#total aside but I think “do it again right now” is absolute bullshit

[indigovigilance]

After so nicely helping me out with the bookshop maybe you can help with a more serious question. I know we all have different theories and opinions about what happened in the last fifteen, so there won't be the one answer until S03. What haunts me most since finishing is the "I forgive you". For me it seems not to be the trained angelic phrase he always uses when they are arguing again. There must be more behind and I don't want to believe that it's about loving the Angel Crowley over the Demon Crowley and it's an act of mercy.

I have given much more full and nuanced answers in primarily these two metas:

A Nightingale Sang in 1941

Continuity Errors

In both cases, I believe two things:

Aziraphale is actually forgiving Crowley for doing something that upset him, which goes beyond just kissing him. Aziraphale is upset that Crowley is trying to force his hand, that he used this as cover for a trick, or that he made Aziraphale have his first kiss under the worst possible conditions. Whatever the exact reason or confluence of reasons, it really is a forgiveness.

Aziraphale is protecting Crowley from the Metatron because *a demon sexually assaulting an angel* (which is what Aziraphale has to pretend that was, since he can't own his feelings back) could get Crowley into really big trouble, and he's trying to preempt any punishment by granting Crowley his celestial forgiveness, under the hope/theory that the Metatron isn't going to violate that and punish Crowley anyways.

That's my working theory of "I forgive you" as of time of publishing. But I'm doing a lot of research and cogitation to figure out exactly who Crowley and Aziraphale are from an apocryphal perspective, and what I discover may change my mind. So there's that. If you'd like a peek at what I'm looking into, you can check this out:

Baraqiel and Azazel

[worth-the-chaos]

Adventures in Babysitting - Steve Harrington x female!reader - Chapter 11

Chapter Summary: Steve and you are finally officially dating, the kids are finally in high school and no longer need any sort of official babysitting, and life is overall pretty damn good. You try to push aside the unease settling in your chest, but how long can you ignore it before it manifests into something much worse than you could possibly imagine.

Content Warning: swearing, bullying, trauma responses, intimacy

Word Count: 6.7k

Author’s Note: Sorry this took me longer to get out than some of the previous chapters. Life has been a bit hectic to say the very least (my brother low key got robbed and I was helping him sort some of it out), but I’m glad I was finally able to get this done! I’m looking forward to writing more of season 4!

Message me to be added to the taglist! Also, please send me asks! I love talking to you guys, so even if you want to tell me about something as mundane as what you had for breakfast, I’m happy to hear it :)

Series Masterlist | Part 10 | Next Part

***

Spring break started soon, and despite having graduated and gotten out of the shit hole that is Hawkins High, Steve still drove you and Robin to school. You hadn’t stayed the night last night at Steve’s so you slid into the backseat behind him as you got in the car. Even though you were halfway through second semester, you still weren’t used to Steve not being there to walk you to your first period every morning like he had the year before.

Of course, you stepped right into the middle of an argument between your boyfriend and your best friend. At least they aren’t shoving each other like toddlers this time, you thought as you rolled your eyes and buckled your seatbelt.

“Cut me some slack, please! It is 7:00 in the morning, we have the stupid pep rally, and I woke up looking like a total corpse!” Robin shouted, pushing the skin on her face around as she looked in the visor mirror.

“Oh, you’re worried about a basketball pep rally? You expect me to believe that?” Steve shot back.

“Yeah? So?” Robin’s voice got small as she anticipated the trajectory of this conversation.

“So, we both know what this is about, okay? I’m not buying that bullshit, this is about Vickie!”

“Absolutely not!” Robin defended herself. You scoffed from the back seat, not believing a word of her lie as Steve spoke up again.

“It is, and you know what else?”

“Uh, I really don’t care,” Robin rolled her eyes while she continued to put on her lip balm.

“You gotta stop pretending to be someone else when you’re around her, okay? You just gotta—you just gotta be yourself,” Steve tried to give her a pep talk and you gaped from the backseat before chiming in.

“You do realize you are literally quoting her to her, right?”

“Hey, you stay out of this, and besides, maybe she needs to listen to herself,” Steve glared at you in the rearview mirror before turning back towards Robin, “ever think about that, smartypants? I listened to you and now look at me. Boom. Back in business.” He gestured back towards you as he said it and you rolled your eyes. You were, however, grateful that Robin had gotten involved because you didn’t know how much longer you could take Steve not making a move last summer.

“It’s not the same thing, okay. You ask out a girl like y/n and she says no, big deal. Nothing happens—”

Steve cut her off immediately, “what do you mean ‘nothing happens’? In that hypothetical I lose the love of my life, so yeah that’s a pretty big mother fucking deal!”

“For the sake of the hypothetical—“ Robin began again, “—maybe your ego’s a little bit bruised…but I ask out the wrong girl, and bam! I’m a town pariah.”

“Yeah, I’d buy that, except Vickie is definitely not the wrong girl,” you spoke up, leaning forward to feel more included in the conversation.

“We just don’t know that, do we?”

“She returned Fast Times paused at 53 minutes, 5 seconds,” Steve spoke up and you rolled your eyes, knowing exactly where his mind was going. “Do you know who pauses Fast Times at 53 minutes, 5 seconds? People who like boobies, Robin!”

“Ew!” You and Robin exclaimed in unison.

“Gross, don’t say boobies!” She scolded, causing the boy to just repeat himself like the immature idiot that he was.

“Boobies. Not a big deal, okay? I like boobies. You like boobies. Y/n has boobies—Vickie likes boobies! Definitely!”

“Hey, how about you not bring my tits into this?” You asked Steve, smacking his shoulder. “But I mean, I can’t disagree with him…Vickie definitely likes tits, I mean we have all the evidence,” you added as you turned toward Robin. She rolled her eyes and turned up the radio, deciding she was done with the conversation the three of you were having.

Steve pulled up to Hawkins High, parking briefly to let the two of you out. Before walking to the building you stopped at his door and he rolled the window down.

“Don’t go getting fired while I’m in class, okay?” You warned, smoothing out his vest that was wrinkled because often he couldn’t be bothered to iron it.

“I just wish you could be there, you know? The day just drags on and on and on when I’m working by myself, let alone when I have to work with Keith,” Steve responded, rolling his eyes. Since he had treated Jonathan so shitty when him and Nancy were together, Steve tried to move past the jealous side of himself, but now that he wasn’t even in school with you to see which assholes were hitting on you, it made turning over a new leaf all the more difficult.

“I know, but you are a grown ass adult and you can handle it. Besides, Robin and I will be there after school lets out, so you don’t have to miss me for too terribly long,” you reminded him, leaning into the car to place a gentle kiss on his lips. He smiled into it and you debated just getting back into his car so that you could make out in the break room at Family Video, but Robin’s voice rang out, causing you to jump and hit your head on the roof of the car.

“Hey shit birds, cool it with the PDA, we’re gonna be late,” Robin yelled out, and you grumbled, rubbing the back of your head as you moved away from Steve’s car to join her. You waved a goodbye to Steve as you bit back a smile before you turned and picked up the pace to join your friend.

You really hated pep rallies with the entirety of your being…and you knew that Robin would too if it weren’t for being in the band and getting to stand the whole time next to Vickie. You usually tried to stand next to the band so that you could at least talk to her, but your talk with Steve had slowed you down and the bleachers had filled up.

“Sorry! I can get Davis to try and get someone to move if you want me to. People usually listen to him because he’s borderline terrifying,” Robin apologized, gesturing behind her to the sousaphone player who was built like a tank. Hawkins High didn’t have football, otherwise you were nearly 1000% confident that he would’ve been goaded into joining the team.

“No, really it’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” you smiled at her and waved her on to go join Vickie in the stands. You started ascending the bleachers, trying to make your way to the back corner as you weaved through people who were cheering on the cheerleading squad (a bit redundant, you felt). Ever since you started dating Steve, you somehow became even less popular at school, which was a hard feat to accomplish. A lot of girls in your grade were still quite enamored with the boy and understandably disappointed that he was no longer available. As such, they quite deliberately chose to take it out on you.

Normally it didn’t really get to you, but recently it had been bothering you more. You had been used to it last year when you watched girls in the hall cast judgmental looks at you as Steve walked you to class…and that was before you were even officially an item. Now, without having Steve to be there to quell your nerves, you just felt lonely whenever Robin wasn’t around either to distract you from immature high school bullies.

You finally made it to the back corner of the bleachers, not without hearing some nasty comments directed at you. You sighed, crossing your arms and closing your eyes as you leaned against the wall.

“I take it you hate these things too?” A voice spoke up to ask you. You turned to see the familiar mop of long brown hair as you realized the voice belonged to Eddie Munson. You had never been in a class with him before this semester but you had become increasingly familiar with him due to the fact that Ms. O’Donell, your physics teacher, had desperately pleaded with you to tutor him so that he could graduate this year.

You had reluctantly agreed, mostly because you didn’t want to disappoint the poor woman, but it had been an exercise in frustration.

“Well, yeah, they aren’t my favorite. Especially since they’re typically full of people who somehow have a shit ton of school spirit but not even a modicum of decency and respect for me, so that is just…totally epic,” you rolled your eyes, frustrated with one classmate in particular, Claire, who had just tried to trip you on your way up the stairs.

“I studied by the way,” Eddie spoke up, when you looked at him with confusion, he continued, “for the physics quiz today? I studied for it.”

Suddenly, your face twisted in panic as you realized that you hadn’t. You’d been so busy with work and Steve and just trying to hold everything together that you had forgotten about the last assessment you had before going on spring break. “Fuck! I forgot about it.”

“Eh, you’ll do fine anyway,” Eddie replied nonchalantly. You were glad someone at least believed in you.

“Dustin’s still doing alright?” You asked the long haired boy beside you. Since Dustin was in high school now, he no longer needed a babysitter, and thus your career, in an official sense at least, had come to an end. You still saw him extremely regularly because Steve and him were still good friends, but you still worried about him. You knew he was a misfit, and being a misfit yourself it made you nervous that he had found himself in a crowd of…well, misfits. You didn’t want him to go through the same shit that you went through. You didn’t want him to be invisible like you.

“Henderson? He’s fucking awesome! Yeah, of course he’s fine,” Eddie replied, laughing as he shoved you in the shoulder. Even though everyone liked to talk about how much of a mess Eddie Munson was, you were glad that Ms. O’Donell’s arrangement had at least shown you that he wasn’t a bad guy. It was nice to have another friend at Hawkins High. “How’s Steve doing?” Eddie asked, not doing at great job at hiding his distaste for the graduate with the perfect hair.

You rolled your eyes at his tone before answering. “He’s great…I just thought dating the son of a bitch would mean that I’d get at least enough status here for people to not treat me like shit,” you chuckled.

Your conversation with Eddie fizzled out as the basketball team entered the gym. You couldn’t help but smile seeing Lucas on the court. He looked happy, so even though he was surrounded by meathead athletes, you couldn’t really be mad. You knew he was smart enough to make good decisions and he still had you all as a support group, so you tried to shove the worry down in your chest.

Jason Carver took the mic and began going on and on as he spoke. Though you really, really didn’t like the kid, you had to give him credit. He sure did know how to give a speech.

“…you know, I think I can speak for all of us when I say it’s been a tough year for Hawkins. So much loss. And sometimes I wonder, how much loss can one community take? In dark days like this, we need something to believe in. So last night, when we were down by ten points at half to Christian Academy, I looked at my team and I said think of Melissa. Think of Heather. Think of Billy. Think of our heroic police chief Jim Hopper. Think of each and every one of our friends who perished in that fire…”

That was when you stopped listening. Not a day went by that you didn’t think of the loss that you had faced. You didn’t need someone like Jason who didn’t know jack shit about loss to explain it to you. “I have to go,” you whispered to Eddie, and before he could respond, you slipped out of the bleachers, telling a teacher that you needed to use the restroom, and darting out the gym doors.

Robin noticed you leaving and quickly set her trumpet down, taking off her shako, which Vickie graciously took before darting down the hall after you.

“Y/n,” she yelled after you trying to catch up but you didn’t slow down, quickly evading her and turning a corner as you wiped tears from your eyes. “Y/n!”

She finally caught up to you, grabbing your wrist to stop you from running away from her. “What’s wrong?” She asked, eyes searching yours in an attempt to make sure you were okay.

“I don’t even know how to explain it,” you choked out, unable to keep your emotions at bay.

“Could you at least try?” Robin asked softly, running a hand up and down your arm to soothe the strong emotions you were feeling.

“I…I’m-I’m just tired of-of people like Jason trying to explain the loss to me. I get it! I know what it was like; I was there!” You stammered. Robin nodded, and you knew she understood what you were going through. You were eternally grateful that you had the support system that you had; you were never alone in your struggle which was both a blessing and a curse. You wouldn’t wish your experience with the supernatural on your worst enemy, so sometimes it was difficult to stomach the fact that your closest friends had experienced it alongside you.

“What can I do?” Robin asked, wanting nothing more than to make it better.

“I just…I think I need to leave,” you cried, wiping your eyes on your sleeve. Robin nodded, leading you out the doors of school to the pay phone right outside. Fortunately, with everyone tied up at the pep rally, there wasn’t anyone to stop the two of you as you put some coins in the telephone. Your fingers hesitated as you thought about who to call, finally settling before dialing the number.

After a couple rings, a familiar voice picked up. “Hello, this is Steve from Family Video, how can I help you today?”

“Steve,” you cried out and immediately he was on high alert.

“Y/n?! What’s wrong?! Are you okay? Where are you?”

“I-I’m at school, but-but I’m just…having one of those days you know?” Steve had been your rock through processing the trauma that your experiences with the Upside Down had brought you, so he very much understood that somedays were just too much for you.

“I need to talk to Keith really quickly, but then I’m going to come and pick you up, okay? You’re not by yourself, are you?” Steve asked, concern lacing his tone.

“No, Robin’s with me.”

“Good, good, good. Can you put her on the phone, baby?” Steve sounded frantic, and if you could have seen him, his anxious behaviors would have confirmed it. There he was, standing at the counter of Family Video, not even an hour into his shift when shit had to hit the fan. He ran his hands through his hair, trying to calm himself down, but knowing that you were upset was enough to keep him from being calm. There was a silence, before Robin’s voice rang out through the receiver.

“Hey.”

“How bad is she?” He cut to the chase.

“Um, I mean…you heard her,” Robin replied, speaking in vague terms so that you wouldn’t be offended by their conversation.

Steve sighed, jotting down a note on a piece of scratch paper, his version of “talking to Keith.” After he scribbled down the words, he refocused on the phone call. “Okay, Robin, here’s what you need to do. Take her to the nurse or something and find some way to get them to send her home. I don’t need her stressing about missing class unexcused, alright? You know how she is about that sort of stuff.”

“Got it. Just head out now, I should be able to get this sorted pretty quickly,” Robin confirmed, hanging up the phone and turning back to you. “Alright dingus number two, let’s get this all figured out.”

***

When Steve’s car pulled up, you felt relief flood your entire body. You wished that discussions of what happened last summer didn’t affect you as much as they did, but sometimes it all still caught you off guard.

The car halted to a stop as Steve quickly got out rushing over to you and scooping you into a tight hug. “Baby,” he whispered into your ear as you melted against him, tears soaking into his shirt.

“I’m sorry, Steve…I-I’m trying so hard, but then-then Jason started giving one of his dumbass speeches and I just lost it.”

“Shhhh, baby, it’s okay; you’re okay, I’m here now, alright?” Steve pulled away and put his hands on either side of your face to get you to look at him. There was so much sincerity in his eyes that it almost made you break all over again as you thought about how lucky you were to have him. “I’m gonna take you home, alright?”

You knew he was talking about his house, so you nodded. You thanked Robin and she gave you a weak smile before waving and walking back inside. You were grateful that she had stayed with you, but you felt bad that you had prevented her from spending time with Vickie. Steve opened the passenger door for you and once he was back in his seat, he started driving away from the hell hole that was Hawkins High.

“Steve, I really don’t want you to miss your shift,” you spoke up, looking at him innocently. He could just melt right there with the way that you looked at him.

“Y/n, don’t even worry about it, seriously. I’d much rather take care of you and make sure that you’re okay than be at that stupid job.”

“But Keith already kind of hates you…like a lot. I’ve got my uniform vest in my bag, let me just pick up a shift and I’ll work with you,” you offered. Steve looked at you hesitantly, but upon noticing the way that you had calmed down in his presence, he relented.

“Fine, but you’re not going to lift a finger while we’re working, okay? You’re just gonna sit there and look pretty and I’ll take care of everything,” he replied. He desperately wished he could lean over and kiss you right now but the last time he had tried to do that while driving, you’d scolded him and he almost crashed his BMW, so he decided that it wasn’t worth the risk…he had precious cargo.

You rolled your eyes and turned up the radio, biting back a smile. When you got to Family Video, you threw on your vest quickly, before you both entered the store. Keith stood scowling at the counter, holding up Steve’s sloppily handwritten note as if it was evidence in a crime, though to him it probably was.

“Dude, not cool.”

“Keith, did you even read the fucking note? Clearly it was an emergency,” Steve spat, as he gestured to you. He was tired of Keith being a complete ass all of the time.

“Y/n? Aren’t you supposed to be at school?” Keith asked, his demeanor suddenly drastically changing. Steve rolled his eyes and scoffed, knowing damn well that this dumbass had a fat crush on you.

“It’s a long story,” you sighed, “but I’m here and I’m willing to pick up an extra shift, so you can leave if you’d like.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Keith spoke up, “but you better keep—“

“Keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t fuck up. Yeah, yeah, I know,” you sighed and Steve threw his hands up in exasperation. What the hell did I ever do to deserve this shit?

Keith exited the store, so now it was just you and Steve. Friday mornings at Family Video were usually pretty slow given the fact that most people were at work or school, so there really wasn’t much work to do.

“So, have you gotten any more acceptance letters?” Steve spoke up and asked as he began reorganizing one of the shelves. He held his breath as he waited for your answer. Though he wanted nothing more than for you to be able to attend the school of your dreams, he was afraid of what that meant for the two of you and your relationship.

“Yeah, a couple more actually,” you smiled up at Steve. You had a lot of the same fears that he did about the potential of moving away. It was scary to think about trying to stay together through that huge of a life change. And you knew that you would miss him like crazy. But Nancy and Jonathan are making it work, so of course you guys would be able to…right?

“Have you made any decisions yet?”

“Uh, no, not yet. I’m still waiting to get a few decisions back before I make one of my own,” you spoke up, your voice a little small. You weren’t going to tell Steve, but what you were really waiting on was your decision from Purdue. It was close enough that nothing would have to change. You could still see Steve whenever you wanted. You were neglecting to mention this to him, however, because you knew he constantly felt like he was holding you back. He didn’t want you to make your decision based on him, but you couldn’t help but take that into account.

These were the most stilted and awkward conversations the two of you had. You and Steve could talk for hours about really pretty much everything, but as soon as college came up, it was like your ability to effectively communicate went out the window.

It wasn’t long before the phone rang again, and you picked it up. “Hello, thank you for calling Family Video. I’m y/n, how can I help you?” Your retail voice spilled from your lips sweetly.

“Y/n, this is Dustin…Listen, Lucas has to play in the championship game tonight and we need another player for Hellfire tonight, so could you please, please, fill in for him? Just this once?” The boy begged.

“Um, absolutely not,” your customer service voice disappeared as soon as you knew who was on the other line. Dustin had roped you into playing D&D once before, feeling bad for the kids after Mike had come down with a bad cold and couldn’t play. First of all, Dustin had said it wouldn’t take long. Secondly, it had been the most miserable fourteen hours of your life, so there was no way in hell you were about to do it again.

Dustin started complaining over the phone, continuing to beg you to join, before you decided that you didn’t get paid enough for this shit, handing the phone off to Steve, saying “it’s for you.”

“Woah, woah, woah, cool off pipsqueak,” Steve sighed into the phone.

“Steve! Sweet, okay. Dude, I am about to offer you the most kick-ass opportunity that will ever get extended your direction. I mean, I’m talking immaculate storytelling, a badass group of people, more fun than you will ever have in your life. I’m talking—“

“Cut to the chase,” Steve cut the boy off and rolled his eyes.

“Right, yeah, okay. Lucas has to play basketball and we need an extra person for D&D tonight,” Dustin sighed, sounding a bit defeated, no longer attempting to put on the persuasive charm that he had started with.

“No. Can’t. Sorry. I have a date tonight.”

“Just move your date this one time, come on!” Dustin begged. Why did the two cool older kids in his life have to be dating each other? In Dustin’s opinion it made both of you significantly less cool.

“What, to hang out with you and Eddie ‘the freak’ Munson? Uh, yeah, I’ll pass,” Steve responded. You rolled your eyes at the nickname for the poor boy in your class. He really wasn’t that bad, but you weren’t about to lecture Steve about it.

“You’re just jealous ‘cause I have another older male friend,” Dustin retorted, attempting to get under Steve’s skin.

“Ew. Ugh, whatever. Besides, you know, I really dig this girl...who knows, maybe she could be the one,” he added, smiling at you as you beamed right back at him from your perch on the countertop.

“You two are fucking disgusting,” Dustin replied, scoffing.

“No, we’re cool as fuck, dipshit,” Steve shot back. The door suddenly swung open, as a group of three girls entered the store, the bell above the door chiming to its familiar tune. “Oh, I got some customers. Call you back, bye.” Steve hung up the phone, ignoring Henderson’s protests.

“Welcome to Family Video, how can I help you today?” You smiled at the group of girls. They were definitely from Steve’s graduating class, home on spring break already. They cast you a judgmental look before turning to Steve.

“Steve! Oh my goodness! It’s been so long since I saw you last,” one of the girls spoke up. When Steve stood staring, unsure of how to respond, her face fell a bit as she added, “it’s me…Alice.”

“Oh, right…how are…things?”

“Oh, life’s been just so peachy! It’s just, us gals need to have a little fun this spring break…you know how it is,” she laughed flirtatiously. “We were just hoping that you had a good movie recommendation for us.”

Steve looked at you and could tell that you weren’t happy with the way these girls were talking to him as if you weren’t even there, so he spoke up, wrapping an arm around you and hugging you close to him. “Yeah, actually. My girlfriend, y/n, and I went and saw Back to the Future together on our first date, and I would really recommend it. I can already tell it’s gonna be a classic, you know?”

At this, Alice frowned, glaring at you before plastering on a fake ass smile. “Aww, that’s so cute that you two are dating! It’s just so surprising, I never would have put you two together. You always seemed like you’d want to go for the more mature girls…the ones with more experience, you know? But I’m just so so happy for the two of you.”

“Yeah, we are really, really happy. Honestly haven’t met a better person than her. But thank you so much for the well wishes, Alex,” Steve responded with a smirk as he grabbed a copy of the movie from the counter. He knew exactly what he was doing, and didn’t feel a bit bad about the way the girl’s face fell as she looked between her two friends. “So, are you ready to check out your movie or what?”

“Actually, I think we’re going to make other plans for this evening,” she spat, “and it’s Alice.”

“Well, I’m sorry we couldn’t be of service to you today,” Steve narrowed his eyes as she turned around, sauntering out of the store with her two friends following closely behind. You rolled your eyes, but you were grateful that Steve at least recognized that the girls had ulterior motives.

“Thank you for that,” you chuckled awkwardly, putting the copy of the movie back on the shelf. You wished you could tell him that the girl’s words hadn’t gotten under your skin, but that would be a lie.

“She was a bitch in high school anyway. Hasn’t changed a bit…mature, my ass,” Steve grumbled, glaring at her car as they pulled away.

“So, we have a date tonight?” You spoke up, reminding Steve of what he had told Dustin. His words had been a surprise to you.

“Yeah, actually!” Steve beamed, “I was thinking we could go to the championship game for basketball tonight. You know, I just miss some of that stuff about high school sometimes, and I know that you miss seeing the kids as often, so I thought that it might be nice to see Lucas play…even if he is a bench warmer…And we’d get to see Robin! And maybe we could even help her with talking to Vickie and—“

“Steve,” you chuckled, “of course I want to go with you, so you can stop trying to sell me on it. That was very thoughtful of you.”

He moved towards you, grabbing you around the hips and pulling you into him until your hips were flush against his, “besides, I was thinking that afterwards, you could spend the night at mine, and we could…hang out some more.”

Your breath caught in your throat. You had been officially dating Steve for eight months and he still was able to make you weak at the knees with only a few words. Your mind flashed back to what Alice had said, about how you were inexperienced, and you thought about the fact that you and Steve hadn’t…gone all the way. You knew that he wanted to, and at first you were holding off because, even though you knew he changed, you still sometimes worried about his history of being a player. However, now that it had been eight months and you two still hadn’t had sex, you were pretty confident he was going to stick with you. Now your insecurities centered more around the fact that you hadn’t been intimate in that way with anyone before. What if he realized that you weren’t good enough and the spark disappeared? What if he didn’t want you anymore?

“Hey, is anyone in there? Earth to y/n, what’s going on?” Steve joke as he knocked his fingers gently against the side of your head. You giggled and leaned against his chest.

“Yeah, that sounds good to me,” you closed your eyes. He was just so perfect and you always felt like you were seconds away from losing him. He made you feel so comfortable, which sometimes paradoxically put you on edge. You pulled away, running your fingers through his perfect head of hair as you smiled up at him.

“I love you, y/n. I really, really do,” he looked down at you with his big brown puppy dog eyes.

“I love you too, Steve.”

***

Steve placed a gentle hand to your back as he guided you up the bleachers, making sure that you found a spot close to the band so that you could chat with Robin. You had barely gotten to your spots when the principal took the mic, his words ringing out through the gymnasium.

“Everyone now please rise for our national anthem. Singing for us tonight, we have a very special guest. All the way from Nashville, our very own Tammy Thompson!” The audience cheered as she walked into the gym, waving as if she was some sort of celebrity. You gaped as you and Steve looked over at Robin.

She began singing extremely off key, feedback from the microphone resonating through the gym. Steve leaned towards Robin, whispering, “told you…muppet!” You smacked him in the chest, and he looked at you in disbelief as you rolled your eyes.

“Okay, she does sound like a muppet,” Robin whispered back. Vickie laughed beside her and you smiled as she replied, kickstarting a small conversation between the two of them.

Tammy finally finished her screechy, godawful rendition of the national anthem and the game started. It was a nail biter, but you weren’t on edge until a player on your team got injured and suddenly Lucas Sinclair, season long bench warmer, was on the court.

“Oh my god, Steve,” you said, staring wide eyed at the court as you lazily slapped him in the chest to get his attention. He looked at you incredulously, given the fact that he had been paying much closer attention the whole time than you were.

“Let’s go Lucas! You’ve got this buddy!” Steve yelled out. Sure, he acted like the kids were just a massive pain in his ass, which they were most of the time, but he loved them more than life itself. Watching Lucas play, Steve couldn’t really believe the coach hadn’t put him in all season.

There were three seconds left in the game, and suddenly Lucas had the ball. Hawkins was down by one point, and Lucas shot the ball. You watched with bated breath as the basketball bounced around the rim. You grabbed Steve’s wrist, as you watched with a furrowed brow. Is this what it’s like to be a sport parent?

The ball finally sank into the hoop, and you began jumping up and down as the crowd erupted into cheers and applause. You turned and hugged Steve around his neck, needing somewhere to place all your anxiety-turned-adrenaline, now that the game was finally over. Even though Steve was a bit bummed that he hadn’t won a championship of his own, he was damn proud that Lucas had.

The whole basketball team surrounded Lucas, and you quickly made your way down the bleachers. After the team had celebrated and there was finally a break in the crowd, you approached Lucas, pulling him into a hug.

“Lucas, you were amazing! I’m so proud of you!”

“Thanks, y/n!” The boy beamed. He had been bummed that Dustin and Mike bailed on him, but seeing you there was an unexpected surprise, considering he knew how much you hated basketball.

“I assume the team will be celebrating?” You asked him with a knowing look. He looked at you sheepishly, which confirmed your assumption. “Look, I’m not going to tell you what to do, but please try and make good decisions. And if you need anything at all, just call Steve, okay? He can pick you up, it down’t matter what time it is, you just call, alright?”

Lucas rolled his eyes, somewhat annoyed at your maternal tendencies, but the way you cared about him still made him feel good, so he decided he’d forgive it. “Yeah, okay, I got it. Thanks again for coming guys,” he added, shaking Steve’s hand as Steve patted him on the back to congratulate him. Lucas jogged off with the rest of the team, leaving you and Steve to head out of the gym together.

Once you got to the parking lot, you saw the Hellfire boys exit another wing of the school and you marched off towards them, ignoring Steve’s protests.

“Hey, guys…how was the campaign? I see you found someone to fill in,” you chuckled as Erica gave you a hug. Despite her sassy attitude about 80% of the time, she could be really sweet on the rare occasion.

“It was awesome, y/n!” Erica beamed as she told you.

“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” you smiled down at her.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the miraculous Ms. Y/n…you missed O’Donell’s quiz,” Eddie spoke up, looking at you with crossed arms.

“Yeah, I wasn’t feeling too well earlier, so I had to leave early,” you didn’t elaborate, “how’d it end up going?”

“It was pretty good. I actually don’t think I failed it this time, so thanks for the help. You know, I’m really fucking determined to graduate this go around.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m glad I could help,” you replied and Steve reached for your hand. You interlocked your fingers with his before you added, “well, we’d better get going…we have an early shift tomorrow, so I’ll see you suckers later.” You saluted with your free hand while Steve grumbled a goodbye and dragged you towards his car.

You got in the passenger seat and as he started it, you could tell he was a little frustrated. “What’s got your panties in a twist, huh?”

“It’s just, I didn’t know you were such good friends with Eddie,” Steve grumbled and you rolled your eyes, chuckling. He looked at you exasperated, in disbelief that you would laugh, but you just leaned in and caught his open mouthed expression in a kiss. He immediately softened at your touch, muttering an apology as you pulled away.

“Ms. O’Donell just asked me to help him with some of his physics shit since he’s dense as fuck. I promise you there is absolutely nothing going on between us…he’s just a friend.” Steve tried to shove his jealousy aside. He knew you wouldn’t lie to him. He just nodded as he drove off, brow still furrowed. You were getting worried that he wasn’t saying anything, but you were terrified of breaking the silence.

When you got to his house, he yanked your car door open, helping you out before grabbing your wrist and pulling you in his house and up the stairs to his bedroom. Normally he was pretty gentle with you, but this time he was a little rougher as he guided you to his bed. You sat down with a huff as he let go, looking at you with wild eyes.

“Steve, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I did wrong,” you spoke up beginning to tear up at the way the night was going. His expression softened a bit in surprise, but he reset it, sitting next to you and pulling you onto his lap to straddle him before placing his lips to your neck. He sucked harshly at the skin and you let out a gasp, melting at his touch.

“I’m not mad at you, baby…I could never be mad at you,” he assured you as he breathed across the expanse of your neck, sending a shiver up your spine. “I just get a little jealous sometimes is all…and I want to make it abundantly clear to everyone that you are 100% all mine,” he added as he sucked on your neck again, leaving visible marks and love bites.

You breathed out a small moan that was like music to his ears as he flipped you over so that you were lying down, continuing to kiss across your neck. He began to unbutton the first few buttons of your shirt, placing gentle kisses across your collarbones and down your chest, but your hands quickly darted up to stop him. He immediately let go, looking you in the eyes, searching for what was wrong.

“Steve, I’m sorry…I-I’m just not ready,” your voice cracked as you whispered, your eyes welling up with tears again. You hated disappointing him, and you were worried that he was going to lose interest in you.

“Y/n, please don’t cry…and don’t apologize either. I don’t want to do a damn thing until you’re ready for it, okay?” He assured you while you both sat up, looking you in the eyes with so much sincerity it made you want to cry all over again.

“It’s just….I-I keep thinking about what that girl said at work earlier…she was right you know? I am inexperienced and it’s embarrassing, and I just wish that I could be less weird about all of it and—“

Steve cut you off, “woah, woah, woah! I don’t give a fuck what that girl said. And who cares that you’re inexperienced? I swear that I don’t. Besides, it just means that when you are ready, I get to make sure I really take my time and make it real special for you, okay baby?”

You smiled up at him, leaning in to place a sweet kiss on his lips. He smiled into the kiss as it deepened, before pulling away to look at you again.

“I’m the luckiest guy on the planet, you know that?” You smiled at the praise, before he leaned in to place more kisses down your neck. Life was just so perfect.

Your heart rate quickened at the thought as your breath caught in your lungs. You knew better than to trust things to stay that way…a bad feeling settled in your chest as Steve continued to kiss and nip at your tender skin.

You pushed the thought away as you took a deep breath and allowed Steve to continue kissing you. If shit was about to hit the fan, you’d be damned if you let it cut this moment short. That was a problem for another day, you decided as you melted under Steve’s gentle touch.

***

a/n: Thank you so much for reading! If you wanted an easy way to make me smile, feel free to reblog ;)

taglist:

@season4steve @sassyheroneckgiant @tangledinthegreatxscape @maeve-wileyy @palachannie @chaerfull @usaguisenpaisblog @emilieluckwood @sabrinadelreyy @mochminnie @xprloki @kitdjarin1 @kissmxcheek

[luvyunjinxo]

cutie zuha who everyone thought was submissive and totally inexperienced, but one day when reader tested her limits, she showed her real self, absolutely destroying reader 🥴 becoming the mean hard dom mommy she really is 🤭

why does this sound familiar 🤨 .. anyways here it is anon (listening to newjeans while making this so I apologize if things sound funky)

Kazuha = Red Y/n = Pink (creds from that one fic I saw that had this color thing)

Everyone thinks Zuha is just a baby, not to mention her sweet innocent personality she would never hurt a soul. So you knew you had the sweetest girlfriend ever. When it came to sex she always had vanilla sex and always was gentle with you. Always reassuring you, you were safe with her.

Ugh but how much you hated it. You wanted to be degraded, humiliated and just something more rough than you usually get. Not complaining? Kind of? You just wanted something new.

You had a whole plan to be a brat, was risky, didn't know if it was gonna work, but you're trying it anyways. "Baby we have to go out, get ready now" You scoffed at her and just said "No I'm tired." Kazu gave you a confused look and just returned with a smile and said "Babe seriously we have to go now" She said while trying to pull you up.

"No Zuha I don't wanna."

"We have to. My family is expecting us baby."

You just scoffed again and made your way to the bathroom to get ready and you guys left to go to her parents house like you guys did almost every week.

After you guys got there you started acting like an immature kid again. Only laying in Zuha's bed not even spending time with her. You were surprised she kept up with it. But once it was time for dinner with her family you went out to eat with them.

"Here Y/n have some chicken!" Her mom said as she starts to pass you the plate. "No thank you." Kazuha looked at you weirdly giving you the 'wtf?' look. So she kicked your foot under the table because she knew how her mom felt about declining food.

"How about some Bulgogi?" Zuha kicked your feet again to make sure you actually accept it this time. "No I'm okay excuse me I'll use the bathroom real quick." You politely smiled and made your way to the bathroom.

"Mom I'll go check on her she doesn't seem well, okay?" Frustratingly, she stomped her way to the bathroom and just opened the door without knocking. You were just on your phone on the bathroom toilet.

"Y/n what the fuck is wrong with you today?! I tried to keep up with your bullshit but It's too much now!" This is the Kazuha you wanted.

"I don't know. I'm normal today what do you mean?".

"Shut the fuck up. Bend over."

"Excuse me?"

With that she bent you over herself and gave you a few spanks to your ass coloring it bright red, and leaving hand marks all over. Then she picked you up and put you on the bathroom counter, moving everything aside.

"Yeah you wanna act like that? Then act like it, but I'm putting you in your place princess." She took off those shorts of yours and started to spread your legs harshly. She smashed her lips against yours and started to finger you with her slender fingers in a fast pace.

You were trying so hard to not make a noise but there was yelps and cries when she started to hit your g-spot. You were gonna cum so fast but she stopped everything right when you were about to.

She edged you in that bathroom for the longest time ever and she finally stopped. She stopped everything and just left you in that bathroom saying, "Get cleaned up baby. I'll meet you at dinner again. Don't think this is over yet because it's not. Once we're home your going on the bed I don't wanna hear excuses." Fuck, you were left there all needy and you were still dripping like hell:(

[wutheringheightsfilm]

I would love to hear your opinion on Viktor Arcane's arc in season 2 because I have seen people praising it and people hating it but not many people discussing the ableism of [spoilers!!] basically killing him in the first episode and then having Jayce bring him back against his will in a way that strips his physical and mental autonomy away, after season 1 spent the majority of his arc hyping the evils of Messing With The Arcane But Only When The Zaunites Do It, so that Viktor can realize he is in the moral wrong for trying to not die from the disease he got from growing up in the underclass. And the show fridges his lab assistant (also implied from Zaun) to teach him this. Jayce who has so far primarily reaped the benefits of selling Hextech to Piltover, is the one to "learn" that it's bad to mess with the Arcane (this coincidentally happens the only time we see him physically in Zaun) and the solution is of course [spoilers!!] kill Viktor, who's magically curing addiction and disability and possessing people now. And if they bring Viktor back it will probably be because Singed pulled a Rio on him. On top of this, Ekko is just fucking gone during the occupation of Zaun and we don't see him again for the entire Act. Sorry for the rant in your inbox I'm just really happy to find someone else who thinks Arcane sucks aside from the dropped potential of the side characters. Fans of OG Lore were looking forward to Viktor's political radicalization against Piltover. Hilarious to think they would ever do that in hindsight

Okay hi anon I'm finally caught up and can answer you now LOL

yeah the politics of arcane are bad. like incredibly so. it's kind of shocking to say that the best arcane can pull is like, hamfisted liberalism.

i think jayce has literally always been ableist towards viktor as well as classist and not once has he ever had to grapple with that. jayce is my least favorite character and if he doesn't even get some sort of comeuppance for the absolute destruction he's caused i'm going to eat my shoe. though i will say this is the second time we've seen him in zaun, the first time was when he literally murdered one of silco's child laborers lol and had...right, zero repercussions for that because as it turns out of course it was ambessa's plan all along and everything has been somehow engineered by her. oh i was soooo eye rolling when that was revealed.

i also really didn't like sky's death either; i'm glad they kept her in some aspect (like being with viktor in the arcane-space or whatever it's called i don't know i don't go to league of legends) but imo her death was unnecessary and there would have been a better way of getting viktor entwined in the arcane than that.

it's crazy to me that you're absolutely right; viktor has to constantly pay the price for trying to not die of a disease he had no choice in getting (not that anyone ever has a choice in getting a disease, but you know what i mean) and he literally gets killed for trying to help heal other people. which i mean you could definitely argue the whole jesus arc for viktor is strange (it is) and this show definitely has negative attitudes towards both addiction and disability no matter what. i'm not disabled so really i don't have much space to speak here, but i absolutely do think this show is ableist.

THE FACT THAT EKKO IS GONE IS SO? like where's my man???? he was literally gone the whole fucking time and i find that so fucking nasty i'm sorry. both mel and ekko, two of the most fascinating characters, have been shoved aside this entire season in order to make way for jayce's constant bullshit and whatever problems poor cop caitlyn has. when i say i have never given less of a fuck about caitlyn i truly do mean that. it honestly upsets me that caitvi or whatever is as popular as it is because i thought we all collectively decided we don't fuck with cops. but i suppose not

and it's totally okay for the rant in my inbox!!! please feel free to discuss however much you want from me, i have had so many negative feelings about this show and i'm starting to feel like i'm going to get killed in the town square for it LOL

ETA: i didn't even know viktor was supposed to get radicalized against piltover. oh what we could've had

[kingofanemptyworld]

it’s missing nobara hours once again and I am near tears thinking about one of the worst fates ever bestowed on fictional characters: the tragedy of unfulfilled dreams and a life cut short.

you could obviously make the argument that most fictional deaths hit that mark — they don’t make it to the end of the narrative, so there have to be goals they never accomplished. and in jujutsu kaisen you definitely have a number of characters suffering that specific tragedy. but! There are two characters who I think embody it more than most of the others (particularly the more recent deaths, because, ugh, that’s a whole other beast of a thought and I won’t be getting into it here).

anyway. nobara and nanami. that’s who I’m talking about.

so, I’m excluding junpei from this for a few reasons. his death is horrible and cruel, he was too young, mahito took advantage of his trauma and turned him into a weapon against his friend. he dies without really being able to make amends with itadori or avenging his mom. absolutely a tragedy. but we don’t know junpei for very long, right? he’s confined to his arc (and the first opening goddamn that was mean of them) and he’s largely never mentioned again outside of it.

nobara, on the other hand. we meet her in episode 3 and she’s there throughout the rest of the first and second season. she’s also brought up again in the manga, if only briefly. we also get a very clear idea of her personal goals from the very beginning. we don’t know all the details of her relationship with saori, but we know she’s why nobara came to Tokyo, and by extension why she became a jujutsu sorcerer in the first place. nobara’s character is driven primarily by this one goal to escape her hostile, closed-minded town and reunite with this childhood friend. later on we come to understand exactly what this friend means to her but from day one we have a pretty good idea of what nobara wants and what she’s willing to do to get it.

it’s not the only important thing to her, not after she spends time with itadori and fushiguro and the second years (maki in particular). she makes new friends and they fill up the chairs in her life and she wants to protect them, physically and emotionally. but the common thread that runs through her entire arc — which is further revealed in season 2 in her flashbacks — is meeting saori again. her, fumi, and saori, back together for the first time in years. that’s what she wants. it’s one of her last thoughts. and she dies knowing she’ll never see either of them again.

tbh I’m almost crying writing this out, can you tell I experience genuine grief over her death?

but you get the point.

now, nanami is a slightly different breed of tragedy for me. he’s older, an adult although not old. we also get some idea of what drives him in season 1, which is reinforced in the hidden inventory arc in season 2: he wants to do something meaningful, something that actually helps people rather than the soul-sucking corporate bullshit he did before, and he wants to protect the next generation of jujutsu sorcerers. knowing what happened to haibara explains how protective he is of itadori, maki, nobara, and fushiguro in both seasons. and that very sweet interaction he has with the bakery woman, who definitely wants him to come by again. we have no idea if he ever did, or if he totally closed that chapter of his life and never went back. either way, it’s a lingering regret of it, I assume. maybe not for that woman specifically but for the normalcy he gave up to return to the sorcerer world.

and his actual death confirms that: nanami wanted to rest, but he wasn’t able to let go of what he learned to do, eradicating curses to save people. to make a difference. so he can’t rest, he sets that goal aside, and he doubles down on protecting the youth.

cue that heartbreaking scene of him seeing itadori for the last time and, going against his better judgement, entrusting itadori — young, inexperienced itadori who he promised to protect with his life because that’s what adults are supposed to do — to continue the fight in his stead. he doesn’t want to, the reluctance comes through loud and clear. but he does. and in doing so he knows he’s damning itadori to more tragedy and more heartbreak.

the more defined the goal, the more we feel its presence throughout the narrative, the more gut-wrenching it is to know these characters failed to achieve what they wanted most in the world.

these two are also especially tragic to me because neither of them really shared these goals with anyone that we know of. maybe nanami spoke with ino, or, less likely, gojo. maybe nobara did tell itadori and fushiguro about fumi and saori in full detail. but we really don’t know for sure. nobara doesn’t ask itadori to find saori with her final words, nanami doesn’t tell him about haibara or the bakery woman. these were quiet, personal goals they kept close to their hearts. which just makes everything so much more viscerally sad to me.

[ceknight]

Finally finished the last-minute gift shopping for my nieces (it's Chinese New Year tomorrow so early "Happy New Year!" to you~), now I have time to write down some of my thoughts for the last episode.

First I have to say it again that badass Lucy is the BEST! She totally got me there! Up until the "thus endeth the Lucy Lesson" line I honestly thought she did lose the earring and I was thinking: It's not the relationship that's distracting you honey it’s the constant need to make a cover-up story! Though we enjoy the secret-relationship era but maybe it's time you guys come clean? And then BANG surprise surprise, well-played girl, well-played.

This episode just confirmed again why chenford is perfect together, we all know that Lucy solve her problems by talking them out loud and analyze them, and then Tim is the one to listen (with fake eye rolls), either offer his own opinions or prevent Lucy from over-analyzing things, and also just try to calm her down. Tim is the opposite, he try to bury the problems deep inside and hope it will go away , sometimes( like he was hurt because Ashley broke up with him AFTER HE JUST WENT THROUGH A MAJOR SURGERY) it will go away quite quick, sometimes it will just came blast in his face(like with Isobel before he found her pass-out and realize she's not having an affair) , Lucy is the one to push him to face the problems, make efforts to solve them proactively instead of hiding behind a "everything's all right or sort of" façade. They know each other so well that Lucy never take offence in his fake eye roll attitude and in this episode, we see Tim is not the least bit annoyed with Lucy even though he's spent a whole day worrying himself sick, and it turns out to be a test, because he understand why she's doing it. This kind of trust and understanding is a beautiful thing to see.

I saw a comment on twitter that accusing Lucy of once again "putting her job in the background" and acting immature and I'll say this is absolute bullshit. One thing I'm always admiring for both Lucy and Tim is that they take their jobs as cops seriously, that's why they want to "do things right". What if Lucy's taser is on the wrong side? Its just a small matter; what if Lucy indeed lost the earing and Tim didn't report her? Lucy as hell didn't steal it so it’s a small matter. But with this job, you don't know what will come next, they still worked together perfectly in the hostage situation but what if one of them hesitated a second because they got distracted worrying about the other? We'll never know. By "experimenting" in a controlled environment (thus the Lucy Lesson) they both acknowledge that they can't keep working that way because it will endanger the job, a job that will affect the lives of themselves and other people's. It's not "putting her job in the background", only by acknowledging a potential risk can the risk be avoided, the Lucy Lesson is the exact opposite of "immature".

Since we are talking about how serious they take their job, I would like to address the "Chris" problem. To be fair, since Chris is not a major character and hasn't appear that much, we can only have a vague idea of his character through the bits and pieces. Put my chenford-shipping mind aside, on the appearance, Chris and Lucy seem compatible, they are both young, good-looking people just entering a new occupation and want to make a name of their own, and presumably they are from the similar cultural background (we know Lucy speaks Cantonese and based on the actor, Chris is likely from a family with Asian roots). HOWEVER, the first entering of Chris we saw him quickly put felon tag on a minor, it's not "wrong", but this indicate his heart might not be in the same place as Lucy's . Lucy found her calling in this job because it allows her to help other people, in the "checklist" episode we saw that she won't try to forward her career citing the poor woman for the false plates, even though she's doing this under the rules of the law, and for Tim it’s the same (remember his approving smile?) Can you imagine Chris making the same decision in that scenario? 'cause I can't. Tim and Lucy both care about the people they serve and protect. I'm not saying Chris is not a good guy ,but he seems more like Del Monte (who used to overcharge) in that regard, he might care, but based on the bits and pieces, he might just doesn't care as much. As Aaron said, he's nowhere near Lucy's level (So not a cinnamon roll, WESLEY is a cinnamon roll). AND, I'll bet good money that Lucy's mother will approve Chris over Tim, so obviously Chris can't be the one.

But that doesn't mean chenford is in no fault dealing with their previous relationships. Tim was left of the hook easily, Ashely broke up with him so there's no consequence from Ashely. Chris is a different story, and since Tim is now a COURT liason(I know the team is trying to help him get a new position but I doubt it will happen that quick), he is likely to encounter with Chris, it will be interesting to see what happens next.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 316: We've Had One, Yes, But What About Second Explosion

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “[powers up like whoa because it’s time to end the fight]”, and he saved Overhaul from getting not-shot, and then smashed up Nagant’s arm with the power of his new rechargeable super knees. Nagant was all “yoooo this kid is crazy strong whaaaat, it’s like he’s some kind of protagonist or something.” Deku was all “I AM A PROTAGONIST, ACTUALLY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN FORCES AND FIGHT BAD GUYS WITH ME?” Nagant was all “ah shit why the hell no -- ” and then AFO was all “SURPRISE” and everyone was all “?!?!?!” and AFO was all “TIME TO EXPLODE NOW” and made Nagant explode because he’s an absolute fucking dick. And then Hawks showed up, because Horikoshi just wanted to stuff as many plot points as humanly possible into a single chapter I guess.

Today on BnHA: Hawks is all “good job giving motivational shounen redemption speeches Deku but I’ll take it from here” and screams very earnestly right in Nagant’s face until she finally wakes up. Nagant is all “oh hey it’s my successor, you seem surprisingly unfucked-up from your own HPSC tenure, how did you manage that?” Hawks is all “fandom is going to love hearing this one, but basically it’s because I’m very upbeat and also I had the world’s best role model Endeavor to look up to,” and I swear this man stirs the pot on purpose, but damn it I still love him so damn much. Overhaul is all “HELLO AGAIN, JUST A REMINDER THAT, THE BOSS!!” and Deku is all “MAYBE TAKE TWO SECONDS TO REFLECT ON HOW YOU TORTURED A LITTLE GIRL,” which, thank you, lol. Nagant is all “btw AFO’s hiding in a house in the woods”, and so Deku and the gang go to the house in the woods. Video recording!AFO is all “hi I’m AFO welcome to Jackass” and blows up the house. Sometimes I wonder if this manga is just a weird dream.

I am once again reading the Bean version because I think it was actually the best out of all three translations last week. and that is surprisingly including Viz’s. “faux” is not nearly as entertaining as “knockoff”, and also I have literally no idea why Caleb thought Deku was saying the Third’s lines lol

oh hey, Endeavor’s here too! not that you’d ever be able to tell from this first panel lmao

glad you received All Might’s call, mysterious unidentified glowing smudge

oh snap he says he’s weaker in the rain. is that why AFO told Nagant to attack then?? except that as we discussed the other day, I believe that AFO fully intended for Nagant to lose the fight, so him giving her info that would give her an advantage doesn’t really fit in with that. maybe he wanted Deku to be separated from Endeavor and the rest for maximum angst, though

btw Deku’s eyes are unsurprisingly back to the new normal here

alas, the angst continues. I say, pretending like I’m not totally eating it up each and every week and writing essay after essay about it lol

anyway so apparently Hawks can’t actually fly lmao. he was just yeeting himself with style

for some reason this is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen omfg. wave to Hawks, kids! say “bye, Hawks!”

j/k of course Deku is catching them. -- except???

wow so he was just running on fumes there at the end. well, good to know there is actually a limit to his shenanigans, particularly regarding this new “knockoff” 100% OFA. it will definitely not alleviate any of the discourse, but it’s good for my own peace of mind because it’s solid confirmation that he still needs his pals in order to win this thing

anyway, but on to the rest of this conversation, which is basically Deku deducing what we all deduced last week -- AFO implanted some sort of trap into Nagant when he gave her Air Walk. though I’d still like to get the actual details from AFO and/or Horikoshi, because this was particularly wild even by quirk standards lol

omgggggg

she still has a face after all!! so it’s confirmed, Horikoshi has no idea what “blowing up” actually means. we might have guessed, based on what happened to Toga in the MVA arc, and also based on everything Katsuki does ever, but shhh

so now Hawks is all “NAGANT PLEASE WAKE UP, IF I SHOUT MY NAME AT YOU WILL THAT DO THE TRICK”

this is actually kind of touching though because even though we all know (or most of us acknowledge at any rate) that Hawks is a pretty caring person, it’s rare to see him actually panic over someone’s welfare like this

oh shit Horikoshi is really doubling down on it

I wonder how much Hawks knew about what really happened between Nagant and the HPSC. regardless, he probably sees her as a kindred spirit of sorts, and I’m more than happy for Deku to pass the redemption torch onto him now that he’s on the scene. like no offense Deku but they actually know each other and stuff lol

DAMMIT NAGANT CAN’T YOU SEE HOW LOUD HE IS YELLING

apparently being freed from his HPSC shackles has finally given Hawks the space to embrace his own inner shounen protagonist. is there anything more shounen than trying to motivationally scream someone awake when they’re lying in your arms inches from death?? 100% guaranteed to work

!!! IS THIS NAGANT’S POV OMG

SO SHE IS ALIVE. THANK GOD. Horikoshi doesn’t want to meet with my emotional distress lawyer today after all

love how she’s all “just gonna stir up the weekly Hawks Discourse pot here by implying that he probably committed a lot of Atrocities just like I did, so now people can get all hopped up about that, even though there’s no evidence he’s ever killed anyone aside from that one horrible ‘damned-if-you-do...’ situation with Twice.” no one asked for your provocative speculation young lady!! trust me Nagant, our rabbles don’t need the rousing lol

but nice save there with the “so how are your eyes so untainted” well you see it’s because even when he was following the HPSC’s orders he always went to great lengths never to go against his own moral compass. which just to be clear was incredibly difficult, and led to a ton of pain and suffering on his part, because the life of a spy is basically just one impossible situation after another. but in spite of that he never stopped trying to do his best to help people. I don’t really know where this tangent came from or is leading to, lol, but anyway p.s.a. I love Hawks a lot and he’s a good kid dammit

oh shit??!?

how is the League always able to swing all these fancy forest mansions. where do they find them. how many do they have

so Deku’s dropping them -- very roughly, not sure if he was reacting to finally getting AFO’s location, or if his energy really is giving out -- and now Nagant’s saying that AFO hired other villains as well. well of course he did. gotta keep chipping away at OFA’s ninth successor little by little

now Nagant is asking Hawks how he’s able to keep making “that” face. I assume she’s again talking about the fact that he somehow didn’t let the HPSC wear down his spirit

oh my god???

thanks for stuffing this chapter to the brim with good nutritional Hawks Feels, Horikoshi. what a good. he just keeps on trudging forward undeterred no matter what bullshit comes his way. what a steadfast little guy. I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM DISCOURSE MY SWEET SUNSHINE

lmaoooo

“SPOTTED THIS DUDE JUST CHILLING OUT THERE ON THE ROOF WITH NO ARMS, SEEMED PRETTY SUS” good job Endeavor

anyway so you don’t really need me to tell you that Overhaul is immediately starting in with the “BUT THE BOSS WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME TO THE BOSS YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD TAKE ME TO THE BOSS” stuff again. but I will go ahead and tell you anyway. so yeah. he’s doing that

OMG YOU GUYS LOOK AT DEKU’S “of all the fucking assholes to just randomly drop in on my life once again why did it have to be you” FACE THOUGH, OMG

fun fact, if you go back to chapters 124 through 160, there was an entire story arc where Overhaul imprisoned and tortured a little girl. yeah, I know!! suuuuuuuuper evil. anyways just an interesting little anecdote for you all that’s somewhat relevant to the current situation

OMG, YES. FUCK YES, DEKU

THEN WHAT ABOUT SPARING ONE FOR HER!!! YES!!! EXACTLY!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SOMEONE GETS IT

HERE’S THE PANEL OF DEKU SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING I’M SAYING LOL

(ETA: so apparently there’s some discourse about this because some people are interpreting this as Deku saying “you should apologize to Eri”, which would obviously be a terrible idea even if Overhaul actually wanted to do that, because Eri shouldn’t ever have to see him again. however I just want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between saying “it would be nice if you could direct that feeling of regret/being sorry towards Eri as well”, vs saying “you should also apologize to her.” all Deku is doing is rightfully pointing out that Overhaul has hurt way more people than just his boss, and if he really is remorseful, then he should extend those feelings of remorse to Eri and the rest as well. it’s not a directive to take any specific action, and I’m 1000% sure no one at U.A. would let Overhaul within 100 miles of Eri ever again.

tl;dr “try feeling remorse sometime” =/= “do you want me to fly you over to U.A. right now to surprise the little girl you traumatized”, lol.)

[slings an arm around Deku’s shoulders] you’re a good kid. I like you. I don’t know if I tell you that enough, but it’s true

meanwhile here is Overhaul’s “spare... a thought... for Eri...???????” face sigh

the struggle is real y’all

(ETA: and that’s... the last we ever saw of Overhaul, I guess? well all right then. I assume Deku will make good on his promise, so we know he’ll get that little bit of closure before going back to jail or whatever, and I confess I’m more than fine with leaving the rest of it open-ended, especially given his character’s history. I think this was pretty generous all things considered.)

lmao holy shit

All Might what did you do to those tiki torch guys?? did you thrash them. did you give ‘em those hands. did you deliver their own asses to them complete with a sticker reminding them Amazon Prime Day is on June 21. we missed out goddammit

so Endeavor, who wasn’t the one he was asking, is telling him that they captured (well let’s be real, Deku captured, give the credit where it’s due) Nagant and Overhaul. and so I guess they’re going to take Nagant to the ER now

fire is no one’s weakness

-- oh my GOD I scrolled down and audibly gasped

[is politely but firmly approached and asked to remove my arm from Deku’s shoulder by the physical manifestation of all this Dekuangst] “we’re sorry, he’s not allowed to have visitors right now” oh shit, my bad. [goes to stand behind a police barricade]

lmao what. did you run out of room on the previous page

what an exaggerated fade to black lmao

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I actually can’t see what he’s reacting to so maybe I’m just seriously jumping the gun here lol, but THE HELL WITH IT. the next panel appears to be a cut to Haibori Forest, so I’m just gonna go ahead and declare that Deku ran off on his own all wounded to go have more Dekuangst, just like I manifested. now go call Katsuki goddammit

[scrolls three more inches down] oh

yeah so like I said, Deku is walking very slowly a few feet in front of Endeavor, who’s telling him to wait up. yep. we’ve all gotta be so careful to not just jump to conclusions. I know we’re excited but still

anyway, so! welcome back to Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods (ARE YOU GUYS DATING) and Edgeshot! have fun walking into this obvious trap lol

dammit Deku why are you so determined to tempt fate

[monkey puppet meme faces]

OH MY GOD THIS IS PURE GRADE-A CHEESY COMIC BOOK VILLAIN 101 SHIT AND I’M HERE FOR IT

that’s such a weird way of clapping who claps like that

unlike certain other people who shan’t be named, AFO doesn’t feel the need to inexplicably take his shirt off when recording sinister villain monologues. I think we’re all pretty grateful for that

high fives to everyone who called it!! yep yep

anyway so this whole scene has major booby-trap vibes, which I’m enjoying immensely even though I don’t think anything is really going to come of it lol. probably just another long-winded AFO Speech. but wouldn’t it be funny if like the ceiling started lowering down to try and squish Deku afterwards lol

(ETA: well the explosion was still pretty funny too ngl.)

ffff

[“Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies]

anyway so yeah. he’s just hitting up all of his usual villain talking points. we get it, you’re so smart and you see right through the thin veneers of society and people who don’t conform are left to fend for themselves and labeled as villains and history is written by the victors, and blah blah blah dude are you just jumping randomly from one soundbyte to another lol. literally what are you talking about. what does this have to do with you blowing up Nagant

-- holy shit??

[”Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies MORE?????]

LOL WHAT

BRO. WHAT IS WITH YOU. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO LAY ANY OTHER KIND OF FUCKING TRAP GOOD LORD

“YOU’RE NEXT” THE CALLBACK?? THE PARALLELS?? THOUGH WHEN ALL MIGHT POINTED HE MADE IT LOOK WAY COOLER. AFO’S POINTING JUST LOOKS LIKE SMOKEY THE BEAR

HAS ANYONE CHECKED IN ON KAMUI WOODS I HEAR HE IS WEAK TO FIRE?? THE ONLY ONE WHO IS, APPARENTLY

r.i.p. to this particular forest mansion. don’t worry they have a ton of backups

remember last week when I said maybe AFO thinks explosions are gauche. well never mind. he fucking loves explosions

anyway so that’s the end of BnHA, everyone. hope you enjoyed. it was a good ride while it lasted. see you all, good luck in your travels

[goodlucktai]

Could you write something about natsume getting a hug?? Just, from whoever n for whatever reason. I keep thinking about how no one ever really hugs him n it makes me sad

x

The absolute last person Joji expected to see today was Natsume Takashi.

Joji slows to a stop on the corner of the street, a block away from the train station, and stares shamelessly.

It's been a decade since the last time he saw Natsume, but he recognizes him immediately. Of course he does. His light hair and eyes aside, Joji has thought about him on-and-off since junior high.

Joji remembers that rainy day when he was thirteen, an empty desk in the middle of his eighth grade classroom, Ito leaning over in his chair to whisper, "Did you hear? Natsume was in the ER. He almost died. The police are looking at his foster parents."

It was as if he'd been plunged into a pool of ice water. He sat there, frozen, while their teacher called them to attention for homeroom and announced that Natsume wouldn't be in their class going forward.

What was the last thing Joji had said to him? "It's no wonder your parents didn't want you." Why the hell had he said that? A book, if he remembers right. He'd lent it to Natsume and Natsume gave it back all water-damaged, like he'd gone for a swim with his backpack on. Natsume's eyes were on his hands, on the ruined book, and he'd tried to apologize, said he'd pay for it, but Joji just snatched it away, ticked off.

"This is what I get for trying to help you, I guess. It's no wonder your parents didn't want you."

Joji is almost twenty-four now. He's going into pediatrics. His fiance, Sakura, is a foster parent. She is currently the proud and fiercely protective mother of two beautiful twin girls.

Sora and Miu are terrified of adults and they go everywhere together and sometimes they make up stories. Sometimes they lie, about why their uniforms are torn, why they're home late, why their lunchboxes are covered in dirt. They have this look in their eyes sometimes like they're just waiting to get hurt again.

Sakura has the patience of a saint. She never raises her voice. She stitches their torn uniforms, replaces their lunchboxes, and, on more than one occasion, has marched into their junior high school and threatened the staff with physical violence if her babies come home with bruises one more time.

Needless to say, Sora and Miu adore her. It took them longer to warm up to Joji, but they're there now; no longer flinching when he moves in their direction, greeting him happily when he comes over for breakfast, smiling shyly when he staggers into the apartment underneath the weight of two giant stuffed rabbits that cost nearly half his paycheck, because it's their birthday, Sakura, they need them.

Joji tries to imagine someone telling them "this is why your parents didn't want you" and goes absolutely breathless with rage.

Natsume glances up from his phone to look right at Joji, as if someone had pointed him out. Caught staring, Joji shuffles in place for a moment, and then squares his shoulders and heads over.

He's expecting the Natsume of his memory; he's expecting him to curl his shoulders and duck his head, the way Joji's girls still sometimes do when a stern auntie wants to talk to them.

He's not expecting Natsume to level him with a clear, politely confused gaze. He pockets his phone, and shoves his hands into the front pockets of the cardigan he's wearing; a size too big, like something he borrowed out of someone else's closet, but it's a charming look on him. He's dressed well, in dark-washed jeans and white high-top sneakers, and his silvery hair is long, probably long enough to fall past his shoulders if he didn't have it piled up in a bun. There's a squat calico cat at his feet, glaring up at Joji with judgmental green eyes.

"Can I help you?" Natsume asks kindly. His voice is a shock to the system; Joji remembers him like it was yesterday.

"Oh," Joji says, stymied. It never occurred to him that Natsume might not recognize him in turn. "Um, I'm Watanabe Joji. We were classmates in eighth grade."

"That's right," Natsume says with gratifying quickness. He looks a little embarrassed now and returns Joji's short bow. "Sorry, it's been a long time."

And we weren't exactly friends, he doesn't say, but that common knowledge sits neatly between them.

"Ten years!" Joji replies with some forced enthusiasm. "Is that why you're here?"

"Sorry?"

"The, ah, reunion this weekend? Ito, from our homeroom back then, put together a whole thing. Our whole class is getting together for dinner and drinks."

It occurs to him that Natsume might not have been invited. Joji thinks that's less because he isn't welcome and more because Ito almost certainly didn't have his contact information. The few times his name has come up, Joji's friends have gone quiet and melancholy. A few of them are parents now, or aunts and uncles at least. All of them know better than they did when they were mean, shitty little teenagers.

Joji opens his mouth to assure Natsume that they'd love to have him, but Natsume cuts him off with a laugh.

It's not a mean laugh. It's not unfriendly in the slightest. But it stings anyway, because Natsume is laughing out of pure disbelief.

"No, no," he says, waving a hand, "god, no. Could you imagine?" he adds, glancing down at the cat. The cat huffs, settling a little more solidly against Natsume's ankle. "We're just passing through, actually."

"We?" Joji asks dumbly. Did he mean himself and the cat?

It's Natsume's turn to get cut-off, this time by a long, drawn-out shout of "Takashiiii!"

A short, russet-haired young man around Joji's age comes barreling down the sidewalk toward them at a flat-out run. Joji's first inclination is one of alarm, but Natsume steps forward with his arms outstretched, and the stranger collides with him in an embrace that looks like it hurts.

Natsume is laughing again, but it's softer this time. It's the warmest sound Joji has ever heard him make.

"What's this for?" Natsume is saying, patting him on the back.

"Just missed you," his friend replies.

"You saw him twenty minutes ago, Satoru," comes the exasperated call from further down the road, and Joji glances over to find a small group headed their way, laden with shopping bags.

"Yeah, exactly," Satoru says, leaning back without letting go, just enough to gaze up at Natsume with a cheeky grin. "I'm all Takashi-deficient. It's pretty serious."

"Sounds serious," Natsume replies, and agreeably keeps an arm wrapped around his shoulders as the rest of their group catches up.

A tall, dark-haired man stoops to pick up Natsume's cat, and it settles agreeably in the crook of his arm. The brown-eyed woman beside him lets out a coo, shifting all her bags to one hand so she has one free to scratch it behind the ears.

"We're being rude," the dark-haired man says in a soft, pleasant tone. "Who's this, Takashi?"

Natsume introduces Joji as an old classmate, giving absolutely none of their history away in tone or expression, but somehow all of his friends seem to clue in to something anyway. Their collective demeanor shifts, in an unidentifiable way, even if their polite smiles don't slip an inch as Takashi introduces each of them in turn.

All but Nishimura Satoru, still tucked up against Natsume's side, who gives Joji a positively poisonous look.

"Okay, Satchan, you're going to lose privileges if you can't be nice," Kitamoto says dryly, and extracts him from Natsume's person with a deftness that speaks of years of practice.

"Nooo," Nishimura says, but it's curbed quickly by Shibata shoving a bag at him and snapping, "Carry this! It's that stupid lucky cat statue you just had to have, and it's heavy!"

"It looks just like sensei! Tooru loves it, too!"

"I do," Taki admits.

It's a warm afternoon, right at the end of August, the sky turning golden with the beginnings of dusk. Joji still manages to feel cold.

He grew up, but Natsume did, too. He always regretted what he did, he always wondered if Natsume was okay, wherever he went, but Natsume hasn't seemed to spare him a second thought. He's got his own friends now; bright, kind people who look like they'd raise hell for him. Who run to meet him.

Joji missed the chance to have a place in Natsume's life. He's a footnote, now, and not a very good one.

"Jojojojo!"

The bright voices have him spinning around, forgetting everything else, and he lights up when he spots Sora and Miu waving at him from the other side of the street. Sakura has a firm hold on their jackets so they can't go spilling out into the street until the pedestrian crossing sign lights up, and then she releases them like a couple of eager hunting dogs.

Natsume's friends shuffle to one side politely, and Joji steps forward to catch his girls when they reach him. They're so beautiful and he missed them so much, this weekend they were away to visit Sakura's parents. He kisses them each on the head, and then kisses Sakura on the head in the name of fairness, and it makes all three of them laugh.

Taki coos just like she did with the cat, hands clasped together under her chin.

"What sweet girls!" she says. "Are they yours, Watanabe?"

"Yes," Joji says proudly, putting one arm around each of their shoulders. They've come so far, not hiding behind him from the group of strangers, even if they press into his sides shyly. "This is Miu, and this is Sora. We're adopting them."

Sakura shifts her weight imperceptibly, a barely-there tell. Waiting, he knows, for the surprise, or outright condemnation. She's dealt with a lot of bullshit for taking these kids in, from family and ex-friends and even total strangers. It rolls right off her, and she usually gives as good as she gets, but she hates when Sora and Miu have to hear it. They don't deserve to hear it.

Joji will have to explain it to her, later, why he brought it up. Why he knew it would be safe to bring it up in front of these strangers.

Sure enough, all their faces soften immediately, a gentle transformation. Natsume crouches, gazing at the twins with an expression that Joji remembers from his childhood. The delicate resilience, the willingness to reach out even if he got hurt.

The look on his face ten years ago when he handed back that ruined book, owning up to his mistake and trying to fix it, buying Joji a replacement even after Joji said something unthinking and cruel.

"I was adopted, too," he says.

"Really?" Sora asks quietly.

"Really," Natsume tells her. "My parents died when I was little. I wasn't an easy child to care for, even though it wasn't my fault, so I got passed around a lot. It took me a long time to find my place, but I found it. Did you find yours?"

"I think so," Sora says, glancing around Joji at her sister.

"Me, too," Miu adds.

Sakura clutches Joji's hand hard enough to bruise. She won't cry here and now, but he already knows it's going to be an ice-cream-for-dinner kind of night.

Natsume looks up to meet Joji's eyes when he says, "That's good. I'm glad to hear it."

It's forgiveness. Joji hears it plain as day. He didn't get a chance to ask for it-- isn't sure he deserves it-- but there it is, freely given. And it's reassurance, too.

When Joji's daughters used to curl their shoulders and duck their heads, it would always tug at the memory of a boy he used to know, who was as kind as he was desperate for kindness.

Now, he thinks, when his girls are making a mess of the kitchen trying to follow a pancake recipe with their friends, or dragging a stray cat inside with big, hopeful eyes, it'll remind him of this afternoon. Natsume's clear, bright eyes, and the protective cluster of friends surrounding him.

The world wasn't fair to him; it left a mountain in his life that he had to climb, complete with all its pitfalls and crumbling paths and bad weather.

And here he is on the other side, goodness intact. Smiling. Loved.

He found his place. Sora and Miu found theirs.

And god, if that doesn't give Joji hope for everyone else.

"It was nice to see you," he says thickly, hoping Natsume hears his honesty. "Don't come to the reunion, that was-- a stupid thing to say, but-- would you-- dinner?"

Natsume hears it. He tilts his head, considering, and then says, "We missed our train, anyway."

"And I'm starving," Tanuma says agreeably. Clearly, he says it more to agree with Natsume than anything.

Nishimura is the hardest sell, watching Joji with hard eyes. But then his gaze dips to Sora and Miu, and all his sharp edges go soft, like butter melting in the sun. After a handful of tense seconds, he visibly gives up on his anger with a huff. His friends, watching patiently, all give absurd little cheers when it's clear he's on board.

"Fine, but if you live farther than three feet away, we're getting an Uber," Shibata threatens, rustling the shopping bags in his hands with annoyed fervor.

They drift in the direction of Joji's home, and Kitamoto talks Shibata down from the Uber with the promise of ducking into a 7-Eleven for ice creams instead, and Taki and Sakura are fast friends, rolling their sleeves up to compare tattoos-- Taki's is a strange, occult-looking circle that Joji makes a mental note to ask about-- and Tanuma lets Sora carry the fat cat, while Miu pets it with reverent fingers.

Natsume walks beside Joji, calm and unhurried, with Nishimura on his other side. He grew up with so much grace.

"Can I add you to the class groupchat?" he asks without thinking.

"Good luck with that," Nishimura butts in, not unkindly. "He's the most unreliable texter you've ever met. He left me on read for like two days once, and we live together."

"You'd have better luck with an email," Natsume says apologetically.

It's more than Joji thought he'd get; they exchange contact information, in the middle of this chaotic, noisy group making its way down the street toward the well-lit combini on the corner and then, beyond that, home.

Natsume doesn't seem to have any interest in reconnecting with his old classmates, and Joji doesn't blame him for that. Even though it will certainly piss Ito off to be kept in the dark, even just for a few days, Joji decides it's for the best.

Nishimura's goodwill can't be stretched that far.

[lizandbo]

I heard you were wanting requests how about some Bakugou x reader where they come out as asexual?

EDIT: I made the mistake and now it’s aromantic because I got confused

O-oh I didn’t think anyone was actually gonna answer

but I’m happy someone heard me 💀

AND OML I WAS IN THE mf MIDDLE OF WRITING THIS AND IT GLITCHEF SND NOW I HAVE TO DO IT ALL OVRR AGINNN

Also I’m gonna present two situations:

bakugo w/ s/o who come out of the closet (aromantic)

- over time you became a little distant

- the feeling of romantically liking bakugo recently felt non existent

- or anybody really

- and he noticed this awfully fast

- you felt neutral about everybody around you

- you just didn’t have that desire to be all kissy kissy or anything really anymore

- bakugo thought he did something to fuck up the relationship

- so he pulled you aside and started to head towards his room

- you being confuse was like where tf we going

- but he just grumbled as a response

- he sat you down with him on the bed

- “what the hell is happening, don’t you have something to tell me”

- “I.. I don’t know what your saying”

- “ all this distant bullshit“

- your soul kinda felt guilty, not know really when to say this but ig this is your rushed chance now

- “I’ve just been thinking.. I- uh..”

- thoughts seeped through your mind like crazy

- is he gonna get mad at your and turn out to be that crazy ex that almost everyone has? - “spill it”

- “I think we should just be… friends again”

- katsukis heart absolutely SHATTERED at the thought

- but it wasnt just a thought, it’s reality

- “you shouldve said this earlier so it didn’t have to be a ones side relationship lingering around!” - bakugos yells bounced off the walls, basically booming

- “are you sure that you want to-“

- “it’s because I realized that Im aromantic now“

- deadpanned expression plastered on katsukis face

- he always knew that you were into the lgbtq+ community

- he didn’t care, as long as it didn’t effect your relationship with him

- but apparently it is breaking it

- it wasn’t your fault, it’s your feelings and preferences and that’s totally ok

- but somehow and someway he thinks it’s his fault with his little brain going into assumptions

- he got up, tears swelling into his eyes

- he walked faster by each step, going outside

- or somewhere to beat the ever Loving shit out of something

- he’ll always love you for ever but now he can only respect your desires

best friends w/ bakugo and y/n comes out of the closet (aromantic)

- I feel like this is what he’s gonna act like when you say that but not walking away(?)

- but anyways

- you two has been very trusting towards one and the other

- and he can’t help but have the tiniest of crush on you

- but ofc he can’t say that wtf kind of person would he be

- at least in his standards

- bakugo and you were talking about something that was fascinating to you

- he loves the way you talk about something that you like or enjoy

- it brings him at peace at times

- but you continue talking and some how the conversation turned into you talking about what your sexuality is

- “hey katsuki..”

- “yea”

- “I’ve been thinking and I haven’t really told anyone but I think I’m aromantic“

- you looked over to bakugo seeing if the reaction was ok to go deeper into the convo

- he had a sour face but only a person who really knew who he was would know

- “I’m glad that you found who you are“

- it pained him to say that cuz he knew he loved you

- but he was happy to know that you were content by yourself

- even if that took a toll on him he was still happy for ya

- “thanks, are you mad at me tho?”

- “why would I be mad at you“

- “just because I didn’t want our friendship To be ruined in any way… that’s all”

- he hummed jn response, wanting to say more but he shut his mouth for the time being

- “we’re still friends.. right?!”

- “ yes ofc bakugo why wouldn’t we“ - he shrugged his shoulders, not wanting you to know the real reason

- but you guys continued to talk before you both felt sleepy and went back to bed

[spaceocean9]

I am back on my Wandavision bullshit! I am rewatching the show and there is so much that us bothering me with the framing of Wanda and her actions. It would be something if this was a phenomenon that was unique to this show, but I dont think it is. It is a small reflection of society and how we treat white women in relation to depression.

I am going to compare Wanda and Tony again. I am comparing Wanda and Tony so heavily because they both have well defined canon depictions of mental illness. Hell, Tony is even featured a psychology textbook as an example of PTSD in media. While Bruce and Thor also have mental illnesses (depression, suicidal ideation)they are not focused on as heavily or as seriously(which is a shame).

The treatment Wanda and Tony get in the narrative of the mcu are pretty different. Tony is constantly reprimanded for his behavior. He faces some sort of consequence in almost every movie, even if he has a mental health issue. And while his progress is shaky at times he always tries to do better. A big part of Tony's character is redemption. Even if you personality think that Tony should be punished more harshly, the point still stands that he is criticized in the narrative. The intention is there.

I would go so far as to say that sometimes the mcu is harsh to Tony when talking about his PTSD. His mental illness being outright ignored by teammates or the people around him for a long time. I totally remember in Iron man 3 when Tony tried to talk with Bruce about his issues and he was sleeping. It was supposed to be funny that he was highly disinterested. A lot of people are annoyed with Tony's PTSD rather than concerned. It doesn't matter if Tony is likable or not, that is not okay. And even though Tony saved the world and is hailed as a hero at the end of his story, it is important to remember that he is dead and his death was kind of framed like it saved him. Pepper says that he can rest now. That is clearly a reference to his mental health struggles. And I dont love that. Not at all, especially with the rates of suicide for people with PTSD. I have PTSD and that is a thought that haunts me constantly. That death is the only way my mind will relax. I am sure that the writers didn't intend for his death to come off that way, but I dont know. It feels squicky to me.

Wanda on the other hand isn't held responsible for her actions. She is downright coddled. She is presented as younger than she actually is in civil war. POC characters that she has tried to actively kill make a thousand of excuses for her, and even say that they would do the same. The POC people that she has killed( Johannesburg and Wakandan citizens)are pushed aside and ignored. She abuses Vision and it is not addressed. When he walks down in his retro outfit and she all fucking gleeful that he is going along with her whims, and then he states that it was the only thing in the closet; absolute chills.  Wanda knew what she was doing to the poor people of Westview. She might have not known at first but she caught on pretty quickly. Wanda is the villian Wandavision, even if the narrative doesn't want her to be and tries to distract you with Agnes. Agnes was just piggybacking off of Wanda's creation. She didn't create this nightmare. Agnes is only the big villian because she is opposing Wanda. Wanda is framed as the absolute victim so much, especially in this show. God, when Monica says to Wanda" they will never know what you did for them" I wanted to chuck my remote. WHAT?! She tortured them. Made them her dolls to play house with. She did nothing for them except give them trauma and uprooted their lives. The people of Westview are even presented as threatening and unreasonable at the end of the show, with them looking at Wanda and she looking small in her hood. Ugh, it so nauseating. I'm sorry, but the accords never looked so good right now.

There could be many reasons for this difference in treatment. I think one of the big ones is because Wanda is a white, skinny, traditionally pretty woman; and they are the face of idealized sympathetic media depression. I would even say that Wandas depression is treated with more care than Thor's and Bruce's. And PTSD is not understood very well. It flip flops back in forth between the" scary" illnesses( bipolar, schizophrenia, personality disorders), which leaves it in this realm of misunderstanding. There are actually a lot of people who don't even know its an anxiety disorder.

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

How Bad is Sia’s “Music” really?

I watched it illegally (because there was no way I was paying for that bullshit) and found out. It’s not as bad as we thought... It’s worse.

TW for ableism, Sia, drugs, alcohol, just in general a terrible movie, meltdowns, blackface

Literally the first thing you hear while they’re showing the production companies is THOSE stereotypical noises. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ll know what I mean.

And yes, she does this for the WHOLE fucking movie

What was the need to show her in her underwear? Maddie Ziegler was 14 when this was made, so what was the need??? And why did Sia prolong the scene by having her hitting herself?

Less than a minute in and my reaction was already “what the fuck is this shit?”

So the opening number not only had stereotypical exaggerated facial expression, it has Maddie in BLACKFACE?!? And with culturally appropriated hair?!?

The exaggerated facial expressions are literally constant and I took photos during the film to show it, more later, but I’ll keep mentioning it

ITS LITERALLY THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME SHE IS ON SCREEN

Even her way of walking is fucking offensive, Jesus Christ

The vocalisations just had me cringing so hard, I cannot describe how awful it made me feel

Why do all the neighbours need to be paid off and help her when she goes for a walk? I don’t-

Yes, by about the five minute mark I was already seriously debating all my life decisions. It was that bad.

Kate Hudson really didn’t give a fuck that her grandma died

I will keep saying it but WHY are the facial expressions/vocalisations CONSTANT?!! Literally they do not stop at all. I work with a child who is actually similar to this in that he’s nonverbal and he makes similar noises/faces, but the way they’re in this movie is so over-exaggerated?!? And even the kid I work with doesn’t do it 24/7?!?

Sia, calling your characters Zu and Music doesn’t make them interesting in the slightest. They’re still painfully terrible and one dimensional

Literally ONE minute after being left alone with her autistic sister, Zu calls the mental health service asking if they could “theoretically” “pick up” her sister?!? Like she wants to get rid of her already?!?

“A magical little girl” - autism isn’t a magical power?!? And Music is a young woman, not a little girl?!? Why are you infantilising her?!?

Okay I’m not being funny but this choreography is NOT hard. ANYONE can do it, so claiming that you needed to hire a dancer to be Music because of the numbers is literally bullshit (and even so, there are so many amazing autistic actors and dancers?!?)

20 minutes in and I wanted to give up

So she had her first meltdown because her hair didn’t get braided immediately and that’s... certainly interesting??

The fact that Leslie Odom’s character says “I’m going to crush you now”?!?

AND THEN HE FUCKING PICKS HER UP AND FULL-BODILY PINS HER DOWN ONTO THE FLOOR

“I’m crushing her with my love” - oh fuck you, just fuck you

So Sia lied, the restraint scenes were NOT removed and there was no warning. She’s a fucking POS liar

I have no idea why he’s called Ebo or why he has such a cliche African accent?!? I might have missed out on why because I was busy trying not to bang my head into the table while I watched this film but just... yikes

“He (his brother) liked to be held” - YEAH, HELD. NOT FUCKING CRUSHED

“He is dead now” - IM NOT FUCKING SURPRISED IF YOU CRUSHED HIM LIKE THAT

The constant babying and patronizing of the autistic character is so exhausting to watch. I’m so tired

“Planning on sending her to the people pound but I guess I’ll keep her a little longer” - SHE WAS JOKING BUT THAT WAS NOT EVEN REMOTELY A FUNNY JOKE. NOT EVEN IN AN AWKWARD WAY

STOP THE FACES IM-

^ YEAH, Sia, totally a fucking love letter to the autistic community here ^

So Zu finds this necklace she made as a kid that had a little dog on it, and she says to Music, “He had seizures too, just like you”... MELTDOWNS AND SEIZURES ARE NOT EVEN REMOTELY THE SAME FUCK THIS MOVIE-

It’s like Sia is trying to make the movie funny but it’s really not at all

Is Zu implying that Music is autistic because the mum was a junkie?!?

For real though, the dialogue in general is so fucking awful and cringey. Whoever wrote this should never be allowed to write again

Did she seriously leave her autistic sister alone to talk to who I’m presuming was her dealer or loan shark?!?

Also why is he - a white dude - wearing cornrows?!?

So who is the film really about? The autistic girl or the older sister saviour? I think we all know the answer to that one

WHY IS SHE WALKING AROUND WITH HER TEETH JUTTING OUT LIKE THAT ALL THE TIME

The musical numbers are literally so painful to watch. The overly bright colours, the flashing... my eyes were hurting and so was my brain

Autism representation aside for a second, the musical numbers/choreography are all fucking atrocious. Ditto for the costumes

LIKE WHAT THE FUCK WERE THE PINK OOMPA LOOMPA FRUIT THINGS?!? THEY LOOK LIKE THE PINK VERSIONS OF VIOLET BEAUREGARDE THE BLUEBERRY

I wanted to cry by this point, this movie is far more awful than I thought

“I’m not saying she doesn’t want to change, I’m saying she can’t” - FUCK YOU. Why is it okay for him to assume what she can or can’t do

Can I just say that autistic people aren’t constantly in a coked up wonderland state?!! We don’t see the world as a wonderland fantasy world 24/7?!!

“She can hear you from two rooms away” / *shows her listening through two brick walls to a conversation* — Also, we don’t have super fucking sonic hearing?? WE CANT HEAR THROUGH FUCKING BRICK WALLS?!?

“She can understand everything you’re saying to her” - she’s autistic not fucking deaf

Less than 45 minutes in, there’s another meltdown in the park

“I’m not climbing on top of a small screaming white girl in public” - yeah please fucking don’t

So Zu fucking pins her down with her weight 🤦‍♀️

“She doesn’t know who she’s hitting” - IM SORRY WHAT

EBO LITERALLY SAID “TREAT HER LIKE A BEAR” when talking her through the prone restraint, I fucking CANNOT

“Tell her she’s safe” - NOT IF YOU FUCKING RESTRAIN HER LIKE THAT SHE IS NOT

The fact that she gets up, smiling and happy after a meltdown and immediately is excited to get a snow cone... I can honestly say that after a meltdown, I am in no way happy or smiling. I am often not very verbal and I’m withdrawn/not myself for at least several hours, usually the rest of the day. Fuck this film

This film is literally just about Zu, and Music is there for a plot device to give her character development. That’s all she’s there for.

Love how Sia shoehorned Zu being suicidal in there. You know, just to try and make her more easy to sympathize with (it doesn’t work)

This film is literally just a 1 hour 47 minute Sia music video with ZERO plot

WHY WERE THEY WEARING PILLOW DIAPERS IN ONE NUMBER-

I really did not feel into the side plot with that guy who was fighting but it was still better than the actual movie so...

I am SO DONE with the NON STOP CONSTANT vocal shit. So tired.

LOJ’s only role in this film is to be the stereotypical wise black guy who assists a white woman’s story. There’s like hardly any other depth there

The Ebo/Zu romance is so fucking stupid and pointless and out of NOWHERE. I couldn’t even tell if they were into each other or not

I was already so bored of the musical numbers by this point. They added NOTHING to the plot but they pretended they did, and I was so over it. And it’s not because I’m not “creative enough” or anything to understand, I love musicals and I think it could have been cool if done right... but it wasn’t. They were a mess. It’s just bad.

Sia really tried to pretend her movie was deep but really it’s a shallow mess

So Zu is meeting rich drug clients and says to Music “try not to have one of your freak outs up there” and “if you could try to get it out now”... FUCKING YIKES. It’s not an on/off button, shut the fuck up

YEP THIS WAS THE SIA CAMEO FUCK THAT BITCH

The fact that she just calls “DRUG DEALER?!? DRUG DEALER IS THAT YOU”, fucking end this please-

I fucking hate this bitch I’m dead serious

“We’re gonna send them to Haiti cause there’s been an earthquake. All these buildings fell down, children’s bones were dislocated” - WHY WAS SHE SO CHEERFUL ABOUT IT

“Gonna buy a shit load of pain meds, gonna but them on my private plane” - FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU

“Pop stars without borders” - Sia thinks she’s so clever but I would give anything to punch her I swear-

ANOTHER MUSICAL NUMBER JUST STOP IM BEGGING YOU

There’s this awkward conversation/bit with Zu and her drug dealer/loanshark about his outfit that was clearly meant to be funny but was just flat and painful

Yep, Sia really showed Music eating chewing gum off the underside of a park bench. Of course.

Look, the kid I work with does similar stuff by putting literally anything and everything in his mouth but like... why would you put that in your movie?

And there’s no indication before this that Music puts everything and anything in her mouth, she just randomly decides to get on her knees, under the bench and eat chewing gum, like she calculates that it’s there and gets it???

She has a THIRD meltdown after an allergic reaction to a bee sting and her sister just yells at her before realizing... I’m not here for this movie, I feel like I drifted off and was not really there

So Zu got angry because she left the drugs at the park but she’s not that upset that her sister had an allergic reaction???

Zu gets absolutely drunk because a) she lost Sia’s drugs and b) she’s stressed out by her autistic sister... wow, great message, Sia!

She really fucked off and left her sister alone to go clubbing/on a bender

The less said about the musical number here the better

Sia’s movie also checks the box of having stereotypical Asian parents, specifically stereotypical Asian dad being harsh/angry and hitting his wife!

ALSO HE PUSHED AND KILLED HIS SON WTF IS HAPPENING

Less than 3 minutes after the last, there’s a musical number that I think was about this side character going to heaven... another shitty Sia-esque number

The patterns during the number made my brain hurt.

Also there are so many autistic actors who can also dance, and yet Sia chose the neurotypical one because ✨ N E P O T I S M ✨

I just want to know how it was deemed necessary to show the fact the autistic character peed/wet herself? I mean... ??? It’s just so undignified and not at all necessary to the plot. Nothing happens after that, it just moves onto the next scene and it didn’t do anything

“I have no one” - 1) YOUR FUCKING SISTER. 2) GEE I FUCKING WONDER WHY, couldn’t be that you’re a shitty human being?!?

There’s a scene where Music is walking and she does ALL the stereotypical behaviours at once... just YIKES

Zu somehow stopped another meltdown just by grabbing Music by the shoulders and sitting her down???

Aaand yep. Another shitty musical number

Zu really goes to put her sister in a fucking facility and claims it’ll be “better for her” - BULLSHIT. Better for Zu, maybe, not Music.

Ah yes - the girl who the characters have said has problems with routines being changed/change in general... you’re now going to fuck up her routine by dumping her in a facility. Perfect Plan.

The nonverbal autistic girl suddenly speaking to say “don’t go” - you can just predict it from the off, can’t you?

Love that as soon as Music starts talking, Zu is like “fuck it, I’ll keep her!”

Zu really went and crashed Ebo’s brothers wedding... in a fucking bralette... YIKES

“I almost gave Music away” - SHE IS NOT A DOG YOU DONT GIVE PEOPLE AWAY

“We should sing a song” - PLEASE DO FUCKING NOT

Also that kiss/romance montage between Zu and Ebo was the CRINGIEST fucking shit ever

This movie seems to be implying that Music has locked in syndrome or something, like she’s locked in her own head or whatever it’s called, and I just... *sigh*

Oh and now Music magically fucking sings in a room FULL of strangers... this is literally embarrassing, please let this end

I mean it, this movie was fucking painful to watch on ever level

She got a service dog puppy which... okay?

Oh look, it’s the only decent song on the soundtrack but with an absolutely shitty over-stimulatory music video with the credits!

I can only name 5 characters in this film. Maybe 7 at a push, but even then I would be guessing

AND YEP SHE THANKED AUTISM SPEAKS OVER THE CREDITS. FUCK YOU SIA 🖕🏻

Let me reiterate: this is a movie about a neurotypical former drug addict whose character development comes from the autistic character, from having an autistic sister she has to take care of. I’m so tired.

We are NOT plot devices or tools for character development. Not once does anyone in this film treat Music like a human being - she’s treated as a burden, a problem, and then like a pet that they decide to keep. Not once is the film focused on how she is feeling - it’s always about Zu or Ebo. The performance itself was so over exaggerated and it made me want to cry when I watched it because this is how the world sees us, and this movie will make it ten times worse. It’s stuff like this that made me think “I don’t want to be labelled as autistic because people will think I’m a certain way”, that made me wait so long before going to the GP to get a referral.

As I said, poor autistic representation aside, the movie is just so appallingly bad. It truly is one of the worst films I’ve watched. If you’re going to watch it, please don’t - or, if you want to because you want to see how bad it is/to raise awareness/critical posts, at least do it illegally. Do not give Sia your money.

[space-city-traffic]

yet again im back on my bullshit so... (gazes with mixed feelings at the TV show Firefly) i could fix him.

my extremely long thoughts about my Own Personal Good Version of Firefly (with plenty of spoilers for the show and the movie) under the cut:

things that are getting axed first thing no question:

out with the whole “let’s add in a thin veneer of Chinese cultural aesthetics out of context for ~flavor~” deal. just no.

instead, let’s hire some actors from a bunch of different cultures and work with them to figure out how their characters would bring those cultures into space with them!! and also hopefully bring some experiences with immigration/alienation/travel into it, since the Whole Core of Firefly is about how humanity always brings our doomed and silly and stubborn and unique warmth with us even into the cold void where nothing is familiar or homey in the slightest.

let’s respect our sex worker character shall we?

i do appreciate that Inara’s work as a companion is described as legitimate and well respected in the show. however please stop having your captain and hero call her a wh*re every five seconds against her clearly expressed wishes and portraying this as just a totally acceptable thing

let’s be more respectful of our characters of color and also have some more diversity, shall we?

others have put it better than me but yeah, the way Zoe and Book are treated is very uncomfy, and the rest of the show is depressingly monochromatic. come on let’s do better.

stop the weird confederacy hat tips

again others have pointed these out with much more thoroughness than I could, but the names of some characters and locations, as well as some of the language used to describe the browncoats, has uncomfortably confederate vibes. instead i propose we very Clearly tip our hats to the Alliance equaling space capitalism instead! you can’t go wrong with space capitalism as a villain.

don’t! make! the! psychotic! character! violent!

listen i love River Tam with my whole heart. but you should absolutely not portray your only character with psychosis as violent because of that psychosis!!!!!!! and yeah, a huge part of her character is that her brain got fucked up by the alliance and so she hallucinates and is also a super ninja. but like. she doesn’t need to be a super ninja for her character to work, okay? the crew does not need to be scared of her for her character to work, okay??? more on this later bc it would take a lot of care and nuance to make her character work but i really think it can be done

things we are absolutely keeping:

found family tropes my fucking beloved

this should be self evident. this is why the show is as appealing as it is despite its flaws, at least in my eyes.

malcolm reynolds, the knight in dusty armor

there’s something so appealing to me about what Mal stands for. because at his core is this ridiculous, silly, stubborn, doomed devotion to what he thinks is important and right, a romantic idealism thinly covered by cynical cowboy platitudes that he thinks make his bleeding heart totally invisible. and he is so obvious and entirely incorrect. bless. this is a man who will do anything for his family, who charges into swordfights to defend his friend from a man who wants to turn her into an object despite having no clue how to hold a sword. at his worst, he starts brawls in bars just for the martyr’s thrill of being persecuted for supporting the right; at his best, he inspires downright religious belief from his crew because he represents a romantic and chivalrous and doomed dedication to the right thing over any practical concerns. and then he throws a “selfish” quip over it with 100% confidence that everyone fell for his clever distraction and believes him to be a dirtbag. he’s oblivious and ridiculous and god he makes me want to be a better person because he’s just so goddamned sincere. stupid, but sincere. 10/10 himbo. <3

Mal and Inara ultraslowburn friends to enemies to friends to lovers to enemies to friends to lovers to friends to...

there’s nothing i love more than a ship that’s just two people who know each other way too well, and they’re each the only one who knows the other well enough to call them out on their bullshit. the way Mal and Inara interact in the show sometimes makes me uncomfy but like. the core of their relationship has to stay.

space western aesthetic

i need the cows on a spaceship scene to stay like i need air okay

that sweet sweet religious shit

mal, who lost his faith in gd and a whole lot else during the war. who lost his faith in himself, and now feels he has to hide the part of him that still wants to be good, because he knows he can’t be anymore, and he feels like it’s embarrassing for a guy like him to want something so unattainable. who takes a preacher on board, and the preacher has lost something, too. the preacher has his own past, and his own questions. but not questions like the observant neurodivergent girl, the one who wants to interact with and understand this thing that’s so important to him, but it just doesn’t click with how her brain works and she feels like something needs to be fixed, either the Bible or herself. and Mal takes care of them all, and slowly, he begins to find gd again, not in a prayer but in humanity. humanity doesn’t need to be fixed, like the alliance thinks. the shining imperfect strawberry sweetness of it in his family’s smiles is something to be worshiped and served and devoted to. and he finds he has something to believe in again. (and his crew find that he’s given them someone to believe in, too. and maybe suddenly he’s a saint.)

and finally, my brilliant ideas as to what i would like to add:

TRANS WOMAN KAYLEE RIGHTS

listen her femininity is so important to me okay? it’s so thrilled about everything that’s pretty, from dresses to the spaceship’s electric innards, and it’s so non-traditional and grease stained until it’s not and it’s pink and ruffly and twirly, and she never sees any of it as a contradiction, because none of it contradicts, it’s all just her! her gender is warmth and love and prettiness, feeling pretty and appreciating the pretty and making her friends’ days pretty too.

i want us to find out she’s trans in that episode with the ball, and i want us to find out alongside Mal who just never asked or never realized. Kaylee gasps and squeals at the dress in the shop window and Mal makes an off handed, ill considered comment, and then... someone yanks him aside and hisses a few very significant words in his ear. and suddenly he remembers what the blue white and pink she painted all over the engine room means, and he knows he has something to make right. so he buys her that dress himself and lets her know just how pretty she looks, and when he walks into that ball with her displayed on his arm like something precious, he looks the proudest out of any man there. and she notices. for a few seconds, of course, until there’s chocolate, and ‘nara, and a chandelier—and some horrible girls, but she’s used to that, until—suddenly, she finds her people. a group of old men who light up when she jokes about compression coils and whack presumptuous boys who ask her to dance. they adopt her as a treasured granddaughter, and Mal is beaming at her like a proud dad, and she finds that one of her new elderly friends gazes a little too long at her bracelet, and so she gives it to xem and teaches xem a few new words, and... it’s a good day, huh? it’s a really good day. (of course, then the captain has to go and punch somebody in the face, but it was a real nice party up until then.)

also she and Simon are both transhet t4t im correct and you know it

time for a better River Tam

the first thing we’ve established is that this version of her is not unpredictably violent and the crew is not scared of her!!!! it makes no sense to take a kid who’s primarily brilliant, experiment on her brain, give her telepathic powers....... and tack on the fact that she also has super strength and speed and dexterity and what not, AND say that they programmed her to be super violent. no! no. not only is that extremely harmful rep, that’s also just stupid.

instead!! my version of River is in fact not terrifying to the crew, but is actually the one they feel safest around. River has always been totally blunt, she was one of those kids you could tell realllllly early was autistic, and she doesn’t like being disengenous at all. so you can always trust her to tell the truth and not play weird passive aggressive games or have any hidden agenda, which makes her just a really chill person to be around. also, one of her longtime special interests is music and dance, so whether or not she’s nonverbal on a given day, there will always be some sort of beautiful sound when she’s around. she does have the singing voice of a dying crow unfortunately but that’s ok bc Simon’s is even worse and they’re both incredibly competitive so you’ll at least get free entertainment out of the affair.

my version of River does have psychosis and hallucinations because of the trauma of the experiments, and they are really troubling to her. she and Simon work together to find ways to cope and meds that help, and it’s a process, but there are some things that help.

the only thing she gained from the academy was the ability to hear people’s thoughts and sense the future a little bit. and yeah, that led to her picking up a few spooky secrets at the beginning, which, yikes. and for a while, it was hard to figure out which voices were real and which were hallucinations. but around her friends, she always feels safe to ask “did you just think about triple cheese burritos or was that just a me thing?”, and they’ll always tell her the truth no matter how embarrassing their thoughts are, bc it’s important to all of them to respect her and help her sort accurately through what’s reality and what’s not. and bit by bit, she gets better and better at figuring out what kinds of things tend to be telepathy and what kinds of things tend to be psychosis, and that each one feels a little different. and because of the trust and respect and support of her found family she’s able to do that in a safe environment!!!

trans man Simon rights

listen i wanted to keep him as just a side note on Kaylee’s list but he is my son and he’s important to my heart so here goes

out on the outer rim where Kaylee’s from, gender ain’t much of a big deal, there’s an individualistic quality to life out there, and so if the trail you blaze is the trail of a woman or a man or neither or both, that’s respected even in the rare cases where it’s not outright encouraged. but in the inner planets, where competition and connections and public faces and family names are everything, you have to be what’s expected of you to survive. you can’t change your brand, you can’t be anything other than what your family planned for you since before you were born, it’s incredibly hard to survive in such a hyper competitive environment, and so your very identity becomes just a tool in how to market yourself for better success.

needless to say Simon (just as autistic as his little sister and also very trans) fuckin hated it there. but he was very good at it. correction: he was very good at his very specific field of STEM, good enough to where people stopped talking about how cute he looked in bows and started talking about how impressive his work was from a very young age. and his work had no gender. he could be whatever he wanted to in equations. so that was where he could express himself, and gd, he got so much praise for it, he never wanted to stop.

not until he discovered that his sister needed him, and ran away, and needed a disguise, and realized... suddenly, every stifling rule and prying eye was a million miles away. he was freefloating, freefalling, with none of the charted paths he’d been following all his life... so you know what? fuck it. he’s always enjoyed the name Simon. and since it’s not on any legal records, it’ll make him just that much more untraceable.

and on Serenity, starting over with new people who never knew him before his transition feels like an unbelievable blessing that just dropped right into his lap. he has to keep up the secrecy, he has to make sure they never find out who he used to be, because gd, it’s so nice when they look at him and say his name right, and he doesn’t know if he can handle losing that, not when it’s so new and so important to the person he’s finally becoming. but then one day, the unthinkable happens, the wanted posters for his arrest have an old name on them, they’re looking for the Tam sisters, and... nothing changes. the crew of Serenity could not give even a tenth of a percent of a fuck, and it doesn’t seem like they even know they’re supposed to. huh. that’s new. Simon could get used to that, he thinks.

i’m sure there’s more i could add, but it’s 4:30 in the morning now, so if more occurs to me, ill simply add it in a reblog tomorrow. if you’ve read down this far, i am in love with you. please let me know your Better Firefly ideas, too, bc im always down to yell about this show!!!

[greatamericansatan]

I Am Pro AI Art, Fuck All Y’all

I don’t think I’d care about this much if it wasn’t for the fact my boyfriend, who has had difficulty feeling artistically liberated due to depression, is excited about art for the first time in ages specifically because of AI.  And if not for the fact he is bothered by the haters.

1)  Look at the numbers.  A huge chunk of the people using AI art tools are professional artists, who see it, correctly, as a tool - one which is no threat to their job.

2)  Nobody who is looking to use AI art instead of paying you was EVER going to pay you, except as a “client from hell“ shitbird.  Anybody who wants something specific and is willing to pay for an artist will STILL pay for an artist.  You are losing fucking nothing.

3)  The mere idea that art isn’t already devalued into the sewer, that art is a viable career, is personally offensive to me.  I’ve tried to connect the dots on commission, I’ve chased those abusive industry jobs.  It’s all bullshit.  There hasn’t been a reasonable way to make a living off art for decades now, save for a rare few people.

If you’re indie, you’re a street corner busker and practically a hobo.  If you live to be old, you will be living off welfare and totally broken.  If you’re not indie, if you got that dream job, you are nearly as exploited and abused as those actors on the casting room couch.

If you’re lucky enough neither of these describe you, you’re a fucking liar perpetuating harmful ideas to all the little babes out treating “artist“ as a dream job.  You are an exception, and so far from the rule you aren’t even living in the same world.

People are coming to you for what you can do, and AI cannot.  Again, you are losing nothing.

4)  Copyright protects nobody but the rich and it’s been this way forever.  Indie artist?  You can’t afford a lawyer, get real.  AI ART WILL REDUCE COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.

Let me repeat that.  AI ART WILL REDUCE COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.  If you don’t understand this, you do not understand what the technology is actually doing.

As it currently stands, indie artists can do absolutely nothing to protect themselves from thieves because we can’t afford lawyers.  If the infringer is a youtuber with a comments section, treat it as advertisement and drop a link to your art in that comment section.  Legal action?  It just isn’t for you.  It’s for The Man.

AI art is NOT photobashing and does not directly copy anybody’s work.  At most, its results have a level of similarity equivalent to somebody using aspects of an original work for reference, which is something that is not only legal, but something the vast majority of artists do at some point - if not all the fucken time.  And that’s fine!  That’s a tool.

If the hackjobs and MLMs and scammers and exploiters of the artistic industries use AI, they will spend less time directly stealing your art off of the internet.  Right now, that activity is rampant, but when those people catch on to using AI instead?

You will have your shit stolen less often.

5)  These AIs cannot be stealing your art because the dataset is literally too small to be holding your images inside it.  They’re a few gigs, the “every image on the internet” would be many terabytes.   They used art to teach a machine how to place lines, form, value, color, and at this point they are extremely far from perfect.

Aside from endlessly replicated images like the Mona Lisa or the Blue Boy or Pepe, you would find it all but impossible to actually reproduce your art from one.  Even with those, the “reproductions“ will have bizarre variations.

6)  It’s still ableist to oppose an art tool that allows disabled people to be artists.  When my boyfriend had his imagination broken by abuse sustained as a professional artist, he was less able to innovate in his creation for a few years afterward.  The chaos and foolery in AI art can inspire creativity and help heal from that kind of damage, or from the way depression fucks up your ability to create.

And some people who have a vision but have not been able to create due to lacking coordination, or a neurological disability, or whatever?  You can tell them they aren’t real artists, but that makes you the asshole.

7)  A lot of the people opposing AI art are ignorant non-artists who are just riding the terror train of chasing every panic that comes down the pipes.  Of the artists, it’s people who don’t understand what AI actually is doing, or people who are just being elitists.

Some of you just want to limit the number of people who can be artists, by erecting barriers, by excluding.  “You should have to suffer the practice that I did“ is not far from “student loans shouldn’t be forgiven because I had to pay them.“  Think about it.

8)  ART STYLES CANNOT BE COPYRIGHTED AND NEVER HAVE BEEN.  And never should be!  Artistic movements can’t even happen without people being allowed to draw inspiration from the work of others.  Think about it for two seconds, goofballs.

(The only two situations I can think of where somebody successfully took legal action were ones where a company came to an artist to negotiate, were declined, then went on to make a direct copy of their style.  This happened to Don Hertzfeldt with Pop-tarts, and more famously Tom Waits on a number of occasions.  IANAL, but AFAIK nobody has ever been able to make a case that a style rip caused them damages outside of that specific circumstance.)

Anyway, I’ll keep unfollowing catty art bitches and neo-luddites shitting on new tools that help people enjoy creativity.  Let the winnowing continue...

-

[suddenlysackler]

Limelight

Adam Sackler x Reader

TW: N/A (maybe a lil smidge of angst but nothing major)

A/N: This has been on the back burner for quite a bit and it’s a tad messy but I wanted to put it out for you all because I miss you and I miss my goblin bf and, ya know, Cannes 2021. Thank you for reading, I’m hopeful that I’ll be back more frequently in the coming weeks!

...

Adam Sackler had ascertained very quickly that he did not care for red carpets in the slightest. 

Given what he had found himself struggling through his late teens and seemingly all of his twenties, the relief of finally, finally, finally achieving some sort of steady stream of work and establishing himself as a serious actor provided relief that he could not be more grateful for. 

He liked being able to turn down the $800 a month from his grandmother and moving out of his apartment for good this time, trading up for some swanky new town house in upper Manhattan. He liked being able to afford to be choosy about what jobs he took and he liked that he was able to split his time between stage and screen. Hell, he’d even tried his hand at directing some dumb indie film that landed him right smack dab in the middle of Sundance.

Which is when he found out he hated red carpets.

He absolutely hated the insincerity of all of it — the rushed interviews, the posing for what seemed like hours on end for photographs that he’d probably never even see and he wasn’t allowed to smile for exactly like he’d want to. He hated answering the same questions over and over again and rubbing elbows with reporters from tabloids asking about off screen romances and making it blatantly clear to him that they weren’t interested in the art he had just helped create.

Along the way, maybe five red carpet events into his career, he met you. To his surprise, he didn’t meet you through a mutual friend or at a party or by yelling at you to stop taking food from open containers in the store he was working in. He met you because he accidentally took your coffee on a Wednesday morning before you could grab it and you promptly chased him down 45th street and cussed him out by using every single insult you could manage.

And that’s when things just clicked for him.

Everything fell into place after you came into his life and suddenly he felt even more fulfilled than he originally figured was even possible. He liked coming home to you after long days on set or at the theater. He liked bringing you to see different projects he was working on during production or bringing you to advanced screenings or dress rehearsals. Whenever he got a script, you were the first one he talked to about whether or not to even try for the role. He never wanted to object you to the horror that was a red carpet.

Not until now, anyway.

It was the first time that you had happened to be available for one and, yeah, he had invited you to all of the ones he had been to since you had been together but he didn’t necessarily want to take you. Of all of the things in his world that he wanted to show you, premiere events were the one thing he wanted to shelter you from. You knew about the drinking, the philandering of his early to mid twenties, the string of psycho ex girlfriends who he swore might show up at your shared doorstep at any given time to rip him a new one. Despite all of that shit, you’d some how managed to still like him, love him even. He didn’t want to chase you away with the bullshit that came with his career.

Maybe this would be the straw that broke the camel’s back?

You’d said yes without hesitation and his stomach dropped. He knew you never turned down an excuse to dress up, to impress him and make him feel proud of the fact that you were his girl, just his. So, on the night of the Tony Awards, he sat in the hotel room his manager had reserved for the two of you to get ready with the help of a team of aestheticians and hair dressers and tailors watching you twirl in what was probably the most expensive ball gown you would ever wear in childlike delight. Music of your choice played softly on someone’s phone and you could hardly stay still enough for the finishing touches that were being pushed into your face. You looked and felt like a million bucks and Adam knew that, but how was he supposed to enjoy it? He was too preoccupied with figuring out what he would do if you freaked out on him, threatened to leave him or some shit, after the circus act you were about to parade through in order to get to your final destination of the night.

“You look handsome.” You called from the chair you had been forced into, eyes opened wide for quick swipes of mascara.

Adam was so far gone, lost in his thoughts and strapped with worry. He didn’t hear you compliment him. He didn’t see you get up and he felt as though the force of you slotting yourself between his slightly parted legs was a ghost of a touch. “Hey, doll.” He mumbled when he finally did notice you.

One of your eyebrows quirked up. “You good, Adam?” 

He sensed some wavering in your voices, maybe some concern. Maybe some doubt? “I’m okay, just hate this shit.”

The other eyebrow followed the first. “What do you mean you hate this shit?” You ask as his publicist swept into the room and began to shoo the two of you out the door and down to stand for pictures and questions. 

He held your hand tightly as you weaved down the hall and into the elevator. “I just don’t like this part.” He shrugged and you squeeze his hand as you listen. “Worried it’ll bug you as much as it bugs me.”

“I mean, I’d walk over hot coals to see you in a tux.” You teased, eyes bright. When he doesn’t shoot back with a response characteristic of his normally playful bravado, some of that brightness leaves your expression. “You know I’m just happy to be with you, right? I’m proud of you.”

Adam hummed in response and squeezed your hand back. “I know.”

You weren’t having his clipped answers. “I don’t care that there are going to be pictures or tons of people watching. You know that shit won’t make me think differently of you.”

He remained quiet after giving you another shrug, still completely scared out of his mind that your words were just that, words. That you’d hit the ground running and never look back as soon as you realized just what supporting him at these things entailed.

The silence lasted for the rest of the elevator ride, through the lobby, and in the limousine and in the little holding room they put you in that is riddled with all of the snacks he would tease you for indulging in had the circumstances been different. He was tense, his muscles tight, tight, tight from his jaw to his calves, knee bouncing and free hand clenching and unclenching right until the moment his name was called. 

The moment wasn’t awful to begin with. It’s mostly pausing and stopping a lot of times for Adam to take pictures while you watch from the sidelines and, every so often, he pulls you in for a few. He doesn’t tell you that, in the moments he doesn’t have his arm around you, that isn’t kissing your cheek chastely and holding your hand, that he feels like he’s drowning. 

It didn’t phase you as you listened to reporters hound him about his female costar and whether or not they were seeing each other. It really didn’t even phase you when one man asked you to “step aside” and referred to you as Adam’s friend, despite his tight grip on your waist and the tender glances his stole every twenty seconds or so. And honestly, you didn’t really care that you might have gotten jostled up a little bit by photographers and other reporters as you stepped aside, more than happy to speed up the process for Adam.

But Adam would not have that, not at all.

“We’re fuckin’ done.” Adam growled, his eyes locking on your face as soon as he noticed you stumble a bit. He left without another word to any of the reporters and looked for his publicist, who was beyond livid at the fact that Adam was blowing off his responsibilities without much of an explanation. Before he went up to him, he grabbed your hand and dragged you along with him, not saying another word.

After a hushed but tense back and forth between the two men, the three of you stepped out of the view of the public and quickly found one of the many green rooms for invited guests to cool down and touch up hair and make up before heading into the venue. 

He paced and paced and paced for a long moment, leaving you to sit on the couch and watch with bated breath, praying that his older destructive tendencies didn’t suddenly find their way back to the surface of his psyche. 

After a long while, you finally spoke. “Can you come here?” You whispered, eyes round and, to be frank, a bit desperate. 

Adam came to you without a moment’s hesitation and knelt in front of you, placing his head in your lap and putting your hands in his hair. “Are you going to leave me tonight?” He mumbled into the tulle of your dress.

A soft smile crossed your lips and you shook your head, then moved to cup his cheeks and lift his face up to look at your own. “Now why would I even consider doing that?” You hummed. 

“After that shit show? Any sane person would leave.”

“Whoever said I was sane? Isn’t that why you like me?” 

He chuckled at that and nodded, biting back a comment about how anyone would have to be insane to want to stay with him for as long as you had. “That was just some totally bullshit and you know it, doll.”

You shrugged and shook your head once more. “Nothing I can’t handle, I’ve had my fair share of total bullshit with old haunts showing up on our doorstep, huh?” You made sure to keep your tone teasing, not wanting him to feel as though he needed to shoulder any of the blame for the situation.

Adam laughed again and relaxed visibly for the first time all night. “Do you want to even stay?” He asked, his own voice a bit more reassured. 

“Of course I want to stay, you’re up for an award, dummy.” You giggle, letting your head fall back as he moved up to pepper your exposed neck with kisses and playful bites. “And there’s the after party — I heard there’s going to be some damn good desserts and music.”

He flashed you a smirk when he pulled back and stood, then offered his hand to you. “What is it you always say when I ask to eat out on the way home from shit?” He proposed.

You stood and took his hand, intertwining your fingers and squeezing before walking toward the door. “What do you mean?” You asked, eyebrows furrowed.

Adam’s smirk only widened as he held the door open for you and smacked your ass before letting you go. “We have dessert at home.”

[kuroopaisen]

distractions || kuroo tetsurou

➵ you’re determined to distract your boyfriend from his uni work. you’ve got a foolproof plan as to how. 

wc: 2k

warnings: f!reader, 18+, established relationship, unprotected sex (mentions of birth control), cursing

a/n: kuroo brainrot. that’s all. 

One of Kuroo’s hands lies on the inside of your thigh, his fingers running over the skin slowly. He seems totally unaware of the effect he’s having, scrolling through page after page of some bullshit about ‘breaking even’ and ‘sunk cost fallacies’.

That holds absolutely no interest for you. Not when something significantly more exciting is on your mind.

You glare at him from the corner of your eye.

It doesn’t help that he’s just sitting there, looking hot as ever in red sweatpants and a loose black shirt.

You’d initially thought, perhaps, that he’d be teasing you for wearing nothing but one of his shirts. It’s one of his, a ratty old black shirt that he’s said that you look both aggravatingly cute and unfairly hot in.

But he’s been staring at his damned laptop for the past hour, only taking a break to get up and pee.

You’d had nothing to do except absent-mindedly scroll your phone for that duration. Sure, you could’ve done some uni work, or perhaps even done something ‘fun’ for a hobby.

But you hadn’t felt like it. So you didn’t.

And now you’re horny.

You sigh, crossing your legs in an X-shape. It hikes up a little around your thighs; something that usually captures your boyfriend’s attention with ease.

He’s not paying attention.

An idea pops into your mind. Something that Kuroo would absolutely be down for. And something you’d wanted to try for a while now.

You scoff, propping yourself up on your knees. Kuroo still takes no notice.

“Tetsu?”

“Mhm?”

You grab his laptop, closing the lid and placing it on the bedside table.

“Hey!” Kuroo chuckles, raising an eyebrow at you. “What’re you doing?”

“I want to ride you.”

At those words you straddle him, settling yourself comfortably on his lap and slipping your hands under his shirt.

He blinks at you for a few seconds, eyes wide and round. But in true Kuroo fashion, that surprised expression melts into one of smug satisfaction.

He takes his shirt off and tosses it aside.

“I’m usually the one on top,” he chuckles, smoothing his hands over your outer thighs.

“And?” You hum, pressing a kiss to his neck. He hums in response, one hand moving down to grab your ass.

“I don’t know if you have the stamina,” he grins.

“I’ve put up with you for this long,” you smirk, your lips moving down his neck. “That’s got to count for something.”

He laughs at that, letting his eyes flutter shut as you begin to nip at the skin on his collarbone. You know what he’s like – he wears his hickeys proudly, so long as they can be hidden from his professors.

“What’s brought this on?” He asks, his voice beginning to roughen.

You raise your head to glare at him. “Really? You have no idea?”

He tilts his head at you, genuine confusion clouding his eyes.

“You’ve been fondling my thighs all morning,” you huff, glaring at him.

Kuroo cackles, lifting a hand to smooth over your cheek. “Sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t even notice.”

“You didn’t even notice?!”

“I was studying,” he grins.

“So, what? You were just fondling them for emotional support?”

“Sounds about right.”

“I hate you.”

“You just said you wanted to, and I quote, ‘ride me,’” he smirks. “Or is hate sex something you’re into? You never told me about that kin—”

“Shut up,” you mumble, pressing your lips against his.

He complies.

You grind against him, earning a soft moan from the back of his throat.

His dick’s already beginning to harden up. Your heart speeds up at that realisation. Even now, the fact that you’re the one who turns him on so easily makes you all flustered.

He kisses you again, deep and hot and hungry.

You keep grinding against him, letting a few gasps and moans escape your own mouth. His hands slip down to your ass, pulling you closer to him. You yelp, wrapping your legs around his waist.

Oh, fuck.

He’s so close to you, so hard, so ready.

If you wait any longer you’re going to lose your damn mind.

Your lips brush against his ear as you smirk. “Tetsu,” you moaned quietly. “I need you inside me now.”

He gulps, his grip tightening on your ass. “Do you want me to get a condom, or…”

“It’s fine,” you breath, shaking your head. You’ve been on birth control for the past few months.

His face lights up and you can swear his eyes start sparkling.

You laugh, bringing your hands up to cup his face. “That excited, huh?”

He grins. “You aren’t?”

He’s teasing, but there’s something you can only describe as ‘eager reverence’ in his eyes.

The next few moments are spent trying to get him out of his sweatpants; you’re leaning this way and that, he’s trying to wriggle out of those blasted trousers without having to get off the bed.

Somehow, he manages to get everything off, his dick bright red as it springs up.

An ache pulses in your abdomen as you look at it. You’d learnt very quickly that you had to take things slow with Kuroo – he’s big, after all.

But you’re both eager.

Your remember that as you position yourself over his cock and start to sink onto it.

“Fuck,” you breath, grasping at his shoulders. “You’re so big.”

You shudder as you settle down on his length, letting his cock stretch you out.

He grins. Even he’s a sucker for praise. “Yeah?”

You nod, adjusting yourself on his lap. He takes a sharp breath at that, grasping at your ass again.

“You alright?” You chuckle, knowing full well what that noise means.

“You’re so warm,” he mumbles, kissing your neck. “And tight.”

You grin, leaning your head back to give him better access. “Can I move?”

“Mhm,” he sighs, teeth grazing the base of your neck.  

You shift again, pressing your pelvis closer to his. Your knees are propped to either side of his thighs, holding you up.

You set a solid pace, this new position allowing you to rub your clit against him as you ride his cock. Kuroo’s head lolls back for a moment, his eyes closed and lips slightly parted.

You take a moment to admire his body for a moment – taut, tanned, muscular.

His golden-brown eyes flutter open, darkening in a now familiar way. You smile at him, running your hands over his chest.

“Get this off,” Kuroo growls, tugging on the hem of your shirt. “I want to see all of you.”

You blush, but you tear it off your body as quick as you could while continuing your movements. You settle your hands on his shoulders again, gripping into them tightly in an attempt to ground yourself.

Kuroo runs his hands over your hips, up your waist, over your boobs. Your skin tingles under his touch, making you shiver.

“I love your body,” he breaths, thrusting up into you instinctively.

You gasp as he goes deeper, clenching around him as your cheeks redden at his words.

“Shit, sorry,” he chuckles.

“It’s fine,” you gasp, “it’s good.”

There’s an unrelenting ache in your thighs, but you don’t want to stop.

One of Kuroo’s hands slinks between the two of you, seeking out your clit. You gasp at the sensation of his thumb pressing roughly against your clit, rubbing in coarse, haphazard circles.

“You alright?” He grins, voice deep and laden with lust.

“Feels so good,” you breath, rutting against him.

He makes a noise not unlike a growl.

“Are you gonna cum?” You can hear the pride in his voice. He loves making you cum, and he loves feeling you cum on his dick most of all.

“I-I think so,” you shudder, your thighs burning from the amount of work they’ve done today.

“Then cum for me,” he growls in your ear.

You moan, digging your nails into his shoulders.

“I want to feel you cum around my cock,” he growls.

“Fuck, Tetsu,” you breathe. “You feel so fucking good.”

He chuckles, tilting his chin up so his lips could meet yours in a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss. You sigh into the warmth, the coil in your stomach tightens.  

“I love being inside you,” he mumbles against your lips. “Fuck, baby, you…”

You let yourself go. “Don’t stop,” you gasp, “please, don’t stop.”

Warmth spreads through your body, a pulsing wave of pleasure that makes you dig your nails into his shoulders.

You moan, deep and long and honest. Everything feels all floaty for a moment, and yet your limbs feel so heavy. You collapse against him, your head falling onto his shoulder.

Kuroo understands immediately. He’s familiar with the look you’d just had on your face, after all.

He cups your head, his other hand grabbing your ass. He pulls you close, making your breath hitch in your throat. He thrusts up into you a couple of times, before flipping you over gently.

You yelp in surprise but lift your pelvis up as best you could.

He’s on top now, fucking you with his usual voracity. He never means to be rough, and you’re not even sure if what’s happening right now qualifies as ‘rough sex’. But his thrusts are deep, fast, hungry.

You know it’s because he’s been holding back, because you know he always tries to make sure you finish first. But he wants you – wants to be close to you like this, to let himself lose control with you.

You want that, too. Knowing you’re the one to make him lose his damn mind? Fuck, that’s hot.

He’s hot. And he’s bare inside of you. The thought alone is almost enough to make you cum again.

“Tetsu,” you moan, clenching around his dick. “Tetsu, I want you to cum in me.”

“Holy shit,” he hisses. “Fuck, are you sure?”

“Please,” you beg, “I want to feel you.”  

“Fucking hell,” he groans, burying his face in your neck. His pace speeds up, hungry and desperate. You know exactly what that means.

A few more rough, sloppy thrusts and he lets out a long, deep moan. God, what a beautiful sound.

His dick pulses against your walls as he reaches his high, chasing it with a sharp, shallow strokes.

A few more moments of thrusting and moaning and he slows to a stop, hot breath fanning over your next.

He lifts his head up to look at you, a slight tremble in his arms.

“Guess I always come out on top,” he grins.

You stare at him for a moment, a horrible realisation settling over you. “Was that… a pun?”

“I’ll never tell.”

“Get out?”

“Of you?”

“Of my house.”

“Uh, I think you mean our hou—”

“Nope. You’ve lost your privileges.”

He chuckles, pulling out of you with a contented sigh. “We should do that more often.”

“Sex?” You ask, tilting your head at him. “Or me on top?”

“Both,” he answers instantly, kissing your forehead. “Definitely both.”

“You sure?” You giggle. “I thought you always ‘come out’ on top.”

“I don’t think you understand just how hot that was,” he grins. “Also, fuck.”

You blink at him, following his gaze down your body.

Oh.

You can feel his cum dribbling out of you. You realise, not without a hint of frustration, that it might stain the sheets.

“You should probably have a shower,” Kuroo teases.

“It’s your fault,” you mumble, sitting up straight.

“Hey, you begged me to do it,” he grins, leaning in close to you.

Your cheeks flush. He wasn’t wrong.

Kuroo cackles. You punch him in the chest lightly even though you know such a move is futile. He grabs your fist playfully, tugging you towards him. You comply, wrapping your free arm around his neck and pressing yourself against his chest.

Bare chest to bare chest. Something about that almost feels as intimate as what you’d just done. Almost.

He lets your hand go, bringing one of his own up to cup your face.

Kuroo gazes at you for a moment, a soft smile on his face. “Thanks for trusting me.”

You know what he’s talking about immediately.

“We’re dating,” you giggle. “And we have been for a while.”

“I know, but…” He chuckles, shaking his head. “I love you.”

You smile, your heart hammering in your chest. “I love you, too.”

He kisses you again, surprisingly chaste.

“But,” you grin, running a hand through his hair, “we should probably have a shower.”

[thedemonstherapist]

Tension Solution

Summary: “I think this tension between us needs resolving. Be that with swords against each other’s necks or in my bed. You decide”. 

Wordcount: ~4,2K

Pairing: Kaeya Alberich x GN! Reader

Warnings: Swearing, Enemies to Lovers, Sexual innuendos, Small mentions of blood

Author’s Note: Here it is! My Kaeya enemies to fuckers piece. A huge thank you to @gnocchi-ghoul​ for Beta reading this for me! I had such fun writing this, and you all know I’m a sucker for some good tensioned sworfighting, and this smug bastard has been on my mind ever since starting to play the game. I know this is not my usual content, but I write when I want, about who I want, ok? I’ve had so little inspiration over the past months that I’ve got to take chances like these and go with them.

Banner is not mine! If you know who to credit it to, let me know, I couldn’t find it!

There he came again. That stupid coin between his fingers, flung into the air at random intervals. That stupid grin softening his face, cheerful greetings echoing through the noisy hall. Oh, and above all, that tremendously stupid way his eyes find you immediately, just trying to do your work.

You lower your gaze, pressing your pen down onto paper with renewed determination. Jean and her new open doors policy be damned, you couldn’t wait to slam it in his face. Of course it’s the last few minutes of visiting hours that he decides to come back from his commission. Three blissful weeks of calm while he was stationed out near the Liyue border, no comments, no irksome remarks, no-

“Don’t tell me you’re too busy to greet me”. 

You sigh. Kaeya observes you with his arms crossed, casually lent against the doorframe. His sword is still strapped to his back, droplets of water running down the blade, and he clearly hasn’t gone to take a shower yet, covered in dirt, mud and sporadic dried blood. 

“Captain”. You can’t help your displeasured tone. “I see you’re back”. 

“Inspector”. He raises a brow in retaliation. “I sent a notice stating my return three days ago”. 

“Oh, that”. You pick the unintelligible letter from your desk with two fingers, holding it at an arm’s length. “Apparently your messenger didn't go for a swim on the way here. Could you confirm?”

His jaw tightens momentarily, as you note with satisfaction, but it doesn’t deter the grin. “You should be used to my handwriting by now”. 

You place it back on your desk with contempt. “I am not. Hopefully your report to Jean is a little more… readable”. 

He shrugs, beginning to peel off his gloves. “She’s never complained about it”. 

Taking a deep breath, you try to calm yourself down. Kaeya tends to make you irrationally angry, and no, it wasn’t just the absolute nonchalante recklessness he treated his position and commissions with. You couldn’t count the times he’d risked more than his own life in battle, somehow always managing to pull it off in the last second. And of course, that was his surefire way to getting out of trouble, no matter how much Jean grilled him for it afterwards.

“Go clean up”. You try your best to make your dismissal abundant, leaning back over your work. “You’re dripping water on my carpet”. 

“Oh, we’re touchy today, aren’t we?” Kaeya’s grin widens into a smirk, pushing himself off the frame. “Did Fawks hit on you during your patrols again?” 

“That’s none of your business”. You shoot him a glare, tapping your nails impatiently. As if you still had the opportunity to go out on patrols, you’d been holed up in your office pretty much ever since becoming Inspector. You wished you could get out again, your body had been aching for some action for weeks, but he was the last person you’d ever confess that to.

Kaeya hums lightly, and instead of exiting, takes another step into the office. His eyes wandered your shelves with staged disinterest, but you knew he was looking for something to use as ammunition.

“I’m assuming you couldn’t hear me” you state, sarcasm adding a bite to your tone. “I told you to clean up. You look like you haven’t seen soap since leaving Mondstadt”. 

“Oh, Y/N, always so worried about my appearance” he muses, drawing closer to your desk. God, you hated that stupid cat-like expression he bore, so sly and pretentious. “I’d be more worried about yourself, frankly”. 

“I’m not playing these games, Kaeya”, you reply sharply, fingers tightening around your pen. “Go take a damn shower, and stop ruining my carpet. I don’t know why your immediate goal seems to piss me off, but I’d like to maintain some level of professional dignity between us”. 

He rolls his eyes. “By Barbatos, you really are wound up today. I doubt that’s just my fault”. 

“Be delusional, then”. You shake your head. “I don’t think Jean would appreciate another formal complaint, so do her the favour, if not for me, and get out of my office”. 

“Fine”. He turns around, but not before throwing you another glance, and damn it, you know he has one last trick up his sleeve, just by the way he says it. “However, before I forget-”. 

“What?”

“You’re pre-reading my report for Jean. Her orders”. 

---

“... and that bastard didn't even take the time to brief me about the mission outcome, the entire time he was dirtying up my office!” You end your rant with an angry flourish, slamming your hand down on the table. “I don’t know what he intended with that whole interaction, he just likes making my day so much worse!” 

Your friend chuckles, stirring her drink idly, an ocean of calm in comparison to your raging fury. “Man, if we weren’t close, I would never guess Kaeya to be such a pain in the ass. Each time I’ve encountered him he’s been so chivalrous and kind”. 

“He just can’t keep it in his pants”. You cross your arms, sitting back in your chair with a huff. “If you ever end up in his bed, I will personally hunt him down”. 

She laughs. “Oh, don’t worry, I won’t put you in that position”. 

“I just don’t understand it”. You run a hand through your hair, glancing around the tavern. It was unusually crowded for a Thursday night, you’d been lucky to get your usual table. “Why he has this stupid grudge against me. We used to be normal colleagues, back when we were both only trainee’s and officers, but then one day the switch flipped and it’s like we can’t stand the sight of each other ever since. The worst thing is, he has every last person in Mondstadt wrapped around his finger! So nobody understands my frustration!”

“First of all, Diluc exists. Second of all, aren’t you higher ranking than him?” she asks, and you regretfully shake your head. 

“No, Captains and Inspectors are on the same level. I personally didn't feel ready to be a leader in combat situations, so I passed on the opportunity. Now I miss active commissions so much, my poor sword is nothing more than an ancient relic at this point”. 

“Surely, you’ll still be sent out?” 

“I don’t have a command, the only times I might be are on extraordinarily dangerous or sizable sightings, or for assistance to Captains. Rue the day I get sent out with Kaeya”. You shudder at the thought. “That would end in total disaster”. 

“So you really have no idea why Kaeya began to dislike you so suddenly?” your friend inquires, tilting her head aside. You shake yours. “And there wasn’t some kind of incident that caused this?” 

“Not that I know of”.

A grin spreads over her face. “Hey, you ever considered that he likes you a little too much for his own good?” 

“That’s some misogynistic bullshit”, you snort. “Guys are rude to people because they like them, yeah right. That’s just trying to normalise shitty behaviour in the name of quote-on-quote love”. 

“I know that”. She gives you an exasperated look. “But… you have to admit that the two of you have some serious chemistry”. 

“What are you even talking about?” you question, downing the rest of your drink. 

“Every time you two interact”. She raises a brow knowingly. “Remember that time you were bickering on patrol through Mondstadt? I swear, even without a vision, I could see sparks between the two of you, and I wasn’t the only one, you got the entire town talking. You get on each other’s nerves because you have some unresolved tension you need to work out, and neither of you wants to admit it”. 

“Shut up”. Your cheeks suddenly feel suspiciously warm, and you firmly decide it’s the alcohol. “Fine, Kaeya’s attractive, but he’s so fucking annoying because he knows that. He messes with me ‘cause he knows how to get in my head, and gets some kind of sadistic pleasure from it”. 

Your friend makes an attempt to interrupt you, but you don’t let her, motioning to her to let you rant. “Let me finish. He was nice enough up until he got that damn ego boost after being promoted, I think, and even then I could still talk to him without the need to stab myself in the eye. He’s just so frustrating, never thinks twice about anything he does, and always gets away with it, plus he has this weird urge to always show off that stupidly toned chest of his and - by the Seven, I hate that idiot smirk of his, and the fact that he’s so damn perfect at his swordsmanship, I can’t even deny how good he is in battle, Jean has said he rivals her, and I despise that he knows he looks good while doing it, he-”

“So, how much longer were you going to let them just talk?” A voice offhandedly asks from behind you, and the blood in your veins turns to ice. Your friend smiles lazily, winking at you. 

“Oh, you know, however long they need. Y/N’s been ranting quite a bit this evening, you really get on their nerves”. 

You whip around, and sure enough, there he is, the cause of this mess. Kaeya has his arms folded, grinning down at you with thinly veiled satisfaction. You’re pretty sure half of the tavern is watching, and your blood turns from freezing to seething within seconds. 

“How long have you been there?” you ask stiffly, glaring at your friend. She pulls an innocent face, leaning back in her seat with performative disinterest. Traitor. 

“Just long enough to hear what I needed to”. Kaeya’s grin is threatening to split his face in half. “You really think I’m that attractive, huh? I never would have guessed”. 

You jump up from your chair, spitting out the first thing that comes to mind. “Fight me”. 

He actually laughs, a few of the tavern occupants joining in. “What? Are you sure you’re not mixing up a couple words there?”

You clench your jaw, deciding to just go with it. “Fight me. Knights of Favonius training ring, tomorrow morning. I’m sick of your attitude”. 

“Oh?” He cocks a brow at you. “I hope you’re ready after wasting away in that office of yours”. 

“I could beat you blindfolded”, you reply presumptuously, mimicking his stance, unable to ignore the fact that he smells a little too good for your tipsy state. At least he finally took your orders. You hold his stare regardless, unwilling to give in.

“Thank the Seven, you’re working this out at last”, your friend sighs, sipping at her drink. “And here I thought you’d take the sexual tension to the grave”. 

Kaeya’s lip twitches in amusement as he extends one hand. “Tomorrow morning at seven. I’ll try not to kill you then, for that sake alone”.

You give him a dirty look, reluctantly shaking his hand. “Your chance of me doing the same is decreasing with every word that leaves your mouth”. 

“I can live with that”. He suddenly leans closer, and before you can pull away, whispers in your ear, sultry tone leaving the hairs on the back of your neck standing up. “You’re going down, darling”. 

Like Hell you are.

---

The training hall is usually relatively empty at this time of day. Some dedicated trainee’s use the morning to get their routine over, but otherwise, not many knights exercise this early. And though at least a few of them must have heard of what happened last night, not many are to be seen. Even if you could live with an audience, you decide this way is perfectly fine, especially in case of the (distinctly undesirable and should-be-impossible outcome) of you losing to him. You’re a bit out of breath from warming up, fixing your shirt before making your way over to the ring.

Kaeya is waiting for you there, clad in athleisure and in the midst of testing out a beginner’s sword. His vision is nowhere to be seen, and you curse him a little for not giving you something more to berate him for. Nevertheless, you straighten up as you approach.

“Good morning”, you greet him nonchalantly, walking over to inspect the racks of weapons. 

A grin flashes across his face as he turns around, wiping the sweat off his brow. “Hello, darling”.

“Sweating already?” You raise a brow at him, deciding to ignore the nickname. “And here I thought I’d have a challenge”. 

Kaeya laughs, rolling out his wrist. “You are cute when you’re acting tough”. Tilting his head aside, he watches you take your pick of one of the swords. The morning light bathes him in a soft glow, falling through the high windows, hair tied up in a messy bun at the back of his head, and- wait. Your cheeks grow hot as you realise what absurd directions your thoughts are heading to. Your friend must have gotten under your skin more than you realised last night. 

Shaking your head a little, you roll your shoulders back and face him head-on. “Whatever makes you feel better. For the rules, as by training code, drawing blood is an immediate end”. 

“No visions, no hits near the head or vital organs, dull blades and stop means stop”, Kaeya counts up calmly, making his way to the center of the ring. His blue eye gleams playfully in the light, and he swings the sword near aimlessly while walking. You grit your teeth at his relaxed manner. He wasn’t taking this seriously at all, huh?

“Don’t worry, Inspector”. He winks as he comes to a halt before you, maintaining the mandated arm’s distance. “I know the rules”. 

“I’d hope so”, you reply, getting into position and watching him do the same. You decide to stir the pot a little, knowing it’s best to get into his head, and feign a smile. “I can’t wait until the rest of the knights hear about how royally I kicked your ass”. 

He laughs lowly, and is immediately on the attack. Anticipating such, after years of observing him in battle, you parry it easily, ducking aside to avoid the next one. You wait until he’s nearly backed you into the corner, ego visibly growing with every move he makes, and take a rolling dive, knocking his legs out from under him with your own. 

He manages to catch himself, and you’re relieved by the split-second of surprise in his expression. You withdraw towards the middle, blowing a stray strand of hair out of your face and, in a rush of adrenalin, smirk at him. “Not so confident now, are we, Captain?”

“You’re not as out of shape as I anticipated”, he counters, slashing his sword through the air as he repositions himself. Brows narrowing playfully, he adds: “It’ll make it more fun to thoroughly take you apart”. 

You don’t give him more time to prepare. Blades crash onto each other as he masterfully deflects your attacks, and it doesn’t take long for the two of you to get out of breath. Neither of you can land a hit, no matter how feasible it seems. He handles the comparatively bulky sword with enviable ease, and you grow frustrated quickly, unable to break through his defences. In turn, you don’t let him back you into any corner, constantly keeping the playing field level and returning every new strike with your own.

“You know what, I’ve missed this”, Kaeya pants, quick to switch hands as you sidestep him, attempting to land a hit on his blinde side. 

“Huh?” is all you can answer in return, deflecting his counter aimed at your back, and darting aside. 

“Training”. He nearly misses the parry, forced to back up if not to risk a blow to his abdomen. “With you”. He shoots you a brash smile, easily twisting out of your range.

You huff, irritated at the fact that he still has the mind to flirt. “Your silver tongue isn’t getting you out of this one”. 

“I meant it”. And of damn course, his tactic worked, the point of his blade sinking into your shoulder. “Remember when we used to practise together?” 

“Before you became a dick, you mean?” you shoot back, attempting an aggressive strike at his lower thigh. Your body is getting sore, heart pounding against your ribcage, breaths coming out short and strained, but despite it all, you’re enjoying this. In any case, you’d rather die than admit to him that you’re having fun. 

You really needed to get out of your office more.

Kaeya laughs, equally exhausted, before advancing at an alarming speed. “I’ll give you that one, darling”. 

Your blades cross, metal clashing loudly, and you can see an opportunity form as he shortly weakens his hold. Rotating your sword in the opposite direction to try and hook beneath his, you’re so distracted by the possibility of disarming him that you don’t notice the satisfaction that washes over his expression as you do. One swift swipe of his foot and you’re falling backwards, weapon nearly ripped from your hand. 

Your back hits the mat with full force, air knocked out of your lungs, causing you to give a strangled gasp. Kaeya is smirking down at you, but he’s as out of breath as you are and there’s sweat soaking his shoulders. You don’t think before you move, so infuriated by the words you know are about to leave his mouth, fingers tightening around the handle. 

The hit against his shins sends him to the ground, but not sideways as planned, instead straight onto you. You don’t have the time or the mind to roll out of the way, and he tries very hard to catch himself, hands landing on either side of you. You yelp as most of his weight hits you, momentarily forgetting what’s even happening. 

 “Fuck”, Kaeya groans, arms shaking as he tries to brace himself. “You like playing dirty, don’t you?” 

Slowly regaining the ability to breathe after nearly being crushed, your eyes dart to see him dangling over you, legs and lower body resting on your own. If anyone hears of this out of context, you’re moving to the other end of Teyvat. He’s panting, no doubt as shocked as you are, strands of his hair tickling your nose. His face is mere inches away from yours, heat seeping through his clothes onto your skin. 

Decidedly too close.

Your blade kissing his throat is a much better sight. You know you’re technically breaking the rules, but the way his eye widens, corners of his mouth twitching and brows raising to the sky is just too good of a picture. 

“Get off me”. You growl, trying to steady yourself with your other hand. 

His laugh sounds astounded, but contrary to your demand, he does not. Instead, his chin juts forward, pressing the metal into his skin for earnest. There’s no blood, of course, all these swords are dulled to near uselessness, but it does leave you speechless at the amount of reckless pride he seems to possess. 

 Kaeya hums, clearly satisfied at your reaction. “I’ll be honest, this is not how I initially pictured you under me”. 

What a smug son of a-

“Oh, fuck off”. Your knee makes contact with his stomach and he rolls off you with a grunt. You scramble to your feet, grimacing at what you're sure will be a bruised tailbone later. He’s already composed himself, twirling his sword idly as you get a proper grip on your own. Looking you up and down, his grin widens into a smirk.

“Though you do look similar to the imaginary aftermath”. 

“I am going to kill you”, you hiss, red flashing before your eyes as you charge at him. Kaeya begins to laugh once more, but it quickly dies down as your moves become more and more aggressive, driving him out of the ring and towards the wall. The thought of whoever may be around again crosses your mind, but honestly, you can’t care about who may be watching, every last bit of strength you have left is focused on Kaeya and his stupid fucking face and the way he evades your strikes with a precision that only leaves to be desired to every onlooker. It makes you want to actually scream. You finally land two hits on him, arms beginning to shake from exhaustion and overwhelming adrenalin. 

But once more, Kaeya catches you off guard. The switch flips just as his leg hits the wall and you’re just beginning to notice your own smile, sure of your victory. His expression darkens, lip caught in his teeth as his eyes narrow down at you. 

Your blades clash as they did before, and of course he uses your own move against you, managing to perfect it. Your sword goes flying to the ground, and the moment you lose your grip is the moment you’re being slammed against the wall that he was nearly backed up against mere seconds ago. The tip of his sword is digging into the soft skin of your throat, positioned perfectly above your Adam's apple. 

Suddenly, it goes very quiet, the silence only interrupted by your laboured breaths. Maybe it’s the fact that he near literally has a knife to your throat, but you can’t tear your eyes away from him. His hand is pressing on your shoulder, pinning you to the wall, keeping you in place. His leg is slotted between yours, barring you from moving an inch. 

For the first time since you’ve met him, you have nothing to do but to admire him. Sweat is making his hair stick to his skin, an exhausted flush upon his dark cheeks. His body is visibly tense, stare boring into yours with a kind of intensity you’ve only ever seen during active combat. There’s nothing unintentional about the way he’s restraining you, nothing hesitant about the placement of the blade against your skin. His chest is heaving, teeth digging into his lip in constrained effort, fingers digging into your shoulder as if expecting you to fight back.

You don’t. 

Instead, you let out a shaky breath. The adrenalin is still surging through you, but you can’t feel the constant urge to punch him in the gut anymore. Huh. Weird. 

“You won”. Your voice is calmer than it ever has been talking to him, accepting of your defeat. Plus, your body is beginning to realise that whatever just happened hurt, and quite a bit at that. You wince, knowing you’re going to need some ice to get through the rest of the day. 

Kaeya shakes his head determinedly, stare not wavering. “You had me in practically the same position less than a minute ago. You could have flipped me over with ease and won. You didn't. That’s the only reason I got you here”. His grip on your shoulder eases up. “We’re equal”. 

Withdrawing the sword from your neck, he takes a step back, relinquishing his hold on you. You feel strangely dazed, automatically reaching to check for cuts on your neck. “I guess?”

“You okay?” He sounds relatively quiet as well, nearly uneasy, which does not fit the overconfident persona he usually bears. Whatever tension there was before has yielded to something more cautious, like strangers navigating their way across broken ice. 

You nod, reaching to pick up your sword. “Fine”. You pause briefly, debating your words before meeting his eye again. “That was… good exercise. Thanks for fighting me”. 

He laughs a little, and you’re taken aback by how much you don’t feel like reacting. What was going on? At the latest after that laugh you’d usually be back at his throat. 

“Sure”. There’s the typical amusement in his face, but his smile is less egregious and smug. It’s… kind? “I’d have no problem repeating it”. 

You raise your shoulders, unsure of what to do now. “I guess… I wouldn’t either?”

“Good”. He runs a hand through his hair in an effort to fix the mess it’s become. You’re beginning to hear the confidence you’re used to re-enter his words, but it doesn’t appear to bother you. “Friday’s at seven, then. We’ll make it a regular thing”.

“Trying to kill each other?” You surprise yourself with the attempt to ease the tension, and why in the world do you have the urge to smile at the sight of his?

“If that’s how you want to see it”. He shrugs, placing his sword back on the racks. Glancing over his shoulder, he regards you for a long moment. “I think your friend is right”. 

“In what regard?” you ask, in principle fully aware of what that expression means for you. 

Kaeya’s shit-eating grin has made its way back onto his face. “I think this tension needs resolving. Whatever means it takes”. 

You can hear the words in your head before he says them. 

“Be that with swords against each other’s necks or in my bed. You decide”.