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miserablesme · 3 years

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The Les Miserables Changelog Part 5: 1992 UK Tour

Hello, everyone! This is the latest edition in my attempt to chronicle all of the musical and lyrical changes which the show Les Miserables has undergone over the years. Much like the last part, this one focuses on changes made not to the official libretto, but to one particular production: namely, the 1992-1994 UK tour. However, in contrast to the last part, the vast majority of these changes at least made it elsewhere at some point. This will be a bit longer than Part 4, but still shorter than any of the first three parts. With all that cleared up, let us begin!

Like the West End production before it (more on that later), the UK tour swapped these lines from "At the End of the Day":

What is this fighting all about?

Will someone tear these two apart?

He thus instead sings:

Will someone tear these two apart?

What is this fighting all about?

The first noticeable difference original to this production occurs during "Lovely Ladies". Originally after Fantine's "Ten francs will save my poor Cosette", there was a rather complex section in which the sailors and prostitutes sung different lines simultaneously. It went as follows:

(SAILORS - simultaneously with prostitutes' lines)

Lovely lady, fastest on the street

Wasn't there three minutes

She was back up on her feet

Lovely lady, what you waiting for

Doesn't take a lot of savvy just to be a whore

Come on lady, what's a lady for?

(PROSTITUTES - simultaneously with sailors' lines)

Lovely ladies, lovely little girls

Lovely ladies, lovely little ladies

Lovely girlies, lovely little girls

We are lovely, lovely girls

Lovely ladies, what's a lady for?

The UK tour totally reimagines this scene as an exchange between a prostitute and a pimp:

(PROSTITUTE)

God I'm weary, sick enough to drop

Belly burns like fire

Will the bleeding never stop?

(PIMP)

Cheer up dearie, show a happy face

Plenty more like you, dear

If you can't keep up the pace

(PROSTITUTE)

Only joking, dearie knows her place

This is quite a massive departure from the original! I imagine it would be quite a bit easier to get right given that it involves only two actors, neither of whose dialog overlaps the other (in contrast to the original scene with an entire ensemble of actors with distinct but simultaneous lyrics and tunes). It's hard for me to decide what I prefer. Thematically, the revised version is better, given that it makes the negative and exploitative aspects of prostitution quite a bit clearer than the original. However, lyrically I prefer the original somewhat simply for the sake of consistency. The sick prostitute scene, as it's sometimes been called, is the only point in the entire song where that chorus is used without some variation of the words "lovely ladies". Feels a little out-of-place to me.

"Fantine's Arrest" also gets different lyrics - for a time, at least. I have two different audios from the UK tour, from April and December 1992 respectively. The December audio reverts to the original lyrics for Bamatabois (though not for Fantine). I wonder whether or not someone just forgot to tell the replacement Bamatabois about the lyrical edit, or if it was a conscious choice to revert the scene? I also wonder if the year-plus of the tour after that performance kept the original lyrics or put the new ones in again. Regardless, this is how the exchange between Fantine and Bamatabois originally went:

(BAMATABOIS)

Is this a trick? I won't pay more

(FANTINE)

No, not at all

(BAMATABOIS)

You've got some nerve, you little whore

You've got some gall!

It's the same with a tart as it is with a grocer

The customer sees what he gets in advance

It's not for the whore to say "yes sir" or "no sir"

It's not for the harlot to pick or to choose

Or to lead me a dance

The UK tour initially revised the sequence into the following:

(BAMATABOIS)

Is this a trick? I won't pay more

(FANTINE)

I won't have you

(BAMATABOIS)

You've got some sauce, you ugly slut

You've got some gall!

What's become of the world when a whore from the gutter

Can suddenly get such ideas in her head?

Your job is to lie on your back for your betters

This hideous harlot believes she can choose

Who she takes to her bed

I guess the revised lyrics feel a bit more threatening, as well as a little less contrived. (Who the hell has ever actually used the phrase "lead me a dance"?) Still, I prefer the original ones because the rhyme scheme feels a lot more natural.

More changes occur during "The Runaway Cart". The original (rather clunky) conversation among the townspeople was as follows (with each line separate due to being said by a different person than the previous one):

Look at that

It's Monsieur Fauchelevent

Don't approach

Don't go near

At the risk of your life

He is caught by the wheel

Oh the pitiful man

Stay away

Turn away

There is nothing to do

The UK tour rewrites most of the scene into the following:

Look at that

Stay away

You'll be crushed by the cart

Don't approach

Don't go near

It'll fall on you too

Oh my god, who is that?

It's Monsieur Fauchelevent

He is caught by the wheel

Oh the pitiful man

There is nothing to do

A far more natural progression in my humble opinion, and less repetitive as well.

The later scene involving the townspeople doesn't actually include any lyrical changes. However, like the West End production before it (more on that later), it does take lines that were previously in the singular into ensemble lines. The sequence was generally being performed as follows:

(MALE TOWNSPERSON)

Don't go near him, Monsieur Mayor

The load is as heavy as hell

(FEMALE TOWNSPERSON)

The old man is a goner for sure

(MALE TOWNSPERSON)

It will kill you as well

The UK tour instead staged it as follows:

(MALE TOWNSPERSON)

Don't go near him, Monsieur Mayor

(ENSEMBLE)

The load is as heavy as hell

(FEMALE TOWNSPERSON)

The old man is a goner for sure

(ENSEMBLE)

It will kill you as well

This ensemble business, which was already being used in the West End at the time, is an interesting callback, perhaps, to the pre-Broadway libretto in which much of the segment was sung by the ensemble. Personally I consider this edit an improvement. It feels far more frantic when the entire crowd is involved in the scene.

Once Valjean actually saves Fauchelevent, his lines are originally as follows:

Monsieur Le Maire, I have no words

You come from God, you are a saint

The UK tour changes them into the following:

Monsieur Le Maire, I have no words

You saved my life, you come from God

I guess the rewrite makes the reason for Fauchelevent's gratitude clearer, though it was already perfectly clear to begin with. The edit certainly doesn't hurt anything though.

The preamble to "Master of the House" retains the original "Hell, what a wine" instead of the post-Broadway "God, what a wine" edit.

Similarly, the "Waltz of Treachery" number has Thenardier ask the original "Have we done for your child what is best?" instead of the post-Broadway "her child".

A slight variation can be heard after the “Waltz of Treachery”. Usually Little Cosette asks:

Will there be children

And castles to see?

However, in the UK tour she instead asks:

Will there be castles

And children to see?

This variation also occurs in some early post-Broadway West End performances, and in the Complete Symphonic Soundtrack. I’d be interested to know whether or not that soundtrack may have inspired the choice during the UK a tour.

Interestingly, “Look Down” reverts an exchange back from the 1987 libretto into the original pre-Broadway version. Perhaps drawing from the West End show which was still using the original variant of this particular moment, the sequence officially sung by the ensemble as follows as follows:

When’s it gonna end

When’re we gonna live

Something’s gotta happen now or

Something’s gotta give

Because, as it was originally written, sung by one person at a time:

When’s it gonna end

When’re we gonna live

Something’s gotta happen, dearie

Something’s gotta give

My thoughts on the two variants can be seen in Part 3 of this blog.

Like the Australian tour, the UK tour has Thenardier say "God rewards all the things that you do" during "The Robbery" instead of "the good that you do".

Also, for some reason Thenardier refers to "the brand across his chest" instead of "upon his chest" later in the number.

The UK tour borrows the revised lyrics to “Stars” from the Australian tour and the West End production. Instead of the original lyrics:

A fugitive running

Fallen from grace, fallen from grace

It used these ones:

A fugitive running

Fallen from God, fallen from grace

Instead of these lines:

He knows his way in the dark

But mine is the way of the Lord

And those who follow the path of the righteous shall have their reward

It uses the shortened variants:

He knows his way in the dark

Mine is the way of the Lord

Those who follow the path of the righteous shall have their reward

Finally, instead of these lines:

And so it has been

And so it is written

It used these ones:

And so it must be

And so it has written

You can read my thoughts on all those differences in Part 4 of this blog.

The next noticeable difference occurs at the beginning of “Red and Black”. Previously the song opened with the beginning chords. However, the UK tour added a short musical sting before these chords. If I’m not mistaken, this musical addition was placed in to account for a change in staging. Originally the number began with the barricade set sliding off-stage, revealing the ABC cafe set behind it. However, around the time of this tour the blocking was adjusted. Now, the turntable instead revolved at the beginning of this number, revealing the ABC cafe set on the other end of the turntable and allowing the barricade set to double as the walls of the cafe. I believe the opening sting was added to allow time for this slightly more elaborate staging.

Additionally, as was the case in the West End at the time, no one shouts Enjolras' name during the instrumentals to "Red and Black".

In “Red and Black”, Enjolras usually sings:

We need a sign

To rally the people, to call them to arms

To bring them in line

However, the UK tour replaces it with the following lines:

We need a sign

To rally the people, to fire their blood

And to bring them in line

I guess “fire their blood” has a certain idealistic flair that fits Enjolras’ character, but I still definitely prefer the usual lyric. It conveys the message a lot more directly.

After the number, this is Enjolras’ original remark regarding General Lamarque’s passing:

On his funeral day they will honor his name

It’s a rallying cry that will reach every ear

In the death of Lamarque we will kindle the flame

They will see that the day of salvation is near

The time is here…

The UK tour rewrites those lines into the following:

On his funeral day they will honor his name

With the light of rebellion ablaze in their eyes

From their candles of grief we will kindle our flame

On the tomb of Lamarque shall our barricades rise

The time is here…

Though there’s a bit less rhyming in the revision, it strikes me as somewhat nicer and less clunky-sounding. The sentences’ subjects no longer feel all over the place, and the phrasing is far more poetic.

As with “Look Down”, some lyrics to “The Attack on Rue Plumet” are reverted to their original form (which was also still used in the West End at the time). Thenardier’s official lyrics following Eponine’s scream were as follows:

You wait my girl, you’ll rue this night

I’ll make you scream, you’ll scream alright!

Leave her to me, don’t wait around

Make for the sewers, go underground

The UK tour brought them back to this form:

Make for the sewers, don’t wait around

Leave her to me, go underground

You wait my girl, you’ll rue this night

I’ll make you scream, you’ll scream alright!

You can read my thoughts on these variants in Part 3 of this blog.

As with the Australian tour, Philip Quast changes “we’ll be ready for these schoolboys” into “I will join these little schoolboys” in “One Day More”. Unlike the Australian tour, the UK tour would maintain this variant even after Philip left. You can read my thoughts on this variant in Part 4 of this blog.

That’s it for the first act! The first noticeable difference occurs right before “A Little Fall of Rain”. Instead of opening with the beginning music, the UK tour added a short musical interlude beforehand. In my opinion, this music sounds terrible and feels extremely out-of-place. I wonder whether or not there was some change in staging to account for these extra notes.

After Enjolras' "Night of Anguish", the instrumental music is edited. Originally the number was followed by the same tune which would later be heard in "Drink with Me". However, the UK tour replaced it with a reprise of the tune of "A Little Fall of Rain". This is one of my least favorite edits for the tour. The original music felt highly emotional, and, since it predicted a later number, it implies the sense that, despite Eponine's death, there is more to come and the revolution is far from over. I'd argue that simply reprising a song that just happened suggests a degree of closure that is not appropriate for its context.

Everything is as usual right up until the epilogue. As with the Australian tour, the UK tour uses the “I’ll lead you to salvation” line instead of “And lead me to salvation” for Fantine and Eponine. You can read my thoughts on that change in Part 4 of this blog.

That’s it for this part! If I missed anything feel free to let me know, as my goal is to create a changelog as thorough and complete as possible. I plan on making more parts in the near future covering all the changes that have been made in the show up until this day (discounting concerts). Any feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated. As a side note, both for this project and my own enjoyment, I want as complete a collection of Les Miserables audios as possible. I already have most of what’s commonly circulated, but if you have any audios or videos you know are rare, I’d love it if you DMed me! Until the turntable puts me at the forefront again, good-bye…

#les mis #les miz #les miserables #musical #1992 #changelog #the les miserables changelog #through the years #valjean #javert #fantine #cosette #marius #eponine #thenardier #gavroche #part 4 #blog #long post

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aka-ashi-keiji · 3 years

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“i can’t hear you”

Bakugou Katsuki x best friend reader

soft angst

tw: screaming, emotional meltdown.

short fic about bakugou and you’re his childhood best friend, and you help him through dealing with his hearing loss. enjoy lovies.

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You woke up to the sound of your mother knocking on your door and yelling, “y/n wake up, you have training today with katsuki. i love that boy but i am not in the mood to deal with his explosive attitude over you being late .” You lived right next door to katsuki all your life and since your moms were best friends, you guys were best friends since you learned how to walk. Every saturday you guys would train from 8 AM to noon in his garage since it was basically a mini gym, and then after you both would head over to your house. You checked the time on your phone on the bedside table and it read 7:50. “SHIT MOM WHY DIDN’T YOU WAKE ME UP SOONER” you yelled as you jumped out of bed and quickly found a black tank top and grey sweatpants to train in. You could hear your mom chuckling as she walked away from your door. You grabbed your headphones, phone, water bottle, and Nike’s before yelling a goodbye and dashing over to Katsuki’s front yard.

You knocked on his door four times so that his family knew it was you. You were halfway through slipping your shoes on when Mitsuki answered. She yawned and pulled you into a side hug. “Good morning y/n, you hungry?” She asked as she closed the door behind you guys and started towards the kitchen. “No thanks Mitsuki, I don’t like to train on a full stomach. My mom is making a huge lunch though, you guys are welcome to join us.” You said cheerfully, but kept your voice low since it was very early and you could tell Katsuki’s mom was still half asleep. She nodded and then whipped her head to face you wearing a look on her face as if she had just remembered something very important. “Kat has been very on edge lately and not very responsive this week.” She paused before starting again and turned her gaze to the floor, almost as if she didn’t want to talk. “I think it might have to do with his hearing. He won’t admit it, but I think his quirk is finally starting to affect him. Good thing we put him in those sign language classes as a precaution.” she laughed dryly and then turned back to look at you. “Just, take it easy him with the teasing today okay? and maybe try speaking a little louder. I’ll go see if he’s ready” and with that she gathered herself up the stairs and disappeared.

You thought silently as you waited, and all of a sudden it made sense. Lately at school bakugou has been yelling more than usual, and telling everyone to speak louder. Maybe he was yelling more to be able to hear himself? You didn’t know. Bakugou has been learning sign language since he was 7 years old as a precaution for this and has been regularly signing while he talks since he was 10. So, bakugou using his sign language all the time wasn’t uncommon, but maybe Mitsuki was right. You made a mental note not to say anything until you actually noticed a big change in your guys’ training. You waited patiently for about another 10 minutes before Katsuki finally came downstairs.

“Hey idiot, nice outfit.” Katsuki greeted you in his groggy morning voice, his hands signing his words lazily. You looked down at the tank top and sweatpants you were wearing and looked back to him, you both were wearing the same exact thing. “Morning pom pom” you greeted back as you gathered your things and started to head towards the garage. You turned around to see bakugou staring into nothing, so you called out. “Hey kat, you coming?” No response. You repeated yourself, but this time loud enough you were sure you woke his dad. He whipped his head towards you and nodded before following along. As you were walking down the hall, you turned to him and asked, “You okay?” while signing your words. Katsuki looked down at your hands and his cheeks started to dust with the lightest shade of pink. He huffed and his red eyes sparked as he just growled out a ‘yeah’ and walked ahead of you into the garage, starting to set up for your session. You yourself had picked up sign language at a young age because your dad was deaf because his quirk was being able to shoot sonic booms from his hands. you pressed the button to open the garage door and let some light in. You then walked over to the speakers and plugged your phone in as you hit play on your playlist specifically for training days. Bakugou stopped setting up the bench press station and yelled, “Can you turn it up? “ as he signed quickly, but then went back to putting the weights together. You turned back to the speaker only to be surprised since the volume was already almost at max capacity. You shook your head and turned the volume all the way up. This session should be interesting.

It was around 9:30 AM at this point and you and Kat had finished weights and went on a 2 mile run. You were currently sitting on the floor stretching your quads as the loud techno music boomed around you. You glanced over at katsuki who was stretching on the other side of the garage and he seemed to be in a whole other universe. You called out to him, but he didn’t do so much as flinch. You picked yourself up off the floor and slowly walked towards him. You called a few more times and still got nothing from him, so you decided to turn off the music. As soon as you did Katsuki’s head shot up and his eyes darted towards you. “What the hell was that for dipshit? We’re gonna start sparring soon, we need it.” He said/yelled at you while you sauntered over to him and took a seat about a foot away from his now steaming body. You wiped the sweat from your forehead with the back of your arm before talking to katsuki, well you didn’t exactly talk with your voice, you were mostly signing. “Katsuki are you sure you’re okay? You’re not responding when I call out for you.” You waited for his response as his eyes stayed on your hands that were once moving. This time he answered, but for some reason he didn’t sign. “If I tell you, you can’t tell a single soul you hear me dumbass? Not even my parents. “ You nodded your head and gently reach over to squeeze his hand four times, your guys’ way of saying I promise. He then began to talk, and signed very aggressively as he did so, and what he said was enough to shatter you into a million pieces.

“I’ve been struggling in a way lately,” he started, “I tried to cover it up by just yelling all the time hoping people would just think it was my normal behavior. But, really it was so i could he hear myself.” Katsuki let out a long breath and you could see his hands slightly shaking. “It started out last week as just a slight ringing, but it got louder every damn day. But, this week the ringing got quieter, and eventually everything around me started to sound like I was underwater. “ He looked up at you and your breath hitched, tears rolled down katsuki’s face as he held eye contact. He shook out his hands and took another shakey breath before he began, “I- I can barely hear you y/n! And its so frusturating.” the volume of his voice was rising, and you could see the pain he was feeling through his eyes and the tears that were now dripping down to his shirt. “I can’t hear your fucking voice damnit! It’s the only one that doesn’t drive me up fucking walls. it terrifies me!” He was screaming at this point as his hands worked through the air to express his words. The tears came at a much quicker pace once he had stopped to breathe, and those tear turned into sobs as he curled in on himself. He tucked his knees to his chest and ducked his head into his arms as they wrapped around his legs. His shoulders and back shook as he cried, and for a moment you didn’t know what to do. You haven’t seen Katsuki cry since you both were 8 years old and he was playing with his quirk and accidently blasted your arm. He started crying as soon as he heard you wail in pain, and the lecture from his mother didn’t help in the slightest. You subconsciously reached up to rest your hand on the scar as you tried to think of what you could say to him.

Katsuki leveled his head and looked up at you, and slowly reached his hand out, still crying quietly. For a second you didn’t know what he meant, but it soon clicked in your head and you took his hand in yours. you looked at him with teary eyes and signed, “How can i help?” He untucked his legs from his chest and moved closer to you. Then, before you could even register what was happening, Katsuki had his arms around your waist with his head on your shoulder. You froze, it had been quite some time since either of you had needed a hug like this. once your shock had subsided, you brought your hands to rest on his upper back and rubbed soothingly. He began to cry again, which then led to sobs just like they had before. You began to talk, whispering variations of ‘I’m here’ and ‘You don’t have to be scared’, only to remember that he probably can’t hear you. Seeing katsuki as vulnerable as this broke your heart, and single tear fell from your face. Katsuki could feel your jaw muscles moving against the side of his face, so he knew you were talking, but he couldn’t hear you. “I- i- i- I can’t hear! I can’t hear you! Y/n I can’t hear you, fix it please, please I hate this so much!” He screamed into your shoulder which luckily muffled it enough to not draw any attention from the neighbors. He gripped onto your waist tighter as he breathed long and hard breaths. “I’m so scared. I’m terrified of losing you.” He whispered. This had confused you so you gently placed your hands on his shoulders and put a bit of distance between you guys so he could see you signing. “What do you mean you’re gonna lose me? I’m not going anywhere.” You said and waited for his response. He brought his trembling hands up to start signing and began, “I’m scared that if i can’t hear you, I won’t hear you calling me for help when you’re in danger. What kind of hero am I if i can’t even save my best friend?” You took one of his hands in yours and began to sign with your other. “You’re gonna be okay, We’re both gonna get you through this. I know you, and you don’t take shit from no one. And I know damn well you’re not gonna let a little hearing loss get in the way of beating deku.” He laughed slightly at the last statement, and seeing his small smile was like the world coming off of your shoulders. “We’ll take you to the doctor, they’ll help you.” He shook his head at that and his angry glowering returned. “It’s not anything to be embarrassed about. And I’m sure your parents would do anything to help you become the hero you want to be.” You finished your monologue and squeezed his hand four times, promising him you’re not going anywhere. He smiled down at his hand and then brought his other one up to sign, “I love you shithead” and you signed back, “Yeah I know, I love you too Kat”.

He began to stand up and Katsuki pulled you up with him. He immediately pulled you into the tightest bear hug possible. No one knew, but Katsuki was the biggest hugger, and it was your favorite thing about him. You released your arms from his waist and he released his hold around your shoulders. You took the sides on his face in your hands, and pointed to your lips as a signal to read your words. He nodded his head, and in a volume Katsuki couldn’t hear, you said, “I can hear you, I can hear you.”. He nodded and smiled the most genuine smile you’d seen out of him in years. “You ready?” he signed, and you answered “for what?”. He smirked and was quiet for a few seconds before shoving you to the side a little and running off towards your house. “Race you!” he yelled, “First one there, is your mom’s favorite you loser.” Kat called again. You smiled and shook your head as you sprinted off after him, remembering this is the Katsuki that will be the #1 hero someday.

***************************************🌸

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thewritinggrindstone · 4 years

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Identifying Harmful Repetition in Your Writing

Something I’ve encountered ad nauseam over the last few projects I’ve edited is a relentless repetition of words, phrases, and ideas. One of the most frustrating and confidence-destroying issues a reader can encounter is poorly executed repetition, which can stem from different problems, including:

Too much reliance on your natural stock phrases.

Limited vocabulary.

Not proofreading close enough or editing thoroughly enough.

Lack of confidence.

Not writing with the reader in mind.

I want to preface this with the fact that obviously certain types of repetition aren’t bad. Repetition is an incredibly powerful tool when used effectively, and what’s effective is subjective per book and per reader. That’s a massive topic for another time. This post is specifically about egregious uses of repetition, the types that any good editor or beta reader will point out as in need of fixing.

Stock Phrases and Words

Every person has their own unique lexicon, a repository of words and phrases they naturally will draw upon when they speak, write, and even think. There’s a reason clichés are prevalent, and that’s because the brain likes the path of least resistance. It’s easy to mentally grab those words and phrases that are constantly in arm’s reach, those words and phrases that are comfortable and familiar, but constantly doing this while writing and then not changing them can result in overuse that is noticeable on both stylistic and technical levels. It can also lead a reader to the understanding that you haven’t thought critically about what you’re writing, which can and will undermine their confidence in you.

If you’re writing a first draft, don’t worry about this too much. You probably just need to focus on putting words down, not exactly what those words are. Repetition is an issue that can and should be intentionally fixed during the revision process.

If this is a problem that bugs you even when you’re drafting, there are different ways of dealing with it. I tend to be highly aware of most repetition within my work, and because I constantly edit as I write, backtracking to add/move information as I go doesn’t tend to interrupt my workflow too much. If I know I’ve already used a word and can’t think of something better after several seconds’ thought, I’ll use the repetition and immediately flag it somehow—usually with a “repeat” comment—so I can deal with it once I’ve completed the draft. Opening a thesaurus or dictionary tends to be more disruptive during drafting than it’s worth, but sometimes it isn’t, and you will need to determine what works best for you according to your own style.

Once you’re ready to target the issue of repetition, you will need to work hard, think hard. Don’t settle for the easy word, the stock phrase, the cliché. Discard the timeworn, the tired, the used-before. Play with language—try to come up with new phrases, unique descriptions. Get silly, flip rocks over, dig around under them, push things as far as you need to create something different, then go back and edit again, refining what you’ve written until you’re satisfied.

It’s going to be a process. It’s going to be difficult. It won’t be natural at first; you’ll need to form new pathways in your brain, just like when you learn any new skill, and that’s uncomfortable, but if you persist, your writing will be fresh and alive and won’t be as prone to being bogged down by reader-infuriating repetition.

Limited Vocabulary

Tying into the idea of your personal lexicon is the size of it. No matter how much you pay attention to precisely what words or phrases you’re using, you won’t have much in the way of options if you don’t have at least a good-sized repertoire to draw from.

Increasing your lexicon is something that just takes dedication and time. You can’t rush it, you can’t force it, but you can be deliberate in growing it. Read broadly, maybe bookmark or sign up for your favorite dictionary’s word of the day, or keep a word cache of interesting words or phrases you like.* I have a document titled “word hoard” in Dropbox where I keep all unusual, unfamiliar, or beautiful words I encounter as well as their function(s) and definitions. Most of these words haven’t properly entered my own lexicon yet, but actively being aware of words that are anywhere from slightly to completely outside what you usually use will help you become a more mindful writer.

* I got this idea from Barbara Baig’s Spellbinding Sentences, which is one of my favorite books I’ve ever read on writing.

Lack of Proofreading/Editing

The identification and elimination of repetition hovers somewhere between content editing and technical editing. It’s an easy problem to skim over, especially when you’re the writer because you’re likely too familiar with every word you’ve put down, and issues like this tend to fade into the background. This is particularly true of writers who have reworded or reorganized a given piece of writing, since repetition can easily become lost in the jumble.

If possible, set your project aside for at least a few days—preferably a few weeks or even longer—then come back to it and read it with fresh eyes while intentionally noting and commenting on or highlighting all uses of repetition, big and small. If you aren’t sure if it’s something you repeated, flag it anyway—you can always check later.

If you don’t have time to set the project aside for a while, read your work aloud. If you can’t bear reading your work aloud or you aren’t able due to circumstances, listen to the document instead. Word has a read aloud function, and there are many online text-to-speech websites where you can paste a piece of writing. The unnatural cadence of the artificial voice might be weird and awkward at first, but listening won’t fully engage the “reading” portion of your brain, and you’ll likely find it easier to notice uses of repetition, among other problems. While writing this post, I have listened through it three times, tweaking phrasing and eliminating repetition—and deleting some of the harsher statements—as I go.

If you’re feeling really brave, have another person read your writing back at you. Nothing like being uncomfortably hyperaware of every word you’ve put down to recognize pretty much every single problem within your work. Just do not overcompensate and decide that nothing you’ve written has any value at all (it does), or that you’ll need to change everything (you don’t). If you approach this method with the understanding that it’s going to be awkward but are nevertheless determined to get something useful out of it, you’ll benefit, especially if your reading partner is willing to help you with any areas you feel you need assistance in.

When editing for repetition, if possible, pay attention not only to noun/verb/adjective usage. Go deeper. What types of repetition are you prone to using? Do you begin a significant portion of your sentences with conjunctions? Are there certain conjunctions you use more frequently than others? Do you reiterate entire sentences two or more times with only slight variations in wording? Do you return to the same idea numerous times? What about tone, do you use lots of rhetorical questions? Sarcasm? Self-deprecation? Self-boasting? Do you frequently return to the same imagery or settings or use of metaphor? Or grammar—are there certain punctuation marks or grammatical conventions you use more than others? Do you have a sentence construction you consistently fall back on?

Again, some of these questions might require an outside opinion for you to find suitable answers, but becoming self-aware of not just what you do but why you do will help you recognize these patterns, which in turn can help you mentally eliminate repetition before it even makes it past your fingertips.

Lack of Confidence

Widespread repetition of sentences and ideas is often a major symptom of a writer who isn’t confident in their abilities to communicate what they’re talking about. “If I just tell you this fact again, surely you’ll believe me this time. I’ll make you believe me. Do you believe me now? What about now? Now? Now?”

The painful truth is... no.

Encountering mindless or fear-based repetition is extremely frustrating for readers. Inevitably, without fail, every single time I edit a book by a writer who has repeated themselves over and over and over again, with every single repetition, I increasingly doubt both their credibility and their ability to pass on important knowledge to me. I feel either patronized and insulted, or I feel annoyed because it seems like the author threw their thoughts down on paper in whatever order they came out and then hit publish with

no regard for how those thoughts will be perceived by others, and

no regard for how they are wasting the reader’s time.

Please, please do not undermine your credibility by repeating yourself. Readers usually only need to read information one time for them to absorb it, maybe twice, so trust your readers. If the reader needs to come back to information, they have that ability. Do not force unnecessary repetition in their faces. Always assume readers are at least as smart as you. If you don’t need the information repeated, give your readers the same respect.

Increasing your writing confidence will once again take time and effort. You’ll need to determine why you’re not confident and then seek out methods of correcting the issue(s). In general, fear of not being heard or understood tends to be the underlying cause of repetition, so learn how to be deliberate in your writing. Say what you mean to say. Say exactly what you mean to say. Understand that you have something important to share with the world, so share it—then stop. Readers will appreciate you for not wasting their time.

Writing for Yourself

Yesterday I finished editing a project just over 88,000 words. Nineteen chapters. Almost 250 pages.

I hated every word, and I learned nothing.

If it had been a line edit, I could’ve cut the book’s word count down below 50K merely by eliminating all of the repetition. This author is infatuated with the sound of their own voice, talked on and on and on merely to hear their own self-revelations and how special they are compared to everyone else stated again and again in near-identical sentences.

I’m editing another book right now that is less self-important and is far more interesting on the whole (and is thankfully over a hundred pages shorter), but again, the author has repeated themselves sometimes three or four or five times, with some phrases appearing over fifteen times, and I can feel my resentment growing. If an author isn’t going to take the time to put forth a thoughtfully crafted piece of writing, why should a reader likewise invest in it?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with writing for yourself. You should—you’ll learn a lot about yourself as both person and writer, and you’ll enjoy writing more, and you’ll (hopefully) be able to refine your skills.

But if—if—you intend to share your writing with the world, if you actually have something to say, you need to be aware that you have a duty to make yourself understood without wasting people’s time. Do not make people regret having picked up your writing by being so in love with the sound of your own voice that you are no longer courteous to others.

Love your writing. Love it fiercely and passionately and with reckless abandon, but reach a place where you know how your writing is going to be perceived at large. Use as many words as you need to get your point across and no more.

In Closing

If you’re still having difficulty identifying repetition within your own work, ask someone who is skilled at recognizing this issue to look over your writing. It’s always easier to recognize repetition when you haven’t written it, so fresh eyes can give you the insight you might not be able to see yourself.

Know your audience. A children’s book will require a different level of repetition than an instruction manual or a sci-fi novel or an autobiography. If you’re reading a recipe, you’d be annoyed and confused if the author told you to add the same ingredient twice due to shoddy proofreading. Write and repeat accordingly.

Whatever you’re writing, make a point of intentionally performing at least one round of editing with the intention of eliminating unnecessary repetition. Your readers will appreciate it more than you’ll ever know.

#writing #repetition #editing #proofreading #advice #red talks

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catman-draws · 3 years

Note

What was the inspiration behind the outfits for the Jades?

Okay so

I kinda worked backwards here

Because absolutely no way in hell am I drawing THIS^ over and over again.

Do you SEE the amount of stripes on her?

So I gave her a simpler redesign (seen here without her outermost coat/cape.)

At her most basic with no outer layers, it's some sort of gray dress/tunic/thing with some black pants and shoes and jade socks, scarves, etc.

Then I didn't want her to stick out all too much from the other jadebloods (she uh. IS wanted by the empire. or she WILL be, anyway.)

The others' all have slight variations, but close enough for it to be a sort of cohesive look.

As for more direct inspirations, I don't know that I really had anything specific in mind. I just wanted something kinda loose and flowy and easily accessorized. Between the scorching sun and underground caverns, there's not really a ton of great outfits for such an extreme range of temperatures.

BONUS\/\/\/

We're not far enough for this outfit yet, but I'm also trying to keep nods to Porrim's design in there too. They ARE the same person, after all.

#catman asks #dolorosa #background jades my beloved #hs ac bonus #also it's the Olde Times so I don't want anything too complicated #no complex seams or anything like that #especially given her caste #the others all had similar design processes to (for whenever we get to them)#man look at y'all making pull out some concept art #additionally; as much as I love these dear sweet ancestors;#.....fellas they don't really have great designs #and that's not a slight to the artists or anything- because I DO love them- they're just not great for drawing repeatedly #<the mainest reason everyone's getting redesigns

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knightsdeath · 2 years

Text

@yeshens : “is fighting all you have any interest in doing?” he doesn’t mean to sound abrasive, truly, but — isn’t it the truth? in their brief acquaintance, ferdinand has not seen felix do anything with the same sort of fervor as he possesses when sparring. he’s determined to find something, nonetheless. “come now, surely there are other things in life that have caught your interest! tea, for example, in its many variations and depths—” ferdinand doesn’t have to wait for felix to respond with his characteristic dismissal before dismissing it himself, his mind barely able to conjure up the image of felix drinking tea amidst a garden of flowers. (even if it is a humorous image that he files away for later consideration.) “— hm, no, i did not think so. something more exciting, perhaps...? i recall there being a fireworks show scheduled in town for the new years — that is, tonight — would you accompany me to view it? i promise not to bother you — for, shall we say, a month? — should you agree.”

❝ no, ❞ is his immediate answer, though ferdinand evidently thinks it’s all good and well to continue prattling on, and felix finds himself rolling his eyes, tilting his head back, gazing at the sky above. fighting isn’t all he has interest in doing ——— there are a number of other things, but they are all secondary, tertiary, et cetera to fighting. he wishes to improve himself and better himself such that he will be a scourge upon the battlefield and, thus, prevent unnecessary losses, to become strong enough to / well. it’s neither here nor there. to TRULY IMPROVE UPON YOURSELF time, dedication, and effort must be put towards it. and, if felix has taken that to an extreme, then who does that possibly impact? who can that feasibly harm? he hardly knows how to do anything without the full force of his efforts ( and how considerable that is when taken into account, how powerful the sheer force of his determination ) and training falls underneath that category / and maybe even taken beyond.

so why does ferdinand von aegir care so damn much about what he does in his free time? as if felix has free time to spare.

the proposal of TEA is enough to make felix’s eyebrow raise in disbelief, and he watches as ferdinand all but physically dismisses the idea as preposterous, which it very well is. felix can barely stand meals in the presence of other people, let alone tea time which comes with the expectation of even more conversation. and fireworks? the suggestion seems so very random that felix simply stares at a point just over ferdinand’s shoulder for a moment / before the other key part of that sentence occurs to him : NEW YEARS. he hadn’t even known, time makes fools of them all, wary and unaware and passing eternally.

( here, a faded half—ruined memory : a gloved hand clasped in another’s, warm furs cloaking him, the voice of his dear brother humming in his ear, the laughter of darling mother ringing, the merriment of dread father carrying. and for the boy? the boy with a whole heart, un—frostbitten and tender like a mother’s kiss on your forehead? he looks to the night sky, eyes wide and luminous beneath the bursting of lights and he thinks / pretty, pretty like ——— )

his jaw works and half of him, or more perhaps, compulsively wants to deny the request. winter’s chill rests on his tongue and his gaze flits over ferdinand’s face for a moment, there and gone again. the offer is genuine, borderline earnest, and it sits strangely in his chest. intrusive and unwelcome and unwieldy. ❝ fine. i’ll go, ❞ like drawing icicles from his chest, reluctant but still yet giving, a slight wrinkle to his nose, as if the proceedings are repulsive when he, himself, is saying yes. ❝ if you don’t talk when we spar. and don’t bother me, ❞ always have to make your terms crystal clear, huh, fraldarius?

one night won’t kill him. though he may attack ferdinand, depending.

#yeshens #yeshens : ferdinand.#❛ ┈ when will you stop waiting ( ... ) never / never / never ( ic )#i rambled per usual SDKGJNKJNG #they're so funny. i love them.

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commentaryvorg · 3 years

Text

Digimon Data Squad Dub Comparison Episode 1 - There Are Monsters Among Us!

This is a companion to my commentary on the original Japanese Digimon Savers! Reading my commentary on the original version of this episode (which you can find here) is recommended before reading this dub comparison.

Original name ~ Dubbed name

Masaru Daimon ~ Marcus Damon

Yoshino Fujieda ~ Yoshino “Yoshi” Fujieda

Captain Rentarou Satsuma ~ Commander Richard Sampson

[Since several characters share the same name between the original and the dub, quotes from the dub will always be in italics, while quotes from the original will not, in order to distinguish them.]

First off, can we talk about the characters’ dub names? The dub doesn’t actively draw attention to its setting much (but then again neither does the original, really), but it also does not change the fact that this is taking place in Japan and these characters are actually Japanese, despite that we’re hearing them speak English. Some of them keep their Japanese names, too, even if maybe they have slight shortenings of them to be easier for a Western audience to remember. But then some characters’ names are randomly changed to completely English ones, even though these characters are apparently still meant to be Japanese and living in Japan. It’s just strange – if they’re okay with keeping some of the Japanese names, why not keep all of them?

(Honestly, despite my complaints, I am kind of a little glad that they changed Masaru’s name in the dub, because Marcus comes across somewhat of a different character to Masaru for reasons I will be discussing at length. In that sense, it’s convenient to have different names to differentiate them by.)

Kudamon: “He’s a renegade to begin with. We have no choice but to dispose of him.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “The target is a renegade. We must catch him before he gets out.”

This is actually more reasonable than what Kudamon says here in the original.

Satsuma: “The only ones who can keep Digimon under control… are Digimon!”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Only a high-level DATS agent can capture a Digimon.”

The original version of this line was already awkwardly expositiony, sure, but this one just doesn’t make as much sense. The point is not that Yoshi is a high level DATS agent, but that she has a Digimon partner.

The dub completely replaces the original’s soundtrack. I did a shoutout to the BGM here in the original, and I also want to do a BGM shoutout here in the dub! This piece here is very different sounding from Provocation Infinity but still gives a similar sort of actiony gung-ho feel appropriate for Marcus and Agumon being fighty dorks, and I like it. It’s used often enough in moments like this such that it’s the only dub theme aside from the evolution theme that I’ve become able to pick out and recognise the melody of, even though this is only my second time watching the dub. Though I don’t know what the dub soundtrack’s titles are (actually, after having a look, it seems like the dub OST was never released, so nobody does), I like to think that this one is probably Marcus’s theme based on the moments its used in, so I’m going to be calling it Probably Marcus’s Theme.

Marcus: “This is my training ground!”

This park is apparently specifically his “training ground”, even though it’s just an ordinary park that anyone can visit. Um, okay? (More on this at the end of this episode.)

Masaru: “I’m the number one street fighter in Japan, Daimon Masaru-sama!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “One day, I’m gonna be a champion ultimate fighter!”

They’ve changed “street fighter” to “ultimate fighter”, which, okay, makes him come across a bit less like a delinquent, fair enough. But a noteworthy difference is that he’s only trying to be the best ultimate fighter. Masaru, on the other hand, feels like he already is Japan’s number one street fighter. This change still sounds fine and in-character enough on the surface, but it’s a meaningful distinction that will become quite relevant further in as we get more into Masaru’s character, so keep this in mind.

Marcus: “Fans all over will chant my name! They’ll say, ‘Marcus Damon is the best!’”

I get that what the dubbers are going for here is something equivalent in spirit to Masaru using -sama on himself. But there’s other, simpler ways to do that – just have him call himself “the great Marcus Damon”, or something like that.

As it is, what they’ve done here is make it seem like, apparently, Marcus has fans, or at least he wants to have fans. Which is not even remotely the point of his fighting thing in the original, nor will it be in the dub, either. He’s not doing this for recognition from others; this is something he’s doing entirely for himself.

Yoshi: “Raptor-1 can talk…?”

This was not a thing implied in the original – that apparently, Yoshi (and presumably therefore everyone else at DATS) hadn’t even heard Agumon talk until now. I guess they’re going for giving more of an explanation as to why DATS treated him like a monster, but I find it difficult to buy that Agumon really wouldn’t have said at least some stuff while trapped at DATS HQ. (“I’m hungry,” if nothing else, right?)

Lalamon: “Yoshi, he’ll destroy the human!”

Oh, boy. This is one of those English dubs that refuses to directly acknowledge the concept of death because apparently the poor kiddies can’t handle that or something. I will attempt to not rag on it every time it does so – only because that’d get really boringly repetitive – but I will be talking about it a lot in future episodes when death becomes quite a story-important thing that is happening.

For now, let’s just point out that it sounds really silly to talk like a human can be “destroyed”. There’s plenty of other ways to get across that Agumon is dangerous without directly referencing death that would sound more natural.

Marcus: “Then I’ll knock you out like I did these guys!”

Masaru did not mention the fact that he was responsible for beating up all the dudes this early on. I guess here in the dub, Yoshi just isn’t paying proper attention, because she’s going to continue to assume it was Agumon who hurt all the students.

Kudamon: “He’s too dangerous.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “We cannot let this escalate.”

I am sad that the dub lost the fun “who’s too dangerous?” double meaning of Kudamon’s original line.

Yoshino: “Hey, you! Get away from him! You’ll only lose if you fight him!”

Masaru: “Huh? This isn’t about win or lose! This is about fighting man-to-man!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “You can’t fight that creature! He’s too dangerous!”

Marcus: “Huh? Look, toots, I’m the dangerous fighter here! And I don’t need any babysitter to hold my hand!”

We really, really did not need Marcus being vaguely misogynistic by calling Yoshi “toots”, or by implying that she’s nothing but a babysitter. We really didn’t.

This also replaces Masaru’s original line that has that fun aspect of him not even caring about winning and just wanting to have a good challenging fight with a worthy opponent, so we lose that, too.

(Though, ignoring the misogyny, I do enjoy Marcus responding to “he’s too dangerous!” with “hey, I’m dangerous”.)

Agumon: “Yeah! It’s man-to-man!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “That’s right! This is between him and me!”

Agumon then also isn’t able to agree about this being man-to-man, and this just becomes a less interestingly nuanced “stay out of our fight”, rather than really about the kind of fight they want to have.

Masaru: “Got it? Now stay out of this!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “This is a fight between men, so stay out of it!”

Having removed Masaru’s reference to men a few lines earlier, the dub does something which is going to be extremely rare by its standards and actually adds in a reference to men here. …Unfortunately, because they’d also added in Marcus’s random misogynistic lines earlier, this comes across much more like it’s about gender, and he’s just essentially saying “we don’t want any girls in our fight”. Which, no. Masaru talking about manliness is never actually that much about gender at all, despite the word he uses.

Masaru: “I see you’re pretty brave.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I dunno what you are, but you’re goin’ down!”

We lose the sense of Masaru having respect for Agumon challenging him in place of some basic I’m-better-than-you trash talk. And this also adds in Marcus calling Agumon a what, rather than a who, indicating that apparently Marcus is paying some attention to Agumon’s species and is seeing him, at least a little, as not quite worthy of the same respect as a human.

After their big cross-counter…

Agumon: “I wasn’t ready. But you won’t get me this time!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Hey! I wasn’t ready! I was waitin’ for you to say, ‘One, two, three, go!’”

The dubbers completely missed the point of the original, “I wasn’t ready.” Original-Agumon’s line comes across as “I wasn’t expecting you to be that strong, but now I’ve got the measure of you”, like he’s gained more respect for Masaru’s strength. Meanwhile dub-Agumon is just whining and acting like Marcus totally cheated rather than acknowledging his unexpected strength.

Agumon kicking Marcus in the crotch is cut, replaced with a rather cheesy-looking comic book POW sort of effect across the whole screen.

There’s a cute acoustic guitar BGM here for their bonding moment that I like, especially after recognising its melody and realising that this is a variation on Probably Marcus’s Theme! That seems very appropriate.

Agumon: “You’re… pretty good… for a human.”

Geez, what a backhanded compliment. Apparently dub-Agumon still sees Marcus as below him simply because he’s human, rather than fully acknowledging his strength regardless of species.

Agumon: “Let’s call it a draw.”

This line fills a silence, stating something that was already perfectly well implied in the first place by the fact that they’re no longer fighting and yet there’s no clear winner. It shouldn’t need to be said. In fact, it makes it seem a lot more like this fight really was just about winning or losing to both of them, when in the original that was never the point.

Rather than “Aniki”, which, okay, works fine in subs but can’t really be kept in a proper official English dub, Agumon calls Marcus “Boss”. I guess this is acceptable, but I feel like it would have been better for them to lean into the “big brother” meaning of aniki, rather than the “boss” one, for reasons I will be grumbling about a lot.

Masaru: “Aniki?”

Agumon: “Yeah. You’re the first person to acknowledge me as a full-fledged individual, Aniki.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Boss?”

Agumon: “Yeah. Y’see, you’re the only guy who’s ever matched me blow-for-blow in a fight before.”

So, in this version, Agumon gaining respect for Marcus has absolutely nothing to do with Marcus treating him like a person. It’s just because of his strength, nothing else. Way to lose that really fun little bit of nuance and character depth on both sides.

(Also, what does Agumon even mean, “before”? It’s not like he’d have been able to have proper fights that weren’t just defending himself while trying to escape until now.)

Agumon: “That’s why, from now on, I’ll be your follower!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “That makes you the boss. From now on, you give the orders and I’ll faithfully follow!”

Matching Agumon in a fight shouldn’t really suddenly make Marcus the boss who gets to order him around, should it? Plus, here’s Agumon explicitly saying Marcus can give him orders, which was not at all part of the arrangement originally. This whole thing has such a different tone to “you treated me like a person when nobody else did, so now I look up to you and will be loyal to you.”

Marcus: “I never thought one day that I’d have an employee that’s as funny-lookin’ as you are.”

Oh, boy. Meanwhile, instead of “follower”, we have… employee. That is even more completely missing the point of the aniki-and-follower relationship of the original. If they didn’t like the gang connotations of “boss”, maybe they should have gone for “big bro” instead, perhaps? But no, they just doubled down on the “boss” in a totally different and inappropriate direction. Marcus has apparently just started up a small business.

The heartwarming BGM gets a record scratch as Yoshi reminds them she’s still there. I admit, it made me chuckle.

Yoshi: “So, are you gonna come quietly, or do I have to use force?”

Marcus: “Who’s she talkin’ to, you or me?”

I do enjoy this – a little implication that Marcus has some experience with being treated in a similar way, perhaps by the regular police.

Masaru: “It’s the aniki’s job to look after his follower. I’m not handing him over to you!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I’ve never had an employee before, and I’m not turning my only one over to you!”

Instead of Masaru doing this out of feeling like it’s an aniki’s responsibility, Marcus is making it about himself. He doesn’t want to lose his new and only employee. Like Agumon’s just a possession of his now. Nothing about how this is something that should be expected of him as a boss.

Later, at the tower, as Agumon asks Marcus to help him evade DATS:

Marcus: “What am I getting myself into this time?”

I enjoy this too. More implications that Marcus is used to getting himself into all sorts of Trouble.

Agumon: “I’m starved!”

Marcus: “Well, suck it up and act like a real man!”

Again with the dub adding in references to manliness that weren’t there originally, as if Marcus actually has a concept of manliness that will continue to be a running theme. Haha, I wish. Get ready for me complaining about the exact opposite of this in basically every other dub episode.

Agumon: “I’m a growing boy!”

How does Agumon even know this phrase? This is an entirely human concept. Dub Agumon will be doing a lot of this, awkwardly invoking human ideas that he shouldn’t have any conception of.

Yoshi: “Yum. I love chocolate pudding – it reminds me of being a little kid again!”

Yoshino’s coffee jelly gets localised into chocolate pudding, because I guess coffee jelly is more of a Japanese thing that Westerners might be unfamiliar with? I enjoy the added detail that it reminds her of being a kid and that’s why she likes it.

Masaru: “I don’t know anyone by that name!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I have no idea who this ‘Raptor-1’ is!”

Marcus’s line loses the technically-not-lying and respecting-Agumon’s-identity of the original line. He does know who this “Raptor-1” that Yoshi’s talking about is, even if that isn’t actually his name.

Masaru: “How’d you know my name?”

Yoshino: “You yelled it out earlier for everyone to hear.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “How do you know my name, anyway?”

Yoshi: “I know everything about you.”

No pointing out that he yelled it out earlier like a huge dork. Instead, she just really leans into the DATS-are-creepily-authoritative vibe that she already had a little of in the original.

Yoshi: “Born April 2nd in Tokyo, blood type B, Ootori middle school eighth grade.”

Him being born in Tokyo was not a detail mentioned in the original. And also probably not true in the original, since the series is set in Yokohama and there’s no indication that his family moved here. The dub is presumably still set in Yokohama even though it’s never mentioned, just because the scenery is that of Yokohama, so I guess they’ve just established some dub-only canon that the Damon family moved home at some point. This will actually come up briefly later. I am shocked that I’m saying this.

At least, props to the dub for mentioning Tokyo and making it pretty overt that, yes, this is set in Japan. (You know, with this Japanese guy called Marcus.)

Yoshi also does not explicitly specify Marcus’s age, only that he’s in eighth grade. Which (I’m pretty sure, though I’m unfamiliar with American school grades and may be wrong) would make him fourteen anyway, at least assuming he hasn’t been held back at any point. Keep this in mind, because this will also come up later.

Yoshi: “…and you now live with your mother Sarah and your little sister Kristy, who looks up to you even though you generally act like a jerk.”

First of all, how the hell does DATS have so much information that they even know how his sister feels about him?

Second of all, more importantly, way to just tell us that, hey, did you know, Marcus is A Jerk, hey, guys, you’re supposed to think he’s a jerk, because… he fights things, I guess?

The reality? Masaru is not a jerk. Not even slightly. He’s reckless and hot-headed and will fight anything that poses a challenge, but that is not even remotely the same thing as being a jerk to people.

But apparently the dub doesn’t understand this, and they seem to think that being a jerk is somehow meant to be one of his most noticeable character traits. And I guess they’re trying to present the idea that he’s going to slowly grow into being a nicer person through the power of Digimon and friendship? Which is not at all any kind of arc that Masaru is going to have, because he is not actually a jerk in the first place.

If it was just this one line that seemed to think this, I wouldn’t be that annoyed. But one of the biggest things I’m going to be complaining about with the dub is the fact that they actually do change Marcus’s character significantly to make him noticeably more of a jerk than Masaru ever was. We’ve already seen a little bit of this sort of thing going on so far in this episode, with how they’ve removed focus from the bits with Masaru treating Agumon like a person and instead made it all about fighting, and specifically winning those fights. But, oh boy, there’s going to be a lot more, to an extent that it has to be deliberate.

And aside from me just finding this very frustrating as someone who deeply loves Masaru’s character to see him distorted like this, I also can’t help but boggle at why they would ever want to do this at all. Why would you deliberately adapt a character – the main character – to be less likeable than in the original version of the work? How does it not occur to you that this is only going to make your new audience enjoy the work less? I do not get it.

Lines like this one here are even worse, because they blatantly violate “show don’t tell”. Along with making Marcus act like a jerk and showing us that, the dub’s narrative is also telling us that he’s a jerk and insisting we should think that about him instead of letting us make up our own minds. It’s so lazy and heavy-handed. There will be more like this and I do not like it one bit.

Yoshi: “I’m with the Digimon Data Squad.”

I guess the Data Squad really is its full name in the dub. Even though the acronym is still DATS. Don’t ask me how that’s meant to work.

Marcus: “That’s a great story, dollface, but what’s it gotta do with me?”

Can we not with the Marcus being casually misogynistic? Can we not? (Thankfully, this isn’t going to be a recurring thing. Other ways in which Marcus is being made less likeable will be, but at least not this.)

Marcus does not say anything about assuming Agumon was just a frog. Since Masaru having thought that is going to be relevant again later in the series, this is a loss of not just a moment of amusing dorkiness but something actually meaningful.

(One thing that is very clear about the dub is that, with a few exceptions, they do not appear to have watched ahead to see the whole series first and are just dubbing episode-by-episode. For a series like this with quite a strong overarching plot and lots of little things like this that get callbacks, that means that a lot of this overarching sense of cohesiveness will be lost, simply by accident, because they didn’t realise there was something important there worth keeping around. This is another thing I will be talking about a lot.)

Yoshino: “As long as you keep running from DATS, Raptor-1 will only starve to death.”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “If you don’t return Raptor-1 to us, he’ll starve to death!”

This is a little different. Yoshino was only trying to get Masaru to come to DATS, supposedly to pick up some Digimon food. Yoshi, meanwhile, wants Marcus to bring Agumon to DATS. Which on the one hand is a more helpful strategy for what she’s trying to achieve. But on the other hand, he doesn’t bring Agumon, because obviously the dub can’t change the episode that much, so instead we’re just left with that awkwardly not being what happens despite it being brought up.

Yoshino: “You…”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “Thank you.”

The hint that Yoshino is gaining a new respect for Masaru from his desire to help Agumon gets lost here, in favour of simply a thanks-for-finally-co-operating. Might partly be just lip-flap’s fault – the Japanese “you” is two syllables – but still, Yoshi’s tone of voice could at least have done some of the work to imply the same as the original, and it doesn’t really.

Kudamon: “This is the boy that put Raptor-1 under control? He doesn’t appear to have any special power, at any rate.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “Interesting that this is the boy who fought Raptor-1, because nothing about him indicates that he’s able to fight at that level.”

We lose any implication that Satsuma might have been telling Kudamon things about Masaru offscreen, and instead here’s dub-Kudamon simply refusing to believe the evidence of his own eyes. You literally watched him fight Agumon on your screen. He very evidently can fight at that level.

Kamemon: “Enjoy.”

Marcus: “I’m not thirsty.”

Kamemon: “Suit yourself.”

Kamemon actually says words in the dub as he brings Marcus tea! This was very bizarre to me when I’m used to original-Kamemon, who almost never speaks at all.

Masaru: “Just hand over what I came for.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Just say what ya have to say and stop wasting my time!”

Apparently the dub has forgotten that Marcus only came here to pick up Digimon food for Agumon, and suddenly he expects to be receiving a speech here when he shouldn’t.

Masaru: “Renegades?”

Kudamon: “Yes. Raptor-1 has already entered the human world and injured humans. He cannot be allowed to go free.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Why are you calling him a renegade?”

Kudamon: “Because Raptor-1 has already entered the human world and made contact with human beings, so he can no longer be allowed to go free.”

I would complain that it’s a bit much that Agumon’s getting in so much trouble simply for meeting humans in the dub, and not specifically injuring them like they were assuming in the original. But, as it turns out, the original is also going to call Digimon simply meeting humans a “crime” in the next episode, possibly as part of its early weirdness. So, eh, this isn’t really the dub being any sillier than the original here.

Satsuma: “Daimon Masaru, you should work with us to create a bright future for both humans and Digimon!”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Please co-operate. The future relationship between humans and Digimon depends on you returning Raptor-1 to us.”

Also, apparently Sampson isn’t actually trying to recruit Masaru to join DATS with this speech. I can understand the logic behind changing that, since Satsuma was going about that whole thing weirdly vaguely.

That said, saying that the entire relationship between the two species hinges on this one Digimon being returned doesn’t make any sense. So I get the feeling that the implication of what Satsuma really wanted in the original line just went completely over the dubbers’ heads, and they simply thought they were translating his intent directly and made it sound rather silly as a result.

Masaru: “What the hell is this? Stop pestering without even listening to what I have to say first!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Why not? Because I don’t owe you people a single thing!”

We lose the fun subtle Masaru-y nuance of him caring about being given a chance to express how he feels here. Though I suppose it’s also relevant and illustrative that Marcus is implying he would help them if he felt like he owed them, showing a sense of responsibility there.

Masaru: “…but have you even considered why he suddenly showed up in this world? He admired this place! He admired this wide world, filled with things moving around that he’d never seen before.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Have you thought about why he came to the human world in the first place? What if he didn’t have a choice? Maybe things were bad for him back in the Digital World!”

This would be Marcus being sweet and thinking about how Agumon feels… if it wasn’t for the fact that Agumon told him he doesn’t know about anything except the institution, and therefore clearly didn’t deliberately try and run away from something bad in the Digital World. Pay attention to your foll – uh, employee, Marcus. Masaru’s line there had somewhat forgotten or misinterpreted what Agumon had told him, but Marcus’s is doing so to a much greater extent.

Masaru: “But if he starts rampaging, then I’ll be responsible.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “And if he gets into any sort of trouble, I’ll claim full responsibility for his actions.”

This sounds like a perfectly reasonable translation, but the dub version of the sentence does not work nearly as well to foreshadow the thing that the original line is foreshadowing and this makes me sad.

Marcus: “But only if you give me some food for him!”

…This is immediately following the previous line. So I guess, since they never give him any food, Marcus doesn’t end up obligated to take any responsibility for Agumon getting into trouble. (Even though that’s still what he is going to do when they think Agumon’s attacking the hamburger shop. But this makes him come across like someone who’s less willing to do so no matter what and has less of a strong sense of responsibility.)

Kudamon: “It looks like you’ll have to take responsibility sooner than you thought.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “Do you now see how hiding him has created a security breach for all of us?”

This change makes a fair amount of sense, since original-Kudamon was being unreasonable by insisting Masaru should take responsibility for Agumon’s hunger when that was really Yoshino’s fault. And it also fits with the fact that Marcus never actually promised to take responsibility since he wasn’t given any food.

Yoshino: “So this is where you were hiding him. Since he’s nowhere to be seen, it must be him who attacked the hamburger shop.”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “So this is where you were hiding Raptor-1. A lot of good it did you, since we confirmed it was definitely him who attacked the hamburger stand.”

No, you didn’t! How did you confirm a thing that isn’t true? If this is Yoshi lying, that’s just a dick move; she doesn’t even have anything to gain from it. It feels more like this was the dubbers not paying attention and missing the original’s meaning, which is very obviously that Yoshino was assuming based simply on the fact that Agumon went missing. But he didn’t actually attack the hamburger stand! Did they not even watch ahead to the rest of this episode to realise that?

Marcus: “Why’d you attack a hamburger stand?”

Marcus asks this of Agumon after finding him with his head dorkily stuck in a trashcan, not really all that close to the explosions and flames. Way to jump to freaking conclusions after basically just finding proof that Agumon isn’t the culprit, geez! …Though I suppose that can be partly blamed on Yoshi inexplicably insisting he definitely was.

Agumon: “Huh? I didn’t attack anything, but a hamburger sure sounds good!”

Agumon should not know what a hamburger is. Again with his dub version knowing more human things than he should.

Kudamon: “He hasn’t been tamed. I don’t understand why he’s fighting alongside human beings.”

This just makes no sense. What the hell does “tamed” even mean? Doesn’t it just mean “has become willing to work with humans”? Because if so, he evidently has been tamed, actually. Just sounds frustratingly like Kudamon trying to insist he Knows Better than this nobody kid, and I don’t think that’s meant to be his character.

Agumon: “Aniki! He’s really strong…!”

Masaru: “Doesn’t that just fire you up!?”

Agumon: “Y… yeah!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “No! Agumon!”

Agumon: “Boss! I’m fine, but could you lend a hand?”

Marcus: “Ha! How about I lend a couple of fists!?”

The dub’s version of this exchange is kinda still cute, but it loses that fun nuance that Masaru loves how strong their opponent is, and that Agumon is learning to agree with that idea thanks to him.

Yoshi: “That thing will tear you to pieces!”

See, here’s a way to avoid directly using the word “die” or “kill” while still making it clear that’s what she’s referring to, without awkwardly acting like humans can be “destroyed”.

Masaru: “When you’re in a man’s fight, you’re already risking your life! The moment you get scared of dying is the moment you’ve lost the fight!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Besides, the ultimate fighter is always willing to make the ultimate sacrifice!”

This significantly changes the meaning here, and instead Marcus is apparently consciously willing to get himself killed if necessary, even though the kinds of fights he’s been in before really aren’t something that’s actually worth dying for at all. Masaru’s philosophy of acknowledging but then choosing to brush aside the potential risk in order to fight better makes more sense, because he’s not actually intending to die for anything.

The dub’s changed version of this line will also not work for the callback that the original line is going to get later in the series. I’d talk a lot more about why not, but, spoilers, so I’ll save that for then.

There’s a brief snippet of music here during the Anime Sads that appears to be a sad piano variation of Probably Marcus’s Theme, which feels appropriate. I don’t remember it from my one previous dub watch-through, but I hope it gets used in some of the future much more substantial moments of Marcus being sad about things.

Masaru: “You… How dare you hurt my follower!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “It’s… It’s fightin’ time!”

We also lose another future callback here. But on the other hand, “it’s fightin’ time!” is going to become Marcus’s catchphrase that he uses basically every time he fights (a dub-only catchphrase that Masaru has no equivalent of, and that I’m really pretty happy with), and this moment when he’s avenging Agumon getting hurt is definitely an appropriate moment for it to start being a thing.

The dub’s term for Digisoul is, instead, DNA. Luckily for the biologist in me, who would otherwise be tearing my hair out over this, this stands for something entirely different from deoxyribonucleic acid, because boy would it being that kind of DNA make absolutely zero sense. It’s still pretty awkward that it happens to be the same acronym as a commonly-known thing that it could easily be mistaken for, mind you.

I don’t know why they couldn’t just keep the term Digisoul, though. It’s a perfectly good term! It can’t even be that the dubbers have some kind of oh-no-religious-references objection to using the word “soul”, because that word is also in the dub’s opening song that we’ll be hearing every episode.

Old man: “By mastering this technique, your Digimon can Digivolve.”

Um, sure. The technique of waving your glowing hand over the Digivice is definitely something that needs to be “mastered”.

Marcus also yells “DNA Charge!” out of nowhere for the first time. But in his case, the old man never actually mentioned the word “charge” when telling him what to do here, so it’s even less clear how he knew that was what he was supposed to say.

Alas, the English dub does not dub the original evolution songs in Digimon. The evolution music instead is an instrumental version of the dub’s opening song, which, though I prefer Believer, is an acceptable replacement in terms of creating a similarly triumphant mood.

Marcus: “That’ll teach ya! Don’t mess with my employee!”

Oh my god, wow, way to completely unintentionally mood-whiplash the triumphant moment by reminding us that this huge powerful dinosaur is actually just your subordinate in the new small business you’ve set up here, Marcus. A small business of punching everything.

Agumon: “Aniki! I’m hungry!”

Masaru: “What the hell… That’s so anti-climactic…”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Boss! I’m hungry.”

Marcus: “What else is new? I’m just glad you’re safe.”

This addition is cute. Originally Masaru’s just referring to the anticlimax of Agumon devolving so fast.

Masaru: “How about going for a hamburger?”

Agumon: “Does that taste good?”

~~~~~

Marcus: “How about a nice hamburger?”

Agumon: “Ooh! With cheese, too?”

On the one hand, at least the dub remembered the fact that this Agumon somehow already knows what a hamburger is. On the other, this raises even more questions in terms of how he also knows that they can come with cheese.

Yoshino: “But that one’s already injured 13 students!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “But Agumon still injured fifteen men!”

Remember how the original tried to calculate fifteen minus one and got thirteen? Well, the dub tried it and got fifteen. Somehow each of them managed to get this very simple sum wrong in a different way.

(And yes, the dub did also specifically have Lalamon sense fifteen humans at the park in the beginning. Actually, it flashes back here to a part where Yoshi was then relaying to HQ that there are fifteen victims, but that was before she saw that Marcus was still standing. I guess it’s plausible to assume that Yoshi herself forgot to subtract Marcus after that and this is her mistake rather than the writers. Not convinced that’s the case, though.)

Also, told you the dub would forget about the part in the beginning where Marcus yelled out within Yoshi’s earshot that he beat up the dudes.

Marcus: “Those were some punks claiming to be ultimate fighters who wanted to train in my area, so I fought them for it, and guess what, I won!”

This begs the question: how the hell is that park supposed to be Marcus’s training ground? Surely, it’d make most sense as a training ground if it was where people regularly come to challenge him to fights? Instead, he only fought the dudes there because he wanted to drive them away from his training ground, so that he can continue to train there, alone, in a perfectly ordinary park that isn’t a gym or anything like that. How is he supposed to train there without opponents? Does he just, like… punch the trees?

I understand if the dub wants to make Marcus have slightly less of a teenage delinquent vibe, but the resulting implications they have here instead are just amusingly nonsensical. It does not seem like they actually thought about this very hard at all.

Overall differences

Overall, the dub of this episode shows a pattern of things generally making a bit less sense and having a bit less nuance, and Marcus in particular being just a bit less interesting and distinctive than Masaru. This is going to be such a regular pattern for every single dub episode that I probably won’t even bother to remark on it in most of these summaries going forward.

In terms of more specific effect on how this episode comes across, I think the most noticeable shift is that the sense of Marcus’s empathy towards Agumon despite his species is watered down slightly. Perhaps most notably, Agumon did not become loyal to Marcus because Marcus treated him like a person, but instead just because he matched him in a fight, which is less meaningful.

The terms “boss” and “employee” also give something of a different vibe to their relationship than in the original. Obviously the dub had to localise “aniki” to something, but I don’t think this was the best choice. This’ll be a thing in every episode, of course, but I’m bringing it up here because this is where it starts.

Then there’s the part where one of Yoshi’s lines casually established that Agumon had never spoken before. As much as this doesn’t make any sense to be a thing – why would he not have spoken while being held in DATS? – I guess it makes it slightly more reasonable that DATS then sees him as just a monster? Though they should also be changing their tune quite quickly when they realise he can speak, which of course they don’t. I guess this could have been an attempt to justify the original’s issues with DATS’s attitude towards Agumon… but not a very effective one.

#digimon #digimon savers #digimon data squad

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l0pp0 · 3 years

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Back again, hah! Could you write a Wu Chang imagine with a hunter S/O? Maybe a fic where they chill in the forest? You're writing is really good and I really love Wu Chang pft.. <333

Henlo !! It’s been forever since I’ve written something, hope this is alright !

TW: none Word Count: 1.3 k

Monotone Colors

Wu Chang x Reader

Monotone colors are so dull.

Every week over and over scheduled matches take place. Every day, you’d use your abilities to chase down survivors until one of you won. A scoff of a survivors taunt, the draw of an oh so close win. Hands and back stiff from the countless days spent swinging at mice of survivors. The maps would change, the survivors faces would differ. But every single day, is just more and more repetitive. It’s all just dull, grey tones with little to no life. The maps all slur into a frenzy of black to white, eventually mixing into a pot of hit, chase, balloon, hit, chase, balloon , hit, chase, balloon-

The one thing though, the one thing that shone so bright like the luminous stars were their faces. Xie Bi’an, the white guard, a man who knows the world of serene and logical pathways to solutions. Fan Wuiju, the black guard, Bi’an’s counterpart and partner in crime. As the black guard covers the terrain of straight-to-the-point mentality and blunt truth. Two men that somehow let you see a glimpse of warmth, despite your shared cold environment that is the manor.

The sheets of your bed swarm you like the oceans wave. The comfort of your ivory white blankets drown you where the aches of your hands only can reach oh so much. A polite knock at your oak door interrupts the beckons of sleep. Everything was so bright but now in a hell of a life, it’s all mundane. With a foot dragged against the ice cold floor, you face the wooden door. With a twist of your wrist on the golden doorknob, reveals the faces of two men you knew well.

“Wu Chang” both stood at your door with a glow in their presence. You didn’t dislike anyone from the manor, no one in particular. A few survivors stood and remain irritating for you yet they’re apart of this hell too. The fellow hunters however, it ranged. On some days it was fine to socialize, on the others you’d remain to stay out in your living quarters. As everyone understood that everyone needs a bit of space.

Yet with the two tall men standing proud at your door, nothing but the expression of confusion could be displayed on your fave. Why were they here? You’d admit they peak your interest with their pursuits in your affection. As they both use their own methods to sway your love. It was entertaining and their presence is always a comfort. Today however, a cheeky smile from Wuiju and a smirk from Bi’an, caught you puzzled.

Bi’an, with a speck of a whisper in your ear, tells you to follow the both of them. What more is there to do? You were done with your matches for the day, and you’d could use the excitement. Wujiu’s hand is reached out far in front of you. The open palm beckoning you to take it, and accept their offer. The chance to get outside the manor, even just for a moment. And take a break from the full life that is enslaved inside the walls of matches. A reluctant sign escapes the part between your lips and you grab the hand of the black guard.

With a flick between blinks showed the sensation of soft dirt under your feet. Dart around your eyes in a desperation to take it all in. A tree? No... Multiple. A forest, a forest surrounds you. Talk, leafy green spring woods encase you like a jail cell with bars bug enough to slip through. Moss covers dark grey rocks like a parasite, the smell of earth almost overbearing you. Rocks and twigs scatter beneath your feet, but no dirt path to be found. Pure nature screams as birds sing to each other in sweet melody. The large trees range so high that their tops are to be ascended with the clouds.

A soft snicker is heard behind you, only to see that the black guard is the culprit of such crime. A slight wind enraptures the long braids of the pair, their hair moving like snakes against the current. Bi’an remains a smile so soft, it would almost be unnoticeable. As the smell of flowers attacks you, Wujiu approaches you with his remaining laugh.

Wuiju, eyes purple and prominent, opens his arms wife’s and gestures to the life around you. It’s all so refreshing, a break from the cumbersome schedule of the manor. You know you’ll be placed in that hell for as long as you can guess, but some company wouldn't hurt. The white guard creeps behind you whilst the black guard entertains you with facts about the land. Suddenly, two long sleeves of white take hold of your midsection.

With a fling and a pump of strength, your body gets placed in the Princess carry of Bi’an. Wuiju grows playfully upset at this, bothering Bi’an that he wished to hold you in his arms. With a roll of golden yellow eyes and a light remark back, you remained his Bian’s arms.

This time, nothing was a blur of the same colors over and over. So many hues presented themselves in front of your eyes, it was almost overwhelming. The sound of twigs crunching under their feet was so loud, yet the chatter of their voices drowned out the noise. Now it was only you three existing at the same time in the mystical forest. In such a grey life, would it hurt to allow yourself to see some color?

The harsh kiss of the bright sun attack your skin, the amber orb peering down at you 3. The trees shook once more, releasing a plethora of leaves in shades of green you haven’t seen in so long. Gingerly you were put down from the embrace of the white guard. The black guard quickly wraps your left hand around his, as white mirrors the action with your right.

You thought the breath of the forest would conclude at that, yet to your eyes appears pigments unknowns to your mind. Under the shade of the colossal trees lies you and Wu Chang. The variations of flowers to mushrooms steaks your attention.

The conversations flow like river water down the stream of a mountain. Effortless, easy, and in perfection. One word spilled after another, and soon it was clear it was a rare occasion where you were this comfortable. And they took pride in that fact. A soft breeze sweeps you, as the small flower dances in rhythm. The feeling of layered moss cushioned your seat under the trees protection of the aggressive sun.

Bi’an listened to all your issues and anything that came to your mind. As Wuiju picked beautiful flowers that reminded him of your features. Bi’an noticed Wuiju’s persistent picking of the florescent buds and got to work picking bright flowers. No words needed to be dispersed as the company of the two men and the chime of the forest was all audio needed. You’re back faced the two men, as you peered out into the maze that is the large trees.

The sound of repetitive snapping crowd behind you. With a twist of your head reveals the two guards bending over a... wreath? No much too small for such item, need it not be since it’s months from winter... A triumphant shout escaped from Wuiju’s throat and Bi’an smiled with his teeth. Soon they take both their hands to take the mysterious item and present to you.

With closer inspection reveals a flower crown. Leaves adorned in bright shades of green and flowers varying in shades of all pigments. A crown perfectly fitted for the top of your head, truly pronouncing the true royalty you are. As sun started to lower, the two men took in your hands once more with a confess of their shared love for you. Suddenly the world no longer kept the true color of things from you, and now nothing felt empty. Nothing felt as if you were longing for the release of some pressure, no longer was the world in shades of black white and grey.

A heated blush spread bright red and a smile unable to remove form your cheeks, you accept their affections. As you all headed back to the manor, both your hands held the palm of someone you could call your own.

Maybe, just maybe, the world isn’t so dull.

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ot3 · 4 years

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your last post made me think about how I loooove how you use color in your art, it's so vibrant and full of life and movement and expression! I was wondering if you had any advice on how to do color studies? perhaps doing drawings with limited palettes? or anything similar?

First things first, thank you, I really do appreciate comments like these! this post now also has a follow up for finish limited palette pieces

I'm obviously very fond of limited palette art and color studies/color thumbnailing are great ways to get that done. When people think limited palette there's often the association of unrealistic and fantastical color palettes, but learning to limit your color use absolutely applies to semirealism and just builds stronger color theory in general. I was planning to talk about limited palettes in more realistic color use in this post, but this already ended up way too long. If that's something people want to hear about I can talk about it later.

Color theory basics crash-course! I'm sure almost anyone who has colored anything is familiar with this, so I'll be SUPER brief, but I want everyone to be on the same page for this. Color has three qualities you need to take into account: Hue, saturation, and brightness. Hue is what we think of as the 'color'. Saturation is the vibrancy of this color; how bold or dull it is. Brightness is how light or dark the color is. Here's this all labeled on a color picker I stole from google.

As a rule of thumb, things that look good in color should look good in grayscale. Having a strong range of values (brightness) makes for a strong image. Keep this in mind when you're picking colors – knowing what areas need to be light and what areas need to be dark before you start coloring will make your life easier. I'm going to teach you when and how to break this rule later, but for now let's just talk about picking a palette. I've found five to seven different colors to be a really nice sweet spot for working with limited palettes.

There are three main types of color palettes ill work with and ill provide examples each of them. I expect you to all politely refrain commenting on the amount of homestuck fanart that's here.

Monochromatic, where the piece is all within one color family with slight variations in hue, and larger variations in brightness and saturation

Accent, which is essentially the same as a monochromatic type with the addition of a strong, contrasting secondary color in one or two variants. Normally the accent color is lighter and serves as a highlight. This is not any kind of a hard rule, but is instead just what I like.

Split. There are two (or more) main colors at play, each with a couple of different shades.

Cool. Now lets see how we'd go about making one of these palettes.

I'm grabbing an inconsequential sketch i've already got and we're gonna slap some color on it. Let's start monochromatic – I've gone and just tossed six pretty random shades of green on it, picking what goes where based on what I want to be light and what I want to be darker.

Keep in mind, by monochromatic, I don't mean just picking one color and making it lighter or darker! Adjust your hue within the same color family – some of these are very blue, definitely more blue than green, and some are much warmer and yellower. Play around. In this stage I like to have every color on a distinct layer, so I can just recolor the entire layer at once as I tweak the palette.

On the right, I have each color lined up in order of lightest to darkest just so I can get a sense of what I'm working with. Lets go ahead and call this one thumbnail. Now I'm gonna group the layers, duplicate them, and flatten the copy. I'll shrink it down and shove it off to the side so I can compare it to the other ones I make later.

Okay, I did a few more almost completely arbitrary monochromatic palettes. Here they are compared with their grayscale counterparts.

All of them have the same number of colors, and lights stay lights, darks stay dark, midtones stay mid consistent between all of them, but the range of values is different between them all. The difference in light or dark between each tone is different and it gives a different mood that you can see even in black and white. None of them is more 'correct' than any other, and it's all about establishing the tone and atmosphere you want. Experimentation is key.

Now lets try making this a complimentary palette. With a strong accent color, your accent should be placed at areas of importance. People are naturally drawn to contrast and when using an accent color in a piece it'll make that area stick out, so make sure you're placing your colors with intent. For this I went back to that first set of greens I had because it was my favorite. Since this palette is over all very dark, I am going to make my accent the lightest color, because that'll stand out more. In a lighter palette, try making your accent the darkest color. Once again I must stress these are not hard rules – there are very few hard rules in art at all – but these are very useful tips for getting emphasis in the right place. This is just an example piece so I'm not being huuugely thoughtful with how I'm placing the color.

Here's the same image but with the lightest green just swapped out for a far more vibrant accent of yellow. Looks pretty terrible. I don't want all of the papers and blinds to seem so prominent. So let's scrap this and try a different approach. We're gonna instead add our accent as a sixth color to our palette.

By adding another color, I've added another level of detail. Figuring out how to manage detail isn't just dependent on how many colors you have, but this is already going to be ridiculously long so I'll spare you that spiel. This is another one of those things I'll talk about more later if people want to hear my #thots. Using the new yellow accent, I emphasized the eyes, the mug, and added some interior detailing to the objects on the table. I also decided to place yellow in some of the windows of the outside buildings, to add a bit more interest in that area, and to justify giving yellow back lighting to our little goblin lad here, which makes him stand out nicely.

A split palette makes things a whole lot more complicated. Now that you're gonna be working with two different base colors you don't just only have to worry about which one is lighter or darker, you have to worry about how the hues look next to each other. Lets work with an orange on top of our original green here. I picked two of the greens and replaced the darker one with a darker orange, and the lighter one with a lighter orange. Now our palette is six colors split 50/50 between orange+yellow, and green.

But now something interesting is happening. Let's take a look. If you're particularly keen eyed, you might have noticed that there's a third set of colors here, using a greyish brown in place of the oranges. What's up with that?

Well, what's up with that is, they are orange. The palette on the far right is what happens if, instead of choosing my own oranges, I simply hue-shifted the bluegreens until they were technically orange in hue.

The oranges I chose just based on how they looked without actually checking the value and saturation of actually changed the value hierarchy of the whole piece. The table, instead of being in between the objects stacked upon it in terms of brightness, is lighter than either. This isnt bad at all – there's absolutely nothing wrong here. It's just important to be aware of things like this! This is why I said a split palette is the most complicated of the three I'm talking about here – in many occasions, the hue hierarchy can top the value hierarchy. Keep that in mind for slightly later.

I think split palettes work really well for comics, and I like to make my comics with split palettes. Whereas with a single illustration, you can just putz around with your color thumbnails until you get something good, for a comic you're locked into your palette once you've done the first page. Unless you're some sort of insanely meticulous person, in which case I envy you, you probably don't have every single page of your comic blocked out with respective values and can't apply your palette to the whole thing at once to test it. This means you'll need a palette that's pretty versatile. Having a split palette where one of the hue sets is lighter than the other overall allows you to decide whether you're going to create an overall light panel with dark accents, or vice versa. I'm gonna compare two palettes I'm using for comics to make this point.

Here's a sampling of the comic pages in full color, at 0% saturation, and adjusted for grayscale respectively. You'll notice a slight difference between the desaturated colors and the grayscale colors – grayscale seems to hold truer to the full color version, doesn't it?

Now, here are the palettes themselves, and some grids showing the relationship between every pair of colors. When you don't know exactly what you're going to be using any given palette for, the relationship between any two colors becomes more important than ever. The bottom palette is split three ways, red yellow and blue each with a light and a dark, and then a completely neutral dark gray color. I'm using it for a long ongoing ace attorney comic I'm drawing. The top one has 4 shades of blue that go from darker and cooler to lighter and warmer, then 3 shades of orange that get yellower as they get lighter. Underneath is just the values – you'll notice that the top palette has a larger value range, with its lightest color being lighter than that of the bottom palette, and it's mid tones spaced further apart.

What you'll also notice about the bottom palette is that instead of the reds being lighter than the blues and darker than the yellows, the value alternates dark red dark yellow light red light yellow. Take a look at the color grids. You'll notice that for the most part, every color in the palette on the right looks good with every other color. That's not nearly as true for the palette on the left. The light blue has a weird vibration where it meets either of the reds, and a few of the pairings just aren't particularly pleasant. Honestly, from any objective ideas of color theory, this palette kind of sucks shit. Lets make some adjustments to it.

I've changed the dark yellow and light red hues so now the light red is slightly darker than the dark yellow. That's the palette that's on top now. Looks better, doesn't it? But so now the question becomes why am I using a palette that looks awkward, disharmonious, and visually strained when I know exactly how to fix it? The simple answer is because I wanted a color palette that's awkward. I wanted that visual strain. I have trouble working on comics and general, especially anything as long as this one, and I wanted a color palette that already meant things would come out looking a little bit wonky, so I wouldn't be as concerned with nitpicking all the details and making everything pretty. I think the sort of visual upset also fits the tone I'm keeping with a lot of the comic.

Remember earlier when I said I'd talk about breaking the rule of stuff looking good in gray scale and in color? That's now. Take a look at this image.

Which of the three colors is darker: the red, blue, or yellow? The stupid truth of it is that there's not really a proper way to tell. All three are technically the same 'brightness' but our brain tells us that the blue is the darkest, and the yellow is the lightest. Why do our brains do this? Let’s make em gray now.

On the bottom you can see what the colors look like when they are set to 0% saturation; as you'd expect it's a homogeneous gray blob. So then what the fuck is going on with the grayscale one? The grayscale one is closer to the way our brains interpret the colors, but we know this to be an improper rendering of their respective values. Which is the correct version, then – the grayscale or the desaturation? Luckily, we're using a computer, so we can have photoshop tell us the exact balance of hue, saturation, and brightness of any given pixel. Let's take a look now.

Wait, huh? We can plainly see that all three of the colors are at 49% brightness. But neither the desaturated value or any of the 3 grayscale values have a brightness of 49%. So what does a brightness of 49% look like?

Okay. Sure. Why not.

All of what I've just shown you regarding grayscale is to emphasize the point that your best judgment for which colors look good is a far better measuring stick for a good color palette than any technicalities. Even if the value is the same, the hue can differ enough that you can still get a beautiful finished drawing. Color and our perception of it is so, so vastly technically complex. You can not allow yourself to be bogged down by this. Simply practice, and color will become intuitive to you over time. I have a lot more I could say on the subject of picking and using your colors, but this is already insanely long. Feel free to ask any follow up questions, I hope this was of literally any use!

#long post #uhhhhh.#color theory #i guess #i drew this #Anonymous

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wisteriashouse · 3 years

Text

between us.

pairing: kamado tanjirou x sumiyuri hayami (oc)

genre: fluff

word count: 7015

remarks: commission by @hinokami-s!! i hope you enjoy this one... i feel like i went a bit off with hayami’s personality at the end (too much... humour?) but i tried my best! as usual tanjirou and hayami’s relationship is so sweet i cry 😭

The cherry blossoms are blooming.

That’s the first thing Tanjirou notices as he makes his way down the path to the Butterfly Estate, their slight fragrance drifting along the wind and lending their floral perfume to the spring breeze. The last time he’d parted ways here with the rest of his friends for individual missions, the cherry blossom trees still had fresh green leaves clinging to their branches. Now, it’s almost been months without seeing a glimpse of their faces.

He hopes they’re all doing alright.

Hiking Nezuko’s box more comfortably up his back, he lets out a slight wince as the straps jolt against the makeshift sling his left arm is in - the demon he’d faced on his latest mission had left a nasty injury there, and he needs to get it checked by one of the girls at the Butterfly Estate before he’s clear to continue taking new missions.

With a sigh, Tanjirou looks down at his wound to inspect it briefly. He’s not trained in medicine like Aoi and Shinobu are, but he’s been injured enough - he can tell from the bruising around his arm that he’ll need to recuperate for a week at least, or perhaps even longer. Hopefully, either Zenitsu or Inosuke will happen to be at the estate as well so that he won’t have to be so alone, or maybe even-

The faint scent of lavender touches his nose, and Tanjirou perks up at the familiarity of it. Could it possibly be her?

“Oh! Tanjirou, it’s you!”

Tanjirou glances up towards the source of the voice only to see a familiar figure silhouetted against the noonday sun, waving enthusiastically in the distance. Hayami is standing at the entrance of the Butterfly Estate, dressed in a snow white yukata and her platinum hair blazing gold in the light of the evening sun. Although he can’t make out her features clearly in the distance, Tanjirou somehow knows that their eyes have met - it’s like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle falling into place.

He waves in response with his good arm, feeling the corners of his mouth lift in a smile - it’s an involuntary reflex, one that he can’t help whenever he sees her. As Tanjirou draws closer, Hayami, apparently too impatient to wait for him to come to her, takes off at a run - within seconds, she’s already standing before him with a radiant smile and lilac eyes that sparkle like gems.

“Tanjirou, it’s been so long since I’ve last seen you!” Hayami exclaims excitedly, holding out her arms to catch Tanjirou in her usual greeting hug when her gaze falls to his arm. Instantly, her eyes widen with concern, brows pinching together as she inspects the reddened area. “You’re hurt! What happened?”

A sheepish laugh escapes him, his good hand reaching up to scratch at his head. “Well, it’s a little embarrassing, but I got taken by surprise.” Hayami frowns in worry, moving as if to gently touch the wound, but right before her fingertips can brush his skin, she pulls back with a shake of the head. Tanjirou can’t help the slight twinge of disappointment, before he feels heat prick at his cheeks at the thought - he blames it on the warm weather. “What about you? Why are you at the estate?”

“We all make mistakes, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” Hayami chides, apparently unaware of his wandering thoughts. “I just finished a mission, so they’re giving me a short break. I’ve been going continuously for a few months now, and I don’t want to collapse out of exhaustion.” Giving him a cursory glance, she leans in closer, the scent of freshly laundered fabric and lavender tickling his nose - what a pleasant scent, Tanjirou thinks. Her lilac eyes stare right into his, and suddenly it registers to him that Hayami is standing too close - far too close.

“That’s true, I would hate to see you overworked.” He tries to brush off the feeling in his chest, smiling up at Hayami. “I’m glad that you’re here as well. I was worried I’d have to spend the next few weeks training all by myself!”

“That would have been quite lonely, but don’t worry, I’m here too! We can spar together if you want, but only when your arm gets better!” Hayami replies instantly. With a smile, she takes Tanjirou’s uninjured hand in his. “Come on, let’s get back to the Butterfly Mansion and get your injury looked at. I’m sure the other girls are excited to see you too.”

Tanjirou looks down at their conjoined hands, something akin to warmth fluttering in his chest. He’s lucky that Hayami doesn’t have the same keen sense of smell that he does, because now, the air is almost pungently sweet with the scent of his happiness.

“Knock, knock, are you there?” Hayami raps her knuckles lightly on the box Tanjirou always wears on his back. From the inside, she can hear slight scratching noises and rustling, the sound of its contents awakening. She knocks again, a playful sing song tone to her voice. “Oh dear, this box isn’t making any noise. Is anyone home?”

“Mmph hmph!”

All of a sudden, the lid to the box bursts open and a tiny Nezuko spills out in a mess of pink fabric and an assortment of wildflowers. Tanjirou must have given Nezuko those to play with while she was inside the box, Hayami reasons, colours and variations of all sorts strewn on the floor. With a smile, Hayami mentally promises to clean up the mess later and stretches out her arms. “Nezuko! It’s Big Sister! Did you miss me?”

Before Hayami can so much as reach for the younger girl, Nezuko is already toddling over and throwing herself into Hayami’s arms, making muffled noises of excitement behind her bamboo gag. Cooing, Hayami reaches down to brush some stray flower petals out of Nezuko’s hair before wrapping her arms around the younger girl. She’s as adorable as usual. “How have you been? Did you help your big brother Tanjirou fight any demons?”

Nezuko makes a little ‘mmph!’ noise proudly, her pink eyes sparkling. Hayami beams down at the younger girl, ruffling her long locks. They’re a little tangled, she notes with a frown. Tanjirou usually does this, but he must have been unable to with the injury to his dominant hand.

“Nezuko, sit here,” she pats her lap, before looking through her sleeves, before producing a little wooden comb. Carefully, she begins to run the comb through Nezuko’s locks, being cautious not to hurt the younger girl while undoing the knots. Doing this feels relaxing, the repetitive movements helping to calm her mind and soul.

“Hmm!” Much to Hayami’s surprise, Nezuko suddenly turns around in Hayami’s lap and points at her hair, before gesturing at her own excitedly. Hayami tilts her head to the side, momentarily confused. “My hair? What about it?”

“Mmhh mm!”

Hayami lets out a noise of realisation. “You want your hair to be tied into a ponytail too?”

“Mmm!”

“Alright, give me a moment.” Looking into her sleeves again, she searches for her spare hair ribbon - a short length of pink silk that would go beautifully with Nezuko’s eyes, she thinks. Humming lightly, she moves to gather Nezuko’s hair into a long ponytail, before securing it neatly with a ribbon. “There, all done.”

From the happy noises Nezuko is making, Hayami assumes that she likes it. Feeling pleased with herself, Hayami pats the top of Nezuko’s head with a smile. “I’m glad you like it!”

Nezuko whirls around, pointing at her forehead and making curious sounds. Hayami understands who she’s talking about almost instantly.

“Oh, where’s Tanjirou? He’s getting looked at by Shinobu-san for his arm, but I’m sure he’ll be alright in no time. He asked me to keep you company in the meanwhile.” Hayami answers, smiling as comfortingly as she can at Nezuko. This seems to abate the young demon’s concerns slightly, but then Nezuko tugs at the sleeve of her kimono, brows furrowed.

“Hmph hmm!”

“You’re still worried?” Hayami twirls a lock of hair around her finger thoughtfully. It is dark out now, so it should be safe for her to bring Nezuko out of the room. “Well, I suppose Tanjirou should have finished his examination with Shinobu-san by now, unless he’s more badly injured than I thought. Do you want to go find him?”

“Mhm!”

“Alright, hop on.” Lowering herself closer to the ground, Hayami allows Nezuko to clamber onto her back and wrap her legs around her waist. Once she’s satisfied that Nezuko is securely on her back, she straightens up. Behind her, Nezuko makes tiny muffled noises of excitement, and Hayami has to stifle a giggle. Nezuko really is too cute.

“Hold on tight to me, alright, Nezuko?” Hayami glances over her shoulder. Nezuko wraps her arms around her neck.

“Mmm!”

Setting out, the two of them make their way down the corridors of the Butterfly Estate to the medical wing, Hayami humming along the way to keep Nezuko entertained. Once they reach the medical wing, Hayami slides open the door, only to see Tanjirou sitting on the only occupied bed with a bowl of porridge on his bedside table. His eyes light up the second he sees the two of them.

“Nezuko!” Tanjirou says brightly, and in an instant, Nezuko is leaping off Hayami’s back before hopping straight onto Tanjirou’s bed, wrapping both arms around his middle tightly. Tanjirou lets out a grunt as he catches with his good hand, before he lets out a laugh and reaches up to pat the top of her head gently. “There, there, Nezuko. Big Brother is completely fine, there’s no need to worry, see?” He wiggles the fingers poking out of his cast to reassure her. Seemingly put at ease now, Nezuko tugs at Tanjirou’s sleeve, before pointing to her hair.

“Hmm mm!”

Tanjirou smiles at Nezuko. “Did Hayami do your hair for you? Wow, it looks beautiful on you, Nezuko!” Nezuko huffs proudly. He turns to look at Hayami. “Thank you very much for keeping her company for me, Hayami.”

“It was no problem, you know how much I love to spend time with Nezuko’,” Hayami says, sliding the door shut behind her. Stepping over to Tanjirou, she gives the cast a cursory glance. “That doesn’t look ‘completely fine’ in the least. How bad is it?”

“Just a hairline fracture.” Tanjirou explains, as Nezuko curls up in his lap like a large cat. “Shinobu-san said that it’ll heal in about a couple of weeks or so, as long as I don’t aggravate it. She gave me some painkillers too, but apparently they can only be taken after a meal, hence the porridge.” He lets out a sigh as he looks down at his dominant hand, casted and wrapped in a sling. “It’s a little hard to eat with this on, though.”

Crossing over to his bedside table, Hayami picks up the bowl, scooping a spoonful of porridge and holding it out to Tanjirou. “Here, I’ll feed you.” Hayami nudges at his lips with the spoon. “Say ‘ah’.”

“Ah, Hayami, there’s no need to!” Tanjirou’s face is burning red for some reason, and Hayami frowns in worry, setting down the bowl to the side.

“Tanjirou, your cheeks are flushed.” Tanjirou looks like he’s about to hyperventilate any moment, the flush on his cheeks deepening into a shade of wine red. He doesn’t seem like he’s about to admit anything, so Hayami simply leans forward, brushing the hair back from Tanjirou’s forehead to press their foreheads together, just as Shinobu had taught her to check for a fever. As expected, his skin is a little hot in comparison to hers. “Hmm, you’re a little warm. You might have a fever- Ow!”

Hayami staggers back with a yelp of pain, both hands clutching her forehead. “Tanjirou!”

“I’m so sorry! Are you alright? I didn’t mean to do that! You just leaned in all of a sudden and I panicked and I accidentally headbutted you!” Tanjirou panics, clambering off the bed to check up on her. Hayami rubs the sore spot where Tanjirou’s forehead had collided with hers, slightly relieved that her fingers come away bloodless - she’s seen what that deadly weapon is more than capable of before. It really is as hard as a rock, she thinks to herself.

“I’m alright,” Hayami manages. Nezuko looks concerned, pink eyes wide as she stares from the bed. Maybe she should go to Shinobu for an x-ray tomorrow, just in case. He might have fractured her skull. “Well, I suppose that you’re fine, seeing that you seem so energetic.” Picking up the bowl, Hayami holds out the spoon to him once more. “Here. You should eat so that you can take your pills and go to sleep.”

Apparently too traumatised by the earlier incident to argue any further, Tanjirou obediently opens his mouth and swallows, chewing silently. It doesn’t take him long to finish the entire bowl, and by the time Hayami is handing him a cup of water to wash his painkillers down with, Tanjirou is already yawning and rubbing at his eyes. He must be tired just having returned from a series of missions without break, Hayami thinks sympathetically.

“Lie down and sleep for now,” Hayami tells Tanjirou, moving over to help him fluff up his pillow. Nodding tiredly, Tanjirou moves to lie down, and Hayami tugs the blanket over him, tucking him in carefully to make sure he doesn’t catch a chill during the night.

“You should rest too, Hayami,” Tanjirou says between yawns, and Hayami turns to give him a quick smile. He’s looking up at her from the bed, almost half asleep at this point, and Hayami’s heart squeezes in her chest at the innocent sight. He’s so cute. “I will as soon as you go to bed,” she says, fetching a spare blanket from one of the empty beds to drape around Nezuko’s form. The younger girl had already fallen asleep a while ago at the foot of Tanjirou’s bed.

“Alright then,” Tanjirou says sleepily, letting out a final yawn before his eyes slide shut. “Goodnight… Hayami…”

Hayami looks up from putting the blanket around Nezuko to see Tanjirou already fast asleep with his eyes shut, the beginning of light snores escaping his mouth. For a moment, Hayami simply watches Tanjirou with a contented smile, before she shakes herself out of her stupor.

“What am I doing?” She mumbles to herself in confusion, before turning around to leave the medical wing. Before she slides the door shut, however, she gives Tanjirou’s sleeping form a final glance. He looks a couple of years younger like this, his face relaxed and a gentle smile on his lips.

“Goodnight to you too, Tanjirou.”

After a couple of weeks at the Butterfly Estate, Tanjirou’s cast finally comes off.

“See, good as new,” Tanjirou shows Hayami, as the two of them sit on the engawa next to the training grounds. Carefully, Hayami picks up his arm, checking it over. She knows it’s a little silly - if Shinobu, their medical professional, has declared that he’s fit to return to duty, he’s definitely more than alright - but she can’t help but worry until she sees that he is completely fine with her own two eyes.

“I’m glad,” she finally smiles, setting down his arm. Tanjirou beams at her, before he picks up his sword from where it had been lying next to him, before hopping off the engawa onto the training grounds below.

“Come on, let’s spar!” He calls brightly, testing the grip of his sword carefully. “It’s been so long since I’ve been able to practice. If Urokodaki-san found out how much I’ve slacked off on training, he’d…” Tanjirou trails off with a shiver at the thought. Hayami winces in sympathy. As a former student of Urokodaki herself, she can only remember all too clearly the times the old man had booted her into the waterfall that flows down Sagiri Mountain.

“You’ve just recovered, though,” Hayami points out, concerned. Tanjirou only beams.

“I feel perfectly fine!” Grasping his sword with both hands, Tanjirou takes a few practice swings with it. “No pain at all, my muscles are just stiff because I haven’t used them in a while. It’ll be fine after a bit of exercise.”

“Well, if you say so,” Hayami says, reaching for her own boots to pull them on. As usual, Tanjirou’s drive to improve himself is unrelenting. Adjusting them so they fit comfortably, Hayami hops to her feet, testing the blade mechanisms. As expected of Ginjiro’s work, they still work perfectly, much to her satisfaction.

She picks up her blade and slides off the engawa, raising her own blade with a smile. “I won’t go easy on you then, Tanjirou! Ready whenever you are!”

In the blink of an eye, Tanjirou is already lunging at Hayami, swinging his blade down with a fierce strike. “Water Breathing, Fourth Form, Striking Tide!”

Hayami twirls out of the way, landing lightly on her toes before she leaps at him. “Breath of Swan, Third Form, Wingspan.” Balancing on her hands, she executes a scissor cut with her legs, but before the blades can so much as touch Tanjirou, he’s already leaping out of the way, using the jump to flow into the next attack.

“Water Breathing, Second Form, Water Wheel!”

Blocking the attack with her sword, Hayami jumps into the air and strikes once more. “Fourth Form, Drifting Feathers!”

Her sword clashes hard against Tanjirou’s own, the sound of metal striking metal ringing out through the air. As she keeps up the pressure, Hayami catches sight of the wince that Tanjirou bites back, before his grip on the sword in his hands just happens to slip.

It’s a small mistake, but it’s enough.

“Tanjirou!” The two of them go crashing to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs and swords, Hayami falling flat on top of Tanjirou. “Oh my god, are you okay?”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t break my arm a second time.” Tanjirou wheezes, looking completely winded. Distressed, Hayami leans over to check the back of Tanjirou’s head for any injuries. “Really, I’m fine, Hayami…”

“A potential concussion is not fine, Tanjirou.” Hayami scolds, reaching over to feel for any bumps along the back of his head in case. She doesn’t notice the way Tanjirou is trying his very best not to breathe, his eyes squeezed firmly shut.

“Yes, but you’re a bit… close…”

“Eh?”

Hayami finally glances down at Tanjirou to see the poor boy’s face burning crimson, as if he’s about to combust spontaneously any second. That’s when she realises just how close the two of them are, the ends of her hair tickling his nose, the way that she can feel his breath on her skin…

In classic Hayami fashion, she panics. “I-I…” She stumbles over her words, frantically torn between wanting to apologise immediately and explaining that she didn’t mean it. “I just… I thought-”

“Squawk! Message from headquarters! Message from headquarters!”

Saved by the crow! Hayami looks up to see her crow, Aiya, flying around in circles over their heads. “Message from headquarters! Sumiyuri Hayami and Kamado Tanjirou are to depart at once on a mission!”

“A mission?” Hayami repeats out loud, rolling off Tanjirou and reaching down to help him up. “A joint mission together?”

“It would seem so.” Tanjirou answers, quickly sheathing his sword. Still worried for her friend, Hayami turns to glance at Tanjirou. “Is your arm alright, though?”

Tanjirou nods honestly. “It really is! I’m just a little rusty after so long.” Stretching his arms over his head to loosen himself up, he holds out a hand to Hayami. “Well then, shall we go?”

Hayami purses her lips, but then lets out a sigh and smiles. “If you say so,” she says, putting her hand into his.

“Let’s go!”

Splitting up was, is and has never been, a good idea.

Well, that assumption might not always be wholly accurate, Hayami thinks to herself as she speeds through the trees, but it does seem that only the most terrible things happen to her whenever she is split up with her mission partners.

Or perhaps it is because she is split up with Tanjirou specifically that she feels such worry.

Regardless of whichever it is, Hayami has a bad feeling about this. She and Tanjirou had agreed to split up earlier, and while she has complete trust in Tanjirou’s ability and skill in battle, she can’t help but worry - it’s been too quiet, ever since the two of them had parted ways to search for the demon.

Trust your instinct, she remembers Urokodaki saying. And right now, her instinct is warning her about something bad.

Before Hayami can make up her mind whether to regroup with Tanjirou or not, there’s a rustling in the distance that captures her attention almost immediately. Slightly alarmed now, she rests a cautious hand on the hilt of her sword, eyes narrowed.

What’s going on over there?

She barely gets a second to wonder - a single moment later, there’s a gigantic groan, and right before her eyes, a tree in the distance sways and collapses, vanishing into the thicket of the forest. Hayami’s legs are moving before she can consciously process the information, leaping over protruding roots and ducking around trees as she makes a beeline straight for the source of the noise. There’s no way a demon would cause so much damage and alert them to its presence - it’s likely that Tanjirou has already encountered the demon and is currently battling it, hence the disturbance in the forest.

Hayami remembers the way he had winced when they sparred earlier in the day. Sure, he’d hold her that his arm was fine and all, but then again, Tanjirou has always been someone who endures pain better than anyone she knows.

Pressing her lips together, she forces her feet to move faster. Not much longer now… Approaching the thicket where she’d last seen the disturbance, Hayami leaps into the trees for a better view of the forest ground, and almost immediately hears the sound of steel clashing coming from her right.

“Tanjirou!”

Just as she thought, Tanjirou is already engaged in combat, his sword swinging in defensive arcs to block the attacks being thrown in his direction before he goes on the offensive once more. To Hayami’s confusion, however, she spots two identical demons simultaneously attacking - the report had only mentioned a single demon. There’s no time for her to ponder too long about the matter, not when Tanjirou is being forced to take on two demons on his own. Drawing her blade, she leaps out of the trees, taking in a deep breath to send oxygen to the very tips of her fingers and toes.

“Breath of Swan, Fourth Form, Drifting Feathers!”

A mirage of white feathers erupt into the air as she slashes down at one of the demons, her sword cutting cleanly through the flesh and bone of the demon’s neck as if slicing through warm butter. Tanjirou gasps at her sudden appearance, clearly surprised as he blocks another attack, the force of the demon’s swing forcing him a few steps back.

“Hayami!”

“You looked like you needed a hand there,” Hayami says as brightly as she can, even as the headless corpse of the demon she’d beheaded a few seconds ago begins to crumble to ash. “Hurry and take care of the other one, then we can go back to the Butterfly Mansion together-”

“Wait, that’s not it-”

Hayami leaps back in alarm just as a massive clawed hand swings at her, the ends of its razor sharp fingernails coming a little too close for comfort with her face. Eyes wide, she watches as the demon Tanjirou was battling slowly pulls itself in half, before each half morphs and shifts… until they both become identical copies of the original.

This seems like it’s going to be troublesome.

“Right. As I was going to tell you earlier, this demon forms copies of itself,” Tanjirou explains as he takes up a stance behind Hayami, covering her blind spots while she covers his. “I killed quite a few of them earlier, they’re not very strong, but they simply keep dividing again and again. The original is a lot stronger than the rest of them are!”

“So one of them has to be the main body.” Hayami says, blocking an attack with her sword and sending another clone stumbling back with a high kick to the face. “Can all of them divide?”

“No, only the original. But it’ll be difficult to find it,” Tanjirou answers. The second he cuts down a demon, another steps up to take its place. “All of them have the same scent!”

There’s a thin sheen of perspiration on his face. Hayami frowns in worry. She needs to end this fight, and she needs to end it fast.

“Let’s start by clearing as many of them as we can,” Hayami says, readying her sword. The demon must still be dividing at a rapid pace, because she counts seven enemies now. “After we whittle their numbers down, try to spot which is the one who’s doing the dividing and keep your focus on it. Our main priority should be to take it down!”

Tanjirou takes a deep breath and assumes a different stance, holding his blade to the side. “Got it!”

“Breath of Swan, Ninth Form, Fleeting Flight!”

“Water Breathing, Third Form, Flowing Dance!”

Both of them move in unison, taking out the clones left and right as their blades sing into the night. Hayami moves between the demons with light, practiced steps, almost as if she’s dancing, her sword swinging with ease. Behind her, she can hear the whistle of Tanjirou’s blade as it splits the air in two, followed by the death screams of a demon.

Good, just a few more, and then-

All of a sudden, something yanks her by the ankles and Hayami goes crashing to the ground with a cry of surprise. The side of her knee has been scraped by a tree root, dull pain radiating across her leg, but such a small injury is of little bother to her. Flipping out her heel blades, she raises her leg high and brings it down in a furious kick, cutting off the neck of the demon that had grabbed her.

Getting to her feet, Hayami readies her blade once more, glancing around the battlefield to take stock of the situation. They should have significantly cut down the number of demons by now, so-

“Tanjirou!”

To Hayami’s horror, she catches sight of two demons relentlessly pressing Tanjirou back with a continuous barrage of attacks, her friend struggling to fend off their advances. Too preoccupied by them, he doesn’t seem to notice what danger lurks behind him - yet another demon creeping up from the back, ready to pounce.

“Tanjirou-” Hayami tries to call, but before she can rush to his aid, another of the demon’s copies lunges at her out of the bushes, attempting to bite off her legs. Kicking out with all her strength, the demon goes flying back some distance, crashing to the ground hard. “Tanjirou, behind you!”

Tanjirou whirls around at the sound of Hayami’s voice, but it’s too late - the demon has already lunged, its claws outstretched and teeth bared. At the same time, the demon that she’d been dealing with picks itself off the ground, spitting grass out of its mouth, and charges at her again, ready to tear her to shreds.

Hayami doesn’t hesitate. Flipping the blade in her hand, she draws her arm back and throws, with every ounce of strength that she has.

The blade severs the demon’s neck cleanly just as pain erupts across her torso. With a cry, she stumbles back, her hand pressed against the wound, hot blood seeping through her fingers. All she can do is take shallow breaths to try to cope with the agony, doing her best to remain on her feet. Out of the corner of her eye, the remaining copies of the demon let out wails of despair as they begin to crumble into ash. Then, the one that had tried to attack Tanjirou must have been…

“Hayami! Hayami, are you alright?” Tanjirou’s voice comes from above her, and it’s only then that she realises that she’s sagged to her knees. “Oh god… the blood…”

“It’s… not as bad as it seems,” Hayami manages to breathe out. “It just looks like a lot of blood… but it’s not deep. The demon?”

“It’s dead. The demon you threw the sword at ended up being the original.” She can hear rustling as Tanjirou crouches next to her side, rummaging about the inside of his haori for his first aid pack. “The second it died, the rest of the copies turned to ash with it.”

“That’s good to hear…” Hayami mumbles. The blood loss is making her feel slightly dizzy, the canopy of the forest almost blending with the night sky overhead in swirls of dark green and deep indigo. “If I puke… don’t mind me.”

“Don’t be silly, you saved me,” Tanjirou��s voice is a little shaky, and that makes Hayami want to frown. Does he feel guilty over it? He shouldn’t - she just did what she wanted to, and that was that. She’s sure he would do the same for her, were their positions reversed. “I’m going to bandage your wound now to slow the blood loss before I take you back to the Butterfly Estate for proper treatment.” He lets out a quiet wince. “It’s going to hurt.”

“Can I hold your hand?” Hayami asks before she can fully run that question past her mind. The second the words leave her lips, she desperately wants to swallow them back - this isn’t the time for that! Before she can tell Tanjirou she was just joking, however, she feels a warm, callused hand wrap around hers firmly, lacing her fingers with his.

“Of course you can.” Tanjirou whispers quietly. When she glances up, she is surprised to see Tanjirou looking right at her, his eyes nearly brimming over with worry and concern. “I’ll try to be as gentle as I can, alright?”

Hayami wonders if her cheeks can still turn red with the amount of blood that she’s lost, and finds herself momentarily relieved that the answer to that is likely a ‘no’. That’s when she realises just how far she’s gone and simply nods her head in acceptance. “I know.” She squeezes his hand reassuringly. “I trust you, Tanjirou.”

She says that, but the pain that seems to surge out of nowhere when Tanjirou wraps the bandage around her waist almost knocks her flat and has her vision white. Hayami isn’t sure if she’s crying, all she knows is that it hurts and it burns and it-

“I’m so sorry… I’m so, so sorry…” Tanjirou’s voice is like a balm, spreading over the fear and anxiety. It cuts through the thick haze of pain clouding her mind, and when Hayami forces her eyes open once more, she sees Tanjirou gently stroking her cheeks, his eyes wet with tears. He’s crying. Hayami hates to see anyone cry. She hates it even more when it is Tanjirou who is crying, worse of all, over her.

Oh, she realises, as his thumb brushes along her cheekbones. He’s wiping my tears as well.

“It’s fine,” Hayami croaks out. She can’t bear to see him cry because of her - that stings far more than any demon’s claws or teeth could. Her throat stings painfully with each word, as if she’s just swallowed an entire gourd of acid. Was she screaming the entire time? Only slightly embarrassing… “Wasn’t… your fault....”

She lets out another cry of pain when Tanjirou ties off the bandage tightly, although this one is quickly cut off when she hunches over and lets out a quiet whimper. “Really, I’m fine… or at least… I think I will be.”

“I’ll get you to Shinobu-san right away.” Gentle arms wrap around her, careful to avoid her bandaged midsection as Tanjirou lifts her into a bridal carry. Hayami thinks she might be embarrassed, but after a few seconds, it doesn’t come - all she feels is warmth, safety and comfort.

His arms feel like the home that she never had.

Something that she could only dream of.

“Don’t fall asleep just yet,” Tanjirou’s voice interrupts her thoughts, and when Hayami has to blink her eyes open again she realises that she was about to drift off into sleep. They’re running, or well, Tanjirou is running, feet slapping lightly against the ground and trying his best not to jolt her about too much. Hayami is grateful for that. “Please, wait until I get you to Shinobu-san at least.”

His voice is trembling slightly. He must be terrified.

“I don’t think that’s proper first aid protocol, but alright…” Hayami can’t help the small smile that tugs at the corner of her lips as she looks up at him, the determined line his mouth is pulled into. Handsome… what? Is her mind bleeding out of her along with her blood? “Talk to me? I’m feeling… hnng… a little sleepy…”

She’s just so tired.

“Sure,” Tanjirou agrees almost immediately as he leaps over a large tree root protruding out of the ground, continuing to race through the trees. From what Hayami can see, the forest is already starting to thin, more distance between the trees. They’re leaving the forest soon, and for some reason, Hayami doesn’t want this to end. She wants to stay in Tanjirou’s arms longer… “What did you do during all those weeks we were apart? Did anyone try to propose to you again?”

A laugh, weak as it is, bubbles out of Hayami. Light and fluttery, even though it tugs at the slashes along her midsection and makes a dull ache radiate outward through her body. Of all the questions he could ask... “No, not really… most of my missions happened in remote areas, so I didn’t interact with a lot of people. Why do you ask?”

A pause, before he answers. “No reason.” It doesn’t sound like there is no reason. “I just… wanted to know.” There’s another pause, longer this time, before he speaks again. Another question. “Earlier, during the fight… how did you know that the demon you threw your sword at was the original?”

The cherry blossoms are blooming, Hayami notices, even though her eyelids feel as though there are weights on them, their pink petals outlined in the gold of the lamps that burn around the Butterfly Mansion.

“I didn’t…” Hayami yawns. She’s really tired now, and the night sky and cherry blossoms blend together into swirls of pink and black. It reminds her of Nezuko’s hair. “Just saw it coming for you… moved without thinking... got a lucky hit… that’s all.”

Faintly, she feels Tanjirou’s arms stiffen around her. His warmth is like that of a charcoal furnace, radiating heat and making her wonder if that’s what home is supposed to feel like too.

“Thank you, Hayami.” Tanjirou’s whisper is the last thing she hears before her eyes slip shut. “Thank you.”

She just did something she wanted to, Hayami thinks as she slips into darkness.

There was nothing to thank her for.

The beds in the medical wing are soft.

They’re all very soft, very comfortable. But Hayami’s starting to get a little bored of soft and comfortable, after having been confined to bed rest for about two weeks now. Luckily for her, the weather today seems to be pleasant, the sun shining brightly in the sky and a gentle breeze moving through the air, so she makes to climb off the bed to open the windows at the very least because she’s desperate for any reason to get off the mattress-

The door to the medical wing slides open. “Hayami, you’re not supposed to be out of bed!”

It’s as if he just knows! Every! Single! Time! Hayami freezes with one foot on the floorboards like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar, an awkward laugh starting to bubble out of her. “Well, yes, I know that, I just… wanted to open the windows.”

Before she can even finish that sentence, Tanjirou is already hurrying to her bedside, hands gentle as he helps her back into the bed, tucks her blanket tightly around her - whether it’s intentional or not, she doesn’t know. “You wanted to open the windows, didn’t you?” Turning around, he does so for her, and the sunlight falls onto her lap, golden and warm. “You should be resting!”

Three slashes. About five inches each. A handful of stitches. Not the worst Hayami has faced, in her opinion, but enough to warrant a month’s worth of bed rest. And it’s driving her crazy.

“But Tanjirou,” Hayami doesn’t normally pout, but she does now. Being forced to stay in bed for two weeks will do that to you. It changes people. “I’m already resting. I’m so rested I can’t possibly rest any more. If I lie in this bed for one more day, I’m going to end up becoming one with it. Please let me out.”

Tanjirou only hesitates for a few seconds before he shakes his head, holding both hands out in front of him as if trying to physically block her puppy dog eyes. “That’s not up to me, that’s Shinobu-san’s decision…” His gaze falls to the floorboards, brows pinching together slightly. “And besides, it was my fault you ended up in this position in the first place…”

Before he can wallow in his guilt any more, Hayami reaches out to poke him squarely in the forehead. She’s mildly sure that hurt her finger more than it did his head, but it seems to have done the trick - Tanjirou looks up at her, surprised. She can see the slight worry in his eyes, the way his lips press together whenever he looks at her.

Knowing that guilt is what Tanjirou feels when he looks at her… Hayami doesn’t like that in the least.

“Hayami?”

“Hey,” Hayami says sternly, reaching out to tug Tanjirou closer to her bedside. Tanjirou only looks up at her, a nervous, slightly pained expression on his face. “If you had been in my position, and you saw me about to get slashed by a demon, would you have done the same thing?”

Tanjirou looks away for a moment, chews his bottom lip and sighs. His answer is obvious, and both of them know it.

“Yes,” he answers, but from the look on his face, he doesn’t seem to have entirely let go of the guilt he feels. “But you probably wouldn’t have needed saving, like I did. If only I could become stronger… become better… then-”

“That’s not what matters.” Hayami tells him, putting a finger to his lips so that he falls silent, looking at her with those kind, kind eyes. “I did for you what you would have done for me. We’ve got each others’ backs, am I right? I just happened to be the one with a choice this time.”

Tanjirou’s lips press together, his face suddenly scrunching up. For a moment, Hayami wonders if he’s about to cry.

“Yeah, I just…” a soft sniff, “I’ll make sure it won’t happen again next time.”

“See?” Hayami smiles, tugs at his cheek. The corner of Tanjirou’s lips twitch up in response. It’s not quite a smile, but it’s better than that pained expression he’s been wearing for the past two weeks whenever he thought she wasn’t looking. “Positive mindset, am I right?”

“Right, I just… Ah, I forgot the reason why I came here. I had something I wanted to tell you.” Tanjirou’s face suddenly falls again. “I have another mission assigned already. I’m heading out right after this.” He looks at her, and there’s something about his gaze that makes Hayami want to dive under the blanket. It looks like longing… “I wanted to stay until you healed completely, but you know…”

Hayami knows, but it doesn’t mean that she has to like it. A little, selfish feeling nudges her in her chest. She wants Tanjirou to stay longer with her. Just a little longer. Just a bit more...

“The corps are always understaffed, I understand.” Hayami answers, reaches out to take his hand in hers. Her fingers trace patterns over the rough skin, the calluses. “Kibutsuji Muzan isn’t going to wait for any of us. Always demons out there to slay…”

“Always people out there to save,” Tanjirou finishes her sentence for her. He doesn’t look like he wants to leave though, his fingers still wrapped firmly around her wrist, his touch, lingering. Part of her can’t help the happiness welling up in her chest. “I’ll send letters.”

“That’ll help keep me occupied while I get all well and rested.” Hayami smiles. “Then, I can look forward to you telling me all about your missions?”

Tanjirou nods, his hand finally falling away from hers. In that instant, however, Hayami finds herself immediately missing his touch. “Definitely.”

Hayami raises her hand to wave goodbye, but before she can bid him goodbye, she feels a gentle pressure against the side of her cheek, so fleeting she wonders if she had imagined it. Then the pressure is gone, and Tanjirou is looking at her with eyes so gentle she can hardly stand it.

“See you soon, Hayami!” Tanjirou flashes her a quick smile, pink tinted cheeks and all, before he runs out of the medical wing. And all Hayami is able to do is sit there in shock, mouth hanging slightly agape as she stares after him, long after he leaves. Slowly, she raises her hand to her cheek, touching where the warmth spreading over her face seems to have originated from.

His lips were soft...

“See you soon too, Tanjirou,” Hayami whispers to herself.

#tanjirou #kamado tanjirou #kamado tanjirō #kamado tanjiro x reader #kamado #kamado tanjiro #kny fanfic #kny #kimetsu no yaiba #kimetsu no yaiba fanfic #demon slayer #demon slayer fanfic #demon slayer fanfiction

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kurokoros · 4 years

Text

some like it hot (4/4) | todoroki x reader x bakugou

Rated: M (smut)

Words: 10.4K

Pairing: shouto todoroki x fem!reader x katsuki bakugou

Summary: A Charity Fundraiser leads to you going home with not one, but two of the most popular Pro Heroes of your generation. They say some like it hot, and you certainly aren’t complaining.

AKA: a totally not self-indulgent threesome fic

Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | AO3

AN: Ayy, last chapter folks! Huge thanks to everyone that gave this fic a read!

Warnings: smut, temperature play, anal sex, double penetration

Taglist: @kiaoizz, @sarahs-castle-of-clouds

Sneaking away from the fundraiser you were in charge of planning may be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, and it’s definitely the most irresponsible, but the likelihood of anyone missing you is slim to none. Plenty of Pros had already come and gone by the time you ran into Shouto, so if anyone asks, the three of you can probably bullshit an excuse for leaving early. And even if your presence is missed, you really don’t have it in you to care considering you have two incredibly attractive, incredibly disheveled men stumbling into your apartment behind you.

Regardless, you’re certainly not complaining about the way tonight is going.

Katsuki kicks your apartment door shut behind the three of you, but before you can complain about the noise, the hothead scoops you off the ground and tosses you over his shoulder. “Katsuki!” you yelp, your hands fisting in his jacket for balance. His grip tightens around your hips, and you trust him enough to know he’d never let you fall. “Put me—” The protest cuts off with a gasp as he gives your ass a playful smack.

“Stop squirmin’, angel,” Katsuki warns you, pinching your thigh. “Ya want me to drop you on that cute little ass?”

Eyes narrowed, you glare at the back of his head. “You wouldn’t dare.”

A snort draws your attention, and Shouto shakes his head at Katsuki’s display as he locks the door behind you. Fond amusement flickers in his eyes when they meet yours, and a smirk pulls at his lips as he follows Katsuki into your bedroom. They both walk in like they’re coming home, and your heart squeezes in your chest at the thought.

Katsuki plops you back onto the floor in the middle of your bedroom and spins you around to look at him. The curtains over your window are pulled back just enough to have moonlight spilling into the room. It casts shadows over his face, makes his eyes look brighter in the darkness of your quiet room. The moonlight must be doing something to you, too, because he’s looking at you like you’re the most breathtaking thing he’s ever seen.

You expect him to rush towards you, grab you, kiss you, do something, but he stands rooted in place, just taking in the sight of you for a little longer.

The lights snap on. The door is shut and locked. And strong arms wrap around you from behind, pulling you back against a broad chest as Shouto leans down to press a kiss against your cheek. You lean against him, gripping his arms and giggling as his hair tickles the side of your face.

None of you move for what seems like hours, and it’s so quiet that you can hear Shouto breathing behind you, you can feel the steady beat of his heart against your back. For some reason, that makes your grip tighten around the arm he has banded around your shoulders. By the window, Katsuki looks torn between watching the two of you and stepping forward to join the embrace as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

His tongue darts out across his lips as drinks in the sight of you. Then, his ruby gaze snaps to Shouto, who seems content just holding you. “Well, are ya gonna fucking move, Icy Hot?” Katsuki asks, crossing his arms over his chest in a show of clear annoyance. “Or do I have to do everything myself?”

Shouto sighs against your ear, his eyes rolling. “So impatient,” he says, just loud enough for Katsuki to hear him.

You bite your lip to hide the smile threatening to overtake you.

Bristling, Katsuki glares harder at Shouto, who ignores the other man in favor of dropping his head into the crook of your neck and pressing a series of soft butterfly kisses against any skin within reach of his greedy mouth.

“Like you can talk, bastard.” The scowl on Katsuki’s face isn’t enough to hide what’s clearly a pout, though he’d never admit it. “Did you already forget about starting without me?”

Heat crawls up your side as Shouto drags his hand from your hip to your ribcage. His thumb swipes across the underside of your breast, and a breathy sound escapes you as he nips at your naked shoulder. “If you don’t like it, you should learn to be on time,” he tells Katsuki.

Irritation flashes across Katsuki’s eyes, and his mouth opens to unleash what’s bound to be a barrage of swear words and variations of the same three insults he always uses on Shouto. But before the tirade can slip out, you huff. Loudly. Both men turn to look at you. “Are you two done arguing?” you ask them. “Because I can think of a better use for those mouths.”

The blunt statement gets you your desired result.

Shouto’s grip on you tightens a fraction, and the smirk Katsuki sends you is positively lewd. “Oh?” he croons, dragging out the sound and quirking an eyebrow. “And what’s that, sweetcheeks?”

“Take off your clothes and come find out,” you tell him.

Surprised at your teasing, Katsuki blinks at you, then mutters “fuck” as he practically rips his jacket off and tosses it onto the floor in the corner of your room. The sleeves of his white shirt are rolled up to his elbows, and he kicks off his shoes and socks. Your thighs rub together as his dexterous fingers make quick work of his belt, the metal clanking as it drops to the floor beside his jacket.

Meanwhile, Shouto squeezes your waist, his hand still stroking your side from your hip to your ribs. “You seem a bit overdressed yourself.” The arm around your shoulders shifts, and two fingers sneak beneath the straps of your dress, teasingly brushing it aside until it’s barely clinging to you.

Tilting your head just enough to meet his eyes, you offer a coy smile. “Think you can fix that for me, Shouto?” you ask, subtly grinding back against him. He grunts, both hands grabbing your hips to hold you in place and keep you from squirming against him like you want to.

“As you wish,” he mutters against your hair. And then, he lets you go. So hyper-aware of him behind you, it’s easy to hear the slight rustle of clothing as he strips himself of his jacket and shoes much like Katsuki did.

You can honestly say this wasn’t what you were expecting to happen tonight.

Chilled fingers follow the curve of your spine, starting at the base of your neck and trailing downward achingly slow. The hitch in your breathing is loud, and Shouto’s lips curve into a barely-there smile against the back of your head. Deftly, he slips a finger between your shoulder and the pretty dress you’re wearing, teasing the soft skin there before you let him brush the fabric aside.

The straps of your dress slide down your arms teasingly, and a pair of narrowed, ruby red eyes immediately drag down your body, appraising you as more of your soft skin is revealed. Katsuki licks his lips as the silky fabric pools around your feet, expression nothing short of greedy as he watches the two of you, though he doesn’t move. Not yet. You shiver under his gaze and the icy kiss that Shouto presses against the side of your neck. Hands drag down your sides to grasp your hips, the difference in temperature between the two making you gasp and squirm, but Shouto holds you firmly against his chest.

The boys lock eyes over your shoulder. A silent agreement.

“All right, angel.” Katsuki’s voice is deeper than usual, and startlingly calm. “Be a good girl and moan for me an’ Icy Hot.”

Shouto huffs at the old insult, but then his teeth drag down the column of your throat and you do exactly as Katsuki demands, much to their amusement.

Chuckling to himself, Katsuki’s eyes rake over you again, taking in the lacy lingerie previously hidden beneath your dress, and the strappy high-heels that do little to keep you from being dwarfed by their heights. You swear his fingers spark as he grasps the front of his dress shirt, popping the buttons one by one. Patiently, Shouto’s left hand draws small circles against your hip, his right skimming the smooth skin of your stomach, trailing higher and higher until he’s grasping your chin between cold and calloused fingers.

They look at you like they want to devour you.

And you plan on letting them.

It’s a combination of the look in Katsuki’s eyes and the sudden chill that curls around your nearly naked body that has you practically squirming already. Your skin is flushed, and everything is sensitive all the way down to your toes.

The last button of Katsuki’s shirt finally comes undone, and your eyes roam over the hard planes of his chest and stomach, wandering over firm muscle from years of training. Your fingers are just itching to touch him, to trace a path from his collarbones to the top of his pants and watch him squirm. More than that, you kind of want to lick him. Katsuki is pretty damn delicious to look at, and the cocky look in those red eyes tells you that he knows exactly what you want to do with your hands and tongue.

But that’ll have to wait. Shouto’s thumb rubs against your bottom lip, and your lips part to nip at the pad of his finger. Groaning quietly, Shouto gives your jaw a brief warning squeeze. His breath is hot against your ear as he dips his chin to whisper in your ear. “You like to tease him, right, love?” he asks, too quietly for Katsuki to hear him. Your thighs rub together at the low tone he’s using, and by now your panties are practically soaked through. “Good,” Shouto muses when you give him a nearly imperceptible nod, “we’re going to play a game.”

Across the room, Katsuki’s fingers hover over the button of his slacks, his eyes narrowing when he sees Shouto whispering in your ear. “Oi!” he barks at the two of you, abandoning his pants to place his hands on his hips. “What the hell are you two talkin’ about?”

You hold your breath as Shouto’s gaze slides to Katsuki slowly, waiting to hear what he has in mind.

And it certainly doesn’t disappoint. “You seem to like watching, Katsuki,” Shouto says slowly, looking the other man up and down. Katsuki’s throat bobs at the sound of his name. Behind you, Shouto shifts, his gaze flicking to the chair nestled in the corner of your room. “So, why don’t you just sit there and shut your mouth?”

Katsuki opens his mouth, glaring at Shouto over your shoulder, but the quiet sound of your sharp inhale makes their gazes snap to you.

Shit, if you weren’t wet before, you certainly are now. The thought of Katsuki watching you while Shouto touches you—or while you touch yourself—is enough to make your legs quiver beneath you as arousal pools low in your stomach. There are so many things you want these men to do to you, so many ways you want them to absolutely ruin you, and whatever game Shouto wants to play is sure to do that.

Two sets of eyes take in the way your breathing hitches and your legs press together in search of even a little bit of friction. Whatever protest Katsuki was going to make seems to die on his lips as he takes in the sight of your pupils blown wide with arousal.

Shouto grins against the side of your neck and presses a soft kiss over your pulse point, feeling it beat rapidly under his mouth. “You like that idea?” Shouto’s lips move to your jaw, and he releases your chin in favor of sliding his cold hand down to your naked breast, palming you. “You want him to watch me fuck you?”

These two are going to be the death of you. “Yes,” you choke out as his thumb rolls over your nipple. Frost prickles at your skin, the chill making you whine as Shouto’s hips rock forward against your ass.

A low groan and a muttered “fuck” come from Katsuki. His hands fall back to his sides, his eyes glued to you and Shouto. There’s a subtle twitch in his fingers, like he doesn’t know what he wants to do, but then his eyes darken with lust. A shiver curls down your back like a cold finger on your spine.

Heat crawls up your side as Shouto’s left hand slides from your hip to your ribs beneath your breast. “I bet you can’t stay still until I make her cum,” he goads Katsuki. You may not be able to see it, but you can clearly picture the smirk he’s hiding against your jaw. This devious streak wasn’t what you were expecting from him, but you certainly aren’t complaining, especially with the way Katsuki reacts to the challenge.

“Oh, yeah?” Katsuki growls. “Fuck you!”

Surprise flits across your face as Katsuki immediately takes a step back and drops down onto the chair in the corner of your room, so close, but still painfully far away. As he shifts against the cushion, his pants slide further down to reveal an enticing strip of skin that has you wanting to bite his hip bones. There’s an almost smug look on his face as he glares at Shouto, but it doesn’t last long.

It happens too fast for you to process at first.

Shouto grabs you by the waist and whirls you around. His hands hook under your thighs and yank. Gasping, you grab at him to hold yourself steady as your feet leave the floor, your shoes slipping off and clattering to the floor. Hungry lips find yours, stealing your breath and silencing a breathy moan. Shouto’s dress shirt gives under your hands as you yank him closer. Buttons scatter across the floor. The temperature drops drastically, and Shouto drops onto the bed with you beneath him at the same time the familiar sound of his quirk splits the silence.

“What the fuck, Todoroki?” Katsuki snaps.

As Katsuki’s yelp and the cold register, your mouth tears from Shouto’s, your head twisting to the side to investigate. He doesn’t seem to mind, lips immediately latching onto your jaw instead. Cold air is breathed against your neck, leaving a thin sheen of frost behind that melts just as quickly. You’ve been perfectly positioned to look at Katsuki from your spot on the bed, and your eyes widen when they lock on him.

Ice is wrapped around his wrists, pinning him to the chair. Bewilderment and irritation flash in his eyes, and his lips are pulled back away from his teeth. Yanking at the icy restraints, Katsuki sneers when they don’t break into pieces like he wants them to.

“Shouto,” you gasp.

His lips press against your cheek and start to trail down. “Relax,” he mumbles against the underside of your jaw. Warmth licks across your skin as his left hand grabs your thigh and begins to rub circles against your tense leg. His bare chest presses against yours, and there’s no denying how good it feels to have him pressed against you like this. “I’ll clean it up later.”

“You think this is funny, Icy Hot?”

“That’s not—oh!” A breathy sigh cuts you off as he starts nibbling at your neck. “That’s not what I’m worried about,” you tell him, still looking at Katsuki struggling silently against his bonds. It’s hard to think with Shouto’s hands and mouth on you, and the only other thing you manage to choke out is, “Frostbite!”

Unconcerned, Shouto leans down to kiss you again, ignoring Katsuki’s half-hearted grumbling in favor of tasting you. The way his mouth moves against yours is quickly becoming intoxicating. The pressure is just enough to make your head spin, and the heat that surrounds you is as comforting as it is electric. Your nerves are set on fire.

Shouto grabs both of your hands in his larger ones and laces your fingers together, careful not to crush you beneath his weight. Your hands are pinned to the mattress above your head, and you sigh against Shouto’s mouth as he angles your head to kiss you harder. The fingers linked through yours squeeze.

A small sound of protest slips from you as Shouto’s lips leave yours, and a breathy sound of amusement escapes the man hovering above you. One final kiss is pressed to your pouting lips, and then Shouto’s grip on you shifts. Both of your wrists are gathered in one of his hands.

“Katsuki will be fine.” Shouto leans back far enough to meet your eyes, his own gaze leaving yours to trail down your naked torso, appraising you. A low sound leaves the back of his throat as he drinks in the sight of you beneath him, panting and flushed. “It’s not that cold, and he can melt it himself if he really needs to.” With his shirt ripped open and his hair falling over his face, Shouto looks positively disheveled. There’s a devilish look in those blue-grey eyes that has your heart threatening to beat right out of your chest. His head cocks to the side. The palm around your wrists squeezes slightly, and with his free hand, Shouto is quick to yank the already loose tie from around his neck. “But if you’re really that worried, I suppose you’ll just have to be a good girl and cum for me in the next fifteen minutes.”

Your breath catches when you realize what he plans to do, but there’s no protest from you as the smooth and silky fabric is wrapped around your wrists. Even Katsuki has stopped grumbling about being tied down, just as turned on as you are. Shouto moves slowly as he loops the fabric around your wrists, watching every subtle expression that crosses your face, searching for discomfort or unease, but all he finds is open affection and trust.

The silk tie keeps your hands stuck firmly in place as he uses more ice to freeze it to your headboard, and you lean into his hand when he trails his knuckles across your cheek. The ghost of a smile tugs at his lips.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs. He stares at you in awe for a moment longer, one hand holding him above you as the other begins to spider walk down your side, barely touching you. He leans in to press a chaste kiss to your lips.

Shouto’s breath tickles the shell of your ear, hot and stifling, and a smug grin curls on his lips as you shiver beneath him. A small pout forms on your face as you tug half-heartedly at the tie holding your wrists to the headboard. God, you want to touch him again already. Across the room, Katsuki’s fingers clench around the arm of the chair, the ice around his wrists already starting to melt into a puddle on the floor thanks to his higher than normal temperature. His throat bobs with a harsh swallow, crimson eyes locked on you. Cold fingers drag along the inside of your thigh, making you gasp and arch off the bed. Your hips jerk against Shouto’s, searching for friction you won’t get.

A pleased hum and warm lips against the corner of your mouth make your eyes slip shut. Shouto’s lips wander across your cheek, butterfly kisses left in his wake, and he whispers low for only you to hear, “Give him a show, love.” When you nod, Shouto leans down to press a gentle kiss to your lips.

The icy fingers on your thigh trace a path from your knee to your core before Shouto suddenly hooks your thigh around his hip, spreading your legs wider as his heated left hand slides from the side of your face down past your collarbone, and those skilled fingers of his close around your breast and squeeze, gently kneading your skin before his thumb rolls over your nipple. His mouth follows the path of his hand, and you shudder as he drags his teeth against the hickey he left earlier, darkening the bruise with a harsh suck. A series of hot kisses trail down your collarbone to your heaving chest, and Shouto makes a low sound of approval as his lips follow the curve of your breast.

When his teeth dig into the soft swell of flesh, your head falls back with a breathy moan. Your back bows off the bed, pressing your soft skin even closer to his hungry mouth. Keening, your eyes flutter shut as the tip of his tongue swirls around your nipple before flicking over the peaked bud. His mouth is wet and hot enough to make your toes curl against his lower back.

The heat of his breath fans across your chest, and your mind blanks when he takes your nipple into his mouth and sucks, flicking his tongue over the peaked flesh.

Katsuki shifts against his chair. “This is fucking stupid,” he complains, his eyes narrowed in irritation despite the way he’s utterly transfixed by the quiet gasps and coos that Shouto keeps pulling from your pretty mouth with every calculated swipe of his fingers and tongue against your sensitive skin.

Shouto’s mouth leaves your breast with a wet sound, and you shiver as he breathes cold air over your nipple to watch you squirm beneath him. “Scared to lose?” he asks Katsuki, not even sparing the other man a glance as he returns to kissing and licking his way down your quivering torso.

A loud scoff is the reply to Shouto’s jab. “Maybe I just don’t want your dirty hands all over her, bastard,” Katsuki grumbles. He shifts in his seat again, and through half-lidded eyes you notice the very prominent bulge forming beneath his slacks.

With his fingers nudging your legs apart farther, a loud squeal escapes you as Shouto’s tongue flicks wetly against your belly button. Katsuki’s eyes snap back to you. His throat bobs with a harsh swallow, and there’s nothing he can do but watch in rapt fascination as your head tips back and you take your bottom lip between your teeth to smother a moan.

“Katsuki,” you whimper, eyes screwing shut as Shouto’s lips follow the hem of your panties with his mouth. His fingers dig into your inner thighs, and a sudden image strikes you right between your legs. “Would you just stay there? For me?” You force your eyes open again in time to see his mouth opening to disagree, and you choke out the words before he can complain. “I want to watch you touch yourself.”

That gets his attention. Even Shouto stops teething at your hip to glance up at you, one eyebrow arched curiously. Primal need flickers in his eyes, and there’s something outrageously sexy about having him stare at you from between your legs.

“Oh?” Amusement is thick in Katsuki’s voice as he leans forward in his chair and sends you a wicked grin. He practically preens at your admission, chest puffed up and eyes alight with mischief. “If that’s what you want, you should have just asked, babe.” There’s a popping sound as he flexes his arms, and it’s accompanied by a small spark before the restraints around his wrists melt enough for the ice to crack and tumble to the floor. His arms are tinged red where the ice was stuck to his skin, but Katsuki either doesn’t mind or doesn't care as he makes himself more comfortable.

You hold your breath when his thumbs slip beneath the waist of his slacks, and then the dark fabric is being shoved down his hips. Katsuki is quick to kick them off as they catch around his ankles, and his smile grows even more smug as your gaze drops to the bulge in his pants. It looks bigger now without his pants in the way, and your thighs squeeze around Shouto’s waist in delight.

“Like what you see?” Katsuki asks you, nothing short of smug as your eyes rake over every inch of his naked skin. Two fingers slip beneath his underwear, flirting with the hem as he drags it down another inch. He doesn’t take it off though, content with teasing you for now.

“Definitely,” you say, licking your lips as Katsuki begins to palm his cock over the thin fabric.

Shouto’s hot breath fans over your covered core as he plays with the lacy edge of your underwear. “Try not to cum too fast,” he murmurs, glancing at Katsuki. Before the other man has a chance to bark back a retort, Shouto loops his fingers around your panties. “I’m taking these off.”

That’s your only warning before the scrap of fabric is yanked down your legs. Automatically, you raise your hips to help him, and Shouto makes an appreciative sound as he pulls your soaked underwear down your legs and tosses it somewhere on the floor. In the next moment, Shouto has your legs tossed over his shoulders, his hands wrapped around your thighs to hold you still. His breath ghosts over your slick folds in a way that has you shuddering with excitement. Anticipation makes your heart leap into your throat, and a breathy moan tumbles from your lips as he presses his mouth against your inner thigh.

Mismatched eyes flicker up to look at you.

You have your head tossed back against the mattress, your eyes half-lidded with pleasure and your spine arched off the bed as he places a gentle kiss on your sweat-slicked skin, the flat of his tongue flicking out to drag across your leg for a brief taste. Another soft kiss is pressed to the same spot, and then his teeth are on you.

Faint, red marks follow the trail his mouth makes as his lips wander across inches of skin he’s wanted to touch for ages. You’re soft and pliant beneath him, pretty gasps and coos falling from your lips with each kiss and lick. Shouto sighs as he mouths at you, drinking in your sweet scent and committing your taste to memory.

Mewling, you force yourself to look at the man currently nipping at your thigh. Blue and grey swirl together beneath messy red and white bangs that tickle your skin each time he moves, and when your eyes lock with his, Shouto sinks his teeth into your leg hard enough for your breathing to hitch.

“Shouto,” you whimper, his name barely more than a breath, but it spurs him on anyway. His hands squeeze around your thighs as his thumbs draw soothing circles against you, softening you up.

Shouto is unrelenting in the way he nips and sucks at one spot until you can hardly stand it anymore, maintaining eye-contact with you the entire time, and when he finally pulls away there’s a nice sized bruise on your inner thigh that’ll be there for days. A sharp inhale reaches your ears, and then he blows freezing air against the wet mark he’s left behind just to watch you gasp and squirm.

You’re panting by the time he returns to peppering your thighs with butterfly kisses, staying just shy of where you need him most.

The difference in the temperatures between his palms has you shaking beneath him as he squeezes your thighs or drags the tips of his fingers across your legs. And the light touches make you hiss between your teeth each time he stops short of touching your dripping slit. It’s the sweetest torture you’ve ever experienced. Every teasing touch has you growing wetter as your arousal grows into a white-hot need that makes your core ache. And Shouto knows it, too, judging by the subtle curl of his lips against the inside of your thigh.

Across the room, Katsuki takes in each minute shift in your expression with rapt fascination, enjoying the little show you and Shouto are putting on. He’s perfectly positioned to watch your chest heave and your eyes screw shut every time Shouto does something you like. The tie holding your wrists down is pulled taut, the ice chipping away each time you yank at your bonds in an attempt to grab fistfuls of Shouto’s hair. As much as Katsuki would love to be the one making you positively writhe like that, he’s finding watching to be something he enjoys almost as much.

His cock throbs as another whimper falls from your mouth when Shouto drags his teeth across your thigh, and Katsuki rolls his hips against his hand, palming himself harder and imagining it was your smaller hand stroking him instead.

“If you’re not going to eat her damn pussy, get the fuck out of the way so I can, Icy Hot,” Katsuki snaps, hand slipping beneath the dark fabric of his underwear. His voice is breathier than usual as his fingers wrap around his length and give his cock a slow stroke. Your name comes out as a low groan from between his clenched teeth as his hot hand pumps his shaft, his hips rocking against his fist.

The sound goes straight to your core, and you bite your lip as Shouto drags freezing fingers across the inside of your leg.

“Do you ever stop bitching?” the man between your legs asks Katsuki in that deep, baritone voice that makes it hard for you to think, let alone breathe. Cold air is breathed over your slit this time, and you squirm at the unfamiliar sensation against your sensitive core.

Katsuki growls as he glares at Shouto, though the fire in his eyes is dampened by his flushed face and the raw need on his face as he continues to stroke his cock. “The fuck did you just say to me?”

Eyes rolling, Shouto doesn’t bother to respond. A high, breathy squeal escapes you when Shouto’s tongue suddenly swipes through your slick folds, the freezing tip dipping inside you before catching on your clit. “Shouto,” you gasp, hips bucking against his face. His hands grip your legs tighter, effortlessly holding you down as he finally turns his attention to your needy core.

“I thought you wanted to watch Katsuki?” he reminds you casually. He lets go of you with one hand only to give your leg a quick slap that doesn’t hurt so much as surprise you. Your heels dig into his back in retaliation. “Eyes on him, love,” Shouto demands with a roughness to his voice that has liquid arousal shooting through your veins.

It’s harder than you imagined it would be to force your eyes to stay on Katsuki as Shouto turns his attention to your slick folds, and he certainly doesn’t make it easy for you. One of his hands releases your thigh only to reach around your trembling leg, and another high-pitched, keening sound leaves your mouth as the pad of his thumb traces your wet slit, feeling just how wet you are for the two of them. An approving grunt rumbles in his chest, and Shouto’s tongue begins to pamper your clit with little kitten-licks. The temperature changes with every few strokes, keeping you on edge as he teases you.

Your wrists twist against your bonds as ice water begins to drip down your arms, the ice pinning you down melting slowly. Katsuki’s eyes follow the teasing line of water as it rolls across your skin, and his tongue slips out to wet his lips.

Katsuki shifts his underwear down enough for you to get a good look at the flushed, mushroom head of his cock as he strokes himself. Your eyes jump between his face and the way his hand is slowly working his hard, thick shaft. His head is tipped back against the chair, his stare half-lidded and hot as he drags his gaze over your sweat-slicked torso, watching your chest heave and your breasts bounce every time Shouto switches the temperature of his tongue from near scalding heat to freezing cold.

“Fuck,” Katsuki murmurs. His grip tightens around his cock as he groans your name, and he palms himself with a tight fist, keeping his pace slow and even. The muscles in his abdomen are tense, a thin layer of sweat starting to build on his skin as his hips begin to buck against his hand. Pre-cum is already beading at the head of his cock, and Katsuki mutters a curse as his thumb swipes over the sticky fluid and swirls it over the sensitive tip.

Your mouth waters at the sight, and you watch, transfixed, as Katsuki’s hips rock forward against his hand. His jaw is clenched, and a low groan pushes through his teeth as he adjusts his wrist for a better angle.

The flat of Shouto’s tongue suddenly grinds against your clit in a way that has you seeing stars, and you shudder beneath him, fighting to keep your eyes open as pressure slowly builds between your thighs, the coil in your stomach already winding tight between the mouth working magic on your clit and the show Katsuki is putting on.

Two fingers slip into you easily, you're so wet, and you moan quietly at the stretch. His fingers are longer than your own, bigger and better as they curl inside of you, expertly finding the spot along the top of your walls that has you practically writhing beneath him. And when his lips wrap around your clit and suck, your back arches off the bed, tears forming in the corners of your eyes.

Pleasure coils into a tight little ball between your legs with each flick of his tongue and rough thrust from his fingers, and you bite down on your lip to stifle another loud moan, leaving the only sounds in the room coming from Katsuki’s heavy panting and the slick, wet sound of Shouto’s mouth and fingers toying with you, which would be embarrassing if it didn’t turn you on even more.

The fingers inside of you heat up as Shouto’s hand thrusts against you slowly, alternating between curling and spreading his fingers inside of you to find what gets the best reactions from you. His teeth graze your puffy clit, and his right hand releases your thigh to slide against your stomach. The sweat on your skin freezes beneath his touch. Whimpering, you try to shift away from his teasing fingers, but you’re stuck firm.

The chilled pad of his thumb rolls over your nipple before he palms your breast, kneading you with rough fingers before moving on to squeezing and pinching at your nipple, playing with the sensitive nub. A quiet noise must slip from you, because a moment later he redoubles his efforts.

Your hips buck upwards, grinding against his mouth, and your eyes leave Katsuki to glance at Shouto, only to find him already looking at you. His fingers graze a spot deep inside you that makes your toes curl, and your thighs squeeze around his head to pull him closer.

“Shouto,” you gasp, “stop teasing!” The knot in your stomach is so tight it’s almost painful. He has you teetering just on the edge, so close to tipping over, but before you can give in to the pleasure, he pulls his mouth from your aching clit and stops fucking you with his hand. A whimper tears from your chest at the lack of stimulation. Across the room, Katsuki swears, hips stuttering at the breathy sound you’ve made.

Turning his head to the side, Shouto brushes his mouth against the hickey on your thigh, leaving you desperate and wanting. His lips are slick with your arousal, and the sticky fluid smears across your skin as he presses one last kiss to your leg. “Relax, angel,” he murmurs, using one of Katsuki’s pet names. The tip of his tongue swipes across his bottom lip, tasting you.

You’ve barely come down from the edge he put you on before his fingers are thrusting inside of you again, faster this time, twisting inside of you roughly with every intention of getting you off this time. Your slick walls clench around his digits, your core throbbing as heat curls through your limbs. The hand on your chest gets colder in response, and you gasp at the chill before he lets you go.

When those cold fingers reappear on your clit, you almost scream at the sensation. Your hands yank at the headboard, your breath hitching when he rubs slow circles over your swollen clit. The pressure has you shaking, but it’s not enough. Not quite. And when Shouto pulls his fingers away again, you aren’t sure if you want to curse or cry.

His mouth moves against your thigh. “Cum for me,” he murmurs before he takes your clit between his lips and sucks.

The demand registers a second later, and your hips roll against his mouth and hand, desperate for more. The coil inside of you is wound painfully tight, and as Shouto pinches your clit between his teeth something inside of you snaps. You come apart beneath him, writhing against the sheets as his fingers continue to curl and twist inside of you, not giving you a second to breathe.

A silent scream lodges in your throat, your entire body going taut as your orgasm rips through you, and a wicked idea comes to mind after Shouto’s teasing. Two can play at that game. As your back arches off the bed and your thighs threaten to clamp around Shouto’s head, you call out, “Katsuki!” before you fall back against the bed, breathless.

There’s a moment of silence as both men freeze, and two pairs of eyes lock onto you. A surprised yet smug look flashes across Katsuki’s face, but Shouto’s gaze narrows, his brows pinched in irritation.

A barely audible “fuck” reaches your ears, and then Katsuki lunges from his chair. Shouto reacts just as quickly. Slick fingers pull from your fluttering walls and slide wetly across your thigh, and you wince as his thumb brushes against your over sensitive clit with a precision that can’t be anything less than intentional. His mouth and chin are wet with your arousal, but neither of you care as his mouth claims yours in a sloppy kiss. The ice pinning you in place melts and evaporates in an instant with a well placed burst of flames that disappear as quickly as they come; Shouto rips at the tie wrapped around your wrists, and suddenly your hands are free.

The urge to touch him comes back to you in full force. You give in. As your hand fists in his hair, Shouto groans against your mouth, and the sound vibrates through your chest as you’re pressed flush against him. He rolls the two of you so that you’re sitting on the bed, Shouto with his legs dangling over the edge, his feet planted firmly on the floor, and you straddling his lap with your knees pressed to the mattress on either side of him.

Heat licks up your spine as Katsuki comes up behind you, his chest pressed against your back and his hands on your hips. The shift in balance has you reeling, and your reactions are slow as the last strings of pleasure start to dissolve back into a needy ache that only intensifies as you feel them pressing against you. Anticipation bursts into a wildfire inside you, growing with unrestrained intensity as they touch you.

A soft sound of protest slips out as Shouto’s mouth leaves yours, but it becomes a breathy sound as Katsuki leans down to press his lips to the side of your neck. The kiss is rough, his teeth scraping across your skin and mouth sucking with every intention of leaving his own mark behind. At the same time, Shouto gently tugs one of your hands away from his hair. Your fingers thread through his, and he guides your wrist to his mouth, placing a kiss so soft against the reddened skin of your wrist that it makes your chest squeeze.

When he lets go again, your arm loops back around his neck, fingers finding purchase in the collar of his ruined shirt. “You’re overdressed,” you murmur as he presses his forehead against yours.

Shouto grunts as your hips grind down against his covered cock, and his fingers squeeze around your upper thigh. “Then do something about it.”

Behind you, Katsuki makes a low, annoyed sound against the side of your neck. “Yeah, yeah, Icy Hot needs to get naked,” he grumbles, rolling his eyes. “Less fucking talking.” He reaches between you to grope you and leans away, spreading your cheeks for a better look at your ass.

You can’t help but tease him. “So impatient,” you say, staring down into Shouto’s eyes. He’s just as amused as you are. However, that amusement disappears in an instant as Katsuki’s hips roll forward, his hard cock grinding up against your ass. The movement knocks you forward, and your hips are pressed flush against Shouto’s, causing you both to groan.

Smug, self-satisfaction makes Katsuki practically preen as you squirm against Shouto’s lap. The two of you are flushed from the contact, and Katsuki smirks at Shouto over your shoulder, silently proud of himself for getting a reaction out of the more stoic man. “Gonna tell me where the lube is so I can fuck that pretty little ass?” His breath is hot against your skin as his teeth brush against the shell of your ear. His voice turns mocking as he ruts against you. “Or were you all talk earlier?”

Flushed, you manage to choke out, “Dresser. Bottom drawer on the left.”

Katsuki grins against the side of your neck. “Good girl.” You yelp as he slaps your ass, his hands squeezing your hips one last time before he releases you in favor of hunting down the aforementioned lube.

With his weight gone from your back, you shift on Shouto’s lap and grab either side of his shirt, staring down at his bare chest with a wicked look in your eyes. “You look good like this,” you murmur, gesturing to his rumpled state. His hair is a mess, red and white stands bleeding together, and you brush your fingers through his hair, pushing the damp strands away from his face.

“So do you.” He leans into your hand as your fingers brush against the scar surrounding his eye, your touch soothing.

Your lips curve into a smile. “You’re only saying that because I’m naked.”

But Shouto shakes his head. His hands squeeze around your thighs again before slowly traveling up your back. You lean down to meet him again as his fingers wind through your hair, and he presses a chaste kiss to your lips as you push his shirt past his shoulders. It bunches around his elbows. “You’re beautiful,” he says bluntly, reluctantly releasing you to pull his shirt off the rest of the way. Immediately, his arms wrap around you, and he yanks you back against his chest so there’s no space left between you.

Giggling, you trail the tips of your fingers down his chest and stomach. Shouto grunts and rocks up against you as your fingers drag across the bulge in his pants. His slacks are painfully tight by now, and you lean down to give him a kiss as you work his belt loose. The button snaps open with ease, and you carefully lower the zipper of his pants. You help him out of his slacks, Shouto pressing up against you as he slides them down over his thighs before tossing them aside.

As soon as they’re gone, you’re quick to slip your fingers beneath his underwear, your fingers wrapping around his cock and giving an experimental squeeze. You stroke him slowly, your thumb swirling over the head as he rocks his hips against your hand. Low groans and murmurs of your name are your reward, and you shift on his lap, leaning away just to watch his head tilt back and his eyes fight to stay open. Shouto’s expression is nothing short of erotic, and you drink in the sight of him like this: panting and hot beneath your hands.

You’ve shoved his underwear down and changed the angle of your wrist by the time Katsuki comes back with a bottle of lube and a pair of condoms. He tosses one to Shouto, who catches it reflexively. The wrapper crinkles in his palm.

Biting your lip, you shudder as Katsuki presses his naked cock against your ass, his underwear gone this time as he ruts against you. Liquid heat pools low in your belly, and you’re so wet and ready for them that you can’t stand it. Shouto grinds against the inside of your thigh. One of his hands snakes up your torso to palm your breast.

“Please,” you breathe, needing them both to start fucking you now before you explode.

Katsuki rips open the condom wrapper with his teeth and a pleased hiss escapes through his teeth as he rolls it onto his cock. “Your ass is mine, angel.” He grunts as he drizzles a decent amount of cold lube onto his fingers. “Think you can handle it?”

You gasp as he spreads you from behind and swirls his fingers around your tight hole. The tip of his finger presses against your ass, and your back arches as he starts to wiggle it into you, the lube making it easy for him to slip in up to his knuckles. “What makes you think you’re the first thing I’ve had in my ass?” you say breathlessly, rocking your hips back against his hand as he starts to thrust and curl his finger inside of you.

“You shouldn’t antagonize him, love,” Shouto tells you, but it’s hard for you to take him seriously when you roll your thumb over the head of his cock to spread the pre-cum beading there and he hisses between his teeth. His fingers bite into your hips, and you stroke him harder in retaliation.

It isn’t long before Katsuki is working a second finger into you, and you moan against Shouto’s mouth as he leans forward to smother your gasps and whimpers of pleasure. His hand bats your fingers away from his cock, and you grasp his shoulders to hold yourself steady as he rips open the condom and rolls it onto his dick. You sigh as his cockhead presses against your slit, rubbing through your wetness.

A loud moan pulls from your throat as your mouth leaves Shouto’s. It’s all you can do to hold yourself upright as the man beneath you guides you over his cock. His thumb brushes against your clit, and you shove yourself back harder against Katsuki’s thick fingers, loving the stretch of him fingering your ass.

“Inside,” you gasp, wriggling against them. “Now.”

They don’t need to be told twice.

Katsuki pulls his fingers from your ass, and for a moment you’re achingly empty inside before the head of his cock takes the place of his hand. You whimper at the stretch, his cock thicker than his fingers were, and your head drops down to rest on Shouto’s shoulder as Katsuki works his dick into your ass inch by inch. Shivers wrack your spine, and Shouto hushes you, his hands running up and down your back. He squeezes your hips, peppers your cheek and jaw with tiny kisses to distract you from the pressure.

When his hips are tight against your ass, Katsuki presses his chest against your back, the sweat on your skin making it easy for him to slide against you. Your fingernails bite into Shouto’s shoulders as you slowly lower yourself onto his cock. He slips inside easily you’re so wet, your walls snug around him. A choked moan bubbles in your chest as you’re filled by their cocks. The fullness has you seeing stars.

The first few thrusts are tentative, slow and shallow as they find a rhythm that makes you moan. You roll your hips to match them, grinding against them whenever they pull out, leaving just the tips in before plunging back inside. Muffled praises and pleas keep spilling from you, begging for them to move faster, to fuck you harder, and all you can do is hold on as they comply.

Katsuki reaches around to grope your breast, and he mutters curses against your ear as you clench around him when he rolls your nipple between his fingers, pinching and squeezing roughly. Each pretty moan that leaves your mouth only spurs him on. His cock is pounding against your ass, and you’re so damn tight and hot inside that he can’t help the grunts and groans slipping from his own mouth.

Shouto isn’t any better off. He has his hands on your hips, his grip tight as he drags you up and down on his cock. Your pussy is squeezed around him tightly, your walls fluttering around him, and the sounds you’re making are breathed against his ear. Your fingers are in his hair again, pulling at the silky stands, and he moans as you roll your hips against his harder, grinding against him.

Their pace is fast and rough, and they have you close to cumming again almost embarrassingly quickly. You’ve already cum once, and everything is sensitive. There’s no teasing this time, no hesitation as they fuck you to their own rhythm, and god do you love it. It’s an intoxicating mess of hands and mouth on your skin, kissing and squeezing and pulling until you can barely think anymore. Pleasure ripples through you in waves, little electric shocks making you twitch and shiver until you almost can’t take it anymore.

Sweat rolls down your back. Katsuki’s teeth find the curve of your shoulder, and his other hand wraps around your front to grab your other breast, giving it the same treatment as the first. Your eyes find Shouto’s through the hazy feeling spreading through your limbs; his gaze is magnetic, pulling you in deeper until you’re practically drowning in him.

Unable to stay quiet for long, Katsuki huffs against the back of your neck. “Shit,” he growls against you, hips slapping against your ass with every harsh thrust. “This is fucking hot.” He pinches your nipples between his fingers, and you keen. “How’s that feel, angel? You like getting fucked with two cocks at once?”

“Yes,” you gasp, mewling as their cocks slam into you at the same time, stretching you wide until you’re almost unbearably full. “Fuck.” Shouto’s cock is rubbing over your sweet spot with every thrust, and the way his hips are grinding against yours has the fine hairs above his shaft teasing your clit just enough to feed into the growing knot in your stomach.

“You’re taking us so well, love,” Shouto murmurs, breath fanning over your face. His right hand sneaks between your legs, and your hips jerk against both of their cocks as cold fingers start to play with your clit. The first stroke of his fingers almost has you sobbing as pleasure shoots up your spine and spreads through your limbs.

And then his thumb presses against you and rubs. The coil in your belly tightens unbearably before snapping painfully fast. You tense, the breath knocked out of you in a rush, and all you can do is choke out their names as your muscles clench down around their cocks. Their rhythm stutters, but doesn’t stop.

Heat rips through you all the way to your toes. You’re dizzy with it. Exhaustion settles in your bones, and you sag against Shouto’s chest, panting. All you can do is hold on as they fuck you through your orgasm, drawing out your pleasure until it’s too much.

“Oh, god,” you say, nonsense spilling from your lips. “Oh, fuck. I can’t—”

“One more,” Shouto demands, punctuating the statement with another harsh snap of his hips against yours. His fingers don’t slow, circling over your swollen clit in fast circles. The cold only makes you more sensitive, and you twitch, unable to breathe. “You can give us one more.”

The pounding doesn’t stop, filthy, wet sounds accompanying their thrusts as their own orgasms take hold. Their rhythm from before falls apart, thrusts becoming erratic and rougher. Your thighs are quivering, sweat dripping down your skin. Katsuki pinches your nipples harder, tugging at them before he palms your breasts and squeezes. Between your thighs, Shouto’s fingers get even colder, and your hips jerk wildly, which pleases them both.

The cold fingers on your clit disappear for a split second, only to be replaced by ones that are hot, and you cum on their cocks a second time as Shouto pinches your clit before rolling it between his fingers.

Neither is far behind you. Your tight walls and quivering muscles are too much. Their thrusts stutter again. Katsuki’s cock shoves into your ass as deeply as he can and stays there, and a garbled mess of curses fall from his lips as he spills into the condom. Shouto moans your name as your pussy clenches around him, your slick walls fluttering and pulling him over the edge as well. You can only whimper as he continues to rock against you, cock twitching as he cums.

The three of you are panting, sweaty messes, and it’s not until their cocks start to soften that they pull out of you with slick sounds.

It’s all you can do not to collapse against Shouto’s chest, boneless and exhausted. Katsuki’s heat leaves your back, and you can hear him shuffling behind you, but don’t bother to move, only half-listening as he tosses the used condom in the trash and mumbles something you don’t catch. With your head lolled against his chest, Shouto’s fingers stroke the length of your spine until you finally catch your breath.

Eventually, you’re able to slide from his lap, lingering for a moment longer than necessary. You press a sloppy kiss against his naked shoulder, and Shouto sighs as he gives your hips one last squeeze before letting go. The floor is cold beneath your feet, and your legs almost buckle as you stand, a cramp forming in your thigh, but you’re too blissed out and happy to care.

“Katsuki, I’m taking your shirt,” you murmur, searching the floor for the still intact button-up before grabbing a fresh pair of underwear from your drawer.

“Oi! Angel!” Katsuki barks at you as you’re slipping your panties up your legs. There’s a concerned glare on his face, but it softens as you glance at him over your shoulder. “How ya feelin’?” He’s already dressed in his boxers again, looking unfairly good standing in the middle of your room with his arms crossed and a light sheen of sweat covering his torso.

You hum to yourself as you scoop his shirt off the floor and slip it on, only bothering with a few buttons. Two pairs of eyes follow you. “Good,” you respond after a moment. “Sore, but really good.”

A cocky grin spreads across Katsuki’s face. “Damn right.” There’s nothing subtle about the way his eyes rake over you. You can practically hear the thoughts of a round two floating through his head.

Shouto rolls his eyes at Katsuki and sits back down on your bed, also dressed in nothing but his underwear. “You are so…” He trails off with a shake of his head, and your lips twitch in amusement.

Katsuki glares at the other man. “You wanna finish that, Icy Hot?”

“Not really.” Shouto turns to you as you walk back towards him. A quiet sound leaves his mouth as you crawl back onto his lap and nuzzle against him, looping your arms around his neck lazily. “Need anything?” he asks you, rubbing your back over your stolen shirt.

You shake your head. “No. Just tired.” Warm lips press against your temple, and you stiffen as a sudden thought crosses your mind. The three of you hadn’t really taken the time to talk about whatever this was, aside from making sure all three of you were okay with it. Your stomach flips, content joy beginning to sour. “This…” You bite your lip and trace a scar on Shouto’s shoulder with your fingers. “This wasn’t just a one time thing, was it?”

“The fuck—”

“No,” Shouto cuts Katsuki off before he can start shouting. A strong arm squeezes around your waist, but you don’t lean back to look at either of them. Not yet. “Not unless you want it to be.”

Finally, you pull your head from his chest to look at them both. Katsuki has moved to stand beside the bed, his arms still crossed and his ruby eyes narrowed, but you can tell he’s in agreement with Shouto. Both men are staring down at you, waiting for you to speak.

There’s no complaint from you. “And you’re okay with this? Both of you?” You glance between them seriously. “I don’t want to make things weird for you.” There’s more to it than that, and the three of you are going to have a long talk in the morning about what all of this means, but right now, you’re tired and sore, and you just really want to crawl into bed and cuddle.

Shouto is nothing short of blunt when he says, “Do you really think I would have put up with seeing Bakugou’s naked ass if I wasn’t okay with it?” The dryness of his tone makes you giggle.

Katsuki bares his teeth. “Fuck you, Todoroki! My ass is great!” When your laughter only gets louder, Katsuki glances at you with a barely there smile that makes your heart skip. “Good fucking luck gettin’ rid of us, sweetheart. You’re stuck with us now.”

A sound of agreement comes from Shouto, and he gives your thigh a comforting squeeze. “If we didn’t make it clear enough earlier, we aren’t going anywhere,” he promises. “Katsuki and I discussed some things the other night. So long as you’re okay with this, I think we’re all in agreement here.”

You hum again, exhaustion replacing your worry. “Good,” you murmur as you drop your head back against Shouto’s shoulder, eyes already slipping shut. “That’s good.”

“We tire you out that much, angel?”

“Get in the damn bed, Katsuki.”

He does.

The three of you manage to situate yourselves on your bed, huddled together with barely any space left between you. You’re squished between them, partially lying on Shouto’s chest with your head tucked between his shoulder and neck. Legs are tangled beneath the sheets, and your arm is stretched across his stomach. Nonsensical shapes and patterns are drawn across his side, and your hair tickles his skin each time he exhales. Katsuki is lying with his back to you both, only a hairbreadth of space left between you. You aren’t touching. Not really. But you can feel him there with each breath he takes, can feel the heat rolling from his body in waves.

Despite how tired you are and how comfortable and safe you feel with them surrounding you, sleep doesn’t come easy to you. Thoughts keep whirring through you as silence creeps in around you, the darkness allowing your mind to wander. Katsuki and Shouto are still awake too—you can tell by their breathing.

It’s when you start thinking about telling your friends about this and how things might change that a sudden realization strikes you in the chest and you stiffen, a hitch in your breathing.

The sudden tension in your shoulders makes Shouto frown, and his brows furrow in confusion as he glances down at you. There’s a faraway look in your eyes, your expression troubled, and his stomach churns with ice. “What’s wrong?” he asks softly, gaining your attention as his fingers begin to stroke the back of your neck. “Did we do something?”

The concern in his voice snaps you from your thoughts, and you lift your head from his chest to glance at him, eyes widening. “No! No, it’s not that.” His grip around you tightens, and you sigh. “I was just thinking.”

Blue-grey eyes search yours, his expression carefully blank. “About what?”

Lying back down, you bite this inside of your cheek as you consider how to phrase your worry. “The media would have a field day if they found out about this,” you tell him, lips curving into a frown. Working closely with Heroes the way you do, you’ve seen the way the media latches onto gossip. Especially gossip involving relationships. Pro Heroes are celebrities in their own way, and you can only imagine what would happen if your little rendezvous with not one, but two incredibly popular and attractive young Heroes went public.

The thought makes you just a little bit sick.

A loud scoff comes from the man pressed against your back. You lift your head from Shouto’s chest and glance over your shoulder, only to find one red eye glaring at you through the darkness.

“If you think me an’ Icy Hot would let a bunch of fucking vultures say shit about you, you’re a fucking idiot,” Katsuki grumbles, eloquent as ever. The heavy stare cast your way lasts for a moment longer before he drops his head back onto his pillow and goes back to staring at the wall. He mutters something else under his breath that’s too quiet for you to make out, but then he shifts against the mattress, moving just enough to press his back against yours. One of his legs hooks around yours, joining the tangled mess of limbs.

The gruff comment makes Shouto sigh, exasperation clear in the single puff of air. Even still, he doesn’t disagree. The arm wrapped around your shoulders squeezes you a little tighter, and Shouto’s forearm presses against the back of Katsuki’s shoulder blades in a subtle show of affection. Warm lips press against your temple and linger in a slow, sweet kiss.

Your heart squeezes in your chest.

“I know.”

#shouto todoroki x reader #todoroki x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou x reader x todoroki #todoroki x reader x bakugou #shouto todoroki #katsuki bakugou #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha #mha #fic: some like it hot

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