#yes to answer that user’s question who asked me three times if this account is dead

[mspaintlightbulb]

hi erm what the sigma

QUICK POST LIKE SUPER QUICK I THINK I’LL JUST YAP IN THE TAGS

but basically this account will no longer continue

thanks for staying :D

@teamnotsoepic <- my main tumblr acc! its not very active but i would usually post if i dont feel like posting on my instagram

@/hittinelfbar <- my instragram!

[udo0stories]

  There is an apparently never-ending list of factors to take into account when writing blog content, including seasonality, algorithm updates, and SEO keyword research. Additionally, if you used your smart device to find this blog, “Hey Google, is Mediavine about to tell me something else I should optimize for in my content?” The answer is yes. We are.  Welcome to everything you didn’t know you needed to know about voice search. Voice search is becoming an increasingly popular way for audiences to find the information they need without taking up too much time or energy due to increased AI voice recognition patterns and increased accessibility to smart home devices. Insider Intelligence estimates that 44% of internet users currently use voice search once a month. It is time to think about including voice search optimization in your SEO strategy, since so many people are speaking on their smart devices rather than typing into search bars. What is voice search? Voice search is the ability to speak into your smart device and have your spoken language translated into text via an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system. This implies that even though your search is limited to audio, it appears as text on search engines such as Google Chrome or Safari, just like a regular text query. Furthermore, although voice searches may eventually operate similarly to text searches, they differ greatly from one another. Voice searches are typically longer than text searches because the queries we speak into our devices directly often correspond to the way we speak in real life. Say, "What are the best casual lunch spots in West Town, Chicago?" instead of "lunch near me." Both searches will locate a lunch spot nearby, but one is more akin to a genuine conversation than the other, which is a quick and easy search query. How does voice search impact my SEO strategy? Even though only the top 1 or 3 results are displayed to the user when ranking for voice search, you can still enhance your overall SEO strategy by optimizing for it. Not only can you reach a wider audience by focusing on voice search, but search engines also appreciate content that is written with humans in mind. By incorporating voice search optimization into your plan, you may be able to improve your page authority in addition to your chances of ranking in one of the top three positions. Additionally, you can stay ahead of digital trends by using voice-search targeting. With algorithm changes occurring frequently and the trend toward voice-friendly content, making this adjustment to your content now could have a positive long-term effect on you. How Do I Target Voice Search in My SEO Strategy? When producing material, consider the "natural." Instead of reading like an overly optimized SEO think piece created by AI, your content should sound like a typical conversation between actual people. What kind of question would you ask? Your goal should be to address typical verbal queries within your content.  Writing for voice search does not mean abandoning SEO research and optimization; it means researching long-tail keywords and seeing what questions people are already searching for. An easy way to answer common voice searches is to include FAQ sections in your content. This will allow you to answer some of those tougher questions in a more natural way. Who Would Benefit Most from Optimizing for Voice Search? Though it may seem like travel and hyperlocal bloggers would gain the most from optimizing for voice searches given the current prevalence of local searches through voice search, other niches will also profit as voice search grows in popularity and strength. It is a good idea to begin optimizing your content for voice search as soon as possible, so you can be ready for the feature's inevitable rise in popularity. We are aware that it seems like there is always a new strategy to improve your website's visibility or SEO authority, but we are confident that this most recent trend will not fade.

Gaining an advantage over your audience through voice search is a relatively low-effort approach to boost traffic and "future-proof" your website, as voice search users will only increase as Gen Alpha continues to shape the internet's future. The more sophisticated smart devices become, the more popular voice search will become. "Hey Siri, how do I optimize my blog content for voice search?" will be a common question in the near future. Making small changes to your SEO strategy now can greatly impact how well your site evolves with the modern internet.

[thefanficmonster]

Let Them Talk

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female) ft. Sykkuno

Warnings: Swearing, Jealousy

Genre: Fluff, a bit of Angst

Summary: We can all agree Among Us is a fun game on its own but what makes it ten times better is playing it with the right company. Y/N could agree 100% Being a streamer herself, she loves playing with the streamer gang that includes her boyfriend and best friend. But, what happens when her boyfriend starts doubting her feelings for him due to her close relationship with her best friend.

Requested by @cheetoscat . Thank you so much for your request! Sorry it took so long to write, I hope the final product is worth the wait. Enjoy! Love, Vy ❤

Y/AU/N - Your Among Us Name

I settle in my gaming chair, adjusting my webcam one last time before joining the Among Us lobby with my friends. 

“Hi everyone!“ I say into the mic, a smile plastering itself on my face. Discord is a magical thing, man. It’s so easy to forget that the people you are talking to aren’t around you or within arm’s reach. You could be separated by miles and miles of land or - in our case - oceans as well. Distance becomes negligible when you hear your friends’ voices, their laughter; when you have a good time together despite being each behind a screen, often times alone.

Well, I’m one of those lucky ones that isn’t alone. No one knows that, though. Everyone thinks I’m a single, self-employed girl that’s straight out of college. And they are 90% right. Only thing is - I’m not single. That would be a shocker in and of itself, but revealing who’s changed my relationship status would be a bomb with a whole new intensity.

Speaking of my significant other who shall remain unnamed - just kidding, it’s Corpse - his form materializes in the doorway of my recording room. I give him a hand signal the camera isn’t able to capture, alerting him of the fact that my mic is on. He replies by blowing me a kiss and walking off down the hall to his recording room where he’ll be stationed for the next three or so hours.

I owe this relationship to my best friend Sykkuno. I’m a pretty new and not very well known on the platform, however, thanks to him I haven’t only obtained a boyfriend, but a following of a little over million subscribers as well. 

It all started with an invitation to fill a spot in the Among Us lobby him and his friends had created. It took him quite a bit to convince me to join, but I eventually caved and agreed. Suddenly, there I was. In a Discord call, in an Among Us lobby with some of the most well-known names on this platform. I’m talking YouTube legends. I was that puppy playing with the big dogs. The newbie tagging along with the big leagues. Or at least that’s how I felt until we all started vibing - talking and teasing each other as though we’ve known each other for years and not minutes.

When I joined the call, Corpse wasn’t present. After everyone else introduced themselves, Sykkuno informed me that we were waiting for Corpse to return. The name sounded really cool to me and I was genuinely very excited to meet this Corpse guy.

And then, out of the blue - no prep, no warning...

“Did you get someone to fill the spot? Oh- Hello, Y/AU/N.“ 

…he started talking and he had me star-struck. Apparently, he also had me a blabbering mess cause I remember blurting out: “Whoa, who’s this guy speaking in bold and underlined at the same time?”

The entire lobby, including Corpse, laughed. Sean, or Jack like they called him most often, answered my question, “That is the voice of God, Y/N. Its source is named Corpse, though.”

Heat spread from the bottom of my neck to the tips of my ears. I was mortified by my own stupidity. I was well aware they couldn’t see me and I was incredibly thankful for that, but I simply could not get myself to open my eyes. “I’m so sorry.” I said through nervous laughter.

“No, no, I like that description. Bold and underlined at the same time, huh?“ His voice sounded even more pleasant when it had that teasing, mischievous note to it. That thought popping up in my head only made things worse for my self-esteem and only made me more embarrassed, causing me to hide my face in my hands. “You sure it’s not in Italics as well?“ 

His question got a weak laugh out of me. “Nope, definitely not. Nothing Italic about it.“

Yes, I don’t even know how some terrible jokes about MS Word fonts got me as far as a romantic relationship, but they did! We’ve been living together for quite some time now, dating for even longer - hiding it just as long. It’s not that we have been actively trying to hide it or something, we just wanted to see how long it would take someone to become sus of us. When we realized no one would notice, we decided that if any rumors about us started, or even fans shipping us, we’d come clean. That hasn’t happened either, so we haven’t had the proper chance to address our relationship and neither of us minds.

At this point, I’m honestly afraid of revealing it to the gaming squad. Sykkuno especially. He’s my best friend, after all. I can see him being hurt by the fact that I kept a secret so big even from him. The last thing I wanna do is hurt my best friend but it’s already too late for that, it’s inevitable.

“Y/N have you looked at Twitter today?“ Rae, another streamer I’ve become close with over the months, says urgently.

Overlooking the tension in her words, I answer: “Nope, haven’t had the time. Why? What’s up?“

Before Rae can say anything else, Sykkuno joins the conversation, his voice somehow even more urgent than Rae’s. “It’s nothing, Y/N. If you see it, just don’t let it bother you, ok?”

Hearing such a tone from Rae isn’t unusual, but hearing it from Sykkuno is completely different and a lot more worrisome. “Well if it has the potential of bothering me it can’t be nothing. What’s going on?”

Just then, my phone dings with two notifications. I check to see they are messages from Rae.

“I sent you screenshots. Sorry, Sykkuno. She has to know in order to address it and defuse it as well. I know better than anyone how fast these rumors can spread, especially if no one reacts to them.“ She says, her tone barely apologetic at all.

I open the screenshots she has sent me and I find myself frozen in shock. Some old pictures of Sykkuno and I have been posted on Twitter by some random user. These pictures have started an entire thread of suspicions surrounding our relationship.

The pictures in question are from a New Year’s Eve party a mutual friend of ours held two years ago. Sure, in the pictures we are a lot closer than what would be considered a platonic proximity. And yes one of the pictures is of me kissing his cheek. Yes we were both a bit tipsy. I acknowledge all those things and yet none of them are concrete reasons for these rumors to have started piling. 

“This is silly.“ I finally say after maybe five minutes of silence on my end. ”This is absolutely ridiculous! And why are people so serious about it as well? Actual, important matters get discussed more nonchalantly than the potential relationship between two online personalities! What is this world we live in?“ I know I shouldn’t let these rumors get to me like this, especially not on camera. Still, I can’t help it. I feel it’s so unfair to Corpse. He has to put up with this as well and it’s by no means easy for him. I’ve been shipped with people from our group in the past and he always took those rumors to heart despite acting like he didn’t care. Neither of us should get worked up, but him getting upset about them creates a domino effect with my emotions - causing me to be hit just as hard as him, in some cases harder.

Rumors of the past aside, this one is the worst by far. Mostly cause even Corpse himself suspected something between Sykkuno and I at the very beginning, when we were still acquaintances, barely crossing into the realm of friends.

I pull up Twitter to look for the whole thread, barely sparing my stream chat a glance in the process. It seems pretty split - those who agree with me and those who think Sykkuno and I make ‘such an adorable couple’. The thread is ridiculously long, and if we take into account that it was only started approximately five hours ago, you can either view it as impressive, amusing or sad. Why sad? Because someone has dedicated so much time and effort into fueling the fire of a weakly supported theory.

I love Sykkuno with all my heart. Everyone knows that - fandom, streamer squad, Corpse and Sykkuno included. I love too much and too platonically to ever even dream of having a romantic connection with him. I thought that was more than obvious, but people are either blind here, or just grasping at straws. One thing’s for certain - they’re stepping on a nerve.

“Hey where’s Corpse? Did he disconnect?” Felix asks, gaining my full attention. My eyes dart to the monitor, searching through the little avatars in a desperate search for the one of my boyfriend. It’s nowhere to be found.

“He just messaged me saying his connection is unstable but he might join us later.“ Rae says, “You guys can invite someone to fill...“

“Bathroom break.“ I interrupt, not waiting for a response before shutting my mic off, putting the ‘BRB‘ graphic on my stream and yanking the headset off. I basically run down the hall to Corpse’s recording room, my heart pounding like a bass drum.

“Corpse?!“ I call out to him, one hand already on the doorknob. When five seconds pass by without a response, I barge in. 

Inside, I find his usual spot on the gaming chair empty and his slumped figure seated on his bed.

“Corpse?“ I try again, watching for even the tiniest change of body language. He remains still as a statue, not bothering to look up at me either. 

His hands are gripping the edge of the mattress, his head hanging low. His eyes are covered by the short curtain of his dark messy curls. I can’t gauge much. Is he angry? Is he sad? Both? How should I approach the situation?

Before I find the answer to any of those questions, I am kneeling in front of him, our height difference eliminated. I gently pry his hands off the mattress and take them in mine, holding them firmly but tenderly. With one hand I reach up to tilt his head so his eyes can meet mine. He complies, his tear-filled brown orbs meeting mine. Those tears have the same effect on me as fifty sharp knives stabbing into my chest. These tears focus their attack straight on my heart, tearing it to pieces.

“Baby....“

He cuts me off, “Why is it always someone else, huh? Do they deem me not worthy of being with you? Do they think you deserve better?” His voice wavers, “Well, they might be right. They are correct and there’s little I can do to prove them wrong. They mean you well, Y/N - pairing you with guys better than me. Those are some loyal fans you’ve got. They only want what’s best for you. And so do I. If ‘best’ is being with someone else then...”

It’s my turn to cut him off. I put an end to his nonsense ramble that’s slowly killing me by pressing my finger against his lips. The sternness of my gaze is beyond me as I get up and walk over to his computer setup. I put on his headset and hop into the call as well as the lobby with his avatar.

“Hey Corpse’s back!” Toast says, “Good to have you back buddy.”

“No, not Corpse.” I say in a casual, nonchalant voice.

“Wait, wha-“ Sean’s voice shows just how confused he is, representing the confusion of the entire lobby actually.

“I know all of you are streaming so this message will be heard by several different audiences so I’m gonna make myself perfectly clear.“ I take a deep breath, “Sykkuno and I aren’t dating. He’s a lovely guy and he deserves to find a girl who will treat him right. That girl isn’t and won’t be me though. I am already treating someone right. Someone who treats me more than right as well. An amazing person. A man-child with a heart of gold. You know him, to a certain extent. He goes by the name of Corpse Husband, but I prefer to call him ‘Love of my life’. Thank you for your time and attention, goodbye.“

I exit the call and turn around to find a stunned Copse looking at me.

“That was meant for you just as much.“ I say with a fake strict attitude, one hand on my hip the other rested on his desk behind me, “Were you listening?“

Within milliseconds, he’s on his feet standing directly in front of me, his lips inches away from mine. “I heard and memorized every word. But...” he pauses for a moment, “I think you have no idea how big of a chaos you just created.”

I smile mischievously, “We’ll worry about that later. For now...” I close the gap between us, connecting our lips in a sweet and passionate kiss. 

@susceptible-but-siriusexual  @simonsbluee  @save-the-sky  @hacker-ghost  @itsminniekat  @bi-andready-tocry  @imtiredaffff  @jazzkaurtheglorious  @hereforbeebo  @fandomgirl17  @chrysanthykios  @maehemscorpyus  @loraleiix  @letsloveimagines  @annshit  @i-cant-choose-a-username-help  @enigmaticmaze  @divine-artemis  @waterlilypat  @idontknowwhatthisisfam  @evi-ka  @classyandfabulous00  @redperson58  @lilysdaydreams  @the-fuck-up-of-today  @slashersdream  @chiefwombathoagiepizza  @solowheein @mythicalamphitrite  @axen-gers  @luckygirl144  @nj01

[pocketramblr]

Idk if you've talked about this before, but how closely tied do you think the stockpiling nature of OfA is to the "passing down" nature of it? I was thinking about how Midoriya has access to the quirks of the previous holders, and I was wondering how much of that is due to the stockpiling quirk vs First's quirk. Like, if AFO had given and taken the stockpiling quirk multiple times to people with different quirks, would it have "collected" those quirks too, since it's a stockpiler? Or was it purely First's quirk that allowed the other holders' quirks to be passed on as well? Because if it's the latter, then what exactly is the original quirk stockpiling? Before realizing Midoriya could access the previous holders' quirks, All Might said OFA gets stronger each time it's passed on. Would that mean it only accumulates the holders' physical abilities unrelated to their quirks? But that can't be right because OFA has supposedly made all the quirks it contains stronger. So if it's the former, then since AfO held the stockpiling quirk at one point, did it also "collect" a copy of AFO and Midoriya will be able to access it eventually?

i did once answer an ask with a mathematical breakdown of OfA multiplying x amount of average human strength as an example to show the difference between periodic compound interest and continuous compound interest. um, because i teach economics and i always thought that making it entertaining was the best way to get it to stick. that one had showed that izuku should have a truly ridiculous amount of strength, though i dont remember the exact numbers rn. you can try to find it on this blog... good luck.

anyway, thats not really the question you're asking, so lets get into ofa and try to science a quirk that probably is just magic.

I have answered the question below the cut in three parts, plus a lightning round to try and make sure i answered all the parts of your question.

1- stockpiling quirk vs First's quirk: For this, i am going to say that i quite like the theory that First was actually quirkless, and the stockpile quirk just took a little bit of AfOQuirk with it and thats why it could be passed on afterwards. In this situation, i think what OfA does is that the Stockpile Quirk makes a copy of everything in it's holder- their memories, their dna, their energy and vitality. It does not boost any of those until it's passed on- the Stockpile was very small and could only copy AfO's genes that had the AfOQuirk, but at tenth generation would probably copy more than that if passed to someone with AfO and with a hoard of other quirks. On being passed, it then adds to the new holders strength, while working to copy their base traits. So, First got a little stronger with a boost from AfO, and his quirk though he didn't know it, while OfA ran him through a copy machine to make a vestige to paste into the next body. Second has the strength and dna of first and afo, plus some ghosts, and could use his own while it was being copied. And so on. But that's just the "First was actually quirkless theory", so lets work on the assumption that First did have a pass-along quirk

2- First's original quirk. Which doesn't even get a name, thanks guys. We know it should have something to do with passing on quirks, and on relying on consent of the giver and dna transfer, which makes it different than AfOQuirk. AfO can steal and give, but doesn't require dna. There are even some panels in the manga that imply AfO doesn't even need physical touch to take a quirk, as it appears he steals many quirks at once by jumping over a crowd of people. unfortunately, Bones decided to just cut that scene out of season five for some reason, so it's still a mystery and maybe he's using some other method. thanks, bones. hope those last two movies you had to shove painfully into quasi-canon were worth it. Anyway, different activation methods. Now, given that ofa requires on consent of the given, it does make me wonder: if someone knew about ofa, and wanted to give an ofa holder their quirk, and provided dna for it, would it stick? Can ofa both take and give, but only based on willingness? Seems like a possibility that would have never been tested. BUT i am getting super off topic bc i am writing this answer late at night, sorry. Right, so how much of this is First's quirk? Given that it's described as the ability to "Pass on his quirk(s)", i think all of the quirk-stockpiling, including the vestiges, are from First's quirk. On his own, his quirk would collect dna, which includes quirks, and quirks are just straight up haunted. On his own, without the stockpile, he could have passed on his quirk to second, and started the line like normally, but the holders would not have gotten any boost of strength, just possibly the ability to use previous quirks. Maybe only access them if they were originally quirkless? maybe not, without the 'stress' of the stockpiled they'd all be fine with multiple quirks? Who knows. Point is, thats what i think the options are. Either 1, the quirk-vestige stuff comes from afo, first was actually quirkless, and the strength is stockpile, or 2- the quirk-vestige stuff comes from first, and the strength is stockpile.

3- So what is the stockpile doing? Ok so the stockpile is like soup. bear with me. the longer you keep your ingredients in to flavor a broth or stock, the stronger the flavor will be, right? A chicken bone and some carrots in some stock for ten minutes wont' be as flavorful as a chicken bone and some carrots that have been cooking in a stock for an hour. Basically, the stock liquid is the stockpile, and the ingredients are the user's quirks. because of this, i think that it makes sense that Second's Quirk, whatever it is, has received a larger boost from OfA than, say, Black Whip has. It's been in the soup longer. That doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be stronger than black whip when izuku accesses it, because BW probably got to start off stronger, but it will have gotten more of a boost. You can also think of it as a loan- OfA took a quirk loan out from Second way before it took a quirk loan out from Banjo, so Second will have accrued more interest than Banjo, but the total sums also depend on how much was there to start with. Man i hope these metaphors make sense. BUT, but, but, but. The stockpile only has access to these quirks to boost them because of First's original quirk (or the copy of afoquirk it took) On its own, it would have just stockpiled up strength and energy- i think of it more like interest on a checking account with a bank (you get a boost just by having money in there, and it slowly grows over time.) than like a feruchy metalmind (where you would store 'strength' to use later, at the cost of being physically weaker now). While the metalmind concept does technically fit the definition of 'stockpile' to me, i don't think thats how it worked bc it doesn't sound like what AfO meant when he talked about giving it to First. and i mean, AfO has been wrong about quirks before, but still. Interest from a bank is probably how it works. On its own, the only thing the stockpile has in its bank account is physical strength. the AfOquirk copy or First's original quirk let it open up its bank account to more, including the quirks.

lightning round-

Before realizing Midoriya could access the previous holders' quirks, All Might said OFA gets stronger each time it's passed on.

Yes but AM doesn't know a lot of things about OfA. I do think it gets stronger as its passed on, either though Option One of the past user's being pasted onto the next one when it's passed, or through Option Two of it getting stronger as its used, and more passes means more holders means more use.

Would that mean it only accumulates the holders' physical abilities unrelated to their quirks? But that can't be right because OFA has supposedly made all the quirks it contains stronger.

While OFA does make the quirks stronger, i'm not sure if it did much in a user's lifespan or only after it was passed on- Banjo talks about Black Whip being much stronger for Izuku than it was in his time, but i don't remember him mentioning anything about it being enhanced significantly during his time holding ofa.

So if it's the former, then since AfO held the stockpiling quirk at one point, did it also "collect" a copy of AFO and Midoriya will be able to access it eventually?

IMO, possible- but only in Option One where First was originally quirkless. there, he'd have both a vestige and an afoquirk to deal with. In Option Two, he would have neither- except whenever tomura stops by his headspace with an afoquirk and vestige sticking out of his shoulder.

[ootahime]

Another one, sorry! I'm ashamed to admit it because apparently I didn't understand it Why is Gojo paying Mei Mei? I assumed it was to promote his students, since the panels are followed. Thank you so much!! Keep writing more GojoHime theories and content please

don’t apologize bby <3 i’ll gladly answer all the questions you have 

i always tag my posts under gojohime because i don’t want the haters to discover this account.......

Why is Gojo paying Mei Mei?

You know, I thought he was paying Mei to promote his students too.  But as time went on, I realized this most likely isn’t the case.  Of course, I could always be wrong.  Let me get into it!

Mei Mei is not affiliated with the Jujutsu High branches because she works on her own accord.  She is an independent sorceress.  In Gojo’s point of view, she’s an ideal person to hire because she only works for the money.  Mei doesn’t care about anyone or anything, as long as cash is flowing in her bank account at the end of the day, she will carry out the job.  This aspect of Mei guarantees secrecy for Gojo because she won’t spill the beans about the traitors.  

Remember when Gojo told Mei that he noticed discrepancies in Yuuji’s footage during the Kyoto event?  Mei makes the excuse that crows will always be animals so she can’t fully control where they choose to look.  Gojo obviously doesn’t fall for her lies so he asks her which side she’s on to which she replies with “The side with money, of course.”  It’s clear at this point that Gakuganji paid Mei to keep the crows away from Yuuji so Gojo wouldn’t notice that the Kyoto kids are trying to assassinate his student.

Mei lies to protect her employer, Gakuganji.  As long as Mei is working under someone, she will always keep the mission information under wraps.  She won’t even tell Gojo about Gakuganji’s scheme.  

This probably seems off-topic but what I’m trying to say here is that assigning Mei with the task to unearth the moles would be a good choice on Gojo’s behalf because she will always keep her private missions a secret, which is beneficial for Gojo and Utahime because they don’t want to let it be known that they are aware that someone is feeding intel to curses and curse users.

Okay, now let’s answer why I don’t think Mei was paid by Gojo to promote his students.  

Before he deposited the money into Mei’s bank account, he was on a call with Utahime.  He was bragging about how the three first-year students each defeated a special grade curse on their own--thanks to his spectacular teaching.  It’s clear that he’s referring to Megumi, Yuuji, and Nobara here.  

Then the two talk about Utahime’s progress with the investigation.  He ends the call thinking that it’s a hassle having to be careful because he doesn’t know who could be listening in on his conversations with Utahime.  This is where Mei could be useful!  He has to be extra cautious with Utahime because she’s a teacher that’s exposed to both the students and the Kyoto school staff.  It’d be hard for her to investigate because she could be close to the suspects.  In contrast, Mei is not associated with anyone so she would not have a problem snooping around.  Hiring Mei would be more convenient and much less of a risk for Gojo.  

After Mei receives the money and laughs, we are shown Mei and Todo recommending Panda, Maki, Yuuji, Megumi, and Nobara for promotion.  

Mei recommends Panda and Maki while Todo recommends the trio.  Although Maki and Panda are close to Gojo, he is not their teacher anymore because he’s in charge of the first-years.  Atsuya Kusakabe is the one who’s in charge of the second-years.  If Gojo paid Mei to recommend his students then she should have said Yuuji, Megumi, and Nobara instead.  I firmly believe that Mei and Todo were impressed by the feats of those they recommended for promotion, therefore their actions are sincere.  Mei did acknowledge Maki’s abilities during the event, after all.  We also know that Todo is a genuine guy, he would not recommend anyone if he didn’t deem them to be worthy, even Yuuji.  

In my mind, it’s out of character for Gojo to consider promoting his students to Grade 1 in such an dishonest way.  Early in the story, Gojo reveals that his dream is to have strong allies that are willing to help him change the jujutsu system for the better.  As he is talking about his dream to Ijichi, there’s a panel of Gojo with his students standing alongside him to represent that him and his students are on equal terms.  They are as strong, if not even stronger than him in his dream.  He wants to foster the next generation of sorcerers to be exceptionally strong, yes, but he doesn’t want to take shortcuts.  

I’m sure everyone is aware that Gojo is a super childish guy.  I find it funny because when he was a little kid, he was so serious.  I think all of the responsibilities that come with being the strongest stripped him of a good childhood so he made up for it over the years by acting like a complete toddler.  The whole incident with Riko, Geto, and even Haibara, once again emphasized to him that being a sorcerer is no easy job.  At this point, he’s seen the death of so many innocent children because they’re unfortunate enough to be involved in a system that not only fails to protect them but exploits their efforts as well.  He absolutely hates the higher ups for making it this way.  He doesn’t want the students to suffer like him and his classmates did when they should be out having fun and doing what normal kids do.  

When you are a Grade 1 sorcerer, you are expected to adhere to the standards of perfection in jujutsu society.  You will have to make sacrifices you don’t want to make.  The death of those around you is inevitable.  Ultimately, being a Grade 1 sorcerer demands one to harden their heart.  In one of the light novels, Gojo follows Nanami to Hokkaido because Nanami was on a mission there and Gojo wanted to make a request.  I’m too lazy to go back and read it so I’ll just have to rely on my memory.  What I say is accurate but likely out of order.  Anyway, after they finished the job Nanami sought out to do, they have a conversation about sorcery.  Gojo basically admits that being a sorcerer never gets easier, even for him, because he, like many others, experiences traumatic events daily as a part of his job.  They then go to a bar and Gojo asks Nanami to take Yuuji under his wing because he believes Nanami has a lot to teach him.  I don’t remember much out of the conversation but I do remember Gojo saying something along the lines of, “I don’t want to see Yuuji’s smile fade--not even once.”  This statement suggests that he wants to preserve the innocence of such a pure boy like Yuuji.  Nanami thinks the same because he tells Yuuji that being a child is not a sin.  

Gojo wants to protect his students’ childhoods.  It is unlike him to pay Mei to promote his students to Grade 1 because he knows that would mean they would have to leave behind their youth to be another casualty in the cruelty that is jujutsu society.  He doesn’t want them to be exploited by the elders.  Like I said before, of course he wants them to be strong, but paying his way to his goal is not characteristic of Gojo Satoru.  

[deltas-writing-corner]

Tsukumo Yuki relationship headcanons

Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen

Pairing: Tsukumo Yuki x reader

Author note: Tsukomo Yuki is the reason I love woman and she can crush me between her thighs send tweet

Warnings: Potential manga spoilers (?) | Mentions of s*x, but nothing too blatantly explicit. I would still prefer it if minors did not interact with this post in any way.

Yuki always asks the people she meets what type of woman they like. If someone were to ask that same question back to her, she’ll most certainly utter back your name as if it were an obvious response.

What’s not to love about you? You’re cute. You make her laugh. You cook for her because heaven knows she can't if her life depended on it. Most importantly, you keep her company due to the lack of curses she’s ever sent to exorcise. Traveling the world is fun and all, but it’s even more fun with you by her side!

You’re not a sorcerer. You can’t even see curses. Yuki is a childhood friend of yours and has kept you in the loop regarding the world of jujutsu sorcery since she started integrating into it. She thinks it’s important for you to know that someone like you, a non-curse user who has no control over the curse energy you create, should know what exactly your negative emotions can lead to. It’s not to make you feel bad or pin blame on you in any way. It’s her way of protecting you beyond physical means as well as a way of showing you that she places a great deal of trust in you regarding the nature of her line of work and her true goals.

Because she rejects the methods of the higher-ups and her ideology is more along the lines of putting an end to the creation of curses permanently instead of letting them manifest and dealing with them when they start causing profound trouble, you’re often the one that has to listen to all her new, sometimes overreaching, hypotheses now and then. You may even take part in her research, but she would never put you in any sort of harm! At least, not unless you give her the okay to. Be warned, if you give your blessing to be her little lab rat she’s prone to get carried away with her methods. Speak up if she’s doing something outrageous or if she’s making you uncomfortable. Otherwise, you might end up in some precarious situations.

As mentioned previously, Yuki isn’t sent out on missions that often, if ever. She instead chooses to travel in and out of the country, for the sake of her research as well as for the pleasure of it. Since she’s one of three, later four, special grade sorcerers her salary is rather tremendous. Unfortunately, her travels outside Japan are “unauthorized” and sometimes her funds get frozen by the higher-ups. Her quick solution to the matter is to fly back, take on a mission or two to get her funds unfrozen (and into your account because you’re her partner-in-crime) or even take on a mission to earn some more funds, and then you and her are right back to traveling the world again.

During one of these money replenishing heists, she met a kid that she took a particular interest in and wanted to mentor, Aoi Todo. It’s hard for most people to spark her interest to the extent Todo did, so you happily supported her endeavors and even met with her young pupil a few times throughout the years. Her methods of training are a bit....extreme, to put it lightly. You understand that holding back her punches will only hinder Todo’s progress instead of allowing him the ability to improve and push past his limits, but you can’t help but flinch over the large scar that marks his face whenever you briefly meet up with him.

Todo is eccentric, but so is Yuki. Perhaps not idol obsessed like Todo, but seeing the way he takes great care of his appearance and flaunts his body (during a battle even), he’s a near-identical clone of Yuki. She knows that she’s good-looking, and she will always flaunt this fact to anyone with working eyes, even you! Does it work every single time? Yes. Yes, it does.

Honestly, how can it not? She’s tall. She has a great butt. She drives a motorcycle. Her tight biker pants are your Achilles heels and she knows it. Sometimes she’ll wear them around the house just to flaunt her curves and other bodily goods, even if it’s the middle of the summer, the AC is broken and the pants are made of stuffy leather material. If it gets your face all heated up, she'll wear it.

The compliments she gets from strangers are nice and all, but it’s your reactions she truly cares about. You’ve been by her side through it all. You're still sticking with her even despite the fact that she’s constantly moving around and living a somewhat free-spirited lifestyle. You genuinely support and help her when almost everyone else has rejected her methods and ideals and brush her off as some lazy, outrageous-thinking woman. Really, you stole this woman’s heart just by letting her be herself, a lazy, outrageous-thinking woman.

Yuki is indeed lazy, to the point it sometimes affects you and your shared apartment is left in a week-long accumulated mess. I’m talking clothes strewed about and spilling out the already full laundry basket, sink filled with dirty dishes, houseplant half dead due to insufficient watering, and little dusty bunnies in the corner of the room. Whenever you try to get around to getting your living space in order, she always drags you back to the bed with her either to nap some more or for a quick round of sex that leads to more napping. Eventually, you have to beat her with a pillow and threaten her with no sex for a certain period of time to get her to back off, which always works without fail.

If you really hold the “no sex until...” ultimatum over her head long enough, she’ll even pitch in and help you clean. But to be honest she kinda sucks at it so it’s sometimes better to just have her sit on the sidelines while you do all the work. She’ll jokingly suggest you clean with just an apron on (because she’s a freak like that), but you haven’t taken her up on the suggestion just yet. It’s mostly because you’ll use the “naked apron” method to further insinuate her punishment if your usual threat begins to lose its potency (because you are also a freak like that).

She’s a bad sleeping partner. Not only does she hog all the blankets and pillows, but she even stretches out her limbs over the entire bed. This usually leaves you curled up in a corner shivering your ass off until you either fall asleep via exhaustion or move to the couch. If you go to the couch, she’s 99.9% likely to wake up and join you shortly after, where she’s less of a hassle to deal with because of the limited space.

She’s a great big spoon, which is actually one of the ways you later use to solve her troublesome habits as once she latches onto you, she will not let go the rest of the evening. Unfortunately, she also snores terribly loud, but it’s nothing earbuds can’t fix.

Some might think she sleeps in something flattering, maybe even a bit scanty. That couldn’t be any further from the truth. Her pj’s are decades-old shirts and gym shorts that she never got around to getting rid of. If not that, she’ll sleep completely naked and she doesn’t care if someone walks in on her with the covers off. She’ll only ever wear lingerie or other promiscuous pieces of clothing if she has intentions of getting between your legs and rocking your world for the rest of the night.

I think it goes without saying that she looks great in lace, but as hot as she may look, she really likes seeing you dressed up in something risque as well.

If you’re female, she sometimes likes to wear matching lingerie sets with you, but her favorite material to see you in is leather, especially those harness-styled sets that squeeze your flesh all around.

If you’re male, she’s a complete sucker for a man in a clean-cut, custom-tailored suit and will take it off as soon as you put it on. Hope you don’t mind losing a button or two, because she will pop them off for sure when she rips your dress shirt off of you.

To all my gender-neutral folks, It’s never too late to whip out that naked apron I mentioned earlier! Or a leather jacket. Everyone looks great in a leather jacket!

Yuki’s diet is fucking terrible. You’re a decent cook, but despite this, all she ever seems to want is greasy take-out food that makes you wonder how the hell she’s still so fit after witnessing her down three chicken burritos in one sitting. Even when the two of you are abroad and are able to try out different types of cuisines not so readily available in Japan, she’ll still want to go out to a fast food joint that you can easily find everywhere. You’ve tried to get her to branch out of her comfort zone and eat somewhat healthier alternatives of her favorite foods, but so far you’ve gotten mixed results.

In summary: Yuki is a pretty outgoing person and sometimes can be a bit of a hassle to deal with, but she’s clearly ambitious and moves to the tune of her own beat. Her goal of finding and effectively eliminating the source of all curses is a testament to the fact that she wants to save future generations from having to carry the burden sorcerers have been carrying for thousands of years. Her goals are not only for the sake of the people who will come after her, but also for the sake of her future with you. You’re someone she genuinely cares for and wishes to spend the rest of her life with, evident by the numerous times she’s come clean to you about her fears of you dying when she isn't around to protect you or of her dying and leaving you behind to mourn during late-night pillow talks in hotels or in your shared home. A future where you and her can travel the world and truly take in and enjoy the sights and wonders instead of searching for an answer to one of the world’s greatest phenomenon is a future worth fighting for, even if she’s met with some pushback or the end goal seems like nothing more than a pipedream at times. So long as you’re there with her to see her research bear fruit, she’ll keep testing and coming up with new methods to eliminate curses permanently, no matter the extremes her research takes her to.

[neon-junkie]

Hey everyone,

This will be my final post addressing the fandom conflict that has quite frankly gotten out of hand. Although it’s very likely this post will be picked apart, no matter how well intended it is, I will no longer be addressing, interacting, or responding to any further accusations made against me. Of course, if people have questions from a genuine place of interest, I will be happy to clarify anything for you, either via DM’s or non-anon asks. I will not be answering anonymous asks on this, as I do not want anything else posted on this topic. 

As a side note: For anyone tempted to wade into the debate, I sincerely ask you not to get involved. Do not make yourself a target, do not feel you need to ‘pick a side’, and please do not think you have an obligation to reason with either side. It seems to be well past the point of that, so please find people you get along with in this fandom and curate a space for yourself away from all this conflict.

Warning: This post will contain uncensored slurs, mentions of racism, paedophilia, transphobia, LGBTQ+ phobia, death threats, threats of violence, targeted harassment, and abusive language.

To start off, I want to apologise to everyone who has somehow gotten drawn into this mess by either defending me, following me, or interacting with my content. This whole situation with me began well over a year ago when I wrote a crack-smut fic featuring Javier/Micah, posted back in August 2019. A crack fic is defined as “a work of fan fiction that is absurd, surprising or ridiculous, often intentionally.” It was inspired by a camp interaction between Micah and Javier, and like many other fanfiction writers, I decided to write smut about it. The fic was titled ‘Dirty Fucking Greaser’, and if that shocks you, I’m sure you can imagine how shocked I was to be informed afterwards that ‘Greaser’ was in fact a very serious 19th century slur for a Mexican individual. My first encounter with this word as insult was via RDR2, where it was used like a very casual insult. My only prior knowledge of this term was in regards to the greasers youth subculture, so the severity was lost on me. This obviously does not excuse my ignorance, and I should have researched the term better, but this is just again to apologize for that oversight, the insensitivity, and to highlight that my use of this term was not meant maliciously. Following this being pointed out, I proceeded to make 3 separate apology posts [Unfortunately I can only find the third one: HERE], renamed the fic, and added slur warnings in both the tags and the fic description. When I continued to receive complaints and increasingly aggressive abuse (which included being told my apologies weren’t good enough and I should delete my account and even kill myself), I attempted to delete the fic and mistakenly abandoned it instead. I contacted AO3 to see if it could be removed, but they said there was nothing they could do. I contacted their DMCA takedown team, who also said they couldn't remove it. Please note that all this happened 7-8 months ago, and has been dragged on for almost a year. 

So, from this one unfortunate incident, I’ve been branded a racist, and someone who attacks POC, when all I have done is tried to defend myself and correct my past mistakes. I could have done this more gracefully in the past, but frankly when you’re suddenly the target of unrelenting callout posts and nasty anons, it’s very hard to be open to criticism of this sort, but this is what I’m trying to move past.

Over the course of the year, this one mistake has spiralled, and the crusade against me has somehow coincided with moral conflicts over certain characters and ships. This has devolved into dehumanizing abuse, witch hunts, death threats, doxxing, anon hate, and much more unpleasant behaviour.

I have been in fandom for a very long time, and at the heart of all fandom circles is the fear of censorship and subsequent purges, so the ‘ship and let ship’ mentality was more or less the pinnacle of fandom philosophy. And yes, this can be problematic in some contexts. People have their right to be uncomfortable with content, have a right to be offended by content, but that is not content meant for you. This argument has devolved into ‘what material is morally right to engage with’ and that is a mentality in which fandom will not survive, because for every person who is telling me I’m an awful person for writing about Micah, there are three other people telling me how much they appreciate me making that content. For every fic in which I characterize Javier and Flaco a certain way, some people are made uncomfortable by it and others tell me they enjoy it. And this isn’t just white people, but POC too, which makes it very difficult to know whether I am genuinely in the right or the wrong, especially when it comes to the concept of ‘fetishization’ which I have been made aware I need to educate myself on. I intend to do so, but I disagree with the common accusation that finding non-white men romantically and sexually attractive is inherently fetishistic and makes me racist. It’s pushing a catch-22; don’t find POC sexually attractive? Racist. Find POC sexually attractive? Racist.

I am always willing to be (politely) approached about anything my readers may be concerned about, but if it’s something I’ve specifically tagged for (such as themes, scenarios, etc.) I’m afraid you consented to reading it and with that I cannot help you. You are just as responsible for curating your space and what you see/read just as much as I am responsible for tagging it appropriately.  

On the topic of racism, I want to bring up my prior use of ‘white racism’ which has obviously been a point of contention among both white and people of colour. The (literal) black vs white concept of racism is incredibly American-centric, and as someone from Europe, which has a history of oppression against white cultures and those of people of colour, it feels inaccurate. However, this has recently been discussed with me and I came to the realization that while growing up, especially in the UK, ‘xenophobia’ and ‘racism’ were marketed as one and the same. So, with this little revelation in mind, I will no longer be using ‘white racism’ (Or ‘reverse racism’) to identify the abuse I have been receiving, but will instead call it by what it really is; dehumanizing, debasing, xenophobic, puritanical.   

Very briefly, I will also touch on the NewAustin situation, which has also been dredged into this. I did not ‘chase a POC from tumblr’. NA was a minor who for some reason was on my 18+ blog and took issue with me, likely from the ongoing discourse regarding my fic and initial mistake, as well as my interest in Micah. They were subsequently harassed into deleting their account by anonymous hate following various conflicts with other users for their support of me or their ships in general. I have never encouraged my followers to target anyone, and have always asked to be blocked and blacklisted by those who do not like me or my content. When NewAustin messaged me following the deletion of their blog, I was admittedly indifferent to the point of being unkind, and accused them of sending the hate themselves. This was based on the anon hate being racially-driven without there being any prior knowledge or publication that NA was a person of colour. This aside, I should have at the time, whether I believed it was my followers or not, condemned this behaviour. Regardless of the issues I’ve had with these people, it is never ever ok to send hate to anyone, no matter the motivation behind it, and that should have been stated at the time.

All I can do at this point is acknowledged and apologize for my past mistakes, and try to improve myself going forward.  

It is not my place to dictate the morals of the character/ship-aspect of this argument, and I am not interested in waging a war of opinion. This post is simply to clarify how I am involved in this, and why I am so viscerally targeted. You can draw your own conclusions, but I am no longer interested in this endless back and forth.

To my mutuals/followers, I stand by my request to not interact and to block and move on, as this is what I’ll be doing too.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope it makes things from my perspective a little clearer.

-RAT <3

EDIT: Just after this post was made, the fic in question was finally removed. I had to go through a DMCA take down, which can take months, since I originally abandoned the fic, thinking that meant delete. I explain this in more detail above. Said fic is gone, and has been gone since this post has been around.

[glitterrosesnz]

*gently places request for kaeya trying to hide sickness/allergies around diluc?*

i took this request and went “ah yes, just a fic with Diluc and Kaeya, nice and simple, i could probably write like 800 words for this and be done” but then Venti and Jean materialized into the fic just for two very specific jokes, and who was I, someone who operates on rule of funny, to deny them, and soon enough this was 1.7k words-

anyways this may not be exactly what you wanted but like. please take it anyways.

It had been a long day.

Jean had politely asked Diluc to accompany her, Venti, and Kaeya out on a mission to investigate a reported monster sighting. Of course, since things could never be easy, there just had to be an abyss mage hanging around. Admittedly, the four of them together had made very short work of defeating it, although Diluc had noticed that, annoyingly enough, Venti and Kaeya had done nearly no damage to it. The two of them were probably distracted with coming up with some scheme to amuse themselves, and Diluc would probably get the short end of the stick if he involved himself in it.

This idea was even more so cemented when Venti said he was "tired" and that they should "rest here for the night" instead of walking all the way back to Mondstadt. That was definitely weird, and the glances Venti kept throwing Kaeya didn't help ease Diluc's suspicions that the two of them were planning something. Jean either didn't seem to notice or didn't care, as she agreed with Venti's request to set up camp, and started building a small campfire, requesting Diluc to light it.

They spent at least 20 minutes in silence after that, other than Venti playing a soft tune on his lyre.

Jean yawned.

"You should go to bed." Diluc said, "You worked hard today, we don't need you pushing yourself too hard."

"Mm, you're right." Jean said, standing up to go and do just that. "We don't need anyone getting sick before we get back to Mondstadt."

Unnoticed behind them, Kaeya choked on the water he'd been drinking, triggering a coughing fit. Venti patted his back comfortingly, while looking at Diluc and Jean with the most exasperated expression. Not that either of them noticed.

Instead, Jean simply went to bed, while Diluc went back to sitting down and quietly tending to the fire. He didn't spare Venti or Kaeya a second glance.

---

A whole day.

Venti had been putting up with this for a whole day.

He, of course, had figured out rather easily that Kaeya was sick. The knight covered up well, but for a god it was rather easy to tell.

(That, and it wasn't like the winds didn't leave him knowing every single secret anyways...)

So he knew. Oh, he knew.

He had been going to tell Diluc and Jean immediately, but Kaeya had stopped him, quietly offering up some high quality wine in exchange for Venti's silence.

If Venti had known how much trouble it would've been, he never would've agreed.

At first it was fine, Venti distracting Diluc and Jean whenever Kaeya had to turn away to stifle a sneeze into complete silence. (Venti knew that couldn't be good for him, but he really wasn't one to talk, so he let it be.)

It was when Kaeya started getting worse that he started to worry.

Especially when they had to fight the abyss mage.

Venti had tried to cover for Kaeya's sloppy, feverish movements, but by consequence it led to Jean and Diluc having to do most of the work. He winced at the glare Diluc had sent him for that, before he turned his attention back to making sure the Calvary Captain wasn't going to pass out.

The heat he could feel radiating off of the cyro user when he fell back to walk in time with him was anything but good.

That was when Venti had called for them to make camp, a call which Kaeya had clearly appreciated, sitting down as soon as he could.

His condition had clearly deteriorated over the course of the day, he was only just barely keeping up his 'cool' composure. He looked like a mess, and Venti was quite frankly shocked that neither Diluc nor Jean had picked up on it yet. Although, then again, they could just be accounting it to the earlier fight....

After the brief coughing fit from Jean's, unknowingly ironic, comment before she went to bed, Venti had thought that Diluc would've of clued in, or at the very least questioned him.

Instead he sat in silence.

Venti spent a few minutes glancing between Diluc and the, now subtly sniffling, Kaeya, before he decided that enough was enough.

Barely thinking things through, Venti directed the winds to blow some smoke right into Kaeya's face.

The effect was immediate.

"Hi'NGTsh-iu!" Kaeya barely managed to stifle the sneeze into his arm, but compared to the quiet of before it was very noticeable. "HiH- H'NTCH-uu!"

"...Are you alright?" Diluc asked, and Venti barely managed to keep himself from yelling 'Finally!'. Kaeya sniffled, the back of his hand still pressed against his nose.

"I'm fine- hiH! H'NGTCHi! S-sorry I just- hEh! E-excuse me for a moment-" Kaeya said, suddenly standing up, stumbling a little as his breath hitched, before turning and walking out of the camp, and into the forest, Venti and Diluc silently watching him go.

"..Well?" Venti asked, after a moment. "Aren't you going to go after him?"

"Why should I go after him?" Diluc asked, with an annoyed tone of voice, but it did nothing to hide his obvious concern.

"Because he's your brother and you're worried about him?" Venti said, laying out the obvious. "Besides, Jean is asleep, and I've got...something else I have to do. So... go on then. Oh, also take this, he might need it."

Venti summoned and threw a blanket at Diluc, which he caught effortlessly. Diluc gave Venti a glance, clearly wondering about what in the world Venti needed to do, but still he did not argue, standing up and walking in the direction Kaeya had.

---

It didn't take long to find him.

Kaeya was sitting on the ground, back against a tree, catching sneeze after sneeze in his hands. The temperature around him had dropped considerably, and Diluc gave a slight shudder as he felt the chill, suddenly very grateful for his jacket.

Kaeya's sneezing fit seemed to be starting to come to an end, the sneezes growing more spaced out, and Diluc noticed there were faint bits of frost starting to gather around Kaeya himself. Diluc sighed as he dropped the blanket down on top of Kaeya's head.

Kaeya must have not heard him approach, as he startled, looking up at him, the blanket sliding off his head to settle around his shoulders. Probably instinctively, Kaeya pulled the blanket closer around himself as he shivered.

"You're sick." Diluc stated. Kaeya avoided looking him in the eye.

"Am not." He muttered, before his breath hitched yet again- "HiH- H'ISCHI-uu!"

"Jeez. You sound horrible." Diluc said, and Kaeya gave a smirk that held none of it's usual 'smug' effect due to the condition he was in.

"Aw Diluc, are you concerned about me?~" Kaeya asked. Diluc didn't bother with an answer.

"I'm telling Jean." Is what he said instead, turning around and starting to walk away.

"No, wait-" Kaeya started, standing up, before his breath caught, and he started coughing, leaning against the tree for support. Diluc quickly hurried back to his side, quietly hovering, not sure how to react.

"...How long have you been sick?" He asked, once Kaeya's coughing fit had died down.

"I'm not sick." Kaeya said, voice weaker than before. Diluc didn't look impressed.

"Don't lie to me." He said.

".....Since yesterday." Kaeya whispered, and Diluc had to resist the urge to punch him.

"Yesterday? Okay, I was kind of joking about telling Jean before, but now-" He said, starting to walk back towards the camp. Kaeya quickly scurried after him.

"C'mon, there's no need to tell her, she's sleeping, and I ca-haH.....can handle it- hIH! H'ISSCHU!"

"You do realize you are being incredibly unconvincing." Diluc said as they reentered the campsite, plainly referring to the way Kaeya had the blanket drawn around him, as well as the now constant sneezing,. "Seriously, neither I nor Jean would hesitate to carry you back to Mondstadt if necessary."

"Don't forget about me!" Venti said, startling the both of them as he suddenly appeared out of nowhere, holding some mint plants in one hand. "I'd carry you too! I'm stronger than I look, y'know."

"...What's with the mint?" Kaeya asked.

"Oh this? I thought I'd make some mint tea, it might help clear you up a little. You sound pretty congested." Venti said, already pulling out the proper materials to mash the leaves.

"...Do I really sound that bad?" Kaeya asked, wincing when Venti and Diluc both nodded yes. Diluc moved Kaeya until he was once again sitting down where he had been before, and Venti pulled out a tea pot.

"Wha-where did- have you been carrying that the whole time?" Diluc asked, gesturing to the teapot. Venti did not give him an answer.

"Master Diluc, if you would ever so kindly adjust the temperature of the fire?" He asked instead.

"...What do you think I am, a stove?" Diluc quietly mumbled, but still complied, using his vision to adjust the campfire's temperature to be perfect for tea making. In just a few minutes, Kaeya had a cup of warm tea in his hands. He quietly sipped at it while Venti pulled out his lyre and started playing again, leaving Diluc to clean up the materials he had used to make the tea.

The steam tickled Kaeya's nose, that and the sudden freshness brought on by the mint made his breath hitch, and he hurriedly held the cup away from him with one hand while he used his other arm to-

"H'iSSCH-iu! hEH- H'ITCHHI-uu!"

"What's going on?"

The three of them jumped as Jean suddenly spoke. They turned to see that she had woken up, slowly getting out of her makeshift sleeping bag.

"This fool," Diluc said, pointing at Kaeya. "Has been sick since yesterday, and didn't bother to tell us."

"I keep telling you I can handle it-" Kaeya started, quickly shutting up as Jean laid a hand against his forehead, checking his temperature. She tsk'ed, not at all pleased with what she had found.

"You're burning up." She said, crossing her arms and, altogether, looking very disappointed. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Kaeya didn't respond, pointedly not looking at her as he took another sip of his tea.

"He didn't want to worry you." Venti said, casually plucking another string on his lyre as he feigned indifference. Diluc scoffed at that, while Jean just gave a sigh.

"As soon as we get back to Mondstadt, you sir, are going to bed." She said, lightly booping Kaeya's nose as she said it to emphasize her point, although this had the unintended side effect of making him quickly turn away, ducking his head into his arm to catch yet another sneeze.

"Hi'SCHI-uu!"

[unpopularly-opinionated]

I don’t play WoW but I used to play Overwatch and Diablo and this touches on just the general issues that are inside of Activision Blizzard right now regarding the major decline of World of Warcraft and how they’re losing to Final Fantasy XIV, how if the latest WoW expansion or Overwatch 2 flop as they’re projected to do then Blizzard’s most definitely going to pivot almost entirely to mobile games, and how the differences in age demographics are actually dividing the company into multiple camps.

It’s important to note two things: 1) this could be fake but also 2) the link came from Grummz, a former team lead on WoW and producer on Diablo II and Starcraft. It still could be fake despite this, but if he’s sharing it then I feel like there’s at least some measure of truth in this.

Transcription below in case this gets deleted and/or you don’t wanna click the link. Warning, it’s fairly long.

“I’m dropping this here after getting chewed out for three hours over shit the chewee did at work so fuck it. Assume larp and let me vent.”

>Shadowlands is a shitshow. Critical response, Player drop off and just about every engagement metric outside of cash shop have been catastrophic. No higher up expected this because of their “we are too big to fail, if we built it they will come” mentality. They refuse to accept their focus on the world being a begrudged mechanic to funnel players to raiding is not appealing to the player base at large because it appeals to them. They have spent the last 4 months trying to course correct but there is no solid direction and the response to 9.1 has only made things worse.

>Sylvanas is planned to replace the Arbiter despite so many people in the company and god knows how many online saying this would be a total replication of Kerrigans storyline in Starcraft 2 that killed none competitive interest in the brand entirely and you can only go “no, no they WILL like it eventually” for so many real world years before its time to change course. Thus far that has not happened.

>The elephant in the room is FFXIV. To the people in charge they are acting like this came out of nowhere and don’t even seem to understand why its drawing players away in their tens of thousands. We have all tried to highlight things it is doing that are clearly appealing to an mmo audience and not, in my opinion, focussing more on mobile game style retention traps to keep MAU users and habit forming personalities logging in. Its not that they don’t care. They just seem so pig headed and digging their heels in with their fingers in their ears thinking all the problems will go away because WoW is “too big to fail”, there will never be real competition and “they will keep coming back”. But they aren’t coming back anymore. Not in the numbers they used to.

>The people making the spending choices know this. The new model for WoW is market the hell out of a expansion pack for a huge quarter then use 6 month lock ins to pad numbers for the quarters after that. Even if corona had not happened 9.1 still would have been dropping after the initial 6 month subs expired to “keep the chain holding”.

>The mood in the company is tense but also very much “its just a rough transition period”. Activision has been pushing hard for Blizzard to release more regular product and to generate more income per user. As far as i know this is going to be a transition over the next 5 years to a much larger mobile/tablet gaming focus. By all accounts not just WoW but Overwatch was intended to be the moneymaker in the interim but once again someone had the bright idea to kill a game casual players loved on the alter of e-sports hoping for another Brood War. From what i hear the “told you so’s” were loud and a lot of people walked beyond Kaplan.

>The sentiment that was shared quietly in private but being spoken more often is simply that the leadership at Blizzard are not bad people, nor incompetent people but people who had to fill seats left when the old guard jumped ship wether they were suited for it or not. Brack is a genuinely good man out of his depth, Ion is a fantastic raid designer put in charge of designing a virtual world he has no interest or real ideas for and so on. They have been taking form the roles they excel at to be put in positions where they get to do far less of that purely because there is nobody left with the experience to do so and the trickle down is a lack of concrete direction, ambition and focus.

>2021 has seen the playerbase, media and gaming at large “turn” on WoW to a degree i don’t think the leads in their “positivity dojo” bubble considered possible. Its gone from people going “This is how Blizz needs to fix WoW!” to “WoW is no longer salvageable, time for greener pastures” and i think on some level this was never considered as a possibility so there have never been any major plans beyond the usual “try and minimise player drop off by arranging releases around competitors launching updates/products”. The official forums being filled with talk of FFXIV and worse “why do we actually pay a sub?” hasn’t helped.

>There have been some testing the waters lately from certain higher ups if we can remove the line “No King Rules Forever”. Read into that what you will.

>There are still arguments going on about the Kael’thas Voice actor shitshow. I don’t know much about it but i know its heated, wouldn’t be the first time a knee jerk reaction only seemed to generate bad press. We lost a noticeable amount of pvp engagement after the Swifty thing.

>The Preach interview was treated as a disaster and there was talk of more strongly vetting interviewers for “bad actors” and only engaging with a list of questions Blizzard provides. Some pointed out that could just be used to create some form of Fireside Chat akin to the FFXIV “Live letters” but that fell on deaf ears.

>The two sentiments right now among the team are either “we really need a win” or “theres a dedicated cabal of internet trolls out to kill WoW”. Right now we are crunching hard to get 9.2 ready to wrap up the jailors storyline so we can get an expansion out early 2022. If that doesn’t happen there are talks of major shakeups coming down from Activision that have been threatened for a few  years now. Its an all hands on deck feeling thats been around to some degree since the “Is this an out of season April Fools Joke” Blizzcon. A make or break deadline is coming closer and things like Diablo 4 were not planned before then. Blizzard needs a significant win not just in initial profit but consumer goodwill. Nobody likes working at what the public now seems to see as “the bad guy” of the mmo industry.

>This has also made new hires decline. Not significantly but the “you WANT Blizzard on your resume” line doesn’t seem to have the appeal it used to. This has lead to more hiring via friend of a friend, to some rumblings about nepotism, and people severely lacking in experience “because they get great twitter optics”.

>On the topic of Twitter we are not being told to “disengage” from it. Multiple employees like Nervig and Holisky publicly attacking paying customers because they got too heated and couldn’t keep quiet is bad press that could have been avoided. A email reminder has gone around more than once lately stating “if you are not customer relations you should not be representing the company to customers, especially if you cannot remain professional”.

>Lastly the biggest elephant in the room is “yo’ boy” Asmongold. The newer hires cannot stand him. They have used terms like “toxic masculinity” and “dogwhistles to dangerous males” while some of the oldest crowd still remaining have called him “based” or “telling it like it is” which has lead to friction to put it mildly. People are told not to talk about him and the recent FFXIV stuff only made it all worse. The idea that an outside element can have such an effect on the product genuinely upsets people. Like Zach is engaging in some malicious act of cyberwarfare. Many of us have point out the now famous quotes by Naoki Yoshida about understanding that players will drift and we need to make something worth coming back to because they want to but some people for lack of a better word see out customers -or “consumers” as they refer to them nowadays- as some kind of antagonistic relationship where the goal is not being an entertainer putting on a show for a crowd but some kind of game hunter trying to trap a large, profitable kill. I wish i could blame Activision but this is a sentiment from more of the younger crowd than the “tech boomers”. Which personal opinion is probably why so many folks like Metzen and Morheim left.

>Before you ask, yes the topic of “wokeness” has shown up in group talks. Its not all some grand sjw conspiracy, people really do want to feel welcome and represented. However the “we need everything veto’ed by people not working on it to see if its inoffensive and bland enough” rubs some of us the wrong way. Like anything in life you can take something too far and lose sight of the core ideals and with everything gone on since Blitzchung it feels like people are forming little factions to pull people in different directions to decide “What Blizzards identity is now” and how to appeal to new players. There has been some drop offs with “go woke go broke” as the only answer in the survey when unsubbing but honestly we are losing subs in unforseen numbers anyway and still making more money than ever through cash shop “heavy users” so it honestly doesn’t make an impact.

>All in all things are rough right now. Blizzard doesn’t have the love of the customers anymore, is no longer treated as an industry giant and while D4,D2R and Immortal aren’t going to kill Diablo even if they fail the sentiment for World of Warcraft and Overwatch 2 are a lot more tense and stressful. The phrase “it might be good to brush up on your mobile development portfolio if we get another underperformer” has been doing the rounds a lot. If Shadowlands continues its stark decline and Overwatch 2 is looking to underperform like its current projections suggest i think the Blizzard of a few years from now will be imitating King a lot more than trying to learn any lessons from Square Enix’s mmo division.

[bonjour-rainycity]

Double Heart | Chapter Thirteen ~ Cosima

|previous part|

Pairing: Haldir x OFC

Rating: PG-13

Word count: 3460

Warnings: TW -- Mentions of death and grief

**Read on Ao3 under the user “bonjour_rainycity” if you prefer!**

A/n Thank you for all your comments!!! I worked all weekend and it was such a joy to come home and be able to read them and answer them <3 

Thanks to my reasonable-ish bedtime, I rise with the sun. Turns out mornings in Imladris are quite nice — the household has a lively bustle to it. I get ready for the day and make it downstairs in time for breakfast. On my way through the hallway, I hear a chipper voice calling my name.

I turn around, seeing the long, dark, coils of Lavandil’s hair bouncing as she jogs to catch up with me.

“Look who’s awake early today,” she teases, falling into step beside me. “No more late nights?”

I roll my eyes. Evidently, Rumil has created for himself an ally. “You should’ve seen me on the road —  I was up at dawn with the rest of them.”

She smiles cheekily, brushing a curl away from her face. “So it seems there is a common denominator in your motivation for sacrificing sleep.”

I gape, my shortcutting brain keeping me from formulating a satisfactory retort.

Lavandil just smirks, strutting along beside me. After a moment of silence, she hesitates, then shoves her arm in the crook of my elbow, linking our arms together. I blink at her in surprise. She grins, setting her shoulders. “I’ve visited human settlements before and I always saw the ladies walk like this. It seems rather silly — if one were to fall, wouldn’t the other go down with them? Especially with how clumsy humans can be—” A look of horror comes over her face and she halts, pulling me to a stop with her. “No, I didn’t mean to say that you—”

I chuckle, putting this elleth who is quickly becoming my friend out of her misery. “Don’t worry, I didn’t take it that way. And you’re not exactly wrong, either. I would definitely venture to say that elves are more coordinated than humans.” But this reminder of yet another difference between myself and my companions makes me sad, so I hurry to switch topics. “But you don’t have to walk like this if you don’t want to. I know elves prefer differently.”

Lavandil tilts her head to the side, a guilty smile stretching her lips. “Well, perhaps I am trying to butter you up. I have a favor to ask.”

I shake my head, laughing softly. “Yes?”

We stop outside of the dining hall archway and she turns to me, looking down on me with pleading eyes. “I own a shop in the market square — I sell the things I weave — and with all the travelers visiting Imladris, it is becoming difficult this season to make the goods and run the shop. My friend who usually works with me is in Eryn Galen this year, and while I’ve been managing—Orophin has been a great help—I know Haldir will be counting on him when it’s time to train the guards. So I was wondering, if you weren’t too busy…would you join me in the shop a couple days a week? I can teach you how to weave if you want, and I would pay you of course, and it’s really not too difficult, you just help customers choose their items and accept either money or an exchange and—”

I smile, elated that she would trust me enough to ask me to aid with her business. “Of course I’ll help! I’m so glad you asked.”

She beams and shoots into a rapid-fire account of everything I need to know about her shop. I try to keep up, but we enter the dining hall and the smell of breakfast hits my nose, so I very quickly get distracted.

Lavandil leads me towards the back of the dining hall. We see Baranor sitting at a table distractedly searching for the food on his plate with his nose buried in a book. Lavandil and I join him.

“Good morning,” I greet.

He hums, not looking up from his book. Lavandil and I exchange looks.

I grin at her, an idea taking form, and add food to my plate as I speak to Baranor. “Do you mean to be eating a worm? Is it an Elvish delicacy?”

He mumbles something incoherent, squinting in mild confusion. Then, his brow furrows and he shakes his head, throwing his fork down with a muffled yelp.

I can’t help it — I laugh loudly, turning heads in my direction. Lavandil joins, but hers are much more controlled. I try to quiet my giggles, but it’s difficult under Baranor’s stern gaze.

“That wasn’t funny.”

I shrug. “Sure it was.”

Lavandil nods emphatically. “What are you reading?”

Baranor begrudgingly closes his book. “A collection of research into the evolution of human healing capabilities. It’s an interesting read, if a bit rudimentary.”

I purse my lips, eyeing the book. “So humans and elves heal differently?”

He blinks, looking perplexed. “Of course.”

I take a bite of my scrambled eggs. Just another difference between us.

Movement at the front of the hall catches my eye and I smile, waving at Haldir and Rumil. The latter grins and returns the gesture, elbowing his brother’s ribs before striding in our direction. I pull my plate and glass closer to me to allow them room to sit at the small round table.

“Good morning, ladies, Baranor, how are you today,” Rumil questions cheerfully.

I quirk an eyebrow. “You’re not usually so chipper before breakfast.”

“Says the woman who slept until afternoon.”

“One time,” I quip.

Haldir takes a sip of his drink and smoothly changes the subject. “How were your lessons?”

From the corner of my eye, I see that Baranor has returned to his book. I chuckle. “Baranor was very patient. I do look forward to continuing, though.”

“Do you have lessons tonight?”

I shake my head, knowing Baranor will be occupied this afternoon and evening in the healing wards.

Haldir nods. “I will be out most of the day—I’m convening with a few of the generals here to get a better idea of their companies’ capabilities—but I could meet you after? To train?”

I smile, pleased that he still plans on helping me. “That would be great, thank you! Just come find me when you’re ready.”

He offers me a smile in response and returns to his breakfast.

Rumil scoffs but there is a twinkle in his eye that instantly makes me wary. “Tell me you do not plan on taking her to the training grounds so late at night? She won’t be able to see a thing.”

Haldir gives his brother a strange look. “Of course not.”

“Good.” Rumil sniffs. “But you cannot use our room. It is too small.”

I shrug, not quite understanding Rumil’s objections. “We can use mine — it’s got plenty of space.”

“That will work,” Haldir agrees.

Before I can think any more on it, Rumil catches my attention. “After breakfast, do you want to visit Roch in the stables? I’m sure he misses us both.”

I smile and agree, surprised to find that I also miss Horse the horse.

Breakfast hurries along and soon Rumil and I are the only ones left at the table, Haldir, Lavandil, and Baranor having hurried off to get to their duties. When we’ve finished our food, Rumil and I make for the stables which are not far from the main estate.

Rumil grins, brandishing an apple he lifted from the dining halls. “Do you want to give him this, or shall I?”

I bark out a laugh. “I’ll let you feed him the stolen apple.”

In answer, Rumil only throws the fruit high in the air, catching it with ease.

“Show off,” I mutter through a smile. After a few minutes of silence, I decide to ask the question that’s been bothering me since our arrival here. Rumil is the most easy-going of my new friends and I hope he’ll understand that I’m not trying to be rude or intrusive. I take a deep breath. “So, I had a question.”

He raises an eyebrow and in that moment looks so much like his oldest brother, it momentarily throws me off guard. “Yes,” he prompts when I don’t elaborate, and then he’s back to looking like himself.

“Orophin and Lavandil. Are they…a typical elven couple? I only ask because they’re the first elven couple I’ve met and I can only compare it to what I remember of human relationships. I’ve never seen them hug aside from the night we arrived, and never more affection than that. And they’ve been engaged for so long, do they plan on getting married?”

He chuckles and I sigh in relief. I haven’t upset him. “I forget how different humans are sometimes, of course it would seem strange to you. I assure you — they are quite normal. Humans are overly physically affectionate while elves tend to save that for romantic loves and close family members, and rarely in public. And remember, elves live forever—there’s no rush to get married in a certain amount of time. Besides, they are still young. I doubt either of them is ready to give up their home, their career, whether he moved to Imladris or she came to Lothlórien. For now, they are still enjoying their courtship.”

I nod, taking that information in.

“It usually takes a great amount of time for an elf to fall in love — or, at least, acknowledge that they’ve fallen in love. Some ellyn can take centuries to develop or recognize their feelings. I understand it can be quite disorienting.”

This gives me pause. Centuries? “That’s crazy. I mean—” I hurry to correct, aware of how judgmental I sound. “Not that elves are crazy, but your lifespan and all the time you can take. I can’t even wrap my head around it. Humans get what — eighty years?”

Rumil stops in his tracks. He turns to me, looking horrified. “Is that really it? Eighty years? Cosima, how old are you?”

I shrug, feeling self-conscious. “Twenty-three.”

“Twenty-three,” he gasps, bringing his fingers to his temples. He groans. “You are over a quarter through with your life.”

My breath stutters out. I haven’t thought of it that way. For all the differences between myself and my new friends, the biggest of them all somehow escaped my notice. Regardless of how long I reside in Arda, in what is a handful of years to these elves, I will be dead. And they will endure.

“It-it sounds kind of sad when you say it like that.” I look at the ground, unable to meet Rumil’s devastated eyes.

From my vantage point, I see him clench his hands into tight fists. When he speaks, his voice sounds thin, strained. “I understand now why elves often choose to distance themselves from human companionship. You have what is to you a long life ahead, and yet here I am, already grieving your loss.” He clears his throat, shifting his feet. “I do not know how Arwen bears it.”

I lift my gaze to his, not recognizing the name. “What do you mean?”

Rumil sighs, looking for the first time, quite old. Not in his face, never like that, but his eyes. It’s hard to believe that this ellon who sometimes seems younger than me has lived for two millennia.

“Arwen is Elrond’s daughter. She tends to keep to herself but is well-loved by her people. If you ask, Elrond will surely introduce you.” He pauses, seeming weighed down by his words. “She loves a human man.” I hear my sharp intake of breath and Rumil nods gravely. “His name is Aragorn and he is well known to the ellyn of Imladris. He is away for the time being — when whispers of evil reached this realm, he left to do his part. But Arwen…when Aragorn dies, so will she.”

I blink and am surprised to feel a wetness in my lashes. “But she’s an elf.”

Rumil slowly shakes his head. “Yes. When an elf gets married, when they bond their fæ with another’s, they are forever entwined. If one dies, the other must sail West or risk fading.”

Oh. Of course. Haldir mentioned this the other night — it didn’t occur to me before Rumil said the actual word, ‘fading’.

“I have only met one elf who lost their love. King Thranduil of the Woodland Realm. His wife died many centuries ago and yet every day, he grieves like it is the first. I do not know why he stays here, but I can see how much it costs him. I cannot imagine his pain. And Arwen walks into it willingly.” Rumil laughs without humor, shaking his head and looking to the ground. He purses his lips tightly. “No, it is likely she has no choice in the matter. You cannot help who you love. So Arwen will either fade over time or choose to die with Aragorn — she has already sworn never to sail. Arwen’s father is Peredhel — half elven, half human. All those in his line may choose: an elven life, or a mortal one. I believe Arwen has made her choice.”

I exhale shakily, the tears freely falling down my cheeks. “That sounds awful.”

Rumil nods in agreement, seeming to regard me with new eyes. I can’t blame him. To him, my friendship must promise nothing but grief.

“I’m sorry,” I breathe, not really sure what I’m apologizing for. His doomed friend? His sadness? My mortality?

He shakes his head, forcing a poor imitation of his earlier sunny smile. “Do not be sorry. Come, Roch is waiting.” He extends his hand towards the stables and, though I think we would both prefer to sit in our rooms and cry, I go with him.

{***}

When it is still early in the evening, there’s a knock on my door — Haldir ready for training. He greets me with a warm smile and news of his meetings.

“They went well,” he nods, accepting my offer of a glass of water. “The guard has wonderful structures in place and even better ellyn, so I am quite hopeful that new strategies will fortify an already strong group.” He lays his cloak over the back of the couch. “How were the stables with Rumil? Is Faervel in good condition?”

“Yes, he’s doing just fine. He’s got bigger stable than Roch, which of course Rumil took mild offense to.” I chuckle, thankful that I can remember it fondly even though the day was weighed down with sadness. “I had a nice time. Rumil is always fun to be with.”

Haldir nearly snorts, and the undignified noise coming from him makes me laugh. “Not at two in the morning with all that awful snoring, he’s not.” He crosses his arms, smiling nostalgically. “It’s like we’re children again, visiting our grandmother, crammed into one room. Orophin got so fed up with it once that he tossed Rumil outside.”

My eyes blow wide in disbelief, only feeling a little bad for laughing at Rumil’s misfortune. He probably deserved it. Hot pink flashes in front of my eyes and I’m suddenly overwhelmed with the now-familiar smell of red wine and hairspray. Dark, curly hair pinned tightly against a head standing only five feet off the ground — Nonna!

I gasp, blinking rapidly as I try to take in all this new information at once. I feel cool fingers grip mine and then my body finds the plushness of the couch.

Snowy holidays spent by an opulently decorated tree, tight hugs after a bad day, drinking sweet wine and laughing like we haven’t a care in the world. Nonna. I miss her. My heart aches with that crushing feeling of not knowing the next time you’ll see someone. More than that — not knowing the next time you’ll see someone you love. I try to focus on her face — does she look like me? Her face comes into full view, and I admonish myself. Of course she does, silly. Rather—you look like her. A sharp stab of pain pierces my skull and my breath catches halfway between a gasp and a scream.

Strong hands on my shoulders. Warmth against my arm. And pain racing through my head, behind my eyes, below my ears. As the pain gets stronger, the images of my grandmother flicker. I attempt to focus, to keep the memories solid and present, but lose the battle when a wave of nausea hits me. I clamp a hand over my mouth, desperately not wanting to vomit and so badly wanting this pain to stop.

“Cosima,” a frantic voice whispers. I feel fingers brush over my cheek.

I groan, the nausea and pain finally beginning to ebb away. The evening light suddenly seems much too harsh and I half-collapse forward, pressing my face into fabric that smells like trees to shut out the light.

“What’s wrong?”

Hands ghost over my spine, holding me against what I now recognize to be Haldir’s chest.

“Give me a minute,” I mumble, taking deep breaths as the pain and sickness fade. Haldir doesn’t move, his arms locked stiffly around me. Once I feel like I’ve regained control, I straighten slowly. Though no longer in the awful pain, my body feels heavy, weak, and practically aches with the desire for sleep. I look up at Haldir.

He watches me with what I can only describe as panic, though it takes me a moment to reach that conclusion, given the fact that I’ve never seen him look anything other than completely collected. With wide eyes, he stands, pulling my cloak off its hook. “I’m taking you to a healer.”

“No, Haldir, it’s just a—”

He throws the cloak to me, shrugging on his own with impressive speed. “You are human and humans sicken and die like that.”

I roll my eyes, though sober as I recall Rumil’s face when he became aware of my age. Whereas I know that this is just a headache, it must actually be upsetting for Haldir, an ellon who’s probably never seen someone with a headache in his life. I breathe deeply and, for the first time in our friendship, take on the role of the calm one. “It’s just a headache, maybe a migraine. Humans get them all the time. It usually happens when someone hasn’t had enough sleep or enough water — coincidentally, over the past few days I have been lacking in both.”

He pushes his water glass across the small table to me, still not looking entirely convinced. Thankfully though, the panic has begun to recede from his features. “Drink.”

I comply, knowing it will make us both feel better.

He watches me warily and with a small amount of accusation in his eyes before sitting down next to me once more. This time, he leaves a good amount of space between us though leans forward, hovering like he’s waiting to have to catch me again. I slump against the back of the couch but do my best to overall look very non-sick, not wanting to worry him. We sit in silence for a few moments while I sip on the water. I want to revisit the memory of my grandmother, but something tells me it will have to wait until I feel better. Focusing on memories is already difficult, and apparently, it’s nearly impossible in the face of a migraine.

Eventually, Haldir levels me with a stern look. Ah good, back to normal. “We will not carry on with training until you are well. I insist that you make proper sleep and hydration a priority.”

I smile at him, bringing a hand to my forehead in a mock-salute. “Yes, Marchwarden.”

He shakes his head weakly, but his smile at least touches his eyes. It’s nice. The light shifts as the sun sinks lower and he furrows his brow. “It’s still early — would you like dinner? I can have it sent to your room.”

I shake my head, the thought of food bringing back a wave of nausea. “No, thanks though. I think I’ll just lie down for the rest of the night, hopefully sleep it off.”

Haldir nods solemnly. “That might be best. Is—are you—is it safe for you to be alone? You will not pass out or suffer some unexpected side effect?”

“No,” I smile softly, touched by his concern. “I’m already feeling better, promise.”

He sucks in a breath, bobbing his head once more. “Good.” He stands, looking uncertain. “I will leave you to rest, then. May I visit you in the morning?”

I feel my smile widening. This is so sweet. “Of course.”

This seems to relax him a little, and he gathers his cloak. “Okay. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

And, though I should immediately crawl in my bed and go to sleep, it takes me a while to push the smile from my face and quiet my racing mind.

A/n Thanks for reading! Let me know if you would like a tag :) Comments, likes, and reblogs make my day!

|next part|

|masterlist|

Tolkien tag list: @anangelwhodidntfall @eru-vande 

Haldir tag list: @tolkien-apologist 

Double Heart tag list: @lainphotography @themerriweathermage @thophil2941btw @kenobiguacamole @wishingtobeinadifferentuniverse @from-patroclus-with-love @boywivlove @ordinarymom1 @my-darling-haldir @sweet-bea-blossom @moony-artnstuff

[new-tella-us]

Komahina Oneshot

Komahina ft. Trans Hajime. Another Tumblr inspired post. The tumblr account is catboymoments. Gotta give credit where credit is due.

If you didn't know that this is very gay and trans then idk how you got here but I'm happy to have ya.

But seriously, this has some pretty big trigger warnings

- Gender Dysphoria

- Complicated pregnancy

- Mentions of abortion

-PTSD

Anyways Onto the Oneshot!

Wow! I'm Pregnant! We're gunna have a happy family! Except...I'm a guy.

I feel horrible... This has been going on for about three days now. Mornings are the worst. I can't tell why. It's starting to worry Nagito and it's not like I can fake it, I tried. You can't fake puking. I can at least fake being somewhat lively.

...I need to get up. Need to get moving. Need to- Nevermind! I need to puke! Fuck... This feels disgusting. Maybe I should try and diagnose myself, or have Mikan help me. I felt a pat on my back; I knew it was Nagito but, I couldn't look at him while puking my guts out. When I finally finished desecrating the poor toilet I got up. I was sweating, pale and covered in whatever I managed to puke up on an empty stomach. I flushed the toilet and washed my face.

Nagito gave me a worried look. What was once an 'are you okay?' question turned into, "How are you feeling now?"

"I'm better," I responded. There wasn't much else to say, "I'll get this checked out soon, I'll just give it another day or two."

Nagito face turned stern, "Hajime, you need to get this thing checked out today! This has gone on for too long." He went out of the bathroom and grabbed his phone, "I'm calling Tsumiki-chan."

"Nonono! It's okay Nagito! I'll do it tomorrow! I can handle this myself!" I responded, a bit panicked. I never liked getting help from others, it didn't feel right to bother someone over something I can do myself.

"You said that yesterday. I'm calling Tsumiki-chan." He said in a more stern voice. I couldn't respond, there was no point in arguing with him when he's like this, plus; he's right. He made the call. I didn't hear Mikan's side of the call but, from what I can hear on Nagito's side, they made a time, 1 pm. He hung up and looked back at me, his glaze softened.

"Let's get you something to eat, okay?"

"Yeah," He smiles softly and gave me a small kiss on the forehead before leading me out of the house. But, while we were walking towards the cafeteria, a little voice told me something.

You know exactly what's happening.

I shook the thought away.

...

Breakfast was, mostly, fine. Only going to the bathroom once! Now, I have some time before I have to talk to Mikan. Nagito insists that I rest but I've gotten bored of doing that. I decided to just walk around the island. It was a really hot day and I was getting tired so, I couldn't walk for long. Huh, that never happens, I usually have more stamina than that... Maybe Nagito was right. Well, Nagito is usually right. Maybe I should just listen to Nagito more.

I started walking back, only taking a break to puke near a tree. Now, I'm really sweating, shaking too. I felt light-headed. Then, an unexpected helper appeared. She put my arm on her shoulder, behind her neck, her other hand supported me from my side. I didn't look up, I didn't need to. Her light orange kimono with scattered pink cherry blossoms gave away who she was.

"Hey Saionji..."

"Didn't listen to Komaeda again?" She knew it...

"Nope." I responded with as much satire I could muster.

"You're an idiot."

"Yup" Indeed I was but I could think about that a little bit more when my head wasn't spinning like crazy. Hiyoko helped me back to my cottage before leaving me to enter it myself. I opened the door and both Nagito and Mikan were sitting on the couch. I guess she came early.

"Hey guys, it seems like you were both waiting for me. Sorry about that."

"I-It's fine Hinata-san. So tell me a-about your condition. I've only seen g-glimpses of it" Mikan said.

So I explained. The morning sickness, the lack of energy and stamina. The fact that I can't even walk around the island without becoming pale and out of breath. Mikan thought about it and started checking her tablet. I assumed that she was looking up what this could mean before her eyes widen on something.

"I-I....I never knew this. Umm...I'll b-be right back." She seemed nervous as se got up and practically ran out of the house.

You know where she's going, you know what she's getting

There's that voice is again. I have no time for hallucinations or weird creepy messages.

...

Mikan returned after a few minutes with a little rectangular box in her hand.

"Welcome back, Tsumiki-chan. Now, are you going to explain why you suddenly freaked out like that and left?" Nagito said.

Mikan's gaze fell on me. Her look was almost unreadable. It's very unlike her.

"Hinata-san. Are you trans?" She asked bluntly.

"Wh-What?! What made you ask that??" I panicked. How did she know? How did she guess??

She turned her tablet to me; my profile was on it as was everyone else's. She pressed one of those special info buttons and a symbol appeared next to my profile picture.

The Female Sex Symbol...

Silence...

...Shit...

"I'm surprised that you didn't realize that this button exists. After all the creator of these tablets had a member who's entire case was solved because their sex was revealed." Mikan said. She always did have more confidence when she spoke facts. I didn't have anything to say, neither did Nagito. Mikan handed me the box; it was a pregnancy test.

"I w-won't ask. That's your b-business..." Her timidity returned. No, she won't ask because she'll get her answer depending on what I say or do. I could hand her back the test. I could lie and say I'm a virgin but, that wouldn't help me...

I got up and went to the bathroom...

...

......

...Are...Are you serious...? The test came back positive?! I...don't know how to feel about this... At least I know what's happening to me and probably why it's hitting me so hard.

...I feel too sick for this.

You knew this was coming.

'Izuru...not now. Please.'

You know you can't fully get rid of her.

'Who are you talking about?'

As if to answer my question, he materialized but not as himself. He materialized as a young girl. A girl that looks a lot like me.

'Fuck off, Izuru. You know that's not me...'

Is it not? It's who you once were.

'That was never me! She was someone else. Just a person of the past.'

And that way of thinking is what got you here. It's time for you to face the facts. You may be a boy but, you're not male. You forgetting that is why that test is positive. You took a chance, you were risky and here you are.

'We're done here.'

I was steaming. I couldn't listen to another word that fell out of that man's mouth. I needed to calm down. I took some deep breaths and left the bathroom. Mikan left but, Nagito was still there. I wasn't concerned with him knowing that I was trans, he already knew; he would have to know since he's...

"So, what happened? What did she give you? Are you okay?" he asked but, I had a feeling that he knew. I didn't want the mood to be sour. Having kids is supposed to be a good thing so, I wanted to lighten the mood with a pun.

"Well, I guess I should be invisible."

"...What? What do you mean?" He looked puzzled.

I looked at the pregnancy test. "Well, I'm a trans-parent." (Yes, I took this pun from the same tumblr user)

He looked at me, still puzzled, for a few minutes before he realized.

"...oh. Oh OH! You don't mean-" He looked happy, so happy. He gave me a hug, "Oh my god! I've always wanted to be a dad!"

He has? Great... Personally, I never wanted kids. I used to but, secondary school... changed me and showed me that really, I don't. But I can't just make a split second decision, he seem so happy...

"Yeah, but can we discuss this a bit more? I have my issues that I need to address."

His smile faded a bit "Uh sure"

We both sat on the bed of our room. I didn't know what to say. I don't know if I want to do this but, it would feel wrong just to abort with no conversation.

"So umm... Nagito. I...I don't know if I'm- we're ready to have kids. I guess I'm kind of worried?"

Tell him the actual reason, Hajime.

"I don't know what effect this might have on me and I'm scared that I might not be a great dad..."

Hajime...

"Is that the reason?" Nagito asked.

"...Yeah"

If you don't tell him, I will.

"..." I wasn't going to say anything but, Izuru kept on his threat. I lost control of my body.

"He has gender dysphoria" Izuru said, "So this pregnancy is reminding him of his uncertainty. The place he used to live in was not the most accepting of transgendered people"

Nagito fell silent, he was stunned. Damn it Izuru... did you have to be so blunt? I got control of my body back, I couldn't even look at Nagito, I felt so ashamed, I was putting my anxieties above a life. It felt...wrong. Or is it a life? It's a clump of cells but, it can become a life. I've been around too many mixed influences. I wish I knew which decision was the good decision.

Then again..

Is there truly a 'good' decision? On one hand, I'm killing a potential life and that will haunt me but, if I'm not ready to be a parent, I'm bringing a child into a world neither it nor I'm ready for and with a current war having, it's not like adoption is an option and, like Izuru said, it forces me to accept-

"Why didn't you tell me?" Nagito asked. He didn't sound mad, he sounded sad and even a bit guilty, I didn't answer, "I'm sorry if me saying that pressured you." He gave me a hug. I felt so guilty. "I can't say that I fully understand but, no matter what you choose, I'll be in your corner."

"I'm gunna give it a week or two then I'll make my decision," I said nearly in tears, "thank you for being so supportive."

...

It's been two weeks, I thought about it everyday. I was already two week pregnant so with another two weeks, the time for abortion via safe mentions was soon ending. I hesitated and swayed back and forth on my answer. I truly didn't know for a while. But, about two days before my decision I found myself sticking to an answer. I'll stick with this pregnancy. It might help me get over my gender dysphoria, maybe not fully but, somewhat? Plus, it's quite an efficient way to tell everyone that I'm trans. And who know, maybe I'm a better parent than I think I am and with Nagito, I feel like I can take it. It's sort of strange; I'm aware of all the health risks, the mental tax, the problems and possible sadness but, I feel like I can take it. I feel calmer know that I at least, have one person- well two people with Tsumiki, in my corner.

"I'm keeping it" I said with a hug.

"Really? You sure?" Nagito asked.

"Yeah, we're gonna be a family." I smiled, it wasn't fake.

But of course, like everything else in my life, it didn't come without complication. I was already pregnancy four weeks and was just feeling more exhausted. Another week had passed and I kept feeling worse. I didn't know why. I felt exhausted and cold. I was exhausted but not tired, not sleepy. I was awake and shaky. Nagito called Mikan again when he started to notice how pale I was getting. She said it was Iron Deficiency Anemia along with Hypertension. Two things that were really common in pregnancy. She gave me medication for it and it did help but not fully.

At about 8 weeks, I told the group about me being trans and about the child. Mikan recommended to do that instead of immediately because that's when the risk of a miscarriage goes down to less than 10 percent. The group was so happy to have two children born at similar times. Yes, two! Sonia and Gundham were having a kid as well. What a coincidence! Sonia insisted that we started talking more about it.

12 weeks in and everything has been going as smoothly as it can. There's still work, there's still complications, sleeping is an issue, I have been diagnosed with Insomnia, this pregnancy has also made me more dependent on Nagito and has given me more time to think and I don't know if I like that... But, everyone's been really supportive, they haven't treated me any different and because I have a bit more time, I can hangout with them more. I've learnt a lot more about Sonia. I knew a bit about her, like that she's into witchcraft and serial killer documentaries but, she was also into slice of life novels so, this was a dream of hers. How cute.

Weeks 16 - 30 can be summed up here. They all passed the same; excited conversations, preparations, fun little talks, work, insomnia, exhaustion, etc. What was really note worthy was while Nagito went out on a mission to the main lands, Makoto brought back a fluffy white dog, a Great Pyrenees puppy. We agreed to keep and so when Nagito came home, I surprised him with the dog. At first, he was silent, then he started crying; I was scared the he didn't like the dog but, that changed when he went up and hugged the dog, he was so happy. Apparently, this was the exact breed of the dog Nagito used to have. Wow, how lucky. He sat with it for hours before being willing to pry away from it and go to sleep. We decided to call her Lucy.

Fast forward to week 37, about 3 weeks before we thought I was due. I was pulling an all-nighter on this one project to have it done by tomorrow. I knew I was pushing myself but I was almost done, I wanted to free up my schedule so I can have more time with my baby. Nagito, however, was starting to get concerned.

"Hajime, it's really late. You should rest."

"I'm almost done, okay? I just need to finish this last assignment and I'll be in bed. Just give me about an hour." I said, trying to easy his concern.

"Alright.." He didn't sound too convinced but he did leave.

I continued to work on my project and the time flew by until in the middle of my assignment, my stomach really hurt, more than usual. Do you really need to kick that hard, Future Child? I tried to continues working but the pain would just come back worse every time. Maybe I should just go to bed... I tried to get up and walk back to my bedroom but the pain sent me down the floor, everything hurts...everything hurts...I couldn't even scream, I was in so much pain...I felt something wet trickle down and I knew what it was at this point. I didn't know what to do, I was crying. Was I going to die? Was I just going to have to give birth here and now? What can I do??

Then, my savior came into the room. No not Nagito, Lucy! She took one good look and me and went sprinting out the door. I could hear her barking and soon she seem back with Nagito.

"Hajime!! Are you okay!?"

I wanted to say something to something to that question; 'yes', 'no', 'shut the fuck up and call Tsumiki' but, I couldn't let out a sound. Luckily, he took the hint and called Mikan.

"Tsumiki-chan. I'm sorry to wake you but, Hajime may be going through contractions? Please help?!"

They talked for a bit, I could barely focus. I just remember Nagito carrying me to the bathroom while talking to Mikan. I don't know if she was just fast or if I blanked out for a bit but, Mikan was there before I knew it. They both briefly conversed before they got me dressed in a cheap, long white shirt and set me down in the bath. Mikan started sticking needles in me, I don't know what for and she was still talking to Nagito. She finally looked at me and told me to count my contractions and how often they happen. After each one (Because it hurts too much to talk during contractions) I would tell her, when she decided that they were regular enough, she grasped my hand a little and told me to take a deep breathe. I did. Then she told me to push.

That's when it hit me, this was happening now! Oh my god, I was not ready for this but, I don't have much of a choice. So I pushed. Oh god it hurts! I felt like my bones were breaking. She then told me to breathe again and I did, we repeated this until the water started to turn red with blood.

Blood...blood...

Blood...Blood...Blood...Blood...Blood...Blood...Blood...Blood...Blood...Blood...Blood...Blood...Blood...

Blood? Did someone die? I felt like I was somewhere else. I was watching the murders of the student council again, so much blood...like a perfect quality horror movie, I saw them all murder each other clear as day, every person, every stabbing, every slicing, every shooting, all the bloodshed, clear as the day I first saw it. I never forgot any of their faces...

Then, as if it couldn't get worse...all the murders, all the executions...all the blood, clear as day. I was just watching, unable to do anything. Nagito...Chiaki... They were gone. Was my happy life all a dream? Is this the reality I'm truly in or am I hallucinating and this is the fake reality? I can't tell, I can't tell... I want out of this nightmare! I hear voices in the distance, at first I couldn't understand what they are saying but, as the voices got louder, I could slowly understand. Were they calling me? I got my answer.

"HAJIME!" Nagito shouted, dragging me back to reality. I panicked at the different scenery. My heart was pounding, threatening to rip out of my chest. I looked around to see where I was, I was in the bathroom. I couldn't keep my vision still.

Nagito cupped my cheeks, obviously trying to calm me down. "Hajime look at me, okay?"

I tried to focus my vision on him, his eyes full of panic and worry.

"You're having a panic attack. Whatever you saw, it's just an illusion. You're okay, I'm okay, everyone is okay. Please try to calm down."

My throat was dry and hoarse but, I took a deep breath. I continued to do that until I became calmer.

He smiled down at me "Good...good."

Mikan then piped up, "Komaeda-san, I'm sorry but, we do need to c-continue with this..." Then she got an idea, "If blood is a trigger to Hinata-san then can maybe he should just look at you instead. I'll still need your attention Hinata-san but, just keep l-looking at him."

"Yeah, that's a good idea." Nagito agreed. I just nodded. So Mikan continued with her instruction and I kept my eyes on Nagito. It made the birthing a little easier to see his smile and soon enough I did my last push, I felt a weight leave me and while I was still sore, it didn't hurt nearly as much anymore. That's when the fatigue washed over me. I could feel myself passing out already.

"Hey hey...um, I know you're tired but, can you stay awake just a little longer please? Just until Tsumiki-chan says it's okay. Please?"

I didn't want to, the work should be over by now but, I could do it. Voices faded in and out, I was barely able to concentrate. Then, Nagito gave me a kiss on the forehead.

"You did it Hajime! It's okay now, you can rest." His voice was quiet and soothing.

"...Great.." I replied groggily before falling asleep almost immediately after.

I fell into a deep, very needed sleep. It was relaxing for once. No dreams, no nightmares just, floating in the darkness. But, I had to wake up.

The sun was shining through the curtains, not too much sun but, just enough to give the room a bright warm haze. I still felt sore but, it was much better than last night. I sat up and yawned.

"Oh good morning, Sleepyhead." Nagito said, playfully. He was sitting right next to me, looking at me with a warm smile. "I was wondering when you were going to wake up."

I felt a bit out of it, it seemed so peaceful right now, I just wanted to bask in it for a while. I took the time to notice things around me, like the fact that I was wearing something different; it was one of Nagito shirts and my boxers. I also noticed a little crib in the far corner of our bedroom with what looks to be a baby inside.

"Do you want to see your child?" Nagito asked.

I could only nod. He got up and went to the crib, picked up the small child and came back to the bed. Handing me the child he said,

"Meet your new baby son"

I held the child gently in my arms and at that moment, everything became worth it. He woke up and looked at me. I was expecting him to cry but, instead he just giggles grabbed my finger. Now I'm the one whose crying!

Nagito chuckled, "Don't cry on the baby!" He said playfully but, he was crying too.

He gave me a kiss, "I love you, Hajime"

I returned it, "I love you too, Nagito"

We both held our son and I knew, deep in my heart, this was the right decision.

We're a family now!

If I got something wrong, please tell me. I really tried and I wanna get it right.

[lighdramons]

Hi I'm back. I promised awhile ago I’d tell the story of the fucked up digi.mon cult, so I figured that’s a great start for getting back onto this hellsite.

If the read more works, everything will be below the cut and it is a mess. Just a few things before the cut though:

General TW as I will be bringing up some of the bad experiences I had as well as talking about mental illness.

I will not be using names of sites, usernames, etc. I will not answer on specific users either. I’m sure these sites are still operating somewhere privately and back in the day, some of these people were big in the Digi.mon community outside of the sites as well.

If any of the people involved see this, no ill wishes towards you guys, just my take on things.

I quit these sites back in early 2015. I do not know what happened after I quit. I am only still in contact with a few individuals who either quit around the same time as me or long before.

As a general courtesy, some of these sites still exist. Please do not go harass them. A lot of the public sites are just teens trying to figure out themselves.

If you have questions or comments after reading this whole thing, I’m happy to answer any either publicly or privately. And yes, you can reblog this post.

We need to jump back to 2007 to begin with. I was a middle schooler getting back into Digi.mon because I walked into Gamestop and Digi.mon was sitting in the new releases. And I had access to the internet. I did binge S1-5 with subs and watching reruns of the dub on Toon Disney. I spent some time on the big fansite. Great site, just bad experience at the time because I was a teen and probably lied about my age. I didn’t feel like that was the community for me. I do check it every day now for news, just never made a new account cause I don’t even remember what I used back in the day.

By end of 2008/beginning of 2009 I began looking for other sites, stumbled across the digiclipse stuff on the bad encyclopedia site, looked into it, thought it was neat, moved on. Stuck with the big site for now because the only other sites I found were RP sites and not my thing at the time. Got hit hard with depression at the start of 10th grade (late 2010) and found my way back onto the digiclipse stuff. Didn’t really believe most of it, but thought the idea of creating AI Digi.mon was neat. Joined the smaller of the two sites because it felt friendlier and most users seemed my age.

For people who do not know, digiclipse is the act of going outside and holding the toys up hoping to get teleported. Most people by the time I joined thought the people who did this were crazy. Some people liked to do it for the lolz though.

Anyways, most of what happened on the sites was just talking and hanging out in chat rooms about life and other things. It was pretty chill. I can’t speak for everyone on the sites, but for me it was an escapism kind of thing. I was depressed and hated life so pretending that a magical adventure was a possibility gave me some hope. But honestly, got a group of people who were cool to talk with for the most part. There was one older female in her mid 20s that would come in the chat drunk and sexually harass the other female users and tell all the male they should die and are worthless. Nothing was ever done about her. And honestly it was weird having her there when most of the other people on the site were under 18. That was initially my only bad experience on the sites.

At some point during 2011, there were three individuals who claimed to see and speak with their digi.mon partners. And that they could read your aura and tell you exactly your digi.mon partner. And everyone believed this shit, mostly because two of them were prominent members and how could they lie. The process was simple, you would DM them either a creative piece you’ve done (art, writing, etc) or send a photo of yourself and they’d come back in a few days and tell you who your partner was. There was only ever one individual this method of tracking did not work on and that is yours truly. Oh and at the time it hit hard because I had started falling down the rabbit hole. This is the beginning of the cult-ish stuff.

Then the Ouija board happened. I have no issues with what happened during the fucking around with said Ouija board, I have issues with everything that spiraled out of control after. They fucked around with it confirming people’s partners that the others had “found”. And eventually they asked about mine. And then it was basically said, “oh we can’t tell you the results”. I was eventually added to this secret site of “The Chosen”. And basically told, “oh your partner is the offspring/creation of THE BIG BAD” and there were all sorts of debates on what to do about it. I literally thought I was getting punked at first and these people are clearly taking this whole thing too far. No, these people all believed this. Oh and the best part, most of the people involved in this “chosen” group were in their mid 20s. Me being a depressed as fuck 16yo that just wanted something exciting in life ended up eating all this up. I felt special and chosen. I look back on it now and I’m like what a fucking idiot.

We were all taught from the three who could do the stuff I explained earlier how we can also learn to bond and communicate and see our partner. I had absolutely no progress. Eventually this stuff led to everyone in this “chosen” group getting a “special guardian spirit”. Again, I made no progress on this. And to the point where they made me feel special again, I was the only person who had the wrong “guardian spirit” and they eventually found my “real one”, more on this later.

These discussions moved from a forum site to a private skype chat room, and then further smaller private chat rooms. The movement to skype is where I started having some bad experiences. I gave a few of my “close” friends on the site my phone number, soon everyone had my number. And this happened to multiple people over the years. My own stupidity at the time.

This stuff continued as I finished high school. At the time, I still managed to maintain my social life with school friends, keep up my grades, etc. Got into college with a good scholarship in my dream field. And then I started to go downhill once I got to school. The longer this stuff went on, the more you were expected to be involved. Including being on skype calls all night. It slowly began consuming my life. I ended up not only with depression, but ending up with an ED that was tied to anxiety so I’d go days without eating. I was seeing things and hearing voices, which was highly encouraged because it meant things were working. I literally could not tell the difference of when I was asleep or awake. I honestly do not remember the majority of my freshman year of college. I had no real friends and was just barely scraping by grade-wise. And well, the academic year almost ended with me hanging from a pipe in my dorm.

I ended up running the site I started on as an admin after the original admin team left. And it was expected you do not mention any of the “secret” stuff on the main site. Over the years I know it became clear to the users not included that there were secrets in the background. And those who knew stuff would actively fuck with these users. And if I haven’t made it clear yet, there was a hierarchy to this whole secret group. And it was the original three who were mentioned at the beginning that were on top. And what they said was gospel. Whatever they claimed is what happened and whatever rules they had were the rules. But of course certain people could break the rules and get away with it.

This next part happened at some point during my freshman year and will be relevant again later on. This is the biggest TW section so skip if you have to. I had a user dox me. He had my home address and threatened to post it. He had sent it privately to a few other users as well that alerted me of this. His reasoning? I would not date him or say I loved him. He told me that he would come to my house, murder me, r*pe my dead body, because he is the only one who gets to have me. Another user got involved and called the cops. I do not know if anything ever came of this because I never spoke to anyone about it. I at the time had admin privileges on one of the sites so I banned him and blocked his IP and I blocked him on anything I could. And I continued doing this over the years. I was told I was a bad person for doing this because I did not understand him. This lead to a lot of the things in the above paragraph getting worse.

As this all continued, there were battles and casualties and everyone ended up with like 20 partners. And if you haven’t noticed I’ve stopped using the term digi.mon entirely in the past few paragraphs. That’s because oh they weren’t digi.mon. They were spirits/dimensional beings that took on a form we were comfortable with and we formed a bond with. And I kept going along with all of this because I was in too deep at this point. And obviously yes, this all made sense. So at some point during this time, my “spirit” went to sleep and a new one “awakened”. And I of course still went along with all this. The BIG BAD kept mutating into stronger forms and blah blah blah.

During my fall semester sophomore year, I joined theatre at my college and did tech. Honestly, one of the reasons I was able to begin breaking away from this. I started to get an actual friend group and have less time for these sites. But there was always a pull of “you have to be here”. You were expected to be on skype calls and/or active in chat.

Well, that all changed at the start of 2015. They wanted a deletion of all the other sites and they would have one site united under one belief system. I was not a huge fan of this and made this known, but also offered to help in the coding as that was a skill I had that no one else really had. It got out around that I was a cunt and a power hungry bitch and blah blah blah. If it was just that, I would probably not have left. No no no, I was accused of lying about the shit that that user said and did to me. Because he is such a nice guy that could never do that type of stuff. And unless I provided the receipts I was clearly an attention seeking liar that wanted to ruin his life. That was the straw. I fucking blacked out in a rage and attempted to delete some of the different websites, I blasted some of these people on their real facebooks, and then I deleted all of my accounts and blocked everyone and blocked their numbers.

After that, I started talking with other people that quit. I started enjoying my college life. And I tried to act like none of that stuff had happened. I distanced myself from those individuals that were active in the Digi.mon community. I stopped hearing the voices and seeing things. I started going to therapy. My road hasn’t been perfect, but I’ve come a long way since I got out of this stuff. Honestly going to meet up with one old member after covid is all clear cause we’ve known each other for over a decade now and its about time we finally meet in person.

So yeah, that’s my story. I know I jumped around a bit and thoughts might not be too clear, but I wanted to share the fucked up things that happen in the background of the digi.mon community. Did I have good times? Hell yeah. The Olive Garden incident still to this day is iconic. We played d&d oneshots sometimes. We had memes. We all watched xros and hunters together live. And I still have some good friends out of this. The most fascinating thing out of all of this is everyone from the community that I still am either in contact with or see them via social media had admitted over the years to suffer from some kind of mental illness and has come out as part of the LGBTQA+ community. My own conclusion is a lot of us got sucked in due to depression/escapism and just a feeling of not belonging. And being around people of similar age with similar interests just made things more bearable at times. It also made a lot of us very vulnerable to the manipulation that took place, whether it was intentional or just one big group delusion created by multiple mentally ill people. I call it a cult, but I'm sure people will disagree with me. Whatever you want to call it, it wasn't good for my mental health in the long run.

If this shit is still going on, I hope people aren’t letting it consume their lives. And I just wish the best for everyone even if some of the shit hurt me.

As I said up top, if you want me to elaborate on anything or have questions, I’m good with talking about stuff. If you know me IRL and are reading this and are like "RACHEL WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK" I owe you a drink and explanation. And of course it Is okay to reblog. This is one hell of a comeback post on this site, am I right?

[shiftybells]

TW// Suicide Ideation/thoughts, suicide baiting, mentions of self-harm, intrusive thoughts/ bullying/ feeling numb.

Soulmates, everyone has one.

 For Izuku Midoriya, he watches his soulmate's percentages and wonders how his appears to them.

 (Would They Even Want A Quirkless Soulmate?)

 As he stands on the edge of the roof, Kacc- no Bakugou's words float around in his brain. 'Take a swan dive and hope for a quirk in your next life’, the jeers of his classmates (tormentors), All Might’s jaded stare as he crushed his dreams moments before, the heroes cruel glares as they berated him for playing hero.

(He feels a slow numbness enter his body as he stares at the pavement hundreds of feet below him. Maybe the blond was right.)

Just one more step and he'd be free-

Slow warmth erupted on his arm, phantom sensations of ink and a pen scrawling across his arm made his skin tingle.

 Clumsily jerking at his sleeve, he stared in wonder as five shades of ink spread across his skin and danced around his scars, (once stained a coppery red shining in the moonlight), green, pink, blue, and a mix of red and white appearing on his skin and lining silvery skin.

‘Please don’t, we want to meet you, please.’

(Izuku had been told stories of soulmates, how the power of been tied to another being through the galaxy, how it had saved so many other from tipped over the edge. Oh how much he had longed to reach out to his pairs-)

And it has happened, for the first time in months, Izuku felt hope.

He jerked from the edge, breath shaky. Izuku clutched his wrist, a wobbly smile spreading across his face as his skin was covered in a multitude of colours. Izuku scrabbled for his bag, grabbing the first pen he could and quickly pressed it to his skin, hastily writing whatever he coulf.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’

Pink, glowing in a way that looked like a supernova, crawled along his skin.

‘Are you okay? There’s no reason to apologise.’

Blue sped its way alongside the pink, shining silvery blue when the light hit it.

‘Would you like to meet up?’

His answer was instant. ‘Yes’

Five minutes later and five phone number drawn from his skin and into his phone, Izuku carefully left the roof, clutching his phone like a lifeline.

****

Things changed very quickly after that.

He learned his soulmates names, where they lived and their quirks.

He gently wrote their names and quirks down in a new notebook, a little pricier, sure, but as he filled the pages, he found that he didn’t mind.

Each page with a different coloured pen, easily matching the ink on his arms. (So what if he spent forever looking for a blue that shimmered an ethereal silver, or a pink pen that glittered like the stars?)

On Friday night he had stayed up late, gently tracing each name as he counted down the hours until they met the next day.

Ochako, Zero Gravity.

(What will happen when they learn that you’re Quirkless? They’re going to leave you like Bakugou did, like dad did.)

‘Shut up’

Tenya, Engine.

(Do you want to risk it?)

‘They won’t leave me.’

Tsuyu, Frog.

(Like Bakugou promised that you two would become heroes together, and look how that turned out.)

‘It won’t be like that, no empty promises.’

Shoto, Half-Hot Half-Cold.

‘How about you shut the fuck up for once in my damn life!’

It was quiet after that.

****

Izuku waved his mother good-bye as he walked outside the door, her face filled with excitement.

They had agreed to meet up at a café close to the train station, and Tsuyu had sent a picture of the table number into their quickly filling group chat.

And oddly enough, they had not asked Izuku once what his quirk was.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

The sun shone and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. Many people roamed around, smiles on their faces as the day went on. Izuku found the café with little trouble, the fairy lights and vines dangling in lieu of a canopy adding a fairy-tale like feel to it.

Glancing around Izuku felt anticipation bubble up under his skin. ‘Am I the first one here?’

Soft laughter reached over from a corner table, easily drawing his attention to a group of three. His eyes met the number of the table. 5.

The brunette girl met his eyes and they stared at each other for a few seconds before a large smile crossed her face and she waved enthusiastically. “Izuku!”

Izuku squeaked as her shout drew the other two’s attention, their eyes each widening before smiling brightly and waving him over.

Drawing in a deep breath Izuku walked to the table, giving his own meek wave, sitting in the chair that was between the brunette and boy.

The girl with green hair smiled. “Good to see you for the first time Izuku.” He blushed, but smiled anyways. “Likewise, Tsuyu?”

Tsuyu grinned. “Call me Tsu.”

Izuku nodded, letting out a squeak when the other girl grabbed his hand and gave a positively blinding smile.

“I’m Ochako! It’s great to finally meet you!”

Izuku could feel his face burning. God the energy here was infectious.

The boy next to him smiled. “Please, call me Tenya!”

Izuku mumbled out a breathy “uh-huh” but mostly stared at his eyes. They kept shining different colours whenever the light hit them, first black, the blue, then red, then gold.

‘Like a really pretty version of an oil spill.’

Tenya sent him a questioning glance. “Is there something on my face?”

“Your eyes are really pretty.” Izuku blurted out, stammering out an apology when Tenya‘s face burned a bright red and he buried his face in his hands.

Ochako laughed. “We said the same thing!”

Tsu hummed. “Where is Shoto? He said he would be here.”

A quiet voice piped up from behind them. “Right here.”

Izuku looked up from where he had begun to look through his bag, eyes widening in surprise.

The two-toned hair and scar immediately gave away who he was, even under the hoodie he was wearing. ‘Shoto Todoroki, holy shit.’

Tenya smiled brightly. “Hello Shoto!”

Shoto gave a small nod and sat in the remaining chair, though a ghost of a smile played on his lips.

He let out a small breath. “I’m not going to lie, I’m glad that none of you have freaked out.”

He glared at the table. “I’m not exactly on the best terms with my old man.”

Surprisingly Tenya was the first to speak up. “Fair enough, personally I never really liked Endeavour either.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Even when I was younger he wasn’t a courteous person, even at Hero Gala’s.”

 “Hero Gala’s?”

Tenya froze before letting out a frustrated huff.

“Dammit, not that I’m ashamed of my family or anything, but I don’t exactly like to broadcast it.”

Ochako shook her hands excitedly. “C’mon Tenya! Spill!”

Tenya sighed. “My family has been filled with pro-heroes for generations, it runs in our blood.”

A more proud expression fill his face. “You know the Turbo Hero Ingenium?”

At their nods he grinned proudly. “He’s my elder brother!”

Izuku gasped. “Really?!”  

Ochako laughed. “That’s awesome!”

Shoto stared then cleared his throat. “Where you the five year old that slapped him and told him that he was being mean, and heroes shouldn’t be mean?”

Tsu’s ribbit was startled. “Really?

Tenya chuckled. “Yes, that was me.”

Ochako cackled. “That’s awesome!” Her face turned thoughtful. “Hey Izuku, you said that Endeavour wasn’t the greatest hero, is it because of hoe aggressive he is?”

Izuku nodded rapidly. “Practicality wise he’s a good hero, though theoretically at the same time he’s not the best when it comes to personality and he does have the most damage done when it comes to property, civilians and villains.”  

Looking up from where he had crossed his arms into his ‘thinking pose’, as his mother had described it, one hand cradling his elbow and the other clutching his chin. He quickly realised that his soulmates were staring at him.

“S-sorry, I was rambling again, wasn’t I?”

Ochako smiled. “Yeah, you were. But that’s okay! Kinda cool honestly.”

Izuku let out a small breath, blushing when he noticed Shoto staring at him with wide eyes.

“Izuku, do you happen to be on any hero forums?”

Izuku laughed. “Yup! I like to think that I’m pretty well known on a few forums.”

Shoto leaned forward. “What’s your user?”

Izuku rubbed the back of his head. “The Analyst.”

Shoto let out a wheezy squeak. “You’re joking.”

Ochako looked between them like there was a tennis match. “Wait I’m confused.”

Shoto shook his head incredulously. “The Analyst is an extremely popular user on many hero forums, very well known for his essays and both popular and controversial opinions when it comes to both heroes and how society discriminates based on quirks and gender.”

Shoto inhaled. “And, is considered to be a veteran amongst most users, very respected in the community.”

Tenya chuckled. “You seem to be very well versed in the community yourself Shoto.”

Tsu nodded. “How do you know all this?

Shot/o blushed. “I- Well I have a theory account, on YoTube.”

Ochako leaned over. “Oh really?”

Shoto smirked. “Cryptid Theory.”

Izuku nearly slammed into the table with how quickly he leaned over. “Holy shit, really!?”

Shoto nodded.

“I’ve been subscribed to you forever!”

Shoto opened his mouth only for a waiter to walk up to their table. “Are you lot ready to order?”

Five milkshakes later and Ochako brought up the dreaded question.

“Oh by the way Izuku, you never told us your quirk. Is it analysing or something?”

The rest of the table looked to him, and Izuku sank into his seat to hide behind his glass.

“Uh- I well.”

He cleared his throat, wringing his hands together.

“That’s the thing. I- I don’t have a quirk.”

The four of them stared. Stomach starting to churn, Izuku dug his fingers into his wrist. ‘Shitshitshitshitshit-‘

“Oh, ok.”

Snapping his head up Izuku stared at their expressions, all supportive.

Tenya grabbed his hands gently. “We don’t care that you’re Quirkless Izuku, quirk or no quirk, that’s not your defining trait of who you are.”

The rest of them nodded.

Izuku could easily feel the tell-tale burn of tears gathering along his water line.

He smiled at his soulmates as they quietly panicked at his tears.

“T-thanks.” He sniffled.

Ochako smiled. “Of course.”

Tenya handed him a napkin which he accepted with a small thank-you.

Izuku blew his nose, smiling brightly. “Thanks, I’m okay though, just… overwhelmed I guess.”

Tsu gave a sad ribbit. “I’m going to guess that being Quirkless is really hard, isn’t it?”

Izuku nodded hesitantly. “Other than my mum, you guys are the only ones that haven’t been physically or emotionally abusive.”

Ochako honest to god growled. “Want me to suplex them?”

Tenya nodded. “Plus I’m quite sure that Quirkless discrimination is illegal so you could technically sue the school.”

Izuku frowned. “They always delete the footage though.”

Tenya grinned. “Not if you know the right people!”

He reached into his bag and pulled out a slim laptop with a mischievous smirk. “What’s your school name?”

“Aldera Middle School, why?”

Tenya motioned for them to gather around his laptop, which had already booted up and was giving off a dark blue glow.

Tenya smirked. “Well when your family agency is based around communication and technology, you pick up on a few things.”

As Tenya’s fingers flew over the keyboard Izuku watched in awe as the code for the schools security main frame appeared on screen. “My older brother allows me to help out at the agency most days, so I help run the comms and all Iida’s know how to hack. Sometimes when pursuing a villain we need all out access to doors and security feed, and we also help out with investigations.”

“This is like something straight out of a spy movie!”

Tenya chuckled. “Something like that.”

Seconds later and the security feed was all over Tenya’s screen. “Now all I need to do is a little reversing and…”

Tenya reached into his bag and pulled out a USB, plugging it in and downloading all the footage, both visual and audio files. Once the download was complete Tenya handed the USB to Izuku. “Just in case.”

Izuku nearly burst into tears again. “Thanks Tenya.”

He shook his head. “No problem.”

As Ochako fawned over the whole incident Izuku drew back and smiled, gently thumbing the USB drive.

‘Things might just turn out for the better’

[gale-gentlepenguin]

ML Fic: Soulmate Survey Part 1

(Link to the idea) that made me want to write it instead of working on my OTHER FICS.

(Master post)

_______________________________________________________________________

“Soulmate Searcher?” Marinette questioned with intrigue and confusion.

“Its an app that just got a global release!” Alya answered. “At first it was only released in America, but it became a huge hit and now it has international servers.”

The designer looked at her friend with even more confusion.

“So why is it so popular? And why did you want me to install it on my phone?” Marinette inquired.

“Its an app that lets you find the special someone who is your significant other. Alya explained. “Its a tried and true compatibility tester.”

Marinette’s intrigue dissipated, in her mind it was just like those cheesy magazine quizzes they put in magazines to see which celebrity  you would marry. Marinette had long outgrown that phase, especially when last time she took one it did not say she would be paired with Adrien but XY! Gross. 

“Oh. Well count me out. Those quizzes are just a load of...”

“No way lady dude.” Nino chimed in. “This thing is legit. It has the highest matchmaking app back in the States and it is like down to a science and stuff.”

Marinette looked at the DJ skeptically.

Alya placed her hand on her shoulder.

“ It is more then just a personality quiz. You put in your name, your age, dating age range, preference, and so on, and then you answer a bunch of questions that allows the app to gage your personality, mentality and emotional impulse. Then after thats done, it will match you with the top 10 people who have the highest compatibility with you in a 50 mile radius. You can see percentage rates and everything. Then you can decide if you want to message any of the people on the list or block them. They can only see your name, photo and the percentage.” Alya detailed.

“So then all a person needs to do is know what your answers are and copy them.”

“An interesting Hypothesis but sadly incorrect.” Max answered from behind the group.

“Sorry to intrude, but I too had my doubts about the app until I learned about how the app’s algorithm worked. All questions given are randomized and answering the questions the exact same way even if someone did get the same questions does not guarantee 100% compatibility. I made several dummy accounts and rigged them in order to make them both have identical questions and answers, but they did not achieve 100% compatibility.” The class egghead began to explain. 

“Having run the test numerous times with numerous accounts, the algorithm matches people with similar beliefs but not identical,  as having too much in common does not mean soul mate, it can be seen as suffocating. I have not yet cracked the theorem of how to get 100%. The highest I have been able to get is 93%.  It is as if it is a perfect formula for compatibility.” Max concluded.

Marinette had to admit her interest was peeked.

“So its a one time questionnaire and then done?” Marinette pressed with more interest.

“Well the first questionnaire takes an hour or two so it has enough data for a base compatibility profile. Then you answer 10 questions every day for 2 weeks to reaffirm any errors it might have made. Thats how the App is so successful. After about 2 weeks, your profile will be established. It was able to cut the margin of error down to 1.9%” Max exclaimed. “Its the pinnacle of mathematical perfection.”

“Thanks dude, couldn't have explained it better... really.” Nino thanked the robot enthusiast.

“Anytime, now I must head off. Markov and I have more tests to run.” Max head out and left the three teens to their own devices.

Marinette thought about it, she really didn't have much to lose trying it out.

“I even got Adrien to install it. He said he will fill it out after fencing.” Alya Whispered.

Marinette realized she had to do it. What if Adrien was on the app and some other girl had a high compatibility with him before she had a chance to try it. What if he fell in love with that mystery girl, got married and then bought a hamster!?

“Okay, I will take the quiz.” Marinette exclaimed with Confidence.

“Atta girl!”

______________________________________________________________________

Marinette had gone with Alya back to the Dupain Bakery in order to answer the questions in peace.

In Marinette’s room, Alya was relaxing as she watched the Designer answer the questions as honestly as possible.

“Now Girl, odds are the percentage maybe around the 70% mark, But Knowing you and Adrien, I bet you two will make it into the 80′s.” Alya answered.

Marinette nodded, half listening as she focused on answering.

“Nino and I got an 85%, which was pretty high. Ivan and Myléne only got a 79%. So no worries even if its in the 70′s”

“DONE!” Marinette exclaimed as she fell back. She was mentally exhausted. The questions were surprisingly more in depth then she expected.

She pressed submit and waited. Staring at her phone as it ‘processed her answers’

Alya stood up walking over to the bluish-black haired designer.

“Well.”

The list popped up.

Marinette scrolled through from 10 to 1. No Adrien. She felt herself sigh deeply.

“He isn't on it...” Marinette spoke defeated.

Alya took a look.

“Sorry girl, It might be he hasn't uploaded his profile yet.” Alya tried to encourage her friend who was burying her head in her pillow. 

“You think?”

“He is a busy guy, but also, you need to see who is number one on the list. A certain guitarist you happen to be fond off.” Alya said with a smile.

Marinette pulled her head up and took her phone. Sure enough, it was Luka who was number one on the list. He had an 80% compatibility rating with her, which was at least 20% higher then the guy in second place. Maybe this was a sign that she should move on from Adrien and ask Luka out.

“Maybe I should message Luka, If he believes in this sort of thing.” Marinette spoke with a blush on her face.

Alya nodded.

“Do what you think is right girl, Adrien or not, you deserve a guy that will make you happy.” 

“Thanks Alya, you are the best.” Marinette smiled sweetly at her best friend.

She clicked on the profile. The pop up asked if she would like to message the user Luka Couffaine.

Marinette paused, she was nervous about doing this. It was as if this was her crossroads. Would she go for it?

_____________________________________________________________________

“DONE!” Adrien exclaimed as he fell back on his bed. He was mentally exhausted as well as physically. He told Alya he would try out the app as soon as he was free from fencing.

“I don't get why you even bothered with those dumb questions.” A grouchy floating cat creature commented.

“Its an in depth Compatibility test Plagg. This could be the best way of finding My lady.”

Plagg looked at the model with skepticism.

“What makes you think that you would be matched up with Ladybug? You don't even know who she is.” 

“We are soulmates, so obviously we will have the highest compatibility.” Adrien answered with confidence as he sat up.

Plagg rolled his eyes.

“You do know just because you were picked to be the cat miraculous wielder doesn't mean your soulmate is ladybug. There have been Ladybug’s and Chat noir’s that haven't gotten together.”

“It isn't because we were chosen together. I can just feel it Plagg. I know we are meant to be. And if for some reason the girl with the highest compatibility with me isn't Ladybug, I will still likely find someone that I can find myself liking. But knowing my Lady, she and I will have a compatibility of 85 maybe even 90%” Adrien answered with a loving sigh. “Oh, its ready.”

Adrien smiles at his phone before looking at the list.

“Oh Kagami is on here. 79% Thats pretty good. But she is only number two? Huh, so then who is number one?” Adrien spoke aloud as he scrolled. As he saw the name that was number one his face turned beet red and and he fell back on the bed.

“Adrien!?” Plagg exclaimed as he flew to the frozen blond. “What happen.... oh no Fucking way.”

_______________________________________________________________________

Marinette was about to press the button when another pop up appeared.

“List updated?”

Marinette clicked out of Luka’s profile and noticed he was now at second place.

“Luka got moved to second.” Marinette spoke with surprise.

“What? Then whose first?”

Marinette scrolled up. Her eyes went Wide.

“ADRIEN!?!?” Marinette shouted.

Alya smiled.

“I knew it! I told you he would be on your list! And Number one to boot. So what  is the percentage. 82? 85% Like Nino and I?”

“100...” Marinette spoke hardly audible.

Alya couldn't hear.

“How much?”

Marinette turned her phone to Alya.

Alya’s jaw dropped.

“1.... 100%!!!!!!!!!!”

_______________________________________________________________________

Plagg could not contain his laugher. The blond was still frozen staring at his screen. Adrien had no idea how right he was. His Lady and him were perfect for each other. Plagg was absolutely loving every second of this. 

“P-Plagg.”

The black cat managed to calm down.

“Ye Ha HA! Yea Adrien?” Plagg responded between laughing fits.

“Marinette is Ladybug.”

Plagg sobered up quick.

“What... What makes you say that?” Plagg spoke, trying his best and failing at hiding the fact that Adrien was right. Thankfully Adrien was too out of it to notice.

Plagg pauses.

“Ladybug is my soulmate, Marinette scored perfect compatibility with me  on the soulmate app. Even with error included, the chances of that happening are…”

“It’s a silly quiz.” Plagg shouted. Tikki would kill him if Adrien found out at the wrong time. He had to play dumb.

Adrien thought about it, maybe he was overthinking it, plus Alya and Nino scored around 85%. Maybe the system was glitching out? 100% was unheard off according to what he found about the app, even with people who tried it and have been married for decades.

“I guess you are right… Besides, you answer questions each day, the percentages will shift. Maybe the system will correct itself, though I should ask Marinette what her thoughts are about the match up tomorrow. Though... even if it isn't Ladybug... Marinette is a pretty nice person to have good compatibility with.”

Adrien felt himself entertaining the thought of him and Marinette together. It seemed really, really nice. He found himself blushing at the thought. He quickly shook the thought off. He was getting ahead of himself. What if Marinette didn't feel the same way he did? What if Luka saw the compatibility score that Marinette got with him and decided not to date Marinette because of it. Marinette does really like that musician, what if Marinette hates him for ruining her chance at happiness!?

Adrien took a calming breath. He won't say anything, the app still needs to fine tune his profile. he is sure it will correct itself if it needs to within the two weeks, after that, he will look into it.

“I am sure that things will fix themselves.” Adrien said as he turned away from the cat Kwami, though part of him really hoped that the 100% would stay.

_______________________________________________________________________

THERE I FINISHED part 1

If you want part two, please let me know. I love hearing feedback and it feeds my impulsive need to write.

[shenanigans-and-imagines]

We’re the Bad Guys: Part 6

Masterlist

Poe Dameron x Reader (eventually), First Order!Reader

Summary: From the day you were born, you were taught the rebels and their New Republic were the bad guys. But, after you crash land on a remote moon with only the Resistance’s poster boy for company, things begin the change.

Based off of this drabble and headcanon

A/N: Hey! Guess who finally got around to the next chapter.  Sorry to say no Poe.  He won’t be back until Part 8, but I promise he’s coming.  And always remember; REBLOG AND COMMENT IF YOU LIKE THIS! I NEED VALIDATION TO SURVIVE!!!

Word Count: 3.0

    The next three weeks were the longest of your life.  You hadn’t realized just how integral your ship was to your daily routine until you couldn’t fly anymore.  What you would have given just to look at the inside of a Tie-Fighter engine.  What you would have given just to sit in the cockpit.  But, orders were orders.

   You were all but confined to quarters, spending your days approving shipments, scheduling repairs and staring at the ceiling.  Hux hadn’t ordered any new attacks or changes in patrol.  You almost wished the Resistance would attack.  At least it would be a change of pace. 

    Even the Stormtrooper assigned to assist you had become a near constant reminder of your utter boredom.  You knew it was standard for an officer of your rank to have an aid, but you had gone so many years without one, you didn’t know what to do with him.  All he really could do was stand there and occasionally help you to and from the hanger bay.  You would have thought Hux would take advantage of the situation and give you a new up and coming officer to train, but he had insisted one of his Stormtroopers was enough for your needs.  

   “There is nothing in your assignment which would warrant wasting integral personal”, as he had eloquently put it. 

   You couldn’t completely dismiss the general’s reasoning.  But at least with an officer you might have been able to talk flight tactics or even just the daily grind.  The trooper gave you nothing to work with. All you had managed to get out of him was “yes”, “no”, and “sorry”, usually in that order.

   The one relief you could find was in the computer archives. You poured what hours you could into researching and understanding the Resistance pilots attached to Black Squadron led by Commander Poe Dameron.

   For obvious reasons his history after graduating and joining the Resistance were sparse and relied on reports from First Order officers and informants.  His life before then, however, was all but public knowledge. 

   He hadn’t lied to you when he said his parents were soldiers for the Rebellion.  In fact, it may have been considered an understatement.  Both were awarded for their bravery, his mother receiving special commendation from General Organa herself. It explained his devotion and the burden the ring placed around his neck carried. 

   You had to wonder why.  Why did he so willingly carry it with him? And the only conclusion you could come to was he chose to carry it.  He chose to join the Republic academy.  He chose legacy over glory and joined the Resistance where the only reward would be the ensuring the victory his parents fought to achieve. It was his decision; plain and simple. 

   And where did that leave you?

   You didn’t choose to fight.  Your parents were the ones to place you in the academy. They placed their legacy on you, not as a token you could take on or off, but an invisible force pressing you into submission. And what was your reward? The hope of victory in the face of your parents' defeat?  There had to be more.  You had to have dedicated your life to something more.  

   But like so many of your questions, you only had yourself to answer to.  It was a slow moving circle, spiraling down to a conclusion you weren’t sure you were ready to face.

   A knock on the door came as a relief  as your trooper stepped into the room. 

   “General Hux wishes to see you in his office, Commander,” he said.  His tone was nervous as if he weren’t sure he was allowed to give you any kind of order, regardless of where it came from. 

   Your lip pressed into a line of annoyance.  You couldn’t imagine what General Hux would want with you, but it couldn’t be anything good. Regardless, you reached for your cane and started making the arduous trek to his office with your trooper in tow. 

   You finally reached the door, a little uncomfortable, but not in serious pain.  Your trooper had offered his arm more than once.  You had been tempted to take it, but you weren’t on a remote moon anymore.  Any such assistance would be seen as a weakness.  Maybe that was why Hux had assigned him to you.  A test of your resolve. 

   “You best wait outside,” you said.  “I wouldn’t want you caught in the middle of whatever firestorm is coming.”

   The trooper’s shoulders relaxed in instant relief.  “Yes, Commander.”

   You nodded in approval and walked inside. 

   The General’s office was impressive, but not in the way one would expect.  There were no elaborate paintings, statues or anything of note decorating the walls save for the occasional star map.  The room was large with a high ceiling allowing one’s footsteps to echo in the empty space. The furniture was sparse, but strategically placed to focus one’s eyeline to the desk at the very center of the room and the man behind it.  

   General Hux sat up straight with his hand folded carefully on the desk.  The back of his chair rose high above him, given the illusion to the throne he so clearly wanted.  The edges were elaborately decorated with silver and gold flaked carvings, glistening what light they could in the dimly lit room. If there was ever a doubt in one’s mind to his ambition, the chair was all they needed to silence them. 

   But for all his strategy, his face was not what captured your attention.  Standing just to his left was the towering figure of Commander Kylo Ren. 

   Your back involuntarily stiffened, but you did not faluter your steps as you approached the desk. 

   You had only been in the same room as Kylo Ren a handful of times, and talked to him even less, but it was all you needed.  You knew his reputation as leader of the Knights of Ren.  You understood his standing with Supreme Leader Snoke.  And more importantly, you knew exactly what he was capable of. 

   Your eyes trailed down, landing on the hilt of his lightsaber.  

   Taking a small breath, you let it out slowly, willing your mind to calm. You just needed to remain calm. 

   “General Hux,” you greeted, formally.  “Commander Ren.  I was told you wished to speak with me.” 

   “Yes,” Hux said. “Please, have a seat.”

   You glanced down at the seat in front of his desk.  It was sturdy, simple and more importantly sat at least three inches below the General’s own chair. 

   “I’d rather stand, sir,” you said, placing just enough apology in your voice to prevent him from formally reprimanding you. “I’ve been sitting so long; I need what opportunities I can get to stretch my legs.” 

   Hux’s lips pressed into a fine line.  “As you will, Commander.”

   He looked away from you then, making a show of going through the notes on his data pad as he did so. 

   “You seem to be recovering rather well. I understand you will be fit for command within a week.”

   “That is what the droids have told me, sir.”

   “And you have taken no leave since your injury?”

   “No, sir. From what I understand, an injury does not relieve me of my duties.”

   “But, you have had time to look into a certain Resistance pilot,” Hux said, turning his head upward to look into your eyes as he said it.  “Is that correct?”

   You felt your jaw tighten.  So, there it was.  “Yes, sir.”

   He opened his hands upward, giving you an almost innocent expression.  “May I ask why?”

   Your eyes flickered to Kylo Ren.  He made no move one way or the other, but you could feel his eyes on you.  Once again, you allowed yourself a moment to clear your mind.  

   You had been trained for this exact moment.  After the fall of the Emperor at the hands of Luke Skywalker, many formal Imperials grew fearful at the potential onslaught of Jedi.  Training against force users became part of your daily study.  Teräs Käsi was integrated into your combat training as well as other techniques developed by Sith and Mandalorian alike.  But more importantly, exercises to strengthen your mind from attack and influence were prioritized above all else. 

   Kylo Ren was not about to get inside your mind unless he was willing to kick down the door. 

   “I don’t get shot down that often,” you answered, simply. “I was curious as to the identity of the pilot who managed it.” 

   “And your findings?” Hux asked. 

   “I understand him to be Commander Poe Dameron, former Captain of the New Republic Fleet. A brilliant pilot according to his academy records, and a regular thorn in my squadron’s side for some time.”

   “Indeed,” Hux said.  “Which begs the question, why now?” 

   He was staring at you intently and you could feel just the slightest throb of pressure inside your skull.  Now was the moment. 

   “I made the mistake of underestimating my enemy once,” you said, smoothly.  “I will not do so again.” 

   Hux’s eyes never left you, but the pressure dissipated.  You didn’t take look in Kylo Ren’s direction, but the fact he hadn’t reached for his lightsaber spoke volumes. 

   “Is there a point to this interrogation, sir,” you asked, bluntly. 

   The General raised an eyebrow.  “Who said it was an interrogation?”

   “Pardon me, sir, but I wasn’t addressing you.”  You then straightened, and purposefully drew your eye directly to Kylo Ren. “Is there a purpose to this?”

   If the Commander was surprised, he didn’t show it.  But then again, he couldn't show much with his mask on. 

   “General Hux was discontent with your report,” he said, simply but with just enough annoyance to make his disdain clear. 

   “Were there inconsistencies I need to account for?” you asked. 

   “None,” Ren answered. 

   You felt some relief at that.  You hadn’t been dishonest. Rather, you had left out certain things, such as Dameron pulling you from the ship, sharing his food, and basically anything else regarding his involvement.  According to your report, you were unconscious for the first day and only came to after Poe had been taken off world. The rest was entirely accurate. 

   “Then it’s the truth the General takes issues with,” you said, dryly. 

   “Watch your tone Commander,” Hux spat.  “You forget who your superiors are.”

   “Show me a superior and I’ll remember,” you countered. 

   Hux rose from his chair then, red faced and fuming. 

   Your lip twitched upward in satisfaction.  Finally, something honest. 

   “I do not appreciate games, sir,” you continued. “Unlike you, I face my enemies in the open.  Did you hope to catch me in a lie? To pin me as a spy or incompetent to justify you leaving me behind to rot? You will have satisfaction in neither.  You made a mistake and now you must deal with the consequences.”

   “And that’s where you’re wrong,” he said, stepping toward you until you stood practically foot to foot. “You are a Tie-Fighter Commander.  I could replace you with any officer of your rank within a week. Officers with much more important names than your own.  The only reason I haven’t is that there are those who deem your skills as a pilot above average, but do not think for a moment you are secure.”

   “Well, if I’m so easily replaceable, then what was the point of all this?” you said, barely able to control the growl between your teeth. 

   “Call it a test of loyalty,” Hux said, smoothly.  “One which you have failed. If you were truly loyal to the First Order you would not have questioned why you were not rescued.  Instead you gave a report questioning my actions and possess a bitterness I personally find distasteful.  I hope for your sake you strive to correct such actions in the future.” 

   And there it was; pettiness.  You had made him look bad by living and now he was going to give you hell.  All you had done; all the blood, sweat and tears you had given to the First Order, swept away because one man couldn’t admit a mistake.  

   You wanted to scream, but held it in.  Hux was just looking for an excuse to demote you.  You would not give him the satisfaction. So, you took a breath and let it out slowly. 

   “Yes, sir.” 

   Hux twitched upward in a smug smile.  “You are dismissed, Commander.” 

   You straightened then, giving him a quick salute and turned to leave. 

   “One more thing, Commander,” he called.  “I thought you ought to know, your squadron has been sent to reconditioning.” 

   You spun back around, unable to hide your surprise.  “Sir?”

   “They had reported you dead,” he clarified.  “I would not wish pilots like that under my command.  Would you?”

   Your hand tightened around the top of your cane.  It wouldn’t take much effort.  Just a few steps and a quick wave of the arm and his head could turn into a mess of red slop.  But once again, you kept still. 

   “No,” you managed.  “Thank you, sir.”

   You did not wait for a dismissal, before turning once again and walking out the door. 

   Your trooper didn’t say anything as the pair of you made your way back to your quarters, to which you were thankful. 

   Hux had to have been bluffing.  There was no way you were as replaceable as he implied, but it nagged at you even worse than the first night you returned to the Finalizer. Again the question you had been avoiding came back begging to be answered; what were you fighting for?

   It occurred to you then you weren’t even that affected by your squadron being sent away.  Yes, you were angry, but more at Hux’s clear manipulation of the system to place blame away from himself.  The men and women you had fought alongside weren’t people.  They were numbers.  A line of identical helmets with nothing behind the eyes.  They were like you; replaceable. 

   The door to your quarters opened. It was only when you stepped inside did you realize just how badly your leg was aching. 

   “Trooper,” you said.  “Could you assist me to the chair, please.” 

   The Stormtrooper stiffened in surprise, but was quick to help you; placing a hand on your waist and supporting you to the chair. For a brief moment you thought of a different hand on your waist and the smell of clear forest air.  But, it didn’t last as he placed you in your seat. 

   “What’s your name, trooper?” you asked, suddenly. 

   The Stormtrooper once again stiffened.  “Sir?”

   “You’ve been by my side for three weeks,” you clarified.  “It just occurred to me, I don’t remember your name.” 

    “Oh,” he said, awkwardly. “I’m FN-2187.”

    You nodded. “Alright, FN-2187, may I ask you a question?”

    “Of course, Commander.”

    “Are you afraid of me?”

    There was a long awkward pause.  You couldn’t get much with his helmet on, but his body language was enough to scream just how much he did not want to answer the question. 

    “I won’t be offended by your answer,” you said, giving what you hoped was an assuring smile.

    He looked at you carefully, his weight shifting from side to side in deliberation. 

    “Yes,” he said. “Well, you did, but no.  Not so much now.” 

    “And what do you think of me now?”

    Again he paused. 

   “I don’t know, sir.”

    Again, you nodded. “And your other commanding officers.  Are you afraid of them?”

    His head tilted from side to side. “Yes and no.”

    “Meaning some you’re afraid of some and others you respect?”

    “No,” he said, carefully. “I’m not sure if respect is the right word.” 

    “Meaning you’re afraid of some more than others.” 

    There was a silence.  It was answer enough. 

    “And of your fellow troopers,” you continued. “Are there any you respect or would call a friend?”

    “None that come to mind, Commander.” His toned was rather matter-of-fact, and that somehow made it worse.

    “Not even the ones you trained with?”

    He shook his head. “No sir, I don’t know where they are.  We were separated after our initial conditioning was complete. It’s protocol.”  

    “Protocol?” you repeated. Yes, you suppose that makes sense.  Less chance to rebel against the programming and isolate those that do.  Incredibly efficient and utterly inhuman. 

“So, if you have no commanding officer you admire or comrades in arms, what is it that you fight for?”

    “The First Order, sir.” It was said quickly, automatically, and well practiced. 

    “Of course,” you said, unable to say anything else.  What else were you fighting for, but the First Order. Whatever that was. “Thank you for your honesty, FN-2187.  You’re dismissed.” 

    He gave the standard salute, but made no move to leave, once again shifting his weight uneasily from side to side.

    “Uh, Commander?” he asked, tentatively. “Is there...is there something I can do for you?” 

    You stared at him.  A sudden feeling came over you, something warm and comforting right in your chest.  It was pleasant, if not a little alien and left a small smile on your lips.  And in that moment, you made your choice. 

    “No.  Thank you,” you said, gently. “You’ve given me a good deal to think about. Although, you might need to find a new assignment.  I will be taking the next few days off.”

   “You’re taking leave, Commander?” he questioned. 

   You shrugged.  “Might as well.  There isn’t much else going on, and I doubt I’ll be given another opportunity short of death after this.  Not to mention you’ll finally be allowed a more interesting assignment.”

   “It’s not so bad, sir,” FN-2187 said, sheepishly.  “Better than sanitation duty, anyway.” 

   You gave a small chuckle at that.  “Fair enough.  You’re dismissed Trooper.  And thank you.” 

   He nodded in acknowledgement and left. 

   The moment the door closed, you opened your computer and pulled an empty data stick from the drawer.  You had a lot of work to do.

[katsukikitten]

Irritated

"WHAT?!" Both of you yell in unison as your chairs topple over. The sound of the crashing metal against lightly carpeted floors has you glaring straight back at a pair of ember hot eyes.

You both narrow them at the same time before the third, more sheepish party in the room speaks up.

"G..guys Calm down okay?" Izuku tries his best to come off soothing but instead he heightens the situation.

"CALM DOWN?!" The hot head across from you explodes further as the director sighs deeply, "I'LL FUCKING SHOW YOU CALM DEKU!"

"Stop coming at Izuku-kun like that. What has he ever done to you?!" You bark.

"He was born with such a stupid look on his face that's what!"

"Oh just like you were born with a stick up your ass huh Bakugou?" His eyes narrow to slits, he's about to make his normal suggestion of let's take this outside but the director cuts him off before either of you can whoop the others ass.

"Are we not adults here?!" The director smooths back his hair before staring into his empty coffee cup, "You know I was really excited when my father told me I would be the head over the top female hero and the two tied number one males but now I'm seeing why he retired early! You two even fight over Twitter!!"

"You're both a PR nightmare!" He gives you and Bakugou a sharp look, "You cannot just tell the paparazzi to fuck off cause you're not in the mood."

"But my fans like my honesty." You try to defend and Bakugou laughs almost cruelly.

"No, what they like are your fat tits. They can't make it past that to hear your foul mouth."

You bare your teeth snarling to retort but again the director cuts in.

"Enough." He glares at you and then Bakugou, "Both of you. You'll give me a heart attack before this is all over. I'm going to have to let you three go if this convention does not work out. The agency cannot handle this stress no matter how could you three are. Nezuko more coffee please love."

His assistant makes quick work of filing out of the room, anything to get away from the chaos. Director Yami pinches the bridge of his nose.

"You cannot be fucking serious?"

"Wha..Director Yami I'm sorry if I ever upset you that was not my intention but let go?"

"What bullshit is this we are the top three fucking heros?! Too much stress?!?!"

"YES!" Yami slams his fist onto the tables shocking the three of you in silence. Sure Director cusses often, snaps a few times but he never, ever raises his voice. He breathes out slowly to collect himself, straightening his tie as he does, "The company cannot get any new potential. All of the upcoming heros are worried they will be placed on important missions at the same time the three of you are on it."

"But we've worked successfully together before." You interject causing Yami's eyes to train in on you.

"Successfully sure but not well together. Izuku struggles which side to take when you or Katsuki try to lead. You both argue the entire mission and nether of you guide the apprentice or new hero."

"Not our job they should pay attention." Bakugou rolls his eyes, "It would be helpful if she just listened."

"Look at the pot calling the kettle black."

"Please!" Yami yells again, "Both of you need to listen. I'm not kidding I'll have to let you three go to different agencies. Yes you're the top heroes but you cannot live forever. The company will need to find replacements for you at some point but that cannot be done if you're always scaring them off!"

Silence falls over the room, agitation washes over your face along with Katuski's as sadness washes over Izuku's.

"Deku, Ground Zero, and Tejina will be at this comic con. Izuku to learn to have a spine when it comes to reigning you two in, to help you two get along." Director's brown eyes cut to you and Bakugou with new found harshness, "Katsuki to keep his fans interested and Y/N so you can actually meet your fans. Since for whatever reason father let you have your way on that. Not to mention 97% of this regions merchandise has one of your three faces on it and about 90% of the nation's merchandise is you three. This is a national convention."

"I just think it's a bad idea." You bite your lip and your phone weighs heavy in the pocket of your jeans. The three of you called in on your off days and for what? To be threatened to be fired over a stupid fan con. You let your eyes do a once over of that vile pig Katsuki who's toned arms are exposed for the summer sun although he wears a black tank top and black shorts. Scarlet eyes notice you looking and when you meet them it earns you a snarl before a suck of his teeth.

You roll your own as the Director breaks some of the palpable tension in the air.

"You're doing this for your fans. Do you not like your fans?" He is tight lipped as he speaks, leaning back in his chair as his eyes bore further into you.

"I love my female fans." You cross your arms. You don't realize the effect of your action, your breasts resting over your toned arms, causing them to spill over your black tank top. Izuku notices with a blush before looking away while the ash blonde stares for a moment before rolling his eyes.

"And your male fans?" Director Yami asks.

"Well let's look at the statistics of the general make up of my fans." You pull out your phone, it feels heavy as a brick in your hands as you log in, "Since you refused to do the demographic the first time we spoke of this convention I'm using my Instagram as a basis."

"It can't be that bad." Katsuki rolls his eyes as he leans back in his chair. Anger quickly melting to boredom.

"I hope you get stalked while we are there." You grumble as you find your favorite and most innocent picture.

"Wait which one? Your offical hero insta or your personal one where you're half dressed?" Yami asks in an even tone to which you still reacte violently. Like pure sodium in water.

"And what of Bakabaku and your angel child Deku?! On their own OFFICAL pages they are half naked in 75% of their pictures. Posing shirtless and in bathing suits. My posting of bathing suits and an occasional basic ass looking out at the view on my balcony in underwear and a large shirt is half dressed? BUT BLATANT MALE NIPPLE ISN'T?"

You flash your phone in his face with a picture of Katsuki at a photoshoot for a hero magazine. He looks cocky as hell with his head slightly titled, looking down at the camera with a crooked smirk, pushing his hair back with one hand, as fresh water droplets fall from ashen tips and glowing skin. The director blinks furiously at the image as you pull back your phone to look up your own page once more for comments and people's profiles.

"I'll start by reading some comments from my 'fans' aloud," You clear your throat as you start, "'Damn sugar tits why is your ass so phat.' 'Bb you is thiccccccccc' 'Bitch you finna take this cock?'"

Katsuki grinds his teeth as you read, each comment pushing him to further agitation.

"Now ask me what the picture is of."

"Gotta be you in your hero suit at the very least." Bakugou hisses as he looks away disinterested.

"No. It's a fucking selfie with a fan and our peace signs." You show him the phone and his scarlet eyes dance over the image. A rare and true smile caught on plump lips with two slender fingers brought beneath your eye, "This is the dude who commented the last one!"

The director, Izuku and Katsuki all cringe away from the glass. Izuku even seemingly uncomfortable after looking at the profile.

"They are all basement dwellers that live with their momma. I mean look at this dude. His profile picture is an anime bitch and his only photo of him self is a selfie WHERE THE LIGHT FROM HIS SIX MONITORS IS ILLUMINATING HIS FACE!!" You become heated at the end, angry that you have to scroll through these comments on the daily and block literally thousands of users that just make new accounts to harass you with. Heated enough that you lose the reigns on your quirk and everything not anchored down in the room begins to float as your eyes bore into the screen.

The glass splits from the weight of your gaze before shattering to nothing but shards and interworkings leaving you huffing. The table and unoccupied chairs slam back to the floor. Forcing you into an unpleasant reality where three sets of eyes gaze upon you.

Watching

Waiting

*Judging*

Once you realize you've lost control you blush furiously, hands flying to your lap to play with some frayed black denim on your shorts. Anything to keep your eyes averted.

Katsuki clears his throat and the Director is pulled from whatever spooked trance he was in.

"Izuku and Katsuki will be there to ensure there are no wandering hands. Right boys?"

"Who the fuck you calling boy you're like what 28? A couple years older than us and suddenly we're boys?" Katsuki spits, eyes instinctively finding you.

His stomach clenches when he sees the look on your face and he grinds his teeth, agitated all over again. Why the fuck are you making that face over some shit betas? You could kick their ass any day so why do you look so....

Afraid?

Before he can answer the dumbass question that damn Deku steals the words right out of his mouth.

"Of course we will protect Y/N." Deku sounds confident and full on in hero mode as if he were saving a damsel like he did everyday.

Unkownlingly making you feel worse. Furious and frustrated tears at your own helplessness prick your eyes. No one notices.

No one but a crimsom set of eyes, who speaks with out thinking.

"She won't need our protecting but I guess yea we can be there." His voice is so gruff when he speaks and yet his words bring you, oddly enough, some comfort. When normally even just the sound of him sucking his teeth has your skin crawling.

"Tejina we'll get you a new phone. Ground Zero, Deku you are dismissed. Plane leaves at 0800 hours tomorrow so please be packed and suited. The first day you'll be free to walk around and enjoy the con for a few hours before interviews take place. The second day will be packed as well with interviews and meet and greets."

The three of you fight some sort of emotion as he speaks. Izuku worry of letting his fans down, Katsuki agitation of the KYAAAAs he's bound to hear while you feel an emotion you are quick to overcome but for whatever reason cannot in this case, fear.

Bone grinding fear of a repeat.

The director's voice is drowned out as old, much too familar sounds, echo in your head. Foot steps that are much too sloppy and close. Glass shattering in dead silence pulling you from a deep sleep and screaming.

Lots of screaming.

××××××××××××××

Sleeping did not come easy for you that night further encouraging your intense irritation. You are the first to arrive on the still heated tarmac from yesterday's sun. Hinting about how miserable today was going to be. You took in a deep breath to soothe yourself before getting onto the private jet, just as the calming effect was setting in nails on a chalk board seemed to personify behind you.

"Oi. Did you forget how to use steps or are you gonna walk there?" You did not need to turn around to know who it was. You take an extra moment with your held breath, trying so so so hard to bite your tongue.

But like all things when it came to your temper towards him you could not.

"Walking thousands of miles would be preferable than to be sharing any sort of confined space with you." You snap stepping up two of the three steps before stopping, "In fact I would much rather this plane crash than share it with you."

Katsuki stares up at you with narrowed eyes before giving the small of your back a light push.

"Fucking same but sadly our careers are on the line if we dont make it to this convention in one piece." He bites out, urging you onto the plane as one would attempt to guide a cat. A unspoken standstill begins to unfold until the glaring match is cut short by someone clearing their throat.

"P..please glare at one another on the plane. Please." He says the magic word twice. Hoping it will have double the effect of you two being civil. Your eyes cut to shining emeralds and all you can think of is Director Yami punishing the three of you. When really it should only be the two active parties in this weird hate fueled relationship. Guilt causes you to forfeit and swallow your pride for just this weekend as you trudge up the last stepz claiming a seat by the window. Katuski opens the overhead and shoves his one and only black duffle bag into the vast amount of space before he begins sliding off his obnoxious grenade gauntlets. Placing those much more gently into the overhead.

Having you wonder with half curiosity if they are already filled with his fuel and if they are how much of a push would you need to apply in order for one to erupt. Izuku sitting across from you pulls your mind from that petty and dark place as he offers you a soft smile.

"I'm excited to see my friends from 1A." He beams to you and you smile knowingly. He must have forgotten his drunken night out with you. He told you all about class 1A. About him and Katsuki fighting, of all the fun they had. He even asked for you help so he could talk to a special girl from his class.

"Excited to see your friends or excited to see a certain *one* of your friends?" You tease, relishing over his quickly heating face as he must be relieving the night. Your question earns an almost approving snort from Bakugou as he finally takes his seat in the opposite of the aisle window seat. He digs into his pocket for his phone as he begins to sync the black over the ear head phones that rest on his neck.

"Ah..that's not it.." He tried to force a laugh and it comes out obviously fake, he attempts to divert the conversation from himself, "You haven't seen Kirishima in while right Kaachan?"

Izuku's face somehow deepens in hue as he slams his hands over his mouth having not slipped up like that in quite some time. All the while the air in the cabin seems to become charged from his mistake. You either do not notice or do not care.

"Kaachan?" You look to Midoriya and then Bakugou before slowly piecing it together, "Oh that's right you two grew up together. Man that's so fucking cute that you still call him that."

Katsuki steers his glare to you as you hold eyes with Izuku. For reasons he cannot place his rage melts to slight irritation as you finish your sentence. His ears picking up on the word cute as he watches your face form that rare true smile.

The one that makes the room seem to glow and his heart seem to race.

Race with aggravation that is but still he watches you.

"You should call him that more often. Right Kaachan?" You aim that smile at him unconsciously. He studies it for a moment before slipping his headphones up over his ears.

"Tch. Whatever." He blasts his favorite song and faces away from the two of you, not wanting either of you to see his red cheeks.

The plane ride is not as long as you now wanted it to be. You enjoyed hearing the stories from your good friend Izuku as you had not gotten the pleasure of going to UA. You had gone to a small hero academy and did not make a single friend. Too busy perfecting and controlling your quirk.

Katsuki rolls his eyes as he catches the tail end of a story, popping open the overhead to slip on his gear.

"We had so much fun. Didn't we Kaa...Katsuki?" He corrects himself last minute and your face becomes crestfallen. For some reason you liked the nickname and wanted to hear it more often. Whether it was because you knew it agitated Bakabaku with the way his broad shoulders would tense even when similar syllables left Izuku-kun's lips or maybe it was because it some how gave the hot head a very small, almost microscopic, boyish charm.

That he would have someone in his life to admire him enough to give him nice nickname. You sigh pulling at the straps of your bookbag as you three make your way across the tarmac. More than ready to get these three days of hell behind you.

A/N lol why yes this is a fourth series I've started. Why no, others are not completed yet. Why do you ask? Because I hate trying to end things with out it feeling rushed.