#nothing ever happened past episode 2 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

meiieiri · 2 months

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𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫 [toji fushiguro]

synopsis: so she tells him not to cry over the injustice of a life cut too short for at the end of all this, she’ll only be a dream.

pairing: ex-husband!toji fushiguro x terminally ill wife!reader | song inspo: soon you’ll get better, cancer

warnings: heavy angst, terminal illness (primary bone cancer, stroke and MS), mentions of divorce/past infidelity, allegories to cheating, major character death. please read at your own risk. | a/n: this was so heavy for me to write, i started writing at 2 in the morning, and it’s 6:34 now.

word count. 3k~

“Why can’t you do anything right?”

Toji should have noticed, he laments as he takes a sip of his cognac. He should have sensed that something was wrong sooner, maybe that way, he wouldn’t be begging to borrow some more time to make things right. Your fingers were trembling that day — the first time you ever ruined his morning coffee — your hands shaking uncontrollably as you washed the mug with a sorrowful look on your face, your eyes glossy with the tears you were desperately trying to hold back.

He shouldn’t have been so harsh, he realizes that now. Breakfast had been burnt to a crisp and ruined, sure, but nothing could compare to how he constantly ruins the one beautiful thing that has ever happened to him, who haphazardly spilled her smoothie on him when they first bumped into each other in Shinjuku just after he finally cashed in enough money with Shiu to get his laundry done.

Toji, whose senses have now been honed to pick up on the slightest of your sluggish movements and your pained and suppressed hisses, hears the bedsheets rustling and he instantly gets up before you could even force yourself out of bed. “Hey, hey, easy now.” He catches you before you could fall backwards onto the mattress, your skin appears cold and clammy, your thinning muscles stiff as a board — you must be having one of your episodes again. “What do you need?” he asks, his voice heartbreakingly gentle for the first time in months.

“Water.”

Your husband nods, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed, hurriedly making his way to the dining table which was now kept in your bedroom so you aren’t forced to move around too much. The sound of water splashing into the glass fills the air and you feel another stabbing pain coarse through your joints.

Toji gingerly brings the glass of water to your lips and you sighed, an exasperated yet amused smile on your face. “I can do it, babe. Don’t worry.” Why did that sound like you were trying to convince not just Toji but yourself? You bring your bony hands to grip the glass and it takes everything out of your husband not to break into a fit of sobs when he sees your hand violently shaking with effort just to keep the glass steady.

His larger hands close around your defeated one. “I-I…I can do it, I did it yesterday. Y-you saw me.”

“Shhh, I know, it’s okay.”

You bite your lip to distract yourself from the anguish of realizing the truth behind the doctor’s words. Everything you feared was finally becoming your and Toji’s bleak reality.

“It’ll be a painful decline.”

Funny how you’re the one fighting to extend your life but Toji feels like he’s already gone ahead and passed on. Just a few minutes earlier, you were overjoyed to see him again. You didn’t think he’d see your text thinking that his new girlfriend must have asked him to block your number, and you most certainly didn’t expect him to arrive when you asked for him via a brief phone call to drive you to the hospital for your monthly checkup since he took the car with him when you separated. He made up a bullshit excuse when Yuko asked where he was going in such a hurry and he makes it to your old shared apartment to see you sitting on the driveway looking thinner and sicklier than ever — your eyes were sunken, and your cheeks were hollow.

Yet in spite of that, you gave him the brightest of smiles, waving shyly to him as he steps out of the driver’s seat. “Happy morning!” you smiled, greeting him with your signature good morning tagline which he used to happily wake up to everyday. There wasn’t a scintilla of resentfulness in your demeanor, and you genuinely looked so happy to see him for the first time since he moved out.

“How long?” Toji asked the doctor, his heart twisted into knots when he hears you happily humming in the MRI room as you put your clothes back on, oblivious to the solemn mood in the other room. You already knew what was going on, but you’ll just continue pretending that everything’s alright and that this is nothing more but a case of fatigue so as not to inconvenience Toji.

“A year, maybe even less.”

“And…you’re saying it’s best if she simply…doesn’t get the treatment?”

The doctor sighs heavily. She’s seen many cases like this before, but none as utterly hopeless as yours. Even if you did start the treatment, the lesions in your spinal cord have already entered the most severe stage, you were already exhibiting signs of autonomic nervous system distress — the tremors, the uncontrollable stuttering of your words, the growing loss of balance — and as if that wasn’t enough, the doctor also discovers that you were suffering from primary osteosarcoma.

There was no way to cure you now that it’s too late.

“I suggest we just focus on keeping her comfortable. The only thing left for us to do now is to bring her home. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re so fucking embarrassing. I can’t bring you anywhere.”

By some miracle, you and Toji went out one night around four months before the divorce proceedings. He went home that day, exhausted beyond all belief from another mission, but he was in a good mood. Yuko was out working late tonight, so, he decides to take you out to your and his favorite izakaya for some yakitori.

Some time during the night, after downing three full bottles of sake together, you excuse yourself to use the restroom. “I’ll be right back,” you told Toji, tipsily kissing him on the cheek as you hop off the bar stool in the direction of the women’s room.

You couldn’t tell if you were staggering from the copious amounts of alcohol you ingested, but your legs were beginning to feel heavy, and for some ominous reason, you were slowly losing all sensation in your left leg. You try to hold onto one of the izakaya’s shōji panel decor pieces to regain your balance, but it was a futile effort in the end. Your knees suddenly buckle, and a sickening crack tears through your tibia as you fall to the ground.

“Are you alright?!”

Toji picks up on the commotion instantly and he sees the izakaya patrons crowding around the hallway leading to the restroom. He quickly makes his way over and a look of disgust appears on his features when he sees you crumpled on the ground and the mortifying sight of you having relieved yourself on the floor, tears of embarrassment staining your cheeks at the thought of your body suddenly malfunctioning like this.

Muttering out an ignorant apology for his seemingly drunk wife, he roughly picks you up, growing increasingly infuriated with you when one izakaya employee offers him a damp cloth to dry out your urine with. It was funny how quickly other people came to your aid — people whose names you don’t even know — while your own husband seems very reluctant to even touch you right now. He doesn’t speak to you on the way home even as you apologize while he’s loading you into the car, grimacing when the leather seat gets wet. “Toji, I-I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened—“

“—Save it.”

What he should have said was: “Are you okay?”, “It’s alright.” or better yet, “I still love you.”.

At present, Toji decides on a whim to take you to Yokohama’s famed bayside today. It’s only a two hour drive from your place in Tokyo and Toji figures you must miss going on road trips by now with you cooped up at home all the time. “Toji, are you sure this is a good idea?” you murmured nervously as the car pulls to a stop by the bayside promenade. What happens if you can’t control yourself again? There doesn’t look to be a lot of public restrooms nearby.

Toji plants a reassuring kiss to your nose. “Babe, you remember what the doctor said, spending some time outdoors can do wonders for your health. Besides, didn’t you always love the coast?” He brings your hand to his scarred lips, rubbing his thumb against the soft skin before stepping out of the car to retrieve your wheelchair from the trunk.

“I know but what if I have another accident?” you said worriedly, rolling down the car windows so he could hear you. “What if I embarrass you again?”

“There’s nothing embarrassing about you.”

You’ve lost all control of your lower extremities three months ago, rendering you unable to walk and feel when you need to relieve yourself. Toji struggles with the wheelchair for a bit and a flash of sadness fills your heart when you see him take a few deep breaths to calm himself down. He wasn’t angry, he was devastated. He looks wistfully at the boardwalk, a distant gaze trained on the sea. He remembers when you used to walk down this very lane, his hand protectively around your waist as you happily take selfies. He could still hear your fond giggles the last time the two of you went here.

“Why don’t you ever smile when I take pictures of you?”

Toji shoos away a pigeon from stealing a bite of his ice cream sandwich. He feigns an unamused look when you try to take another picture of him on your phone.

“Come on, I’ve been trying to get a shot of you all day! You still have to take pictures of me so I can post it on my Instagram feed!”

Your ever moody husband pinches off a small piece of bread and feeds it to the nosy pigeon. “You and your precious feed,” he bemoans jokingly.

“Please? Just one picture!“ you playfully nudged him. Truthfully, you just wanted to see him smile for once, a genuine one and not one of those lopsided smirks he usually gives you when he’s teasing you. “Please?” you pout knowing he can never say no to that adorable face you make when you really want him to do something or worse, buy something for you.

Sighing, he turns to look at your phone’s camera lens and you blush when a smile slowly illuminates his usually stoic face. Your thumb hovers over the stop recording function, not realizing you’re taking a video, but you can’t seem to press it. “What’s taking so long?” he holds the smile like he’s some cartoon character and you snap out of it.

“Oh shoot, it’s a video!” you laughed, and you begin to run down the boardwalk, eagerly getting away from Toji who demands that you delete it immediately. Of course, you’re no match for his borderline inhuman speed attributed to his athletic physique and he catches you by the waist, playfully swinging you over his shoulder like you’re a sack of potatoes.

Now, your giggles have gone silent.

Toji realizes now he should have indulged you more over the course of your relationship and subsequent marriage. Had he known that you won’t even make it to your third wedding anniversary, he would have allowed you to take as many pictures and videos of him as you’d like, he’d swallow his pride and he’d give you the brightest of smiles so you could happily post him on your social media accounts with a heartwarming caption about him being your “smiley hubby”.

More than that though, he should have taken more photos of you, mostly stolen candid shots, of course. You can’t catch him being all soft on you now. He still has a reputation to live up to after all. But more than that, had he known that your illness was intent on stealing every scrap of you from him, he should have made more effort in preserving all these memories. He should have kept everything from those toll tickets on your late night drives together when the two of you just needed a quick escape from the world, to receipts from your trip to Tokyo Disney Sea on your first wedding anniversary, and even simple convenience store receipts.

Toji should have kept everything down to the smallest of memories knowing one day, that’s all he’ll have to remember you by.

He opens the passenger seat’s door and he effortlessly gathers you into his arms, being extra careful with your fragile form as he sits you down on the wheelchair. He opens the backseat and he pulls out two different colored blankets, one sea-foam green and the other, rose pink. “Take your pick,” he smiles at you and you chuckled softly, pointing to the rose pink one. He happily covers your legs with it to keep you warm, stroking your cheek when you whisper a bashful ‘thank you’.

Suddenly, the wind picks up and your hair-clip that’s holding your locks in a low bun comes loose, and your head turns in the direction of where it flew off to. Toji is quick to take out his phone and he snaps a quick burst shot of you, your hair blowing in the wind, under the coastal spring weather. You turn to look at him and your face falls when you see him burying his phone in his pocket. Since you fell ill, you’ve become insecure of your appearance, banning your husband from taking pictures and videos of you altogether. “Toji, I thought I said no pictures.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The next day, you serendipitously find your photo on your Instagram handle with the caption: “Y/N — Yokohama, Spring, 2024” and when you swipe left, another picture, well to be more accurate, a screenshot of the video clip you accidentally took of him captioned: “Toji — Yokohama, Summer, 2022”.

“You don’t have to stick around for me. Please just go, I’m sure Yuko must be looking for you right now.”

Yuko, his new fiancé, had been blowing up his phone the entire day with texts demanding to know where he is and if he’s going to make it to their date that night. It’s 7 PM now, and Toji still hasn’t shown up to confirm their restaurant reservations. The damn witch will surely cuss him out when they see each other again, but for some reason, even if he tries, he simply cannot bring himself to give a flying fuck. Your immunologist and oncologist stepped out for a bit to allow you two a brief moment of privacy which had now stretched to an expanse of five hours since your results came in.

The air in the room is thick and heavy, not a single sound can be heard. Inside however, underneath this tough exterior he was projecting, Toji is throwing a fit, screaming at the sky like those broken men in those shitty Netflix romance tragedies he used to callously make fun of.

“Why didn’t you call me sooner? You knew, didn’t you?”

Toji’s bites his cheek trying to keep a lid on his emotions. He knows the answer. He just wants to hear you say it out loud. You hated him. You wanted nothing to do with him after he cheated on you with some girl he met at a bar in uptown Shibuya. That’s why you didn’t tell him, he didn’t deserve to know. “Shit,” he whispers harshly, crumpling the medical abstract in his hands. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick? Was it because you hated me? Is that it? You didn’t think I’d worry about you?”

You screwed your eyes shut, shaking your head. You didn’t hate him, not even when you have every reason to. He abandoned you, left you to waste away and to die and yet, even now, you can’t bring yourself to resent him for the simple reason that he is the literal love of your life, the reason behind your smiles, your happy mornings and passionate midnight hours. “At first, I thought I was fine, maybe just fatigued or something.”

“Don’t lie. You knew something was going on and that something in your body was seriously fucked up.”

“And we weren’t married anymore so, I didn’t think it was right to tell you…I wanted to though, but I didn’t want to intrude on you and Yuko,” you said meekly. Even in your greatest hour of need, you were still thinking of him, putting him first even when he doesn’t deserve it. “I-I…I don’t hate you enough to worry you, to make you feel that you could have done something to prevent this. Because I’m telling you right now, regardless if you were faithful or not, I was bound to get sick anyway. You couldn’t have done anything to change that.”

“But I could have been there. I should have noticed. I shouldn’t have downplayed everything.” He says this as if he wants to shake this noble, self-sacrificing bullshit attitude out of your system. “I’m your husband. I should have been there.”

You flash him a heartbroken smile at his little slip-up, so, even now, he was still referring to himself as your husband, not your ex-husband. “To see me waste away? Babe, I don’t want you to see that.”

You begin to feel tears streaming down your face, the emotions you were experiencing now flowing like a free river after an entire dam is destroyed. Toji watches you unravel before his eyes and his bottom lip begins to tremble. What has he done? Dear god, what has he done to his poor, poor wife?

“I want you to remember me healthy, I want you to remember me as myself not this…sickly pitiful woman you’re unlucky to call your ex-wife…besides, after all this, I’ll only be a dream.” A mere passing second in his life. “And believe me, my life wasn’t so bad.”

He loses it at that.

“Just stop this, Y/N! Stop acting like you’re not scared shitless of dying, like you’re not gonna have regrets once all this is over! Stop pretending that things are gonna be alright one day because it won’t! Not when I’m now being forced to accept that you won’t get better, not when I’ve wasted so much time putting you through hell and back instead of taking care of you like a proper husband should, and certainly not when I’m suddenly supposed to learn to say goodbye and to live without you! Because fuck that, Y/N!”

You are left speechless at that.

Toji was never one to lose his cool, even during your worst arguments, he may slide a few snarky remarks here and there but Toji Fushiguro…never yells, and he doesn’t sob either.

You hesitantly stand up and walk over to him, crouching down in front of him as he covers his tear-stained eyes with his right hand while the other is crumpled around your medical abstract. Taking his left hand, you gently remove the medical abstract from his grip, and for the first time in so many months, you feel one another’s warm skin against each other. You press your forehead to his hand as you wept with him.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be a dream. I want you to be real.”

“Can’t you be bothered to clean up in here?!”

You wake up from your nap, you’ve been battling muscle and joint pain the entire day, the slightest of movement causing you to double over in agony and because of that, you weren’t able to clean the apartment today. You slowly get up from the couch, being extra cautious not to make any sudden movements. “Well?” Toji presses, his lips curled into a scowl.

“I’m sorry, I was feeling a little tired,” you sighed heavily, picking up a broom to sweep the living room floor despite the excruciating pain you were in. Toji rolls his eyes, handing you a Manila envelope. “What’s this?” you asked softly, peering inside.

“Divorce papers,” he shrugs nonchalantly. Everything stops, even the very rise and fall of your chest halts into an uneasy stasis. “I already signed them. I just need your signature then, I’ll move out by tomorrow.”

You must be dreaming. That’s the only logical explanation to all this. You’re asleep, in a deep REM sleep, utterly oblivious to the world. This wasn’t happening. But you could feel the rough surface of the brown envelope, and you could still feel the agonizing stabs of white hot pain throughout your body. Glancing at Toji, you see him texting someone with an eager look on his face that screams: “I’m free.”.

Instantly, it dawns on you.

“Will she make you happy?” you asked, putting down the broom to look around for a pen but Toji pulls one he stole from the law firm office out of his pocket.

“She will,” he answers simply.

And you are indeed grateful that he is completely upfront about finding another while the two of you are married. It would have hurt much more, you silently remind yourself, if he had just upped and left without another word leaving you to wonder what went wrong between the two of you. This was Toji’s final act of mercy in your marriage, and he’s not opposed to honesty and truthfulness either. Not once did he try to change his phone’s lock-screen passcode, nor did he try to conceal the identity of the woman who was texting him every night while you slept fitfully next to him. It was almost as if he wanted you to find out, like he wanted you to know so you could back off yourself.

But if there’s one thing Toji loves about you, it’s your unending faithfulness to your promises, to your marriage vows, and your willingness to endure anything he threw at you. You never checked his phone, you never brought up his affair, you never got angry with him. You just kept silent, simply content with giving and giving…and giving while he milked you dry by taking, and taking and taking, tearing you to pieces bit by bit without hearing a single complaint fall from your lips.

You were a devoted wife, through and through.

And it bored the hell out of him, on top of your recent mishaps, he was done. Done with everything, and done with you.

“Okay.”

Come morning, he takes everything he owns with him and promptly proposes to the girl he’s been seeing for the past year. Two weeks later, your divorce is received by the Tokyo Family Court and is summarily approved and finalized. From that moment on, you and Toji went on your separate ways never to look back, you were each other’s yesterdays, and the love that existed between the two of you was nullified in favor of acquaintanceship…or so you thought.

“Y/N, I’m home!” Toji calls into the house as he comes back from your neighborhood’s pharmacy. You look up from the book you were reading, smiling ever so slightly at your husband who seemed to have a wonderful sparkle in his eyes. “Hey, kid,” he kisses the top of your head when he reaches your wheelchair.

“You seem happy,” you remarked positively.

“Well, for one, they replenished their stocks today and I managed to get you your steroids and painkillers so you’ll be able to sleep easy tonight,” Toji smiles, taking out the items from the pharmacy’s paper bag. “And I got you this neat memory foam cushion for your wheelchair.” He fluffs it up as a form of demonstration before placing it behind your back.

When he sees you smile, a sense of relief washes over Toji. You reach towards him, and he pulls you into an embrace. “Thank you,” you said, pure sincerity dripping from your voice. “For everything you do.”

“Anything for you.” He suddenly moves back and reaches into the tote bag you lended him. “Oh, and wait, before I forget, I have another surprise.”

You laughed airily. “Another surprise? Now, you’re just spoiling me!”

He pulls out a piece of paper from the tote bag and he places it in your hands as your eyes quickly scan over the document. Your breath hitches in your throat when you realize what it is. Did Toji really—? You couldn’t believe it. “A marriage pre-registration,” you said in awe. You read it again just in case to make sure that this wasn’t a figment of your sick body’s imagination, that this was real, that Toji genuinely wants to make everything right again. Your fingers skim over your typewritten names. “It has our names…we’re really—“ You can’t even finish your sentence without bursting into happy tears. “Are we—?”

Toji nods, gazing into your eyes, and as emerald and (E/C) clash for what seems to be an eternity lost in one another, he plants a kiss to your temple, coming up to embrace you from behind, resting his chin on your shoulder.

“We are. The Tokyo Family Court, as far as I know, will approve our remarriage once we file this. So, you have to get stronger, okay?” He’s begging you at this point, despite your rapidly deteriorating condition. “Strong enough to see me fix everything. Strong enough to be there on our second wedding, strong enough to say our vows again.”

Your hand comes up to stroke his cheek from behind, and he nuzzles into your neck at your tender touch.

“I will. I promise.”

But you never really get to say your vows. Not comprehensibly anyway.

“Babe, can you say that again?”

Toji crouches by your bedside as you look at him apologetically. You were causing him trouble and pain again which is the last thing that you want to give him especially when’s fought and worked so hard to care for you, to keep prolonging this borrowed time you’re on. “To-ji. Toji.” You gaze at him apprehensibly, not really believing you can do it without crumbling.

“Come on, babe, you can do it. Say my name, please…Toji. I’m Toji.”

“Toooji-“ you slurred sadly. At this point, your Multiple Sclerosis has reached its end stage and has taken…everything from you: your ability to walk, your ability to control your muscle spasms and other bodily functions…and now, coupled with an unexpected stroke, your ability to speak. And you and Toji know that time is almost up, with you having come to accept it, while your husband still held onto hope. Your fingers gently graze over his face as best as your spasms and tremors allow you, starting from his forehead to his eyes, his nose, his cheek and finally, his lips, as if you’re memorizing it one last time. “Lo-ove you-“

Toji sniffles, and your fingers instinctively catch his warm tears. “I love you,” he whispers brokenly. “I do. I love you.”

You feel yourself tearing up as you’re forced to watch your beloved cry. And the worst part? You can’t do a thing about it. “D-oon’t c-cry—‘m okaay. Promi-miise…e’everyything ‘ill be okaaay.”

“Y-yeah,” he chuckles, trying to crack a joke even as hope dwindles. “You’ve been nothing but a fucking champ this entire time, you know? I’m so proud of you. So…so…proud that you’re still here.” He strokes your hair as you tread between the realms of the conscious and the unconscious. “Do you wanna go out today? The weather’s shit though. You’ll probably catch your death out there.” At the mention of the word ‘death’, Toji stops, falling into an uncomfortable silence.

You smile weakly at him. “Tiiredd—“

“You’re no fun,” Toji gently flicks your nose and you scrunch it up in displeasure. “Sorry,” he chuckles, holding back an entire waterfall of tears. He knows it’s today. It has to be. You woke up today without your usual ‘happy morning’ greeting, and you refused to drink anything, much less eat anything. “You tired? Any pain?”

You shake your head. You’re as comfortable as you can be for the first time in months. Hospice nurses say humans are built to live the same way they are built to die, no person in this world has ever had the uncanny privilege of being able to look up ‘How to die?’ on a quick Google search and actually find a Wikihow on the morbid subject matter, nor is there anyone else who can teach another how it’s done. It’s just something humans know how to do without a manual, deeply ingrained in the very fabric of human existence is the fear of death, the fear of what comes after, the fear of a nothingness that could follow after living such a vibrant life. Your life was short, barely spanning thirty years, but you lived well: you fell in love, you got hurt, but you fell together again. Now it all has to come to an end, Toji will just have to take care of the rest.

And you weren’t scared.

Or at least you can’t look scared, if you were to be more accurate, you have to look strong and ready to accept the cards you’ve been dealt with for Toji’s sake. When he feels your hand start to slacken, Toji intakes a sharp, shaky breath of sheer panic. “Not yet, Y/N. Please. Not yet.”

He climbs into bed with you, bringing you closer to this desperate man you call yours. There was no getting better anymore, there was no miracle he could hang onto, no deity he could beg for death to spare you, no pill bottle he could pray to. He knew that from the start. But what he witnessed these past months, you’ve been the braver one between the two of you, you knew how to make the most of the rhythm this cruel world gave you and you graciously took him along to dance to the last song of the evening with you.

“There’s still hope. Just keep your eyes open. Just keep them open.” He presses his lips to your forehead, his delusion getting the better of him. “We’ll just keep trying…you can’t leave. You have to stay. You have to.”

“Thaank yoou—“ you softly told your Toji, your voice shrinking in decibels as you become a little drowsy, sinking into the warmth of the requiem of a life well spent.

Toji listens to you, his lips pursed, intent on making this final act of love — a love that is strong enough to say goodbye — a memorable one. And should the afterlife exist, he wishes to send you off with a smile, with the reassurance that he’ll be alright even if that was far from happening.

“Toji.”

“I want you to be real. And I don’t care if we’ll live on borrowed time. Another extra second with you…is enough to last me my entire lifetime.”

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gojonanami · 6 months

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FIVE TIMES NANAMI WANTED TO PROPOSE BUT DIDN'T - NANAMI KENTO

✴︎ summary: nanami wanted to propose to you so many times - but it was never the right time, and then, there was no time left. ✴︎ contents: 18+ only, swearing, ANGST (major spoilers for jjk 120 (probably next week's episode, character death, exploration of grief, if you wish to avoid the major angst: stop reading after part 5), SMUT (fingering (f! receiving), oral (f! + m! receiving), panty sniffing, semi public sex, nipple play, creampie, unprotected sex, multiple orgasms), pet names (love, sweetheart), happy ending (sort of?) ✴︎ wc: 10,121 (i have a problem) ✴︎ song: the archer - taylor swift (blame laney for this)

One.

The first time Kento Nanami wanted to propose to you shouldn’t count.

And it won’t because it was when he first met you — enrolled into Jujutsu Tech along with the other first years, he first laid his eyes on you at a welcome party that the soon to be menace to his sanity, Satoru Gojo, had organized. Well, he could thank Gojo for one thing it was introducing you to the room — because he may have had to find the words to ask you himself. And he didn’t know if that was possible with his tongue in knots.

But he managed to talk to you — mostly with Haibara leading the conversation. You were reserved, at first, but he saw the spark in your eyes whenever you spoke about something you were passionate about — reading was one, one thing you both shared a love for.

“Yeah hauling my books to Jujutsu Tech wasn’t an easy feat, I had to ask Geto-senpai to have some of his cursed spirits help me haul it up to my dorm,”

“By the way, you still owe me lunch for that,” Geto smirks as he slips past, and the flush that settles on your cheeks is one Nanami wanted to see — again and again.

“Aren’t the upperclassmen supposed to buy lunch?” You grumble, pouting as Gojo interjected himself, resting himself on your shoulder with his arm, making you jump.

“Not here, here the kouhais earn their keep,” he grins, tilting his glasses down, “can you?”

And Nanami opens his mouth to reply, irritation creeping over his senses, before you brush Gojo off, “I’ll buy you lunch, but next time, if that’s what it’s gonna cost me, I’m going to have you two haul my books by hand up those steps,” You stick out your tongue, before your arms curl around his and Haibara, “let’s have cake,” you smile at both of them, gaze lingering on Nanami, “and we can exchange book recommendations?”

That was the moment he wanted to propose — could see himself living in a home with you, filled with both of your books lining the walls of a personal library, but your living room as well. He could see himself falling asleep beside you as you read to him, your fingers carding through his hair.

But no, no, it was irrational, he chided himself, as he talked to you, his lips curled in a smile that had damned him from the moment he saw it. He just had met you — he had barely been ever moved by another person, much less fallen in love. And it shouldn’t happen this quickly — it only happened this quickly in books — not in real life.

But you — he watched you and Haibara chat and laugh — you were someone that might just be the thing of books.

~~~~

Two.

The second time he wanted to propose, he didn’t care to remember.

And he barely did.

He remembers the facts of the mission. It was supposed to be simple — exorcise a grade 2 curse, simple enough for him and Haibara to handle by themselves. Not that they had a choice. Jujutsu Tech’s resources were already far too spread thin — Gojo himself being sent all over Japan and even overseas to handle things himself that no one should be able to. But their mission? It should have been simple — dangerous still, but simple.

But nothing was simple when it came to curses.

He remembers sensing the curse — the manifestation had frozen him and Haibara for a moment — their bodies taut with fear and adrenaline — but they couldn’t move. Even as the cursed spirit screeched before them, he couldn’t articulate what was happening — it was supposed to be a grade 2, it was supposed to be a grade 2, but no — this was a grade 1.

And then it struck — Kento barely had enough time to react, but he did, pushing Haibara out of the way when it did.

He didn’t remember much after that.

He remembered the squelch of Haibara’s flesh, the blood seeping through his clothes, the way his body crumpled on the ground, and he remembered the next moment was the first time he landed a black flash — stunning the curse enough for him to grab Haibara and escape.

But not enough to save him.

Haibara had made him promise if anything had ever happened to him — he would make sure his sister wasn’t recruited to Jujutsu Tech. And he had to make the call to his family — he couldn’t bear the thought of some higher up taking advantage of their grief to manipulate another into their clutches.

No, he couldn’t let that happen.

And now he sat in the morgue with his body, towel covering his eyes — Geto had come and went — and now he sat waiting for the body to be examined and taken away to be burned. Burned to ash with nothing left — that was the way all sorcerers bodies were disposed of. It was if they never existed in the first place - pawns in a never ending war that would have them piled like corpses on a sacrificial pyre.

What was the point?

Haibara had always told him — if there was something only he could do, he would do it. And for him it was jujutsu — but wasn’t there something else? Something else for him to do that didn’t let him up like this? A body on a metal slab waiting to be incinerated. What was the point?

Was there even a point? People lived and people died. He had lived and Haibara died, but he didn’t know why. Why or how do people live one day and disappear the next? He had seen death before but not of someone so close — someone so precious to him. And the chaos was too much for him. To be killed by another’s twisted feelings manifested into a monster — it was almost poetic if it wasn’t so fucking tragic.

“Nanami?” And he pulls the towel from his eyes, and sees you — your eyes glassy and red tinged — tear streaks you didn’t hide well left on your face, “Nanami—“ and you don’t know what to do with yourself — as you come to him, hesitating, “can I—“

But he’s the one pulling you into his arms, nearly into his lap as his fingers dig into the fabric of your jacket, “I’m sorry — I’m so sorry I wasn’t there—“ your voice breaks, and it’s enough to break him — he hadn’t really cried, not around another person, but tears well at your words, as your fingers card through his hair.

“You have nothing to be sorry for — I’m the one—“ and his voice breaks in turn, as the words stuck in his mind going round and round, until they were nearly had shattered his sanity and skull along with it, “I’m the one who couldn’t save him,”

And you pull back to look at him with tear stained cheeks, “that’s not your fault, Nanami—“

“How is it not?” His words are laced with more venom that he wishes them to be, a little more bite than he wished to chew, and the hurt in your eyes was enough to make him regret speaking altogether, “I’m so—“

“No, it’s not your fault, Kento,” and his eyes find yours, your lips twisted in a frown, and your gaze unwavering, “I know a part of you knows that — knows that…Haibara’s death is nothing but a function of this shitty system we’ve been funneled into. Nothing more. Nothing less. And you know,” your voice grows softer, “you know Haibara wouldn’t want you blaming yourself for this. You know what he’d say?” You almost chuckle, “he’d tell you not to sweat it. To keep going. That you got it, right?”

He gives a terse chuckle in return, shaking his head, as his head tilts into your chest again, “How do we—“

“I don’t know,” you murmur, you don’t need him to say more, “I don’t know how we do this without him, but we have to. We have to for him,” and your hand cups his face, tilting his chin up so he looks up at you, “together?”

And he wants to ask you then — ask you to marry him. He doesn’t know when he would get a chance. You were the only thing that made his life make sense — the only thing that made him feel okay, feel safe, for once. He was so tired of never feeling that way. And he had just lost the one other person who made him feel that way.

He knew you wouldn’t say yes. You couldn’t. You were both so young still, still reeling from Haibara, still stuck in this system that could kill either of you at any time. But still…wasn’t that all the more reason to do it?

But as you pulled him into another tight hug, he knew he wouldn’t last much longer in the Jujutsu world. He couldn’t — he couldn’t take another loss like this. He didn’t know if he could bear it. But as his tears wet your jacket, surrounded by you — your scent, your soft breath, your warm presence — he would try.

He would try for you. And his eyes slid to Haibara’s body covered by a sheet — and for him.

~~~

Three.

“After graduation, I’m leaving,” it was a late night, a couple days before graduation that he told you. The soft pitter-patter of rain was the only thing heard from int the silence before he spoke. You laid on the foot of his bed, reading a book, while he sat cross legged at the head of it, his eyes fixed on you.

Your gaze lifts from your book, brow furrowed in confusion, “Leaving?”

“I can’t be a jujutsu sorcerer,” his words are as plain as always, “I can’t do it. I’m going to go to college and pursue some other line of study—“

And you sit up slowly, putting your book aside, and he expects protests, expects you to convince him otherwise, expects you to try and stop him, but all you ask is one question, “are you sure?”

It catches him by surprise — as you always seemed to. He could anticipate enemy attacks, analyze their next moves five steps ahead, plan three routes of escape, and even predict what garbage will come out of Satoru Gojo’s obscene mouth, but you — you always could surprise him.

“I am,” he finally answers softly, “this society is shit, you know that. And these past few years have shown me that the difference I make isn’t worth the toll it’s taking, especially when I’m not changing anything,”

“Kento, you do make a difference,” your fingers find his, intertwining with ease, such ease he can’t help but think that’s what it was meant for, “you do — even if you can’t see it, I just want you to know, you do. For the people you help, even if you don’t see them, for the other sorcerers you inspire, and for me,”

And he chuckles, “even you?” And you roll your eyes, pouting — the same pout that makes him want to lean over and kiss you until your lips are utterly ruined.

“Even me,” you toss a pillow at him, and he catches it with ease, and you scowl playfully, “y’know i’m gonna miss you, but I’m not gonna miss that,”

“What? My quick reflex—“ and you smack him with another pillow and giggle, the noise making his lips quirk into a smile even as you laughed at him, hands covering your lips.

“What was that, Mr. Ratio? Your quick—“ and he’s tossing a pillow right back smacking you in the face, making his lips curl in a rare grin (though not so rare when he was with you—“

And you pull the pillow off, your face grim, “Oh, it’s so on—“ you’re tossing a pillow, but it’s only a diversion as you lunge for him, assumedly to mess up his hair, but he’s caught you by the wrist, his other hand around your waist as he’s gotten you pinned to the bed.

Time stops.

He’s breathing heavily, and you are too — from the rise and fall of your chest, but he can hardly hear anything over the blood rushing in his ears. Your lips part as you look up at him — you’re dressed in your sleep clothes, a thin tank top and shorts — and it would be so easy to lean down, let his palm slide under his shirt. He sees your eyes flicker down his body the same — climbing back up before pausing at his lips.

It wasn’t a good idea. He was leaving. You both were graduating. Who knows when he would see you again — yet, he couldn’t bring himself to pull away. Not when this is what he wanted for so long, when he wanted you for so long. But maybe he should — maybe it would be easier, he couldn’t ask you to leave Jujutsu Tech. Just as you couldn’t ask him to stay. He knew you would stay to honor Haibara’s memory, to carry on his legacy — the one thing sorcerers could do for their fallen comrades.

Sometimes the only thing.

And sometimes it was the only thing they couldn’t do.

“Kento—“ your voice pulls him from his reverie, as your fingers brush against his cheek, “are you going to hover over me forever, let me go, or…” and your teeth graze your lip, “are you going to kiss me?”

And he’s blinking, cheeks most assuredly flushing, as your fingers graze the back of his neck, and his mouth is dry, as he looks down on you.

But he doesn’t need to asked twice, as he leans even closer, delighting in how your breath catches, looming over him, “do you want me to kiss you?” And the telltale quirk of his lips makes you gape at him, drawing a laugh from him.

“I hate you,” you murmur, as his lips finally brush yours, swallowing those playfully bitter words with them — and your lips are even softer than he imagined, your fingers settling themselves on the back of his neck, brushing the hair that rested there.

And when he pulls away; his heart squeezes at the sight of your kiss ruined lips parted as you pant slightly, eyes fluttering open to look up at him as if to ask why did you stop? And he can’t help but smile.

“It’s too bad because I love you—“ the words slip from his mouth — but he doesn’t regret it. How can he? When he might not get another chance.

And he thinks his heart will stop at your silence again, the pitter-patter of raindrops ringing in his ears again, before your lips finally curl.

“You love me, huh?” You’re leaning up and kissing him, lips finding his again and again — and how is it that he’s already addicted? You taste like honey, and sunshine, and something headier — sending heat warmer than liquor throughout his body that only made him crave more of you, and you finally pull away, and you’re smiling, “good thing I love you too,”

And he can’t believe his ears, he can’t believe you love him too — all these years he thought it was one-sided, that he was deluding himself with all the times your fingers found his, your eyes met across a classroom with a smile, and the times he found himself falling asleep next to you all those nights neither of you wanted to be asleep, your arm curled around his.

But you did. You loved him. And he loved you.

And as your lips met again, he knew, he knew he still couldn’t ask you. Couldn’t ask you because he knew you maybe wouldn’t say no — and he couldn’t ask that of you. Not when it wasn’t what you wanted. Not when he knew you could do the good he couldn’t bring himself to do. And you would — because you were the best person he knows.

He loves you. And therefore he had to let you go.

But — as he lingered over you on his bed, his body hovering over his as he dragged his thumb over your red, puffy lips, before leaning down for another kiss —

He didn’t have to let you go this second.

~~~~

Four.

It’s years before he sees you again.

It wasn’t purposeful. Not exactly anyway.

It was just easier. Easier not to have to think of you still at the place he once was. Still fighting the same curses he would have been fighting with you. Still risking your life day in and day out. While he…he only had money to worry about. To think about. To obsess about.

Money. Money. Money. Money.

How was this somehow shittier than what the jujutsu world? He had considered going into a more humanitarian profession, but when his goal was to retire early, why waste time? If he wanted to help people…he glances at his phone — the one vice he allowed himself, a picture of you that you had sent him when you got promoted to Grade 1 saved as his screensaver — he could have stayed by your side.

No, he wanted to retire. Find himself a nice place to retire to — he hadn’t decided the exact location yet. Somewhere peaceful. With nothing but beaches and sky and sand and books for him to read, to reclaim his life page by page. But to get there — he had to slop through this shit work — making the rich richer.

The same in the jujutsu world, and the same here as well.

And it was one day after he had exorcised a curse from his favorite bakery’s worker, he had felt anything good — anything remotely good — in far too long. Your words rang in his ears — you make a difference.

Was he making a difference by lining the pockets of the rich? Maybe his sorcery wouldn’t change the world, move minds or hearts, pivot the course of history — but maybe he could have his own impact. And not feel like complete shit when he woke up every morning.

And he wouldn’t — he knew he wouldn’t — if he could just see you smile again. Even if he could just see you again. He pulls out his phone, staring at your picture. And maybe…maybe even more.

“Hello, Gojo? I’d like to return to Jujutsu Tech,” and he hears laughter on the other end, “why are you laughing?”

“Kento?” You drop the pen you’re holding, as he steps into your office. And your lips are parted in surprise, your eyes fixed on his, “what are you—“

“I’m coming back, to Jujutsu Tech, I’m going to be a sorcerer again,” and he knows what you’ll ask, he knows you’re going to ask why — you’re going to ask him if he’s sure. And he doesn’t know how to tell you except by saying it’s because of you.

But you don’t say anything, your chair screeches back as you get up, clattering backwards and suddenly as you’re running into his arms. Your face is buried in his chest, and he can feel the tears against his shirt, and his arms curl around you, fingers running through your hair, “I missed you so much,” you murmur, and then you look up at him, fingers tracing his cheeks, gingerly moving his glasses away, “you look tired,”

“I am, but I’m better now,” he’s murmuring — and how is it that you send him right back to where he started, right back to where you always send him. It doesn’t even take a touch — only a glance, a whiff, a second — “I missed you too,” he adds, “a lot,”

And you push him playfully, pouting up at him, “Could have fooled me. You barely ever called or texted me all these years. You talked more to Gojo than you did me,”

“That’s only because that flippant idiot won’t stop calling until I pick up,” he grumbles — Gojo was the last thing he wanted to talk about in his moment — his fingers caress your cheek, tracing the line of your cheekbone, “I wanted to talk to you — I did, I just, I knew if I talked to you, I might say something I’d regret,”

“And what would you regret saying to me?” You raise an eyebrow, and his eyes are sliding away from him.

Asking you to come see him, asking you to leave Jujutsu Tech for him, asking you to be with him — every question that he wanted to ask, but never could.

“It’s not important—” and your hand cups his cheek guiding his eyes back to yours, and he knew you weren’t going to let this go, “If I talked to you, I knew it would end one of three ways — one, I’d ask you to leave Jujutsu Tech; two, I’d come back to Jujutsu Tech; or three, you’d ask me one of these yourself — but I knew I couldn’t do that,”

And your brows knit together, “Why not?”

“Because it had to be our own decision — I couldn’t leave and you couldn’t leave, just because the other asked,” he murmurs, his gaze softening, “it wouldn’t be fair to either of us — or the other — to feel like the only reason we’re together was because of guilt or want for the other, not for ourselves,”

You consider his words for a moment, “I would have left if you asked me,”

“I know, and I would have come back if you had,”

“But we didn’t,” and your fingers cup his face, “you remember what I said to you that night that we kissed?”

And he swallows the lump in his throat, his heart rattling against his chest, “You said, you didn’t want to go further because it would only hurt more when we had to go our separate ways,” and your hand slides up his chest slowly, the other already resting against his neck, and his find their way to you — one hand holding your waist and the other cupping your cheek, “but we’re not separate anymore, are we?”

“I hope the wait was worth it,” you smile, as both close the gap, lips meeting again and again — and you taste the same, but even better somehow — and he’s only pulling you closer, lips curled in a smile so wide that he hadn’t felt in so long, so long.

“Always, when it's you,” he murmurs against your lips, before his lips begin to trail kisses down your jaw and then your neck, his teeth brushing against your pulse, pulling a gasp from your lips, “good girl,” And he feels your knees buckle against his and he’s walking you backwards into the edge of your desk, “is anyone left on campus?” and you’re shaking your head, your eyes flitting to the door, as he makes you sit on your desk, thighs parted for him to settle between.

“The door—”

“Locked,” he replies, drawing back only a moment to take in the image before him — your lips red and ruined, chest rising and falling as you look disheveled at best, sexed at worst, and your eyes — your eyes swirled with lust, half lidded and desperate for his touch— “didn’t want any interruptions,”

Just as he was.

His fingers draw up a strand of your hair and kisses it, and your lips part, “Kento, please—”

“Please, what, my love?” his voice is low and teasing, as his fingers peel back your jacket, pulling it off your shoulders, “you’re going to have to be more specific,” his lips find your neck, soft, wet kisses that has your body leaning into his, “I’m not a mind reader,”

“But you are a tease,” you pout, and he only smiles, leaning down to do the thing he always wanted to — he kisses the pout off your lips, moaning lightly when your lips part for his tongue, his hands dragging down your sides, as your fingers loosen his tie, “I think you will be doing overtime with me today, Nanami-Sensei,”

And he grunts, as your fingers free him of his tie, joining your jacket on the floor, “I’m not going to be a teacher, just a sorcerer,” his teeth graze right under your chin, nibbling, “so you’re the only sensei here — are you going to teach me what you’ve learned the last few years?”

And you toy with the top button of his blue button-up, “Oh, I’ll teach you, Kento,” and you’re starting to undo his buttons, as he busies himself undoing yours, “the question is whether you can handle it,”

“Beautiful,” he murmurs in reverence, and his fingers finally undo the buttons, sliding your shirt off your shoulders, eyes raking over your chest — sharp blue gaze lingering on the erect nipples poking through the fabric for your bra, “You’ve always been the one thing I can’t handle,” his mouth leans down, closing around one clothed nipple, while he teased the other with his fingers, and he delights in your gasp, the noise sending heat right down to his already aching cock, “but I’m willing to try, my love,”

“You still love me?” You murmur, as he shrugs off his own shirt, perfect abs teasing into a v-line, all this muscle hidden under his business attire — and you knew he still must work out, and he did. He did in case he ever needed to come back — come back for you.

“Who says I ever stopped?” His nose buried in the nape of your neck now, as his fingers teasingly snap the strap of your bra, “you smell so good, so perfect,” and his fingers undo your bra and it joins the pile of clothes growing on the floor, “there wasn’t a day I didn’t think about you — a night that i didn’t dream of you, that I didn’t want you,”

“Kento—“ you whimper, as he tugs at your skirt, a quick glance for your nod, and he slides it down your legs, bunching at your ankles until you kick it off. Your cheeks burn as he’s kissing your way down your body, his mouth teasing the other nipple he had neglected, trailing hot kisses down your stomach, until he reaches the fabric of your panties, “I need—“

“Been wanting to taste this for so long,” and he’s kneeling between your parted thighs, still calloused fingers parting your plush flesh, tongue flicking over his dry lips at the sight of the dark wet patch at the crotch of your underwear. And you look down at him, eyes glazed over with unadulterated lust that is almost enough to have him cumming in his pants, “so sweet,” he’s murmuring as he noses your clothes cunt, and you jerk, as he pulls the crotch aside, “wonder if you taste as sweet as you smell,”

“Kento—“ and his tongue drags over the length of your dripping cunt, nose bumping against your clit, as your thighs curl around him, pulling him closer, closer — “fuck—“

“Such a filthy mouth,” he tuts, smiling against your cunt as his tongue teases your folds, “almost as filthy as you are down here,” and his finger begins to part your walls, making your thighs shake and quake, his lips close around your clit, sucking.

You’re a mess of moans and pants, hips grinding against his touch, as one hand tries to muffle your moans, the other is curled in his blonde locks, “taste even better than I imagined — just f’me, only for me,” You’re so close, as he parts your folds with another finger, sinking knuckle deep, as his fingers brush against that one spot that has you parting your lips in a silent moan, head thrown back — and the heat deep in your stomach is going to snap.

KNOCK KNOCK.

You both freeze, your cunt jerking around his fingers, as you bite your lip — maybe if you’re silent, they’ll go away— but Kento clicks his tongue, a smile on his glossy cum covered lips, mouthing, “Speak,” and you gape at him, chest still heaving, as you shake your head, before he’s curling his fingers just right.

Fucker.

You hear Gojo’s voice, calling your name, “You in there?”

You swallow thickly, meeting Kento’s gaze — he’s not backing down, “Yeah, sorry I’m in the middle of something — do you need something?”

“I was just wondering if you heard from a certain salaryman, or should I say, ex-salaryman?” the very one that was burying his face back in your still sensitive pussy, slurping and licking, despite Gojo being right outside.

You have to bite back your moans, swallowing them as you speak, “You mean Nana—ah—mi?” And you feel the very same sorcerer smirk against your abused cunt, a third finger finding its way inside you, “ha-haven’t heard from him, and what do mean ‘ex?’”

You do your best at acting, but it’s hard when his mouth closes around your clit, sucking hard, as your fingers curl in his hair, biting your lip so hard, as he fucks your pussy in earnest with his fingers — how can Gojo not hear the nasty squelch of your cunt?

“He left his job. He’s coming back to Jujutsu Tech,” and he takes a beat, “I’ll take my leave,” and he chuckles, “have fun you two, and Nanami?” You feel your face flush, “don’t be too rough with her — we need our best teacher available to teach tomorrow,”

You hear his laugh all the way down the hall, and you’re covering your face — those fucking six eyes — but Kento’s tugging your hands away, “Pay attention to the one who’s filling you, love,” and he’s burying his face in your cunt, fucking you even harder — hitting that spot over and over, until you cum, back arching, as he’s pulling his fingers out to lap up the slick dripping from you, “delicious,” he murmurs, kissing your still sensitive clit, before he’s looking up at you — all fucked out, your chest rising and falling with every pant, your lips kiss ruined red — “and so beautiful,”

His licks his lips clean of your cum, wiping the rest with the back of his hand, as he rises to your feet, “Kento, please,” you’re murmuring, his hands slide over your body, squeezing your hips, “I need you,”

“What do you need—“ and his words are cut off by your fingers reaching for his buckle, the clink of the metal as you undid it, along with the button, tugging his pants and boxers down.

He hisses as his too sensitive dick slaps his stomach, your lips parting, eyes in a trance, “So pretty, Kento,” your fingers traces one of his veins to his already leaking tip, “and so fucking big,” you murmur, teasing the bead of precum on his slit, making him groan, “can’t wait to have this inside me — been waiting ten years,”

And he’s sliding your hand away, pressing his hips flush to yours, as your legs wrap around his waist, “That long huh?” And his lips find yours again, letting you taste yourself, “and I thought I was the only one pining,”

“So you admit you were pining for me?” And he laughs, as you smile up at him — like all the times he had hoped you would — “I had a crush from almost the moment I met you,”

“You could have fooled me,” he presses kisses up and down your jaw, drawing a moan from both of you as he teases your puffy clit with his aching tip, “I thought you had a crush on Geto,” and you scoff.

“Geto? So you were jealous of him — that’s why you always had that sour look whenever I studied with him,” you grin even wider, “well you had nothing to worry about - I had a crush on very gloomy boy and no one else ever caught my eye,”

And he softly smiles, and it seems to ebb away the years — the trauma and the tiredness — and left only him, your Kento.

“Is that right?” He asks before kissing you again, his fingers finding the back of your neck to deepen the kiss, as you moaned, muffled by his mouth, “I want—“

“I know, me too, please — don’t keep me waiting any longer,” and how could he refuse a request like that?

He’s sinking into you, thick cock parting your dripping folds until he hilts himself fully in you, his fingers digging your hips — and you’re so full, too full. And you’re perfect — perfect walls wrapped around him, so warm and so tight — it’s enough for him to neatly blow his load then and there.

But he can’t, can’t when he’s waited this long to do this. You’re whimpering, “S’good, Kento, too good,” your walls flutter around him as his hips shift lightly, “please, please move—“ his hands find your legs, lifting them higher to find a better angle, fingers digging into your soft thighs.

And his hips slowly thrust into you, edging you with his shallow thrusts, and you’re whining, “Kento—“

“Look at the mess you’re making all over your desk,” he’s guiding your gaze with two fingers on your chin, making you watch where his cock is sunk into you, “taking me so well, practically swallowing me, good fuckin’ girl,” he grunts, “want it harder? Want me to fuck you?”

Your desk is already creaking under your weights and the movements, you’re nodding wordlessly, lips parted, “Kento, please, I need—“ and you watched his cock pull out only to slam back in. Your head falls back, moaning his name again and again.

The squelch of your cunt rang in his ears over and over, as he grunts, barely keeping himself from cumming, especially when you begin to roll your hips into him, “You’re so pretty, and all mine — just mine,” and his lips find yours again, just as your walls flutter at his words, “like that? Like it when I claim you, love with my cock fucking you?” And his vulgar words only makes you tighter, and he grunts, “‘m close, sweetheart,”

“Me too—g’nna cum—“ and his dick reaches that spot right as his thumb bears down on your clit, teasing it in circles, until you’re moaning his name as you cum. Your walls clamp down, soaking his cock, a white ring of cum around his base as he fucks you through your orgasm.

His eyes meet yours as you do, watching your high overcome you, twitching and moaning — and he doesn’t last much longer. His hips stutter against you in shallow thrusts until he’s notching himself deep inside, groaning as he cums, hot seed painting your walls white.

“So perfect,” he murmurs, as he kisses your sweat slicked forehead, “so good,” and he’s grunting as he pulls out, watching your mixed releases trickle out, leaking all over your desk and onto the floor. He drags his cock over your weeping cunt, watching it flutter around nothing.

“Kento,” you murmur, gazing up at him, utterly blissed out as your lips curl, your legs slipping off his waist as he settles down on your desk, “I love you,”

And his heart squeezes — is he dreaming? He must be dreaming — because nothing in his life has ever been so good. So wonderful. So perfect. It didn’t happen for him — it never happened for him.

“I love you too,” he murmurs reverently, his fingers trailing over your jaw, “so much — you don’t know how much, darling,”

“Think you can quantify it for me, Mr. Salaryman?” And he snorts, burying his face in the crook of your neck.

“Don’t call me that,” he kisses your neck — you smelled so good, were you real?

“Then what should I call you?”

And he wanted to ask you then — ask you to call him your husband, to marry you, to buy that ring he had looked at from time to time when he thought about marrying you. But you just found your way back to each other — hell, he had just slept with you in your office, not even a bed. It was too soon, but — his lips curled — he was closer than he had ever been before. And he wouldn’t wait, he wouldn’t hesitate, not when it was you. He wouldn’t let you slip through his fingers.

He smiles, “Just call me yours.”

~~~~

Five.

Today was the day.

He was finally going to ask. That’s what he thought when he looked at you, still in bed, bathed in the dappled sunlight let in by his parted curtains. You were still fast asleep beside him, body curled up so your body was pressed against him. He ran his fingers through your hair gently not to wake you, “I love you,” he murmurs, as opens his bedside drawer, pulling a ring box and notecard from it — and he stares at it.

He’d ask you. He would ask you to marry him — finally take you on that vacation to Malaysia you both had talked about for too long, read all the books you both had put off, and lounge on the beach — and do much more in your hotel room. And then maybe, maybe he could ask you to retire from jujutsu.

He had always promised himself, promised that he wouldn’t be a sorcerer when he got married. He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving a family behind to mourn him — but even more than that, he couldn’t bear the thought to lose you, to call you his wife, call you his soulmate — and have you fall away from him.

He would rather be the one to die.

But this way — he rises, grabbing his clothes for the day, and slipping the ring and the note into his coat pocket — neither of you would have to worry about losing the other. At least to a curse.

“Where are we going?” You giggle as he drags you along the street, packed with people, more than usual. He keeps you close, an arm wrapped around you, especially for a Wednesday evening. What date was it? He had seemingly lost track of everything he had planned.

“It’s Halloween,” you remind him without him asking the question, “explains all costumed people and the packed streets — we should definitely avoid Shibuya — the crowds there would be insane,”

“How’d you know—“ and you tap his forehead with a smile.

“I could see your gears grinding, Kento,” you smile, resting your head against his shoulder, “and it’s just like you to forget it’s Halloween,”

“Is it?” he chuckles, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “well good thing I have you to remind me,”

“Very good thing, and I have you to remind me about everything else,” and he nods, and you elbow him, “you don’t have to remind me of that much!”

“You were leaving the house yesterday and you forgot your wallet, keys, and purse — you almost forgot to put on shoes—“ and you’re covering his mouth his your hand.

“How about you remind me about where we’re going?” And he smiles against your hand, before kissing it gently, pulling it from his lips and kissing the back of your hand as well, making you flush.

“Why ruin the surprise—” and then both of your phones ring — the two of you share a dark look, glancing at your phones and seeing the same message — Emergency: veil has fallen over certain areas of Shibuya. All available sorcerers report.

“I guess we are going to Shibuya,” you sigh, running your fingers through your hair, “we should—”

“We should stop by the apartment — we both left all our equipment there and I need to change,” and you nod, as his fingers toy with the ring box in his pocket, a sigh stuck in his throat. When will he ever get the chance to do this right? Finally, he had worked up the nerve and this—this had to happen.

“Hey,” you cup his cheek, a soft smile on your face, “I’m sorry our plans are falling through, and just when I was going to make you give up this secret surprise,”

His lips curl, as his arm pulls you even closer, “I don’t recall agreeing to give up any secrets,” and you lean up and kiss him, soft and sweet quickly turning heady — neither of you were ones for public displays — but for some reason, it just felt right. And you part, breath warming his lips with a wide grin.

“Oh, you would have,” and he laughs, squeezing your hips, as he rests his forehead against yours, “We’ll pick this up right after we deal with this problem.”

He nodded, leaning down to kiss you again and again, his fingers still toying with the box in his pocket. And he wanted to ask right then, just drop to his knee in the middle of this packed street full of costumed weirdos and freaks, mission be damned, jujutsu be damned — but he didn’t want to do it like this.

He wanted it to be a time where both of you were safe, where you could celebrate without the fear of danger beating down your necks, where he could talk to you, hold you, kiss you — without fear it would be the last. Because he always wondered when it would be the last. But it wouldn’t be — he’d do anything to make it back, to finally take that step with you, the one he’d been waiting for over ten years to take. Take that vacation you both wanted with his ring on your finger, and retirement from Jujutsu around the corner.

And he squeezes your hand, “Promise?” and you lean into him, pulling him along the street back to your shared apartment.

“Promise.”

~~~

He wouldn’t be able to keep his promise.

That’s what kept repeating in his mind with every step he took. He couldn’t really feel much — not anymore. That special grade curse had burned him — burned half of his body to a crisp, he could barely smell the burning flesh anymore. All he could do was keep moving. Moving. Moving. Moving.

But he didn’t want to move anymore — he was tired. So tired. He couldn’t feel much, but he could feel the weight of having to keep going, even if he didn’t want to.

And now, he stands before a swarm of…curses? Transfigured humans? He didn’t know — he could barely see at this point out of his one remaining eye — he could barely keep it open, still drooping even as the monsters loomed before him.

“Malaysia…Yeah, Malaysia…Kuantan would have been nice,” the recommendation he had gotten from Mei Mei when trying to decide on a vacation for you and him to take — who better to ask than the woman with all the time and money in the world, a little brother who’d take her anywhere she wished. You both had settled on Malaysia, still panning out the details of when, but he had planned to surprise you with open ended tickets for the both of you — paid extra for them, in case something came up.

He almost chuckles. Something always came up.

Maybe if you both had liked it enough, he’d have a private home built for the two of you — with the little library nook you always dreamed of having, finally getting around to reading the countless books you both had bought and never read, go through page by page and take back the time you both have lost.

But right now each step felt like an eternity as he walked.

Where was he going again? Oh yes, to help Fushiguro. And what about Naobito and Maki? What had happened to them? There wasn’t much he could do about that.

Tired. He was so tired. I’ve done enough, haven’t I?

Hadn’t he done enough? He thought he had done enough when he left — left it all behind like a nightmare he didn’t care to revisit. Left the loss, the pain, the anger — the curses really — all behind him, in exchange for another set — greed, money, power. What was really the best option? Had he made the right choice?

But then he thought about you.

Your smiles, your touch, your kisses, your laughs — all the times he spent with you — slow mornings spent reading the paper together over coffee and toast from the bakery you always went out of your way to buy his favorites from; lazy evenings spent watching movies or reading, your legs intertwined as you did, his arm around your shoulders, until you plucked the book from his fingers made it so you were only thing his eyes were on; and sleepless but perfect nights spent in each other’s arms. The many times he wanted to ask you — the one question he never got to ask you still burned on the tip of his tongue like a curse unspoken, and he knew if he spoke it now, it would be one.

And so he did what he did best, he dispatched the curses, quick and easy. And his lips curled despite himself — at the thought of you. He could almost feel your lips on his still from earlier, the sweet scent of you instead of the smell of blood or burning flesh, he could almost see you too.

A hand rested on his chest, stopping him in his tracks.

Mahito stared back at him.

Oh. Oh.

It was over.

I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry I can’t keep my promise. I’m sorry I can’t propose. I’m sorry I can’t marry you. I’m sorry I can’t have the life we wanted. I’m sorry I came back only to leave you with the worst curse of them all.

“I didn’t know you were here,” Nanami says, staring back at the curse — and it reminds of that time — that time Mahito had him in his domain, he truly had resigned himself to death. Resigned himself to die — and then Itadori had come crashing in, crashing in as he did his life, saving him. Saving him by not only by his very existence as Sukuna’s vessel, but by just his sheer strength.

That kid had really grown on him — he didn’t want him to. Not when he had the same positivity, the same smile, the same kindness…as Haibara. It was illogical. He wasn’t Haibara — he was Sukuna’s vessel, and he wouldn’t acknowledge him, he wouldn’t until he proved himself. But he’d protect him, and he would do what he could. Because being a child isn’t a sin — but perhaps, being a jujutsu sorcerer is one.

“Yup. The whole time,” Mahito replies, lips upturned in a slight smile, “Wanna chat? We go way back, after all,”

Nanami’s eyes shift to the floor, the muddied and bloodied tiles underneath his feet — he didn’t care to divulge his deepest feelings to a curse. There were only two people he could talk to about this — and one of them, he supposed, was now closer to his being than the other.

Haibara, what the hell was I trying to do? He asks in his mind, not even daring to say the words aloud, I ran. Even though I ran away, I came back with the vague reason of finding the work worthwhile.

And then he sees him. Haibara appears in front of him, patented smile on his lips, as he points south — points right at—

“Itadori,” Mahito says, his eyes narrowing.

“Nanamin!” his eyes wide as he takes in his state — oh, he had hoped no one would see him like this, much less Yuji. He had already been through so much, so young — hell, he had already died once. He didn’t deserve to see this. He didn’t deserve to grow up like this — to have his youth ripped away. But, did any of them deserve it?

It was a marathon, a marathon that they found themselves in that headed only towards a pile of corpses — but each time, they had to pass the baton before they stopped.

Could he finally stop?

He had dropped his baton so long ago, dropped and left the track, but he knew it would be picked up by another and another and another — but it was his baton, his baton that Haibara had handed him before he died in his arms.

No, Haibara. That’s not right. I can’t say that to him. It’ll just end up becoming a curse for him.

But it’s a curse every jujutsu sorcerer had to bear — made to bear until there were either no curses or no sorcerers left.

But he couldn’t regret it now.

“Itadori,” his lips curl, smiling for the last time, “you’ve got it from here.”

He couldn’t keep his promise to you — but he kept his one to Haibara.

And you’d pay the price.

~~~

This wasn’t real. Was it?

You stood outside your shared apartment with Kento. Finally a stop to the fighting for a month for everyone to train — enough time for you to retrieve some cursed weapons you had left behind — not knowing the fight would drag on for this long. You had considering sending someone — maybe not Ijichi but someone else to retrieve them, but right now, you couldn’t bear the thought of someone else rifling through Kento’s things. Moving the things that he had placed just so — the last remnants of his life, the marks he left that proved he was there, that he lived — that he had lived.

Lived. Past tense. And now you were still living — living in a world without him.

You inserted your key and turned the lock, opening the door. And it did, just like it had every day. Each day you’d open it — sometimes before Kento, other days after — but each time, there was always a meal Kento had prepped or bought waiting for you.

And this was the first time that there wasn’t.

Not only a meal — there was no one waiting for you. Not here.

You closed the door behind you — no longer a home, just an apartment. You needed to remember the things you needed, your mind was nowhere to be found, and fled the country when you had heard the news. You didn’t cry. Not at first.

Yuji was the one to tell you. He shouldn’t have been the one to see it. You knew it haunted his dreams, you knew he blamed himself, you knew — because Kento had done the same. So you hugged him, let him cry silently into your shirt, comforted him the best you could — because you knew that’s what Kento would have wanted.

He loved Yuji — he loved Ino too, and the other students all held a special place for him, but Yuji — Yuji was a special case. You knew that from the moment he had spoken about him.

“Gojo wants me to mentor Sukuna’s vessel,” he told you one night in bed, having returned from a mission and having a drink with Gojo — not a real drink, Kento had clarified, since it had no alcohol in it — but a drink nonetheless.

“He has a name, Kento. Itadori. He’s sweet,” you smile, you had met him and all the other first years from teaching, “he’s a good kid — very new to all of this, but he has a good heart and some good skills under his belt.”

“A vessel for the ticking time bomb has a good heart? Glad to hear it,” he sighs, running his hands through his hair, “I don’t know — he was a normal kid two minutes ago, and now he’s running around with Gojo feeding him Sukuna’s fingers every second,” he leans back against the headrest, “what am I supposed to make of this? I’m not even a teacher,”

“And what have you been doing with Ino?” you raise an eyebrow, “that kid is constantly after you, dogging your every step — he looks up to you. “And I know a lot of the other students do too, the ones that know you,”

“It’s—”

“You should do this. It would be good for you,” and he’s hesitating, “Yuji needs a sorcerer to guide him — teach him the basics that Gojo has neglected to do, and show him how a proper jujutsu sorcerer who isn’t…a special case like Gojo, operates.”

Kento’s lips curl, “You know you can call him a moron,”

“Why call him that when I have you to call him that for me?” you snort, “now what do you say?”

And he eventually agreed — and it was the best decision for him. It gave him more purpose, more drive — he seemed even more fulfilled — the most you had seen him professionally fulfilled in quite some time.

“You got it from here.”

His last words to Yuji. You almost have to scoff at the poeticness of it all — the same words Haibara had told him. The ones he hadn��t told you for nearly a decade, until one night he had told you what he said.

“And why didn’t you leave any words for me, Kento?” you ask the empty apartment before you, “for so long, we didn’t have each other — we couldn’t. And we finally find our way back, we finally do all the things we said we would — you’re gone, again,” your voice breaks, “I wish, I wish you were here. I wish I could see you. I wish—” and you break off.

There’s no point for wishing for things that can’t happen. You had things to do, and little time to waste. You needed to get stronger too. You needed to be useful. You needed to fight. You couldn’t tarnish Kento’s memory, or — you look at a picture that you had taken of him and Yuji a few days before outside a convenience store you had stopped by after a mission — his legacy.

You searched for the things you needed, placing them in cloth bags and then paper bags for easy and inconspicuous transport, but you needed to label them. You searched your apartment for a pen — but apparently you had misplaced every single one that you had — where the hell were all the pens? A question you’d usually ask Kento and he’d produce one from thin air. No matter what you lost or what you needed — he had it.

He always had it.

If he did always have what you needed, then maybe…you walk into the bedroom, over to his nightstand — he often kept a notebook for thoughts and notes in his bedside table so maybe—-

And there it was — a pen, but it wasn’t the pen that made you pause — it was the two things beside it.

A notecard and a ring box.

A ring box.

Your hands shake, and you almost want to close the drawer. Forget you say anything. Continue with the work you’re doing. It would hurt less.

But you can’t. You can’t.

You reach for the notecard first, fingers shaking as you gingerly pick it up — and you can tell this wasn’t the first he had written on. You could see the indentations from his pen, this card underneath the others as he had wrote. But his handwriting was neat, yet messy at the same time — his patented half print, half cursive scrawl that he hadn’t left.

Your legs buckle and you sit down on the edge of the bed — the side he used to sleep on, his arm wrapped around your waist, face buried in your back, his lips brushing against your skin when he finally stirred. And now it was empty.

My love, you don’t know how long I’ve wanted to ask you this. I’ve thought of ways to ask for years — I had to write it down just so I didn’t mince my words or ramble — you know I’m not one to drag out conversations. I love you. I’ve always loved you from the moment I met you — I know you’d tease me for pining for you, but I did pine for you and I’ve pined for you every second we’re apart. The other times I’ve wanted to ask you, the timing never worked out. But we have the time now, don’t we? Will you do me the honor of being your husband? I’ll spend every second making you happy, because that’s what you deserve, sweetheart. Only the best.

And your tears splatter against the corner of the card, before you put it down, as you let your sobs overcome you, screams you didn’t know you were capable of making— you didn’t even realize it was you, until your throat began to ache.

Why? Why? Why?

It wasn’t real, this wasn’t happening.

And your fingers reach for the ring box now, opening it only to feel more tears well — it was the ring you had showed him. One you had showed him one late night when it had showed up somewhere or another — you hadn’t even thought about the ring again. Until now.

You can’t bear to touch it. You can’t. Not when he wasn’t there to pull it from its box and slip it onto your finger. And he never would be. Not until you saw him again — one way or another.

You snap the box closed, tears slipping down your cheeks as you placed the box and card back into the drawer — noticing something else underneath — a printout? And you pull the papers out, scanning it.

You almost sob. A trip to Kuantan, Malaysia. The trip you two had talked about for months, but never had gone on. The trip was more for Kento than it was for you — and it was for you, in a way, because what you wanted the most was to just be with him. Time was all you wished for with him — all you wanted — but you knew you could have spent every moment with him for the last ten years and it wouldn’t have been enough.

It would never have been enough.

“I miss you,” you speak to the ghosts that fill your mind and haunt your dreams — Kento and Yu, “I hope you’re at peace. I hope you’re lying on a beach somewhere, reading the books you wanted to read, drinking an expensive drink, and eating the bread you love — I promise, I’ll find my way to you, someday,”

And you place the things back in the drawer, and shut it.

For now, you had other things to do. Other people to protect, other curses to exorcise. But — you stare at the picture of the two of you on your nightstand — his love was the one curse you could never give up.

Many months later.

You take that vacation he wanted. Packing the books he always wanted to read. Pocketing the ring he wanted to propose to you with. You’d pack a few shirts of his to wear on the beach, and maybe he would be lying beside you in spirit. You would find that beach he wanted to take you to — the one he had written down and had looked up several times while booking your trip.

You kept the seat beside you on the plane empty but you ordered a glass of wine and a sandwich for him regardless. You know you would have ended up ordering because he likely would have fallen asleep — old man he always was. And if you didn’t know better, you’d think he was sitting in the seat beside you.

He wasn’t dead. Not really, you think as you sit in the beach in one of his deep blue button ups thrown over your swimsuit, reading one of his books page by page, taking back the time that was stolen from him with your own — minutes and hours and days you’d wish you could take off your own and give to him.

He was alive, he was alive as long as you were, as long as the people who he was important to were alive. And he was alive — alive in your head and your heart and your very soul.

You read his proposal aloud as the sun sets, tears slipping down your face as you slip his ring onto your finger. And there it would stay.

Stayed all the seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years you lived -- lived in the house you built in Malaysia when all was said and done for you in the jujutsu world, just as Kento had wanted. Stayed until you finally saw him again. Saw him standing beside Haibara, softly smiling behind him, as your eyes fluttered open as he greeted you. Lips curled in that same smile that damned you from the moment you saw it.

“Don’t keep me waiting, love,” he smiles, the same words you had said to him, “we’ve both waited long enough, haven’t we?”

But neither of you had to wait anymore — as you run into his arms, warm and made of flesh and blood and real, so real — you had forever now.

✴︎ a/n: first, i'm so sorry lol. i don't know how the spirit of gege possessed me but i decided to inflict some pain. i have to thank @laneysmusings for proofing this for me and having to endure this pain. I also want to credit @/tempenensis for their post on haibara / jjk 120 that helped inspire/inform the third to last scene (but they don't like self-insert so i am not gonna tag them, but you should check out their tumblr!

✴︎ taglist: @your-local-simplol, @renawithane, @grooveandshit, @aemondseyesocket, @nitskilanara, @yunchans, @ackermanbby, @luminouslateralup, @multi-fandom3, @idktbhloley, @minteaful, @malleusmybelovedd, @lighttism, @lemonpoppy-seed, @nitskilanara, @wshwshi, @rreborn, @reyy-chanx, @kiradoki, @uroldall, @madam-milf, @elusivemoon

#sab [mlist]#nanami kento x reader #kento nanami x reader #nanami smut #kento nanami smut #kento nanami x you #jjk smut #jjk x reader #nanami fanfiction #kento nanami angst #jjk angst #nanami x you #nanami x reader

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comradekatara · 2 months

Text

okay, so I did just spend the entire day watching NATLA. I had no choice but to watch this all in one sitting with my friends because I knew that if I attempted to watch it alone, or in increments, I would simply never get past episode 1. and I was right. it, of course, sucked so bad. I intend to write an actual, articulate review of the show as a whole when I have time, but for now, here is a list of the notes I jotted down on my phone (including some quotes from my friends as we watched), cinema sins style (pluses indicate details I actually liked, however minuses are far more frequent; points I considered especially significant are bolded).

– NO COLON to signify the central tension of the entire show!!!

Episode 1:

+ Love Aang’s eyebrows, just a very cute kid in general

+ opening fight scene kind of serves

– Sozin does NOT

– This clunky exposition is so strange considering they clearly already assume we are familiar with the entire show

– What’s going on with Kyoshi (ie, where is Roku)

– Where is Katara narrating????

– Hideous fonts

+ AANG SO CUTE <3 (he’s giving Dewey!)

– He can just fucking fly without his glider I guess?

– Airbenders saying wow at airbending (ding!)

– Aang’s uggs

– Sky bison…… L (update: I lowkey came around on Appa, but only bc Momo was so fucking busted he looked incredible by contrast)

– Gyatso’s mustache L (update: many such cases going forward)

– What’s going on with the accents???

– Aang cannot fucking act for shit I’m so sorry to this adorable baby boy

– Depicting a literal genocide as an action scene. Fucking awful

– Aang actually trying to head back during the storm defeats the whole point of the whole inciting incident of his entire arc????

+ Waterbending Avatar State sequence in the storm actually looks cool

– I hate White Sokka

– I hate shein Katara

– They do NOT act like siblings

– I hate White Sokka

– Where is Katara I miss you baby girl

– ZUKO’S SCAR IS AWFUL

– Katara has no agency or passion or rage or emotion whatsoever?!!?!?

– Acting is SO BAD

+ Clunky exposition works for Zuko because he does have a propensity for monologuing all his intentions

– Sokka, however, does NOT

– How can Sokka be “the last man” of the Southern Water Tribe if there are like. Dozens of other guys only ever so slightly younger than him just standing around.

– Kanna just saying Katara’s monologue because Katara is a nothing

– WHY DO FIREBENDERS KEEP ATTACKING AT NIGHT

– Clunky ass exposition “he had to grow up fast” give me a fucking break

– Who the fuck is this white guy

– Katara has no motivations at all?? She’s just chopped liver I guess

– The cadence of every actor is so bad

– They can’t decide whether they want to be the cartoon or their own thing and instead they’re just nothing

Episode 2:

– KANNA JUST GIVES HER THE SCROLL?!?!? KATARA DOESNT GET TO SHOPLIFT. OR DO ANYTHING

– MILF ALERT!!!!

– I hate you straight nepobaby suki

– She’s so fucking weird

– White Sokka has a bad face and a good body. He should have a strikingly beautiful face and a scrawny, malnourished body. L

– Aang being afraid to airbend makes no sense

– Where is Sokka’s fucking Kyoshi Warrior feminization!!!!

– Sexist ass show

– STOP IT KYOSHI STOOOOPPPPP #NotMyKyoshi

Episode 3:

– This one rebel leader guy is giving Katara more than Katara

– Why are the colors so bland

– Sokka being scientifically minded makes no sense bc that trait (which, um, is actually quite crucial to his character) hasn’t actually been established at all up until this point (or retained beyond this one episode)

– This guy is giving jock who happens to be good at engineering, when Sokka should be a NERD who HAPPENS to be good at FIGHTING

– Azula and Mai are NOT GIVING

– Azula should present as sure of herself and incredibly poised. It’s actual crucial to reflecting how she has been shaped by abuse

– And Mai should be razor sharp (both physically and figuratively) and not give a fuck about any of this!!!

+ Katara hitting herself in the face was funny

– Redemption for beautiful Jet (my friend: “I love seeing a beautiful man die”)

– Freedom Fighters are GIVINGGG

– How can Kya “watch the sun rise every day” if they literally live in the South Pole

– They don’t understand Sokka’s daddy issues AT ALL. The simple fact that he’s actually communicating them is egregious

– The first time Katara actually gets angry is for Jet. But not even for the right reasons.

– The first exchange that Katara and Sokka have that makes any sense is in ep THREE (of 8)

– “Sokka was right. You are the bad guy.” WHO WROTE THIS 😭😭

– Jet is only going after the corrupt and collaborators…. So, um… he’s literally right???

+ The fight between Aang and Zuko is actually SO GOOD and understands their dynamic (sidenote: they’re the only kids who are actually giving their original characters at all)

+ Aang reading Zuko’s diary is so fucking funny

+ I love you Danny Pudi <3

Episode 4:

+ I love the interior of Bumi’s palace. Statues of Flopsy

– Omashu is in India now I guess and also everyone in the world lives here

– Bumi’s hat!?!?

+ The nomads sound like Fleet Foxes

– Katara and Sokka are literally switching roles in this tunnel

+ This one Earth Kingdom soldier is really serving.

– The fact that he’s ostensibly framed as in the wrong here though is INSANE

– Zuko is supposed to be ten here 😭 that’s a grown ass man with a BA in Econ

– Sokka’s necklace is plastic

– Katara and Sokka being like “we never used to fight at home” ……. WTF!?!?

– KATARA WOULD NEVER SAY THAT TO SOKKA SHE WOULD BEAT HIS ASS INTO THE GROUND EVEN IF HE WAS RIGHT

– Adults keep being so mean to Aang :((

+ Zuko’s hair is great

+ I like that Bumi gave Aang his bison whistle(?)

– Bumi’s anger is….interesting

Episode 5:

– Canonically 13 year old Zuko is also a grown ass man

– “How was I supposed to know she was a Fire Nation soldier” ummmmmm maybe due to your INSTINCTS and CONSTANT PARANOIA

– They keep alluding to escapades offscreen without actually depicting any of their grounded bonding moments so we have no reason to care about any of these characters whatsoever or their relationships with one another

– Sokka good with kids and names??? Preposterous

– Zuko kinda gay asf

– Zuko calling someone an idiot and Sokka never once does . Sounds fake

– Oppressed peoples are just a mouthpiece for oppression instead of real human beings

– Instragram ass makeup

– Aang isn’t having any fun

– Aang feels like he has no agency whatsoever because he only ever does what the adults around him tell him to do and never does anything of his own accord. Let him have a sillygoofy time!!!

– Constant clunky exposition and no understanding of its own narrative… it’s truly like if ATLA … was LOK.

+ JUUUUNE

– Hitting on Iroh for #feminism

– “I always thought I was spiritually attuned. I don’t know how he got in here though” is actually so Katara. Finally an actual Katara moment

– Wan Shi Tong goofy asf Guardians of Ga’Hoole ass CGI monstrosity

– What is with Sokka’s fucking white people references (all you need is love, bye bye birdie, etc). White devil I need him dead

– Sexy Kitsune for the furries

– Fox accuses him of making jokes to deflect “What? I don’t do that” WELL. HE DOESNT IN THIS VERSION!!! (Alluding to a character trait that they don’t actually depict is crazy. He literally says everything he’s feeling at all times in this and barely ever says anything witty. It’s like they’re TAUNTING us.)

– Kya sounds like she’s from the Upper East Side

– Why won’t they let Katara DO anything!!!

– Too economical with their storytelling leads to no real depth whatsoever

– Putting Katara’s flashback in Book 1 undermines the whole point of TSR

– I HATE YOU WHITE HAKODA

– If Sokka is so bad at ice dodging in this then why did they give him the mark of the wise ??????? None of this scene makes sense

– Why is Sokka CRYING (he doesn’t DO that)

– Koh looks so bad

– Aang doesn’t actually know how to fight Koh he’s just such a wooden actor that he happens to get away with it

– First Roku mention????? Lmfao

– Gyatso talking to Aang is so wack but at least he’s being nice to him

Episode 6 (aka the best episode by far):

+ Zuko just drawing an eye on the page is so real actually

– Azula’s flames aren’t even blue

– And she’s not mysterious or imposing at all!

– I HATE the makeup in the show

– The pacing is AWFUL and STUPID, no consideration as to WHY information is revealed when it is narratively/thematically

+ Okay he’s really giving Zuko lmfao

+ Ken Leung has made Zhao feel like a real person (but no one else is doing that ???)

– Low-budget fantasy C-dramas have costumes one million times better than this.

– What is with Iroh’s obsession with boats

– Quirked up old man Roku

– Zuko flashbacks don’t read as significant because his scar is nothing and he’s the same age

+ Aang and Zhao scene is great

+ I’d follow Zhao into battle

– Other friend: “This is the best episode so far and it’s because Katara and Sokka aren’t in it”

+ Blue Spirit mask actually looks like a theater mask

+ Using the original Blue Spirit theme!!

+ This episode actually slays

– Their commentary on narrativization is solely relegated to Zhao and no one else gets to participate in this thematic conversation, not even KATARA

+ I love the sassy gay scribe

+ LADDERS SCENEEEEE

+ Zuko canonically having good handwriting is so real

+ Aang and Zuko conversation is great

– Why does Aang keep assuming Zuko is compassionate and wounded when he hasn’t displayed any compassion, remorse, or pain

– Iroh stepping into the Agni Kai goes against his whole character

+ Ozai kind of rules tho

– WHY IS ZUKO ACTIVELY FIGHTING OZAI!!!!!!!!

– Zuko’s backstory makes no sense

+ Zuko’s thotty little collarbone

– Ozai’s scene here undermines the whole point of Zuko’s banishment

– Such bad dialogue it’s crazy

– How do the 41st division not know why they’ve been on this boat for the past 3 years when every piece of dialogue in this show is otherwise expository as fuck

– What’s the point of Gyatso leaving. They don’t explain it at all

Episode 7:

– The NWT is so grey and underwhelming. My favorite location in the whole show. Can’t have shit in Netflixworld.

– BECAUSE AANG JUST HAS VISIONS OF THE FUTURE NOW I GUESS

– PAKKU AND YUE LOOK SOOOOO BAD

– Yue looks like a Euphoria character in a party city wig

– This isn’t how Azula fights!!!

– I hate what they’re doing with Azula so bad

– Mai sucks too

– Their journey doesn’t feel earned at all because they didn’t hang out or learn anything or do shit

– Why is Yue in the kitchens if she’s a princess

– And why is she WATERBENDING

– Why isn’t she repressed!!!!! She shouldn’t BE “ordinary”

– Why is Sokka explaining his duties!!!! He doesn’t SAY SHIT!

– Why isn’t the guy playing Hahn playing Sokka and vice versa (I’m so fucking serious)

– YUE’S A FOX????? WHAT

– All the offscreen battles where we’re supposed to assume character development actually happened. Sure.

– Hahn being nice and respectful to Sokka makes no sense

– MILF Yugoda! (How would she know Kanna. Update: I guess that doesn’t even matter here )

– THEY DONT UNDERSTAND YUE OR HAHN OR WHAT PATRIARCHY IS. AT ALL

– Kuruk is too serious and Roku is too playful. It should be the reverse. Playing into racist tropes :/

– His eyes are way too blue I’m sorry to this man

– They all look like they know what iPhones are.

– Yue is so annoying . L

– This whole Yue Sokka scene is the most annoying thing I’ve ever fucking seen in my life. And entirely antithetical to their whole deal

– “My friends” this “my friends” that, except they never actually hang out. They just keep calling each other friends but they never actually show it in a believable way.

– They want to be edgy but they actually never fucking shut up about the power of friendship like we are all five years old. I think when they said they were “appealing to a Game of Thrones audience” what they really meant was just that they are also bad, incredibly misogynistic writers who depict sensitive topics without any care or nuance.

– I actually like the Fire Nation boats

– Zhao is working with Azula??? She wouldn’t KILL THE MOON

– Azula would never ask Ozai to do things she would wait for his command at all times!!!

– Since when is Sokka wise and emotionally mature enough to hold this conversation with Katara, and why isn’t Katara being impulsive. This fight is so planned out; all the excitement is lost.

– Her completely blank expression as Pakku humiliates her. I hate you SHEIN KATARA!!!!!!

– This fight is so dull and lame whereas in the original that fight scene literally changed my life as a kid????? #NotMyKatara

– “The Legend of Aang” EW

– Why isn’t Aang waterbending at all. Book 1: “talking about water in completely abstract, hypothetical terms”

Episode 8:

– Iroh telling Zuko how to break into the North Pole is undermining the one moment where he actually demonstrates his intelligence as an independent person

– Stupid ass liberal feminism I hate you

– So they are sexist but also not. Makes sense

– What the fuck is with this moon backstory shit. Who needed that

– Zhao going to the Fire Temple instead of Wan Shi Tong’s Library for info on the moon completely undermines the point about the role of knowledge in imperialist conquest

– Kuruk looks like a Star Wars force ghost

+ THEY KILLED MOMO (kind of made me laugh a lot, so… points for that I guess)

– But they could only feature him for all of five seconds bc they don’t have the budget to constantly animate his mangy rat ass

– Why is Yue helping MOMO instead of ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS

– They want me to believe that White Sokka has compassion for that little rat when I simply do not believe that this man cares for anyone or anything or even has a soul.

+ Zuko and Aang’s situationship/chemistry is crazy. They’re both kind of slaying actually

– That said, the kid who plays Aang is not a very good actor, he’s just adorable and has big ears and a Dewey voice. And the kid who plays Zuko has the easiest acting job in the show because Zuko is actually so over the top and dramatic that overacting feels authentic to this one character in particular (and no one else).

– Bending fights look stupid and feel thematically insignificant

– This red filter looks so bad

– Why do they keep dragging out fast paced scenes to explain everything so that they’re now boring af

– Hahn is just……. Okay go off woke feminist king. Sure. Why not

– All the exposition is so clunky and slow and undermining the actual point of the scene

– Not only is this not visually interesting, it also doesn’t translate tonally, and the primary actors can’t pull it off

– So NOW Iroh kills Zhao. Okay

– Zhao wouldn’t respect a teenage girl this much, even if she is the princess

– Koizilla looks bad :(

�� RIP Ken Leung the Cunt Slayer. 5ever in our hearts </3

+ It’s actually so funny that Ken Leung apparently didn’t even know what he was auditioning for because he was by far the best actor in this show and nearly singlehandedly redeemed it. I love this guy so much.

– Me: “This isn’t a show. This is a farcical simulacrum of real art.” Friend, far more concisely: “This is a fucking joke.”

– Katara and Sokka barely even seem like they care about each other. Look at how they massacred by boy (and girl)

– Yue and Sokka alluding to fucking offscreen WOULD be a slay if they weren’t both annoying as fuck…

– Oh so NOW Katara talks Aang down from the Avatar State. Yeah. I buy that.

– “You’re not just the Avatar you’re my family” really? Because you’ve barely even talked

– The sequencing and pacing of the Siege of the Noth was nonsensical.

– “My daughter always made her own choices” NO SHE FUCKING DIDNT!!!!! THE WHOLE POINT OF HER CHARACTER. WAS THAT SHE COULDN’T!!! Shallow fucking libfem bullshit they MASSACRED my girl!!!!!!

– Why is Arnook comforting Sokka when Sokka should be comforting HIM

– Also Sokka would never express his insecurities to Arnook in the first place. NOT MY REPRESSED KING????

– Why is Sokka giving emotional support and Katara giving tactical support -_-

– They really think that “Gotta let go of the past to have a future” is such a fucking smart line they used it twice

– Conquering Omashu wasn’t a STRATEGY it just happened CONCURRENTLY because their imperialist regime is incredibly powerful … This show doesn’t understand its own politics at all.

– Azula has no poise or swag smh

– Aang doesn’t even know about Sozin’s comet because Roku didn’t tell him…

– It’s crazy that a show written in the 2020s is actually SO MUCH more sexist than a show written in the 2000s.

– TDLR; I hate you capitalism, I hate you Netflix, I hate you White Sokka, I hate you SHEIN Katara, I hate you heterosexual nepobaby Suki, I hate you girlboss Yue, I hate you visibly insecure Azula, I hate you whatever is going on with Mai, I hate you CGI Momo, I hate you wack ass pacing, I hate you clunky, idiotic dialogue, I hate you complete and utter lack of consideration into what made this show great in the first place, I love you Danny Pudi, I love you Ken Leung.

Which, in fairness, is all pretty much exactly what I expected this show would be. But at least actually watching it did indeed verify all my assumptions (although what they did to Katara specifically was even worse than what I had assumed, dear god), so I will be writing up a more in-depth review soon so that I can actually try to unpack why this show is such a dumpster fire, and how that reflects larger trends in media. But for now, all I can say is, I can’t believe I sat through 8 hours of this fucking garbage knowing it would be bad and it was. I’ve been saying this show would suck ass since the second it was announced, and yet it somehow managed to still prove worse than even my incredibly pessimistic expectations. A soulless, shallow, offensive work of profit that cannot even attempt to justify its own existence. I need to kill White Sokka with hammers.

#natla #‘’spoilers’’ under the cut #lmfao #in the immortal words of bloodbenderz: ‘it was bad’

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brainworms-all-night-long · 3 months

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You know around the end of season 2 I just let my head run with situations about Sonic, despite knowing Nine is his enemy now, still not letting him come to any harm at the hands of anyone from the shatterverse, and I thought I was stretching it too far, that there was noooo way the show would do something like that.

But lo and behold exactly that happened and I've been losing it since whenever thinking abt it!!

Just, the last episode in particular.

Back where it all began Sonic and Nine, fighting in the workshop, Sonic on the defensive, Nine on the offensive. But this time he was way less composed, attacks wild and running on pure instinct and blind rage. He's fed up with Sonic to the point he doesn't even bother with acknowledging the other noticed the palm trees, he doesn't realize that sonic finaly undertsnds. It's simply too late for that, Nine doesn't care anymore, he just wants him to fucking shut up, to stop spouting lies, to stop trying to trick him into compliance. Because that's all Sonic's been doing up until this point really(from Nine's pov anyway), trick and betray him, beat him, and then feign softness just to repeat the cycle again, sowly chipping at his sanity. And there's only so much of that a literal child can take. (Yea I just get fucking run over by a truck when this realization hits. That's a god damn KID going mad with the powers of gods)

Then their fight gets rudely interuppted by a wall exploding and in comes everyone ever, lead by Shadow resident vibchecker of twin tailed foxes the hedgehog.

They want to hurt him, oh boy its written all over their faces, and Nine definitely finds that scene painfully familiar.

Hes has been caught off guard, cornered and outnumbered, exhausted from the constant usage of the prism and also from the emotional strain Sonic kept putting him through.

Than he's made aware of how much damage he's actually caused during his rampage and all fight immiditely leaves him, because there's nothing left to fight for. He destroyed it all, he lost.

Nine's alone, defensless, with no way to escape and at the mercy of people who hate him. Something he lived through way too many times, not even that many years ago.

Except unlike all those times in the past, Sonic was there to defend and protect him. He brought Nine back down to earth and gave him one last chance, even after no one else would.

Despite everything Nine did, despite how angry and desperate Sonic got, he always held out hope for Nine, always stepped in when someone pushed the fight on the fox way too much(looking at you Renegade). Because he was the only other person that knew and cared about what Nine went through, because he finnaly understood the core motivation behind Nine's actions, and because he wanted to set things right between them once and for all.

Looking like Tails or not, cosmic truth or not, that's a child that needed to be shown love above all else, that much Sonic knew and held by.

#sonic prime #Every scene where Nine and Sonic talk is just sooo much to pick apart there!!#Ahaha I'm finally composed enough to analyze the scenes!!!#And late also #Everyone's already analyzed everything most likely x)#i rewatched the last episode way too many times #just #this scrubs my brain in such a right way #anywaY NORMAL ABOUT THEM #miles nine prower #nine the fox #sonic the hedgehog #prime sonic #sonic and nine #sonic prime spoilers #sonic prime season 3

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anewstartrekfan · 1 year

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Why I like Kirk so much and why I think he didn’t resonate as much with general audiences as Spock did

I think what Gene Roddenberry and the rest of the tos crew underestimated is how powerful knowledge of a character can be when they thought Kirk would be popular over Spock. As season 1 progresses while you do get information about both Kirk and Spock peppered through out, how much and how it’s conveyed is important.

Spock is Stoic yes, but surprisingly he talks about his past and what it means to be Vulcan a lot. And other characters comment on Vulcans too like McCoy describing where a Vulcan heart is. Even moving onto season 2, when Spock truly, desperately, does not want to explain what Pon Farr is or that Sarek is his father, he admits these things under pressure. And all of this information is what’s gives the audience an idea of what informs his actions.

Jim Kirk however, despite being very outgoing and charismatic, very rarely talks about himself. With few exceptions, every time you do learn something about his past it’s because someone else explains it or points it out. You’ve got where no man has gone before where Gary talked about their academy days, The naked time while Spock talked about his regrets, Kirk vents that he wants a personal connection and then is literally the only person who is able to will the virus to stop effecting him (on his own I mean) just long enough for McCoy to give him the cure.

The Android copy of Kirk tells us about Kirk’s brother Sam, in Conscience of the king literally everyone except Kirk explains his tragic tarsus iv backstory, we never find out who the Ruth girl is in shore leave, and it’s Bones that brings up Sam lives on Deneva. Even in season 2 in the worst episode ever, the deadly years, when Kirk is in a room alone with his ex fiancé, she explains their history. Not Kirk.

This man is allergic to talking about himself I love it.

Edit: Whenever Jim does even sorta talk about his past, it’s always in the context of what the other people he’s talking to know about it. Take Tarsus IV. Spock tells Jim that he checked the same library records. So when Jim finally opens up at the end of the conversation, it’s information Spock and Bones already know. “I saw him [Kodos] once, 20 years ago.” Then about 10 minutes later when he’s talking with Kodos and trying to get proof, he gives Kodos a copy of the speech Jim heard him read 20 years ago. Saying that he memorized the words. Again, these are things only the two of them would know about. It’s not something Jim exclusively went through.

Then later in Obsession when Jim is talking about his prior experience with the fog, everything he references was in the report he made after the Farragut disaster that he knows Spock and Bones read. There is no new information he reveals about what happened to him or even how he felt about it. Bones has to be the one to say Jim was wrecked with guilt because at the end of the day, Jim will never willingly talk about his past without knowing or thinking the other person he’s talking to has the same information. He will not reveal anything new 95% of the time.

Anyway back to the old blog.

While I’d argue conscience of the king does most of the work you would ever need to explain why Kirk is the way he is, the fact is we don’t learn much about his past through him. Instead it’s Kirk’s actions that inform our understanding of him. Which on some level I like a lot. It’s rare that a tv series doesn’t lean heavily into some tragic backstory explaining why a character acts the way they do. But it isn’t just he doesn’t have multiple tragic backstories. It’s what we know nothing about his past in general. Ffs we didn’t learn he grew up in Iowa until Star Trek IV. It might not even be Riverside! That town just claimed it for themselves and everyone rolled with it.

Edit: SNW did confirm after almost 40 years that riverside is Kirk’s birthplace.

The audience never truly closes the gap with Kirk because he never willingly opens up (at least where I am in the show idk maybe the movies change this) So comparatively Spock just had more going on.

#james t kirk #star trek tos #star trek #Star Trek rambles #captain kirk #star trek meta #Kirk analysis #star trek analysis

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st7rnioioss · 1 month

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౨ৎ⋆ ˚｡⋆ arguments with bf!matt headcanons pt. 2

matt sturniolo x reader

warnings: fluff, idk??😫 some are kiiind of suggestive, sorry i cant help it

a/n: hello hello, long awaited part 2😛 enjoy😇 i fell asleep btw HELP i’m so sorry i took so long

part 1

౨ৎ

- Wanting to sleep on the couch because you got into an argument? Not happening. Matt is picking you up when he’s sure you’re asleep, gently placing you in your shared bed, pulling you closer (angry cuddles - pt. 1). Even tho you’re still upset with each other, he’s not going to bed without you beside him.

- (suggestive!!) Matt noticed you had gotten jealous because he posted a picture with a past girlfriend. He’d laugh it off at first, laughing at your stern face, pulling you in to kiss you. He quickly made sure to show you how much he loves you. (as in spending the whole night in his room, making sure when you wake up tomorrow you’re sure he’s the only girl he could ever want).

- I can never imagine Matt fighting for real with his girlfriend. I feel like both of you would realise it was built up stress or tiredness and had nothing to do with each other. After yelling for a bit he’d pull you in for a hug, whispering ‘sorry’.

- (suggestive!!) If he’s cocky enough he’d have make-up sex with you. Soft, slow sex, whispering countless times how sorry he is and how much he loves you. He wouldn’t do this all the time as he prefers to talk it out. Getting to understand exactly what you’re feeling and why, and the other way around.

- Taking you on late night drives!! He’d pull you into the passenger seat even tho you protested, driving around town, maybe getting food, talking it out like this. You didn’t protest though, deep down this is one of your favourite ways to spend time with Matt.

- One time you had gotten so upset you left his house to go to your own, even tho you practically lived with the triplets. Friday rolled around, and Thursday night there was no car video recorded yet. Saturday morning you checked your phone, realising they hadn’t posted their Friday video. You got concerned, going to their house to find Nick and Chris in the living room.

‘Is everything alright? I noticed you guys didn’t post anything yesterday.’ you asked as you sat beside Nick, Chris looking up from his phone.

‘Yeah, Matt is fucking miserable. I don’t know, he said you guys got into an argument this Tuesday. He haven’t left bed.’ Chris mumbled, looking back down on his phone.

Immediately you sat up, finding Matt huddled up in his bed. There was dark, the curtains still shut, no light from his phone. You tiptoed closer, realising he was asleep. He looked peaceful, but you couldn’t help but feel guilty.

Your clothes was in Matt’s closet, taking a hoodie and a pair of pyjamas pants to cuddle up against Matt’s back. He must’ve waken up, because he mumbled a low ‘is it you? y/n?’, turning his head.

‘Yeah, it’s me. I’m so so sorry, Matt.’ you smiled apologetically, caressing his cheek with your thumb. His expression softened, leaning in to kiss your lips.

‘God, I’ve missed that.’ he whispered, a smile tugging on his lips before he leaning in again.

- After having an episode like this (literally one time), he’d take you out the next day. You insisted it should be the other way around since you had been in the wrong, but Matt insisted on taking you (in reality he just wanted to be ‘friends again’).

- I CANT STOP MAKING SCENARIOS, BUT FOLLOW ALONG.

‘Matt, you’re annoying. Go away.’ I hissed, pushing Matt away from attempting to kiss me with a hand on his chest. I was keeping my gaze on my phone in front of me. I had moved to the couch after our tiny discussion.

‘Oh, come on. Are you still mad?’ Matt smirked, kind of amused by your reaction. It seemed like nothing to him, but you were pretending to be pissed.

‘You’re not funny. Move, I can’t see my phone.’ I pushed his head away. Matt stood up, looking at me for a second before returning to his room.

After a tiny hour, I felt my eyes getting droopy. It was scrolling mindlessly, my eyes half closed. I decided to stand up as my head was literally tilting to the side.

Almost falling over my own feet, I stumbled into Matt’s room, dropping to my knees onto his bed. ‘Someone changed their mind, hm?’ Matt teased, looking up from his phone.

‘Shut up.’ I mumbled, closing my eyes as my head hit his chest, cuddling up in his covers. I almost instantly fell asleep, the last thing I noticed being Matt turning off the light, pulling me closer with a kiss on the top of my head.

- If Matt had to leave early the next day after an argument, I’m so convinced he’d leave a small note or letter along with a flower (or two) on the kitchen counter

a/n: if you couldn’t tell, i was running out of ideas🤩

taglist: @chrissgirlsstuff @leah-loves-lilies @toriinie @cupidzsq @lacysturniolo @iluvmattyb @ratatioulle @emma4eva @riasturns @sstvrnioloo @sweetbabydoe @elliewrites1 @its-jennarose @abbypost let me know if you'd like to be added!

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genericpuff · 5 months

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The Extended Mishandling of LO's S3 Midseason Finale Premiere

Alright, so I had mentioned leading up to the release of the newest LO episode that my feelings regarding LO returning were pretty "meh". Not hyped, but not completely back of mind either. Just sort of a weird calm before the storm type feeling that could go either way.

I'm glad I got to have that moment of calmness because good god, this episode was an absolute shitshow. And honestly, I'm not surprised, for several reasons:

Rachel has never been good at maintaining a buffer, even back at the start of the series she only ever had 2-3 episodes ready ahead of her schedule which is NOT an ideal buffer for an originals series.

Rachel has never been good at writing, she's very "draw first write later" and has stated as such in interviews that when she gets 'stuck' on what she's writing, she'll just start drawing and fit the pieces in later.

Four months is NOT enough time to both rest, attend massive conventions, and work on improving a project while also getting buffer episodes ready.

Because of the FP episodes remaining locked over the hiatus, technically Rachel only needed to have ONE episode ready upon return for the newest FP release, not multiple like she'd usually need like in the past during the S2 midseason hiatus or the season finale episodes which would unlock those FP releases like normal - so for all we know, she could have drawn this episode literally last week, especially when the promo material was so last minute. Frankly I think it was REALLY stupid for whoever it was who decided to keep these FP episodes locked (whether it was her or WT, it was more likely WT) but you can read all I have to say about that in my review of the midseason finale episodes.

All that's to say, no, there was never any guarantee Rachel was going to somehow "turn around" the ride we're currently on. I know that many of the critics were hoping for that to happen, but with the circumstances of the hiatus mixed with Rachel's bad habits of putting her best efforts into the procrastination projects that aren't her actual comic (ex. the few original pieces and LO sketches she put out during the hiatus) it just wasn't in the cards. This is where the comic is at and this is where it will remain until it's over.

I want to also point something out about this episode that was... really glaring to me.

As with all of these hiatus returns, LO got priority advertising in the first two banner slots and push notifications AND a popup ad within the app. This is unsurprising, Webtoons is still trying to milk this thing for what it's worth.

I know a lot of people are gonna focus on the art, or the fact that WT is continuing to shill LO, but I wanna point out the part that WT implemented specifically - "NEW SEASON".

This is literally just false. At best I'd like to think some intern just messed up and thought this was a new season, but it's literally not, the episode designation still says "S3". Note that the creators only design the banner art, the actual labels on top are put there by Webtoons.

But at worst, this feels like blatant lying to continue to hide the fact that LO is ending. Mind you, Rachel and Webtoons have still not put out official posts stating that this is the final arc. There is NOTHING from either of them to communicate to the audience that the comic is ending next year. It feels like they're trying to avoid the topic altogether out of fear of losing the fanbase they still have, rather than hyping up the comic's end for those who have stuck around to see how it all wraps up. And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case, considering they're now trying to funnel the fanbase into Penguin/Inklore with new marketing deals and the whole Rachel Smythe Presents thing. They're trying to make this seem like the beginning of something "new" when it's really just a quiet shifting of management (Penguin House).

But all that aside, let's actually get into the episode. It's one episode after 4 months, which is not standard for LO's hiatuses, typically FP episodes release on schedule (meaning free readers start hiatuses 3 weeks after FP readers do), the only time this has been an exception has been with the 2 week breaks because the whole point of those was to build a buffer (which you can't do if you're going ahead and releasing the FP episodes anyways). For extended hiatuses like these, usually free readers still get their FP episodes, but that wasn't the case here. That means Rachel technically only needed one episode ready for the comic's return, and it shows. It really fucking shows.

FROM HERE ON OUT THERE WILL BE FASTPASS SPOILERS REGARDING EPISODE 254. DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED !!!

As per tradition, we get a title that means nothing at all. It just says what we already know.

Our collective husband Zeus is dying, no thanks to the poison cupcake fed to him by Apollo. For those who don't remember, Apollo had tricked Zeus into eating the cupcake by making him believe it was from Hebe. We are fully aware that it was Apollo who poisoned him. Remember that for later in this review.

Right off the bat we're off to a hilarious start, both with a cryptid appearance from Apollo in the background (lmao) who is, for some reason, ALREADY returning to the scene of the crime he just committed because... who knows at this point. Apollo and Psyche know it was Apollo at this point, I might add, but I have no clue why Apollo is actually returning to the scene of the crime when he has no idea Eros and Psyche know.

Moving on from that, can we talk about this hilarious dialogue?

"We have to call a doctor! Let's call Asclepius!"

"No, we can't trust him! Gosh darn it, why are we only bothering to think of ONE doctor in this universe where we've seen more than one doctor?? Guess Zeus is just gonna die! What a horribly contrived situation this is!"

And that's literally how I can best describe most of this episode. Contrived. There is a LOT of manufactured drama in this that makes ZERO sense even on a surface level.

And what do you mean exactly, Eros? "What a terrible system!" Is this supposed to be a joke? Lampshading? We've seen Persephone go to the gynecologist. There are non-god doctors who tend to gods all the time here.

Eros just doesn't seem to be that pressed over this, he sounds like Ned Flanders and that's NOT a good way to open up a scene like this... let alone an episode people have been waiting four months for.

Anyways, after a few pointless reaction panels (again remember I have to cut a lot of what I show here for Tumblr image limitations but I promise you, I'm keeping as much important stuff as I can in this, there's just THAT MUCH filler at this point), Eros and Psyche confront Apollo and he is... good god.

There is... so much to unpack here.

First of all, remember those theories about how Rachel was clearly trying to write Apollo as this "secret twist villain" the whole time but it doesn't work because Apollo is simultaneously written as both a 'conniving villain' and a massive dumbass at the same time?

Well, I finally have a more appropriate term for him. He's your average red pill redditor - someone who thinks he's smarter than everyone else when really all he does is sit on reddit all day using big words incorrectly in arguments he gets himself into with a bunch of equally-air-headed dumbasses.

"You can't possibly understand the nuances of the Olympian political system," Apollo said proudly, a man who had, ironically and obliviously, run for president in a monarchy. The union of kettle and pot is eternal.

He's the Slappable Jerk but instead of it being a painfully hilarious impression, it's just painful and hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

this is so stupid because it's 1.) Eros pointing out how obvious Apollo's plan was, despite Apollo acting smart two seconds ago with a goddess who, mind you, has been a goddess for ten years, and 2.) patricide isn't even intrinsically linked to politics, there's nothing 'political' about a guy trying to kill his dad except in, idk, a monarchy, which again, Apollo has spent ten years trying to rise to power in as a president which is a completely different form of government.

If I wanted to be really granular with this, I'd like to think Apollo is making some kind of point about the critics who call out LO's whack as fuck political system (especially in the trial arc) - as if he's saying "well you're just a stupid reader and this is fantasy where you don't understand exactly what political system we're using, so shut the fuck up you stupid twig" - but I don't think it's meant to be that deep. I think it's just Rachel trying to write a smart character and then failing at it because she, herself, is not a smart writer. And I'm really inclined to believe that more than the theory about this being some kind of meta-narrative about the critics because this entire plotline is contrived and stupid down to its core.

I did not cut anything out here, that's the pacing. Leto literally just appears out of nowhere and uh oh spaghettio's, she has Kassandra! Remember Leto? The character we were led to believe was truly "pulling the strings" until she disappeared from the story completely after she realized that Apollo and Persephone weren't a thing, even going so far as to call out her own son for being a fucking dumbass? Well, she's back and once again she's being involved as some kind of "double agent" in this whole thing, even though we literally haven't seen her since halfway through S2.

"Mm yes, you're so stupid, falling into my trap! Even though you had no reason to remember Kassandra anyways because she's literally a mortal woman you just met and you yourself have committed acts of violence against mortals without a shred of care! I'm so smart! My plan is all coming together!"

We've never seen Apollo do anything except cry and poop his pants, the closest he got to being "powerful" was his attempts to murder Daphne (who he seems to have forgotten about in this "master plan" of his) but ultimately he's literally just a piss ant baby and there's no reason to believe that he could somehow outmatch the God of Love who can literally manipulate people's emotions and states of mind with his arrows. But yeah sure go off, you're so powerful and smart.

The worst part is, I can't even buy this as the narrative trying to be like "see how manipulative and conniving he is?" because it's just silly. We've SEEN this man cry with his victim complex, we've seen him say and do the DUMBEST things that don't lend to any amount of "intelligence" he may have, it comes across less as him being "smart the whole time" and more as him trying to sound smart but ultimately sounding incredibly stupid. And I can't even immerse myself into it and buy that maybe that's the point, because it doesn't feel like the point, it just feels like inconsistent writing, he doesn't feel like a 'threat', he's just monologuing.

Bad art and Apollo literally just repeating what Leto already implied so this is a waste of the audience's time.

This is the funniest panel in the whole episode because I can't tell if Apollo is supposed to be in the background (for some reason, despite him literally being in front of Eros and Psyche two seconds ago) or if he's in the foreground and just REALLY small for some reason. This is so off-putting. And of course, it's just Apollo explaining what we're ALREADY SEEING ONSCREEN.

You see, in addition to this episode being contrived, it also talks down to its audience a LOT by explaining exactly what we're seeing onscreen. It's like Rachel saw the criticisms about her not including enough to depict what's actually going on in her head and so she thought the solution was to spoon feed information over pictures that are already doing the job of explaining what's going on. Rachel really doesn't know how to write and even when she tries to implement changes that reflect criticisms that have been made of her writing, she somehow makes things worse because she completely misses the point of what those criticisms are trying to get across.

Anyways, without even trying to resist (for some reason) Eros and Psyche get sentenced to horny jail.

They're now trapped in a basement that Leto somehow has in her home. How do we know that?

HAHAHA FUNNY LAMPSHADING SO FUNNNYYYYYYY

Leto claims that they shouldn't try to escape because the dungeon is "enchanted", but she doesn't even bother to explain what that means. So they literally don't bother trying. They don't try to call her bluff, they don't try to teleport out of there, they literally just go "well shoot", shrug their shoulders, and accept their fate. Just like with the whole "we can't trust the only doctor we bothered to think of" situation, Eros and Psyche are turning out to be some of the stupidest, lowest-effort characters in this comic who literally can't be bothered to try because that would require too much brain power.

Notice how much time we've spent on this and we haven't gotten back to where the cliffhanger of the last episode left off? Well buckle up because there's still more to cover.

So it turns out Hebe was still inside with her dad, in FULL VIEW of what was going on through glass which is somehow COMPLETELY soundproof, and when Apollo steps inside, she just has no idea what happened. She never bothered to even look outside to see what was going on with Eros and Psyche, she's just been sitting on the floor staring at Zeus' dead face for what was likely several minutes, unless Rachel is seriously trying to convince us that conversation and hostage negotiation from earlier only took 2 seconds. The timeline is such a mess at this point that characters basically freeze in place as soon as they're not the focus of the scene.

Apollo rushes inside, acting shocked over the situation, and when Hebe asks where Eros and Psyche are (again, she could have just looked out the window at any time), he's just like "dur idk they just left lol" which Hebe just... buys, I guess.

That's just Persephone but yellow. She's even missing her beauty mark.

See how Apollo put his hand on Zeus' chest/shoulder by the way?

Apparently, despite Mr. Smarter Than Everyone Else trying to pretend it wasn't him, he's able to discern that Zeus is dying from a toxic and rare poison just from touching him. He doesn't even really seem to use his powers, he just touches him and goes "welp he's dead i guess lol don't bother asking me how I know that".

But oh nooo remember that note from before? Well gasp Apollo's gonna use it to frame Hebe! In front of no one else at all!

Hebe of course says she didn't write it, but Apollo continues to try and frame her anyways, even though, again, there's no one else present here, and so it effectively just becomes the most absurd form of gaslighting I've ever seen.

Again, THERE IS NO ONE ELSE HERE IN THE SCENE. He's just trying to claim she did it to absolutely no one at all, in the hopes of... what exactly? That she'll just take the fall for something she knows she didn't do? That she'll somehow be convinced? It's not like Hebe has the same thing going on as Persephone where she has a 'wrathful dark side' he could pin it on, this is just a criminal who just robbed a building pointing at the first person they see and yelling "YOU DID IT!"

All I'm saying is that Apollo would be really bad at Among Us. He'd be the type of player to kill someone, hit the report button, then claim yellow did it which, even if he DID convince the rest of the team, would still get kicked anyways as soon as yellow was proven through the eject to not be the imp and everyone would go "okay cool so yellow wasn't the imp, that means obviously it's purple self-reporting." It's a trick that doesn't even work anymore because of how old it is. Hebe isn't a child here, she's an 18 year old woman who should be fully capable of raising an eyebrow and wondering why Apollo is this quick to accuse her - almost like he's trying to hide the fact that he did it.

But Hebe can't catch onto this, just like Eros and Psyche, she has to act stupid for the sake of the plot.

At first I thought maybe Rachel was trying to do some "whodunit" scenario, but that doesn't work here because we already know who did it. And while there are stories that exist like that that pull it off (ex. Knives Out) the problem with trying to do this the way Rachel did is that the person being framed has to have this thing called motive. The reason why Knives Out and Glass Onion work so well is because the person who was murdered (or conspired against) is someone who is being targeted by multiple people who could all be the murderer. It's quite literally called out in Glass Onion as a form of smart lampshading. "It's like putting a loaded gun on the table, and turning off the lights."

But it doesn't work here because Hebe does not have motive. If you're going to attempt to frame a murder on someone, it has to be someone who would have reasonable motive to commit that murder, even if they didn't actually commit it.

And who among Zeus' children has motive?

What about the war-mongering bloodthirsty god of war who has been regularly sentenced to time in the Mortal Realm to fight in wars in which he's been regularly injured?

What about the chaos-seeking wrathful goddess who would do it to get revenge on the parental figure who cast her aside, or even just for the fun of saying she did it?

Why try and pin it on Hebe, the doting daughter of Zeus who's only had a collective of maybe 20 panels in the entire comic?

But then I realized... it's not Knives Out, it's the fucking Lion King.

Which is just as contrived - if not more - than the assumption this was gonna be some attempt to frame Hebe. It's not. He's literally just trying to keep her from assuming it was him. He could have just as easily played dumb without calling attention to the note but he intentionally went out of his way to try and be Scar from The Lion King , while completely missing the point of why that scene worked in the original movie.

Scar wasn't trying to 'frame' Simba for Mufasa's murder. He was trying to hide the murder, while also attempting to get the only heir to the throne out of the picture, so he passed the guilt of the death onto Simba - a child who, unlike Hebe, wouldn't have the ability to rationalize or realize his uncle his a scumbag - who then ran away from home because he was too terrified to face his family for what happened, assuming that it was all his fault when it wasn't.

That's not how this is panning out here. Hebe is the now 18 year old daughter of Zeus, and not one of his only children. She doesn't even fit into the whole "sons overthrowing their fathers" prophecy like Aries would. Apollo is literally just being a big idiot here by saying "well I'm gonna give you a headstart to run away, because if you stay, I might hurt you" (which btw, should be MORE of a smoking gun that Apollo did it??)

And again, it's all so contrived so that the plot can move forward. "Well I'm going to frame you for this murder, but y'know, you should just leave, I'm not gonna try and press it further lmao"

Again, Apollo is a fucking idiot here, because he just attempted to frame someone who has NO MOTIVE to harm Zeus, to absolutely NO ONE at all who would side with him, only to let her go which would leave her to question why Apollo would try to accuse and harm her in the first place before considering other options. And through ALL this he claims he's the smart one, which I can't even be bothered to "love to hate" because it's written so poorly.

And really it all comes down to how everyone else behaves in relation to Apollo that makes it so stupid and unbelievable. Apollo, you're not smart just because all the characters around you are intentionally being written to be as stupid and non-confrontation as possible. If you can only write a smart villain by making everyone else stupid, you haven't written a smart villain, you've written a dumbass whose victory only happens due to contrived plot convenience. It's not even done well like in Glass Onion, it's just bad writing, full stop.

And who does he call to report this emergency? The satyr police? His son the doctor?

No.

The media. Literally just "hello, the media?? I need your best journalist here stat!"

I need you to understand, even if he were calling a tabloid magazine like The Weekly Nark, you don't just... call a journalist to report a murder. These are not the actions of someone who's trying to absolve himself of guilt, these are the actions of a complete dumbass trying to get news coverage of his trophy kill who would be better off just playing dumb instead of trying to play smart. Even Walter White wasn't this fucking stupid despite all the times he fell on his own sword, Apollo is literally just instigating suspicion towards himself for no reason at all. He's self-reporting so hard and worst of all, you can't even take any of this seriously because of how corny it is. There's no dramatic tension, no stakes, it's just a bunch of characters performing in a really bad stage play and reducing every conflict to "well I guess Zeus is just dead now because no one's bothering to make an effort to stop Apollo or ask questions lmao"

It's truly the epitome of "this plot wouldn't exist if characters would just talk to each other."

But finally, FINALLY we mention the thing this episode is named after, the transition point to Persephone.

Just like with the midseason finale episode, there's a lot to cover here, so I'm gonna get more into it in a part two post.

That said, you can see already this is the messiest, most contrived bullshit to ever wind up in LO. It's trying so hard to be smart and it just comes across as a bunch of toddlers in the world's worst stage play rendition of Clue. None of what was done here was in any way dramatic or tense, it's just a bunch of characters infodumping shit we already know, trying to set up new plot threads that don't make any sense, and allowing one another to get away with what they're doing because they don't bother to even try.

It's completely manufactured, contrived nonsense. It's not "smart", it's not "so dumb it's brilliant", it's just dumb.

youtube

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lore olympus #this is the comic that bought two eisners #uh i mean *won* two eisners #... no wait i had it right the first time lmao

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danikamariewrites · 6 months

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Could you please do a rhysand and azriel ddlg where there in a thropel and with reader and what there relationship would look like and how they would be with reader who struggles with mental health and is having a bad episode and has self image issues and is triggered by pressived abandment

I love rhysand and azriel and would love if you could one with just them I’ve seen so many with az and cass or poly bat boys but would live too see more rhys and az

Love your fics by the way and your ddlg series’s

helping you through a bad mental health episode hc

Rhyzriel x reader

A/n: thank you anon! I’ll def do another hc with these 2 and reader :)

Warnings: ddlg, mental health topics such as depression, anxiety, self image issues, and abandonment issues

Your relationship with Rhys and Az is the best thing that ever happened to you

They’re such sweet caring boyfriends in different ways

You’re spoiled by them in attention and gifts

Best of all they just want to take care of you. When they agreed to a ddlg relationship you were so happy, it felt like something inside you was already fixed

“We love you darling, and we want to do whatever makes you happy.” “But will this be something that makes the two of you happy?” You look up at them, you lower lip wobbling as you scan their faces. Azriel pulls you onto his lap, tucking your head under his chin. “It would make us very happy y/n. If we didn’t want this Rhys and I never would’ve brought it up.” That night they held you extra tight in bed making you feel extra loved.

Usually you’re a happy person

Azriel and Rhys always made sure you were happy, healthy, and comfortable

But you had your down days just like them and they were always by your side when they happened

Mental health was something you have dealt with since your teenage years

Depression, self-image issues, anxiety-it’s all been something you’ve fought in your mind

Abandonment issues were also something you dealt with. Your parents never helped when you had depressive episodes. They just left you alone to lay in your dark bedroom

It was hard but you figured out how to help yourself. You made sure to do the things that made you happy and not shut yourself in. Sometimes it was hard to get out of bed so you would sleep in. Sometimes you’d spend days in bed

It’s did make you view yourself as a burden or worthless for sitting around doing nothing. Whenever Rhys heard your thoughts he would immediately calming your fears mind to mind, “Now, none of that darling. You are not a burden. You are working through your depression in the best way you know how. You’re amazing darling, never forget that.”

When you ask for help Rhys and Az are always so proud of you for coming to them

They know it’s hard to talk about these things and they’re very gentle with you

You emerged from the bedroom late in the day. Definitely well past noon and still in your PJs

Rhys and Az know that you need to eat so they always make you breakfast since it’s your favorite

You want to be near them so the 3 of you hang out in Rhys’s office. You and Az on the couch with him reading to you while Rhys sits in his arm chair looking over paper work

Days like these where you have them both by your side make you feel instantly better

You swear their presence alone heals you

You hate when Az has to go away or when Rhys just goes to the Hewn City, especially if you’re going through a depressive episode

During one of your worse episodes Az had to go on a mission and he hated leaving you. Rhys hated sending him away too. You would get attached to Azriel during your depressive episodes and Rhys never wanted to be the bad guy but this was important

Azriel fought him on it, begging him to wait a few more days. But the message Rhys got was urgent especially since Amren was delivering it

Az left right away. Rhys didn’t realize Az left without saying goodbye to you, something he always did

When he leaves Az gives kiss you a hug and a kiss and says, “bye princess, I’ll be back before you know it.” Even if you’re asleep. Rhys would show you the memory in the morning

When you wake up you reached out for Az. He promised to stay with you since you felt your depression getting bad, but all you felt were cold empty sheets

You jolted up with a confused look on your face. Rhys entered the room, feeling when your emotions spiked. “Hi darling, how are you feeling?” “Where’s daddy, Rhysie?”

His heart broke at the look on your face. Your eyes big and glassy. “Oh” you said quietly. You pulled the blanket up over your head and laid back down, facing away from Rhys

He rushed over to the bed sitting next to you rubbing your back, “It’ll be ok darling. I’m still here and I’ll spend every second with you.” You just let out a little groan

You knew Az didn’t say goodbye either which hurt even more

You were quite for days just waiting for Az. You floated around the house like a ghost

Rhys tries everything but you’re just so quiet. All you wanted to do was stay with Rhys

The days without Az you just cling to Rhys, sitting in his lap while he works

The day before Az came home you finally spoke, “Daddy?” You mumbled. Rhys perked up from his office chair. “Yes darling?” He looked hopeful as you crossed the room to sit in his lap

“I’m sorry if I’ve been ignoring you. I just didn’t know how to deal with Azzy being gone.” Tears escaped your eyes and Rhys hugged you to his chest. “Oh sweetheart it’s ok.” He places a kiss on your head softly rocking you in his lap, “hey guess who’s almost home?” He murmurs into your hair

A gasp leaves your lips and you smile at him for the first time in days, “daddy!”

The front door opens and you jump from Rhys’s lap, rushing down the stairs and launching yourself into Azriel’s waiting arms

He lifts you off your feet and holds you tight to his chest

“Oh princess I missed you.” “I missed you too daddy.” You say through a small sob. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here and didn’t say bye. Did daddy stay with you everyday.”

You nod against him. “Rhys told me you were quiet. Let’s go upstairs, you can take a bath with me that’ll make you feel better.”

#acotar #acotar fanfiction #acotar reader fic #acotar reader imagine #acotar imagine #azriel x reader #azriel acotar #azriel shadowsinger #azriel x you #rhysand fluff #rhysand headcanon #rhysand x reader #rhysand imagine #rhysand acotar #rhysand #rhysand x you #rhysand x azriel x you

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joekeeryswife · 2 months

Text

Episode 2 : Chats

a/n: episode 2! thank you for so much love on the first imagine, i really do appreciate you all. here is part two, trying to make it a bit more interesting lol but the ending is awful, next part will be better, anyways enjoy reading loves🩰

“should we go over to the swing? i want to know more about you” you nodded your head and smiled. Mason grabbed ahold of your hand and the two of you headed over to the swing.

you sat down on the swing and he sat opposite you, now you were alone you could finally have a good look at him and you were in shock at how pretty he was. now, you’ve had crushes in the past but he was practically perfect. “so, tell me about yourself then y/n. what do you do for work and how old are you? ” Mason said as he got comfortable on the swing.

“well, i’m an influencer and model and im 22.” Mason wasn’t shocked that you were a model, you were absolutely stunning. when he first made his way down the steps his eyes were fixated on you. you were utterly perfect and he couldn’t believe someone like you was on love island, not that it was a bad thing but how could someone like you be single?

“that doesn’t surprise me, you’re beautiful” he said making you blush brightly. “thank you” you smiled at him “what do you do for work? and how old are you?” you said as you tucked your hair behind your ear. “i’m a footballer and i’m 25” you nodded “what team do you play for?” you were honestly still in a little bit of shock that Mason had picked you, he was so good looking and even though you were pretty the other girls were just as beautiful.

“yeah, i play for Man United” your eyes widened, you thought maybe he would say a team you didn’t know but you did not expect that to come out of his mouth. “i know, embarrassing that a footballer is on love island” Mason didn’t know why but he was a embarrassed. he was quite popular and that wasn’t him being big headed but he felt like every girl was just using him for his money.

“no i don’t think it is, you shouldn’t be embarrassed for wanting to find someone” he felt at ease after you said that, he wanted to impress you because he felt a connection “so, what’s your type y/n” he ran a hand through his hair, the two of you hadn’t broke eye contact since you’d been sat here.

“i like someone who’s taller than me, older, tanned, has tattoos, athletic.” you had practically described him and he was happy about that. “what about you? what’s your usual type?”

“i don’t have a usual type really, i’m open to everyone” you nodded, you thought it was a good outlook to have. “it’s good that you’re open to everyone, it shows maturity i think.” Mason went to talk before you heard the sound of a phone chime and Molly called out saying she had gotten a text.

she was sat on the day beds with Tommy and the two of you looked at her as she stood up getting everyones attention. “islanders, tonight you will have a party to celebrate this series of love island. #getthispartystarted” you all cheered and decided it was time you should start getting ready.

-♡-

you were in the dressing room doing your makeup next to Amber and Anna. “so girls how’s your chats been with your boys?” Anna said as she straightened her hair. “Curtis isn’t my type at all but he’s sweet. nothing would ever happen between us though. i hope someone comes in for me though” Amber said as she stuck on her eyelashes.

“you are beautiful and someone will definitely come in for you Amber” you said as you applied your eyeliner. “how was your chat with Mason, he seems really into you” Amber replied and you smiled at the thought. “he is very pretty. he’s really sweet and he was really interested in getting to know me but i guess that’s what you do on love island” they both laughed.

“the two of you make a perfect pair” Anna said. “how are you and Ovie?” she groaned “he is so hot i can’t get over it” you and Amber agreed, you nodded your head. “i’m going to get to know him more and see where things go” she continued.

“what were you girls thinking of wearing?” Chloe said as she came into the dressing room from the bathroom. “well, i’m thinking of this dress, it’s one of my favourites” you said getting up to show the leopard print dress. “oh my goodness that is perfect, Mason is going to love it” Chloe said and the other girls agreed.

you had all done your hair and makeup to perfection, definitely trying to impress the boys on the first night which you all succeeded. when you all finally came out of the villa into the garden all of the boys whistled at the sight of you.

you all grabbed a glass of wine and split off with your partners, you and Mason sat on the day beds next to each other. “so, you model and you’re an influencer, what do you like to do in your free time?” Mason was thinking of things to ask you. “i love makeup, very into fashion so when im free i go to Paris and visit the House of Dior exhibition with my friends which may seem weird but i love it” he listened intently as you spoke about things that you loved.

“i also love shopping, going to the gym, painting and travelling. what about you? other than football what do you like to do?” you asked “i love the gym obviously, i play video games, i love watching the formula 1 and i love to travel too” you almost squealed with joy when you heard he loved to travel.

it was one of your favourite things to do. “where have you been? and where would you like to go?” you asked as you took a sip of your drink “i’ve been to pretty much all the main places you go to when travelling like Australia, America, Japan, South Korea, Bali. what about you?” he felt at ease when he spoke to you and this had never happened to him before.

“the same, Australia is my favourite. i think if i could live anywhere in the world it would be there, but i don’t think i could leave my family just to live there” he nodded his head “is your family important to you then?” he almost shook his head at the silly question but you smiled.

“very important. my mum is my best friend, im very close with my siblings and cousins too. i have two nieces as well who are the cutest thing ever. to be honest its going to be weird not seeing them for however long i’m in here for. i see them practically every day” you loved your family and he could see that by the way you spoke about them.

“you have two nieces? so do i” another thing you bonded over “no way? isn’t that crazy, we like almost all the same things and now we have bonded over our nieces” you both laughed “i miss them so much. i moved to Manchester last year and they live in portsmouth so that’s like an almost five hour drive which is hard for them. i went from seeing them every other week to seeing them every other month” even though he loved Manchester he wished his family was closer.

“that must be really difficult for you. i don’t want to sound rude but do you not get lonely? i assume you live alone” he shook his head “that’s not rude at all. yeah, i live alone and that does get pretty lonely. i mean i have my dog Max and i have friends up there but there’s nothing like coming home to someone you know? that’s why i’ve come on here, to find someone so im not lonely” you felt sad for him, he had been living in Manchester for almost a year meaning he must have been feeling like this for all that time.

“i’m not going trying to jinx it but maybe i could be that person?” you cringed at what you had just said and pulled a face making Mason laugh, you had gone bright red. “sorry that was disgusting i cannot believe i just said that” you laughed at yourself which made Mason laugh even harder.

“no don’t say that, that was a good one until you made that face. who said i didn’t want you to be that person?” he flirted which made you feel better. his eyes flickered to your lips then back up to your eyes. “do you mind if i kiss you?” you shook your head at his comment. he lent in, one of his hands going to your cheek as he kissed you. the kiss was filled with passion, it almost made you dizzy. he was a good kisser. a very good kisser.

you both pulled away, breathless but in awe at how amazing that first kiss was. you had never had a kiss like that before and it was the first night? no one had ever kissed you as passionately as him. “wow, that was just, incredible” he said making you drop your head as you blushed.

“why did you decide to pick me then? out of the girls why me?” you were curious, i wasn’t that you were insecure or anything but you just wanted to know why “why was i the only boy you stepped forward for?” he retaliated. he was quick witted which took you by surprise.

“i stepped forward because you were the only boy i seemed to have an attraction too. none of the other boys are my type and so far you’re ticking every box. and you’re very very attractive” you shrugged and he nodded, he felt his face heat up as you spoke about him. “well, i picked you because when i walked down them steps i was honestly mesmerised by you. i was in shock at how pretty you were and you’re the only person i wanted to get to know” you also blushed at his comment.

you felt giddy “let’s see how this goes then, who knows you could be the love of my life” you joked making him laugh. “maybe you could be” you both smiled at one another and as you made eye contact with him you felt your body filling with this feeling you’d never felt before, you felt bonded to him, like you needed to get to know him more and you were going to do just that. you just hoped no one else would feel this way about Mason too.

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taylorxtiva · 2 months

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Why 2024 will be the year of Tiva:

In 11x01, Tony tells Ziva to “count to a million.” Now, of course we assume that he meant ‘count for one million seconds and I’ll be with you.’

But what if the ✨ universe ✨ was telling us that to count to a million, and that it would be an essential number for their love story?

1,000,000 minutes = 694 days

6 + 9 + 4 = 19

Which is the number of years since Tiva first met.

(Season 3 aired in 2005, and 2024-2005 = 19)

This year is also the shows 21st season.

2 + 1 = 3

You know what also makes 3? 1 + 1 + 0 + 1

And when did they first meet?! 👀 3x01!!!

But there’s more!

1,000,000 hours = 41666 days.

11 years = 4017.75 days.

If you remove the decimal point from the bottom number and subtract the top one from it, you get this:

401775 - 41666 = 360109

If we then add the individual digits of the answer together, we again, get the number 19!!!

3 + 6 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 9 = 19

Now, 11 is Tiva’s number.

Ziva left in season 11.

“Past, Present and Future” is the 236th episode overall.

2 + 3 + 6 = 11

And she left again in episode 11 of season 17.

“Jet Lag” (the first time Tiva are in Paris together, and is also an iconic Tiva ep) is episode 7x13

7 + 1 + 3 = 11

Tony is born in 1971. Ziva is born in 1982. There is an 11 year age gap between them. But also, if we add up the individual digits of their birth years, and then add both of those together:

1 + 9 + 7 + 1 = 18

1 + 9 + 8 + 2 = 20

20 + 18 = 38

And of course:

8 + 3 = 11

Which is also the number of years it’s been since we’ve seen Tony and Ziva on screen together.

2013 + 11 years = 2024.

And you know what also equals (20)24?

The equivalent of 11 years.

4 + 0 + 1 + 7 + 7 + 5 = 24

Now, if we go back to the beginning:

1,000,000 hours = 41666 days.

4 + 1 + 6 + 6 + 6 = 23

If we add 24 and 23 we get = 47.

“Kill Ari (Part 1)” is the 47th episode of NCIS, and the episode in which they first meet.

Add those two individual digits together and we get

4 + 7 = 11, which is Tiva’s number.

The episode also aired on 09/20. 9 + 2 = 11

Even further, if we add the digits of 2024, we get 8.

2 + 0 + 2 + 4 = 8

“Truth or Consequences” (which is possibly the most iconic Tiva episode where we all knew they loved each other) is 7x01.

7 + 1 = 8

Which also happens to be the number of years they were at NCIS together.

This episode also aired in 2009.

2 + 0 + 0 + 9 = 11

“Under Covers” is also episode 8 of season 3, which is where they first kiss each other (albeit undercover as Sophie and Jean-Paul).

8 + 3 = 11.

I’m just saying… the universe works in mysterious ways. ✨

UPDATE: I have not recovered from the announcement. I’m not sure I’ll ever recover. Of course, I wrote this post as a joke, because I thought there was absolutley no way it was going to happen. And what’s a bit of harmless clowning fun in the grand scheme of things?

Someone did make a comment though, saying that I give CBS too much credit. In fact, I give them zero credit in this. This is nothing to do with CBS.

This is all to do with Michael and Cote and them being the awesome Captains of the Tiva ship that they are. They are the ones responsible for this, not CBS.

CBS wouldn’t even dare entertain the possibility. I mean… they couldn’t even entertain the possibility while the two of them were on screen for 8 years, let alone anything else. The idea of having a whole spin off show dedicated to their most popular ship on their OG show? That would be utterly absurd!

But, I am perhaps the most excited I have ever been to see my babies back on screen together again, and to give us all the Tiva content we deserve. I might not trust writers because of all that we’ve been through, but I trust them. I trust Cote and Michael. They know what we want, and I have 100% faith that they’re going to deliver.

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crysta1ized · 2 months

Text

a theory on ep11’s preview

firstly, if you’ve guessed/ theorized that non was still alive, you get 10 points!

if you also guessed that perth would help him (in that case, thanks to tee) you also get 10 points!

knowing that tee helped non escape, was definitely a plot twist. he basically lives at his uncle’s mercy, is forced to work for him and has to follow every single one of his orders so his father doesn’t die. which is a pretty shitty situation!

we saw previously that he showed guilt after non got busted for the fake accounts instead of him, but to help him escape from that very uncle? you’ll never fail to surprise me, tee!

after that, tee gives an envelope to non and tells him he’ll get him out of there.

now, what is in this envelope? my first thought was obviously money. but i also thought, what if it was a plane ticket? it’d be safer for non to get the hell out of bangkok (or even thailand) to be sure the uncle and his men could never get him. a one way flight, non leaving without looking back.

i think that with the help of perth, tee could’ve gathered enough money to pay a ticket. i mean, that would’ve benefited tee a whole lot too. non forever out of his hair, not causing any more problems. disappearing without a trace. his uncle thinking he got rid of the troublemaker.

but what happened to mr keng then?

firstly we have no idea of the extent of his injuries. we guessed that non’s were only bad enough to knock him out on the roof, but the uncle might as well have killed keng for good.

i mean, he was hit with a car, which is way worse than a few punches. in the best case scenario (for him, cause i want that bastard dead), he only got a few bruises, but the most logical one would be that his legs are broken, as well as a few ribs maybe (depending on how hard the car hit him).

if we assume he’s alive, like non (which i seriously doubt), i don’t think tee would’ve helped him at all. he’s already risking everything to save non, he wouldn’t try saving both, especially because keng doesn’t mean anything to him. he probably never even had a conversation with him.

so in my opinion, we won’t see the teacher ever again, unless he found another way to escape, such as being rescued by the police as his disappearance could’ve been noticed after some time.

now onto the fun part!

white is seen entering the arcade place, where we’ve already seen non & phee meeting up and making out at.

which means we’ll finally get teewhite whole’s backstory!

my depressing theory is that we’ll get a cute little montage of their love story, and they’ll show us how cute they are, with their little puppy love, opposites attract shit just to snatch it from us right after.

mark my words, they’ll make us love teewhite and after those little flashbacks with bright colors that distracted us for a moment, we’ll get back to our depressing and dark present.

4 possibilities after that:

best case scenario: while we get a contrast between the past and how in love they were and acted, nothing terrible happens. tee explains to the group what was revealed to the viewer in the flashbacks, that he ended up helping non and that he’s still alive. he righted his wrongs and while white is shaken up, he’s glad tee isn’t just a bully who guilt tripped a kid into money laundering, he did feel guilt and saved him from his uncle.

same as above, tee reveals everything to the group but white doesn’t forgive him. he feels betrayed and mad that tee hid that from him for so long. in white’s eyes, tee is no longer someone he can trust, or hide behind.

tee dies

white dies

while i believe those 2 last options can happen, i don’t think they’d happen at that moment. tee’s reveal scene will probably be at the beginning of the episode while the following one with phee & new may happen soon after, which is why those 2 options seem less likely to happen then.

new is clearly urging phee on to shoot.

but how? in the last scene of ep10, fluke is the one who has it and he clearly doesn’t want to let it go. he let white out of his grasp and is now pointing it at tee.

but fluke is clearly out of it, and is the one suffering the most from hallucinations, which made him shoot top even though his only principle was clearly to never act, to keep his hands clean of anything that could prevent him of becoming a doctor. too late now!

someone could take advantage of his delirious state and while he’s distracted, take the gun from him, like white, who’s on the ground, kinda behind fluke and now out of his sight. which is when phee could take the gun, as he’s the unofficial new leader and appears trustworthy as he just exposed new.

but who is phee pointing the gun at?

i think it’s most likely fluke. he’s clearly losing his mind and the hallucinations are making him aggressive, like top. which is why they may have to kill him before he kills someone else.

phee clearly wants to make the right decision, surely wants to kill him or just hurt him because fluke is an active threat. but tan just wants to see them all gone! he clearly has nothing to lose left, now that phee exposed him, this is his last chance to avenge his brother.

alternative theory:

phee might be pointing the gun at someone else.

according to how tee’s revelation ends, especially how non’s story ends, something might happen after that.

phee wouldn’t be pointing the gun at someone who didn’t deserve it, who wasn’t a threat to the group.

so why would it be tee? in my opinion, non escaped the country, end of story. but maybe something happened to him just before he could get out. then new would get mad at tee, blaming him. tee fights him. then he would represent a threat. or maybe the hallucinations come back and he gets violent.

then of course new would be happy to see phee shoot tee, who was the whole reason non even got involved with dangerous mafia shit in the first place.

the last scene is new, lighting a cigarette.

why would he be smoking in the middle of all this? like he has time to do that?

maybe it’s just a meaningless scene they’re throwing in the preview so they don’t have to spoil too much stuff.

but, still, new is the only one who's going through with his plan, and he wouldn’t waste time on lighting a cigarette! unless it’s truly chaos, and like we know, he smokes to de-stress.

creepily, when i saw the scene the first time, i thought ‘this is his last cigarette. they’re holding him at gunpoint and they allow him to smoke one last time before they pull the trigger’ because he’s clearly shivering. but that may be way too far as i don’t think any of them would shoot anyone in cold blood if they weren’t actively threatened.

but a more plausible theory would be that they’re forcing him to smoke. in the scene where new is urging phee on to shoot, phee looks at him ‘like, what the fuck?’ like he’s not liking new telling him what to do at all.

maybe then, phee doesn’t shoot anyone, not fluke, not tee, but instead turns on new and points the gun at him. maybe phee really doesn’t want any kind of revenge for non anymore as his brother became too violent for his liking. but phee wouldn’t shoot new.

he could however hold him at gunpoint, and force him to smoke one of the drugged cigarettes, one with an X. maybe so he isn’t an active threat to them anymore, urging them to kill each other and to cause more chaos. they’d be on equal ground as he’d start hallucinating too.

what do you think?

#dead friend forever #dff #dff theory #dff the series #thai bl #dff ep 10 #dff white #dff new #dff tan #dff phee #dff jin #dff fluke #dff top #dff por #dff tee #dff teewhite #dff pheejin #asian lgbtq dramas #lgbtqia

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prince-liest · 16 days

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I’m a sex-repulsed ace, and reading the latest chapter of 666 (as well as your analysis here on Tumblr) made me realize that I have been subconsciously thinking about MY OWN sexuality from an allo perspective? And that it has kinda been messing me up?? Like, ever since I learned that sexual attraction was actually a Thing and that it’s Important To People, I had been carrying around a fear of being deficient in some way and not being able to love to the same extent as allos. (1)

Even though I know logically that’s complete garbage and totally untrue, I felt left out of the loop because people seemed to care strongly about this thing I couldn’t even imagine. Whenever it looked like a relationship might happen I panicked for a reason that I couldn’t understand. But now I’m starting to realize that it’s because I was subconsciously terrified of an ‘ulterior motive’ behind the other person’s reasons for wanting to be with me. (2) That part of the reason they even cared was because of something I don’t experience. So thank you, because this realization just clicked into place while reading your work. The thing is, this way of thinking was just internalized in such a way that I didn’t even realize it was there until literally this week. And I think you’re right; one of the main reasons behind that is because I’ve always consumed media written from an allo perspective. (3) If ace/aros are shown at all, they’re depicted as “lacking” and their character development usually revolves around being “fixed” by the story. When I was ~10 years old my mom sometimes let me watch the Big Bang Theory with her (looking back, maybe not the best decision). Anyways, there was one episode deep into the series where Sheldon (who for the past nineish seasons was probably the closest thing to mainstream ace rep) has sex with his girlfriend for the first time. (4) Afterwards, he says something along the lines of “that was better than I thought it would be”, and it’s presented as a Very Good Thing and a big step in their relationship. I think a lifetime of stuff like that makes it very easy to internalize aphobia and feel like the lesser part of the relationship. Or to feel like the other partner is making a huge sacrifice to be with you. That got wayy too long, sorry. All that was just a lot of words to say that I appreciate you. Take care of yourself!(5)

The portrayal of asexuality that you see in media being almost exclusively as you described is very tedious to me because it presumes that something is inherently lacking in aro/aceness rather than that feeling of "lacking" being something that is induced by societal norms. Actually, one of the things that I find additionally alienating is that fandom spaces specifically have been getting better and better about ace characters - but got damn does fandom not jive with aromanticism. Like, a character doesn't want to fuck? That's becoming a liiiittle more fine, it's 2024, we stan consent. But not shipping someone romantically?? Not so easy, now.

I'm glad that my work has been something that resonated with you in this respect! Alastor cares a lot about his reputation as a demon but is pretty blatantly a person who could not possibly give less of a shit about being "wrong" for not being experiencing romantic or sexual attraction. The explanation Viv gave at one point for his own understanding of himself (that he thinks he's just "waiting for the right woman") actually stuck out to me a lot because it's a very "well, nothing is wrong with me for not feeling anything, it's the world that's failed to produce a suitable person" perspective.

But having that kind of confident perspective of your own rightness in the world is really not often portrayed in media, or even in fandom, which even ten years ago was still in the throes of standardizing "Oh, no! Me, gay? These feelings are so wrong!" style m/m content and is honestly not that far off from essentially that for aro/ace characters.

Anyway, all of that is to say that there's not yet much out there that doesn't frame allo/amatonormative values as the default that "even aro/ace people can (and should want to) achieve," and that it's really fun to write a fic that is unequivocally from the perspective of a character who is aroace and doesn't see it as even remotely a fault in himself. Does he have moments where he's a little confused and trying to process how things fit for him? Absolutely. But he just doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who thinks he owes romance to Vox of all people, hahaha. I've written him trying to conform to allo/amatonormativity more with Mimzy, because I think the social standards of their time could push him into it, but Vox? Absolutely not, he does not respect Vox enough for it to even enter his mind.

And then, on the other hand, writing it from an aroace perspective centers the way that romantic and sexual interest can feel like a betrayal of a good thing. With a character like Alastor, it frames romantic and sexual attraction the same alien way that we usually see aromanticism and asexuality framed as.

In the end, this is just one of a plethora of different experiences that aro/ace people can have, but it's one that I really wanted to see represented more, so I'm very happy to write it. I'm glad that you're enjoying it!

#ask #personal #Anonymous #long post #t #aroace #ace #he cares about Vox at this point!#but that's. not really the same as respecting him.#anyway this next chapter is important to me because it's very #how do I put this #“this was okay at the moment but that doesn't mean he's okay with it overall and forever”#“and it does not mean that they've 'progressed' their relationship to the point where Alastor being aroace is a 'nonissue'”#“(feat. ofc the heavy implication that it was an issue in the first place)”#ANYWAY. SOMETIMES I HAVE A HARD TIME EXPRESSING THIS IN NON-FIC WORDS #SO HOPEFULLY THE FIC AS IT CONTINUES SPEAKS FOR ME. I AM GLAD THAT IT HAS SPOKEN TO YOU SO FAR <3 THANK YOU!!#sexuality #my writing #hazbin hotel #this is a hot button topic atm and it took me a minute to write a reply #that didn't seem like it invited discourse lmfao #actually I still feel weird posting my opinion this strongly oops OH WELL

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ghostofskywalker · 1 year

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Can I request a tech x gn reader where the reader gets injured upon landing instead of him?

warnings: spoilers for tbb episodes 1 and 2!!

hello! here it is, i hope you enjoy!! side note, i was researching what a broken femur felt like (i've never broken a bone so i have no clue) and from what i can tell, the pain is literally unbearable, so either tech is a hell of a lot stronger than people give him credit for, or they totally downplayed how painful this injury is!

words: 2,033

summary: after you get injured in the cargo container, it's clear that tech is worried about you, and you can't help but wonder how your injury will change the team's dynamic.

clone troopers masterlist

Why Serenno Isn't Exactly The Best Place For a Vacation

The crate came flying at you too quickly to move out of the way in time, and the crushing pressure you felt when it landed on your legs made the hope of escaping unscathed completely out of question. You barely registered the shouts of your name from the other members of the team, and even when they removed the offending object from your legs there was no break in the pain.

Constant and unfathomably sharp, the feeling of absolute agony took over to the point where you were blinking tears out of your eyes and trying desperately to think about anything but the ever-growing feeling of horrifying torment. “Are you okay?” you heard Omega ask, and you knew she only meant well, but you were in no shape to answer.

“I believe that you have broken your femur,” Tech said after he took out a scanner from his belt and ran it over your leg. “This is a very serious issue, and we will need medical attention as soon as possible.”

“Let’s hope we can get out of here soon then,” Echo responded, and you couldn’t help but agree with him.

There was no hiding the pain now, and you just let the tears flow freely instead of trying to downplay the cocktail of horrors you were currently experiencing. Echo and Tech climbed up the side of the cargo container to hopefully be able to see where it had landed, and Omega stayed by your side, her little hand finding its way into your larger one. You knew that she was worried about you, and you tried your best to offer a smile of reassurance, but you were sure that it probably didn’t seem that convincing. After being pulled up by a wire and eventually landing on the clifftop, you laid on the ground and stared up at the sky, desperately hoping that everything would all be over soon.

There was still so much at play and so much danger all around you, but it was going to be hard to focus on anything but the terrible pain in your legs at this moment. You closed your eyes in hopes that you might be able to trick your brain into believing that you were anywhere but here right now, and you heard snippets of conversation between Echo, Tech, and Omega.

“Can’t move well, if at all…”

“It’s dangerous to be so open and exposed…”

“Nothing we can do if…”

You floated in and out of consciousness the entire time, still trying desperately to cling onto happy memories of the past even though it has proven so far to be ineffective against this particular torment. You thought you heard Echo say something about checking out the area and searching for cover, but the next thing you truly registered was the sight of Tech leaning over you, a worried expression on his helmet-less face.

“What’s happening?” you managed to slur out, the pain starting to affect your speech.

“Echo and Omega are going to search for a suitable shelter while we wait for Hunter and Wrecker to return with the Marauder,” he said. “But unfortunately there is not much I can do to help you at this moment. The fracture that you sustained inside the cargo container will require more medical attention and skill than either Echo or I have to give.”

You nodded in understanding as Tech took your hand and gently pulled it up to place a soft kiss to your palm. The gesture did calm and ground you, even if just for a fleeting moment, and you were thankful that he stayed behind with you instead of Echo or Omega.

While you couldn’t ever put an exact label on the relationship you had with the Bad Batch’s resident genius, it was certainly more intimate than the one you had with the other members of the squad. But due to your own worry and the fact that neither you nor Tech were really great at expressing your feelings, the few kisses you had shared and obvious affection you felt for one another never received a specific designation, instead remaining as open and nebulous as the galaxy itself. But you did know one thing, and that was the fact that even though the pain in your leg had yet to subside even for a single moment, you couldn’t help the way you wanted to pull yourself off the ground and place soft kisses all over Tech’s worried face.

But clearly you couldn’t, so you had to be okay with simply holding his hand until Echo and Omega returned with an elderly gentleman in tow. It seemed that neither of them noticed the way your hand pulled away from Tech’s or the way he stood up quickly as they approached, and soon you were being gently pulled up and supported as you began the short (and immensely painful) trek to Romar’s dwelling.

The only thing that provided a little bit of hope once you reached shelter was the single painkiller capsule Tech found in his kit. It didn’t kick in right away, but by the time things got serious, the feeling of intense agony had started to fade, even if it only left you with a feeling of less intense agony.

When Omega disappeared, you kicked yourself for not noticing quicker. Tech and Echo had immediately ran out to check the war chest, sure that was where she had gone off to, and you sat there, wondering what you should do. It felt wrong to just stay here and do nothing while your teammates were out and likely experiencing immense danger, but the pain in your leg had simply not subsided, and you had a feeling that you would be stuck with this feeling for the considerable future, even if you were able to find some form of treatment for your leg.

But when neither Tech nor Echo returned to Romar’s home for a while, your mind took a turn for the worst. Pulling yourself up to a standing position, you hobbled to the door. “You won’t get very far in your condition,” Romar said gently.

You knew that it would probably be better if you stayed, but you just couldn’t stomach the idea of letting your team down. Being a member of this squad meant more to you than you could ever put into words, and you refused to sit by and stay out of the inevitable fight that was coming. “I’ll manage,” you responded to the old man, trying to hide the pain you were still feeling from your expression.

“Your friends seemed to foresee this happening,” he responded, and you turned around to see Romar holding a blaster out to you. You took it, overcome with an emotion you didn’t quite know how to explain, and after you thanked the man for all his help, you were stepping out into the night air and doing your best to ignore the horrible sensations you felt in your injured leg.

By the time you reached close to where you thought the cliff was, the pain in your leg had grown to nearly be unbearable, but you couldn’t focus on that now, because there were two troopers up ahead, their Imperial armor devoid of all the color and other things that made the Batch’s armor unique.

Stunning one of them was easy because they didn’t know you were there, but once your position was given away it got a little more difficult. Blaster fire scattered all around as you to took cover behind a tree, and you thanked the Maker that it only took one or two more shots to stun the other trooper. However, you weren’t out of the woods just yet (both literally and figuratively), because you had no idea whether or not more reinforcements were on the way, and you hadn’t yet seen Tech, Echo, or Omega.

As you took a tentative step forward, the uneven ground beneath your foot made you stumble, and the pain in your leg sent you careening forward. You threw your arms out as to not let your face hit the ground, but you were now completely stuck as you laid there, not enough strength left in your body to pull yourself back up.

The pain capsule from before was starting to wear off as the adrenaline from the fight also started to diminish, and you could barely register the sound of others approaching you, but you couldn't really recognize their voices. Hoping it was Tech, Echo, and Omega, you allowed your eyes to close, the inky blackness enveloping your mind and body like a warm hug.

***

The sound of steady beeping is what brought you back to the land of the living, and you were immediately startled by the brightness of this new location. The feeling of stabbing pain in your thigh had become a dull ache at this point, still intense enough to pull your concentration from anything else but significantly less powerful than it had previously felt. You shifted slightly in the cot you were laying on, and suddenly a hand appeared in your vision, gently landing on your shoulder to keep you from sitting up. “Calm down, you’re going to be okay.”

“I-”

“You shouldn’t move too much, it will disrupt your bandages.”

You knew that voice, and that familiarity is what got you to pause. Looking up, you got a better image of where you were. It was clearly some kind of medical facility, from the look of the beds and machines all around you, and you were laying on a cot. It was Tech that had stopped you from moving before, and he had a worried expression on his face. “Where am I?” you asked.

“Medical facility, courtesy of Rex’s information,” he responded. “They set and put a cast on your leg, but you will still need time to heal. Wrecker and Omega are currently picking out a cane to aid you when your leg has recovered enough to walk, apparently there were many options and they wanted to make sure you had the best one.”

You smiled slightly and nodded. The fact that your injuries had been treated explained the significant difference in pain level, but you knew this injury was not something that was just going to disappear. “When are you all going to leave?”

“Leave?” Tech’s eyebrows furrowed as he took in your question. “What do you mean?”

“I highly doubt I’ll be able to go on missions with you guys, and I wouldn’t want my injury to slow you down,” you said plainly. “I didn’t think you were going to wait for me.”

There was a moment of silence before Tech answered your question, and he reached down to gently take your hand in his. “There is not a single member of this team that thinks that we would leave you behind,” he said, his usual matter-of-fact tone having taken on a slightly softer edge. “And there is plenty that you can help us with even if you cannot be in the center of the action.”

“Really?”

Tech nodded. “Truly. I could not live with myself if we left you behind, just seeing you injured has been painful enough.”

At his words, you scooted over in your bed and tapped the spot next to you. “Come cuddle with me,” you said, hoping your silly request would be accepted and he wouldn’t find it odd or strange.

“But what about if the others see?” Tech’s eyes were wide behind his goggles, and if you were completely healed, you would have moved up to place a kiss on his cheek or nose.

“I don’t care if they do,” you responded. “I just want to cuddle with you.”

It took a moment, but Tech eventually obliged, gently slipping into bed next to you. When he placed his arm around you and felt you nuzzle gently into him, he immediately decided that he didn’t care what his brothers thought either. And besides, if the way Echo had looked at him when they were watching over your unconscious form on the ship was any indication, they probably already knew something was happening.

- the end -

i no longer have a taglist! if you're interested in being notified when i post, you can follow my library blog @ghostofskywalker-library and turn on notifications!

#tbb tech x reader #tbb tech #tbb tech x gender neutral reader #tbb tech x you #tech x reader #tbb spoilers #tech bad batch x reader #the bad batch fanfiction #the bad batch x reader #the bad batch spoilers #bad batch x reader #bad batch spoilers #bad batch season 2

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whosscruffylooking · 1 year

Text

The Beginning of Us Part 2 (Joel Miller x Fem! Reader)

A/N: Here is part 2! Next chapter brings the ultimate heartbreaks, so I will be spending a little extra time on it. Also, if anyone wants to be added to the tag list for this series please let me know!

Series Masterlist

Warnings! Spoilers for TLOU Episode 1, mentions of death, mention of panic attack, angst.

Word Count: 3.9k

»»————-　♡　————-««

*September 26, 2003* ~Later That Evening~ "So, the answer would be 783?" Sarah appears unsure. You give her a reassuring nod, "Exactly. Great job. You know, as much as I dread going to work every day, I'm so glad I don't have to do homework anymore." The two of you are sitting on her bed agonizing over her algebra homework.

As she piles up all of her papers into her folder, you wander around her room, examining all of the little touches that make the room hers. There is a simple, yet strong feminine touch to her room. A clear representation of the latest teen trends, and yet it is all a reflection of her youthful vibrance.

The poster in the corner of the room catches your eye, "You really do love Halican Drops huh?" "It's my dream to see them in concert one day," she says with a sparkle in her eye. "I think we should go sometime," you wink at her.

She jumps off of her bed, "Are you serious?"

"Yeah, I saw them once live and they are amazing. It would be even more fun to go with another fellow superfan."

Her enthusiastic expression turns to a more solemn one. Extending your arm out to her you bring her back over to the bed to sit down, "What's wrong Sarah?"

She pauses and takes a deep breath, "My dad is a good man...but he's been through a lot. He has been hurt a lot. Uncle Tommy has tried to get him to date, but nothing ever comes of it. That's why I know you are different."

"W-what?" Your brain stutters for a moment, struggling to process what is happening.

"I know you slept over last night. And before you freak out about that, I just want you to know that it makes me happy to see my dad as optimistic as he's been. He's come out of his shell again. I swear to God everything we talk about somehow comes full circle back to you too. The other day I said I want to go to Disney World and he told me how you have a baby picture of yourself with Mickey Mouse on your fridge. That was my first signal that my suspicions have been accurate."

Leaning forward, you take her hands into yours once more, "Sarah...if any of this makes you uncomfortable at all please tell me. I would never want to overstep or make you feel like-"

"Hey hey hey, I'm so happy about this. Since you moved in a year ago, you've slowly brought my dad back to me. I can see the way he looks at you, it's kind of how he looks at me...but different."

Tightening your grasp around her hands, you draw her into a hug. She settles into your embrace and whispers, "Just don't hurt him." Kissing the top of her head you quietly express, "I'll keep him safe I promise."

»»————- ♡ ————-«« The rest of the night is spent waiting on Joel to get home. You and Sarah intensely watched the clock as the hours passed by, wondering when he'd get back.

Finally, the door-knob to the front door begins to shake and you can hear Joel mutter a curse word when he realizes it's locked. "Well, you locked the door for once, good job," he acknowledges Sarah once inside. "That's because I made her," you stare down at her. Nothing can hide the disappointment on her face. She'd wanted so badly to spend the day celebrating her dad, and nothing had gone according to plan.

The young girl kindly reprimands her father for coming home past the time he'd promised AND for forgetting to bring home a cake, she makes him swear to make up for it tomorrow. Eager to move past the awkwardness and save Joel a little embarrassment, you signal to Sarah to give him his watch.

"Fixed it for you," her hopeful eyes look to his in search of commendation and gratitude. He tricks her into thinking that the watch wasn't properly fixed and you watch the two of them with such admiration, for the beautiful bond they have. The ability to have a deep father, daughter relationship and yet be each other's best friends was so endearing. You never want to come between them, but you'd be honored to have a front-row seat to their little family unit.

"Where'd you get the money for this?" He inquires.

"Drugs. I sell hardcore drugs," she says in all seriousness.

You and Joel laugh in unison, your eyes meeting briefly before turning your attention back to his daughter.

"Actually," she rests her head on your shoulder, "Y/N helped."

There is a pleased look in his eye, as his gaze meets yours. It's as if some element of peace washed over him and pure contentment settled into his rough features. It's been years since a woman showed him this much kindness, and you'll be damned if that job ever goes to someone else. »»————- ♡ ————-«« Sarah had fallen asleep to a movie, her head laying in Joel's lap. The two of you kept stealing glances throughout the movie. You feel his fingertips graze your shoulder and you turn to him, resting your head on the back of the sofa.

"Hi Joel," your pupils dilate.

"Hi beautiful," his eyes twinkle, fixated on studying every detail of your face.

Very quickly, you learn that your conversations do not need words to feel meaningful. The tilts of your heads, the shrugs of your shoulders, the serene sighs of surrender when you feel completely at ease with one another. Both of you are soothed by each other's presence and it is evident even in the voids of quietness. In those moments you can fully savor the company of the other and thrive off of the respect and admiration that radiates from you. There is a feeling of safety and confidence that stays between you and has existed since the beginning of your friendship.

The sharp ringing of the phone snaps you both back to reality. He answers it. You can't make out the words but can tell it is Tommy on the other line. With a heavy sigh, Joel falls back against the couch in defeat.

Damn it Tommy. You got yourself locked up again, didn't you?

Joel turns to you, jaw clenched with annoyance, forehead furrowed in disappointment. He wants to stay here with you a little while longer.

You offer to remain at the house and make sure Sarah is taken care of while he picks up Tommy. He takes her upstairs to tuck her into her bed. Dragging himself back downstairs, he rolls his neck from one side to the other in an endeavor to relieve the kinks. Stifling a yawn, you meet him halfway in the living room.

"We'll be here when you get back."

Although his expression was pensive, it eases slightly as you pull him out of his thoughts and back into the present with you.

"Thank you for staying with Sarah. Hell, sleeping over two nights in a row...things are getting serious." He gives you a goofy smile.

"Go!" You let out a short laugh and shove him out the front door. »»————- ♡ ————-«« As the hours rolled by, your sense of urgency grew. Joel should have been back with Tommy by now. Eager to distract yourself you turn on the television and aimlessly channel surf until you discover a movie that piques your interest. Another hour of watching the front door, willing Joel and Tommy to walk through it, passes by.

Drowsiness begins to overtake you. You take your eyes off of the television screen not wanting to exert any more effort into looking at it. Each muscle in your body begins to release the tension of the day, one by one as you settle onto the couch. The faint buzz of the television lulls you to the edge of sleep in mere moments.

Jolted awake by the deafening rumble of helicopters passing overhead, you fight off the dream that is still clouding your mind. Everything from your eyelashes to your feet feels heavy. Resting your eyes once more, you grant yourself another moment to enjoy the void of unconsciousness.

That moment is interrupted by Sarah shaking you awake.

"Y/N, what's going on? I think I can see explosions outside..."

Groggily sitting up, your vision finally focuses on the TV just past Sarah. The channel that was airing a movie not too long ago is now distorted with static. Sarah picks up the remote and changes the channel.

"STAY INDOORS! Law enforcement and emergency services are in the area and will be in contact with further instructions."

"What the f-"

Your attention shifts from the national alert to the sound of scratching at the window. The Adler's dog is loose and attempting to get into the house.

Okay, this night CANNOT get any stranger.

"It's Mercy! We need to see if he's okay," Sarah rushes to the door. You grab her arm, "Uh, I don't think that's a good idea. I think we need to stay inside right now and keep the doors locked."

"But he never gets loose. What if something is wrong with the Adlers?"

Suppressing the dread that is developing rapidly within you, you swallow your fear for Sarah's sake. You have to keep things calm and safe for her.

"Alright," you smooth your hand over her hair, "I'm gonna go over to my house and grab my nursing kit okay? Let me go check on them, but you do not, and I am so serious right now....do NOT leave this house by any means. Understand?"

She was too frightened to even lift her head, rather she stared out the window at the distant flares of light coming from the city.

You kneel to her level and hold her for a moment, "Everything is going to be alright okay?"

"Can I see if Mercy is okay?"

Conceding, you cautiously open the door and allow Sarah to clutch onto the dog. "Remember Sarah, do not leave the house."

Your pulse beats in your ears, as you turn to face your house. Although your mind is intent on making the trek across the street, it is as if your feet are cemented to the ground.

You tell yourself that being a little nervous is a completely normal reaction to what is going on. But that's just it, what IS going on?

God Joel, where the hell are you?

»»————- ♡ ————-««

"Damn it Tommy can you drive any faster?"

Tommy's grip on the wheel tightens, finding an odd comfort in the grooves between his fingers.

"Joel, I am going as fast as I can okay? They will be fine. Sarah is a smart girl and she has Y/N who won't let anything bad happen to them."

Joel could not wrap his mind around any of the events that transpired once he left his home to go get Tommy. One second he was in the comfort of his living room, within arms reach of the woman he'd just spent the most incredible night with. And his daughter, the embodiment of his heart and soul, was safe asleep on his lap. Next thing he knows, he and Tommy are being chased by a stampede of rabid-like inmates at the Travis County Jail. He could no longer restrain the tremors in his hands, shaking in an irregular rhythm.

"You really care about this girl don't you," Tommy's voice manages to break through the wall of thoughts blockading Joel from thinking clearly.

Recalling the night before, he is transported back to the moment when you pulled his shirt over his head and started grazing your hands across his chest, down the ridge in between his abs. It was a sensory overload, every nerve ending in his body tingled with anticipation. The two of you collapsed onto his bed, your bodies trembling as you bonded with every motion, each passionate touch leaving a flaming sensation on your skin. Your hearts raced in tempo with one another, like a symphony crescendoing to its epic finale.

"I do. This is the only time since Sarah's mom left that I've felt alive. Young again, invincible." Joel has never felt so certain in his life about someone, not even his ex-wife. Being with you is effortless. In your presence, he feels weightless. Like a drug, you drew him in slowly, tempting his every desire. At first, he took you in, little by little. And without detection, he became addicted. »»————- ♡ ————-«« Emerging from your home, nursing kit in hand, you prepare yourself for whatever you might face at the Adler's home. Surely it is nothing too grave, and yet you can't help but wonder why her kids didn't come to get you or call 911 if something happened to Nana?

Passing Joel's house, panic passes over you, causing the fine hairs on the back of your neck to rise. The front door is still open. Your mind races faster than your feet as you rush into the house. The endless possibilities as to what could've happened to her plague you.

You are confident that if anything happens to Sarah, Joel will strangle you with his bare hands...and not in a pleasurable way. Even if you told that stubborn girl not to move a finger from where you left her. She reminds you so much of yourself though. Curiosity can be so enticing at times that it blinds a person. Especially someone with as honorable of a heart as Sarah's.

"Sarah!" You frantically call out in each room.

Where are she and that damn dog?

Joel, hurry up. Please.

After surveying the entirety of the house to no avail, your chest tightens, and your lungs feel as though they have been wrung out of oxygen. Unsure of whether or not your lack of oxygen is due to the running or the panic attack creeping up on you, you take a moment to gather your thoughts. Mind over matter. Where would she go?

The dog. The damn dog. She's at the Adler's.

The next few seconds are a blur. You are uncertain how you got to the Adler's doorstep so swiftly. It felt like you were practically flying. Similar to Joel's home, the front door is open.

This girl needs to learn how to not only lock doors but actually CLOSE them.

A sickening sensation flares through your body as you peer into the still home. There go the hairs on the back of your neck again, but this time, the tingling sensation snakes down your spine and arms too. Instinctually, you know not to go in there. But, Sarah is in there and she matters more than any gut feeling or self-preservation right now.

"Sarah?"

Apprehensively, you venture deeper into the house. That's when you lay eyes on her, frozen in the kitchen. Unclear as to what she is fixated on, you join her in the doorway. That's when you see it. A trail of blood leads directly to Mr. Adler, his mouth agape and his limbs contorting. At first, the sight does not phase you. As a nurse working in an emergency room, you handle bloody wounds day in and day out. It's not until you look closely at where the blood is coming from that your fears reignite.

Is that...a bite wound?

A guttural noise captures your attention. Following Sarah's line of sight, terror sucks the very breath from your lungs. There is Nana, atop Mrs. Adler. Another river of blood floods from the daughter-in-law's neck.

Nana's raspy breathing slows to a more even tempo as she raises her eyes toward you. Vine-like appendages protrude from her mouth, attaching themselves to Connie's neck. The drumming of your heart, deafening and irregular, obscures your mind with fear.

Fight? Or flight? First, get Sarah as far away as possible.

Latching onto Sarah's arm, you tug her behind you.

One word. "Run."

Keeping your eyes on the gasping old woman, you ready yourself to prevent her from reaching Sarah at all costs. You listen intently for Sarah's footsteps pounding out of the house until you are positive she's made it outside.

You can feel the flight responses taking over your body, flooding you with increased adrenaline.

Nana stumbles to her feet as she releases a splintering screech. That is when the adrenaline ceases full control over your body, sending you hurdling towards the front door. Whatever creature has possessed the once docile elderly lady, is now hot on your heels. Her bone-chilling snarls signal you to her presence behind you.

Just as you begin to fear the worst outcome, you see him.

"Don't go," Joel's pleas echo in your mind from mere hours ago.

The thought of being wrapped up in his secure embrace once more drives you to push your legs harder.

Anguish pierces his voice as he calls out your name. Even so, it translates into a calming melody that brings some clarity to your mind.

"Get behind me..." He motions you over to Sarah.

As you hold her trembling frame, you turn back to Nana who is collapsed on the ground. Her limbs are mangled and her eyes are void of any life. Suddenly, the sharp cracking of her bones churns your stomach. Like a rabid animal, she growls and sprints toward Joel on all fours. Rising to her feet and closing in on him, she flails her arms wildly.

"What are we doing Joel!?" Tommy exclaims.

Without hesitation, Joel swings the wrench clutched in his fist and lands one solid blow to the side of the woman's head, sending her motionless body to the ground. Sarah screams and you quickly shield her from the sight of her father standing over their neighbor's corpse...or at least the shell of what she used to be.

Joel rushes to his daughter's side and caresses her cheek, looking her over to make sure she's safe and in one piece.

"You killed her," she cries in disbelief as she collapses into his arms.

He tightens his grip on her, "Baby, I'm sorry." He pulls away and stares into her eyes with strength and focus, "It's not just the Adlers. But we're gonna be brave and we're gonna get out of this."

Not just the Adlers? The helicopters flying towards the city...whatever took control of Nana did not die with her, she was merely the introduction.

Feeling lightheaded, you lean against Tommy's truck. He rushes to your side and holds you up, "You got that nursing kit of yours?"

"N-no. Inside," you point to Joel's house.

One by one, generators and streetlights begin to explode. Sparks of orange and gold, light up the sky over your neighborhood.

Joel ushers Sarah into the car and turns to face you. For a brief moment, time stands still. His pupils dilate, as he looks at you, the woman who made the future look like skies as clear as sapphire. Yet, he recognizes a shift in the atmosphere. A shared dread hanging over you like a dark, impenetrable cloud. His hands tremble, searching for yours to steady them. He twitches, his body responding to your delicate touch.

"Don't go." He implores you. His signature phrase to you. That in itself could be your new love language.

Attempting to open your mouth to speak, no words flow out. A simple nod is all you can manage. With that permission, he hurries you into the truck, meanwhile warning another one of your neighbors to stay inside and lock her door. Once Joel is inside, you lean forward and drape a reassuring hand on his shoulder. A subtle, but significant sign of solidarity. He laces his fingers with yours and holds you in place against the back of his seat.

As aggressively as Tommy floors the truck into motion, he brings it to a screeching halt. The headlights of the truck illuminate the Adlers stumbling onto the street. Their limbs are just like that of Nana's, wrenched and fidgeting.

"Get your seatbelts on," Joel declares.

Tommy warns, "Hold on..."

His foot finds its way back to the accelerator with no delay. Bracing yourself for the unthinkable you turn to Sarah, "Come here." She folds into your lap, a whimper escaping her lips. The Adlers charge at the truck simultaneously. Connie soon disappears from view as the truck plows over her and sideswipes Danny.

Closing your eyes, you do everything in your might to hold down the bile rising in your throat.

Sarah sits up and wipes a few stray tears from her eyes, "Daddy-"

"We don't know," Joel interrupts.

You shake your head in disbelief, "The Adlers, they were infected with something, some kind of parasite maybe?"

"That's what they're saying on the radio, some kind of virus," Tommy confirms.

"Are we sick?" The young girl persists.

"No. Of course not," Joel's fearful tone turns to a more frustrated one. As a father, his instinct is to protect his daughter and provide her with comfort, but he has no clue what kind of threat lies ahead and can't give her satisfying answers. You tighten your hold on his hand, and he gives you a firm squeeze.

Joel's brother slows the truck as you spot a family pulled off onto the side of the road.

"Tommy, don't," you state firmly. The family shouts after you in desperation.

"But they have a kid."

"So do we," Joel glares at Tommy.

It's officially every man for themselves. Each outsider you bring into your safety net becomes a variable. An unpredictable risk that could put you and the people you care most about in grave danger.

Beams of crimson light glow in the distance, a vast sea of unmoving taillights. Seems like everyone in Austin had the escape plan as you, sending Tommy into a frenzy.

"It's okay, just think it through, we'll think it through," Joel says in repetition, not just for Tommy, but also to ease himself.

Coming from the opposing direction, panicked vehicles race towards you, and away from the perpetual gridlock that hundreds of other cars are trapped in.

Looking out the window into the vast, empty land that stretches for miles uninterrupted, you have a plan.

"Tommy, the field. It's the perfect detour. Cut across it and we will end up on the west side."

Speedily, he veers off onto the barren land. A stampede of cars follows behind you. The collective rays of the headlights light your path to....another dead end. The highway is infested with army vehicles crawling along it.

Tommy and Joel bicker over what the next move should be. Joel opts for a small town on the north side.

"And then what?" You interject.

Joel steadies himself against the dash, the unstable terrain tossing your bodies left and right.

"I don't know. Mexico. Just far, far as we can."

Sarah's eyes gloss over. "Maybe it's everywhere. Maybe there's nowhere to go."

"Hey, hey look at me. We are going to be fine. As long as the four of us stick together, we will be fine. There will be somewhere for us to go and find safety. I promise you, we won't let anything happen to you," you place your hand over your heart and affirm to her.

The dilemma is, you don't know if you can even accept what you promised Sarah. This isn't some influenza you can shelter in place from. The battle is against mankind's worst enemy, man. But not normal men, men being transformed into monsters.

"I-I believe you." Sarah's faith in you is unshakeable, "And I love you too Y/N."

»»————-　♡　————-««

Tag List: @midgetpottermills @erenswiffe

#joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller x y/n #joel miller one shot #joel miller #Pedro Pascal #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal imagine #pedro pascal x y/n #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal one shot #the last of us imagine #the last of us

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