#Reaffirming that Sans is the most important person to him - that they are to each other - that no matter what they're brothers

[alexa-crowe]

Hey, loaf! Based on that post from the other day, would you be up for writing something where Scully finds out she is infertile in s2?

Yeah, I can do that for you, loaf. 💓 I definitely took this prompt and ran away with it kjsdhfjsdhf. The first section fulfills the prompt but the rest leads into an AU because I decided that I don’t want to hurt my Scullybaby <3.

Branched

The doctors all agreed that once her body readjusted, her menstrual cycle would follow suit. It was irregular before due to birth control but she’s been off it since she was... Scully hates to even think the word. It’s been months since Mulder stopped looking at her as if a simple hand on her back could break her, and her menstrual cycle isn’t even irregular—she just doesn’t have one anymore.

It’s baffled all the doctor’s she’s seen. Scully writes it off as an effect of whatever experiments were done to her and accepts her doctors’ conclusions that there’s nothing to be done about it unless she’s interested in having children.

The idea hasn’t crossed her mind much, aside from a distant yearning when she’s with her godson. She always assumed that she’d have kids one day after she fell in love with the right guy. Scully doesn’t know what she wants for her future anymore. All she knows is that she wants justice, and she wants the truth—both for herself and for Mulder.

Her newfound infertility is...something. She doesn’t want more pity. If she was stifled after her—if she was stifled before, Scully can only imagine that if she tells Mulder and her family that she can’t get pregnant it’ll be worse. The—what happened to her is something she can move on from, but this is not.

—

She’s experiencing early menopause, her doctor declares. It seems so final. She cries herself to sleep and goes into work the next day as if the shards of her future haven’t been ground to dust.

Though she’d tried not to give any of this much thought, she’d somehow assumed that the chip had been inhibiting the release of her ova for an unknown reason—maybe propagation is counterintuitive to Their agenda, who knows—but to find out that she didn’t have any, that all her chances at motherhood were gone... It’s a grief unlike any other.

—

Allentown. The name sends shivers down her spine if she so much as thinks of it. Flashes of her abduction (say it say it say it, don’t let them control you, you’re stronger than the trauma) and the knowledge that all the women at the MUFON meeting had chips and fertility issues and cancer... She takes off the next day and books an appointment with an oncologist.

The scans come back negative. The women said it could take up to two years to appear, though. Scully prays to God that it never happens.

—

She’ll never be a mother. Some days it hits harder than others. Some days she wishes that she could lay her head down and wake up in a world where she and Mulder have the lives they always wanted. She feels so violated and so disrespected, some days. On those days, she lashes out at Mulder, tries to leave him and this life of lies behind, but she can’t.

He’s not someone she can just walk away from.

These are the days that she smokes. These are the days that she calls up Ellen and asks for all the gossip she’s amassed. These are the days she gets drunk over the phone with her friend and spills secrets that no one else gets to know. Trent’s turning eight, Danes. I’m infertile, El. It’s funny how the person she sees the least knows the most about what’s happened to her.

These are also the days when she hits the town and drinks until she forgets. Sometimes she’ll go home with someone for the night and leave early in the morning, Mulder on her mind. He doesn’t know. He can’t know. It would break him even though it’s not about him, even though it’s not his fucking life.

—

She wakes up to a nosebleed and prays to God that he’ll give her a few more months to live. Just until Mulder’s ready, she thinks, tears running down her face as she holds a wad of tissues to her nose. Just until he’s ready to let go. He’s been such a constant in her life, such a tether. When things get bad, they go their separate ways, but they always come back to each other and find their balance.

It makes sense for him to be the first person to see confirmation of her cancer. It feels like the final blow. First, they take away her ability to make life, and then they take away her own life. She’s made her peace with it.

Mulder hasn’t—he refuses to do so. Standing there in the hospital hallway days later, Scully lets herself love him. His lips are soft against her chapped ones and her edges feel burned and frayed, but his love keeps her together.

“I found something, Scully,” he murmurs when their kiss has faded into an embrace with her head on his chest.

Her brows furrow. “What do you mean?”

“I found your ova.” There’s so much going on in that four letter sentence that it bowls her over.

“You—you did?”

“I took as many vials as I could and got them into a freezing container. I shipped them off to the Gunmen before I came here. They can keep them safe for when you get better.”

Scully’s chin starts to tremble and she presses her face into Mulder’s chest. “What if I never do?”

He cups her cheeks and gently makes her face him. “I won’t let that happen.”

She wants to believe him with all her heart. “I want to believe...” she whispers, a tear streaking down her cheek.

“Give me your fear,” he tells her, “and believe. I need you to believe.”

She nods against his chest.

—

Scully cries when she gives him the news of her remission, pulling Mulder into her embrace and showering his head with kisses and thank yous. He’s given her a second chance at life, but more than that, a chance at motherhood.

(“Dana, I have excellent news for you: your cancer is shrinking. You’re going into remission.” And then, when the shock and the joy had run their immediate courses: “It also seems that, in due time, your menstrual cycle will resume, so no worries on that end.”)

It’ll be months before she can truly start the process but she already feels lighter than ever before.

—

She waits a week after her return to work to ask him. They’re at his apartment, Scully curled against him as the movie’s credits roll. “Mulder,” she whispers, checking to see if he’s asleep.

“Hm?” He rolls his head to crack his neck.

“Will you make a baby with me?”

He looks down at her, eyes wide. “What?”

“I’ve been seeing a fertility doctor, a friend of mine. She’s examined the ova—along with several of her colleagues—and declared them viable.” Scully can’t keep the tremulous smile off her face as she gives him the news. “She said that I just have to secure a donor to begin the treatment plan. I want that donor to be you. I mean, you practically threw yourself at me in Home last year...”

She traces her finger along the back of his hand, looking away to give him some space. After a moment, he says, “You want me to...to be part of that equation?”

Scully takes a deep breath and sits up so that their faces are level, shaking her head. “I want to have kids with you.” She maneuvers one leg between his thigh and the arm of the couch so she’s straddling him, and sits down on his thighs. “I want you to be the father of my kids.”

Mulder gazes at her like a lost puppy until she reaches out to wipe away a tear trailing along his cheek. “Me?”

She nods and cups his cheeks. “You.”

He nods with her, a smile spreading across his lips. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! Yeah.”

They’ve been reduced to monosyllabic words in their joy, giving up on words all together as they fade into deliriously happy teary-eyed laughter. Scully leans forward and kisses him.

—

To no one’s surprise and Bill’s chagrin, she tugs Mulder along to her family’s Christmas gathering at her brother’s place in San Diego. Emily’s existence only reaffirms their decision to do IVF together and their relationship. They’ve been more of a team than ever, and perhaps that’s what saves Emily in the end.

Mulder and Scully put off all the major changes they were planning to make in favor of giving Em time to adjust to her new life. She clings to them until she gets familiarized with everything, until “Dana” and “Mul’er” phase into “Mommy” and “Daddy”.

He learns how to make chocolate chip pancakes with his eyes half-closed at six in the morning. They both learn car seats like the back of their hands. They get used to this new life where the only reason they wake up in the middle of the night is to comfort their daughter and not board a red-eye flight for a case.

—

Scully’s known that Mulder’s a thorough person when he wants to be since they met. What she didn’t know is that he’s also extremely sappy. He kisses her frequently for no reason in the office, and his porn mag collection has been replaced by a stack of books on IVF and pregnancy and childhood developmental stages. He has a calendar tacked to the wall next to his door with all the important dates on it.

They tell Skinner about their relationship and the IVF in confidence, filling him in on all the relevant things to their decision to leave the X-Files. The department must go on, but they can’t be the ones to breath life into them with Emily and a baby. Skinner says he knows “some excellent agents” that can fill their roles.

Mulder goes with her to every appointment, even if he can only sit outside in the waiting room until he’s called in. He holds her hand during every comprehensive pregnancy test that’s done, and kisses away her tears when they come back negative.

They look at apartments together when they find the time between Emily and their new assignments, and sometime between moving in and starting Em with her new pre-school, something wonderful happens. When the test comes back positive, they both start crying at the clinic.

“Mulder...”

“Scully...”

—

“You’re really okay with passing on the torch?” she asks in bed that night once Emily’s sacked out.

He nods against her forehead, his hand on her belly. “I’ve spent my whole life looking for Samantha, but I’ve never let her move on. Maybe she doesn’t want to be found. Maybe she’s dead. Maybe I’ll never find out. But I can’t pursue the answer to the question of what happened to her at the cost of everything else. You’re the one who taught me that there’s more to life than trying to solve mysteries.”

Scully nuzzles his nose. “You taught me something, too.”

“Oh?”

“You taught me how to have the courage to believe.”

#mine #txf #fanfiction #bryony you asked for something simple and i gave you a wholeass au 😭😭 #hdsjskshjdd i couldn’t help it

[badlydrawndrawnings]

A take I been trying to put into words since December

Canonically, Haru says she won’t forgive Goro, but she knows how he feels when it comes to their fathers. So like, in my interpretation of the Engine Room Scene (ERS) and beyond with the idea Goro is dead, to summarize a quote something from my Kamen Rider fandom days (I usually apply this to all the PT honestly), they will never forgive Goro but would willingly put flowers on Goro’s grave...if Goro had one. Imagine a group of teens and a cat placing flowers at the National Diet they’ll get weird looks.

So, when it comes to Goro and being alive post ERS (I hate the whole Schrodinger Goro situation Atlus did just accept the mess you created) I am a bit lenient on fan art and fanfiction that has Haru forgiving Goro, in part because the fan works I seen this happening are usually set several years after Persona 5 (or just a few years). There’s usually a natural off-screen development of Haru’s feeling changing and forgiving Goro (or show it in its glory).

I personally don’t think they can be friends even if/when Haru forgives Goro but I do think that eventually, they can hold a normal conversation with one another without too many hard feelings. But my hot take isn’t about this route. My hot take is that I don’t like fanart and fanfiction of Haru being over the top violent to Goro that borderlines has her murdering him. Look, I can see a punch or a slap, but I legitimately can’t see Haru randomly decides to pull out a weapon and pretty much leaving him for almost dead or actually dead.

Yes, Haru as a sadistic side, but remember that Haru tried talking to Goro during the ERS in hopes he can make a second to last life changing moment when Cognitive!Goro showed up. And in Royal, Haru is glad that Goro (Real or Not it’s a Goro) took responsibility for his actions and seems to be at peace with it. This peace allowed her to perfectly willing to work with him again like she would have done if Cognitive!Goro haven’t shown up. A Haru who made peace certainly won’t do anything violent on a person who admits responsibility for his actions.

And it makes sense. Haru never wanted her dad dead, and doesn’t want to kill anymore for that ‘justice’. Haru knows her dad is honestly really shitty or most of her teenage life (maybe pre-teen too my timeline is jumble up at the moment). Not only that, Haru knows her dad used his future killer to order breakdowns and/or shutdowns to fuel his goals of reaching the top (and that engagement to Sugimura was made for a reason).

So it bothers me to hell and back to see people basically turning Haru into a murderer who is killing Goro for ‘justice’. I do enjoy the idea that Haru can hurt Goro, but for me it can’t include violence at all.

This is part two to this post here, but you don’t actually need to read it for this.

This really makes sense if Goro decides to show up alive and working the Shadow Ops in another spinoff. Goro can’t go to regular jail for his mostly supernatural crimes I figure after getting revealing to be alive and getting busted on a non-supernatural crime the Shadow Ops did their research and pull strings to get Goro serve time under their heavy watch look it’s the best option I can think of okay.

Haru may have peace with everything that Goro done but it’s freaking hard to keep it up like he was dead and now he’s not. She slap him and that didn’t really a reaction from Goro (not help it’s totally random) and Haru has some standards she doesn’t want to beat up Goro she’s scare she may kill him and Haru doesn’t want to have blood on her hand.

Words can be sharper than the sword (or ax blade) and Haru decides to guilt trip Goro about her father’s death. She sometimes ‘mock’ Goro and Shido’s own father-son relationship at times and brings up Shido a lot and compare her to her good memories of Okumura Sr, but it slowly starts to work less and less to where Goro doesn’t reaction (his reactions are of annoyance and anger and that’s good enough for Haru). And it turns out Goro made peace with what Cognitive!Goro said in the ERS about himself, with him accepting he just wanted to ruin Shido’s career and life at the end of the dad there’s not a real personal emotional stake there anymore.

Haru is now like, super annoyed with this development and keeps it to herself until it builds up over time. She ends up deciding to take jab at Goro’s dead mother about her life choice or career when Goro got visitation rights to visit Joker (the others are curious to see how Goro is under this heavy watch so they always tag along). it’s something so harsh and nasty that basically it’s something a real rich bitch who thinks poorly of sex workers would say. So obviously, this hidden rich bitch inside Haru that she didn't even know exist says it out of annoyance/anger, and Haru is at first happy. She got through his armor at last.

And it’s going terribly wrong. Goro and Joker (this only works with Joker and Royal Knowledge of Goro’s past) are fighting and Goro is cursing at him Goro said that they cross a line he thought they would never do given some of the PT member’s own past with their mothers. Goro is all pissed at Joker for allowing this to happen ‘it was personal and sensitive and you made it out to be a sick joke like almost everyone else’ and Goro storms out of whatever they out and Joker goes after him and everyone is just ‘WTF JUST HAPPEN’. They’re thinking about what Goro said about his mother in the ERS and they’re come to the conclusion Goro told Joker something important that they don’t even know.

Joker and Goro are soon back but Goro isn’t willing to be in the same room at the moment until it gets clear up. Joker tells them all that Goro told Joker personal and sensitive information and Goro thought Joker told them all and was under the conclusion they possibly hypocrites and had some double standard when it came to mothers who don’t fit society standards and careers.

The PT is freaking out now, and Joker tells them Goro’s mom was a prostitute. Shido was a client, and the two decided to have something more, leading to Goro’s birth, and Joker explains how she tried to basically work part time for Goro’s sake. Everyone is taking it in slowly because ‘this is heavy’. Haru is freaking the f*ck out and tells Joker that she didn’t know she swears on her life. Everyone is trying to calm down Haru because they believe her but they realize it’s just a matter of the PT trying to convince Goro they don’t know and aren’t judgmental of Goro’s mother choice of career. And like, Goro decides to tell them that he knows now and they decide to not bring up the subject again out of respect for his mother (it helps Goro tells them that he never blamed his mother and her career for his situation it was just Shido only and Goro overreacted).

This is now awkward as hell territory because we have the supernatural hitman  that is Goro who killed two of the PT’s parents and unintentionally cruel shaming of a prostitute from Haru and everyone can see they don’t want to even be in the same room anymore. Goro and Haru don’t talk or interact with each other than a few ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye’. It gets real bad where Goro bails out more than Haru. And Ryuji -who from the link above would be the one who makes the first move on forgiving Goro sans Joker- tells Haru that Goro still thinks at times they’re talking shit about his mother behind his back and Ryuji is trying get Goro to understand they aren’t they all mutually agree they’ll just roast Goro and Shido.

The message eventually gets across because Haru apologizes about disrespecting Goro’s mother (she explains she’s not apologizing to Goro per say just his mother) and Goro accepts it. Haru and Goro go back on their usual terms: awkward conversations that aren’t longer than five sentences that are safe and boring topics like weather, food (which Haru realize food is Goro’s go to topic it’s a real safety net), and coffee. On one topic about food Goro slips up and mentions his mother and her ‘cooking’ (which is just her microwaving food yes it’s an anime detail but it works with Royal info of her). Haru ends up telling Goro -and I say this because there is little information of Mrs. Okumura- that she has no idea if her mom is dead or alive (Haru tells him she thinks her mom is dead), which is why she is -was- close to her father. It another level of awkward and they carry on the topic as if it never happen.

So eventually Haru decides that enough is enough and she needs to get a better picture of her dad’s action with the conspiracy. Haru tears off the bandage and asks Goro to talk about her father when he was working with Shido’s conspiracy, and everyone starts to freak out. Goro even wars her that what her dad did could really change her perspective. Haru doesn’t care and just wants to know all the dirt her father had and the group itself if Goro has to tell.

It takes several weeks/months because they’re not in each other presence 24/7 anymore, but Goro eventually keeps his end of the bargain. He tells every dirty secret the conspiracy had and what they order for Goro to do, and her dad has a something of a list (and the nude Wild Duck Burger Worker makes sense now Haru actually asks Goro if she can reveal this to the others it’s just...wild and Goro agrees to it). At the end of airing the laundry Haru thanks Goro and tells him she needs to think it all over.

When they meet up again -could be a year or two or more; Goro’s ‘time’ prevents from being free to do whatever 24/7- Haru and Goro have a real solo talk with one another without the other PT members interfering and being nosy. And it turns out that Goro did his own thinking as well.

So Goro reaffirms Haru’s thoughts that he will never apologized for Okumura Sr’s death (Haru suspects this will never actually change). Haru is shock to learn that Goro will however, apologized for taking Haru’s chance to properly make sense of her feelings of her dad post-change of heart and whether or not she wanted to truly forgive him post-change of heart. Goro even says this was partly inspired by Haru’s own apology about his mother’s career and Haru owning up to her actions because Haru could have kept it under the bridge but didn’t, and Goro realize he can do it too.

On Haru’s side of the conversation, she admits that with this much time to think things over and what she learn of her father, what she hates the most of her father’s death (other than a possible second chance with the idealize father Haru remembers from her childhood) is that she can never properly get to tell him her feelings and his wrongdoings towards her. Sure Haru can say it to a photo of him or his grave/urn, but it’s not the same as saying it to his face. Haru had that much anger (and hate) towards her had for a long time and felt rob, and she is glad that Goro recognizes his actions at last and is apologizing for that at least.

In a way, that helps Haru realize she can slowly forgive Goro, and says it as much. But she makes it clear they are never going to be friends, and Goro is fine with that; he just wants their situation to be more civil than before. And then they go on the topic of food like always and Haru makes plans for everyone to eat at a Big Bang Burger restaurant because Goro let it slip that he never ate there and Haru is almost insulted that Goro ‘worked’ for Okumura Foods (it’s a stretch and they both know it) and never tried a product before. 

Honestly this is just my interpretation of how Haru and Goro evolution of their no-way-they’ll-become-friends-but-will-be-okay-in-each-other-presence-relationship would be without the violent takes but the harshness of the violent takes like we need some drama but not a murder drama.

#goro akechi #haru okumura #p5r spoilers #persona 5 royal spoilers #persona 5 the royal spoilers #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #persona 5 the royal #this is a text post

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “Lady Silence” Part 3

Frost’s younger sister came to live with him 6 months ago; one could say Y/N is a bit of an oddball because she doesn’t talk and she doesn’t like to be touched. The Joker allowed her to help the crew from time to time without knowing that the only reason for the woman’s presence amidst them was actually him.

Shiro takes a look at the new cards facing down in front of him, glad to see 3 kings in his pile:

“I’m in,” he slides a stash of hundreds towards the middle of the poker table, distracted by your kiss in the next second: you’re sitting in his lap and make it hard for him to concentrate since you won’t stop teasing.

“Mistress, are you going to play?” Kiyoshi asks and Frost throws a handful of chips in his direction:

“Shut up! She cleared us up last time so it’s fine if she doesn’t!”

Miyuki giggles, taking another glance at your brother: you don’t have to be a genius in order to notice she’s still in love with him. They dated three years ago and it didn’t work out; God knows why: in your personal opinion they were perfect for each other.

“I fold,” she sighs because there is no way she could win this round with the lousy hand she got from the dealer.

“I’m in,” The Joker growls, quite happy with his cards. He keeps sipping from the herbal tea you brewed especially for him: he doesn’t like the taste but it’s sure helping with the migraine. He was told that most of the ingredients could become poison in one’s body if not measured accurately; thankfully Y/N is mastering this skill too and strangely enough J didn’t even doubt her expertise, glad the splitting headache is almost gone.

There’s a bunch of small talk and laughter going on between the 12 people gathered outside the terrace for the poker party: mostly important Yakuza members in charge of different branches under your husband’s leadership. He’s silent for the moment though since you just whispered something in his ear that suddenly made the rest fade:

“I’m not wearing anything under my kimono”.

You feel his grip tightening around your waist and you peck his cheek, pleased to see him simmer under the apparent indifference. Shiro’s eagerness is reaching new heights once you stand up and discretely leave the table; he takes another shot of sake, slamming the cup in front of Akihiro:

“Pour me another one, please!”

“Thirsty?” the head of San Antonio network winks and obliges the request.

“Very,” your spouse admits, guzzling down another shot of his favorite drink and tosses his cards to the side. “Play a few rounds without me!” he announces and abandons the poker opponents in search for his wife.

J watches Shiro stepping inside the house, then walking on the long hallway attempting to guess in which room you are; a hand abruptly snatches him and he ends up inside the walk-in closet with Y/N locking the door for more privacy.

“Hi,” you rush in his arms and he smirks.

“Hi,” he kisses your neck and begins untying your kimono, satisfied when it glides on the carpet revealing a naked Y/N he wants immediately. “This wasn’t a part of tonight’s plan,” your husband points out but he surely enjoys the spontaneity.

“It won’t affect the outcome,” you unwrap the kimono in a frenzy and he pushes you against the wall, impatient to get it out of his system.

“U-hum,” Shiro agrees while lifting you higher against his body. “Plus I think we can consider this our second wedding night since we renewed our vows today, right? This can be a little preview,” his cheeky remark makes you giggle.

“If you think you have the energy for more than a preview…” you taunt and pull down on his boxers, causing the proud spouse to conclude:

“I’m on a roll!”

“Are you?” Y/N bites her lip and debates on something she’s been struggling with for months.

“I am and I can prove it,” Shiro confidently reaffirms and you tangle your fingers in his hair, aware that the next statement will render him beyond ecstatic.

“…Then maybe we should start trying for…for another baby…”

His eyes get big, taking in what you just said; he wanted this for a while and didn’t expect such a nice surprise anytime soon.

“You make me so happy,” Shiro confesses and rests his forehead on yours. His heart is beating so fast it’s impossible to ignore the overwhelming feeling of bliss washing all over him.

You smile at the genuine revelation, your teary eyes making him slowly guide his spouse towards the only furniture in the walk-in closet: a comfortable loveseat that witnessed many previous escapades of the Ozunu couple.

“You know what I think?...” he softly kisses you. “That we conceived Haruto in the same place…” Shiro mentions the lost first born and you cling to him at the bittersweet memory. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he instantly apologizes when tears roll down your face, reckoning that maybe he shouldn’t have said it.

“I’m not upset,” you reply while being picked up because he’s not at fault. “I just miss him…”

The leader of the Ozunu clan walks around the spacious room holding his most valuable possession: the woman he loved for so long he can’t remember a single day when he felt different about her. Even when they fight and they don’t speak for a few hours.

“Wanna go back to our guests?” your husband suggests and you sniffle on his shoulder, considering the proposal yet you don’t like it.

“No, I want to make love,” you hop off his arms and push him on the couch. “Even if it’s just a little preview,” you wipe your tears and the joke evokes a grin.

“Com’ere then,” he signals for his Y/N, understating it’s the only thing that will alleviate the grief for both of them.

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

Shiro is the first one to return to the poker table, shortly followed by his wife; he’s already playing again and you carefully circle the table, halting behind your brother.

“You’re not playing, are you?” Frost inquires, worried you might and it makes you snicker. You nod a no and he relaxes, glad for the confirmation. “Thank God! It will be nice to end up with some money instead of nothing,” the grumbled words prompt the older sibling to rectify his bitterness with a quick peck of your wrist.

The Joker sees you bend over and your lips barely moving when you tell Jonny under your breath:

“Baka!” which means idiot in Japanese. Nobody else heard you, including the King of Gotham and your brother snorts, amused.

Shiro gathers his hair and brings it to the left side of his body, the long strands hanging down past his waist. The gesture is swiftly noticed by Y/N and it means she has the approval to resume with the plan.

You leave Jonny’s side and observe the players, pretending to be interested in the game. As soon as you are by Kimura, you patiently wait for him to stretch and create a gap large enough for you to squeeze in and land on his knees. The man in charge with the Memphis network nervously glares at your husband as you keep on caressing the collar of his kimono, savoring the shocked expression on his face.

“Why so anxious, Kimura?” Shiro sneers, fiddling with his cards. “You never had a woman sitting in your lap?”

“Umm…” he tries to think of something smart to utter before it’s too late.

“Or maybe you’re tense for a different reason?” Shiro hints and intensely stares at the reason for tonight’s gathering.

“I’m not sure what…” Kimura wiggles in the chair and you walk your fingers across his chest, ready to intervene if he tries to stand up.

“Last month FBI raided my property with a warrant following an anonymous tip that I got a shipment full of smuggled artefacts from Japan. Do you know anything about that?” your husband’s voice is increasingly more and more menacing, his patience running short with the traitor. “Almost got arrested and placed in federal custody since they are always on my tail. You see, the authorities have this weird idea that I have something to do with Yakuza. Rumor is I’m their leader. Me?” he innocently chuckles. “Just the descendant of a very wealthy family with the best attorneys money can buy, offering employment to various law abiding citizens. Am I right?” Shiro addresses everyone and there’s only silence; Kimura realizes why: they all know but he tries to lie nevertheless:

“I swear…”

“You swear??!!” your husband shouts. “On the oath you pledged to me and the clan??!”

The Joker has no clue about what’s going on; he’s not part of the Yakuza and wasn’t briefed on tonight’s events yet his instincts warn about a simple fact: this is not a poker party, but an execution.

“Why did you betray me? You really thought I wouldn’t find out?!” Shiro growls and Kimura pushes you away, managing to escape your grip just because you allow it.

He takes a few steps back and the members of the Ozunu clan get up from the table, only J and Frost don’t. Your brother could participate since he’s considered part of the organization thou loyalty towards his employer dictate Jonny’s decision of inaction.

“Where are you going?” your husband shrieks. “Don’t you have any dignity left?”

Kimura watches everybody approach, noticing a faint movement in the darkness surrounding the terrace: the assassins are there also, making sure he won’t flee.

“Shiro…” he lifts his hands up asking for truce. “If you let me explain…”

“Explain!” the unexpected reply gives him a few seconds of fake impression he might twist the truth in his favor.

Kimura opens his mouth and the knife whooshing by your ear stops the words before they come out: Miyuki aimed for his throat and she never misses, just like you. The man gasps for air, his shaky fingers struggling to cover the blood oozing out of the wound. One of the assassins dressed in black emerges from the shadows, handing over his sword to your husband. Kimura stumbles on the decorative lanterns scattered around the patio, the gurgling noises coming out of him intensifying when he tries to take the blade out.

Shiro stomps towards him, mad beyond control after simulating a calm attitude for hours: there’s nothing worse than a scorned leader with zero tolerance for treachery.

The Joker catches himself admiring the sharp steel moments before it cuts the viper’s head; the fluidity in Shiro’s movement is quite hypnotizing for a person not accustomed to such capabilities. The Clown Prince of Crime is no exception.

“Goddamn snitch!” Akihiro kicks the corpse, disgusted at his former friend’s behavior. “I can’t believe he did that!”

“He got what he deserves!” Kiyoshi barks and takes the sword from your husband’s hand. “Master Shiro, thank you for avenging all of us,” he bows and the rest of those present do the same.

Your husband scoffs, glad the charade is over with.

“No need to thank me. Ensure it doesn’t happen again!” he indirectly reminds them of the fate they could share if they ever dare follow the same path Kimura did.

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

You continue to comb Shiro’s long hair, only The Joker left to keep you company in the office belonging to the main house after the others split.

“Can you braid it?” he hums and takes another sip of sake.

“U-hum,” you oblige and start twisting the locks; you can tell by his tired eyes that J is nearly ready to call it quits for the night too.

“I think I’m gonna crash soon,” he yawns and curiosity mixed with boredom makes him inquire about the several boxes filled with folders on Shiro’s desk. “Are you working on another project? Anybody else that betrayed and needs a lesson?” The Joker winks, sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.

Shiro feels the pressure of your palms on his shoulders and although it’s not part of tonight’s agenda, might as well bring it up:

“No, not at all. These are actually files and information gathered over the years about our missing friend, the one that saved Y/N’s life and helped me run away with her.”

“Oh, him!” J remembers the previous conversations on the topic. ”Probably dead, why bother with the research?”

“He might not be,” Shiro places his cup on the coffee table next to him, preparing for a short interrogation. “Does the name Damian Johnson ring a bell?”

“… Mmm, noooo…?” J frowns, not comprehending the reason for the strange question.

Your husband reaches for some papers on his desk, handing them over to the guest.

“That was his name,” Shiro adds. “I told you he vanished because most than likely my father found out about what he did. Ryota Ozunu couldn’t stand traitors either, not that my friend was a traitor per se. But he was in my parent’s eyes since he never approved my relationship and that was enough.”

“What am I looking at?” The Joker turns the pages of the thick report, confused on the shared data.

“Police and hospital reports; that’s Damian,” your husband points out and The Joker recognizes the face from the pictures he saw around the residence. “It says John Doe since they couldn’t identify him. A lot of the orphans my father used as curriers don’t legitimately exist. He gave them names, but nothing official.”

“Fascinating,” he mutters because there’s no way in hell he will read all that. Why bother? Not his problem.

Shiro is not discouraged:

“Two weeks after I ran away with Y/N, his body was fished out of Hudson River: it seemed he has been tortured for days and then thrown in the water to drawn but he didn’t die. I had no idea; back then I was nothing more than a disowned outcast with no connections or any influence whatsoever…Damian was in a coma for 7 months and when he woke up he had no memory of who he was. Took another year for him to sort of recover, but he wasn’t doing well; he kept on being moved from mental institution to the next, placed on suicide watch since he tried to kill himself repeatedly. Among others he was treated for paranoia and disillusions, the medical report stating it was a result of the severe psychological and physical trauma he couldn’t recover from. I’m certain my father did a great job at cruelly punishing a young man that had no other fault besides helping his friends.”

The Joker lifts his gaze from the documents only to see a flustered Y/N quietly crying next to her husband’s recliner.

“I think you’re upsetting your wife,” J correctly guesses and Shiro ignores the sentence.

“Damian disappeared from Lane County mental hospital two months after being a patient there, this particular John Doe resurfacing from time to time in police reports, accused of acts of violence, robbery, murder and arson. Then two years of absolutely no trace before he reappeared again…completely changed…” your husband sighs and The Joker turns another page, stunned at the image depicting his own mug shot for the FBI most wanted list.

“What exactly is this?!” J snarls, not a huge fan of Shiro insinuation.

“Damian was two years older than me and three years older than Y/N. Are you 39 years old, Mister Joker?”

“That’s none of your business!” J hisses.

“It’s none of my business because you don’t want us to know your age or because you have no idea yourself?” Shiro raises his voice and won’t stop the tirade: “Do you have a star shaped birth mark on your left hip?”

“What are you doing?!” The Joker throws the report on the floor, antagonized. “Are you playing games with me?”

“No, otherwise you would know the difference; trust me.”

“Is that why I’m here?! For mind games?!” J disregards Shiro’s honest remark, getting up from the couch and dashing towards the door. He’s so furious he’s about to explode which doesn’t help when you block the exit with your body. “Out of my way!!” he yells and violently pushes you. You almost collapse on your knees but regain your balance and try to stop him from getting out when he charges again, mad beyond control.

“MISTER JOKER!!!!!” your husband yells. “DID YOU JUST ATTACK MY WIFE??!!”

The Joker turns towards Shiro since he never heard anybody screaming so loud, panting from the effort of making you move; certainly not as easy as he thought it would be.

“So what if I did, huh?” J sarcastically responds.

“GET OUT!!” Shiro rises from his spot, striving to contain his rage before it’s too late. “Get out of our house and don’t come back until you have learned some manners!”

“Or else what?” The Joker retaliates, shaking from the indignation poisoning his reasoning. “Are you going to unleash your assassins on me?”

“Believe me when I tell you I don’t need anybody else in order to drag you out of here!”

Things are getting out of hand and seeing there’s no other solution for the imminent altercation, you finally move out of The Joker’s way. He hesitates for a split second before opening the door and slamming it in your face when you want to follow.

“Let him go!!!” Shiro commands.

“We’ve been searching for years…” you plead and choke on the words.

“I don’t give a damn!”

“Shiro…” your voice breaks under the burden of guilt. “Shiro please…”

He fumes at the state you’re in, not that he’s doing better; it definitely didn’t go well.

“Shiro... He’s leaving… and he might not return,” you underline and your husband debates on the words.

“That’s not Damian! Or are you blind to the fact that he’s not the same person?!”

You bite on your lip, not giving up.

“Shiro…” you whisper, “…it’s not his fault… You know what happened to him…Please… Please?...”

Your spouse is pacing around the office, attempting to calm down.

“Fuck!” he has another outburst and knocks the boxes containing years of research on the floor, various pictures with young Damian sliding on the marble. Shiro glares at them with contempt, deciding to listen to his wife:

“Go…”

You don’t need a second invitation and sprint out of the office, merely paying attention to the warning:

“Take an umbrella; it’s pouring outside!”

But Y/N doesn’t care for an umbrella: she tosses her sandals down the hallway so she can run faster, lifting her kimono in the process for a hasty speed. You rush past the terrace and jump over the railing to avoid the stairs, darting towards the parking lot. The Joker is already gone and you can see his car heading for the south gates; nothing left to do but hurry after him on the slippery road while the crazy rain intensifies.

J adjusts his rearview mirror, accelerating when he sees you following the vehicle. Your reflection is getting smaller and smaller, yet he still sees you chasing after the car.

“What the hell are you doing?” he mumbles and the windshield wipers can’t even catch up with the amount of rain falling from the sky. A few neon lights illuminating the stormy night go out, the path behind scarcely detectable: Y/N is now a black dot on The Joker’s rearview mirror and he slams the breaks, puzzled.

Why aren’t you returning to the mansion?

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

You’re slowing down, the soles of your feet hurting from the hard concrete; it’s cold and you’re soaked to the bone, that’s why you hope Shiro alerted the guards to keep the gates closed: if he didn’t, it was all for nothing.

A few more steps and you halt, exhausted. You can’t see the car anymore and you sure wish The Joker won’t be able to vacate the premises. Or maybe he’s actually on track and driving back to Gotham if your husband changed his mind and determined The Clown Prince of Crime is not worth the trouble. If the gates were opened, he’s gone.

You’re looking up and down the road, no other option but to return to the house. You barely find the strength to walk, thinking about the tremendous efforts and resources spent over the years to find Damian and how ugly it turned out.

The sound of splashing water gets your attention and you tilt your head to see The Joker’s SUV slowly cruising to catch up with you. You wait until the car is next to you and he gets out, staring at the drenched Y/N.

“Why are you following me Silence?” he grumbles. “Did your husband send you to kill me? Do your worst but I can assure you I can hold my ground!”

You nod a no.

“What is it then, you’re afraid I’ll steal the kimono I borrowed?!” J snaps as he struggles to untie the garment he’s still wearing. “Here, you can have it!” He’s so frustrated his fingers keep on missing the knot.  

You approach and touch his hand with yours, making him stop.

“You can keep it,” you sadly smile and The Joker is not fussing anymore: this is the first time you ever talk to him and the first time he’s hearing your voice. He’s stunned and you take advantage of the situation and wrap your arms around his neck, hugging him. “Stay…” you whisper. “Don’t go…OK?...”

It’s not easy to surprise The Joker and for the moment he doesn’t even care he’s completely wet too.

“Stay…” you repeat and release the embrace. “OK?”

J notices your red toes, scraped from running barefoot.

“Get in the car, Silence…” he pauses. “…I’ll drive us to the mansion…” he grouchily offers and watches you clean your face with the sleeves of your kimono. It’s pouring but he realizes you’re crying: the drops trickling down your face are not just water beads.

“I’m not the person you’ve been searching for,” he mentions as soon as you are both in the car and you glance at him, sobbing: it hurts so bad looking in his eyes and seeing no trace of your childhood friend but a complete stranger gazing back.

 Part 1:  diyunho(.)tumblr(.)com/post/182229828411/the-joker-x-reader-lady-silence-part-1

 Part 2:  diyunho(.)tumblr(.)com/post/183207279431/the-joker-x-reader-lady-silence-part-2

Also read: MASTERLIST

diyunho(.)tumblr(.)com/post/153664676321/joker-x-reader-masterlist

AO3 and Wattpad -- same blog name: DiYunho

#the joker x reader #the joker fanfiction #the joker jared leto #the joker imagine #the joker #the joker suicide squad #joker #joker fanfiction #joker imagine #joker leto #mister j #Mistah J #mr. j #dc

[confinedmadness]

[Translation] Deku (Yamashita Daiki) x Kacchan (Okamoto Nobuhiko) Special Interview

This is a rough translation of the interview with voice actors Yamashita Daiki (Midoriya Izuku) and Okamoto Nobuhiko (Bakugou Katsuki) regarding the Deku-Kacchan fight in the third season. Original Japanese from the Boku no Hero Academia anime’s official website.

—————————-

★ Thank you for your hard work! How was the recording for you?

Okamoto Nobuhiko (Nobu below) [1] From the very moment I entered the studio, I felt that the atmosphere was different. It was only us in the first row of the seats so we were able to naturally create that atmosphere of being somewhere with just the two of us. The “Let’s do this!!!” feeling was more than usual.

Yamashita Daiki (Daiki below) [2] I felt the same way! The “Nobuhiko-san and I are doing this today!” feeling was very strong.

★ Since Episode 7 of the first season, Episode 61[3] is the first time Deku and Bakugou will be having a serious 1-on-1 fight. How was it compared to the last time?

Daiki At that time Deku could only use his full power and he has grown since. Even if I’m playing the same character, the level of preparedness is very different. Also, this time Kacchan’s the one who’s in a state of being backed to a corner…

Nobu That’s true. Also, during the test they were fighting more with just these strong feelings of “I’ll win!” They weren’t really talking with each other.

Daiki Right, right. They were synchronized.[4] And then…

Nobu The sound director told us “You two aren’t aiming for something like the All Might and One-For-All fight, right?” And honestly, that’s exactly what I thought

Daiki I thought during the recording it would be a fight between equals and a clash of their wills, but it was different. We were both wrong.

Nobu I was given direction that Bakugou is using Deku so he can answer his own questions. Up until now, Kacchan has always just yelled at people. I thought this time, too, he’d fight Deku thinking he has the answers, but that wasn’t the case. I had to voice a vulnerable Kacchan that has not been seen until now. This was very difficult. Even during fight, his screams are different from up until now. I also want to just yell loudly but the feelings in the fight this time is not like that. But if I also just simply suppress my voice, it won’t sound like Kacchan anymore. I voiced him hoping I could show something, even just his inner feelings.

★ And it was also the first time Deku saw that kind of Bakugou.

Daiki That’s right. I’ve voiced Deku in the anime for 60 episodes now and he’s had several confrontations with Kacchan but he’s never talked to him with such a calm voice before. He’s never seen Kacchan not show his gums (lol). For me, it was so painful I almost couldn’t watch. At first, Deku wanted the conversation to end quickly, and the fight started from there. As it progressed, it somehow turned into passionate feelings of not wanting to lose. I was directed to voice him with feelings of “I have to do something about him (Bakugou)!”

★ Like, to save Bakugou from his own feelings or something?

Daiki Yes. It’s the feeling of “I have to do something!”. There’s no helping it if Kacchan thinks that kind of meddling is annoying. I was able to reaffirm that Deku’s foundation is really his belief that the essence of a hero is saving people even when they don’t want to (meddling). However, this episode was really a “Kacchan Episode”.

★ “Kacchan Episode”?

Daiki Kacchan’s suffering and his conflicted feelings have come to light. At this moment, I think Deku is doing pretty well. He’s right on track: he was told “You’re Next!” by All Might, he found a new fighting style, and got his provisional license. And Kacchan sees that.

Nobu He knows that even if he fights Deku with his anger it won’t change anything. But he doesn’t know what else to do. He’s fighting with himself about it but no answers come. And in the midst of finding “something”, Deku is the only target he can think of to fight. I think it’s really painful to keep on having to ask “why??” It was really difficult while voicing him.

★ And the cause of the questions and the fight is All Might.

Nobu All Might is the number 1 person Kacchan admires. So there’s also the question of “why?” All Might passed on his quirk to Deku and not to him. “Why not me?” Since entering UA, he most wanted to be acknowledged by All Might but there’s always Deku first. In this fight as well, though I’m not allowed to say how it ends, whether he wins or loses, that question of “Why not me?” probably won’t disappear. At the end of the fight, Kacchan says something unexpected, and from that line you can see that the child-like feeling of “I want to be acknowledged, too!” is really there.

Daiki In this recording, I thought that Kacchan is a very real young boy, after all. With his conviction of winning, I realized that up until now he has always been giving it his all. I’ve come to understand the person called Kacchan.

★ After the fight, is there any change in Deku and Bakugou?

Daiki The original story of the episode to be aired shows that this intense fight between the two of them will end. But even if you say it’s a fight, it’s really a drama dealing with their feelings. After that battle of emotions, the feeling of not wanting to lose to Kacchan is even clearer to Deku, and I think that this is something important towards his goal of becoming the best hero like All Might.

Nobu When I read the manga, I thought Kacchan was finally free from a burden. But once I actually tried voicing it, I realized I’m not satisfied yet (lol). However, he has always had that desire to surpass All Might, and also Deku, to become number 1. Now it’s even stronger.

★ Lastly, please give a message to the fans and viewers.

Daiki Even I, when I read the manga, thought this was going to be an intense episode. I think when it becomes an anime, whether it’s the greatness of the manga, or Deku and Kacchan’s feelings, or the conflict and fight, everything will be freshly and impressively depicted. Please do enjoy their fight!

Nobu There were also sad, painful scenes in “Bakugou Katsuki: Origin”[5], but this time you will see an even more anguished, suffering Kacchan. Of course, look forward to the great battle scenes, but I would also be happy if you would look at their troubles and see how they go beyond, “Plus Ultra”!

★ Thank you very much.

—————————-

Please notify me for corrections!

[1] In the original Japanese, the shortened form was just his last name “Okamoto” [2] In the original Japanese, the shortened form was just his last name “Yamashita” [3] Overall Episode 61 is Season 3 Episode 23 [4] I really don’t get this. Maybe he actually meant he and Nobu were thinking the same thing?! [5] “Bakugou Katsuki: Original” is Overall Episode 37 or Season 2 Episode 24

Do NOT use this translation as reference for anything important. This is a rush translation and has not been proofread. 

Other translations:

Ootsuka Akio (All For One) Special Interview Yamashita Daiki (Midoriya Izuku) Special Interview Vol. 2 Kaji Yuuki (Todoroki Shoto) Special Interview Suwabe Junichi (Aizawa Shota) Special Interview Okamoto Nobuhiko (Bakugou Katsuki) Special Interview Vol. 2

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #bnha #mha #yamashita daiki #okamoto nobuhiko #voice actors #seiyuu #japanese #japan #translation #interview #anime #僕のヒーローアカデミア #ヒロアカ #posts

[gadgetsrevv]

Zidane, Valverde show Real Madrid and Barcelona players who’s in charge as Neymar links continue

I hope it’s not a revelation to you that when it comes to football managers, the four apocalyptic horsemen are injuries, defeat, the sack and the transfer market.

The first will lead to the second. Injuries provoke an increase in dropped points. Accumulate enough defeats and the clattering hooves of the third will soon be heard. But the fourth, the transfer market, can look deceptively like he’s mounted on a friendly, exquisitely-groomed, well-tamed thoroughbred until the beast rears its forelegs and thumps unsuspecting football managers full in the face. That’s why it has been fascinating and uplifting to see how Zinedine Zidane and Ernesto Valverde trying to turn into horse-whisperers over the past 10 days, each of them actively battling the collateral damage the transfer market is trying to inflict on them.

The main actors in this theatre of defiance and risk, directed and produced by “Zizou” and Valverde, are Ansu Fati, Gareth Bale, Carles Aleña, James Rodriguez, Luka Jovic, Carles Perez, Vinicius Jr., Sergio Busquets and Sergi Roberto. Neither manager actually needs to lie in bed at night cold-sweating the arrival of the third horseman. They’re not immune to being sacked, but they’re also not currently in danger.

– Ansu Fati becomes Barca’s youngest debutant in 78 years – Lowe: Jose Antonio Reyes’ death casts shadow over new season – Krichko: Inaki Williams blazes a trail at Athletic Club

Valverde has his critics, but he looks safe until his contract ends in June 2020. Zidane? In theory, given his brilliant champions league legacy as a player and coach, he should be the unsackable coach. However, on Tuesday, Marca, a newspaper consistently drip-fed information by Florentino Perez, splashed its front page with the headline “Zidane Loses His Immunity.” Zidane and President Perez are in a battle of wills as to whether it should be Paul Pogba or Neymar shipped in before the transfer market closes next Monday.

If Marca plasters “Zidane Loses His Immunity” across their front page, to be seen or read by several million people around the world, it must be accepted as a rap across the knuckles from a higher office than merely the season ticket-holders. “Get your nose out of the Neymar affair, forget about Pogba and get the team playing better” — that sort of message.

The first two apocalyptic riders, the pale and the red horses of injury and defeat, have visited Zidane and Valverde from almost the minute their summer holidays ended.

Zinedine Zidane has handled his want-away or surplus stars well at Real Madrid since the tumult of preseason, helping reintegrate Gareth Bale to the first team while slowly introducing the players signed by Florentino Perez.

Madrid have been blighted by eight major injuries in 47 days, which crippled their preseason stamina-building, team understanding, sharpness and new-player induction. It was brutal for Ferland Mendy and Eden Hazard, new arrivals, while Real also bid goodbye to Marco Asensio for most of the season. Meanwhile, Barcelona lost Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele to a plague of muscle problems that would have sent many managers gibbering to a psychiatrists couch with claims that “life has got it in for me!”

These things, while either improved or worsened by a club’s fitness practices, are largely out of the control of football managers. That particular horseman will visit: it’s inevitable.

What about defeats? Madrid lost 7-3 to Atleti in New Jersey and Barça kicked off the season with a defeat for the first time since 2008. These things do damage managers, all of which means that studying Zidane and Valverde’s decisions of who to pick or drop in their four matches, has been riveting for anyone who likes to people-watch in football and try to get under the skin of the main on-stage actors.

We’ve seen serious, ambitious but overburdened men making it crystal clear that they will embrace risk, that they will enforce principles, that they will stand defiant against certain club wishes… if it helps them deflect the damage the fourth horseman can inflict. The transfer market can become a pestilence for these two elite, seemingly untouchable and vastly successful men because it’s a beast that they cannot outright control. No way. It leaves them fighting to become survivors, not victims.

Zidane wants Pogba this summer, though not only does it seem sure he’s not going to get Manchester United’s marquee player, but Perez doesn’t appear particularly interested in trying to force a deal through. Zidane neither wants nor needs Neymar, sentiments that are of little or no interest to his employer.

Up front, Luka Jovic is far from the finished article as a striker. Zidane’s assessment seems to be that Jovic has little in his locker beyond the fact that the young, burly Serb inarguably tucks away goals. But “suck it up, Zizou!” is the message from the big Bernabeu offices. This is who you’re getting, regarding Jovic, so Zidane drops him.

As for Valverde? He’d love to be able to rely on Ivan Rakitic, one of his “most-used” footballers since the Basque (himself nicknamed “the Worker Ant”) discovered the Croatian’s unselfish, team-oriented relentless “all for one and one for all” playing ethic. But Rakitic is one of the few transfer-market coins that cash-strapped Barca have at their disposal.

Barca coach Valverde has reasserted himself as the man in charge despite complaints from senior players about a lack of minutes.

The likeliest resolution is that Rakitic’s stubborn insistence on staying will win the day when the market shuts on Monday. Meantime, the club’s requirement that Ivan-the-terribly-good doesn’t get injured, thus scuppering any possibility at all of putting him in a deal to secure Neymar, has been dominant.

Of Barcelona’s 180 competitive minutes so far in 2019-20, Rakitic has only been given 45. Those only came while Suarez was already off injured and Messi was absent. In other words, in extremis. Valverde has had no choice. The point is this: when Valverde opted to deploy 16-year-old Ansu on Sunday he did so as if he was saying “I’m taking back control!”

The previous week at San Mames, he’d already ignored Sergio Busquets and Junior Firpo on the bench and given 21-year-old winger Carles Perez only his second-ever senior appearance. Then Valverde started the kid again at the Camp Nou in week 2.

Against Betis, when Ansu was made Barcelona’s second-youngest player in club history, Valverde left on the bench two big-reputation (and big salary) players, Samuel Umtiti and Arthur, on the bench despite each of them crying out for game time.

Ansu may well be an emerging phenomenon and Perez a confident, talented young buck. But this was quite clearly a series of very firm messages. To President Bartomeu: “I don’t need Neymar, I’ve got the super-kids and I’ll use them.” To the senior players who have been ignored: “It’s time to sharpen up.” To the unreliable Dembele: “Get professional or get ready to languish on the bench or in the stands.” To the fans, media and to young academy players, including Ricki Puig, who some Barça media personalities and fans think is a mercurial genius already worthy of an automatic first-team place: “Youth will be trusted when I think it’s time.”

Zidane’s decision-making in Madrid can be regarded as a little more pragmatic but like Valverde, it’s still heavily laden with important declarations of self-determination, independence and potential conflict to come.

In order to have any chance of raising the cash to buy Neymar, Madrid’s bean-counters would need to sell or trade James or Gareth Bale. Or both. Zidane may not have been terrifically keen on either man until now but the instant the Premier League market closed, he exercised some good old common sense and extended the olive branch of peace to the Welshman, who has since started both Liga matches and played all but fifteen minutes of the 180 available.

James, ripe to be sold or traded before the other major markets close next Monday, was picked on merit against Valladolid and played well; he wasn’t wrapped in cotton-wool as Valverde has felt forced to do with Rakitic. The result? A good performance, but an injury now removes the Colombian as a trading piece from Florentino Perez’s shopping basket.

Zidane took back control. The club haven’t benefitted, but perhaps the team has. Perhaps he, himself, has. The manager’s authority, his character and how he’s viewed by the rest of the squad: all of those things have been reinforced. More, Zidane’s decision to drop Jovic demonstrated his thoughts on the Serb’s current form and preseason performances.

Cost: €50 million. The amount Zidane cares about that? Zero. It’s a message to the striker, message to those who signed him. Oh, and as for Alvaro Odriozola, signed after Zidane quit Madrid in June 2018? He was dumped out of the squad altogether at the weekend.

Neither manager has won all his bets, and each has faced criticism. But both of them wrenched back the idea that “the buck stops with me and I’m not just flotsam or jetsam to be tossed around by the furies of the transfer market.”

I think each man burnished his reputation, reaffirmed his authority, won back self-respect and faced down the fourth horseman of the apocalypse for football managers. How they must yearn to hear those hooves echoing into the distance next week.

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#Articles #Valverde show Real Madrid and Barcelona players who #Zidane Zidane #Valverde show Real Mad

[love22-us]

I speak from my point of view ... an immature love is not true love, that's why she is selfish, seeks Ichigo's attention because he wants to see her as she sees Rukia. Obviously the action of Orihime is not justified, but on the other hand, we could not justify or compare anything orihime with Rukia, not wanting to sound like a fangirl (that I am), does not come to his heels as a character. I already said, Rukia shows a mature love in the story, Orihime has an illusion of love, if she had surpassed that, she could see it doing an act of the Rukia style, but with Uryuu.

Pd: In tale to the final without cannon ichiruki, I in a very subtle way, interpret that there is a small reaffirmation that Ichigo and Rukia if they love each other. The couples were circumstational and a bit of Kubo's revenge. Entering a more "literary rehearsal" style. I always saw Orihime as an essential part to see the difference between the feelings between Ichigo and Rukia. Mostly, she was the one who most noticed the influence that Rukia had on Ichigo. The phrases "she is the most important person for kurosaki kun"; "I can not see myself reflected in his eyes"; "As soon as kuchiki San arrived, I could see the joy in the eyes of kurosaki kun"; For any person with normal numbers of neurons, it is obvious that they are the words of a woman who knows that her object of affection is not reciprocated, hence her continuous jealousy. Besides, I saw her as a character who had not yet fully developed her character. To put it one way, Rukia personified a woman with a mature love, who is capable of sacrificing himself for the one he loves most and helping him to overcome himself. While Orihime is an immature love, that kind of love that teaches us that sometimes what we want is not what we need, but it helps us to mature (usually after that, the real love comes, the one that makes you less selfish ). By that comparison, I always believed that Ichigo and Rukia would end up together. Because their relationship is based on pure love, the love that helps to heal, are the priority of each. Getting to the point of being together was not only natural, but the best for the development of all the characters. Orihime did not have that development as a character, his love appeased any development that could have his character and only remained as the girl who followed Ichigo, but never really helped, a submissive who lives By a man who has another as his most important person (because it is totally normal for your friend to be more important than your wife). For that reason and because I consider that his love was below the expectations that Kubo showed us with the couples like Rangiku and Gin, Isshin and Masaki or the parents of Uryuu (a sacrifice sacrificed, but true, where are the most important people in the World of each), is that I think the real end, which Kubo was forced to overtake, was ichiruki.

[nighttimelights-prompted]

What would you say the big 4 Au skelebros Love languages are?

(i got a sudden spike in messages after that last post, thank you all so much! i love to hear what you think about my responses to these prompts, be it in asks, replies, or simply talking in the tags. i quite liked this one and could squeeze it in time-wise amongst the longer ones i’ve got going, so here’s something shorter on this excellent imagine.)

(more on the love languages here, if you’re interested~. note too that these are just my headcanons for their primary love languages - i imagine most/all of them have close seconds that mean a lot to them as well.)

UT Sans: Acts of Service

“For these people, actions speak louder than words.“

After all he knows/has seen of Resets and related time shenanigans, with the way he guides/follows Frisk through the Underground, with the way he looks after his own brother, Acts of Service is absolutely the best fit for classic Sans. The rest means a lot to him as well, but he’s most inclined to and most affected by actions that show just how much you care about him. Not showy ones, by any means - even little things like taking the time to know his brother better and indulging him in a cookoff, or grabbing him his favorite drink before you come over, or washing his spare hoodie he left at your place with your own laundry because you remembered him saying how much he likes the smell of your detergent mixed with that special thing you always smelled of.

UT Papyrus: Quality Time

“This language is all about giving the other person your undivided attention.“

He’s got so many ideas and interests and passions, and he just wants to be able to share them with you. You don’t necessarily have to agree with all of them, but just show your own interest and participate in them with him as you’re able to. He shows his love the best for you the same way, actively making time for you in his absurdly energetic schedule, keeping in touch even when you’re apart to check in on your day, and wanting to share in the little things he loves with you, even if it’s just to catch up on the latest MTT vlogs with you in his arms, or vice versa if you’d like an enormous skeleton to be your little spoon.

UF Sans (aka Red): Acts of Service

“For these people, actions speak louder than words.“

Underfell lives by the darker twist on what could happen when you shove an entire people indefinitely underground with dwindling resources and high tension after a brutal war. Kill or be killed, or at least certainly appear willing and able enough to do so. Words are more or less empty air, easily manipulated - and even when they get to the Surface, that’s a feeling that’s hard to shake with all the vague political promises. So showing him that he matters to you is what’s most valued for him, just as he’ll do little and big things alike to show he cares about you (even going with you to visit those old friends you feel obligated to see that he doesn’t trust one inch, or perhaps taking care of some shady business behind the scenes in a way you may never know of - because he wouldn’t feel the need to tell you, he’d just do it because it would take care of you). So taking care of the trash after waking up one morning before Edge could see he’d forgotten it, or sneaking Edge recipe tips casually by sharing on social media, or simply bringing him some coffee and passing him tools as he works on his latest project - these things mean the world to him.

UF Papyrus (aka Edge): Acts of Service

“For these people, actions speak louder than words.“

For similar reasons to Red regarding the universe they live in, Acts of Service is also the primary love language for Edge. He loves praise, of course, don’t get me (or him) wrong - but when it comes to someone he truly cares about, actions will be the biggest tell for him. The same way he takes on an excess of obvious responsibility and gains renown for both the pride and ability it demonstrates and the safety it affords not only him but Red as well, he’ll work just as hard for your sake without ever vocalizing his ongoing efforts and the reasons behind them. He’ll show up, unannounced, at your place, simply to cook you a meal and appraise the chosen outfit for that Big Thing you have to do. So if you take care of him in turn, showing him more than anything perhaps in the way you set his boots to dry one rainy night when he comes home from a security detail in the early hours of the morning and simply passes out (not that he’d ever admit to overlooking that detail), or in the way you clean up your living area when he comes over because you know the order makes him feel more at ease, or in the way you start teaching yourself how to cook the kinds of savory dishes he prefers… well, that will go over extremely well and be appreciated by him.

US Sans (aka Blue): Words of Affirmation

This language uses words to affirm other people.

Blue’s a little trickier, I’ll admit. He’s incredibly observant, and can pick up on most ways people show their care, and is willing to adapt in a lot of ways himself. In the end, though, I feel that Words of Affirmation just barely wins out in preference. Because he’s so observant, outspoken, and capable, sometimes it’s easy to miss the way that he actively seeks to reaffirm other people in positive ways, and the ways that he, at least internally, hopes to be affirmed. Verbal recognition of his skills and efforts go so incredibly far with Blue. Taking the time to talk through your problems with him affirms his importance in your life to him and your trust in him, and listening and talking through his own troubles - and joys, and more - with him does the same. He’ll happily spend hours talking into the night with you, or meet up over coffee just to share your latest endeavors and experiences.

US Papyrus (aka Stretch): Physical Touch

“To this person, nothing speaks more deeply than appropriate touch.“

Permanence is something Stretch deeply struggles with, his apathy through and after the time shenanigans alongside his chronic anxiety (which he hides well through practice, humor, and an easygoing approach to most people and situations). He’s so tired, though, so just being near someone shows his care, love, and trust - so even if he’s napping (truly napping, not just faking with his eyes closed), he’s near you, and the amount of trust it takes for him to do that around you is staggering by his count - and the same in reverse. Being able to put his arm around you when you’re out, offering a fist bump as a small measure of affirmed support… other small touches to reassure him of your presence, hugs (if you’re really close) when you see him, even just casually sitting on the couch, side-by-side, these little actions show him how much you care… and how much he cares about you.

SF Sans (aka Spike): Physical Touch

“To this person, nothing speaks more deeply than appropriate touch.“

While Spike shares this value with Stretch, it’s for different reasons and under different approaches. Very few people are close in the Swapfell universe, and each person tends to have a nearly-measured value in another’s life. Things relax a little once they make it to the surface, but the same remains true in that outside of generally being on the side of ‘monster’s rights to exist’, monsters only trust and truly value a chosen few. So for Spike, if you’re among those, then that means that him choosing to be in the same room when he doesn’t necessarily have to be (or have some other desired goal or desire in that room) is a clear show of caring. He’ll read or be jotting down notes in the same room as others he cares about, and even if he doesn’t speak to them for hours, he’s very actively showing his care. For those he’s closest with, touch itself is valued to a high level. His few close friends he will touch their shoulder for reassurance, clasp their hand in understanding or even support, or sit side-by-side with them while working out a problem. Behind closed doors and in private, he values hugging as well, adoring when his s/o hugs/kisses him in greeting or goodbye, and spends/enjoys spending a lot of mutual time casually touching his s/o, sitting next to them while working, appreciating when they come behind him and wrap their arms around him in a silent, supportive embrace as he’s sorting through something particularly convoluted. His brother, too, despite his harsh words, receives small touches (hand on the shoulder, a squeeze of the hand, even a hug on occasion) to demonstrate how much Spike cares. And too, of course, his s/o will be able to appreciate (and ideally for Spike, return) a significant amount of intimacy of the decidedly NSFW kind.

As I’ve said previously, his relationship isn’t for the faint of heart, but he does not put up airs to deceive otherwise in the beginning. And again, should you be able and willing to match him wit for wit and will for will in a longlasting and positive way, he will prove to you that it is not a regrettable choice.

SF Papyrus (aka ‘Rus/Russ): Quality Time

“This language is all about giving the other person your undivided attention.“

Intriguingly, Russ is the only one to match UT Papyrus in that his strongest love language is that of quality time. For similar reasons to Underfell of the harsh nature of his home universe, he’s not one to put his greatest stock in words- but neither is he inclined or expecting actions as proof. Instead, with how little he takes for granted (his own life and happiness included), Russ values time spent together the most. This is why he’ll spend time with his brother so frequently even though they don’t always see eye to eye or enjoy all the same activities, because for him he’s expressing his deep care for his brother by spending his time with him regardless. He’s not vocal about this being his love language at all, however - so if you’re his s/o, hopefully you pick up on or naturally match this value of his, because he’ll perceive how much you care for him largely through that aspect of quality time. It’s not a demand for all your time, either, by any means. But spending quiet and busy moments alike with him, listening to him when he decides to share something, taking part in his hobbies (or perhaps more frequently, offering to include him in yours as can apply - especially if you’re able to twist it in a way that better incorporates or acknowledges him), and making the time to spend time alone together… you might as well have just handed him the stars themselves.

#undertale prompts #undertale imagines #undertale #underfell #underswap #swapfell #ut sans #uf sans #us sans #sf sans #ut papyrus #uf papyrus #us papyrus #sf papyrus #the love languages #funnily enough none of them really fit with the 'receiving gifts' love language as their primary so that's the only missing one #some of them certainly value and appreciate it but not as their main i think #any thoughts on this one~? #i enjoyed thinking about this a lot - it's a fun way to expand on and consider characters and their personalities #Anonymous

[sage-nebula]

Pokemon XYZ or blue exorcist please!

Someone else asked for Blue Exorcist, so I’m going to go ahead and do Pokémon XY(&Z). I’m also assuming you mean the anime here, but if not and you meant the games, feel free to send that in, haha.

But as for the anime … oh buddy.

Very first order of business here is to fix Alan’s ending, because I hate, hate, hate everything that happened with him post-episode 44 to the point where I feel actual anxiety in my gut every time I so much as think about it, much less actually see screencaps or gifsets of it. (Well, okay—that scene where Sycamore tries to encourage Alan to dance despite the fact that Alan clearly doesn’t want to, only for Bonnie to drag Sycamore off a couple seconds later despite how startled and reluctant he is, while Alan grins at Sycamore getting a taste of his own medicine there—that was super cute. But everything else? Everything else was garbage, and I’m wiling to sacrifice those seconds of cuteness if it means getting rid of all the other trash.) While the abusive situation that gave me C-PTSD that I’m still grappling with to this day lasted a lot longer for me than Alan’s lasted for him, his situation also came with so many more severe incidental traumas, so I feel it evens out in terms of relatability for me. With that said, the fact that he was given no time to deal with them—the fact that we see in XYZ044 that he’s feeling and sounds suicidal enough to worry Ash to the point where Ash basically gives him a “promise me you’ll battle me again at some vague, undefined point in the future, which means you have to be alive and well enough to do it” offer and that Alan refers to this as Ash saving him, all to just completely sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened two episodes later so they can toss him out on a journey again (despite, you know, the fact that Professor Sycamore said that with the way Lumiose City was Alan was needed there in episode 44 and Alan was so happy he practically started crying while smiling when he heard that), sickens me.So! Before I get into anything else, the first thing that’s changing is that. Alan is staying at the lab—his home—at the end of the series, in order to rest and recuperate. He no longer has the Mega Ring (and Lizardon no longer has that godawful collar), but the Key Stone and Charizardite X were kept and Sycamore has them fashioned into a matching set of pendants: a half-sun for Lizardon, and a half-moon for Alan. But even though they have those back, they’re still staying at the lab for the time being, with no definite plans for the future. Right now, Alan is just focusing on recuperating—or rather, Sycamore is focusing on Alan recuperating, while Alan is focusing on helping out around the lab. You know how he is. In his mind, he’ll rest when he’s dead. (Which Sycamore would like to be very many decades from now, rather than at some point before his sixteenth/seventeenth birthday, but that requires getting Alan to actually rest and take care of himself, and sometimes that can be a struggle.) So he has no definite plans, but before Ash leaves he does reaffirm that they’ll battle again someday, and whatever he does will work toward that. Ash is pretty happy to hear it.Manon, meanwhile, returns to her own journey. She’s reluctant at first; we see throughout TSME and the main series that Manon has little to no real confidence in herself as a trainer, shown both in how she never actually has a single battle on-screen aside from when she captures Fla-chan (which Alan helped her with and might as well have never happened anyway since Fla-chan was never seen after that moment)—and no, TSME 3 does not count, because Manon did not command Hari-san. He acted independently in order to defend both Manon and Alan. Her lack of confidence is also highlighted in TSME 4, when she tells Alan that if he’s with her then she and Hari-san can grow stronger, and he tells her (truthfully!) that she needs to stop relying on him all the time. So Manon is reluctant to go on her own, but Alan encourages her, tells her that he knows she can do it, and as an added bonus invites her to pick a Kanto starter to take with her. She chooses bulbasaur, and he gives her a cryptic message about how he might have something special for her should she ever manage to evolve her bulbasaur all the way to the venusaur stage. Manon gets excited and pesters him about whether or not it’s a Key Stone/Mega Stone (“Will I be able to mega evolve?!” - “It’s your pokémon that mega evolves, not you—” - “I know that, jeez! Just answer the question!!”), but he refuses to tell her. Just smiles and playfully shoos her on her way. She’s still nervous—scared, even—but she and Hari-san (and her new bulbasaur Fushi-kun) go on their journey to build confidence in themselves and each other.So that’s number one—the biggest one, but a very, very important one. As for others?

The Showcases have got to go. They do. They just do. They’re bathed in idol culture, which is extremely toxic and harmful, and honestly I wouldn’t be as bothered by the Showcases if they weren’t female-only, but the fact that this is The Girl Activity (whereas Contests, for instance, were always co-ed) bothers me, particularly since there isn’t any battling involved, but there is a lot of dancing and cooking, et cetera. It feels like a rigid enforcing of gender roles on top of being steeped in idol culture, and I don’t like that. It needs to go.That said? The Pokémon anime actually did introduce the concept of idols way back in the OS—specifically in the Pokémon Chronicles special episodes—and it was far less of an issue then. Pokémon Idols in the OS took the form of trainers like Marina (who was based on Kris from the games), and while the actual job description is somewhat vague, from the way Marina made it seem the goal of a Pokémon Idol is to be as entertaining as possible while battling. It is, essentially, to be a performance artist as well as a battler. So for instance, whenever Marina would battle she and her pokémon had choreographed entrance moves whenever she released them from their pokéballs. She also insisted to Jimmy (who was based on Gold from the games) that she wanted to “turn her battles into performances” in order to make people happy. And you know what? She did! Marina participated in the Johto League/Silver Conference, as well as a Grand Festival, but she was also shown modeling the Pokétch on a magazine cover and has had her face on t-shirts. She has become a star/idol, while at the same time working as a trainer skilled enough to participate in the Johto League/Silver Conference, and a coordinator skilled enough to participate in a Grand Festival.This is relevant, because if they really wanted to capitalize on the popularity of idol culture/idol anime such as Love Live!, the PokéAni writing staff could have worked in something similar for Serena. Rather than inventing Showcases the way they did (and removing the battling aspect completely), they could have instead set up something such as a Kalosian Idol Search, which hosted special battle competitions around Kalos in order to search for the next idol a la Marina. Perhaps these are similar to, but not the same as, Gyms, in which the objective is both to win a series of battles, but also turn those battles into performances in order to win the favor of the public (so, sort of like Contests, but not wholly the same). This could be co-ed as well, meaning that Tierno could participate in an attempt to be an idol, which would be perfect for him given that he loves to dance (and likes to incorporate dancing into battles, which is right in line with what Marina liked to do back in the OS). This way, Serena could be an active battler while still pursuing a goal that doesn’t mirror Ash’s badge quest, and yet isn’t so rigidly “this is for girls, and girls don’t battle,” which is the vibe much of the XY&Z saga gave me. Something like that (albeit a bit more refined, as this is a rough idea) would be far better than the Showcases were. (More entertaining to watch, too, imo.)

And speaking on Serena some more, we’re not going to have her hero worshiping/hero crushing on Ash for the entire series, because to be quite honest that created far more problems than it solved. It’s fine to have them meet in childhood (even though bby!Ash in the flashbacks do not at all resemble OS!Ash, which they should have—and that would need to be remedied, too), and it’s fine to have her remember that meeting and still hold a childhood crush on him—but he should have changed a lot since then. She should have, too. And we should have—we needed to have a moment early on where Serena realizes that he’s not just the amazing and courageous hero that she remembers, that he’s a human being with flaws, and maybe that bursts her bubble a bit, maybe she’s disappointed and put-out that this isn’t exactly like a fairy tale …… but then she gets to know him, as a person, flaws and all. Sometimes they quarrel, sometimes she’s less than impressed with him, but othertimes she is impressed with him, other times she sees that he makes her laugh or that, even if he’s not some amazing hero, he’s a guy she likes …… and, if we must go down the romance route, feelings develop from there.What made Ash/Misty so great in the OS was that Misty wasn’t introduced with the idea of, “This is Ash’s love interest.” Instead, their friendship was first and foremost what was developed, and the romance—which was canonically there from both sides, even in the JP version—developed naturally over time. They are most definitely best friends with crushes. If the anime writers wanted to write a romance arc with Ash and Serena, okay, that’s fine—go for it! But in that case, focus on developing them as friends first. Have the crush grow naturally. Don’t create Serena with the express purpose of having her fawn over Ash (which, yes—a recent interview revealed that the reason why this was written in was because a writer wanted to “see the series from the eyes of a female companion who admired Satoshi” which is just … no). Instead, even if she has a crush on him at first, have her get to know him—actually get to know him this time, not meet once and then separate for years on end, but know him as a person—and have her develop feelings for who he is now, not who she has idealized him to be. (And don’t have him be perfect all the time, either! Let him get mad! Frustrated! Selfish! Petty! Let him be feisty!) And likewise, have Ash develop a special and concentrated friendship with Serena, rather than just cute shippy moments here or there. Show us that he actually feels something for her beyond friendship. Show us before the very end where you just have his eyes sparkle after she kisses him, because you know what? His eyes sparkled the same way when Rowlet cuddled up to him in the Sun/Moon anime. Different animation style, sure, but I’m js. That’s not enough. And if the writers have to tell us later on “oh yeah, it’s meant to imply Ash and Serena are a couple later,” that’s not good writing. You guys can do better than this. Prove it.… So, um, yeah, I’d fix that. I’d change that ship from “girl meets boy when they are 5, develops a crush on him, and continues crushing through to the end as she works to be worthy of him” to “girl meets boy when they are 5, develops a crush on him, realizes when they are 10 that he’s not the Ideal Hero she built him up to be, befriends him as a person, realizes she’s developing new and stronger feelings for him now that she actually knows and sees him as a person, and he comes to see her as one of his closest friends and confidants, and their relationship is much more believable and stronger as a result.” That’s definitely a change I would make if the romance angle needs to be kept. (Which I don’t think it needs to be, but you know, in the interest of fairness, I’m just saying I could have done it better. Js.)

I can’t believe I forgot about this until point four, but rework Bond Phenomenon ffs. First of all, we’re no longer giving it to Greninja (or at least not limiting it to Greninja). That was stupid pandering meant to push Greninja’s popularity, and I’m not having it. If any one of Ash’s pokémon is getting it, it’s Pikachu, particularly since “but Pikachu isn’t fully evolved!1!1″ doesn’t matter because Bond Phenomenon is not mega evolution, and therefore the same rules don’t apply. The entire point of Bond Phenomenon was to avoid giving Ash a mega evolution for whatever asinine reason the anime team had, and if that’s the case, then there is no reason not to give the special love-powered super form to the partner and platonic soul mate that Ash has had since day one, particularly since Ash’s bond with Greninja was so poorly developed and not believable in the least bit. So if Ash is still getting Bond Phenomenon for whatever reason, it’s going to Pikachu, and that’s final.Second, although I know there are many people who would hate this, sorry I’m not sorry, but I felt that there was plenty of foreshadowing that made it seem as if Alan and Lizardon would be tapping into that in the finale of the Flare Arc, perhaps following a scene where they tossed off the Mega Ring and collar right in Lysandre’s face and tapped into Bond Phenomenon afterward, given that they have “a bond that overcomes reason” (Alan’s words, TSME 1) / “a bond that surpasses its limits” (Malva’s words, TSME 4). So on top of giving Bond Phenomenon to Ash and Pikachu and making it clear that it’s not exclusive to that (which, conveniently, Sycamore’s explanation in XYZ036 did plainly enough by saying it’s rare but there are several recorded instances throughout history!), we’d perhaps tap into it here as well, albeit only on a Lvl 1 or 2 scale, and one that probably knocks them both out at the end of the battle due to the physical toll it would take on them.Or, if not that? Then ditch Bond Phenomenon altogether and just give Ash a goddamn mega evolution, particularly in the form of ‘Zard Y. I’d be very happy with that as well, especially since Ash wearing his Key Stone attached to his hat would be adorable (and a nod to Red, whom the anime team specifically said they pulled from when putting together Ash’s XY design, most notably with the sideburns). Either way, Ash-Greninja is getting the boot for sure. Gtfo, froggo. No one wants you here.

Last (but certainly not least), I wanted a real confrontation between Lysandre and Sycamore over what Lysandre did to Alan—the lies, the manipulation, the abuse. We see in TSME 4 that Sycamore gives Lysandre a cold reception when first meeting him, and I really, really wanted Sycamore to go save his son, or at least confront Lysandre over it. So I definitely would have worked that in there, as well as more focus on Sycamore and Alan’s father-son bond in general. We needed more of that. More childhood flashbacks, perhaps (imagine flashbacks showing little five-year-old Alan, fdsfdsafda), some more heart-to-hearts near the end, perhaps … things like that. So, an actual confrontation between Lysandre and Sycamore, and more focus on Sycamore and Alan’s father-son bond, yesssss.

There is a lot more that I would change, I feel, but these are major ones. And this is super long/a lot as it is, so … that should tell you how many feelings I have over it, haha.

#five things i would change meme #decadeoldtiger #long post for ts

[rejectedusername-trashfics]

One Shot- The Rising of the Wood

fSummary: Geoff gets news of his former crew-mates coming into town and needs the FAHC to prepare for that. The only problem is that they can’t find The Vagabond. They think he might have been compromised and they track his phone to see where he might be captured. Instead of finding a captured Vagabond, they find a sickeningly domestic sight.

Sequel to “FAKE” Prostitute

Word Count: 8,068

Pairings: Ryan/Jon,  Geoff/Jack. Gavin/Meg, Michael/Lindsay

AO3

Life at the Fake AH Crew was going pretty normal, or at least as normal as being a part of a criminal empire could be. The crew had successfully taken down the Vagos, which was relatively easy considering that the crew was in chaos after they lost their funding. After that, the Fake AH Crew had reaffirmed their place on top of the criminal food chain of Los Santos.

The crew had time to keep their empire on top, but they had also managed to keep active personal lives. Most of the crew had managed to find time for romance. Jack and Geoff had finally found romantic comfort in each other and fell into a loving relationship. Out of pity, Ryan set Gavin up on a date with another mercenary friend of his from outside of the crew, and the relationship between Gavin and the mercenary had been going strong.  Michael had begun a relationship with a member of the crew’s backup team, named Lindsay, and Jeremy had found comfort in doing his job; having no patience for romance.

As for Ryan’s romantic life, he and his fiancé, Jon Risinger, had gotten married after the FAHC had taken care of the Vagos. The crew had planned the wedding and made it in the same chaotic way that they typically seemed to make most things. The planning process had annoyed Ryan, but Jon was more amused by the nonsense than anything. The wedding went off without a hitch. The reception included a burglary of venue where the wedding was held; it was chaotic and violent as anyone would expect from the Fake AH Crew. Jon convinced Ryan to just have fun with it since it was their big day, and nobody could make Ryan go quite as soft as Jon could.

A couple years had passed since Ryan’s wedding and the crew decided that they deserved a night off from their usual shenanigans. Jack was lounging in the crew’s penthouse living room on the couch with Jeremy, watching TV. “Is there anything you wanna watch?” Jeremy asked.

“Hm,” Jack started to think. “We could watch Aquaman because I’ve heard decent things about it. But, I wanna wait for Geoff since he’s gonna wanna watch with us.”

“Where did he run off to?”

Jack shrugged. “I think he went to his office because he had a phone call.”

Jeremy nodded. “Do you want to go check on him?”

“Sounds like a good idea. Wanna go see if the other Lads want to watch a movie, too?”

“Sure,” Jeremy replied. Then he stood up and walked to the bedrooms of the other Lads.

Jack sighed and stood up. He walked out of the living room and down to Geoff’s office. He opened the door and saw that Geoff was still on the phone.

“No, no. I promise you that everything is fine with the dynamic of my crew,” he heard Geoff say into the phone.

Geoff paused to let whoever he was on the phone with speak. “Well, Jack and I started dating, but you knew that,” he continued. He paused again, “Michael and Gavin even found little girlfriends so they’re in check, in that department,” he explained, further.  Then, Geoff paused again. Jack entered the office while Geoff was listening to whatever the person, he was on the phone with was saying.  “Look, the Vagabond’s personal life isn’t my business to share. Yeah, I know some of what’s going on with it-” he seemed to be cut off by whoever he was on the phone with. “I promise you that everything will be in order for when you and the guys come to visit.” Geoff paused one more time and sighed, “I’ll see you soon, Burnie,” he finally said as he hung up the phone.

Geoff groaned loudly if defeat. “So, Burnie from your old crew is coming to visit?” Jack asked, startling Geoff, as he finally let him know that he had entered to room.

Geoff regained his composure. “Try the rest of the Blood Gulch Crew,” he explained.

“That crew disbanded after you left, right?”

“Yeah, we all figured it was time to do our own things. Burnie went to Liberty City, Gus went to Vice City, and Matt and Joel went to San Andreas. They figured that it would be a good time for a reunion and I guess they figured that Los Santos would be the best location for it.”

Jack nodded. “Why were you talking to Burnie about the personal lives of everyone in the crew?” Jack repeated his question.

“Well I’m not exactly sure how he found out about this but,” he paused and gulped. “He knows about the internal crew conflict we had where we were all pining for Ryan.”

“Oh,” Jack said and he blinked in surprise. “Well, Ryan got married to someone outside of our crew,” he explained. He walked over to Geoff and wrapped his arms around his waist. “And we all found love of our own.” Then, he placed a kiss on Geoff’s cheek.

Geoff smiled. “Jack, I love you.”

“I love you too. Now come on, Jeremy and I were gonna watch a movie. We were thinking about watching Aquaman.”

“As nice as that sounds, I think I’d like to talk to the crew and let them know my old crew is having a reunion and coming into town.”

Jack sighed. “Fine. I think Jeremy might have gotten the rest of the Lads to join us for movie night.”

“Perfect! I knew there was a reason I loved you.”

Jack rolled his eyes and he and Geoff walked over to the living room. They saw Jeremy and Michael sitting on the couch. “I thought you were gonna get all the Lads,” he said to Jeremy.

“I tried.” Jeremy replied.

“Gavin was being weird and his girlfriend has a job out of the country this week, so he’s Skyping her or something,” Michael added.

“Well, before we can start crew movie night, we need to have a quick meeting,” Geoff announced.

“Ugh, lame,” Jeremy complained.

“I’ll go get to the shithead,” Michael said as he got up.

“And see if you can grab Ryan while you’re up,” Geoff said.

Michael rolled his eyes and walked to Gavin’s room. He slammed the door open. “Impromptu crew meeting!” he announced.

“GAH!” Gavin yelped in shock.

“What’s wrong babe?” Gavin’s girlfriend asked.

“Sorry love, Michael startled me,” Gavin replied to his girlfriend.

“This meeting is either gonna be really important or really stupid, but Geoff wants to have it now, so you’re gonna need to wrap this call up,” Michael explained.

“I…” Gavin stuttered.

“Gavin, if you have work to do, don’t let me keep you from it. I’ll still be setting up my hit job when you get back,” Gavin’s girlfriend said.

Gavin sighed. “You’re the best,” he replied with a smile.

“I know.”

Gavin snorted, “I love you, Meg.”

“And I love you, too. Goodnight, boy.”

“Goodnight, girl,” he said as he blew Meg a kiss. Meg caught the kiss, put it on her lips, then hung up the call.

“Come on,” Michael said as he waved for Gavin to follow him.

“You know, I wouldn’t have done that if you were Skyping with Lindsay,” Gavin replied with a huff.

Michael rolled his eyes. “Lindsay works with us, so she’s probably not gonna travel across the globe as much. We have to look for Ryan so we can have whatever crew meeting Geoff’s trying to have.”

Gavin sighed in dismay and got up. He followed Michael out of the room as then went to go look for Ryan. They checked his room, but his room was empty. Then they check the B-Team room, the penthouse game room, the rest of the crews’ rooms, and the meeting board room where they normally planned their heists but there was still no Ryan.

They walked back out to the living room. “Did you guys actually look for Ryan?” Geoff asked, impatiently.

“Yeah!” Gavin exclaimed in defense.

“And he’s not in the penthouse,” Michael explained.

“Well, where the hell could he be?” Geoff asked.

“He could be in the gym, downstairs,” Jeremy suggested.

Then, Geoff got up. “Well, come on guys, let’s go get him.”

“Do we all really need to go get him?”

“Yep, if he sees all of us, he’ll know that this meeting is important.”

The crew groaned and got up out of their seats. Geoff waved them on and they all followed him downstairs to the crew’s gym.

“Ryan, we’re having a crew meeting!” Geoff called out into the gym when they got down there. The rest of the crew looked around and the gym looked relatively clear, at the moment.

“Geoff, I don’t think anyone is down here,” Gavin said.

“I’ll check the locker room to see if he’s getting ready for an evening gym set or something,” Michael volunteered.

“You do that, then,” Geoff replied. Michael nodded and ran off to the gym locker room. Suddenly, Jack’s eyes widened. Geoff noticed Jack’s face change. “Babe?”

“I just remembered that Ryan asked for tonight off,” Jack replied in embarrassment.

“Shit, he normally does something reckless when he takes ‘nights off,” Jeremy replied.

“Normally?” Geoff asked.

“Remember when he and Jon were having an argument and he asked for a night off? He came back a few days later covered in bruises and his wrists were sore. He said that he and Jon’s fight was over, but it was clear that he had to have done something stupid to fix it.”

“I know he told me why he asked for the night off, tonight, but I can’t, for the life of me, remember why,” Jack added.

“Fuck…” Geoff trailed off

“He’s not in the locker room,” Michael said as he ran back to the crew.

“Apparently, we forgot that Ryan asked for the night off, tonight, but we can’t remember why he asked for off,” Geoff explained.

“Damn, the Vagabond could be causing mayhem anywhere.”

“I can track his crew phone to get a location on him,” Gavin offered.

“Great. Let’s go back upstairs and find our Vagabond,” Geoff commanded the rest of the crew. They all nodded and followed Geoff back upstairs.

Once the crew got back upstairs, Gavin dashed back to his room. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?!” Michael called after him.

“TO TRACK RYAN’S PHONE, LIKE I SAID,” Gavin yelled back.

The crew followed Gavin’s voice back to his room. They found him hard at work on his computer. “What do you have?” Geoff asked.

“Well, you put a tacker chip in every time you get us new phone. I’m the one in charge of deactivating the trackers when the phones get disposed of. Ryan’s tracker chip is still active so I can find his phone, and probably find him, as well,” Gavin explained.

“Well?” Geoff nervously replied.

“Patience, Geoffrey,” he said as he continued to pull up the right programs to track Ryan’s phone. After a few minutes he was able to pull up to the location of the phone. “And there we have it,” he announced.

Everyone looked at the phone location that was displayed on the computer. “Wait, is that Rockford Hills?” Jeremy asked.

“It appears so.”

“What the hell is Ryan’s phone doing in a residential area?” Michael asked.

“No idea.”

“We have safe houses in that area. You never know if some other smalltime crew has a safe house there and they pissed Ryan off or something,” Geoff speculated.

“Hm,” Gavin started. He plugged the address of the building the phone was located in into his security disabling program that he had originally made to use for heists, but the building didn’t seem to have any electronic security to speak of. “This particular house doesn’t seem to have any electronic security system, so it won’t cause any unnecessary commotion if we silently break in.”

“Perfect, let’s go save us a Vagabond,” Geoff announced. The Lads nodded and ran out of the room. Jack’s eyebrows furrowed. “Jack?” he asked.

“Something about this break-in here doesn’t feel right. What if this house just belongs to Ryan as his place of residence outside of crew life?” Jack said.

“That sounds ridiculous.”

“He does have a husband that he may want to share a typical domestic life with outside of the criminal world with.”

“Did you forget that his husband is also a criminal who’s heavily involved in the Los Santos underground, so I doubt they have any sort of domestic life. Now come on,” Geoff argued as he rushed out of the room. Jack sighed in defeat and followed behind him.

45 minutes later, they pulled up in front of the house were Ryan’s phone had been located. Jack looked out the window of the truck they all piled into. “It doesn’t look like anybody’s home,” he pointed out.

“That’s probably what they want you to think,” Michael argued from the back of the truck.

“Let’s get up to the front door,” Geoff said.

“I’ll pick the lock.” Gavin offered.

“I’m glad we’re trying to do this quietly, I’m still a bit sad that we had to give up movie night for this,” Jeremy said.

“Let’s go,” Geoff said as he opened his door and got out of the truck. The rest of the Lads followed suit. Jack loudly sighed before he got out of the truck. By the time Jack caught up to the crew, Gavin had successfully picked the lock. “Ready? One, two,” then Geoff slammed the door open. “FREEZE!” he yelled.

The crew didn’t hear anything at first, but then they heard the sound of a dog barking. “Is an attack dog coming after us or,” Jeremy tried to ask, but is cut off by the sound of a giant St. Bernard barreling towards him. The dog tackled him to the ground and began slobbering him with kisses.

The crew of the pulled out their guns to shoot the dog. At the sound of the guns cocking, the dog climbed off of Jeremy and began whining. “Wait a minute,” Jack said. He felt up the wall and found a light switch. He flipped the lights on and found that they were in what looked like a completely normal entrance hallway.

“You guys can put your guns down for the moment, he,” Jeremy paused and saw the dog tag on the dog’s neck and read its name. “I mean, she, didn’t actually hurt me. She just scared me and gave me a bunch of kisses,” he explained to the crew as he got up and shut the front door. The dog sat down and wagged her tail, wildly.

“Not a very good guard dog,” Michael said. Jeremy shrugged and gave the dog a gentle pat.

“Come on, let’s go find who’s captured Ryan and where they’re keeping him,” Geoff said. The crew nodded and went off to explore the house.

While walking through the living room, Gavin heard a strange rumbling coming from a fluffy lump on the couch that didn’t quite look like a pillow. He went over to inspect the oddly shaped lump. As soon as he touched the lump, a cat’s head popped up. “Oh, hello,” he greeted the cat. The cat got up, stretched, and began to sniff Gavin’s hand. The cat began to rub against Gavin’s hand. “Well, aren’t you a friendly one,” he cooed.

Jack walked into the living room and saw that Gavin was distracted by the cat. “Gavin, I thought you were trying to find Ryan,” he said.

“I was, but then, Mister,” Gavin paused to check the cat’s collar to find its name, “Vernon, here decided to be lovely company.”

Jack sighed, “You know, I’m not so sure that the Vagabond is in any trouble, here,” he said.

“Why do you feel that?”

“This feels too domestic for that,” he admitted.

“Do you really thing Ryan would be okay with a peaceful domestic life?”

“There are clearly more sides to Ryan than he’s willing to show us, and I think he still wouldn’t want us to know about things after the whole pining fiasco.”

“Maybe you’re right. Even though, I thought we earned his trust back.”

“He may trust us, again, but that wouldn’t mean he’d comfortable showing us everything.”

“I suppose…” Gavin trailed off.

“I found a torture chamber here!” Michael called out from down the hall.

“Really?” Jack asked in surprise.

“Yeah, but it was really weird,” Michael said as he walked in the living room. “It didn’t It’s super clean in there, like it smelled like Febreze.  The slings and gangs to hold and silence victims still is super colorful and tacky. There were no knives, only oddly shaped vibration devices, and there was a first aid kit. Who the fuck keeps a first aid kit in a torture chamber?!”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “That sounds really weird for a torture chamber.”

“Guys, I found Ryan’s crew phone but no Ryan,” Jeremy said as he walked back into the living room.

“Where did you find it?” Gavin asked.

“In the master bedroom. on a side table, charging, which is a really weird place to keep a hostage’s phone.”

“That is… kinda odd,” Gavin said.

“Maybe Ryan’s not being captured here…”

“He might not actually be captured at-” Jack was cut off by the sound of the garage door opening. “Shit,”

“Let’s hide by the door into the house from there, so we can jump them by surprise,” Michael suggested.

“Maybe we don’t,” Jack started to say, but he saw that the Lads had already left. He sighed and walked to the area where the Lads were hiding. “I’m not sure this is a good idea,” he said to the Lads.

“Nonsense, this is-” Gavin was interrupted by the door opening.

Ryan and Jon walked into the house dress in business casual outfits and everybody’s jaws dropped. “Thank you for the wonderful dinner,” Jon sweetly said to Ryan.

Ryan smirked. “The evening’s not over yet,” he said smugly.

“Oh?” Jon replied with a devious smirk. Suddenly the dog came trotting into the hallway where they were standing. “Oh hello, deary,” he greeted the dog and gave her a quick pet.

Ryan leaned down to pet the dog. “Oh, darling Clarice, Papa is trying have some fun with Daddy,” Ryan said as he stood back up and pulled Jon into a kiss. The dog blinked and walked over to the side.

Ryan’s tongue entered Jon’s mouth and Jon blinked in surprise. He quickly decided to go along with it and his tongue invaded Ryan’s mouth, in return.  Ryan reached up and began to unbutton the button’s on Jon’s dress shirt. Jon pulled away. “Eager, aren’t we?” Jon teased.

“I’m not sorry for being eager to please my beautiful husband.”

“Wouldn’t you rather do this in our bedroom?”

“It’s our house, we can fuck in any room we want to.”

“Well then, Jon said as he smirked and pulled Ryan back into a kiss. They two of them went back to making out. Ryan continued to unbutton Jon’s shirt while Jon began undoing Ryan’s belt.

“What the fuck,” Michael murmured.

Suddenly, Geoff ran up to the scene with his gun raised. “I know you have the Vagabond’s weapons, so where the fuck are you keeping him, you sick…” Geoff paused his rant when he realized that the crew that had captured the Vagabond was really just Ryan and Jon being intimate.

Jon heard Geoff’s yells and he pulled away from his kiss with Ryan to looked over at Geoff. “Oh… I didn’t know we were expecting guests, tonight,” he said, shyly, as his flushed in embarrassment.

Ryan looked over and saw Geoff, as well. His eyebrows furrowed and his face began to grow red, in anger. “We… weren’t…” he growled.

Geoff gulped. “Geoff, maybe we should get out of here…” Michael whispered up to Geoff.

Ryan heard Michael’s whisper and his scowl grew deeper. “There’s more of you?!” he shouted in anger. The rest of the crew got up from their hiding place behind the doorway and revealed themselves. “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!” he screamed.

Jon rubbed Ryan’s shoulder to try to get him to relax. “Calm down, dear. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for this,” he said.

“Well, I’ve got a question. Why the hell weren’t you keeping your crew phone on you?!” Geoff exclaimed.

“Tonight, is a special night for Jon and I, so I asked for tonight off! I thought you would at least respect that!” Ryan shouted.

“Deciding that it was date night for you and your husband shouldn’t make you ignore crew business, I thought you were better than that!”

Jacks eyes widened in realization as he suddenly reminded of why Ryan had really asked for the night off. “Oh fuck, I’m so sorry, Rye. We shouldn’t have done this to you, tonight.”

“Jack?” Gavin asked.

“I just remembered the real reason he asked for the night off.”

“Yeah, to have date night with his husband,” Michael said.

“IT’S THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF JON AND I’S MARRIAGE, YOU INSENSITIVE PRICK!” Ryan yelled.

The crew’s eyes widened in horror; their faces flushed in shame. “Shit… I feel like a dick, now…” Jeremy said.

“That’s because you were.”

“Fuck, now even I feel bad,” Geoff admitted.

“You all should feel ashamed of yourselves for breaking into Jon and I’s home on our anniversary!”

“I’m sorry… It’s just that I have a big event coming up that I need the crew, and especially you, to be prepared for…”

“Well, I’m not sure I’m willing to deal with this, right now!”

“But…”

“NO!”

“Honey,” Jon said to get Ryan’s attention. “I think you should hear them out. Take care of business with them so that they’ll leave sooner and we can go back to what we were doing.”

“I,” Ryan started to argue, but Jon brushed his palm against one of Ryan’s cheeks and smooched the other. Ryan’s scowl turned into a soft smile. Then he sighed in defeat and focused his attention back on his crew. “Geoff and Jack can follow me to my office to discuss things. Lads can come back too if they’re needed. And let’s get this done quick because I want you to get the hell out of my house, ASAP!”

“It might be a good idea to all get together and just talk about it, all at once,” Jack said.

“Does it have something to with your old crew?” Jeremy asked.

“How did you,”

“I heard you on the phone with someone talking about Blood Gulch Crew, while Michael and I were walking back to the living room. Don’t know what you were talking about but this whole situation the we’ve just had has been a bit much, for me.”

“I wanna pet the fluffy kitty, again,” Gavin said.

“If the rest of the Lads want a break, then so do I,” Michael said, next.

Geoff and Jack sighed in defeat. “Fine. Ryan, show us where your office is so we can discuss upcoming events,” Geoff said.

Ryan nodded. He led Geoff and Jack out of the entryway and to his office and the dog followed them out. Jon rolled his eyes and sighed. He would never understand the ridiculousness of the Fake AH Crew, but knew Ryan loved his crew, even with their poor timing for things.

“So… how did you get Ryan to just calm down like that?” Jeremy asked.

Jon glanced down at the old engagement ring Ryan had given him three years ago that he still liked to wear and smiled. “You could say I have him wrapped around my finger,” he replied.

“It’s pretty impressive. He’s so terrifying to the world, but he seems to go all ooey-gooey for you,” Michael said.

“He wasn’t always like that around me. The first time we met involved him threatening to kill me.”

“Wait, he wanted to kill you?”

Jon nodded in confirmation.

“And you still kept him around?” Gavin asked.

“And it was the best decision of my life.”

“There has got to be a story of him wanting to murder you, then falling in love with you,” Jeremy said.

“Come to the living room with me and I’ll tell you the story of how Ryan and I met and eventually got together,” Jon said as he motioned for the Lads to follow him.

They walked to the living room and the Lads settled on the couch. Jon sat in a lounge chair by the couch. “Okay, this is the story of how Ryan and I,” Jon was interrupted by the murpping of the fluffy cat. The cat hopped up onto Gavin’s lap and started purring.

“Daw, I think your cat likes me,” Gavin cooed.

Jon smiled. “Vernon is a very friendly cat. And Clarice, the St. Bernard that’s been flopping around, is also a very friendly dog. I’ll talk a little bit about them after the end of the story.”

“Are you gonna tell the story, because now, even I’m curious,” Michael said.

Jon clapped his hands together. “So, this is the story of how the Vagabond and the Rismonger fell in love.

The criminal world was turned upside-down in 2008. One of the members of the most notorious crews in the country, the Blood Gulch Crew, had split from their ranks to go start his on crew in Los Santos. After that member left the crew, the rest of the crew split apart.

The Rismonger had been an avid follower of the Blood Gulch Crew, keeping the fear of that crew alive with his new and rumors of the chaos that they caused. But with the crew broken up, the Rismonger felt like his rumor mill had no fuel to go on. Sure, there were other mafias, crews, and criminal empires out there to spread news about, but none of them were quite as fun as the Blood Gulch Crew had been. He needed to come up with an idea of how to keep in rumor mill turning.

The Rismonger thought that maybe it would be a good idea to follow the former Blood Gulch Crew member, “Grif,” to Los Santos to see how that new crew venture was treating him and to see if it was actually successful. Luckily, it had been a success for “Grif,” or “Kingpin” or “Ramsey” as he was now calling himself. “Kingpin” had managed to pull together a driver, a demolitions expert, a sniper, and a hacker who had previously worked a bit with him in his old crew. They called themselves the Fake AH Crew and they caused chaos all over Los Santos, giving the Rismonger plenty of rumor material to work with.

Of course, the Fake AH Crew had hired additional gunmen to assist with their heists. The additional hire that caught the Rismonger’s attention was a mercenary called the Vagabond. The man wore a black leather jacket with silver stripes on the sleeves and blue shoulders, black jeans and boots, and a vinyl skull mask. The mask was supposedly considered scary to the people the Vagabond tortured, but the Rismonger thought the mask sounded tacky. If the Vagabond wore a cheap mask to try and scare his victims, then he clearly shouldn’t be taken seriously. And Rismonger was determined to let the underground of Los Santos know that the Vagabond was a big phony and shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Rismonger spread rumors questioning the legitimacy of the Vagabond, going out of his way to try and ruin his reputation. The Vagabond, of course, got word of this and couldn’t let it slide. Though his personal hacking skills weren’t the most refined, after a few months, he was able to hack into the Rismonger’s rumor blog and trace the location of his computer. The Rismonger noticed he had been traced and prepared to fight back if necessary.

On evening, the Rismonger was typing up a blog talking about how fake the Vagabond’s skull mask looked when the door of his apartment busted open. There was a loud roar of anger coming from whomever had broken in and the intruder stalked in, searching for Rismonger. Rismonger gulped, he had been expecting this. He grabbed his gun and pointed it at the door to his office.

“RISEMONGER!!!!” the intruder yelled. They ran into the office, gun pointed at the Rismonger. The Vagabond had finally found him.

“So, you finally found me, trying to prove you’re not a big phony. It’s almost cute,” the Rismonger taunted.

“You’re a fool to run your mouth when you know absolutely nothing!”

“You’re all for theatrics. Who besides a child would even be afraid of a vinyl skull mask, like you have? Keep your Halloween costumes saved for October!”

The Vagabond roared and ran at the Rismonger. The Rismonger was quick and tried to get out of Vagabond’s reach, but the Vagabond was able to catch the Rismonger and slammed him against the wall, making the Rismonger drop his gun. As the Vagabond was pulling the Rismonger up, he was able to grab the skull mask and rip it off the Vagabond, revealing his real face. The Vagabond roared in anger as he pulled the Rismonger away and slammed him against the wall, again.

“Now, I’m going to make your death especially more gruesome,” the Vagabond growled as he pressed his gun against the Rismonger’s temple.

The Rismonger looked up at the Vagabond and blinked. The Vagabond had black hair, pulled back in short ponytail. He also had a strong jaw, a sharp nose, and piercing blue eyes. Overall, he was actually very handsome. An idea of how to get out of he could possibly get out of this situation quickly popped into the Rismonger’s mind.

“You know, a scowl doesn’t suit you,” the Rismonger said with a confident smirk.

The Vagabond’s eyebrows furrowed deeper. “You choose to continue to make fun of me before you die?!”

“I don’t know if I’m actually gonna die here.”

“OF COURSE, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!!”  

“I’m going to try something try something before you, ‘kill me,” Jon said. Then, he reached up with his free hand as grabbed the Vagabond’s chin. The Vagabond tried to get the Rismonger’s hand away, but it was too difficult since both of his hands were full. The Vagabond blinked in shock when the Rismonger pulled his head forward and pulled him into a deep kiss.

Ryan felt the movement of the Rismonger’s tongue in his mouth, feeling the foreign tongue explore his mouth. It had been years since someone had kissed him like that. He wasn’t sure if it had really been that long since he had kissed someone like that, or the kiss was just that magical.

The Rismonger pulled away and coughed. “I’m sorry that I did that…” the Rismonger apologized.

“Huh?” the Vagabond asked, still reeling in shock from the kiss.

“Kissing you without your consent was completely wrong of me and I shouldn’t have done it. If you want to kill me now, you would be completely justified.”

“I…” the Vagabond stuttered. He dropped his gun and touched his lips. He had to figure out if the kiss had really been that good. “Kiss me, again,” he commanded.

“What?” the Rismonger asked, blinking in surprise.

“Kiss me. Again.”

The Rismonger gulped and pulled the Vagabond back in for another kiss. His tongue entered the Vagabond’s mouth while the Vagabond’s entered his. He tried to explore new areas of the mouth that he hadn’t ventured to yet. The Vagabond’s tongue had a whole new place to explore. The Vagabond dropped the Rismonger and grabbed the shoulders of the Rismonger’s jacket and pulled him out of it. In response, the Rismonger unzipped the Vagabond’s jacket and tried to work him out of it. The Vagabond pulled away and quickly got out of his jacket. He came right back in and started making out with the Rismonger, again.

The Rismonger stuck his hands on the Vagabond’s butt and started groping it. The Vagabond started to palm at the Rismonger’s crotch when the Rismonger pulled his hands from the Vagabond’s butt and broke the kiss. “I think I know where this is going,” he said.

“Do you?”

“I think the bedroom would be a better place for this.”

“I’m not sure where your bedroom is, so you’re gonna have to lead the way,” the Vagabond replied in a gravelly voice.

The Rismonger gave a confident smirk. He grabbing the Vagabond by the collar and pulling him to his bedroom. When they got there, he pushed the Vagabond onto the bed and began rummaging through his dresser for supli-

“So, your old crew knows about how you all were pining for me when Jon and I got engaged, and now they’re all coming to visit and they want to see if I’m still loyal to you?” Ryan asked as he, Geoff and Jack walked into the room, interrupting Jon’s story.

“That’s basically it,” Geoff replied.

“It shouldn’t be that hard unless our actions tonight ruined that,” Jack said.

Ryan pinched that bridge of his nose. “I don’t know why I deal with you sometimes… but my loyalty remains,” he replied.

“You do it you because you still like them, most days,” Jon interjected. Ryan opened his mouth to argue, then closed it and sighed.

“By the way, were you the one spread rumors about the whole ‘pining debacle’?” he asked Jon.

“What!? No! we talked about that. I promised not to spread that information around as long you still liked your crew!”

Geoff thought back to the thing he may have said to Burnie and his face flushed in embarrassment. “Yeah… I, uh, may have accidently said something to him about that whole thing at some point while we were planning your wedding…” he admitted.

“You’re a fucking idiot, sometimes, you know that?” Ryan asked in annoyance. Geoff sheepishly shrugged.

“Jon has been telling us the story of how you two got together,” Michael said to try and turn the conversation back to a pleasant place.

“Oh?”

“And I was just about to get to the part about our first sexual encounter,” Jon said.

Ryan’s face flushed in embarrassment. “Actually, could you not talk about that?” Ryan asked.

“How come you want me to leave that out?”

“I’m… not comfortable with the crew knowing about our sex life.”

“Alright, sure.”

“Aw, I was curious to know about it,” Gavin whined.

“I’m not. I walked in on you guys after you two got engaged. And I know Ryan being a bottom was probably a one-time thing, but I don’t really want to know about the rest of it.”

Ryan gulped, him being a bottom was actually more regular then he was willing to admit to his crew. “Actually,” Jon began to say.

“NOPE!” Ryan yelled.

“Alright, point taken.”

“So, now that I know about the situation, would you guys please get out of my house?”

“Daw Rye-bread, but I wanted to hear more of the Jon and your getting together story,” Gavin whined.

Ryan thought about it. He knew that Gavin and possibly the rest of the lads would keep asking him about it if he didn’t let Jon finished, so he figured that it would just be easier to let him finish. He went over and sat on the arm of Jon’s chair. “Fine. But when Jon’s done, you all need to get the fuck out,” he said.

“Cool.”

“So, can you fill us in on what we missed so far?” Geoff asked.

“Basically, Jon was spreading bullshit rumors about the Vagabond being a phony. Vagabond got mad and went to kill him. Jon kissed him to try and escape death. Ryan liked the kiss and they started making out. I think it turned into sex, I think,” Michael explained.

“It did,” Jon said to confirm.

“Hm,” Jack replied and nodded in understanding.

“I’m going to continue now, okay?”

“Alright,” Geoff said with a nod.

“But, please skip to the post-sex scene,” Ryan said.

“Okay, honey,” Jon replied.

Both the Rismonger and the Vagabond sat up in bed after they had finished their rounds sex. They had had sex well into the early morning. The Vagabond was out of breath after having some of the best sex he had had in a very long time; it had been enjoyable since he decided to relinquish control. Rismonger had much more stamina than the Vagabond, so he was still able to breath steadily.

The Rismonger pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He lit one so he could smoke. He offered the box to the Vagabond so he could take one if he wanted. The Vagabond took a moment for his breath to even out, then he took one. The Rismonger lit his lighter and offered the flame to the Vagabond. “Thanks,” he said as he lit his cigarette.

The Rismonger took a drag of his cigarette. “Well, that was fun,” he said.

“I…” The Vagabond started to say. He took a deep breath. “That did not go as planned…”

“You know, your cigarette is gonna burn out if you don’t smoke it,” the Rismonger said. The Vagabond started to smoke the cigarette he had been offered. “I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did.”

The Vagabond had enjoyed that a little more than he was willing to admit. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. “It wasn’t bad. But just so you know, I’m not much of a one-night stand kind of guy,” he replied.

“Well, I’m not much of a relationship kind of guy, if that was what you were insinuating.”

“I was just hoping to get to know you better, but I could just come back here to try and kill you, again.”

“No, please don’t. Look,” the Rismonger started to say. Ten, he put out his cigarette. “Normally my rumors are based on fact, but my Vagabond ones were more based on me thinking that the skull mask was childish. I now see that you can be very intimidating. And even though how you were in bed doesn’t seem to reflect that, I now know I shouldn’t lie to the world about something I knew so little about.”

“I’m assuming that was an apology of sorts.”

“It was.”

“Well, apology accepted,” the Vagabond replied. He took one last drag of his cigarette before he snuffed it out.

The Rismonger nodded. “But if you do want to get to know the real me, I’m going to want to get to know the real you.”

“That can be arranged.”

“Let’s start with names, then. I’ll start. Hello, my name is Jon Risinger,” the Rismonger said as he offered his hand to shake.

The Vagabond looked at his hand and took a deep breath. “… Ryan Haywood,” the Vagabond introduced himself as he shook Jon’s hand.

“It’s nice to meet you, Ryan.��

“You as well, Jon.”

“By the way, I have a little tip for you. If you ever get in a situation where someone rips off your mask, again, you might want to give yourself extra identity protection over your real face. Face paint underneath might be a good idea.”

“I like that idea. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Ryan replied with a smile.

Jon returned the smile. “I believe this is the beginning of a beautiful ‘Friends with Benefits,” he said.

“Friends with Benefits,” Ryan replied in agreement.  

And so, Ryan Haywood and Jon Risinger began a platonic physical relationship. This continued for the next eight months. Over the course of those eight months, Jon and Ryan got to know each other and became platonic friends who happened to have sex with one-another. Over the course of those eight months, the two of them began to grow feeling that were less than platonic for each other, though neither one of them was quite sure how to admit that to the other.

Eight months after the relationship began, Ryan was offered a fulltime job as a part of the Fake AH Crew. This was big new since the Fake AH Crew was the most powerful crew in Los Santos. The Vagabond’s infamy grew exponentially after the Rismonger stopped trying to destroy his reputation, the Rismonger even created rumors that made fear of the Vagabond grow even more.

To celebrate the Vagabond joining the Fake AH Crew, Jon and Ryan had a very special session of sex. Jon even let Ryan to-

 “NOPE! YOU ARE NOT TELLING THEM ABOUT US FUCKING!” Ryan shouted.

“But that time would have lined up more with,” Jon started to argue.

“STILL NO!”

“Fine,” Jon replied with a sigh.

“Geez Ryan, why do you care so much about keeping your sex life a secret. The rest of us are pretty open about ours,” Michael said.

“I wouldn’t show you all my face for years, why the hell would I be comfortable talking about my sex life?!”

“Are you going to get to you and Ryan starting to date, soon?” Jeremy asked.

“I was just about to,” Jon replied.

“Can we please hurry this up?” Geoff asked.

Jon nodded and began to tell the story, again.

Jon and Ryan finished up their rounds of sex for the night. Ryan decided that since he had just received a steady job in a crew, it would be a good chance to ask Jon out on a date. He knew that Jon was not all that interested in romantic relationships, but the romantic feelings were going to eat away at Ryan if he didn’t say something. The most he could hope for was that it didn’t damage the, ‘Friends with Benefits,’ relationship that he and Jon shared, too much

Jon pulled out his usual pack of cigarettes to have his “post sex,” smoke. He offered the pack to Ryan. “No thanks,” Ryan said. Jon blinked in surprise, normally Ryan would smoke with him. Had he decided that no longer enjoyed smoking with him anymore? Jon shrugged, trying to play off the paranoid thought, and went for his lighter to light his cigarette. “Actually, could you not smoke yet? I have something I would like to talk to you about and I don’t want you to be distracted.” Jon gulped. Was Ryan ending what they had together? He thought he had been subtle about his crush on him. Had Ryan figured out that he had a crush on him and was rejecting him?

Ryan took a deep breath. “When we first started this ‘Friends with Benefits’ relationship, you had said that you weren’t the type of person who did romantic relationships. I wasn’t sure I actually could do romance either, but emotions that I thought I had suppressed, long ago, resurfaced. Emotions I hadn’t had since I was young. I didn’t know how to respond, but I’m not sure suppressing them, again, would be very easy if I wanted to continue what we have.” Jon looked at Ryan in confusion, what exactly was he talking about? “Jon, you’ve helped me out so much and I believe I’ve fallen for you,” Ryan said as he began to blush.

Jon’s jaw dropped in surprise, he had not been expecting that. “Look, I’m sorry my emotions started flaring up. I’m not used to it. But If I never said anything, they would eat me alive,” Ryan started saying, nervously. “Dammit, I probably ruined everything. We can just pretend that I never said anything and continue having casual sex like we normally do, because this sex if some of the most pleasurable fun I’ve ever had. Fucking dammit, Haywood, you’re just making it wors-” he was cut off by Jon slamming his lips on to his.

Ryan was taken by surprise, he had not expected this kind of reaction. “You’re an idiot, you know that?” Jon asked.

“I…” Ryan stuttered.

“Because I seemed to have fallen for you, as well. I was just too scared to say anything.”

Ryan thought about how to respond for a moment. “So, I have a crush on you and you have a crush on me?” he asked for clarification.

“That seem to be the case,” Jon replied with a smile.

“Oh! So… would you like to go on a date, sometime?”

“I would like that, very much.”

“Excellent,” Ryan said as he began to grin.

“So, is there anything else that you’d like to do tonight?”

“Would it be to forward to ask if we could cuddle?”

Jon snorted. “Ryan, we’ve been fucking for eight months, I think cuddling is pretty tame in comparison.”

“I was just worried about the romantic implications of,” Ryan paused as Jon snuggled in close to him.

“You know, despite having chiseled abs,” he paused to yawn, “you’re pretty easy to… cuddle up to…” Jon finished saying as he started to doze off.

Ryan blinked and gave Jon a fond smile. He leaned closer into Jon and started petting his hair.

“THAT WAS BLOODY ADORABLE!” Gavin shouted. Ryan and Jon looked at each other with fond admiration.

“Would not have expected something as sickeningly sweet as that,” Geoff said.

Ryan looked back up at Geoff. “This changes nothing about me nor the fear I bring to Los Santos.”

“I don’t know man, I might not be able to take you as seriously, now that I know you’re a doting husband,” Michael teased.

“Talk like that is gonna get you animal carcasses in your bed!” Clarice walked into the room and sat down at Jon’s feet. She looked up at Ryan with sad eyes. “Not you, you idiot. I love you, too much,” Ryan said as he gently pet the top of the dog’s head.

Jeremy looked up. “Oh yeah! I just remembered that Jon said he was gonna talk about how you got your pets.”

“Oh, that actually not as interesting as it may seem. We got Vernon right after we got engaged and we got Clarice when we got this house, about a year and a half ago.”

“It’s still pretty cute, seeing your cute little domestic family. Or at least as much of a domestic life as a mercenary and an informant can get,” Jack replied.

“Speaking of domestic life, I think it’s about time that you all leave,” Ryan said.

“But we were just started to fit into your domesticity,” Geoff complained.

“I mean…” Jon started to say when Ryan leaned down and whispered a request into his ear. Jon blushed when he heard Ryan’s request. He looked back up at Ryan and nodded. “We’d like to get back to our anniversary time, so we’d like to say good bye, the sooner the better.”

“But your couch is super comfy,” Michael argued.

“And Vernon likes my lap, it’d be a crime to move him,” Gavin added his argument.

Ryan groaned. “Oh, for the love of… YOU ALL RUDELY INTERRUPTED JON AND I WHEN WE WERE ABOUT TO START FUCKING, EARLIER, AND WE’D LIKE TO GO HAVE KINKY ANNIVERSARY SEX!!!” Ryan yelled.

The crew began blushing furiously. “I think it’s time to go,” Jack quickly said.

“I agree, we should leave immediately,” Jeremy replied, just as quickly. The rest of the crew nodded in agreement and rushed to the front door.

“We can plan for Blood Gulch Crew, tomorrow afternoon, but we’d like you to leave, now,” Ryan called out as the crew was exited the house.

“Got it!” Geoff called back as he slammed the front door.

“So… that was a thing…” Gavin awkwardly said.

“And, let’s pretend it never happened,” Geoff replied.

“Done,” Michael replied.

“Let’s just go back to the penthouse.”

“… Is it too late for movie night when we get back?” Jeremy asked. Geoff and the Lads groaned in response.

Jack looked at his watch. It was 11:36 pm. “I think you might be the only one still up for movie night, Lil’ J,” he said.

Jeremy sighed in defeat. “Fine, let’s just go back to the penthouse and try to forget tonight.”

Everyone thought about what had just occurred and shivered. “I’m going to bed,” Geoff said.

“Me too,” Gavin replied.

Everyone nodded and piled back into the truck that they had arrived in. They now understood that there were many sides to the Vagabond, and those sides were never something for the crew to understand. The violent mercenary was allowed to have his peace, but the crew never wanted to think about what that peace entailed. No matter what, he was still loyal to the Fake AH Crew and he was going to help the make sure Blood Gulch Crew’s visit went smoothly. And that’s all that mattered.

#fake ah crew #ragehappy #risingwood #jackeoff #turnfree #juggey