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A . . . parrently Drink Up the Sunrise passed 1000 kudos when I wasn’t paying attention. Usually, that’d call for me posting a Karushuu drabble or an actual update, but I don’t really have that much in the works. Oops?

I guess have most of a draft instead

(Yes, this is the same drabble I posted a line of last Valentine’s - you can see how long I’ve been working on this)

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“Ah, hello, Karma,” says Granny Sato. She twinkles at him with the uncannily knowing look that some old ladies just always seemed to have. “It’s been a while. Are you here for your milk and natto?”

“Yup, but I’m also just here to get out of the apartment,” Karma says. “Gakushu needs some space right now.”

Granny Sato knows him far too well, and it shows in her utter lack of hesitation in raising an arthritic finger and pointing it directly at him. “Your young Asano-kun is a delicate boy,” she says sternly. “You have to be gentle with him.” And she’s right, of course, but if there’s one thing you can say about Akabane Karma, it’s that he’s never been daunted by any kind of rebuke.

He puts on his best innocent face. “I am being gentle, Granny,” he says. “That’s why we’re moving like glaciers!”

It’s like flipping a switch. “Oh? Now, won’t you indulge an old lady?” she asks, leaning in, her sternness morphing into curiosity. Like many of her kind, Granny Sato is an incurable gossip.

“Nothing much,” Karma says casually. “Gakushu’s just freaking out because he doesn’t know how to handle affection.”

I kissed him twenty minutes ago, he doesn’t add, because Gakushu might actually murder him if he lets that leak.

“Oh, is he now?” Granny Sato always seemed to be just as entertained by his attempts at respectability as Karma. Even though she’s at least five decades his senior, the two of them are really kindred spirits.

Karma gives a little hum. Some people think he only knows provocation, but he’s a lot more sophisticated than that. Karma knows when to push and prod and when to hold back, and right now is one of these times, because while Karma at least understands love in a distant way, Gakushu only knows it as lawsuits and threats and the silent weight of expectations dangling above his head like a Sword of Damocles.

Whatever it is they have between them is probably the healthiest relationship Gakushu’s ever had in his life, and that’s a little sad.

She pats him on the shoulder. “You go get your young man,” she says.

Karma grins as he gives her a carefree salute. “I plan to, Granny Sato,” he assures her.

#Fanfiction #Assassination Classroom #Karushuu #Karma Akabane #Gakushu Asano #Akabane Karma #Asano Gakushu #Drink Up the Sunrise #Sneak Peek

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Question — assuming you apply the Pokémon Adventures birthdays to general Pokémon canon, Red’s birthday is earlier in the year than Green’s (by ~3.5 months), but are they meant to be in the same year or is Red’s birth supposed to be the year after Green’s? I don’t remember whether that ever came up in Adventures explicitly. If we apply Japanese school year timing or just assume that Green and Red are usually the same age at the same time, I would think it’s the same year?

The reason I ask is because that would mean

a) Green is younger than Red

b) Even though he lost the title, Green would still be the youngest Kanto champion on record

Both of which I find hilarious

#Pokemon #Pokemon Adventures #Green Oak #Red #Trainer Red

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If you’ve ever wondered just how much some of my fics change between first draft and final - here’s a very raw first draft fresh off the press, in all of its embarrassing glory.

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“Please, oh please, Champion Red!” says Melissa the teaching assistant. She’s all of fifteen or so. You can tell because there’s still light and hope in her eyes. “You’re the perfect person to talk to the kids, you’re so inspirational. You’re the youngest champion on record!”

“What am I, chopped liver?” mutters the second-youngest champion by a mere one and half months.

“We can trade places if you want,” Red mutters back to him.

“Nah, you broke it, you bought it,” Green says. “Bet you regret the whole champion thing now, don’t you?”

“No one said it might involve talking to children.”

“They definitely did, you just weren’t paying attention.” Green flicks his forehead, like a jerk. “Moron.”

Red glares at him and resists stepping on his toes. Instead, he turns towards Melissa the teaching assistant to say something, but then he pauses. His brow furrows. “What am I supposed to tell them?”

“Speak from your heart. Share your inspiration! Tell them what makes you the trainer you are!”

Red just looks more confused.

“Tell them to be good kids, stay in school, and do their homework,” is his childhood friend’s contribution.

Red blinks. “But I didn’t do any of that,” he says.

“Um,” says Melissa the teaching assistant, losing her momentum.

“Just lie,” says Green shamelessly.

“If they want someone to talk about education, they should ask your grandpa,” Red argues, still frowning. “Or even you. You’re the one who made me do my homework.”

“I didn’t make you do anything,” Green says, rolling his eyes. “I just told you that if you failed, we’d be in separate classes the next year.”

“I’m pretty sure that counts as a threat.”

“And I’m pretty sure you count as a lamebrain. What else?”

Red sets his jaw stubbornly. “I’m not going to lie to people,” he says.

“That’s literally all you do with little kids. That’s the entire concept behind the existence of Santa Claus.”

“Shh!” Melissa the teaching assistant whispers frantically, glancing at the door.

“Well, if you want to be that way, use yourself as an example of what not to do,” Green says. “Tell them how miserable you are from not having completed your education.”

“But I’m not,” Red says.

“You can’t balance an account to save Pikachu’s life,” Green points out.

“Chu,” Pikachu says, with a dangerous gleam in his eyes. His cheeks start sparking. Melissa the teaching assistant takes a step back.

“Don’t worry, Pikachu’s harmless,” Red assures her, with total obliviousness to the murder in his Pokemon’s eyes, and then turns back to Green. “You didn’t go to high school either, you know.”

“Yeah, but I actually paid attention to Trainer Life Skills, including the budgeting unit.”

“There was a budgeting unit?”

Green rolls his eyes again. “See what I put up with? You wouldn’t believe what it was like being classmates with this guy,” he says. “The answer to what’s behind all that mystique is that Champion Red is secretly a moron.”

“Chu!” Pikachu snaps, glaring at Green.

“You can’t shock Green to defend my honor,” Red says wearily.

“Chuuu.”

“Not even a little one.”

“Pika-pi!”

“Not even if you would really enjoy it and he has it coming.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t pay taxes on battling income, or you would be screwed,” Green continues, unphased by the actual threats going on in the background. “He’s especially weak against the concept of math,” he says to Melissa the teaching assistant, like he’s confiding a secret.

“But, but, how does he do damage calculations? Stat balancing? Training measurements?”

Red looks up at the ceiling in contemplation. Behind him, Green starts to snicker. “I just do it by instinct?” he says, after a moment.

“Instinct,” Melissa the assistant says faintly.

Red shrugs. “Lance deals with the League’s taxes and stuff.”

“And he does not get paid anywhere near enough. For the actual work he does or having to deal with your flightiness.”

Red scowls at him. “Don’t you do some of this stuff too? You’re a gym leader.”

“Yeah, the Viridian schools ask me every year, sometimes the neighboring towns do too. I just tell them about all the work that goes into being gym leader and make sure to tell them all the boring parts. That way, if they go for it anyways, at least they know what they’re getting themselves into.”

“That sounds terrible,” Red says. “Didn’t she say these were supposed to be inspirational?”

“Realistic is just as important nowadays. Can’t have kids dropping out with those dumb TV ideas of what being a professional trainer’s like,” Green says, with a shrug. “Besides, it can’t be worse than Giovanni’s.”

“What did Giovanni do?” Red asks, curious despite himself.

“Made himself out to be the second coming of Arceus so that any sufficiently dazzled kids would come to him if they needed help, then secretly groom them as Rocket grunts.”

Everyone in the room uniformly shudders.

“Yeah, so you can see why I try to make it sound boring after that.”

Red is struck with a horrible thought. “I won’t accidentally inspire anyone into villainy, will I?” he asks. Giovanni was doing it on purpose, but Red has been known to be accidentally competent at things. See: becoming champion.

“Of course not!” Melissa the teaching assistant says hurriedly.

“Who knows? You sure are annoying enough,” says Green. “But at least you can’t be held responsible for it in a court of law.”

Red frowns harder at him. “You’re not very helpful with this,” he says, accusingly.

“Who said I was trying to be?”

“You’re a fake friend.”

“Thanks, I’m flattered.”

“I’m telling your grandpa.”

“Good luck with that. He has even less brains than you do.”

Red swats him on the arm.

“Um,” says Melissa the assistant, looking increasingly like she’s been caught in the middle of a firefight. She presses on bravely though, and you have to give her some credit for that. “Do you think you’ll be able to do this?”

Red looks vaguely haunted. “Maybe?” he hazards. “Do I have to lie?”

“No!” Melissa says.

“Basically,” says Green.

“Then I’m not doing it,” Red says.

Melissa looks at Green.

“Yeah, sorry, can’t help this one,” Green says, with a shrug.

Things are too complicated here. Red looks out the window longingly. “Is it too late to go back to Mt. Silver?” he asks.

#Fanfiction #Pokemon #OriginalShipping #NamelessShipping #Green Oak #Red #Trainer Red #WIP #Sneak Peek #(There are at least three major issues off the top of my head that I need to fix in revisions)

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At this point, I think it’s safe to say Your Soul Like Little Sparks has officially overtaken Electrify Your Resistance very definitively and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

I feel like Electrify Your Resistance has always been One of the Things I am Known For (at least Karushuu-wise), and it’s kind of weird to think of something outpacing it.

#Fic Notes #Karushuu #Electrify Your Resistance #Your Soul Like Little Sparks

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When I write about Green, I usually end up singing, “Why you gotta go and make things so complicated?” at some point

#Fanfiction #Pokemon #Green Oak #OriginalShipping

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I have a tendency to write Green from Red’s POV, so have a little bit of the opposite.

This might get cut from the fic it’s a part of, but I, for one, think it’s hilarious and deserves to be seen.

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Red is impervious. Red is a twenty ton tank that can’t be swayed no matter how you yell or laugh or plead, and it’s infuriating, it really is, that you could do anything or say anything to him and he’d just look at you with that stone-cold poker face and go, “Oh.” Green’s used to it by now, so he can mostly find it funny and laugh when other people are on the receiving end of Red’s stubbornness, but by God is it annoying when it’s directed to you.

The problem with being impervious to other opinions is that it’s also impossible to convince him of anything, which is a pretty massive character flaw when the person in question is an airheaded moron who regularly has bad ideas. Oh sure, if he liked you, sometimes he would do what you said instead of following through with his original plan, but it was more of a favor to you than him actually changing his mind. And sometimes, you could influence him by accident, but the key word here is accident. 

Red is strange and whimsical and talented enough to get away with it. Red knows exactly what he wants, and Green doesn’t know if he hates him or admires him for it.

#Fanfiction #Pokemon #OriginalShipping #NamelessShipping #Green Oak #Red #Trainer Red #(Creative liberties were taken with tank weights for the sake of alliteration)

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Ride Off Into the Sunset

Sometimes you spend over a year poking at a drabble and sometimes you write one in about a week. This derailed HARD after I remembered the existence of this post.

Note: Karma has a pretty twisted sense of humor and makes a somewhat disturbing joke, please check the tags for a content warning if you’d like one!

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“This movie is terrible,” Gakushu says.

Karma laughs. “Aw, don’t be like that, Asano-kun,” he says back. He’s sprawled out over the couch with his arm slung comfortably around Gakushu’s shoulder, and he uses it to pull him a little closer. It might look cute, but it feels more like a headlock than anything. 

Gakushu pulls away from him and gives him a flat look. “The protagonist has just failed to recognize his own twin,” he says. “Am I still supposed to support him after that display of incompetence?”

Karma shrugs. “Even idiots deserve love,” he says, as if he’s benevolent enough to care about the slow-witted. He barely pays attention to them unless he wants to involve them in a scheme. 

“He’s in a love triangle with his twin brother’s poorly disguised alter ego and the neighbor when she has her glasses off. That takes face blindness or a special level of stupidity,” Gakushu points out. “Given that he’s also failed to connect all the new art supplies in their room to the mysterious graffiti around their school, stupidity seems like a safe conclusion.”

“Is it really a triangle if the brothers aren’t interested in each other? Isn’t it missing a side then?” Karma wonders, and really? Out of everything in this inane plot, that’s what he’s focusing on? 

“The third side is implicit in the base for simplicity’s sake—you can hardly expect the common masses to have heard of a chevron. What else would you call it, a tent?”

“I can see that spoiled city boy Asano-kun has never been camping in his life.” Karma leans back. “Tents come with floors and extend into the third dimension. They’re more like pyramids or triangular prisms.”

Gakushu glares. “You know what I mean.”

“I do,” Karma agrees, “but where’s the fun in that?” He tilts his head to the side. “Although, there might be some actual fun if they went ahead and made it a real triangle.”

“How about in not giving me an aneurysm before the age of thirty?” Gakushu mutters. He considers his angle of attack to try shut Karma up and goes with, “And are you encouraging immoral relationships just so you can get a correct polygon?” 

“You know how I feel about inaccuracy, Asano-kun.”

Meaning it’s only permissible if Karma’s the one doing it, otherwise, it’s just ammunition for him to use to pick on people. Of course.

Gakushu forges on ahead. “Even putting aside the incestuous factor, they’re identical twins. They don’t even have different wardrobes; the only way you can tell between them is they part their hair differently. You would have to be depraved to be interested in your identical twin romantically.” 

He eyes Karma, comes to a realization, and then tries to avoid thinking too deeply about their complicated, ambiguous tangle of a relationship. “Then again, maybe that’s why you’d enjoy it,” Gakushu mutters. He’s not deaf. He’s heard all the comments about how they look alike. He doesn’t see it himself, but he doesn’t pay that much attention to his appearance aside from making sure he looks respectable, maybe he’d get it if he looked in the mirror more often. “Does it not bother you at all?” he asks, half as a jibe and half out of genuine curiosity.

“Nah,” Karma says, and it says something about the two of them that he already knows what Gakushu means. “I’ve thought about it and I’m the only person in my own league. But I can’t exactly date myself, so you’ll have to do,” he says, with an exaggerated shrug. 

Gakushu snorts. “Narcissist,” he says.

“Takes one to know one!”

Gakushu is starting to feel the beginnings of a headache. Not that this feeling is uncommon around Karma. “You know what, just shut up and go back to watching this awful excuse for cinema.”

“Whatever you say, Asano-kun,” Karma sings. The colors on screen intensify again as there’s yet another scene of graffiti “vigilantism,” and things are blissfully silent.

#Fanfiction #Assassination Classroom #Karushuu #Karma Akabane #Gakushu Asano #Akabane Karma #Asano Gakushu #International Fanworks Day #International Fanworks Day 2022 #CONTENT WARNING: Karma cracks a twincest joke and Gakushu bickers with him about it

[land-under-wave]

So for anyone who’s curious about the status of With Hearts So Pure . . . I don’t know? There’s this one section that’s been giving me trouble for years and I’ve been giving it another shot recently, but I’m also been kind of rethinking whether it’s even a good idea to keep trying because I think it might be perpetuating bad ideas about gender norms? WHSP always walked a line between poking fun at masculinity norms and perhaps accidentally enforcing them and I tried to make sure I landed on the correct side of that line, but I don’t know that I succeeded and my concern about that has increased over the years.

But! I do know there were some fans of it, as weirdly niche as it was, and I’ve always been the type to hope that fic writers are willing to give spoilers about the ending when they discontinue something, so I figured I should follow that myself even if this is more of a shrug than a discontinuation. Especially since at this rate, it’s not going to be finished until like a decade after my last update to it. So if anyone wants it . . . below the cut is a detailed plot outline for the rest of With Hearts So Pure, with a few annotations and some talk of gender themes afterwards.

If requested, I’m willing to post any parts of my draft, but fair warning that a lot of scenes are incomplete - I’ve marked completed portions with an asterisk.

Chapter 3

-Phala starts punning on his magical girl name sounding like “phallic” in a battle. *

-Gakushu is furious, but it makes him start thinking about romance and possibilities after the battle. He ends up concluding Karma is his only realistic option and is Not Happy. *

-Nagisa comments that there’s a lot more monsters than there should be and there must be some kind of source to this problem. *

-Potential middle scene introducing another magical girl mechanism for damage cleanup (added to try to help with pacing, subject to potentially being cut)

-The boys research together as civilians and pin down a location to look at (this is the section I was having issues with, every rationale for picking a location that I came up with felt weak and/or really contrived)

Chapter 4

-They go to said location one night for the final confrontation. * (I was thinking a factory or chemical plant near a river, but does that exist? I feel like safety regulations might not permit it)

-Nagisa dips out after they get there. Gakushu yells at him while Phala makes fun of Gakushu *

-Phala and Gakushu see someone already at the site dumping something into the river and very clearly up to no good, and head down to check it out *

-The villain behind this whole thing turns out to be . . . . dun dun dun . . . Takaoka!

-Takaoka tries to do the whole grand villain confrontation speech thing, but Phala just makes fun of him/riles him up until he loses his temper

-Takaoka screams something about just not wanting to have to be a magical girl anymore and they realize Takaoka was the original magical girl for their area and his motive was how humiliating he found that.

-Battle ensues. Gakushu gets increasingly enraged about how petty and ridiculous Takaoka is and beats him up while shouting about how he’d rather wear a dress than to be as pathetic as him. Phala eggs him on while taking out the reinforcements in the background

-Nagisa shows up after they win, Takaoka’s unconscious body vanishing into thin air. He relays a message from the magical girl boss to Phala and Gakushu. *

-Some discussion is had with Magical Girl Boss via Nagisa about isn’t this whole damn thing your fault to begin with for making Takaoka a magical girl. *

-Gakushu mutters something about how do you even know Takaoka anyways. In answer, Phala removes his mask and it’s Karma underneath. Obviously.

Chapter 5

-PLOT TWIST - Gakushu realized early on that all signs pointed to Karma being Phala. He just hated the idea of it so much that he refused to believe it and turned his brain to the task of ignoring all the signs and clinging to anything that suggested otherwise

-Loose ends from the battle and such are tidied up. Karma leaves. Nagisa hangs around for a moment longer to apologize and then leaves too, leaving Gakushu alone in the middle of the wreckage and feeling kind of weird

-Life goes on. Gakushu is now off the hook as a magical girl and still feels weird about it.

-Ren notices and speculates that he misses the magical girls, since the timing of his funk lines up with their disappearance. Comedic speculation ensues. *

-Nagisa also notices but additionally has picked up on the fact that Gakushu is envious and confused about his bond with Karma and ends up dragging Gakushu into a classroom and explaining the whole assassination thing *

-With that context, Gakushu calls Karma to meet him and they end up having a conversation. It ends in a rather non-committal, “I still don’t know where we stand with each other” kind of way

-Gakushu wakes up one day to Karma coming through his window in his magical girl getup and very peppy and telling him wake up, we’ve still got more things to do!

-Gakushu realizes that Karma asking him to continue being magical girls with him is Deeply Significant (low-key, this is basically Karma’s way of asking him out). Emotions are felt. His narration just generally ties things up

End fic

Additional Notes: The first part of Chapter 3 was already posted. This library scene I posted was also a cut section from the research scene (that entire section later ended up being trashed for bad pacing and feeling that it might be boring)

The biggest concern I have about this fic is probably that Takaoka’s motivation for the whole thing is that he really hated wearing that frilly dress. On the one hand, I think that motive is hilariously petty and fits well with the general crack idea of this AU. On the other hand . . . I think it’s okay to be uncomfortable wearing something that doesn’t match your gender identity, particularly if you have existing insecurities about the subject, and while Takaoka doesn’t have those insecurities in this fic, there isn’t a way to explicitly signal that given his small amount of screen time and the fact that it’s always Gakushu’s POV.

In particular, I remember reading a fic where someone was forced to wear a dress in public even though it was known they had issues with skirts, freaking them out very badly to the point of them crying. I remembered being horrified and feeling awful reading it. And . . . then the character ended up liking it after getting a compliment? I honestly really hated the way that was framed, how it felt that their boundaries were disrespected and dismissed by the narrative itself. I must’ve read that scene at least three years ago and that horror has stuck in my head, so you can tell how much it bothered me. And while no one in this fic is as uncomfortable as that character was, I think you can see why I’d be worried about WHSP afterwards, particularly since part of Gakushu’s arc could be read as him sort of being Stockholm Syndromed into accepting being a magical girl, with all the girliness it entails.

It’s not exactly the same situation - neither Gakushu nor Takaoka has a pre-established hatred of wearing feminine clothing, and I’ve always thought of it as Gakushu hating the cutesiness and style more than the idea that it’s a dress (although he does very much think of a dress as gendered clothing). A large part of his objection to being a magical girl/the outfit that comes with it is also more that he didn’t get a say than the actual dress. He’d also really hate some frilly, fanciful jester outfit with a ruff and Tudorian-style clothes. At the same time . . . there’s a reason for that element of indignity that Gakushū finds in wearing a girly style, and that is partially due to a subconscious association between girliness and weakness. That is what I wanted to challenge in the final confrontation, and that was part of the idea in his assertion that he’d rather wear this dress than be like Takaoka. I have thought of better ways to do that, but within the premise of “Karushuu as magical girls,” I couldn’t think of a way that was possible without throwing in another main character and expanding/changing the plotline, and I’m having enough issues finishing this even with 90% of it plotted out. The main focus is supposed to be “Karushuu as magical girls in a crack comedy,” with some of these implications as a kind of undertone, and to prioritize better suiting the idea of “girliness is not weakness, but that doesn’t mean you have to be okay with wearing a dress” would mean reworking the fic premise from the start or else end up with something that feels really indecisive and mismatch with the existing parts. And to be honest, I think it’s impossible to avoid some of those implications with “unwilling teenage boy as the long-suffering protagonist of a magical girl fic” as the premise, no matter how much you change the plot.

I might be overthinking it a bit or not thinking about the implications enough, but uh, that’s probably part of what comes from me writing fic entirely on my own and not having anyone to run my thoughts by. I’m very stuck in my own head, and it’s hard to tell what’s me being a worrywart and what’s a genuine concern.

(Also, as for how Takaoka became a magical girl to begin with . . . that’s another (long, silly) story)

#Fic Notes #Karushuu #With Hearts So Pure #Spoilers

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Like Sunshine Through the Clouds

Gakushu moves in. 

Also the conclusion to the backstory mini-arc for the Karushuu College AU.

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Three weeks before the beginning of the semester, Isogai calls him up and says, “Your new roommate will be moving in on Sunday.”

“Eh? You found someone, Isogai?” Karma says curiously. By now, his reputation as the demon of the math department has spread far enough among the student community that even people from other schools are refusing to room with him.

Truth be told, Karma doesn’t need a roommate. His parents feel guilty enough about their perpetual absence that their monthly bank deposit is more than enough to cover his living expenses. But Isogai’s been insisting it’ll be good for him to have some company, and Karma’s bored enough that he’s figured that it wouldn’t hurt to let Isogai do what he wants. 

Plus, it’s convinced Isogai that his puppy dog eyes have some tiny effect. That’ll be good for a laugh somewhere down the line. Karma just needs to play his cards right and he’ll be able to manage something spectacular. 

“I’d give you his number, but I don’t want you to scare him off because you even meet him,” Isogai continues, bringing his attention back to the matter at hand. He may know Karma a little too well. “But he’ll show up at three.” His voice sharpens in the way only Isogai can pull off, earnest and stern at the same time. “Be nice to him, Karma.”

Karma hums. “Whatever you say,” he says agreeably.

“I mean it,” Isogai says, the consummate class rep. It’s never stopped being fun to yank his chain. “We put a lot of work into getting someone who would suit you, and he deserves better than your usual.”

“We?”

“Ah, well. I got Nakamura and Nagisa to help out.”

“You got Nagisa involved with this?” Karma says, morbidly fascinated. Nagisa doesn’t usually care about petty things like roommates or color coordination or what to have for lunch. He’s always there for the big, important things, but he kind of shrugs off and bumps his way through anything you would classify as normal. He’s weird like that, but it’s also one of the best parts about him. Karma doesn’t care much for the mundane either. 

“He also thinks you do best with something or someone to occupy your attention,” Isogai says. His voice softens, almost imperceptibly. “And we don’t have Korosensei to do that anymore.”

Karma’s eyes drop to the floor, even though no one can see it over the phone. “Low blow, Isogai,” he says.

“I know,” he says. “But it worked, didn’t it?”

On Sunday, his doorbell rings at three sharp. It figures Isogai picked a guy just as punctual as him. Karma’s reading horror manga on the armchair near the entrance, strategically positioned because he is curious about this guy that’s supposedly so suited to him, but he’s not the type to just sit around and wait on someone. Just to hammer that in — it’s never too early to begin establishing who holds the power in your relationship, after all — he waits until the bell rings a second and then a third time, much more insistently, before he gets up and saunters over to the door. 

He opens it a little wider when he catches sight of the familiar face, already looking annoyed. “If it isn’t Asano-kun,” Karma says, bringing out one of his favorite nasty little grins. He’s about to ask what he’s doing here when it clicks. “I guess this means you’re my new roommate!”

Asano, being the prissy little princess that he is, huffs at Karma and drops a suitcase on the ground. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised he didn’t tell you,” he mutters. “You Class E folk seem to think you’re above the idea of communication.”

“Aw, maybe I just trust Isogai enough to let him pick for me. Ever think of that, Asano-kun?”

Asano just snorts. “No, because you’re a paranoid bastard.”

Well. He’s got him there.

“Takes one to know one, Asano-kun,” he sings back, because really, how else is he supposed to explain it? He hasn’t talked to Asano in at least two years, and hilariously, Asano’s never been that talented with people. He does great with your average citizen and increasingly worse the further you get from the norm, which meant Class E always had a ball with him.

Is that why Isogai thinks they’ll be well-suited to each other, so Asano will entertain him? No, Nakamura might think like that, but Isogai is too pure-hearted for something so cold.

The gears in his brain are whirring as he tries to work out his old classmates’ angle, but he can’t let it show, and gaps in conversation are all too obvious with Asano tapping his foot impatiently on his doorstep. Karma flashes a smile. “So why did you decide to come to live with little old me anyways?” he inquires, like he was just trying to decide whether or not he should let him in. “Does widdle baby Gakushu need someone to make sure he can take care of himself now that he’s on his lonesome?”

“Die,” Asano snaps. “Also, Isogai says to tell you you owe me five thousand yen, and you can pay him the other five thousand next week.”

Karma puts the pieces together rapidly. “Isogai used bribery?” he says, with a mock gasp. “I’m so proud of him.” And then, because he can’t resist the opportunity, he looks to Asano and coos, “You know, if you were so hard up for money to be accepting it from us lowly Class E members, you could’ve just asked.”

“Oh please,” Asano says. “I was using it as a test of his sincerity. Besides, it sets a bad precedent not to accept payment for things just because you don’t personally need it. I wouldn’t want your next roommate to get cheated.”

“Whatever you say, Ga-ku-shuuuu.”

Asano levels a flinty glare at him. “I regret this already,” he says flatly. He drags open the door and starts hauling his luggage inside. 

It’s only when he’s watching Asano stomp inside that the memory of just how stubborn he is comes back and Karma realizes Isogai just might’ve played him.

#Fanfiction #Assassination Classroom #Karushuu #Karma Akabane #Gakushu Asano #Akabane Karma #Asano Gakushu #Drabble #Karushuu College Roommates AU #Your Soul Like Little Sparks

[land-under-wave]

I’ve been working on this since November and it’s still very much a work in progress, but I’m really happy with this part, so I’ve made it into a standalone.

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It’s all about perception, Red thought. People thought Red was cool and mysterious, so turn running away into a vanishing act and it fit into the story people had built for him. People thought Green was flashy and arrogant, and also being hard-working and serious didn’t fit into that story. 

It came back to the fact that Red was simple. He was simple enough to fit into their molds, at least on the outside. It was easy to impose your imagination on him since he didn’t like to talk and he avoided the press. Green was too bright, too loud to fit, and Red thought that was part of why people didn’t like him. He was a bit of a hero and a bit of a villain at the same time, but they had preordained him as a villain, so they had to ignore the parts that were heroic. And Green was slowly rewriting his role, but even then, Red suspected that they would just ignore the villain parts in the future instead. Dismiss it as part of his misspent youth, flaws still being overcome.

But flip it a little to the side. Look at it from another angle. Red was a failed champion and Green was a successful gym leader. How was that for a story?

#Fanfiction #Pokémon #OriginalShipping #NamelessShipping #Green Oak #Red #Trainer Red #Character Study #WIP #Sneak Peek #Standalone #Fic: Pyrography #(is this fic’s thematic cousin) #(Please note however that Pyrography took me six months so please don’t expect this on any sort of reasonable time scale) #Pokemon

[land-under-wave]

Strike a Match

This one was started in . . . *looks at document* . . . October 2020. There are some things I’m happy with and some things I’m unhappy about with this chapter, but at this point, it’s not getting much better unless I scrap like half of it.

I haven’t seen or written anything about Isogai or Nakamura in years, so . . . shrug.

“What am I doing here,” Gakushu says, too flat to be a real question.

“We hear you’re looking to move out,” says Shiota, which is true and incredibly freaky that he knows about it — Shiota in a nutshell — but that still doesn’t answer the question.

“What am I doing here,” Gakushu repeats, because right now he’s sitting in a cafe with three former members of Class E sitting across from him, and he still doesn’t know when or how he got to this place.

Nakamura and Isogai exchange meaningful glances, demonstrating very clearly that Class E still shares that same weird hive mind even half a decade later. Isogai leans forward and opens his mouth, and suddenly, what he’s about to ask hits Gakushu like a bolt of lightning. 

“Absolutely not,” he snaps out, because he may not be their pet demon in human skin, but he still knows how to do basic logical reasoning. This particular combination of people means it must be a collective Class E action, and post middle school, there’s only one topic Class E ever approaches him about. Akabane Karma and Gakushu’s desire to never again inhabit the same space as the chairman can only add up to one conclusion.

Isogai looks injured. “I haven’t even had a chance to say anything yet,” he protests, all wide-eyed and wounded innocence. He really does sparkle just as much as ever, Gakushu notes, and he might be a little bitter that it comes to Isogai so naturally when he has to work for his own sterling reputation. 

But on that note. He refocuses his glare at all of them collectively. “If you can tell me you weren’t about to ask me to room with Akabane, I’ll drop my lawsuit against the chairman.”

Isogai has the decency to look abashed, while Nakamura just whistles, long and showy. “Wo-ow,” she says. “Asano does know us after all.” She even claps a little. Gakushu always has liked her the least. 

“This is an insult to my intelligence,” Gakushu says. “Anyone who moved in with Akabane while knowing what he’s like would have to be insane.”

Isogai winces. “I really don’t think he’s quite that bad, Asano-kun,” he says. And with the genuineness in his face, Gakushu feels a little bad for shutting him down so brutally. He can tell that Isogai isn’t faking a thing about his feelings, he really and truly believes there’s something good in Akabane and that he’s worth all this trouble, and he feels the insult as if it’s one to him.

But the fact that Nakamura is snickering in the background certainly helps dispel any guilt. She’s having far too much fun at his expense.

“Then why don’t you move in with him?” Gakushu hisses in response. He looks at Shiota in particular, who’s done a good job of fading into the background and letting Isogai and Nakamura handle the talking for him. “Aren’t you his best friend?”

Shiota laughs awkwardly and rubs at the back of his neck. He’s the perfect picture of sheepishness, and Gakushu doesn’t buy it for a second. “Karma and I aren’t well-suited to living together,” he says.

“If even you can’t handle him, then how am I supposed to do it?”

“That’s just it,” Isogai says. “We think you’re the only one who can stand up to him well enough.”

“And Shiota can’t?”

“Well, they tend to kind of  . . . enable each other,” says Isogai, and he is definitely evading the question.

“Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to inflict Karma on the unsuspecting population,” Nakamura adds in, before Gakushu can pursue Isogai any further. He’s certain she did it on purpose, and the fact that they can double-team him like this when he’s all alone is outrageously unfair. “You already know what he’s like.”

“The point of moving out,” Gakushu says, enunciating clearly for emphasis, “is so that my life will become more sane. Not less.”

“You might become bored?” Isogai offers.

Gakushu just looks at him and doesn’t dignify that with a response.

His pointed silence lasts long enough that it drifts into awkwardness, helped along by Shiota’s brand of uncomfortable diffidence. Does he do that on purpose? Gakushu wonders. It would be like Shiota to have somehow found a way to weaponize it. Despite himself, he gives into their juvenile tactic and his own curiosity and asks, “Why does Akabane need a roommate anyways?”

“He’s lonely,” Isogai says.

“Lonely?” Gakushu repeats incredulously. 

Isogai nods, his puppy-doggedness out in full force. “Lonely,” he says, very, very earnestly, and when he says it like that, you could almost believe him. 

Almost.

He folds his arms. “I’m not about to fall for your Mr. Refreshing act, Isogai. That got old five years ago.” 

Isogai doesn’t rattle or even look hurt, he just keeps going on. “No, really,” he insists. Maybe that indefatigable personality is what gave him the fortitude to make Class E Rep. “You can tell because of how restless he gets. If he has someone who can keep up with him, he wouldn’t get so moody and in his head.”

Gakushu translates that from sparkling idealism to rational human. “So basically, you just want someone to keep him distracted and under control,” he concludes, and then scoffs at them. “Who would pay money to live with Akabane? If you want them to throw themselves into the lion’s den, you should pay them.”

Isogai perks up. “Oh, we can do that, actually!”

“You can?” Gakushu says, his interest now piqued. If there’s one thing he knows about Isogai, it’s that he comes from a poor family — where could he possibly have gotten enough money to be worth bribery?

The subject in question just nods, beaming. “I made a bet with Karma. But if that’s what it takes, it’s yours.” Gakushu doesn’t know if it’s more surprising that someone got one over Akabane or that Isogai is actually willing to make bets, rather than being the the type to catch his classmates placing bets and scold them for it.

“You know,” Nakamura throws in casually, “Karma doesn’t exactly need help with the bills, being a little rich boy. You would know the type, seeing as you’re one yourself.” She waves her hand carelessly. “You could probably get free rent out of it too.”

She laughs as she leans back, like she doesn’t even care if it hits or not, but it does, just a little. She’s so much better at speaking his language even though she’s the worst one here, and Gakushu hates it. Is she even trying? At least half of that casual carelessness is fake, but he can never tell which half.

You can’t do that, Gakushu. He takes a breath to recenter himself before he can let them get to him too much, driving him to distraction and keeping his mind too busy with their eccentricities to notice them trying to pull the wool over his eyes. That’s exactly what they would want, he reminds himself, and he’s not about to give into Class E’s tricks like that.

There’s some truth to the saying that bad things come in threes, particularly when that’s the number of Class E members you have with you. He looks at the remaining one, who definitely is plotting something of his own, probably with careful and precisely leveraged timing, and decides he’s much too done with everything to deal with this too. “Just spit it out already,” he says preemptively.

Shiota looks startled and then awkward. His trademark. “What?” he says.

“Cut it, Shiota,” Gakushu snaps. “We both know there’s something going on in that head of yours. Just get to the point already and save us the time.”

To his credit, he drops the innocent act immediately instead of dragging it out further. “Well, I was just thinking,” Shiota begins, and he still does it awkwardly, but there’s also something almost lethal about his tone that says it won’t be something he likes to hear. “Is Karma really any worse than your father?” 

Gakushu stops. He thinks. He tries to come up with a rebuttal, but he can’t think of anything to say. He’s spent his whole life plotting to defeat the chairman. That man looms large over everything — his schooling, his social life, his hobbies, his career plans. How do you capture that in words? he wonders. Nothing seems adequate for the way his father casts a shadow over his life.

There has to be an answer to this. But all he keeps coming back to is the image of his father in his office, looking at him like he knows he’ll never be able to step out of his shadow. Compared to him, Karma is barely a fly.

“Asano-kun,” Isogai adds, in a faintly wheedling tone that finally snaps him out of thought. It sounds suspiciously familiar and a split second later, he realizes — is Isogai treating him like one of his younger siblings? That’s downright offensive. “Don’t you think it’d be good for you too? After all, I bet there isn’t anyone else you know on Karma’s level, right?”

Gakushu opens his mouth to retort the chairman, since Shiota’s just made that point, but Isogai just keeps barreling on. “We can see how it’s working out at the end of the semester, so it’s only a few months, just to start out with. And it’s much nicer than normal student dorms, and Karma even knows how to cook and clean and everything, it’ll be a good adjustment point to help you get used to living on your own!”

He means to say, “Not on your life,” but instead, what comes out is, “If I say yes, will you promise to end this farce immediately and never bother me with your nonsense again?”

He doesn’t have a chance to take it back before there’s a gleam forming in Nakamura’s eye, and Shiota’s relaxing in his chair. Isogai jumps up. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” he exclaims, and his joy is so pure that it even affects Gakushu for a moment before he snaps himself out of it. Is he becoming one of those sentimental old fools? He can’t let himself go at this young of an age. 

“Not so fast,” he says, because he refuses to let Class E declare victory so easily, like he’s some pushover. “I want that money.”

“Of course!” Isogai doesn’t even look like he begrudges it at all. How do you become a person like that? Gakushu wonders. A poor person who doesn’t covet money, an overworked and overburdened person who doesn’t envy everyone else’s fortune. Isogai is like one of those unrealistic characters straight out of a rags to riches plot, the type who’s meant to convince poor people not to resent the wealthy and vaguely imply their perfectly justifiable bitterness is the reason for their circumstances.

Honestly, it’s kind of uncomfortable. How does Class E deal with him?

“I’ll take half,” he decides. He wants to make this a little painful and he likes the idea of getting Akabane’s money without him knowing, but taking it from Isogai in particular feels too much like bullying. Say what you want about Gakushu, but he has standards.

It’s four months with Akabane that he can use to look for a better place to live. For free rent, Akabane’s money, and getting one up over the chairman, he can survive it.

Can’t he?

#Fanfiction #Assassination Classroom #Karushuu #Karma Akabane #Gakushu Asano #Akabane Karma #Asano Gakushu #Drabble #Karushuu College Roommates AU #Your Soul Like Little Sparks

[land-under-wave]

like a house on fire

For this fic’s first anniversary, let’s take it back to the beginning.

This was one of the first drabbles I started for the college roommates AU and was originally meant to be the second one posted, but I have mixed feelings about the format and it’s been a struggle getting it semi-coherent. I’m making the executive decision to just release it.

(Bonus: mini contest)

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Gakushu doesn’t fully understand how they got into this arrangement. 

Certainly, he knows the sequence of events, how he got from Point A to B, but he still can’t quite figure out what made him decide living with Akabane Karma would be a good idea. Worst of all, what makes him almost like it. Is he simply a masochist? 

One minute, he was enjoying his Akabane-free existence and the next, he was kicking one last soccer ball at the chairman’s face as a vicious sort of goodbye and moving into the apartment of the devil himself. The in-between is slightly blurry — probably for his own self-preservation — but he distinctly remembers several members of the former Class E ganging up on him in an attempt to convince him that Akabane was actually very lonely, honest, and what he really needed to prevent him from taking over the world was someone to keep him company. He also faintly recalls that there was some kind of thesis proposed about Akabane being better than the chairman, which sounded right at the time but now, Gakushu would like to counter-argue. He’s collected enough evidence to tear down the supporting arguments.

Gakushu still thinks there was probably some kind of drug in his tea. Or maybe they hypnotized him. He wouldn’t put it past Class E at this point.

To be honest, when he first found out they would be attending the same university, the part of Gakushu that didn’t want to commit murder vaguely assumed that it would be a continuation of middle and high school. He and Akabane would both excel academically and prove themselves to be each other’s only worthy competitors among a sea of tadpoles and guppies. They would push each other to new heights of excellence even as Gakushu tried to prevent himself from grinding his teeth to a pulp. After graduating, Akabane would probably join a rival company just to annoy him, and the pattern would continue ad nauseum. His predictions were admittedly egocentric, but Akabane hadn’t exactly done anything to prove him wrong at that point, and it didn’t seem like he had anything better to do with his admittedly genius mind than to drive Gakushu insane. That seemed to have been the cause to which he’d dedicated high school.

But as it turned out, Gakushu couldn’t have been further off the mark. The two of them were in completely different departments and he never saw Akabane, not even in the general requirements. It was a little strange at first, but then it grew comfortable. When he heard the whispers of the demonic whiz kid terrorizing the mathematics department, he could think, they don’t know the half of it, with the relief of distance. It wasn’t his problem anymore. Occasionally, he would think about Akabane, but he didn’t miss him, and until Class E conned him into moving in, the only sign that he was in Gakushu’s life at all was the occasional glimpse of red hair across campus. 

The downside of it all was that apparently, it’d made him too complacent. It still infuriates Gakushu beyond measure that Class E tried some ridiculous combination of sparkling, mocking, and Shiota being quietly effective in the background, and it worked. Though the period after he agreed to live with Akabane was also a little fuzzy, Gakushu does remember that part of the reason he’d gone through with it was that he never wanted to fall victim to them again, and he thought a few months with their number one nuisance would immunize him to any of their antics forever.

But whatever his reasoning, he did move in, and the world didn’t end. Actually, it’s almost the opposite. Gakushu was originally only supposed to be here for a semester, but while Karma has never stopped trying to yank on his strings, he’s a better roommate than you’d have expected from a college student cum demon. He doesn’t party or disturb the neighbors, he’s passably tidy, and he skips out on his share of the chores less often than you’d think. His oddly responsible streak became a lot less surprising once Gakushu recalled that Karma’s been living more or less on his own since he was in middle school, but even knowing that, it still takes Gakushu by surprise every so often when he remembers that there are things his roommate is good for besides keeping him sharp. It’s not so easy to recalibrate a relationship after almost a decade of antagonism, he muses, but whether they wanted it or not, it was going to change no matter what. You can’t just overhaul the terms of your relationship and expect things to stay the same.

There were a number of ways it could have gone, but fortunately (or unfortunately), it went for the better, and not just in terms of chores. There’s a slow-growing almost-trust between them, built from the fact that no one can have a mask up at all hours, and so they’ve seen each other at their strongest and their weakest. It’s a perilous and fragile thing, but neither of them has abused it, and when they’d hit the six month mark of living together and neither of them had made a serious attempt to kill the other, he’d finally been forced to admit that they were something close to friends. At that point, they gave up on the last name basis except for when they were being snotty with each other, which was still about ninety percent of the time for Karma, but that did leave a strange ten percent where someone was calling him Gakushu. His given name hasn’t gotten this much usage since elementary school, and another one of the things of which he isn’t quite certain is how he feels about this change.

It’s funny how they’re closer than they ever were now that they’re no longer spending eight hours a day doing the same work in the same room, but maybe it’s because they’re not classmates that things have improved. Maybe it’s the kind of bond they never could’ve had while they shared the same space, trying to make something of themselves and jostling for whatever they could seize. A step back one way, but a step forward in another direction. 

If there’s anything that this whole experience has taught him, it’s that no one can predict the future. No one can really say if they’ll keep heading this way. But Gakushu finds that for once, he doesn’t mind the concept of stasis. He thinks, strangely, that he might be able to live like this indefinitely.

#Fanfiction #Assassination Classroom #Karushuu #Karma Akabane #Gakushu Asano #Akabane Karma #Asano Gakushu #Drabble #Karushuu College Roommates AU #Your Soul Like Little Sparks #Title Subject to Change

[land-under-wave]

Still haven’t come up with a good alternative for End Notes on Tumblr and this is too long to put in the tags, so:

I’ve posted this drabble for Your Soul Like Little Sparks’ one year anniversary. It’s the first of a three part miniseries within the Karushuu College Roommates AU. If you can correctly guess the exact group of Class E students who convinced Gakushu to move in with Karma, I’ll give you a sneak peek at Part 2.

If you’d like to play but want to still give others a chance even if you’re correct, you can ask me to reply privately (assuming you’re not on anon). I'll give you a different sneak peek, so if someone gets it right publicly, you'll have two snippets.

#Fic Notes #Karushuu College Roommates AU #Your Soul Like Little Sparks

[land-under-wave]

Burn Away My Hopes

I’ve been poking at three or four drabbles for the last nine months and this is the one that finally sort of cooperated. Please assume this is set before March 2021 - I started this in 2020.

This is pretty late chronologically, so I was going to save this for a later chapter to make things feel more entrenched and established between them, but this was also the closest standalone to being done, and I figured if I was going to update after 10 months of nothing, why not make it a big one?

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“I hear you and Akabane Karma are getting married,” says the chairman.

“What,” says Gakushu.

“Congratulations are in order for ensnaring a man with such a bright future,” the chairman continues smoothly. “We at Kunigigaoka have always thought highly of him. I’m sure you’ll have a long and fruitful union —”

“AKABANE IS DESTINED STRAIGHT FOR HELL AND WE ARE NOT GETTING MARRIED,” howls Gakushu, cheeks flushed an angry red, before slamming down the phone. 

Speak of the devil and he appears, he thinks sourly, as Karma pokes his head into the kitchen. “Say, Asano-kun, that’s an interesting conversation you’re having there,” he says far too casually.

“I can’t imagine why you think that,” he bites out. “I suppose you also have no idea how the chairman got this impression.”

“Nope!” Karma says, folding his hands behind his head. His smirk turns devilish as he sings out, “Not at alllll.” And the worst part is, Gakushu can’t tell if he’s toying with him or he’s using that tone to cover up a sincere answer. It could really be either one, and if you asked, he’d probably just say he likes to keep people on his toes. 

Last week, Gakushu told Ren that no matter how much older and how seemingly respectable Karma got, he’d never grow out of the habit of pissing people off. He is very much proving that point right now.

“The chairman should know better than to be taken in by that,” he just grumbles instead. “It’s not even legal here.”

The bastard just laughs. “Like that would stop your father.”

“Please, even the chairman can’t overcome the societal opinions of half of Japan in a workable timeframe,” he mutters, and he thinks it’s a reasonable comment up until he sees the gleeful look spreading across Karma’s face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Asano-kun,” Karma says. “I just meant that the fact that it wasn’t legally binding wouldn’t stop him from throwing you a fairy tale wedding.” He grins more widely. “Is widdle Gakushu disappointed he can’t make it official? Don’t worry, Daddy will fix it for you if you ask him nicely.”

Gakushu sees red. “Maybe I will,” he says hotly, but catches himself before he can really lose it and realizes — it’s one of those times. Karma isn’t always the kind of person who can be subverted somehow. In that kind of scenario, you can’t win against Karma by trying to go against him. You need to take his victory and turn it into your own, make the things he wanted work for you instead. The real trick to handling him is recognizing those situations when they come.

The flip side to this is that he’s always been good at turning the tables once he catches on. Gakushu lifts his head loftily, every inch the perfect and arrogant honors student. “June weddings are overly idealized in popular culture and add no real value,” he informs Karma, whose face slackens in the way that says he’s caught him off guard, maybe even confused him. That means this is Gakushu’s win. “I expect a long engagement,” he adds, a little viciously, and then strides off before Karma can try to reclaim the last word from him.

It’s unlikely that it’ll just end here, but there are a few ways this could play out. Karma might yet find a way to twist things, because he’s always been better at filing away a conversation so he can weaponize it once everyone else has forgotten. Or he might concede the ground and decide not to reawaken the beast. The third, rarest option is when Karma decides Gakushu has the right idea after all and runs with it, sometimes because he thinks it’s more amusing this way and sometimes because he actually believes in it. 

Which one he’ll pick is a toss up. Gakushu has his suspicions, but he isn’t about to let Karma catch him off guard because he made an assumption, so he’ll need to prepare for all three. Life will be interesting for the next year or so, he thinks, making a mental note to put some checkpoints into his calendar.

But whatever comes of this, he’s not telling the chairman.

#Fanfiction #Assassination Classroom #Karushuu #Karma Akabane #Gakushu Asano #Akabane Karma #Asano Gakushu #Karushuu College Roommates AU #Drabble #Your Soul Like Little Sparks

[land-under-wave]

Listen, I was just trying to write something funny and suddenly it grew feelings oh and there’s some angst and when did this plot show up and WHAT HAPPENED TO MY NICE UNCOMPLICATED COMEDY

It was only supposed to be like 3k and now I’ve passed 11k with maybe 60? 75% of the first draft done. 

There’s backstory. There are side stories.  I had to make a chart in order to keep track of the characters. It probably needs a proofreader just to make sure things aren’t hopelessly confusing. 

It’s not even that good a fic. The concept is absurd and very niche. All my plotting weaknesses are showing through.

Where is the fairness in this

I want a refund

#Fic Notes #OriginalShipping #(But the next update for Your Soul Like Little Sparks is due within the next 1-2 days)

[land-under-wave]

Since I posted Pyrography (which is the fleshed-out version of this), I’ve gotten a couple of requests for more. While I don’t have a continuation in mind (it, uh, doesn’t exactly have much of a plot to continue), it did go through a lot of drafts, so I’ve gone through those drafts and pulled out some of the deleted bits.

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Red doesn’t really have any ambition. He’s the type who would be content to wander Kanto, making friends and trying new things, and that’s probably how his Pokemon journey would’ve gone if it weren’t for having Green as his childhood friend. On the plus side, that means he’s easily content, but sometimes he envies the surety of always knowing there’s a next step instead of being aimless.

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In actuality (though this would get him yelled at even more), it was more satisfying to work out why Green was so angry than it was to actually win the championship. It’s like solving a mystery in a book, there’s always enough clues for it to be possible, even if it’s hard. Green’s got an internal logic to him. It’s all part and parcel of the messy package that is Green Oak.

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Green is brash and a little impulsive. He charges into things and knocks them over with sheer force of will. He’s not delicate and has almost no delicacy.

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He has all these little nuances, complications that aren’t contradictions, and Red thinks that’s the kind of complicated he likes.

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He’d been on the verge of abandoning it all to hide somewhere until things calmed down when he’d gotten a call on his PokeGear and the first thing he’d heard of Green in months was an outraged voice shouting, “Don’t you dare!” And his breath caught in his throat while his mouth started saying something snippy, they started arguing right away, but by the end of the conversation, he’d decided to stay. Because Green wouldn’t run from this kind of thing and wasn’t that part of why he was Red’s best friend in the end?

In hindsight, Red thinks it makes sense that Green wouldn’t understand something like that. Green’s always confronted things head on.

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As trainers, Green and Red aren’t so different. Both of them care about being good to their Pokemon and bringing out the best in them. But Red’s world of concern ends there. Green, he can’t be content with that. He cares fiercely about things like what people think of him and having his effort acknowledged, and even at his flashiest, he was always scared. All that bravado was at least one part that terror.

It boils down to this: Green doesn’t trust himself, and he needs other people to tell him that he’s done right. So he takes compliments about his battle prowess pretty easily but gets embarrassed if people praise the way he runs his gym. He bristles at any insult unless it’s a senior questioning his adequacy. He might act like a rich kid, but he also works harder than anyone else Red’s ever seen.

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Red doesn’t like complicated things, but he makes an exception for Green.

#Fic Notes #OriginalShipping #NamelessShipping #Green Oak #Trainer Red #Fic: Pyrography

[land-under-wave]

This used to have a direction, but I don’t know where it’s going anymore, so have this semi-coherent character study. This also isn’t actually what I was planning when I said “I might have something Pokemon-related by the end of February,” but TECHNICALLY IT COUNTS. 

Slightly AU in terms of characterization and on my more experimental side of things. It’s more of a first draft than anything and I’m probably going to try to polish it up later, but right now, I don’t want to look at this for a month. 

If you were to ask him, Red would tell you he’s never been much one to care about respectability. He’s a pretty simple person at heart. He cares about his mother, he cares about his Pokemon, and he cares about his friends, but whatever people say about him isn’t the kind of thing that registers to him. At some point, he’d stumbled his way into respectability with the whole Champion of Kanto thing, but he hadn’t been trying to. He’d mostly been following Green’s lead.

Green inspires something in Red that he can’t really explain, so when the interviewers nag him to define their relationship, he just tends to shrug. It’s not Green’s brash personality or them being childhood friends, but some weird mixture of it brings out this previously unknown competitive streak in him. Green’s always charging into things the same way he charged into Red’s house all those years ago, and when he does, he throws everyone for a loop. After the dust settles, Red’s usually uncovered something about his life he didn’t even know he was unhappy with, so he tends to go along with whatever Green’s doing, at least for a bit. 

So no, respectability isn’t important to Red. But it is important to Green, and that’s why Green went for the championship. It really doesn’t make sense that Red’s the one who ended up with the title even though he was just caught up in Green’s fervor, and he knows he has no real reason to feel bad, but he does anyways. Red spent a lot of time afterwards trying to find a way to make it up to him, but mostly, he just succeeded in pissing Green off. 

He missed Green a lot during that time. He doesn’t know that their relationship ever would’ve been fixed if it hadn’t finally clicked for him that since Green hates pity more than he hates losing, the best thing Red could do is treat him the same as before, like the match was no big deal. Because really, it wasn’t, not in terms of his skills or who he is as a person. He didn’t lose Red’s respect by losing that match. And once the public realized Red still saw him as worthy, they started to treat Green like he was in fact one of the best trainers in the league, which is messed up, but at least it means they got past that. 

A lot of people seem to think this whole episode was a “spoiled brat finally wises up” kind of story, but that’s not fair to anyone involved. Green is too complicated of a person to be reduced to that. He might be the cool and confident gym leader representing Kanto’s finest as well as an arrogant prick who thinks he can win any fight he picks, but he’s also the insecure kid weighed down by his grandfather’s legacy, always trying to prove himself worthy. He isn’t one of those kids who acts out for attention, because he already had it from the start — the distinction is that he wants to earn it. Unlike Red, who’s too apathetic to care about cries of nepotism, Green cares fiercely about things like what people think of him and having his effort acknowledged. Even at his flashiest, he was always scared, and all his bravado was at least one part that terror. So he takes compliments about his battle prowess pretty easily but gets embarrassed about ones to the way he runs his gym. He bristles at any insult unless it’s a senior questioning his adequacy. He might act like a rich kid, but he also works harder than anyone else Red’s ever seen.

There’s so many nuances and sides to him that you could probably get lost in Green’s head and stumble around forever without ever finding your way out. And the thing is, Red wouldn’t want to. 

Green is so complicated but he isn’t a mystery; he wears his heart on his sleeve, and Red’s never met anyone else like him. Most complicated people are just confusing. They say one thing but mean another, they’re fragile in ways that Red can’t expect, they’re prickly about weird things and Red doesn’t know how to avoid setting them off. But Green is loud and upfront about almost everything. His diva tendencies mean his expressions are big and easy to read. Green scowls when he’s annoyed, he smirks when he’s entertained, and he sneers when he’s being petty or he’s uncomfortable but doesn’t want to show it. He bristles when he’s insulted, he yells when he’s upset. He turns bright red when he’s angry or embarrassed, and it’s beautiful.

It’s kind of fitting that Green has a color for a name, because Green’s emotions are so bright and vivid that they might be the only uncomplicated thing about him. They play out like the prettiest kaleidoscope on his face, and Red doesn’t think he could ever get tired of drinking in the sight of it when there’s always something new to uncover. His own feelings have always been a filtered, watered down thing, so at least part of the fascination is probably because he doesn’t understand it, but it’s also more than that. Red’s not passive, exactly, but he’s a reactive person, not an active one. He needs someone else around to bring out the best in him, and who better than the boy he’s known since he was a toddler? Green knows all the right buttons to push. He cares so much and believes so deeply that the force of his conviction can pull emotions out of Red from unknown parts and turn him into a complicated person too. Being around Green is like waking up from a slow dream and only realizing how unreal it was when the intensity of real life starts seeping in. Green gives him a sliver of insight into another world, a different layer of life where the pace moves faster and the colors are so strong that it almost hurts. 

Red can’t imagine living in that world all the time, and yet that’s Green’s reality. Caring the way he does must be exhausting. But Green’s also never had the option not to care, because everyone was going to be watching him from the start. The Oaks made a hole in Green’s heart at a young age so they could drill in concepts like duty and family and never shaming his grandfather, and even though Green’s filled the hole up with his own dreams, Red knows it still hurts. So maybe pain is the source of his cares and his ambitions, the deep-seated hunger that keeps pushing him forward even though he’s already carved out a place in the world. Maybe that’s the reason for the days when Green seems like he’s teetering on the edge of overspill.

It’s funny that Green’s the Oak, because a tree is more suited to Red, quiet and consistent and steady. Green’s more like a fire, there’s always something burning in him even when he seems to be at rest. Once something stokes the banked flame, he bursts back into an inferno, chaotic and messy and lovely.

Red doesn’t get why people spend so much time trying to puzzle him out when Green’s the real fascination between them. Sure, he’s the silent and kinda mysterious champion of Kanto, but his poker face doesn’t hide anything underneath, there’s not much depth to him until someone else can draw it out. He’s pretty boring when it comes down to it. Meanwhile, Green’s so on fire that his embers catch everywhere, and sometimes, they can even set someone as unmoving as Red ablaze. And some part of Red wants that to happen, wants to burn. He wants Green’s fire to consume him and for the two of them to burn together, so brilliant and glorious that they meld into a single great flame that subsumes them both. When they’re writing the history books, he wants it to be “Red and Green,” like salt and water. He wants to entangle himself in Green’s innards and never let go.

The people who say Green is selfish don’t get it. Red’s the selfish one in this situation, because all he does is take and take whatever Green can give. Sometimes, he goads him just to see the spark of his prickly temper or the coldness of his contempt. It’s all so brilliant and there’s a part of Red that wants to own him, to hold him forever and ever and never let anyone else see.

That ugly side of him is a part that he keeps locked away where it can’t hurt anyone. But he thinks Green probably already suspects that it exists. Green already knows most of the worst of Red — his ability to be deeply petty, his insensitivity and the way he covers it up with his poker face, how sometimes his obliviousness is feigned because he doesn’t want to bother. Green doesn’t expect Red to be the nice, quiet boy that everyone else sees in him. Green just expects him to be Red, and Red doesn’t want him to be anything other than Green. 

Time will pass, things will change, but Green has always been a constant. Red doesn’t really believe in things as cheesy as together forever, but he does believe in patterns, and he doesn’t want this one to break. Red and Green, fire and wood, call and response. 

For now, Red can be content with this.

#Fanfiction #Pokemon #OriginalShipping #NamelessShipping #Green Oak #Red #Trainer Red #WIP