#I’m saying this in a general sense but you already know I’m talking about sans undertale

[leafwateraddict]

Having intensely vivid dreams about a character you love is so nice but also so painful because when you wake up. It feels like they’ve been ripped away from you even though they never existed it’s such a visceral indescribable feeling.

#I’m saying this in a general sense but you already know I’m talking about sans undertale #this is for the maladaptive daydreaming girlies(gn) too #I’ve had daydreams so vivid i forget where and who I am :p #leaf posts #sans undertale #imma tag this #sansnomaly #cuz it gives that same energy :’) #it’s nice to wake up and remember i have a real partner that I can hug tho :3

[jnginlov]

to love you

when you ask him to be your fake fling he’s not prepared for the way it will make his unaddressed feelings for you grow

⇀ pairing wooyoung x gn!reader (references to yunho x gn!reader)

⇀ genre fluff, angst, fake dating au, unspecified nonidol au, f2l, one sided pining

⇀ style one shot

⇀ word count 10.4k

⇀ warnings jealousy, talks of hooking up, talks of vomit, crying, yelling at reader, yelling at wooyoung, just like a lot of general yelling, something that could be interpreted as a panic attack (no specific descriptions), allusions to violence (in a non-serious sense), cursing, food, alcohol consumption (assumed all characters are of age), parties, multiple kisses, pet names (love, babe), skinship (head on a shoulder, holding hands, holding faces), let me know if i missed anything

you and wooyoung certainly weren’t best friends but that’s not to say you two were enemies either. you’d met each other through a friend of a friend just over a year ago and even though you both felt an instant connection, it was nothing that had either of you suddenly intertwining your lives. wooyoung would consider you a casual friend and if he asked he’s about 89% sure you would say the same, 1% of the other 11 was reserved for what his best friend yeosang liked to call his “simp brain” that wanted to imagine you’d call him something along the lines of a crush, but disregarding the tiny baby so minor and minuscule romantic interest wooyoung had in you, you both were casual friends, “i’m already in the neighborhood, do you want to grab coffee” friends, “i was supposed to have a date but they bailed and i’m already dressed up, do you want to get drinks” friends. you both were certainly not “can you be my fake boyfriend?” friends.

“i’m sorry, what?” wooyoung is lucky he swallowed the last sip of his coffee or it would likely be all over his open laptop.

“you know that guy yunho?” you supply, quite unhelpfully in wooyoung’s opinion.

and yeah of course he knows yunho, he’s yeosang’s roommate, and the guy you haven’t been able to shut up about for the past month. “what does he have to do with anything?” he asks, trying to keep any of the jealousy he felt bubbling in his stomach at the mention of yunho’s name from showing on his face.

you roll your eyes like the answer is obvious as you reply, “well i was talking with mingi the other day,” mingi being the friend you had met wooyoung through in the first place, “and he said i should try making yunho jealous, because he’s pretty sure yunho is actually interested in me but just, like, needs that push.”

wooyoung nods slowly as he continues to listen to you rant, trying to understand where in your mind you think taking mingi’s advice, especially when it came to your love life, would be a good idea. wooyoung loved mingi but the man hadn’t had a date in more than six months and he’s not even sure when the last time his roommate had any romantic interest in anyone was.

“-and so i figured the best way to make someone jealous is basically seem interested in someone else,” you conclude as the man sat across from you tunes back in, trying to look like he’d been listening the whole time instead of wondering how he’d found himself in this situation. he was definitely going to have to talk to mingi once he got back home.

“and you thought i was the best choice for that?” wooyoung raises a brow as you sip your drink.

you nod quickly as you swallow. “well i’m pretty sure he knows hongjoong and seonghwa are dating, jongho is very clearly not my type, i’m not close enough with san, and i doubt he would believe yeo and i were a thing considering they live together,” you explain, listing off all the men in your close circle of friends, except for him, yunho, and mingi, and for a second he considers trying to twist mingi’s intentions by suggesting that maybe the tall blonde is the one who likes you and is looking for an excuse to get close to you but he can still recall the look of sadness on the gentle giant’s face the last time wooyoung threw him under the bus. the look of determination on your face makes it seem like you’d been thinking about this for more than a day, hell maybe even more than a week, but wooyoung can’t tell if your resolve should be alarming in any way because he’s much too worried about the prospect of what pretending to be in a relationship with you might do to his heart.

in a last ditch effort he asks, “isn’t this what, like, tinder is for?” and the way you sigh cues him in to know that you’ve definitely considered that avenue already.

“i don’t want to lead on some poor guy for my own gain like that.”

of course you don’t, you’re too nice, and if you knew that wooyoung would agree in a heartbeat, if it weren’t for his microscopic eensy-weensy romantic interest in you, he’s sure you wouldn’t be asking him for the exact same reason, but wooyoung has been set to keep his feelings to himself since he realized they existed at all and so he can only blame himself for the current situation. well maybe he can blame mingi too but, again, that’s a conversation for later.

wooyoung sighs. “i need to know your plan before i’ll agree to anything,” he says but he knows he’ll end up saying yes no matter what when he sees the way your face immediately lights up at the prospect of your plan working successfully.

“okay,” you place your hands against the table excitedly, causing both of your drinks to wobble slightly, “i was thinking it could be more of a casual thing instead of a full blown relationship so that it would be more believable when we break it off.” you explain and wooyoung can feel that he’s not going to get any work done today, closing his laptop in defeat as he rests his chin on top of his hand, his elbow now placed on the table.

after you’d explained the details of your idea, and your fake situationship, you and wooyoung both left the cafe with a plan for the next couple weeks, leading up to a big party yunho and yeosang were hosting in which you’d explain to yunho that your thing with wooyoung was over and you’d get together and it would all work out.

he had to give it to you, wooyoung had doubted how much rational thought you’d actually put into your idea when you first asked but after hearing you out he was almost convinced himself that it might work. secretly wooyoung was hoping for the romcom ending in which you would realize he was the one that was interested in you, but that was just a itty-bitty thought in the back of his mind, totally not a thought swirling around his head and making his heart thump his entire journey home after you’d parted ways.

“hey, how was your day?” mingi is quick to greet his roommate with a large smile as wooyoung takes off his shoes in the entryway.

“hm yeah it was fine,” wooyoung starts with sarcasm dripping from his voice, “except for the part where you convinced my friend to ask me for a fake relationship!” his words had progressively gotten louder as he approached the taller man, now looking like a kicked puppy and cowering on the couch.

“what’s going on?” seonghwa, who had been trying to pay attention to the television is now alerted to the conflict between his friends when mingi almost sat right on him.

“mingi convinced (y/n) that they just need to make yunho jealous in order to get him to make a move,” wooyoung plops down next to seonghwa, arms crossed in front of his chest and pout set on his face.

“and that’s your problem because,” seonghwa trials off, gesturing for wooyoung to supply the rest of the sentence before placing a comforting hand on mingi’s arm.

“because,” wooyoung sighs, taking a deep breath before he finishes his sentence, “they asked me to be their fake situationship.”

mingi pops up off the couch suddenly at wooyoung’s statement, looking just as surprised as wooyoung is sure he was in the cafe with you less than an hour earlier.

“i did NOT suggest they fake date one of our friends,” mingi explains, scrambling through the living room in search of, well, wooyoung’s not sure. “my suggestion was to just get a little comfy with someone at a party or something,” he explains, pulling the pillow off from where he’d been sat and sighing in relief as he takes his phone into his hands, fingers flying across the screen in a panic.

“i don’t see the issue,” seonghwa interjects, “it’s not like you’re actually dating and it’s not even like you’re fake dating if you’re not calling it official,” the oldest of the group shrugs, opening one of the boxes of pizza on the coffee table and pulling out a slice for himself. “plus it’s not like you’re interested in them or anything.”

mingi freezes at this, his behavior a complete 180 from only a few seconds ago as his gaze slowly drifts up from his phone to wooyoung who has stiffened next to seonghwa. the two youngest both let out audibly pained chuckles and seonghwa drops his plate dramatically back down onto the table.

“don’t tell me.”

wooyoung clears his throat loudly. “so i may have, like, the tiniest most insignificant crush on them,” he practically whispers, face feeling slightly warmer at the prospect of the situation he’s in, and certainly not his feelings for you.

seonghwa narrows his eyes at the youngest, a question on the tip of his tongue before mingi decides to supply the answer anyway.

“you’ve been in love with them for months, we all know.”

“i am not in love with them,” wooyoung shouts back, anger reignited as he focused back on the true root of the issue, mingi and his bright ideas. “yes i might think they’re attractive, and yes i would like to date them for real, and maybe, just maybe, i do get a little jealous when they talk about yunho, but that doesn’t mean i like them that much.”

wooyoung feels the energy fizzling out and his words get weaker as he observed the looks on his roommates’ faces. mingi seems almost smug, like he’s been proven right, while seonghwa wears an amused grin, eyebrows raised slightly in satisfaction.

“you’re sure about that?”

the next week, as he’s laying sprawled out on his best friend’s bed, yeosang busy putting away his freshly cleaned laundry, he sighs for what feels like the millionth time and the dark haired man at the closet has had enough.

“either say something or stop sighing,” yeosang grunts, placing the last hanging item in the closet. as he moves to sit at his desk, wooyoung flips onto his stomach quickly, causing the bed to creek and him to bounce slightly.

“i just don’t get it,” wooyoung says and yeosang resists the urge to groan. this is the same conversation the two had been having since wooyoung found out about your interest in yeosang’s roommate.

woo complains that he doesn’t understand why you think yunho is so great and then yeo has to bring his friend back to reality by reminding him that yunho is actually a pretty great guy and that woo is the one who could change his own fate, if he just had the balls to admit he was interested in you. but of course wooyoung always manages to weasel out of the truth, claiming that he doesn’t like you that much, or that you don’t like him, which yeo thinks is shit considering the amount of times you started ditching him for his own best friend but he’s not a snitch.

it’s yeosang’s turn to sigh. “i’m not doing this again,” he mutters. “yunho is not a bad guy, in fact he’s a great guy, all of his previous relationships ended amicably, he’s not unattractive according to the people that have asked me to give him their number, and as far as i know he and (y/n) actually have quite a bit in common.” yeosang turns to wooyoung quickly, finding the younger man with a small pout gracing his features.

as wooyoung opens his mouth to possibly argue against one of the points his friend had raised, both men hear the familiar sound of the front door opening and yunho’s usual greeting rings through the apartment. both boys suddenly feel like they’ve been caught, wooyoung’s eyes going wide for a moment as yeosang turns back to busy himself with the unfolded clothes on his desk.

“hey,” yunho says, poking his head through yeosang’s open door a few moments later. “they were out of those macarons you like at the cafe so i got you a maple cinnamon roll instead, y/n suggested it.”

at the mention of your name wooyoung perks up, trying not to seem too eager at the mere thought of you.

“sorry woo, i didn’t know you were over until after i’d ordered or i would have gotten you something,” yunho apologizes and wooyoung hates that he can tell it’s sincere.

wooyoung thinks it would be a lot easier to hate his best friend’s roommate if he was not actually such a nice guy. but he just can’t hate him, he might dislike him a bit for being such a great guy and being the one to hold your attention, but honestly feeling anything but amicable toward the man just makes him feel guilty. it’s not yunho’s fault you find him attractive and it’s certainly not yunho’s fault that wooyoung can’t just admit his feelings.

“you ran into y/n?” yeosang asks, honestly not trying too hard to hide the glance he throws wooyoung’s direction.

yunho nods as he moves to fully lean against yeosang’s doorframe. “they said they were stopping by the cafe before they were supposed to meet a friend.”

yeosang and wooyoung both nod in response, wooyoung’s a little more engaged while yeosang keeps looking between his two best friends.

“they actually asked if you were over,” yunho continues, gesturing to wooyoung with a quick tick of his chin.

the younger man’s expression quickly shifts to confusion before he’s remembering your idea he’d been telling yeosang about only half an hour before. he tries to tone down the shock of hearing you ask about him as he asks, “really?”

“yeah,” yunho chuckles slightly. “they said you weren’t answering any of their texts and that only happens when you’re with yeosang.”

before yunho is even done with his explanation wooyoung is digging through the slightly askew comforter he’d unceremoniously dropped himself and his phone onto once he’d arrived an hour ago. he’s not sure if you just made up the statement to prove to yunho that you two were close, as you truly didn’t text each other much outside of making plans, but no matter if you were just trying to provoke yunho you had spoken the truth. just about every time you texted wooyoung he would drop everything to respond. mingi would call it being “down bad”, and maybe wooyoung was learning to accept that fact about himself.

as wooyoung scrolled through the texts you’d sent him, a little update about how you think the plan is working and a picture of a cute dog that you said looked a little like him, which totally didn’t make him blush, he hears yunho clear his throat.

“are you two,” yunho pauses as wooyoung glances up at him, finding the conversation to feel a bit stiff and uncomfortable. “are you two like a thing?” yunho finally asks, finding the setup of yeosang’s room to be more interesting as his friend watches a blush creep onto the tips of his ears.

it’s wooyoung’s turn to find the decor around him interesting as he replies, trying to remember everything you’d talked about, “i wouldn’t call it a thing.” wooyoung shrugs trying to seem cool as he feels his heart beat creeping up into his throat.

he hadn’t anticipated it being this hard. the man hadn’t even lied about anything yet and he could still feel the guilt settling into the back of his throat, flavoring his words with a bitterness that held a strange mix of satisfaction, for getting to even pretend to know you in a more intimate way than his current competition, and regret, for agreeing to be apart of a plan that might cause one of his friends any distress.

“they’ve just been talking about you a lot,” yunho adds and if wooyoung had a little less self control he’d probably have fallen right off yeosang’s bed. he’s too focused on the thought of you purposely mentioning him in conversation to others to think about how yunho would know, the older man probably having seen you more times than wooyoung had in the past week.

“i think they’re in what you might call a situationship,” yeosang supplies when wooyoung doesn’t respond, shrugging as if he has no interest in the information he’d just shared.

wooyoung bites his tongue as he takes a deep breath, mentally preparing to tell the biggest lie he’s probably told in his whole life, just as you’d agreed to. “you remember that party their friend, whatever-her-name-was, had a few weeks ago?”

yunho nods gently, now able to look at wooyoung again after having determined that the conversation maybe wasn’t that uncomfortable.

“well we kinda,” wooyoung pauses, knowing it’s his last chance to back out before everything changes, and so he pushes forward with a sigh, “we hooked up that night and we’ve gotten together a few times since then.”

for wooyoung, it felt weird to say, the statement now just sitting in the air as he sees yunho trying to digest the information. he thought it might make him feel some way but instead he just feels empty, knowing that it’s entirely untrue. sure you’d left that party together, a fact that you had remembered and wanted to use in order to make your little fib realistic, but you’d both simply had enough of partying that night and gone for food at the convenience store on the corner before he walked you home. as far as wooyoung was aware, and he was pretty sure you didn’t go anywhere after he left your doorstep, you’d both gone to bed alone that night. and yet wooyoung didn’t feel like he could let himself daydream even the thought of you both actually doing anything then, the idea much too dangerous for the way he’d slowly started accepting what all his friends had been telling him about his affections recently. and even though he might be able to admit that he does have a crush on you, he certainly wasn’t expecting to hear the question falling from yunho’s lips.

“do you love them?”

wooyoung could feel his stomach jump right into his throat, his heart plummeting at the same time and causing nausea to replace the guilt he’d been wadding in just moments earlier.

“uh i think love is maybe a strong term,” he tries to chuckle lightly but he can hear the awkwardness permeating the laugh. “but i do like them.”

it’s the first time he’s admitted it without a caveat, and just like with the lie before, he feels the emptiness returning except instead of sitting deep into his stomach it fills his entire chest cavity, only stirring the nausea and making him feel like he’d much rather sink into the covers of his best friend’s bed than continue this conversation. he’s just not sure how much more he can say before he might actually vomit.

yunho nods slowly, a thoughtful look on his face, before he says, “i think you two would be good together.”

wooyoung is much too focused on staying grounded and not revealing the sickness that he feels to analyze whether yunho is telling the truth, a slight burn building in his chest of what he can only assume is bile, and at this point he’s not sure he wants to know what yunho thinks anymore. why did he agree to this?

“well, that roll is on the counter whenever you want it yeo,” yunho continues, oblivious to the turmoil brewing in wooyoung’s mind and body. “see you later woo.”

with that the man is gone, disappearing into his bedroom down the hall.

yeosang turns to his best friend quickly, ready to supposedly recap the conversation but stops in his tracks when he sees the look of pain on wooyoung’s face.

“how am i gonna make it through this?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

the next week or so is filled with moments similar to this, where he has to look at yunho and lie straight to his face, straight to his own heart. and although yeosang assured that it would have to get easier at some point, wooyoung can feel he’s reaching his own breaking point.

throughout the process, as you execute your plan, you actually try to spend more time with wooyoung, starting with simple little outings that weren’t too different from things you might do usually. at some point these outings morphed into full fledged dates, and every time wooyoung felt himself sinking into the idea that he might be able to just enjoy this for what it was, you were quick to mention the plan and pop the bubble that wooyoung had found solace in. although he feels something unfamiliar burning lightly in his chest he can’t even fathom to be mad at you, too unbelievably happy in those moments where he could forget that you were faking it all.

“i’m not sure this is good for you anymore,” seonghwa had said one day after wooyoung had come home from a day out with you, plopping himself down onto the couch with an exhausted heart from the emotional roller coaster you were unknowingly taking him on.

wooyoung only let out a grunt, the sound muffled by the cushion his face was squished against, and seonghwa sighed in response.

“you’re tearing yourself apart for them,” seonghwa tried to reason, his quest of stopping this little escapade you’d set yourself on as futile as always.

wooyoung was sure he was delirious at this point, fatigue settled deep into his body from the way he felt he was chasing every moment with you, and so the next words that slipped off his tongue were completely unvetted by his mind and entirely from the heart.

“how else would i be able to love them?”

if seonghwa is surprised by the statement he doesn’t show it, his face neutral as wooyoung turns to look at him, the older man now crouched next to where wooyoung lies. he’s not sure what reaction he expected, and he knows that he asked an unanswerable question, but somehow wooyoung’s not surprised when seonghwa reaches out to run a gentle hand up and down the younger’s back.

the next words wooyoung speaks come out watery as he feels tears pricking at the back of his eyes and that unfamiliar burn returns to his chest, “they’ll always love someone else.”

as much as seonghwa wants to argue, to point out that you shouldn’t think in forevers and absolutes, right now he knows that his friend just needs comfort. so he moves to pull wooyoung so that he’s sitting, seonghwa moving into the space he’s created on the couch and taking his younger friend into his arms, letting him sob gently against his shoulder.

as if he couldn’t feel bad enough about this entire situation, wooyoung wakes the next morning to a text from you. normally he might feel a bit giddy to hear from you but the message is nothing like any of the ones you’d recently started sending, casual conversations about your days and cute pictures of things that reminded you of him. it was cold, with a finite energy and wooyoung could feel it like a punch to the chest.

y/n: let’s break it off

wooyoung can barely perceive himself moving to message you back, feeling like he’s gone into autopilot. he’s tried to be prepared for this but with the way he’s allowed himself to feel with you for the past few weeks it’s almost as devastating as knowing that he’s been making himself comfortable inside of a lie. as he turns over to try to return to sleep he feels that same something unfamiliar burn in his chest.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“you should go anyway,” yeosang says, looking down at wooyoung from his place on the couch.

wooyoung has taken to wallowing in self pity on the floor of his living room, mingi having forcefully pulled him out of the pitiful nest he had created of his bed a few hours ago upon seonghwa’s request.

“and see yunho all over them, no thank you,” wooyoung pouts.

the two of them had been talking about the party at yeosang’s, and by extension yunho’s, place since yeosang had arrived just over an hour ago. the party was supposed to be the final phase of the plan, when you would confront yunho, with the help of the alcohol that would surely be in your system, and wooyoung was obviously less than enthusiastic to see you complete the last stage of the plan. his best friend had been arguing that he could reasonably avoid you the entire night and be able to have fun anyway, but wooyoung wasn’t in the mood to have fun in the first place.

“if you just stay by the beer pong table the whole night i’m sure you’ll be able to avoid them,” mingi supplies helpfully, to which wooyoung whines in response.

“and have a perfect view of the rest of the room, where everyone else will be having the time of their lives, yeah great, very cool,” wooyoung spits sarcastically, limbs flailing about around him as he tries to push away the mental images of all of his friends getting to have a great night while he tries to keep from silently crying into his cup in a corner.

“so you’re just never going to go to another party?” seonghwa asks, stepping over his roommate as he goes about tidying the living room, setting things that had migrated amongst the room back where they belong.

wooyoung stops at this, turning over quickly so he can toss seonghwa, who spares no glance to him, a questioning look. “what do you mean?”

seonghwa just shrugs, dusting an empty shelf before he reorganizes the knick-knacks that would sit on it. “well, if you’re avoiding this party because you don’t want to see them together, then you’re going to have to avoid every party where you know they’ll be, which will likely be every party you’re invited to,” seonghwa explains, enunciating slowly as though wooyoung is only a child.

“and if you’re just avoiding anything they’ll be at together are you going to stop coming to group hangouts, or anything either one of them is at in fear that the other person will show up,” seonghwa continues, oblivious to the way wooyoung seems to be melting into the floor as he realizes how crazy his logic from earlier sounds now that the eldest is breaking it down like this. “so are you just going to stop being friends with both of them?”

wooyoung lets out something akin to a growl as he flops once more onto his back, his legs kicking in the air as he knows that he’s been cornered. “i get it,” he whines, hands smacking gently against his face in defeat.

“if you just rip the bandaid off now it’ll be so much easier,” yeosang adds, “you won’t have built it up more than you have already.”

“i hate when you’re all right.”

so, with the caveat that he can hang onto one of his roommates the whole night for emotional support, wooyoung finally agrees to attend the party.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“have you been avoiding me?”

wooyoung knew it was a bad idea to come to this cafe, the same one he had made that stupid agreement with you at, the one where you might be found more often than not, your favorite cafe. and if any of his friends were here with him they might just call him an absolute idiot, yeosang might even call it masochistic, to think that he could avoid you in the one spot you were sure to be.

“avoiding you?” wooyoung hears himself speak before he is even able to process what he should say, his nerves too frazzled by your proximity, standing closer than he thinks you ever have before. it certainly doesn’t help that with the warmer weather lately you’ve taken to start cycling your summer clothes into your wardrobe, your outfit today including one of your favorite tank tops, showing off the soft skin of your collarbone and shoulders. wooyoung has to use all of his self control to not reach out and brush his fingertips against you, tracing shapes into your skin and feeling you shudder beneath his gentle touches.

he’s snapped suddenly out of the trance he had been sinking into when you speak again, “you haven’t been answering any of my messages.”

at this wooyoung moves his gaze to your face and although he can see the teasing smile that graces your lips he can still spot a bit of disappointment swimming in your eyes.

“i’m sorry,” he replies, sounding much too genuine for the way you had seemed to be trying to hide your true disappointment in the playfulness of your usual cadence you adopted around him, and he feels the familiar pool of guilt start to fill the void that he’d been keeping in the pit of his stomach since you’d broken things off.

as you stand before him, forcing him into your personal space and looking at him expectantly, he thinks back to his decision to turn off notifications from your number, one that all of his friends had already torn him to shreds for. at the time he had reasoned that it was to protect himself from the repeated heartbreak he would suffer every time he might interact with you. unfortunately, in making this decision he hadn’t thought about what his seemingly sudden disappearance from your life might do to you, he hadn’t considered that he might be hurting you, and the guilt only grows.

you seem to be slightly taken back by his apology, likely not expecting him to reply in earnest, taking a moment to collect yourself before you state, “so you admit it, you were avoiding me,” although it comes out as more of a question, your head tilting gently as you seem to be inspecting the man before you, and wooyoung hates that he feels so exposed.

you aren’t even aware of the way you hold wooyoung’s heart in your hands but the longer you stand dissecting his expression the more he feels like your grip on it is too tight. he can’t tell whether you want him to answer honestly, or if you even care if he does, his mind is far too clouded by the scent of your shampoo along with the hurt he can see you trying to hide behind the confusion in your eyes, and he feels the familiar prickle of tears forming in his own.

he watches as your own features turn to concern, but before either of you can move to speak again, you’re both thrust out of the moment as someone behind you asks, “are you two going to move? you’re holding up the line.”

and suddenly wooyoung feels like the entire world can see him, pathetically crying over a person stood directly in front of him, and he needs to get out.

he’s not sure how he manages to make it out of the cafe with his vision as watery as it is, tears now fully rolling down his cheeks, but he assumes muscle memory simply kicked in as he finds himself briskly walking in the direction of his apartment.

“wooyoung!” he hears you call behind him and for a moment he considers stopping but then he feels that familiar burn in his chest, the same one he felt when you’d broken things off, and in a moment of clarity, as his feet carry him further from the agreement you’d both made, he realizes what it is, anger. although he’s never felt anger like this before, anger that roots itself into that guilt he’d been building for the entire time you’d pretended to be something. so it’s not an anger he can quickly pick apart and resolve, no, it’s an anger that feels like it feeds off of everything he’s been through for the past month. he’s angry at himself, for being so stubborn for so long, at his friends, for pushing for him to reanalyze his feelings, at the situation, for being so complicated, at yunho, for being the one you want, at the plan, for making everything worse, and most importantly at you.

his feet suddenly come to a halt, and you must have been closer behind than he thought because just a moment later he feels you running right into his back, not having expected him to actually stop.

“what do you want from me?” he spits, whipping around and causing you to jump in surprise.

“wooyoung,“ you begin softly, feeling his gaze sharp and strong, “what’s wrong?”

“you want to know what’s wrong?” he laughs, the sound void of any real humor. “you’re what’s wrong.”

you try not to react, knowing that he probably doesn’t mean what he’s saying, but he can see the way your hands, that had been hesitantly reaching toward him, suddenly drop to your sides.

“you and your goddamn plan,” he starts. “why couldn’t you have just fucking talked to yunho yourself instead of dragging me along for your own fun? you’re so goddamn selfish it doesn’t even cross your mind that other people might get hurt by the shit you think up. but it doesn’t matter to you does it? no one else’s feelings and emotions really matter as long as you can get what you want in the end. how long are you gonna string along yunho before you have to tell him you’re a liar and break his heart too? how many other guys are you going to hurt and then manipulate into feeling guilty for protecting themselves from you, huh?”

by the end of his rant he’s shouting, surely attracting attention from anyone else just trying to go about their lives that might happen to pass you both on the sidewalk, but wooyoung couldn’t care less, each word cooling the burn in his chest and laced with the anger that he can no longer stand to house inside of himself.

“wooyoung, please-“ you try to start, but he must miss the watery way you speak and how your own tears now threaten to join his on the sidewalk as he interrupts you.

“i wish i could just stop loving you,” and with his final peace spoken he turns and begins, once again, the trek home, an inexplicable exhaustion weighing down his steps.

he barely even registers that you don’t follow.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“JUNG WOOYOUNG WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

when he had returned home to an empty apartment, he felt like it was the only good thing that had happened to him in the last month, but then, as he sat in silence, calming his nerves and slowing his racing heart, his actions from the last half hour began to sink into his conscious. he knew his friends would find out what he had done sooner or later, but he certainly didn’t expect to find four of them bursting through his front door in a fury only minutes after he’d arrived.

hongjoong, always the voice of reason, had been the one to shout and announce their presence, his boyfriend, and wooyoung’s roommate, in tow. both men were visibly upset, although reasonably so, and if mingi didn’t have a gentle hold on seonghwa’s wrist wooyoung is sure the eldest would have tackled him to the ground by now.

“i knew you were an idiot but man,” yeosang says, bringing up the rear.

“so,” wooyoung tries, looking anywhere but his friends, “how was lunch?”

hongjoong takes a breath, likely trying to calm himself as he replies, “great, we even ran into a friend,” sarcasm heavy on each syllable.

“oh really?” wooyoung asks just above a whisper.

“yeah,” hongjoong nods harshly with an angry smile, “we would’ve invited them to join us had they not been FUCKING SOBBING,” he ends shouting.

“ah,” wooyoung tries, wishing the couch might just swallow him whole. “so you ran into y/n i’m guessing.” wooyoung lets out an awkward cough, releasing a humorless chuckle as he finally glanced back up at his friends.

“i’m going to ask this again,” hongjoong starts once more, taking several large breaths with his eyes closed to presumably calm himself. “what is wrong with you?”

“what did you do?” mingi takes a turn to speak up, releasing his hold on seonghwa who moves to run a soothing hand along his boyfriend’s back.

wooyoung can’t find the energy to recount the details of your entire encounter, and he also doesn’t feel like being berated for every little misstep he’d taken throughout your interaction, so he resolves to try summarizing the last half hour for the four men that are giving him some of the most expectant looks he’s probably ever seen. “we-uh,” he starts, as eloquently as usual, “we ran into each other and i may have cried and then i may have gotten angry and then i may have, uhm, madethemcry.” his last three words come out as one as he tries to get them out as quickly as possible, hating the way they taste rolling off his tongue.

and now, as the four men that had been listening so closely are thrown into a flurry once more by his statement, he begins to digest his own statement. he made you cry, and he’s sure if the room wasn’t filled with the voices of four of his friends arguing, the crack he feels in his heart would echo against the walls around him.

“i also told them i loved them,” wooyoung says again, barely above a whisper and yeosang is quick to shush the other three.

“you what?”

“i told them i loved them,” he repeats before quickly clarifying, “well it was more like i told them i wished i didn’t.”

and that set them all off again, each of his friends shouting over each other, and wooyoung just sunk into himself, the image of your tear stained cheeks at the front and center of his mind.

after what wooyoung might consider a pretty reasonable 15 minutes of being reminded how he has fucked up in pretty much every way possible, mingi was the first to calm down, always the one to move through his emotions quickly, and yeosang was soon to follow. seonghwa was the next to cool off, half way through a shouted sentence remembering the moment just a week ago in which he’d comforted wooyoung on the same couch he stood in front of now. hongjoong didn’t get the chance to simmer down, seonghwa pushing him to go home before he could pop a blood vessel.

“what are you thinking about?” yeosang asks, sitting himself next to wooyoung on the couch.

“how stupid i am,” wooyoung sighs, staring up at the ceiling.

yeosang sighs, placing a tentative but comforting hand on wooyoung’s bicep. “you’re not stupid,” yeosang says, “you’re just in love.”

wooyoung lolls his head to the side, getting a good view of his friend to see if he was joking, but all he found was sincerity, and a little pity, in the gentle smile on yeosang’s face.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

saturday

y/n: let’s break it off

woo: sure

sunday

y/n: hey, i just told yunho

y/n: just figured you should know

tuesday

y/n: can we talk?

wednesday

y/n: everything okay?

today

y/n: i really need to tell you something

that night wooyoung opens your chat and feels even worse about everything that happened today, but before he can tumble into a cycle of self pity once again, he feels his phone vibrate in his hand.

y/n: are you still going to the party tomorrow?

wooyoung practically tosses his phone in the air with the way he jumps up in surprise, fingers flying across the keyboard to respond. he types out and deletes his message at least five times before he hits send, debating if he should take this moment to apologize in fear that he won’t ever get the chance again. in the end he decides to just answer your question, straight and simple, not wanting to fuck up anything else.

woo: yeah

and in the minute he waits for a response he feels like his nerves are on fire, mentally berating himself for his answer. he should have apologized, or said something else, anything else. you probably wanted him to do more, address what happened earlier in the day, but of course he couldn’t even do that right. so wooyoung starts that spiral again, sinking into the depths of his own mind, until he feels his phone vibrate.

y/n: cool

y/n: i’ll see you there

wooyoung can barely sleep that night, either replaying his mistakes from the day or rehearsing the apology he had to give you at the party.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

yeosang had managed to rope wooyoung into helping with the set up at his and yunho’s apartment for the party, claiming it would help him to get his mind off of things, but as wooyoung knocks on his best friends door, he can feel the anxiety creeping up as he tries to think of a plan for if yunho were to open the door instead of yeosang. wooyoung is so lost in his nerves he doesn’t realize that yeosang has answered until the older man speaks.

“why are you shaking?” yeosang asks, confusion clear on his face as he opens the door wider for the quaking man in question to enter.

“uh, yunho,” is all wooyoung says, as he inspects the state of the apartment.

streamers and other miscellaneous decorations are thrown about the entrance area and living room, the beer pong table already set up in the corner farthest away from the hall to yeosang and yunho’s bedrooms, giving it the best view of the open concept living room and kitchen, and wooyoung tosses around the idea of mingi’s suggestion. he would certainly be able to see when you arrive so he can catch you before you lose yourself in the party tonight.

“oh, he and mingi went to pick up the stuff for drinks,” yeosang shrugs, “i thought mingi would have told you.”

wooyoung just shakes his head before yeosang starts instructing him on what he needs to do, placing the younger in charge of setting up the kitchen while yeosang gets everything hung up in the entrance and living areas.

for the first half hour, wooyoung does have to admit that he is more focused on decorating and organizing the snacks, making sure to leave room for drinks, than the apology he has perfected that had been swirling through his mind all day. he busies himself with which color balloon should be where and whether he should put the salty and sweet together or mix them up a bit so one side doesn’t get more crowded than the other, of which he decides to mix them together, instead of how he should open the conversation he’s dreading. of course as he finally starts managing to sink himself into his task all the way he hears a throat clear behind him.

expecting it to be yeosang who has some little complaint about the way wooyoung hung the streamers or how he should at least put the cookies all together he just says, “i don’t want to hear it.”

instead of one of yeosang’s usual quips wooyoung is surprised to hear a much deeper voice, laced with confusion. “what?”

wooyoung is quick to whip around, ending up face to face with, a slightly amused but mostly puzzled looking, yunho who has a bottle of tequila in one hand and some sort of mixer in the other, a few bags scattered on the floor near his feet.

“sorry,” wooyoung is quick to move, gesturing to the empty space on the counter. “thought you were yeosang,” wooyoung explains, stepping as far out of yunho’s way as he can.

yunho just chuckles lightly, as he sets the two bottles down, turning to wooyoung, “i figured.”

to wooyoung’s surprise yunho doesn’t move to unpack any more of the bags, instead leaning up against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest.

“he went out to grab another cord for the speakers,” yunho explains, “we always manage to loose one.”

wooyoung just nods slowly, his gaze flickering between the decorations still left to be used and the bags that still need to be unpacked, and just as wooyoung is about to move back to do one of those tasks, yunho speaks up again.

“y/n told me,” he says and wooyoung freezes completely, feeling his heart plummet into his feet. he prepares himself for any of the rage that yunho might be about to throw his way, even trying to mentally steel himself for the way yunho will surely laugh at him for telling you that he loved you. how could his love compare to that which is reciprocated by someone you actually wanted.

“i still mean what i said,” yunho continues and wooyoung dares to glance at his friend. “i think you two would be good together.”

now it’s wooyoung’s turn to be puzzled. for a moment he wonders if yunho is sick at all because he certainly wouldn’t tell another guy, especially one that made his crush cry, that they would be good together but with the way yunho doesn’t react to wooyoung’s confusion wooyoung fears that maybe the sleep deprivation has finally caught up to him.

“i know that it was supposed to be all pretend but i don’t think you were lying when i asked you if you loved them,” yunho continues and wooyoung shakes his head like it will clear out his thoughts. “you’re a pretty open book.”

wooyoung decides he might as well bite the bullet and asks, “what did they tell you?”

“that it was fake,” yunho replies easily, “the situationship.”

wooyoung wishes that his answer cleared anything up but instead it only leaves him feeling more lost. does yunho like you? does he know about yesterday? do you still like yunho? wasn’t the end of the plan the party? that had to mean that you ended the plan early, did it not work out?

“i hope it works out for you,” yunho concludes, leaving wooyoung to stand mindlessly in the middle of the kitchen as the older man goes about setting up the drinks.

“thanks,” is all wooyoung can say in response and suddenly the party can’t start soon enough.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

when it’s half an hour past go time and you still haven’t arrived, he’s tempted to text you but he decides against it when he realizes he’s not sure what he would even say. mingi had been reassuring him that it was fine, turning to say so every time he would score in the game of beer pong he and a friend of a friend were playing, he thinks she introduced herself as yuri or yeji or something that started with a y but it’s hard for him to remember when his mind has been stuck on you for the last hour now.

“i told you they were pregaming at san’s so you know it’s gonna take them forever,” mingi says before downing the cup in his hand, the girl across the table high-fiving her friend excitedly. “plus i’m pretty sure they were going to wait for jongho to get off work and swing by his place to grab him.”

wooyoung just nods quickly, feeling more uncomfortable by the second. he had decided to forgo drinking until you arrived, wanting to be sober when he talked to you but the longer he waited the more he was regretting that decision, the soda he’d been nursing for the last half hour going flat as it swished around his cup.

before he can start to overthink it, he leans in next to mingi’s ear, not wanting to yell over the music. “i’m gonna grab a drink,” he says, not waiting for his friend’s response before he’s pushing through the crowd of people dancing, making his way to the kitchen.

“they here yet?” yeosang asks as soon as he spots wooyoung entering the kitchen, simultaneously handing an obviously tipsy seonghwa another drink.

“no,” wooyoung responds quickly, tossing the liquid in his cup into the sink before reaching for one of the bottles of soju on the counter.

seonghwa lets out a high pitched giggle, not hiding that it’s at wooyoung’s expense as the younger whips his head to stare daggers at his senior. “don’t you have a hongjoong to be hanging off of?” wooyoung spits and the phrase receives the reaction he’d intended, seonghwa quick to let out a squeaky “joongie!” before making his way back into the clump of bodies wooyoung had just emerged from.

as he watches his oldest friend disappear into the crowd, yeosang following suit, wooyoung catches mingi’s gaze, eyes wide as he ticks his chin in the direction of the front door, and he knows what it means immediately.

you’re here.

he can see the top of your head slowly moving into the center of the crowd, presumably being pulled by none other than choi san, who wooyoung can see is already flushed when the crowd moves and he can catch glimpses of you both dancing together, a bright smile displayed on your face as you laugh at san. he wants to go to you but he feels like his feet are suddenly too heavy, unable to do anything but watch from a distance.

“just the man i was looking for,” jongho says, clapping wooyoung on the back harshly, and successfully pulling him out of the trance you’d put him in.

“why?” wooyoung whines before he turns to jongho, seeing the smile that only his younger friend could lace with a scary sort of anger and wooyoung’s blood runs cold.

“y/n was just telling me about the interesting conversation you two had yesterday,” jongho says, his hand moving from wooyoung’s back up to his shoulder and squeezing harshly. wooyoung resists the urge to yell and instead tries to push the younger’s hand away, ducking under his arm to try and escape.

“i’m going to apologize,” wooyoung is quick to explain, now facing jongho head on in hopes to stop any more of his friend’s attacks.

jongho just drops his smile, muttering a quick, “i hope so,” before he moves past wooyoung and toward the drinks.

once wooyoung is sure he’s no longer in danger of being on the wrong side of jongho’s anger he quickly turns back to the crowd, scanning quickly for you or san. he spots san easy enough, having moved his dancing from the floor up onto the couch that had been pushed up against one of the walls. unfortunately you’re no longer with him and so wooyoung continues his search once more, although it’s starting to prove difficult as he realizes that more people must have arrived during his quick exchange with jongho, the living room packed almost wall to wall.

“who are we looking for?”

wooyoung almost jumps three feet in the air as your voice registers so clearly, your mouth centimeters away from his ear so that you can speak without straining over the music. he places a hand firmly against his chest as he tries to calm his racing heart but when he turns to you he knows the attempt is futile.

“can we talk?” wooyoung eventually manages out between staggered breaths, yelling over the music instead of opting to get closer to you, fearing that he might overstep some sort of boundary if he were to be inside of your personal space.

you only nod in response before you grab his wrist, and wooyoung barely registers where you’re pulling him off to as he focuses on the way your fingertips press into his skin. only once you’ve closed the door behind you two, successfully muffling the music and voices enough to converse without shouting, do you release his arm and he recognizes the room as his best friend’s.

you make no effort to move away from wooyoung once you’ve succeeded in locking the door behind him, ignoring the many extra feet of space that you could place between you both, and wooyoung isn’t sure if he’s overthinking but he would like to assume it’s a good sign.

“i was looking for you,” wooyoung answers your question from earlier, feeling like his mouth is much too dry before he remembers he’s been holding a cup in his hand since you’d arrived and takes the smallest swig of the liquid inside. he notices you aren’t holding a drink and debates about offering a sip of his own to you before ultimately deciding to just set it down on yeosang’s desk, leaning awkwardly to the side in order to reach.

“why?” you ask and wooyoung loses his balance for a moment, falling into you slowly before his feet find better support. if he hadn’t felt hot enough with embarrassment just from starting to fall in front of you, he’s now overheating when he realizes you’d placed a hand on his chest to keep him from completely falling onto you, your palm feeling as though it might burn a hole through his shirt.

he clears his throat nervously as you retract your hand and he misses the searing heat of your skin almost immediately, itching to just grab your wrist and place your hand back. but he doesn’t, because he respects you too much. he loves you too much.

“to apologize,” he finally admits, feeling the heat you’d gifted him moving up from his chest to his cheeks. “i-“ he tries to breath, to remember the apology he’d been practicing in his mind, but it’s so much harder when you’re actually in front of him. your eyes, just as they had in the cafe before his outburst, make him feel exposed, sensitive. “i’m sorry for getting mad at you, i shouldn’t have said what i did,” he’s able to continue, trying hard to return your gaze so that you may be able to spot the sincerity in this apology just as you had his last. “i didn’t mean those things. i was,” he pauses, knowing this is the point in which he could still turn around, pretend that he wasn’t upset for the reasons he was, and so he pushes through anyway. “i was angry at myself and you were just who i could take it out on. you didn’t deserve that, i’m sorry.”

he searches your face for any change, desperate to see your usual expression replace the frown you sported and smooth out the current crease between your brows, and when your face doesn’t change he’s once again tempted to reach out to you. he wants to just take your face into his hands, to gently message the tension from your temples and to place a gentle peck to the tip of your nose in hopes that he might get to see your smile up close once more before you might just vanish from his life forever.

but instead he keeps his hands firmly at his sides and says, “i wish i could take it all back.”

“all of it?” you ask quickly, your voice practically overlapping his own, and your expression does shift but wooyoung can’t make out the difference.

neither of you speak then for what feels like an hour, your eyes determinedly set on his while you let wooyoung’s gaze flit along your face, trying to find his answer amongst your features, before he closes his eyes with a wobbly sigh.

“i don’t want to stop loving you,” he says, eyes still closed, “but i have to.”

he can feel his chest caving in, the emptiness he’d started calling home consuming him from the inside out as he finally says what he’d been teetering on the edge of admitting for the last month.

“who told you that?” you question and if wooyoung could bare to open his eyes and actually look at you instead of finding cowardly safety behind his eyelids he is sure you would be wearing the same look of frustration he’s seen directed at him so many times before. although now he knows that it doesn’t carry the same playfulness that usually makes him so endeared, the sparkle in your eye that encourages him to bring out that same look more and more.

wooyoung lets out a humorless chuckle, shoulders dropping heavily as he becomes hyper aware of the way he’s been tensing his entire body. “no one,” he says before scrunching up his face in hopes that it will quiet the urge for him to open his eyes and see your face once more. “everyone.”

he hears you let out a huff before you comment, almost indignantly, “well i didn’t get a say.”

wooyoung can’t recall a time he’s opened his eyes faster, tenderness quickly replacing the shock he’d felt when he sees you once more, your gaze now firmly set on the cup wooyoung had placed on yeosang’s desk and arms crossed over your chest, a pout on your lips. he feels the corners of his own lips ticking up in a fond smile.

“so,” he begins to ask, a hint of playfulness coloring his tone as he feels hope build inside of him, “what do you think i should do?”

he’s not sure if you were expecting his eyes to still be closed but as you bring your gaze back to wooyoung’s face he feels like he can easily spot a hint of nervousness beneath your determined expression. you both find yourself in silence once more, this time he’s the one to hold firm, your gaze now traveling along his skin.

“i love you.”

he’s sure if he was any farther from you that he wouldn’t have been able to hear it, the words flowing along an exhale.

“what was that?” he asks, unable to contain the smile that overtakes his features, and he half expects for you to take it back playfully, to mess around with him, but then he watches as a determined smirk creeps onto your face.

“i said,” you start, leaning impossibly closer and placing your hand onto the same spot on his chest as you had earlier. “i love you.”

your lips are on his in an instant, almost imperceptible, the gentlest brush of skin, but wooyoung can feel it.

“i love you too,” he whispers against your lips before one of his hands moves to the back of your neck, the other wrapping around your wrist as he pulls you back into him.

of all the times he’d imagined kissing you, it was nothing like he expected, your lips remaining gentle against his no matter how passionate he became, and wooyoung knew instantly that he was already addicted. he was so utterly consumed by you, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“your drink, my love,” wooyoung says, placing a cup down on the table as he takes the seat next to you, his own coffee in his hands, while he places a gentle kiss against your temple.

“gross,” yeosang comments, watching you both from across the table before taking another bite of his macaron.

“yeah,” hongjoong agrees from his seat on your other side. “i didn’t realize that you two getting together meant we would have to watch you both all over each other all the damn time,” he complains as his boyfriend rolls his eyes on the other side of the table.

wooyoung ignores his older friends in favor of grabbing one of the legs of your chair, pulling you toward him so that he can more easily rest his head against your shoulder. he smirks against your skin as he feels a shudder run down your spine when he turns his head to press his lips into the crook of your neck.

you and wooyoung are gathered with a few of your friends in the same cafe that set everything into motion, your favorite place, enjoying your first quiet afternoon as an official couple.

“come on, i think they’re cute,” mingi says, looking between yeosang and hongjoong, who both exchange disgusted looks.

you chuckle, the sound light and airy, making wooyoung’s heart float as he feels the vibrations through his own chest.

“thank you mingi,” you say with a hint of finality, ready for the attention to be away from you two.

you’re thankful that the conversation drifts into a new direction, yeosang mentioning something about the latest star wars movie and sending seonghwa into a spiral about his thoughts and opinions.

“thank you,” wooyoung whispers, lifting his head from your shoulder before resting it on his hand, his elbow propped on the table in front of you.

you send him a confused look, tilting your head gently, but with the way he stares at you, overwhelmed with devotion, you can’t keep a tender smile from gracing your features. “for what?”

“forgiving me,” he elaborates, taking your hand in his.

for a minute you simply bask in the genuine warmth of the moment, watching the way his gaze shifts to your hand as he starts to play with your fingers gently. you’re tempted to bring his own hand up to your lips and let the whole situation stay genuine, but you just can’t keep from teasing.

“who says i forgave you?”

wooyoung is quick to look back up at your face, eyes wide with worry as he lifts his head from his hand, now using both of his hands to hold one of yours. you watch the worry melt away as a pout takes over his features, seeing the playful smirk on your own.

you can hear the whine building in his throat before he even opens his mouth, your gentle giggles matching his volume. “babe,” he groans, dropping his shoulders as he pulls your hand against his chest.

once you’ve calmed down enough from your giggle fit, you reach the hand he’s not holding up to hold his face, watching with adoration as he turns his head to press his lips into your palm before he leans fully into your touch.

as you both sit, just savoring the moment, wooyoung can’t help but reflect on how you both ended up here. so, as he falls deeper into his romantic haze, he can’t help but let you know, “i love to love you.”

↼ ateez masterlist

note so hi, i’m alive. this was just something i wrote for fun recently and now i guess i write for ateez. anyway, hope you enjoyed

let me know what you think?

#wooyoung x y/n #wooyoung x you #wooyoung x reader #ateez x gender neutral reader #ateez x y/n #ateez x reader #ateez x you #ateez x gn reader #wooyoung x gn reader #gender neutral reader #gn reader #fake dating #non idol au #f2l #wooyoung fanfic #wooyoung fic #ateez fanfic #ateez fic #one sided pining #fluff #angst #wooyoung fluff #ateez fluff #wooyoung angst #ateez angst

[kaseyskat]

bolted upright from a nap with this angst-riddled concept; i lowkey wanna write more but i have way too many wips already WHOOPS anyways let me know if u wanna see more... hehe

~

Lark knows what's happened before he even gets the phone call.

He's all the way in Sacramento checking on the radius of the incursions- it hasn't spread much past Los Angeles, but it can't hurt to check and besides, it isn't as though Lark has much of a place to go anyways. He had been debating about calling Grant and asking if he could crash when it happened, the icy cold stabbing in his chest and something in his head going empty, like a connection was snapped. 

Twin sense is a powerful thing. Even if it had been an annoyance at times, Lark had always considered himself lucky; lucky that if nothing else, he knows where his brother is and his general well-being. 

He’s never felt like this before, though. 

It slams into him like a truck, and he sits in his car and shakes and shakes for a minute, two minutes. His breath catches in his chest– what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck–?

When his phone rings, Lark dives to answer it. 

His mother sounds tired, but she also sounds congested, like she’s holding herself back, nasal and tight. “I’m glad you answered.” 

“What happened?” Lark demands, his heart hammering away in his chest as he clutches onto his phone like a lifetime. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me I’m wrong. 

“There was… it was a car accident.” 

It was all she had to say. 

Lark can picture it now; his brother and his wife both arguing about one thing or another in the car. fully unaware of the danger they are putting themselves into. He had felt off all morning and this is why, because Sparrow was in danger, he was hurt, and now he’s gone, and… and… 

“...and Rebecca?” 

“On impact,” his mother answers, and she’s definitely crying now, her voice all tight still as she sniffs into the phone. “Luckily the kids weren’t there.” 

Fuck. 

Sparrow’s fucking kids. 

Something in his throat goes dry, and Lark inhales, exhales, tries to control his breathing– the voice in his head, though, sounds an awful lot like his father, and he tunes it out almost immediately. “God,” he breathes, wearily. “Fuck. Okay. Okay, I’m coming home, when…?” 

“Not sure yet, we… your father and I still have to talk about it, he’s not taking this very well,” his mother admits, and she, too, takes a deep breath, turning the receiver to static. “We can talk more about… everything when you get here. Stay safe, please.” 

He can’t promise her that, not when his head is swimming and empty, so empty, and he can only lean against his steering wheel and take deep, measured breaths to swallow down the nausea creeping up on him. “Okay,” he compromises, swallowing thickly. “Love you.” 

The phone clicks, and once again, Lark is alone; this time, though, the loneliness he usually prefers is overcome with a hollow numbness building in his skull, and he chokes on a scream as he slams his head into the steering wheel, trembling. 

“Fuck!” 

Sparrow is dead. His twin brother, companion from birth, the only one who despite everything, despite their differences, could understand Lark… is dead. 

For the first time in his entire life, Lark is well and truly alone.

~ 

Getting back to San Dimas is a blur. 

Everything is a blur, really. Lark barely remembers the drive, and he definitely doesn’t remember steering to his parents’ house, dragging himself through the front door without even knocking. It’s solemn, with even the skies weeping as he slams the door behind him. 

He slowly walks through familiar halls, cautiously peeking his head into the living room with a shyness he didn’t know he possessed. There’s a cartoon playing on the TV, and his father sits with a smal boy that Lark barely recognizes, holding him while an older girl and his mother stand in the kitchen. 

Fuck, this is harder than he thought it’d be. Lark swallows thickly again, and he steps fully into the living room, his heart pounding inside his chest like a freight train. “...Father,” he greets coldly, watching as both his father and the boy in his lap perk up. 

“Dad!” the boy chirps first, before Henry can say anything, and then Lark has this tiny sprout of a six year old nearly tackling his legs, clinging to his jeans. “You’re home!” 

Of all the times to be mistaken for his twin, this one hurts. Lark inhales, and his eyes burn. Still, he knows… he can’t destroy this kid’s hopes, not yet, so he summons up all the Sparrow in him, and forces a smile as he kneels. 

“Hey, kiddo,” he says wearily, and he tugs the boy – Normal, though he’s bigger than the last time Lark had seen him – off of his legs and into a proper hug. Normal buries himself into the embrace, and Lark very easily hefts him into the air, his chest tightening at the way Normal squeals in delight. 

Henry watches this all from the couch, and when Lark meets eyes with his dad, he can see the grief lined in his eyes, the misery in his face. It reflects Lark’s own emotions and he doesn’t know how to feel about this; this is definitely not how he’d imagine his first family reunion since he was a late teenager. 

“Mijo?” Mercedes finally pokes her head out of the kitchen, with Hero trotting after her. If Hero has the same reaction to seeing Lark, she doesn’t say so; in fact, she just stares at him for a moment before immediately turning away. 

“Grandma look! It’s Dad!” Normal cheers, and the heartbreak that Lark had felt deep in his bones at the title is reflected right back in his mother’s face, the way her eyes tighten and she grimaces. 

“Hey, Norm,” Lark tries to channel his brother’s energy, relaxing his posture enough as he holds Normal in his arms still. “I’m… I’m here for you, but I need to speak with Grandma Mercedes first, okay? Why don’t you go sit with… Grandpa Henry for a bit longer.” 

“Okay!” Normal chirps, and he wiggles out of Lark’s grasp, running back to the couch and jumping straight into Henry’s arms. The family resemblance in the two is incomparable when they’re sitting together; Normal might have Sparrow’s curly dark hair and Rebecca’s lighter eyes, but his smile? It is all Henry. 

Lark marvels over the resemblance for only a few seconds longer before a hand lands on his shoulder; his mother, who had approached while he was watching Normal, and now gives him the saddest smile as she draws him into a hug. 

He hasn’t allowed his mother to hug him in, what, years? Given the occasion, it feels wrong, but he sinks into her arms anyways, clutching onto her back in a way he hasn’t since he was a very small kid. “Mother,” he whispers, and his voice cracks despite himself. “Was it… bad?” 

“We shouldn’t talk about it here,” Mercedes whispers back to him, and she squeezes him in her arms before pulling away, wiping at her eyes. “We still have so much else to discuss; your father and I have already talked of selling the house and raising the kids here, but there’s still the matter of… of the funeral, and–” 

“-wait,” Lark interrupts, and he glances carefully over at Normal, buried in Henry’s arms, and Hero, still hovering around the kitchen with a glass of water in her hands. “Are you guys taking them?” 

“Well, it isn’t like we’d ever allow them to be separated in foster care,” Mercedes huffs. “Your father and I are perfectly capable of raising them ourselves, even if… even if it gets difficult.” 

For some reason, the thought of his father and his mother raising his brother’s kids has the nausea bubbling up in his stomach once again. He thinks about the lessons he failed to learn in the past, the way that Normal is such a soft kid and Hero abrasive in a way that just feels familiar, and he shudders. 

“I want to raise them,” he blurts before he can think twice about it. “I mean, I should raise them, they’re my brother’s kids. It… it could help them.” 

“Are you… are you sure?” Mercedes frowns, and she frets over Lark’s hair, picking out some stray leaves that he must’ve missed from… whenever the last time he showered was, who knows when. “Your father and I already talked it out, it shouldn’t be solely your responsibility to bear.” 

Somehow, that just makes him angrier. “I can decide what responsibilities I can handle,” he snips. “They need familiarity. I’ll raise them in their own house, and… you guys can help still, but it should be me.” 

“If you say so, chickadee,” Mercedes concedes, and she squeezes him in another tight hug. “I love you so much, okay?” 

Lark inhales, and he exhales, and he inhales again. “The last time we spoke was in a fight,” he admits, the words spilling out of his mouth without his consent. “This doesn’t feel real.” 

“I know, I know,” Mercedes releases a stifled sob into Lark’s hair, and she guides him over to the couch, where the cartoon is still playing. “Everything will be okay, though, you’ll see.” 

Everything will be O-A-K! Sparrow’s voice echoes in Lark’s head, and he swallows. 

As soon as he sits down, Normal makes direct eye contact with him, and he springs out of Henry’s arms, climbing over the cushions to curl into Lark’s chest instead. “Grandpa Henry and Grandma Mercedes are so nice,” he informs Lark, “even if the house smells funny. Are we going home soon?” 

God. Lark draws his arms around his nephew, and as he glances at his father, who hasn’t spoken a word since Lark’s arrival and didn’t look like he intended on it anytime soon, to his mother, who had solemnly gone back to the kitchen, to Hero, his niece, who hovers awkwardly around his mom, distancing herself from the rest of the family… he knows things will never be the same. 

And yet…

“...soon, little dove, soon,” he promises. 

#kasey writes stuff #dndads #dungeons and daddies #lark oak garcia #sparrow oak garcia #kinda? in spirit #mercedes oak garcia #henry oak #normal oak #hero oak #shoves lark into the tremendous burden of parenthood. ur welcome #BTW normal is six as mentioned and hero is eight!

[mittens-220]

Hataraku Maou-sama! ES!! Summary (Third Story) Part 1

So as mentioned in my previous post, the third story has a longer summary/translation from the chinese website. I'm translating it in parts and will update when I have time.

Rika came to visit:

“Hey—Urushihara-san! You’re at home, right! Can you help open the door?”

Rika was sure that she could hear the sound of rubbing cloth.

“I want to open a Gate, would only disturb for a while, let me in for a while—! Please!”

“......”

“Urushi—hara—sa–n—!”

After pressing on the doorbell a few times, a sound of someone moving slowly was finally heard from inside, Urushihara Hanzo showed an unhappy expression just as Rika predicted, looking at her through the gap in the door.

“......What.”

“I’m sorry. I want to open a Gate, thus disturbing you!”

“I’m still taking a nap?”

“Oh my, you actually just dislike troublesome things so you don’t want to pay attention to me, right? The half-eaten snack is still in the corner of the closet, and I heard you moving the first time I pressed the doorbell.”

Perhaps she hit the target, Urushihara’s frown deepened.

“.......If you want to open a Gate, can’t you just do it in the corridor.”

“This is also considered outside. And I heard Ashiya-san and Emi say, Urushihara-san usually does online shopping, right? If a delivery person, newspaper delivery person or postman enters while opening the Gate, wouldn’t that be really bad.”

“Haah……seriously. Come in quickly. I am busy.”

Even though it was not known what he could be busy with while staying in the closet, it still felt awkward to tease Urushihara, so Rika placed the angel feather pen on the tatami.

“I say, I may look like this, but I am still a demon who can get rid of a human with a finger. If you act like this some more……”

Just as Urushihara decided to at least complain with one sentence,

“Hey—”

Rika had already disappeared, the Gate also closed.

Urushihara suddenly remembered and looked towards the porch, Rika’s shoes were there.

Because Urushihara was around, she took off her shoes as if she was simply going to another person’s house.

“......Forget it, it’s not my fault anyway.”

Even though he thought about whether he should throw the shoes into the Gate, at this moment, the Gate had already closed.

“And, I am Demon General Lucifer. It doesn’t matter if you are Emilia’s friend or what, isn’t this having no sense of boundaries at all?”

Rika talked about Lucifer after meeting up with Emi:

“This is fine~but why aren’t you wearing shoes~?”

“Ah. About this.”

Rika summarised her conversation with Urushihara in Villa Rosa Sasazuka Room 201, Emerada’s expression turned stern.

“As expected~ Lucifer is scum~”

“About this, Chiho and Ashiya-san and I also frequently……eh? Scum?”

This was the first time Rika heard Emerada scold other people like this, and could not help but widen her eyes.

“This kind of person should be described like this~. Well, even though that guy is not human~”

“Ah, uh, yeah.”

“Rika-san has to be careful too, okay~. That guy Lucifer, you don’t know when he would suddenly attack humans~. Because for species like demons, in principle, you cannot be careless~”

“I, I know. Erhm, thanks for your treatment. I will pay attention next time……”

(skipping unrelated conversation)

“Based on what I understand until now, it is considered natural……but Emerada-san, dislikes Urushihara-san that much?”

“Ah…… right now?”

Emi showed a troubled smile, sitting next to Rika.

“That’s right. Because there needs to be cooperation now, so there is no choice but to interact normally, but when Em is working with the Demon King and the others, she must be trying hard to tolerate it.”

“Yeah, matters in this aspect. But, they are similar to workers who were originally in opposing factions. But, I saw Emerada-san speak with Ashiya-san, how should I put it, it feels normal.”

“When we fought with Alsiel directly, he was already a demon who could be spoken to, and additionally, Em and Lucifer, there are too many direct causes.”

“Direct causes?”

“Yeah. So, I feel that even if me and the Demon King and Lucifer are only harmonious on the surface, Em might also dislike it greatly. Even though I did not feel her showing it.”

Emi looked down slightly.

(skipping Rika wishing to listen to the story)

“Or rather, it could be because Rika suddenly became connected to Ente Isla, so I have to tell you. The original nature of the relationship between our “Hero group’ and the ‘Demon King Army’...... but with this, it might change the impression of ‘Maou’, ‘Ashiya’ and ‘Urushihara’ in your heart.”

(skip Rika agreeing to continue)

“Amongst us, Em has the greatest hostility towards the Demon King Army. Even though there are many reasons, there must be areas I also do not understand……but her hostility towards Lucifer is especially strong, there are clear reasons.”

“Un.”

Emi deliberated on her wordings, Rika did not rush her.

She was waiting for Emi to speak naturally.

“Em, lost in a direct battle with Lucifer, and was forced to submit to him. Because of this, our hometown—Western Continent Saint Aire empire, fell under Lucifer’s command.”

“Urushihara-san ruling a country, this cannot be imagined at all……but many unbelievable things also happened earlier. Demons can also rule a country huh.”

“I am also unclear on what demons in other lands can do. But, the invasion of the Demon King Army caused the areas controlled by humans to decrease rapidly, almost all of the Western Continent fell into Lucifer’s hands. My journey, started during those despairing conditions.”

Then Emi—Emilia Justina started to narrate.

The Hero’s journey of saving the world, the first story.

#hataraku maou sama #hatamaou #hataraku maou-sama #the devil is a part timer #hataraku maou-sama!

[ya-jirushi]

Tsurune Audio Drama: A Shot of Color 3 Kirisaki Ranking

Kirisaki gets to have fun sometimes we love to see it. Apologies with the lateness I have a pretty big school project in the works sooo yeah. But I also just really wanted to have this out especially this week because Kabashima and Yushima's seiyuu also voice Kacchan's former teammates! So I thought it was nice timing, accidentally. Also did you guys know these two didn't have first names until like. Now. I didn't, it was wild trying to remember their names. Notes: -the word used is actually 'vote' but they were discussing the results already so it felt weird to not mention that -the term here is 'looking down on something' it didn't really fit in context literally but the general idea is that Kabashima is speaking about the results and Shuu's background as if he's removed from being involved in the poll and he's 'above all that', basically -okay I tried to look up what a tsundera was and I didn't really get anything that made sense unfortunately, the term def exists tho so I'll come back and edit this when I know what it means!! (atm my guess is he is tsun yet someone admirable so like. teratera. sparkly) EDIT: This edit came faster than I thought it would but update on the tsundera thing! It's the mix of tsuntsun (I'm sure yall know what tsun means but if you don't its someone that's kinda prickly/mean/unapproachable on the outside) and deradera which means shiny or slippery! In this context my guess is that they mean he's sly (slippery) basing it on how Nikaido is.

Kabashima: *sighs* Yushima: Oh, welcome back, Kabashima. Kabashima: …That was quick. You’re done with the bath already? Yushima: Yeah, quick showers are great. Kabashima: Yushima, what’s that on your desk, is it a handout? Did we have homework or something? Yushima: Nope. These are the results* of the Kirisaki High School Kyudo Club boys’ popularity poll. Kabashima: Hah? A popularity poll? Yushima: The girls got really into it when they were talking so they made this. Wanna see? Kabashima: Who’d want to see that drivel? Yushima: You managed to get into the ranking though, but alright if you don’t wanna see then fine. I guess it’s better that way, since it looks like only the girls are allowed to see it. Kabashima: W-Wait a sec! Why’re you looking at it then?! Yushima: Me? I’m an exception. Kabashima: That's hardly an explanation! Yushima: It’s ‘cause the girls have relied on me a lot. You didn’t know that the girls’ are fed up with the boys’ equipment being smelly or with how sloppy the weeding on the range is, right? Kabashima: I… I didn’t. Yushima: They asked me to tell Mutou-sensei to make it so we can't leave our gi there on the weekends.They also come to me for love advice. Like if so and so is going out with anyone or something. Kabashima: Love a– talking about something so promiscuous in the club?! That’s a corruption of our club’s morals! Yushima: You’re too much of a prude. What era are you in right now, exactly? Kabashima: Ugh… A-Anyway, show me that popularity poll! Yushima: Oh, so you do wanna see? Kabashima: I’m just going to check! Once the president and the others retire, us second years are next in line, okay! Yushima: Wow~ that’s some enthusiasm. Kabashima: “Intelligence ranking”, president’s in first place. Then Sase-san’s second, and Fujiwara’s next… These are pretty decent results. Fujiwara aside, the two third years are thinking of their university exams, so… Yushima: That’s despite the fact that they could get in anywhere on a recommendation too, but it’s on brand for them. Kabashima: “Princely-ness ranking”... Fujiwara’s on top. Well, this has some sense to it too. He’s from a good family, and he’s got class too. Yushima: Hahaha. Fair assessment from you, huh?* Kabashima: What should I say then? He really is on top of the ranking, isn’t he?? …What’s next? “Similarity ranking”? Huh, it says Senichi and Manji are first but does anyone else even match he criteria? What’s with this rigged poll?? Yushima: Calm down, don’t take it too seriously. It’s just the girls’ playing around. Kabashima: “Tsundere ranking”... There’s even a ranking for this type of thing? …Huh? Who’s ‘Nikaido from middle school’? Yushima: About that, they say there was an ‘ikemen tsundera*’ in Kirisaki’s middle school. It’s amazing that he’s still pretty popular even today. Kabashima: …This is all so pointless. Seriously it’s– Yushima! You’re on top in one of these! What’s the meaning of this?! Yushima: Oh that. That’s just due to how much of a monk I look, since my buzz cut gets brought up often. Kabashima: No, the comments here say “It’s because he’s always so calm.”, “It’s like he’s enlightened.” and stuff. You’re oddly highly favored aren’t you? Yushima: ”Oddly”, huh… No, but, it’s ultimately ‘cause of the monk thing, isn’t it? Kabashima: That’s true… But, of all things…a monk, huh? Yushima: Well, someone’s having fun with that. Kabashima: …Sorry. I think they’re complimenting you though. Yushima: That’s a total lie. You look like you’re totally enjoying this. You’re for sure imagining me posing like the Buddha right now. Kabashima: Pfft… *clears throat* Yushima: Well, as for your ranking, Kabashima– Kabashima: W-Wait! I’ll see it for myself! …Here, Kabashima Umetaro. Landslide first place! In… What?! “Being annoyingly cute”?? Yushima: Good for you, Kabashima. Kabashima: Huh? Huuh? “Annoyingly cute”? I’m neither annoying nor cute!! Yushima: No, no… You’re definitely both those things. There’s no coming back if you were ranked as most annoying, but once they attached ‘cute’ to it you got an unexpected chance at redemption. Kabashima: There’s no way I’m accepting this! What about me is like that, huh?! If I had to get a ranking anywhere I’d rather it was something like ‘reliable’ or ‘trustworthy’! Yushima: Heh~ Kabashima: What? You got something to say to that?? Yushima: Ah, geez… This is why I didn’t want to show you.

#tsurune #tl:audio drama #irodori no issha #kabashima umetaro #yushima kaoru #cv: kaneko makoto #cv: inomata satoshi

[magicline]

Yumekuro • Adel (Rainbow-coloured Wedding Road) Moon Route Meister Story Translation Part 2/3

(A/N): It is recommended to read the story with in-game voiced lines ! Beware of spoilers and enjoy reading ^_^

⚠️ STRICTLY NO REPOSTS !

Embroidering Session For Two.

On Adel-san’s Meister Board, he received a message from Volks-san—

Adel : Apparently, we still need to stay in the mansion.

Emma : Is, there a reason…?

Adel : “Since you completed the request, thank you so much for your hard work.”

Adel : “I know you’ve gone through a lot, so please take at least two days off to rest before you come back.”

Adel-san read out, as what stated in the messages he received from Volks-san.

Emma : I see, so you received a mandatory vacation notice.

Emma : (“At least two days” part, you can sense the pressure to not refuse the notice.)

Adel : And, I also received a message addressed to you.

Adel : “He’s a real pain in the ass to work with when I take my eyes off him, so I’m going to ask you to continue taking care of Adel.”… he said.

Adel : Does he think I’m just a child?

Emma : Hey, hey. Not like I have any idea…

Adel : … Huh

Adel : I don’t know where the hell he got this idea from, but Volks can be troublesome to go against him when it comes to times like these.

Adel : You’ve got to give up.

The groom, Anthony-san, whom provided us the mansion, has already given us permission to extend our stay—

Emma : What can I say, that’s very generous of you.

Adel : It’s nice to hear when you said it like that, but the truth is, it feels like being stuck in here unwillingly for two days.

Emma : I’m still happy with it though.

Emma : I have to admit, I was feeling a little sad.

Emma : There were tough times, but I enjoyed living together with Adel-san.

Adel : Huh. Like what I thought, you seem like you’re prone to sentimentality.

Emma : Fufu. Don’t Adel-san ever felt lonely at times?

Adel : Hmph… Stop talking.

Although I spoke such words about him, Adel-san didn’t contradict me at all.

Adel : Hmm… At least I don’t have to sort my stuff up while in a hurry. I got distracted because I was hungry.

Emma : Alright, I’m going to heat up the vegetable soup I made.

Adel : Ah.

While I’m filled with excitement at the unexpected extension of our shared life together, I strode into the kitchen—

The next morning—

Emma : (Now… I wonder what we should do today.)

The house chores will be taken care of by the housemaids, so there’s no urgent stuff to be done.

Emma : (Is Adel-san going to do something today? Maybe I should check up on him.)

I found Adel-san sitting on a couch in the living room, with a needle and a piece of cloth in his hands.

Emma : Adel-san, I thought you’re supposed to have a day off today?

Adel : I am having my day off whether you like or not.

Emma : To my eyes, seems like Adel-san is doing some kind of embroidery…

Adel : It’s what you call a creative hobby. If I don’t have the needle for a day, it will take me three days to come to my senses.

Emma : I mean, I thought you were doing your job.

As I tilted my head, I took a vacant seat right next to Adel-san.

Emma : Woah, it’s so detailed it looks like a painting…

Emma : (I didn’t have time to check it out while he was at work, but there’s no hesitation in his finger movements… I knew I was right.)

Adel : What. If you want to do it, there’s plenty of materials right there.

Emma : Huh?

Adel : You can check out the manual book to figure out what kind of pattern you want to do. Now that you’re not working, you got plenty of free time on your hands.

Emma : Certainly… Okay, I’ll give it a try.

Emma : (…These are hard!)

Emma : (Look at these, how were these lines sewn to look this smooth? I’m sure these aren’t done with normal sewing technique?)

Adel : Outline Stitch. A suitable technique to express smooth curves.

Emma : I see…

He didn’t exactly tell me how to do it, though whenever I’m in trouble, Adel-san usually offers his advices.

Emma : Um, the way you stitched them, I’d like you to show them again so I can learn how to sew it.

Adel : Watch and learn on your own if you want to imitate me. You got the manual too, don’t be naive.

Emma : Ugh… The diagrams showed in the manual book Adel-san gave, they look strange enough for beginners like me.

Adel : I can’t believe you’re raising your voice like this, with no guts. At this rate, you won’t be done until tomorrow morning.

Emma : No, just watch! I will get better quickly, so I’ll be able to do it smoothly too.

Adel : Hmph… let’s see how you will do it.

To be continued…

(A/N): If there are misspellings, mistranslations etc. please let me know and excuse me. 🙏

Next chapter : Moon Route Part 3 (with Story CG Spoiler)

Prev. chapter : Moon Route Part 1

#dream meister and the recollected black fairy #yumekuro #ymkr #yumekuro translations #ymkr translations #ymkr tl #yumekuro adel #ymkr adel

[mar64ds]

Reasons why Papyrus could be the Knight

-Papyrus is the only main character from Undertale that we haven't had any interactions with. Even if we can only talk a little bit with Mettaton we can at least talk to him, with Papyrus we don't even get that and we might not be able to see him in a while

-His absence is acknowledged in the steam page of deltarune in a super vague way

[I.D. : "Meet new and endearing main characters, as well as familiar faces like Toriel, Sans, as more. Huh? Papyrus? No, he's busy. Sorry"]

-Both Sans and Papyrus are most likely related to Gaster, who is an extremely important character in Deltarune. Everyone tends to only focus on Sans's connection to Gaster but we can't ignore the fact that Papyrus is just as important in his backstory as Sans. The thing is we know nothing about them in Undertale, we know more about Sans and Gaster, so the majority of people don't really think about Papyrus when it comes to stuff related to Gaster. Wouldn't it make sense if we got to know more about Papyrus's connection to Gaster in this game?

-Sans and Papyrus in Deltarune are probably the same ones from Undertale. Sans remembers this but to our knowledge Papyrus probably doesn't, and Papyrus is known to be "forgettable". A major event could have happened in his life that made him forget things

-Papyrus has a really strong obsession with being a royal guard, sure, it's because he wants to be popular, but why would he think that? Undyne isn't popular, she says so herself, she is a heroine but she isn't popular or has friends only because she's a royal guard, neither do any of the other members. Yet he still believes this very strongly, and even wears a royal guard costume all the time. Maybe in another place... he used to wear something similar, a knight armor you could say. Maybe he really wants to be like that again but he doesn't remember why

-Being The Knight doesn't necessarily mean being a bad guy, we barely know anything about this mysterious character. Even if the role of The Knight was antagonistic, there is a chance that Papyrus wouldn't fully realize or admit that he was doing something wrong (maybe he isn’t even doing anything wrong at all!), NOT because he's dumb or naive because he isn't, but his heart could be in the right place while someone else could have other intentions (not necessarily evil either, but maybe with their own intentions). Why do I think this? Because something similar to that already happened in Undertale with Papyrus and Flowey

-Papyrus loves puzzles, but I doubt there aren't any in the outside world of deltarune. It feels like he would fit in better in a Dark World

-A common pattern that I have seen in Deltarune is a strong theme of loneliness (I made a whole post about this but I can't find it lol I'm sorry). Kris is the lonely weird kid of town, Susie isolated herself and pushed everyone away, Ralsei has been alone all of his life, Lancer used to be disliked by mostly everyone until he met Susie, Noelle is a shy and insecure girl that misses her sister a lot which makes everything feel scarier to her, Berdly is terrified of being on his own without Noelle, Darkners in general feel abandoned, Dess is lost and all alone, the main undertale characters seem a bit less happy than in undertale because the majority of them aren't friends with each other and their friendships are what helps them grow in undertale, Jevil was locked away from everyone else, Spamton lost his friends and ended up all alone, ... yeah, do you see the pattern? Now, which Undertale character would you say fits this theme the most? Could it be the skeleton that so desperately wants friends? It could be, especially now since all he does is stay home and not talk to anyone else

-Paraphrasing Papyrus in Undertale, 'maybe all you need to make friends is give them puzzles and then battle them'. He could be trying to help others and also help himself make some friends with this whole thing about being the Knight

-Bonetrousle is Papyrus's theme, it's also the theme that plays in many trailers, it used to be the main battle theme for Deltarune. Papyrus's room is absent of music in Undertale. Papyrus's theme song is just full of mystery

-Papyrus only uses majuscules when he speaks, just like Spamton and Jevil, I don't think anyone else does this. Papyrus doesn't start a sentence with an asterisk either unlike everyone else... that's so strange and there is no explanation for it

-We barely know anything about Papyrus, he's incredibly mysterious. If another character was this mysterious everyone would think they could be The Knight, but Papyrus is constantly seen as just a funny character and nothing else so many people don't even consider him as a possible Knight, even if he doesn't end up being the Knight he needs to be brought up way more as a possible candidate

-Papyrus is my favorite character and I want him to be important in Deltarune, that's all

If anyone wants to add more reasons, go ahead! This is all I could think of right now

#deltaruneundertale

[ishouldbeinh0rnyjail]

Yandere!Bully!Satoru Gojo x fem!reader: No one tells me no!

You had no idea this would happen. How could you? He had everything, so why would he care about one girl he didn’t even know not being interested in him? Besides, it’s not like he’d stick around very long if you had accepted his offer. Except he didn’t see it that way. He didn’t see it that way at all. Because no one on heaven or earth could tell the Great Satoru Gojo no.

Part 1 > Part 2

TW: harsh language

You hadn’t even been at your new school for a full week when it happened. Word of your arrival had gotten around fast. Not because you were important, but because you weren’t.

This was a school for the children of the rich. The next generation of elitist assholes. Every student and teacher came from some kind of wealth. Hell even the service staff did. That being said you knew from the get go you’d be the outcast of outcasts. Not like you cared though. You weren’t here to make friends. You were here to make good grades so you could get a job that would support you siblings and terminal mother.

In all honesty, you thought your presence wouldn’t make any difference in this school. That you would just be ignored at best and talked down to at worst. But as it turns out these spoiled brats weren’t used to change. They saw you as a crack in their perfect system. A real problem.

Everywhere you turned you could feel their eyes and hear their hushed whispers. And then, on day five he showed up. You didn’t know who he was at the time as you had no reason to. All you knew was that the hottest guy you had ever seen stepped in front of you on your way to lunch with a gorgeous bouquet of white roses and a dazzling smile.

“Well, hello there. My name’s Satoru Gojo. I’m a second year,” his voice was like silk and honey and, although you didn’t recognize him, the way he said his name and the crowd quickly forming around him told you he was supposed to be important.

“Um, hello. I’m y/n l/n. I’m a first year,” you glanced around and rubbed your arm in anxiousness at the growing attention on you two. When you looked back up at him you could tell by his wide grin and the way his impossibly blue eyes peered down at you that he found amusement in your struggle and that he thought that he was, in fact, all that.

He chuckled. “Of course I know who you are, silly. You’re the talk of the town as of late.”

“Oh… well is there something I can help you with?”

“Indeed there is. Would you do me the honor of letting me take you out on a date,” Satoru asked while extending the expensive looking roses toward you.

You were shocked to say the least. Any of the bystanders would have thought the silence that surrounded you was from nervousness but in reality you were just that shocked. In the end, your mind was made up as you watched the white haired boy shift into a more relaxed stance and his grin turn into a knowing arrogant smirk.

“Sorry. But no.”

“…. Huh?” It was Satoru’s turn to look in shock. He looked at you as if you’d grown a second head.

All that kept racing through his mind was, ‘No way. No actual fucking way this average looking, lowbred, commoner just said no to me!’ Wait! There has to be a logical reason. Maybe you just want to focus on school work. Or you’re not ready for a boyfriend. Or you’re in love with someone already. Or literally anything at all that makes any fucking sense.

“Oh, no. You see the truth is… you’re just not my type.”

What the hell. What the literal hell is happening here! He couldn’t wrap his brain around it. He was always the one to turn down hordes of girls with a shrug and a look of smug indifference, but instead here he was being rejected instead. By you, of all people, as you scratched your head with an awkward expression as if you’d rather be anywhere else but here with him. No one has EVER looked at him like that!

“A-anyway, I gotta go. Lunchtime’s almost over. Have a nice day Gojo-san,” you bowed your head and quickly shuffled past his frozen form.

As you left, your words kept repeating over and over in his brain. ‘You’re just not my type. You’re just not my type. YOU’RE JUST NOT MY TYPE.’

And that’s when it hit him. For the first time in his entire life. Satoru fucking Gojo wasn’t good enough.

Looking back on it, he could vividly remember the feeling of something snapping inside of him.

TBC?

#no one tells me no #yandere satoru gojo #bully satoru gojo #satoru gojo #yandere satoru gojo x reader #bully satoru gojo x reader #jjk #this has been running through my head all day

[insertdisc5]

Hi!! I wanted to ask, in celebration of Deltarune CH. 2, do you have any updated thoughts and head canons about the game?? Like, y'know, similar to a previous ask about Kris in your Deltarune tag? Thanks!

thoughts on kris part 2 i guess???? (part 1 from ch1 here lol)

spoilers for deltarune like woah. this wont be kris focused just random thoughts on everything. thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk

not that many thoughts for this chapter tbh! EDIT LOL: this was a lie i have a lot of thoughts

-just in general i feel like the player isn't the only one controlling kris... like yes the player forced kris to do what happened in the snowgrave route but AT THE SAME TIME idk it feels like there's someone else too. just because of the terrifying voice i suppose. and also the jerky movement kris does every time they get their soul out? unless there's another reason for it... maybe getting your soul out means you walk weird lol

-BUT ALSO i feel like kris is 100% in control when they create fountains. idk it just makes sense kris would create them. to create another world, a better world, A WORLD WHERE THEIR BROTHER IS HERE PERHAPS? i do wonder why they get their soul out then though. i'm all for it sweetie! do whatever! i support you!

-(i am and will be playing deltarune with only kris' best interests in mind. i will not hurt anyone unless kris wants me to. dont worry my little meow meow im on your side! talk to me! no? okay ill stay under the sink its fine)

-speaking of asriel. SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER (starts crying) V-VACATION COLLEGE WHEN

-kris misses their brother so much it's so sad. if you make kris steal 5$ from asriel they take it "reluctantly"? talking to asriel online so often even alphys knows?? the google search?? GOING INTO ASRIEL'S GOOGLE SEARCH ROOM WITH THEIR EYES CLOSED BECAUSE THEY'RE CONVINCED THEY ALREADY KNOW WHATS IN THERE? THAT ONE IS LESS OF A MISSING THING BUT IM LIKE OH MY GOD

-the city walk with susie at the end makes it clear to me that kris really values susie's friendship... kris even sits with her if you spend long enough near the lake like aaaaah ;_;

-and even in snowgrave you spend your last acts with the final boss calling for your friends like YES there's a way bigger creepy aspect to this (kris as more of a Leader who Commands and commands their subjects to come) but still :'0 (and then noelle answers oh my god noelle im so sorry for the trauma)

-berdly. listen. listen. listen. liste

-berdly sucks but [berdly hurts his arm in the battle against queen if you don't save him because he doesnt want to hurt you] [berdly realizing smg's wrong in snowgrave and immediately taking steps to save noelle] berdly is my little crumb nugget. i will protect him.

-noelle. noelle. girlboss!

-like ooooh listen. hearing about the genocide path for undertale. made me go "that is SO COOL. i HAVE to experience it myself this is great. hehehe killing time" and like no regrets. i was fully enjoying the experience knowing i was an awful person. SNOWGRAVE THOUGH. i will never try this myself its too fucked up. casually grooming your childhood friend to murder people <3 and also acting like a weird stalker towards her <3 stockholm syndrome speedrun i will get all the info i can about this but i will never do this myself

-people remarking the kris/player>noelle relationship is similar to the relationship between player>chara in genocide path is like yes. chefs kiss. don't worry we just are making you stronger and everything will be fine "you made me kill my friend? and for what?" this is fine sweetie don't worry about it!!!!!!

-like the amount of details added to snowgrave, like if you equip noelle's watch she notices later? and her battle animations change as time goes on, she gets an ice shield and stops sighing in relief after battle? oh my god? oh my god.

-(berdly is not awake.) JUST KILL ME RIGHT HERE I HAVEN'T STOPPED THINKING ABOUT BERDLY NOT BEING AWAKE!!!!!

-also why didnt he turn into dust. so many possible reasons. is magic a thing in the normal world and perhaps no magic means no dust (theres graves). maybe he isnt dead. maybe hes braindead. maybe he'll come back. either way that boy is now in the closet big enough to put someone in

-also dess' name probably being december AND THATS WHY NOELLE LOST THE SPELLING BEE?!?!??! FUCK ME UP!!!!! JUST FUCK ME UP!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!!

-also so many good pixel art this chapter. too many? i didnt need pixel art of cardboard noelle falling on the statue. like thank you but please. please it hurts my game artist brain.

-the expressions in this chapter were also top notch. all the unsettling noelle expressions like (i fall over face first)

-i threw away the ball of junk (which i already tried in ch1) and this time the game was like "ARE YOU SURE BC THIS IS A BAD IDEA" and kris felt bitter :'( (it deletes all your items in the dark world)

-i uh fucked up and skipped the susie+noelle scene bc listen last time ralsei mentionned seeing what susie is doing we missed some PRIMO LORE. turns out it just makes you skip the scene and you dont get anything new. welp

-speaking of ralsei well you know. he exists. but im stuck on him going "i just wonder what being ralsei-like even is...?" ralsei my dude there's so much i could say about this. do you feel like you can't be ralsei-like because you feel like you have to be asriel-like

-but also that makes no sense bc susie hasnt even mentioned ralsei looks like asriel. and i cant imagine asriel being so meek. so WHAT GIVES

-ralsei as kris’ “i wish i was a monster just like my bro and family and i’d look like asriel but with red horns [THE HALLOWEEN COSTUME] and my name would be something cool like ralsei instead of a boring human name like kris and im sweet and cute because thats how i act with asriel because ASRIEL MADE ME” theory because that would be cute.

-ASRIEL GOING TO THE CHURCH TO CONFESS HIS "SINS" WHEN "SINS" AREN'T A THING IN THE ANGEL BELIEF LIKE I KNOW THIS INTERACTION WAS TREATED AS A JOKE BUT WHAT THE FUCK ASRIEL?

-kris definitely has a connection with the big red door in the city, judging by what the kids say they probably went there... i feel like this place's dark world will be the Final Dungeon you KNOW some shit happened there. also the sounds you hear when you go there is the phone dark world call's sound slowed down? AND AFTER SNOWGRAVE APPARENTLY YOU CANT HEAR IT ANYMORE? HUWAH?

-speaking of songs the songs were all so good, My Castle Town rules, the berdly snowgrave music is stuck in my head, flashback is uwah wuahah, Until Next Time is so good, AND ALSO A FRIEND NOTICED THE DARK WORLD CITY THEME IS JUST tHE SONG 74 (MOST NOTICEABLE WITH THE SNOWGRAVE VERSION)?????? WHAT DOES IT MEAN????? it might be just "hey its just reuse" BUT MR FOX YOU KNOW WE'RE GONNA READ INTO THIS IS NOELLE THE ONE SINGING IDK BRO!!!!!!!!!!

-asgore dreemurr fired from the force what happun!!!!! game theory is that asgore is related to dess' death/disappearance but eh who knows

-you start the chapter at lvl2 and get to lvl3 after the final boss, a friend mentioned this is probably because we destroyed a world and im :0

-to go back to kris it's still so interesting to figure out who they are based on how they act/people mention them. like kris shaking the ferris wheel car? yeah makes sense i can imagine a pranking kid do this. kris' dance? yeah thats a little silly but i can buy it. doing cool anime poses? well i dunno this doesnt line up PERFECTLY but sure. BUT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN SNOWGRAVE... especially >proceed like that is such a weird thing that i can't imagine them doing, but i can't completely see the "player" doing either (compare with going to sans -which kris doesnt know- and going "SANS!" because of course the player would know sans), like THATS one of the reasons i feel like there's someone else in there. the weird robotic merciless actions. if im going super meta it feels like there'd be someone else like writing the choices into existence for us to pick you know? gaster probably? god i need to read more gaster theories i completely sidestepped the gaster shit bc i wasnt interested. anyway just spitballing

-(looks at big shot guy) please dont make him the next tumblr guy i beg you

-obligatory "queen was great" mention if only because this part made me laugh a little bit too hard

that was a lot. thank you for letting me talk

#ask tag #deltarune #deltarune spoilers #snowgrave spoilers

[pies-writes-and-more]

allergic to you

Word Count: 3, 713

Pairing: Tsukishima Kei x High School Age!Fem!Reader

Warnings: some swear words I guess, but as per usual, it’s just fluff from me. 

A/N: Guess who’s finally joined another fandom lol hello Haikyuu fandom! Pls be kind, it’s my first time writing for this fandom but I am in love with Karasuno boys, it’s problematic. Anyways, please let me know if you liked it! Sorry if I didn’t quite capture him the way other writers do haha. Also, Y/N = Your (Last) Name, just cause typing Y/L/N is exhausting lol my b

(Not my gif, credits to the original creator!)

Yamaguchi was trying his very hardest not to laugh, his hands clasped together in front of his lips to stifle his giggles as the tall blond boy he had known for years just looked at him desperately.

“It’s not funny,” Tsukishima’s lips formed into a frown (almost a pout), looking away from his friend nervously. His fingers played with some chopsticks, poking at his uneaten lunch.

Yamaguchi had never see Tsukishima Kei nervous. Volleyball games? Totally calm. Math class? Easy. Exam season? Piece of cake.

But put Tsukishima near a girl? No, scratch that. Not just any girl. Put Tsukishima near Y/N? It was all over for him. Suddenly, this 190cm tall boy wanted to shrink small enough to run away and not be noticed.

“It’s a little funny, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi insisted, finally letting out just a tiny chuckle that he just couldn’t hold back. “I think you’re overreacting. Just a bit.”

Tsukishima’s eyes turned back to the other boy, staring at him as if analyzing him, “How could I be overreacting? I’m telling you, I’m allergic!”

Yamaguchi was really trying his best to be supportive, knowing that talking about things was already hard for Tsukishima, especially when involving a particularly cute girl. “You think... you’re allergic... to Y/N,” Yamaguchi retorted slowly, repeating how Tsukishima started this convo with.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Tsukishima scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Obviously it’s some product she uses or something,” his nose scrunched up slightly as he tried to think of what it could possibly be. “Like that hand lotion she uses. The one that smells like vanilla and brown sugar,” Tsukishima proclaimed, nodding to himself like he had solved the mystery.

The green haired boy was still trying his best to be supportive. He nodded slowly, giving a forced smile to his best friend as he slowly spiralled into insanity. He had never seen Tsukishima this desperate for answers before. “Hasn’t she let you use some of that hand lotion?” He wondered aloud, remembering very specifically how red Tsukishima’s ears got when she rubbed a bit into a rash he had gotten on his hand.

“Gotta take good care of your hands if you play volleyball, Tsukishima-san!” Y/N had beamed, her fingers massaging the cream in.

Tsukishima had practically fainted that day, though he’d never admit it.

The blond’s frown tightened, holding his hand to his chin in thought, “Right. So not the hand lotion then.”

“Maybe she got a new perfume?” Yamaguchi offered, nibbling on some of his lunch while Tsukishima thought it out.

“No, she’s still using the same one,” He mumbled, and Yamaguchi smirked to himself, knowing that Tsukishima would’ve never admitted before that he knew little details like this about her. 

“Well. what kinds of symptoms do you have? Maybe that’ll narrow it down,” Yamaguchi suggested, leaning his head back on the wall behind them. It wasn’t unusual for Tsukishima to want to eat some place quiet, but today had been the first day that he had practically dragged Yamaguchi to this small secluded spot behind the school. The two of them sat against a wall to eat, though Tsukishima’s lunch had been completely forgotten.

“I just-” Tsukishima hesitated, eyebrows furrowing in annoyance as he tried to word how his body felt every time she was around. “I always feel so lightheaded. And my heartbeat’s always irregular too. Sometimes it feels like I can’t breathe properly.” His hand slid into his jacket pocket, pulling out his phone and tilting the screen towards Yamaguchi to show him a medical diagnostic page on the web. “Some people say these are symptoms of allergies. Or an anxiety attack. But I’m leaning more towards allergies.”

Yamaguchi squinted at the text, “You... Googled it?” He asked, a playful smile on his lips, glancing up at Tsukishima, amused.

“Well, what else am I supposed to do?” Tsukishima scoffed, scrolling through the page. “I don’t know what else it could be. It’s not with anyone else. It can’t be the classroom either, cause when she’s not around, I don’t feel anything.”

“Hm. So what’re you going to do about it?” Yamaguchi asked, going along with this ‘allergic’ idea as much as he could. He knew Tsukishima was very rational and even if he suggested what he figured was happening, Tsukishima would never listen.

“D-Do?” Tsukishima blinked. He hadn’t thought about what the next step was.

“Well I assume you don’t want to keep feeling that like right? You could always ask the teacher to move you, I suppose. Then ask her not to attend any of our games. Avoiding her for the rest of your life seems like the best choice doesn’t it?” Yamaguchi asked innocently, closing up his lunch box and taking a sip from his juice.

Tsukishima stayed quiet, eyebrows still furrowed and the frown on his face tightening. He knew that made sense - one of the girls in their class was allergic to nuts and she always had to be careful what she ate, and he had even heard of some people not eating or drinking milk products because of allergies. The logical part of his brain agreed with Yamaguchi, perhaps staying away from Y/N was the only answer.

“Then... maybe it’s not an allergy,” Tsukishima mumbled quietly. He hated going back on his word but he couldn’t deny that he loathed the idea of not seeing Y/N’s smile ever again. Or seeing her sit with someone else. “Maybe it’s just something I have to get used to.”

“You know, Tsukishima,” Yamaguchi started again, looking off to the scenery that was in front of them. His voice was light and airy as he tried to coax his friend to the idea, “What you’re going through sounds a lot like-”

Tsukishima could hear it in his voice, he knew the next word forming from Yamaguchi’s lips before it even entered the air. He slammed his lunch box closed and stood up abruptly, turning away from the other boy’s eyes. “Lunch is over,” he grumbled, as if that was the reason he stood up so dramatically.

Yamaguchi smirked and packed up his things, shaking his head slowly when Tsukishima wasn’t looking. He wasn’t at all surprised that Tsukishima was having a hard time accepting his feelings.

The word hung in the very serious boy’s mind for the rest of the day. He tried not to focus so much on Y/N as he sat next to her for the rest of their classes, tried to not inhale too much or look in her general direction, in fear that his “allergy” would act up again.

He was almost positive it wasn’t... that. He would know for sure if it was, wouldn’t he? His nose scrunched slightly as he thought about the music he had listened to before, ones that had just a good melody and beat and he definitely didn’t listen to because of the lyrics since they were about... that thing.

Didn’t some people talk about their heart feeling like it was going to fall out of their chest? That they found it hard to breathe? That it was like all life stopped when they saw that person? And that despite all this, they never wanted to be without them?

Tsukishima had to get to the bottom of this. He was either experiencing some sort of allergic reaction to her or he was experiencing feelings. He thought about ignoring them, pretending like they didn’t exist so that maybe everything would go back to normal one day. But how long would that take? Wouldn’t it just be easier to rip off the bandaid and find out now?

At the end of class, Tsukishima zoomed his way out of class, not waiting for Yamaguchi like usual.

“Is he alright, Yamaguchi-san?” Y/N asked, surprised that the two best friends weren’t walking out together like they had every other day. Some days, they would even walk out with Y/N on their way to practice. But apparently, not today.

“He’s got a lot on his mind,” Yamaguchi explained, waving it away with a smile. Perhaps today he would be walking home by himself. And that was fine by him.

Y/N packed up her things and waved goodbye to her other classmates, heading out the door and slipping in her headphones. Her mind drifted to all the things she had to do when she got home, whether or not there were leftovers to heat up today or if she should cook something up.

“You take so long,” a drawl voice interrupted the very beginning of her first song. She blinked in surprise, looking to her right where Tsukishima was leaning against a tree.

Y/N pulled out one earbud, tilting her head as she watched him. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen him do this casual, I-don’t-care-about-anything lean, with his headphones around his neck and his hands shoved in his pockets. But there was something different about him this time. Why was he avoiding her eyes? Why was he not giving her an annoyingly carefree smile? Why were his ears turning pink?

“Were you... waiting for me, Tsukishima-san?” Y/N asked slowly. He didn’t move for a moment, as if still calculating something in that big brain of his. He pushed off of the tree after sighing, walking over to her slowly.

“Obviously,” was all he said, glaring down at her as if she should’ve known this.

“You rushed out of class so quick, I thought you were already going home,” Y/N responded, still a bit confused. “Don’t you and Yamaguchi normally walk home together?”

Why did she have to question so much? Why couldn’t she just realize what he was trying to do? Tsukishima huffed and grabbed her hand, dropping a nice cool juice box in it. His eyes darted away from her next inquisitive look, but glanced back almost immediately because he wanted to see her eyes widen just a little at her favourite juice box.

“W-What is this?” Y/N asked, holding it in her hands. Part of her wanted to examine it to make sure he hadn’t somehow tricked her into holding something that wasn’t actually juice. She looked up at him suspiciously - Tsukishima knew her favourite juice?

“You didn’t have one with you today. I figured you forgot your wallet again today,” Tsukishima mumbled, shoving his hands in his jacket again.

“O-Oh. I did, thank you. Um,” Y/N hesitated. Was Tsukishima trying... to be nice? “Why... why did you buy it for me?”

“I just said why,” Tsukishima scoffed, flicking her head gently. He scolded himself internally, feeling guilty as soon as she showed the surprise on her face. She’s asking why you thought to be nice, Kei, stop being snarky, he told himself harshly. “Sorry,” he muttered quickly, feeling almost immediately bad for flicking her.

Y/N just laughed though, giggles spilling from her lips as she looked up at him, “Are you feeling okay, Tsukishima-san? You’re turning red,” she teased gently and he looked away from her quickly, hating how quickly his face heated up.

He took a breath, trying to mimic how calm he was on the court. He turned back to look at her with a cocky smile and confidence gaze, though he was sure she could tell he was nervous, “I’m fine, Y/N-san. But I need to tell you something. And I’m only going to say it once so listen up.”

Y/N watched him intently, noting the fake confidence he was trying to put on. She nodded as he looked at her for any sign to keep going.

His lips opened for a moment and Y/N could’ve sworn there was a moment of panic in his eyes when nothing came out. “I’m going to walk you home today,” Tsukishima stated finally, each word thudding into the air. He felt his confidence falter as the wrong words left his mouth, shifting his bag on his shoulder and starting to walk ahead.

Y/N’s eyebrows furrowed, feeling her confusion only rise. Did he really build up that whole thing... just to walk her home?

“Hurry up or I’ll leave you here,” Tsukishima called behind his shoulder, still walking ahead. He was internally punching himself, groaning and uttering insults at his own stupid self. Couldn’t even say it. Couldn’t just say Y/N I like you and I think I’m either allergic to you or I’m utterly in love with you but I’ve been told I suck at explaining how I feel and that I never say the right things at the right time so please just reject me so I can move away from these exhausting feelings.

“Want some?” Y/N’s gentle voice was suddenly beside him, and Tsukishima felt his stomach doing that flipping motion again. He glanced down at her and saw her holding up the juice box at him. “Seems only fair, since you bought it,” she explained, the glimmer in her eyes making him feel way too warm inside.

“Sure,” he mumbled after a moment. She smiled just a little bit wider, holding up the juice to him, expecting him to just snatch it away and drink. But no, Tsukishima being a little bitch and deciding that if he couldn’t admit anything with words, he could try with actions, leaned down slightly, and latched his lips onto the straw. His hand wrapped around hers over the juice box, holding it still as he took a sip.

Y/N felt like she was suddenly bright red, her heart possibly having exploded right then and there. His eyes looked up to meet hers as he sipped, smirking a bit as he noticed the panicked and flushed look in her eyes.

Maybe the feeling is... mutual?

“Mm,” he hummed, pulling away after keeping her gaze for a second. “I guess I can see why you like it.”

Y/N had shivers running up and down her spine, feeling like Tsukishima had looked into her very soul and knew about her year-long crush on him.

The two of them started walking a bit slower after that, and to the external eye, you’d probably just see two classmates walking home together. But look a little closer, and you’d see both of them having internal conflicts. They managed to walk through the small roads filled with shops and make it about halfway to Y/N’s house in complete silence. 

“Y/N-san,” Tsukishima finally ended it, the agonizing silence, in which he had been racking his brain trying to think of how to start a conversation. He stopped in his tracks as he spoke the one word, the two of them now on a quieter dirt path. There was no one to interrupt them, no one to save Tsukishima from embarrassment, no Yamaguchi to fill the awkward silence.

“Hm?” Y/N looked back at him, noticing him just standing there. “Are you alright, Tsukishima-san?”

“There’s something I need to say,” he started, his hands in his pockets clenched into fists.

“O-Oh okay.”

“I’ve been... feeling sick around you.” Baka, he scolded himself for what felt like the millionth time. That definitely wasn’t the way he had wanted to say it. “I-I mean, not like sick sick but like allergy sick,” he tried to recover, but scoffed at himself since that wasn’t all that much better.

Y/N’s eyebrows furrowed in response, trying to think about his reactions lately. He had definitely been more flushed lately, but she always thought that was annoyance. He’d been quieter and more distant, but it was Tsukishima after all. He looked over to her desperately, hoping to see that she was understanding what he was trying to say. She wasn’t. 

Tsukishima was starting to get frustrated. He knew he wasn’t the greatest at communicating but how hard was it to see how much he liked her? Yamaguchi saw it, hell, even his upperclassmen teased him about it when they first saw Tsukishima and Y/N walking out of class together one day. So why did other people who didn’t need to know it, why did they understand but she didn’t? Why was she so dense? 

You’re not saying anything, his mind reminded him as he scowled to himself.

“It has to be that,” Tsukishima finally continued quietly, his eyes now staring at his feet. He was practically trying to convince himself now. It had to be that there was a health related issue with him being around her. It had to be that, because if it wasn’t, it meant that Tsukishima had to tell her how he felt. And that meant that he was probably going to end up hurt. Why a girl like Y/N hung around a guy like him anyways was beyond him. 

“Why?” Y/N frowned, still terribly lost in the cosmos of this odd confession. “Why would it have to be that?”

“Because if it isn’t that, then it means that I’ve fallen completely head over heels for you.”

Tsukishima wasn’t sure how he had managed to say the words. But there it was. His fists tightened even more, his fingernails digging into his palm so hard it was starting to hurt. 

His eyes closed tightly, turning his head away from her. He didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to see laughter or disgust in her eyes. Maybe he could take it back now. Maybe he could-

Tsukishima jumped at the feeling of a poke on his chest, his eyes opening in surprise when he found Y/N standing much closer than she was earlier. “Are you teasing me?” She asked defensively, squinting her eyes up at him.

“T-Teasing?” Tsukishima stammered. He watched her eyes, noting how visibly upset she looked and he could feel his frustration rising. He had finally said what he had wanted to say this whole time... and she wasn’t even reacting the way she was supposed to. How stupid did she have to be? And why did she have to look so damn cute while doing it?

“Yamaguchi-san told you, didn’t he? I knew that poophead couldn’t keep his mouth shut,” she grumbled, crossing her arms against her chest. “He swore he wouldn’t tell you, but I should’ve known. You guys are best friends and all.”

“Told me... told me what?”

“That I’ve liked you practically since we met,” Y/N huffed, putting her hands on her hips. “Listen, Tsukishima-san, if you don’t like me back, you don’t have to tease me like this. I’m perfectly fine being rejected,” she told him with a pout on her lips (she was definitely not fine being rejected, and was planning on crying at home after this). “Don’t act like you didn’t know.”

Tsukishima‘s eyes widened, staring at her like she had grown a second head. “You... You like me?” He gulped. His allergies must be getting worse, his heart was thumping so hard against his chest, he couldn’t think straight.

Y/N and him shared a confused look for a moment, neither one of them sure who was teasing whom at this point. “Didn’t... didn’t you know? That’s why you’re being nice to me?” She asked him, poking his chest again. “Why else would you be walking me home and buying me juice?”

“Why would...” Tsukishima’s lips curled into a smile and suddenly he burst out into laughter, tilting his head back in amusement. 

“Why are you laughing?” Y/N whined, punching his arm lightly with a huff. “This isn’t a time to be laughing at me!”

Tsukishima straightened up with his signature cocky smile, shaking his head as he fixed his glasses on his face. Then, his hand moved to hit the top of her head.

“OW! Tsukishima-san!”

“You idiot. Why would I be standing here confessing to you if I was just going to make fun of you?” Tsukishima scoffed, smirking at her. “If I didn’t like you back and I found out you liked me, don’t you think I would’ve made it clear by now that you never stood a chance?”

Y/N thought about this for a moment, remembering that one time a girl in a different class had confessed to him after attending one of his matches.

“I think you’re incredible, Tsukishima-san! A-And I just.... well I just...”

“Are you trying to confess to me?” Tsukishima didn’t even bother looking up from his study book, finishing an equation before even glancing at her. “You should just give up now. I’m not interested.”

The girl had teared up so much, even Y/N had felt bad (even though she was secretly happy that Tsukishima hadn’t accepted the confession). Yamaguchi had yelled at Tsukishima about being gentle that day.

“Why would I be nice to someone stupid enough to think I’d like them? I didn’t give her any hints that I did, I don’t even know her,” Tsukishima grumbled.

Y/N had internalized those words, deciding she wouldn’t confess her feelings to Tsukishima ever. If she did, and Tsukishima rejected her, he probably wouldn’t want to be around her as friends ever again.

“So...” Y/N thought to herself for a moment, trying to reexamine what had happened today. “What was with the juice box then?” She asked him. 

“I thought...” Tsukishima frowned a little, looking up at the sky in thought. “I thought when you confess you were supposed to... give a gift or something.”

Y/N couldn’t help but giggle at his thought process and Tsukishima glared at her slightly. “You’re laughing at me now?”

She shook her head quickly, trying to stifle her giggles, “I just... I think it’s sweet,” she beamed, holding onto her little juice box even though it was empty now.

Tsukishima watched her carefully before smiling a little, patting her head gently, “Alright then, let’s get you home. I’ll bring another juice box for you for our date.”

“D-Date?” Y/N repeated shyly, following him as he started to walk again.

“You thought I’d just confess to you and not ask you out? Idiot,” Tsukishima smirked, feeling such an intense relief on his shoulders. His heart was still beating furiously and his stomach felt like it was going to come up his throat, but... it wasn’t as frustrating of a feeling now. 

After he dropped her off at her house with the promise of walking her to school tomorrow morning, Tsukishima couldn’t help but allow himself to smile widely the whole way home. 

If this is what an allergy felt like, he never wanted it to stop.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

Okay like I mentioned up there in the Author’s Notes, this is my first time writing for Haikyuu so lmk what you thought :) I’ve written some stuff for OHSHC and I think it’s pretty obviously that tall jerks with glasses are my type lol 

Anyways! Enjoy!

#haikyuu x reader #haikyu x reader #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei x reader #tsukishima x you #tsukishima kei x you #tsukishima kei x y/n #tsukishima x y/n #tsukishima kei #hq fluff #hq #hq tsukishima #yamaguchi being our adorable lovely boi #would die for him #hq fics #hq x reader #haikyuu fluff #haikyu fluff #tsukkishima kei #tsukkishima kei x reader #tsukkishima haikyuu #haikyuu tsukkishima

[akaashisupremacy]

A Little in Love

Summary: Having broken off your engagement for an arranged marriage with him, your relationship is in shreds. As you and Gojo begin as friends again, he wonders if he ever fell out of love for you. Has he?

Notes: Gojo Satoru is good-looking, all powerful and beyond good at his job. I’ve always wanted to explore something he struggles with

Gojo Satoru  x reader

Multi-fandom Masterlist || HQ Masterlist || Ao3 version

Genre: ANGST AND PINING, exes to friends to ??, commitment issues lol (wc: 1.3k) tw: mention of blood, infedelity-ish

“Are you sure you’re not in love with them?”

That question wipes the smile off Gojo Satorou’s face.

Tonight’s dinner was unexpected. You ran into Shoko Ieri, Jujutsu Kaisen’s resident doctor and Gojo Satoru just as your work day ended. One thing led to another and the three of you ended up in a soba place not too far from Jujutsu Tech. When you excused yourself to use the washroom Ieri-san grabs the chance to ask the burning question on her mind.

“So what’s the answer? You’re awfully quiet.”

“We’re not engaged anymore. That ship has sailed.” he waves his hand dismissively.

Ieri rolls her eyes. All throughout dinner, Gojo was teasing you, offering you food, playing light pranks at you just like he was when you were teenagers. The way he looked at you was enough to tick any off about how he feels.

She retorts, “You can try again now that you’re adults. You’re allowed to make a go at a love match.”

Gojo’s relationship with you is…complicated. You two were arranged to be married when you were children, but had broken up as teenagers.

Gojo looks contemplative, his hands clasped together.

“I’ve thought about it.” he sighs, “And I think about it every time we meet, but—I don’t think I’m the type to commit and they need a commitment type. It’s not a match.” Ieri scowls on your behalf. 

During your time at Jujutsu Tech, he simultaneously wanted to give your relationship a shot but hated the restrictions set on him. In the end, it was all too much. Both of you begged your families to break off the engagement.

Your teenage years with him were confusing. Were you really in love or those feelings fabricated by the arranged marriage? If the marriage wasn’t a love match anyway, why did it hurt to see Gojo flirt with someone else?

Gojo remembered one of your early confrontations when you were 16 and he was 17. 

“It’s difficult to be engaged to you.” you expressed, exasperated. 

When you started school at Jujutsu Tech however, something changed. Gojo didn’t want to be seen around you. He was always flirting with others behind your back. You can’t even have a proper conversation with him alone. 

During your second year, you finally stood up to him. 

“No, it’s not.” he rolled his eyes, “You don’t even have to pretend that you like me.”

It worried you that he definitely couldn’t be faithful and it hurt you that he couldn’t even spare time to properly talk with you. 

You sighed and looked left and right. It’s had been ten minutes. You were still standing outside his dorm room and he has not intention of letting you in. 

“It’s not about that!” you exclaimed, annoyed, “I know you don’t like being engaged to me, which is fine—“

“It doesn’t sound fine,” he snorts, crossing his arms. He tries to drown the sound of your voice from the surrounding cicadas. 

“—if you weren’t such an asshole,” you continued, “But can you at least treat me with more respect. Everybody knows we’re engaged. Neither of us want to be in arranged marriage so all I’m begging you to do is to —“ 

He shrugs, “No promises.” 

He could see anger light beneath your eyes. Out of the darkness of the night, a silver flicker brushes by his side. You were seething, despite being barely illuminated by the light of the corridor bulbs. 

You had drawn out a dagger at him. You! His kind, patient fiancee. It happened so fast he almost didn’t dodge. 

“I missed on purpose. Don’t you get complacent.” you muttered, turning away. 

Gojo was surprised to see tears running down your face. You’ve never looked so upset. It catches him off guard. 

“I’m sorry,” was all he had to utter. He wasn’t even sure you heard him because you had already begun walking away. You had drawn the blade, but in reality it was you that was hurting and he the trespasser. 

He shakes his head at Ieri and continues, “I don’t want to hurt them again. It was bad enough when our engagement fell apart.”

He didn’t mean to hurt you then of course. It was harsh to expect commitment out of a teenager who wasn’t ready, but you were still in pain.

Ieri sizes him up in the dim lighting of the diner. Gojo likes to be in control. He likes to be the one to set traps. It’s interesting to see him be the captive for once.

“You haven’t answered my question.” she presses.

Gojo’s fingers tense up.he gives in just a bit, “I’ll always be a little in love with them. Maybe because I was obligated to for so long.”

“And that’s not enough though, because they deserve more” he quickly adds.

“Can’t you change? Sounds like you’re afraid to try.” she sighs.

Gojo is quiet once again.

“Don’t wait for them to be in love with someone else before you realize that you want to be with them. I’d hate for you to be too late.” she warns, glancing towards you as you walk back to the table.

He looks away from Ieri. You sit back down in front of him.

He feels his heart swell and hurt at the same time. You’ve always represented a jumble of contradictions for him: someone to love and someone who represents traditions he hates.

“Did I miss something?” you ask, sensing the tension.

“No, nothing.” he denies, his voice purposely lightening to cover his mood.

“Well, why does everyone look so serious?” you perkily ask.

Gojo briefly glances at you. His shoulders relax and he sits back into his seat. After all these years, it’s still so easy to be swayed by your bright eyes.

“I was just about to call for another drink.” Ieri clears her throat.

“Me, too.” he adds.

You look at him carefully, a tinge of worry in your eyes. You don’t say anything though. Not now. This is between you and him. It’s a matter outside of your friendship with Ieri.  

“You can have my drink.” you offer to him, eyes locked onto his. 

Sensing your stare, he turns back at you, glad that his bandages cover his vulnerability. He’s not sure he can take it if you saw how deeply conflicted he was about his feelings. As he continues to look, recognition dawns on him.

In another universe, you could be married right now. You’d be having dinner, just the two of you, sitting across each other like this. In another world, maybe you wouldn’t have known each other at all. This moment feels like purgatory. He’s somewhat in love, just a little and you’re not his in a way that feels real.

You push your drink into his hands. Ieri looks away to give you a semblance of privacy. Gojo finally takes the drink. 

It feels strange for the man who has everything, to know he only has a little bit of you.

------------------------------------------------------------

General taglist: @itstheee-ha-chan@kaizumi@holaaaf@glxar@francxsca

Series Taglist: @kageyamakock​ @gucci-froggy @cherryonigiri

I wrote this as a follow up for another Gojo x reader fic who used to be engaged. Check it here. This is 2/4 so let me know if you’d like to be tagged in the rest of the releases! 😊

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5 || Part 6 || Part 7 || Part 8

#gojo x reader #gojo x you #gojo x y/n #gojo satoru x y/n #gojo satoru x gender neutral reader #jjk gojo #gojo satoru x reader #jjk x gender neutral reader #jjk x reader #jjk x y/n #jjk x you #satoru gojo x reader #satoru gojo x you #satoru gojo x y/n #gojo angst #jjk angst #jjk scenarios #jjk imagines

[septembercfawkes]

Principles of the Steadfast, Flat-arc Protagonist

Last week I debunked six myths about the steadfast (also known as the flat-arc) character. Now, I would like to share 6 principles of writing a positive steadfast protagonist.

Steadfast/flat-arc characters are characters who don't drastically change their worldviews over the course of the story. In contrast, a change character will do largely a 180 flip in worldview from the beginning of the story to the end of the story.

For example, in Wonder Woman, Diana begins the story with the perspective that we should fight for the world we believe in. At the end of the story, she proves that true by using it to defeat the antagonist (this helps make up the story's theme). But in Frozen, Elsa begins the story with the worldview that one must be closed off to be safe and authentic. Because of the story, she learns that, actually, we must be open to be loved authentically (that might mean we get hurt, but some love is worth the hurt). This enables her to set things right, which proves that perspective true (and helps make up the story's theme).

Both flat-arc characters and change characters have negative versions: a character who remains steadfast to an inaccurate worldview and suffers punishment for it, and a character who changes from a true worldview to an inaccurate one and suffers punishment for it. Negative versions of each type are harder to find, but not nonexistent.

Almost all protagonists are positive change-arc protagonists. This means that almost all writing resources help writers write positive change-arc protagonists. This also means there are very few resources to help writers write steadfast protagonists.

You often can't apply change-arc advice to steadfast characters. It doesn't work.

Luckily, whichever protagonist type you're writing, each story actually has pretty much the same structural pieces--they're just arranged differently. Some are reversed while others receive more emphasis.

Today I'm going to explain how these pieces are different for a positive steadfast protagonist story, in comparison to the common positive change protagonist story.

This is a little like being left-handed in a right-handed world. That's it--the steadfast protagonists are the lefties of the storytelling world.

First, I would like to acknowledge those in the industry who have helped me understand the flat-arc protagonist and therefore influenced this post. If you want to learn more about this protagonist, check out these resources:

K. M. Weiland's Character Arc Series (Katie is amazing and this is honestly the best resource I've found so far on flat-arc characters.)

Character Arcs by Jordan McCollum (This book has a brief section on the flat arc.)

"Character Arcs 102: Flat Arcs" at The Novel Smithy (Lewis succinctly breaks down the flat-arc protagonist's three-act structure.)

Dramatica Theory (I already mentioned last week how Dramatica uses the term "steadfast" instead of "flat arc")

Writing Characters Without Character Arcs by Just Write (Youtube video)

I'll also be doing more posts on this protagonist type in the future.

1. Reversing Orientation: Change <--> Steadfast

Despite being the "lefties," almost every story will feature a key flat-arc character, like I mentioned last week:

In stories that have a change protagonist, the steadfast character will be the Influence Character. The Influence Character is typically someone the protagonist has an important relationship with, especially through the middle of the story. This is usually a love interest, mentor, or sidekick, but it can be almost anything. Of course, there are variations to the Influence Character, and you can learn more about them in my article on them. The Influence Character also serves as a thematic opponent, to some degree.

Why is the change protagonist most commonly paired with a steadfast character?

Dramatica Theory argues that it's because in order for a story to feel "complete" or "whole"--to properly mimic the human experience--we need to witness each perspective. Otherwise, it feels like something is missing.

It's not impossible to have a change protagonist be paired up with another change character, it's just that when this happens, usually an outsider who is steadfast gets involved and becomes the real Influence Character for both of them. It's also not impossible for the "Influence Character" to be more than one person. A story may have multiple Influence Characters, or even have a group that functions as the Influence Character.

In a story that features a flat-arc protagonist, the types are reversed. The Influence Character becomes a change character:

Moana is steadfast while Maui is change.

In Arrival, Louise Banks is steadfast while Ian is change.

In Cinderella, Ella is steadfast while the prince is change.

In Princess Mononoke, Ashitaka is steadfast while San is change.

In Wonder Woman, Diana is steadfast while Steve is change. (Steve's change isn't as drastic, but if you watch, he moves from disbeleiving the world Diana talks about, to believing in it.)

Usually, this pairing is positive steadfast protagonist and positive change Influence Character. This means that the Influence Character will usually start on the inaccurate worldview--the opposing side of the thematic argument. They will at least voice or tap into it in some way. By the end, they will have an accurate worldview, adopting the steadfast protagonist's perspective.

Generally speaking, anyway, as there are of course exceptions and variations.

So in a sense, when working with a steadfast protagonist, you are reorienting the structure to focus on the steadfast character, instead of the change one.

2. Inaccurate Worldview: Within <--> Without

The positive change protagonist has an inaccurate worldview in the beginning--this is sometimes referred to as the "lie" (as K. M. Weiland says it), "misbelief" (as Lisa Cron says it), or "flaw." He will overcome this on his journey and embrace the accurate worldview--the "truth." The truth is also the thematic statement.

The positive steadfast protagonist has the "truth," the accurate worldview, the thematic statement, from the beginning. This means that the inaccurate worldview needs to come from outside them. They need to encounter it in the environment.

You need to have the inaccurate worldview present. Otherwise, there is no opposing argument, no moral conflict.

A theme is essentially an argument about how we live our lives. You can't win an argument if no one is disagreeing. Someone needs to oppose the truth--I like to think of this opposition as the anti-theme. It is essentially the "lie," "misbelief," or "flaw." It is the worldview that is proven wrong by the end of the story.

It's just that with the flat-arc protagonist, that will hit them more from the outside. They will either:

- Enter a society run by the inaccurate worldview

- Have the inaccurate worldview enter their society

- Already live in a society riddled with the inaccurate worldview

Remember, a "society" is simply a collective--it can be as small as a school club or as big as a global government.

I don't know for sure that it always has to be a collective, but even if it's primarily an individual, the inaccurate worldview will still be within the surrounding characters--so in a sense, still part of the environment and society.

In Arrival, Louise is quickly surrounded by people who don't value or understand communication, or how it can avoid confrontation. She does. But she has to put up with that opposition and convince others to share her perspective.

In Princess Mononoke, a demonic boar full of hate and rage enters Ashitaka's peaceful society. After killing it, Ashitaka must journey far away to a land ruled by hate--where he is the only person who stands for peace.

In Wonder Woman, Diana must leave her society behind and enter a world war where humankind doesn't simply fight for a better world, but actively kills the innocent.

Rather than the protagonist transforming within, the positive steadfast protagonist will transform those around them, making the environment a better place as they hold steadfast to the true, accurate, worldview.

3. Internal Journey: Changed vs. Challenged

There is sometimes this idea, this . . . inaccurate worldview 😉 in the writing community that steadfast protagonists can't have rich internal journeys. As someone who loves the internal journey the best out of the plotlines, and who loves many steadfast protagonists the best, I don't find this to be true. Some of the most emotional internal journeys I've experienced, have come from positive steadfast protagonists. And one doesn't have to look far to find examples: The story of Jesus in the New Testament has moved whole nations.

It's fair to say that some steadfast protagonists don't have much of an internal plotline, like classic Superman or 007, but that has more to do with structuring plotlines than it does with character arcs.

For the change protagonist, the internal journey will largely be about transformation--a change. It's a journey to become a better person, and that can be a rich journey indeed.

For the steadfast protagonist, the internal journey will be a test of their beliefs--a challenge. It's a journey about ultimately choosing to hold strong in what you believe in, even if it seems the whole world is against you, (and for a steadfast protagonist journey, that's probably a good idea).  

In a strange way, though, these two internal journeys are two sides of the same coin. After all, the change protagonist believes his worldview is the accurate worldview--that's why he has it! He doesn't believe, or at least doesn't clearly see, that he needs to change. The obstacles of the plot will reveal to him he could be wrong, that he needs to fix something about himself. Similarly, the steadfast protagonist believes she's right, and the obstacles of the plot will challenge that by suggesting she could be wrong and needs to bend to the opposing force.

One might argue that the main difference, then, is that the positive change protagonist succeeds at the end by changing, and that the positive steadfast protagonist succeeds at the end by not changing. But I think most of us would agree it'd be more helpful if we differentiated them a little more.

Because the transformation aspect is missing from the steadfast character, it becomes arguably more important to nail the other features of the internal journey. It's not that those features don't exist in the change journey, it's just that without the change itself, they carry more weight and become more centre stage (generally speaking).

One of the aspects that becomes critical, is that the steadfast protagonist needs to pay a high cost. If having an accurate worldview and using it to change the world around them is about as difficult as a stroll in the park, it can become annoying fast. Real life just isn't like that. Even when we are doing good, we still experience hardship, suffering, and opposition. If the steadfast protagonist doesn't have to pay a cost, then they're not really having their beliefs tested.

While a change protagonist's pain may come more from being wrong and having to change--in a sense being "punished" for being wrong--a steadfast protagonist's pain will come from being right and suffering for it, and having to remain true despite that. Essentially they embody the adage, "No good deed goes unpunished."

For example, in Princess Mononoke, in Ashitaka's quest to bring peace to a world at war, Ashitaka must endure a bullet, stabbing, and face death. He's no one's enemy, but he sometimes gets treated as one. He would likely suffer less if he just joined the war efforts and embraced the inaccurate worldview, or if he simply left. Likewise, Jesus holding true to his beliefs in the New Testament, led to him being crucified.

As the obstacles of the plot mount, the steadfast protagonist will be asked to doubt their worldview. Some steadfast protagonists entertain doubt more than others. This may lead to the protagonist wavering in his or her beliefs. Ashitaka entertains doubt only a little, while in Wonder Woman, Diana is brought to her knees by doubt, nearly turning her back on her beliefs. Doubt will usually be strongest at the end of the middle--what some call "The Ordeal," which will lead into the “All is Lost” and "Dark Night of the Soul" moments.

Often, in order for this to work well, the opposing argument needs to appear valid. It needs to look as if the inaccurate worldview could actually be the accurate worldview. It needs to look like the anti-theme could actually be the theme. Like the "lie" could actually be the "truth." This means it becomes perhaps even more important, for you as the writer, to show the legitimate strength of the opposing perspective. If it's obvious the theme is the "truth," then there is no need for the protagonist to experience doubt. There isn't even a need to have a thematic argument. The protagonist may also (or sometimes, instead) doubt his ability or worthiness to live and spread the truth. For more on the power of doubt with flat-arc characters, check out K. M. Weiland's article "Why Doubt is the Key to Flat Character Arcs."

Like costs, stakes become more critical. Stakes are potential consequences. They put pressure on the protagonist and give their choices meaning. If sticking to their worldview means they must suffer steep consequences, their actions carry more weight. It's easy to do what is right when you have nothing to lose. If I found a lost dog, it would be easy for me to look at its tags and return it to its owner. If I found a mean dog trying to bite my hand the evening before my piano recital, wrangled it, saw it belonged to my worst enemy, and still chose to return it--that reveals just how committed I am to saving those lost.

The steadfast protagonist needs to be challenged and tested--one of the best ways to do that is to raise the stakes. Raise them high enough to get them to hesitate, to doubt, to pay a steep cost. In a rich internal journey, we want to push the steadfast protagonist to her limits. What is it going to take to get your protagonist to consider the opposing side? To tempt her to give up her beliefs? In a sense, through the middle, we are really throwing temptations at the protagonist, trying to get her to give in to the opposing argument. Sometimes the most powerful way to do this, is to give the protagonist conflicting wants.

In reality, the audience can't fully see just how steadfast the protagonist is, if she doesn't have to suffer costs, legitimate doubts, and high stakes. It's only in the face of adversity, can we measure true character.

That is the meat of the steadfast protagonist's inner journey.  

* I would like to add just one warning, however. In your quest to make your steadfast protagonist struggle, it's important he or she still has some victories along the way. Just as it becomes annoying if the steadfast protagonist never has to struggle, it can also become annoying if the steadfast protagonist never has any success.

4. Ghost/Wound: Inaccurate Belief <--> Accurate Belief

(This is a repeat section from last week. I just thought it would be helpful to have all these elements on the same post.)

A "ghost" is a past, significant, often traumatic event that motivates the character to adopt an inaccurate worldview (the "anti-theme" or the "lie" or the "misbelief"--depending on your preferred terminology). In the industry, this is also sometimes called a "wound." You can learn all about ghosts/wounds in my article, "Giving Your Protagonist a Ghost."

But in a positive steadfast protagonist, this is often flipped. The ghost is often a past, significant, sometimes traumatic event that motivates the character to adopt the accurate worldview (the "theme" or the "truth" if you prefer).

For example, Cinderella's mother, while on her deathbed, tells Cinderella to always be kind. This motivates Cinderella to do just that.

Of course, not every character will have a ghost addressed in the story.

For the positive steadfast protagonist, the ghost may be largely resolved.

But not always. They may not have complete closure and peace. And it's possible they are still traumatized by the event.

Sometimes adhering to what is true can be nearly as haunting as having regrets. It's just that the haunting will come from either the cost of the truth, or, a lack of power--a lack of control--during the ghost. Generally speaking anyway.

In The X-Files, Fox Mulder, in the overall story and theme, is a positive steadfast character. The ongoing theme is an argument of belief vs. disbelief. (The motifs, "I want to believe" and "The truth is out there" speak to that.) However, Mulder has an unresolved, traumatizing ghost: his little sister was abducted by aliens.

This event cements him to the thematic truth of belief and motivates him to investigate anything unnatural. But this happened at the cost of his sister.

Sometimes the trauma comes from not being able to do anything, just as Mulder was powerless to stop the abduction.

Other times it may come from not being able to stop a loved one from choosing the inaccurate worldview--the "lie," "anti-theme," or "misbelief." The steadfast character may be haunted by the outcome of someone else choosing the lie.

5. Want vs. Need <--> I Want the Need

For all other character arcs, what the character wants and what the character needs will be two different things. You can learn about want vs. need in depth here.

In a positive change arc, the protagonist will want something that will manifest in concrete goals, which helps make up the plot of the story. Elsa wants to live in isolation to be herself, so she runs away and creates an ice castle (accidentally freezing the kingdom in the process). The need will be a realization that is thematic--it will be the thematic statement. Elsa needs to learn to be open to love to be authentic--that's what will actually solve her problems.

For the positive steadfast protagonist, the want and the need will be more closely aligned. The protagonist wants what is needed. In a sense, he starts the story with the need. However, the need still has to be applied to the concrete world, which isn't necessarily easy. In a sense, we are taking the need that is within, and trying to apply it to the "real world," which is without. For example, if I know I need to exercise to be healthy, then I probably also want to do that. But that means I still need to put in the work. It also doesn’t mean I know everything about the process--because I may not have full experience with it. I might need to learn a new skill, like how to swim properly.

In Moana, Moana already knows who she is on the inside (thematic statement)--she knows she and her people are meant to sail--but she still has to learn how to sail.

Ashitaka knows the world needs peace, but he doesn't know how to make peace happen within a war. He knows how to have an inner peace, but he doesn't know how to make the external world--the societies around him--peaceful. He's trying to figure it out along the way. He's trying to figure out how to apply a personal experience to the public environment.

The protagonist may still need a greater, more complete understanding of the need, the theme, and how to properly apply it to the real world. We all want to solve world hunger--but how do we actually do that?

On top of that, as the protagonist struggles to meet the need, you may want to tempt him with a conflicting want. In Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, Peter Parker both wants what is needed (to be a self-sacrificing hero) and wants a personal want (to live an ordinary life with Mary Jane Watson). This creates inner turmoil. (And also gives more meat to the internal journey.)

As tests and doubts get heavy, the other want may appear more "right" and enticing. It will almost certainly appear easier.

As tests and doubts get heavy, the flat-arc protagonist may lose sight of the need. In Wonder Woman's "All is Lost" moment, Diana doesn't want to fight for the world she believes in anymore. The world doesn't deserve it. She loses sight of the need, the theme.

In short, the struggle comes from trying to apply the need, being tempting with another want, and/or losing sight of the need.

6. Protagonist Changes <--> Cast Changes

I touched on this earlier, but it's worth giving its own section.

In many positive change protagonist stories, the protagonist will change to the worldview some of the cast members around him have. In Spider-verse, Miles Morales must learn to persevere like the other spider people around him.

In many flat-arc protagonist stories, the cast around the protagonist will change their worldviews to match hers. Moana's journey changes not only Maui's understanding of himself, but Te Fiti's, and everyone's on the island as well.

In some flat-arc stories, this can be critical at the "All is Lost" moment, because if the protagonist is suffering serious doubt, the supporting cast can bolster her by now acting on the accurate worldview, which is essentially what happens in Wonder Woman. As Diana crumbles under doubt, all of her team members enter the fray, prepared to die to make the world a better place. Their selfless sacrifices wake her up, and she recommits to the theme, finding the strength to take on Ares.

Some stories may emphasize these changes more than others, but pretty much always, the Influence Character will at least experience a noticeable change--usually demonstrated near the same place in structure that the change protagonist will change.

But applying the steadfast protagonist to story structure will be for another day (hopefully in the coming weeks). Stay tuned!

#writing tips #writing tips and tricks #writeblr #fanfic #nanowrimo #writing reference #writing advice #protagonist #steadfast protagonist #flat-arc protagonist #moana #arrival #princess mononoke #wonder woman #character #character arcs #writing help

[shadowed-dancer]

How the anime enhanced the Touya mystery

Season 5 of MHA just finished adapting the Endeavour Agency Arc. While everyone has their own opinion on how the anime adaptation is doing, I wanted to take a moment to praise something that (I think) they handled really well: The Touya Mystery. Today we’re going to walk through how the anime handled this plot point, and why it worked so well.

Proud to say this post is free of manga spoilers! Today we’re ONLY talking about the anime.

Intro: What is the Touya Mystery?

The Touya mystery is the ongoing mystery of what happened to the third Todoroki son. It is foreshadowed in seasons 2 and 4, but it exists in earnest throughout season 5. It is never explicitly stated, but is instead referenced in passing by the characters, allowing the audience to try and piece everything together until it is eventually confirmed.

Disclaimer

Obviously the manga has this mystery as well, but anime as a medium has certain factors that the manga simply doesn’t have. OPs and EDs are a good example, but there’s also the way hiatuses affect the way we consume the story, as well as how the breakdown of seasons clump certain storylines closer together then they were in the manga (compare 6 months to get through Joint Training in the manga, compared to 2.5 months for the anime).

I am also aware of the theories surrounding Touya’s potential connection to a previously established character. You’ve probably seen the theory at some point, but I won’t name names just incase some of you haven’t. Either way, this post isn’t about that theory.

Finally, I’m very well aware that most viewers may not have picked up on some of the stuff I’m saying. A lot of these points are minor details, and I don’t fault anyone for missing out on that. In fact, I’m sure there are some fans out there who never even realized there was a 4th Todoroki sibling because they just... didn’t care or pay attention. I’m going at this with the mindset of someone who is very, VERY analytical, not your average viewer who’s just here to enjoy the show.

The Set Up: Season 2

We are first introduced to the Todoroki siblings way back in Season 2, Episode 10 (Todoroki’s fight with Deku in the Sports Festival). During Shoto’s flashback, we are given this frame to introduce his siblings...

We have the white-haired brother, the red-haired brother, and the sister. In this scene, the red-haired brother fumbles his soccer move and ends up falling, causing his siblings to laugh. This added movement (which was never in the manga) causes the red-haired brother to stand out slightly more than his siblings.

Now, granted, I’ve seen quite a few people who didn’t realize these were Shoto’s siblings at first. They just thought he was watching his neighbours. That’s why, if their hair colours weren’t enough to clue you in on their relationship to Shoto, we meet the sister a few episodes later (Season 2, Episode 12).

She refers to Endeavour as “dad” which informs the audience that she is also Endeavour’s child, and is therefore Shoto’s sister. It then stands to reason that the two boys she was playing with (both of whom share their hair colour with her and Shoto) would be her brothers.

The Set Up: Shout Baby

Season 4, Episode 15 gives us a new ending sequence, Shout Baby, in which we see this...

Todoroki Family photos. On the left is a photo of Shoto on his first day of school (I double checked and the sign behind him indicates some sort of entrance ceremony). On the right, we are given a photo of the sister and white-haired brother as adults.

(Despite it not being explicit, you can tell that’s the white haired brother based on context clues. He looks so similar to the kid in the flashback that it doesn’t make sense for him to be anyone else. This is of course confirmed later in the season).

However, the red-haired brother is missing, which now launches the mystery of why. Why is he not in any of the photos? And then, as the frame pans down, we get this...

A torn, burnt corner of a photograph. For a while, I had some trouble making out what that blue stuff was in the corner, but a comment on Youtube helped point out that it is the exact same Sakura tree as the one in Shoto’s photo. You can even see the branch in the same spot.

So what does this tell us? Well, it’s the same place Shoto went to school, but the photo is burnt. Is it just a burned up copy of the same photo to symbolize how Endeavour ruined Shoto’s childhood? Or is it a photo of one of the other kids attending the same school, burned for mysterious reasons?

The actual answer is that it’s an Easter egg for manga readers who already know about the red haired brother but shhhhh we’re only talking about the anime right now.

The point is, we now have intrigue.

The Set Up: Season 4

Season 4, Episode 25 gives us our first full look at the Todoroki Family, with the siblings (sans Shoto) on a visit to their mom.

We get confirmation that the man in the photo from the ED is the white haired brother, and we learn their names as well, with the sister being named Fuyumi and the white-haired brother being named Natsuo! But, just like the ending sequence, the red-haired brother is missing.

His absence is never brought up, but this is only highlighted by the fact that Fuyumi teases Natsuo for not calling often ever since going away for college. His response ISN’T “aw come on, why do you only pick on me?” or “hey, at least I’m here! Unlike [red-haired brother]”. Instead he says, “aww come on, sis, I call you guys!”

No one calls attention to the fact that one of the siblings is missing. The red-haired brother is never even mentioned, which tell us as the audience that the characters know something we don't. Whatever reason they aren’t mentioning the 3rd brother is common knowledge amongst them, so there’s no need to bring him up.

But the anime ensures we remember that, yes, there IS in fact another brother. They replay the soccer flashback as Natsuo and Fuyumi watch Endeavour’s fight from their laptop, but we are also given this...

... Our second look at the red haired brother (played when Endeavour reminisces about his family). From this, we notice that the brother is significantly shorter than his siblings. It’s also worth noting that his bangs are in front of his face, meaning we never get a clear idea of his appearance (I’ll bring this up again later).

This episode also serves as the season finale, meaning fans were treated to an entire year of hiatus to theorize on the red-haired brother.

The Mystery Starts: His Name

Season 5, Episode 2 begins the mystery-of-the-missing-brother in earnest by providing us with this quote...

“Mom’s screams, Shoto’s crying, and what happened to our big brother, Touya”

Not only is this quote the first time the red-haired brother is being directly spoken about, but it also provides us with 3 pieces of information.

FIRST: His name is Touya. We now have something to call him besides “the red-haired brother”.

SECOND: He’s Natsuo’s big brother. At this point in the series, the age order for Natsuo and Fuyumi had not been confirmed in the anime, but we now knew Natsuo is either the second oldest child, or third oldest.

Touya being Natsuo’s “big brother” means Touya is either the oldest child, or the second oldest. But the fact that Natsuo says “our big brother” does seem to indicate Touya is the big brother to all of them.

This seems to be contradictory to the fact that Touya is just so small compared to his siblings in the 2nd flashback, but it’s certainly not impossible for younger siblings to outgrow the oldest.

(Yes I know technically their age order is revealed in episode 17 but I’m trying to walk through the experience live)

THIRD: We learn something happened to Touya. We don’t know what, but it’s implied to be bad. At the very least, it implies that whatever happened led to Touya no longer seeing his family.

The Mystery Continues: Quirk Singularity

In Season 5, Episode 3, the anime adds a fun visual while Deku explains the Quirk Singularity Doomsday Theory (the theory that, as quirks combine through generations, kids will end up with stronger and stronger quirks with bodies that cannot control them).

In the manga, this is just Deku talking to All Might, but the anime adds the same flashbacks Endeavour had during his Nomu fight for some visual intrigue. Not only does this flashback remind us that the Todoroki siblings exist, but it implies that they are somehow connected to the Quirk Singularity Theory (Shoto is shown as an example of how quirks combine to create stronger quirks, but perhaps we’ll learn some more about Touya to connect him to the theory as well).

The Mystery Continues: Touya’s Quirk

Season 5, Episode 7 gives us another flashback to Shoto’s childhood. Here, Endeavour comments on some very interesting details of Touya’s quirk...

“Touya was close. He had more firepower than me, but he had Rei’s weak constitution. He... was close”

It’s also worth noting that the English Dub of this scene has Endeavour end this line with, “He was close, until...”

So what does this teach us?

FIRST: The English Dub implies he was doing well UNTIL something happened. Was it the incident that Natsuo was referring to? Either way, it has once again created intrigue.

SECOND: Touya had a fire quirk, and it was even stronger than Endeavour’s (hey, look at that, kind of like quirk singularity, right? How the next generation gets stronger than their parents?).

Viewers may have been able to theorize that Touya had a fire quirk based purely on his hair colour (think of how Shoto’s hair represents which side produces which quirk) but this line gives us solid confirmation on his quirk.

THIRD: Touya “had Rei’s weak constitution”. Now, it’s debatable on what exactly a “weak constitution” means. Is this referring to his resolve? Was he too passive? Or is this referring to something else? (Perhaps Rei’s physical constitution?)

Well, wouldn’t you know it, but all the way back in Season 5, Episode 2 (the same one where we learn Touya’s name, go figure) we hear this exact phrase used in reference to the original OFA user... but ONLY in the English Dub.

Here’s what AFO says in the sub...

“My brother is frail”

...vs the dub

“My little brother has a weak constitution”

This gives us a direct reference point that a “weak constitution” in this series can be another way of saying someone is frail (and even if you don’t want to cross reference the dub and sub, OFA is portrayed as weak no matter what). This seems to tie in well with the fact that Touya was so much smaller and appeared weaker than his supposed younger siblings.

The Through Line: Arc Rearrangement

If you didn’t know, I’m here to tell you that the anime pulled a little sneaky on us manga readers by rearranging the arcs.

The manga originally went from Joint Training to (the upcoming arc) to Endeavour Agency, and while the anime has kept these events in the same chronological order, it changed the way they were presented to us. Endeavour Agency has been put first, which means we get more Touya information a heck of a lot closer to the rest of his reveals, compared to the manga.

Regardless of how you personally feel about the arc rearrangement, it works wonders for Touya’s mystery. Endeavour is sprinkled throughout many episodes of the Joint Training Arc in the anime, so it feels rather natural to go straight to the Agency Arc because Endeavour is acting as our narrative through line. He’s been a reoccurring presence, so it doesn’t feel as if he’s coming out of nowhere. 

The Reward: The Photo

If you’ve been paying attention to the clues the series has left regarding the missing Todoroki child, you are rewarded in Season 5, Episode 17.

The episode is rather... flashback heavy, but it does a good job reminding us of all the Todoroki drama before we head to the dinner. And at the end of the episode (literally the last thing we see before the ED), observant viewers who have been keeping track of Touya are rewarded when we finally get to see...

... Touya’s face. The first instance where it’s unobstructed. There he is. The missing Todoroki son. He’s so cute!

(Also yes yes I know his hair is now white and I’m sure that was very confusing for anime onlies. However, I promise it is the same kid.)

But, perhaps more importantly, we learn the implication that Touya is dead. His photo is on a shrine where Endeavour is praying, and the shrine seems to be set up in a child’s room that has remain unchanged (small shoes, a soccer ball, and toys on the bookshelf, all of which seem to be too young for any of the living Todoroki siblings). Suddenly it becomes all too clear why the family didn’t bring him up that often, and why Natsuo was so upset about “what happened to our big brother, Touya”.

The Tease: What Comes Next?

Season 5, Episode 18 leaves us with a teaser for the future of Keeping Up With The Todoroki's.

Touya’s death is confirmed, and we even learn a bit more on the circumstances surrounding it, as we learn Endeavour feels responsible for whatever happened. We also learned that Natsuo blames Endeavour, hinting that he certainly played some part in it.

However, all of these hints lead to a story for another time (more likely Season 6, to be precise). I won’t spoil what exactly happens, but I can confirm that we eventually see Touya’s death and the events leading up to it through flashback, and I’m honestly so excited.

Perhaps I’ll make a part 2 to this post when the anime gets to that point.

Hope you enjoyed!

#bnha #bnha season 5 #todofam #toya todoroki #touya todoroki #enji todoroki #shoto todoroki #natsuo todoroki #fuyumi todoroki #bnha meta #bnha season five #mha season 5 #mha season five #bnha analysis #if you liked this please reblog I've been working on this for forever #just had to wait for today's episode to finish it off

[abybweisse]

Do you think Tanaka knows that Sebastian is something other than human, aka a demon? And if so, does that mean he is aware of Ciel's contract with him? In his regular (not shrunk) form, he is shown to be very intelligent and observant. Also sorry if this has already been answered in the manga, I'm still trying to fully catch up to the current chapters.

This hasn’t been answered in the manga, but I and others have blogged about it. I don’t think I’ve ever gone too deep into this topic before, so here ya go!

⚠️ long post ⚠️

Personally, I don’t think Tanaka quite knows he’s a demon, no. But he must have some ideas… and a lot of questions.

Tanaka does realize that something is way off about real Ciel. In fact, in ch141, Tanaka is standing right next to real Ciel and Undertaker when this conversation occurs:

Sebastian: I am quite certain you lost your life that night. I would not be here otherwise.

Undertaker: Eureka! Right on the nose, you are… master butler!

Real Ciel: It’s true I died once that day.

Undertaker: What does it matter if he’s alive or dead?

Undertaker then explains that real Ciel’s “reanimated”.

And Tanaka might have overheard part of the previous conversation in ch130, before he had actually stepped out to the stairs and made his presence known to the readers. That goes:

Bard: H-hey. What the hell’s the deal with this guy, Sebastian!?

Real Ciel: Sebastian? I see. So you’re Sebastian. This is the first time we’ve actually met. How dare you do that to me that day.

Sebastian: I too… have never encountered someone like yourself.

So, Tanaka… being the smart guy he really is, regardless of how he’s being portrayed at any given time, has quite possibly gathered enough information to at least get the sense that Sebastian is someone (or something) not quite human.

If he heard the previous conversation, he knows that:

Real Ciel and Sebastian hadn’t actually met before, so real Ciel was already dead, or at least he was near death and no longer conscious. [We are to understand that Sebastian devoured his soul in order to cross over into the human realm, so real Ciel is officially dead by the time Sebastian takes any form before our earl and the cultists.]

However, Sebastian did something to real Ciel’s body. [Again, we know that he devoured real Ciel’s soul, but this could also be about removing the ring from real Ciel’s guts and then starting that fire.]

Sebastian has never encountered such an advanced reanimated corpse before. [Sebastian does go on to question Undertaker about the corpses on the Campania and at Weston, so Tanaka knows the walking and talking corpse he’s serving tea to is not quite like whatever Sebastian dealt with before, when he came back to the manor and was given a “day off”.]

From the conversation he definitely heard, he knows:

Real Ciel died and has been reanimated by Undertaker.

Sebastian would not be “here” if real Ciel had not died.

Tanaka’s main questions that might remain would be about what Sebastian did to real Ciel’s body (but more importantly his soul) the day real Ciel died… and what Sebastian actually means by saying he wouldn’t be here without real Ciel’s death. Would Tanaka realize this has more to do with real Ciel’s soul than his body? That’s the real question we have to ask to figure out whether Tanaka quite gets what’s going down.

Yana-san says in an old tweet that individuals are largely shaped by the people who raise them. Each person has their own dark or evil streak, but whether that becomes a strong part of their personality depends largely on influences by those closest to them in their formative years. She says our earl is greatly influenced by this demon, Sebastian. She also says Vincent loves his family (another tweet, I think) but has a very wide evil streak. Then she says that Vincent was mostly raised by Tanaka, hinting that Tanaka has a dark side we have hardly seen… yet.

Then we have all those demon cultists who are super excited (in ch135) to get their hands on Vincent’s children. The guy selling the kids doesn’t know who they are, otherwise he would have priced them much higher. The buyer recognizes them immediately and, without saying what he knows, says they are worth more than twice that. And then they are recognized by the guy who’s essentially just hosting them at his house before their… um… debut. I’ve written a few times before that the two main cultists (the two men at the sacrificial altar) are — I’m pretty damn sure — the same two guys standing in the background, in ch32, during Baron Kelvin’s memory of trying to talk to Vincent.

These two mysterious guys:

The weirdo who procures the kids for the sacrifice is the same guy who shows up at Kelvin’s manor just to tell him he managed to get those kids. Then grossly says he and the others will make up for Kelvin’s inability to attend. 🤢

Ok, so even if those aren’t the same two guys (but I think so!), Vincent was still being hovered around by people who participate in the occult, including ritualistic orgies and sacrifices to demons, trying to summon them. This is the first (and only) sacrifice to work for that cult, but that doesn’t seem to bother most of them, since (as Sebastian says) most demon cults are just about debauchery.

We don’t know how much of this Vincent ever knew about, let alone ever took part in (I hope not!!), but… I suspect he at least knew about some of it. It was his duty as Queen’s Watchdog to know about such things and keep the general public unawares of it. Not even necessarily to put the practices to an end. He probably allowed his fellow Evil Nobles to do as they pleased… as long as it didn’t become a problem for the crown. Or directly involve his own family. Like, he would never have offered up his own children to these creeps. But random waifs? I think he knew what the cultists were doing (generally) and just… turned a blind eye to it. 😔

You know how our earl stops Vanel and his thugs from selling drugs in England for the Italian mafia… but allows Lau to operate his opium den? Lau works as an informant for our earl, so they have a working relationship. It’s kind of like that, to me. When Vincent is watchdog, he allows some things to happen while stopping others. If it’s getting out of hand with polite society (like deaths amongst the peerage) or causing scandal for the queen, he breaks it up. But if it’s a fellow “evil noble” who acts as an informant or a colleague, and it’s only causing problems for the local riffraff on the streets, then “ok”.

I know that makes Vincent look bad, but… come on. He was the previous earl of Phantomhive and Queen’s Watchdog. He joked to his kids about being quite good with knives and saying hogtying is his specialty. He’s an Evil Noble.

All this tangential info about Vincent and the other Evil Nobles is to get to this: If Vincent knew what was going on with his fellow Evil Nobles, in general, so does Tanaka. Tanaka probably already knew that there were demon cultists amongst the visitors who came in and out of Phantomhive Manor.

But does Tanaka realize that’s how real Ciel died and Sebastian came “here”? If he doesn’t realize it yet, I think he might eventually figure it out. If not on his own, Sebastian might eventually reveal the truth.

If Tanaka does already know… that could be just about the only reason why he has stayed behind at Phantomhive Manor, serving the reanimated corpse of the rightful heir… unless he’s just biding his time to return to our earl’s side… with useful information about real Ciel and the other lords of the stars….

#black butler #kuroshitsuji #sebastian michaelis #undertaker #earl phantomhive #our earl #real ciel #ciel phantomhive #soul devouring #bizarre doll ciel #tanaka #vincent phantomhive #demon cultists #sacrifice #demon summoning #tw: csa #tw csa implied #evil nobles #aristocrats of evil #hey demons its ya boi #asks #i answer #answered asks #long post #long reads #ch32 #ch130 #ch135 #ch141 #sep 4 2021

[bunnykawa]

what are you doing, step bro? (sakusa x f. reader)

summary: To your parents, Sakusa was the greatest son. To you, he was the best big brother you could’ve ever asked for, but you could only find that out with a little force.

a/n: i literally just started college so i won't have much time to write but i have some stories in my drafts that'll be posted in awhile lol. should i open requests for haikyuu drabbles since they're short but still entertaining?? idek i feel like no one is reading this rn LOL but if anyone is reading this, lmk ;)

(edit: I HAD TO REPOST THIS CS IT WASNT SHOWING UP IN TAGS so sorry if you already liked this post)

warnings: 18+, incest, mentions of drugging,  mentions of somnophilia, mentions of parental neglect, noncon/dubcon/rape, sakusa is a dirty pervert i just don’t know how else to tag this, degradation, slight manipulation

"(Y/N), this is your new big brother, Kiyoomi," your mother said, holding tightly onto your small shoulders as you stood in front of her.

"You can refer to him as your nii-san from now on." Locking eyes with you was an older boy with long black wavy hair, two moles on the right side of his forehead, and a white face mask on the lower half of his face which blocked his nose and mouth. How odd, you thought. You could tell he was disinterested with how his eyes were blank as he stared at you.

That was the first time meeting your step brother, Sakusa Kiyoomi.

Being four years younger than Sakusa, you two never really got along. Of course you had to respect each other, but there was nothing to really talk about other than when his volleyball games were or unfulfilling small talks. Sometimes he would make snide remarks, asking if you even showered when your hair was only slightly messy or if a smart word ever came out of your mouth when you stumbled over your words. Sometimes he was just mean to you in general to the point where you would cry. You always tried to ignore it, though. That was when you were younger. You couldn’t help that you weren’t that smart and he was your nii-san after all. Your parents would brush it off.

You celebrated his victories together, only because you had to. I mean, you were the younger sister of one of the nation's top three aces in high school volleyball. There was no way your parents wouldn't celebrate. He was their pride and joy.

Smart, athletic, incredibly attractive — everything you felt like you could never live up to.

Your own biological mom so obviously and painfully liked him more than you.

Before you even entered high school, Sakusa was old enough to move out and go to college where he continued to play volleyball. When he visited during the holidays, you still wouldn't have decent conversations with him. He would still insult you. It even made you cringe when you had to call him nii-san. Why address him as your older brother when he didn't even act like it?

But you dealt with it because you had to.

Fresh out of Itachiyama Academy, you're focused on studying for entrance exams for colleges in your area rather than what would happen if you ever had to see Sakusa again. But, you were expecting to see him very soon.

Gentle knocks are heard from outside your door and before you can respond, your mom is already opening it.

"(Y/N), Omi is coming today and he's gonna be here for a week. I have to go to the grocery store to buy food and I'm gonna run other errands so it's gonna take awhile," she says, leaning her head into your room. You respond multiple times with "okay" so she can leave your room sooner.

Textbooks and notebooks are strewn across your bed with you on your stomach, trying to cram as much information in your head as possible.

"That means I might not be here in time for when he comes, so you have to open the door and greet him," she adds.

"What about dad?" you ask with a grimace. The most you would do is say hello and scurry back into your room.

She rolls her eyes at you. "He's working late again. You know that, (Y/N)." With a sigh, you agree and she finally leaves your room after bidding you a "goodbye."

You can't remember the last time you saw Sakusa, but it was probably almost half a year ago. Ever since he left for college, your parents were even more distant towards you. They probably felt like they didn't need to worry about you because you weren't doing anything important.

When Sakusa came over, he barely acknowledged you and you were okay with that because it meant he wouldn't be bothering you.

But that didn't mean his blank stare wouldn't catch your attention whenever you came out of your room to eat or use the restroom. The atmosphere felt...very odd around him. You couldn't necessarily come up with a reason why.

Suddenly, you hear knocking on the front door. It had to be at least an hour or two since your mom left and the thought of who was waiting at the door made your stomach churn.

"Nii-san is here," you mutter to yourself as you got up to open the door. Right as you open the door, Sakusa was staring down at you with the same blankness in his eyes from before with his usual face mask. His hair was shorter than you remember.

Mindlessly, his eyes seem to scan your body before returning to your face, making you feel self-conscious. You were only wearing black spandex shorts and a loose tank top. Subconsciously, you rub your arm and step back to make space.

"(Y/N)," Sakusa acknowledges you in a deadpan voice. It's no surprise to you.

"Hi, onii-san. How are you?" You try so hard to be polite, but Sakusa seemed to have a naturally dominant energy that overwhelmed your senses, even if he also seemed to have the personality of a jar of mayonnaise. You step aside so he can come in. He wore gray sweatpants and a black windbreaker that was zipped up all the way. As soon as he makes it inside, he removes his face mask, stuffs it in his pocket, and starts unzipping his jacket.

"I'm good," he hums, "Where's mom?" He places the backpack he was carrying on the couch and takes a seat as you close the door.

"She's out doing errands and dad is working. Do you want some tea?"

"Yes, please. Make sure you wash your hands before you do. Thank you," he said. You walk into the kitchen, muttering "germaphobe" under your breath at his extra request. Unbeknownst to you, he watched you from his place on the couch as you walked around the kitchen, pulling the tea kettle out of one of the bottom cabinets and looking for cups. His gaze followed the outline of your ass in those tiny shorts that hugged your bottom tightly.

"What college are you planning on going to, (Y/N)?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I'm applying to the college you're going to and three others," you replied from your spot near the counter.

Sakusa actually perks up at your answer. "Oh, cool. You'll love it there if you get in. Only if, though. You're not the brightest."

You couldn't help but let your face fall in a frown at his seemingly small comment. Quickly, you compose yourself and brush off his remark. You got the water boiling in the tea kettle and reached high for the teacups that were sitting on the top cabinets. Your stepdad definitely put them up there.

A presence looms close behind you, which makes your whole body automatically freeze and tense up. A veiny, bulky arm reaches up easily to grab the teacups while another one snakes around you to pull your tank top down as it was exposing your stomach. You're not sure if you're imagining it, but you definitely feel something stiff brushing up against your back.

"You need to be careful. Don't wanna hurt yourself, do you?" Sakusa commented, leaning forward so his mouth was right next to your ear. A blush found its way onto your cheeks from feeling him so close to you.

He usually hated being so close to people. What was so different today?

"R-right," you stuttered, "Thank you, nii-san."

Confrontation wasn't a strong trait of yours.

You guess that moment was when it started getting really weird between you two. You still had small talks from whenever he would actually see you come out of your room, but you wanted to avoid him as much as you could. However, that was hard when Sakusa insisted that you drank tea together every night and, of course, your parents insisted, too.

Your nii-san wants to spend more time with you, they would say excitedly. Better late than never!

Maybe if he was showing the slightest bit of interest in you, your parents would finally care about you. So, with much hesitation, you started drinking tea with your step brother every night. Sakusa even made the tea himself so his poor little sister wouldn't tire herself out with carrying that heavy teapot.

You're still not sure if you're imagining things, but the tea tasted different from how you made it. And you swear that the tea didn't make you so sleepy after drinking it until he started making it.

"Come here," Sakusa would say with a smirk, "Onii-san will take you to bed."

You would pass out before you even made it to bed, but every morning you woke up with sticky thighs, only blaming it on sweating while you were sleeping.

Until one day, you didn't drink all the tea that he made you. You still fell asleep, though. Your brain was hazy enough to make you lose consciousness as he helped you up from your seat in the kitchen.

Sakusa laid next to you on your bed. You were placed on your side so he could slide under the sheets right behind you to press his hardened length against your ass. This was his favorite part of the night. He spent a few minutes playing with your cunt to make it slick enough for him to let his cock break through your walls.

You barely stirred awake. Didn't even move an inch as he caressed every part of your body, from your soft nipples to the sensitive nub between your thighs.

He pushed the elastic of his sweatpants down to his thighs quickly. His cock hit your ass before settling between your folds. A satisfied moan leaves his lips when he feels your wetness coating the top part of his shaft as he rubbed it against you. He hooked his arm around one of your legs so that you were spread open enough for him to fuck you and rub your clit at the same time with his other hand.

He wanted that sweet nectar completely coating his dick. He remembers the way you tasted and how you came on his tongue the night before, despite being blacked out from the little pills he would dissolve in your drinks. You tasted so clean and smelled so fresh. It was impossible for your nii-san to control himself around you.

And when did your ass look so good? God...Sakusa couldn't believe he never noticed how cute and well-shaped you were. You weren't that little girl he met when you were both kids. You were pushing adulthood now. Still pathetic looking, still too shy, still small around him, but fuck, he definitely would have pushed you over the counter the first day he came over and fucked you until you were crying and gagging.

He continued rubbing circles onto your clit and letting his cock soak up your juices. Gently, he positions the tip at your entrances and pushes in slowly.

"There you go," he whispers in your ear, "I know it's a little big. Don't worry."

He manages to fill you up all the way, making him groan. Your walls were tight around him. He thrusts in and out of you carefully, salvaging the feeling of your slick interior.

But you didn't drink all the tea, which means that you could wake up earlier than he expected.

Sakusa didn't expect you to wake up now.

You stirred slightly as you regained consciousness. Although your eyelids were heavy, you tried to force them open only to be met with darkness.

"Mmm," you croaked, rubbing your eyes. The odd feeling of being filled up suddenly made you wake up more. "W-what's going on?"

"Fuck," Sakusa muttered from behind you. You felt a hard chest pressed against your back and...a hand on your pussy. No, something inside your pussy. And that voice was so familiar.

You quickly whip your head around when the realization dawns on you. What the fuck is happening? While your eyes adjust to the dark room, you see two familiar eyes staring straight back at you. He stopped grinding his hips against you for a moment as if time stopped.

"...Nii-san?" you hesitated. His breathing was heavy and he stayed silent.

"Nii-san, what are you doing?" you asked in a panicked voice. You quickly tried to get up from your position, only to be held down by Sakusa’s muscular arms. His hand wrapped itself over your lips to prevent you from screaming.

“Be a good girl and stay quiet, (Y/N),” he whispered. A muffled scream tries to escape your lips. He continued to fuck you slowly, leaving a burning feeling in your walls. The same sore feeling that you would sometimes wake up to within the past few days.

For a moment, you pry his fingers off of your mouth. "I don't understand...Why are you...?" You yelped in surprise, horror, and pleasure as he delivered a sharp thrust from behind you. The smack of his hips against your bare ass made you cringe and feel so disgusted with yourself. Nii-san is actually inside me.

"My poor little sister," he chucked darkly. He suddenly wraps his arm around your knee tighter and forces your legs wide open, your knee almost touching your chest. Instead of putting his hand over your mouth to shut you up, he kneads your breast. His hands were so large.

"You think you can walk around the house looking like a little slut in those tiny shorts?" He stretches you open with his hard cock with slow, yet hard, thrusts. It left your mouth agape, but no sounds left your throat except for small squeaks that you couldn't hold back. "You stupid bitch. Just as dumb as I could remember. Fuck, you don't know how much I wanted to bend you over and fill you up with my cum like the stupid, desperate slut you are."

He was satisfied as you were barely fighting him. All you did was desperately search for something to hold onto and bite your lip because you were so scared. His words were painful. "Look at you. A waste of fucking space, only good as a fuck hole. Didn't even realize she was getting drugged and getting fucked every night because she's so fucking stupid."

Weak. That was all your brain was telling you, mocking you, as Sakusa didn't stop moving against you and insulting you. This wasn't the first time. It just so happened that this time you were able to wake up.

"I-I..." you stuttered, "I'll...I'll tell mom and dad." The sheets were gripped tightly between your fingers. "I'll tell them- mmmm...what nii-san has been doing to me..."

"If you tell mom and dad, they wouldn't even care," Sakusa said in a patronizing tone. The way his hand was caressing you made you wanna cry.

“They would!”

"Mom and dad don't even treat you like a daughter, (Y/N). When was the last time they told you they loved you?" Even if his question was rhetorical, your mind went completely blank. You can't recall a moment where they ever told you they loved you.

"B-but, this isn't right! You're not supposed to be doing this," you argued. It was a surprise that your mind wasn't completely clouded by how big his cock was and how his thrusts felt almost hateful.

"You think they would choose your side? You'd be ruining your own life. Maybe you'd ruin mine. And it'd be. All. Your. Fault." With each syllable, his movements became sharper. "You don't wanna betray your nii-san by saying something, do you?"

"You love your nii-san, right?"

You do. You love him so much, even if you tried to avoid him and he never said a single good thing to you in your whole damn life.

Because you have to love him.

You stopped gripping on the sheets to the point where your knuckles were turning ghostly white to brush away the tears rolling down your cheeks. Your body shook, from both crying because of Sakusa's painful words and how hard he was fucking you. The pleasure building up in your core was overwhelming you, making that intense feeling of having to pee forced out of you.

Hearing your sniffles and small cries, Sakusa pulls you even tighter against him, but doesn't stop his relentless thrusting. It turned him on even more. He pushes your hand to brush away your tears for you, like good big brothers should.

"It's okay, (Y/N). We both know mom and dad don't love you."

A loud cry erupted from your chest. Maybe if your parents cared about you, they'd be running to your room to save you the second you started crying. But, no. Sakusa was basking in the fact that you were hurting on the inside. After years of negligent silence, you were finally letting it all out.

"But nii-san loves you," he said with a smile.

Although his words seemed to stun your entire being, you manage to choke out a "What?" Like it was the first time someone ever told you that they love you.

His torturous thrusts almost distracted you. Fuck, why did it feel so good to have your step brother fucking you on your side like this?

"I love you." He sweetly grabs your face so you can turn your head to look at him. There was a pounding in your ears coming straight from your chest. A warm feeling spreads throughout your stomach.

"You...you love me, nii-san?"

"Of course I do." He was actually smiling at you, "If I didn't, would I be inside you right now?"

His face didn't seem so blank anymore. Sakusa never ever smiled at you. Hell, he never really smiled in general. Someone actually loved you. Holy shit. And he was even pounding away at your insides like you were a fuck doll.

Is that why he's so mean? Was he just trying to hide his feelings for you this whole time? You could die laughing right now. His cock felt so damn good rearranging your guts against your will yet you were struggling to accept it.

Your cheeks naturally puffed up in happiness as you smiled so brightly at him. The flip switched in your brain so easily. Without another word, Sakusa kissed you passionately, because he knew you would let him continue to ravage your body. Your hips began to buck from the pressure building up in your lower half and you starting pushing your hips towards him, welcoming his length inside you. It felt like you needed more of him. More of his love.

Love me.

"Nii-san," you gasped against his lips. His movements never faltered, which you figured was from his amazing athletic ability and stamina.

"Be a good little sister and cum on my cock," he coaxed. He could tell you were so close to cumming from how tightly your precious cunt was hugging his length and how you were squirming against him. You were both slick with sweat. As you started squirming more violently against him, Sakusa tightened his grip on you.

“I’m gonna cum,” you whined desperately, “Nii-san, I’m gonna cum!” You grabbed his arms and pushed your fingernails into his skin, making him hiss from the sudden pain. With a firm grip over your mouth, he muffles your screams. Satisfaction settled in your stomach as you exploded all over his cock. Your sweet juices trailed down your thighs onto the bedsheets.

As much as Sakusa wanted to, he couldn’t fill up your insides and see your hole dripping with his cum just yet. He quickly pulls out of you and lets his seed shoot onto the bare skin of your ass. The shock of your orgasm left your thighs trembling, your skin wet, and your eyes drooping.

“You’re the best little sister.”

You would’ve replied, but you could barely form any words as you lost consciousness again. When you woke up the next morning, you were fully dressed and cleaned up, with no stickiness between your thighs like how you used to wake up.

Sakusa actually cleaned you up this time. You felt your heart melt and butterflies fluttering in your stomach.

Everything seemed to go back to normal between you two, with the same small talks and not really seeing each other often, but he always had a knowing smirk on his face whenever he saw you.

Whenever his eyes would trail up your body to meet yours, you could feel a warmth in your stomach spread all throughout your body which forced you to look away quickly. Whenever he insulted you, you would feel your thighs press together. Whenever you caught yourself admiring his features when he replaced his face mask for a new one, you smiled softly to yourself.

When it was time for him to leave, you couldn’t help but let a few tears shed. He was all set to go, with his backpack on and his mask covering his face.

“Hey, don’t cry, (Y/N),” he cooed, wiping your tears away, “You know I won’t be gone forever.”

You sniffled, “I know. I just hate being here alone.” Well, not necessarily alone. You just hated being ignored and neglected just because you weren’t your brother.

“If you manage to get into my college, you can move in with me. How does that sound?” You instantly perk up and dry your tears with your shirt.

"Really?!” you asked with excitement. You imagine all the things you could do with your nii-san without your parents in the picture. You could go out together, hold hands, share kisses, just about anything. He could even fuck you whenever he wants.

These thoughts about your own step brother would've made you feel sick before.

But that was before you knew Sakusa loved you. Now, you couldn't help but ask your mom when the next time your nii-san would be coming to visit. While you were waiting for his next visit, you studied hard.

College would be so much fun with your nii-san with you!

Part 2

#yandere haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #yandere haikyuu x reader #sakusa kiyoomi x reader #kiyoomi sakusa x reader #haikyuu smut #sakusa x reader #yandere sakusa x reader #sakusa #tw yandere #tw: yandere #tw incest #tw: incest #tw: noncon #tw noncon #tw dubcon #tw: dubcon #tw rape #tw: rape #tw drugging #tw: drugging #tw somnophilia #tw: somnophilia #tw degradation #tw: degradation

[wannabanauthor]

I’m on Episode 9 of All of Us Are Dead

Most of these characters are unlikeable. I think I only like the cop because he has some sense.

Gwi-nam is an asshole who has overstayed his welcome on the show. Sometimes Korean dramas keep the villain alive/around for way longer than they should be given the circumstances. Let him die and stay dead. Stop bringing him back for cheap manufactured drama. No one cares about him. It was a stupid idea to make him one of the evolved zombies.

Nam-ra is boring. She’s almost 100% useless. In the beginning, I was really hoping for her to die every time she said something pessimistic while they were holed up somewhere. Like, girl, STFU! Everyone else wants to live and they need hope. Being a Debbie Downer when the people around you have lost almost everything ain’t gonna help. Not to mention, she’s late telling people important information. She waited until that Gyeong-su died before informing everyone that Na-yeon infected him intentionally with zombie blood. Like, bitch, you should have spoken up earlier when you saw her do it. Also, waiting for them to spend several minutes trying to start a fire before offering them a lighter. Just ugh, go die already.

Also, the reaction times these teenagers have are abysmal. I get that me being a black woman with ADHD means that I can react better to stressful situations, but some of these fuckers are just slow. Before y’all say anything, I am perfectly aware that Freeze is a common response to trauma. I fucking get that. I know that people in general are stupid as evidenced by us still being in this pandemic in 2022.

What I’m saying is that I’m black, ADHD, and 30 years old, and I don’t understand the mindset of the teenagers. Especially in the earlier episodes when someone got bitten and they were like “I’m fine”. No bitch, throw their ass out. Or the stupid ass teacher who tried to save the girl who intentionally infected her classmate just so she could be right.

On-jo is annoying. Caring about crushes during a zombie outbreak should be the last thing you’re thinking about. Also, if you see something, warn the others instead of just staring. She really tried to save her best friend after the girl turned into a zombie and held onto her. Like, bitch, you can grieve later. Let her go before she bites you.

Cheong-san kicks ass, and so does Su-hyeok, because they literally kick ass. However, Su-hyeok standing up for Nam-ra after she was bitten annoyed the fuck out of me. Trying to sacrifice your life for your crush in case she turns is stupid. They should have thrown her ass out the window.

Don’t even get me started on Eun-ji and her equally useless male friend who left everyone in the school to die. Fuck both of them. People tried to help you stop getting bullied, and you were so mad that you got bullied that you left them all to die and tried to kill them. Some of them tried to help you, and you stopped them. Fuck both of you for that.

It’s gotten to the point that I’m skipping all the long talk scenes between the teens because I don’t really give a shit anymore if any of them make it. This show is so fucking infuriating. 99% of the characters don’t have a single gram of logic or common sense in their bodies.

Also, when they lured the zombies into the classroom through the front door, they should have closed the back door they left out of behind them to buy them some more time to get to the roof. But stupid is as stupid does.

The teenager who tied herself up to prevent herself from killing her baby is an OG for real. Mad respect for her going back to save the baby and making sure she didn’t harm it after she turned.

Also the cop, when he wasn’t being stupid trying to save that livestreamer dude.

I have so many issues with this show, that I’m essentially hate watching it now.

#all of us are dead #all of us are dead spoilers #netflix #fuck this show