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c-o-t-o · 7 months

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Shower Scene (Denji x reader) PART 1

(Part 2 here) (Alternate Aki arc, Part 1 here)

(Part 3 here)

(Part 4 (end) here)

Author: c-o-t-o

Character: Denji x fem reader

CW: 18+ only, sexual content/smut, character aged up, explicit language, blood, pain play, choking, bdsm (some CWs apply to other parts)

Misc: ~2.5k words, Part 1

About: After you and Denji finish a mission, he loses too much blood and becomes weak. You promise him your blood after you've both showered. But is he too weak to bathe himself?

*Do not remove info or credit from posts when reblogging or sharing!*

Your chest rises and falls heavily as you pant, trying to catch your breath after defeating some devils with Denji. The final blow left the two of you absolutely soaked from the blood spray, which is now slowly trickling down your face. You look over at Denji who is grinning wickedly from the thrill of the fight, audibly panting and grunting as he tries to catch his breath as well.

"Nice job, Denji," you manage to say between breaths, "let's head back home and clean off." Denji turns to nod at you, but you see his expression slowly fade from wicked excitement to something different... almost like he's mesmerized. You watch his eyes as they slowly follow the blood streaming down your face. When the bead falls from your chin, he snaps out of it, looking back up to your eyes with flushed cheeks. 'Oh, that's right,' you think to yourself, 'Denji has a thing for blood.' You clear your throat and offer to let Denji feed from you after you both return home and have showered. He looks completely drained and you can't even imagine how desperately he must need some blood to rejuvenate himself.

Makima had you move in with Aki and the rest, but upgraded you all to a house so you could all have your own rooms with some privacy. After all, Aki had begged her for more room after burdening him to live with yet another public safety devil hunter. With them living together for years, getting older and needing more privacy, it was long overdue anyway.

"Are... are you sure? I can drink y-your blood?" Denji swallowed heavily mid sentence as his face turned so red that his blush was almost indistinguishable from the blood splatter. After nodding and offering your shoulder for him to lean on, Denji smirked and looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. "If you say so, then okay! I'll try to be careful."

You knew Denji became shy around you; you two have lived in your shared space for months now, stealing glances and dropping innuendos nearly every time you were alone together until one of you got the point. You both knew but would never admit it, so this playful back and forth went on far longer than you could really stand. You knew that Denji putting his lips on your neck to drink your blood would break him. Every time in the past that you offered him your blood he shyly declined, saying that it's too close to being like kissing your neck. You wonder why, then, he accepted this time. Have you finally broken his will? Or is he truly that drained from the fight?

You finally make it home, Denji seemingly drunk from the loss of blood as he slumps down the wall. "I can't..." he lets his head fall back and it hits the wall. "Carry meeee..." he whines.

"Denji you know full well I can't carry you," you laugh while pulling his shoes off for him and undoing his tie. "But once we both shower you can have my blood, remember?" You pull his tie off and feel Denji grab your fingers as you are about to pull away, groaning whiningly as he puts your fingers on the buttons of his shirt.

"Really?? You can't even undress yourself?" You search his eyes to see if he's being coy or if he's out of it. You get your answer when his eyes roll back in his head and he slides sideways down onto the floor.

"Fuck! Denji? Denji, come on..." He just groans quietly and mumbles incoherently. "Aki?!" you shout, but there's no response from anyone else. Your heart starts pounding as you realize the two of you are alone and that you'll now have to undress and shower Denji. You refuse to let him feed from you with the blood of numerous devils now dried all over you, so shower you must.

You whimper out loud dejectedly. "Denji, I have to shower you, Aki isn't home. I'm sorry." You manage to stand him up and walk him with his arm over your shoulder, his feet mostly dragging instead of walking. You get to the bathroom and drag Denji into the shower room. His eyes are still rolled back, not really focused on anything. You sigh again out loud as you begin by unbuttoning his shirt.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." you quietly repeat over and over as you undress him. As you slip the shirt off of Denji, your hands graze across his slender torso, feeling the stiffness of his muscles and chest. It was enough to send electricity shooting through your body right down to your sensitive area. You get his pants off easily enough, but your hands stop at the waistband of his underwear.

"Denji... I need to know that you're okay with this, I'm about to see you and touch you..." He almost drunkenly nods his head, but it's so slight that you decide not to take that as a clear answer. A moment later his hand shakily grabs yours and moves it over to his waistband, gives you a thumbs-up sign, and then lets his hand fall down to his side.

'So he's aware and can hear me, great.'

"I always imagined seeing each other naked being vastly different, but I don't have much of a choice. I'm so sorry Denji..." you whisper as you slowly pull down his boxers. Surprisingly Denji remained soft, but you attribute that to the loss of blood. That aside, you blush at the fact that Denji still seems a bit large, even being soft. You undress yourself near his feet so that he can't quite see you, still shy at the prospect of him seeing you naked.

"I'm turning on the water now, Denji. I'm going to wash myself first and then I'll clean you, okay?" Again, all Denji can manage is a thumbs up, but you're grateful that he can at least give you a sign that this is all okay.

You're also grateful for the Japanese style shower so that there's room for you to bathe while Denji lays sprawled out on the tile floor. You shower yourself quickly, realizing Denji must be cold laying on the floor. Cold, drained, and exhausted.

On your hands and knees, you scooch over to him with the shower hose and begin hosing down his legs and lathering him up with a soapy shower sponge. He moans when the hot water hits his legs, mouth slightly open, revealing his sharp teeth. Your heart skips a beat at the sound and sight. You secretly have a thing for his sharp teeth and have always wondered what they would feel like grazing along the nape of your neck.

You shake your head as if shaking out your encroaching dirty thoughts, and begin to lather up his feet and legs. "Well..." you swallow hard, "I might as well get this over with." You sponge Denji's penis and lower abs with the soapy sponge, trying to use the sponge itself to move everything around so that you're not touching him directly.

Denji's face immediately turns to the side to look away from you. You see his abs almost throbbing with tension as you sponge him and notice he seems to be holding his breath. When you pass over him with the hot water, he releases his breath with the deepest, guttural groan you've ever heard him make. You feel yourself twitch at the sound and feel wetness begin to pool between your legs.

You're relieved to work your way up and sponge his stomach and chest. This is the first time you've seen his chainsaw pulley so close. With hesitation, you touch your fingers lightly to it as it slides along the wet metal end. Your fingers follow the rope back to the origin in the middle of his chest, delicately tracing your fingertips around the opening. Denji muffles a moan, and you momentarily worry that it might be too sensitive there, until you feel his heartbeat pounding in his chest and his fist clenching at his side. 'I wonder if this spot feels good.'

You eventually take his arm in one hand, and gently wash it with the sponge in your other hand. You lather up your hands and gently rock your fingers between his to make sure you've gotten them completely clean. When you get to his other hand, you feel his fingers close around yours. Your gaze snaps to look up at him, but he continues to look away with his head turned to the side. You notice, however, his face turning red again.

'I bet he's enjoying this, the horny freak.' You think that to yourself, knowing full well that you have also been a freak for the thoughts you've had of Denji lately. As much as you don't want to admit it to yourself, your chest aches at the sight of him and how you're so close, yet feel so far from getting what it is you truly want. At least, you can't do anything, not with Denji like this.

With his grip still tightened around your fingers, you glance down and notice how slim his waist is, something you've only caught glimpses of in the past if he stretched his arms up over his head or laid sloppily on the ground by the kotatsu, letting the bottom of his shirt lift up slightly.

You pull your hand away and look at his face, gently turning it to look back in your direction so that you can wash his face. You laugh nasally to yourself when you see that he has his eyes clamped shut. Is he embarrassed to look at you? Or is he doing it out of decency? Either way it's fine because you can wash and rinse his face.

You slide your body so that you can place his head on your lap to wash his hair next. His face blushes once again as your fingers massage through his hair, and you catch quiet breathy moans escaping through his lips.

After rinsing his hair, you look down to see Denji looking up at you with one eye... looking up with his head in your lap... at the underside of your boobs. You feel your heart stop momentarily as you meet his gaze. He slams his eye shut and looks away again. But as he turns his face, you instinctively push his head off your lap in fear that his face will go right down into your crotch.

"FUCK I'M SORRY DENJI." You cradle his head but see his eyes swimming now. "God damn it. I made this so much worse..." You look around the room to see if he can grab something to hold onto and stand up, but realize that's not possible with all the water. That, and letting his head hit the floor after pushing it off your lap.

"Denji, I think..." your voice trails off as you sigh. "I think you'll have to drink my blood here. I wont be able to carry you out of here without slipping and hurting both of us."

You jump in surprise as Denji weakly (and incredibly slowly) turns onto his side, and onto his stomach. His forehead presses to the shower floor as his fingers trail up your arm to grab your shoulder. You feel his hand shaking, trying to push you down so that you're laying as well.

You realize Denji is trying to have you lay down so that he can drink from you. To help him out you slide down on your back so that you're laying side by side. Without looking up, Denji shakily slides onto your shoulder.

You feel his damp skin slide over yours, hot breath tumbling onto your shoulder as he slowly places his face into the crook of your neck. You can feel your heart racing and even see your vision slightly pulsating. His wet hair tickles your ear, and you feel his nose trace the curve of your neck, fingers weakly trying to grip your shoulder.

You hear him whisper so quietly that it's almost indistinguishable amidst the shower water still running. "Can... I...?" he barely whispers, making sure one last time that it's okay with you. This is it, the moment you've always fantasized, knowing how Denji's teeth would feel against your neck, tasting your blood. But the moment is intensified by your naked bodies laying in the middle of the steamy shower room.

You nod your head and barely say yes before he sinks his teeth down into your supple flesh. You gasp out loud and grab his slick back as he pierces you. It stings, but feels so incredible at the same time. The pain is over quickly as he pulls his teeth out and closes his lips around your skin. You feel the blood slowly being sucked from you as Denji's tongue laps over the bites. He moans and breathes heavily as he slowly drinks from you, groaning with each suck. Each swallow is hard, and his grip on your shoulder tightens with each gulp.

You thought you'd have to cut him off, but to your surprise, he slows to a stop by himself and pulls his mouth away. He did say he'd try to be careful earlier. Denji gently licks your neck one last time with one long, slow, sweeping motion to clean the last of the blood, making you cringe with pleasure.

"Denji? Are you okay? Did that help?" You turn your head to the side to see if he's okay. With his head still down, you see only his eyes glare up at you through his wet hair. "... Denji...? What's wrong?" You feel his chest moving in and out quicker as his eyes dart back and forth between yours. His head lifts more until you see your glistening red blood smeared across his lips, and all you can think of is how fucking hot it makes him look. As weird as it may be, seeing blood on Denji made him seem so badass and intense.

You realize you've been staring down at his lips for too long now, when you suddenly feel his fingers gliding through the back of your hair. He lifts himself up on his elbow, his face hovering right above yours now. Some blood drips off his lips and down onto yours. He looks down at the blood on your lips, up at your eyes, and back down at your lips, fixated on the blood.

Before you know it, Denji moves quickly and instinctually down to your face and licks the blood off of your lips, as though not to waste it. He hears the quiet gasp that slips through your lips, and stays hovered above your face, slowly grinning with his sharp teeth... almost evilly.

"You always imagine seeing us naked?" His voice is so low and deep that you can almost feel it vibrate on your skin.

"Wh-what?" You shake your head confused.

"You said 'I always imagined seeing each other naked being vastly different, but I don't have much of a choice..." Denji's tongue licks around his lips, savoring any blood that might have lingered there.

"So tell me..." his voice trails off as he places his other hand next to your head, trapping your head between his hands, his face still hovering right above yours, eyes locked onto you. "What has your dirty little mind been fantasizing about, then?"

---------- To be continued ----------

#denji x reader #denji x fem reader #denji smut #chainsaw man #csm #chainsaw man smut #csm smut #fanfic #aki smut #aki hayakawa #makima #power #anime #manga #otaku #weeaboo #weeaboo trash #fan fiction #c-o-t-o

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essycogany · 30 days

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Hot Take! Nine’s Redemption Arc Was Rushed

I’m usually positive on this blog, but I believe it’s important to have a balance. This’ll be my longest post yet, so buckle your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Quick Positive Points

I like the idea of an antagonistic Tails. Nine’s amazingly voiced by a VA I recognize. His design is awesome. His attitude and sarcasm can be entertaining. Nine saving Sonic’s skin when dealing with the Chaos Council was nice. The scene with Nine and Mr.Doctor Eggman talking about Sonic is one of my favorite moments. The thought of creating robots who look like the other characters as if Nine still wanted friends was neat. (even if he tried to kill with them) And despite my grievances, I thought Nine’s hug with Sonic at the end was adorable. The animation is what helped with that.

Introduction

While I do like Nine, I’m going to talk about my glaring issues with his character development. I can see both sides of the argument, but let me tell you why there’s more proof of Nine not being well written. I will implore you to think for yourselves regardless of what I have to say. We all have our opinions and I’m only here to share mine.

Nine’s Characterization

This is how the fox carry himself throughout the show and why most of it isn’t written well. I’ll state my issues with Sonic in certain moments too.

Season One

Nine’s reasonably defensive at first when Sonic came to his home out of nowhere. He became annoyed by Sonic’s immaturity yet concerned for him once they’re captured. After they meet the Rebels, his sassiness begins to show. Replying “You’re welcome,” after saving Sonic by taking control of Rusty. Having a direct and harsh tone when advising others to take the Chaos Council’s shard. And not seeming to care about the rest of the group who gets trapped with Mr. Doctor Eggman.

Nine: “Sonic we have to get to the core!” “You heard her come on!” This I understand because Nine doesn’t know them, so they don’t really matter to him. But then Nine dismisses Sonic’s feelings even after he asked “are you okay?” Because he noticed the hedgehog was a little off.

-Because Sonic started remembering the events that happened to him before he broke the Paradox Prism.

After Sonic realized the prism shattering was his fault Nine says, “Snap back to reality! Grab that shard and we’ll sort the rest out later!” Then when Sonic stated the original Tails told him not to touch it Nine states, “Well, I’m telling you the opposite! Now grab it and let’s go!” Not realizing if Sonic is the reason for the prism being small, his original variant might’ve known touching it was a bad idea. I also can’t forget about these lines.

Sonic: “If there’s anyone who’s got the brains to put it all back together, it’s you.” Nine: “That’s the first thing you’ve said that I agree with.” Nice ego for a person who ends up getting Sonic sucked up by the prism after being warned. Back to what I was saying before, Nine seems to only care about stealing the shard away from the Eggmen here. Which is proven later on in season one. His care for Sonic has progressed, but Sonic learns from the Rebels that Nine abandoned them. And it’s never addressed by Sonic.

-Sonic also insist Nine’s “not a traitor” without any proof. Sonic hasn’t known Nine that long. The last time Sonic saw the fox, he ended up getting the hedgehog sucked into another shatterspace. Unless Sonic’s talking about Nine working with the group. But I’d argue it was more for Sonic and his own sake. Especially since Nine left the Rebels and Rusty at the drop of a hat.

When Nine comes to help Sonic, he shows off the Grim and discuss how it’s “Their bright new future.” Wanting to live in the Grim with Sonic. Even after the last time he saw Sonic, Nine knew how distraught Sonic felt about losing his home. Again, Sonic stated he believed Nine could put the prism back together. Meaning his original friends and world would come back. But Nine immediately assumes Sonic would be happy living with him for the rest of his life. Which is sweet on paper but very messed up in execution. I’ll get into why later. To be fair, Nine’s never had a friend before and was bullied for most of his life. His social skills aren’t the best and he isn’t use to caring about others. But even if Nine didn’t understand empathy, he has no reason to believe Sonic would forget about his home just because Nine didn’t care about his.

Nine: “That city hasn’t brought me anything but misery. I owe it nothing.” He hasn’t been around Sonic for long either, but Sonic’s demonstrated his loyalty before. By worrying about the Rebels instead of the shard while Nine did vise versa. Anyways, Sonic explains he needs to save the Rebels. Nine being Nine didn’t care about them, but came to help anyways because he “cared about Sonic.” I’d say Nine only helped because he thought Sonic would join him after getting the other shards, but that’s my opinion.

Nine: “With enough fortifications and enough shard energy, this could be home.” Because of this line, I believe he already knew about the other shards before Sonic. Which is also why he knew what Sonic was doing in season two. He also says, “When this is over, I’m going home and never looking back. Whether I go it alone is entirely up to you.” Still assuming things.

-Sonic doesn’t give Nine an answer for some reason. Only responding with “I knew you’d come back, buddy.” Projecting how he’d expect Tails to act. Which becomes a serious problem later.

Season Two

Throughout this season, Nine helped Sonic collect the shards. Which was a bonus to keep developing the Grim.

-Sonic and the Rebels have another debate on trusting Nine. At least this time when Sonic says “He saved you,” it’s true. Nine took down the Doctors before Sonic and co got killed. I’d still argue it was for Sonic, but Nine still saved their lives despite his intentions.

I’ll also admit when Mr.Doc used Nine, it was reasonable for him to feel as if he had no choice. He even apologizes to Sonic. We even learn how Nine first fount the Grim and see him make a hammock for Sonic. But the positives goes down hill once we get into the shard chase between Nine, Sonic, and the villains. Once away from the Docs Sonic stated, “Oh, things are finally coming together. We’ve got the shards! We can finally fix everything!” He’s still obviously talking about Green Hill and his friends. But Nine doesn’t notice this. Instead he says, “It’s going to be perfect.” Very specific you two. Nine seems to suddenly believe Sonic changed his mind and Sonic still thinks Nine and Tails are one and the same.

Dude even calls the fox “Tails Nine,” while introducing him to another character. What are the odds? Later on Nine says, “If you like surprises, wait until you see what I’ve got going on in the Grim.” Sonic responds with, “Grim? Cool. Can’t wait to here more. But right now, we’ve gotta get to Ghost Hill.” Talking as if if the Grim was an afterthought. Then the two talk about bringing the prism back together without knowing what the other’s thoughts were behind it.

Even if they didn’t have time to discuss things, I think they should’ve explained something to each other during the chase or before Sonic left to help the Rebels in S1. That way the unfortunate occurrence could’ve been avoided later on, but we’ll cross that bridge soon enough. Anyways, after the goose chase, they meet up with Shadow, who reasonably doesn’t trust Nine.

-The Blue blur defended the fox again with his projecting his friends onto strangers self. It’s also weird how often this dude doesn’t listen to anyone while also wondering why no one won’t listen to him.

After Nine put one of the shards back together and it brought everything back for a split second. Sonic: “Reality was flipping out over here.” “Green Hill was back and so were my friends.” Which must’ve went in and out of Nine’s ears because this show has no time for the characters to communicate properly. Instead of listening, Nine interrupts the hedgehog and shenanigans ensues.

After said shenanigans, another argument scene happens. Except somehow, it’s worsts then the last. I’ll criticize both characters. I want to address the “Sonic projecting” discussion first. I know people think Sonic’s wrong for doing it (he is) but I believe he’s doing it as a coping mechanism. Since his friends are replaced by ghost who repeat themselves and a bunch strangers who look like them, he might not be able to help it. I give him a bit of slack because we all know what he’s been through. Prime!Sonic is also a very sincere version of Sonic who instantly feels guilt. Even if he doesn’t completely understand what he did wrong.

For example, in the first episode, Tails didn’t tell Sonic why he was upset with him. He just said, “It’s cool really.” Tails brushes things off instead of discussing them. I can see where Sonic is coming from. What I won’t excuse is Sonic having a terrible amount of trust in Nine. I’ll discuss this in S3’s issues. And the rest I’ll summon up to Sonic never addressing problems which might’ve needed to be addressed. Like Green Hill almost coming back and other stuff I’ve already mentioned. Onto the fox. This argument might be a great time for Nine to explain what his plans are instead of saying, “We’re not making your old world. We’re building a better one.” Implying Sonic’s original world is inferior and he should deal with it being gone.

When Sonic says, “I think we can get it back.” Nine responds with, “You’re wrong about that.” Despite Sonic in the same episode said minutes before, “Green Hill was back and so were my friends.” Did the fox forget? Is he lying? Or does he not care? I’ll go with the writers forgetting about this line since it never gets mentioned again. Which seems to be a trope in this show. I understand Sonic’s done plenty of wrong when it comes to Nine as well, but I don’t see how Sonic wanting to fix the problem he made in the first place as selfish. Especially since Sonic’s not the only one who wants Green Hill back. Shadow’s dealing with the consequences too.

The “what’ll happen to me when you bring your friends back,” issue is never explored. There’s no confirmation on what happens, so this comment basically means nothing. Also, Sonic living with Nine forever is messed up. It implies Sonic and Shadow never going home. And their friends would stay ghost forever. Dead to be specific. Not to mention Nine’s home would be a copy of what Sonic use to have. You’re telling me Sonic The Hedgehog would allow his freedom to end because of a self centered fox who wouldn’t care if he wanted to go home? I could continue, but I’ll stop here. In the end, Sonic and Nine were both wrong. You could argue Sonic never said “no” to staying with Nine, but Sonic saying in S1,”It’s not going anywhere,” was all Nine needed to hear. Sonic thinking Nine would love Tails and discussing Green Hill was prominent when talking to Nine before getting to Ghost Hill too. Dude was completely set on getting home and he wasn’t subtle about it.

To be fair again, Nine hasn’t been in enough good relationships to know who to trust Then finds someone he thinks he can trust. Then gets treated like a reflection of someone else instead of a different person entirely. This goes to show I actually don’t hate the idea of the miscommunication. I only feel the show doesn’t give them enough time to breathe and only focuses on rushing the plot. Therefore having contradictions and forced conflicts.

Season 3

Nine’s first statement in this season is, “This could’ve been everything he ever wanted.” I wish Sonic had a moment to explain why creating a new world is a nice but bad idea. That way Nine could get a better understanding of how close Sonic is to his home and friends. Giving it a sense of importance.He could choose to stay selfish or to be reasonable.Nine tries to capture Sonic in order to get his shard energy throughout S3. In the next scene Shadow says, “So, it was all about power?” (Shadow is the MVP of this entire show) Then Sonic defends Nine for the millionth time.

Sonic: “No, that’s not…” Nine: “Exactly!” Wonderful.

Moving on. Sonic tries to reason with Nine again. Nine: “You were only using me to get what you wanted.” Sonic: “That’s not true.” The hedgehog doesn’t elaborate before or after this conversation. I love how the two barely have a coherent conversation. It’s honestly my favorite thing in the world.

-Sonic tells Shadow if reasoning with Nine doesn’t work, he’ll be “their’s.” Probably implying they’ll have to hurt or kill Nine if necessary. Then Sonic never fallows through with it and doesn’t actually fight Nine. Sonic only uses his shield powers or tries to convince others not to hurt the fox.

After that Nine tries to attack both hedgehogs with a robot copy of Sonic and states, “This time, you’re on your own.” Shadow: “He’s not on his own” Nine: “We’re all on our own.” Describing his perception on loyalty is a detail I actually like.

Later in the season Nine tries to disrupt the bystanders worlds to get Sonic, so they disrupt their agreement. Nine attempts to kill them again and wonders why they wanted to protect Sonic. Almost as if Sonic has been helping them since the fox met him or something.

After constant fighting and begging on Sonic’s part, he tells Nine to, “LOOK OUTSIDE!” And that’s when Nine at last sees the shatterverse breaking and realizes what he’s done. All of this mess lasted 7 episodes by the way. The big fight took up 6 of them. Nine knew beforehand the shatterverse was ending and it didn’t phase him as long as his world was safe. Now he suddenly he feels guilty?

Sonic apologizes because he didn’t listen to what Nine wanted. Or appreciate what he was trying to do. This is Sonic’s words not mine. Nine doesn’t apologize for trying to kill everyone, but to Sonic instead. Sonic asked everyone to leave Nine alone. And asked Nine to not cause anymore trouble. Knucks: “How can we trust him?” Nine: “You can trust me.” Outstanding dialogue. Plot needs to occur, so we’ll skip the part where Nine and everyone else gains trust in a none forced way. Great.

Nine finally helps Sonic even if those problems could’ve been avoided a few episodes earlier and say their goodbyes. The End.

I hate how Sonic had to apologize to Nine about wanting to go home. It’s absolutely unfair. Then Nine doesn’t apologize to everyone else for the havoc he’s caused. What I believe Sonic should’ve apologized for was treating Nine like Tails, but it never gets brought up. But my biggest issue is the only way Sonic called out Nine on his actions was by saying, “This isn’t you!” “Don’t do this!” “ “I care about all of this. You, the shatterverse, and everyone inside of it. I know you do to.” The last bit being a huge lie.

I don’t make these kind of comparisons often, but Game!Sonic would have everything nipped in the bud. I’d assume by telling Nine, “What you’re doing is wrong. This is why it’s wrong. If you don’t quit, I’ll do everything in my power to make you quit.” He’d understand Nine needed to be stoped and act accordingly. I’d assume everyone would have to make him surrender and he’d be force to fix everything. No, it doesn’t reform him, but I wouldn’t have minded if he didn’t get reformed because sometimes you can’t change people. This might not have been the perfect solution, but I tried. Yes, Nine is a child who was treated terribly, but it shouldn’t excuse his actions.

What’s hilarious is during his last talk with Sonic, he unreasonably guilts the hedgehog and called him selfish. Saying Sonic didn’t save everyone because he actually cared about them. But because Sonic feels guilty about breaking everything from the start. Except Sonic actually admits to messing up which was shown in the third episode of Prime. And took the time to right his wrongs. It’s the most hypocritical and short sided statement in the entire show. And if that wasn’t enough, Nine gets upset when everyone came to attack him. It admittedly was a dumb idea, but Nine made himself the enemy. He didn’t give the gang a reason to trust him before or after his deal with Sonic. Yes, including the end of the show. It made no sense.

Why Nine’s Reformation Was Rushed

First of all, I’m not saying I don’t like Nine because of his negative traits. That’s the main reason he exists. He’s a antagonistic or I’d even say evil version of Tails. Nine is suppose to be distant, selfish, and such. I simply don’t believe after all he’s done and how his character was established that he suddenly changed into a good guy.

Nine’s focus was on his own pain. As he ignored everyone else’s. Including the one person who saved his life on multiple occasions and who (even if it’s wrong) still tried to stick up for him. Giving off the, “I suffered so everyone else should suffer,” mentality. Then blames Sonic by saying he, “put him into this position.” As if Nine didn’t already make terrible choices before going evil. Sure, the shards could’ve been corrupting him, but it’s never explored and can only be assumed. Which are too different things.

These are obvious toxic/red flag behavior and it never gets properly called out. Things are only fixed because the plot demanded it. Not because there was a natural progression. The only thing that progressed was Nine’s uncaring attitude until it magically fixed itself…at the last minute. And I hate that for him because he deserved better. Sonic deserved better. All of the Sonic Prime characters deserved better. But they all fell into the pit of unsatisfying conclusions.

Side Note: What also bothers me is how Sonic is almost the only character Nine interacts with. No wonder he doesn’t care about anyone else. Nine barely talks to anyone. Like Shadow, the blue blur is the main center of Nine’s attention. At least most of the other characters don’t have the same problem, but it’s still ridiculous.

How The Show Is Flawed In General

I have more glaring issues with this show. Sonic Prime’s plot almost never stops to breathe. The repetition is unreal. None of the characters (especially the OGs) get enough attention. Some things are both over and under explained simultaneously. There’s reused animations.

Reused conversations and dialogue are especially prevalent. “This isn’t you, Nine!” “It’s over, Nine.” “Gotta go fast!” “Game over.” “We’re gonna end/fix this together.” “We’re friends.” “Me Beauty.” “We have to take the fight to them.” “You’re even dumber then you look.”

This isn’t half of the repeated lines unfortunately. Some of them aren’t only said by Sonic either. It’s almost as if they ran out of dialogue. I am only scratching the surface of problems, but I won’t go any further. At this point “the show’s writing” is the main issue of Nine’s arc. It’s also why other parts of Prime feels rushed.

Conclusion

Yeah, I have a love hate relationship with this show. It’s seriously hard to watch sometimes. I know this has been a bummer, but here’s what Sonic Prime does right. I adore Sonic Prime in terms of how it looks and sounds. With the outstanding animation, voice acting, music, editing, and sound design. I’ll even say it’s one of the best looking 3D animated kids TV shows I’ve seen. There’s so much attention to detail and quality of the character facial expressions and movements. Furthermore, when the lighting is really good, it looks near movie levels of quality. Not to mention great writing still exists. All in all, Sonic Prime may not be the best written Sonic show, but it does have the most polished animation. Even with its plethora of flaws and lost potential, I’m glad Prime exists to prove 3D TV shows can look fantastic when given enough care.

Stay Creative! 💜

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everlastingdreams · 4 months

Text

The Weeping Monk x Reader : Born In The Dawn Chapter 26

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Story Summary: Locked inside a dark room in a dungeon, kept alive only for your power, you believed you’d never see the daylight again. That is until the Weeping Monk finds his way down and steals you from your captors. It is the beginning of a journey that leads you through hardship and newfound hope, but nothing is assured in a world that is changing for the Fey. The magic that runs in your veins is drawing out the worst the world has to offer, does it include the man who pulled you from the dark?

Chapter Title: Secrets Of The Heart

Notes: 👀

Warnings: Grief. Violence. Torture. Sexual Assault. Rape Threat. Gore. Enemies To Lovers. Pining. Trauma. Flagellation. Manipulation. Strong Language. Blood. Gore?. Misogyny. PTSD. Spicy and smut parts. Slight redemption arc.

Other warnings: Jealousy. Forbidden Love. Romance. Slow-burn…

Word count of this fic: +190K

Chapter: 26/ It’s a secret.

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Once you were done washing, and dressed in clean clothes, you felt a little more human. That such a small thing could lift your spirits was surprising. You left your room to search for the little rascal you had been hoping to see. It took a while to find Squirrel, but you did find him, and your cousin as well, in the kitchens.

Ciro ran up to you at first sight and flung himself into your arms when you knelt down. “You’re really back!”

The joy of him filled your heart. “I am.” You leaned back to look at him “Phew, you’re getting stronger, aren’t you?”

Ciro gestured to Squirrel. “He’s teaching me how to use a bow, it’s making my muscles grow, look!”

He tensed the muscles of his upper arm, as if he was lifting something heavy. Even though you saw no change, you did not tell him this and were proud of him none the less. “Impressive.”

Squirrel stood a bit to the side, clearly waiting for you to call him over and for Ciro to step away a bit. Your cousin did so upon seeing the inquiring look of Squirrel. You opened your arms wide for Squirrel who took the invitation right away, they closed around around him lovingly.

“I have missed you.” You whispered against his hair.

Squirrel swallowed, a tear ran it’s path down his cheek. “I’ve missed you too…”

You could hear the crack in his voice and cradled the back of his head, “I am never leaving you again, do you hear me?” You leaned back to look him in the eyes. “Never.”

“Swear it.” Squirrel demanded.

The look in his eyes made it impossible to refuse. “I swear it.”

With another embrace, the promise was sealed.

Squirrel noticed the bruise to your temple. “Did the Brotherhood hurt you?”

Your mother would not have told him the details of it.

“Not much.” You lied to not alarm the already worried boy. “And in return we burned their fort to the ground.”

Squirrel and Ciro shared an excited look, and right there and then you knew that you wouldn’t be able to leave the kitchen without telling them the whole story. And you did. Ciro considered it one of the better tales he knew of know. Your storytelling came to an end when the children were offered a bowl of soup by the older ladies that were cooking there. You politely declined when they offered you a bowl as well, and left the kitchen.

On your way to find the Ash Man, you ran into Matthew.

“How are you?” He asked. “That can’t have been easy to face your father like that.”

You shrugged your shoulders slightly. “I’ll be better once things settle down after a while.”

“So, the Reaper, eh?” He let a silence fall in the hope that you would start talking about it yourself, but you did not. “That sick bastard. Who would have thought he’d have such plans in that twisted skull of his?”

Matthew was visibly repulsed by the thought.

Remembering it made you feel sick to the stomach as well. “I’d rather just forget everything about his plans.”

“Of course you do. Understandably so. " He put his hand on your shoulder. “Will you come to the celebration tonight? There will be ale and food brought to the courtyard for all. It will take your mind off what happened.”

You doubted ale and a meal would be of much help for that. “I’m not sure I wish to feast.”

He took a step closer, letting those amber eyes achieve what his pleas could not, “Please, y/n? It has been so long since we were able to spend some time together.”

You sighed defeated. “Alright. I’ll make an appearance.”

A broad smile spread on his lips. “Excellent.”

One of the Snake Folk clan entered the hallway you were in, her hurried steps made Matthew step away from you.

“Ser Matthew, may I speak to you for a moment?” She asked.

“Of course.” Matthew said, then turned to you. “I will see you tonight.”

“Good. Uhm, do you know where Lancelot is?” You asked before you’d have to search the whole castle ground.

Matthew’s smile faltered. “I believe he is at the stables.”

It was all he said before he walked towards the woman to hear what she had to say. He could not have made it more obvious that he did not like Lancelot, you hoped that it would change in time.

~~~♡~~~♡~~~♧~~~♡~~~♡~~~

It only took you a few minutes to walk to the stables, and you found Lancelot busy pampering Goliath by brushing his coat with some dry straw.

The slight tilt of his head to the side made it known to you that he had caught your scent before you’d even set foot in the door, he did not even need to turn around to know it was you.

“I apologize for earlier. I will knock from now on.” He said.

You weren’t even angry for it, it had not been on purpose. “I know you wouldn’t walk into a room I am changing in on purpose. We’re good, you are forgiven.”

As you came to stand beside him and greet Goliath, you noticed how he kept his attention on the horse and even took a small step away from you. It was so subtle that you could have missed it, but you hadn’t and it was clawing at you.

You wanted to start a conversation to distract yourself from that gnawing feeling, “How did you find my room?”

“By finding you.” He said.

It took you two counts to remember again that he was able to sniff his way around. “I see. Did anyone else see you walk in there?”

It had become so natural to just walk into any room the other was in, but this was different.

A frown creased his forehead, “I do not believe so. Why?”

It was quite winsome how innocent his mind could still be. “Because rumors have been born from less. You just waltzed into my bedchamber, Lancelot. My parents would lose their minds if they saw.”

He mumbled a bit, it was meant as a jest but the undertone betrayed some genuineness, “They can’t have their daughter be involved with the former Weeping Monk.”

You rolled your eyes a little. “It’s not about your past, Lancelot. Remember that I told you that my father kept me away from boys as much as he could? To them, I am still their ‘Little Moon’.”

“Little moon?” He found it a curious name.

“It comes from a secret we as Dawn Folk have.” You carefully said.

The attention left Goliath, the brushing of the horse’s coat continued absentmindedly, “Will you share this secret with me?”

You tsked him, “Don’t be nosy, Ash Man.”

He just kept looking at you, undoubtedly wishing he could read your mind.

At first you tried to ignore it, and when that didn’t work, you stared right back.

His curiosity was strong, “Please?”

It was rare for this secret to be shared to other Fey. “If I tell you, you can’t tell another soul.”

He thought you weren’t serious, but the look in your eyes made him understand that you were, “I swear it.”

The secret spilled from your lips, “Dawn Folk can only conceive on nights with a full moon.”

Little Moon… Because you were the result of an amorous encounter during a blue moon.

He blinked a few times. “Oh.”

“And the Reaper knew this secret. It was why he-” An involuntary shiver went through you. “Ugh.”

He saw you shiver at the memory. “He is nothing but ashes now, he is not on your skin and he will never be again. There is only you.”

Hearing it brought some comfort, every time you thought back to the horrible moment, you felt his hand linger on your skin. You could not let the Reaper hold this power over you, he was ashes and you were still burning with life.

With a deep breath, you took Lancelot’s advice to heart and felt your mouth curve into a soft smile just for him. “I’m glad I didn’t let you die.”

A chuckle passed his lips. “Likewise.”

You almost rolled your eyes again, but then you noticed the changes in his attire and the small one in his appearance. He must have been grooming his stubble meticulously again, it had grown a bit whilst you had been held captive, he had clearly reversed that change. The ruined clothes were gone as well, the aketon was traded for a dark brown leather jerkin and he wore a pale grey shirt under it. All that had not changed was the weapons he had on him.

This was good, he deserved to be treated well.

You reached to touch the new sleeve of his shirt and saw him lean back. That small response gave you great worry, had you done something that made him uncomfortable? You decided to just ask and kept your tone light, “Have I done something wrong?”

It greatly confused him,“No. Why do you ask?”

No?

Then why did he seem afraid of you touching him all of a sudden?

You chased the truth out of him. “I just feel like you seem a bit uncomfortable. And you did rush out of my room so quickly earlier.”

His gaze fell to the ground for a moment, then lifted to your face. “I am not uncomfortable.”

You could tell that there was something being left unsaid. Slowly, you reached for him again and chose to touch nothing else but his cloak. He did not move away when you gingerly waved your fingers in the fabric. With a look shared, you wanted to let him know that you meant no harm. The opposite happened this time, he turned his body in such a way that it closed some distance between you.

“The cloak is new, isn’t it?” You failed to fight away the intrusive thought entering your mind and stunned him when you leaned in to smell the cloak.

He was surprised by the action, but not alarmed.

Your mind caught up with you and the sudden embarrassment hit. “Uhm… gods…sorry…”

His surprise turned into a smile so charming that it got you flustered at the sight of it, “Are you sure you are Dawn Folk, and not Ash Folk?”

The response he had to your strange action was so positive that it made you think that the Ash Folk must have once seen this as a common occurrence.

You wanted to take a step away, before he’d grow uncomfortable after all.

He was the one that prevented it by putting his hand on the back of your arm, “What do I smell like to you?”

The genuine curiosity coming from him was what saved you from feeling awkward.

“I don’t know.” You blurted out.

His head tilted to the side a bit, he did not believe you, “Tell me?”

You were fidgeting. “You smell like the forest. Like the warmth of a bonfire, if that makes sense.”

The answer seemed to please him, as if he didn’t expect you to actually tell him.

It made you recall when you had asked him the same question and got a rude answer in return. “The last time I asked you what I smelled like, you said I smelled strange.”

He had not forgotten the ill response. “You did, because I had never smelled one of the Dawn Folk before.”

Alright, that sounded like a plausible reason.

You dared to ask him again and hoped for an honest answer, “What do I smell like to you?”

The boldness he displayed, when closing the small space between you and dipping his head down to your neck, had you lost for words. His nose never touched your skin as it followed the curve of your neck up to your jaw, the only thing that did was his breath. A tremble in your legs began and spread to the rest of your body, you tried to hide it.

He was able to answer your question now, “The night’s air after rain.”

The scent was how he imagined freedom would smell like.

The hot flush you felt crawling up your cheeks made you tilt your head down. Was this the Hidden’s doing? Or was this… him?

A small touch to your arm was his way of pulling your attention to him again. He was watching you curiously, every small detail of your expression was caught by his gaze, like he was reading a book.

“So, not ‘strange’ then?” You managed to form a sentence.

“No.” His voice had lowered.

Taking a step back would have freed you from the influence his presence had on you now, if only your mind was convincing enough to make your feet move. “The celebration tonight, uhm… will you make an appearance? After all, you did kill the Reaper and gave the reason for this feast.”

Was that an invite to accompany you?

He thought it better to keep his presence discreet. “I think it is best If I stay in the room I was given tonight.”

You wanted to change his mind. “But-”

He explained his reasoning, “I will not jeopardize the chance I was given here. There will be other days in the future where I can be part of a feast. For now, I am content to be where you and the boy are.”

Maybe the people weren’t ready for him yet, or perhaps he was not ready for the people…

You would not push him further. “I will put one of my books in your room, you’ll have something to read at least.”

He hummed approvingly. “That would be kind.”

The sound of someone clearing their throat was what finally made your feet decide to step away from him.

Mirena was standing by the doors and looking between you and the Ash Man for a moment, then spoke to you, “There you are. I was wondering if you wanted to prepare for the feast with me? Like we used to.”

She was speaking of the days when you were younger and smaller, and stealing her gowns that never suited you whenever there was as much as a rumor of a celebration or joining. Of course she did not mind and let you play freely, and when you got older the dresses made for adults finally began to fit. There were many times where you would spend time helping each other look immaculate for special occasions. But it had been so long ago, and trousers offered an advantage in many situations.

“Mother, I’ve not worn a dress in years.” You chuckled nervously.

And you had just put on fresh clean clothes…

Her smile faltered a little. “Of course, I understand.”

Seeing her response made you realize that maybe she just wanted to relive a memory with her ‘Little Moon’.

Even Lancelot was looking at you to see if you had seen your mother’s heart crack a little.

Before she could walk away, you hurried after her. “Wait! I- uhm… I don’t know if my old dresses still fit me. It’s been so long.”

Mirena had taken that into account, “Oh! Worry not, Sweetling. I have something for you.”

Ah, of course she would have something up her sleeve for you to wear.

The enthusiasm was dripping from her face as she took you by the arm and walked away with you.

When you looked over your shoulder, you saw Lancelot send you a sympathetic look.

Like you didn’t know he would laugh later if he saw you in a dress…

~~~♡~~~♡~~~♧~~~♡~~~♡~~~

What began as something to please your mother, ended up being a memory to cherish. After Mirena insisted on using her magic to heal you, the bruises had vanished from your skin. She was pleased with the result until she noticed the scars on your back while you were changing into the dress.

Even though the Dawn Folk could not heal scars, she still wanted to try but you refused to let her use any more of her energy. While she helped you put the dress on correctly, considering you had began with putting it on backwards, you told her where the scars came from.

Unlike your father, she always patiently let you tell your story, even when tears were in her eyes. When you saw them, you had wrapped your arms around her. You were her Little Moon, but she was the world to you.

And she was the only person in the world who could make you want to wear a dress.

She had given you a new one, the linen had your favorite color and the neckline was more revealing than what you were used to.

One look in the mirror of your room and you had to admit that perhaps gowns did suit you after all. The dress was simple, but it fitted your form and flattered your curves.

You would never forget the look your mother gave you when you decided to just wear your belt and sword with it. She got you in the dress, she had won her battle and chose not to fight that one. After all, her daughter was a fighter at heart.

Whilst you were viewing yourself in the mirror, a knock sounded at the door.

Mirena called out and young Squirrel waltzed into the room, she must have taught him to knock…

He was stunned to see you now, “I thought you never wore dresses?”

It made you self-conscious about the dress. “I haven’t worn one in a long time.” You made a small slow turn while asking, “What do you think? Should I wear it for tonight?”

Squirrel pursed his lips for a beat, then nodded with approval. “It’s nice.”

Nice? It was as close to a compliment this cheeky child would probably get.

Your confidence returned. “Good. Good…”

He came closer. “I saw there is ale being given out in the courtyard. Can I have some? I tried asking but the other knights won’t let me.”

Mirena looked at him incredulous. “Young man, you are too young to be drinking ale.”

You bit your lip to stop yourself from letting out a chuckle.

“Y/n?” Squirrel whined.

Oh, you hated to disappoint him. “I’m sorry, Squirrel. Mother is right. But I’ll tell you what, I won’t drink ale either.”

“Really?” He sounded surprised and doubtful.

“I swear it.” You said.

Squirrel felt less excluded now.

Mirena walked over to the boy. “Come, there must be something else you would love to eat and drink.”

Squirrel followed her as she walked out of your room. You took one last look in the mirror, then plucked the book you had set aside for Lancelot from your bed. It was a small walk to the room he had been given, you placed the book against the closed door knowing he would find it there.

Your walk continued for a while, the doors of the fort were open and the sound of a violin welcomed you into the courtyard. From what you could see, a lot of people were present and even the gate was open to welcome those of the village.

A warm large bonfire gave the courtyard a mystical appearance now that the sun left the land in the hands of the moon.

You spotted Squirrel and your mother while she was helping him and Ciro acquire the food they desired.

No ale is what you had promised, and after some searching you found one of the village offering warm sweet tea to those who sought something to drink.

Some villagers had not come empty handed, it made the night even more meaningful to see that even in these hard times the Fey were not afraid to share.

It gave you hope to see it.

You stayed away from the dense crowd and kept to the walls, just enjoying the atmosphere. The news of the Reaper’s death, and the one who caused it, traveled through the castle.

Matthew found you close to the gatehouse and came to stand beside you. “You came.”

“I knew it would make my mother happy.” You informed him.

He was as charming as could be. “Not just your mother, I’m happy to see you here too. And by the gods, you look beautiful tonight.”

Had you heard him right?

“What?” You blurted out shyly.

Matthew had no problem repeating it a little slower, “You look beautiful tonight.”

You blinked a couple of times and took a sip of your tea to wash the nerves down. “Thank you.”

He looked around himself, “Your shadow isn’t with you tonight?”

You looked at the ground and found your shadow, “My shadow?”

“The Ash Man.” He clarified. “I have not seen him tonight yet.”

The knowledge that Lancelot had decided to remain in his room tonight did sadden you, even if you understood why. You couldn’t help but pout a bit. “He thought it was better to stay in the castle.”

He sounded almost happy about it, “A wise choice, considering his past.”

It bothered you to hear that he was glad Lancelot wasn’t here to celebrate, but you couldn’t truly blame Matthew for not trusting him yet.

Matthew voiced his opinion, “I had my suspicion that he was off the Church, but I can’t believe you brought the Weeping Monk himself here. Why didn’t you tell me when I met him?”

To you it had been the right choice. “I didn’t know if I could trust you to keep it a secret, it’s not a small one to keep.”

He took it personal. “You trust the Weeping Monk, but you don’t trust me to keep a secret?”

It was hard not to get a little defensive. “He’s not the Weeping Monk anymore. His name is Lancelot.”

“Fine…” Matthew yielded. “Helio nearly lost his mind when he learned that the Monk had fled and taken his daughter with him.”

After all these years, you never thought that he could get on your nerves but you remained patient. “He didn’t take me with him. I only helped him escape, we didn’t expect to be captured by the Brotherhood.”

“You helped him escape.” He chuckled. “I am impressed with how much you have changed. You used to be quite shy, you know? And now your freeing prisoners.”

It was nice to hear he liked the change in you. “I guess I just stopped hiding who I really am.”

Because the people who mattered most had accepted you just as you were.

“That you did.” He turned to you, bringing his hand up to your shoulder where it grew brave enough to take place on the bare skin. “I hope to see more of this other side to you.”

You turned your head to look at his hand, he seized the moment to kiss your cheek and linger. It was so unexpected that you could barely believe it was happening.

Matthew heard his name be called from the crowd and politely excused himself before he headed to the man who had called for him.

You watched him walk away in bewilderment, the melancholic whispers of the Hidden sounded like they came from behind you and you turned to look.

It was just a group of Feys walking through the open gate into the courtyard, nothing odd to see. And still… the Hidden had lured your eyes to look. You kept looking at the gate for a moment and drank your tea at a snail’s pace while your thoughts were elsewhere.

Never before had Matthew acted flirtatious to you, not like this, he meant it now.

But deep down it bothered you that he had never done so in the past, while you had been so obviously infatuated with him that you almost felt embarrassed to think back to it. He had broken your heart when he had carefully rejected you.

And now he had complimented you and kissed your cheek, but… it had not been like you had thought it would be.

Were those books, who spoke of romance, wrong? Was a kiss by the one you loved not meant to fill your heart with joy? To make you forget how to breathe properly?

You walked away from the gatehouse and watched those around you enjoy the feast. A woman, who played the flute, had joined the violist. The Fey welcomed this evening with open arms, some music and relaxation would surely lift their spirits. Your cousin and Squirrel were munching on some pastries when you came to stand by your mother’s side. Right away she fumbled with a side of your dress that must have looked imperfect to her. You resisted the urge to swat her hand away when you saw others stare at the display curiously. Of course Squirrel and Ciro found it hilarious to see.

“Mother, please.” You tried.

She didn’t listen and only stopped when the dress fell over your form perfectly. As you looked around yourself, you saw your father speak to Matthew, and they were looking at you.

“Are they talking about me?” You couldn’t resisted asking your mother.

Mirena had already noticed the conversation her husband was having with the newest knight. “I do not know. Do not worry, Little Moon, ignore your father.”

You heard her mumble ‘like you always do’ between her teeth.

She was right, you didn’t want to ruin your good mood by worrying. Instead you stayed with her to help keep the children entertained.

~~~♡~~~♡~~~♧~~~♡~~~♡~~~

It was past midnight when the feast came to an end. The tired villagers returned home and most of those living in the castle had gone inside. You stayed out a bit longer, cleaning up the courtyard a little. With a basket carried at your hip, you tossed the rubbish into it. After that was done, a woman still present took over and shoo-ed you away. You thanked her and and decided to stay out in the open air a bit longer.

You walked away from the fort and passed under the gate, the view of the coast and sea in the distance was spectacular from the hilltop.

The trunk of a fallen tree on the grass offered a nice place to sit. The nice cool breeze of wind passed through your dress easily, it wasn’t too cold yet for fall. Because of the leaves rustling over the grass in the wind, you had not heard the footsteps approach. It was the sudden touch to you left shoulder that alerted you, you jolted a little and quickly looked behind you. A glimpse of his cloak was the first thing you saw, next you felt the touch against your back as it glided to your right arm.

“Lancelot?” You were glad to see him, he must have waited until the feast was over to set foot outside tonight.

He put his hand on your right shoulder and left it there until he sat down beside you, when it moved away it did so by gliding down the back of your arm.

Curiously you watched him, the hood of his cloak sat crooked over his head and you couldn’t resist readjusting it for him. “I’m afraid you missed the feast.”

Finally, he looked at you, hearing your teasing tone.

There was a faint scent of ale coming off of him. Was he drunk? You could not really tell, you’d never seen him so. And he did not seem like the kind of person to drink much or at all, perhaps little was needed to cause the same effect on a person who lived a sober life.

You fidgeted with your hands at his silence, they had touched so many over these past few months, too many. Lancelot placed a hand over them, then chose one and let his fingers glide against your palm to hold it. Your hand was still as a rock, feeling the pads of his fingers lightly push into it.

This felt so foreign, the way he just gently held your hand. Such a small gesture and it made you unable to look at him. It took you near a minute to decide to close your hand around his fingers a bit, a signal that you were not against this.

His knee touched yours, he moved to sit a little closer. Step by step, he bend the line that had always been there between you. It wasn’t until he quietly spoke your name that you looked at him again.

The hold on your hand got firmer but never painful. Those blue eyes stayed on yours for only a blink, their attention fell lower. It almost caught you off-guard when he leaned in, quickly you turned your head away to avoid what was about to happen. His stubble had skimmed over your cheek, and he remained so near.

“Don’t.” You couldn’t believe the situation you found yourself in. “You are drunk, you’re not yourself.”

He cupped the right side of your neck slowly, as if he was handling a frightened bird, his nose buried into your hair. Even now, when he was not himself, you still trusted that he would not hurt you.

“I cannot lose you.” He sounded distressed, the ale did not help it make sense. “Not you…”

You plucked his hand from your neck and leaned back, getting worried by his words, “You won’t. Why would you think that?”

The hand you had used to pluck his away, was held by him again, he was desperate to keep the physical connection. His other hand came up to your chin, and you froze when his thumb touched your bottom lip. You caught yourself wishing there was no ale in his body, but there was and it was overriding the inhibitions he had always had.

The intoxicated Ash Man gave you another surprise when he decided to lean in and put his lips to your temple. The whispers of the old gods were calm, and assured you that there was nothing to fear. He lingered, and you could not pretend that you did not feel your heart increase it’s rhythm.

Your eyes fluttered shut, the gentle caress of his hand on your jaw caused a tremble. “Lancelot…”

His voice was unlike you had ever heard before, deep and filled with conviction, “Cor meum jungatur vobis. Inquietum est donec perveniat ad te. Est tuum.”

You did not understand what he was saying, Latin was not a language the Fey chose to learn, it was considered the language of the Church. It had sounded quite like a prayer he whispered in your ear.

“I do not understand.” You gently told him.

His nose touched your temple. “One day, you will.”

The sound of a ceramic jug breaking sounded from the courtyard and you were on your feet instantly, it betrayed how the nerves were flying through your body. You could faintly make out the voices of Squirrel and Ciro and didn’t have to guess what they were up to. Lancelot dropped his eyes to the grass when you looked down at them. You tried not to think too much of what had almost happened between you and him just now, he was drunk and not making much sense, especially when he started to talk in the odd language.

“I think Squirrel and my cousin are trying to carry off some ale that was still in the courtyard.” You told him, seeing how he looked pretty distracted. “I can help you to your room?”

He shook his head and rose to his feet.

You were a bit worried by the way he swayed on his feet a bit, “Are you sure?”

With a gesture of his hand, he let you know that he’d be alright and walked back towards the fort. You followed a few steps behind the stubborn oaf, spotting the children in the courtyard while he managed to find his way to the door of the entrance.

Just then, your mother opened it, undoubtedly to see where the little rascals had vanished off to. She almost bumped into the Ash Man and stepped aside to let him pass, he acknowledged it with a bow of his head. Mirena made eye-contact with you, having seen the state he was in. One look from you and she knew it was best to see to it that he found his room safely while you handled the situation with the children.

You would need to have a word with him about what happened tomorrow.

Had it just been the ale? Would it truly cause a former monk to try and kiss a woman?

It had to be. Still, it was no proper excuse for it.

You looked around the courtyard for Squirrel and Ciro, finally finding them hiding behind a stack of barrels.

A broken jug of ale laid shattered on the ground not far from them.

“Well then. Must I ask?” You tapped your fingers on one of the barrels.

They looked up at you like they had seen a ghost.

“We… found the jug and wanted to bring it back to the kitchen.” Ciro tried.

Impressive, he almost sounded honest, Squirrel’s talent for deceiving must have been rubbing off on him.

“You wanted to bring it back. Full or empty?” You shot the question at them.

Ciro looked a lot less confident now, but Squirrel was thinking fast.

“Full, of course. We wouldn’t drink ale, we’re too young.” Squirrel sounded like he was explaining it to an infant.

“Uhuh.” You bit your tongue, choosing not to battle on this because you knew you might not even win against the witty child. “Good. I am glad we understand each other. Come, let us head inside. You should have been in bed by now, you won’t be well-rested tomorrow.”

They were already relieved that you ‘believed’ the lie, and did not put up a fight when you walked them to the room they shared.

From the looks of it, your mother had made sure Squirrel had a proper bed too. She always went the extra mile for the little ones. Fatigue gripped hold on them at the sight of their beds, and they slumped towards them. Ciro sat down and crawled into his bed, tucking himself in with the sheet properly. Squirrel on the other hand impressed you by letting himself fall flat down on the bed and managing to be comfortable that way. After bidding them goodnight, you left their room and headed to yours.

On your way, you passed by Lancelot’s door and saw that the book you had placed against his door was gone, he must have found it quite quickly considering your scent must have been on it. There was a brief second were you wanted to knock, to get the reason behind him trying to kiss you. But tonight you would not get the truth, not when he was like this.

No, you would have to let this haunt you until tomorrow when you could get a coherent sentence out of him. You walked away from his door and headed to your own room. On your way there, you couldn’t help but overthink the situation. It was upsetting, especially because you hadn’t seen it coming, not from him.

No warning, no explanation.

And he had even tried to speak to you in the language the Fey frowned upon, which made even less sense. What was so hard to just tell you that he had to resort to it?

Now you would have to try to sleep with all these questions bothering you, while the ale in his system would surely get him to sleep. By the time you were in your room, it bothered you so much that you slammed the door shut behind you a little, not caring who it woke in your hallway.

~~~♡~~~♡~~~♧~~~♡~~~♡~~~

As every soul on the castle was presumed to be asleep, in the shadow cloaked hallways the Ash Man found his way to your chambers.

No amount of ale could stop the scent of you from being found by him, even the old gods offered him their aid for it. Bound together, by destiny and soul. Upon arriving at your door, the spark of courage left him.

A drunken apology could make matters worse…

He turned upon catching the Fey scent coming from behind him. A man that he could identify as one of the knights stood at a distance, watching him, waiting to see if he would cross a line. Your father had commanded them to keep an eye on him, and they were only following that order.

After being so graciously offered sanctuary, he had done this…

Shame and guilt settled inside of him. He thought back to the moment Mirena had struck him, and why. After everything, even when he thought he was becoming a better man, he had behaved selfishly.

He stepped away from the door, leaving the watchful knight without a reason to believe that you would be disturbed at night by him. He would not taint your reputation, not after risking it for his sake before.

The Ash Man returned to his own sleeping quarters quietly, which proved a challenge as the ale was starting to get the upper hand on his legs again.

But he made it.

A night’s rest would bring him no solace after today. He had seen the interaction between you and Matthew as he was walking near the gatehouse to come and join you at the feast for a while. Patiently he had waited in the discretion of his cloak and the shadows, refusing to be rude and interrupt the conversation you had with the knight.

Now he wished that he had, so he would not have had to see you be courted by the man.

To see it, hurt more than all the prayers left unanswered in his life. The sight of it, worse than the dagger he had taken to the heart. He had tasted the ale at the feast to wash down the bitter taste of the memory. How had he not seen this earlier? That the one he trusted most, was the one who could hurt him so?

It was not your fault, he knew this. He was the fool who had placed his heart into hands that did not even knew they were holding it. And until tonight, he had not known it either until it was shattered.

Taglist:

@ourlazydetectivekitten @the-great-adventures-of-me @linkpk88 @fxrchxldws @elenaoftheturks @slytherlight @beananacake @crystallizedtime @moonlightaura03 @angrygardendeer @have-aheart @5am-cigarette @arcanenature @thewinterskywalker @notyourwildestdream @coloursforyourportrait @koressecretidentity @nike90 @n1ghtlux @rachlovesactors @luckyzipperscissorsbat @morena-doing-stuff @the-fangirl-diaries @gipsydanger17 @heavenly1927 @phantasmalbeiing @labyrinthonmymind @asarcastic-thiamstan @rainyv-skies @kissingandromeda @stclairesplace @katjusja @isla-bell-blog @beebeerockknot

Please let me know if you want to be added or removed from the taglist of this story.

#the weeping monk #weeping monk #cursed netflix #cursed #weeping monk x reader #lancelot x reader #weeping monk x you #cursed lancelot #lancelot #the weeping monk x reader #daniel sharman character #daniel sharman

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spiegelgestalt · 1 day

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Arc 4 of Re:zero is a really great Vampire story

One of the most fascinating relationships dynamics in re:zero is the shit show between Echidna/Roswaal/Beatrice. (In the anime, I haven't read the light novel yet). Because it's just such a good example of a Gothic tragic vampire story. Spoilers for season 2 under the cut:

so what do I mean with vampire story? Except for Echidna none of these characters are vampires. And it's not confirmed with Echidna (though she has the same eyes as Elsa. AND Garfiel mentions that one of the witches was a vampire and since his faction is really closely related to Echidna it makes sense that it's her).

BUT they are all very very old and at the same time unable to grow and move on. Echidna is literally (un)dead. Her soul is trapped in an old tomb. Beatrice is at the same time a little girl who can never grow up (the most horrific of the vampire tropes imo) and an old woman who survived all her loved ones, trapped in a library while the world passed her by. Roswaal is an eternal young man, obsessed with getting the past back. Obsessed with having his lover back even if she will never love him back the way he wants. (And isn't it interesting that he mostly remembers the fun he had with Beatrice...) His relationship to Echidna feels incestuous (mother/son) to me even if they are not related by blood. Roswaal too can never grow up (Emilia correctly notes that he is a huge child like Betty) at the same time he literally steals the bodies of his descendants. He takes their future for himself in a desperate bit not to die. For me this is what good vampire stories are fundamentally about: beings who rather burn in eternal damnation than let go of the past. Beings who sacrifice the future for the past because for them the past is all there is.

The second important things about vampires is destructive love/desire. And because re:zero is smart it seperates those things from sex and can make a better statement than just sex is kinda evil. Because here is the thing: I truly believe that Echidna loves at least Beatrice in her own fucked up way. On paper she does a lot of things correctly: she wants Beatrice to grow up, she wants her to chose a person for herself, she gives her all the knowledge that she has, she doesn't dictate her future. But at the same time she binds Beatrice in a fucked up contract, she experiments what Beatrice might do, she sacrifices Beatrice's best friend without regard to her feelings at all. She is unable to let her go. She has to give her an empty book of wisdom. Even Beatrice's free decision must somehow be part of her web.

And Roswaal? Actually we don't see that much of Echidna/Roswaal but from what we see she makes him dependent on her and into a willing accomplice of her schemes. She uses his love which after a while turns into obsession because he knows it can never be returned.

But the most tragic part are Roswaal and Beatrice. Because Roswaal desperately desperately loves Beatrice and he is no idea how to relate to her except through manipulation. He tried to be her person (she refused him) but because he wasn't open, because he didn't share his grief there was no connection between them. Just two bitter siblings sniping at each other. And Roswaal knew that Beatrice was unhappy and that is probably part of the reason why he tries to kill her. She wanted to die the same way he wanted to die (and is that not delicious: he plans to revive Echidna but he doesn't plan to be with her because he hates himself so much. He plans to die and he wouldn't leave Betty behind...). BUT I think the other reason is that he really is jealous of Subaru. Because Subaru manages to talk to Beatrice, get her out of her shell, and if Beatrice starts growing what would that mean for him? And still he doesn't want to make Beatrice sad. It fucking enrages him when Puck implies that this might be the consequences of his actions

And at the end? They stand together next to the grave of their mother (yeah I'm saying it fuck you) and are finally able to connect about their grief. And I know Roswaal doesn't deserve it but I really hope his relationship to Beatrice gets better. Because Beatrice needs people who see her for the old woman she is. And just: Re:zero is about forgiveness and these siblings have been lonely for so long and I want them to reconnect.

#Re:zero #roswaal l mathers #Grand Spirit Beatrice #Echidna #Fucked up family dynamics #Content warning #Suicide #Implied incest #Murder #Violence against women #Typical rezero stuff #Spoiler #Edited to fix some spelling errors and add a caption

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bluehairlaunch · 1 year

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7 Worst Dragon Ball Characters (objective)

Honorable mention, Master Roshi. So here's the deal, I actually like Roshi. I actually like Roshi A LOT when he's being the offbeat martial arts master, but for the most part he's a serial sex offender, and the anime adds even more sexual assault for lulz.

Like a bad relationship, I try to remember the good times

Oolong

So y'know how I basically said there were aspects to Roshi's personality I really enjoyed, which is why he's not on the list proper? That's not the case with Oolong. There are definitely aspects to Oolong I like -- I like Piggy from Journey to the West and I think it's hilarious that Toriyama dressed him (and Mai, for some reason) like Chairman Mao. I also have to credit him with saving the world, although idk how Pilaf would have actually held onto his world empire with people like Goku around. Regardless, his character is another vehicle for sexual assault humor.

And yes, the English dub fucked up and made him sound like an adult. The joke is that he's a child that acts like a perverted adult, but because he's a child, he's just kidnapping girls to clean his house and be his mom, basically (Bulma pretty much even adopts him). Sexual assault humor is still sexual assault humor, though, so Oolong sucks

Bacterian

He's just gross. I really hate this dude

Garlic Jr.

Who stans a poser? In DBZ Abridged, they rip on Lord Slug for being EXACTLY King Piccolo, but the only difference between Slug and Garlic Jr. is that Lord Slug knew his place well enough to stay out of the anime.

Lemme start tho with the things I actually like about this guy. 1) he's a demon, I think. Toriyama introduced the concept with King Piccolo, backtracked, then reintroduced it with Dabura. Dragon Ball Xeno Heroes or w/e later realized this was free real estate and expanded on the idea to the point of nausea, but until then, Garlic and his henchmen and Dabura were your only demons, if that's something you found dope.

Other than this, Garlic Jr. steals Pilaf's design, but instead of remaining a lil' gremlin, he goes the filler route and beefs up like a Broly. He has a past connection with Kami like King Piccolo and successfully uses the Dragon Balls like King Piccolo. He then uses the Jr. like Piccolo. Get your own fucking thing. ALL YOU HAVE IS BEING THE SON OF KAMI'S RIVAL

And what really gets me is that he would be an okay filler villain if he wasn't just a chimera of better, actually canon characters, but as he is, the only things I like about his movie and arc have nothing to do with him.

Fwiw this is the only character on this list that's filler/not a part of Toriyama's original run. If this included GT, then there would be nothing but GT. As far as Super goes, I like the characters or at least their concepts (looking at you Zamasu), and the shit part is in the execution.

Spopovich

He and Yamu serve to showcase Babidi's power of mind control, but in doing so we're forced to witness the most pointlessly brutal, one-sided beatdown in all of Dragon Ball. I think the anime even devoted an entire episode to this ffs

We later learn that you have to already be a prat to fall under Babidi's powers, so there's nothing even tragic about his brainwashing and ultimate demise. He sucked before, he sucks now, he's a bad character.

Idasam

First off, it really doesn't make sense that a kid's division was introduced, does it? Most of the top fighters in the World Martial Arts Tournament were underage

Second, look how cute that girl in the top right is

Ok ok. As I made this list I began to realize there weren't a lot of characters in Dragon Ball that I actually hated. Some I definitely liked less than others, but few were so bad that I would remove them if I could. This chick is definitely one of them tho.

The Anti-Chi-Chi, Idasam raised two little brats that ig she loves and supports, which is the only thing she has that going for her. Besides that, she's mean to Bulma and even tried to physically assault her until the Mother of our Saviour Chi-Chi stepped in

Pirate Robot

Admit it, you thought he was filler. He looks like Third Form Frieza fucked some Saiyan armor. I've seen people try to salvage pirate robot by saying he's Android 2, but no, he's not, General Blue had no idea about this underwater pirate cave, and it doesn't make sense for Dr. Gero to squirrel away a dragon ball down here. Sometimes the things you love just disappoint you

Super Buu

I'm not sure this if this is a controversial opinion, but Super Buu is trash, his arc is trash, and everything he does will be done better later by Janemba in a fucking filler movie.

Before his introduction, Gohan failed, Vegeta failed and failed and failed, Gotenks fucked around and found out, and Goku wasted his time on a useless transformation like Future Trunks did in the Cell Saga (if he had been alive, Gohan would be trained and he would have realized SSJ3 wasn't a real transformation). Then Hercule came along and WON. The champ did it, he beat Majin Buu (with kindness). And that's great. If the Buu arc ended there, it would've still had several loose ends, but Z has loose ends as it is (imo another saga was needed to complete Gohan's character arc).

But then Toriyama (I'd rather blame his editors, but I've never seen anyone credit Super and Kid Buu to editorial interference) Ctrl-Z's Hercule's victory and we get Super Buu, a Perfect Cell wannabe that does nothing but crack his neck and murder Marin and everyone else too ig with his admittedly dope human extinction wave.

I have nothing but issues with this guy. His arc is way too long, his design is generically cool like a filler character, he steals Cell's powerset, he steals everybody's clothes, and he murders most of the cast while having little to no personality, so I can't even hate him for it

Go crack your neck more, you're the worst character in Dragon Ball

#dragon ball #dragon ball z #master roshi #jiraiya is a better roshi #but both belong on lists #not these kinda lists either #oolong #pirate robot #super buu #majin buu #garlic jr #bacterian #spopovich #dbz #theres a reason super buu isnt in fighterz

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dreamer1084 · 2 years

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More information of Natsuyuu Ch.118

I saw some people question about Ch.118, mainly between Tanuma and (spoiler). So I decide to say more. I didn’t do summary because I am not good at writing in English and it was around 2am when I posted that post... but I think you guys deserve some explanations.

Spoilers under cut.

Q: Is the arc completed?

A: It is completed. This arc was about a former actress, Kisaragi Hitomi, who was also a collector wanting to hold a exchanging meeting for people who were interested in one of her “Youkai related” collections, Hachinari Box.

The box itself was not real, or at least it didn’t have power to summon Youkai. But one of her fans (Amamiya) hoped more people would come to Kisaragi’s exchanging meeting and she lied to people that Hachinari-sama was summoned.

It ended with Kisaragi forgiving Amamiya and ending the meeting, but...

Q: Is it a Tanuma centered chapter?

A: Basically, it can be counted as Tanuma related chapter.

This chapter showed Tanuma has good night vision (he’s used to patrolling temple at night since he was a child). And he's good at observing people when Natusme just believed everything must be related to Youkai LOL

And now it’s seem that he can somehow distinguish between real and fake youkai related tools, but he explained that it’s just because earlier today he saw something which he could only believe must be “real”.

Q: How did Tanuma and Ban know each other?

A: I don’t think they really knew each other when they met.

The story started with Natsume and Tanuma hanging out but Tanuma was late from helping his father with bazaar. He couldn’t catch the bus, and one of the customers (Ban) drove him over because they went to the same direction.

Tanuma didn’t ask Ban’s name. He just saw the wooden dolls Ban put on his car. Ban laughed that they’re just some exorcism tools so he didn’t need to care about them but Tanuma could feel the ominous from those dolls.

(But I saw some people in TW doubted his “good intentions”...and Tanuma-kun, please don’t get into some stranger’s car without a doubt LOL)

Q: How is Ban related to this chapter?

A: Natsume believed Ban’s target is the Hachinari Box. Ban came to check whether it's real or not.

And the white faces Kurara saw outside windows probably were Ban’s wooden dolls.

Since nobodies except for those who have received invitations knew Hachinari Box existed, and Natsume remembered Kuromine Misa sold divination “tools”. He was afraid that Kuromine may be related to Ban, and she may even be Ban’s mistress.

Q: Who is Kuromine Misa?

A: Nobody knows much about her. People called her “Kuro Misa(Black Misa)”, and she always wears a veil. Somebody said she was beautiful like a doll, and just appeared in the industry a few years ago. No one knew her past and her age.

And she sold divination tools...it reminded me in ch.112, Matoba said he didn’t like divination.

Q: Will the next chapter be related to Ban?

A: Who knows? The chapter ended with most people ready to leave, but Natusme was disturbed with the fact that people like Ban may come and steal collections that are full of memories from others. And Kuromine may be related to him.

Q: Is there anything else we need to pay attention to?

A: I don’t know if it’s really important or just me thinking too much...

In Ch.117, Natsume asked Sensei is it OK for them to be involved, Sensei said he has some strange feeling but nothing important. And after the power failure, Sensei told them this house is special.

Then in this chapter. Natsume asked if one of those five people is actually Youkai, Sensei told him he sometimes had annoying feeling, but it’s just like some remained aroma.

Maybe what Sensei felt was all form Ban’s dolls, or Kisaragi Hitomi actually got some real tools but they’re not here now. And maybe some real exorcists did participate in exchange meeting a few years ago...But I somehow suspect with Shinobu, because she seems not as important as others in this arc IMO.

Maybe I'm thinking too much...

#natsume yuujinchou #Natsume Takashi #tanuma kaname #spoilers

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milehighmechanic · 2 years

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@myatonements did u want a novel?

tony wakes up.

his right arm aches; a burning, cramping ache, but nothing like the agony of using the infinity stones. he flexes his hand experimentally, but if anything that makes the pain fade, until it’s just an afterthought. an echo. tony frowns, and opens his eyes. blinks at the familiar-yet-unfamiliar ceiling, turns his head and finds himself staring blankly at his old malibu bedroom.

is this…. some kind of afterlife? is that what this is? he wants to say no, because he doesn’t BELIEVE in that kind of thing, but. well. he knew that using those stones would kill him. he hadn’t much cared, because nat was---- nat was-----

if this was the afterlife, then she should be here too, right?

tony bounces out of bed, the smarting in his chest easily ignored as a minor irritation, lands on his feet shakily. “hello?” he says outloud, wondering, wondering-----

“good morning, sir,” jarvis says, and tony freezes. swallows.

“hey j.” he smiles, shakily, beaming but with growing confusion. “do you know what’s going on here?”

there’s a pause. “it’s the nineteenth of may, sir. mr hogan is due imminently for your boxing session, miss potts is coming over with the notary from the legal department at nine-thirty to sign your company over.”

“what?” tony stares blankly at the wall, turning on the spot, looking around the room, disorientated. “WHAT.” he stumbles, hand creeping up to his chest as the muscles contract painfully, and---- shit. tony strides towards the window, snapping his fingers to turn it into a mirror. and there, on his chest. jagged dark lines spilling out from the arc reactor ----- the old design arc reactor, before he updated it, long before the nanotech updates. the arc reactor that’s powered by fucking palladium. and his gaze tracks upwards, to his own face----- more than ten years younger than it was five minutes ago. the silver threads gone from his hair, fewer lines in his face. he’s pale, unhealthily so, but hey, he’s currently dying. if this is real. which it can’t be.

“JARVIS. did anything---- WEIRD happen while i was sleeping?” he demands. this isn’t---- this can’t be happening. this isn’t how time travel WORKS.

“no sir,” his AI responds with obvious confusion.

“fuck.” well either this is real, or it isn’t, and he doesn’t have a way of figuring out which right now. he’ll work on it. but if it IS real, he needs to… do something. fuck. act normal. if he’s somehow inhabiting the body of his younger self, he can’t exactly steal some pym particles and travel back to the future without destroying this timeline. so he’s gonna have to play along.

or maybe not JUST play along. maybe he can change things. if the normal rules of time travel ( which he only made up, like, two days ago ) don’t apply, then he can change things. he can stop thanos before thanos even gets a CHANCE to… to….

grief comes roaring back in a tidal wave. ( grief he’s been bottling up, ignoring, because they need to finish it, build the gauntlet and bring everyone BACK. that was what she died for and that had been the only thing keeping him going. ) tony chokes, flinging up a hand to cover his eyes. natasha. he can save natasha. she doesn’t have to die.

she’s going to be here in less than two hours.

( NO. she’s not. well, she is, but not her. not HIS natasha. a younger version who hasn’t even met him yet. HIS natasha is dead. )

tony scrubs tears away from his eyes angrily. gets to his feet. “JARVIS,” he says, voice hoarse, “we got a lot of work to do, buddy.”

the next two hours are a blur. nausea rears its ugly head when he tries to eat, and oh yeah, tony remembers this. he chokes down a green chlorophyll drink instead, heads down to his workshop to start plans for the new element and arc reactor. if he doesn’t have to blow up half his house, alienate rhodey and pepper and annoy fury into giving him his dad’s shit, he’s not going to. and he wants this palladium out of him as soon as possible.

he heads upstairs when happy arrives, tries not to stare too hard at the decade younger version of his friend. that’s---- he’s never going to get used to that. he’s distracted, but then, he thinks he was then, too. at least his friends are used to him acting fucking weird. all he has to do now is hide that he’s been training with the black widow and captain america for over a decade.

pepper turns up and tony barely lets himself glance at her, quipping back on autopilot. and then happy stops fighting, and tony turns to see, he knows who he’s looking at, but still he turns, and his heart skips a beat. he probably stops breathing.

nat. it’s a physical effort to swallow back the words on the tip of his tongue. to stop himself from vaulting the ring and pulling her into his arms. she only looks at him for a moment before turning her attention to pepper but tony’s STUCK, gaze trailing after her.

this is real, isn’t it? fuck, this is REAL.

happy thunks him on the head. tony spins, scowls at the all knowing look on the man’s face. for a second he tries to get his head back into the boxing game. it’s a lost cause. he ducks under happy’s fist, holds his hands up and starts unwrapping his gloves.

what did he say last time? he can’t remember. he remembers the way she’d climbed into the ring. he remembers the way she’d looked right through him.

tony takes a deep breath, leans on the rope, fingers tapping restlessly. “hey, scusi! what’s your name? are you new in the legal department? i haven’t seen you around before.”

#myatonements #thread: choke on the memories #v: slow progress #alt: second chances #//hey look another verse #//did i get carried away writing this? yes #//i dont think i'm gonna be able to sustain this length lol #//but we'll se

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blorbosexterminator · 2 years

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I see what you mean with the Andres “arc gap” (different anon btw) but do you think they might have gone a bit overboard in the flashbacks? I truly don’t think that Andres was ooc in the Mint. As you’ve pointed out this is a man who has lost absolutely everything and has nothing more to lose (also him generally being a terrible person + raging misogynist). But in the flashbacks I felt like they sort of dumbed him down in way? (Maybe not him but his character complexity). To me he went from this very complex character who married someone he didn’t love, someone he knew wouldn’t mourn after him just to feed his delusion of ‘enjoying life’ ,not letting death change him and pf course not to be alone- to a character who believed he was genuinely in a great romance, the epitome of love and devotion. A blind romantic who didn’t see the true nature of his feelings, who was deceived by the onset of emotion brought on by the honeymoon phase. Someone who forgot this wasn’t ‘true’. I think there’s a big difference to the two even if the portrayal might look the same. I never thought of Andres as dumb, I don’t think he is but to me he seemed childishly naive in a sense that clashed with what the narrative tried to establish (+ with what Andres himself said e.g. what he said to Martin) I know Andres couldn’t have known that Sergio and Martin would have ended up doing the Bank heist but spilling their top secret plan in such great detail that Tatiana knew both when and where to steal their gold is a bit :/ I imagine he must have told her all this even before the wedding and leaving Martin. I can’t imagine him talking about it after the fact. First of all it wouldn’t have made any sense because 1. the plan was abandoned and trying to impress her with an abandoned plan that is never going to come to fruition wouldn’t have worked and 2. They were already married why would he have to impress her? Secondly and I honestly think so, talking about Martin and their plan would be too painful for him. I think he’d keep thoughts of what he had to give up far away from his mind. Which brings us to the conclusion that Andres spilled the beans very early on. And we know Andres didn’t know Tatiana for all that long before getting married (I can’t remember how long it was said to have been but it didn’t take long lol) So once again I reiterate Andres told a woman he didn’t love, a woman who he at that point probably didn’t even know all too well the master plan he created? And at that point was going to perfect and make happen? Endangering both himself and both Martin and Sergio the people he cared for most in the world? I’m sorry for going on such a long rant and this is all of course just my opinion but what do you think? I understand characters, like Martin for example thinking that way- explicitly saying Andres was in love and blind but when the narrative starts to make it seem like that idk. Sometimes it fees like there’s this huge dissonance between what the character say and what the narrative shows us (mainly Andres)… it frustrates me quite a bit. Hope you’re having a nice day btw I just re-read “Children of the dust” the other day! Impossibly it keeps getting better every time you revisit it anew.

Don't worry at all about the rant, I'm glad you're sharing your thoughts with me. And you have really valid points too. But I do think there is a view point that narrows this gulf. I don't think all of what you've mentioned necessarily dumbs Andrés' character complexity down because I don't think Andrés went from "I'm just enjoying life because I know I will die soon and this is neither the great love of my life nor of yours but what matters is that we're having fun" to "This is true romance and the epitome of my life". To me this isn't what the arc is about.

The first complexity we both mention remains with Andrés until the end. Andrés' "heartbreak" over Tatiana isn't because he believed she was his great love and then she betrayed him. It was because Tatiana betrayed a deal between them and in doing so, she revealed to Andrés facets he would have rather not seen. Even during their breakup, Andrés doesn't go "you were the great love of my life, how dare you do that?" He acknowledges that their love is a light, fleeting thing and that Tatiana was supposed to find someone after his death. But Tatiana didn't and that changes everything, makes the hurt of it much worse. Because even though they were to be together for the remaining months of his life, what Tatiana showed was she didn't even like him enough to tolerate his presence for those few more months. Andrés' relationship was Tatiana, from his side, was meant to be a short passionate thing in Tatiana's life that sure, its ending wouldn't break her, but which would leave a cemented incomparable memory and impression on her; she was to live like a queen, enjoying all the glories of life because of Andrés and seeing all the beauties and wonders of life by Andrés' side, and to even inherit him, and all of those things were to leave her with "nothing will ever be like Andrés." Tatiana throwing all of that in his face isn't hurtful because he was so in love with Tatiana but because she basically said "you're not the man you think you are, you're not the man you promised me you were, and I don't care about you at all to the extent that I would rather leave you all alone now and not even inherit you. This is how boring and unsustainable you are a person to be with." Then left him for his son! Other than the fact that it's Rafael, it's also metatextually pushing Andrés out of the picture before his time. They weren't supposed to be so bored and done with him to want him to depart before his already unfair an untimely death, they were supposed to be so impressed and so infatuated with him and his life that he would at least leave a memory unlike any other behind. Can you imagine how painful something like that would be to a dying delusional man who absloutely did Not need his illusions and self-perception to break apart and release its swarms of rotten cockroaches now?

As for Andrés telling Tatiana his plans, yeah that was stupid af. Just the result of last minute writing that makes the characters bend backwards for plot reasons. But I do think a fun and not inaccurate way to see it is that Andrés is just like That. It wasn't that he was so in love with Tatiana that he had to share everything with, it's just that Andrés is one of the most talkative, self-revealing characters on the show (the reason he remains somewhat mysterious to audiences is that he's just weird and not everything he says is easily understood lmfao) but Andrés reveals a shit-ton about himself all the time. Especially when it something he's proud of. Andrés was so, so in love and infatuated with the plan. And you can tell from all season 3 to 5 how excited, eager, and proud he was of everything regarding this plan. Andrés isn't an idiot, no. But mix the emotional vulnerability of sex and sharing a bed with someone you at least really like and that you believe loves you ("She's totally in love," Andrés says regarding Tatiana the first time he speaks about her), and he's so involved with something that he loves so deeply and is so proud of, it's only natural that he would speak about it, only human. Sure, it might go against his logic, but who acts according to their own logic 24/7? Sure, the show took it so far for stupid plot reasons, with Tatiana knowing all of the tiny details years later and all, but at least a part of it makes sense to me.

I'd also say, one of the most interesting (and heartbreaking) parts about Andrés to me is that despite being a man who's seen a lot of terrible things and isn't really lacking in factual knowledge of what life can really be like, is still someone with an inexplicable sense of naivity to me. Andrés is really, really smart but he's also someone who's always one step behind especially when it comes to people. He can't tell when someone is showing him actual respect or making fun of him (nearly all interactions with the banda), there is a pretty large disconnection between what he thinks people see him as and how they actually see him. It's not total childish naivity or him being dumb, but just a sense of dissonance. Like he always plants the seeds of shit happening to him then showing actual, genuine surprise for those things happening and it's a consistent enough trait that I don't think it waters down his complexity at all: Andrés provokes Sergio to hell and back with Monica' situation, intentionally pushing him to lash at and hurt him, and when Sergio does do it, Andrés shows genuine hurt and surprise. The same thing with his son. And the same thing with Tatiana.

Hope you're having a great day, too. And ah! So happy to hear that. Makes me so glad that you're rereading it and that it makes it even better for you!!

#lcdp #lcdp berlin

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anopenlettertolavender · 2 years

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Since I can remember, I've always seen the world through colors. People, places, and things all gave off their energy that way and I gauged my comfort accordingly. I felt safest in the hues that looked like me. I've been through phases of gray, orange, blue, and green but it was always something more than a visual quirk. In 2018, I transitioned from my seafoam arc into my lavender era. A time where I finally had it all figured out and separated myself from the rest - so I thought. But here at 29, the color has left my life. So I wanted to personally put lavender out of its misery in my world. I've never been a traveller of distance. I meet that need in myself by slipping throughout the years on my own terms; a time traveller, if you will. Knowing what I know now, I see the duty to take responsibility of the things I accept. So with that, I'm calling an end to my lavender era. To be honest, I never thought I'd see the day where this identifier and I would part ways. But I'm much too smart to sit here and pretend it's what I feel anymore. Lavender, thank you for everything. Because of you, I stood out, owned my identity, and brought people together. Without you, I wouldn't be where I am today. I'm grateful for all that you taught me about the world. The reason I loved you so much is because you were proof I was growing to be half the person my mother is. She never told me her favorite color but I always knew it was purple. I remember stealing her shirt in 1st grade for a Mother's Day card and when I gave it to her she didn't yell - she asked how I knew. I don't know how. I just did. So when I entered this era it felt like a younger version of her. Few things have ever made me more proud or confirmed that I was on a good path. This is why it hurts so much to leave you here. I want to run - but I can't. I want to stay - but I can't. I'm self-aware enough to know that I have to actively walk forward into the unknown. No matter what happens I want you to know that I can only let go because I love you so much. I shared you with everyone I touched. I took it as far as I could. We had a good run my friend. It's the end of us but not the end of you and I. I can only hope you will survive in those we've come in contact with. We will continue to co-exist and maybe one day we'll even thrive. I owe you (and myself) that chance. My mom used to say, "We make our plans and god laughs at them." That line always stuck with me. Once you see enough unfairness in the world you start to lose faith in karma and gain trust in the chaos just hoping it lands in the right places. I don't know where I'm going next but so long as there's breath left in me it has to be somewhere. Right? Whether I like it or not, the world will keep turning. Time will keep gently floating me forward and it is my choice to lean into it. I hope you feel content knowing that I'm not leaving here, I'm just leaving this. Nothing lasts forever and that's okay. Thank you for being such an important part of this journey. They say if you keep swimming eventually you'll hit land. So I'm going to do just that. Keep going. Never certain, but always forward. When there is nothing left to lose, do, or prove - the great affair is to move.

Safe travels my friends.

- Joseph

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dzpenumbra · 1 year

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3/27/23

I have to be brief here tonight. Who knows if I actually will be, I rarely am. But like... this is the third night in a row that I've been sleep deprived and thinking to myself "I really need to take advantage of this to reset my sleep schedule". And now... I'm just starting this and it's 12:45. Rather than like... 4.

I woke up after 5 hours of sleep from a nightmare. Not viscerally intense, just... generally upsetting, unsettling. I was talking with my former "friend" K who... has always had one form of drug problem or another. Hunger, self-control issues, that kinda thing, I guess. Chasing endorphin dumps her entire life. Hedonism, I guess, mostly drugs and sex.

I have no idea why I was friends with her, looking back. I was straight edge, I was a skateboarder. I guess we just had a similar sense of humor and she represented a lot of the bohemian things I wanted to explore in life. Specifically the spiritual stuff - at that age, ghost hunting, ouija, stuff like that - and the craft stuff. She always had hemp necklaces and tie dye shirts and cool glass beads and shit. That side of life, which she was directly tapped into, which was completely absent from my life... was so influential and appealing to me that many components of that life are still major components of my life to this day.

But she would constantly get herself into trouble. Constantly overspending, constantly using harder and harder drugs, constantly hooking up with people... often for those drugs, or just in the presence of them. Though I remained aloof to a lot of it, and kept my nose out of the stuff I did know about. I wanted nothing to do with it. I had male friends like that too, I just... changed the topic whenever they brought it up. It's not my thing and it's very awkward for me, not something I was used to at all and it would make me very uncomfortable. I am very one-on-one, I focus my attention on one person at a time, in all respects of life. It's just how I function, and how I get the most satisfaction in life, and for me, it produces the best results by far. Instead of giving 10 people 5% of my energy, I give one person 50% of my energy. And that... just means a lot more to me, even if it does hurt tremendously to lose those bonds. Or have them taken advantage of.

In this dream, K was younger. I don't know when this was supposed to take place, but it was before the "homeless arc", when I saw her last. Again, when I last saw her... she was smoking some form of hard drug by the river in the park where I used to go pretty much every day. She looked like a literal skeleton. As long as I've known her (since she was like... 17?) she was overweight, but I could like... see her damn cheekbones. I literally did not recognize her.

I was at the river to visit the spot where I spread my dog's ashes. And she was there smoking crack or something like 10 yards away. And she told me she lost custody of her 5 kids, and was facing criminal charges in another state for smuggling fentanyl across state lines. And told me a lot of horror stories. As I just stood there like a deer in headlights, she just dumped Requiem for a Dream-level stories on me one after another. And... it broke me. For real. I was terrified. I didn't go back to the river for like a week, and when I did, I was looking over my shoulder the whole time. I didn't want to leave my house. I was scared. She knew where I lived at the time. I was scared to sleep. I didn't know if her or her fucked up drug friends might come by my house and try to break in and steal my shit.

I remember when I walked back from the river to my car that day - very fast, mind you - I had one hand in my pocket the entire time, holding my keys between my fingers like Wolverine claws. A tip someone taught me way back as like... improvised self defense if you're in a city. It fuckin shook me.

In this dream though, I was just... once again... trying to show her the potential she has. And it ended right around when I was very directly emphasizing that she was a slave to the drugs, really. She worked for them, not the other way around. That she's always been an addict, and that's just what it is, and at some point you really have to accept that to be able to move forward and actually have a life. Because there are tools out there to make it work, there are addicts that live functional lives. It is possible. But it doesn't happen on its own, you have to fucking want it. I didn't get that far into explaining to her, I'm just elaborating here, I basically broke the news that drugs have been ruling her entire life and she decides when that ends. And then I woke up upset.

I didn't record the dream. I don't know why. I think I immediately went into analysis-mode instead of short-term memory recall mode, and ended up losing the memory milestones.

5 hours of sleep, then just decided to get up. Today I kept it really low-key. A lot of Valheim. I put together this thing that mounts my computer to my desk that my mom got me... 2 of? For some reason? But now my mouse is all wonky, I think the desk interferes with the wireless signal. I think I'm overdue for a mouse-keyboard upgrade anyway. I recorded some music, which was pretty good. Rounded out the night with some Session. Avoided Twitch. And now... I think I'm gonna try to get to bed at a decent hour.

I hope I can get to the skatepark tomorrow. Maybe it's just the sleep deprivation, maybe it's the isolation, but I'm starting to get pretty deeply depressed. That whole "not really enjoying anything I'm doing, feeling like I need to be doing literally anything else, but nothing specifically I want" feeling? Yeah, it was big today, still is. Stress and depression, most likely. Exercise will be good. Being around people who are hopefully chill will be good.

I have a lot of things piling up on the To-Do list, so... tomorrow might be a big one. It all depends on how the night goes. And honestly, I can't really remember the last time I went to sleep when it was dark out, so... I have no idea how this is going to go. Fingers crossed.

Positive Note - I watered my orchid, I'm still shocked that thing is still going strong. And I'm pretty well settled on the astrology chart for the back of the hoodie, but I didn't do any work on it today. It'll happen when it happens. :)

#diary #journal #online journal #stream of consciousness #stream of thoughts

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automaticdata · 1 year

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I am becoming more and more convinced that the Miraculous Ladybug production team saw the SentiAdrien theory, went “oooh cool idea, let’s use that!” and went with it even though it wasn’t the plan from the start. Like, I’d kind of buy it if the amok was just in Emilie’s ring, but in both rings????

1) In Cat Blanc, Gabriel didn’t even try to use Adrien’s amok, despite it making sense for him to do so

2) “Getting sentimental for a sentimonster?” said with derision, by ... someone who claims to love his sentimonster son ...?

3) When he was wondering if Adrien was Cat Noir, he could have used the amok to demand an answer. Instead he came up with a convoluted way of figuring things out which allowed Adrien to figure out a way to fool him.

4) All the times he told Adrien not to go to school, hang out with friends, etc and Adrien did anyway don’t make sense if he could command Adrien through Adrien’s amok.

5) If the ~plan~ was for Adrien and Kagami to fall in love, why the hell did they not meet until they were 14 (in a pretty non-romantic way, no less), and why the hell did we not get a hint about how well Gabriel and Tsurugi-san knew each other until season five? Why was Gabriel okay with Lila and Chloe pursuing Adrien? and just .... ugh this makes no sense except if you follow the Rule of Drama.

Like ... there are some things I like about season five. Nathalie is finally a semi-well developed character. The plot with the sentikids is actually kind of interesting, complete illogic of it aside. I liked Felix/Kagami since they first looked at each other back during Gabriel Agreste, so getting more hints toward that pairing is *chef’s kiss*. They finally remembered, oh hey, Lila exists, we should, you know ... use this antagonist instead of this bullshit called “we gave up on Chloe’s redemption arc so we’re going to make her as bad as we possibly can now.”

But like ... the longer Miraculous goes on for, the more the ill thought out parts start to stand out. The sentiAdrien theory only worked if it was only Emilie’s ring that could control Adrien, but they still wanted to show Adrien struggling against his father’s control, so they ... made Gabriel’s ring also able to control him, despite that literally contradicting previous canon. (And despite, you know. Adrien’s story not needing a magical component to it. He’s a teenager who doesn’t want to disappoint his dad, you don’t need a magical macguffin to explain that). Nathalie went from “oh crap I forgot Adrien’s birthday let me steal this gift from his friend and pretend it’s from his father” to being basically the most supportive adult in his life - not complaining (holy shit I’m not complaining, I used to hate Nathalie and her “I will do villainous things for the evil man I’m in unrequited love with” BS, and I am really starting to love her), but it’s still a retcon. And Chloe ... just ... Chloe. They put so much effort into showing that Chloe has a sympathetic side, that she can change, and then they just gave up and literally replaced her with a “nice” version of her character. Luka was two years older than Juleka but uh no actually they’re twins now even though Luka goes to a different school and that makes zero sense but roll with it. Probably more I’m forgetting, too, but I think that’s enough to make my point.

I know it’s a kids’ show, but here’s the thing: kids’ shows can still make sense. Avatar the Last Airbender remained consistent through it’s entire runtime. So did She-ra: Princesses of Power, Steven Universe, and many others. Even some shows that were largely disappointing (cough Voltron Legendary Defender cough cough) still didn’t screw up their own internal logic this badly. The whole “it’s a kids’ show” excuse doesn’t fly any more. This is just lazy and bad.

Do I still like it? Yeah. But the strongest points Miraculous has do not include its lore or consistency. It’s the only media I know of that plays around with secret identity shenanigans as much as it does, it does a good job of creating chemistry between characters (both romantic and non-romantic), and its characters are (for the most part) fun and engaging. But holy shit the inconsistent mess is sometimes annoying af.

#long post #data watches miraculous ladybug #data watches miraculous #tw: abuse

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whirlybirbs · 3 years

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FEVER-DREAM ; echo/reader

summary: echo is fine-tuning his new prosthesis. you have experience, you help. unspoken feelings are acted on. adoration blooms. you learn what mesh’la means.

word count: 3k

pairing: echo / f!reader

tags: mutual pining, lots of tender looks, victorian-era hand-touching sluttiness, echo is a gentle soul, reader is head over heels, a touch of ptsd mention, set on ord mantell, mention of our boy fives, in this house we love assistive devices, enough sexual tension to power the death star

a/n: this is me round-house kicking the bad batch writers in the throat because they made echo cosplay a droid — but, also because this man deserves to be treated as more than a means to a mission’s end. majority of you know i am ~bitter~ (understatement of the century) of tbb’s plot/design/writing. but echo has been a favorite from the original days... so have some very soft fic.

i reference character redesigns by @nibeul in this piece — please go peep them here, and some updated character spreads here! they’re really beautiful and add a phenomenal layer of storytelling to the existing designs that’s lacking. nibuel’s art and writing is lovely. please give them a follow — i can’t rec their work enough.

“How does it feel?”

The words are nearly whispered; it’s clear you didn’t want to startle him, and Echo can feel the pinch in his brow soften at your sudden appearence in the doorway.

His bunk, at the back of the Havoc Marauder, is small — the space itself even more so. There’s a makeshift partition, hooked together with spare parts and meant to offer a bit of privacy on the cramped vessel. Its slate grey color has faded, and the edges have become tattered in the cycles of use.

When Echo pulls his dark eyes up from his work, you’re leaning against the frame — your expression is earnest.

For a moment, the once-ARC Trooper is quiet.

He wonders if he’ll ever get used to your attention. Each and every time, it sends him into a spiral; his heart catches as he inhales and tries to push down the warm stir in his gut. The sight of you is enough, nowadays, to melt Echo’s well-maintained irritability. His attention is stolen from his ever-present pain, if only for a bit.

There are plenty of days where he misses the old him — the wide-eyed, eager ARC Trooper who had his brothers by his side. His real brothers. Hevy, Cutup, Droidbait... Fives.

Fuckin’ hell, Fives was probably staring down at him now laughing.

No matter what changes, you’re still shit with the ladies, vod’ika.

In a way he hasn’t fully admitted to himself, you make him feel like himself again. Like... Like some shiny cadet, on leave and distracted by the promises of pretty smiles passing-by. It’s good.

This makes him feel... good.

He flexes, and his right hand — the new, gunmetal durasteel cyberized-prosthesis — closes into a tight fist. It’s taken him a bit, but the feeling isn’t so foreign now. It’s still... slow. Slower than he’s used to, but you’d mentioned it may take some time. The phantom feelings get better, too. All in all, it’s a good thing.

Your own hand, your left, glimmers back in the same gunmetal color.

(Echo had never pressed you about the missing limb — not until one day, in Cid’s, you’d joined him in a quiet corner. You’d spilled your drink and a complaint about getting the star-cherry syrup out of the joints had slipped out. Echo had laughed; a real laugh, the sort that was so rare coming from him, it had you staring at him as if he’d hung ever star in the sky.

Can I ask how it happened? he’d said, breaking the heavy silence when your eyes never left his.

The Pykes, you’d said, and that was enough.)

“I haven’t, uh... Haven’t gotten the sensory calibration right yet.”

Then, his prosthesis cramps. His fingers go rigid, and Echo curses sharply as he reaches around his forearm to quickly reboot the appendage. It goes slack, then hums alive once more.

You wince.

You’re slow to move into the room — and you settle atop one of the crates Echo had stolen from the belly of the ship, an old Mantell Mix shipping container. You’re mindful to set his datapad aside, to not disturb his space too much. Before you reach for his hand, however, you lift your chin and open your hands in your lap.

“May I?” you ask, just as soft as before.

Echo feels small under your gaze.

Truth be told, you’re doing more than just... asking. You’re taking him in — appreciating him. It’s a habit that’s grown more and more apparent to not only himself, but the others.

In recent rotations, Echo has let his hair grow out — not long, but the once close buzz he’d kept has begun to curl at the top. Not entirely dissimilair to how it was before the Citadel. The dermal implants, the ones the Techno Union installed in order to parse the nuerological data in his head, stand out against his warm-colored skin.

His usual AJ^6-inspired headpiece is resting on his bunk.

That damn thing.

A neccesary tool. One that, given the amount of user data Tech had procured when working on modifying the implant, Echo found himself immediately distrusting. It wasn’t as if the AJ^6 cyborg construct had a beautiful track record, and frankly, Echo would like to keep his personality in tact, thank you very much. There were plenty of days he felt machine enough.

It wasn’t often you saw him without the headset; you knew it made linking in via his scomp easier to handle, it made the visualization of data transfers as easy as breathing. For Echo, it was a part of his vast kit, an important tool. For you, seeing him without it bubbles up a bit of a smile.

Echo catches it.

His eyes narrow playfully.

He looks... well. You — hell, are there words for it? For the way the sight of him makes you feel? It’s like there’s a world full of potential there, a thousand words unsaid, and feelings that have steeped in the warmth of longing gazes and half-there touches.

You’re still looking up at him, knees bent on the crate.

You blink, realizing you’ve been caught staring — not for the first time and certainly not for the last. In the beginning, it had left a sour taste in Echo’s mouth. But, now... Well, it stokes a sort of pride in his chest that he hangs onto.

It never gets easier to recover from — certainly not when Echo smirks. He moves to allow you to take his prosthesis into your lap. The gesture is gentle; your fingers cradle the firm yet pliable metal.

“What?” he asks. His voice, low and rough and warm, is tinted with amusement.

“Nothing,” you say vaguely with a shrug — as if that’s supposed to explain any part of your enamored stare. Your attention moves to the prosthesis.

“Nothing?” he asks, moving to thumb his left ear with his free hand with a dash of nervousness. A habit. Echo tilts his head as his fingers brush the cochlear implant there. The panel rests neatly against the side of his head, a small rounded-off square. The bite of self-consciousness has dwindled around you — but still, it creeps back up every now and again.

The Corporal’s brows knot playfully as you turn his new hand over in your lap; you’re admiring the upgraded feel, the more seamless panelling in comparison to your own. Echo watches your lashes flutter in silent thought.

Then:

“You’re a terrible liar, you know.”

You blink slowly at the hand, swallow down your sudden sheepishness and ignore his gaze. You bite back the smile digging into your cheeks. “Maybe.”

“Do I have something on my face?” he asks suddenly, and you look up.

A baited trick. He’s smiling.

The warm sort — the sort reserved for you and for Omega. The two souls that hold a piece of his heart, with all its ticking valves and electric timed pulses. There are machinisms that keep him alive, and then there is you. Your wide-eyed expression melts, giving way to the sort of smile he’s tried to memorize over and over. It’s the same smile that has warded off that reoccuring nightmare of the night on the tarmac at the Citadel, the same smile that has pulled him through the grit of phantom pains.

“What—” a sudden laugh bursts from your chest, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You were staring, mesh’la,” he rumbles out as a reminder, enjoying the fact he’s suddenly become the center of your attention. Echo leans back, his boot toeing yours. You nudge it back. Your face feels hot. You ignore his pointedly teasing look with a roll of your eyes.

The nickname started a few weeks ago. You haven’t asked what it means — no, for now it’s meaning hangs in the balance. Untouched but there. The affection the word carries makes your heart feel heavier and unbelievably full.

“Bad habit,” you chirp back, looking up at him through your lashes.

His laugh is warm.

“Maybe not.”

“No,” you say quietly; your voice is soft as your eyes bounce across his face, tracing the lines of his face with your gaze, “I don’t think it is.”

There’s a silence that slips between you — a comfortable one. It’s heavier than before. That has begun to happen recently, especially with the petal-soft utterance of mesh’la becoming more and more frequent. You hold his gaze. Echo lets out a soft, contented sigh.

Then, you remember the task at hand.

You clear your throat.

“Uh... The access panel I’m looking for,” you say slowly as your raise your finger to point to your own arm, “It’s on your bicep.”

Echo blinks. He clears his own throat before looking down — he hadn’t even noticed that access panel. That could explain the jarring miscommunication stalling the limb. This model had more bells and whistles than he initally realized.

Better than a fuckin’ scomp link, that’s for sure.

Wordlessly, Echo makes room on his bunk. You move to settle beside him, your bent leg resting aginst his hip as you half-straddle the bed; your other knee brushes his thigh — and Echo tries to sit still. You’re close, now.

“Is it okay if...?” you trail off, fingers tugging on the short sleeve of his blacks; you pause until Echo offers a curt nod. You catch him swallow. You push onward, fingers nimbly rolling the fabric up over his broad bicep.

Echo steals a glance your way as your fingers pass across a slip of his bare skin.

In his lap, both his hands twitch.

He’s no small man. Lean and athletic, Echo is built like a soldier. Omega had said once that Echo was an ARC Trooper, one of the best of the best. You believed every bit of it, and you’d hung on her words when she’d rambled on about ARC training, about Kamino, and about who Echo was before you knew him. It was all in the past, though. That Echo is a part of this Echo but... They’re different men. He’s been changed by the things that have happened.

You don’t press him on the details.

In time, they’re slipped into conversation here and there — between the here and now.

In the beginning, when you’d found yourself amongst the crew of the Havoc Marauder — be it for a simple job on Cid’s behalf — Echo had hardly paid you a moment of attention, though you admit you’d been curious from the start. It had taken three jobs for you to finally see his face. Then began the slow and gradual bonding over catching joints, grating plates, and hardware updates. His legs, your arm. Two pieces of a pair.

Now, he has this. A beautiful new upgrade — something he’s wanted for a long time. A part of his old self is back, in a way.

You liked that it was more than just a tool. That, in having this piece of his body back, he felt like more than a tool. More than a scomp link.

After all, he is a man — a... a very handsome man. One whose proximity is sort of distracting you, again, from the task at hand.

“The panel here,” you say as you slowly press on the seam that enables the settings panel to be revealed; you’re mindful to explain, “It controls sensory outputs, as well as synchonized synaptic commands. The panel on my forearm does the same to my hand, yours is just... well, you’ve got the new and improve version.”

Echo ducks his head as you work, watching you from the corner of his eye. “Feeling a bit jealous, mesh’la?”

“Maybe,” you breathe out with a smile.

Then, you lift your eyes. You intended to see that he was still comfortable, but instead you come face to face with the Corporal. His nose nearly brushes yours when you lift you chin, completely dragged in by the closeness shared.

There’s a beat of tension. Echo’s mouth goes dry.

You fingers pause. You swallow hard. “How... uh, how does it feel?”

Echo tightens his grip, then releases. His breath tickles your cheeks. His eyes, a deep, warm brown, flit from your eyes to your mouth, and then back. His voice is a croak.

“...Same as before.”

You tinker with a dial, eyes never leaving his; your voice is above a whisper. “And now?”

It’s immediate. Like a rush of cold air up his arm — and on instinct, Echo’s hand twitches. His fingers grip the fabric of his blacks, along his thigh, and... he feels it. The smooth, stretch of the material. It’s... it feels like a lot. His fingertips, metallic and cyberized, tingle. It’s distracting.

He can feel.

His hand is slow. It moves across to bridge the space between you. His pointer finger settles on the curve of your knee; the feeling of your tactical pants beneath his fingertip is ignored, instead he chases the heat of your body.

Your breath catches at the touch.

Echo’s face is turned to you, but... his attention has settled on his hand. His palm then sweeps across your thigh. He follows the curve, soaks in the feeling. You’re frozen in place, beating back the desperate sound of appreciation that threatens to be pulled from your throat. The touch is... more than welcomed.

The closeness itself is making you dizzy.

Then, Echo turns — and the warm, durasteel-plated palm finds your cheek.

Your skin is hot.

“Is this okay, mesh’la?” he whispers, words riding on a quiet exhale — the sort that make you feel... well, you don’t even have words for the way he makes you feel. Echo is... kind, honest, and loyal. Above all else, he’s gentle. Despite it all, despite every bit of horror he’d been put through, he’d never lost sight of the importance of a gentle hand. Especially now in a moment as intimate as this. It coaxes you closer.

You lean into the cybernetic attachment, cheek resting in his palm. You nod, then, with eyes eager to take in every bit of this moment.

He chuckles at the enthusiasm. Echo’s thumb, deft and smooth, then traces the line of your lower lip.

The feeling is... the gnawing pain that he’s felt for nearly a year has melted. Finally, the itch has been scratched in his brain and the hollow ache of his bones is gone. It’s relief, and comfort, and excitement and all these beautiful things — and you.

You’re stuck — you don’t want to move, you won’t move. He’s rooted you completely, and when his other hand — the calloused and warm one of flesh and blood — finds it’s spot along your thigh, you swallow a lovesick sigh that would only exaserbate your desperation.

Your mouth is moving before you realize it.

“What does it mean?”

Echo’s eyes narrow, only a bit, and he runs his thumb up your cheekbone.

“What does what mean?”

“Mesh’la,” it sounds foreign on your tongue. It’s not Hutteese or Twi’leki, not like any language you know, “Will you tell me what it means, Echo?”

The corner of his lips quirk. Your eyes jump to it.

You feel like someone’s reached right into your chest and given your heart a squeeze — and it only worsens when he laughs. He laughs, deep and quiet and warm, like a thunderstorm on a summer night. It feels cruel, to string you along like this when you’re here, lips parted, hanging off his every touch and his every word.

“Beautiful,” he says quietly as his other hand touches your jaw — it’s so damn reverent, this little moment in time, that you almost don’t believe it’s real.

It feels like a dream — like someone has come in and stolen your thoughts from you; like the unrequited yearning has finally stoked a fire large enough to burn you up entirely, a fever you never knew you wanted.

His nose brushes yours.

Your fingers wind into the fabric of his chest. You’re clinging, lost to the moment — and you can’t help wonder if this is how it feels when he catches you adoring him. He’s admiring you so tenderly that you nearly break.

You want to kiss him.

He’s thought about nothing but kissing you for the last five days at least. Longer in his dreams. Nowadays, it’s a constant pull, a constant want.

And now, it’s here — a present and current moment where it can happen. Where he can stop being a shiny cadet and he can make a move...

Enter Omega.

“Echo, we’re back—!”

The telltale hammer of a girl’s boots on the floor signals that the party is back from their supply run — but you’re so far off, spinning in a different universe, you don’t even hear her until its too late... Until Echo is yanking himself away and clearing his throat and rolling his wrist to test the prosthesis in a different way, a less intimate way.

You blink, then rattle yourself back to the present. Omega is in the doorway staring with a quizzical look. Clearly, your state does little to dissuade the assumptions she’s already making and you can see the gears turning in her head. The dark-haired girl then slowly grins.

“Hi.”

You swallow. “Hi, Omega.”

“...Whatcha guys doin’?”

Echo coughs. “Uh, just fine-tuning the new upgrade.”

“...Riiiiiight.”

You rub your cheeks and laugh — clearly forced and incredibly pained — as you stand up and nearly ram your head right into the top of Echo’s bunk. It’s met with a hiss of warning from the trooper as he jumps up to try and protect you from the impact.

“Well! Uh, thanks for letting me help, Echo,” you clap, rocking back and forth on your boots, “I, uh... Oh, Cid called. I should... I should get back—”

“Yea,” he says, straining a bit to find the words, “Yea, I’ll... I’ll comm you if it starts to, uh... If it starts to act up?”

Omega watches the exchange, big brown eyes moving from left to right.

“Good, great — yea, that’s,” you inhale as you rub your thighs and move towards the door, “Perfect. Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Bye!” Omega calls, waving.

You wave back, smiling. “Bye, Omega.”

Then, once it’s only Echo and Omega in the bunk, the tween speaks.

“...What the kriff was that?”

#HE IS A CORPORAL!!!!!#let echo say fuck #and omega #echo x reader #echo imagine #arc trooper echo x reader #echo/reader #echo/you #echo x you #tcw imagine #tbb imagine #sw imagine #the bad batch imagine #THANK YOU ANON WHO SENT ME THE UPDATED SPREADS #LOVE U ANGEL

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arc-misadventures · 3 years

Text

Broken

“Come Mr. Arc, we must hurry!”

“I won’t get to burry them…”

“Mr. Arc there is no time for this! We have to go, they’re getting away!”

“I’ll never get to say goodbye…”

“Mr. Arc!”

“First, Pyrrha… then Qrow… Now Ren and Nora… W-Why…?”

“Mr. Arc forget about them!”

“F-Forget…? How could I do that…?”

“We must hurry! Salem agents are getting away! We must catch them before they escape! After that you can avenge your friends later!”

“But, Salem and her agents didn’t killed them…”

“W-What…?”

“You killed them… you killed everyone… every single person whose ever taken a part in this war, or has suffered from it… you killed them, whether it was directly or indirectly… You. Killed. Them…”

“Y-You’re seriously blaming this whole war on me?! Mr. Arc are you mad?!”

“Why not Oscar… or is it Ozpin, Ozma? I can’t tell anymore…”

“Because Salem’s started this war! Her minions strike and destroy everything we’ve built, ever will build, killing millions in the process!”

“But you fired the first shot though…? You tried to run away with the kids, then you attacked Salem. Ruby told me. Oobaleck always said that the one who fired the first shot is always the instigator in any conflict. And that was you… You could have talked it out, yet here we are… surrounded by the dead of millions…”

“I may have done that, but she would have never listened to me!”

“How do you know, you never asked after all?”

“Because it was the right thing to do! I know what I’m doing is right and everyone who fought along side me knew that our fight was a righteous fight!”

“It’s hard to justify that you have the moral high ground when you’re standing on corpses. Tell me, are you colour blind? I know some people can’t see red, and it feels like you’re covered in it, but you can’t see it…”

“Mr. Arc that is the most inane argument I’ve… Dammit! They got away! Are you happy now Mr. Arc?!”

“No… I can’t remember the last time I was…”

“This argument is pointless! We must leave and regroup. We can…?!”

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Mr. Arc… put the sword down.”

“Why should I do that…?”

“Because we have more pressing matters to attend to. Avenging your friends for starters.”

“But, I am avenging them.”

“The why are you stopping me?! The Bullhead they escaped on just got away we need to hurry and catch them!”

“Didn’t you hear me? Salem didn’t kill them, you did, their blood and everyone else’s blood, is on your hands…”

“Their blood is on Salem’s hands not mine!”

“No, it’s on yours, you can’t wipe your hands of this Ozpin. I’ve seen you pull the trigger too many times. And for that to end, I must stop you, once and for all…”

“Don’t bother Mr. Arc, you know it won’t even matter!”

“True, You’ll just jump into another body, and steal their life from them… So I can’t kill you…”

“See Mr. Arc, this fight is…”

“But, as my granddad always said… ‘If you can’t kill them, cripple them…”

///

“Excuse me, My Lady…?”

“Yes, what is it, Watts?”

“You have a guest… and he brought you… a gift…”

“I have a guest…? Who also brought me a gift…? Well… this is certainly interesting. Bring them in.”

“Are you, Salem?”

“Yes, I am. And you are…?”

“Jaune… Jaune Arc… You know… You’re not as scary as Ozpin made you out to be… far more beautiful actually…”

“Flattery will get you no where boy.”

“Is it flattery to speak the truth? I could never tell…”

“You’re the odd one boy…”

“Most broken things are a bit odd…”

“To a point… So, tell me, why are you here and what is this gift you brought me.”

“I’m here to end your war with Ozpin, and the gift to you will see to that…”

“How would your gift do that. That box is rather big, tell me, is it a relic, some sort of bomb that you’ve brought me?”

“Neither, my Lady.”

“Then what is it…?”

“Owwww…”

“O-Ozma… Y-You brought me, Ozma?! Haha…? Hahahahahahaha…!!! By the Gods! How did you ever manage to do that?!”

“Cripples can’t run fast, my Lady.”

“Well, that explains the legs… I must ask, I was aware you are… were, once his ally; why betray him so?”

“He killed them.”

“Killed who?”

“Pyrrha, Ren, Nora. The people in Atlas, in Vale, in Vacuo, Minstrel. Everyone whoever was and maybe anyone who ever will be. He killed everyone and no one, their blood is on his hands, but he can’t see it. I wonder if he ever cared for the blood he spilt. From what I gather, he didn’t feel even anything when he killed your children.”

“Y-You blame the death of my children… on him…?”

“You may have played a part in their death, that is undeniable. But, he tried to take them away from you, he fired the first shot. He started this war… Everything is his fault…”

“ … “

“Ozma… what have you done…?”

“Wh-What I thought… W-Was right!”

“I wasn’t referring to that, what ever it was… I was referring to this boy… You’ve broken him… and you can’t see that you have. I have seen many a broken soul, I have fixed them, gave them a purpose. But in all the time I’ve walk upon Remnant, I have never seen a person as broken as this poor boy before me… What did you do?!”

“It’s pointless to ask, his own moral superiority makes him blind to the suffering he’s committed. So long as his goals are achieved, the world can burn for all he cares…”

“His desperate attempts to stop me as of late seem to suggest to me that he cares little for the welfare of others…”

“And like you do Salem! How many have you killed… in this war you started!”

“I wanted to take over the world… force the peace and the balance the Gods so desperately wanted on every living soul there is. But you wanted them to have free will. In the last several thousand years they’ve had their precious free will and they have used that free will to enslave and murder one another with reckless abandon. And you’ve only achieved ‘peace’ in the last century, and even that fell apart within a fortnight. As many as I have killed, they pale in comparison to yours…”

“You’re a monster… Salem!”

“But who made me one… and who made you one…? Haa… this arguing is pointless… We’re at war because we couldn’t agree on anything to begin with! Now… I haven’t had the pleas of killing you in thousands of years… I’m going to enjoy this…!”

“No my Lady, you can’t! Not yet at least!”

“And why not, you’ve proven your worth, you’ve brought me my greatest enemy before me, broken and defeated. Why can’t I kill him here and now?”

“Because he knows everything! Where the relics are, how to get them, the strength of the surviving cities. Who will lead them next! Who knows what else he knows, but he knows it! He’s more valuable to you alive than dead! Because as long as he is alive and is your prisoner, there is no one in the world who will be able to stop you!”

“T-Traitor!!!”

“My oh my oh my… You are far greater than I expected! Never have I ever had someone serve me as well as you have and in such a short time at that.”

“You’re too kind my Lady…”

“My Queen.’ I am a Queen after all.”

“Of course, forgive me, My Queen.”

“Hmm… Hazel… you have the most recent grievance from Ozma; why don’t you… soften him up for me.”

“With extreme pleasure…”

“Now, the rest of you, leave us, I want to have a moment to myself with our newest member.”

“As you wish, my Queen…”

“ … “

“Now tell me, Jaune Arc; just who are you, my Valiant Knight~”

#rwby #oscar pine #rwby ozpin #rwby salem #nora valkyrie #lie ren #hazel reinhart #tyrian callows #arthur watts #pyrrha nikos #jaune arc #qrow branwen #rwby ozma #rwby oobleck

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barbiegirldream · 2 years

Text

So canon c!DNF moments they’re there if people care to remember them. None of these are in like a timeline really. All RP character tags implied here:

George who quite literally could not give less of a fuck about politics on the server going to war with Dream without a second thought. As opposed to Sapnap who wanted to be on Tommy’s side before he was told no Americans allowed.

Dream promised George everything the sun touches much to Sapnap’s vocal annoyance (shout out to cc!Tommy for not knowing that was a Lion King quote)

Tommy figured they should rob George and Tubbo pointed out that he and Dream having something going on ‘like boyfriends’ Quackity said

George always went to Dream for protection and canonically thought he would always be safe if Dream was by his side.

After the Fuck Spirit Speech™ Sapnap went to Tommy to ask him if Dream really didn’t care about him. Tommy’s response was “he cares about George if that makes you feel any better”

The dethronement arc. Dream said he was doing it to protect George who had been attacked by Technoblade. And George didn’t believe him but like really Dream didn’t have much reason to dethrone George. (This is cause meta cc!George wanted out of the main plot so they just yanked his character out of it without much finesse)

Now arguable if Dream was waiting for a reason (most likely) but Exile was started because of Tommy griefing George’s house

During exile Tommy was taunting Dream over the discs and mentioned George as well.

Same vein in the prison Tommy cried out to Sam that Dream wouldn’t stop talking about George. Which we all know cc!Tommy is a filthy DNFer but that shouldn’t mean he’s breaking character when every single other line with him begging to get out is considered canon. Maybe c!Tommy is a DNFer too okay?

Dream asks for info on everyone all the time but never George. In fact he goes silent when asked about George. Main case Sapnap confronting him in Tubbo’s basement over the armor. “You remember George don’t you? I bet he misses you a whole lot.” “i bet he does” Like that conversation was unprompted Sapnap was trying to get under Dream’s skin and it kinda worked. He went from non stop rambling to dead silence for a moment.

When Ghost Mexican Dream came back Sapnap and George took him to the prison. George wouldn’t go inside with them. And when Sapnap was explaining Dream was in prison for being bad, George was silent in the background messing around with water. George most vocal reaction to anything about Dream was a shocked “what?” when Sapnap said Dream destroyed the community house. When asked MD asked George if he trusted Sapnap his response was ‘i guess’ despite being a long time friend and living with him.

Every time he passed the prison George would stop to stare at the entrance before leaving. Quackity even spotted him lingering once

George dreamt of having Dream return to him out of prison and getting the shield back and they would frolick in the waterfalls and go live in Kinoko and be happy together.

George is seemingly the one person who has trouble telling DreamXD and Dream apart. He also seems to treat XD as a placeholder for Dream.

George was overjoyed to get Dream’s shield back and Karl knew how much it meant to him. They hid the shield from Sapnap not trusting he wouldn’t try and steal it. George keeps it safe in his ender chest and is easily his most precious belonging.

Like c!DNF is there of course more meta we have cc!Dream’s fanart likes. The story makes it pretty obvious it’s a backing relationship. One that’s important to c!Dream and essential to c!George.

#sally talks lore #c!dnf

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jiminrings · 3 years

Note

petition for stem koo to do all the things for oc he originally said no one does (make her lunchboxes, makes her cheerful...) bc i think that’s a beautiful redemption arc

cold senior!y/n x stem major!koo masterlist :D

jungkook's day one of his redemption agenda doesn't go that well in the end

"namjoon!!! my man. got any updates for me?"

seokjin strolls coolly on the way to his office, hair slicked back and his dress shirt definitely missing more than a few buttons

what's head admin gonna do??? dress-code him???

fire him???? PLS HE'D BE BETTER OFF!!!!

jin makes student affairs his bitch,,, not the other way around

"for the last time, i am nOt your secretary!!" namjoon stresses as he ceases his typing just to glare at him

he's the university registrar and everyone needs to go through him and at this point he's like a historical landmark from how he's made impact in less than two years

and he and seokjin graduated from the same batch!!!! they're the uncanny always pair for the subjects they shared together

it was definitely weird but functional lol cause one is uptight yet hardworking and the other's relaxed yet smart

sue them for working in the same place they swore they'd never go back to after graduation </3

"if you say-"

"some kid's been waiting for you even before i opened the office. made him sit inside but i just told him that he'd be expelled if he even tries to touch your coffee machine."

namjoon says even before jin could finish the sentence, clearly holding that in until the last minute

jin's obviously a lil annoyed because he's starting work as early as now but the way that joon laid all that out on him is a highlight for him

"thanks. knew you're a secretary for me first and a registrar second."

"no. i'm a national citizen before-"

alright alright he's not listening anymore

this bETTER be important because jin has to hold out his morning routine for whoever this kid is

"what can i possibly do for you today?" he rubs his eyes in preparation, intentionally dragging his steps because just looking at how near he is to his work computer gives him vertigo

"mr. kim!!!"

there is no way

there is no fATHOMABLE way that this has got to be happening to seokjin right now

"..... jungkook. what a pleasure."

he sits on his chair, voice gritted and monotone and he could just feel his eye twitching, his clenched fist under his deck now flipping off the kid in secret

it's a last-minute realization that he grasps that jungkook doesn't know you're his friend and it presents some really unique vantage points

like the time that seokjin recounted about a ridiculous student's filing for theft of his lunchboxes and he turned out to be your crush

or when he used his student affairs capabilities and pulled up resources left and right when jungkook broke your heart then seriously contemplated about messing up his academic record

or that time when he delivered a high and sleepy you to bed and then heard the entire conversation (if you could even call it that) between yoongi and this fucking nerd

"i need your help, mr. kim. you're the closest one to me i could ask!!" jungkook pleads desperately, the big doe eyes not really inducing an effect on him whatsoever lmao

"mhmm. i may not be the person for the job. counseling is right next door."

jin hums without even attempting to get jungkook to elaborate because for all he knows, his services aren't exactly open for people who hurt his friends >:(

(a guy once bumped shoulders with yoongi twice on the same day with aTTITUDE!!! and seokjin just dismissed the dude's concerns when a prof of his, who's a buddy of jin's, suddenly gave him an F)

seokjin IS student affairs

“no, no. you’re the only one who can help me!! you see, i-i just feel this brotherly connection with you and-“

“we talked once.”

god what did you used to see in this kid??

a crybaby aND an easily-attached personality to him? god it’s like jungkook’s just asking jin to pick on him

jungkook doesn’t seem to pick up how jin’s making it obvious he really doesn’t want to be of help if it has something to do with him

he likes interrupting and jin’s just the perfect match to interrupt him even earlier so now they just sound like one of those dubsmash snippets

“MR. KIM!!! how do you make lunchboxes? i don't know how.”

jeez where are his manners :O aren’t nerds like him supposed to worship the ground that admins walk on,,,

but what did pique his attention is the content of what jungkook just said

.... lunchboxes?

jin doesn’t want to give the kid benefit of the doubt because the last time he did that, you got hurt!!!!

if he has to hear hyeji’s name one more time, he’d really waste no time in stripping jungkook’s name from the honor roll

“remember that time i thought someone was stealing my lunchboxes?” he quizzes jin like it’s his job, clueless how he’s poking the bear even more with where he decides to go with this, “yeah. turns out no one was.”

was that not made clear the first time around!!!!!! he knows for a fact that a uni student would trade a classmate for a pack of gum but nO ONE would go for stealing a lunchbox

no one wakes up one day and decides that they’d steal a lunchbox. literally none

“but then this random girl claimed that it was hers a-and well i-...”

kook pauses to gauge jin’s reaction, clearly seeing now the one brow that’s raised at him

oh so if jungkook just asked him how to make a lunchbox, and he called h-word random,,,, then that would mean-

“i may have hurt the original giver of my lunchboxes at the process.”

.... that means he’s asking how to make a lunchbox for you

well that was a pleasant surprise

seokjin snorts briefly at that, dryly chuckling with his eyes widening to stress out his “non-threat” that’s pretty mUCH a threat

“wow. i might just give you a sanction for that.”

does he think jungkook’s a good person? lol he has to think about that for a month

was he wrong for hurting you that way? ultimately yes

but did he think at some point that jungkook’s completely heartless and wouldn’t try to redeem himself to his senior? no, not completely

but is he still on your team, regardless if the kid begs for mercy and you forgive him? yea a hundred percent :D yoongi and seokjin could never be brought out from your circle

"and you're doing this why?"

this is a no-brainer question for jungkook but the question still spooks him, feeling the chills at his neck that responding to seokjin is like a sTEPPING STONE when it comes to you

lmao if only he knew

"i uh, i just really wanna make this right. i messed up completely and it's pretty much unforgivable, but i atleast wanna try and give my best even if she doesn't forgive me, y'know?"

interesting

"mhmm. right, right."

???

he's still mad but he appreciates that jeon's doing the bare minimum of redeeming himself

speaking of, the poor kid looks like he's pissing himself because he may have just embarrassed himself with how long the silence stretches out

maybe,,, just maybe jin's gonna try and be a bridge this time

but like as soon as jungkook lacks for a fourth of a second, seokjin would BURN that bridge faster than a blink

"well first of all, you buy a lunchbox."

RIGHT RIGHT

jungkook grabs a literal pocket notebook and jin pretends he didn't see that because WHO the hell does that!!!!

"of course... okay, proceed!! i'm taking notes," jungkook nods in understanding, jotting down the very important advice of not ordering from online because you can't smell the material through a screen

p.s. smelling containers before you buy them is a VITAL thing to do!! it already tells you about the quality at the first sniff

"are you buying one?"

"buying one for every day of the week. i'm thinking if i should get extras too-

"good idea. i recommend buying eight."

alright seokjin's mentioning some very specific colors and schemes and jungkook's not complaining!!!

MAYBE HE'S ONTO SOMETHING!!!

"what meals should i make? i don't even know what she likes!! and even if i knew what, how would i make it?"

why is his heart racing

yoongi may have taught you how to do your taxes but jin taught you how to cook food that's more than four steps!!!

he taught you how to not flinch at all when you're frying and that's the equivalent of raising you to be the woman that you are now <3

look at him and yoongi being your best friends!! teaching you about taxes and being unnerved at cooking oil and busting out a smoke ring or two <3

in fact, the lunches you've cooked for jungkook are all inspired and derived by seokjin!!!

the fact that jungkook's plan isn't bad and the way everything pieces together with his insight,,,, goosebumps luv

"....hypothetically? what i think she'd like?"

jungkook eagerly nods with stars in his eyes, fingers gripping onto his pen for dear life as he tries to channel all his listening techniques into this lecture

"get a bigger notepad."

wow

"look at you!!" yoongi gushes the moment he sees you, waiting at you from the front door

you're going back to your classes again :D

you don't look as worse as you did four days ago!! you're not as sluggish and as animated too

"please don't," you snort as yoongi doesn't seem to stop looking at you like you've saved the world, giving no fight when he insists on carrying your backpack to your first class of the day

the past four days,, yeah they were undoubtedly rough

you slept as much as you could and for the moments you weren't dejected enough to be awake, you spent it surrounding yourself with seokjin and yoongi as much as possible

that's the beauty of hanging out them!!! you're not required to have a single thought lmao

except for the time when yoongi wondered aloud how eels even live and die (or if they even do???) in the first place and that sent everyone in a spiral and you didn't think of jungkook for a single seconds

you're not intimidated to go back to regular programming or with the fact that it's nOT unlikely you'd see a glimpse of jungkook in the hall and such

but that does mean that even if you're the bigger person, you're still gonna avoid him for as long as you could

speaking of!!!! you're looking for the person now that you're eager to find

"taehyung!!"

there he is :D you'd recognize that fluffy mop of permed hair anywhere

"y/n!!"

tae jumps over chairs in excitement to finally see you again after being so worried for you, engulfing you in a hug immediately

alright you see why yoongi thinks he's a golden retriever

you're clearly not a touchy-feely person but you'd let this one pass,, tae helped you (even indirectly) throughout your downtime anyways

"thank you so much for the cookies. i tried taking smaller bites just because i didn't wanna have them disappear that easy," you confess sheepishly, knowing how you had to pull the i just got my heart broken like two days ago multiple times so the two menaces would stop stealing from your stash

jungkook's excited!!!! seokjin may have given him a tip that "he felt it in his gut" that you were gonna go to class today

he came a little late because he wanted to perfect the very loaded lunchbox that's in his backpack right now

oh weird

you're not in your usual chair

bUT jungkook sees a glimpse of your hair and he's certain that you're there and his heart may be beating out of his ribcage

a baby peach lunchbox with a sticker (of what seokjin said he thought you'd like) on the middle of the lid :D

pork katsudon with furikake rice aND coffee jelly pudding on the side!!! it was definitely pressure-racking to strictly adhere to jin's recipe but god does it look worth it

jungkook's only did miniature taste tests on it and he had to stop himself from devouring the lunch that he's made specifically for you

the lunchbox itself is tied neatly with a silk wrap, adding his touch of sewing your name visibly on it aND there's a scribble taped to the lid too

god jungkook really can't wait to make it up to you

sheesh that was one of THEE longest lectures you've ever felt you had

it was actually the same amount of time it's always been but maybe you've been out of practice from just staying at your dorm for days

tae's great company but he could be a little bit chatty!!! you just nod when you feel his voice go up and he apparently gets excited by that easily

.... he apparently also has a small bladder and he told you that within the whole hour of class

"hold on. i gotta pee before next period. go without me!!!' taehyung hurriedly slings his backpack to his arm, looking ridiculous in a rush

tae's sometimes unintentionally funny because you don't even share next period anyways

you're on your way to the exit when a shiny scarf catches the corner of your eye, having to squint at it because wow does it look pretty

is that-

is that your nAME???

you pick it up before you could even rationalize it, realizing then what it was wrapping when you feel the warmth on your hands

:")

"sorry i forgot my headband!!!"

taehyung stumbles back into the room, catching his breath to run back to his seat and fetch the headband he took from his hair to play with awhile ago

he looks shocked to see what's on your hands, flicking his gaze between you and the item but he doesn't think much of it

wOW that's a really shiny scarf!!!

"tae?"

"hmm yeah? what's up?"

he's about to jog back to the comfort room because he hasn't really relieved himself yet, not bearing to leave his headband in the room when anyone could snatch it up

you raise your lunchbox, a thankful gaze on your eyes that looks so close to crying which is why tae's mORE than lost now

"thanks for the lunch."

.....

jungkook could only helplessly watch.

#EEEEEEEEK :D I HAVE A REQUEST QUEUED UP NEXT BUT WHAT DO YOU WANNA SEE IN THE NEXT PARTS #stem koo #jungkook imagine #jungkook imagines #jungkook oneshot #jungkook oneshots #jungkook au #jungkook drabble #jungkook x reader #jungkook x y/n #jungkook angst #college jungkook au

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