#which is doubly frustrating now that I know they both definitely care about me a lot and might even be open to it??

[veshialles]

damn I wish I had that girl's confidence

[opheliawillowbrook]

How the Cookie Crumbles

To say his brothers fought would be an understatement: They warred. That. That was the better word. However, it was Dick who was the peacemaker among them. The mediator extraordinaire, translating all his brothers’ woes and misunderstandings into less doom-pending transgressions. But to say this unofficial, yet very necessary part he played was tasking was yet another understatement of unspeakable proportions. It was a FUCKING LOT.

“I swear to God, Drake. You and Brown are a special kind of stupid.”

“Shut up, Damian! It’s a good idea!” Tim grumbled in reply.

“Yeah! You’re just mad you didn’t think of it first!”

Dick’s face fell upon hearing the argument and considered turning the other way, but he’d learned the hard way that his lack of interference could result in bloodshed. Damian did have a history of stabbing Tim, and Robin had an impressive body count, according to Jason. I’d better  make sure he doesn’t add two more.

“Well, fuck me and my  entire life,” Dick droned in frustration. “What are you three bitching about now?”

“Damian keeps saying our idea is stupid,” Stephanie tattled.

“Yeah!” Tim added with crossed arms. “He says we lack the fortitude for good ideas!”

“You do!” the current robin exclaimed.

“Damian?”

The youngest batboy rolled his eyes and reasoned, “Listen, I know these two brain donors barely have two brain cells to rub between them—”

“That’s not the only thing they rub!” Jason called from the other room.

Damian again rolled his eyes in contempt and continued, “And I’ve accepted, as a member of this family, that everyone gets to act a little stupid from time to time. However, as much as I would like to respect their commitment to their shared stupidity, I feel as if they are abusing the privilege and it needs to stop before one of them gets hurt.”

“Wow, he actually cares,” Jason added from still in another room.

“Have you been sitting there listening the whole time?” Dick asked, near facepalm.

“Affirmative,” Jason confirmed, entering from the hall.

“And you did nothing to stop them fighting?”

“It’s funnier this way.”

“Do I always have to be the responsible one?”

“Affirmative,” all four said with little thought.

“Okay then,” Dick sighed with reluctance. “Damian, I know you find it hard to accept the choices of others, but you need to understand that free choice and expression is about accepting that others may not make the same choices as you, and that’s okay. It’s the same as you choosing not to take my dating advice and ask Raven out because you’re afraid of rejection—”

“Shut up, Grayson! This isn’t about me!!!” Damian spat.

“Damian has the hots for Raven?” Jason teased. “You have good taste, Mighty Mouse. She got a great—”

“Don’t even finish that sentence, Todd!” Dick and Damian ordered in unison.

“I was gonna say personality,” Jason droned. “Get your minds out of the gutter. I mean for fuck’ sake.”

“Sure you were,” Tim replied with a glower.

“Yeah Tim, cause you never stare at her tits while you talk to her,” Jason added, throwing him doubly under the bus.

“Dude, are you trying to get me killed?” Tim said, shooting an elbow into his brother’s ribs as Damian and Stephanie both glared. Spurring Dick into a further mood for murder.

“My point being is, just because you don’t like other peoples’ ideas, doesn’t mean they’re stupid.”

“Tell them the idea, guys!” Jason urged, stirring the pot.

Stephanie and Tim looked at each other and nodded, as though they’d discovered the holy grail itself. “We’re gonna write a series of YA novels and sell them on the web!” Steph sang optimistically.

“Yeah, it’s a huge and diverse market,” Tim added.

“And with established characters, we’ll make a killing.”

Dick’s brow furrowed. “That sounds like fanfiction?”

“It sounds like utter bullshit,” Damian sneered, not single fuck given.

“It’s not bullshit,” Tim snapped. “YA novels make up a huge portion of the market. People love those things.”

“Then name one YA novel that has sold more than a manga in the last 10 years?”

Tim shrugged. “I can’t think of one at the top of my head, but there they definitely exist and sell.”

“Yeah, so does my fanfiction based on this family,” Jason added under his breath.

“What?” Everyone asked.

“Nothing. Continue.”

“So anyway, I told Damian it’s a foolproof plan.”

Dick rolled his eyes with a bit of doubt, but who was he to judge or discourage their creativity. I mean, he dropped out of college after all? “I’m not saying I believe it’s bulletproof, because frankly, nothing is. But I’m curious why you would consider telling Damian? I mean, he hates most things.”

“And Drake. I hate Drake.”

“We’re all very aware, Dami,” Dick drawled in annoyance. “But yeah, why would you tell him anything important to you? Especially that?”

“Well, we kinda needed a loan. I knew Bruce would undoubtedly say no and, well, Damian has money.”

“Because I make good business decisions.”

“I don’t know why I thought of asking you?”

“You didn’t, Jason told you to,” Stephanie confessed, recalling an earlier conversation.

“Jason, really?” Dick tsked.

“Hey, Damian does make good business decisions. Who do you think cleans and invests money? It’s certainly not Alfred.”

“Because Alfred would have nothing to do with your blood money, Jason. And Damian, I’m very disappointed in you!”

“Grayson, I don’t know what high horse you are riding on today, but you better come off it. Father told me if I wanted money, that I needed to earn it and that I should get a job. So I got one.”

“Laundering money for Red Hood’s criminal Enterprise is not a job!”

“Actually it is. Mighty Mouse made us an LLC and everything. I own several Wash & Folds, all legitimate! Thanks to Hell Spawn here! I’m actually considering making him a partner.”

“So will your LLC fund our YA Novels?”

“Oh fuck no!”

“Come on, Jay! We have a solid business plan,” Stephanie pleased.

“You’re business plan is a bunch of meaningless numbers written on the back of a napkin and poorly illustrated versions of us,” Damian said, holding up the napkin in question.

“Okay, so it’s not the final draft, but we’re working on it!” Tim said pointedly.

“Yeah, as tempting as this all sounds, I didn’t make my money making half baked business decisions,” Jason reasoned

“No, you made it by taking over Gotham’s drug trade,” Dick clarified with disapproval.

“Which was a solid business decision.”

“Why do I even talk to you?”

“I don’t know why I talk to any of you,” Damian scowled, arms crossed, grateful there was no shared genetics between him and his adoptive kin. “I don’t understand what father saw in any of you.

“I can’t answer that,” Jason replied. “However, I can tell you, from personal experience, what he saw in your mom.”

“Do you wanna die, Todd?”

“Do you wanna not have a job?” Jason wanted. “Also, been there done that. But hey, if I died twice then I’d have buffy status so don’t threaten me with a good time, kid.”

“On that note, I’m leaving,” Damian grimaced. “I have to meet Raven, anyway.”

“Oh,” Dick sang. “You have a date!”

“It’s not a date.”

“Bet you wish it was a date,” Stephanie teased. “Y’know, if you just stopped acting like a dick all the time, I bet she’d go out with you.”

“Shut up, Brown.”

“Oh no,” Dick smiled. “I know it’s hard to believe, but he’s nice to Raven.”

“Hey keep that shit up,” Jason added. “If you’re nice to her, she’d be nice to you!”

“I hate all of you,” Damian proclaimed and stormed away.

“Fuck you too! See you at work Monday! Jason called, earning a tiger middle finger.

“He might be an asshole, but he’s a good kid,” Jason nodded with a sense of pride, causing to Dick to silently scoff. “Still needs to get laid though.”

“Bruce is gonna be so pissed when he finds out you pulled Dami into your bullshit.”

“You’re using Raven’s pet name for him now?” Jason mocked. “And fucker’s gonna have to prove it first; there’s a reason I hired ‘Dami’ for that job.”

“Dude, fuck you; dig your grave,” Dick lamented. “And don’t come at me with one of your tired ass death jokes, they’re getting old.”

“Suit yourself,” the Outlaw glowered as silence set in.

“So Dick,” Tim dared sheepishly. “You, um, wanna invest in--”

“Absolutely not,” the elder hero replied.

Leaving Jason to chuckle. “And that’s the way the cookie crumbled.”

If you enjoyed that feel free to leave me kudos 👉 here on Ao3 lol. If you have any remdom prompts send them my way; maybe I’ll feel inspired 😘

[bpdanakins]

i just infodumped to my friends about bpd anakin and i have No Regrets snakjdkajfsk

anyway, doth thee have any more bpd anakin (or just anakin in general) headcanons becuase i am living for this

I am So Sorry this took so long, but hopefully the length makes up for it. Thank you so much for sending this to me bc BPD!Anakin is my entire life. I could talk about it all day, every day.

I’d like to thank @apple-grass-and-smiles for helping me organize my Thoughts on all of this, prompting me to focus on certain things and giving me feedback in general too. 

Okay, here goes:

Anakin fidgets!! I’m not even sure if this is a headcanon but if it is I will die on this hill. He can’t stay still for the life of him and doubly so when he’s anxious, nervous or Ready To Do Something Already. 

We know Anakin can’t hold eye contact to save his life when he’s upset or insecure, but I can also see him having issues with touch when he’s upset, unless it’s from certain people only (Padmé always gets a pass, for example).

Anakin’s quick to let some small stuff go, but larger things people do that hurt him (whether intentionally or not) aren’t really ever forgotten, and he just kind of takes that in and suppresses it, until random moments when it pops up, he remembers, and it just hurts like it’s happening all over again. The people around him often have no idea what fully sets him off, bc to them, his reaction now seems out of nowhere while his mind’s still stuck on this other thing.     - His reactions also seem sometimes like they’re Over The Top, but even just remembering past hurts can feel almost disabling at times. It’s worse when he ends up ruminating on it, because the hurt and feelings of betrayal just keep building up over and over until it almost blots everything else out.

When he’s happy or surrounded by those he loves, everyone kind of can feel it too, bc he’s just fuckoff powerful in the Force and esp other Force sensitives kind of gather around his space and just… his affection and excitement are literally infectious. 

This probably runs closer to ADHD than BPD for sure, but get him talking about anything mechanical (robotics, engineering, racing, etc) and he will go from 0 to 100 so fast you’d get whiplash. No one minds though bc, as I said, his excitement is infectious and honestly those around him just adore listening to him go off even though half of it goes over their head.     - Ahsoka may not ever get Gotta Go Fast, but she definitely loves it when he really talks her ear off about all this stuff, bc it makes her excited to learn and she picks up on all of it easily. (There’s a part of her that wants to emulate him and she does def look up to him obviously.)     - We see it with Obi-Wan, but people love to use his love of all things mechanical as a way to distract him from things that upset him. It doesn’t always work but they try.

With Obi-Wan, he ends up on the side of Anakin’s splitting like, all the time. And unfortunately sometimes Obi-Wan can’t tell that Anakin’s lashing out not because of something Obi-Wan’s actually done, but bc Anakin’s young and Obi-Wan’s the figure he can project a lot of his frustrations on.     - It can lead Obi-Wan to being confused and hurt sometimes, bc he doesn’t always understand Anakin’s thought processes when this happens, and it definitely sometimes cuts him to the core. On the reverse side, though Anakin might not always say it to his face, Obi-Wan definitely can overhear him at times when Anakin’s ready to 1v1 anyone who even so much as makes a frowny face about Obi-Wan, which helps Obi-Wan remember that Anakin does love him too, actually.     - It ends up being one of the points of frisson between Anakin and Mace, bc Anakin can’t read body language perfectly, especially when it comes to feelings of abandonment or someone seemingly not loving who Anakin loves to the same degree. Mace has a drier sense of humor at times and defs has a more resting frowny face, and this rankles Anakin at times bc he can’t always tell when Mace is just chilling vs being disappointed, and while Anakin will take it all personally, he ALSO takes any perceived criticism to those he loves personally too.     - Both Mace and Obi-Wan don’t get this bc they have a perfectly fine relationship. Anakin’s just Like That.     - (And super overprotective of people’s perceptions of Obi-Wan. Anakin will go off about Obi-Wan being mean and all that, but fuck you and your entire family tree if you ever even think Obi-Wan’s anything short as the most amazing Jedi to ever Jedi.)

Everybody and their mother can see the pedestal Anakin puts Padmé on, and surprisingly she rarely is on the end of his splitting. When he does, he just internalizes it bc he can’t stand the idea that he’s somehow seen her in a wrong light, or he feels guilty for getting angry with her.     - He also defines a huge chunk of his life around loving her, making her his center for a lot of his decisions and reactions, so when they’re off, his whole world seems backwards. It makes him Really uncomfortable and unsure. He gets panicky and upset and often people have no idea what the cause is so they just end up a lil panicky in return.     - He tends to take it out on others, by doing an exercise or by disappearing to fiddle with something.     - Pads has an easier time recognizing Anakin’s emotional needs, bc in some ways they’re the same as hers. She’s good at reaching out to him, comforting him and reassuring him of her love. And in turn, he like, never fucking shuts up about how much he loves her, and those moments are what make her feel so special around him. Being loved by Anakin makes someone feel important and even get tingly, bubbly happy feelings, because it’s hard to doubt it sometimes.     - There’s a part of her that sometimes worries about how Intense he is, but, like I said, when his positive intense emotions are focused on you, it feels wonderful. And he’s genuinely super sweet and gentle, and she appreciates that, when she tells him to back off about something, he’ll listen to her wishes. (I’m using movie Anakin as my base here bc TCW!Anakin in this regard is just…. bad y’all lmao)

Anakin’s anxious about Ahsoka All The Time. He’s afraid he’s a bad teacher, he’s afraid he’ll mess her up somehow, he’s afraid he’ll hurt her or she’ll get hurt, and that’s why he can’t stand the idea sometimes of her being on her own. It’s not a lack of trust in her abilities, but because he feels responsible for her, and that’s why he’s always ready to put himself between her and literally anything that could potentially hurt her. (Even if it’s not a physical threat.)     - There are times she finds this amusing and times this makes her angry, but mostly she is long suffering. There are times she appreciates it though, bc she’s still a kid and isn’t always sure which way is up, especially when in a war. Anakin is often a cornerstone for her, and though she’d literally NEVER admit it, his overprotectiveness can sometimes be a reassurance. She knows she can handle herself just fine, but when she has an inkling of doubt, she’ll remind herself that Anakin will be there, and then go and take care of the problem herself.     - She doesn’t always get his moments where he’s not always falling over himself to talk Obi-Wan up or go out of his way to sass at him. To her, they have a wonderful relationship and she rarely notices when Obi-Wan might say something that pokes at Anakin wrong, so she often just winds up ???? when Anakin is huffy or annoyed with her grandmaster.     - She sees Anakin’s anger issues a little more easily than others, and she worries about it but always brushes it off or downplays it, bc she always sees why he’s angry, and also always just assumes (like everyone else) that he can Handle It.     - Anakin’s recklessness and impulsivity are some of her favourite things about being his padawan. He’s literally never boring to be around, and Ahsoka needs that sort of excitement to sometimes push aside the knowledge that she’s literally in a warzone. Anakin’s also really good at doing this intentionally; he’s literally always worrying after her, and all he wants to do is take care of those he loves and make them happy, so sometimes he’ll be Extra just to get under her skin or distract her and honestly this is the basis of where their playful competitions always come from.

If Ahsoka is long suffering, Rex is doubly so. Sometimes it’s all he can do to keep up with Anakin and Ahsoka, but he appreciates Anakin “thinking outside the box”. He also appreciates knowing that Anakin is just as loyal to him and his men as he himself is (well… Anakin is until he isn’t lmao)     - Rex, like Pads, is really good at picking up Anakin’s moods and even trains of thought, so he’s always able to work around that, or even see where Anakin’s mind is going when coming up with a plan. They make a really good team bc while Anakin can jump from one idea to another without them seemingly correlated, Rex immediately follows Anakin’s leaps and they just end up in sync.     - That being said, Anakin can be really confusing at times. His moods are often so all over the place, that Rex generally has no idea what tf is going on. He deals with it by learning to be calm when Anakin’s unable to, and just ride out Anakin’s worst moods until they pass by, learning not to let it all phase him. Anakin lowkey hates it when he’s upset, but once the worst of it passes, he really appreciates that Rex will just… not press like Obi-Wan, or balances out the moments Anakin’s mind is so cluttered by instead just keeping a good focus on things.

Probably everyone’s most baffling symptom of Anakin’s is his paranoia. Obi-Wan kind of sees it the most, because Anakin is always testy with the Council and often feels put on the spot, dismissed and looked down upon. To everyone else, they don’t get where Anakin’s ideas come from, bc everything seems chill on their end. His fretting about others’ well-being is straightforward enough, but his instant panic-turned-anger shift when he receives any criticism (especially the perceived type) always gives people whiplash. It’s hard to keep up with, hard to see what it was that got to him so much, and hard to know how to help (particularly when they’re worried that trying to help him will feel like “taking sides”).     - Ahsoka takes Anakin’s POV of the Council pretty easily, at least when it comes to him. This is mostly bc she’s not there when there’s a meeting or tension around them, nor was she there when Anakin first arrived, so she just assumes they must genuinely often have issues with him too. She doesn’t see it to the extent Anakin does though, but she recognizes that sometimes he seems to blow things out of proportion when he’s upset, and figures it’ll just blow over once he’s calmed down.     - Pads, on the other hand, is always kind of aware of Anakin’s fears of losing her. He often not-so-subtly looks for reassurances that she loves him and won’t leave him, that she’s feeling alright or not angry/annoyed with him. She chalks it up to his trauma with his mother (and she’s partially right), so even when sometimes it gets on her nerves that he seems to doubt her so much, she tries to remind herself of that and let it go. 

Those closest to him can pick up that Anakin tends to see the negative in things, and is generally really hard on himself. They try to help out by giving praise where it’s due and just overall Being There, but it’s Rough to know they often don’t get through. (Palps, on the other hand, knows how to weaponize this.) 

The saddest part is that I don’t think anyone once thought Anakin was Seriously Ill, partly out of ignorance, partly bc they assumed it had to do with his age/upbringing, and partly bc, eventually, everyone was dealing with trauma and even if someone wanted to send Anakin back to the Temple to have a nap or something, they legit couldn’t bc there was a war going on and he also would never have tolerated it at that point in time.     - Obi-Wan’s the one who worries about all of this the most, because he’s always felt such a huge responsibility for Anakin and loves him a lot, he’s just never fully been able to understand how to get on the same wavelength as Anakin.     - Anakin, too, actually never fully figures out that there is something Going On. Everything’s always overwhelming him and even though he prefers doing things at 100mph, sometimes it seems like there is Too Much going on, and even during peace times it just felt like he couldn’t keep up with everything. He hates internal reflection but also can’t stop overthinking about everything, and so he just ruminates and goes in circles and often just ends up going nowhere when it comes to dealing with things. He tries his hardest all the time, he is ALWAYS trying, but doing stupid stunts, fighting droids, making robots and speeding everywhere all the time is truthfully only a bandaid.     - Being surrounded by those he adores and receiving affection from them/seeing them happy boosts his mood a lot but he doesn’t have enough self-awareness to guess at why his happier moods just won’t last.     - Sometimes he can figure out when he’s being irrational and then just takes it out on himself, which only exacerbates his bad episodes. 

Palpatine doesn’t help. He’s abusive, manipulates Anakin all the time and is the Worst and definitely makes everything Anakin is struggling with harder and I think we should all just punt him into a sun thank you this isn’t a headcanon I just want everyone to know how much I hate him

[seiin-translations]

2.43 S1 Chapter 2.4 - Dracula and Princess Briar Rose

4. BEAUTIFUL WORLD

Previous || Index || Next

“Suemori-san.”

I was startled when my name was called. It was a calm voice that was humble but not excessively servile.

Kanno stood at a distance of about three meters from me. I was holding the net at the center line, and Kanno’s feet were above the attack line, so he was actually three-meters away. There was a clear difference in height now without even having to stand side by side to compare. I think it was a difference of six or seven centimeters. I didn’t think…it was past ten centimeters, but… When I was picturing myself next to Kanno in my head, even though he squirmed a bit uncomfortably, he didn’t apologize fearfully and meaninglessly like in our first year.

Suemori-san. I pondered the voice that called me. The last time he called me “Ibara-chan” was last September. And I feel like this was the first time he called me “Suemori-san”—we hadn’t called each other’s names once during these nine months. I wondered at what point during those blank nine months did I change from “Ibara-chan” to “Suemori-san” within Kanno.

“About the ballgame tournament, I received the list of who’s in each event for our club, so I have been told by my senpais to consult with Suemori-san and decide the allocation of duties, but…”

He’s still speaking with formal language mixed in, even to someone in his own grade, I thought, and while feeling something that was like nostalgia and sadness, I said, “It’s fine. If that’s the case, let’s do it on our way home today.”

I tried my best to respond in a natural manner, trying to be somewhat distant for the three meters of space Kanno had opened between us, but also not too blunt. I’ll be in your care, Kanno said, bending his long back and quickly bowing his head.

I watched his back as he left, him who was dressed unseasonably as ever with his long T-shirt and long pants, even though it was June. Kanno still participated in the girls’ team practice for half of the week, but ever since they witnessed his seizure on the outside court, no members made fun of him anymore. On the contrary, there was a mood of “Kanno-kun is working so hard even though it’s hard on his body,” and everyone became weirdly nice to him. Even now, when he ran over to the girl who was drawing the net strings to the side of the pole and said “I will do it” as he reached out his hand, he was politely refused with “It’s fine. Akiton should sit down” and ended up having nothing to do. Akiton was Kanno’s new nickname. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard Dracky at all lately.

From where I was looking, I thought that seemed pretty awkward, but anyways, my role as Kanno’s (unwilling) knight was no longer necessary.

I noticed that there was a girl looking at us from the entrance of the gym. It was Ayano, holding a basket lined with drink bottles.

“…I feel like I haven’t seen Ibara-chan and Akiton talking in a long time.”

“Oh, we’re just getting in touch about clerical work, for the ballgame tournament. I’m helping the boys this year.”

I felt like I was being glared at, so I unintentionally made an excuse. It wasn’t even an excuse, it really was nothing more than talk about work. “You don’t have to worry about that,” Ayano said, her lips tapering into a pout and she turned away.

“No, no, I’m not worrying about it at all…”

Nonetheless, my behavior towards Ayano was still mostly filled with a sense of guilt. Ayano might like Kanno…looking at her actions during that incident last year, even I, who was completely unfamiliar with matters of love, could tell that. I wondered if she confessed to him…I didn’t know what happened after that incident, since my conversations with Ayano had decreased considerably since then. I did the worst possible thing—disparaging a girl’s body in front of the boy she liked.

“It’s thanks to Ibara-chan that I lost weight, so I’m really not thinking anything right now…”

Ayano muttered in a slightly soft voice while still turning away.

That’s right. Ayano, who had been chubby, had slimmed down quite a lot since then and, taking advantage of her bust and hips which had been ample by nature, now attained well-balanced proportions. It seemed that my words triggered her to go on a diet. I was surprised at the unexpected willpower that lay sleeping within Ayano. That wasn’t at all. Maybe because her body was lighter, her play became agile and nimble, and she became a bench member in her second year. Since she didn’t have the stature, her spike power was inferior, but she was praised for her thorough and careful defense. What I hated so much and concluded that a strong player didn’t need, Ayano became stronger without throwing it away.

On the other hand, as for me—as evidenced by the fact that I was dispatched as a coordinator with the boys’ team for the ballgame tournament, I had been languishing without being selected for the bench. In middle school, if I worked hard, the results of my hard work came naturally to me, but since I became a high schooler, I kept getting betrayed by myself.

I loved volleyball. I wanted to be better than everyone else. I was willing to cut away anything that would hinder me from that. As a result, I ended up losing my friendship with Ayano, the reverence from Kanno, and my pride as a volleyball ace that should have been everything to me.

“Yeah…now I’ve become the most shameful and useless thing.”

I let out a weak self-deprecatory remark. “Ibara-chan…” Ayano turned her face towards me. The top of her nose was wrinkled, and she looked she was about to cry.

“Ibara-chan, you’re not going to quit the team, are you…?”

I didn’t answer her, only giving a forced smile.

I had actually received a club withdrawal form. The coordinator thing this time made it doubly sure for me, and I had made up my mind. I intended to write my name on it and hand it in after the ballgame tournament work was done, and leave volleyball. I intended to seriously quit it.

——Until the day before yesterday.

The day before yesterday, when I saw the boys’ practice on the outside court——.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

The ball that rose high up into the blue sky shone in the afternoon sunlight, burning my eyes. The one who took off from behind the attack line and rushed in like a bullet was that first-year, Kuroba Yuni.

That was a back-row attack? That jump distance was unbelievable. He jumped in with his whole body all the way to the net, as though he was attacking from the front row. His figure, arched in midair, seemed stationary, as though it was a photo. Such a long flight duration. His arm flexed like a spring that had stored up energy and returned it all at once, and he punched in the ball.

However, in the next moment there was a cloud of dust rising on Kuroba’s side of the court. “Daaah—” Kuroba groaned in frustration as he sank down and landed. Even I, who should have been calmly watching on the courtside, lost sight of the ball’s trajectory for an instant, but Aoki-senpai, who had jumped for a commit block, covered it with his long arms and shot down the bullet spike.

Amazing…just amazing. That was so cool. I couldn’t suppress the long-forgotten thumping of my heart. Each moment of that play was bold and so fast that I almost couldn’t follow it with my eyes. Just when I thought the ball had disappeared from my view, a dust cloud leapt up from the ground with a dynamic sound, like something exploding. I squinted many times at the dazzling aerial battle that unfolded while causing grains of light to burst into the air.

For me, the most beautiful sport on Earth was there.

There was a world that I couldn’t stop longing for, so much that it was painful.

For the first time since I reaped what I sow and lost many things, I thought that I did love volleyball after all, and I didn’t want to quit. Perhaps now, I could say this with the purest feelings I had since I met this sport.

I loved volleyball.

***

It took twenty-five minutes riding on a local line that was only composed of two cars to go from Nanafu to Monshiro. Bench seats against the windows were only placed on both sides of each door, and the rest were box seats with seats for two facing each other. Kanno and I occupied one of those seats, and we sat shallowly on them with our knees facing each other.

“…Even assuming we can manage with the staff for the first and second games, the problem starts from the third game and after. When Team C’s match starts, the team members will pack the court, and we’ll have to get the members who went out to basketball and futsal back immediately…”

“I think we’ll definitely not have enough staff at some point.”

“We’ll have to adjust the games so we’ll have enough. We’ll move the fourth game of Team E versus Team F over here, and the sixth game with Team D versus Team F…”

“Oda-senpai is in Team F, so I think it’ll work out well.”

“Oh, I see.”

While we were humming and hawing, at a loss, the two of us wrote on both sides of the notebook that was spread out on our laps. The notes were becoming unreadable due to the flood of arrows, boxes, strikethroughs, and desperate-looking messy lines.  

The boys’ volleyball team had just eight members. From that, we would send out four people as staff members for each game, and there were those who took part in each event as competitors apart from that, so it would be impossible to run the boys’ volleyball division without the full rotation of eight people on a meticulously calculated time schedule. A lunch break was out of the question, and we might not even be able to give them a bathroom break. I mean, even if you rotate them at full speed, it was bound to break down somewhere, right?

Looking down at the messy notebook, I got a headache. Ah, I wanted to open the window and just throw it outside.

Around seven p.m., there was still a thin light outside the window. Come to think of it, summer solstice was approaching, so this was the time of the year with the longest daylight. After passing through the cities of Nanafu and Suzumu, the two-carriage train was moving a slow pace through the countryside wrapped in a warm, dim light. Since the rice planting was just finished in May, there were still only green seedlings planted in the fields. The water surface limitlessly reflected the distant mountains.

Every time the car swayed a little too much, I felt ticklish from the rubbing of my kneecap against Kanno’s kneecap beneath his spread-out notebook. I was tempted to retract my leg, but it felt somewhat like a waste of time to do so.

“We both got some irritating work forced on us, huh.”

Though I was grumbling, that was why we didn’t have to finish talking about work for the time being. However, Monshiro Station was already coming up soon. Usually, I slept for the twenty-five-minute ride when I could sit down, but each minute and second felt strangely precious today.

I curled my back and dropped my gaze to the notebook. Kanno also looked down at the same notebook from above my head. I had my toes standing up, and Kanno’s heels were on the floor. The fact that the notebook was kept level meant that the length below our knees was that much different. He just kept shooting up.

He’s got an awfully big lead on me, I thought once again, but strangely, the jealousy and hatred and uneasiness and chaotic feelings I had in my first year that made my heart hopelessly ugly, did not appear anymore. I wonder if I matured a step…that also felt wrong, and I was quite confused about myself.

“I don’t really think it’s irritating. I’m having fun right now.”

I heard a whisper above my head. My heart leapt at the word “fun,” but,

“I only play with the guys half of the time, and I can’t help much with setting up or cleanup, so…I’m glad I’m able to help out with this kind of work, because it makes me feel like I’m doing club activities with everyone else. The senpais didn’t say anything about that, but I think they knew that and gave me this job.”

“I guess you’re more comfortable in the boys’ team, huh?”

I didn’t mean that sarcastically, but it must have sounded like I was, because Kanno flinched and his face tightened. It seemed that he still hadn’t fixed his habit of peeking at my expression.

“The senpais on the boys’ team seem like good people. The girls’ team has a strange atmosphere, and you can’t always go all out, can you? I know you’re holding back in the intra-team games.”

“Well…if I go all out, I’ll blow the girls away.”

In the past, he might have put himself down and immediately apologized with a “I’m sorry,” but he pouted slightly as he plainly affirmed that. It was as if something like the core of self-confidence had taken root within Kanno, and I felt relieved, but at the same time, I felt somewhat sad for some reason.

Even before I realized it, Kanno himself must have been aware that he was starting to outstrip the girls in terms of strength and was out of place among them. And that wasn’t something that could be obtained “without much effort, just by the good luck of being born a boy,” like I had accused him of before.

I happened to see Kanno in his training wear in my neighborhood last year on an early autumn night. He was jogging and entered the park near the middle school, and unconsciously concealing my presence, I watched him do strength training on the bars and seesaw until the end.

Kanno somewhat looked like a normal athletic boy during the night, not wearing his hood completely over his head and frightened by the threat of the sun like he was during the day. It was then that I learned about the side of Kanno who worked harder than others because of his physical disability. No, I was supposed to know that a long time ago. He was the target of unreasonable teasing, and there was no reason for him to go out of his way to stay in the girls’ team to the point of feeling uncomfortable, but he worked harder than anyone even in basic training that was nothing but painful, and never missed a day of practice.

Because, like me, he loved volleyball—he told me that I was the one who taught him the fun of volleyball. Maybe that was the only thing I could be proud of.

He was probably still training at night on his own. He looked stronger, with another faint layer of muscle on his neck and arms. The nails on his fingers gripping his mechanical pencil were deeply trimmed. His fingertips were a bit chapped, but it was an indoor sport, so the underside of his nails wouldn’t be darkened with dirt. His protruding joints was due to the repeated spraining of his fingers. His long fingers were for catching the ball and accurately handling it, and his large palms were for powerfully driving in spikes. The hands that I thought were beautiful were characteristic of male volleyball players.

Kanno had become independent of the “shadows” that had been clinging to my back and only stirred up my frustration and impatience, and after taking some distance and time where I was able to calm down, I was feeling a bit nervous right now, coming in contact with him like this again.

I knew what I was saying was too convenient at this point. There was no way the selfishness of trying to get back something you pushed away but wanted later could be allowed unchallenged. You had to take responsibility for what you have done.

We were approaching Monshiro Station. I closed the notebook and put it in my bag.

“Aaah, we didn’t finish it. Let’s do it tomorrow.”

I secretly cherished the feeling of our kneecaps brushing up against each other, but I quickly stood up and carried my schoolbag and enamel bag with me. It was a one-man operation train, so if you were too slow, it was easy to miss your stop.

“…Kanno?”

Right when I stepped into the aisle, I looked back suspiciously. Kanno hadn’t even attempted to stand up, his behind still stuck to his seat.

“I’m riding to the next station, don’t worry. I can’t walk you home, but be careful.”

“Hah? Why?”

“Um…well…I can’t get up. My knees have no strength…”

“Huh…what’s that about, did you get hurt? You want me to escort you home?”

Worried, I brought my face closer. “N-no, you’re mistaken,” Kanno pulled down the hood of his hoodie and turned his face to the window.

“When I was talking to Iba-Suemori-san today, I was actually really nervous… I summoned up all of my strength to call out to you, and once I did, I surprisingly felt like I could talk to you normally as a friend, so I was so relieved that my muscles went limp…Oh, I know that I already got rejected, so I’m really not thinking about anything more than that now, but it’s hard not being able to talk to each other at all during practice…”

Kanno’s pale face, hidden by the hood, turned red like the old days, and he talked quickly like he was feeling restless. While I was standing stock-still in the middle of the aisle, Monshiro Station’s platform slowly slid into the train window. The scenery stopped along with the vibration of being pulled sideways, and there was the sound of the doors whooshing open. There weren’t a lot of passengers, but some still passed by here and there. No new passengers got on from the platform. The departure bell immediately started ringing. “You have to get off,” Kanno urged, his face still hidden.

My toes hesitated for an instant over whether to go or not, but ultimately I placed my bags on the seats again and sat back down in front of Kanno.

“Wait, Iba…Suemori-san?”

Kanno raised his panicked face.

“It’s perfect. We still haven’t finished the arrangements, so let’s just do it now.”

“Yes, but…”

“And it’s a bit fun to go all the way to the final stop and loop back, so how about it?”

I spread the notebook on top of our laps without giving Kanno a chance to object. Looking like he found it hard to accept, Kanno chewed on the tip of his lip, but…

“Thank you…”

In the end, he gave in and said in a limp voice.

I was slightly discouraged to find out that Kanno had already finished drawing a line between us within him, but I was glad he said it clearly. I shouldn’t be forgiven by Kanno, and I didn’t want to be forgiven by him. I was sure that I would live with this regret for the rest of my life.

The bell stopped ringing, and the train started to move. The view of the platform fell out of sight.

I wasn’t saying to whom, but…if I had to say it, I made a promise with myself. When we got off this train and went our own ways home, I would put a lid on these feelings once and for all. So, just a little bit more. I was ready to carry a lifetime’s worth of regret, so wasn’t it okay for me to draw this out…for just a few more minutes?

***

“Um, it’s hard to say this, but…if we take this train to the end of the line, there are no more trains available to take us back…to Monshiro.”

Kanno brought that up when the curtain of night had completely fallen outside the window.

“What, why didn’t you say that earlier!? What’re we gonna do!”

“We can walk home or something. But it’ll be the middle of the night by the time we get there. I’m fine with nights so I don’t mind it at all. Suemori-san, I’ll carry you on my back if you’re tired.”

Considering that he said it was hard to say it, Kanno had a slightly happy expression on his face as he said that, and my resolve immediately wavered.

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[k7l4d4]

Midnight Striga: Fairy Tail/Owl House Cross Fic Episode 5 Part 8

Here is the next chapter to Midnight Striga. I hope you all enjoy it. Thank you.

Lilith was lost in the haze of memories. It was understandable, really, when you took into account what had happened. Her sister, who she had steadfastly looked down upon and seen as inferior in terms of ability and power, doubly so when counting her curse, had utterly dominated her in a Witch’s Duel, publicly solidifying her place as greater than the head of the Emperor’s Coven. Greater than Lilith. It was a bitter pill to swallow, one she’d been denying for years.

It was funny, really, how much of a farce it all was; the illusion that she was a great and powerful witch. Oh Lilith was certainly strong, that was without question! But she was so far from being her sister’s equal that it was anything but funny, by itself. Each and every fight, every confrontation, looking back, they always ended the same. Edalyn would show up, causing trouble as she pleased, and when Lilith arrived to confront her, they briefly battled, Eda cracking jokes and being witty, before pulling a stunt at the last minute to escape. In none of those conflicts had Eda ever shown serious effort or treated their battles as anything other than a way to pass the time or a chore to work around.

Eda may not have held back against Lilith, but she had never once seriously fought Lilith in all her years in the Emperor’s Coven; each fight was nothing more than Lilith attempting to sooth her own ego, and Eda indulging her because she could. It was sobering, to realize that you were so small. Muffled screams echoed in her ears, but she paid them no mind. Edalyn was there, clearly she could take care of it, and not a weak failure like herself.

Better to sink into the veil of her memories, where she could do no harm.

“So, why do you want to join the Emperor’s Coven?” “Isn’t it obvious? Because I’ll be able to help people, of course! I could do so much to make the world a better place!” “Heh, good luck with that!”

“There is only one opening for the Emperor’s Coven, you two will have to fight for it.” “”WHAT!?””

“No! I refuse to battle my own sister! I’ve decided covens aren’t really my style. Hey, don’t forget about me when you're a big shot, sis.”

Even her own memories conspired to reveal what a fool she was. Even back then, Eda would’ve never challenged her, her sole motive for joining the Emperor’s Coven being to support Lilith and retain her magic, nothing more. The curse was pointless, nothing but the petty jealousy of a child. She still was a child, in the end, a stupid, spoiled, beligerent child who refuses to accept their flaws for what they are.

“Gah!”

Was that Edalyn? No, surely not, nothing on the Isle, bar Belos, could challenge her, not truly, of that she no longer had any doubts. But, what if…?

“I do what I want to do, nothing more… nothing less…!”

 Lilith paused in her thoughts, forcing herself to focus on the present. Screaming, laughing, explosions and fire, echoing all around her.

“But for all that I hate Bonehead… I love the Isles… and the people who call it home…!”

 Lilith winced at the sheer volume of it all. Taking a deep, slow breath, she tried again, tugging at her senses, pushing herself to the surface of her mind.

“So if you think I’m just going to stand back… and let you kill people because you feel like it… then you’re even crazier than you look!!”

Her eyes snapped open. They flew across the stands, her already pale skin dropping in palor at the horror surrounding her. Death, injury, and suffering. Witches, Demons and Witchlings battling for their lives. Where were her subordinates, where were the guards!? ...Where was Edalyn?

Lilith’s head snapped to the side, eyes widening at what she saw, and what she heard.

“Even if I die, I’ll have died fighting for my freedom. Give it your best shot, you two-bit bully.”

Edalyn, held in ice-clad hands by the throat, her captor rearing back a fist filled with jagged ice, ready to run her through. This. Would not. STAND.

As the stranger lunged to attack, Lilith sprung, her staff intercepting the blow. Staring into eyes as cold and blank as death itself, she hissed out. “Stay. Away. From my sister.”

“Ah, so the prodigal daughter comes to challenge her betters.” Reticulus hissed, amusement coloring his voice. “I see you conquered the tests I sent your way without issue!”

“Tests?” Willow said, voice hushed. “YOU CALL ALL OF THOSE ATROCITIES TESTS!??” She screamed. The look of rage mirrored on her friends’, and Amity’s, faces.

“But of course.” He replied placidly. “Everything I do, I do for the sake of building the most perfect body. So why would I not implement tests to find out who is worthy of joining the art that is my form?” He stated, his tone no different than if he had said that he was breathing, or that he enjoyed food. He turned to Luz, amusement dancing in his (most likely, if not definitely, stolen) eyes. “Have you come to return yourself to our care again? Or will you offer up your form to join my work in a futile display of resistance?”

Luz paused, glaring in deepset hatred, before doing something that surprised them all. She started laughing, chuckling really. “You know something? I honestly forgot how much of a pretentious piece of shit you were.” She said, her laughter having subsided, lazily cracking her neck, a glow building in her hands. “You were this big bad monster in my memory, this unstoppable thing I could never hope to face. But now? You’re still a monster…”

She leapt into the air, clapping her hands together, palm to fist, to cast. “BUT YOU’RE A MONSTER IN CAN KILL!” She screamed. “Light-Make: Parliament!” A flock of owl constructs ripped through the air, slamming into Reticulus’ body, drawing roars of frustration from the mismatched madman.

“Impudent wretch!” He growled. “Arteriel Assault!” The flesh of his arms rippled and shifted, the arteries in his arms ripping out from his skin, morphing into the shape of gun barrels. Luz’s eyes barely had time to widen as pressurized bullets of blood ripped through the air, her hastily cast shield barely blocking the spray. Turning his gaze to her team, he cast again. “Rib Bunker!” The flesh of his torso peeled back, his ribs shooting forth like homing rockets, each one screaming towards them.

Eyes widening, Amity and Willow quickly called up their defenses, Amity’s Abomination grabbing the ribs from the air in concert with Willow’s vines, Gus covertly casting a layered illusion, just in case. Moving to the offensive, Amity directed her Abomination to tackle Retic’s legs, the oozing form of it entangling the limbs and seeping into the ground, binding it, however crudely. Joining Amity in the attack, Willow summoned her plants, blasting into Reticulus with a barrage of launched thorns and vine-based whip strikes. To their disgust and morbid fascination, Willow’s vines managed to dig into the seams of Reticulus’ stitchings, pulling them open, exposing the muscle and bone beneath.

“How dare you worms harm this form? The culmination of my life’s work!?” He screeched, the flesh of his limbs morphing into a bevy of blades and spears. With a scream of rage, he attacked again, his fury only barely restrained by his desire to see how competent these wretches truly were.

“Yeah, that’s kind of the point, we are trying to kill you, so of course we’re damaging that patchwork of corpses you call a body!!” Luz retorted, another spell building. “Light-Make: Peacock!” An elegant bird crafted from light soared forth, it’s ostentatious form twirling through the air, cutting through the flesh-formed weaponry Reticulus was deploying. As Retic’s attention was drawn by the flashy construct, Luz ran forth, tucking into a slide. As she passed underneath Retic’s legs, she gave a feral grin. “Light-Make: Radiant Durendal!!” The colossal spear ripped upward, slamming into Retic’s groin and torso, prompting the depraved maniac to scream in agony, flying into the air from the force of the blow.

Sliding back, she braced herself for whatever counterattack he cooked up. Willow shouted, summoning a massive vine which latched onto Retic’s leg, slamming him into the ground, a sickening crunch echoing from his body.

“THAT IS ENOUGH!!” He screamed, his body pulsing and swelling in all directions. “Living Corpse Cannon!!” With a horrific shriek of tearing skin and ripping muscle, bloody holes opened all over Reticulus’ body, bone, blood, and extra organs launching with the force of a machine gun every which way. Panting, Reticulus turned around, and burst out laughing. Luz and the others lay broken, bloody, limbs shattered all around him. “THAT IS WHAT YOU FOOLS GET FOR CHALLENGING ME!!!”

“You know, I always regretted how I left Oroboros.” Luz’s voice croaked out.

“Oh?” Reticulus smirked, leaning forward in condescending glee. “Does the wayward doll realize how foolish it was to challenge our whims?”

Luz weakly snorted. “Not hardly, you bastard.” She choked out. “I always regretted… that I wasn’t strong enough to take her away from you all. If I was stronger, braver, maybe I could have saved her, and we’d have both gotten away.”

“Pfft. And the difference between then and now is… what, exactly?” Reticulus mused, leaning close to her broken form.

“This time,” Luz smirked, blood seeping from her lips. “I’m not afraid of dying in the process.” In a burst of light, she and the others exploded, rematerializing ten feet further away, injured for sure, but nowhere near as broken as he had seen, a truly massive light building in Luz’s palms. “And I’ve got friends with me… to stop you!” She shouted, Amity and Willow shifting into action. Amity’s Abomination surged forth, slamming into his legs, holding him fast. Willow’s plants ran up the length of his arms, seizing him and pulling his arms tight and immoble.

“You may be stronger than us.” Amity stated, still composed, even as blood streamed down into her eyes, her left arm visibly dislocated.

“But we just need to hold you still!” Willow grunted, swaying roughly, blood coating her hands, a small trickle flowing from her mouth.

“And I’m using my illusions to get everyone to safety, and away from your goons!” Gus declared, blood leaking from his ear, heavily favoring one of his legs over the other.

“Which means I’ve got all the room I need… to do this!” Luz shouted, the light bursting forth. “Light-Make: Owl Beast!” In a flash, a colossal form burst forth, careening into Reticulus’ mishmash of a body, the force ripping it free from his bindings… but without the bound limbs in question.

“NO! NONONONONONONO!!!” Reticulus screamed, blood streaming from the broken stumps that used to be his arms and lower torso. “YOU CANNOT DO THIS!! I AM RETICULUS CREEVES!! I AM THE MASTER OF FLESH!! THE SHAPER OF FORMS!!! YOU CANNOT CHALLENGE ME!!!” He screamed, raging against the beast that slammed his broken form into the wall, blood splattering with each impact, its talons and beak ripping and tearing away the stolen flesh of his body. As it dug deeper, his screams and protests grew weaker, and weaker, until all the kids could hear… was a whimper.

As the approached the crater that held whatever remained of Reticulus, they peered inside. Their stomachs turned slightly at the sight; all that remained of the vicious Mage was his collar and head, still alive only by the nature of his magic and his sheer stubborn desire to live.

“Any last words?” Luz asked coldly, the pain and rage from her time working with this monster surging back to the forefront.

“Just two.” The head gurgled. His lips twisted into a horrific smile, mocking and hateful. “She… lives…!” He burst into uproarious laughter, hate and madness bleeding through, as Luz froze, images flashing through her mind, tears building in her eyes. It couldn’t be true… it had to be a lie… right!? It probably was… but whether true or false, the bastard had completed his goal when he said the words: he had hurt her at her core. As Luz fell to her knees, the others crying out in worry, she turned to the heavens, tears pouring down her face, and screamed herself hoarse. And then, she knew only darkness.

Staff whirling, Lilith slammed it into her foe’s cranium, grinning in satisfaction as he reeled back in pain. Turning to Eda, she demanded. “What’s happening?”

“Well, nice of you to wake up, Lily,” Eda snarked, before growing serious. “This bastard and his pals burst in, and said they were going to kill everyone. They probably have more in the rest of the Center, but the group they brought with them here is brutal enough.” She said, pointing up to the stands.

Lilith’s retort died in her mouth as she finally gained a clear look at the carnage surrounding them. Over a quarter of the spectators in the stands, including several children, lay dead, with those closest to them encased in ice. Her guards had been brutally butchered, many of them in multiple pieces, some of them melted, others burned to ash, but all of the guards she had brought in with her were dead. On a slightly more positive note, Principal Bump, Titan bless him, was managing to fend off the remaining soldiers this beast of a man had brought with him, directing multiple Abominations to intercept their attacks and retaliate. From what she could tell, he had managed to suffocate and slay at least ten attackers, leaving fourteen remaining.

“We have to stop this.” Lilith breathed out, fear and pain coloring her voice at the horror surrounding them.

“No duh,” Eda deadpanned. She held up a hand as Lilith moved to retort. “I don’t know why you got stuck in your head like that, and I don’t want to know. People who could still be alive right now if you hadn’t are dead because of that. We need to crush this bastard, and then we can go back to hating each other. Deal?”

Lilith bitterly nodded, unable to challenge the point. “Deal.” She turned to their foe, who was building up ice-based armor around himself. “What can you tell me about him?”

“He calls himself Rudolph, uses something called Frost Magic; if you touch it, it clings to you, saps your strength and your magic. I’m almost spent. We have to finish this fast.” Eda said gravely.

“Then you focus on offense.” Lilith stated clearly, twirling her staff. “And I shall focus on defense. Acceptable?”

“Perfectly.” Eda grinned. Nodding to each other, they lunged for their foe, Rudolph screaming in anger as bolts of ice ripped out from his armor.

“You fools cannot stop my symphony of death!” He cried, blades and spines bursting forth from his armor and the ground. Moving quickly, Lilith threw up her barrier, absorbing the blows. Smirking, Eda jumped into the air, a ball of flame forming. With a shout, she threw it, cheering as his armor was forced to absorb the blow. “You dare play games with me!?” He thrust his arm forward, a spear of ice ripping towards Eda.

“I said stay away!” Lilith shouted, whipping her staff upward. A bolt of magic crashed into the spear, changing its trajectory rather severely. The spear went careening, crashing through two of the attackers. 12 left.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have gone big with yourself, eh Frosty?” Eda joked, spinning her staff against the ground, a massive tube in Hooty’s image (a recurring nightmare of Lilith’s actually) ripping out of the ground.

“What the hell!?” Rudolph shouted in baffled rage, the spell forcibly wrapping around his armor, and constricting, drawing a roar of pain from the sadistic Mage. Eda lunged again, summoning bolts of flame to blast into the armor, craters appearing at each collision, with Lilith adding her lightning to stun the armor and draw a few more screams out of Rudolph.

Sharing a glance, the sisters nodded, pulling their staffs back. With a furious cry, the two launched their spears into the armor, shattering it, Rudolph plunging to the ground, a disgusting crack sounding upon his landing, followed by a pained scream. Crawling out of the crater formed by his landing, mad rage filling his eyes, Rudolph attacked. “Winter Spray!” He cried, launching multiple bolts of ice at the two witches. Eyes narrowed, Lilith intercepted, expertly deflecting each bolt into the crowd, each bolt driving through the bodies of one of Rudolph’s followers. The attackers now numbered 4.

Seeing that their attackers had shrunk considerably, the crowd rallied, dogpiling on the remaining Mages, magic being called up to hold them.

“No!” Rudolph yelled. “This shouldn’t be happening! You are supposed to be weak, helpless! We are the powerful, the strong! We are supposed to dominate!!” His ranting was cut off by Eda clocking the raving Mage across the head, the image of him killing that child from before so casually flashing before her eyes.

“Dominate that, you psychotic asshole.” She growled.

“Oh, Edalyn.” Lilith sighed.

[elirwen]

Colin Morgan in ‘A Number’ (13 and 14 March 2020)

After two previous reviews from a preview performance and from the middle of the run performances, I’m back with more notes about the three final performances of this amazing play.

This time I’ll concentrate on details about the characters and (sorry not sorry) I have a lot to say.

First (in order of appearance) we have B2. 

His voice is set higher than for the other two characters and it kinda reminded me of some of Colin’s character voices from his audiobook work. 

As I said before, B2 is prone to nervous ticks. He keeps playing with his fingers, picking his nails, tugging at his track pants (which was something Colin did only for the Saturday matinee performance as far as I noticed). 

He tends to sit in all sorts of ways (and rarely normally). Either he folds himself into the armchair (Colin’s yoga practice definitely shows) or kneels on the chair or the sofa. He keeps wiggling his fingers in his socked feet and in one scene he’s squeezing them into the tiny space under the coffee table. He tends to hold his fingers curled, so even through his hands we can see the tension occupying his body. 

He also has a tendency to ramble at absolutely astonishing speed which usually ends with him giving up and groaning or sighing in frustration. Often followed by collapsing onto a chair heavily like a sack of potatoes. 

B2 is rather physically affectionate and he doesn’t shy away from embracing his father or holding his hands in an attempt to console him (even when his father doesn’t really deserve it). At one moment B2 is kneeling on the sofa facing the backrest behind which Salter is sitting and lets his finger tap-travel up Salter’s forearm in a rather adorable way.

In both his scenes B2 drinks milk (which Colin is allergic to, so who knows what was actually in that box, probably some veggie alternative) and in the second one he’s also munching on cookies. He can be heard sniffling as he eats. He follows to hold the cookie in his palm through the rest of the scene, nearly crumbling it. His tiny reactions, shifts in expression and posture, to what his father reveals about his past are utterly heartbreaking. 

At one moment, B2 mumbles ‘I know’ into the mug as he drinks which Colin didn’t do in any previous performances I got to watch. Also, there were way more long sibilants to be heard in the final two performances than ever before.

And I can’t believe I didn’t mention this before but B2 exclaims ‘they’re all your sons’ in his first scene, and it’s an absolutely perfect unplanned throwback to Colin’s previous play ‘All My Sons.’

Moving on to B1. 

B1’s voice is deep and rough and carries all of his anger and resentment he feels towards his father who put him into care when he was just 4 years old. As B1 prowls around the room, his father keeps his distance, backing away from him, and I really don’t blame him. B1 has a very strong presence and he is absolutely terrifying. It feels like he’s seconds away from physical violence at any given time but at the same time he remains coldly controlled.

Colin punctuates this by working the audience as he sweeps his gaze over the first rows and locks his eyes with unsuspecting ‘victims’ along the way. I can tell from my own experience that it’s hard to not give in to averting your eyes. His cold gaze really is scary. (But not looking away is manageable and it’s ultimately worth it to persevere.) 

B1 is an expert in using heavy silence. The long wait for his aggressively pleading calls for “daddy” is tense (and exceptionally so in the final performance) but it’s nothing compared to the stubborn silence when he’s sitting on the couch in his second scene. That’s also the moment when Colin gets a chance to use his precise acting skills again as he reacts to his father’s words with tiny nods and slowly breaks down right in front of the audience, tears and snot flowing down his face. 

While this scene was always amazingly handled, the final performance brought it to even higher level of emotionality. B1’s final words are hoarse and softened from crying, making their impact even more heartbreaking. 

In fact, the whole final performance ran on a different, more emotional level. Both Colin and Roger gave it their all, pushing further than they dared before, and I found myself gasping from the intensity of it all several times during the play. 

And now about Michael. 

I call Colin ‘the sweetest irish muffin to ever muffin’ and it is a fairly good description of Michael too. He’s cheerful and funny and, just like Colin, possesses rather a dark sense of humour. As he talks about his interests and passions, he gets rather animated, sitting forward in the chair and gesticulating with his hands a lot. The joy in his eyes and his smile is infectious and you’ll find yourself grinning through most of his scene. 

To cheer Salter up, Michael mentions that humans share 30 percent of their genome with lettuce. Adding ‘makes me feel like I belong.’ It’s doubly funny when you consider that Colin is vegetarian. Colin’s eyes are twinkling through the whole of Michael’s scene and I’d say he himself finds the parallels funny.

For our domestic bliss fantasies, we were gifted with Colin wearing a wedding ring. And we also got to hear him say, ‘I do, yes.’ (Not in the right context but I’m taking what I can get.)

Also, his scene starts with Salter giving him coffee and cookies and his munching and sipping is beyond adorable. (I’m sorry. I have a thing for Colin eating. It fills me with joy.) It also seemed to me that Colin added a ‘thank you’ into the scene that wasn’t there in the previous performances. (But maybe I just missed it as it wasn’t said at full volume.) Made me think about a different ‘thank you’ Colin ad-libbed in the past. That one was also a way to say goodbye to a nearly finished project.

The atmosphere of the final curtain call was absolutely special. The positive energy filled the whole theatre. While for all the other performances Colin maintained a professionally neutral expression during the curtain call, this time he was grinning widely and shined with joy. Both Colin and Roger also acknowledged the audience more, looking people in the eyes and nodding their thanks. They also bowed to each other before bowing to the audience once more and disappearing backstage.

The final performance alone filled me with so much happiness that I’ll keep drawing from it for weeks to come. Colin obviously lives for stage acting and it warms my heart so much to see him this happy. 

[arrancarscenarios]

Hi! can I plz get headcanons 4 how the arranca boys of ur choice would react to having a human f s/o who goes through a really traumatic event & becomes really ill because of the stress & strain on her body; she survives, but the severity of her sickness took her voice. Like it started off as just a really bad sore throat & then escalated from there. Or, the event was just so traumatic that they could no longer talk? Like ever again; or at least, not for a long, long time. Ty in advance 💛

yw honey!! I did some reactions instead of headcanons bc they’re a little faster for me to get out, but I hope it still gets the point across!

CHARLOTTE

Forone thing, he does feel a little guilty if her trauma happened whilein Hueco Mundo, or after she met him. Rather than waste time feelingtoo bad about it, though, he focuses any energy he doesn’t alreadyuse to serve his king into taking care of his S/O. He doesn’t knowwhat might be best for a human in this situation, so he starts withthings he thinks he might appreciate if he were in her position —lots of attention and affection, bringing things she likes, and beingwith her as often as possible. It’s okay that she can’t speakright now. First of all, he can do enough talking for both of them,and second, there are other ways to communicate. He knows she’sgoing to recover from it, as well she can, and no matter whathappens, he’s going to be there for her. Oh, and she gets somany throat kisses, both as if he thinks it’s going to help andalso as just one more sweet, romantic gesture.

D-ROY

Whetherthis happened before or after they met, whether she’s beenvoiceless since he’s known her or if this is new, he’s angry anddisappointed that he couldn’t keep it from happening. Protectinghis S/O is just one more thing he’s useless at. Especially if hertrauma happened before they met, this comes off as self-centered, soD-Roy does his best to swallow it down and concentrate on her. Ofcourse, he’s… at a huge loss here. He doesn’t really know whatto do to make her feel better and sometimes will get frustrated withhimself if he can’t understand what she wants or needs when heasks. Until he can comprehend how to read, the two of them will haveto communicate through gestures. Oftentimes, he just cuddles with herand purrs, in the hope that it might comfort her. He purrs toself-soothe when he’s upset or in pain, so it’s worth a shot,right?

FINDORR

Ifthere’s one thing Findorr Calius is up for, it’s a challenge. Andthis situation is… very challenging indeed. It’s difficult tospeak to her, but thankfully, he’s very intent about learning toread so that she can write out for him when she wants to talk, orabout learning sign language so she can sign to him. Either way, hespends zero time feeling bad about any of this, and more time doinghis best to understand possible solutions to make their lives easier.Sometimes he can seem distant or indifferent; however, he’s smartenough to realize that neither of them needsto be talking to have a fulfilling relationship, even if they enjoyconversing with each other. Sometimes just sitting together in thequietis enough. Estoyaquí,mi corazón,his silence whispers, estoyaquí.

GRIMMJOW

Morethan anything, it just kind of pisses him off, regardless of how orwhen whatever happened went down. How dare something or someone thinkthey can just hurtherlike that, bad enough to make her stop talking?! It makes him feelpowerless,particularly if it happened before they met, and if that’s thecase, he’s incredibly bitter about the fact that he’s never beenable to hear her voice. That said,even though he can’t help being angry, he wants to be there for herinstead of just seething about something neither of them can change.He gets easily frustrated by trying to understand what she needs orwants, and sometimes just guesses. He might even swallow his prideenough to approach Szayel, attempting to learn how to read, so thathe can better take care of his S/O.

LUPPI

It’sunfortunate, but he’s a bit cruel about it initially. He’s upsetenough to tell her mean things like “Wouldyou stop being so silly and just speak?”and “Idon’t know why it’s so hard for you to just talk to me.”It comes off as insanely insensitive, and probably even hurtful as ifhe’s trying to downplay her trauma, act as though it’s no bigdeal, make her feel guilty for being unable to speak. After sometime, it becomes clear that even though that’s the result, it comesfrom a place of intense fear. Something happened to her, somethingbad enough to take away her willingness to talk despite the fact thatshe’s still physically capable of it. That’s terrifying.It scares him. Over time he learns to read her without words, knowingwhat she might want or need, and reacts accordingly… huffing if shegets overly grateful, though. Sometimes at night, when he clings toher, he’ll murmur that he’s sorry for being such a jerk before.

NAKEEM

Justthinking about how much she must be hurting and how much she’s beenthrough, enough to do this to her, makes him feel even moreprotective of her. This is sadto him, more than anything. Every kind word or gentle touch she’sever given him suddenly hurts worse; someone denied her those thingsand here she is giving them to him when she knows that Hollows areill-equipped to reciprocate. He’s even more driven to keep her safenow, doubly determined to prevent anything bad from happening to herever again. Learning to decipher her body language and any otherclues she might give him as to what she wants comes naturally to himbecause he knows he needsto learn.He just… hasto show her that he’s here, he always will be, even when it’s noteasy.

NNOITRA

He’stired, he’s too fucking tired to want to deal with one morehorrible thing happening. And this? Is… pretty horrible. Even if ithappened before he knew her, it still makes him angry in this awful,exhausted way. If it happened after they met, well, he just blameshimself for not being able to stop it, regardless of the fact thatshe certainly doesn’t think it’s his fault. Once in a while he’lljust feel so unbelievably frustrated that he does things like punchwalls before stalking off, or going out to hunt things in the mostbrutal manner he possibly can. He can’t doanything about this.It’s hard for him to be soft at all, he’s all sharp edges anddoesn’t ever really fitwith her. But if that’s what she needs, he can learn how to be justthat little bit less terrible.Not often, and just for her. Even so, he thinks she should leave him,because he is so, so sure he’s never going to know what to do forher… despite the fact that he does just fine. Fuck,it’s complicated.

SZAYEL

Takehow much fun you think he would be about this, and divide it by ten.His S/O is not going to be a very happy camper unless she enjoysbeing prodded at and made to be her boyfriend’s newest scienceproject. He asks entirely too many questions about what happened —whether he’s oblivious to the fact that he’s dredging uptraumatic memories, or just too tunnel-visioned to care at themoment. Especially if it happened after they met, it’s hisextremely inappropriate way of trying to exert some control over thesituation.Otherwise, he just feels helpless, and that is notan option for him. If she doesn’t want him trying out all manner ofexperimental ‘treatments’ to try and get her voice back, severalof which may be rather unpleasant, she’s going to have to draw ahardline in the sand. All that in mind, however, he’s quick at learningthe best ways to communicate with her, sothat part at least is rarely an issue.

TESLA

Hetries very, very hard not to dwell on what happened, no matterwhether it was before or after they met. What is he going to do bythinking about it? That isn’t going to change what happened andit’s not going to bring her voice back. When he does think aboutit, about how much pain she went through, thekind of thing that’s maybe a fraction of the trauma Hollows gothrough,all he gets in response is the feeling of his throat tightening. Shedeserves so much better than that. He’s angry that things lined upin a way that allowed this to happen to her. It’s important,though, that he keeps a lid on those feelings so he doesn’tfrighten her with their intensity. Instead, he does his best to becalm around her, to not get frustrated, even though it’s difficult.He pours every ounce of his existence into being softfor her; a barely perceptible smile, a subtle squeeze of her fingersthat he hopes is reassuring, a hand carding through her hair. Everymoment he can, he studies her, so that he might be able to learn howto understand what she needs.

YYLFORDT

Hetries to cover it up acting like it doesn’t matter in theslightest, but just thinking about whatever she’s been through…it makes him angry. Angrier than he’s ever been, he thinks…angrier than he even knows how to express. More than anything hewishes he could hunt down whoever, whatever,affected her so badly and just make them cease to exist. Much as hethinks he’s hiding his true feelings, he doesn’t have thecapacity to be really believable about it, and as a result, his S/Ocan definitely tell what he’s feeling. She knows he’s angry, andshe is too, and if she can convince him of this, he might accept thatsometimes all they can do is be angry together. It’s easy for himto get distressed about communication, because he’s not greatat it in the first place, and this makes it harder, so he’s proneto minor blowups about being unable to figure out what she wants. Afew rude things will probably slip out, things that he doesn’tactually mean that he was just too late to stop. Forget swallowinghis pride —he’ll choke it the fuck down and ask Szayel to help him out, evenknowing he’ll have to put up with that smug look on his brother’sface. Being able to do something for his S/O is, strangely, worth itto him.

[muffintonic]

Alright, I think i’m done BOTW 2 spamming for today. Anywho, time for some thoughts in general!

1) I hated how the shrines in BOTW were so cold and dark compared to the bright and lively nature outside (I wish they had all looked like the Master Trials challenge where there were trees and stuff incorporated inside), so I hope if we’re forced to have dungeons they’ll be more like the Wind Waker ones. 2) I hope they don’t make us use the grappling hook or anything like in Wind Waker to move around the sky islands (I hated that mechanic). 3) I’m probably one of the few people who wanted less Zelda and more of the Champions in HWAOC since i’m only really attached to BOTW (and we saw a fair amount of Tetra in Wind Waker)/apparently Zelda’s been sidelined in all the other games, so i’m hoping in vain that we get more Champions material in BOTW 2. Also, Link could stand to have some more cutscenes centered around him as well (the few we got in some of the sidequests in BOTW were great). 4) I only really somewhat care about Riju and Sidon, so I won’t mind if the new gang gets sidelined in BOTW 2 (I still think Nintendo wasted the found family/band of brothers aspect on the dead characters--I love them so much and they’re all I want!! The problem is, they’re dead and I don’t really care all that much about their replacements!!! I dunno, maybe i’m hampered by the fact that I can replay the original champions’ memories whenever I want/read their diaries, but I can’t rewatch the new gang’s cutscenes AKA i’ve forgotten their characterization since they don’t talk to me much now that the game’s over). It’d be great if they have some weaving storylines in BOTW 2 that will get me more invested in them, but currently i’m not that interested. 5) Speaking of which, I know it’s 100% not going to happen, but goddang if I don’t want the Champions to have been returned to life. Nintendo totally squandered HWAOC by not making it a true prequel/canon to BOTW (the Champions Ballad confirmed that the Divine Beasts had trials in order to be synced to the champs, so the new gen use of them wouldn’t have happened without that + Mipha thought Link had changed in BOTW yet says in HWAOC that he hasn’t changed + some scenes like “Champion Revali’s Song” never happened at all/got replaced with alternative scenes that really changed some dynamics + basically all of Revali’s time-relative characterization from his diary/pre-100 years of solitude got thrown out + I feel like Daruk got totally sidelined), so i’m still craving that Champions content. Also, I feel like it’s totally unfair that Zelda came out of 100 years totally unaged while everyone else died. Life seems to really suck for people in the LoZ universe who aren’t chosen by divine powers. 6) They’d better keep it open world and non-linear. I can’t go back to being forced to backtrack/trudge through things, I just can’t. BOTW was everything i’ve ever dreamed about in a game (truly open world + non-linear + interactive + meaningful story + lots of outfits + beautiful landscapes) with Skyrim previously being the only thing that came close to what I wanted, so I really hope BOTW 2 doesn’t deviate too much from that. 7) I really liked Kass in BOTW, but i’m not sure what direction they’d go with him in BOTW 2/i’d be fine if he sat BOTW 2 out. I worked so hard to complete all his quests in BOTW so he’d go back home to his family, GODDANGIT, KASS. 8) Someone mentioned that since the first trailer had underground aspects, we’re probably going to be playing as Zelda with the Slate there, and I agree. They didn’t make a playable model for her in HWAOC for nothing. 9) I want to be able to stable the deer and bears and stuff, but I know that won’t happen. Being able to ride the moose and rhino things from the Hebra area probably won’t happen either, but I want to ride them!!! 10) I hope there’ll be at least a few new buildings and stuff in the towns/they’ve started construction on some areas in Central Hyrule, but I guess that’ll depend on how long it’s been in-universe since BOTW. Or maybe not, considering how there’s still Karson and Hudson even though Bolson retired from Bolson Construction--insta-towns like Tarrey Town could totally be feasible if they wanted! 11) I have one foot in the camp that believes there’ll be time shenanigans in BOTW 2. HWAOC totally threw me off with it being an alternate timeline, so i’m not sure whether we’re going to be experiencing that again or time travel itself, but I definitely won’t be surprised this time around if Nintendo goes that route again (and it would be super interesting to see the Link from 10,000 years ago). I’m not entirely convinced that the Link we see exploring the sky in the second trailer isn’t our Link, mainly because he seems to still have on the blue boxers from BOTW. 12) I also heard that maybe this will be the last LoZ game ever since something something Demise something Skyward Sword something something lore from games i’ve only vaguely looked into (i’ve only ever played BOTW --> Wind Waker --> HWAOC)??? If so, it kind of sucks that I came in just when they started making games with playstyles palatable to me (I had to look up every single thing when playing Wind Waker, but BOTW let me solve things according to MY logic/I missed being able to explore in HWAOC), but at least it’ll end on a super high note/I won’t experience later disappointment, I guess. If BOTW 2 involves breaking the reincarnation cycle for the Triforcers, I would be really surprised. (On a related note, Nintendo making Ganondorf good would also be a 100% shock to me, but it would be great to end on that as a subversion. Yes, I want them to bring back the semi-complicated Ganondorf from Wind Waker.) 13) I hope they don’t rush releasing it. I heard they pushed back BOTW originally (I got it in 2019), but it came out fantastic for it! I know COVID’s been affecting things, so I really hope they’re treating their staff right and are mindful of crunch. 14) I want even more outfits (there seem to be at least two new ones, if the variant of the Hylian Tunic crossed with Link’s Champion’s Tunic counts). Give me all the outfits!!! Also, I hope we get even more hair variations in addition to the hair down option (which is all i’ve ever wanted since I saw the mod that altered the Ancient Helmet). 15) I wonder if we’re going to get a bonus for having both BOTW and HWAOC save data. 16) I wonder if we’re going to be keeping the Champions’ skills. I’m going to miss being super overpowered, if not. 17) I hope Nintendo doesn’t cave in and make surfaces climbable in the rain. Having that limiter is more realistic and Link would otherwise be too overpowered with a super climbing ability. 18) I liked BOTW’s scattered music that got more noticeable in populated areas because it was fitting for the post-apocalyptical/nature aspect. Hearing your footsteps in an open field and the buzzing of insects was super nice and prevented me from getting music fatigue (which i’d probably experience since whenever I play BOTW it’s for 5-10 hours at a time). I hope Nintendo either keeps that or makes audio options. 19) I heard that BOTW 2 is going to be super dark or something, and i’m okay with dark, but not GRIMdark, so I hope it doesn’t go that far. From what we’ve seen in the second trailer it still looks beautiful, but I hope it doesn’t do that thing that some games do where after the midpoint/a certain story point all the scenery permanently changes to be dark and scary (that’ll seriously hamper post-game playability for me if so). 20) If they expand on the Zonai, that would be super cool! Doubly cool if the time travel shenanigans involve them/ancient Link being one! 21) I kind of want windstorms to be a weather feature. We had lightning, heat, and cold, but no wind! No, I don’t count the wind geysers and the occasional breeze in Tabantha. 22) I want a chest in my house to hold more weapons than just the gear mounts. BOTW only had enough mounts for the champions’ gear, but it also had rare items like the Kite Shield and Forest Dweller’s Sword that you can’t get anymore once you use them up! 23) I want to be able to stable my horses at my house. What’s the point of that little area if you can’t stable your horse there! 24) Speaking of Link’s house: where is Zelda going to live? If the castle’s not reconstructed, it’d be neat if Link adds an extension to his house for her. 25) I hope they open up part-time jobs (think Mabinogi) as an option to earn rupees. Having to hunt for Luminous Stone deposits or feed Trott to make money can be such a chore. I think some of BOTW’s minigames/sidequests might count as those, but those minigames were either frustrating if your goal is to earn money (since most of them cost money to play in the first place and the mechanics weren’t always easy), or didn’t earn that much in general. 26) I wonder if Kilton is going to have updated items since the monsters seem to have changed. 27) I want to be able to dive underwater (mainly so I can explore the beautiful reefs over at Lurelin). A dive meter like the one from Super Mario Sunshine would be cool. Also, it’d doubly be neat if you had a separate stamina wheel for swimming and could permanently upgrade your swim/diving stamina (the speed+ swimming items just consumed your stamina faster, which was a pain)! 28) It’s definitely too late for this, but it’s a shame that the Hylians have so many face/body/hair and outfit variations, but the Zora, Rito, and Gorons don’t. The Gerudo were kind of okay with the hair and body variations, but the other races seemed to have a serious copy-paste problem. I guess technically some of the more important NPCs (ones with quests/cutscene triggers) had different coloring, but they were severely lacking in clothing variation. Also, the only old Rito was the elder??? At least the Gorons and Zora had some old folks besides their leader walking around. Very weird, but I don’t think BOTW 2 can fix any of this. 29) I wonder how they’re going to do the final boss battle, considering how epic/cinematic the BOTW 2x battle was. What can top fighting (on horseback, no less) a giant, flaming boar made out of malice? 30) I wonder what the Yiga are going to be up to, considering how Ganondorf seems to be somewhat kicking in BOTW 2.

[darkpoisonouslove]

16 , 18, 35 💕

Thanks! <3

16. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)?

I wouldn’t say that I have any because I like what I like and I wouldn’t say any of it is a guilty pleasure. I don’t also care about tropes all that much. I just write and read whatever I feel like will interest me at the time.

18. Wildest fic you’ve ever written?

I don’t feel like any of the fics are particularly wild. But I’d say that writing any of the Erendor/Samara fics I have was a wild experience because I never imagined I would write about them.

Also, Left to Heritage was definitely wild both with the angst it packs and the connections I made between the thematic elements. I had to draw a map of all the parallels I was pulling off so that I can actually track what the hell was happening.

I have some wild ideas in the working but they aren’t written yet. Still, I am really excited about the season 6 rewrite (I have started episode 1 (in more of a script format so it won’t be exactly a fic because that will take forever)) and the rewrite of the Cloud Tower arc from season 2. I have basically composed an entire curriculum for dark magic and there will be a lot of exploration of the girls’ feelings and powers as well as the Trix and Griffin, Ediltrude and Zarathustra. I have even included some of the other witches from CT.

35. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!

Well, right now I guess what I want to rant about is the season 6 rewrite and the CT arc rewrite. Also, I feel like I will be rewriting Fate as well because I am so pissed and I have thoughts about Stella’s rewritten arc and I just want to fix our babies.

The season 6 rewrite was supposed to be just a rewrite of Selina’s arc because of an anon ask I got (which I will answer when I figure out all the details; I haven’t forgotten!) and a Bulgarian legend I just accidentally learned about a couple weeks before that. It will be a part of Stella’s arc which needs a little more figuring out towards the end. I have something about all of the characters and I have included the Company of Light as well because damn, we need them too! Especially now that they are all back together! I’ve also included Griselda a little and Ediltrude and Zarathustra although they would be more about cameo appearances... unless I find out where to fit them which is always a possibility. I have done a lot of restructuring to the Legendarium and the overall arc of the season. I actually have a basic idea of how it will go down but working on episode 1 has proven that I still have a lot more to develop as the story keeps shifting while it’s being written. I have added lore to the Legendarium and the Dragon Fire as well as the Shadow Fire! I have added an aftermath to season 5 and have actually given the Trix some development, both on a magical and on an emotional level. Selina still needs some work but I like where things are going. I have also given Daphne more of a role and have significantly reduced Eldora’s appearances because she wasn’t in any way important and will work better as a background character even if she is a big part of Winx’ final goal. Also, since I don’t know if I will be rewriting season 5 (I think I might but I don’t know when), I have focused a lot on Winx and the Specialists dealing with Nabu’s death (I am keeping that because fixing it for me would be never killing him rather than bringing him back after more than a year (and I also wanted to spite canon and show that what they did could have been done well and made sense)) because that was a major thing that the show did not handle at all. Besides, I think that it makes sense that they didn’t have all that much time to process with Tritannus attacking, especially since it was so personally related to Layla.

Separately, about episode 1 - I am changing a lot, starting from the very title because the idea of Winx being the “Inspiration of Sirenix” is a load of crap. Sirenix existed just fine without them for a long, long time and they didn’t have to be the Inspiration in order to be able to help Daphne. Speaking of, Daphne was done so dirty with the way they handled her return to life so I am changing all of that, too. The Beast of the Depths I have kept but I designed a completely different look for it because I hated the idea of it basically being something of a glorified octopus. I have also tied in the Legendarium with the first episode so that, hopefully, it will make it feel like a rightful part of the season.

The CT rewrite is something that happened completely accidentally. I just got pretty pissed off at the fact that Winx never really learned anything about dark magic and those lessons were completely useless. They only did it so that Winx could be there when the Trix attempted to steal the Codex, which was doubly frustrating because Winx go to CT right as the Trix decide to steal their part of the Codex? Convenient much? This definitely got out of control because there are so many things to cover which is why I am writing it separately from my season 2 rewrite (which I will also do at some point). And I am the most excited for this. Winx will really get to learn about dark magic and the difference between dark and light magic and fairies and witches will be explored. There will be more about the origins of the Trix and how Darkar is connected to all of that. There will be things about Griffin and the twins as well. Also, Musa already has her Charmix because what she went through in 2x15 is definitely a way to earn it and she should have earned it. There will be a lot of interesting and personalized magic lessons for Winx and they will learn a lot about themselves. The main theme of this whole arc (and the whole rewrite of season 2) is origins (since that seemed to be a big thing in season 2 as well) and I am excited to explore that.

The Fate rewrite was more of a Fix-It fic at first because I am so mad about the way that they killed Farah Dowling. The idea was to bring in Griffin as a new character who gives Farah another chance at life and helps her get to Winx before they can return to Alfea that is now overtaken by Rosalind. I was actually more interested in the interaction between Griffin and Farah but there were so many things that didn’t make sense that I decided I will probably write a sequel that would deal with “season 2″. However, at that point I also decided to fix season 1 because if I am going to be working with these characters, they will need to be well-developed characters and a well-developed friend group. Also, Bloom’s parents in Fate suck so I am fixing that, too. I will not truly be rewriting season 1 in fic form but more of a list-with-bullet-points form because I have no time for this and to be fair, Fate does not deserve the effort.

Also, a general thing about fic that is really kind of an... annoying restriction of reality is how much time it takes to write an actual story. I love piecing plots together but the actual writing takes forever and that is pissing me off because I have so many ideas and so many things that I want to write and why can’t I write faster, GODDAMMIT?!?!?!?!?! It is not an annoyance with the writing process as much as it is with my own speed of working... which isn’t all that great right now but with the amount of things I have to write, I am not sure I will have enough time even if I worked at top speed. I just... I have so many ideas and I want to write them all!!!!!!!! Is that so much to ask for?!?!?!?!?!?!

Well, I guess that was it. Thanks again for the ask!

Send me Fanfic Writer questions

[yinyangofnevermore]

Golden Hair Ch. 1

Yang growled in frustration.

“Yang? What’s wrong?” Blake asked coming over to where Yang was sitting on her bed, her eyes narrowed in concern.

Yang frowned. “I’ve got something stuck in my hair from when we were running through the city and I can’t get it out. It’s all knotted.”

“I can help you get it out if you want,” Blake said, sitting next to Yang.

Blake waited patiently for Yang’s response and didn’t automatically reach for her head.

Yang froze for a split second at the thought. “I—Ok.”

“You’re sure?”

Yang smiled softly. “Yeah.”

Blake nodded and slowly reached for Yang’s golden hair, her fingers gentle as she probed her scalp for the knots.

Yang’s eyes slid closed at her touch. She shivered, goosebumps rising down her neck and arms.

Blake’s fingers paused. “Are you alright? Did I hurt you?”

“No. No, you’re fine. I’m just not used to people touching my hair. It feels really nice.”

Blake smiled and resumed her progress across Yang’s scalp.

“Oh wow!” Blake said suddenly.

“What?”

“This is really knotted.”

“Told ya.”

“How on Remnant did it get this bad?”

Yang shrugged.

“Well, I need you to bend down. You’re too tall and I need to be able to see this mess if I’m going to do much about it.”

Yang bent over awkwardly, trying her best not to touch Blake in any way that could be mistaken as untoward.

Blake giggled. “That can’t be comfortable.”

“Um…”

Blake scooted toward the pillows to lie down on her back. “Here. Just lie down. I’m too exhausted to stand and this will be easier on both of us.”

Yang stared at her, eyes wide, as Blake gestured for her to lie down next to her.

“Yang?” Blake asked quietly when she didn’t move.

Yang blinked before complying with Blake’s request. She eased down next to her, careful not to get too close.

When she was settled on her side, Blake reached over and went back to work teasing out the knots in Yang’s hair. After a moment, she sighed and picked up Yang’s head, placing it on her belly in order to have easier access to the tangles.

Yang froze in a mild panic. “Uh…”

“Sorry. It’s just easier this way. It was a bit awkward reaching off to the side.”

Yang let out the breath she’d been holding as Blake’s fingers danced across her scalp. She sighed in contentment.

“You seem to be enjoying this. So, then why don’t you let anyone touch your hair? I’ve seen what happens when someone tries to touch it.”

“It’s a long story…”

“I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

Yang chuckled before she hissed in pain as Blake tugged at the knot.

“Sorry! I’m trying to be gentle but this thing is ridiculous.”

“S’ok.” Yang forced herself to relax again before she continued. “Well, to answer your question, my hair has always been one of the first things anyone ever notices about me.”

“Until your boobs grew,” Blake interrupted.

Yang snorted in laughter. “Yes, until my boobs grew. But even now, it’s always ‘blondie this’ and ‘blondie that.’ And when I was little, everyone was always trying to touch my hair. Or they’d even pull on it, saying how utterly gorgeous it is. So, I eventually stopped letting people touch it entirely. But not everyone could take the hint, so it became a thing for me. And now it just pisses me off that everyone seems to presume that it’s ok for them to just touch my hair and I admittedly get more upset than I should. Hell, I wouldn’t even let the barber touch my hair as a kid. Which my dad never lets me forget.”

Blake giggled. “That’s kind of cute, actually. I’m just imagining your tiny, obstinate face as someone tries to cut your hair and you just go feral.”

Blake could feel Yang’s smile against her belly.

“But that story wasn’t as long as you made it seem,” said Blake.

“That’s not the whole story…”

Blake waited patiently, her nimble fingers finally beginning to loosen the knots that plagued the golden locks.

“It’s also because of Summer,” Yang finally said. “Summer Rose.”

“Ruby’s mom?”

Yang gave a slight nod, careful not to move her head too much against Blake’s tugging at the tangles.

“Summer was the only one, besides Ruby, that I ever let touch my hair. I don’t even really let my dad touch it. But Summer was just so gentle and patient with me that I’d even let her cut it.”

Blake finished loosening the knots and began to simply run her fingers through Yang’s hair in a soothing manner, knowing what was coming next.

“And then she went away on a mission and never came back…” Yang whispered.

Blake continued her gentle caress, lightly scratching Yang’s scalp with her nails.

Yang buried her face in Blake’s stomach.

“Have you let anyone else cut your hair since?” Blake asked softly.

“No,” Yang said, her voice muffled. She turned her head again so that Blake could hear her properly. “I began cutting it on my own after that.”

“Really?” Blake’s eyebrows rose.

“It was disastrous the first couple of times and my dad was furious, but I eventually got the hang of it.”

Blake chuckled. “Do you let anyone touch your hair?”

“Only Ruby. And only rarely. She doesn’t usually try to touch my hair though because she knows how I am about it. But I don’t really mind if she does.”

“Well then I’m honored that you’re letting me touch it.”

Yang smiled.

“As a return show of trust,” Blake continued, “I was thinking I might let you touch my ears.”

Yang blinked in surprise. “Isn’t it like, kind of taboo to touch a Faunus’ animal traits? Even amongst Faunus?”

“Only if it’s done without permission.”

“Which just makes how Cardin would pull on Velvet’s ears doubly wrong.”

Blake nodded, frowning. “He’s most definitely a horrible racist.”

“Torchwick too. Which is interesting considering he joined up with the White Fang.”

“Ugh. Don’t even get me started on him. He always called me stuff like ‘kitty cat’ and ‘kitten’. Bleh.”

Yang had been in the process of slowly reaching up to touch Blake’s ears, but she paused midway, her eyebrows furrowed in thought.

“What is it?” Blake asked.

“I just realized that, that time I got your attention with a laser pointer before the dance at Beacon might not have been the most politically correct thing I’ve ever done… And just because I didn’t know any better at the time doesn’t make it any less racist. I’m sorry.”

Blake smiled. “Definitely not the most PC thing you’ve ever done. But, looking back, it was kinda funny. You certainly got my attention at a time when I wasn’t listening to anyone. So, apology accepted.”

Yang mirrored Blake’s smile. “We did have quite a bit of fun at that dance once you finally listened to me.” She continued reaching up to touch her cat ears.

Blake shivered when Yang’s fingers made contact.

Yang’s eyes grew wide. “They’re so soft!”

Blake’s ear twitched at Yang’s awe.

“I bet they’re really sensitive too.”

Blake cocked her head a little to the side. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, you’re literally part cat. And cats have like crazy good hearing. Plus, every time someone gets loud or something, your ears twitch or you even wince at times.”

“You noticed that?”

“Of course I noticed that...”

Blake’s cheeks burned crimson.

Yang gave Blake’s ears one last caress before she let her arms drop back down. She sighed and seemed to be in no hurry to move her head from Blake’s belly, so Blake continued gently scratching at Yang’s scalp.

Yang’s eyes slid closed again, a soft smile on her face.

Unbeknownst to the two young huntresses, a pair of bright eyes watched them from a crack in the doorway…

(On AO3)

[davalynbaker]

insecure as f*ck (se01-ep01)

As all seven of you know (thank you for the add!), I set out on revisiting Issa’s past relationships to see how her and Molly got to where they are now. It’s actually kind of funny to see the way Issa and Molly’s lives have done a bit of a switch over the past four seasons. The best way this show can be revisited is through an abridged timeline so let’s get to the chaos.

Episode one is written by Issa Rae & Larry Wilmore, while being directed by Melina Matsoukas. Music used in this episode. 

Our protagonist, Issa (Issa Rae) introduces us to her story through the form of narration. (an homage to the youtube series, Awkward Black Girl) We learn that it’s her birthday, she’s at a job she hates, and in a relationship she hates even more. She laments about not being as successful or well-liked as her best friend Molly (Yvonne Orji). All these things are true with the exception of her love life which is pretty much in the pits.

After having a not so great day at work, Issa’s high school crush, Daniel (Y’lan Noel), hits her up and tells her happy birthday and the simple gesture has her fantasizing about dating him instead of her current boyfriend. It doesn’t play out like this but you can definitely see it in the eyes.

Molly treats Issa to a birthday dinner but it’s really just an outing where she complains about her relationship problems. Though Issa didn’t mind because Molly catches herself and realizes what she’s doing, it really has to suck spending your birthday consoling everyone around you.

Molly complains that she’s having a hard time dating and Issa jokes that maybe she has a “broken pussy.” These scenes are my favorite in the series, where it’s best friends sitting around talking shit and getting full of liquor. When their dinner is over, Issa confesses that she wants to break up with Lawrence and gets heavy criticism from her friend. Molly has issues projecting her own feelings onto other people’s situations. Let your best friend complain, damn. It’s her birthday! Also, what is it with people telling you not to break up with someone not romantically compatible with you just to avoid living the single life. Molly was so heavily obsessed with being in a relationship from the very beginning that she was willing to try and talk her friend out of breaking up with a partner that was pretty much dead weight at this point. 

Y’all, if you’re reading this: don’t do that to your friends. Let them get their feelings out and give them sound advice, if you can*. A sound piece of advice from me to you is that it isn’t always about you.

We’re then introduced to Lawrence (Jay Ellis), who is supposed to spend the rest of the evening with Issa for her birthday. He gives her what I like to call a dry as hell “happy birthday” and when she realizes he’s not dressed to go out, he begins to talk about how he failed his job interview and just isn’t in the mood to celebrate. So what does she do? She sits on the couch with this grown man and spends the rest of the birthday comforting him.

We meet this couple five years into their relationship and nothing has happened to show Issa that it’s headed anywhere. Imagine spending five years of your life with someone and feeling like you wasted most of them. Let’s do some quick math here: If Issa is turning twenty-nine and she’s been with Lawrence for five years now, it’s safe to say that she met him either near the end of college or right when she was out of it. He’s possibly been jobless the majority of that time and been taking a job interview here and there while Issa carries the load of this relationship the entire time. 

Now does that add up?

Earlier in the episode, Issa lets the audience know that she’s “aggressively passive” which, in short, means that she does not know how to effectively communicate when she has a problem. Knowing this, I can see why Lawrence feels comfortable lying on the couch complaining about one job interview and not taking his girlfriend out on her birthday. But Issa, you need to speak up. You can’t be miserable at both work and home - a home that you’re solely paying the rent and utilities for.

It’s MY opinion that Lawrence is sticking around because he’s comfortable and essentially, has no other place to go. He has no job, he has no motivation, and he really has nothing much to offer. He doesn't even offer Issa emotional support. He didn’t ask her how her day was, if her birthday was good, if her coworkers even did anything for her…

Issa and Lawrence are both depressed but it’s doubly frustrating when there’s an imbalance in support. Job hunting is stressful, trust me. And considering that in the real world, we’re currently smack dab in the middle of a pandemic it’s oh so much worse. However, I think we can agree that not doing something for your girlfriend’s birthday because you failed a job interview is pretty shitty. If I were Issa I’d be happy that my high school crush is sending me DMS too. Lawrence’s inability to give Issa the things she feels she needs out of a relationship pushes her closer to Daniel. 

Molly has a rough day at work after finding out her coworker is engaged while she’s being paid dust by men in her life so Issa uses that as an excuse to go to a club because Daniel is producing one of the acts. Later as Issa prepares to go out with Molly in an attempt to cheer her up, Lawrence makes a joke that Molly’s standards are far too high to get a boyfriend. And Issa says, “yeah, maybe she should lower them like I did.” 

It takes him a minute but he catches the snark and Issa runs off before they can talk more about it but not before she passive aggressively suggests that they should break up. Molly figures out that it’s a scam once she sees that Issa and Daniel link up at the bar but she doesn’t have too much of a fit about it because she meets Jered (Langston Kerman) and they hit it off really well.

As Issa and Daniel reminisce on their high school days, she learns there’s an open mic night and Daniel encourages her to participate. 

Now, if you’ve watched the show you can’t forget something as wild as “Broken Pussy” but if you need your memory refreshed here you go. This song was inspired entirely by the conversation Issa and Molly had in the restaurant where Issa told her that her pussy was “broken.”

Molly is rightfully upset despite Issa’s aloofness to her anger, happy that she took a risk and received a good reception for it. And it doesn’t matter that nobody in the crowd knew who she was rapping about, Molly knew! And really, it's about the principle. Molly emotionally goes off on Issa about making a very serious issue she’s dealing with the butt of a joke and Issa is super dismissive. Issa, girl, what the hell? 

During Molly’s rant about how obviously utterly messed up all this is, Daniel is texting Issa telling her to swing by. And even worse, Issa replies during Molly’s breakdown. Knowing that she was merely a pawn in Issa’s attempt to hang out with Daniel, Molly tells her that if she cheats on Lawrence with Daniel then she’s just as dumb a bitch as she [Molly] is. Issa feels bad that she upsets her friend but not upset enough to go and visit Daniel.

What is this thing that people do where they put potential romantic partners before friends? Selfishness? It’s not that Issa doesn’t care about Molly but she was determined to rekindle something with Daniel that she literally left her best friend upset to go hang with a guy. I can’t speak for anyone but myself but I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be able to have a good night’s sleep without having resolved that. When Daniel does not give Issa what she wants, who is she going to turn to complain about it? 

But alas, Issa and Daniel’s meet-up is not met with the expectations Issa set. For the first time in this episode, she speaks up after Daniel kisses her and tells him how she’s going through a break-up and does not want her next relationship to go sour the way it did with Lawrence. The gag? Daniel tells her that he’s not looking for anything serious and feeling humbled and possibly a little betrayed at her own self for projecting something that wasn’t there, Issa goes back to Molly to set things right.

Final Thoughts: Listen to your friends. Care for your friends. And let yourselves be cared for by your friends. And dump that dude if you feel like it’s headed nowhere.

*Give them advice IF you can. If you can’t, just listen and hug them and don’t make it about you. You don’t need to be Iyanla Vanzant when it comes to a friendship. Effie, we all got pains!

See y’all next Sunday!

[atopearth]

Samurai Love Ballad Party Part 24 - Mitsuba Kaede (Sogo)

I've always liked Kaede and the heroine's relationship. Kaede's always been like that older reliable sister that the heroine could feel safe with, so I'm excited to see how this route will turn out. It's nice that the heroine found out Kaede was a guy pretty quickly instead of it dragging on, I guess it's understandable to discover it so fast considering they're living together for their mission, and Kaede's bound to get hurt etc, hard to hide her body lol. Anyway, it was really cool how calm Kaede was about it and for her to even show up in masculine clothes and explain her situation to the heroine was nice. She looks beautiful as a girl, but looks great as a guy too! Kid Kaede is so adorable too~ I wonder how it feels to be Kaede though. He was forced to hide his identity ever since he was a child so that no one from Iga or anything would assassinate him for being the Mitsuba Chief's child and future heir of the clan, and so to be doubly sure of that, he had to pretend to be a girl as well. I wonder if it's okay for him to reveal it so easily to her now though? I'm really happy that the heroine is so understanding of Kaede and how much pain and suffocation he must have been suffering to have to hide himself to protect himself and the future of his people. I'm happy she didn't make it about herself and how the lie hurt her etc, and instead focused on Kaede's feelings.

I'm honestly so jealous though, Kaede looks great as a guy and a girl hahaha. I'm surprised she's already admitting that she loves Kaede, that was quicker than I thought lol. I don't mind it since you can see how important Kaede is to her and likewise with the heroine to Kaede, but I still feel like their "love" needs a bit more for me to feel something as a reader, especially since the heroine just found out she’s actually a guy haha. Otherwise, it was nice to see the heroine ask for his real name, Sogo, sometimes I wonder if Kaede forgets his real name tbh. Lmao at the heroine picking up Tetsuji, it's as if he's a stray rabbit that needs to be fed lol, it was pretty funny how Kaede so bluntly called him an idiot. I'm surprised Tetsuji wants to join the Mitsuba clan though. Anyway, seeing Kaede change into Sogo was interestingly nice, it really seems like he wants to be able to relax and be himself in front of the heroine...except his father will never allow that, which is understandable since who knows if anyone is watching etc. But, it's just such a strained life, I can't help but feel bad for Sogo.

Sogo has always been watching over the heroine as Kaede even back when they were kids, he's always loved her, and you can really tell from how he acts as Kaede around her. Hearing him admit that he loved the heroine but couldn't do anything about it as the chief's child was so heartbreaking, especially when the heroine pretended to be asleep and said she loved him too and then he apologised... Their love is so painful... But I really like it because I think this might be the only route for the Shadow Heroine that I feel most emotionally connected to the LI? I guess it really helps that we've seen Kaede in a lot of the routes before this, so it's already been established how much she loved the heroine, and that easily translates to her male self. Awww Tetsuji is such a silly pure soul, I love how he cried at being touched by how the Mitsuba clan took him in even though they themselves are in such a precarious situation with people trying to kill Kaede and the heroine. I feel like in terms of chemistry, Tetsuji and Kaede seem to work better even if they're both guys hahaha. Aside from saving Tetsuji, the heroine hasn't really interacted much with him, so I kinda forgot he was fond of her already lol. But I'll take it just so that Sogo can seriously think more about what he wants considering how he's practically sacrificed his whole life to the clan.

I honestly feel so bad for the heroine and Kaede. Regardless of how the heroine got captured, I doubt she would have been able to escape from Hanzo and Yuki, and I'm sure Kaede would always choose to save the heroine, but it's pretty devastating to see the Mitsuba clan's newly rebuilt village be in shambles alongside with injured comrades, especially when it was all a ruse to get Kaede to leave the village so that they could have a clear advantage in destroying it. I'm just glad it doesn't seem like anyone is dead? Regardless though, Kaede blaming herself for not being there for the village when they needed her definitely hurts. Of course they can always relocate as long as they are alive, but the insecurity of hiding and the sadness over losing what you've built up slowly still hurts. It also makes her have to face her priorities, will she choose the heroine or the village if she had to choose only one? It was honestly painful to hear Sogo say he had to give up on her for the village, and that Tetsuji would take care of her well. I could really the heroine's frustration at not being able to tell Sogo that she didn't need to have that "happy life" with Tetsuji when all she wants is to be with him, since telling Sogo would only hurt him more... It's just saddening.

Well...how convenient that the Ryumanju (flower that is even better than the Ryusenju they use to make the Dragon's Tears) flower that Kaede holds dear from the heroine is actually even better than the flower they usually need and it's not even toxic! Isn't it kinda funny that the heroine and her family are special because the Ryusenju toxins have no effect on them, and now with this new flower, they won't even need them lol (aside from the recipe). Honestly though, I don't like this, I feel like it's such a cheap way to solve things with Nobunaga and it's make the heroine and them kinda silly to not even have noticed that this flower was so close to them for years. It grows in the same place as the Ryusenju?! C'mon loll..it wasn't even hard to find. Honestly, if I was Nobunaga, I'd think they were lying to me and gave me a shit version of this medicine the whole time lol, I mean, it's sure convenient how they so quickly and easily made one that got rid of alllll the bad stuff about the previous lol, and it doesn't even sound like it's limited and difficult to make lol.

Well...that was certainly abrupt when Hanzo attacked the Mitsuba, the chief blocked the blow for Kaede, and then Kaede decided to announce that he's actually Sogo, the chief's kid, so now he'll be the new chief, like okay?? Things are moving a bit too fast and haphazardly? Like, is everyone supposed to believe this all of a sudden and accept it just like that? Anyway, something I'm surprised about is that I finally realised that the story seems to put Kaede's strength and stuff at the same level as Hanzo and them? I honestly didn't think she was as strong as them looking at the past routes, but I guess she's an LI, so she has to be "strong"? It feels so terrible that the Chief/Sogo's father died though... Sogo could finally let go of his identity as Kaede and live out in the open but it was at the sacrifice of his father..that's just so sad... They both lived only thinking about the Mitsuba clan and never ever allowed themselves to truly bond as father and son even though they have those blood ties, it's just so saddening... It's nice that he at least got to see how strong of a leader Sogo would be and is proud of him at the moment of his death, but it's terrible that he'll never really get to see the village led by Sogo with his own eyes.

I wasn't expecting Sogo to decide to suicide and ask the heroine to go with him (since if the Mitsuba clan is gone, he'll kill himself too), like, can't he still rebuild?? I doubt everyone is dead! Anyway, Nobunaga's troops save them, so he doesn't suicide, which is so silly, because if Nobunaga had enough time to save them, that means the clan wasn't completely dead yet, and I think Sogo really should have been focusing on trying to save as many people as he could instead of killing himself but whatever lol. Otherwise, Tetsuji is such a sweet guy, he's back to being a samurai because he thinks that he can protect the Mitsuba better that way instead of staying with them, he's so kind. Anyway, kinda cute how the heroine can't get used to life without Kaede, so Sogo will probably have to appear as Kaede every now and then lol, which is understandable since the one she grew up with was Kaede, but I'm still kinda sad that they didn't do much with the Sogo persona? Like, other than the fact that Sogo exists so that Kaede is a guy, there's not much to really feel or care about him even though they're the same person. I mean, the heroine might as well just be romancing Kaede lol.

Overall, I really liked the first half of the route, but I got really disappointed afterwards lol. I thought the story was more of a slow burner on how difficult it was for Kaede to balance her gender as well as choosing between her clan and the heroine, and I think it really portrayed that well because I really felt her dilemma. However, everything after that was so rushed. The chief dying to make Sogo come to light, Nobunaga helping to keep them alive, everyone accepting Sogo, them getting together etc, it felt like everything just happened in the last few chapters so it really went from 1-10 real quick lol, it just didn't have the same feel and really killed the flow of the story lol, especially since they took a lot of time to build up the heroine and Kaede's relationship (which I liked). It's sad because I actually really like Kaede, but Sogo's existence doesn't do much than make it that the heroine is actually with a "guy" not a girl, in which at that point, Kaede might as well have just stayed as Kaede for a yuri romance because Sogo as a person isn't really important lol, which I guess can be understandable since he has to hide that he's a guy, but at the same time, I feel like they could have shown more for us to like the male persona. Anyway, honestly, not really a fan of this route in the end but I did really like Kaede and the heroine in the beginning haha.

[madeofsplinters]

Ahh. How about K?

(For those of you following along at home, K = “what’s the angstiest fic idea you’ve ever had?”)

Oh boy. Okay. So.

It’s really tricky trying to figure out what to do with Leia in the co-emperors AU. Basically we run into the same problem we do with Leia in any AU where there’s a redeemed Vader who survives for more than five minutes, which is how do we square Leia’s very legitimate trauma and anger with the rest of what we enjoy about these AUs? And it’s doubly tricky in this particular AU because Vader still has political power - triply tricky because he is sharing that political power with, and sleeping with, Tarkin.

Like it’s one thing to say “Luke can choose to forgive his father and Leia can choose not to forgive him, and they can both honor each other’s choices” and another to actually write something where they can both make those choices in a way that doesn’t make one of them look completely fucking dumb and/or awful.

So, in the process of trying to figure out what the fuck I was doing with Leia’s arc in this series, I’ve had some really fucking dumb and/or awful ideas!

Here’s one.

(Content warning: major character death, suicide mention, dark!Leia)

Somehow, far in the future of this series, Leia ends up confronting both of the Emperors (and Luke) in a battle. I don’t know how we got to this point, and it’s not important. Leia has been trained enough to go toe to toe with Vader in a lightsaber fight, that’s what matters. They fight, and it comes to a brief standoff as Leia manages to take Tarkin hostage at saberpoint.

Vader of course is like !!!HANDS OFF MY BOYFRIEND!!! and Leia counters by dramatically announcing to Vader that she is his daughter.

Vader sort of just... crumbles in horror as he realizes just HOW badly he’s screwed all this up. He promises her anything. Leia is not amused; he should have cared about her basic human rights before he knew they were related. She did come with a list of demands, though, as it happens. He ends up basically handing the whole Empire over to her and the Rebels.

(Meanwhile Tarkin is still, like, conscious, and he’s not impressed with any of this, he’s like “Um, how about if we DON’T give into the Rebels’ demands, actually” but nobody’s listening to Tarkin.)

Finally when they’re finished negotiating (i.e. Leia extracting whatever she wants out of him), Vader asks for his co-Emperor back.

Leia looks him square in what she assumes is the eye.

“You’re far too trusting,” she says, in the mock-Core accent she used in ANH when she was dealing with them both. And then she just cuts Tarkin’s fucking head off.

Everything immediately breaks into chaos, but before it does, there’s this flashbulb moment of Leia looking down at Tarkin’s broken body on the ground, and realizing she doesn’t feel any better. She doesn’t feel the sense of justice and resolution that she assumed she would. She doesn’t have Alderaan back.

Anyway Vader just flips out and tries to telekinetically bring the entire building they’re in down on all of their heads, a horrified Luke has his hands full ensuring that he and Vader don’t die, and Leia escapes in the confusion.

Subsequently Luke spends a lot of time very frustrated and upset and trying to keep his father on suicide watch, and Leia spends a lot of time very depressed and regretful realizing that this was her way of giving in to the Dark Side - and that she also hurt her brother in the process. Ironically, now that she has experienced the combo of using the Force to take cruel violent actions in anger, and regretting it only when it’s too late, she understands Vader now more than ever.

Luke is eventually able to use that understanding to sort things out between them a little bit. (He forgave his father for being Vader, of *course* he’s going to forgive his sister, too. Poor kid.) But it’s FRAUGHT.

Anyway, there are a ton of reasons why I don’t want to actually write this and why it’s not going to happen in the co-emperors series, but it was stuck really vividly in my head for a while. Something like it might or might not happen in a dream sequence at some point, idk, but definitely not as what actually happens to the characters, because whew that’s too much angst even for me.

[pi-cat000]

MSA: Winged Arthur AU (part 8)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7,  

Part 9: here

. 

Vivi POV 3

“What the?” There is a loud declaration of confusion from Lance. Vivi follows his line of sight to Arthur. Vivi assumes he has just spotted the wings.

“I know. I have no idea how they got there. He collapsed before he could say anything.”

Lance, attention moving between her, the ghost, and Artur, exhales long and hard. Then he angles the gun more towards the ground, ordering, “Keep an eye on that bastard. If it moves, give a yell.”

She nods, stepping forward, allowing Lance inch around her and crouch next to Arthur. He needs to do a bit of manoeuvring to avoid stepping on Arthur’s mess of feathers, but he manages it in his grumpy Lance fashion.

While Lance checks on Arthur, she once again makes eye contact with the ghost. Now hovering closer to the entrance, near a beat-up semi-trailer – where had that come from? –  the ghost is anxiously clenching and unclenching its fists. Purple eyes are tracking their movements with a disturbing intensity. Creepy. Doubly so now ‘Lewis’ looks like a flaming skeleton again. She glares and receives that pitiful expression. Thankfully, with both her and Lance there, the ghost has decided to keep its distance. Vivi would rather it go away and return to its middle-of-nowhere-mansion, but it appears she’ll have to settle for whatever this was.

“He’s okay, I think, apart from the wings anyway. Too dark out here to see much besides feathers. I want to move him inside ta get a better look.” Lance leans back, muttering under his breath, “Also, it’s gotten mighty cold all of a sudden.”

Vivi nods again, relieved to have confirmation on Arthur’s wellbeing. She’s not really feeling the cold but going inside seems like a good a course of action as any.

“What happened to that tree creature?” She asks while Lance goes about trying to pick Arthur up.

“Gone, ran off into the desert with the giant fox.”

“That’s good…I think?” Vivi can’t help the twinge of worry for her fake dog who had been bleeding heavily last she’d seen. Mystery, who had been injured protecting her. Secret or no secret, she feels responsible.

“I got in a few good shots on the tree before they went outta range.” Lance continues to speak, before narrowing his eyes at ghost-Lewis, “What’s that things deal?”

“It’s a wraith,” She states, ignoring the way ‘Lewis’ wilts, flinching back, “They’re dangerous. It’s probably best we keep an eye on it.” Sure, ghost-Lewis seems relatively fine now but she knows that calm is a facade hiding a whole lot of angry fire.

“Right.” Lance doesn’t question her, focusing instead on carrying Arthur which looks difficult due to how the wings flop about. Vivi wants to help but doesn’t like the idea of taking her attention off the ghost for any length of time. Luckily, after a little fussing and several swear words, Lance manages to sling Arthur over his back, so it looks like he’s wearing a very feathery coat. He shuffles his way to the front door. The trip takes an unreasonably long time, considering the door is only a few feet away. Vivi tracks their progress, on edge and anxious.  

There is some difficulty fitting Arthur through the screen door, forcing Vivi to turn and help arrange the wings in a way that will allow them past the frame. Once done, she about-faces to find the ghost has drifted closer, appearing hopeful now neither her or Lance are acting outwardly aggressive.

“No,” She says, brandishing her bat again. “You stay out here.”

“What,” The ghost, stunned, freezes in place, staring like she’s grown an extra head. Vivi steps forward, blocking the entrance.

“You’re not welcome inside this home,” She reiterates. “Uncle Lance. Tell ‘Lewis’ he’s not welcome inside.”

Lance, now just through the doorway, stumbles almost dropping Arthur, giving an abrupt, “Huh?”

“First rule of supernatural anything. They have to be invited into homes.”

“Not what…” Lance shakes his head, “What do yeh mean by ‘Lewis.’”

Okay, so Lance knows who Lewis is…Perfect. That doesn’t change anything aside from confirming her theory that she had known this ghost at some point. She waves pointedly, giving Lance as serious an expression as she can manage.

Lance’s gaze snaps to the ghost in befuddlement.  “Hold up. Yeh not tellin me that that, right there, is Lewis?”

“That’s what he said his name was. Right before he tried to burn me and Arthur,” She states.

“I would never hurt you…I swear. It’s just…Arthur…he’s done something. I don’t know...there’s a lot I… you… don’t know. If you would just let me explain,” The ghost pleads again, genuinely remorseful. Talk about your mood swings. Another point in favour of her wraith hypothesis.

“Is that before or after you burn us both to a crisp.” Vivi snaps back.

Lance side-eyes her seriously. Then he examines the ghost, expression hardening.

“Hurt my nephew and yeh ain’t welcome here. Simple as that,” He grunts and turns, heaving Arthur with him.

“No! You can’t. I’m telling the truth!” The ghost reaches out, fire guttering and flickering to his more human form. He sounds desperate. With one shaking arm, he grasps towards her, “Please.”

Vivi glowers and deliberately slams the door in the, now human, face.  For a second, she doesn’t move, waiting to see if ‘Lewis’ is going force his way in. There is only a loud cry of frustration, more sad and mournful than angry. Back against the door, Vivi exhales hard. Why does her chest hurt like it’s full of breaking glass? She runs a hand along her collar bone trying to massage the ache away. It’s useless, the pain isn’t physical. An inhale, and she pushes herself off the door. 

When she enters the combined living-dining space, Lance has already dragged Arthur to the couch and is in process of wrestling him into a comfortable position. He’s doing his best to work around the copious number of feathers but is struggling to find success. Vivi rushes forward to help, glad for the distraction. They end up lying Arthur down on his stomach so the wings are draped over the couch’s backrest and spill onto the carpeted floor.

“That true? The stuff about welcoming in supernatural creatures?” Lance grunts, while he checks Arthur’s pulse and breathing, running a hand over Arthur’s head and the rest of his limbs, searching for breaks or other injuries.

“I don’t know,” She sighs, straightening, “There’s a lot of lore spanning multiple mythologies, and it crops up a lot in older superstitions. It's more of an educated guess.”

A thoughtful hum.

“Suppose it’s better than nothin. Those myths happen ta mention anything like this?” Lance is now repositioning the wings to look more natural while muttering, “Don’t know nothin about birds. Do these look like they’re sittin right?”

“No myths that I can think of off the top of my head. I mean there are a few where people turn into birds. Not that I think that Arthur is turning into a bird,” Vivi hastens to clarify when Lance gives her an expression of acute alarm. She shuffles nearer, pointing at Arthur, “I think those are flight feathers. They’re definitely not supposed to be bent like that.”

They spent a few seconds straightening the plumages in soft silence.  

“There are a bunch of mythical humanoid creatures that have wings and such. I don’t know…maybe you’re related?" Vivi breaks the quiet and is met with a blank expression. “Do you have any relatives who mysteriously vanished for a few years then rocked up pregnant or with an unknown baby? Was anyone adopted into the family? Like, did someone find a child abandoned on the steps to your house and decided to keep it? Any sudden changes in a family member’s personality like they’d been mysteriously replaced?”

“What are yeh on about?”

“The most common reason why humans’ manifest supernatural traits is usually bloodline related. Someone somewhere had a fling with something not quite human,” Vivi elaborates to which Lance frowns, obviously thinking.

“There’s nothin like that that I can think of. But, don’t get along with the bastards, so who the hell knows.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. I guess I can jump online and look into it.” She looks back to Arthur. “Maybe later...”

Carefully, she reaches out from where she is crouched to smooth out a few more feathers which are twisted at odd-looking angles.  They feel real, growing from between Arthur’s shoulder blades and extending into smaller downier feathers a little along his back. His shirt has ripped from where the appendages had grown in. No sign of that golden light from earlier.

“Who’s Lewis.” She asks, the question coming suddenly. The response is particular. A huff of air followed by tired and drawn eyes. Lance appears almost haunted.

“Humph. Ain’t that a question and a half,” He stands, glancing towards the broken windows. From this angle, they can just make out the back end of the semi-trailer but said ghost is out of view.

“I know him, right? This Lewis person?” Vivi prods.

“Yeah. Yeh know him.”

Lance turns, calculating, “Suppose I could tell yeh more, seeing as ya seem to be retainin the name ‘Lewis’ well enough.”

“Wh...?”

“But not before I get a drink and yeh see to any of ya own injuries. Arthur’s fine enough, but yeh look dead on ya feet."

What did Lance mean by ‘retaining the name?’ Was this linked to her memory gaps? Probably.

“I’m fine. I mean, I wasn’t fine. I got stabbed here,” She rubs her shoulder, “but, Arthur kind of took care of it.”

Lance peers at her shoulder. There’s a lot of dried blood but no sign of the injury it came from.

“Arthur? He did what now?”

“Healing magic. It’s what knocked him out. He just, I don’t know, healed everything. I actually feel great, like I’m on some crazy energy drink. Ah… Sorry.”

Lance snorts, rubbing his eyes, “Don’t apologise. That boy wouldn’t know self-preservation if it hit him over the head. If you’re sure ya ain’t injured any, then how about yeh keep an eye on the kid while I get us something to drink. Then I’ll tell yeh what I know of Lewis.”

Vivi relaxes a little and nods.

“What can I get yeh?” Lance pauses in the doorway.

“Uh…Tea I guess? Herbal if you have it.”

Lance disappears and she hears things being moved around in the kitchen. Vivi settles down into a more comfortable position on the ground next to Arthur, continuing to smooth the feathers. So, she was right, ghost-Lewis fit somewhere into the swiss-cheese that was her memory of the last several years.

.

Note: Okay, so do people want to read a ‘Lance explains Lewis to Vivi’ conversation (if so, then whose POV do you want it in). Or do people want me to skip to Arthur waking up. I’m leaning more towards skipping atm but if there’s interest I’ll probably write that scene first.

Part 9: here

[bluboothalassophile]

Bromance, Nothing More

Everything was okay, everyone was here, in Jason’s reach, all he had to do was leave the helm of Kori’s ship and walk three corridors down and he’d see his girls all safe and sound, sleeping, under the protective care of his fellow Outlaws, and a few wayward Lanterns, and he could actually enjoy this moment to relax.

It was funny, Jason didn’t remember ever wanting to go to space, save the galaxy and all that bullshit. It seemed like something for a Marvel Comic or movie. It just wasn’t for him.

But standing here at the helm of Kori’s Tamaranian war ship, which was a beautiful piece of machinery since she and Victor had expanded and built on it with illegal JL tech, he could truly see the appeal of the vastness of space. It was just amazing and it made him feel so insignificant, Atlas had held all this up from earth, it was everything, it was nothing, it was powerful and a void. It was amazing, and Jason just stared out at it.

His ear twitched a bit at the presence of another, it was quiet, but it wasn’t as quiet as it could have been and he looked over when he was offered a green glass with brown liquid.

“I was taught not to take drinks from strange men,” Jason stated cheekily.

“Well if you don’t want it,” Kyle started and started pulling the beer away. Jason just took the bottle, it’s green light dropped and he found himself just holding a beer.

“Cheers to… to not dying,” Kyle offered as they rapped glasses and the clink filled the silent helm.

“If that’s the best speech you got it’s no wonder you Lanterns cant pull shit from an ass,” Jason decided.

“Oh please, like you could do better to surviving a war speech!” the Green Lantern protested.

“Well crab-face, if you must know, I don’t do speeches, just sarcastic remarks and witty one liners with the frequently inappropriate, politically incorrect, unnecessary, highly offensive joke,” Jason supplied.

“You’re funny Hood,” Kyle chuckled.

“It’s Jay.”

“Jason,” Kyle decided with a smile. “Think you’ll join the Corps, travel the galaxy? We could always use someone like you.”

“Didn’t you know; I hate authority.” Jason took a sip of his beer and stared out at the space, to live this, to just live in the vastness of space, that could turn into the ultimate survival game. It’d also get him away from Bats and that drama but… he had the Outlaws to consider, and while he didn’t know how to always feel about them they were family of sorts, and they were definitely friends. They were also his responsibility as he had somehow ended up the defacto leader of his merry band of misfits.

“All the more reason to invite you, come on, it’ll be fun!” Kyle promised.

“Do I look like a major league doofus like my idiot brothers or something?” Jason asked in exasperation.

“Well not exactly it’s just…” Kyle trailed off and before Jason could even really process what was happening he had another mouth on his, pressing lightly on him. He didn’t part his lips as he stared dumbfounded at this situation. Then Kyle pulled away. “I like you.”

“Uh…” he managed.

“Sorry, too forward?” Kyle stammered nervously. The White Lantern started blushing furiously, his pale eyes were doubly bright and his face turning a furious shade of ruby red. Jason said nothing just stood there staring out at space as Kyle nervously seemed to be trying to cover his ass, spouting half assed apologies.

“I just… I thought you liked me too…” Kyle started.

“Slow the fuck down, dude!” Jason snapped as he caught Kyle’s shoulder and forced the older man to see him. “Look, nothing bad happened, it was a kiss, caught me off guard.”

“I just…”

“Kyle, you’re great, you’re smart, funny, good company, solid in a fight, and loyal, you’re not a bad guy. I just don’t swing this way.” Jason gestured between them and saw Kyle’s confused look before dawning occurred in his unmasked eyes. “I like girls man, I’m not even bi, trust me here. Now, if I was gay I’d be all over your ass. But I’m not, and frankly I don’t think you’re into me.”

“You’re hot…”

“As fuck, believe me, very well aware. But I’m not as emotionally unobservant as my best friend thinks I am, and I haven’t, until the kiss, gotten the vibe that this, while a good friendship, is not a romance,” Jason stated pointing between him and Kyle. “It’s actually a hell of a lot like what I have with Roy.”

“You are hot,” Kyle muttered. “How did you see through that!?” Kyle demanded.

“Years of training,” Jason stated before taking a huge gulp of his beer. It felt like acid, burning his throat and gut, but it tasted like fire on his tongue. Fuck him he should be fucking wasted after Kyle’s stunt, but the other merely looked down trodden. And looking at Kyle he had a very bad feeling; as he vainly prayed for it not to happen; that the other was going to spill his guts about feeling and bullshit, Jason wanted to run.

“I’m married,” Kyle muttered miserably then.

“And you had the audacity to make me the other woman!” Jason dramatically balked hoping his inappropriate humor would get him the hell out of this chat. But the lantern’s eyes flicked humorlessly at him and Jason groaned. “I don’t do feelings Kyle, ask anyone, past sarcasm and anger, ask anyone else to have this talk.”

“I didn’t kiss anyone else, I kissed you.”

“You’re not married to me are you!?” Jason sputtered.

“No,” the other muttered.

“Good, because that’d be weird, and I think Roy wouldn’t like me taking on another husband. He’s enough work as it is,” Jason stated flatly.

“I thought…”

“I don’t, he’s my best friend and I’m the second dad to his kid,” Jason clarified.

“I was like that, before Guy did something stupid.”

“So you and Red, yeah, I can see that,” Jason shrugged. Kyle glowered at him and Jason sipped his beer some more.

“We’re married, a lot. And he doesn’t know,” Kyle burst into hysterical/miserable laughter.

“Where’s Dickhead when you need him?” Jason muttered sourly into his beer.

“You know the worst part is, he doesn’t even know, so I just sit there in silence and watch him flirt and ask girls out and shit, and I just let him! I mean on at least fifty different planets I could just neuter him and be done, or divorce or just leave! But no! I keep staying, even now, and I just…” Kyle sighed. “And then you come along, all complicated and Guy thinks I am crushing on you, even offered to help set me up with you!”

“Next time, ask, don’t kiss. I could have saved us both this trouble,” Jason stated.

“What is wrong with me!?” Kyle demanded desperately.

“First off, you kissed me, which is like a curse of eternity of bad fortunes.”

“I’m serious! I can’t even tell my husband I am not only madly in love with him but that we’re husbands!” Kyle snapped in frustration.

“Man the fuck up and stop whining about it, and second, talk to your best friend about this problem! Not me! I Don’t Do Feelings!” Jason snapped.

“He is my best friend.”

“Fuck,” Jason muttered. Where the hell was Roy when you needed him!? Roy or Dick would be better at this mushy crap.

“Sorry for… unloading here, I just…” Kyle sighed.

“It’s lonely being unrequited?” Jason offered tiredly. “Look, get over it. Either act on it or don’t, make friends, live, it’s your fucking choice. I don’t care for self-pity, it’s a waste of energy and time. And if this idiot doesn’t see you as anything but amazing they’re an idiot.”

“You’re sure you’re not gay?” Kyle asked.

“Positive, besides, I got enough actual issues without love life bullshit.”

[starrymarktuan]

First Place

» Pairing: Im Jaebum x Reader

» Genre: Angst + Fluff

» Word Count: 3,990

» Description: Jaebum is the varsity team captain, and to say that his plate is full would be an understatement. But you’re putting your foot down. If he can’t make time for your relationship, then how can you have one? 

» Part of the Varsity Jacket Series

The group of jock-gods was lingering near the refreshments table, distributing red solo cups and laughing at an inside joke. Once everyone was properly armed with alcohol, they dispersed. 

The eldest, Mark Tuan, went with Park Jinyoung to play beer bong, downing their mixed drinks and ramping up for a little friendly competition. BamBam and Kim Yugyeom walked deeper into the living room and stole the karaoke mics from unsuspecting partiers, beginning to sing randomly and at the top of their lungs. Choi Youngjae wandered into the kitchen where his crush was munching on stale potato chips and talking animatedly with a friend. And Jackson Wang wandered back out the front door, where he’d seen his latest fuck buddy hanging about. 

But Jaebum, he headed for the backyard. He knew that’s where you preferred to hang out at these kinds of parties - fresh air and a drink. Or something like that. 

The cool, night air hit Jaebum’s face in a brisk slap, his cheeks pinking at the sensation almost instantly. You were standing on the porch, leaning over the railing. The dress you wore was low cut in the back, and the curve as you leaned against the railing was enticing. He’d been so busy lately that he felt as if he hadn’t seen you in days. Maybe he hadn’t. It was hard to keep track.

Jaebum took a step forward to greet you but stopped short when he saw a figure beside you. He clenched his fists inside the pockets of his varsity jacket, recognizing the person instantly. 

“Hey,” Jaebum said smoothly, slipping his varsity jacket from his shoulders and onto yours in a quick, obvious motion. You eyed him suspiciously, uncomfortable under the weight of the jacket and its symbolism. JB leaned down to kiss your cheek before his gaze slid up to Hyunwoo, who was sipping his drink awkwardly. Jaebum noticed his change in demeanor at his approach.

“JB,” Hyunwoo said. He focused his attention back on you and added, “I’ll catch you later?”

Jaebum was ready for your definitive no, but instead, you said, “Of course. Are we still down for lunch tomorrow?”

“Of course!” Hyunwoo smiled, pushing off the railing and heading inside.

Jaebum distanced himself from you, “What was that?”

“What is this?” you said, motioning to the jacket that was resting on your shoulders.

“You’re the captain of the varsity basketball team’s girlfriend! You’re supposed to wear the jacket! You’re supposed to want to!”

“I’m not your property, Jaebum!” you seethed, tearing the jacket off of your shoulders and throwing it on the ground. He gasped, offended by your actions. He stooped to scoop up the article, as you continued: “You can’t mark me, or claim me. I know everyone on campus thinks this thing means something, but all I see is a jacket!” You spat the last word with venomous malice. You’d been with Jaebum for almost two years, and in the time you’d been together that jacket had never done you or your relationship any favors.

Jaebum opened his mouth to speak, but you were far from done: “And if I’m hanging out with Hyunwoo then it’s only because my boyfriend is always busy!” You brushed past him brusquely, purposefully hitting his shoulder with your own on the way.

Jaebum watched you disappear into the party, the dusty jacket still in his hands. He cursed under his breath, frustrated.

“What’s up Cap?” Yugyeom said, appearing in the doorway almost as soon as you’d disappeared. There was a red solo cup pressed to his lips. He took a drink and smiled goofily at his team captain.

“She just...you know, it’s like...I mean...and she’s out here with...I just…” Jaebum was growling half-sentences, as was his tendency when frustrated and angry. Yugyeom’s eyes widened and he held his hands up in defense.

“Woah, Cap, what?”

Jaebum took a deep breath and tried to form full sentences, “Y/N is hanging out with Hyunwoo because I’m too busy.”

“You are a pretty busy guy, Cap.” 

“Well yeah, but...” 

Yugyeom shrugged and took another drink, “I’m just saying - she has a point.” Yugyeom turned back to the party but quickly rethought, turning around and adding, “Also, I’m drunk. So you can’t hold what I just said against me.” 

Jaebum shook his head and turned away from him. He nodded his head and resolved to slow down, to ease his schedule, give himself time to actually date you.

Let’s just say...that’s not exactly what happened. Before he’d even woken up the next day his phone blew up with messages, all containing the same image of Youngjae, face down and naked in the grass. Jackson showed up late to practice and when he finally did arrive he broke his ankle. And BamBam ended up in a fistfight the day after that. Plus Jinyoung would not stop texting him about this girl he’d met.

So, to tally it all up: one humiliated teammate, one who couldn’t play, one with a black eye, and a lovesick one. All of this left little time for you.

And you had almost thought he’d change. Almost.

Sitting in the library five days later, relative radio silence from JB and the big game coming up, you liked to think that these kinds of little fights and sudden silences were unusual. But you’d be lying to yourself.

The beginning had been...great. Really great. He didn’t have basketball, it was the summer so school wasn’t a problem and you both just fit. He was this charming, funny guy who cared about you and focused on you and paid attention.

Now it was nearly two years later and… And what? What was there to say? You loved him. Or the memory of him. You were unsure which was truer. And there were still good times - soft caresses on early mornings, sweet gestures of commitment in exchanges of coffee and mints, a smile here and a kiss there. But you didn’t go out, you didn’t hang out. Your time together had dwindled between the time dedicated to school and to work and to basketball.

You didn’t know if this could be fixed.

“Wathchya’ thinkin’?” Hyunwoo slid into the chair across from you with a newfound bag of pretzels in his hand. He opened them quickly and began eating them doubly so.

“Jaebum.”

“Yeah?” There was a little crinkle between Hyunwoo’s eyebrows when he looked up at you. You knew things were platonic between you both. He had something going with a guy from his dance team. But he made a great listener and had an excellent shoulder to cry on. Somehow, he’d become your best friend.

And Jaebum didn’t even know that. Jaebum didn’t know a lot of things.

Hyunwoo, ever the awkward dork, changed the subject. “You going to the pep rally?”

“Yeah,” you sighed, “I’m his girlfriend, right? I should go support him.”

“Unless you don’t want to.”

“Hmm?” you said, looking up from the equation you’d been scribbling through on your notepad. You’d only vaguely heard the words and so Hyunwoo repeated them.

“You don’t have to go to the game if you don’t want to.”

Your eyebrows raised in surprise. The idea had never occurred to you. It had become a habit to keep tabs on JB’s schedule and show up at his events. He always threw you a smile and a wave, running up to kiss you after a big win, etc. But did you actually enjoy the games? Well...you’d never really thought about it. And really, if he wasn’t being much of a boyfriend...why should you show up to his pep rallies and games and things?

“You, Hyunwoo, are a genius.” You tapped your temple as if to prove your point.

He smiled and chuckled, “So I’ve been told.”

So the pep rally came and went. You holed up in your room with Chinese food and your homework, steadfastly determined not to go to the pep rally. Hyunwoo, on the other hand, was a traitor.

“Jooheon wanted to go,” he whined, over the phone the next morning. You tsked and shook your head, smiling nonetheless.

“And I thought you were my friend,” you joked. Hyunwoo made a disgruntled sound on the other end and you chuckled, cutting short suddenly when you spotted Jaebum coming towards you. “I have to go.”

“There you are!” Jaebum said, stopping in front of you. You stood up from the bench and crossed your arms.

“Here I am.”

“Where were you last night?”

“Home. I had homework.”

“But I had a pep rally!”

“Did you invite me to the pep rally?” You raised an eyebrow.

Jaebum paused. He thought back to the past week. He’d been so busy. Had he...actually invited you? He opened his mouth to respond but could think of nothing to say.

“See, that’s the thing, Jae, you’re so busy that you forget about me. And I’m supposed to follow you around like an obedient puppy?” You scoffed and picked up your bag from the bench. “I’m late for class.” You sidestepped him and moved to walk away.

Jaebum turned quickly, a hand wrapping around your arm and spinning you back around. He looked lost and confused like he’d just woken up and found himself somewhere entirely different than when he’d fallen asleep. “What’s changed?”

You sighed. “I don’t know, Jaebum. Maybe I’m just tired of having to carry this relationship all by myself.” He looked crestfallen and you could tell that he was anticipating a breakup. But, despite all of this, that wasn’t what you wanted. When you looked at him you still saw him. You knew who he was without crazy schedules and obligations. You wanted to be with him. “Look,” you conceded, “I know you’re busy and you have a lot on your plate. But...something has to give. And, if we keep going this way, it’s going to be us.”

Watching you walk away, Jaebum felt as if he’d been hit by a high-speed train. There was a tightness in his chest and he felt winded. And exhausted. He collapsed onto the bench you’d been sitting on roughly, his knees giving way beneath him. But as he sat down, he felt a lump beneath his thigh. When he moved over to investigate he found you’d left your phone there. On the screen, there was a text.

Hyunwoo

10:07 AM: I really am sorry! I’ll make it up to you!

Jaebum was going to have to talk to this guy.

“Yugyeom,” Jaebum growled into his cell phone a few minutes later, “tell me.”

“You’re not going to beat him up are you?” Jaebum's fists clenched at the youngest teammates hesitation. “He’s a really nice guy, Cap.”

“Just tell me when and where your dance team’s practice gets out Yugyeom.” He sensed the younger one’s further hesitation, and so pulled out his very last resort, “Or I’ll have you benched for the next game.”

“But I’m–”

“Try me, Yugyeom.”

“We have a practice tonight at the rec center,” Yugyeom sighed, “We finish at ten.”

“Thanks.” And the line went dead.

Jaebum was waiting for Hyunwoo outside the rec center, fuming on a bench. He was tapping his foot to let out the explosive energy he felt in his chest. Jaebum felt like he was trying to swim upstream. It was as if he were stuck in a hopeless, destined-to-fail situation.

You have a lot on your plate. But something has to give. And it could be us. He couldn’t get the words out of his head. He was busy, he knew that. But…

But what? He wanted to scream, to fight, to stamp his feet and throw a tantrum. He didn’t want to lose you! But what was he supposed to do? He was the captain of the varsity basketball team, he had a full load of classes and a job. Something has to give.

But why did it have to be this thing?

Yugyeom had warned Hyunwoo that Jaebum would be waiting for him. He saw where JB was coming from but...Hyunwoo was a nice guy. And there was no way he was sleeping with Y/N - not when he was so happy with Jooheon. He didn’t deserve to get the crap beat out of him because Jaebum was tense and frustrated.

Besides, Yugyeom thought, Hyunwoo could probably take him - and then where would he be?

The three of them, Yugyeom, Hyunwoo, and Jooheon, stopped in front of Jaebum on his bench. He didn’t seem to notice their arrival, he was so consumed in his thoughts. Yugyeom coughed. “Cap?”

“Huh?” Jaebum said, pulled from his inner monologue. He realized who was in front of him and stood up quickly, trying to puff his chest out and seem intimidating. “We need to talk!”

Hyunwoo simply raised an eyebrow, not intimidated in the least. “So talk.”

All of the paths that Jaebum had envisioned taking in this conversation evaporated like smoke. He slumped back onto the bench and ran a hand through his hair. He sighed deeply, “What’s going on with her?”

Hyunwoo sighed, too. He’d never been a big fan of Jaebum, he always thought that you deserved someone with more time and attention to give. Sometimes Hyunwoo wondered if he even cared about you at all, or were you just a trophy girlfriend for the captain of the team?

But seeing Jaebum now, pathetic and frustrated, waiting on a bench at ten-fifteen when he definitely had homework or something to be doing… Hyunwoo stopped doubting. He turned to the other two and said he’d catch up with them, he needed a minute with Jaebum. They left quietly, chatting about dance rehearsal, etc.

Hyunwoo sat down next to Jaebum on the bench and immediately said, “I’m not sleeping with her.”

“No?” Jaebum said, his voice still small and defeated. Hyunwoo chuckled.

“No. I’m gay.”

“No shit?” Jaebum said, looking up, surprised. Hyunwoo laughed again and pointed at Jooheon’s back proudly.

“That’s my boyfriend,” he grinned.

“No shit,” Jaebum chuckled, feeling stupid and paranoid, “No wonder she’s mad.”

“Yeah,” Hyunwoo said, sighing, “She loves you. A lot. And she wants to be with you, she doesn’t want to end it. But you have to give her a reason to stay. You have to show her that you’ll make time for her.” Jaebum looked up at him with wide eyes, his heart pounding in his chest as the truth he’d been suspecting was finally revealed aloud. “So far your relationship has been brushed off, it’s always last on your list of priorities. You have to show her that it’s going to come first sometimes.”

Hyunwoo patted Jaebum’s knee comfortingly before bounding to his feet and running to meet up with Jooheon. Jaebum watched them wrap their arms around each other, Hyunwoo kissing the other man’s forehead and smiling. Jaebum saw everything he wanted for you and him in that moment.

“We have to come first sometimes,” he whispered to himself, the gears beginning to turn in his head. He was the captain of a leading basketball team. He could do first place.

You woke up the morning of the game feeling...despondent. You’d lost your phone the day you’d talked to Jaebum, but it had reappeared in your backpack last night. Hyunwoo thought you were making it all up. 

But even worse, you hadn’t heard from Jaebum since your talk a few days earlier. You checked your messages again, flopping over in bed gracefully to find your phone. Nothing.

You rolled back over, staring at your ceiling seriously. You didn’t regret what you’d said to him. It was a long overdue conversation. But you had expected it to be more of a conversation. He really hadn’t said anything at all.

Y/N

9:53 AM: Still nothing…

9:53 AM: I guess that’s that

Hyunwoo

9:55 AM: I wouldn’t be so sure…

You were typing back a confused response – what’s that supposed to mean? – when there was knock at your door. You were frozen in bed when a familiar voice called out: “Hey, it’s me. Can I come in?”

“Jaebum?” you gasped, leaping out of bed to open the door. “What are you doing here?” You threw your legs over the side of your bed and ran to the door. You threw it open and repeated yourself, “What are you doing here?”

Jaebum grinned a beautiful, gummy smile and leaned down to press his lips to your cheek. He slid past you and into the room. You stood amazed, pausing for a moment before closing the door to gather your thoughts. What was he doing here? He had a game today, he’d usually spend the morning before getting ready and practicing so...what was he doing here?

Jaebum seemed to see the question in your face. He grinned at your confusion, a new kind of elation filled his chest as he started to actively prioritize your relationship. He was excited.

“I brought you breakfast,” he waved the white paper bag that was in his right hand, “and coffee.” He lifted his left hand to reveal a coffee cup. His gummy smile reappeared, “I wanted to ask you if you would go out to lunch with me, and then maybe...come to my game tonight?”

You smiled hugely, tucking your hair behind your ear and pretending to think, “Oh, tonight? Hmm...I’m not sure.”

Jaebum narrowed his eyes playfully, trying to hide a smile, “Oh, really?”

You smiled again, “But you did bring me coffee so I guess I can move some things around.” You slipped the coffee from his hand and sipped it carefully.

“Oh, well, I appreciate that,” he said, leaning in and pressing his lips to yours, tasting the coffee that still lingered there. He pulled away from you and handed you the muffin. “Okay!” he said, clapping as he did so, “Enjoy breakfast and I’ll see you at twelve thirty.” He pecked your lips again and slipped back out the door quietly.

You giggled behind your coffee, peeking inside the bag and seeing a giant muffin. You placed the cup gently on your desk before leaping into the air and jumping around excitedly. You landed on your bed and scooped your phone.

Y/N

10:12 AM: Omg

10:12 AM: He brought me breakfast and asked me to come to his game

Hyunwoo

10:13 AM: JB man...comin’ in clutch

Jaebum was back at your door at twelve exactly with a polite tapping on your door. He carried a bouquet of flowers and offered them to you when you opened the door. He complimented your dress and your hair, insisted you loop your arm through his as you walked and took you to a nice (affordable) restaurant for lunch.

“See you tonight, beautiful,” he whispered charmingly, pecking your cheek and glancing at his watch. “Shit! I’m late!” He ran out quickly yelling, “Love you! See you tonight!”

He was being the perfect boyfriend. You were so elated by the whole experience that you were still grinning when Hyunwoo and Jooheon stopped by to pick you up.

“Ready?” Hyunwoo asked.

“Yeah,” you said dreamily. For once, you were absolutely thrilled to go to a basketball game. You’d forgotten how hot Jaebum was in basketball shorts.

Okay, you hadn’t forgotten. You just hadn’t appreciated it in a while.

Jooheon did his infamous, and hilarious, baby voice and sang, “Jaebum and Y/N sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

“Shut up,” you said, still smiling. Hyunwoo wrapped his arm around your shoulders and pulled you into a hug. He kissed your hair affectionately.

“I’m happy for you,” he murmured.

You smiled back, “Me too. I just...I hope it lasts.”

“It should,” Jooheon said absently, having pulled out his wallet to examine its contents, “He did wait until the end of our dance class to talk to Hyun.”

Your gaze snapped up to Hyunwoo, who was now blushing furiously with a small smile on his face. You slapped his chest playfully. “You didn’t tell me that!” Hyunwoo shrugged and patted your shoulder before he removed it and instead held hands with Jooheon.

The game was...not worth mentioning. It was not the best or the worst game the team had ever played. They won, which made the experience better. But it was an easy win and was thus relatively boring. Jooheon and Hyunwoo spent a great deal of time on their phones, losing interest almost as soon as the ball flew into the air.

You, on the other hand, never took your eyes away from the game. You watched Jaebum almost obsessively, somehow proud and excited to be dating him again. It was like magic, the change that you’d both undergone.

You waited outside the arena for him, in the spot you’d agreed upon. It was late now, the cold air chilling your skin. You rubbed your hands against your arms and shivered subtly, your teeth on edge.

“Do you want us to wait with you?” Hyunwoo said.

“No, no,” you said, shaking your head, “you two must have plans. Go, be free!” They chuckled at your dramatic salutation and disappeared into campus. You clutched your phone tightly in your hand and glanced around your surroundings desperately.

Suddenly, the warm material of a varsity jacket dropped on your shoulders, smelling like Jaebum. You grinned hugely and held the material closer to your body. You turned and whispered, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He leaned down to kiss you, his hair still damp from the shower he’d rushed through. You brought your hands to his hair and felt it quickly.

“You’re going to get a cold!” you scolded.

“Relax,” he smiled. His hand found yours and you strolled together towards your dorm. You tried to hurry him along, seriously concerned about his health but he kept you walking slower. “I’ll be fine.”

There was a pleasant silence as you walked, your hand warmed by his embrace. You felt sure again, like you had when you’d first started going out. This was the relationship you remembered, the one you’d been fighting to get back.

“Hey,” he said softly, as if not to disturb the still air around you, “Can I say something?”

“Of course.”

“I just...I’m sorry.” He paused and collected his thoughts, trying to choose his words carefully. He’d been thinking over this speech all afternoon, even partly during the game (which ended up being, basically, a snooze-fest). “I know that I put our relationship aside for a really long time. It’s just that...I loved you and I knew you loved me, so I convinced myself that we’d be strong enough to get through this. Strong enough to be put aside. But I realized...no matter how strong a relationship, sometimes it has to come first.”

You nodded your agreement. He stopped and turned to you, watching your gaze for a moment. Seemingly finding what he wanted there, he leaned forward and reached into the pocket of his jacket that you were still wearing. From it, he withdrew a small box. You opened your mouth to object, but he beat you to the punch.

“This is not the ring you think it is,” he said hastily, smiling because he could all but read your thoughts, “It’s just...this was really important for me - figuring out how much you mean to me. I wanted something to commemorate it.” He opened the box and inside was a small gold band, dainty and simple. Not at all an engagement ring. A promise ring of sorts. He took it out of the box and revealed the engraving on the inside: first place.

“First place?”

“So you’ll know that this relationship, you and me, we come first.”

“Jaebum,” you cooed, “That’s so cheesy!” You took the ring as he gave it to you, slipping it onto your pointer finger easily. You hugged him tightly and he wrapped his arms around you.

“I know,” he whispered, kissing your forehead, “But I mean it.”

a/n: ahhhh i like this one so much - so angsty and then so cute~