#I was in ths audience and said some WORDS

[irishthings]

I just went for a scroll back in time and realised that during my 2018-2019 tumblr hiatus I was on the Late Late Show and I forgot to tell ye

It's the only solid proof I have that Ryan Tubridy is real and not a really high tech vtuber piloted by multiple people who work in shifts

#The Late Late Show #It was nice #I was in ths audience and said some WORDS #about how social media helps subcultures to connect

[singingcicadas]

The beginning of the Decepticons according to Megatron:

The beginning of the Decepticons What Actually Happened:

That it could ever be called a revolution of the oppressed is a joke. Megatron's philosophy is purely pugno ergo sum. I fight, therefore I am. His first recruitment speech was a promise for power, made to the most bloodthirsty audience he could dig up from the dregs of society. Those people were there because they thrived off the bloodsport. They wanted audition to join Megatron in the pits. Megatron offered them something even better: turn the entire planet into our gladiatorial arena, and we take.

Ever since the beginning Megatron viewed the Decepticons as nothing but a tool, to be used and thrown away. He wanted them to be as ruthless as possible in order to wipe out all opposition, but once his end goal's achieved, well, there's no place for ruthlessness in a perfect society under his absolute control. Therefore, remodelling and recreating. It doesn't sound like he wants to rule over actual people with individual personalities, he wants a bunch of mindless drones programmed for obeisance and peace and hardcoded to Do What Megatron Says.

Ravage and Tarn. It's interesting how they both use the word "emancipated" when lauding Megatron's accomplishments, when it's clear that Megatron did so for the practical purpose of bulking up his army. He overthrew those in power because he wanted to be the one in power. The only one. The people he "emancipated" were just exchanging one set of shackles for another, as they had no choice other than to join the Decepticon army. Not fighting was not an option. Cowardice was punishable by traitor's wheel. Going neutral was also not an option. Soundwave had specific anti-neutral pogroms for those.

I wonder if they knew what "the Megatron they loved" had in mind for the Decepticons after they won the war. The remodeling and recreating. Or maybe they thought that's just for the lowly genericons. That they would be exempt from such treatment because they were confident of their privileged places at Megatron's side. After all, if you're rooting for someone whose motto is peace through tyranny, you'd do so with the expectation that it's only Other People who are going to get tyrannized.

It's true that he did rise against an oppressive government, despite it being the goal to replace it with himself as the tyrant.

But he also thought the single admirable quality about Zeta was his ruthlessness. As in trying to kill an entire city of his own people to fuel his vamparc ribbon. And he said that in front of Hot Rod, who was forced to bomb his own city to stop Zeta from winning. Even disregarding the twisted values here, this is still fifteen levels up the insensitivity lane. No wonder Hot Rod didn't want to join up.

Torture's for fun and domination. It takes a special kind of sadistic streak. And this is before the war even officially started.

Thundercracker's view on the Decepticon cause, when he defected to save humans from the nuke:

"Everything we have done here" - Just here? He'd either been living under a rock for the entirety of the war or has some serious misunderstandings about what the Decepticon name is.

Or just been willfully blind for four million years and the deaths of a hundred billion lifeforms until the day he decided to grow a conscience. Same with Soundwave.

Tarn's a really good case study because he's the poster boy of Megatron's Decepticon propaganda. Megatron probably spoonfeeds him the stuff by the gigabytes and he regurgitates them with twice the zeal and tenfold the pretentiousness. He's also the embodiment of the vices and tragedy of the Decepticons as a whole, as created by Megatron. A sadistic hypocrite, a glorified thug, a delusional fanatic, a customized tool for use and dispose. Crippled by the blinkering desire to be superior, to be part of a greater cause.

Megatron cares nothing for Tarn, just like how he cares nothing for the Decepticons. During the war they were a means to an end. After Megatron's defection, their "toxic loyalty" became a personal burden, a blemish from his past that he would like to cast aside and move on from but annoyingly refuse to leave him alone.

The road-sweepers and the haulers. The miners. What were they to Megatron during the war? Disposable cannon fodder. A pretty banner to hide behind. For a movement that likes to justify itself as a revolution of the oppressed, the emancipation of the disenfranchised, there's certainly a distinct lack of those classes among the upper Decepticon ranks. Megatron said in his recruitment speech that he wanted strength and power. Then where did that leave the weak and sick, the empties on the streets?

Nowhere but the smelting pool, to be recycled into something useful for the great Decepticon cause. They should be honoured, really.

Freedom fighters? No, freedom won't be missed. Probably has something to do with the remodelling and recreating part.

Starscream's only partially right. It was absolutely Megatron's intent to tap into that well of rage and resentment, and he meant for the riot to happen. Of course it got away from him in the end - that's what happens when you cobble an army out of bloodthirsty power-hungry degenerates, half of which were on board for the violence, half for their own scheming agendas, and the rest stitched together by charisma and fear - but he'd shaped the events enough to come a hairsbreadth away from winning multiple times. People like Shockwave and Scorponok were treacherous, but they weren't the reason that Megatron lost the war.

It was his own blind arrogance that led to his downfall.

No he didn't lose his way. He's exactly where he set himself out to be, from the moment he gave that speech in the arena. Perhaps even earlier, to that gradual slide when killing his opponent in a match no longer felt like a guilty burden but instead brought him the sweet rush of satisfaction. There was no revolution. There was no righteous cause. There was no for the people and never has been, because he did not care about other people. Four million years and countless deaths, and it was only really about one insanely self-centered person and his deluded ambition of peace through tyranny.

Hence his breakdown, because he'd just been hit in the face with the realization that he was Wrong. And has been wrong for the past four million years. He wasted everyone's lives. He wasted his own life, wasted it on anger and destruction and hatred, with nothing but regrets to show for it.

I believe that Megatron believed he's telling the truth here. I believe that he meant every word he said, except for that one "we" on the second last line.

Because that "we" should really be "me".

The Megatron who wrote about pacifist rhetoric, who was compassionate enough to share his fuel with the injured, who cared about others and had genuine friendships, that Megatron died a long time ago in the pits. Ever since then, every murder, every atrocity he'd committed in the name of "the people" was just facist rationalization.

I'm sure that he likes the sound of "emancipation of the people" or "freedom of choice" as a concept. But when it comes down to individual people? With actual, real choices that conflicts with his desire for absolute rule? Nope. He's the only one who should get to make choices. The only one who should have choices. Because he knows best.

Form dictates your function ❌; Megatron dictates your function ✅

Function dictates your fate ❌; Megatron dictates your fate ✅

Great minds must think alike, because Megatron and the Functionalist council in the Functionalist universe did a lot of the same stuff. Massacring the Senate. Recycling people who are deemed useless burdens. Remodelling and recreating. Imperalism and genociding organics. Killing all dissenters. The Functionalists even got pretty close to Megatron's ideal of peace through tyranny with 99% of the planet fitted with brain bombs and kissing the ground at their feet. They even managed to do it while maintaining a habitable planet and full population. And Megatron took one look and was disgusted.

Megatron wasn't a misunderstood revolutionist who had his heart in the right place when he started his war. The Decepticons didn't start out well-meaning and turned bad somewhere along the way. At no point in their movement were they ever true freedom fighters. They were always Facists, through and through. They were worse than the Functionalists they hated and the Senate they overthrew. And it's important to acknowledge this because (other than it's weird to see such an obvious Facist analogy being associated with freedom fighters) otherwise you don't get the whole depth of Megatron's redemption arc, especially in the Functionalist universe.

Like the impact of this scene wouldn't be fully apparant unless you take into account that when Megatron first formed the Decepticons, all he cared about was their fighting strength. He did not care about his troops, he did not care about individual people. He considered himself above everyone and everything. He would have sneered at such a weak, ineffective form of protest. Now he's actually being supportive and seeing people as people, instead of pawns to be used.

Here he's genuinely happy to see the Decepticons, even those in the very bottom of the pecking order, taking enough care to greet them each by name. And also Fulcrum, who he sentenced to death twice.

For once in his life he's actually trying to do the Right Thing instead of focusing on himself, either on his ambitions or his remorse. The people in the Functionalist universe have nothing to do with him, yet he wants to help anyway. And he's finally appreciating the value of self-determination for what it is, instead of trying to twist it to serve his own purposes or turn it into Megatron-determination.

"No one can decide how you live your life except for you." Back before, he was going to remodel his entire army to achieve his peace through tyranny. Autonomy and free will were considered things that won't be missed.

Megatron learned to care about other people! Peace through empathy is such a groundbreaking step for his character because he used to have no empathy! He stayed true to his ideals for eight centuries despite the hardships, despite his personal losses, despite the AVL being driven to near extinction and not knowing if he would ever return to his own universe. During all those years he could have had ten million chances and excuses to break his vow of pacifism or leave on the Last Light, taking the easy way out, and there would have been no one to stop him.

But he didn’t.

#transformers #idw transformers #maccadam #megatron #also he tossed his Decepticons out the back door at first chance in exchange for his freedom and legacy #the trial on Luna 2 #his frowny face when reading the surrender speech wasn’t for letting the Decepticons down it was for his own humiliation

[tc-doherty]

TC's Practical Writing Tips

Like I said before, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that I can teach anyone how to write – that's a level of hubris even I'm not capable of –but in honor of my rapidly approaching ~quarter century of writing original fiction anniversary~, I did figure I would share the tips that I live by when it comes to the act of writing.

So without further ado:

Write it now, fix it later

2. It is always permissible – and usually enjoyable – to write the stupidest possible version

3. "Inspiration" is great for poets, but poison for people who write prose

3.1: if you want to write often, you need to write often, and then you will find that you don't need to be "inspired" because you will have made a habit of it and it will come naturally 3.2: even one sentence a day is still one sentence a day. And even one sentence a week is still one sentence a week. It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop 3.3: believing in the concept that you need to be inspired to write will trap you into believing in the concept of writer's block 3.4: if you are having difficulty getting out words that satisfy you, lower your standards and keep writing (see point one)

4. A few months down the line you will not remember which words came easily and which words did not

5. It is always permissible to set a project aside for now, or forever, if you need a break

6. Read widely and often, both in your favorite genres and outside of them

6.1: pay special attention to both things that you love and things that you hate - study them, engage with them, learn what makes yourself tick and your writing can only get stronger

7. Never write for the lowest common denominator, via wise words I once heard: "if you open the window and make love to the world, your story will get pneumonia", have an audience in mind and the people who like what you write will find it

8. Never write for the bad faith critic, those people will always exist and you will need to deal with them at some point if you put your writing in the world, but they don't matter and you cannot live in fear of them

9. It's fine and normal to want engagement and praise, however you must find a way to make the act of writing joyful in and of itself – make the praise the cherry on top, not the entire sunday

9.1: writing is hard work, and it's a lot of work, if you lose the ability to enjoy the journey and are proceeding only for external rewards from others, you will gradually write less and less if the ratio of work to rewards is unsatisfying

10. For anything other than final copy editing, always write a new draft into a new document, or else the words you have already written will trap you from being able to make large, sweeping changes

10.1: any change you make will invariably snowball, and you must give space for that snowball to roll

11. If someone tells you that something doesn't work for them, believe them, because people know what they like. But if people try to tell you what to do to fix it, take that with an entire serving of salt because you are the author, not them

12. It is always morally correct to look at a critique that you received, even if you asked for opinions via beta reading, and decide that it's bullshit and doesn't apply to you

13. "write what you know" means "write what you're interested in"

14. "Show don't tell" applies to screenwriting, not novels. This is the thing that drives me the most insane every time I see it. Novels are words on a page, not images on a screen. They require a lot of telling. Not all telling, but a lot of telling. Become comfortable with that.

15. It is always, ALWAYS acceptable to use "said", do not listen to the lies of others

16. Have fun, do it out of love and you will never go astray

17. Become comfortable with who you are. Your work is always going to be yours and it is always going to sound like you wrote it, and this is a good thing! No one else is ever going to write exactly like you, and you should be proud of that

17.1: the concept of "originality" is vastly overrated, every culture has some version of Cinderella and we still love it. Your writing is yours because you wrote it, and it will always be unique because of that

#writeblr #writing #long post #writing tips #writing advice

[lancermylove]

Chapter 1

➣ Pairing: Demon brothers, Royals, Solomon with fem!Reader. ➣ Warning: None ➣ A/N: Hi hi, or should I say ho ho? Bad joke lol. 🙈 This is my first attempt at an OM chaptered fic, so hopefully, all of you like it. In this fic, you will romance the man of your choice, so similar to the actual game. There will be a romantic and platonic route, or you can romance everyone. 😉 I may or may not include N.SFW content in some chapters. If I do, I will post an SFW and N.SFW chapter for that character so audiences of all ages can read the story. Any support for this fic will be appreciated! 💖 ➣ Word Count:  1,430

➣ Chapters [SFW]: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] ➣ Chapters [N.SFW]: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Completed!

———————————————

"I know I am asking a lot, but would you please help?"

"If the brothers find out...they will be very upset..."

"I understand, (y/n). But this is the only way to help them. I have arranged everything, so all you have to do is say yes."

Would everything go according to plan? The thought of mishaps ate away at your mind as you stood in the Student Council room with the demon brothers, Diavolo and Barbatos. Clearing his throat, the prince warmly smiled at everyone and sat on his throne at the top of the student council pyramid.

"Good afternoon, everyone. My apologies for calling all of you at such short notice." Diavolo's voice boomed with excitement as he addressed you and the brothers. "But I have exciting news to share. (Y/n) has extended an invitation to the seven of you to celebrate Christmas in her world!"

"Woooah! A Christmas with (y/n) alone!" Levi grinned widely.

"Y'know we're comin' too, so it ain't alone," Mammon shrugged and shook his head.

"Oh, it feels like a dream come true," Asmo exclaimed, clapping his hands together.

"A holiday with (y/n)...this I look forward to." Satan calmly stated, but his smile gave away his hidden excitement.

"This will be fun." Belphie chuckled, and Beel nodded in agreement as he ruffled your hair.

Though you gave a small smile, your body remained tense, and your eyes darted nervously between the brothers. Despite knowing that you had done nothing wrong, your guilty conscience weighed heavily on your heart. Then, you noticed Lucifer's expression. His usual calm demeanor was replaced with a fierce intensity; his eyes were narrowed, and his brows were furrowed. His jaw was tense, and his arms folded tightly across his chest. It was evident that he was not pleased with the situation, and you wondered if he suspected something.

The first brother's crimson orbs stared straight into Diavolo's soul, making the prince uncomfortably shift in his seat. Meanwhile, Barbatos silently observed the situation but kept his eyes on you. You couldn't help but question yourself if you did the right thing. Would it have been better if you had spoken to Lucifer first?

The vast area was draped in a deep and calming silence, broken only by the occasional sounds of the wind howling through the trees and snow crunching under your feet. As the sun slowly sank below the horizon, it cast long, ribbon-like shadows on the pristine, snow-covered ground, painting the surroundings in a warm orange hue. The cold and crisp air allowed you to see puffs of your breath as you exhaled at the breathtaking sight. The view was so mesmerizing that even the brothers were left speechless as they stood there, transfixed by the beauty of the winter wonderland that the human realm had to offer.

"Our cabin is a short distance from here," Satan said as he studied a map that Barbatos had given him. After a short while of walking through the wooded area, a structure came into view.

A winding cobblestone pathway led to a grand winter cabin covered in a thin layer of snow. The exterior was made of mocha-colored pine wood and was adorned with indicate carvings that added to its charm. The ebony-colored shingles on the roof contrasted beautifully with the light-colored wood, highlighting the structure's unique character. A large chimney protruded from the roof, spewing out thin plumes of white smoke. The second floor had an extensive all-around balcony connecting all the bedrooms from outside. Warm light poured out from the ceiling-height windows on every side of the cabin.

"This is..." Asmo started to say but his voice trailed off.

"Pretty? Amazin'? Incredible?" Mammon finished his younger brother's sentence as he removed his sunglasses and looked around.

"Can we go inside? It's cold." Belphie mumbled through chattering teeth. He liked the view, but the low temperatures were too much for him. Without wasting time, the brothers rushed inside, competing to see who could get to the door first, but Lucifer remained motionless. His eyes were fixed on the ground, and he appeared to be deep in contemplation. Even as you approached him, the Avatar of Pride didn't move or respond to you calling his name.

Why was there a stack of letters on Diavolo's desk? Every letter that came to Diavolo for official matters passed through Lucifer, so why wasn't he aware of these letters? He didn't have permission to go through the letter and viewing them without the prince's permission went against Lucifer's principles. But a nagging feeling in his mind forced him to reach for an open envelope.

"Lucifer?" You called his name out, concerned, and gently shook his arm to bring him back to the present. Snapping out of his thoughts, the tall demon looked at you but remained silent. His crimson eyes bore into your own as if trying to draw a conclusion to his theory. Were you also involved in this?

"What? Do I have something on my face?" You innocently asked, trying to break the tension in the air, but didn't wait for his answer and began pulling his arm toward the cabin. "It's freezing! We need to get inside."

He didn't withdraw his arm from your grasp, but you felt his muscles tighten under your touch. The warmth of the cabin enveloped both of you as you stepped inside. A sweet aroma of cinnamon and vanilla tickled your nose, and the sound of fire crackling filled your ears. The interior of the cabin was a modern, luxurious space with high-tech appliances and contemporary furnishings. The fully stocked kitchen was a chef's dream, equipped with everything you could possibly need to whip up a feast, while the living space had plush sofas and soft blankets to snuggle up in. Your lips curled up as the cozy atmosphere momentarily melted away any stress or worries.

Asmo strolled around the living room, admiring the tasteful décor of the cabin, while Satan investigated the second floor. The scent of vanilla and cinnamon made Beel hungrier than he was, so he eagerly searched the refrigerator for something to munch on. Belphie curled up on the sofa, hugging a faux fur pillow to his chest, gazing at the dancing flames in the large stone fireplace. Levi and Mammon stood by the windows, mesmerized by the view of the mountains in the distance, slowly fading into the darkness as the sun was setting beyond the horizon.

"So, there are only six rooms in the cabin...two downstairs and four upstairs," Satan announced while walking down the spiral wood staircase. Instantly, the volume inside the cozy cabin increased tenfold as the brothers argued about who would get to stay alone or with you. Your gaze immediately moved to Lucifer to find him lost in thoughts again. What was he thinking about? Did something happen?

"Lucifer, you want to say something before they start destroying the cabin?" You whispered, shaking his arm. The demon sighed heavily and glanced at his brothers but remained silent for a while as one thought repeated on a loop in his mind. His brothers acted like normal demons, so what was the problem?

"Beel and Belphie, I assume you wish to stay together," Lucifer broke his silence and spoke sternly. "(Y/n) and I shall stay individually, which leaves three rooms. Mammon, you shall stay alone due to your habit of borrowing items. Satan, I assume you wish to stay alone, leaving Levi and Asmo to share a room."

Without waiting for his brother's reaction, Lucifer briskly made his way up the stairs, his shoes thudding against the wooden steps. A knot formed in your stomach at the thought of Lucifer knowing what you did and being upset with you. Should you talk to him or wait? You sighed quietly and began to ascend the stairs, taking in the grandeur of the staircase and the ornate details along the walls. Your mind was still preoccupied with Lucifer's behavior, but you tried to push those thoughts aside and focus on choosing a bedroom that suited your taste.

"What's with Lucifer and (y/n)? Did somethin' happen between 'em?" Mammon asked in a low voice, not wanting his older brother to hear they were talking about him.

"Maybe they got into an argument," Asmo said, sitting next to Belphie and gently stroking his younger brother's head. Satan turned his back to his brothers and stared out the window overlooking the forest. This vacation was too conveniently placed, and the Avatar of Wrath knew there was more to this than meets the eye.

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➣ Obey Me Masterlist: [1][2][3] ➣ Main Masterlist

➣ Buy me a Ko-fi?

#obey me fanfic #obey me #obey me nightbringer #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me levi #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmo #obey me asmodeus #obey me beel #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphie #obey me belphegor #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #obey me solomon #obey me x reader #mammon x reader #lucifer x reader #leviathan x reader #satan x reader #asmodeus x reader #beelzebub x reader #belphegor x reader #solomon x reader #diavolo x reader #barbatos x reader #obey me swd #om! swd

[wanderingelvis]

Hello love,is it okay for me to call you that? Sorry if it isn't,I was wondering if you can write an Yandere!70s or late 60s Elvis where the reader is naive and is dragged to one of his shows by readers friend or anyone she knows,you can choose and he notices her from the crowd but doesn't get the chance to go talk to her and maybe 1 week later he still has her on his mind and luckily he finds her talking to Jerry or someone and maybe he traps her like Rapunzel? Sorry if I'm asking for too much,it's okay if you can't do it! Maybe Priscilla isn't in here because I love her too much to have her heartbroken or anything like that!

Thank you for this! I got a bit carried away, I might edit it too but I hope you like it! 🧚

🧚🏻 Masterlist 🧚🏻

word count: 4,641

pairing: naive f!reader x 70s yandere!elvis

warnings: cussing, yandere themes, mentions of abuse, emotional manipulation, stockholm syndrome

You and Elvis were like prey and predator, you were just too naive to see it. You were a lamb to his lion and the moment he laid eyes on you, he knew you were going to be his and only his.

Your older - and wiser - best friend, Betty, had taken you to one of his shows in Vegas, an experience like no other you'd ever had. The loud music, the bright lights, the screaming, was causing you to go into sensory overload and feel frightened and vulnerable. Elvis had noticed you as soon as he did his usual bit of turning the lights on the audience, he was practically bewitched by your beauty and the innocence that was positively radiating off you.

No girl had ever had that effect on Elvis, not in this way, not so instantly.

But Elvis wasn’t to meet you that night. You took off like a little fairytale character, running out of the auditorium as Elvis’ eyes followed you until you disappeared. You couldn’t handle the intense Vegas scene, it was too much for you to cope with and you needed some air. Betty had gone after you, consoling you as you repeatedly apologised for ruining her night and taking off like that but Betty was nothing but supportive, knowing that you were probably not ready for a show as wild as Elvis Presley’s.

Elvis couldn’t get you off his mind, your face was stuck in his head at all times. When he left the stage he was thinking of you, when he cooled off he thought of you, when he jerked off on his trailer he pictured you and as he fell asleep he thought of you.

By the third day of you relentlessly occupying his mind, Elvis knew Jerry had to find you. Funnily enough, both Elvis and Jerry recognised your friend Betty as one of the waitresses from the front of house at the International and Jerry hotel and it didn’t take long for Jerry to scout her out and enquire about you.

Blinded by the idea of getting close to Elvis, Betty gave up your location and contact details to Jerry in an instant and a day later, your phone rang furiously, again and again and again until you picked up.

“Is this Y/N Y/L/N?” A hoarse, deep Southern voice asked.

“Uh-huh! Speaking!” You said chirpily and Elvis melted at the sound of your voice. “Why? Who’s askin’?” You asked, twisting the phone cord with your fingers.

“Elvis Presley.” Elvis said as he heard a little, sweet gasp from the other end of the line, making him chuckle. “I hope you don’t mind me callin’, your lovely friend Betty passed on your number to me.”

“How do I know you’re really Elvis Presley and not Johnny from work because this could really be somethin’ Johnny would do.” You giggled adorably.

“You wore a white silk dress to my show, you ran out just as I began singin’ Suspicious Minds, guessin’ you ain’t too keen on that song, eh?” Elvis said and your stomach dropped, realising it really was Elvis.

"Oh gee." You mumbled. "I, um, I love your songs mister, I just, um, m'not good with crowds, it's silly, I know," You told the man.

"I don't think it's silly, I don't like crowds neither," Elvis agreed. "It's flatterin' to perform to a crowd but I hate bein' in them, I try to avoid them too." Elvis said, making you feel a little validated.

"I betchu get a lotta crowds, mister." You mused softly as if you were chatting to an old friend.

A deep chuckle could be heard on the other end of the line. "You can say that again, darlin'. But I sure was sad t'see you go so soon." Elvis said.

"M'sorry Mr Presley, m'sure Betty probably told ya, but I really am a big fan, I was real excited to see ya and I even wrote about it in my diary and everythin', it's just, it's just that I find crowds and all the loud noises and everythin' all a bit scary sometimes, and a couple of ladies," You paused and chewed your lip. "Well, they were just real big fans of yours I s'pose, pushed me outta the way to try to get to you and it was all gettin' a little intense see, and I just, it got a bit too much, I wish I did stay though, I said that to Betty too, that I felt real bad, I think I ruined her night really, I wrote her a real big sorry note and she says its okay but I know she's just bein' nice. Y'know I wish I'd stayed because that song you sing, Love Me Tender, oh boy, that's one of my favourite songs ever and I was real upset I missed it, you sing that beautifully Mr Presley." You babbled sweetly. "M'sorry, I've been ramblin' on and on atchu. I know some of it sounds dumb, a lotta people have said I'm dumb for not likin' crowds and loud music and, I mean, I don't really like it when people call me dumb, but I guess, um, maybe it is sorta."

Everything in the way you spoke confirmed to Elvis exactly what he'd expected; you were sweet, kind, naive and nervous.

"Now, now. You are not dumb for that and anyone who calls you that is frankly, an idiot." Elvis said, making you giggle. "How's about you and Betty come along down to the hotel tomorrow evening? I'd sure like to meet you without any of those crowds, maybe I can show you how to play Love Me Tender on the piano, I love that song too, little one." Elvis proposed, the pet name making your tummy do somersaults with nervous excitement at the sweet attention you were receiving.

You agreed, almost a little too eagerly, making Elvis realise that you were just like an excitable puppy, and he adored it.

He told you that he'd send his friend Jerry in a car for you and you bid him goodbye, running straight to your bedroom to write down as much of the conversation as you could remember in your pink diary.

You didn't sleep that night with so much excitement bubbling up inside of you. But, before you knew it, you were in a car with Jerry Schilling, asking a million questions about Elvis, the International and about Jerry too. Jerry understood straight away why you were so appealing to Elvis, you were everything that Elvis looked for, but Jerry knew Elvis a little too well and Jerry knew that once you were in Elvis' grasp, he'd never let you go. Jerry almost felt bad as you both sat in the car as he knew this would be the last time you experienced life as you knew it, everything would change when you stepped into the International Hotel.

Weirdly enough, Betty was nowhere to be found as you were escorted to Elvis' dressing room. The nerves were growing inside of you as you smoothed out your lilac dress and made sure no strays of your long, flowing hair were out of place as Jerry knocked on the door. That familiar voice could be heard from the other side of the door, calling for you to enter.

When you walked in, Elvis rose from his seat to greet you. He dominated the space, his aura was powerful and magnetic and he practically towered over everyone. His presence was overwhelming and instantly alluring and addictive.

As he approached you, you couldn't help but panic a little, you so desperately wanted to impress him, yet you'd never been in such a position before. Elvis on the other hand, thought you were simply adorable. You were as beautiful as he'd remembered and you had a gentle and shy demeanour, although from his brief conversation with you, he could tell that you could probably be very stubborn too.

Elvis grabbed you a soft drink after you both greeted each other, letting you relax a little as you took in the atmosphere. You chatted for a little while before Elvis offered to take you on a tour the hotel and the little recording booth that had been installed too.

"Shouldn't we wait for Betty? She'd like to go on the tour too, Mr Presley. I don't know why she's not here yet, but I s'pose her job can make her kinda busy, but I know she'd really wanna be here so I don't know what's holdin' her up."

"Sweetheart, please call me Elvis, I know I'm an old man these days, but you don't have to address me like one." Elvis laughed, making you blush. "But I'm sorry darlin', I thought Jer told ya, Betty said she couldn't make it? She said she was awful sorry but her boss had sent her for some trainin' thing or somethin', I don't know, I'm sorry no-one told you, honey." Elvis said, making you look up with confusion.

"Oh." You said quietly. You knew how much of a fan Betty was of Elvis and that she'd waited for ages to be allowed by her boss to have the evening off to see his show. "She must be real upset, she really wanted to go to your show." You told him.

"You think she'd like a signed picture of me, honey? I'll get one sent over to her straight away." Elvis told you, making you smile.

"Oh gee, that would be real kind of you, Betty would love that! Y'know, I even think she'd put it in a frame and keep it on display!" You giggled adorably. You admired how down to earth and friendly Elvis was for a famous musician.

You followed Elvis around the hotel, in awe of everything he showed you and loving every second you spent by his side as you began to feel oddly attached to him.

Elvis even taught you to play the melody for Love Me Tender on the piano, not getting mad or angry at you for messing it up - even on the twelfth try. That's when you let slip about your upbringing and how your parents would berate you and emotionally abuse you for not being able to pick things up as quickly as they wanted you to. Elvis didn't pry, but he listened intently to what you were telling him and working out how it made you behave and react and how he could use it to keep you as his own.

But when the magical day finally came to and end, the communication didn't stop then. You and Elvis would call each other all the time and he became all you thought about, day in, day out.

You visited him at the hotel several more times, spending hours together, giggling, teasing each other, reading, relaxing and trying to perfect that piano melody.

It wasn't until your sixth visit that you finally bumped into Betty again, dashing away from Jerry who would always escort you to Elvis to go see her at her waitress' post.

"Betty! Betty!" You said with a beaming smile, dashing up to her, only to be met with a less than friendly reception. Your smile dropped a little, noticing the tense atmosphere. "I haven't seen you in ages!"

"I know. I've been tryna reach ya Y/N, but there are whisperin's that you're seein' Elvis Presley? Is that true?" Betty said with slight frustration in her tone.

"Uh-huh! He's one of my best friends now I think, just like you! I even made him a bracelet and he says he's gonna wear it on stage!" You giggled.

"Why didn't you tell me you were seeing Elvis Presley? I'm meant to be your best friend Y/N and I gotta hear from Darlene, the dishwasher that my best friend is bein' snuck in to meet the King? You know how much I loved Elvis, Y/N, you knew it would hurt me if you got together with him." Betty said, making you frown with worry.

You adored Betty, you always had and it was never your intention to ever hurt her - or anyone that matter.

"M'not together with Elvis in that way, he's just a friend and I tried to tell ya but when I tried t'ring ya back, I couldn't get through. But he gave you that signed picture of him as a sorry that you couldn't come to the tour with me, remember? He likes you, promise!" You said, trying your best to make her feel better.

"What are you talkin' about Y/N? What picture? What tour?" Betty said, bewildered and frustrated.

You chewed your lip as you began to feel a bit confused at everything, Elvis and Jerry had told you about how busy Betty and the rest of the staff at the International were.

"Y'know how you were doin' the training so you couldn't come with me on the tour and Elvis and Jerry sent you that signed autograph picture of Elvis remember? Elvis told me that you told Jerry you couldn't come? He said that you'd got the autograph?" You said softly, feeling confused and anxious.

Betty sighed, shaking her head as she looked at the floor, putting the together the pieces and realising what Elvis was doing to you.

"Jesus." Betty muttered. "I wasn't invited to any tour, Y/N, the only time I've talked to Jerry Schilling was when he promised I could meet Elvis with you and then I never heard from him again and now I realise why. I didn't get any goddamn autograph."

"It must've just got lost Betty, I swear, Elvis really wants to meet you." You insisted naively.

"He's just lying to you to get on your good side, he just wants to fuck you." Betty practically spat.

Your eyes widened at the cursing, you'd never experienced Betty like this before and you were beginning to feel upset over it all. Elvis had been nothing but sweet to you.

"No he doesn't, he's not like that. He wouldn't lie to me, Betty." You said defensively.

"God, you're so dumb sometimes, you know that? He's literally manipulating you, Y/N." Betty exclaimed, the words cutting deep, prompting tears to pool in your eyes.

Many people had called you dumb before, but Betty had never been one of them. She'd been the only person you were really friends with since you'd moved to Vegas and now you'd lost her.

"M'not dumb." You said quietly, your voice cracking at the end as you turned away from who you thought was your best friend, running straight past Jerry and through to where you knew Elvis would be.

When Elvis saw you in tears, he became protective immediately, cooing at you as you engulfed him in a hug, needing his love and his attention. He wrapped his big arms around you, rubbing soothing circles in your back, whispering sweet nothings about how he was here, you were safe and everything was going to be okay.

Once you'd calmed down, you finally managed to get your words out, explaining what had happened, telling Elvis that you knew he would send the autographs and that you trusted him. Little did you know, that Betty was right all along but she'd just pushed you straight into Elvis' trap.

"A-and t-then, she, she said I was d-dumb, m'not dumb, Elvis, m'not!" You said through little mewls and sobs, revealing your biggest insecurity to him.

"Oh sweet girl, you're not dumb, I know that, you're my clever girl." Elvis comforted.

Elvis continued to soothe you from your distress, helping to calm you down with soft, tender kisses to your cheeks and the top of your head. You agreed that maybe it was best if you don't see Betty anymore, Elvis didn't want to see you upset again and told you that Betty was just jealous of you now, that she wasn't someone that you needed in your life anymore.

That night, you stayed in Elvis' bed for the first time after he easily convinced you that you were in no fit state to be taken home and left on your own.

A few months had gone by since your first few encounters with Elvis and you were firmly his little girl now. Everyone knew it, his circle, the staff at the International and it hadn't taken long for it to reach the press that Elvis Presley had a shiny new toy locked away in the biggest suite in the International.

The Vegas scene was all a bit much for you, understandably so. You didn't understand how Elvis managed it all, it was a relentless routine of shows, press, crowds, parties and wild antics and you couldn't keep up. Elvis never pressured you to take part in anything you didn't want to, in fact, he encouraged you to stay in the suite, insisting upon it sometimes, for your own good, he would say.

And you trusted Elvis beyond belief. You knew that he wanted the best for you and you ended up being quite content spending your days in your gilded cage of a luxury hotel suite.

Sometimes you wanted to leave, Elvis would never stop you, but every time you went with Elvis elsewhere, things would get out of hand and you'd both be mobbed by fans to the point that you would send Elvis that knowing, pleading look that meant you wanted to go back to your peaceful palace and escape the madness of the lobby or street - and he'd take you back up in a heartbeat.

But right now, you were on the bathroom floor, panicking after reading a magazine that had been left on one of the coffee tables that featured you and Elvis in it. It talked about you suffering 'Stockholm Syndrome', something you'd never heard before and you were frantically trying to find any kind of medicine that would explain, and treat, whatever this syndrome just happened to be.

"Baby, what are ya doin'?" "M'tryna find the right medicine." You mumbled, your mind totally preoccupied on trying to find out whatever was wrong with you and what you needed to fix this so-called 'syndrome'.

Elvis crouched down to your level, his brow furrowed with concern as he watched you routinely pick up a bottle of pills or vitamins, hold it up to your face so you could inspect the label with knitted brows and a lot of concentration before casting it aside when you knew it wouldn't be what you needed.

"Are you sick, little?" Elvis asked gently, a little worried about you.

You huffed, feeling a little bratty and grumpy at the interruptions. You were feeling anxious about what you'd read and it wasn't helping that Elvis kept badgering you with questions - even if it was actually only two questions. "Well, I don't know." You muttered crankily, your bottom lip jutting out as you looked down at the mess around you.

If Elvis wasn't so concerned about you in this moment, he'd actually rather tell you how cute you looked, all mopey and bratty in the middle of the big bathroom floor, your nightgown pooling around you as you sat of the soft shower mat that you'd moved so the cold bathroom tile wouldn't touch your skin.

"You don't know if ya sick or not? Honey, I'm no doctor, but that don't sound right t'me." Elvis chuckled at you, making you get all worked up all over again - this was no laughing matter, apparently everyone that read that magazine in America knew you were sick and you were too stupid to even know it yourself.

"It's not funny!" You snapped, crossing your arms and glaring at Elvis.

"Oh darlin', I'm only playin' with my little girl, tell me what's goin' on in that pretty, lil head of yours hm? You don't seem like yourself." Elvis said soothingly.

"Apparently..." You started but you just felt too shy to even admit that people thought you were ill and you didn't even know it yourself. You felt like that silly little girl who got pushed around by the stage all over again.

"Apparently what, Y/N?" Elvis said, trying to read your face for any indication as to what was wrong.

"Don't wanna say." You mumbled, trying not to let any tears slip.

You were just overstimulated and overwhelmed and that was only natural. You stayed in Elvis' suite for most of your days, you liked it, it was comforting and safe and most importantly, far away from the dangers of your 'old life', but it also meant that if there was any change to your routine, it could take its toll on you very easily - and finding one of the biggest celebrity magazines writing about how you were sick and Elvis knew it, was a big change to your routine that you could never have prepared for.

"You're a big girl baby, use your words. I can't help you feel better if you don't tell me what's wrong, can I?" Elvis chided gently yet firmly.

"Apparently I'm sick and you know I'm sick and I don't know I'm sick." You said with a wobbly voice.

"Who told you that you were sick honey?" Elvis said, utterly confused and bewildered by what you were saying, but his concern was growing.

You rubbed your eyes, trying to stop any stray tears from slipping as you turned your body around a little to grab the magazine from behind you with your small hands. "It says in the magazine, I got a syndrome, it's named after a place in Europe, um, Sweden, no, um, Stockholm, I think?" You said softly, your sweet voice cracking at the admission, as he tentatively took the glossy magazine from your grip.

Elvis eyes scanned the page, and they grew darker when he read the headlines and the nasty, nasty things they had written about your relationship.

'Y/N Y/L/N, Presley's girl in the tower'

'Y/L/N is evidently showing classic signs of Stockholm Syndrome, there are never sightings of her unless she's glued to Presley's side and we all know what he's like when it comes to his women.'

'Maybe one day, Y/L/N will stop seeing her Vegas life through rose-tinted glasses that Elvis has forced upon her and realise just how bad she's got it.'

Elvis could feel his blood boiling and his temper rising. He knew better than to think the press was going to write nice things about him, but he couldn't fathom how the copy of the lurid magazine had found its way into your possession.

"How did you get this, doll?" Elvis said calmly, trying not to scare you.

"It was left on the coffee table, I thought you left it for me, it had a section on pretty dresses to wear to your favourite show so I thought you'd left it for me? Or maybe it was one of the guys?" You said with glossy eyes and a slightly wet, pink nose, from your little sniffles.

Now, Elvis never intended to keep you away in his lavish suite and he truly didn't see that what he was doing was actually harming you. No, Elvis believed he was just protecting you. After you'd opened up to him about your troubles, your anxieties and your intense reluctance to trust others due to PTSD from traumatic events you'd been through in the past, Elvis just wanted to make sure no one would ever hurt you or scare you again. That's just how Elvis viewed it, he didn't realise it was manipulative or detrimental, Elvis just loved you - perhaps a little too much.

Sure, Elvis knew that it was beneficial to him to keep you away from the gaze of other men, he knew how every man would look at you, like you were sent from heaven and as soon as you opened that pretty little mouth of yours and spoke in that pretty little voice, they'd realise you really were an angel. Elvis practically shuddered at the thought of any man having any kind of access to you, he was possessive, dangerously so.

Elvis knew you were a little behind everyone else in many ways, you were inexperienced emotionally, mentally and socially and Elvis simply figured that God, or some higher power, had put you in front of him so that he could be the one to take care of you and guide you and protect you.

It didn't take long for Elvis to gain your trust and manipulate it. He listened to you and cared for you, showering you in love and affection and attention that you were so desperate for.

Whenever you needed anything, Elvis would be right there to provide it, whether it was a band aid after you clumsily fell over and scuffed your knee, someone to hide behind when a scary scene came on during a movie or just someone to give you a safe space to be yourself without judgement, Elvis was the person to do it.

You eventually grew reliant on Elvis as he began to isolate you from the world, but you didn't mind. You began to feel anxious if you weren't around the big, powerful, man and you'd seek him out at every opportunity and Elvis picked up on it quickly. He knew that if he sent for you, he knew you'd come and if he called for you, you'd run to him.

"Am I sick, Elvis?" You whispered, your face painted with worry and panic.

Elvis cooed, pulling you into his embrace and wrapping his big arms around your little frame, rocking you gently as you both sat on the bathroom tile.

"No, little one. You're not sick, it's the journalists, they're being mean to you to try and get to me and to sell a quick buck. Don't you let your little head worry one bit, you're my happy, healthy baby, aren't you?" Elvis soothed, kissing the top of your head and stroking your hair, trying to quell your unease.

You nodded, wiping away a couple of hot tears that had fallen.

"I want to hear you say it, little one." Elvis encouraged gently.

"I'm your happy, healthy baby." You said softly, looking up at him with those big round eyes that made him melt.

"There we go, that's my girl." Elvis smiled warmly, squeezing you a little.

"Why do they gotta be so mean?" You asked, fiddling with the hem of your gown, a habit that you had when you felt a bit overwhelmed or overstimulated. Elvis could tell you were emotionally exhausted.

"They need to sell their stories baby, bad news always sells more so they want us to be unhappy so that they have more t'write about." Elvis told you and your eyebrows knitted together.

"I don't think I wanna read those magazines no more Elvis." You admitted and Elvis nodded.

"I think that's a good idea baby, a clever girl like you doesn't need t'be reading nonsense about herself. Their words don't matter, as long as you're happy, that's what matters to me, lil mama." Elvis said as he rocked you gently in his arms, the slow movements combined with your sheer exhaustion from the stress and anxiety of thinking you were sick, taking its toll as you let your head rest against Elvis' chest.

"M'happy. I don't like reporters no more, I don't wanna talk to them no more." You mumbled.

"That's my good girl." Elvis cooed, letting you drift off in his arms. "I think it's time for bed sweet thing, you've gotten yourself all worked up and you're exhausted, little one." Elvis said, easily scooping you up in his arms as he took you to bed.

He thought you looked awful cute, all clingy and needy and sleepy. Elvis knew that you needed a lot of care and attention and Elvis was certain that nobody was going to give you that apart from him. You were his little Rapunzel and Elvis wasn't planning on letting you out of your gilded cage anytime soon, and you didn't mind one bit.

taglist: @elvisbf, @insanelycrazyanddelusional, @astralheart21, @eliseinmemphis @gothicphantom @sassanoe @hollbunn @ellie-24 @elvispresleywife @waiting4brucewayne2adoptme @billhaderstan420 @wolywolymoley @ccab @librafilms @presleyenterprise @imaginationlast @vintagegirl2005 @prompted-wordsmith

#elvis x y/n #elvis smut #elvis imagine #elvis #elvis presley #elvis angst #elvis fanfic #elvis x reader #yandere elvis #elvis fluff #70s elvis #elvis movie #elvisaaronpresley #60s elvis #vegas elvis #elvis x you #elvis x oc

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

“The updates are making me like Idia more, but in the same way you'd like a character for being pathetic” I’m shocked you didn’t like Idia at least from what I remember? He’s basically the same as Rollo (a character you do like I think) and in more ways than one. They’re both gloomy looking guys and traumatized big bros that are self righteous and pathetic. What kept you from liking Idia before if you don’t mind me asking?

[Referencing something I said in this post!]

Okay, confession time: when I was a little kid (I’m talking like 7-10 years old), I was SUPER into Greek mythology and more specifically the story of Hades and Persephone. I ate up ALL the Hades and Persephone retellings/reinterpretations I could find and actively hunted for more 💀 so you’d think I’d like Idia, who is twisted from Hades, given how I gravitated to Octavinelle because of my attachment to The Little Mermaid on my childhood…

I think what puts me off of Idia in spite of his similarities to Rollo, a character I do really love, is a combination of Idia's appearance and his attitude.

To tackle the shallower aspect first, I actually don't like characters that look "too" gloomy. I would say Rollo is stoic-looking, but not gloomy? He has a pretty neutral face most of the time and the only gloomy thing about him at a glance is the dark circles under his eyes. With Idia... There's a LOT going on here. The hair is definitely unique, but I've never been into super long hair. The nature of it kind of overshadows his face and Idia usually looks miserable as a default. I've mentioned before that I'm unnerved by his coloration too; the super pale skin plus the blue lips is reminiscent of a corpse and, well... while I do see there being an audience that finds him beautiful, I don't think that's a cute look for him.

Now, his attitude. I'm not going to fault Idia for being passionate about his hobbies, as we all have our niches that we're super into. What irks me is how Idia expresses himself and acts out on behalf of those interests. He talks down to people who "don't get it" and takes other measures to defend the things he likes that I think is crossing a line. For example, he tracks down the IP addresses of Ignihyde mob students that defaced his favorite idol group's website. In the EN version, Idia threatens to doxx the mobs too (though he never does, this was just a localization decision). Yeah, you could do that I guess... but should you? 😭 The other characters also do questionable things (as a J word fan, I cannot deny this) but those actions are usually so outlandish no one irl would do it (like how Azul is a high school student that runs his own shady business). Idia's behavior, meanwhile, embodies some very real and very toxic aspects of fandom culture. I think part of why I disliked Idia at first is also his manner of speaking; it's riddled with so much internet lingo that it's hard to take him seriously sometimes. This is even more true of the EN version of the game, which has added even more slang than was in JP. Like... sorry, am I NOT supposed to be giggling when OB Idia is making threats while talking like an enraged gamer (both in EN and JP)? There is a ceiling on how much pathetic I can take in one sitting, and Idia far exceeds it every time he talks. Other characters (like Rollo making cheesy villain speeches, Azul being teased, Jamil's DOKKAN, etc.) have their moments of funny ha ha-cringe as well, but at least I can still see them in a serious light.

Books 6 and 7 are enhancing my opinion of Idia solely because they focus on the "traumatized big brother" part to his character. In Glorious Masquerade too... Idia gets the courage to call Rollo out because he knows their experiences are so similar. I think the storyline was done very well, and I loved seeing how Idia grows from an event that no doubt affected him deeply and still continues to influence him to this day. It's clear that he cares deeply about both Orthos and will step up to protect them. I LOVE THAT FOR HIM, it's not as though Idia is completely throwing aside one brother for the other, he's acknowledging them both as his "true" brothers. The way he goes from laughing to crying in his post-OB flashback... Idia getting so mad at us attacking Phantom Ortho with lightning... the willingness to "go" with OG!Ortho to the world beyond... apologizing to Robo!Ortho for falling for the dream's delusion... Aaaah, it's just too good 😭

DIHLBASOFYIAYVYEBfsWPYWPF WHAT CAN I SAY... I like me a reliable onii-san character 🤡 I'M NOTHING IF NOT PREDICTABLE

#twst #twisted wonderland #Idia Shroud #Rollo Flamme #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #notes from the writing raven #question #book 7 spoilers #book 6 spoilers #Azul Ashengrotto #Jamil Viper #Ortho Shroud #Ignihyde #Hades #Persephone #The Little Mermaid #glorious masquerade spoilers

[hiskillingjar]

Heeey if ur down maybe

Strade x reader...but it's like a hitch hiker situation it's like 3 am and he picks them up off the side of the road yadda yadda their phone is dead maybe some awkward small talk (I can imagine th asking if he wants to play I spy or something)

Anyway I'm getting off track we all know hitch hiking is dangerous we've all heard horror stories of girls hitch hiking and then she's found in a ditch chopped into a billion pieces we all know this so does reader...so they keep asking if he's gonna kill them every five minutes...they're weirdly into it too

Sorry it's so long and just rambling I got off track I just really love strade

haughhhh this prompt haunted me and i just had to fill it. not totally what you asked for but. like. same vibe ya know?

3200+ words, cw for like. the lead up to actual noncon, i love strade most when he's evil and sexy and condescending sorryyyyyy. also crossposted on ao3 because i like having my longer fics there

"Hey, buddy, climb in!"

When the large, black SUV slid to a stop beside the road’s dirt path, you could have cheered. 

You had been walking for what felt like hours after getting off the bus at its last stop, your thumb raised high beside you in hopes of someone pitying you and stopping to pick you up. Had this stranger not stopped, you might have considered calling it quits and sitting in the cold to wait it out until morning rather than exhausting yourself with the walk.

Thank god you didn’t have to worry about that.

"Hey! Thanks for pulling over!" You beamed brightly and politely, as you climbed into the front of the stranger's truck, running a hand through your messy hair and dusting your boots off before you got comfortable in the expensive-looking car. "I really appreciate it, man, I've been standing there for, like, an hour now."

His own smile widened, dimpling handsome smile lines and crinkling his golden eyes. You had no idea what a guy like this was doing travelling on the highway at three in the morning, but you were sure that he would say the same about you, so didn’t think much about your wondering.

"Oh no, that sucks.” He said with a sympathetic click of his tongue. “Here, let me help you with that, you must be exhausted after such a tough night."

The friendly attitude remained as he reached out for your backpack, showing off muscular (albeit slightly scarred) arms and tan skin. You smiled appreciatively, all the same, as he took your backpack and tossed it into the back seat of the truck, before starting the engine back up with a twist of the keys in the ignition.

"Yeah, uh, I accidentally rode the bus to the end of the line and...yeah, the last stop was a little over two miles away?" You said, buckling your seatbelt as he pulled off the dirt path and continued down the road. "It's a total ghost town there, and I have no charge on my phone either. I really thought I'd be walking all night."

His smile shifted into a more sympathetic expression before it went to the road ahead of him.

"Ah, I feel you on the phone thing, it really sucks when your battery decides to die on you when you need it most.” He replied, both hands on the wheel, as he let the speed of the truck climb back up to the naturally higher speed of a highway drive. “No charge, huh? What a shame."

You nodded, unsure of what else to say.

"So, what's in the backpack?” He asked after barely a beat, and you got a sense that he wasn’t one to stay in silence for long. You didn’t mind the opportunity for small talk though, not really, even if it was late at night and…you mostly just wanted to get some rest. “You a tourist, or..."

"Yeah, kind of a tourist." You nodded with a little smile. "Um, I'm trying to get to Toronto, actually. I know that's pretty far, so no pressure to get me there,” You chuckled awkwardly. “But I think there's a bus station nearby, a few towns over? I was just gonna stay there tonight and get another ticket in the morning."

He nodded along as you spoke, an attentive audience member, like he was listening to you in place of late-night talk radio or music.

"Oh, so you've got quite the journey ahead, huh?" He peered towards you out of the corner of his eye when you nodded in response to his question. 

"Mmhmm, it’s still another day or so of travel,” You said with a shrug and a little nod. “So, um, I didn't get your name?"

"Ah, right, yeah, I forgot to tell you."

He took his eyes off the road for a moment to smile at you.

"Name's Strade,” No last name. Makes sense, you probably wouldn’t have told him your last name, either. “And you are...?"

You smiled back and told him your name.

"And, um,” You tittered a little coyly. “You know, I’m just trying to make small talk here, but I'm noticing a bit of an accent there...not Canadian, huh?"

He laughed, a friendly and warm chuckle that put you at ease, despite your less-than-ideal situation.

"Haha, you're good.” He said, sounding genuinely impressed. “Yeah, not Canadian. German, actually. I’ve been living here for, ah…” He sucked a hiss in through his teeth and tilted his head in thought. “A while. Just never managed to shake the accent, I guess."

"No, that's super cool. I’ve always thought Germany was an interesting place" You nodded with a bit more of a smile. "I've never been there, or anywhere in Europe or anything, but I've always wanted to."

"Oh yeah?” He hummed thoughtfully, still smiling. “You should definitely visit, it's great...I mean, yeah..." He peered out his window as he turned onto a new road, though you hadn’t seen where the illuminated sign was leading him. "The people...the cities...you know…” He continued, his words trailing off and his tone sounding distracted as he drove. “Germany's great...beautiful country...definitely worth the visit."

"Mm," You nodded. "Sounds nice."

After another long moment of silence (with you staring out the window, not seeing much other than fields and woods, and him focusing on driving and looking more and more put off by the quiet), he cleared his throat and reached up with one hand to rub his stubbly (and scarred) chin. 

"Listen…not to be intrusive or anything, I'm just trying to make some small talk,” He placed his hand back on the wheel, though he was still smiling. “But what's a pretty girl like you doing all by themselves, anyway? What, not got a boyfriend to travel with you?"

You let out an uncomfortable laugh, a slight flush coming to your cheeks as you tried to think of an appropriate (and smart) response. 

You knew you should have been...put off, to say the least, by a stranger asking why you were alone in the middle of the night, but...well, he had picked you up in the middle of nowhere, and you kind of owed him for that. Maybe he was just a curious guy.

And…he was pretty hot. Maybe he was just asking so he could make a pass at you.

"Hah, nope, all on my lonesome. But, um," You bit your lip, considering your next words very carefully. If you said something about…meeting people, perhaps, maybe it would have been enough to scare off any darker intentions he might have had with you. "I have friends in the city that I'll be staying with who know I’m coming. So, just need to get there, ya know."

He nodded again, smiling as casually as he had been.

"I see.” He said simply. “So, you must be pretty brave then, huh? Not many girls your age would feel safe travelling and staying in a bus station all alone without any protection, especially not these days."

An idle smirk crossed his lips as he kept his eyes forward, tapping the steering wheel with the pale palms of his hands.

"Lots of weirdos on these roads late at night, ya know?” His golden eyes went to yours then, and you could see they had narrowed just a touch, his eyebrows quirking with a silent challenge, or...threat. “Good thing I found you first, hm?"

"Mmhmm..." You nodded politely, letting out another uncomfortable chuckle. 

"Mhm…” He mimicked. “But, maybe we should change topics, ja? Let's talk about something...a bit more interesting~"

"Interesting?" You looked up at him with a curious blink, watching as he turned the truck again and started down a darker road, surrounded by woods. You still didn’t have a reason to be concerned though…at least, that’s what you were telling yourself. "How do you mean?"

"Oh, you know...a little more personal." He suggested with a shrug of his shoulders, like he was trying to appear more casual. "How old are you?"

"Oh, I'm twenty," You replied, raising a brow. "Yeah, second year of college, actually. I'm on spring break."

"Really?" He said, raising his own brows with pseudo-surprise. "Wow, I'm almost double that....way to make me feel like a creepy old man picking up a vulnerable girl on the side of the road, hah."

"Hah," You chuckled awkwardly, a slight flush coming to your face as you chewed the inside of your cheek. You’d read countless horror stories about this situation, and yet, when you were sitting in it, you still couldn’t help but be a little charmed by him and his self-deprecation. "Y-Yeah, sorry...um, I don't think you're creepy, though. I actually really appreciate it. I would have been stuck there all night, if you hadn't picked me up." You smiled. “Thank you.”

"Aw, how sweet," He crooned, taking one hand from the steering wheel and placing it on your bare thigh, making your breath hitch tightly. Denim shorts had been a fine choice when you dressed that morning, but a far stupider one at three in the morning, it seemed. "You really are very gracious, aren't you?"

"Mm..." You dug your teeth into your bottom lip as his hand roamed further up your thigh, calloused skin against smooth, goose-pimpled flesh.

"But, ah, graciousness can only get you so far in this world, right?" He said after a beat of silence, his voice taking on a lower tone as he looked towards you, pulling the truck to the side of the road and…slowing it to a stop.

"Huh?"

You didn't expect (though maybe you should have, considering all the hints he had been dropping) for him to stop the car, and you suddenly felt a lot more scared to be in a strange truck, in a strange country, with a strange man.

"If you're too grateful,” He murmurs, taking the keys out of the ignition. “Some people can take advantage. And why wouldn't they."

Your polite (albeit tight) smile dropped and you swallowed tightly, as you saw him pocket his keys and turn to you, those golden eyes that had once been so inviting narrowed and sinister, as the hand on your thigh crawled further and further up.

"It's late at night, we're all alone, you’re in some…stranger’s truck,” He cut himself off with a chuckle and a shake of his head, like he was chiding you. “And who knows what someone could do to you."

Now that the car was stopped, he was able to lean in a little closer to you, the hand on your thigh ascending to your hip.

“Helpless, right?”

"Ah..." 

You let out a little whimper, swallowing tightly as he pressed himself even closer towards you, sliding a knee under himself so he could push himself forward, over the wide console of the truck. 

You were so stupid. 

Your pocket knife, your only means of protection while you were on the road, was in your backpack, of all places, which was in his back seat…where he had thrown it. Somehow, though, you had a sense that even if you did have a weapon of some kind, some sort of defence against him, it probably wouldn't have done anything to stop him, anyway. 

The predatory glint that had always been in his eyes, looking back on the encounter retroactively, became a whole lot less concealed, as he reached up and idly pushed a thick chunk of your hair behind your ear, almost like he was admiring you innocently. His mouth tilted into a mocking smile and his tone became lower and even more lecherous.

"Twenty,” He said, like he was reminiscing. “Just twenty years old and doing this all by yourself. So young...and so pretty too.” He leaned a little closer, so close you could smell the thick scent of motor oil and sweat lingering on him. “It would be a shame if something happened to a girl like you..."

He let out a small chuckle, keeping his gaze locked on yours as his hand shifted from your hip and down to his side.

Your eyes followed it almost instantly. You didn't know what he was doing, but you knew that it couldn’t be good.

Strade noticed your gaze too, raising his brows and giving you a smile that he had practised so many times before, one that was supposed to settle a nervous spirit, a fretting hostage. He shifted his hand to the side, making it seem as if he was just casually adjusting himself, when, in fact, he was hiding something else, something much darker and more sinister altogether.

"Were you not scared...of a stranger like me, picking you up in the middle of the night?" He tilted his head, considering you closely like you were a new specimen for examination.

“Strade,” You mumbled softly, your eyes flitting to the side to try and spot your backpack. “Come on…let’s not do this.”

"Now, now...don't be so frightened.” He said, with almost the start of a hurt pout to his lips. Why was that enough to make you feel bad? “I don't mean you any harm at all, but you still haven't answered my question..."

He pressed even closer, his fingers suddenly trailing down your neck as his stubbly cheek grazed yours.

“Were you not scared?”

"I...didn't think I needed to be scared," You mumbled quietly, taking in a slow breath and feeling like your skin was prickling with nerves each time he pressed close to you.

"Why's that, hmm...don't you think it's dangerous to be alone at night?"

His staring eyes met yours, spanning up and down your face, like he was trying to take in every detail of you, each freckle, wrinkle and pore, before…

"Don't you think it's dangerous...to be alone...with...me..."

"NGH!" 

You let out a shrill grunt as he quickly pressed his body entirely against yours, climbing over the console of the truck and pinning you down to the seat. You attempted to quickly unbuckle your seatbelt and reach for the car door on the passenger side, gripping fingers scrambling for the handle as you heaved with his added weight on top of you.

"Oh no no no…” He chided lightly, sitting back as he straddled your hips and reached down in his jacket pocket. "Don't think you're getting away from me now, fraulein, not when I’ve just gotten you where I want you."

Your eyes widened when you saw him pull out a long bowie knife, hidden in plain sight, all this time. It wasn't even in a sheath to protect it.

"Please," You pleaded quietly, as he slid the knife up your front and severed the seat belt like hot metal through butter. "Please, Strade, please, let me go. I-I have friends, I'm going somewhere, you know that, they'll know I'm gone, they’ll know." You babbled erratically, every part of you trembling.

Strade just laughed, using the cut seatbelt as a makeshift rope to tie your trembling wrists to the car seat headrest above you (you had sunk down enough in the seat to get away from him that it was high up now).

You didn’t even try to fight him off that hard.

"Aww...you're still so hopeful, aren't you?"

His grin broadened, laced with malice as he watched the terror build in your eyes indulgently, like your fear was enough to sustain him.

"Do you actually think someone's going to come and save you...little college girl on her spring break, hm?” He asked, shaking his head further with a condescending little chuckle, before leaning in, his breathing heavy and ragged and excited. “No, I don’t think I’m going to let you go, fraulein…not when I have you right where I want you.”

"Please," You whimpered, your lip trembling as the first sting of tears began to bead in your eyes. "Don't kill me, please..."

"Oh, I'm not going to kill you. Don't worry."

You took in a shaky gasp as he raised the knife to your throat, immediately stilling when you felt the sharp edge of polished metal dig into your skin.

"I'm just going to have a bit of fun with you, that's all. That’s why you let me pick you up, isn’t it?" He pressed the knife down a little harder against your throat, leaning in even closer, thee bridge of his nose nestling against your jaw as you felt the sting of the blade. "You wanted someone to have fun with you, just like this..."

"Please don't hurt me...I-I'll do whatever you want," You murmured, tears spilling down your cheeks, trying not to move or struggle or shake too much and…encourage the knife to slip. “Please, please, please…”

"Aw, are you begging?" Strade’s grin widened even more, as he laughed at you, cruelly, meanly. “You really just get cuter and cuter the more you speak. I almost can’t stand it.”

You whimpered again as he raised his head to look at you, his face close enough to yours that he could have kissed you (if he wanted to), his tongue slipping out and licking his lips, and his breath heavy on your neck as his laugh trailed off into a low chuckle.

"Maybe I want to keep pretty things like you around...take my time with you, perhaps?” He mused softly, dragging the knife to a point and pressing it to the bottom of your chin. “Or maybe…I just want to do something with that pretty mouth of yours, hm?"

You gulped and squeezed your eyes shut, revolted by what you were about to say.

"Yes," You whispered, trembling a little more and pulling at the seatbelt that was binding you. "Do…a-anything you want to me. Just...please, please don't hurt me..."

He pulled back from you for a moment, raising his dark brows in a questioning look…like he was wondering if you were being truthful with him.

"Hmph. I know your type, you know. You'd say anything right now."

His expression shifted to one of mocking disappointment as he sighed, the knife moving slightly downwards and pressing into the hollow of your bobbing throat, as he studied your face.

"Do you really mean that? Or are you just trying to survive, eh?"

"I-I mean it," You stammered, pulling at the seatbelt again and swallowing hard, trying to sit up straight. "Anything. I'll...I'll even like it, too. I won't fight or scream or..." You sniffled, trying to shed the last of your tears. "Or cry."

"Really?” He gave you a doubtful smirk as he slid the knife downwards, easily cutting through the buttoned collar of your shirt. “You don't even know me, and you'd let me do whatever I want? With that pretty…” He enunciated each word by cutting away the buttons of your shirt, exposing more of your chest, your sternum, and your stomach. “Little,” Another button gone. “Mouth." Another.

“Yes. Anything.”

Once your shirt was completely open (showing your ratty sports bra), he lightly pressed the point of the knife against your breast, like it was about to be punctured. 

"And you'll like it?" He asked, tilting his head.

"Yes," You sniffled again. "Just...don't hurt me."

"You promise~?” 

He lilted airily in your ear as the knife trailed over to the band between your bra cups, severing it without a modicum of effort and revealing even more of your chest as he peeled away each flap of fabric with the point of his knife.

You bit your lip when he let out an appreciative whistle at the sight of your bare chest, the buds of your nipples erect and perky in the cool air of the night, the silver piercings glinting in the dark.

"Nice tits," He commented with a snicker. "I'm surprised someone else didn't pick you up first with a rack like that." His lecherous dirty talk was enough to make you blush and look away. "Maybe you should have been a little more...open with them, hm?" "Strade-"

“Mm, no apprehension, please.” He chided, poking one of the piercings with the point of the knife and bringing his face close to yours. “We’re going to have fun, and you’re going to smile and say ‘thank you’ the entire time...no looking away or playing shy, now.” He pressed the point of the knife to the bud of your nipple then, his golden eyes locked on yours as it dug deeper and deeper. “Understood?”

You took in an unsteady gasp as a delicate bead of blood spilled down your breast, and looked up at him quickly.

He wasn't fucking around with you.

“U-Understand!" You said quickly, a rictus grin of pleasure coming to your face, the air cool on your tear-streaked face. Thank you~”

“Good girl ♡”

#strade btd #strade ykmet #strade x reader #strade x mc #qs #fics #drabbles #i knowwwww he'd want you to be crying and begging but like. he's being a manipulate mansplain malewife rn. let me live

[prettyboykatsuki]

not enough trust to believe (not enough feeling to care) | a. shinonome

✮ tags ; fem!reader (usage of she/her towards reader + mentioned to wear make-up), established relationship, making-up, jealousy, hurt/comfort, light angst / happy ending, aged-up characters (this is sfw), single suggestive comment at the end.

✮ wc ; 4k (how.. literally what happened.)

✮ a/n ; the minute i touch that app a demon takes over and i end up daydreaming about this mf and toya . peace and love i feel insane. also for what its worth i do think adult akito is very good at communicating his emotions in comparison to now so if u find him ooc my apologies.

title from rental by brockhampton. shoutout if u know what manga this panel is from lol. also if ur a minor please do not follow me. u r welcome to read.

"Y'know, Akito - you're being a bit of a hypocrite right now."

"Shut up, Toya." Akito grumbles, forcing himself to tear his eyes away from the bastard you're currently giggling with "I'm not."

An laughs from the other side of the room.

"You so are being a hypocrite right now," An threads her fingers through Kohanes hair, the other currently seated on the floor while she styles it "What was it you said? It's nothing to get jealous over so don't worry."

"Akito-kun, it's not good to be dishonest."

"Kohane-san, you're being corrupted. I can't believe you'd join these two on this."

Kohane shakes her head.

"I'm not being anything. It's just not right."

An wraps her arms around Kohane's shoulders from above, chin resting on her head. Akito sighs, leaning his head back on the wall behind him with his eyes still closed - only bothering to open them again when another giggle falls from your lips. This time it turns into full blown heart eyes from that corny bass-playing bastard.

Akito Shinonome is not jealous alright? He isn't. So, this reaction is not by any means hypocrisy.

VIVID BAD SQUAD has officially been on tour for 6 months. This is their first international tour of their career, after releasing their first studio album. It was received well in Japan but surprisingly had more of an audience overseas. So, they'd been performing all over North America with another band.

You've been apart of the VIVD BAD SQUAD team for quite some time before then, working as a roadie for tours back home. Akito has been dating you for well-over a year, and so far - its been great. He gets to see you often and manages to sneak you onto the performers tour bus sometimes. He likes not having to be apart, even if he is incredible busy. A little is better than nothing at least.

A few months ago, the two of you got into a bit of a spat. You'd told Akito that you think he gets a little too friendly when girls come to meet him backstage. Went on a whole spiel about understanding his career and persona, that he doesn't need to be cold but that you wish he put a little more distance between them.

Akito had retaliated with the fact it's nothing to worry about. He's loyal to you and him being friendly isn't anything meaningful. You were upset about this reply and the two of you got pretty intense.

It took Kohane and An's intervention and plenty of convincing to get you two back on good terms - with An promising that she'd keep and eye out and scold Akito properly. You started talking again after that at least, and things went back to normal.

But nothing had really gotten resolved. You still seemed to feel upset every time he'd act too familiar with fans and Akito still didn't see it as a problem. To him it was just a fake part of the persona, and he didn't think it was like you to get so jealous about something like that.

Then, a few months ago - word got out that the bassist of the band they're traveling with has a crush on you.

FLASHBANG, a smaller indie rock band that everyone on tour is very fond of and a perfect addition to their set list. Both bands are friendly with one another. He'd assumed the news of their bassist having a crush on you was nothing more than some rumor. He just couldn't believe it having met them.

Sure, not everyone knew you two were dating but surely Akito would've noticed that before. He just wanted to double check.

It's been weeks now, and he's sure. Hiroaki Miura, bassist pretty boy, has a fucking crush on you. It's so obvious he has no idea how he didn't pick up on it before. He has no idea how you haven't picked up on it either.

He'd mentioned it to you just last week, just to see. You laughed a bit, but asked if he wanted you to stop hanging out with him as much or if there was anything you could do - all while assuring you didn't think that was the case.

"If it makes you uncomfortable, I can put some distance between us. Miura-kun isn't interested in me at all, though - I don't think. We're just good friends, we went to school together."

Ultimately he said that wasn't necessary. Akito stares at the two of you together now and scoffs. Haah. Good friends because you went to school together? He's practically making googly eyes at you.

"Looks like they're coming over here," Toya mumbles. Akito closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep, eye twitching when he hears Toya exhale.

"Hey, guys - great show! The duets today were just so vocally smooth and—oh shit, is he asleep?"

He hears An laugh and forces himself not to react. "Yeah. He was exhausted after today."

"Oh, really? Some sleep will be good then." The affection in your voice is so obvious he temporarily forgets whats happening until another, much more annoying voice comes through.

"You guys going straight back to the tour bus tonight?"

"Yeah, probably." Toya confirms.

"Ah, okay cool. We," He pauses, and Akito can only assume he's gesturing to you "Are gonna go check out a manga pop-up that's open here a few blocks down."

"Just the two of you?" An asks, very obviously barely holding in a laugh.

"Oh no, Eta-san is coming with us."

"Y'know, I wanted to go alone with you," Miura says, and Akito really thinks about waking up and hitting him "But Eta really wanted to come so I couldn't say no."

"I like how honest you are with your feelings, Miura-kun. Very refreshing."

"I don't have anything to hide," He insists, and Akito feels his hand clench "It was just nice we ended up tour together. We haven't seen each other since highschool so I thought I should make the most of our time together."

"I don't remember you being so sentimental. I actually remember you bullying me more than anything."

"Hey, quit it! I wasn't bullying you, i-it just came out wrong. I'm not good with my words and all."

"I know," You say completely good-naturedly. Akito knows objectively you're being friendly and thinking nothing of it. He knows that this is nothing to be bothered over and that you've been nothing but loyal. But god he’s annoyed."You would make fun of me then turn around and lend me your stuff. After I figured out you weren't a bad guy I wasn't scared of you."

"You guys have quite the history," Toya comments. You laugh.

"Yeah, I guess so. We lost touch after I moved for my internship so it feels like a big coincidence! Always good to see old friends."

Before any more conversation happens, another staff member calls Miura for whatever reason - leaving you alone. Akito keeps his eyes closed, hearing Toya sigh for a second time.

"Should I tell Akito where you went?"

"Oh, would you? That'd be great, thanks. I figure he wouldn't want to come, or else I'd invite him and go together."

"Why do you think that?" Kohane asks.

"I'm not blaming him or anything! I just don't think he'd be very enthusiastic about it, that's all. I don't want to force him. Me and Miura-kun bond over this stuff, Eta-san too."

"I'm sure he'd be happy to get to spend time with you," Toya assures. He can't see you but he can hear the insecurity seeping through your voice and something in him starts to bend.

"I know, but you know. It's weird lately with tour and all. I think getting my mind off it would help."

"Oh, no." An sighs. Akito's chest tightens "You poor thing."

"Oh stop that, I'm fine! Getting some air will be nice though, you know? For both of us maybe. I did want to tell him myself though."

"It'll be fine, I'll make sure."

"Thanks, Aoyagi-kun.

"And just so you know, Akito-kun really loves you!"

"Of course. I have no reason to feel stuffy about it. Just makes me wonder if I should still be apart of the picture if that's part of his career, no? Dating would hinder that."

"Don't think like that." Toya interjects. You laugh but even Akito can hear how sad you sound. He had no idea you'd even been thinking that.

"I'll try just for you. Now all of you, stop moping over my silly dating problems okay? It was an amazing show today!! Cheer up and I'll see you guys later."

"Where are you going now?"

"Gonna wait backstage for Miura-kun."

"Have fun," Kohane says last. You laugh brightly and assure you will before your footsteps trail off and get lost in the music. When you're gone, Toya punches him in the shoulder - hard enough to hurt a little.

"Ow, what the fuck?"

"You're such a jackass," An says seriously, shaking her head.

"I told you that it was gonna be a problem that you acted like that when we're a duo," Toya reprimands seriously. Akito can't do much to counter it "You should talk to her properly."

"About what," Akito grumbles "It is part of the gig. It doesn't mean anything to me."

"Oh my god, you're so clueless!" An says, exasperated, startling him "It bothers you this much that she's talking to Miura-kun but she should just deal with it when random girls act like to you all the time?"

"An-chan, don't get too mad."

"If I don't no one will! Did you see how sad she looked! She was even trying to be all understanding. That's not fair to her at all."

"...I also understand Akito-kuns view. But if that's the case, then that doesn't mean that she needs to tolerate it, right?"

"What are you saying, Kohane-san?"

She shakes her head.

"I just mean she doesn't have to continue if it's hard for her. If it's not something you can change, then she shouldn't endure it forever, right?"

“What the hell? Are you saying we should break-up?”

“Maybe. If it can’t be resolved, then isn’t unfair to expect her to always endure it?”

“That’s a mature way of looking at, Kohane-san.” Toya comments. Akito shoots him a dirty look. Toya shrugs, unbothered.

“Her and Miura-kun are a good match. They have a good atmosphere and Miura-kun doesn’t care about things like that,”

Akito sits up in frustration, nearly grabbing Toya by the collar.

“Don’t fuck with me.”

“Think about whats best for her in the long run.”

Akito stands to his feet, glare hardened but Toya doesn’t budge at all. He doesn’t have to listen to this shit.

"This and that isn't the same. It's work to me, that's it."

"Everything that she and Miura-kun do is strictly platonic to her. She's not flirting with him, and it's not her fault if he has a crush on her. She even offered to stop seeing him if it made you uncomfortable."

Akito stays silent at that.

"But what about you? You just immediately dismissed it because it's part of her job and didn't even apologize to her later. You seriously think that's fair?"

He sighs at that, and shakes his head.

"I'm leaving."

Toya shakes his head once Akito is out of ear shot.

"So stubborn."

___

It’s close to midnight and you haven’t returned to the tour bus.

Akito knows its stupid to worry but knowing you were out with that goon all day is grating on his nerves. So he’s been waiting. Pacing around and smoking cigarettes, going in and out - he even texted you couple times to check in. You responded with pictures of your items, and selfies.

You had a long day, you drank a bit, you'd be back to the bus soon, you miss him. All in a row.

The longer the time goes on, the dumber Akito feels.

He leans on the bus as he waits on his phone, fingers growing cold. He hears you before he sees you, the sound of quiet giggling followed by a loud laugh. Akito's head snaps up almost immediately.

He hasn't seen you since the afternoon, but you changed. You're wearing your going-out outfit and it looks like you've put on some makeup too, smudged and worn. Eta is between you both as you carry her - Miura just has lovesick as when Akito saw him last. His stomach drops a little.

But the feeling is washed away when you brighten, eyes landing on him. You wave with a bag in your hand and Akito waves back. He waves to Miura too, if only to be polite.

"Akito-kun," Miura is the first talk as all three of you approach "What are you doing here?"

"There was some stuff about tomorrow set we needed to talk about," Akito says, gesturing to you. You blink owlishly.

"Just for you guys? Not FLASHBANG?"

Akito nods. You hum, then look over at Miura.

"Will you be okay taking Eta-san?"

Miura nods.

"Of course. I can't believe she drank so much in the first place, but I oughta to walk her back to our bus." Miura says as you off-load the weight on your shoulder "I'll see you again for tomorrow. Had a lot of fun today."

You giggle, clearly a little tipsy as you give Miura a thumbs-up. "Me too. See you tomorrow!"

Miura laughs a little before turning the corner, mumbling some light reprimanding to the drunk Eta before going on his way. Akito waits until both parties have disappeared - all the way out of ear shot before he looks at you with clear eyes.

If he's come to any conclusion it's this one - Akito doesn't want to break up with you.

He can't give up his career either, and maybe that's selfish. Maybe that's the whole problem. He can't pick. He thought about it, whether or not breaking up would be the right solution. He landed on maybe. Rationally he understands it. But it makes him angry just to think about it.

Akito stares at you as you hold your bag in comfortable silence and look at him. Wide, honest eyes - so dazzling he can hardly breathe. He reaches forward and cups your cheek in the palm of his hand, smoothing his thumb underneath your eye.

"You're back late," He murmurs, though it's not accusatory "What were you doing?"

"Well, a new store opened up at the mall in Tokushima, a bookstore that had a little pop-up for an anime Miura-kun likes. So we shopped around for a while, then stopped to see a movie, then went to an izakaya to drink a bit."

"Did you drink a lot?" He says, gentle as he holds you "You're gonna get a migraine."

"I had 2 mixed drinks. They had shochu in them but it wasn't very strong. Some water will sober me up." You pause inbetween your words, brows furrowing "What happened with the set list?"

"I was lying," Akito admits without thinking twice. You look surprised and he laughs "I just wanted us to be alone."

You tug on the lapel of his jacket weakly "I said I'd put some distance between us if it made you uncomfortable."

"It's not that," And it's true. Akito just really, really needed to be with you alone for a while "I was getting grilled earlier."

"From who?'

Akito rolls his eyes "Who else but Toya?"

You giggle.

"What was he grilling you about?"

"...You," Akito answers after some time "Us."

A beat of silence passes.

"Were you really thinking about breaking up?"

You look a little startled before looking away and something in him is crushed.

"Is that what he told you?"

"It's what it sounded like," Akito replies back. He reaches for your hand and squeezes it "Do you?"

"It's not that I want to,"

"Then what is it?"

'We're gonna go around in circles again," You say through a wet-laugh, like you're already gonna cry again. Akito fucked up bad. He brings your free hand up to his lips, kissing your knuckles gently.

"We wont this time, swear."

"I know it's just work to you. It doesn't bother me all the time, either - like sometimes it doesn't bug me at all. But then, it's like, if I can't handle this much, maybe we should break up," You explain carefully and slowly, not trying to be too harsh at any point "I don't want to resent you or get in the way of your career, y'know. I know you're not gonna cheat on me. I'm a little insecure about it, but tough shit you know?"

"What do you mean?"

"It just...I dunno. It feels bad to watch you flirt with your fans, but if it's work for you than that makes it a me problem right?" You say thoughtfully, a sad but gentle look in your eyes "I don't know if I can handle that. So maybe, it's better to nip it in the bud now before things get serious."

"Aren't they serious already?"

"Yeah, but it's not like we're married. Or public. Like this, it's a normal break-up. It'll be awkward for a bit. But we get through it and things go back to how they were."

"It sounds like you don't take this seriously." Akito says, accusatory. You sigh and shake your head.

"That's not true at all. If you mattered to me in any less, it might be easier. Like if I loved you just a bit less, I could come up with a better solution," You hum. Akito believes it more than anything, that you love him. Even knowing doesn't make everything better "I love you and I know that your career is the most important thing to you. I would never want to make you choose."

"So what? You just cut yourself out of the equation so I don't have to?"

Where Akito expects you to disagree, you laugh and nod your head.

"Yeah. At least we'd be on good terms that way."

Akito stares at you in disbelief. He's partially angry, and partially devastated. He knows what you're saying, and it makes sense rationally. Logically at least. It's a problem with no good outcomes, like if there's already a stalemate - whose to say things will get better. It's in character for you to think like that. Where Akito is hard-headed and passionate, you're calm and analytical. To overthink to such an extent, to think so seriously about your futures. Both Akito's future and yours.

But it's not what he wants. His career is important, of course it is. What he's built is important. But does that mean he has to give up on you?

When Akito reflects on it, he doesn't think your original ask was that hard to fulfill. It hurts the worst to know that. Had he heard you out properly the first time, thought about it a little more - it'd be clear that it's nothing that serious.

Nothing worth making you worry over. Nothing worth making you question your entire relationship over.

But he didn't do that the first time, and now he's stuck listening to you think of all the ways things could go worse from here. It's his fault, really, for not thinking about it. He's always been this way about his career.

"You've been thinking about this a lot." He says first, almost paralyzed. You laugh humorlessly.

"I was going to wait until tour was over to talk about it."

"...Cause you were worried about how I'd perform."

"You're an important part of my salary," You joke, trying to lighten the mood.

"...Man this feels like shit,"

"Sorry."

"No, not it's not that. It's not your fault."

"It's not yours either."

"But it is," He says, exasperated with himself "If I would've just fucking... heard you out a few months ago. You wouldn't have been thinking about all this. If I had just done something then,"

"I don't see it like that, Akito."

"I know but it doesn't matter, cause it's my fucking fault anyway." He looks at you seriously. Shit, he almost wants to cry. "I don't want to break-up with you. I'm really sorry."

"A-akito?"

"I'll stop flirting with the girls who come to meet us. And I'll announce our relationship after I talk with the managers a bit,"

"A-akito, you really don't have to—"

"My career, music, everything we've built so far is important to me," Akito looks at you seriously, hoping it all comes out right. That everything comes through the way he intends "But shit, so are you. You're not...less important to me than any of that."

You stay silent, like you're in disbelief.

"Really?"

"Fuck—god, yes of course. I'm sorry. I really screwed up this time. I don't want to break up. I want to be with you, for a long time. Longer than this."

"I'm gonna cry." You say with a warbly laugh.

"Don't cry," Akito mumbles, pulling you into his arms. He hears you sniffle as he tucks your face against his chest, his arms around you tightly as he comforts you "I'm sorry for being an idiot. I love you,"

He presses a kiss to your head, looking at your tear-stained face with a sigh. He leans forward, knocking your foreheads together before littering kisses along your cheeks and face until you laugh again. He finds himself smiling too, before another somber wave of emotion washes over him.

"I'm sorry for being a shithead," He says with a sigh "An called me a jackass and I can't believe I have to agree with her."

You laugh "I don't think you're a jackass."

"You totally should though," Akito says back "I was pissed off the whole day."

"Really? Why?"

"Why do you think?

You look genuinely confused for a minute before something seems to click.

"Was it because of Miura-kun?"

"Yeah. Fucking walking around so lovey-dovey, making googly eyes at you."

You smile impishly "He confessed to me earlier today."

Akito stiffens immediately.

"What?!"

"Yeah. We were in an alley and waiting for Eta-san and he just... told me outright."

"...And then what?"

You roll your eyes "Of course I accepted and now we live together, happy ever after." Your sarcasm bleeds through your words as you flick Akito's forehead "Obviously I rejected him gently and said I was seeing someone."

"And then?"

"And then he asked who, and I said and then he was silent for a while before tearing up a little." You reply thoughtful, fond smile on your face "He said he wishes he did it in highschool and I comforted him for a bit. Guy cheered up really fast,"

"Seriously?"

"Congrats on being right," You lean into Akito, wrapping your arms around his waist "He bounced back after a drink or two and it hasn't been awkward at all. He can't hide his feelings for shit so I'm sure he's fine."

"Seriously? It's over just like that?"

"He's a positive guy and he doesn't dwell on things. Kind of dopey you know? Pure-hearted to a fault, the only thing he's really smart at is music and sports."

"So he's over it? There's no way."

"I wouldn't say he's over it," You say thoughtfully "More that he just accepts things as they are. I'm not into him so that's that. But we're still friends, and that won't change any time soon. I hope that's okay."

Akito widens his eyes.

"I mean, yeah it's fine - I guess I feel better about this way but. I mean, shit."

"I thought you'd be celebrating a little more."

Akito scoffs.

"He's still gonna make those stupid heart eyes at you, just not in front of me."

"He does not do anything of the sort!"

"Oh yes he definitely does. Ask Toya if you don't trust me."

"Maybe I will." You reply, sticking your tongue out.

"Ask him when we get to our bus."

"...Is that okay? Did you ask your manager?"

He laughs again, holding you close a second time. He tilts your chin up towards him, placing a kiss on your lips.

"Don't care," He says brazenly "I need you with me tonight."

"That sounds dirty, Akito."

"Oh, it is baby," He teases, turning his voice low "Try not to be too noisy. Kohane-sans a light sleeper."

#akito shinonome x reader #akito x reader #project sekai x reader #pjsekai x reader #writing tag

[sinning-23]

Apple Of My Eye (Buggy x Ex!Reader)

ANGST ANGST NO COMFORT LOL! Angst isn’t really my specialty but my life is a goddamned tragedy so why not pull some my very pathetic love life and sprinkle it in a fan fiction lmao. ANYWAY! Enjoy!

How had he managed ot fuck up so badly with you? His pretty girl, his star. You smile and wave to panicked audience participants, the bubbles from your hands looking like pure magic. But the look in your eyes when you seen him was fierce. You twirl and bend and flip, glitter sparkling around you when you did. Of course Buggy was still enamoured with you, despite you no longer being his.

Loving Buggy was like falling. The feeling od your stomach clenching in uncertainty, waiting to hit the ground but never actually coming close to impact. He was always there to catch you arms attached to him or not.

Loving him was reassuance, making sure the knew just how important he was to you. Loving him was kind, calm, and precise. You’d kiss his face so soflty, intertwine your fingers when no one was looking and embraced him on cold nights.

But loving him was also patience. A thing in which he struggled to obtain at times. Shoving you away when all you wanted was to help comfort in the best way you knew how. Loving him...hurt. It hurt when he ignored your concerns, saying you needed to 'lighten up' or 'wheres the fun in that."

It hurt when you'd try and comfort him only to be met with anger. He needed time is all...right? and time you gave. you tried and trie dnad tried but nothing seemed to work.

Had he grown tired of you? No. It was obvious he hadn't when he would set you in his shows, you being the main act. He was never fond of sharing the spotlight but for you...his star? He'd do anything. Of course the would never tell you and he knows that's why you fell out in the first place. Poor communication on his part at least.

SO when you finally toldhim you needed to talk, avoiding looking at him, arms hugging yourself, he paniced. Of course he did. He knew that look, and th feeling in thepitof his stomach that came with it. You were going to leave him.

"Youre breaking up with me...arent you?" He chuckle bitterly, fists balling up at his sides. Even though the last thing he wanted was to be mad at you, he couldn't help the rage that filled his core. You were going to leave him...just like everyone else half

"I think we need to take a break..."You whisper, eyes welling up, knowing this was for the best. It still hurt though, but that's what it meant to love Buggy. To hurt momentaritly.

"You lied. You said you wouldn't....you." He cant seem to find the words.

Gods this whole situation is making you feel guiltier than ever. You did promise to never leave. And you still would keep it, opting not to leave the crew for his sake, no matter how much easier it’d make things.

It’s been months since the night and your heart can’t help but squeeze every time you see him. Part of you wishes things would have went different but knowing him.

It wouldn’t have.

#x reader #one piece #one piece live action #one piece x reader #opla #opla buggy #opla buggy x reader #captain buggy #buggy x reader #buggy the clown x reader #buggy one piece

[bottlesofrouge]

on one condition.

harry styles x original character

part one.

word count: 6.9K

warning: their home lives kind of suck but that's it! (i think)

1 JUNE 2018

in the month of june, the sun rises around 5:25 am every morning in new york. sometimes it rises a few minutes earlier, and sometimes it rises a few minutes later, but lynn knew as soon as the first ray peaked its way through the blinds, her mother would be fully dressed, standing in the kitchen, and tapping her way through work emails that had mysteriously piled up overnight. growing up, lynn found this routine comforting because it never changed, weekends and holidays included. if she woke up and it was light outside, she knew her mom would be standing behind the breakfast bar with a stack of blueberry pancakes (made by her very wonderful au pair, elena) planted in front of her. she would sit on the stool across from her, and talk her mom's ear off. little lynn thought her mom's lack of responses was due to the fact that she was so tired from waking up so early every morning, but now-lynn realizes she just didn't really care that much.

her fingertips brush across the back of the stool sitting next to her, and it's almost like she can see a seven-year-old lynn sitting next to her. the slight glow of the numbers on the oven clock illuminating her features as she tells her mom about her chorus concert that was taking place in the evening. her grin widens as kathleen tells her she'll be there after she finishes work. although, elena will be the only familiar face she sees in the audience, and now-lynn knows it will always be like this. elena's familiar face amongst the crowd with her mother nowhere in sight.

the oven clock reads 5:13 am, and lynn decides to go over to the kitchen sink to splash some water on her face, trying to wash away any indication that might suggest she had not moved from the stool since she sat down nearly five hours prior. because that would be crazy, but also entirely true.

"you're up early," her mom's voice flows from the bottom of the staircase as soon as the first ray bounces off the granite kitchen counter, illuminating the room a bit more with its glow.

"i am," she reaches for the stool that she just got up from as her mom places a fresh cup of coffee in front of her.

kathleen says nothing else. instead, she reaches for her macbook that has been charging on the counter overnight, and lynn assumes she's immediately opening outlook. that's how it usually went the mornings after she'd spent the night. she'd stare at the wall for a few hours, trying not to let the sounds of her mother slamming the keys of the keyboard annoy her too much.

honestly, lynn didn't know what her mom did for work. she tried to explain it to her on a few occasions, but the only thing she understood was that it was extremely time-consuming. kathleen once said she was the only one in her office that had children, and she thought that maybe her mom should've followed in their footsteps.

"you'll be ready by 11, right? and you'll help me make sure the girls are ready?" kathleen says. she doesn't look at lynn until a few moments pass with no response. they make eye contact and her mom raises her brow. "the barbecue, lynn. remember?"

"right. i've got it. don't worry."

"your coffee's getting cold," her mom points out.

lynn tips the mug around before taking a sip. it's definitely cold, but she denies it and takes another sip before telling her mom she's wrong. there's really no reason to. it's only a cup of coffee, but she thinks she'll do just about anything to spite her.

her dad walks in and the entire atmosphere changes. he kisses kathleen's forehead and lynn can't help but cringe inside. it's absolutely sickening and she can't understand why her mom would ever take someone like him back. she had said lynn would understand when she was older, but it's been fifteen years and she still can't wrap her mind around it.

"good morning," he says as he pours himself a cup of coffee. "are the girls up?"

tuning out whatever her garbage father has to say is the only gift that lynn is thankful for. as soon as he opens his mouth, her ears magically turn off. it's something she'll be eternally grateful for because she thinks hearing peter's voice for more than four seconds would send her into a spiral.

growing up without a dad was a lot less horrific than some people may think. lynn didn't feel like she was missing out, and she didn't think her life was doomed to be a failure because of his absence. she honestly never thought much of her dad. that all changed when she was eleven though, and she walked in the door from school to see her parents moving all of her dad's belongings back into the same house he had moved out of eleven years prior (after having an affair with her first au pair before she had even turned one). needless to say, the sight of peter's face is enough to make now-lynn physically ill.

"are you going to be in such a sour mood all day, lynn?" she rolls her eyes at the words and makes no move to respond. it's silent once again, and the only sound that can be heard is kathleen's occasionally slurping.

it's nearing ten when her sisters finally wake up. jane is the first one down the steps. she's got the blanket she's had since she was born clenched in her fist as her other hand is holding the railing to make sure she doesn't tumble down the staircase. the little girl wordlessly makes her way to the kitchen, where she finds lynn making her blueberry pancakes covered in maple syrup.

"lynn," she yawns, fist rubbing her eyes. "you're back already?"

"m'only here for the barbecue mom insisted i go to."

"aw, man," the girl stabs a piece of her pancake and rests her head in her hand, a sigh pushing past her lips.

"i know. i miss you, too, jane." her fingers brush the other's hair away from her face as she eats. "i'll visit you a lot, and you know you and amelia are always invited over. all you have to do is ask."

jane only hums in response to her sister and puts all of her energy back to eating her pancakes. it's not long until amelia comes down the stairs. she looks almost as disheveled as their youngest sister. her hair is in a messy knot on top of her head, and she's still sporting last night's pajamas. lynn can't help but wonder where her mom went off to, and she feels a little queasy when amelia says she already knew lynn was visiting. simply because the kitchen smelled of food.

she makes sure jane's hair and teeth are brushed before finding her a little summer dress that screamed neighborhood barbecue, and then she braids amelia's hair away from her face before getting herself ready. there were only ten minutes before they had to leave, so lynn opts for a pink two-piece set she ordered from a random website online that probably specializes in drop shipping, and retouches her leftover makeup from yesterday before joining the two girls in the living room where they were watching some new disney movie that jane probably asked to be put on. it would be an understatement to say she was tired. her eyes felt heavy and she could barely hold her head up. she thinks that if she fell asleep now she could get out of this whole thing, but kathleen comes walking down the staircase, crushing her dreams of an afternoon nap.

"really lynn? that's what you're wearing?" and the girl should be upset at her mother's words. she really should, but after spending twenty-seven years hearing them, she's gotten used to them. "there's someone there i want you to meet."

lynn rolls her eyes as she walks to the foyer, "i'm not the next contestant on the bachelorette," she slips her shoe on. "and i'm definitely not dressing up for one of your friend's sons."

surprisingly, her mom drops it. lynn would be lying if she had said that she didn't find it the slightest bit alarming. her mom would've spent the entire two-minute-long drive trying to sell her on this mystery boy, but instead she reminds the girls that dance camp starts on monday... and then she asks lynn to take them.

when lynn gets out of the car, she can only focus on one thing, and that was how hot it was outside. it wasn't just a little uncomfortable. no, it was absolutely sweat-running-down-your-back roasting. she decides on pulling her hair up off of her neck which earns another comment from her mother. honestly, she tuned this one out, but she thinks she said something about lynn's masculine features becoming more prominent when her hair was tied back.

it's not long before kathleen starts introducing the girls to all of her friends. a woman asks if jane and amelia were her grandkids, and when her mom says no, she said that she couldn't believe how similar the girls looked to their nanny while nodding over at lynn.

there was honestly nothing she found more repulsing than this damn neighborhood barbecue. she hated it when she was seven, and she hates it now, twenty years later. it was hot and the air felt thick and humid. all she wanted was a nice long nap. she could picture it now. fresh, crisp, cool sheets and-

"lynn adams," kathleen's snapping her fingers in front of the girl's face, and it takes everything in her not to swat her mom's hand away. "don't be rude. this is my friend from yoga, marianne. she has a son-" and she doesn't know what else her mother says because as soon as the words leave her mouth, kathleen's voice sounds something similar to the bland tones of the parents in any charlie brown special, and before she knows it, marianne from yoga is hugging her and leading her towards a boy who looks like a young, unshowered, mick jagger cosplayer.

✮✮✮

harry's parents invited him over for lunch, and he really couldn't say no. he missed his mom's home-cooked meals, and honestly, he really never cooks actual meals for himself. he's found that cheap vodka and whatever mixer he could find in his cabinets worked as a great substitute. he'd never admit it, but he was excited to see his parents. sure, he lives only twenty minutes away, but he doesn't really ever have time to make a visit. failing all of his classes and frequenting the town's bar really took all of his energy.

when harry gets to his parents, he sees his sister's car in the driveway, and he thinks it's going to be a nice little family meal, something he hasn't had since he started going to college. but it's not. and really, he should've known better. no one wants to be around him.

when he stepped inside, his family and family friends were waiting for him in the living room. they sat in a circle and they all held folded pieces of paper in their hands. it took them a minute to realize that they were hosting their own intervention.

the entire event was so uncomfortable, and it made harry hate himself more than he already had. he knew he had a problem, and he also knew that he could stop whenever he wanted to. he did, in fact. he only started drinking again because he was craving validation. it doesn't really make sense to anyone but him, but he found it was easier to get someone to go home with him after he had been drinking. it gave him the confidence he needed, simple as that.

when his mom started reading her note, she was sobbing, and it made harry cry, too. it wasn't because what she was saying moved something deep inside of him. it was because he couldn't understand why they felt the need to embarrass him in front of so many people he wasn't really comfortable with. a phone call asking harry if he was okay would've worked just as well, but they never called unless it was to tell him just how disappointed they were in him.

so now he was at this stupid event for a neighborhood he hasn't lived in since he turned 18. his mom had asked him to come, and he felt like he couldn't say no. he was scared he'd push her into holding a second intervention, and honestly, he didn't think he'd be able to handle that.

it was hot and noisy, and there were kids everywhere. harry hated kids. they were gross and dirty, and they always found a way to piss him off. they were part of the reason that harry was so big on safe sex. he would literally have to change his name and move continents if he were to get anyone pregnant.

he's sitting at one of the picnic tables alone. his dad was lucky enough to skip the whole thing, and gemma claimed she was busy. his mom didn't mind though, and harry couldn't help but wonder why she was so adamant about him going. originally, he had thought that maybe she had wanted to spend some quality time with him, but nearly an hour had passed and marianne was still talking to her book club mom friends, not really showing interest in introducing them to her son. harry wasn't too surprised, though. his mom never really introduced him to her friends anymore.

marianne loves him. harry knows that. she only ever wants what's best for him, but she always goes about it the wrong way. maybe some kids needed an hour-long phone call lecture about how they'll never amount to anything if they don't finish their degrees. his sister was one of those kids. he remembers sitting at the kitchen table while his mom scolded her on the phone, and her dad did in person. john had driven the six hours to gemma's college town to bail her out of the county jail after a crazy night during her freshman year. needless to say, after that phone call, it never happened again. what his parents failed to realize was that harry wasn't gemma, and maybe he just needed someone to hold his hand and tell him everything would be okay.

he notices marianne moving away from her book club group and towards a family. there was an older couple, a girl that looked about his age, and two younger children. harry couldn't help but wonder what that family dynamic was. perhaps she was the girls' nanny, or maybe she was even a third in the parents' relationship. if it was the latter, it would definitely be a little harder to get her to sleep with him, but he always liked a good challenge.

"harry," his mom pulls him from his thoughts. he blinks and suddenly his mom and the nanny (slash possible unicorn) were standing in front of him at the other side of the table. "this is lynn, kathleen's daughter."

"who's kathleen?" he takes a drink from his cup (which held nothing but ice cubes and water) before wiping the wetness off of his mouth with the back of his hand.

marianne's face turns red, "kathleen from yoga." she says it slowly like it should ring a bell, but harry's not too familiar with the attendees of the 'Yoga Over 40' class. "kathleen and i thought you guys should talk. maybe get to know each other today," and before harry can open his mouth to say no thank you, marianne is pulling a chair out for the girl and then walks away.

"i'm lynn," she says like marianne didn't introduce her thirty seconds ago. she holds out her hand, but harry's already in a foul mood and he senses lynn (he thinks that is a terrible name) would be an easy target to humiliate.

so instead of shaking her hand like a decent human being, he looks at her over the top of his sunglasses and pops the spearmint gum he's been chewing since he got here. "not interested."

"don't flatter yourself," she rolls her eyes and leans forward, resting her forehead on the palms of her hands before crossing her arms in front of her.

"so you're telling me you weren't just begging my mom to introduce us?" his eyebrow quirks and he has a small smile forming on his lips. "'cause it looked an awful lot like that."

she smiles at him, white teeth and all, "trust me when i say i would rather act as a speed bump at the entrance of this neighborhood, waiting to be taken out of my misery by an unsuspecting hybrid toyota prius."

"weirdly specific," he takes another drink. "is that some sort of kink of yours?"

"maybe," her eyes bore into his. the look on her face is so bland, harry can't quite get a read on her. she looked the opposite of him. lynn had blonde hair and blue eyes. the only thing the two had in common was their curly hair, and so harry was obligated to think that it wasn't totally unattractive. "is yours watching mommy pick up girls at the neighborhood picnic for you?"

"ha. ha," harry's voice is emotionless. "tell me, lynn. have you ever considered going into comedy?"

"no, but i'm certain that everyone in the local comedy crowd would love my work. i'm thinking i could enter a piece titled 'desperate mom tries to pawn off loser son'. what do you think? i could credit you if you'd like." she smiles at him again, and he can tell by her eyes that her smile is fake. harry thinks if she were wearing sunglasses he might think she was trying to make a joke rather than a dig at him.

"kathleen thought we should talk," he reminds her. "i wouldn't be climbing on your high horse just yet."

the silence that followed hung around them like a cloud, and it was quite awkward. lynn didn't seem to mind though. she was off in her own world, daydreaming about god knows what. if harry were to take a guess, he'd bet that she was thinking of fairies and rainbows, or whatever else children under the age of eight think about during their free time.

"do you want to get out of here?" harry's popping the gum in his mouth again. "we could have sex. i will say you're not my usual type, but i can always appreciate a good body.

"gross," she leans back in her chair, her face showing disgust almost as if his words could contaminate her. "what's your usual type? wait let me guess," she taps her finger on her chin for a moment. "brown hair and pretty green eyes. i assume it's the closest thing you'll get to fulfilling the fantasy you have of fucking yourself."

"you think my eyes are pretty," he says, completely disregarding whatever else she said.

"i can appreciate nice eyes when i see them," she says. "don't fall in love with me yet."

lynn's wearing her hair pulled away from her face, and harry thinks it suits her. she has some sort of matching outfit on. it's shorts and a button-up top, made out of the same soft material. it's baby pink, like her lips, and she's dainty?? harry doesn't know if that's the right word, but she looks small and soft. like if she were in an arm wrestling competition with a fly, the fly would win. the tiniest smile, really it was barely a smile, makes its way to his face because... well, he thinks she's pretty.

"got something on my face?" she asks, and harry's waiting for a snide remark to follow, but she's serious. lynn has no idea that he just spent the last five minutes shamelessly checking her out. the fact that he was caught makes his cheeks burn a little, and harry shakes his head.

"you know, maybe we should get out of here after all," her fingertips brush over the back of his hand as she speaks.

"you want me to rock your world, huh blondie?"

she nods and sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. harry feels his whole body growing hot as she leans towards him again. "you wanna know what would really rock my world, harry?"

"hmm?" he hums, leaning forward to meet her in the middle of the table. honestly, this whole thing was wildly inappropriate for the high point hills annual family barbecue, but he didn't really care.

"you taking me back to yours," she leans even closer and harry can feel her words against his ear. "and letting me have the longest, most-mind blowing nap i've ever had."

"you're sick, lynn," he pulls away from her to see one of her fake smiles across her face. "but, i never leave a woman unsatisfied. let's go."

"really?"

"your prius wet dream sounds hotter with every second that passes here," he stretches his arms above his head when he stands up. "and not having to hear your voice is a huge plus."

"has anyone ever told you how charming you are, harry?" she accidentally bumps him with her hip as they walk towards his car together.

"your mom has multiple times actually. she tells me after every night we spend together," and he bumps her back, maybe a little too hard because she almost loses her balance when their hips collide.

12 JUNE 2018

throughout grade school, lynn could always count the number of friends she had on a singular hand at any given time. it wasn't that she was disliked or anything like that. she was just rather quiet and didn't feel the urge to talk to anyone unless she was being spoken to. her senior year friend group only took up four out of her five fingers, and it consisted of jacqueline, luke, silas, and violet. they met in their mathletes club at the beginning of her and silas's senior year. both luke and violet were juniors, and jackie was only a sophomore. the five of them parted ways, each going to a different college in various different states. luke ended up being the closest to her when she was in college, and even then he was four states away.

however, the distance didn't keep them apart. it was a tradition that they all met at least once a year, usually in their hometown. they would go out, maybe grab a drink, or go to the local bowling alley, but this year, jackie was in her final semester, taking the three condensed summer courses she needed to graduate when everyone was in town. having never skipped a year in nearly a decade, the five of them decided to have dinner on jackie's campus in between two of her night classes. that's how lynn found herself sitting around boxes and boxes of take out and drinking cheap wine out of hydroflask surrounded by her best friends.

"how's ren, silas?" jackie's voice pulls her back into the conversation. "i thought you'd bring them."

silas takes lynn's hydroflask from her hands, and swallows a huge gulp before clearing his throat. "i asked them to marry me," he hands the drink back to lynn. "and they said no. i guess they weren't really the marriage type."

"dude," luke shoves him. "why didn't you tell any of us?"

"it was something i needed to figure out on my own. i loved ren, you all know that, but i really want the whole thing. marriage, kids, all of it. in a way, i was the one who left them, but.. ren's engaged. i found out last night, and i don't really know how to feel about it."

"i'm sorry, si," lynn rests her head on her friend's shoulder. "you deserve better than that."

"when did you guys break up?" everyone turns to glare at violet, but silas offers her a smile.

"six months ago. i think it's a valid time frame, but we were together for four years so," he shrugs. "i don't want to think too far into it. as long as ren's happy.. that's what matters to me."

"why can't all men be like you?" jackie says. "when i broke up with chad, he stalked me for a week before sending me a $500 venmo request for wasting his time."

"his name's chad, jackie," luke laughs. "i'm not sure what you were expecting."

luke's eyes catch lynn's and he smiles at her so warmly she can't help but smile back. the two dated briefly when they were in college, keeping their romance strictly between them. but every time luke smiles at her like that, it reminds her of the many times she'd open her dorm door to find him sitting on her bed, grinning at her like... actually, there was really nothing to compare it to. she called it his sunshine smile because it was warm and bright, and it was all hers.

and then one day it wasn't. lynn remembers sitting at their yearly hangout, luke's new girlfriend glued to his side. clara yawned, he gave her that smile, and then took her home early. lynn wanted to rip that smile off his face and put it in her pocket to be hers to keep forever. and when luke showed up at her door the next morning asking if she was sure—if them not being together was really what she wanted. she said yes, and the dream of ever getting that sunshine smile back was crushed.

so now she settles for the close-lipped, warm smiles luke offers. she takes them in and tries so hard to lock them up in her memory. the way luke made her feel is something she never wants to forget, and she can't believe she threw it all away for some dick that lived across the hall.

sometimes when she can't sleep at night she thinks of luke's drunk phone call. he was a blubbering mess, but she managed to make out when he asked if lynn had cheated on him, and when lynn said 'no, but we should break up', he cried. she couldn't bring herself to hang up, so she sat there for nearly ten minutes listening to luke's heart break. she wonders if luke remembers that phone call, too.

his sunshine smiles are still reserved for clara (til death do them part), and the only other people he shares them with are their children, a toddler named thomas and a baby named ivy, and every time she sees them she can't help but wonder if they were supposed to be hers. it's not that she was still in love with luke or anything like that. she loved him in the most platonic way possible, but she deeply missed what they shared because it was good. he was good.

"earth to lynn," silas waving his hand in front of her face is what brings her back. "come back to us, darling."

"sorry, she sits up, no longer leaning on her friend. "i don't know where i went."

"are you still not sleeping?" violet's voice is so full of concern and it makes lynn's cold, grinch-like heart grow a few sizes.

"i sleep during the day," she stuffs a spoonful of the cake silas had brought. "it works. i'm okay."

"you know we love you," luke says. "you can always stay with clara and i."

"don't know if you'd want that. i'd probably steal ivy," she takes another bite. "god, she is one cute baby."

the group laughs, and lynn disappears in her own head for the next hour. she doesn't come back until jackie stands up, declaring she'll be late for her next lecture, and the rest of the group follows. luke leaves a few minutes later when clara sends a picture of ivy in her pajamas, and lynn thinks that she should never take him up on his offer because she would definitely make national news for kidnapping the girl. violet leaves with him because they parked next to each other, and she doesn't remember where that was exactly.

"thank you," silas says. "for not telling them about ren." lynn had known since the night of the doomed proposal. silas had called her from the comfort of his beaten-up honda civic and cried to her for hours.

she nodded, "of course. you asked me not to."

"yeah," he leans back on the blanket, and lynn follows him. the sun was just setting and she thought the sky was gorgeous. "i know." his voice breaks off, and she knows he's crying.

"silas?"

"hm?"

"did you know luke and i were together?"

"what?" he sits up, wide-eye staring at the girl.

"when?"

"a few years ago. when we were both in college."

"it was bad?"

"it was good," lynn says around a yawn. "so good, actually. sometimes i'm scared i won't have anything on that level again."

silas runs a hand through his hair, and furrows his brows. "what happened?"

"i left him for you know who," her hands grip his shoulders, forcing him to look at her. "and silas, please don't tell anyone this, but i regretted it for so long."

"you don't anymore?"

"no," she shakes her head and her hands fall to her lap. "seeing him with his family, silas. he's so happy, and that's worth every second of pain i caused. that's why i'm telling you this. if ren is really happy, it'll be worth it. i promise. it'll all feel okay."

silas pulls lynn into his chest, and she can feel his tears wetting her hair. "im so grateful for you, el. so incredibly grateful for you."

"you know i feel the same about you."

when he pulls away, he's looking at her with misty eyes and saying he needs to go catch his flight. they say their goodbyes and lynn even lets a tear of her own fall because he was the person she felt the closest to out of the entire group. they were the same age, and there was something a little trauma bonding about going to college alone, hundreds of miles away from home.

lynn lays back on the blanket, everything from their dinner still left behind. she's overly tired and feels like the world would explode if she had to move another inch. a quick nap under the stars is calling her name. her eyelids are growing heavy, and-

"i could steal your purse right now," the voice startles her awake. "it's sitting so far away from you and you seem to have quite the chunk of cash hanging out."

she turns her head to see harry sitting next to her and groans. "don't you have like, i don't know, a mick jagger cosplay convention to go to."

"i'll take that as a compliment, lynn." he looks down at her. "i was just making sure you weren't dead."

"how thoughtful," she sits up and leans back on her arms. "you should've just left me for the vultures, though. being picked apart by them sounds much more appealing than having a nice little chitchat with you."

"always flattering yourself, aren't you, blondie?" he gives her a lopsided smile. "couldn't have anyone finding your dead body on my campus after i took you home with me a week ago. it's too suspicious. plus, my mom doesn't really have the time to be making #freeharry posters and organizing rallies."

"i, in ghost form, would learn to speak to children just so i could tell my sisters you're guilty."

"that's who you were with at the barbecue?" he leans back on his arms to match lynn. "your sisters?"

"yeah," her finger pulls the collar of her shirt away from her neck. "i'd prefer not to talk about them right now."

"okay," he drops his head to the side, and he looks at her. it was so unfair that such pretty were wasted on someone like him.

"what? you don't have a list of questions ready to rapid fire at me? that seems unlike you."

"of course i do," he says. "but you said you didn't want to talk about it." eyes now narrowed, he licks his lips before finishing. "and you don't know me, lynn. not at all."

harry was right, and it made her feel a little guilty. when he took her home with her, the two didn't speak at all once they got to the car. the ride was quiet and she rested her head against the cool window and let her eyes fall shut. he showed her the guest room, and that was that. she immediately fell asleep, and when she did finally wake up, it was around midnight. harry was already sleeping, but he left her a note (which said he would take her home in the morning) and a plate of whatever he made for dinner (its important to note that harry made the entire meal free of the big 8 allergens) (because he didn't know if lynn had any food allergies). she ordered an uber instead, and miles drove her the whopping fifteen minutes to her parents' house in exchange for five stars and a three dollar tip.

"thank you," she offers him the slightest smile. really, it's so small harry would probably need a telescope to see the way the corners of her mouth were upturned. "for the other night."

"you're not the first girl to thank me for bringing them home," the words make lynn's eyes roll, and whatever guilt she felt in the very bottom of her stomach for judging harry is long gone. "im only pushing your buttons, blondie. lighten up," he nudges her with his shoulder and that is the tipping point for lynn.

"because women being sexualized by disgusting men is so funny, harry," she watches as his eyes grow wide. almost like he's shocked. like no one's ever told him differently.

"lynn, i didn't-"

she holds her hand up. "you should go."

and he does, not before giving her a pained look which only made her want to roll her eyes harder. lynn watches him leave and pretends not to notice the way his shoulders are slouched over more than they were the first time and the way he drags his feet like he's a thousand pounds heavier. her eyes focus back on the squirrel that's still running around the tree once he's out of sight. why were college campus squirrels always so large?

the next thing she knows, jackie is poking her side and pressing her palm against lynn's chest almost as if she was checking if her heart was still beating. a sigh falls from the girl's lips when she realizes that lynn is alive, and she can see a line in between the girls brows through her half closed eyelids. she notices jackie's chest heaving, almost like she was trying to steady her breathing. the heavy, hot ball of guilt finds it's way back into her stomach. she hates having her friends worry about her.

"sorry, jackie. i fell asleep," she yawns and reaches above her head to stretch out her back.

"are you okay, lynn?" jackie's staring at her with such intensity, she thinks this is probably what it feels like to be in an interrogation room after your life-long enemy mysteriously disappeared. "like genuinely, are you doing alright?"

"im tired," she offers her a big smile. "that's all. im fine."

jackie narrows her eyes and tilts her head skeptically, and lynn is doing her very best to not burst into tears because there's no reason for her to be crying. her friend's face softens, and she stands up, reaching her hand down to lynn.

"c'mon. let's clean up. you're staying the night at mine." lynn doesn't argue because she really does want to stay with her friend. it's been so long since she's slept at jackie's despite her only living an hour away from the girl's school. "and i usually take the bus, so you're driving."

lynn smiles at her as she helps pick up the dinner mess that the group had left, and she can't help but wonder how she was lucky eough to have such great friends. they've known each other for nearly a decade, and still care for each other the same way they did back in high school. she knows that if she were to tell jackie how she moved out months ago and still hasn't slept through the night at her own place, silas's flight would be missed and violet would drive the six hours back just to be with her.

deep down, lynn knows she can't sleep because of something a little bigger than an uncomfortable bed, but she chooses to ignore it because her therapist had said she was doing very well, or whatever that meant. it was like her doctor just marked her with a stamp, big red lettering reading 'HEALED' across her forehead, and that was supposed to make everything feel okay forever. her friends and family were so proud of this milestone, lynn didn't know if she would ever be able to tell them that maybe the big red stamp was wrong. and that was the thing, it didn't always feel wrong. only during those long sleepless nights and cloudy, rainy days.

she feels lied to, really. everyone said healing wasn't something that just happened overnight, and of course, she knew that. (who didn't know that?) they pushed this idea that lots of therapy and sometimes a few medications would help her get better. and that's the thing. she did feel better. with each hour spent on her therapist's couch came the slightest bit of feeling better.

what she didn't realize was that feeling better and feeling yourself again weren't mutually exclusive. she feels a thousand times better and yet she's never felt farther from who she used to be. honestly, that version of her might be dead, and that is something she never wants to face.

"i've lost you again, lynn," jackie's leaning over the center console to rest her head on her friend's shoulder. "that brain of yours must be pretty nice for you to be spending so much time in there."

"i just got the biggest feeling of deja vu," lynn brushes off her worries as she parks in the designated parking spot. "this is new, right? i haven't visited you here before?"

the two girls meet at the front of the car, lynn helping the other with her huge course textbooks that probably cost more than her rent.

"don't think so. luke and clara brought the babies to visit once, but i don't remember if you were there."

lynn shakes her head. it wasn't that she avoided luke and clara, but she tried to spend minimal time around them.

jackie lives on the fourth floor of her complex. each staircase has approximately thirty-two (she counted) stairs, and by the time they get to the top, lynn is completely out of breath. she leans on the wall outside of the girl's apartment door as she fumbles through her tote bag full of god knows what.

"i was in such a rush this morning," she gives her a sympathetic smile. "i just tossed my keys in here."

lynn holds back a groan as jackie piles whatever else she's holding on top of the stack of books in her hands and then kneels on the ground, dumping out the contents of her bag as she searches for her keys that look to be nowhere in sight. she hears an elevator ding and lynn wants to do nothing more than roughly shove her friend over with her foot because why did they walk all the way up ninety-six stairs when there was a perfectly functioning elevator mere feet away?

"why didn't we take the elevator, ja-"

the most obscene kissing sounds fall out of the elevator as soon as the door opens. it sounds like someone is slowly pulling one hundred suction cups painfully slow off of the walls in there and lynn wonders if it's some kind of swingers group because there's no way two people could be kissing that aggressively.

"found them," jackie stands up, brushes off her pants, and looks towards the elevator.

"m'neighbor... has someone over every night."

she's proven wrong when a girl walks out, her arms draped around a boy's neck. he's kissing her and walking her back so she's pressed against the wall, and lynn can't look away. not even when the two turn, and she realizes its harry. not even when harry's eyes catch her stare. and not even when the girl starts sucking on any exposed skin her mouth could reach (harry was still looking at lynn) (and she was still looking at him) (and his lips looked nearly bruised) (not that it matters).

jackie steps between them, and by the time she grabs all of her things, harry and the girl are in his apartment. she can't help the small laugh that escapes when she realizes the girl had brown hair and pretty green eyes.

✰✰✰✰

a/n: all of this is getting reposted because the format is driving me absolutely craaaazy :(

#harry styles fanfiction #harry styles #harry styles fic #harry styles x oc #enemies to friends to lovers #enemies to lovers #dadrry #harry styles imagine #harry styles one shot #harry styles fluff #harry styles fanfic #artist!harry #fine line #harry styles smut #harry styles au #harry styles writing #harry styles fic rec #harry's house

[maximotts]

Hi Motts! Hi Motts!

For the lil jealousy prompt thingy:

“I’m not jealous, I’m being absolutely reasonable.”

With the love of my life, emo!Wanda. Please and thank you.

(giving you a huge hug just because)

HELLO LIL BEAN!! I'm doing yours first because you said you were feeling sad! I'm sending you a biiigg hug back! 💖

I don't really think this requires any warnings? Maybe just.. Wanda being clingy and intimidating, but in a sexy and fun way? Whatever, she's hot let's just go with it.

jealousy prompts.

"I'm not jealous, I'm being absolutely reasonable."

If Wanda wasn't currently burrowing deep as she could into your neck, she could've seen your smile. Instead, she heard the faint rumble of laughter against your throat and pouted, an indignant huff blowing just under the collar of your shirt. "Is that what we're calling what you're doing now?"

Wanda rarely made an appearance at Tony's parties, preferring to keep to herself instead of trying to worm her way through drunken groups of her teammates and upper end Stark Industries employees. Tonight she'd decided to step out, be social, show up and hopefully spend some time with you publicly before retiring to either of your rooms— but Wanda hadn't seen you in party mode before.

Not that you were rowdy, nothing of the sort, but conversation came easy to you and after a few years more than her with the Avengers, you had a thousand and one stories to capture any audience. One group in particular was the sort Wanda minded, the girls who giddily hung on your every word, laughing absurdly hard in an attempt to lean in closer. The ones who were so eager to grab you another drink, to put their arms around you as if you were theirs. And you.. you let them.

Except you weren't theirs; you were hers.

"This right here? Planting yourself in my lap in the middle of a party? That's jealousy 101, sweetheart." Wanda scoffed bitterly, brushing off your accusation in the same breath she wound her arms tighter around your midsection.

So what if Wanda gently persuaded the individuals she deemed too touchy away from you? Women went to the bathroom together all the time; there wasn't anything out of the ordinary with their departure. And you would've thought nothing of it, if you hadn't caught that fading red glow from your girlfriend's eyes as she made her way to you a few moments ago.

"I could've made them eat those tongues they clearly wanted to shove down your throat-" She was cut off by her own yelp, the hand that'd been resting on the small of her back delivering a swift swat to her ass as a warning to behave.

Part of you wanted to believe Wanda wouldn't actually do something so grotesque... the other part of you had seen the lengths she'd go to not only get what she wanted, but to keep what's hers as well. When you pulled her away, she whined so pitifully you had to let this laugh escape. "Such big, scary words from such a clingy little thing."

"Careful, or I'll make you eat your words right along with theirs." You were pushing Wanda's buttons on purpose now, toeing that fine line of annoying her and genuinely getting on her nerves. The latter brought out the version of your girlfriend who never hesitated reminding you who exactly was the one in charge. Because it wasn't you, not really.

Maybe it was the public setting that saved you, or the self-preserving act of knowing when you shut your mouth, but after a minute, the brunette's shoulders slumped once more, her hands reaching out to play with one of your own. Just to keep touching you; Wanda could never get enough of the feel of your warm skin against her own... hers to hold and examine and stroke black-lacquered nails over your open palm, "Asking them to go away was me being reasonable."

Before you could utter another word, her lips crashed into yours, instantly taking ownership of a kiss that, if any of the slurred laughs and taunts were an indicator, the people still lingering around noticed full well. Wanda wanted them to notice; if they needed to see anything about you, it was this: you were well and truly spoken for by a girl who has no issue with reclaiming what's hers.

"Now... we're going to go upstairs and when we get to my room, I'm going to sit on your lap just like this," Wanda sat up on her knees, forced your head back over the couch, hand splayed possessively over your throat and jaw until you were forced to keep eye contact with her and it now was your turn to utter a pathetic noise, the cool metal of her rings stinging your suddenly heightened nerves. "And this time when I'm right here, you're going to show me how sorry you are for letting those silly girls fawn all over you. Understood?"

"Whatever you say, Wands..." Wanda didn't typically use her powers on you without explicit consent, but that dangerous crimson hue shone bright in her eyes again as her free hand dragged her finger over your swollen lips and you knew she was contemplating it.

Maybe if you asked her nicely, she'd agree just this once. "Make sure to say please and I'll think about it."

#I hope that you like this bean!! I didn't know if you wanted soft or mean wanda so you got a little of both #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x fem!reader #wanda maximoff x female reader #wanda maximoff fic #marvel imagine #maximotts #motts writes.

[itsclydebitches]

Okay, so I saw this RWBY meme made by a fan and I can't remember it completely but it was about Emerald switching sides. What stood out to me was the language used and how Ruby's group was specifically referred to as "The Good Guys side" and if that doesn't show how broken this show's morality is then I don't know what does. Emerald switched to the side of good, not just Ruby's side. The side that is specifically good because it's Ruby side. You're either with Ruby or against her with no in-between. Compare this to Aang's group in ATLA, affectionately called The Gaang by fans. A term that collectively refers to the group without proclaiming them as THE good guys. We know they're good because their actions show they are good. It isn't just a title grafted on because they're the stars of the show. And while they have an official grouping in the form of Team Avatar. It still isn't used in the same manner as RWBY fans calling all who agree with Ruby "The Good Guys".

Decided to start answering backlog asks! We've officially entered the post-RT discussion era. Fun! 😬

You know, RWBY is compared (unfavorably) to Avatar a lot, but this comparison is particularly interesting to me because Avatar is, well... Avatar. That's a title. And it's a title built into the fictional world, one that's so significant it's worthy of being the name of the show. The Avatar is a combined destiny/job description that, in the words of the wiki, is the "human embodiment of light and peace." Obviously free will still comes into play - I'd never ignore the significance behind Aang's personal choice of how to bring balance to the world - but there's an element of fate here, of self-fulfilling prophecy, and fourth wall-breaking knowledge. In-world, benders are (presumably) not chosen if they're unsuited to be this embodiment of peace. Once someone knows they're the avatar, they can more easily find the courage/determination to meet such high standards because this is how it's "supposed" to be (regardless of whether anything cosmic is actually ensuring their success). And the audience knows, by virtue of that title and our opening, how we're meant to view Aang: as the Good Guy of the story. All that already exists outside of the actions he takes within the show, helping to soften anything potentially suspect with a "Well, he's just a kid" or "Well, everyone makes mistakes," or whatever explanation that's technically true in any harrowing story featuring a young protagonist... but continually falls flat with Team RWBY.

Because RWBY didn't do that same work. RWBY doesn't have a handle on its own identity the way Avatar does. It laid some of the groundwork early on but then never capitalized on it, which is why I'm endlessly groaning over the failure of not doing anything with Ruby's status as a SEW/simple soul. Those could have easily been titles the way "Avatar" is a title, something that the people of Ruby's world see as cosmic evidence of her purity and inherent ability to lead them in this war. Instead, it's just a one-off, ambiguous statement and a very badly used skill.

So yeah, Emerald joins The Good Guys, which wouldn't be bad if, as said, the show had shown the group unambiguously being Good people in a war with black and white solutions. Or, if we had some reason to believe that Ruby is The One True Leader, destined/worthy of bearing this burden no matter the number of mistakes she's made. But RWBY even undermines the title aspect by making Ruby herself fairly inconsequential in later volumes. Yeah, the show is also named after this team/our protagonist... and yet that began to feel incidental as the cast grew AND many of the characters brought new - arguably better - perspectives + powers into the fray. Avatar made the simple but VERY important decision to say, "This is the ONLY GUY who can do this job. Sure, he's going to need a lot of help and saving the world is absolutely a team effort, but that team revolves around him because he is, again, the ONE PERSON who can accomplish this." RWBY failed to set that up and (arguably) failed to show the group being The Good Guys, at least to the extent that the whole world would understandably put their faith in a teenager who, frankly, just keeps making things worse. Like, that's a big consideration imo. Ruby's intentions have always been good and most fans are fully on her side regarding justifications for her choices, so in that sense she is absolutely The Good Guy, but beyond that she's just really bad at saving the world. So if she's not somehow ordained to do it and continually shows a severe lack of skill in this regard... why are the characters/the viewer rooting for her again?

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

[seronsalk]

A waltz with shadows

My Masterlist.

Aleksander Morozova/The Darkling x Sun Summoner fem!reader

AN: I had this idea, and I changed some things because I always thought it was really silly how Alina, a girl from the army, suddenly just started trusting a shadow man. (It's not extremely romantic sorry)

Warnings: Angst, fluff, mention of alcohol and other substance use.

Cute starry dividers from: @saradika (who is an absolute blessing with their creativity!)

Word count: 1,310k

It was the day of the winter fate and the atmosphere couldn't have been more busy.

The constant thought of the last couple of weeks remained at the front of your brain, everything was so different, especially you and the general.

You still didn't trust him, but the eerie longing feeling you had towards him lingered on your skin. Craving him to wrap his hand around your wrist again, no. You pushed those thoughts away, you didn't need a man to be there, Baghra was right as much as you hated to admit it.

As if on que, snapping you from your thoughts, Genya barged in holding a kefta and a servant brought in her kit before exiting swiftly.

"Saints, thank goodness I got here in time," she said widening her eyes at the look of your messy hair.

You breathed out a small laugh and with that Genya was at work.

"I know the general insisted on black for the performance, but afterwards I was thinking you could go back to the blue?" Genya expressed.

"Unless somehow he convinces me otherwise, I probably will, though I wouldn't want to come off as ungrateful, " you stated.

Genya paused her tailoring, "Don't feel like you have to always please him, I want you to be careful." "Careful of what?" you asked, a little confused.

"Powerful men."

"I know, I've seen a corrupted general or two, if he is like them, there is no difference," you stated, thinking back about some of the generals who you knew had used there army salaries to just drown themselves in liquor.

You decided to not clue Genya in on how you were weirdly drawn to Kirigan. Immediately hearing your thoughts say 'Kirigan' made you remember he had given you his name, though you had honestly ignored him.

Genya smiled, before continuing her work.

Later,

you both were walking through the hall and many of the ambassadors and guests of the royals were definitely gawking at you.

You were certain that if self control didn't exist a couple of them would have asked to marry you right then, not that you would have said yes.

As you and Genya walked you came to the main hall, "I can't enter with you, besides they aren't ready for you." However before she could get that through your brain, your gaze landed on Kirigan. He was speaking to the king and queen, you immediately walked in.

Murmurs caught his attention as he turned his gaze meeting you, you noticed his eyes wandered downward. His eyes were always so enticing as somehow you could see no emotion on his face, but every emotion in his eyes.

No matter how deep, dark and black those two pools were, getting lost in them was honestly a gift.

Before you could continue to think about his eyes, you came to your senses noticing he was now in front of you, "you were supposed to enter accompanied by guards," he said his eyes looking around before meeting your gaze.

Ah, there they were again, "You look lovely by the way."

"I can see you really got dressed up as well," she said with a teasing smile noticing he was wearing the same black kefta he always wore.

He smiled, "You don't like my different shade of black?" Then again their conversation was interrupted.

The Inferni twins started their demonstration, keeping the eyes on them and not you and the general for too long. Tossing balls of fire between each other with a few murmurs of interest from the audience.

When they finally ended their demonstration everyone clapped, but you nor the general did not. "It's time, let's show them all." He stated, before you could ask him any of your many questions.

He led you up on the wannabe stage-like platform before he drew the shadows into the hall quieting the guests and plunging them all into complete utter darkness.

As he turned, you focused on his eyes as you called your light. You split the beams into two and then heightened the light into the chandelier, like you had practiced.

Sending light bouncing off of everywhere in the room and the intensity of 'ouuing and ahhing' put a small smirk on your face.

When the light finally commenced, lots of them immediately started getting on a knee or so praying and saying "Sankta y/n." It felt extremely weird to be referred to as a saint.

The general helped you down and his facial expressions were unreadable, yet you found a strange emotion in his eyes almost hopeful.

Your suspicions had been confirmed when he simply said, "You are amazing, Miss l/n."

After being introduced to a few hundred people, you rejoined the general thinking about your bed and how tired you were. As if on que, the general held out his hand to you, "Would you like to dance?" You couldn't have imagined him dancing, especially with you.

As realization hit you hadn't given him an answer and instead left him patiently studying your facial expressions, you got out a quick, "I would love too."

With that he led you both to a part of the ballroom where a dance was about to begin. You grabbed his hand and rested your other on his shoulder. He placed his other hand on your waist and a chill was sent down your spine.

You both moved elegantly as one, and if anyone was watching, all they could see was the sun in the eclipse.

Your eyes locked with each other's as he spun you around before speaking.

"I know you aren't fond of my color on you, but I must say you look magnificent," he gawked.

Thinking on how to respond you smiled, "I must say its grown a little on me."

He smiled a little wider before they waltzed into a turn, even for a second of moving from each other's gaze it felt cold immediately, lost and empty.

And when it returned it was warm and sweet, safe and longing.

Feeling the need to say something you spoke up, "I would like to say that all these demonstrations of grishas abilities are honestly annoying, they aren't entertainers after all." He took a moment before responding, "No, We aren't." A slight smile creased your lips.

"It means a lot to know I am not the only one who doesn't appreciate these antics," he added.

Something in his eyes told you he was holding himself back on something else, but you didn't have to pry, he spoke softly, "You mean a lot to me and not just your power and what it means for everyone, but you yourself." That had your heart rate speeding up and you were sure Fedyor or Ivan were somewhere in the crowd silently smirking.

"Thank you," you paused before he pulled you closer for the last turn and in a near whisper so only he could hear it against his earlobe,

"Aleksander."

And the look in his eyes was all you needed to see, to know that he was your one and only future.

An: Alright shawty's I don't know about y'all, but this wasn't even like a big sappy thing I wanted, its just a little longing here and there let me know if you think I should I don't know make a part 2 or something!

Requests are always open, let me know what you got!

Thanks for reading, proud of you!

Shadow & Bone Masterlist!

<3

#aleksander morozova x reader #aleksander morozova #shadow and bone #general kirigan x reader #the darkling x reader #genya safin #fedyor kaminsky #fanfiction #sun summoner #shadow summoner #baghra morozova #grishaverse

[inkblackorchid]

What the hell happened with Crow: an autopsy (Part 4)

*Deep breath* Okay, everybody. Let's do this one more time.

First off, hello, or welcome back. Let's get the introductions and disclaimers out of the way, shall we?

This is the fourth and final instalment in my very, very long-winded attempt to analyse the character writing of Crow over the course of the entirety of yugioh 5Ds. For everyone who hasn't read the previous parts of the analysis, you can find part one here, part two here, and part three here.

This post, and my analysis as a whole, is neither meant as a Crow hate post, nor as a manifesto to convince people who don't like him that they're wrong. It's as genuine an attempt to simply look at and dissect what the show gives us about him as I can make, though I admit to personal bias because I do like Crow. That said, I'm trying to stay as neutral as possible, because the aim of this entire post tetralogy is to look at the writing decisions made for this character and how they impact him—and how they possibly influenced the audience's perception of him.

My previous three posts all reference this as well, but since I still see these things parroted all across the internet to this day: Please don't read this post under the assumption that any of the 5Ds production rumours are true, especially not the ones surrounding Crow. Because, to make this as short as possible, every popular theory as to why certain characters were mishandled during the later parts of the show fails to line up with the production timeline of said show. Chiefly among those theories, the idea that Crow was meant to be a dark signer and that his popularity correlated to his cards, and the idea that Aki, specifically, had to give up her screentime for him because her VA got pregnant, which both lack any basis in reality, as you can read in the posts I linked. (One final shoutout to @mbg159 here, who compiled these incredibly comprehensive posts and can also be found here on tumblr. Huge thanks.) So if you can do me one favour, please just let the 5Ds rumours die already and read this analysis without the hope of seeing any of them confirmed. I'm so sick of these crackpot theories at this point that I can hardly find the words for it. And while we're on the topic, I also don't want to see this post used as a means to pit Aki and Crow against each other in any way—both have good reasons to be well-liked and both deserve their spot in the narrative, all right? All right.

And now, at last, let's get down to business. The last time I got on a virtual soapbox and yelled about Crow, I covered the entire WRGP, murder-duel-robot induced break included. That means that for this, final stretch, we'll be looking at everything from episode 137 onwards—the Ark Cradle arc. (A side not for dub aficionados here: Episode 136 was the last episode that got an English dub. In other words, everything I talk about here never even made it into the English version. Because 4Kids, I guess.) As we've done before, we'll take a look at what exactly Crow gets up to during the final stretch of the show (and, notably, the epilogue), then see whether any of it needed improving, and if so, how it could have been improved.

You'll find all further yelling below the readmore, and I'll leave you with the other, usual warning here, as well: This will be long. Even if the Ark Cradle arc, relative to the rest of the show, isn't, this post most certainly will be. So get some snacks and perhaps don't start reading this late at night unless you're good at knowing when to stop and reading stuff in bursts. (I'm not.)

As I concluded at the end of my last post, the WRGP ended up being a bit of a mixed bag for Crow. He's there, he duels, but at the same time, despite being positioned as an equal third of a protagonist trio, he's notably less important and arguably also weaker than Yusei and Jack. Moreover, where the plot is concerned, he sure didn't get too much to do—not to speak of the fact that the writers didn't grace him with any meaningful interactions with a certain character who'll become very relevant here.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, the preamble.

With the end of the Team New World duel, the final arc of the show drops the by this point unexpected arrival of the Ark Cradle right on our heads. So, what does Crow do here, at the start, other than be shocked? Well, not much. A lot of the first episode that introduces the Ark Cradle focusses more on the imminent threat said structure poses to New Domino City, and we flash back to our protagonists mostly to ascertain that things are, in fact, going to shit. Even once that focus on the city evacuating shifts again, the episode concerns itself more with Yusei than with Crow. However, meagre as it is, we do get the first interaction between Crow and Sherry during the Ark Cradle arc in this episode.

(Uh.... at least they're technically talking to each other?)

And frankly... It's not much. Unfortunately, up until the duel where he faces her, the Ark Cradle arc continues a trend regarding interactions between Crow and Sherry that we already saw in the WRGP: They barely get to interact, and even when they do, they never have anything so much as resembling a meaningful conversation, mostly because Sherry basically never addresses Crow directly, nor seems very interested in him, while Crow is usually there only to react to what she's saying, rather than actually talk to her. While digging through my mountain of screenshots, I found that latter part to be especially interesting, because as it turns out, this is a trend not just in Crow's interactions with Sherry, specifically. Many moments that probably contribute to the nefarious "screentime" (I've explained my gripes with this term in part two) some people like to accuse Crow of hogging have him only be part of a scene so he can react to what happens in it, to the point of him sometimes feeling like a stand-in for the audience reaction the writers might be hoping for. The above is a perfect example, because as far as character writing is concerned, Crow's "interaction" with Sherry here is utterly devoid of meaning. He's just there to communicate his disbelief over the ominous prediction that Yusei is guaranteed to die if he goes to the Ark Cradle, which feels like exactly the kind of reaction the writers probably wanted from the audience. After all, it's a bold, shocking statement to make. The protagonist, dying? In a card game anime geared towards twelve year-olds? It's downright preposterous. And Crow seems to agree with that, if his dialogue is anything to go by.

This one and other scenes (mostly the kind that contain plot elements that Crow doesn't actually interact with) got me thinking, though, and after having gone through so much of the show with a fine-tooth comb now, I think I've come to a conclusion, so permit me a tangent here: I believe the choice to let Crow, specifically, be a character who often only reacts to events or interactions after the DS arc, rather than contributing much himself, is deliberate. Don't get me wrong, I don't think he's the only character who is frequently put in this position—Aki, the twins, and even Bruno, especially when they're on the sidelines in the WRGP, also often only seem to be there to react or comment on things, perhaps partially to remind us viewers that they still exist, despite not being in a position where they contribute anything to the plot. With how much the twins and Aki got pushed to the side after the pre-WRGP and the Unicorn duel, respectively, and with how toned-down Bruno's entire character is until the very end, as not to spoil his tragic antagonist status too much, Crow in particular ending up as an often reactive, rather than active character stands out a bit more, though. And I think this has everything to do with his personality, because it contrasts that of Jack and Yusei. Think of it. Sure, Crow is shown several times to be just as cool and competent as the other two, but what he has that the other two crucially lack is the ability to freak out like a normal person. I'm being hyperbolic here, of course, but I do genuinely believe this, because when I think back to the show, Jack and Yusei, due to their character writing, only ever seem to be allowed to lose their cool during pretty specific circumstances, and only in very specific ways. Jack, for example, only ever gets to freak out either when a scene paints him as the butt of the joke (like during his infamous, dramatic outburst over cup ramen), or when the freakout is caused by—and expressed as—righteous (or not so righteous) fury (like when he storms off angrily after catching everyone watching his old duel with Dragan). Meanwhile, Yusei is played so straight that we barely ever see him lose his composure at all, outside of intensely dramatic, high-stakes situations (think his dark signer duels with Kiryu, his confrontation with Roman, his initial failure to accel synchro). Hell, the closest we get to ever seeing him be mildly upset about something like a normal person, as far as I can recall, is when he gets embarrased by Martha calling him out on his perceived crush on Aki. That's it.

Crow, though. Crow's allowed to do something the other two aren't: He's allowed to react to the world around him like your average guy. Jack blows through their household money for expensive coffee. Crow gets upset. Understandable. Crow gets injured right before his big debut in a turbo duelling tournament and is upset to the point of snapping at his friends over it. Understandable. Seeing Yaeger's kid cheering his dad on and knowing that this kid will cry if his dad loses makes Crow relent and throw the match. Understandable. Sherry predicts Yusei's imminent death due to hocus pocus and Crow calls bullshit. Understandable.

Do you see what I'm driving at? With how the show treats the other two Satellite boys, I'd argue none of the moments above would have worked anywhere near as well if the writers had tried to make Jack or Yusei take Crow's place in any of them. Because while Yusei and Jack, I feel, were certainly written to be the coolest characters (at least to the target audience), Crow seems like he was written to be the most relatable. He's the guy who takes on a delivery job when they need money. He's the guy who complains about his cranky landlady. And he's the guy who reacts to insane nonsense happening around him a little more realistically than his defeated-an-ancient-devil-to-absorb-its-power brother, his shouldering-the-guilt-of-a-cataclysmic-event-decades-ago other brother, their mutual previously-violent-psychic-who-was-part-of-a-cult friend, and the one-of-us-can-see-spirits-and-we-share-a-weird-kind-of-magical-bond twins. As such, it doesn't feel too out there to me to claim that in many situations, they made Crow the stand-in for the audience, because he has a less iron composure than Jack and Yusei, is readily available in many scenes by virtue of living with the other two, and happens to be the guy who has the arguably most normal backstory out of the signers. (Save, perhaps, for Rua, but I've already addressed before why the writers barely ever pulled Rua centre stage for anything. And they certainly wouldn't have pulled him centre stage for this, either.)

Now, as far as character writing is concerned, assuming I'm at least halfway correct with my hunch above, I feel that whether or not this decision is good or a shot in the foot on the writers' part depends largely on every audience member's individual perception of Crow after the DS arc. If you liked seeing this scrappy guy introduced during the DS arc, of course you would have been happy to see more of him! Even if he's only present in scenes to comment on what's going on and doesn't actually get to do anything meaningful. If you didn't like Crow that much, though, I can see how him popping up so often only to yap a bit and contribute essentially nothing could have grated on you. And as I said, I think this is where the "screentime" discussion comes in again, because yeah, Crow is very much on screen in all these little-bit-of-nothing scenes. He doesn't get to do much and his character isn't fleshed out or reinforced in any way, but he sure is there. For better or for worse.

And this—this is where I can finally get back to him and Sherry. Because in his interactions specifically with her, it is for worse, due to the fact that all the scenes that contain both of them before the Ark Cradle duel are pretty much exclusively these kinds of little-bit-of-nothing, reactive scenes. Crow doesn't get to interact with Sherry meaningfully, and he never—and I need to empathise this—, not once gets to interact with her one on one, not until the end-of-series duel both of them take part in happens. What makes Crow's lack of meaningful interactions with Sherry even worse is that his later duelling partner against her is Aki, of all people, who by contrast gets to interact with Sherry a whole bunch, most notably during her duel against Yusei. Not only that, but Sherry is also shown to actually be interested in Aki, which cannot be said for Crow. Yet, still in the same episode I was describing above, while the Ark Cradle begins its descent, it's not Aki, but Crow who is entrusted with this card by Mizoguchi/Elsworth:

(I'd like to point out that the dialogue following this moment doesn't make it clear whether Crow even knows what Sherry's connection to this card is. For all we know, this could be the first time Crow sees it, without being aware of any of the context surrounding it.)

You know, the card that's essentially a symbol of Sherry's attachment to her parents and her commitment to revenge. The card that basically her entire character revolves around. For a single piece of cardboard, this thing comes with a lot of narrative baggage attached, yet canon doesn't even take the time to assure us that Crow knows what Z-ONE means, other than it being a memento of Sherry's parents, as Mizoguchi explains. And frankly, this all feels like a rather ham-fisted attempt to get some last-minute setup for the later confrontation between Crow and Sherry in. It's like the writers desperately wanted to feel the emotional moment in the duel later to feel earned; they wanted to have their cake and eat it, too. There's only one problem: They didn't even bake the damned thing, the ingredients are just sitting around, untouched, as if staring at them long enough will magically make a cake manifest.

But, well, since I'm already talking about this, I may as well get into the actual meat of the matter, because frankly, it's not like Crow gets much else to do at the start of the arc. Yusei takes off because he at first wants to go to the Ark Cradle alone (like an idiot), leading to the signers coming after him (and telling him he's an idiot). Joining this effort and assuring Yusei that they won't let him die alongside the others is as much as Crow gets to do before the inevitable three-way duel starts.

(That said, while it doesn't accomplish anything, I've always appreciated this little moment while Yusei still tries to pull his stupid kamikaze plan—Crow would know more shortcuts in the BAD area than he does. After all, he lived there for a good while!)

After that, everyone gets up to the Ark Cradle and, as we all know, the signer group is forcibly split up by Z-ONE before deciding to go to a Yusei gear each in order to shut down Ark Cradle's negative Moment. (Top ten sentences that wouldn't make a lick of sense to anyone who isn't up to their neck in 5Ds lore.) And the very first duel on the menu in this final stretch of episodes is also Crow's final duel in the entire show.

(Drumroll please.)

Here's the thing. I love this duel, actually. I get extremely hyped every time I rewatch it. BUT. But. I do not love it so blindly that I couldn't see that it has not one, but several issues. Not only that, but those issues don't just rest on Crow's shoulders, they sadly rest on the shoulders of all three participants in this duel, because frankly? Alongside the four-way Jack/Rua/Ruka/Aporia duel, this duel is one of the Ark Cradle arc's desperate attempts to tie up loose ends. Because as much as I enjoy this arc, that's exactly what it is: A race to the finish line, an attempt to tie as many loose ends as possible up in as little time as the show could get away with. To make clear why I think this, let me just list off all the things this arc resolves or at the very least tries to tie up with a neat bow:

It reintroduces Aki's psychic powers, which we were previously led to believe she'd lost. Notably, we didn't get a reason for why they disappeared and don't get a reason for why they reappear, either. It also turns them into healing powers in an attempt to establish a reason for why she later studies medicine.

It explains what happened to Sherry and what actually drives her revenge. Furthermore, it releases her from her narrative fridge-prison in order to actually let her duel Aki (yes, Aki, specifically), which is a confrontation that was subtextually implied several times previously.

It resolves the question of Bruno's identity by revealing him as an antagonist.

It finally reveals Life Stream Dragon, who was at this point teased over seventy episodes ago.

It also finally rewards Rua, who was teased to possibly become a signer during the DS arc, with an actual signer mark. (As short-lived as it may be.)

It actually explains Iliaster's real plan, which is Z-ONE's hope that the 5Ds gang can actually save the future.

Speaking of which, it actually explains who Z-ONE is and why he's a big deal. (Remember, this guy was first teased a good while ago at this point in time.)

Alongside Sherry, it dusts off several protagonists who didn't get an opportunity to duel on-screen and lets them duel one, final time. (Notably, Aki, Rua, and Ruka, who at this point haven't been seen duelling since the early WRGP or even pre-WRGP.)

You may notice that none of these bullet points contain Crow. They do, however, contain Aki and Sherry, both of whom went into this finale with several unanswered questions as to their characters. Crow, not so much. But let's just put a pin in that for now while we actually jump into the duel.

*Cracks knuckles* Aki & Crow VS Sherry. Here we go at last. Fair warning, the character writing of all three participants of this duel overlaps a fair bit here, so expect to hear a bit of a mishmash about our revenge trio.

So, how does this duel start? Firstly, with Sherry waxing poetic about why she's even opposing Team 5Ds now.

(A dramatic switch of sides that sadly doesn't hold a candle to Bruno turning out to be Antinomy. Which, funnily enough, might be why this duel is front-loaded and Bruno's comes later.)

I won't dig into this too much, but I just want to point out the one thing this moment gives us: It establishes character motivation. Sherry claims she can no longer get revenge and has thus lost her purpose. (The reason why she can no longer get revenge, if you're interested, is because Moment Express, her final lead, vanished in its entirety, as far as canon is concerned.) Thus, she took the bait when Z-ONE offered her a new purpose, and, more importantly, a reward. Now, Aki and Crow at this point in the episode don't get to hear what that reward is, but for our analysis, it's important to keep in mind: Z-ONE promised Sherry he'd alter the timeline so she would get her parents back if she helps him. And I think this is immensely important because this is not only Sherry's goal in the present, I think it's actually the core of her character from the very first moment we meet her. In classic, tragic-avenging-type character fashion, she claims to want revenge when what she's really doing is trying to numb the pain of the awareness that she'll never get her parents back. (Though I'll admit this may also be my generous read of her as a person who likes revenge-obsessed characters.) And then, Z-ONE dangles the actual thing she wanted all along before her. Of course she took the bait.

This brings us to the start of the duel itself. As we know, Sherry employs some tactics that feel quite different from what she previously did in this duel. First and foremost, she messes with the mechanics of the duel itself by using the field spell Ecole de Zone, creating an illusion that confuses Aki and Crow into duelling not her, but each other at first. Sherry, meanwhile, takes a very passive role, clearly intent on letting the two destroy each other while she sporadically activates card effects to accelerate this. What makes all this stand out as even more unusual for her is that she sets this up by lying. At the beginning of the duel, she tells Aki and Crow that there's two of her, and that each duellist will fight one copy of her on a seperate field each, but this is a misdirection to make the two signers duel each other instead of her. And, look. I don't need to tell you this is out of character for Sherry. Canon literally does that for me.

(Case in point.)

It's only after Crow and Aki catch onto the fact that something's wrong and after Aki destroys the field spell that Sherry uses her "real strategy", switching to Soul Binding Gate, which inflicts real damage every time a monster with less attack points than her life points is summoned, in order to whittle away at both other duellists' life points. This is also the point where she reveals to her opponents that she's doing all this to get her parents back. While she does that, we get a bit more back and forth in terms of cardplay, until Aki sets the field up just right so Crow can land a very high-damage hit with Black-Winged Dragon to end the duel. And that is pretty much the gist of it on the duelling side of things.

So what's going on on the narrative side of things, then? Well. Let me front-load something I've noticed on the narrative end: This duel heavily interacts with Crow's and Sherry's characterisation, but barely at all with Aki's. I'll make clear what I mean by that below. For now, let's just get an overview by going through the character moments as they occur in the duel. Why go through all of them? Because most either interact with Crow in some way, or set up a later interaction in the same duel that he's a part of, that's why. I'll get into the nitty-gritty of what this duel did well and what it didn't after that. (Mostly. You may have noticed I like tangents and rambling excessively.)

So.

The first moment belongs to Aki and Crow in equal measure, and happens just as Ecole de Zone is destroyed—which Aki accomplishes by using Crow's monster to synchro summon Black Rose Dragon, as well as prevent that synchro summon from being negated through the same monster's effect, so she can use her dragon's field wipe to get rid of Sherry's field spell. When Sherry is surprised by this, Aki and Crow explain that they memorised each other's cards as part of a strategic effort as a WRGP team.

(Friendship is, in fact, magic.)

Not only does this explanation make perfect sense, it's also an excellent little tidbit to tie Aki and Crow together as a tag-team here, as it strengthens the connection between them. The only gripe I could possibly see with this is that it feels like this didn't necessarily need to be a surprise, end-of-the-show reveal. Frankly, it could have been pretty cool to see this much earlier, to have members of Team 5Ds realise what their teammates were getting up to during the WRGP duels, for example. (Instead of so often having the other signers react just as shocked as the announcer to their teammates' plays—I'm side-eyeing the infamous "a trap from the graveyard"-moment in particular. Like, Aki, sweetie, if you memorised Crow's deck, why are you surprised that he has a trap he can activate from the graveyard? I digress.) Moreover, this could have built anticipation for this particular duel, as viewers would have been excited to see what Aki and Crow would come up with to defeat Sherry as a team. So this moment is not bad, really. Just a bit underutilised, at least to me. (The word "underutilised" might become a trend in this post.)

Every other character-driven moment from here on out is shoved into the second duel episode, 140. Speaking of which, this episode starts with Aki and Crow getting the reveal of why Sherry is helping Z-ONE, where she admits that she joined the bad guys because she wants her parents back. She even goes as far as stating that because Z-ONE showed her the future, she has no hope that it can be saved and thus at least wants her lovely past back so she can have some solace before everything goes to hell for humanity. But we already went over that above.

Next up, albeit this moment should probably be considered more of a running theme than just one self-contained thing, we have Crow's struggle with Soul Binding Gate. Remember, the effect of this field spell causes all players to take damage every time a monster with less ATK than Sherry's LP is summoned. And at this point in the duel, Aki is barely above 1000 life points, so Crow worries about triggering the field spell's effect and hurting her, which leads to him playing suboptimally because he's more concerned about his friend than about winning the duel. Notably, Aki calls him out on this.

(She has a point.)

Outside of providing an internal conflict for Crow to grapple with, this isn't much to write home about. (Side note: I do find it interesting that they introduce the fear of physically hurting someone in a duel specifically in connection to Aki here, though, given that through her psychic powers, she had to grapple with this exact issue many times in the past. I have no idea if this was intentional, though.)

Between this and the next moment, there's a nice bit of interplay between Crow and Aki again, where he activates a card to refill her life points just in time so she doesn't drop to zero through Soul Binding Gate, while Aki uses a defensive trap to protect Crow in return.

(This is just here because it's a money shot to me. The juxtaposition of their faces and their life points, showing that while Aki may have the lowest life points, she still has the coolest head in this duel, and while Sherry technically has the upper hand, she's beginning to falter because she didn't anticipate the other two to work so well together. It's chef's kiss. Mwah.)

What follows after this, is, of course, the Big Moment. Where Sherry tries to convince Crow to forfeit so she can win and have Z-ONE change the past. And this is the one I really need to dig into.

With Sherry's earlier admission that she's on Iliaster's side because she wants her parents back acting as setup, she begins her attempt to sway Crow by telling him that if he had the opportunity to change the past, he would do it, too. And while Crow initially protests, Sherry challenges this, then proceeds to show him what Z-ONE's power could accomplish, and we get a lengthy sequence where Sherry, through weird cyborg-techno-magic-shenanigans that are never explained, takes Aki and Crow to a dreamlike space where Crow sees the orphans he used to take care of being happily reunited with their parents. Sherry also ominously tells him that this is "what he desires deep in his psyche" before promising him that if he surrenders the duel, Z-ONE can give him a world where Zero Reverse never occurred and all the kids can have happy lives with their real families. (I wanted to post most of this sequence in screenshots, but while I have them, I've realised I'm only a few images short of tumblr's limit already, so forgive me because I will need those remaining image spots.) This moment proceeds to introduce some serious doubt on Crow's end. Aki, meanwhile, remains steadfast, telling him not to fall for Sherry's manipulation, which leads to her giving an almost Yusei-style speech. In a moment where Crow wavers, both because he's genuinely considering whether taking Sherry's offer might be the wiser choice, and because he doesn't want to hurt Aki by triggering Sherry's field spell effect, Aki calls out to him and tells him to snap out of it by reminding him of how Yusei reached out to her during their second duel. This speech is a bit, um. Clunky, I feel. (At least if the translation is correct. If it isn't, then that may be the issue.) See, she tells him that Yusei "saved her from the darkness of her psychic powers", that "he wasn't concerned about his own safety and risked his life to persuade her", that, because her psychic powers are now gone, she's "renewed" and that this somehow brought her to the epiphany that as long as she believes in her own potential, she can change the future. This is lifted almost verbatim from the scene, by the way. Leaving aside the fact that half of this feels like a mild to severe misrepresentation of Aki's character arc during the DS arc (don't talk about it, don't talk about it, I need to make this another post of its own, damn it), I, personally, can't exactly follow how she ended up with that final epiphany from the circumstances she listed. But lucky for us, Crow apparently gets what she's driving at, because he quickly echoes her statement and they both conclude that Crow's kids also believe in the future and fight to live, that they're not sad about their lives the way they are right now, even though they don't have parents. Thus, Crow catches himself, echoing Aki's sentiment and telling Sherry that he, too, believes in the future. And through the power of Friendship and Believing in the Future, he manages to use Aki's cards to land the final hit, nicely mirroring how she used his to destroy Ecole de Zone.

...Phew. Okay, look. First off, that above, large section is basically several character beats stacked on top of one another. On Sherry's end, we have the intriguing fact that she's specifically trying to manipulate Crow, not Aki. In fact, she doesn't so much as try to sway Aki, as though she knows it's no use. Then, on Aki's end, we've got her pulling a real Yusei, staying level-headed almost the entire duel and reaching out to make sure Crow stays on track. This moment also ties back to her own conflict with her powers again. (Which, unfortunately, I will talk about, and yes, I'll be chewing drywall the entire time I do it.) Finally, on Crow's end, we've got a nice, proper moment where he doubts himself and, by his own admission, nearly makes a terrible mistake because he wants nothing more than for the kids he used to take care of to have good lives.

Now, before I go over what worked about this moment and what didn't, let me just chew through the rest of the actual duel itself, too, then circle back too highlight some things. In other words, time for me to chew some drywall.

*Sigh*

At the very end of the duel, there are two more character moments that are noteworthy.

First, right before the final hit, we get Sherry desperately defending herself against Aki and Crow's newly strengthened belief that the future can, in fact, still be saved, which she does by (rather heartbreakingly) asking what's so wrong about wanting her parents back, about wanting their love and warmth back. It's at this point that Crow's allowed to get back at Sherry by challenging her beliefs, telling her that people "work hard to live because they only get one chance at life", and that there's no point in trying to go back to do things differently, that the only way to keep going is to believe in the future, regardless of whatever painful and sad events one has had to live through. I'd say this sentiment certainly fits Crow, character-wise, especially given his rough Satellite background. It does partially fall flat because it feels a bit weird for him, specifically, to now be acting like he knows Sherry inside and out, much like she did with him earlier, but again, this is simply a matter of setup and I'll try not to belabour that point again. The horse is already dead, no sense in beating it. It's after this speech and the final attack that Sherry finally realises her error.

Buuut this leads us right into the next character moment. Because as the duel ends, Sould Binding Gate physically falls apart, pelting all three of our duel participants in debris and threatening to crush them under it. While everyone does briefly fall over (and Sherry gets a moment to realise that her father wanted her to live strong, not accept seemingly inevitable doom and die weak), they soon realise they were not, in fact, buried under rubble, though. Because guess what! Black Rose Dragon to the rescue. Black Rose Dragon, who can suddenly physically affect her surroundings again. You know, that thing we were led to believe Aki could no longer make her monsters do because she lost her powers completely out of nowhere. And there's more! Because not only does Black Rose Dragon take care of the debris for the trio, as she disappears, she also heals all three of them, and in response, Crow gets a line that I unfortunately cannot for the life of me discuss without bias because it kills me every time.

(Crow. Crow, please. You're killing me. I beg you.)

This line out of Crow's mouth feels extremely weird to me, and in the process of typing up this post, I've been trying to find the reason why. Here's the conclusion I've come to: Firstly, it feels a bit out of place from him, somehow. A line hypothesising about what psychic powers can or can't do—this is something I would have expected out of Aki's mouth, but not out of Crow's. I believe what makes it feel so out of place, though, isn't necessarily that it seems a bit odd for him, specifically, to theorise about this, but that when I hear it, I don't feel like the character is saying it. Instead, in this moment, moreso than in some others that suffer from the same issue, I hear not Crow, but the writers speaking. I hear them telling me "look, we know we made it seem like Aki's powers are super gone and like they were super, irredeemably bad, and like she and you should be happy that they're gone, but here, see, this is what they're really like. Don't you think we came up with something clever here, to set her becoming a doctor later up nicely? No, this isn't because we needed to backpedal on our decision to make her lose them and be happy about it at the last second, why do you ask?". And yes, I concede this might just be me. (So feel free to disregard this in terms of analysis, I just have some weird kind of vendetta against this line.) But still, even without my personal issues hampering me, this line of dialogue out of Crow's mouth is just plain odd. After all, how would he know what "real" psychic powers are? Since when is he the expert, especially considering we've never so much as seen him comment on Aki's powers before? (And for the record, this line would have seemed just as weird had any other character other than Aki said it imo. It just has that unmistakable "writers trying to justify something at the last second"-tang to me.)

And do not. Do Not get me started on the fact that the writers, despite going to such great pains to paint Aki's psychic powers as an exclusively negative thing especially during the WRGP arc, decide to reintroduce them here, suddenly as a good thing that can also heal people, which directly contradicts every choice they've made when it came to Aki's relationship to her powers ever since the Team Catastrophe duel. While crucially also lacking the one thing this entire duel is practically begging for: Fucking. Setup. But at this point, the handling of Aki's powers, specifically, really needs its own post, so I'll hold off on any further comments here and come back to that another time. I feel like I'm beginning to talk in circles, anyhow. Setup. Setup, setup, setup. This duel wishes it had it, because then the ideas presented here—which, in a vacuum, are compelling—might have worked smoothly.

But, with that. We have finally made it through the duel itself. Sherry, at the very end, gets her change of heart and at last cements herself as a good guy, and that concludes the first duel in the finale, and also both Aki and Crow's last duel in the entire show.

And good lord, was this duel all over the place. Though I think my meandering scene-by-scene breakdown of it showed as much. Now, onto the proper evaluation of what worked and what didn't here. First, let's get the good these two episodes do out of the way, shall we. (Because there is a lot of Bad I need to yell about, unfortunately.)

By virtue of being one of the final duels, this is Aki and Crow's last chance to shine, and shine, they do. Both in the duelling department and in the character department. Aki makes two major plays that upend Sherry's strategy and Crow's perfectly in sync with her, showing that the two truly are teammates, and paying off all the character moments they had specifically in the Team Unicorn to Team Catastrophe section of the WRGP. Their friendship and cooperation is believable and entertaining to watch. Then on the character side, Aki's growth is (somewhat) paid off—where she used to be a character that doubted herself and was afraid of hurting people, she is now the one who can keep a level head and help others fight their self-doubt. Meanwhile, Crow gets to show off his unfailing dedication to community and family again, both by watching out for Aki and by selflessly desiring not for himself to have a better life, but for the kids he used to take care of. And Sherry, who was previously removed from the narrative in such an unsatisfactory way, finally gets to duel again, gets to explain why she actually does what she does, and gets to join the heroes at the end, permanently joining the ranks of the good guys instead of the villains. Happy endings all around.

Ehem. And this is where I'm gonna be less nice about this duel. Because the problem is, due to the specific constellation of characters involved in this duel and how they previously interacted in the show, there's a lot of stuff here that doesn't work nearly as well on a second watch as a first watch would like to make you believe.

First, a broader issue on the card game end of things: The way this duel feels, it's very much more Aki's duel than Crow's, which is also kind of confirmed in the card plays being made. Though it's Crow who's first shown to catch onto the fact that a third party is activating additional card effects out of nowhere, it's Aki who fully solves the mystery, uses Crow's monster to synchro summon Black Rose Dragon, then activates her dragon's effect to get rid of the illusion for good. And while Crow gets to land the final hit, it's Aki's setup and her trap, Synchro Stream, that make it possible for him to win for both of them. And yet. On the dialogue- and character-interaction side of things, this duel is made out to be much more Crow's than Aki's. Because, perhaps surprisingly to some, Aki doesn't waver one bit in this duel. She's got her head in the game the entire time. She's here to do business—that business being defeating Sherry—and by god, does she do it. Moreover, unlike Crow, she has much, much better setup to be duelling Sherry than he does. And this comes right back around to the main thing this duel suffers from, which I've already harped on about: Crow and Sherry, up until this point, have not interacted in a way that would make the connection between them seem in any way significant. Unfortunately for this duel, though, Aki and Sherry have.

From the first episode where we're introduced to Sherry, she's shown to be interested in who Aki is and what she can do. During the duel between her and Yusei, she comments on Aki's powers. Later, when Aki is getting her turbo duelling license, Sherry watches on with interest. At some point while Aki's training, Sherry drops by to speak with her and Yusei again. My point here being, of course, that Aki, unlike Crow, got several scenes where she interacted with Sherry or had Sherry meaningfully take note of her existence before this point. Yet, whatever dynamic the writers may or may not have been aiming for between these two is, at best, underutilised in the final duel, if not completely ignored, at worst. Instead, the writers shift their focus to Crow and try to make us believe that Sherry, a character who has barely acknowledged his existence thus far, would know him well enough to consider him the better target for her attempt at manipulation. (And don't get me started on how the hell Z-ONE's weird robot magic is supposed to expose what Crow "desires deep in his psyche". That is simply a chasm the show expects us to suspend our disbelief over.) And look. The thing is, I don't think the Big Moment where Sherry tries to convince Crow to forfeit is terrible in isolation. Like, they could have made this work, had they given these two setup, had they given us, the audience, reason to believe Crow could be swayed like this (which they, notably, also didn't), and had they given us the impression that Sherry knows Crow well enough to pull something like this. What hurts the scene immensely, however, is that it's preceded by everything before, starting from the WRGP, where there is no setup between these two, no reason to believe Crow could be convinced to forfeit a duel against a major antagonist, and no meaningful interactions to support the belief that Sherry knows who Crow really is at all.

What also stands out to me is that Crow really doesn't feel like the best character to parallel Sherry, here, either. Parallel in the sense that she tries to get to him by expressing a desire she believes they both feel—getting a certain, nicer version of the past they never had back. Because the thing is, Sherry and Crow hardly feel like they have very much in common, and there's certainly no previous hints to make anyone believe they would have this in common. (So for all we know, Sherry could have just been taking a shot in the dark by trying to convince Crow.) You know who could have made for an excellent character to mirror Sherry, though? Yeah. The third person in the room during this scene. Aki.

See, here's the thing about these three as characters, in relation to what this scene tries to accomplish (getting a protagonist to waver by having the antagonist appeal to certain emotional similarities between them): While Crow may perhaps be more relatable to the audience, he isn't all that relatable to Sherry. He comes from dirt poor origins, she from rich ones. He doesn't even remember his parents, she defines herself by the memory of hers. She's a lone wolf, he's incredibly community-focussed. The only parallel you could have drawn between these two, up until this duel, is knowing what it feels like to want revenge. (Sherry with her parents, Crow with his kids back in the DS arc.) But guess what, unfortunately, Aki knows that too, what with her past as the Black Rose Witch and wanting to make people pay for ostracising her. And to make matters worse, she has a lot of other things going for her that parallel Sherry much, much better, too. They both come from well-off families, both have had major, traumatising events in their lives revolve around their parents, both left their initial family structure by way of drastic changes in their life, both are intimately familiar with the desire for vengeance, and, most damningly, Aki knows what it's like to stand on the side of the bad guys—like Sherry is doing in that very scene—because you feel like it's the only place that gives you hope/meaning. Not to speak of the fact that Aki, given her turbulent past with her psychic powers, would probably know exactly what it feels like to want a past you never had back. There would have been so much to work with there, and it makes whatever they were gunning for with Crow look... lacklustre, to put it mildly, by comparison.

The worst part is, I think, that the blame lies neither with the characters nor with the scene concept here. Solely with the execution. Because I truly think they could have made this work. They could have made the entire duel work, big character moments and all. But the keyword is and always has been setup. Setup, which the writers, at least in part, strangely gave to Aki, but not to Crow, which is what hurts particularly his portion of this duel, and, arguably, his character writing in general. Because—and this may be a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but permit me this—while Crow wanting a better future for the kids he used to take care of over a better future for himself feels perfectly on brand, the idea of him forfeiting a duel against a major antagonist, while the threat of the entire city being destroyed is hanging above his head... doesn't. Like, yes, I've talked about the fact that Crow is the only character in 5Ds who ever actually loses duels on purpose. What you may remember, though, is that both occasions we've seen him do this—against Lyndon and Yaeger, respectively—were much lower-stakes duels than this. Not to speak of the fact that it also feels a little odd that Crow, of all people, would buy into the idea that Z-ONE's genuinely powerful enough to just give those kids their parents back, given how liberally he called bullshit on pretty much any and all supernatural mumbo-jumbo claiming that fate is inevitable, or that the gods have this-and-that power, or what have you the entire show. (Also, doesn't he strike you as the guy who'd wonder why Z-ONE's not using his fancy powers for better things, if the extent of them is so great? Or is that just me?) It's a moment of character doubt that tries to sell itself as believable, even though we've never been given any hints that this kind of temptation, specifically, could work on Crow.

Ultimately, Crow & Aki VS Sherry feels like a very hot-and-cold duel. On the cardplay side, the teamwork between Aki and Crow is well done, yet the duel does feel like it skews more towards Aki than towards Crow. Sherry, meanwhile, plays tricky and mean like a proper antagonist, but does so at the expense of sacrificing all her previous tactics and monsters (and, arguably, some of her character, though this is probably on purpose, given her transformation into an antagonist). Then, on the character side, we've got Aki in an interestingly Yusei-ish role, which, while it feels like a good way to show how she's matured and learned, wastes her character dynamic with Sherry. On the other side, Crow and Sherry interact in several personal ways throughout the duel that leave you wondering when exactly these two got to know each other so well, because the show certainly didn't give us a visible progression of their dynamic. The only dynamic that leaves nothing to be desired is that between Aki and Crow (stilted speeches aside), because it excellently showcases their friendship and teamwork. Very weird decisions made in the writing here all around.

We'll get into the nitty-gritty of what changes I would have suggested to improve this duel below, but first: What happens after this duel? Well, two more Yusei gear duels, Aporia briefly standing up to Z-ONE, and then, the final, big clash between Yusei and Z-ONE.

Given that Crow isn't even present for two of these duels and then barely gets more to do than stand on the side and react during the final two, I will dare to skip all that, though. Because really, Crow's occasional comments and the play-by-play he sometimes joins the others in giving when spectating a duel don't exactly contribute anything to his character. They're just there so he gets something to do and doesn't fade into the background entirely when a duel that doesn't involve him is going on. This includes the moment where he, much like the other signers, gets to give Yusei Black-Winged Dragon for the final duel, as well as the later moment when Yusei uses it, chanting in tandem with Crow as BWD arrives. And other than that and the tear-jerking moment when he later reacts to Yusei returning despite all odds, he really doesn't get any noteworthy scenes.

In other words, we are skipping straight to the end. So, where do we find Crow there?

(Oh, y i k e s.)

There's a popular post circulating around this site that goes something like "the worst thing you can do to a character is make them a cop during a timeskip". And, look. I don't think I need to tell anyone that becoming a sector security officer is an extremely jarring character choice for Crow. Crow, of all people! The guy with the face full of markers, who used to be part of a duel gang, who was introduced in the show gleefully stealing from security Robin Hood-style, and who has every reason to despise law enforcement! (Leaving aside the obvious logistical issue that Crow in no country in the world could have completed his police training in the few months between the Ark Cradle debacle and this scene. But given that 5Ds generously brushes realistic concerns like this one aside on multiple occasions, this is, funnily enough, the thing I'm also more willing to overlook here. The character dissonance, however, less so.)

I'll try to be generous and guess that the writers were aiming to convey a message somewhere along the lines of "even someone who's done bad things in the past can become an example for others" or something like it. The problem is just that Crow didn't need any such message because he was already the good guy while he was still actively stealing from security. He was the lovable rogue to a T, damn it! But this, in particular, is a surface scratch hinting at a bigger issue, I think—namely, the issue of the show's complete pivot when it came to the depiction of law enforcement after the DS arc. Because when we think back to that part of 5Ds, good security officers were the exception, rather than the rule. And this is exactly what makes Crow of all characters becoming one even weirder. He would know, would remember how security used to treat him, his kids, his friends, his brothers. And if the idea here was that, well, he's trying to improve sector security by joining it and changing it from the inside, so to speak, then guess what was missing again: Our good, old friend setup. I'm starting to feel like a broken record. So yeah, I don't think a ton of people, whether they like or hate Crow, would disagree that this is a supremely weird position to put his character in.

As we find out through 5Ds' epilogue, however, his sector security job isn't quite what Crow actually wants, though. (And thank god, because that would have been such a bizarre position to leave him in.) Instead, we're shown fairly quickly that several duelling leagues are apparently trying to scout Crow out, and that he's tempted to accept one of the offers and go into pro duelling. This is at first shown in a short scene where something like a league scout follows Crow, then later, when the whole group—sans Jack, at first—is getting together and everyone starts discussing their futures. Aside from complaining a bit about his job and upsetting Aki without meaning to, Crow doesn't get much to do here, either. For what it's worth, at least him feeling tempted to ditch the security job feels more in line with the original Crow we got than with whatever strange twist the writers were going for after this shorter timeskip.

What follows is the very last duel of the show, the long-awaited Yusei VS Jack rematch, of course. And while he doesn't get to participate in this one, Crow, much like Aki and the twins, spectates the duel and ends up having an epiphany about what he wants to do. This epiphany ends up being that he does want to turn to pro duelling, and as a reasoning, canon provides us with this:

(As is known, intense card games are the only way to make children smile.)

Personally, I wouldn't say this is a terrible or out of character reason for Crow to decide to go pro. But there's more to that I'd like to discuss. First, though, let's take a quick look at where we find Crow after the second, bigger timeskip, which is inserted right in the middle of Yusei and Jack's final duel.

(Okay, yeah, I'm a sucker for the bullet earrings.)

The quick scene Crow gets here makes it unmistakably clear that he did go into pro duelling, just like he decided during the duel in the past, and not only that, he went into tag-team duelling and apparently managed to reach world champion status with his teammates. The above scene, however, is the exact same moment he decides to leave said team, so he can instead go solo and (presumably) try to beat Jack.

Now, we can discuss this in a bit more detail. Personally, I'm extremely in two minds about Crow being one of three characters, total, who ends up becoming a pro duellist after canon. Jack seems obvious, especially given the pivot back to his more Fortune Cup-esque persona the writers did around the Red Nova episodes. Rua also makes sense, given that Jack was his idol from the start. Crow, though, feels a little more complicated. The thing is, like so many things surrounding Crow in the Ark Cradle arc, the writers gave us no indication pro duelling is something he's really passionate about before this point. Worse, they didn't even really tell us what reason he saw to participate in the WRGP with his brothers beyond "could be fun". So there isn't really a connection here. The same thing goes for the fact that he specifically talks about teaching his teammates above, which is also something he wasn't associated with all that much previously. Though this one is admittedly less egregious, because at least Crow was seen briefly coaching Aki as she prepared to take his spot during the Unicorn duel. Still, while I wouldn't go as far as saying it's an out of character choice for Crow to go pro, it still feels a little odd that he went down the same route as Jack. Personally speaking, it feels like the writers didn't quite know what to do with him. Because as I said, Jack is obvious and Rua also makes sense, and I'd say the same goes for Yusei. Then there's Ruka, who is treated about as in-depth in the epilogue as she was throughout canon, and Aki, whose "setup" for her timeskip self was done extremely hasty and last-minute, but at least it was there. Between all of them, Crow occupies a weird spot where it doesn't so much feel like he ended up on the wrong trajectory for his life, as it simply feels like there were choices the writers could have made that would have fit him much better. What with his theme of legacy and community, trying to make Pearson's dream of a place where disenfranchised children can learn good life skills a reality would have been a good fit, for example. Especially considering his close ties to the Satellite orphans he used to take care of, which, funnily enough, are reinforced one more time as canon flips back to present day and Crow is seen bidding his kids goodbye.

("Come back"? When, precisely? And what part about "literally saved the world twice" doesn't qualify you as a hero to a bunch of kids ten times over already?)

Considering canon seems hellbent on making sure we know the signers went their separate ways and that they aren't anywhere near each other by the very end of the show, though, my guess is that Crow had to end up doing something like pro duelling, in order to get him out of New Domino City and away from the friend group whose shenanigans we were so accustomed to following by that point. Of course, there's also the argument to be made that Crow staying in NDC and getting a more community-focussed ending would have also been significantly less cool than making him a kickass pro duellist with bullet earrings, which circles back to how the writing interacts with its target audience.

The only thing that follows after this, then, is the big goodbye, and with that, ladies, gentlemen, and other lovely 5ds nerds, we have successfully followed bird boy's path throughout the entire show. And what a ride it was. (I did not think this analysis would end up stretching over a whole four posts.) Time for some closing thoughts before I do my thing and suggest some rewrites that could have made all this feel more coherent one more time.

Crow's character arc, if it can even be called that, feels about as hot and cold as his and Aki's final duel with Sherry over the course of the show. His introduction is fast-paced, he's made to be likable quickly, and his integration into the main protagonist group is as quick as everything else about his narrative. Between the way he shows up out of nowhere, briefly disappears without fanfare, and is then reintroduced with even more importance before slipping into the signer group like he's always been there, it truly feels like his entire inclusion in the narrative was a last-minute decision by the writers to include that one, additional character concept Kazuki Takahashi had originally created after all. If there was one way to describe his whole arc, it would be that it's a rush. At the start, the writers are in a hurry to make him likable, then they're in a hurry to make him a signer, then they're in a hurry to give us a whole backstory for him, then they're in a hurry to give him a believable character dynamic with Aki, and at the end, they're in a hurry to pay off a character dynamic with Sherry they didn't properly set up with him. You may notice that leaves significant gaps, and the lack of balance between those gaps and the rushes surrounding them, I believe, are part of why he's such a polarising character.

Crow is integrated so thoroughly into the signer group at the end of the DS arc that, much like Aki and the twins, he gets stuck in the position of being a character that cannot simply be removed from the narrative for a longer amount of time. And this, I think, ends up biting him in the ass, because in the gaps where the writers don't rush to do something big with him, it often feels like they don't quite know what to do with him at all. So, he instead gets relegated to small side tasks, like inane duels that don't affect the plot, or becomes the person who reacts to unfolding situations in whatever manner wouldn't fit Yusei or Jack. He feels like he's the third portion of the protagonist trifecta only in theory—the status of an equal third player seems to be what the writers had in mind, yet, looking at the show, it feels like an honorary title, at best, because the writing choices made for him don't convey anywhere near the same amount of thought and effort as those of Yusei and Jack. Crow's backstory doesn't intersect significantly with that of his brothers, his dragon is introduced way too late and never given an upgrade, he never gets to clash with Iliaster until the Team New World duel, and throughout the entire WRGP and Ark Cradle arc, there isn't a single duelling victory that's solely his. People who prefer other characters over Crow like to harp on about how much screentime he gets; I argue that this is exactly what showcases how poorly the writers took care of him in many instances. For as much as Crow is plastered onto the screen and given the aesthetics of an equal player in a protagonist trio, his many appearances are as much of a curse as they are a gift, because too many of them aren't spent setting up anything meaningful or developing his character in any way. Speaking of character development: There is none. Crow exits the show pretty much exactly the same as he entered it, brief security stint aside. And, look, this need not necesarily be a bad thing. Static characters exist and they have their place in stories. It's just that in Crow's case, his utter lack of development feels like another damning indicator of the writers' cluelessness when it came to utilising him, given his weird, sort-of-elevated-protagonist. Aki, who is so often weighed against him, gets significantly more development than he does. And though Jack also ends up in almost the same place at the end of the show as he was at the start, at least he had a dip in the middle where his character was somewhat malleable and not set in stone. Crow didn't.

What we end up with, then, is a character whose concept is perfectly fine on paper, but whose execution proceeded to turn him into the one and only favourite for some, and the embodiment of piss poor writing for others. Having now looked at pretty much his entire run in the show with a bloody microscope, I end up somewhere in the middle, myself. He's a good character and much of his writing is confusing at best, utter dogshit at worst. As for what decisions in the writing room led to him turning out like this, I'd still pay good money to know them. For what it's worth, I've tried my very best to make an educated guess as to all of them.

And now, for the final time, allow me to do my very best to suggest how the issues of the Ark Cradle arc could have been addressed in order to make Crow's part in it less messy.

In previous posts, I've split up my rewrite suggestions depending on one circumstance: Whether or not Crow stays a signer. However, this time, I will deliberately forgo this, for one, very simple reason—Crow's status as a signer doesn't matter one bit for the Ark Cradle arc. Regardless of whether he has a mark or not, his duel with Sherry remains unaffected, and so does his later timeskip-self. Thus, pick your favourite, both versions work for the Ark Cradle.

Now. Onto the elephant vengeful Frenchwoman in the room. Let me repeat my favourite word in this post one more time. What the dynamic between Crow and Sherry needed, more than anything else, in order to satisfyingly be paid off during their Ark Cradle duel, was setup. There was so much time Crow spent on screen doing fuck all, and some of that time could have so easily been allocated to him interacting with Sherry in a meaningful manner. (I'm side-eyeing especially his pre-WRGP duels. Those did nothing to add to his character and could have easily been replaced with episodes where he actually gets to talk to Sherry one on one.) And if not that, then the writers could at least have done themselves the favour of letting Aki talk to Crow about Sherry, which would have arguably set up their three-way clash even better. Moreover, show us how the hell these two characters parallel each other and how they differ, damn it! The main issue with the big moment Sherry and Crow had in the duel was that Crow's faltering and his sudden, deep understanding of Sherry came completely out of nowhere. So what if they had shown some of that earlier, then? What if they had shown where the lmits of Crow's resolve lie, what could get him to doubt himself? What if they had drawn the parallel of Sherry and Crow both supposedly being characters that sometimes wistfully think about a past they never had earlier? It would have done so much to make that duel hit exactly the way it was probably meant to. As a bonus, if we had gotten Aki and Crow talking about Sherry, too, the scene of talking Sherry out of helping Z-ONE could have been a team effort, just like their card playing was. Both of them would have reasons to know different aspects of Sherry each, and both could have brought up good arguments. And this is really all this duel woild have needed to be better on the story end, I think: A solid, narrative foundation to make it obvious to us why it has to be these three characters duelling, why it could have only been this setup, why it made the most sense to let these three bounce off each other. Crow only needs that extra step to slot in better with the girls here.

As for the epilogue, I don't think anyone will be surprised to read that I would have never made Crow a cop, not even temporarily. The depiction of law enforcement 5Ds gives us during the DS arc is too damning for that. However, given the way the ending is structured, he does need some sort of occupation that feels like it's not quite the right thing so he can later change his mind about it, of course. Here, though, is where I, purely in service of Crow's character, would suggest a change that probably doesn't work with the ending's final aim of separating the 5Ds gang by hundreds of kilometres each. I would let Crow go into pro duelling first, then let him figure out that's not what he actually wanted. Crow, to me, is a character who is so intrinsically tied to community and family that turning him into a solitary pro duellist—even if he claims to do it to make the kids back home smile—feels off to me. Thus, from a character standpoint, I would let him pivot back to wanting to take care of those kids. Either through what I suggested above, letting him carry on Pearson's dream, or, which also feels fitting to me, by letting him help out Martha again and setting him up as the guy who'll take over when she can no longer run the orphanage. It's not the cool, glamorous end the show gave him, but it's what feels more like the family-focussed guy we first met in the show. It doesn't gel with the idea of permanently separating him from the other signers, though, unfortunately. To do something like that while keeping his community theme, one would probably have to send him away to shack up with Brave or something, to help orphans in other countries. But this, I think, nicely showcases the dissonance between what Crow's character writing would suggest he might do at the end, and what the show demanded he needed to do so he'd no longer be close to the others. Because my focus, as always, is only on character here. And Crow, with his personality and his writing, feels like the character who chafes the most against the idea of striking out solo, abandoning his ties to the community he was so invested in previously. To that extent, the above suggestion is the best I can provide with what we were canonically given. If we wanted to keep the canon ending he gets and actually make it make sense why he suddenly wants to be a lone wolf pro, the only thing I could suggest would be more setup for that. (Ah, there it is again. One final time.) Show Crow having some actual competitive drive, show him enjoying the whole tournament thing more than he thought he would during the WRGP. Just give us something that shows why he would want to go down this path, and why some other things that were previously important to him might not be a priority anymore. It all comes back to setup.

*Deep breath*

So, here we are, then, and this is it. This is all I could make of Crow's character writing in the entire show. To everyone who read this post in its entirety, a heartfelt thank you. To everyone who read the whole series of posts in its entirety, I'm so glad you're as insane about this show as I am, it makes me feel incredibly appreciated. Hope you enjoyed the ride, more meta posts will come eventually, just about different topics. In the meantime, see ya.

#yugioh 5ds #crow hogan #ygo 5ds #5ds #sherry leblanc #yugioh meta #IT IS DONE #HOLY SHIT IT IS DONE #I can't believe I've reached the point of my life where I do gratuitous media analysis for fun #this was such a ride god damn #but I completed it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #I'm sticking a gold star on my forehead as a reward #anyway hope you enjoy this last part #feel free to yell at me (enthusiastically) about it #orchid rambles

[v1nsmoke]

𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑪𝑰𝑹𝑪𝑼𝑺 // 𝑩𝑼𝑮𝑮𝒀 𝑿 𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑫𝑬𝑹

spooktober week 4 - psycho clown buggy story, opla buggy in mind

tw: daggers/blades, fire, blood, descriptions of injury, buggy shit

summary: enslaved as a member in a crazy pirate clown's circus, you decide it's time for you to escape - but things don't work out like you wanted them to.

a/n: OPLA BUGGY IN MIND! Im personally not much of a buggy person but he fit well with the halloween prompt, so here we go i guess. Honestly whenever i think of buggy i picture the live action version lmao

tags: -

wc: 2k

You throw another thing in your suitcase, then shut it. After months of imprisonment in this stupid, psycho clown's stupid psycho circus, it was time for you to leave. You had enough of him and his show, how he held his audience captive and how he treated the members of the circus, calling them his 'freaks' and not giving a shit about them.

You were just looking for the right moment to leave, and now seemed like it. He was too focused on his show, he wouldn't notice if you just left. Oh, how you wanted to see his face when he finds out that you are gone! But luckily you won't be here by the time this happens. You'll be long gone, far away from this madness.

Though, compared to the others, he always had some hints of favouritism towards you for unknown reasons. Some light touches, sweeter words, lingering stares, all these were not pointed out by any of the mindless idiots working here. It seemed like you were the only one actually working here with a brain, some others even being so dumb that their minds couldn't process what the clown said sometimes.

You let out a deep sigh as you grab the handle of your suitcase, ready to sneak out. You had been planning this ever since he caught you and made you work for him, you can't mess it up. You push your room's door open with a quiet creak. Looking around, you notice that nobody was out, everyone performing inside the tent.

The circus music fades away as you get furter away from it, panting as you run trough the demolished town. He did this everywhere he went, death and destruction followed him no matter where he was. You wished you could do something about it, but he was a crazy clown, a strong one, and no matter what you did, there was just no way you could defeat him. So, if you couldn't save everyone, you will save yourself.

But it seemed like the worst idea, because suddenly you felt somebody tap your shoulder, making you freeze in your steps. You slowly turn you head around, only to notice a hand there. Just the hand. Nobody was there, just this one hand floating. This is a bad dream, this is a bad dream! Your legs were shaking, your mind trying to figure out what was happening. Just then, a mysterious gas starts to linger in the air, one that you could remember well. He used it so many times, not on you, but on others. But you just stood there, shocked, not running away like you should've. Bad idea.

The world around you starts to fade to black, your body landing in the dirt with a thud sound, unable to move. It takes all your might to fight against the gas, but you're unable to win against it.

~●~

It was back. The annoying circus music, the fake laugh of the audience, the pain in them evident. Not to Buggy, though. He somehow thought they were all enjoying his show. You realised that hearing this meant you were back in the circus, which also meant your escape was unsuccessful. All that planning, and now you messed your chance up.

"Looks like somebody's awakeee!" The familiar voice chimes in with a chuckle. You try to run away, but it's like your hands and legs are tied. Maybe because they were. You look down, noticing that you were tied to a circular, wooden structure. You've seen it in action, Cabaiji used it as a target, a living human in the middle. And now it looks like you were the living human in the middle.

"I see you noticed." He gestures to you, a dagger between each of his fingers like claws, the blade shining in the colourful circus lighting. He probably noticed how your eyes widened when realising what will happen to you.

"Don't worry. There's no guarantee that I'll actually hit you! But there are always chances." His tone shifts with each sentence that leave his painted lips.

Just then, you feel the structure move, the circus starting to spin with you. The people force a laugh when the board is being shown, clearly not because they were entertained. The situation was bad the way it is, the fact that there was an audience making it worse, everybody from all ages, including kids watching in horror as you were about to die.

A dagger pierces trough the air, drilling into the wood, landing right next to your head.

"Hm, looks like you got lucky this time. Let's see if you can pull this off again!" He laughs, and a member of staff spins the wheel again, now you're turning faster than the first time.

It felt horrific, the laughs, the agitating music all mixing together with the wind coming from the speed, all echoing in your ears. The world spinning while your ears rang, you maybe had a headache from it all but it was nothing compared to what you felt a second later.

A sharp sting in your body followed by your pained scream breaks trough the jolly melody of laughs and music. Blood trickles down to your shoes, all from the wound caused by the wound on your thigh, the dagger still deep in your flesh.

"Well, just as I expected. Luck wasn't on your side this time." Buggy chuckles, leaning back and forth.

~●~

You let out a hiss as the disinfectant sinks into the wound, the one caused by the clown. You were lucky he let you go, but he only did it so he can do the same trick the next day, and the next until he kills you with this. And you were not going to let this happen.

You were going to attempt an escape again. But this time, you will try to help others, too. You'll do the honour of ending the clown's circus here and now.

So, you stand up - as much as you could, the wound still making it harder -, and head to the circus stage in the tent where Buggy was planning. You were in luck, he was alone there with everybody else sleeping given the fact that it was nighttime already.

You push the striped tarp open, entering. You see him standing there, deep in thought. You take slow, silent steps towards him, making him look at you.

"Oh, an unexpected guest. And what brings you here?" He asks, tone shifing after every word.

You inch closer to him, barely anything between the two of you. The man stares at you with his big, ocean blue orbs with his face painted around it, maybe too prettily for your taste. You were going to kill him, goddamnit! But if he keeps looking at you like this, you'll get weak and just give up.

No. You can't let this chance go. You hated this man, you wanted to kill him, torture him in the worst ways possible until he dies in a brutal way. At least that's what you were telling yourself. The truth? You just wanted to escape. To not be used in this show, and for him to stop it. If he just let the people in the audience go, if he gave up on getting famous this way...

"Do it." He whispers, a gloomy look on his face, his ice cold colour eyes filled with emotion, the dim blueish light reflecting in them. This was something you have never really seen. He always treats people with cruelty, but his gaze always softens when talking about something that means anything to him.

Shanks was mentioned once, and his expression changed the moment he heard the name. On that day, you learnt that he did have emotions deep down. And now, in this moment, he looked at you exactly like this. He somehow looked innocent, like he did no wrong in the entire world.

But he did wrong things, and you knew it well. He was the one responsible for the wound on your leg, and for the suffering of innocent citizens.

"Do what?" You ask in a quiet tone, putting on an act. Deep down you had a feeling that you failed and he knew your plan, but hope dies last, so you just kept pretending.

"I know you have a lighter in your pocket. And I know what you want to do with it." He says quietly.

So he knew. You didn't know how, but he did. Maybe he wasn't lying when he said he had eyes and ears everywhere. What will you do now? You knew that you had to put an end to the suffering of others, to burn this place to the ground. But Buggy...

"And why would you let me do that?" You inquire, honestly suprised that he just said 'do it' some moments ago. Why would he let you destroy everything he built? He wanted to be king of the pirates, chasing the same dream as thousands, maybe millions of pirates. And if his crew and audience was free, he would be alone. There had to be a good reason for hin to say this.

"You know, over the years, many other pirates or bounty hunters have tried to kill me. To take my head off for money or fame. But none of them succeeded. You know why? My ability, my devil fruit makes it impossible for them. They slice me in half, chop me up, but I'll always put myself back together. I can't die, you know. Not by these methods. But maybe fire will put me down. And I'm going to be honest with you. If somebody ever succeeds in killing me, I want it to be you."

Silence sat between the two of you after this, you trying to process what he said, and Buggy waiting for your next step. You saw him use his ability once, he was saying the truth. It was a hard decision. You didn't really want to murder him, you just wanted to free the members of the circus and end the endless demolition of peaceful towns.

"Not going to kill me? Because if you decide to spare my life, I'll end yours!" He lashes towards you, a dagger in hand. You weren't ready for a one against one match against him, he was a devil fruit user, and you were a normal, average human. But you had to do something, so you grab your own dagger, dodge the hand, and try to land an attack on him. He gets out your way, focusing on your dagger, but doesn't notice the lighter in your other hand.

He grabs the collar of your shirt, and tosses you into the lined tarpaulin of the tent, which makes you bounce off and results in you falling between the benches of the auditorium. Wrong move. The benches were made of wood. You ignite the lighter, holding it dangerously close to the bench above you. And just as you expected, it cacthes on fire, the flame spreading trough the circus.

Buggy's eyes widen, realisation hitting him hard. Was this your plan all along? He didn't know, but you did it. To actually see everything catch on flame, burning to the ground, everything he built so far, now about to be gone. He couldn't do anything, and even if it wasn't all that visible on his exterior, he was panicking inside. A bunch of silent 'no''s leave his trembling lips, not even caring where you are right now.

Meanwhile, you took the opportunity and escaped from the burning tent. Smoke fills the air as you leave the tent, heading straight towards where the other members and the audience was locked. You look back at what you've done, the orange flames illuminating the dark, night sky, the light reflecting on your face and in your eyes.

~●~

You pick up the crowbar, smashing it against the lock of the innocent citizen's cage. They all look at you with suprise, still, delighted that somebody came to their rescue.

"He'll kill you if he finds out, leave while you can!" The man says, genuine worry lacing his voice.

"I tried, don't worry. But I'm not going to let everybody else suffer." You break the chain, freeing the man.

Now, with all the members freed, you were ready to finally start a new life, one without psycho clowns and a circus.

buggy the clown and one piece belongs to eiichiro oda

© v1nsmokes 2023. Do not modify, translate or rewrite.

#one piece #v1nsmoke #eiichiro oda #opla #one piece live action #buggy #buggy the clown #opla buggy #buggy x reader #opla buggy x reader #oneshot #fanfic #tumblr #spooktober #halloween #october #jeff ward #buggy d clown #buggy opla #buggy opla x reader

[satorkiees]

broadcasting team *ੈ✩‧₊˚

synopsis- when reo joins the broadcasting team, it's a hassle but as time as go on, maybe feelings change?

content: angst if you squint, mostly fluff, not proofread, idiots in love

wc: 2.7k

due to your part-time occupation as the school’s sports and general broadcaster, you were quite popular in hakuho high school. although people outside of your school questioned why you even needed a broadcaster, you weren’t awfully surprised because the whole nature of your school was grand in every way.

hakuho high school was a testament to all of the alumni that came before it, filled with businessmen and nobility alike. kids from all over came to your school for the high-tech facilities and the grandiose experience: sprawling sport complexes filled throughout the school within the multiple buildings such as; swimming, fencing and volleyball which all had their own niche of adoring fans. currently, you were the only general broadcaster along with your newly-made acquaintance reo.

not only a force of nature but a loud bundle of energy. his whole demeanour exuded confidence and extroversion meaning his general announcements often elicited giggles and laughs from his quick wit and charm. a pleasure to work with you thought but honestly a tad overwhelming. your reserved nature may seem unfitting for your job to some, however it ended up working quite well - a calm, collected way to often start off the school’s morning with general announcements and upcoming events.

though, that was all sent haywire when reo joined.

“good morning hakuho high! it’s june 7th today and make sure to keep yourselves safe for the upcoming holiday weekend.”

“don’t do anything we wouldn’t do!” reo chimed in, smugness evident on his face from his lame joke.

“of course. that’s all from us today. have an amazing day hakuho high.” you ended the broadcast with a deep sigh.

for the 3rd time this week, you begged your club leader to separate the both of you in broadcasts but they refused simply saying “audience retention is at an all time high” despite the broadcasting being aired to the whole school regardless. giving up, you went back to the table to clear up your water bottle and notes for your next class when you felt a tap on your shoulder.

“i can’t believe you don’t want to work with me.” faux-hurt evident in his voice as he held his hand up to his heart. you rolled your eyes.

“it’s nothing personal, i’ve just been doing it by myself for so long,” you said, gathering the last of your stuff “plus your jokes suck.”

dramatically, reo clutches his hands over his stomach mimicking a great wound. “your words cut so deep.” 

“goodbye reo.” you turn on your heel. though unimpressed, a slight smile tugged on your lips.

after a rough start as partners, the both of you both got into the flow of working with one another. a playful energy in the studio and slowly his extroversion ( and unfunny jokes ) had begun to wear off on you. he was glad. something about how your laughter orchestrated a symphony of sound between the two of you, a composition of giggles with an eruption of cackles mixed in warmed his heart and it was something he was glad he was able to share with you. due to both of your guys’ likeability, your club leader insisted that the team should “expand its target audience” by adding a podcast starring mainly the two of you as the “audience wanted more”. 

however, despite the extra time both of you shared together, it began to feel like not enough. though time slowed down in reo’s presence, it felt as though when it was over, you had only just begun hanging out. the seconds stretch into an eternity, the conversations flowing as naturally as time itself and you silently wishing the time would last forever. because as soon as you both left that room and parted ways, it felt as though you were both strangers. obviously, you both greeted each other in the halls but it felt as if there was this thick sense of awkwardness in the air whenever you had the urge to go up and talk to him - so you never did. and it was the time away from him that made you realise the unparalleled sense of joy you got from being around and with reo mikage. however, there was a nagging feeling in the back of your brain that maybe this “connection”, this “bond” you felt was nothing but a fantasy in your head. you trudged on though, stomaching this immanent feeling.

both of you had finished your last broadcasting for the term, easy conversation filled the air until it was abruptly cut by reo. “i’m quitting broadcasting at the start of next term.” a deep feeling of disappointment settled in your chest and the immanent feeling threatened to move higher up your threshold. “i know it sounds cheesy but i want to follow my dreams, you know?” he said, looking at you with a passion more intense than you had ever seen it. “i’m gonna be the number 1 footballer.” if he had told you that in passing, you may have laughed but there was something about the look in his eye which legitimised his claim. 

“i do want to hang out with you though.” beads of sweat formed on the back of his neck, his ears tinged a light pink “outside of this broadcasting thing,”

“oh” was all you could muster. butterflies erupted in your stomach smothering all past feelings of doubt you had about reo. maybe he was just nervous as well?

“i mean only if you want to of course but-”

“sure, i’d love to.” you said as nonchalantly as you could however your inability to look at his grinning face said a lot more.

during spring break, the both of you had settled on going to a cafe to try out the new spiderman deserts to celebrate the upcoming movie. soft ambience filled the air, creating a warm, relaxing atmosphere easing you both into a familiar, comfortable conversation. 

he had arrived 10 minutes early prior to the meeting out of pure anxiety that he’d somehow miss the whole event. with a mixture of nerves and anticipation, he had gotten up way earlier to prepare for today. in his bedroom, he had little trinkets or photos from you from past broadcasting events which all reminded him of what was to come today. since the day he had asked you to hang out, he kicked himself for framing it as a friendly thing when he was certain that he did like you. 

clothing was sprayed erratically across the whole area of his room, swarming the floor with the latest pieces. all of which showcased a multitude of potential clothing items which were perfectly fine to wear out with a “casual hangout with a friend”. meticulously, he sorted through his potential options and finally decided on an outfit which was casual enough for a cafe but not too casual that it looked like he had just thrown it on. as he moved on and styled his hair, he burnt through a variety of options ranging from horrific to mediocre at best. so he stuck to what he knew, his hair long in a middle parting and styled, drowsed himself in cologne and got out of the door.

because of his underestimation of everything in his routine besides his outfit picking, he had gotten here a bit early and was mindlessly scrolling through his phone waiting for a text from you. though the text never came, you arrived shortly after he had gotten there (also earlier than your arranged time). 

“hey reo.” your voice pulling him away from his phone and as he locked eyes with yours, his breath was caught in his throat, taken aback from the sight of you in something other than uniform and more dressed up. to him, you always looked good, put together but there was something about seeing you in clothes that accentuated who you were as a person and a different hairstyle that got to him.

“hello,” his eyes widened, captivated by your beauty. in unknown territory of your presence, words failed him. making your way into the cafe, 

“can i ask you something?” reo said, determination laced in his voice. you simply nodded, maybe this was it? he was going to confess to you.

“i need your help to cover my teams’ matches, build hype, stuff like that.” 

oh. you were a bit off and the disappointment was present in your demeanour for just a second, something reo caught onto but words failed him again. nonetheless, you agreed to help your friend out.

and with that spring came and went and the beginning of a new term was always a busy one, everyone finding their place back into the system settling into the robotic nature of the place. and by routine, you and reo welcome your peers back into the hellscape.

“hello hakuho high!” reo says brightly, his vibrant personality shining through as strongly as a thousand stars. “welcome back to the new semester! hope you had an amazing spring break.”

“indeed.” you chimed in, less enthusiastically. “this semester is a big one for our volleyball team so be sure to be there.”

“tickets are on sale already for the 7th! be there or be square!” 

“and sad news for hakuho high’s broadcasting team, we are losing a member.” you said sorrowfully.

“it’s me, sorry guys.” reo butted in, completely derailing your suspenseful reveal.

“i was gonna do a big reveal with suspense and all” you whisper shouted to him covering your mic to avoid detection.

“sorry.” he said, though a bright smile was evident on his face.

“however… stay tuned cause this won’t be the last time we’ll see reo! i’ve heard talk about a hakuho football team emerging…” you said dramatically, upping the theatrics.

“really? no way? when?” reo matched your energy effortlessly

“guess we’ll just have to find out!” you said winking at reo. his radiant smile infectious to you and everyone around him. and just like that, that’s the end of reo’s broadcasting “career”. gutted, your club leader gives him a goodbye and so do you.

once you're finished packing up, a bittersweet feeling begins to form in your chest. of course it was great reo was moving onto bigger and greater things but there was the feeling that you were being left behind - that you were about to be forgotten. 

that’s when he pulled you into an embrace, an embrace that derailed all of your prior thoughts, an embrace that spoke so much louder than words. as you both embraced on another, it felt like the whole room began to fade away - leaving a gentle reminder of the connection you had built together.

as you drew closer, your bodies aligned, fitting together like two puzzle pieces that had finally found their match. it was right in every sense: the way your hearts beat synced, echoing the unsaid want - need - for one another. he used less cologne than he had on the date but his smell still enveloped you the same. an intoxicating blend that had come synonymous with reo and your infatuation with him.

though, when you both released from that hug, a bittersweet longing was left in both of your hearts - much similar to the one you felt prior to his embrace. however, his imprint on you would linger for as long as your heart would allow it.

over your time together, you had found out about the dreams reo harboured, his passion and what fuels him to become better, to strive to be great - football. he’d find a way to mention it in passing every time you talked whether it was about the new league match or the u-18s in the area. his drive shone through his words.

even when he declared that “we should start up a football team.” in the cafe whilst you were devouring a cookie.  your eyes widened, slightly offput by reo’s declaration and with the use of the word “we”. football was not your thing. honestly, you were surprised you had enough coordination to pull off the broadcasting thing but you? playing football? no chance.

“we?” you asked, tilting your head to side.

“i mean, there’s gotta be some interest for a football team in our school.” a fiery enthusiasm ignited within his eyes, a warning to you that this was the start of something new, dangerous - something you weren’t sure you’d even have the time for. “ i know you’re not sporty as such but you could help drum up support for our team. i’ll get the members and you build the hype. as long as we have both, we should be set.” deep down, you knew reo was deeply underestimating the magnitude of his idea and grossly overestimating your ability to ‘build up hype’ but there was something about him. the way time stood still when he begun on his spiel and how his passionate declaration left no room for indifference. it was if he has transported you to a world where there was no barrier whatsoever and this dream of his was something attainable, easy even. so stupidly, you agreed. his eyes filling up with the immense amount of passion that he spoke.

there was something about his eyes that made you feel like you were able to help him.

building a football team was not that easy.

you were right when you had felt that dreadful feeling of something going wrong in your stomach however you supposed it wasn’t that bad.

to your own surprise, it was quite easy to build up hype for the idea of a football team. with your journalistic skills (and popularity) it was easy to drum up interest for the potential football club but the problem was getting people to play. for 3 months straight, reo held trials for the club and the bubbly, calm exterior he had completely hardened and freezed over when scouting people for his club. his demeanour was icy and cold, a human iceberg in the flesh. the many times you had come to the trials, you felt the cold gusts of air come from his harsh comments. thankfully, in the end, he got his starting 11 with 5 subs… a process that was long and unyielding to all those involved.

eventually, everything was certified by the school and over those months they were given the go ahead to play near the end of the term. you’d been doing your part preparing by watching sports commentators to pick up the style in time for the first game.

the day arrived, the bleachers fulled up to the brim from both schools. though you’d never seen the team play in action, you knew that reo and nagi (who he had miraculously found and convinced to play with him) were incredibly good as well as a couple others. excitement and nerves bubbled in your chest before the game due to you broadcasting to this many people. reo unable to find you before the game sends you a quick text:

reo: “good luck !! you’ll do great and thank you so much for everything you’ve done for me ;)”

you: “no worries!! and thank you. good luck to you too !! :D”

“good morning hakuho high and kinbaku academy, today we’re here to witness the first game of the county league which will lead to nationals!” you began, eyes bright and nerves calming down as you were getting started. and so the game began, and it was a slaughter to say the least. you weren’t into football that much but seeing reo play made you want to start. him and nagi were an unstoppable duo. 

“the final score was 5-2 to hakuho high! thank you for attending and well done hakuho high!” you closed off the game after 90 minutes - an effortless win for hakuho high’s football team. rushing, you made your way down towards the pitch to congratulate reo for his win when you feel something heavy on your back toppling you over. you’re met with a symphony of ecstatic laughing from your purple haired friend. if the sun embodied a person, it was him. joining in with his laughter, the both of you were cracking up for seemingly no reason but nonetheless, it filled your heart with glee.

“maybe this is out of the blue, but go on a date with me?” reo managed after getting through his last fit of giggles. and your eyes shone as bright as a thousand stars, he thought to himself when you agreed with a nod, still giggly from the sudden laughing fit you both had.

that’s when he was certain he wanted to be with you.

a/n - i am a reo kisser sorry

#bugeatermaya #reo mikage #reo x you #reo mikage x you #reo mikage x reader #blue lock #bllk x y/n #bllk x reader #bllk reo #reo x reader #reo drabbles #reo blue lock #reo fluff #reo mikage x y/n #reo mikage fluff #reo x y/n #blue lock x reader #blue lock scenarios