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justsomeoneunordinary · 4 years

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Alright, this here is for everyone: It’s for those who like Tony and those who don’t. It’s for Stony shippers, for Stucky shippers, for IronStrange shippers, for those who ship Ironhusbands or WinterFalcon – it’s for those who hate Stony or Stucky or any of the other ships for whatever reason. It’s for every single person in this godforsaken fandom.

The past few days I’ve seen quite some fandom drama on this hellsite to a point where it went way too far. To a point people got literal death threats into their inbox. And that on both sides of the discourse that originally led to the drama.

While that shit fucking finally stopped again, instead now people start pointing fingers: “X sub-fandom is so toxic, I hate them so much, it’s good we’re not like that.” Etc. But you know what? That’s not true.

Since I’ve been on this hellsite I’ve seen the biggest bullshit everywhere. - Stony shippers harassing others in some kind of superior-complex, going on anon and annoying the fuck out of everyone, even other Stonies for ‘not writing the ship good’ or whatever other bullshit.

- Stucky shippers bullying anyone who likes Tony, especially when it comes to Stony or WinterIron fans, but even other Stuckies who genuinely like Tony, for example an artist who dared to make a WinterIron piece for once and got so much hatred for this that they practically stopped (and no, I’m not going to name anyone here).

- IronStrange shippers going into a poor Stony artists inbox telling them they’re ship is wrong and they should convert to IronStrange now, as if that actually would change their mind, instead of just being annoyed by this kind of childish behavior.

- Ironhusband shippers literally telling a Stony fan that they should just die because their ship was toxic. Yes, Ironhusbands – that small, pure ship. I know what I’m talking about.

- WinterFalcon shippers stalking Stony blogs to send hate.

- Tony haters lurking into a Tony-centric blog, waiting for an opportunity to start a discourse.

- Pro Tony people going into the anti tag to start a discourse.

- Both, pro and anti Tonys, pro and anti Steves, crosstagging their posts deliberately to annoy the other side.

You think I am joking or making things up? Ha, I wish I was. Point is: If you think your sub-fandom never spreads hatred? Believe me, it does.

And yes, fact is, the ones who cause the biggest problems are Stonies and Stuckies. That’s not me being hateful, that’s just simple math. The bigger a fandom, the more toxic people you’ll find there. And guess which two sub-fandoms are the biggest ones in the MCU fandom? Exactly. Doesn’t mean that if you’re in a small fandom, that you won’t find these people – there are just less. But not none.

So, instead of pointing fingers at the others all the damn time, maybe you should take a second and look at your own place. The moment one says “it’s always the Stuckies thank god we’re not like that” I can bet with you that in the next thirty minutes a poor Stucky blog will get a hateful anon ask in their inbox.

Which is not to say that this is the anti poster’s fault. It’s not their responsibility to watch out their followers don’t harass other people. You’re allowed to like or dislike whatever you want and talk about it on your own blog, and if someone misunderstands it as “haha they’re totally right, let’s attack those people”, then this isn’t on you. But you should be aware that there are people in your fandom who will think like that. Because it’s never only the others.

So, instead of pointing fingers all the time, maybe take a second to spread awareness that this kind of asshole-ish behavior is not welcome, not in your own fandom, not towards the other ones, not towards the ones you don’t like, not towards anyone at all.

The moment you go into someone’s inbox to spread hate, the moment you start to crosstag/misstag your posts to start hateful discourse, the moment you search for something deliberately that isn’t meant for you to find a reason to attack someone, the moment you’re disrespectful towards a content creator for their interests (this includes gif makers too btw!), the moment you jump into someone’s inbox trying to change their opinion because you believe you’re right, the moment you tell someone to kill themself-

-that’s the moment you’re one of those toxic people we’re talking about.

Like what you want, hate what you want, make your posts about it, tag it fucking properly, keep away from the things you dislike, but keep in mind:

The characters are fictional.

The people behind those blogs are real.

Nothing, abso-fucking-lutely nothing, gives you the right to harass or bully or send fucking death threats to other people.

And if there was even one single second you thought I might be talking about you: Fuck yes, then this sure as shit is about you.

Stop blaming as if it were only the others, stop acting as if your fandom is on a pedestal, no matter how small it is, stop turning a blind eye on what is exactly in front of you, stop encouraging others to harass, and stop fucking harassing real life people over fictional characters for fucks sake!

And if you still think this kind of behavior is justified? Then do it openly instead of turning to anon like a coward, if you really think you’re justified – so people can fucking block you.

Thank you for your attention.

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endlich-allein · 3 years

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Interview with Till about his life: he fought with his father, killed his beloved dog, swam on a wild river and worked on suffering. How Till Lindemann's mind works

"I will finish you off" and why you fought for the German army.

Werner Lindemann wanders around the room, interrupting the silence with strange questions, writing something down. His motive is to get to know his son and make him a friend. But it's complicated. Generational conflict.

"My island of tranquility is shaken every day. The day before yesterday, a guy pulled on my socks because his were torn. Yesterday he didn't put out a single lamp in the house. Now, with voluptuous delight, he spits cherry pits into the cat's fur. Is this grown boy really an adult?"

The apprenticeship in Rostock, where you have to do window production after graduation, is the limit of boredom. Till Lindemann moved to his father in the countryside so that he could forget about the hustle and bustle of the city and not fall under the article for anti-social attitudes. He thought of a new life, in which there was no pointless work, and arranged an attic in his father's house.

In the mornings over coffee, he scolded life that everything went according to schedule. And listened very loudly to music - electronics and metal. My father didn't understand and grumbled: “I matured late. Naturally, I wanted to listen to the music I liked, but I could not get my hands on these records. For example, my father did not understand when I bought the Alice Cooper record for a month's salary.

Werner Lindemann was a children's writer who went through the war.

At the height of his career he disappeared for weeks on literary tours - his fame spread to teachers and librarians across the country. His father pecked at Lindemann for refusing to work and promised to turn him in:

"My willful child. What doesn't fit his standards is rejected as nonsense or crap." So he took a job as a carpenter, where he made shovel cuttings and cart wheels. The head foreman constantly drank vodka during the day, didn't want to be annoyed with questions and addressed the long-haired Lindemann with the nickname: "Mozart!" This suited him.

Werner Lindemann talked about war, hard existence and limitations. For example, about a grenade splinter that remained in his body. Lindemann did not believe in all these stories - but categorically did not accept service, war and murder:

“After that I objected: “I would hide, I would not go to war. Why did you even let yourself be dragged into this? You could have hidden."

And he said: “It didn't work out. They searched for it and it took away."

Then I said: “I would rather go under arrest. Never in my life, I would go to the front line to shoot people. It's against my nature. It would be better if I went to jail."

Much of the time father and son were simply silent, even while watching television.

"He regularly made me feel guilty, to say the least, he placed himself on a pedestal towards me: I shouldn't complain. At your age, I ran barefoot through the stubble, and in my stomach - a potato in a uniform."

The only acceptance is Mike Oldfield's music: "One day my father came to grumble again. At that moment I was listening to Mike Oldfield, and he sat down and said: "That sounds interesting."

For me it was like a quantum leap: my father sits in my room, listens to my music and thinks it was good. Probably because of melancholy. He was sitting in a rocking chair that I made myself - at the time I was working as a carpenter on a farm. I, too, always sat in an armchair, immersed myself in music and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes."

The conflict was intensified by a fight. Lindemann bought a Trabant car, installed speakers in it and tested the sound - loud as usual. “Then my father came and I had to turn off this fucking music. It was kind of loud for him. He was then fiddling around his cases of flowers, and then suddenly the situation escalated. I think he slapped me while I was still in the car.

He leaned toward me and hit me with the back of his hand. I made some bullshit remarks like, "Leave me alone," something like that. That was a provocation to him, and he said: "If you do that again, I'll hit you for real." And I said, "Then you'll get it back. Because you're crazy. Don't you dare to hit me anymore."

And then he hit me with his palm again. He wasn't controlling himself.

He was exalting himself. Instantly he introduced himself as a boxer - he had boxed in the Hitler Youth - and I just... I thought I didn't hit him, I just pushed him away. And then he stood in front of me again, "Come on, I'll finish you, you haven't got a chance!" Somehow. After that, he went up to the attic and threw all my stuff out the window.

It happened over the weekend, my sister was there, a lot of screaming, serious drama. Then I packed my things, put them in the car, went to a friend's house and never went into his house again. At first I lived with this friend, and a week later I bought myself a house in the village."

His father's book is about his son, which the son will only open up after the death of the father.

Lindemann is a late child. He was born when his father was 36. The gap in their relationship was felt in everyday life and perception of the world. Werner Lindemann woke up early in the morning, worked with the circular saw under the windows and did not understand when his son slept until noon after a working week.

Lindemann's parents then lived separately, but kept in touch. Mom worked as a journalist and discussed her texts with his father. "She still lived in Rostock and always came to see him only on weekends. Mostly on Sundays she came back quite early, because she couldn't stand the stress of being with him, either."

In 1988, the book “Mike Oldfield im Schaukelstuhl Notizen eines Vaters" In this book, Lindemann Senior describes the relationship with his son (whom he calls Timm in the book), who settled with him at the age of 18. The book was written in the 80s and laid on the table until the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany were reunited.

Werner Lindemann wanted his son to take up writing too. But this only amused him, although as a child he wrote poetry. At the age of 13, little Till Lindemann and his father were returning home along the bumpy road to Mecklenburg. They talked about career self-determination:

"You should already have thoughts about what you want to become, boy." My answer: "I don't know yet, maybe a fisherman on the high seas."

But immediately, no matter what I said, objections arose: “But then you have to get a certificate of maturity. But then you will be away all the time. But then you won't be able to start a relationship."

There was always a “but”.

At some point it got on my nerves, as usual. And I said: "Worst case scenario, I'll just become a writer.

I still remember how alienated his face became. "And what do you think then, what do I do! It's a very hard job! In fact, it's not even a job, it's a passion. And it's a job that's supposed to be enjoyable."

I said, "I don't know anybody who works with pleasure."

"Yeah, that's the problem. You have to look for a job that gives you pleasure." Then I say again, "But some people never get to choose..." This gigantic discussion happened because I didn't take his profession seriously. At the same time, he was completely lost, funny!"

Lindemann thoughtfully read his father's book, in which he comprehends their relationship, after his death. Faked for hidden anger and indecision. For example, in a situation where their dog Kurt was bitten by a fox. The father was frightened because of rabies: “At the same time, we did not even know whether he was bitten by a fox or not. The father immediately called the huntsman. But I said: no one will enter this courtyard and shoot the dog. I'll do it myself if I really need it. At some point I really had to kill the dog."

Lindemann is not a monster. The animals he fiddled with are an important attribute of childhood. He had an aquarium and hamsters, brought mice and rats home, and was friends with dogs. “Like many children of new buildings, he felt the need for someone alive, in need of love,” said Werner Lindemann. Sometimes the appearance of an animal in the house was surprising:

“This guy will never say what he's up to. He appears on the doorstep at the same time as me. He gets out from his vehicle, throws his coat open and puts a young black shepherd in my hands. "Your Christmas present!"

Till's father is speechless. My son stands before me like the sun's little brother. Touchingly concerned, he directs me into the house, working out a plan for the animal husbandry, accommodation and diet of our new pet housemate.

With confusion, a question flies from my lips, "Wheredid you get the dog from?" "Timm" is gibbering, "Imagine, the mason in the barnyard wanted to hang him, simply wanted to strangle him with a rope, said he was a worthless eater..."

Werner Lindemann died of stomach cancer in 1993, when his son was 30. They didn't finally reconcile, but Till visited him in his last days and was there for him with his mother: "They couldn't be without each other, even though they lived apart. Unreal, but my mother never had another man afterwards. To this day she can't let go of him."

- Not going to the Olympics in Moscow and ending up in the German ghetto

Lindemann had the knowledge and the potential to be a swimmer. And a shyness that pounded harder three days before the competition than concerts in front of crowds of thousands. "I know how difficult it is to develop willpower and stamina and instill those attributes. In the GDR this was instilled in us by coaches and so-called functionaries."

Lindemann came to swimming at the age of eight and devoted his entire youth to the sport. He would get up for training at five in the morning and pass out in the evening. His grandmother watched him from the stands. At a competition in Leipzig she shouted at the coach, who told Lindemann off for a poor result. The grandmother took the coach by the ear and said: "How do you talk to my grandson?"

Sports tightened up his upbringing and developed self-discipline. “Drilling - probably the boy has already received this experience as a swimmer,” Lindemann's father wrote. - Once he had to take second place in a competition, but by no means first place. Of course, he got carried away, forgot about it, became the first, thanks to which he received a shouting for indiscipline. And whenever he lost in the future, his coach would torture him at practice for a long time and yelled at him: "Even if you win, you're not a winner yet!"

Lindemann swam the 1.5 km freestyle and could have gone to the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Everything was ruined when he left the hotel without permission during a competition in Florence: "I didn't want to run, but just wanted to look at the city. Cars, bikes, girls. I was caught and kicked out of the team, but then I didn't give the required results either."

Lindemann competed at the European Junior Championships, but did not go any higher. After the story in Florence, his career in sport slipped away. Perhaps an abdominal injury influenced his departure. Lindemann is gone, but he doesn't yearn: "I was relatively young. There were no good [memories] left. I was glad it was over."

"The hardest part was getting back to normal. I fell into a real hole. My home was no longer a sports school, but a ghetto in Rostock. Now I stood out through drinking and fighting. I used to be surrounded only by beautiful ladies who were interested in swimming. Now I had fierce women standing in front of me asking, "How come you don't drink?" When I was shy about approaching a girl, it was interpreted as: "Are you gay?"

Lindemann now works with a coach and swims a few kilometers before his tours to get in shape: "When I exercise, I feel a certain lightness - not only physically, but also mentally. I just feel better. The main problem is staying in shape. That's where self-discipline comes into play. Teeth grinding is important."

- Three weeks in the wild and loneliness as a creative tool

Emotionally, concerts = sports:

"How do I go on tour? Hungry. And happy. It is good to compare concerts with sport. You don't want to do both at first. You don't want to go on stage. You don't want to go to the pool. You don't want to go to the boxing ring. It all happens with reluctance. It has to be accepted somehow, that's life: spring, summer, fall, winter.

When it's done, winter's gone, the blooming begins, greenery appears, it gets bright, and you start to get a taste for it. When it's over, you feel happy. Then the body produces a sea of chemistry, a lot of happiness hormones. I think the body rewards itself."

The stage, like sports, is an embarrassment, but a necessity. Lindemann wore dark glasses in order to collect fewer views from the audience. Therefore, a couple of steps before the water, he looked at the pool with a shiver. You need to cope with yourself in order to open up to new emotions.

Lindemann's gut requires solitude and moderate solitude. This is the point:

“Loneliness is always good for a creative push - you drink a glass of wine and you feel even shitier. Art is not complete without suffering; art exists to compensate for suffering."

With his friend Joey Kelly, Lindemann spent three weeks on the Yukon River. They paddled through the wilderness in a kayak for eight to 10 hours each and lived in a tent. Lindemann didn't take a tape recorder with him, so he transferred the lyrics wandering in his head on paper.

They were catching inspiration and atmosphere:

"There were times when we wouldn't say a word for hours, but then: look there, look there! It was breathtakingly beautiful. These relatively fast-changing panoramas and skies, layers of clouds, the colors.

Except for a few bears and wolves, it's hard to see anyone else out there, it's exhilarating. Along the way we saw two hunters setting traps. No one else.

I grew up in the countryside, and I have a very strong connection to nature. I love fishing, hunting. It's an archaic experience that I like to revisit over and over again. When I'm in the city for too long, I start to miss it."

To recreate situations in the Yukon, Lindemann and Kelly trained for nine months on the Rhine river in Germany because of its liveliness.

"We went down the Rhine to where the transport ships create huge bow waves. If we hadn't had a coach with us, we probably would have been sunk by the side wave impact already during our first attempt," Lindemann said.

Together with Kelly, he had four sessions with two coaches and swam from Cologne to Koblenz [more than 100 kilometers by car]. Lindemann trained separately each week on the lakes in Mecklenburg. It's both physically challenging and savage identical to being natural.

In 2015, Till started his solo project Lindemann. On the album Skills In Pills, the song Yukon was released, in which the lyrics appeared first, and then the music.

- "My lyrics come from pain rather than desire."

The country boy is big and not much of a talker. That's how the Rammstein members saw him at the start, when they were hanging out at home. "He looked cool, like a big peasant talking one sentence an hour," keyboard player Christian "Flake" Lorenz recalled. - He always had food and vodka. He'd just steal a couple of ducks somewhere and cook them on a tray. And then, frozen like in Sleeping Beauty, there were people lying in corners and on trunks in his house."

Lindemann loves and appreciates home gatherings. This came from my father, who always had guests. “In my opinion, this is the little bit that I inherited from him. Throwing parties and gathering people. Throwing parties and getting people together. He just enjoyed being a good host. The house was always full of guests from Leipzig, from Rostock, foreign guests, even from Kazakhstan.

It was always exciting for him. He stood at the stove, cooked, bought an abundance of wine, and there was always a fire in the garden. At some point he stopped drinking, then he left the party at 21:00 and the whole company continued to feast. And in the morning he got up at four, cleaned and tidied up."

Till Lindemann is about self-digging, overcoming and childish shyness, which is covered by a pumped-up figure of a swimmer. This is how Lindemann decrypts himself:

• “And I really am like a big child - ill-mannered, but harmless. People think that I am always strong, explosive. This is not true. I am sensitive and easily hurt, but in love I am romantic and passionate."

• “At the very beginning, you sit somewhere in a dark room, open a bottle of wine and figure out how to make the lyrics popular with the music. At first you only have a vague idea of what it could be.

And when, three years after recording, mixing, and more mixing, developing the artwork, all this nonsense, then you stand on stage, and what you came up with then really works, when you manage to get 20 thousand people to raise their hands, then you experience incredible sensations."

• “Art is a kind of therapy.

When I feel that something is arising inside me, domineering and is most often dark, I need to give it a way out, otherwise it will simply crush me. So destruction and self-destruction are the two pillars on which my creativity is based.

But everyone chooses this for himself.

• “My lyrics arise from feelings and dreams, but still more from pain than by desire. I often have nightmares, and I wake up at night sweating, as I see terrible bloody scenes in my dreams. My lyrics are a kind of valve for the lava of feelings in my soul.

We are all struggling to hide behind good manners and outward decency, but in fact we are governed by instincts and feelings: hunger, thirst, horror, hatred, the desire for power and sex. Of course, there is also additional energy in us - this is love. Without it, all human feelings would fade away."

- "When you're constantly living someone else's life, it's very hard to get back into your own skin. I like that in principle, but sometimes you start to get confused - are you out of a role or not yet. You're already Till, or you're still a homicidal maniac."

- "I hate the noise. I hate the chatter. I expose myself to it, which is pure masochism. And then I have to protect myself from it. Noise makes you crazy. You die in it."

• “I think there is no God. And if he is and actually allows all the misfortunes on this earth, then he must punish me along with other sufferings. I will not pray to such a god."

This is how the members of Rammstein see Till - flexible and with a split personality:

Guitarist Paul Landers: "Till is so good that when you let him know that his lyrics should go in a different direction, the very next day he brings a new version of the song."

Guitarist Richard Kruspe: “He's a hell of an extreme man. He dives very deeply into situations where I cannot follow him. Everything he does is very extreme; I don't know anyone who does it. "

Drummer Christoph Schneider: "I would not want to be in Till's shoes: his soul is tormented by doubts and contradictions, he is equally a moralist and a monster."

June 1, 2021 - Translate by Lindemann Belgium

#very interesting #till's life #till is love 🖤#till lindemann #till 2021 #werner lindemann #flake lorenz #paul landers #christoph schneider #richard kruspe #oliver riedel #joey kelly #rammstein #t.lindemann #t.lindemann 2021

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your-brilliant-lady-m · 3 years

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Part 4 - Basic Concepts of Miraculous Ladybug: Glamour

You can call it however you want: kid's show logic, superhero disguise logic, magical girl show logic, cartoon laws, suspension of disbelief, etc. But the fact that nobody recognises Marinette, Adrien and others when they are suited up IS NOT BAD WRITING. It's one of the main laws of this genre. That's not because characters are stupid, okay? So, being frustrated that everyone in the show acts stupid about this "wearing a mask that covers only eyes" trope is strange. This criticism is not valid or fair.

But, this trope has to make sense in-universe as a worldbuilding and narrative element.

Miraculous doesn't give us much direct information on how glamour works. And in this case, I think we need both SHOW and TELL. Because if you don't establish the glamour rules clearly, you are going to run into problems and create unfortunate implications with your storytelling choices.

Appearance

Miraculous obviously gives our heroes magical glamour. In "Lady WiFi" we find out that masks can't be taken off. It's magic. No other explanation is needed.

Miraculous can slightly change the appearance of users (eyes, face shape, height and hairstyles). People can identify and notice the hairstyles of heroes (numerous Ladybug wigs, statue in Copycat). Jagged Stone points out the change of hair when he mistakes Chloe for Ladybug ("Antibug"). But it's just a costume. There is no magic that prevents Jagged from understanding that Chloe isn't Ladybug. So, how does it work? But it's forgivable because it's cartoon logic. Suspension of disbelief works here, I suppose. I won't judge this too harshly.

Glamour also obviously prevents people from making a connection that Marinette and Ladybug have identical hairstyles. So people know that Ladybug wears her hair in pigtails, but magic does not allow them to notice similarities.

Another important question. Does glamour work on Kwamis? Can they see who is behind the mask?

New York Special makes it clear that magic does not affect robots and they can see through glamour. Does that mean that Markov, AI built by Max, knows the identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir? And it's never addressed.

Plagg in "Frightningale" says that holders can subconsciously choose their superhero appearance. This is actually pretty interesting and I like this idea a lot. Except the show is not consistent with this. The transformation of Master Fu looks identical to Nathalie's. And we have seen how different from each other Ladybug and Black Cat holders looked in the past. At the same time, Master Fu and Nino have different takes on Turtle superhero suit.

Age Glamour

Does age glamour exist? Do people see Ladybug, Chat Noir and other heroes as adults even when they look like teenagers to the audience (their height and build are smaller even when they are transformed)? Is that why no one ever questions the fact that children nearly die on a daily basis?

I mentioned unfortunate implications earlier. Well, this is where they come into play. Let's talk about "Copycat". A lot of people discussed it before me, so I won't bore you with details.

When I watched "Copycat" for the first time Theo's crush on Ladybug didn't bother me, because I thought that he sees Ladybug as his peer, a girl who is about 20-23 years old. Theo is an artist, his character design is that of an adult. He has his own studio, its appearance indicates that he did serious commissions in the past. The guy has no idea that Ladybug is like 13.

But then we get "Heroes' Day" and "Ladybug". And Hawkmoth calls them "kids", which means that there is no age glamour. Others see Ladybug and Chat Noir as teenagers. Perhaps, other Miraculous users aren't affected by age glamour. Therefore regular people see all heroes as adults but other heroes are able to guess their age more or less correctly. But you must spell this thing out because the audience can interpret "Copycat" differently. If there is no age glamour, then Theo is crushing on a teenage girl and he is fully aware of this fact. And this doesn't look good for your show.

The "No Age Glamour" theory is further confirmed in "Sapotis" where Alya just straight up analyses voice recordings and says that Ladybug is a girl their age. If glamour exists then it should also cover technology. Kwami can't be photographed. Face and voice recognition software shouldn't be able to analyse transformed superheroes and detect their identities in any way.

Besides, after "Sapotis" Alya should definitely be sure that Ladybug is not 5000 years old (also not an adult), especially after she wore Miraculous herself and was one door away from detransformed Ladybug.

SEASON 4 UPDATE! There's no age glamour after all.

In "Furious Fu" Su Han calls Chat Noir a child without knowing his identity. It means that everyone knows their superheroes are teenagers. "Copycat" can't be saved from that, uh, subtext anymore. No one questions the danger of their job or the balance of their lives outside of the mask. No one doubts their competence after "Origins" ever again. No one becomes annoyed after being bossed around by two teenagers in spandex. You had many opportunities to drop these details into the narrative. Someone could have been akumatized over this (I will not be ordered around by some magical kids!).

I don't know why writers decided not to use at least this idea and slightly adjust "Copycat" if they got rid of the age glamour completely. It can be explained as kid's show logic, but unfortunately, I'm reluctant to do it. If many characters sympathise with akuma victims on-screen, why not with the teenage superheroes who must fight them?

New York Special had this weird focus on collateral damage out of nowhere (the damage done by sentimonster Robostus) and yet it has 0 effect on the main story. No one in Paris is pissed that their 2 teenage protectors weren't there.

Ironically, "Furious Fu" and that one remark made by Su Han also created unfortunate implications for other moments in the show. Just hear me out. Apparently, Jagged Stone wrote a "thank you" song for Ladybug knowing that she is 13-15 year old child back in "Pixelator". Fandom is more than happy to roast Lila for lying about saving Jagged Stone's cat and him writing her a "thank you" song. Fandom claims that Lila's tale could harm Jagged's reputation, when he wrote a song for teenage Ladybug several weeks prior. Meanwhile, in-universe this lie is 100% believable.

If we put on "realism glasses", then both this whole song situation and Theo's crush in "Copycat" have uncomfortable implications. However, the show's canon can't be viewed and criticised through "realism glasses". I admit that bits and pieces of my criticisms are affected by these "glasses", but, ultimately, I'm trying to be fair and concentrate only on things that can't be justified by "cartoon logic and worldbuilding".

Could the existence of age glamour solve this problem of unfortunate implications and other concerns mentioned above? YES. Is it better for the narrative? YES. Is essential for the story? NOT QUITE. Could the absence of age glamour be called an irredeemable storytelling flaw? NO.

Disclaimer: On a side note, only older audience can notice these implications. Children, the target audience, most likely won't understand this subtext simply because they don't have enough experience. So, perhaps, this criticism is unfair, because these moments only look weird to me as an adult. It's like an adult joke in a cartoon that you don't get until you reach a certain age.

There's nothing technically wrong with adult writing a "thank you" song for a teenager. It's just an expression of gratitude. However, unfortunately, we live in a world, where adults normally wouldn't write songs for teens to express gratitude only. In real life similar actions would imply pedophilia and would be actively scorned by the public. No one would risk their reputation like that even if their intentions were genuinely pure and sincere. But this show can't be viewed through "realism glasses", because it's a cartoon and in certain cases we as the audience must use suspension of disbelief and pretend that certain things are possible for plot to happen.

Su Han also wants to give Ladybug and Black Cat to adults. Why didn't Master Fu do this then? Writers don't give us any explanation. Throughout the show we never question this up until the moment it's revealed that adults don't have time-limited powers. Then comes "Furious Fu". Story suddenly becomes self-aware here. Because apparently nothing prevented Fu from giving the most powerful Miraculous to adults who won't have time limit and will be more effective against Hawkmoth (see part 3 for more details).

I have a very good example of Age Glamour done right. It works in the story. There is no confusion or unfortunate implications. There is like one plothole connected to the glamour (it's been years and I still can't forgive them for Cornelia and Caleb) but otherwise, it's a pretty solid example of both show and tell. Clearly, writers wanted to avoid uncomfortable implications which are present in "Copycat". I am talking about W.I.T.C.H. comic books and animated series.

If you are not familiar with it, I'll give you a brief explanation. The story follows 5 girls, the Guardians of Kandrakar who are chosen to protect their world and parallel ones from evil. They receive magical powers from the amulet known as the Heart of Kandrakar. Their powers are based on elements: fire, water, earth, air and energy. Our main characters are about 13-15 years old. In the animated series they are younger and they attend middle school, making them 12-14 years old. But the transformation makes them look 18-20. They look like young women to each other and to other people. At the same time, people can recognise them, their looks and voice don't change. Most people don't know that they are really teenagers when they are not transformed and these people don't know that magic can make them look older. That's why everyone treats Guardians like adults when they are transformed. Comics establish this fact in the very beginning. In first issues characters state that they look older, we are also shown this multiple times.

In fact, one of the first side plots revolves around the fact that Irma uses her powers to sneak into the disco club to meet up with her crush. Irma is 13 at the beginning of the series, she is a high school freshman. Her crush, Andrew Hornby is a senior guy 17-18 years old. Irma has liked him for a long time and wants to impress him, so she decides to be clever about this. She transforms into her Guardian form of the 18-year-old girl, hides her wings, sneaks out to the club after her parents are asleep without any problem, and meets Andrew, who obviously doesn't recognise Irma in this girl who looks about his age. Smitten Andrew offers her a ride and 13-year-old Irma doesn't understand the implication of that offer, so she accepts. And, obviously, he decides that she is interested in more than just a ride home, since she agreed, and the comic implies that he fully intended for them to have sex in the backseat of his car. But Irma understands the implication only when Andrew tries to kiss her. She panics and turns him into a frog. And she actually pulls this "I need to look mature" trick more than once over the course of the series.

It's not the only situation where this age difference is handled well and makes sense. People who know the main characters in everyday life remark on their older appearance during transformation. Sometimes people flirt with Guardians when they are transformed. In one of the side-novels centred around Cornelia, she is worried that the prince of the realm they helped to save from famine would try to marry her. That never happens, but Cornelia actually brainstorms with her friends about how to tell the prince that she is really 15.

There are many other plot points where this happens, but I think that you got the idea. I really like how "Age Glamour" was handled in W.I.T.C.H.

How do we fix this? Create the situations where people offhandedly mention "Age Glamour" in the presence of Marinette or Adrien, use Kwami for this.

"Don't worry, dear. Chat Noir and Ladybug are adults, who know what they are doing. I am sure that they will handle this. "

Theo could say: "Oh, I wonder which university Ladybug goes to?"

"So, does that mean that other people see us as grown-ups, Tikki?"

A few words and boom, problem solved. Then allow the "show don't tell" rule do the rest.

#miraculous ladybug #ml #miraculous analysis #miraculous meta #ml meta #ml analysis #miraculous transformations #miraculous critical #miraculous ladybug critical #miraculous glamour #superhero glamour #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir

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mmilkbreadd · 3 years

Text

Chapter twenty five: “The End”

Masterpost - Prev.

Warning(s): a bit of swearing ; post-timeskip manga spoilers!!

────────∘°❉°∘────────

Or aka, ‘The Sakusa Kiyoomi Theory’

Act One: “Who is Sakusa Kiyoomi?”

Saturday, 6:23 am, “y/n's home”

“You're late,” said y/n with crossed arms, she was already waiting for him at the door of her house. “I hope this doesn't become routine.”

It was already morning in the streets of Paris. Tendou Satori and her neighbor (and best friend), y/n l/n, were walking towards their famous bakery and chocolate shop, ‘Sweet Strawberries.’ It was a small place with a few tables to sit for tea and delicious things to eat. Also, although it was small, it was quite crowded.

“Woah, how angry you are today, little baker... More than usual, actually” y/n shook her head at her friend's comment. “But obviously I already know why, and it seems that you know why too.”

Y/n decided to ignore what Satori had said, and keep walking quite ahead of him. It was still an hour before the store opened, but they already had several orders that were due to deliver around nine in the morning. A three-tier wedding cake, forty heart-shaped chocolates for the anniversary of a married couple, and of course, the strawberry cake for someone named Sakusa Kiyoomi.

Around a quarter to seven, they arrived at the bakery, and they got down to work to get all the orders completed on time.

Tendou was more dedicated to the chocolate part, of course, and to serve customers. Despite y/n had advanced a lot in terms of her social skills, she still needed to learn a little about how to communicate normally with a person.

“That 'Sakusa Kiyoomi' has a Japanese name, do you think he is too?” y/n asked, wiping flour from her hands.

“I don't know, they could be. But doesn't that name sound too familiar to you?” Satori replied.

“That's exactly what I was thinking!”

“Weird.”

“Yeah... Anyway, the customer asked not to make the chocolate so bitter so add more milk to that please.”

“Yes, boss!” Satori made a military signal and continued his work.

Act Two: “Pretending to be Sakusa Kiyoomi.”

8:39 am, “Paris” (?)

Bokuto Koutarou, along with Miya Atsumu and Hinata Shoyo were lost in Paris. They had circled the Eiffel Tower at least five times. But it seemed they hadn't realized it yet.

They were more lost than Bokuto studying math. But a simple city would not defeat them so easily... would it?

“Maybe we should have brought Sakusa,” Hinata said after round number six.

“And hear him complain about how dirty everything is? No thanks,” Atsumu Miya replied, shaking his head. “We don't need Omi-Omi. I, Miya Atsumu, am enough to know where we are.”

Atsumu put a hand on his chest, pretending to be offended. Bokuto and Hinata looked around, ignoring the enormous tower behind them, wondering where they were.

“And where are we then?”

“Paris, of course” he replied. “I can’t believe you’re seriously asking that, Shoyo.”

Hinata and Bokuto looked at each other, unable to believe what their teammate was saying.

“Sure…” Bokuto said, getting his phone out of his pocket. It was time to be the serious person of the trio. “Akaashi, we got lost” and that time was now over. Koutarou was crying as he spoke to his friend, who was on another continent. “No, I can't stop crying, Akaashi. I swear I was following the steps you wrote on the map so we wouldn't get lost, but Atsumu wanted to take the lead, so he broke the instructions, and we don’t know where we are. It's all his fault...! No, Sakusa has not come either.”

“Hey! It wasn't my fault,” the dyed blonde complained, crossing his arms. “And we never needed Omi-Omi!”

“Okay, Akaashi, I'll do it. Bye, love you… As a bro of course” Bokuto finished saying and hung up. “He told me I have to call Tendou. Is the only way.”

Hinata started shaking his head from side to side, while Atsumu slapped his forehead with his hand. Then a message came from Keiji; It was the number of Tendou Satori himself. Bokuto started dialing the numbers that appeared on the screen of his phone, on Hinata's.

“Wait wait, shouldn't I speak? He might recognize your voice” Hinata said, awkwardly taking the phone from Bokuto's hands.

“He would also recognize yours, Shoyo. I'll do it.” Atsumu snatched the device from him and pressed the call button. “Hello, sir, what’s up? I'm Sakusa Kiyoomi, could you help me get to your store? I'm a bit lost... How did I get your number you ask? Eh– It's on your website dude! You should delete it, some people pretend to be someone else and you should not fall for that...”

Act Three: “If Sakusa Kiyoomi was real, we should have brought him.”

10:04 am, “Sweet Strawberries Bakery and Chocolate Shop”

“I can't believe it took us almost two hours to get here! It wasn't even that far from the hotel” Hinata said looking towards the building that was a few meters in front of them.

“Six blocks. Can’t believe it either.” Atsumu wiped the sweat from his brow. “And now that? Are we going in or not?”

Bokuto went pale. He was going to see you, after so many years without communicating or having exchanged glances. He never imagined that he would see you again after that cold day in Miyagi. He had made a thousand scenarios in his head of how you two meet again: in some distant future you visit your hometown and he visits Hinata, and thus you meet in the park or on the street. You would have your own family, and he would have his. But that would happen in many years, not now. Not at this moment, when neither of you had grown enough... When he hadn't managed to forget you yet. But these weren't Koutarou's inventions, this was reality.

The incredible and stupid reality.

“I don't want to go in,” Bokuto said suddenly and stopped walking. “I’m not ready.”

Atsumu, who was already one step away from the door, turned to see him. Hinata collided with Miya's chest because he was walking right behind him.

“What are you talking about? Let's go in now” Atsumu said walking towards the ex-owl. “We didn't change the whole tour just so you don't go see your little girlfriend… We change it so you do! Don't be scared, do it now or you'll regret it for life. I remember how you talked about her during practice, and I even want to meet her after that! Come on dude, use the little braveness you have left.”

It seemed that Atsumu's words, or Hinata's smile next to him, made Bokuto take courage and head towards the entrance of the shop.

A bell rang before three pairs of feet echoed through the small place. There was a great smell of chocolate that invaded every inch of the establishment. Hinata paced around the place until the sound of a door opening made the three teammates turn their heads to where the sound was coming from.

“Welcome, what can I offer-- So all of you are Sakusa Kiyoomi, huh?” Satori Tendou said, coming out of the back-room. “You see guys, I never believed this would happen. It makes me think a lot too… So, is Sakusa Kiyoomi even real?”

Atsumu, Hinata, and Bokuto were paralyzed in place for several seconds. The former Shiratorizawa monster stood with his hands on his hips, staring at them.

“Is it Sakusa Kiyoomi? Tell him I'm coming in a minute!” y/n yelled from the back room.

“Oh no, y/n, it’s someone much better!” Tendou replied, holding back his laughter. “You won't believe it even if you see this!”

Then, silence took over the place until a few quick steps interrupted it. A figure appeared through the door, with several boxes in their hands. A pile of boxes so big it covered their face.

“Help me, Satori, I'm going to fall” y/n complained, and after Tendou took out the boxes that covered her view, she saw her friend smiling widely. “What?”

Satori, who couldn't contain his laughter anymore, gestured with his head towards the three statues in the middle of the place. And finally, seeing her friend's face, he started to laugh out loud.

“Kou?”

“A-and Hinata!” shouted Bokuto nervously. Shoyo looked at him and then pointed at Atsumu.

“And also Atsumu!”

“And Saku– shit, we should have brought Omi-Omi after all…”

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Note: I am very very very very sorry for not posting this sooner, but I had thousand of things going on in my life. Now I’m better and ready to finish this beautiful, and crazy, love-story.

I hope you loved it as much as I did. I truly enjoyed it writing, and I’m happy to finish it too.

I’ll appreciate it a lot if you comment down below what you thought about the series. I’ll read you later -Tina.

────────∘°❉°∘────────

Tags in reblog!

Thanks for reading🥰

#bokuto #bokuto x reader #bokuto smau #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!!#haikyuu smau #atsumu #sakusa #hinata

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kaisa-ryo · 3 years

Text

— perverted diary

jujutsu kaisen

Pairing: Megumi Fushiguro x reader

Warning: English isn't my native language!

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*

- thus, the linear speed of a point moving evenly around a circle ... - the teacher's voice echoed in your head. I couldn't concentrate. or rather, it worked, but not at all in school.

you looked at the megumi who was tapping softly on the desk with a pencil. in appearance you cannot say that he is somehow especially joyful today. and any other day. in general, he is like a diligent student helping classmates and teachers. but something still turned you on in him.

right now you wanted everyone to leave the physics class, and he was alone with you, closed the office, sat on the table and it all started like in films about reckless teenagers.

but it was impossible even to imagine that such a thing was possible in principle. all you could do was watch him draw hieroglyphs in his notebook with a pencil, bring his legs together with desire and dream.

I still can't believe that it all started with this damn homework you asked me to explain.

why exactly with him? what was the problem with asking your friend about it?

now, of course, it was useless to blame myself for it. what is done is done. nothing can be changed. and yet ... if you think about it - it was not such a stupid act, since you finally began to feel something like interest. however, this interest could be biased.

damn. how much I wanted to have him right here, taking it as sweet revenge.

***

“I dream about how he made me flood the whole school desk with his grease ... how would he do it? long foreplay or just cum inside ... "

you entered into your personal diary your obscene desires, which appeared in your head again and again, like in a sucking swamp, and with each new stream of words it became more and more specific. hands trembled with the desire to touch his dark hair, cold cheeks and hard muscular chest. and it was, of course, intoxicating when you wrote it in your diary, until, looking into your briefcase, I realized that instead of a notebook with notes, you gave your personal diary.

Oh. you have never reproached yourself so much for your own stupidity. heck. what if he is reading this right now? now? fuck, how much has he already read there? he already knows everything about you. what if he thinks you're a pervert now? what if he doesn't want to communicate anymore?

remembering everything down to the last line that was in that diary, you buried your face on the pillow, pressing it to your ears on both sides. and the longer you thought about it, the more angry you got at yourself. all your confidence and innocence was blown away by the wind. maybe he won't guess to open it? not. he has already read everything. ashamed. ashamed. pervert. how embarrassing ...

***

today you no longer looked at him so charmingly. now you only cared about one thing - whether he read this diary and what he now thinks of you. memories of past recordings came back into my head. the face has acquired a reddish tint. you didn't want to look at fushiguro. you didn't succeed. he seemed to have settled in your head, and any other thought only reminded of him. now the end has come to your academic performance.

the call from the last lesson made you flinch and for a second forget about everything that you were non-stop scrolling in your head. either from irritation, or from relief, you sighed and began to collect all the textbooks in your briefcase. what you most feared happened.

- stay in the office for a while, please. - said Fushiguro, taking you by the forearm.

one could expect everything: lectures, threats, yells, insults, but not an offer to stay alone with him in class. the tone of his voice seemed strange to you. you hesitated. As the students left the classroom, discussing the coming weekend, you had a bad feeling. you stood still, trembling with excitement. my heart was beating like mad so that it seemed as if the megumi standing next to him heard it. eyes darted to the brunet, then to the people leaving the class. the lump in my throat gradually grew, and with it panic grew.

finally, there was no one left in the office except both of you. all the same, without leaving a single millimeter, you watched in awe as the megumi turned the key in the door twice.

his knees shook and his mouth went dry when he tossed the same diary he took out of his backpack onto your desk. The diary didn't look the same as the day before: a bunch of colorful bookmarks stuck out of the pages, and the word "personal" was also crossed out on the cover and corrected to "perverted." somehow that word had a paralyzing effect on you. as if she bared your mind and made you feel humiliated in front of a person who does not leave your head every day.

- Let's start with the fact that it contains a lot of spelling mistakes. - Fushiguro suddenly began.

you couldn't get out a word. spelling mistakes? and that's all you paid attention to? you damn nerd!

- secondly: y/n, - he turned over several pages and pointed his finger at the line "I want to fuck him right now, in this very place, on this very desk ..."

rereading the line over and over again, as if trying to understand the meaning, you felt the brunette come up behind you.

- why should I help you with your lessons, when you yourself write out only your dirty thoughts, and not the words of the teacher?

heck. megumi. did you really close the office just to scold me?

- and thirdly, - he began to press against your back, and his hand lay on his hips, - how can you even feel an orgasm if no one bothered to lead you to this? - his breath was felt on your ears, from which goosebumps ran from head to toe - only those who have it all the time can feel it. when you cum - you feel it. when you think about sex, you are simply sure that it is good and continue. - he removed his hand and turned you to him, bringing his face as close to yours as possible.

- so I suggest that you really experience these feelings right now.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*

#jjk #jjk imagines #jjk x y/n #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #jjk oneshot #jjk megumi #jjk fushiguro

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i-dont-want-your-hysteria · 3 years

Text

Too Daze Gone (Joe x Reader)

(Happy birthday to me! You’re all going to suffer. This is a little something that I wrote over 2 1/2 years ago based on a concept that I thought of three years ago; one of the first ideas I ever had for a Def Leppard fanfic. I made some very minor edits to it ((since I’m not 17 anymore)), and honestly, this is still one of my favorite things that I’ve ever written. But I know you guys are gonna have my head for it later...)

Prompt: It’s December of 1989. You and Joe are recently married, the world has now officially entered the post-Hysteria era, and- well...

-----

December 1989

The soft morning sunlight was seeping through the plane’s window right next to you. Joe’s head was resting on your arm, and you used your opposite hand to stroke his hair soothingly. He had one hand on his stomach, along with his green eyes closed and shut away from the world. The plane was flying steadily now, but your minds were anything but steady at the moment. There was so much to say, but no place or time to say it. It was almost as if you two were having a telepathic conversation; there was so much thinking between you both, yet nothing was being said.

“You alright, Joe?” the voice of a London guitarist broke your attention from the window. He’d strolled over to the seats where you and the man in question were sitting, and let his concern get the better of him.

There was far too much concern going around today, so Phil's question was rather unnecessary.

“Oh, he’s fine,” you answered sweetly, knowing that Joe didn’t want to answer, and also not wanting to give Phil any hint to your invisible nerves, “He’s just feeling rather sick is all.”

Phil sighed, “Ah, yeah, the turbulence wasn't the greatest.”

You decided to go along with Phil’s theory of why Joe wasn’t feeling well. After all, it was believable.

“Yeah, we haven’t been awake that long, either. You know how he can be in the morning. He’s just sick of the day, really,” you lightly joked. Today was not necessarily a good day for jokes. There was a deep, underlying sadness beneath the surface of everybody's tone no matter how much they joked around.

“Oh, so he’s got morning sickness, I see?” Phil joked along, trying to lighten the universally tense mood, “Well, congratulations on the pregnancy, Joe.”

Your heart jumped and you forced a chuckle at the statement. You felt Joe’s heart jump, too.

“Thanks, Phil,” Joe cracked a gentle smile for him as he walked away. You could feel how forced the smile was as Joe slowly reached out and squeezed your hand. He was definitely more worried than you.

“Shh, I know. I’m worried, too,” you whispered to him so quietly that you could barely hear yourself, “But we’ll deal with this later.”

~18 hours earlier~

You weaved your hands together with the utmost anxiety as you waited for Joe to get back from a small trip to the supermarket. As you waited, there was no stopping the racing thoughts in your mind. Once one thought appeared and rooted itself within you, it was impossible to keep it from rolling into a snowball of others. It was driving you absolutely mad on the inside. Keeping calm on the outside, however, came rather easily. It almost felt like second nature at the moment. Of course, you knew that was all going to change the second Joe got back.

Everything was going to change the second Joe got back.

When he did come back, you immediately stood up and went over to him, trying to be casual and lighthearted.

"Hey! How was the store?" came the greeting from you. Your voice was nearly on the verge of breaking from the tension of the whole situation.

"A fucking treat," he grumbled sarcastically, putting four bags down on the table, "The whole bloody place was packed, the service was piss poor, traffic on the way back, you name it."

You kissed him on the cheek for a few seconds in consolation, quickly making his small dimple appear as a result. Normally, it melted your heart to see him smile, but this time, it made it almost vibrate with worry. It hurt to see him happy now, since you knew it wouldn't last long.

He turned and put his hands on your waist, "I suppose it was worth it to get back to you, though."

You wrapped your arms around his neck, quickly pecked him on the lips, telling him, "You're too kind. Now let's see what you've looted up on-"

Desperate to distract both of you from each other, you turned to the grocery bags and started to pull the items out. You did it in a sped-up manner to keep your hands from shaking too visibly. You had no idea when to mention what had to be mentioned.

"I'll tell you what," Joe spoke up, his annoyance still audible in his voice, "The service down there was so fucking slow. Took me a half hour to get four bloody bags worth."

"I'll say you took a while," you impulsively decided to create a segue- any segue- that may get you closer to your fated subject. You blurted out "You’re late."

As he continued pulling out the groceries, he cocked an eyebrow, and asked without looking at you, "What do you mean I’m late?"

"Just, you're late, that's all," you shrugged, the anxiety overwhelming you more. It was getting close to the subject now.

"I'm not late," he chuckled, still not looking up or fully understanding you. You both often liked to joke and tease each other, so this wasn’t anything strange to him.

"No," you stated calmly, going completely motionless with fear, “But I am."

He didn't completely comprehend what you had said. He began to put away the groceries and asked you obliviously, "What do you mean you're late?" Late for what?"

You pressed on, remaining rooted to a motionless state and staring at him, "No, Joe... I’m late."

"You mean that this month you didn't get your-" he started off normally, but then paused as the penny dropped. He froze, and dropped the can he was holding. Your heart sank in your chest at his reaction. Now was the time to talk about it, and you could sense it wasn't going to be pleasant. Part of you began to think that this is how it might end for you two.

He turned around, looking almost mortified and whispered, "Oh my god... are you...?"

"I don't know..." you were shaking now, "I'm just assuming."

For a moment you both stood there, staring at each other, lost for words.

Another impulse suddenly arose within you, and you blurted out again with a wavering and worried voice, "I-I hope I'm not, Joe, and I know you don't want me to be, either, because now is not a good time for this to be happening! You’re at the peak of your career, and we’ve got the new album on the way, then you'll be on tour again- and-"

"Hey, hey, shh," Joe moved forward and put his hands on your arms, "Calm down... it's okay, it's okay. First of all, who ever said I didn't want this? You can't just assume that I wouldn't be okay with it... and I'm not mad- really, I swear! Second of all, this isn't set in stone yet. We'll have to find out if you are first, and if you are, we'll... then we'll make it work out somehow. Don’t think too much just yet; try to relax.”

You blew out a shaky exhale and muttered, “Yeah, okay...”

“Have you been sick?"

"No, but something just feels... off."

"How late are you?"

"About a week..."

"Have you been this late in the past, but gotten your period anyway?"

"Yes..."

"Then we don't know for sure," he kissed the top of your head, embracing you and reassuring, “So what if you're late? That doesn't have to mean anything! I'm worried, too, but we can't just jump to conclusions like this. I wouldn't even put the stakes at 50-50 right now. All this worrying is probably over nothing. You could just be overthinking."

You turned your head and attempted to look up at him to say, "But this is a child, Joe... if there's even a small possibility that this child exists, we've got to assume that it does... we can't just ignore it for too long."

"You've got a point, you've got a point, but just for a second, genuinely consider the possibility that you're not-" he didn't dare say the “p” word, "-you know..."

You sighed into his shoulder, fighting back against tears that wanted to fall, "Okay, okay, you could be right, but there's so much that might have to be done- we can't just put this off..."

"We can until we know for sure," he suggested, "If it's worrying you so much right now, then I'll run out to the corner store and pick up a test. We can sort this out once and for all. How long did you wanna wait before taking a test?"

"I don't know, I don't know," came the drawn out reply as a few tears spilled from you, "Maybe a day or two or three, but I'm just getting so worried that it might be true, I can't wait anymore."

"Okay, then you won't have to wait anymore," he tilted your chin up to give you a quick and thoughtful kiss, then wiped away your tears, "I'll run to the store quick and buy us a test. Is that okay?"

"Yes, please just do it. I'm sorry- you just got back from the store and-"

He laughed and squeezed you tighter, swaying with you in his arms, "Ah, don't worry about it; it's a necessary trip now."

"You're taking this a lot better than I thought you would."

"What'd you think I was gonna do? Leave you?" he chuckled lightheartedly, though he guessed exactly what you were thinking.

You faked a chuckle in reply, "Yeah, kinda... I had a lot of time to overthink everything."

"Well, would you leave me? Especially if I were in your shoes?"

It was your turn to squeeze him tighter (and laugh into his chest), "Joe, if you were in my shoes, I think we'd have a real problem."

"Oh, I know, I know- but apart from that- would you leave me?"

"Of course not..."

"Exactly. You wouldn't leave me, so I definitely won't leave you. You know we've always looked after each other, and I still plan on holding up my end of the bargain."

He kissed you again, longer this time, before softly assuring you, “I love you. Don't ever think that I’d abandon you to raise a child on your own, cos' it'll never ever be a possibility. I'll be here no matter what. Positive or negative."

***

Positive or negative, indeed, you told yourself as you wearily gazed out of the plane's window. You still weren't completely sure how to feel about the outcome of the previous day, but- as you told Joe before- you had to deal with it later. There were more pressing matters currently at hand. Your previous issue could wait for an extra day or two. The more serious problem that you all were on your way to currently needed the most attention. This particular problem also seemed to outline a theme for the past 24 hours; accidental life or accidental death.

~17 hours earlier~

You both sat on the bathroom floor in quiet anxiety. Your hands were joined in a world of worry. At the moment, it was impossible to tell who was more worried, since neither of you could bring yourselves to speak.

The longest two minutes of your lives were currently taking place. The test was sitting on the counter of the sink, and neither of you were counting down to when you could look at it again. Every now and then, a reassuring thought would come to mind that you were all worked up over nothing. After all, Joe was right; you barely had any evidence other than the fact that you were late, so you couldn't just assume the worst. On the other hand though, you couldn't help but feel that there was some impending doom about to come, almost like you felt it instinctively.

With you both being scared shitless at the moment (and not even trying to hide it), you sensed that deep down, both of you knew what the result was going to be. Neither of you wanted to admit it, though.

A few rooms away, the phone suddenly sounded off, shattering the tension and making you both jump. It was almost like a form of divine intervention to prevent you from thinking any more. Almost immediately, Joe lifted his hand away and quietly said that he'd answer it. He stood up and left, leaving you alone with a possibly huge revelation sitting on the counter a few feet away. However, that would no longer be your biggest concern, for you could easily overhear Joe talking on the phone.

"'Ello?" he answered before pausing and replying anxiously, "No, I really don't have a minute... I can't say, but I don't have time to chat. You alright, mate?”

There was an unnerving pause before you heard Joe ask, "Why?"

There was an even longer pause before he spoke again. Your heart was pounding more. That gut feeling that your lives were about to change for the worse grew enormously without warning. On top of that, you suddenly realized that it had been well over two minutes at this point. Your future awaited you now.

"Fuck... oh my god..." Joe's voice was a lot more quiet now, "...oh my god, is he...?"

Now, you began weaving your hands together, slowly growing more and more impatient and worried.

"Dammit," Joe said a little louder, "We'll we've gotta go, then. We've gotta go as soon as possible. What about Rick and Sav...? Alright, then. We'll meet you there tomorrow morning- I've really gotta go and tell Y/N right now. I'll call you in a bit. Yeah, alright... just try and calm down, mate- okay? See ya, then."

As soon as he hung up, you heard him rush back to the bathroom.

"Y/N, he huffed before he was even in the room, "Y/N, something's happened and we’ve gotta-“

He froze in the doorway upon seeing you now standing and completely covering the test in your hands.

"No," he moved forward and put a hand on yours, "Please don't look at it yet; something awful's happened and I don't know how much sudden news we can take at this point. Did you look at it?”

You shook you head, not breaking eye contact with him, "No, but now I'm too scared to take my hands off. What's happened?"

He came right out with it, "Steve's been found unconscious at a bar in Minneapolis. They took him to a hospital, he’s in intensive care and... and he’s pretty bad.”

Right then and there, you dropped the test in your hands with a gasp. You were speechless, but part of you couldn't help but ask, "Is- is he gonna make it?”

You suddenly saw tears in Joe's eyes when he answered, "I don't know... he won't die unless we knock some fucking sense into him! That was Phil who just called, and he sounded scared shitless..."

"W-well what are we gonna do? Is anyone going to see Steve?"

"We are. Tomorrow morning we're flying out with Phil, Mutt, Tony, and Peter."

"Wait, what about Rick and Sav?"

"They both can't make it on short notice. We're gonna have to give Steve a beatin’ over the head from them.”

Just like that, you forgot all about the test on the floor. Steve was dying, and that was enough to flood your mind. You wanted to cry, you wanted to hug Joe, you wanted to scream, and most of all, you wanted to see Steve and sob your brains out to him.

"He's never gonna get better, is he?" you quietly asked, not particularly looking for an answer. Joe shrugged and sighed, running his hands through his hair.

He coldly chuckled in a quiet voice, "Not unless we keep drilling it into his head that he's gonna kill himself!"

Hanging your head out of astonishment, you sat on the counter, realizing that this was the biggest blow to your lives since Rick’s accident.

At least, it would be until you saw the result of the test on the floor.

"Joe..." you whispered to him, staring down at your hands, "Should we look at the test? Should we wait until we get back?"

Joe did nothing more than stare at you, frowning nervously. He moved his own hands forward, placed them on top of yours, and took a deep breath.

“We’re only gonna be more worried if we wait... so we might as well settle things now.”

Joe slowly got on his knees, and felt on the floor for the test without looking at it. When he located it, he rose back to his feet, and brought the test forward. He kept it covered with all his fingers wrapped around it to conceal the verdict.

Blowing out a trembling breath, you looked at him as he did at you, and he gently unfolded his fingers from the test. You both simultaneously looked down to see the clearly marked result. In that second, you were fairly certain that life would never be the same.

In fact, you were positive.

***

“Now is literally the worst possible time to talk about this, Joe,” you whispered again so no one else on the plane could hear, “It can wait a day or two. We’ve got to worry about Steve first."

Joe nodded a little, agreeing with you, “Okay, I suppose it can wait.”

“Don't stress yourself out so much; it's literally making you sick. Besides, I’m the one who’s supposed to be sick,” you chuckled, “That’s not your job.”

“Oh shut up,” he laughed a little, “It really is the turbulence… and the fact that Steve’s… and you’re… and I’m surprised you’re not this overwhelmed.”

You sighed and turned your head towards the window, “Yeah... I’m really surprised, too. This is gonna be one hell of a story to tell this kid when they’ve grown up...”

“I feel sorry that their story had to start out like this,” Joe put another hand on top of your already joined hands with a guilty exhale, “With such bad timing...”

As you watched the illuminated clouds move on by the window of the plane, you couldn’t help but think that things truly would be okay at one point: like that maybe this wouldn’t be such bad timing after all. Things would all work out eventually. How far away that merciful checkpoint was, you’d never be able to guess.

***

Later that day, you found yourself sitting in a circle of people in a rather pleasant-looking and sunlit room. For such a nice day that it was, nothing about the day seemed to fit the mood the weather provided; the universe simply wouldn’t allow it. Now was the time for the serious matter you came for; you were desperately trying to help Steve.

“Steve, you’re scaring the shit out of us,” Phil read bluntly from his letter to his best friend, trying not to let soft emotion seep into his tone. He knew he needed to be stern, but caring towards him.

The whole time he spoke, you wanted to devote all of your attention to him and Steve, but soon found that you couldn't. The constant thought of your unborn child was first on your mind, and although you didn’t want that taking over your thoughts, it was beginning to eat you alive. You almost felt like you couldn't hold the secret back any longer, despite only knowing for a day. In any other circumstances, it would have been so much easier to keep it secret. Today, however, was the worst possible day, with the worst possible scenario.

Every now and then, Joe would look over at you to see how you were doing, and turn back to not be conspicuous to everyone else. You could practically sense his growing worry. Going on in this manner for so long was starting to make your own unstoppable thoughts bubble to the surface. You couldn't hold out for much longer, and was even starting to think outside the box about your while situation. Was being with child really a problem? Did it have to be a bad thing right now? Could you actually find a way to rip some positivity from it all and shed some light on this situation?

That's when it hit you.

When Phil was done his speech, some silent tears were shed by everyone in the circle (including Steve). Near silence commenced afterwards (which only reminded you that there was no distraction from your thoughts now). You reached out to Joe slowly, and took his hand in a tight grip without looking at him. While you felt his eyes on you, you didn't dare look at him.

"Has anyone else got something to say to add onto that?" Peter softly asked, looking around the circle. Your heart began to pound; an opening for you was coming.

Phil slowly began to comment, looking at his feet, "Well, there's nothing I can say to get the point across any more. We can beg and plead all we want but the point still stands, Steve. I know you're not a fan of us guilt tripping you to hell- but we don't want to beat you up; that’s not what we came here to do. We love you, mate... so it doesn't matter whether or not we guilt trip you by saying we're worried sick, or- or..."

"I'm pregnant," you stated simply, closing your eyes and squeezing Joe's hand. While you didn't see it, you felt Joe inhale and look at you instinctively. For the single day that you were aware of your condition, you and Joe had feared the "p" word, and avoided using it at all costs.

Phil didn't entirely comprehend what you said, and kept talking on, "Exactly, even if we said that-"

"No-" you sat up in your seat and opened your eyes, now shaking again, "I mean... I'm pregnant."

You looked over at Joe, who seemed tired, yet understanding. Your eyes went down to his hand as you corrected yourself, "We're pregnant."

All eyes were on you now, but no one had any inclination to speak for a moment.

“Are you serious?” Mutt broke the silence in astonishment, “You're fucking with us right now, aren't you?"

“She’s not,” Joe shook his head, still fixing his loving eyes on you.

Steve looked at Phil and stated coldly, "I thought you said you guys weren't gonna make stuff up to guilt trip me."

"Does it look like I'm making this up?!" you snapped at him, anxious and shameful tears brimming your eyes. You looked around at everyone, landing your eyes on Steve.

"So you're serious?” he asked softly, frowning as he flicked off ashes from his cigarette, “You really are pregnant?”

You nodded, trying to hold yourself together.

“When did you find out?” Peter inquired gently, coming off as the most calm member of the group.

Your voice began to break as you told him with a sad chuckle, “Yesterday... we were waiting for the result of the test right when you called, Phil...”

Phil's eyes lit up at your statement, and he apologized, "Oh- fucking hell... Joe... you even said you didn't have time to talk... and what I said on the plane this morning- must've only made things worse... guys, I'm so sor-"

"That wasn't your fault, mate," Joe smiled sadly, "There's no way you could've known."

"It was just bad timing," you stared at Joe's hand in yours, feeling him shaking as well.

No one spoke for a while after that; no one could think of the right thing to say. It seems you both had scared them all into silence (even more than Steve had). Everyone in the circle couldn't speak because they no longer saw you and Joe the same way. A minute ago, you were still Y/N and Joe. Now, you were mum and dad. The others didn't know how to speak to those strange new people just yet.

“Well, congratulations, for one thing,” Tony broke the silence with a soft smile. A few muffled chuckles and agreements went around the circle, but it wasn’t what you or Joe wanted to hear.

“No, no, that’s not the point,” you threw your hands out in frustration, “We never even planned on telling anyone today! Don’t you guys see how suddenly life can come and go? Twenty-four hours ago Joe and I didn’t even have a child, and now we do. Twenty-four hours ago, we didn’t even think that there was a possibility of you dying-“ you pointed at Steve, giving him your own furious input, “-and now there is. It’s just all so surreal, but no matter how bad the timing of your life is, there’s always time to fight for survival. And that's exactly what we need to get a grip on right now.”

Steve put out his cigarette at this point, looking as if he were genuinely listening to you now more than ever.

“And I guess timing was a real bitch to us today,” you put a hand on your abdomen for the first time since you found out, addressing Steve directly, “But I’d say now you’ve got a little bit more to fight for. Just think about this whole situation; it’s not exactly a tale to be proud of. If this story keeps getting worse, and this is how it ends for you- I don’t want that to be the story of Uncle Steve. I want our child to be born into a world where you're thriving- where they... where they actually have an Uncle Steve."

You had hit a nerve (or a soft spot, to say the least). Before you even realized exactly what you had said, everyone in the circle was crying, including you and Steve. Joe looked at you with his face smothered in tears, but smiling, no less.

The seven of you remained like that for a minute or two, absorbing what had really hit everyone hard, and quietly crying your brains out.

Steve didn’t raise his head to ask you with heartfelt astonishment, “...Uncle Steve, really?”

“C’mere, you fucking idiot,” you sprang to your feet at one point and rushed over to him, taking him in your arms as he stood to take you in his without the slightest bit of hesitation.

“I love you so much, Steve,” you sobbed into his chest, “And I will always care about you. You mean so much to me, and I know you’ll mean so much to the baby, too.”

One by one, everyone else in the circle joined in the hug, each of them murmuring their love to Steve in their own affectionate way. Once you were all broken up, Joe embraced you himself and kissed you over and over again.

“Hey, back off from her,” Mutt teased, “Haven’t you done enough?”

“I still can’t believe you knocked her up,” Phil sighed with happy disbelief, “That’s something we only ever joked about!”

“Yeah well, it doesn’t have to be seen as a joke anymore,” Joe put his hands on your hips and smiled, tearing up all over again, “I’m gonna be a dad...!”

Peter chimed in, “Now that’s a bit scary.”

“It’s not scary,” you chuckled, stroking the back of Joe’s head, “It’s exciting! Timing is a bitch... but I think I’m ready for anything time can throw at me, now.”

Reaching that point of acceptance was a day-long journey that you thought would never have a final destination. All was nearly well in that moment where you and Joe hugged with a seemingly-changed Steve standing by. Right then and there, the future seemed bright for everyone; including your unborn child. An eternity went by in those two days you were gone for, and even though the next day you found out that your test result was a false positive, and Steve only lived for about another year, that false positive seemed to be just what you all needed to keep the world at bay.

The end

#*dances with an umbrella as your tears rain down on me* :3DD #your tears are the best birthday presents i could ask for #def leppard #def leppard fanfic #def leppard x reader #joe elliott x reader #original content #i honestly don't know if I'll ever write anything that can top this as far as a one shot goes #phil collen #steve clark #peter mensch #mutt lange #i thought of this when I was into Leppard for like 2 months #maybe less than that #also the pic of joe on the right really makes me fEEL THINGS #yes i stole the title of this from a Billy Squier song #i started writing this on august 13th 2018 and finished it on december 9th 2018 #I wanted to post this in december 2020 but I was taking a hiatus

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4aloysius-porteu · 3 years

Text

i really wish i hated you || tsukishima kei

masterlist | 1 | 2 | chapter 3

pairing: tsukishima kei x f! reader

sypnosis: It was an accident that (Y/N) met a certain tall, blonde male; a memory she isn't fond of remembering, but it is where it all started. And ever since, she magically makes her to his path. The image of the bespectacled man dwelled in her mind more than she thought. Tsukishima pushed away his softer emotions and denied their existence, or at least that's what he told himself. But then, he couldn't believe that this girl he labeled as a clumsy, unlucky creature who smashed his glasses is slowly bringing these strange emotions back to him. She might be irritating and dumb sometimes, but he couldn't get himself to completely hate her. Either that destiny was stupid, or he was blessed or cursed.

genre: fanfiction, fluff

wc: 2.6k

She has met the tall, blonde, and bespectacled male yet again.

"Oh, the midget stalker is here."

"You again?! Seriously, I think it's you who's following me!"

"Hah, what do I get from following an extremely short person like you?" He said, borrowing her words from yesterday.

(Y/N)'s eyebrows creased further in irritation. "Why do you keep mentioning my height?!"

"It was you who started it. Anyways, can you shut up? Do you know that you're in a library?"

She didn't retort back and simply sat on the chair with her arms crossed. It was a fine day then —BOOM— this giant decided to appear out of nowhere. She was trying to forget this person who's associated with some of her embarrassing moments but those just got smashed back to her mind. (Y/N) sighed and pulled a book at the bottom of the stack to start reading, but noticed that the blondie is still standing near the edge of the table, hesitating to sit down while glancing somewhere and back to her.

"What?" (Y/N) frowned.

"Why am I unnecessarily stuck with you on this table?" He sighed, pulling out the chair.

"Because all of the tables here are taken? If you're worried about your glasses being knocked off, don't worry, I won't do anything reckless anymore."

"That's a nice reassurance," He settled down and brought out his studying materials.

Both of them shared the table in the crowded library. Ignoring the people, between them was a silent atmosphere. No one was talking as they both minded their own studies; he was reading quietly and turning pages of a huge book while (Y/N) wrote key points from the printed work and highlighting her notes. Sometimes, the other would leave to return books to their shelves and came back with new stacks. This went on for a few hours until her pen ran out of ink. She scribbled at the back of her notebook in hopes that the ink just got stuck, to no avail. She sighed, resting her head on the notebook. But she really needed to take down notes for her upcoming entrance exam.

"Hey." (Y/N) reluctantly said.

The blonde male looked at her, confirming if he's being called, "What?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt your business but... do you have a spare pen?"

He stared at her with a straight face and placed his chin on the top of his knuckles, implying his refusal to lend one.

(Y/N)'s mentally gritted her teeth. I'm just going to borrow a pen and he's making it hard for me?!

Swallowing her pride, she said, "Look, I need to finish my notes. I'll return it to you right away when I'm done. I promise. Please?"

He scoffed as brought out a pen, "An inkless pen is all it takes for you to become a less lively puppy? You better keep your promise."

A puppy?! "You didn't need to compare me to a puppy but, thanks."

She continued her work but her focus was a bit shaken. This happens whenever she's interrupted or took a break away from writing. Soon, her focus vanished and boredom took over. She tried to read a book to review ideas but her brain won't cooperate. She groaned, her head and arms fell to the table again. The blonde saw but chose to ignore her.

She closed her eyes for a second, however, her gaze fell to the blank paper in front of her face. Her hands are itching to do something other than reviewing and writing, so she put down the pen she borrowed and took a pencil out of her pocket. She placed a pile of books near her notebook so that the male won't notice what she's doing. There, she started to sketch the base of the figure.

She would observe the four-eyed guy who's busy reading some sort of article while taking notes. He has a calm expression on his face rather than an irritated scowl or a mocking grin he usually has. He wears a long blazer and probably a long-sleeved shirt inside. His blonde hair is short yet the edges are a bit curly and his upper eyelashes are prominently long. This was the first time she stared at the jerk's face who she kept bumping into random places that irked the hell out of her, but for some reason, she felt that she had seen this person before the accident in the park, albeit she doesn't know where. (Y/N) came to a conclusion; he was a little good-looking.

The girl looked back to her drawing and shook her head at her own ideas. I can't believe I actually thought that this guy is handsome. How can such a mean creature be blessed with such looks?! Ugh, don't mind, (Y/N). I'm only drawing him because he seems like a great canvas subject, it's not like I haven't done this to other people before...

She went on drawing and drew details to the sketch similar to the boy in front of her. To make the drawing more accurate, she stole small glances at him. She kept things low key because it'll be another embarrassing event if he found out what she's doing. She made the lines smoother in one swift move. The hair and clothes' folds are already well-drawn while she focuses on the detail of his eyes and glasses. She was about to shade when the male finally caught her.

"What is it?" He questioned, closing his book with a low voice and creased eyebrows.

(Y/N) froze on the spot. As much as she doesn't like it, she maintained eye contact with him, thinking of the best alibi that he couldn't argue with. Then, she remembered that she doesn't know his name.

"Uhm... nothing. I was just wondering if you have a name." While talking, her finger subtly moved to grab the nearest object it could get to cover her drawing.

"I have, but why would I mention it to you?" He cooly replied.

"It's alright. I'm not asking you to. Unless you want to be referred to as he/him or the tall, blonde glasses guy all the time?" (Y/N) countered.

He silently turned a page before answering, "Well, it's not like we'll meet every day."

"Oh," was her only reply. Looks like he will stay a nameless guy in her head for a long time. She was about to get back to her business when he spoke.

"Tsukishima Kei."

(Y/N) looked at him in surprise. "I'm not going to repeat it." He added.

She smiled, having clearly heard it right away. "Can you tell me how it is written?"

He looked at her to check for ill intentions but found nothing in her eyes. He hesitantly wrote the characters of his name on a piece of paper.

"I'm (L/N) (Y/N), nice to meet you again, Tsukishima-san." She'd like to initiate a handshake for peacemaking, but she knows how he'd only decline it. She wrote her name for him to see as well.

Tsukishima Kei. She repeated in her mind. What a nice name.

With a notebook covering the upper portion of the paper where she had drawn his portrait, she wrote his name at the bottom. She proceeded to the shading and background features. Backgrounds are one of the things she hates in art because it takes too long to draw one compared to the subject itself. Luckily it's only a sketch so she won't have to suffer. Although she doesn't know if Tsukishima had seen whatever she's doing so she's still cautious. She peered at him for the nth time so she could distract his peripheral vision. Maybe to test the social initiative skills she hasn't used for a long time too.

"Uhh, can I ask something?" She started.

"Hm?" He responded without taking his eyes off the page.

"What school are you from?"

"Amemaru Middle School."

(Y/N) hummed, thinking of another question, "Then, what school are you enrolling to? It must be an upper class one since you had to read those large books and all."

"Not really," Tsukishima closed the book, "I plan to go to Karasuno High School. They may not have a difficult entrance exam, but these readings are for decent grades and some stock knowledge."

"Decent grades, huh... you look like you could achieve more though. I'm pretty sure you'll ace it." She answered, "I was from Kitagawa Dai Ichi. I'm taking an exam in Shiratorizawa soon."

"You're going to that high-class academy? I see, I failed to notice that because you don't look like one. Have fun clashing with other elites there."

"Elites? What are you talking about, you still believe there's such a hierarchy?" (Y/N) chuckled.

"There is though. A gap between them and mere humans in terms of skills and power."

"In the end, they're still humans though. Be it numbers, hard work, or some unique strategy, those 'mere humans' you say will always struggle to step on equal levels with those on the highest rank."

Tsukishima only hummed and stared down at her, "Perhaps I was wrong on assuming you're an elite. You're clearly not."

"Are you underestimating me?" She challenged.

"No, I was just saying. Can I ask something though?"

"What?"

"Why are you suddenly talkative?"

She was caught off guard but tried not to stutter, "Me? Talkative? I'm always like this."

"Really?" He raised his brows, totally not buying it.

"Ugh, fine! I'm tired of studying!" She sighed, "I was scribbling some doodles on my notebook because I'm bored so I thought it wouldn't hurt to talk to Mr. Beanpole in front of me. Forgive me and my awkward social skills."

"Your social skills are not bad. I'm just thankful you aren't using the precious ink of my pen for drawing." He said, stacking the books he used.

She gasped, panicked inside, "You aren't looking at my drawing, are you?"

He got up to return the books,"Don't worry, it's none of my business."

She exhaled in relief, spared from another memory of embarrassment. Her eyes followed his walking figure and watched his movements. She looked at her drawing to compare and used her fingers to define lighting. When Tsukishima got back and placed new reviewers on the table, (Y/N) asked him once more.

"Do you ever get tired of studying?"

"Sometimes I take a break, but I can only do that if I have finished everything."

"What a diligent student you are."

"I hardly see any benefit in being dumb and slacking off all the time."

"Eh, I hardly see any benefit in studying Algebra and Calculus. I have a lot of questions. Do you use derivatives in counting money or salary? Do you use trigonometry in dividing pizzas or corn chips? Why do I need to find the limit of a function if numbers are infinite? Why do I need to get the formula of a certain point in each line or curve I draw on the graphing paper? What is the correct answer for?" (Y/N) complained.

Tsukishima looked at her blankly, doubting her chances of passing the Shiratorizawa's board exam. "I couldn't argue with that, I'd rather read a book composed of words than formulas, but you don't have a choice. Although, if you plan to be an engineer or something, that'll be a different perspective."

"No, thanks, I won't eat math books for breakfast. Other subjects are interesting enough to keep me awake in class, but numbers don't really entertain me."

"Then, what do you do?" He asked, writing on his notes.

"Not much. I just draw, paint, listen to music, and watch anime."

He let out an amused hum, "How about you? What do you do other than to study?" (Y/N) asked.

"I play volleyball, listen to music, and read narrative books."

"Volleyball? So that's what your height is for! I thought it's just for cleaning and reaching high places."

"That's rude."

"If I am, what do you call yourself? Besides, I don't want to make wrong assumptions."

"You just did."

"...right. I'm sorry."

The sense of familiarity took over (Y/N)'s brain, telling her that she definitely had met this Tsukishima guy before. Her face scrunched a little, trying to search her memories and connect the dots. Her eyes found his face again.

"Why do you keep looking at me?" His eyes narrowed, his annoyance towards the girl slowly rising.

"I HAD met you somewhere... before that accident, where did I see you?"

He was about to say something when (Y/N) stopped him, "Shh, I'm thinking."

He crossed his arms and frowned at her. Volleyball, Amemaru MS... She was about to say it but Tsukishima spoke first.

"Were you one of the audience who watched the middle school volleyball inter-high a year ago?"

"I was! Wait, you remember?"

"That was the only place where I could find someone from Kitagawa Dai Ichi." He confirmed.

"Correct. I was a part of the school paper where I was assigned in the sports category. I took a picture of you when my senior was interviewing you! You were the tallest middle blocker in the games! How could I forget that! So that's why whenever you irk me, it was familiar!"

"How am I annoying you? Aren't you the one who kept on talking right now?"

"I've figured out that there's no kind bone in you. And the way you keep on stuffing the spikes from the opposite team. It was never-ending that they didn't have a chance to score properly." She pouted.

"What do you expect from a middle blocker? It was my job to block spikes."

"You could've gone easy on them."

"The game would lose it's sense if that's the case."

"Fine. You're not wrong." Their conversation was cut short after she ceased talking. At least she found out where she first met Tsukishima. She finished the portrait sketch. Grinning, she believed that she captured his features accurately in her drawing. She'd like to hold it near him and compare to make sure though. Satisfied with her work, she went back on turning pages.

"So, you've finally decided to continue to study?" Tsukishima prodded.

She smiled, "I guess. Thank you for talking to me. That was a great stop."

Both of them worked quietly, but now, the irritation they felt towards each other lessened. After some time, a person in the speaker announced that the library will be closing before 6 pm. Tsukishima returned all the books he borrowed and packed his things.

"You're going home?"

"I don't want to come home late. You aren't finished with your notes yet?"

"Yeah, maybe I'll leave five minutes before six."

"Alright. I'll get going now." He swung his bag over his shoulder.

"Hey, wait! Your pen!" (Y/N) abruptly remembered seconds after.

"I don't need it anymore. It was useful, apart from its close on running out of ink."

"But it's yours and you told me to keep my promise!"

"Whatever. Keep it or throw it." He walked out and wore his headphones, having no intention to listen to anyone.

She sighed and checked the ink. More than half of it is gone, but she can use it again if she wishes. (Y/N) placed her fist to her cheek while writing.

Random Tsukishima Kei facts:

In the second prototype chapter (unserialized, one shot, the first idea of the author on how haikyuu will go) Tsukishima was a second-year, which was changed in the serialized version where he's a first-year. His initial height in the prototype chapter is 184cm, a little shorter than his official height (190.1cm). In an extra sketch, Furudate commented, "Tsukki and Tanaka being in the same year would spell chaos!

#haikyuu!!#tsukishima kei #haikyuu tsukishima #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu angst #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu fluff #kei tsukishima #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei x reader #haikyuu headcannons #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu headcanons #tsukishima imagine #tsukishima scenarios #tsukki

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yuukannahito98 · 4 years

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The end of my journey...

Okay, after a journey that I had traveled for 6 years, I arrived at a state where I would end everything. Even though I was so ready, so ready if I had to write the ending of this story as MaouxChiho, I never thought it would ended so much worst like this.

Not only disappointed with vol 21, I even like being slapped. It's not about whether I've read the whole novel or not, but even I don't want to know the full volume like this. and for me, who always believes in the stories made by Wagahara, believing that he will be the person who will make the main character live happily, I felt so betrayed. Wagahara is the person who always makes Emi a character who has serious inner heart problems than the others, but it turns out that he will also be a person who only uses those as bait.

Not because of maouemi. No. Not because of that. It was because when even I found out that Emi, one of the main characters, one of our favorites, ends up like this. Like an item that has only been used. No proper ending, no proper happiness, no proper confession, and still doing everything even if that must to sacrifice her own feelings to the one she love.

Wagahara was great. Really great. can make other people fall in love with the character, but willing to destroy the character in the end. Which makes the reader can do nothing but accept.

When I reread all of my posts on this tumblr, I didn't know what to do, so I laughed. Large, enormous. It's not us who make it up, even if we didn't thinking anything, all of that affectionate words from that damn demon, Wagahara's words, that were uttered by him when he described Emi's feelings, turned out to be all just anglers.

Not only that, the plot in vol 20, which can be said to be very beautiful, as if all of it was just a fishing rod, a commercial tool. And then after faith in 2 years waiting the series, suddenly wagahara gives a very different version of every character except Emi and Alas-ramus, at the end of the story. I even feel sick. what's with this ending ?!

Maou and Chiho, really, I am so happy for you both. You guys deserve each other..

I didn't even think he could turn Maou into someone we really hates in volume 21. As for Chiho, I am so done with her. There's something wrong with her. there is no way some highschool girl who dreamed her love will be a man with harem while she still at a first place from that harem. And not only that, suggesting your friend, Emi, to be the one of that harem of the man she loves. Yeah, some kind of sick selfish pleasure.

Not only that, at the end, the person who was going to Maou to go outside (apparently it was not a date, but it was also very confusing till Lunacain surrendered) it turned out to be another random woman, a person we don't even know who, but that person was often in history call of Maou. Can't you believe it? After all the feelings and developments that had occurred between Emi and Maou, Maou finally chose one person who he would easily forget and didn't even know about her plans to leave at all and just was about to go focused on other random women. No wonder Kaori (Chiho's friends) upset. Can't you believe? I'm so done. ah, but ... anyway, Chiho said she didn't mind sharing, right? Did you see how perfect this couple would be?

Oh my, what kind of bullshit is that? What kind of love is that? As an ex-shipper of maouemi, as a person who has followed, and analyzed their relationship in 6 years, to know the ending with Maou having this kind of shit relationship with .... I don't even know with who anymore, it's really a big slaps.

How wonderful Wagahara could be...

You know, Even Emi, can't express her feelings directly to Maou. Instead Chiho was the one who had to say that to Maou ... what was that. I'm okay if from the beginning of their relationship there was no progress at all, but even Suzuno got rejection and recognition, what happened to Emi?

And then Wagahara still have the gut to give us that kiss, no what's the point of it? If wagahara plans to get Maou and Chiho together, why do you bothered to write Emi only to make her feels hurt in the end? Do you hate Emi all this time? Is this your true feelings? Are all the feelings you wrote about Emi's character just a trap? No. Is that how you really feel? Do you really think that seeing Emi destroyed is very interesting? to the extent that you leave Emi and Alas-ramus, while other characters have their own good ending. Even the relationship between Chiho's friends, who I don't even know their name, get a happy ending (wait, there's something between them? who is that again?) maybe their scene is only 1 sheet or several lines anyway.

I can't believe I walked in and played on other people's traps for 6 years. I can't believe I didn't see this happening, the fact that there was a chance that Wagahara would end up giving Emi and Alas-ramus a bad end. Even worse than the end of the harem. no, much worse.

Hataraku-Maousama is the first series that has made me like this. Create analysis, content, publish it, write fanfic which has now been read by thousands of people, getting dozens of reviews. Makes me save up and ready to buy all the books. But it ended up with me being completely let down, didn't I.

No. I don't care about ship at all. but because I found out how unfortunate this main character will end. Why don't you make Emi and Alas-ramus live on Ente Isla happily? No. You can't do it, because you're also confused about Maou and Alas-ramus and Emi relationship that you've built for more than 8 years. Even Chiho also said that right? that we can't see other random man together with Emi, and there is also Alas-ramus. but, by force, you choose this kind of shit ending. Emi wasn't even mentioned at the end of the story. What the hell? Now we will know that Emi will be a young mother who is alone until the end of her life. I am wasting so much feelings just to get this. I am so done.

At the end, this is my last post for Hataraku-Maousama...

Plus, you may also notice that there are some posts on this tumblr that I deleted. I can't guys. this is will be my last post about this series, even there's still anon who asking about Hatamaou, but no. To make it clear, this is the last thing I will post for Hataraku-Maousama.

But you know what? I'm going to make another fanfic. I'll make it up. And no. I won't make a fanfic where Emi and Maou end up together. No, I'm going to make a fanfic (with multiple chapters of course) about Alas-ramus and Emi, where they will live happily and perfectly, with other men, instead of Maou, who only could watches them from afar.

And for the first time I'm not doing this for Wagahara and this series, no. I do this so that at least, people who share the same feelings with me will feel a little justice. Thank you for ending this story Wagahara, now we will take Emi and Alas-ramus away. Since you didn't even mention her till the end of stories, then I guess you can't complain on this one.

Wagahara, you can deal with all those 145 haters on twitter, even if you said to rewrite your volume, no I wouldn't be that easy to believe you anymore.

So, beside about my fanfic, I'm not going to write anything more about Hataraku-Maousama again. I will only focus on the next story that I will follow, namely Dr Stone and Spy x family.

Even if I find a better story in the future, Emi Yusa will still be my only and only one favorite heroin...

So guys, for Emi, I'm going to start this fanfic. A fanfic where the lives of Emi and Alas-ramus improve after the appearance of another man in their lives, to the point of making Maou jealous but helpless to approach them again. because why not? Maou could easily forget about Chiho and go out with another woman in vol 21, being jealous of Emi and Alas-ramus is not a difficult thing.

So, in September, I will start making this fanfic.

The Hero and Her Child: Together Reaching Their Happiness

So, I'll say it from now on, in that fanfic, Maou won't end up with Emi, he will just be a character who might be as in Emi's position in vol 21? Or so much worst. And of course the character who will become MC in this fanfic are the character that appear on LN as well.

With the title:

The Hero and Her Child: Together Reaching Their Happiness

Coinciding when vol 21 ended, Emi's daily life with her daughter, Alas-ramus, became a little different after Alas-ramus entered her elementary school years. She, who saw the loneliness in her mother's eyes, tried to fill the emptiness in her mother's heart. One day, Alas-ramus's meeting with someone from the past changed their daily lives. But who would have thinking, the person who Alas-ramus thought would not interfere, instead became a great opponent she had to deal with! This is a story about the relationship of a mother and child!

And even though I'm still not sure about it....

A fanfic which I took from Hataraku-Maousama Highschool manga series; I will try to continue update that, since there is nothing wrong with the ending, and it is not a work by Wagahara either, so maybe I will continue it!

So for those who expecting maouemi, that's the last thing I can do. And I am not even sure, I'll updated that fanfic series where Maou and Emi in the Hataraku-Maousama highschool manga.

Because in that story, Maou is still a completely a nice person right?

Afterwards....

I'm sorry, friends, I love Alas-ramus and Emi too much, I don't want them to end up like this in the main series. But I am so done with Maou, I don't want to let him (hataraku maou version of vol 21) even to touch them. So I am sorry but I will not change my opinion about this, I hope you understand.

And also, thank you for your supporting me in this story, and sorry if I've led people to a false hope.

Thank you again for you guys who always be with me and the other Emi's fans! And please wait for the next content about Spy x family as well as Dr. Stone!

For this, I will say I am no longer fans of maouemi pairing in Hataraku-Maousama LN anymore. And I am not Hataraku-Maousama LN series fans anymore. Because of that, let's continue a new pages together as Emi's fans and Spy x Family, as well as Dr. Stone fans!

Bye, Minna! I will see you in the next time!

*Illustration from Mangaka of Hataraku-Maousama and no. I won't continue reading that manga as long as that Wagahara still meddling it plots

Edit: I am sorry guys. As what I said before, this is will be the last post for Hataraku-Maousama. Because of that, for everyone who sending me a questions, I won't answer any of them. Hope you guys understand. Thank you very much. 🙋

Edit again: Okay guys, I know it's very disappointed about Wagahara bait us and even still use this pairing as commercial reason. But please, if you want to give your opinion, don't use any harsh or rude comments such as death threats or something like that. or worst, even sent it to another illustrator from their new series. I read a review on bookwalker Japanese, even when they're unpleasant with the ending as well but they still use an appropriate words. there's a law for it and if Wagahara take it seriously, you will get a law for it. You must believe me I am understand your feelings, but please don't go too far. If you want to give your opinion, that's your choices I can't tell you what you must to do because I know you have a rights to so so, but please just at least use an appropriate words if you want to send it personally at Wagahara. Thank you and I hope we can get over and forget about it as soon as possible. 😧

#hataraku maou-sama!#hataraku #hatamaou #emi yusa #yusa emi #the last post #about Hataraku-Maousama #I am no longer maouemi fans #Emi's fans till the end #shit ending #vol 21 #thank you minna

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starlit-serenade · 4 years

Text

Along the Red Thread | Chapter 4

🧣 Summary: It is said that a red thread connects people who are soulmates and destined to be lovers, regardless of place and circumstances. What makes this difficult is that you stopped believing in love a long time ago. OR. You go to Korea to visit your father after several years. There, a mysterious red thread that seemingly only you can see shows up when you least expect it, and you meet a childhood friend you’d never thought you would see again.

🧣 Chapter 4: 3,500 words

🧣 Pairing: Reader x Kim Geonhak (Leedo) / Characters: GenderNeutral!Reader; Kim Geonhak (Leedo); Kim Youngjo (Ravn); Lee Seoho (Seoho); Lee Keonhee (Keonhee); Yeo Hwanwoong (Hwanwoong); Son Dongju/Xion; a couple of OCs;

🧣 Rated: T / Warnings: Mentions of divorce (Y/N’s parents); Mentions of abuse (physical); Instances of abuse (non-physical); Mentions of child abuse; Swearing / Genre: Angst; Fluff; Soulmate!AU (Red Thread of Fate); ChildhoodBestFriends!AU; Happy Ending;

《 Boy Group Masterlist // ONEUS Masterlist // Series Masterlist 》

You wake up early in the morning to the sun in your eyes. This room isn't familiar. It isn't your bedroom at home. And it isn't the bedroom at your father's apartment.

It takes you a moment to remember that this is Kim Geonhak's dorm with his group members, and that, after getting in an argument with your father, Geonhak allowed you to sleep on their couch.

You sit up and rub your eyes. You're still wearing the white T-shirt that Geonhak lent you. It's several sizes too big for you, and is very comfortable.

You hear the door open, and suddenly someone emerges from the bedroom door next to the couch. Kim Youngjo, the brown haired man you had met last night, comes out from the bedroom. He's wearing sweatpants and a white T-shirt with a design on the front.

"Oh, good morning," he says. He smiles his warm smile as he moves across the room toward the kitchen. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, I did, thank you," you say.

"Would you like breakfast?" he asks. "I don't make the best eggs out of the group--that's Geonhak--but I'm a close second."

You shake your head. "No thank you. I should probably head home, I don't want to be a bother and overstay my welcome."

"Oh, don't worry," Youngjo says. "We're all happy to have you here. Any friend of Geonhak is a friend of ours. Besides, he really likes you. You must have been really good friends when you were kids."

"He was there for me when no one else was," you say. "From when my father would scream at me and my mother for getting in his way. When my parents would fight and I couldn't stand it. When my parents finally got divorced after years of fighting. He was there for me, as a shoulder to cry on, a second home to stay at. He was my best friend. He was my home," you explain.

"That's sweet of him. I would tell you that he's a warm, sweet and kind person beneath his intimidating appearance, but it seems you already know that," Youngjo says. "And I don't know you well, but if you need any help, I am always open to talk to."

"Thank you. Like I said, though, I should get going. My father might be worried about me," you say. You've already gathered your clothes and put on your coat. "Thank you for letting me stay."

"Thank you for blessing us with your presence," he jokes. He walks over to the front door and holds the door open for you as you leave. "Stay safe on your way home."

"Thank you, Youngjo."

You exit and wave goodbye as Youngjo closes the door behind you. Then you sigh and walk down and out, bracing yourself for whatever you might encounter when you get back to your father's apartment.

The door creaks open and you push into the living room. Besides your light, careful footsteps, there isn't a single sound. Which isn't too much of a surprise. It's the weekend, so Sunho doesn't have school and neither of his parents, your father nor Sooyeon, have work today.

You head to your bedroom, close the door behind you, and plug in your phone to charge. There, you see several texts and calls from your father that you'd ignored from last night, begging you to return.

Last night, you had not felt safe at all. You'd wanted to stay at a hotel, but none were open. Perhaps you should stay at a hotel for the rest of your stay here in Korea. Maybe you would be--or at least feel--safer at a hotel.

As you start packing your stuff, suitcase on your bed with clothes folded inside, you don't hear the footsteps in the hallway. What you do hear is the door opening behind you. You turn around again and see your father, dressed in his work clothes, standing in the doorway.

"Y/N, where have you been all night? Your Eomma and I were up until midnight waiting for you last night," he says. His eyes drift over behind you, and settle on your suitcase. "Where are you going?

"I was thinking I might get a room at a hotel and stay there until I go home," you say, turning back to the suitcase, intentionally not meeting his eyes.

"What? Why?" he asks. You don't respond, not trusting your own voice. You're a little afraid that if you try to speak, your voice will break and you'll collapse from the inside out.

"Because of our argument last night?" your father asks, and you're already feeling bad for even thinking about staying elsewhere. "Y/N, are you kidding? It was an argument, leaving last night wasn't necessary--wanting to stay at a hotel isn't necessary!" He pauses. "Look. Y/N. I know that things have been difficult between us for the past few years. But I haven't seen you properly for so long, akd now you want to leave in the middle of your visit? Y/N, be reasonable. Please, I won't yell anymore. I just wanted you to try with your Eomma . . ."

There's a long silence, and you're left to respond to him. You feel so bad for leaving last night. It was unreasonable. It is unreasonable for you to want to leave . . .

You turn around, head hanging. You still can't look him in the eyes, but now it's much more because of shame.

"I'm . . . I'm sorry. You're right," you mumble, barely recognizing your own voice. You feel so small, sounds so small.

"It's alright," you hear your father say. "I have to finish getting ready for work, but how about you finish packing and relax. I'll take you, Eomma and Sunho out to a nice dinner tonight. How does that sound?"

You nod, but you really don't know what you think. Your brain is lagging behind a bit, you almost feel like you aren't in control of your body and mind. You feel lost.

"Perfect. And, do you think you could take Sunho to school today? He was asking about you all night after you left, I think he would want you to take him," your father says. Deep down, you know that this is your father manipulating you to stay through your little, five year old half brother. But on the other hand, you do care about Sunho.

"Sure," you say.

"Great."

Your father leaves the bedroom, and once you hear the door close, you blink and look up. You're back in control, but now you're just confused.

"I guess I'm staying," you mumble to yourself.

You remove everything from the suitcase and put them back where they were before. Really, you're confused about the past few minutes. You walked into this apartment this morning, expecting to leave with your things and get a room at a hotel where you'd feel so much physically and mentally safer. Instead, you have spoken to your father and somehow agreed to stay here.

After you finish folding your clothes again, you sit on your bed and lean with your back against the headboard and grab your phone. You can see several texts from 'Geonhak 🐥'. You click to see what he wrote.

Geonhak 🐥: Hey, where are you?

Geonhak 🐥: Are you okay? Are you safe?

Geonhak 🐥: Youngjo said you went home. I hope you're okay and safe. Please let me know.

Geonhak 🐥: Call me if you can? Let me know if you're ok.

You realize that you’re smiling stupidly at your phone. You're not only happy to have someone to listen to you, but you're also just happy to have a friend back.

You think back to when you two were kids. You would read together. You would play video games together, play on the playset together, despite being too old for it. You would spend hours talking, playing, and just hanging out.

You click the call button, and he picks up the phone almost right away. You wonder if he was waiting by the phone for your call.

"Y/N? Hey, are you okay?" he asks, his voice slightly muffled by the phone, but your heart flutters a bit at the sound of his voice still. "You weren't here when I woke up. I was hoping to maybe make you breakfast or something?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," you say, purposefully ignoring the fact that he wanted to make you breakfast. It's sweet of him. Really sweet.

"Do you need any help getting a hotel? Or do you have that figured out?"

You pause. "I'm staying at my father's apartment."

"But what about yesterday? Didn't something happen? Isn't that why you needed a place to stay?"

"Yeah . . . I talked to my dad and . . . well, he apologized," you say. "He said he wouldn't be like that again."

"But . . ." Geonhak sighs. "Alright. If anything happens again . . . if you need a place to stay, the dorm is always available."

"Thanks, Geonhak."

There's a long pause. You can feel him wanting to speak on the other end of the phone. And you also want to tell him that you can't find the words for.

That while you've agreed to stay here at your father's apartment, you actually would so much rather stay at ONEUS's dorm. You hate it here, and you have no idea why you agreed to stay when you had come back planning to leave and stay at a hotel instead.

"Y/N, I'm worried about you," Geonhak says.

Now would be the perfect time to tell him exactly what you're thinking.

"You don't have to worry," you say. "I'm an adult. I can get a hotel if I need to. And I can call you if I ever need help."

Geonhak sighs. "Alright."

You nod, and are about to wish him goodbye when he speaks again.

"Hey . . . would you like to hang out today? Or tomorrow? Maybe go to the library or something?"

You smile, and almost giggle into your phone. Your cheeks are warm. "Yeah. Sure. I'm busy today, my father wants me to take Sunho to school and then I have some reading to do. But tomorrow works."

"Alright. Who's Sunho?"

"Oh. My dad's kid. My half brother. He's six."

"Oh, cute!" Geonhak exclaims. "Would you like me to come with you to take him to school? I'm good with kids, I swear."

"Aren't you busy?"

"No. My schedule today is flexible."

You smile. "Alright. I can text you my father's address and we'll take Sunho to school. See you soon."

Sunho is clinging on tightly to your hand as you leave the apartment building together. When he saw you after he finished brushing his teeth, he almost burst into tears. You apologized to him for not reading to him last night, until he calmed down and finished getting ready for school.

As you exit the building, you see Geonhak standing further down the sidewalk. His clothes are plain--jeans, a black T-shirt and white overshirt and glasses--so he doesn't stand out too much, but you recognize him right away.

He sees you at the same time and smiles, walking over to you and Sunho. You blink, surprised by how handsome he looks now that it's the daytime. Not that he wasn't handsome last night when you stayed over.

Geonhak bends down in front of Sunho, so that their faces are at around the same height.

"Hi," Geonhak says in such a sweet and gentle voice that catches you by surprise. He holds up his hand for Sunho to hi-five. Sunho does, indeed, hi-five him, and you watch Geonhak's smile widen. "I'm Kim Geonhak," he says softly. "You must be Sunho."

Sunho looks up at you, and you nod. He nods back at Geonhak.

"I'm friends with your sibling Y/N," Geonhak says. "How old are you, Sunho?"

Sunho raises his hands.

"Six? Woah! You're so tall for a six year old. Are you the tallest in your class?" Geonhak asks. Sunho nods. "Cool. I'm going to be coming with Y/N to take you to school. Is that alright with you?"

Sunho nods.

"Great." Geonhak looks up at you with the most adorable smile you've ever seen on his face as he stands up straight.

"I see that you wanted to say hello to Sunho before saying hello to me," you joke. You gently tug at Sunho's hand and he follows you and Geonhak down the sidewalk, toward the bus stop you use to get to Sunho's school.

"I wanted to be friendly with him first," Geonhak explains. "Didn't want him to think I was just some stranger."

You nod.

"Are you alright? Last night was a lot, I think, for you," Geonhak says.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Can we talk about it after?" you ask. You glance at Sunho, trying to signal to Geonhak, not in front of Sunho. He seems to get the message, and nods.

"Right. Sorry." He looks at Sunho and smiles. "Sunho, is it okay if I hold your hand while we walk?"

Sunho nods his head while smiles widely and holds his hand out to Geonhak, who takes it and smiles at you.

"So, Sunho," Geonhak says. His voice is soft and gentle, shocking now that you're used to his deep voice. "What do you like to do for fun?"

Sunho thinks for a second. "I like reading. Y/N reads an English book to me at night!"

"Oh? Do they?" Geonhak smiles over at you, and you swear your heart starts to beat a bit faster. His smile is really . . . lovely. "What books?"

"Y/N reads me 'The Kiss . . .'" Sunho frowns, scrunching up his face while trying to remember. "'The Kissing Hand'! It's in English."

"Oh? I've never read it. Is it good? Do you like it?" Geonhak asks. Sunho nods. Watching the way Geonhak smiles at Sunho is adorable. He's so good with kids, and you can tell he's having a lot of fun.

"Yeah! It's my favorite English book!"

"Oh, I should read it sometime then."

You laugh a bit and Geonhak looks at you curiously. "Geonhak, it's a kids book."

"I'd love to read a kids book," Geonhak says. "Sunho, would you want me to read you a book sometime?"

Sunho nods.

You, Sunho and Geonhak board the semi-crowded bus. You stand, one hand holding Sunho's while the other grips the pole for stability as the bus starts to move. Geonhak stands behind you, his hand holding the pole above yours.

"Did you know Y/N disappeared last night?" Sunho asks. "I got really scared. It was night time and I was scared they were gonna get lost. But they came back this morning."

"Right," Geonhak says, looking at you. "You don't have to worry. Y/N was with me! I made sure that they were safe, and protected them."

Sunho's face lights up brightly. "Really? Thank you for protecting Y/N, Mr. Kim! I was scared Y/N wasn't going to be able to take me to school today."

"Do you like school, Sunho?" Geonhak asks. Sunho nods quickly with the biggest smile on his face. "Do you have friends at school?"

"Yeah!" Sunho says, grinning. "I have my best friend Areum. Areum likes reading too! And also my other friends."

You smile down at Sunho, then over at Geonhak. Geonhak's smiling down at Sunho with the most precious smile you've ever seen. He's got little tiny dimples, you notice. And his eyes are like little crescents because he's smiling so hard.

You shake your head and look back at Sunho.

The bus comes to a halt at the bus stop outside of Sunho's school. You and Geonhak dismount with him, and walk over to the sidewalk. You kneel in front of him and fix his shirt.

"You're gonna have a good day, right?" you ask. He nods, and you hold up your hand for a high five. "Good. Have a good day at school, okay Sunho?" you say.

"Okay!" He nods and high fives you.

"Give Geonhak one too," you say. He walks over to Geonhak, who raises both of his hands and gives him two high fives. Sunho lets out a giggle, and you can tell from the way he's grinning that he likes Geonhak.

You and Geonhak wave Sunho off as he walks the rest of the way to school, joining his friends. You both watch as he walks with them toward the school building, laughing and talking.

"He really likes you," you say, eyes still on Sunho. You can see Geonhak look at you out of the corner of your eye. "I can tell. You made him really happy."

"That's nice to hear." There's a pause. "Do you want to go to get drinks with me?" he asks "Coffee or tea or smoothies?"

You nod. "Smoothies sound nice."

"I know a place we can walk to from here," he says. He reaches for your hand, but stops himself and smiles.

"This way," he says, nodding his head down the road. You follow him as he starts walking, considering what flavor of smoothie you want to get.

"Is Sunho your half brother, then?" he asks, after a minute of silence. You nod.

"Yeah. We have the same father. But his mother is Sooyeon," you explain. "I actually never met Sunho before I visited. He's a sweet kid. I hope that my father treats them better than he treated me and my mom."

Geonhak nods. "About this morning . . . are you okay?"

You nod. "Yeah."

"I thought you were planning to stay at a hotel tonight? But you said you aren't? What happened with that?" he asks. "I don't want to be invasive, so if you don't want to tell me, that's alright."

"No, it's okay. When I went to my father's apartment to pack my stuff, my father confronted me. He apologized, I think. And asked me to give him another chance. He promised not to do anything threatening or aggressive anymore."

Geonhak nods. "He said that a lot when we were kids, too. 'I won't do it again.' 'I'll do better next time.' Forgiving is alright, but if you keep doing it every time, he'll only do it more."

"I know," you murmur. "But I guess I want to believe that now that he has this new family, he's changed."

Geonhak sighs. "That makes sense. Just remember, you can always call me for help, Y/N."

You smile. "Thank you, Geonhak. I . . . really appreciate you letting me stay over last night. Your members were very nice to meet."

"You think so?" Geonhak asks, laughing a bit. "They liked you. I think Seoho would have spent time intentionally telling you every embarrassing thing I've ever done if he could."

"Oh?" You raise an eyebrow at him, grinning evilly. "Well, then I guess Seoho and I have some catching up to do."

He sighs and rolls his eyes. "Whatever. It's not like you haven't seen my embarrassing self when I was in school with you."

You grin. "You were pretty embarrassing back then."

"So were you! There's the smoothie stand."

You both line up for the smoothies, and he helps you decide on which flavor to get and helps you order. You grin at him as he hands you your smoothie.

"You know," you start, "besides last night, you and I haven't really hung out yet. Which is a shame, since we haven't hung out in years."

"True. I'd love to walk Sunho to school with you more, if you'd allow me," he chuckles, sipping from his own drink.

"You're really good with kids," you note. "Or, at least, with Sunho."

"Right. I'm studying early childhood education, so it's only natural that I've learned a bit about how to work with kids."

"That's cute," you blurt out. Geonhak gives you a shy, smiley look, similar to the adoring look he gave Sunho.

"Cute?"

You roll your eyes and nudge him. "Yeah, sure. Cute. Don't let it get to your head, though. Sunho is still cuter than you."

Geonhak gasps, feigning shock, and places his hand in surprise in mock offense. "Really? I'm offended." He chuckles a bit.

You can feel your face heating up from the way he looks at you. You clear your throat and look away. "Uh, yeah. I'd love it if you could join me and Sunho in the mornings, whenever you can. But that's not what I meant."

"Oh?" He tilts his head curiously.

"What I meant was actually hanging out. As friends. Maybe we could go to the library or park or something," you say. "Maybe see a movie."

He grins. "Sure. Have you been sightseeing yet?"

You shake your head. Your father hasn't really taken you anywhere since you arrived. If anything, you've spent most of your time here as Sunho's babysitter and a shopper for Sooyeon.

"No? Maybe I could . . . take you sightseeing?" he offers. You nod.

"I'd like that."

#kdiarynet #oneus #kim geonhak #kim gunhak #leedo #oneus fanfic #oneus fanfiction #leedo fanfic #leedo fanfiction #kim geonhak fanfic #kim geonhak fanfiction #kim gunhak fanfic #kim gunhak fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #myfic

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riverfxle · 5 years

Text

Griffins & Gargoyles | Chapter One

Summary — Y/N had thought she ended the terror that the game caused once she burned the bunker down, which got rid of the items inside, but instead it made everything worse for her. She starts to receive sketches of her friends and takes it upon herself to slip into the role of detective, after promising herself that she would be cautious. Numbers appear in each of the sketches so that's where she decides to start with her investigation.

Smoke boiled through the cracks in the door of the bunker as I stood there, Serpent jacket wrapped tightly around me. I had received so many text from Jughead and I dreaded going home — Dad had burned the only copy of the manual that Jughead received. Ironic seeing as how I burned down the bunker. But fingers crossed that this keeps him from getting in any deeper than he already was.

I decided to head home, trudging through the forest in direction of my bike, being startled by every nosie I heard. I wasn't scared per say of the forest but I was absolutely terrified of what creepiness lurked in the shadows.

My mind wandered to the sketch I found in the bunker, did Ethel draw it? I wondered but I was certain that Ethel Muggs couldn't even draw a tree correctly to save her life. Unless the game suddenly heightens players abilities, which is highly unlikely — or so I hope.

I was yanked out of my thoughts by my phone ringing once again as I mounted my bike. His name came across the screen, I sighed before answering the phone. He won't stop until I do.

"Jughead? Why do you keep calling?"I started with as I got comfortable on my seat, this was going to be a long conversation. "You straight up lied to my face about not investigating the game any farther and suffered consequences so why do you keep calling me?"I continued.

"You told Dad! I cannot believe you!"He yelled making me flinch away from the phone. I had a feeling he was going to blame me, per usual.

"You can't believe me?"I chuckled humorlessly, looking up at the stars. "You're the liar, Jug."

The sound of leaves rustling made me sit up, suddenly alert of my surroundings. I ignored Jughead's ranting and listened to the sounds that indicated that I wasn't the only one here.

"Someone's here."I said quietly into the phone as I carefully stuck the key into my bike. "Jug, someone's watching me."

"Who? Y/N, where are you?!"He demanded, I could hear him rustling around. "Y/N! Where the hell are you?!"He yelled again. I couldn't speak as I watched some weird tree looking thing emerge from the forest, it was at least eight feet tall. The gargoyle king. It had to be.

I didn't wait around to see if he was going to skin me or not because as he went to take a step forward I fired up my bike and sped away from the scary ass tree. What the actual fuck is going on in Riverdale?

Jughead ran out of the trailer and I met him in the middle, sinking into his arms. "Jug... I saw that thing — the gargoyle king, it was watching me and oh my God... What if it was following me the whole time?!"I rambled, tightening my grip on his shirt as my heart pounded against my ribcage, I'm pretty sure I'm on the verge of hyperventilation right now.

"Calm down, Y/N. Let's go inside."He said in a gentle tone, ushering me into the trailer. Betty was sitting on the couch and stood as I sat at the kitchen table. "You're super pale,"She said fetching me a water bottle. "Here, I'll get you a blanket."She ran off to the back room as I laid my head in my hands.

"Y/N/N, what happened?"Jughead asked after a few moments of silence.

"I burned down the bunker. I saw that tree guy and bolted,"I said not lifting my head, I really didn't want to see his reaction. "He had to be following me that whole time. But what I don't understand is why he didn't stop me?"I added as Betty came back with the blanket.

"You burned evidence."Jughead stated as he looked away from me. I know he was forcing himself to keep calm. "You kept the rule book and broke a pinky promise, one of the most serious offenses."I spat back. I didn't trust my twin as much as I used to. Mostly because of when he started dating Betty and hanging out with Archie and Veronica he lied to me all the time, he barely spoke the truth.

"Y/N, we're only trying to figure this out."Betty butted in. "To stop others from dying."

I didn't feel like listening to them anymore so I stood up and made my way into my bedroom, locking the door behind me. I collapsed on my bed and screamed into my pillow, why couldn't Riverdale be normal. Kids shouldn't be killing themselves over games, fathers shouldn't be killing their offspring, and people shouldn't be going on damn killing sprees.

Then there was the sketch, it had something to do with what will happen next and maybe I could stop it before it happens. I spread out the paper on my bed and scanned it, looking for any clue or anything really. I furrowed my eyebrows as I spotted the faintest of numbers in the corner of the picture, 5/17/18. It had to be a date and now I just needed to figure out what happens on that date and what it had to do with Jughead.

A/N: This is my new fic based on a imagine I recently wrote. Thoughts? I actually have lots of ideas for this story.

#riverdale #southside serpents #jugheadjones #riverdale serpents #toni topaz #sweet pea #fangs fogarty #archieandrews #cheryl blossom #veronica lodge #bettycooper

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corvid-knight · 6 years

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Can't Stop Won't Stop

Hoo boy.

Instead of an attempt at a real summary, I'm just going to say a couple things here. One, this is an old fic. Either the second or third homestuck thing I ever wrote. Two, this was written when I was in maybe the shittiest mental state I've ever been in, so like. It's kind of straight out wish fulfillment ("hey I hate my life love me" kind of thing.) (Also I swear things have gotten a hell of a lot better since I wrote this. Like. Don't worry.)

There's self-harm in this.

There's also a rare instance of me writing Dave rapping. I'm still very proud of that even if it sucks.

Nobody dies and there's no blood spilt. I promise.

(Read it on ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14031870)

You are DAVE STRIDER. You're alone in your room, in the dark but for the glow of your computer screen. You're still wearing your shades, though—you always wear the shades, partly because your best bro John gave them to you, partly because you don't like people to see your eyes, and partly because your eyes are hella sensitive to light. Of course, if anyone asks, you wear them because you are the coolest dude on earth.

Not that that's saying much anymore. You, John, Dirk (not your Bro, no matter how much he looks and talks and acts like your Bro he's not), and Jake are probably the last male humans in this universe. And it's your fault, isn't it? You started the game that ended the world.

You push your shades up onto your forehead, rub your eyes, and settle them back into place again.

John's called you a hero, but you're...

You started the game.

You were too afraid to kill your own sleeping self and go godtier.

You were too slow and weak to help your Bro.

You started the game, and that's the one that repeats in your head, all the splintered versions of yourself murmuring it because in everything that you've done that's the thing that haunts you. You invited John into this, you entered as his server player, you were the one who didn't see the danger until it was too late, you were the one who ended the world. You were the one who killed everyone, really, John's dad and Rose's mom and your own Bro, and everything that followed was a result of what you did.

You are anything but a hero.

You shake off the dark thoughts, for a moment at least, and open a new tab in your browser, pulling up the question forum where you left a question. It was simple enough: Is suicide considered either Heroic or Just? In other words, if you're godtier and you kill yourself, will it take?

You went full-on anonymous. Plain black text, no username or anything. Nothing to show who you are.

There's a reply. Five words, in off-yellow text: dont bee a fuckiing iidiiot.

You stare at the words for a moment, then type in a placating reply: It's just a question. Don't get all uptight, dude.

You know who uses that color and quirk, but this forum seems to exist in a half-dozen timelines at once, and you've gotten answers from past and future versions of your friends before, so it might not be exactly who you think it is.

Before you even finish that thought, another message comes up: ii'm not beeing uptiight, youre beeing 2tupiid. death fuckiing hurt2, and the people you leave beehiind get hurt even wor2e.

Your fingers move across the keyboard, spelling out your thoughts and hitting the enter key before you can think about what you're saying: I deserve it, death can't hurt any more than living does, and no one cares enough to be hurt when I do it.

Reading your words onscreen, you realize that you wrote "when" instead of "if." It's really the first time that you admitted, even to yourself, that you're going to go through with this.

While you're still considering that admission, more words come up: 2top. just 2top, ok? ii dont care how much you thiink people hate you. even iif you think there i2 no one out there who care2, there ii2 2omeone, 2omewhere, who wiill cry when youre gone. dont you fuckiing dare hurt your2elf, 2triider.

You puzzle over the last word for a minute before you see that it's supposed to be your name. When you get it, you freeze for a second, then type: I'm not Strider. I don't know who you're talking about.

This time the reply comes back almost immediately: come on dude. we both know ii'm capable of traciing you back, and you diidnt exactly cover your track2. and ii mean what ii 2aiid. iif your hurt your2elf, youre hurtiing everyone who know2 you, and ii'm countiing my2elf iin that. ii dont have enough friiend2 to lo2e another one, dave.

"Damn it," you mutter. "Don't make this about you, Sollux." You type in: You don't know me.

You're about to close the tab and shut down your computer for the night, but before you can move the cursor to the X, another message comes up: 2triider, ii know you better than ii know my be2t friiend. ii know what iit'2 liike to know that your friiend2 are goiing to diie, and have to 2tand iidly by and do nothiing. ii know what it'2 like to 2ee your lu2u2—or parent, whatever—diie in front of you. ii know about your brother, ii know you thiink you kiiled hiim, and ii'm here to tell you that you diidnt.

You hit each key deliberately, but not as hard as you want to: dont talk about bro to me.

You wait for the answer this time, and it does come: you diid nothiing wrong. there wa2 nothing any of u2 could have done to 2ave hiim. to 2ave any of them. ii know, dave.

Your lip hurts from how hard you're chewing on it. It's a stupid nervous habit that Bro trained you out of when you were ten, and you've only started doing it again since he's been gone. You type: Shut up. You don't know anything about it, you weren't there.

The screen stays static after your text comes up, and you stare at it, biting your lip and praying that no more yellow text will come up, that you'll reach the point when you can shut down the computer and walk away. You think of walking into the bathroom, opening the cabinet in the dark and reaching up to the back of the top shelf, feeling around for the still-sealed box of razor blades—

But more words are appearing, under your last ones: ii kiilled my mate2priit wiith my own hands. my lu2u2 diied a2 ii watched. the giirl that could have been my mate2priit 2tepped iin front me and diied takiing a hiit that wa2 2uppo2ed to kiil me. ii wa2 almo2t 2 where you are now, and iit took a hell of a lot of repiitiion2 for my friiend2 2 get thii2 through my thiick 2kull: no matter what you diid or thiink you diid, you dont get to pa22 judgement on your2elf. you are not your own judge, jaiilor, and executiioner. you are not.

You stare at the screen. You honestly don't know what to say to that, what arguements you could use, because half of you can see the truth there.

After a moment, more words come up: 2triider? you 2tiill there?

"How can you know me this well?" you ask, leaning back and pulling your shades off, letting them dangle loosely from one hand, and in the same breath you say, "You don't know shit."

More yellow text comes up: goddammiit 2triider

"I killed everyone," you say, and every bit of your soul believes that statement. You let the shades slip out of your fingers, onto the floor, as you tip the chair back, finding perfect equilibrium and balancing it on two legs. "Every one of my friends, over and over again."

And more: dave fuckiing an2wer me

"I'm worse than useless." You close your eyes. "When I die, at least I can't kill them again."

You'll get up. In a minute, and you do mean in a minute, but suddenly you're tired and you want to sit for a sec. When you get up, you'll go into the bathroom. No need for the lights—you know where what you need is, and you know where the shower is. You can turn the shower on in the dark, that'll wash most of the blood away and make it a little less disgusting for whoever finds you.

Someone shouts—a hoarse inarticulate battle cry—and, from the sound of it, slams a battering ram into your door. Startled, you overbalance the chair. "Shit—" You swallow the rest of the sentence as you hit the floor, bite your lip, and taste blood.

The door's locked, but whoever's pounding on it doesn't seem to care, and after a second blow something splinters. For a moment, even the low light from the hallway is too bright, and you have to blink a few times before you can recognise who it is in your doorway.

Whoever it is short and dark, with nubby horns that almost hide under the artfully messy black hair. Karkat Vantas, you realize a moment before he starts shouting.

"Strider! Fucking answer me!" He sounds angry, he always sounds angry, but there's a current of worry underneath the anger that you've never heard from him before. "Dave!"

"Did you just break my door down?" You sit up, fingering your lip. It hurts, and there's blood staining your fingers when you take your hand away. "Haven't you heard of knocking?"

"You—" Karkat looks past you, higher than your head. At the computer screen behind you. "Fuck..." And he strides across the room and kneels next to you. "Sollux messaged me. He said he was afraid you were going to do something stupid."

"I'm fine." It's a lie, you can hear how bad a lie it is as you say it. You fumble around on the floor, looking for your shades in the faint light from the hall and from your computer. After a second, your hand brushes against them, and you scoop them up. Before you can put them back on, Karkat snatches them out of your hand.

"Don't you fucking lie," he growls, reaching back and setting them on the desk, out of your reach. "Don't you distance yourself like that. What the fuck are you thinking? You can't just die, it doesn't work like that. How the fuck do you think the rest of us are going to feel?"

You wipe your mouth again, and look at the faint streak of red instead of at Karkat. "I'm the reason you can count 'the rest of us' on your fingers," you point out quietly. "You'd be better off—"

"Fucking nooksniffer bulgebrain wriggler," Karkat mutters, and puts his hands on your head, the hollows of his palms at your temples. He pulls your head up, forcing you to meet his strange eyes, shockingly yellow and black with no sclera, framed by shadows darker than his grey skin. His hands are warm, further reminding you how alien he is. "Stop talking like you're fucking expendable. You're a person, not some piece in some cosmic fucking game, and you're not fucking killing yourself."

"I—" You have some arguement, you have it half-planned in your mind, but he runs his hands upward through your hair, like you're some small animal he's petting, and the strangeness of it—the amazing gentleness of his hands, so much at odds with his anger—drives everything else out of your head.

Karkat makes a noise that isn't anything like a word, just a incoherent expression of anger. "What do you humans even do without horns?" he mutters. "I don't fucking get how you people calm each other down. I...fuck." He takes his hands out of your hair—you find yourself oddly sad about that—and sits back on his heels, dragging one arm across his face. When he takes it away, you realize that he's close to tears. "I'm no fucking good at this shit," he says, reaching out with one sharp-nailed finger and wiping a last bit of blood off your lips. "I got fucking lucky last time, one time, and now Sol texts me...he knows how I feel about you, he knows I couldn't stay away and let you..."

"Wh-what?" Something about him is incredibly calming, it always is, even when he's shouting; it's like he's some soothing drug, making you feel like everything is almost all right. But sometimes, you find yourself listening to his voice so closely that you miss what words he's saying. He can't have implied what you inferred. "I don't—"

"You need a moirail, or a fucking matesprit," Karkat says bluntly, "and I wish it was me. And don't give me that 'not a homosexual' shit—number one, it doesn't make any fucking sense, and number two, I've seen how you look at Egbert." He shakes his head, meeting your eyes for a second and then looking down. "You...fuck, I don't know."

"I...this isn't about John. None of this is about him." You feel your face heating up, a blush that you know lights your albino skin like a traffic light. Karkat's right: you look at John, when he's not paying attention, and you had a crush on him, when you met him and before you met him, and you love him and always will, like a brother. But he isn't interested in you as anything else, and you know it, and the peeks that you sneak add up to nothing more than one more guilt to be thrown upon a pile already sky-high. "I never said I was straight—"

"I don't know what that means." Karkat shrugs.

"It means..." Staring at his lowered head, you get an urge to touch him, to feel the heat of his skin, and instead of finishing your sentence, instead of thinking of all the reasons you shouldn't, you reach out and run your fingers through his black hair. It's soft and a little tangled, and as you move your fingers you brush against one of his stubby horns.

Karkat makes a sound like a soft growl, deep in his throat, and his eyes snap up to meet yours. There's pain on his face, pain and sorrow and fear and hope and desire all snarled up together. He reaches out, laying his hands gently against your head again, letting his fingers get tangled in your white hair. He closes his eyes, growling so softly that it can't be called a growl, so softly that he isn't growling, he's...he's purring.

"Karkat," you say, connecting the noise that he's making with his name and forgetting everything in your life except this ridiculous coincidence, this lingual joke across two universes. "Karkat, like a fucking cat, you're a cat, oh my god—"

Karkat lets you go, brushing off your hands as you start to laugh. Fifteen minutes ago you were alone in this room, ready to end everything and force a personal game over, and now you're laughing at a dumb pun that no one in particular created. And that thought makes you laugh harder.

"You really know how to ruin the moment," Karkat grumbles, crossing his arms and looking away from you.

You're still laughing as you lean forward, put one hand under his chin to turn his face to you, and kiss him.

He hesitates for a second, barely long enough for you to fear that you're wrong to do this—and then he wraps his arms around you, pulling you closer and kissing you back.

Karkat tastes like salt and sweetness, like something foreign and exotic, something that you've been looking for your entire life and never found before now. His teeth are smooth as you run your tongue across them, nubby like his horns but wickedly sharp, sharp enough to make you feel like you're on the verge of cutting your tongue, that kissing him is flirting with danger like you'd love to flirt with him. He's growling—or purring—again, and it feels like your head is resonating with it, with him.

You slip your hands up under his shirt, touching his skin. Sliding your hands across his chest, feeling the ridges of his ribs, his heart beating faster than yours ever could.

Karkat moans, exhaling into your mouth, then pulls away. He doesn't let go of you, though. "Wait," he says, and you get an unreasonable flash of pride at how out-of-breath he sounds. "No...no pailing, okay? Not tonight. You...you need something to look forward to, and you need to sleep."

He shifts his grip as you're parsing that sentence, then stands up, lifting you like you weigh next to nothing. The pure shock of it holds you still for a moment—he's tiny, he barely comes up to your shoulders, how can he pick you up this easily?—and then you twist in his arms. "Karkat, c'mon, put me down—"

"Would you fucking cooperate?" The door to your bedroom is ajar; Karkat kicks it open and carries you through, depositing you unceremoniously on the bed. "There; you're down." He flicks on the light, then pulls his shirt off over his head, folding it in a few quick motions and laying it on top of your dresser.

"What are you doing?" You sit up, flicking hair out of your eyes.

"You think I'm gonna leave you alone?" Karkat glares at you, crossing his arms defensively in front of his chest. "And come back tomorrow morning, and find you fucking dead? No fucking way. Move over."

You don't, but he sits down on the bed anyway.

"Karkat—" You stop yourself. Take a deep breath, hold it for a second, let it out again. You don't know why you're arguing with him; you don't want him to go. "Okay."

And you do something that you wouldn't do if it were someone else sitting there, if it were John or Dirk or fucking anyone but Karkat—or if you hadn't seen the oh-so-faint scars covering his chest and back like spiderwebs, only a shade paler than his grey skin. You pull your shirt off, wadding it into a ball and tossing it off the end of the bed. It takes all of your self-control to keep your hands at your sides, to not cross your arms and try to hide what's on your skin.

"Wow." Karkat's tone is soft, not pitying but maybe a bit sad. He touches you lightly with one long-nailed finger, starting at your shoulder and following the tracery downward. "What are they from?"

Usually, you don't talk about your scars. Usually, you don't even admit they exist. Now, you take Karkat's hand and guide it to the worst and most noticable one, the thick vertical line dead center of your chest. "This one's from Jack Noir. When he...stabbed me. Killed me." You move his hand upward, to one running diagonally across your shoulder. This one's thinner, but longer as well, and you can still remember when it happened. "This one, I was sparring with Bro, and one of us fucked up. Probably me." To the other side, lower, a horizontal cut that's faded to almost nothing. "The first time I ever practiced with Bro, I didn't realize that blades bounce, and he...he didn't know I wouldn't know that."

Karkat pulls his hand down to your stomach, brushing his fingers against the close-set ladderwork of horizontal scars there. "How about these?" His voice is unspeakably gentle, so much so that he doesn't sound like the Karkat you know, and you know he already knows the answer to the question.

"Those—" You have to stop for a second. You've never admitted this, not to anyone, and as far as you know no one knows. "Me. Those are from me, okay?"

Every one of those cuts is for a memory of your Bro. After he died, after you knew he was gone, you sat in the dark and you went through your mind, searching out reasons you shouldn't miss him. For every one you found, you cut another line into your skin.

There were so many reasons.

When you turned the light on, you were kind of surprised by how much blood there was.

You're shaking.

Karkat growls in what sounds like annoyance, and stands up. You watch him, afraid that he's going to leave but somehow unable to call him back.

He steps over to the light switch and flicks it off. Your night vision is awful, and as soon as the room goes dark you are, effectively, blind, but you can hear the mattress creak as he sits down.

"Lie down, Dave." That strange gentleness is still in his voice, and as soon as you do what he says he rolls over next to you, putting one arm across your chest like an anchor.

"I'm sorry," you whisper, and you don't even know what you're apologising for.

"You didn't do anything wrong. It's okay. Go to sleep."

"I love you." You don't know why you say that. It's true, but you've never said it to anyone before, not that you can remember; you've always been too afraid to say it.

"Yeah. I love you, too, if it means what I think it does." Karkat sighs. "Go the fuck to sleep, Dave."

And you close your eyes, and you fall asleep, with Karkat lying warmly against you.

You are KARKAT VANTAS, and you can see a little better that Dave can in this darkness, which is to say that you can just make out vague shapes. You watch Dave in the dark, feeling the rythm of his breath slow and stabilize, fall into a calm pattern. He's asleep now, and you can stop worrying. For a minute, at least.

You're not going to leave him here. You're not going to go to sleep, either. Ever since this game started, ever since you first loaded that fucking game into your computer, you've been plagued with intense nightmares. Even before this all started, you had trouble sleeping sometimes; now that you're almost afraid of what waits for you in your dreams, you often stay awake until you physically can't keep your eyes open any longer.

And you don't like human-style beds all that much. Recupracoons make so much more sense.

You run your fingers across Dave's scars again, lightly enough that you won't wake him, starting with the worst one—Jack's—and working your way outward in a widening spiral. His scars show up so much worse than yours—human skin must not heal as efficiently as troll skin. Either that, or Dave's been hurt almost to the point of dying, over and over again.

You don't want to believe that, but you could—Dave looks and talks tough, seems cool and polished, but when he lets his guard fall, he's so fractured and fragile that it hurts your fucking heart. He's like no one you know; if he'd been a troll, he would have either been culled by now or been selected to train as an elite soldier. You'd like to believe the latter, but you honestly don't know.

And he's not a troll, anyway. He's human, uniquely beautiful and alien, different from you and from everyone you've always known. He is like a reflection of yourself in a cracked mirror, like the other half of everything you are.

You're barely awake, at this point. The realization alone should be enough to banish sleep, but all you can find the energy to do is mutter, "Fuck it," and squirm a little closer to Dave.

His skin is cooler than yours, you think as you close your eyes. Like a highblood's, or maybe not a highblood...Terezi? Equius? Not Gamzee, if you remember right (which you might not; it's been so long since you've touched Gamzee, and that though brings a pang of guilt), warmer than Gamzee's skin but only by a little...

You're still contemplating blood tempature when you fall asleep.

Sleep is as big a mistake as you knew it would be, fraught with blood like a liquid rainbow, pain that's only a shadow of what pain can be but still hurts like fuck, memories that are undeniably your own (no matter how much you'd like to deny them) and memories that are hellishly familiar and yet bewilderingly not-yours. Part of the time you know that you're dreaming, but you still can't force yourself awake.

When you do finally wake up, you do it with a stifled whimper, your hands closing convulsively on—

Flesh. Dave's shoulders. At some point, you moved even closer to him, draping yourself over him and curling against him, and now you're pretty fucking sure you just drove your fingernails deep enough into his skin to draw blood. And you're still in the grip of the nightmare, unable to breathe deep enough to apologise, unable to do anything other than shake and cling to him.

"Bad dream?" Dave's whisper is barely loud enough to be heard over your own heartbeat. "I know how that is."

You breath as deeply as you can, shedding some measure of the unreasoning fear, growl, "I'm fucking fine," and immediately regret saying it.

Dave is silent for a second. "Fine," he replies, thoughtfully. "I know I'm not fine, and I don't think you are, either. Not really. But that's okay." One of his hands comes up, stroking your hair but staying well clear of your horns—even though he's not troll, he seems to get that there are times when horns can be touched and times that they definitely should not be. "Right?"

You can feel the vibration that'll become a purr starting in your chest, and it makes you feel even more ashamed for snapping at him. "I'm sorry," you mutter.

Dave considers that for another long moment, fingers combing absently through your hair. When he speaks again, it's not in a whisper but in a low voice that has a cadence that you've heard from him before, when he's rapping with someone else. "So fine my line between loving and dying, in the nick of time you arrive and you strive to keep me alive, don't let me take a dive, you know you saved my life, broke me out of my strife, brought me relief and taught me belief with the words that you weave—" He runs out of breath, inhales sharply, and keeps going, although his voice goes a bit hoarser with every word, "Karkat, please don't leave, you're what I need and without you I'd bleed: words, blood, and pain, colder than death's reign, I would go insane, you're all that can tame the storm in my brain—"

Dave's voice cracks, and he stops rapping. You can hear his breathing, though, ragged and uneven, as he fights not to cry.

"Fuck," you say softly. You can feel your own tears on your face. "Oh, fuck, Dave, fucking..." There are no words, nothing you can find to say, so instead you reach out in the dark, finding Dave's face and wiping tears away as gently as you can. You're so bad at this, always have been, and you're afraid that you'll do something to hurt him worse as you try to comfort him.

Without even thinking, you run one hand through his hair, feeling for horns and not finding any. Dave sighs shakily as you mentally curse yourself.

"Don't leave me," he says quietly, and his voice breaks again on the second word. "Please—"

"You're fucking kidding me." You lean forward, pressing your lips against his forehead for a brief second. "I'd rather cut off my right hand than leave you alone, Strider, and don't you fucking forget it."

He exhales sharply, a gasp turned inside out, and pulls you down just a little, just enough that your mouth meets his. This kiss is even better than the first time, if that's possible. It lasts what seems like forever and like no time at all, and this time Dave's the one who breaks it.

"Are we—are we still on 'no pailing?'" he asks, and you can hear a wicked smile in his voice. "Because if we are, I might be about to have a problem—"

"Fuck that," you tell him, and find his mouth with your own again.

And he is smiling, and you swear on your soul that you won't ever let him stop.

#Dave #Karkat #Davekat #a fuckin' relic

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