#please find me a job that doesn’t take advantage of how great i am | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

americasass91 · 3 years

Text

Baby Fever

Hello lovelies! I hope everyone is well! This little fic is for the amazingly talented @buckyownsmylife 2k/Birthday Challenge! Which the theme for it was breeding kink. Which how could I not participate in that? Breeding kink just happens to be one of the biggest kinks I have(and i don’t even want kids, go figure) So I looked through my Masterlist and realized I didn’t have a breeding kink fic with Steve. Well, I can’t say that anymore!

Thank you for hosting this challenge you lovely, beautiful human! And congrats on the 2k!! You deserve that and so much more! I hope everyone enjoys!

Rating: Explicit (duh, it’s a breeding kink fic)

Words: 2.8k

Warnings: breeding kink(again, duh), Professor!Steve(I feel like he’s a warning all by himself, language, age gap, unprotected sex(I mean, it’s kind of implied but I’ll put the warning anyway)

🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️

“How long do we have to stay at this thing?”

You help can’t but roll your eyes at your husband of 4 months. “I told you I’m not sure. It’s my niece’s 1st birthday party. You could’ve stayed home you know.”

Steve pulls up to your sister’s house and parks among the other vehicles in the front yard. “Yeah and give them even more reasons to hate me? No thanks.”

See, Steve wasn’t your family’s favorite person. It all has to do with the fact that he’s 10 years older than you and how you guys met, which was during your freshman year of college. You were the innocent student and he was your history professor.

The attraction was instant and very mutual between you two. But dating students at this particular university was frowned upon and Steve could have lost his job. So, you admired each other from afar….that is until the semester was over. You went to visit him in his office after your last class and he eagerly bent you over his desk and ruined you for any other future man you may have.

Well, that was 6 years ago now. Your family of course didn’t approve and thought he was just taking advantage of a young, naive student. Your mom was the first to come around when she noticed a change in your demeanor and how happy he made you. She talked some sense into your dad and he eventually backed off as well.

It took until Steve put a ring on your finger for your sister to accept him. Although you know her and her friends still judged you two. You could tell by the looks you guys always got whenever around them. You learned to not let it bother you. Steve was amazing. He was attentive, caring, and he loved you with everything he had. The only flaw he had was that he didn’t want kids.

It almost made you consider not marrying him. You had always wanted kids. But, in the end you realized you wanted Steve for the rest of your life more than a baby. But he did adopt a kitten with you. So it’s a win, win.

🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️

He gets out of the car and grabs the gift out of the trunk. You had gotten her an outfit that says ‘My aunt is cooler than your aunt’ and various toys that she would enjoy. Plus, being the book editor you were, you couldn’t not get her a book. So, you got her the very first Harry Potter book. When Steve saw you wrapping it with a questioning look, you told him it was never too early to start a child’s transition into being a Potterhead.

You skipped excitedly next to Steve as you made your way to the front door. He couldn’t help but chuckle at your enthusiasm. “You excited or something, sweetheart?”

After ringing the doorbell, you turn towards him. “Of course I am! I love my little niece!”

Truth was, you knew you were never going to have a baby of your own. So you poured all of your love and joy for a baby into your niece.

You’re pulled from your thoughts when your brother-in-law, Matt, answers the door.

“Mr. and Mrs. Rogers! Glad you made it! Come on in!” He ushers you 2 inside, helping you both hang your coats up in the hall closet. He then points to the obvious gift table. “You can just set that down there, Steve. And if you’d like, me and a bunch of the other husbands are downstairs in the basement watching the game. You’re more than welcome to join us.”

Steve looks at you, silently asking for permission. You give him a quick pecking the lips. “Go have fun. Just make sure to come back up for food and presents.”

As Steve heads downstairs with Matt, you can’t help but take in all the decorations. Little Miss Lindsey just happens to currently be obsessed with The Little Mermaid. So of course the theme is under the sea. Your sister really went all out. Streamers, balloons, and even mermaid figurines were everywhere. There’s even mermaid confetti on the tables.

You head in search of your sister and the birthday girl, one of which you find in the kitchen. “Hey sis! Need any help?”

Your sister, Rachel, turns from the hot dog sauce she’s stirring on the stove and gives you a big hug. “Oh, thank god you’re here! Can you grab the vegetable tray and potato salad out of the fridge and put them on that table over there?”

“Sure! Where’s Linds?” You ask as you grab the requested items out of the fridge.

Your sister returns to the sauce on the stove. “She’s still napping. I should be getting her up soon. Where’s Steve? He stay home? I know this isn’t really his thing.”

You take the plastic wrap off the potato salad and sit it amongst the smorgasbord of other food on the table. “Of course he’s here. He’s down in the basement with the other men.”

You sister lets out a sigh. “Yeah, I told Matt they could only watch until everybody got here. Ah, shit. I think I hear Lindsey crying.”

“I’ll get her!” Quickly jumping at the chance to see her.

“You sure? That would be great! The outfit I want her to wear is on the changing table. And can you do her hair up in the bow, too?”

“You got it!” You make your way down the hall towards Lindsey’s room, her crying getting louder. You open the door and see her sitting up in her crib. Her crying quiets the moment she sees you. She gets a big ole smile on her face and reaches out for you. “Hi, sweet girl! How is the birthday girl today?” You pick her up and give her a big hug. “How about we get you changed into your party outfit?” She just coos back at you in response.

You push her outfit aside and lay her down on the changing table. Quickly realizing she’s wet, you give her a fresh diaper. She attempts to ‘help’ as you try to change her into her party outfit. Which after it’s on her, she looks like a little mermaid. You quickly brush her hair and pull as much of it as you can into a ponytail on the top of her head and add the matching bow. You stand back a little from her and clap your hands. “What a pretty girl! Are you ready to join your party?” You pick her up and turn around to head out of the room. You’re surprised to see your husband standing in the doorway.

“Hey, I thought you were watching the game?” He shrugs his shoulders and walks towards you two. “I missed you.” He tickles Lindsey’s side, causing her to giggle. “Happy Birthday, little one.” You can’t help but feel your heart warm. That always happens anytime your husband interacts with a baby.

“I was just helping Rachel out by getting her ready. She seemed a little frazzled in the kitchen.” You turn your attention back to Lindsey. “Come on, sweet girl. Let’s go join your mommy in the kitchen!”

🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️

The next hour goes by in a blur. You weren’t really paying attention to anyone else. All of yours on Lindsey. The only food she seemed to want was what was on your plate. You didn’t mind sharing. Then she got to ‘smash’ her cake. Which for Lindsey it meant taking delicate little bites from said cake, mostly of the icing. She did still manage to get it all down the front of her though. But that’s okay, Rachel of course had a back up outfit ready.

You had just polished off your hot dog when Rachel walked back into the room with a now clean Lindsey. Steve grabbed yours and his plates to go dispose of.

Rachel sat on the floor with Lindsey who immediately started crawling towards you. “I think you’re gonna have to join us, sis.”

You can tell it’s hurting Rachel’s feelings a little that Lindsey is so attached to you today. Nevertheless, you join them on the floor, placing Lindsey in your lap. “Ready to open presents, sweet girl?”

Rachel turns to Matt. “Honey, could you start handing out the presents please?”

He nods and goes to grab the first of many presents. He sits it down in front of Lindsey who immediately goes for the tissue paper. She doesn’t even seem to care about the present in the bag. You laugh and try to get her attention on the gift inside.

You look up and see everyone laughing at the birthday girl who only wants the tissue paper. You notice Steve towards the back of the crowd, only he’s not laughing. He’s giving you a look. You’ve seen that look before. It instantly sends a shiver down your spine and makes your panties wet. He wants you.

You try to give him a stern look. He shouldn’t be looking at you like that in the middle of your niece’s party. He puts his hands up in surrender.

🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️

After taking almost 2 hours to open the rest of the gifts, Lindsey was a sleepy girl. You were sitting on the couch with Lindsey cuddled up into your chest. You were gently rocking her back and forth. You look over at your sister who was cleaning up the mess from the presents.

“I can go put her down for a nap, Rach. I don’t mind.”

“Thanks, sis. You seem to be her favorite person today so she’d probably scream if I tried to do it. Matt! Could you get a bottle ready for Lindsey so my sister can put her down for her nap?”

A few minutes later he comes out with the bottle and hands it to you.

You stand up and look over at Steve. “I shouldn’t be too long. Did you want to head out of here after I put her down? I know you still have those papers to grade.”

He nods. “Yeah, if you don’t mind. Thanks, sweetheart.”

You squeeze his bicep as you pass by him. “Of course not. Like I said, this shouldn’t take too long.” You glance at Lindsey and notice she’s having trouble keeping her eyes open.

🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️

Just like you predicted, it only took Lindsey about 15 minutes to fall asleep. You take one last glance at her, your heart tugging a little, knowing you’ll never have one of your own.

You quietly close the door and don’t even take 2 steps before the door across the hall opens to reveal Steve. You look at him in confusion. “Babe? Why are you in the laundry room?”

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he grabs your arm and pulls you into the room with him. He makes sure to shut the door behind him.

“Steve, what are you doing? I thought we were leaving?”

He pushes you to the front of the washing machine and presses himself up against you, immediately making you feel how hard he is. “Need you, baby.” He reaches around and starts undoing your jeans.

You start pushing his hands away and try to turn around. His hold on your waist tightens, stopping you.

“Steve, we are not doing this here. You can wait until we get home.”

You are suddenly pushed until your front is resting on the top of the washing machine, Steve covering his body with yours. He lets out a low growl in your ear. “This” he presses his bulge more firmly against your ass “is your fault. So, you’re going to help me with it.”

You turn your head to the side as he pushes your jeans over the curve of your ass. “Me? What the fuck did I do? I haven’t even really talked to you today. Been with Lindsey all day.”

He fastens his pace in removing his own jeans, only lowering them enough to free his aching cock. He lands a smack to your panty covered ass. “Exactly. Made me so hard watching you with the baby. Made me think what it’d be like if we had one. What you’d look like swelled with my kid. Knew I had to have you.”

You managed to push him back far enough to stand up straight and turn around to face him. “Steve, I’m not going to let you fuck me in my sister’s laundry room.” He launches at you, trapping your body between his and the washing machine. “It’s cute that you think you’re in charge. Now, I’m going to fuck a baby into you. And I can either do that here or I’ll take you out in the living room where everyone is and bend you over there.”

Fuck. These panties are officially fucked. Still, you have questions. “I thought you didn’t want kids, Steve? Plus I’m on the pill.”

His face turns soft for a second. He cups your cheek in his left hand. “I didn’t think I did. But seeing you with her today? Now that’s all I want, all I can think about. You with our baby. You’d be the best mother. And you’ll just stop taking your pill. Starting today. We’ll keep trying until it takes. Is this something you’re even still wanting?”

You grab onto his wrist and push your cheek against his palm. “Of course it is.” You turn back around and bend over the washer. You lower your panties to your knees and shake your ass in his direction. “Well? What are you waiting for? Fuck a baby into me, Steve.”

He growls and closes the distance between you. He grabs the base of his cock and rubs the tip through your dripping folds. “Don’t have time to stretch you out first, sweetheart. And I’m really worked up, so this will probably be quick.”

You push back against him, eager to get him inside you already. “Don’t care. Just please, fuck me Professor Rogers.” You knew that’d get him.

“Fuck.” Is the only warning you get before he buries himself in you to the hilt. He just gets his hand over your mouth before your moan escapes your throat.

He only gives you a second to adjust to his size before he starts a bruising pace. After a few thrusts, he removes his hand from your mouth and smacks your ass. He feels you clench around him. “Yeah? You like when your professor fucks you?”

You quickly nod your head. “Yeah. You fuck me so good. Need your cum. Need you to fill me up.”

Steve quickens his pace even more if that’s possible. He moves his left hand off your hip and moves it around you to find your clit. He presses quick circles against it. “Need you to cum first, sweetheart. Need to feel you squeeze me.”

You start pushing back to meet his thrusts. You can feel the coil inside you ready to snap. You just need a little something more.

Steve leans over you and starts pressing kisses up your spine, his pace never faltering. Once he reaches your shoulder, he bites down lightly. He moves his mouth next to your ear. “Come on, sweetheart. Cum for your professor. Then I’ll fill you up nice and full, get you pregnant. Cum for me, Y/N.”

You press your face into the crook of your elbow to muffle your scream as you cum undone on his cock. Your orgasm triggers his. He cums with a quiet shout as he fills you full of his spend, some of it leaking out around him. He gives a few more shallow thrusts before stopping and catching his breath.

He rubs his hands up and down your back. “You okay? I didn’t hurt you did I?”

You turn your head so you can look at him. “Mmm, i’m great.” You can’t help but let out a little giggle, feeling drunk on sex.

Steve smiles down at you and moves his hand until it’s resting on your lower stomach. “I hope it worked.” He slowly pulls out and watches as his cum starts leaking out of your pussy. He quickly scoops it up and pushes it back inside, causing a whimper to escape your lips. “Sorry, sweetheart. Can’t let any of it go to waste.”

Once he’s sure he’s got it all, he quickly pulls your panties back into place. He stands you up and turns you around to press a sweet kiss to your lips. “I love you so much, thank you for being mine.”

You give him a big smile. “I love you, too. And thank you for picking me.” You bend down to pull up your jeans, Steve mirroring your actions. Once you’re both redressed, you wrap your arms around his neck and press a firm kiss to his lips.

“Now, let’s hurry up and get home. Want you to fill me up again.” You give him a wink and turn to head out the door. “You coming?”

He smirks as he starts following you out. “Oh, I will be.”

Taglist: @stargazingfangirl18 @drabblewithfrannybarnes @harrysthiccthighss @lllols @patzammit @quxxnxfhxll @bluemusickid @wanderinglunarnights

Steve Taglist: @donutloverxo

#steve rogers #steve rogers smut #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x reader smut #steve rodgers x reader #captain america #chris evans #chris evans smut #steve rogers au #steve rogers fic

3K notes · View notes

bnha-more-like-bnh-gay · 3 years

Text

Rarepair headcanons because I am ignoring my problems

Serodeku:

Izuku reenacts the Spider-Man movies with Sero. Izuku is MJ. They also alternate being Spider-Man sometimes

They skate together

They get very protective when people call their boyfriend “plain”

They play dnd together

Sero tries to make sure that izuku gets some rest

They’re both kinda insecure, izuku more than sero, but still; and they make sure to reassure each other as often as possible

Sero likes listening to Izuku’s ramblings and finds them cute. He has told izuku this, only for the poor boy to imitate a tomato

After Izuku has been particularly reckless, Sero takes advantage of his quirk, wraps Izuku in bubble wrap, and tapes it there

Tokodeku:

Jocknerd bf and goth bf, we love to see it

Tokoyami teaches izuku how to sword fight

They start a dnd club at U.A.

Izuku talks to dark shadow a lot, Dark Shadow approves of him, and has claimed the spot of best man at their wedding

Izuku comes up with ideas to help Tokoyami gain control with Dark Shadow

Dark Shadow is very protective over Izuku, no matter how many times Tokoyami tells him that he can take care of himself, Dark Shadow will put himself between Izuku and any form of danger as often as possible

Dekoyama??? Aoyama/izuku:

Aoyama gives him makeovers, obviously

Aoyama drags izuku to the mall and tries to revamp some of his wardrobe, but he actually finds the “pants” and “flannel” type shirts cute

They help each other train their quirks

Aoyama is trilingual, and teaching izuku English and French.

Izuku always brings Aoyama home some new cheese

Y’all, I love them so much. There needs to be more aodeku content

Monoshinsou:

They have people watching dates. They come up with stories for the people they’re watching; their job, family, background, etc.

They judge people together

They call each other “love”

They’re both dramatic bastards, who will flop onto their lovers lap and proclaim their death due to a minor inconvenience

They jokingly sh*t-talk class A

Shinsou said “I love you” first, and it was because Monoma brought him coffee to class

Monoyama:

Like monoshinsou, they’re both dramatic bastards, who will flop onto their lovers lap and proclaim their death due to a minor inconvenience

They go shopping together and pick out the most dramatic pieces of clothing for each other

I love them so much, please 😭✋

They have tea parties every week, where they sh*t talk everyone else and gossip

They are both fancy bastards, and they wear the most exquisite outfits to go grocery shopping, and the outshine everyone

They both actually make clothing, they’ll go fabric shopping together. Gift exchanges are often articles of clothing that they’ve made for each other

Momomei:

They work on gear together!!!

Momo makes sure that mei gets some sleep

Mei helps redesign momo’s suit

They often work together with izuku to work in gear and such

They actually got together after izuku introduced them. He had been working on gear with mei, and studying with momo and he thought they’d hit it off. He was correct

Shintsuyu:

Dude they’d be so cute

Tsu is a vent gremlin, and you can’t change my mind. So she and shinsou will play a game where they try to find each other. Tsu is in the vent and shinsou is in the classrooms. Shinsou will try to find whichever vent she’s in, or she’ll find whichever classroom he’s in, in 20 minutes or less

I always headcanoned tsu as a dog person, so they’d have two cats and two dogs, and a bunny that they named Deku

They like comparing their friends to animals, hence the bunny, Deku

Kamideku:

Kaminari is a flirt, and izuku does n o t know how to handle it

Kaminari likes listening to izuku’s ramblings, and can keep up with them. He’ll ask questions on things too, and Izuku has never felt more appreciated

I don’t know why I feel like they’d have so many animals, but I do. They’d have so many, man. Three cats, two dogs, four sugar gliders, a hamster

Adhd power couple. They hyperfixated on complimentary things at the same time one time

Kaminari tutors izuku in English, and izuku turots kami in some other subjects. He’s also teaching kami JSL on the side. Kaminari has a live of languages

Momochako:

Study dates, Momo asks ochako to quiz her a lot

Ochako takes to floating momo’s things when she wants attention. Especially when Momo is studying. She makes a game out of how many things she can float until the other girl notices

Uraraka’s confidence does wonders for momo’s. Uraraka always makes sure to reassure momo that she is strong and that she can do this

Momo makes Uraraka whatever her heart desires. Uraraka blushes all the time, and momo takes great pride in getting her girlfriend to blush

Minatoru:

Mina clings to everyone, but especially to toru

They give each other stuffed animals so often. They’ll go to the store to get food, and come back with three stuffed animals that reminded them of each other

Please, they’re so cute 😭✋

They will play hide and seek, I stand by this.

Mina helps toru design a new costume. I hate hers, it’s horrible, and sexist, and not suitable for a fucking child

Toru says that pink is her favorite color

They flirt with each other all the time. Half the class thinks it’s cute, half of them used to think it was cute.

Iidamomo:

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, but study dates. they quiz each other, and it actually gets pretty competitive

They also have rage room dates. I will not budge on this. Iida tried to murder someone, and I am excited to see momo finally snap. She deserves it

They alternate paying for dates, don’t try me.

The go hiking a lot

They started liking each other after one late night, both having nightmares. Momo had tea, and offered some to Iida. They talked until the early hours of the morning

They can’t flirt. They try. But they’re horrible at it. They’ll compliment each other all day long, but they cannot flirt.

KIRIDEKU, MY BELOVED:

Y’all,,, y’all, I love them so much

They train together, obviously

They ran into each other one night in the common room after both having nightmares. They talked about middle school, how they were both bullied, izuku’s quirk coming in late, katsuki being abusive, kiri being bullied because his quirk wasn’t “cool.” After that, they were practically inseparable.

They started going on dates, not that either of them knew they were dates. The entire class knew, so did the teachers, so did the rest of U.A. Kirishima picked up on it first after a comment from Mina, he had is realization.

So, he started courting Izuku. Not thag izuku realized this. He brought him flowers on most ‘dates,’ he bought him hero action figures whenever he could, he complimented him until Izuku was red in the face (which was honestly very easy.) Still, izuku remained ignorant to the fact that he was indeed dating Kirishima.

The final tipping point, was due to Uraraka’s help. She was quite tired of watching the two of them pine for each other. It was amusing for the first couple months, watching Kirishima try so hard, and Deku being totally oblivious. However, she took pity on her friends after a while.

So, Uraraka devised a devilish plan to get the two together. She involved Mina, Sero, and kaminari in this plan. What was the plan, you ask? Oh, simply to trap the two in one room until they broke through izuku’s obliviousness.

Kirishima finally “straight” up admitted his feelings, to which Izuku had the sudden realization of “oh my gods, have we been dating this whole time??” Yes, Izuku. Yes you have.

They have two anniversaries after that.

Let’s be honest, they are really, annoyingly, horrifically lovey dovey. Kirishima brags about having “the manliest and bestest boyfriend in the world.” Izuku flaunts his many PowerPoint presentations on how talented and incredible Kirishima is

Uraraka doesn’t know if she did the right thing by helping them. She is so tired

Tsujirou:

Jirou makes playlists for tsu

The few sane ones in class A, I swear

They go on walks in the rain as often as they can

They go for dates in the bookstore too. They each pick out an album and a book for the other to listen to and read

Y’all, they make so much sense togetherrrrr, I’m love them 🥺

Jirou started liking tsu after the crew saved bakugou. Jirou sat with tsu after momo, Iida, kirishima, Todoroki, and izuku apologized and sat with her. They had movie night, and Jirou joined the Bakugou saving crew and tsu with taking well into the night. She just appreciated how much tsu cared

Tsu started liking Jirou after she helped Iida, momo, and izuku try to keep the class in order. She appreciated how diplomatic and calm she was

Jirou would talk to izuku all night long about how gay she was, and how adorable tsu was. So, izuku decided to try and suggest ways for Jirou to ask her out.

She did not end up getting to ask her out though, as Tsu walked up to her the next morning f and asked if she wanted to go on a date. Jirou said yes. Izuku cried

Izujirou:

They make playlists for each other

They go for runs on the beach a lot

They both have insomnia, and often spend time making blanket forts and talking, or FaceTiming and listening to music

Jirou walks into the common room once a week looking for new music. She started liking Izuku after he made a playlist for her for one of these occasions.

They’re both quite awkward when it comes to romance, but neither of them will shy away from facing the truth. So, Jirou made izuku a playlist filled with love songs that reminded her of him and sent it to him. Sadly, izuku is dense as hell.

So, then Jirou wrote a love song and told izuku that the song was for him. Sadly, izuku is dense as hell.

So, then Jirou write analysis about izuku’s quirk for him. Sadly, izuku is dense as hell

So, then, after thinking that Jirou had done so much for him, izuku made her a playlist filled with love songs. Jirou took this to mean that izuku had finally picked up on her feelings, and accepted them.

So, they started to go on dates. Not that izuku knew this, as he is dense as hell. All leading up to izuku finally confessing his feelings on one of their ‘dates,’ to which Jirou responded, “dude, we’re already dating? Aren’t we? I- I thought that was obvious??”

May this awkward couple be forever blessed

Tokoyama:

Goth/prep boyfriends, we love to see it

At least once a day, Aoyama will proclaim that Tokoyami “shines almost as bright as he does, in his fabulous emo way”

They sword fight, and come up with really dramatic scenarios and scenes that they’re in

They bond over being in the izucrew and their shared love of swords. Aoyama took fencing classes in middle school, and Tokoyami got into sword fighting after watching it in pirates of the Caribbean as a young child. He is self taught and watched countless videos on the art of sword fighting

Tokoyami asked Aoyama our by dramatically presenting him with a dagger and going “will you accompany me on a formal outing as my lover?”

Shinyama:

They flirt constantly

No really, it’s getting quite annoying. Someone please stop them.

They both plop down in random areas and proclaim their deaths, the difference between them, is that Aoyama will burst into shinsou’s room, and yell “love, I’ve been murdered. Mourn for me” while plopping down on shinsou’s lap. Shinsou can be found laying face down outside aoyama’s door, and when Aoyama goes to open the door, he just goes “I’ve been murdered.”

^^ one time, shinsou did a very fun Halloween prank for this, where he poured fake blood all over himself for Aoyama to find him an hour later, asleep.

Nap dates. Aoyama get glitter all over shinsou’s room

Iiyama:

Aoyama enjoys making Iida blush, obviously. But he takes joy in doing it specifically when class is about to start. Aizawa is tired of his shit

Here is how I think an iiyama conversation might go:

Aoyama: I ask for one thing in this relationship-

Iida: Aoyama, you know that’s a lie-

Aoyama: for my boyfriend to carry me around all day-

Iida: Aoyama, I cannot feasibly do this with class-

Aoyama: and I don’t think that’s too much to ask for 😤

Anyway, Aoyama got carried around all day that day, despite Iida’s blush and Aizawa’s eye twitch

Everyone in the izucrew is close, but Iida and Aoyama started to get close after Iida told the crew about Stain. Aoyama wanted Iida to know that he wasn’t alone, and that he wanted to help him. So he started packing extra cheese for lunch and giving it to Iida. Iida was very confused at first. But this was Aoyama trying to court him. This was only made apparent by momo and Jirou telling Iida that this was aoyama’s attempt at expressing romantic interest.

Aoyama flirts with everyone, that’s just who he is. But with Iida? Oh it was tenfold. The poor boy was red in the face constantly. Aoyama was a persistent little bugger too, following him around and calling him ‘mon amour’

Kirikamideku:

My dearest traffic light trio, I’m love them

They train together, and kiri and kami always appreciate izuku’s analysis snd ideas

Kiri falls even more in love with izuku and kaminari when they go off on rants. Izuku rants and kami can keep up with him so he asks questions about it. Kiri loves to watch his boyfriends go on rants, I don’t make the rules, but I do enforce them

They started to get closer after kami and kiri found bakugou causing a ptsd flashback (could be on purpose of an accident, up to the reader.) they stated with him and tried to talk him through it. After this, izuku started to tell them about having been a “late bloomer” and being bullied, etc. (I don’t know, man; I tend to over share after flashbacks and after panic attacks)

Izuku tutors them in several subjects, but kami tutors them in English. Kiri just falls in love with his smart boyfriends

Izuku is teaching kami JSL and kami is helping izuku with English and Italian (personal headcanon that Italian has been one of kami’s special interests) kiri loves to listen to them, and finds it relaxing and calming to hear them do this. When he has panic attacks, he’ll ask them to tutor each other in different languages

872 notes · View notes

ahundredtimesover · 3 years

Text

Inevitable (Prologue) | JJK

Pairing: Jungkook x (f.) Reader (ft. ot6)

Genre/Tags: exes au, parents au, baseball player!JK; angst, fluff, smut (18+)

Series Warnings: foul language, alcohol consumption, minor character death, explicit sexual content in future chapters (oral, unprotected sex but be safe please!)

Prologue Word count: 2.2k

Summary: You convinced Jungkook to break up years ago so he could pursue his lifelong baseball dream. Now he’s back home, staring at you, and the little boy next to you who looks unmistakably like him.

A/N: I’ve had this story in my head for months and I’m glad I finally got to put this into writing! This little family was such a joy to write, and I thank the sweetest soul, Ava @btstannies for letting me gush over this trio and hyping me up everyday! Also, my baseball knowledge is pretty shallow so please forgive me!

Listen to: Walking By by Something Corporate

Series Masterlist || Next

“We’re here.”

The deep voice cuts through the numbness you feel, blowing life into your body that’s chosen to block out the pain for now because you know after this, it’s going to hurt a lot more.

You taste iron on your lips. You feel the sting in your eyes. You see the crescent nail marks on your palms. Then you slacken your jaw and try to breathe.

“You can cry, you know?” But Taehyung knows you won’t. Not in front of him. Not in front of the man whose heart you’re about to break.

Your best friend knows you, knows you’ll only cry when you’re alone - under the covers, in the shower, on your bedroom floor. You don’t let anybody see you like that. It makes you feel like you don’t have control, and control is the one thing you need to have right now.

“I will.”

“You also don’t have to do this.”

But Taehyung also knows you still will. It’s a decision you made on your own and he knows you well enough that nothing - no one - will make you change your mind.

“I need to.”

He hums; it’s a battle he won’t win. So he exits the car, opens the passenger seat door, and pulls you out. “I’ll be here when it’s over.”

When it’s over. Over. That’s what it’ll be after this.

You ring the doorbell and hear the faint footsteps get louder. The door opens and joyful onyx eyes greet you, a contrast to your tired brown ones. He takes it for something else, perhaps stress, since he doesn’t say anything about it.

Jungkook pulls you in a hug and you will yourself not to bask in his sweet scent, not to let his soft giggle on your neck and peck on your cheek and whisper of “I missed you” make you forget why you’re here in the first place.

He tugs you inside the apartment, the one the team offered him because he couldn’t abide by the university dorm’s curfew, being that he trains too early and finishes too late. It had been a blessing to you both, as in the course of your over two years together, you’d taken advantage of the privacy and solitude it provided.

You can’t imagine what it would give him after this.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been so busy. All these calls with the Dodgers’ owner, then manager, then coach. You think they’d all just call at once but they’re in different cities, I guess,” he shrugs and turns to you. “They’ve been excited,” he continues, his smile reaching his eyes.

It’s never pained you until now.

“As they should,” you try a smile. “They’re lucky you signed.”

He chuckles at this. He’s always been amused at your oblivion with how these things work. He’s lucky he even caught the eye of a scout, lucky they even paid attention, lucky that the LA Dodgers wanted to give him a shot with their AAA affiliate team in the minor league.

If he’s even luckier, maybe he can get to the major league in three years; two would be a miracle. It’s what he’s worked so hard for, it’s why the decision to move thousands of miles away was a no-brainer. Not everyone gets a chance to play in the most popular baseball league like this.

But Jungkook doesn’t know any better, doesn’t know that you know how these things work. You wouldn’t be doing what you’re about to if you didn’t.

“I’m glad you called, though,” he says, nerves teeming with excitement at his news. Well, proposal. It might be a difficult sell with you but he knows it’s not impossible.

It came to him one day, in the middle of a conference call with the owner who kept raving about his soon-to-be home.

“Oklahoma City is great, Jungkook. You’re gonna love it there,” the man had said. Jungkook wasn’t completely sold on the city but he knew you’d enjoy the museums, knew you’d enjoy watching the OKC Thunder play - you were always more into basketball than baseball, anyway.

Everything had been so fast - from the meetings to the contract-signing to the planning of his move to the US - but he couldn’t imagine starting his life there without you and he just knew he had to have you there with him.

He could help you find a job or you could do freelance work; what he’d earn could be enough if you both plan things out well, he thought. He was smiling like an idiot during that call, thinking about the next phase of your life together and he couldn’t wait to tell you.

You’d been caught up with your final projects and school events and he’d been caught up with his papers but you’re here with him now.

“So I was thinking and—.”

“We should break up.”

You say at the same time. For the first time, his wide eyes mirror yours - sullen and dark, but glassy, too because he did not just hear you tell him that you two should end this.

Everything had been going so well. You’d been so excited when he got signed to the Minor League, was celebrating with him in all ways you both knew how. There were no talks about breakups, no ending things. It seemed like a given that you’d both stay together; long distance relationships are hard but there are ways to manage. He knew that. He thought you knew that, thought you felt the same, too.

He stares at you, unable to make a sound, to form words that would be remotely close to what he wants to say. His heart is breaking by the second and you stare back at him. There’s no sign of guilt. You’re not taking it back, you’re not saying anything.

“You don’t mean this, ___. Tell me you don’t mean this.”

“I do,” you sigh. “I just think it’s best if we end this.”

He wishes you had not said anything at all.

“Why?” He stammers, willing himself to face whatever fucked up reason you have for wanting to break up. It doesn’t seem real. He’s suffocating with how forward you are, with how unbothered you seem while he feels his world slowly crumbling. “Did I do something wrong? Do you not love me anymore?”

“I just don’t think it’s gonna work out.”

“We haven’t even tried. I mean, I’m not leaving yet, we have a few more months to figure it out.”

“It’s months enough to get over this so we can move on. It’ll just be harder then. We know it’s gonna happen anyway,” you lie.

You see the shock on his face, the disbelief in the words coming out of your mouth. This isn’t the woman who he laid in bed with just a week ago, naked, giggling, kissing him.

“Babe, you can’t do this. I want you—no, I need you to be with me,” he continues, voice strangled, the thoughts of asking you to come with him drifting away.

“I don’t.” It’s another lie, but it’s one you need to tell.

You’re uncompromising, resolute in your decision. Your almost emotionless face - tightened features and completely dry eyes - is a contrast to his. You can’t break. You can’t back out from this.

He muffles his cries, heart breaking at the coldness of your words.

“You’re all you need, Jungkook,” you continue. “There’s nothing else I can give you that you won’t get there.” Another lie. You know that no one could love him as much as you. It’s why you’re doing this.

“Don’t do this to me, please.”

“Don’t do this to me, too, Jungkook. You have an entire life to live out there. You’re the one leaving and I’m supposed to just stay here and wait for you? Until your dream is enough? Live my life in limbo until we can be together again in god knows when? Expect that video calls will make up for the distance? What about me and my own life? What about my needs?”

It’s messed up but that’s what you do when you love someone, right? You hurt them? And you let them go?

You can only hope that one day, he’ll understand; that one day, he can forgive you. That one day, he’ll accept that you had to do this. It’s that hope you hang onto - that you’ll hang onto for years to come - just so you won’t fall apart. It’s only that hope where you can derive your strength from because you’ll have to be strong for someone else now. Someone who isn’t him.

“We— we can work it out. We’ll try, okay?. We’ll figure something out.” He stutters, still unbelieving that this is happening, that he is begging you to be on the same page with him, begging you to fight for this with him.

“But what if we can’t? What if it becomes too much? You know what it would take to make it and I can’t hold you back, Jungkook. My life is here, my family and my friends are here. I have a job waiting for me, so you can’t hold me back either. It’s unfair to both of us.”

He’s looking at you, desperate to find a crack, to find an opening. But there’s none.

“Baby, please—” he cries, arms out to hold you but you step away, as if his touch could burn you. His heart is already shattered, why are you still breaking it? What’s left to break when you’ve taken everything away from him with just your words?

“Jungkook, think about it!”

“I am, and you’re not making sense! I know we haven’t really talked about it—“

“Exactly. Because there’s nothing to talk about. You don’t need baggage when you’re over there, you can’t be thinking about anyone else, especially one who isn’t there. You need support and more patience and understanding and… I can’t give you those. Not anymore. I’m tired. I’ve been tired. It’s gonna be even more tiring when you’re gone.”

The lies don’t stop but you know they’re necessary, that this is how you convince him, that this is how he lets you go.

Jungkook doesn’t think there’s a worse way that you can hurt him. He’s always admired your decisiveness, but right now, he hates it, hates everything he loves about you - how strong you are, how persistent you are, how uncompromising you are. Your words are ice, as cold as the December evening. You’re unmoving and he knows you well enough that you won’t take it back.

“Fine,” he relents. “You want to break up? Then we break up.” He wipes the tears off his face, trying to be brave, trying to salvage the remaining dignity he has left. “We end this right now, like you want.”

This is what you came here to do. This was the goal. And you’re absolutely broken.

You turn away, knowing any more second of looking at his clenched jaw, balled up fist, and unblinking eyes will make you give in, will make you take everything back.

“Don’t reach out, okay? Don’t call. Don’t make this harder than it already is,” he states. “You wanted this.”

You nod because he’s right. You’ll lose all rights to him after this. He’ll get over you, he’ll be okay. You’ll let him know the truth when the time is right.

“Goodbye, Jungkook. Good luck out there. Your father is very proud of you.”

You turn and head out the door, the bang not as loud as your shattering heart. And just like that, it was all over.

You stand motionless outside his apartment, unable to make a step to make it all final.

You hear a thump. Then a sob.

“Please, don’t go,” he whispers, as if he knows you’re still there, and even during the final moments, he’s still begging for you to change your mind. It’s faint but you hear it and you step away this time before you walk back in and take everything back.

Taehyung starts the car as he sees your figure approach. You head to the back, behind the driver’s seat, a hand over your mouth to suppress your sobs.

“You can cry now,” he says, as he steps on the gas and turns up the volume of the radio until it drowns out your sounds. You let yourself go and weep, throat aching at the force of it all, chest tightening at the overwhelming emotion of what you’d just done.

It hurts not like you expected. It hurts even more.

You ground yourself before you lose more of you as the seconds go by and cradle the soon-to-be-there bump on your stomach.

You need to let them know it wasn’t their fault, that they’re a blessing either way, but that it’s just hard right now. You don’t want them to feel the grief, the ache of a love that had to end, the love that created them.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” you whisper and trust that this tiny little being can hear your words. “But we’re gonna be okay, alright? Mama’s gonna be okay.”

#jungkook fic #jungkook x reader #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook smut #jeon jungkook #jungkook #jungkook fanfiction #parents au #exes au #baseball player jk #inevitable #series

2K notes · View notes

rawbins-undertale-blog · 3 years

Note

hey there again!!!

might i slide in this fine ask box with another HC request?

if yes, then could you please write some HCs where uf and ht sanses and papyruses (seperate of course) s/o gets put in a hospital for a lil bit? you can decide what happened to s/o. maybe a bad heatstroke cuz its summer or something (totally not because its a bad heatwave where im living rn haha nope). idk, i just crave angst or hurt/comfort again from my fave skeletons.

if you're not up for this, its totally fine!!

thank you, have a chill day/night B)

- 🌌 anon whos sunburns arent stinging that much anymore B)

*Evil cackling* OH-HO-HO, yOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MONSTER YOU HAVE UNLEASHED…… I am an evil being who feeds off of angst and pain, and you’ve given me ample opportunity to make some of that sweet sweet angst >:-)))))))))

I tried to keep it ambiguous as to what you’re in for, mostly because I want you to be able to imagine heatstroke and me to be able to think “hahahah stab stab”! ^^

Also!!! The healthcare system in some other countries is fucking insane (like??? You guys have to pay to not die??????) so I’ll be going off of what I know about the healthcare system in Sweden where it’s free. (At least I’m 99% sure it’s free, except for like. Small things. For example, my antidepressants. I had to buy those myself when I was still on them.)

UF + HT BROS WHEN S/O IS IN THE HOSPITAL

Red (Underfell Sans):

He’s panicking so so bad, he’s terrified. What if you die?

Curses out anybody who tries to keep him from you, including the poor nurse who’s just doing their job

Actually he just. curses in general. He’s just spewing cuss words to seem angry instead of scared because That’s Definitely Better

Most likely out of all four to physically lash out at… well, anybody (except you obviously) lol

Red hates hospitals too, to make matters worse. He doesn’t know why, but they make him feel uncomfortable.

If somebody did this to you purposely and he’s not allowed by your side, he’s going out to find the person and kick their ass during that time lol

If nobody did this to you, he’s pacing and cursing and jfc Red, you do realise there are other people here right enjdjdjdjsjsk

This fucker tries to pull a “pfff nah i was never worried” but like. Red. Darling. Light of my life. Stars in my sky. Center of my universe. Bitch of my heart. Everyone can see right through your “anger” and literally your shaking voice is so not convincing. Get a better poker face and voice.

With some prodding, admits that finehewasscaredyou’ddieandhethoughthisheartstoppedforasecondwhichisweird’causehedoes’tevenhaveaheartanywaysthat’sovernowsowhocares

(He’s not great at expressing himself but it’s still progress)

WILL be staying right by you as you recover. You’ve no choice. (You do actually, he respects you and will back off if you tell him to)

Edge (Underfell Papyrus):

Oh no. Oh no.

Edge is trying his very best not to show any emotions but he’s not good at it because like. It doesn’t take a genius to see that him screeching angrily at people and demanding for the doctors to fix this is actually him poorly masking his fear. Edge doesn’t have the best poker face lol

He’s so pissed if he can’t stay right next to you the whole time. You’re his S/O!! What kind of bullshit is this?!

If you do need to be left alone with doctors and such things, Edge will do one or two things depending on why you're in the hospital, how bad what you’re in for is and for how long he can’t see you.

If you’re here for something like heatstroke - AKA something not brought on by somebody else - he’ll call friends and such while pacing and somewhat frantically share your current condition.

However, if anybody did this to you; and you’re in bad shape… Well, even fucking Satan will cower at the brutality of Edge’s revenge.

When he’s allowed to be, he’s by your side and - depending on why you’re in and for what - he might nag you for being careless, reassure you it wasn’t your fault, reassure you in general, and/or just stay silent.

It’s barely noticeable, but just noticeable enough, that you can tell that he’s shaking.

All it takes is a “are you okay?” For him to break and confess how scared he was.

For a moment he was back Underground and it was horrible and he felt so powerless and he hates that. He’s so, so happy you’re okay and he- he swears he’ll be with you on your way to recovery. Please just never get hurt again.

Dusk (Horrortale Sans):

If you thought Red and Edge were scared, just know it’s nothing compared to the absolute terror he feels.

Dusk knows how fragile the human body can be. He’s seen horrific things happen to humans and monsters alike and he’s always hyper-aware of just how easy it’d be to kill and/or hurt you.

Logically, he knows you won’t die, he knows human anatomy well enough to know this is something you’ll bounce back from, but his instincts are going haywire and all he can think of are the mangled corpses back Underground. It doesn’t matter whether your condition has anything to do with broken limbs or not, because those pictures are what his mind is forcing onto him.

He refuses to leave your side. If he’s forced away from you by nurses/doctors/staff, he’ll protest but if he really can’t be by you for your safety, he’ll be anxiously hovering as close by as he possibly can. Whenever he’s allowed to touch you, he’s practically glued onto you.

If he’s sure it’s just the two of you, and you’re unconscious, he’ll probably cry.

He… He hates being reminded of your mortality. He hates the idea that any day could be your last. He doesn’t know what he’d do if you were gone.

(He’d dust, probably.)

If somebody else got your purposely hurt, he’s going to hunt them down after a while (after you’ve recovered enough for him to be comfortable leaving you alone for a bit). He’s not going to kill them, but he might rough them up a bit -- but most likely, he’ll just intimidate them and/or threaten them. (It’d be a different story if you were murdered.)

Whenever you’re conscious, he’ll do pretty much anything you say, so long as it won’t get you anymore hurt or risk stunting your recovery.

When you’re released from the hospital, he’ll be by your side nearly 24/7 because he hates the idea of you getting hurt again just because he wasn’t there to protect you.

Aster (Horrortale Papyrus):

Tries to look calm and composed, but he does about as poor of a job as his brother. He does better in that he doesn’t act out or get in the way of the nurses, but he’s also crying and shaking and sobbing and can’t stop.

You getting injured triggers him pretty badly. If you’re not bleeding, it’ll probably be “only” a bad anxiety attack, but if there’s any blood involved it’s escalating into a full-blown panic attack.

He’s a nurse himself, but I doubt he’d be allowed to work with the other nurses when it comes to you because of how unsteady he is. He’s not sure whether he’s thankful for it or not, because he doesn’t trust himself to do a good job but he also wants to be there for you. He trusts his colleagues, but it’s still nerve-wracking.

Just like the others, he’s glued to your side when he’s allowed to be. Very metaphorically. He’s the best of them all at giving you space, partially because he’s just more respectful lol and partially because he’s a nurse so he knows not to smother you with physical affection until you’re in the clear.

If somebody caused you to go into this state, he will just like Dusk go and find them. He won’t do anything physical, but he does intimidate the person very effectively. He’s a terrifying giant and he knows how to use that to his advantage.

When you’re fine again, he’ll be acting anxious and protective for a while. He feels really guilty about it (because he should be comforting you - plus, he’s a nurse! He’s seen way worse things on his job) but you’ll have to give him comfort. This whole thing didn’t inspire much positive feelings in him and it stressed him out a lot, it may honestly take more of a toll on him than it does you.

#imagines tag #undertale imagines #undertale headcanons #undertale au #horrortale sans #y/n x sans #reader x sans #sans #sans x y/n #sans x reader #uf papyrus #y/n x papyrus #papyrus x y/n #reader x papyrus #papyrus #papyrus x reader #underfell #horrortale #🌌 anon

422 notes · View notes

fedzkun · 3 years

Text

Villain Hunt Arc Meta: All For One’s Horrific Guide to Methodically Breaking Down Your Local OFA Holder

Ft. Turning the ‘Overpoweredness’ of OFA into a Setback, and AFO’s Successful Manipulations Of Midoriya Izuku

In which I also give AFO too much credit for all the pain he’s probably caused, and theorize that his plans to break Izuku actually started getting enacted even before he’d escaped Tartarus.

(A.k.a. me loving the angst because this is really good angst writing, but also hating it because the manga doesn’t come with a Angst with A Happy Ending tag unless you count Izuku’s ‘this is the story of how I became the greatest hero’ which isn’t really a guarantee of happiness )

So. What an arc! In the span of ten chapters (starting from the end of the War arc) Hori delivered a full-on Villain-looking, Vigilante Midoriya Izuku. Congratulations, Horikoshi, for finally introducing Akatani Mikumo!

The fast pacing and lack of breather panels are so fitting for this arc truly. AFO never gave them a moment’s rest. Yes, from henceforth as he’d promised... It’s always going to be his turn.

Izuku is making amazing progress with unlocking the full power of One For All. In his words, his abilities might as well already be on par with what a healthier All Might could do, and with no recoil to boot. Plus, there’s only one last quirk to unlock. For villain fights, I don’t think we need to worry about him losing, or him breaking anymore bones at this time.

Which, some might argue, makes Izuku too ‘OP.’

To start with, I want to talk first about the ‘overpoweredness’ of the One For All quirk. It’s a wonderful quirk truly, having inspired and amazed so many because of its sheer power. Used well, it could grant instant victories and restore the people’s wavering faith to the heroes. Because with a quirk like that on your side, everything’s going to be alright, right? There’s always gonna be that bit of hope that something is still strong enough to stand against the looming evil...right?

Yeah. That’s what the people who’d lived under All Might’s Era of Peace thought so too. History repeats.

OFA’s ‘OP-ness’ is both a great blessing and a great burden.

Here are some points on how the narrative has made OFA's 'overpoweredness' a setback:

1. All For One—that bastard—exploits the urge that comes with OFA. Just as ‘AFO the quirk’s’ goal is to steal OFA, OFA’s job is to defeat AFO, and Izuku is sacrificing himself to its cause.

Here’s another thing I want to point out: The conclusion that the heroes drew about AFO planning to capture Midoriya Izuku alive? In rereading, I’m starting to believe it’s nothing but a mere assumption of his plans. Aside from the deal made with Lady Nagant—of which I think AFO didn’t take seriously anyway and set her up for failure— (and while we as readers are already aware of his true intentions to wear Izuku down) it’s weird that nowhere had AFO directly mentioned to Izuku that he’s going to kidnap him and take his quirk from him.

2. OFA made Izuku so brilliant (e.g. Pros and former Pros alike going “This kid...”) that they really can't help but place all their hopes on him. Sighs. In an ideal world, this would be a dream come true of Izuku getting his due credit for all his heroic achievements Pro heroes have started to do to Izuku what they’ve done all their lives to All Might--which is to put him on the pedestal, while they fall back to cover him like guards/safety net. Hence, falling back to the One Pillar Model mindset.

3. OFA makes Izuku untouchable, not only to the villains, but also to his allies. Prime material to reinforce isolation. And if Izuku doesn't want to be caught, he won't make it easy for either side.

4. OFA IS SUS AF, OKAY? What are the Holders doing?! While gaining access to them makes it easier and convenient to have personal trainers in handling OFA, the vestiges prove to add a lot to Izuku’s mental load. If they’d allowed Izuku to come to the point of being caked with blood and filth, they’re not doing very well at guiding him. Realize that most of their arc interactions with Izuku is Quirk Talk. They, of all people, should know how AFO’s machinations work! Hey First, for the love of god, warn Izuku! He’s showing so many signs of being manipulated that you should be picking up on. please /sobs ;;

Tbf, like, I’m pretty sure that the Holders haven’t been as mentally okay either, which would feed into Izuku’s current mindset.

Now that the setbacks have been listed, let’s dive in to AFO’s plans to toy with Midoriya Izuku.

PHASE 1: Pre-Tartarus Breakout

Speaking of OFA being sus, there’s something that has been niggling at the back of my mind.

All For One basically tells Izuku: “You were my main interest that entire time I was in prison”. So, to pass the time in Tartarus (since he can’t use any(?) of his quirks), AFO has been doing nothing but apparently daydreaming and designing a personal hell for the Ninth Holder during that entire period. HOWEVER, it also made me wonder…

…Even before he’d broken out, had AFO made any moves at all in enacting his plans to break Izuku?

Yeah?

And here’s the kicker: he says that before Blackwhip bursted out.

AFO is a master manipulator. Assuming that Izuku doesn’t have any latent AFO quirk (for whatever reason *coughs* maybe dfo if you're a believer) or that Quirk Singularity has anything to do with it, what is the trigger to Izuku suddenly having access to Blackwhip?

I’d argue that it is All For One himself.

Why? What’s his goal? If you notice during the Joint Training arc, Izuku is feeling pretty confident about his progress. He’s rather happy and feeling blessed, and he is making leaps and bounds with base power OFA.

AFO can’t have that. He can’t allow the Ninth Holder to become too emotionally stable, or else he’d have a stronger will. So by somehow activating Blackwhip, AFO makes Izuku feel like he hasn’t made any progress with his quirk at all. During the evaluations, Izuku mentions that he still needs a lot to work on, and while not all of it is visible, with the way he behaves, it’s pretty evident that his self-confidence has taken a rather large hit.

But, wait! If AFO had tampered with OFA during the JT arc, paving the way to unlocking the rest (like he’d also done during the War arc when he tried to ‘steal’ it then), then wouldn’t AFO be sabotaging himself since he’d be making Izuku a more formidable opponent?

Sure. Except that the quirks inside OFA are mostly useless when it comes to the mental part of the fighting. The only thing they’re useful for is for the current Holder to be able to play keep-away in the physical realm. And AFO could easily just find counters for those through his work on Tomura.

You know how else the situation becomes advantageous for AFO? With every quirk unlocked, Izuku’s goalposts keep on getting away from him, and Izuku will always feel like he isn’t ready or prepared enough. Izuku will push and push himself to master OFA to its fullest, to become more powerful, at the cost of his mental/emotional stability and physical wellbeing as he wears himself down.

And every time Izuku grew more powerful, and became more ‘OP,’ he is burdened with all the aforementioned setbacks that came with it. He could be the most powerful person in the world, but it’s all for naught if he doesn’t take care of himself. This plan is both a high risk and high reward on AFO’s part, and as of the moment, with a bloody Izuku staggering all over, AFO is visibly reaping these high rewards.

PHASE 2: Post-Tartarus Breakout

He’s going to toy with Izuku until Izuku fucking breaks. What follows is his series of actions that instills the desired responses from Midoriya Izuku. Let’s see how the master manipulator plays this game of chess, shall we?

Izuku’s plan: Reach out to villains and try to save them.

AFO’s counter: Kill off those who turn their back against villainy and/or acknowledge Izuku as a true hero.

Izuku’s resulting response: Stop reaching out to villains. Gain an instant victory and move on.

After all, what do you get when you block a hero from showing sympathy? You get an unfeeling living weapon.

---

Izuku’s plan: Work with the top pro heroes to bring down AFO.

AFO’s counter: Make plans that will serve to highlight how the top pros are just slowing Izuku down. (e.g. Making moves while it’s raining, so as to divide them, but also to bring out No. 1 Hero Endeavor’s "slowness" in the rain. Nope, I don’t think that’s a throwaway line at all.)

Izuku’s resulting response: Grows more reckless, often leading the charge.

---

Izuku’s plan: Track AFO down.

AFO’s counter: Lead them to dead-ends. Or when they do supposedly reach something, endanger them.

Izuku’s resulting response: His tunnel vision worsens, as he grows more desperate.

---

Izuku’s plan: All Might following him around is okay since it would help All Might from worrying so much, and Izuku could simultaneously keep an eye on and protect All Might.

AFO’s counters: There are a lot to really fuck with this bond, damn you AFO.

Taint that passing the torch memory of ‘You’re Next.’

Declare that All Might no longer interests him. Liar. He outright stated before that he’s one for keeping a grudge

Send another assassin to Izuku [Underlying Message: You yourself are a walking danger zone to those whom you dearly care for.]

Izuku’s resulting response:

Interpret that memory of ‘You’re Next’ as taking up the position of being AFO’s shiny new plaything, and therefore supposedly sparing All Might from the torment (Unfortunately, making Izuku push AM away is just part of the torment ;A;)

Think that AM is no longer in the direct line of fire as long as AFO focuses on Izuku

Finally, push his last line of morale support away, and completely isolate himself.

Btw, I wonder how All Might feels about Izuku using Nana's quirk to get away from him.

---

The suffering doesn’t end.

Izuku’s plan: Save people.

AFO’s counters: (possibly offscreen) Send more villains and assassins to torment Izuku some more with the knowledge that he can’t save them. Sending villains out also puts innocents in danger.

Izuku’s resulting response: He won’t stop for anything. He won’t sleep, won’t eat, won’t slow down. He will always do his best to save as long as someone is in danger.

His body will keep on moving and moving and MOVING on its own.

--- All For One is very effective as a supervillain. He has managed to make the heroes think that his only goal is to capture Izuku alive for his quirk. He has Izuku right where he wants him: dancing to his tune at the palm of his hand, utterly toyed with, left with no escape in sight.

Psychologically vaulted.

PHASE 3

And so, if Izuku is being manipulated to drive himself further and further into self-destruction, what then is there left for All For One to do?

So much more. Because, my god, I think AFO has mastered the art of traumatizing the OFA Holders.

All For One once told All Might, “I will destroy all that you’ve protected.” And boy, is he delivering. He's definitely not done with AM btw.

First, he destroys All Might's image. And he is manipulating Izuku to drive himself to that point. To looking into his absolute worst.

And when that point arrives, AFO will hammer the final nail home.

Something like...

BEHOLD

JAPAN’S SYMBOL OF PEACE.

And oh, how it'll hurt. To see All Might's pride and joy be flaunted about as looking nothing like a hero to the masses, for him to be so utterly humiliated.

"See what I did to All Might's successor."

AFO will be banking upon the possibility that the angry masses will not want to be saved by whom they're tricked into viewing as someone that's the cause of all the pain. Izuku might have the willpower to stay true to his resolve, but with him on the verge of total breakdown, what would happen when he is shunned by the very people he is trying to help?

I once wrote a post about how the current events seem to be a bastardization of Izuku's wildest fantasies: he's working with the top pros, he has the most powerful quirk, and he's working with All Might (whom technically acts as a sidekick to him rn).

AFO has warped all that into a never-ending nightmare. And Izuku...

Izuku is really in need of saving.

Last thoughts:

Let me just say that it shouldn't be a competition about who gets to get through to Izuku. Right now, he’s gonna need all the help he can get, and it can’t be delivered by only one or two people. Saving Izuku is going to be a team effort, a solid support system that sees Izuku as their classmate/friend/student/actual person that they care about. And there’s sufficient space for that.

More hands reaching out means more chances to catch him if he falls.

#bnha #bnha 317 #bnha manga #bnha analysis #bnha meta #all for one #afo #midoriya izuku #all might #toshinori yagi

757 notes · View notes

makeste · 3 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 316: We've Had One, Yes, But What About Second Explosion

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “[powers up like whoa because it’s time to end the fight]”, and he saved Overhaul from getting not-shot, and then smashed up Nagant’s arm with the power of his new rechargeable super knees. Nagant was all “yoooo this kid is crazy strong whaaaat, it’s like he’s some kind of protagonist or something.” Deku was all “I AM A PROTAGONIST, ACTUALLY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN FORCES AND FIGHT BAD GUYS WITH ME?” Nagant was all “ah shit why the hell no -- ” and then AFO was all “SURPRISE” and everyone was all “?!?!?!” and AFO was all “TIME TO EXPLODE NOW” and made Nagant explode because he’s an absolute fucking dick. And then Hawks showed up, because Horikoshi just wanted to stuff as many plot points as humanly possible into a single chapter I guess.

Today on BnHA: Hawks is all “good job giving motivational shounen redemption speeches Deku but I’ll take it from here” and screams very earnestly right in Nagant’s face until she finally wakes up. Nagant is all “oh hey it’s my successor, you seem surprisingly unfucked-up from your own HPSC tenure, how did you manage that?” Hawks is all “fandom is going to love hearing this one, but basically it’s because I’m very upbeat and also I had the world’s best role model Endeavor to look up to,” and I swear this man stirs the pot on purpose, but damn it I still love him so damn much. Overhaul is all “HELLO AGAIN, JUST A REMINDER THAT, THE BOSS!!” and Deku is all “MAYBE TAKE TWO SECONDS TO REFLECT ON HOW YOU TORTURED A LITTLE GIRL,” which, thank you, lol. Nagant is all “btw AFO’s hiding in a house in the woods”, and so Deku and the gang go to the house in the woods. Video recording!AFO is all “hi I’m AFO welcome to Jackass” and blows up the house. Sometimes I wonder if this manga is just a weird dream.

I am once again reading the Bean version because I think it was actually the best out of all three translations last week. and that is surprisingly including Viz’s. “faux” is not nearly as entertaining as “knockoff”, and also I have literally no idea why Caleb thought Deku was saying the Third’s lines lol

oh hey, Endeavor’s here too! not that you’d ever be able to tell from this first panel lmao

glad you received All Might’s call, mysterious unidentified glowing smudge

oh snap he says he’s weaker in the rain. is that why AFO told Nagant to attack then?? except that as we discussed the other day, I believe that AFO fully intended for Nagant to lose the fight, so him giving her info that would give her an advantage doesn’t really fit in with that. maybe he wanted Deku to be separated from Endeavor and the rest for maximum angst, though

btw Deku’s eyes are unsurprisingly back to the new normal here

alas, the angst continues. I say, pretending like I’m not totally eating it up each and every week and writing essay after essay about it lol

anyway so apparently Hawks can’t actually fly lmao. he was just yeeting himself with style

for some reason this is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen omfg. wave to Hawks, kids! say “bye, Hawks!”

j/k of course Deku is catching them. -- except???

wow so he was just running on fumes there at the end. well, good to know there is actually a limit to his shenanigans, particularly regarding this new “knockoff” 100% OFA. it will definitely not alleviate any of the discourse, but it’s good for my own peace of mind because it’s solid confirmation that he still needs his pals in order to win this thing

anyway, but on to the rest of this conversation, which is basically Deku deducing what we all deduced last week -- AFO implanted some sort of trap into Nagant when he gave her Air Walk. though I’d still like to get the actual details from AFO and/or Horikoshi, because this was particularly wild even by quirk standards lol

omgggggg

she still has a face after all!! so it’s confirmed, Horikoshi has no idea what “blowing up” actually means. we might have guessed, based on what happened to Toga in the MVA arc, and also based on everything Katsuki does ever, but shhh

so now Hawks is all “NAGANT PLEASE WAKE UP, IF I SHOUT MY NAME AT YOU WILL THAT DO THE TRICK”

this is actually kind of touching though because even though we all know (or most of us acknowledge at any rate) that Hawks is a pretty caring person, it’s rare to see him actually panic over someone’s welfare like this

oh shit Horikoshi is really doubling down on it

I wonder how much Hawks knew about what really happened between Nagant and the HPSC. regardless, he probably sees her as a kindred spirit of sorts, and I’m more than happy for Deku to pass the redemption torch onto him now that he’s on the scene. like no offense Deku but they actually know each other and stuff lol

DAMMIT NAGANT CAN’T YOU SEE HOW LOUD HE IS YELLING

apparently being freed from his HPSC shackles has finally given Hawks the space to embrace his own inner shounen protagonist. is there anything more shounen than trying to motivationally scream someone awake when they’re lying in your arms inches from death?? 100% guaranteed to work

!!! IS THIS NAGANT’S POV OMG

SO SHE IS ALIVE. THANK GOD. Horikoshi doesn’t want to meet with my emotional distress lawyer today after all

love how she’s all “just gonna stir up the weekly Hawks Discourse pot here by implying that he probably committed a lot of Atrocities just like I did, so now people can get all hopped up about that, even though there’s no evidence he’s ever killed anyone aside from that one horrible ‘damned-if-you-do...’ situation with Twice.” no one asked for your provocative speculation young lady!! trust me Nagant, our rabbles don’t need the rousing lol

but nice save there with the “so how are your eyes so untainted” well you see it’s because even when he was following the HPSC’s orders he always went to great lengths never to go against his own moral compass. which just to be clear was incredibly difficult, and led to a ton of pain and suffering on his part, because the life of a spy is basically just one impossible situation after another. but in spite of that he never stopped trying to do his best to help people. I don’t really know where this tangent came from or is leading to, lol, but anyway p.s.a. I love Hawks a lot and he’s a good kid dammit

oh shit??!?

how is the League always able to swing all these fancy forest mansions. where do they find them. how many do they have

so Deku’s dropping them -- very roughly, not sure if he was reacting to finally getting AFO’s location, or if his energy really is giving out -- and now Nagant’s saying that AFO hired other villains as well. well of course he did. gotta keep chipping away at OFA’s ninth successor little by little

now Nagant is asking Hawks how he’s able to keep making “that” face. I assume she’s again talking about the fact that he somehow didn’t let the HPSC wear down his spirit

oh my god???

thanks for stuffing this chapter to the brim with good nutritional Hawks Feels, Horikoshi. what a good. he just keeps on trudging forward undeterred no matter what bullshit comes his way. what a steadfast little guy. I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM DISCOURSE MY SWEET SUNSHINE

lmaoooo

“SPOTTED THIS DUDE JUST CHILLING OUT THERE ON THE ROOF WITH NO ARMS, SEEMED PRETTY SUS” good job Endeavor

anyway so you don’t really need me to tell you that Overhaul is immediately starting in with the “BUT THE BOSS WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME TO THE BOSS YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD TAKE ME TO THE BOSS” stuff again. but I will go ahead and tell you anyway. so yeah. he’s doing that

OMG YOU GUYS LOOK AT DEKU’S “of all the fucking assholes to just randomly drop in on my life once again why did it have to be you” FACE THOUGH, OMG

fun fact, if you go back to chapters 124 through 160, there was an entire story arc where Overhaul imprisoned and tortured a little girl. yeah, I know!! suuuuuuuuper evil. anyways just an interesting little anecdote for you all that’s somewhat relevant to the current situation

OMG, YES. FUCK YES, DEKU

THEN WHAT ABOUT SPARING ONE FOR HER!!! YES!!! EXACTLY!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SOMEONE GETS IT

HERE’S THE PANEL OF DEKU SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING I’M SAYING LOL

(ETA: so apparently there’s some discourse about this because some people are interpreting this as Deku saying “you should apologize to Eri”, which would obviously be a terrible idea even if Overhaul actually wanted to do that, because Eri shouldn’t ever have to see him again. however I just want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between saying “it would be nice if you could direct that feeling of regret/being sorry towards Eri as well”, vs saying “you should also apologize to her.” all Deku is doing is rightfully pointing out that Overhaul has hurt way more people than just his boss, and if he really is remorseful, then he should extend those feelings of remorse to Eri and the rest as well. it’s not a directive to take any specific action, and I’m 1000% sure no one at U.A. would let Overhaul within 100 miles of Eri ever again.

tl;dr “try feeling remorse sometime” =/= “do you want me to fly you over to U.A. right now to surprise the little girl you traumatized”, lol.)

[slings an arm around Deku’s shoulders] you’re a good kid. I like you. I don’t know if I tell you that enough, but it’s true

meanwhile here is Overhaul’s “spare... a thought... for Eri...???????” face sigh

the struggle is real y’all

(ETA: and that’s... the last we ever saw of Overhaul, I guess? well all right then. I assume Deku will make good on his promise, so we know he’ll get that little bit of closure before going back to jail or whatever, and I confess I’m more than fine with leaving the rest of it open-ended, especially given his character’s history. I think this was pretty generous all things considered.)

lmao holy shit

All Might what did you do to those tiki torch guys?? did you thrash them. did you give ‘em those hands. did you deliver their own asses to them complete with a sticker reminding them Amazon Prime Day is on June 21. we missed out goddammit

so Endeavor, who wasn’t the one he was asking, is telling him that they captured (well let’s be real, Deku captured, give the credit where it’s due) Nagant and Overhaul. and so I guess they’re going to take Nagant to the ER now

fire is no one’s weakness

-- oh my GOD I scrolled down and audibly gasped

[is politely but firmly approached and asked to remove my arm from Deku’s shoulder by the physical manifestation of all this Dekuangst] “we’re sorry, he’s not allowed to have visitors right now” oh shit, my bad. [goes to stand behind a police barricade]

lmao what. did you run out of room on the previous page

what an exaggerated fade to black lmao

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I actually can’t see what he’s reacting to so maybe I’m just seriously jumping the gun here lol, but THE HELL WITH IT. the next panel appears to be a cut to Haibori Forest, so I’m just gonna go ahead and declare that Deku ran off on his own all wounded to go have more Dekuangst, just like I manifested. now go call Katsuki goddammit

[scrolls three more inches down] oh

yeah so like I said, Deku is walking very slowly a few feet in front of Endeavor, who’s telling him to wait up. yep. we’ve all gotta be so careful to not just jump to conclusions. I know we’re excited but still

anyway, so! welcome back to Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods (ARE YOU GUYS DATING) and Edgeshot! have fun walking into this obvious trap lol

dammit Deku why are you so determined to tempt fate

[monkey puppet meme faces]

OH MY GOD THIS IS PURE GRADE-A CHEESY COMIC BOOK VILLAIN 101 SHIT AND I’M HERE FOR IT

that’s such a weird way of clapping who claps like that

unlike certain other people who shan’t be named, AFO doesn’t feel the need to inexplicably take his shirt off when recording sinister villain monologues. I think we’re all pretty grateful for that

high fives to everyone who called it!! yep yep

anyway so this whole scene has major booby-trap vibes, which I’m enjoying immensely even though I don’t think anything is really going to come of it lol. probably just another long-winded AFO Speech. but wouldn’t it be funny if like the ceiling started lowering down to try and squish Deku afterwards lol

(ETA: well the explosion was still pretty funny too ngl.)

ffff

[“Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies]

anyway so yeah. he’s just hitting up all of his usual villain talking points. we get it, you’re so smart and you see right through the thin veneers of society and people who don’t conform are left to fend for themselves and labeled as villains and history is written by the victors, and blah blah blah dude are you just jumping randomly from one soundbyte to another lol. literally what are you talking about. what does this have to do with you blowing up Nagant

-- holy shit??

[”Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies MORE?????]

LOL WHAT

BRO. WHAT IS WITH YOU. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO LAY ANY OTHER KIND OF FUCKING TRAP GOOD LORD

“YOU’RE NEXT” THE CALLBACK?? THE PARALLELS?? THOUGH WHEN ALL MIGHT POINTED HE MADE IT LOOK WAY COOLER. AFO’S POINTING JUST LOOKS LIKE SMOKEY THE BEAR

HAS ANYONE CHECKED IN ON KAMUI WOODS I HEAR HE IS WEAK TO FIRE?? THE ONLY ONE WHO IS, APPARENTLY

r.i.p. to this particular forest mansion. don’t worry they have a ton of backups

remember last week when I said maybe AFO thinks explosions are gauche. well never mind. he fucking loves explosions

anyway so that’s the end of BnHA, everyone. hope you enjoyed. it was a good ride while it lasted. see you all, good luck in your travels

#bnha 316 #hawks #takami keigo #lady nagant #midoriya izuku #all for one #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #manifesting 317 opening with a slightly modified version of my previous fantasy scenario lmao #'WHADDYA MEAN THEY BLEW UP THE NERD'#that's *his* job #sorry lol I kid I kid

401 notes · View notes

doctorstethoscope · 3 years

Text

Moment || Aaron Hotchner x gn Reader

A/N: hiiii besties expanding on a lil prompt from the weekend due to popular demand! Thank you to @the-modernmary for helping me with it!! If u liked this teeny bit of angst u will love her fics!!

just a little note for those of you who read The Right: I am going on vacation this coming Saturday-Wednesday. I will have the chapters queued to post for y’all, but I will not be able to respond to taglist requests or update the masterlist until I come back! Still let me know what you think about the chapters though, they’re some good ones! ok onto this fic.

contains: slight cursing, alcohol consumption

wc: 1.7k

You take a deep breath as you walk out of Strauss’s office, taking exactly one beat to regain your composure before hastily making your way over to Hotch’s office, letting yourself in without knocking.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” you said by way of greeting as you crossed his office and settled into one of the chairs across from his desk.

“Tell you what?” Hotch asks, looking up from his paperwork with confusion knit across his brow.

“That Strauss was going to harangue me the second I walked into the building this morning. I seriously didn’t even make it past security before she nabbed me.” You told him, disgruntled.

“I didn’t know. What did she want?” Aaron asks, and you look up and see that he’s telling the truth-- he really didn’t know.

“Oh… I assumed she would have cleared it with you before she asked me.” You said, your boisterous energy deflating the longer you sat in the chair.

“Is she pulling you for undercover work? She always does that, and she never asks if we have anything coming up or what your consult workload is--”

“No, Hotch. She’s, uh, she’s not pulling me for undercover work.”

“What is it?”

“She said the director tapped me to lead the field office in Vegas.” You confessed, looking up and seeing the air leave Aaron’s chest.

“Wow.” Aaron says, blinking.

“Yeah,” you agreed.

“And you’re going to take it?” He asked.

“I told her that I needed some time to think about it.” You answer him.

“What’s there to think about?” He wonders.

There’s a moment where you think you might actually roll your eyes at him. There’s a moment where you consider begging him to give you a reason to stay. There’s a moment where you consider crossing the desk and depositing yourself in his lap, kissing him with the weight of all of the feelings that had you wanting to stay.

But, after a moment, you realize that none of that’s happening. He’s sitting across from you, looking at you like you’d be the biggest fool in the world not to take advantage of this opportunity, and maybe he was right. Maybe you would spend the rest of your life wanting him one-sidedly, wondering what good you could have done for the world if you had simply accepted that he’d never love you back.

“Nothing,” you answered, after a moment. “There’s absolutely nothing to think about at all.”

****************************

Aaron’s barely even distracted when you swing his door open and plop yourself into one of his chairs first thing in the morning. He’s used to it, by now. He may have been a less-than-willing participant in your friendship at the beginning of your relationship, but now he was glad to call you someone he was close to. His closest friend, really.

His ears perk up when you mention Strauss. “Is she pulling you for undercover work?’ He starts to rant, already planning the tirade he’s going to deliver to Erin when he notices your demeanor change. You’re… shy, all of a sudden. You’ve never hidden from him before. He doesn’t like it.

“She said the director tapped me for the field director position in Vegas,” You revealed. The sentence hit him like a punch in the gut.

“Wow,” is all he can manage to get out, fighting the way his throat threatens to close up. “And you’re going to take it?” He asks, although he knows the answer will break his heart.

“I told her I needed some time to think about it.”

“What’s there to think about?’ He asked, allowing himself to hope for a moment that you’ll make some grand confession, to imagine for a moment that you might possibly feel the same way he does, to believe for a moment that he’s worthy of your love. But he’s not.

“Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing to think about at all,” you tell him, standing up and leaving with a forced casualness.

Aaron had been married long enough to know that that tone and those words together mean the exact opposite of what they are supposed to mean-- but he was still confused. What could possibly make you stay? And how could he find it before you left?

*****************

The following days between you and Aaron had been chilly, to say the least. You didn’t bounce ideas off of each other on cases like you normally would. You came to the opposite conclusions at every turn. You were out of sync, and everyone felt it. So when the case wrapped up on a Friday afternoon, you were more than happy to rush home to a bottle of wine, a pint of ice cream, your moving boxes and some trashy reality television.

You’d given up on packing after about an hour. Your heart just wasn’t in it. So instead, you lounged in your pajamas, sipping at your wine in the hopes that it would guide you to your first full night of sleep since you’d spoken with Strauss. You’re just about to head to bed when there’s a knock at your door. You swing it open, revealing Aaron, holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other.

“I was an asshole.” He offers. “Am I interrupting anything, or?”

“Just packing,” you say, wanting to twist the knife a little bit even if it wasn’t truthful. Aaron is undeterred, and steps inside anyways.

“I didn’t want you to leave with us still in the middle of the fight. You can be as mad as you want in the morning, but have a glass of champagne with me?” He asks, with those big brown eyes you could never refuse.

“Fine,” you sighed, still easily won over by him, even when you were heartbroken and mad.

“Here, you open it. Congratulations,” he tells you, handing over the bottle. You start picking at the foil, and he speaks up in the silence. “Things are going to be different without you, you know. I like that our team is structured the way it is… as a team, but you know, in a lot of ways, it was nice to have a partner in you.”

“You know, come to think of it, I’m not sure if I even have cups. They might be packed away,” you say, still picking at the foil and decidedly not looking Aaron in the eye. He chuckles a little at your comment.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do when you’re gone. I mean, who else can rein in Derek, or get to see me the big picture, or talk Emily off the ledge when I’m sure she’s about to go rogue?’

“It’s going to be okay,” you tell him, setting the bottle on the counter, still unopened. Aaron heaves a sigh.

“You should stay.” He says, after a moment.

“What?” You say, blinking, because surely you must be drunk or dreaming or something else.

“You should stay here. You don’t have to take the job in Vegas.”

“Haha, very funny,” you joked, bringing your attention back to the bottle to avoid looking him in the eye.

“I’m serious. Listen, I know I said there was nothing to think about, but I changed my mind.”

“Oh, did you? And what if I haven’t changed mine?” You asked, getting angry now.

Not able to hold back for another second, he takes your face in both of his hands and kisses you. “Just, think about that before you board a plane. Okay?” He says, and before you can even speak, you hear the door swing shut behind him.

Damn you, Hotchner.

You don’t sleep a wink. When 8am finally rolls around, you pull yourself out of bed and get dressed, heading over to Aaron’s. As you buckle your seatbelt, you realize that you know you have to go over there but you have no clue what it is you even want to say to him. You hope you’ll figure it out without sounding completely insane as you knock on Aaron’s door, and he swings it open, still in his sweatpants and incredibly surprised to find you on his doorstep.

“I’m even more mad at you right now than I was last night,” you tell him by way of greeting.

“That’s understandable. I haven’t been very fair to you,” he agrees, and the fact that he’s being so reasonable only makes you angrier. You slip past him and step inside the apartment.

“I don’t get it. You couldn’t just let me move on, start a new life and forget about the torch I’ve been burning for my boss the entire time I’ve worked here? You had to have the last word, even if I was leaving forever.”

“No,” Aaron says, and you bite your tongue, trying to allow him a moment to respond even if you weren’t feeling all that gracious. “No, I couldn’t let you move on thinking the torch you were carrying ws unrequited.”

You’re struck by his words. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter. It’s a great opportunity for you in Vegas. I’m happy for you, and you shouldn’t let this--”

“Hotch, what are you trying to say?”

“Just that I’m proud of you, and I know that you’ll do excellent work, and--”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to hide from me.” You call him out, and he looks at you for a moment. This time, you don’t break his glance.

“I’m not trying to hide. I’m just too late.” He tells you, looking down at the floor.

“Tell me, Hotchner. Tell me, please.” You beg of him, shifting to try to get him to look you in the eye.

“I love you, and I figured it out too late.”

You draw in a sharp breath, and he’s sure he’s ruined any vestiges of friendship that still existed between the two of you in this moment, and that you’ll board your plane to Las Vegas and he’ll become a creepy old boss that you never think about again. He takes a moment to look at you, a moment to mourn what might have been, a moment to remember the way your laugh made him smile while the memories were still fresh. He takes a moment, and then you speak up.

“No,” you correct him. “You figured it out just in time.”

tagging: @choppa-style @wanniiieeee @zheezs14 @torykjamie @maureen4y

@ssavanessa22 @isthatme-thatsme @g-l-pierce @ssahotchie @infinite-tides

@itsmytimetoodream @averyhotchner @msmarvelsmain @hotforhotchner11 @hotchinkevlar

hi besties I tried to tag everyone who said they wanted to be on my regular hotch list and a few of y’all who regularly interact with the right but if i made a mistake/u want to be removed u can lmk I will not be offended!!!

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotchner x reader #hotch x reader #aaron hotchner x y/n #hotch x y/n #aaron hotchner x you #hotch x you #aaron hotchner one shot #criminal minds #criminal minds fic

177 notes · View notes

wingodex · 3 years

Text

The Old Guard Speech Patterns Analysis

I made a post on the speech patterns of the main characters in The Old Guard, and a lot of people seemed interested in it, so I’ve cleaned up and clarified the rest of my notes. What I’ve looked at specifically here is mostly related to syntax, so grammar and sentence structure. I’ve vaguely looked at pragmatics, which has to do with how context contributes to meaning, and semantics, which deals with the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. I’ve also looked at sociolinguistics, which has to do with the effect of society on language, but I want to be upfront in saying that it’s not my personal area of interest so my knowledge is lacking there. On that same point, I have no formal linguistics training, I’m just into conlanging and everything I know about linguistics is self taught. For each of the characters I’ve talked about contraction usage, colloquialisms, phrases, verb and verb tense usage, ellipses, sentence composition, adjective and adverb frequency, discourse markers and fillers, profanity, vocabulary(ish), and questions.

You can also find all of this on ao3.

Couple of disclaimers to start: while this is obviously a great tool for fic writing, and can help you get a feel for the way that the characters speak in the movie, I’m asking non-Black writers to be very careful about the way you use some of this information when it comes to Nile. When Nile speaks, she uses a lot of colloquial/vernacular language, and while she doesn’t speak AAVE in the movie, her syntax does contain vernacular features. The history of transcribing colloquial language and vernacular dialects—African American/Black English in particular—is racist, classist and ableist. Your decision to write in colloquial language or to incorporate elements of Black English, rather than using Standard English, into Nile’s dialogue can potentially continue a tradition of racial othering if you’re not wary and conscious. Colloquial language in written form is often used to imply a lack of intelligence, a lack of education or a lower class. Be especially considerate of transcribing colloquial reductions like “wanna,” “gotta,” etc. Avoid eye-dialect at all cost, please, I am begging you. In general, the best way to transcribe dialects is through rhythm of prose, syntax, idioms/figures of speech and vocabulary. Even if you rely on those techniques for Nile, I’m still advising the utmost caution due to the complexity of syntax of AAVE and other dialects. For those unfamiliar with AAVE, I go into more detail about it here. If you do decide to use vernacular language for Nile, I’m going to insist you look into copula deletion/zero copula in AAVE outside of this post. It’s usage is very complex and specific. If you decide to use colloquial language for her to really take advantage of the intelligent way that she uses style-shifting in the movie then, at the very least, remember that the other characters (with the exception of Nicky) also use colloquial language frequently in the movie as well. If Nile is the only one in your fic using colloquial language, that’s a problem.

Most of the contextual analysis as it relates to sociolinguistics is based on my own speculation and interpretation of all the data I’ve collected. They contain my own personal biases and are influenced by my own experiences. If you have another interpretation of any of this, I’m absolutely interested in hearing it. Also, there is simply not enough data for any of my observations to be definitive, especially for Joe and Nicky. The two of them combined say around the same number of sentences as Booker, and he only says half as many sentences as Andy. There are literally verb tenses/aspects that not a single person uses in the whole movie. It’s also important to note that I am fallible, and while I do think most of this is accurate, I probably fucked up and missed something or miscounted! More than once! In some cases, I was only able to find one example of something and while I’ve included those observations, they are in no way indicative of a pattern, so don’t view them as strict rules.

I threw around a lot of jargon in this, and there wasn't really an easy way to avoid doing that while talking about most of this stuff. Descriptions are provided throughout the post. I've done my best to define all the more complex and lesser-known concepts, and to provide specific examples from the movie but feel free to reach out if you're unsure about any of it. Basic English grammar things that will be helpful to know to understand all of this post: parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, interjections), clauses (subject + predicate), tense–aspect–mood for verb conjugation (in English we have: past and non-past; perfective, imperfective, and progressive; and indicative, imperative, and subjunctive), phrase structure, auxiliary verbs, phrasal verbs, wh-movement (who, what, when, where, why, how) and sentence sequencing (in English it’s SVO, or subject-verb-object).

On ellipsis: for Andy, Nile and Booker (and Joe, a little bit), the types of ellipses I focused on were mostly the types that you only see in spoken colloquial English. For Nicky, I talked a lot more about further classification of ellipses that do sometimes apply to the other four, but aren’t as noticeable.

For phrases, I mostly included idioms and expressions to avoid listing every single phrase in the movie. I generally avoided noun phrases (with a few exceptions), and I don't think I mention any adverb phrases.

For my own purposes, I’ve decided to define fillers as discourse markers without lexical content that are used to indicate that the pause while speaking is only temporary. The rest of the discourse markers use standard classification.

Thank you to both @disregardandfelicity and @youknowthegirls for looking over this post for me!

Andy

Andy uses every contraction for auxiliary verbs and personal pronouns (e.g. I’m, you’ve, it’s, etc). I mean, she actually doesn't in the movie, but she comes so close that I feel confident in saying she would use all the others. The Wikipedia page for English Auxiliary Verbs has a great chart for contractions. Of the characters, she's literally the only one who does this with this level of consistency.

Her contraction usage isn't limited to personal pronouns. She uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns. She also uses contractions with "there" and "where", and presumably with “when” and “how” although there are no examples of that in the movie. She uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Andy uses both the simple future and the more colloquial going-to future construction at various points in the movie. She seems to have a preference for going-to future, and the only time she uses the simple future is in her dramatic opening monologue and when she’s trying to reassure Nile. Otherwise, she sticks to going-to construction.

Simple future: “Will this time be the one?”, “Me and those three men in there will keep you safe.”

Going-to future: “And you’re going to help us.”

Andy also typically uses the colloquialism “gonna” when using going-to future construction. When she uses “going to” instead, it’s during moments of sincerity. As mentioned, she also iconically uses them both in the same sentence.

"I knew this was gonna happen", "You think knowing is gonna make you sleep better at night?"

“You’re not a Marine anymore. They’re going to lock you up.”, “When we leave a footprint in the sand, in the snow, in the ether, you’re going to sweep it.”

“You’re going to protect us from those who want to put us in cages, and you’re gonna help us find those jobs that are best suited to us.”

Andy uses the verb “have” and the phrasal verb “have got” interchangeably, and with no real pattern. Important note: I am only referring to the verb “to have” in the present tense, not when "have" is used as an auxiliary. She doesn’t seem to use “have got” in the negative (i.e. “haven’t got” vs “don’t have”).

“We have to find Copley.”, “I have the new one.”

“You’ve got blood in your hair.” “He’s got Joe and Nicky.”

“We don’t have all the answers, but we do have purpose.”

Andy also uses the colloquialism “gotta” in sentences where she uses “have got” with the infinitive “to”. When she does this, she usually uses contracted have/has. Occasionally she drops the auxiliary.

"You’ve gotta feel it, Nile.” "There's gotta be a price."

Andy drops the auxiliary when she says, "We gotta go" instead of “We’ve gotta go” and “Sometimes you gotta work with people you don’t wanna eat with” instead of “Sometimes you’ve gotta..”

Andy uses the colloquialism “wanna” in the place of “want to”.

“Well, sometimes you gotta work with people you don’t wanna eat with.” “You really wanna do this, kid?”

Andy incorrectly uses the object pronoun “me” like a true native English speaker

“Me and those three men in there will keep you safe.”

Andy seems to generally say “Yeah” but she says “Yes” when she really means it. She also says “Mm hmm.”

Andy uses several discourse markers throughout the movie. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organize and manage sentences while speaking. Andy uses discourse markers to start sentences, as responses, as interjections, etc. The discourse markers that Andy uses are:

Sentence openers: actually, so, come on, here, look, listen, now, oh, well, you know,

Sentence closers: I guess, maybe, right,

Responses: yeah

Interjections: hey

Connection: to be honest

Andy doesn’t use any fillers. Instead, she pauses and repeats herself as needed.

“Remember what it... what it was like to feel unbreakable.”

Of all the characters, Andy uses the imperative mood the most (throughout the movie Andy tells someone to do something 35 times using this mood)

When Andy repeats herself for emphasis, she usually does it in pairs. The only exception is when she says “why?” three times to Booker in the scene with Copley

Andy uses ellipses, which is when words are omitted from a sentence and the sentence can still be understood. This isn’t particularly noteworthy in what it says about her speech patterns, as everyone uses elliptical construction. It’s just part of how speech works, how dialogue works and how writing works. It’s a feature of English, spoken and written, rather than an anomaly. I do feel it’s worth mentioning though, because I’m going to talk a lot about some specific kinds of ellipses (null subject, null auxiliary and zero copula) that are only found in colloquial and spoken language. For more about elliptical construction, see the Nicky section.

Andy uses noun and verb ellipses when she says, “I’ve been here before... over and over again, and each time the same question.”

Andy uses answer ellipsis. That means that when she answers questions, she often speaks in sentence fragments rather than full sentences.

[Who’s gonna fly the plane?] “We don’t need a pilot” instead of “[Nobody is going to fly the plane.] We don’t need a pilot.”

Andy occasionally uses sentences with a truncated null subject (i.e. she doesn’t use subject pronouns), but not as frequently as the other characters.

“Can’t wait” instead of “I can’t wait.”

Andy frequently uses null auxiliary construction and zero copula when asking questions that normally use subject-auxiliary inversion. This means that she will drop the leading auxiliary verb. For more information about zero copula, see Nile.

Andy uses “You found Copley?” instead of “Have you found Copley?” and “Everyone still with me?” instead of “Is everyone still with me?”

When asking questions, Andy typically uses either the method described above or intonation if she can get away with it. However, she does still ask yes-no questions without dropping the auxiliary. Andy is also one of the only characters to use a disjunctive question. In contrast to the disjunctive (which is often condescending), Andy is also one of the only characters polite enough to use an indirect question.

Intonation: “Joe and Nicky?”

Disjunctive: “You don’t speak Russian, do you?”

Indirect: “Would you like me to take one for you?”

Andy doesn’t use the subordinating conjunction “that” at any point in the movie.

“Last time I checked, you had to be American to be in the CIA” instead of “Last time that I checked...”

Andy says “What the...” when she’s confused.

Andy makes a humming sound when she’s pleased that’s transcribed as “Mmm!”. Interesting to note that every time she makes this sound, it’s in response to Nicky.

Profanity used by Andy: asshole, fuck, goddamn, motherfucker, shit, shitty

Phrases, idioms and expressions used by Andy: bend it to [your] will, broke [a promise], changes nothing, come on, do the same, enough of this, for all I care, get some sleep, go big or go home, going out for a bit, gotta go, last time I checked, let’s, next time, now and always, on board, play dead, set up, straight to [something], tie off, to be honest, welcome back, what [he] said, whatever it takes, work out

Unrelated to word count or time spent speaking, Andy says more sentences than any other character. She says more than twice as many sentences as Booker and four times as many sentences as Joe and Nicky. Nile says a little less than 2/3 as many sentences as Andy.

Sentence composition**: 57% of Andy’s sentences are simple sentences, 31% are sentence fragments, 5% are compound sentences, 6% are complex sentences, and 1% are compound-complex sentences.

Languages spoken on-screen: English

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 13% of Andy’s sentences. Adverbs and adverb phrases appear in 9% of Andy’s sentences.

Andy is very consistent in her speech. She doesn’t style-shift much and almost exclusively speaks in a colloquial style of Standard American English. There are two exceptions to this: when she was talking to the tourists in Marrakesh, she was overly polite; and when she was dealing with Copley, she enunciated herself far more and was less likely to use contractions. When I say that Andy speaks Standard English, what I mean is that she speaks the dialect of English which has undergone the most regularization and standardization. It’s the one associated with public communication, the one that's used in commerce and government, and the one that has the most institutional support and sanction. Andy is very familiar and comfortable in this dialect, to the point where she even uses common grammar mistakes that native speakers do. Her speech is very casual. I would say that Andy has spent a significant amount of time recently in the United States or Canada, and I also suspect that English is the modern language that she is most comfortable in. I think that Andy has likely spent a lot of time speaking casually with other English native speakers and that her grasp of the language was formed without any kind of formal language training. Andy doesn’t use much descriptive language, and her sentences are typically short and clear. While I think Andy does read a little bit, it’s had very little impact on her speech patterns. I doubt she reads any kind of serious formal writing, or academic works.

Nile

Nile uses every contraction for auxiliary verbs and personal pronouns (e.g. I’m, you’re, it’s, etc). She also uses them with other nouns and names. Nile is very deliberate about contraction usage. For the most part, in casual speech, she uses contractions, although she does use a lack of contractions to express disbelief or for emphasis. Nile also uses a lack of contractions to show condescension or disapproval. When she’s trying to be authoritative, she’s less likely to use contractions. When she wants to make sure she’s understood, she also doesn’t use contractions.

“I am not jumping from a plane!” “You do not listen to her, you listen to me.”

“We are looking for this man. He has killed many of our people and many of yours.”

Nile uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns. She also uses contractions with "there", "where", “why” and “how.” She uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Nile doesn’t use the contraction “y’all” in the movie. In fact, she specifically doesn’t use it.

“How are you all in my dreams?”

Nile uses both the simple future and the colloquial going-to future construction at various points in the movie. Like with contractions, Nile is less likely to use colloquialisms when she’s serious or trying to be authoritative. I think it’s especially poignant when she uses it to express bravery (with Booker). Nile always uses the colloquialism “gonna” when using going-to future construction.

Simple future: “I’m the one who will walk out of there, one way or another.”

Going-to future: “People that are gonna worry.”

Nile uses the verb “have” and the phrasal verb “have got” interchangeably, however she has a very strong preference for “have got”

“You have my phone?”

“I got people that love me,” “You got a satellite link?”

Nile also uses the colloquialism “gotta” in sentences where she uses “have got” with the infinitive “to”. When she does this, she always uses null auxiliary construction (see below for more details).

“We gotta get out of here!”

Nile uses the colloquialism “wanna” in the place of “want to”.

“I just really wanna hear my mom’s voice one more time.”

Nile truncates “trying to” as “tryna”.

“I’m tryna save you, man!”

Nile truncates “out of” as “outta”

Nile uses a lot of discourse markers. She uses more discourse markers than any of the other characters, although Booker comes very close. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organise and manage sentences while speaking. Nile uses discourse markers to start sentences, as responses, as interjections, etc. The discourse markers that Nile uses are:

Sentence openers: so, well, wait, here, yeah, now

Sentence closers: or something, maybe, you know, okay, man

Interjections: come on, what, no way

Responses: yeah

Nile uses some fillers when speaking, however she doesn’t use them often. The fillers she uses are: uh, yeah

While Nile does occasionally use the imperative mood, she’s far more likely to give commands based on intonation alone, rather than syntax.

Intonation: “You do not listen to her, you listen to me,” “We gotta get out of here!”

Imperative: “Land this plane.”

Nile uses elliptical construction when speaking, which means that when words are omitted from a sentence, the sentence can still be understood. Again, this in and of itself is not very noteworthy, see Nicky for more details.

“South side of Chicago, a million different ways we could’ve went left.”

She also uses answer ellipsis, meaning that when answering questions, she speaks in sentence fragments.

Answer ellipsis: [You have someone?] “Just my family” instead of “[I have] just my family.”

Nile frequently uses null subject elliptical construction. When using null subject construction, she drops personal pronouns.

“Talked to Copley. Said he could fix it.” instead of “I talked to Copley. He said he could fix it.”

Nile’s use of ellipsis is mostly characterized by her usage of null auxiliary, which is when she drops auxiliary verbs from sentences. The way she does this is very distinct and she’s the only character who speaks like this. While the other characters who use null auxiliary construction do so in the specific context of asking questions, Nile’s usage is more complicated.

Like the others, Nile frequently uses null auxiliary construction and zero copula when asking questions that normally use subject-auxiliary inversion, but unlike the others, she also sometimes drops the auxiliary in wh- questions. For more on zero copula, see below.

"You gonna be okay?" "So, you good guys or bad guys?"

“Where you taking me?”

Outside of asking questions, Nile also occasionally uses both null auxiliary construction and the zero copula. She is the only character who does this (Andy does this, but only with one specific word/phrase. Nile's usage is less restrictive). Zero copula is a linguistic phenomena where the subject is joined to the predicate without marking that relationship (i.e. there’s no verb). In English, the main copula is the verb “to be”, so zero copula in English describes situations where inflections of “to be” are omitted. When the characters use null auxiliary construction to omit the inflected forms of “to be” while asking questions, they are using the copula deletion.

In the above example questions, all of them are examples of copula deletion as they are omitting inflections of the verb "to be"

When Nile says “I got people that love me”, she uses null auxiliary construction to omit the auxiliary “have”. Nile always drops the auxiliary “have” when using the “have got” form.

When Nile says “This the shit you into?” she’s actually using the zero copula twice. You’ll notice that she’s missing the leading “is” and in the dependent clause, she’s missing the “are (“Is this the shit you’re into?” in Standard English).

At one point in the movie, Nile includes a further truncated null subject, where she doesn’t use both the subject and the auxiliary verb. Joe does something similar in the present tense.

Nile says “Killed in action when I was eleven” instead of “He was killed in action when I was eleven.”

When asking questions, outside of wh- questions, Nile usually relies on intonation or dropping the auxiliary from subject-auxiliary inversion questions as described above. She does occasionally use inversion for yes/no questions without dropping the auxiliary.

Intonation: “You have my phone?”

Indirect: “So... you’re even older than him.”

As the audience surrogate, Nile asks the most questions in the movie (she asks 69 questions LMAO)

Another way that Nile formalizes her speech is by inserting the subordinating conjunction “that” into sentences where they would normally be omitted.

“And that was a blank that you shot me with.” “But... you said that we were immortal.”

Nile says “Uh uh” to mean “no” or “don’t even think about it”

Phrases, idioms and expressions used by Nile: a little help, backed down, brains of [the] outfit, come on, follow the money, gave [them] up, honest-to-God, how the hell, what kind of [noun], killed in action, let’s go, move on, never hurts to, no way, one more time, one way or another, roger that, sit your ass down, some bullshit, son of a bitch, stay tight, steal away, went left, what’s up (greeting),

Profanity used by Nile: ass, bitch, bullshit, damn, fuck, hell, shit

Sentence composition**: 60% of Nile’s sentences are simple sentences, 30% are sentence fragments, 3% are compound sentences, 6% are complex sentences and 1% are compound-complex sentences.

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 18% of Nile’s sentences. Adverbs appear in 4% of her sentences. Nile doesn’t use any adverb phrases.

Languages spoken on-screen: English, Pashto

Of all the characters, Nile’s use of English is the most deliberate. While the others are obviously fluent and capable in English, Nile’s use of style-shifting throughout the movie demonstrates a mastery of the language that the other characters simply don’t have. The way that she shifts between formal and colloquial language for emphasis, for clarity, to express disbelief or disapproval, to act authoritatively, to appear casual and friendly, and to invite others to engage with her, speaks to what she is capable of by her word and syntax choices. All of this is obviously enhanced by her tone, her cadence, her pitch, her volume and her speaking speed.

When Nile speaks, she doesn’t speak in AAVE. That being said, her speech does contain vernacular features. The two elements of Nile’s syntax that are most noticeable are her use of the zero copula and her deletion of “have” in situations where it can be contracted (to clarify: using copula deletion is not necessarily an indicator of AAVE. When the other characters use the zero copula, they are not speaking AAVE. The subtle differences in the context of their usage of copula deletion is what makes Nile’s speech distinctly Black). Some of Nile’s word choices and noun phrases are also reflective of the typical speech of Black people, as pointed out to me by this anon. It’s very likely that Nile can speak AAVE, but doesn’t in the movie. She was raised by two Black parents in a very residentially segregated city, and while Nile didn’t specify the neighborhood she grew up in (you can make some guesses to the general area based on how she talks about it, but that’s not quite the same), Chicago’s South Side is predominantly Black, so the people she was around, the place she attended school and the church she went to were all likely predominantly Black as well. Due to the fact that Standard English is the language taught in public schools in the United States, Nile has obviously also developed a fluency in that dialect as well and can probably code switch between the two dialects. The fact that she doesn’t speak AAVE in the movie isn’t particularly unusual. Society is largely hostile towards Black people speaking AAVE, so language self-policing becomes a survival tool. Nile had also just spent an indefinite amount of time in the US military, which has its own style which has its own style of speaking as well which she would have been using. And then she basically got kidnapped by mostly white people, some of whom have noticeable accents, so having her speak AAVE would’ve been an odd character choice, but not totally implausible.

The way that Nile switches between formal and colloquial English is a type of code switching that I would honestly refer to more as style-shifting. Because she isn’t actually speaking AAVE, I can’t say how the dialect factors into her speech patterns. I think it’s possible that Nile’s ability to style-shift between formal and informal language could have been an ability that she developed as a result of needing to code switch between AAVE and Standard English in an educational environment. I do want to make it very clear however, that when I’m talking about Nile style-shifting, it has very little bearing on the vernacular features of her speech, but rather the colloquial features like contractions, verb choice, ellipsis and her use of phrasal verbs. It’s possible that she uses code switching in the same way, however we don’t have evidence of that in the movie.

Booker

Booker uses most contractions, but not all, and with much less consistency than Andy or deliberate purpose like Nile. He uses contractions for auxiliaries and their inflected forms for personal pronouns. When speaking casually, he uses contractions, but when he’s upset, he uses them far less consistently. He doesn’t use contractions with the past tense inflected form of have (i.e. “had”).

Booker uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns. He also uses contractions with "there", "where" and “how. He uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Booker uses both the simple future and the going-to future construction at various points in the movie. He doesn’t seem to have a preference either way.

Simple future: “They will get to learn your secret.”

Going-to future: “It’s gonna take time.”

Booker always uses the colloquialism “gonna” when using going-to future construction.

Booker doesn’t seem to use the phrasal verb “have got” but I could only find one instance of him using the verb “to have” in the present tense, so this isn’t definitive either way. If I had to take a guess, I’d say that, like Andy, he uses “to have” and “have got” interchangeably.

Even though Booker speaks less than Nile and Andy, he uses close to the same amount of discourse markers as them, meaning that they appear far more regularly in his speech. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organize and manage sentences while speaking. Booker uses discourse markers to start sentences, as responses, as interjections, etc. The discourse markers he uses are:

Sentence openers: come on, hey, oh, well, listen, I mean, ooh (expressing pleasure), yeah

Sentence closers: right, of course

Responses: yeah, alright

Interjections: hey, ow! (expressing victory)

Connections: by the way, tell you what

Of all the characters, Booker uses the most fillers when speaking. The fillers that he uses are: oh, uh, um, yeah

Booker pauses and repeats himself as needed. He only does this when he’s upset. Otherwise, he seems to use fillers instead.

“Everyone you love is gonna... is gonna suffer and is gonna die."

When Booker repeats himself for emphasis, he always does it in pairs.

Booker often uses elliptical construction, and the most frequent type seems to be null auxiliary construction. He does use other types of ellipses though (For more about ellipsis, see Nicky).

“Just because we keep living doesn’t mean we stop hurting.”

Booker uses answer ellipsis, but almost to the point of incomprehensibility. Dude just gives the bare minimum. That means that when he answers questions, he speaks in sentence fragments rather than full sentences.

Answer ellipsis: [You found Copley?] “Nothing, but dead ends” instead of “[I found] nothing but dead ends.”

Booker frequently uses sentences with a truncated null subject (i.e. he doesn’t use subject pronouns).

“Lost the plot after that” instead of “I lost the plot after that”

Booker frequently uses null auxiliary construction and zero copula when asking questions that normally use subject-auxiliary inversion. For more information about zero copula, see Nile.

Booker says “You good?” instead of “Are you good?” and “You have someone?” instead of “Do you have someone?”

When asking questions, Booker almost always uses either the method described above, or intonation. The only time Booker asks a question without dropping the auxiliary is when he says “Are you all right, boss?” to Andy in the cave.

Intonation: “Oh, she gave it back?”

Booker doesn’t generally use the subordinating clause “that,” but he will sometimes.

“What I do know is she was alone for a long time before she found anyone like her.”

“And they will tell you... that you don’t love them.”

At two separate points in the movie, Booker references Elizabethan literature. “Misery loves company” is from Dr. Faustus by Marlowe and “That way madness lies” is from King Lear by Shakespeare

Phrases, expressions and idioms used by Booker: all in, by the way, calm down, change of clothes, come on, dead ends, give [her] time, give me your hand, how’s it going?, I’ll see you soon, in the open, leave no footprints, let’s go, lost the plot, moving out, misery loves company, reach out, stick to the plan, take time, tell you what, what’s going on, won’t hurt

Profanity used by Booker: shit, putain de merde

Sentence composition**: 59% of Booker’s sentences are simple sentences, 24% are sentence fragments, 3% are compound sentences, 9% are complex sentences, 1% are compound-complex sentences and 4% are not in English

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 16% of Booker’s sentences. Adverbs and adverb phrases appear in 8% of Booker’s sentences.

Languages spoken on-screen: English, French, Italian

We know from Booker’s backstory that he’s French and he’s from Marseilles, and other people have spoken about how Booker’s native language would likely have been Occitan, although he speaks French as well. Like Andy, Joe and Nicky, English is not Booker’s native language, although he does speak it with a high degree of fluency. While there are aspects of Booker’s speech that are more related to him being a non-native English speaker, I wanted to talk about French first. It’s worth noting that French is the only Romance language that isn't a null subject language (and as far as I can tell, Occitan isn’t either). This means that when Booker uses null subject construction, that’s either something he picked up from another language or from being around people speaking colloquial English. The thing that stands out to me the most about Booker’s speech though, is actually the way he uses intonation (and to a certain extent, null auxiliary construction as well) when asking questions. While French can use subject-auxiliary inversion, for the most part, you just ask questions by intonation. In the French dub of the movie when Booker asks “You travel?” he says “T’as voyagé?” which in English directly translates to “You travelled?” or “You’ve travelled?” While I could get into semantics about verb tenses, do-support and modality, what I’m getting at here is that both “You travel?” and “T’as voyagé?” mean the same thing and are expressed in a form that feels semantically similar to me even if it’s not syntactically similar, in the same way that ending a question with the tag “right?” (which Booker uses a lot) feels the same as the tag “non?”

There are a couple of things that I think are interesting about Booker’s manner of speech. Booker primarily speaks in simple and fragmented sentences, which is pretty normal, but what’s different about him is the way that a lot of his speech is referential. What I mean is that Booker relies on a lot of common phrases, common clauses, clichés and quotations when he speaks. In a lot of ways, Booker speaks the way your typical action hero is supposed to. You get a sense of Booker engaging in a broader cultural and literary conversation. I don’t know how to explain this exactly, but when Booker speaks, you just know he reads and that he watches tv and movies. And not just that, but that he borrows and imitates aspects of what he reads. But besides the pragmatic element of Booker’s speech, all of the things that are notable about Booker’s speech are things that you also see in Andy, Joe and Nicky. Syntactically, there’s nothing about Booker’s speech that is distinctly unique to him, unlike the rest of the characters who all have their own little quirks. It’s almost like Booker is imitating the others, or borrowing someone else’s words. There is one notable exception, and that’s when Booker is talking to Nile in the cave. As the conversation goes on, you see this breakdown of Booker’s language as he attempts to tell his own story. Suddenly, a lot of the conventions established about Booker’s speech prior to this scene don’t apply. Obviously there are multiple explanations for this, ranging from English not being his first language to the fact that he was talking about something deeply personal and traumatizing to someone who was essentially a stranger. But what makes this scene stand out is the fact that in his next major scene, Booker is clearly on the verge of a full breakdown, but because he’s again relying on this established lexicon, you don’t see it reflected in his speech the same way that it is in the cave.

Joe

When Joe bothers with personal pronouns, he usually uses contractions with auxiliary verbs (e.g. I’m, she’s, it’s, etc). The exception to this is that Joe doesn’t use contractions with the past tense inflected auxiliary form of have (i.e. “had”).

Joe uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns. He also uses contractions with "there". He uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Joe only uses a future tense once in the entire film, and when he does, he uses going-to future construction. When he uses going-to future construction he uses the colloquialism “gonna"

“What are you gonna do?”

Joe doesn’t use the colloquial “have got” and always uses “to have”.

“We have to find her”, “Well, now you have even more.”

This may be because Joe isn’t in the movie as much as the first three, or that he just genuinely doesn't use them often, but he uses considerably fewer discourse markers. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organize and manage sentences while speaking. Joe uses discourse markers to start sentences, and as interjections. The discourse markers that Joe uses are:

Sentence openers: oh, so, well, yeah

Interjections: hey, what

After Booker, Joe uses the second most amount of fillers. He uses more fillers when having a back-and-forth style conversation with someone than when he’s essentially monologuing. The fillers that Joe uses are: mmm, uh

Joe sometimes uses ellipses when speaking. Again, not super noteworthy, but I wanted to mention it nonetheless.

“He’s the moon when I’m lost in darkness and warmth when I shiver in cold.”

Joe uses answer ellipsis in the movie, but he doesn’t actually speak in sentence fragments when he does this. While answer ellipsis is pretty standard in English, Joe’s commitment to saying more than was asked of him isn’t.

[So... you’re even older than him.] “Nicky and I met in the Crusades.” instead of “[Yes, we are.] Nicky and I met in the Crusades.”

Joe uses sentences with a null subject (i.e. he doesn’t use subject pronouns).

“Depends on the century.” “Fought thousands of battles side by side.”

Joe uses sentences which have both a null subject and uses copula deletion. See Nile for more details on zero copula.

“Very pissed off.” “Faster than the elevator.”

In the movie, Joe only really asks wh- questions. He does ask a few using intonation, although most of those questions act more like additional tags on a wh-question, rather than a question by itself. As such, it's unclear whether Joe uses null auxiliary construction or the zero copula when asking questions.

Intonation: "Bedhead?” “So we just leave her out in the open?”

When Joe repeats himself for emphasis, it’s usually in groups of three.

Joe says “what” when he doesn’t hear something/doesn’t understand something

As previously mentioned, Joe uses some formal words like "thus" and the impersonal pronoun "one". Here are some other words to consider having Joe use unironically as well: alas, amidst, await, behest, ergo, hence, latter, much, nor, notwithstanding, promptly, quite, shall (modal), thence, thereupon, thoroughly, whereas, whom (used correctly of course), yield

Even though Joe speaks quite formally a lot of the time, he never uses the subordinating conjunction “that” when it can be omitted.

“The first immortal Andy found.”

Phrases, expressions and idioms used by Joe: all in, attention to detail, come on, I guess, out in the open, measure and reason, over a [time period], piece of shit, proved [their] case, side by side, way back

Profanity used by Joe: goddamnit, shit

Unrelated to word count or time spent speaking, Joe says the least amount of sentences out of the five main characters, although this doesn’t mean very much, considering Nicky says exactly one more sentence than him.

Sentence composition**: 57% of Joe’s sentences are simple sentences, 21% are sentence fragments, 5% are compound sentences, 4% are complex sentences, 4% are compound complex sentences and 9% are not in English.

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 29% of Joe’s sentences. Adverbs and adverb phrases appear in 8% of Joe’s sentences.

Languages spoken on-screen: English, Italian

The best way to describe Joe’s manner of speaking is that it’s like he has two different styles. You get the sense that sometimes Joe just says whatever and sometimes he says something that he’s rehearsed in his head. Joe is a Maghrebi Muslim man from the Islamic Golden Age so he comes from a culture and time with a rich history of and respect for both written and spoken poetry, both impromptu and memorized. I think he carries that tradition quite well. When Joe is orating (van speech and Quynh backstory), his sentences are much more structured and he uses more formal language. He doesn't speak in sentence fragments, he doesn't use any colloquial language besides contractions and he doesn't use discourse markers or fillers like he does in the more casual back-and-forth conversations. If you look at Joe's sentence composition percentages, you'll notice that Joe has comparatively less sentence fragments than other characters and that’s purely because when he orates, it's in full sentences (minus poetic ellipsis, but that's allowed). That's why it seems to me as though Joe rehearses some of what he says in advance. I don’t know the extent to which he does that, but at the very least it seems like he’s sat down and thought “how would I explain Quynh to the new immortal?” or “What would I say to someone belittling my relationship with Nicky?” Even in the delivery of the line “Faster than the elevator” there is quite a long pause between him seeing that Nile jumped out a window and actually making the joke, as if he’s thinking about it first. The majority of the sentences Joe says are in the van speech and while telling Quynh’s backstory. In casual conversations, Nicky seems to take the lead more than Joe.

I’d also speculate that Joe is quite literate. Obviously there’s his own affinity for storytelling and oration, but his use of language hints at a larger vocabulary. You see him use a frequently neglected pronoun in English and a relatively formal adverb. He also uses adjectives like “grotesque” and “infantile”. He does end sentences while prepositions though, so he obviously does not give a fuck about John Dryden and Joshua Poole. That being said, I think the idea of rearranging Joe’s sentences so they don’t end in prepositions is funny and fits his whole vibe.

Joe uses null subject construction in English, and while that’s pretty common in everyday speech in English, it is worth noting that both Italian and Arabic are null subject languages. The way that Joe uses null construction in English is far more similar to Italian than Arabic, which requires a change in sentence sequencing but I still think it’s neat. The thing that Arabic brings to the table that I’m more intrigued by is the fact that it’s a zero copula language. It’s not a matter of copula deletion like AAVE, there straight up is not a copula in the present tense, so the lack of a verb (and specific sentence sequencing) is the copula in the present tense. When Joe drops both subject and verb in the present tense he is, in effect, simulating a similar situation due to the ambiguity of the sentences themselves where the only way you can correctly interpret the sentence is by understanding that the missing verb must be a copula. He gets rid of a subject pronoun as a shout out to Italian, I guess, but also because it would sound so silly if he didn’t. I don’t think Joe necessarily picked up this habit from Arabic, but I do think it’s a fun coincidence.

Nicky

Of all the characters, Nicky has the least consistent contraction usage for personal pronouns and auxiliaries (e.g. I’ve, you’re, it’s, etc). There are examples throughout the film of him using a contraction and then in the next scene he just doesn’t. Unlike with the other characters, who have a discernable pattern (Andy always uses contractions, Nile uses contractions for dramatic emphasis, Booker becomes more inconsistent with contractions when upset, Joe doesn’t use contractions in certain tenses), Nicky is totally random in his contraction usage.

My personal favourite example of this is: “She’s more alone than she has ever been in her entire life.”

Nicky uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns, however this usage is just as inconsistent as with personal pronouns. He also uses contractions with "there.” He uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Outside of contractions, Nicky doesn't seem to use colloquialisms in the movie.

Nicky doesn’t use the colloquial going-to future construction and relies on simple future construction

“You will not be able to give him what he wants”, “If it’s now Andromache’s, nothing you do will stop it.

Nicky doesn’t use the colloquial phrasal verb “have got” and instead uses “have”

“I have something for you”

Nicky only has a few discourse markers in the movie. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organise and manage sentences while speaking. Nicky uses discourse markers to start sentences, as interjections and as responses. The discourse markers that he uses are:

Sentence openers: so

Interjections: hey, wait, what

Responses: yeah

Nicky doesn’t use any fillers. Instead, he pauses and repeats himself as needed.

"I believe it's because we... we are meant to find each other"

In my other post, I mentioned that Nicky speaks in full sentences, and while that is mostly true, it’s a bit of an oversimplification. While that kind of a statement is fine for an overview post, I felt it would be disingenuous to leave it at that. Nicky speaks in sentence fragments just like everyone else. In fact, he speaks in sentence fragments more than Joe does. He uses ellipsis, but the way he does it is functionally different from the specific methods of null subject, null auxiliary and zero copula that I’ve talked about with the other characters. While the others are quite formulaic about their usage of ellipses, Nicky’s is far more nebulous because it’s very much dependent on context.

Nicky uses answer ellipses, like the others.

[Bedhead?] “Nicely tousled.”

The next way that Nicky uses ellipses might better be described as anaphora. That means when he’s eliding words, the omitted words in the sentence can be found through the context of the sentence preceding it.

The sentence “The only reason we haven’t... is that it’s not our time yet” is missing a past participle. The missing verb is found in the previous sentence: “Everything has to die, Mr. Merrick.”

In fact, almost all of Nicky’s use of sentence fragments and ellipses can most easily be characterized this way. If the sentence that Nicky says is incomplete in some way by itself, that’s usually because he’s referring to something either he, or someone else, has said. In some cases, it’s as if he’s continuing or adding additional information to the sentence preceding it.

“We killed each other.” “Many times.”

“It was a woman. A Black woman.”

Another way of characterizing some of his use of ellipses is to imagine he’s using answer ellipsis to a question nobody asked him.

[What did you see?] “Dirt floor, clay walls.”

In one particular instance, Nicky says the noun phrase “A fine justification.” It’s already an example of anaphora, as it is referring back to Kozak’s “I believe this can change the world.” Nicky’s sentence bears some similarity to Joe’s “Faster than the elevator” as it’s also an example of a sentence which is missing both verb and subject, however when Joe uses this kind of construction, he only does so before an adjective phrase. One could extrapolate from this that Nicky uses null subject and zero copula construction with adjective phrases and Joe similarly uses it for noun phrases, but that’s just speculation.

The final way that we see Nicky use ellipsis is honestly the most baffling and I’m still not entirely sure how to best explain it. The sentence is “Spend eternity in a cage.” It is clearly not the imperative mood, it wouldn't make sense for Nicky to be telling Nile to spend eternity in a cage. Unlike the other examples of Nicky’s use of ellipsis, the preceding sentence (“That’s the reason we dread capture”) provides context but not specific form. Breaking it down from an English language perspective, the only thing that makes sense to me is that “spend” is actually the infinitive phrase “to spend” where the infinitive "to" has been elided and there is an implied “[We are afraid][to] spend eternity in a cage.” I want to be clear here: I understand this sentence. I know what Nicky is saying, I simply have no idea why I know what he's saying. I don't understand why this sentence works. For further theories, look at the section on sociolinguistics at the bottom.

Sometimes Nicky adds unnecessary pronouns to a sentence.

“But then, Andy and Quynh, they were accused of witchcraft themselves and they were trapped and caught.”

Nicky does use the subordinating conjunction “that” but there are also times when he doesn’t. The common Nicky pattern of *shrug*

“The only reason we haven’t... is that it’s not our time yet”

“As much as I like watching you sleep, I’m glad you’re awake.”

When Nicky asks questions, he doesn’t use any kind of null auxiliary construction or zero copula for subject-auxiliary inversion questions. Nicky is also the only other character (after Andy) polite enough to ask indirect questions, and he uses them when talking to people who kidnapped him, which is kind of a power move. Nicky doesn’t seem to use intonation much when asking questions either.

Subject auxiliary inversion (yes/no questions): “Are we too late?” “Are you sure?”

Indirect: “I don’t suppose it would be possible to get these chains off of us?”

Intonation: “Nile?”

Phrases, expressions and idioms used by Nicky: as much, cast off, do you know, get some rest, getting away, I suppose/don’t suppose, judge of character, love of my life,

Sentence composition**: 47% of Nicky’s sentences are simple sentences, 24% are sentence fragments, 3% are compound sentences, 15% are complex sentences, 2% are compound complex and 9% are not in English.

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 23% of Nicky’s sentences. Adverbs appear in 6% of Nicky’s sentences. Nicky doesn’t use adverb phrases.

Languages: English, Italian, Nuer

Before I start this, I want to say that despite having a strong accent, I think Nicky is quite proficient in English. He knows the subtle differences between words like “unethical” and “immoral,” he’s aware of and capable of using expressions with irregular syntax and he uses sophisticated linguistic phenomena in English. He uses so many complex sentences it makes my head spin. Leaving all that aside, I think that Nicky probably translates from Italian into English while speaking. Like Nile, Nicky is very deliberate about his language but in a different way. While Nile uses style-shifting to accomplish a number of different things, Nicky is primarily concerned with clarity. I think that Nicky’s tendency towards more formal language is a kind of overcompensation to make sure that he’s being understood. Another thing worth noting is that I think Nicky has actively studied language before, in a class setting or by himself, and has at least some knowledge of linguistics (specifically syntax). At the very least, he is knowledgeable about both Italian and English syntax.

This theory is largely based around the idea of overcompensation. Nicky is primarily concerned with the clarity of speech and because of that, he doubles-down on grammar and structure. Italian is a null subject language so you actually see Nicky use null subject construction when he says “Sono qui” and “Dovremmo tonarci” but you don’t see anything similar in the way that he speaks English even though all the other characters frequently rely on truncated null subjects. He demonstrates a clear awareness of the standard language restrictions of English and how that compares to the restrictions of Italian. And not just that: there’s actually an example in the movie where Nicky adds an extra and unnecessary pronoun in English. In another sentence, Nicky could have used a contraction on two separate instances and deliberately only contracted one of them because the contractions were two different tenses. For the most part, this overcompensation makes it so Nicky’s speech—while unconventional—is still grammatically correct. That’s how you get things like Nicky saying, “The love of my life was of the people I’ve been taught to hate,” which isn’t how most native-speakers would intuitively phrase it themselves and as a result, a further layer of nuance is added by the use of the Present Perfect Continuous. Despite the fact that Nicky uses some unconventional phrasing in English, he doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it or concerned about it. He’s more than willing to experiment with his speech and seems very confident in it as well. That’s why I think he has some kind of formal language training with English, because he clearly understands the system that he’s working with but is less aware of some of the common ways of speaking. I seriously doubt that Joe and Nicky spend much time speaking to each other in English.

Another point that I think is worth mentioning: while Joe seems to thrive while orating and speaks relatively simply otherwise, Nicky is the exact opposite. Nicky’s language capabilities are on full display when he’s engaging in discourse, but when he’s telling Nile about Quynh, you see a lot more irregular syntax structure from him. It’s during this discussion that you hear the line “Spend eternity in a cage,” that I’ve struggled with above. The other possible explanation for the use of this unconventional sentence construction was actually given to me by @rhubarbdreams, who said that the sentence actually makes more sense syntactically in Italian, which has an impersonal imperative. In fact, in the Italian dub, that’s allegedly what it does (“per non passare l'eternità in una gabbia.”) Whether Nicky’s apparent tendency towards unconventional speech in this circumstance is a chronic tendency from overthinking while speaking English or a result of the specific topic they were discussing is up for personal interpretation, although I do think it’s interesting that Nicky was the one primarily leading conversation up until Joe took over specifically when they were recounting a story. I think this is especially interesting considering Nicky was apparently a priest, however this might just be a limitation to him in languages he doesn’t use as often.

Bonus: Quynh

Quynh doesn’t have that many lines, so it’s not really possible to do any kind of meaningful analysis about her speech patterns (she says 16 sentences and 10 of those are screaming “no” or someone’s name). That being said, I do want to look at all the lines she presumably said in English (I’m ignoring Lykon’s death scene because if Lykon really did die in the 6th or 7th century, then they absolutely weren’t speaking Modern English, you know?)

So first we have the lines from the witch trials:

“I’ve never been burned alive before. What do you think it’s gonna be like?”

“Just you and me.”

Okay so obviously there’s some ambiguity over exactly when this happened, since Joe said 500 years in a box and TOGTH lists it happening around 1750. In the comics, Noriko fell overboard around 1590. I simply think the 1750 date is incorrect based on when people were being burned at the stake for witchcraft and heresy. I could talk more about that and my own headcanons about when it happened, but this is a post about linguistics, so what’s important to take from all this is that it probably took place at the earliest sometime in the late 15th century and, at the latest, the very beginning of the 17th century.

Taking all that into consideration, I can say almost certainly that all of Quynh’s lines are some kind of misremembered modern translation of what she actually said. She uses two contractions (I’ve and it’s) that were maybe in use, but likely uncommon. “It’s” was used, although you would be far more likely to see its counterpart “tis”, and contractions with “have” and “had” were only becoming common towards the end of the 16th century. There’s also the problem of the pronoun “you” and how singular “you” would not have been used in this informal context. And since “you” should be the singular “thou”, the archaic singular second-person conjugation of “do” would instead be correct. And finally: going-to future construction may have been used at the time (I can’t speak to the commonality of it), but I honestly can’t say with any certainty whether the colloquial “gonna” was in use. The first recorded use seems to be the 19th century. I’m sure there are other things that are anachronistic about the speech but I don’t know enough about Early Modern English morphology and syntax to speculate any more about it.

So yeah, Andy and Quynh’s conversation is either Andy’s misremembering of it in Modern English, it was never in English in the first place like the other scene, or just Hollywood movie magic for the viewers (I would love to see someone attempt to translate it back into Early Modern English though, I’m just saying).

“It’s nice to finally meet you.”

The one line that I feel has legitimate value in the analysis of Quynh’s speech patterns in English is the final one that she says to Booker. She’s using ME, obviously, with its contractions and singular “you.” She’s also using a modified idiom, “Nice to meet you”, which is interesting because that absolutely wouldn’t have been used when she went under water considering the word “nice” was derogatory at the time. All of this implies to me that Quynh has definitely spent time on land before she finds Booker. Also she split the infinitive ("to meet"). I don't know what that says about her speech, but I sure am looking at it.

Fun Quynh fact: of the 6 times that Andy’s full name is used in the movie, half of them are said by Quynh

**A note on sentence composition: I intentionally didn't go into detail about sentence composition outside of brief mentions. If any of you are curious about it, you can ask. I'm more than willing to discuss sentence clause structure, but I didn't want this to become even longer and more convoluted than it already is. Part of why I’m reluctant to give it any weight here is because of how lenient I was with what was considered a sentence fragment vs. a simple sentence, as the characters are speaking colloquial English. A movie isn’t formal writing and to evaluate dialogue by that same metric is silly. Also, I considered interjections sentence fragments to start and then realized halfway through that that was a bad idea and they should have had their own separate section, but at that point I was in too deep, and didn’t want to go back and do it all again. In the same way, there are sentences that I considered compound or complex sentences, but that “technically” aren’t because a lot of characters drop pronominal subjects and like. Officially you can’t have null subject clauses in English, because that’s not how the language works on paper (imperative mood aside). Or they elided part of the sentence so that technically it's not a clause. But people don’t actually care about stuff like that when they talk. Also I may have messed up a few times, because complex sentences are hard and sometimes I get phrases and clauses confused. It can be difficult to tell when there’s a lot happening, you know? (this is about Nicky. Sir, why do you talk like that)

If you’re a fanfic writer, I’m going to advise that you take the part about sentence composition with a grain of salt or ignore it entirely, unless you’re already familiar with sentence clause structure in English. It will not be helpful to you for writing character dialogue until you’ve actually put in the work to understand it and practice. As mentioned, I still mess it up sometimes if a sentence has too many phrases. Basically, if you think too hard about it, I guarantee it’ll stress you out.

#the old guard #andromache the scythian #nicolo di genova #yusuf al kaysani #nile freeman #sebastien le livre #quynh #tog meta #tog linguistics #long post #like reallyyyyyyy long #it's around 9.5k words #anyway i'm really excited to chare this with everyone!!#i've been working very hard on it #also in terms of formatting i like how it looks on ao3 much more than here so that's how i would recommend viewing it

351 notes · View notes

ddarker-dreams · 4 years

Text

Sweet Talkin’. Yan Dabi x Reader [COMM]

There’s been an abnormal amount of sirens tonight.

It should be unnerving -- and to an extent it is -- but this isn’t what keeps you awake. Not that, or even the dogs barking outside accompanied with an occasional derogatory yell. With a heavy heart, you can say that you’ve gotten used to all of that noise. No, it’s something different that steals you from the welcoming comfort of a deep slumber.

The thing that truly keeps you up is the anticipation of what is to come. Or more precisely, who.

The bright glow of your phone strains your tired eyes, but it’s your best shot at finding entertainment. Squinting at the blinding light, exhaustion seeps into your being despite your best efforts to ward it off. No matter how much caffeine you drink later on in the day, it’s not enough to to thwart your natural inclinations to sleep.

For most, nighttime is a relaxing time of day that’s coveted. It brings a time of solitude, to reflect and rest up for the next day. While you wish you could return to the days where you felt like that, it’s long behind you now. Instead, you evade sleep, in fear of what could occur when you’re in the defenseless state.

An illusion of control is better than none at all.

“You’re gonna get dark circles under those pretty eyes if you keep staying up this late.”

A deep voice rumbles from the entrance to your shared room, one that you instantly recognize. Even in your groggy state, your emotions heighten in his presence. Turning off your phone and placing it down, you stretch your arms out, a yawn leaving your lips in the process.

So he’s back.

“Yeah, yeah…” you grumble back, caring little for the teasing comment. After feeling around your nightstand, a click resonates, light illuminating your room. Once your eyes adjust, you spot your unwelcome visitor, who makes himself at home. Dabi walks towards you, your bed creaking under his added weight as he sits down. Untying his shoes, he throws them carelessly in the corner.

Sensing your staring, he looks over his shoulder and grins at you. “Awe, you miss me or somethin’? How cute.”

A groan leaves your lips, and you reach to throw a pillow at him. He easily deflects it with a snicker, working on taking his shirt off next. At least now that he’s back you feel more inclined to sleep, knowing that he can’t sneak up on you. Splatters of dark vermilion catch your attention, mouth curling downwards into a frown.

If there’s anything you’ve learned in your time with Dabi, it’s that you shouldn’t ask where the blood stains come from. Ignorance is bliss, right? It’s still an unnerving sight, especially since you know it isn’t his.

The relationship you two share is nothing if not unconventional. His occupation -- if you can even call it that -- has him coming and going at unholy times at night. Sleep is difficult to come by, not knowing when he might make an appearance. It’s what leads you to stay up some nights, a preferable experience to tossing and turning with anxious thoughts plaguing you.

As long as you stay in your designated place, Dabi holds true to his promise of doing you no harm. Thinly veiled threats under the pretense of being your “roommate” lead you to the current day, an awkward routine settling in. For all it’s worth, it could be worse. You’re acutely aware of what Dabi is capable of, having seen the ashes of corpses blurred out in the news.

Why he’s taken a liken to you is beyond you. It still beats dying, only by a sliver.

“There are some leftovers in the fridge,” you tap your phone, reading the time. Three in the morning. Great, and you have work tomorrow too. “I think I’ll give sleeping a shot now that you’re back.”

Dabi raises an eyebrow at this, a fresh shirt without blood stains now on. “You always sleep when I get back. It hurts my feelings. What, am I not good enough company?”

‘If I’m being honest, not really.’

He grins at how you shiver, lazily crawling over to be by your side. His sudden presence fills your nose with unknown scents, ranging from smoke to burnt leather. Underneath is hints of his cologne, all mixing together to disorient you further. Dabi loves riling you up, testing the limits of what you can handle.

You take a deep breath, hugging your knees to your chest. As long as you don’t let it get to you, it’ll be fine. He always gets bored eventually, leaving you to do as you please. That’s what you’ll aim for.

“It’s not that. I just have stuff to do tomorrow, and I don’t like being exhausted. It’s my long shift.”

His trademark grin melts away, furrowing eyebrows and a grimace taking its place. Mentioning your life outside of him is a tricky battle, and you can’t help but regret mentioning it. Being in a sleep deprived state is a major disadvantage in your interactions with him.

“This again? I thought I told you to quit. Rent or whatever won’t be an issue, I’ll handle it.” Dabi scoots closer to you, wrapping an arm around your bare shoulder. His skin feels rough against yours, coarse hands rubbing circles into you. You bite your lip at the sensation, hair on the back of your neck standing.

“I... I like my job. Sure, it can be irritating at times, but it gives me something to do during the day. I’d go stir crazy without something concrete to focus on.” The words are heartfelt, unfiltered. When he responds in silence you worry you’ve made a mistake, upsetting him with your defiance.

He huffs against your neck, lifting his head and shooting you a displeased look. His voice is a low murmur, one that reverberates into the core of your very being. “Always making trouble for me..."

Dabi’s grip around you tightens, and you gulp thickly. With how casual he speaks to you, it can be easy to forget the major power imbalance. Instead of greeting you with insults, or worse, he lightly flicks your forehead.

You blink, baffled.

“Don’t most people hate their jobs? I figured you’d be jumping at the idea of having more free time, or whatever. So you can focus on other things.”

It’s not a confession you were expecting, your cheeks flushing at the considerate nature of his words. While it’s true quitting your job is an appealing thought, it creates a semblance of balance within your now chaotic life. Helping you stick to a schedule, in the same way school used to.

Now feeling confident in expressing yourself, your taut muscles relax into his touch. “I’m too tired to think about it properly, if I’m being honest. I don’t know how you can stay up this late all the time without losing it.”

Deflecting from the previous topic makes you feel better. If Dabi notices your intentions he doesn’t point them out, allowing you to take control of the conversation without complaint. He must prefer it over when you’d just shake and cry in his presence.

“You get used to it, sweetheart,” he drums his fingers against you, smirking. “I’ll make a night owl outta you yet.”

Any implications in his words go straight over your head.

“As tempting an offer as that is, I think I’ll pass. ”

He shrugs at your indifference, removing his arms from your frame. The lack of enveloping warmth causes you to shiver, Dabi searching through his bag. You peak over his shoulder out of curiosity, his scarred hands settling on an object which he pulls out.

It’s a copy of Animal Crossing, in all of its beautiful glory. You wipe your eyes, unsure if what you’re seeing is reality.

“W-what?” you guffaw before your brain has the chance to stop you, jaw agape and head tilted. Dabi places it on your lap, and returns to his previous position of holding you. There’s clear amusement in his eyes at your stunned state, relishing in your every reaction.

“Did I get the wrong thing? This is that game you wanted, isn’t it?”

It had to have been a week or so ago. You lamented to him about not being able to afford this, not even realizing he was giving it any attention. To think he remembered, and acted on it for your sake... is a touching sensation. Maybe he is capable of selflessness after all.

The cute box art puts a smile on your face, one that Dabi stares at.

“I have to say, I’m surprised,” you pick it up, looking at the back with wide eyes. “Did the cashier give you a funny look when you picked this out?”

‘I really need to start thinking before I speak.’

He shakes his head at your blunt comment, not taking any offense. “I didn’t get it that way.”

‘Oh, well... better not ask more than necessary. There’s no blood on it so at least that’s a good sign.’

Wiggling free from his grip, you rotate your legs over the side of the bed, intent on getting your switch. An opportunity like this must be taken advantage of, and you’ve wanted to play this game for some time now. Dabi must’ve read your mind, and pulls you back to him with little effort before you get the chance.

“If I remember correctly, you said you were tired just a few minutes ago.”

He plucks the game from your fingers, and places it on the side furthest from you. What a cruel world this is, to have paradise so close and yet so far. You can’t help the pout that forms at his actions.

“The situation changed, I’m wide awake now.” you explain to an unmoved Dabi, launching over his lap to get your coveted game back. He picks it up, lifting it over your head with a chuckle. So that’s how it’s going to be.

Defeat settling in, you retreat for now. A sigh leaves your lips, arms crossing over your chest. You should’ve known better, Dabi has made it clear to you that he wants your attention. Looks like you’ll have to wait until after work to get a taste of Animal Crossing.

There’s a glint of mischievous in his azure eyes, one that you’ve seen more often than you wish. Dabi sighs in mock hurt, placing a hand over his heart. “Not even so much as a thank you for my efforts. That’s cold, babe. Real cold.”

“I’m sorry, you’re right. Thank you, it means a lot.”

He shakes his head, clicking his tongue. “That’s not what I was looking for. Try again, sweetheart.”

A flurry of thoughts fly through your mind, all competing with one another to offer a solution. Does he want money for it? He should know that you’re not capable of producing that amount, or you would’ve bought the game for yourself. Dabi gives you a moment to think, before offering the answer to you.

He puts his pointer finger on your lip, maintaining eye contact while doing so.

“Oh, t-that.”

“So glad to see that you’re finally catching on.”

It could be the summer heat winning over your AC, the room suddenly feeling warmer than it did a few moments prior. You look down at your blankets, focusing on anything other than the person in front of you. This level of teasing is nothing new with Dabi, he always manages to fluster you.

He sits, relaxed, waiting for you to make a move. There aren’t any other options that you can think of, so you give into what he wants. Moving closer to his face, you feel his warm breath fanning against your skin. Your hand twitches, pressing against his chest to offer balance.

Squeezing your eyes closed, you tilt your head, soft lips brushing over his own. All of your movements are hesitant, your entire body feeling like it’s on fire. Heart pounding violently against your chest, you move to pull back. Only to discover his hand on the back of your head is stopping you from doing so.

Dabi slants his lips back over your own, nibbling your bottom lip. You freeze, the unexpected affection leaving you incapable of reacting. It’s when you squeak that he finally loosens his grip, opening his eyes to take in your embarrassed countenance.

All things considered, it wasn’t an unpleasant experience.

You cover your burning face with your shaking hands, feeling the warmth emanating off of you. He makes it even worse by chuckling, the low rumble filling you with indignation. There never is hope of catching a break with Dabi.

“You might be the one with a fire quirk after all,” he leans forward, placing a hand against your hot forehead. “Mm... that look you’re giving me is too much. You have to be doing it on purpose at this point.”

Fed up with his relentless teasing, you smack his hand away and purse your lips. He props his arms behind his head, letting you glare at him to your heart’s content. From his lack of reaction, you get the feeling he isn’t too intimidated by you.

“Whatever, I’m going to bed,” you huff, returning to your side and pulling up the blankets. He doesn’t make a move to stop you, and you take the opportunity to lay down on your side. Refusing to look at him, you focus on the wall.

Dabi pokes your cheek, which you ignore.

He lets out a long sigh at your antics, joining you underneath the covers. You hear shuffling behind you, and can’t help but wonder what it is that he’s up to. Maybe he’s succumbing to his own exhaustion, and will let you sleep in peace? What a perfect world it’d be if that’s the case.

The thought is entertained for three seconds before you’re pulled against his firm chest from behind, toned arms snaking around your torso and staying there. His body is always so warm. It doesn’t help that you’re already embarrassed from before. Dabi grumbles something incoherent, placing his head in the crook of your neck.

Accepting the situation for what it is, you stop moving. He reaches over you to turn off the light, and darkness surrounds you once more. All you can hear are your own labored breaths, and rapidly pounding heart. It might be impossible to sleep like this.

You’ll call out of work for tomorrow.

“... Dabi?” you whisper, voice soft and barely audible. He grunts in response, nuzzling further into your neck. For the past few months, there’s been a thought that haunts you at every turn. One that you can never find an answer to, and have been too frightened to investigate beyond your own musings.

It’d be easy to play this off as sexual attraction alone, yet a voice in the back of your head says otherwise. That what Dabi feels for you goes beyond that, into a sinister territory that you want desperately to avoid. Why is it he’s patient -- borderline kind -- with you, yet cruel to everyone else? None of it makes logical sense, his actions erratic and seemingly without reason.

Maybe you shouldn’t know. Still, you ask, against your better judgement.

“Why do you like me so much?”

You feel how he smiles against the skin of your neck, the sensation stirring up unknown emotions within. He squeezes you against him once, letting out a low hum as he considers your words. While waiting for him to speak, you hold in a breath.

“Dunno. Just do,” Dabi offers a noncommittal response, one that leaves you greatly unsatisfied. It seems he’s not even aware of it himself, the effect you have on him unlike anything he’s ever experienced. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

“... Alright, I won’t.”

“Good. Now get some sleep, before I ask you to kiss me again.”

#dabi my hero academia #Dabi #dabi x reader #dabi imagine #dabi headcanons #yandere dabi imagines #yandere dabi #yandere dabi imagine #yandere dabi x reader #bnha #bnha imagines #bnha imagine #bnha x reader #yandere bnha #yandere #my hero academia #my hero academia imagine #yandere my hero academia #commissions

3K notes · View notes

abbynx · 3 years

Text

La Squadra Esecuzione as Best Friends Headcanons

Formaggio - Very chill, first and foremost, he is down for anything to do. Videogames? He'll try to beat your ass. Cat cafes? Heck ye he is down - The type of friend who will coax you to cut class to hang out behind the school or climb over the school fence to hang around the local arcade or theatre. But if he get caught, he won't snitch and he's willing to take responsibility. Begrudgingly. - Ohhhh physical touch is bare minimum for him. He'll occasionally lean on you, perhaps shrink himself to fit himself in your pocket just to platonically cuddle and perhaps, use you as a transport. - Will high five you as a greeting, and will high five you as a farewell. Usually followed by a hug too uwu "Bro!" He holds his hand out for a high five, in which you instinctively grant him one, when he also entwines his fingers through yours and pulling you for a hug, patting your back for a second and pulling away. "I missed you bro!" - Prepare for dumb jokes, dumb puns that he effortlessly come up with as time goes by. You can't go on a day without him cracking a joke. You'd either roll your eyes at it or laugh along with him. There's nothing in between "You see that guy over there, bro?" He leans on you, arm draped around your shoulder as he points at a person from afar. "Yeah, what?" "I say... You'd be a perfect match." You glanced at him, hearing him shake a box of matches as he wiggled his eyebrows with a dumb grin. - *Finger guns and bro intensifies* Illuso - That weird person you don't see yourself associating yourself with somehow befriended him for some reason. Most likely started when you both started to wake up at 3 AM and meet in the middle of the dark, in the kitchen, wanting to grab something to eat. At first it is awkward, but soon you learned to bond through it! And soon enough, your midnight chats extended to become actual friendships! - Seems distant, but he cares. He's the type pretend not to care about you, but will glare (or more than glare depending at the severity) at people who hurt you. He is the 'I'm the only one allowed to insult them like that' type of friend. "Huh, Formaggio hasn't been teasing me. I wonder what happened." You wondered aloud, as you say beside your friend Illuso. "Must be because of his bruised jaw. The previous mission must've been tough for him." "Yeah... That..." - Probs touched-starved. He acts irritated and push you away when you try to hug him, but secretly loves it. If you stop trying to hug him, he'd be kinda sad but will not say anything. - This friendship includes you listening to him rant about every little thing, and brag about things he can't do. He appreciates you listening to be honest, and that's initially how your friendships started anyways. - Will use derogatory terms as a term of endearment. Please don't be offended, he doesn't mean any offense "Hey idiot! Get your sorry ass right here! Risotto said we have someone to take care of!" "Thanks, dumbass." "Eyo slut! Take a look at this fugly idiot!" - Does not have the habit of knocking. In fact, he just barges into your room, through the mirror. In more than one occasion has he seen you undressed but he couldn't care less about it. "Hey dumbass can I borrow your— hey, stop screaming! Anyways I ran out of hair ties, do me a solid—" - Everyone around you being confused to how you two are most unlikely to become friends, but you two are practically unlikely twins Prosciutto - You can not stop me from assuming he is quite the mom friend if you pry his shell hard enough. Perhaps a mom friend mixed with tsundere friend. "Hey! Drink your water or I'll break your ankles! No I don't care that we're in the middle of killing someone! I packed you some water and you didn't drink it! Well shit I didn't pack it specifically for you, I just managed to pack extra! Now go ahead and drink, I'll handle this one myself! While you're at it, coat yourself with sunscreen! If I hear you whining about being burnt, I swear to God—" - If you happen to be a mom friend too, you'd be bonding over the

mutual stress of having to look over the rest of the gang over a glass of wine as chaos around you ensues because you two decided to take a small break. "Formaggio and Ghiaccio is up at it again..." You sigh, swirling the content of your stemware as the distant bickering of the two aforementioned assassins echoed. "Just... Let's just lay low. It'll be over soon." Prosciutto sighs along as well, before downing his glass of whiskey. "Hopefully." And it didn't end, as it ensued and progressive got worse. Stands were called, knives were thrown, guns were shot. And two mom friends of La Squadra almost lost their voice from all the yelling and lecturing - Will scold you for your bad habits. Bad posture? He will walk behind you, press his knee on your back and roll your shoulders back whilst he lectures you about it. Messy time management? Will buy you crap to make you keep track of time. Sleeping so late? He will take whatever you're distracted with, demand you to turn your lights off as he lights soothing scented candles and tossing you some comfortable blankets to use. Barely taking care of yourself? Bro prepare yourself. "I don't understand how you live like this! You'd be dead if you were to continue that habit! At least help me help you to make you be better!" - Very blunt and honest to the point it stings, but he never lies to people he is closed to. He prefers being upfront with his loved ones and will try to rebuild their confidence and reassure them that they can be better than what they are. "When I say you're idiotic, you're but a burden, I mean it. You have all rights to be hurt by it, but don't just live with it. Prove me wrong, that you can be better than that and you'll be the best version of yourself. I know you can do it." - Will accept hugs, but will most likely not hug back. Maybe he'll just out one hand on your back and lightly stroke it, but that's it. But in rare occasions, he will return them too. Sometimes, he'll even initiate it. - Your connection to him as a friend has lead several advantages. No one in general can make a negative comment about you with Prosciutto around. His glare alone was scary and they would not wish to stick around and find out what he can do than just glaring. - Extremely appreciates when you help him around by simply carrying things for him, fetching him coffee and actually doing your damn job properly is enough to make him be filled with gratitude. Pesci - Baby. Okay, so this boy. Boy oh boy, he is baby. Take care of him, bro. Don't coddle him to the point of him being entirely dependent on you, but sis you can always reassure and make him improve himself! Perhaps a tamer version of his relationship with his brother. - You two will mostly likely be friends because you always defend him from the others from teasing him and rooting for him. He is very grateful for it and can't thank you enough. Either that, or Prosciutto paid you to babysit him. - Will constantly cling on your arm when he's anxious. It's up to you whether you'll snap at him and slap his hand away, or just let him hang around you. He'll just simply grab your wrist, and sooner and later he'd have his body pressed against yours, completely clinging on the entirety of your arm. "D-don't leave me, Y/N! I'm scared—!" - He is extremely thankful for you watching over him and protecting and by this, he tries to improve himself a lot more just so he can confidently say he can watch over you and protect you as well - Just the sweetest little thing, whenever he'd be away with Prosciutto for a mission he'd return home bearing gifts from travel and he'd give it to you. It would be something either miniature, or something practical like a knife sharpener or something. "I-I got this for you... I hope you like it! Big bro helped me pick!" - Honestly, I can imagine him just being the best, supportive and encouraging friend there could be. If ever you needed someone to confide in, he'd just sit and listen and will certainly not repeat what you told him to others. He'll try his best to comfort

you, taking inspiration to how you comfort him and will just try his best to make you feel better. "I know life is rough and hard and bad, but you always told me it will change and soon it all be over and better. It's good that you recognise you're in a bad place, now you need to take a break and then later you won't even know you've already forgotten your problem! It's okay to be sad, too, but not for too long." - The type of friend that will share anything he has. He has a cookie with him? Shit, he'll split it in half and give the other half to you. Some soda? Well I hope you don't mind drinking from the same can as he is, he will give it to you. Melone - So this nerd isn't a complete creepy pervert, not entirely at all. He's chill for most of the time, so he's a neat company if you don't mind him bombarding you with questions regarding your genetics, heritage records, blood type, zodiac signs and whatnot. But knows when to stop. - You most likely befriended him because he is one of the chill people in the group... Somewhat. Or perhaps you just started to bond over mutual love for steamy, erotic novels from the same author. If this man has shame, his guilty pleasures would be reading these types of trashy novels filled with smut. - He is great as a wingman. Complain to him about your lack of a love life, he'll observe your types and he'll somehow come up with a list by the next day enthusiastically listing them to you in a PowerPoint presentation. "If you're into girls, I have this one right here! She's compatible with your zodiac sign, although she has quite the temper she can be extremely passionate and affectionate— or perhaps you're into men, that I have as well. Several, actually. This other fellow right here is also a part of Passione from the Human trafficking branch, stoic and quite a stern one, but knows when to lay low at times and appreciate those around him— either him or the girl, you'd make good babies together!" "Melone, what the fuck—" - Very touchy. He'd lean his head on your lap as you both read on the couch, or randomly put his head on your shoulder during meetings, grab you by the arm while crossing the road, smacking your ass as a greeting (if you tell him stop, he'd stop of course), will pretend to kiss you just so he can see your reaction, anything. He is one affectionate nut that he sometimes forget about personal spaces. If you're not particularly fond of being touched like I am, simply tell him nope. I mean, he'd be sad but will respect your boundaries. The only time he'll actually respect established boundaries, to be honest. - Knows the most random facts and will share them to you for the fun of it. Additional to that, he will also mutter his shower thoughts and random cursed facts out loud just so he can curse you with the knowledge and confusion. "Did you know that dolphins masturbate using dead fishes? Also, there was an experiment involving dolphins in which one of the scientist fell in love and had sex with it. Another fact, is that dolphins are also seen doing the deed—" "Okay, Melone, I get it! Dolphins aren't as innocent as they seem! Stop ruining it for me already!" ... "Did you know that a woman once used mayonnaise as a lubri—" "MELONE!" - Being his friends meaning being his impulse control. If he intends to use his Stand on some innocent passerby just for the heck of it (for science, as he claims), smack him by the wrist and glare at him. If he eyes a particular someone for too long that the person gets too uncomfortable, try to divert his attention away. "Ow! Y/N what the heck—!" "What did I told you about oogling at people? It's impolite and creepy, stop that!" - He may not seem like it, but bro he cares a lot. If ever you had a problem, he'd sit and listen, offer you his shoulder to cry on, and perhaps hang out to divert your attention away from what's bothering and hurting you. And if you need advice, he'll try his best to come up with a flawless solution to your problems. But if comfort is what you need, his arms are open baby. Ghiaccio

- Bro you must need emergency ear plugs for this one, he is a massive screamer, a ticking time bomb with no timer that will erupt at random. If ear plugs aren't enough, cover your ears. - Befriending him was an impulse control befriending him. Well, all you did was to constantly try to calm his tits and cool his head to the point he actually barges in your room to hang out so that he can cool his head from all of the shenanigans occuring all around him, or maybe he just had another thought about something maddening about the world. "WELL WHY?! WHY IS WOMEN'S CLOTHES SIZING CHART DIFFER FROM EACH STORE?! THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE! INCHES AND CENTIMETRES EXISTS FOR A REASON, DAMNIT!" - There are moments where he isn't screaming, thankfully and he's a decent person to talk to. If you're a listener, he'll do the talking, just ranting about things, rambling on and on, before complaining, and then another outbursts comes out. By this, you simply sigh, put a hand on his shoulder and talk to him in a gentle, calming voice. It usually does the trick. Formaggio and Melone joked about this talent of yours as witchcraft. - He appreciates you a lot and honestly doesn't know what to do without you and by that, he knows he has to reciprocate the care you give him somehow to show he is grateful of your friendship and care. He isn't the type to be physically affectionate, but he is extremely thoughtful about his closed loved onesa and prefers to be practical about it. He would save you your seat in meetings, fetch you snacks if he ran out for an errand, etc etc. Extremely observant of your mannerisms, that he might point that out to you and you won't even realise you do that. - So like, he is very protective as a friend. He will do something whenever someone has wronged you in any way. The others teasing you? Bam, he'll shoot them back with a witty insult. Your s/o cheated on you? Ohohoho boi, be prepared to see their name on a headline on the daily news. Your order was wrong? Bam, he'll have the waiter shaking in fear from a screaming, angry Italian mafioso as he demands for them to remake your order correctly. "WELL CAGACAZZO?! QUIT STANDING AROUND AND GET ORDERS CORRECTLY—" "G-Ghiaccio it's just a minor thing, let it go—" "THEY SERVED YOU AN INGREDIENT YOU SPECIFICALLY TOLD THEM NOT TO INCLUDE BECAUSE YOU'RE ALLERGIC TO IT! WHY ARE YOU LETTING THIS SLIDE OFF?!" - All in all, he's just glad you're there for him because damn, someday his temper is going to get the best of him and he doesn't know what to do. And with your friendship, he's learned how to cope with his spontaneous anger by carrying soothing stuff to ease his nerves (courtesy of your suggestions and gifts for him) - Basically the dynamic of a rapid gremlin with rabies and a calm, sunshine personified angel. Everyone (Riz, including, but he's more subtle and dry about it) joked about the unlikely friendship, and how your ears must've lost a little bit of hearing capacity. Rissoto - I feel like he'd be extremely attached to a childhood friend. You've been friends since before you underwent the drastic change by going through a lot to get to where he is now, and still the only person that stuck around with him was you. By that, you became the most trusted by him due to the fact you've known each other for very long. - As his best friend, you're his confidant and finds himself often going to you if ever he needed advice, or needed to vent about his stress. He really isn't vocal but when he's confiding in you, his words spill out of his mouth usually sealed tightly just steadily flows, his big strong Capo veneer falls apart in front of you but he doesn't necessarily feel unsafe by being vulnerable. That's how he trusts you. - No one will dare to bad mouth you in front of the Capo, or else there'd be hell to pay for. I mean, teasing is fine, he knows you can handle burns from team mates here and there (and will silently smirk at it) but he will not stand it if they attempt to belittle you for something unreasonable. "Watch your mouth. That was

out of their control, stop blaming them for something they can't do." - The type of friend that doesn't know how to comfort someone, but will try their best. So as you spill your heart out, tears, snot, sweat and all, he'll just pull you to his chest and awkwardly pat your shoulders to get you calm and comforted. Not to mention, he is extremely stiff at the hug and is very unsure what words to say to you to not upset or offend you any further, so he'll just ride it out smoothly, and let you let it all out on his chest. It's not like he can't wash your tears, snot and sweat on his chest anyways. - Since he is very non-vocal, he's a good listener so rant all the way! Complain about the weather, about your lack of love life, about how underpaid the hitmen team is, anything! He won't find the perfect response, so he'll just nod along and perhaps comment occasionally on what your saying. "So like, ugh, I am soooo frustrated at how Prosciutto could say that to Pesci! He makes a good point, but it's redundant for him to be too harsh on him! Look, all I'm saying is, maybe Prosciutto should start choosing his words correctly so that Pesci won't feel too upset! You know???" You glanced at your friend, as he simply sat attentively beside you. He nods silently as a response. "Anyways—" - Extremely great at deduction and the way he reads people so easily is so unreal. And so he uses this to his advantage to know what's up with you whenever you seemed off. By this, he's able to tell whenever you're upset but scared to talk about it, frustrated but too busy to talk about, etc etc. And with this, he takes the time to drag you to take a seat, and talk about what's been bothering you. If you don't wish to talk about it at all, he'll let you be after with a reassurance that you can overcome whatever the heck you're going through. - Everyone is surprised that you two aren't married??? That you're just friends??? The way you two look just makes you two look like a couple and it boggles the others how you two aren't one.

#la squadra x reader #platonic #jjba part 5 #jojo golden wind #formaggio x reader #prosciutto x reader #pesci x reader #illuso x reader #melone x reader #ghiaccio x reader #risotto x reader #headcanons #friendship #x reader

276 notes · View notes

fortunatelyfresco · 3 years

Text

A Holistic Integration of Type 1 Narcolepsy into the Reading of Moist von Lipwig

Literary Interpretation, Disability, and Finding Yourself Between the Lines

As it goes, "I wrote this for me, but you can read it if you want." It might be a fun ride for anyone who is very interested in Moist von Lipwig, or narcolepsy, or both, and/or anyone who enjoys collecting small details from within a body of work and arranging them into threads that are supportable by the text, without being actually suggested by it.

Personally, I find it very interesting to read the meta behind different headcanons, and see how creators can unintentionally write a character who fits certain criteria. There are only so many traits, after all, and some of them tend to travel in groups! Humans are pattern seekers, etc etc.

The first step of reading Moist von Lipwig as narcoleptic is wanting to read Moist von Lipwig as narcoleptic. Being narcoleptic myself and relating heavily to Moist, this step was very easy. I invite you to take my hand and come along, at least briefly, if you were interested enough to click the readmore.

Once you have taken that step, things start falling into place. At least they do if you're intimately familiar with narcolepsy, or if you first learn about it in detail through, for instance, a Tumblr post with an agenda :)

I'll break this down symptom by symptom, citing only the ones I both have personal experience with and see textual support for.

I'll be using OverDrive's search function to catalogue "evidence" in (the American editions of) Going Postal, Making Money, and Raising Steam, so I might miss passages that don't use certain keywords.

Please take any statements along the lines of "being narcoleptic means X" with a huge grain of salt. Sometimes it's just more succinct. Narcolepsy can manifest in many different ways, and is still being actively studied. Don't base your entire understanding of it on a fandom essay I wrote to cope with the crushing pressures of capitalism. I have not even fully read the scientific studies linked here as sources.

Here we go! Spoilers abound.

I. Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (EDS) and sleep attacks.

Being narcoleptic means (salt now, please) that your brain does not get adequate rest while you sleep, no matter how much you sleep. This is because of a disturbance in the order and length of REM and NREM sleep phases. This leads to constant exhaustion. Some sources describe narcoleptic EDS as "comparable to [the sleepiness] experienced by a healthy individual who has been sleep-deprived continuously for 48–72 hours."

(Source.)

Sleep attacks can come on gradually or suddenly. In my case, I become irritable and easily overwhelmed, and nothing matters except finding a place to lie down. A more severe attack, under the right circumstances, can put me to sleep while I'm actively trying to stay awake and engaged.

Moist refers to 6:45 am as "still nighttime." He is "allergic to the concept of two seven o'clocks in one day" and is "not good at early mornings," and the narration even cites this as "one of the advantages of a life of crime; you didn't have to get up until other people had got the streets aired."

In Going Postal, he repeatedly falls asleep at his desk. I can only find two instances, but the first one describes it as having happened "again," so it happens at least three times over the course of one week. Both of the times I found were after Mr. Pump cleared his apartment, giving him access to a bed, and I can't find any reference to the fire destroying it—just that his office is "missing the whole of one wall." His presumably wooden desk is still intact, even, just "charred."

There's also no build-up either time. No direct narration of the time right before he falls asleep, just retroactive accounting for it.

Which is primarily a function of stories not showing us every boring second, and secondarily one of the smaller ways we're shown Moist being overwhelmed and racing to keep up with himself, but tertiarily it's a great set dressing if you've already decided he's narcoleptic. Sometimes sleep is just a thing that happens, without any deliberate transition. Sometimes you sit down to catch your breath or get some paperwork done, and wake up several hours later.

I've found only one example in GP of Moist waking up in his actual bed at the post office: the morning after being possessed by all the undelivered letters. Presumably either they put him there, or Mr. Pump did.

There are two points in Making Money where Moist, in an effort to be a comforting and/or guiding hand, advises people to get some sleep. First Owlswick Jenkins, and then one of the clerks (Robert) who is worried about Mr. Bent.

I take the optimistic view that this is Moist genuinely caring about these people, not just trying to get them to do what he wants. He has always done some combination of those things (GP opens with him having befriended his jailers, after all), but there's definitely a thread of him learning to treat both himself and those around him more like real people. (See also.)

Looking at this thread through narcolepsy-colored lenses, you get Moist perhaps drawing from his own experiences in an effort to be helpful. In Owlswick or Robert's position, what is something he would want to hear from the man currently in charge of his fate, or at least his job? "Get some sleep."

If we accept this as a pattern, it culminates in Raising Steam, when Moist starts to worry about "Dick Simnel and his band of overworked engineers," fixating particularly on their lack of sleep.

What sleep they got was in sleeping bags, curled up on carriage seats, eating but not eating well, just driven by their watches and their desire to keep the train going.

[...]

"People are going to die if we push them any further," he said to Dick. "You lot would rather work than sleep!"

[...]

The young man swayed in front of him and Moist's tone became gentle. "And I see now that part of my job is to tell you that you need some rest. You've run out of steam, Dick. Look, we're well on the way to Uberwald now, and while it's daylight and we're out of the mountains it's going to be the least risky time to run with minimum crew. We're all going to need our wits about us when we get near the pass. Surely you can take some rest?"

Simnel blinked as if he'd not seen Moist the first time, and said, "Yes, you're right."

And Moist could hear the slurring in the young man's speech, caught him before he fell and dragged him into a sleeping compartment, put him to bed, and noted that the engineer didn't so much fall asleep as somehow flow into it.

Moist then recruits Vimes to help him talk the rest of the engineers into getting some rest. The two of them briefly commiserate about people not realizing how important it is.

"I have to teach that to young coppers. Treasure a night's rest, I always say. Take a nap whenever you can."

"Very good."

II. Insomnia.

This is a lesser-known but very common symptom of narcolepsy. Or a comorbidity, depending on how you look at it. It seems counterintuitive if narcolepsy has been presented to you as "sleeping all the time," but it makes sense once you know it's really a matter of disruption in the brain's ability to regulate sleep cycles.

The case for this symptom is flimsier, and I fully admit I'm just reading my own experience into it. But here are two excerpts from Going Postal that I find quite suitable for my sleepy agenda:

1. "A man of affairs such as he had to learn to sleep in all kinds of situations, often while mobs were looking for him a wall's thickness away."

I latched hard onto this detail the first time I read GP.

At my worst, I could not get more than a couple hours of sleep in my bed. I kept taking naps in the bath because it was one of the few places I could sleep. It seemed to fulfill some of the criteria (isolation, temperature control, etc) that my brain demanded in exchange for playing nice.

We're told over and over again, throughout Moist's books, that he functions best under pressure.

(Brief aside: This is often cited as a reason to interpret Moist as having ADHD, which I'm also fully on board with. Not coincidentally, narcolepsy and ADHD share a few symptoms, have a notable comorbidity rate, and are treated with some of the same medications. Source.)

So again, if you're already inclined to read Moist as narcoleptic, the following is an easy jump:

"Moist thinks he's good at sleeping in strange places under strange circumstances. This is because A) his basis for comparison is a disordered attempt to sleep in normal places under normal circumstances, B) something about danger satisfies his brain into running more smoothly, and C) he's a resourceful person who is 'not given to introspection,' and so is less likely to wonder why his body demands sleep at strange times and more likely to focus on finding a place for that sleep to happen, and chalk this up later as a skill."

And returning briefly to EDS: Why would someone like Moist waste time finding a safe place to sleep while people are actively trying to kill him? At the beginning of GP, he leaves Vetinari's office and immediately goes on the run. In multiple books, when he feels threatened, his brain instinctively launches into complex escape plans. We see him successfully blend into an Ankh-Morpork crowd at least once after becoming a public figure.

So why bother? After all, a safe place to sleep is also a safe place to change clothes, or at least remove whatever distinguishing features he's given himself. Why wouldn't he just become someone else and leave town immediately?

The obvious answer is that sometimes things just happen, and an author doesn't need to know or explain every single detail of a character's past.

I would suggest, though, that one of those things might be Moist reaching a point where sleep is just not optional. A point where he not only doesn't, but can't, care about anything else. Where he is too tired to think straight, too tired to talk his way out of trouble, too tired to even contemplate the long journey from one town to the next.

2. "Moist knew he ought to get some sleep, but he had to be there, too, alive and sparkling."

Sometimes (especially in combination with underlying mental health issues) narcoleptic sleep deprivation can bypass everything I've described so far, and lead straight into a manic state. You won't necessarily find that on Google, but it's been my experience.

That's obviously not what the text is implying. "Alive and sparkling" is just a very relatable description. And we do often see Moist getting away from himself, speaking without thinking, making absurd promises that he justifies immediately afterwards as Just Part Of Being Him, always raising the stakes.

And here are a couple of excerpts from Raising Steam that could be interpreted as Moist being a light sleeper, AKA struggling to get deep sleep:

1. "And slowly Moist shut down, although a part of him was always listening to the rhythm of the rails, listening in his sleep, like a sailor listening to the sounds of the sea."

2. "All Moist's life he'd managed to find a way of sleeping in just about every circumstance and, besides, the guard's van was somehow the hub of the train; and although he didn't know how he did it, he always managed to sleep with half of one ear open."

Moist is exactly the kind of opportunist to see that as a useful tool, isn't he?

III. Hypnagogic and Hypnopompic Hallucinations.

These are hallucinations that come on as you're falling asleep or waking up. They can also happen during REM intrusions while you're awake. My most memorable ones include piano notes, someone calling my name, being trapped in the waves of a large body of water, and a huge truck going over a guard rail and tumbling down a hill. These are often, but not always, accompanied by sleep paralysis (and sleep paralysis is often, but not always, accompanied by hallucinations).

In GP, Moist casually cites his own hallucinations as proof that what is happening at the post office is not one.

"They're all alive! And angry! They talk! It was not a hallucination! I've had hallucinations and they don't hurt!"

Obviously that's not true for everyone, but it's true for Moist, and he has enough experience that he immediately recognizes the difference.

At one point while awake, Moist "[snaps] out of a dream of chandeliers" to realize someone has approached him to talk, while he was busy having visions of what the post office used to look like/could look like again.

Now, that's cheating, because we're probably supposed to assume it's a side effect of being possessed, but... I'm putting it here anyway.

There is also perhaps a case to be made for the tendency of Moist's internal monologue to lapse into extremely specific and prolonged hypotheticals. The lines between hallucinations, waking dreams, and "regular" daydreams have always been very blurry to me. I'm especially curious about the example at the end of Going Postal, which goes like this:

"Look, I know what I'm like," he said. "I'm not the person everyone thinks I am. I just wanted to prove to myself I'm not like Gilt. More than a hammer, you understand? But I'm still a fraud by trade. I thought you knew that. I can fake sincerity so well that even I can't tell. I mess with people's heads—"

"You're fooling no one but yourself," said Miss Dearheart, and reached for his hand.

Moist shook her off, and ran out of the building, out of the city, and back to his old life, or lives, always moving on, selling glass as diamond, but somehow it just didn't seem to work anymore, the flair wasn't there, the fun had dropped out of it, even the cards didn't seem to work for him, the money ran out, and one winter in some inn that was no more than a slum he turned his face to the wall—

And an angel appeared.

"What just happened?" said Miss Dearheart.

Perhaps you do get two...

"Only a passing thought," said Moist.

In-universe... what is Adora reacting to? What did just happen? The fact that these incidents are not isolated to Going Postal is a point against it being some sort of literal timeline divergence caused by The Spirit Of The Post.

So maybe Moist visibly zoned out. Maybe he had some kind of minor but noticeable cataplexy attack (more on those later) as part of a REM intrusion, brought on by the intense emotions he's currently struggling with.

IV. Vivid Dreams.

Again, at least some of this is probably supposed to be part of the possession, but I've been professionally projecting myself onto the surreal dreams of magically afflicted characters for years. Do try this at home.

1. "Moist dreamed of bottled wizards, all shouting his name. In the best tradition of awaking from a nightmare, the voices gradually became one voice, which turned out to be the voice of Mr. Pump, who was shaking him."

2. Moist is uneasy about the Smoking Gnu's plan, and then he has an extremely detailed dream about the Grand Trunk burning down.

This culminates in "Moist awoke, the Grand Trunk burning in his head," followed by a paragraph of him thinking things through and starting to form his own alternative plan, followed immediately by "Moist awoke. He was at his desk, and someone had put a pillow under his head."

So he fell asleep at his desk, woke up from a vivid nightmare, was awake just long enough for a coherent train of thought, and then passed back out. Which once again is not "proof" of anything, but fits the predetermined interpretation like a glove.

V. Cataplexy.

Cataplexy is a sudden loss of muscle control, usually triggered by strong emotions. This is thought to be a facet of REM intrusion—waking instances of the atonia that is meant to stop us from acting out our dreams.

The most well-known manifestation is laughter making your knees buckle, but it's not always that severe. My own attacks range from facial twitching, usually when I'm angry or otherwise extremely upset, to all-over weakness/immobilization and near-collapse when I laugh. My knees have fully buckled once or twice.

This is the biggest stretch. This is the one that is absolutely only there if you've already decided to read entire novels between the lines. It's also not even necessary for the broader headcanon; plenty of people have narcolepsy without cataplexy (or such mild cataplexy that it's never noticeable, or very delayed onset, etc).

However. I am doing this for fun. So I want him to have it. It's also become a major part of how I imagine Moist engaging with emotion, and I'd like to make a case for that.

There are a few scattered references to Moist's legs shaking, or being unsteady, or outright giving way, but there's usually an external physical reason, and/or enough psychological shock to justify it without a medical condition.

The most compelling example I've found so far comes from Moist and Adora's conversation about people expecting Moist to deliver letters to the gods.

"I never promised to—"

"You promised to when you sold them the stamps!"

Moist almost fell off his chair. She'd wielded the sentence like a fist.

"And it'll give them hope," she added, rather more quietly.

"False hope," said Moist, struggling upright.

"Almost fell off his chair" at first sounds like casual hyperbole, but then "struggling upright" implies it was a bit more literal. It's also an accurate description of me recovering from my more severe attacks, supporting myself on a wall or my spouse, or pushing myself up if I've fallen over in bed.

That happens to me multiple times per day, by the way. It doesn't bother me, and I didn't realize there was anything unusual about it for a long time. I barely think about it, except to fondly note that my spouse is good at making me laugh.

Which is to say, even severe cataplexy is not always noticeable or debilitating. Sometimes it absolutely is! It can be downright dangerous, depending on where you are, what you're doing, and whether you have any other conditions it might exacerbate. I don't want to undermine that.

I am just hell-bent on justifying the idea that this fictional character could have repeated attacks throughout the canonical narrative that are so routine they don't merit an explanation, or even a description. Especially for someone who is used to hiding his few distinguishing features behind false ones that are much more memorable. (See also.)

(That link goes to my own fanfic. Sorry.)

On the milder side, between Going Postal and Making Money, there are three instances of Moist's mouth "dropping open" when he's shocked, upset, confused, or some combination of the three. This is the kind of thing that shows up a lot in fiction, but rarely happens so literally in real life.

(There's technically a fourth instance, but I'm not counting it because it seems to be a deliberate choice on his part to convey surprise.)

And then there's laughter. Or rather, there isn't. I could be missing something, but I've searched all three books for instances of laughter and various synonyms (not counting spoken "Ha!"s), and what I've come up with is:

Moist laughs once in Going Postal, when he receives the assignment for the race to Genua.

Two packages were handed over. Moist undid his, and burst out laughing.

There's also an instance earlier in the book where Moist nearly "burst[s] out laughing."

I find the specifics here interesting, and, for our purposes, fortuitous. Cataplexy is complicated and presents differently for everyone. In my case, when laughter triggers an attack, one of the effects (which is sometimes also a cause) is that I laugh very hard, with little or no control. "Burst out laughing" is quite apt.

Let's move on to Making Money, and start with a quick tangent:

Mr. Bent explains that he has no sense of humor due to a medical condition, and that he isn't upset about this and doesn't understand why people feel sorry for him.

Moist immediately starts in with "Have you tried—" before getting cut off by the frustrated Bent.

Out-of-universe, "Have you tried" is such a well-known refrain to anyone with an incurable condition, I'm not at all surprised to find it in a book written by someone who had at least begun the process that would lead to a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's. And Pratchett has certainly never shied away from portraying ignorance in his protagonists.

In-universe, it feels a little odd. Moist's tongue runs away from him all the time, but usually in the form of making ridiculous claims or impossible promises. Moist's entire stock-in-trade is People Skills, and it feels strange for him to make this kind of mistake immediately after being told Mr. Bent is not looking for solutions.

But if one were reading with, for instance, the idea in mind that Moist himself has an incurable condition related to laughter and is enthusiastic about, but still relatively new to, the practice of drawing on his own experiences to help people... it is easy to imagine the gears in his head turning the wrong way, superimposing those experiences over the tail end of Mr. Bent's explanation. Disabled people are not immune to these well-meaning pitfalls.

There is another Mr. Bent moment that I want to discuss, but we'll circle back around to it later.

I found two instances of Moist himself laughing in MM.

1. "He said it with a laugh, to lighten the mood a little."

This is deliberate laughter, employed as a social tactic. A polite chuckle, probably. Not the sort of thing that generally triggers cataplexy.

2. "Moist started to laugh, and stopped at the sight of her grave expression."

The first and only involuntary laugh in MM. It doesn't always trigger attacks...

Which brings us to Raising Steam. Compared to the first two books, Moist laughs a lot here. I count nine instances. Two of them are "burst out laughing"s, a couple include him as part of a group, some of it comes off as deliberate, and some of it doesn't.

I've always seen a lot of... rage in Raising Steam. Combing through it for laughter, I realized Moist's emotions in general are much closer to the surface here, and he's much less concerned about letting people see them. He laughs with friends and acquaintances, he cries in front of strangers, he shouts at Harry King, he has that entire conversation with Dick that boils down to "I'm very worried about you," etc.

Opinions vary wildly and sharply on Raising Steam. I have my own hangups with it, as I do with most books in the series. (Every time I make a new Discworld post, Tumblr passive-aggressively suggests the tag "my kingdom for a discworld character who is normal about women and other species.")

But I like this particular change in Moist, and I choose to see it as character development. He's trading in the professional detachment of a conman for the ability to grow into himself as a person and make meaningful connections.

So, what does that have to do with cataplexy? A lot.

I don't want to get too maudlin, so I'll just say I have plenty of personal experience with emotional repression masking cataplexy symptoms. And so, I believe, does the version of Moist we've put together over the course of this post.

Which brings us back to Making Money, and Mr. Bent. He says something about Moist that I find very interesting: "I do not trust those who laugh too easily."

Unless I've missed something, at that point in the book, Moist has never actually laughed in front of him. And Mr. Bent is a man who pays very close attention to details.

So, what is the in-universe explanation for this? I'd like to propose that Moist is very skilled at seeming to laugh, without actually laughing. He smiles, he's friendly, and he makes other people laugh, which is another thing Bent dislikes about him. He gives the impression of being someone who laughs a lot. (He certainly left that impression on me; I was very surprised by the lack of examples in the first two books.)

Even staying strictly within the bounds of canon, it's easy to imagine why this might have become part of Moist's camouflage in his previous life. He wasn't looking to get attached to anyone, and he didn't want anyone getting inside his head. Engaging with people genuinely enough to laugh at their jokes would run counter to both of those things, but some of his personas still needed to come off as friendly and sociable.

Still working within the canon, it makes sense to assume he's similarly distanced himself from emotion in general. He sits in a cell for several weeks without truly believing he's going to die. He's bewildered when Mr. Pump points out that his schemes have hurt innocent people. He has no idea what to do with his feelings for Adora. Etc.

Interpreting Moist as having cataplexy adds an extra element of danger. Moist thrives on danger, but there's a difference between the thrill of a con and the threat of sudden, uncontrollable displays of vulnerability. And so it becomes even easier to see him stifling his own emotional capacity.*

We meet Moist at a moment of great upheaval. He is forcibly removed from his cocoon of false identities, and pushed out into the world as himself. And we are shown and told throughout Going Postal that he does not know how to be himself. (See also.)

He is repeatedly stymied by his own emotions. He gets tongue-tied and confused around Adora, he snaps at Mr. Pump, he lashes out at Mr. Groat, he gets lost in school flashbacks when he meets Miss Maccalariat. This thread continues in Making Money, where the sudden reappearance of Cribbins immediately rattles him into making an uncharacteristic mistake.

I called him Cribbins! Just then! I called him Cribbins! Did he tell me his name? Did he notice? He must have noticed!

Later in the same book, Moist misses a crucial opportunity to run damage control on the bank's public image... because he's excited to see Adora.

The Moist of GP and MM is not used to feeling things so deeply. It throws him off his game. I'm not at all suggesting cataplexy is the only (or even primary) reason for that, but I do think there's room for it on both sides of the cause and effect equation.

With or without the cataplexy, I find Moist's relative emotional openness in Raising Steam... really nice. (It's a work in progress. He's still getting a handle on anger.)

Cataplexy just adds another dimension. A physical manifestation of emotional vulnerability, which would have been especially untenable for a teenager on the run. Just one more facet of the real, human, fallible Moist von Lipwig who spent years buried beneath Albert Spangler and all the rest.

Another piece of himself that Moist is growing to understand and accept, as he learns to more comfortably be himself.

The Moist of Going Postal runs into a burning building to save lives without fully understanding why he wants to, and justifies it on the fly as an essential part of the role he's trying to play.

The Moist of Raising Steam mindlessly throws himself under a train to save two children, and then blows up at Harry King about the lack of safety regulations. Freshly traumatized by the murder of several railway workers and his own violent, vengeful response to it, he still offers, in the face of Harry's own grief, to be the one to inform their families. On a long and dangerous journey with plenty of moving parts to think about, he worries about Dick Simnel and the other engineers, and pushes them to take better care of themselves.

He also meets a bunch of kids who nearly derailed a train as part of a childish scheme. His admonishment is startlingly vivid.

"Can you imagine a railway accident? The screaming of the rails and the people inside and the explosion that scythes the countryside around when the boiler bursts? And you, little girl, and your little friends, would have done all that. Killed a trainload of people."

[...]

"I'll square this with the engine driver, but if I was you I'd get my pencil and turn any clever ideas you have like this into a book or two. Those penny dreadfuls are all the rage in the railway bookshops."

Maybe what he is also saying, between the lines, is:

I left home at 14 and began a life of smoke and mirrors. I was empty inside, and I thought everyone else was, too. It was all fun and games, and then a man made of clay told me I was killing people. Nip it in the bud, child. Write books.

------------

*There are studies suggesting that in addition to deliberately employed "tricks," people with cataplexy may experience physiological reactions in the brain meant to inhibit laughter. (Source 1, Source 2.)

Most of the information here is way over my head, but that second link also says "one region of the brain called the zona incerta (meaning 'zone of uncertainty') was only activated during laughter in people with narcolepsy, not in controls. Research on the zona incerta in animals suggests that it also helps to control fear-associated behavior."

The linked article about that (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03581-6) is also over my head, but I would certainly describe Moist von Lipwig as having unusual fear responses.**

**Narcolepsy is a fun roller-coaster ride of constant scientific discoveries about exactly which parts of your brain are paying too much attention, not paying enough attention, or trying to eat each other.

#moist von lipwig #narcolepsy #discworld #disabled headcanons #oh my god this got so out of hand #earned itself a title AND a subtitle #mr. cybulskis i'm sorry i fell asleep in your class every day it was at the exact wrong time and temperature and lighting

162 notes · View notes

peralta-guaranteed · 3 years

Note

Jake and Amy single parents AU.

Pretty please! :))

oh! Oh, I strangely love this one!

- Amy is a police-widow with little Mac (no, Teddy was not the father, it was a non-canon detective), while Jake is at the better end of a really messy divorce from Sofia, who very quickly handed over all alimony of Maya to him to focus on her career.

-Amy tries her best to juggle the newly single parent life with her full-time position running a bookshop, while Jake is not too happy about having to bring Maya in to the precinct all the time, but it can’t be helped (and Scully makes a surprisingly good babysitter). The squad’s had his back through the entire break-up, and they all love his little girl to bits, so at least she won’t be missing the family aspect in her life - and will always have an amazing female role model in her Auntie Rosa, who’s already planning to teach her Spanish just so she can trashtalk her dad with her without Jake knowing

- Mac + Maya meet at daycare and absolutely hit it off, despite the age difference of two years. Mac has apparently seen another curly headed toddler and immediately decided to brother the sh*t out of her. He takes her along to all his games and helps her pick colours for her pictures and shares his apple slices with her in exchange for a bit of sandwich (which is much nicer anyway).

- the daycare workers absolutely adore the little duo, and can’t help remarking how much they look like siblings anyway. So of course Jake has to meet the mom of the adorable little boy who always bring his daughter over to him for pickup by holding her hand.

- he’s a bit afraid of having to deal with the usual “Aw they’re little boyfriend and girlfriend” comments he’s expecting, but obviously Amy is having none of that. Instead, she tells him how glad she is that Mac has found a little friend to protect. “He’s always trying to protect everyone so much, ever since his dad... well...”

- (Jake knew, distantly, that she was the widow of one of his colleagues from another precinct, but apart from the usual condolences they’d all sent it had never really registered in his mind that there was a wife and a child left behind.)

- “Oh well Maya is so happy too. She’s a bit shy and scared at the moment, so having a big friend help her get out of her shell is great. Your little boy is a sweetheart, too.”

- Amy smiles at him, and he’s pretty sure his heart should not be doing what it’s doing, so he beats it down and tries his best to ignore it. Which is hard, because she smiles at him a lot in the coming months when they meet up for playdates, Mac over excited to show Maya all his favourite spots at the park or the coolest fish at the aquarium.

- Jake moans during one of their meet-ups about a case that has been dragging on forever and is going to need an allnighter to finally be solved, and his partner Boyle is really trying his best alone, but he’s the primary on it and- it feels great to talk about it with someone who understands, outside of his squad, even if Amy sometimes nods with the saddest look on her face when he mentions parts of his job. But she offers him last minute babysitting if he ever needs it, considering her job finishes promptly at 5pm each day, and he can’t help but take her offer when another case hits that needs him on a stake out at 10pm.

- so Maya gets a lovely sleepover with Mac, and Amy gets the biggest box of her favourite pralines as a thank you, because Jake has never, not once, given Maya to a babysitter to go to his job without feeling remorse and guilt, not even his own mom, but he had to deal with none of that when Maya gladly ran up the stairs to Amy’s place where Mac was already shouting her name.

- needless to say that Amy and Jake become the great friends they always are over time. He brings coffee and muffins to their park playdates, and she brings over frozen meals from Mac’s abuela for kid movie marathons at Jake’s place. They know each other’s schedules to help out with the kids, Jake has convinced everyone in his friend group and workplace to only buy books at her store from now on, and Amy is already planning the christmas gift she needs to pack for Maya and her daddy.

- it would be a nice, supportive friendship of equals, and a good help in their single parent life, if it wasn’t for the fact that Jake realised about three playdates in that he was falling for Amy faster than a shooting star. It took her a little longer, but realisation hit when she was packing Mac’s lunchbox, her own lunchbox, and Maya’s lunchbox too after a sleepover, and subconsciously already wanted to bag up a fourth set of sandwiches with some gummy bears and a soda thrown in for good measure.

- Rosa tells him to ‘grow a pair and ask her out, she sounds perfect for both you and Maya’ when Jake confides in her. And that is rare praise coming from Diaz, because no one is good enough for Maya in her eyes, sometimes not even Jake himself. But he can’t take advantage of Amy’s friendship like that, not when it risks losing both her and Mac for Maya... and there is always the underlying fear that Maya will bond with a new woman in her life and be left behind yet again if they don’t work out, just like with her mom, whose biggest contribution to her life since the divorce has been the alimony payments each month.

- Kylie, meanwhile, warns Amy not to risk too much when she confides in her. She sadly remembers the many days she had to spend at her friend-coworker’s side after the funeral, cleaning out half of a closet and half of a shared home, basically. She’d been hoping that Amy would find love again, maybe in a few years time, but when she heard the news about her ‘great new friend’ being a detective himself, her heart dropped because she knew what that might be heading towards, and Amy very much shares her fears. She’d vowed to an absolute ‘no cops’ rule for her planned restart of dating in two years, perfectly scheduled with Mac’s start of school.

- as it is, both of them dance around their emotions in a perfectly synchronised waltz while still getting closer and closer as friends and parents, to the point that the daycare workers don’t even bat an eye anymore when Amy brings both Mac and Maya in, or when Jake picks both of them up into his arms with an excited ‘ready for ice cream and games?!’ before they meet up with Amy for a Coney Island afternoon.

- until one day, when the daycare offers a ‘star gazing sleep over’ event after the story of the stars and night sky was the theme of the week, and it falls right on the day Amy and Jake were planning to take the kids to a movie. “We could still go.” Jake mumbles while Maya runs into the daycare center, not shy at all anymore, and Mac follows her. “You want to go see Paddington’s Big Adventure... without the kids?” Amy jokes, but he looks so serious. “No, of course not, but I mean - we - uh - we both got the evening off now, don’t we? I told my captain I won’t be in no matter what. Seems like a waste of time just going home. We could see that period drama you talked about, that will definitely get an Oscar?”

- Amy hesitates only for a second, but they do go. They watch the drama that Jake has to admit is pretty damn good for a movie where nothing explodes or is set on fire, and that praise does not only come from the fact that Amy grabbed his hand with a gasp during a particularly emotional scene, and then kind of forgot to let go afterwards.

- but then the movie ends and Jake still doesn’t want to go home. Neither does Amy, apparently, because she offers up an ‘amazing 24h diner’ around the corner for some late night snacks, during which they laugh and flick chocolate chips at each other and end up blushing like mad when the waitress comments on what a ‘cute couple’ they are.

- he walks her to her front door, and they both kinda don’t know what to do as they say goodbye, because this kind of date night should usually end on a kiss, but it wasn’t really a date, was it, they would’ve taken the kids along if it hadn’t been for the day care event, and-

- “Ames, I’m - this is terrifying, but I think I’ll hate myself even more for not ever saying anything - and, and, I kind of, maybe, I think you might also-” She takes his hand again, a lot softer than she did in the cinema. “I think this is the kind of talk that needs a coffee and a good couch.”

- That’s how they end up at her place that Jake already knows so well from bringing Maya over, from the perfectly styled bookcases down to the absolute mess of a playroom that is Mac’s kingdom. They both grip their coffee cups tightly as they talk it all out, about what they’re afraid of, what they would risk if they gave ‘them’ a try.

- “I wouldn’t ever want to put Mac through losing another cop-dad even if it wasn’t from work, and I won’t let Maya lose another mom.” “Me neither. And I promised Mac I’d never forget his papa, but... I can clearly see him love his new daddy, too. He already looks up to you so much. He wants a flannel shirt for christmas.” “Maya introduced you as Mama Amy to one of my aunties. Which was quite a thing to explain.” Amy laughs, and then smiles at him, and his heart does that thing again, like it has been doing for months now, but this time he doesn’t beat it down. This time he lets it lead him to lean in for the most careful kiss, a kiss that Amy gladly returns, just as carefully.

- they agree to take things slow, be mindful, not drop it on the kids immediately or rush into things from the pressure of friends or family.

- and then three months later Amy finds the perfect apartment for the four of them, and Jake aks Gina and Rosa for ring preferences and proposal tips, and ‘slow and mindful’ has flown out the window the second Maya brought home a picture she did with Mac at daycare showing their little ‘family’ before Amy or Jake had even talked to them about their possible dating.

- Maya grows up with her Mama teaching her Spanish along with Auntie Rosa, and an abuela and abuelo who love to spoil her with Cuban sweets just as much as her big brother. Mac gets to ride along in his Daddy’s police car sometimes, and hears stories about his brave Papa from his colleagues. His auntie Gina is so proud of him for taking care of his little sister the way she took care of her little brother too. And Jake gets to see Amy smile all the time now, and knows it’s him and their kids that is making her smile so much.

#B99 #Brooklyn 99 #Peraltiago #Jake Peralta #Amy Santiago #headcanons #mac peralta #maya peralta

63 notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Note

Now I want the story where NMJ is half war god and NHS is half fox spirit, thank you so much xD

based on this tumblr post and Lao Nie’s decision to refer to WRH as A-Han in this one ficlet

on ao3

Nie Zonghui had long ago suspected that his Sect Leader was a madman, but he didn’t really know it for certain until the first time he lost the man while on a bodyguarding mission – his first, and a great honor.

Supposedly.

“It’s all right,” his father said, looking long-suffering, when he reported back in distress. “He’s an adult, our sect leader, and this is a small city with no major threats in the middle of some idiosyncratic festival celebration for some goddess or another. How much damage can he really do before he sobers up?”

Nie Zonghui stared at his father, then turned to his mother, who was also staring at her husband with an expression of sincere incredulity.

“Lots,” she supplied. “Lots and lots and lots, and that’s assuming he doesn’t get himself killed in the meantime. Why would you even say that?”

“He’s our sect leader, have some respect.”

“I respect the boss bull of the herd, too, but it doesn’t mean I let it go wandering around the fields wherever it pleases!” She shook her head, snorting in a manner not entirely unlike a bull herself. “Well, if we’re very lucky, maybe our cousin will knock up a cow while he’s out and about rather than just breaking things. We could use a direct heir already; he’s not getting any younger.”

“We could use him being properly married is what we could use. I don’t understand why he’s so resistant – ah, Zonghui, you’re still here? Go gather some cultivators and go look for him, but don’t kick up any fuss, and worry too much if you can’t find him at once. He’ll be back to business soon enough.”

He was, if by “soon enough” one meant “after nearly ten days” and by “back to business” one meant “still drunk off his ass and waxing rhapsodic about some girl he met and possibly married”.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure the sun shines out of her ass,” Nie Zonghui’s father said, his face stormy. “You still could’ve told us where you went. Look what you did to poor Zonghui, he’s been wearing down his heels pacing in worry over you!”

“Oh, heels, yes, did I mention that my gorgeous goddess had amazing legs, too?” their sect leader asked with a soppy smile and stars in his eyes, totally uninterested in any of their petty complaints. “She could kill a man with them – oh, but I would die a happy man between those thighs…!”

“Zonghui, go guard the outside door,” his mother told him. “Also, tell his younger sister that she might need to be sect leader sooner than she’d hoped, because I’m going to murder this fucking –”

Nie Zonghui was there, too, when ten months later his new little baby cousin was (metaphorically) ditched on their doorstep.

The entire thing was entirely too dramatic for his taste, and yes, he was aware that as a person who chose to dual wield sabers he had very little room to criticize others for being overly dramatic, however correct he might be.

They had been fighting bandits – barely disguised mercenaries, really, probably paid off by the Wen sect to harass them – in what had turned into a particularly bad situation. Three separate regiments had joined together to take advantage of a terrible thunderstorm and ambush them at all once and them with their backs against a raging river, swollen with rain to the precipice of flooding, with no way to retreat except by fleeing on their sabers, abandoning the common people they were protecting and losing all face.

The sect leader had been raging on the battlefield, saber in hand, but even he had seen that they would need to shortly choose between death and dishonor; Nie Zonghui, close by his side, had seen how his face was split with a terrible scowl as he wracked his brain for more options.

Then there had been a terrible roar of thunder, and then a flash of light that had blinded them all.

Nie Zonghui had immediately noted the anomality of it, thunder first and lightning second, and wondered it if it was some sort of array working against them, especially when the light had not faded away but grown brighter, causing searing pain in his eyes that made him fall and clutch at his face. But he was a good soldier, loyal and true, and he forced his eyes open to squint into the night, looking to see he did not know what.

Through his sun-blindness, he vaguely thought he could see a silhouette not unlike that of a woman, ten feet tall and radiant as the sun, wearing a dress of nine colors and carrying a guandao in her hand that seemed to reach the clouds, but when he blinked again he saw nothing at all.

Or, well, he did see something: all of their enemies were headless, no matter where on the battlefield they were, their bodies dropping like a loosened string of coins where they had been standing and splattering anyone they were fighting with blood as they gawped at the sudden corpses.

Also, the sect leader was suddenly holding something in his arms when he hadn’t been before.

“What’s that?” Nie Zonghui asked, and the sect leader turned towards him. Nie Zonghui squinted, and suddenly wondered if this entire battle had been a very bad dream. “…is that a baby?”

“Yes,” the sect leader said, grinning broadly. “He’s my son!”

“He’s your what,” Nie Zonghui said.

“My son! I didn’t know about him, of course – apparently he came as something of a surprise to her as well – but anyway she thought that it would be more appropriate for me to raise him, all things considered. A baby doesn’t quite fit her lifestyle. What do you think of ‘Mingjue’ as a courtesy name? Good, yes?”

Nie Zonghui suddenly understood why his parents were always cursing all the time.

“I don’t see why I need another wife,” the sect leader said. “I already have a son.”

“Don’t you want to give said son a mother?” Nie Zonghui’s mother asked, her arms crossed. “One that isn’t the Dark Lady of the Nine Heavens, the war goddess you somehow managed to knock up without getting killed?”

“She never specified that she was –”

“Someone needs to be Nie-furen,” the sect leader’s younger sister interrupted, “because I am sick and tired of doing the job, and it’s a little difficult to ask a goddess to do it. So you are going to find yourself another one that’s a little closer to the ground this time, you understand me?”

The sect leader nodded and agreed, which was universally agreed upon to be the only appropriate reaction when his beloved meimei said something in that particular tone of voice.

(He did, after a suitable period of time, state that he wanted to make clear that there was no actual evidence that he had knocked up Jiutian Xuannü and that it was quite plausible that the mother of his heir was nothing more than a rogue cultivator of particular strength and possibility even immortality. If Baosan Sanren had managed it, why not someone else?)

At any rate, they brought him several pictures of women that might fit the bill and who would not be too offended at being asked to be a secondary wife – their sect leader swore up and down that he had performed bows with the mother of his first son, rendering him legitimate, and anyway no one was in the mood to see if the maybe-a-goddess would take offense to someone calling her child a bastard – but none seemed to catch their sect leader’s interest.

“Consider visiting a few brothels,” Nie Zonghui’s great-uncle suggested. “Anything to get you back in the habit of thinking about women of a less divine nature – though of course we’d prefer that she be literate.”

The sect leader scowled and stalked off to go night-hunting instead.

“I don’t like brothels,” he said to Nie Zonghui as they made their way through an especially deserted mountain valley in search of something that had murdered all the local mensfolk in the surrounding villages with especial viciousness. “Surely there’s an option in between.”

Nie Zonghui preferred his sabers to either men or women, but he obediently wracked his brain to think of where people in stories and famous songs found their wives. “Innkeeper’s daughters?” he finally suggested.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the sect leader scoffed, but the very next day, he decided to break his usual habit of staying out in the wild no matter the weather in favor of taking shelter from the encroaching storm in a small inn right at the base of an especially lonesome and nasty-looking cliff.

“We’re always happy to have guests,” the innkeeper said with a somewhat sinister smile – he was pale as a ghost in the guttering candlelight, and his lips looked very red. “My daughter will show you to your rooms.”

The daughter in question was inhumanly beautiful: small and graceful, with a fox’s face and dark hair that fell to her knees.

“Wow,” the sect leader said, staring at her. “You know, I think you could kill me with those nails of yours.”

Nie Zonghui took a look and agreed with the sentiment, seeing that her nails were as long as claws and looked just as sharp, but apparently he and the sect leader had somewhat different interpretations of this sequence of events and plans on how to address it.

Namely, Nie Zonghui pointed out that the lady was obviously some sort of yao or maybe a gui and that she was probably the one seducing the local mensfolk, draining their yang energy and then slaughtering them, and therefore that it was undoubtedly their duty as cultivators – and cultivators of the Nie sect in particular – to put an end to her vile deeds through the swift application of their sabers. Furthermore, he explained, they should take care never to allow themselves to be alone with her in the process, lest she seek to entrance them with her seductive magics and lure them to their undoubtedly violent deaths.

The sect leader’s rebuttal to this line of logic was limited to “I’m the sect leader and if I want to bang the probably-a-ghost, I’m going to bang the ghost and there’s nothing you can do to stop me”.

Amazingly enough, the sect leader did not end up dead the next day – the innkeeper looked just as surprised as Nie Zonghui felt – and instead announced, very happily, that he was planning on marrying her.

“You what,” the innkeeper said, staring at his very smug-looking ‘daughter’. In light of dawn, she was wearing a dress of many colors with a foxfur ruff, and her beauty was almost painful to behold.

“You why,” Nie Zonghui moaned.

“You shut up,” the sect leader told him. “I’ll have you know that my lady here is very clever, literate and well-learned, and she doesn’t at all mind being the second wife. Weren’t you one of the ones on my case about getting a Nie-furen to help managing things back home?”

“I didn’t think we needed to specify that the person in question didn’t murder a lot of people!”

“Isn’t his first wife supposedly a war goddess?” the lady inquired, her clever eyes dancing in amusement.

“Well…yes…”

“Also, all those men deserved it,” she said. After a brief pause, she added, “In my opinion as a totally unrelated observer, of course.”

“See?” the sect leader said, putting his arm around her waist. “No problem. Anyway, she’ll stick to killing bad people from now on, it’s fine.”

The lady smiled. There were many teeth in that smile, and they were very sharp.

“If she doesn’t, I’ll have my first wife discipline her,” the sect leader added and her smile abruptly disappeared.

Nie Zonghui coughed into his hand, but reluctantly admitted that maybe this wouldn’t turn out to be as bad as all that.

“Huaisang is a lovely name,” Nie Zonghui’s mother said, being the best of them at diplomacy when she put her mind to it, although admittedly it was something she did only very rarely. “I think we were just expecting something a little different, that’s all.”

“Possibly something a little more fox related,” Nie Zonghui’s father said.

“Please,” the sect leader’s second wife said. “That would be gauche.”

They looked at her.

“…all of my suggestions along those lines got rejected,” she admitted, and glared at the small shrine in the corner as if it had personally wronged her. In this context, it very well might have.

“Is there anything we should keep an eye out for?” Nie Zonghui said, watching his little cousin carry around his even littler cousin under his arm as if he were a sack of potatoes and not a baby that hadn’t yet had its first month celebration. He would have interfered but for the fact that little Nie Huaisang seemed to be notably more in control of his various limbs than the usual infant. “A tail, for instance?”

“Oh, no,” the second lady said. “Nothing like that.”

“Great,” Nie Zonghui said. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“It’s very rare for fox children to achieve a grand plot worthy of a tail in their first lifetime.” A pause. “From what I understand, that is.”

“Great,” Nie Zonghui said. “…great.”

“You’ll take good care of him when I’m gone, won’t you?” she asked, and when they all looked at her, smiled. “Not for another year or two, don’t worry, but I really can’t stay here that long. Sometimes, a girl’s got urges she has to take care of.”

“The sort of urges where we’d need to hunt down a mysteriously appearing fox yao for having murdered a lot of people?”

“I already promised to stop killing people,” she said sulkily. “Although I do think I made some plausible arguments in favor of a little bit of entirely justified murder in connection with the Jin sect and maybe the Lan sect and, oh, the Jiang sect –”

“Please don’t.”

“It’s not my fault your Great Sects are all headed by men who wrong women.”

“You’re not wrong,” Nie Zonghui’s mother said, and Nie Zonghui’s father looked alarmed. “But still, don’t.”

“You’re such spoilsports. But no, as it happens, it’s getting to that time when I need to return home for a while to pay my respects to the older generation.”

“How often does that happen?” Nie Zonghui’s father asked. “Once a century?”

“A gentleman shouldn’t ask a lady her age,” she sniffed. “At any rate, my family home is rather far away and they’re fairly insular, so I’ll probably be gone for at least a decade or so. I’d take the baby with me, but, well, you know, long travel and all. He’s better off sticking with his father.”

“All right,” Nie Zonghui’s mother said. “We understand, and we’ll help take care of him as best we can.”

“I’m glad.”

“We have only one thing to ask of you in return.”

Their second lady arched her delicate eyebrows.

Nie Zonghui’s mother smiled. “You be the one to tell your sister-in-law that you’re leaving your post.”

“…you know, on second thought, maybe I can push my departure out a few more years…”

“Before you say anything, I want to be clear right now that I don’t need a third wife,” their sect leader said. “I’m fine.”

“Sect Leader,” Nie Zonghui’s mother said, not unaffectionately. “You’re not allowed a third wife.”

“And therefore – wait, really?” he asked, a little skeptically. “You’re not concerned about me?”

“Oh, we’re very concerned about you,” Nie Zonghui’s father said. “But not in that specific respect. Some celibacy would probably be good for you, at least in terms of increasing your life expectancy.”

“…my sister is lying in wait with a cleaver to make sure she doesn’t have to take on the duties of Nie-furen again, isn’t she.”

“I’m not discounting that possibility, but don’t worry about it, it’s fine, we’ll talk to her. The Lan sect haven’t had a proper hostess in years either, we can just say we’re following their example.”

The sect leader eyed his cousins beadily. “They haven’t had a proper sect leader in years, either.”

“No, you don’t say,” Nie Zonghui’s mother said dryly. “What a coincidence -”

“You have two fine sons,” Nie Zonghui’s father said hastily. “That seems like enough, really.”

“You don’t think they need a mother…?”

“Sect Leader,” Nie Zonghui interjected politely. “While we admit that it may be within your capabilities to be able to find a mother willing to deal with one step-son who has been waiving around a saber taller than he is since he learned to walk and has a penchant for the unyielding, unmerciful and very violent application of the norms of divine justice –”

Nie Mingjue’s presence bolstered the spirit of good men, while his gaze seemed to make evildoers itch. He was the most earnestly good person Nie Zonghui had ever met, and also one of the most stiff and unbending in respect to what he believed should and should not be done.

Unfortunate that his standards didn’t seem to match up to the needs of either human law or diplomacy…

“– as well as another who can scheme circles around anyone and persuade them of anything as long as he puts his mind to it and only doesn’t because he’s too busy lazing around in the sun to bother –”

Nie Huaisang liked to file his nails down to something that looked quite normal, but they grew sharp quickly enough if he wasn’t paying attention, and he had a penchant for pranks. There was nothing quite as unnerving as running into a sudden and unexpected ambush and then suddenly hearing the shrill peal of a fox’s laughter, hidden behind a scholarly fan.

“– but all things considered, we’d really rather you - didn’t.”

His mother and father nodded fervently.

“Good,” the sect leader said, though he still looked suspiciously at them as if he thought they were hiding something. “Good. As long as we’re agreed.”

Nie Zonghui walked in on his sect leader pinning the Wen sect leader to a wall, murmuring something in a low voice with a very particular smile on his face, and then he turned around and walked right back out again.

The sect leader of the Wen sect might appear beautiful and young, but he was at least a generation older than the Nie sect leader. Not that that had stopped the latter from relying on their respective positions to refer to him in startlingly intimate terms – my dear A-Han, the sect leader would say with a touch of wickedness that reminded one of his second son and the tiger gall bravery of his first – and while at first the Wen sect leader had taken it as a challenge to his authority, an act of brash insolence, it appeared that they had progressed beyond that.

That the Wen sect leader already had three wives and two concubines apparently didn’t present any obstacles either – except perhaps in what those poor women might have to endure from their husband when he returned from the wretched teasing he was enduring. Nie Zonghui felt a bit of pity for them.

Shortly thereafter, he felt a bit of pity for himself. The Wen sect had long dreamed of dominating the cultivation world and sought to increase their influence with the other sects through underhanded means, with the Nie sect opposing them at every turn. Even if war was not on the immediate horizon, the wise could smell its distant approach in the air - the best estimates said that it would take another decade or two to arrive, unless the Nie sect leader took an especially hard stance.

It appeared, however, that the Nie sect leader had chosen to take a different sort of…hard stance.

Ugh.

Maybe Nie Zonghui could conspire to throw his sect leader into a cage with a live tiger in heat next time he felt in the mood. It’d probably be less dangerous.

Nie Zonghui had assumed that the first person to talk to him about what he had seen would be his sect leader, even if it was only to remind him of the general rule that the sect leader had ultimate power and therefore could exercise his own bad judgment in deciding to fuck whoever he wished, but instead it was the Wen sect leader that found him later that afternoon.

A flush had yet to fully fade from his cheeks, and Nie Zonghui raised his eyes to the ceiling to avoid looking directly at the man in front of him.

He did not want to know. Others might, given that no one had ever complained about the looks of either party, but he himself had realized long ago that he had no interest in matters of the flesh under any circumstances; he was very content with that conclusion.

“Is there some service this one can provide to Sect Leader Wen?” he asked politely, and it was only when the sect leader flushed again that he realized belatedly that his words could be misconstrued. After all, his own sect leader had probably already made a similar offer regarding the provision of services…

“Your sect leader has a sister, doesn’t he?” the other man asked, his voice tight and his hands in even tighter fists. “I’m not misremembering that?”

“He does,” Nie Zonghui responded honestly, and not without sympathy for the Wen sect leader’s position. He was given to understand that making certain belated discoveries regarding one’s own preferences could be highly disconcerting, particularly later in life. “But she’s rather different in kind than what you may be thinking, so it won’t work out that way. It wouldn’t work even if she wasn’t already married, which she is.”

After a moment of thought, he added, “Also, consider your predecessors.”

The Wen sect leader’s eyes narrowed.

Really, it was the sect leader’s own damn fault that he got himself murdered.

#mdzs #lao nie #nie zonghui #madame nie 1 and 2 #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #the alternate name of this fic was #a goddess a yao and a tyrant walk into a bar to bitch about their boyfriend #but I refrained #atwitchofthewrist

334 notes · View notes