#which makes sense since no one killed him but why the fuck is mei there????

[nadjabear]

I finished Hell's Paradise and while I did like it the ending was just meh but there are some aspects about the ending that make it worse the more I think about it so I just have to shut off my brain

[emmaiooo]

you're weak.

958 words

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ

6:43 PM.

“we’re still on tonight right?”

      “sorry. can’t.”

“why???”

“hello…?”

you huffed at the message, why is he not responding? it's not like he has some teen boy shit to do. opening your phone once again, you dialed geto. “yo it’s geto, leave a message after the beep.” you sighed, “you guys didn’t abandon me right..?” you whispered after the beep, then hung up and laid on your bed. 

NEXT DAY - 7:56 AM.

“morning guys!” you smiled happily at the duo, bringing your hand up to give gojo a high-five, like you always do. “oh uh, not right now y/n, we have class.” gojo shuffled away from your presence. you froze. “o-okay.” you gave him a weak smile, and turned around to walk to your class. as you walked away, you saw from the corner of your eye that geto was whispering something to gojo. damn, where is shoko?

4:12 PM

“here.” shoko handed you a drink as you were sitting on the stairs of jujutsu high. you looked up, shoko had a cig in her mouth as you grabbed the sparkling soda from her hand. “thanks.” you mumbled. you both sat there in silence, waiting for someone to say something. “seems like they’re ignoring you.” shoko said, finally breaking the silence. “where were you shoko?” you asked, opening the soda can. “had a bunch of tests for medical school, passed with flying marks.” shoko smiled as she made a peace sign next to her face. “hah, really? you definitely cheated.” you giggled, letting out a breathy laugh. “i’m…going to go to medical school now, so i’ll be absent more.” shoko said, taking a breath from her cig. “oh…okay.” you said quietly, looking down. shit. now what are you going to do? you wished you were in a normal highschool, with a normal amount of kids, so there's not only just four people in your grade. you don’t even have anyone to hang out with now, no one to talk to. even the first years shunned you. haibara said he had bad feelings from you, and nanami is just not talkative and listens to haibara. utahime didn’t like you either, and mei mei is only interested in getting money, which you had none of. stupid fucking curse. your cursed technique always scared people, you had sharp fangs and always had a pale look on you. you looked like you were cosplaying as a vampire to normal human beings. everyone hated you because you were scary to look at. 

FEW MONTHS LATER - 11:30 AM - THREE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS SENT TO TAKE CARE OF A SPECIAL GRADE CURSE; ONE SEVERELY INJURED.

“you’re so fucking stupid! can’t even do one thing right when we asked you to! this doesn’t make sense at all, you are a special grade sorcerer!” gojo yelled at you, you have never seen him this mad before. “sa-” you said, before getting cut off by gojo. “don’t call me satoru. it’s gojo to you.” he spat out, looking at you without his glasses, which had long been gone since the fight with the curse. “g-gojo, we still managed to kill the curse, and shoko can use rct on geto!” you tried reasoning with satoru. indeed, it was your fault that you made a small mistake on the mission, but gojo couldn’t be blaming the whole thing on you right? geto can survive this, the doctor’s said it too. you don’t get why gojo is so upset about this whole ordeal. gojo groaned loudly, “y/n this is why you can’t do shit. i’m going to talk to yaga about not having any missions with you anymore, you can go on missions by yourself. you’re a special grade anyway.” gojo rolled his eyes as he started to walk back into geto’s room. you sat there, letting all the words sink in. just one more year, one more year with them and you can finally leave. 

2 MONTHS LATER - 9:23 PM

“y/n! are you okay? where does it hurt?” shoko ran to you, “you’re so stupid, why did you go alone on this mission?” shoko was panicking, already trying to heal you after you called her when you were on the brink of death. “uhm…i…” your eyes were blurry, looking around and spotted two males. you could see the anger in gojo’s eyes and the horror in geto’s face. “did you exorcise the curse?” geto asked calmly. shit..you forgot geto needed the curse to eat. “no..” you looked away from him. “oh my god y/n!” gojo groaned and put his hand on his head. “the best thing you could’ve done for us was to trap the curse and wait for us to get here! but now we lost a special grade for geto to absorb.” gojo was clearly irritated. “b-but the curse could’ve killed me! how could you say that?” you cried, thinking about how unreasonable gojo could be. “you’re a special grade and still can’t seem to carry out a simple task, you’re weak.” gojo said with venom, making your heart hurt. “she did her best gojo.” shoko tried to reason with him, still healing your wounds, “and that was good enough.” 

the next day, your wounds were all healed, and your mind was clear. 

“y/n, you sure about moving to kyoto?” - geto

        “yea.”

“alright, we’ll miss you.” 

like hell they would, you thought to yourself. they wouldn’t understand no matter how much you explained to them your feelings. especially gojo, he was born as the strongest, the whole world power balanced after he was born. you could never compare to someone like him. 

get stronger.

the words rang through your head. 

get stronger. 

and you will. 

(honestly this did not turn out the way i wanted it, might get a rework.)

[millimononym]

Oh yeah i totally agree, more things i forgot to mention in the original post that bothers me about s3. The Sinedd family plotline

Here's the thing:

The original explanation/implication in s1-s2 doesn't make sense because the timelines don't match up. Sinedd is upset because the Flux Wars apparently killed his parents...but the Flux Wars ended before the glaciation happened. All of the Snow Kids were born during or shortly before or after the glaciation. The only thing that would explain this is if Sinedd was actually a little older than the rest of the team(which he is never stated to be). This would also mean he doesn't have the Breath of Akillian,which would actually make sense as he is only shown having it in s3 (though s2 also apparently forgets about the plot point that only kids born during the glaciation can have the Breath.... I dont know about Mark but Yuki is 3 whole years younger than everyone and she has the Breath as well...whoops? Maybe all of the kids born after the glaciation actually have it but that was never said and also wouldn't make sense since no one sensed it for 15 years)

So the thing about Sinedd being from a different planet makes more sense except..it doesn't. First of all, Sinedd said his parents died in the Flux Wars. The Flux Wars were said to be over at this point, so that's another plot hole for the s3 counter. The only explanation for this would be that the war was only on that planet and wasn't actually the flux wars ..then why did Sinedd say it was? Second, how would he know this in the first place? He was a baby when he was sent to Akillian, and there was no way he could have known where he originally came from, let alone the state his parents were in. There was no one to tell him. Third, even if he somehow knew the information about his birthplace ....did he just...ASSUME his parents were dead?? The whole thing Makes absolutely no sense. And fourth, giving him that pendant was absolutely a cheap, predictable way to tie him to his new backstory. That thing did NOT exist before.

And about the couples thing... in season 3 Mei is implied to cheat on D'jok with Sinedd for no apparent reason. She would NEVER do this, in my opinion. It is an absolutely horrible thing to do to someone and Mei is not that type of person. And the thing is, Mei and Sinedd never even had any chemistry before this! The only interactions they had before was Sinedd threatening her("don't ever do that again") then promptly proceeding to push her onto the ground (which was really painful for her and he had no regret about doing it and was smirking about it) and also hitting her with a ball to the stomach that one time(also extremely painful. I have been hit by a ball to the stomach before, it is not fun. Although he seemed regretful that one time, it still does not excuse hitting her in the fucking stomach on purpose.). Even if Sinedd and Mei somehow did have this blossoming beautiful friendship and romance in the span of 1 year that managed to convince Mei to be a horrible person and cheat on her boyfriend for Sinedd(which i do not believe would ever happen), they did not show it. Not even a bit. So why should the viewers believe it? They didn't put in any effort to make it believable and just said it happened. That is not good writing.

season 3 is inherently flawed(and a rewrite/how i would fix it)

warning:this post is LONG. like…really REALLY long. it took me so long to write that i think i genuinely lost my mind and patience half way through because of how angry i got so i kept writing more. you have been warned!also feel free to criticize and disagree.i’m not a writer,and i don’t know if i articulate my thoughts in the best way,but i tried.

so most of us agree that s3 is def the worst season of Galactik Football, right? The art and animation got worse, the editing was weird, and because the original writers of the series werent involved, the entire season was written like absolute shit: everything goes way too fast or way to slow, the characters are all assasinated or just act like braindead robots who do things for no apparent reason(aka because the plot is incapable of being organic so it needs to FORCE its characters into doing things they would never do if they had 2 braincells…) etc etc. But something i often find brought up as a positive is the concept of the season(NOT the execution) but honestly….im not sure i agree.

the concept of the season is that because of this new tournament, players with any kind of flux are allowed to play in any team! Now this sounds cool on paper…but in execution? not really. and thats not just because s3 is incompetent.

 I think this concept doesnt work because it has nothing to do with the snow kids. Theyre the main characters, they should get the focus. Every SK already has the breath of akillian and they care about each other very much,they also work very well together because of this, so they dont have a reason to recruit new people, especially ones with different kinds of flux. Now, theres a solution to this: the dreaded moment where a character(or multiple characters) decide to leave the team to make way for the new character. But theres also a problem with that: people dont like it when you replace beloved characters with new ones(especially ones as bland and uninteresting as Lun-zia). SO the solution to THAT would be to show what that last character was up to after they left,just like before,in the previous seasons. but then that doesnt fix anything AT ALL actually,because the problem of sharing screentime is still there. You see the problem? for every problem solved at least 3 more show up. You cant fix something that wasnt broken,aka the SK team.

the characters that leave the SK are Mei(shadows), Yuki(electras(a team that we never heard of before so theres also that)), and Djok(who joins Paradisia,the most basic,boring rivals and villains this series has ever had. they are actually so bland that the writers made them part robot to justify just how 1 dimensional all their decisions are). The 1 who joins the SK is Lun-zia, a basic,bland character with no personality who only serves as a way for the writers to introduce the 500th boring ass love drama that goes nowhere. wonderful. You would think that after they set up that idea earlier,and with how bland Lun-zia is,that they would at least do something interesting with the concept,right? WRONG. They do absolutely nothing interesting with the mix flux idea in every team. It might as well not have been there.

[The reason why mix flux teams arent allowed in the cup is very simple, everything makes sense because the world pre s3 made sense. A person can join any team they like,as long as they switch to the flux of the team they are joining because they will be representing THAT PLANET. Its also the reason why the pirates dont use flux even though they probably have it: they represent Shiloe, a place with no flux of it own. If they were to use the flux,they would be using a flux that another team already has and is using to represent THEIR planet. (OH and yet another thing about s3 that doesnt make sense , if the pirates can use the flux now, WHY DONT THEY?? jfc every time u think u hit rock bottom this season suprises u with how horribly thought out it is)]

this all isnt even MENTIONING the fact that the tournament was USELESS. actual time wasting for almost the entire season. Because later on, after Paradisia gets fucked, Harris(the ACTUAL villain that HAD setup unlike the generic,out of nowhere, dumbass, out of place oc that is “Lord Phoenix/Magnus Blade”(god thats such a stupid fucking name)) forces the flux society to hold the GFC 3 years early(cuz the cup takes place every 4 years and s3 is set a year after s2) AND THEY DO. so….WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THE TOURNAMENT????!!!

I am actually going insane.this season is so bad. never have i seen such misuse of plot,worldbuilding,characters and setting. You have no idea how long this post is taking to write because as i keep writing i keep finding worse and worse things to say and keep coming to even more horrifying conclusions. its like a never ending pit, full of plot holes and ruined characters.Someone was paid to ruin this series.Let that sink in. But i think i will just give you a rewrite now. A basic fix that whatever lobotomite who wrote s3 couldnt be bothered with. Its very barebones so feel free to add on or tell me if its shit

HOW I WOULD FIX IT: 

just drop the mix flux idea entirely. The cup would never allow it and in my universe the tournament wouldnt exist because it had no prior buildup and was completely useless. Instead of wasting time on that,empty romance subplots and annoying unfunny jokes, i would focus on the aspect of people leaving the team to join another that was never fleshed out. Also build up(in s3 Djok and Mei had their arguments basically off screen and the decision to leave was robotic and would absolutely never happen that fast, Also Yukis decision made no sense too and had no build up.)

The season would start with the GFC taking place 3 years early, everyone is confused and frustrated and unprepared. It would be a mystery until its revealed Harris blackmailed the flux society like he did in s3. Under the pressure, Djok would be an asshole which would then cause Mei to leave to join the shadows,albeit more slowly.Perhaps have her be manipulated/persuaded by Sinedd,he did always hang around people at their lowest points (Djok,Rocket).Plus i think Mei would be a lot more comfortable joining the shadows since she got used to coach Artegor in s2 which would help pursuade her. I always felt that the shadows should have gotten more focus for being the main rival team, and now we have a chance for that now that both Mei and Sinedd are there. Have the team interact! Show how Mei is adapting to the team/enviorment/flux. Also Mei and Sinedd dont need to date each other. Mei can be single,dammit. 

Mei leaving because of Djok(and also dumping him) would be devestating to Djok as he can never admit to his wrongs. Yuki takes her place, but ultimately decides to leave because of the pressure and stress Djok is putting her in as well(in s2,he was being an asshole to her just for replacing Ahito while he was unwell,can you imagine how he would be if she were replacing his ex girlfirend instead?). Mark ends up taking the defense position and everyone, especially Micro Ice chew out Djok for one last time,telling him to stop being a selfish prick and that hes pushing everyone away(SERIOUSLY WE DONT NEED HIM TO LEARN THAT FOR THE FIFTH TIME). Rocket is the captain again because hes responsible.

 We would focus a lot more on Yuki and Mei,as well as everyone dealing with the fact they will have to compete against their friends. Mei would be trying really hard to intergrate with the shadows even though she knows the smog is harmful to someone as emotional as her(maybe have her mom put pressure on her again because shes the defender in a new team which is bad for popularity,as well as Sinedd because hes just Like That.(yes,Mei is staying a defender in this.she has been established to be the best in defense and im not having Fulmugus pushed out of attacker position,hes still an attacker and captain)). Combine the stress of leaving her friends,breaking up with her bf,her mom putting pressure on her and joining a new team, and Mei is an emotional mess which isnt good because of the smog. Eventually she gives up and tells Sinedd (who she has formed a friendship with)as well s the rest of the team that she just cant deal with the smog and that she knows its bad for her,and that shes going back. Sinedd doesnt take this well because of his abandonment issues(i mean cmon…hes been abandoned by p much everyone except the shadows at this point) and basically starts a fight with her in the middle of traning. Sinedd blows up at her,calling her a coward and a quitter(because in his mind,the side effects dont matter,the most important thing is the tournament and he thinks shes using it as an excuse to abandon him) and Mei yells back at him that hes pushed everyone away just like Djok(OOO PARALLELS) which pisses Sinedd off more to the point where both of them are either on the verge of tears,or on the verge of fighting each other. The only thing holding them back is the other shadow players who have basically just been watching them like :0 this entire time. Thats when Artegor asks Mei if she wants to leave and go back to the SK. She says yes but doesnt know how to. Artegor gives her advice based on his own experiences(OOO PARALLELS EXCEPT WITH AARCH AND ARTEGOR THIS TIME). Mei would come back,but Djok is still cold towards her,except he regularly gets chewed out by the other SK for this which makes Mei feel better.

 That entire yelling fit that happened with Sinedd would kick off his arc. That plot point in s2 where Artegor is being responsible with the smog and is worried for Sinedds health wouldnt be wasted. S2 didnt have time to show Artegor being a better coach and person to his team but I DO. Have Sinedd confused with how much better he treats them(kind of like in the fanfic “consequences” on ao3) and also kind of upset because he doesnt know how being cared for feels like!! he just thinks artegor has gotten soft and weak because he actually cares about sinedds health now. The shadows are confused too but mostly just concerned with Sinedd instead. Like…”yeah its normal for coaches to look out for ur health…we didnt tell u because we thought you knew and were just cool with Artegors harsh teaching methods”. So OOPS!! Sinedd finds out what having a family feels like and he doesnt know if he likes it !! feeling vulnerable and having people and parental figures care about you? disgusting…hes crying now and it kicked off his personality redemption arc

As for Yuki, i dont know what team she would join,or even if she would join a team at all. She doesnt do well under pressure. I would focus on her feeling like her only role in the team was being a replacement, first for Ahito,then Tia, then Mei. Those kinds of thoughts are a BITCH to deal with alone, so i would have someone in the SK(perhaps Mark,since he knows how it feels) seek her out and reassure her that the team still cares about her even if she left.

MORE THINGS HAPPEN IDK HOW TO CONTINUE

now u might be wondering how im ending this…im genuinely sorry but i have no idea. i havent finished watching s3 yet so i have nothing to work with or compare things to…again im sorry but im not a writer. The entire point of this post is to show i think s3 sucks so hard its actually mind numbing. I spent what feels like hours writing this post and my fingers hurt. Feel free to add on because im so tired i have no more steam left. Just so u know,i could GO ON about why s3 is horrible,i could fill one of those 3 hour youtube essays just with that,but as stated i am SO TIRED. s3 ruined a good show…its characters,worldbuilding,setting, EVERYTHING. And why? because instead of giving this last season to the og writers and ending it deserved, they got some fucking rando who writes worse scripts than i did in kindergarden. They ruined it. There probably should have been a clearer conclusion to this post but WHAT IS THE POINT. We all know s3 sucks ! it just sucks so hard that none of us can quite articulate all of it without our fingers falling off. Again,sorry for not ending this properly but i have lost what feels like all of my patience with s3 inhabiting any space in my mind…and also my fingers hurt

[i-need-air]

"Dude" — Bakugou Katsuki x Reader [P.2]

Word count: 6.7k;

[ Part 1 ]; [ Masterlist ]

The new message plastered on your phonescreen earned a small smile from you. After a couple of days of sitting together at the same table due to Mei dumping your lonely ass for her babies, Mina suggested to text just to keep in contact more often. Something you did not expect was to be thrown in a group text with her and her friends.

They were absolutely hilarious; until recently they found out you had decent grades and started asking for your assistance, bugging you to join their study sessions, adding something about Bakugou being an absolute beast whenever he tutors them.

Pinky: Aww sucks that you're not coming! You're missing out Bakugou strangling Kaminari lmfao

You rolled your eyes in amusement. Why of course he'd be doing that.

What a strange little man. He really was; just as you started sitting with them, he'd mainly mind his own business, wearing his normal resting gremlin face and poking his food as if he was practicing murder just for the sake of it. First he orders you to sit with them, then he turns into an antisocial bastard most of the times. Yet, somehow, lunch with them was delightful and you found yourself looking forward to spend time with them, hear about their amusing stories and to top it all, making fun of The Great Bakugou Katsuki turned the whole event into a whole different level of fun.

As you weren't completely oblivious, his wandering eyes were really hard to miss anyway; you'd catch his gaze from time to time and he'd look away, annoyed, grunting like the man-child he actually was. Infuriating; how your heart skipped every single time it happened and how you wanted to have those deep crimson orbs on you again and again.

One thing you did not want to do was to leave Mei to the side; whenever she couldn't hang out she would inform you and you'd find something else to entertain yourself with; in occasions you did march in her workshop and sat your royal ass down without permission. Like as you did today, sitting in silence, you enjoyed the normal machinery sounds and her focused hums as she worked with you by her side. It was calming. The much needed calmness that you craved.

It's been a couple of weeks after the glorious incident and you have been noticing how your classmates, mostly the popular ones, started giving you the stink eye; your spidey-senses very much aware that it had to be Midori's doing yet the girl was keeping a very low profile. The hairs on the back of your neck rising whenever you thought about her next step because this level of radio silence was suspicious.

Between your growing interest into the blond and the dread related to your nemesis, Mei stopped her hard work to frown at you.

"Something's on your mind?" She probed, adjusting her goggles better on her head. "You're awfully quiet~"

Through a small giggle, you nodded but took some time to answer. "I guess?"

"Let me rephrase that." She cleared her throat dramatically "Someone's on your mind?"

A sharp gasp left your lips, realization kicking in; you had Hatsume Mei's full attention for the first time ever. In the workshop. Where her babies were! About to point it out, she narrowed her eyes at you, zooming onto you.

"[Y/N]." It's all she needed to say before you looked down, mind on one person in particular, not noticing how your friend smiled fondly to herself as she placed her hands on her hips; she chuckled lightly.

"Mind sharing what's funny with the class, Mei?" You asked trying to decrypt her expression still locked on you. She shrugged and shook her head, her wild pink locks moving wildly.

"OI, WERD—" the brash voice interrupted itself in reconsideration. The owner of said voice clicked his tongue and entered her workspace with indifference, looking around. "My gauntlets fixed?" He asked, curiously checking the lone couch in the corner, then turning his glare at her.

Ignoring his question, Mei's inquisitive gaze locked on him. "Are you looking for someone?"

It was as if she pressed a Total Destruction button because even the hairs on his head spiked up more than normally as he threw her a bloodshot glare.

"WHY THE FUCK WOULD I LOOK FOR [Y/N]?! I DON'T EVEN CARE WHERE—"

"I didn't mention [Y/N] at all though." she cheerily retorted, seeing his position stiffen even more.

"WHAT— WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT— WHO EVEN IS [Y/N]?!" Word-vomit took over; he was shaking at this point, panicked and cringing at his own mistake. "I'm SO FUCKING DONE with people giving me SHIT about that dumbass!" he kicked a table trying to prove a point but the girl was unimpressed.

"So you do know [Y/N]."

"YOU KNOW WHAT? FUCK YOU, GOGGLES! Fucking bothersome assholes always buttin' in—" his voice started fading into the distance as he walked out, fuming with nerves.

She blinked before screaming "What about your gauntlets?" through a smile.

"OH, FOR FUCK'S SAKE, GIVE ME—" he appeared once again, agitated.

A wave of lava filled your chest as she told you casually, even trying to copy the way he talked, making you laugh in exchange. You shouldn't feel that way, shouldn't you? It was ridiculous since he truly only insulted you and screamed in your general direction; well, it seems he screamed in every direction but it wasn't the point. The point was the warmth in your chest only gave you hope and the still functioning part of your brain begged to differ.

"He's a good guy." You whispered, suddently shy under Mei's knowing gaze.

And he called her Goggles too. You giggled fondly.

—

A few days later, wild gutural screams made you jolt from your desk in panic. You would've recognized that voice anywhere by now so you rushed towards the infirmary door just to find professor Aizawa and two cocoons made of his scarf behind him. His eyebrow was twitching and had a dark aura around him, eyes glowing menacingly but not directed to you.

"I'll fucking kill you—"

"But Kaccha—"

"Silence." The irritated and tired looking man said entering the room, dragging said cocoons behind him, knocking one in the door and pulling harder. You cringed, sure thinking he wasn't having a good day.

"OOF— What the shit was that?" The bundle started to shake uncontrollably which made you giggle. It stopped; halted and froze in place listening attentively as you tried to hide your laughter, trying not to annoy the teacher that seriously gave off a whole Done with life aura.

"You must be [L/N]." he pointed out, undoing one of the cocoons, a big fluffy broccoli like head appearing, big green eyes trying to focus.

"Yes, sir."

"They're beaten. Broken leg and broken rib. Can you heal them or should we wait for Recovery Girl?" The dark haired man went straight to business.

"I can handle that so no need to wait for her."

"Good. I'll leave them in your care." With a nod, he also released the blond, making him tumble and fall on his face. The poor guy groaned but bolted up with a raised fist.

"Behave." The older man said walking away, not really caring about Bakugou's heated muttering. The door shut gently and you found yourself looking at two boys; one fuming and avoiding your eyes, the other on the floor, staring up at you. His leg looked wonky so you fought back a face of discomfort before going to his aid.

"You." You pointed at Bakugou then at the bed. "Sit." A grin spread on your face as you used his words, meanwhile you leaned down to help Midoriya Izuku.

His eyes were absolutely intimidating, as if the boy tried to search within your soul as you helped him up.

"My name is [L/N] [Y/N] and I'm going to heal you today." He returned your smile with ease and nodded, his fluffy green hair shaking through the action.

"I'm—"

"Midoriya Izuku, yes. You're pretty popular, you know?" His face went all red, taken back by the fact.

Curses could be heard behind both; your hand was supporting Midoriya's weight as he only hopped ahead with his good leg, leaded towards a bed. Shuffling sounded too, still accompanied with another round of indistinguishable curses and grunts.

When the green-haired boy was securely placed, you turned towards the other, finding him sitting on the edge of the bed furthest away from Midoriya, pouting adorably.

"So you've got a broken rib, right?"

"What's it to you?" It was his turn to be a petty little shit and copy your words, still not looking up. His leg was shaking and his posture looked uncomfortable so it was not the time to get into your usual bickering.

"Lay down." He tsk-ed sharply. "Please." You pleaded, pursing your lips at his childish attitude. He finally snapped his eyes on you, just slightly widened in what could be surprise but you couldn't tell. All that mattered was that he ended up doing what you said. Though with more huffing, as if it bothered him immensely.

"Ya happy now?" He snapped.

"Very! Now—" you're taken back yet again by the intensity of those green eyes that looked between you and Bakugou with interest. "I'm gonna have to give you an anesthesic and adjust your leg back in place before healing you—"

Like a working bee, you ran around the infirmary getting your syringe ready, a little bit too nervous as two pair of eyes burned into your back.

"Where do you know each other from, Kacchan?" Izuku asked. Even if his leg hurt like a bitch, he couldn't help but be curious about the person Kacchan has been having lunch with for the past weeks; but what type of response could you get from the one and only?

"Mind your own damned fucking business!"

You sighed, irritated but the nickname didn't fly above your head. In all means, he shouldn't be screaming. He had a broken rib and he was screeching like an idiot. Didn't it hurt to even breathe?!

"Bakugou, you need to lay low and shut up."

There wasn't any time to play around; Midoriya behaved exemplary, just barely wincing at the syringe probing his knee but did not complain at all. The polar opposite of the blond beds away.

After letting the anesthetic to take effect, you moved towards the guy that's been living rent free in your head. He looked beaten up, had a bloody nose, open-wounded knuckles and shaky hands.

"Okay, I need you to relax." You whispered, trying to lift his tank-top but he stopped your wrist.

"The fuck yOu doing?!" his voice cracked momentarily while hyperventilating.

"Dude, take slow, steady breaths. In order to heal you I need to touch the skin closer to the wound." It wasn't entirely true but not exactly a lie either. After a pause for consideration he nodded but his eyes remained wary. "You've seen me do it before! Now show me where it hurts."

You needed concentration, focus, steady hands, rock-hard abs and tanned skin— Nooooo, [Y/N]!

All your might; all of it to act nonchalant and professional, to not fucking stare like a degenerate because he was absolutely built. But you couldn't help it. You couldn't help placing your palm on his ribs gently, instead of just the tip of your fingers as you normally would've needed. His sigh of relief made you incredibly giddy, feeling accomplished and fulfilled knowing you've done a great job for him. You also couldn't help healing his most visible wounds one by one instead of doing it all together in one single touch.

Were you flustered? Definitely and his attention only made it worse. You picked one of his hands and he spasmed away but ultimately gave in with a choked grunt; then grabbed the other and channeled your energy into his body.

Your heads were tilted downwards, both staring at how his knuckles healed slowly. What neither him or you noticed was how all his scratches and bruises all over him healed too, or the prying eyes of a third wheel that was already taking notes of your quirk.

"Okay." You whispered, not really wanting to let go. Your brain screamed Dishonor! but your heart skipped a beat, then another, then exploded when you lifted your gaze.

Crimson eyes looked at you in awe, wide and never this clear. They were shining too and you couldn't help but give his strong hands a squeeze, feeling in the calloused skin of his palm and wondered which one of you was shaking... He blushed then and opened his mouth, yet his brows furrowed as his focus shifted behind you.

"THE FUCK YOU STARING AT, PUNK?!"

Oh, yeah. Your other patient.

In a heartbeat you were by Midoriya's side and got to work, chest heavy and no words coming out of you. No snappy or cheeky retorts either, just trembling hands and warm cheeks. Only with murmurs you guided him through the procedure before healing him completely.

Dizziness overtook you; the downside of your quirk and something you've been training with Recovery Girl for the whole semester.

"That was amazing, [L/N]-san! Thank you!" The boy cheered, staring down at his leg in utter disbelief. His compliment made you grin, full and proud.

"Of course it was!" Your normal self surfaced.

"Fucking woo-hoo." Nevermind. Mood dropped and your face did too.

"Well, since you've been a good patient—" you start and ruffle through your bag "You get a lollipop!" Said candy was thrown in Midoriya's lap and he stared at it baffled. Meanwhile you turned towards the bane of your existence and raised a brow, shaking another lollipop in your hand. "You don't. This one is mine because I deserve it."

His angry, stupid and scandalized expression was everything you were looking for. Did you get out of your way to buy lollipops knowing Bakugou would end up in the infirmary sooner or later? Maybe. Was it worth it?

"What the fuck does that mean, dammit— I—" words caught in his throat as he choked with air, looking at the candy in your fingers with murderous intentions. Definitely worth it.

"Thank you?" Broccoli Boy asked but started unwrapping it, probably not to insult your kindness, and the whole interaction fueled Bakugou's anger. He snapped out of the bed and so did Midoriya, but one was marching towards you while the other just wanted to run away in fear, direction Exit.

"Gimme that shit!" He tried to grab it out of your grasp, but you moved away, laughing at his face.

"Midoriya has been nice and thanked me for the healing—" at this point he was boiling. "Say Thank you, [Y/N], you're amazing and awesome and—"

"LIKE FUCKING HELL IMMA SAY THAT, DUMBASS!" he was so sweet, the guy you liked; yeah, your sudden realization hit as he looked like a tomato ready to bite your head off and the only thing you could think was how adorable and sweet he was. All gurgling in rage, spitting cussed words left and right; dreamy, he was dreamy. He caught the lollipop from your hands, his scowl turning into a full blown victorious grin. So shiny... so bright... God, he was so handsome...

You're suddently falling in his arms in slow-motion, the world around you twisting and turning with him in the center of it all. Warmth engulfed your frame as you hit the most comfortable pillow of your life. His chest.

"Oi, [Y/—" he cursed, taking no time to place you on the bed with ease. "You okay?"

"W-What happened? Is she okay?" It seemed the famous Deku decided to remain for the spectacle.

"Get lost!"

Even if you wanted to pass out, his snaps wouldn't let you and with that thought you chuckled breathlessly. "I'm fine, I just need a nap after healing this much..." you assured into the air.

"Will you be okay, [Y/N]-san?" You turned your head until you spotted him and nodded through a smile but someone else answered for you.

"I see you took matters in your own hands." The sweet, gentle voice of your mentor put you to ease but scared poor Midoriya to the core as she appeared behind him at the door. Bakugou was still hovering over you in bed, not really knowing what to do. "You should leave [L/N] rest, boys." With tiny steps she walked around, not really paying any more attention to the scene.

The blond gave you a glance and pursed his lip, analyzing the candy in his hand. Through half-lidded eyes you saw him secure it in his fist and give you a nod. At this point everything was blurry.

"Thanks... or whatever." He didn't waste any time to bolt towards the door, his broad uncovered shoulders were the last thing you saw before closing your eyes in contempt.

"Kacchan, is [Y/N]-san your—?"

"MIND YOUR GODDAM—" the door shut close, making the room tremble and you giggled like a drunk fool.

—

Bakugou walked with his hands in his pockets, looking around with little interest as Dunce Face and Racoon Eyes blabbered without pause to breathe. Fuck, he was exhausted and the concept of shoving food down his throat sounded fucking fantastic. His insides turned and twisted knowing you'd be meeting them soon.

"Yo, isn't that [Y/N]?" Like a flash, his head bolted in the direction Denki pointed at and before he spotted you, the blond already wanted to punch himself in the jaw. Why the fuck is he acting like that? The answer faded in his mind as the scene unfolded in front of him.

—

"You're such a fucking bitch, you know that, [Y/N]?" Arms crossed, you placated the poor first year that was whispering behind you.

"Wow, Midori, so original." With a dead tone and rolling eyes from you, the white haired demon only twisted her face in disgust. "My feelings are hurt."

"Who do you think you are? You're a fucking nobody, [Y/N]! You think you're doing any good here? Go kill yourself!"

"And give you the satisfaction? No, not happening, you fork-tongued lizard." Your nails looked interesting.

Her pale purple eyes got ignited and her diminute frame puffed, like a rabid little mole-rat ready to bite someone. And just like that, she took a deep breath and started yapping and barking. "YOU'RE BETTER DEAD ANYWAY, YOU WHORE! YOU RUIN EVERYTHING! NOW EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT ME! ABOUT HOW YOU STOLE HIM FROM ME! DIE ALREADY!"

Sadly you didn't have any cookies on since you definitely felt like shoving one in her fanged, venomous mouth and patting her head for the effort. Your lips turned oh, so slowly into a grin, enjoying her reaction way too much.

"That's nice. Now can you like, I don't know, go back to making potions with your coven or some crap? Leave the kid alone—"

"This pathetic little shit was talking about me! ME!" her screech hurt your ears so you covered them before you turned to the kid to just see him standing there, petrified.

"Did you try to summon Satan and she appeared instea—?"

"I'M SO FUCKING DONE WITH YOUR CRAP, YOU—" she pushed you but grasped your uniform, a ripping sound following. "UGLY—" nothing prepared you to get attacked by her. "FAT—" she raised her palm. "WHORE!"

No way in hell you were going to back down, instead you clenched your jaw and got ready to block it and finish the fight. She never remotely attended to hit you in a somewhat public place as she was a careful witch, always brewing something in that rotten brain of hers and making sure to keep her sweet appearance on point for the public.

You blinked.

"That was insane!"

The scenery in front of you suddently changed with that one single blink and a tall blond mass of muscle just popped out of nowhere. It knocked the air out of your lungs for a moment and seeing him staring down at her with such hatred, holding her wrist high in the air made you feel immense relief, much to your own surprise.

Were you that tense before?

"Midori-chan, I didn't know you were this rotten." Kaminari appeared in your field of vision too but got ignored by the girl. Her only goal was to free herself from Bakugou's grip but he wouldn't bulge.

"Y-You got it all wrong, Bakugou-s-san!"

Everyone stood there silent, utterly disgusted with her attempt to even try to twist reality.

"Don't even fucking think about it." He warned and those words rumbled deep, threat held within.

"We heard it all, Midori." You shook in place, twisting to see Mina by the kid's side, patting his back. After being used to seeing her easy-going attitude it was only natural to be amazed by her somber tone and serious manner.

Why were you so relieved? kept creeping in your mind. Why?

He then threw her wrist out of his grasp and bared his teeth in her direction, globes so bloodshot scrutinizing her. He oozed rage and fury and was combusting in place. But he did not scream. Bakugou Katsuki did not scream for once when he started talking, instead he growled his words, each with care and clarity.

"If i ever fucking hear you talking like that to anyone ever again I will— fucking— break you." you could hear his teeth grit, the sound making you shiver both in terror and excitement. "NOW GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE! I BETTER NOT FUCKING SEE YOU OR HEAR ABOUT YOU EVER AGAIN!" she yelped, fluttering her tears away and scurrying so fast it could've been comical.

Bakugou then spun to study you, chest raising and falling heavily. You couldn't descypher his appearance at the moment; there was the aggravation, the outrage, the burning flame in his orbs but also... Uncertainty? Guilt? Shame? It wiped off his face before you could figure it out.

"We're taking him to talk to a professor about what happened." Mina's voice faded in the distance. He nodded at Kaminari, who was behind you, and got a nod in response plus a pair of thumbs up, and with that they were gone.

He still tried to control himself, but as soon as you parted your lips to say anything at this point, he snarled into the nothingness. "THAT FUCKING BITCH—"

"Bakugou..."

"FOR HOW LONG?" he then screamed at you, malice gone but tone just as rough and loud.

"For how long what?" You said calmly while also noticing and adjusting the ripped sleeve of your uniform. He ran his palm over his face, eyeing it too.

"For how fucking long has this been going?"

"Oh, her—" there was this pressure to say it out loud, to confirm what it really was, like saying it out loud would give it weight, importance...

"Her bullshit, yeah." he didn't force it either, thankfully.

"Since we were in middle-school." you shrugged, chest and neck aching without an apparent reason. You cleared your throat.

"Stop that— Stop that fucking shit. Don't do that." He got close to you in a single step and you had to look up at him, feeling so small out of a sudden by his side. You smiled, as you taught yourself to do whenever things got tough.

"Do what?" It came out shaky, too shaky for your own taste but he was so close.

"Act like it doesn't fucking matter! Like it's no big fucking deal!" His breath fanned your face.

"I mean..." you started shrugging again but he stopped the action, palms holding your shoulders in place as he gave you a pissed off look. "It doesn't really matt—"

"YES, IT FUCKING DOES!"

His fingers held you in the spot as he inspected your features with a clenched jaw and classic furrowed brow. Flames erupted in your ribcage at his words and you couldn't even breathe anymore.

You licked your lips, not sure if you could say the next words but the fact that he focused on the action too attentively gave you the push needed. "What's it to you?"

His breath hitched, fanning over your face as he stiffened. Deep crimson waved between your own orbs and your lips—

Those flames? The flames that burned your inside? They were spreading throughout your body rapidly, the epicenter at the spot where his thumb caressed your skin at the edge of your shoulder, just touching the start of your collarbone. Even through the layer of fabric you felt it, as tiny as it was, but he did not do anything, just stood there with red tinted cheeks in daze. Much like you were.

"Thank you for saving me today, Bakugou." You whispered and he just nodded, still enthralled with your lips. At least you knew he was somewhat still there with you. Involuntarily, you bit your lower lip, just a little, smiling softly, taking the smallest step towards him; the corner of his lip turned up slightly—

"[Y/N]! Director Nezu wants to talk to you too!"

The spell was broken; you yelped into him, grabbing his shirt for support and checked your surroundings. A waving hand caught your attention; Kaminari was signaling you to go to him then froze and started running away; little did you know someone was sending him a death glare.

You cleared your throat, still warm and fuzzy from head to toe and separared from the blond that caught you in his arms. Bakugou seemed to have noticed the position too because he jerked away a step back and looked completely out of place.

Ridiculous. And hilarious, looking anywhere but you and still made no attempt to move. Neither did you, instead opting to hide a giggle.

Because you felt warm, tingly, all while he was a complete gremlin, sweet in his own personalized way, in which he cared for you, he defended you.

And you're in disbelief because how come this guy, this adorable, blushing porcupine with anger issues made you feel so soft and fragile? How did you end up in this situation and how can you stay in it forever?

"What's so fucking funny, hah?" There wasn't any bite to what could've been an aggressive wording, just hidden tenderness. He fought a smile too and had the audacity to try to act annoyed. Sadly, you had to go, so you shook your head and took a step back.

Bakugou understood, so he nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"I'll see how later, ok?" You promised and he glanced at you from the corner of his eye. Now you had his ear in full view for you to see the tips reddened too. You want to melt, even coo at the sight, but you really did have to go. However, you couldn't leave without sending him a cheeky smile.

"Yeah, whatever." His jaw sinked a little in the collar of his shirt as he stomped away too.

—

The whole afternoon was spent talking to a counselor and to the principal himself about a problematic individual. The first year student was encouraged by your new friends to report it as they escorted him to safety and soon an internal investigation started; maybe, possibly because of you.

Why were you so relieved?

Because they listened to you. Because they believed you. Because you didn't have to prepare yourself every single morning to take verbal hits from all directions. Because you've been given a voice, unlike your old school where everything was brushed off; "It's your word against hers" and much more bullshit. No, this time was real and they proved it by listening to every single word you said.

You were dropped at your dorms just before 9 P.M. and it was too late to meet anyone at the point. But it wasn't important; the moment you landed on your bed a smile broke on your face, a few tears fell and you had the best sleep in forever.

—

The air changed. The aura around your class switched. Midori was clearly missing, which instantly turns a bad day into a fantastic one, but it wasn't only that. Students were called, one by one, again and again interrupting class and took hours to come back. Meanwhile the Divas in particular looked concerned, another great view to enjoy now and until the rest of time.

It was obvious why this was happening and you never felt this much peace and satisfaction. Even so, you started to feel overwhelmed because people suddently started greeting you. The people that weren't in Midori's toxic and constricted entourage.

They said your name! Without hatred! The school's goldenboy's name, Kaminari Denki, was dropped again and again too. It seems he just casually started mentioning what he witnessed the day before and you suddently felt the need to hug him tight. Gossip spread like wild fire thanks to him, after all.

Maybe you fell into a parallel universe but you couldn't bring yourself to care, you just waltzed on the hallways after the bell rang, wanting to go get some food, then hide at Mei's workshop for some recharging. Another part of you wanted to meet the explosive boy too, though.

In all honesty, it didn't matter where you ended. You were in an incredible mood.They talked to you and it was exhausting but nice!

Was this what it felt in horror movies when the demon-child with rotating head and projectile vomit was finally exorcized? Was the curse really released for good?

As you floated in the skies, high on life and what-not, you turned the corner just to run nose straight into a wall. Your brain decided to take a break for the day, it seems, and you genuinely hoped nobody saw you march head first into— It wasn't a wall, but a boy that gave you a raised brow and narrowed eyes.

"Watch where the fuck you're going, dumbass."

"Great to see you too!" you chippered, walking around him, knowing for a fact his attitude wouldn't be able to piss you off—

"What's with the idiotic expression?" Nevermind, he can go fuck himself. Yet you smiled because you're a Godsend angel and that's what winged saints do.

"Just really happy." You shrugged, walking away with ease and tried to bite a bigger smile off your face when you noticed him turning to walk with you. "What are you doing on this side of the campus?" You inquired.

"Came to walk you to lunch or whatever." Well, damn, that made you halt in surprise. He's behind you, staring out the window with disinterest but froze when he saw your dumbfounded face. "WHAT? IT WAS IN MY WAY, OK? Want me to leave? I can leave! You can fuck off—" You placated your hands and started laughing.

"No, no—" Your eyes glint. "It's really sweet of you." You said, awaiting his reaction with mischief.

He first choked on air, like one normally does, and then showed the worst allergic reaction to mere words. "SW—! THAT'S NOT— I'M NOT— YOU— I— NO—" in no time you're crackling like a deranged witch, adoring every single second of the show he was pulling. He was basically howling and your laughter actually infuriated him more.

"FUCK OFF!" Your amusement calmed down as you studied him, his puffed cheeks, red eyes avoiding you; with a few stomped steps he placed himself ahead of you but made no attempt to stand you up and go be a hermit somewhere else.

Bakugou Katsuki. Ash blond hair, broad back, pink ears... Swears like a sailor, is all bark and and all bite, except with his friends. Has a big heart...

"Something strange is happening." You find yourself saying.

"Hah?" He glances back.

"People have been acting weird." That stops him.

"They better not be fucking messin' with you—"

"No, on the contrary, they're nice to me..." you assured, voice faint as his comment repeated in your mind and your chest warmed up once again because of him.

They better not be fucking messin' with you.

"Good." He says and you can't bite your tongue.

"You're a good guy, Bakugou."

He gives you a face. "Hah? Now you fucking notice?!" But he's grinning at the end of the sentence, cocky and so full of himself and you'd lie if you said you didn't consider him incredibly handsome. Although it seems he did not get the message.

"No. I mean it for real. You really are a good guy." He grunts like he hurt himself in his own confusion, staring stupidly at you, slightly blushing. "You're gonna be such a great hero too." Mouth agape to try to answer, he just gives you plate eyes and nothing else. On the other hand you genuinely expected more explosive reactions but this seemed to have broken him for some good seconds. He stared and watched and stood there like an idiot in front of you, making you want to both bury yourself in your own embarrassment and laugh at him.

You opted to look up at the ceiling, flustered and amused, yesterday's events suddently washing over you; they never really left your thoughts but now all the feelings decided to come visit once again.

"Oi—" he better not ruin it. "Wh— The fuck you kissing my ass for?!" You breathe out, long and loud for him to understand how stupid he sounded and stalked ahead; only food could save the day he's been actively ruining and that's what you were gonna get. He followed your rushed steps with cusses and questions until he grabbed your wrist to slow your pace. "Slow down, dumbass!"

The issue was that his obnoxiously loud voice caught then attention of some students that were just minding their own business.

"Is that Bakugou Katsuki?" Earning a groan from him as if it wasn't his fault!

"—with [L/N] [Y/N]?"

"Are they holding hands?!"

"So they're really together?" You cringe in embarrassment.

"Is that a confession?!" No, no, absolutely not happening. You rush out of the scene, gut burning, the boy on your toes cursing and mumbling whatevers but you didn't reach far until he talks. At least he had the decency of stopping you at an empty spot before giving you a heart attack.

"This is when you confess— or some fucking— dumb shit like that." Even without seeing him, back turned and absolutely petrified, you heard the cocky vibration in his tone that was sprinkled with some light stuttering.

Son of a bitch. That prinkly ass cocky fuck. That absolutely handful of a sea urchin—

You checked the closest stairway, your nearest exit and pathway to your salvation but something in that attitude of his just made you shake as you covered your face and laugh.

"You're... You're the worst." You mumble in disbelief but the grin that almost broke your face got even bigger as he choked and inhaled sharply.

"Hah?! Wasn't I the fucking best a minute ago?!"

"I did not say tha—"

"Same shit!" He bites when you glanced on him through your fingers. Your skin was burning so hot it would've been mortifying if he didn't look just as rattled. The view managed to calm your nerves and spike them at the same time.

"You're the worst..." Finally uncovering your face, he takes in your grin and visibly calms his fuming yet remains just as discomposed. "—and I like you."

Still, you cover your mouth because the blond in front of you started combusting and it was glorious to watch. Hell, you felt like grabbing a snack and watching him go through all those feelings that slapped his face on repeat. First his eyes widened, the teasing from before forgotten, then his skin, already splashed with red transformed completely into the same color, so deep it in resemblance with his eyes, eyes that were reading into you intensely. He went rigid too and as time passed and passed and he did not move, the only thing left was to break him out of his misery. Yes, break him.

"This is when you say it back."

He snapped. "I— DON'T FUCKING— DON'T FUCKING MAKE ME SAY EMBARRASSING SHIT LIKE THAT!" Birds flew away in one mile radius, windows trembled, your eardrums cried for mercy and you hid your smile because even through deafening volume, Bakugou Katsuki did not deny it. A zoo totally high on crystal meth started a revolution in your insides and the feeling threatened to burst out at any moment.

This is it. This ball of emotional constipation was taking your breath away while cussing you after you confessed and all you wanted to do was to squeal... What have you become?

But you said nothing, just stared with your hand covering your mouth, taking in the boy that looked like he wanted to throw fists with you, bared teeth and all, and also simultaneously die of a stroke.

"I—" he tried, you had to give him credit because he really did try. Like a challenge, like he wasn't going to back down, he gave his best and not without looking like it killed him inside. "F—" cuss word got stuck in his throat when you couldn't help a scoff. Suddently the show comes to an end when he halts, gives you a glare and takes a deep breath. For a moment you feared he'd walk away. Oh, how wrong you were because deep down you had to know he did not back down easily.

"I like— you, too." Beautiful words came out of his mouth, looking like it physically pained him to say them. "THERE, I SAID IT! YOU FUCKING HAPPY NOW?!" He howls indignantly, crossing his arms, trying to hide his clear flustered self yet it takes him one glance at you to return to his self induced stroke. "Don't fucking make that dumb fucking face—" he struggled to exist. "Don't look at me like that, dammit!"

You giggle, relieved and happy and in all honesty about to cry a tiny bit. You couldn't help it, enamored with how blissful this moment was. Bakugou stops his grunts and watches you in awe, small, minuscule grin taking over his face and he clicks his tongue, trying to fight it.

And deflects, as always.

"C'mon. Have to walk you there before you get lost or some shit like that." You breathe in and nod, even thought you were perfectly capable of walking to the cafeteria as you've done it for a year and some now.

"Okay."

"You'd be starving if it weren't for me." You snort and roll your eyes, but beam like a lovestruck idiot.

"Sure thing, dude." It instantly earns a grunt, then a pout, followed by grumbles and heavy feet by your side. You check on him, noticing his shrugged shoulders and tinted nose and you almost trip with your own legs because of it. He doesn't say anything for the longest time, which you didn't mind as you yourself needed some time to shoo away the butterflies and rainbows that floated all around in your very empty head. It wasn't until you almost reached the cafeteria that he stops you by the arm and looks away.

"You— You shouldn't call your boyfriend dude, dumbass."

Remember the butterflies? Now they're radioactive and fluttering around, crazed and disoriented.

"Says the one that calls me a dumbass, Bakugou." You relent, thankful he took the initiative to answer the question that lingered in the air throughout all the walk.

A wild flush takes over him and he refuses to turn toward you, just observing from the corner of his eyes.

"It's— It's Katsuki to you, dumbass." And he drags you inside without giving you a chance to process it. But when you do, you grin like mad and whisper just as you were manhandled through the door, preparing yourself for his explosive gargling and screaming and silently apologizing to everyone in your general proximity.

"Okay, Kacchan~"

Note: Thank you for reading and for any sweet mesages! I read each and every one of them and they make me so incredibly happy!! I would like to point out that the phone editor switches around paragraphs and it's very confusing. I edited some mistakes and for now it's good but I'm scared it wasn't fixed since I edited before too and I encounter the same problem again... If you find something off, could you please let me know? I want the reading to be enjoyable for everyone after all. Thank you again! 💕

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 300: Days of Our Todorokis

Previously on BnHA: Hawks was all “hey Jeanist, wanna go on a road trip with me to my mom’s house?” Jeanist was all “you know it,” and so they hopped into Jeanist’s jercedes and took off. Hawks took a nap and had a flashback to his Dickensian childhood living in a abject poverty with his jerk mom and jerk dad, thinking heroes were make-believe until one day Endeavor arrested his dad and Baby Hawks was all “OH SHIT.” And then he saved a bunch of people, and the HPSC was all “what do we have here,” and blah blah blah, you know the rest. Back in the present, Hawks was all “well my life is currently in shambles, but on the plus side there’s no one bossing me around anymore so that’s pretty cool,” and then decided he was going to talk to Endeavor. Fandom was all “I can’t believe Hawks would side with his childhood hero over the man who burned his wings off and posted a video calling him a violent murderer who took after his abusive dad,” so that was fun and stuff. I can’t wait to see what piping fresh takes this new chapter will bring.

Today on BnHA: Our old friend Carbonation Carl tries to loot a Starbucks and gets his ass kicked by a senior citizen. Society is all “YEAH, WE’RE REALLY STARTING TO GET SICK OF THIS SHIT.” Old Man Samurai is all “this room won’t stop me because I can’t read it” and abruptly decides to retire, which, fun fact, is literally THE LEAST HELPFUL THING ANYONE HAS EVER DONE. Anyway so then a bunch of other punkasses follow suit, and while I won’t say that I’m actually starting to root for Stain to kill some peeps, just for the record I’m not not saying that either. Back in the hospital, Endeavor cries some tears because his life sucks, and then is confronted by his entire family, LED BY QUEEN REI, FIRST OF HER NAME, BACK IN BUSINESS AND LARGE AND IN CHARGE. Rei is all “fuck feeling sorry for yourself, we have a rogue Murder Son on the loose” and I swear to god I have never felt so alive.

so here we go! and just for the record, even though the last two chapters have been phenomenal, I don’t necessarily have any sky-high expectations for chapter 300, mostly because chapters 100 and 200 consisted of Mei Boobs, and Toadette and her horrific quirk lmao. so go ahead Horikoshi, what are you gonna pull out of your hat for this one

oh, back to this stuff again. sob

I guess there was only so much time we could spend having hospital antics and exploring Hawks’s past before we got back to dealing with the whole “the world has gone to absolute shit” issue huh, lol

omg

what’s with these bizarrely cute Noumus. why do I want to pet them

so the narrative text is going on about how people have been super paranoid about the Noumu ever since the USJ incident a year ago. so yeah, I guess the fact that there are now a bunch of them confirmed to be running around is really freaking people out even on top of everything else

wtf is happening here

what did this poor lil glass ever do to anyone. r.i.p.

OH MY FUCKING GOD

SODA SAM IS BACK ON THE LAM

tsk tsk tsk. my man has graduated from snatching purses to raiding cafes. going after that big money. this man has no business sense whatsoever lmao

OH BUT WATCH IT NOW!!

OH SNAP THE PEOPLE ARE FIGHTING BACK. WHATCHA GONNA DO NOW SAM

THIS MAN IS 172 YEARS OLD AND HE’S NOT HERE TO PLAY GAMES!!

WTF IS HE LIGHTING THIS THING ON FIRE OR SOME SHIT. GETTEM GRANDPA YEAHHHH HE’S CHARGING AT EM YEAHHHHHH

lmao so that was fun. and now we’re cutting to Wash!! omg. look at him

he’s so dedicated. too bad you don’t have a car like Best Jeanist. probably takes a while when you’re just running everywhere

you see?? you were too slow!!

NOOOO, GRANDPA. he defeated Pepsi Pete, but lost his life in the process. this is too tragic

anyway so the good news is that the cafe has been saved! but the bad news is, there really isn’t much of a cafe left. huh. I guess that’s one of the reasons why people are supposed to get a license to use their quirks like this

oh snap and now everyone is coming outside, and they’re none too happy to see poor old Wash over here

seriously Wash, get a bicycle or something. also the way this guy is gesturing so dramatically with his hand in this sort of “YOU SEE!! YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS!!” manner is sending me

OH MY GOD

HE SPEAKS. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS. IT MEANS JEANS PUNS ARE YESTERDAY’S NEWS, FOLKS!! MAKE WAY FOR THE LAUNDRY PUNS. CAN’T WAIT TO WATCH THIS ALL... UNFOLD

“the heroes had dwindled away” okay real talk you guys, it is literally only a matter of time before they press-gang the children into picking up their slack. I still don’t know how to feel about that, but it is happening one way or the other regardless. Child Soldiers 2 Electric Boogaloo. wonder if we’ll see a rise in vigilante action as well

OHO WHAT’S THIS? THIS IS A CHAPTER OF GRANDPAS HUH

-- no fucking way

WOW. WOW. WOWWWWWW

wow. so he didn’t do a fucking thing while the rest of the top ten were being turned into red mist in the previous arc, and now that it’s all over and they need his help more than ever, he decides... THAT IT’S TIME TO RETIRE. holy shit. “fuck you” doesn’t even begin to cover it my guy. you stand there and soak up those boos you coward

ohhhhhhh shiiiiit you guys. oh shit

the “I am not here” breaks my fucking heart for real though y’all. oh man. everything he worked for is gone just like that

(ETA: okay so a couple of the takes I’ve seen on this make it seem like All Might is somehow the bad guy here?? “this is what happens when society puts a bunch of glorified cops on a pedestal”, “finally the cracks in hero society are showing”, etc. etc. so, just a friendly reminder that this isn’t happening because of too much trust and a lack of critical thinking; this is happening because the villains killed all the heroes and broke a bunch of murderers out of jail. it’s happening because an organized league of terrorists succeeded in terrorizing, and so society is now understandably awash in fear and panic. like, it’s just wild to me that AFO is RIGHT FUCKING THERE, and yet week after week fandom still has their “IT’S ALL THE HEROES’ FAULT” signs still up on their lawns. BUT WHATEVER, MOVING ON.)

also though, so exactly how much time is passing here now? I wanted to go straight back to the hospital and see what happens with Deku and the Todorokis. please don’t tell me we’re jumping ahead sob. my aaaaangst

OH SHIT

STAIN. LISTEN UP BUDDY. I KNOW WE’VE HAD OUR DIFFERENCES, AND I STILL DESPISE YOU FOR CRIPPLING TENSEI AND TRYING TO KILL MY BEST BOY TENYA. BUT AS IT HAPPENS, THERE ARE ONE OR TWO OTHER HEROES OUT THERE NOW WHO I WOULDN’T MIND YOU PAYING A VISIT I’M JUST SAYING

LOL BUT IT ACTUALLY ISN’T THIS MAN, FFFFFF

sob. yeah I was talking about Old Man Samurai actually but YEAH. HEY THERE ENJI

also is this entire hospital actually run by characters from Super Mario Bros though. first Yoshi and now this guy, come the fuck on that is not a coincidence

lmao they stuck him in another one of these cavernous creepy hospital rooms

wtf is it with Horikoshi and these giant fucking rooms lately. Kacchan’s in chapter 298, then Tomie’s colossal house furnished with like one table and a TV, and now this. and the weirdest thing about it though is that “huge space with nothing to fill it up” is like the exact opposite of what you’ll usually find in Japanese homes lol

so now Enji is just sitting there thinking things like “my head is fuzzy” and “I’m alive” lmao okay. not quite all there yet, huh. I’ll give you a minute

I’m so fucking curious as to who his first visitor is going to be omg. either way it’s going to be interesting af, and either way fandom is probably going to feel some way about it but OH WELL

okay now his thoughts are getting more coherent! and he’s remembering Touya, and feeling regret for freezing up and forcing Shouto to deal with everything instead

!!! OH HERE GOES BRACE YOURSELVES Y’ALL IT’S ABOUT TO GET SPICY

NO TOUYA PLEASE DON’T CRY HONEY NO PLEASE

ohhhhhhh man

okay, I mean I didn’t expect you to, but so instead then you’re just going to do... what? lie there and wallow in regret and self-pity for the rest of your life? son you know that’s not how we deal with our problems here in Shounen

though also, I totally do get it though. honestly, thinking on it, I probably would have been disappointed with any other response. but so this is where the rest of his family (including his adopted son) come into play now though, because like it or not they’re all in this thing together. and so friends, I am once again asking you WHO IS GOING TO BE THE ONE TO VISIT ENJI FIRST

AHHHHHHH

KRANCH!!!! OMG AND THE OTHERS ARE SO TINY NEXT TO HIM THAT I ALMOST DIDN’T SEE THEM AT FIRST. IT’S BECAUSE THEY’RE TWENTY MILES AWAY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS REGULATION HOCKEY RINK OF A ROOM

holy shit I’m so excited lkjlklhlglkasdsjldfk

SDKFJLSKHLKJL

the way she has him by his collar lmaoooo. “lol nah you’re not going anywhere pal.” damn straight, siblings have to be ride or die in situations like this. banding together for survival. strength in numbers

OH MY STARS I’M JUST WARNING YOU NOW THAT I’M ABOUT TO DISSECT EVERY LAST REMAINING PANEL OF THIS CHAPTER PROBABLY YOU GUYS. WE COULD BE HERE A WHILE

love how Fuyu has absolutely no idea how to segue into THE SINGLE MOST AWKWARD CONVERSATION SHE’S EVER HAD, so she just GOES FOR IT in pure small talk mode like they’re meeting up for brunch somewhere

I KNOW IT’S A SMALL THING, BUT I APPRECIATE THAT THE FIRST THING ENJI ASKS IS WHETHER THEY’RE OKAY

lastly while I can’t wait for more of this delicious Natsu angst, I also just have to say that Enji has as much reason to cry right now as anyone on the planet. you can’t deny that being confronted by your not-dead-but-you-thought-he-was-dead son who’s all “SURPRISE DAD I GREW UP TO BE A MASS MURDERER AND I HATE YOU AND EVERYTHING IS ALL YOUR FAULT AND NOW I’M GONNA MAIM YOUR OTHER KID” with a side order of “EVERYONE HATES YOU AND SOCIETY IS CRUMBLING AND NOTHING WILL EVER BE GOOD EVER AGAIN” is enough to bum pretty much anyone out. there’s a Pagliacci the Clown joke here somewhere. BUT DOCTOR, I AM THE NUMBER ONE HERO

oh man lol he is seriously falling apart

damn. like you guys, I’m sorry, go ahead and cancel me, but I do feel compassion for the man. it’s therapeutic for me to see an abuser actually feel remorse and be truly sorry and want to change and want to make it up to his family. and it’s also compelling as fuck to read a narrative about a family that’s trying to grapple with that, because let me tell you straight up, as someone who’s done a version of that song and dance -- it is exhausting. it is a piping hot mess. it’s a gigantic mishmosh of extremely volatile emotions that all somehow all contradict one another. love, hurt, hope, anger, betrayal, resentment, attachment, longing. it’s something you can both be desperate for and also want nothing at all to do with. and attempting to portray all of that and write about it is a monumental task, and one which Horikoshi has done so, so delicately thus far, and damn but I appreciate it. anyway, so I’m here and I’m ready for my latest helping of Todoroki Fam Feels you guys

GASP

oh man. OHMANOHMANOHMAN. CAN IT REALLY BE. IS THIS THE REDEMPTION ARC OF CHAPTERS 100 AND 200???

LMAO SHE’S ALL “WE ALL FEEL BAD YOU JACKASS STOP CRYING ABOUT IT”

LAY INTO HIM REI!! SORRY ENJI YOUR PITY PARTY HAS BEEN CANCELLED IN FAVOR OF A “SO WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT” PARTY COURTESY OF QUEEN ELSA OVER HERE. THE PEOPLE TOOK A VOTE AND WE WANT LESS WHINING AND MORE ACTION

oh my god look at this lady folks

NOTE THE HAIR BLOWING IN THE NONEXISTENT WIND. NOW WE KNOW WHERE SHOUTO GOT THIS POWER FROM

(ETA: btw guys, seeing Rei handle this crisis like an absolute champ despite everything she’s been through is everything, though. I’m reminded of Hawks’s line last week about people sometimes unexpectedly finding liberation when they’re backed into a corner. like things may be shit but goddammit her kiddos need her.)

THE CHAPTER IS ALREADY ENDING SOB, IT’S ONLY A 17-PAGER THIS WEEK, BUT GODDAMN WHAT A WAY TO CLOSE

oh my god. oh my god oh my god. AND FUCK YOU HORIKOSHI FOR CUTTING IT OFF THERE sob. it’s like each week the wait for the next chapter becomes more painful. the Todofam is about to get real, and on top of that Hawks is gonna crash the party at some point down the line, and on top of that we’re still waiting for Kacchan to have his own heartfelt discussion about What The Fuck Are We Supposed To Do Next with his best friend who’s currently in a coma. all I want to do with my life is read about these three things, and all I can do is simply wait as they are portioned out in agonizing, addicting little installments every week

anyway! tune in next time as we answer the question of whether or not fandom will finally run its train of logic all the way through to its natural conclusion and somehow manage to cancel Noted Abuse Apologist Todoroki Fucking Rei. don’t act like it can’t happen. you all know nothing is sacred lol. anyways but I’m ready for anything lol, bring it

[clynnra]

Strongest Together

After that disappointing last ten minutes of the series finale, I didn't think I would ever write for my beloved boys again. But, thanks to binging lots of episodes of the show on ion since it started airing there (happy to post this story on one of ion's Five-O Fridays) and reading many fix-it fics, I had to do this for Danny. I will be forever bitter that our last glimpse of him ever was hurt (physically and emotionally) and alone on Steve's beach. So this is my way of fixing that sad image. There's background (literally, just a few minor mentions) Steve/Catherine and Danny/others, but this is a McDanno story. I didn't want to vilify Steve, since he should take care of himself and find peace, so I hope that comes across. Finally, eternal thanks to my beta PhoebeMiller for making my story way better than it was with her fantastic feedback about story line, diction, and all the grammar. She's an awesome writer in her own right - go read her wonderful stories! And always thanks to SheppardMcKay for inspiring me to post fic.

Steve and Danny. Danny and Steve. Steve left Danny. Danny was alone.

Sighing, Danny knew he had his kids, his family and the team. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt so fucking much. Days like today, it still hurt to breathe.

Danny didn’t begrudge Steve finding his peace. Or his taking care of himself. Hell, he tried to instill self preservation in his Neanderthal time and again. But when Steve finally took his advice and put himself first, it had ripped Danny’s heart to shreds.

It still hurt so damn much because of the way Steve left. The timing sucked. Just out of the hospital, Danny could barely walk even with his cane. This proved Steve was hiding the depth of his own suffering. Normally, he'd never leave Danny when he was injured. Danny smiled and remembered Steve raiding his house for cookies after he'd been shot in quarantine. The fondness bubbling up just about killed him.

More memories of this year from hell came back, and Danny had to sit down. He'd moved himself into Steve's house after Doris died because he sensed Steve needed him. The loss was just too much after Joe's death. When Joanna had died, Steve was there for him, cooking him eggs most mornings, claiming routine was good. Danny knew Steve was talking about himself, too.

They'd fallen into something Danny dared call a relationship when he was awake late at night, insomnia raging. He and Steve lived together. They ate meals together most nights. They walked Eddie, locked up the house and said good night like a couple.

A couple of idiots, Danny grumbled now. Or was he the biggest idiot? He'd made this huge leap into what proved to be a lonely abyss.

What hurt the most was Steve pretty much rejecting the idea of the two of them growing old together on that beach. Danny didn't know for sure when his best friend would return from his Kung Fu adventures. He'd only counted on Steve coming home at some point. Now, when he replayed their last conversation, the dagger twisted in his chest even more.

The sad fact was - Danny loved Steve. Not just like a friend. He loved him like I want to spend the rest of my life with you even though you drive me crazy, you caveman. He never told Steve he was in love with him. Danny was scared and convinced such an admission would be suicide. Because he feared their friendship would be over, was so sure of it, in fact, that he kept all of his feelings locked away. He didn't want to fuck up the best friendship he'd ever had.

Not to mention, Steve was straight. He'd never given Danny any hint that he was interested. Unless you counted Steve's octopus arms and his total disregard for Danny's personal space. Which Danny did not dwell on. No way could he let himself go there. That's why he'd pushed Steve into dating. First Brooke and then the vet. Neither had really worked out, and Danny did not allow himself to question why. He would have kept on searching for the perfect mate for Steve, too, if he hadn't left. Even though Danny wanted it to be him.

No one knew Danny's secret. Although he mostly dated women, he had a few relationships with men while at Seton Hall. He kept his attraction to men close to the vest. He'd thought his college experiments were in the rearview mirror until the giant goof stole his crime scene.

To distract himself from the heartbreak over Steve’s dating, he’d focused on reconciling with Rachel in a vain attempt to stitch his family back together. Yet, no matter how hard he tried, it just didn’t work since he was in love with Steve. When they finally figured out they were better as friends, Rachel shocked him with advice to stop dithering and tell Steve. He was so taken aback by Rachel’s accurate insight into his heart, past all his bullshit, he’d gone to that bar and met Joanna. Like so many other things in his life, hooking up with her to forget Rachel and Steve had ended all kinds of bad. Spectacular didn't even cut it. Joanna's death wasn't his fault. This he knew. But he couldn't stop feeling guilty. She was with him in the car because of how he'd chosen to mend himself, and she'd died after everything he'd done to try to save her.

And of course, there was Catherine. He envied her for having Steve the way he wanted. She knew every inch of him. She knew so many more secrets.  Steve had opened his heart to her - and what had she done? She'd pulled a Doris. More than once. And the idiot took her back.

Weren't they a pair? Danny knew he was a hypocrite for being angry with Steve about getting back with an ex time and again. He didn't care. He couldn't help feeling upset that Steve was with Catherine (probably this very minute) and not him.

+++++++

Three months had passed since Steve left, and Danny’s PT was coming along well. He texted Steve a few times a week to check in, while Steve returned his texts within a couple hours. They’d spoken on the phone a few times, and Danny lost himself in the comforting cadence of Steve’s voice. Their calls ranged from about 20 minutes to almost an hour, and their talks were nice. But during one of their conversations, as he listened to Steve chatter on about what he did in whatever destination he was currently staying, Danny realized that Steve’s journey to find himself didn’t include him. Steve didn’t need him like Danny needed him. And that revelation punched the breath out of him. He tried to cover it, but Steve, with his keen SEAL senses, heard it.

“Danno, you okay?” Steve interrupted his story about what he saw in Scotland.

“Yeah, babe, I’m ok. Just still get tired sometimes. Had PT this morning and energy kinda zapped. You mind if we pick this up some other time? I’m gonna have a lie down.” Danny chewed his lips as he lied. It was a white lie, but still.

“Ok… you take care buddy. I love you.” Steve said with a note of concern.

“You too.” replied Danny. He couldn’t tell Steve he loved him on their calls because he didn’t want Steve to hear how in love with him he was. Texting “love you, too” was fine, but when he said it, he felt his heart in his throat.

Putting his phone down, Danny glanced around himself. He was still at Steve’s house sitting on his couch. Eddie was laying on the floor nearby. And Danny came to a decision. Steve was out finding himself, and Danny really needed to do the same. He had spent so much of the past ten years being part of Steve and Danny that outside of being a father to Grace and Charlie and being on the task force, he‘d kinda lost himself. He felt like his life wasn’t making sense after deciding to just be friends with Rachel and then the tragedy with Joanna. He knew that in order to move on with his life, he had to make a change. He would always be there for Steve, but it was time he was there for himself.

A few days later, Steve called again. This time he was in Ireland. He told Danny about the beautiful scenery there, and after he was done, he asked, “So, what are you up to now, Danno? PT almost done right?”

Danny took a deep breath and started. “Funny you should ask that. I, um, I’m gonna move back to my place, Steve.”

There was a moment of stunned silence.

“Why? Danny, is something wrong?” Steve replied, trying to keep a lock on his emotions.

“No, babe.” Danny grimaced and continued. “I just, uh, think it’s time to move back. You know, you’re out there trying to find yourself and your peace without me…”

Steve gasped, “Danny…”

Shaking his head, Danny kept going. “and that’s fine, Steve. I’m not trying to make you feel bad. You deserve to find the peace and happiness you need. I just need to find myself again a bit. After Joanna died, I felt sorta lost. And I was starting to make sense of my life again before Daiyu Mei swooped in…” He didn’t mention and when you left me. Danny shook that thought from his head.

“So, I need to do this. To remember who I was before I was part of Steve and Danny…” he finished with a fake chuckle.

“Danno, are you sure?” Steve asked, a note of sadness in his voice.

Danny nodded even though Steve couldn’t see him. “Yes.”

There was another moment of charged silence.

“Ok, Danno, I got it. You need this, so I got your back. Whatever you need. Hey, I gotta head out, but I’ll call again, alright?” Steve sounded like he was happy for Danny but wasn’t quite believing it.

Danny replied, “Sure. Bye, babe.”

Steve said clearly, “I love you, Danny.”

“You too.” Danny croaked out. When the call ended, he dropped his phone next to him and covered his face with his hands taking in a few deep breaths.

It was time to find who he was again without Steve.

+++++++

Danny finally completed his eight weeks of PT, and his doctor okayed his return to light work aka paperwork. He still had to check in each month since it was his second gunshot wound in his chest in two years. As part of his process to return to Five-O, the governor mandated Danny to complete visits with his therapist since he survived such a traumatic experience. At first, he was annoyed he had to go to therapy again; he’d rather eat pineapple on his pizza. But during the couple of months of sessions about his kidnapping and near death at the hands of Daiyu Mei, he found himself working through various issues including the death of his partner Grace, his guilt over Matty, his complicated relationship with Rachel, Grace’s kidnapping and almost fatal car accident, Charlie’s paternity and medical condition, as well as other work related stresses and traumas. The governor’s directive for Danny’s therapy was once a week for two months, but he continued past that, and for a few weeks, he was going twice a week. He just unloaded whatever was burdening his mind and heart. He felt stronger for it. He even told the therapist about his feelings for Steve, and she suggested that to find closure or peace about it, he should consider discussing his feelings with Steve. Danny knew she was right but wasn’t ready yet. However, talking things out gave him the perspective he needed.

With the end of PT and his ongoing therapy doing well, he told the kids first he was moving out of Steve’s house. They were shocked, Tani near tears while Junior took the news stoically. But once Danny told them why, they were very supportive and helped Danny move to his now renovated place over two weekends. Lou, Quinn, and Adam also chipped in their time to help with Danny’s move. Since Junior moved in with Tani, they figured out a schedule of who would check on Steve’s place and when including the upkeep of the grounds. Junior and Tani told Danny once he was cleared for regular work, he could share some of the maintenance duties. They'd take care of it for now. Tani joked that maybe they could get Kamekona to hire some of his family. Danny rolled his eyes and smacked her. None of them had enough money for that enterprise.

Eddie was another story. Poor guy was just adapting to his master being gone. Now they were relocating him. Danny decided Eddie would live with him, and Junior would take him as time allowed since he loved Eddie, too. It was a good arrangement, as the loyal dog loved each of them. And he enjoyed the extra attention he was getting.

Danny felt like things were starting to get back to the new normal without Steve while he was at work doing paperwork and running point for any cases from HQ if needed. He surprised himself that he got the hang of the HQ computer table after getting lots of help from the team. Quinn was especially patient, and he appreciated it.

While Danny settled back at work, he still kept in contact with Steve. His best friend would mostly text him to check in with how things were going and send some pictures of gorgeous landscapes and appetizing food. When they did talk on the phone here and there, Steve would catch Danny up on things with him. Danny winced when Steve spoke about Catherine, but tried to sound as supportive as possible. He had to keep reminding himself that if Steve was happy with her, he would just have to accept it. And during one of these phone calls, Danny promised himself that he needed to start dating again. He may be in love with Steve, but he also owed it to himself to move forward and not spend the rest of his life pining after his best friend who was happy with the love of his life.

In a bold move, he asked Adam to be his wingman, explaining he needed to shake things up. He wanted to reclaim who he was before Daiyu Mei and even before his last disastrous attempt to get back with Rachel. What he left unspoken was his need to reinvent himself without Steve.

Adam didn’t even raise an eyebrow and had replied, “You got it, brother. You were there for me when I was lost without Kono, so I’m here for you.”

Danny was so grateful. They went to nice bars, the types professionals patronize. Danny did score dates with some doctors, lawyers, and accountants. He surprised Adam by dating both men and women, but after that initial shock, Adam supported his choices, even offering to set Danny up with friends. He even went on a few double dates with Adam and Tamiko. The companionship was nice, and the sex even nicer, but Danny didn’t feel like any of these people would help him get over Steve. At least he felt like his life was more balanced and not just focused on Steve all the time.

When he first mentioned to Steve that he was dating again, there was a silence long enough that Danny thought the call dropped. He could easily FaceTime Steve but just could not find the courage to see his beloved face again. The phone calls offered distance, a buffer. And Danny needed it so he could continue to support Steve and survive his updates when they included Catherine.

Just when Danny was ready to ask his best friend if he could hear him, an exaggeratedly upbeat Steve jumped back in.

“Hey, buddy, I’m glad you’re getting out there again. You deserve to be happy, too.” His voice cracked on the last bit.

After that last odd tone from Steve, they continued like normal when Danny filled him in on the latest with Grace and Charlie. The rest of the call was pleasant with some of their usual teasing.

But on the next call when Danny mentioned how he and Keith went on a double date with Adam and Tamiko, Steve choked and started coughing on the phone.

“Hey, babe, you ok? Don’t choke on the butter in your coffee, alright?” Danny joked.

Steve got his breath back and said, “Sorry, went down the wrong tube. Wait, so you’re dating guys now, Danny?”

Danny didn’t care for Steve’s tone, but answered, “Well, I did date a few guys back in college, but just stopped once I met Rachel.” He didn’t mention and once I met you. “Is that gonna be a problem for you, Steven?”

Steve quickly responded, “Of course not, Danny. I’m just shocked you never told me this in the over ten years we’ve known each other. And for the record, it’d be hypocritical of me if it was.”

Now it was Danny’s turn to gasp. “Wait, when the hell were you dating guys, Steve? In all the years we’ve been together, you’ve only talked about women.”

Sighing, Steve said, “Well, I didn’t really date guys, Danny. When I was deployed, I helped my teammates out like they helped me. So to be more specific, I’ve had sex with guys, but not actually dated them. I enjoyed the sex and was even attracted to some of the guys, but DADT kept me from being open about being sexually attracted to men.”

Danny couldn’t help himself. “Did Cath know?”

Steve chuckled briefly. “Of course, man. I told her I slept with several men and was attracted to some. She was cool with it since she had some bi friends and family.”

Danny admired Steve’s honesty, and he wanted to be honest, too.

“Steve, dating these men and women - it’s nothing serious. Don’t get me wrong, the company and sex are great, but they don’t compare to you.”

It sounded like Steve sniffled on the other end of the line. His voice was slightly hoarse. “And just so you know, partner, no one will ever replace you. No one can. Hey, we gotta grab some food…”

Danny teased, “Try not to ruin your food with pineapple, you animal. Enjoy your meal.”

Snickering, Steve added, “Copy that.”

Steve’s voice became sincere again. “I’ll call you again soon, Danno. I love you.”

Automatically, Danny replied, “You, too.”

Steve’s breath hitched before saying, “I miss you, Danny. Talk to you soon. Bye.”

Danny exhaled, “I miss you, too. Bye, babe.”

Once Danny placed his phone down, he was like, good going Williams. You almost told him you’re in love with him while Cath was right there. Don’t be an idiot next time.

+++++++

It had been a week since that eye-opening phone call and about six months since Steve left, Danny had been back to regular responsibilities at work for about a month. His therapy sessions were twice a month now. He was still seeing people but didn’t feel the desperation to date like when he first started a few months ago. He felt confident in his own skin again, feeling better both professionally and personally. But he was still in love with Steve. Danny finally decided. Fuck it. I’ll always love the maniac, I just have to live with it.

And it came to a head during one of their phone calls almost two months later.

Danny couldn’t keep himself from asking, “You happy with Cath, Steve?”

There was a pause before Steve said, “I wouldn’t know. She left about two months ago on another CIA assignment. She offered to come back when her job was over, but I told her that I need stability and consistency and her work didn’t provide that. I said I was proud that she found her way and happy for her that she loved her job. I told her that I would always love her, but she deserved someone who was in love with her.”

Danny’s heart sped up with hope. “So, what are you saying, Steve?”

Steve pushed air through his nose. “I’m saying that I couldn’t commit to her because I’m in love with you.”

“Steve…?” Danny’s voice shook with emotion.

“Danny, every time I told you I love you when we ended our calls, I meant it as I’m in love with you. You never repeated it to me so I assumed you didn’t feel the same way. But once you told me you dated guys, I got hopeful again. And after that phone call, I stopped sleeping with Cath. And she knew something was up with the no sex but never called me on it. That’s just not what we do. Things are easy for us, and when they’re not, we still pretend that they are. But my heart couldn’t just be satisfied with what was easy and familiar anymore. I needed the challenge and passion. I need you.”

Danny confessed, “Babe, I’m in love with you, too. I just couldn’t tell you since I thought you had your happily ever after with Catherine. When I figured you guys were permanent, I dated to move on without you. But it’s no use, Steve. I want you. I want everything with you.”

Choked with emotion, Steve whispered, “Danny.. I’m coming home.”

“I’m so glad, babe. I love you.”

+++++++

Two days later, Danny was at baggage claim. He spotted Steve immediately, tall and gorgeous with a full beard and short but longer than military regulation hair. Steve saw him too, and his face lit up with a huge smile that crinkled his eyes. They moved quickly through the crowd to each other. As he got closer, Danny spotted the specks of white in Steve’s hair and thought it just made his big goof even more handsome. Finally, they were in front of each other. Dropping his duffel, Steve wrapped his arms around Danny hugging him tightly. He tucked his face into Danny’s hair and inhaled deeply.

“Danno, I missed you so much.”

Danny just squeaked out a “me too” while he hugged Steve. He was too busy inhaling the travel worn scent of Steve. He couldn’t get enough of the man he loved. He rubbed his face into Steve’s chest, reveling in the physical presence he had wanted so much all these months and at long last had.

They moved so their foreheads were resting against each other. Breathing the same air, not aware of the bustle of the people around them.

Danny broke their peaceful bubble by moving his face away so he could look into Steve’s eyes. “Did you find the peace you needed, babe?”

Huffing and licking his lips, Steve shook his head. His left hand held Danny’s face as his gaze never wavered. “Not yet, but I’m working on it. I know I’ll get there with therapy and what I need most.”

Danny tilted his head questioningly at Steve.

“You.”

Then Steve kissed Danny. Eyes fluttering closed, Danny returned the kiss. Like this thing they were doing happened every day.

Feeling a surge of joy, Danny broke the kiss with a smile. Smiling himself, Steve opened his eyes.

“I think I need you to repeat yourself, I didn’t quite hear you,” Danny said with a smirk as he pulled Steve down again. This time, the kiss was firmer. Danny nipped Steve's bottom lip and he opened his mouth. Always the control freak, Steve cupped Danny's face so he could move him where he wanted. He hummed contentedly as he tasted Danny. A couple times, their teeth clacked, but their tongues soothed the minor mishaps. The frantic exploration continued until they needed air.

Eyes opening and panting a bit as their lips parted, they grinned at each other goofily.

“I think we gave the airport enough of a show, babe.” Danny joked.

Steve chuckled. He sobered a bit and said, “Danny, I love you.”

Danny smiled brightly as his heart thudded happily. “I love you, too, Steve. Let’s go home.”

“And where is that exactly?” Steve asked mischievously.

“Wherever you and I are together.” Danny replied quickly.

Appeased, Steve grabbed his bag and slung it on his left shoulder. He pulled Danny under his right arm as they walked to the car.

Danny with Steve. Strong on their own. Strongest together.

FIN.

[grimmywrites]

So, about Infinite Darkness...

I’m gonna try to be as succinct as I can (I failed) about all the problems I had with it, but my list is pretty long... Yes, this has spoilers. Let me state upfront: if you’re not a hardcore RE fan, you can skip the show. Below I’ll tell you why.

Story: What a mess. Honestly, they turned me off right at the beginning with all the military stuff. It’s the same reason people didn’t like Chris’ campaign in 6; didn’t they learn anything from that? So, the story wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever seen. Honestly, it had more plot holes than anything and so many points where I went: “I don’t care about this.” Again, it was a jumbled mess. Capcom, hire me and I’ll do better, I swear. Let’s just sum it up by saying it’s a rehash of things we’ve seen SEVERAL times in the series before. If you’re gonna do it AGAIN let’s make the story unique and interesting. Oh, there are shady people in the military that want to use bioweapons in war? Okay, we’ve known that since the first game. We’ve seen it time and time again. Look to re8′s ending for example: the BSAA are now starting to use engineered soldiers - THAT was a reveal that was far more interesting. The way it was addressed and overcome in this show was just... so lackluster. Ultimately, it just felt like this entire thing didn’t need to happen. It changed nothing, it impacted nothing, and I’m aware that it really couldn’t since it was after re4 and before re5. There was just no lasting point and all the ‘themes’ (if you can call them that) made absolutely no sense, but I guess I’ll get into that with the characters? Pacing: Absolutely god awful. One minute we’re in the White House fighting zombies then I blink and it’s over and I’m like: Oh, we’re done? Another we’re in a sub and then I blink. Oh, that’s over, too. Also, the creators must’ve taken a page from the last couple of seasons of Game of Thrones (which is an abysmal idea, don’t fucking do that) because with a few cuts here and there we went from Guam to China back to DC. Guess everybody learned how to teleport so they got exactly where we needed them to for the “climax”. Let’s talk about that climax: There was none. Let’s look at Degeneration and Damnation (no I won’t talk about Vendetta). Both had their weaknesses but Leon and the climaxes were BADASS. Leon doing parkour in Degeneration? Leon going against Lickers and the huge Tyrants in Damnation? Those were amazing scenes. He did a few cool things here and there but nothing that got more of a laugh out of me. My man is coming off re4 where he rampaged through a village, a castle, and an island of mutated creatures to save one girl. C’mon now. Characters: By now (if anybody is even reading this rant), you’ve noticed that I’ve talked a lot about Leon. But what about Claire? Yeah, they lied to us about them working together. She got sidelined again. A lot of people are upset about this -- and yeah, it sucks because I do love Claire. Leon has just happened to be my favorite since 1998 so I wasn’t as heartbroken. That doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed, I’m just not very surprised. Leon - My main problem with Leon is Nick, his voice actor. I’m so sorry for all those who like him, but he just isn’t good enough for me. Paul Mercier (re4, Degeneration, Darkside Chronicles) and Matt Mercer (Damnation, Re6, Vendetta) would have been more appropriate. Nick tries his best, but he’s just too soft sounding to be post-re4 Leon. This is a man who is quipping one-liners left and right a couple of years ago. Now he’s barely smiling and doesn’t feel confident at all, and I think a lot of that is because of his portrayal. There are times where the lines hit, but more often than not they fall flat. I never felt that way with Paul who is my favorite Leon or Matt who gave emotional performances every time. Also, his decision at the end? I can understand it, but explain to Claire! Claire - I like Stephanie as Claire, I have no problems with her. She makes her sound tough and ready to do what she thinks is right. Unfortunately, the story completely sidelines her and makes her role obsolete. Everything she uncovers (because that’s her role apparently, just there to Nancy Drew) is already told to us through flashbacks and other characters. Why even have her? Was it just to show us WHY her and Leon don’t talk often? A waste. Shen Mei - I don’t care. I felt nothing for her. They tried really hard, but they just failed to flesh these new characters out and when her time was up I once again went: Oh? That’s it, then. ‘Kay. I think I laughed a bit, sorry girl. Her whole plotline was to get that chip in Leon’s hand, nothing more. Jason -  I don’t care. A character I thought I felt sorry for with his ptsd but nope. Once his story unfolded - messily, I might add (I hate the REPEATED flashback shit. Tell me once and stop teasing me.) I just went... okay, what the hell is your plan? To spread fear? ‘Kay. It was dumb and made no sense. What, he wants everyone to feel terror so they know? It needed to be clarified. It’s like they couldn’t figure out more synonyms for fear and terror. So, what? It helps keep Leon from going public with the chip and that information? Because he knows it’ll just cause mass hysteria? And then you’ve got Claire’s side - she’s not an agent and she believes the people have a right to know. They’re both right, but there’s no goddamn communication between ANYONE in this show. I just felt exhausted by it, nothing else. Not to mention it’s useless angst because of the plot of Degeneration. Wilson - Our bad guy. Let’s just sum up really quickly in case people were confused by the plot: He was putting infected soldiers into war zones so that even after they died they’d kill anybody involved, then he’d bomb the area and clean up the evidence. These soldiers didn’t show any symptoms because they had inhibitors that kept the virus at bay until they died, so they had to take regular shots to stay human. He’s the one who gets the zombies into the white house so that he could blame it on China and get the US into a war with them. That way he could send in his soldiers and infect the populace. From there, he’s the only one with the cure so he could rake in LOTS of money selling it to the world. AKA: he wants to use the US military to infect everyone so he can make a profit. He gets infected by Jason and gets away... then meets up with someone who gives him an inhibitor. This someone is working for Tricell, the big bads of re5 who work under Wesker. So it leads right into the fifth game. That’s all he is, a tie in and yet another example of someone in power trying to profit off the viruses of the RE world. Honestly, nobody else is worth mentioning. Animation: They’re getting better at it. Leon and Claire looked especially pretty, but there’s still a stiffness here and an issue with everyone’s mouths while they talk. I want to praise how different SOME of the characters look - the president and his aides all look appropriately aged and grizzled and distinct. Same with Jason. Other characters (side characters mainly) kinda look generic. Shen Mei for example isn’t very distinct. I mean, her grandpa and brother (both one scene wonders) were more realistic looking than she was. Even Claire - they gave her a bigger nose and made her look more in line with her Revelations 2 model (thank god I love that model). Movement was pretty fluid, I wish we’d seen more fighting and cool action -- though not to the extent of Vendetta. Maybe that’s what they were trying to avoid, but it didn’t make it any fun to watch. Enemies: This is the last thing I’ll comment on. The zombies were fine - they always are. I heard a ton of reused sounds from remake2, as well, but I thought of it as an Easter Egg more than anything. They looked good, their gore was good, all set there. Problem was, they were basically the only bad guys. That’s a huge fucking disappointment. I know people recognize this series as ‘the one with the zombies’ but that’s not true. Every game (save 7) had MULTIPLE enemy types all created through bio engineering. In this show we see three types. THREE. Zombies. Zombie rats - a one-scene wonder that Leon dispatches fast and easy. I’ll admit, they looked cool but there was nothing else to them. “They’re a bioweapon” and then Leon fries them all with some electricity and we’re done. Jason’s mutated form. Okay, I have to admit, I really loved his design. He was cool, I liked that he could talk and emote. But, other than that? He didn’t DO anything cool. He mutated once and hopped around a lot. That’s it. I mean, a bioweapon that keeps his mental capacities? C’MON! We could’ve done so much more with him. Again, this goes back to why the climax was so bad -- he and Leon didn’t fight. One jumped, the other ran around to catch up and fired a few bullets and a rocket at him. Then he used an acid bath to finish the job. (Also, explain to me WHY he mutated into a tyrant-like creature while everyone else with that specific virus was another form of zombie? We see Jun (Shen’s brother) mutating almost crystal-like at one point but... what? You leave them off for a while and they turn into crystal zombies? Make it make sense.) I’m sure there’s more to say, but honestly, unless you’re a hardcore RE fan like me, I’d say you can skip it. It wasn’t a fun ride, there weren’t any stakes, it wasn’t emotional... it just... was. I will end on one good note that made me smile, though: I loved seeing the Ashley Easter Egg.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: Nirvana in Fire, Episode 02

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning: Spoilers for All 54 Episodes!

A Cunning Plan

Let's start by checking in with the in-progress schemes. Nirvana in Fire features many, many overlapping schemes that stretch across multiple episodes.

Princess Nihuang's Marriage: Princess Nihuang is betrothed to a dead guy, and that's fine with her. If she needs tender emotional care she's got Xia Dong. Xia Dong is married to a dead guy so this works well for both of them.  

The Emperor wants to marry Nihuang off, because she's got a loyal heap of troops at the southern border, and he's a paranoid old fuck, who doesn't like anyone to have the power to overthrow him. Marrying her will sort of force her to hand her troops off to her impulsive younger brother, or something.

The Emperor has a soft spot for Nihuang, however, so he's allowed her to set a bunch of impossible conditions on the marriage, including a martial arts contest. NIF is a hybrid palace drama and Wuxia drama, so there are courtesans and backstabbing and sneaky maids and sneaky eunuchs but also, people can fly.

The two main power seekers, Prince Yu and the Crown Prince, have flunkies that they want Nihuang to marry, but their flunkies suck at martial arts, so if they want her to marry one of their dudes, there will have to be cheating.

Note that Nihuang's good friends Jingrui and Yujin are taking part in the contest to marry her, which might be weird, except they both know she can beat their asses so they seem to just be joining in for fun & prestige. 

The fact that she doesn't want to marry either of these loveable cuties means that she's pretty serious about staying betrothed to her first love, despite his apparent deadness.

(more after the cut!)

Recruiting Mei Changsu / Killing Mei Changsu: Team Prince Yu wants to recruit Mei Changsu. Team Crown Prince wants to recruit him or kill him, if recruiting him doesn't work. 

Mei Changsu acts like this is so tedious; all he wants to do is rest. But they only want to recruit him because he and his pal Lin Chen made them believe he is the answer to their problems.  Whenever Mei Changsu acts annoyed at something, it's probably something he actually orchestrated. "Pork chops again?" (secretly buys more pork chops).

The Duke Qing/ Landgrab Case: In Episode 1, the Jiangzuo Alliance protected some witnesses against Duke Qing in an enslavement/land grabbing case. It's difficult for me to find anything about historical land grabbing in China because Google is full of 21st century land grabbing information. Anyway Duke Qing works for Prince Yu, so the witnesses are (whether they mean to be or not) on The Crown Prince's side. The Emperor has an interest in this case, because land grabbing is bad, apparently, even by corrupt-emperor standards. Xia Dong is in charge of investigating.

The Chiyan Army Case: This is the big conspiracy that the entire show is about. 11 years ago, the Emperor received evidence that Prince Qi, Lin Xie (Mei Changsu's father), and the entire Chiyan army were going to rebel. This was supposedly reported by Xia Dong's husband, Nie Feng, before Lin Xie supposedly killed him. The emperor ordered executions for everybody.

Prince Jing thought this was a bunch of bullshit and didn't hesitate to say so, which got him sent off to distant regions to do army things for years at a time, and landed him a place high up on the emperor’s shit list.

The Hazelnut Pastry Scheme: This is a small scale, benevolent scheme, in which Concubine Jing will eventually stop making cookies with hazelnuts in them, because Mei Changsu is allergic to them. 

Ok, that’s the scheme roundup for this episode. On with the show!

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting

After a quick expository chat between the Emperor and Gong Gao, laying out the reasons for the Nihuang Marriage Scheme, we go to Prince Yu’s place to watch superhot Meng Zhi, commander of the emperor's guards, whip some ass. Not, alas, literally.  Despite his leather shoulder thingies and his handsome beard, and his commanding ways on a battlefield, when it comes to interpersonal relations he is pretty much a labrador retriever puppy in human form.

Meng Zhi is kicking the asses of Prince Yu’s fighters to determine if they're qualified to compete in the Marriage contest. They are not. He points out to the Prince that they can't put such terrible wimps into the competition because it will make the country’s defenses look weak.  

This beatdown is observed by Prince Yu and by Xie Yu, who Prince Yu thinks is on his side. Xie is 100% on the Crown Prince's side, but is carefully hiding that fact; he has his son working for Prince Yu as part of his cover.

In determining how severe an ass kicking is, everyone talks about how many moves it takes to defeat someone, like it's chess. Meng Zhi can beat literally anyone else in the show. He's number two on the Langya List of fighters & we never meet #1.

Fe Liu Was Fast as Lightning

Mei Changsu is hanging out in the garden at Xie manor while Fe Liu jumps around. Fe Liu wants Mei Changsu to play Roblox with him, and pouts when MCS opts for staying in the garden and reading a book.

Fe Liu is utterly devoted to Mei Changsu; I really love their relationship. Fe Liu’s backstory isn't fully explained in the show, but apparently he was raised from an early age to focus on being extremely lethal, and didn't spend much time learning to talk or other skills, making him the epitome of the asynchronous/ gifted teen. Mei Changsu isn’t who raised him to be like this; MCS and Lin Chen rescued him, which is why he is now Mei Changsu’s personal murder pet.

Fe Liu is both a complete fantasy character and also a really believable teen, beautifully acted by Leo Wu, who DMBJ fans know from Tomb of the Sea, and who Xiao Zhan fans know from Battle Through the Heavens.

Fe Lui promptly gets into a fight with Meng Zhi, who's visiting Xie manor. All Fe Liu was doing was leaping about the rooftops like an assassin, but since Xie Yu is the sort of guy that a lot of people would like to kill, Meng Zhi doesn't think this is so good. They have a hilarious, entertaining fight with many, many wire-assisted moves.

They're pretty evenly matched, and Xie Yu watches them with extreme interest until Mei Changsu shows up and tells Fe Liu to stop. Xie Yu is watching because he needs to know how many dudes he should send to assassinate Mei Changsu. Answer: more. Always more.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately since it’s probably all part of MCS’s plan) Fe Liu's extreme skilz make it obvious that his boss is someone important. Mei Changsu discusses this with Jingrui and Yujin in an open-air setting where Jingrui's brother Xie Bi can totally hear them.  In no time flat, father and son have reported his identity to their respective princes.

Over at Prince Yu's place, Qin Banruo and her awesome eye makeup join the party. She's Prince Yu’s advisor/manipulator, working for the (fallen) Hua kingdom, led by the (deceased) Princess Xuanji . She has a network of spies who work for her, that she deploys for Prince Yu's schemes. Her ultimate goal is not to help him, however, but just to fuck up the Da Liang Empire, which conquered the Hua.

(Nearly) Everybody Hates Jingyan

Xia Dong heads out on her assignment in the Land Grab Case, and Nihuang goes to see her off. They talk about gender expectations and how annoying it is to have to marry a dude, and briefly hang out being WLW goals with their mutual devotion, excellent fashion sense and deadly fighting abilities. Nihuang, in particular, wears the prettiest things and also stands at attention like she's commanding an army; I adore her.

They're interrupted by the arrival of Prince Jing, who is greeted cheerfully by Nihuang and eye-rollingly by Xia Dong.  

He's wearing an awesome brass-and-blue armor that we never see again after this episode. It's too bad - it's a good color for him and it has a cool vampire cloak with a high collar.

Prince Jing takes the opportunity to snark at Xia Dong about her investigation and the Xuanjing Bureau’s penchant for inventing finding conspiracies, and then rides off before she can reply.

This leads Nihuang and Xia Dong to get into their chronic argument about the Chiyan Conspiracy and the Lin family, and then Xia Dong hits the road.

Prince Jing and his subordinates stand around outside the palace waiting to report to the emperor while the emperor ignores him. They get sweatier and sweatier while they wait. which makes me like the Emperor a little bit more.

Prince Yu and CP Xian are busy sucking up to the emperor as they look at a manuscript. They are a bunch of assholes and you can see that Gao Zhan isn't a fan of this bullshit.

Eventually Gao Zhan reminds/persuades the emperor to summon Prince Jing, whose brothers snark at him like a couple of 12 year old girls while he radiates manly vigor and handsomeness.  

Consort Jin is bummed that she can't see Prince Jing for another 5 days, and her maid sidekick says random comforting things. This maid, Xiao Xin, is actually a little snake, who works for Qin Banruo's network. We don't learn that until sometime later.

All of the maids have this same hairstyle. If you are a westerner and you think this hairstyle is crazy, have a look at some Roman and Byzantine historic hairstyles. I'm not saying this hairstyle is NOT crazy, mind you; just that crazy hair was a feature of many, many historical empires.  

Consort Jing has someone deliver her hazelnut cookies to Prince Jing; she doesn’t know about Mei Changsu yet so hazelnut is still on the menu. Nicest mom. Also smartest, helpful-est mom, as the story develops.

Suck-Up Contest

At Xie manor, Xie Bi tries to get Mei Changsu to go meet the Empress, who has stopped by with Nihuang specifically to meet him, as part of the Recruit Mei Changsu scheme. Jingrui says nope, fuck that, he's not going to be a pawn in your political games, fuck off. We get to see Jingrui being steely and righteous, which is both cool and hot. Nihuang should totally marry him.

The Empress is annoyed that Mei Changsu doesn't show up, and Nihuang is like, it's ok, I don’t actually give a fuck about meeting new men. But I did want to meet his murder puppy Fe Liu.

Grand Princess Liyang says they don’t need to bother meeting pugilists, despite her son being one and her supposed best friends/co-parents also being pugilists.

Grand Princess Liyang will probably be glad Mei Changsu didn’t come to her little party, once she realizes what tends to happen when Mei Changsu comes to a party.

Then we go to the suitor tournament, in which everyone more or less sucks.

The princes really want to go over to Mei Changsu’s balcony to meet him, and they have a hilarious silent interaction where they both try not to be the first one to move. They finally cave, and go together.  

Then they compete to see who can be the most cringe and blow the most smoke up Mei Changsu's ass.

They ply him with gifts and flattery, which he mostly manages to resist.

Cookie Time with Granny

Then they get summoned to go meet the grand empress, who is (I think) the mother of the previous emperor, the grandmother of the current emperor, and the great grandmother of basically every highborn character of the current generation, including Nihuang and Yujin, although it’s not clear where they sit in the family tree. Historically, cousin marriage - particularly of maternal cousins - was no big whoop in China, so it's not surprising that a lot of nobles would share a great-grandmother.

The Grand Empress is a sweet lady with dementia. She can’t figure out who the hell anyone is. First-time viewers feel the same way.  

Her dementia is pretty well depicted, unlike a lot of TV dementia, or at least it matches up to my experiences with my own elders. She remembers the distant past more vividly than recent times; when she understands who’s in front of her she connects with them emotionally, but she falls off track easily. And she projects the identities of people she misses onto people who are around her.

Like many other grannies, no matter who is visiting, she wants them to 1. get married 2. produce offspring 3. eat something, you’re so skinny

When Mei Changsu meets Granny she immediately calls him Lin Shu, either because she recognizes him or because she really misses Lin Shu, or both. She calls Nihuang over and joins their hands, and Mei Changsu grabs onto Nihuang's hand and holds it for a while.

Everyone thinks it's adorable that Granny has dementia and is confused about that guy who was horribly killed, except Nihuang, who was already checking Mei Changsu out and is somewhat verklempt. She might have to revise her anti-man feelings a little bit.

Everyone leaves, and Nihuang hits up Mei Changsu to take a walk with her, casually mentioning that she could have his hand cut off for touching her, but since she's not in the mood, he's ok.

She prods a bit to find out what he's doing in town and what he's up to. “Do you have a girlfriend? Like a serious girlfriend or just a stalker who works for you?” She asks him which of the two princes he's going to support, but they’re interrupted by a eunuch beating a slave child. That’s the price you pay for trying to have a date in the palace, I guess.

[moonlit-mizukage]

Chapter twelve: No it’s perfect 

Summary: Y/l/n Y/n, a third year at Sakura High School, is just a girl with a bad attitude towards anyone outside her small circle. When y/n’s younger sister starts first year, she gains a lot of attention. Unfortunately for everyone in school, the Y/l/n household has one rule, No dating till y/n does. Some people become just desperate enough to pay the leader of the “Monsters”, the trouble making group on campus, to date y/n. What will happen when she finds out? (All characters aged up to third year unless otherwise stated)

Tw: The old switcharoo of Tendou and Sugawara but the events around it kind look like a kidnapping, swearing 

An: Hey eveyone! I am doing an event if anyone is interested in participating! It can be found here! Today and tomorrow will be a written chapter and I added an image which will make sense when you see it in the story :D

Taglist Open! Please send an ask or DM to be added .

________________________________________________________________

Saturday Night - The Date: Third person POV 

7pm sharp, a silver car pulled up into the driveway of the y/l/n’s home. Sugawara Stepped out of his turned off car and approached the door. He knocked softly as a competition could be heard from the other side. 

On the other side y/n had sprung up and rushed to the door. She opened the door. 

“Hello Sugawara. I’m y/n. It’s nice to finally meet you.” She pulled him into a quick hug. 

“Hello y/n. Just call me Suga. Tsuki has told me a lot about you. Your dress looks lovely.” He said as he pulled back and smiled.  

“It’s not too fancy is it? You said dress fancy so I figured this was good enough? I hope.” 

“No it’s perfect.” 

“Hello,” A voice startled the two from behind. “I’m Mr. Y/l/n. What are you currently doing in school? How are your grades? Are you currently working, if so what do you do?” 

“Dad please. He’s a university student.” 

“A university student wanting to date a highschool student? Why is that?” 

“I just thought she was lovely sir. We have known each other since last year. Also I am in school to become a teacher and my grades are in the top 3 of my class and I currently work part time at a small snack store in a mall.” Sugawara said. 

“Hmm,” Mr. Y/l/n raised his hand under his chin as he stroked it. “You know what? I like you. You seem like an appropriate choice for my daughter.” 

“Thank you sir.”

“Have her home by 10pm… No actually make it 11pm.” 

“Ah thank you sir.” Sugawara said. Just as y/n and Sugawara turned to leave the house, Oikawa knocked on the door. 

A similar conversion went down with mr. y/l/n as Oikawa lied about his intentions to him. Mei got a curfew of 9:30pm. Showing Mr. y/l/n had a slight distrust in his true intentions. 

Everyone left and got into the designated vehicles as they left. 

“I just have to make a quick stop before the date.” Sugawara said as he pulled into a dimly lit park. 

“Suga, what kind of person are you meeting at a park at this hour?” Y/n asked with anxiety lacing her words. 

“Don’t worry, you are safe.” He stepped out of the car. In less than a minute the door swung open. 

“You scared me Sugawara.” Y/n said before she turned around. 

“Hey babe.” 

“Tendou?? What the fuck are you doing?” 

“Taking you on a date babe. What does it look like?” Before you even noticed the car had moved and Tendou was on the road again.

“Where is Suga? Take me back now! And who the hell meets in a park this late at night!?!?” She began to raise her voice. 

“You really think if I showed up at your door your father would have let me take you out?” 

“That wasn't my question, you asshole! If you don’t tell me now I’ll call my father!” 

“Not the police?” He chuckled looking at her visibly angered face. “Alright alright. Sugawara is fine. He was taken home by Hanamaki. I will make you a deal. If you hate where I take you I will drive you home.” 

“Fine. Try anything and I will kick you hard.” 

“I know you don’t hate me anymore.” 

“And what would make you think that?” 

“The fact you started texting me first Y/n.” She looked down and tried to hide her embarrassment. 

“Ew.” She said just above a whisper. 

“See I know it, plus you obviously have some trust for me or else you wouldn’t have even stayed in the car.” 

“Shit.” She just whispered under her voice as she turned towards the window. 

He drove for a few more minutes in silence. 

“We are here.” He said as he pulled the keys from the engine. 

As y/n stepped from the car she realized where they were. “Tendou.. How did you-” 

“Well I had Sugawara do some research about you with your mutual friend.” 

“Isn’t this a little expensive for a fake date Tendou?” 

“Who said I thought it was fake?” She just rolled his eyes at him. He reached for her hand. “Come on Babe. Let’s go.” She grabbed his hand with a slight bit of hesitation. 

“I just noticed, but Tendou you are wearing a suit?” He just smirked as the two started to walk through the parking lot and up to the dock. Tendou reached into his wallet and pulled out two tickets. The two got on the Harumiya Cruising restaurant boat. (Image below)

“I can’t believe you paid for us to eat here.” She said again. He just smiled down at her, taking her hand walking into the boat to be seated at a dining table.

A little while later… 

The two had finished eating as Tendou stood up. “Come with me. I want to show you something.” He reached his hand out to her as she took it. She followed him through a small hallway.

“Are we about to do something illegal, cause if so I will jump off this boat and swim to shore.” Y/n spoke up with the sassy tone she always used on him. 

“No, someone owed me a favor, so I got us a VIP treatment. I reserved a special spot all for us. ” He pulled her behind him as they climbed the stairs. The two were soon on top of the boat's roof. “Here stand in front of me and hold the railing.” She moved to where he asked as he rested his chin on his shoulder and wrapped his arms around her. He noticed he shiver as the breeze hit her bare arms. He pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around her arms.

“Thank you Tendou.” Y/n said in a quiet voice.

“You don’t have to thank me. I’ve been trying to get you to go out with me for a while. I just wanted this night to be perfect.” 

“Talking to you now, it’s hard to believe you are the scariest person in our school that even the teachers fear you.” He let out a small chuckle. 

“I only have one soft spot and it’s for you.” He said just above a whisper. 

y/n turned to face him as He moved his hands up to the side of her face. They leaned in close as they began to kiss…. Tendou pulled back for air only to see a smile that  lit up her entire face. 

“Call me Satori.” He said before he leaned down again going for a second kiss…..

The night came to an end quickly as Tendou had to meet Sugawara back and use him as a cover up once again.  Sugawara dropped y/n back home at 10:58pm which left a good impression on her father. She opened her door to see Mei spread out on y/n’s bed as she played on her phone. 

“Sister.” Y/n said as she placed her bag on her desk.

“How was your date and can you do the same friday night next week?” Mei asked.

“Why?” 

“Oikawa and I didn’t get to kiss again.” She whined. 

“Ah so you got lucky?” 

“Y/N! He’s so hot, how could you not want him?” 

“Listen Mei. I think it’s time for a sister to sister talk.” 

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[beybladefanboy]

Top 5 Worst Episodes of Beyblade

I'm gonna say this right off the bat: ranking Beyblade episodes is weird since they're all so tightly knit together. However, I was able to find five episodes that I find either dull or problematic in some way to make a top 5 worst list. When I make the best list, it’ll likely be top 5 of each season because there are way more good episodes than bad ones. In fact, I don't really think most of this list is bad besides the top two. Anyways, let's get started.

5) Episode 109: Kenta's Determination (Metal Fury)

Yeah... I have really mixed thoughts on this episode. I really love parts of it and I really hate other parts of it. I enjoy it every time I watch it, and I've watched this one A LOT, but if I think about it in a critical way at all, it falls apart. It really does feel like the narrative is gloryfing Kenta for stalking someone. Ryuga told Kenta to go away multiple times and when I first watched this episode, I assumed Ryuga was taking a difficult path specifically to throw Kenta off his trail. We don't know that Kenta's statement about Ryuga taking difficult paths on purpose is true, we're just trusting Kenta's word on that, who is still a total stranger to Ryuga at that point. Kenta and the audience have no actual indication that Ryuga wants Kenta around or is letting him follow him until that moment where Ryuga waits for him in the desert, which you can easily miss if you're not paying attention. I know this because younger me missed it. There isn't as much emphasis on this frankly cute moment as I feel there should be. Still, it does save the rest of this episode and later episodes with these two. Without it, the scene at the end where Ryuga allows Kenta to follow him could easily be interpreted as him giving in because he can't get Kenta to go away. "Remember kids, if you stalk someone for long enough, they'll give in!" You see what I mean? It's obviously not trying to teach that but the way this episode is framed, putting Kenta in the right for this, really makes it feel that way. Still, there is at least that little hint that Ryuga wanted Kenta around before the final scene and honestly I love this episode too much to put it any lower. It bothers me when I think about it critically but dammit I enjoy watching it. I hate that dream sequence where everyone is out of character but putting it aside, I love seeing Ryuga kick ass, I still laugh at that scene where he first meets Kenta and doesn't even know his name, I love seeing Ryuga scare off a tiger just by looking at it, and goddammit, him waiting for Kenta in the desert and that entire scene at the campfire are some of the cutest damn things in this show. I love this episode, even though from a critical perspective, it's a disaster.

4) Episode 68: We Meet Again! Wang Fu Zhong (Metal Masters)

This is ironically the only Masters episode on the list. It's the least of the three seasons for me because the overarching story just isn't as interesting but the individual episodes themselves are fine at what they're trying to do. The only exception for me is this one. I will admit I am not very invested in the Wang Fu Zhong characters. I dislike Chi-Yun and Chao Xin, and before his episode with Julian, Da Xiang as well. Mei Mei is fine though her gag of forgetting words is more often dumb than funny. So seeing them wasn't very exciting for me. I'm also just not invested in this conflict. Gingka, Masamune, Yu, and Tsubasa struggling to work together as a team makes perfect sense given their characters and adds conflict. It makes sense it's just not interesting. There were what... two team battles in the entire tournament? And the way they all worked together in the final act was by fighting their own individual battles so this whole conflict didn't feel like it amounted to much in the end. There was this big emphasis on teamwork with no real pay-off (in this season at least, Fury did a better job with the teamwork angle). It also makes the characters really damn annoying. I mean, I can't stay mad at Tsubasa but the other three were being so bratty, to the point where I was getting just as frustrated as Madoka. There are some good comedic moments in this episode but overall, it's just kind of a slog for me.

3) Episode 37: Rock Scorpio's Deadly Poison (Metal Fusion)

Jeez, another Kenta episode. Kenta is one of my favourite characters. Why are his episodes so hit or miss? This one is kinda like my number four pick: not necessarily bad, just boring and annoying. Busujima is an annoying nuisance and I don't find Sora or his pack of randos interesting. This episode was also really misplaced, coming after Tsubasa leaves the Dark Nebula and before he goes to confront the others. If you skip this episode, you will miss nothing. In fact, this episode takes away from the flow of the story and is just a distraction. Sometimes filler episodes can be okay like the Kenta and Benkei changing parts episode in Fusion or the Blader DJ battle in Masters. The difference is those were fun and the latter especially came at a time when the audience and the characters actually needed a breather. This episode doesn't do that. It takes more than it gives.

2) Episode 130: The God of Venus, Quetzalcoatl (Metal Fury)

Okay, Yu and Tithi's battle is perfectly fine. It's quite fun actually. My problems with this episode occur after that. I've complained about this so many times but I cannot stress it enough: this episode destroyed Kyoya's character. It made me hate him the first time I saw this. Kyoya beat up a child who didn't want to fight. When has Kyoya ever demanded to battle a cowering opponent, much less a child? Tithi being a legendary blader isn't an excuse by the way, he was still a non-combatant. RYUGA was above bullshit like this at this point. Also, Kyoya's reason for deciding to return is horribly stupid and forced. Destiny is a theme throughout Fury but it was always portrayed as a choice the characters made of their own accord, impacting the world around them, not some invisible unstoppable force making them do things. I really respected that about this season. Destiny being a choice is more applicable to real life and just more inspiring and interesting in general. But that's thrown in the trash in this episode when Kyoya feels that destiny is forcing him to be with the group, despite him helping them of his own accord in past episodes and destiny not actually forcing him to do anything. It sounds like an excuse and abandons the actual emotional reason Kyoya left the group in the first place. His internal conflict of feeling weak for being in a group was left unresolved and he comes off as a selfish guy only sticking with the group because he feels he's forced to by some invisible concept, something every other episode in the series disagrees with.

1) Episode 48: The Truth About Light and Darkness (Metal Fusion)

In my opinion, this is the only episode in the series that actively hurts other episodes. The Phoenix twist was already incredibly obvious at this point yet they still feel the need to take up the majority of this episode explaining it and the lore about L-Drago and the dark power in excruciating detail. This episode is nothing more than an exposition dump. In the case of the L-Drago lore, it's actually important, but I ask you: what did the Ryo twist actually add? After this point, it gives us a stupidly incompetent director of the WBBA to make frustrating decisions for the sake of the plot in Masters and to a lesser extent, Fury. However, there was no reason this character needed to be Gingka's dad. Or exist, really. These conflicts could've happened whether or not there was a figurehead for the WBBA orchestrating it. However, this episode even more negatively impacts past episodes by painting Ryo's aggressive actions toward Gingka, especially him breaking his point counter, as abusive. He abandoned him, let him think he was dead, and broke something of his for the sake of shaping him into this "noble hero" and the episode has the fucking gall to not only put him in the right, but have the characters and the narrative glorify his actions. "Remember kids, it's okay if your parents abuse you as long as they're doing it for your own good." This is Kenta's Determination levels of messed up implications. Except while that episode was sweet, funny and didn't hurt any other episodes, this episode is drawn out, boring, and actively makes Fusion as a whole worse. And the worst part is it's unskippable. Like I said earlier, there's a ton of important exposition in this episode as well as Ryuga killing Doji, which is a hugely important scene that shows that not even Ryuga's allies are safe and really hammers in just how greedy for power he is. It's honestly the only good scene in the episode. The L-Drago lore is important and strengthens the final battle but everything else should've been scrapped.

And there’s my list. I tried to make this list somewhat objective, only putting episodes on here that had actual problems and not just episodes that annoyed me. That’s why the Garcias episodes aren’t on here for the record. I actually wanted to put episodes 82 and 83 on here so badly but there’s actually nothing objectively wrong with them. Those characters are annoying but the battles are mostly pretty good, the knockout battle set up is unique, and it’s not a distraction. The world tournament is the main plot after all. Call those episodes dishonourable mentions if you will, I enjoy Kenta’s Determination more than both of them, even though that episode is probably objectively worse.

[jacksgreysays]

For fake title: still waters (run deep) character: Shisui and or theme: Uzushio

The fisherman doesn't look surprised when Shisui arrives, not by the suddenness of his appearance or his age or the fact that, excepting the crow on his shoulder, he is entirely alone. No, the fisherman is not surprised, but that doesn't mean he's relaxed either: a large man, nearly two heads taller than Shisui with muscle honed through hard work. But it is a civilian level strength. For all that the fisherman is accustomed to shinobi, he is no match for one.

"You're headed to Uzushio, huh?" the fisherman says, less a question than an accusation without any heat.

"Yes, I am" Shisui answers anyway with a polite sort of cheer; there is a reason why he's the one being sent to Uzushio and not one of his cousins. "Tazuna-san said you're the best at navigating the whirlpools."

The fisherman gives him a skeptical glance which is fair. What Tazuna actually said was that if Shisui was fool enough to go to Uzushio, then this particular fisherman would at least make sure Shisui's fool head didn't get dashed on the rocks of the shore.

But the fisherman shrugs, accepting enough, and tilts his head at a small wooden boat tied to the dock with nets bulging with fish. "That one's mine. Are you in a rush? Because I have to get these to the monger first."

"No, I can wait," Shisui says, because that's the polite thing to do and if this fisherman is his best way to Uzushio then its worth waiting for... except, as Kansoku reminds him with a sharp tug on his hair, he is actually kind of in a rush. Shisui is a shinobi, so of course he's smelled worse, and so he doesn't wrinkle his nose at all when he offers, "Would you like some help? Four hands are faster than two."

"Alright, kid, I'll take you up on that." The fisherman's expression lightens into a wide, friendly smile and Shisui who can't help himself, returns it with one of his own. The fisherman introduces himself, "You can call me Kaiza."

---

A few weeks ago, Hidden Rain broke their decades-long silence with increasingly concerning news:

Hanzo the Salamander long dead.

A heretofore unknown organization leading the village.

Active recruitment and retainment of various S-rank shinobi.

A grudge against one Shimura Danzo, former council member of Hidden Leaf.

One year--maybe even as little as a month or two previous--would have made this the most momentous occasion in international shinobi politics since the last world war.

Unfortunately, it only just barely makes top three in the past year.

---

"So, kid," Kaiza says as they're coasting over the waves at a clip much faster than Shisui would have thought possible for the small wooden boat, "You're from Leaf, right?"

"Yes." It's literally on his forehead and more straightforward than some of the other villages' symbols, but Shisui gives him the benefit of the doubt. Kaiza is a civilian, after all. And to be fair, some of the Uchiha elders were considering changing it to match the new regime, but Fugaku-san--sorry, Hokage-sama, Shisui's still getting use to it--felt it would be best to at least try to maintain a semblance of stability.

He doesn't know if news of Konoha's turmoil has reached this far. Or if the people of Wave even care. They certainly didn't bat an eye at Shisui's questions of their new neighbor--old neighbor? returned neighbor?--all incurious shrugs and silence or entertaining but unhelpful tall tales.

"Have you ever met another shinobi?" Shisui asks conversationally, though he already knows the answer to that question. "Am I your first shinobi passenger?"

"I've seen a few Mist ninja from a distance. A very far distance, thankfully," Kaiza responds, casual and earnest; Shisui sees no reason to doubt him. "Never had a ninja join me sailing on my boat before, though. Not one that helped me unload my haul. You're a good kid." 

Shisui has killed more men than there had been fish wriggling in those nets. He appreciates the sentiment anyway. Kaiza is an honest sort of man, Shisui is glad to have met him.

He could use more straightforwardness in his life.

---

The Mist Rebellion overthrew the Yondaime Mizukage after an almost tidy public assassination and thirty six hours of civil war with minimal casualties.

Terumi Mei, newly coronated Godaime Mizukage, only mentions the "grace and goodwill of allies." Neither of those words particularly apply to the surly looking Momochi Zabuza standing two steps back and one step to the right of her, but if there is another ally in the works they're not claiming the limelight.

Hidden Mist has always been a tumultuous village. Tidiness aside, nothing was surprising about it.

---

It's strange.

When Shisui pictured Land of Whirlpools, he had a vague idea mostly cobbled together from the grey, cloudy skies of Mist, or the eternal deluge of Rain, or even the foggy, sepia tones of Wave.

He was not expecting clear skies almost impossibly blue and lush treetops tall enough to rival the forests of Konoha. The beach is pink.

It's vibrant. It's strange. There's a giant chakra turtle monster happily splashing in the shallows, waving tendrils in their direction as a greeting.

The sharp jagged rocks and erratic whirlpools between them and the shore are real, at least, so Shisui hasn't been completely fooled, but from the wry, almost apologetic smile on Kaiza's face, Shisui's not great at hiding his hurt.

Kaiza pulls out a decorative coin--what Shisui had thought was some kind of superstitious fisherman charm that he'd touched before they set sail from Wave--and passes his thumb along the surface. After a moment or two, the swirling slows, the water calms, and the passage is traversable. A small figure appears on the pink beach. The giant chakra turtle monster reaches a gentle tendril out and is metaphorically met half way by an arm absolutely minuscule in comparison.

"Don't worry, kid," Kaiza says reassuringly. It's the kind of statement that would be accompanied with a clap on the shoulder, but whether the fisherman can sense Shisui's betrayal or, more likely, he's been around more shinobi and knows better, he keeps his distance. "Tazuna vouched for you and you didn't even get mad when the monger threw a fish at you and said it was a cultural tradition."

Kansoku had been less than pleased and Shisui's shirt still smells like fish. 

"You'll be fine. She'll like you."

---

There is an oasis in Land of Wind. An earthquake in Land of Hot Springs caused the controlled collapse of a temple and new arrangements of the surrounding town's infrastructure. A dilapidated and forgotten shrine in the outskirts of Land of Fire was completely relocated across the ocean. Only the first has any sort of influence on shinobi politics and even that has more to do with the Yondaime Kazekage's sudden attitude adjustment than anything else.

But the revival of a nation thought long dead with the power to back it up?

Well, even if Konoha is still struggling to cobble together a government, it's the sort of occasion to send one of their best and brightest as an ambassador even if there's no firm idea what might be on the other end of the journey.

---

"Hello, Uchiha Shisui of Hidden Leaf," says the girl on the shores of Land of Whirlpools. Somehow, even with the grown man twice his size and the giant chakra turtle monster, she's the scarest thing on the beach.

Which is still bafflingly, vibrantly pink.

"I heard you were asking questions about Uzushio," she says, with a smile as dangerous and beautiful as the land she's made her home. "Let's talk."

~

A/N: Sometimes, you’re in a writer’s block and a prompt just punches you into the right headspace. Thank you, damnsmartblueboxes. (You know I have so many Uzushio feelings, how dare you! :D)

If anyone wants to ask me questions about this, please do. Please.

Oh, but I should clarify here: this was written intending to be in a post-Split Gardens!verse. But if you’re reading this you probably have already read some of the Gardens!verse stuff so...

Also, yes, Kaiza is the fisherman who would’ve been killed by Gato and now kinda works for Shikako as a more active and less suspicious Sazanami from the Land of Stone Arc. I mean, kinda all of Wave works for Shikako? But in a much more benevolent way than that might imply. They’re fond of their weird neighbor with her giant chakra turtle monster.

(Also, also, yes, Tetsuki Kaiza does get her name from this Kaiza though in the Naruto world she actually never has the name Kaiza. She goes from orphan Tetsuki no-family-name to either Tetsuki Utsugi or Agent Shu. Depending on how fucked her situation is)

Also, also, also: Ask Box Advent Calendar 2020!

[princess-mei]

It Is All an Illusion ❤️ [Sei]

In which Sebastian and Mei face off in the arena...

@sebastian-morey​

[tw -- burns, burn injury, description of burns, death]

MEI: The cornucopia glinted bright and Mei smiled when she saw it. The sands beneath it were dyed with blood, but it looked more or less undisturbed otherwise. The bodies were gone and so was all the supplies. But no one had returned. Not until Mei stepped foot on it. She crossed over the water carefully, staying alert, but leaned against the cool metal, in the shade. This would be a good place to camp.

That was until she heard the crash of the wave and saw the waters around her swell, lapping up over the beach before they disappeared again. And with it—delivered a little gift.

Mei smirked. This was going to be good. She could play with her food before she murdered it.

“Seb!” A voice called that was not Mei’s own as she pulled an illusion from behind the cornucopia, right in the path of the man.

“Hey, Sixxer,” she purred as she held her battle axe to the pretty Victor’s throat.

“The Capitol sent me a gift.”

SEBASTIAN: Sebastian was soaking fucking wet - still hacking up water from his lungs and trying to get the previous events out of his head. He didn't want to think about them anymore. There were already too many experiences and too many horrors that plagued his mind.

They never said this would be easy - but no one ever talked about the psychological toll it would take on you either. Then again, he should have known. There was a glint in Gem's eyes that changed ever since he'd gone to the games. He'd been different. Changed and now he--

....was here?

Gaze snapped up quickly at the sound of his younger brother's voice, his footing even more unsteady as he sped up his uneven gait. "G-...Gemmy?" He called out uncertainly (maybe he'd started going nuts?) But then another voice - right as Sebastian's gaze finally found his brother.

Standing with a blade to his neck.

His heart clenched, and Sebastian felt his entire mouth run dry. This wasn't possible. Gem shouldn't be here. Not with the fucking Career! But... - He'd won his games in two days. He'd killed them all. Made for a boring show... Was--... was this his punishment? His hands burned hot - the flame beneath his skin itching to get out as he set his jaw.

"A gift? Are you out of your fuckin' mind? Let him go." He warned - hoping his tone carried more strength than he felt as his gaze slipped back to Gem.

MEI: Mei smirked.

Her heart was thrumming in her ears, but she knew that she could kill this boy from Six and then everyone would laud her for killing the Victor's brother. She'd be showered in gifts tomorrow morning, if she could only last the day after this. Maybe she'd even return to the Careers to share her spoils. If only to stay on their good side one more day.

The boy--Seb--was far enough away that he couldn't see Mei's hand tremble where it held the axe to his fake brother's throat.

"Mmm, no. I don't think so," Mei said with a shrug of her shoulders. She had to concentrate to keep the illusion up. But she made it struggle like a puppet on a string.

"Don't listen to her, Seb," pleaded the puppet.

SEBASTIAN: What do I do?

What do I do?!

For all the stupid advice, the tips, the help he'd received in all of this, he'd never been prepared to deal with this. With.. with his brother here as a pawn in some Career's fun little game. Hostage negotiation wasn't a part of the training stations.

Sebastian's breath came out as unsteadily as the shift in his weight, desperation painting across his brow as he shook his head lightly back at his brother. His hand shifted slightly - reaching towards the hilt of his sword as he took another half step forward. It wasn't much. He didn't want it to be. Seb didn't want to give this woman (she was crazy, he was sure) reason to put any more pressure against his brother's throat.

"...W-...What do you want." He said then, gaze quickly slipping between the two as his other hand raised in a careful calming gesture. "...Food? My weapons? What do you want? He's not a part of this. Killing him doesn't---" He couldn't stop the way his voice cracked around those words "---doesn't help you win. It doesn't help you!"

MEI: They've gotten to the begging. That was quick. Not that Mei was particularly surprised. The people from Six were always so weak willed. Even the brother had been a coward. Burned down the arena in such a short time. So boring. So cowardly. They had no backbones whatsoever. Even when they got hits in, they ran away. They never finished the job.

Mei would.

Just had to get him close enough.

"I think a life for a life makes sense, right, Gemmy?" she cooed at the Victor, who was from her own memory which meant shiny and pretty in the lights of the Capitol. She tried to muss his hair some, put some dirt on his high cheekbones but--it was hard to imagine such a thing while keeping him alive.

"Just let her kill me," said the apparition, struggling again. Mei let her axe knick the edge of his neck, a little trickle of blood sliding into his shirt.

SEBASTIAN: A life for a life.

Sebastian swallowed hard at the offer, his heart thumping so loud in his chest he was convinced it was going to break right through right now. End the problem here and now by just keeling over dead from the stress and fear of it all.

God, it wasn't fair.

"Gem! N-.. No!" He cried, letting himself jerk forward a bit more still as both hands raised now - gaze following that trail of blood that seeped into the worn fabric. "Stop. Stop." Sebastian pleaded lightly, another step forward - another glance towards his brother.

Think, Sebastian.

His hands stayed up for a moment as he caught his brother's gaze, though they made what looked like a small dismissive gesture as they dropped lower again in a means of surrender. Though in reality, he knew Gem would have caught the sign for go as his hands shifted. Would have known he was looking to make a move.

"Alright. Alright! A-..A life for ..for a life. I--.. Fine. J-...Just let him go. Please." Another step. Another small raise of his hands to show he was unarmed.

The flame still burning under his skin. Waiting.

He just had to get closer.

MEI: Mei shuffled forward as Sebastian did. She didn't think this would actually work. It meant she would have to be fast. Dart forward, slash him across the throat. She only had one shot. Her concentration couldn't be on two things at once. As soon as she moved, the illusion would disappear and the Sixxer would catch on.

Though, she could still probably best him.

One--Seb kicked up sand as he walked closer.

Two--Mei shifted onto one foot, twisting her grip on the axe.

Three--She shoved the illusion away and took a powerful, backhanded swing, right at the man's head with a battle cry.

SEBASTIAN: He didn't this would actually work - it just meant he needed to be fast.

Catch her off guard, push forward and hope he was as familiar with fire as he thought he was. He could pull Gem away while she was recovering and he knew his brother would know what to do once he had his bearings. All he had to do w——

It all happened too fast. Mei shoved Gem away - and he seemed to vanish in thin air, melting away into the background as it occurred to Sebastian that he hadn't been there at all. But there was no time to consider that. Not when the glint of the axe was swinging towards him.

Two more things happened at once:

One, his body jerked in reaction, dropping back and away from the swipe, even as he felt a sear of pain slice across his features. Not quite quick enough to avoid injury, but enough to avoid the fatal blow

— and two, he reacted without thought. Like a cornered animal.

Fire shot from his arms, scorching down his limbs and extending out towards Mei in a giant flame as his back hit the ground - water splashing up and sizzling against the bright flare before it faded out just as quickly, a smokey haze left behind as blood dripped into the shallow water beneath him from his brow.

MEI: Mei had been thinking about the future. This whole time, she had a plan in her mind.

It never seemed to work out the way she expected, but having that plan helped her. And, of course, the plan always ended with winning. With surviving. Getting back to her mom and dad and sisters. Becoming famous. Sponsoring a perfume bottle that smelt of rich, succulent plums.

The plan did not include this asshole shooting a wall of flame at her like a flamethrower. She screeched and dodged out of the way of the flame. Her heart beating faster. The heat of the flames scorched at her, burning the sand under her feet and turning it slippery as glass. It licked at her bare torso, turning it red and pink all over.

Her hand clutched at her side.

"How?" she panted, but she knew how.

Fey's.

Suddenly, she felt unsteady. She was not the only one being favored. Her confidence wavered but she raised her axe again and darted forward. She had always been fast. It had always been her strong suit. Raising it above her head, she moved quickly, bringing it down to try and slash at Seb's side. @Laurho

SEBASTIAN: He tried not to waste time, shoving himself back in the water as he felt the warmth flushing down against his face. It made him want to panic - but there wouldn't be time for that. Not if he wanted to live. Time to panic would come later. ...hopefully.

"...S-..same as you." He mumbled back - unsure why he'd even dignified her with a response. It very well could have been the last thing he ever said.

For a moment, it was like time stopped. Sebastian seemed to watch in slow motion as the woman adjusted her footing - the axe raising above her head. Poised and ready for the attack. Perhaps...it was because he was going to die. Maybe it...was a sign. He'd see it coming and think of all the ways he could stop it but it was inevitable...wasn't it?

But he had to fight. He promised he would try. It wasn't a death sentence - and he still had the best weapon in the game. Fey's alone was one thing... but there was something more important.

Experience.

His eyes squeezed tightly closed as his hands raised again - almost as if he were about to protect himself from the blow as his entire frame shifted sideways. A last ditch effort to dodge her axe as he felt the heat explode from around his skin. Hot flame erupted from his finger tips - shooting up like a hose towards his target and burning bright against the evening sun.

It didn't stop the scared cry that slipped from his lips as he tried to concentrate everything on simply lighting up as much as he could, his entire body bracing for that moment when the axe would break through his defenses and finally land.

MEI: For a moment, Mei felt nothing at all except the heat. It burst bright and intense all around her. Her vision was full of it. She was disoriented, blinded. It was as if the sun had exploded.

The searing pain came a moment later and she couldn't help the scream that ripped from her throat. And then another. The axe dropped uselessly from her hand as she raised her arms on instinct to try and shield her face from the burn of it.

It was too late though. The flames had already made quick work of her flesh, melting it like candle wax. Her long, black hair combusted into dust. All she could do was scream as the flames engulfed one side of her. They licked lovingly against her exposed torso, bubbling it like the tea on the stove that her sister always made at home. Her scream whistled like the tea pot.

She fell to her knees as the flames vanished, her whole body trembling from the shock. Her body pitched forward into the sand, the grains embedding in her liquid flesh. She groaned hoarsely, before managing, with the last bit of her adrenaline to push herself up onto her side and roll over onto her back.

SEBASTIAN: The screams were his first indication that whatever he'd done worked. The second was the lack of another blow to his body. Though honestly? Neither of them actually brought him that much comfort.

If anything the scream haunted him - made his eyes squeeze tighter as his fingers shook, curling gently into fists as the flames petered out. For a few moments? The sounds of pain - the smell of burning flesh, hair and god knows whatever else. It made bile rise in his throat as a shaky breath ripped from his lips like a sob.

It was over.

His eyes peeked open then, slowly, and Sebastian had to remind himself to swipe blood from his features - staining the back of his hand a bright red as his gaze finally landed on the Career's body. It was over.

But... no canon had sounded.

Sebastian swallowed thickly - almost afraid to move as he forced himself to look at her body. The... horrified mangle of skin and ---... Again, bile rose quickly before he swallowed it back down, pushing himself to his knees with a gasped breath. He needed to leave. She'd die or...be found by the Careers and helped with whatever stockpile. He just had to leave.

But he couldn't. Sebastian couldn't bring himself to - instead only crawling through the shallow water, fingers lodging in sand before he found himself beside her. God, how was she still fucking alive?

"M-....Mei?"

MEI: There was nothing but the pain. Her whole world had become it. Who was she? Nothing but another Capitol punishment. Another Capitol toy. Someone who would be forgotten tomorrow, when there was more blood to be spilt.

Her breath rasped, happening only on instinct. She stared up at the sky but one of her eyes wasn't working properly. It rolled in her head toward the sound of a voice. Her name. Her name was Mei and it meant "beautiful". Her fingers curled in the sand, but the pieces were cold and slipped through her fingers.

"Seb?" she rasped, trying to find his face through the blur of her vision. "It hurts," she whimpered.

SEBASTIAN: Oh god.

Oh god. Oh god what did he do? Guilt clenched in his heart as he shifted forward a bit more, hands swiping into the water to clean them frantically before he reached out - but he stopped just short of touching her.

How could he? He didn't want to hurt her anymore than he already had. Please. Sarina's voice in his head made him flinch. An eerie reminder of the girl's last wishes before he'd taken her life - and here again he was back in that situation. It'd been life or death! He hadn't had a choice but - ...it didn't feel real right now. It couldn't feel right when he was staring at Mei's mangled, scorned body laid in front of him. Blood dripped from his chin, landing upon the back of his palm once more as he bit down on a short sob.

"I--... I..I'm s-..I'm sorry." He found the will to say, swallowing back again as warmth pooled by his eyes. This time however it wasn't the warmth of his own blood. "I--...It'...it's..it's okay. It's..it's okay. I-.. You're okay." No she wasn't. No she wasn't, Sebastian. You did this.

Hesitantly - and as softly as Sebastian had ever managed to do something, the man's hand reached out - slipping his fingers gently into her own with a small squeeze. She was so... young. She was practically a child. "I-..you're..you're fine.."

MEI: Mei suddenly felt very cold. The heat had seeped out of her quickly. Every shiver sent another shot of pain through her. Her wild eye found the boy's dark ones. There was a bright red gash on his cheek. She remembered blood blooming on Dot's side. She remembered red seeping into Rose's pants. Hera's body thrashing under her.

"I'm sorry too," Mei said and a sob burst out of her mouth, causing her whole body to convulse once, her fingers squeezing at Seb's. The strength in her good hand surprisingly strong still. Her heart beat was fluttering fast in her chest.

Mei had had a plan but--there was so much pain, she couldn't remember it.

"I'm scared," she admitted. She had been scared this whole time. It almost felt like a relief to admit it to someone.

SEBASTIAN: Sebastian bit down roughly on his lip to stop himself from sobbing too - tasting the metallic twinge on his tongue as he gaze the girl's hand another squeeze. It felt in time with the squeeze in his chest, falling into the pit of dread he held in his stomach.

She...she was dying. No - not dying. She was suffering and it was his fault.

"Y-...You don't..you don't have to be scared." He managed, just barely - letting his opposite hand reach out towards her features. Though again, he hesitated - hovering above her skin before he shifted just enough to avoid the side of her face where the flesh had charred into something almost unrecognizable. His calloused thumb brushed softly against her skin - surprised almost by how soft it was. Never a victim of harsh conditions (at least...until now).

"I'm right here...Y-...You're not a-alone, okay? I--.. You don't have t'be scared. It's..it's okay." And for a moment - it almost felt like it could have been. Like if he just imagined, the stupid arena around them would disappear - and he'd be back home. With the comfort of his family, and she would be too. That it would be okay. For both of them.

MEI: Seb touched her skin and Mei closed her eyes. She thought of her mother, touching her cheek before pulling her hair back into a bun, getting her ready for her ballet lessons. She thought of her father, cuffing her on the chin, saying that's my girl whenever she brought home a trophy. She thought of her sisters and how they kissed her cheeks as soft as raindrops. And how she loved them and missed them and wanted to go home.

When she opened her eyes, the arena had dropped away. There was a soft pink light and she was in her bed at home. Seb was in the white wicker chair she used to curl up in to do her homework. It had been pulled close to the bed, so that he could still hold her hand. Around her, her mother and father smiled and her sisters held onto each other.

And as she looked at this lovely scene, more people joined in. First, the Victor--the brother--curling his hand around Seb's shoulder. Then others. People she didn't recognize. But they all smiled and Mei smiled too. The good side of her face curled up to expose those pretty teeth of hers.

"I'm not alone," she rasped, her breathing was coming more shallow, more sharp. "A-and neither are you."

Mei took another breath and then let it go. The grip on Seb's hand loosened. The illusion faded.

In the distance, a canon fired.

SEBASTIAN: The grip on Mei's hand got stronger, and he wished so desperately that he could do something. That he could take it all back. She was just a kid. She was a child, and he'd forced this pain upon her. The Capitol had forced this upon her. She didn't deserve it. None of them had. A sob broke through his lips, and he tried his best to stop it. But the emotion overcame him, even as he tried to swipe away his tears against his shoulder. His eyes closed against stained fabric - and when they opened?

He was sitting against Mei's bedside - his brothers and strangers alike lined up around them. A.. comforting little scene. A harsh but welcomed comparison to the blood soaked arena they'd left. A... a fitting place to die. Surrounded by family. Loved ones.

She wasn't alone. She wouldn't be alone.

Maybe then she...she could at least have that peace. Maybe then...she'd finally be at rest.

The pressure around his fingers faded - and with it, did the one against his shoulder, both leaving him with a similar clench in his gut.

When his gaze lifted once more, Sebastian found himself back in the arena. Mei's now lifeless corpse still beside him... but other than that...

He was once again alone.

[mystech-master]

Blazblue rewrites Part 1: The Age of Origin and beginning of the Looping World.

(put this on my Reddit may as well put it here)

As we all know, the Blazblue series is one of the most convoluted and over-complicated pieces of media ever. Mainly due to its quantum physics talk and very chuuni dialogue and a lack of good explanation for a lot of points. Naturally, one good thing about being a fan is that through the power of hindsight we can look at the entire series and basically fix what we think was messed up. Of course, we have this freedom since we are usually individual people, don't have a massive writing staff and marketing we need to appeal to, and pretty much the entire skeleton and pieces are there, they just need to be rearranged and/or be tweaked a bit.

I remember getting into Blazblue around the end of high school/beginning of college, almost 5 years ago. I thought the setting was neat and I am into anime action BS. Of course, the story was bonkers and made no sense until I started looking deeper but the main thing that has bugged me were the characters. There is just so much Bullshit that the characters do and brush off that just irritates me, especially when it comes to Ragna. This series has made me rethink the meaning of life, of showing kindness to people, or if "doing things because it's right" is a good enough excuse, how much should you desire your own happiness? All sorts of existential questions that Blazblue has made me think, not from the plot, but just from the BS character interactions.

If you check out my Ragna the Bloodedge tag, or have just been following me for a while, you will see/know how much I will defend this guy to the fucking grave because of all the bullshit that this guy is expected to take and deal with and it being seen as"inspiring" or "heroic" when it is really just sad to me. It isn't me liking the character, it is just a massive amount of pity and feeling sorry for him, to the point where I kind of have a massive bias towards him and end up making him an all-powerful unstable badass in most of my fic ideas with him. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I wanted to lay out my ideas for how I would make a Blazblue rewrite. If anyone wants to use these in their own fanfic, feel free. I don't give a shit about credit.

Starting with the timeline, we have the XBlaze series, Bloodedge Experience, and the core C-Series (ft.

the Phase Shift Novels, and Remix/Variable Heart Manga). In the actual story these are all separate “Possibilities”, or Timelines/Universes. That is dumb and I think that we can tweak things to make it all one linear timeline.

XBlaze takes place in the year 2050, 50 years before the Dark War is stated to begin, and 149-150 years before the main games start. This is plenty of time to make things different. We know from the backstory that Takamagahara, the god-supercomputer that mankind made, was not completed in this possibility due to Touya’s mother iirc. In my idea, all this does is delay the inevitable, Takamagahara will be made, just at a later date now. (edit) There is also the Mitsurugi agency, which was kind of behind the Wadatsumi incident in XBlaze's backstory. With their connections to the Mage's Guild, the Amanohokosaka Clan, and their desire to get the Azure, we could say that this is the agency that discovered the Susanoo, the Boundary, and did most of these experiments to the Prime Fields.

I do not know the exact year when Bloodedge Experience takes place, but I am going to estimate around 10-15+ years from XBlaze, putting it at 2060-2065+, since they do mention Mei as the head/leader of the Amanohokosaka Clan. I am not too sure what the branching-off point is here, Valkenhayn mentions Clavis having killed Naoto in the core C-Series Possibility so maybe it was during their initial meeting. But is Naoto surviving gonna change that much? The only other detail that would need addressing would be Raquel’s relationship with Rachel. According to the wiki bio “Raquel was created when a user of Soul Eater went havoc and killed hundreds upon thousands of people. Clavis Alucard stopped the user and killed them, but was forced to take the lives of 128,932 people in order to do so. When this happened, he held an Embryo. Three years later, the Embryo became Raquel and she was born. Maybe sometime later Raquel could end up being killed or something and another Embryo results in Rachel. I mean we never see or hear mention of a mother, or maybe it’s some reincarnation thing? IDK. We see how stern Clavis was with Raquel, so maybe seeing his first “daughter” die he ends up spoiling the next one rotten, leading to the kind of haughty holier-than-thou Rabbit we know today.

However, all of this needs to be put in perspective of the Origin and Terumi. I may mess up some of the finer details.

The plot of Blazblue started when Susanoo ditched his body, the Susanoo Unit, and then mankind discovered it underground. They excavated it, dug deeper, and found a Cauldron which led to the Boundary, within which they found the Master Unit, the God Computer that would allow them to control reality, and beyond that, they found the Azure, basically the primordial absolute force of the Blazblue Universe. However, the Master Unit can only respond to something anthropomorphic/humanoid and humans can’t survive the Boundary. So they made the Prime Field Devices, Androids meant to go into the Boundary. Pretty weirdly specific criteria that results in robot girls but I don’t see how I can mess with this.

One of them manages to reach the Master Unit and upon touching it she gains the Eyes of the Azure which gives it the power of the Azure and basically becomes not only sentient, but basically a god. The Humanity, freaked out about her new free will and the power she now has, tosses her back into the Boundary. Within the Boundary, the PFD, the Origin as we know her, sees her “sister” units all being tortured. Most likely to break any souls they have so the scientists don’t have to deal with their “free will” getting in the way of their plans. Maybe to bring in Terumi telling Noel that they became weapons, other groups heard of the guys making the PFDs and them getting god power and obviously would be trying to stop them/take this power for themselves, so they decided to make the PFDs into mindless robo-soldiers to fight them off. Origin gets mad and ends up making all of them sentient. Probably by Observing them as sentient, like she sees all of these things “like her” so obviously they must be sentient or at least have the potential for sentience. Kind of like Jotaro going “It’s a similar type of Stand '' to DIO and then getting Time Stop.

Anyways now mankind is fighting these robot girls who want revenge for being treated like tools, all humanity sees is all these in-human weapons killing them for no reason, just because destroying is what a weapon does, and with the Master Unit’s Phenomenon Intervention, they can just rewrite all of their failures into victories. Mankind sees the Origin and the Master Unit as basically the same thing, an evil machine god. His leads into why the Origin and Amaterasu can’t just be separated so Ragna doesn’t have to sacrifice himself to stop the time loops, the world sees The Origin and Amaterasu as one, there is no distinction. This is also apparently the time period when Clavis Alucard helped mankind make the Izayoi, with its Immortal Breaker and ability to resist Observation to fight against the Origin and the PFDs. Ironic that it eventually became known as the prototype for the Lux Sanctus: Murakumo, but I’ll talk about that later.

So what does mankind do? Make a Black Beast to destroy it. I mean we are told to believe that a Black Beast is the result of Azure Grimoire (or just a piece of the Azure) + Murakumo Unit = either a Black Beast if the fusion is imperfect, and a powerful Kusanagi God Slayer is done right. But tell me, why the hell would they build ANOTHER Prime Field Device to fight the PFDs? I will be getting into the exact nature of Black Beasts later. Mankind is apparently cool with the Black Beast destroying the world because so long as they can get the Azure and plug it into Takamagahara, which is basically a manmade Master Unit supercomputer, they can just reset time. But due to a bug or something, the Master Unit stopped this and when the world was destroyed she just made a new one based on her memories. This is the world the characters live in now. And since the last thing she remembers about the world is the Black Beast and obviously she doesn’t want the world to hate and try to kill her, the Black Beast enters the world with everyone having no context to its existence and no other enemy to fight, leading to the Black Beast going from a weapon of Mutually Assured Destruction, to the new Ultimate Evil Enemy of the World.

A few things we need to take note of here.

XBlaze and Bloodedge Experience would need to take place during the Age of Origin, between mankind discovering the Boundary but before the Prime Field War starts. I mean the two things needed for that part to start would be Prime Fields and Takamagahara, and while there is Es who is sort of a PFD, you could simply say that her model isn’t suited for full Boundary Exploration. I know I am really glossing over the Embryo stuff about her but I haven’t seen XBlaze stuff in a while and I would need to find a way to connect it with the Embryo in Centralfiction.

Apparently, there was some off-screen war in which Hihiirokane (the Soul Cutting Sword protected by Jubei’s clan, used by his brother Tomonori to fight Terumi, then put in Clavis’ grave) was used to fight some enemy, “Outside of logic”. I have no idea what this is and it feels like something that shouldn’t be glossed over.

Mankind made a Black Beast on their side to get the Azure and fight the Master Unit, which A. means that in a weird way the Black Beast was sort of on mankind’s side at first before the Origin retconned it into being the destroyer, and B. mankind would have needed to make a Murakumo Unit to fight the Murakumos, knowing that the Origin is making them sentient and turn on them, which kind of feels like a dumb move. But again, I will get to this later.

This will all lead into the Looping World. Now, this is weird because of the main thing which the loop revolves around, The Black Beast. It is either A. as Terumi says in CS, a Cauldron that went batshit (which is precedent by the short story That Which Is Inherited where Sector Seven tries to smelt a Nox but everything goes tits up and a Black Beast forms from the Cauldron (no souls or prime field required), or B. a Time Displaced Ragna and Nu. The Black Beast is a Self-Observing weapon. Observation in Blazblue basically means “deciding if/how something exists” by Observing itself, the Black Beast declares its existence in this time period, which means that no matter what time paradoxical BS you may try to pull, it will always appear (Kind of reminds me of the Time Medallions Clockwork gives team Phantom in Danny Phantom). But a less mind-mushing way to look at it could simply be that, no matter what, this will always happen. Like, say the Assassination of Kennedy is Observed as an event that must ALWAYS happen, then even if you find and stop the sniper. He is gonna still die. Maybe there is another sniper, maybe the sniper gets a good hit on you and manages to make another shot down the road, but anyway you slice it, Kenedy gets shot. That event is permanently locked in history and no matter what you do, this event is inevitable.

But suggestion A is weird because it could either mean that 1. He is talking about the first Black Beast from the Age of Origin, or 2. Since that part of the story probably wasn’t written yet and they are talking about this specific Beast, he is talking about the Dark War Black Beast, in which case there actually was a bit of time before the time loops started, or at least the very first loop, so then there was a bit of time before shit went sideways.

Maybe the Origin didn’t make a Black Beast war and it was all Terumi’s idea. The world would’ve continued as normal but since Terumi hated the Master Unit and mankind wanted power, they tried to make a Kusanagi but it fucked up and made a Black Beast, but without a publicly known Prime Field War to justify it, mankind doesn't see this as a necessary evil which will get the Azure and then reset the world better for them, it’s just a big evil monster.

Okay, that is my interpretation of the Age of Origin for my Blazblue rewrite idea. Not many changes since this is all pretty self-contained and not much needs expanding on. Just make sure to justify some actions and connect the three timelines. I probably missed out on a lot of finer details but I think I got the broad strokes of it. Feel free to correct me.

Next time I will cover the Dark War and hopefully go into explaining how I would make the Powerset make a bit more sense (Ars Magus, Grimoires, Nox Nyctores, the Azure Grimoire, and the Black Beast).

[vidaflxwer]

hey mei, have u kept up with the tpn anime? what are your opinions on it so far?

i’ve been semi-keeping up with it! and by semi-keeping up, i mean just skimming through the episodes because a lot of my fears about how they were going to handle norman’s character arc in the anime, from season one, actually came true and i’m honestly really not happy about it?

i have so many thoughts so i’m not gonna burden this post with them - so if anyone wants to hear my specific thoughts on certain things, please send in more asks and i’ll get into them - but i guess i’ll just highlight the basic, glaring issues i have with it?

1. no yuugo/goldy pond. yes i’m lumping these two together because i feel they need to go together. yes i’m extremely bitter about it. yes it makes my soul ache because i loved yuugo so fucking much and, as silly as it sounds, i really enjoy hearing characters come to life with their voices/laughs. specifically laughs though, i can recognized a lot of my favorite voice actors/actresses based on their laugh alone, so i just wanted that with yuugo.

2. the pacing seems a bit off to me. granted, i know it’s because there were production issues and this seems to be the last season of tpn anime for some reason? and if it isn’t, i will be very surprised, but that just makes me sad. and i don’t really fault anyone working on it for that, because this has happened with a few well-loved series where the funding randomly got cut and they never got to finish. but i still just think it’s yikes. 

3. i can’t decide whether or not i like tiny norman because i’m realizing that having him look older in the manga made me able to like more distance myself from the fact that he was only thirteen years old but the scene where he coughed up blood in the anime fucking killed me and i was sobbing over it for a while. i had much more of a visceral reaction to it than i did in the manga, so i respect tpn anime for that, but i headcanoned norman being taller in the manga as one of the side affects of being experimented on at lambda, and while i know that isn’t true, i wish we could’ve gotten something like that in the anime? but i also love tiny norman and i think he looks really pretty so i don’t know! there was another huge reason why i didn’t want norman to look as old as he did in the manga so i’m glad he doesn’t but i guess i wish he looked a bit more different? i don’t know. it’s weird. i have complicated feelings. 

4. hi i’m sorry but norman saying that the only reason ray and emma were able to escape was because he got shipped out was horribly, horribly out of character. i don’t really know what the anime is trying to do with norman but he’s just off. really off. the whole confrontation scene between ray/emma and norman was a nightmare in the anime. there was a huge reason why i loved it so much in the manga and i’m not gonna say why because i will wind up writing an essay on why the confrontation scene needed to be done the way it did in the manga, but that’s just the norman stan in me. but i had a fear they were going to go a different direction with norman after season one finished airing because of the lack of internal dialogue, and it seems all of my fears have come true. i could be proven wrong but i highly doubt it at this point. 

5. what? is going on with the seven walls? like mujika gave emma the necklace but didn’t tell her it existed? and now they’re going to see sonju and mujika, with gilda and don, in order to stop norman from killing them but? i am so fucking confused? like are they just gonna reveal it to them once they reunite? but are emma and ray gonna even be able to get to sonju and mujika, have them teach them about the seven walls, and go to the seven walls, all within those five days? because with the manga, it made more sense because it was just a trip to the seven walls, and the time frame norman gave them was shorter - i think? don’t quote me on that - but i feel like norman’s going to have way too much time to execute his plan, logically? like he’s gonna kill all of the demons, then die of the lambda sickness himself before they can save him? which, speaking of, i’d like to point out that the lines emma said to norman in order to keep him from killing himself/sacrificing himself again, she said to him in the confrontation scene so does that imply that norman’s actually going to die in the anime? or are they just going to flip the, “you don’t have to become a god’ line and make it the line she uses to save him from self-destructing? because that makes less sense, since the whole point of that line was for norman to eventually think, “i’ll gladly become god or the devil, emma”? but again, i won’t discuss this further unless anyone asks because we’d be here all day.

overall, i really don’t fucking know how to feel but i will say: i do enjoy that the anime had ray and emma rely on don and gilda for once, and the sheer happiness that don and gilda got from that? yeah, it was priceless. also someone at tpn anime headquarters very clearly ships gilemma but i’m not complaining. also god bless whoever cast miu from blend s’ voice actress to voice mujika, i appreciate you. 

[drwcn]

“before the sun falls” - my cql WIP

the lanling jin siblings sub-arch: 

jin siblings supporting each other and overthrowing their slutty dad 2k20 

jin zixuan really just wants a functioning family. he’s so So SO friggin jealous of the yunmeng jiangs, gusu lans, and qinghe nies because wtf EVERYBODY has a brother to lean on - fucking Jiang Cheng has a brother and a sister - what the fuck, how’s that fucking fair? 

turns out Meng Yao was the oldest...by half a day. 

Jin Zixuan calls Meng Yao “da-ge” and shows him deference and respect because “well, you’re the oldest why wouldn’t i call you da-ge”

Jin Zixuan tells his father off and being like “no, the name Jin Guangyao makes no sense for Da-ge because “guang” is used in your generation, everyone in my generation has the character “zi”. If you recognize Da-ge, he should be Jin Ziyao. What kind of recognition would it be if you won’t place him in the rank he should be in and deserves?” 

Meng Yao is plotting but is also Confused™ “so like... do I not kill hiM????”

Everyone else is like wait if Meng Yao - erm - Jin Ziyao is the oldest, does it make him the heir??? Jin Zixuan shrugs, fuck if he knows. It’s not like his dad ever paid fucking attention to teaching him how to run a sect. 

Madame Jin is LIVID, and tries to solidify Zixuan’s position. And since Jiang Yanli is unwilling and unavailable - she’s too busy being Sect Leader Jiang - Madame Jin thought of Master Qin, her husband’s right hand man. He has a daughter named Qin Su no? 

Madame Qin comes to Jin Zixuan with the truth, and Jin Zixuan immediately goes to his Da-Ge, “We have a SISTER, and they want me to MARRY HER??? ” 

Jin Zixuan is livid at his slutty Dad ‘i’m gonna fucking kill him!”  Meng Yao 👀 “was that a srs offer or...? ‘cause i’ll help.” JZX: “what?” MY: “what?”

They tell Qin Su.

Qin Su is reasonably traumatized, but she slowly starts getting to know her brothers. Da-Ge is so short and can’t stop making eyes at the First Jade of Lan, and Er-Ge is actually so in love with Jiang Yanli - pardon me, Sect Leader Jiang - he just doesn’t know how to talk to her. Her brothers are so fucking strange. 

In private, she’s ‘san-mei’ to her brothers. It has a nice ring to it. Qin Su decides she likes having brothers. 

Jin Zixuan “omg Sect Leady Jiang won’t talk to me, what do I do, san-mei?” Qin Su “have you tried Not Being an Asshole and Speaking Full Sentences Nicely?” 

Apparently once Jin Zixuan starts he can’t stop, and before anyone could stop him, he’s dug up another illegitimate child. JGS keeps zero track so it was actually quite difficult to find MXY. The only reason why Zixuan even found him was because his mom is more well-off than most of the girls that JGS uses and tosses aside. 

Mo Xuanyu is just a teenager, a tinsy baby prone to crying. “da-ge, er-ge, san-jie”. The older three: “....holy shit protec him”. 

They talk about legitimizing MXY and how to deal with slutty Dad. Qin Su refuses to acknolwedge JGS as her father bc she has a father and he’s great. fuck JGS. 

Meng Yao: “you don’t want to be a Jin? Not even a little bit?” QS: “no. He’s not my father, he’s just the man who raped my Mother. We are not his shame. He is our shame. His blood is what pollutes us, not our mothers’. He’s been careless with Er-ge, neglectful with xiao-Yu, used and abused you during the war, and nearly ruined me. If I had the chance and ability I’d kill him in a heartbeat, just to avenge all of our sufferings. But alas, I can’t, but I will not let him and his mistakes take me away from enjoying the rest of my life.” 

 MXY, “I had no one at the Mo Manor. Now I have da-ge, er-ge, san-jie. Of course I wish Father would love me, but it’s probably never going to happen.”  

The four Jin children out JGS and his evil plots. 

In the end they add Jin Ziyao in the family pedigree in front of Jin Zixuan. Qin Su agreed, after much begging and bribing from her brothers, to allow her unofficial Jin-name Jin Ziqin to be included in the third spot. She wanted to honour her Dad Master Qin, but also bc Jin Zisu is an awful sounding name. She still goes by Qin Su. Mo xuanyu came last, as Jin Ziyu, which he was very happy about. 

[magioftheseas]

Hi! I think you mentioned the possibility of Tsukasa having been ill while he was alive, so I wanted to mention something that aligns with that! In the Picture Perfect Arc, the story they are reading in class is "Takasebune", in which a guy becomes sick and tries to kill himself to avoid burdening his older brother. The older brother kills him then, upon the younger brothers request. Do you think it might be a hint to how the story might progress?

Oh, yeah, I remember that! I even read Takasebune and had no idea what to make of it, lol. It was pretty unsettling in a way that might have been unintentional. Hard to say. Basically, the older brother in that story is a lot less haunted about having assisted his brother’s suicide than one might expect and I do wonder if that might’ve...rubbed Hanako the wrong way.

But yeah between that and the little paper crane form that Tsukasa has, it’s partially why I think he might have been ill. I will say though these aren’t really like...super obvious bits of symbolism and foreshadowing, and it’s still so largely vague. Tsukasa’s crane form does serve a more practical use (also Tsuru sounds similar to Tsukasa so it could even be a fun bit of wordplay) and yeah Takasebune could be symbolic/foreshadowing...or AidaIro might just like the story. I know they do in fact HAVE a thing for family members killing each other since it’s in Dear My Living Dead as well, so it’s just a recurring theme... As you do. I guess it depends on the kind of writer AidaIro is?

Re: Dear My Living Dead, like...that one was actually super fucking obvious about where it was going. So, is AidaIro a super obvious writer? Even then, it’s hard to say what’s the obvious route of Hanako-kun, even compared to their other stories, it’s so obtuse about the broader strokes albeit less so scene to scene. It’s very different from Dear My Living Dead and even the Hanako Pilot which while also vague, it’s vague in a way that clearly isn’t going to be explained the way things are assumably going to be in Hanako-kun proper.

Does this make any sense?

I do lean towards Tsukasa being ill because, as I’ve stated before, I strongly believe that the Yugi Twins were involved with a supernatural (if not Tsuchi) and what better leverage is there than the promise of saving your sick little brother? It would also be a delicious bout of irony if Amane had initially fought to keep Tsukasa alive only for the, uh, opposite to happen. I just think it’d click together neatly, but that’s just what I think. I still have no concrete idea what AidaIro is going for because they seem to just...like sitting on information until the last minute and after that, they just fling it all at you at once...

(Couldn’t figure out where to bring this up but Picture Perfect has Mei shaming Hanako for being a brocon which I think about a lot.)