#i typed half of it on mobile during work until i got too worked up and i had to set my phone down

[imagine-shenanigans]

Hands on my knees.

Now I'm thinking of an au because of the nasty coworker soap hidden camera thing. AU where some prick you slept with left a hidden camera in your apartment for a live stream on the dark web (shut up i know its cliche let me live) and its a 24/7 stream of your bedroom with audio.

And one of the boys is a frequent viewer, watches a stupid amount of the time they're on leave. Eats dinner while watching their favorite show, etc etc.

(Dark stuff and NSFW ahead warning.)

Soap is the one who is the most impulsive about it. He's the one who feels guilty about it until he covers his own hand in his cum while watching you play a game on your phone. It's an insatiable need at this point. Can't cum without thinking of the bonnie little thing on his computer screen. You said the word Soap out loud once while talking to a friend on the phone or going through a list and he came so hard he saw stars. Went back and clipped the audio, he has it saved on his phone with other words, just so he can hear you say his callsign. He feels just a little guilty after he cums to you doing stretches.

But that's the allure of it, the taboo, knowing he's a fucking freak but doing it anyway. And god does he love it. Honestly the guilt fades REALLY quickly when he realizes how long the camera has been there, bordering on months. Such a poor thing you are, so vulnerable, so sweet. You just need someone to protect you from the nasty men in this world. Need someone even nastier to do it.

He makes the impulsive decision to go to the pub you mention on the phone with a friend. He waits until you're just a little drunk and "accidentally" bumps into you. Makes himself as charming as possible, smiles and laughs with you, until youre bringing him into your home. He positions you just right so the camera can see (he's recording the stream at home) and makes you as loud as possible, tongue laving over your inner thighs, leaving searing bites anywhere he can reach like he's claiming you.

(He is.)

He makes sure the camera gets a perfect shot of him cumming inside of you without protection. Hooks his fingers into your mouth so you can't stop the sounds you're making. He licks the drool from your chin and up into your mouth. Spends hours making you cum your brains out when he's not using you, well past the point of overstimulation by the time he settles, leaving you a hiccupping and sobbing mess as he rubs soothing cream over you, cuddling you to his chest so that this time, the camera can't see you at all.

He gives a peace sign to the camera after you fall asleep, and says "Alright ye bloody animals, shows over." before breaking the thing. Shoves it in the middle of your kitchen garbage before washing his hands and crawling back into bed with you. He sets up a new camera by the next morning, this one just for himself.

(and, if he releases clips of you two fucking online, that's between him and the rest of the god forsaken fucks on there.)

//

Price is shameless about watching you.

He knows he's going to hell, what's one more sin along the way? He indulges himself far more than any of the others. The silence gets to him when he's on leave, and what better way to fill it than with a pretty/handsome thing going about their life? He spends pretty much every waking and sleeping minute with his laptop open to your feed, watching you go about your day. It's mostly mundane, really, sick in nature but not a sexual thing for the most part. Of course, he gives his cock slow, languid strokes when he watches your hips eagerly buck into the vibrating toy you're using, whimpers falling from your pretty lips that John just wants to swallow whole. Too impatient for your own good, you need to be held down and edged for a good hour.

It's that thought that sends him spiraling.

How much better oof you'd be if you just had him to take care of you. Such a shame a nasty, terrible man put a camera in your room - he'll fix that.

He ends up moving into the flat/house next to yours when it mysteriously comes available. He really wants a cute little spouse to come home to - really wants to sit them on his cock until theyre crying and begging him to move. (And if he can get them to call him daddy, well, wouldn't that be a sight?)

He takes the longest out of all the boys, ends up being the model neighbor, coaxes you out like a feral little animal until you're spending more time in his place than your own. He hates that so many people (mainly men, his main issue is the men) can see you at any given time. Can take what should be his. So he waits until you're out for work one day and he uses the spare key you gave him (so trustingly, honey you shouldn't give things to strange men like him. He'll bend you over his knee until you learn your lesson.) and he sneaks into your room and moves the camera just a bit after disabling it. Just enough so its more noticeable in the light.

(If he steals a pair of panties, well... he does.)

And when you come crying and shaking to his doorstep later, he breaks the thing in his hand, and chucks it before he ushers you into his place and coos at you as he fingers you in his lap, edging you as you work through all those big emotions :( Poor baby, he's got you now, no need to be so scared, he'll get you nice and needy and then fuck you until you're brainlessly drooling into his pillow. He'll even be so kind as to slip his ring on your finger too, just to make sure you know he's not going to let anyone else have you anymore. That he'll make sure you're safe from now on, isn't that nice pumpkin?

//

Gaz I'm still trying to figure out how to write but I think he'd see the stream by accident, he's not gone looking for it, and he feels sharp revulsion when he figures out what it is while looking for some other information. And he's taking note of all of the things in the room, desperately trying to piece together where you live so he can do the right thing and figure out how to tell you about the stream. Definitely not because he's interested, and sure it's taking him a few days and repeated visits and- well, okay, you have this cute thing you do and- okay he's not... well he knows he's being a creep, but he's doing it for the right reasons. Totally. He's not... he's not being weird for no reason like some of these other creeps. And yeah, okay, he jacks off to you now and then, it's not that big of a deal, he's a little lonely and he's a little desperate okay?

He tells himself he's gonna quit, that he's not going to do anything, but then suddenly he's in your town on his leave, and he's putting himself in your path at every given opportunity. Of course, by then he's long since accepted he's being a real fucking freak by what he's doing, but doesn't he deserve something nice? Don't you?

And sure, okay, it's a huge ego boost when you do look at him and flush, when you try to collect your thoughts when you hear his voice. He smiles prettily at you and it all sort of spirals from there, until he's well and truly charmed you. He drops hints about the camera, but nothing directly implied. He finds a story on the news app on his phone about something similar and cringes, pretending like he isn't STILL watching the live feed of your apartment when he's in his own. Says something about how only a real freak would put a camera in someone's house. Good thing you've never done that to his place and he laughs, because he's never been to yours yet so you take it as a joke.

Weeks later, when you're doing a clean of your apartment, you find the camera and call him, and he comes over and hugs you, coos that it's probably not even plugged in, just some dick trying to scare you. He helps you run through who it could possibly be that did it, until he's given the dude's full name and address online.

He gives the camera a shit eating grin over your shoulder, looking directly into it even though you haven't pointed it out yet.

He presses a kiss to your forehead and offers you stay at his place for the night (when he really means forever.) He makes sure there's no cameras around you ever again.

//

Ghost is... the worst of them. In his own special way.

Assuming he isn't the one who put the damn thing in your room, he's definitely a regular on some of the grossest sites known to man, half out of sheer morbid curiosity, and half because he sometimes does end up finding things he likes. Your stream isn't the first he's watched, but it is the first he stays for. There's something about you that mesmerizes him. He ends up visiting the stream more and more until he's pieced together where you live and what your general schedule is. It takes a few months, but he wants you for himself - nothing else will do.

There's no preamble, no game that's played like the others. He forges a passport and documents and gets everything set up, and you don't even know that you're about to go tumbling into his net. He's quick about it, when he gets into your apartment. Ends up tying you up nice and neat, arms behind your back and ankles to your thighs while you sleep. Leaves the gag for last, just for the thrill of you screaming (so he can punish you) when you wake up. He blindfolds you, and moves the camera for a better view before flicking the lights on. He wakes you up with a slap to your ass, feeling himself grow hard as you panic. He cuts your clothes off with a knife, tells you not to squirm, and when you do and he knicks you, he just tuts and tells you that you shoulda known better.

Licks the blood from your skin with his mask rolled up before he pulls it back down (just a plain balaclava). He ends up hoisting you up so you're on your knees, positions you perfect for the camera to see, and fingerfucks you nice and fast, one hand on your throat to keep you upright, the other pitoning in and out of your hole. He makes sure to hit your g-spot/prostate every single time when he finds it, sets an absolutely brutal pace that has your tears leaking through the blindfold. When you get close, he bullies your clit/cock, moving fast and hard until you're screaming and you collapse. He tells you this is your fault, for trusting some prick and not even checking your own home.

Lines his cock up with you and doesn't prep you any further, only one orgasm and a little bit of finger fucking not nearly enough to prep you for what he's packing. He ends up fucking you hard, and fast, and brutal, still pumping your cock/rubbing your clit through the whole thing, not caring for anything but how you cry and squeeze so tight around his cock. He lets you heave sobs when he finally cums inside, no protection, and he pinches your nipples painfully hard to get your attention. When he's sure he's got it, he warns you not to let him drip out of you. Never tells you to stop crying, but tells you if you scream or try and get away, you will not like the punishment. He takes the gag out and you try to wriggle away, so he puts the gag back in while you try and apologize, ask for a second chance, and he just puts you on the floor, angles the camera just so, and takes the blindfold off. He tells you exactly how long he's been watching, how many people he sees in the stream at any given time, and then he ties a vibrator to your clit/cock and sets it on the highest setting it can go. He tells you to give the boys a good show before you retire from your acting career, and presses a kiss to your forehead through the mask.

He gives you an hour alone with your fans while he packs your stuff into the boot of his rental car.

#soap cod #ghost cod #cod #price cod #gaz cod #dark fic #mod strawberry #strawberry writing #if theres any mistakes no there isnt close your eyes #i typed half of it on mobile during work until i got too worked up and i had to set my phone down #smile emoji #im mentally unwell teehee sparkles

[ohshitmomitsawritingblog]

Okay but the way a young gaara before kazekage but after meeting Naruto would read romance stories and just.... process how everyone is able to explain and feel love and he's just sitting there wondering. Everyone explains it differently but all seem to know it. But maybe he thinks of Naruto. Of flashes of blue eyes. He knows he loves Naruto but it's not the type of love he's trying to understand. He thinks of his siblings and he may realize he loves them. The way Kankuro excitedly shows his creations. Or temari and drinking tea before bed. Just koments of discovering love. (This could lead to meeting his S/O)

If ever meeting his Love he suddenly is writing. It's like a book but in his own words. Moments where there is silence but it's filled and comforting. The sound of laughter and the smell of food. It's the book he could never find in the shelves. The way to put love into words.

I’m going to kms bc I had like half my reply typed up and then tumblr refreshed on mobile 😭😭😭😭

Anyhow I love that you sent this ask because I am literally in the middle of Gaara’s backstory episode. The organic figure of mother and child against a blood red moon crumbling to sand and dust as his uncle tells him his entire life is a lie and not a single person has ever loved him? Absolutely obliterated.

I think it’s really interesting to study Gaara’s concept of love because for the longest time it was so warped and almost controlled by the adults around him. Rasa intentionally disturbed the one pillar of connection Gaara had as a young child, during a phase in life where connection and our social understanding of affection is developing.

Honestly it’s just the wire mother, cloth mother experiment (don’t Google that) on steroids. Take every shred of identity and confront and genuine love away from a child so not only is his answer to self soothing and comfort in this little bubble of isolation you’ve imposed on him spilling blood, but make it his fault too. Take no blame. Encourage the fear. Kill the boy and create a weapon.

For Gaara to get to where he does speaks to his strength as a person, as well as his capacity for empathy for others. Studying the way he forms his own concept of love, from the self insulating killing in order to feel both validated and divorced from emotional threats to his self image, to true compassion for others, to the point of literal self sacrifice, is mind blowing.

I LOVE his arc and I love the thought you’ve brought here, where Gaara relies both on budding personal experiences and new found connections as well as literature, and figuring out where he fits in all of the world’s perception of love.

Everyone’s got it figured out but him it seems, until he realizes and pieces together those small moments, the way he realizes he’s relying on his brother more and more, opening up to his sister when months or years before he was shoving her away from him. Even Naruto, the boy who started him down this path, becomes a more daily share of this process, but isn’t quite the whole answer, either. To know love is to able be apart of the world, so Gaara also really exists amidst life for the first time in a long time. Getting to watch his brother work on his puppets, and it goes from awkward to casual nights in, where no one goes anywhere or does anything but do their own thing together. Temari and him garden together, and they usually only talk about root rot and how to avoid it in the beginning, only to have it fade into routine, into loving and looking forward to her small, proud smirks when a cactus blooms. They eat together. They introduce their friends to him, and Gaara introduces his in turn, once he makes them. He loves his family. He loves his family. Books go from a far off fantasy, a what if of human connection he thought was contrived at best or a facade at worst, to his every day. It feels good. He feels right. It feels solid, like even if he did get knocked down someone would always catch him. He loves, he loves, he loves—-

Well, romantic love is so familiar but so different at the same time. In a situation where it happens, when he falls in love and gets with his love, it’s such a soft thing. Gaara treats his partner very well, even if he’s not the most outwardly affectionate. Hugging and kissing in front of other people isn’t his thing, but being near them, knowing people know his lover picked him? Being proud of their relationship, the thing they both chose? Sharing things they don’t with others, crying, laughing, wanting the same things - that’s enough for him. I could see him writing it all down, journaling almost every day, even if it’s just a sentence or two, although most of the time it’s at least two pages of the little things. It’s so novel, to be chosen by someone. It’s an entire experience to return that in kind, to feel wanted in a whole new way.

Excuse me while I cry a River

#mini meta #mod talks #zombi vomit #Gaara #Gaara imagines #gaara headcanons

[floofs-headcanons]

Hello hello! Both of your have such awesome writing! I had so much fun reading the headcanons and scenarios of the bodyguard AU! Could I request either college AU or a soulmate AU or your choosing for Zoro? Whatever you feel like writing! Thank you!!

College & Soulmate AU; Scenario

Character; Zoro

Word Count; 1,718

Thank you so much, we’re glad you liked it !! But no, but let me tell you how we screamed at each other for literally half an hour when we saw this request. There were too many good soulmate AUs we ended up using a generator aksjdhas.

The first time you and your soulmate touch you get stuck together for a while.

December is when you find him sleeping on campus grounds. He’s resting on one of the outdoor tables, book open, with arms covering the pages. Snow is falling, and you’re cold even with a heavy fur coat and umbrella keeping the white specs from melting into your hair.

You’re not sure if you should wake him up despite the fact that he was wearing nothing other than a T-shirt and some jeans, but he doesn’t seem very bothered. Well, that is until he sneezes. It’s followed by some incoherent grumbling and nearly scares the shit out of you, but it’s enough for you to decide to help.

“Hey,” you poke his cheek with the butt of your umbrella, not too fond of touching strangers. “Hey!”

He doesn’t stir, and you’re left wondering if anyone else has tried to help him before you showed up and ended up leaving it be because he wouldn’t budge.

Still, you couldn’t leave him here in this type of temperature; so you decide to leave your umbrella behind. It’s long enough to lean against the table and shield him from the ever piling snow without directly touching any part of his body and possibly bothering his rest- not that you think it would. He didn’t flinch even when you yelled at him.

December is when you’re working at Shakky’s bar late into the night to pay off your college tuition.

Those loans wouldn’t pay themselves after all and the salary was good. 

The company at the bar itself was interesting to say the least. You could never truly say you had a dull night while working there. Be it the slurring drunks and their awful attempts at pickup lines, to the terribly sobering tales that would be shared across the counter; it was an eye opening experience. 

Tonight would be much like any other- at least, that’s what you had thought until a familiar man comes through the door. 

He seemed well- that was good. You didn’t give it too much thought, after all, you were on the clock and this was a rather popular bar for the student body to frequent. From the way Shakky greets him, he must’ve been a regular long before you had begun working here.

Setting down the glass you had been mindlessly polishing, your attention is drawn towards a customer sitting near the back of the bar. He’s a bit louder than the other customers, but you were pretty used to that. Eustass Kid came in all the time and drank until he either passed out or his blonde haired friend carried him out forcefully. At the very least he wasn’t bothering anybody.

“Excuse me,” the green haired man raises a hand, successfully catching your attention. It seems he was done talking to Shakky by now.

“Yes?” You make your way over, an award-winning customer service smile tugging at the corner of your lips. “What can I get for you?”

He ends up getting a few, maybe more than a few, beers. This man sure could drink.

December is when your car decides it needs its own break from the cold winter snow. It thankfully doesn’t break down anywhere too traffic heavy, and there’s an auto-repair shop not even five minutes away.

“Oh, hello,” you greet, surprised to see a familiar face working here. He’s wearing a tank-top and some slacks, and this time you think the attire is appropriate given how much he was sweating.

The owner, Franky, had more than generously came to pick up your mobile and gave you a ride along the way, saying it would be done the same day. I have a reliable repairman, he said more than just a bit too loudly for comfort.

The male glances up at you for a second before going back to finish up on the vehicle he was already occupied with. “Hey, there.” You’re not too sure if he recognizes you- it’s a hard to not recognize him- but that’s fine, you just needed your car fixed.

It doesn’t take him very long to finish up on his current project before moving onto yours. He thankfully doesn’t ask any questions, it seems like the owner had already filled him in, and just starts working.

“You know,” he spares you a glance, picking up another tool. “He said it’d be done the same day but it’s still gonna take a few hours. Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Unfortunately not,” you sigh. The only plans you had were to go back home and take a long, long nap, but there was no way you were going to walk back in this type of weather. For a while, you’re standing around a little awkwardly, fiddling with the fluffs of your sleeves before he speaks up.

“If you want you could sit inside where it’s warmer. There’s a TV and some magazines you could read to keep you occupied.” You debate that for a bit, looking through the glass door to the waiting area, but ultimately decide to stick around for a bit longer.

“It’s fine,” you say with a smile. You could wait inside later, for now you’d want to wander a bit. It’s not every day you’d get to go to an auto-repair shop and you’ve always been a bit curious with how often Kid yells about it in the bar. “Would it be alright if I take a look around?”

He gives a grunt of approval and you make yourself comfortable, roaming the workshop. It’s quite big, and you hadn’t noticed ‘til now that the walls were painted in vibrant blues, red, and yellow. It matched the owner’s eccentric personality.

“Oh,” a stand hidden to the back of the shop catches your attention; a lone umbrella resting on its handles. Yours- to be more precise. “You use an umbrella during snow time?” You hadn’t bothered to ask for it back, the thought never really occurred to you. Considering they weren’t that expensive buying a new one wouldn’t be much of a hassle. If anything, you were more surprised he’s kept it around.

The male clears his throat, stopping whatever it was he was doing to your car and wipes his hands down with a towel. “Actually,” he admits sheepishly, “I’ve been meaning to return it to you. I just kept forgetting.”

You raise a brow, “You knew it was mine?”

“I’ve seen you use it around campus before,” he admits. “Not a lot of people use an umbrella while it’s snowing, and the color’s pretty vibrant so it’s hard to not notice. I had wanted to give it to you when I visited the bar, but you were constantly busying yourself so I never got the chance.”

A chuckle escapes your lips at his little confession. He seemed like such an intimidating guy, with the furrowed brows and scar over his eye, but he was a lot more awkward than one would expect. “Well,” you catch his attention. “I’m working there again tomorrow night if you want to come give it to me in person.” December is when you’re sparing hopeful glances at the door every time the bell chimes.

“Expecting someone?” Shakky teases, coming behind the bar and pouring herself a glass.

“Something like that,” you mutter before making your way past her to attend to someone in the corner of the room. It’s the same person from around two weeks ago- he’s louder this time, but there were also less customers tonight and no one seems to be complaining any so you let it slide. “Yes? How may I hELP-?!”

What you can’t let slide is how he forcefully grabs your wrist and essentially drags your body to lean over the table. “Ah, damn,” you’re used to drunks, not idiots. He has a permanent grin plastered over his lips and his grip on your wrist tightens. “I can’t let go! Guess we must be soulmates!”

There is no explaining the disgust that washes over your face. “Sir, I’m asking you politely to let go.”

Everyone who goes here knows that it’s simply an unwritten rule to not fight unless you wanted to be beaten half to death. Not by you- dear lord no- Shakky on the other hand was ruthless and you’d never want to end up on the other side of her fist.

Ever.

“Huh?” He slurs, “didn’t I just tell you that I can’t let go?”

“I’m telling you-” before you’re able to get anymore words out another hand wraps around the older man’s wrist, successfully shutting you up. For a second, the dread of it being one of his friends rises, but it’s quickly crushed by the voice that follows.

“I’m sure you’re not deaf. She said let go.”

The bar is dead silent for a few seconds before the man roughly releases his grip on your arm. A bit gentler would’ve been nice, you internally grumble, rubbing the sore area.

“Hey there, could I ask exactly what you were trying to do with my precious barkeep?” Your boss comes over, leaning against the table. She gives you a wink and a slight nudge of her head towards the break room and you don’t think twice before leaving the scene, your green haired friend following close behind.

“Is your wrist alright?” He questions as soon as the door closes. “My bad for being late, I got held back by some work Franky wanted done.”

His hand reaches out to gently hold your wrist and a spark of electricity shocks you both. Usually, your first instinct would be to flinch and pull away, but he has a firm grip.

“Uhm,” you glance down, then back up at him. “It’ll probably bruise tomorrow but it’s nothing to worry too much about...”

His face is unreadable, and after a couple seconds his ears turn a faint shade of red. “I can’t let go.”

You chuckle at his poor attempt of a joke. “C’mon now, we just went through this.” You lift your free hand to pry his fingers off your wrist only to feel the same electric shock as earlier. It doesn’t hurt, only stinging enough to really initially surprise anyone, but you quickly realize he wasn’t trying to pull your leg.

Oh.

“So,” he awkwardly lifts his other hand. “I brought your umbrella.”

#roronoa zoro #roronoa zoro x reader #one piece scenario #one piece x reader #the way we struggled writing this is unreal #but also it was really fun so maybe it was worth it LOL #this turned out way longer than i expected it to #struggle was worth it fr

[keilemlucent]

lavender latte: vi

(T (for now!))

hawks | takami keigo x reader

ao3

chapter 1   ||   chapter 2  ||   chapter 3   ||  chapter 4   ||   chapter 5   ||  chapter 7  ||

masterlist

word count: 6.8k

finally. god.  

warnings: none really! reader’s foot booted, but that’s about it.

---

well. here we are. thank u to everyone for reading this sweet, sweet story. we’re not through it yet, but i’m happy to offer a meal with this chapter. enjoy lovies. beta’ed by the lovely love @keiqos​. 

||||||||||||||||

You had several problems after returning to your apartment from the hospital. One of your coworkers was nice enough to drive you and your things back, but quickly the niceties stopped and your vague hell began.

Exclusively being on crutches sucked. Navigating your apartment and trying to live somewhat normally was a massive pain. Even just showering was a task that sapped most of your energy. Standing one-legged and balancing made your body ache with a deep soreness, especially the first few days you returned.

This was not even to mention the unpleasant dreams you were having.

‘Unpleasant’ & ‘dreams’ were a nice way of putting it.

You could recall that during your first night in the hospital, one of your doctors told you of the possibility of experiencing a few post-traumatic symptoms. Considering how out of it you were at the time, it was unsurprising how you brushed it off.

The reality was much harder to ignore.

...

Cars revving.

Shouting.

Shattering—

 Your eyes flashed open, chest heaving and brow covered in a fine sheen of sweat. 

Fuck that.

It was the same dream, an obvious recreation of the stimuli of the event. Though it was scattered in your memory, the dreams made it horribly vivid and vibrant despite lacking detail. The sounds and smells of that day clung to you as you shook your head, forcing yourself into wakefulness. 

Your comforter was thrown from your body, and you shivered as cold air rushed over you. As jarred as you were, you still swung your legs off the bed, readjusting your boot and your aching leg, half-heartedly glaring at your crutches.

Your apartment wasn’t terribly set up to get around with your limited mobility, but your difficulty functioning didn’t help your overall mental state. Everything was just harder with the boot on, and you did your best to work with it. 

Being locked up in your apartment added to the hellishness of it. You were so used to the stimuli and social environment of the teashop, it felt like a cold water shock when you were confined to your home entirely alone except for your cats.   

You could, of course, try and venture out into the world. But, it was still winter and the ice-covered sidewalks didn’t seem like the best place to try and crutch around. 

Within the first day or two, you resigned yourself to your three-week fate of being holed up. 

You had a laundry list of things you could do. Shows and movies to watch, places in your house to clean, your cats to pet, but—

You still had far too much time on your hands.

A lot of your newfound time in the first few days was spent on your back, leg propped up, and draped in ice bags, musing over Hawks.

Hawks.

Holy fuck.

You couldn’t avoid it, couldn’t stop it. Just thinking about him made every part of you swirl and thrum like you were listening to some sort of contently-chorded song and you were more than happy to play it on repeat until your ears bled. Maybe that feeling towards Hawks had always been there (it had), but now you accepted it and stopped holding yourself back as much.

You never thought the idea of someone squeezing your shoulder would send you into literal fits of giggles and butterflies, but boy, did it. Not to mention all of the careful touches and gentle words you two had shared in the aftermath of the attack, though the memories were hazy. What you did remember and cherish was the warmth of him, quirk activated or not. Each time you recalled it, your gut fluttered and your hands twitched.

Your ceiling was the most interesting place to look in your apartment. The plain texture was the perfect canvas to allow your memories of the sweet interactions the two of you had shared to play like comforting reruns. The commercial breaks of these daydreams were the texts exchanged between you and Hawks. 

 Keigo couldn’t stop thinking about you either.

It wasn’t as distracting as it once was, as he had been more liberal with letting himself text you. The high number of messages between the two of you was maybe ridiculous, but he was a fast texter and you seemed to have plenty of jokes and banter for him to share in.

As good as the texting was, it was also nice to check-in on you and your recovery. You seemed more annoyed than anything else, but Keigo wasn’t so much of an idiot as to think you weren’t in any pain or struggling at all. Though you didn’t explicitly tell him or show him, he was familiar with the pains of healing and could infer some things about your state. 

Keigo tried to brighten your day as he could. ‘Hawks’ still had plenty of hero work to do, especially with the information extracted from the recently detained syndicate members. Despite this, he took as much time as he could to stop and send you little snippets and messages which hopefully would help you smile a little.

 It did, of course. Just talking to Hawks did.

You had moments of awareness a few times a day where you had to remind yourself that, yes, (Y/N), you were just casual friends and deeply enamored with the number two hero and that sentiment was at least partially returned. 

You had a lot of time to wonder to what extent the feelings were returned. They obviously weren’t entirely one-sided, right? 

It was completely possible that they were, but you did your best to shake off the thought.

It was more likely that notorious bachelor and flirt, pro hero Hawks, just wanted a fuck with some feelings. To fuck with some feelings, right? 

Though, he did say that he cares about you.

But, you definitely can care about someone you only want to fuck.

You wished you had some sort of definitive answer. The murkiness of it all just made the sweetness of the past and the texts of the present seem a bit sour. 

Confessing to Hawks was daunting and terrifying. Not to mention, it felt a bit juvenile, all of it. People weren’t supposed to get melty crushes like this past high school, right? Especially not ones this deep on someone who couldn’t possibly feel the same as you, right?

 During one of these moments of uncomfortable clarity, your phone beeped as you rested on the couch. Despite not even seeing the message, you knew it would be Hawks.

You grabbed your phone, clicking open the newest message. 

 [birdboy]: hey hey angel

[birdboy]: look at this fucker i found

 The image attached was a photo of Hawks standing next to one of his own billboards, advertising some sort of sports drink. The photo had obviously been taken with a timer, the angle of the photo tilted as Hawks and the billboard were quite small in the frame. It added to the charm of the photo, the way Hawks was holding a feather blade to the throat of his own advert. You could even tell through the pixels he was wearing a wide smile as he did so, wings spread behind him

You snorted.

You and Hawks are just friends, you reminded yourself. 

 [you]: looks like a punk bitch 2 me dude

[you]: kinda uncanny resemblance tho

[birdboy]: i agree

[birdboy]: he’s hot tho

 You rolled your eyes, still smiling as you readjusted on the couch. You weren’t disagreeing, not at all. 

 [you]: not wrong

[you]: still, punk bitch

[birdboy]: :^(

[birdboy]: feelings = hurt

[birdboy]: please tell me the photo is funny 

[birdboy]: it took like five tries

[you]: very funny, im gonna save it and sell when im short on cash

[birdboy]: my publicist will blacklist u

[you]: i’d like to see them try

[birdboy]: is that a challenge angel????

[you]: a promise

 There was a break in the messages, though Hawks appeared to be typing.

 [birdboy]: unrelated but

[birdboy]: how are you doing?

 You paused, taking stock of your disheveled, sleepy self. You were only a few days out of the hospital and you definitely could’ve been worse off.

 [you]: im okay!!!

[you]: sore and tired honestly

[birdboy]: :^(

[birdboy]: i'm glad to hear its not worse at least

[birdboy]: ill send u lots more embarrassing photos 

[birdboy]: a million angel

[you]: my hero <3

 It all was surreal and mentally impossible to avoid.

You really, really liked Hawks and had for a long while.

             ...

 Keigo spent most of the rest of the day busy with patrols and work for the Commission, much to his chagrin. He hardly got a chance to text you. It reminded him of his reality as a pro, his fast-paced nature and how he truly couldn’t slow down, not at that point anyway. He had a brand and habitual way of being that was standard. Even for you, he wasn’t sure if he could slow down, even if he wanted to or needed to.

The idea scared him, pieces of his reality.

But, at the same time, Keigo hadn’t ever felt like this before. The weird, but incredibly alluring and comfortable heat in his chest made him feel like he’d do anything for you. Fuck, he’d fly to the stars and move them if he could, if that’s what it took. 

Maybe he even wanted to. 

Keigo couldn’t become a different person, for anyone, that’s not how things worked. But if getting closer to you meant... adjusting, he could do that. Easily. He was adaptable as all hell and he’d be glad to use it for something that made him feel good instead of hollow.

Keigo busily flew the day away. As the afternoon turned to night, the sky going pink and purple with dusk, he settled on top of a taller office building. It looked down on a street market, its smells and sounds wafting up to him on his perch.

It gave him an idea.

A good one.

 You were inspecting your fridge with a grimace. Balancing on your crutches and being counter-weighed by the boot on your foot made your angry stance a whole lot less intimidating, but it was the sentiment that counted.

Several days post-hospital had done a number on your food supply. The fridge was empty except for a few nearly expired items and condiments. The dry shelves weren’t looking much better.

The shrill sound of your ringtone from the couch made your jump, nearly falling. You teetered back over to it, eye-widening at the caller ID. 

 [birdboy] calling...

 Hawks had never called you before.

You quickly picked up the call, “...Hello?”

“Hey, angel!” Hawks was chipper on the other line. “What’re you up to?”

“Currently?” You hummed, turning forlornly to your kitchen. “Thinking about how I either need to order groceries or order dinner before committing to my couch for the rest of the night. Why? You don’t usually call.”

“I don’t,” Hawks’s smile was apparent in his voice, even through the receiver. “But, I had an idea.”

“Shoot.”

“I might just be near a super good takeout spot. How hard would it be for me to convince you to let me drop some food by your place? My treat.”

You didn’t reply for a second.

Stunned.

“Are you sure?”

“More than, dove. I’m off the rest of the night, anyways.”

Oh.

That gave you an idea—

An idea that would surely push the envelope of your feelings.

Let it.

“Okay, I’m in. One condition.” You bit your lip, willing your stomach to seize fluttering.

“You name it. This place is really good and—”

“I have been going a little stir crazy, and,” You cut him off, squeezing your eyes shut in anticipation, “how hard would it be to convince you to come over and stay awhile?”

Hawks was silent.

Your stomach dropped.

“Wait, I-I mean—” You stuttered, trying to gather yourself, but this time Hawks cut you off.

“Like, to hang out?” Hawks sounded shocked on the other line. 

“Yes.” 

You kept your breathing even and prayed it didn’t read over the call. 

“God, dove. I’d love to. I can be over in like ten—”

“Wait,” You fisted the fabric of your sweats. “Can I have a little more time? For myself and my apartment.”

Hawks chuckled on the other end of the line, “Sure, angel. Thirty sound better?”

You let out a sigh of relief, falling on to the back of your couch, “Sounds perfect.”

 Keigo decided to tease a bit, his heart pounding in his chest almost painfully. He knew from day one that you were bold, but this was a treat. He had to spare back, just a little.

“Though, dove, I’m sure you look more than perfect yourself. You always do.” He didn’t wait for your response, either out of fear of what you’d say or being a bit smug, he wasn’t sure.

Keigo hung up the call, burying his face in his gloves to try and stifle the blush on his cheeks, though it hardly helped. 

It didn’t have to.

 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

 Thirty minutes later and you were mostly sorted.

You managed to throw yourself into the shower, tossing on something half-way decent, but still comfortable. Had to keep it casual. 

Crutching around your apartment, you picked up what clutter you could, mind spinning. Hawks coming over to your fucking apartment filled you with elated, and yet terrifying, anxiety. A few times while cleaning, you legitimately paused to muffle quiet screams in your hand at the prospect.

You felt like you were going to burst.

 Keigo did too, notably. 

He took the time to fly all the way back to his apartment, take the world’s fastest shower, and throw on some clothes other than his costume. Going back to get food, his hands shook as he handed the bills to the starry-eyed vendor who he’d just written an autograph for.

You’d sent a quick text just before he’d left with a description of your balcony, so neither of you would have to figure out how to let him in through the roof. 

As he flew to your place, Keigo felt like he was going to implode.

He didn’t ‘hang out’ with people. Nope, far too busy for anything like that. He was a compulsory workaholic, it was part of his mental brand of being (or, mental ‘branding’, maybe). The closest he got to casual time with folks was the preamble before a hookup or the time he had spent at the tea shop with you. Actually going to spend time with someone, casually, and it was you? It was all new and terrifying.

But, above all? Exciting.

The whole situation opened many doors, all of which Keigo pictured and picked apart as he neared your apartment. There were so many potential situations to appraise and plan for, he felt overwhelmed by it all. 

The opportunity to spend some... time with you outside of the tea shop was a necessity, right? Keigo’s original idea had been to drop off some food and banter for a while, but the idea of spending one of his precious nights off with you was so much better than he could’ve expected. 

Not to mention the warm bit of validation sparked by the fact that you asked him to come over, you wanted him around —

It felt nice.

So nice. 

 You paused, hearing telltale scuffing of someone on your balcony. 

Oh my god. 

He’s here.

Hawks is here.

You gulped, shaking your head.

Don’t you dare chicken out now. Commit, dammit. You’re just... hanging out. With your friend.

Yeah.

A knock on the glass pulled you to the door of your balcony, hobbling to slide it open on your crutches. 

Hawks was happy to push the door the rest of the way open, stepping inside with a bag of takeout slung on his arm.

Your mouth parched, seeing him once again in civilian clothing. Was it... normal to get turned on by the fact that he looked normal? 

As Hawks stepped into your humble apartment, wings tucked tightly to his back, you drank him in, hair ruffled with his clear visor placed on top of his head to push back the windswept front pieces. He wore a white sweater and black trousers complete with heavy black boots that were quickly untied and left by the door.

“You’re staring, you know,” Hawks interrupted your thoughts as you straightened up on your crutches.

Recover.

“Can’t prove that,” You tutted, crutching away from the door. “Also, welcome. Watch out for my cats, they might try to get a mouthful of your feathers.”

“Duly noted,” Hawks clicked his tongue, standing up and following you as you meander to the kitchen. 

 Keigo had to admit that your apartment was relatively... cute. He was used to his own, seldom-used digs. He had a big, uncomfortably nice penthouse with too many disused rooms and too much open space. Fixtures and furniture that were too expensive, probably, but it had been far easier to hire some big-name interior designer and not bother with dealing with it himself. Keigo had trouble keeping many ‘personal’ possessions, anyways. His training with the Commission made him almost revile the thought of keeping unnecessary, material objects, sans a few. 

Your home was the exact opposite. 

Maybe it was that he didn’t know how to have a personal touch that it made your cozy little apartment feel so full of them.

Little photos and artworks on walls or in frames caught Keigo’s eyes as he followed you to the kitchen. He took note of several blankets on the couch, catching sight of the plushie he’d given you at the hospital. Even the lighting of the apartment was personal, diffuse. With how easily overstimulated you became, it made sense that you’d keep your apartment so ambiently dim.

“So, first off, thank you for coming by and delivering dinner. I am eternally grateful,” You bowed dramatically, leaning to flail out a crutch at the motion. “Second, as payment, I’ll make you a drink. Maybe not with my quirk, but I have some of my old tea blends here.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Keigo shrugged, setting the takeout down on the counter while his ever-present grin nearly hurt his face from how relentless it was. “And tea? Show me what you’ve got. Or, should I trust you to pick one out for me?”

You hummed, clicking your tongue before moving across the kitchen to a different set of cabinets, “I think I’ve actually got a good one for you. It’s one of my favorites.”

“Lay on the details, angel,” Keigo hummed, leaning against the lip of the counter. 

 You did have the perfect blend in mind. It wasn’t too old, hardly stale. It would pair as well as a nice tea could with fried takeout, judging by the smells wafting from the bag on the counter.

“It’s one I made for a brunch we catered a few months back. It’s just a white tea raspberry blend, but it’s not delicate. It should stand up to any sort of food you’ve brought. Thank you, by the way.” 

Setting your crutches down, you started to push yourself up onto the counter without thinking much of it, booted-foot going limp off the edge. 

“Of course, anytime— woah, angel,” His voice choked as you wavered on the edge of the counter, off-balance. 

There was a short flap of wings and rush of air as you tried to rebalance, cursing the deadweight of your leg. 

If Hawks hadn’t been directly behind you, you probably would’ve eaten shit.

You turned yourself as far as you could, cheeks going hot.

Hawks’ face was just inches away from yours. That was even to mention the hands hovering around your waist, chest brushing up against your back. 

“S-sorry,” Did he just fucking stutter? “You looked like you were about to eat shit there.”

The words hardly reach you, you were too busy actively telling yourself not to stare at his pretty, plump lips because that is not something friends do. Not the can of worms you needed to open, right?

“I-,” You turned away from him, stretching up to the tea tin that had been out of your reach. “To think you’ve saved me from falling while reaching for loose leaf tea, twice.”

“All in a day's work,” His hands twitched around your sides but hardly shifted until you began to descend from the countertop. In fact, Hawks hardly moved away at all until you were situated back on your crutches.

You pretended not to notice the flush on his cheeks.

Maybe, it was a bit too close. Definitely too close, and bad circumstances, but god, you wanted more and more of him. 

You swallowed your desires down, cracking a smile. 

Be normal.

Be cool!

You shook the tin, leaves and dried fruit rattling inside, “So, cream or sugar?”

 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

 The two of you ended up on the couch, picking through the several boxes of takeout that Hawks had brought. Most of dinner was spent bantering back and forth about one of Hawks’ newest modeling contracts and if it was ‘ethical’ for him to wear his own feathers for the sake of ‘fashion’?

“So, off-topic from insulting my employment ethics, ” Hawks spoke while munching on a piece of chicken. “You surviving?”

“Barely,” You laughed, setting down your utensils with a huff. “I forget how isolation makes you go a little crazy. I’m running out of dumb shit to watch and even dumber shit to send you.”

Hawks snorted, setting down his own box, having had his fill, “I know you are more than adept at combing the internet for more good shit to send me.”

“I mean, maybe, but you keep sending me juicy photos of you being a dumbass. They’re hard to show up, you know?” You side-eyed him at the birdish tilt of his head.

“You don’t need to show me up, angel,” Hawks reminded you, some feathers packing up what was left of the food. “Though, it’s fun. You’re fun.”

You internally winced at the sentiment but forced the smile on your face not to waver.

It was a needed reminder.

This close to Hawks, you could fucking smell him. Maybe it was a little creepy, but you remembered it so well, after the villain attack. The scent of some sort of spicy cologne and old sweat, but it was hardly unpleasant. No, it was intoxicating. It made you feel almost fuzzy, as it wafted around like some reminder that Hawks and you were so close. 

You thanked the stars that the apartment lacked the stimuli to make your quirk activate on its own. 

Your couch wasn’t very large, and it seemed even smaller with how Hawks had laid his wings over it. They were propped up over the back, outstretched just the smallest bit to relieve some pressure. All the same, the massive feathers made you feel minuscule.

Even the way he was sitting was intoxicating and a bit gut-wrenching. It was casual, the way he leaned back against the far cushions, legs somewhat spread with an ankle over the opposite knee. The pose oozed a weird, untouchable confidence that you hadn’t seen in Hawks in months, maybe ever. At least, not directed at you.

Despite the warm nature of his words, he seemed guarded.

It made your throat dry.

 Keigo was quite on edge. He hadn’t meant to get so close in the kitchen, really, he hadn’t. But, seeing you dangling off the edge of the counter like that, even if it was harmless and mundane, made his entire body and mind react before he could think.

But, you weren’t in any danger. Even if you had been, Keigo would’ve been there to catch you. 

He’d put himself out of it, overthinking the whole thing. You were fine. Safe. 

The other part of his mind spun with how he wanted to be so much closer.

Feeling the warmth of your body, the lines of your waist, the thrum of your heart and breath so fucking close—

It was a lot.

But, he was well-trained and not going to choke. 

He’d shoved himself to the opposite side of the couch to you, keeping his boundaries up, strong as steel and hard as carbon. 

Of course, Keigo knew the feelings were mutual. That didn’t mean that none of this was terrifying in the same way that it was exhilarating. 

As much as he wanted to be closer (so much closer), Keigo remained careful. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was ruin something before it had even truly happened. 

 You sat back against the couch, repositioning your injured leg on the coffee table, “So, thoughts.”

“On?”

You didn’t look at Keigo as you replied, rather glared at your TV, “What to watch?”

“Oh,” You could hear the smile in his voice. “We’re watching something?”

“You tell me. I imagine you don’t get lots of time to do this sort of thing, do you?” 

Hawks didn’t reply for a moment, sitting deeper into the couch, “Not really.”

“Then indulge, tailfeathers,” You tossed the remote in his lap. “Anything, go for it. Go nuts.”

Hawks nearly put on watching a reality cooking show, before you said that that was off-limits, per an odd conversation from way back when where he had admitted to be hot for Gordon Ramsey. He had been a little too vague as to whether or not he would pop a boner from Gordon’s filmed degradations. And truthfully, if anything was gonna give Hawks a hard-on tonight, you were determined for it not to be competitive cooking TV. Maybe, just maybe, you’d rather it be you.

...

Eventually, he settled on some psychological thriller you’d never heard of.

 Keigo hadn’t either. 

He was glad that you couldn’t hear his heart in the same way he heard your’s pounding.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched you crutch around, turning the already dim lights lower.

Calm the down, Hawks. 

Calm the fuck down.

He’d never even done this before. Keigo wasn’t sure how to handle the situation, even if it was as simple as watching a film.

It would’ve been simpler if the tension in the air was thick and foggy, clouding over his consciousness as he tried to focus on anything other than your nearness and how much he wanted to drag you into his lap. 

 …

 His feathers fluttered as you plopped back onto the couch, pulling a blanket over your lap and offering one to him.

He took it, settling it over his lap as the movie went on.

 You weren’t an idiot. You could feel the blood rushing in your hot ears as you fisted the blanket over your legs. 

Your mind spoke a lot louder than you wanted it to:

Just fucking do it.

 Do what exactly?

 The paramount thought that was causing anxiety to twirl in your gut.

Maybe, you could just tell him how you felt.

Maybe just hold his hand.

Maybe get fucking rejected because he’s out of your league and out of bounds.

Maybe even kiss him—

 You were torturing yourself, the movie just background noise to your internal dilemma.

You’d asked him to your apartment and Hawks had bought you fucking dinner. That wasn’t a lot, sure, maybe, but there were also the months of lead-up. 

There were all of the cold mornings and cheeky grins you gave each other in the waking coffee shop. There were the fuzzy jokes, the lingering glances, and the tight feeling you got in your chest whenever he graced you with mere eye contact.

It felt like you were already in too deep to not be honest about how you felt towards him. Fuck, you’d been in too deep for months. Every time you made him a damn drink, you wanted to just drink him in. You were all fluttering hearts and sweet smiles for him in a way that you couldn’t suppress, only squash in moments of such intense anxiety like this—

“Hey, dove?” It was Hawks, shocking you from your turmoil with a soft voice. “Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah, I’m good.” Your reply was curt and clipped. 

Make a decision now.

Pull the bandage off, (Y/N). 

It’ll just be worse, the longer you wait.

Maybe Hawks did just want to fuck with some cute feelings, the seemingly longing looks be damned. Yeah, you liked him way more than for just a fuck, that was obvious and unavoidable. Besides, it’d be better to know than to not know, right?

 “You sure? If the movie’s too much, we can turn it off,” Hawks sounded genuinely concerned from the other side of the couch.

...

You committed, taking a deep breath and turning to Hawks. 

 “It’s not that,” You looked at the couch between the two of you, tracing the seam of the cushion. “The movie’s fine.”

“Then, you’re not feeling great for another reason?” Keigo asked, feeling each of your breaths and heartbeats like bass drums in his ears. He hides the shaking of his hands by crossing them over his chest. “You can talk to me, (Y/N).”

“Can I?” You asked, shaking your head and laughing at yourself. “Hawks, I need to do something really fucking stupid.”

Holy fuck.

Are they—

“What’s that?” 

His voice was smaller than he wanted it to be.

 “Fuck, Hawks,” You finally forced yourself to look at him, taking in his guarded posture and pained expression. 

Your heart sank.

“I just need to be honest with you.”

Hawks’s brow soured, lips twitching, “Go for it, dove.”

You laughed, maybe trying to soothe yourself, “It’s probably is just, so fucking stupid, all things considered.”

You ran a hand through your hair, biting your lip between sentences and willing yourself to just get it out—

 “Hawks, I like you. A lot.”

 He still didn’t say anything and you could feel shards of your heart drive into your lungs.

You forced yourself to look up at him, smiling with the slight release of tension in your sternum, however painful. 

“I know, we’re just friends, right? I’m just the barista and you’re my special, pro hero regular. I know I’m overstepping right now, but it feels unfair for me to not be honest with you.”

 Keigo already knew this, right? He knew how you felt, fuck, he’d felt how you felt. He just wasn’t prepared for the exploding and thrumming in his chest when you told him with your sweet lips and kind words.

Why did it feel so different when you were smiling at him like you were in pain and telling him so fucking honestly with your words?

It was the thing about you that he admired the most, that candor in your tone and the grin in your cheeks as you spoke so.

But, your smile was falling, leaving watery-looking eyes. 

“Hawks, I like you. Way too much for friends, and I needed to say something.” 

Keigo’s mouth was dry.

For the first time in so fucking long, he was genuinely speechless.

He couldn’t recall a time in his life anyone had spoken so earnestly to him, just you. Just you, you, you— casually, over and over again, you talked to him like he was something real and something to be cared for. It was subtle, but it was one of the many things that made him want you closer. 

Yet, despite all his bundled up desires, he was lost for words.

“I’m sorry—”

He stopped you, “(Y/N), please don’t apologize.”

“But—” 

“(Y/N).”

 Hawks’ voice was sharp. It made the expression on your face rapidly fall.

He looked at you with rapt attention, arms uncrossing from his chest.

He turned to you on the couch, feathers fluffed up and twitching.

Your nose stung as Hawks, all pretty golds and ambers, shook out an exhale and balled up the blanket in his lap.

“Hawks—”

“Why would you need to be sorry?”

Hawks looked at you with wide eyes, brow creased. His shoulders were... shaking?

Your head spun, leg aching, “... What do you mean?”

Hawks finally met your gaze, giving you the sweetest, saddest smile you’d ever seen, “Dove, you’re acting like there’s no way I could feel the same way.”

Every cell in your body stuttered.

“You’ve done it since we’ve met.”

Hawks scooted closer on the cushions of the couch.

“You’ve always acted like there’s just no way I could like you, give a shit about you—”

He moved a bit closer.

You couldn’t make yourself move.

“You want to know the truth?”

You creaked out a nod.

 Keigo couldn’t help the way he went to cup your cheeks in his hands, thumbs rubbing along the apples of your cheeks. You lean into his touch, just like at the hospital, despite the blend of absolute fear and confusion in your expression.

“How could I not care about you, dove?” And it finally came out. “I care about so much— dove, I don’t know what to fucking say.”

That made you speechless, lips parting just the slightest bit as Hawks continued, losing composure with his morphing expressions. 

He wet his lips, swallowing, “Dove, I’ve never—any of this. I-I don’t know what o-or how to say any of what I want to right now.”

You speak before thinking.

“Show me, if you don’t know how to say it.”

 The idea seemed so novel as Keigo ran a thumb over your bottom lip, pulling it from between your teeth. He met your gaze with the gooiest, sweetest look you’d ever seen in your life, “You want me to?”

“Please.”

It was all the two of you had wanted for a while now, right?

“If I kiss you, I’m not ever gonna be able to make this go away, am I?” Keigo was speaking to himself, just above his breath. But, you were more than close enough to hear him. 

“Hey, Hawks? I don’t know if we can make ‘this’ try to go away.” You grabbed one of the hands cupping your face, pulling it away, only to shakily press in your lips to the bones on the back of it. “I don’t want to anymore.”

“Y-you gotta stop being so sweet, (Y/N)—”

Neither of you could wait a moment longer.

Your arms wrapped around Keigo’s shoulder. In the same motions, he pulled you closer by your waist, dragging you finally closer to him.

He held your jaw like you were the most precious thing in the world. Because, truthfully, you were to him. The sentiment was shared Deeply. 

Your lips pressed together and the long-held tensions in your chests mutually shattered, dissolving in the honeyed touch of each other’s genuine attention. 

You angled your head perfectly, Keigo’s hand guiding you as his mouth worked against yours. It wasn’t a particularly steamy sort of affair, but by god, it wasn’t in any way chaste. Not with the tight grip and thumbing on your ribs. Not with the way your hands tangled in the soft (holy fuck, soft) hair at the base of Keigo’s skull. 

You both tasted each other's sweetness, craving more of it after denying yourselves of it for so long. It was white-hot, exploding behind your eyes, even as your quirk remained dormant. Keigo was honey and cream and smoked spices all dancing across your palette.

To Keigo? You were sweet, cool water over a hot burn. You were the heat of a hearth rolling over him on the coldest of days. He swears that in the first moments he finally got to be close to you, and over and over again— he finally understood how your quirk worked.

There was no way that finally feeling you, feeling you as he felt you, could be described with just five senses.

You pulled away first, gasping for breath and arching your back into him. You lingered as close as you could, pressing your forehead to Keigo’s while your breaths mingled. You didn’t dare stray far.

“Was that enough to show you?” Keigo asked, breathless. He kept a wide hand against your back, urging you with a bit of soft pressure to put your weight into it. You complied, settling in his hold as Keigo stroked at your hot cheeks.

You nodded, beaming up at him with that sunny smile of yours. It never failed to make heat burn through Keigo and god, did it feel good to finally let it unabashed.

“I take it, you like me too, huh,” You smiled, looking a bit embarrassed. 

“Very much, very much,” Keigo repeated, pressing a kiss to your nose (he’d always wanted to do that). “So much, (Y/N). I apologize for not saying anything sooner. This is just...”

“New to you, right?” You finished his sentence, thumbing along the back of his neck in a way that made Keigo just melt. “It’s been a while for me too, if it makes you feel better.”

“It does, dove. Thank you.” Keigo let out a deep breath, shaking his head against yours. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner.”

 “It’s alright, same goes for me,” As much as you needed to adjust due to the angle of your recovering leg, you couldn’t make yourself do it. You were so wonderfully close to Hawks, you never wanted to move. 

“If we’re being honest, then I need to be honest with you,” Hawks met your eyes, his expression going a little dimmer. 

You braced for the worst. 

He picked up your shift easily, finally able to express how quickly he caught your mood after so long of being attuned to it. 

“Oh wait, no, (Y/N), nothing terrible, I promise,” Hawks rubbed at your sides. “It’s about the miel.”

“The... miel?” You cocked your head to the side, confused, recalling the drink somewhat hazily. “The drink I made you on the day of... the attack?”

Hawks gave you a tense smile, “That one, yeah. Remember how you said it was just based on your ambient feelings?”

“Uh-huh.” You let confusion lace your tone until it slowly started to dawn on you.

“You made the drink, ambiently, around me—”

Your eyes widened, mouth falling open, “Oh my god, Hawks, did my feelings for you get in the drink?”

Hawks graced you with a sweet, sympathetic smile, fingers tucking at the hair around your ear, “They did, dove. I’ve kind of known for a few days, it just hasn’t been the time or setting to say something. I apologize.”

“N-no, it’s okay, I totally understand,” You sighed into his grip. “I really thought it might be something worse.”

“Consider your worries assuaged,” Hawks hummed, eyes drifting to your boot. He deadpanned suddenly. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad does your leg hurt right now?”

 Fairly bad, considering. You were half on your knees, the booted leg twisted awkwardly while still raised to the coffee table. This wasn’t even to mention the arch of your back so you could be all that closer to Hawks.

The pain of the position was easy to forget; you were still shaking from kissing Hawks just once. 

“Uh, maybe like a seven, once I can feel anything other than how good you felt just now,” you hummed, grinning up at Hawks as his face went bright red.

The infinite pleasure you received, making him blush so sweetly. 

He shook it off, squeezing your sides, “Cute. Very cute. Mutually returned sentiment, but let’s adjust.”

You nodded but didn’t have much time to react as a bundle of Hawks’s feathers lifted you every which way, albeit incredibly gently. All said and done, he was fully upright against the back of the couch. With the support of a feather or two, Hawks’s arms tugged you into his lap. Your legs stretched to the side, the booted one immediately propped up by a feather-supplied pillow.

You both settled yourselves, blushing and leaning on each other now that you finally were allowing yourself to. 

Keigo fully wrapped his arms around you, pulling you tight against him. One of his wings even shifted to drape over one his shoulder, sheltering the two of you in a canopy of a crimson. Keigo let his hands wander over your hips, not seeking anything more than blessed attention and heat. You gave it all to him, tucking your face into his collarbone, drowning in the scent that made you feel at home. 

Keigo pressed his lips to your crown and legitimately shuddering.  

He spoke to himself, so faintly and quietly, you hardly caught it, “I’ve wanted to do this for so long.”

There was melancholy in his voice, but you were quick to strip it away.

You brushed your lips along his jaw, savoring the way he held you tighter, “I have too. Can we do this more?”

“Anytime, dove. Anytime.”

“Right now sound good?”

You withdrew to beam up at him as you were so good at doing, only to be smothered by craving-satiating kisses anywhere Keigo could get to. The sweet, high laughter that he dripped onto you made your heart burst all over again.

And you finally, finally fell into the other sweetly, warmly, and properly. 

||||||||||||||||||

taglist: @thepandapopo @hawksexual @sinclairsamess @darcia22 @inhalingsoysauce @yee-fxcking-haw

#salem writes #lavender latte #hawks x reader #hawks x y/n #hawks x you #takami keigo x reader #takami keigo x you #takami keigo x y/n #mha reader insert #hawks reader insert #hawks #takami keigo #hawks mha #hawks bnha #im soft for this one yall #so soft

[obeyme-sinners]

Can I request something with the demon brothers + the undateables? They're sleeping and cuddling with MC and suddenly they start rubbing they junks against MC while dreaming, how would the situation go and end?

Aksnxjdixnx writer's block started to hit me hard with this, not gonna lie... But I got it! And it's 👀👀👀 Spicy™. I might make a part two with the undateables if y'all want, too. Luci has me heated, I swear

Lucifer

Honestly it's kind of a surprise, he's not the type to move in his sleep at all. But one morning he held you back against him, hips sluggishly starting to grind against your ass with his breathing sleepy but getting heavier in your ear. Trying to struggle out of his grip only makes him hold you tighter, not allowing an inch of escape - by the time he wakes up, he's fully hard. From there he'll fuck you either while spooning still, or from behind with your face pressed into the mattress. He's surprisingly nonverbal in such moments, really, though that doesn't mean that he's quieter than usual - he'll be growling into your ear until he comes. Only after that will you get a little chuckle and a "good morning" murmured to you as he kisses your skin.

Mammon

He'd been asleep for a while, napping on you with his head on your chest, when he started getting kinda restless. It started with his hands gripping your shirt, the sheets, anything near him. Then his legs twitched, and then his hips canted forward a little bit. Soon enough you could feel just how hard he was getting, until he mumbled your name and turned his face a little to tuck his nose into the crook of your neck. Whether you wake him up or he wakes himself up, the moment he's fully conscious he'll be turning red - but if you encourage him onwards, there is no hesitation as he pulls your clothes out of the way, hands pulling you closer and hunting for skin contact. He wants to continue that dream of his.

Leviathan

It took a bit of convincing, but eventually he laid down for a nap after something like 20 hours of being awake for a couple of 10-hour livestreams from his favorites, and not too long after he fell asleep you found his tail curling around your leg, pulling your bottom half against him. He might not have been awake, but his body knew what it wanted as he got a leg between yours and started moving. It's more of a jerky movement, more urgent and needy as he holds you close to him with quiet noises falling from his lips, quiet moans. By the time he wakes up, he's getting close to coming, unable to stop himself until he reaches satisfaction. He's gonna be tired enough afterwards that you'll have to clean him up as he dozes off again.

Satan

He fell asleep while reading, and eventually you laid down to properly cuddle him in his bed. Already he's pretty mobile when he sleeps, tossing from side to side, but at some point he turns towards you, arm slung across your waist, and he latches on. He's probably already hard by the time his body finds a rhythm to settle into, and he'll be growling and groaning against your shoulder, grinding against your thigh. But the moment you shift too much, he's awake again, blinking up at you. He'll only be disoriented for a moment or two before he pounces, properly rolling over you to kiss your lips and setting whatever you have in your hands aside so that he can properly satisfy the both of you.

Asmodeus

It's not exactly an odd occurrence, honestly. Oftentimes you'll wake up to him nuzzling and kissing at your skin, hands already roaming even before he's anywhere near fully conscious. But any time his sweet moans echo in your ear as he holds you close and his hips bump against yours, you know that he's getting particularly into a dream of his. And when that happens, when he wakes up he's rather disgruntled to find that it wasn't real - but he's all too eager to change that. The only hint that you'll get that he's awake is when his moans turn into actual words, directing you into place as he works to get you where he wants so that he can continue his absolutely wonderful dream.

Beelzebub

He came into your room to cuddle for the night, and somewhere after his midnight snack run he fell asleep once more, only for you to wake up to him moving against you again. But this time he was grinding on you, hands lazily pawing at you with a low noise rumbling in his chest, though it was impossible to tell if it was a groan, a growl, or just a low hum. He's probably the first to wake up, for his eyes to open and for his body to still when he realizes when he's been doing. He really hopes that you aren't uncomfortable, but... if you encourage him onward, it'll turn instead into his fingers hooking into your bottoms and tugging them down to instead at least feel your skin against his as he continues on.

Belphegor

It happens every once in a while, it isn't a huge surprise when his body starts moving slowly, sluggishly pressing against you, grinding against whatever body part happens to be close between his legs. It'll stay slow and steady for quite a while, until he starts getting closer. Then it'll start getting more sloppy, more jerky - but all through it, he won't wake up unless you shake him awake. You could ride him during all this and he wouldn't wake up unless you went at it particularly hard. But whether he's coming inside of you or not, all he'll give when he comes is a sleepy moan. His eyes might open for a moment as well, but he's not really conscious. You'll have to tell him what happened later, and he'll probably ask for a repeat.

#obey me! #obey me #obey me headcanons #obey me! lucifer #obey me! mammon #obey me! leviathan #obey me! satan #obey me! asmodeus #obey me! beelzebub #obey me! belphegor #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #asmo time

[jaehotbuns]

idolboyfriend!mark

♡ 2.6k, fluff  =^._.^= ∫

you first met Mark on a Nature Republic photo shoot where your friend was a hair stylist 

she called you frantically because the SM staff caught multiple employees from each department posting on their personal social media stories the location and whereabouts of the members and dismissed them from the site

they were shooting at an island in the middle of nowhere which you were conveniently writing a thesis on different landscapes of South Korea 

you had no experience of styling other people and only did it for yourself but you knew you couldn’t leave your friend deserted so you came to help in any way that you could

half of the staff were fired on the spot so they immediately pushed you towards the members to prepare them for their next shoot after threatening legal action if you decided to act as stupidly as the other stylists did 

you saw your friend quickly adjusting the collar of theHawaiian shirt that was roughly put on Jaehyun and she gave you an apologetic look and mouthed a ‘thank you’

you were assigned at styling Mark’s hair, which you were scared of because you had never styled a man’s hair before never mind a celebrity but you squared your shoulders and hoped for the best

he was already used to the chaos but he was slightly concerned at how well you would perform considering that your eyebrows were furrowed and had sweat rolling down your temples as you scrunched the ends of his hair with mousse to create beachy waves

every stylist that he met was always either professional and stoic or overly friendly to try and get with the members romantically but he tried to suppress his laughter when he saw your distressed face under your medical mask

in such a stressful and hectic situation, he would never talk to the staff to help them focus but he couldn’t help but strike up a conversation with you

you looked younger than him too so he felt more comfortable

“first time?” he asked with a smile on his face as he looked up at you

your hands stopped in the middle of combing the fluffy mousse through his hair and your face dropped slightly, “you could tell?”

Mark covered his laugh with his hand as he didn’t want to discourage you but couldn’t help but chuckle at the cute expression on your face 

“yeah,” he answered but then realized that it came out meaner than he had intended

“but you’re doing a great job! Keep going!” He tried to encourage you by motioning with his hands to continue

you patted his hair into place for finishing touches but you pouted under your mask when you realized, “how would you know? You can’t even see it” 

there were no mirrors in sight except for the hand mirrors that stylists held on their belt

he choked on his saliva out of embarrassment and rubbed his hand awkwardly on the back of his neck

“well let’s see then!” He exclaimed and you begrudgingly gave him the hand mirror to see 

you were bracing yourself in case he thought you made his hair into a bird’s nest and demanded you to be fired on the spot but he let a “wahh” escape his mouth as he admired the hairstyle 

“this actually looks great!” He said a little too excitedly 

“we were both expecting it to look bad then, huh?” You joked but really you were relieved that he thought it didn’t look atrocious 

Mark shook his head to deny but you held his shoulders in place to not disrupt his hair 

his face went pink and you realized that you just touched a client, a very influential client 

you lifted your hands off of him quickly and stepped back so that he could stand up from his chair and go in front of the cameras to prepare for the shoot

“thank you�� he said and you both exchanged bows before awkwardly getting back to work 

you stayed on the set with your friend for the rest of the day until the sun went down and the sky turned a bright pink from the previous ocean blue 

luckily, that was the last hair and clothes change that NCT needed and everyone started to pack up after the photographer and managers shouted “thank you for your work” and everyone bowed and clapped to each other 

while each member started to load into their vans to get back to the city for their next schedule, Mark ran up to you and asked if you were apart of the SM staff or were for hire from another beauty boutique

“oh, I just came last minute,” you said 

“I’m not actually licensed for this I came to help”

he let out a disappointed “oh” and decided not to take your number down since it was unprofessional and knew that after the fiasco today that there could be anyone around to expose him if he did 

“good night, see you around,” he said in hopes that he would see you again

you doubted that he would see you around but you repeated what he said and waved at him as he ran into the van 

the other members were confused as to why he ran off to greet you and were ready to tease him since they noticed that you were his type physically 

but he knew that they were about to so he lied and said that he forgot to take a bracelet from you and pretended to fall asleep so that they couldn’t question him further

you thought about that was a once in a lifetime experience until 2 weeks later the campaign was a hit and everyone was fawning over Mark specifically since he looked like boyfriend material in a white button up shirt and blue jeans with messy beach hair 

your friend called to tell you that she recommended you as a freelance hair stylist after they asked her who did Mark’s hair 

as a broke college student living in another country you took the offer but felt guilty getting an amazing job with no credentials so you got licensed at a beauty school within 2 months 

the next time you saw Mark was on the Punch music video set 

he had everything on except makeup and hair 

you were taken aback at how different he looked with the leather pieces, chain jewelry, and overall bad boy vibes

he was sitting in front of the dressing room vanities and his face lit up when he saw you stand behind him with your cart of hair products and tools 

usually he’d stay still in his chair but this time he turned around to face you, “hey! I thought you said you weren’t even licensed?”

“I decided to after getting offered a job” you smiled 

he turned around and looked at you through the mirror’s reflection, “or did you come back because of me?” 

you coughed through your mask and felt the heat creep from your neck all the way to your cheeks and temples

Mark smiled to himself when he saw your bright red face and was even more excited for the music video shoot knowing that the stylist he thought was cute would be doing his hair on a regular basis and could see him act cool on stage

to not let you out of his sights again, Mark pulled his phone off of the vanity table in front of him and went straight to his Instagram search page, “can I have your Insta by the way?” 

you were combing the translucent gel through his hair when you tilted your head out of curiosity of why he would want your socials 

“I send what kind of hairstyles and concepts I’d like to try to stylists on here,” he said 

in actuality Mark wasn’t one of the idols that really cared of how his stylists dressed him like Johnny or Jaehyun but he wanted an excuse so that his interest in you was too obvious

“oh sure,” you spelled out your Instagram handle and you saw him follow you right away

for the rest of the shoot for the two days that it took place, Mark would admire you every time you came up to him between scenes to wipe the sweat off his forehead and to spray his hair with setting mist 

although you were a fan of the group, you didn’t want to make them uncomfortable so you invested all of your focus on making them look their best

Mark appreciated that; you weren’t completely cold and professional but you also didn’t cross any boundaries by asking him about his personal life or interviewing him like some new stylists did 

when you got home you decided to look at Mark’s profile and saw that he was only following his family, friends from Vancouver, idols friends, and a few celebrities that he looked up to 

you were the only staff member that he was following other than his managers

but you didn’t think for a second Mark liked you

even though during promotions he would text you on his time off about your day and ask you about yourself 

“because I don’t want to be to formal” was his excuse to his unofficial game of 21 questions 

even though after promotions when he was on his break, he’d ask you to go shopping with him “to get some inspiration from uh hair stuff” 

at one point he was bold enough to ask you to go to a cafe because he said he felt like you two were friends at one point

behind the scenes, Johnny caught on quickly at how Mark was on his phone more often when he’d usually just use it to play mobile games or listen to music 

“I don’t think you left the bracelet with the pretty stylist,” Johnny would tease Mark one day when he saw him re-reading your texts and smiling to himself 

“you left your heart,” he’d say and slap himself on the knee from laughing too hard at his own joke

“can you get out of my room?” Mark would retort in embarrassment but it was worse for him from there

Johnny told both floors that Mark had a big fat crush on the young stylist and was flirting with them 24/7 

Mark wasn’t really the type to get in his feelings 

sure he’d find different celebrities or employees that he’d work with attractive but he knew it was for business or that they’d just be really good friends in the industry 

but you felt like home 

like he could imagine that if he was back in Vancouver that you two would meet at a library or something and he’d ask you for a coffee after you asked him to watch your bag to go to the washroom 

that was what he’d imagine before he went to sleep at night anyways 

half of the time he’d stay up thinking about asking you out officially and keeping your relationship as a secret and the other half of the time he’d kick his blankets scolding himself for even thinking that because it would put both of your careers on the line and he didn’t want you to feel the burden of dating in secret

you also had feelings for Mark but thought that he was just friendly and flirty 

even if he did have feelings for you, you thought that it would be best to just stay as friends because you didn’t want to get in the way of his career

one day Mark couldn’t take it anymore and went to the convenient store by himself instead of riding bikes with Haechan and Renjun like he originally planned to 

they noticed that he didn’t get embarrassed or annoyed at the teasing anymore and just kept to himself so they followed him to the store and found him outside on a bench with a beer in his hand

both of them sat beside him and Haechan grabbed the beer and took a swig, “just tell her” 

Mark placed his elbows on his knees and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration, “I don’t want to ruin it for us… Or for her”

Renjun placed a hand on his shoulder reassuringly, “if you both have strong feelings for each other then it’ll always work out in the end” 

Mark shook his head although he appreciated the support, “what if the stress gets us to break up? What if I make it awkward for her at work?” 

Haechan stopped him and told him sternly, “I see the way you two look at each other and I know that she’d accept if you asked. If the press or pressure causes you to break up then at least you tried.” 

Renjun added on more gently, “do you just want to continue suffering forever? What if she’s waiting for you too?” 

Mark didn’t want to think about it any longer and as a lightweight, the 2 cans of beer in his system were already giving him courage

if he had another night to think about it, he’d probably never confess to you so he decided in his tipsy state to confess right then 

with urgency, he told you to meet you at Hangang River right away 

“thank you guys,” he said while standing up too quickly 

he stumbled a little bit before starting to walk towards the meeting place, “I can do it!”

“you can do it!” Renjun laughed while holding up too fists to show his support

Haechan on the other hand held up his phone and started to record Mark walking clumsily towards the river, “don’t mess up loser!” 

you were finishing up on your readings when you got Mark’s text 

it sounded like he was going to confess but you shook the thought out of your head at the thought of a global star asking you out 

“probably wants to de-stress with a friend,” you thought before putting on a hoodie and jeans before walking to Hangang

when you arrived you could smell a mixture of beer and mint in his breath

His face was flushed pink which was a result of the alcohol and the 2.2km he had just walked

“why did you call me out all of a sudden?” You asked 

“will you go out with me?” He said a little bit too loudly

you quickly looked around to make sure that no one was within a kilometre near you too and asked in a hushed voice, “what?”

“I like you!” He nearly shouted, not aware of his volume due to the nervousness of the chance of rejection

“I tried not to like you ever since I met you but I can’t get you out of my head,” he avoided your gaze and couldn’t believe how cheesy he sounded

Mark continued regardless, “I know that we have to date in secret if you do like me but I promise to protect you and I won’t regret my decision if anything happens. So uh-”

“yes,” you grinned. “I’ll go out with you”

he was surprised at how you accepted with ease, “oh wow I wasn’t expecting this. Thank you for listening to me talk on haha, I don’t even know what to say I-”

to stop his blabbering you held onto his arms to steady yourself for when you went on your tippy toes to peck him on the lips

“that’s not fair” he pouted

“what’s not fair?”

“that’s it?” He murmured under his breath 

“then get some more” you teased

his hands cupped the sides of your face and bent his neck down to reach your height

your hand wrapped around his waist to pull him into a hug while his warm lips pressed onto yours

#nct scenarios #nct dream scenarios #mark scenarios #nct imagines #nct dream imagines #mark imagines #nct fluff #nct dream fluff #mark fluff #nct bulleted scenarios #nct dream bulleted scenarios #mark bulleted scenarios #nct headcanons #nct dream head canons #mark headcanons #nct u scenarios #nct 127 scenarios #nct mark scenarios #nct mark imagines #nct u imagines #nct 127 imagines #nct mark lee #mark lee #nct mark #nct dream mark #nct u mark #nct 127 mark #kpop #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines

[chispas-and-broken-bindings]

I really wanted to get the next chapter of Nothing Sacred, All Things Wild up this week, but work was crazy and I also got caught up in another story (I can’t control my muse)...so instead I’m offering up a long snippet of the dystopian/space colonist fic I started off a prompt I got a while ago for an “Arranged Marriage + a/b/o” request I got from an anon.

A/B/O is not my cup of tea, so I twisted it into an arranged marriage by an artificial intelligence instead: 

He wakes up angry, sweat soaking through his pillow, heart racing, stomach cramped. The alarm is buzzing from somewhere beneath the bed, where he must have knocked it. 

“Turn it off,” Ygritte mutters into his shoulder, before rolling away with the rest of their thin blanket.

He complies, letting the shock of the cold floor against his feet spur him into full wakefulness. “I take the test today.” It’s raining. He watches the drops splatter against the small window near the ceiling, and he wonders if Ygritte remembered to check the bucket beneath the leak before she crawled into bed the night before. 

Their garden apartment doesn’t do well in the rain. Jon still doesn’t understand why it’s even called a garden...there’s nothing green about their cramped basement residence, besides the mold growing beneath the sink.  

“Oh yeah. Happy birthday...we’ll get drinks when you come home.” 

“If I come home.”  He could be part of the one percent, after all. That is the Institution's promise. Everyone is SOMEONE. Anyone can be part of the 1%. Are YOU?

Jon knows it’s unlikely. How could he, an orphan from Mole’s Town, have the magic combination of pheno-, geno-, and personality type to be chosen for the Colony? No...he’s just another loser of the 99% who will waste his twenty-first birthday behind the Brutalist concrete walls of the Institution’s testing center, playing lab rat for the day, until the examiners come to the inevitable conclusion that he’s just another nobody. 

They’ll spit him back out on the street, leaving him free to carve out a pathetic existence on a slowly dying planet. 

He doesn’t bother washing. It’d be a waste of precious water when he knows full well they’ll scrub him down at the testing center. Instead he spends his last moments at home drinking a pot of weak coffee, trying to remember anything he was taught in the schools he barely attended. His energy would be better spent bracing for the coming indignity of having every part of his body and mind exposed and dissected. 

“Is the area of a circle, two pi times the radius? Or is that the circumference?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Ygritte lights a cigarette at the stove before joining him at the table. “It’s not that kind of test.”

He knows that. It’s another Institution promise. The Test doesn’t ask WHAT you know. It asks who YOU are. Are YOU the 1%

How the fuck would Jon know? It’s easier for him to remember that the area of a circle is actually pi times the radius squared, than it is for him to explain who he is. He has no idea. That’s kind of what being an orphan is all about. 

Ygritte could at least throw him a bone and tell him what the test is like. She took it two years ago, though she won’t talk. Most people won’t. There are no rules against it, but The Test is treated like dysentery. Unless you live behind the gates, you’re going to get it at least once in your life, but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna go around describing your diarrhea to the world.  

Grenn went to White Harbor for the test a month ago, and though Jon had to buy him six beers and two shots of whiskey before Grenn would shut up about his first-ever train ride, he did give Jon a few insights into the rest of the experience. 

Not that the train isn’t worth the excitement, especially when the ride is paid for (another Institution promise. No matter your means. No matter the distance. EVERYONE makes it to the Test. Are YOU the 1%?) Technically, Jon has taken it once before, from Winterfell to Mole’s Town as a baby, but he doesn’t remember.  

Now he can’t believe anything that moves so fast could feel so smooth. He’s topped out at ninety miles per hour on the best snowmobile Donal Noye patched together, but that left his teeth rattling and his ears buzzing for hours afterward. The train is moving at double the speed, but he could be in the godswood, for how quiet the near-empty economy cabin is. He shares it with a twitchy young man who never looks up from a cheap tablet, and a black raven perched in a large cage who spends the entire ride staring at Jon with one eerie black eye. 

The testing center is located just across from the train station, in an intimidating building that used to have a name. Jon has a vague memory that it was a prison before the Institution took it over. Before that it was something else. 

He doesn’t balk when a masked orderly leads him to a small room, tells him to strip, and then takes off with his clothes. He knows they’ll be returned at the end of the day. Of more pressing concern is the man and woman who enter talking too quietly to make out at the other end of the room, while a nurse rolls in with a small cart covered in collection tubes, gauze strips, and butterfly needles. 

Everyone wears surgical masks, latex gloves, long white coats, and black clogs. 

Jon remains naked beneath a small paper covering. 

He has given blood before, and the messy, life-saving transfusion Mance performed to save Tormund three years ago was far scarier than the rapid, methodical draw that's taken from him now. Still, it’s disconcerting to think of the secrets the Institution will glean from his blood. He’s uncomfortably aware that they’ll know who his parents are before the day is over, even as he’ll continue living in total ignorance. 

Another Institution promise. The Institution values EVERYONE’S right to privacy. YOU control the right to tell the world who you are. Are YOU the 1%?

Before he’s finished the recitation in his head, five tubes are full, and the nurse pats a cotton ball and a band-aid over his arm. She tosses a granola bar on his lap before rolling out of the room with her cart of samples. 

Next comes a physical exam, where the other two examiners speak only to each other as they record his height, weight, blood pressure, and note his every blemish and scar in flat affect. 

“Post-burn contractures across the palmar and dorsal aspect of the left hand, adduction and extension in the metacarpophalangeal joint of thumb fall outside normal range of movement.”

“Keloid scarring along the right gastrocnemius muscle, five point three centimeters in diameter.”

“Slightly hypertrophic scarring beginning at left brow and running medially down across the left orbital cavity to the cheek. No ptosis noted. No apparent damage to the eye.”

He should feel worse beneath the weight of each fault. Instead he relaxes. He was nervous for nothing. Failure was always inevitable. The Institution would never invest in a malnourished kid with a burned hand and a badly healed leg wound. They are famously secretive about their selection process, but some reasons for failure are common knowledge. As the crows like to say, no cripples, bastards, or broken things. 

So, he chews his granola bar slowly and even closes his eyes for a bit, letting the examiners move his limp limbs as necessary for their measurements. He imagines himself a cadaver during the early stages of an autopsy. 

As long as they don’t cut me open….

When an white-haired man enters and lays out what look to be a series of tiny torture devices, Jon wonders if he stopped caring too soon. He white-knuckles it through an excruciating dental exam that ends with his first real exchange of the day. 

“Have you ever been to a dentist, kid?” 

There is still a tube in his mouth, sucking up his spit and a hook pressing at his gums, so Jon just shakes his head. There are no dentists in Mole’s Town. Just Chett, who used to work at a slaughterhouse down south and will pull a rotten tooth for the price of a bottle of whiskey. Jon wouldn’t give the creep the lint in his pocket, and he sure as hell wouldn’t let him near his mouth. Instead he brushes his teeth so hard his toothbrush regularly snaps in half, and prays something else kills him before gum disease has a chance.

“You’ve got better teeth than I see behind the gates, boy,” he pulls the hook from Jon’s mouth to dictate into a small microphone hanging from his mobile workstation. “Review DEFB1 on ID 17630343BA. At some point the focus will need to expand beyond the holy 22 and get back to the basics. Who is going to care about neuron growth if every fourth planter is born with anodontia?” 

Jon understands little of what the man is saying, but he’s heard enough to know he’s at least got as good of teeth or better than some of the rich tossers who live within the heavily guarded gated communities where the Colonists are actually culled from. Behind their high walls, wealthy sons and daughters of the only one percent that really matters, spend their youths preparing for the Test in homes and classrooms pumped with filtered air, where the water runs clear, and no one ever goes to sleep with their bellies cramped from hunger or disease. 

The Institution promises that ANYONE can be the 1%, but EVERYONE knows that's a lie. 

---

The physical exam ends at last, after several more rounds of sterile humiliation. Jon isn’t sure which was worse; having to lie within a noisy cylinder while a disembodied voice reminded him not to move, or being asked to run naked on a treadmill, wired with electrodes. 

When it’s over, the last examiner provides him with a sweatsuit that is softer and better-made than anything he owns, and he wonders if there is any way he can smuggle it out with him at the end of the day. Another orderly comes in with a waxy crisp apple that hardly seems real even as a spray of tartly sweet juice hits the back of his tongue. He’s given a pill as well that he swallows down with a cup of water so clear and so cold, it’s an act of incredible will-power not to ask for more. 

It’s only after, when he’s led to a small room with two chairs, a table, and a pulsing white orb in it’s center that he thinks to ask what it’s for. 

“This will make the answers come more naturally during your interviews,” the man explains before leaving him alone. “We want you to answer as truthfully as possibly, but we understand that can be difficult under the stress of the Test.”

He supposes people lie all the time on the Test, trying to game the system, though Jon doesn’t have the first idea how he’d go about doing that, nor does he have any reason to try. He’s not going to the Colony. This is all just a spectacular waste of time, and it’s a race day, which means he’ll have to pull extra shifts at the Rookery to make up for what he would have made beyond the Wall. 

By the time a petite woman with a neat low bun, and cracking, grey scar across half her face and neck enters, Jon is reckless with anger. 

“I’d like to go home.”

“Hello, Jon,” she smiles as she sits across from him, and she’s the first person he’s seen since he entered the building who isn’t wearing a mask. She’s also the first person to call him by his name. “My name is Shireen.”

“Where’s your mask?”

Her smile dims slightly, but she maintains her gentle tone. “I’m here to facilitate the interview portion of your Test today. Before we begin, is there anything you need to feel more comfortable? Something to eat, drink, a bathroom break? Should the temperature be adjusted?”

He’s sour with anger so he takes everything she offers, suddenly eager to make everything as inconvenient as possible for the Institution. Shireen takes his requests with an easy smile, however, escorting him to the restroom herself. When they return to the room, there is a bowl of hearty soup with a chunk of bread that is soft and airy beneath it’s golden-brown crust. Beside it is a tall glass of water and a smaller cup of green liquid that Jon eyes suspiciously. 

“What’s this then?”

“I thought you might like some juice. It’s mostly apple, with some kale, cucumber and celery in it as well, I suspect.”

It’s the best thing Jon has ever tasted, and while part of him wants to fling the rest of it at her frustratingly serene face, it’d be a horrible waste, and he’d be the biggest loser. So, he takes his time, savoring each bite and sip, rolling the bright flavors across his delighted tongue. 

“Feeling better?” she asks after the tray is cleared. 

“Is that an official Test question?”

“No.”

“Let’s get on with it then. I can’t afford to miss the train home.”

“As you may know, it is not individuals who decide the 1%. Our artificial intelligence algorithm, The Seven, determines who is the best fit for the Colony. That is how the institution guarantees objectivity in its selection process,” she taps the pulsing orb on the table. “Though we find people are more comfortable responding to another person, so I will be facilitating our discussion as The Seven records and analyzes your responses. Are you ready to begin?”

He shrugs. 

“I’ll start with a series of statements. After each, please say a number to indicate the degree to which you agree with that statement, wherein one equals strongly disagree and five equals strongly agree. Three indicates you neither agree nor disagree. Do you understand?”

“Five.”

“Okay. Statement Number one: At social events, you rarely try to introduce yourself to new people and mostly talk to the ones you already know.”

Jon knows everyone in Mole’s Town, and he doesn’t want to socialize with most of them. 

“Two.”

This goes on for a while, each statement absurdly divorced from anything relating to Jon’s life, but the numbers spring easily from his lips as he relaxes under Shireen’s soothing voice, and kind face, and the lovely feeling of a full belly and soft, warm clothes. 

It’s when the format shifts, that he begins to feel strange. Shireen starts with questions that are easy to answer. Where were you born? How many years of education have you completed? What was your favorite class and why?  What do you do for work? Describe your strengths. When are you most satisfied in your job?  Do you live alone or with others? How many others do you live with? What is your relationship to the person you live with? 

At this point, the questions grow more invasive; more personal. A voice tells Jon that the Institution doesn’t need to know how many times he and Ygritte fuck a week...but the answer escapes all the same. 

“Four or five times a week.”

“Do you use contraception methods?”

“No.”

“Do you intend to have children with your partner?”

“No.”

“Given your age and your partner’s, without contraception, given your regular intercourse the odds of conception are--”

“She’s sterile.” 

“How do you know that?”

“Most everyone in Mole’s Town is. It’s something in the water, or the air, or our weak genes. It doesn’t really matter the cause. If it’s not the one; it’s the other. She’s been fucking since she was fifteen, and nothing’s ever caught.”

“How do you know that you aren’t the sterile one?”

He shrugs. “I probably am too, but I’m not her first partner as you say. I’m not her second or third either.”

“How does that make you feel?” 

He glares, and Shireen clarifies. 

“Your partner’s sterility?”

“How do you think it makes me feel?” he pushes back from the table, letting his chair lean back on two legs. 

Shireen only gives him a minute shake of her head, and waits for him to answer the question. 

“Angry. I feel fucking furious about it.”

“So, you would like to be a father?”

“I’d like the freedom to choose. I’d like Ygritte to have that freedom.”

“What is your least favorite thing about humanity?”

She can’t be serious with that question. It’s like asking him to name all the stars. He takes a deep breath. Shireen waits. He stands up and paces. Shireen waits. He finishes his water and asks for another. Shireen calls for a refill. He drinks that too. Shireen waits. 

“My least favorite thing? That we’ve given up. We let this machine,” he points at the orb, “decide who doesn’t have to. It’s like….it’s like the men in Mole’s Town who wander into the snows when winter grows too cold, and there’s not enough food or warmth to go around. Grown-ass men who could be fixing furnaces and braving the cold to find the resources their families so desperately need. Most of the time they don’t even have the fucking guts to tell anyone  what they’re off to do. They just wander away one day, and winter takes them. 

That’s what the fucking Institution is. We’re all those men in Mole’s Town who’ve just given up, despite the blood still pumping through our veins. We’re sitting around, waiting for winter to kill us, so that a few can live. And there’s no one left to be mad about it either, because it’s a fucking machine that decides our fate. It’s like being mad at the wind. What’s the fucking point? But just because there is no one to be angry with, that doesn’t mean the rage goes away...and winter isn’t killing us fast enough."

“So you want to live?”

“I want humanity to want to live. I want humanity to want most of humanity to live. I want us to care about more than the one percent.”

It feels radical, saying it here; behind the walls of the Institution. It feels like he’s put the last nail in his own coffin. Shireen watches him as he cracks his knuckles, one at a time, waiting for her to say the interview is over; it’s time to go home. 

Instead she asks an even crazier question. 

“Do you think there is an essential connection between the morality of an action and the morality of the intentions behind it?”

#my writing #work in progress #jonsa fic #jonsa dystopian au #kind of inspired by songs of a distant earth #when I get to the new planet #whenever that happens #shireen!

[thatfanficstuff]

Feelings - Tony DiNozzo

Pairing: Tony DiNozzo x reader

Warnings: canon typical violence and situations, language.

A/N: 3500 words. Way longer than I’d intended. First time writing Tony x reader. Hope you like it. 

***

Gibbs had his rules for a reason. You didn’t ask about those reasons. It was hard enough just remembering the damn rules without worrying about the back story that went with them. There was a rule for just about anything: dealing with attorneys, putting family first, not annoying Gibbs. There was even that one rule about not dating your co-workers that you were dying to know the origins of but were in no way brave enough to ask.

Unfortunately, there was no rule about falling in love with your co-worker. Sometimes you wondered if there was, if you could have avoided all this. I mean, you were so careful about following the rules to the point that Tony often made fun of you for having them memorized. If you were honest with yourself, you knew it wouldn’t have mattered. Hadn’t you tried everything you could think of to keep your heart from falling for his hazel eyes and lazy smile?  

He was a player. But that didn’t stop your gaze from following him as he headed to the elevator and his latest date.

You reminded yourself he never took anything seriously even while you laughed at his latest prank.

He talked about movies way too much. It was obsessive really. That didn’t stop you from watching every film he mentioned, a bowl of popcorn in your lap and an empty space beside you on the couch.

Maybe that was the problem. Perhaps you were just lonely. Maybe—

“Y/N,” Tony’s voice pulled you from your thoughts and you realized you’d been staring at the same piece of paper on your desk for the last half hour. Shit.

You glanced up, eyebrows raised in question. “Yeah?”

His brow was furrowed and his gaze was filled with concern. “You okay?”

Your cheeks heated and you turned back to the papers on your desk. “I’m fine.”

Tony huffed. “If there is one thing I know, it’s that a woman is never fine when she says she is. So, what’s going on?”

You shook your head. “It’s nothing, Tony.”

The next thing you knew, he was right beside you, perched on the corner of your desk. If Gibbs and McGee were here you wouldn’t have to deal with this. McGee would tell him to leave you alone and Gibbs would smack the back of his head. They both respected your privacy. Your need to not share every aspect of your life. Why couldn’t you have fallen for one of them?

 As you leaned back in your chair, you ran your gaze over him until you met his eyes. “Can I help you with something, DiNozzo?”

“It’s never nothing, Y/N. You’re always zoning out lately. Something’s bothering you.”

“I just didn’t sleep well. It’s not a big deal. Everyone has off days, today’s one of mine.”

He hummed as he tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Normally I’d give you that, but this has been going on for weeks. So, what is it? Money? Are you sick? Have a fight with Abby?”

You just leaned back in your chair and kept your eyes on the man sitting on your desk like he owned it. He continued to list topics, pausing between each one to gage your reaction.

Suddenly, his brows shot up as he frowned. “Is it a guy?” The tone of his voice said that it couldn’t possibly be the right answer. It would have been so easy to fool him, but you couldn’t stop your eyes from moving away from him, afraid he’d see everything you were too afraid to say.

“It is!” There was an undertone to his voice you couldn’t quite place.

You ignored it, and him, to turn your attention back to the paperwork on your desk.

“I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“There’s nothing to say, Tony. Now can I please get back to work? I really don’t want Gibbs chewing my ass again.” You were far enough behind on your paperwork that Vance had said something to your boss. That had earned you a head slap and an admonishment about you knowing better.

Tony grabbed the pen from your hand and dropped it on the desk. “Come on. You know Gibbs doesn’t care about paperwork. He’s just passing along the ass chewing he got from Vance. Quit avoiding the question. Is this why you’ve been skipping out on our dinners?”

You sighed. Tony liked to eat and you liked to cook so you’d started inviting him over once a week. Lately you’d feigned other plans to keep from having to spend an evening concealing your feelings. “Actually, yes.”

“Nice. You start getting laid and leave me to starve.” He moved back over to his desk with a scowl on his face. “I thought I meant more to you than that.”

His affronted tone had you rolling your eyes. “I didn’t say anything about getting laid. And you’re hardly starving.”

“Tell that to my scale. I’ve lost five pounds since you quit feeding me.”

His disgruntled tone bothered you. “Are you okay, Tony?”

He shook his head but said, “Yeah, I’m fine. Just miss your cooking is all.”

His phone rang before you could respond. After a quick conversation, he hopped to his feet. “Johnson hasn’t showed up at home. Gibbs wants us to try his mom’s place while they sit on the apartment.”

***

Despite your suspect’s mother claiming she hadn’t seen her son in months, it was your experience that people tended to run home when scared. You hoped that’s precisely what this suspect had done as you were more than ready to close the case.

Tony parked along the curb at the end of the driveway so no one could pull out while you two were otherwise occupied. He took the front while you went around the back. He gave you a moment to let you get into position before knocking on the door. As you listened to the hum of him talking to someone, you kept your weapon trained on the back door. A moment later, the unmistakable feeling of a gun pressed against the back of your head. Shit. You should have done more than your cursory examination of the backyard.

“Easy there, sweetheart. Hands up.”

You did as instructed, and he yanked your weapon from your hand. “Phillip Johnson, I presume.”

“That’s me. Give me the keys to the car.”

“What car?”

He slammed the side of the gun into the back of your head. Not hard enough to knock you out but hard enough to give you an instant headache. “Don’t play stupid.”

“I don’t have the keys. I didn’t drive.” You forced the words through teeth gritted in pain.

He stepped up behind you to pat down your pockets. “Fuck,” he growled when he discovered you were telling the truth.

“Look, just go. It’s not like I can shoot you as you run away, you have my weapon.” You wanted to diffuse the situation, to try to control the fallout from your fuck up. He was angry and armed and was the type to start shooting people if he felt trapped.

“So you can scream for help before I get two blocks away? I don’t think so.” He pushed you toward the back door. “In you go.”

You gave a brief thought to yelling for Tony but kind of liked your brains where they were. Johnson had already killed once, what was to keep him from killing again? He shoved you through the house causing you to stumble more than once. You could hear Tony still arguing with the mother at the front door. Johnson stepped up behind you and pinned you against his chest with a thick arm, the gun now shoved against your temple. He walked you into view of the front door though you couldn’t see anything as his mother blocked the opening.

“Look, Mrs. Johnson, while I appreciate your position, the fact remains that we have a warrant for your son’s arrest. You’re gonna need to let me in to make sure he’s not here or we’ll come in anyway and won’t be nearly as nice about it. I’ve already called backup. They’re on the way.” Tony was using the placating tone he always used when trying to convince a suspect or a witness that he was harmless and reasonable.

“You come in and your friend dies,” Johnson yelled.

His mother was pulled from the doorway and onto the front porch behind Tony who had his gun drawn and aimed in almost the same moment. His eyes were glued to the weapon pressed to your head. His face lost what little color it had. “Let her go, Phil. You don’t want to do this.”

“Oh, but I do.” He moved forward and slammed the door in Tony’s face. He shoved you and put some space between the two of you. “Close the blinds and the curtains,” he ordered. When you dared to look at him, he waved the gun as if to bring your attention to it. Like you could forget for a minute the situation you were in. Your eyes flicked down, spotting your sidearm tucked into his waist band.

Your brain worked through scenarios even as you did as he’d ordered. As you closed the last blind you caught a glimpse of Gibbs stepping from his vehicle. Your team would get you out of here. They had to.

***

It had been almost two hours. Once you’d secured the house to his satisfaction, Johnson had used your own cuffs to restrain you. Fortunately, he was an idiot and left your hands in front instead of placing them behind your back so you’d have less mobility. He was using your phone to talk to Gibbs periodically. He’d put the calls on speaker and you could tell Gibbs’ patience was wearing thin. You’d tried to talk to him during the first call and Phillips backhanded you with the gun still in hand. The whole right side of your face felt tight and sore. Asshole.

“What the hell is taking so long?” he muttered as he peered through a gap in the blinds. He glanced over at you. “Call him.”

You reached forward and pressed the button to call Gibbs and put it on speaker. “Gibbs,” he answered.

“Where’s my money and my car?”

“I told you it was going to take some time. If you want to forget about the money, you can leave right now. I’ll even give you a police escort out of town. Just let your hostage go.” You could hear the anger simmering in his voice.

“You have thirty minutes or I start sending her out in pieces.” He slammed his finger down on the disconnect.

“Well, that was monumentally fucking stupid.” So was pissing off the man with the gun but you were running out of time. You’d been waiting for an opening, but thus far hadn’t found one. It was time to make one of your own.

He shoved the barrel of the gun against the temple on the sore side of your face and you winced. Fucker. “What did you say?”

“You just confirmed that you have no problem hurting me. And you put a timeline on it. They’ll try to take you out now.”

Uncertainty flashed on his face and he glanced toward the windows.

“You were smart covering the windows, but they’ll be getting ready to send in a tactical team now. They’re probably already out front.”

After a second of indecision, he moved away from you to peek through the gap between the blind and the window. His gaze kept darting back to you. “I don’t see anything.”

You shook your head. “They’ll be prepping further down the street so it’s harder for you to see.” You gestured to one of the other windows. One that would put him close to you with his back turned while he tried to get a view of his impending doom.

As he moved to the new viewpoint, you leaned forward, shifting your legs so you could get to your feet quickly. The moment his attention was elsewhere, you launched yourself at him. He grunted as he slammed against the wall and window.

“Bitch!” He tried to turn, to get the gun up, but you didn’t give him even a single moment to recover. You couldn’t or that would be the end of you. Instead, you shifted your weight to come at him from a different angle. You drove him toward the ground, grabbing your gun from his waistband as you went.

The impact knocked the weapon from his hand. You pushed yourself to your feet and aimed your weapon. Johnson didn’t even notice as he scrambled for his own gun. You fired a round into the floor by his head and he froze instantly. “Give me a reason.”

He rolled over, hands raised in front of him. Your phone began to ring but you kept your attention, and your gun, on Johnson. “Couch,” you instructed.

The call had barely had time to go to voicemail before it began ringing again. If you didn’t answer it soon, things would get a hell of a lot more chaotic. Still, you waited until Johnson sat on the couch to move over and grab the other gun from the floor. You laid it on the table beside you.

Your phone started another cycle of ringing and you heard Gibbs on the bullhorn. “Answer the phone or we’re coming in.”

You answered the call on speaker phone, needing to keep your hands free for your gun. “You can come in, but I’m going to be real pissed if someone shoots me.”

A sigh of relief was the immediate answer.

“Johnson has been disarmed. I’m the one that fired the shot. See you in a second.”

It wasn’t even a breath later that the front door opened and people swarmed around you. You kept your weapon trained on Johnson even as he was pulled to his feet and placed in cuffs. A hand settled on top of yours and you followed the length of the arm to find Gibbs standing next to you. “We’ve got him. You can stand down, Agent.” His jaw tightened as he took in the injury to your face. His eyes found yours and softened. “Give me the gun, Y/N.”

You nodded and loosened your grip so he could take the weapon from you.

“DiNozzo, get her out of here,” he ordered.

You turned to your other side to find Tony. The smile he gave you was strained, but it was good to see it just the same. “Hey.”

His smile widened, became a little more genuine. “Hey.” He unlocked the cuffs and took them off before tossing them to Gibbs. He wrapped an arm around your shoulders to steer you out the door and you relaxed against him, content to simply be in his presence after the last couple of hours.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he said as he led you to a waiting ambulance. “Let’s not do this ever again, okay?”

“But I was so looking forward to making it a weekly thing.” You sat so your feet dangled out of the back of the ambulance while the medic looked you over. Tony stood silently, arms crossed over his chest as he watched them work. You grit your teeth and flinched as they pressed against bruised skin checking for broken bones. You cursed outright when they found the bump on the back of your head.

“It wouldn’t hurt to have this checked at the hospital to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

You waved him away. “I’m good. Promise.”

“Y/N/N, maybe you should—” Tony interjected but you cut him off.

“I just want to go home, Tony.”

He looked uncertain.

“Please.”

He thought a moment more before saying, “Yeah. Okay.”

Your shoulders sagged in relief and you took the hand he offered you. Once you were on your feet, he stayed close but released your hand. Instead, he settled his at the base of your spine to steer you through the scene until you stood in front of your boss.

“They clear you?” Gibbs asked, looking between you and Tony.

“Sure did, boss,” Tony answered for you, sounding entirely too upbeat. You resisted the urge to smack him in the stomach.

Gibbs narrowed his eyes but nodded just the same. “All right. Take her home. I’ll see you both in the morning for debriefing.”

***

Tony was unusually quiet on the way home, which was fine since you didn’t really feel like talking. After the third time you caught him looking at you, you turned your attention out the window. It wasn’t until he parked the car that you focused enough to realize he hadn’t taken you to your home at all. You followed the familiar path to his apartment.

“Have a seat,” he instructed once you’d made it inside. He disappeared into the kitchen while you made yourself comfortable on his couch. When he emerged, he held a beer in one hand and a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a towel in the other. He placed the beer on the table beside you and handed you the makeshift icepack. You held it to the side of your face, flinching at the contact.

“Thanks.”

He nodded absently and began to pace the floor. Your gaze followed him for a couple of minutes before you interrupted. “What is it, Tony?”

He turned to you, his eyes wide. His gaze darted down then back up and he licked his lips. He pulled something from his pocket and set it on the table. It took you a moment to realize it was your phone. He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and pink dusted his cheeks. “I should have given that to you earlier. You probably want to call this boyfriend I knew nothing about. But if you could wait a minute, there’s something I need to say first.”

“Only if you sit. The pacing’s driving me nuts.”

He grinned at that and sat on his coffee table. He was close enough your knees touched. You resisted the urge to press closer. When several minutes passed without him saying anything you spoke up. “Tony—”

“No. I’m sorry. I’m getting to it. I just usually don’t do this sort of thing.”

“Talk?”

“Cute, but no.” He licked his lips again. “Look, I lied to you.”

You frowned as you tried to follow what he was trying to tell you.

He sighed. “When we were talking about this guy and all those canceled dinners and you asked if I was okay. I said yes when that was the furthest thing from the truth. In my defense, I thought I would be okay. I mean, if he makes you happy, that’s what’s important, right?”

He pushed to his feet before you could respond and started pacing the floor again. “But then you had to go and get yourself held hostage. When I saw you with that gun to your head, I knew I’d never be okay again if something happened to you. If I lost you before I ever had a chance to tell you.” He stopped pacing and turned to face you. “I’m crazy about you, Y/N/N. I have been pretty much from the moment Gibbs introduced you to the team.”

You blinked as you tried to process the fact that Tony DiNozzo had just admitted to having feelings. For you.

“Right, well, that’s done. I’ll just go see what I have for dinner.” He fled to the kitchen before you could stop him.

Rather than calling him back, you followed him. You stepped into the doorway to find him leaning on the counter with his back to you and his head bowed. Your heart ached at that thought that he’d apparently been pining after you as much as you had him. “It was you.”

He looked over his shoulder. His brow furrowed as he met your gaze. “What?”

“The guy that I cancelled all the dinners for? That was you.”

He turned to give you his full attention. “That doesn’t make any sense, Y/N/N.”

You shrugged. “Well, see, I would have dinner with you. We’d watch a movie together. Maybe have a few drinks and I could fool my heart into thinking that maybe, just maybe we could have more. Then a few nights later I’d watch you hurry to the elevator so you wouldn’t be late for a date.” You closed the distance between you but didn’t touch him. Not yet. “My heart couldn’t take me playing pretend anymore. It hurt too much. So, I started making excuses.”

“And I was doing the same thing, only I was making dates, hoping someone could make me forget about you.”

“How’d that work out for you, DiNozzo?”

He rested a hand along the uninjured side of your face and ran his thumb across your cheek. “Not great. How about you, Y/L/N? Did you manage to get over me?”

“Not even close.”

His smile was radiant.

“Hey, DiNozzo.”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Kiss me already.”

#tony dinozzo x reader #anthony dinozzo x reader #tony dinozzo x you #anthony dinozzo imagine #ncis imagine

[bellatrixobsessed1]

From Chin To Yon Rah (Part 41)

I typed this chapter on mobile so it might have more typos than usual and I, a responsible fic writer, do not proof read.

Warmth. There is a sense of community in warmth and trying to stay in a state of it during the colder months. Wujing makes a celebration of doing so. And that is how she finds herself seated around the largest fire she has seen in the Earth Kingdom. She is their go to women to keep it lit until the festivities are over.

They seem to rather adore her fire and on nights like these she yearns to display a vivid blue. Perhaps one day. One day after she tells Hajime who she is. Though she isn't sure when she would tell everyone else. She hopes that everyone will take just as well to her fire when it burns blue. Perhaps if she is lucky, they will enjoy it more.

Until then she adds more orange to the blaze while Atsu shifts his weight in her arms. "My turn, Atsu!" Caihong declares.

"No-o." Atsu shakes his head, "she's my mama, go by yer dad!"

Despite the boy's protests, Azula lifts the blanket and let's Caihong crawl under it and next to Atsu. Hajime steps away from the fire and returns to her side. "I'd say that this is a promising way to start the winter."

"We've had a productive year. We have more than enough to get the Wujing through the winter." Seukhyun notes.

"No thanks to you, boy." Ojihara jests.

"I did most of the work ol' man!"

Listening to the father and son go back and forth is one more constant in her life. A thing that wouldn't feel right if absent.

Azula, to the best of her ability with to little beasts in her lap, moves closer to the fire. "Hey!" Atsu shouts, "I was com-fera-table!"

"I wasn't." Azula shrugs. Truth be told her legs are tingling from having held the same position for so long. "I need to stand up."

Neither of the children takes the cue so she tells them both to stand. She doesn't know why she expected to be met with anything other that a, "no, Rikka! We're cozy!" And an agreeing not from Atsu.

"Hajime, hold these things." She sets Atsu and then Caihong in his lap.

"These things are called children, Rikka." He laughs while Atsu folds his arms and pouts.

"They're more like chittering toad-squirrels if you ask me." She stretches her arms and then her back with a contented sigh. She makes her way even closer to the fire.

"Cider?" A man offers. She recognizes him from the market square, a clothes salesman she thinks. She can't quite recall his name but it could be Poying or maybe Poyang. The man is quite fond of telling everyone that he has a tinge of Air Nomad blood. Azula isn't the only person to take this with several grains of salt.  But he is an honest man otherwise do she takes the glass with a thank you.

"Gimme'a sip, gimme'a sip!" Caihong makes a jump or two for Azula's cider.

Poyang chuckles, "aye, lil' one we got plenty more, ya don't have to snatch Rikka's."

"You don't have to take me." She repeats smugly, holding her glass just out of Caihong's reach. The girl sticks out her lower lip, folds her arms across her chest, and gives her foot a stomp--making sure to rumble the ground for good measure.

Hajime gives her a little nudge. "Aww don't tease Cai."

"She's gonna get her drink anyways." Seukhyun dismisses just as Poyang comes back with more cider.

"Poyang has the best stuff!" Atsu declares after his first sip.

"Cause his brother's the apple man!" Caihong declares enthusiastically.

"One day we'll have to visit his orchard together." Hajime offers.

"We have a lot of one days to get to." Azula points out. But she supposes that they will have a lifetime to do them.

"It's nice to have a lot to look forward to, isn't it?" He slings an  around her waist and pulls her closer. Hot cider splashes onto her shirt. She crinkles her nose, "thanks, Hajime."

"You said that you were getting cold. I thought that I'd help you warm up."

"Won't be so warm when this cider freezes…"

"That's what you get for not sharing it!" Caihong declares smugly. That impish little earth gremlin…

That day she learns that there is a special bond, a sense of community, that comes with the seeking of warmth.

.oOo.

She hadn’t expected to outlast him, but her demise comes as a surprise all the same. And maybe it is because she had wrapped her topmost parka around him. Maybe it is because she had stripped off her remaining glove to keep a fire going for him. For the both of them.

But she is weak and grows weaker as the cold burrows into her wound and seeps deeper into her bones. She looks at the teeth marks with much hatred. Could those have been prevented?

“Azula?” Sokka murmurs. It is the first sound that he has made in a while. And she could cry. Maybe both of them will die, but at least she won’t have to watch another lover do it before she succumbs for herself. She is so terribly cold, she can’t imagine that it will be much longer now.

"Yeah?" She answers.

"What happened?" He slurs.

"First we got caught in a blizzard and then we we got attacked by wolves…"

"Where's dad?"

Azula grits her teeth. "We couldn't find him, remember." They might have fared better against the wolves if they had. As things were they had taken a good chunk out of her arm before being struck down by Sokka's boomerang. The man best appreciate her taking those teeth for him instead of focusing on her own fight. On the grander scheme of things she supposes that it doesn't matter at all. They had done more damage than even that in shredding Sokka's parka and stealing one of her gloves. If they hadn't, she might not have had to spare one if her own.

Agni, she isn't built for this weather. She isn't adapted to withstand it. And it hurts so terribly. Everything stings and tingles. Her face and toes especially. Her fingers had tingled  it that has subsided to a more than alarming nothingness. She sniffles, if only to remind herself that she still has a nose. Her cheeks are so red and she feels as though they have been slapped repeatedly. In a sense, they have. The winter slaps them with a force that a human hand couldn't possibly manage.

She had never realized just how much the cold could burn. Very resentfully, she thinks that the cold might just be higher than even her fire.

She huddles closer to Sokka, rather she tries to do so oh to find that they are as close as they can possibly be. And there is nowhere near enough warmth between the two of them.

"Take your parka back, Azula." Sokka says.

She shakes her head.

"Azula, you need it more, you're not…"

She shakes her head, "no." She won't be the weak one here. She can't allow it. She can't allow it especially if it means watching another lover die. "No."

At least now she can say with conviction that she does love him. Very much. Just as much as she loved Hajime. And more than enough to let herself succumb to the cold to give him a chance.

He tries to remove his parka anyhow so she rolls atop him, he is too weak to shove her off. Which is good because she would have been too weak to resist if he had.

The bite marks on her arm flare. She closes her eyes and shudders as another pang passes through her. How long have they been out here like this? Long enough for the blizzard to pass.it occurs to her that she and Sokka are half buried.   The realization come with a jolt of panic--a queasiness in her belly and a spinning in her head. She doesn't want to be buried in a coffin of snow. She doesn't want to be buried at all. The panic is fleeting when she recalls that she has already unburied herself in putting her body atop Sokka's. Though that isn't to say that more snow won't come to cover them up, she hopes to be hours dead by then.

"You know, I always thought that I would die in combat." She mumbles, pressing her ear to his chest so that she can hear his heartbeat. So that she can be sure that she isn't alone. "That would have been more glorious than this."

"You're not…"

But she isn't done lamenting, "but I also always thought that I would be alone when I died. So I guess that this is better." It's certainly better than dying alone and dehydrated in a grassland.

"We're not going to die."

"We're in the middle of nowhere and the rest of the village didn't expect us to venture this far out to the glacier. We've been out here for hours, my arm won't stop bleeding…"

"Yeah." Sokka's expressions darkness. "Looks pretty grim doesn't it." He is so cold that his breath no longer comes out in puffs. He is quiet for a very long while. "Katara, Aang, Toph, and I were once lost in a desert with ver little water. You made it out of several situations like this…"

"Yes, Sokka and it was mostly luck. How many times can I keep getting lucky?" She doesn't have the energy for shouting. For changing her tone and diction at all really.

She feels Sokka's hands patting her hair. "Hopefully every time."

.oOo.

There is no worse feeling than watching Azula go limp and mostly quiet. For the last several minutes, the oh sign of life was an occasional wimper. Her body is still trembling but not as violently as it had been. She is shutting down. And she still won't take his parka.

"I'm so cold, Sokka." She whispers, her voice sounding so pathetically small. But she is afraid. He can tell, if only because he is terrified too.

"Yeah, me too, Azula."

She rubs her face against his chest. She gets no warmth out of it because there is none left in him. He looks to the sky. To the glimmering cosmos above. Maybe he'll be reborn as one of them…

Azula clings to him with what can oy be the last very last ounces of her strength.

"It's okay, Sokka." She tries to smile though her face is too stiff with the cold. "I told you on the first day that I came back that I had more waiting for me in the Spirit World…"

"Don't say that." He squeezes her tighter.

"It's okay." She says again. "I think I that he wanted me to do a bit more exploring but he'll be happy to know that I got this far."

He wonders if she is thinking of Caihong at all. He wonders if that will do her any good anyways. He doesn't want to say it, especially not to her. But she is right, she is dying. He doesn't think that she will last the night even of he does force her back into her parka.

He hugs her as tight as he can. And then he rolls her onto her back. She murmurs some sort of protest, some sort of distress. But there is something that he wants her to see. Something that he needs her to see.

"Look up, Azula. Open your eyes." He gently slaps her cheeks and her eyes flutter open. They are unfocused and mostly vacant. He slaps her cheeks again until he has her at least a little more alert. “Look at the lights, Azula.”

He thinks that she might have smiled. "That's nice, Sokka." But her eyes close again and the moment is good.

She doesn't cry. She doesn't bargain or beg. She simply squints and, to the best of her ability with blackened, numb fingers and clumsy daze, touches his cheek. And then her hand falls and her eyes close once more. No amount of slapping gets them to open again.

In the distance he hears barking. Sprits, he prays that the wolves aren't back. He squeezes her hand if only to feel her slowing pulse.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #Azula #Sokka #Sokkla #Fanfiction

[mihidecet]

Sbi&CO d&d AU: The Dream Team (Character Analysis)

Dream Team? In my Sbi d&d AU? More likely than you think!

As requested by the lovely @floofyboons, here are the character analysis for Dream, Sapnap and George!

[I will write an overall backstory for all three of them because it’s doable and they are also best friends your honor]

First up, Dream. If any of you caught my small preview in Calvin’s chapter, you already know what’s coming ahaha

The thing with Dream was being able to make a character that would manage to stick to all of his abilities. He was a bit hard to pin down.

A barbarian would reflect well how he’s usually dealing a lot of damage with well placed hits - like, choosing an axe that deals more damage in one hit and is slower, opposite to a sword that is faster but deals less damage per hit in minecraft.

But also, a rogue, for how fast and nimble he is, and to reflect his skills in parkour.

Since I don’t see him as a monk, Dream is, to me, a fighter.

Fighters have the bad reputation of being “basic”, but they are also the most versatile class you can choose (that’s why they are usually suggested for first time players, because they’re easy to pick up at basic levels and you get tons of things to choose from at higher ones).

So, fighter. But what type of fighter? As I mentioned, fighters get a lot to choose from.

But the thing is, Dream seems to enjoy using potions and enchantments and eyes of ender a lot. So this, to me, means that Dream is definitely an Eldritch Knight, which are fighters with access to spells, which he casts with Intelligence (this sounds so dumb but like, Bards cast with Charisma and Druids with Wisdom, I swear ahahah) and bonuses to casting attack spells.

Not to mention that at third level he gets access to a bond weapon, so he can’t be disarmed and he can summon his weapon directly in his hand instead of unsheathing. Which is cool.

Dream has always been an half-orc in my heart. I just really like half-orcs, and they get a bonus to strength which is pretty cool. Also green. And tusks. I rest my case.

[Listen this is my dnd au, I want buff frat boy Dream with tusks, and the ability of being just a bit unhinged. It’s what he deserves]

As for his background, I’d say soldier is pretty good overall (we can define being trained by Calvin as doing military time).

Sapnap was a mistery too for a while. I had a talk about him with my sister, because I literally could not think of anything that would fit.

And then! The realization.

A monk of the way of the Sun Soul. A skilled fighter, that not only can punch his enemies into oblivion, but also shoot orbs of fire? YES.

Monks are a bit like rogues, in the sense that they are dexterity based, but instead of dealing massive damage in one hit, they just punch very hard and very fast. They are also extremely quick - their speed increases by 10ft every 5 levels, more or less.

And the Sun Soul subclass, while not necessarily being very strong, adds a distance attack that scales in damage like the punch attack all monks get. And it is fire, which fits with Sap’s penchant for setting fire to things.

I’ll just have to accept this time that a variant human is the best option.

And since I do like the idea of Sapnap just zooming through the battlefield, the Mobile feat gives him 10 additional ft of speed, plus some additional mobility bonuses.

[this means that while a normal character's speed is usually 30ft per round, Sapnap's is 50ft per round. And if he uses a bonus action to dash HE CAN RUN 100ft IN A SINGLE TURN. A d&d turn lasts 6 SECONDS. And this isn't even the fastest he can go, he's at 70ft (140 total) from level 18]

[He deserves to nyooom]

Add maybe the urchin background, and Sapnap is all ready to kick asses.

And finally, George! This man is such a wizard, it’s not even funny. Maybe it’s just me tho, because I see a coding youtuber and go WIZARD.

In any case. George is a wizard coding nerd, but he also has a terrible sleeping schedule. So, you know what this man needs? Some more time.

Since Matt Mercer loves all of us so dearly, he shared with us the wonderful world of Dunamancy spells.

Now, the Chronurgy Magic subclass is spectacular. It feels a bit like the Divination subclass BUT. You can literally rewind time. Freeze enemies in time and prevent them from acting on their turn.

It is brilliant.

And like, George is smart, and enjoys pranking when he’s just with his close friends.

We can give him a nice time shaping spell as a gift.

Now, the only problem is whether his familiar is a cat or a dog.

George is also going to be an half-elf, with Wood Elf heritage because that gives him Mask of the Wild, which means that he can try and hide in most natural phenomena. Basically, if he’s out of his house, he can easily nope out of social situations, which I think he deserves.

He, like Scott, also gets the sage background. For obvious reasons (which will become more obvious in the next paragraphs).

So! In summary:

Dream is born a half-orc and, for all he knows, he is the son of nobody.

When he is but an infant, he is left on the doorstep of a random house during a stormy night - it is a miracle that its inhabitant discovered him before he froze to death.

Dream grows up resilient, under the watchful eyes of Calvin, a veteran that chose to retire in a town stuck in the middle of nowhere in hopes of helping people defend themselves from incursions.

Calvin trains Dream, but he also helps him grow, just like he helped another one grow several years before.

Most importantly, Dream doesn't grow up alone: alongside Calvin, there is a monk, and all around him are the two man's students.

One in particular Dream seems to bond with: a bright human with a heart of gold, always too keen on getting into trouble, and one of Fruitberries' best students.

Him and Sapnap become quickly best friends, and they train together so much they start to work as a single unit.

When they are both of age, Dream starts to display some latent magical abilities; Calvin is quickly able to recognise this thanks to his adventuring years, and he suggests moving a couple towns over, where a friend owes him a favour and he could train him.

But Calvin's home is what Dream has always known, and change is hard, especially if he doesn't know whether or not Sapnap would be able to stay with him.

After some time discussing about it, Dream agrees to "check it out", taking advantage of this to try and compete in the yearly tournament that is held by the very same friend of Calvin he would train under.

Of course, he leaves with Sapnap.

Meanwhile, in the town where the tournament is being held, Scott is celebrating because he finally got his best student to agree to participate, as long as he gets to choose who to team with.

In the end, he’s not even going to choose, because the two jackasses pester him endlessly until he agrees to team up with them.

#dream team au #sbi dnd au #now sbi&co #dreamwastaken #sapnap #georgenotfound #also mentioned is #cxlvxn

[olderthannetfic]

Hey, sorry to ask this, but a few days ago I saw a post/discussion about the history of original work on ao3 (i.e. how and when it was allowed). I thought it was in my likes, but it's not, and I thought you had reblogged it recently, but I didn't find it. I was wondering if you have seen this discussion around? Or where I can find more about it? This specific post talked abt how who defended original work on ao3 were not the BNFs, if that helps.

That was me running my mouth in the reblogs of something or other. It’s just the one comment.

But what’s that you say? Some tl;dr about a pet topic? Don’t mind if I do! ;) (To be honest, most of this debate happened years ago, and a lot of the long meta was by me back then too, so…)

Okay, so, the situation with Original Works is actually super interesting and a microcosm of early years OTW wank.

This is going to be even more tl;dr than my usual. To try to summarize very briefly:

There were two big cultural factions. One thought “original” was the opposite of “fan”. That one was in charge of OTW. It was hard to get voices from the other side into the debate because they already felt excluded from OTW.

This divide broke down more or less into Ye Olde Slash Fandom on the “it’s the opposite” side and anime fandom on the “WTF?” side. Americans on one side and a lot of non-US, non-English language fandom on the other.

I. Media Fandom, Anime Fandom, and Early OTW

I went to that first fundraising party that astolat threw in New York City back in… god… 2007? 2008? I wasn’t on the Board or any official position until the committees got started later, but I was around right from the very beginning.

Whether you’re looking at volunteers or at people who commented on astolat’s original post, there were always a variety of fans from a variety of fannish backgrounds. People aren’t absolutely in one camp or another, and fannish interests change over time. If you go dig through Dreamwidth posts to find who was actually participating in this debate at the time, half of them are probably in the other camp now.

If you think like that sounds like a preamble to me making a bunch of offensively sweeping generalizations and divvying fans up into little groups, you’d be right! Haha.

I.a. Ye Olde Media Fandom

There are a lot of camps of people who like fanfic. One of the biggest divisions has been Ye Olde Media Fandom vs. anime fandom. Astolat’s social circle–my LJ social circle–was filled with people with decades of fannish experience and a deep knowledge of the Media Fandom side of things.

Those fandom history treatises that start with K/S zines in Star Trek fandom in the 70s and move on through the mainstream buddy cops like Starsky & Hutch to the more niche, sff buddy cops like Fraser and Ray or Jim and Blair are talking about Media Fandom. I try to always capitalize it because the name is lulzy and bizarre to me unless it’s a proper noun for a specific historical thing. It was coined as a rude term for “mass media” fandom aka dumb people who like, ughhhh, Star Trek, ughhh, instead of books. This is a very ancient slapfight from the type of fandom you find at Worldcon, often called “SF fandom” or plain “fandom”.

(Yes, this leads to mega confusion on the part of some old dudes when they find Fanlore and fail to understand that “fandom” there refers to what these people would call “Media Fandom”. They think only they get the unmarked form. But I digress…)

Media Fandom is a specific flavor of fandom. It’s where the slash zines were. It’s where the fans of live action US TV shows were. It’s the history that acafans have laid out well and that tends to get used to defend the idea of a female subculture writing transgressive and transformative fanfic. On the video side, Media Fandom is where Kandy Fong invented vidding by making Star Trek slideshows.

(Kandy’s still around, BTW. She’s usually at Escapade in L.A. Ask her to tell you about the dancing penises sketch in person. She’s hilarious.)

Astolat and friends had been going to slash cons for years. They founded Vividcon. And Yuletide. That meant that when astolat said “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” we all jumped to help. This is a lady who gets things done.

From a Worldcon perspective, or even from an older Media Fandom perspective, this group was comparatively young, hip, and welcoming. Their fandom interests were comparatively broad. Just look at Yuletide!

In fact, yes, let us look at Yuletide… [ominous music]

I.b. Yuletide sucks at anime

From the very first year (2003), Yuletide mods have asked for help with anime fandoms, been confused about anime fandoms, or made bad judgment calls about anime fandoms. They’ve fucked up on Superhero comics and plenty of other things over the years, but anime has been the most consistent (well, and JRPGs, but there’s so much overlap in those fic fandoms).

There was already bad feeling about this. There were years of bad feeling about this.

I.c. Where are the historians?

Academic study of fanficcy things pretty much got started with Textual Poachers and Enterprising Women. Other acafans who are well known to LJ and later Tumblr are people like Francesca Coppa who wrote a very nice summary of the history of Media Fandom. These are not the only academics who exist, these academics themselves have written about many other things, and by now, OTW’s own journal has covered a lot of other territory, but to this day I see complaints on Tumblr that “acafans” only care about K/S and oldschool slash fandom.

There were years of bad feeling about this as well.

I.d. What kind of fan was I?

Now, by the time OTW got started, I’d moseyed over to not only a lot of live action US TV but a lot of old-as-fuck US TV that is squarely in the Media Fandom camp. But once upon a time, I was a weeaboo hanging out with my weeaboo friends in college. I learned Japanese (sort of). I moved to Japan. Livin’ the weeaboo dream!

More importantly, I used to be a member of a lot of anime mailing lists back in the Yahoo Groups days. I didn’t realize what a cultural gap that would cause until the original works issue came up on AO3.

I.e. Anime Fandom, German-language Fandom, Original M/M

Once upon a time–namely in that Yahoo Groups era–there was an archive called Boys in Chains. It was where you found The Good Stuff™. Heavy kink and power exchange galore! It was extremely well known in the parts of fandom I was in, even if you weren’t on the associated mailing list. It contained lots of fic, but it also had lots of original work.

Around that same era, I was on a critique list called Crimson Ink, which was mixed fic and original. The “original slash” and “original yaoi” crowds mixed freely and were in fanfic spaces. Remember, this is like 2003. You’re never going to get your gay fantasy novel published in English in the US. A couple of fangirl presses started around then, but they died an ignominious death after their first print run.

Fanfiction.net used to allow original work before it spun that off into FictionPress. We forget this today, but if you were an early FFN person, the separation wasn’t so great either.

Meanwhile, German-language fandom was hanging out on sites like Animexx.de, a big-ass fic archive that prominently mentions also including original work. I have the impression that Spanish-language fandom was similar too.

Shousetsu Bang*Bang was founded in 2005. It was a webzine for original m/m, but it was entirely populated by fanfic fandom types.

In all of those kinds of spaces, there was a lot of “original” work that was kind of slash or BL-ish and seen as fannish if it was posted in the fannish space. These weren’t anime-only spaces. They were multifandom spaces where it was seen as obvious and normal that a couple of huge fandoms like Harry Potter would dominate but that everything else big would naturally be anime.

While fans from every background are everywhere, I found that the concentration of EFL fans living in Continental Europe, South America, and Asia was much higher in this kind of space, even the exclusively English language part of it, than in my US TV fandoms.

II. AO3 Early Adopters

AO3 went into closed beta in 2009. In 2010, it was open to the general public (albeit with the invitation queue it still has). But not everyone was interested yet. Just like fandom is loath to leave the dying, shambling mess of Tumblr, fandom was loath to leave dwindling LJ/DW circles or was happy enough on Fanfiction.net. I used to see a lot of posts like “Why are you guys trying to STEAL fanfic from the original! FFN is enough!”

I literally could not give away the invitations I had. No one wanted them.

So who was on AO3? Obviously enough, it was all of us who built it and our friends. So that means a bunch of oldschool Livejournal slashers coming from fandoms like Due South or Stargate Atlantis.

The queue was open. Anyone could make an account. Everyone was welcome. In theory…

But more and more, there started to be these posts about how “AO3 Hates Anime Fandom” and “FFN is for anime. AO3 is for Western fandoms.” and “If you guys actually wanted anime fandom on there, you’d invite us better and make us more welcome.”

At the time, I found these posts obnoxious. People aren’t purely in one sort of fandom or the other. No one was stopping anime fandom from making accounts. No one was banning anime fandom. If there wasn’t much from old fandoms, that was because old fandoms seldom move.

Things began to change. Trolls on FFN forced the Twilight porn writers out, creating enough fuss and brouhaha to mobilize people who would rather have stayed put. AO3 got big enough that randos found it by accident. Original work started to pop up, posted by people who’d never looked at the rules and had no idea it was not allowed.

III. History of AO3’s Policy

I had argued for allowing “original work” during the initial discussions about the ToS. On one side of this issue was me. On the other, everyone else on the committee.

I was overruled.

Open Door started importing old archives to save them. Boys in Chains was hugely important to fandom history from my point of view. It was slated to be imported… maybe. Except that Boys in Chains is half original. AO3 was happy to grandfather in those stories, but the final archive owner felt, quite rightly, that it would be unfair to tell half of the authors they were welcome in the new space while spitting on the other half.

I was pissed. I had been pissed since being overruled the first time. To me, the fact that it should be allowed was so blatantly obvious that it was hard to even explain why.

(To be honest, this difficulty in explaining why and the even greater difficulty in figuring out the source of that difficulty is what held the discussion back for so long. When every assumption on either side is completely opposite, it’s hard to communicate.)

I felt betrayed. It would be like if you helped build something, and everyone was suddenly like “Well, obviously, we can’t allow m/m. It’s not normal fanfic.”

So we discussed it again and, again, it was me vs. literally everyone else. And still the “AO3 is only for Western slash fandom” bitching rose in volume and more and more people complained of feeling excluded from the new fandom hub. Finally, the committee agreed to open the issue up for public comment and get some more input. I was a fool and neither wrote nor proofread the post. It went out phrasing the question as allowing “non fannish” work or something of that sort.

I was furious. The entire point of the whole debate was that I saw some original work, the original work that belongs on AO3, as inherently fannish. And now this had been presented to the AO3 audience as something completely different. Think pieces were popping up in the journals of everyone I knew about diluting AO3’s mission and how we needed to save AO3 from encroachment. Public opinion was very negative. That’s both because of how the post was phrased and because OTW die hards at the time were mostly from the same fannish background. This tidal wave of negativity meant that there was virtually no chance of changing this poisonous rule. And if the rule didn’t change, the people who wanted the rule change were never going to show up to explain why it mattered.

If you’ve been reading my tumblr, I think you can guess what happened next.

I posted a long post to my Dreamwidth. It was a masterwork of passive aggression. In it, I wrung my hands about how simply tragic it would be if AO3 had to delete all of the original work… like anthropomorfic.

Now, I think anthropomorfic counts as fanfic as much as anything else, but I also knew that it fails most rigorous “based on a canon” type definitions of fic and, more importantly, it’s a favorite Yuletide fandom of many of the people on the side that wanted to ban original work.

That’s a nice fandom of yours. It would be a pity if something happened to it. 

Yup. Passive aggressive blackmail. Go me. Suddenly, there was a lot of awkward backtracking and confused running in circles in various journals. The committee agreed to table the idea for a while but not rule out the idea of allowing original works in the future. We agreed to halt all deletions of original work. If a fan posted it, the Abuse Committee (which I was also head of at the time) would not delete that work even though it was technically against the rules.

Time passed. The people on the negative side got tired. I wanted off that committee and had wanted off for ages, but I was damned if I was going to leave before ramming through this piece of policy. Grudgematch till I die! (Look, I never said I wasn’t a wanker.)

After a while, some other fans came forward with more types of “original work” as evidence that it should be allowed. These were from parts of fandom none of us on the committee knew a damn thing about.

This new evidence combined with the gradual accretion of original stuff on AO3 without the sky falling eventually led us to quietly rule Original Work a valid fandom. There was never even a big announcement post. I slipped a word to the Boys in Chains mod myself.

IV. What Were They So Afraid Of Anyway?

So why were people so resistant? Seems like a dick move, right?

Not exactly.

I mean, I was enraged and waged a one-woman war to change the rules, but the other side wasn’t nuts. The objections were usually the following:

I just don’t get why it would be allowed. It never was in my fannish spaces.

Most of our members don’t want this.

Most of the examples of things that ought to be included are m/m. We are privileging m/m if we allow it, and AO3 already has a m/m-centric reputation that can feel exclusionary to some fans.

AO3 is a young, shaky platform that can barely handle the load and content we already have. If we open to original work, we’ll be opening the floodgates. The volume of posting will be so high, it will drown out the fic we’re actually here to protect.

Protecting stuff that doesn’t need protection because it’s not an IP issue would dilute OTW’s mission.

If we allow it, idiots will try to turn AO3 into advertising space, posting only the first chapter and a link to where you can pay to read the rest.

If we add another category of text before we add fan art, that’s a slap in the face of the fan artists we are already failing.

These arguments all make perfect sense in context.

Obvously, the issue with the first two is that different fannish communities have different norms. I knew that a very large community disagreed with the then current AO3 policy, but since so few of them were around to comment, it seemed like a tiny fringe minority.

The m/m thing is… complex. M/M content with zero IP issues is at risk. It is always at risk in a way that even f/f is not (though f/f is also always at risk). Asking for m/m to be exactly equivalent to f/f or m/f in numbers, tropes, whatever is ignoring the historical realities. In our current moment of queer activism in the West, we treat all types of queerness as part of one community with one set of goals, but once you get to culture and art or even more specific activism, this forced homogenization is neither useful nor healthy.

OTOH, AO3 really did have PR problems related to the perception that we gave m/m fandom the kid glove treatment. That objection wasn’t coming from nowhere.

AO3 was shaky. It was tiny when I first brought up this argument. Hell, it wasn’t even in closed beta the first time we discussed this. Part of what made the quiet rules change possible was AO3 organically getting much bigger and OTW having to buy many more servers for unrelated reasons.

The “floodgates” thing was put to rest by tacitly allowing original work before the rules change. We had a period to study how fans actually behaved, and as I predicted, only a small amount of original work got posted. It was indeed mostly things like original BL-ish stories or original work that had been part of a mixed original/fic fest, exchange, zine, etc. Currently, the “Original Work” fandom on AO3 only has 76,348 works. That’s pretty big compared to individual fandoms but tiny compared to AO3’s current size.

The commercial argument was spurious because commercial spam had been against the rules from the very beginning. OH THE IRONY that nowadays AO3 has all these idiots trying to post the first chapter of their fanfic and then direct you to where you can buy the rest.

AO3 has plenty of fanfic of public domain works. One of the problems with gatekeeping original work is that any way you try to distinguish it (not based on a specific canon, not an IP issue, etc.) will apply to some set of obviously allowable fandoms.

As for fan art… OTW has failed fan artists. They needed protection as much as or even more than fic writers. Just look at Tumblr! If we had succeeded at making DeviantArt but allowing boners, fan art fandom could have been safe all these years. Or when Tumblr inevitably shat the bed, we could have scooped up all those people instead of them scattering to twitter and god knows where.

OTW has failed vidders too, at least in terms of preservation. I know I’m not the only one who thinks this. Other major people from like the first Board and shit have discussed this with me offline. Doing some kind of vidding project, possibly outside of OTW is on a lot of our to-do lists. But at least one of OTW’s biggest victories has been that copyright exemption. OTW has demonstrably done really positive things for vidders that other organizations and sites have not. As a vidder, I never expected to see good hosting for the actual video files, and I’m quite content.

But fan artists… yeah. That argument makes sense at least from a place of frustration.

BTW, for the love of god, if you’re a n00b to OTW stuff, please do not reblog this post excitedly telling me that hosting fan art is on OTW’s road map, so yay, good news. Someone always does that, and it’s so irritating. I haven’t been involved in OTW in years, but I used to be, and I know what is on the roadmap. The couple of you who do heavy lifting on sysadmin and coding and policy things are welcome to weigh in as usual. I know none of us like that we can’t host fan art. It’s not what we intended.

Nonetheless, I found this argument to be the perfect being the enemy of the good. If we can save more text now without losing much of anything, we should do it. The fact that we’re fucking up on the fan art front is not a reason to spread the misery around.

V. Is “Original” the Opposite of “Fanfic”?

Okay, so that tl;dr above is why “BNFs” were on one side and “nobodies” were on the other. BNFs from one cultural background founded OTW. BNFs from the other cultural background weren’t even aware that the debate was going on.

But what was the underlying philosophical problem in even having the conversation?

It took me a long time, but I finally worked it out: We had two completely different ways of categorizing writing, and they were so baked into how we phrased questions that everything ended up being unanswerable to the other side. Here is what I came up with:

Schema 1

Fanfic - based on someone else’s IP

Original Work - the opposite

Schema 2

Non-Fannish Work - School essays, stories you are writing to try to sell to a mainstream publisher

Fannish Work Type 1 - based on other people’s characters directly (i.e. fanfic) Type 2 - based on tropes or whatever (“original slash” and the like)

Now, in the current moment when half of Tumblr just got into Chinese webnovels and the m/m ebook industry is thriving in English, original, tropey, BL-ish work is no longer different from “things I am trying to sell”. But this is how the divide was circa 2005 on fannish websites, and it’s the divide that was driving this internal OTW debate.

VI. Let’s Summarize the Camps One More Time

So, again, the debate makes perfect sense if you understand who was involved.

On the mainstream “But that’s not fanfic? I’m confused?” side:

Big US TV fandoms in English

Fandom historians of K/S–>buddy cop slash–>SGA, etc.

Americans

On the other side:

Anime fandom

“Original slash” fandom that had already been chased off of everywhere

People upset that AO3 wasn’t farther on translating the interface and supporting non-English language fandom.

People upset about US-centrism in fandom

Yes, I am very white, very American, and by now very into old buddy cop shows, but this was basically how the breakdown worked. It meant that something that looked like a minor quibble to one side was really, really not.

#fandom history #fandom meta #original work #cowboyformitski

[aelaer]

The Blood in My Veins: Pt 4

Heyyyy I'm back. Now that one of my big fic projects is done/being rolled out I can concentrate on getting this finished (as well as other prompts). Here are the earlier parts if you can't remember what happened in this long-running prompt fic, since my last update was like, the summer.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Prompt (via @ironstrangeprompts that I can’t tag for whatever reason qq): Kidnapped to play doctor for a still unseen other prisoner; Stephen realizes there is only one person on the planet who would have palladium in their blood.

The Warnings: Okay guys, I want to cover all bases for this part and all parts henceforth. The bad guy I've written here really really sucks. He's a complete asshole. Part of his assholeness can include behaviors such as racism, sexism, homophobic remarks, religious bigotry, and overall just being a terrible human being. This terrible human being is not a typical representative of his nation/culture and is very thankfully fictional. There's plenty of Canon-Typical Violence around, too. All of the above are not be in this specific part but could be in future parts (I'm writing this as I go so I truly don't know, I just know he’s a dickwad). I didn't know this section was gonna happen until I finished Part 2, for instance, otherwise I'd have put a note at the beginning. I'd consider the fic a heavy teen fic, if you're looking for a rating, so it shouldn't get to graphical violence beyond what you'd see in high teen rated content. Also, there's going to be Medical Procedures in the future, though more clinical rather than graphic. Hopefully that covers everything, please ask me anything if you have a question.

I always put these longer writings on tumblr into "read more" cuts, but the mobile app does not always work correctly if you're looking at the original post from my tumblr, so I apologise for the length if you're on the app and viewing the original and said cut is not working. Still unbetaed, all errors are mine.

--------------------------

Part Four: Seeing Red Again

Another three days passed with little change in Stephen’s schedule. He went for his sleep shift at 12:30 a.m. New York time, and was woken up by one of the others between 5:20 to 5:30 a.m. It wasn't enough time for even two full complete sleep cycles, but everyone there—perhaps with exception to Steffen Baar, who was a chemist—had gone through grueling schedules during medical school and residency. So they were, in some ways, used to it.

After waking up, he had fifteen minutes to shower, shave, and change into the clothing about his size, provided for by his captors. From there, he then got to work. His sleep shift ended about three hours before dinner came—about 8:30 a.m. New York time—and a small snack arrived at what he assumed was this place's midnight, but was 2 p.m. according to his watch. Breakfast came twelve hours after dinner, at 8:30 p.m. in New York, and he went to bed again half an hour after midnight. Apparently while he slept, another snack break came for those awake.

The one small blessing in all of this was that the people holding them realized the power of caffeine and provided black tea and coffee every time they brought them food. He didn't think there were any cameras in the showers or toilets, either, which was—hopefully true. There was nothing obvious and, truth be told, he didn't really want to look much further for evidence.

Throughout his waking day, Stephen largely helped prep samples for blood analysis. He tried to strategize with Summer about how to best utilize their resources, should a surgery be required, but they had little to go on. They had yet to receive better X-rays of their patient—of Tony Stark, which still baffled Stephen—so much of their planning was about logistics.

"Doctors in the United States are required to complete a surgical rotation in their third year of med school," Stephen said, "so Jada will know basic surgical procedures. Do you need to do the same in the UK?"

"Yes," Summer answered. "All doctors go through the two-year Foundation Programme which always includes training in general surgery. So Dr Mahajan will be able to assist us as well."

"They can serve as our nurses and techs," Stephen muttered. "But what about Dr Baar?"

Summer pursed her lips together. "No medical training—but I would rather have him on hand than not. If we said we can't use him…"

Stephen grimaced and nodded. "Point. He can certainly hold a retractor." He blew out a breath. "We'll need a heart-lung machine. Those aren't easy to come by."

"None of this machinery is," she pointed out, jutting her chin to the advanced machinery scattered around the room. "I don't think that will be an issue for us. Whoever these people are, they have resources."

He pursed his lips together. "We also need an anesthesiologist."

She paused at that and sighed. "Yes. Yes, we need one of those. Unfortunately, I think we're going to be working with someone on their team if the surgery happens."

Stephen made a face. "What makes you think that?"

"When they first showed me the X-rays, I told them I would need another surgeon for the spinal area—you—and an anesthesiologist. They only spoke about finding me a surgeon, so they must have their own medical team that includes one."

He sighed. "Of course they do. He better be competent."

Summer shrugged. "Not much we can do about it. And there's not much more we can plan on this hypothetical surgery until I have better X-rays."

And so that ended that discussion and, three days later, there were no changes on that end. No new X-rays had come in, so both he and the other surgeon were stuck helping prepare samples and input data. And Stephen hadn't been so bored in years.

One wouldn't think that being captive would be boring, especially if one was doing medical work during that time. But when said medical work was repetitive lab work he hadn't done since med school? And doing it for about fifteen hours a day for three days straight with no music, no reading, no nothing to help bring some distraction or variety to his work? It was absolutely mind-numbing. A small part of him wasn't entirely sure if he could survive like this for—how long did Jada said Stark had to live without a cure or intervention? Two months? He couldn't do this for two months. He was going out of his mind after three days.

It was about halfway through his shift on the fourth day that he regretted ever thinking that he was bored.

He was typing up results from various tests performed by Jada when the door to the room was suddenly slammed open. Startled, Stephen immediately turned towards the sound, only to see five men enter, all of them with guns pointed to the rest of the room. Beside him, Jada immediately threw her hands on top of her head, and he quickly followed suit.

"Come quietly! Do not fight!" said one of the men. Stephen couldn't even begin to guess his accent; maybe it was Eastern European? Russian? Former Soviet bloc in Asia? Somewhere in that rather wide region of the world, which wasn't particularly helpful information considering there were some twenty to thirty countries there.

Summer was the doctor currently asleep, though looking over his shoulder, Stephen saw that she had woken up to the sound and was pushing herself up. But he couldn't look at her or the other doctors long as he was grabbed by one of the men and forced to walk. The gun the man carried quickly negated any ideas of retaliation.

They were led down a hall; he could see Steffen, Meera, and Jada in front of him, all being led in the same rough manner he was going through. The walk itself wasn't very long, perhaps a minute, but to Stephen it felt like every second was dragging. Despite his best efforts, his heart was starting to race at this new development.

The man with Steffen finally stopped in front of a door and unlocked it, then shoved the chemist inside. Within seconds, Stephen was at the door and being pushed forward himself. He took a quick look around, as much as he could without moving much: a large room with concrete walls and no windows, just like where he and the other doctors were being kept. Cot in the corner. Table with a computer and covered in bits of wires and electronics that he couldn't begin to label. Two other men armed with enormous guns—some sort of automatic rifles—and then one man who was crossing his arms and staring at him and his fellow doctors with a look that immediately put Stephen on edge. This man, this man radiated the air of a person in charge.

And then there was him. The famous Tony Stark, or Iron Man as he was calling himself these days. He looked like a former shadow of himself, being several pounds thinner and bearing a sickly pallor that Stephen immediately noticed, even during these circumstances.

A look of surprise was upon Stark's hollow face, but even as Stephen focused more upon him, it was quickly replaced by the cool anger of a man biting his tongue.

All five doctors were maneuvered to face Stark in a line before being forced to their knees. Stephen bit his lip to hold back a grunt of pain from his knees hitting the concrete floor.

"You say you are 'calling my bluff' with your medical team," said the man. He pushed himself off the wall and passed out of Stephen's line of sight. "Here they are." He started at Stephen's right as he went through the doctors. "Steffen Baar, chemist." A step closer. "Jada Ferguson, hematologist." Another step, and he heard Doctor Mahajan inhale sharply. "Meera Mahajan, pathologist."

Another step, and the man was behind him. To Stephen's utter horror, he felt cold metal press against the back of his head. "Stephen Strange, neurosurgeon." The metal then left his head and he heard another step. "Summer Weston, cardiothoracic surgeon." Another step, and he could see the man in the corner of his eye again, this time on his left.

Tony Stark kept his lips pressed in a tight line as their captor went through the line. When he finished, the billionaire swallowed and looked at them all. "Good job keeping me alive this long, docs," he said.

"Not good enough, Stark," the man snapped. "Their solution is only a band aid. They give you but a few more weeks. They are called the best doctors in the world, and they cannot yet make a cure?"

Stephen forcefully held back his retort regarding the man's utter ignorance. It was an outright miracle they found any sort of solution as quickly as they did to delay the spread!

Stark, it seemed, agreed with him, and had no such reservations with holding back. "That's insane, Yusifov. It takes teams of doctors months, if not years to create what you're looking for."

He couldn't see it, but Stephen could almost feel the sneer from their captor, this Yusifov. "In that case, you don't need this many doctors, do you?" A couple steps and he was again behind Stephen, further to the right. "I'm no doctor, but as far as I can tell, these two both look at blood and try to fix the problem. Neither of them fixed it, not fully. So who do you want to keep, Stark? The black American or the Indian Brit? One less woman won't make a difference."

Stephen dared a glance to his right when he heard quick breathing. Doctor Mahajan was visibly shaking and starting to hyperventilate; to her right, Doctor Ferguson was quiet, but her lips trembled and tears pricked her eyes.

Stark stepped forward, and several guns rose at the action. He stopped but held his ground, raising his hands. "Don't do this."

"Why not?" the man retorted. "You refuse to work because you are dying. They have failed you and one will pay the price. Perhaps both; they are both from lesser races."

As Stephen processed the fact that he heard a comment like that in fucking 2010, Doctor Mahajan's breathing accelerated into full on hyperventilation. His medical mind noticed it immediately.

But another was quicker to the draw. "Breathe through your nose, Meera," Summer said lowly. "Try to inhale for one-one thousand, then exhale through pursed lips. You can—"

"Shut up!"

Doctor Weston was smacked on the back of her head hard enough to send her sprawling to the floor.

And Stephen snapped.

Now, if one were to ask Doctor Stephen Strange, he would by no means consider himself heroic or noble. His role as a doctor was one of service, but even within his relatively short time as a neurosurgeon, he had already gained a prestige that recognized his rising star and already people in the medical community were considering him in the top ranks of neurosurgeons. Soon, demand for his expertise would be large enough for him to have the option to turn away those who weren't worth his time, and he felt not a lick of guilt for that. His skills were valuable.

But to hear this brute of a man first throw slurs at two of the most brilliant women—no, the most brilliant doctors—in their fields followed by an outright assault on the other caused a protectiveness Stephen hadn't felt since his sister's death to completely overtake him. He saw red.

He leaped up at Yusifov in a fiery anger, no particular idea in mind except stop him from hurting anyone rushing through his head. At this point there was little thought, only adrenaline and a near primal fury running through his veins. It wasn't like him to be so hot-headed; he was a man who kept his cool under the most stressful of circumstances. But perhaps several days of poor sleep combined with the stress of the situation finally got to him. When he thought about it in the aftermath, even he would admit he had no idea what he was thinking.

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision he would come to regret.

In one moment he managed to knock the pistol out of Yusifov's hands and punched him in the face. He recognized screaming, shouting, fighting in the noises behind him, but he was focused on his own target.

Stephen hit him twice more before someone threw an arm around his neck and dragged him back and began to choke him. He clawed at the arm, which did nothing, but then he aimed his heel down right to the sensitive part of his attacker's instep. The man grunted in pain and the grip around his neck loosened. 

A shot shattered through the enclosed space, causing Stephen to freeze in surprise—and that proved to be his downfall. He saw Yusifov raising his pistol just before he was whipped across the face with the weapon. The hit threw him off balance and he fell to the floor and lay there for a second, stunned. He felt wetness on the side of his head.

As Stephen attempted to push himself up, a kick to his back sent him back to the floor. An involuntary grunt of pain escaped him. He closed his eyes, pausing for breath, but was given little time to recover as he was grabbed by both arms and dragged up to his knees. From his new position, he could see the rest of the room once more, and Stephen's heart skipped a beat at what was before him.

There were several alarming sights: Tony Stark on his knees just like him, nose bloodied. One of the gunmen near Stark with a screwdriver sticking in his neck and very much dead. Summer in the corner of the room, holding a shaking Meera against her chest.

And Doctor Steffen Baar on the ground, bleeding out from his stomach as Jada desperately tried to stem the blood flow with her sweater. The red dripped through the fabric and onto the concrete.

Stephen felt ill. He instinctively reached forward towards Steffen, to try and help, but the grip on his arms tightened and kept him in place.

Stark was the one to speak first. "Let them help him. I won't fight further. I'll do what you ask."

Yusifov came back into Stephen's line of sight as he stepped in front of him, though his gaze was on Stark. He said to the engineer, "You killed one of my men. A life for a life—that is fair, wouldn't you say?"

"He did nothing," Stark hissed, pulling against the hands that held him down. Stephen could see the men pull him back and tighten their grip in response. "And he's needed. You wouldn't have brought him here otherwise."

"He didn't do anything," Yusifov agreed, then turned to Stephen. "This one did." He then sent a sharp kick into Stephen's stomach, causing him to double over in pain as far as the men holding him  allowed. He almost missed the next statement. "And I should kill him for it. But the surgeon will be needed. The chemist, though? He failed to make a cure for your ailment with a month of time, and you don't have much longer to live, Stark. The chemist failed, and at this point, he's a waste of medical resources."

Then Yusifov nodded at one of his men, and he grabbed Jada by the arm and yanked her up to her feet.

"No—please, no, don't do this!" she shouted as she was dragged away from Steffen. Their captors ignored her and Yusifov walked up to the wounded man. He aimed his pistol at Steffen's head.

"Don't do this!" Stark shouted.

A shot rang through the room. A loud sob came from the corner before it was muffled. Stephen's ears rang, half deafened from the sound. His stomach churned; he felt like he was going to vomit. He hung his head and closed his eyes, trying to breathe slow breaths through his nose.

All he could smell was blood. He forcefully suppressed his gag reflex. 

Stephen missed whatever conversation came next, too busy trying to calm his breathing, trying not to throw up, and not having the energy to make out the words beyond the ringing in his ears. But then the world was moving as he was pulled to his feet and shoved out of the room, leaving behind Tony Stark and the body of Doctor Steffen Baar.

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I was stuck on what I wanted to do with this part with a handful of ideas and consulted my beta for ideas. She suggested death which I wasn't even thinking of because I'm very bad at killing off characters. I blame her fully :P

Tag list (just let me know if you want to be added/removed with a comment - still not on AO3!): @sobeautifullyobsessed, @tashacumberbitch, @babywarg, @nishtha3012, @ragingstillness, @walkin-in-the-cosmos (I think the reason I can’t tag you is because you’ve flagged your tumblr for sensitive media, possibly), @lafourmii20, @asexualchemist, @iveneverbeenmorestressedinmylife, @oo0-will-of-the-wisp-0oo, @animefanfreak45, @rulerofthefandomsnow, @killaspyglass, @renlybaratheon-tyrell, @symmetria42, @kay-lock-key-lock

#tony stark #stephen strange #avengers fanfiction #mcu fanfiction #mcu #prompt fill #my writing #my fanfiction

[thatblondeperson]

TimSteph, taking care of chronic injuries!

Hey look, another ask that got buried! Sorry friend!!!! 

This is all preboot, RR/Batgirl era.

Ok so Tim is super extra imo when it comes to treating any kind of sickness, injury, ANYTHING. He’s the type of guy who will go to CVS and buy out the entire “cold + flu” aisle as soon a Steph gets a runny nose. He absolutely drowns her in cough drops and tissues. I can see him being extremely attentive as well. Like bringing blankets and pillows around the clock, happy to carry her from point A to point B, almost insisting to do so on occasion, and just sitting with her for as long as she desires/needs company. He absolutely pays no mind to germs. Steph can cuddle all she wants.

Steph is similar but less extra. She’s got some more classic home remedies that Tim doesn’t have. She absolutely would baby the hell out of him if he got sick though, and probably more often than not she has to put her foot down on him trying to patrol even if he’s completely out of it and burning up. Tim has a hard time relaxing, but eventually the time is used for him to catch up on sleep. Tim getting sick is like a mini-hibernation. I can see Alfred stepping in occasionally if they were both sick because Tim’s an absolute mess, and Steph can only do so much before she gets wiped out. They’re hopeless and completely out of service if they’re both ill at the same time. Error 404: Dorks not found. 

Chronic injuries are a constant process. Steph obviously has a ton just from Black Mask alone. I’m sure she gets aches and pains on the regular due to the severity of the torture she experience. Power drills would leave some lasting abdominal pain for sure. Hell, I wonder if it makes cramps worse for her? It could in all honestly. She may need serious pain meds during that time of the month which are of course always kept on hand. On top of that, the physical trauma definitely left endless mental trauma. No question about it. Not to mention that time she got lightly shot in the head. I say lightly because I forgot this was a thing because they don’t really address it again. I imagine that would cause occasional headaches/migraines, and I’m sure Tim likes to run a scan every now and again to make sure there isn’t any lasting damage. And of course, we return to the medicine cabinet for more pain pills. (Thank you @incoherentbabblings for reminding me of the gunshot.)

I headcanon that both of them get nightmares on almost the regular. They’ve both got it set that if one of them is in the middle of a bad nightmare, the other just holds them close, doing whatever they can to soothe them until the calmness sets back in. The nightmares get more spaced out some time after they move in together because I think the constant safeness of having someone beside them every night would eventually help them both sleep through the night better. It is hard to get back to sleep though. Both of them have been put through the ringer, they’ve both seen death of loved ones up close and personal, and I imagine a lot of what they’ve experienced is still very vivid and intense for them.

Tim’s got his own fair share of recurring pain. The boy doesn’t have a spleen and tbh I don’t know how he’s not getting sick more frequently. But extra precautions need to be taken to keep him from getting infections when he gets any kid of open wound, thank GOD Steph is a nurse. Tim has to be kept pretty healthy though if at all possible, which brings us back to my previous headcanon about him not caring about germs when Steph is sick? Yeah, not his smartest move, but Tim’s an idiot and forgets that he’s fragile. 

Both of them have regular joint issues. They’ve dislocated enough things for just about everything to make awful clicking sounds now and again. Steph doesn’t have as much regular muscle pain, she’s far more flexible than Tim is so she stays pretty loose and limber, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have to work at it every day. Steph does yoga as a part of her routine. She gets Tim to join sometimes but he’s not very good at keeping up with it. He’s flexible too but not to her level, and he locks up easier if he’s had an especially tough night. They both try to put the time in to exercise when they can, spotting each other, keeping a routine going, because given how much they both get beaten and battered on the daily, if they don’t keep up with muscle pain, it’ll just get worse. On bad days when the pain makes any mobility difficult, massages ensue. They’ve got at least 15 ice packs in the freezer at all times, and a stack of heating pads in the medicine cabinet. And if all else fails, a nice hot bubble bath never hurts. With Epsom salts and everything. Steph likes to add a touch of lavender oil.

Immediate injuries they’re both very good at treating. Steph obviously has more technical knowhow, and she is the most medically trained of all the Batfam members, but Tim is detail oriented and good at focusing when he needs to so he can keep up just fine. They’re both good at stitches and general wound treatment, but Steph is better at consistent treatment. Tim will absolutely forget to switch out his bandages or clean things because his brain is soup and he cannot be bothered to think about injuries when he’s too busy with 50 other things on the constant. He needs to slow down. We get right back into “more prone to infections” again. Alas. Idiot. 

They both have their fair share of mental health issues, though Tim’s tend to be more intense. Steph has her ways of managing her own mental state but Tim gets stuck often. He falls into some pretty deep depression spells, and his anxiety acts up fairly frequently. Steph has started teaching him how to meditate, but also has a list of distractions and special remedies that she can utilize if need be. Movies and tea are a good base line, though Tim’s mind gets very far away sometimes and it’s hard to pull him back out. Like he almost wants to wallow in his sadness. Often she just tries to ground him as best she can so he doesn’t get so lost that he can’t come back. Steph likes to make sure that he isn’t always using patrol as a crutch for when he’s feeling upset or tense. It’s hard to sway him away from more pain when he lets himself get so close to the edge. It breaks her heart, sometimes she feels helpless.

Steph has anxiety as well, and some psychosomatic tics from her past abuse. She needs a lot of reassurance and gentleness when her mind starts racing. She’s still prone to trust issues, even now when she’s surrounded herself with stable people. She’s been let down and she fears losing her steady ground sometimes. Tim, let’s face it, hasn’t been the most reliable in the past, but I firmly believe that with some growing up he’d step up to the plate and try to be a solid home base for her to the best of his abilities. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon. He’s very good at being gentle. That’s canon as fuck. I will die on the hill that Tim is as delicate with Steph as one would be with a priceless porcelain heirloom. Fight me, the boy would never intentionally try to physically or mentally hurt her. He tries so hard to reassure her but I thinks he feels a little helpless sometimes too. Some of her trust issues are his fault, and he can’t just snap his fingers and reverse his mistakes. He tries his best, but there will always be scars. 

All in all, I think they’re both very tender and caring with one another. They’re both beyond broken sometimes, and they are a mess and a half. But they know each other, they know each others pain and sadness and I think once they got back together they’d settle very easily into a care routine. Both of them are carrying the weight of countless consequences and mistakes and hardship on their shoulders. Pain is just a side affect that comes with carrying so much baggage, but it’s a little easier to manage when they have each other for support. I do think some of it would get easier over time, and my wish for them is that they can move somewhere just outside the city, maybe by a lake. Far enough away that things are quiet, but not so far that they would completely leave the hero gig behind. I agree with the consensus that neither of them could fully quit. Tim would just sink into the background, but Steph would be out there in the field for many years. Justas long as they have somewhere safe and comfortable to return to, I think they’ll both be just fine. Plus smooches are the best fallback medicine for all ailments and we all know that they never run out of those. 😘💋

THANK YOU FOR THIS ASK! More than half of this was not anything to do with chronic injuries but fuck it. We’ve tapped into the hurt/comfort section of my brain and there is a lot of material there to work with. Idk when you sent this in but I hope it wasn’t too long ago. I hope this answered more questions than you ever intended to ask. 💜❤

#TimSteph #tim drake #stephanie brown #robin iii #spoiler #robin iv #red robin #batgirl #batfam #batfamily #dc comics #dc #batman #personal #ask tbp

[redthreadoffate]

gee, thanks, karen [peter parker]

a repost, originally posted in my former writing blog

relationship: peter parker x stark!reader

warnings: swearing, none; mistakes here or there

request (anon): hello!! how about hoco stark!reader x peter where he goes to her lab and asks for her help to fix the suit bc karen isn’t working well lately and while they low key flirt and fix the suit, she puts on the mask to check everything and karen starts telling her how much peter likes her, and she dies inside bc she likes him too and they kiss? maybe ending with irondad or bucky interrupting and they are like :o

notes:   i was going to use the other character in the end but i realized continuity wouldn’t make sense but then i was like fuck that, but I finished it already anyways…second out of the two peter parker x reader fics, it’ll be awhile before i agree to make them again

summary: karen’s broken and peter asks y/n stark for help

You were quietly working in your lab, humming every now and then to a tune that would pop into your head every so and so.

You thanked your father for giving you your own lab in the Avengers compound. There were cameras everywhere on your floor and you knew that he would be watching your every move when he could. Sometimes, you would wave at one camera when you knew he was in the control room. It would never fail to make you giggle, and Tony would always comment that you are such a silly little girl for laughing at your own antics.

Sometimes, some of the team members would come over and ask for your help if Tony was busy. Or they were too lazy to think of solutions on their own. But hey, who’s complaining about helping them?

They would need help with their gadgets, sometimes for work or fighting, most of the time for their everyday use, like their cellphones and laptops, tablets and watches. You don’t mind. In fact, you enjoy it. It makes you feel useful in this compound filled with superheroes.

Your favorite to help out was Peter Parker. He was also a genius with technology, but sometimes he needed a hand with his suit and weapons. You loved helping him out with his webshooters since there were so many possibilities for it. You were even the one who helped your father create his current suit with the Karen interface.

And although Peter turned down the calling of being an Avenger, he would still come over from time to time, and you noticed it’s mostly just to talk to you.

That thought made you smile. You stuck out your tongue and giggled a little in giddiness.

You continued to type in some data in the paper you were writing on. As much as you loved the technology of your father, you still loved the old fashioned pen and paper. It was easier to overlay if needed. You wanted to see all the possible choices before you typed it in the database.

But you thought of Peter again and that tickled your body. “Oh, come on. He isn’t over Liz Allan yet, you silly. He’s still hungover, he can’t be into me that quick. Can he?” But you shake your head.

You’re pretty good at telling if someone liked someone, except of course, when it came to you. But you pretend you do anyway. You have yet to be proven wrong. You smile and nod your head slowly, twirling the pen in your hand with your fingers. “Looks like you’ve got your groove on, y/n Stark.”

“What was that?”

You turned around, surprised to see your father standing behind you. A device in hand and a hologram sticking out. “Hi, Dad.”

“You’ve got your what on, y/n?”

You giggled nervously. “Nothing. It’s nothing, Dad. I was just talking to myself.”

“No, I wanna hear what you said. You’ve got your what on, y/n Stark?”

You sighed in defeat. “My groove,” you said softly.

“I can’t hear you.”

“My groove,” you repeated louder.

“Your groove, huh?” Tony nodded his head. “Well, you know what you should have, y/n? Your homework.”

“Dad,” you whined. “I’ll do that later. I’m in the middle of a discovery here.”

“Oh really? What is it? The end of homework.”

You raised your pen in the air. “That will be my project!”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Okay, whatever. Just hurry so you can finish your homework. It’s a school day tomorrow, y/n. Remember that.”

You smiled sweetly. “Yes, Daddy.”

Tony left the room, leaving you alone.

You turned back to your paper and grit your teeth. So you lied about making a discovery. You were simply testing out some different designs for a suit you wanted to wear. It was very similar to the technology of your father’s but it had no name yet, you didn’t know what to call it, not even a working name.

You sit on the stool and tap the pen on the paper. “If I do this…then this happens, which, of course, I can’t let that happen. So I have to do this…but I have yet to figure out how this one works for it to be able to do that.” You sighed in frustration. “Okay, but if this does happen, which leads to this, then perhaps, just perhaps, it will reach my goal.”

You spin the chair around a few times until you get dizzy. “But we can’t say anything precise with just ‘perhaps’ can we? Oh, y/n, you gotta try a bit harder if you wanna reach the Tony Stark level.”

Finally, after about an hour, you decided that you’ve had enough. You shut down your lab and head to your room to do some homework. “See you tomorrow,” you said with a yawn. “To new discoveries!” You raise your balled fist in the air.

You’re in the middle of a math problem when someone knocks on your door. You groan, you like math and you were getting the answer to this certain number.

“Come in!” you called out, not bothering to look at the door. It was probably just your dad and you wanted him to see you concentrating.

“Hey, y/n.”

You looked up at the young voice. It was Peter Parker and he was holding his Spider-man mask in his hand. “Oh, Peter. I wasn’t expecting you.”

“When am I ever expected?” he snickered.

You smiled and laughed a little. “True.”

“Am I disturbing you?” he asked. He gestured toward your table and smiled. “You look like you’re doing some homework.”

“It’s no problem,” you said with a shrug. “It’s just math.”

“Which you absolutely love,” he responded with a cheery tone. He knew that was something you two had in common. “You hate it when you’re being interrupted when you do your math problems.”

You squint one eye. “That is true, too.” You looked at him for awhile before he raised his eyebrows. “Will you just let me finish this one math problem. I’m almost done, I swear. I just need a few digits to write. Sit.”

He laughed and nodded as he sat on the other chair. “There’s no need to explain, y/n. I’m the intruder and I interrupted you during your favorite subject. Go on, go on. Take as much time as you need.”

You smiled and half-jokingly said, “You say that and I’ll finish the whole homework.” Then you continued answering the number. After you’ve secretly finished answering one more number, you turned back to him and grinned. “Done! Now what did you want to talk about?”

“There’s something wrong with Karen,” he replied, holding up his mask.

“Oh no!” You exclaim, standing up and grabbing his mask. “Not Karen! What did you do, Peter Parker?”

He laughed nervously. “I may have fallen flat on my face.”

You looked at him immediately. Now that he mentioned it, his nose was a bit broken and he had a cut on his lip and some scratches along his face. “Are you okay?” you ask, although you know that it’s too late to ask that now. “Have you gone to the clinic?”

“I can’t go to my school’s infirmary or the hospital and mobile clinics,” he chuckled, “without being asked what had happened.”

“Why don’t you go to the one downstairs?”

He shrugged. “Can we fix Karen first?”

You sighed. “Okay, sure. Come on.”

The two of you left your room and walked over to your lab.

You tinker with the technology your father put in but you also recognize some of the pieces you’ve planted in the interface.

Peter did everything he could to help, in fact, there were moments wherein his mind thought of the better solutions. You weren’t undermining his brains, no, of course not, but you were also thinking of your own pride, you did put some of the tidbits that was the reason as to why Karen had come to life.

“You’re really good at this,” Peter said.

“Only because I want to impress you,” you replied. “You’re not so bad yourself, Mr. Parker.”

“Only because a pretty girl is with me.”

You look at him with a smirk playing in your lips. “So how’s Liz Allan holding up?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think she hates me.”

“I would hate you, too. You know, if you told me you needed a rain check for our homecoming date when we’re in the homecoming dance.”

“Aw come on, I’d never do that to you, y/n. I like you.”

You laughed. “And I like you, too.” You shake your head. “Go to the clinic, Mr. Parker. We’re almost done with Karen.”

He sighed and patted his mask. “See you, girl.”

You snickered.

After a few minutes, you think Karen is doing okay. So you do the thing everyone would do to test it out, you wear the mask.

“Hello, y/n.”

“Oh, hello, Karen. I didn’t know you still remembered me.”

“I will always remember you, y/n. Peter thinks very highly of you.”

“He does?” you gasped.

“Yes. He would constantly talk about you, asking me if you’re okay. I would watch him talking to himself in the mirror, practicing how to ask you out. He likes you very much, y/n. And based on your facial reaction and heatwave, I can tell you like him, too.”

“Y/n!”

You unmasked yourself and see Peter with a red face. “I can explain,” you both said at the same time. “I like you!” Again, in unison.

Peter rushed towards you to give you a kiss. “I know Karen said I’ve been practicing,” he said against your lips, “please don’t watch those. Those are really embarrassing.”

“Your nose is still broken,” is all you can say, murmuring.

“I’ll go later,” he said.

You giggle. “There are cameras, we’ll get cau–”

“What is going on here?” Tony’s voice boomed.

“Oops,” you both say, a goofy smile on your faces.

#peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n #peter parker imagine #peter parker imagines #peter parker fanfiction #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland imagine #tom holland imagines #misc: cherish writes

[himbowelsh]

GETTING TOGETHER SERIES  :   MODERN SLEDGEFU

these two are a fireworks show of half-understandings and missed opportunities.  like, their dysfunctionalism is impressive.  the amount of times either of them could have done something and didn’t  ---  even when they both really wanted to  ---  should win them both medals.

in any universe, it’s going to be miscommunication station, ft. snafu pulling away when he feels like he might lose sledge...  until they hopefully get their shit together.

so here’s how it all goes down...

eugene sledge has wanted to embark on an international study program for years  ---  ever since his friend sid did it in high school, and called it one of the best experiences of his life.   frankly, sledge wants experiences.  he wants to know a life outside mobile, alabama  ---  one where he’s not attending a state university, still living at home and being doted on by his parents.   he’s twenty years old  ---  a full-fledged adult!  ---  and it’s about time he did some living.

so he applies for his university’s transfer program, and the next semester finds himself in tokyo.

it’s actually an amazing set-up.  sure, he doesn’t speak any japanese, but spent the summer studying language books, and he’s got his trusty pocket dictionary.   all the guys he meets on the way over seem like decent types.   leyden’s got a wild streak  (eugene secretly hopes they won’t end up being roommates)  and jay seems a bit homesick already, but they’re friendly.  by the time they arrive in the city, sledge feels comfortable.

this...  fades a bit, when he gets to the dorm and sees who he’ll actually be rooming with for the next six months.

snafu shelton is weird.  there’s no other way around it.   he slinks around the room like a lizard, he never listens to music with headphones in, he’s constantly watching conspiracy theory shows like ancient aliens on his laptop  ---   apparently just to shittalk them to sledge, who could care less  ---  and he leaves his underwear laying around the room.  just.  laying there.

he’s awful.  sledge can’t stand him.  he might be in love with him.

since snafu never complains about any of his weird habits, eugene’s not sure if he’s allowed to do the same.  so, he grins and bears it.  over time, things stop bothering him so much.  he quickly adapts to the ever-changing currents of his roommate, and learns to tread water.

snafu stares at him while he changes, but that’s just snafu.  sledge isn’t above throwing his dirty clothes in his face, just so snafu tumbles over with a squawk and he can get a little privacy.

they go out drinking together, they explore the city together, they save leyden when he chokes on yakitori together...  granted, the exchange students all form a close-knit group  (under the watchful eyes of their TAs, ack-ack and hillbilly), but sledge and snafu are especially close.

at one point, ack-ack even comments how the two are practically each others’ shadows.   “i might’ve known i’d find you together.  where one goes, seems like the other follows.”  sledge and snafu exchange surprised looks; it’s the first time they noticed.

about 3 months into the semester, sledge has a revelation.  sid always said studying abroad would help you discover things about yourself, but somehow eugene doubts, “i’ve been a passionate homosexual this whole time” is what he had in mind.

he panics. he ends up going to burgie’s room at 3am, almost tearing his hair out; burgie listens to sledge ramble for three minutes before redirecting him straight to their TAs.

ack-ack and hillbilly are...  wonderful, honestly.  they’re patient with sledge, talk him through his anxiety, and help him make sense of this burgeoning identity crisis.  they also basically clue him into how being gay works, and take him to his first gay bar, which...  helps a lot too.  over the next few weeks, sledge spends a lot of time hanging out with the older students.

he can’t figure out why snafu’s so mad about it.

it gets to the point where his roommate won’t even speak to him.  he slinks around sledge like a shadow, goes out with their friends without him, and avoids him as often as possible.  (sledge is so concerned that he even goes to their friends for advice.  jay bursts into a giggle-fit, leyden walks away, and burgie just holds up his hands, because he’s dealing with too much already.)

every time sledge tried to corner snafu, he wiggles away  ---   he’s almost superhumanly slippery.   it gets to the point where sledge tries to just tackle him, but holding onto snafu is like pinning down a live eel.  he escapes again, and sledge is left clueless.

they finally reach a breaking point during a massive thunderstorm one night.  sledge wakes up to water dripping on his face, completely soaking his bed; the ceiling has sprung a leak during the night.  cursing, he slips out of bed, peeling off his soaked pajamas as he goes.  it’s 3am, and he’s too groggy and exhausted to deal with it.  instead, he just slips into snafu’s bed.  if he doesn’t like it, he can find somewhere else to sleep  ---  sledge needs his rest.

sledge falls asleep on the far side of the bed, intending to give snafu as much space as possible.

when he wakes up, they’re both curled against each other; snafu has an arm tucked around his shoulders, and sledge has curled into him like he’s the only warm thing in an arctic wasteland.  snafu’s eyes are wide open, and he’s just...  watching him.  as sledge slowly flutters back to awareness, he becomes conscious of how warm his face is.

“sorry, i didn’t  ---  i didn’t mean to  ---”

“yeah,” says snafu. “i know.”

there’s something in the way he says it that sledge doesn’t like.  actually, it pierces him like a knife, and he goes tense in snafu’s arms like he’s just punched him.  this close, there’s finally nowhere to hide.   in a low voice, sledge demands to know exactly what the hell snafu’s problem is.

finally, he tells him.  it’s obvious sledge is pulling away.  snafu gets it, he doesn’t need him, if he wants to spend all his time third-wheeling with his own friends it’s fine, he doesn’t care ---

sledge cuts him off with a hand on his face, and chapped lips pressed to his own.

“a journey of self discovery”, sid said.  yeah.  no kidding.   as if the gay thing wasn’t revelation enough, realizing he’s in love with his best friend hits like a punch to the chest...  but once he knows, there’s no going back.

a part of him’s afraid that snafu will want to, that running away is a survival instinct he can’t control...  but those fears all melt away when he realizes snafu is kissing him back.

(and all their friends breathe a sigh of relief, because finally  --- the next logical step was going to be locking them in a closet until they worked things out.)

so he wins some friends, some mentors, some experience, a bit of self-awareness...  and a boyfriend.  studying abroad was a big decision, but sledge can’t think of any regrets.

#sledgefu #snafu shelton #eugene sledge #the pacific #moodboard #headcanons

[dreaming-of-assclass]

AssClass OC

*SOBS* SHE’S FINALLY DONE!! 😭

Trying to replicate the Lerche style was...painful and took forever lmao

I’m just gonna info-dump a lot about her under the cut! Honestly less than half of this is relevant, but I figured I’d include as much as I can so you can get to know her.

I’m not making a fanfic for her or anything: but she will pop up a lot in mini drabbles, art pieces, etc.

Kamiya Mai (神谷舞) - Possessing charisma and a knack for navigating around any type of terrain; Class E’s Investigator

“Bravery doesn’t come from nowhere. You have to be scared first to have courage.”

Description

One of the class moodmakers, Mai is fun, witty, and cares deeply for her peers. She puts her all into everything she does and isn’t afraid to stand up for others.

She has an extremely strong photogenic memory and a natural knack for exploring new places, gathering information and memorizing routes with ease.

She’s a skilled athlete as well, very quick, agile and able to use it to her advantage in assassinations.

Codename: Honeybee (ミツバチ/Mitsubachi), Sugino’s Idea

He’s been struck with disbelief after having breakfast at her house once and finding out she puts honey on her pancakes instead of syrup. Also the name is fitting overall, as her short temper and cute looks remind him of a honeybee.

Birthday: April 2nd

Height: 155 cm

Weight: 51 kg

Bust Size: C

Blood Type: B

Favorite Subjects: Art, Biology, History

Worst Subjects: Classical and Modern Japanese, Math

Interests and Special Skills: Skateboarding and exploring new places

Former Club: Calligraphy Club

Treasured Items: Her hat collection and art journal

Favorite Food: Iced Coffee

Bento or Snacks: Snacks

___________________________

Stats

Physical Ability: 4

Mobility: 4.5

Close-Range Assassination: 4

Long-Range Assassination: 2

Academic Prowess: 3.5

Characteristic Skill (Spy-in-Training): 4

___________

Karasuma’s Assassination Aptitude

Strategy/Planning: 2

Commanding/Leadership: 3

Execution (ability to carry out plans): 4

Technique (traps, weapons, preparations, etc): 1

Scouting/Intelligence Gathering: 6

Politics/Negotiations: 5

____________

Bitch-sensei’s Fashion Check

Mai has a very tomboyish, soft grunge style. She seems to be equally fond of pants and skirts, although prefers the former for the sake of mobility. Overall her style is street-savvy, and she’s most fond of pink, white, black, red, and gray tones.

School Uniform

With summer being the exception, Mai wears thigh-high black stockings with her uniform. She wears the uniform with little change besides that. Mai changes her hair up very often, but some common styles are space buns, pigtails, or half-up. She’s quite fond of hair clips and wear them everyday.

Street Clothes

Mai wears hats very often, and it drives me crazy. Why cover up that cute face of hers all the time?? She’s very fond of Doc Martens, and usually pairs those with leggings. On her girlier side, skater skirts are a good look for her. And paired with whatever, she seems to really like hoodies.

______________

Relationships

(All of these have so much depth, I’m gonna have to make a separate post o_o)

- Sugino Tomohito (addressed as Tomohito)

He was the first friend she made once she joined Kunugigaoka. They’re best friends and stick to each other often. She greatly supported him during the baseball game against the main campus, to the point that she joined it herself to keep an eye on him.

- Okano Hinata (addressed as Hinata or Lesser Hina)

They hit it off instantly, but upon learning they shared the same birthday, Mai joyfully declared them sisters. They’re very close and bond over a lot, especially sports and thrill-seeking. They can clash at times with their similar temperaments.

- Kanzaki Yukiko (addressed as Yukiko)

Their relationship had a very rocky start. Neither of them liked each other and had very differing natures. It wasn’t until the Kyoto Trip that they began to understand each other. After that, their friendship steadily grew and they became very close. They balance each other as opposites.

- Asano Gakushuu (addressed as Asano or President-kun)

After the first semester mid-term exams, Mai’s family decided to request tutoring for her, so her grades could stay fine/rise. Who else was assigned to her but Asano Gakushuu? It’s a challenge keeping 3-E a secret, but Mai enjoys teasing him and having conversations about anything. And Gakushuu won’t admit it but he does enjoy her company. They grow to have a friendship over the course of the year.

- Kurahashi Hinano (addressed as Hinano or Superior Hina)

They started out as casual friends for a while, but still got along super well. Then summer break began and they found each other to be great bug-catching partners. They have a lot in common, being excitable and chatty. Their conversations never end. Mai is glad there’s a biology nerd besides herself.

- Akabane Karma (addressed as Karma or Satan)

They’re very good friends, and surprisingly clicked fast! They have a lot of similar interests and occasionally, Mai will volunteer to help him in pranks. Karma loves to ruffle/mess up her hair, half out of fondness and half genuine enjoyment at her ire. He calls her “May-chan” in an exaggerated American accent to make fun of her. They can disagree at times but when push comes to shove, they’re there for each other.

-Kayano Kaede (addressed as Kaede, later Akari)

They’re definitely close friends and it’s just so obvious to everyone how much Mai adores her. She’s constantly hugging her, getting her pudding, etc. But more than that, Kayano was someone she could confide in and felt comfortable around. The reveal hits Mai hard, and she needs a while away from her. Once her anger fades, she feels more empathy towards Kayano than anything else. Their friendship repairs and grows stronger afterwards.

__________________

Members of the Kamiya family:

Mother: Professional Choreographer

Mai gets along with her mom and they’re quite close, being each other’s only immediate family. But they don’t have much in common and her mother’s demanding job doesn’t allow them to spend much time together. Mai has grown relying on outside friends more for company.

________________

A hidden side of Mai Kamiya

She loves biology...but anatomy and anything human body-related makes her very squeamish. She especially can’t handle the sight of blood or needles before feeling dizzy.

_______________

Extra notes:

^^ Actually that ties into a lot about her. She has really awful test anxiety, which is how she dropped down to 3-E. She either did poorly in the exams for her worst subjects...or in the final exam of 2nd year, she skipped school to avoid the test all together. That’s how scared she was.

She gets very nauseous and feels sick under a lot of academic pressure, especially in exams.

She’ll never admit this though. No, in every other aspect of her life, she tries her hardest to keep a brave face, look independent and strong and everything she doesn’t feel she truly is.

Before I forget to mention this, she transferred to Kunugigaoka in her second year! She met Sugino since they were in the same class, and he was the first friend she made. 

She has a lot of pride in things she is good at (sports, art) and it can push to the point of arrogance sometimes.

Will take any chance to prove herself, even if it’s reckless or stupid or ruin things. For someone who’s a moodmaker and loves people, she’s not the best team player but that improves over time.

Generally is easygoing and goes with the flow of the mood...but she can have a short temper, and go from 0-100 fast. Only if someone is insulting her or her loved ones though.

She’s pretty confrontational, but don’t be fooled: she’s more bark than bite. She’s a sweetheart deep down, and all her classmates know it.

She’s bubbly, cute, and a total chatterbox once she gets comfortable around people, and can drop her “cool rebel” facade

Very creative and resourceful UwU. Super quick-witted too.

But she also can be incredibly ambitious and has big aspirations for the future. She’s fairly realistic though.

Her biggest flaws are that she can be self-centered, very stubborn, rash, short-tempered, overdramatic, and slightly arrogant. She has little confidence in herself.

Her name “Mai” means “dance” and it was given by her mother, a professional dancer. She wanted to name her daughter after her greatest passion. Even though Mai grows to have absolutely no interest in dance lmfao. She complains about this but stops when she learns of poor Kimura’s plight.

She grew up speaking a lot of English within her family since her mother used to live in America so her language skills are great...but she is far from perfect at literature. She mostly just lacks the patience to analyze it and finds it boring.

And...that’s it UwU. Also just gonna drop this transparent version because I worked really hard on drawing her and I’m proud 💜

#assclass #assassination classroom #ansatsu kyoushitsu #assassination classroom oc #assclass oc #post #personal art #mai kamiya