#that first scene of him on the train lays out the basics of his character - the rule breaker and thrill seeker

[currentlyonstandbi]

[tojiscumdumpster]

⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||။ knockout x renji abarai

✧ summary there’s no better way for renji to celebrate a big win than to spend the night with y/n.

✧ content warnings reader described as a black woman who uses she/pronouns. feisty!reader, chubby!reader x undergroundfighter!renji. modern au — no bleach verse. told in first POV — renji’s. mentions of stitches and bruises. usage of profanity, praise kink, cowgirl position, nipple play, facefucking — renji will finish in reader’s, squirting. terms of endearment — baby, sweetheart, angel, etc. reader and renji are in their late twenties.

✧ author’s note hello, hello. i am here with a fic that’s not jjk for once in my life, lmfao. this idea has been in my drafts since january 2023, and it was just sitting there collecting dusts on my old tumblr. but i said i was going to do more bleach characters, so here we go. first time writing renji, so if this ain’t how you see him, oops. still enjoy. also didn't really focus on the underground!fighter portion as much. but maybe i will if there's a next time. support me by liking, commenting, and reblogging this post. i would greatly appreciate it. AGELESS/BLANK BLOGS AND MINORS— DO NOT INTERACT.

I know she told me not to come by after the fight, but I needed to. 

 I won.

 I fucking won, and there’s no other way for me to celebrate winning ten thousand dollars than to be with Y/N.

 Well, that’s if she’s still not mad at me.

 Before I left for my match, we got into an argument. A huge one. She doesn’t like that I fight for a living, let alone illegal underground fighting. I mean—I get it. Seeing someone you care about constantly getting his ass beat isn’t a sight worth seeing. 

 But fighting is all I know. 

 I had a shitty childhood. Didn’t know who the hell my parents were since they gave me up at birth for adoption. Jump around in foster care homes until the mothers got sick of me and kicked me out in the streets. Survival was basically forced on me.

 Fighting is what kept me alive. For food. Clothes. A place to lay my head. Whether I lost or won, I know the reason why I’m alive today is because I’m a fighter. 

 It wasn’t until I was eighteen when I found out about the world of underground fighting. Ten years deep and I know nothing else. 

 Y/N knows this about me. She understands I didn’t have it easy and never judged me. But that doesn’t mean she agrees with my lifestyle. 

 She came to a few fights in the beginning. Eventually, she got tired of seeing me stitched up almost every weekend. 

 Shit, me too. 

 However, after tonight, I feel good about my future wins. I busted my ass in training, so now I don’t have to hear shit about anymore losses. 

 Even if right now I’m stitched up and have a black eye. I feel good.

 Great.

 Better if Y/N opens the door after keeping me waiting out in the cold for the past ten minutes. 

 I know she’s awake. She has a habit of staying up late, studying for med school. And plus, I haven’t messaged or called her yet. Despite her not showing up to my fights, she still wants an update afterwards that I made it out alive.

 “Y/N, let me in,” I say, knocking loudly on her apartment door. “You know I don’t care about making a scene.”

 After a few more obnoxious knocks, the door finally swings open and I am met with deep russet skin, tight curls, and chocolate-colored eyes that pierce an annoyed look in my direction.

 “What do you want?” She bites out. “I’m busy.”

 I smirk and hold the bag of money in the air. “I won.”

 “Congrats.” Her tone is flat and she tries to slam the door in my face, but I placed my foot to stop it from closing. “Seriously?”

 “Yes, seriously. Are you really still mad at me?” I teasingly ask. 

 “You won. I said congrats. What more do you want?”

 I shrugged. “I’m locked out of my apartment.”

 She arches a brow at me, already recognizing my bullshit ass excuse of being locked out of my apartment. 

 Y/N knows me. She knows I would do anything to be in her presence, so going back and forth in forty degree weather is pointless. 

 Her pretty brown hues travels across my face and body, examining the stitches and bruises that probably has her wondering, who the fuck treated him? 

 Me. But that’s besides the point.

 A deep sign escapes her mouth when she realizes I’m not going anywhere until she lets me in, so she opens her door wider and turns her back to me to walk further inside her apartment. 

 “Sit,” she orders, which I happily do so while chuckling to myself. 

 While Y/N goes to the bathroom (assuming she’s getting a med kit to fix my shitty patch job), I take advantage of staring at her round ass that’s barely covered in those tiny boy shorts. Every step she takes it jiggles, creating an ocean of waves I’m eager to swim in.

 I get comfortable while I wait, taking off my skully, sweater, and any other form of heavy clothing that would cause me to sweat in her heated apartment. 

 “I’m going to start charging you if you keep fucking coming to my apartment like this, Renji,” Y/N snapped, walking with the kit in her hand as expected. 

 “Outside of paying for your tuition, I can think of other ways to repay you.”

 She rolls her eyes at my suggestive comment. “Get over yourself, Abarai.”

 I let out a snort before she stands in front of me and tilt up my chin to start making work on my face. 

 She’s cute when she’s mad. Huffing and puffing while whispering slick comments under breath. But how she’s handling my face by moving it around with force rushes blood straight to my groin.

 I’m getting hard.

 Hard as shit, and it’s not helping that I’m in close proximity with her. 

 That jasmine lavender scent that circulates through my senses. Looking up at her full lips that’s coated with gloss. Then, lowering my gaze to her tits that’s big, naturally saggy, and pretty. My mouth is watering at the sight of her nipples hardening.

 And I don’t know if it’s because she feels that I’m checking her out or the coldness outside is affecting her. 

 Either way, I’ll act on it.

 Taking it upon myself, I grab the back of her thighs to pull her on my lap. As if she’s used to my antics, it doesn’t catch her off guard and she continues to clean up my wounds. 

 “You’re all bloody up with a black eye and somehow you still have the energy to be a pervert,” she retorts.

 I move one of hands to her ass, massaging comforting circles. “For you? Yeah.”

 The quiet between us was comfortable until she opted to speak again. “So… who’d you fight?”

 “Some huge motherfucker. I thought I was going to die.”

 She leans back to grab more alcohol and dabs it above my brow. “Maybe that’s what needed to have you stop fucking fighting.”

 I throw my head back to laugh, but she grabs my chin to bring my face forward. “Like you want me dead.” My hands creep beneath her cheeks to pull her closer to me and apply more pressure to my cock. “That’s what you want?”

 “That came out my mouth, Abarai?”

 “Why are you still mad at me?” 

 She scoffs. “Why am I mad that you’re practically coming to me everyday with a busted face and broken ribs?” That’s one thing I love about Y/N—her feisty personality. It turns me on so fucking much because I know when I fuck her, it’ll be a different story. 

 Continuing, she says, “I think I would be a little more satisfied if you did this professionally as opposed to underground. Underground doesn’t come with insurance, Ren.”

 “Aw, you care about me that much?” My question was supposed to be posed as a joke, but the look on her pretty face says otherwise. 

 “Fucking asshole. I don’t know why I still deal with your ass.”

 “Probably because you love me.”

 “Probably not.”

  Gripping her hips, I pull her with me and lean back into the headrest of the couch. We’re inches away from our mouths cooling and I take advantage of this proximity by basking in her sweet smelling breath and beauty. 

 Simply because Y/N exists, my cocks hardens for her. Holding her in my arms. Feeling her pussy against my erection and breasts suffocating pressed on my chest. Girlfriend or not, she’s mine.  

 And she knows it. 

 I can see how she looks at me, even when mad, that she cares and loves me. Y/N is a tough girl. I can only imagine what she’s been through. Still, she manages to soften up just for me. 

 We never made it official since she doesn’t approve of the underground shit, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop asking. 

 “So when are you going to say yes to being my girlfriend?” I whisper.

 She tries breaking from my embrace, but I tighten my grip. “Renji…”

 “You feel my dick pressed against you, right? It only makes it harder when you say my name like that, Y/N.”

 “Be real with me… will you keep doing this shit forever?” Her eyes waver as she awaits my answer and I can’t help the guilt from pinging my chest. 

 “If it lessens my chance of being with you, no.”

 She searches my face for hesitance or deceit, however, she finds nothing because I meant what I said. Y/N is the only person that looks at me like I’m a human, and I wouldn’t let my obsession with fighting get in the way of our future together. 

 How she tucks her coil behind her ear and nips down on her lower lip shows me the bit of vulnerability she reserves for me.

 So—I take advantage of it. 

 In less than three seconds my lips were on hers. I take my time relishing those sweet, plump and plush, strawberry flavored lips.

 I can feel the skepticism from Y/N while kissing her, maybe because she’s trying to put on this show that she’s still mad at me. But soon, her rigid body melts into mine and returns the kiss. 

 Our heavy breaths mingle, increasing in speed the more aggressive we lock lips. She begins rolling her hips onto my cock and I let out a grunt, feeling the moisture of her pussy liquefying on me. 

 The slaps I leave on her ass are harsh, causing her to bite my bottom lip and suck it into her mouth. Y/N is so fucking aggressive it drives me nuts. She gives me a high and adrenaline not even a fight could give. 

 “Pull your dick out, Ren,” she orders through muffled moans and our kiss. 

 “Fucking bossing me around to give you cock? Not mad at me anymore?” Y/N ignores my taunt and works her hands between us to untie my sweats. I hiss at the feel of her cool hands engulfing my dick to give it a few pumps.

 She must not know what her touch does to me. She handles my cock like she owns it, and gosh, I fucking love that shit. My fingers gently tangle into her coils to deepen our kiss, but she soon gets up to strip her clothes.

 Fuck… Fuck, she’s so goddamn sexy. I’ll never get tired of her thick body, filled with soft dips and curves. I look at her, observe her like she’s an expensive piece of art hung up at a museum because that’s what I see her as. 

 Pretty pussy leaking arousal and I smirk to myself, thinking how she had all that attitude earlier while being wet for me like she didn’t want me inside of her.

 “You’re fucking beautiful. You know that?” I ask, massaging her tits and looking up at her. “You still have that attitude or are you going to come ride my cock like a good girl?”

 She gently pushes me back against the couch with her lips on mine and straddles my lap. “Depends on if you’re going to be a good boy and take this pussy.”

 “Shit, angel. I will.”

 Y/N hums while reaching around to align my cock with her sex. Two seconds later, she slowly sinks down my length until I’m buried into the hilt. That soft lingering fuck that slips past her pretty lips sounds sexy as hell and has my dick twitching in response.

 I can’t bust now. Not yet. Even if the tightness and heat of her pussy pushes me off the edge of a mountain. Her pussy is so warm, so fucking warm, fat, and wet. Gosh, I don’t ever think I can be without this pussy. 

 I throw my head back and savor this feeling, but Y/N had other plans for me. 

 “Remember to look at me when I’m riding you, Ren,” she coos. “Eyes on me, baby. I want you to see how much I love this dick inside my pussy.”

 Fucking Christ. “Tell me how much you love it while bouncing on me.”

 And she does just that. Telling me how big and girthy I am, that she’s sorry for giving me attitude and admits that she just wanted dick. But no. I want her to fuck me like she’s mad. I need that type of energy pumping through my veins after this win tonight. 

 I reassure Y/N and tell her to fuck me harder. Her pace quickens and slaps her ass fervently against my cock. I can’t stop moaning her name. The wet slippery noises coming from her pussy increases in volume and it creates a mess between us. 

 This is where I belong, deep in her pussy and feeling her walls squeeze the hell out of me. I don’t even hold her hips or waist. I relax comfortably with my arms sprawl over the top of her couch, watching how gorgeous she looks while fucking what’s hers. 

 “Oh, fuck, Renji,” she moans, tugging her lips inwards and lolling her head to the side in complete pleasure.

 Those perfect, full tits bounces in my face and I can’t help but stare and become mesmerized. Light marks that resemble tiger stripes decorated the valley of breasts. Her nipples, pebbled and straining underneath my gaze, look desperate for my touch.

 I take it upon myself to pinch them between my fingers and a soft shriek escapes her mouth, further arching her back. 

 Y/N keeps getting wetter by the second, every bounce she makes. And hearing her sticky arousal, I know and see how she’s creaming my cock.  Purposely, I sit myself on the couch, thrusting up in her a bit to feel my head hit her g spot.

 “Ren, help me little,” she begs through a whimper. “Fuck me back.”

 I caress her cheeks with the back of my head. “Yeah? You want me to help you, sweetheart?”

 “Please.”

 God, I love it when she’s needy for me like this. 

 In no time, my hands are at her waist and my thrusts meet with her jumping movements. Y/N isn't loud when it comes to her sounds of pleasure. Vocal, yes. But right now, her moans and whimpers are louder than usual. 

 It’s like she needed my dick inside of pussy just as much as I needed it. 

 I see the desire in her brown hues. I feel the heat radiating off Y/N’s skin while my fingers dig into her flesh, holding her in place to pound upwards into her pussy. 

 This is what I wanted—to fuck my girl after a well deserved win. And she’s going to congratulate me how I want. 

 My lips are at her neck leaving wet kisses and sucking her flesh until purple specks form. “Coming home to this good fucking pussy. Gosh, I love how you feel, angel. Going to fucking mean it now when you say congrats?”

 “Congratulations, baby,” she purrs, slamming harder on my cock. “You did good… so damn good, Ren.”

 I hum, dragging my tongue along her neck. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

 Y/N continues to gasps out her pleas for me to fuck harder. I comply… I comply in helping my pretty girl come and savor the look when she washes over me. My grips are firm on her waist, betting that’ll leave marks when she wakes up the next poor, and drive my cock deeper into her pussy.

 I’m in pure awe. I feel my own releasing catching up to me the more I watch her take me. This is my woman. My fucking girl. I come home to this every night after every fight to hold her in my arms and fuck her. 

 Her name from my mouth sounds like a broken record when I moan her name. This fat, gushy, slick and tight pussy has this power over me. She won’t stop fucking squeezing me, I can’t prevent my face from growing hot. It’s intense how I feel right now, and it’s all because of Y/N.

 “Good, good fucking pussy. God, you’re so fucking good to me, angel face,” I rasp, pecking her lips. “You’re going to come for me?”

 “Yes, Renji, baby. I’m going to come. Keep giving me that dick. Please don’t stop, please.”

 “Put your fingers in my mouth.” She does quick with my command. I suck on her digits and coat them well with saliva before pushing them out of my mouth. “Now rub your clit, pretty girl. I wanna see you squirt everywhere.”

 Because she’s overwhelmed with arousal, Y/N stops bouncing on my cock and allows me to fuck her while she plays with clit. Her mouth hangs gape, drool slightly coating the side of her mouth and breathing heavily. 

 My balls slap her ass. My head kisses her soft cushion repeatedly. Her velvet walls transfer warmth to my cock and the bubble that rests in the pit of my stomach is on the verge of explosion.

 I’m about to come. Hard.

 But I need her to come first.

 “Fucking come for me, Y/N. Keep playing with that pretty pussy and moan my name,” I grit out, pushing past all my thrusts. 

 “Right there, Renji. Keep fucking me right there… I’m–oh, fuck–I’m coming.”

 She’s so pretty when she comes. Dark brown porcelain complexion, slick with sweat. Eyes rolling to the back of her head. Pussy clenching and unclenching around my cock. Moaning, whimpering my name back to back. 

She’s breathless. Flawless. I have this image of her painted perfectly in my mind. Watching Y/N come, makes me come, so I make quick work to pull her off my lap. And she knows exactly what I want–to fuck my release down her throat.

 Her mouth is as warm as her pussy, and I let out hitched breaths and harsh grunts when she swallows me whole. I’m relentless when forcing her head down on my cock as I facefuck her. The gurgling noises she makes are obscene. Pornogrpahic, even. 

 And what caused my come to shoot through her mouth is seeing that she’s still massaging her clit, eventually squirting all over her wooden floors. 

 My hips stutter and I throw my head back to moan into the air. “Fuck, Y/N! That’s my fucking girl. Look at you making a mess while choking on my cock and swallowing my come.”

 Y/N takes it upon herself to wrap her lips tighter around my cock and massage my balls, ensuring every single last of my nut has released in her mouth. I take it for a while, but I soon become sensitive, practically feeling my skin being sucked off.

 “Easy now, angel,” I say through an airy chuckle. I pull my cock out and her mouth echoes a pop sound. 

 She whines a little because I’m no longer in her mouth and it causes me to smirk because it wasn’t too long ago where she acted like she hated me. 

 My hand grasps her chin and guides it upwards to meet with my eyes. “You swallowed for me, Y/N? Open up.” She nods, sticking her tongue out. “Perfect.”

 “You’re going to fuck me again?” She asks, catching her bottom lip between her teeth.”

 Gosh, this woman will be the death of me.

tags: @dejwrld @hvshinas @diamondoidxx @xxjazzxx @thegirlwonder1 @ryukenzz @maiapuhpaia @elitesanjisimp @amyrahrose @sweetpeachies @abigolemess @linastired @diorsbrando @starrygetou @niya729 (if i didn't tag you it's because tumblr wouldn't have your user pop up)

[a-star-that-burns-brightly]

[ content warning: discussion of in-canon sexual abuse ] Maybe it’s just because I’m not too active in the ALNST fandom and mostly observe from afar, but I think this fandom brushed aside way too quickly the fact that Till was sexually assaulted. I have never seen anyone talk in depth about like, what that actually means in terms of his arc and the storytelling of his character. Which I find deeply, deeply upsetting because holy fucking shit.

This man right here has been told, basically his entire life, that not only is he himself not worthy of being treated as a human, but that his body is not his body, but a piece of property that can be owned. And whoever owns his property can use it for whatever, and however they wish. Now, dehumanization is nothing new or unique in this world, obviously. The very concept of Pet Humans is dehumanizing by nature, leaving all six of our main characters as victims to it, even those who are more well-off like Mizi. But Till is a specially fucked up case almost distinctly unlike the rest, because he is actually treated like a fucking dog.

(x) Ivan: If you keep rebelling like that, they won’t ever remove your collar you know? Till: This annoying bastard… — Ivan: I told you so, didn’t I? You didn’t listen? Till: This annoying bastard... (translation courtesy of @leiikos on youtube)

(x)

An unruly animal who needs to be leashed up and put in it’s place. Animals, as is common knowledge, are not on the same level as a human being. But they are ordained to follow the commands of those above them. And if someone (thing) isn’t doing as it is told…

It deserves to be taught better. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This is the mindset that has followed Till his entire life by the ones who were supposed to take care of him. He is not human, even less human than the existing inhuman. He is a pet, even more so than the other pets, an animal. A thing. Property. Something to own. And the best thing about owning something?

You gain the ability to do whatever you want to it. Till’s body was not his from the start. It was used as something to toy around with, experiment with, to train and train and train, presumably for his whole life. His body, his skin, his flesh and bone and blood, it was all nothing more than a plaything. So what if he screams? Just ignore it. Or don’t. If this competition has taught us anything, voices have the most value of all. On top of it being reinforced that Till is not deserving of humanity, he is also not deserving of his bodily autonomy. People are free to do whatever they want with his body because it’s not his body, it’s theirs. And that brings us, finally, to the scene itself

He can’t sing her song, he refuses to. This isn’t the first time he’s refused to do something, far from it actually. What was once an innocent puppy with dilated hope in his eyes has grown into an angry, disobedient mutt. And we know what happens to an animal that refuses to do what they’re told. But there’s something interesting about dogs, or rather about the ones they descended from, the wolf: When the circumstances call for it, they will bite the hand that’s supposed to feed them.

And here is where I intrude to remind you that this is the only time we see anyone physically fighting back against the aliens in the confines of Alien Stage. We see Hyuna and Mizi fucking up aliens in All In, but that was after they had escaped from the cage. And you could make a case for Mizi trying to escape the grasp of the guards that grabbed her in Ruler of My Heart, but from what we saw she didn’t actually lay a hand on them and more so just tried to force herself out of their grasp. though if you disagree with me on that that's fine Here though? Till has this bitch’s face grabbed into his palm with a bottle in hand ready to smash it directly in between it’s eyes. I consider this to be the first act of physical violence shown against the aliens within the uncomfortably tight enclosure. And it’s triggered not because of anything personally done to Till, which on its own could probably fill a list that reaches the ground. But because of the prospect of Mizi being dead. Till knows that this place is shit, that his life is shit. Said so directly on his profile.

Dislikes: Everyone, including Guardian Urak (translation courtesy of @kh47uo on twitter)

But he stays regardless because Mizi is there. If Mizi is dead, Till has absolutely nothing to lose…Right?

I can almost imagine him thinking: There’s nothing you can put me through that’s worse than every other way you’ve hurt me. …But there was. Oh there was.

A final, disgusting message to the pet to put him back in his place. Back on his leash. Making sure he will never forget where he stands for the rest of his days.

And that is really what the sexual assault of Till represents to me. It is a cruel reminder to Till that fighting back is impossible, having hope, being free, it might as well be a fool's fantasy. He will always be less-than-human, less than anything. His body will always be the property of the ones that were supposed to protect him, claimed, and then used used used until it’s worn out and dead.

And the aliens chose to exemplify that fact in the most direct way they possibly could.

So what if he screams? Just ignore it. Or don’t. If this competition has taught us anything, screams have the most value of all

[asapeveryday]

THE LOOK OF LOVE - HQ

basically: the exact moment they realized they liked you

featuring: (timeskip)hinata, (high school)kageyama, tsukishima, yamaguchi

warnings: none!

a/n: lmk what we think of this!!! I can take requests for any other characters you wanna see with this prompt :)

♡HINATA - didn’t realize until you came to visit him in Brazil for the first time. he’d become accustomed to the foreign country and learned to live with the little aching feeling inside that he was missing out, but still something more than melancholy emotions would fester every time he’d open his phone to see this Lock Screen: a picture of his high school volleyball team seniors with you as a manager included. When you let him know you were coming to Brazil for vacation he wasn’t just excited, he was nervous. Absolutely nervous, like, pre-game nervous, and he had no idea why. You two were good friends during school. He enjoyed spending time with you, he sought you out to help him study, to go for bike rides or just to pepper in the gym till evening. When he came to meet you at the airport and you ran to hug him tight, your touch practically burned and he wasn’t expecting to feel you so plush against him, hearts beating against each other. The sound of your voice and the sight of your face after so long turned on a light bulb in his head. Right there in the middle of the airport he understands why he once craved your company over others, why he’s jittering at the thought of your eyes on him. The saying “absence makes the heart grow fonder” had never been more true…not that he would know of the line anyways.

♡KAGEYAMA - is almost frustrated at first. He’s laying on his bed tossing his volleyball towards the ceiling while thinking his usual thoughts. Going pro, quick attacks, tough classes, new training. It’s his nightly routine, it’s practiced and comfortable. Until his mind drifts to you and the ball hits his face. He’s not sure why his steel-like focus is being tested now, and he’s not sure what you’ve done to cause this, but it’s alien and hard to avoid. For every distraction he thinks of, a scene of you plays in his mind in retaliation. For a moment he stops tossing the ball and just holds it to his chest, brows furrowed and mind racing. He lets the thoughts of you run rampant, a memory of you watching his game, another of your interactions in class, a conversation he should have forgotten but he hasn’t. He brushes it off still, until he sees you at school and he gets this lurching, elevator-dropping feeling in his stomach at the sight of your smile. It’s terrifying and it’s exhilarating, like pulling off a new combination during an important game. That’s when begins to understand that despite the newness of his interest in you, despite how different you are from volleyball, the thought of your hand grazing his gives him that same rush he usually only feels on the court. He’d do anything to feel that rush.

♡ TSUKISHIMA - is aware almost immediately, he’s not one to deny his feelings or be oblivious, though he’s not exactly about to confess either. It starts with little things: he catches himself staring at you and looking away just before you catch him, he listens to songs you like on repeat in some effort to feel what you feel when you hear them, he gets the urge to tease his teammate’s a little harder when you’re around (not that it impresses you much, but he can’t help it), he enjoys standing next to you even in silence, he appreciates your maturity and even when you act stupid he takes note of the fact that he doesn’t mind in the slightest. It’s during one of these little actions that it truly hits him though. He’s staring at you again, taking in your features as if it’s the first time he’s seeing them. Unfortunately he’s too slow to avert his gaze and you finally catch him in the act. You don’t break eye contact, it’s just held for a moment across class as if you two are the only ones in the room. He hates how his hands are sweating, and he hates how he’s the first to look away in attempts to seem uncaring, but he knows then for a fact that he likes you. He probably makes it a point to never make it so obvious again, though.

♡YAMAGUCHI - is by far the most emotionally mature of all of them, however he’s not used to girls liking him back. He’s had crushes and he’s grown used to one sided interest, to secret and unrequited affection. For his feelings to truly be validated he’d need the green light from you first and foremost. The turning point for him, from hopeless pining to full on crushing it takes a heartfelt conversation. You’re walking around with him after practice, Tsuki is farther ahead in hopes of getting home earlier, but Yamaguchi doesn’t mind lagging behind if it means talking with you. It’s dark out and the air is crisp, you’re sucking him in with talk of an ambitious future, fruitful sports seasons and eagerness regarding his improvements as a player. Your hands are just next to each other, dangerously close to a brush of skin. He has the electrifying urge to let his fingers meet yours but the idea is shut down like it’s muscle memory. You, however, don’t suffer from rejection just as bad as he does, because your pinky entwines with his as your conversation carries on. The two of you both don’t acknowledge the small act of pda, but there’s a mutual expression of giddy content that wasn’t quite there before. It’s all he needs to know you’re someone he’s willing to pursue.

[hoejosatoru]

Star Crossed

Pairing: Fem!Reader x Togame Jo (characters are 21+, readers skin color and hair color/texture not described)

Summary: Being the sister of Bofurin's leader can get complicated. But when y/n accidentally hooks up with the vice leader of your rival gang? It's straight up messy. Y/n has to navigate her loyalty to Bofurin while also combatting nagging feelings about the man she is supposed to take down.

Word count: 14.5k

a/n: I got EXTREMELY carried away with this. I have no idea how this happened. BUT ALSO for the first scene of this togame will be referred to as James and y/n will be referred to as Alice because they give each other fake names when they meet. But James = Togame. hopefully that is not confusing lol. If your name is actually Alice idk why to tell you girlie sorry

Warnings: Drinking, fingering, smoking mentioned, y/n is mentioned to have past relationship with Hiragi and they hook up off screen, vague knife play, enemies to lovers, some stuff togame does could be considered stalking but y/n is also doing it back (like a cat and mouse), oral sex both m and f receiving, unprotected sex, creampie, getting walked in on, gun violence, blood mentiontion, very inacurate medical stuff please just suspend your disbelief for the plot lol, mentions of parent death, reader discussed past attempted sa, not proof read

You were looking for trouble. You could admit that.

Things were tough at work, if being a gang member counted as work. Really, it was more your life. They were so intertwined it was impossible to distinguish one from the other. So, life was just tough at the moment. Such is the burden of being one of the top members of Bofurin.

Your brother, Umemiya, was top dog. Respected by those who followed him, feared by those who were against him. Though, he didn't care much for people fearing him, it was simply a means to an end. He understood that most men only responded to power and fear and so he leaned into it, when needed.

Bofurin was mostly made of men, but being his sister allowed you the special privilege of being one of the few women involved. Certainly, you were the highest woman in the organization. You trained to fight - and kill, when necessary - with the best of them, yet that didn't stop you from getting stupid rules. Like this fucking curfew.

"Curfew my ass," you grumbled to yourself as you slipped out your apartment. Whenever things got tense between Bofurin and Shishitoren, your top rival, Umemiya insisted on you laying low. He didn't want to you going on missions or getting involved in business. Nor did he want to going out late or basically doing anything that could be considered fun.

You got it, you really did. You knew he was just looking out for you. You were truly one of Bofurin's best weapons. Shishitoren doesn't know what you look like, nor would they expect to a woman to be as skilled as you are. Their inclination to underestimate you would always be one of your biggest weapons. At the moment, though, your identity was your biggest asset. Not only did it help with gathering intel, but it kept you safe. If they knew who you were, who you were connected to, the target on your back would be massive.

So, yes, you got why Umemiya worried and tried to protect you. But you were a grown woman, and a stubborn one at that. You believed that you could handle yourself and your track record affirmed that. So if you wanted to go out one night and have some fun, was it really that bad?

You didn't think so, which is why you found yourself at a seedy little party. You heard about it through some Bofurin members, which should make it risky to attend but it was a masquerade party. Even if a few of them did attend, you'd easily blend in with the crowd. And even if Ume did find out, he couldn't be that mad. At least your face was covered when you went out.

But you weren't worried about that now. The dress you were waring fit you like a glove and you knew you looked hot. It's been so long since you've been able to wear something cute. You just wanted to drink and dance and blow off some steam. This underground party where everyone was anonymous and no one was asking questions was the perfect place to do it.

And you were enjoying all of that when you sensed a presence behind you. You were at the bar, trying to get the poor bartender's attention, but he was clearly overwhelmed by the amount of people swarming him for a drink. You felt him standing there, could feel his eyes on you.

You turned around cautiously, finding a tall man with a mess of dark hair. His face was masked, of course, but you could see emerald eyes glittering with mischief behind them. Something about him nagged at you, like a memory you couldn't quite recall. You reckoned it was the alcohol swimming at the edges of your senses and ignored it.

"Beautiful thing like you shouldn't have to wait for a drink," he said. Confidence rolled off him, in a way that some would describe as arrogance. You knew his type, all women did, but you were willing to play into his banter.

"And just how can you tell I'm beautiful with a mask on? Or were you just hoping I'd fall for that?" you questioned.

He grinned, amused by your attitude. "I've got a sixth sense for beautiful women that not even a mask could hide." He put a hand out and the bartender responded to him immediately, much to your chagrin. "What're you drinking?"

"Whatever you are."

"I like your style." He ordered two shots of vodka. "Basic, but it get the job done." You accepted the drink, your hand brushing his. Your stomach flipped, which could just be the alcohol you've already drank or it could be that this guy was peaking your interest. You haven't had fun with a man in a minute. You were too busy beating them up, usually.

"You know, I don't usually accept drinks from strangers," you mused.

"Oh? Guess that makes me special," He smirked. "But the name is James. And you?"

"Alice," you lied. You weren't stupid enough to give this random guy your name, as innocuous as he may be.

"Cheers." Your classes clinked together before you knocked them back. The alcohol blazed down your throat and settled in your stomach with a warm glow. You were at the pleasant level of buzzed, still in control but loosened up just enough to have some extra fun.

"Wanna dance?" you asked, already grabbed for his hand. He didn't protest because men who looked at you like he was looking at you never did.

"It would be my pleasure." You pulled him to the dance floor, which was crowded with bodies pressed against each other and swaying to the music. The air was hot and thick, but you didn't care. You let the music guide you, inching closer and closer to James until there wasn't an inch of space between you.

Your back was pressed to his front, your ass grinding against him to the beat. His hands snaked around your waist, feeling up and down your sides shamelessly. One hand edged dangerously close to the hem of dress, but only hovered there teasingly. You could feel him growing hard against your and your body reacted instantly, desire surging in your lower stomach.

You spun around, your eyes connecting in silent conversation. The charged air swirling around you sparked as you pressed your lips to his. You wrapped your arms around his neck, glad for the heels your wore so didn't have to stand on your tip toes to kiss him.

James responded immediately, one arm wrapped around your waist, the other gripping your ass. He kissed you deeply, with a confident ease that only made your body buzz. He slid one leg between your thigh as other dancers jostled around you, paying no mind to the two of you. His thigh brushed against your cunt and practically purred against him. Any chance of you making a smart decision was gone.

"Wanna find somewhere private?" James asked, breathless. His pupils were blown out, darkening his eyes and making them churn with desire. The second you nodded, he was leading you out of the crowd.

You wandered down the hallways, finally finding a door labeled storage. James tried to open the door, but it was lock. He frowned. "Got a bobby pin?"

You always kept one on you for these exact moments. You didn't want to show your hand, that you had such a skill. Better for him to not wonder, like you were wondering about him as you pulled the pin from your hair and pressed it into his palm. If you were any less consumed by need at the moment, you may have questioned the ease at which he picked the lock.

He grinned at you, incisor catching the light. "Special talent."

"Let's hope that's not your only one."

The door slammed shut the second you two slipped inside. He had you pressed against the wall, picking up where you left off on the dance. "I'm taking this shit off." James tossed his mask to the ground. Even in the darkness of the closet you could see he was devastatingly handsome. His nose was strong, his face angular, his eyes swallowing you up.

You followed his lead, letting your mask fall off your face. He cupped your face, brushing your cheek. "Mmm, knew I was right. You're fucking stunning." Your stomach fluttered, charmed despite yourself.

He kissed you again, unencumbered by the masks. You tangled your hands in his dark strands as he squeezed your ass. He bit into your lower lip, tugging slightly. His leg parted your thigh, urging you to grind against him. Your hips rolled and a moan escaped your lips at he delicious friction. He squeezed your tits as you rocked yourself against him.

The more you worked yourself up, the harder he got. He couldn't resist touching your cunt anymore, knowing it must be dripping. He could already feel a wet spot on his pants. He slipped his hand under the hem of your dress.

"Oh? What's this?" He pushed your dress up, revealing the knife you had strapped to your thigh. Shit, you forgot about that.

"What you've never seen a girl with a dagger before?" you brushed it off as a joke.

"Can't say I've had the pleasure." He finger trailed down the length of the blade, before trailing back up your inner thigh.

"Well you better hurry up and touch me or I'll be forced to use it on you."

He chuckled. "Don't threaten me with a good time, angel." He cupped your cunt, making you roll your hips against his palm. He kissed you again as he pushed your panties to the side, running his fingers through you soaked center. The coolness of his rings against the heat of you made you gasp.

"Fuck, angel, you're soaked," he mused, toying with your clit. "This all for me?" His middle finger slid inside you, pumping lightly. "Can feel you squeezing me already."

"You - fuck- love to hear yourself talk, huh?" You were embarrassed by how flustered you sounded already, but god this man was good with his fingers. He slid his ring finger in with his middle finger, curling against your g spot.

"Feels like you love listening," he replied. He fucked his fingers fasters, making you moan to prove his point. Your hips were bucking to match his movements, chasing the pleasure of his touch. "Look at you, fucking yourself on my fingers. How'd I get so lucky to find a nasty little thing like you?"

"James ngh-" you gasped, gripping his shoulders. The sound of your wet pussy getting fucked with his fingers filled the storage room. It was sinful, erotic. When his thumb found your clit your body sparked with the euphoric warmth of an orgasm. You moan, leaning your whole body weight on to James as your knees buckle.

"Atta girl," he praised, "So good for me." He held you with his other arm while he slipped his fingers out of you. He brought them to his mouth, sucking your release off them. "So sweet."

Before you could respond, the sound of a phone ringing filled the room. James reached into back pocket and frowned. "Sorry gotta take this." He turned away from you, listening to someone on the other end. "I'll take care of it," was all he said before hanging up and turning back to you.

"I hate to leave you now, angel, but duty calls," he said. "Can I get your number? Maybe we can finish this sometime."

"Oh, yeah sure." You normally don't give random dudes your number, but your brain was too hazy from coming down that high to think of something fake. You gave him your work cell number, knowing you wouldn't be answering him and could just block the number. As fun as this was, you didn't have time for the bull shit that came with hook ups.

"Thanks for the treat," he said, wiggling his fingers. You rolled your eyes, but waved goodbye as he slid out the door.

"Well, shit," you said to yourself when you were alone. Trouble was certainly found.

***

You woke with a dully ache behind your eyes. Definitely not the worst hangover you endured, but enough to make you grumpy. The texts you woke to did nothing to quiet the pounding in your head. Umemiya was scheduling an urgent, emergency meeting. Great.

It seemed that there were many of these meetings recently, which took the anxiety out of you as you got ready. You were more worried about keeping a normal appearance. If you look hungover, your brother would certainly be suspicious of what you did last night.

"You look lovely," Suo commented sarcastically when he saw you. You plopped down next to him, glad for the cool air up on the Bofurin base's roof.

"You really know how to make a girl feel special, Suo," you grumbled. Suo was one of your closest friend in Bofurin, despite his little barbs.

"Did something happen last night?" he asked as your brother and the rest of the Bofurin higher ups filed in.

"I'll tell you later."

Everyone settled around the table as Hiragi wheeled at the projector you used for meetings. The look on his and your brother's face made your stomach twinge with nerves. Something was up.

"Welcome everyone," Ume began, "I apologize for calling you all here so urgently, but we've had a major break through in our work against Shishitoren." Everyone seemed to lean forward, eager for the new information. "We've uncovered the identity of Togame Jo."

Murmurs broke out. Shit, this was big. Bofurin has been trying to get his identity for months now. We knew he was the right hand of Choji, one of the most fearsome members of Shishitoren. However, he always kept his identity concealed when he went out. You only had shoddy, vague descriptions of him from members who have crossed his path - and lived to tell the tale.

"Here's his picture. Make sure you spread it to everyone in your division," Ume stated as the photo Togame filled the screen.

The world seemed to fall away from you. Those eyes staring at you from the screen were all too familiar.

Suddenly it hit you, that nagging feeling you had when you saw James last night.

He was tall... green eyes... dark hair...

The descriptions his victims had given. It was him, James was Togame Jo.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Your blood was roaring in your ears, so you almost missed when Ume said your name. "Y/n, I want you to help on this."

"M-me?" you hated how you stuttered, but you couldn't help it. Your mouth felt dry and cottony. Not only were shocked that this was Togame, the man you hooked up with last night, but you were confused that Ume would want you involved in this at all.

"I've heard you loud and clear about wanting to be more involved," Ume said. "You are our secret weapon. He doesn't know what you look like, but he knows the rest of us. You are our best chance to get him." He paused, clearly not fully happy with this plan, but accepting he didn't have a choice. "It will be dangerous, but I don't think that bothers you."

Everyone was staring at you, waiting for a reaction. Your brain was functioning at a mile a minute, trying to process everything that was just thrown at you. Your skin felt hot and prickly under their gazes. You had an irrational fear that they could see your guilt on your face, that they knew what you did.

"Of course," you mustered up. "I'll do it." You hoped you sounded more assured than you felt. If Ume thought something was amiss, he didn't comment on it.

The rest of the meeting was a blur. The only thing that stuck out to you was Ume giving anyone who encountered Togame the permission to use lethal force, if necessary. Umemiya did not give that out lightly, so you knew how serious this was to him.

Your brain felt scrambled as you were trying to figure out how the fuck you were going to sort this out. Should you tell Ume? You know you probably should, but this was the first time he was trusting you with something big and this would totally destroy that. But he if he finds out somehow he'll be even more pissed.

As the meeting was clearing out you came to the only possible conclusion: you needed to eliminate Togame before anyone could find out.

Your eyes flicked up to his image on the screen, your body swelling with anxiety. The photo of him, you realized, was from last night. He was slipping out of the party, never having put his mask back on. So there were other Bofurin members there. Shit, what if someone saw you?

"Y/n, can you stay for a minute?" Ume stopped your train of thoughts. You nodded, not trusting your words. Everyone else filtered out, leaving just you and your brother. Paranoia gnawed at you. Did he know? Was this some sort of test. No... he couldn't. He wouldn't have asked you to help in front of everyone if he knew.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," you answered a little too quickly. "Seriously, I am. I just didn't sleep great last night. Something I ate, I think." The lies slipped out of you with surprising ease.

"I'm not saying this to be... patronizing," Ume stole the word you used often, a ghost of a smile playing at his lips. "I know you're strong and capable. I know you can do this. I don't love the idea, but Hiragi convinced me." Ume gave you a pointed look.

Your heart squeezed atet the mention of Hiragi. You dated for a bit a few years ago. You really loved him, but you guys just didn't work out. You've hooked up a handful of times since the break up, but you never got back to a serious place. Your friendship was strong enough to weather that, but you weren't as close as you once were.

Ume were convinced that you two were meant to be. He'd be over the moon if you guys got married, making Hiragi his true brother. It made you emotional that he pushed so hard for you. He knew what this would mean for you. But it was bittersweet, making you feel more guilty about what you did the prior evening.

Ume continued, "Bottom line is, Togame is dangerous guy. I need you to promise me you'll be honest with me. And with yourself. If it seems too much, too dangerous, we'll find another way."

"You worry too much Ume," you sighed. You were trying to brush off his praise of you. It felt undeserved at the moment.

"I'm serious, y/n," he replied. "You're the only family I have left. Promise me you'll tell me if you need help, or if something goes wrong. It won't be a poor reflection fo you at all."

"I promise," you lied. It felt heavy on your tongue. Bitter.

"Okay," he nodded, "I trust you."

God he was really trying to make you feel like the biggest piece of shit. You debated telling him, but you couldn't stand the shame of it. He was right, you could do this. But you had to act quickly.

"Y/n, wait up." It was Hiragi hustling up behind you as walked home. "Mind if I join you?"

"Ume didn't send you, did he?" you questioned.

"No, I just wanted to see how you were doing," he replied, "You seemed a bit off today."

You shrugged. "Just slept like shit and was not expecting the meeting to be about that." At least that wasn't a lie. "What did you have to do to Ume to get him to put me on this? It looked like it pained him."

Hiragi chuckled. "I knew you'd want to do it and it just makes sense. Dangerous, but makes sense." He sighed. "And Ume does believe in you, you know. He just doesn't wanna see you hurt. None of us do."

"I get it," you nodded. "I'm going to handle it. The sooner Togame is out of our hair, the better."

"No argument here," he replied. "Any plans on how you're going to do it?" That was the magic question, wasn't it?

In the brief amount of time since this was all dropped on you, your mind has been churning with plans. It dawned on you that he didn't know who you were. Sure, he saw your face, but what did that matter if he didn't realize who you were? You could use that your advantage.

"Dunno," you replied, "I could probably seduce him. I figure a guy like Togame would be easy enough to fool if you get him horny enough."

Hiragi grimaced. "I don't love that plan."

"Of course you don't," you replied. "I don't love it either." Your mind swam with memories of last night, how easy it had been to get that close to him. You hated how your body fluttered at these thoughts. God if only you had known then... "I'm not going to actually sleep with him. Just get him alone, when he least expects it." You weren't sure if you were saying that to reassure him or yourself.

You were outside your apartment then and Hiragi stopped to look at you. "Just promise me you're not gonna put yourself in unnecessary danger."

Well, that ship has sailed. "Unnecessary danger is kinda my thing, Hiragi."

His eyes narrowed. "I'm serious, y/n."

You groaned. "You and Ume are so serious. You guys gotta lighten up." You sighed, ready to be alone. To shower, clear your head. "But I promise I will be smart about this." At least as best as you could, but you kept that to yourself.

Hiragi nodded. "If you need anything, don't hesitate. I know how Ume can be with you and I don't want to feeling like you have to hide shit from him. If you're in a bind, but don't wanna go to him you can always come to me. You know that, right?"

You did and that was the worst part. The way Hiragi looked at you, sometimes you wondered how much his feelings lingered for you. You thought about spilling your guts to him right then and there. You did trust him, but this wasn't a minor hiccup. Togame seeing your face was a huge deal. Not to mention you didn't want to have to answer question as how he saw your face, especially not to Hiragi.

Somethings you knew he would hide from Ume for you, but you weren't sure if this was one of them. More than that, you didn't want to put him in that position. To have to choose between betraying you or betraying Ume. You had enough on your conscious right now and wouldn't add that.

"Thanks, Hiragi," your voice was thicker than you expected, fighting off emotions. "I'll let you know if I need anything." With that, you said your goodbyes.

You showered, ate, hydrated and the ache in your head subsided. You turned ideas over in your head, trying to whittle them down to being smooth, sensible. You'd wait for Togame to call you, you'd play along and get him alone, and then capture him. Kill him, if needed.

The latter made you uneasy. Killing wasn't foreign to you as a Bofurin member, but it certainly wasn't very common place. Umemiya believed in the inherent value of human life. Bofurin's goal was to keep the town safe, which meant driving out those who wreak havoc on the innocent. Ume, of course, was not opposed to using force to achieve this goal. He'll tell anyone who will listen that fights are a language.

There are very rare occasions where it is clear fists aren't enough. Weeds that have been plucked and yet grow back time and time again. That was the Shishitoren higher ups, a parasite on the town that needed to be ripped out, root and stem.

You've never been put on a mission where killing the target was the object. You've only had to kill someone once and it was in self defense. You shudder at the memory. If the rumors about Togame were true, you knew he had to be stopped. Still, the thought of killing him in cold blood brought you no joy.

You would try to capture him, let Ume handle him, but there was a risk. Would Togame tell Ume about you? Would Ume even believe him? Surely you could just say he was lying.

The sound of your phone ringing pulled you from your thoughts. Your work phone. You didn't recognize the number, so it had to be him. Your stomach was in knots as you clicked accept.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Alice." It was Togame, that was for sure. And the way he said the name told you he knew it was fake. Shit.

"Who is this?" you kept your voice even.

"You wound me," Togame replied, "I thought we shared something special last night, y/n."

Fuck, how did he know who you were? This was bad. "What do you want?"

"I think we have a lot to discuss."

"Go ahead, then."

"Hmm, I find in person so much more... productive," Togame replied, the lilt in his voice telling you he was enjoying this.

"And why would I trust that?" you practically laughed.

"I never lie to beautiful women." You wished he could see you roll your eyes. "And because I'm putting myself just as much at risk by meeting with you." That was true. He took your silence as an invitation to continue. "Just you and me, no fights, no weapons. Just a conversation... Though if you have that little knife of yours strapped to your thigh again, I wouldn't object." You could practically hear his smirk over the phone.

You sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose. It was stupid, horribly stupid, but there was a chance you could get something out of him that would be helpful. "Okay. Meet me at the dock at 10pm. There's a spot behind 3 big shipping crates by the water that's private."

"It's a date." Before you could protest that it most certainly was not a date, he hung up.

You seen the rest of the evening playing a variety of ways this could play out. Many of them ended with you captured, or worse. You debated calling Hiragi, but you just couldn't bring yourself to do it. You didn't want to bring him into this met, at least not unless it was dire.

At 9:30 you set off for the docks. The location you gave Togame was your favorite place to clear your head. The shipyard wasn't exactly the safest place to hang out, but you never ran into anyone at this particular spot. It was perfect for when you needed to disconnect from everything. You hated that you now gave it away to Togame, but it was the only place you were sure you could talk uninterrupted.

You were stationed at your spot by 9:45. Perfect. You wanted to be there before Togame so you could scope out the area. You stood with your back towards the water so he couldn't sneak up on you. You were about to steel yourself for the wait when you heard footsteps approaching.

"Guess we both had the same idea of getting here early." Togame swaggered in dressed all in back, save for his yellow Shisitoren jacket. He seemed utterly relaxed, as if he was meeting an old friend.

Much to your dismay, he was every bit as attractive as he was last night. You were hoping it was the alcohol that had clouded your vision of him, but no. He was devastatingly, annoying good looking.

"Nice to see you angel... or I guess I should say princess," Togame smirked. Your blood boiled.

"Don't call me that," you snapped. You had, against your wishes, been given the nickname of the princess of Bofurin awhile back. It started out as a joke, but the more you expressed your hatred of it, the more people used it. Eventually, it traveled out to those beyond Bofurin and since they didn't know your real name, that was what stuck. It irked you to no end.

"So hostile," Togame mused, "And here I thought we were going to have a nice little chat." He looked out on the water, lights glittering on the inky water. "This is kind of a romantic choice. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you wanna pick up where we left off last night."

You groaned. "That was a mistake."

Togame feigned offense. "Ouch."

A thought hit you like a shock of ice water. "Did you know who I was last night?" It was bad enough that you hooked up with Togame by mistake, but if you had been manipulated? It made your skin crawl.

"No," he answered seriously. "There was a small team in Shishitoren assigned to uncovering your identity, but I was not one of them. Last night was just a very happy accident."

"For you, maybe," you grumbled. "But why not? Aren't you their second in command."

Toagme shrugged. "The detective stuff is grunt work. Besides, it was risky digging into you. At the time we were still trying to cover my identity, but cats out of the bag now it seems."

Your blood ran cold. "So there are others? Who know about me?" You scanned the area again, certain you were going to be ambushed.

"Relax, princess, it's just you and me," Togame said. "But yes there are. The small group looking into you, myself and Choji, but that's it for now."

"For now?"

"Ah, that's why I'm here," Togame replied, taking a few steps closer to you. You wanted to back away, but you also didn't want to come off as afraid. You decided to stand your ground. "Choji doesn't trust the grunts to capture you without killing you or fucking it up. You're worth more to us alive."

Your bristled, "I'm not a fucking object to be taken."

"Neither am I and yet you would capture me all the same, wouldn't you?" Togame questioned. You frowned because he was right. "I thought so. It's not pleasant work we do, but it needs to be done." He signed, pulling out a cigarette and taking a drag. "It's a nasty habit, know. Hope you don't mind."

"Can you just get to the point, please." You were exhausted and agitated.

"I'm offering you a chance to surrender without a fight," Togame replied.

You couldn't stifle your laugh. "How tempting."

"I'm doing you a favor," Togame said, "Like I said, Choji doesn't trust the other guys to do the job right, but he also isn't a patient guy. He gave me two weeks to capture you. After that, your picture will be released to everyone."

Fuck, that would not be good. You would have to tell Ume if it got that far. "How do you know that I won't capture you before then?"

"Cause I'm good at what I do," Togame replied.

Annoyance flared at his underestimation of you. You had to remind yourself that was a good thing, it would be easier to surprise him. "So what I come with you and then god knows what happens to me in Shishitoren?"

"Shishitoren has a rule," Togame explained, "Whoever brings someone in has dibs on that person. No one else can touch them, unless Choji says otherwise. He would listen to me. What I'm offering you is protection." You mulled over his words, trying to gauge the truth of them, if you could even trust him if they were true. You knew all too well what could happen to you if you were captured by a group like Shishitoren.

Ultimately you didn't know if you could trust him, but you did trust yourself. "I don't need your protection," You replied, "Two weeks is more than enough time to hunt you down."

"Hmm, I cannot deny that sounds fun," Togame mused, "Always loved when women chase me." He dropped the cigarette, grinding it into the pavement.

"Then we are done here," you replied, ignoring his comment. "I'll let you go now, but starting tomorrow I'm not holding back. I'm not scared to kill you if you resist."

Togame laughed. "I bet you've never even killed a fly."

Your anger flared and in a second you were on him, knife unsheathed and pressed against his throat. You savored the tiny flash surprise in his eyes as you shoved him against one of the shipping containers. "You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"Mmm I was hoping you'd use that thigh knife on me," Togame smirked, unbothered by the position he found himself in. You could do it, you could press the blade further into his skin and end this now.

Togame saw the wheels turning in your head and put an end to them immediately. He flipped you around lightning quick, pinning both of your hands over your head. The pressure he put on your wrists caused your grip on the knife to loosen, then slip from your grasp. He caught it with his free hand, pressing it your throat. The blade was icy against your warm skin.

"As hot as that was, I'm not trying to die tonight princess," he whispered in your ear. "Or ever, for that matter." You tried to squirm away from him, but he was too strong. His thigh was slotting between your legs, too much like the position you'd been in the prior evening. Your body betrayed you by responding with a hint of want.

"So two weeks, you and me, and the best will win," Togame said. "Do I get a good luck kiss?"

"Fuck off," you spat.

Togame sighed. "I'll get that kiss one way or another." He released you, flipping the knife back to you. "See you soon, princess."

With that you were alone, staring down the barrel of two weeks that were likely to change everything.

***

And so began your game of cat and mouse with Togame Jo. You went for a run the following morning, hoping to clear your head. Later in the day you received a text from Togame with a photo of you jogging.

That's a cute little set you got on

He was referring to the matching bike shorts and sports bra your wore. It happened to be your favorite, but now you were scowling at it. How had he been so close you didn't notice.

You had to one up him.

The next day you used the intel Bofurin had provided you on Togame's movements. You staked out the coffee shop he frequently, snapping a picture of him picking up his order.

Didn't picture you as an oat milk guy

You had texted him. He responded instantly.

I'm just happy you've been picturing me. Any other fantasies you want to share?

His message bothered you because you had been fantasizing about him. Your mind kept drifting to that night, his kiss, the way he touched you... You tried to convince yourself it was meaningless intrusive thoughts, but it didn't help how ridiculous it felt. You should be focusing on capturing him, not how it felt to have his fingers slide between your thighs... Anyways.

It didn't help that you were now sending photos back and forth every day, getting closer and closer to one another. It was almost like a game, how close could you get without the other noticing? To make matters worse, Togame started calling you.

You ignored it at first, but curiosity got the best of you. At first it was just little taunts about seeing each other, but the conversations became longer and longer. You actually found yourself looking forward to them, waiting by your phone in the evening.

All the while you were inching closer and closer to each other. Once, you'd been tailing him, certain he was unaware. But a few turns led you to a dead end, which nothing but a post it on the concrete reading nice try princess.

Never one to be one upped, you led him on a wild goose chase the following day. You left him a polaroid photo of yourself flipping him off.

That night Togame thanked you for the photo in that sweet, syrupy voice of his. Telling you he was going to keep it in his wallet. You blushed despite yourself.

You were being absolutely ridiculous, you realized. A week passed, half the time before everyone in Shishitoren would know who you were, and you were blushing over some stupid comment from Togame. It was idiotic. You were treating this like some stupid game, forgetting how dangerous your opponent was, how high the stakes were.

You weren't proud of how you tried to get your mind off things. Hiragi came over and you turned that damned phone off, shoving in the darkest corner of your drawers. He was in your bed within an hour.

And it was good, sure. Having dated Hiragi he knew your body well, but it didn't stop your mind from drifting to Togame. If you believed in magic, you would think he's bewitched you. Realistically you were just being weak, letting a guy get in your head like this just because he was attractive. Maybe Ume was right to not trust you with serious stuff if this is how you handle it.

When Hiragi left the next morning, you felt worse than before. Nothing changed and now you felt guilty about using Hiragi. You'd hooked up a few times, so you didn't think it was that big of a deal. But knowing you had ulterior motives he wasn't privy to made you feel bad about it. Ugh.

Like clockwork, Togame called you that evening.

"You had another guy over last night? And hear I was thinking we had something special," Togame mused.

"Didn't take you for the jealous type," you replied.

"I've never been a very good sharer," he replied. "Especially not with Bofurin guys."

"I guess it's a good thing I'm not sharing anything with you, then," you replied.

"That was Hiragi, wasn't it? That your type? Good guys?" Togame questioned.

"And what if it is?" You bristled, more in defense of Hiragi than anything.

"You'll be very bored," Togame yawned, "Does he even satisfy you."

You thoughts of the prior evening, Hiragi's hands in your hair, your bodies press together, him slipping inside you. The orgasm good, but not like that night with Togame...

"Yes," you answered.

"Hmm was that hesitation I sensed, princess?" Togame purred. "Is he not getting you off? You know I could."

"Beginner's luck."

"Oh? Wanna test out that theory?" Togame replied. "I've been wanting to get a second taste."

"Goodnight Togame." You hung up and tossed your phone away.

***

Thank god your friends were having a girls night. You needed to relax and get your mind off things. Not only were your thoughts about Togame incessant and irritating, but you were edging closer to the 2 week mark. Just a few days stood between you and the entirety of Shishitoren knowing who you were. You could feel the clock ticking.

But not tonight. Tonight you were just hanging out with your friends, getting wine drunk, and thinking only of gossip and drama. It was exactly what you needed.

You talked well into the night, but insisted on going home even though your friend said you could say. The alcohol was wearing off, but there was still the slightest buzz in your body and all you wanted was your bed. Your place was just a few blocks away it would be fine, you had told her.

Perhaps it was the buzz, or the way you let your guard down around your friends that had lulled you into a false sense of security. You were certain you would have heard the footsteps if it wasn't for that.

"Hello, princess." The voice was low and close to your ear. Too close.

You spun around, your knife whipped out and pressed agains the neck of-

"Togame," you gasped. Adrenaline and fear coursed through your system, making you breathless. "What the fuck?" You were pissed at him for scaring you, pissed at yourself for being so oblivious that it allowed him to scare you.

"It's dangerous for you to be walking home alone at this hour," Togame replied. He hadn't even flinched when you pulled the knife on him.

You grumbled, tucking the blade back into its hiding spot. "Yeah, you're the danger."

"There's worse things than me out here, princess," Togame replied. Something about his words sent a shiver down your spine. "Let me walk you home."

You eyed Togame, wondering if this was all some ruse. He could have just gotten you, easily. That really freaked you out. But... he didn't. There was a curiosity about him that nagged at you. Maybe, you wondered, getting those questions answered would put him out of your head.

"Walk me to the park, I don't wanna go home yet," you replied. You started walking, not waiting for him to agree. This time you were keenly aware of his footsteps trailing right behind you.

Togame broke the silence as you settled down onto a bench next to a willow tree. The park was usually bustling with life, but at this hour it was still and silent. "Another romantic spot you've chosen for us."

"Are you incapable of being serious?" you replied flatly.

"Usually," Togame grinned.

Despite his aversion to giving straight answers, your curiosity got the best of you. "Why didn't you grab me back there? You completely caught me off guard. You could have..." You trailed off, the bitter taste of almost defeat preventing you from finishing the sentence.

"That's the million dollar question, isn't it?" Togame considered. "I guess I'm not ready for this to end yet. Having too much fun."

"So you just want to toy with me longer?"

"I wouldn't say that," Togame replied, "I'm a bit... conflicted about what comes next. I don't take pleasure in the idea of handing you over to Choji as a bargaining chip, but I owe him. I'm just delaying the inevitable, I suppose."

"You're nothing like I expected," you commented.

"Oh? What did you expect?"

"I just thought you were going to be, well, evil," you replied, "The rumors about you make you seem like a monster, but I don't see that. At least I haven't yet."

On some level you felt Togame could just be showing you what he wanted you to see. That he was playing the long con and trying to lull you into a false sense of security. But you realized you weren't truly afraid of him. You were afraid of getting caught, of what Choji might do to you, of disappointing your brother, but Togame? He didn't strike that deep fear in you that you've experienced from some other men.

Togame chuckled. "I'm certainly not a saint, but I'm no devil. I reckon it's easier for guys to make me out to be a monster than admit they were beat fair and square. You on the other hand live up to the rumors."

"What rumors?"

"Well, for a while all we knew was Umemiya had a beautiful little sister," Togame explained. "You're every bit as stunning as they say, which makes my job harder."

"Really? Is that all they say about me?" you replied, ignoring how Togame's words brought a tint to your cheeks. You were more annoyed that people only commented on superficial shit because you were a girl, most likely.

"To be fair, Ume did a really good job of hiding any information about you," Togame replied. "Honestly, you've surprised me in a lot of ways too. I kinda expected you to be bratty." Togame smirked. "Which, I guess you are, but you're also strong, brave, and smart. Being your enemy isn't easy."

Pride surged through you. People often questioned your abilities, whether it was because you were a girl or Umemiya's sister. Either way, it always made you feel like shit, like everything you've accomplished meant nothing.

"Thank you," you replied.

"Of course," Togame said. "Can I ask you a question now?"

"Sure."

"That night at the docks, I made a joke about you killing and it seems I touched a nerve," Togame said. "It's left me wondering, have you ever killed someone?"

"I have," you replied, your voice thin.

Togame raised a brow. "Did it not go well?"

You sighed. "You could say that." Your arms wrapped around yourself instinctively as the memories flooded back. It wasn't a story you shared with many, but for some reason you wanted to tell Togame.

"It wasn't my intent to kill the guy, at least that wasn't the plan going in," you began. "He was a run of the mill creep, harassing women and just a nuisance. We thought he was harmless at the time. I was supposed to just scare him off, but then he pulled a gun on me. I wrestled it away from him, but in the scuffle he got me to the ground and I hit my head hard."

You took a deep breath trying to calm yourself. "I was dazed and he... he was trying to get my pants off and..." You shuddered at the memory, how you could still feel his hands on you to this day. "Luckily he didn't get far because I shot him then. I wasn't necessarily trying to kill him, I just wanted him to stop, but it he died."

"Fucking bastard," Togame snapped. "I'm glad you killed him. I would have done it myself if you hadn't."

"I don't regret it. If it wasn't me, it would have been another girl. Someone who wouldn't have been able to defend herself," you replied.

"I'm sorry that happened to you, it's fucking awful," Togame said, "Men that prey on women are the scum of the earth." You were surprised by how genuine he was, the fire behind his words.

"Shishitoren doesn't exactly have the best reputation, you know," you replied. You knew some of the members have done some bad things.

Togame's face darkened. "Believe me, I know. But when I find out about it, they are dealt with by me personally. Trust me when I say I make them regret it before kicking them out." There was a fervor to his voice, one that comes from person experience.

"You seem very passionate about that," you commented.

"My dad beat on my mom," Togame told you. "I was really little, my memories are only vague now. I just remember being really scared and feeling so powerless. I couldn't help my mom then, but if I can stop other abusive assholes now I feel like it makes up for it somehow."

"He sounds like a piece of shit," you replied. You hated the thought of Togame cowering as a child, watching something no kid should ever have to.

"He was. He left us when I started getting older," Togame said. "I think he knew I would fight back when I was big enough. Those few years without him, when it was just my mom and I, were some of my happiest." He stared off into the distance for a moment, lost in a memory you couldn't see. "Then my mom got sick. Advanced form of cancer. She was gone within a year of the diagnosis. I didn't have anyone, no other family or anything. That's when I met Choji."

You found yourself leaning into him as he spoke, drawn to the story, drawn to him.

"He brought me into Shishitoren, gave me a purpose and a family. I honestly don't know if I would have made it without him," Togame admitted. "I feel like I owe him now. I'll do practically anything he asks because he was there for me when no one else was."

You looked at Togame then. Really looked at him. His story changed your view of him completely. You understood him, you realized, more than you ever expected to. You wondered, then, how different things would have been if Ume had met him and not Choji.

"I'm sorry Togame," you replied. "Ume and I lost out parents when we were younger. Robbery gone wrong. It was so painful, but at least I had my brother. I can't imagine what it would be like to go through that on your own."

"I guess we are more alike than we ever thought, huh y/n?"

"Yeah, I guess we are."

Togame was a good person, you decided, but was led astray by feeling indebted to a man who was not good. But if it had been Ume? Someone who would have kept him on right path? If you had met under different circumstances...

You had the sudden urge to kiss him. It was not a feeling borne of lust, rather of the desire to be close to him. To feel him. Togame's eyes met yours and you sensed it in him too, that desire. But you were scared of breaking this moment, of shattering this fragile thing that was taking root.

You opted to take his hand, warm and rough in yours, and squeeze it gently. You went to pull it away, but Togame held you.

"Y/n..." he breathed.

"I should go," you replied, without moving.

A silent conversation happened between the two of you. An understanding of the inevitable coming.

Togame nodded. "I'll walk you home." You didn't protest this time. You walked together in a weighted silence, exchanging quiet goodbyes at your apartment.

You fell asleep thinking only of Togame.

***

You went for a walk the next day, trying to calm the storm of your mind. There were only two things you knew for certain: feelings for Togame had taken root in you and if you didn't turn him in in the next 2 days everything would go to shit.

A headache was starting to form when your phone rang. The number you've come to know as Togame's flashed across the screen. Call it intuition or an anxiety disposition, but you knew something was wrong.

"Hello?"

"Y/n, where are you?" Togame was breathless, almost frantic.

"I'm in the park. What's wrong?"

"Choji, he released your picture."

Your blood ran cold. "What? I thought we had two more days?"

"He was in a mood. He thought I would have caught you by now. Fuck," Togame said. "They're coming, you gotta get back to your place. I'm on my way."

"Shit okay," You replied. You told him the route you planned to take, one that was out of the way, hoping you couldn't be followed. Togame said he was going to try to catch up with you. "Thank you, Togame."

You hung up then, walking as briskly as you could without drawing attention to yourself. You thought you were doing well until you rounded a corner and saw a bright yellow jacket heading towards you. You turned around only to find another one coming up the block.

Shit. You took off down an alley, following the twists and turns you hoped would confuse them. You could hear their footsteps behind you, buzzing like angry wasps hunting you down. Your pulse was hammering in your ears, knowing they were gaining on you.

"Fuck," you gasped. You hit a dead end. You turned around bracing to face your attackers.

"Well if it isn't the princess of Bofurin," one of the men said with a nasty smile. "You're quite the prize."

"Fuck off," you snapped.

"No can do," The other man replied. The both stepped closer to you, caging you in. "Why don't you just come nice and quietly with us? We'd hate to mess up that pretty face of yours."

"No fucking way." You pulled your knife out. "You want me? Then you're gonna have to kill me."

You lunged at the first man, slicing him across the arm. He let out an angry yelp. "Fucking bitch!"

The both went after you, you were more agile, maneuvering away from them. You landed some blows on them, but they were tough. It wasn't enough to knock them out. The circled you, getting you closer and closer to the wall, with nowhere to go. The knife was knocked out of your hand, hitting the concrete with a clatter.

"Got you," the other guy sneered. He reared back, poised to strike you, but he was suddenly ripped away from you.

"Togame?" the first man said, bewildered.

You'd never seen such anger in Togame's eyes. He was in a frenzy, beating the man who was about to hit you into the ground.

"Dude what the fuck? We're on the same team?" the first man yelled. Togame paid him no mind. The man tried to pull him off his partner, but Togame shoved him away. "I'm not dealing with this bull shit."

He pulled out a gun, aiming it right at you. You gasped, ducking just in time to miss the bullet that whizzed past you and struck the brick behind you. You felt a white hot pain on your ear, your fingers coming away with blood. For a horrible second you thought you had been hit, but the bullet had only grazed you you.

All Togame saw, though, was you bleeding due to another man. He snapped, jumping the guy that shot you. He ripped the gun out go his had and pistol whipped him, knocking him out cold. He kicked him, despite the guy being unresponsive. You were afraid he might kill him.

The other guy tried to get up, staring daggers at Togame. All other thoughts left you as you lunged at him. You beat him to the ground, dodging his blows as best you could. With a final punch to the face, the man went limp.

You and Togame stood, both panting. "Are you okay?" He was cupping your face, inspecting you for signs of damage.

"I'm okay. Let's just get out of here before they get up."

You made it back to your apartment unscathed. Togame was flurrying around you the second you were alone.

"You're not okay, you're bleeding," he frowned, looking at your ear. Some of the blood had dripped down on to your shirt, making the wound look worse than it was.

"It just grazed me," you replied.

"You could have died." You shuttered at the truth you had tried to ignore. A few millimeters separated you from death. "Do you have a first aid kit here?"

You directed Togame to it, who insisted on caring for your wound. His had were delicate and diligent as they cleaned the wound. You sat on your bathroom counter, Togame leaning so close to you, you could feel his breath fanning across your skin. It made your stomach flip.

"Am I going to live?" you joked.

Togame cracked a small smile. "Yes, but only because you have such a great doctor." He finished secure a tiny bandage to your ear, his hand dropping. You deflated at the lost of contact.

"Togame," you said, looking into his emerald eyes. "You saved me, but what does that mean for you? Are you going to be in trouble?"

Togame shrugged. "I'll tell Choji I was about to capture you and those two idiots busted in and ruined it. He'll believe me. I just... I just wish it didn't have to be like this."

"Me too," you admitted.

Togame looked at you with longing. "What do you want?"

What a loaded question. You weren't even sure if you knew what you wanted, in a long term sense. You couldn't think outside of this moment. And what you wanted now was clear to you. "I want you."

It was like a switch was flipped then. All your reservations gone in an instant. Your lips connected with his and your word was set ablaze. You had kissed him before, of course, but this was totally different. This was more than just hunger and lust.

You wrapped your legs around Togame's waist, holding him close to you. He gripped your ass, lifting you off the counter. His tongue slid into your mouth, pulling a soft moan of contentment as he walked you to the bedroom.

You were a tangled mess as you fell together on the bed. The weight of Togame on top of you equally comforted you and flamed your desire. He was so solid, so strong you couldn't stand any layer of clothing being between you and his skin any longer.

"Someone's eager," Togame teased as you yanked off his shirt.

"Like you're not?" you countered, giving the bulge in his pants a squeeze. You pulled your own shirt off, relishing the desire that flooded his eyes when they flicked down to your chest.

"Oh, I definitely am." Togame leaned back over you, caging you in. "I'm not scared to admit it." He was kissing down your neck sucking at your skin. "I haven't gone a night without thinking about you since we met." He was at your chest now, his tongue tease your nipples.

He continued down your body, his breath against your skin as he spoke. "Been dreaming of touching you against." He slid your pants down your legs, pressing a kiss to your cloth covered cunt. "Dreaming of tasting you."

You squirmed, aching for release, for him. You murmured a desperate plea for him to continue.

"This time, y/n," he slid your underwear off you, "I want to you say my name when you cum. My real name."

Togame licked a stripe up your dripping cunt, shamelessly moaning. "Fuck you're so sweet." He ate you out like a man starved. It was messy and frenzied, but diligent. He knew exactly how to work you up, rolling your throbbing clit with his tongue before sucking on it.

Your hips bucked as your hands knotted in his raven-black hair. Togame groaned in response, loving the stinging pull of you gripping his hair.

"Jo!" you moaned as he pressed his tongue inside you. It was warm and wet and sinful as he fucked you with his tongue. The sound of his name on your lips drove him near mad. He cock was heart and aching as he ground into the bed for some relief.

You rolled your own hips, chasing the high that was building rapidly. Your throbbing clit bumped against his nose, sending jolts of lightning pleasure through you. "You like that y/n?" Togame mused. "Like fucking my face with this pretty little cunt of yours?"

You whined in response, words escaping you as he swirled his tongue impossibly faster. It was so much, too much. Your orgasm hit you with white hot pleasure, consuming all your senses.

"Jo- ngh," the words slurred out of you. Togame hummed contently against you, lapping up every bit of release. He was painfully hard then, but it no rush. He wanted to savor ever bit of you.

You, however, were not so patient. You were yanking him up by his hair, desperate to kiss him again. He chuckled against your lips as you pawed at his pants. "What's the rush, angel? We got all night."

"Need you," you murmured into the kiss. You were hooking when you heard your name. You were so lost in the haze of lust that you didn't realize it wasn't Togame who had said it. Your head whipped around to find-

"Hiragi," you gasped. You were frozen in shock. Your brain couldn't compute Hiragi being here in this moment. Hiragi appeared equally shocked.

"What the fuck is going on?" He was glued to his spot in the doorway, like a deer in headlights. You were vaguely aware of Togame beside you, poised like a cat who was debating pouncing.

"I-I can explain," you stumbled over your words. You were scrambling to put your clothes back on. It was nothing Hiragi hasn't seen, but you felt too exposed. You sensed Togame doing the same, all while keeping his eyes carefull trained on Hiragi.

"I thought you said you weren't going to sleep with him," Hiragi said, a current of emotion in his voice. He was just shocked, he was hurt. Although you have not been together for awhile seeing you with another man- Togame no less- was like a knife in his heart. Your shame was instantly amplified with guilt.

"I'm sorry Hiragi I-I didn't expect to..." Your voice trailed off because how could you tell Hiragi you developed feelings for Togame? You hadn't even fully admitted that to yourself.

Hiragi snapped. "You were supposed to be being smart y/n! Just lured him in and capture him. What the fuck where you thinking?"

"Whats that supposed to mean?" Togame scowled. "Was this a trap, y/n?"

"No Togame I swear-"

"No?" Hiragi was bewildered. "Don't tell me you want to sleep with him."

"Of course she wanted to," Togame replied, but there was a hint of uncertainty in his voice. "Why don't you tell your little friend the truth."

Fuck, this is bad. No matter what you said, you were screwing yourself over. If you admitted you wanted it, it would destroy Hiragi and your brother would certainly find out. But if you lied, that would ruin what you've developed with Togame.

Togame took your silence as an answer. "Whatever. I don't need this bull shit." His words were angry, but his face was crumpled with sadness. He walked towards your window, where the fire escape was.

"Togame please wait." You rushed after him, but he shrugged you off.

"I don't like being used, y/n," Togame snapped. "This meant something to me, but if it was all an act for you, I have no reason to be here any more."

"It wasn't, Togame please." But he was already gone, anger and hurt preventing him from listening to you.

You were left with Hiragi now, who was staring at you dumbfounded.

"You actually have feelings for him? For Togame fucking Jo?"

What was the point of lying now? "Yes."

Hiragi made a sound of disgust. "Seriously? He's just fucking playing you. You walked right into his trap. I thought you were smarter than this."

Anger flared in you. "He's playing me. And I know exactly what I'm doing. He's not wha everyone thinks."

Hiragi scoffed. "He's really got you fooled. He's a piece of shit, y/n. Everyone knows it."

"He's not! You don't know him like I do," you insisted. "He's been good to me."

Hiragi searched your face. "These past two weeks... have you been with him?"

"Not... sexually," you cringed. "This was the first time we ever, well..." You explained how you met Togame, without knowing who he was. "We've been in contact since then, but this was the first time it got physical. I didn't plan to feel this way, honestly, I had planned to capture him. But then, I don't know, it just happened."

Hiragi looked utterly disappointed in you. Disappointed and heartbroken. "Ume trusted you with this. I trusted you with this. Hell, all of Bofurin was counting on you to get this done and this is the shit you pull?"

You stared at him, not knowing what to say. Nothing felt right.

"I wasn't enough for you, but Togame was?" Anger bled out of his voice, replaced by pain.

The way Hiragi looked at you then broke you. You never wanted to hurt him. "Hiragi please-" You took a step towards him, but he stepped back holding his hands up.

"Don't. I can't even look at you right now," he replied. "I'm leaving."

You didn't bother trying to stop him. You dropped to the floor when you heard your apartment door slam shut, sobs wracking your body as you felt your world crumble around you.

***

The next morning you woke feeling worse than you had with any hangover. Your head throbbed but, worse, your heart ached. You reached for your phone, finding the inevitable 'we need to talk' text from Ume. He told you to meet him at the rooftop in an hour. Ugh.

You got ready, feeling like you were preparing for your own funeral. You tried to figure out what you were going to say, if there was any way to explain this that made it seem like less of a disaster. You were coming up painfully short. You couldn't stop thinking about Togame, how he looked when he thought you were tricking him. What must he think of you now?

As if reading your mind, you received a text from Togame. He was asking you to meet to talk. You knew you should go see your brother, but what if he kept you on lockdown? You'd never be able to explain things to Togame and he'd go on thinking you used him this whole time.

Umemiya was already mad at you, how much worse could it get? Maybe if you could figure things out with Togame, you could advocate for yourself more to Ume. Maybe you could make him see Togame as you see him. You had to give it a chance

You texted Togame back, saying you'd be there in 15 minutes and set off for the address he sent you. You prayed things hadn't been totally ruined between you two as you weaved between pedestrians on the sidewalk.

If you hadn't been so caught up in what you were going to say to Togame, you might have thought more about how it was odd he was asking you to meet in an old warehouse. You may have noticed that it was oddly quiet as you approached, a stillness that is manufactured by someone trying to make a space seem unthreatening.

But you were so wrapped up in your thoughts of Togame, of your brother, that you were shocked when you stepped inside and found yourself face to face with Choji.

"Hello y/n," he said with a mean smile. You immediately turned to run, but two men jumped out to block the door, aiming guns at you.

Fear flared inside you. Fear and sadness. Had it been Togame who has betrayed you this whole time? You had no time to process this as Choji ordered the guards to grab you.

"Get off me!" You thrashed, trying to get away from their grasp. But they were too strong, too comfortable pressing the gun against your back. You knew you had to comply, to at least live longer. They manhandled you into a chair, tying you down.

"Leave," Choji commanded his underlings coldly. They complied wordlessly. Somehow, being alone with Choji was scarier than being outnumbered. "So you're the infamous y/n? I have to say I'm disappointed." He yawned, as if bored. "I was told you were well trained, but you seem rather weak to me."

You ignored his barb. "Why don't you untie me and see about that."

"Hmmm, I don't think so," Choji replied. "I'm more interested to see how you'll fair against someone else." Choji took out his phone, sending off a text to someone. Moments later, a back door opened and Togame walked in.

"What the hell is this surprise abou-" Togame stopped dead in his tracks when he saw you. The look of fear and confusion on his face was like a wave of relief over your body. He didn't know about this. "Choji what is this?" He demanded.

"I thought you'd be happy, Togame," Choji replied. "I did your job for you."

"It was you who took my phone then?" Togame said. "You fucking lied to me."

"Oh? And you haven't been lying to me?" Choji raised his brow. He seemed calm on the outside, but you could sense anger brewing inside him.

Togame scowled. "I have always been loyal to you."

"Prove it," Choji replied. "Hurt her." Choji pulled a knife out from his sleeve and tossed it at Togame's feet. "Cut her up and I'll believe you."

Togame looked from the knife to Choji to you a decision settling over him. "No."

Before Choji could reply, the entrance burst open as Umemiya and Hiragi ran in. "Y/n!" Your brother cried when he saw you.

Choji pulled out a gun, leveling it at them. "Take a step and I'll blow your head off." He turned the gun to you. "And her's too." The conviction in his voice and the flare of violence in his eyes told you he would keep his words.

"Choji you don't have to do this," Togame stepped forward. Choji swung the gun in his direction, those he looked much less in inclined to shoot Togame.

"What the fuck has gotten into you Jo?" Choji snarled. "Did you forget you answer to me?"

"Come on Choji, don't point that at me." Togame took another tentative step forward. "Can't we just talk about this?"

Choji let out a dark chuckle. "Talk? You wanna talk about how you're going to betray me over some Bofurin bitch?" His anger was seeping out of him, cracking the cold facade. "We've been loyal to each other for year, Jo. And what? You fuck her stupid little cunt and betray me? I didn't know you were so stupid. Or weak."

"Don't fucking talk about her like that." Togame snapped. "I'm not fucking scared of you Choji."

You were watching this interaction in a fearful silence. The air felt charged, one wrong spark and it would erupt with violence. Sweat beaded your forehead as you worried what Choji might do. Not even to you, but to Togame.

"You've forgotten your place, Jo," Choji spat. A mean gleam sparked in his eye. "But I think I know how to remind you." Choji swung the gun in your direction.

You vaguely heard your brother scream behind you, but the world was falling away from you. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as the gun let out a loud BANG. Your eyes scrunched shut, your whole body tensing as you braced for the impact, for the pain.

But it never came. When you finally opened your eyes you saw Togame on the ground in front of you, blood seeping out of his shoulder. Choji looked as shocked as you felt.

"Togame!" you cried desperately fighting against the ropes the bound you. Choji fled with a curse as Ume and Hiragi rushed to your side. The second they cut through the ropes you flung yourself down to Togame's side.

"Fuck Togame, why did you do that," you cried. Blood stained his shirt where he was hit. You applied pressure to his wound, feeling the warm blood seep between your fingers.

Togame let out a groan of pain as he shifted to look at you, but grinned. "Just felt like doing the right thing for once."

Tears sprung in your eyes. There was no denying how you felt about Togame and the fear of losing him now was suffocating. "Please Ume, please we have to help him!" you begged your brother.

Ume looked like he didn't quite know what to make of what he saw, but nodded nonetheless. "I already have Hiragi calling for help. It's going to be okay, y/n."

You turned back to Togame, who was breathing raggedly. "If you die on me I'll fucking kill you Jo."

He smiled again. "Wouldn't dream of it, princess."

Help arrived quickly, whisking Togame away. It was Bofurin's special team of doctors, one that allowed us to avoid hospitals in sticky situations. You wanted to go with Togame, but your brother insisted you get checked out yourself.

"I'll be fine, y/n, I promise." Togame squeezed your hand before they slid him into the back of a van.

You were taken in Ume's personal car back to his place. You were quickly deemed fine, just a little scratched up. Ume insisted you rested at his place overnight to make sure you were okay. Togame, he insisted, was in good hands and he'd instructed the doctors to keep him updated.

You slept fitfully that night, only pure exhaustion pulling you into the depths of sleep. You woke to good news: Togame was fine.

"Can I go see him?" you asked.

"They recommended he rest a few days," Ume replied. "You can go then. We have a lot to discuss in the meantime."

You shrunk under your brother's stare. "I guess I have a lot of explaining to do, huh?"

"I would say so."

So you explained it all. How you happened to meet Togame, not realizing who he was until the meeting the next day. How you fully intended to go through the mission as planned, wanting nothing more than to support Bofurin and gain your brother's confidence that you could handle difficult assignments. How you slowly came to know Togame more, finding he was nothing like the rumors that proceeded him.

"I really didn't mean fo this to happen," you explain. "I just... I was scared of letting you down. I know I should have told you right away, but I thought I could figure everything out on my own. Show you I was capable. But I really fucked that up. I'm sorry Ume."

Ume was quite the whole time as the words poured out of you, his expression unreadable. Your heart pounded as you waiting for his response.

"I'm sorry too, y/n," Ume said, surprising you. "All I've wanted was to protect you, but I see that I've gone overboard. I never meant for you to feel like I didn't trust you or didn't you were capable. There's no one I trust more than you, but also no one I worry about losing more."

Hearing your brother's praise warmed you. "Seriously?"

"Of course," he affirmed. "Of course I'm upset that you weren't honest with me, but I can understand why you did what you did... And this stuff with Togame, you really like him?"

"I do." You surprised yourself with how quickly you responded. "I think he's a good guy, Ume. I want you to get to know him like I have."

"I can't lie, the thought of you doesn't make me feel great," Ume admitted. "But I trust your judgment. All I know about him is what I've heard from others. If he is important to you, I wanna get to know him more."

You hugged your brother. "Thank you Ume."

He squeezed you back. "Of course, y/n. We are definitely going to have to talk about this more, but there's someone else who wants to talk to you."

Ume left the guest room he had you staying in and returned with Hiragi. "I'll give you two some privacy." He shut the door behind him, leaving you alone with Hiragi, who was hovering uncertainly.

There was a beat of awkward silence before you spoke. "I'm sorry Hiragi. You of all people did not deserve how I handled this."

Hiragi moved finally, sitting next to you on the bed with a sigh. "Is Togame... is he your boyfriend?"

"No, not exactly," you replied. "I know I have feelings for him and I have a lot to work out with him. But I can see myself with him."

"Were you with him when we... hooked up last week?" Hiragi asked, struggling to look at you.

You winced. "No, I hadn't been with him physically at that point if that's what you mean." You sighed. "I knew I felt something for him, but I thought my emotions were just screwed up. You were comforting and safe, I thought it would settle my mind. I never expected that I would develop really feelings for him. I'm really sorry I dragged you into this mess, Hiragi."

"You know, I kinda thought we'd end up together eventually. Guess I've been listening to Ume too much," he chuckled humorlessly. "I was hurt shocked when I saw you two, but I shouldn't have yelled at you like that."

You shook your head. "No, I definitely deserved to be yelled at. I hate that I hurt you, I never intended that. I hope you know I care about you so much."

Hiragi nodded. "I do. And I want you to be happy and not have there be any issues between us. I value you as friend no matter what."

Tears pricked in your eyes. You didn't realize how scared you were at the thought of losing Hiragi in your life until this moment. "And I want use to stay friends, no matter what. You will always be special to me, Hiragi. Nothing and no one will change that. I hope we both find who make us happy. You deserve that more than anyone."

"Thanks, y/n," Hiragi hugged you tightly. "But I hope you know if Togame ever hurts you I'm beating his ass myself."

You laughed. "You have my permission. Hell, I'll help you if he hurts me... but I think he might surprise you."

"We'll see about that," Hiragi replied. "You rest up, okay?"

You nodded. "Thanks for coming by, I'll see you soon."

****

You woke to good news the following day: Togame was well enough for visitors. He was resting at his apartment, which Ume drove you to. You almost laughed at how absurd this was. Never did you think Ume would be dropping you off at a Shishitoren's place, but the last two weeks have certainly turned your life upside down.

"If you need me to come get you, just give me a call," Ume said as you climbed out of the car.

"Thank Ume." You shut the passenger door and hurried up to Togame's place.

You were breathless when he answered the door, wearing only a grey pair of sweat that sat low on his hips. His body was perfectly toned; a little line of hair disappearing into his sweats. The only thing that indicated he was injured was the bandage around his left shoulder. That did nothing to detract from how good he looked.

"Hey," Togame smiled.

"Hey."

You practically flung yourself into him, squeezing him into a tight hug. You were careful not to hurt the left side of him, but Togame didn't seem to mind. He wrapped his right arm around you, pulling you into him further.

"Sorry for the lame one armed hug," Togame murmured into your hair. He breathed in your scent, perfectly sweet. "Doctor said I gotta let the left arm rest."

Togame shut the door behind the two of you, leading you to his couch. His place was surprisingly clean and organized. "Are you okay? Is your shoulder fucked up?"

"I'm okay." Togame's thigh brushed against you as he sat. You could feel the heat of him even through the layers of clothing. "Doctor said I'm the luckiest man alive. The bullet missed all the important stuff. He gave me some meds to help with pain, so I just need to rest and let it heal."

You let out an exhale of relief. "Thank god... But why? You could have gotten yourself killed? Why didn't you let Choji..."

"I would never have been able to live with myself if Choji hurt you and I stood by and did nothing," Togame answered. "I've turned a blind eye to the shit Choji does for so long, but I couldn't ignore this. It would make me no better than him and I'm starting to realize I want better for myself."

"I'll never be able to repay you, but I hope you know it means the world to me. You saved my life," you said. You took his hand in yours and squeezed it.

"I would do it a hundred times over, if I had to," Togame said. "When he pointed that gun at you, I realized I couldn't live without you."

Your heart fluttered at his words. "Togame, about what Hiragi said-"

"You don't have to-"

"No, please I want you to know I wasn't trying to trick you," you insisted. "I made a joke about seducing you to catch you before I really knew you. It was never an actual plan and I never thought Hiragi would take it seriously. It's important to me that you know that I was with you that night because I wanted to be. There was no motive besides my feelings for you."

The soft smile that graced Togame's face made you melt. "I understand, y/n. I should have heard you out instead of storming out like an asshole." His grin morphed into something more sly. "I'm just glad I lived to hear you say you wanted to seduce."

You groaned, but with laughter. "It was a joke!"

"Sure, sure." Togame's hand was on your thigh, rubbing little circles in the most maddening way. You slid off the couch, nestling yourself between his legs.

"Well, if you're not going to believe me," you ran your hand up his inner thigh, squeezing him through the sweats, "Might as well make it true."

Togame's eyes flooded with desire seeing you on your knees for him. Never did he think he would have the princess of Bofurin like this, but never did he think he would be falling in love with her.

He cupped your cheek, his thumb rubbing over your bottom lip. "I really am the luckiest man alive."

You grinned, pulling his sweats and boxers down to reveal his length. He was long and thick, flushed a pretty shade of pink at the tip. He was already hard by the time you licked a stripe up the underside of him. You swirled your tongue around his fat tip, making his hips stir.

"Don't tease."

You obliged, taking him in your mouth. You hollowed out your cheeks, sucking him in deeper as you bobbed your head. Your tongue teased the underside of him, his cock throbbing in response. He slid his hands in your hair, causing you to moan around him. Togame hissed at the sensation.

"Fuck your mouth is heaven," Togame groaned, his head falling back on the couch. You moved faster, spurred on by his praise. Your hands stroking the parts of him your mouth couldn't reach. You could feel his hips lifting ever so slightly, trying to get further down your throat.

Togame gently pushed you off him. "''M gonna fucking bust if you keep doing that," he explained when you pouted at him. "Wanna do that inside you. Been driving me crazy that I haven't felt you yet."

Togame was helping you to your feel, pulling you to his bedroom. "Are you okay enough to do that?"

Togame scoffed. "Nothing is going to stop me from fucking you right now, y/n."

You blushed as you hit the bed, Togame climbing on top of you. He favored his right side, but over all seemed fine. You were in no position to argue with him.

Togame helped you get your clothes off, admiring your form. "So fucking pretty." He leaned in and kissed your neck. "And all mine."

"Jo," you gasped as he slipped his fingers between your legs. He toyed with your clit as he kissed you. His fingers slid inside your pussy while he sucked on your neck and chest. You were soaked in seconds, your arousal dripping down his fingers. Togame would have liked to prep you more, but he simply could not go another minute without being inside you.

"Need you Jo," you murmured. Your hips were stirring, craving more of him to soothe the ache inside you.

"You got me, angel," Togame cooed. He gripped the base of his cock, rubbing his tip through your soaked folds. You mewled as it nudged your throbbing clit. 

Finally he lined himself up to you, letting out a groan as he pressed into the tight ring of your cunt. You sucked in a breath feeling yourself stretch around him. "Fuck, you're so tight." He slid in and out of you in short strokes, helping you both adjust. "So fucking wet too."

He dropped down to kiss you as he rolled his hips. His strokes were deep and languid, as if to savor every moment. Togame wasn't in a rush to get off, he just wanted to feel your warm cunt around him. 

Your breath was more labored with each roll of Togame's hips. His fat tip hit that sweet spot inside you so deliciously. You rocked your hips up to meet him, your clit nudged by the base of him. Sweet little noises left your lips, driving Togame wild.

"Feel good, angel? You liked when I fuck you like this?" Togame said. He picked up his back ever so slightly, making you body shudder. "Know you do, can feel you squeezing me."

"Please, Jo." You didn't even know what you were begging for, you just knew you wanted more. Wanted him. 

"Gonna make you feel so good," he babbled on. He was losing his patience to take things slow as you wrapped your arms around his neck, playing with the dark curls of hair. "Been dreaming of having you like this for so long."

"'S good Jo," you slurred. "Feels so good." Your body was trembling, desperate for the release you've been craving. Like Togame, its felt like you wanted this for so long. He was good with his hands and his mouth, sure, but ever since that first night you've been wanting this.

Togame reached between you and rubbed your clit, drinking in the moans that escaped you. "Go on and cum for me pretty."

Your back arched off the bed as pleasure flooded your veins. You were writhing as the euphoria temporarily took control of your body and mind. Nothing existed outside of the two of you in that moment. "Jo-nngh."

All of Togame's composure was lost watching you cum on cock while moaning his name. His hips stuttered, spilling himself deep inside you. You felt so warm and full of him as he rode out his high, your name dripping from his lips. 

Togame stayed inside you as he peppered kissed all over you. You giggled, holding him close to you. "You're perfect," Togame murmured against your skin. "I don't deserve you."

You cupped his face in your hands, making him look at you. "You do, Jo. You're a good man." 

Togame smiled gratefully. "I hope I can prove that to you."

"I know you will," you replied. "I know things will probably be a bit complicated right now, but I want to figure it out together."

Togame turned and kissed your palm. "Together." 

No promise ever sounded sweeter.

[multifandom--mess]

Hannigram Fic Recs! pt.2

Here it is, the big fat fic recs post I've been putting off for like two months but at least that means I had time to read a shit ton of fics. I made sure to do a mix of short and long fics this time around since the first part were all long ones. Enjoy!

part 1

》 The Lamb and His Monster by petrodactyl352 (Explicit)(104k)

Will has always been drawn to the macabre. The proverbial flame upon which he has burnt his fragile moth’s wings time and time again, it’s why he had fallen in love with Florence and why he alone seems to see the beauty in the grisly but exquisite work of Il Mostro. But when he meets a young man in the Uffizi Gallery whose sketchbook is filled with nothing but page upon page of intricate renditions of the Primavera drawn in reverent strokes of pencil, he realizes he may not be alone in his fascination with the Monster. As they lift veils and scale forts and slowly begin to understand each other, Will gets a taste of exactly how bright the cinders of intrigue can burn—and how quickly they can kindle into an inferno of obsession.

(Young hannigram in Florence ahhh this is seriously one of the best fics i've ever read it had to be at the top of the list)

》 Spectral Hearts by mattHughdancy (Explicit) (16k)

Will has a meltdown at a crime scene. Guess who’s called in to help.

(Another top fave of mine they are so fucking cute in this fic 🤧 features autistic Will, and Hannibal just loves him so much oh my goddd my heart exploded reading this)

》 lay like a flood spills away by bleakmidwinter (Explicit)(35k)

Will Graham meets Hannibal, a frequent cruiser, at an open-minded nudist lake. Despite his reservations, Will is drawn to him, but is eventually forced to question his mysterious nature when the lakeside regulars start to go missing.

(I loved this one bc what better setting than a nudist lake. This is just gay as hell honestly lmao bc the lake is all dudes and Will is "straight" at the beginning until he meets Hannibal and it's all downhill from there. Definitely give this one a read it had some hilarious moments too)

》 Doing Things That Friends Don't Do by HigherMagic (Explicit) (39k)

A year after the fall, Will and Hannibal have settled into a fairly blissful, domestic harmony. But Will's imagination has never let him simply enjoy what he has - why should it start now?

(Basically Will trying everything in his power NOT to have sex with Hannibal but of course we all know he can't keep it together. They are so horny for each other in this i died laughing so many times. Also this author is such an amazing writer expect multiple recs from them in this post)

》 Railroad Romance by OneWhoSitsWithTurtles (12k)(Explicit)

Hannibal is still Hannibal, and Will is still Will. Except Will is not part of the FBI and they meet on a two day train trip from New Orleans to Baltimore.

(A strangers to lovers meet-cute on a train. Lots of fluffy moments and of course train sex ensues)

》 Three Stars by beforethedawn (94k)(Explicit)

Three months after the fall, Jack finally tracks them down in Canada and Will and Hannibal have to make a run for it, slumming it through America in three star hotels and eating sub par food.

(Hannigram roadtrip!! This fic was so fun I loved it. They take on the identities of some familiar Mads and Hugh characters ;)

》 Unexpected Delight by HigherMagic (Explicit) (61k)

Will has a kink that he’s deeply ashamed of. Unbeknownst to him, Hannibal has the same or a similar/compatible kink. They get together, and Will is going out of his way as he usually does to seem like his sexual tastes are as “normal” as possible. As a result, Hannibal gets the idea that Will is super vanilla and maybe a little prudish, and not wanting to scare him off, is also keeping his kinky side on the DL. This goes on for while, with them each trying super hard to hide how kinky they are and act as “vanilla” as possible, to hilarious results, all while privately thinking the other one would be super freaked out if they knew since they’re obviously so sweet and normal.

(This whole thing is literally ALL smut 😭😭 but Han and Will love each other to death and the sex is so good y'all omg I had to stop reading multiple times to catch my breath)

》 The Substitute by Devereauxs_Disease (Explicit) (10k)

When Hannibal tells Will he's sick, Will is skeptical. Before he knows it, he's laying in a hospital bed and being told he's going nowhere for two weeks. Will is distraught until Hannibal swoops in and offers to take over Will's courses at the FBI Academy. Will doesn't mind Hannibal showing up every night with a home-cooked meal, but he might just resent Hannibal becoming the most popular teacher at the Academy in just two weeks...

(A seaon 1 au if Hannibal wasn't an asshole had told Will about the encephalitis. This is hilarious tho because the students don't like Will no more when he comes back and they keep asking about Hannibal 😭😭 poor Will lmaoo)

》 When This Old Tired Body Wants to Sing by KareliaSweet (Explicit) (7k)

“Fuck me quicker, darling,” he purrs with liquid insincerity, “God forbid you see my face.” Will never touches him unless it is in the dark. In the daylight he is a ghost.

(Will being an asshole and only fucking Hannibal in the dark ugh 🙄 but things work out eventually so don't worry!)

》 Maybe Tomorrow by Shotgun_sinner (Explicit) (26k)

After recovering from their tumble off a cliff, Will agrees to get Hannibal to Portugal, where the good doctor can start a new life for himself. In exchange, Will can take the boat and return to his life, or start over himself. A storm hits on the open water, leaving them stranded somewhere in the Azores. With no one else on the small island, they're forced to work together for survival, and work through their violent past in order to get along.

(A survival au! I LOVED this and author is another fave of mine. I go crazy for a good stranded on a deserted island trope and this did not disappoint. Also there is an insanely funny part where I absolutely DIED. You'll know when you read it 💀💀)

》 I've Always Been A Daughter by air_of_the_Waterfall (44k)(Explicit)

It's been a month since Will and Abigail ran away with Hannibal. Living in a safe Canadian town, Will and Hannibal are free to explore their newfound intimacy and Abigail has a chance at the future she craves. However, upon meeting Hannibal’s sister Mischa and her daughter, loyalties are tested and insecurities run rampant. The Lecters have an undeniably dark past, and as Abigail and Will fall deeper into its truths, Hannibal’s manipulation and misguided love come to light more clearly than ever before.

(This fic is truly a hidden gem I am so glad I found it. Murder family post-mizumono and also MISCHA LIVES. The plot is so well written and I love Mischa's characterization. Definitely give this one a read, yall it is SO GOOD it deserves so much love)

》 Home is Not a Place by Shotgun_Sinner (11k)(Explicit)

Post-Fall, Hannibal recovers from his injuries. Will takes care of him, and their relationship evolves much more easily than Hannibal thought it would. The only issue is that Will is a constant presence, and he hasn't had alone time in three years. It ends up not being an issue at all.

(This one is so sweet. Basically Hannibal wants to jerk off but he can't because Will is just always there and he hardly gets a moment alone and he'll feel bad for telling him to go away 😭😭 but they finally get together in the end

》 Held in the Highest Regard by HigherMagic (12k)(Explicit)

What happens when a group of serial killers pick the absolute worst targets? Will is already having a pretty rough night, since Hannibal proposed to him and Will said 'No' for reasons he still hasn't quite figured out yet. It's not their fault - they couldn't have known - but sometimes people have to learn lessons the hard way, and Will could definitely use some stress relief.

(If you are familiar with the movie 'The Strangers' then you'll really like this one. I reread it like three times it was so good. Shit had me tweaking omg this is like the perfect au for them)

》 Green-Eyed Monster by CestPasDuBaudelaire (53k)(Explicit)

Will and Hannibal have settled in Cuba and, for the past year, they have been living their happily ever after in a small hidden community for retired wanted criminals. However, at the hazard of a gathering, Will is faced with an unbelievable fact, other members of the community may also fancy his monster of a husband. Then comes Will's spiraling, as he learns to come to terms with a disastrous, chaotic and slowly overwhelming possessiveness. And of course, feelings are never easy to deal with, when Hannibal is involved. A smut character study in three acts exploring Will's possessiveness.

(Top!Will my beloved. Don't let the title fool you, this was so fun to read and I love the community for wanted criminals idea. And possessive Will is always a treat ;)

》 Haunted by Anonymous (165k)(Explicit)

Still recovering from their fight with Dolarhyde, Will and Hannibal escape to New Orleans with Chiyoh's help. But Will is still struggling to accept Hannibal and his own darkness, something that Hannibal has every intention of helping him overcome...

(And finally I leave you guys with this monster of a fic. So sad that the author chose to go anon but if they somehow see this I hope they know how much I love this story. Will is struggling and Hannibal is an asshole at certain points but when is he not? Lots of references to Will's past too and some stuff about his mom that's very interesting)

I hope you guys enjoy these stories as much as I did. If you read any and want to discuss my messages and ask box are always open! ♡♡♡

[oneatlatime]

Bitter Work

Life took me out at the knees for a couple of weeks but I'm back! I'm hoping this is a nice restful episode after the relentlessness of The Chase.

I have to say, Toph's nicknaming skills are on point. I never would have thought of Sugarqueen, but it fits perfectly.

This is me. Every morning.

Full nose plant from Appa.

And the beat up Sokka quota is fulfilled. Very funny Toph, but completely uncalled for. If someone had catapulted teenage me 50 feet into the air while I was trying to sleep, it would have been fully justifiable homicide.

Aang is always trying to run before he can walk. What was Iroh always saying to Zuko about basics? Aang needs that speech too.

I was really on the ball in my post about how airbenders aren't homicidal, actually. Rock is a stubborn element. Yay me!

Aang earthbends = Earth bends Aang.

Seriously, how did he mess up that badly?

Cozy.

Thank you Zuko for the incredibly obvious exposition that's somehow completely in character. Interesting to see that Iroh and his son had brown hair, but Zuko seems to have black hair. More hair variety in the Fire Nation than I thought.

Tangent time! I love the contrast in social intelligence (I guess that's the term?) in this scene. Zuko wakes Iroh up with an infodump, some bad tea, and then gets straight to discussing strategy. Iroh's first actions are to compliment the bad tea, then dispose of the refill in a way that won't hurt Zuko's feelings (probably not necessary, as Zuko seems to be the type that's oblivious to all things other than the task at hand when he's focused). Iroh, injured and awake for all of 15 seconds, jumps straight to actions that help look after his nephew. And Zuko is trying! That's why he made tea! But still, he doesn't even ask if his uncle's feeling ok. Zuko has such a massive gap in his education - he can probably reel off the specs of all Fire Nation battleships, but he doesn't know how to be a human person. Contrast that with Iroh, and especially Katara, who makes friends and connections with such aggressive forwardness that she's at times more steamroller than teenage girl. It's funny how privilege plays into this too - Zuko comes from probably the single most privileged (on paper) family in the world, yet it's the children of the impoverished water tribe who have the more well-rounded education/socialisation.

"She's crazy and she needs to go down" go a full belly laugh out of me.

"What if I came at the boulder from a different angle?" Jesus I was REALLY on point with my post about the airbenders. Credit where credit is due, this show has such good writing/worldbuilding that viewers have picked up what Toph is laying out in this episode already. Also a little bit of stealth character work in there - since Toph is putting into words what we've been thinking this whole time, she now reads as trustworthy. This show is so good. So thought out.

Maybe it's just VLC being weird, but methinks Katara is having some trouble with her eyeball.

Katara STOP BABYING HIM. This is why I don't like Aang having a crush on her.

Honestly it's refreshing to have Toph giving it to Aang straight, no softening the blows.

I really like this texture.

Sokka's club is a giant bottle opener. Or at least a multitool.

ROCK SUITS

wait

ELEMENTAL FASHION

oh this is going to be haybending all over again.

They are totally going to have to nerf this girl. She could defeat the Fire Lord right now.

Earth beats water tribe

Someome who knows more about tea than I do: Why are both pots necessary?

"requires peace of mind" well that's out. Sorry Zuko, we'll have to get you a taser instead.

"So we're drinking tea to calm down?" "not it's to get the nasty ass taste of the sludge you brewed out of my mouth. I mean yes." For what's looking like an extended training montage, this episode is far funnier than it needs to be.

I pretty much don't notice Zuko's scar anymore (it's just part of his character design) then every so often a certain frame of animation will come out of the blue and remind me that this kid's missing half his face. I don't know if it's intentional on the part of the animators, but his scar is prominent this episode.

So it sounds like bending lightning actually corresponds with how lightning in our world works. Neat.

In an absolutely Shocking turn of events (pun absolutely intended), Zuko fucks it up. Fucking shit up: the autobiography of a Fire Prince. Has a nice ring to it.

Toph I know you go hard, but maybe apply a sense of proportion to this?

It kind of looks like Aang's about to be run over by a giant scoop of caramel ice cream.

Toph is such an interesting mishmash of bluntness and emotional intelligence. I don't think I've seen a character like that before.

Zuko being self aware for once! Everything always does explode in his face. Except when he's being the Blue Spirit. Seems he's more capable then.

It's a tragedy that this boy wasn't around for the emo movement. He would have single-handedly sustained Hot Topic.

Zuko going "WHAT TURMOIL?!?!?" is like Katara going "I'M COMPLETELY CALM!!!!!" last episode. Also got a laugh out of me.

"I'm as proud as ever." OF WHAT?!?!? What could he possibly be proud of? He's a homeless fugitive with a stolen horse bird and a half-dead uncle that he can't even properly brew tea for. The self-delusion is strong.

Is pride the source of shame? Honest question, I don't know.

There's a surprising variety of trees in this part of the Earth Kingdom. Where Zuko and Iroh are there are fluffly hardwoods, probably deciduous; Toph's training ground is ringed by cartoon pines.

This whole bit is too cute for words.

"Now come back boomerang" This is a training episode, it's not supposed to be this funny!

Are there voice acting awards? Like voice acting oscars? Sokka's actor needs one. Or several.

I should have waited to answer the ask about airbenders and just copy pasted Iroh's speech here. Except for the water = change bit. That doesn't make sense.

What can I possibly say about Iroh's speech? It's the thesis for this show in a single paragraph.

Pretty.

Are characters' eyes a different shape this episode? Aang's eyes change colour all the time, but everyone's eyes seem more cat-like.

I do love me some constructive bullying.

Sokka is so refreshingly self-aware while still totally oblivious. He is meat and sarcasm, but he's so much more!

"Have you got any meat?" He said that in an Irish accent.

"You're gonna pull my fingers off and I don't think the rest of me is coming!" Do you ever come across a sentence that is so obviously an innuendo that your brain trips over itself trying to decipher it?

Sokka's hair must be so fluffy. It's got so much volume.

Why can't he go get Toph? I think being stuck in a hole outranks avoiding an awkward encounter.

FOO FOO CUDDLYPOOPS

"You must not let the lightning pass through your heart, or the damage could be deadly." Foreshadowing?

Today in 'things Zuko thinks it's acceptable, nay, expected, for parental figures to do' - attempted murder as a teaching method! What went on in that palace?

Is this the closest Sokka's come to dying?

He's earthbending the air! Doing air but earthlike. You know what I mean.

I thought she was levitating.

Toph is so smart. She does the airbender thing and comes at the problem from a different angle. Telling Aang to stand up for himself doesn't work? Fine. Let's bully him into standing up for himself. And it works!

This episode's MVP is Sokka's patience.

"You tried the positive reinforcement, didn't you?" uhhhhh sure!

Appa getting vengeance for Sokka. Nice.

Theatre kids.

I wish Zuko would just have the breakdown he's obviously hurtling towards so we can get started on the rebuilding arc. Every time I think he's a rock bottom, he keeps digging.

Luten is Katara. Let's not read too far into that one.

Final Thoughts

I defy any episode from this point on to fulfill the Beat Up Sokka Quota as thoroughly as this one did.

In a lesser show, the 'Aang learns earthbending episode' would have had Aang & Toph as the A-plot, and Sokka & Katara doing something completely unrelated as a b-plot, and probably no Zuko at all. Sokka does have his own thing going on this episode, but the fact that they managed to weave in both water tribe siblings so organically is so satisfying. Of course a team member struggling to learn a new skill would seek out his friends. Of course his friends are in the area, observing the lesson to varying degrees. It feels so much more real to have the characters who aren't 'useful' that episode still there, rather than conveniently absent.

Zuko was very Zuko this episode. He's correct that he needs more training for his inevitable next encounter with Zuko jr., but Iroh is also correct that Zuko is a bundle of issues held together by a different bundle of issues. Not to jinx it, but I thought I detected a hint of self-awareness from Zuko this episode, although it seems to have occurred despite his best efforts to suppress it.

Iroh's Zuko-wrangling skills were sharp this episode, despite being injured. And his wisdom was off the charts. Zuko was also not as annoying as I usually find him, and unlike in Zuko Alone where I found his quieter self to be out of character, it fit this episode. Maybe he's turned over a new, quieter, leaf? I loved "she's crazy and she needs to go down" both as a joke and as a statement. Shared blood doesn't trump someone's actions, and I'm glad to see a show meant for kids acknowledge that. Although, given that this show has no problem depicting objectively BAD parents and families, I can't say I'm surprised.

In a testament to Jack de Sena's skill, Sokka get a soliloquy this episode and pulls it off flawlessly. Kudos to the animation team for making Sokka's face fit the words so well. Double kudos for whoever had the balls to approve 'stick Sokka in a hole and put an apex predator on his head to force self-reflection' as a plotline.

There was a lot of exposition from a lot of different characters this episode, but it's mostly unnoticeable. It just makes sense that that's what they would be talking about at that point in time.

I think I said it above, but I'll say it again: the worldbuilding in this show is phenomenally well done. How do I know this? Because I was able to construct most of Iroh's monologue before watching this episode, just by paying attention. This show rewards focus and attentiveness. (Almost) nothing that Iroh said was not something the audience has already observed for themselves. Not heard, but observed. That 'show, don't tell' thing.

This episode was way funnier than it needed to be too. Not just the obvious stuff like *inhales*

FOO FOO CUDDLYPOOPS

but tiny one-liners buried mid-conversation and character interactions too. Momo turning into a reed didn't have to be there, but it was, and it was funny. It wasn't exactly restful, but it was a relief to have an episode that really didn't move around after The Chase.

What I like most about this episode was that it went farther than it had to. This was a training episode. It could have been just training. Anyone familiar with training episodes would expect just training, and be satisfied with just training. But Avatar said 'nope, we'll do better than that' and organically incorporated a heap of character stuff, worldbuilding from multiple perspectives, humour, multiple characters undergoing self-reflection, the next step in the domestication of Zuko, what I'm hoping wasn't a heap of foreshadowing, and pretty backgrounds as the cherry on top. They didn't have to go so hard, but Avatar always goes hard. I like that.

[glorious-spoon]

9-1-1 Season 7 Post-Mortem

Mostly because I want to put my thoughts in order. Full disclosure: I'm really not thrilled with a lot of the choices this season made, but I'm also not at the 'fuck this show I hate it now' level either. The primary, overarching issue, IMO, is that they tried to stuff a full season's worth of plot into ten episodes, and the pacing and emotional continuity suffered badly. And also there were some writing choices that were simply deranged (and hopefully would have been reworked had they not been laying down the tracks in front of the speeding train, so to speak).

(Cut for me rambling at length)

So: Bobby and Athena were largely really solidly written. The cruise ship disaster was great: campy and OTT, but in a fun way. Their marital issues and the eventual resolution felt like a natural continuation of issues they've had in the past. Bobby Begins 3.0 was a great episode other than the cartel element, which was some ill-considered racial stereotyping (I've said it before and I'll say it again: you could have had the antagonists in that episode be a bunch of angry locals threatening people for tresspassing on their property, and the whole thing would have been 100% less gross without actually changing much of the plot. Really felt like Tim was cribbing from the similar Lone Star arc, which was also lazy and racist). Amir was a fantastic character, and while I could have done without that last scene of him offering Bobby absolution, I feel like he was generally allowed to be both gracious and rightfully angry. The cop Athena stuff in the finale was... less great, but also to be expected. I would have liked much less of that and much more time spent at Bobby's bedside.

(I'm really sad about the house fire mostly because that was one of my favorite sets, but I do appreciate the poetry of the parallel, with Bobby actually managing to get his wife out this time. Though I do wonder where Harry was that night, lmao.)

Hen was similarly wonderful. I really liked getting to see her wrestle with the responsibility of being captain, and the fallout of the car accident scene. In a vacuum, I actually like Ortiz as a villain - a complicated one, with sympathetic motivations, but still ostentatiously cruel. Were it not for the fact that there are basically NO latine characters other than Eddie who aren't villains this season, it would have been great. ALAS.

Did not love the rescue dog/foster child parallel with Mara. Otherwise really loved getting to see her settle in with the Wilsons, and I'm really glad that we got to see Chim and Maddie take her in instead of leaving her at the group home by the end of the season. Really leaned into the found family element, and Chim taking care of his best friend's child in the same way that Mrs. Lee did for him.

CHIM! Chim my beloved. 'There Goes The Groom' is the one episode that I have basically no issues with at all. The hallucinatory trip through Los Angeles, wrestling with Doug's ghost, was gorgeous. Bringing back Kevin - also gorgeous. I loved that we see the Lees explicitly framed as his real family (and am spitefully glad that his bio dad was nowhere to be found. Fuck that guy.) Kenny continues to be, IMO, the best actor on this show. He killed it. We need so many more Chim-centric episodes, because they're always SO good. He can make both humor and pathos feel so natural and human. Give us more Chim!

And of course on to Buck's bisexual arc, which was... so painfully Buck, lmao. Full disclosure: I have a lot of trouble rewatching 7x04 and 7x05 because the secondhand embarrassment is just too much for me, but objectively it feels very right and in character for him. LOVED the first kiss scene, with his dawning realization of what's about to happen and his softly stunned joy afterward. His coming out scenes with both Maddie and Eddie were lovely and perfectly appropriate to both relationships. I really liked him taking the initiative to reach out to Tommy to apologize and ask for a second chance after he fucked up their first date. Loved Tommy showing up at the hospital after what was clearly a long, miserable shift.

Their date in the finale didn't really land for me mostly because of where it was placed in the episode; if they did something with the two of them after Buck spent the entire day at Bobby's bedside waiting to see if he was going to live, it would have felt a lot more natural to me to have them exhaustedly eating takeout on the couch or something instead of having a formal sit-down date with wine and place settings. Intentionally or not, that made it feel like they're still on Date Behavior with each other and despite some gestures toward emotional vulnerability, they're not quite there yet - as seen by Buck steering the conversation back to flirting and innuendo. My overall feeling on the relationship at this point is that it's cute, but I'm not seeing any real depth of feeling between them yet.

Buck and Eddie on the other hand - look, despite my many MANY issues with Eddie's plot this season, I loved how his relationship with Buck was written. I love the intimacy and familiarity of how they are together, I loved the way Eddie let himself lean on Buck, I loved how Buck is clearly positioned as an integral part of the Diaz family.

Unfortunately, that's really the only thing I loved about Eddie's plot this season. His relationship with Marisol was ultimately pointless; she was never fleshed out enough to feel like a real character, and we never even see the fallout of Eddie's cheating with regard to her; it's all Chris. The Kim stuff strained credulity, and also I never felt like he got any kind of emotional catharsis or resolution through it; he still hasn't really confronted any of his issues about Shannon, about their marriage and how it ended. That whole arc felt really wobbly in terms of tone, as well: using plot elements of a very famous psychological thriller without actually acknowledging any of the creepiness of it. I would have liked it to lean into that more especially with the scene where Kim dresses up as Shannon, an objectively creepy and unhinged thing to do.

The Diaz parents handled the Chris thing in a selfish and opportunistic way that felt both disappointing and inevitable. Hopefully that's going to be a hook for the next season and Eddie actually confronting them, but overall Eddie's plot this season really felt like they just tossed a bunch of balls up in the air and mostly failed to catch them.

Gerrard - look, I'm not that worried about Gerrard. I could have done without him, but ultimately he's going to stick around just long enough to make his inevitable defeat satisfying. At least, that's my hope.

[425599167]

I've been holding back a while on publishing this post, but I finally feel like sharing my thoughts about Barriss in Tales of the Empire.

It was fine. It was the okayest way to continue Barriss’s story. It’s not bad at all, it’s just basic and misses out on opportunities.

Part of what started my fascination with Barriss was her courtroom tirade. Not just her motives, but seeing her, a young woman of relatively low rank now put in handcuffs, speak up and tear into the most powerful people in the galaxy. My impression of her was, from that point on, she is uncontrollable. This part of her is out in the open, there’s no going back to the demure padawan. She can be angry and scared and self-hating, but even if she uses the dark side, she is a wild card. She can be intimidated into feigning loyalty, but she’s plotting against whoever dares think they can manipulate her. People like Barriss are why the Rule of Two was necessary. In TotE, she was not that. She seriously worked as an inquisitor and intended to follow Vader’s orders, albeit briefly. It isn’t a definitively wrong direction for her character, but I was underwhelmed.

The first warning sign that got under my skin is the scene from the trailer where Barriss is depicted being the first person to bow to Vader. The knee-jerk takeaway was she’s evil now, nothing more to it. I predicted she was planning to escape the inquisitors, pretending to be loyal, and laying it on thick. Then in the episode it turned out that scene was shown in reverse for the trailer, she was actually the last person to rise, and the villains are all too stupid to notice her hesitation. Because, y’know, why write the protagonist showing some cunning when you can just deceptively edit the trailer? Good work, marketing team, you successfully tricked me into thinking you were making something interesting.

Then the scene with Vader. Let’s assume it wasn’t just a cheap move made to stick him in the trailer. Vader will kill people for annoying him, and he mutilated several inquisitors as part of their training. It didn’t take much for him to kill Trilla, Iskat, and Tualon. He has personal reasons to hate Barriss, but expresses nothing. His goal could be to make her suffer as his servant, but again, he frequently brutalizes subordinates yet does nothing to her. Even if he really doesn’t care about the events of the Sabotage Arc, shaky loyalty would not be tolerated. He could put Barriss in a torture chamber to take his frustrations out on rather than give her any opportunity to escape. There’s hardly even a meaningful look, like he’s got anything in mind for her. This being shortly post-RotS, maybe he’s so burned out over recent events he doesn’t really care about Barriss, but him being too tired to pay attention undercuts the menace. Maybe Palpatine ordered him to leave Barriss be, but nothing implies that, and at this point I’m doing the writers’ job for them. Vader’s involvement doesn’t work, and Inquisitor Barriss doesn’t work by extension. IIRC Pablo Hidalgo pointed out this problem years ago, and he was right. Vader is just an evil cardboard cutout for Barriss to kneel to, and that could be a good moment showing how out of her depth she feels, except it doesn’t make use of his character and their history. This is little better than other pointless Glup Shitto cameos.

My personal fix would be giving Vader a single line implying he’s leaving Barriss alone because he wants her to try escaping so he gets the satisfaction of hunting her down. He could maim Marrok and that nameless inquisitor to make a point, but he wants Barriss in top shape for a good chase. Perhaps Barriss could infer his identity based on his wording, a suggestion he already chased her down once before and she won’t survive the second time. Ratchet up the terror Barriss feels, the danger she’s in, the enmity between them, the challenge of how to escape knowing Vader is watching and waiting. Barriss isn’t only under the same pressure as the other inquisitors, Vader is looking for an excuse to kill her and is savoring her misery. Lyn is a fine antagonist, but Vader is the one Barriss is forced to kneel to. Vader is the obstacle she needs to overcome to free herself. Seeing the Empire’s infamous top enforcer getting outsmarted by the girl he thought he’d trapped and broken would’ve hit so much harder. Getting Lyn to leave Vader’s service is a solid victory, but it’s not the same magnitude and it's possible to combine both events anyway. Using his character could’ve made Barriss’s struggle and triumph even greater.

Another option is to forego Vader entirely and focus on the Grand Inquisitor, because Barriss’s interaction with Quizzy didn’t amount to much. There’s no mention of Luminara and whether Quizzy captured and/or killed her yet, nor does he reveal that he was present for and motivated by Barriss’s confession. Like, maybe that green lightsaber Barriss used could’ve been Luminara’s. Let her grapple with the implications. Fans who know about Quizzy’s past can dig under the surface, such as how he encourages Barriss as sincerely as his smug personality permits, but to this day we only know he was one of those four temple guards because of BTS or supplementary info. There’s been nothing on-screen about it, most viewers don’t know, this was the opportunity to explore that connection, but it doesn’t happen. The training scene was fine. Everything was just fine.

A sticking point for me is her helmet, because that could’ve meant something much juicier. Barriss’s inquisitor helmet strongly resembles the one she stole from Ventress and wore while attacking Ahsoka. I’m not sure if this is purely a choice by the animators, or if it’s supposed to imply one of the villains (most likely Lyn) intentionally made the helmet look like that. If the inquisitors designed the helmet to remind Barriss of her crimes, it reinforces how they don’t understand her at all. They present her the helmet to make her one of them, but it’s a glaring reminder she isn’t. Service to imperialism isn’t what the original helmet represented. Barriss’s disguise was that of a dangerous renegade aware of the Republic’s impending fall, and the inquisitors don’t get that about her. That helmet doesn’t just remind Barriss of her attack on the Jedi and how she hurt Ahsoka, it reminds her that she knew the Empire was coming, wants to kill it, and can fight back independently. Giving her the helmet could’ve backfired on the inquisitors spectacularly.

What I found interesting about Barriss is she’s highly intelligent and recognized the unwinnable situation of the Clone Wars, then her reaction was inventive and volatile. She’s right about everything and handles it terribly. TotE Barriss is kinda dumb, especially in her second episode. She went with Lyn on a mission to kill a Jedi, witnessed her partner commit a massacre, then tried to convince the target Jedi to come with her back to the inquisitors despite what she knows about the organization, and only took down Lyn at the last moment. I watched her throughout the episode hoping her comments to Lyn were probing for information, waiting for an opening, but they weren’t. There is no defection plan, she’s genuinely operating as an inquisitor and wants to take a Jedi back alive to people whom she knows murdered at least one of her peers and forced her into a deathmatch with another.

At this point, Barriss is mentally unwell in many ways due to child soldier war trauma and probably serious brain damage, plus the year in solitary confinement couldn’t have helped, but I always thought her issues manifested as doubt and contempt for any authority. Her behavior can’t all be written off as “she’s crazy and irrational”, there are patterns there. After the bombing, she was dismissed by the Jedi Council as a “Separatist terrorist”, and that shows how little people understand her. Jedi, Sith, Republic, Separatists, Empire, rightly or not, Barriss resents them all for ruining her life. Trust is overrated. Eventually deserting fits with her previously putting on an appearance of loyalty until her doubts break through, but it would’ve been interesting to see her evolve further after that side of her already emerged during the Sabotage Arc. Sincerely giving the Inquisitorius a chance makes her look like an idiot compared with her previous appearance. It’s not the worst direction to write her, but it’s so much less than she’s capable of. Maybe Barriss just wasn’t as cunning of a character as I imagined her to be.

The broader problem with TotE is that, despite focusing on Barriss, it killed the remaining interest in her, and there wasn’t much left. After TCW Season 5, the one big question about Barriss was what happened to her after RotS, and many people vilified her enough to not care at all, or assumed she was executed before or during Order 66. After eleven years of fading relevance broken up by occasional theory clickbait, TotE answered the question adequately and left little room to explore her further. Her time between deserting imperial service and being found by Lyn is implied to be uneventful. Barriss says, “I saw amazing things, traveled the stars with my master. But that was long ago,” the corollary being she hasn’t been traveling and hasn’t seen amazing things since being a Jedi, nothing worth showing in a future story. She spent at least a decade in hiding without being seen by the inquisitors, including a long period in that tundra working as a healer.

This was the best opportunity to show Barriss and Ahsoka finding each other. It was skipped over. The small hint of what happened off-screen doesn’t tease intrigue, and apparently the writers consider Ahsoka and Barriss reconciling to be less interesting than what happened in the third episode. Instead she gets to interact with such fascinating characters as Unnamed Jedi, Unnamed Attendant #1, and Unnamed Attendant #2. Then Barriss gets stabbed through the chest and could easily be presumed dead by fans and future writers even though being impaled in Star Wars has become inconsequential. The resolution was so basic, yet filled in so much of the timeline, people aren’t clamoring for more stories and space wasn’t left to fit more in. I’ve thought of ways, but TotE put in unnecessary restrictions which make it tougher.

It was eleven years since Barriss’s story progressed. All of TCW’s other dangling plot threads got dealt with during that time, Barriss is the bottom of the barrel. There is currently no reason to believe she will appear again. I’d like to think Barriss could reappear in Ahsoka Season 2, which probably won’t be until 2026, and I’ve seen a couple people suggest TotE was providing background for that purpose. The problem is that Barriss wasn’t even hinted at in Ahsoka S1 to build up awareness, even when it would make contextual sense for Ahsoka to mention her. If she does show up, it’s an obnoxious writing choice to foreshadow a character in a completely different series and medium with a much, much smaller audience. You might be wondering, “How much smaller?”

That much smaller. Before anyone says anything, I did try variations like including Ahsoka and Barriss's last names, that made it worse. TotE couldn’t even keep Barriss at half of Ahsoka’s baseline popularity for a week before she fell back down to nothing. Google Trends isn’t a perfect measurement tool, but it’s useful for seeing how TotE is mostly forgotten and continues declining. Then keep in mind Barriss was only half the TotE story. What little interest remained after the first few weeks was drowned out by The Acolyte, which maintained >100x more attention even after the usual post-premiere drop, and even that wasn't enough to save it from cancellation. It probably won’t make anyone at Lucasfilm think Barriss is worth revisiting. I remember people saw the TotE trailer and said stuff like, “We are so back!” First of all, I never left, and second, no we fucking aren’t. I wish we were, but we aren't.

TotE is irrelevant now. In my experience, tumblr is the most Barriss-friendly social media site, and almost nobody here is still enthusiastic about TotE. There was an uptick in Barriss posts when it premiered, but that died quickly, TotE posts showed mixed reactions, and few of the recent Barriss posts are about TotE. Nobody new got invested, 80% of her tag is the same dozen-or-so diehard Barriss fans who've been here for years, myself included. Reddit has next to nothing and one time I checked, the first post to show up specifically questioned why nobody was talking about TotE, followed by several critical posts. The subreddit r/talesoftheempire was created on the same day the trailer dropped, when interest was highest. It has 16 members. There might be stuff happening over on Twitter but I’m not making an account to check because why would I make myself suffer like that? Even on my favorite totally legal website for watching shows, the Barriss episodes have no ratings because nobody watched them, and my second-favorite site doesn’t have the show at all.

Fanart is a troubling indicator. Very little recent fanart shows Barriss as she was in TotE, people stick with her Jedi look. I didn’t keep a tally, but I think people drew more TotE fanart between the trailer and the premiere than they have since the show debuted. Barriss’s final outfit, which depicts her at what should be the climax of her character arc, has been drawn by only two people. For a little perspective, I write a Barriss-centric fanfiction series with a couple hundred subscribers, and five people have made art of my Barriss. Even factoring in how long I’ve been writing, that ain’t good. On @barrissday, a niche fan event specifically about celebrating Barriss, there was almost nothing TotE-related. Lately, there’s been more artwork of her decades-old Legends appearances than a recent animated series starring her.

Sure, I was proven mostly correct in my reading of Barriss’s character and I’m still writing stories about her, but I didn’t want to be doing that for a diminishing audience. Being proven right doesn’t matter to me if other people don’t become invested in Barriss’s character or even find her worth talking about. I wanted her to become popular and loved and interesting. The show was so unimpactful it took months for me to build up enough motivation to explain how unimpactful it was.

Star Wars would be so good if it was good.

[beatriceeagle]

i wanted to send the part where bren tried to seduce beau and her reaction but it’s a bit longer than 500 words. so instead i’ll ask some questions (though feel free to talk about other aspects!!)

how did you come up with bren thinking that they were romantically involved?

what was beau thinking while they were dancing?

what do you imagine bren’s training was regarding charming and seducing people?

I have a million things to say about this section, so I'm gonna go ahead and give you the full essay, and make sure I answer those questions along the way. Heads up that there is non-graphic discussion of sexual abuse below the cut.

This was a scene that I actually went back and forth on a lot. I wasn't sure I wanted to include it, for a number of reasons: it's very sudden, and doesn't obviously play into the broader plot; it alludes to a very thorny aspect of Caleb's backstory that I knew I wasn't going to have space to fully unpack; and probably most of all, I kind of thought (and still think) that Beau would probably actually be aware of that aspect, so I was kind of suspending my own disbelief by having her go into it blind.

(I could probably have made the scene work even with Beau being aware, but it would have significantly changed the tenor of it. Also, a fun fact about me is that if I really like a joke and think it's in-character, I will fudge other aspects of canon to preserve it, and “If you’re secretly attracted to me, you have to tell me. It’s the bro code, I think," may be my favorite joke in this fic.)

I ultimately kept the scene because it's pulling weight in a lot of different ways. It puts the idea of sexual abuse very vividly in Beau's mind, which helps to prime her for the letter she discovers in the next chapter. It lays groundwork for the Essek plot line. And most importantly, it creates a foundation of trust between Bren and Beau, because Beau establishes a firm boundary in an area that Bren has been taught that his boundaries do not matter, and begins the process of establishing that her friendship and support are not transactional.

The answers to your specific questions, in order:

1. One of the fun parts of the very early chapters for me was digging into Bren's basic (extremely wrong) assumptions about the world. Among other things, it gave me the opportunity to imagine how Beau and Caleb's relationship would look to him, and the idea that he would mistake their relationship for romantic was the first thing I thought of. Their incredible closeness and affection is visibly obvious, and Bren believes them to be partners in capture and interrogation—and he is, after all, in love with both of his capture and interrogation partners.

2. As I said, I think in actual canon Beau would definitely be hearing alarm bells when Bren asked to dance. In this fic, however, she doesn't know about the seduction element of his training, and to her, dancing with Caleb is in no way romantically or sexually charged. It's something they've done many times before (as I allude to in the party at the Lavish Chateau). So Bren asking her to dance probably strikes her as, at worst, an avoidance strategy to deal with his feelings about having seen how different the dance hall looks. Which it is. Just not in the way she thinks.

3. Okay, this is basically all the stuff I didn't have space to unpack in the fic itself. I imagine that Ikithon's training covered, broadly, four subjects: magic (self-explanatory), history (propaganda), interrogation (torture), and spycraft. They all would have overlapped, but those would've been the four big areas. And what Bren thinks of as "spycraft" training was really an exercise in the systematic breaking down of his personal boundaries and sense of self.

Yes, they were taught all the things that Bren mentions when he talks to Beau about spycraft: ingratiate yourself with the subject, find commonalities and leverage, figure out what they want and present it to them. I'm sure they learned a lot about rhetoric and body language and tools of persuasion. But the actual key takeaway of those lessons wasn't any of that: it was that in order to do those things, they should be willing to go to any length, make any sacrifice, and cross any line. Their feelings shouldn't matter; their safety shouldn't matter; certainly the feelings and safety of their targets shouldn't matter. Only the mission should matter.

So I think that the lessons probably involved sexual abuse, not necessarily in the form of sexual contact, but in the form of overt and intentional boundary-pushing on topics of sex and romance. In fact, I think that there was probably overt boundary-pushing on a lot of topics. (I've thought a decent amount about how Eadwulf's religion could be transgressed in similar ways, for instance.) Because ultimately, the primary goal isn't an education on any particular topic; it's the systematic erosion of the concept of boundaries themselves.

[triscribeaucollection]

Hi! For the writing asks: ✨ and 🌷?

Hi Crystal! Your timing is perfect, and I'm gonna combine these to ramble about my topic of the evening: Justice League Unlimited plays Wolfen and Warlocks

✨ - newest wip / 🌷 - writing achievement you want to brag about

Some of the stone elementals charged forward to throw punches. Others cracked and split the ground, making it harder to approach them by foot. The biggest one, guarding the portal, created a ring of spikes to better protect it.

And Clark’s friends proved exactly why an RPG was the best choice for them to play, rather than a card or board game.

Wally annoyed different targets into following him into range of Diana’s fists. John pinned others in place for Shayera to strike and destroy. Clark and J’onn cast magical shields and restored health points, keeping everyone else moving, and when Bruce’s fairy reached the others to share what he’d learned about the portal’s crystal power source, the seven of them formed up seamlessly to go after it.

Even better, they all clearly had fun doing so.

And *I* had *immense* fun writing this nonsense, okay?

Picking out races, abilities, and stats for each of the seven, figuring out how to balance them against one another through the game encounter, picking the exact worst possible moment for Bruce roll a 1 and almost hit Wally's character instead of the final boss, which he is absolutely never going to live down, that's gonna become the running joke for however many chapters this thing goes:

Flash: "You missed! He was three feet in front of you, how could you miss-!"

Batman: "Shut. Up."

Flash: =D

But of course I've already determined how I'm going to have more fun with it, by bringing in Zatanna to play Storymaster so Clark isn't pulling double duty. And she gets invested, my dudes, full on spooky voice reading the intro blurbs, using magic to make a veil of mist around her spot at the table, bringing the map and character tokens to life for a bit of flair, so on and so forth

There will be other superheroes who get interested. Further interactions in twos and threes as the game spreads through the League. Robin hears about all this and pesters Batman to teach him to play, and between the two of them at home it basically turns into an extra training exercise, Bruce making use of the 'solve a mystery' aspect woven into most pre-made campaigns to teach Tim some more detective skills (this being the DCAU and not comics continuity)

I might even have Alfred insist on hosting one night, just so he gets to lay eyes on Bruce opening up his walls bit with friends- sorry, *cough*, colleagues. Tim will of course get to join in, and does NOT hesitate to grab the "You Missed!" joke and run with it like the little gremlin he deserves to be. Dick and Babs will be beyond delighted when he lets it slip to them as well >:D

And this is like. Full circle, for me. Rather emotional, when I think about it.

Few years back I was writing a scene for a story in a whole other fandom, and decided the kid main character and his best friend needed to be distracted from ongoing misfortune in the form of a new adult friend teaching them to play a D&D knockoff game. I didn't want to use *actual* Dungeons and Dragons, because where's the fun in that, but I felt I needed some actual Thing to use as reference rather than purely winging it. And thus, Wolfen and Warlocks was born.

Now, rather than making things up as I went along for that fic, I've got the Actual Game to reference, or at least all the materials meant for the first edition of it. Not put together or published, yet, but that's only because I'm still beta testing with the help of various friends - including @yogurtbear242, Player The First who gave the best reactions to unexpected developments and was an all around good sport despite not ever having played a tabletop rpg before, in-person or online:

(Everybody salute Bear for being a wonderful crash test dummy)

And now! I get to put the Justice League's founding members through the same shenanigans!!

Self-indulgence *and* self-promotion at it's finest x)

[nikethestatue]

So one thing that is important and never brought up enough is when you just focus on Sarah as a writer and human is that in all of her books, she has NEVER rewritten a losing virginity scene

NEVER

I can’t remember if she explicitly stated somewhere that she won’t, but after 10 years of reading her books that is something she’s never done, which as a romance writer HAS to be intentional. She’s written people fucking in the sky while flying, but the few times someone is losing their virginity it’s always been a fade to black or brief mentions of it but not the actual full scene.

The closest we get is “-and gave him everything she had.” Which was her first published sex scene, and “so Lorcan did.” Both in ToG. Justice for Elorcan😔🙏🏻

I 100% people should respect that authors can have boundaries too, like that can be a heavy topic for people! Especially for women who often have their literal worth tied to their virginity. EVEN IN HER BOOKS Mor and Lysandra 1. suffer consequences for losing it on her own terms or 2. have hers be auctioned off AT 17🤢

She’s a sex positive author, and yes this post sounds like I’m basing a characters worth on if they’ve had sex so I’m sorry I swear that’s not what I’m doing BUT THEY’RE CHARACTERS. SHE MADE UP. Not that being a virgin is a bad thing because it’s not. She just has a pattern for smut and even if we exclude the no virginity scenes I’m so sorry to the other ship BUUUUT having one of the 3 men who are in positions of power and have basically unlimited access to characters who’ve been SA’d, do people really think Sarah would make THAT a foundation of an entire ROMANCE BOOK AS IF THAT’S NOT A COMPLETE ABUSE OF POWER? If Rhys or any member of the inner circle, ESPECIALLY MOR(!) don’t kill Az if he did that, I’m sure his MOTHER or the other priestesses would. Could you imagine being a priestess and finding out your trainer and one of the few men you have contact with is trying to get his dick wet with one of your sisters? How violating that would be, no matter how professional he’d behave like Cassian during training? Thought Cassian and Nesta are a completely different circumstance, even if g and az were mates. They’d lose all of the Valkyrie’s and any sense of safety with the night court.

And to those doubting Elain getting a book, why would Sarah throw in that Elain lost her virginity off page? Entirely pointless, ESPECIALLY for a character viewed as a prude UNLESS she is laying the ground work for her future main character in a series where people fuck. A LOT. That’s literally Sarah’s pattern as a writer, hence one of the reasons we saw Nesta use sex as a coping mechanism and why Cassian didn’t take her v card, which I think started in frost and starlight off page BEFORE Nesta’s book.

Plus homie can’t even stand to visit Illyria bc of how they treat women, how people think Az would go after someone under his care who he literally rescued is genuinely terrifying???

Or that she’d force a Elain to be with a man who makes her uncomfortable no matter how likeable he is because someone/something/a-big-ass-pot decided for her at literally the worst moment in her life? Choice is so important to her as a writer

And again no one’s worth is based on their sexual history, whether it’s consensual or not because only you define yourself, which is one of the main messages she’s always had. And while these are characters are on a page, to whoever reads this you are a real person and your story is worth telling. (I know this is a sensitive topic and I’m trying so hard not to offend anyone and you don’t have to post it I am just so confused. Like yes people who’ve experienced such things like myself can and do still have sex, but if she -the writer- BARELY touches on Rhys’s assault during sex with Feyre, not even his own pov, or Nesta with Tomas or even Lidia, WHY would she go from zero to 10000 and write g’s sex scene who is a virgin.)

Who knows, maybe one day she’d write her story, but I’m sorry to say not starting out without her having sex before it starts.

The funny thing is that she said exactly that--she doesnt write virginity scenes because she doesn't like the power imbalance.

Especially since she tends to have these massive age gaps. But then she always gives actual magical power to the women to balance the age thing out.

I don't know why people don't understand how bad it would look. Especially given Azriel's mother's history, where she had no autonomy, and was made to be a virtual slave to the lord. No one is saying that that's Azriel obviously, but it would be a terrible breach of trust and could only be viewed as predatory. What I don't understand is that the same people screech that Rhys assaulted Feyre UTM (I categorically do not think that he did, but that's beside the point) but at the same time they feel that a Gwynriel relationship would be appropriate. Oh, well what if they are mates! Mate bonds aren't a ticket to do whatever the hell one wants, under any circumstances.

Azriel getting it on with a priestess from the Library is just not appropriate under any conditions. Especially with one who needs to ask Clotho for permission to go to a sleepover with Nesta and Emerie in the same building she lives in.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Endure XI: Graduation

Series Synopsis: You and Eren Jaeger have been best friends since the age of two, but the two of you are destined for an inevitable tragedy. The world you have been born into is cruel; it is one where friends are traitors and enemies are allies, one where you find yourself doubting everything you've ever known. In this life, mistakes are fatal, and you must be careful, lest you make one too many.

Chapter Synopsis: You and the rest of the 104th graduate from the Cadet Corps.

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Eren Jaeger x Female Reader, Armin Arlert x Female Reader

Chapter Word Count: 4.7k

Content Warnings: swearing, canon-typical violence, sexual abuse (non-explicit), major character death, angst, original characters included

A/N: enjoy this guys it’s the last happy chapter you all get

“Eren Jaeger has been found dead! What’s more, it is believed to have been a murder!” Commandant Shadis declared. You and Jean gasped as the Commandant yanked back a curtain, revealing Eren’s body. He lay, spread eagle, his beautiful eyes closed forever, a puddle of red surrounding his body.

“I can’t believe it,” you murmured. Jean’s jaw dropped in shock, his eyes wide as he took in the scene before you.

“Me either,” he said, “This is really realistic!”

“I know, right?” Eren piped up.

“Silence, Cadet Jaeger! You’re dead, remember?” Commandant Shadis snapped. Eren immediately shut his mouth.

Now that your training was over, everyone was being tested in order to determine if you were worthy of passing and joining the military. You all had to do the obligatory titan-killing challenge first, where you had to get as many of the wooden targets as possible. Everyone had passed that part with flying colors, and later, there would be a written exam to test your knowledge of basic military protocols.

But in between were a few special challenges, assigned to people seemingly at random. Right now, you and Jean were the ones completing your special challenge, which was a murder mystery. The two of you were playing the roles of MPs, tasked with solving the case of Eren Jaeger’s odd death.

“Here’s what we know so far. Eren Jaeger was holding a party with a few close friends and family members when he was discovered to be dead, stabbed through the stomach. There is clear evidence of foul play, though the weapon was unable to be recovered. It is up to the two of you to figure out who killed him. If you can correctly solve the case, you will pass this challenge. If not, well...let’s just hope you can solve the case!” Commandant Shadis said cheerfully. You and Jean exchanged glances.

You were not pleased by the fact that Jean was your partner. Though you tolerated each other, you two were still not the best of friends by any means. If Tullia or Armin or Mikasa or Eren had been your partner, you would’ve solved this in an instant, your complementary personalities and history of trusting each other coming in handy.

Perhaps that was why the Commandant had selected you and Jean to complete this challenge, then. You could not always choose who your comrades were; you simply needed to be able to work with them regardless.

“And now, those that were present at the party will introduce themselves,” Commandant Shadis said, waving the first person forward.

“I’m Armin Jaeger, Eren’s younger brother. Eren and I grew up together. He was my big brother, and I always looked up to him: Eren, who looked out for me when I got hurt, Eren, who stood up for me against my parents even though it might mean he lost the opportunity to inherit our family fortune, Eren, who always got me my favorite food when I was upset. I can’t believe he’s d-dead,” Armin said before bursting into tears. The Commandant escorted him off the stage, patting him on the shoulder.

“Mikasa Ackerman. Eren and I were...friends. Yeah, we were really close friends, alright. I’ll wager I was his closest friend, besides his wife of course,” she said, frowning slightly, “I can’t believe he’s been killed. Eren was a good guy! He didn’t deserve to be murdered! And to think I probably know one of the filthy beasts that did it sickens me.” She spun and stormed off of the stage in fury.

“They’re really getting into this,” Jean whispered to you. You nodded.

“I didn’t realize how good at acting our friends were,” you agreed.

“T-tullia J-jaeger. A-am I in t-trouble?” Tullia said.

“If you keep stuttering like that, you will be,” Jean said.

“Shut the hell up, Jean, I’m trying to play the part of a nine year old that just saw her father’s corpse!” she hissed. The Commandant cleared his throat as if to remind her that she was supposed to be playing a role. Taking a deep breath, she composed herself.

“M-my dad was a nice man. He and Auntie Mika used to take me out to get dinner when my mommy had to go shopping with her friends. Mommy and Auntie Mika say he’s dead now, though. Is that true?” she sniffed before slowly walking off the stage, hiding her giggles at the ridiculous act behind her hand.

“My name is Sasha Braus. Eren and I were business partners, you see, each owning half of the company we ran. Now that he’s dead, I’m going to have to own the entire thing. Oh, Sina, oh, Rose, oh, Maria, what am I going to do? How can I run a company by myself?” she wailed, burying her face in her hands and nearly falling as she left the stage. Thankfully, Mikasa caught her.

“Krista Jaeger, nee Lenz. Eren and I have been married for 10 years, and as you can tell, we have a beautiful daughter. Please, tell me you’ll find justice for him! Find justice for my Eren! How am I supposed to go on? We were going to go on a vacation to Mitras! I don’t even know if I’ll be able to support myself and Tullia on his life insurance payout,” Krista said, breaking down in genuine sobs. You almost felt bad for her as she cried. Reiner joined her on the stage and gently helped her to her feet, wrapping an arm around her.

“Eren was my best friend. Wait, oh, I have to say my name first, right? Reiner Braun. Anyways, like I was saying, Eren and I were best friends. We met through Krista here. Krista and I used to date,” his face grew sour, “but we remained friends after our breakup. Once Krista started dating and then got married to Eren, him and I became close. I honestly don’t know what to say about the fact that he’s dead. Fucking dead. I guess I’ll have to step up and take care of Krista and Tullia. I promise you, Eren, I will do my best to be the man they deserve, even though nobody could ever replace you.”

“And that’s everyone!” the Commandant said as Krista and Reiner left the stage, “The spare building is functioning as the Jaeger house, so you can search for clues in there. You guys have unlimited time, but try not to take the entire day figuring this out, if only because I have other challenges to run.”

As soon as he was finished and gave you the signal to begin, you and Jean spun to face each other.

“Anything jump out from the speeches?” he said. You furrowed your brow in thought.

“Clearly, Eren was rich. Really, really, rich. I’m willing to bet that whoever killed him had some goals of getting his money. Top suspects at the moment? Sasha and Armin. Now Sasha gets to own the entire company, and Armin inherits the family fortune,” you said.

“Agreed, those two are definitely extremely suspicious, but I’m kind of wary of Reiner, too. I don’t think he ever got over Krista. What if he killed Eren to get him out of the way so he could be with her?” Jean said.

“That’s true. I think we should go look for clues inside the house to try and narrow this down, because I do not want to fail,” you said.

“Same. I’ve gotta make the top ten to become an MP,” Jean said as you walked into the building that was serving as the Jaeger house.

“I just want to pass, although top ten would be nice. I don’t know if I’ll make it in, though,” you said with a shrug.

“You have a good shot,” he admitted begrudgingly, “You’re not as good as, say, Mikasa, but you’re pretty skilled. Don’t downplay yourself.”

“Wow, thanks Jean! I never thought you of all people would be praising me!” you said, poking him in the cheek. He slapped your hand away harshly.

“Shut it, Y/N. Not a word about that ever again, you hear me? Now come on, we have a mystery to solve,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah. Where do you want to start?” you said.

“How about his office?” Jean said. You nodded in agreement.

“Good idea. I’m assuming it’s the room with the sign on it that says ‘OFFICE’ in all caps?” you said.

“I think that’s a fairly safe bet,” he said, and together, you crept into the room.

It was fairly peaceful, with nothing out of the ordinary. There were a few papers on the desk, and books lined the shelves, but nothing else. You picked up the papers: bank statements, mostly. There was one about his life insurance policy, which no doubt Krista had taken out to review after his death, and another that was the deed to his half of the company, probably looked over by Sasha. Beyond that, though, there was nothing too exciting. Certainly, none of it was a major clue.

“Find anything?” you said to Jean, who was looking over the bookshelf. He shook his head mournfully.

“No, nothing,” he said, placing the book he had been looking through down. It was a travel guide or something, with a few bookmarked pages.

“The Jaegers must have been big travellers,” you mused, “Krista said they were going to go on vacation to Mitras, didn’t she?”

“Lifestyle of the mega rich, I guess,” Jean groused.

“Yeah, suppose so. Let’s go to the bedroom next?” you said.

“Ooh, you want to go to the bedroom with me? I mean, I’m kind of dating your best friend, but I won’t say no,” he said with a wink. You kicked him in the back of the leg.

“Horny bastard, you know what I meant. Come on,” you said, marching off in the direction of the room labelled as the bedroom.

The bed was neatly made, the curtains drawn back to allow the sun to stream in.

“I’ll go in the bathroom. You look in the nightstand drawers and stuff,” Jean said. You almost felt like arguing, just to piss him off, but at the last minute decided against it. You two needed to work as a team, and if that meant that you listened to him just this once in order to graduate, well, so be it.

“Damn, Eren, what exactly was your job?” you muttered to yourself, admiring the ornate furniture of the Jaeger bedroom before heading to what was marked as ‘Krista’s Side’ of the bed. There was nothing on the nightstand except for a book about the insects of Mitras, most likely in preparation for their trip. She had left off on a page about praying mantises, and you gagged at the image of its large eyes, quickly shutting the book and heading to ‘Eren’s Side.’

Unlike Krista’s, his drawers were not empty. You frowned, pulling out a white button down shirt from the bottom drawer. Why had he kept a shirt in his nightstand? How odd.

Looking closer, you realized it wasn’t even his shirt. It must have been Krista’s, as you recognized it to be one of the shirts that you girls often wore as part of your uniforms, but the question still remained: why the hell was it in Eren’s nightstand?

“Creepy fucker,” you said, “Maybe it’s for the best that you died.”

Unfolding it, hoping it would maybe have a clue, you furrowed your brow in confusion, holding it up against your body to confirm your hypothesis.

“Y/N! In here!” Jean shouted. You ran into the bathroom, still holding the shirt in your hands. He was brandishing a toothbrush and comb in his hands, handing them to you.

“Look, Eren had an extra toothbrush in his cabinet,” he said, showing it to you.

“That’s hardly weird,” you said. He rolled his eyes and smacked you upside the head.

“Idiot, it’s used. And this hairbrush is, too,” he said, handing it to you and waiting for you to come to the same conclusion he had.

He was right. The hairbrush was used, but not by Eren or Krista. It had been used by someone with short, black hair. You showed him the shirt.

“I found it in Eren’s nightstand, but it’s way too big to have been Krista’s like I thought it was at first. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” you said. Jean nodded gravely.

“Eren was cheating on Krista with Mikasa.”

“Of course! That was what she meant when she said they were ‘close friends’ and the only one he was closer with was Krista, even though Reiner was his best friend!” you said in realization before beginning to laugh at the pun. Jean snickered as well.

“That was clever on her part,” he said.

“Yeah, it really was. Okay, what does this change?” you said.

“Mikasa is a huge suspect now. I mean, come on, jilted lover who’s sick of being the second choice? She kills Eren, nobody finds out about her transgressions, badabing, badaboom, she’s free to go,” Jean said.

“We should check his will,” you said. Jean’s eyes grew to the size of saucers.

“You think —?” he said.

“If Mikasa was recently added to the will, then maybe she was trying to sleep her way into getting his money. Good for her, honestly,” you said as you raced down towards the office again.

As Jean began to rifle through Eren’s desk drawers in search of his will, you opened the travel guide that he had been looking at earlier, marvelling at the different sights. The first bookmark was a huge lake, and the next was a forest. The rest of them were various camping spots, and you smiled before closing it as Jean let out a shout.

“Found it!” he said. You ran to his side to peer over his shoulder at the will. Like you had suspected, Mikasa had recently been added into the will, receiving a fairly hefty sum of money indeed.

“Mikasa’s a gold digger!” Jean cackled.

“Her methods were brutal but effective,” you said, putting the will down and catching sight of two tickets to Mitras, presumably for the Jaegers’ vacation. How sad that they would never be able to take it.

“Should we go tell the Commandant?” Jean said. You nodded before pausing.

“Let’s look over his body first. Uh, Eren’s, not the Commandant’s. Maybe we’ll get more proof on the method of murder,” you said.

“Good idea. You’re pretty smart sometimes,” he said, ruffling your hair.

“Thanks, Jean. You too. We make a pretty good team,” you said.

“Yeah, don’t expect this to become a habit or like a normal thing.”

“Agreed.”

Racing towards where Eren still lay in the pool of fake blood, you knelt next to him and began checking him over.

“Find anything?” you said to Jean, who was inspecting the fake stab wound. He frowned.

“It looks like a normal fake stab wound. Probably a knife that did it, though how Mikasa was able to get a knife and then hide it before anybody found out what she did, I have no clue. Then again, if anybody could do it, it’d be her, so I’m not surprised,” he said, shaking his head.

“True,” you said before noticing that Eren’s collar was crooked. You narrowed your eyes before leaning over and peeling it back, revealing the soft skin of his neck — and the pink lipstick mark on it.

“Whatcha got there?” Jean said, sitting beside you. You snickered, patting Eren, who was struggling very hard to keep his eyes shut, on the cheek.

“Naughty Eren was up to something before he was killed. Looks like Mikasa was an opportunist,” you said, pointing at the lipstick mark. Jean smirked.

“The man’s got game, but in the end, his hormones led to his death,” he said with a long-suffering sigh.

“Sounds like something that would happen to you in real life,” you said.

“Yeah. Wait, no! I would never date someone that wears lipstick that pink! Oh, and I wouldn’t cheat, either. Hey, don’t make that face at me! I was only joking earlier, I would never actually cheat!” he said.

“No, shh, that’s not what I’m thinking about,” you said, bending closer to inspect the lipstick mark on Eren’s neck. Like Jean had said, it was a light pink.

“What, then? Wish it was you instead of Mikasa?” he said.

“On the payroll? Yeah, apparently Eren was quite rich, so I wouldn’t complain,” you said with a snort.

“No, that’s not — okay, but that’s not even what you were thinking about! What’s actually on your mind?” he said.

“This lipstick is pink, like you said,” you said, tracing around the mark lightly. Goosebumps raised on Eren’s skin, and you ceased your motions to make him more comfortable.

“Yes? Did you want me to be more specific? Well, I’d say it’s more of a sunrise pink than a candy pink,” he said, stroking his chin in thought. You stared him dead in the eyes.

“Mikasa doesn’t wear pink lipstick. She only ever wears peach or clear lip gloss.”

“EREN PULLED THREE GIRLS?” Jean screamed.

“Maybe. Could he and Sasha have been having an affair as well?” you said. Jean frowned.

“It’s possible,” he said.

“Wait, Jean, hold on a second. Back in the office, I only saw two tickets for Mitras,” you said.

“That would be because they only need two tickets now, with Eren having, you know,” he made a motion miming decapitation.

“True, but didn’t Krista say that they had planned the vacation before Eren’s death? She was so upset because they weren’t able to go on it,” you said slowly.

“...maybe they were going to leave Tullia with someone?” he said.

“It’s possible, but now that I think about it, all of the pages bookmarked in the travel guide were camping spots. If Eren liked camping, why would they go to a big city on vacation? And not just any big city but Mitras. There’s like nothing outdoorsy there at all!” you said.

“Oh! And if Krista definitely has motives. She must’ve found out that our man Eren here was cheating on her, so she killed him as payback!” Jean added.

“And that life insurance policy must not have been too bad, either. Tullia said Krista used to go shopping a lot, remember? She must have wanted the freedom to spend Eren’s money however she wanted!” you said.

“But the question is how she did it?” Jean said. You were silent for a second before you arrived at the answer.

“Of course! They were having a party! The Jaegers were rich, so they must have had meat, which Krista, as the wife, would’ve been in charge of preparing. A steak knife could definitely make that kind of wound, and it wouldn’t even be that hard to hide. Just take it back to the kitchen, wash it, and bam! Nobody’s questioning you!” you said excitedly. Jean high-fived you.

“Is that your final answer, cadets?” Commandant Shadis said, appearing behind where you and Jean were crouched over Eren’s body. You exchanged nervous glances. You only had one shot at this, but for some reason...you felt like you could trust Jean. You nodded.

“I think it is,” you said. Jean gave you a half-smile.

“It is,” he affirmed. The Commandant stared at you with a blank look on his face for a moment. The longer he went without speaking, the more anxious you got, your palms growing slick with sweat. Jean’s equally clammy hand found your own and squeezed it in reassurance. Perhaps the thought of graduating was making him soft. Regardless as to his reasoning, he did make you feel a little better, so you squeezed back.

“Cadets, that was…” Commandant Shadis trailed off in disappointment. You and Jean’s faces fell.

“THE RIGHT ANSWER!” Eren completed, sitting up and hugging you from behind.

“Huh?” you said.

“Wait, we passed?” Jean checked. The Commandant’s strict face broke out into a grin.

“That’s correct. Congratulations, both of you. You will be credits to whichever branch of the military you choose to join,” he said, saluting at you proudly. You shot to your feet, knocking Eren backwards. Jean did the same, and you gave each other wide-eyed stares.

“By the walls, did we really pass?” Jean said.

“I think we did,” you said, equally as disbelieving.

“Ow, my head,” Eren whined, though you ignored him, too caught up in the fact that you had managed to pass your challenge.

“WOOHOO! We passed! I can join the MPs now!” Jean shouted.

“Yeah! And I won’t have to work in the fields or something!” you shouted back, equally as excited.

“You know what this calls for, Y/N?” Jean said.

“What, Jean?” you said. He crouched on the ground.

“VICTORY PIGGYBACK RIDE!” he said.

“YEAH!” you cheered, leaping on his back and wrapping your arms around his neck. He hooked his arms under your legs before taking off at a sprint in the direction of the Mess Hall. You knew that as soon as he deposited you on the ground, you would be back to making fun of each other, but for now, your euphoria at not getting kicked out of the military overtook any hard feelings you might have.

“You know what?” you said as Jean stopped in front of the Mess Hall, panting slightly at the exertion of sprinting while carrying you, “I’m glad we were partners. I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather be with.”

“Yeah, me either. You’re a good person,” he said.

“You too,” you said, landing gracefully on the ground, “but if you ever mention that I said that, I will shove my foot so far up your ass it comes out of your mouth!”

“Sounds hot,” Jean said with a wink. You gave him a dull look before punching him in the face, leaving him with a bloody nose and a whole lot of unbridled rage, just the way you both liked it.

That was how you and Jean were. You hated each other, and neither of you had any qualms about hurting the other, but you knew that should anyone else try to hurt him, you’d be the first to jump to his defense. You had a funny feeling Jean was much the same, try to hide the affection that he had for you ever since the clown makeup incident though he might.

After all of the challenges, the written exam, and dinner were over, it was time for the Closing Ceremony. You were nervous to find out how you had done, and you knew everyone else was, too. You made your way over to Mikasa, Tullia, Eren, Armin, and Sasha were standing. Armin noticed you first and gave you a welcoming smile. Eren was next, and he wrapped an arm around you comfortingly.

“Good job with your challenge, by the way. You’re making the top ten for sure,” he said. You smiled at him.

“Thanks, manwhore. You too,” you said. He gaped at you.

“What did you just call me?”

“Married to Krista but cheating on her with Mikasa? That’s some manwhore behavior. I don’t blame Krista for doing what she did,” you said, shaking your head in mock-sadness.

“Wh–Hey, that was all pretend! I’d never actually do something like that! I’d also never marry Krista, doesn’t she have like a thing with Ymir?” he said. You shrugged.

“Maybe. I wouldn’t be surprised,” you said.

“Okay, but either way, I’m not a manwhore! Take it back!” he said. You elbowed him in the side.

“Shh, Commandant is starting.”

“...and now,” Shadis finally said after his long speech about how you had all made him proud, “for your top ten cadets!”

Eren gave you a reassuring look, and you knew that it did not matter what place either of you got. You didn’t want to be MPs, so in the end, top ten meant nothing more to you than bragging rights.

“Number one, Mikasa Ackerman! Number two, Reiner Braun! Number three, Bertholdt Hoover! Number four, Tullia Ral! Number five, Annie Leonhardt! Number six, Eren Jaeger! Number seven, Y/N L/N! Number eight, Jean Kirstein! Number nine, Marco Bodt! And number ten, Connie Springer!”

Top ten. You, Mikasa, Tullia, Eren, and Jean had all made it into the top ten. What’s more, you had somehow ranked above Jean. If you were more immature than you were, you’d rub it in his face, but you knew that a big part of your success was the help Levi and Petra had given you over the years, so it wasn’t like you were some sort of prodigy.

Still, the fact remained that you had done it. You were good; no, you were the best of the best. Of course, Mikasa had done excellent. She was inhumanly strong, and it hadn’t even been a competition for the top spot. Eren was so determined that it was almost a given that he would be in the top ten, and Tullia was a Ral. Petra was one of the best in the Survey Corps, hence why she was a part of the Special Operations Squad, and clearly the skill was a genetic thing, as Tullia had most certainly inherited it. As for you? Well, you had followed the advice from Petra and Levi, of course.

More specifically, you did what Levi had told you to do way back in his first letter. Through everything you had faced, through all of the times you had wanted to quit and the way you could barely recognize yourself now, no longer a sweet-faced young girl but a trained soldier, you endured.

“The moon’s pretty tonight,” Eren said to you as you sat on the front steps of the deserted mess hall. It was true. The moon was full and bright, washing you both in a silvery glow as you stared up at it.

“It is,” you agreed. He placed his hand atop yours, and you looked at him in confusion. His eyes were urgent when he spoke next.

“Join the military police,” he said.

“What? Don’t you think that’s a bit hypocritical of you to say, after that whole speech you gave about why we shouldn’t join the military police?” you said in confusion.

“That’s because...you know I have that dream, to see the outside world. Joining the Scouts is how I can accomplish that dream, and I’m willing to give up my life, everyone else’s life, for freedom. But not yours. I can’t give up yours. There’s no point in freedom for me if I don’t have you,” he said.

“Why?” you said quietly. He pressed his forehead to yours, closing his eyes.

“Because,” he whispered, “You’re...important to me.”

“You’re important to me too, Eren. That’s why I have to join the Scouts. I’m going to help you accomplish your dream, and I’ll accomplish my own,” you said.

“What’s your dream?” he said.

“I want to be someone that’s worth something. Someone that changes the world,” you said.

“You changed my world,” he offered. You exhaled gently.

“You changed mine, too,” you said. He reached for your hand and held it in between both of his, drawing back to stare at you with that soft gaze of his, as if he was trying to remember exactly what you looked like in this moment for all of eternity.

Eren was, you decided, the most beautiful person you had ever seen, tied only with Mikasa. You realized, staring at him in the moonlight, that you could live a thousand lifetimes and never not think such a thing, never not love him.

“Can I tell you something?” he said.

“Yes, anything,” you said.

“I-I love...the moon! I love the moon, it’s so pretty and gentle and it’s always been there for me, even when everyone else left,” he said, eyes wide. You frowned, thinking he was going to something else, thinking he was going to say you.

“Well, I love the sun. It’s warm and bright and it’s the giver of all life,” you said after a second.

“But it’s so hot. The moon is better,” he said, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. You knew exactly what he was referring to, and you could not help but smile at it, too.

“I guess you’re right, but I still like the sun more. That’s okay though! We can still be best friends, right?” you said, just like you had when you were three years old.

“Best friends, times infinity.”

taglist (send an ask or dm to be added): @futuristicxie

[punkrockisafulltimejob]

Re your tags on the ask post: PLEASE DO TELL ME ABOUT YOUR WRITING. You deserve to gush about your creative things!

AHHHHHHH THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

So I have many novels in the works, but my most important one by far is Just Another Tomorrow which I've been working on for over a decade at this point. I started it as an escapist fiction when I was in high school and it has morphed into a novel about life, therapy, found family, and other strong topics such as familial abuse, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, hate crimes, unorthodox coping mechanisms, and what love really means.

Maddie, a 17 year old, has been stuck with her abusive father since she was 4 years old. She was told her mother walked out on her and her father (truth later reveals she committed vehicular suicide). In her freshman year, she meets Cameron, who notices how solitary she is and tries to become her friend. He learns about her home life and becomes determined to get her out of there, by any means necessary.

The book starts on the night they run away, and follows them through their road trip. The book is told from Cam's POV, he is a very unreliable and biased narrator, but he's also a 19-20 year old dumbass who of course has privileges he never considered (two parents, nice house, stable jobs, etc), so he learns A LOT through the book. Between chapters, we get excerpts from Maddie's diary, to show her perspective on things. We learn about their history together through flashbacks, shown through Cam's POV as well, because the novel very much follows his train of thought (poor undiagnosed ADHD man). So basically something triggers the memory in the book and it goes into the flashback, it's very fun.

Anyways they're just trying to stay away from their hometown until Maddie turns 18, so that legally they're in the clear from her father. However, they run out of resources and they don't know what to do, so when they're stopped in a small town in Arkansas, he's trying to get some cans of soup and peanut butter, and an older couple comes into the shop and notices him. This is Rob and Edie, cofounders and current owners of Summerfield Family Campground. Edie asks if he needs help, and he nods, on the verge of tears, because of course this was his idea, he was supposed to have all the solutions, he was supposed to help Maddie, and now he's struggling. So they couple offers help, Cam and Maddie follow them to the campground, to a smaller offset called Utopia. This is where Rob and Edie host their found family, all sorts of people who they've helped over the year. This includes their biological son Vinny, his husband Daryl (nicknamed Dare because in college he took every dare given to him), Jess and her toddler aged daughter, Elijah, [Wren] (I have gone through about 13 names for this character and I cannot settle on one, basically genderqueer AuDHD who was a troubled foster kid), and a few others. Ta da, found family!

Anyways, this is where most of the positive character development happens, Cam learns, Maddie heals, everyone is happy, until cops discover that Cam and Maddie are runaways and that their parents are desperate for them to come home, so they have to run again.

Later, Cam accidentally finds Maddie's diary open to a page where she talks about wanting to go home because things were easier there (it was an older entry but undated bc they lost track of the days during their trip) and he gets mad, storms off, and gets hit by a car. They're both taken to the hospital, and that leads to parents getting called and basically the end of the running away. Cam's parents arrive first and he starts explaining to them why he had to do what he did. Then Maddie's father arrives and starts laying into her, tearing her a new one, making a scene, and that's when Cams parents intervene and say she's not going with you. He's banned from the hospital and goes back home bc he didn't wanna keep paying for the hotel. Happy ending, Maddie and Cam are safe and (relatively speaking) well. Obviously Cam has a long road of recovery ahead but he's alive, so can't really be too upset at the circumstances.

There's a LOT more than that to the book, but that's the gist of it. I'm really proud of Just Another Tomorrow. Special thanks to @xmarinaryx who has seen this book from start to finish more times than I can count, and has marked up many a page with red pen.

[mike-haters-dni]

Some S5 Ideas, Before Information Starts Coming Out etc, Pt. II

Part I | Part I.V

The pre-Hawkins Infiltration Training Arc begins after Mike notices Lucas training to avenge Max, and decides that would be a much better use of everyone’s time than sitting around being anxious for something to happen. He then gets everyone together and lays out the plan for becoming apocalypse-ready, which involves them organizing and working on relevant skills. Thus begins a rotation of scenes in which each of the boys leads a lesson in their specialty: Mike comes up with team-building and group operations exercises (assigning everyone clear combat roles, physical challenges that require teamwork, practicing stealth and silent communication though hand signals, etc), Lucas is the personal trainer/health coach and teaches basic hand-to-hand combat, Dustin teaches field medicine, survival skills, and anything relevant about the layout and state of Hawkins, El (in collaboration with Dustin) explains in detail how her powers work and where she’s at strength and skill-wise, and Will gives a run down of everything he knows about Vecna. Of course, everything we see them go over is foreshadowing for future events.

Lucas intercepts Mike and Dustin trying to eat snack cakes for breakfast like 3 times, also El gets her training arc after Dustin gets curious and wants to do some (completely voluntary and not similar at all to what she did at the lab, he assures both her and Mike) tests to get some data on how her powers work. This involves things like measuring how fast she can throw objects of different weights or how many pounds of force she can apply to a scale under different conditions. Seeing her powers quantified like this inspires her (perhaps in a negative self-critical way) to see how strong she can actually get through practice.

Since Mike and El are officially made group leaders, the rest of the party (mostly Dustin and Lucas) starts jokingly calling them Mom and Dad. Mike plays along and eventually starts referring to El as “your mother” when talking to them, which El eventually starts responding to. (lmao)

Also, whenever the group split up Dustin calls one team the A team and the other the B team. Mike eventually figures out why (A team is the team with El on it) and one time he calls his team the B team before Dustin does, which makes him very happy.

Also Mike and El get matching action ponytails, provided we can justify getting rid of Mike’s current bangs, which on the one hand are a staple part of his character design, but on the other hand he’s clearly in the midst of a style change so like there's precedent. Idk, I just can’t picture him trekking through the woods without his hair pulled up lol

The new human secret final boss antagonist is the DOE director lady (who I'm making up, btw) who funded Brenner’s project. At first she acts like she’s sorry about what happened with El and Brenner like she didn’t know what he was really up to, and she’s working to keep Sullivan from nuking El and the entire town, but after poking around some classified documents we find out she totally knew the whole time and actually gave Brenner more funding once he produced El and the only reason she’s protecting her is because she’s trying to get her investment back. She wants to either control El again or kill her if that's not possible. In a casual super villain speech she gives to Mike one night while smoking out of a window in a suspiciously empty hallway, she compares her to the atomic bomb or some super weapon that was created half-accidentally, except this super weapon is a maladjusted child with anger issues. She’s hurt people before and its only a matter of time before you end up dead too ooooh so give her back to meee. Mike (and everyone else) of course doesn’t buy this for a second (though there may be some moment where he has to pretend that he does to facilitate some desperate plan) and she and Sullivan get murdered in the end after our heroes betray them.

The reason Vecna goes dormant for such a suspiciously long time is because he was working on new monsters, including:

A mimic monster. Designed to weaken trust within the groups by making everyone paranoid that the teammate they’re talking to is actually a mimic, who just recently did a pretty good job pretending to be said teammates, save for the fact it eventually tried to kill them.

A super duper predator-type murder monster that’s nigh-unkillable except by like shoving an explosive down its throat. Like this thing shows up and the only thing you can really do is run and/or hide. It’s existence would really require someone in the main cast dying to it tho so we’re gonna call this a fun au idea :)

Through some Vecna mental space shenanigans, Mike gets to fight an evil doppelganger version of himself that represents his worst qualities and resulting self-hatred. Listen ok, it would be a great thematic final challenge to illustrate his character growth. Plus its not like, completely out of the realm of possibility, I mean, Vecna shows people their worst fears and shit in the form of other people so like if the person you have the biggest problem with is yourself then you would confront yourself. No one tried besting Venca in hand-to-hand combat to make him leave you alone, maybe that would actually work and also be really edgy and cool. Also, it would be a fun reference to everyone's favorite 80s video game, Persona 4—

Vecna is actually killed in the second to last episode, but uh-oh the gate is still open and the monsters are still fucking shit up. Turns out there’s a secret final thing we gotta do to actually end all this (Probably collapsing the upside down or whatever dimension the monsters are actually from). Idk if it’s really in line with the themes of the show, but I do really like the idea of things not ending with Vecna’s death because he already infected the entire upside down/hell dimension with his, shall we say “ideology”, so killing the one guy in charge is not enough to end the war. Its like a metaphor. Plus, that means we get both Vecna and the mindflayer as big bads.

The show ends with a cheesy-ass prom scene, followed by the kids riding out to a hill over looking the town and giving “I love you guys” speeches and getting ready to begin the rest of their lives <3.

[parasiticjustice]

[RGG Online Translation] Boss Rush Event · Ravenous Beasts, Greedy Monsters (Ichiban & Miss Tatsu)

Summary: Ichiban is approached by Miss Tatsu, who is looking for help with a particularly strange debt collection. All of her colleagues have attempted to collect the debt, but have come back mauled, as if besieged by a savage beast... Featured Characters: Ichiban Kasuga (RGGO version), Miss Tatsu, Hirata, Tiger, Teru Yamada (OC) Spoilers?: There’s a few light references to another story from RGGO, but they’re not really spoilers.

On this episode, Ichiban and Miss Tatsu team up to fight a tiger, and I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.

In case you’ve forgotten who Hirata is (which is completely understandable) he’s somewhat notable for being the first enemy you ever fight in the whole series: Kiryu is introduced collecting a loan from him in Yakuza 1. Hirata resisted, so Kiryu did as Kiryu does.

Usual Disclaimer: I'm coming at this with little more than crude Japanese knowledge, a machine translation cocktail, and an insatiable desire for more RGG content. This will by no means be a decent translation, but it should at least be serviceable.

Notes:

This is set in 2018. Even though she looks the same as she did back in 0, Miss Tatsu will be in her 50-60′s here.

This is also a slightly alternate continuity where Ichiban is fighting the Omi Alliance in Kamurocho instead of getting hustled over to Yokohama. This is relevant because of the specific point that the police are in bed with the Omi, which is touched upon in the Epilogue.

Yamada makes reference to knowing Noa Amon, of the Amon clan. This is referring to one of the Daily Life substories where the two worked together to beat up some goons. You can read it here if you’d like, it’s the one at the very bottom.

------------------ PROLOGUE ------------------

Scene #1: Kamurocho · Nakamichi Street

Narration: One holiday...

Yamada: [smile] Thanks for coming along to my special training, Kasuga!

Ichiban: No problem. Just, you know, maybe tone it down a little- Ugh! [pained] My ass still hurts from how hard you kicked it...

Yamada: [frown] Oh, uh, I’m sorry?

Ichiban: Noa still won’t train with you?

Yamada: Yeah... “There’s no point in getting into the practical when you still haven’t mastered the basics.”

Ichiban: [smile] Ehh, that’s pretty cool. I should remember that. If that’s the case, why don’t you focus on laying down a foundation? I’m always happy to help you train, so you don’t need to rush.

Yamada: [smile] ...You’re right. Thanks, Kasuga!

?: Kasuga!

Ichiban: Oh, Miss Tatsu. What’s up? If you haven’t eaten yet, wanna join us?

Miss Tatsu: ...That works. I just wanted to ask you something, not stand around and chat.

Ichiban: Hm?

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

Scene #2: Kamurocho · Restaurant

Ichiban: [confused] A troublesome collection?

Miss Tatsu: Yeah. My colleagues are getting pummeled by them, one after the other.

Ichiban: Hmm... So now it’ll be your turn?

Miss Tatsu: That’s right. Actually, the request just came in.

Ichiban: You took it, yeah?

Miss Tatsu: [frown] Well... I’m not sure.

Ichiban: [confused] You’re unsure? Is he really that dangerous?

Miss Tatsu: That’s just it, the debtor is a completely average old man. At least, from what I’ve gathered.

Ichiban: Then why...

Miss Tatsu: The people who went to collect his debt came back mauled, as if they’d been attacked by a wild beast...

Ichiban: [confused] Beast...? What, does he have a Doberman?

Miss Tatsu: I’ve seen their injuries. No Doberman could do that.

Ichiban: ...What then?

Miss Tatsu: [frown] I don’t know. That’s why I’m indecisive. Even when I tried to talk to the victims, they all clammed up like they were afraid of something. So I wanted to see if you’d know anything... but it seems like you don’t.

Ichiban: Sorry, I’ve got no clue. But hey, if you’re gonna fight the guy, I can lend a hand. [smile] Maybe the old guy’s a werewolf. I’m curious to find out, hehe.

Miss Tatsu: ...It would be nice to have your help, but...

Ichiban: Then it’s settled. I’ll be fine - if things get bad, I’ll run away as fast as I can.

Miss Tatsu: [smile] ...Heh, I got it. Looking forward to working with you. We’ll split the fee fifty-fifty, alright?

Yamada: U-Um!

Ichiban: [confused] Huh?

Miss Tatsu: Ah, sorry miss. Talking about something this gory over a meal.

Yamada: No, it’s not that, you’re fine... Anyway, can I come with?

Miss Tatsu: [surprised] You?

Ichiban: No, it’ll be dangerous... Leave this to us.

Yamada: Please, I won’t do anything risky! [frown] I know I’m still a novice, but that’s why I want to become strong as soon as possible, for everyone’s sake. So-

Miss Tatsu: [smile] Hehe, you’re a proper youngster. Almost hurts my old eyes to see... Teru, you said?

Yamada: Yes ma’am.

Miss Tatsu: Will you keep your promise to not do anything risky?

Yamada: Yes ma’am!

Miss Tatsu: [smile] Okay then, let’s go. I know where he’s hiding. I can count on you when the time comes, right Kasuga?

Ichiban: [smile] Heh. I gotcha.

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

Scene #3: Kamurocho · Docks

Miss Tatsu: ...Here it is.

Ichiban: This is where we’ll find the truth of the old man werewolf.

Miss Tatsu: His name is Hirata. He’s the president of a credit company called Peace Finance.

Ichiban: [confused] Huh? Feel like I’ve heard that name before.

Miss Tatsu: You’ve got a good memory. Yes, he ran the same company about 30 years ago. He was a bastard with a bad reputation, and one day he up and disappeared. And then, recently, he reappeared out of nowhere.

Ichiban: And he’s right back to his bad behaviour. Guess a tiger never changes its stripes. You alright, Teru?

Yamada: [frown] Y-Yeah...!

Ichiban: You can head back home if you want.

Yamada: It’s fine, I’m fine...!

Miss Tatsu: [angry] Okay then, let’s go...!

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

Scene #4: Kamurocho · Warehouse

Miss Tatsu: [angry] Hirata! Come out! I’m taking back the money you owe!!

Ichiban: [confused] Hm? What’s that smell...?

?: Hi, hihihi...

Ichiban: !

Hirata: You collectors never learn. No matter how many of you come, it’s always the same...!

Ichiban: You’re Hirata, yeah? ...I see, you really are just an old man.

Miss Tatsu: [angry] An old man with the cash to rent a warehouse like this. Let’s get you to pay back one month’s interest first.

Hirata: You all say the same thing... so your fate will also be the same.

Miss Tatsu: ...?

Yamada: [surprised] ...! Watch out!!

[something growls]

Ichiban: [confused] Wha?!

Miss Tatsu: [surprised] What is it now...?!

[the tiger growls again]

Miss Tatsu: [angry] ...Teru. We’re running.

Ichiban: [angry] Tsk...! We’re not letting him get away, are we? He’s a fucking lunatic. [raises fists] We have to fight it, Miss Tatsu. Teru, you stay behind me, alright?

Yamada: [frown] O-Okay...!

Miss Tatsu: ...Hirata. I’ll ask just in case. You aren’t gonna give the money back?

Hirata: No way that’s happening...!

Miss Tatsu: Fuh, then it can’t be helped. [angry] Sorry to that big guard dog over there, but I’m about to give his master a hell of a beating! Let’s go, Kasuga!! 

Ichiban: Oouh!

Hirata: Aren’t you scared of my pet at all? ...Fine, if you think you can get past him, then just try it!

------------------ 

[And so, Ichiban and Miss Tatsu beat up Hirata and his pet kitty about a hundred million times. I can’t place the battle music off the top of my head, but I do know the main menu for the event played Debt Cleanup, which is still a certified :catjam:]

------------------ EPILOGUE ------------------

Scene #5: Kamurocho · Docks

Ichiban: I wasn’t sure when I reported it, but it seems like the police have a handle on things.

Miss Tatsu: He didn’t have anything to do with the Omi, after all. Besides, it’s not like they could leave a tiger alone.

Ichiban: That’s for sure. I can’t believe he got a freakin’ tiger to fight off debt collectors instead of a guard dog. How did he even tame it?

Miss Tatsu: [frown] I’m sorry, Teru. You must have been scared.

Yamada: [frown] It’s fine...

Ichiban: [raised eyebrow] Hey, you don’t look fine. What’s wrong?

Yamada: ...I was thinking about what I could do while the two of you were fighting so hard. But in the end, I couldn’t do anything...

Miss Tatsu: Teru...

Ichiban: [smile] ...Heh, your heart’s in the right place, Teru. But you don’t have to rush yourself. Noa said it too, right? The basics are important. If you weren’t up to it today, you can try again tomorrow. And one day, you’ll be the one to help us out when we’re in a pinch. I’ll be looking forward to it.

Miss Tatsu: [smile] Feh, that’s right. We’re not getting any younger, after all. I’m counting on you, Teru.

Yamada: ...Yeah! I’ll try harder! [yell] Alright, I’ll get right back to my training! Starting with a run back home! Farewell!

[she runs off]

Ichiban: [confused] Hey! How many kilometres does she think that is...?

Miss Tatsu: [smile] Heh. She’s a good girl. I’m looking forward to her future.

Ichiban: [smile] ...Well, us old-timers are exhausted. What say we enjoy an after-work drink together?

Miss Tatsu: Sounds good. At least that’s one advantage to being an adult!

------END------ ------------------

Ichiban: And he’s right back to his bad behaviour. A tiger never changes its stripes. 

The original saying here is “三つ子の魂百まで”, which translates literally to “the soul of a child of three (is the same) at 100″. In other words, someone’s nature as a child never truly changes even when they get older. The tiger saying seemed to be a decent equivalent, and also added a delightful bit of dramatic irony, hehe.

Anyway, let’s talk a little more about Hirata. He actually showed up one more time in the main series, in a Yakuza 3 substory. After Kiryu kicked his teeth in, Hirata ran off and became homeless while his family suffered under his debt. Circa 2009, his son tried to kill him in revenge, but Kiryu stopped him and father and son reconciled after Hirata apologised for what he put his family through.

So then, why did he return to his old scam another ten or so years later? One could just say he relapsed, going along with Ichiban’s point that a person’s true nature never changes. However, I think it honestly might be because RGGO did its Yakuza 1 retelling just two months before this event. Why stoop to some generic mook when they have a fully animated model for an actual Yakuza baddie, you know? Really sucks to be that family of his, though.