#Anyway very irritating that were treated like afterthoughts | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shorkbrian · 3 years

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Villain! Bakugo out here with a Mommy kink hoping for milk? Sign me up

I did a bunch of research on this, and am armed with practical knowledge of how Bakugou might treat you if he had a lactation kink.

(What to expect - HEAVY lactation kink, not super NSFW but it’s there, dubcon. I get a bit more explanatory and less smutty lol sorry)

At the beginning of his kink development, Bakugou wouldn’t necessarily be looking to actually make his partner lactate. He just finds the sensations comforting, lying on a pillowy chest, wrapping his lips around a nipple and sucking until he falls asleep. Does he have an oral fixation? Maybe, but that’s not necessarily why he’d do it.

Something about the closeness, the skin-to-skin contact, the trust and safety that’s felt just really gets him going. He gets all soft and relaxed, sucking on his babe’s nipples. As such a rough, irritated guy, the oxytocin he gets from committing such a deeply intimate act is literally like a drug to him. He wants more and more of that feeling, of the close connection with his darling, whether or not they’d be willing.

It’s a huge, huge act of love and generosity, especially taking the time to commit and induce lactation.

Bakugou would go all out, he’d have pumps, creams, make his darling eat a special diet, I think he’d even go to lengths to get lactation-inducing drugs. Lactation can happen outside of pregnancy, it just takes a lot of time, patience, and research.

Those drugs (like Domperidone) have to be taken 3-4 times a day, pumping has to happen pretty regularly, and the woman has to be relatively relaxed and in a good headspace. Stress, poor sleep, and a lack of water or food can result in a woman’s production lessening and drying up, so Bakugou’s darling really isn’t going to ever get a break.

Like, she’s stressed because she’s with him, because he’s so controlling and possessive and won’t let any other man even look at her. Stressed because Bakugou insists on her lactating, even if she’s not that into it or if it makes her uncomfortable. Stressed how needy and demanding the man is, how it’s his way or the highway, how if she doesn’t go along with whatever he wants, Bakugou accuses her of not loving him.

So already, it’ll be hard for lactation to happen.

But every night, just like clockwork, Bakugou’s there.

He’ll knead your breasts for a while, warming them up, enjoying the feel of them in his hands. Sometimes he’ll do this when you’re watching TV, or trying to cook dinner, or on your phone. Just sidles up behind you and grabs your chest, squeezing and groping and massaging the mounds with care.

While he’s rough and aggressive during sex, he’s more controlled during times like these, softer and less prone to acting like he’s got a toilet bristle brush shoved up his ass.

After he’s sufficiently “warmed you up” you get sat down somewhere comfy - sometimes the couch, but preferably the bed, just in case Bakugou feels a little more pent up than usual and wants to relieve some stress using your body in another way.

If he hasn’t stripped you of your shirt already, that’s next, along with your bra. Bakugou prefers you to be completely nude, but you find that extraordinarily uncomfortable, so after a couple of heated arguments, Bakugou’s decided to relent on that rule.

The man’s shirt comes off too, so he gets to lie flush against your and feel your soft flesh against his own.

The first couple of times, he had always started out far too eager, pulling and tugging at your nipple painfully, creating such a tight suction with his lips that it made you cry, and you’d begged him to stop. He hadn’t, not until you’d made milk for him. Something that you had thought to be impossible, considering you weren’t pregnant.

But not he starts of gentler, with soft kisses over your breasts, little kitten licks across your nipples, hands holding your sides, your shoulders, anywhere he could grab with uncharacteristic tenderness.

When he finally does dip down and begin sucking, it always feels weird. NO matter how many times he does this, you can’t feel comfortable with it. It’s such a strange, pulling sensation, relieving, emptying.

Bakugou’s figured out how to suckle and breath at the same time, just like a baby. He’ll purse his lips and nurse, stop for moment to breathe through his nose, then continue. This results in his warm breath intermittently puffing over your skin, making desperate little noises as he continues to drink you up.

You’d never have thought that Bakugou Katsuki could be defined as desperate, or soft.

Whichever breast he’s not sucking at gets massaged with one of his hands, tweaking the nipple, groping your flesh. You don’t know how or when he got so good with his mouth and hands, when he was able to practice coordination like that, but the movements are seamless for him.

He spends a significant amount of time lathering one breast with attention. If his jaw gets sore, or his mouth feels tired, he’ll pull of for a few moments to nuzzle at your plushy tits before latching on again.

And when he’s ready, he’ll switch to the other breast, hand immediately coming to spread his saliva around your nipple, to try and combat the chill that always makes you shiver whenever your spit-slick nipple gets exposed to the air.

All you can do is lay there and let him drink his fill.

Trying to catch his attention or try to divert him back to different activities is like trying to water a fake plant - absolutely nothing happens.

You get ignored, or Katsuki slaps at your hands if you try to pull him off, squinting up at you like a petulant child.

He usually falls asleep like that, it’s been months of the same routine, every single night. Bakugou suckling at you like you’re the first drink he’s had in years, obviously desperate and wanting, but trying his absolute best to hold himself back from devouring you.

Sometimes, if he’s excited, he’ll fuck you like that, hips slapping against your while he’s hunched over your tits, panting against your flesh.

Cumming always feels better when that happens, but it’s not like you’ll tell him that. He already pushes for you to let him nurse at your tits any chance he can get, and especially when it comes to sex.

Even after an intense, tiring fuck, Katsuki can’t fall asleep unless his mouth is on you, tongue sucking at your nipple.

Bakugou highly enjoys suckling at you at any time of day - right when he wakes up, before you’re even conscious, when you’re watching TV or reading a book, at lunch time... really any chance he gets, his face is buried in your chest. He always gets sleepy afterwards though, so he’s prone to even more irritability if he can’t take a nap, of which he completely denies. Says you try to use that as an excuse to not let him touch you, and then it’s back to the old argument of Katsuki claiming you don’t love him.

He’s manipulative, but you don’t know what else to do except give in.

During the day, he has timers set for when you’re supposed to take your lactation pills. The man had hand-fed you them at first, not trusting you to do it right yourself, considering how you were against the idea.

When he has work, Katsuki video-calls you, makes you take the pill and show him your mouth afterwords.

Pumping happens semi-regularly, only if Katsuki hasn’t been able to nurse for as long or as often as he usually does. You’ve learned not to do it while he’s around, even if he’s in the house working on paperwork. Katsuki hears the sound of the pump and suddenly appears, bulge in his trousers, a gleam in his eye.

So you do it when he’s away, per his rigid instructions. He makes you text him when you do, as a video call would make him too excited.

He’s very good at keeping you taken care of. When you’re starting to chafe and get sucked raw, he makes sure to slather your chest with cold creams and oils to speed up healing time, to heal the angry, swollen skin. It’s like your body dislikes his nursing as much as you do, with how often it seems to ache from his treatment.

Bakugou makes sure you get eat foods that help increase prolactin, the lactation hormone. Dates and Apricots are staples in your diet, and you’re sick of them. Bakugou insists you eat them anyway. You’re going to produce milk, no matter how much he has to force it.

You provide him with safety, security, a warm place to lay his head at night (your chest) and the one thing that seems to help him calm down in any situation.

When he comes home angry, you only have to wince through his rough fondling before he begins to pacify, and by the time his mouth reaches your breast, he’s quiet and relaxed.

Something’s agitating him beyond belief? he comes to you, salivating, expectant and sure of relief.

Whatever you want, however you feel - that’s all an afterthought, always has been, and always will be.

#Katsuki might be lack toes and taller ant #but he doesn't care #bakugou #katsuki bakugou #tw dubcon #tw.dubcon #yandere #but not really #Bakugou's just a horrible partner #and reader doesn't know how to get out #breastfeeding #idk if Tumblr will like get mad at that tag lol #lactation #lactating

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fangirlandiknowit101 · 3 years

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Here's the sad pining sasuke i wrote last night... it's not finished and who knows when/if i'll finish it. university AU, not edited and there's some naru//hina and sasuke//OC bc i couldn't think of a canon character that fit. The texting part is also weird bc i wrote it all very fast lol. i'm sharing bc why not *shrugs*

xxx

It hurts, to look at them.

Sasuke can’t help himself. Naruto is his best friend, after all, and he’s not yet so desperate that he’ll avoid him. It’s worse, somehow, that he can’t even dislike her.

She’s good for him, he thinks, when he’s feeling particularly self-deprecating. Her hair is dark and her skin pale as porcelain, and that’s where the similarities end between him and Hinata.

Sweet, and so patient with Naruto. Soft-spoken, but not a pushover. Impeccably dressed, always, no make-up needed to outshine any girl beside her. A picture perfect couple, that’s what they are. It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t have to watch it unfold from the front row.

How her shyness turned to surety, how her eyes would catch on Naruto and look away before, but now – now she looks at him like he belongs to her, soft smile on her plump lips.

Sasuke can’t even hate her, and he wishes he could.

It’s not her fault that Sasuke is the way he is. She doesn’t know, isn’t doing it on purpose. And yet, there’s a stab to Sasuke’s chest every time she takes his hand, every time Naruto tucks her silky hair behind her perfect ear.

Naruto will kiss her cheek and Sasuke will be looking, always looking. His face devoid of emotion, his voice carefully neutral. He can’t be mean to Naruto’s girlfriend, though he wishes he could. Maybe if Naruto got mad at him and pushed him away, Sasuke would be free to move on.

It’s more likely that Sasuke would apologize and do better, and he’d rather spare himself the embarrassment.

Sometimes he imagines that Hinata will find out, that she’ll start treating him with suspicion, watch his every move with her wide eyes. Feel threatened by him. But Sasuke is no threat. He’s tired and hurting, but he’s not a homewrecker. It would be a lot easier if Naruto didn’t keep nudging him in Sakura’s direction.

It’s not Sakura’s fault, either. She’s dreaming of something she can’t have, and the similarities make him sick to his stomach.

Sometimes he thinks he’ll date her, live the lie to the fullest. Give her what she wants, since he’s doomed anyway. He doubts he’d last long, though. If he had even the slightest bit of interest in women – but when he looks at her, there’s just no attraction. He’s not sure how no one’s noticed yet. It’s not like he’s that good of an actor. He thinks the only reason no one’s figured it out is because he’s so deep in the closet, and they’re all so heterosexual. Why would they suspect he’s gay? It suits them better if he isn’t.

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was that late already,” Sakura says beside him, breaking him out of his thoughts.

The bar is lively around them, but the music is at a bearable noise level. She’s looking at her phone, frowning. On the other side of the small table, Naruto pouts.

“It’s not late!” he objects, the beer in his glass sloshing around as he waves his hands around. “We just got here!”

“We’ve been here for three hours, I think,” Hinata says, leaning her cheek on his shoulder.

Sasuke wonders how she manages, the way he moves around so much. Perhaps her body is as soft as her voice, easily following him.

“I told you I have to get up early tomorrow.” Sakura sighs, irritated. She fishes her bag up from the floor, putting her phone inside it. “I really have to get going.”

“I’ll walk you to the station,” Sasuke offers. Not because he particularly wants to, but he’s not in the mood to subject himself to third-wheeling Naruto and Hinata. “I should get going, anyway.”

“What?” Naruto looks disappointed, more disappointed than when Sakura announced her departure. “I thought you were free tomorrow.”

Rolling his eyes, Sasuke swallows down the last of his drink.

“Doesn’t mean I want to stay up all night,” he counters with, easing out of the booth. “I still have to study.”

“You study too much,” Naruto mutters, giving Hinata a smile like an afterthought when she squeezes his arm.

“Maybe if you studied at all you wouldn’t need to panic before every exam,” Sakura nags at him, coming around the table to wait next to Sasuke. “Some of us care about our grades.”

“Nerds.” At least Naruto looks a little happier, and Sasuke hates to think that it’s because he thinks anything’s going to happen between him and Sakura. “Don’t get lost, you two!”

They say their goodbyes, and Sasuke tries to pretend he doesn’t notice how Sakura’s cheeks fill with color when they step outside the bar. She’s put a jacket on, but Sasuke’s fine in his sweater. It’s not cold enough that her blush can be blamed on the weather.

“Thanks for walking me,” she says, hefting her bag higher up her shoulder. She’d joined them straight from the library, researching her latest paper. “You didn’t have to.”

“It’s fine,” he tells her, hands tucked into his sleeves.

He doesn’t want to run the risk of her attempting to reach for his hand. As much as he dislikes her attention, it’s safer if she thinks he’s just playing hard to get. He won’t have to explain, then, why he hasn’t outright told her to give up. He should, he knows. But Naruto would just nudge him towards some other girl, would bother him about it until Sasuke started going on actual dates. It’s touching, how worried he is over Sasuke potentially being lonely.

Too bad Naruto himself is the cause of it.

“You’re not doing anything tomorrow, then?” Sakura asks, stepping aside as they meet a group of half-drunk businessmen. “I’m working until five…”

It would be so easy to invite her out. To suggest a movie, or trying out that new café near campus. To watch her eyes light up with hope, watch her mouth stretch into an excited smile.

“I really do need to study,” he says. “And I’m almost out of clean clothes.”

None of it is a lie, technically. He’s just not sure he’ll actually do either of those things tomorrow.

“Oh.”

She tries to hide her disappointment, and Sasuke is an expert by now at pretending he doesn’t notice. They walk the rest of the way in silence, waving a quick goodbye at the ticket gates as Sakura’s train is due to arrive in just two minutes. Sasuke buys a drink from a vending machine and takes small sips as he waits for his own, mindlessly scrolling through social media. He almost ignores the text Naruto sends.

> Wanna hang out tomorrow?

He contemplates it. On the one hand, yes, of course he wants to. On the other, having an entire day to himself has its appeal.

> I’ll be busy

> Ooh, with sakura?

The train arrives, and Sasuke snags a seat next to a couple too caught up with each other to pay attention to him.

> No

> Got studying and laundry to do

The reply is instant.

> That’s too boring!!! I’m coming over for lunch

> Whatever

He pockets his phone, and stares down at the bottle in his hands for the rest of the trip. It doesn’t help against the warmth rising in his chest. At least he doesn’t do this to Sakura – doesn’t invite himself into her space, ignorant of her feelings. It doesn’t make him feel better.

xxx

Sasuke doesn’t have a lot of friends. He’s got Naruto, and then there’s his small group of friends from high school. Naruto is the only one who still lives nearby. Rather, Sasuke had ended up staying in Konoha like him. It’s a big enough city that most of his classmates are strangers, although slightly less so in their second year. He stayed with his parents for his first year, but when one of his cousins moved abroad for work he took the opportunity to stay at her apartment instead. It’s closer to his university, and if he, potentially, wanted to bring a guy home then no one would know.

He doesn’t think his parents would mind, but there wouldn’t be any privacy. He relishes in it, and Naruto does, too.

“I should just move in with you,” Naruto groans, spread out on his couch. “You wouldn’t believe how annoying my mom was this morning.”

“I think I can believe it,” Sasuke tells him, cleaning up after their lunch. “And just to be clear, I’ve never said you’d be welcome to live here.”

“Stingy,” Naruto grumbles. “How long is your cousin gone, anyway?”

Shrugging, Sasuke dries off the counter just for something to do with his hands.

“A year at least. We’ll see. So it’s not like I’ll be living here forever.”

“But still!”

“Where would you even sleep?”

Naruto happily pats the couch. When Sasuke scowls at him, he simply grins.

“Come on,” Naruto says. “I want to watch a movie.”

“I wasn’t lying when I said I need to study.”

Still, he gives in too easily. Naruto lifts his legs to give him room, dumping them all over Sasuke’s lap once he sits down. It’s things like this that makes Sasuke’s heart refuse to give up. He leans his elbow on the back of the couch, cheekbone pressed to his closed fist. He doesn’t say anything when Naruto picks a drama at random, letting him comment on the plot as much as he wants. Watching movies with Naruto is certainly never quiet, and he winces as Naruto kicks his legs as he shouts his anger at the main character.

When the movie ends, Naruto doesn’t start a new one. Instead he chews on his bottom lip, playing with the remote. Sasuke considers getting up to use the toilet, maybe suggesting going to the corner store for snacks, but then Naruto clears his throat suspiciously.

“What?” he asks, irritated when Naruto takes his time.

“So, how are things going with Sakura?”

He resists the urge to pinch his nose. He still lets out a heavy breath, not quite a sigh but close enough that Naruto frowns.

“I mean,” Naruto continues, “you could just ask her out. She’s definitely going to say yes.”

Sasuke shifts, uncomfortable. Naruto’s legs are still on top of his. His socks have little frogs on them.

“I’ve told you I’m not really into the idea of a relationship right now.”

“Uh-huh.” Naruto rolls his eyes, pushing himself up and finally removing his legs, crossing them at the ankles instead. “Sounds like excuses to me.”

“Just drop it, Naruto.”

“But if you get together things will be so much easier,” Naruto insists, poking at his arm. “We can go on double dates, and stuff.”

Sending him a glare, Sasuke pulls a leg up to his chest. It won’t prevent Naruto if he decides to get comfy on his lap again, but it might make him think twice at least. Naruto’s only wearing shorts, and all that naked skin isn’t good for his heart. It’s definitely too cold for it, but Naruto’s never been one to care about the weather.

“We already go places together.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same!”

Sasuke pinches his lips, looking away. If he’s not careful, those large blue eyes will convince him to cave in, and then he’ll find himself with a girlfriend. He does a lot for Naruto, but there are limits.

“I’m not going to ask her out,” he mutters, knowing it will only lead to more questioning.

Sure enough, Naruto makes a noise of protest.

“But you haven’t rejected her either!”

“She hasn’t asked me out either.”

“It’s obvious she likes you.”

“That’s her problem.”

Naruto kicks at his thigh, using his heel. He looks properly annoyed now, as if Sasuke is a petulant child, refusing to do what’s best for him.

“If you got over yourself for a minute, you’d realize what a catch she is!”

He doesn’t reply. Let Naruto think he’s just stubborn, or an asshole, or whatever. Let him think Sasuke’s just stringing her along, keeping her attention while refusing to commit. It’s better than the alternative.

“Leave it, Naruto,” he warns, getting up and moving to the kitchen. “We’re not talking about this.”

At least Naruto doesn’t follow him, though it doesn’t make much of a difference. The apartment is small, no wall separating the kitchen from the living room. He searches through his cabinets, locating a forgotten bag of wasabi peas. He throws them at Naruto’s head.

“Eat these and shut up,” he says.

To his relief, Naruto does as told.

xxx

He picks up the call from Karin half-distracted, mind still stuck on a question for tomorrow’s seminar. As usual, she doesn’t wait for him to say hi, making her wince with the volume of her voice.

“Do you have any idea how tiring it is to listen to Naruto whine about you?” she starts with, the background noise suggesting she’s outdoors. “Can’t you just tell him you’re gay and put me out of my misery.”

“No thanks.” He drops his pen on his desk, rubbing at his eyes. He regrets not going to the university library, at least then he wouldn’t have been able to pick up the call. “Was that all? I’m kind of busy.”

“You know, this is exactly why I moved away,” she continues, ignoring him. “I thought I could get away from all the high school-level drama. Just get yourself a boyfriend, and go on those stupid double dates my cousin is so desperately yearning for. How hard can it be?!”

He can feel a headache incoming, and he rubs his fingertips between his brows. Naruto had sulked for hours the day before, until Sasuke got sick of it and threw him out. It was definitely backhanded of him to call Karin and complain.

“If you really wanted to be left out of it, why are you calling me? That’s the opposite of not getting involved.”

“Because it’s really painful and I’m morally obligated as the only person with functional brain cells to tell you to move on. Juugo’s too nice to say it and Suigetsu would give you terrible advice and sit back and watch. I’m being nicer to you than you deserve.”

“By telling me to move on,” Sasuke deadpans, wondering why his parents couldn’t have settled down somewhere else.

“Well, someone has to do it! Clearly I’m the gay cousin in the family, so you’re screwed. Might as well get over it and get laid.”

“I really hate you sometimes, you know that?”

She huffs at him, traffic and broken conversations filtering through the phone. There’s the jingle of a shop’s door, and the noise cuts off.

“Your pining is just getting sad,” she eventually replies, distractedly. “Trust me, I know my cousin. He’s not worth it.”

Something unpleasant churns in Sasuke’s stomach. He wants to argue with her that he is worth it, but he doesn’t want to land himself in an hour-long lecture if he can help it. He rolls his neck, making a face. She’s got a point, but he doesn’t enjoy hearing it. His life would be a lot simpler if he could find someone who made him forget about Naruto. He’s just not sure it’s fair to expect someone to instantly replace a lifetime of friendship.

“I don’t think I should have to come out just because Naruto irritates you,” is what he says instead, leaning back in his chair. “What if my parents find out and disown me? You want to be responsible for that?”

“Sasuke,” she sighs, “your brother is literally gay and your parents love his boyfriend.”

“So?”

“Stop. Making. Excuses.”

He bites his cheek, holding back a denial. He’s not worried about his parents, he’s worried about Naruto’s reaction. That things will change between them. That he’ll think Sasuke has feelings for him, which would be correct but would also ruin absolutely everything.

“I’ll… consider it,” he concedes, after a long silence, during which Karin has finished buying whatever it was she needed.

“Really? Because I’m going to hold you to that.”

He sighs.

“Next time I’m not picking up when you call me.”

xxx

A few weeks pass, and not much changes. Naruto still takes up too much space in his head and life, Sakura continues to drop hints but refuses to make the first move, and Hinata is still as lovely as ever. She doesn’t seem to have much of a personality other than being Naruto’s girlfriend, but to be fair Sasuke hasn’t precisely paid attention or tried to get to know her. Naruto’s birthday is drawing closer, and he can’t bring himself to do anything to break the status quo before then.

He’s been considering it, though. It would be a relief to stop pretending. He can’t imagine himself finding a boyfriend, though, because where would he even meet someone? It’s too awkward to use a dating app, and he’s not precisely social. He doesn’t have any experience, either, if you don’t count those childish games they played sometimes when they were younger. And that one time Naruto kissed him by accident when they were twelve.

Because of this, he’s really not expecting it when one day in class, just as the lecture ends, his eyes fall on the messenger bag that the guy next to him has just finished packing. There’s a rainbow pin on it, and Sasuke blurts out his question before he can stop to think about it.

“Are you gay?”

He only lifts his eyes from the pin when the surprised silence stretches out a bit too long. Their eyes meet, and the other boy is staring at him like he’s not sure how to react.

“Uh,” he says eventually, fingers clenching around the bag’s strap. “I mean, yes? But if you’re thinking about the pin it’s just a regular rainbow…”

He trails off, and Sasuke feels his cheeks heat up a bit. He can’t believe he just asked, when he himself has gone to such lengths to make sure no one made such assumptions about him.

“Sorry,” he apologizes. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s fine.”

Maybe he should know the guy’s name, but he doesn’t. He’s pretty short, hair dyed a light brown and glasses perched on his nose. Cute, but Sasuke’s not sure he’s his type. He’s not sure he has a type, other than Naruto.

“Are you gay?” the guy asks him, eyebrows rising above the frame of his glasses.

Sasuke licks his lips. He could say no, but to what end?

“I am,” he forces out, breathing in a deep breath.

“Oh.” There’s red color blooming on the other boy’s face, his eyes flickering to the side for a moment. “I was kind of hoping, but, um… I mean, hoping sounds weird! Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting you to ask outright.”

When Sasuke stands up, he realizes he’s almost a head taller than him.

“I’m Sasuke,” he offers, clicking his laptop shut and slowly sliding it into his bag.

“I know. I mean! I’m Hiroshi. Nice to meet you.”

Sasuke nods, and awkwardly turns to leave. Hiroshi stops him with a hand to his arm, though, and Sasuke swallows nervously as the turns back. He’s not interested in Hiroshi, not really, but he’s never been asked out by a boy before and the novelty of the situation is getting to him.

“Do you, um, are you busy right now? We could have lunch?”

He weighs the pros and cons in his mind. As nervous as Hiroshi looks, there’s a determined glint in his eyes that sways Sasuke over.

“Okay,” he says, and just like that he’s doing what Karin told him to do.

He’s trying, at least.

xxx

Over the course of a week, including having coffee together and a visit to the aquarium, Sasuke learns a lot about Hiroshi. Or Hiro, as he likes his friends to call him. They don’t have too much in common, but they’re both gay and studying agricultural economics. Once Hiro gets over his initial shyness, Sasuke finds he’s got a great sense of humor and won’t hesitate to poke fun at him.

It’s a breath of relief, to spend time with someone who doesn’t know him from before. He didn’t realize how much he needed it – just being able to be himself, without constantly keeping himself in check.

He can’t fool himself to think it’s enough to replace Naruto, but maybe he doesn’t need to replace him. Maybe it’s enough that Hiro seems to like him. He doesn’t really think about it, when he invites Hiro over on a Saturday night, after they’d had dinner at a nice udon place.

“Oh, wow,” Hiro says as he steps into Sasuke’s apartment, making an impressed face. “Nice place.”

“It’s my cousin’s, so no need to sound so impressed.”

Hiro rolls his eyes, taking off his shoes and jacket and following Sasuke inside.

“Alright, I’ll try to keep it in,” he teases, sitting on the couch when Sasuke motions him towards it. “But it must be nice, to have your own place like this. The dorms are fine, but I can’t exactly bring guys there.”

Humming his agreement, Sasuke grabs two cans of soda from the fridge, handing one of them to Hiro when he sinks down on the couch next to him.

“Want to watch something?”

Hiro nods, and Sasuke brings the TV to life. He’s not expecting anything to happen – they’ve only known each other a week. He’s still coming to terms with having a friend other than Karin he can talk to like this, and she doesn’t really count since there was never the potential for anything to happen between them. Hiro is… potentially someone Sasuke could date. At least there’s nothing wrong with him, not yet, and Sasuke’s easing himself into the idea of getting to know him better.

He finds a movie at random, some sci-fi that doesn’t look terrible. The movie turns into background noise as they talk, Hiro’s eyes watching his face more than the screen. It’s nice, in a new, exhilarating way, to have a guy’s attention on him like this. He’s not sure what to do with it. When Hiro moves closer, knee touching Sasuke’s thigh, hand resting on the back of the couch and occasionally touching his neck, Sasuke can’t find it in him to move away.

It feels like a secret, shared between the two of them. He thinks of Naruto for a long moment, allows himself the pain lacing through his chest as he imagines light brown hair replaced with blond, dark eyes replaced with blue. Then, he pushes it away, tells himself he can have this. The emotions are only his own.

It’s all happening too fast when Hiro grows bold, leaning in to press their mouths together, but he doesn’t care. It’s no one’s business if he spends the evening on his couch with a boy in his lap, a boy who isn’t his best friend.

The pain is easier to swallow if he tells himself that he’s the only one hurt.

#at this point i'm just writing whatever's in my head #something is better than nothing #i hate tumblr's formatting

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endcant · 3 years

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aimless musings on subgenre, citypop, and internet subcultures

theres something very interesting about watching citypop become very mainstream in korea and watching that feed back into both western listeners’ opinions and also into the sometimes-cynical efforts of a variety of kpop producers

a lot of people in the youtube/kpop sphere talk about the growth of citypop as if it were a spontaneous wave that appeared out of nowhere with mariya takeuchi’s plastic love getting picked up by the youtube algorithm in like 2018 or whatever, but thats a very like online-ignorant view of the interaction between vintage japanese music and worldwide online EDM production. citypop has been used in future funk and vaporwave for almost a decade by now, and, as a result, a number of citypop songs took off on social media here and there before plastic love’s acceleration— dress down by kaworu akimoto is one of the big examples off the top of my head, but there’s likely many many more.

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“Plastic Love” by Mariya Takeuchi (1984). if you haven’t heard this yet, you’d better listen to it now. The video that first went viral was uploaded in 2017

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“Selfish High Heels” by Yung Bae, Macross 82-99, and Harrison (2014) is a popular Future Funk remixes of Dress Down by Kaoru Akimoto (1986)

people who haven’t been very aesthetically literate online over the years— musically or visually, since those things are tied in subcultures— treat things like they come from nowhere. there are ongoing subcultural conversations that lead to certain aesthetic choices, and when someone tries to cash in on a trend without understanding what the trend is, that leads people to call bullshit. calling bullshit is not meanspirited, in my opinion, because it very much is like somebody who can’t speak a language getting up in front of everybody and saying “hey, i’m fluent!” and then speaking some vaguely that-language-sounding nonsense. of course people who genuinely speak that language will be outraged instinctively. it feels like being mocked.

that’s why the difference between music producers picking up on a trend cynically and music producers picking up on a trend with earnest interest in that trend’s origins feels different, even if the producers are similarly distant from the original subculture that produced that trend.

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“Lady” by Yubin (2018) committed hard to the 80s JP citypop aesthetic, musically and visually, down to the sets, all fairly early in the major resurgence.

i’m sure that anyone with a passing familiarity with citypop and kpop can ascertain that not all kpop producers know what citypop is and what makes it citypop. all they know is that it is on-trend and they have to make it. not all kpop listeners know what citypop is and what makes it citypop. all they know is their idol said citypop as a buzzword in their little prepared statement. all this results in some interesting moments for me as a Music Fan, Online.

here is where i get to the thing that spurred this post: loona “did a citypop” for their japanese comeback. it doesnt sound like citypop.

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“Hula Hoop (Citypop Version)” by Loona (2021). It has very odd percussion rhythms and mixing for citypop, no real attempt at a citypop verse, and strangely sparse gestures towards citypop in the form of a few seconds of bass and some synthesized orchestral embellishments that were taken from the original mix …all in spite of a very disco-inspired melody that should have worked perfectly for citypop

this is not a very big deal, and im not mad about it or anything. when a kpop act i like gets saddled with an unfortunate B-Side track i dont tend to take it very hard. however, it did raise a little bit of musical discourse in the loona fandom— in the form of remixes.

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“hula hoop if it was actually a citypop song” by loonahatetwinks and Olivia Soul on youtube. this one has an original instrumental that is spot-on for contemporary k-citypop

My most favorite one of these remixes is a futurefunk remix by ZSunder, one of the very best LOONA fan producers. The fact that ZSunder thought to make a future funk remix at all speaks more to an understanding of the mutually supportive relationship between citypop and EDM genres than most kpop citypop producers or fanmixers seem to care to know about.

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“Hula Hoop (Future Funk Mix)” by ZSunder is futurefunk made and mixed with such love that it has the infectious summery energy of a polished, big-name future funk hit

in the comments of this video, some people seemed to get the citypop-future funk connection and some didnt. many did get it, don’t get me wrong! but also, its not all that surprising for some kpop-focused listeners to not know much about EDM subcultures and the reasons behind various trends among producers, since kpop as an institution tends to take influences from any genre and culture it likes and then decontextualize those influences by just having their names used as buzzwords in the blurbs the idols have to recite when variety show hosts ask them about their latest single. this isn’t a criticism of the genre or the fans really, it’s just a part of the kpop industry that is used to add shine to an endless firehose-like stream of polished pop tracks. there are some issues with using whole genres and subcultures with complex histories as buzzwords, but god help us if we ever want a pop industry to give its influences their dues.

anyway, the intention behind ZSunder’s future funk Hula Hoop remix happened to remind me me of why i love Yukika’s discography so much, especially the Soul Lady album. I’ve seen some reviews online baffled by parts of Soul Lady, because the album in general is an exploration of that relationship between citypop and modern/internet EDM. i’ve seen plenty of Soul Lady reviews especially baffled by pit-a-pet, saying something along the lines of “what’s with the modern-sounding dance track in the middle of a retro album?”, but i think that pit-a-pet is a futurefunk-inspired track, at least in the chorus. considering both that and the Chill Lo-Fi Interludes, it seems like estimate’s team put together Soul Lady for Yukika in a way that shows that they love citypop and understand the online-specific electronic music subcultures that led to citypop’s resurgence.

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“pit-a-pet” by Yukika (2020). the stacatto, bass heavy chorus is futurefunk enough, but the soaring orchestral part in the final chorus seals the deal for my interpretation.

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“All Flights Are Delayed (1 hour version)” by Yukika (2020). Estimate literally released an hour-long youtube mix of one of the Lo-Fi interludes on Soul Lady as part of their promotion, clearly inspired by “Lo-Fi anime beats to chill out to,” which is another example of online producers from around the world using Japanese samples as a focal point of their music

Estimate, in the end, is still a Kpop production company, just the same as BBC, so they have no inherent claim over citypop, but the way that their exploration of subgenres clearly comes from passion and interest on the part of their production staff makes it so that their work with Yukika rings true. on the other hand, i really appreciate Ryan S. Jhun’s work on LOONA’s JP comeback, as well as on Not Friends, but the citypop mix thing was so clearly an afterthought to the point where fans of Loona who like citypop seem mostly just irritated by the cynical-seeming attempt.

heres one last good modern kpop citypop MV that has nods to the internet culture that led to its revival in the form of the videography— vaporwave, future funk, lofi, and other internet genres along those lines tend to have videos consisting of looping anime and vhs clips. future funk in particular is known for this, especially since a lot of future funk music, esp early future funk, is just loops of very short, catchy segments of citypop and disco songs. it’s all about the loops

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“My Type” by Yoon JongShin ft. Miyu Takeuchi (2019). This song is so dedicated to the retro JP citypop sound that it’s almost beyond my personal taste. The singer, Miyu, was a headlining act at a seoul citypop festival and sang this song as part of her act (:

youtube

this video of “Only One” by Conscious Thoughts (2015) has a looped clip as an example for comparison with My Type. it also has a pulsing sidechain compressor working in time with its drum beat in a way that is common for future funk and that i think is a good example for my pit-a-pet yukika comparison to future funk

i guess the takeaway here is that media is more and more online, and the creation and propagation of digital audio and video content has been in the hands of literally almost anybody who wants to do it for the past two decades thanks to garage band and fruityloops and audacity and tiktok and youtube and bandcamp and soundcloud and myspace and newgrounds and p2p file sharing and so on and so forth. and therefore like… as with all things, the consumer class more and more is also the creator class, and therefore every member of an audio-visual subculture will have the ability to discern what is and isnt made with knowledge of the audio-visual language of that subculture

#me using elder millennial phrasing for Loona Did A City Pop to imply how out-of -touch it is kfhajfhs #mine #music #long post #Youtube

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emotionalsupportbun-chan · 3 years

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dani sent me a text without punctuation, which i then interpreted as a very specific fic request

this became so much more than I thought it was going to be and *i guess* there’ll have to be more

so anyway here’s afab Zhao

nsfw, obv.��

Almost, Almost. Kasuga said it was close. An empty building, still unsold, still draining a dead man’s bank account. It was technically squatting, but no one would think to look for them there and none of them could quite handle a bar right now.

They leaned on each other, stumbling down the narrow alleys of the Red Light district, the support both physical and emotional. Saeko shouldered more of Kasuga’s weight than Zhao had assumed she could. Themself and Joon-Gi embraced like drunkards on a dance floor, each a load-bearing wall to the other. Just focus. One step after another, one foot in front of the other, until the gaudy facade of an abandoned soapland came into view.

The door was unlocked. That should have been reason for concern, but “preoccupied” was an understatement. The interior was quiet nonetheless, air stagnant, dank from the lingering moisture of the establishment’s past. A layer of dust covered the front desk, the phone, the pictures of the smiling girls that still adorned the walls. The scattering of bubbly brunettes, headshots subtly retouched, greeted them in the absence of their late boss as the party silently trudged up the stairs, each one picking a room. Zhao went straight down to the end of the hall to a room they knew was still fully stocked with a variety of therapeutic oils and herbs. With the finish line in sight, each step became a battle of its own; each one highlighting a new ache, a yet undiscovered cut, a deep bruise. Their legs felt like jelly, like the bones could slide out onto the floor at any moment. After an eternity, they hit the threshold, not so much opening the door as letting the weight of their body fling it to the side. Inside, they found the room not entirely as expected.

“Oh…?” Surprise, disappointment, irritation. A great cacophony of feelings arose at the sight of another person in the room, and somehow they all fit neatly into that one word.

“Huh?” The figure rose from their crouched position in front of the sliding doors of the storage closet. It was a woman - inky black hair cut short, face unadorned by makeup aside from striking oxblood lipstick, athletic outfit both fashionable and utilitarian. “Fuckin’ hell, ya look like ya tried to fist-fight a wreckin’ ball.”

Ignoring the surprisingly accurate comment, Zhao tried to slip into the old Scary Gang Boss performance. They didn’t know who this woman was, but they were fairly certain she didn’t belong here. “Hey! You…” But the energy quickly faded, intensity falling from their voice. “Just get out.” They hoped that tone could carry the rest of the message as the words failed to come. I have a lot of questions, but no drive to ask them right now.

“I’m serious, ya got fucked up.” There was genuine concern in this stranger’s voice. “Come sit down before ya fall over an’ hit yer head ’r somethin’.” She approached, guiding Zhao to a rickety chair in the corner. “Didn’t mean to cause any problems, I thought this place was abandoned,” she said, resuming her search through some boxes stacked at the bottom of the closet.

Zhao sank into the seat and watched her, trying not to concentrate on the throb of torn muscle. More questions came and were dismissed, deemed not worth the effort of speech. They couldn’t help but notice how well her ass filled out her athletic leggings, though.

“Is that so?” They took a breath, gathering the will to continue the conversation-slash-interrogation. “Strange, I didn’t know Kansai thieves came in such pretty packages.” They wanted the comment to be something more aggressive, but the flirtation was instinct; the quip slipped out before they even thought to stop it. It was met with a sharp jab to the side by a single manicured nail.

“A comedian, huh? Very funny.” She upended another small box. “Damn…”

“But really, who are you? What are you doing here?” They let their voice go quiet and calm, an almost-threat, Serious Business Zhao. Great ass aside, an intruder was an intruder. And sure, they didn’t have the strength to put up much of a fight, if it came to that, but Quiet Menacing usually did the trick.

“I used to work here.” Another box, inspected and discarded. Finally, she fell back out of a squat, now sitting on the floor in a crab-like position, red faced with the effort of her frantic search. An errant strand of hair fell into her face and was blown away in a huff. She wore her frustration openly. It was cute as hell.

Oh, now you’ve done it. They tried to come out with something slick and witty. “Hi, ‘I used to work here’. I’m Zhao.” They threw a half-smile on for good measure. Nailed it.

That frustration gave way to something between second-hand embarrassment and disgust. “Really?”

She stood abruptly, gracefully. It seemed the athletic outfit wasn’t just for show. “As I was sayin’, I used to work here. Just got back in town and had to pick up some stuff I left behind. Looks like one of the other girls already got to it, though.” She paused, stretching. “Sucks about Nonomiya,” she added, the murder of her boss an afterthought.

With new found high ground, she looked down at Zhao, licked a thumb, and tried to smudge away a line of blood on their cheek. “What’re you doin’ here?”

“We, uh, wanted a bath.” They motioned toward the door, shifting uncomfortably through the strange woman’s fussing. “A friend of mine briefly worked for Nonomiya.”

“Huh.” She began to inspect their various cuts and contusions. “Ya know any first aid? This is gonna take more’n a Toughness to fix.”

“Not really.” Nothing more than the basics. Usually they’d just go see a Liumang doctor, but that wasn’t exactly an option anymore.

“Lemme fix ya up then, it’s the least I could do.” She chuckled to herself. “Ya looked like yer soul’d left yer body, seein’ me in here.” She turned and started the bath running, opening the jars and bottles that she’d pulled out of the closet. Zhao watched as she mixed a scoop of this or that into the rising water and popped open a still-sealed medical kit. She tore open and arranged packets of gauze and astringent pads as the bath filled, a mise-en-place that would satisfy even the pickiest nurse. She’d even produced a basic suturing kit. “Go on, get in! I’m doin’ ya a favor here.” She tugged at the collar of their jacket.

The transition to standing upright was not without pain. “Uh…” Sure, this might as well happen. “Yeah...ok, fine.” They carefully removed the leather jacket, the shorts, the shoes, folding them neatly and placing them on the chair Zhao had once occupied. Knowing my luck, I’d fall asleep and drown if I had to do it myself.

“Hurry up,” She waved a hand in their direction. “It’s not nothin’ I haven’t seen a million times before.” Unsatisfied with their pace, the woman began to rapidly, procedurally, unbutton Zhao’s shirt, deft fingers working more quickly than they’d assumed the nails would allow. “Oh!” She stopped about half way down as the shirt fell open to reveal the sturdy sports bra beneath it. “Sorry, guess I just assumed…”

“Don’t worry about it, easy mistake.” It wasn’t exactly a secret. Anyone who’d been in the Liumang long enough knew the old boss never had a son, but Zhao wasn’t going to stop any new blood from making convenient assumptions. They finished undressing themself as the woman stood in contemplation and slowly stepped into the bath, smiling at the stranger’s quiet nice. “If this changes anything…”

“Oh, no.” She settled onto a short stool behind Zhao’s back and rolled up the sleeves of her sweater. “If anything, my job just got easier. Don’t gotta worry about any wayward, uh, anatomy.” Her tone was cool, casual, but Zhao knew when their body was being appreciated. They had that effect on some people. Mostly girls. Men typically didn’t like someone they perceived as a woman having shoulders as broad and well-muscled as theirs.

Once they were settled, the stranger set to work. Whatever she mixed into the bath stung as it came into contact with the various cuts across Zhao’s body, but soothed sore muscles and joints better than any concoction they could have come up with. The initial inspection was thorough; the woman was unhesitant in picking up limbs and manipulating skin. She didn’t seem to find anything worth stitches - the few cuts that were a little more than just a scratch got spritzed with wound wash and treated with an antibiotic ointment. She rubbed some kind of cream over the larger bruises.

Once satisfied with the state of their wounds, she started working the shoulders and neck. First gentle, but firm, presses of knuckles to loosen the knots. Then she really set in, putting her full weight behind an elbow, working just under the base of their neck. It hurt at first, and Zhao almost called it quits, but after a minute or so the tension gave way and their legs - their whole body, for that matter - turned to jelly once again. They had a brief spike of worry - they were helpless under her hands; this would be a perfect opportunity for an assassin - but the thought left as quickly as it came as she moved lower down their back, pushing the heels of her hands into their spine and hitting each vertebra one by one. “Relax, relax. I’m not gonna hurt ya.” She must have felt the moment of tension. Zhao tried to respond, but the words that came devolved immediately into a low moan at the return of the elbow. No use; resistance was futile. They were putty.

Eventually - unfortunately - the massage ended. As the woman pulled her arms out of the water, Zhao could have sworn they felt the barely-there sensation of her fingers trailing the outline of the phoenix inked across their back. Before they could say anything, she leaned in, pressing the side of her face against theirs. “All better?” she said, lips grazing the bit of neck just below the ear. Not even a kiss, just a whisper of heat. Her voice had changed, becoming something saccharine and syrup-dipped, dripping with anticipated carnality. Oh, a full service experience? Zhao didn’t anticipate this being part of the deal, but who could turn down such a skilled professional? The woman was a master of her art. The hands soon returned, this time settling low on the hips, drifting slowly around to the front of their body. Her chest plastered against their back, chin nestled in the crook of their neck, the first finger slipped between their legs...

A voice sounded, somewhere down the hall, barely squeezing through a quickly narrowing tunnel of desire. Something about Survive and karaoke and Joon-gi said he’ll sing this time, are you done yet?

Without warning, the warmth of her body pressed against them disappeared as the woman pulled away and snatched a bag off the floor, leaving Zhao red-faced and stupefied. “Looks like it’s time for me to scram.” Back to business. No more Sexy Soapland Girl. “Put this on yer bruises ‘til they go away,” she said, dropping a tube of cream onto the stool as she hurried toward the door.

“Wait, who - “ Zhao tried to hoist themself out of the bath only to find their legs still shaky as a foal’s. They slipped back in with a wet plunk, sloshing water over the edge and onto the floor. By the time they’d righted themself, the woman was long gone and Kasuga had come wandering in with a towel to hassle them about their bathing habits. After a moment of teasing, they were left to dry, and dress, and try to pretend they weren’t wet in more ways than one.

It would be hours until they realized they didn’t remember seeing the woman’s face among the portraits over in the waiting room.

#lordt im rusty #og content

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quietrainfan · 5 years

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Okay! It’s the next day and I say that’s more than enough time for me to go back to my Unsympathetic ways! *evil laughter* You can not stop me! Let’s list off the observations, shall we?~ (Warning: Spoilers ahead! Also, obviously, Unsympathetic opinions of the Sides. If that ain’t something that floats your boat, by all means, ignore this post.)

- Patton not allowing Roman to say anything even remotely critical of Virgil

Like, seriously. What Roman said wasn’t even an insult. I mean, I guess it could be considered insensitive to Virgil’s feelings. But how many times has Virgil took jabs (oftentimes low ones) at Roman and was not asked to be nice or apologize? It seems to always be Roman who has to moderate how he speaks while Virgil can mouth off all he wants. Roman wasn’t being malicious, he was just poking some fun. His tone and smile clearly communicate he’s just fooling around and isn’t intentionally trying to get under Virgil’s skin.

I’d have less of a problem with this if one, Virgil was called out more for his behavior. Two, his and Roman’s banter was more equal and friendly rather than guilt-trippy and one-sided. Three, this scene not ending with Roman forcing himself to agree with Virgil’s opinion and Virgil’s condescending little thumbs up afterward. As if to say: “There you go, nice and obedient.”

- Roman using Deceit’s hat for something he isn’t even apart of and without permission (more on that later)

I’m actually going to save this one for last. Because there’s so much to unpack there even though it’s not at the center of attention.

- More of not allowing Logan to have a say in things. Roman taking away his votes because he isn’t wearing a onesie.

Okay so, he’s being excluded from a decision simply because he wasn’t wearing something. I know this may seem like a nick-pick but come on. Give this poor man a break. How many times are the other Sides going to completely brush Logan off and invalidate his input? Even for small things like this he’s being treated like an afterthought. I know Roman pretty much rigged it for everyone and Virgil gave him a look...but this was mostly centered around excluding Logan, yet again. And they still give him flack for not trying to open up. Poor Lo, I wanna just hug him and maybe read something with him just to give some form of comfort from this. And of course, dear ol’ Patton sees no problem with this but was so quick to rush to Virgil’s defense. Then again, this is normal for them. So no one bats an eye at it.

- “I can think of a few ways.”

Not an argument here. Go OFF, Virgil!!! Sorry not sorry, I got SO much satisfaction out of Patton’s face fall here. I was prepared for that line to just be another “Hee Hee Patton line” without so much as an acknowledgment about his actions lately but then I hear THIS! Just good old Patton about to not at all try to address how he treats Thomas and the others as always but then Virgil of all people comes in and lets him have it! Just to rub salt in that well-deserved wound! Yes! That’s right, frown! Frown, HARD! Jeez, that felt so good to see!

I hope we get more of that in the future. Just dissecting Patton’s mistakes and not explaining it away with “he’s trying”!

- “Thomas made his decision and I think we should just try to settle into it.”

HA! That is RICH, Patton! No joke. I laughed so bitterly at that line. Patton, how many times have you tried to sway Thomas in a direction that YOU wanted no matter whether or not it made him happy or was the best decision for him overall? How many times did you guilt-trip him, guilt-trip everyone? How many times did you ignore Roman’s misery (S v S is the most recent example), ignore Virgil’s anxiety? Or amplify it? How many times did you ignore Logan’s advice until it actually had an effect on YOU? You have NO room to talk about allowing Thomas to come to his own decisions when you spent SO long swaying the movement of things to end in your favor. I’m-

How many times did you just “ease into” the changes in Thomas’s life or the other parts of his personality that made you uncomfortable and tried to adjust without judgment? I can’t- *wheeze* Here’s hoping you get some really good character development later on because I just can’t stand you like this.

- “How are you telling me to settle into something right now when you’ve taken your sweet time to settle into things you were uncomfortable with in the past?”

Once again, go OFF, Virgil!!! Call. Him. Out! Patton has been nothing but judgmental and guilt-trippy with whatever he didn’t approve of. He’s made the same mistakes over and over, hardly showing any remorse for it. Only when others point it out does he look bothered. From where I’m standing, it doesn’t feel like he’s ever made as much as an effort as the others. It’s very irritating, to say the least. Him just treating Deceit and Remus like infections rather than apart of Thomas all the time, for example. Trying to repress them rather than understand them, like he did with Virgil. But he likes Virgil, so of course, he didn’t have the same reaction. He doesn’t like Remus or Deceit, so he acts accordingly. Which is really messed up.

Don’t give Virgil that look, Thomas! You know he’s right!

- “There’s nothing wrong with talking! Sometimes you just need to air things out and get a second opinion.”

I’m sorry. Did I just hear that right? *checking with an imaginary person* Who was the one that said that? It was Patton? *non-existant “yes”* Oh, alright.

*clears throat* Getting a second opinion? Getting a second opinion?? Getting a second opinion?!

...My dude, since when have you wanted a “second opinion”?! Especially from Deceit! Since when did you confront a problem head-on, talk about it without bias, and was satisfied with a conclusion that didn’t cater to your liking?! I genuinely want to see you take initiative, not try to control everything, listen to everyone, and take your role seriously. Without trying to steer everything towards something you personally approve of.

I want to see you go through that change so badly. Drop the goofiness for a bit and commit. Please! *deep sigh*

- Virgil hissing at Deceit

He literally just came to get his hat, dude. He didn’t even acknowledge you. What is your deal? But I guess all Dee has to do is breathe and that’s enough cause for hostility. Jeez. There better be a really good explanation for Virgil’s attitude or I swear I will reach through the damn screen and deal with Virgil myself.

- Logan putting his onesie on out of sight.

I think this really speaks volumes about how he’s treated. He’s so afraid of being ridiculed and not being respected that he has to hide what he likes. Logan feels if he actually indulges in his other interests openly, he won’t be able to actually enjoy it because it’s “silly” and of course Logan can’t be “silly” because it’s going to cost him his comfort and dignity. And it’s not like he’s wrong for feeling that way.

There is such a lack of respect for him from the others, day in and day out. He can’t ever let his hair down and relax for a bit. The others complain about him being so closed-off but when opens up, he always gets shut down. When he makes jokes, he can’t just laugh with the others. It’ll be used as material against him later on if he does. (Ex: He misuses a word, it’s used against him later even though it clearly bothers him. It’s not teasing if the recipient isn’t laughing along.)

Logan wants a say in what they watch as a family? Yeah, no. Unless you wear that onesie that we’ll likely make fun of you for, your opinion is invalid.

I can’t imagine what this is doing to Logan’s mental health and self-esteem. Or can I? Because that last clip is pretty telling. Honestly, I respect Lo so much. He has to put up with so much bullshit yet he continues on and does his job anyway. Hopefully, he’ll find some way to feel better about himself.

- Roman using Deceit’s hat for something he isn’t even apart of and without permission (here we are)

Speaking of a complete lack of respect, what the fuck, Roman?! And literally everyone else!

Okay so, Deceit and the Light Sides are not anywhere near on good terms. Especially after S v S! They are not friendly with one another. There’s no dynamic here that allows any of the Light Sides to borrow something from Deceit. While I did laugh at Deceit’s reaction and Roman’s face after was genuinely priceless it still...got me thinking.

Deceit is mistreated all the time. He’s ignored, demonized, villainized by them at every turn. He and Remus aren’t included in any family get-togethers. When he was literally having an emotional breakdown he was laughed at (Virgil) and still ignored. Deceit did everything he could to be heard in a debate and was called “edgy” for expressing genuine concern over Thomas’s well being.

Then Roman obviously sneaks into his space and steals his hat to use for another debate that they’re having??? That also doubles as quality family time that he’s never included in??? Do I really need to explain how utterly disrespectful and messed up that is? And this is after they had the courtroom scenario and left on really tense terms. And they likely haven’t spoken since.

So not only is Deceit going to be constantly demonized, made fun of, and excluded from anything remotely affectionate...but he’s also going to get his personal items stolen on top of all that? How nice. And just...the salt in the wound of using it for a voting and family time...

I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself but I just can’t get over it! The nerve, the audacity...it’s so low!

I honestly don’t know how Deceit remains so civil with the others, it’s truly remarkable. I applaud you, Dee. Respect. Hopefully, you’ll get fairer treatment in the future.

#unsympathetic core sides #unsympathetic patton #unsympathetic virgil #sympathetic deceit #sympathetic logan #platonic sanders sides #sanders sides spoilers #unsympathetic observations #please dni if you don't want to hear what I have to say about these little things and just want to enjoy the episode by itself #this is how I show my love

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heroacademiaimagines · 5 years

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Angst Alphabet: All Might/Yagi Toshinori

(I didn’t V + W for reasons don’t look at me)

A – Adjourn: How would they handle a break-up?

Toshinori has a tendency to just… ignore it. It means he never deals with the unresolved feelings, he never full confronts what happens and why it happened, and it also means it haunts him for a long time. He doesn’t just let anyone into his life, you have to be special to have stolen his heart in the first place, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t act foolish. With how famous he is, and how much he throws himself into his hero work, it means it’s not difficult for him to find ways to distract himself, though the feelings always catch up with him when he’s trying to sleep at night.

B – Blunders: If they could redo a moment of their past, would they?

He would likely choose to redo a lot of things, but the thing he wished he did the most was spend more time with you. He was so busy being the number one hero that he’d put you on a backburner, almost treated you like an afterthought, and used the excuse of ‘That’s just how a hero’s life is!’. With how fleeting his career seemed to be with his injury now, it seemed foolish to have treated you so poorly, when you would still be around while he was no longer a hero. He realizes how selfish that sounds, but it’s not as though his feelings for you hadn’t been genuine, he just didn’t have a chance to think until the whirlwind of the Symbol of Peace was over.

C – Calamity: If you happened to die in an accident would they blame themselves?

Even if there was no viable way for him to save you, for him to help you, he would only ever be able to think of the what-ifs. What if he had been with you that day? What if he had spent more time with you? The guilt alone could send him into an early grave, and these feelings are amplified if it’s after his injury has stopped him from changing into All Might; he knew he couldn’t do anything in this state, and that made it worse. If he was there he would’ve had to helplessly watch you die, because there was truly nothing he could do anymore.

D – Demise: How would they deal with death?

There’s nothing on this planet that would make him feel more useless than you dying, whether it be because of a disease or a villain. He shoulders the responsibility of your well-being despite your insistence that he shouldn’t; you know he’s protective and it’s natural instinct to want to keep you safe, but there were things in life that happened that he couldn’t control. This is a fact he’s aware of, but hates accepting, as he always defied the expectations of those around him.

E – Evaluation: What if someone were to expose their past?

Toshinori is well-aware that there are people always sniffing into his past, but there’s not much to find there relationship wise. He’d had a few flings here and there, but most of those people were tight-lipped enough to never mention it. It’s not like the world would be likely to believe them anyway, but he found most were willing to keep any secret they knew about him; he would be more worried about the secret for One For All coming out than his dating history.

F – Force: What would burden them to the crux of a breakdown?

Your kidnapping at the hands of All For One would likely be a huge stressor for him, knowing that you would be shown no mercy, especially due to being connected by him. There’s not a moment of sleep, of any type of rest, until you’re safely out of his hands and back in All Might’s. You can confidently say you’d never seen him cry, but he might if you return unharmed, or at least alive, from his greatest enemy.

G – Ground: Which part of themselves do they see as dangerous?

His ambition, especially when he was younger, was a dangerous thing, but more to himself than others. He wanted to be a great hero, he was almost a natural at it, but it easily put him into potentially fatal positions where only pure luck helped him get out alive (while also saving the people he’d set out to help). He can remember a handful of moments where he truly thought it might be the end for him, wondering if he’d still dive in against all odds knowing he might die (he would).

H – Hatred: Who or what do they truly despise?

All For One is likely the only thing that pops into Toshinori’s mind when he’s asked about the word hatred. He knows he dislikes villainy, which is why he became a hero in the first place, but to hold actual contempt for the villains he fights… he mostly feels sorry for them, and sees locking them away as for their own good, but there’s moments where he wonders about what truly drives them to hurt people the way they do (it’s not something he could ever wrap his head around).

I – Insulted: What would irk them the most?

People being disrespectful to the people he loves, villains hurting his innocent students, there are a surprisingly numerous amount of things that can get on his nerves. He doesn’t often show this irritation unless he’s been pushed far enough, but he’s been blessed with great patience and the ability to brush most insulting things off, so it’s unlikely the side of him that would bare his teeth would appear.

J – Justice: Would they ever murder for revenge?

Considering it’s been something he’s avoided his whole career, no matter how tough the villain, he likely would never take another life. Even if he did so accidentally, no matter how much that person deserved it, it would mark itself as a huge regret on his part and he would never be able to look at himself again.

K – Kidnapped: What if you were abducted? What courses of action would they take?

Toshinori tries to keep your identity as secret as possible along with his own, because he knows the great amount of danger that you’re in just by being with him. He feels guilty when he learns of your kidnapping, and full of fear, but he’s still a hero and he’ll do anything he can to get you back. There’s no way that All Might allows them to save you without him there to personally grab you, to personally see that you’re okay the minute you’re found, as he was never the type to sit back and wait for others to handle things. After you’re rescued, there’s no chance of you being out of his sight for at least the next 48 hours.

L – Longing: How much time would it take their hearts to mend after you died? Would they still long for you?

He’d already longed, pined, for you for so long, even while you were still alive, that it’s almost natural those feelings continue after your death; it’s like some form of torture, something he thinks he deserves, especially if your death was a premature one. His heart never truly mends, there was a piece of it that always belonged to you and it felt almost sacrilegious to let another in where you once were. No other romantic relationship seems to fit just right, none make him feel the same way you did, and unfortunately, he knows that he likely won’t feel like he did for you for another person again. He’s okay with it, of course, as there are other things in life he has to focus on, but it is still a great loss.

M – Money: Would you two have financial problems?

Being the number one hero in the world, for a long time, with his own agency, meant it was very unlikely you’d have any money problems. You yourself probably didn’t have to work at all, as most people who knew that you were involved with All Might in some way, shape, or form, would give you things for free, otherwise, he’d attempt to pay for it himself (like if you wanted to go back to school).

N – Naught: How would they react knowing they have lost everything?

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s felt that way, and it wouldn’t be the last, but there’s nothing that can stop him from marching forward. There was always something more to reach for, something more to aspire to, and even if it felt like the world was crashing down around him, he knew it wasn’t in his nature to simply give in and let things be.

O – Overwrought: What memories of their past causes them to be anxious?

Asking you out for the first time was quite an event, he knew you wouldn’t say no but at the same time, you’d never bowed down or acted especially enthused to have him around like his fans did (it’s why he fell for you in the first place). He can remember a handful of times where you’d gotten injured and needed to go to a hospital, and since he wasn’t physically there, he had been anxiously waiting a phone call to see if you were alright. The one that fills him with the most anxiety is probably when he had to confess the condition he was in, and he put it off for so long, he only made himself more anxious as he realized he’s lying to your face and you’d be even angrier when you finally did know.

P – Pessimistic: Do they rub salt in wounds?

Not generally. Toshinori is very forgiving, and he doesn’t like to continue fights longer than they need to be. He’s not the type to make snippy or petty comments if you say/do something that reminds him of what you were arguing about, more willing to let bygones be bygones and move on. He doesn’t forget what was said, or what the fight was about, but he’s not the argumentative type.

Q – Quake: What could frighten them so terribly they couldn’t recuperate?

Seeing you mangled, beyond repair, knowing you were tortured every moment until your very last breath… The image would be ingrained in his brain, every time he closed his eyes he’d see your dead ones staring back, cold, dead lips moving and asking why he couldn’t save you, why he wasn’t the hero he always swore to you he was. It haunts him, the rest of his life, and though he continues with his work, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever have a peaceful nights sleep again.

R – Rogue: What if they were evil?

If All Might were evil, it would likely be game over for most of the world. He would be able to do as he pleased, but of course, it’s no fun if it’s all that easy; he’ll be sure to play as many games as he can with the pro-heroes, leading them into a false sense of security, letting them think that he can be cornered when it’s simply a trap to kill them all at once.

S – Shaft: How do they vent?

Toshinori used to think screaming into a pillow was an effective way to vent out his feelings, or just ignoring them and hoping they faded away with time, but he quickly realizes that it’s inefficient. Having someone like you to confide in makes his chest feel warm, having someone he can truly trust, who sees him as a human being and not just a hero, is exactly what he needs. He would also need someone willing to offer him advice, or be willing to tell him he’s acting like a fool.

T – Tenderness: What emotion do they want to hide?

Toshinori tends to hide most negative emotions that he feels. He doesn’t want to let you know that he’s sad, that he’s heartbroken, that he’s feeling guilty, so he bundles them all inside into a tightly woven ball and tosses it away. He doesn’t think it’s right for you to worry about him the same way he worries about you, since he’s a hero and all, and this line of thinking can easily put a damper on the relationship (or even ruin it altogether, as you’re giving all parts of yourself and he’s hand selecting what he gives to you).

U – Untrustworthy: What could you do to make them lose their trust in you?

Leaking sensitive information about him to the media, cheating on him while you were together, betraying the heroes and becoming a villain… there’s only a few things that could truly push him to the point of no return, where he feels like he no longer knows you at all. For certain things, there might be a way for you to earn back his trust, but if you were to ever turn evil or hurt other innocent human beings, he would never be able to look at you the same way again.

X – X-Ray: Can they tell if you’re lying?

Toshinori trusts you greatly, so he wouldn’t be looking for signs of lying, though if he’s with you in the first place it’s likely because you’re an honest person to begin with. If you were a really bad liar he would be able to tell, and if it was simply a white lie or something he deemed harmless, he would just pretend he believed you or moved on.

Y – You: What memory of you hurts them every time they recall it?

Toshinori can remember the first time he broke your heart very well. He’d gotten caught up in criminal work on an important anniversary, and he’d had every intention of making it there he just… forgot. The next morning when he checked your phone, there were no texts to be seen, and he immediately realized why that was; when he sees you in person you tell him it was fine, but you’re teary-eyed and can’t look at him, and he hates it more than anything. If he’s going to miss a date, he lets you know ahead of time, and always has a good plan for the next day to make it up to you.

Z – Zigzag: Are they often pulled in different directions by their heart and brain?

Every day of his life, he feels like. Though his heart and soul is always put into his hero work, there are parts of his heart that want nothing more than to be with you. He wants to be home with you, cuddled together on the couch or in bed, whispering sweet nothings in your ear, there were so many domestic things that he craved to do that he just didn’t have time for.

#Yagi Toshinori #Toshinori Yagi #BNHA #BNHA Headcanons #My Hero Academia #Angst Alphabet #there'll probably be more

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chokefriends · 5 years

Text

Pit-town Strays, ch.2

Kidlaw softness and redneck shenanigans in a northern mining town. Everything’s fucked but whatever.

Rated T, no big warnings. Ch 2: The boys hang out some more, they are stupid baby dorks and nothing happens, thanks for coming by.

Ch. 1 - [Ch. 2] - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5

Read on Ao3 too, I’m Ossicle

Bellamy arrived back from partying just as Law was on his way out the next morning.

“So can I have the fucking car then?” Law asked, not holding out much hope.

His bull-necked brother eyed him with wary hostility. “You’re a fucking gay,” he accused Law.

“I can also drive.”

“Shut up. I bet you're not actually, though. You're just tryna make people think you're special.”

Law snorted. “Bellamy, obviously I'm ‘a’ fucking gay.”

“No,” he denied it doggedly. “I'm your brother, I'd know already.”

“Dellinger, help us out here, buddy,” Law summoned their youngest brother, who was just then coming down the stairs with a pop-tart sandwich and his guppy jar. He was wearing a wetsuit, for some arcane reason.

“He's too young to hear about that stuff,” Bellamy warned off Law under his breath.

Law ignored this and addressed Dellinger. “Deli-man: Am I, in your estimation, fucking gay.”

“Uhhh, obviously you're fucking gay?” Dellinger rolled his eyes with all the snotty certainty of a thirteen-year-old boy.

“See?” Law raised his eyebrows at Bellamy.

“Pff. Every punk seventh-grader says that about literally everything,” Bellamy pointed out, fairly. “Last week he said gym shoes were gay.”

“Gym shoes are very gay,” Law confirmed.

“Not gay as Law’s gay self, though.” Dellinger met Law's fist bump with the guppy jar and went to claim the cozy recliner spot for his Shark Week marathon. Of their parents’ two biological sons, Law was definitely closer with this little blond weirdo.

Bellamy grouched, “Dellinger, turn that off, don't you got school?”

“Uhhh, it's summer?” the squeaky brat reminded him. “Law's only in school cuz he's a gay, gay nerd.”

Law covered his smile and went away up the stairs.

Bellamy's scowl deepened. He followed Law, accusing him, “You been keeping stuff from me. I’m your brother.”

“Why the fuck would I tell you shit. Thought you’d have figured it out already, anyway… I only been dating guys since I was like, fourteen.” Law rolled his eyes even more heavily than Dellinger had.

Bellamy stood there and glared for a full minute as Law tried to relace his sneakers with the remaining strand of snapped shoelace.

“...does Dad know?”

Law hesitated at the question, and looked over his shoulder reflexively, though he knew their father was gone on a business trip. He shrugged in response, confidence blown.

His ornery brother hissed suddenly, “This is fucked up. I'm not getting involved in any of this sick shit. Got that? Don't bring home any more Pit-town meth head tricks, I'll fucking kill em!”

“Where the fuck are you going? Gimme the keys,” Law complained.

“No, I gotta use the car today!” Bellamy stormed off.

---

Fucking pointless drama. Law shook it off and messaged Kidd with an ETA, then went to the highway to hitch a ride again. He'd forgotten all about the morning’s tense exchange by the time he'd made his way over and climbed the same bare rock outcropping as the day before. Kidd, the bike, and the Pit were all waiting below.

“The whole place is on high Goose Alert,” Kidd grinned. “Kevin is unavailable for comment.”

Law laughed and swung his leg over the back of the black-painted motorcycle. They roared through the village to Kidd's place in the far corner of the grid, past pursuing dogs and staring neighbors but no geese. Much better way to see the place, Law thought, dismounting in the driveway. Getting a little feel of Kidd's tight physique had been a bonus.

He followed Kidd up the step, where the little pink bike was once again lying in the way.

“Oh hey, you went and throat-punched the bike-thieves’ dad already?” Law joked.

“Oh, yeah, heh, stopped by his place last night. Guy tried to fucking sell it back to me, you believe that? Barely past check day and he's tryna scam people… Fucking drunk. Had to knock him out and give his kids a chicken bucket to show me where it was.” Kidd stepped over the bike and tried the door. Locked. He jiggled it and tried again.

Law frowned. “Okay? That's… good. Good job.”

“Yeah, chicken works. Nami! Open the fucking door! NAMI.”

A pouting little face was pressed against the window over to their left, watching them and not budging.

“Shoulda got chicken,” Law suggested.

Kidd growled in irritation. “God, it's always gotta be something. Every fucking time she figures out I'm going somewhere for the day… Nami, I gotta get to work! And look: Law's here!”

Nami's pout deepened.

“I can just get the door,” Law offered, reaching into his pocket for a card to jimmy it.

“Nah it's fine, I got it…” Kidd drove his boot into the door in an angry burst and it swung open. He stomped inside.

“Uh,” Law looked at the splintered bolt slot. No wonder there was no stop left.

“I'll fix it later. Nami: c’mere.” Kidd shouldered the duffel bag that was waiting on the hall floor, and then squatted down to call his sister over to him. “C'mon, gimme a kiss, I'll be back really soon.”

She kept her face stuck to the window, blowing clouds onto the glass and drawing shapes in them.

He sighed and went over to plant a kiss on the top of her head anyway, and she made an angry sound but kept ignoring him. “Don’t be like that. I'll be home before you go to sleep this time, okay? Babygirl?”

Her face stayed stuck to the glass.

“Nami.”

“Best not to draw it out, right?” Law suggested.

“... … …Yeah.” Kidd waited a moment longer, but Nami was set on being mad. He stood with a scoff.

“We’re good,” Law assured him, “And I'll text if there's something.”

“Kay, yeah. Bye.”

Kidd left abruptly.

Law frowned after him. Outside, the bike roared to life and then faded into a distant hum. Law went to close the open front door, bringing the bike inside as an afterthought. Nami was wiping away all her window-fog designs when he came back. She looked at him warily.

Law held out his hands. “Hey, witchygirl! I said I'd come back, right?”

She didn't reply. She walked around the far side of the room and then past him. In the kitchen, she took a box of Sugarbombs from the cupboard and then sat at the table, waiting.

“...Want cereal?” Law asked.

“Yah,” she huffed.

Law got her a bowl and blue plastic spoon and got her all set up. He sat down with a sigh as she dug in.

“Nami, can you say ‘thank you?’”

“Ya.” She kept chewing.

Law stifled a laugh at this. Law's father would have given her a real quick correction if she'd tried that in his presence. And Law probably shouldn't encourage her sass, but hey. He looked around and his eyes fell on his Stats assignment, forgotten there the previous night.

It was finished.

“Holy, what??” Law looked it all the way through, and then again. He studied the formulas, rubbing his temple. “How… do you even…? Ughhh.”

He looked up when Nami heaved a heavy little sigh of her own. She was watching him, imitating his concerned slouch and terse sounds.

“Hi,” she finally acknowledged him.

“Hi, Nami. We cool?”

“Ya,” she decided. “You can haves some cereal too.”

“No, thanks, not my favorite,” Law went back to decoding the paper.

“It is, it is not what witches can eat?” she wondered.

“Witches can eat what they want,” he told her distractedly.

A few moments later Law looked up to find her gone, and he had to run before she tried eating something bad. He found her in the bathroom, selecting cleaning supplies from the cupboard. He diverted her to coloring at the table, and spent the next hour organizing the bathroom and sorting the cleaning stuff into a high place.

The day went on much the same as before, Law alternating between coursework, cleaning and Nami management, while Nami went about her witchness. By the time it got dark, though, she was whining at the window and trying to break small things of Kidd's. Law took a guitar tuner away from her and she had a full-on meltdown. Law was starting to watch out the window too, wondering if he should text Kidd for an ETA… The guy had said he'd be back before dark this time, right? Law finally convinced Nami to lie down and watch Toy Story, but she would only stay put if he sat where she could see both him and the TV.

It was past 11pm again by the time Kidd came through the door. Nami got up and went to peek around the corner at him, but ran back to bed when he tried to get her to hug him.

“Girl, what the fuck,” Kidd grumbled.

“She's been waiting a while, I guess,” Law suggested.

“Yeah well. If I get offered a few extra hours at rate, I'm gonna take em.” The big redhead kicked off his boots and headed for the kitchen.

Law looked over at the little blanket lump, but it wasn't budging, so he followed Kidd.

“Didn’t get to the sushi place this time,” Kidd apologized.

“It’s cool, takeout every night gets expensive. I made this soup thing, there was leftover chicken in the fridge.” Law pointed to the pot on the stove and Kidd went to look.

“Oh sweet, like from scratch?”

“Yup.”

“Whoa, lookit that. Fancy brown stuff…” He made himself a bowl and sat back at the table.

“That’s what they call me,” Law joked to himself.

“Huh?” Kidd paused, spoon in hand.

“Oh I was just… talking to myself, uh… n-nevermind. Didn’t expect you to be listening.”

“Well I’m right here. Anyway, hey, I got these,” Kidd fished in his bag and threw Law a can. Hard lemonade.

“Hah, thanks…?” Law was cautiously grateful. He cracked it and took a sip—hmm, not bad. Not bready, anyway.

There was the quiet sound of bare feet from down the hall.

“There she is,” Kidd lifted his arm to find a sleepy Nami hugging his waist. “Yeah, hi. Good girl. Go the fuck to bed.”

He gave her a kiss and a coin, and she padded off again.

Law took a long drink from his can. “Soooo uh, I was gonna ask. You did that Stats sheet I left?”

“Um. Guess so…”

He was treated to one of Kidd's full face-and-neck blushes again. The unfortunate paleface ducked his head and concentrated on his bowl.

Law stretched and pretended to be fascinated by the ceiling light. “I was just gonna ask ya—”

“I was just bored or whatever,” Kidd told his soup.

“Yeah, but I don't know anybody else who just does math when they're bored,” Law wryly addressed the ceiling.

“Not trying to show you up or whatever. It's probably wrong. You can just erase it.”

Law snuck a glance over to see that the blush had safely passed. “Yeah but actually maybe you could show me what, um. When you… Like, which. How.”

“...Oh, yeah? Really? What part.”

“Most parts…” Law admitted.

Kidd laughed again, startlingly loud. Law jumped a little but laughed too.

“If you want,” Kidd grinned, pleased.

Law scraped his chair up next to Kidd's. They studied the offensive bit of paper for an hour, grabbing the pencil back and forth and talking overtop of each other. It didn't take long for Law to grasp the concept, but he let Kidd take him through a few more examples. They were getting louder and messier as the cans disappeared, and pretty soon the lesson was forgotten.

“But what if I take the p-value, and divide it by its own ass.” Law held two pencils like chopsticks and drew a little asterix, earning an ear-splitting guffaw from Kidd.

“Sshhh, sleeping baby!” he shushed Law in a whisper-shout, still laughing.

“You're the one screeching!”

“Not even!”

An irate Nami appeared in the doorway. “SHUT THA FUCK.”

They both looked over at her in alarm, then burst out laughing even harder. Nami's scowl deepened, and she came over to swat her brother as he held up his hands in defense.

“Holy shit Nami, okay okay, hahaaa…”

“Kidd! You come put me a bed!” Nami ordered.

“I will after, I have to take Law home first.” Kidd sat her on his lap and looked over at the oven clock. One in the morning.

“Oh shit…” Law checked his phone. No messages from his father, but one from Bellamy.

Dad's home, was all it said.

He ask where I am? Law texted back, and waited anxiously.

“Unless, uhh, you wanna crash?” Kidd mumbled to Law with a cough.

Law scrolled through his messages another couple times. “I don't really wanna get in a crash, no… I guess you've had a few drinks, eh.”

“Nono, I mean like, crash here.”

“Oh!” Law looked up from his texting. “Like sleep here. With you.”

“On the couch,” Kidd clarified, cheeks flaring up again.

“Well…” Law considered his phone.

“Or I can take you home on the bike. It's fine, I ride it around all blasted all the time, haha. But I only had a few this time.”

That was not super reassuring, Law reflected. He fiddled with the little bear dangle on his phone case. A strident bzz-bzz, and Bellamy's reply popped up:

No he just went to bed…

Law breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he could play it off like he'd come home late and gone back out again early, if his father asked.

“Yeah I'll stay,” he decided.

“Awesome!” Kidd gathered up Nami and made his way down the hall. He got a sheet out of the dryer and an extra blanket from a stack, then headed to the living room to make up the couch. Nami hung around his shoulders, over-tired and whining.

“I’m sharing with you tonight, Tinygirl,” he told her.

“You're not taking the big bed?” Law wondered.

“That's Dad's room.”

This seemed like all Kidd was gonna say on that topic, so Law let it go for now. Weird but whatever.

Kidd shucked off his outer layers and got into the little single bed on the floor, shoving aside all the furry little pillows. His feet hung off the end. Nami settled in under his arm with much squirming and fussing. Law laid himself out on the couch, still fully clothed in the stuffy room.

“You want some shorts to sleep in?” Kidd offered.

“Nah I'm good.”

“H’okay…” Kidd was probably thinking, weird but whatever.

“You working tomorrow?” Law asked.

“Yeah. But after that, it depends on when they need me.”

“Okay, I'll be around tomorrow, but Thursdays and Fridays I have class, so I can't come by til later.”

“We'll figure it out,” Kidd waved it off. “Worst case, I find another unlicensed daycare some yoga-pants MILF is running in her shed. Pit-town is good for those.”

Law snort-laughed into his pillow. “MILF-town! So where's the DILFs?”

“Well they sure as fuck ain't here,” Kidd muttered.

“What, no D's you'd like to F?” Law teased. A furry blue pillow flew at him.

“God no. No one wants to F these D's. The M's just do it for the B's, which stands for Baby Bonus.”

“Oooo… harsh.”

“True though,” Kidd chuckled darkly. “Not that I blame em. Baby bonus is about all the income to be had around here if you're non-union.”

“Huh…” Law was about to ask what Kidd had found, job-wise, but Nami interrupted to let them know she was asleep.

“I ASLEEP.”

“Okay,” Kidd whispered. “I guess me too.”

“Hey Kidd,” Law whispered. “You’re basically like Nami's dad, right?”

“...yeah. More than our actual dad is, anyway.”

“So,” Law struggled to keep his voice even. “You're one.”

“One what?”

“The one and only, the lone DILF of Pit-town.” Law stuffed his face into the pillow to muffle his giggling fit. There was no response and he looked over with a wicked grin to see that Kidd had pulled the blanket over his face. Probably blushing.

“You hiding?”

“Shut up… I'm asleep.”

Law chuckled quietly to himself and watched the odd pair on the floor. They were both out in a matter of minutes once they'd settled down. Kidd looked even bigger when he was trying to fit into a small space, with tiny Nami tucked between his side and arm. His protruding brow stayed creased, even while asleep, but the sarcasm had lifted from his lips. He looked worried.

Law settled down too, and scrolled aimlessly through his phone until it slipped out of his hand and he fell asleep without realizing.

#KidLaw #kidlaw fic #eustass kid #trafalgar law #one piece modern au #I love em sad babies I hope you do too #they will survive and be good to each other #and shit will be fucked as shit is wont to be #pit-town strays

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fxtalitus · 5 years

Text

Decoded Walls

How did he get here? He used to be so cruel and lost within those whispering shadows, he hadn’t cared, and he had shut his heart against the pain of watching the light leave the lives of those he had been given. That man had taken him and everything from him. The memories were scattered across time and space, he held only one fourth of what Terra actually had been, and whenever he was questioned whether or not he wished to become whole again—his answer would always remain no. They didn’t understand what it meant to become whole again. He would be taken away, he would reside in a corner again, and that youth would return to the light. Xemnas would cease to exist. Even though, he answered to the name Terra, he was still very much so that shadow that resided within the light. Having filled himself with the nerve to disobey, he wanted to be free, and he would fight for that. No longer did he treat those whom surrounded him as mere shells that must be broken, he started to build them back up with love, and he ensured their happiness above his own.

He brought back those whom were missing in the darkness, he took the virus that was to spread, and pushed it back upon himself—for those whom had yet to experience the pain that Saix and the others like he and Braig had always experienced. So it was here in the twilight of these halls that he had always come to reside, it was here, in the darkening hours of the dawn that he had always remained. It was better that way, he had always claimed, and he wasn’t the type to venture from that. He knew what it meant to become whole. He wanted no part of it. Did it hurt? Funny, he couldn’t remember. Pain was such a constant that he no longer felt it. He could ignore it as easily as someone might ignore their own breathing.

It was there but it was so normal that he didn’t pay it any mind.

So how had he got to this point? He wasn’t sure, something had pushed him to sacrifice his solitude to ensure that girl’s safety, and seeing her alone—it irritated him greatly. Perhaps that was enough to make him push past his comfort zone, he had called her his friend, but somehow he had always known she wasn’t really her. He didn’t care. For Aqua was merely a part of what he had once been, she held no weight in the currency of his heart, even though he seemed to be amalgamated with that side. Something was always missing. Something always pushed him to do more. She’d ask questions, doubt would corrode her heart, and he’d smack it away just as quick. Only fools would rush to the side of a woman like this, well, he supposed he would count himself as such.

Everything he did now, was for them, for her—their happiness. Both of them. He could say he felt some strange feeling, something like joy when he was around her, and listening to her was like music to his ears. He enjoyed watching her attempt to make him proud, he looked upon her fondly as she attempted to do her best to make him awestruck, but the funny part of the matter was—she didn’t have to try very hard in order to do that. She was a beacon for someone like him, an enigma that he sought to stay near, because of how she was. The girl whom held the name of light, had very much so, become that for that bleak shadow. Would she ever know it? He wasn’t sure. She held such sorrow. She held such doubt, pain, and he knew it was deep—like a disease that resided within her chest.

However, today was meant to be a special day for the young lady that held such weight over him, today was supposed to be something to be looked upon fondly. Sorrow and pain, fear, all of that should not exist upon this day. He knew little of the ways of the heart, he wouldn’t pretend to, but he knew what he could do to make today special for her. She tried so hard to shut out everyone, she was scared, and he knew the feeling too well. Finally, he would share with her, what he shared with no one. His true intentions, his true thoughts, and feelings. He would speak with her freely, he would let those walls down, and despite everything within screaming at him—he wanted her to know that he cared about her. Specifically, her. Most of the time, he could only spout bitter words, and most of the time he didn’t have an ounce within him to care; however she had changed him for the better. His entire reason for fighting had come within this woman, she didn’t know how much hold she had over him, and she didn’t realize how extraordinary she really was. There was no one else that could have such a hold, there was no one whom made him nearly as happy, and even though he cringed at his own feelings—he embraced them as well.

A sickness he greatly involved in his life, it pushed him to better himself, and it pushed him to begin life anew. Even though many still shuddered at his presence, he didn’t allow them to think he’d gone soft, he still ruled with an iron fist but his coworkers were now family, that held the power to keep his wrath exposed. The Organization became something that would fight for the better of the worlds around them, for reality would become distorted without the light. Balance was important and there were times he still questioned—what side was Xigbar really on? They didn’t talk as much as they used to, he kept tracking Iziryia, a secret that didn’t settle well with the Lord of Nothing but it wasn’t his business either.

That wasn’t what his focus should be on anyway. For now, he should work to make sure his Queen was rightly taken care of, and so it had come to pass as he stared upon the girl whom was curled in the sheets that he threw afterthoughts to the wind and approached her. She wasn’t asleep, merely laying there, listening to the sounds of night. He chuckled and leaned to press his forehead against hers, earning a squeal as she had been deep lost to her own thoughts, as his fingerless gloves came up to stroke her cheek. He was dressed in more casual clothing today, black leather pants that held chains on the pockets, wrapped around his firm waist, a studded belt, and a tight fitting shirt that clung to his chest. The gloves were also leather, mimicking his original, but without the tips. He was a sight to behold that was for sure, but the most distracting thing, was probably the intense way he stared at the little woman whom gazed back at him.

“We’re going on our first date…you need to get up and get ready, Lucia.” He kissed her forehead, it was a gentle gesture, and had turned off to go into their bathroom where he set about his next grand project. He left her to her own devices, to get up and get moving, to do what he had asked of her. All the while however, he kept a secretive smile on his lips, almost as if he had some surprise planned for later.

Well, maybe he did.

#;;wcnderxlcst #;;ic #;;threads #;;valentine's day #;;M: Lord of Nothing #{ Hope you enjoy }#{ Love you dear <3 }

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mamabearcat · 6 years

Text

The Importance of Ramen Ch.8

I think I lied when I said this was only gonna be ten chapters long. I just love writing them so much, I don’t want to let them go. Hope you enjoy this chapter, and if you need to get back to earlier chapters, they’re all here on my Master List, and also here on fanfiction.net where I go by Dasiy73.

Mama had hardly sat down on her own chair in the waiting room when Kagome’s name was called by an orderly approaching them with a wheelchair.

“Your chariot awaits, Miss”, he smiled at Kagome. Inuyasha held her to him a bit tighter, his chin jutting out defiantly. He felt unsure of himself without the Tessaiga, and the smell of this place, illness and blood laced with pain and fear, made him want to run out the door and take Kagome with him. He took a deep breath, trying to keep a tight rein on his emotions. He figured they might not like swords in hospitals, but they’d like a rampaging red eyed demon even less.

“Kagome don’t need a chariot”, he said gruffly. “I can carry her wherever she needs to go.”

“I’m afraid it’s hospital policy sir.”

“Inuyasha dear, I know you’re worried, I am too, but everyone here just wants to help Kagome. It’s just the way things are done. I’m sure we can come with her, isn’t that right?”

The orderly nodded cheerfully. Rumbling his annoyance under his breath, Inuyasha carefully placed Kagome into the seat with wheels, thinking how ridiculous it was when she would probably be much more comfortable in his arms. He bit back an impulse to growl and pick her up again when she winced as her swollen thigh touched the cold hard metal of the arm rest.

“Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?” asked the cheerful orderly, and they were buzzed through a glass sliding door to the examination cubicles on the other side. The orderly led them to a curtained cubicle with an empty bed, and when he moved to assist Kagome out of the wheelchair, Inuyasha swooped forwards and picked her up himself with a defiant glint in his eye. An embarrassed Kagome swatted him on the shoulder with her good arm, and the smiling orderly disappeared with the wheel chair. An overly cheerful nurse appeared, asking Kagome questions and taking her temperature and measuring her heart rate. Then they were told to wait for the doctor.

Inuyasha snorted, pacing around the bed in an irritated fashion. “This place is weird. Why do they have all these different people when one person would be enough? If I’d taken you straight to Kaede’s there wouldn’t have been half this fuss.”

Mama turned a serious face towards Inuyasha. “I am very glad that you brought her back here. If left untreated, an infection like this can spread across the body and into the bloodstream; it is possible to die from something like this.”

Inuyasha stopped his pacing, his ears drooping under the cap. “Yeah, that’s what Sango said”, he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “She said she’d seen people die from it and wanted me to bring her straight back. Miroku insisted too.”

“Then they have my thanks. Should you go back through the well once we get home and let them know that you and Kagome arrived safely?”

“Nah, they probably won’t be there yet. Kirara needs to take breaks when she’s carrying more than one person, and I’m not sure if they’d go over Mount Mitsumine like I did.”

Inuyasha had rarely ever seen Mama surprised. Even the first time he had met her, when he’d burst into Kagome’s home, demanding she come straight back through the well, she hadn’t screamed about a demon in her house, but had immediately rubbed his fuzzy ears instead. He had to admit, that had thrown him a bit. But now, after he mentioned Mount Mitsumine, her jaw had dropped open, eyes wide in a silent expression of surprise.

“But… that’s over one hundred kilometres away! You were carrying her on your back! Didn’t you say you left this morning?”

Misunderstanding the reason for her surprise, Inuyasha apologised. “I’m sorry I didn’t get Kagome here faster. I just didn’t want to jostle her by going at my top speed. I didn’t want her leg hurt any worse than it already was.”

He was totally unprepared for the hug that Mama suddenly launched at him, her arms clasped tight across his back. “Thank you”, she whispered.

Even though Kagome still felt woozy and ill, she couldn’t help but giggle a little at the blush that escalated in Inuyasha’s cheeks.

“It’s no big deal”, Inuyasha blustered. Both of them were smiling at him, and he felt an unaccountable desire to run away. Fighting the impulse, he plonked himself down on one of the hard plastic seats near Kagome’s bed, jamming his hands into his sleeves and tapping his foot impatiently on the cold linoleum floor. “How long have we gotta wait for this healer anyway?”

Mama sighed, sadly well acquainted with how modern hospitals worked after her husband’s accident. “As long as it takes Inuyasha, as long as it takes.”

xXxXxXx

Inuyasha growled. The doctor had finally come, and he had been asked to wait outside the curtained cubicle. He could hear Kagome’s swallowed whimpers and smell the scent of infection as the doctor removed the bandage on her leg. He hated this place. He hated the way it smelt. He hated that everything was shiny. He hated that Kagome looked so small in the bed on wheels, face so pale her features almost disappeared into the starched white pillowcase, apart from the contrast of her dark eyes and blue-black curls. He hated that he felt so powerless. And he hated that Mama seemed to be wilting; her usual cheerful demeanour had been replaced with sadness, covered badly by a pasted-on smile.

He heard a high-pitched yelp come from behind the curtain. The vibrating rumble in his chest increased. That was it, he didn’t care that Kagome and Mama had asked him to behave; Kagome needed him and there was no way he was staying out here any longer. He thrust his way belligerently through the curtain, just in time to see the doctor patting Kagome on the shoulder reassuringly.

“I’m sorry if that hurt Miss Higurashi, but I needed to examine your injury carefully to decide if we needed to debride the infected tissue in the wound.” She removed her stained latex gloves, tossing them into a nearby bin. “You’re lucky. I think an intensive course of intravenous antibiotics should do the trick; you’ll probably be on your way home in three days.”

“Three days! I can’t stay here for three days!” Kagome bit her lip, her eyes welling up.

The doctor smiled at her. “Just think of it as a holiday from school. I’m sure your teachers won’t hold it against you when they’re informed of the seriousness of your injury. I’m happy to write a medical certificate excusing you from school for the next week.”

“At least you’ll be home in time for Obon Kagome”, said Mama softly.

Kagome turned her tear-filled eyes towards Inuyasha. What would he think? Here she was, slowing them down again. She hoped he wouldn’t be too angry. The gentle look in his amber eyes surprised her.

“Hey, Kagome, don’t worry. Three days is nothin’ right? I’ll let our friends know you’re okay, and we’ll all be there to help you when we leave to… um, study. Yeah.”

Kagome pouted, bottom lip trembling slightly. “I suppose I’ve got no choice, huh. Guess I’d better make the best of it.” She managed a small smile. “At least I’ll get breakfast in bed, right?”

“That’s my girl”, smiled Inuyasha toothily, then felt the heat rising in his cheeks as soon as the words left his mouth, watching a matching blush struggling to rise in Kagome’s pale cheeks. He failed to see the small smile on Mama’s face, or the wink sent his way by the Doctor.

“Well, I’ll go organise your admittance Miss Higurashi; someone will be along to take you to your room shortly; the pain medication I injected should be taking effect by now.” The doctor left them behind in the small curtained cubicle, bustling over to the patient admin desk in an efficient manner.

“Maybe you should go back to Kaede’s Inuyasha”, said Kagome despondently. “It’s going to be very boring for you here.

“Nuh uh”, grinned Inuyasha. “I’m stayin’ around to make sure you do what you’re told. You might be good at dishin’ medicine out, but don’t seem to be too good at takin’ it.” He looked towards Mama as an afterthought. “That’s okay ain’t it?”

Mama smiled at him. “Souta will be delighted. And I’m sure I can find jobs for you to help with when you’re not visiting Kagome. Grandpa was talking about dusting in the storage shed again.”

Inuyasha whined a little, then sighed. “Alright. But tell ‘im that he’s not allowed to try an’ purify me with those weak ass ofudas of his. It’s annoying.”

Mama grinned. “I promise that he’ll behave. He does actually like you, you know.”

Inuyasha snorted derisively. “Could a fooled me.” He glanced at Kagome, who was laying back against the pillow, her head drooping. “You ‘kay ‘Gome?”

Kagome yawned. “Sleepy”, she muttered blearily. “Prob’ly the medicine…” Her eyes fluttered closed.

The orderly arrived, ready to transfer Kagome to the ward. Mama and Inuyasha followed behind as the bed was wheeled down the maze of corridors to the room where Kagome would spend the next three days.

xXxXxXx

Inuyasha sneezed. The dust in the storage room was getting up his nose and into his eyes, but he only had two more boxes to carry back before he was released from duty. It was nearly visiting hours at the hospital, and he hoped that Kagome would be feeling better today. He grimaced. Yesterday had not been a fun visit. The doctor had warned them that Kagome would probably seem worse for a day while her body continued to fight the infection until the antibiotics gradually took effect, and he and Mama had sat silently next to her bed after Grandpa and Souta left, while she slipped in and out of a doze.

After they’d left the hospital and gone back to the shrine, he’d slipped down the well and gone to Kaede’s to leave a message for the others. Kaede was most interested to hear how they were treating Kagome, but Inuyasha struggled to describe it, finally concluding exasperatedly that Kaede would just have to get Kagome to explain when she returned.

He’d spent a grumpy evening back at the shrine, teasing Buyo the cat, and sitting morosely in the Goshinbuko after dinner. When everyone was asleep, he’d let himself into Kagome’s bedroom window, but her usually comforting scent didn’t make him feel any better, and he dozed fitfully, sitting up against her bedroom wall with the Tessaiga balanced on his shoulder.

Breakfast this morning had cheered him up a little. Bacon always made him feel cheerful. He’d wondered aloud if bacon flavoured ramen was a possibility and was cheered even more when Mama said that she could make that happen for him, if he wanted.

Souta had run off to school, and Inuyasha was stuck with Grandpa Higurashi while Mama tidied up indoors. Helping the old man with his ‘treasures’ was annoying, but at least he didn’t try to throw any ofudas at him this time. Irritating old bastard. He straightened up after carrying the last box into the storeroom, while Kagome’s grandfather fluttered around in the background, prattling on about how valuable his crap was, and how he was going to meet up with possible collectors at Obon in a few days. Keh! At least he was done now. He stomped back over to the house, to see when they could leave to go see Kagome.

After Inuyasha washed most of the dust off, they drove the short way to the hospital. Souta had decided that the novelty of visiting his sister in hospital had worn off, especially when she wasn’t doing anything exciting, so had opted to go straight to a friend’s house after school. Grandpa was hosting visitors to the shrine that afternoon and said he might visit Kagome tomorrow. So it was just the two of them making their way through the maze of corridors, a baseball cap perched on top of Inuyasha’s fuzzy ears.

When they first arrived, Kagome didn’t seem to have changed much. She was still asleep, although Inuyasha was happy that the smell of infection coming from the bandaged leg hidden under the white sheets was much harder to detect. She had been changed into a pale blue hospital gown and smelt like soap, so she must have washed. Her arm was still attached to the beepy machine that Kagome’s mother had called a ‘drip’; she had explained yesterday that this type of medicine worked better if it went straight into Kagome’s blood, rather than her stomach. Whatever. As long as it made Kagome better, he didn’t care how they did it. Ignoring Mama’s pointed look, he took off the annoying baseball cap and scratched. Stupid thing always made his ears feel sweaty.

When Mama had left to go to the bathroom, he took a chance to hold Kagome’s hand for a moment. Trying to sleep last night in Kagome’s bedroom, being constantly exposed to her lingering fragrance but not being able to touch her or see her had made him feel lonely, even more lonely than when he was five hundred years away.

He gently ran the pads of his fingers over the roughened callouses on the inside of her hand, built up over time from using her bow. Her hands were so much paler than his, her tapered fingers more delicate. His fingers traced the lines on her palm, softly pressing against the tender flesh on the heel of her hand; he drew circles on the blue lines patterning her wrist, feeling the pulse of her heart against his fingertips. He wove their fingers together, smiling a little at how their hands fit, at how comfortable and right it felt.

“So, Inuyasha, how long have you been in love with my daughter?”

Inuyasha froze, his eyes still directed to his and Kagome’s clasped hands. He had been so engrossed that he did not hear or see Mama return to her seat on the other side of Kagome. Fuck! He didn’t know what to do. What was he meant to say? ‘Maybe, probably, yes, I think so, please don’t hate me’ didn’t seem right, and probably wouldn’t be taken very well. What if he was forbidden to see Kagome again? He knew he could easily overpower anyone and take her back to his time, but would Kagome choose him over her family? He didn’t want to make her choose.

“Inuyasha?”

Taking a deep breath, still holding Kagome’s hand to boost his courage, he looked up. Mama was smiling at him, her eyes warm. A small whine of relief escaped him before he could hold it back.

“It’s very plain to me how much you care for my daughter, and that she cares very much for you in return”, said Mama gently. “I truly believe that my daughter’s destiny is intertwined with yours. Do you two have any plans for a future together, after your quest is completed?”

Inuyasha made a small sound, somewhere between a whine and a growl. Dammit, why was he the one getting asked to answer these questions that he’d barely even dared to think about, especially with Kikyo still out there somewhere, while his wench slumbered away oblivious between them.

“We haven’t… that is… I want to…”, he coughed, and then sighed. “It’s… complicated.”

“Love is usually a lot less complicated than people think”, Mama smiled, a little sadly. “I’m sorry if my question made you feel uncomfortable Inuyasha. I’m not exactly feeling like myself at the moment. I haven’t been back to this hospital since my husband died, and being here, and worrying about Kagome has rattled me a little.”

She turned her head and looked out the window, directing her gaze towards the heat haze reflecting off the tall buildings in the distance, her hands twisting in her lap. Even though she was older, and her hair was shorter, her distressed expression and clenched hands reminded Inuyasha so much of Kagome when she was sad that he had to say something. Knowing him it would probably be the wrong thing, but he would try.

“I’m not very good at talking about feelings and crap like that”, began Inuyasha hesitantly, “but Kagome said once that I was a good listener when I wanted to be. I’ve got the ears for it, you see.” He waggled them a little bit for Mama’s benefit, guessing from the way that she’d grabbed them when they first met that she liked them almost as much as Kagome did.

Mama chuckled, wiping away the single tear that had escaped and slid down her cheek. “That you do, Inuyasha. Tell me, has Kagome ever told you much about her father?”

“Not very much. I think she was worried she’d make me feel bad, because I never met my father; he died before I was born.”

Mama smiled sadly at him. “I see.” She looked down at the golden ring on her left hand. “I first met Kagome’s father through some other friends, at Obon. We all danced together; it was so much fun. He bought me shaved ice, and he looked so handsome in his indigo yukata. By the end of the evening, I was a little in love with him already. It was a shame I was already going out with someone else at the time.”

“Going out?”, questioned Inuyasha.

“Hmm, would the phrase ‘courting’ make more sense to you?” When Inuyasha nodded, she continued.

“Yes, I was being courted by someone else, a much older man. At first, I thought I was very much in love with him; I was so grateful that he’d noticed me in the first place, that I didn’t pay much attention to the way he treated me. He told me I was pretty, but he never wanted to know what I thought, or how I felt; he expected me to change and fit in with what he wanted and needed.” She sighed, twisting the ring on her finger.

“Then the older man moved away for work; we were still courting, but I didn’t see him as often, and I spent more time with my other friends, including Kagome’s father, Toshinori.”

She smiled at Inuyasha. “Toshi was studying to be a kannushi, ready to take over the Higurashi Shrine from his father. He embraced life, and always looked for the best in people. He valued my opinions and feelings, did his best to make me laugh, and even though we argued sometimes, usually over very stupid things, when I was with him, I felt more alive and… more myself, than I did with anyone else. It was then that I realised that I could never spend my life with someone who didn’t want me as I truly was.”

Mama chuckled. “I met with the other man and told him that I had decided I didn’t want to see him anymore. My mother was furious; it was a very good match, according to her, he was quite wealthy. But I had made up my mind. Two months later, I was married to Kagome’s father.”

She grinned at Inuyasha. “It turned out, we’d both been hiding our feelings of love. I hid them because I felt a weird sense of loyalty to the first man who had asked me out – it didn’t seem fair to abandon him when he wasn’t there to defend himself, even though I knew I loved Kagome’s father. Toshinori had kept quiet about his feelings for me because he didn’t want to put me in the awkward position of having to choose between us. He respected my feelings and had decided he would never tell me how much he loved me.”

Mama looked down at the golden ring again. “I was so angry with him when I found out. We had a huge argument under the Goshinboku, and then he asked me to marry him. Once we both knew how the other felt, there seemed to be very little point in waiting.”

She sighed again, twisting the ring on her finger. “We had ten wonderful years together as husband and wife before he was killed. Kagome was nearly eight years old when he died; I was pregnant with Souta, so like you, he never got to meet his father. I still miss him, every day.”

Inuyasha watched the tears gathering on her dark eyelashes, dripping down onto the fingers that twisted the golden ring. “Was… was it worth it?”, he asked softly.

Mama looked up into the anxious golden eyes of the half-demon sitting across from her, still holding tightly to her daughter’s hand. Her heart clenched at the expressions of fear and hope warring in his expression, and she was reminded that even though Kagome had told him he had lived much longer than any human, he was comparatively still a young man around Kagome’s age, who had not had the love and support of a family like her daughter had. She smiled gently.

“Was falling in love worth it? Yes, Inuyasha. If I could go back in time, knowing that I would only have ten years with Kagome’s father and of the heartbreak there was to come, I would still choose to be with him. I would still love him. I always will.” Her eyes shifted from Inuyasha’s to the pale face of her daughter, still sleeping. “Love is always worth it, in the end.”

Suddenly Kagome snorted loudly in her sleep, causing Mama Higurashi to giggle through her tears, and Inuyasha to let out a bark of laughter. The sudden noise woke Kagome up.

“Huh, what’d I miss?”, she asked blinking her eyes.

Still giggling slightly, Mama smiled at her. “Nothing dear. Inuyasha and I were just chatting, getting to know each other better.”

“Okay.” Kagome went to rub her eyes with both hands, then realised that one was clasped within Inuyasha’s. She blushed, and although she looked away from him towards her mother, she squeezed his hand a little and rubbed her thumb lightly across his. “Have you guys been here long?”

“Actually, it’s time for me to go”, said Mama, kissing her daughter on her cheek. “Your dinner should be here any moment, and I need to go pick up Souta from his friend’s house. Inuyasha, you can make your own way back to the shrine, can’t you?” She pointed to the baseball cap sitting on the bed in front of him. “Just don’t forget to wear that.”

Inuyasha rolled his eyes. “Fine”, he sighed, “I’ll wear it.”

Mama tweaked one of his ears playfully as she walked past. “Don’t be late for dinner, Inuyasha. I’m cooking steak.” She blew a kiss to Kagome as she walked out the door.

“Ugh, I wish she hadn’t mentioned dinner”, sighed Kagome, rubbing her stomach fretfully. “The food here is nowhere as good as Mama’s cooking.”

“Do you think they’ll let you come home tomorrow?” asked Inuyasha.

“Why, do you miss me that much?”, teased Kagome, playfully pulling on one the silver locks of his hair with her other hand. “If you’re bored, you can go back and annoy the others, I’m sure they’d be back to Kaede’s by now.”

“It’s not the same without you there”, said Inuyasha softly. He coughed, clearing his throat, sitting up straighter in his chair. “Kagome, can you explain to me what obon is? Your grandfather mentioned it this morning, and your mother did today too.”

Kagome looked at him with a puzzled expression. “Um, sure. It was originally a Buddhist festival, but everyone celebrates it now. It’s all about going back home to your family; you visit and clean your ancestors’ graves. You wear a summer yukata, and there’s always dancing at night, and carnival rides and games and lots of food. It’s actually lots of fun.”

Inuyasha looked down at their clasped hands. “Kagome, if you’re feeling better…” He coughed and then started again. “Would you… if you’re feeling well enough that is, would you like to go to the festival with me?” Inuyasha said the last part of the sentence so quickly that it took Kagome a few moments to work out what he had said.

“You’d like to take me to the festival?”, Kagome asked, wanting to make sure she’d heard correctly.

“Forget it, it was a stupid idea”. He went to pull his hand out of Kagome’s but was stopped by her firm grip.

“I would very much like to go to Obon with you Inuyasha. I will make sure I’m feeling well enough to go, because I really, really want to.”

“You’ll go with me?”

“Yes, I’ll go with you”, she smiled.

Inuyasha smiled back at her. His heart was still beating too fast. He couldn’t believe she’d said yes. Crap, she’d said yes! He didn’t know the first thing about what people did at this thing. He was gonna embarrass her. What should he do now? He couldn’t ask Sango or Miroku, because he was pretty sure they didn’t have this festival in the past. And there was dancing. He’d never danced at a festival before. What if he was bad at it? What if he made a fool of himself in front of Kagome? Dammit. Wait, Mama had mentioned the dancing, so she should know how to do it right?

Kagome was still smiling at him, when he leaned forward and placed a lightning fast kiss on her cheek. “Gotta go Kagome, see you tomorrow!” He snatched up the hat from the bed and launched himself out the door before Kagome could say a word.

xXxXxXx

Mama was wiping her hands on her apron after checking the rice when Inuyasha barrelled into the kitchen, knocking over a chair.

“Wow Inuyasha”, Mama chuckled, “I know you liked the steak last time we had it, but this is… what’s wrong?” She took in the stricken look on his face, and his slumped posture as he picked up the chair and plonked himself down in it.

“I asked Kagome to the Obon Festival”, Inuyasha whispered, staring wide-eyed at her.

“Have you ever asked a girl to a festival before Inuyasha?” He shook his head vehemently. “Is this something you would like my help with?” He nodded frantically. “Okay, don’t worry, this isn’t a problem dear. I’m sure it will all turn out just fine.” He nearly bowled her over with a sudden hug, then let her go just as suddenly. She took in his suddenly puzzled expression. “Inuyasha?”

“I don’t know what to call you”, he said quietly, a blush suddenly rising to his cheeks.

She giggled, then seeing his expression, hid her smile behind her hand. “Well, what do you call me in your head when you think of me?”

Inuyasha looked down at the table. “When I first met you, it was just, Kagome’s mother. Then after a while, it was Mama Higurashi. But these last few days, in my head I’ve been calling you”, he looked up into her face anxiously, “just… Mama”.

Mama’s eyes filled with sudden tears. “Inuyasha, I don’t have a problem with you calling me Mama at all.”

#inuyasha fanfiction #The Importance of Ramen #inuyasha x kagome

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adamarinayu · 6 years

Text

Okay so I don’t want to get too far into certain things right now and while this chapter introduces Webby, Bentina and the enemies it’s not gonna get too far into the enemies because I’m wanting to focus on other aspects of the story, and not just a “let’s fight evil aliens” aspect.

“Who’s there?” Donald demanded, eyes scanning around the metallic hallway. “Show yourself!”

“Sorry, I forgot you don’t know me yet.”

Right in front of Donald a pale, translucent green projection lit up. Another duck stood in front of him- only a hologram, Donald knew- wearing the loose, flowing robe-like attire Donald recognized as belonging to the Ancients’ civilization.

Donald let out a startled yelp and stumbled backwards- a hologram duck was not what he was expecting. “Who are you?” he demanded. “And how can you speak English?” he added as an afterthought- ten thousand years ago, he knew the Ancients didn’t speak English.

His uncle and cousin knew Ancient, after all.

“I’m called Uno,” the duck introduced, crossing its- his?- arms and watching Donald with clear amusement. “But that’s who I am. Your real question is what I am, and put simply, what I am is Atlantis itself. Or rather, myself, however you prefer to view it.”

Donald began to wonder then if he had walked into a part of Atlantis that had no oxygen and if he was going crazy.

“How do you know me?” Donald asked warily, watching the hologram. The hologram- Uno?- suddenly shifted, expression turning serious.

“That doesn’t matter. Donald, you have to get your expedition to stop exploring right now.”

“What-?”

“When you came through the gate, the city started coming to life- the lights are turning on, the life support system’s gone into maximum capacity, the water filtration system’s started up again, one of your team has found the hologram room, your scientists are turning the computers on and all of this is taking much-needed energy away from the shield holding back the ocean.”

“Holding back the ocean?” Donald repeated numbly- what was happening?

Uno raised a brow and stepped closer to Donald, as if actually observing him. “You haven’t noticed?” he asked, seemingly surprised. “The entire city is on the ocean floor. The shield is just a thin layer now, and it’s already failed in more than a few ‘unimportant’ sections of the city even before your expedition came through. At the rate the energy systems are coming back online, there’ll be only seventeen minutes and twenty-three seconds until the shield collapses and the entire city is destroyed by the pressure of the ocean.”

Donald’s head was reeling- was the hologram telling him they were in danger? Of course they were in danger, they were in another galaxy-

Wait.

“Didn’t you just say you are the city?” Donald asked.

“That’s the part you’re focusing on?”

“If something’s going on, can’t you stop it?”

Uno didn’t look too impressed. “I can’t just make more energy, you know, and I’m already redirecting as much of it as I can. I try and keep doors closed but your scientists are overriding my systems and getting through anyway, and with so many life forms inside I can’t just deactivate the life support system.”

Oh. Yeah, that made sense.

Wait.

“Ocean floor?”

“Yes.”

Oh.

“Donald!” another voice echoed around them, and with a brief look of panic Uno disappeared. Almost as soon as he was gone, Fenton rounded the corner excitedly. “There you are! Come here! Dr. Gearloose found something-”

“Whatever it is, tell him to stop,” Donald said, suddenly snapping into reality. If there was any validity whatsoever to... “Uno’s” claims then whatever Gyro wanted him to look at was a very, very bad idea.

He quickly began moving back towards the Gateroom, grabbing Fenton’s arm and pulling him along. “Check the systems, look for any indication of power spikes, power drops, any anomalies,” he rattled off the instructions, depositing the scientist in front of his laptop on the second floor before clicking his communicator on. “Scrooge!”

A moment passed before he heard an answer, the Scot sounding irritated as he asked, “What?”

“Call everyone back to the Gateroom,” Donald demanded.

“What in blazes-”

“Just trust me,” Donald interrupted, now it was his turn to be irritated.

“Power is spiking throughout the city,” Fenton mumbled, scrolling through his information. “And crashing... power being redirected to the central tower- failure out on the north pier, shield collapse...” He quickly hit his own communicator. “Dr. Gearloose, come to the control room please- it’s important, I swear!”

It was a buzz of activity after that. They found the lost city of the Ancients, and they were already losing it.

At least Donald knew he wasn’t going crazy.

It was night on the planet they randomly selected for evacuation. Donald was there with other military personnel, speaking to the natives.

He felt afraid- his boys were back on Atlantis while he himself was sent to ask these strangers for asylum. The village was small, settled right outside the wall of the ruins of an Ancient city, and had a small smattering of hut clusters and some tents. At the edge of the village was what looked like a very small cemetery.

They were a kind people, he couldn’t help but think as he and an agent (the only other person besides Donald who treated them like normal people, it seemed) were invited to join a family for tea. They were mostly young, too- he saw only a handful of people who seemed to be in their elder years, their host one of them. The families weren’t large, either; their host seemed to live with a child roughly Donald’s nephews’ ages.

“Bentina Beakley,” the older woman introduced rather stoically, nodding politely at Donald and Mary Ann. “And this is my granddaughter, Webby.”

“Hi! I’m Webby,” the little girl greeted, dressed in a loose-fitted violet gown that seemed common among the children. “It’s short for Webbigail.”

Donald missed his boys already. He couldn’t help but think they’d like Webby.

“Your leader doesn’t respect us,” Bentina noted, sipping a drink she called tea and, Donald supposed, technically could be called tea.

“He doesn’t respect anyone,” Mary Ann sighed, shaking her head.

“Especially me,” Donald noted dryly. “I’m sorry for how he’s acting. It’s kind of you to actually consider taking our people in.”

Webby looked up from her food. “Well, yeah!” she laughed a bit. “Why wouldn’t we? People need to stick together, what with the Evronians and everything.”

“Ev... Evronians?” Donald repeated, confused. Both grandmother and granddaughter paused, looking at him in surprise. “What.. are Evronians?”

Bentina quietly set her cup down, somehow even more serious than she had been before. “If,” she started, looking between Donald and Mary Ann, “your world has remained untouched by the Evronians, you should go back.”

“We can’t,” Mary Ann admitted, frowning. “Our planet’s too far away and we don’t have the energy required to connect the gates over that distance.”

“What are Evronians?” Donald repeated. It was Webby who answered.

“Monsters.”

#DuckTales 2017 AU #Stargate: DuckTales #Hey look Uno is Atlantis ofcourseheis #Webby and Bentina join the show #Donald meeting them kinda follows the episode #But it won't last too long bc the next part will diverge

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unstable-reality · 6 years

Text

Static in the Signal: Chapter 4

SO, this chapter took forever, and I’m sorry! It was surprisingly hard to write, despite the fact that it contains the very first scene I envisioned when I started planning this fic. I wrote a version of it over a year ago! And then another. And then another. And this is kind of a combination of all of those versions.

Anyway. Really hoping to get the ball rolling on this and get updates out faster. Fingers crossed!!!

[AO3]

Draven’s office was a small, high-ceilinged square that lay down a blunted corridor, past one end of CIC. It was sparse, functional. The walls were rough and snow-touched. The overhead light was fickle, like so many other lights, in so many other parts of base. He could have gotten something better, if he’d wanted to; some of the other members of High Command certainly had. But that wasn’t who he was.

Jyn stood at ease, in front of his desk. She felt strange. She didn’t particularly like him, and she knew that he didn’t particularly like her, but he’d seen that she could be useful and get a job done, and so he was fair toward her. That was fine. It wasn’t ideal -- irritating, if she were being honest -- but it was fine. Decent, even, as far as working conditions went. Still, the skin along her temples ran tight. He was holding a datachip. It contained the anomaly she’d found. She hadn’t had a choice; she couldn’t very well not report it, not without potentially arousing suspicion. But handing it over… If he was part of the enemy, then she’d just given them a means to cover their tracks.

Dangerous path to venture down, that. It was Saw-think -- the paranoia that had frightened her more and more as she’d neared her end with him, that had blossomed in full by the time they’d reunited on Jedha; that had found its own twisted voice in the version of her that had wandered, aimless, homeless, and hopeless. But how could she not go down it? It had been a warning, when Cassian had mentioned Draven last night. Different context, sure, but the overall implication was pretty clear.

She wondered how he managed this, how he handled the duality of thought. She wondered what he was doing right now. She was mad at him; she wanted to see him. She needed to talk to him about this, about what was happening, about what she’d found, about what she’d had to do with it. She needed to confront him. He shouldn’t have shielded her like that. He shouldn’t have acted like her CO. How could he not act like her CO when, at the time, he had technically been her CO? What the hell had she expected him to do? Treat her differently just because they were together? What did that even mean, really? Force, she was all screwed up.

A thought occurred to her. It made her feel queasy. She pushed it aside.

“What’s the duration?”

“0.19 seconds,” Jyn said. Then, almost as an afterthought: “sir.”

He sighed, planted an elbow on the desk, and leaned into his hand. Pressed his forefinger to the side of his nose, curled the rest of his fist around his chin. The light dimmed, for a long spell, and when it came back up, it glinted off the chip. “I doubt we’ll get much from it,” he said, “but I’ll have A9G-57 analyze it.”

Well, that was something. Maybe.

Draven rubbed the chip with his thumb. “During the breach...” He tapped his nose, once, twice. “Toward the end of the outage?”

“Yes. Probably wouldn’t have picked it up, otherwise.”

“Mm.” He fell silent for a moment. Then, he nodded, and let his hand drop, and put the chip down. “Regardless what we’re able to make of the transmission itself, it’s good to have caught it. Well done.” It almost sounded like he meant it. Not that she cared.

He bent forward, over his desk and his datapad and a small stack of flimsi. She watched him, and waited. There was a way, if they really needed to, to get the message back. She couldn’t be the one to get it; that’d raise an army of red flags. And it might not even matter, anyway. To a certain extent, it was enough to know simply that it existed. But Cassian needed every scrap of information she could get for him (she’d keep doing it, she needed to, she had to be useful, she could handle herself and he shouldn’t have put himself in harm’s way), and beyond that, the state of the message after it was passed to the droid would be telling. She hoped she’d be able to tell that it had been altered.

She caught herself, swallowed. Here she was, already assuming it would be altered. Dangerous mindset, easy to slip into.

Draven was still hunched over when he spoke again. He was writing. He did not look at her. “It’s my understanding that you were at the South Passage this morning.”

The shift was jarring. She drew in a sharp breath. Heat spread through her chest and crept up her neck. A prickle of anxiety, drifting in the center of a surge of anger. Are you kidding me. It was a neutral statement, dropped all on its own. No preamble, no further explanation, nothing, and yet she knew. She knew exactly what he meant. And for all that she’d expected it -- for all that the thought of it had brought her up short at the edge of Cassian’s quarters -- it still struck hard enough that she struggled to keep her features neutral. It was one thing for a peer like Voya to give them looks, and another altogether for General kriffing Draven to point it out.

She gritted her teeth. “I was.”

“You spend a lot of time in that part of base.”

Her anger swelled, straightening her already rigid back, and her thoughts turned over. People talked, of course, and it was part of his job to know everything he reasonably could about what went on on base, so it didn’t necessarily mean that she was being watched. But, oh, it sure sounded a hell of a lot like she was being watched. Combine that with the assignment he’d given Cassian, and… What else did he know? What else had his people seen her doing? Several caustic retorts ran through her head. She clenched her jaw and didn’t say them.

Took a lot of effort.

At length, he stopped writing. He looked back up at her and interlaced his fingers, elbows at angles, forearms pressed against the desk. “It’s none of my business who you see when you’re off-duty, Erso.”

No shit.

“But I’d advise you to exercise caution.”

In an instant, the heat dissipated. It sped off down her spine. She felt her expression change, despite her best efforts; felt her forehead crease. Felt a click in the back of her head. Her eyes slid to the datachip, then snapped back to him. She watched his gaze shift upwards, to one corner, and then to the other. They made eye contact. He held it. The air thickened. The light spat out an electric buzz.

Slowly, she nodded.

He looked at her for a moment longer before unclasping his hands and dipping his head, returning his attention to his desk. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention.” Writing, again. Detached. “You’re dismissed.”

For a handful of seconds, she hesitated. That wasn’t at all what she’d expected. Her legs were heavy. But she moved them, forcing herself to turn to the door.

She didn’t bother to salute. He wouldn’t see it, anyway.

...the hell?

The door swished shut behind her. She was dazed. She had trouble making sense of what had just happened, trouble figuring out how to feel. She already had enough crap to work through. She shook her head, lifted her wrist. Twenty minutes until her patrol shift started. Enough time to log out of her Comms station and beat feet to the hangar. She walked, fast. A rebel in the passage scoffed and stepped out of her way.

Her breaths came slow and deliberate. They might be able to rule him out. That was good, wasn’t it? It would be good for Cassian; it would help him, in more ways than one. But Draven had given her another warning on top of the one she’d already gotten, and she really didn’t like the thrust of it.

If he was clean, then he was on Cassian’s side, not hers. She didn’t matter, except as a possible obstacle. It was reassuring and familiar (when had she ever mattered? Being her father’s daughter didn’t count, because that wasn’t about her). It was also a stone in her gut.

She squinted into the dark of Communications. The others there weren’t looking at her. Discretion, and all that. Maybe someone would ask her later, in the passages or in the mess, if they were that sort, and if they got up the nerve. A couple of them were okay with her, had been among those who’d given her a smile and a clap on the back in the days after Scarif. Sometimes, they even said hello. She’d have to think of something to tell them.

Did Draven suspect someone in particular? Was it general? Knots, tight and pulling tighter. He wasn’t the only one watching. Over the years, her restlessness had gotten her into a jam or two, to put it mildly. But she wasn’t an idiot. She wouldn’t have been able to survive for so long if she was. She always checked and double-checked and minimized, when possible. But apparently, in this case, it wasn’t enough.

If I can’t do it…

That queasy feeling again. She had to talk to Cassian. She was terrified of talking to Cassian, because it was seeming more and more like she’d have to back off. The worst of it was that it wouldn’t even have to be a practical consideration. He’d shown that earlier. He could decide it was too risky because he didn’t want her to be at risk, and he could ask her to lay low almost as a favor, and that wouldn’t be the same, but it would have the same effect. Sure, they’d still see each other, but it would be the start. She knew how these things went.

In the end, either way, she’d wind up alone again.

The passages were cramped from the shift change, and she drew in on herself and flattened her profile, navigating the bodies with long-practiced ease. She buzzed, like she’d chugged a gallon of caf, with the tense kind of energy that set most people to pacing and drove her to get punched or shot at or locked up. It was the strange, delicate irony of her life, that she was both smart enough to survive and also, seemingly, determined to find a way to die. And that was supposed to be the point of all of this. Finding something between the two extremes. Living for something else, the way she’d once done, if she drifted back far enough, before Tamsye Prime, and parsed through all the crap. Well, part of that something was Cassian. Part of it was repaying his steadfastness, being there when he needed her. Or just...being.

Kriff.

She needed to get her brain to slow down. She needed physical movement. She forced herself to think of the patrol route, of the endless plains and mountains of ice, of the cold and the quiet. She wasn’t a particular fan of any of it, but she’d be active, once she was out there, and she’d have a focus, and she could breathe fresh air and find any number of tactile things to occupy her mind and senses. It’d get her straightened out. Maybe. Hopefully.

At least she wouldn’t be bent over a console.

She reached the hangar with three minutes to spare. The quartermaster’s was nearly as crowded as the corridors had been, and she found herself tapping the ball of her foot as she waited to collect a set of outer gear. Personnel brushed past her, some briefly catching her eye, then looking away. Hard to say the reason for it, but she knew that, at the moment, she probably didn’t look terribly friendly.

It was after she’d collected a subzero jacket, a mask, and a pair of goggles that her assigned partner approached her. His stance was wide, and his shoulders were rolled forward, and he was already buckled into his coat (his own coat, not a shared one from general supply), the one that, save for the color, reminded her of Cassian’s. Good thing, she thought, that she wouldn’t have to look at it for long.

In greeting, she flicked her jaw toward him. “Solo.”

“Erso.” He flashed her a quick, lopsided, not-quite-smile.

“Surprised you’re not patrolling with Skywalker.” She’d frowned when she’d seen his name beside hers. She didn’t have a problem with him (he knew what he was doing well enough, if you could get past the cockiness and the snark -- materially little different from the other smugglers she’d known in her lifetime), but she didn’t expect to work with him. They ran in different circles and lived on different shifts.

“He’s running exercises with Rogue Squadron.”

Jyn’s chest tightened, and so did her fists. Her next breath was shallow and hard. Two words, halting, uttered by a man she would have liked to get to know, echoed in her skull.

She swallowed. Turned her head, shrugged on the coat. “I see.” Moved her fingers over the fastens, cinched the belts, the uppermost one digging into her ribs. It was a poor fit, like her issued thermal, but it wasn’t as if there were many to spare, and it was the closest available to her size. She wasn’t going to complain. After all, she at least had access to a coat. In fact, she had access to two different ones, and one of them she even got to keep with her own stuff. Quite the luxury.

She started walking, gloves cradled in her arm, mask and goggles hooked over her fingers. Han fell into step beside her. A man passed them going in the opposite direction, clutching a datapad, head bowed, and Solo twisted sideways, avoiding contact with both the stranger and Jyn.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you, anyway,” he said. “This makes it less of a hassle.”

She glanced at him. They had interacted very little, in their time on Echo -- enough to each get something of the measure of the other, and not much more. She’d seen him in passing, and heard talk about him (and, boy, did people talk), but that, of course, was different. She couldn’t think of any reason for him to want to talk to her, and she didn’t have any reason to seek him out, either. And she certainly couldn’t think of any reason why he’d do what she was pretty sure he’d just implied he’d done.

“Don’t see how. Unless you plan on hugging my ass and making this take twice as long.” In truth, she wouldn’t mind being out there longer than necessary, but that was neither here nor there.

He huffed. “Very funny.”

“Sure.”

They had emerged into the hangar proper, and were within a few meters of the shield door, which was wide open. At the threshold, a handful of fresh powder caught on a gust, spiralled upward, nearly struck the ceiling before collapsing and fluttering back down. Jyn heard a low bray. She turned to see a handler leading over a pair of tauntauns.

“Look, let’s cut the crap and get on with it. You have a reputation…”

Heat, again. Rising up from the pit of her stomach. “So do you.”

He adjusted the tack on his tauntaun. “...so I went and read your file.”

The hell is this? She regarded the bright white expanse of Hoth with longing. Her skin was crawling, and every single person she came across today seemed to exist solely to needle or confuse her, or both, and her head was spinning, and she really, really needed to get outside and be alone.

“Oh?” She thrust her foot into a stirrup, grasped the pommel, hoisted herself up. The animal’s scent assaulted her nostrils.

“You’ve, uh, heard of the Pathfinders?”

Her head snapped to him. She’d hooked the strap of the goggles around the back of her head, and was starting to pull them down. They hovered, now, in hands that had gone still. Yes, she’d heard of them. She even knew a few of their names, from the winnowing she’d done for Cassian.

Solo was astride his own saddle and was tugging the edge of his hood into place. The fur spilled over his forehead. “You have a background in guerilla warfare, you have explosives and hand-to-hand combat training, you’re okay with a blaster, and you managed to sneak into an Imperial base. More than one, if you can believe Imp records.” He smiled in that lopsided way, again, but it stuck around longer this time. “You’d make a good fit.”

There was a second -- although it felt like much, much longer -- when she had no idea what to say, how to react. This was the second conversation she’d had in less than an hour that had veered off in an unexpected direction, and it felt a bit like getting whiplash. The intent behind his words resolved itself, and she decided that yes, yes, it was as she’d suspected: he’d gotten himself paired with her on purpose.

So, it appeared, he could try to recruit her.

Her hands started moving again. She settled the goggles over her eyes. “I already have a division.”

“C’mon, kid.”

Kid?

“Don’t tell me you like being in intel.”

The knots in her stomach tautened. She felt her anxiety like a plucked string, its vibrations flowing up and down and outward.

“What makes you think I don’t?” She didn’t, of course, most of the time. But that wasn’t why she was there.

“Call it a hunch.”

They were moving toward the door. The tauntaun’s gait was high and rough, even at a walk. In a certain sense, she was accustomed to it, but her thighs would ache later on, as they always did. She checked the frequency on her commlink, synced it with Solo’s, and reached up to her mask. His was already secured across the lower half of his face.

“So,” he said, voice muffled, “what do you say?”

Her heart thumped hard enough for her to hear it. He was right that it would be a good fit for her. It aligned with everything she’d been taught, with all of the things she’d done growing up and couldn’t stop doing once she’d been cut loose. It would be active. It would be an outlet.

She thought of Saw. She thought of a night, late, when she was 14, going to him with something, something she could no longer remember, but that she was pretty sure was some stupid teenage bantha fodder. He had meant to be alone. He was leaning forward. His hands were covering his face, and when he’d pulled them back, his eyes were wet, and so were his fingers.

She thought of Draven. She thought of silent footsteps, mirroring her own.

She thought of Cassian.

What if she had to back off? What if she couldn’t safely help him anymore?

What if he was okay with that?

Putting himself in harm’s way like a...

“I’ll think about it,” she said, securing her gloves. She needed to talk to Cassian.

Han nodded. “Well, don’t think too long. I don’t like being yanked around.”

She also needed this patrol. Kriff, her head was a mess, and she had to get it in order before she went and did something really stupid.

“Got a preference?”

They’d be splitting as soon as they were out the door, touching base from time to time, keeping comms open. This, she didn’t give a second thought to. Even with everything; even with her nerves fraying and her brain working overtime, with her lingering anger and her restlessness and her boredom and confusion and fear and astonishment and all the rest, the answer was obvious. The transmission had come during the breach. And she wasn’t out of the game just yet.

She couldn’t, wouldn’t stop trying.

“South,” she replied.

#rebelcaptain #jyssian #dailyrebelcaptain #therebelcaptainnetwork #wip #au #established relationship #;static #;fics and drabbles

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musicallyy-inclined · 6 years

Text

2017 Year End Ranked (90 - 81)

Yay for more list! I’m not sure I’ll actually get this done by New Years at the rate, but I’ll try my best. Anyway, today’s list is mostly songs that suck, but never really made an impact on my year, with a couple notable exceptions. Also, fair warning, there are a lot of rap/trap/hip-hop songs here. Since I don’t listen to rap, I’ve tried my best to give a fair review, I don’t have a lot of feeling towards most of these songs.

Anyway, here’s 90-81 after the page break!

90. That's What I Like – Bruno Mars

I would guess that this is probably my most controversial opinion in this whole list, but I can't stand this song. It's not that it sounds awful or was overplayed (although it was, but so were songs much higher on this list). It's just that this song is one of the sleaziest things to make waves on pop radio this year. Also Bonner Bolton (more on that later). Anyway, the main premise of this song is that Bruno is giving this girl all kinds of fancy things. Which seems harmless right? Nope, because there is a condition behind his gifts, that being that the girl in questions must “pop” and “drop” it for him. Yup, Bruno's basically paying for sex here, or at least headed very quickly in that direction. Now, at this point, it's still not awful right? Stripper anthems are common, so why hate this one in particular? It's the chorus that reveals why Mars is willing to drop this much money on this girl. See, he's not feeding her lobster and champagne because he's trying to satisfy her. It's because that's what HE likes. So basically, he's telling this girl to come perform for him and she'll get lots of nice stuff, but not because she's special or anything, just because that's what he happens to be doing. The girl is basically an afterthought in yet another braggadocios power trip. And while songs like Uptown Funk pull of the bragging, this falls so so flat. The framing is just straight up bad. And Bruno sounds like the worst time of player. So yeah, this song is nowhere near as good as people think it is and I'm not sure why it's getting a free pass. Also, Bonner Bolton did a “dance” to this on DWTS and it was the most sexist thing I've ever seen on the show. Shame on Sharna, but with this song to work with, I'm not surprised.

89 Juju On That Beat (TZ Anthem) - Zay Hilfigerrr & Zayion McCall

This song is real bad, no question, but I can't bring myself to hate it enough to put it on my worst list. I mostly just feel bad for these two kids because someone told them that this was good idea. And yeah, I think most of what needs to be said about this song has already been said. The beat is a rip off, these kids sound awful and the lyrics suck. But let's look at some of these lyrics, because they are so bad they make me laugh. First, they insult “you” and “your daddy”, a great way to get started. Next, they try to rhyme “else” and “fun”, which like in what universe? Also, they make up a word, comparings. Which should mean comparision, but why use the word that's already there? So yeah, this is so bad it's funny, which is why it's not lower.

88. T-Shirt - Migos

Oh Migos. I thought Bad and Boujee was the first Hot 100 they had, but apparently they made a song called “Fight Night” at some point in 2013, so I guess I was aware of that. But yeah, I think that this song is my least favorite of the ones they released this year. It's just a choppy stilted mess, and I don't like the way it sounds. And that's basically my whole opinion on this one. These next few write-ups will be pretty short mostly because I don't really care about this style of music.

87. Bank Account – 21 Savage

Oh yes, the great song where 21 Savage shows that he can indeed count to 8. And actually, I don't mind the beat on this one. At least the piano sounds good, although it's kind of drowned out. But 21 Savage sounds so bad here. He's just completely uninterested in anything that he is saying. And it's repetitive also, so that's two strikes. And yeah, that's all I have to say about this. It's just kind of there and I'm not sure why anyone likes this or cares about it.

86. Rake it Up – Yo Gotti ft. Nicki Minaj

Time for forgettable trap song #3 in a row. But this one has Nicki Minaj, so that's at least different. Not that she's any good here, because I don't get her flow on this song at all. Also, trying rhyming different words, then maybe I'll give your verse a chance. And Yo Gotti sucks too. Another song where the chorus is a repetitive mess. Why this is appealing I will never understand. And yeah, this is another stripper anthem, and it does okay at being that I guess? Idk really. Also the menstruation reference really ruins the song for me. Not sure why that was necessary.

85. Bad Things – Machine Gun Kelly ft. Camila Cabello

LOL, I think I'm just now realizing how bad this song actually is after seeing Camila succeed with Havana, a song she sounds great on. But yeah, it's real bad. First, Camila sounds one bad note away from a voice crack the entire song, and the range of this song is way too much for her to handle. Oh and she doesn't sell it at all. Although Fifth Harmony released some pretty sexual songs, they were never the “bad girls” and Camila's only other solo song at this point was a duet with freaking Shawn Mendes aka Vanilla boy. So she doesn't sound convincing at all. And MGK just sucks, plain and simple. He is not a good rapper and probably shouldn't even try anymore. His flow is very plodding and notD appealing at all. I guess he sells it better than Camila, but he sounds worse. The instrumentation of this song is it's only saving grace and has always been the best part, even when I tolerated it. It sounds like Pachabel's Canon, which is a good sample is that's what they were going for. But everything else is awful, and that's why this song ends up here.

84. Caroline - Amine

Ummm, so again I don't have much to say about this song. It's also has a kind of beat and delivery, which seems to be a commonality here. As for the actual performance, Amine sounds okay, but the content is very confusing. First, I don't like songs that use specific names, especially when they try to generalize them to a greater audience. Also, it seems like the girl here might be interested in a genuine relationship and getting to know each other, which is a noble thought. But Amine just wants to get on with it, and makes it quite clear what “it” is. So that's a dissonance which I'm not particularly fond of. But yeah, not good overall.

83. Magnolia – Playboi Carti

Um so this song didn't seem relevant at all to me. I at least remembered most of the other songs charting in the top 30 or so for a significant amount of time. And look at this chart run, I guess this did too, but it's just so unmemorable. I think that the part of this song that annoys me the most is the rhyming scheme. Something about the “op” and “ock” sound irritates me for some reason. Also, the beat just kind of sounds like a one measure loop. But other than that, this song is completely forgettable.

82. Slippery – Migos ft. Gucci Mane

Didn't take long for Migos to show up again, and with another song that I don't really care about. The flow on this is a little better than on T-shirt, so that's why this is higher, but I still am not super into the random words that seem to make up most of the bars here. The beat is kind of weird too, I'm not sure if I like it or hate it. Either way, this is annoying and I still don't really like Migos.

81. Treat You Better – Shawn Mendes

Ah, Shawn Mendes, or Vanilla Boy, as I called him earlier. I honestly like most of his music, but this is kind of awful in two main ways. First, the lyrics are pretty manipulative and whiny. Secondly, when Shawn tries to emote, his enunciation goes out the door and unlike someone like Ariana, he doesn't sound good enough to make up for it. I honestly don't have a ton to say about this song other than it's a typical “nice guy” anthem. WAIT, I just had an idea. Shawn Mendes should get with Daya, whose just looking for a good boy. lol. Anyway, this might make my worst list for last year, so if it does I'll go into more depth about it there. We'll see.

#year end ranked #hot 100 ranked #2017 #bruno mars #migos #21 savage #yo gotti #nicki minaj #camila cabello #machine gun kelly #amine #gucci mane #shawn mendes #Zay Hilfigerrr & Zayion McCall #playboi carti

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antiques-for-geeks · 5 years

Text

Game Review : Slipstream 5000

PC / Gremlin Interactive / 1995 / Originally £29.99

Ah, the future.

Everything is shiny and new. All the time. The womenfolk are all improbably thin and dressed in tight fitting spandex or bikinis. Because that’s that happens in the future, we just go nuts for the man-made fibres. Just look at Buck Rodgers. Or Star Crash.

“Girls of 25th Century”, as envisaged by a boy aged 15 and a quarter with his bedroom door locked...

And in the future are sports; not sports as we know them, sports that are just a little bit different and played out to a pumping electro soundtrack that might just sound like Depeche Mode, Einstürzende Neubauten or Nitzer Ebb but played on a cheap Casio organ to avoid royalty payments.

Yes. The future. And it’s here in the shape of a racing game.

Set at a nebulous point in the near future, Slipstream 5000 brings us pilots racing their aeroplanes around courses around the world. There is no dystopian backstory, no settling our differences through sport rather than war - this is an out and out racing between between ten characters and their flying machines.

This is something of a relief. It gets a bit tedious to constantly be told that society has collapsed and to settle our differences we now play Bridge or Whist, all as an excuse for a developer to hide their slightly naff obsession with Gin Rummy behind a smokescreen rather than run the risk of them being discovered in a latex old-man bodysuit down the WI of a Thursday night.

Each race begins with a fly-through, showcasing the game’s graphics engine. It whips along at a good pace on Pentium level machinery without a 3D graphics accelerator.

Slipstream 5000 belongs to that first flush of 3D games where texture maps were planted on large polygons rather than using smaller and smaller polygons to create the landscape the developers wanted to convey. Sure, even at the time it never was the prettiest but is a fair compromise given the power of the machines it was designed to run on.

Controlling your plane takes full advantage of the 3D environment, allowing you to fly in all directions and creating a feeling of freedom. Playing with a decent joystick really adds to the game, although keyboard control works well enough. Oddly, no provision has been made for a mouse in-game, which combined with the keyboard à la Quake would have been as good a choice at the time as a joystick.

Some circuits verge on the spectacular; not just underground but underwater too. Don’t worry about hitting the glass sides, they won’t break.

The circuits that make up the championship are split between the metropolitan and the natural - one minute you’re flying through the Grand Canyon or Icelandic Fjords, the next it’s London and under (or over, you can choose) Tower Bridge. There are ten tracks in total; before you race each track, you’re treated to a fly-through to help you plan your approach to the race. Presented in a TV style, it can be quite like marmite. You’re going to either love or hate the way it’s done, which comes down to the in-game commentator. More on that later.

Slipstream 5000 makes the most of the axes you can fly in. Each course has its own challenges; enclosed circuits where you are racing through caverns or tunnels require skill and dexterity as the elevation of the circuit changes. Clattering around the courses, scraping the sides of your vehicle will work, but at the cost of performance. Each time you connect with the circuit, another player, or are hit being an opponent’s weapons incurs damage, either to the engine or the controls. As more damage is inflicted, your craft becomes less and less performant, making it easier to compound the damage to meaning that too much damage and it’s game over. Fortunately, each circuit has a pit tunnel where damage is remedied in blaze of lightning. Race wisely and taking the pits each lap can also make you quicker, even when you are not damaged.

Cash bonus? That’ll do nicely.

Each track is lined with bonuses and forfeits, either positioned randomly or dropped by shooting the drones that fly along as you do. Cash is the most valuable thing, but you can also pick up engine and control repair which fix your maladies on the spot, turbo recharge or a short boost of turbo. If you’re unlucky though you get a disrupter that’ll reverse your steering and is more or less guaranteed to chuck you into the walls.

You start the game by choosing your plane and unlike some games, they’re all equal. It’s not how they start, it’s how they are upgraded that is key. For a single race, it’s not that important, in a championship it can be the difference between first and midfield. Some upgrades and weapons just aren’t worth the money and it really becomes a matter of making sure that you chose wisely.

And, you’re going to need weapons. The AI pilots give as good as they get.

The point where you chose your plane is, erm, very much of it’s time. Cheesier than a pack of Wotsits and presented in a very stereotyped way. Clearly the developers were going for a Wacky Races vibe. This extends to the virtual characters in the game: Lyall Mint, the deliberately unlikable, ex-racer and his prim and proper career presenter, Crystal Eyes, as well as the game’s AI pilots.

This is one half of your commentary team, Lyall Mint. He's about to crack a funny, the zany ex-Slipstreamer that he is. Pity all of his comedy material is made up of Dad jokes and insipid sexual innuendo.

Each of your adversaries has their own traits and this is emphasised by their on-screen presence. You get transmissions periodically during each race - sometimes taunting, sometimes bemoaning that they’ve been hit or crashed. It’s a nice idea, if the implementation is rather cliched and adds to the feeling of rivalry in the game. This was something that was not common at the time and unique to the CD version of the game.

Flying against the AI players is good and fortunately Gremlin’s developers added the ability to go head to head with real players; old school two player splits the screen, but there is an option to connect two machines together. It’s not really network play as it’s known today, rather it’s via serial cable (yes, physically linking two machines together) a modem connection or being on the same physical network. Slipstream 5000 fell at that awkward time where the internet was a thing, but standards weren’t.

Yes, multiplayer is not for the casual gamer of today. Those of us playing games in the 1990s were made of sterner stuff. Man-up if you don’t want to be billy no-mates.

Dog fights are fun but can be time consuming. Sometimes it’s better to fly low, turn on the turbo and leave the other pilots to it

So Slipstream 5000, offers you a slice of the future like no other. Or, truth be told, like any other. This so easily could have been a franchise like WipeOut; maybe this would have really taken off (excuse the pun) with the console versions that had been planned. The game would have been really good on a Playstation or Saturn. It’s just a shame that this never happened.

Like so much of Gremlin’s catalogue around that time, this rather smacks of an opportunity missed.

Buying it today

You have lots of options for this today. You lucky, lucky, people. If you are looking to buy it on an auction site, you can pick up a copy pretty cheaply. The original big-box release will set you back in the region of £15, but be later re-releases in their paper sleeves, jewel or DVD cases can be anything from £2.50 to £5. If you’re going this way, make sure that you don’t end up overpaying for a budget version...

Finally, you can skip all this retro media nonsense if you have a PC and get it on Steam or GoG; you won’t have to faff about with DosBox or worry about converting those 3.5” floppies to disk images. Unfortunately, if you’re using anything other than Windows, you’ll have to make your own arrangements.

Commentariat

Tim : Slipstream 5000 was a firm favourite of mine; I first played it as a demo that came on a CD with PC Format in 1995 and excelled on the Pentium that I got to play it on. Although nothing to do with Magnetic Fields, the game had a ring of Super Cars about it in terms of tone and presentation. A sort of Super Cars ++ as it were.

Having played the demo to death, I bought it when it came out on budget - I was not, and am still not, made of money - I bought the title. The demo pretty much summed up the playing experience of the game and although there were extra circuits and a championship mode, it didn’t really add a huge amount to the fun in single player mode...

With only three levels of difficulty, it’s not that hard to finish quite high up the pecking order in every race. This may be ok in a single race, but in Championship mode it reduces the sense of jeopardy. Where the game does come alive is just right - when you’re racing. The action can be fast and frenetic; one minute you can be first, the next 8th after a misjudged corner or a missile strike from another pilot.

That the computer pilots can also mess up on their own adds to the excitement. Nothing more satisfying than seeing the computer pilot hit a drone and be faced with a disrupter. Even more so when it’s your mate in multi-player mode.

The other thing that disappoints - for me anyway - is the music, both in-game and between races does not do the game justice and feels more like an afterthought. That’s not to say it’s not well done; it is, it’s just doesn’t suit the game in my opinion. Add in the flight-computer voice that tells you you’re being shot at when you can hear the shots bouncing off the hull of your plane and it becomes an irritation rather than asset. We’re not talking Cybermorph levels of irritation, but let’s say it’s getting there. Good job you can turn it off.

Overall though, these are minor objections. I love the game and was one of the first titles I got working on DosBox once got that working properly. If only Gremlin had chosen to have taken it further...

Score Lord : I told you lot last time. I’m not reviewing games for you. Even this, which I quite liked when it came out and think it’s a crime it’s been forgotten. No. Go away and stop bothering me.

Meat : The explosion of 3D games at this time wasn’t a blessing; looking back today, there are some really, really ropey titles. Slipstream 5000 might have avoided this fate, but has trodden a fine line to do so. The cross between flight sim and racing game is novel and explored at around the same time by Bullfrog’s Hi-Octane, but there really is only so much you can do and a fair few tricks have been missed here. I’d have liked it to have been a little harder, with differentiation between craft being, well, present. A career mode rather than just a flat championship, where you could have more control over the different elements of your ship and crew would have made all the difference.

This doesn’t mean that the game is bad. Not at all. There are neat little extras, like the rear-view camera which although useless is pretty cool. It plays well, so much so that there is depth in the gameplay to last more than one run-through. For all my gripes about 90s 3D games down the pub, I like the way it looks too. It’s begging for a modern version with proper network play and slightly less patronising tone in the cut-scenes. I’d pay to have that on my phone, provided it came with a branded spandex flight-suit to wear while you are playing, natch. We are in the future after all, right?

Score card

Presentation 7/10

Stakes had been upped in the mid 1990s by the arrival of the fifth generation consoles, Slipstream 5000 holds its own against the kind of stuff coming out on those machines. The whole thing feels rather slick, with quite an authentic TV feel, even if its tone and jokes have dated quickly since the 1990s. PC games had yet to fall to the DVD-box format that is ubiquitous with today packaging, so you’ll still treated to the big-box experience if that’s your thing.

Originality 8/10

The idea of a racing game working on four axes that you can explore, rather than the traditional horizontal is still a pretty neat idea. The elements of rivalries that are generated by the computer characters comments feels a little synthetic, but the game is the better for it.

Graphics 8/10

From beginning to end, the games looks really good; sure it has aged, but more endearingly than some that feel like they have a certain something missing.

Hookability 6/10

The first course is well designed and eases you into the game nicely. From there on in, it’s a challenge, but not always enough of one.

Sound 7/10

Sounds fine, as long as you have the right sound card, but having different background music would have made all of the difference. The floppy disk version loses out on some of the speech, but that’s not the end of the world.

Lastability 7/10

Easy to learn, difficult to master. It can be a difficult but not impossible to play using the keyboard, but there is a lot there for you to explore and those jibes and taunts from your fellow competitors press just the right buttons to make you want to come back for more. Unless you’ve got the floppy disk version...

Value for Money 7/10

Was good value back in 1995 and it’s worth the price of admission today.

Overall 7/10

Gremlin did themselves proud with the game itself and the TV styling, the cliched and stereotypical characterisations of the pilots and presenting team less so. Slipstream 5000 really had the feel of a series in the making. The shame is that it never made it there; with today’s VR tech the game would really have been something else.

#pc #afg #antiquesforgeeks #retrogaming #retrocomputing #videogames #slipstream5000 #review #gremlin #gremlingraphics #retro

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shardclan · 7 years

Photo

Much of Haematica’s tasks these days were about inspection, where she might have once done the upkeep herself. Copernicus handled the cleaning of the supplies, and she hadn’t been dissatisfied with his work in eons. He had learned quickly that a doctor’s tools had to be more than clean. They had to be pristine. They had to be antiseptic.

On this morning, after receiving her clearance, he handed her a box. “From Estevao,” he explained. “He said you would definitely be interested in this.”

Haematica pursed her lips. In her opinion, Estevao was less than a poor man’s dandy. A poor man was still capable of some modicum of tact. Were it not for his honest work at generating a trade operation on that lonely cliff near Mirrorlight Bay, she would have immediately disregarded the delivery.

She was quite glad she didn’t.

Gloves. Beautiful thick gloves made of latex, the one indisputably excellent thing about the nature flight. Haematica, like most plaguelings, grew up without it. If you couldn’t survive infection, there was no hope for you anyway. But in a clan where she was the surgeon responsible for cutting them open and forcibly fixing or removing what ailed them, it was worth its weight in gold. Outside the Scarred Wasteland, healing was allowed to take time, to take resources, and none could be so precious as a clean pair of latex gloves.

“Send a message back,” she said calmly, slipping her hands inside them and flexing. “They’re too thick. I could weed nettles with these and not feel anything. That’s no good for surgery. If he can halve this, it’ll do, and the Medical Sector will pay handsomely for them.” As an afterthought, she added: “And make them in pink.”

“I’ll bear it in mind, but it won’t reach him for awhile. He’s in with Phasmatis.”

Haematica removed the gloves and crossed her arms. “Phasmatis is still learning how to control her power. And she’s still just a beginner at anatomy. I hope you’re not telling me she is actually practicing on a live patient right now.”

Copernicus automatically stood a bit straighter. “No ma'am! But the nature of the injury is… Coagulum thought it was best if Phasmatis attended until you arrived. Unofficial pre-diagnosis, no correction.”

“A practice diagnosis for Phasmatis? What exactly is the nature of the injury? Did one of the children get a greenstick fracture?”

“It’s probably better if you go see for yourself. I think you’ll understand why Coagulum made the call if you do.”

He wasn’t wrong, and Haematica had to cover her mouth as soon as she saw. Estevao was clearly sedated but he was still awake, so she couldn’t risk laughing. She recognized all too well what she was seeing.

Phasmatis was sitting on a stool beside him with a thick tome–Haematica’s own book of bones which she allowed the girl to use for study. Her posture was prim and her runes glowed faintly from within the folds of her off-white gown. It made her look like a strange, studious ghost to Haematica’s eyes. White was such a strange choice for a hospital; but then again the girl wasn’t practiced enough to get into the truly bloody bits yet.

“Your report,” said Haematica, once she was sure she was calm.

“Yes…” Phasmatis answered slowly. “Multiple dislocations… Left and right inferior radioulnar, Grade 1 acromioclavicular dislocation… Trauma to the iliac crests evidenced by bruises but the bones are alright. Evidence of unusual trauma to the patella, but of low severity.”

“Just the shoulders and wrists?” Phasmatis looked up at her, and Haematica walked over and very gently rolled Estevao’s ankles and gently felt around his knees. “Amazing.”

“Miss? Do you know something about this?”

“Oh absolutely. It’s been a long time since Bruma put someone in the Ragdoller.” She slid her fingers under the backsides of his knees, ignoring the delirious giggle it earned from the drugged patient. “Amazing. Usually she dislocates the wrists, shoulders, and either the knees or the ankles. If she’s dealing with a truly dangerous dragon she’ll even strike the hips. Dual posterior dislocation, it’s as impressive as it is a hideous sight.”

“It seems inappropriate to be amazed, if I may say. Dislocation is dangerous and permanently lowers the integrity of the joint.”

“So it does.” She gazed curiously down at the vaguely aware patient. “It makes me wonder what exactly he did.”

Phasmatis raised her chin and frowned imperiously. “Does that matter?”

“To his treatment? No. But Bruma is a cool temper and this man is at the head of an industry producing latex that we will certainly be using. I would like to know just what he was doing that would rile her up to this degree before I enter a business deal with him.” She patted Phasmatis’ shoulder fondly. “But your dedication to the patient’s treatment regardless of their character is noted. Fetch Copernicus and have him give a local anesthesia, I’ll be in to get the joints back in, you’ll shadow.”

“Yes, miss.”

Haematica took her leave, gliding down the hall to her personal study. A chalkboard hung beside the doorway. Typically it was empty this early in the morning, but today there was a thin white scribble on it.

Bog - M, Sha. 14e. Unknown donor.

She cracked the door. A thin haze rolled out around her feet as the cool air seeped out. The body was there on the cold metal table, grey and motionless. Though she was delighted, Haematica sighed. Receiving shadowborn cadavers was never a simple affair out here. Too often, it was someone trying to dispose of a body and curry her favor at the same time. It was insulting, frankly. She wasn’t some butcher they could dump their bodies on. She was a woman of science, but also of compassion.

Sure, she would at least identify the cause of death, maybe poke around a little more than she had to, but she wasn’t going to dissect any old donated body. Her conscience would never rest unless she was sure the family was alright with it. Gods, she’d have to call Carnelian again… Or maybe Camellia would be faster, since she was actually present. Being able to just ask the body who it was and where it came from would simplify things immensely.

Down the hall, she heard the familiar whistling of Aether. When she spoke it was with the typical fae monotone but her whistling had a distinctively happy lilting to it this morning. Aether was a dentist. She operated out of Promenade Medical Bay because tooth removal was a form of surgery, but most of her work these days was maintaining hatchling dental health. If she was whistling so cheerfully, it meant someone hadn’t cared for a bad tooth and she was preparing to take it for her collection.

Aether was skittish, but probably could have fit in easily among plague dragons for her love of collecting teeth.

Haematica didn’t bother her, turning instead to go look in on the Queen’s room. It was empty, save for Coagulum, who greeted her with a nonchalant “Mornin’ Hae.”

“Good morning. Has Telos run off again?”

“Mm, yeah.” The mirror scratched lazily at her stomach. “Her blood’s back up to snuff, and she’s been getting antsy and irritable being in bed these past few days. Tungsten came and got her.”

“An official discharge then.”

“Tungsten didn’t say. Just said that ‘Doing nothing for a long time can also be stressful for someone who’s gotten used to a certain level of activity’ and took her out.” She snickered. “I could tell ‘er Majesty was feeling punchy.”

“Punchy...” Haematica muttered, more tasting the word than asking for a meaning. Coagulum was full of colorful words like that.

“Aggressive. She trained a bunch with Perilous, but when the last time she got to give anyone a good haymaker? She was getting pent up, it’s better this way.”

Haematica tapped a foot thoughtfully. “I’ll expect you to find Miss Tungsten and get proper discharge paperwork done. Just because she’s the queen is no reason to not keep a proper record.” She ignored the lazy sigh. Coagulum liked to cut corners where she thought she could get away with it, but she was dependable. Generally. “And speaking of people feeling punchy, what happened to our Nature Liaison?”

Coagulum’s face curdled into malicious glee. “Have you see him? He got the Ragdoller!”

“I noticed. I’m asking if you know why.”

“Gossip on the street is that it all went down at the Sundial Brewery. Arcanus and Carnelian were having a round, Estevao came in, and you know how that insufferable little prick is. I’ve no doubt he thought he was being cute, but he made a suggestion about easing the queen’s stress to Arcanus that was a little too forward. Arcanus almost drew on ‘im!”

Haematica laid a tired hand over her face. “Gods, how much of a fool can a single dragon be?”

“Right, right? So Carnelian keeps Arcanus cool, cause they’re on good terms now it seems like; and Arcanus is the Queen’s Knight, he can’t be getting in bar fights, even if it’s for the queen’s honor. But Carnelian’s no such clean record and he’s all prepared to get nasty about it.” She slapped merrily at her knee. “I can only imagine what Estevao’s condition would’ve been if Carnelian’d had at him.”

“Did Bruma actually stop Carnelian?”

“Ah, well, yes and no. Remember Cloud and ‘Milla have their little nocturne girl at home with them.”

“Aine, of course. So Bruma would have intervened as their bouncer to end the situation before it got rowdy.”

“Just so,” Coagulum answered, though she couldn’t hide another snicker. “Well, and because Bruma’s a chivalrous kind of lady. She can’t stand hearing anybody, let alone some outland brown-noser, make those kinda nasty comments.”

“Just how nasty was this comment? The man is an idiot who doesn’t realize he grates on others, but he seems otherwise sincere about wanting little to no trouble.”

“Mmm, suffice to say he his suggestion failed to treat the Queen with the respect that the widow of an exalt is due.” Crass as she was, Coagulum wrinkled her nose. “I’m sure plenty move on, find new mates and such but Telos is… Our queen is loyal, dammit. To us and to Fragment; even if he’s not on this plane anymore. And Arcanus is a man of morals. Neither of them deserve the implication that he should be ashamed to let her grieve so long ‘uncomforted’. That shit-eater’s got no business thinking he can say that! In a crowded bar–!”

“Volume,” Haematica said sternly but reflexively.

“Sorry. It just... It ain’t right is all…”

It didn’t escape Haematica’s memory that Coagulum had not always been among Telos’ supporters. Early on, her blunt tongue had been one of many to say that other dragons were more fit. That Telos was too young, too inexperienced, too much of an outsider. And yet now here was the same dragon, agitated that some nobody had come into the clan and suggested–albeit ignorantly–something that tread on the queen’s sincere grief.

“Weren’t you suggesting something similar just last week?”

Coagulum blushed furiously. “That wasn’t about Telos!” A sharp glare from Haematica corrected her, and she said again, more quietly: “That’s wasn’t about Telos! And even if it were, it wasn’t a suggestion that someone should get in bed with her and...and soothe her. That’s a disgusting thing to say about anyone, much less a damned widow. It was only a suggestion that some of the more stressed members of the clan who are shy of the Bramble District be educated on masturbation. It’s a physiologically proven and valid method of reducing stress hormones in the blood and you know it.”

Haematica covered her mouth to hide a grin, and Coagulum knew instantly she’d been teased. Of course Haematica knew already. She just took advantage because it was a sensitive topic.

“You’re a demon, Hae.”

“You’re mistaking me for Asura,” she said humbly.

Estevao probably didn’t know just how far down his own throat he put his foot. Those trails of gold tears on Telos’ cheeks were not some invitation or request to be comforted. To her and to the entire clan, they were representative of things unforgotten, things still missed and pain still felt even though the eons had passed and life went on. They were not something that could be wiped away so easily.

“I had him anesthetized maybe 15 minutes ago,” Haematica said with a smile too wide and too bright. “Shall we go give our patient a lesson on the appropriate way to talk about our Queen?”

Coagulum smirked. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

#Flight Rising #C: Haematica #Aphaster Stories

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