#unlike most of my other long posts i have slightly edited this one!

[ace-of-gay]

I currently dont have a masterlist set up for this collection but i hope you enjoy this none the less, this will eventually be posted on ao3 but i dont have an account currently

Not betad or edited

Warnings: age regression, self neglect (not eating, not sleeping, etc.) slight panicked reader but not nearly enough to be a full warning, reader is a half ghoul half human cause this is my interpretation of a fantasy universe <3, cuddles!!!

age regression is a coping that can both voluntary and/or involuntary it is entirely safe and reccomended by therapists if they believe it would be effective for said person but as mentioned for some people it is entirely unpredictable, if this makes you uncomfortable please carry on thank you <3

This was originally written for my best friend so keep in mind this is our dream and thoughts and may not fit well into the ghost universe

Word count: 2,025 words

Nameless ghouls and papa copia taking care of half ghoul reader

Having spent a restless night wasnt uncommon for your or any of the ghouls, especially when seasons and elements were changing, you spent a good few weeks of the tour in your element but the farther and farther you traveled to bring enlightenment to others around the world the more the weather seemed to shift, this most recent nights travel not only took you to a new scene and new spirit of buzzing thrill but a stiffened weight of being completely out of your element, while yes it effects all ghouls it affected you far different.

Being part ghoul meant you weren't as aware of your instincts so feeling them shift always left you in a silent suffocating shock.

With so much bustle amongst the ghouls, papa having a chipper edge to his seemingly endless worries it kept the team heightened and moving, preparing and running through the setlist, this will be the biggest show yet in a city youre entirely new to.

You hid the encroaching feeling well, never once had any of the ghouls questions any difference to your demeanor; having one responsibility after another kept you busy all day nevery staying in one area for long, earbuds in and mask upon your dome, it was same as others methods of preparing just more secluded and in your zone, if there were any changes in anything at all papa, the ghouls and ghoulettes knew that they could calmly inturupt you in your flow.

Listening to every part of the setlist through the literal audio versions of it, everything on the outside seemed normal to everyone but the electric vibrations in your joints and dull ache in your head told you plenty, to the others you were staying silent to save your voice for later so to speak but to you the weight of speaking was way heavier than your desire to ask for help or for rest.

With the show quickly approaching and you having forgotten to eat you downed not one but two energy drinks, spiking youre adrenaline temporarily in hopes itd get you through the show.

All you had to do was get through the night off of artificial energy and true passion for others joy. Just like the full ghouls you spent your time during the show in your human form but unlike them you had a harder time forcing it to stay when you were exhausted.

Papa copia unbeknownst to you had his eye on you, hes the only one who saw you this morning, the deep bags under your eyes and your ghoulish grey having a pale green seemingly sickly color easily masked by your helmet, if all went well youd rest for extra tonight but he didn't see that being the only end to the night.

《~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~♡~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~》

You were a fan favorite, when you weren't singing backup vocals you were running around stage with your hagstorm base shredding in duos with swiss, bursts of fire being shot upwards, the only time you stay away from the edge of the stage, the light from the fire glinting against the slightly matte chrome picguard, just enough to catch you right in the eye blurring your vision with a blinding flash.

to the congregation watching below your jolts you send into moving your bass guitar looked like flare but for you it was sheer panic, the blinding flash was just enough to put you on the edge of tipping into a deeply unwanted headspace at the moment.

prancing over to where mountain is perched at his drums you take yourself out of the limelight and hide yourself in the downcast shadows from his drums, with the last three chords being extended for showmanship you give a desperate glance to papa with hope that he'll see your glance, and such he does.

You station yourself once more at your mic, you stum the starting chords and belt out backup vocals for the final song, your throat aches as your human form is slipping, your eyes having small flickers of change and a small stumble thankfully met with a stomp on the down beat.

papa makes his way your direction ending the set list with 'Darkness at the heart of my love', when it gets to the part without vocals he does hand flourishes while you play your bass passing by with his mic down "tieni duro piccolo", walking his way around the stage to stand center and finish up the song.

In a blurr of time everything felt like it was on sparks of muscle memory and you were at the front with all other ghouls taking a well deserved bow with a standing ovation for each and every single one of you.

Papa copia was the first to lead off stage letting the ghouls throw picks and a few drumsticks from mountain and what not, you didn't stay long to see everything but you did notice people throwing things onstage as gifts; off stage setting down your bass in a stand you stumble into papas open arms.

Your forehead lay gently atop his chest still in your helmet your horns sit near his collar bone shaking yohr head, "i cant papa, i cant" not entirely sure yourself what you meant he hummed in understanding and hushed you, gently rubbing your back and swaying side to side, "stai bene piccolo ghoul, you can rest now. Ive got you, matter of factly weve got you"

Finally relaxing enough to let your ghoul form fall free, your tail limp all of you is exhausted and you feel so small but people always said it was weird and not good, they never listened to you when you said it was involuntary or a coping mechanism it was just permanently bad.

"Oh piccolo, shh your thoughts are so very loud my dear, it is okay to be small, the ministry welcomes all with coping, we will care of you"

He holds you closer and tighter humming a tune, and just like that your walls had fallen, there was no more fighting it, big doe ghoulish eyes staring up at him, complete silence from you.

At this point the others had made their way backstage, dew came walking over to take over while papa helped collect all the instruments. "Dew, could you please take them to the bus? We will get everything "

《~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~♡~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~》in the bus now and changed in comfortable clothes dew led you to the ghoul pile nest, when you refused to sit down he stepped aside watching as you grab your comfort item from your personal bunk and made your way back to the nest laying in the center, followed by him curling himself around you.

The ghouls only ever took their helmets off when in a homely environment so dew having his helmet off was his symbol of saying you are safe.

Once everyone had finished packing up and putting stuff away they had all filed in slowly

Cumulus being the first to stop by you and dew at the nest, holding out a plush ghoul for you that she had picked up from the items thrown on stage, papa copia was next to stop by sitting with you and dew, you hadnt noticed until now that he was asleep holding onto you until mountain joined pulling him off of you so you could lean into papa as he held one of your comfort snacks and a juice, both already having been opened by him, he held you as you snacked.

Once you had finished he got up going to the front to drive the bus.

You were once more pulled into the cuddle pile by dewdrop his eyes open long enough to make sure all of your comfort items were tucked against your chest, between you both, "sleep little one, a tiny ghoul needs plenty of rest" soon joined by the rest you had finally fallen asleep, the ghouls were your element aswell. When finally at the hotel for the evening you were carefully awoken by papa, all the ghouls except dew had gotten up, but even he was awake, but he stayed to keep you warm, "it is time to go in, we are buddy system tonight, four ghouls in a room, each room has two king sized beds so its plentyful room"

You finally let go of dew and stretch, getting up to get ready you realize your overnight bag has already been packed and one of the taller ghouls hoodies layed out next to it, you could hear the ruckus at the front of the bus of all the other ghouls ready to bunk up in the hotel.

You slip on the hoodie which you now know belongs to swiss, his smell encapsulating your mind.

Papa comes up behind you placing a hand on your back "piccolo the ghouls have decided you can pick who youre bunking with, they want to be sure youre okay when tiny, loro ti amano"

You make your way to the front of the bus where you find the ghouls with their charm up. looking to papa followed by you tapping swiss, rain and mountain on the heads, the three stand up, mountain takes your bag and rain scurrys away and back with your mask in hand "are you able to use charm right now or is the mask a better option?" He questions

Taking a moment to test how well the charm feels, you point at the mask. Nodding he gently places it atop your head, he places his hand under your chin causing you to look up so he can buckle it up and tan pats you atop your head, swiss gently pulls the back of the hoodie at the bottom away from your back "curl your tail tiny" tucking it under the hoodie

Once in the room mountain sets down the bags he was carrying and helped take the mask off of your noggin, ruffling your hair causing you to chirp in response, rain and swiss hop on the bed closest to the door leaving the one near the window "copia is ordering food for everyone, hes getting youre favorite for you" mountain chimes, grabbing to tv channel guide and flipping through it.

"Movie?" You mumble causing all three of them to look over, normally youre completely silent when youre small, "you wanna watch a movie?" He questions flicking on the tv and sitting on the bed, he turns on Wall-E for you.

Sometime a few minutes later he feels you shuffle closer on the bed cuddling into his side with your comfort item in hand.

After dinner was delivered and eaten and the movie was over you had tucked yourself on your side of the bed you shared with mountain, rains lamp still on so he could read while swiss was practically cuddled ontop of him, every time you would shift or turn in bed they could hear it, causing them to watch you carefully when youd move or grumble is dissatisfaction.

there was just no way to get comfortable, this wasnt home or the bus, you werent wrapped in your family, you huff out rolling over to look at mountain, to your suprise he was looking right at you quizically.

You quickly curl into his side before he got the chance to say anything, "o parum ghoul, mi amor, papa is right, your thoughts really are so very loud" swiss sighs, pulling himself out of his bed followed by rain who lay on your open side and swiss next to mountain, it may not be a perfect ghoul pile but its better than before, rolling over when rain pulls out his book to read aloud, your head on his chest.

listen to the thrum and Rumble deep in his chest, your eyes fall closed but not before you wrap your tail around swiss' wrist where it resides clutched around mountain, your mind will feel fresh and lively tomorrow filed with the itmost of energy, especially after an evening full of cuddles and littlespace, rain places a gentle kiss atop your head and just like that you are asleep.

[timberwind]

Yarragardee Basin, Mangala, 7995 A.D.

------------------------

Accompanying music: You’re On Fire by They Might Be Giants. Summer road trip music of all time, in my opinion.

Here’s a little expository write-up on the history and geography of the worlds shown here. Someday I’ll have more to show of the personal story of these two critters and their travels; until then, a more macro-level description.

------------------------

(most of this info has become outdated as modeling invalidated some original assumptions and I changed my mind on what I wanted here; future art of Mangala will reflect this)

Mangala and its sister world Kahira (visible in the background) are binary planets, orbiting one another in a manner not entirely unlike that of Pluto and Charon in the Solar System. Mangala is a relatively small world - just about twenty percent the mass of the Earth, something like if you took two copies of Mars and smushed them together; without the internal heat to drive a carbonate cycle long term, it had long been a frozen, dusty, and arid place when transhumanity first established a permanent presence in the Tahoka system almost a thousand years ago. Since those early days, terraforming using a Birchian soletta system (a huge but foil-thin Fresnel lens of mirrors, with a secondary focal lens for burning atmospheric gasses out of the regolith) has rendered it shirtsleeve habitable to baseline humans across much of the surface, although the global water inventory remains low* and the air in the “continental” uplands is stratospheric, with only the hardiest lichens establishing a foothold. Most of Mangala’s major metropolitan areas are located in the deep rift valleys and basins, where air pressure is highest.

Kahira on the other hand, a rock almost a fifth the mass of its sister world (a little under the mass of old Mercury), remains only slightly terraformed - surface conditions are persistently cold, with a thin barely-Martian atmosphere. Some of its larger rift valleys and craters have been tented over, aerated, and planted with tall low-gravity forest and grassland, a style of habitat construction dating back to the first Mars colonists almost six thousand years ago. Industrial complexes and buried cities sprawl out across the bare surface of the moon, with huge low-gravity lava tubes seeing extensive urban development.

The Yarragardee Basin, pictured above, is a graben basin in Mangala’s northern hemisphere, notable for the historic industrial city of Tirupati - here we see two road-trippers between cities on the basin’s great plain, taking a break in the long late afternoon of a sunset-day***. Having stopped for a night at a motel near Tirupati’s aerospace complex, they’re now continuing their journey to the city of Redmond-Tonasket, located in the Woronora Valles trench system about two thousand kilometers to the southwest.

* While plenty of water could have been imported from Tahoka’s cometary halo, it was decided not to do so in order to avoid inundating pre-existing cities in the valleys and deep basins. The extremely humid hothouse conditions that come after slamming dismantled ice moons through the stratosphere at over six kilometers a second were also broadly considered unacceptable.

** Smaller worlds have been terraformed in transhuman space, both by worldhouse and more open-air methods, but it’s largely the kind of thing that much more energy-rich systems do as a vanity project. Kahira may someday see blue skies, but likely not for a thousand years at least. (edit, one year later: I actually changed up some of this while simulating this system for stability. I’ll be posting more about this soon.)

*** Mangala and Kahira, being tidally locked to each other such that they always show one another the same face as they orbit their common center of mass, both have days exactly as long as their orbital periods - 403 kiloseconds, or roughly 112 hours. This is for convenience divided into month-weeks comprising four “circadian days” of 100 kiloseconds (~26 hours), with the remaining three kiloseconds added on to the last day of a month-week to keep synchronization.

[skyeslittlecorner]

Tails for All! - Abaddon edition

Other parts: Kings | Gehenna | Tartaros | Hades | Avisos | Nilfheim | Paradise Lost

Dantalian

A small fluffy ball, slightly elongated towards the top. It looks like a deer, but with black fur instead of brown.

He's glad he has small horns because it makes him look less dangerous. He is even happier with his little tail. It's cute and matches Sailor Moon's uniform more than any nasty weapon. He only wishes you could write on it.

Asmodeus doesn't like his tail because, unlike the other two, he can't hold Dantalian by the tail like on a leash. Dantalian offered to attach barbed wire to his tail. You don't know how this conversation went further.

His tail smells lovely, like almonds. Why? Nobody knows.

The best anti-stress squeeze in all of Hell.

Sensitiveness 10/10. Stand on it. Crush it. Tear out the fur. Set it on fire. The more you abuse it, the better.

He will be honestly surprised when you start stroking and kissing him, but... hey, it's actually nice too!

Phenix

A long, feathery tail. The feathers are blurry because they are made of pure flames, you can't see where the feathers end and the fire begins. The whole thing is long up to the feet.

The color of his tail depends on his emotions, in arousal the shades change between red, orange and white when he cums (so usually).

Asmodeus asked Beelzebub to give Phenix a piercing at the base of his tail. Beel could not agree, because he was not his citizen, but under his watchful eye, Asmo did it himself and put a padlock on Phenix, thanks to which his tail does not burn inanimated objects.

Phenix can actually regulate whether his tail will burn someone or not, but he's too excited to consider such things.

Perfect for fighting. Angel feathers smell beautiful when they burn. In addition, severed limbs can be burned to prevent the enemy from bleeding out too quickly.

When not excited, his tail curls up and is much smaller and about the size of Stolas. At least that's what Morax said. No one else can confirm or deny.

Sensitiveness ?/10. How do you want to touch the fire? 

In fact, you saw that a one person can touch Phenix's tail whenever he wants. But Asmo is a mean bastard and all you will hear from him is "try it yourself".

In bed it can only be used as a night lamp. At least until you teach that little bird to keep his emotions in check (good luck).

Ronove

Calf-length, very hard, covered with stone-hard skin, with a ball the size of a fist at the end. Morningstar, actually. Dark, gray skin, rough. He actually has patches like a dinosaur. 

The spines are long, sharp and hooked at the tip. They will tear out a piece of meat if they get stuck. 

Can retract spikes. He controls them much better than Phenix controls his flame. When you're dealing with just the ball, it's very nicely slick and in the right shape... wait, that should have been at the end.

When he was younger and Asmodeus told him to shut up, he put his tail in his mouth. Now it's a bit too big. You can lick it too... wait, yes, at the end. Again. Oops. 

Perfect massager. Heavy enough that you can feel it running along your back and shoulders, but not overwhelming.

Sensitiveness 7/10. He loves playing with his tail when you are together. The tip and base are the most sensitive. Play with them, but not too gently, spankings and whips are most desirable.

Rough skin is perfect for grinding. Besides, he'd love to see it.

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…well, we know about one more figure from this country. And I have an unhealthy obsession with him. He's so hot he burned a hole in my brain, and he isn't even out yet. We only know his appearance from Love Unholyc, but just let's have some fun, I'll try to fit him something. We'll see how this post ages lol.

Asmodeus

Scorpion tail. As thick as his arms, black as his hair, hard and shiny, with a sting at the end.

At first, his tail is confused with Beel and vice versa. In fact, they are two completely different things. Beel is much more flexible and thinner, while Asmo is larger and harder.

He likes to sit on a chaise-longue-like throne in a brothel-looking hall, hold you in his lap, wrap his deadly tail around you, and watch Dantesque scenes at his feet with his queen by his side. The only thing missing is popcorn.

Like his hair, the tail is wrapped in barbed wire. Normal devils would prefer it had some sort of cover on it. The other kings wondered whether they should really do one to him.

Of course it's poisonous. The only antidote is to drink milk from his horn. If you don't please him, he will sting you to try harder. He likes watching you fight for your life…

...but he will never lose himself enough to do real harm to you. I mean, kill you. He will detoxify you long before you pass out.

By the way, do I need to mention that this poison is the strongest aphrodisiac in hell?

Sensitiveness 4/10. As opposed to being the embodiment of lust, his tail is used for fighting rather than caressing.

Yes, he will try to put his stinger in you. No, this is not a good idea. Of course he knows it, but he loves the horror and outrage on your face.

[a-world-with0ut-dr34ms]

John Price x Reader

Wounded, bloody, and just the two of you. A mission gone wrong leads to a long overdue moment between both you and your Captain, perhaps too late to count for anything. Not if either of you two can help it at least.

Part One of Two (Possibly Three Part short story).

EDIT* I went back and proofread this again and fixed errors. I didn't realize I posted this in such a crummy state before, I'm sorry!

TW//: Blood, Violence

Angst, Drama, Action, Romance, Near Death Experiences, Confessions, slightly Dark, some Fluffy Dialogue (not a ton though), Tension, slight Suspense, slight Slow Burn, For the girlies who like when their romantic moments feel a little teased and earned, Though this might still be boring garbage, plus the real stuff doesn't start 'til part two. The "developing feelings through almost dying in front of each other" trope, my favorite trope lowkey

This was not the smut piece I have been planning to write for Price (That's still coming), I wanted to practice writing him a little and this sprung on me after playing MW 2019. Figured I'd post it, though this is just to indulge my growing obsession with this man. Let me know if he's OOC, I want to write him well! Enjoy!

Part Two | Part Three

Price's voice suddenly shouts out from the living room, frantic and wired...

"Ambush! Get behind cover!"

...However, his warnings are drowned out by the whistling of an RPG heading straight for your location. It cuts through the evening sky, coming to you as a black dot zipping by at the blink of an eye.

The rocket breaks through the window of the house you and Price had been tasked to raid for intel, as the explosion goes off against one of the walls behind you. The sound which follows is unlike any you've ever heard the likes of before. A piercing, defeaning pop; the loudest and most unpleasant thing imaginable.

The sharp, crashing boom it erupts around you is hot like fire, singing your uniform and blasting you forward. It's the last thing you remember, before being greeted into a world of swirling blacks and oranges. In pain and completely immobile. Momentarily knocked unconscious.

You're not so sure how much time passes before you come to again. Only a handful of minutes or so. Though in that span, you've listened to the sounds of growing gunfire and shouting rise like a terrifying mob outside. Coming in and out in hot flashes.

Had your Captain's shouting not broken through this foggy barrier, you would have thought you'd have just died. You wouldn't be so lucky.

"Lieutenant!" you hear him call out. His voice grows more desperate the longer he hasn't heard from you. "I'm comin'!"

As the dust began to settle, you felt yourself coming back. You groan in pain, your entire body sore from the blast. Brick and stone rubble surround you like a straightjacket. You're pretty sure the entire roof of the house had fallen on top of you just now. Beneath it all, it was hard to tell for certain.

As you lie trapped, waiting to be rescued, you couldn't help but think about the mission. You and Price should have known this was some sort of setup.

Even Laswell had doubts this lead on Makarov wasn't just some trap to lure out their rivals and take them out, but with this recent dry spell on the investigation, your team couldn't afford to pass up the chance at some potentially valuable leads. It's why Laswell kept the team small, sending only you two on this one.

An easy enough operation: infiltrate the building, gather the intel, and get out. Nothing new. Only all you've found in this rinky-dink building on the outskirts of Urzikstan was a handful of AQ remnants and their new Russian PMC allies. And they knew you two were coming too.

The marked house was empty, both of any life and intel. And not even a second later were they all on top of your location, every inch of this town and the hills that surrounded it dug in with hostiles.

You'd have to ask Price later how it was he was able to push back that hoard alone, if you can make it out of this. There's no telling what they'd do to you both if they caught you in here, and that's if they even take you in alive.

You feel bits of rubble being shifted off your body, immense amounts of pressure releasing upon their departure. It's quickly replaced by the sharp bruising and pain it's left in its wake beneath your uniform.

"I'm right here," you hear Price's voice try to soothe you from up above, that gruff Liverpool accent of his clear enough even through the strain and stress. He hasn't let you down a day since you've known him. He wasn't about to make today his first.

Another large bit of rubble gets removed, taking the darkness away and flooding light down from above.

You could have sworn you were looking at an angel when you finally made out the silhouette of the man rescuing you. Your Captain. John Price.

"I've got you," Price assures you, his words felt wracked with adrenaline, hands moving near on impulse.

His hat was gone, short brown hair in a light tussle, and dust and light soot coating the black of his uniform and scruff of his beard. It almost worried you not to see him in it; he never parts from that thing. Perhaps during the blast it had gotten caught in the crossfires and rendered unwearable.

For some reason, it only made the situation feel much more worse than you originally thought.

His blue eyes find yours beneath the rubble, and you watch all the dread he'd been juggling with subside into relief the second he hears you cough out all the dust and wall you'd inhaled, struggling to catch your breath. He sighs to himself with a smile.

He doesn't even hear the words when he says them. Price only says the first thing that came to mind the minute you've finally stopped coughing to see him again.

"Thank fuckin' Christ."

Once Price saw you weren't dead, he finished removing the rubble from off of you. It's the bit he removes from your right arm that finally pulls a pained cry out of you. It's so intense it's as though reality just now set back in for you.

Your entire right arm felt numb from the elbow down, your fingers no longer feeling attached to your body. Had you not held your breath and sucked up the courage to look (with your peripherals first), you would have thought you'd lost your arm in the explosion.

Though it didn't make it any less broken and fucked. Nor did it make it any easier to not become fearful of what this could mean for you.

The Captain immediately notices the condition of your arm once he's cleared the debris off you. Cursing under his breath, Price helps you to your feet, brushing as much dirt from you as he can.

"You broken?" he asks. "Apart from the arm?"

You feel for what weapons still remained attached to your body after the blast, finding just a slender knife and your holstered pistol. Only two clips though. Of course.

Your arm and entire backside ached something fierce, and your brain felt as though it had been rattled inside your head and then some. If you shut your eyes now, you feared fainting dead away, and the ringing in your ears has yet to subside.

But your current state would have to do. It's that or die here. You knew that, and Price knew that too.

"I'm still here, Captain."

Price smiles, his gaze softening for just the slightest second. Happy to see his training and advice being taken seriously.

It just now was beginning to dawn on him that you hadn't died in here with him either. Seeing you OK and still ready to fight felt fuel enough for the Captain to keep going.

"That you are," he says.

Price parts from you to take post back by the freshly made hole in the wall, readying his rifle. Most of the building had collapsed in on itself, with the exception of the back of the house still being mostly intact.

Outside you could see the mountain of bodies Price had no doubt created while you were buried. None made it too close to where your position was.

With the coast temporarily clear, the current objective at hand remained the same: Get to the Evac Zone stat and get the hell out of dodge.

"This building's gonna be surrounded by Russians and AQ in less than a minute if we don't bug out now," Price warns. "And there'll be more where that came from, so ready yourself for a fight."

"Price..."

The Captain looks back at you, hearing the sudden dread in your voice. It takes him having to have stepped away from you to finally see that something really was up.

Your eyes look down to his waist, where you see the blood beginning to pool at his hip, staining his clothing and growing larger by the minute. It's clear he'd used what he could to try and wrap it, though it hadn't been enough. The adrenaline must have taken his mind away from it.

It figures you weren't the only one who got wounded here.

You look back up at Price, worried. Quiet.

Price looks down at his wound, placing a hand against it and seeing the warm, wet liquid coat his tattered glove. Whether it be a front or really only a flesh wound, Price doesn't dare break composure in front of you. You both would need him clearheaded.

"It's nothin' fatal," he simply tells you.

You knew Price wouldn't make a big deal about his injury, even if it were serious, which you honestly could not tell from where you were standing. You also knew Price wouldn't want you to worry about it either. He never liked when you worried for him; that's his job.

The time dwindled all the same; you can worry about it when you both get home.

You look to Price with contentment. You wouldn't be another reason for his worries if you could help it. "It'll make a good story for the boys later."

Price smiles back at you. "You'll tell it better than me, I'm sure."

The growing sound of men shouting and vehicles rushing to flank your position makes your blood run cold. If you didn't leave soon, neither of you would make it out of this to tell your stories.

You try and get that adrenaline you felt before to spike back up, knowing this was a matter of life and death now. Though your body betrayed you.

Your heart won't stop racing, no matter how much you try and calm yourself. Your hands keep shaking, and you can't help but keep checking the recently blasted hole behind you and your Captain. Soon to be flooded with enemies. Afraid.

Price must have noticed your worrying, because he steps away from his position and does something completely outside of himself suddenly. Though as he did so, it couldn't have felt more natural of a thing to do. Like a gesture he's spent his whole life waiting to give you.

He rests his hand gently on your cheek, bringing your eyes forward so you could see nothing beyond his own gaze. This close, even as night falls over the town and darkness shrouds the remains of this little house, this felt the clearest you've ever looked upon your Captain.

There's a glint of determination in his eyes, all the years of experiences that have worn and torn him the older he has gotten, defining the finer parts of his features. His expression always softened at the sight of you, an act you alone pulled from him for the first time truly, now.

Price was here with you. At that moment, it was the only thing that mattered.

"Hey," his thumb caresses your cheek, his jaw clenching to keep from wincing at the pain in his abdomen. "We're alive. Let's keep it that way, yeah? I'm not leavin' here without you."

His jaw tenses once more and you think for a second he might say something else. But he holds his tongue, wanting the most for you to keep calm beside him.

You can feel it in the air around him; the captain's as bugged out as you are right now. He was just doing everything he could to keep being a leader and bottle it up, channeling those fears and turning them into fuel to keep going. His words may be more for himself, than you, but they're true enough.

You lift your good hand up and let it rest over his, feeling his hand stiffen at first, but then find its home against your palm. You didn't want to have to let go, but you knew you must eventually. So you nod. "Damn right, you're not."

Price chuckles, happy to see you on the same page. "Fuckin' A, love," he quickly quips. "Now let's move."

The rocky hills stretched further out ahead of you. At some point their edges seem to blend with the black of the sky, all the stars gone away someplace. Luck would see a full moon above your heads, providing the only bit of light on this makeshift route to the Evac Zone.

You have Price's arm over your left shoulder now, having to help him the rest of the way since you've escaped the base. No amount of tough guy act the Captain put on could prevent the amount of blood he'd been losing. Had he not started tumbling over mid-shootout suddenly, you wouldn't have even known. And you wanted to kill him yourself once you did too.

It's nothin' fatal, he had said. The lie of the fucking century, right?

By now his dark blood has practically stained the entire lower right side of his body, making his skin pale and his eyelids heavy. His movements slowed, his reflexes taking a severe hit because of it, and he was beginning to breathe heavier. You've gone through all your supplies trying to stop his bleeding before leaving the house. Nothing worked.

It had been infuriating, just as it'd been scary to realize that your Captain really did need a medic right now. If he didn't see a doctor soon, he might just bleed to death before you've made it out of here.

Of course, having to help him now meant you couldn't shoot at all, given the state of your other arm. Price helped with what he could, but even a man of his talents couldn't prevent shaky shots from increasing blood loss.

"Nikolai's not far out now," Price grunted out, doing his best to put one more clip into his pistol. The last one. "Should be a few more clicks along this trail."

"He couldn't fly a little closer," you huff out, readjusting your hold on the Captain. He wasn't a light man, and while he did everything in his power to make this easier for you, his weakening state only grew harder to carry.

"You holdin' up alright?" Price asks. You feel him once again, ready himself to try and pull away and stand on his own feet. Having to rely on you was eating away at him, you could tell.

"I'm fine," you tell him, though that's not all the way true. Your vision had started to blur, and your lungs felt on fire. Now that some time has passed, all your once numb injuries were suddenly starting to scream at you for relief. Had you not been concentrating on your steps in front of you, or the thumping of your heart inside your ringing ears, you would have fainted already.

But you were all Price had right now; there was no way you'd fail him when he needed you most. "I'm more worried about you, Captain."

"Still got my wits about me..." he says. "Maybe a little lighter now, given I've been leakin' like a faucet."

"I'd beg to differ."

"Eh, you can use the exercise, lieutenant."

"Or you can lose the weight, Captain."

You both chuckle, and for a second, it felt easier to pretend you both were somewhere else right now. Spending all the time together you only wish you had before.

The levity was needed. It kept you both sane and human, and right now, Price was kicking himself in the ass for not appreciating these moments with you sooner.

The team really lucked out when they recruited you, he saw that now. You've always made sure you were someone Price could trust. That you were someone he could depend on you. You kept a cool head and you did what you must, while staying both good-natured and sweet, despite everything.

And when everything was said and done, you came back to him, keeping a smile as neutral as his own could manage. Your eyes bright like stars with him in your sights. His would often do the same.

All the times you've been at his side before tonight, keeping his head on straight when he needed it most, and always reminding him of life outside of all of this, they've only increased over the years. In every moment it always felt as though you two only teetered at the next level of your fondness for one another. Both wanting to push further, but not wanting to push the other too quickly either.

Your roles on the team always came first; they seemed to be the most important thing at the time.

Every lingering touch, a longing gaze brought by excitement and recognition, a check-in during work, or a brief moment of conversation... that's where your relationship has stayed for years now. You both felt OK with that. You thought so at first.

However, Price knew one thing. He couldn't lose you tonight. He wouldn't. Not on his account. Not when there's so much more that can still be. John's lived long enough to know that when something feels this right, there is no time to waste, lest he lose that chance forever like he has with so many others before.

You feel Price grow slack against your side now, his blood starting to soak through your uniform. It took everything in you not to panic.

"I won't let you fall," you assure him now, adjusting him against you. "Just keep holding on."

The smell of blood is so strong, you'll never forget its scent long after you've left this place. Nor would you forget seeing your Captain this way. Hurt and broken. You know he's no stranger to it, but alas, John is still human.

"...I'm taking you out for dinner after this," Price up and says suddenly. He figures he should just throw that out there, in case he didn't get another chance to. "My treat."

You nearly trip when you hear him, as if you're heart needed any more of a reason to fluctuate. You lost count of how long you've waited to hear him say that, having spent so many nights daydreaming about a time he'd come up to you and actually asked you out. It felt like everything you imagined it would; if only it had been under better circumstances.

"Is that a promise, Captain?"

"You know I wouldn't bluff about that, love."

"Well, then you better keep it then, John."

"As you wish."

He could hardly understand how it was you were still able to push through all that growing pain in your body after taking such a blast. He couldn't be more proud of it either.

The town illuminated like a glowing city behind you, AQ and Russians creating an uproar there, regardless of your presence. It was no longer your problem, however. The approaching convoy heading your direction was.

You weren't out of the fire just yet.

You look around yourselves, only having a few large rocks and boulders to hide behind in your immediate vicinity. Little word is needed to be shared between you two before the plan was nonverbally green-lit.

You both take cover behind a large rock facing the hills, Price resting down against the rock as you took out your pistol. It was time to see if your shooting with your left hand has improved any more than it did a few minutes ago during your escape.

You peak over the stone, seeing four AQ soldiers step out with rifles and flashlights, already hot on your pursuit. Tracking the trail of blood you'd left behind. Price peaks around the other side of the rock, raising his pistol.

"You take the two on the right," he whispers. "I got left."

You nod, and then take position. Price takes the first shot, dropping both his targets with swift precision. Even wounded, the man always had a way with pistols. Forever the dead-eye shot.

You drop one AQ soldier, happy to see your aim improve. However, your heart sinks when you go to shoot the other soldier and you hear the click of your pistol suddenly. Out of ammo.

The AQ soldier fires at you, the bullet just grazing by your cheek, before another hits you straight at the center of your chest, rattling your sternum and knocking you off your feet. Without your bulletproof vest, that bullet would have torn straight through you. Though you might as well have died, with the pain it sent through you instead. Knocking the wind out of you.

Before you know it, Price has reached over and started pulling you back behind the boulder. "Hold on!" he says. "You're not dead yet."

Price goes to try and get to his knees and peek over the boulder, however, now that he's sat back behind the rock again with you, it's become an impossible task to even wiggle his feet at this point. Like his legs were losing feeling. The blood loss really was starting to catch up to him now, it seems.

So instead, Price did the next best thing, simply waiting for the AQ soldier to round the corner, which he stupidly does. The minute the enemy's head peaks over, Price shot twice for good measure, watching the man drop to the ground with a heavy thud.

"I think we're clear," he says. "Still breathing?"

"Yeah," you gasp out.

A lot of times, you're not sure if you'd make it through a lot of these missions if Price wasn't here. The true backbone of the 141. The man always just seemed to be prepared for anything, even with the odds stacked against him. Often feeling like some other worldly being on the field, unable to be truly harmed by the threats he faced.

Until now, you couldn't even picture him so hurt.

When Price went on a mission, you could trust he'd get it done, if no one else. And you could always trust he'd make it back too. One way or another. Of course, he wasn't always lucky, as rare as those days actually came. Luck seemed to only be a recent thing for him in fact, and of short supply tonight.

You push yourself up, rubbing your hand over your chest in an attempt to soothe the throbbing. You're unsure what bad juju you yourself had crossed, or why lady luck seemed on your side even despite it all, but maybe fate wanted you to make it out of here.

One of you at least.

You look over at Price and see him barely able to keep consciousness now, cold sweat forming at the sides of his face, and a puddle of blood building around his legs. His breathing broken. Dying.

Seeing him now, pale, bloodied, and relying on a rock behind him to keep himself upright... for the first time ever you felt fear for your Captain.

"No, no, no," you rush over to Price, taking hold of his face and bringing his eyes to you. Seeing them so close again wakes him somewhat. "Stay with me, Captain."

"I'm still here..." Price answers weakly. Even still, he tries to keep up an act in front of you, like he truly was fine. It only made you more afraid to lose him now. Out in some rocky hilltop in the middle of nowhere because of bad intel. You couldn't lose him like this.

You look over the boulder, seeing the convoy those AQ soldiers showed up in still running a few feet ahead of you. Just what you needed.

"Can you stand?" You ask.

"...I'll need help," he said.

"OK, OK..." You take a deep breath, plotting everything out in your head before taking Price's hand in yours. "There's a convoy over there we can take to the Evac Zone. It'll be faster than going on foot."

You start trying to pull Price up, feeling the man use all the strength he can muster to try and push off the ground and back to his feet. Having one hand to help him didn't make matters easier, however. He made it halfway before falling back against the cold stone with a sharp grunt and some swearing.

Rather than comment, you take Price's hand again, feeling your face turn red with trying to lift him. He gets his knees bent to stand this time, but whenever any weight was applied afterward, an aggressive pain would awkwardly shoot through his body, taking all the momentum from him and causing him to sink back down. And with how heavy he was, you couldn't stop him once he it happened.

Price falls back against the rock again, as frustrated as you are about it all. He can't even bring himself to look you in your eye he's so mad, ashamed of the situation. It's not like him to be the one holding things back. He shouldn't have gotten wounded like this in the first place, he felt.

"...If you go and get help, I can manage here 'til then," Price starts to say. Feeling like a burden, he no longer wished to hold you down. But you wouldn't hear it.

"Fuck that," you protest. "I didn't carry you all the way over here to leave you so you can bleed out."

"...You didn't do it to die here either." He grabs at his side, gritting his teeth along to that burning pain he felt, as the taste of iron tinted the back of his throat now. "Look, this ain't how I plan on goin' out, trust me. Plus we've still got that dinner, yeah?"

Price smiles at you after he says it, and it takes everything in you not to cry. An unspoken reality lingered in the air soon after, because you both knew what it'd mean if you couldn't pick him up from this spot. You'd give anything to not make that so.

You hear more vehicles heading your way from the town. A good handful of them now. Too many. All armed and ready to take out the two 141 soldiers responsible for killing their friends. You knew if you left Price here now, you wouldn't see him again.

"Fuck..." Out of breath and defeated, sorrow starts to settle in and you swallow it down, letting the feelings stir into frustration. "Why'd we wait so long, John?"

Price felt at a loss for words. "I don't know..." he admits. He couldn't quite give you an answer for that; it had always just been... something. He could at least look you in your eyes when he spoke to you now. "But... I'm sorry for that," he says. "Probably should have said somethin' sooner, huh."

You have to bite your cheek to keep from letting his words fill you with so much sorrow and regret. "You and me both."

Fearful that these may actually be your final moments with your Captain, now you wish he hadn't said anything at all, not knowing you'd be losing him so soon after. Leave it to Price to twist the knife in a wound you didn't even know had now grown.

However, Price did not share your begrudging feelings about how things turned out. He'd just been happy finally getting that off his chest. Now, if you could just get to safety then if he did die tonight he'd be satisfied enough with things.

"Better late than never, right?" Price chuckles through the pain. And then he grows quiet. "You know I've always had a pension for dramatic timing."

The vehicles in the distance getting closer now. There was no more time for further talking.

"Forever the attention seeker, Captain," you comment.

"Yours is all I ever needed."

You look back to the town a final time, seeing the convoys getting closer. You take a deep breath, and then you reapproach your Captain, taking his hand. You prepare yourself to try and lift Price back up to his feet again. "Well, you've got it."

"Now hold on-"

"No," you didn't want to hear any more of his excuses to be left behind. If helping him means you both die here, then that was something you were willing to risk. "I'm not leaving you here, so give it up already."

With one final pull, you use all the strength you have left in you to lift your Captain up to his feet. He uses your momentum to push himself up from the boulder, actually managing to stand, though it feels as though his guts are about to spill out of him when he does.

As he's teetering over, you quickly grab hold of his arm, restabilizing him, and trying not to jump too much for joy that you actually got him up this time.

You take his arm and wrap it back around your shoulder, as you guided him over to the convoy.

"We're damn near home free, Captain," you say. "Just hold on a little longer. You'll make it. You're the toughest man I know."

He is the toughest man you knew. A man ready to jump into the fire to save others in need. A man that can shrug off a helicopter crash, take a beating and still keep from succumbing. You knew he'd never go down without a fight, and it's why you felt so safe beside him. It's why you wouldn't leave him.

You open the passenger door and help Price inside.

"...You really want that dinner, don't you?" he teases you.

"Is that even a question?" You check to make sure the vehicle can still run, feeling for any tracking devices that might overcomplicate your escape. Once you see you're good to go, you buckle your seat belt and take the wheel. "Yeah, I want that dinner. Now stop bleeding and sit tight."

"Yes, ma'am."

Next stop, the Evac Zone.

Part Two

[pullhisteeth]

the end is near | eddie munson x reader

posting this here as well as my old blog because there’s a part two in the works hehe. xxx

summary: you’re with Steve, Robin, Dustin and Max when they find Eddie in Rick’s boathouse. You don’t know him, but he knows you. The two of you spend the night together, not knowing you’re sitting on the edge of the end of the world, and get to know each other.

word count: 5.5k

contains: 18+ !!! a recount/rewriting of the events of episode 2, angst (Eddie is terrified, obvs), bitchy!reader, fem!reader, use of y/n, implied/very light smut, weed, a Pretty In Pink reference, enemies to lovers (kind of), one-sided pining, lots of dialogue. it’s a bit bittersweet, but in my head the ending of s4 is very different. maybe there’ll be a part 2 idk I am a busy woman!!! also fluff. lol

author’s note: had this idea so long ago and I finally finished it! I hope the bits that are word-for-word rewrites of episode 2 aren’t too boring! I will also inevitably edit this tomorrow so sorryyyy. enjoy xxx

-

It’s a cold March this year.

1986 has been a doozy so far – you’re out of school with nothing to do but doze off behind the counter of the record store downtown. It’s next door to Family Video, where your friends work: Robin, your life-long best friend, partner in crime, and (platonic) love of your life, and Steve Harrington, her unlikely new companion. Lunch breaks are spent by the bins out back, chatting shit and eating even worse shit from the diner across the street. But it’s nice enough; you have very little to complain about.

That is until one dull, frostbitten day, when your break is interrupted by two teenagers whose voices are far too loud for your liking. One’s a nerdy little kid, brown curly hair and a stupid baseball cap, whose enthusiasm for life seems way beyond your own, but the other, a sullen redhead wielding a skateboard and a serious case of resting bitch face, is more to your liking. You see yourself in her a lot.

They’re shouting wildly, arms flailing at Steve and Robin, and you catch the words missing, trailer park, Eddie.

You’re not an idiot; you’d seen the news that morning, same as everyone else in Hawkins. Eddie wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to you – he’d been doing his second senior year the year you’d done your first with Robin – but what you do know of him is unsavoury. He’s an unkind and boisterous individual who riles the basketball team up and deals drugs to kids, and you had wanted nothing to do with him.

You’re paying very little attention to what’s happening behind the counter, instead spending your limited minutes on break strolling aimlessly up and down the aisles, wondering whether you should rent a movie for that evening. A sudden grip on your wrist and tug of your arm shakes you clean awake, and without realising it you’re being pulled out of Family Video and into Steve’s car by a very frazzled looking Robin.

You are completely silent in the back seat. The car’s swamped by shouts between Steve, driving, and the louder kid, wedged in the trunk. You learn that his name is Dustin, and realise that this must be the one Steve moans about – never cruelly, always fondly. The girl, who you decide is called Red for the time being, is to your left, looking sullenly out the window.

You inch your hand across the leather between the two of you and tug lightly on the sleeve of her jacket. She turns to you, brows furrowed slightly.

“Are they always like this?” you murmur, leaning closer so she can hear you over the echoes of how do you know where you’re going?! and there is no way I’m getting the car up there and Steve, keep your eyes on the road!

She looks taken aback when you speak to her, almost as though she didn’t realise you were there at all.

“Yeah, most of the time,” she says, sharp and monotonous. God, she really is just like you.

“How do you put up with it?” you ask her, genuinely interested.

She reaches into her backpack between her feet and pulls out a Walkman and a pair of headphones. Giving you a sympathetic smile, she puts them on and pushes the heavy play button.

You lean forward and rest your chin on the side of the passenger seat in front of you. Robin’s turned towards Steve so she sees you, and when she shifts to look at you her face softens.

“Sorry about this,” she says, eyes genuinely apologetic.

“S’okay, just left the shop unlocked and ready to be robbed bare, but it’s fine,” you laugh. You really don’t care too much about your job, and you know the owner probably won’t notice that you took off for the afternoon. You’ll just miss a day’s pay.

You push the thought to the side.

“Where are we going?” you whisper to her, faces close enough that she can hear.

“Up to the lake. Henderson’s friend Eddie’s up there. We think, anyway,” she says.

“Eddie Munson?!” you exclaim, a little too loud for the small gap between yourself and Robin. She winces at the volume and the other voices in the car stop. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Red turn to look at you and take off her headphones.

You watch Robin take a breath as she starts to speak, but Steve cuts her off.

“He’s not a murderer, y/n, before you say anythi-“

“That’s not what the news said!” You sit back, away from Robin’s chair, and stare wide-eyed at Steve. His knuckles are white where he’s gripping the wheel.

“Shut up,” he bites. His voice is hard and it stings like a slap to the cheek.

“Fuck off,” you spit back, huffing and crossing your arms, slinking back into your seat. “This is crazy, Steve. Pull over and let me out, I’ll just walk back.”

“Y/n,” comes a voice right beside your left ear. It makes you jump out of your skin.

You turn to see Dustin Henderson leaning over the back seats. Your eyes drift to Red, who’s staring at the commotion.

“It’s y/n, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, well, hi. I’m Dustin.” He sticks his hand awkwardly over the seat, as if to shake yours.

After a confused beat of looking between it and his grinning face, you sheepishly take it in your own and shake lightly.

“Nice to meet you, kid,” you mutter.

“Eddie didn’t murder Chrissy,” Dustin begins. “He wouldn’t, he’s a good guy.”

“Yeah, right,” you grumble.

“Seriously. She died, but he didn’t kill her. We think we know-“

“HENDERSON!”

All three of the other people in the car scold him, loudly and in unison. You’re more confused than you were when you left the video store at this point.

“What?!” Dustin shouts.

“Just- Everyone shut up, please?” Steve begs. His grip is still white with tension around the wheel, and you see Robin give him a sympathetic look before turning to look out of her window. Red’s doing the same to your left. “We’re like five minutes away. Just be quiet.”

He’s not wrong. He puts the car in park a few minutes later, and through the sparse trees you can see a run-down looking shack.

You have so many questions buzzing around your brain but you choose to remain silent, scared in part by the stoic expression on Steve’s face.

“Rick!”

“Henderson, seriously?” Steve sighs as Dustin walks away from the car, towards the shack, yelling the name of a convicted drug dealer like he’s looking for his cat in the garden.

The rest of you follow him with flashlights, but when you get to the house it seems completely empty. In fact, it’s as if no one has been here for months – from what you can see through the grubby windows, the living room is covered in a thick layer of dust.

Ding.

You and Steve whip round to find Dustin stood at the front door, ringing the bell.

You hear Steve huff out a “what the-“ before Dustin begins rapidly pressing the bell and banging on the door.

“Okay. Well, that’s settled. I guess he’s not here,” Steve says, defeated.

They’re so intent on getting through the door that they don’t spot Red – but you do. She’s creeping around the side of the building, so you follow her.

Before you round the corner, you hear her yell, “hey, guys.”

When you catch up to her, she’s pointing at an old boathouse down by the lake. It’s derelict. Perfect for hiding a fugitive.

Carefully skirting down the banking, the five of you wander around the building. It’s dark now, the sun still going down early, and this whole thing’s got you spooked.

Robin’s the first inside, pushing the creaking metal door open, and as the rest of you follow, you feel the anxious well in your gut getting deeper. You cling to Steve’s jacket, and he doesn’t ask questions. Instead, he extends his arm behind him, and you take his hand wordlessly.

It’s quiet inside, the floor creaky and it smells of rotting wood. You separate, each of you heading in a different direction, flashlight beams dotting around the room. There’s a boat hanging in the middle of the room, and you nearly trip over old beams and boat stuff a couple times.

A loud noise and Dustin saying, “what are you doing?!” makes you jump again. You spin round to see Steve with an oar in his hand, prodding tarps and boxes with it.

“What are you doing?” Dustin repeats, voice hushed.

“He might be in here,” Steve shrugs, still beating a pile of tarp.

“So take the tarp off!”

“If you’re so brave, you take the tarp off.”

“I thought you guys said he didn’t murder her,” you say bluntly.

Dustin looks at you with a hurt expression. It instantly makes you feel bad.

“Hey, look over here.”

Red’s stood across the room, by a table. You and Robin join her, and you see she’s found a mess of empty beer bottles and food wrappers.

“Maybe he heard us. Got spooked and ran,” Robin suggests.

“Don’t worry, Steve will get him with his oar.” Dustin’s sarcasm doesn’t do much to dispel the strange tension filling the musty room.

“I know you think you’re being funny, Henderson,” Steve retorts. “But considering the fact that everyone in this room has nearly died a hundred times, personally, I don’t find it funny in the-“

Before you can begin to try to process the fact that he just said everyone here has nearly died before, and numerous times, something – or someone – comes flying out from under the tarp Steve had been battering.

Everything happens very quickly. You guys realise it’s Eddie – he’s difficult to mistake for anything other than a wild animal, but the very iconic denim vest gives him away – and soon he’s got Steve backed against a wall with what looks like a broken glass bottle at his neck. There’s a lot of shouting and screaming, and from where you’re stood you can see the incredible look on Eddie’s face.

It’s one of fear, sure, but it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. He looks terrified, eyes wide and sunken.

“Eddie! Eddie, stop, it’s me, it’s Dustin, this is Steve. He’s not gonna hurt you, right, Steve?”

From underneath Eddie’s huge hand around his neck, Steve chokes out a right, yeah, and drops the oar on Dustin’s command. You watch Eddie visibly relax, although his guard is very clearly still up, and find yourself thinking that he actually looks quite good, until you shake the thought away, because he’s a murderer and you’re in the room with a murderer and he might murder you and all your friends and why the fuck are you here again?

Eddie’s eyes are flitting around the room, across the familiar and unfamiliar faces, and when they land on yours you feel yourself stiffen.

There’s some more tense interaction, but between them, Dustin and Robin bring Eddie down. The whole situation sends your head a bit fuzzy, and even while you’re hanging back, behind everyone else, you feel unbearably exposed. There’s exchanged names wherein you learn that Red is really called Max, and when Dustin tries to introduce you, he says, “actually, I don’t know who y/n is, but she’s cool, okay?”, and you wish the kind words of a teenager weren’t making you feel so rosy on the inside.

Eddie’s very clearly panicked, and when Dustin tells him you guys are just there to talk, he says, “you won’t believe me.”

You’re taken aback by this, having been so sure he’d just deny everything straight up, but then Max says, “try us.” And so he does; he recounts the most batshit story you’ve ever heard. And while you stand there, arms crossed defiantly across your chest, your mouth hangs agape. But then you look around and see that everyone else, even Robin, seems entirely undisturbed by this elaborate story.

“You all think I’m crazy, right?” Eddie says between sarcastic scoffs and what you’re sure are tears.

“No. We don’t think you’re crazy,” Dustin responds.

For a kid, Henderson is damn good at being reassuring.

“Speak for yourself,” you mutter under your breath. You think it’s quiet enough, but you realise you’re mistaken when everyone turns to look at you. Including Eddie.

“We believe you,” Robin says calmly, turning back to look at Eddie. He looks at her, really looks at her, and then Dustin says, “Look, what I’m about to tell you might be a little difficult for you to take.” And he turns to you, and says, “both of you.”

You look at the faces around the room, bewildered, and then Robin nods over to Eddie. It takes you a moment, but you realise she wants you to go sit next to him.

You’re a stubborn person by nature, and so you stand rooted to the spot for a brief moment, until the daggers she’s shooting at you through her eyes force your feet to move. You take a few creaky, uneasy steps over to him, and sit as far along the box he’s using as a seat as you can.

He eyes you suspiciously, but turns back to Dustin, satisfied.

To describe your emotions in the following minutes would be to attempt the impossible.

Dustin, Robin, Steve and Max stand around yourself and Eddie and tell you an otherworldly story – literally – about parallel dimensions, monsters they’ve named after Dungeons and Dragons characters (this particular detail seems to entertain Eddie, though it’s lost on you), and a girl you’ve never met who can read minds or something. It’s all impossible to take in; your brain becomes impenetrable, and you refuse to believe any of it. Eddie’s right there with you, until they start asking him questions about ‘dark particles’ and Chrissy’s death.

“You know, I tried to wake her, man. She couldn’t move. It was like she… she was in a trance or something,” Eddie says.

“Or under a spell,” Dustin offers, a layer of concern coating his voice.

“A curse.”

“Vecna’s curse.”

It’s this revelation, which appears to happen only between the two of them, that changes everything. You’re still sat next to Eddie, but you feel further away from this conversation than ever. None of it makes any sense.

It’s so dark out by now that it must be late. Steve and Robin decide that you’ll leave Eddie there for the night and come back with supplies in the morning, but Dustin isn’t satisfied.

“He can’t be here alone,” he insists. “What if something happens? One of us should stay with him.”

“None of us have time to stay with him, Henderson,” Steve barks. When Robin had told you he’s like a mother around these kids, you’d thought she was exaggerating. She wasn’t. “He’ll be fine on his own.”

“No, Dustin’s right,” Max says, giving Eddie a sympathetic smile. “It’s kinda dangerous to just leave him out here.”

There’s more bickering, Steve insistent that there’s no use anyone staying, Robin adding that they all have lives to live and it’ll look super duper suspicious if one of them just disappears, Eddie maintaining that he’ll be fine, just fine.

“I’ll stay.”

Your words cut through the arguing like a whip, the crack splitting the noise. Everybody turns to look at you, once again.

You’re stood away from the little circle that’s formed, by the box you’d been sat on, with your arms crossed over your chest. This time, it’s for warmth, rather than out of your usual stubbornness.

You’re not sure what made you say it, really; you don’t particularly like Eddie, but there’s something about the way he recounted the events with Chrissy that pulls a certain empathetic heartstring. You don’t know why.

Maybe you can find out.

“Y/n, you have work,” Steve says.

“I’ve already bailed all afternoon. They don’t care that much.”

“But what about your pare-“

“It’s fine.” Your words are hard and final, and Steve closes his mouth.

Robin treads over to you, face soft again.

“Are you sure about this? We dragged you out here without telling you anything, you don’t have to do this.”

“It’s fine. Just bring us some stuff in the morning. Eddie could do with some company, I’m sure.” You look at him, at where he’s stood. He’s mirroring Steve’s position, hands on his hips, and he shrugs.

“Would be nice, I guess.”

“I’ll be fine,” you say, turning back to Robin and giving her arm a squeeze.

“Okay. We’ll be back in the morning. No mischief, okay?” she says with a laugh, looking between the two of you. Everyone else seems to soften a little. She comes in closer, and whispers, “be nice, okay?”

“Yes, sir,” you reply.

The four of them leave you with flashlights and a few snacks Dustin found in Steve’s trunk. It’s cold and wet and generally fairly miserable all round, and quite soon you begin to question why on earth you offered to do this at all.

Eddie’s returned to the spot where he’d been hiding under the tarp. He’s cracked open a box of Cheesits, and so you take the chance to wander around the room, looking for anything that looks remotely warm.

“So, y/n,” Eddie pipes up, making you jump. “How’ve you been?”

You suppose the small talk was inevitable, so you indulge him. “Good, I guess. Better than you.”

“Ooh, scathing,” he gloats, with a dramatic hand clutched to his chest.

“Three goes at senior year doesn’t exactly sound like fun, Munson.”

“I’ll have you know I’m in love with Miss O’Donnell so I will keep failing her class until she falls in love with me too,” he says, and the attempt at a joke gets a genuine laugh out of you. You don’t miss how it makes the corner of his mouth turn up, even in the darkness. “I see you at Trax sometimes, y’know.”

“Oh, yeah? How come I’ve never seen you?” You’re surprised he’s ever noticed you enough to remember where you work.

“Oh, I never have the money for that place.”

You’re unconvinced by his excuse; you’ve got the distinct feeling he’s hiding something. He gives himself away by tripping over his words slightly.

“It’s a secondhand record store, Eddie. And you deal drugs.”

“Mm-hmm, that I do, but I’ve got a precious van to spoil with my riches.”

“Is it the same one as always?”

“Oh, so you remember her, do you?” He’s beaming at you now, clearly humoured by the fact that you remember him.

“Hard to forget a bright green van in the school parking lot.”

He chuckles at this, and you continue moving around, pulling things out that look like they could be soft and not made of plastic.

“This is the only blanket I could find,” Eddie says from behind you.

You turn and look at him and see that he’s pointing to a pile of something on the floor by his feet.

“No jumpers or anything?” Even though you layered up, you dressed for record store cold, not sleeping-in-a-boathouse cold, so you’re in a mini skirt, wool tights and a sweater.

“Nuh-uh. Here, take it,” he says, toeing the pile with his sneaker. You step over to him, across the rotting wood floor, and sit beside him on the tarp. He pulls the blanket up and tries to shake it out, and you reach up and help him so that you can spread it across the both of you before he tries to deny you. It’s thick, and seems to be padded with something, so it’s good enough for now.

He makes more conversation with you, asking about work and life after graduation. You ask about D&D, and you notice way his eyes widen when you keep going. You’re genuinely interested in it and he loves talking about it.

“I read Lord of the Rings when I was a kid, I love shit like that,” you tell him between handfuls of Cheesits, and he thinks you might be some kind of angel. You’re starting to warm to him, too; you no longer think he’s a murderer, at least.

“So you really remember me from school?” he asks you.

“You’re a little difficult to miss, Eddie,” you tell him, smiling. It’s true – he’s so loud, and tall, and his hair’s been long for a while now. He drives that stupid green van and plays metal so loud the whole parking lot hears him coming. And in the cafeteria, he’s never quiet.

“Yeah, but you were cool. Didn’t think cool people really noticed me, unless it’s Jason Carver trying to kick my ass,” he admits, and it makes your heart ache a little. He underestimates himself, firstly, and secondly, who the fuck does Jason Carver think he is?

“I was not cool. I had one friend.”

“Yeah but you’ve always been cool, you know. You were nice to me, and you always dressed pretty well.”

“What does that mean?!” You’re shocked at this confession of his. You try so hard to look like you don’t care that sometimes you think it works too well – you can’t believe that someone’s actually noticed any of this.

“I don’t know, you just always look good!” Under the sparse light of the moon, you watch as Eddie Munson blushes before you.

“Well, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, tone half-joking.

“I always thought you were an asshole,” you confess frankly.

“Now what does that mean?!” You look at his shocked expression and can’t help but laugh.

“Seriously?! You used to shout shit at people in the hall, you were always winding someone up. And that time you made Tammy Thompson cry in front of everyone? That was not cool.”

He shuts his mouth at this, and again you see a flush creep up his neck. Except this time it’s combined with a strange look on his face. His mouth’s turned down and his brows are too, like he’s sad.

“I don’t wanna make excuses for that,” he starts, and you give him A Look that says, but you’re going to anyway. He rolls his eyes playfully at you, but returns to his sombre expression, and continues. “I was an asshole, but there were… reasons.”

You don’t say anything, wanting to hear his reasons.

“There was… a lot going on, with my dad and stuff, and I think I took it out on other people. Not fair, I know,” he adds in response to the condescending look on your face. “But also Tammy Thompson nearly made me cry, so-“

“What?!” you say through a loud, barking laugh.

“Her and her friends were dicks. Steve Harrington being one of them,” he grumbles.

“Oh, so that explains the bottle,” you say, laughing at him, a little dramatic. This is fun, you think. You like talking to him.

“What d’you mean?”

“I did really think you were gonna kill him,” you say. “Partly ‘cause I thought you’d just killed Chrissy, but- shit, sorry, fuck. Shit. Sorry.” You realise you’ve brought it up, the fateful elephant in the room. You see his face drop.

“It’s, uh… it’s okay.” He lifts an arm to scratch at the back of his neck, and you wonder if he always does that when he’s anxious.

An awkward, stuffy silence blooms between the two of you and you wish the rotting floorboards would finally give way so that something could free you from this embarrassment. You fiddle with the rings on your fingers in your lap and feel an unbearable prickling warmth up your neck.

“Hey,” you hear Eddie say beside you, voice soft. He shifts where he’s sat so he’s turned to face you, his legs crossed. “It’s fine, seriously. It’s just still all so… fresh.” You feel oddly comforted by his confession of his anxieties, but his face makes your heart ache again. He’s so concerned, clearly traumatised, and it brings something to the boil within you.

“Eddie,” you whisper, too scared to speak any louder. Everything suddenly feels incredibly still and silent and you don’t dare do anything that might startle him.

He looks up at you with those big, round, sad eyes.

“It’s going to be okay,” you tell him. You have no idea if it’s true, or if you should be saying it, but that something within makes you.

He laughs an awkward, sarcastic laugh, and says, “I don’t think it is, y/n.” You don’t know what to say to this, but then he says, very earnestly, “thank you, though.”

“It’s okay,” you whisper back.

“You always were so nice to me,” he tells you again.

“I just wasn’t mean to you, Eddie. Your standards aren’t very high.”

“No, I always thought you were nice. Kind.”

That flush comes back into your cheeks; his words give you butterflies. It reminds you of high school, of those fleeting crushes that feel like Armageddon.

He really does look good, if tired. His eyes are red and sunken, his hair’s a matted mess, but he’s very pretty.

He looks like he needs a hug.

You twist around and up onto your knees in a way that feels like your body’s on autopilot. Pushing up off the ground, you wrap your arms around a very unsuspecting Eddie, who freezes in your grasp. You wind them under his arms and across his back and squeeze, squishing your face into the rough collar of his vest. It takes him a moment, but he appears to come to, bringing his arms around you, too. He gives you a grateful squeeze in return and settles his nose into the junction of your neck and your shoulder, and you hear him mumble “thanks,” into your sweater.

You’re not sure how long you stay like that with him. It’s likely no more than a minute or so, but it feels like forever. He smells funny, a concoction of weed, Cheesits, a cologne you can’t place, and the musky smell of the boathouse. It’s a comforting smell nonetheless.

He thinks you smell divine. Perfume, but not too much, washing powder, and weed, too. There’s a warmth there somewhere that smells like home.

You pull back when your knees begin to ache, but his arms don’t let you go too far, so you scoot closer so you can sit back on your heels anyway.

“See? Always so nice,” he says softly.

You look him in the eye as he speaks, and watch as he studies your own face. Before you is a boy, a scared boy, and he’s crying.

“Eddie, are you-“

“I’m okay,” he says through a laugh and tears. Those seem to come in a pair for Eddie, like he can’t take his own emotions seriously enough.

You offer him a frown and brush the wild hair out of his face. He drops his arms from around you as you awkwardly reach up and use the hair tie on your wrist to tie it back.

“Can see you better now,” you say as you finish the final loop.

“How do I look?” he asks lowly with a smirk.

“Lovely,” you say back.

His smirk turns warm and he lifts a hand to your face. You’re not sure exactly what’s happening, but he just tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear. It’s like a scene in a movie, where you’re rooting for them to just kiss already, except you’re sure that’s not where this is going.

Surely not?

“Can I tell you something?” His eyes are bouncing around your face, your hair, anywhere but where you want them - on yours.

“Sure,” you say, nervous.

He takes a slow breath in through his nose, and then he says, “I had a crush on you when you were at school.”

God, what the fuck?

“What?”

“I had a crush on you. A pretty big one, actually.”

You can’t help but laugh. All those years spent thinking Eddie Munson was an asshole, and all the while he was pining after you. The idea is hilarious.

Even though he’s laughing too, at your silly, stupid laugh, he says, “why are you laughing at me?! That’s like the worst thing you can do right now!”

“I hated you!”

“Yeah, well, I liked you!”

The two of you sit there laughing together, and it feels oddly fun to be sat here with a fugitive in a rotting boathouse, unknowingly on the edge of the end of the world, giggling about high school crushes.

“You’re less of an asshole than I thought,” you admit to him.

“Thank you very much, that makes me feel better,” he says, beaming.

Eddie’s a very hard to read individual, you think. But here, he suddenly seems to be baring all for you, and it’s unusual. You’re not a very approachable person, but he doesn’t seem to care.

“You should come into Trax more often, Eddie.”

“Can I tell you something else?” He’s straight-faced now and you’re giggling, blithely unaware of his racing heart.

“What?”

“I still have a crush on you.”

You stop laughing and stare at him. He’s not laughing, either, his face instead etched with worry.

“What?”

“I avoid Trax because I have a crush on you. You’re always fuckin’ in there, and you’re kinda intimidating.”

You know this is true. Plenty of people have told you before, and even if they hadn’t, Robin, who is notoriously terrible at reading social cues and even worse at listening when infant you told her to go away, was your only friend until you met Steve. It’s not difficult to read the room.

But he’s Eddie. Eddie Munson. If anyone’s intimidating, surely it’s him.

“I-“

“It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything.”

“No, I-“

“Seriously, y/n, it’s fine, I know you-“

You shut him up with a hard, hot kiss to his mouth (kind of – you don’t quite get your aim square-on because he moves a lot when he talks). Just like he did when you hugged him, he freezes, so you move back to sit on your heels again, and say with a smile, “would you shut up for a second?”

The blanket’s around your knees now, forgotten; the heat under your skin from Eddie’s confession is enough to keep you warm.

He stares at you, finally looking you in the eye again, and smiles. It’s a slow, easy smile.

Before you know it, he’s leaning over to you and kissing you back. You snake your arms around his neck and pull him in, but you lose your balance on your aching knees and topple to the side, pulling him with you.

Through laughs and huffs of pain, the two of you stand up and brush yourselves off. You’re incredibly close to each other; his face is right there, and kissing him felt really nice, and you want to do it again so badly. But he moves before you can, hands flying to the sides of your head and pulling you in so close your nose is crushed with his and you can’t really breath. You don’t mind, though, because you’re up on your tiptoes and your hands are on his arms and your lips feel like someone’s shot 8 volts through them.

There are teeth and tongues and your hands move around to grip the front of his tired Hellfire shirt. You slot your legs either side of one of his to get as close as you can, and when the pressure of his knee hits that spot between your thighs, you whine into the kiss.

But then it disappears, and so do his lips, so you grumble and he laughs at you.

“I am not doing this for the first time in here,” he says. “I want to, trust me, but not here.”

You want to argue with him so badly, but you can’t. He’s right; it’s disgusting.

“Here,” he says, lowering himself to sit back down. His hand takes yours and pulls you with him, so you’re straddling him.

“You’re trying to stop me having sex with you by making me sit on your lap?” you ask with a smirk.

“Don’t,” he scolds, and you try to hide the way his authoritative tone makes you whimper. You don’t succeed.

-

The two of you get a couple hours sleep, but you wake up when the birds do. It’s early, and you’re both groggy, but you braid his hair to pass the time and teach him how to braid yours, and you find a pack of cards on a table by a window, so he teaches you to play Solitaire. And then, an hour or so after the sun comes up, there’s a noise outside.

You’re both on edge, but it’s just Steve, Robin, Dustin and Max with cereal and beer and news, good and bad.

They answer your questions, and don’t pry when you sit right next to Eddie, thighs flush, or when you hold his hand when Dustin tells you that the police are looking for him. And though none of you know what the next days bring, or how much your lives will change, you’re very grateful that you’re not facing it alone.

-

[spookykestrel]

tell me about bugs ! /lhnp

Aah ty for the ask this is so general there’s so many facts and things um (edit I didn’t mean to write a whole essay you don’t have to read the whole thing)

Recently I’ve been enjoying learning about spiders which is ever so slightly ironic considering how afraid I was of them and how I still am a bit scared to come across ones I’m not familiar with. Learning about them makes them so much less scary though. A lot of the most venomous and scariest spiders are actually relatively docile and won’t bite unless threatened or they’re a mother with babies. In the US there hasn’t been a death from a black widow bite in 40 years bc their bites are rare and able to be treated. A lot of venomous spiders can actually administer dry bites too or control the amount of venom they inject which is super cool. Since their venom is used to kill prey, when they bite a human it’s usually just in self defense so a lot of bites from deadly spiders aren’t actually that dangerous. Ofc it’s still imperative to seek treatment just in case you have a reaction or they did inject venom (although you’d be able to tell there’s some nasty symptoms). Most cases are able to be treated, too, with anti-venom and while not a pleasant experience they’re rarely deadly.

I feel like there needs to be a picture here to break up this post so uhhhhh here’s a bunch of bees on a clover ( and a Yellowjacket)

One of my other interests rn is misconceptions/misidentifications. Which ig ties into spider bites. One common myth is that daddy longlegs spiders are super venomous but their fangs are too small to bite humans. This is very wrong for several reason uhh first is that daddy longlegs is a super broad term used to refer to cellar spiders (actual spiders of the araneae order), harvestmen (arachnids in the opilione order so Not Spiders), and crane flies (these are literally flies as the name suggests. They…. They aren’t spiders they have wings they aren’t venomous. Although they do have long legs). Cellar spiders are a little venomous but their venom poses little harm to humans (just a typical insect bite yk) and they rarely bite humans. Harvestmen actually don’t have venom and don’t have fangs just hollow claws used to grip. Which can’t harm people.

anyway harvestman are the absolute silliest guys I love seeing them bounce around

(Photo credit evanaturalist on inat <3)

Another quickl thing (I promise I’ll stop soon you invoked a topic I’m incapable of being normal about and gave me no limitations or anything so I’m on a ramble there’ll be no survivors etcetc) is also about flies. A lot of people assume those itty bitty sweat bees that hover around you at the park or whatever are actually more likely to be hoverflies (instead of a real sweatbee)! They only have one set of wings (unlike a bee) and no they can’t sting. I told this all to my friend at a concert who was being very annoyed by the one following her around and after explaining them and marveling over the super cool patterning of the calligrapher flies (specific type of hoverfly) they actually came around and admitted they’re very cool and it was a lovely moment bc once you know more about something then you can accept it more yay woohoo.

^ the black and yellow is deceiving it only has the one set of wings. If you cared the one pictured is a maize calligrapher specifically . Very common in the US and Canada.

Oh and I got a millipede tatto did you see :]

[nyalternatehellkitten]

@madharemuses replied to your post “((I have a headache so I'm watching an FE:Engage...”:

[I want to enjoy Engage. I like the art design, I like the characters, I like the gameplay, but for some reason I just can't really bring myself to enjoy it. Also, it lacks replay value compared to most previous titles, so I feel like I spent too much on it.]

@gensokyogarden replied to your post “((I have a headache so I'm watching an FE:Engage...”:

ENGAGE GOOD

((Ayyyy we have the big two(tm) opinions here! Joking aside, I reply to these responses in the same post because I want to share some general thoughts. I'm not trying to pit you against each other by highlighting your opposing opinions lmao. Even though it's been a few days, Engage has been swirling around in my head for about a week or so now, and I do want to give my thoughts to you two, who responded to me, at least, so that post I made doesn't just become a big jebait or whatever the term is. So, spoilers, Zane's thoughts, and etc. etc. beneath the cut. Oh yeah, and it's long so don't read it unless you want to know what I think of a game I've not played, that a lot of people have been dismissive towards.))

I am writing this across several sittings. At the time of writing this statement, I'm watching the Avalanche map, so basically I'm right near the end. (I've also seen some supports, but the guy whose playthrough I'm watching is doing them offsceen because he doesn't want to waste his audience's time with grinding.)

This isn't going to be a structured review, it's more of a slightly-edited thought-dump.

My overall thoughts of this game so far, which is an impression unlikely to change, is this:

Fire Emblem Engage is a game unfairly criticised as worse than it actually is. It's not a super good game, but it does not fall as far below the 'average' standards of the series as much as people say it does.

Before I get into the full swing of things, I need to offer a disclaimer: I am out of touch with the series. I've played FE3-12 and Echoes, which means I'm missing FE1, the game that started it all, and Awakening and Three Houses, two immensely popular games that made big changes to the way Fire Emblem works, brought many new people to the fanbase, and generated a lot of attention. (I also haven't played Fates, but it's a bit less relevant to what I have to say.) I have never been interested in Awakening or Three Houses, but they changed the Fire Emblem 'landscape' so much that I would consider myself out-of-touch simply because I haven't played them.

Addressing some common criticisms

The two main complaints I see first-and-foremost on the internet that dominate over the better-formulated criticisms are: It's too anime and the writing sucks.

Now, the anime thing is stupid. Fire Emblem has always been anime; it's a stale and tasteless counter-argument, but it's objectively true. Most Fire Emblem games at least partially reflect the anime style popular around the time they were made, and all of them draw some influences from anime in general. The designs are too colourful and fancy for my taste, but I still find them enjoyable (Chloe and Etie are probably my favourites? Not super fond of Etie's Archer outfit but the player I'm watching made her a Warrior and she looks fine). In fact, I think this design choice was good; they clearly wanted to deviate from the grimness and seriousness of Three Houses, and can they be blamed for that? Making that sort of story can get heavy at times, so for an anniversary game I feel like going for something lighter was the right choice. Overall, the presentation in this game is excellent; not enough to make me love it like I loved Echoes (which was carried by the presentation alone for me), but good enough that I enjoy seeing it on my screen.

The second criticism is the writing, which is semi-valid. It's almost-good in a lot of places, but there's always one or two tiny details holding it back in my eyes. It's frustrating, because I feel like Engage would actually be quite well-written with a few fairly small edits that remove some of the issues or make the stupid parts (Chapter 10-11 Time Crystal) less stupid. The issue I have with the criticism is not that it's wrong, it's that people act like all of the other games in the series are god-tier writing or something. This is objectively untrue; most Fire Emblem stories are fairly straightforward or cliche plots carried by a cast of one-note, but enjoyable and likeable characters. Liking the characters makes you overlook the flaws in the plot. Just think about how many Fire Emblem games are about awakening or summoning some kind of all-powerful dragon or dark god (or both), and then think about how often that actually bothers you simply because you like some of the characters.

Let's talk about the writing for a moment, since this is an RP blog and therefore revolves around writing

It sounds to me like Engage's writing is actually really average by Fire Emblem standards (it can't be worse than the GBA games at least, if you ask me) but it's issue is that it came after Three Houses, a game which tried to be very different from the rest of Fire Emblem when it comes to writing. I haven't played Three Houses but I have seen people react to it. The amount of time people spend debating and arguing over who's in the right or wrong, beyond just which lord/house they like, shows that the game provoked more thoughts from its players than just "Oh I like this character more than this other character." Engage clearly has not done this, and parts of it that could form a good running theme just don't quite connect. The dots don't quite link up and the stars don't quite align. It falls just short.

In my head, I'm comparing it with other Fire Emblem games and I don't think it's that much worse than some (fairly well regarded) entries in the series. For example, in FE7, everything Ephidel does doesn't really make sense since he's formenting a rebellion in Lycia to gather Quintessence for Nergal to summon dragons... even though Nergal already has enough Quintessence to summon a dragon. In Sacred Stones, Eirika is supposed to be the diplomacy route, and yet everywhere she goes, stuff(tm) happens and she gets dragged into fights because Fire Emblem requires things.exe to happen so that each chapter can be a fight. In Binding Blade, the big exposition was Jahn explaining Idoun's backstory... through the medium of Roy seizing like 20 thrones in one chapter. In Monshou, the big main idea of Hardin being turned evil was great and executed pretty well, but most chapters are "So you're fighting dudes loyal to Medeus or Hardin" and the story is mostly about Marth trying to figure out what's going on in Akaneia. It's not bad, but it's hardly some god-tier story that has the player hanging off the edge of their seat at every chapter.

By comparison, Engage has an issue with build-up and payoff. The payoffs are often good, but the build-ups often don't do them justice. For instance, Morion was a good payoff because while what happened to him was quite predictable, Alchryst and Diamant's boss conversations with him are great. What's lacking is the fact that he gets captured by Hyacinth like... one chapter after he's introduced, after raising a million death flags. If he had been a green unit (or even a playable character with a big "Morion will go back to ruling his kingdom after next chapter" warning, or his stats transferring over to Diamant like with Nils and Ninian in FE7) for a while to let the player get to know him better, then his death would have been more impactful. Let Alear agree or argue with him about certain things; Alear needs to interact with Morion's pretty strong force of personality (that I think is pretty well demonstrated, even if it's quite one-note, in his first appearance).

Likewise, Lumera died too quickly. We needed a few more chapters for her and Alear's relationship to ripen. If the game had opened with Alear sent to Firine (upon Alfred's request, to help deal with Corrupted and bandits), with Lumera accompanying them but not helping them in battles to help him readjust to being awake, then it would have probably worked out better pacing-wise. Little happens character-wise in those chapters, so slotting in some Alear-Lumera interactions would have helped establish Alear's personality and motivations for the rest of the game. After Firine, they could return to Lythos for a little bit of R&R with Lumera promising to teach Alear more about the Emblems. Then the attack happens, she dies before she can, and the game proceeds with Brodia after that. It makes Lumera more impactful because the player gets to see her relationship with Alear more, and it makes their feelings for her stronger too, since they now have time to experience how she's their mother and acts like it.

One last example I will give is Zephia. Her whole death scene is kind of invalidated by the fact that she's been speaking as if the Hounds are her family for the whole game. I think a little tweak could really have fixed it. Take 'family' to be the theme of the story; a lot of Fire Emblem games place emphasis on bloodlines and family. Engage could have taken that both ways: that sometimes, blood family is important (e.g. the royal sibling pairs in the game) but sometimes your found family is just as important (Lumera and Alear) and sometimes your family can be abusive and bad for you (Sombron and Veyle, Zephia and Marni). How does Zephia fit into this? Well, imagine if her dialogue was tweaked ever so slightly. The idea is that she misunderstands how family should be because of Sombron (what he said during the time travel part). She longs for a real family, but because of Sombron she thinks that family should be abusive. Seeing Alear and Veyle helps her appreciate what family should be, and she helps them because of that. She dies thanking Griss, and hoping that Marni will forgive her in the afterlife. There we go, a villain given a better redemption than the weird one she got in the game, and completing a theme/story/lesson for the game as a whole.

Zephia also suffers from the buildup thing. The Hounds have a lot of screentime but they don't really do much with it; Griss and Zephia get their motivations and backstories infodumped as they die, and Mauvier spends the first half of his appearances being all "I am a knight I follow orders" when he should have been dropping hints that his true loyalty was to Veyle, rather than just mechanically following orders. If some of that screentime had been used to develop that Marni wants familial love, while Zephia misunderstands what a family should be, and Griss thinks of Zephia as his mother/older sister but struggles to convey that since his world is dull when he's not feeling pain, then it would have made them more compelling than the four big mooks you knock over 13 times throughout the story. Oh yeah, and of course, they do the "I must retreat" thing way too often. Fighting them feels completely insignificant because they never die until they suddenly do.

Lastly, the characters are all quirky and... oh boy. I've seen people complain that the Engage characters are more one-note crazy than usual. That... doesn't feel true to me. They feel like they're less serious than usual, but that's Engage being light-hearted. I've seen serious stuff (Alfred's illness, Hortensia's feelings about stuff) but mostly it seems to be on the lighter side. I don't mind, but I think it should have perhaps been a bit more of a balance. I will say this thought: of the supports I have seen, character motivations at least seem to make sense and stay decently consistent.

Some of my other criticisms

I would argue that there are a few things holding the game back. The writing, I have already mentioned. While there are plenty of good individual moments, there's often a lack of good build-up or connectedness that makes the whole feel like wasted potential and staleness. The gameplay, I think might actually be the most tactical in any Fire Emblem game so far; you can't just air-drop a god-unit into any situation with 1-2 range as easily because of Weapon Triangle breaking, and chain strikes mean that positioning actually matters, and tanking isn't infinite. This might not be a good thing, however, as I get the feeling that the average casual Fire Emblem player... doesn't care about gameplay much. It can't suck, but a lot of the time they do just want to make their favourite unit into a god and drop them into whatever situation.

One of the biggest problems is the Emblems, however. They're not really written as themselves. They're more like echoes or shadows or ghosts of the character they're meant to be. They often feel like they were written by someone who'd only read a synopsis of what that character was like, instead of seeing and analysing them (which... is probably what happened). The Emblem ring bond supports are bland and soulless most of the time, with often no connection between the character and the Emblem based off their commonalities (though to be fair, writing 12 Emblem supports for each character would have been hell). Regardless, all of the Emblem characters feel way too superficial to actually matter most of the time, they mostly exist to reference their own games a lot or provide the same basic statements about things. The advice they offer in the story is... logical but kind of bland and uninteresting. Sometimes they feel right, but most of the time they feel... not very good, which is not great when they're meant to be a big selling point of the game. It's like the Emblems are supposed to make you so excited about seeing your favourite characters that you don't stop to think if they're acting in-character. I won't comment on them too much gameplay wise, since I think that as much as they are meant to somewhat represent their own games (e.g. Sigurd being mobility and canter, Lucina having dual strike stuff) there's a limit to what you can do since most Fire Emblem games play quite samey.

Another issue I think that Engage has is the lack of post-game. Relying on DLC and Multiplayer to create replayability for a single-player game is just... objectively a bad idea? It's not what people are mostly there for. Watching the playthrough made me think "If I were playing this game, I'd want to run some of the other characters in side battles to see their supports and find out more about them." A post-game would be good for that, maybe with a bonus series of maps like Thabes was in Echoes. As it is, I've seen no evidence of that sort of thing.

I want to say some nice things

So I actually quite like Alear. Not a lot a lot, but a fair lot, if that makes sense. Based on everything shown about past Alear, and the way Alear loses their memories, their character makes sense for most of the game. Past Alear was emotionally stunted because Sombrero is the worst Fire Emblem dad in the series, and present Alear has a serious case of no-thoughts-head-empty at the start of the game. Given that everyone treats them super well (worships even...), it makes sense for them to develop a positive outlook on life, a strong fondness of their friends, a solid sense of duty towards everyone counting on them, and also feel kind of creeped out at being worshipped. Alear also feels a little more complete as a main character to me, oddly enough? I haven't played those games so I can't say for sure, but Robin and Corrin both often gave me a weird vibe like they're meant to be the player's self-insert but didn't commit to it enough. Like they wanted to make a self-insert character but then realised they needed to insert more character for supports, interactions, and story beats. Alear, on the other hand, feels like they wrote a complete character and then had to shove the self-insert in, to their detriment.

I also need to talk about Yunaka. I think Yunaka did something no other Fire Emblem side character (non-main character) has ever done: she immediately made me want to read about her supports to learn more about her backstory. Most Fire Emblem characters show up and I'm like "Okay, so this is this character's vibe. I'll find out more in the supports, I bet." Yunaka though... as soon as I heard her battle/crit quotes and saw how much that differed from the quirky "OwO I am cute thief" personality she was projecting, I was immediately like "There's more here. I need to know what her deal is." The game immediately shows that she's good at acting, and as soon as you put her into combat you see a side of her completely different from the one you saw before, and that sparks curiosity. That's good. Fire Emblem doesn't do that, instead it tries to establish the one note that its one-note characters are based around in a good way so that the player knows what that character's deal is. This time, it did that, and more. I haven't seen all of Yunaka's supports yet, but I will go through all of them when I get the chance to. I must know.

The music and voice acting are pretty good. The presentation and CG art is good. I don't think I need to elaborate on this, I think they're presented in a way that accentuates the atmosphere they're trying to create most of the time.

I'm hesitant about this last bit, but I think the game conveys its characters well. This is something Fire Emblem has never really had trouble doing, so it's not really a thing in Engage's favour, it's just another thing the game is not bad at. The supports (or those that I've seen at least) are good at showing what each character's deal is. That's not hard to do, though it is occasionally not done well (Vaida and Dorcas... a support that shows what their characters are like, but repeats the same joke dragged out three times in a row without really resolving anything).

Edit: Oh, and I can't believe I forgot to say that the really cheesy and campy moments are amusing rather than cringe to me. I think they just barely toe the line at times, but like... given how often the games try to shoehorn the 'Fire Emblem' into it, this really isn't even the worst.

Conclusion

This is the part where I pretend to have a conclusion so it feels structured. I already said what I needed to say at the start, so this is the part I put a bow on it.

I feel like it's hard for me to assess this game. I haven't played it, and I haven't played Awakening and Three Houses, two games that I feel like probably influenced both the fanbase and Engage a lot. But I can't help but feel like it's better than all of the hate it gets. I don't really think it's god tier, but it's definitely not as bad as it's said to be. I think if I did have the opportunity to play it though, I'd enjoy it at least as much as I enjoyed FE6, FE8, and FE11. With the others I played, I think it'd be a bit more up in the air.

If I had to say though, there's enough problems for it to be disappointing, but enough good for it to not warrant the amount of hate I've seen. I feel like the hate it gets is often an instinctual rather than logical thing; rarely do I see people fully explain how they feel, and sometimes some of the people criticising it talk like they're series veterans but it turns out they've played like... 4 games. Still, I can't help but feel like if this game came out after Fates rather than Three Houses, people would have a better view of it.

[modern-inheritance]

Modern Inheritance Picrews (pt. 1): OG Elf Squad

I was recently tagged on my main blog to make OCs with this picrew and ended up making a few of the MIC versions of Inheritance characters, or at least as close as I can get. I enjoyed the process, and since I can't really draw all that well I thought I'd make more and post them here with some short descriptions of the character appearances as they are in MIC. I used Photoshop and Illustrator to make some edits (Glen's being the roughest) to try and get closer to what I had in mind.

Up first! The OG elf squad!

Fäolin

A handful of years older than Arya at the time of his death, Fäolin was quite young by elf standards, and somehow managed to look both the most human and the most alien of his companions. His eyes, frequently altered to even further increase his darkvision and distance vision for sniping, were always somewhat oblong at the pupils and were a striking green-and-gold hazel. Unlike other elves, Fäolin chose to attempt growing some facial hair through magic, and altered his hair color from the typical black seen in many elves to a rich chestnut worn short at the sides with a tufted ponytail. He was playful and lighthearted, always smiling slightly even during missions, and loved to gently tease his friends. A dark orange and yellow tattoo of a coiled Fanghur decorated his left shoulder, a symbolic gesture of solidarity with his mate, Arya, as well as a nod to the nickname of 'Wind Viper' that some of the Varden gave him after years of sniping high up above the battlefield with frightening accuracy, as though his targets were frozen in place as the Fanghur froze their prey with mental attacks.

Glenwing (Glen)

(I attempted to superimpose a rough aprox of his prosthetic over one of the hands but uh...it sure is an attempt.)

Glenwing, or Glen as most know him, is around 20 years Arya and Fäolin's senior. Born to a healer and a warrior in Ilirea before the Fall, he was old enough to have decent memories of the battles that took place and the effects it had on those around him. After the final battle saw his parents slain, the young elfling dedicated himself to learning healing arts of both body and mind while training to eventually fight back. With his father's bright silver hair tied back and his mother's deep golden eyes, Glen typically looks serene and thoughtful, each movement and word given the time it deserves. This not to say, however, that he is any less deadly than his companions, nor that he does not hold the peculiar wild, near feral energy that Arya so frequently displays. Glenwing knows every way to kill you, and could do so, unarmed and without magic, with incredible accuracy and efficiency. His training to heal gives him insight into biology of elves, dwarves and humans, to the point that he can identify weaknesses and target them on the fly during battle. This makes close quarters combat his forte, and he prefers crossing blades and bare handed fighting to long distance, which lead to the scar across his cheek during a battle with Forsworn-trained soldiers.

During the ambush that set the events of the main story in motion, Glenwing was catastrophically injured and lost his left arm just above the elbow. After months of rehabilitation and work with Rhunön he gained use of a prosthetic made of a combination of low quality brightsteel scrap, aramid weave, and spidersilk plate that moves with him as though it were his own flesh. It still requires constant maintenance and care, something Arya takes over when they return to the field together, and he has his own problems with phantom pain and the trauma associated with not only the loss but his near fifty years of constant war. Due to his time away from it all, though, and his own training in mental health counseling and psychology, Glen has a better grasp on managing his symptoms of PTSD than most. He still has weekly nightmares, often waking up feeling as though his body is on fire and his arm is being crushed, but he manages his sleep cycles and religiously practices the self care he needs to make his life easier and have the energy needed to help others consistently. Despite all the pain, though, Glen would be the first to say he would not trade it for the world. He is doing what he loves, making a difference in the fight, and doing it all next to one of his best friends.

Arya

The scruffiest and scrappiest elf currently walking the lands of Alagaësia, Arya's the young commander of her now only two person squad (including herself) of special forces commandos originally set to protect Eragon, Saphira and Brom. After seventy years of combat, war and politics, Arya's given up on adhering to elvish tradition of prim, proper and put-together in favor of living life in a warzone for the sake of Alagaësia's free peoples. Scars are earned and frequently left unhealed unless life threatening, dirt is considered free camouflage, and having five minutes of calm to tame whatever's come loose from hairbands is a luxury. Brom has told her to invest in a headband, but she keeps losing them.

With Islanzadi's pitch black hair and Evandar's emerald eyes, Arya is fairly striking when you can get her to stay still long enough. A wild, near feral energy roils under her skin and shows itself with bared tooth smiles full of mischief, and full of the naturally sharp teeth most elves sang away in their early years. The scar through her eyebrow is a reminder of a fight long since passed, but the fresh nick on her jaw, scar matted wrists and back, are all badges of pride for what she endured in Gil'ead. There are plenty other scars, but most are concealed by the elf's ever present combat jacket.

PTSD is something the entire squad dealt with before the ambush, but after Gil'ead Arya has taken a particularly hard hit to her mental health. Sleep can come, but it doesn't stay easy, and Arya typically goes two or three nights without more than a handful of hours of sleep. Elves can easily survive on four hours a night, and while six hours every three days can be livable, sleep debt builds up over time. She staves it off through meditation, but Glenwing has been pushing her to reestablish a proper cycle as they both know putting off sleep just intensifies the nightmares and Recall that frequently wake her up. It's a difficult pattern to establish, though, and every other month typically sees Arya with dark rings around her eyes until she relents to Glenwing and sleeps a solid night through with the aid of magic and a hell of a lot of talk therapy afterwards.

Arya's behavior and appearance, though in some ways distinctly elven, falls in the middle of human and elf. Called a mongrel by some of the more...brash...elven youth, Arya honestly couldn't care less, though she draws the line at disrespect towards her comrades and fallen brothers and sisters in arms, no matter their race. Even though her actions no longer serve just the elves, Arya's proud of her service. She's proud to stand beside Glen again and properly take on the role of Eragon and Saphira's bodyguard, even if they sometimes don't quite need it.

[moonchild-things]

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Tempo

Summary: Shōyō Hinata loves volleyball! There is no doubt that all he really thinks about is volleyball. His sister, however, isn’t the same way. Sakura is ready to start her first year of high school at Karasuno with her twin brother and doesn’t really want to do anything, unlike Shōyō. Though she can’t help it when she gets dragged into the antics of the volleyball club.

Word Count: 6303 

Blog Masterlist | Red Herring Masterlist | Last Chapter | Next Chapter

A/n: Oh I feel so productive! I finished writing this today, finished editing three videos that imma post on my youtube channel in the coming weeks and working on some more, and I worked on my manuscript for NaNoWriMo! Not only that but I got a requested story that I'm working on, it'll take me a bit but I'm finishing up the outline, get it checked and then get to posting some nice long chapters of it lmao Anyway, on with the chapter!

---

EVERYONE COULD TELL THAT SKAURA WAS TENSE about something. It’s usual for her to sit on her own, rarely talk or engage in conversations while at her club. However, from the way that she was even more withdrawn than normal, everyone figured that there was something wrong. They hadn’t seen her like this before, so none of them were really sure how to bring it up to her. After all, what if they said something insensitive to her since they didn’t know what was going on with her. Well, that would matter if the people in this club actually knew how to be considerate of that. 

Which is why Wada had walked over to Sakrau’s table and leaned over towards her. His piercing eyes stared down at her as she looked over some of her notes that she took in class. Feeling the gaze on her, Sakura glanced up to come face to face with Wada and his slightly concerned expression.

“Is everything okay with you, Hinata-chan?”

Sakura stared at him with a normal bored look, “I’m fine,” she leaned away from him, “now leave me alone, please. I’m trying to study.”

“You always study,” He whined, “but you’ve been glaring at that same paper for over thirty minutes and I’m beginning to think you’re trying to start a fire with your mind.”

She sighed heavily through her nose, knowing that he wasn’t just going to leave her alone like she wanted. For most of the day today, she had been fussed over by Yachi. Sakura really does appreciate the fact that she has a best friend who cares about her and her wellbeing, but it got annoying eventually. Of course, Sakura didn’t say that to Yachi at all since she didn’t want to hurt her feelings or anything. So she was hoping that when she came to her own club that no one would mention anything to her.

Though she realized that she only has herself to blame for this. She was acting more withdrawn than usual, zoning out from time to time and getting lost in her thoughts. She figured that out after noticing the strange looks Shimada was giving her. Maybe she should have done a bit better to make it seem like nothing was bothering her. The last thing she needs is for them to bother her as well.

She looked back down at her papers, not really paying attention to what was on it, “And what if I am?”

Wada gave her a look and sighed, “Listen, I know that we all are a bit worried about you…”

“Why would you be?” Sakura snapped.

“Well, I overheard a little rumor about you getting into a fight with your brother.”

Sakura gritted her teeth, “Damn Endo.” She knew that it had to be him who spread it a bit. Let it be known that Sakura hates how drama hungry Endo Joji can be at times.

Noticing how Sakura was growing uncomfortable and annoyed, Mori decided to speak up. Her heavenly voice said, “Wada, please. If Hinata-chan doesn’t want to talk about anything, then we don’t have to push her.”

“I mean…” Emi trailed off as she, Wada, Yokoyama, and Ito all shared a look with each other. “We all are curious.”

Sakura just grunted, “It’s just personal issues with my brother, that’s all.”

“Oh! Though I heard that you were actually fighting your brother and Kageyama-kun!” Yokoyama exclaimed, a bit excited at the prospect of a fight. She smiled widely, “You must have gotten quite a few punches in, right?”

“No,” Ito shook her head, “she’s too short to throw a proper punch, she definitely went for the legs.”

Wada pursed his lips, “Though her brother is the same height, no?”

“But are you hurt!?” Emi then shouted, becoming extremely worried, “Oh, they would definitely be able to hurt you badly! We-”

Sakura cut off any other stupid rumors or speculations that they could make with a harsh glare, “Can you guys shut up.”

All of them shuttered at the menacing look on Sakura’s face. They could all feel the impending aura surrounding them as Sakura glared at them. They collectively shouted out in fear, “Y-Yes Ma’am!”

With it being obvious that Sakura didn’t want to talk about any of this with them, they decided to leave it alone. They didn’t want to push Sakura too far to the point that she left or anything. So they needed to move on and focus on something else, whether that be showing off some of their photos or complaining about their recent grades. However, there was only one person who seemed to be a bit more 

“You know, it’s okay to say that you’re hurt.” Mori Aiko said softly as she leaned against Sakura’s table. 

“I’m not,” Sakura rubbed her head, “Shōyō couldn’t hit hard enough to leave a bruise or anything.”

Mori gave her a knowing look, one that made Sakura shift uncomfortably in her seat. The crystal blue eyes of the vice president were seemingly looking right through Sakura, and she didn’t really like that. Mori continued to say, “Not physically, emotionally. It’s okay to say that he hurt your feelings, because I can see that it did.”

Sakura looked away from her, not exactly the best at talking about things like her feelings. She played with her fingers for a moment, trying to decide on what to say. “I know he didn’t mean to hurt me or anything, but it did hurt to realize that I couldn’t help him, I guess.” She gnawed on her bottom lip, “Shōyō is the more emotional out of us, and I always know how to help him or see a logical side to things. This time I don’t know. I’ve just… I’ve realized that we need space. My brother and I have been attached at the hip for too long.”

“Did you not think it was healthy?”

“Maybe.” She shrugged her shoulders, “Before I went to bed last night, I had a thought; I had been using Shōyō as a shield to hide from everything, I guess. I used him as an excuse for a lot of things, to explain how I acted or why I did things. Now, after…” There was a little bit of a grimace on her face, “Last night I figured that it’s time to distance myself from that. I’m a high schooler now, I need to learn about myself and not just be a shadow to my twin.”

There had always been a part of her that knew this fact. Knew that she was not really her own person and was hanging onto her brother for far too long. She’s known that ever since she started high school, that’s why she tried to branch out by means of the photography club! She wanted to be her own person, but never really had the push to really make it a reality for it. Though perhaps after last night, this could be the right push that she needed. She didn’t really picture it being because her brother would hurt her, but whatever it was was still good enough to get her on that track.

“That’s very mature of you, Hinata-chan.” Mori smiled, breaking Sakura out of her thoughts, “Realizing that must not have been easy.”

Sakura just shrugged her shoulders, “it was a bit uncomfortable to come to terms with, I guess. Though it’s the truth, so I can’t really deny it or run from it.”

“Still, it's very impressive of you."

"Impressive?” The younger girl pursed her lips. Her cheeks were a bit pink now that she was complemented by such a pretty girl, “Maybe."

“Just make sure you talk with your brother about it. So you both are on the same page.”

Sakura nodded her head, knowing that it was definitely a good idea. So the two were then absorbed back into whatever conversation the rest of their club members were having. Mori felt happy to give Sakura an outlet to talk a bit more about her issues, and Sakura felt lighter to have actually articulated what was running through her head.

---

When it got considerably later in the day, it was time for students to be heading home. Sakura had only stuck around in her club a bit longer because she somewhat dreaded having to see her brother. After all, she knew that they had to have quite the important conversation when they actually got home. She was anxious about it, there was no denying it. Sakura could stand up to other people for her brother, but talking to him about something like this left her nervous. They’ve never really had a moment in their lives where they would have to question their relationship or have serious conversations.

Surprisingly, Shōyō hadn’t been around to nag Sakura about her riding home by herself. Sakura wasn’t sure what to think about it, nor did she even know where he was! She noticed that his bike was still at the bike rack but with practice over she would have figured that he would already be gone or him waiting for her. It certainly was concerning. Though she brushed it off, it had to just be that he was avoiding her somehow. It certainly had become uncomfortable between them since last night so she could understand that.

So perhaps she would get to ride home on her own for once. Even as she grabbed her bike and mounted it, the nagging feeling of the unknown location of her brother was bothering her just a bit. It wasn’t like him to just not be around and not leave some sort of note for her about where he was. Though it’s not like she was really expecting him to since he knew she was somewhat avoiding him. 

Most of the time when the twins got into an argument there were a few things that would happen really. If it was some small disagreement, Shōyō would bother Sakura to the point of annoying her and eventually the two would forget anything happened. If it was something a bit more severe, like this time, they would keep their space from each other. Shōyō kept away to keep any further arguments from happening, until the two cooled off to apologize and then made up. That rarely ever happened since the two never got into large arguments, but it wasn’t impossible.

As she rode home on her own, Sakura was preoccupied with trying to map out what she was going to say to her brother. After all, she had to make her intentions clear. It was the right opportunity, the time to explain her growing feelings about wanting to have distance. Though her mind was thinking about how he was going to react to what she wanted. Would he be angry? Upset? Would he yell at her? Argue with her? Sakura couldn’t be certain about what he would do. This was uncharted territory, if she was being honest with herself.

She arrived home sooner than she thought, too caught up in her mind to really notice. So she put her bike away, greeted her mom and sister, and waited in her shared bedroom for her brother to come home. At one point, she was even thinking of writing her thoughts down to give to Shōyō. That way they would be as clear as possible as she was starting to feel like she would be tongue-tied when she actually got to talk to him. 

“Hi mom!” An excited voice that sent ice into Sakura’s chest shouted from the door. There was a conversation from the kitchen as Shōyō bounced around the home, returning from his trip with Coach Ukai and old Coach Ukai. It was quite the eye-opening practice that he had with the old crow coach and the kids out there. He couldn’t wait to tell Sakura about it! He certainly was conflicted when he found that her bike wasn’t still next to his when he got back, but he understood. It was getting late and as much as he wanted to ride with her to make sure that she was fine, like a big brother should, he didn’t expect her to wait forever. Especially since he’s certain she’s upset with him.

There was quite a bit of apprehension swirling in his gut as he made his way to their shared bedroom. As he walked into his room he found Sakura sitting on her bed, propped up against the wall as she read over some notes like usual. The twins stared at each other for a moment. Both were quite anxious about what the other had to say. Shōyō was quite certain that she was angry with him right now, while Sakura was trying to figure out if he would be angry with her after what she has to say.

As Shōyō put his backpack down next to his bed and plopped down onto it. Might as well as get this over with, she thought to herself. Sakura cleared her throat, “Okay, Shōyō, I wanted to say that I’m not angry with you.”

“You’re not?” Shōyō asked, more than surprised by that.

She shook her head, “No. I put myself between you and the King, so I can’t really blame you or anything, it was an accident.”

He let out a puff of air, relieved that she wasn’t upset with him. Though he hastily said, “I am sorry though! I never want to hurt you, accident or not.”

“Which is why I’m not angry with you.” Sakura chucked slightly before sobering, “But I do want to talk with you about… how clingy I am. ”

Shōyō blinked, “Clingy?” That wasn’t a word that he would use to describe his sister. Especially considering she liked to keep herself away from most people and normally just be around him, their family, or by herself. So why would she think that she’s clingy?

“Yea. I mean I have been since we were infants, mom says so.” Sakura tried to make a bit of a joke, though it didn’t land as Shōyō was just staring at her in confusion. “But even all through school and such. I don’t normally stray far from you.”

He tilted his head in confusion, “that’s an issue?”

Sakura pursed her lips, “well, yes.” It took a moment for her to find the right way to say this. She really should have written it down. At least she’d have a plan on what she was going to say. “I just figured that it would be a good idea to have… distance. You know, so we can do our own things.”

She really did lose him after that as Shōyō attempted to try and find where she was going with this. Honestly, he really was trying to understand since he knew this was a serious conversation but he wasn’t seeing where she was  going with this. “Though we already do our own things… I’m on the volleyball team, and you’re in the photography club.”

“That is true, but…” Sakura sighed, “Okay, let me rephrase that. It would be a good idea for me to find my own identity.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Sakura has an identity. She’s Hinata Sakura! What else could she mean? Oh no! Had he hit her head so hard that she forgot who she was?! This is worse than he thought!!

Before he could freak out about hitting her too hard, Sakura said, “Shōyō, you do know that everyone refers to me as your shadow, your clone. I’m not ‘Sakura’, I’m ‘Shōyō’s twin’.”

He blinked, “Is that wrong?” He wasn’t oblivious enough to not notice that. It had been happening ever since they were little. Sure, when they were a lot younger Sakura was more distinguishable from him since she had longer hair. Though after she got her hair cut sometime in junior high she ended up getting confused with him more often. Considering she kept her hair short, Shōyō didn’t think that she had an issue with that.

“It’s not wrong,” Sakura quickly amended, “but I just… I want to be seen as my own person, you know. When people talk about me or think about me I don’t want their first thought to be Shōyō’s doppelganger’. ”

Shōyō stared at her for a hot moment, trying to understand what she was saying. Was this his fault? Was she actually upset with him and just lying to not hurt his feelings? Had the fight that he had with Kageyama finally driven Sakura to the point where she wanted to distance herself from him? That she felt so annoyed with him that she didn’t even want people to think of her as his twin?

This had to be because being on the volleyball team had made him more emotional. Not to say that he wasn’t emotional about volleyball before they started at Karasuno, but it certainly had escalated. The fight the other day was a good example of that. So was she saying this because she wanted him to not do it anymore? He certainly wouldn’t, but he would consider it for her.

Sakura could see the confusion on his face, figuring that he wasn’t really getting at what she was saying. She tried to make things clear by saying, “There’s nothing wrong with me being called that, but I want to be my own person.”

A sour look consumed his face, “If you don’t like me being on the team you can just say it.”

“That’s not it,” Sakura stated in her own confusion. So he really was taking it the wrong way, just as Sakura had dreaded. How he reached that conclusion, she’s unsure, “I have supported you and your passion, Shōyō, and will not stop doing that.”

“So why do you want to get away from me? Why now?” The only thing, in his mind, that had changed for Sakura to leave him is that he joined the Karasuno team. So that just had to be the reason!

She blinked at the seemingly rising harshness in his words, “It’s not like I just randomly thought of this today.”

“If you had, you would have told me! We tell each other everything, right?”

Sakura looked away, ashamed to admit that wasn’t true, “Not this, I didn’t tell you about this.”

It was as if that was the biggest betrayal to him. After all, they grew up with each other keeping no secrets from each other, no matter what. “Why didn’t you tell me you felt like this?” They never kept things from each other, at least Shoyo thought. It was actually heart breaking for him to realize this.

“I- I just- I didn’t know how to.” She stuttered out, “I honestly was still trying to understand how I felt about it.” How was she going to really articulate to him that she had been struggling with it for a while. That she was bullied quite a bit during junior high over it. That, despite what she tried to portray to him, she was more than insecure about herself due to it. She didn’t think that it would help him to really know that. Maybe he would even feel bad about it, which she didn’t want him to.

He shook his head, “You could have at least mentioned it, because I really don’t understand. You want to just abandon me?”

“That’s not at all what I’m saying!”

“It sounds like it!”

The two were starting to get a bit more heated. Both of their emotions were starting to boil over. With Shōyō taking Sakura’s words the wrong way and Sakura getting frustrated she couldn’t get it right, things were not going all too well.

“There’s nothing that would convince me to abandon you!” Sakura shouted now, “I just want to do my own thing right now, can’t you understand that at least?”

Shōyō grunted, turning away, “No. Because my sister wouldn’t just suddenly want to leave me alone.”

“I’m not- I’m not leaving you alone! At no point did I say that!” Though even if she tried to insist on it, he had turned to face away from her. She figured that with his stubbornness, he was going to make his mind up and stick with it for the time being. There wasn’t much she could say or do that would convince him otherwise. She’ll just have to try again at some point perhaps. She let out a large sigh, there might have been a few tears in her eyes as well though she disregarded that, “Look, I plan on going to Tokyo with you and the team but after that… I’m going to focus on my photography and my own friends.”

Shōyō snapped, “You actually have your own friends?”

Sakura narrowed her eyes at him, “Yes. I do.” 

“Really?” He asked sarcastically, “Okay sure, whatever.” It seemed like the conversation was over after that. Whether Sakura had anything else to say to him or any rebuttal, Shōyō wasn’t going to listen as he made his way to the bathroom to change clothes. Even when he came back both of them were quiet. 

Nothing else was said between the twins as they got themselves ready for bed. Maybe Shōyō should have apologized, maybe Sakura should have tried again to make it clear, but it was already too late. There was a bitter taste in both of their mouths. Whatever attempt that either wanted to make amends with each other was just a pipe dream at this point. If anything, this might have just made things a bit more difficult than to begin with.

---

If there was one thing that just about everyone noticed, it was that Sakura wasn’t coming to their practices as much anymore. The boys were used to having Sakura sitting on the sidelines alongside their managers and coach, so not having her there was a bit strange. There was no sarcastic or snide remarks made by her on the sidelines and it was just strange for everyone. 

“Where do you think Sakura is?” Yamaguchi asked his best friend, only a little concerned at the girl’s disappearance. She was always at their practices, even skipping her own club if it meant getting to be at theirs. A few times, Yamaguchi will admit, he has tried to convince her to go to her own club. It might have swayed her even a little bit a couple of times, but nothing too significant. As her friend, he does his best to encourage her to do well with her photography. Ever since they had a heart to heart some time ago and grown closer as friends, he likes to believe that he’s getting to her a bit. 

Perhaps that’s why she wasn’t here! Focusing on her own interests and finding her love for it. After the last gallery he saw of hers, he knew she was growing stronger in her confidence, so maybe not being at the practice was her just going to her own club to work on her passion. At least, he hoped.

Tsukishima clicked his tongue, going about his stretch like normal, “What does it matter? One less person to annoy us.”

The green-haired boy tilted his head slightly, “Even you have to be wondering though.”

He deadpanned, “No.”

Yamaguchi didn’t seem to be as convinced, he just hummed. He knows his best friend, and knows that there’s at least a little part of him that is wondering about her. Yamaguchi is more than aware that Tsukishima had a bit more of an interest in Sakura. He chalked that up to Tsukishima doing what he could to get a rise out of Sakura from time to time, or when he was annoyed by her brother. Yamaguchi couldn’t really pinpoint if Tsukishima enjoyed her being around, but he knew that Tsukishima at least noticed it. Ever since they first came into practice, Tsukishima’s eyes drifted, ever so slightly, towards the managers. It wouldn’t be all that strange, However, Yamaguchi just knew that Tsukishima was looking for Sakura. As much as he could say that Tsukishima is his best friend, the blond could still be a bit of an enigma to him. There was something that Yamaguchi noticed every once in a while from Tsukishima. He wasn’t going to voice his questions or suspicions just yet, but he knows for a fact that it has to do with Sakura.

He had a feeling that Tsukishima was frustrated by Sakura, more often than he’d like to admit. In the beginning, Yamaguchi saw why Sakura ticked him off. They are very much alike and Sakura never really acted the way that Tsukishima wanted her to when he tried to get a rise out of her. He expected her to be like her brother, much like how she looks like a clone to him. Though since she’s got quite a pessimistic personality, much like himself, Yamaguchi theorizes that Tsukishima wasn’t expecting it. He even theorizes that Tsukishima was surprised to the point that he wanted to push her to the point where she did react. Yamaguchi wasn’t supportive of this, obviously. Though what was he going to do about it? 

So he just dropped the subject. Either way, Yamaguchi might be lost in his thoughts about how his two friends were acting, but there was one person lost in his thoughts about his sister. Shōyō was the one who mainly could sense Sakura’s disappearance, since he was blaming himself for her not being there. Like a part of him was missing, and it really didn’t sit right with him.

Even if Ukai was talking to him, Shōyō wasn’t completely registering it in his mind. He was understanding the plan that Ukai wanted to try during this practice, but his mind was still thinking about the absence of his sister. Even when they were heading to school, Sakura kept herself distanced from him. He certainly wasn’t used to 

“All right, let’s get this started!” Their coach said as he rallied them all together. “Make sure you stay hydrated!”

All the boys lined up to get ready, “Right.”

As all the boys were getting ready for their practice, Yachi had something on her mind. “Um… Hinata.” She nervously tried to get Shōyō’s attention. “U-Um, I was wondering if you were okay… You and Kageyama-kun, um, uh…”

Shōyō just smiled, a bit wistfully, like he wasn’t completely hearing her, “I’m fine.”

Yachi let out a relieved sigh, glad that there might be some resolution between them. Though she could tell that there was an underlying emotion that surrounded the boy. No doubt in her mind that it was about his sister. As the boys went about their practice, Yachi thought back to the school day. Sakura had been a bit more reserved than normal, which is saying something since Sakura does love to keep to herself in class. Yachi had been a bit fussy over Sakura, she realized how pushy she might have been. But she had wanted to see if Sakura was really ok! She wanted to make sure that she wasn’t hurt, how her and her brother were after it, and if it was as bad as Yachi thought. Sakura didn’t say too much about it. Though she did reassure Yachi that everything was fine, that her brother was fine, and nothing was wrong. Yachi didn’t completely believe her, and really did try to hold herself back, but she was anxious to know. Perhaps she was being too pushy. Though she really was just worried for her friend! She just hoped that Sakura was doing okay now while at her own club. 

“Say, Yachi-chan,” a sly voice slid over to her, “where is our little paparazzi-chan?”

She blinked up at Endo, who suddenly appeared beside her. The intense gaze that he was pinpointing her with caused a shiver to crawl down her spine. “Uh, at her club, probably.”

Endo hummed, “A bit weird that she isn’t here.”

Yachi just blinked at him, “Well, m-maybe.” She really didn’t like it whenever Endo got into her personal space and looked at her like this.

He tapped his chin, “Just makes me wonder… Is our little decoy in a fight with his clone?” He really couldn’t wait to find out what was going on with the twins. Oh, how fun it might end up being.

---

When Asahi had asked Endo to stick around and help him practice a bit, Endo was more than happy to oblige. Any time he can get to hang around with his best friend, he certainly was going to take it. An added plus was getting to avoid his father for even longer by staying in the gym. So he just worked on setting the ball to Asahi so he could spike it. Then they would swap so Endo could work on his own spikes. Though they also took some breaks for Asahi to work on his serves. Since that was the biggest thing that Asahi had wanted to work on, Endo was more than happy to help him with that when needed.

Though just as Asahi served another ball over the net with some strong determination behind it, their libero came out of nowhere and saved it from hitting the floor. “Asahi-san! Endo-san! Mind if I join you?”

Asahi just blinked at him, put out that Nishinoya could easily receive his serve. “Oh, yeah. Sure.”

Endo shrugged his shoulders noncommittally, “I guess.” He had been hoping to just have practice between him and Asahi, but he supposed that it was fine. Nishinoya could join if he wanted. Not that he was going to be salty about it or anything, he’s not Tsukishima. Besides out of the others to join, Endo supposed that Nishinoya was alright.

Nishinoya excitedly asked, “Would you mind hitting some of my tosses?”

“Yeah, sure.” It took a moment for the libero’s words to hit him, but Asahi blinked when he finally understood, “Uh, wait, what? You’re going to toss?”

“Did you change positions?” Endo asked, also thoroughly confused.

Nishinoya smiled, “I’ll help you with your serves, too, Asahi-san. Then I can help Endo with your receives since they’re horrible.”

Endo scowled, “they’re not that bad.”

A determined look came over Asahi’s face, “Sure. Let’s do this.”

“All right!”

So the trio practiced for a while. Nishinoya worked on his technique to toss the ball, Asahi worked on his serves, and Endo was just there helping them out where they needed to. Not that Endo thought he didn’t have anything that he could work on, he certainly could improve a lot of his skills. Though what was the point in him working on something when two starters had to work on something. It was more important.

At one point, Asahi had said he needed a break to go to the bathroom, so obviously they paused. Endo sat himself down against the edge of the wall, a bit tired. He wasn’t exactly tired from practicing, since he was really just hitting the ball to Nishinoya for him to set and Asahi to 

“Endo,” Nishinoya said, standing over him now “Do you really want to be on this team?”

He chuckled loudly, “Whoa, quite blunt there, Nishi!”

“With you I know I have to be.” The libero then peered down closely at him, “So?” 

Endo didn’t really like the way that Nishinoya was staring at him. Like he was trying to look right through him to find out what was going on in his head. He never likes when people try to do that. Endo pursed his lips in thought, before deciding on what to say, “My father… He’s not exactly supportive of me staying on the team.”

“Though you’re still here.”

Endo scoffed, “Obviously! I will take any chance I get to spite him! Though he did say some things that made me question why I’m here to begin with.” 

After the loud conversation that he had with his father about volleyball, his future career and their relationships as a whole, Endo was at a bit of a loss. There were revelations between them that it was a good thing that they talked about. Even though Endo said to him that he wanted to keep doing volleyball during his highschool career, he questioned it still. If he really didn’t intend on continuing playing into university what was the point of playing now? Should he be focusing on his studies for his entrance exams? Going with his father to the company and learning more about it?

“Hey!” Nishinoya shouted, abruptly breaking Endo from his own thoughts, “If you’re starting to have doubts about being on the team, figure it out quickly! Either get off the team or stay!” Endo blinked at the loudness of his friend, with his mouth a bit agape at his yells. Nishinoya continued with a hard look on his face, “If you leave I’ll definitely call you a coward, though understand why, especially with your father breathing down your neck.”

Endo scoffed, “My father did make some good points, since I’m destined to work at his company and take over when the time comes, I should be focusing on my studies more.”

At the mention of studying, Nishinoya’s nose wrinkled. “So? Are you going to quit now, even when we’re close to getting a chance at winning!”

Endo had put quite a lot into this team. Effort that his father may not understand, but effort that Endo was proud of. So what was he going to do? He licked his lips, “I wanted to stick around for as long as I can, I want to see you guys win. I want to see Asahi happy because of it.” Yeah, he definitely would be more than content with seeing Asahi happy. He shook his head, “Though it’s not like I’m important to the team or anything.”

“It doesn’t matter if you're a starter or a bench warmer, you’re a part of this team!” Nishinoya said strongly, seemingly trying to get that notion out of Endo’s head.

Endo didn’t think that he was valuable to the team, not in the slightest. He was never a starter, his teammates were always so much better than him, and he never put the same amount of time into the team like they did. He did what was asked of him, but never overachieved. Nishinoya saying that he was important to the team was… 

Nishinoya continued, “All I’m saying is either commit or don’t waste more time!”

---

Yeah, Nishinoya is right, Endo thought every time he was at practice after that day. He never knew he would believe that, but Nishinoya does have his moments it seems. So as time past and they had their practices, Endo was making his decision. He wanted to stick around. He wants to be with his friends, he’s only in high school once, and he wasn’t going to let the responsibilities of adulthood haunt him yet.

Karasuno’s practices were going well. The team was coming up with new playstyles, improving on their existing skills and having fun doing it. Yes, Shoyo was a bit of a downer at times, most likely due to his sister’s absence, but he worked through it.

Not seeing Sakura at practice had become the norm. It worried a few, didn’t matter to others, and was interesting to one. After all, everyone had been accustomed to having her at every practice no matter what since the beginning of the school year. Everyone figured that it had to do with the fight that had happened between their sunshine decoy and gloomy setter. However, they had to wonder what Sakura thought about it. 

Meanwhile, Sakura was at her own club, listening in on the plans for the “Heroes” gallery. She wouldn’t say that she’s happier not being at the volleyball practices, but she also wasn’t upset about not being there. She did miss getting to talk with Kiyoko and Yachi. However, not having to deal with the volleyball idiots like Tsukishima, Nishinoya, Kageyama, Tanaka, Endo was a near god-send. Now she just had to deal with the idiots within her own club. So she was… content for the time being. Even if she was still upset about the argument she had with her brother. Though she’d push that to the back of her mind. They had the gallery tonight, just before summer vacation started, so they were getting that all settled. She certainly was excited about that since she got the photo that she wanted. Even if it made her feel a bit… sorrowful.  Though for now she’d just focus on how Ito and Wada were arguing yet again about something trivial.

In the volleyball club’s gym, Takeda gathered the boys all together. “Now, that it’s summer vacation, we can practice from morning to night.” He said to the group after one of their practices, “And starting tomorrow, we’ll resume the Tokyo away games. This time, we’ll be there for a solid week! This is the first and last long-term training camp before the spring tournament prelims. Let’s make the most of this opportunity, so we have no regrets entering the spring tournament prelims.” All of the boys definitely were eager to get the chance to play against such talented teams at the camp. One of the most eager, was Shōyō. Even with the fact that his sister and him hadn’t been on the best of terms, he put all his effort in getting better. With the team and his time with old Coach Ukai, he certainly thinks that he’s improved. Hopefully, he could use that to convince Sakura that she doesn’t need to leave to “find her identity” when she should be perfectly fine with being his twin.

---

Blog Masterlist | Red Herring Masterlist | Last Chapter | Next Chapter

A/N: Ah, so a little bit of conflict between the twins now, and it's serious. I figured I wanted their to be some misunderstanding between the twins since they never have had something like that happen to them before. They're not perfect siblings, but they've never argued to the point of staying away from each other, you know what I mean. Just figured it was a good way to have some character development between them. Then we've got the Tokyo training camp coming up next, but before that, we've got another gallery to see from Sakura! Not going to lie, I feel like the actual dialogue that I wrote for the agreement between Shōyō and Sakura was a bit... lacking, but I think it does it's job. Until the next one, my friends~

[blrbaileys]

Mob Vote and Minecraft Updates in General

*Edit:* Warning - Extensive rambling with no through line or halfway decent structure

Idk, I need a place to put my thoughts.

The original mob vote concept was cool, 4 unique and honestly kinda challenging looking mobs, we can vote on which gets added. I'm actually a fan of Phantoms, despite them being a nusiance to most I think having flying mobs is cool and they should add more mobs that just fly about.

And I actually liked the follow ups where the mobs were tied into biomes because it wasn't *about* the mobs, they were just nice tie ins. But at the point we're at now they have to force us to be excited about the "features" these mobs add and while they are somewhat cool features, they aren't really much in isolation.

The Sniffer could've been much cooler bundled with an extensive update to say, the Jungle or Desert biomes, or an actually interesting archeology update.

Or in the Glow Squid case, its a weird single use feature, they could have easily bundled the glowing sign effect into Glowstone Dust.

None of this is to say adding more mobs is the wrong choice, I think the opposite, we need more mobs which just, don't have features attached.

Ambient mobs, fireflys, birds flying overhead, snakes in the Desert, rats around structures, more variety in the oceans (actual variety, the differnt combos of Tropical Fish are a nice touch, but the mob is the same regardless)

Then as you do updates, you can add features to them where it makes sense, but tying the feature to the mob from the get go and then forcing a vote on it just means less features in the long run. And I'm not unaware as to why they do it this way, the mob vote gets people talking, I mean I'm talking about it right now so I guess I'm not helping but whatever at this point we are half way through the vote anyway.

The chatter, even that against the mob vote conceptually pushes Minecraft into our feeds, even the BBC are reporting on Minecraft LIVE and the mob vote cause its a story now.

I will say on a slightly other note, the whole "modders can make this in one day argument" is kinda flat. Modders usually have to make it for one version in one language on one platform. Mojang have to consider localisation, cross-compatibility, actually conceptualising the mob idea, etc. That's not to say Modders aren't incredibly hard working, they usually are, but if you're looking to call Mojang lazy I wouldn't do it based off just that.

This is already a long af post with little coherency but we're rolling with it.

I think really what I want to see, as a player since like, 2012, is Mojang just to make bolder moves in regards to the updates. I want them to change core gameplay mechanics and just, see what happens. And yeah last time was 1.9 and it divided the community into two distinct parts that exist today but we need something like that alongside 2 new wood types.

In regards to recent/planned changes to villagers and the netherite upgrade template, its clear they are trying to lengthen the "midgame" of Minecraft to capitalize on how most people play (that being they have a 2-3 week fixation on the game each year and then stop) This sucks, don't strech your midgame, extend your endgame.

Add more powerful mobs in a new dimension, make a place where even netherite armour feels like iron. I have no doubt it'd be a nightmare for new players so make it difficult to get to (like the totally-not-a-portal-frame in the ancient citys) make the overall gameplay loop of Minecraft longer.

I'm going to stop here for now, if I'm bored/procrastinating studies enough I should actually format some of these thoughts into something.

Anyway, boycott the mob vote, its unlikely to do anything, they truly don't have to care, but people made posters and played Poor Mans Poison over them, can you really still vote after that?

[mirrorofliterature]

I posted 1,429 times in 2022

That's 1,043 more posts than 2021!

472 posts created (33%)

957 posts reblogged (67%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@mirrorofliterature

@squidgilator

@faejilly

@junemermaid

@cheeseanonioncrisps

I tagged 1,413 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#hp - 424 posts

#rambles - 355 posts

#percy weasley - 177 posts

#writer things - 97 posts

#sirius black - 89 posts

#remus lupin - 77 posts

#oliver wood - 67 posts

#wolfstar - 65 posts

#shadowhunters - 54 posts

#perciver - 52 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#on queerness and on amatonormativity and the overlapping experience of women who are a-spec and those who are lesbians and not desiring men

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

oliver wood: no.1 defender of percy weasley

say if the wizarding world had wikipedia pages for well-known people like we do

percy’s page is always full of slander because he dared to leave the great weasley family.

in retaliation, oliver edits his own wikipedia page to include the following: Oliver Wood's husband, Percy Weasley, is the most intelligent and talented Head of Magical Transportation the Ministry of Magic has ever seen. He is also very handsome. This is an objective fact.

270 notes - Posted February 19, 2022

#4

there’s a thin line between sex positivity and shaming people for not liking sex, y’know?

one I support (sex positivity: a.k.a not shaming people for their sex lives or lack thereof as long as it is all consensual); one is like there is something slightly off in the air. it’s kind of just mirroring our sex-obsessed society.

I guess it’s a bit like body positivity. Or toxic positivity, really.

sometimes I see people say ‘if you haven’t had [x] sex before (or just sex), you can’t write good sex scenes’. and I know that they are not being intentionally malicious, that they’re probably directing this towards minors. but for me, it has an undercurrent of aphobia. because there’s the presumption that all people who haven’t had sex are simply too young, because there’s an aura of superiority.

(it’s the shaming of fictional characters for being virgins for me. 1) virginity is a social construct and 2) it has no impact on a person’s worth, ffs).

mate I haven’t killed anyone before but I’m pretty sure I can write a killer (pun intended) scene. I have written successfully from really insidious perspectives before. writing is replicating authentically experiences not your own.

I know this isn’t the most pressing issue for people, that it slips under the radar, but please.

check your biases. aphobia is harmful and wrong. ace people don’t deserve this.

275 notes - Posted January 31, 2022

#3

the way that oliver and percy respect each other’s needs would be unparalleled.

a.k.a oliver takes percy’s sensitivity to loud noises seriously (unlike his family), praises him on his accomplishments, and creates a quiet study environment... in turn percy doesn’t tease oliver for his strong quidditch passion and lets him info-dump and helps him find helpful study tactics.

idk I just think the basis of their relationship is mutual respect and I think that is neat

300 notes - Posted July 17, 2022

#2

amatonormativity is one of the most harmful forces in society, actually.

it’s incredibly structural, and invisible, and if you don’t live outside striving for the monogamous ideals, it can be incredibly normalised to a very toxic extent

amatonormativity:

- contributes to abuse (people staying in relationships because they are manipulated into thinking that some romantic relationship is better than none)

- high divorce rates

- unhappy marriages

- unhappy relationships

- inability to live alone

- devaluing of friendship

- is underpinned and underpins ableism (disabled people’s humanity is often judged on their capacity for sex and love, particularly romantic)

idk, maybe we should take this seriously? all a lot of freedom movements - particularly feminism - are striving for are giving people choice on what to do with their lives.

amatonormativity is the societal norm. it is real, it is not good for anyone. relationship anarchy is cool.

anyway.

1,042 notes - Posted July 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

my imagination does not extend to a world where sirius black is straight.

1,058 notes - Posted March 29, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[purgeturbia]

GOING TO TALK ABOUT STYLISTIC VOCAL CHOICES REAL QUICKLY PLEASE EXCUSE ME WHILE I NERD OUT

k So. this is something i’m a huge fan of because it totally changes the tone of a song when it’s used and it just so happens that many of my favorite artists are very skilled at it, which probably explains why i like them so much. 

what i’ve noticed is that there’s a difference between singing quietly because that’s what the dynamic markings in the sheet music call for and singing quietly because you’re restraining yourself. like something bigger is going to happen and you need to save your strength for it. or like something bigger could happen but it shouldn’t.

(this is hella long. like, almost 2k words long. so the rest is under the cut)

first place i noticed this was actually with wilbur soot’s vocals on the fall, from lovejoy’s ep pebble brain. in his first (solo) album, your city gave me asthma, wilbur was pretty consistent with singing quietly just for the sake of singing quietly. which is why it was quite surprising when in the fall he busted out this new technique. the fall is an angry song, generally. anger at british politicians, anger at the world. but the first verse is sung piano/mezzo piano, so upon first listen it just sounds kind of contemplative. however. it is very much so not contemplative. you can actively hear in wilbur’s voice how he’s holding himself back. how he has more to give but he’s not giving it, which really drives home the contrast when at the end of the song he’s literally just screaming into the microphone. 

he had feelings! he had so many feelings the whole song but they meant so much more because he didn’t let them all out in the open until the end. (and moving away from vocals for a second because this Also deserves recognition -- the instrumentals for a lot of the song are really minimal and tend toward being staccato, which just adds to the feeling of holding back because every chord sounds like it’s being cut off). the contrast is also so much more beautiful because while wilbur’s vocals aren’t often incredibly loud, on lovejoy’s music so far they’ve never been this quiet. there’s a reason for them being as reserved as they are and damn does it pay off. there’s a reason why the fall is so many people’s favorite song off the ep (it is for me only second to it’s all futile! it’s all pointless! for reasons of iafiap is really good).

second place is actually with dodie. she is so much more a quiet singer than she is a loud one, so this one is definitely not as obvious, but. it’s there and it Works. we’re gonna go ahead and disregard her more upbeat pop-style stuff for this because it’s not as quiet and doesn’t really have any effect on the Vibe Difference i want to talk about, but i do want to note that every song they’ve ever released is a banger go listen to it right now this is the law thank you. anyway. there’s a difference between her vocals in songs like arms unfolding, soft and cozy and mildly depressing, and songs like i kissed someone (it wasn’t you) and human. the latter two songs are definitely more on the restrained end of the spectrum. it’s the difference between talking to your best friend on the couch at 1 am, just having fun, and telling them your biggest secret. 

it’s the difference between sharing the parts of you that are sad and lonely and yearning but overall nice and digestible, vs. sharing the parts of you that people usually don’t want to hear about. the parts that aren’t so nice. the parts that hurt to say and hurt to look at. the difference in tone is what makes you understand that human isn’t just a normal love song -- it’s about being fucked up and codependent. their choice to use restraint here is part of what makes their music have actual Variety instead of all just sounding the same (which is so frustratingly common in the World of Modern Music TM). because of her general style this is a way more subtle difference and i also could be making it up BUT assuming it was on purpose and i just got lucky enough to notice that she is a Genius (which, like. she is anyway BUT U GET WHAT IM SAYING) i feel like it fits the discussion here.

and for the grand finale let us talk about my favorite incredibly talented music wizards or whichever sufficiently mystical way you would like to refer to them: the amazing devil. i’m gonna focus my discussion on ruin (the album, but also later the song) for this one, simply because i don’t even need to talk about any of the rest of their discography to get my point across, but know that this does happen in other places and it does emotionally destroy me every other time it happens as well. so! 

something i adore about this particular example is that joey motherfucking batey is so goddamn talented that he uses different levels of restraint within the same fucking song (is that song nine minutes long? yes. doesn’t matter. still unfair of him). i am of course talking about the old witch sleep and the good man grace. holy Shit what a song. anyway. in The Beginning, joey’s doing his thing, singing about how he’s way cooler than the weird shadow people, and he’s quiet, which is, like dodie, pretty normal for him. yeah he goes feral, but also fair exists. so. 

but the part that gets me! is that you can tell something’s coming. you know he’s about to go apeshit. you can just feel it in the way his every note is so measured and the tempo is so carefully controlled. the restraint is so potent -- that kind of calm can’t and won’t last forever. and then the explosion comes so suddenly and you’ve known it was coming and the first few times you listen to the song it still scares you because the first verse was so careful. so quiet. so joey’s got his couple minutes of being feral as all get-out, and then. oh, and Then -- let’s bury this. 

this is restrained on a whole different level. before this, joey and wilbur had been playing the same game. restrain your voice now, keep things measured and short and even, so that when you let go later it’s felt a thousand times more. now, though, now shit’s gotten real. it’s like graduating from playing tic-tac-toe and going straight to fucking five-grid sudoku. joey batey is not here to mess around. he’s here to make you his bitch, actually, and you’re gonna fucking know it, literally just because of his technique. what the fuck. this is restrained because he’s scaring the shit out of you and he doesn’t need to be loud and angry to do it. this is restrained because he wants you to know that when he lets go you’re gonna regret everything you ever did to get in this situation. can you tell i think he’s a musical genius? anyway. mans wants blood. and he’s far more loose with the tempo, with the dynamics, even with the notes -- they’re sliding all over the place now, and the jumps are more random too. but his tone is still restrained. he’s still holding back and you know it and then you know it even more because he goes feral again at the end and it’s oh such a beautiful payoff i could LIVE in those few measures! i could live in any of their music but that’s beside the point.

so i’m kind of getting off my own track here with this one but i want to also draw attention to how IMMEDIATELY after the old witch sleep and the good man grace we have ruin, which is just. the Most emotionally devastating song i have possibly ever listened to (aside from actually dodie’s when -- the studio version, which destroys me every time i listen to it). but we aren’t here to talk about how good ruin is because i already did that and nobody wants to hear it a second time. we are here, however, to talk about how the emotional fucking whiplash of this album comes not only from the order of the songs but Also from the tone change. madeleine (she’s here now! hell yeah!) starts singing and you get none of the restraint that joey had literally a minute and a half ago. yeah it’s quiet and also depressing as fuck, but her voice just kind of floats. she’s making the sound soft and close-feeling without necessarily holding anything back, if that makes sense. the dynamics and the vocal tone aren’t what cause the build-up in this song; it’s the accompaniment and the chord progression and the harmonies and the LYRICS, the Fucking lyrics. 

also, if we back up a couple steps -- immediately preceding the old witch sleep and the good man grace is chords, which also is just So painful. chords is kind of a balance between towsatgmg and ruin, which i think is so valuable because to go from that balance to the extreme ends of the spectrum with absolutely zero buffer really emphasizes the contrast. you hear what a normal fucking song sounds like and then you hear Absolutely Feral Joey Batey and then immediately the We Are Going to Make You Cry (A Lot) duo. and chords is the same as ruin where there’s not any particular restraint, but it does have a lot more tonal contrast in general and that’s what makes it the middle ground.

(one note really quickly lol -- i am so aware that it sounds like i’m just taking dynamic contrast and blowing it out of proportion but i Promise it’s not just that i just somehow don’t know enough of the actual technical words for what i’m talking about to explain it properly so pls excuse me for that)

IN CONCLUSION (or, a terrible TL;DR): my favorite musical artists are all so talented that i was forced (yes, forced) to write 1.7k words about one specific talent that they all share and use way too many parentheses and irregular capitalizations to get my point across. wilbur soot is the only one of these artists who will use tonal differences expertly but not to make you cry. yet. the bitches at the academy better nominate build a problem for a grammy. and it better win. and also joey batey is an evil, evil man but i hope he and madeleine are both having the best day always (but also i’m mad at them. but also i love them). i do not have enough free time to have written this. i wrote 1.5k words of this in one sitting. i need more people who will listen to me talk about music. please listen to all of these artists. MUSICIANS U GOTTA THINK ABOUT THE EMOTIONS AND THE INTENT AND THE IMAGERY BEFORE U JUST START SINGING WORDS BECAUSE UR SONG IS GONNA SUCK IF YOU DON’T SOUND LIKE YOU MEAN IT. that is all. thank u.

[itsmercurial]

ONE | temperamental children and eavesdroppers

anthony bridgerton x fem!reader | the social season of 1808 brought forth a very unexpected union, to the members of both families. and yet there was never any doubt in a certain mother’s mind that it would be a marriage full of love and happiness. And to her, it did happen... well until that fateful night where she just so happened to stumble into her children standing in front of a door. (3.2k)

a/n: i edited it a little bit from the original post at my old blog (infeffablename / daydream-hoe). for those who have read and liked this already, i would appreciate if y’all liked it again :)) + the gif is made by @stevenrogered from this gifset. anyways, if you're returning or new, i hope u enjoy this and thank you for stopping by <333

THE SOCIAL SEASON OF 1808 | (part one) (part two) (part three)

Unlike all of the meals eaten together by the Bridgerton Family for the past decades, last night’s dinner was a quiet affair. Violet Bridgerton, who was the most accustomed to the chatter and noise brought by her eight children, found it odd. Although perhaps it was the events that unfolded before the dinner that caused it…

The day started with a dull breakfast, Daphne arriving soon after. She asked for assistance in the upcoming ball that she and Simon were to host— the first of many, Eloise remarked. Daphne had informed them that Simon would be joining them for dinner and to Violet’s delight, Anthony and his family were to arrive after lunch and stay for dinner too. (Maybe she could get them to stay the night— and that she did.)

Anthony and his family.

Violet beamed at those four words.

She never expected it to happen so early due to her son’s rakish ways yet it did. Though it did not begin in the most suitable fashion as getting seen whilst unchaperoned is outright scandalous, Violet found peace in how much love that the two had developed. From the utter longing in their eyes as they looked at each other to peaceful looks in their faces with just the presence of the other.

From the start, with Y/N’s supportive smile and encouraging spirit, she saw a sturdy foundation that could be built. And with Anthony’s attentiveness and honor, she knew the most beautiful home would rise.

And how beautiful it is— was— is.

And the proof—

“Gramma.” Soft and small hands were placed on Violet’s cheeks and her face was moved to fixate on that of the same eyes of her late husband. Same eyes, same smile, same name. “Why are you thinking of the ocean?”

The serene expression on her face faded to a confused one as she asked her concerned three-year-old grandson, “An ocean? Why do you think I’m thinking of the ocean, dearest?”

“Mama looks like that most of the time and she told me that she is thinking of matters as deep as the ocean!” Teddy, as they would affectionately call him, extends his arms sidewards in exaggeration. Violet chuckled at his antics, though slightly worried at her daughter-in-law for what could she possibly ponder on often that even a child would notice.

All of a sudden, Teddy frowned, taking his grandmother by surprise. He was often a lively young lad— oh, the irony with how his father’s favorite hobby is brooding and glowering. He then situated himself on Violet’s lap, his hands moving to rest on her shoulders as he lay his head on her chest. “But mama never smiles like that…”

Before Violet could question the statement, the morning newspaper hit her right in the face and a frustrated wail erupted.

Francesca stopped playing the pianoforte. Eloise put down the latest release of the infamous scandal sheet. Benedict, Colin, Daphne, and Y/N ceased in conversing about Colin’s upcoming tour. Gregory and Hyacinth halted their debate on who was the better uncle/aunt.

And Anthony?

Violet turned to look at the culprit and she saw her son with a look of bewilderment, his eyebrows raised as he stared at his one-and-a-quarter-year-old.

Little James Bridgerton was red in the face, tears streaming down his face and his arms pushing his father who attempted to calm him down. “No! No! No! No!” He screamed, and it was as if everyone in the room forgot how to care for a child as they stared, frozen.

You were quick to stand up as James kept slapping Anthony with his hands. Violet noted the fearful look on your face and the tears that were so close to dropping. From your eyes and Anthony’s.

“Sweetheart…” You whispered, nearing him and once he heard you, his head whipped so fast in your direction and he outstretched his little arms, babbling “Ma” over and over again, slightly hiccupping. You held him close to you, his arms wrapped tightly around your neck and you gently rocked him, mumbling comforting words in his ear, his head nodding. (Daphne watched with her heart clenching— she was the first to look away.)

You set yourself down on Anthony’s lap once James was somewhat calmed down, his arms wrapping themselves around the two of you and his chin rested on one of your shoulders. “Papa, Jamie. It’s Papa…” You whisper as you maneuvered your son to sit on your lap, his face wet from his crying as his eyes shifted from you and Anthony.

Everyone followed Daphne in looking away and resumed their previous activities, partly due to not wanting to interrupt such an intimate moment between the three. Violet couldn’t help but see how tense your shoulders were and the slight hesitation before sitting on—

“All that boy does is cry,” Teddy mumbled, shaking his head at his brother.

Come to think of it, maybe. Maybe James crying was the reason dinner was quiet.

But how come Violet couldn’t sleep that night?

Something was knocking on the back of her mind, a thought she most likely put in there to think about later. Sadly, later came and she had forgotten what it was. Maybe a glass of warm milk could help, she whispered into the emptiness of her room.

So, she stood and went to fetch some warm milk, thank goodness she learned how to prepare some a few years past. But just as she was to turn to enter the kitchen, there was the most peculiar sight.

Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory, and Hyacinth, Violet counted her children thrice and even rubbed her eyes, in case it was just a hallucination of hers. And it was not. There. There in front of her eldest son’s study, all her other children had their ears pressed on the door, hushing each other when one produced even the slightest noise.

“What are you seven doing there?!” Her seven children simultaneously faced her, extended their index finger in front of their lips and shushed her. Violet raised a brow and walked over to them quietly. The look in her children’s eyes almost made her shudder. Once close, she questioned, “Now, what are y-we doing here?”

The seven exchanged glances and it looked like they were conversing with their minds, debating who was to tell her of the reason. Eloise, exasperated, sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll tell her… We all could not sleep and somehow, we all thought of getting milk to drink but we heard mumbling and… we were curious!” Eloise whisper-yelled at her mother’s accusing gaze.

“Eavesdropping is still an invasion of privac—"

“Y/N asked Anthony where he had been the past few days, she said that the reason James threw a tantrum was because he did not recognize him. It seems that he has not been in their lodgings as frequently as what he informs us of,” Daphne blurted out, cutting her mother off, the words hastily came out of her mouth and Violet’s eyes widened. She then mimicked her children’s previous position, ears stuck on her son’s door. The seven followed suit.

“Are you accusing me of being a bad father?” She heard Anthony’s voice say, low as if daring her to answer.

“I am only asking you of your whereabouts these past few days! I think I do have that right, seeing as I am your wife and it is interfering with how our sons are behaving.”

“I have told you repeatedly that I have been here! My study is located here—"

“Something I have told you is inconvenient. And we both know that is not true!”

“— and I have plenty of business to work on—”

“And yet when Daphne was still unmarried, you made time—”

“— and you do too, as a Viscountess, and yet you—”

“— you even managed our schedule, without my permission, might I add—”

“— hold on, you reassured me that you were fine with the changes—”

“—just so we could— You had finalized them already, what would my complaint do?!” (Similar to their eavesdropping audience, you had also grown frustrated at how your conversation with your husband had gone. You only hoped for him to be honest and still…) “WOULD YOU SHUT IT?!”

Anthony’s mouth indeed quieted after that.

“Stop with all that nonsense! I would just like to know where my husband spends his nights because it is most certainly not with his family nor with his wife and children!” A blur. That was all Violet could see, tears fogging her eyes, and all she could hear was ringing.

She knew that her son must’ve caught on. All her children must have.

His family.

His wife and children.

Violet was not ignorant in the loveless or crumbled marriages in society. She knew that there were instances that hearts were apart, children were neglected, and families were separate. But she had always been reassured that theirs were not separate, only different. She knew that her family, the one she built with Edmund, was different from the one that Anthony’s, the one he had started with Y/N. From the comfort and love given to the environment surrounded, it was different yet beautiful all the same.

She knew their marriage was beautiful but how could she… how could she…

Say so easily that they were not considered family?

How were her righteous Anthony, brilliant Y/N, lively Teddy, and endearing Jamie not a family?

“What are you implying, my dear wife?” Anthony asked, strained emphasis on calling you his wife.

“You know what it is and you are aware of its truth. Do not evade my question once again and tell me where you have been?!” Your voice was slightly shaking when you first started, it rose until it was back to the level of frustration you displayed just minutes ago.

Violet could not hear anything for a moment, thinking they had begun to whisper or maybe they had thought to resolve it with actions only occurring betwee— wait, why was she letting Hyacinth and Gregory listen again?

“You have been on the other side of town?” You said, Violet concluded that it was simply a momentary silence. She gulped at what you had said, she knew that it was true. Violet had confronted her son early into the season about how he keeps a place far from where his family were retiring at night. He had said that it was just where he crashes when he spends too much time at White’s as he did not want to face your wrath. But now… with the underlying tone of sadness and accusation in your words, she knew what you were to insinuate.

No response.

“He must have nodded,” Eloise deduced. Violet turned to look at her and her daughter’s brows were furrowed and she looked concerned. She took time to look at the rest of her snooping children and they all mirrored that look.

It took a minute and when you spoke again, it was clear that your voice was thick with emotion. Unlike the confidence your anger gave you earlier, you were now stumbling over your words and you stuttered, “A-are you hav-ha-having an a… Are you being unfa—”

“How could you accuse me of that?!” Anthony must have stood, with that amount of indignation in his voice, he must have.

There was no response from you this time.

“Y/N! Answe—” You inhaled deeply, then a shaky exhale and Violet was sure you were crying… Or was about to. “Y/N…”

“What… is this life that we have condemned ourselves to live?”

“W-what?” Anthony was taken aback by your statement. He stuttered, when was the last time Violet had heard her eldest stutter?

“You do not love me…” If it weren’t for Violet’s sharp hearing, she would not have caught what you said. (“Eloise, what did she say?” she could hear Hyacinth whisper and of course, Eloise answered, shushing her quickly after.) She was perplexed… she knew that her son loved you, she could see it. Even a blind man could.

“I—"

“You love our children, your love for them runs deeper than what you have ever felt before. And I completely understand that because I feel the same but you do not love me…”

“I’m—"

“You did not love me then, you do not love me now, and I have been utterly foolish in thinking that you could still grow to love me…” Your voice shook as you spoke and it broke in the end, leaving the sound of heartbreak to resonate. It was unclear as to who you were talking to. It seemed to be directed towards the both of you, more to you, Violet guessed, eyes glistening.

Again, there was no response.

Violet was utterly tempted to open the door and hit his son with something to make him say or do something. Anything.

“O-oh…” You said, slight disappointment at how he did not respond. “V-very well then… the boys and I shall take our leave for Aubrey Hall tomorrow.”

What? The eight shared a look of shock and confusion.

“I wish to save us both the pain of seeing each other. You deserve to sleep in your bed and not somewhere else and I deserve t-the space. We shall need to talk about where we see our lives headed… but let us give ourselves the time to think before we do.” Your statement and your tone left no room for judgement. “I-I hope you have a good night's sleep.”

Colin quickly blew out the candle that Violet had put aside and he ushered the group to the side, hidden in the dark corner of the hallway, opposite the direction Y/N would walk towards. Everyone stilled after covering their mouths.

Instead of a slam of the study’s door that the snooping members of the family expected, you closed it as soft as you could, sighing. They all watched as you pressed your back on the very door with your eyes shut, your body sliding down with no hint of emotion on your face.

Anthony could easily attempt to open the door and find her there, Violet thought. And even with no light to let her see the faces of her children, she knew that the same thing was on their minds.

The first tear fell, or it seemed like it did. The lack of light was starting to get on her nerves, she couldn’t see what was happening. But somehow, she knew.

Then, the second. And then the third.

You bit your lip as you tried to blink back the tears but that only made them continue to slip down your cheeks. Your hands were shaking, Violet saw the visible tremble as you lifted your hand to wipe the wetness on your face.

You stared at them, your shaking hands, for a while, the pain in your chest amplifying with every second that passed. The whole conversation plays like a broken record in your mind. The deep breathing you had accustomed yourself to do stopped. A deeper inhale and then, you doubled over. You sobbed uncontrollably, your shoulders shaking with each wave of the tsunami that were your tears.

The hall reverberated with anguish and pain.

It was impossible that Anthony could not hear you, it was impossible, Violet thought…

And that was when she realized, with her daughter-in-law drowning in distressed…

This was not the first time that this happened

And in those previous instances, Anthony never tried to fix the reoccurring hammer that gradually caused each crumble in his family.

Morning came early for Violet.

Perhaps it was due to the cries of her daughter-in-law, haunting her mind even when she slept.

Perhaps it was the confusion brought by the statements of unreciprocated love that were said in her son’s study.

Perhaps it was the revelation that her son chose to sleep at nights with the frustration sprung from an argument in his mind and, Violet hoped, the guilt of not resolving it with his wife.

It was probably all of it, Violet thought as she entered their dining room for breakfast.

And the area was once again quiet, a tender mix of silence and apprehension present.

“Oh! Mama, you have arrived, we can finally eat,” Daphne exclaimed with an uncomfortable smile, attempting to cut the tension. (All night, her thoughts were of how much luck she had that although he lied about his capability to have children, Simon was in love with her. At least they had that, well, she’d like to think they still do.)

“I’m surprised that you haven’t even begun,” Violet said, her eyes glancing at Colin as she hoped he would say something to aid them. He did not. (All night, his thoughts were filled with his brother’s and his sister-in-law’s reactions to his former engagement with Marina. Anthony told him he was too young and you asked him if he was even sure that it was truly love.)

Violet took her seat at one end of the table, opposite Anthony. The expected chatter commenced as everyone simply tried to ignore the elephant in the room. (Unbeknownst to Anthony and Y/N, what was on their minds were also on their family’s.)

She clocked an eyebrow and observed her son closely. The bags under Anthony’s eyes were prominent, his hair disheveled and he kept looking at you. Thankfully, the usual glower on his face was gone and replaced with a soft smile as James happily babbled with the flapping of his tiny arms. Your laugh was strained as you struggled to feed him. Your whole disposition was scaring the matriarch. Your eyes were less bright, your body was stiff and you kept avoiding Anthony’s gaze.

Meanwhile, the missing glower was being sported by Teddy. His lips pressed together as Hyacinth and Gregory strove to make him laugh. He did not.

Even when you asked him why he was not eating and if he was feeling well. He just held his spoon and began eating. You also tried to converse with him but he only grunted in response to what you said. Everyone peered at him every once in a while, concern written on their faces.

And then you cleared your throat midway through breakfast and Violet turned to you, wondering what you were to say. “The boys and I shall leave soon after breakfast, we are to head back to Aubrey Hall.” Everyone attempted to act surprised with Hyacinth even gasping dramatically. “M-Mama is arriving early for the preparations for Teddy’s birthd—”

A clatter.

Teddy pushed away his plate and stormed out of the room, the glower now a full pledged glare as he stomped with his arms crossed. Eyes wide, everyone stared, astonished.

You stood immediately, similar to yesterday, ready to follow your child but Anthony reached for your arm as you were about to leave the room. “Let me handle it,” Anthony said, his eyes pleading for you to sit down. Violet noticed the unease reflected on your eyes… your shoulders did not even relax with the thought of your husband calming down your children.

Once Anthony left, the only sound that echoed within the room was James’ soft babbling of a lullaby you frequently sing, blissfully ignorant of his surroundings.

[thelazyhermits]

I completed Book 5, so I’m now all caught up with the ENG storyline. Now, I can cover Book 5 events with my Yuu which will all be underneath the cut.

Edit: I’ve decided to go back and edit this since I’ve changed my mind on a few things since I started writing Twst fics, and thanks to those fics, there are things I don’t really need to include here on what would already be a long post just with the book’s events lol

For the most part, the beginning of Book 5 proceeds like it does in the game, that is up until the scene at the wishing well.

By this point, Yuu has gotten pretty good at reeling her boys in, so before they can do anything to piss Vil off, she intervenes and promptly gives the Ace/Deuce/Grim trio some smacks to keep them from doing anything stupid.

While they’re complaining about the rough treatment, she apologizes for the rudeness of her sons and tells Vil that she’s still working on their manners.

While Epel is marveling over how well she subdued the idiot trio, Vil comments that he’s glad at least one person in her group has some manners/common sense and knows when not to stick their nose into other people’s business.

Yuu proceeds to tell him that, despite her actions just now, her feelings aren’t that much different than her friends’ feelings. However, unlike them, she doesn’t think she currently needs to get involved in Epel’s situation since she knows he’s a strong guy.

Epel isn’t some damsel in distress that needs saving, so she won’t do him the disservice of treating him as such. However, that said, if Epel were to tell her that he needed her help, she wouldn’t hesitate to agree, even if that meant facing and having to take down the dorm leader of Pomefiore himself, because she considers Epel a friend.

While Epel is moved by her words, Vil is amused by her gall. It takes some guts to say something like that without any hesitation straight to his face.

In the end, he realizes that she’s just like her kids, just slightly more tactful lol

Soon after that, Vil takes Epel away like in the game, with Epel making sure to thank Yuu as they’re leaving since he really did appreciate what she said earlier.

After the Pomefiore students leave, Ace/Grim complain about Yuu’s rough treatment and how she’s really no better than them since she essentially picked a fight with Vil too lol 

Meanwhile, Deuce is feeling conflicted since he wants to help Epel, but at the same time, he realizes that Yuu made a good point earlier so he doesn’t know what he should do about Epel’s situation.

When he confides in her about this, Yuu tells him that she doesn’t see anything wrong with Deuce trying to help Epel. She really admires the fact that he’s genuinely bothered by Epel’s situation and can’t just leave Epel be.

(It reminds her of Midoriya/All Might whom she’s sure would’ve reacted similarly.)

That’s why she suggests finding a way to support Epel without forcing their help on him. That way, he’ll know they’re there for him, but they’ll also be respecting his feelings.

Which leads to Deuce making the decision to try out for the SDC with Ace/Grim since he knows that Epel will be a part of it but doesn’t actually want to be, so either Deuce can take his spot or at least be around to keep an eye on Epel.

Yuu had a feeling he would go this route, and she gives him her full support.

So, from there, Ace/Deuce/Grim begin practicing for the SDC audition. Yuu remains on the sidelines and takes care of playing the music and providing feedback.

She had been asked if she would try to audition, but she was quick to say she isn’t particularly good at singing/dancing. That’s why she thinks it’s best for her not to audition.

(What Yuu doesn’t realize is that, while it’s true that she’s not really good at dancing, she actually is a good singer. She just doesn’t think she is because Mumei had caught her singing to herself in the past and insulted her to the point where she came to truly believe she is bad at singing. 

Plus, there were times when Mumei would get violent when he insulted her singing, so as a result, she developed a fear of singing in front of others since she would unconsciously just expect that outcome every time despite rationally knowing that not everyone would be like Mumei.

That’s why she never sings around people and has basically developed stage fright to the point that if she were asked to sing she’d freeze up in fear and start remembering Mumei’s cruelty.)

Like in canon, Kalim & Jamil end up joining Ace/Deuce/Grim with their practicing and provide advice to help them improve. So things are mostly like in the game for this portion of the book.

One slight difference is that, in the scene with Azul, Yuu admits that she knew the live broadcast claim was just a lie to corner Jamil. She hadn’t been told as much, but she could tell that Jade was lying since she’s good at noticing when someone is lying.

However, that isn’t always the case with people as skilled at lying as Jade. He just wasn’t putting in all his effort in that lie as he would with other lies, so she was able to see through him that time, which Azul finds impressive since most people can’t see through Jade even when he’s not putting all his effort into a lie since he’s just that good at it.

Another difference is that Kalim tries to get Yuu more involved in the practice sessions since it’d be more fun that way, so she ends up getting more dance lessons from him.

During one session, Kalim tries to get Yuu to sing, telling her to do it for fun and not to worry about what anyone says about how she sounds. While he only has the best intentions, he basically backs Yuu into a corner, causing her stage fright to start to kick into gear.

Thankfully, before it can get bad enough to be noticeable by anyone other than him, Jamil intervenes and asks Yuu if the idiot trio has registered for the audition since that’s required.

Upon finding out that hasn’t been done, Jamil suggests that she go find Rook to register her friends while they continue with their practice session.

Yuu leaps at the chance to escape and gives Jamil a grateful look for his timely intervention which she doesn’t think was purely by chance. 

So, rather than go to Rook’s classroom with her friends like what happens in the game, Yuu heads there on her own to get the job done while her friends are practicing.

While, unlike her game counterpart, Yuu knows who Rook is by this point in the timeline, she doesn’t see him in the classroom when she walks in. That’s why she approaches Leona in hopes that he might know where Rook is. When she explains why she’s looking for Rook, Rook promptly appears right behind her, scaring the living hell out of her lol

Although she’s used to Rook jump-scaring her, Yuu still gets scared every time he jump-scares her since she’s just that bad with jump-scares lol

As a result, Yuu yelps and promptly starts clinging onto Leona since her instinctual response is to latch onto whoever is closest to her when she gets scared like that. 

A noticeably irritated Leona complains about her screaming in his ears, and she apologizes and tells him that she’s bad with jump-scares.

What she doesn’t realize, because she can’t see his face in her current position, is that Leona’s irritation is mostly directed at Rook whom he’s currently glaring at lol 

Rook is completely unaffected by the glare and instead just marvels at the beautiful sight of protective Leona. He just loves seeing Leona & Yuu interact since he finds their friendship to be quite beautiful and fascinating. 

When Yuu pulls away from Leona to face Rook, Rook apologizes for scaring her, just as he always does whenever this happens. At this point, Yuu thinks he does it on purpose like Lilia cause this just happens way too often lol 😂

From there, the conversation transpires like it does in canon, with the only difference happening at the end when Rook offers to act as Yuu’s escort to class cause he’s a gentleman and he wants to make up for startling her earlier.

Of course, it goes without saying that Rook is always happy to have another opportunity to hang out with Yuu so he can observe her haha

Knowing what Rook’s trying to do, Leona immediately shoots that idea down and says she doesn’t need an escort from the likes of him lol

While she doesn’t mind Rook’s company, he can get overwhelming at times, and she doesn’t want to worry Leona. That’s why Yuu politely declines Rook’s offer and says she’ll be fine on her own, so after exchanging partings with Leona and Rook, she promptly leaves the classroom.

Up until audition day, things proceed like in canon, and audition day itself is much like it is in the game as well. 

The only real difference is that Yuu is friends with Ortho, so she approaches him upon seeing him at the audition which leads to her finding out why he’s doing the audition, and since she knows Ortho/Idia by this point, she’s able to clear up any misunderstandings that Cater and the others have related to the Shroud brothers like what happens in the game.

(Here a joke would be made about how Yuu seems to know everyone at NRC which isn’t too far from the truth lol)

The next divergence from canon happens after the audition results are revealed and her group along with Jamil & Kalim head for the Pomefiore dorm.

When the Pomefiore students start challenging them, Jamil orders Yuu to stay out of the fights, but she tells him even if she wanted to she couldn’t because almost the entire dorm dislikes her. 

She has no doubt that the Pomefiore students will take any chance to aim attacks her way, with the claim that it was “accidental” or that it was her fault for getting in the way or cause she picked a fight with them first, etc. 

Based on what she knows about Vil, Yuu has a feeling this is all just to get the guys on the SDC team warmed up, and she’s sure Vil would’ve ordered his dorm members not to harm her. However, they could easily get around that order by using the previously mentioned excuses.

For her, walking into this dorm is like entering the metaphorical lion’s den, even more so than the Savanaclaw dorm lol

Upon hearing this, Kalim and Jamil are noticeably displeased since this is their first time hearing about how bad things are between her and Pomefiore. Meanwhile, Grim and ADeuce are irritated and ready and willing to beat up anyone who tries to harass Yuu. 

In the end, Yuu’s sons don’t have to do anything, however, because Kalim surprises everyone when he moves to the front of their group and announces his name and the name of his family, much to the confusion of the Pomefiore students.

Kalim declares that Yuu is his friend, which means she’s also a friend of his family’s, so if something were to happen to her, he and his family will hold the perpetrators responsible.

Once he gets over his surprise about Kalim coming up with such a clever strategy and actually purposely using his family’s influence to his advantage, Jamil immediately backs him up and starts talking about how wealthy and influential the Asim family is and how he’d pity anyone who ever made an enemy out of them.

Just as the Scarabia duo had hoped, the Pomefiore students start growing nervous at the prospect of doing something to incur the wrath of Kalim and his family. They’re quick to lie and say that they had no intention to do anything to Yuu since Vil only told them to target the members of the SDC team.

While Kalim happily expresses his relief over their words, Jamil guides Yuu and Grim off to the side and says that as long as the Pomefiore students focus on the rest of them then there will be nothing to worry about. 

As a result, none of the Pomefiore students ever dare to do anything to Yuu, so she and Grim are just able to sit back and relax while the others are fighting. 

Yuu was very surprised by what Kalim did earlier since he’s normally not one to use his influence like that, but it really means a lot to her how the Scarabia duo quickly took action to keep her safe and that they were looking out for her like that. 

After the boys clear their challenges, they meet up with the Pomefiore trio in the ballroom, and things proceed like in canon.

When Crowley later shows up and makes the suggestion of hosting a training camp at Ramshackle, Yuu is exasperated with him coming up with new responsibilities to put her on her shoulders, but she can’t say she completely hates the idea since having everyone stay at Ramshackle with her and Grim sounds like fun.

Of course, that doesn’t stop her from questioning Crowley about why he’s okay with this since, whenever the topic of Yuu joining one of the main seven dorms comes up, Crowley is always saying that Yuu can’t go living in a den of wolves. It’s much too dangerous.

Yet now he’s saying he wants all these guys to live in her dorm for the next month. He’s really giving her mixed messages here.

Crowley quickly says that this situation is fine cause it’s only a temporary thing, and with someone like Vil there, he has no worries about Yuu’s well-being since Vil’s responsible unlike most of the NRC students lol

(He’s not fooling Yuu, though. She knows that he’s just doing this all for the sake of getting publicity for NRC since it’ll look good for their school if their group wins at the SDC. 

A part of her also thinks he wants to keep her at Ramshackle cause he’ll have easier access to her to make her do all his annoying tasks since he can’t really do as he pleases as much as he’d like in the other dorms cause there’d be plenty of witnesses lol)

In the end, Yuu agrees to the idea of Ramshackle being the host of the training camp since it means getting more funding for Grim’s tuna addiction, and she can get more funds for the sake of further renovating Ramshackle.

(Plus, this will allow her to keep an eye on Vil without making herself look suspicious. Because she had a dream about Snow White like in canon, she can’t help but feel paranoid, even though she hasn’t started seeing Vil’s childhood memories yet and she hasn’t been having Snow White dreams every night, so for her peace of mind, she wants to keep tabs on Vil.)

However, that’s not all Yuu asks for since she realizes this is an ideal opportunity to make a deal with Vil. 

Before agreeing to lend her dorm for the training camp and to help out the SDC team, Yuu requests that Vil give some consideration to giving her his blessing to adopt Epel, which catches both Pomefiore boys off guard.

Since becoming friends with Epel, Yuu has had her eye on him being a potential son candidate, but she hasn’t said anything up until now since she didn’t think she’d get Vil’s blessing since almost everyone in that dorm hates her.

However, since becoming properly acquainted with Vil right before winter break, Yuu has started to think there’s a chance that he could give her his blessing, but of course, she still had some doubts since she’s basically the antithesis of his dorm’s aesthetic and she doesn’t consider herself someone a person like Vil would approve of.

That’s why she wants to make use of this opportunity to prove herself to Vil since she can, through her efforts to support the SDC team, show him that she’s someone he can entrust Epel to.

Fortunately, Vil is willing to accept her offer since it’s not like he’s promising anything. He’s simply agreeing to let her prove herself to him, and he would honestly like to see what she does.

(Rook is all excited over Yuu wanting to include one of Pomefiore’s precious first years in her beautiful family since he personally considers it an honor to be a part of such a fasinating group. He’s a big fan of Yuu’s family and likes to watch them as if they’re his favorite soap opera lol 😂

Meanwhile, Epel has no idea what to make of this surprising turn of events. The poor boy is so confused cause why are they talking about his adoption all of a sudden and why the hell would she need Vil’s blessing???

However, much to Yuu’s sons’ surprise, once Epel’s confusion abates, he’s honestly quite chill about the whole adoption thing. Like yeah it’s strange but he likes Yuu and thinks she’s cool. She’s someone both Leona and Ruggie respect, which speaks volumes to Epel, and Epel just likes how it’s easy to relax around her.

So, in the end, like Ortho, Epel accepts getting adopted without any fuss, which really boggles the minds of Yuu’s other sons lol)

Once that’s all settled, Yuu grabs Grim so they can hurry back and begin cleaning up Ramshackle since she refuses to allow her new temporary dormmates to see Ramshackle in anything other than pristine condition.

Of course, it’s not like the dorm is a total mess since Yuu routinely cleans it and makes Grim help her out. She just wants to ensure it’s in as high quality condition as possible for the sake of her pride.

Thankfully, Yuu’s able to get some more cleaning supplies from Sam who charges it to Crowley cause it’s the least Crowley can do to help out with this new training camp which Sam, of course, has already heard about.

When they get back to Ramshackle, Yuu has Grim and the ghosts all working to get the dorm into tip top shape, with Grim moaning and groaning about it the whole time lol

By the time the SDC team arrives at Ramshackle, the dorm is looking great, and Grim’s totally exhausted. Meanwhile, Yuu’s just proudly smiling about how nice the dorm looks haha

That smile fades, however, when she gets a vision that shows what will happen if Ace/Deuce/Grim try to sneak a midnight snack against Vil’s orders. Yuu isn’t present in the vision since Grim knew that if she was awake she would’ve tried to stop them lol

(Thankfully, the vision happens when the Pomefiore guys aren’t around to see her have it, so she doesn’t draw any attention to herself.)

Since she doesn’t want her friends to have to suffer the effects of Vil’s UM, even though they’ll just be reaping what they sowed, Yuu talks with Vil later on about all the junk food and sweets that he’ll be confiscating and asks if she can just bring it to someone else to eat since she thinks the temptation will too great for her friends if the food’s just left at the dorm.

Naturally, Grim/Ace are very much against this idea, and Deuce/Kalim aren’t too fond of it either. 

Vil goes along with her idea since it really doesn’t matter to him what happens to the food as long as no one in the dorm eats it.

So, after gathering up all the food that Vil has prohibited, Yuu takes it to Savanaclaw to give to Ruggie cause she knows he’ll make good use of it and won’t let anything go to waste.

Ruggie is naturally over the moon about this turn of events, and he’s feeling better about not passing the audition after hearing about Vil’s strict rules lol

However, upon hearing that all those guys will be living under the same roof as Yuu, Ruggie’s good mood does a quick 180. He immediately tells her to call him if anybody tries to pull anything despite her assuring him that none of the guys staying at her dorm are the type to do that kind of thing.

Ruggie’s not too convinced, but he lets it go, all the while thinking he should pay her dorm regular visits just in case. (Leona probably encourages him once he finds out that Rook is one of the guys staying at Ramshackle lol)

Later on, after rehearsals are over and when the Pomefiore trio aren’t around, Yuu explains to the rest of the guys why she got rid of the food since Ace/Grim were giving her the cold shoulder for her betrayal and Deuce/Kalim looked like kicked puppies. 

Upon hearing about Vil’s UM, the idiot trio quickly change their tune and are grateful to Yuu for saving them, although Grim’s still bitter that he didn’t get to eat the desserts that Trey made.

The next day, Yuu is given the title of manager since Vil’s technically paying her, and this is how she can prove herself to him. Yuu accepts the position, determined to prove what an awesome mom she is lol

Aside from helping out with rehearsals, Vil gives Yuu the task of making the meals based off the training menu he gives her. It’s her first time preparing food based off a menu like this, and she’s a little excited about delving more into a type of cooking she doesn’t necessarily do a lot of.

Fortunately, her cooking is good enough to meet Vil’s standards, and everyone else enjoys it too. However, regardless of how much everyone likes the taste of a “mother’s home cooking”, the first years still find themselves wanting more like in the game.

For their sake, Yuu does her best to find ways to make snacks that will help satiate their appetites but not go against Vil’s strictly enforced diet. 

The only other change I would add is, during the scene when they watch the commercial that has Neige in it, Yuu internally freaks out over how he looks like a male version of Snow White. Like she’s used to guys in this world resembling Disney characters, but this guy seriously takes the cake lol 😂

Yuu also notices how the air around Vil seems to subtly change when Neige’s face appears on screen. This naturally puts her slightly on edge since she can’t help but worry if there’s something going on between Vil and Neige.

Because Yuu has been studying the commercial so closely due to his resemblance to Snow White and his unknown relationship with Vil, Ace gets a little jealous and asks her if Neige is her type - someone she feels drawn to like how all the girls online feel.

His words catch Yuu completely off guard since she had been so lost in her thoughts, but since she’s good at reading Ace, she quickly realizes what the problem is and gets amused.

For Ace’s and Vil’s sake, Yuu says that, while it’s true Neige is attractive, she’s not interested in him in that way, just merely curious since Rook had revealed he was their rival, which technically isn’t a lie.

She also adds that, to her, Neige really has more of a “cute” charm, so if she were to meet him, she’d wanna look out for him like you’d do for someone younger than you, even though he looks like he may be older than her.

Knowing how “beautiful” was a key word in the Snow White movie, Yuu continues by saying that that’s why she’d be more inclined to use words like “cute” or “adorable” for Neige rather than “beautiful” or “gorgeous”. 

Fortunately, Ace settles down upon hearing that and snickers over Yuu comparing Neige to a kid she’d wanna look after. Meanwhile, Rook expresses his delight over hearing Yuu’s thoughts on Neige and getting to learn more about how she views others since everyone has their own concept of beauty, and he enjoys seeing things from new perspectives. 

And just as she had hoped, things seem to calm down around Vil as well, although there’s no visible changes with his expression to indicate her words had any effect on him.

For the rest of the day, things proceed like in canon. After dinner and the scene with Epel’s juice delivery, Vil brings up the topic of everyone’s hair/skin care routine like he does in canon.

Yuu is the only one outside of his dorm that Vil doesn’t question since he’s been working on her hair/skin care routine since A Much Needed Makeover. He uses her as an example of how much better one can look if they actually properly take care of themselves since her appearance has noticeably improved in the last month thanks to him.

That night, after everyone has turned in, Yuu hears Kalim singing outside and goes to investigate. Grim remains behind in the room unlike in canon cause Yuu told him she can go check on Kalim on her own since she could tell Grim was exhausted after the long day he had.

This leads to Yuu hearing how Kalim is frustrated over not getting one of the main vocals and how that made him realize that he always got things as a result of Jamil holding back.

Yuu reassures him that there’s nothing wrong with him feeling this way since, if she was in his shoes, she’d feel similarly. If she gets something, she wants to earn it, not just be given it because of her status/title/position.

In a sense, it’s like Kalim has been lied to his whole life since he had no idea what Jamil had been doing for his sake, which has to be a miserable feeling.

However, she thinks it must be even more miserable to have to force yourself to hold back all the time like Jamil has been doing all these years, which she’s sure Kalim agrees with, which is why he’s reluctant to vent about his frustrations.

Yuu brings up what she told him in Book 4, how he can always come to her if he needs someone to vent to, and says that the offer still stands. She’ll always be willing to be a listening ear to him since he’s her friend, and she wants him to get things off his chest rather than keep them all to himself and deal with that burden alone.

No matter how minor his issues may seem to him, Yuu thinks Kalim has every right to want to complain. His feelings are just as valid as everyone else’s, so despite how well off he is, she doesn’t want him to think he has no right to ever complain about anything. 

After Kalim thanks her, Yuu tells him that, regardless of the group role assignments, she still thinks he’s plenty talented/skilled, so if he really wants to be a main singer, she has complete confidence in him being able to make it happen.

Kalim proceeds to give her a big hug as he thanks her since her words made him really happy. Despite her being taller, he pats her head just like he would do for his little sisters haha

Yuu doesn’t mind the affection since her past left her touch starved, and it makes her happy whenever Kalim does this kind of thing and praises her for being a good girl/kid. 

Eventually, the PDA moment gets brought to an abrupt end by Jamil who comes out of hiding so he can scold Kalim for the excessive PDA, which Jamil is always getting onto him about since it could result in a scandal if the heir of the Asim family is seen being so affectionate with a girl lol

Kalim just laughs off the complaints and says it’s amazing how Jamil always seems to know whenever he’s being affectionate with Yuu, which only increases Jamil’s ire 😂

(Jamil’s half-tempted to scold Yuu too for encouraging Kalim’s inappropriate behavior, but he refrains since he knows how unused to affection she is and she can’t really help that she likes all the positive attention she gets from Kalim.)

Soon after that, they all head to bed since they don’t want to risk getting in trouble with Vil for breaking his self-imposed curfew.

(In regards to how Yuu feels about Vil’s strict rules, she’s not necessarily a huge fan of them, but at the same time, she understands the reasoning behind his actions which is why she goes along with them since she can tell that he really does want what’s best for everyone.)

From there, things proceed like in canon except there’s no midnight snack run cause Yuu got rid of all the unhealthy food.

(As far as Yuu’s dreams are concerned, because there’s a month worth of time leading up to the SDC, she doesn’t have dreams related to Vil/Evil Queen every night, just every so often. 

At the start, she just has dreams about the Evil Queen, but during the week leading up to SDC, she starts to see Vil’s memories in her dreams.

In regards to the whole Mickey Mouse scenario, Yuu has been seeing him, but she doesn’t tell anyone about him since she figures it’s better to keep this to herself. 

Since she came from a world where Mickey is a fictional character, Yuu finds this whole situation very surreal and half wonders if she’s lost her mind cause of all the craziness at NRC lol)

(Regarding Yuu keeping an eye on Vil, she’s doing this constantly, because she’s so paranoid, and as a result, she’s able to pick up Vil’s worrisome behavior during the time leading up to the SDC, such as him asking his phone who the fairest of all is, which is sending all kinds of warning signs to Yuu.

Because she hasn’t had a vision about Vil’s OB yet, Yuu does her best to support him in hopes that she can reduce his stress levels, so that horrible outcome can be avoided.

She’s not too confident, though...)

The next canon divergence happens after Epel and Deuce run out in the middle of rehearsals. 

(Yuu was afraid this would eventually happen since, up until this point, she had been keeping an eye on Epel since she could tell he was stressed. She had taken every opportunity to talk to him and get him to vent to her, but sadly, that still wasn’t enough to stop Epel from giving into his frustration like he does in canon.)

Immediately, after Deuce leaves, Yuu elbows Ace in the gut and pulls him into a headlock, so she can grind her knuckles against his head.

When Ace complains that he didn’t do anything wrong, Yuu retorts that she’s not doing anything wrong either. If Ace gets to say whatever he wants, then she’s gonna do whatever she wants too. If he has a problem with that, he can try to stop her.

Naturally, he does try, but Ace’s physical strength isn’t a match for hers, especially when she’s irritated, and he just makes things worse for himself when he compares her strength to that of a gorilla’s lol

To finish off his punishment, Yuu brings her face close to his and gives him one of those wet/sloppy mom/grandma cheek kisses right in front of their upperclassmen, much to his disgust and great mortification 😂

While Ace screams, Grim starts laughing hysterically at his expense, which leads to Ace chasing him around the room. Satisfied with a job well done, Yuu leaves the two to their own devices, so she can go after Deuce, figuring that Vill will call for a break considering two members of their group are now gone.

(Kalim & Rook got a big kick out of Yuu’s handling of her children. Kalim thought it was hilarious while Rook’s waxing poetry about how beautiful a mother/son’s bond is lol

Jamil’s a mixture of amused and exasperated. Vil would probably be amused if he wasn’t exasperated over the matter with Epel and Deuce.)

As she heads off to go look for Deuce, Yuu’s Quirk activates, showing her a vision of Deuce & Epel together on the beach. She doesn’t see everything that happens between the two, but she does see the part where Epel explains why he has to obey Vil and she sees some of what Deuce does to help Epel out.

(By this point, Yuu had actually already heard about Epel’s situation from Epel during one of the vent sessions they had since he felt comfortable confiding in her cause she was genuinely concerned about him, and she’s easy to talk to.)

What really catches her attention is when, after one of the scene skips, she witnesses the use of what she later learns is Deuce’s UM during some kind of brawl with regular civilians.

After the vision ends, Yuu ponders the matter as she continues her search for Deuce. In the end, she decides not to interfere with the events of her vision since she doesn’t see her interference as necessary.

While she would like to avoid Deuce getting into that fight, she’s not sure how to make that work since she doesn’t have the whole story of what happened on the beach. She only saw the end of the fight.

Since she doesn’t want to burden Deuce with a lot of details when he’s already got enough on his plate, Yuu just keeps everything to herself since she knows Deuce & Epel will turn out alright in the end.

She also decides to ponder the matter of that attack Deuce used for later since she’s very curious about it but doesn’t think this is the time to be focused on figuring out what happened.

When she later finds Deuce and gives him the water bottle she brought along for him, he apologizes for storming off, and she tells him that, while she personally didn’t mind what he did cause she can understand why he did it, he’ll need to apologize to their upperclassmen later.

Yuu then tells him that she’ll hear him out if he wants to talk about what’s on his mind, so Deuce decides to confide in her and get everything off his chest.

After he finishes, Yuu remarks that the two of them are alike, which surprises him. She explains that they’re both the type who gets caught up in their own heads and will suffer as a result.

Deuce does it because he wants to become better at using his head and assumes that he needs to use his brain to solve all his problems.

Meanwhile, Yuu does it because she just overthinks too much and dwells on things unnecessarily. While she is good at thinking several steps ahead, there are times when that’s to her detriment cause she gets caught up in the what-ifs and all the countless possibilities for whatever she’s caught up in at the time.

That’s why she admires Deuce who doesn’t let himself get too bogged down by thoughts like her. Once he sets his mind on something, he doesn’t second guess himself; he doesn’t let his worries get the better of him.

Before she can completely share her thoughts from that last paragraph, their conversation gets interrupted by the arrival of Rook & Kalim who come by to check on Deuce, and their conversation is much like what happens in the game. 

When the subject of Epel gets brought up, Deuce mentions how he thinks Epel is like him, which is why he couldn’t leave Epel alone.

Yuu encourages Deuce to do what he feels is best in regards to the Epel situation since she thinks that, if anyone can help Epel right now, it would be him.

This leads to Deuce making the request to get the blastcycle so he can take Epel to the beach.

As this is happening, Yuu makes a call to Crowley to get the two permission to leave campus, saying it’s all for the sake of improving the team’s bond, so Crowley can’t say no lol

After Deuce leaves to go find Epel, Yuu returns to the ballroom with Kalim and Rook and explains the situation to Vil, who’s obviously not pleased with this turn of events.

Yuu tells him that she got permission from Crowley and that, while this is an inconvenience for everyone present, she thinks everyone will benefit in the end if Deuce & Epel have a moment to talk.

She’s fully confident that Deuce will be able to help Epel to the point that she’s willing to say that she’ll take any kind of punishment Vil can dole out if he’s not satisfied with the two boys’ state when they get back.

Vil holds her to her word, and in the end, he sees that she was right since both Epel and Deuce come back in a better headspace after that beach trip, although he is irritated about the fight that happened.

However, he refrains from punishing Yuu and instead just makes Deuce and Epel run laps like what he does in the game.

Later on, Yuu talks with Deuce about what happened on the beach, and since he has no idea what that strange magic was either, she offers to help him try to figure it out, so whenever they have some free time, they try to experiment to see if they can replicate what happened on the beach. Unfortunately, they’re not successful in their efforts.

Another event that happens outside of canon is that, at one point, Yuu finds herself alone with Kalim, who’s doing some independent practicing.

Because it’s more fun to sing/dance with others, Kalim drags her into his dance practice since Jamil had said that teaching others is a great way of revision. Plus, this way he’s even more motivated in his dancing since he’s having even more fun now.

Yuu is far from being a good dancer, but she has fun learning with Kalim. However, things become less fun when he tries to convince her to sing with him.

Thankfully, this time around Kalim notices her obvious discomfort, so he’s more gentle/considerate as he talks with her about her singing.

When she eventually admits that she gets stage fright cause of insults she received over her singing in the past, Kalim promises that he’d never say anything bad about her singing. 

It isn’t like they’re singing for others’ entertainment. Kalim just wants to sing with her cause he loves singing and thinks it’ll be even more fun if they do it together.

Kalim really wants to help her feel more comfortable about singing and regain that love she once had for it since he thinks there’s nothing sadder than her refusing to do something she once enjoyed just because she’s afraid of how others will treat her.

However, that said, Kalim has no intention to force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do, because she’s his friend and he wants to respect her wishes.

After that, they return to practicing the dance moves for the SDC performance. All the while, Yuu thinks about her earlier discussion with Kalim and how she would like to be able to sing with him and to be able to overcome her fear, so Mumei has even less of an influence on her. 

Yuu trusts Kalim. She knows he’d never say/do anything cruel to her unlike Mumei. If she’d be safe to sing around anyone, it would be him. 

That’s why, eventually, after she gathers up her courage, Yuu tries to sing along with Kalim who’s been singing as he dances with her.

(Since she has been listening to the guys practice Absolutely Beautiful for a while now, Yuu knows all the lyrics by heart, so she has no trouble following along.)

Her voice comes out as really quiet at first because of her nervousness, but Kalim still manages to hear her and proudly beams at her as he grows noticeably more excited.

Gradually, thanks to Kalim’s encouraging smile, Yuu’s able to increase the volume of her voice, but it’s still nowhere near as loud as his because he has let his excitement take over lol

Even though it was incredibly nerve-wracking and embarrassing, Yuu has no regrets about singing since it really is fun just like Kalim said it would be.

When the song ends, Kalim pulls her into a hug and starts twirling her around as he praises her for overcoming her stage fright and for having such a pretty voice. He tells her it’s a shame she didn’t audition since Vil would’ve surely wanted to have her on the team.

While she thinks he’s just being really nice, Yuu thanks him for his kind words and for giving her the encouragement she needed to try to overcome her fear.

Around that time, Jamil, who had been secretly watching the two since Yuu had started singing with Kalim, makes his presence known, so he can scold Kalim for the PDA lol

Kalim just laughs off the scolding before eagerly telling Jamil what a good singer Yuu is, much to her embarrassment. Her embarrassment only grows when Jamil says he knows because he overheard her singing.

While she was okay with singing in front of Kalim, the idea of anyone else listening to her is extremely embarrassing for Yuu who hasn’t completely overcome her stage fright.

That’s why when Kalim starts talking about how Yuu should sing more often for others to hear she quickly shoots down that idea since she doesn’t think she can handle singing for more people in her current state.

Fortunately, Jamil seems to understand her feelings, so he explains to Kalim that conquering fears isn’t all that simple. That’s why Kalim shouldn’t be expecting so much out of Yuu so soon after she started making steps to overcome her fear.

After getting chastised by Jamil, Kalim apologizes to Yuu, and she assures him that she’s not upset since she knows he only had good intentions.

Kalim quickly cheers up when he asks if she’ll still be willing to sing with him and Jamil. It can be their little secret!

Yuu agrees just as long as this isn’t a regular thing cause she doesn’t think she can handle doing as much singing/dancing as Kalim likes to do lol

The rest of time leading up to the week before SDC proceeds like it does in the game. 

After getting SDC tickets from Crowley, Yuu decides to give them to Malleus since she has figured out at this point that he’s not used to receiving invitations/getting involved in these kinds of festivities, which leads to Malleus reacting much like he does in the game.

(In regards to the greeting card Lilia delivered to her, Yuu figured it was from Malleus since she had given him a Christmas present before he left for winter break and he seemed like the type to send cards like this. Upon seeing the initials, she realized that he was Malleus Draconia since that’s what all the signs she had observed up until that point had been pointing to, and there’s no way there’s another person as strong as him with the initials M.D. lol

Also, aside from sending her a greeting card, Malleus also had a present delivered as thanks for the Christmas present she had given him.

The present was a ring he created with his magic that acts as a shield, so if she’s ever under attack, a magic barrier will appear to protect her and reflect the attacks, which comes in handy whenever she gets involved in OB battles.

After receiving the greeting card and present, Yuu immediately wanted to send a card back to express her thanks, but since she didn’t know his address, she contacted Lilia since she figured he’d be able to help her out. 

Lilia promptly teleports back to Ramshackle and says he can deliver it himself, scaring the hell out of her in the process lol

So, since Yuu sent a card to Malleus, she doesn’t give him the SDC tickets to make up for not sending one like in the game. She just does it because he’s her friend and she wants him to have fun at the fair.)

That night, Yuu has another dream about Snow White/Evil Queen, and from then on, those dreams happen every night, which puts her on edge since, up until this point, she only had these dreams every so often, which makes her worried that this means an Overblot is on the horizon.

Fortunately, Yuu still hasn’t started seeing any of Vil’s childhood memories, so she’s clinging to that futile hope that an OB won’t happen - that she won’t have a vision, like she did the last four times. 

Regrettably, her hopes were futile, because, a few days before the SDC, Yuu has her first dream about Vil’s childhood memories. Even worse, after she sees several scenes from Vil’s past after seeing another scene about the Evil Queen, she has a vision of Vil’s OB.

Yuu wakes up with a jolt after the vision ends and tries to fight off her mounting panic once the reality of what she just saw sinks in.

Once again, someone is going to Overblot and not just any person. It’s a dorm leader that she has come into contact with. It’s a person she knows. Again.

Four times was bad enough but five? There’s no way this is just a coincidence. Of course, she started thinking that a while ago, so this has been weighing heavily on her heart. 

Not wanting to wake Grim, Yuu hurries out of their shared bed and heads for the living room, all the while hoping that Vil won’t catch her awake past curfew.

In hopes of going unnoticed, Yuu finds a corner that she can curl up into and will put her out of the immediate line of sight of anyone entering the living room.

Her thoughts are racing like crazy, and unfortunately, she only continues to spiral the more time passes. 

All she can think is how it can’t be a coincidence that all these OB incidents are happening while she’s around. Even though she doesn’t understand how, she must factor into all this somehow.

Which causes her to feel immense guilt since she doesn’t want to be the cause of anyone’s suffering. However, what she feels especially guilty about is the fact that, despite possibly being the source of NRC’s problems, she still wants to remain at NRC and doesn’t want to go home, which she thinks is very selfish of her.

When she thinks of going “home”, Yuu’s traitorous mind reminds her of what’s waiting for her there despite her best efforts to not think about Mumei, and she works herself even further into a panic which often happens when she dwells on her memories of Mumei’s past abuse.

As a result, Yuu eventually finds herself crying and in the midst of a panic attack, because it’s all just gotten too much for her, so it gets increasingly harder for her to breathe.

All her worries and fears that have been steadily building up have finally reached their boiling point. She has been successful in keeping them contained until now, but it’s just gotten too much for her so it all comes pouring out.

Thankfully, Jamil arrives on the scene before she can pass out. Upon seeing the state she’s in, he quickly uses his UM on her and orders her to match his breathing and take slow/easy breaths. 

Once he has gotten her breathing to even out, Jamil stops using his UM and tells her to wait as he gets her something to clean her face with.

When he returns with a wet towel he got from the kitchen, Jamil comments that he had sensed someone was in the living room, so he thought it might have been an intruder, so he was very surprised to find her instead.

After taking a seat beside her on the floor, Jamil asks why she’s hiding in the corner, and she explains that she didn’t want to be seen breaking curfew.

In a situation like this, Jamil thinks the smart thing to do would be to find someone rather than try to handle all this by herself, but he goes quiet when she asks him if he really would’ve asked for help if he was in her shoes.

Because Yuu knows he wouldn’t have. Just as she’s used to solving her problems on her own, so is Jamil. Neither of them are accustomed to being prioritized/helped since they’re the ones who are always having to put others’ needs above their own.

Knowing he can’t really argue this point with her, Jamil instead asks what brought this on, all of a sudden. This is his first time seeing her in such a state, so obviously, whatever happened must be serious.

This leads to her explaining that she had a vision while she was sleeping and how that got her to thinking about how often the OB incidents have been happening and how she’s always at the center of each incident.

When she confides in him about how she doesn’t want to be sent back to her world, how she wants to stay even though it’d be in everyone’s best interest for her to leave, Jamil tells her that he doesn’t think she’s as much to blame as she believes.

Yes, this is all very suspicious, and it’s highly unlikely that it’s all just a coincidence. However, he finds it hard to believe that she’s the sole cause for these incidents.

Even if she is, Jamil has no intention to allow her to return to her world. When she gives him a surprised look after hearing that, he asks if she has already forgotten the promise she made to him to help him obtain his freedom. 

Jamil has every intention to hold her to that promise since he considers her a useful ally, considering the great influence she has at NRC and her power of foresight. He plans on making good use of her, so until she completes her end of the deal, he won’t allow her to go back to her world.

(Of course, he won’t admit that he has no intention to allow her to return to a world that will take away her freedom and force her back into a life of constant abuse. He wants them both to have the freedom they deserve and will make sure it happens.)

He tells her not to underestimate him since he can easily come up with several plans to ensure she doesn’t get forcibly sent back home. If necessary, he can just take her back to Scalding Sands since the Asim family will protect her because she’s a friend of Kalim’s. No way would Crowley dare to go against the Asmi family if he wants to continue receiving funding from them.

Rather than be put off by Jami’s choice of wording like she knows she should be, Yuu gets really happy when he calls her useful, because she spent the majority of her life being called useless by Mumei. 

(That’s exactly why Jamil purposely used such words.)

Even though she had been trying to rein in her emotions ever since Jamil helped calm her down, Yuu starts crying again when Jamil says he’ll ensure she doesn’t have to go back to her world and throws her arms around him because she’s so happy/relieved.

Even though he’s smirking, acting like a villain by claiming he wants to use her, Yuu sees through his act and knows that he genuinely wants to help her, which means the world to her. 

While the hug catches him off guard, Jamil allows it cause she clearly needs it since her emotions are a huge mess right now. 

Once she eventually calms down, Jamil has them move to one of the couches rather than remain on the floor and gets her some water, so she won’t get dehydrated thanks to all the crying she did.

Now that she’s calmer, Jamil asks if the vision she had was related to Vil since that would fit the pattern since he’s the only vice dorm leader who has Overblotted and he can’t really imagine Rook Overblotting, not that he can really see it happening to Vil either.

After giving him a nod because of her drawback which limits how much she can talk about her vision, Yuu explains that because the vision happened while she was dreaming she’s not sure when the OB will happen because she can never tell when a vision is supposed to happen when they occur while she’s dreaming.

For all she knows, Vil’s OB could be a year from now, but considering recent events, she highly doubts it.

More than likely, it’ll happen in relation to the SDC since this is such an important event to Vil, so the day of competition is when they should be on their guard.

They’re in a predicament here since Yuu has no undeniable proof that Vil will OB during the SDC, and she’s sure that if she brought up her vision to Crowley he’d just write it off as a dream despite her drawback preventing her from going into detail about her vision since it’s just so unlikely for Vil, of all people, to OB. 

Plus, they can’t just up and cancel the SDC, nor can they forbid Vil from entering since that would just make him more likely to OB and disappoint all his fans. 

The ideal situation would be to prevent Vil from reaching the mental state that would result in him Overblotting, but Yuu thinks it’s unlikely because OB incidents appear to be events that can’t be changed. No matter what they do, she’s sure that Vil’s OB will happen.

Which means the only option they have is to formulate a plan for how to act once the OB happens. Ergo they need to have multiple evacuation plan options and supplies that will be useful during that period of time like Kalim’s magic carpet and antidotes for poison since poison is Vil’s specialty. 

Of course, another option for Jamil would be to ensure he and Kalim are nowhere near Vil on that day since his top priority is Kalim’s safety. However, because it’s so close to SDC, he knows that they can’t afford to drop out, especially since that in itself could lead to Vil Overblotting.

Plus, he knows that Kalim would never go along with it. If Kalim were to find out about Vil’s OB, then he’d want to do whatever he could to help Vil out, even if it meant putting himself in the line of danger.

And Jamil still wants to participate in the competition since it’s a part of his plan to improve his reputation, and him dropping out at the last minute would do the exact opposite. 

As a result, Jamil thinks the best thing he can do in this situation is do everything possible to isolate OB Vil in order to ensure the SDC doesn’t get ruined and that no one gets caught up in the crossfire.

Because they don’t want to burden the others’ with extra worries or risk them mentioning Yuu’s vision to the Pomefiore trio, Yuu & Jamil keep all this information to themselves and spend the days leading up to the SDC planning in secret for how to deal with Vil’s OB.

Aside from that, things proceed like in canon, and the next canon divergence happens while Yuu/Grim are walking around the fair with Riddle/Trey.

During the scene when they come across some Savanaclaw students trying to pick a fight with the RSA dwarfs, Yuu immediately inserts herself in between the two parties and scolds the Savanaclaw students for causing trouble this early into the event.

After pointing out how they’ll make Leona look bad if their dorm is the only one to cause trouble during such an important event, Yuu tells them that if they wanna fight so bad she’ll take them on.

Thankfully, rather than take her up on her offer, the Savanaclaw students back down since they’re under Leona’s orders not to mess with Yuu. Plus, they also don’t wanna risk making Leona look bad.

After the Savanaclaw students leave, Riddle praises Yuu for how well she handled the situation, although Trey thinks she didn’t really need to challenge them to a fight lol 

When Yuu turns to properly look at the dwarfs and greets them, she’s surprised when Snick suddenly says, “Ah, it’s Koneko-chan!”

Grum: Huh, so that’s Koneko.

Dominic: Snick, Grum, that’s rude! You both know that’s not her actual name! That’s the nickname Che’nya-senpai refers to her as! We don’t have her permission to address her as such like he does!

Rather than point out that Che’nya never technically got her permission to use that nickname, Yuu just assures them that it’s fine since the nickname doesn’t bother her, and it’s cute since it’s a cat-related nickname.

(Koneko means “kitten/little cat”.)

Riddle is exasperated that Che’nya is having this kind of influence on others, and Trey just shakes his head, not really all that surprised lol

Dominic reveals that they’ve heard a lot about Yuu from Che’nya, so it’s nice to finally meet her in person.

(Since Book 1, Che’nya took an interest in Yuu cause she was an obvious cat lover, and he just finds her intriguing. He’s also grateful for how she helped Riddle/Trey out in Book 1.

As a result, he occasionally mentions her to Neige, whom then told the dwarfs about her, usually after he’s paid NRC a visit and gone to check out Ramshackle/eat Yuu’s sweets lol)

Around that time, Che’nya arrives on the scene, appearing right behind Yuu like he often likes to do. He also likes to cover her eyes and make her guess who he is, which he does here.

After she correctly guesses his identity like she always does, the rest of this scene goes mostly like it does in canon, although Che’nya takes the time to talk with Yuu some unlike in the game. 

Che’nya also asks Yuu for some of her homemade sweets, which Riddle and Trey scold him for lol

The next divergence from canon happens after rehearsals when Vil heads out on his own following Neige’s performance.

Like in the game, while the other first years walk off to get some food, Yuu briefly sees part of the Evil Queen dream play out before her eyes, which catches her off guard since that clearly wasn’t a vision. She had already thought the dreams were weird enough as is, but now, she’s even more confused by them since they’re now happening when she’s awake.

Right after that happens, Yuu’s Quirk activates, showing her a brief vision of Vil offering some apple juice to Neige. 

Yuu had already had a bad feeling because of that dream scene she just saw, but now, that feeling has only gotten worse since this is basically a reenactment of Snow White. 

Even though all she sees is Vil handing the apple juice over to Neige, she knows that nothing good will come from Neige drinking that juice because of the expression Vil is wearing and how his voice sounds totally unlike himself. 

After her vision ends, she finds herself alone with Jamil since Rook and Kalim had gone after Vil while, unlike in the game, Grim leaves with Ace and the others to get food.

Jamil chose to remain behind with her since he was the only one who noticed her having a vision, and he wanted to know what she saw.

Yuu quickly tells him that they need to go after Vil before he hurts Neige, but Jamil disagrees, saying that their top priority should be getting the stadium cleared out.

From what he can tell, Kalim and Rook went after Vil cause they were worried about him, so they’ll likely stop Vil before anything can happen to Neige. So rather than unnecessarily join them, Jamil thinks they’re better off taking care of everything else that needs to be done.

Since he makes a good point, Yuu reluctantly agrees and proceeds to help Jamil get everyone out of the stadium along with the other first years whom he contacts like in canon.

She also collects a bag from the dressing room Jamil and the others had been using, which he had packed with everything he thought they would need, and also the magic carpet which he had secretly brought along to the stadium.

Eventually, Jamil takes the magic carpet to go check on Kalim and the others. Yuu had wanted to go with him, but he told her to remain by the stage since the carpet will move faster with less weight on it and he’ll likely have to carry Kalim and Rook out. 

From there, things proceed like in canon with Jamil helping Kalim and Rook escape and meeting back up with Yuu. While Jamil is giving antidote potions to Kalim and Rook who were affected by Vil’s poison, Ace and the other first years show up, having finished Jamil’s assigned tasks.

Vil shows up shortly thereafter, and the OB battle begins, with Yuu using her Quirk to predict Vil’s movements and guide everyone in battle, catching Epel and Rook, who still don’t know about her Quirk, by surprise.

In addition to using her Quirk, Yuu also makes use of the ring Malleus gave her to reflect Vil’s magic attacks back at him, which catches everyone off guard because she hadn’t gotten around to telling anyone about the powers of the ring.

It’s as Yuu describes the powers of the ring and declares that she’ll send everything Vil throws at her right back at him that the cogs start turning in Deuce’s head. 

That’s why, while he doesn’t completely understand it yet, Deuce is quick to join Yuu on the frontlines to distract Vil/take his attacks while the others attack the blot monster.

Regrettably, even with everyone working together and all the strategies Yuu and Jamil had come up with to prepare for this battle, things still end up getting drawn out, making this the longest OB battle Yuu has dealt with.

Once she notices how much time has passed, Yuu tries to knock Vil out with a gut punch with Deuce’s help, like what happened during Azul’s OB battle, but even that’s not enough to knock Vil out, so Yuu gets sent flying back. Thankfully, Deuce and Jamil are able to catch her before she hits the ground. 

(Yuu didn’t try to punch Vil in the face like the other OB guys cause she was afraid that his face is insured for lots of money and that damaging it would put her in debt for the rest of her life lol 😂)

It’s at that moment Deuce asks everyone to clear the area and leave the rest to him. When he gives Yuu a knowing grin, she quickly realizes what he’s going to do, so she and Epel quickly get everyone to get out of the way before Deuce uses his UM.

So, like in the game, Deuce uses his UM to defeat Vil who promptly loses consciousness, thankfully doing so before his magic ran out.

After Vil has been stopped, Jamil forces Yuu to lie down on the magic carpet, because she used her Quirk for such an extended period of time, which is dangerous for her health, and is now suffering from the drawbacks of her Quirk.

Because of the cloud of poison surrounding the stadium, Yuu can’t be immediately taken to the infirmary, but Jamil made sure to pack plenty of potions and anything else he thought he’d need if they somehow ended up in a situation where they wouldn’t have easy access to the infirmary.

Knowing better than to argue with Jamil, Yuu obediently does whatever he tells her and drinks one of the potions he had packed. 

While the potion will help with her currently high fever, Jami’s not confident that it’ll prevent seizures, so he really wants to get her to the infirmary as soon as possible.

During this time, Vil regains consciousness, and the dialogue following him waking up is like what happens in canon.

The only thing slightly different is the discussion about Yuu and her Quirk once Vil takes notice of her state.

Unsurprisingly, the Pomefiore trio are very surprised to hear she is from a different world and has the power to see the future. If it wasn’t for the fact they witnessed that power in action, they’d have a hard time believing her, but they can’t deny what they saw with their own two eyes.

(Jamil & Yuu refrained from mentioning how they knew about Vil’s OB ahead of time and all the planning they did for it since they wanted to avoid any complaints about not saying something sooner.)

As they’re all wondering what to do about the stadium and Yuu’s need for the infirmary, Malleus arrives on the scene, and things happen like they do in the game, with everyone being very surprised that Yuu is acting so friendly with him to the point she gave him a funny nickname.

Upon noticing her weakened state, Malleus asks for details, which leads to everyone explaining everything that happened, and Yuu tells him about her Quirk and its drawbacks since she trusts him with this information.

(At this point, she had already told him about coming from another world since she trusts him, but she decided to keep her Quirk a secret since it seemed only fair that she had some secrets, like him lol)

Once he hears the whole story, Malleus uses his magic to repair the stadium, so the SDC can still happen like he does in canon.

Yuu is very happy about this, but she’s also disappointed that she won’t get to watch the competition because of her current state since now she can be taken to the infirmary thanks to Malleus dealing with the poison gas that had previously surrounded the stadium.

When she expresses her disappointment, the guys performing are also disappointed for her sake, and Vil apologizes since he knows he’s the reason she’s in her current state and he feels he should take responsibility. 

Before Jamil can take Yuu to the infirmary via magic carpet, Malleus surprises everyone when he casts a blessing on Yuu that temporarily relieves her of all the ailments plaguing her and tells her that it’ll last for the next few hours so she should be able to see her friends perform. She’ll just have to leave after their performance.

Once she gets over her surprise, Yuu happily hugs Malleus as she profusely thanks him and tells him that he’s the best, catching everyone else by surprise and giving some of them a near heart attack lol

Malleus is initially surprised, but he then gets amused by how brave she is since she’s willingly hugging him despite knowing his true identity. What a strange human she is.

From there, things proceed like in canon, and Yuu has a great time watching her friends perform on stage and thinks they did an amazing job and put on a performance that all the other competitors would be hard pressed to beat.

Like Rook, Yuu does notice how much different this performance is from rehearsals, but she still thinks it’s their best performance yet because Vil is performing, not for the sake of beating Neige and becoming the fairest of all but for the sake of his teammates and fans whom he doesn’t want to let down. 

In her eyes, Vil has never looked more beautiful than in this moment. 

After their performance, Lilia teleports to where she is, catching her by surprise, and explains that Malleus asked him to bring her to the infirmary since the blessing he bestowed upon her should be wearing off right around this time.

Even though she would much rather stay at the competition, Yuu knows she needs to prioritize her health, so she leaves her cell phone with Grim, asking him to make sure their vote for their team gets made while she’s gone. She told him that he could stay and enjoy the festivities since she didn’t want him to be stuck at the infirmary, and someone needs to make sure their vote gets put in when it comes time for the voting.

After that, Lilia takes her to the infirmary, but rather than just leave her there, he starts rummaging around the cabinets and begins putting a potion together.

When he later presents the potion to her, Yuu grows nervous because of its ominous color and because of what she has heard about Lilia’s cooking from Malleus and Silver.

Lilia insists that with this potion she’ll make a full recovery in no time. He’s an expert when it comes to this matter, so she has no need to worry.

Of course, Yuu is still plenty worried, but she unfortunately has no way out of this situation since he just up and pushes the potion bottle to her lips lol

The potion tastes as bad as it looks, but she doesn’t have to suffer through the taste for long since she passes out almost immediately after she takes it, which Lilia says is a sign of a very effective healing potion 😂

On the bright side, when she finally regains consciousness, Yuu is freed from all her ailments just as Lilia promised. 

However, on the not so bright side, Yuu wakes up with an absolutely awful taste in her mouth that sets off her gag reflex.That’s why she quickly pulls herself out of bed and hurries over to the nearby sink.

After turning on the faucet, Yuu just holds her head underneath the running water, taking turns between drinking the water in hopes of getting rid of the awful taste in her mouth that’s practically caked to the inside of her mouth and gagging.

Fortunately, things don’t get any worse than her feeling nauseous, so she doesn’t actually get sick.

Much to her surprise, Yuu eventually feels a gentle hand on her back, making her realize that she’s not alone in the infirmary like she had first assumed because it appears to be nighttime now.

When she turns her head to see who’s with her, her surprise grows upon seeing Vil looking at her with noticeable concern.

After explaining that he was under orders to remain in the infirmary over night, Vil asks Yuu if she’s currently experiencing side effects from overusing her Quirk.

Weakly, Yuu shakes her head before explaining what happened with Lilia, and Vil becomes visibly annoyed since he knows how Lilia can get when it comes to potions.

Once he knows the problem, Vil heads for the cabinet Lilia used earlier and grabs a potion that he thinks will help Yuu feel better, and thankfully, he’s right since she’s finally able to get rid of the awful taste in her mouth and settle her stomach after she drinks it.

Meanwhile, Vil grabs a towel and takes care of drying Yuu’s hair that got wet while she was sticking her head under the faucet since he can’t just leave that wet mess as it is lol

After Yuu thanks Vil for helping her, he has her return to her bed, and that’s when she finally notices Grim is on the bed, fast asleep. 

According to an exasperated Vil, not too long ago, Grim had finished eating all of the food Yuu’s friends had brought for her to eat after she woke up and has been out cold ever since. That’s why he didn’t wake up.

Under normal circumstances, Yuu would be exasperated too, but this time, she doesn’t mind Grim eating all the food since, after what just happened, she’s not too interested in eating.

Once they’ve both made themselves comfortable on the infirmary beds they’ll be using for the night, Yuu asks Vil how things turned out with the SDC.

Upon hearing that Neige’s team won, Yuu feels just as frustrated as Vil and the rest of her team since she had really wanted them to win.

(What she doesn’t say is that, after having seen Vil’s memories, she really wanted him to win and finally get that victory he has been so desperately pursuing all this time.)

However, Yuu doesn’t think Vil completely lost, and she tells him as much because, no matter what anyone else says, there’s no way anyone could’ve ever been more beautiful than the Vil she saw during that final performance, not even Neige.

The Vil who was performing for his fans and teammates despite his battered body was exceptionally beautiful. That’s why she’ll never forget that performance for the rest of her life.

Upon hearing that, Vil stares at her in surprise since he can tell she’s not just trying to butter him up. She truly meant every word she said.

He’ll never admit it, but those words made Vil genuinely happy. They’re words that he really needed to hear after everything that happened that day.

Rather than say as much, of course, Vil plays it cool but still thanks Yuu since he’s the type to shows appreciation when he feels it’s deserved.

After that exchange, Yuu eventually shares that she had been having dreams that appeared to be memories of his past. She has no idea why she had those dreams, but because of them, she can understand what led to him getting into the kind of headspace that led to him Overblotting.

Yuu also expresses her confusion about his situation since she can’t understand why any competent movie producer would want to kill off someone as beautiful and talented as Vil. Aren’t those the kinds of actors that people want on stage for as long as possible? Or is she just missing something cause she’s not an expert on the whole filming process?

While she can understand how people find Neige more relatable than someone as perfect as Vil, it’s still weird to her that producers aren’t capitalizing on Vil’s talents and making character roles that would fully allow him to shine.

Personally, she thinks Vil could make a great hero as long as they put in the time to design a suitable character role for him.

However, if they’re so dead set on making Vil a villain all the time, then why not make movies where villains are the lead roles? It was done in her world, so she doesn’t understand why it couldn’t be done in TW.

Those movies are especially interesting in her opinion since they provide depth to villains and actually make viewers want to root for them in some cases. 

Yuu thinks that a really good story has a hero and villain that are so multi-dimensional and interesting that people can’t decide who they should root for because both sides are so compelling and have understandable reasons for why they do what they do.

She thinks Vil would be perfect for that kind of role. If anyone could make the viewers fall for/root for a villain, it would be him.

As she’s talking, Vil is both pleased and amused when she expresses her confusion about why he doesn’t get better roles, and upon hearing her talk about the movies from her world, he becomes very interested since TW doesn’t have those types of movies and she’s right that he would be perfect for them.

(What he won’t admit is that he’s very happy about all her praise and how confident she is about him being able to pull off any role he’s given.)

Vil is quick to ask her about the movies from her world, so up until they turn in for the night, Yuu recounts all the movies she has watched that involved a villain having a starring role.

(Even though she came from a world of heroes, I think villain focused movies would still exist, especially since there was a time when Quirks didn’t exist, so they could’ve been made prior to that. Regardless, movies are all about exploring different ideas outside of what’s normal in the real world, so I think the movies in her world cover a broad spectrum of ideas.)

Little did she know that Vil was absorbing all this info like a sponge, fully intending to try to make use of it in the future in hopes that he could get the ball rolling so movies like that could become normal in TW.

That’s why Yuu is surprised by what a good mood Vil is in the next morning, but she just chalks it up to him being glad to leave the infirmary. 

However, what really surprises Yuu is when Vil randomly declares that he’ll give her his blessing to adopt Epel since he has decided that she has earned that right after everything.

Catching her off guard, Vil reveals one of the main things that convinced him to make that decision was all the times last month Yuu sought Epel out to talk to him when he needed to vent since she hadn’t realized Vil knew about that.

Of course, Vil says that he may change his mind if he deems Yuu a bad influence on Epel, so he expects her to act accordingly, to which she promises that she’ll be a good role model/mother.

After that exchange, right before they part ways after being released from the infirmary, Vil gives her a smile and gently pats her cheek as thanks for the very enlightening conversation they had last night, surprising her one last time lol 

Meanwhile, Rook, who had come to check on the two first thing in the morning, starts waxing poetry about how radiant a happy Vil looks and how beautiful it is to see a friendship grow right before his very eyes haha

Around when Vil and Rook leave together, Ace/Deuce, Epel, & Jamil/Kalim come to check on Vil and Yuu, so they all end up checking out the fair together.

(It wasn’t until I looked at translations for Book 6 that I realized Book 5′s ending happened the night following Vil’s OB, ergo before the second day of the fair.

I’ve decided to change that since that night Yuu & Grim were in the infirmary, and Grim ate so much that he didn’t wake up again to look for Vil’s blotstone

Plus, I want to put some available time in between Books 5 & 6, so some events can be squeezed into there, like Camp Vargas.)

The second day of the fair passes with Yuu having fun with everyone, and it’s during that time that Yuu meets Neige who had come looking for her.

While he saw her right before rehearsals, he didn’t realize until after the fact who she was cause he was more focused on greeting Vil at the time.

Neige sought her out cause he wanted to thank her for helping Dominic and the others yesterday, and after hearing about her and her delicious sweets from Che’nya, he’s been wanting to meet her.

They don’t get to hang out for very long since Neige has to run off to meet back up with his friends, but they exchange contact info so they can remain in contact. 

Neige also asks to take a picture with her to celebrate their new friendship, and all Yuu’s fans on Magicam go crazy when Neige later posts it. It blows up super fast.

Meanwhile, Cater is freaking out cause he can’t believe Yuu got lucky enough to take a selfie with Neige. He immediately tries to go looking for her in hopes that he can take a picture with Neige too, but sadly, by the time he finally finds Yuu, Neige has already left lol

When Vil sees the selfie which gets shown to him by an enthusiastic Rook, he’s unsurprisingly nowhere near as thrilled as Rook 😂

The rest of the day passes with Yuu having fun with her friends and enjoying the festivities. 

As far as the rest of Book 5′s events are concerned, the encounter with Mickey happens later that month after other game events, like Camp Vargas, have happened, because Grim briefly forgot about Vil’s blot stone and it took a while for him to get an opportunity to slip past Yuu who usually goes to bed after him.

When that night finally comes, Yuu has her next encounter with Mickey and gets the idea of taking a picture of him with her ghost camera to confirm if she really is seeing him or hallucinating the whole thing.

While she doesn’t really have an interest in showing anyone else Mickey cause she still has no idea what to make of this crazy situation, she does consider at least showing Grim to see how he reacts, which leads to her noticing that he’s not around, so things proceed like in canon.

I’ll end things here since this post really doesn’t need to be any longer than it already is lol 😂

[superlinguo]

The linguistics of hyperlinks

Hyperlinks are a ubiquitous feature of the internet, but unlike other elements of internet language use, there hasn’t been a lot of published work that considers the linguistics of hyperlinks. Or really any work as far as I can tell (but please correct me if I’m wrong!). Hyperlinks anchor to written text, and interact with it in ways that are interesting both syntactically and semantically.

From time to time I’ve talked about the linguistics of hyperlinks on this blog, twitter and even Lingthusiasm. I’ve always planned to write a research article about it, but it has never quite fit with my other work. I am hoping that writing a blog post will at least allow me to get the main ideas out of my head rather than continuing to languish at the bottom of my research list.

[update! I’m delighted to report that in 2011 Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine presented a conference paper “The Constituency of Hyperlinks in a Hypertext Corpus“ at a conference and the slides are available on his website]

Hyperlinks and the structure of the World Wide Web

A hyperlink allows the user to move to a different document, or location within the same document. The concept arose in computer science in the mid-20th century, and Tim Berners-Lee used the idea while designing the World Wide Web in the late 1980s. On the World Wide Web, website are built on Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and you move between them using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). That is to say, links between pages on the WWW are fundamental to how we built out the human-navigable plane built on the infrastructure of the internet.

There are, broadly, two ways to present a hyperlink in a text. Inline links are where the text of the hyperlink is fully visible, such as www.superlinguo.com. Hypertext links are where the link is embedded within a string of anchor text, so if I were to mention that this blog is Superlinguo, I can link to the blog homepage in the running text. This is where a lot of the linguistic fun happens.

I have never learnt to be proficient at HTML, but like anybody who enjoyed customising MySpace or LiveJournal pages back in the day, or still spends their time making websites (like this one you’re currently reading on tumblr dot com), I can recognise the code for a hyperlink:

<a href="superlinguo.com">Superlinguo</a>

Above, you have the opening of the tag, the reference to the hyperlink, and then the anchor text that the hyperlink will be attached to, and the closing tag. The end result is: Superlinguo. (Actually, just to make it fun Tumblr have a fun extra layer of hyperlink they generate, like many social media platforms - a reminder of how many layers there are to the online experience these days) There are slightly different ways hyperlinks work on sites like Wikipedia, but it’s a fundamentally similar mechanic. Most of us will deploy a zillion hyperlinks without ever looking at the underlying code, thanks to richtext editing interfaces that provide a little button to click. Thank you clever internet people for making it so easy for us to write and link to things on the internet.

Hyperlinks as part of our online linguistic competence

So, as long as you’ve been on the internet, you’ve had to deal with hyperlinks, and if you do any blogging, website building or other projects on the internet you have been building documents with hyperlinks for many years, possibly about as long as you’ve been literate.

I’m going to discuss the linguistic features of hyperlinks by looking at their evidential function, the pragmatics of hyperlink use, and the syntactic relationship between hypertext links and the anchor text. 

The evidential properties of hyperlinks

When you read a news article, or a blog or Wikipedia article, it’s likely that there will be many hyperlinks in that text, and you’ll never click on a single one of them. Those links are there as supporting evidence for the argument the writer is making. When I linked to Tim Berners-Lee’s Wikipedia bio above, you probably didn’t click, it just gave more weight to my argument about TBL developing the WWW.

Evidentials indicate source of evidence for claims made by the author. In spoken English we do this by overtly saying “Wikipedia says...” or “I read that...”. In written academic English we can use standard citation formats for sources of information. Standard citation formats usually privileged sources within the academic tradition, while a hyperlink can just as easily link to a tweet or a cat photo as an academic journal article.

In other languages there are features of the grammar that mark the source of information. When source of information is part of the grammar, this is known as evidentiality. I wrote my PhD thesis about evidentiality in Lamjung Yolmo. In this language, and many Tibetan languages, there are different forms of the verb ‘to be’ depending on whether you know the information you’re talking about from your own long-held experience, or because you saw or heard it happen, or because someone told you about it. Evidentiality occurs in around a quarter of the world’s languages.

Hyperlinks act as an evidential that covers a broad range of evidence that can be summed up as “I know this from evidence over at this other location”. It might be information someone else wrote down, or said in a video, or presented as a song, or even information that the person making the link wrote somewhere else (just as I linked to my PhD thesis above). Not only are hyperlinks technically not part of the grammar, but they also don’t fit neatly into the semantic categories of known evidential systems.

There is one particular similarity between evidentials and hyperlinks I find intriguing, and that is their function as deictics. ‘Deictic’ is the fancy linguist word for ‘pointing’. There are deictic hand gestures we use to send people in the right direction, but there are also words that have a deictic function. ‘Me’ and ‘you’ don’t mean any particular person out of context, in the context they’re used in they point to specific people in that interaction. Same with many other words, ‘tomorrow’ right now points to a different date than the 'tomorrow’ in a week’s time. Ferdinand de Haan (2001) has written at length about how evidentials are deictic because they point to the source of the information. Using a reported speech evidential ‘points to’ another person who said the information originally, and using a ‘direct visual evidential’ points to the event that occurred. Hyperlinks do this kind of pointing in a very literal way. If the reader wants they can be sent directly to the information that is being pointed to by the hyperlink. The evidential function of hyperlinks provides some off-center support for de Haan’s approach to evidentiality.

Of course, that ability to click and be sent to the original source is one final way in which hyperlinks fundamentally differ from grammatical evidentials. Your audience can verify your claim. If you say you know something because someone told you, it’s often not within your audience’s ability to verify this claim. This ability to verify has interesting implications for the pragmatics of hyperlinks.

The pragmatics of hyperlinks

In work on evidentiality, particularly reported speech evidentials, there’s a lot of discussion of how including your source of information allows you some distance from the claims made. I particularly appreciate Lev Michael’s (2012) more nuanced approach that reported speech can also be used to claim the authority of the original speaker too, and that context plays a role (I used this as the basis of my approach to reported speech evidentiality in Gawne 2015).

It would be interesting to see what kind of stance-taking towards the original content does emerge from hyperlink use, and I wonder if it differs between, say, science bloggers (based more on an academic model of building your argument on citations to existing work) and gossip bloggers (creating plausible deniability in the face of potential defamation lawsuits).

Just as with evidentiality, the co-operative principle allows people to assume that the speaker is using the strongest form of evidence available to them. That means there is an assumption that a hyperlink will go through to a relevant, high-quality source document. Flouting this is at the heart of the activity of rickrolling - making people think they are following a trust-worthy link, but taking them to the the music video for Rick Astley’s song "Never Gonna Give You Up".

Hyperlinks with anchor text are literally hypertext within the mechanisms of the code, but they also act as a hypertext in that they add to the meaning of the text with what they have scope over. We can see this at it’s maximally-bizarre in this post I wrote in 2016 when the automatic posting service for the Twitter account of an Australian magazine stopped including the links for a few days. Posts like these, without hyperlinks, just come across as creepy:

did a meteor hit Queensland last night? [text in tweet screencap above]

Baby born without eyes

Iconic ice block of our youth GONE

The hyperlink, and the knowledge there is additional supporting information for the claims made, add an important element to the pragmatic stance-taking in online discourse. The effect of this pragmatic function can be affected in hypertext linking by the relationship between the hyperlink and the anchor text.

The syntax of hyperlinks

As you know because you’ve spent the last two decades reading websites, hyperlinks can be embedded in a string of text. The relationship between the anchor text and the hyperlink is the last thing I want to discuss, not because it’s the least interesting, but because I think it’s the topic that needs the most quantification and a systematic approach (and I’m hoping that writing this post kills any urge I have to do that work).

I often spend an additional moment pondering which string of text I’ll affix a hyperlink to. I also have strong intuitions sometimes that someone has not given a hyperlink it’s appropriate scope. Usually for basic nouns it’s pretty straightforward, but linking within a very phrase, or when you’re pointing people towards another thing to read in the running text, it becomes more of an art form.

The choice of whether to include a hyperlink or not is an initial choice that ties back to the pragmatic weight of the syntactic choice. Then there’s some variation, choosing to add a hyperlink over a very long scope can draw emphasis to a large chunk of text. Or if you want to indicate a multiplicity of sources, see for example the final sentence of this paragraph in a Wired column from Gretchen McCulloch, where each word in the final sentence is its own hyperlink to a different location to indicate there are many sources to support her argument:

[text: Four is the magic number in part because of cognitive limitations—our brains have a hard time mentalizing, or keeping track of everyone's mental states, above four participants. But in video calls, the technology prevents us from splitting, so we're forced to mentalize too high. The result? That much-lamented Zoom fatigue.]

Hyperlinks might even be influencing the way we write English online. Emily Bender shared the following couple of tweets with a screenshot of some text from a university email.

Reading some documentation about mask policy at my campus (for the unlikely eventuality that I'll go there in person at some point...) and I was struck by how awkward (maybe ungrammatical) the sentence with the underlined phrase is here. >>

[Relevant text, hyperlink indicated by square bracket: WHEN ARE CLOTH FACE COVERINGS NEEDED? Face coverings are [required at the UW] to be worn indoors when other people are present; this includes common areas, such as hallways, stairways, restrooms and elevators.]

So now I'm wondering: was that odd order produced so that "required at the UW" would be a substring that could be hyperlinked to the UW's mask policy? And if so, is the practice of hyperlinking putting subtle pressure on languages & slowly changing word order possibilities?

Here the sentence appears to be presented so that the author could have a clear string of relevant anchor text for a hyperlink.

This makes me wonder if hyperlinks can be used as a way to investigate people’s intuitions about constituency. Do hyperlinks scope over anchor text in a way that replicates what we know from other constituency tests? I feel like I have complicated feelings about the inclusion of the determiner at the start of a noun phrase and whether it fits into the scope of the hyperlink or not.

Update (Feb 24 2021): in 2011 Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine gave a presentation answering my question about constituency! You can find the slides for the the talk on Mitcho’s website. He performed a corpus analysis of 375,000 hyperlinks on MetaFilter, and found that many hyperlinks conform to English constituency. Those that didn’t showed similarities that indicated there was something about argument structure or pragmatics that was clearly influencing people’s hyperlinking choices.

A million things I’ll never get around to

So, it turned out I did have a lot of thoughts about hyperlinks. Many of them are only evidenced by my intuitions. I don’t know if I’ll ever get the opportunity to dig deeper on this. It’s also worth being explicit about the fact that everything I’ve discussed above is framed entirely around my English-centric experience of the World Wide Web, and I’m sure there a whole lot of interesting topics about the use of hyperlinks in other languages I haven’t even begun to consider. I have such an affection for the mechanics of hyperlinking, the way it was an exercise in trust as the web grew, and how it’s an exercise in trust every time we click.

References

de Haan, Ferdinand. 2001. The Cognitive Basis of Visual Evidentials. In Alan Cienki, Barbara J. Luka and Smith, Michael B. (eds.), Conceptual and Discourse Factors in Linguistic Structure, 91-106. Stanford: CSLI Publications.

Gawne, Lauren. (2015). The reported speech evidential particle in Lamjung Yolmo. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 38(2), 292–318. 

Michael, Lev. (2012). Nanti self-quotation: Implications for the pragmatics of reported speech and evidentiality. Pragmatics and Society, 3(2), 321-357.

Cite this blog post

All original content on Superlinguo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If this post has inspired you to think and write about hyperlinks, please let me know! You can also cite this blog post:

Gawne, Lauren. 2021. The linguistics of hyperlinks. Superlinguo. <Link> Accessed DATE.

A stable URL for this page can be found at The Internet Archive.

[monsteronfire]

Fishing for a Star

type;; One-shot (6.4K words)

pairing(s);; fratboy!JK x older!Reader/OC

genre;; Slice of Life, Smut, College AU

warnings;; Drinking, oral (male receiving), shy!Koo, sub!Koo, slightly dom!Reader/OC, Yoongi being a dumbass voyeur, both parties pining for each other like idiots

a/n;; I feel like it’s been a motherfuckin’ year since I’ve written and posted anything. I honestly started this thing probably a year ago. I just really love the chill college parties trope. Might add more to this, but unlikely. Enjoy my pain as I cry over JK in leather.

edit;; Totally forgot to put a read more tag on here, sorry y’all. I even told myself to fucking do it right as I started the post. Also the pic isn’t mine, got it off Google.

------

“Please tell me that’s not what you’re wearing.”

You step out of the way for your housemate, the hoodie you’d picked out momentarily blinding you while you pulled it over your head.

“If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be putting it on.” You say, finally getting it over your head and shaking the hair out of your face. You blink at her half-way-to-getting-ready state, noting in the back of your head how good she looks even now. Her hair is done, wavy and a little disheveled. The shine of the dark strands makes you want to run your fingers through them, knowing they will be soft. Her makeup is half done and she’s dressed only in her underwear, but she’s beautiful all the same. You can tell she’s planning to doll herself up tonight and why shouldn’t she? It’s one of the biggest frat parties of the year and with it being her last year, she’s aiming to have a good time.

“This is a party, (Y/N). At least try and look a little slutty.”

You snort and grin a little, watching her pop her hip out while she eyes you.

“Why is that, baby?” You reply, reaching up to pull a couple of strands of her hair back into place fondly.

“I plan to get laid tonight. I expect you to too, babe.” She snaps, swatting your hand away.

“Sorry, sexy. I’m fishing for something special tonight and it doesn’t require the slutty look.”

“Oh god, not again.”

“What?” You question, turning back to the full length mirror and carding your fingers through your own hair to fix it.

“You’ve been after this boy for three years, (Y/N). He’s got you wrapped around his finger.” She states, walking away from you and back into the bathroom. You’re still smiling when you check one final time to make sure the jeans you’re wearing make your ass look great before leaning against the door frame.

“That was my plan from the beginning. Now I just need to wrap him around mine.”

She snorts, leaning over the sink and closer to the mirror.

“I said three years, didn’t I? If you haven’t bagged him yet, you won’t.”

You pout at her, but are undeterred. You know what kind of person he is and you’re well aware of how much work he had and will continue to take. You could tell he was not a one and done from the first moment you saw him. He would take time, a lot of it and you were willing to put it all in.

“You know how stubborn I can be.” You chuckle at her. She rolls her eyes, but smirks none the less. She knows she can’t say a word to change your mind.

“Whatever. If I catch you two together, I’m telling him to fuck you already.”

You laugh as you walk away, working on gathering what you’ll want to take to the party.

“You sure I’ll even be allowed at this thing?!”

“Are you kidding?! Everyone is invited to this party. The doors are left open so anyone can just fucking walk in off the street!”

You chuckle, grabbing your bag and stuffing your wallet in it. You’d graduated a couple years ago and while most of the seniors would know you, you sometimes felt weird hanging out at a party in the college you’d already graduated from. A girl has to do what she has to do when a baby boy is on the line, though.

And a baby boy he was.

-

“Jae!”

You smile as you and your friend enter the large, old house. The lighting is dim, the music is thumping and all you can smell is alcohol, sex and sweat. There’s noise all around you, but you and your friend weave through the crowd easily. Nearly everyone greets you as you two pass, guys high-fiving you and girls giggling and touching your arms. You bounce to the music as you follow her, the two of you making your way past the front stairs and down the hall. You make a pit stop in the kitchen- Jae grabbing the classic Solo cup and you pulling a bottle of beer from a cooler full of ice- before heading out onto the back deck.

The backyard is just as crowded as the house, people in the pool, people in the gazebo and people littering about the yard and deck. There’s a large bonfire near the back of the yard and a couple other smaller fire pits in random spots. One of them is up on the deck in a small metal  pit, the warm flames surrounded by the very reason you and Jae came tonight.

“There’s our girls!” Namjoon shouts, lifting his can and drawing the attention of the seven other guys around him to you two. Taehyung, Hoseok and Jin all shout in unison as they spot you, Tae standing and pressing a sloppy kiss to your friend’s cheek. Yoongi and Namjoon lift their hands as you get closer and you reach out to slap each one. Jimin stands to press little pecks to first your cheek and then Jae’s. You all greet each other quietly before Jae slides herself into her target’s lap. She’s been after Jin all year and you haven’t been the only person sitting back to watch their game of cat and mouse. Jin is practically an expert at flirting just enough to keep her hooked without giving her what she really wants.

To be young and in lust.

Your eyes finally find the last member of the group, his silence keeping him out of spotlight unless he’s being searched for. He’s already looking at you when you spot him and his eyes dart down to his shoes while he shuffles behind Yoongi and Jimin. He can only keep his eyes off you for a moment before they find yours and he’s trapped. You smile softly at him, taking delight in how his eyes widen a fraction and his pupils grow. He’s holding a Solo cup, the rings on his fingers glinting in the firelight as he deftly squeezes them a bit tighter. He looks good tonight, his dark hair pushed back away from his forehead to show his strong brow. He’s dressed in all black, black t-shirt tucked into black jeans, black boots and to top it all off a leather jacket. He definitely pulled all the stops on you tonight and you have to make a conscious effort not to drool when you stare at him. He looks like a badass and you know every other girl in this joint sees him the same way, but you know the truth.

“Uh-oh,” Jae mumbles into Jin’s ear.

“She’s spotted her target and is locked on.”

You don’t bother listening to her, instead creeping closer to the object of your desire.

“Hey, Jungkookie,” You murmur quietly to him, leaning in a bit closer, but not too close. You had to be very meticulous with him.

“Hey, noona,” he responds shyly and the whole circle of friends is a sniggering mess for a moment. Pink begin’s to dust his cheeks, but you spare him a little and turn to flick Jimin in the back of the head.

“You lot are pretty curious tonight. Weren’t you all having a conversation before we came up?”

They all snigger some more, but quickly go back to bullshitting around the fire, leaving you and Jungkook in peace. You take another step closer to him, half expecting him to maintain the distance between you, but he remains still and lets you get closer. Threes years it’s taken you to get even this close to him, his overtly shy and sweet demeanor keeping him just out of reach of your darker, more corrupted hands.

“You look good tonight,” you comment and his blush darkens in the firelight. He thanks you almost too quietly, quickly bringing the cup of beer he’s holding to his lips to distract himself somehow and it has you chuckling lowly at him. He looks away from you, avoiding your eyes and you can’t stop the fiendish grin on your lips. You finally give him some respite, turning away from him to join in on the random conversation that the group is sharing around the small fire pit.

Finally…

He get’s his chance and takes it without a second thought. He spent years hesitating in such small matters and found himself either missing out or always caught if he didn’t take the chance when it was presented to him. So he learned. Now when you have those few precious moments where your focus is not on him- where you are off guard for just a beat- he gets to watch you instead. Watch the way your eyes glow in the firelight, or the way your hair just barely shifts as a warm breeze lazes by. He takes in your simple outfit, jeans and a sweatshirt. Nothing like the rest of the girls at every party he’s ever been to. Your smile moves your whole face, your cheeks rising, you lips splitting and even your eyes squinting shut as you tease Taehyung. His lips quirk a little on their own when he notices that your ears shift a little when you smile as well.

Your lashes are long even without makeup, so much so that the first time he’d ever met you he could have sworn they were fake. But then he caught you tugging on them one afternoon while you told old stories with Namjoon. You did it regularly and had told him you could feel the dead ones coming out, you wanted to get them before they fell into your eyes. A quirk he’d logged away to keep safe for the rest of eternity. The beer in your one hand shifts to the other, the rings on your fingers clinking just loud enough for him to hear over Hoseok’s shouting. A hobby of sorts you shared with Jimin. You two wore the same ring size and often went shopping for new ones together, even swapping every now and again. The free hand moves about in the air as you speak and Jungkook thinks it almost weird now to see someone talk without gesturing with their hands so much. How did one truly immerse another in their words if they didn’t show them how it felt as well? When you were angry- fuming for either your own hardships or for those of a friend- you pointed a lot, your head shaking and your hands slicing through the air to signal how done you were. When you told stories of your adventures with the oldest members of his brothers your hands where always in the air; swiping, rolling, falling and twisting. You painted such a picture with only the movement of your hands when you spoke. They weren’t really dainty, your palms wide and your fingers not very long, but they fit perfectly with his hands. A fact that amazes him, but that he’s grown rather fond of. When you laugh, it’s loud. Not soft, not like the twinkling of bells, but like a song. Loud, but still beautiful and it can range from joyous mirth to deep and rich fondness, the type of feeling that fills your chest with warmth and adoration. That’s the laugh he enjoys the most, that deep chuckle. The one you give to him quietly so just the two of you can hear it.

He wants you. He was confused at first, for a long time. Scared of your mature age compared to him and your strength. He always sees you as strong, even if you don’t think so yourself. You always make him nervous, unsure if he is really worthy of the sweet attention you give him. The quiet whispers just between the two of you, the soft touches, the adoring look in your eyes. He fears all your attention, but he can’t deny now that he wants it- needs it. He can’t go a day without it.

-

The party winds down and you are delighted at the sight of mattresses being brought down and strewn haphazardly across the floor in their living room. When Jungkook finally picks his spot you waste no time in shuffling closer to his mattress. Normally you would keep your distance, allowing him his comfort of solitude to sleep, but you’ve already allowed him plenty of his liberties tonight. You will get something out of this evening if not a simple kiss in the dark. He shocks you by saying nothing as you lay down, your eyes just catching a glimpse of Jae and Jin heading upstairs. Probably to his room to finally earn what she’s worked so hard for. She quickly casts you a thumbs up, a large grin on her face as she tries to keep it unnoticed by anyone else in the room. You return the gesture and chuckle, groaning a bit when you body finally hits the not so comfortable springs. You take a moment to sigh before opening your eyes again and focusing them on the object of your desires.

He’s staring right back at you and your breath catches in your throat, lost in the sea of stars in his eyes. They’re wide and shining, staring so intently at you that you almost don’t take notice to the shine of his lips. Like he’s just licked them a few times. Even in the dim light of the moon that filters in through the windows and the very few lights in the house on you can see them glisten, and your eyes are torn between them and his shining eyes. He looks like a lost puppy staring at you, but there’s more in his eyes. He looks in awe, almost afraid and- dare you say it- a little eager. Like he wants something to happen, but it scares him and that thought alone drives straight to your core. A fire alights inside you and suddenly you’re staring back at him with equally wide eyes, your bottom lip trapped between your teeth. The action immediately draws his large eyes to your mouth and fuck if you don’t almost groan when his tongue pokes out to lick nervously over his lips again.

His mouth parts ever so slightly and you swear you can hear him panting a little over the din of people ambling to where they plan to sleep. Someone plops down directly behind you, their back hitting yours as they shift to get comfortable. You’re right on the edge of the mattress, so this person has to be hanging off the one they’re laying on to be this close to you. And by the feel of how broad their shoulders are it’s definitely a man. Your eyes narrow and you almost growl when Jungkook stiffens in front of you and the man knocks against you again. Your head turns just enough to spot the thin, white shirt he’s wearing stretch over one shoulder before you’re shoving back with your elbow. He grunts when you dig into his back, but says nothing else, only leaning away from the discomfort. He’s clearly wasted. Still, he’s too close to you and taking the great opportunity presented before you, you scoot closer to the apple of your eye. He doesn’t shy away and it takes all your effort not to reach out to him when you finally focus back on him.

“Sorry,” you whisper, scooting just a tiny bit closer than you really need to. He shakes his head quietly, mumbling out an ‘it’s okay’ while his body leans closer to yours. God you want to ravage this sweet boy. It’s practically making your heart explode with how cute he’s being right now. He’d looked away in his response, but when he looks back to you he’s dragging his lip through his teeth and you really can’t take it. Again you two are lost in your own little world as you stare at each other.

“Jungkookie… you’re not being very nice to me right now.”

His eyes widen even further- if that’s even possible- and he looks almost stricken at the comment.

“What?” He manages to almost whimper out and you just can’t stop yourself from scooting even closer to him.

“You’re looking at me so sweetly, baby. How am I supposed to play nice with you tonight if you keep staring at me like that?”

You don’t know where all this confidence is coming from. Granted you’ve always been a bit more confident than the young man in front of you, but even still, you never thought you’d get to a degree where you were saying such flirtatious things in such a dominant tone to him.

“Play… nice?”

The glint changes in your eyes and Jungkook visibly shutters at the sight. Your eyes had been so deep and full of adoration just a moment ago, now all he sees is greed and lust. It makes his already hard cock twitch in his pants. Gods he’s been hard from the moment you called him that nickname- Jungkookie. He generally doesn’t like anyone, but the guys saying it. But every time you say it…

He’s almost scared to feel how excited he’s getting every time you scoot a little bit closer. He doesn’t want you to stop. Not until your body is finally pressed to his and he can hold you so tight, and never let go. He’d hoped something would have happened between you two before tonight, but he was always so scared and you were always so cautious with him. He just wants you to ravage him already. He’s dreamed about it practically every night, it might as well happen already.

“Stop,” you suddenly say and he can feel your fingers on his chin, pulling his lip from between his teeth.

“If you lick or bite your lips one more time,” you have to take a moment to calm yourself before continuing, “… I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself.”

He throbs in his jeans and when he locks eyes with you he’s lost. He doesn’t want you to stop, he realizes that now after feeling your fingers touch his skin. Fire ignites where they trace from his chin and along his jaw. He trembles beneath your touch and you can feel it. Oh you can feel it. You do the opposite of what you just told him, biting your lip to draw his eyes to them again as you two gravitate ever closer.

“Unless you don’t want me to.”

He doesn’t speak, he feels like he doesn’t know how to in that moment. He doesn’t trust himself to anyway, so he does the next best thing. He licks his lips again and is rewarded. Your fingers that had been running along his jaw suddenly snake into the hair at the nape of his neck and you pull him close. He is just as needy as you are, his hands which had been fiddling with his shirt the whole time are suddenly flying up to tug your bodies even closer. Your lips crash against his and he whimpers into your mouth when you both open them simultaneously, your tongue dragging along his. It takes all your conscious effort not to moan, your body melding itself against his. His arms wrap around you and squeeze you to him, his whimpers turning into a little moan when you gain dominance in the kiss.

You pull away, one of your hands coming back to his jaw to to place a thumb over his open lips. You turn to look back at the bodies laying around the room, most of the members of the fraternity still down here, all of them passed entirely the fuck out. The guy just behind you is snoring up a storm and you can’t help smirking a little when you turn back to face Jungkook. He looks so fucked out already, his eyes glazed and his pupils blown wide as he pants lightly against your thumb. Your smile is both devious and full of fondness as you stare at him.

“You look so good baby, but you have to be quiet for me,” you whisper to him and he does nothing more than open his mouth wider. His tongue snakes out and licks against your thumb, pulling it in and sealing his lips around the appendage. He suckles on it hungrily and gods be damned if your panties aren’t soaked at this point.

“Fuck,” you sigh, squeezing your thighs together. You want him so bad it almost hurts. He pulls away far enough that your thumb pops from his lips and he whimpers once again, pulling you as close as he can.

“Noona, please,” he says, his breath shuddering.

“Please what, baby?”

He grabs one your hands and pulls it down between your bodies, pressing your palm to the bulge in his jeans. Your breathing deepens when you palm the hardness through the thick fabric, wondering how you didn’t notice it before.

“Oh baby,” you coo quietly and rub your hand heavily over his bulge. He bites his lip to hold back the moan threatening to break free and you feel his hips start to rock into your hand. He’s so fucking hot, how have you been able to resist him for so long?

“How long have to been this hard?”

He takes a moment to respond, trying to take deep breaths. Your hand stalls to help him regain some semblance of sanity, but he seems against the idea. His hand returns to gripping yours, pressing your palm back against his hard-on.

“Long time,” he finally gets out in a clipped tone, probably unable to speak properly at this point.

“Poor thing.”

You pull closer to him, pressing your forehead to his and lowering your voice so that you’re barely audible.

“Take your cock out for me, baby. Please.”

He keeps you close and groans into your neck, only taking a moment to collect himself before he’s pushing away, and his hands are flying to undo his pants. He struggles with the button for a moment, but you don’t help him, only leaning back to watch with excitement. When he finally gets them undone he’s tugging them down just enough so he can freely pull is cock out and gods is it beautiful. Your mouth waters as soon as he has it out, its pink color and red head making you want to feel the weight of it on your tongue. It’s not particularly long, but it’s thicker than you thought it would be and the precum that glistens on his tip calls out to you. You let out a heavy breath when his hands hover just shy of his shaft, trembling and aching to give the poor weeping thing some relief. Still he hesitates to touch himself.

Such a good boy.

“You’re so gorgeous,” you practically wheeze out, finding it hard to breathe when your twitching hand finally reaches out for him. He’s whimpering before you even touch him and you have to remind him to be quiet when the tip of your finger goes to touch the head.

“Remember, baby, keep it down.”

He nods a little shakily and just as you press into the precum on his tip with your finger, his hands are flying up to cover his mouth. He’s so sensitive and you love it.

“Well, you’re certainly aching there aren’t you? Does it feel good to have me touch you?”

Again he nods and you pout, swirling your finger in the sticky fluid at his tip. His eyes clench shut at the sensation and he deftly thrusts his hips up to meet more of your hand.

“Use your words or I’ll have to stop.”

“Yes,” he whispers out harshly, his hands clenching into fists at his stomach, “… yes, yes, yes, yes!”

You smirk, the high you’re getting from all of this driving you to carry on.

“Good boy.”

You continue to swirl your finger over his tip a few more times, widening your circle until you’re sliding your finger down the top of his length, all the way to the base. He pants a little too heavily, his eyes glued to your hand and what you’re doing to him. You circle around his base to the bottom of his cock before dragging your finger back up and rubbing it deftly over the slit a few times.

“Fuck noona-“

“Language, Jungkookie.” You say with a smirk, your hand finally flattening over the underside of his length so you can palm him a few times. His hips rock against his will and meet you half way every time you press down on him. He looks so pretty like this, his eyes nearly black and so focused on how your palm drags over his length. He’s sweating a little, panting a lot and his gorgeous cock is ready to explode at any second. And you’ve barely even done anything to him yet.

“What made you so hard and needy like this?”

He stays silent for a long moment, only answering when the pressure of your hand lightens and you begin to pull away.

“You… you made me like this. You always… make me like this.”

Always?

“Fuck, Kookie, if you had told me sooner we might’ve actually got it in tonight.”

His eyes are glistening at this point as they shoot up to glance at you before scrunching shut when your fingers finally wrap around his shaft. You pump him slowly, but his hips make up for that and keep the sliding of his cock in and out of your hand at a steady pace.

“I wanted to. Fuck I wanted to, but…”

“But?”

He pants a few times, focused more on chasing his high. Your grip on his cock tightens to the point that he’s forced to stop thrusting, only allowing him to continue when he answers.

“I-I was scared. And you were being so cautious with me-“

“Of course I was! I didn’t want to scare you away. I worked too hard for you, I wasn’t going to mess that up by being too greedy.”

His hips stutter and then pause, his eyes opening to look at you. His face is flush, you can tell even in the dark, and his hair is starting to stick to his face. Still he looks like the sexiest, most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.

“Why?”

“What?” You ask, not prepared to be questioned back like this.

“Why did you put so much effort into me. You could’ve easily slept with one of the other guys. Yoongi’s always had the hots for you. So has Tae. Why me?”

You take a long moment to mull over your answer, your other hand coming up to push some of his sweaty hair out of his face. When you get some clear, you lean in to kiss him a little more gently this time. Though it isn’t any less heated, it’s more of a deep sensual kiss than one of hunger and lust. When you pull away, you look him in the eyes when you answer.

“The same reason anyone chooses anyone else. You’re the one I wanted, Kookie. I would’ve put in a hundred years of work if I had to.”

His eyes are wide with adoration and awe, but the moment can’t last forever. His cock twitching in your hand reminds you of what is happening and you squeeze it gently before going back to pumping him. He gasps quietly at the sensation, his eyes falling closed and his body slowly starting to roll backwards. You move with him, pressing your body into his side when he’s finally laying flat on his back. His hands are clenching and unclenching against his stomach, desperate for some kind of anchor. A thought pings into your mind while you watch him grasp sporadically at his shirt, releasing his cock and pushing both his hands and the shirt up his abdomen. He whines at the loss of contact, lifting his head to see why you’d stopped stroking him only for his eyes to go wide. He looks a bit panicked, his gaze darting around to the half dead bodies around you two. You could so easily be caught, but most of the occupants of the house were completely wasted and would likely never remember this even if they did see it.

You slide down his body quietly, stealthily, like a cat taunting its prey into the shadows. Your eyes catch his and they hold him, their mischief so palpable that it makes Jungkook’s mouth go dry and his cock pulsate so fiercely it taps against his stomach. Your one hand trails down his side lightly, nails tickling his hip and thigh so that he’s shuddering beneath you. He reaches for you, one hand cupping your cheek- wants to tell you to stop, but his throat is so dry he can’t even whisper. Or perhaps he’s lying to himself and doesn’t want you to stop at all. When you quirk an eyebrow in question and you feel the object of your desire tap against your throat with another needy pulse, you know the answer is no, he doesn’t want you to stop.

A trembling whisper of your name leaves his lips and you can only smirk, tilting your head down to kiss just above his navel and then to one side of it. Down, down, further you trail, your kisses getting sloppier as you descend closer to your target. Your tongue and teeth leave wet, rosy patches as you go and you can feel his muscles quivering every time you touch him until finally the desperately red tip of his cock is right in front of you. He whimpers beneath you and you shush him gently, unable to tear your eyes away from the way it pulses and twitches up towards you.

“Please,” he finally lets out, sounding much like he’s on the verge of tears. You smirk again and glance up at him through your lashes.

“Please what, baby?”

He huffs cutely, his other hand cupping the other side of your face and his thumbs smoothing along your cheekbones like he’s so desperate to just pull you into his cock, but doesn’t want to be too demanding. You smile a bit more when his look gets more and more frantic, one of your arms reaching up to rub his chest under his shirt soothingly.

“Relax, my sweet star. Just tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you.”

“P-please…”

“Go on, baby. I know you want it, just tell me.”

“Please, I want your mouth,” he finally shutters out, but you can’t help yourself and push just a bit more.

“What do you want from my mouth?”

He huffs again and looks away, searching the room to make sure everyone there is truly oblivious.

“I-I want…”

“Want?”

“Please, noona, ravage me with your mouth.”

He looks you directly in the eyes as he finishes and the glee that soars through you practically makes you light headed. You grin broadly at him and bite your lip.

“I’ll give you anything you want, bunny. You just have to ask.”

Before he can really bask in your words you focus back on his cock, the hand that had been trying to soothe him shooting down to wrap gently round his base and lead his head to your waiting tongue. His breath shudders out and his mouth opens to let out a rush of air. The precum leaking from his tip covers your tongue in salt, but you don’t mind, all too desperate to feel the full weight of him at the back of your throat. Still you take your time, only licking at his slit to tease him, another droplet of precum oozing out every time to you do.

He’s panting while he watches you, his hands trembling on your face until one shakily weaves into your hair at the crown of your head. He doesn’t grip or pull, doesn’t try to shove more of his cock into your mouth which is what you’re used to. No, he’s too gentle and sweet to force anything. He only wants and lets you lead the way. When you finally wrap you lips around his tip he can’t hold back the noise, his head falling back, his teeth digging into his bottom lip and what he hopes is a quiet moan leaving him. And you can only smirk at the sound, the subtle shudder in his voice making you even more wet and your stomach clench with desire.

You take the time to generously wet the head of his cock, delighting in its twitches while you swirl your tongue around him. When you pop him from your lips the poor thing looks pathetic, practically weeping in your fingers and you feel all too obliged to take him back in. Only this time you take him all in, or at least as much as you can. You suck him all the way to the back of your throat, moaning quietly around his shaft so he can feel the vibrations. And oh does it make him make the most wonderful of sounds. A surprised cry and the slapping of a hand over his mouth (the one that was lightly stroking his fingers along your cheek) has you trying to smile around him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-…”

He lets the mantra trail off quietly, his body arched so you can’t see his face anymore. And as much as you adore the sight of him losing control, you’d much rather see the pleasure on said face. You suck harshly and pull off him, letting him once again pop from your lips. You take care to pump him slowly while you speak, you spit slicking his cock enough that there’s little friction.

“Look at me baby.”

It takes him a few moments, but you wait patiently until he realizes you gave him an order and he follows through. He looks a little lost when he finally locks eyes with you, his gaze a little wild like he can’t really see you at first.

“Noona?”

“Are you with me, sweetheart?”

He looks confused, but nods all the same, probably ready to agree to anything at this point.

“Listen carefully, baby. I want you to look at me the whole time. Don’t you dare look away or I’ll stop, okay? Eyes on me.”

He nods deftly, afraid he won’t be able to fulfill your request, but eagerly wanting to please you.

“Good boy.”

You don’t give him any time to prepare himself and suck him back in as far as he’ll go. He wheezes and squeezes his eyes shut for just a moment, quickly remembering your order and opening them back up to focus on you again. You smirk around his cock to let him know you approve and focus back on your task. When you can’t push him any further down your throat you opt to bob your head, one hand stroking what you can’t swallow and the other massaging his balls. You look up every few seconds to make sure he’s still watching and only have to stop once to make him look at your again. The sloppier his cock and your mouth gets the more he shakes and shudders beneath you, the hand in your hair trembling like a leaf in the wind. He keeps his other hand up by his face, ready to cover his mouth every time he can’t hold back a whimper or moan.

It doesn’t take long, only a few minutes and he’s desperately pleading to you, “I’m cumming, I’m cumming, I-“

You push him in as far as you can take and swallow around him just once before he’s shooting his load down your throat. Tears form in his eyes when he squeezes them shut and you can’t fault him when his head falls back onto the mattress. He did such a good job of watching you, you’ll let him have this one. When the last of his cum is swallowed down, you take care to gently clean what you can off his cock with your tongue. He shakes and gasps beneath you as you do, his head shaking back and forth as if to say he can’t take anymore. You pop off him one last time and kiss his tip softly, grinning when he finally cracks his eyes open to look at you.

He looks madly in love while he stares at you and it makes you somewhat nervous to see such intense emotion in his eyes. You lift yourself and crawl back up his body, pausing to help him pull his pants back up and his shirt back down. You hush him when he tries to button and zip everything back up, pushing his weak and tired hands away.

“No one will notice, just rest baby.”

“Well that was hot.”

You freeze over him, Jungkook’s body going rigid and his eyes widening with fear. You both look over your shoulder and spot Yoongi a small ways away from the foot of your mattress, laying on his side with his head propped up in one hand. He’s smirking at the two of you and while Jungkook looks mortified, you only feel proud. Now someone has witness that Jungkook is yours and no one else can have him.

“Hyung,” he whispers harshly, both his hands coming up to cover his face. You smile fondly at your boy before looking back to Yoongi.

“Well if you’re good and keep this to yourself, maybe next time you can join us.”

Yoongi quirks an eyebrow and grins excitedly, Jungkook letting out a panicked noise when you settle in beside him. He whispers to you quietly as if he doesn’t want Yoongi to hear and you only shush him gently to calm him.

“Lay down and rest, bunny. Don’t worry about him, he’ll keep quiet.”

“But-“

“Shh, sleep.”

You run your fingers through his hair until he finally settles down, turning so that he can wrap himself around you and tuck his head under your chin. You chuckle lovingly and continue to pet him, using your free hand to flip Yoongi off when he makes lewd gestures at you in the dark.