of?

So much information/ resources just doesn’t make it to the bottom layer right? It all has to trickle down.

Sort of how canopy forests work where the plants that grow tallest get the most sunlight while everyone else has to fight for what little they can. Plants that are closest to the bottom have to cope, some climb, others adapt, most only do so to live not thrive.

It’s probably a huge shock to be properly treated at the pro level, making it to the masters level would grow some sort of resentment for your previous life.

Even having the skills to be parkour champion it must come as a big culture shock to make it all the way up to the top and to find out your whole life you’ve been deprived of many different basic things. You’ve never seen the rain, you probably don’t have a great education, all the clothes you’ve ever worn were hand me downs- whatever sunlight that has trickled down through the metaphorical canopy. What is it like to feel unfiltered sun on your face? Would it scorch you?

[wordy-little-witch]

Ya know what occurs to me?

Karai Bari is in the New World.

Crocodile and Mihawk only showed up after the establishment of the delivery service.

Buggy was in Paradise. Marineford would have been in Paradise, I think, or at least Buggy's crew still was.

He doesn't have conquerors to cross the calm belt.

So... to get to the New World and set up shop, he'd have to have gone through Fishman Island, wouldn't he? So he'd had to have gotten the ship coated.

He'd likely have had to face Rayleigh or at least he'd have anticipated it - maybe Shanks even mentions Rayleigh hanging around there, maybe even mentioning him having NEVER missed Shanks passing through....

So when Buggy goes when Buggy expects to be found and claims to be dreading it and is but is also so hopeful so scared so broken so hesitant he's got a few different courses figured for how this will go down.

Only.... Rayleigh isn't there. Shakky is. She just directs them to another coater. Buggy fights himself, wants to ask, doesn't want to beg, and-

Shakky answers the question he couldn'tdislodge from his throat. "Sorry, baby blue, Ray's just working on something real important. You know how it is."

He does. He does know how it is. Important, huh? That's fine. It's probably a job. It's probably not that big of a deal that dad master Rayleigh is preoccupied. Buggy shouldn't have expected the man to drop everything and come running why did he think that, Rayleigh never did it before, not even Shanks' assurance he'd leave a message for Rayleigh would change much, and fuck he can't afford to cry so-

So Buggy gets the ship coated. It's not as pricy as he'd worried. He navigates them down, can even bring himself to smile at the wide eyed wonder from the rest. It's nice. He's fine here - these are his people. He's okay, really, and he'll be able to let this go or shove it into that nameless box in his head and heart soon enough. He just has to ride the wave, you know-?

Only no. Not really. Because a newspaper lands in his hands. And his brain is racing.

Because Rayleigh wasn't at Sabaody at all. He was with Strawhat. He was training Strawhat. He showed up, after the war, so close to the conflict, to train the kid. Rayleigh is fast, but not that fast. He'd have to have left around a week before Buggy even arrived. Shanks had assured him Rayleigh was there when he dropped by ((two weeks ago)). He knew because his brother had wrapped him in his arm and tears were shed, voices were raised and hearts were broken, wounds torn open to drain the festering rot and the healing hurt, it hurt then, it hurts now, it will hurt and hurt and hurt, because Buggy had pushed the Big Top to her near limits just to reach the archipelago that his former guardian ex-father previous family that Rayleigh called home. Shanks had called him, said he'd dropped the message and Rayleigh had chuckled and nodded and Buggy wanted to see his dad because there were still so many scars that had to be seen and acknowledged and Buggy himself wasn't even fully recovered physically but emotionally he had to do it, had to take the step and try because vulnerability brought the best and worst of him out, because he lost a brother and gained him back and he wanted for his father, at least one of them.

But Strawhat was on that front page. And Rayleigh was behind him, smiling, warm, proud, happy, and - Buggy aches. He's angry. He's livid. A week or so, by his estimate, for Rayleigh to find him and get there to the war ground. A week or so because Rayleigh was old but he was still painfully fast. In a week or so, the older man hunted down a boy he'd possibly met once or twice in passing. A week or so and The Dark King showed up to bring another strawhat wearing monster of epic proportions under his wing, had made impressive time in finding the kid, making the plan, getting to the navy hq, getting out, and that's accounting for the article writing, printing, and distribution.

A week or so to find a bright little sunshine boy he barely knew when one he raised rotted in a cell for months on end.

Busy with something real important, he recalled Shakky saying.

His chest burned for a moment, hot and wild and unyielding - and just as suddenly, the fire was gone. He was tired. He was so fucking tired. His injuries throbbed, his head hurt, his scars itched. He sighed, set the paper aside and curled impossibly small into his chaise lounge with a teary chuckle as he gripped his hair and tried to silence the keen building in his chest. He cursed himself for it, bitter and angry.

After all, he should be used to being outshined, out classed and out loved by energetic boys with bright smiles in little wicker crowns.

Story of his life

He is unaware of the many eyes on him, of the people Plotting and Arranging things on their own time. Their captain is the best - uncommon, unexpected, temperamental though he is, he is everything everyone needs him to be because it's the only thing he knows how to do. They see the seams in his mask and performance, and they ache to pay back the pain left on their captain, their boss, their leader and friend. Buggy pirates stick together, freaks and weirdos united - and nobody is allowed to hurt their captain without some serious followup.

[aroaceleovaldez]

they cast a 28 year old for Tyson 💀

[relevant rants: here and here]

yeah, i saw - i wasn't holding onto hope of them casting a disabled actor for Tyson (still disappointed, just not surprised) but casting a 28 year old for a middle schooler is really out of left field. It's just an odd choice? Particularly given how much they've been emphasizing age-accurate casting so far.

It makes me really wonder what major rewrites they have planned for Tyson's character. Because as things stand currently there's no way to make Tyson's existing character work with this casting. Tyson is supposed to be in Percy's grade, but Daniel Diemer sticks out like a sore thumb against the child actors. Tyson being in Percy's grade is pretty important for the entire arc of Sea of Monsters with the main character arc being Percy combating internalized ableism and establishing him as a character who stands up for other marginalized kids. If they remove that, what's Percy's arc going to be for that entire season? At what point are they going to establish that about his character? Or are they just going to exposition it at us like usual with nothing backing it up and no actual character progression? And in later seasons the age gap is only going to be more prominent - like how is Tyson going to work in BoTL or TLO? Are they planning on removing his character entirely for those scenes? Are they going to remove him as a recurring character in general? It'd be really weird if they killed him off or something.

I'm also afraid for if they do try to keep Tyson's disability coding in some form - cause there's kind of no good way it can go at this point. Either they completely erase Tyson's coding because they cast an abled actor for him and that messes up the entire arc of the book and his character particularly in relation to Percy, or they have an abled actor attempt to portray a character heavily coded as having down syndrome (and i believe they're already doing similar with iirc Chiron's actor is abled but they're doubling-down in the show on Chiron being disabled) and given how they've written the neurodivergence themes (or absence there of) in the show so far there's just no way that'd end well. Like, Tyson's characterization is a little questionable to begin with in the books, but given the show's writing so far it just feels like we're very rapidly ramping up for an extremely ableist characterization of Tyson. Like i'm sure Daniel Diemer is a great actor, but... i'm just getting real tired of the show erasing the entire premise of the series :T

anyways as per my initial post about pjo tv tyson casting theories i guess it's time for me to start tearing stuff apart with my teeth ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[sugarpasteltmnt]

Paradise has me in a CHOKEHOLD-

The boy is finally getting the comfort to his hurt and he deserves everything 💙💙💙

Thanks for the amazing fic as per usual!

IM SOBBING???

this is so sweet and soft and lovely THANK YOU SO MUCH 😭💘💖💞🩵😭😭💘💖🩵💓

[potato-lord-but-not]

How do you come up with sketch ideas? i stg your sketchbook is like a fucking sitcom or something, your doodle dumps make me laugh out loud. how do you do that????

honestly I just think about the fictional guys wayyyy too much. I’m a very visual person when it comes to my thoughts so really it’s just copying them down to the best of my artistic abilities. always putting those guys in situations and since I’m so averse to writing fanfics I make the most crusty sketches imaginable to cope

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

yet another little Treat for myself! do i have a problem? maybe!

[storytellering]

Do you think DMC has a incestuous subtext? I am kind of new to the franchise (and also the fandom... Which isn't really respectful that I can see) and I want to know if I am not the only one who thinks that it's pretty obvious why the ships between DVN have many believers.

First of all, welcome to DMC, anon! And OH BOY, you'll definitely find that that's the majority opinion, at least within the Spardacest circles - honestly, most "normie" circles too. Every grass-touching, non-internet poisoned dudebro I've ever met and talked dmc with has made one or two incest jokes at me about it, definitely noting how the rivalry between the twins is very charged - the only people I've found who flat out deny it are the antis. To go more in depth about the actual subtext there - well, one should start with the roots of dmc in dmc1, right? DMC1 is definitely a gothic game - it's everywhere in the aesthetics, the inspirations, the imagery and the environment, and what is gothic horror without the incest? The initial incest in Kamiya's dmc, before Itsuno stepped in, was definitely obvious in Dante and Trish (who I'm pretty sure according to kamiya at least were supposed to be endgame) - and like, c'mon. You can say all you want that she only looks like his mom, she isn't actually Eva, she doesn't even have her personality... but from a moral perspective, that's still weird as fuck if we're going by real life standards, right? You wouldn't fuck a clone of your mom without it being at least a little bit incestuous.

Then Itsuno stepped in from 3 on, and the incestuous undertones became more focused on the immediate Sparda family - the twins, and eventually, Nero.

...Do I need to even explain it? Sure, in 3 the twins bicker and banter like real brothers, but there's definitely a suggestive edge to it - so many quips between them that really cannot be explained by "oh haha brotherly banter" without it getting at least a little bit weird. Not to mention all the "impalement as penetration" comparisons that can be drawn, and I'll leave a nice little video that goes deeper into a lot of that (as well as the gothic inspirations in the dmc franchise) so you can hear it from the mouth of someone far more eloquent than me.

And then in 4... I mean, if the amount of people who almost ubiquitously shipped Dante and Nero as soon as 4 dropped and continued doing so until 5 officially confirmed their relation (which, to be fair, Nero being Dante's nephew had actually been hinted at all along, but exactly because of so many people shipping them and not wanting it to be incestuous/the dudebros not liking Nero very much when 4 was new, pretty much everyone in the english speaking side of the fandom had been in denial about it until 5 spelled it out in big, bold letters) is kind of the test, no? That the tension and chemistry is so obvious the moment the incest element is hidden or unclear, everyone is suddenly in agreement about it. I could go on and on and on about Nero's obvious puppy crush/hero worship on Dante, Dante's immediate fondness of Nero, how if you read the 4 novels it's even more blatant and in your face... but all I'm gonna say is that that initial fight scene was softcore porn and no one can convince me otherwise, lmao. Listen, I'm just saying that if the intention wasn't to be suggestive, having Nero wrap his legs around Dante to pull him closer, bite his gun, and then straddle him like that was a very poor choice. Honorable mention for the reboot, whose devs were VERY aware of the tension between the Spardas in the og franchise, called it out by saying their game wasn't gonna do "all that gay shit" (obviously in the early 2010s the issue wasn't the incest, but it being GAY incest 🙄) and then accidentally made their version of the twins SO very....... whatever the hell is going on with the reboot twins. Not not-incestuous and definitely not straight, I'll tell you that.

And then 5, again. Do I need to explain it? Nero and V are, once again, a perfect textbook example of "couple that had so much natural chemistry everyone was flocking to it before it was revealed to be incest", plus the way everything about Dante's story, at the end, now that he's a weathered old man, is made to revolve around Vergil... yes, Dante is a depressed old alcoholic because he pushed everyone away, because of the laundry list of issues he ended up with because of everything that happened in his life, BUT Vergil was always front and center within it, even when he wasn't there. That Dante's story quite literally begins and ends with Vergil... well. I dunno about you, that just doesn't feel like your regular siblings dynamic. Also another honorable mention: "I'll make you submit" is a totally normal thing to say to your estranged father. Not weird at all with absolutely zero implications. OH, not to mention, even if we stay purely within canon and don't even look deeper at any implications or subtext... the literal only canon couple is incestuous, too. Let's not forget Kyrie and Nero are adopted siblings, Nero was raised as her brother, and the game itself calls it out in the character descritption (in 4's character bios it says Kyrie is at once Nero's "lover and family") + it's quite literally spelled out in the novels (having Nero think that "well, while it's true that he's been raised with Kyrie as siblings, he would've liked her even if they weren't family"). There's SO much more I could still go into, I have quite literally spent the past 3 years replaying the games over and over and overthinking/hyperanalizing every single frame, rereading the novels and the mangas to the point I could cite them by memory, and it's just... I dunno. I saw someone else say this somewhere, but if you're into DMC and grossed out by incest... this might not be the franchise for you.

[chloesimaginationthings]

The baseball reference on vanessas screen was genius because theres a baseball player named mike schmidt!

IM GLAD someone noticed this detail!!

[eurydicees]

Where’s the trans!Kyotani and trans!Iwaizumi fic (those were the characters right?)

HELLO YES SO GLAD YOU'RE HERE, THANK YOU FOR ASKING!!!!

solidarity, or some friendship of the like

summary: kyoutani gets his period, and it fucking sucks. iwaizumi is also there, and that sucks a little less. prompt: none pairings: kentarou kyoutani & hajime iwaizumi (platonic) words: 2829  warnings: discussion of periods, implied insecurities about being trans

Kyoutani is hiding. Practice starts in five minutes. He knows that practice starts in five minutes. He can hear the club room clock ticking, loud as a bomb’s countdown, even from the bathroom stall. He’s going to be late, or he’s going to miss practice entirely. 

For once, he doesn’t actually want to skip. Or, he does want to skip because fuck knows he can’t show up like this, but he didn’t intend to skip today. He actually wants to be on this stupid team, for some fucking reason. 

He was given a second chance and he’s going to take it, despite something in him screaming out that he’s not really a part of what the rest of the team has. After a few weeks of practicing with them again before their next tournament, he’s well aware that he still doesn’t have their trust, not really, but still—he’s kind of finding himself wanting to earn it. 

He wants Yahaba to give him the time of day, at least once. He wants Iwaizumi to look at him as more than something he can guide into being next year’s ace. He wants Oikawa—actually, he doesn’t really care about Oikawa’s opinion, but he’s besides the point. 

Some days, he sinks into the feeling of being part of the team and wonders if, one day, he could genuinely be a part of the dynamic that everyone else has found over the time he hasn’t been playing with them. Some days, he thinks he might get there. 

This is not one of those days. This moment is ruining everything he has worked to convince himself of for weeks now. This is not a day in which he believes he can reach them. If anything, this is only further convincing himself that he can never truly be one of them, be like them. He just doesn’t—doesn’t fucking belong. 

He can want to play on the boys’ volleyball team as much as he wants to. He can make it past tryouts and onto the team, he can be physically strong and he can beat almost everyone—everyone but Iwaizumi—in Seijoh’s arm wrestling tournaments, he can make himself look as masculine as possible. He can do all that. 

And he still will never actually fit in. He won’t ever fit in, not while he’s sitting on the toilet with bloodied underwear and pants both pulled down to his knees. He rubs his palms against his eyes, because he will not cry, he won’t, because boys don’t cry and he’s a boy, he is.

He can’t cry about this. He won’t. He just has to wait until the club room clears as practice starts, and then he can escape. Only, fuck, he doesn’t have a pad or tampon or anything, and he doesn’t even have clothes—

“Kyoutani?” 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

“You in here?” 

Fuck. 

The thing about Yahaba is that he is persistent. He is persistent and he is frustrating and he is not going to give up once he has his mind set on something. While they’re playing volleyball together, this is something Kyoutani appreciates. While he is hiding from everyone in the bathroom because his body has decided to riot against him, this is not something he appreciates. 

“Oikawa sent me to find you,” Yahaba calls out, and Kyoutani can see his feet step into the bathroom. “We’re starting practice and he wants you there for some reason.” 

And, okay, normally that wouldn’t hurt because normally Kyoutani would have something to say back, but right now he feels fragile in a way he tries to never be. Right now he feels like he’s going to snap in half and he’s not going to be able to put the pieces back together. He’s going to have to quit the team, go back to the rec center, where no one knows about this, and—and all of that hurts. 

His body is aching and probably he should have seen the signs before he found the drying blood and discharge in his underwear, but he doesn’t really track his period because he hates even acknowledging that it happens. And now he’s suffering the consequences of that. Now, Yahaba’s comments are actually sending something stupid painful down his chest and, on a physical level, his chest already feels too tender to touch.

Yahaba’s feet pause outside of the stall door. “Are you good? You coming or what?” 

“I’m fucking fine, leave me alone—” 

“Are you sick or something?” 

“I said, I’m fine!” It’s a growl and a defensive anger more than anything else. Kyoutani can hear the angry anxiety in his voice, and he wonders if Yahaba hears it too. 

Yahaba doesn’t say anything—for a moment, Kyoutani wonders if he’s managed to hurt him back, and then decides he doesn’t care at the moment. He needs Yahaba to leave. He doesn’t want anyone to see him like this, doesn’t want to be caught—

“Should I grab Coach or someone?” Yahaba asks, and oh, he’s definitely picked up on Kyoutani’s anxiety, because his voice is just that much softer. “Do you need…something?” 

“No,” Kyoutani snaps. What he needs is to just not be here. “Don’t Coach. Please don’t get Coach.” 

And he’s begging Yahaba for things now, which is a new fucking low in his life, but he can’t face either Mizoguchi or Irihata right now. They know he’s trans—they had to know, it was information he was required to divulge to all his teachers and coaches, however much he resisted the idea—and while they’ve found it in them to be accepting enough that he’s allowed on the team, Kyoutani refuses to push it so far as to asking for help. Not with this. 

“Okay, fuck,” Yahaba says. “I won’t get them. Seriously, are you good?” 

“Just leave it,” Kyoutani mutters. “Tell them I’m not coming to practice today.” 

Yahaba doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “Oikawa’s not gonna take that excuse.” 

“I’m not quitting, I’m skipping one afternoon,” Kyoutani growls. “It’s fucking fine. You’ve all done it before.” 

Except even as he says that, he knows it’s not true. Nothing short of a career ending injury or terminal illness would stop someone on Seijoh’s volleyball team from coming to practice. Even then, they’d probably sit on the sidelines with casts on both legs and yell instructions from the bench. 

But Kyoutani will suffer being the first to do it because he’s not leaving this stall while there are people around. He can’t face that. 

“Your funeral,” Yahaba mutters. Louder, “I’ll tell them you’re skipping, but I’m not making excuses for you.” 

“Not asking you to,” Kyoutani snaps. “I’m not coming either way.” 

He doesn’t really care what Yahaba thinks about him not going. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks. Let them believe he’s ditching the team again, let them believe he doesn’t care about the sport, let them believe anything but the fact that he wasn’t born a man. 

He watches as Yahaba’s feet round the corner and he disappears, presumably to tell Oikawa that Kyoutani isn’t coming. At the moment, Kyoutani can’t bring himself to care what Oikawa is going to say. Putting his head in his hands, his back hunched, still sitting on the stupid toilet, he lets out a long scream into his palms. 

He hates this. He hates this so much. He had probably stained the desk chair during his last class of the day, he doesn’t know how long he’s walked around like this, he doesn’t know how he’s going to get home without exposing everything, and he hates this. 

He squeezes his eyes shut for a long moment, trying to imagine himself out of this situation. Maybe when he opens his eyes again, he won’t be in this bathroom stall and none of his clothes will be stained and he won’t have this awful cramping in his lower stomach and he can go to the gym and play volleyball with the rest of the team like his body doesn’t hate him. 

“Mad Dog?” 

“Don’t call me that.” The response is immediate, instinctual. Then the panic sets in as he realizes Oikawa is the one now standing outside of the stall door. “Get out of here.” 

Oikawa has no hesitation when he says, “No. Tell me what’s going on. Why can’t you—” 

“I started my fucking period!” 

Maybe he says it because he needs to get it out of his chest and into air where someone else can deal with it. Maybe he says it because he’s just so fucking tired. Maybe he doesn’t want to be the only one who knows anymore. Maybe he just says it because he doesn’t give a shit about Oikawa’s opinion of him. 

Oikawa is silent. Kyoutani bites down hard on his lip because he wants to either cry or scream and neither of those are options, not over this and not in front of motherfucking Tooru Oikawa. He’s stronger than that. He has to make himself stronger than that. So his heart just hesitates in his throat for a long moment, a moment of tense, glass-fragile silence. 

The Oikawa exhales, long and slow. He sounds calm, somehow. “Do you have what you need? Pad, tampon?” 

“No.” Kyoutani’s words, again, are the growl of a cornered animal and he wants to sink his teeth into something. “Just—fucking leave it, Oikawa. I’ll deal with it.” 

Oikawa exhales again, that same long breath that’s setting Kyoutani so on edge. He wants to scream, wants to punch something. Oikawa, maybe. The wall, maybe. The stall door. 

Then Oikawa does the last thing Kyoutani expected him to. He had expected a laugh or a jeer or an insult or a joke. But instead, Oikawa turns around, and he leaves. He doesn’t protest, doesn’t start an argument, he just…leaves. It was what Kyoutani had wanted to happen, kind of, but somehow the resulting silence is just as humid and oppressive as Oikawa’s presence had been. 

Okay. Oikawa is gone. Kyoutani can deal with this shit. He got his period for the first time when he was fourteen, and pretty consistently for every month after that, so he’s dealt with this—he can’t actually do that math right now, but he’s done this enough times to be able to deal. Probably he just needed to be dramatic first. 

He has his gym shorts in his locker. He can change into those, even if he’ll be cold on the long walk home. It’s better than wearing this. It’ll be fine. With that figured out, he pulls out a wad of toilet paper and folds it up in his hand, then carefully places it in the stained underwear, wincing at the feeling of the dried blood accidentally brushing against his knuckles. 

“Kyoutani?” 

Fuck. Why are his teammates rotating through this fucking bathroom like he’s a fucking zoo exhibit—

“It’s Iwaizumi,” he says, as if Kyoutani wouldn’t recognize that voice anywhere. 

Kyoutani did not, before this, have a ranking of which of his teammates he would least like to catch him in the bathroom when he’s on his period. Now, though, he thinks he has a working list and the list is the exact people who have come to find him today. Yahaba, who has never backed down from making fun of him. Oikawa, who always knows exactly what to say to antagonize and provoke him. Iwaizumi, who he respects so stupid much. 

The thing is that Iwaizumi is everything that Kyoutani wants to be. Iwaizumi is strong and bold and brave and an ace through and through. He’s also kind and he’s patient with everyone except for Oikawa. He helps his underclassmen with their form no matter how bad it is to start with. He never makes fun of anyone who doesn’t deserve it or can’t take it. He’s masculine and built strong and good and he’s—

Kyoutani is afraid of admitting to so many things, but one thing he’s not afraid to admit is that, honestly, he just wants to be like that. He doesn’t want to be an outsider like he is right now, he doesn’t want to be this in-between body that craves Iwaizumi’s masculinity but, ultimately, still menstruates. 

Iwaizumi’s shadow passes in front of the stall door. “Oikawa came and got me. Told me what you said.” 

“He shouldn’t have.” Kyoutani’s voice is a hollow rasp. “I shouldn’t have told him and it’s none of his business.” 

Iwaizumi snorts. His feet come into view underneath the stall door. “Been telling him to keep out of other people’s shit for years. It has yet to work.” 

“It’s none of your business either.” 

“Maybe not,” Iwaizumi admits. “I brought you some things anyway. I’m gonna slide them under the door, okay?” 

Kyoutani doesn’t answer even as Iwaizumi does as he said. He passes over a small black bag, something like the makeup bag his sister uses to keep her lipstick and blush in. Hesitantly, Kyoutani picks it up and unzips it. Inside: pads and tampons. Nondescript, simple white packaging; both nighttime and daytime pads and both heavy and light flow tampons. Whoever prepared this bag clearly wanted to be ready for anything. 

He swallows, staring at the contents. He needs them and he hates it and he’s grateful and he has so many questions. “How did you…” 

Iwaizumi is quiet for a moment, shifting his weight between his feet. It’s after a long moment of tense and near-audible heartbeats before he speaks again. “Mine are a little irregular. I got caught off guard at some point my first year and had to leave practice early. It was…humiliating, I guess, is the light word for it. Exposing, maybe? I dunno. But I’ve tried to be better prepared since then.” 

Kyoutani goes still, his grip on the bag tightening. He pulls out a pad, turning it over in one hand. Then he sets the bag down and pushes it back under the door with his toe. “You…” 

The question goes unasked, but Iwaizumi hums a yes anyway. 

“Oh.” 

“Is it really that much of a surprise?” 

“Yes,” Kyoutani says immediately. 

And it is, it is a surprise, because this is Iwaizumi, who is practically the epitome of masculinity to Kyoutani. This is Iwaizumi, undefeated in three years of arm wrestling. Iwaizumi, who has the fastest mile across any of the sports teams at Aoba Johsai. Iwaizumi, who has the highest lift weight of any of them. Iwaizumi, who has never shown any sign of being anything other than man. 

Iwaizumi hums again. “I guess you don’t really see me a lot outside of school and practice.” 

Kyoutani takes a shaky breath, unwrapping the pad with a crinkle that makes him wince. Iwaizumi doesn’t react to it—something that Kyoutani is entirely grateful for—and keeps talking. 

“I like to think we’re friends,” Iwaizumi continues, steadily, as if he isn’t altering Kyoutani’s entire worldview. “I like to think I’m friends with everyone on the team. But it’s…I mean, it would be hard for them not to have a guess by now. But no one ever really talks about it in the clubroom or at practice. So it makes sense you didn’t know, I guess. Sometimes it feels a little like no one knows. Except Oikawa, since he doesn’t know when to shut up sometimes.” 

Kyoutani snorts. That feels true. 

“I love him, but he can be an idiot,” Iwaizumi says. There’s a fondness in his voice that Kyoutani is pretty sure he will never understand. “Anyways, I get it, is the point. I’ve spent my fair share of time in this bathroom panicking.” 

They both fall silent for a long moment, the two of them just taking soft, even breaths. For a moment, Kyoutani actually feels comfortable in the silence with him. 

Iwaizumi inhales, and then exhales, long and slow. He shifts his stance again. “You don’t have to come back to practice if you just want to go home now. But we want you there.” 

Kyoutani swallows around some kind of lump in his throat, overwhelmed by the kindness Iwaizumi is somehow, for some reason, showing him. It feels like some kind of solidarity, or—something like friendship, maybe. 

“Up to you,” Iwaizumi says. “But know that if anyone gives you shit, on the team or off it, they’ll be answering to me. And probably the rest of the team, though honestly it’s not like any of them could really finish a fight. But—yeah. You get the point.” 

Iwaizumi laughs a little before continuing. “I’m gonna go up now, but feel free to let me know if you ever need anything else.”

Somewhere in him, Kyoutani finds the strength to nod, even if Iwaizumi can’t see it. “I’ll, uh. I’ll be up in a few minutes.” 

“Sounds good, Kyoutani.” With that, Iwaizumi is turning around and walking away. 

I like to think we’re friends, Iwaizumi had said. And, in all his great and unsure honesty, Kyoutani would like to think so too.