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irisintheafterglow · 2 months

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can I say that? (pro!bakugo x you)

summary: you tell katsuki he's pretty. he doesn't know how to respond.

wc: 0.7k

cw/tags: established relationship, swearing, the tiniest bit of angst but mostly tooth-rotting fluff, very obvious laufey and sound of music influence

note: fun fact, "the sound of music" is probably one of my all-time favorite comfort movies. i like the singing and the love story :))) so that's why this scene is in here, it's just the most romantic scene in the movie for me and i really love the implication that finding your soulmate is a reward for doing something right in your past. anyways i talked too much, happy valentines day and enjoy!

likes, reblogs, and replies are appreciated <3 happy valentine's day!

You know, I was thinking and I was wondering two things: Why did you run away to the abbey? And...what was it that made you come back?

“Hah?”

“Don’t ‘hah’ me. You heard what I said.” He grunts dismissively and continues to watch whatever old movie you decide to put on the living room TV. You knew he didn’t want to admit it, but the sappy actions of the main leads had his heart racing. You stick your pointer finger into his side only to find a solid wall of rock-hard muscle. “Hey. Say something other than ‘hah.’”

“Fine. Why the hell’re you poking me?” His eyes flick down to meet yours for a moment, a warning against you jabbing his secretly ticklish spots. Well, I had an obligation to fulfill…and I came back to fulfill it.

“Because I don’t like your answer,” you reply, adjusting your position on the couch. You were practically lying on top of him, one leg swung over his waist while you rested comfortably in the space between his side and the back cushions. One of his arms draped over the edge of the armrest, the other securing you as close to his body as humanly possible. It was a feeling of warmth that made your brain fuzzy, the skin to skin contact heavenly intimate. Your words had slipped out unconsciously and you didn’t know you’d verbalized your thoughts until his blunt response. “I feel like you didn’t actually hear me.” He glances down at you again like you’d sprouted four legs. And I missed the children.

Only the children?

No–yes!

“Of course I heard you. What kinda boyfriend would I be if I didn’t?” Isn't it right that I missed them?

“Okay, then respond.” His deflections were becoming weaker, so you kept pushing while simultaneously fighting the urge to turn and bite his bicep.

“Thanks, I guess?” You roll your eyes and your silence finally gets through to him. “Was that not the right answer?” I was only hoping that perhaps you…

“It was an attempt,” you say slowly. Perhaps you might…

“A decent attempt,” he mutters. Yes?

“Agree to disagree.” You feel his temper flare and brace yourself to get flipped onto your back and pressed into the couch. The action, however, doesn’t come. Instead, an uncharacteristic frown passes over his expression, one that usually didn’t appear if it were only you two. “Kats, did I say something wrong?” He shrugs one broad shoulder. Yeah, something was definitely bothering him. Well, nothing was the same when you were away…and it'll be all wrong again after you leave.

“No, but I think I did,” he mumbles. And I just thought perhaps you might change your mind.

“Baby, it’s not that serious if you don’t want it to be. A ‘thanks’ is okay. I’m sorry I was teasing.” He shakes his head. Well, I'm sure the baroness will be able to make things fine for you.

“It’s not that.” You reach out to grab the remote and mute the movie for the time being, before turning to give him your full attention. “I’m just not used to getting called that kinda shit.”

“Being called…pretty?”

“Yeah. It’s new,” he explains quietly. “You’re the only one who’s ever told me that.”

“That doesn’t make it any less true,” you respond gently, brushing your thumb over his cheek. He practically melts under your touch. “Would I lie to you, Bakugo Katuski?”

“I fuckin’ hope not,” he says with ironic seriousness and you smile, his own chuckle lightly rumbling through his chest and against your body. “But, I think I like it.”

“Being called pretty?”

“Mhmm. It’s kinda nice.”

“As long as I’m not feeding your already inflated ego,” you point out and he barks out a laugh, a real one. “Can I call you ‘pretty’ more often, then?”

“I guess so,” he replies nonchalantly and it’s your turn to frown. The shit-eating grin that pulls at the corner of his mouth is not lost to you. He was an idiot sometimes, but he was your idiot.

“Bakugo Katsuki.”

“Fine, fine. Yes, call me ‘pretty’ more often.” He pauses and you look at him expectantly, waiting for the pieces to click. “Please.”

Nodding in satisfaction, you reach out to unmute the movie and settle back onto his chest, letting your eyes flutter shut. He sighs contently, rubbing his hand up and down your back and sliding you both further into the numerous pillows. So somewhere in my youth or childhood…I must have done something good. His voice drifts into your ears as you start to doze off, soft and precious like telling a secret.

“I think you’re pretty too.”

if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me, you can buy me a coffee on my ko-fi! you can also check out my full masterlist here :)

#i really hope this is readable lol #bakugo x you #bakugo x reader #bakugo x y/n #katsuki x you #katsuki x reader #katsuki x y/n #bakugo katsuki x you #bakugo katsuki x reader #mha x you #mha x reader #bnha x you #bnha x reader #mha fluff #bakugo fluff

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vaguely-concerned · 2 years

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I have always been fascinated by the scene in Harrow the Ninth where all of God’s lies are finally revealed, so here is a post of appreciation for the last part of the book and also trying to pick apart some of what Muir is doing on a writing level, because I want to steal all of it for my own to gain even a tenth of her power lol

- “What? No tongue in your head, you—you mutant, you mistake, you great big calf-eyed fuck-up?!”

mercymorn is the funniest person to ever live probably dfhasjkfas (moira quirk’s delivery of this in the audiobook is out of this world, please experience it for yourself one day.) the metatextual layer that she’s essentially saying this to locked tomb jesus, and that she would 100% still be saying it if she knew just how much she’s talking to locked tomb jesus, because that is the very essence of who mercy is as a person... fucking immaculate

- God said, “Summarize, please. You both do tend to go overboard on the foreplay.”

no actually John Gaius is the funniest person who’s ever lived (and died and lived again etc.). in the middle of his ancient lies finally being exposed and all his death empire and personal life about to come crashing down around him as he gets exploded, he still takes a moment to be completely, comprehensively, needlessly, astoundingly and utterly petty. inspirational, in a way. if you commit the profane act of resurrection you, too, could spend ten thousand years working on becoming your very worst self

(also a definite indication that God is terrible in the sack, what the fuck)

also, Mercy throws John’s own ‘You’re trying to start a fight with me to get out of the fight I’m trying to have with you, which is a painfully domestic tactic’ from the beginning of the book back in his face here at the end, which shows that even so, John is merely a novitiate in pettiness, she will brook no comparison <3 I love her so much

- Upon seeing God getting exploded, Pyrrha straight up stands there with her cigarette until it burns down to ashes in her hand fhsdkjfhas. god this poor woman she’s been dying for a cigarette all that time and she’s too shocked by everything going on to even get to smoke it!!!

can you imagine what a mindfuck all of this is for her, though. she’s been doing the same thing as Gideon has this whole book from the back of her necromancer’s head for ten thousand years, she lost her necromancer like half an hour ago, max, and is figuring out being in the driver’s seat of his body (his corpse??? technically???) alone for the first time, she just mercy killed her ex, she found out that at least she and her necromancer didn’t kill both their lover and their child twenty years ago (and also it wasn’t their baby, it was baby jesus in a space pod, phew, that makes it... better? no, no not really huh), she finally got a cigarette... and then her siblings in death empire seemingly upend the entire natural order she’s known as long as she’s had consciousness.

“It was complicated.” she’s saying what we’re all thinking. if she simply wants to settle down on a farm somewhere and live a quiet life, no fucking wonder!

A lot more thoughts behind the cut Because Of Who I Am As A Person

- There was silence in that room. The air had cooled somewhat, but it was still hot and sticky, and it smelled like everyone’s sweat. It smelled like hot perfume and cigarettes and fear.

ever since the first time I read that part I’ve been astounded by how perfectly this captures the feeling of being young and ignored and witnessing adults Feeling deep, tangled things at each other that you don’t understand yet but can sense the outlines of as it settles over you too. ‘hot perfume and cigarettes and fear’. that feeling of peering at adulthood through the keyhole and only half-understanding what you see and that you’re terrified. between that and the way John can literally freeze people in place with a glance until he decides to let them go... it’s the weather front of emotional violence settling in a room, atmospheric and suffocating, as much in the pressure while nothing’s really happening as when the lightning strikes finally hit. hell, Gideon has been through all kinds of abuse in the Ninth House, emotional as well as physical, but this particular form of tension seems to be new to her and to (rightfully) freak her the fuck out. fuckkkkk Tamsyn Muir is just SO GOOD at this -- it’s the perfect set of sensory details to pull forward to get that effect.

(and of course the station is cooling, come to think of it, the Resurrection Beast and the Heralds have begun to flee! Didn’t catch that the first few times around lol)

- Augustine said blankly, “Mercy. Don’t do this.”

“You never loved him as much as I did,” she said, without taking her eyes from John*. “This is the moment. This is the chance for unlovable Mercymorn -- critical Mercymorn -- to show she is the most capable of her name. Every time you have said I did not understand the human heart, that I was unfeeling, that I only knew worship without adoration... Watch me, Augustine: I am the second saint to serve the King Undying. I will teach you a lesson in forgiveness.”

“You don’t even know the meaning of the word,” said Augustine.

John later says he ‘adored them all’, mirroring Mercymorn’s use of ‘adoration’ here. Also I think that she is showing her love, in a very Mercymorn sort of way... just not for John. It’s love for Cristabel, even after all this time, that means she can’t actually forgive John for making her die needlessly. John always assumes people's love for him trumps all other loves in the end, and it just came back to bite him big time. Plus, another case of Augustine knowing Mercymorn much better than John does; he is completely right, she does not intend to forgive anyone for anything lol (and honestly fair enough at that point).

(God asks Mercymorn what he has to do to earn her forgiveness, in his usual uselessly self-flagellating way)

Thick tears pooled in those bloody, stormy eyes. Augustine looked at her, and then he quite abruptly pressed his back to the wall and slid down until he was sitting, a posture of absolute defeat.

as I talked about in another post, the precise way Augustine catches on to what’s about to happen is actually foreshadowed in his and Mercy’s very first fight!

*interesting that this is one of the very rare times the actual narrative voice -- so Gideon’s POV in this case -- actually calls him ‘John’. It may be the only time? I haven’t been paying attention specifically to this, but it stood out to me really clearly this go around. it emphasises brilliantly the sense that John before Mercymorn in that moment is very much a person. the narrative does a great job at subtly shifting those around, how much he's a real human vs. concept to the people around him at any given point

John also says he will love ‘you three’ forever, which I’m presuming is the three original saints? well, I think that may be a record speedrun from him lying to it being revealed he was lying; instead of a myriad it took like five minutes this time

-Mercy turned around to Augustine. She was not weeping now.

“It is finished,” she said.

(Insert Gideon having an oh-so-valid little breakdown about her own speedrun back into orphanhood :’) I’m so sorry Griddle, if it helps it won’t last...?)

- The saint of Patience stood up and crossed to her. She reached forward and took big clawed fistfuls of his shirt.

“I wanted it to be me,” she said, in this weird, unearthly calm. “I didn’t want it to be you. I didn’t want it to be you, Augustine, after all. The sin needed to be mine.”

“It’s ours,” he said unsteadily.

(They take in the probable devastation that’s happening to the Houses right now; Mercy consistently calls them ‘our people’, which I find strangely moving despite everything)

“We don’t know how long it takes to undo the Resurrection. Millions of people. All those millions of our people. No. I had to do it. I’m not very nice, Augustine, and I was never very good.”

(Later he says: “As you chose to stain your hands so mine could be clean, you’re going to have to put up with the fact that you picked the wrong man to enter a suicide pact with. I hate ‘em.”) honestly I am still incoherent over WHATEVER THE FUCK their relationship is. they do hate each other, but she didn’t want it to be him. she did it, so it wouldn’t have to be him, and to him that is ‘absolute defeat’. like there are so many sibling feelings in my heart over that, when you want so desperately and futilely to shield someone even though it has by all accounts already stained you both indelibly and equally. Mercy has been the scapegoat child among the lyctor 'siblings' for so long so y'know, 'I was never very good anyway, I can take this for you', and Augustine is The Eldest Brother who they seemed to agree on beforehand would be the one to do it... but she did it, for both of them, and he couldn't stop her. the mirror of that in the way Gideon and Harrow wants the other to live, to be whole, even at their own expense, even though they 'hate each other' I have. space shrimp emotions.

- it seems like the population of all the Houses doesn’t reach the billions! interesting factoid, I guess it makes sense the Death Planets aren’t that hospitable to human life or expansion long term lol

- Gideon likens the look on Augustine’s face to that she found on Jeannemary after Cytherea murdered her. There’s some very deliberate language and framing going on in this part of the scene to compare Mercy and Augustine -- The original immortal evil space vamipires slash war criminals lmao -- as two scared children clinging to each other. Ianthe too, actually:

Ianthe was staring into space, looking like a child, for all her height. Little. Bemused.

Tamsyn Muir is such a good fucking writer. The expert subtextuality in this scene of God as the Father (and the dad joke amen), bitches!!!! Lord and Emperor and God and Dad (and sort of Spouse, for Mercy and Augustine), all in one. And when (it looks like) he dies, despite all his unforgivable crimes both personal and y’know against humanity, they are all still reduced to frightened orphans.

- “You have a job, Joy. If you kill yourself now, you’ll leave everything remarkably untidy. And that’s not like you, is it.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGH remember “Cristabel always said I was tidy”?????? he wasn’t even there for that, so he just knows! he knows that is the exact button to press to make her stay alive!!!!! I am going to throw myself off a cliff!

- “We’re going to go round up the ships, everyone who’s left. Sue for peace, as best we can, get the Edenites on side. And then we’ll find a place to fulfill the old promise. Somewhere out there exists a home not paid for with blood. It won’t be for us, but it will be for those who have been spared. Babies always get born, houses always get built. And flowers will die on necromancy’s grave.”

Her throat was working. “Augustine...”

The lyctor took her silently in his arms. They held each other like children who’d had a nightmare, and had woken in a fright. Just as silently, they detached.

She said in a low voice: “He was right. There can be no forgiveness.“

“Then let us not seek out forgiveness, but forgetfulness,” he said. “Bury me next to you in that unmarked grave, Joy. We knew that was the only hope we ever had, that we would live to see it through, and pray for our own cessation. Oh, we’ll still hate each other, my dear; we’ve hated each other too long and too passionately to stop. But my bones will rest easy next to your bones.”

kill me. strike me down. this whole part has haunted me from the very first moment I read it and it won’t let me go, I think it did something irreversible to my brain. who let augustine say the most beautiful things while being one of the worst people. it’s so unfair.

And if you think about it… there’s probably no way he could have stopped her, if she really wanted to kill herself right then and there. She could have just triumphantly dropped dead and left him to deal with everything in the aftermath alone, with a message telling him where to find the instructions for her hilarious 24 minute funeral. But she doesn’t. She wants to go out with him, because they have a deal. *sobbing hysterically* all they wanted was two unmarked graves side by side and they couldn’t even get that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- God taking Mercy’s robes immediately upon killing her and ‘coyly pulling it closed’ as he puts it on is such.......... Peak John-ness. objectively hilarious, objectively horrific.

also he says he ‘never likes cleaning house all at once’, which makes for some...... deeply troubling implications around the gradual dying off of the other lyctors, doesn’t it???? um what the fuck, actually?????????

- the scariest thing about John to me is that I think he really means it, when he says he wishes Harrow was his daughter. I think he genuinely feels that, and does not see all the nightmarish shit he does to her as antithetical to it in any real meaningful way. literally having her attempted murder staged over and over and over again, ‘for her own good’, and I believe his affection is still as real as anything he can feel anymore. he is so terrifyingly, insidiously good at reframing the world around parts of himself in such a way that he’s always ultimately justified. he could have sat down with harrow and helped her figure out what was going on with her, even as one scientist to another, never mind everything he should be doing if he intends to be her teacher or her father figure! he’s GOD! even apart from being god, he’s the ur-necromancer! if he took her and her condition seriously for five fucking minutes and actually sat down with her, he probably could have helped her figure it out and relieve at least part of her suffering!! (and thank god he didn’t, I guess, but in principle at the very least)

and like... why on earth doesn’t he? is he just that emotionally lazy and feckless? if he thought getting G1deon to kill her over and over would be more ‘expedient’, then surely that is belied pretty quickly when it doesn’t fucking work. it’s an evil way to go about it in the first place, but even aside from that it’s uh... scientifically indefensible to repeat an experiment that’s clearly not giving results? is he afraid that if he digs too much in Harrow’s Situation (being a 200 soul Frankenstein’s monster and all, I’m so sorry Harrow), people will be able to follow the threads of that back to what he did and how his powers work?

(I will say that this is one of the best portrayals I’ve ever seen of an ineffectual and covertly harmful adult in relation to a mentally ill teenager. It’s almost scary how true to life it feels at times. If you don’t catch yourself you could find yourself defending him like ‘well, what was he supposed to do, how was he supposed to know, how could he have done anything differently, it’s not his fault’, like he isn’t, again, GOD, and also a grown fucking man positioning himself in the role of her father)

- I have said it so many times before, but Augustine asking John to ask him if he forgives him just so he gets to finally tell him ‘no’... fucking amazing.

Augustine murmured: “You said there was no forgiveness.”

“I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.” so smug in his lonely references no one else can get! I hate him! I love him. I wonder if John was religious before the Resurrection or just like... chronically went to Catholic school, if you see what I mean fhaskfa. Now there’s a fascinating mindfuck that’s relevant only to him, he has a conception of ‘God’ no one else in the Houses could have, because they only know what he set up for them. (which I think is also the narrative point being made with the memes in this series, btw, maybe I'll write out my thoughts on it properly at some point)

this I have also observed before, but the last thing Augustine does before turning down John’s ‘forgiveness’ is looking around a room of dead siblings, with the eyes of a dead sibling, and with Mercy’s heart still splattered all over him. Alfred was the first person to die for John’s lie about lyctorhood (narrowly, since it’s implied Augustine and Mercymorn became lyctors pretty close together. well this is true mostly symbolically, I think all the fucked up shit they did to Teacher & co had already happened by that point lol), and Mercy is the last, and Augustine stands there marked by them both and doesn’t forgive it.

- I wonder if Pyrrha actually has any kind of loyalty left for John or if this is just Strategy and playing out the role of Saint of Duty. (Ianthe is 100% only self-serving strategy, which, you know, at least she’s honest about it haha) I’m assuming it’s mostly Strategy. Also interesting that she seems to be trying to avoid him finding out it’s her and not G1deon, while she might be about to tell Augustine before God poofs back onto the stage?

- It feels so good to have Gideon looking with clear eyes at how everyone’s been treating Harrow and affirm that ‘that is fucked up, go to hell’. Like it’s so good just to have Gideon back in general that it gets lost a bit in the cloud of euphoria for me, but having her validation and care in relation to all Harrow’s been struggling with and that it wasn’t all in her mind? She’s had like fifteen life changing revelations the last twenty minutes and her sense of justice and compassion still breaks through it all. I know we all love Gideon very much but I truly love Gideon so very much help

- But it was the girl’s face that sent Harrow’s neurons in a thalergetic spin

+ bonus ‘I don’t know what the people who think Harrow and Gideon’s vibe is primarily sisterly are on, and whatever it is I don’t want it’ lmao, the entire description of Gideon in the coffee shop AU is so deeply unmistakably sweetly horny. Romantic and sexual attraction is only one set of brushstrokes making up the beautiful yet inconceivably fucked up painting that is their relationship, but I think it’s kind of willfully obtuse to say it isn’t there at all or isn’t also important. Harrow didn’t make TWO dream bubble AUs with explicitly romantic elements for you to overlook her bone gremlin horniness like this

There may be a lot of punctuation and orthography weirdness in this post; this is all transcribed from the audiobook version as best I could figure, I don’t have the books in text format! Only a few days left to go before Nona the Ninth, you guys, I don't know about you but I'm about ready to vibrate right out of my skin

#the locked tomb #harrow the ninth #the locked tomb meta #mercymorn the first #augustine the first #john gaius #pyrrha dve #gideon nav #griddlehark #I've been wanting to write down some of this for ages and finally The Time Has Come #my brain is currently a wasp net on fire being run over by a truck but I hope some of this is readable anyway lol

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