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thedamageofherdays · 3 years

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This week's (16-08-2021 - 22-08-2021) reading log is here. This week's reading log is super duper long and filled with lots of good things (my apologies for the long post, I really could not find a good spot to do a read more). I discovered some new favourites and re-read some old favourites and while I had an intense week personally at least the fics I read were absolutely phenomenal. I do recommend checking out the warnings as some fics are a bit heavier/angstier and you might wanna be prepared. Most of these fics are Stucky but there are a couple of other ships in between.

If you are looking for more fun and/or good things make sure to check out the @marveldisabilitycelebration as well to see all the awesome art, fics, meta, etcetera people created! And while I am mentioning events I am a mod for let me also just quickly mention that sign-ups for the @stuckygiftexchange are still open until the end of the month <3

Favourites are marked with a 🌻 Fics that are only available to AO3 users are marked with a 🔒 and Tumblr fics are marked with a 🍀

🌻 The Bends by dreamsinthewitchouse @dreamsinthewitchouse [Danbeau, side Stucky, 2k words, Teen]

Memory is not a house you can just walk back into after finding the key you thought you’d lost. It’s a thing you wade into and out of, rewriting it as it rewrites you.

It’s not without its rewards, either - recovering a memory about Maria and Monica, about her life, feels better than socking a thousand bad guys in the face, better than all the photon blasts in the world.

Then again, realising there’s still memories she can’t access, even after all this time, feels like drowning in space.

Not the one out there - the one inside her.

🌻 Sweet & Salty by musette22 @musette22 [Stucky, 3k words, Teen]

Idiots in love. That's it. That's the fic.

When life gives you lemons by moonythejedi394 @moonythejedi394 [Stucky, 34k words, Explicit] (11/15 chapters)

Or 13 Terrible Things to Do With Lemons Other Than Making Lemonade

Steve Rogers is a home health nurse. He works for an agency, which assigned him to the aging Winifred Barnes, the one and only Silent Era Hollywood darling. As her needs increased, she requested the agency assign Steve to her full-time. She could pay for it, so she got it. Steve then moved in with her, becoming her caregiver; he cooked, he cleaned, he managed her medications, he made sure she was comfortable.

Winifred's children treated him less than ideally. He was the help, after all. And then Steve had the audacity to go and turn out to be eldest son James Barnes's soulmate. No one saw that coming.

🍀 SamRhodey Tumblr Fic by ipoiledi [SamRhodey, ? words, Teen?]

“Wilson, this is Rhodey; Rhodey, Wilson,” Tony Stark says, and suddenly some six foot tall sexy guy is shoved right in front of Sam, and they both stumble a little, bumping into each other. This is a crowded party. “You guys have things in common, right?” Stark asks. “Uh, Army stuff. Talk about that. I hate wallflowers; stop wallflowering and talk to each other.”

Shorteralls by moonythejedi394 [Stucky, 6k words, Explicit]

The first time Bucky ever saw Steve Rogers, he was struck by how Neanderthal-like his response was. It was immediately followed by a bout of mental scolding. The second time was just about the same. The third time, it was actually appropriate for Bucky to start a conversation with him, at which point he was determined to be the gentleman.

No such luck. Steve Rogers is, always has been and always will be, a relentless flirt. These days, Bucky's Neanderthal-ist feelings about Steve are consensual and highly appreciated. More so now that they're having a baby.

what the fuck are perfect places anyway by tigerlilycorinne [Stucky, 6k words, Teen]

Steve clears his throat and stands. “Well, I should head in. I might want to begin packing.”

Bucky stills. “You won’t,” he says, trying to sound commanding. It only comes out uncertain. “Don’t.”

Steve shakes his head. “Maybe not tonight,” he says, and Bucky knows they’ll be discussing this again soon.

“Then stay. Play… play cards with me or something.”

Steve’s eyebrows jump up, his mouth tugging up in another of his bemused smiles that do things to Bucky’s insides, but he drops his hand from the doorway and steps back into Bucky’s room. Somehow, Bucky feels as if he’s won—not the war, just the battle.

Steve won’t stay forever. But he’ll stay for cards.

Steve and Bucky, on the run after Civil War (with a few alterations to canon), are laying low in Wakanda. But they can’t stay there forever.

🌻 honestly thought i’d be dead by now, but what you can trust is that i need your touch by moonythejedi394 [Stucky, 105k words, Explicit]

Bucky is 37 years old; he’s unmarried, hasn’t had a Sub of his own, is definitely not ripped, comfortable at his job as an Advanced Practice RN at Brooklyn General ER, and just got his Five Years coin from AA.

Steve is 26 years old; he’s unmarried, his last and only Dom has Alzheimer's, he's worryingly muscular, uncomfortable in his job as the government’s poster Alpha for masculinity and strength, and worries more than he should about his BMI.

Unfortunately, Steve and Bucky meet initially in a not-cute moment. Bucky’s tired as shit thanks to the sudden alien invasion that shook New York and Steve is tired as shit because he hasn’t slept more than 20 minutes at a time in – well, since 1936, probably. Bucky’s Alpha instincts get irritated at the sudden presence of another "Alpha" into his territory and Steve’s suppressed submissive tendencies latch onto this grumpy bachelor Alpha and he only suppresses it further.

Bucky’s grumpiness and Steve’s duckling impressionism aside, both of them are a mess. But since both of them are a mess? Their messes seem to fit pretty well together.

Deep Sea Diving by Aida Ronan [Stucky, 5k words, Explicit]

Steve's wallowing in heat-related misery under a shade tree in Central Park when a man walks by in bright red booty shorts and a crop top. RIP Steve Rogers. It was nice knowing you.

honey, make this easy by steebadore [Stucky, 8k words, Explicit]

Bucky likes the way he looks. His silk button up with the tiny gold polka dots feels soft on his skin and is tailored perfectly; no pulling at his chest or belly. His hair falls in shiny dark waves and his skin is smooth and dewy. He looks expensive. He looks taken care of. He looks like Steve’s.

🌻 let's take it back to the start by howdoyousleep @howdoyousleep3 [Stucky, 6k words, Teen]

How it all began.

This sleepwalking through my life. by barthelme [Stucky, 1k words, Explicit]

The internet is an interesting place and when Bucky came home (or, when he came to live with Steve), Steve did a lot of research. Apparently, it’s not safe to wake a sleepwalker. He assumes that waking a sleepwalker with traumatic dreams and PTSD is beyond just being frowned upon.

And he tells himself--has told himself--that this is safer for Bucky. That if he were to stop him and wake him up, that Bucky would be mortified to be slurping on his best friend’s cock. That all of the improvements he’s made would be lost, would be repressed, would be just--

They’d be back at square one.

So he lets Bucky do it.

🌻 the way i've been craving by howdoyousleep [Stucky, 3k words, Explicit]

"Lunch break at 12:30. My office. Hope you’re hungry…"

It’s the ellipsis that sends Bucky’s insides swimming warmly, his heart beating twice as fast against his ribs where he sits in class. Senator Rogers is concise, direct, to the point. Without an ellipsis this is lunch, this is a meeting. With it though?

This is a booty call.

nasty but classy by howdoyousleep [Stucky, 4k words, Explicit]

“No, you don’t have to know the purpose, that doesn’t matter. Nat showed me this challenge where couples drink a lot of wine and get drunk together but they can’t touch each other. And whoever touches the other first has to...has to give the other head.”

🌻 Put It on Repeat, It Stays the Same by giselleslash [Stucky, 20k words, Explicit]

Steve and Bucky have a one night stand that turns into a friends with benefits situation. A weekend snowed in at Bucky’s apartment brings to light how much that really doesn’t suit either one of them.

Greetings to the New Brunette by victoria_p (musesfool) [Stucky, 10k words, General]

"You said he should have a hobby. That it would help."

"I meant, like, knitting or coin collecting. Motocross, if he was feeling antsy. A baby's not a hobby. It's lifetime commitment."

🌻 Rogers & Barnes: Partners by triedunture [Stucky, 10k words, Teen]

Steve and Bucky have to pose as a couple for a mission. Nat insists it really is the only option. She's checked.

The complication: unbeknownst to even Natasha, Steve and Bucky's friendship has been rocky ever since Bucky confessed his tender feelings and Steve left him out in the cold. Can asexual, completely-in-love-with-his-angry-best-friend Steve complete the mission and win Bucky's heart?

(The answer is yes. Yay!)

this will be our year (took a long time to come) by biblionerd07 [Stucky, 4k words, General]

Bucky's therapist is worried he's using Steve as a crutch and wants him to try going on outings without Steve. It wouldn't be terrible, honestly, if Bucky could just manage to open his mouth and say something to Steve.

I'll hold my breath by Little_Lottie (tfwatson) [Stucky, 8k words, Mature]

Sometimes Bucky’s hands flex in Steve's direction. Neither of them knows exactly why, but at least one of them has a hunch.

Bucky touches everything but Steve, even though Steve is all he really wants to touch.

Start from the Beginning by Mumble_Bee [Stucky, 13k words, Explicit]

What about a sex pollen fic where the pollen-ed one doesn’t remember getting hit in the face with a sex flower, and wakes up midway through the depollenating?

Or: the one where Steve wakes up on his back with a stranger buried balls-deep in his ass.

Match by emphasisonem [Stucky, 4k words, Mature]

The situation’s actually kind of funny from the right perspective, Bucky thinks as he reads the message for what feels like the hundredth time. He’s finally matched with a hot, funny guy. Tall and broad and clean cut. An absolutely breathtaking smile. Bucky’s walking wet dream. And he’s good. They haven’t messaged on the app, but Bucky already knows him.

He knows him because Steve Rogers is an art history professor at his university. His art history professor.

Best friends and married since childhood by StuckySituation [Stucky, 1k words, General]

Inspired by @/peterssquill's post in tumblr: "bucky and steve got married on the playground when they were like eight and though neither of them would ever admit it to anyone, even each other, they still consider it official"

~♥~ ♥~ ♥~

“Natasha, stop trying to set me up with every woman you meet, I’m-”

“Too shy? Too scared?”

“No, I’m-”

“Too busy? You’re mostly retired these days, not a good excuse anymore.” Natasha smirks and then drawls: “Or just too gay?”

Steve flushes at that, even if isn’t true -- he’s bisexual, not gay. “Let it go, Nat, I’m not looking for anything. I’m already married, for fuck’s sake.”

Clearly not what she expected. “What.”

Steve grimaces. He didn’t mean to tell anyone that, ever.

“Sorry, can’t talk about it right now!” he says and jumps out of the plane.

Nobody Should Be Alone on a Holiday by emphasisonem [Stucky, 2k words, Teen]

“So, um-” Bucky begins speaking again, pulling Steve from his less-than-work-appropriate thoughts. The brunet has shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark slacks, and he’s shifting from one foot to the other as he smiles shyly. “I have a question for you.”

“Shoot,” Steve grins, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his broad chest. Bucky swallows deeply as one of his hands comes up to pull at the collar of his button-up, and Steve can’t help following the motion of his Adam’s apple.

“I was, uh-” Bucky continues- “That is, I heard you don’t have Thanksgiving plans?”

In which Bucky finds out that Steve's going to be alone on Thanksgiving and invites his coworker to spend the holiday with him.

🌻 It's Been A Long Season Through by thiccbuckybarnes @thiccbuckybarnesfic [Stucky, 49k words, Explicit]

Bucky Barnes is in desperate need of a change in scenery, which is why he makes the foolhardy decision to quit his job, leave his asshole of a fiance, pack up his life, and move to his grandfather’s old farm all within a single day.

He expects confusion, hardship, and maybe even failure. But love? He wasn’t expecting that.

Or, a Stucky Stardew Valley AU that nobody but me wanted and that’s ok.

oh, peach pit, where'd the hours go? by thiccbuckybarnes [Stucky, 10k words, Explicit]

Can't see the forest for the trees.

Or, Steve learns that just because he and Bucky got their happily ever after, it doesn’t mean the past won’t come back to bite them.

I'll find my way by rainbow_nerds [Stucky, 725 words, Teen]

Steve had watched Bucky fall, and nothing had been the same since.

AU-gust day 19: Daemons

special delivery by glim @glim [Stucky, 6k words, Teen]

It's not that Steve's bad at taking care of himself when he gets sick; he just wishes he didn't have to all the time.

At least he can order most of what he needs online. That's some small comfort, that he can have soup and ice cream and everything else brought to his door.

at first chance i'd take the bed warmed by the body by spacebuck @spacebuck [Stucky, 8k words, Explicit]

This close, Steve can see exactly how beautiful his hands are. He’s never really noticed before, or at least he’s never really had a reason to notice, but the man’s hands are large, tanned like he works outside all day. There’s an endearing callus on the heel of one of his palms, and Steve can’t quite work out when calluses became endearing.

Steve pauses the video. Swallows hard. Casts his eyes around for anything that’ll keep his mind off the hands on his screen, off the words inked into those hands, the delicate shape of a bird’s wing, the curling edge of a vine.

He looks down. The name of the channel is right there, blaring the man’s name right into Steve’s brain until it feels like he’s known it all along.

Bucky Barnes.

OR: the one where Bucky's a youtuber who solves puzzles on camera, and steve's smitten and horny

🌻 Rock On! by millesable @marvelousescapism [Clintasha, 700 words, General]

“Hey, Romanoff!”

He lifted his hand, index finger and pinky finger raised, thumb out, all other fingers tucked. Their secret sign; their confession for the world to see, safe in the knowledge that the world wasn’t listening.

“Rock on!”

🌻 You Like the Way I Look by dontcallmebree @iamthe-wo-manwhocan [Stucky, 2k words, Explicit]

Bucky sidles up to him, hand boldly coming to rest on his chest. “What about you, big guy? Care for a dance?” Steve watches Bucky’s eyes twinkle with satisfaction, somehow already knowing he’s got Steve on the hook.

A decade out of the ice, Steve Rogers returns to New York. Reeling from a battle against the Chitauri, a night with the troublesome Bucky Barnes might be just what he needs.

Join the Rebellion by rainbow_nerds [Stucky, 765 words, Teen]

Bucky knew he shouldn't be out after curfew, but he couldn't resist the urge. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew it was where he wanted to be.

AU-gust day 20: Dystopia

🔒 Five Days in December by mywingsareonwheels @mywingsareonwheels [Evanstan, 4k words, Teen]

“Shit shit shit shit...” muttered Chris to himself, glad that the sound of piped Christmas carols was drowning out his swearing amid the picture books. Most of the store was heaving even though it was Sunday, he’d been recognised at least three times, finding presents for all of his nieces and nephews was proving far more of a headache than expected, and he’d just sent a pile of copies of "Strictly No Elephants" tumbling off the bookshelf.

He scrambled about trying to pick them all up, and then dropped them again as someone bumped right into his backside. He lost his balance, caught himself against a bookcase, and a landslide of "Carter Is a Painter’s Cat" joined "Strictly No Elephants" on the floor. He yelped.

“Ah fuck, I’m so sorry… Chris!”

* * * * * * * * * *

London, December 2021. Amid cats, books, and the cold English drizzle, Chris finds everything he was hoping for and thought he would never have.

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

Reaching for Fire by dixons_mama @dixons-mama [Stucky, 7k words, Explicit]

Bucky has always felt a fire in his heart (and other body parts) when it came to his boss, Steve Rogers, but he's made sure to never feed those flames. When he finds out about Steve's second job, though, he's tempted to let that fire out.

i've been dreaming of a face like yours by thiccbuckybarnes [Stucky, 3k words, Explicit]

Bucky is about to busy himself with making a small dinner for himself when he stops in his tracks at the figure drinking a cup of coffee in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and smirking at him.

It’s Steve.

“Surprise, sweet boy,” he says before setting his cup down.

Or, PWP reunion sex

🌻 Somewhere, Under Your Skin by thiccbuckybarnes [Stucky, 16k words, Explicit]

Bucky Barnes treats himself to a one-night stand after having a very bad no good day.

The sex is good--great, even. Might be the best sex of his life.

But Bucky wouldn’t have slept with the guy if he had known that he was going to continuously run into him every day for the next fucking month.

Or, a Big Grump Bucky has a hot one night stand with a college kid who is popping up everywhere in his everyday life and he doesn’t know how to deal with it.

(Written for HYBB Bingo Square: Grumpy Bucky)

i've played heartstrings before but not in your key by thiccbuckybarnes [Stucky, 11k words, Explicit]

He glances down, seeing a folded couple of papers, before peering up at Bucky. The older man is biting his bottom lip, making it pretty and red. Steve wants to run his tongue across where his teeth are digging into his flesh.

"What's this?" Steve asks, setting his phone down, emails forgotten. Bucky shrugs and looks away.

"I dunno. You tell me, genius," he says, sounding bratty enough that it makes Steve's dick twitch in his pants. Jesus, there has to be something wrong with him.

Steve glances once more at Bucky, who now has his arms crossed against his chest and is pointedly not looking at Steve, before picking up the stack of folded papers. He opens them, seeing a collection of maybe five or six sheets of paper. His eyes immediately land on the list of familiar words with negative next to each one. -- Or, Steve Rogers is a jealous, possessive little shit that wants nothing more than to mark up his boyfriend and stake his claim. And Bucky knows it. (And he likes it.)

🌻 I'm Home (With You) by BonkyBornes @padfoot-and-the-marauders [Stucky, 2k words, General]

In any other circumstance, the apartment would've been perfect. But it was today, and the fact that he was here meant he wasn’t out searching. He knew they hadn’t had any leads for weeks and he knew Natasha was right; all three of them were exhausted and a break would do them good. It just felt wrong to Steve that he was comfortable while Bucky was still out there—somewhere. Probably cold. Probably hungry.

The knock came again. Sighing, Steve unwrapped his hand from the dog tags and remembered how to move. Cold wind and snow greeted him when he opened the door. The solitary figure was walking down the steps, collar popped against the chill.

“Did you need something?” he called.

The person stopped. They were still. And then they turned. *

Or, the Christmas Steve deserved after Winter Soldier.

The portrait by rainbow_nerds [Stucky, 915 words, General]

Steve Rogers has a Gift. He can help people find their soulmates, all he needs is some art supplies, a quiet place, and eye contact.

AU-gust day 21: soulmates

Maybe A Muse by buckybarnesdeservestobehappy [Stucky, 2k words, Mature]

When Bucky Barnes needs extra money, he’s appalled that his best friends think he should become a model for the art department on campus. Shy, nerdy, and socially awkward, he’s not sure that’s something he feels comfortable doing. Still, he needs money, and he likes the idea of becoming someone’s muse. The problem is he had no idea two things would happen. First, one of the students in the class is exactly his type; second, he has to model nude.

#my reading log #r's reading log #fic rec #stucky fic rec #fics recs #stucky #danbeau #samrhodey #longpost #long post #clintasha #evanstan

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gifted-burnout-archive · 3 years

Text

BLUE

Part Three

Day 23/93: Dallas, TX.

Word Count: 7.6K+

Author’s Note: it’s the third installment, and things might be heating up. song in this chapter is ‘Let’s Fall In Love For The Night’ by FINNEAS, it gives me such reggie vibes, and it’s most certainly a reggie x reader song. and if you are wondering why i know so much about dallas, texas and the surrounding area, it’s because i visited! it might be one of my favourite places on earth, and i felt required to include it in one of my stories at some point, so here you go.

Context: This is an AU of Julie and The Phantoms. Here, the boys are now alive again, aging alongside Julie and Y/N, and they are all now in their early twenties: Julie is 19/20, Y/N and the guys are 20/21. Same goes for Flynn and Carlos and Ray and all that jazz, basically everyone is older.

WARNING: abusive behaviours, drinking. Please see this post for more information.

If you are in need of help, please consider reaching out to domestic abuse hotlines in your country. This link leads to a wiki page with a few hotlines sorted by country. Remeber there are people who love you, and who support you.

part one is here - part two is here

“Where do I see myself in ten years?” Y/N echoed the question that had been asked of her as the team lounged around the front of the bus. From her spot atop one of the dining tables, sat crossed legged with her camera in hand, she had a view of her entire tour family: from Julie in the kitchenette with Alex, making Poptarts; to Flynn to her right, typing away frantically on her laptop. Luke was the one who asked her the question, sat across from her and throwing an unsolved rubix cube up into the air, and to his right sat Reggie, tucked in the booth seat corner scribbling away at his notebook, a smile on his face that had Y/N warm at the sight. “I asked you a far easier question, Patterson.”

“I’m serious, Y/N. I mean, I can tell you where I’ll be, where the guys and Julie will be. I can guess at Flynn but it depends whether she plucks up the nerve to ask out Carrie or not-” Luke was interrupted by his own chuckle, a reaction to Flynn flipping him off without looking away from her laptop screen. “But you? I don’t know.” He shrugged, catching the rubix a final time before pushing it over the table to Reggie. The dark-haired boy glanced up for a moment, looking Y/N over as she held up her camera and snapped a picture of him.

“Actually, I wanna know the same thing.” Reggie backed up his fellow bandmate, closing over his book and smiling at his friend when she rolled her eyes. “When you’re thirty, Y/N, where do you want to be?”

“Geographically? Emotionally? Ideally?” Y/N found herself avoiding the question because, quite honestly, she wasn’t sure how to answer. She hadn’t really thought what her future might hold, she hadn’t really had the chance to.

But being posed with the question, being asked for an answer, her lips started moving before her brain could register.

“Put me somewhere warm, and green: with enough money to be comfortable, enough friends to be sociable, enough booze to get drunk and enough beautiful things to take pictures of.” She offered, lifting her camera and snapping another picture as Reggie and Luke looked at her with soft smiles. “What about you, Reginald? Luke says he’s got you figured out.”

“I think what you’ve got going sounds pretty good, I might just join you.” Reggie smirked, only taking his eyes off of Y/N to glance over at Luke, the boy’s eyebrow raised and arms folded. “You know, in amongst the fifth album and rock star lifestyle.”

“Would that be the country album no-one expects?” Y/N asked with a grin, and Reggie’s eyes lit up.

“I mean, I’ll still learn fiddle if you’re up for it, Reggie.” Julie commented from the kitchen, returning from her snack making expedition with Alex in tow, the boy munching down on a Poptart like he’d never eat another: the boys had a tendency to eat like it was their last meal. “I mean, perfect place to start learning, Texas bound.” She added, cosying up against Luke, the pair sharing a kiss before she handed over the frosted sweet treat.

“Why didn’t we know you were from Texas?” Flynn questioned, her eyes finally leaving the computer screen to accept a snack Alex offered, who then grabbed another from the plate and handed it to the photographer sat on top of the table. “I mean, I found out from Y/N last week.”

“It never really came up.” Reggie shrugged, sitting up straight to make room for the blonde drummer, their bus taking a sharp turn. “I mean, I only lived here until I was ten: once my dad sold his company off we made the move to California as quickly as possible.” he explained, he and Y/N sharing a small smile.

Their night under the stars had bled into the early morning as they retold their lives to one another, making sure to cover almost every detail: Y/N didn’t mention Stephen, for more obvious reasons than either of them cared to admit. Reggie had told her all about growing up near Dallas, about learning to ride his pony Flash, about his parents thinking the move would fix their marriage, but how it ultimately didn’t. He. Of course, left out some key details too…

The last thing Y/N needed to know about was his dad’s violent fits or his mother’s excessive drinking.

“Glad to be back though… And since we have the whole afternoon and night to ourselves…” Reggie pointed to Flynn for confirmation, her nod causing attention to focus back on the bassist. “Flynn and I have a plan for the night.” Reggie beamed when Y/N clapped her hands in excitement, though his other bandmates looked a little sceptical. “I promise, it’s fun.”

“Reggie, your idea of fun before you met us,” Alex gestured between himself and Luke, who sat across from them, cuddled into Julie’s side. “Was shovelling horse shit at some dilapidated stables and pretending you were a cowboy.”

“Yeah, well, I was supervising.” Flynn sighed happily, closing over the laptop she hadn’t turned off in almost two days. The band wanted to get some recording done in Nashville later on the tour, a surprise they had all constructed for Reggie’s upcoming birthday, but a complication with bookings and the admin over in Tennessee had risked the possibility of it happening. Of course, Flynn hadn’t stopped emailing and calling until it was sorted. “It’s going to be an amazing night. With no horse shit involved, metaphorically and literally.”

“ETA, ten minutes from Dallas folks.” The radio crackled over the sound system, that had spent most of its time being used to play background music as they travelled, with Ronnie sharing their travel information quickly. “Paparazzi inbound, unfortunately.” He added, groans echoing around the cabin.

The last year in particular had been hounded by reporters and gossip columnists looking for the latest rumours to spread about the team. The lies ranged far and wide, from Luke and Julie breaking up to Alex cheating on Willie to them all being part of a cult to Reggie ‘notorious’ love life. The bassist was the last single one of the band, it only made sense that with their rise to fame came constant claims from anonymous girls that Reggie was their boyfriend, their husband, their baby daddy.

“Hotel security say they’ve got it under control, but I doubt it.” Ronnie added, and with that the six set into action to get ready for their swift departing from the bus. Poptarts were quickly eaten before everyone was back on their feet again: Luke and Julie taking on the pre-assigned role of collecting instruments together and packing them away for the moving crew, Alex rushing to his room to grab his last few necessaries that would live in his fanny pack for the next few hours, Flynn disappearing into the back to make one last phone call about interviews happening in Austin two days later with Rolling Stone, leaving Y/N and Reggie alone in the bus’s centre.

“You’ve been looking like Luke the past few days, Reginald.” Y/N spoke up first, slipping off the table and grabbing her camera bag from the overhead storage, beginning to dismantle her device as Reggie fiddled with the rubix cube Luke had left on the table. “Constantly scribbling… I haven’t seen you ever write as much as you have on the bus these past few weeks.” She remarked again, her hands methodical and practised in her work, quick to pack her camera up and close the casing.

“I found inspiration, what can I say?” Reggie said with a smirk, his fingers flicking the cube round and round with practically no effort, his eyes focused on Y/N instead of the colour puzzle before him. “Did you bring any hoodies with you?” He asked, suddenly changing the topic, and Y/N shook her head. She wasn’t really needing to: after all, their US tour was taking place in the summer, they had planned the route rather meticulously to miss the southern heat of July or the rains and wind chill that came to the north in April and May. Constantly travelling away from bad weather meant the need for anything warm had crossed Y/N’s mind, save for the occasional cardigan or blanket.

“Why would I need one?” She asked, walking towards the back of the bus with her equipment as her phone started to buzz in her back pocket. “Shit…”

“We don’t want the paparazzi seeing your face, do we?” Reggie questioned quickly. “Grab one from my room before we jump off.” He added as Y/N picked up the phone, mouthing a thank you as she answered and disappeared into the back of the bus, slipping into Reggie’s room to locate her disguise and shutting the door quickly.

“So we just don’t talk now, is that it?” The voice that came down the line was angrier than usual, and Y/N took her first chance that day to catch a glimpse of the time, Reggie’s bedside alarm clock reading 4.38 pm.

She had forgotten to call Stephen for the third time that week.

“Babe, babe I’m sorry. We were all just chatting and I got caught up in work and completely forgot.” She tried to explain quickly, her face falling when she heard a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. “Did… Did something happen at work?”

“I want to bring you home for a few days.” Stephen spoke up after a moment. “After Nashville. I know you guys are busy with the tour, but do you think you could talk with Flynn? Get someone to cover the Florida and Alabama gigs so we can maybe spend some time together?” His voice was sweet, sincere, and Y/N found herself smiling at the idea. Of course, it wouldn’t be great for the team, but would a few days really hurt?

“I, I think that would be a great idea, babe.” She answered as she opened up Reggie’s drawers, taking a moment to pick out her favourite on his hoodies, one with a rather terrible calculus joke printed on the back, and pulling it on over her travel clothes. By the sound of Reggie’s plans, she’d need to change for their events that night, but she had some clothes laid out in her own room, she could scoop them up and change in the hotel. “I’ll have to make sure with Flynn, it obviously depends on whether we can get one of the assistants to step up for a few days, helping with Julie’s make up and the guys’ clothes and such but-”

“You know Flynn will be alright with it, just say yes already.” Stephen chuckled on the other end of the line, and a part of Y/N wondered if she should just say yes without checking, if she should just this once not fight him on it. Stephen was always in the right on these things, she often challenged him regardless.

Unfortunately, she just couldn’t hold her tongue.

“Babe, that’s not how my job works.” She remarked, walking out Reggie’s room and back to her own with a smile to Alex as she passed by him sifting through some music sheets Y/N didn’t recognise, no doubt new stuff the boys and Julie had been writing. As the bus slowed down a little too suddenly, Y/N grabbed for stability on her wall, waiting to straighten herself back out and continue talking as she collected her necessary items for their evening in Dallas. “I do still need to book time off, to run through procedure with my temporary replacement, to plan ahead at least two weeks in case of an emergency, the whole team do. It’s a lot of work, and I’m happy to do it but-”

“Am I really the bad guy for wanting to bring you home for a few days? So we can sleep in our bed together, so we can see our families?” The heavy sigh from the start of the call came back. “Y/N, you’re acting like you don’t want to spend time with me anymore.”

“I do want to spend time with you, Stephen! You know I do!” Y/N promised it, almost pleading. “But this tour was always going to happen; I skipped out on the last tour to spend time together…” She reminded him. The fact that she had done so, missing on a West Coast trip for two weeks that she wanted to go on, that meant something to Stephen at the time. It was certainly a big decision for her to make, choosing her boyfriend over her friends, her best friends…

“You are coming home after Nashville, alright?!” Stephen snapped, and Y/N had to move the phone away from her ear to stop the harsh noise from echoing around her head. “You are my girlfriend, when I ask you to come home you do it. Or is everyone else in the entire world more important than me?” He asked.

“Of-of course not, baby… I’ll,” Y/N took a deep breath as the bus came to a halt, the sound of her friends outside her door forcing her to quickly roll up her clothes and stuff them into her handbag. “I’ll see you in Nashville, we’ll go home after, we will… I’ll be sure to sort it all out with Flynn and the team.” She conceded, the idea of a week off suddenly sounding like much more of a chore than it had a few minutes ago. “I love y-”

The phone hung up before she managed to finish the words, but a part of her was happy she didn’t have to say it.

“Y/N?” Julie’s voice accompanied a rapping on her bedroom door, Y/N quick to grab her things as it creaked open, the shorter girl looking back into the main area of the bus as she entered. “Are you ready to go?” She asked, stopping dead for a moment once she turned to face Y/N.

“What?” The photographer asked, trying to offset the tension created by Julie’s frown with a soft chuckle, but it did little to assist. Julie took a few paces forward, the girls toe to toe, and reached a hand up to wipe a tear from Y/N’s cheek she didn’t even notice was there.

“IS everything alright, Y/N? Did Stephen do something?” Julie asked with more seriousness than Y/N had heard from her in years: the girl was always playful in her tone, a fan of a joke, but this was new, intense, the concern almost scary.

“Everything’s fine. I had something in my eye.” Y/N lied, putting on her smile and giving a convincing enough performance that Julie seemed to let the subject go, the girl nodding and walking out of Y/N’s room, back to the band and Flynn, prompting Y/N to follow behind before she was left alone. She checked in the mirror to make sure her face was clear of signs of upset before joining the back of the queue.

That was too close for her liking.

“I knew you’d pick that one.” The voice was Reggie’s, a happy remark at her choice of camouflage as he let Julie and Luke pass by him, their four friends heading out into the chaos of camera flashes and loud voices badgering for gossip. Y/N froze a little at the noise, Reggie quick to notice and take her camera bag for her, his free hand offering itself to her. “Grab on, I’ll get you through without a scratch.” He said with that same charming smile she had always found so suiting for him.

“Promise you won’t lose me to the sea?” She asked, half-joking, half-serious. She had been lucky enough to miss most of the band’s brushes with paparazzi, or manage to slip by them without a second glance if she was with the crew: but she was on the bus this time, she was going to pass through them no matter what. It seemed to her better to do it with someone instead of alone.

“I promise.” Reggie recited back to her, and Y/N took his hand tight in her grasp as a response, the feeling sending tingles up Reggie’s arms that he did his best to stifle any physical reaction from. With that, and a shared nod, the pair started in a jog out the bus, into the mayhem.

Y/N hadn’t often thought about why she disliked her picture being taken: she wasn’t sure what it was that stopped her from being in front of the camera and instead behind it. And while the utter anarchy of flashes and incessant questioning weren’t the true cause of her strain of scopophobia, Y/N deemed them as reason enough to hate everything about being on camera.

It made her even more grateful to have gotten indoors, the few seconds of exposure from the bus door into the air conditioned hotel lobby feeling like years: gave her an overwhelming sense of relief, after changing into her outfit for the night, a rather lovely white lace dress and accompanying tennis shoes, to find their mode of transport for the evening in the hotel’s basement, an old blue Cadillac, a 62 series in fact, waiting with an attendant who promised any and all reporters had been cleared off.

The early May weather was ideal for the open topped car drive west from Dallas city centre, Y/N tucked into the front passenger seat as Reggie drove them, Flynn, Julie, Alex and Luke squeezed into the back of the car, singing along to the radio over the sound of the wind rushing past them. It was almost movie-like, ‘Amarillo´ blasting as they drove down the highway, Reggie glancing over at Y/N every once and a while to send a smile her way while he kept an easy control on the wheel, one arm holding the car straight while the other rested on the back of the bench seat, dressed like he belonged at the steering wheel with his black muscle tank on.

Despite the unsure waters she sat in with Stephen, Y/N found herself relaxing into her seat properly, with Reggie’s arm moving down to rest against her shoulder as they drove out of the city, here camera poised and capturing snapshots along the way.

“So, where exactly are we going?” Alex questioned from the back as they passed their second possible turn-off, the mounting suspense too much for the blonde to bear. He had come a long way with dealing with his anxiety, but not that far, and when Reggie and Flynn shared a glance, it seemed high time the truth was revealed about their activities for that night.

“So, obviously this is my home turf.” Reggie started off by saying, taking a moment to remove his arm from Y/N’s shoulder and indicate hi changing lanes before returning it to the preferred spot. “But one place I loved more than anywhere else in Texas is Fort Worth. It’s like, cowboy country.” He had the biggest smile on his face as he revealed their location, Y/N snapping a picture. “They have a stockyard and cattle parades and a cowboy museum and this huge maise maze. Of course, we can’t do all of it, I mean by the time we arrive half the places will have closed for the night, so I’ve compromised and with Flynn’s help, we have two stops tonight.” Reggie pulled off at the correct junction, speeding along the slip road towards Fort Worth.

“We’re going to a rodeo, and a honky tonk.” Flynn informed the group, the four friends without any previous knowledge of the evening’s plans sharing glances.

“Uh, that’s great… But what exactly is a honky tonk?” Luke asked on behalf of the group, the questioned directed at Flynn, but when she just shrugged, as oblivious as the others, all focus was on Reggie for an answer.

“It’s a massive music venue, actually this one is the world’s biggest. They’ve got them all over the south, mainly for country music. Huge dance floor, tons of seating: food, drink, pool. Billy Bob’s is the best, hands down: think of any big country artist, I can guarantee they’ve played there at some point.”

“Billy Ray?” Flynn asked first.

“Yep.”

“Willie Nelson?” Alex next.

“Like, a dozen times.”

“Dolly Parton?” Y/N asked next, Reggie nodding fast and smiling at her.

“We are headed to the home of country music history, folks.” He announced, followed by a whoop that had the whole car laughing away, all smiles and sincerity. There was nothing quite like seeing Reggie happy: he just turned into a sun, their sun, lighting up the entire space around them, his joy infectious and seeping into the cars around them.

The rest of the drive into Fort Worth went by as any car ride the six friends shared often did: with an excessive amount of singing, Alex complaining about Reggie’s speed on turns at least four times, and Luke giving Julie the same lovey dovey expression he had kept plastered on his face for her since high school. By the time they were pulling into parking lot nearest the rodeo, the sun was tickling the horizon, close to dusk, streetlights starting to flicker to life on the nearby streets.

One said streetlight sat right by the rodeo entrance, and under it stood a rather short lady waving enthusiastically at their car.

“I can’t decide whether she’s cute or crazy…” Flynn leaned forward and muttered in Y/N’s ear, causing the girl to try and stifle her giggle at the comment. The boys and Julie were first out of the car, Reggie taking the lead and getting to the woman waiting for them before Y/N had even had time to grab her camera bag, though the girl soon rushed over with Fynn to join the rest of the group.

“Uh, right! Guys, this is Naomi. She is a city coordinator, helps visitors like us feel at home. Naomi, this is Luke, Alex, and Julie, who you probably know of. That’s Flynn, our band manager, and Y/N here is our photographer slash make-up artist slash general beauty guru.” Reggie was quick to introduce, Naomi wasting no time in giving each member of the friendship circle a tight hug.

“Well, welcome y’all.” She said once she had let go of Julie, the last to embrace. “Now, the rodeo has another thirty or forty minutes until it starts, and I was wondering if I could ask a favour of you, Miss Molina?” Her accent was thick, the sort of deep south accent you might expect from the state, with the Texan twang that Y/N could sometimes slip into Reggie’s own cadence.

“Oh, right… I forgot to mention.” Flynn muttered, Julie glancing between her best friend and the older woman with raised eyebrows.

“Well, Julie, we were hoping you might do us the honour of singing the anthem tonight? When we heard Julie and the Phantoms would be visiting, well the whole council just knew we would have to give it a shot and ask.” Naomi explained with the sweetest smile and warmest eyes Y/N had ever seen: they were the sort of deep chocolate brown that, when the light caught them just right, turned into a sea of gold flecks over hazel iris. She lifted her camera, zooming in and capturing the woman’s side profile discreetly as Naomi awaited Julie’s answer.

“I’d love to.” Julie responded to the celebration of the council member before them, who let out a squeak of glee.

“Oh, thank you so much darlin’!” She exclaimed. “Now, the rest of y’all can go have a nose around the area, some of the stores around here might still be open, Cavender’s across the way will be. Get yourselves some souvenirs, some hats, try and blend in with the folk round here.” Naomi offered, and it seemed to be sound advice: for the people starting to arrive for the rodeo that night, almost all of them were wearing the signature cowboy hate one associated with Texas, matched with the boots and buckle belts. Naomi herself had a hat atop her black waves of hair. “I’ll take Miss Julie here in and set her up with her mic and all.” She explained, and with nods of agreement shared amongst the group, alongside a quick kiss between Julie and Luke, the lead singer disappeared into the building.

“You, me.” Flynn said, grabbing onto Y/N’s hand and starting a march around the corner towards the bright shine marking their clothing destination. “I can trust you to pick out the best accessories for everyone, Y/N, and I want some cowboy boots.” Her determination left Y/N’s happily helpless, following after her friend in search of head gear and footwear suitable to the region.

The boys wouldn’t have been too far behind them, the three walking in a lazy line towards the same destination, though their amble compared nothing to Flynn’s near sprint, each of the bandmate’s taking in the atmosphere of the place they had landed themselves in for the night, Reggie most of all. He grew up in the Lone Star state after all, and their walk along the side of the rodeo and the connected Billy Bob’s Honky Tonk brought back memories Reggie had forgotten after almost twenty years since his last visit.

He was reminded of the way everything smelled, of how the air tasted, of how the sound travelled from street to street. He recalled the old junctions, walking the memory alongside his younger self, found himself reminiscing about his fond childhood in the area before his parents’ marriage fell apart.

“You know…” Luke’s words broke Reggie from his day dreams, the guitarist walking backwards in front of Reggie and Alex, pulling his backpack around to the side of his body. “I was hoping you might spare me a minute to talk about your latest work, Casanova?” He continued, coming to a stop and prompting his confused bandmates to do the same, though the words quickly began to make sense when Luke revealed a black notebook from his bag.

A black notebook that wasn’t Luke’s own.

“Really, dude? Taking my shit off the bus?” Reggie reached out to retrieve the journal from Luke’s hands, but the guitarist held it back, opening to the bookmarked page and shaking his head as he read.

“Calm those horses, Reggie… This is really good.” Luke was often one to tease the bassist on his writing ability, Luke was definitely the stronger of the pair, but the compliment caught Reggie quite off-guard. Before he could refute the statement, Alex was by Luke’s side reading, mumbling the words as Luke’s sang out the chords Reggie had scribbled down.

“… That is really good… When did you write this?” Alex asked, looking up at the red cheeked raven-haired boy before him and Luke.

“I just… I was inspired, the touring life certainly helps when I need inspiration.” Reggie shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he did.

“Sure, it’s 100% not Y/N that’s got you writing love songs…” Luke teased a little more, Alex punching the boy’s exposed bicep in response. “Ow?” He questioned, but when Alex shrugged in response, the pair looked back at a now frowning Reggie. “Dude…”

“It’s just songs…” The bassist sighed, running a hand through his hair and glancing over towards the nearby store, making sure Y/N was nowhere in sight or earshot when he spoke up again. “Never going to perform them, am I? Not when she’s with him…”

“You say that like we prefer Stephen over you.” Alex snorted, and Reggie glanced up at him in confusion. “What? It’s pretty clear to me who Y/N should be with, think it’s pretty clear to everyone but Y/N who she should be with…” He muttered the last part, arms folding as his head ducked down. The words though, they gave Reggie a sliver of hope he hadn’t been offered before: he had thought his interest in Y/N delusional at best, psychotic and cruel at worst, but knowing his friends thought they were good together, that it wasn’t all in his head, made Reggie feel a little better about the love songs he had found himself writing in the weeks prior.

“What you guys talking about?” A call from across the road had the three boys pretending to act natural: Luke quickly shoving the songbook into his backpack while Alex and Reggie tried to seem innocent, like they weren’t just talking about the girl who had asked the question.

Of course, upon second glance, Reggie was left speechless anyway.

Y/N crossed the road with Flynn by her side, the pair accessorised like true Texans with hats and boots, armed with bags of attire for their friends, but Y/N was more than having fun: she looked absolutely beautiful. Her white sundress with its v neckline pulled taunt against her chest now she had added a brown leather belt to her look at her waist, her tennis shoes swapped for a pair of cowboy boots, a hat finishing the look. She presented herself as a local, and Reggie found himself trying not to gawk too much.

“We have hats to go around.” Flynn announced as they came withing twenty paces of the trio, pulling the first from her bag and tossing it towards Luke, who caught the thing with ease. Y/N passed one to Alex as she came to a stop, Flynn fishing a second from her bag and setting atop her own head.

“And for the homegrown.” Y/N handed over the bag in her hands to Reggie with a smile, watching with eager eyes as he lifted out a deep brown hat that fell somewhere between Wild West Sheriff and Indiana Jones, and a belt with ‘TEXAS’ engraved into the buckle. “Need to rep the home team, Reginald.” She added, clasping her hands in hope of a reaction. “You like it?”

“I love it…” Reggie whispered, nodding his head as he spoke, taking a few seconds to take in the items before putting the first on top of his head, a perfect fit, then standing up to loop the belt through the unused belt loops of his jeans, a silly grin on his face as he caught his reflection in a nearby window. While Alex, Luke and Flynn started their walk back to the rodeo venue, the latter armed with a hat for Julie as well, Y/N feel into place beside Reggie, she too admiring their reflection in the glass surface, taking the hat off her head for a moment to rest her cheek against Reggie’s shoulder.

“We look good, Reginald…”

“We sure do, Bug.”

Alcohol and unchecked emotions never really mix. After Julie’s performance, and then a night of Y/N hiding her eyes in Reggie arm as bull riders were bucked from the creatures, and using the complimentary liquor provided to take her mind off of her paranoia, heading over to Billy Bob’s next door shouldn’t have been on her cards. She was already buzzed; she should have taken up the offer from Naomi for a lift to the hotel…

But she didn’t want to miss Reggie.

The pair had been inseparable for the entire night, like they usually were on tour: except Y/N was drunk for the first time in a while, and trying to work off her argument with Stephen earlier in the day, she wasn’t letting her Reginald out of sight. He didn’t mind, of course, he always liked her attention, and if he let his mind wander it felt like, for a moment at least, it felt like they were something more. Y/N cuddled into his side, his arm around her shoulders, their friends around them.

With the bar doors opening came a wave of music and cheers: a local band were playing that night, one Reggie seemed vaguely familiar with as he hummed along to the song.

“Hi, we’ve got a table booked under Naomi’s name?” Luke called over the noise to the hostess by the door, Julie tucked into his side, more in an attempt to keep Luke walking straight. There were plenty of perks to being a resurrected ghost-human hybrid: alcohol tolerance was not one of those perks.

“Indeed you do, folks! Lemme just take y’all over, we can get you some drinks too if you’re up for it?” The hostess offered with a cheery smile, slipping out from behind the bar and beginning a quick walk down towards the dancefloor. Alex and Flynn were hot on her tail, Reggie and Y/N ambling along behind, keeping the lanky blonde in sight for reference, while Luke and Julie abandoned the group altogether for the dancefloor as a slow song came on.

“Could we get four, beers?” Alex asked as he and Flynn sat down, catching Y/N by Reggie’s side about fifteen paces out. “And uh, could you open it under a tab. Luke Patterson.” Alex added, pulling a backpack from his shoulder Y/N didn’t even realise he was in possession of, and retrieving Luke’s card from the front pocket, handing it over to the hostess.

“I sure can do. Can I just say, I love your guys’ music, we have it on in here before we opening almost every night.” The hostess said with a bright smile, a blush rising to her cheeks as Reggie smiled back at her, coming to sit down across from Alex and Flynn. “I’ll get those drinks right away.”

“I forgot that bedroom eyes were a thing…” Flynn mumbled as the hostess left, reaching out and clasping onto Y/N’s hands from across the table. “We should both be in bed. We have actual jobs. These guys can party but just watch what happens when we wake up with hangovers tomorrow and the whole day falls apart.” Flynn prophesised for Y/N, who squeezed her hands in reassurance. The smile on her friend’s face though as her drink arrived told Y/N that they were too far gone to stop at any point soon, and as such, the four friends clinked beer bottles as their night began.

Minutes were quick to turn into hours, one bottle of beer equally swift in turning to multiple rounds and shots on the side. Within the first hour, Y/N opted to switch her phone from silent to off, tired of the constant calls from Stephen, no doubt wanting to question her whereabouts. By hour two, she had convinced Reggie to spare her a dance or two. By hour three, that had turned to more than twenty songs on the dancefloor alongside Julie and Luke, the four only stopping to grab their refreshments as Flynn and Alex spent a large portion of their evening winning card games against the table to their right.

“Alright, alright, alright! Hey, thanks guys!” A booming voice called as a man ran up onto the stage, the band disappearing off as he took over the centre mic as hour four came close to finishing up. It was almost one in the morning, by what the rather buzzed tour team could tell, and the night was very much still young. Alex and Flynn had joined them all on the dancefloor, the slow dances and coupled dance offs between Juke and Reggie and Y/N forming into a dance circle of the friends showing off their best line dancing moves: Reggie was quite clearly the winner of that one. “We all having a good night?” The announcer asked again, and the crowd of the honky tonk cheered in response.

The place was deceptively large: it had taken Luke a solid twenty minutes just to find the bathrooms earlier in the night, and he got so lost on the way back, a mixture of his over-friendly nature once a bottle of beer was in him and simply the sheer amount of people in the building, that Flynn had to assist Julie in finding him.

The group all stood together near the centre of the dance hall as they watched the stage over the heads of their fellow patrons, Alex boosting Y/N onto his shoulder so she might see better. As she hugged onto the blonde’s back, another few people pushed through the crowd to ask the band for autographs.

This was the other common occurrence of the night: when they weren’t dancing or winning money off of Texan cowboys, the four band members had been overcome with a wave of people asking for pictures, autographs, or just for them to accept the compliment someone was paying. Y/N forgot just how famous her friends were sometimes, but it was overwhelming clarity, that night, that if her four dearest friends got pestered everywhere from the streets of LA to the honky tonks of Fort Worth, they’d be pestered anywhere.

“Now, for those visiting us tonight, I am your Master of Ceremonies for the evening, the name is Jacob Blythe.” As if on command, the crowd shouted back “Well, howdy Jacob!”, causing the man to chuckle heartily into the mic, the sound echoing around the hall over and over. “I introduce myself because a little birdie told me we have some friends from the Sunshine State with us tonight.” He added, and the crowd cheered. The team’s ‘incognito’ night out was truly public record now, but it was far too fun to really care. “So, our band tonight will be back after their break, we don’t wanna tire them out now. But that does mean we are in need of some musical talent!

“Now, I’m not pressuring none, but if any particular individuals wanna come up and give us a tune, I think we’d all be mighty grateful.” The MC stated, Y/N climbing off of Alex’s back as the four bandmates shared glances. “So, do we have any volunteers?”

Before anyone had a chance to stop him, Reggie suddenly disappeared from his spot amongst the group, appearing a moment on the stage behind the MC, who let out a rather high-pitched scream as Reggie sat his hand on his shoulder in greeting.

“What is he doing?” Y/N found herself asking, watching her friend picking up an acoustic guitar from its stand and fixing the strap around him before he clipped on a capo and stood himself in front of the mic.

“Good evening, Fort Worth. I’m Reggie.” He introduced himself to the cheers of the crowd, a spotlight focusing onto him as he spoke. He wasn’t quite sure why he was up on that stage, in fact every bone in his body seemed against it: but his hands settled into place over the strings and his fingers began to play a sweet arpeggio, getting used to the foreign guitar. He was lost to impulse, no doubt partially thanks to the liquor in his system, but he was confident enough to keep going, maybe too scared to stop.

“I think he’s gonna play.” Julie remarked, stating the obvious as she grabbed Luke’s hand and led him closer to the stage, Flynn doing the same to Y/N as Alex followed behind.

“I uh, I usually leave our band’s songwriting up to Luke, right there.” Reggie added as he continued to play, pointing a hand out towards Luke who waved to the surrounding crowd, another round of whoops sounding. “But I dabble, and since this is my home state… I have something new for you guys tonight.” He finally paused the arpeggio, taking one last sigh before using the same chords and beginning to play the mysterious song.

“Let’s fall in love for the night and forget in the mornin’.” He sang out, his voice so soft and sweet that Y/N found herself instantly fixed on the music. She was often this way with Reggie, whenever he sang she could swear that the rest of the world disappeared. “Play me a song that you like you can bet I'll know every line. 'Cause I'm the boy that your boy hoped that you would avoid, don't waste your eyes on jealous guys, stop that noise.” Reggie lifted his hand from the guitar, his eyes scanning the audience to send a wink towards his friends, two of whom recognised the lyrics of his chosen serenade. “I know better than to call you mine.”

“Wow…” Y/N whispered, impressed, lifting her elbow to nudge Alex, but meeting thin air instead.

“You need a pick-me-up?” Reggie sang, Alex appearing at the drumkit on stage behind the raven haired singer and joining in on a drum line, to the cheers of the crowd. “Well, I'll be there in 25. I like to push my luck, so take my hand, let's take a drive.” With a nod towards Julie and Luke, he coaxed the other bandmates onto the stage, leaving Flynn in charge of the entranced Y/N, pushing the girl alongside her towards the front of the crowd. “'Cause I've been livin' in the future hopin' I might see you sooner. I want you ridin' shotgun. I knew when I got one right.” He continued to sing, passing off the guitar to Luke as Julie took her place at the piano and played the chords with a smile Reggie’s way.

“Let's fall in love for the night and forget in the mornin'. Play me a song that you like you can bet I'll know every line.” Reggie sang out, this time accompanied by the harmony of Julie and the backing vocals of Alex and Luke, the four sharing smiles as they performed. “'Cause I'm the boy that your boy hoped that you would avoid, don't waste your eyes on jealous guys, stop all that noise. I know better than to call you mine.”

As Y/N watched on, nestled in the crowd, she couldn’t help but wonder when Reggie was struck with such romantic inspiration. She had spent almost every day for the last near month with him, and with his last big hit being ‘Home Is Where My Horse Is’, she allowed herself the curiosity, a beer in hand that she found herself sipping away at as she observed.

“Where’d you get that drink?” Flynn whispered into Y/N’s ear, who shrugged and took another sip.

“I love it when you talk that nerdy shit. We're in our twenties talkin' thirties shit. We're makin' money but we're savin' it, ‘cause talking shit is cheap and we talk a lot of it.” The song continued, the crowd cheering and dancing along to the music while Y/N found herself fixed to her spot, not even noticing as Flynn played safety guard and relieved her of the drink in her hands. “You won't stay with me, I know, but you can have your way with me 'til you go.” Julie and Reggie harmonised on the line, Luke and Alex suddenly disappearing from the stage, Julie taking her leave, quick to pull Flynn away with her and leave Y/N alone in front of the stage. “And if all your kisses turn into bruises, I'm a warnin’.”

And then, Y/N struggled to breathe, completely paralysed when Reggie’s eyes locked with her own.

“Let's fall in love for the night and forget in the mornin'.” Reggie lifted the microphone from its stand, walking round and jumping off the low stage onto the dancefloor as he sang. There was a confidence in the music he couldn’t dispel, emotions he might have never admitted otherwise coming into the open, at least that was what he hoped. His walk was in time to the best of the drums left to echo as he sang acapella, his feet only stopping once they were toe to toe with Y/N’s.

“Play me a song that you like you can bet I'll know every line.” They had been that close all night, dancing away to the sounds of the country band, or when Y/N had spent half the rodeo hiding in his arms fearful for the bull riders in the arena below them. But it felt different, intimate.

“'Cause I'm the boy that your boy hoped that you would avoid.” His free hand lifted hers from her side, taking her hand in his and lifting their arms above their heads to spin Y/N on the spot: that action too was slow, something that made the rest of the world outsiders looking into a rare moment. “Don't waste your eyes on jealous guys, fuck that noise.”

“I know better. I know better. I know better than to ever call you mine.” The look the pair shared, Reggie finding himself smirking as he let the mic fall, it was nothing either of them had experienced before, and Reggie vanished into thin air as the crowd erupted into cheers.

It was only once he had disappeared, only once the crowd broke into thunderous applause, that Y/N felt herself breathe again. She was overcome with a dizziness she would equate to the feeling after a rollercoaster ride, paired with the sound of her heart in her ears and near pounding out her chest, and that was before mentioning the flush that coloured her cheeks and nose red. A part of her might have called it fault of the alcohol, but Y/N had never felt more sober. His smirk was sketched into her memory, the feeling of his hand on hers burned in her skin, the smell of his cologne a scent she had never noticed was so very enticing before. It was like she had been transported to some kind of paradisal state of being, the way his eyes held her own like she might drown in the deep sea green irises…

There wasn’t much Y/N could make sense of in the few moments that ended the performance, but she knew, deep in her gut:

This wasn’t good.

Y/N’s Instagram Feed: Day 23/93

and the rumours begin...

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nogunsjustrosess · 3 years

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Israel 'defending itself' is a laughable phrase when they have all the military power and technology and respond to whatever attacks Palestinians initiate with homemade rockets and rocks tenfold with more civilian deaths. they wouldn't have to defend themselves if they weren't occupying palestinian land and brutally suppressing its people. the fixation on Hamas which was created YEARS into the conflict, long after Israel had already been perpetrating war crimes, is just a way to deflect from the reality that Israel is a colonial project that is killing Palestinian babies in the name of self defense. consider why you want to justify IDF soldiers shooting at people who are running away from them, surrendering. these people live in a prison. they have no clean air or water. Israel controls everything - their electricity, their sewage systems, controls where they come and go. they have no freedoms. it is not even a remotely comparable situation. Israel has ALL the power, Palestine has NONE.

I will answer you thoroughly because I want you to take the time and read this response, there are MANY incorrections and misconceptions here that I hope are the results of being simply misinformed and not something way worse.

not gonna flood your feed so I’m putting everything under the tag.

“Israel 'defending itself' is a laughable phrase when they have all the military power and technology and respond to whatever attacks Palestinians initiate with homemade rockets and rocks tenfold with more civilian deaths.”

The asymmetry you’re talking about - tech and military wise - being your justification as to why Israel just has to endure ‘homemade rockets and rocks’ is fucked up. First of all, these are NOT just homemade rockets.

Hamas has multiple types of rockets - and let me tell you - they are NOT homemade. Hamas is the third wealthiest terror organisation according to forbes. They receive money from Qatar and Jordan, as well as many other countries that think they fund help for the Palestinian. They don’t, Hamas uses all that money to launch thousands of top notch rockets and missiles to Israel, instead of helping the people of Gaza. Do you think homemade rockets look like this? do you think they can do this? maybe this?

this?

or that?

I wrote about the rocks Palestinians throw at soldiers and civilians here, last week, an Israeli Jewish man was beaten to death and murdered by rocks in Lod by radical Israeli Arabs who identify as Palestinians. This is only the most recent occurrence - but it happens all the time and poses a serious life threat since the rocks thrown aren’t cute little beach stone, they’re big chunks of rock meant to kill, and using them as weapons is illegal in multiple countries around the world because of how dangerous it is.

Gaza has more civilian deaths, that’s for sure. Again asymmetry that raises the brutal question - why there aren’t more Israeli people dying? Now, Israel does have a better system and way better protective measures against missiles and rockets. Do you want to know why? Israel invests millions in shelters, protective spaces and most of all - the Iron Dome. Hamas invests the same amounts of money in arming itself with missiles they launch at Israeli civilians (Jewish, Arab and Christians). Also, Hamas launches missiles and rockets from civilian areas so when they malfunction they also blow up around the same areas.

“they wouldn't have to defend themselves if they weren't occupying palestinian land and brutally suppressing its people.”

Do you realize that they wouldn’t have to ‘defend themselves’ if they weren’t shooting at Israel in the first place? They are NOT defending themselves, Hamas has been continually sending missiles to Israel with no regard to human lives - not Israel’s nor theirs. Also, Israel has withdrawn all its settlements in 2005 with the exception of some parts in the Gaza strip, so not so much for your occupation, unless you believe the entire land of Israel is an occupation, and in that case - you’re historically incorrect.

“the fixation on Hamas which was created YEARS into the conflict, long after Israel had already been perpetrating war crimes”

The ‘fixation’ on Hamas is the direct result of the pure fact they are actively trying to MURDER Israeli civilians every single day. You are correct by saying the conflict is way older than Hamas and way more complicated than them (you see, that’s why you DON’T get your info from infographics folks) but before Hamas there was the terror organisation Hezbollah from Lebanon (that very recently decided to join the party and fire missiles from the northern border to Israel as well), the Muslim Brotherhood and of course, ISIS. They are the terror organisations that continuously try to wipe Israel and everybody in it for good, committing endless war crimes. You all shout war crimes when Israel is the only country trying to minimise and prevent the harm done to Palestinians, often on its own expanse - like here, yesterday Israel tried to ship some resources to Gaza but the shipments were attacked by Palestinians.

“a way to deflect from the reality that Israel is a colonial project that is killing Palestinian babies in the name of self defense.”

You guys love that argument - Israel killing Palestinian babies. Well here and here you can see well planned attacks on Hamas HQ and offices that were called off last minute because it was revealed civilians and children were present. This is something the army tries to avoid at all cost, even if it means losing millions, as well as months and sometimes years of intelligence gathering. That’s because Israel values human lives more than anything! Every possible effort to eliminate the threat to innocent lives WILL be made on the expense of anything. Except, Hamas doesn’t play by those rules, they have been known to deliberately hide Intelligence HQ, offices, and even high level terrorist amongst civilians, as well as schools, hospitals - and our newest example - news buildings. Putting human lives in danger because they use Israel’s refusal to kill civilians as an advantage. Unfortunately, that also means many time Israel doesn’t know about the presence of civilians there and horrible deaths happen. That’s very much on Hamas.

“is just consider why you want to justify IDF soldiers shooting at people who are running away from them, surrendering. these people live in a prison.”

Listen, IDF soldiers are rarely allowed to shoot anyone - most of them don’t even carry any weapons but pepper spray. But the ones who do suffer very severe consequences if they misuse their weapons and they need to justify themselves in a court marshall . For example a couple of years ago a 19 years old soldier shot a terrorist that tried to stab his friend, he went through multiple court marshalls and even a civil trial, as well as months in prison. Believe me, this is not something any soldier would want to go trough unless their life was in grave danger and they had to shoot. (maybe America could learn a thing or too).

“they have no clean air or water. Israel controls everything - their electricity, their sewage systems, controls where they come and go. they have no freedoms. it is not even a remotely comparable situation. Israel has ALL the power, Palestine has NONE.”

Lastly, please do your research. First of all, Gaza is currently controlled by Hamas. And has been since its election almost 15 years ago. They control the resources Palestinians get or don’t get, and again - they choose to spend the billions they get in funds by buying missiles and weapons. The only thing Israel truly controls is the border with Israel, and like any other border it’s monitored and controlled, especially since it’s a favoured place for terrorist to execute attacks. Don’t forget there’s a border with Egypt as well.

We’re not talking about Israel vs Palestinians. We’re talking about Israel vs Hamas - a blood thirsty, antisemitic terror organisation that has no value for human lives whatsoever. And still, Israel is the one who gets blamed and condemned.

(and i have to thank @mysteryspotillusions because she did such a great job and I link to her posts several times!)

#zionism #israel #free palestine #anon

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pen-and-a-microphone · 4 years

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Six The Musical Dance Masterpost!

This will be updated (in the reblogs) whenever I find new resources

An important update that will also be in the reblogs! The actors are not allowed to teach AYWD or IDNYL. No matter which workshops you book, the official line is that these are not allowed to be taught.

In some cases, people teach different choreo to those songs, and that’s allowed. Due to this, I can’t be finding a way to notate that choreography and then post it. I’m pretty sure that’d get me in trouble, so I’m not gonna push it. I will keep providing tips for learning them, but I won’t go against the official instructions that the actors have been given.

Note I forgot to add but that applies to everything - squats. Do them frequently. There's a lot of squatting in the show, and boy you need good thigh muscles.

Ex-wives

The first and second verses are basically made entirely of posing. If you know the beats (which are very obvious and accented), the moves are easy. Each queen does something different on these beats, so you might want to pick one, or make up something of your own. These poses are the same in many live performances.

For the chorus(es), the moves are generally simple hip movements/steps. Easily followed from any bootleg copy you may have access to. The dance breaks/instrumentals are harder, and I have not yet found a proper tutorial for them.

Chorus and dance break performance, which could be followed. However it does end part way through, so I’d recommend just using this for the chorus/break section - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFpqZjy54Ns

Visible choreography for the backing parts of the introductions verse (where the queens introduce themselves in a line/two lines) Deliberately pans out so that the chorus choreography is not visible, and the final chorus is from Six, not Ex-wives (this is a common thing in live performances of this) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJbaU4j0JCo

The final chorus mirrors the first, but so far I have not found a tutorial or live performance of this.

General advice - Learn the post-chorus dance break from the best source you have, since it’s the hardest part (if possible, and when I find one, I will put a tutorial for this section). The rest is very simple to follow from any performance, but make sure you’re watching the correct steps. Ex-wives is often performed live as a mashup with Six, so the choreo is different - there are quite a few live performances that I haven’t included links to, and this is for a reason.

No Way

The intro is made solely of one movement repeated on a (helpfully emphasised) beat. Easy to see and follow from your bootleg.

There is not currently a tutorial or live that shows all of No Way (to my knowledge). It does have some full choreo (rather than just hip movements or basic steps) during the verses, that might be hard to follow from a bootleg

No Way dance class (NOTE: these moves are not in the correct order as far as I know, however this is a useful intro for how to do the steps. I used this to learn the movements, then used videos of live performances to put them together in the right order) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lzMd3oDAY0&t=4s

No Way second chorus and dance break, full tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehdKQoZN_cU&t=2908s

General advice - The dance break is really fast, and really difficult, but it’s not impossible if you take time to learn it - you can always put your YouTube at 0.75x speed (or even 0.5x, which I did while learning). Again, don’t follow the wrong choreo and get confused. Vicki’s tutorial is helpful for showing points you can “hit” if the full thing is too fast or difficult. It’s very Beyonce and pretty sassy, so have confidence. Lots of hip movement, and salsa moves.

Don’t Lose Ur Head

Intro is simple to follow from any bootleg.

Lots of acting in this one. Boleyn interacts with the backing singers in a very different way to Aragon. Luckily, this means less complicated choreography in the verses, because a lot of the movement is either “shock”, “running to another point on the stage” or “leaning in to hear the tea”. Basically choose your own facial expressions and movements, and later poses.

Perfect live performance. Easy to follow for the verses, especially the second (which I haven’t found in this clarity anywhere else, lots of performances cut away) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY77XqKoNr4

DLUH choruses 1 and 2, tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uEhNp-nVDU

Dramatic wedding moment? Again just acting with some blocking

The third verse has hardly any choreo, which can be seen in the west end live performance. The build up to the final chorus (ie the back and forths of “what was I/she meant to do”) is just improv jamming, so make it up as you go along.

The final chorus looks very “improvised having fun”, but there is still choreography. It is much looser than the other choruses, which means you can have more fun with it than the very precise movements of the earlier choruses.

General advice - The first few bars of the choruses uses a really difficult step, one which looks easy. Spend ages on this, until it’s second nature, or you’ll struggle to do the choreography for the rest of the chorus. This song is very acting heavy, and aside from the first and second choruses, the choreo isn’t super precise. The neck movements are sharp, and there is a risk of giving yourself whiplash if you jump right in - remember to stretch your neck too, it has muscles and you can pull them (I’ve been there, trust me).

Heart of Stone

Time for a break! Heart of Stone does not, as far as I know, have any choreography. Probably good to give the queens a break from all that high intensity.

Haus of Holbein

There aren’t any live videos or tutorials (yet/as far as I know)

Fairly basic steps in the verses, which could be followed from a bootleg. Lots of box stepping and posing.

Choruses are just improv, they do whatever they want, provided they’re acting like they’re in a rave. I have no idea if these were ever properly choreographed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the script just said “go insane”. There are some parts where they pause, but this can be followed from your bootleg.

The intro and outro are just walking diagonally, staggered one by one.

General advice - Have fun. Have all the fun. Go completely mad with your improv. The more dramatic you go, the better it fits with the song. Unlike DLUH, the chaos is not the choreographed kind.

Get Down

First verse is lots of tiny movements, which are easy to learn from live videos. Clicks, head movements, etc - precise, but simple.

A useful section for learning the first verse/chorus - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik6zKj08A28

Performance with full choreo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UlRCPLu9FM

Another performance with full choreo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io-cQWqAfX4

The end of this class has part of the chorus of Get Down, which is helpful for both learning the moves, and learning the general style of dance - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlWQBREK5Fw&t=10s

General advice - Full sass. Take your Beyonce sass levels from No Way and times them by 10. This is, in my opinion, the hardest dance in the show, so I struggle to give good advice about it. It’s hard, but there are plenty of videos showing the full thing - I’ve managed to learn it by slowing these videos down (0.75x speed on YouTube). There’s lots of isolation of specific body parts. However, cover all your mistakes with more sass - my personal trick is just acting like I’m doing it perfectly, because the sheer self confidence of this number is enough to carry you through.

All You Wanna Do

Full disclosure: I do not yet know this one. However, I have a dance class on Saturday with Aimie Atkinson, which should help me learn it. The following is therefore much more vague, and will be updated once I know more.

From what I’ve seen, the steps in this are quite repetitive. I think the choruses use the same choreo, or at least very similar. Very high energy, but much like the rest of the show, movements are on the beats (accented, clear beats, thank you ladies in waiting).

I Don’t Need Your Love

Again, I do not know this one well, but I will be updating when I do.

The majority of this of is like Heart of Stone - there’s no choreography, and the queens get a rest.

There’s a section of improv between the sitting down and the choreographed section, which is just the queens jamming.

The actual steps don’t start until “Remember that I was a writer”, and they’re very simple, not too precise, and could be followed from a bootleg.

Obviously in the actual show there is a break before the “remix” section, without dancing. The “remix” section has choreography, but again it is pretty simple.

The final chorus is the only one with full dancing, but there aren’t any versions I could find on YouTube, or any tutorials. However, I could follow it from my bootleg, and I think I’ll be able to learn it from just that.

Six

This quite nicely mirrors the previous numbers. For example, there isn’t any backing dancing for Seymour or Parr’s sections. Aragon’s section uses moves you will have already learnt in No Way. Cleves uses new moves but keeps her sass and the same sort of dance style. Boleyn and Howard do have new moves, which I think is a reflection on character development - the choreo is more fun and happy, similar to the starts of their numbers, but obviously not the endings.

Live performance that shows all the correct choreography - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqc3zJ1nva0

The chorus is super easy, and most of you probably already know it. These women have been doing what basically amounts to a high intensity workout for a solid 75 minutes, so the choreo was never going to be super hard/taxing.

Six main chorus, tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjf1jrSFwsw&t=2s

The “we’re six” dance break is a little harder, but should be easy to follow from your bootleg.

#man this took ages #six the musical #dance #masterpost #choreography #six the musical dance #six the musical choreography #six

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your-lady-star · 4 years

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Fallen M!Corrin is Better Than Fallen F!Corrin

Bit of a hot take here for me to do, but I’ve honestly have had complications with Fallen F!Corrin for a while, and now that my baby boy has his own, I figured now is a better time than any to get into my issues with her fallen alt and why M!Corrin does it significantly better.

Now I’m not going to talk about their skills and usefulness in battle, mainly cause I don’t care about that at all, I’m going to be focusing solely on design and how well it connects to the thematic surrounding the story of Fallen Corrin. And that’s a good starting point.

I remember back when last years fallen banner was revealed and I saw a lot of people wondering why Corrin was on the banner since they never turn evil in game. I think people forget what the purpose of the fallen banner is; it’s not to show inherently evil characters, it’s to show, well, fallen heroes. Characters who’s mindsets, goals, an ethics were once just, but have been corrupted by a dark force, whether it’d be psychological or external. And, while it’s easy to forget, Corrin is fighting a psychological battle for his sanity every minute of every day.

Corrin’s dragon blood is very potent and very powerful, more so than any of the other royals, hence why he’s able to fully transform into a dragon. One downside of this is that dragons within the world of Fire Emblem are described as being inherently destructive and blood thirsty, something we clearly see with Corrin as his first transformation into a dragon had him go on a destructive rampage and attack Azura. He’s given the dragonstone for the express purpose of maintaining control of these urges and keeping his sanity in check.

The fallen version is meant to showcase what would happen if they couldn’t maintain control, whether it’d be from not getting the dragonstone in time or the dragonstone not being of much help or maybe a completely different reason; it’s designed to show what would happen if Corrin surrendered to their draconic urges and became the monstrous killing machine they dread becoming, especially with the implications that Corrin may have possibly killed Aura during the initial attack. A Corrin who is lost to destructive urges and has become a monster that cannot be stopped, that is the theme to their fallen counterparts.

And while M!Corrin does that job fantastic, F!Corrin not so much.

Now we can finally get into discussing the art for these two and how well they do at showcasing this theme.

Let’s start with their default stance.

M!Corrin has a wide stance and is slightly hunched over, akin to that of an animal, and his tail being out further plays into that. The way its wrapped out to the front of his body with the spikes facing outward not only gives his stance a bit of a defensive feel, but also threatening, as though to let other know what they’re getting themselves into by challenging him. The way his hands are tensed up to look like claws makes it very intimidating and the way his left hand is positioned in that almost “come here” gesture gives a sense that he’s daring you to try to stop his, furthered with the way his right hand is placed in that cocky arrogance fashion that FE has used before. But the most telling feature is his eyes and face. That sense of cockiness is present with the way his eyebrows are raised and the slight curve of his mouth as well as that feel of lunacy with the ways his eyes seem to be different sizes, which anyone who has ever watched anime knows is clue number one that a character is a f*cking psychopath. But the most interesting thing is the dead emptiness is his expression. As though he isn’t truly there mentally, that he’s completely surrendered to the madness and is just a vessel for his cursed bloods madness. It’s downright terrifying and incredibly intriguing all at once.

Overall, this default art is fantastic and does a great job at giving a memorable first impression and teases for whats to come. It’s one of the best artworks to come out of Heroes for not only how well it does at displaying the theme of the character, but for being able to say so much with a single image.

On the other hand...

Alright, so on an objective standpoint there isn’t anything wrong with the default art for fallen F!Corrin. It looks great, it’s nicely detailed and it’s clear that a lot of time went into it. My issue with it is how poorly it does at representing a corrupted Corrin.

I get that the idea behind her design is that she’s slowly wearing herself down trying to fight back against her dark urges, but the art doesn’t do a good job at portraying that. The only real indication of her supposed exhaustion is a single bead of sweat running down her thigh and (maybe) one on her cheek, and everything from her facial expression to the way her arms are placed to her general stance comes off looking “embarrassed” rather than “tired”. She looks less like a woman desperately battling a losing battle to maintain control over her humanity and more like a typical anime girl who was walked in on by her crush while changing. The over-beautification of F!Corrin’s design already doesn’t do much to help with that (but that’s a discussion I’ll save for another day). Even the tail, one of the most striking features on fallen M!Corrin’s design, doesn’t have the same presence. It being mostly behind her not only loses that sense of defense and intimidation, but it causes the tail to blend into her and become less noticeable. I’m not even joking when I say that I didn’t even notice that she had a tail until the third time I saw this art.

Like I said, the art isn’t bad, it just doesn’t do the core theme justice. Rather than looking worn down, she looks slightly perturbed at best. Rather than looking menacing, she looks meek. And rather than fitting into a banner themed around great heroes falling into darkness, this feels like something that would fit in more in a summer or Easter banner (which is extremely ironic considering what I’ll get into later). It’s a build up for a set of art that’s supposed to make me feel sorry for her, but only accomplishes in making me think of how much she looks like me when I’m waiting for my brothers to hurry up in the bathroom.

Once more the dynamic weight and posing in the artwork shines brilliantly in his neutral attack pose. Lunging forward keeps in with the animalistic nature along with his hands once more tensed like claws, one reeling back to get ready to strike. With the way his cape and tail, curled almost like a snake or scorpion, flow behind him create a real feeling of movement and his expression dark but subdued, it makes for this real intense energy coming from his as he lunges for his prey. My favorite aspect being how the shadows form on his face, hiding it just enough to conceal his murderous intent while still allowing the harsh red of his eyes to shine prominently. And while there isn’t any discernible difference in his hair, the way it’s wrapped around his face and flowing to his movement give that much needed edge to his glare. And with the dark purple miasma flowing and highlighting points of interest, it makes for a truly great piece.

This isn’t really a problem that’s singular to fallen F!Corrin, as IS does struggle to give dragon units unique attack art that doesn’t just have the character either standing still or slightly curved with their arms either out at their sides or holding whatever stone they use to transform. So I can appreciate that they tried to do something different with her attack art. But, again, the problem is how it doesn’t fit with what they’re trying to represent.

Her expression is that of either mild annoyance or boredom, giving no indication that she’s in pain from having to fight. There’s no real tensity in any part of her body, having more of a grace and fluidity that is commonly used on dancer units. Her tail is more visible, but nothing is really being done with it. It’s not extenuating anything or highlighting a part of her body, it’s just curled on her legs. And any sense of intimidation is lost because the most threatening part of the tail, the spikes, are no longer in the foreground. Sense of movement is also an issue here. The way her cape and hair are framed makes it feel like she just jumped off of something and is having a rough landing and there’s no feeling for how she moved to attack, no ferocity in her actions. Again, it’s akin to more of a dancer than a feral dragon.

And this is small nitpick I have, but it really bugs me. I don’t like how the purple miasma for F!Corrin is lighter than M!Corrin’s. It might seem like a minuscule thing to be worried about, but the darker tone on his gives a real feel of dread and despair. The lighter tones are hers don’t stand out as much and don’t give any real negative emotion to her state. Yeah, she’s supposed to be fighting to maintain control, but having them be darker would help to represent that desperation and hopelessness. You can still have lighter hues, but they need to work in tandem to the darker colors.

Because when you do, you get beauty like this.

Just look at this masterpiece. The lighter purple flames mixing well with the darker flames, coming together in the center like a twisted mockery of where the dragonstone would be in any other art, curling around his body like a charging beast quickly closing in on you. His eyes glowing an ethereal mix of his natural red and the miasma around him, giving them a horrific shine that stand out a mile away and full of pure demented blood lust. And his mouth; wide open, fangs bearing in a horrific grimace, ready to sink into whatever stands in his way.

I don’t usually throw this term around, but I don’t hesitate to use it here: this art is flawless.

This art, however, I can’t attach flawless to. The mix of purple and dark pink and the lighting it casts does look really good, but it’s an intense mix to a subdued reaction. Her eyes don’t look anymore ferocious than they do on any of her other alts and there’s no glow to them to make her look like her darker urges are beginning to influence her. The clawed hand could be a cool feature, but it’s hard to see since it’s being blocked out by all the pink! I actually didn’t even notice that her hand was clawed until I looked up her artwork for this post! Such a distinguished feature shouldn’t be this hard to notice. Not to mention, even if the claw was more visible, it doesn’t hold the same level of intimidation as her male counterpart due to how thin and spindly her arms and hand are. This feels like a slight upgrade to her original forms special art and is extremely disappointing.

After the Adrift banner, I am pleased to see a M!Corrin alt where his damaged art doesn’t tear his clothes off. But even with the minimal physical damage, you can’t deny how good this looks.

The rips on his left hand give it a jagged look that nicely compliments how tense his hand is.His right is clawed and raised, poised to attack and surrounded by the miasma in a way that highlights it without overshadowing it. His tail raised and thrashing about in a fit of rage, further complimented by his crouched over stance and, of course, his face. Corrin’s facial expressions across each form of his fallen counterpart has been his best feature, and this is easily the best of the four. That look of pure, unadulterated, unrelenting rage is so disturbing and amazing at the same time. Damage art in Heroes typically has the character looking shocked, sad, perturbed, or not phased by it. This is the only damage art I can think of where the character is f*cking pissed. That is a look that screams “I”m going to f*cking annihilate you for doing that” and it’s utterly glorious.

Oh boy, this art.

Nearly everything I praised about M!Corrin’s damage art is the exact opposite for the female.

The stance is very generic and holds no emotion other than “Ow, I’m hurt”. Her facial expression doesn’t register pain at all, looking more like she’s inconvenienced because someone splashed water on her. Her tail, despite being very dominant, is just sitting there with no fluidity. Physical damage is far greater here, but all it does is distract the viewer who is too busy getting off to her exposed legs and thighs! And whether it'd be because of shaky perspective or shoddy work, but her hands and arms are distractedly small and thin. It looks like her arms would shatter if she pushed someone too hard.

This is my lease favorite of her arts entirely because it exemplifies the main problem with fallen F!Corrin’s design and why M!Corrin did it better.

It focuses more on making Corrin look cute rather than having her actually represent the theme she’s supposed to be.

The titles for the two Corrin’s are Bloodbound Beast and Wailing Soul. M!Corrin perfectly embodies his title while F!Corrin struggles to just barely hint at. Both of them are meant to show a pure hearted and noble individual being corrupted by the very blood coursing through their veins, yet only one of them is really putting in any effort to properly represent this. And while I can’t give any concrete evidence of this, I feel like the main thing that kept the female variant from properly doing the job was because they got the wrong person to draw her.

And look, I don’t have anything against Sencha, fallen F!Corrin’s artist; they’re extremely talented. But looking at their record for art in Heroes can tell you that they weren’t the right one for this. This is the same person who did the summer and adrift art for F!Corrin (they also did bridal Tharja, but that’s not related here), and both of them have a distinctive style to them. They’re graceful, beautiful, serene, cheerful. Sencha is very good at drawing Corrin very pleasant and lovely. However, Sencha clearly isn’t that good at drawing Corrin miserable and withered. And that’s understandable. Making someone completely shift the genre they’re used to is a serous challenge and it’d be no surprise if they can’t handle it. So, despite my claim that they got the wrong artist for her, I don’t blame Sencha for not doing as well.

Then again, I doubt that this wasn’t a challenge for Argon, fallen M!Corrin’s artist. Their Heroes portfolio consists of mostly seasonal alts for various male characters, though they also did Cormag, which shows that they do more dynamic posing and harsher color saturation. If anything, the fact that they did such a phenomenal job on Corrin shows they got some serious skill at drawing more demented characters. Hopefully they get to do this more often, I need to see more of their work like this.

So, at the end of this long diatribe, I’ll once again reiterate that I don’t dislike fallen F!Corrin for any personal bias towards the male version or because the art is objectively bad. It’s a nicely done art, but one that doesn't suit what the character is to represent. And the fact that fallen M!Corrin utterly blew it out the water in his artwork really made it worse for her.

... Was this all just on big excuse for me to gush about fallen M!Corrin’s artwork?

Maybe.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got orbs to hoard.

#fire emblem heroes #fire emblem fates #corrin #fe corrin #m!corrin #f!corrin #character design #design critic #this banner sold me in the first two seconds #i think you can see why

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sparklyjojos · 4 years

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CARNIVAL DAY recaps [11/13]

Today’s recap: Dokuson’s lonely youth, a message from Meiru, and how to make your own Billion Killer.

[tw: suicide]

FIFTY-TWO

02 Aug 1997 — 08 Aug 1997

TOWER OF BABEL

[This is the last chapter, but it has around 270 pages and we still have A LOT to go through.]

(...Below is BOKU’s testimony. [Originally in first person.])

Dokuson and BOKU learned about the attack on Tsukumo Juku in the afternoon of February 7th. They rushed to the hospital at once. Inugami Yasha told them what had happened and that Gensoukan, Yasha’s black cat, and an old servant of the Inugami family had all disappeared.

Dokuson looked like he was intensely thinking about something he didn’t want to say out loud.

Thanks to quick surgical treatment, it looked like Juku was on his way to recovery; the doctors stated he had already pulled through the worst of it. Relieved, Dokuson and BOKU returned to the JDC headquarters. But then, around midnight, they got the news that Juku’s condition had suddenly worsened, and he passed away before they managed to get back to the hospital.

The same night, the Crystal Nightmare killed Desert Colosseum, and later in the day Ronely Queen died in the Statue of Liberty case. Three dead S-detectives in one day. That last case also claimed the life of Ushiwaka Gigolo.

BOKU remembers that tragic day well. Even Dokuson let grief show on his face, especially when told about Ushiwaka. After a few seconds of deep silence he told BOKU that Kirika would be taking over the representative duties that day, because Dokuson himself would spend the day secluded in the meeting room number six, mourning the dead. Only for one day, though, as humanity would suffer if someone as great as him rested any longer.

Seeing BOKU’s shock (the guy they call a Demon Lord showing feelings?!), Dokuson stated that it’s perfectly natural for him to grieve. A man who couldn’t even mourn the woman who was especially important to him could never become the world’s greatest genius, now could he.

Dokuson said that Ushiwaka had once been his ideal partner both at work and in private. The only condition he wanted a potential partner to fulfill was that they should understand him; Ushiwaka was the first woman he met who understood. (BOKU wasn’t sure how two people with such strong personalities could work as a couple—it’d be like mashing the same poles of two magnets together—but apparently they did.)

But that was many years ago. Dokuson was still young, just an immature boy with barely the glimpse of his current perfection, his heart filled with bright hopes for the future.

Dokuson stressed that what had attracted him to Ushiwaka was not her beauty or genius; the real value and beauty of a person was their soul and heart, their personality. Dokuson, as the self-aware narcissist, knew he possessed a dazzling heart and was because of it the world’s most beautiful person. The world’s second most beautiful person would therefore be someone who could understand and love him the most in the world.

As Dokuson had already explained once, all humans had a narcissistic part to them; without any degree of self-love, people would simply drop dead. Loving others more than yourself was extremely hard. Even the most dramatic declamations of self-sacrifice could be just empty words. People would say things like “I would die for you”, but from Dokuson’s point of view, someone who really understood and loved him should strive to outlive him; he wouldn’t stand for anyone sacrificing themselves for his sake. As far as Dokuson was concerned, those who looked at him and felt even just a little love were the true possessors of beautiful clear souls.

Once upon a time, young Dokuson had no hope whatsoever for being loved by other people. Who could ever love and understand him more than he loved and understood himself? But then came Ushiwaka. She was the first person who loved Yuiga Dokuson more than Yuiga Dokuson loved himself.

...but you could say that it was her love—and the frustration and regrets it led to—that in the end caused Dokuson to fully blossom into his narcissistic self.

Though they were young, Ushiwaka had already found her unique style of reasoning, which relied on falling in love with someone. Tragically, her feelings would disappear once she solved a case—this happened with their relationship too. It’s not that Ushiwaka had only pretended to love Dokuson all this time; she explained at length that she had genuinely been in love with him, but her feelings came to a sudden end along with a case.

Back then, Dokuson found this explanation hard to accept. He wanted to know more about Ushiwaka’s reasoning method and investigated on his own, full of immaturity and confusion about feelings.

And then, though he never meant to kill anyone, he pestered Ushiwaka’s new boyfriend with questions and cornered him psychologically so badly that the man committed suicide.

Ever since Dokuson was a small boy, he had a mysterious power of tragically manipulating others using words. When he was five and a police officer tried to reprimand him, he started lecturing the officer in turn, making the man completely break apart mentally and commit suicide soon afterwards. It seemed like just a tragic coincidence at the time.

Dokuson would only realize what he’d done much later in life, after his words had already taken the lives of many other people. The death of Ushiwaka’s boyfriend was the turning point. Now aware of the powers of his words, fully understanding his guilt, he consciously limited and softened his speech. No one else fell victim to his words since that time ten years ago. He decided to never use his power again unless it would be absolutely necessary.

The power to kill others with words wasn’t something unique to Dokuson; he was just an extreme case, but every person had the potential to wound others deeply. He would bet that even BOKU had unwittingly said something that indirectly led to someone’s death.

Dokuson didn’t intend on running away from his faults, and specifically because he was so deeply aware of them, he could keep growing. People learned by making mistakes. Even Dokuson, this shining beacon of the human race, had accumulated many horrible deeds throughout his life. After all, those called the great men of history were often “wrongdoers” who logically strode away from the common path, often seen as heretics or eccentrics by their contemporaries. Those who only followed what others did would never become great. If someone had to dirty their hands for the sake of erasing evil, then wouldn’t that role be perfect for Dokuson, the one with the power of a hundred million people? He was enough; he wouldn’t want to create a second or third “Dokuson”—for the sake of the world and humanity, and (most importantly!) so that his name would stay special and unique.

(...Dokuson was doing his confusing philosophical rambling again, but BOKU kind of understood what he was trying to say. Dokuson felt like a rehabilitated prisoner who would see young criminals that reminded him of past himself and want to guide them to a better way of living. He detested the past himself who killed Ushiwaka’s boyfriend, and took care not to create “another himself” with his actions.)

Dokuson had many enemies, but the one who truly hated him the most was himself. No one could possibly hate themselves more than Dokuson, maybe except for people about to commit suicide. In order not to be devoured from the inside by this burning self-hatred, Dokuson had to always maintain his narcissism on the highest level—if he didn’t, his state of mind could lead to another tragedy like with Ushiwaka’s boyfriend. In this way, Dokuson became the world’s greatest narcissist to atone for the past.

Another part of his atonement was the kunoichi detective Sarutobi Shinobu. A long time ago, Sarutobi, Ushiwaka, and Dokuson had decided to fight the evils of this world in remembrance of Ushiwaka’s tragic boyfriend. Sarutobi Shinobu, real name Sado Nawa, was the dead man’s sister.

The four Sado siblings were Hifumi, Shigorou (the one who died), Nawa (Sarutobi), and Kutou (involved in the Three Monkeys Killer case). The D-name “Ushiwaka Gigolo” came partially from Shigorou’s name. How Sarutobi came to work for Dokuson was too complicated of a story to be told now.

Dokuson said that love never lasted in the same shape forever, and it was impossible to continue loving someone for eternity. The Dokuson who talked to BOKU at the moment and the Dokuson who was once loved by Ushiwaka were two different people. However, all the memories still remained within him, and he would want to take some time to remember the golden past.

After saying all that, Dokuson closed himself in an empty meeting room.

Twenty-four hours later BOKU opened the door to the meeting room and found Dokuson in a strange pose: sitting motionless at the table with his eyes closed, holding a red rose between his teeth like a tango dancer. It seemed to be the same rose he always wore in his chest pocket.

Dokuson didn’t look angry at the intrusion, but BOKU still had a feeling like he’d just walked in on something no one was supposed to see.

Dokuson put the rose back in its proper place and said that he’d been meditating in order to rest his mind and body, “just like you all sleep at night”.

(That was… a strange way to phrase it. But now that BOKU thought about it, in all his days and sometimes nights at JDC he’d never once seen Dokuson nap, despite his job being so exhausting. He also never saw him eat or go to the bathroom. Not even once. Did Dokuson intentionally ignore all his needs until he was alone late at night or what? At least now BOKU could understand a bit where Dokuson’s atmosphere of a superhuman came from; things like eating or sleeping were necessary for people to seem human, but were absent from the concept of “Yuiga Dokuson”. That nickname of Demon Lord sure fit.

A lot of people perceived Tsukumo Juku in a similar way. Someone had even joked once that the God of Detectives was removed from the concept of mundane actions like eating or sleeping. But no matter how supernatural of an atmosphere a person had, they couldn’t just completely get rid of all their bodily needs… though they could probably limit them to as low as humanly possible. Probably one of the reasons why they both seemed so otherworldly?)

But back to the topic, Dokuson explained his rose meditation. He had been plagued by debilitating insomnia as a child, and even now couldn’t sleep like others did. When tired, he would just perform his rose meditation, which would clear his head as well as sleeping. And no, it wasn’t just a convoluted way of napping, as Dokuson stayed conscious of his surroundings the entire time, even though it could take him some time to come out of the meditation and respond to stimuli. (...that still sounded like napping to BOKU.)

As for why a rose or another long slim object was needed, holding it in one’s mouth would force the facial muscles into the same position as during a smile. Even a forced smile caused the brain to release chemicals acting like antidepressants and helping boost the immune system. And so, Dokuson would switch into “relax mode” and for a short time sleep while staying awake. He just had to remember to often swap the rose for a new one to hide the teeth marks.

So he did just nap after all… That’d be it for this mystery. Though it was still weird that Dokuson allegedly only meditated four times a day, one hour of sleep in total. His day was technically much longer than BOKU’s. Dokuson had said once that things that would take BOKU half a day could be done in his fifteen minutes, so maybe it’s that relative difference in day length he meant? BOKU made some calculations out of curiosity. He was twenty-one and Dokuson was twenty-six, and his half a day of work was equal to Dokuson’s fifteen minutes… then going by proportions, BOKU’s entire life work could be achieved in Dokuson’s four months... and going in the opposite direction, BOKU would need like a few thousands of years to achieve the same as Dokuson did in his entire life… Huh. Maybe that’s why Dokuson claimed he had a mental age of three thousand years and tended to talk like an old man.

Dokuson said that even though he was so “old”, the “generation gap” between him and other people could be crossed with enough understanding. This attempt to understand another person was the most important thing everyone should strive for, otherwise society would collapse. Dokuson personally treated everyone around him like great teachers (as even after he had become the best in the world, all those teachers would show him what not to do). From the point of view of Dokuson—the oldest person on Earth—everyone was his junior; it didn’t mean he looked down on them, but that he didn’t feel inferior to them and was glad they still had space to grow (as the perfection that was himself couldn’t grow anymore). He felt like an old champion of life looking at young trainees.

Dokuson stated it’d be good if BOKU also became the best in the world, which would simply require him to believe he was the best. As Dokuson knew for sure he himself was actually the greatest, he wouldn’t care if BOKU had a similar conviction.

(...so what Dokuson was trying to say here... was that it was fine for BOKU to just be himself. This actually made him feel a lot better.)

Asked about how he grew up (to be like this), Dokuson said that it could be summed up the easiest by invoking the feeling of loneliness tied to insomnia. Ever since childhood, his life had been full of endless futile hours spent alone in darkness, comparable to prolonged psychological torture. If sleep made people forget all the bad things in life, maybe that’s why sleepless Dokuson was so quick to grow up; he couldn’t just relax and move on at the end of the day. Endless monotony of the night, lying alone with just his thoughts, all of it was maddening—people naturally yearned for variety.

Staying awake for a few days had an interesting influence on one’s mind, and after a certain point allowed for better concentration and drawing on the body’s hidden power, similarly to how during an accident people can see events in slow motion or use amazing strength. As Dokuson couldn’t sleep, this tension of a crisis never had a chance to dissipate. Even at that tender age he had to deal with hell on earth, trying to adapt to the loneliness of the night without going insane. And so, with his abilities constantly pushed to the limit, with survival instincts taking lead, Dokuson managed to survive hell—and that’s how he came to be like this.

(BOKU didn’t know whether or not this tale was true or not. All that mattered was that Dokuson seemed to believe his own words, and that they allowed BOKU to get a better understanding of what kind of a person he was.)

A week after the Crystal Nightmare, on February 15th, Firannu Meirunesia died in the Billion Killer case in Venice. Meiru’s usual partner Somedaring Amagoi wasn’t there at the time, as she had gone missing shortly after the much earlier Tower of Pisa incident.

Right before the Venice case, Meiru had called Dokuson from St Mark’s Clocktower. They said that they may have just figured out something about the Billion Killer trick, and that Amagoi had been kidnapped by someone. If Meiru would survive the day, it would mean their reasoning was off, and if they died soon, it would mean they were correct. Meiru didn’t want to tell Dokuson everything, but gave him three clues. First, Amagoi was dead. Second, it wasn’t impossible for them to solve the Billion Killer if they were ready to put their life in danger. Third, the Billion Killer incidents consisted of thirteen unprecedented tricks mixed together.

Those three clues together implied that Amagoi’s kidnapping (death?) had something to do with the Billion Killer. But how would Meiru know that Amagoi was dead? Who killed her and how? Dokuson thought it interesting that Meiru hadn’t said anything about Amagoi being killed, just that she was dead.

Asked about why he hadn’t stopped Meiru from putting themselves in danger, Dokuson said it would be a disservice to an S-detective like them. You never stop an S-detective gambling with their life, just like you don’t stop magicians or stuntmen from dangerous shows of skill.

But how could Meiru get to the truth faster than the greatest genius that was Dokuson? Well, Dokuson had already told BOKU once [way back in Carnival] that no one could solve a case without the necessary data, which no one had yet… except for the members of the villainous group.

Just like Meiru had played out a persona during investigations, they also played out the role of being an S-detective; in fact, maybe that double-role reasoning method originated from having to work on both sides of the conflict. They had to be involved either with RISE or another organization that allowed them to get secret data.

Lemuria Sullivan had already shown that even S-detectives had less than perfect sides to them. Amagoi’s real kidnapper was probably Meiru. But even then, an important part of Meiru’s personality was being a splendid S-detective, so maybe they felt compelled to solve even their own crimes by giving Dokuson hints. Perhaps they were more afraid of losing their detective reputation (and thus a part of their identity “dying”) than of actual death.

What did Meiru mean by “thirteen unprecedented tricks”? Way more than thirteen Billion Killer incidents had already occured (twenty-eight at the time of this conversation), so those thirteen tricks would have to repeat, but then they wouldn’t exactly be “unprecedented”. Perhaps the word meant something else? Dokuson suspected they wouldn’t be able to solve the Billion Killer just yet, and Meiru could have been just taunting them.

Dokuson always seemed to think highly of Tsukumo Juku. He said he was able to pin down Tsukumo Jaki’s identity (Yakuma Suzume) with help from Juku and Sarutobi, and that Juku would be needed to end the Crime Olympics. Unfortunately, Juku was murdered before they could achieve that goal.

BOKU learned a few interesting things talking with Dokuson and Inugami Yasha (who had been working as the vice-representative of JDC ever since the Crystal Nightmare).

Juku had theorized that the Billion Killer tricks were the thirteen Miraculous Illusions of his father Saimon Ryuusui. Jaki / Yakuma could know them, as he was probably Endou Masato, whose father Naomasa (already dead) had once been Ryuusui’s thirteenth disciple. Naomasa coincidentally (?) was also a university teacher of Tousen Yomiko, a private detective that had been lifelong trusted friends with Juku. Yomiko was permitted to use the Endou family’s mountain house called Gensoukan, and it was on her recommendation that Juku and Yasha came to live there. Yomiko disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle shortly after telling Juku about Gensoukan.

Naomasa’s sons Naoto and Masato had both disappeared a few years earlier. It was more than possible that Masato disguised himself as Yakuma, manipulated his mother into giving Yomiko the keys to Gensoukan, and made Yomiko disappear to cover his tracks. It was unknown what relation Masato / Yakuma / Jaki had with Tamei Madoka, the writer who had assassinated Juku and died from Alive.

As for how Masato would be able to make himself look exactly like Yakuma, both brothers had once been known as genius surgeons.

The thirteen Miraculous Illusions had apparently been invented by Saimon Ryuusui, but were still unfinished by the time he showed them to young Juku. Dokuson had no doubt that Endou Masato had learned about the Illusions from Naomasa, stole their secrets, and eventually perfected them into the Billion Killer tricks. (It couldn’t have been Naomasa who stole and perfected them first, because then they wouldn’t be “unprecedented” like Meiru said; the word implied only one person had used the perfected illusions so far.)

It’s likely that Juku had been killed due to him being the only person who had seen the Miraculous Illusions in person. Many people close to him had also died or disappeared.

Whenever BOKU listened to Yasha and Dokuson discussing things, he always got a strange feeling that they were treating Juku’s death lighter than they should. Like they were too quick to stop mourning. It’s true that in the era of the Crime Olympics death became more commonplace, but still... it almost felt like Juku’s death had never happened at all.

BOKU had been there in the morgue when the white sheet was pulled back and he, Dokuson and Yasha were shown Juku’s dead face. It was quite striking how his face, although still extremely handsome, had become just beautiful in a normal, comprehensible, flawed way after his death. BOKU instantly thought that the body could have been switched, but both Dokuson and Yasha stated without hesitation that this was not the case and the body definitely belonged to Tsukumo Juku.

Even so, BOKU still had a strange feeling (was just deluding himself?) that perhaps Juku was still alive somewhere.

They had no idea how Gensoukan had disappeared. Endou Naomasa’s wife insisted that while the family let Yomiko access their grounds, there never had been any Gensoukan built there. Just like BOKU felt that Juku’s death had never happened, Yasha was starting to feel strangely like his memories about his time at Gensoukan, and even Kanaihidetaka and Sayo had all been just illusions.

Dokuson thought that Gensoukan had been removed somehow after the assassination, maybe by lifting and moving the entire blocky construction. If Tsukumo Jaki had been able to pull off the blooming sakura trick, he should have no problems organizing Gensoukan’s “disappearance”.

One day, Dokuson told BOKU and Yasha that he would no longer be JDC’s leader. Not because he was trying to escape responsibilities. On the contrary, this action would allow him to save humanity. He had had another plan once, but that one was rendered impossible by Juku’s death, so there was only one thing Dokuson could do now—become the Billion Killer. That is, become the one everyone thought was the Billion Killer, a comprehensible bad guy figure needed to allay some of humanity’s confusion.

That had been the plan even earlier—Dokuson would pretend to have been the Billion Killer, and Juku would pretend to expose his crimes to the world. Juku hated the idea of tarnishing Dokuson’s name, but in the end agreed to the plan seeing the other’s burning determination.

Now that Juku was gone, Yasha would have to take over the Heroic Detective role in the plan. Yasha wasn’t as known and beloved as Juku, but popular enough that people would believe him and the (carefully faked) proof he presented; he would become the hero who forced the Billion Killer to run away in fear and no longer manipulate JDC (which was except for “the Billion Killer” wholly innocent, of course). They didn’t have to worry about Dokuson—the world’s greatest genius would be able to hide even if everyone on Earth was looking for him.

And so, Dokuson left a recorded confession and fled on June 6th. Sarutobi Shinobu disappeared the same day. Manji Tawawa also left JDC, claiming she would pursue Dokuson on her own.

Yasha became the leader of JDC and presented their fake scenario as real to the world, claiming that he had infiltrated JDC as an undercover private detective to investigate and expose Dokuson. Just like planned, people seemed to completely believe him.

BOKU honestly wondered if Dokuson’s actual goal in all this wasn’t to get everyone on Earth to remember his name, with saving humanity as just a bonus perk.

When the Billion Killer cases stopped following Dokuson’s escape, BOKU and Yasha realized that maybe Dokuson actually was the real Billion Killer, and had only revealed his identity because he had wanted to stop the cases anyway.

Then again, no more cases didn’t have to mean the real Billion Killer was finished; it could only look like the cases stopped. The only undeniable proof that something was a Billion Killer’s incident was a skull left on the scene by the men in black. If Dokuson managed to hide the skulls or stop the men in black, then even though the cases still happened, the Billion Killer disappeared in the eyes of the public.

Well, whether or not Dokuson was the actual Billion Killer (and he always vehemently denied being a part of RISE), he certainly had suspicious knowledge of the scheduled cases.

Dokuson also hadn’t looked surprised at all when Kakuusan Kanke told them about what had happened in the Earth House—she ran into Nemu, Hyouma, and someone who looked like Unomaru. From what Nemu and Hyouma told her, Otohime was also held in RISE’s underwater fortress called the Sanctuary, and there would be seven “guests” in total (the three plus Yaiba, Christmas, Diana Hosey, and the Hantos that counted as one). Kanke also learned that apparently the higher-ups of RISE were six out of the seven S-detectives.

No Billion Killer case (or at least a confirmed case) occurred for a month after Dokuson had disappeared, but many horrible events still happened.

In the chaos before the Carnival Wave would come, three men in black showed up and led BOKU and Yasha to a nearby hotel, where to their absolute surprise they met Ajiro Souji. A lot of confusing explanations followed. Ajiro said the tsunami wouldn’t touch Kyoto, so they didn’t have to worry about survival.

RISE had changed their plans a little and now wanted to add Yasha, BOKU, Kanke, the writer detective Nakamoto Hiroya, and the editor detective Outa Katsushi to their final guest list. Yasha and BOKU should go with the men in black now, while Ajiro would return to JDC.

Yasha wondered whether Ajiro would be able to take care of JDC without them, but Ajiro assured them that wouldn’t be a problem—because as much as it pained him, he was going to suspend JDC’s functioning completely until August 10th. JDC as an organization couldn’t stop the Cosmic Bomb, so maybe at least the people could spend their last month in peace, without having to worry about work. If humanity would survive after all, suspending JDC now would allow for less people to die needlessly, so that everyone would be ready for re-mobilization after August 10th.

And so Ajiro stayed behind, while Yasha and BOKU were taken to the Sanctuary and learned many strange things...

[>>>NEXT PART>>>]

#sparkly reads carnival day #maijo and jdc stuff #dokuson is a disaster and i love him

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hookedontaronfics · 5 years

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Honky Dancer series - Chapter 1

NEW SERIES ALERT

Chapter title: Auditions Rating: M Pairing: Taron x OC Warnings: None at this time A/N: I was inspired to write a series based on the perspective of a Rocketman dancer. I hope you enjoy following a London-based dancer from her first audition run-in with Taron to maybe so much more - but don’t forget a healthy dose of drama along the way! More mature themes will develop, so be warned! Enjoy! x

“And first position … second … third … and fourth … now fifth. Good, and again.” I swept my arms gracefully through the positions my muscles knew by memory and my mind knew by heart. I’d learned the basic positions when I was no older than the girls I now taught, in their adorable pink tutus and bright shiny faces. “Keep going, that’s right,” I encouraged, walking between the barres and making adjustments while the 5-year-olds moved through each ballet position to the music I had queued.

I kept a watchful eye on these aspiring young dancers, hoping to instill in them the love of dance I had grown up with my entire life. Even when I offered corrections, I tried to do so in an encouraging manner. I’d had my share of critical teachers and even a few who thought I wouldn’t get that far. But I’d never let it bring me down and only used the negativity to push harder for what I wanted. Until, that is, a nearly career-ending injury four years ago that had kept me off the stage and behind studio doors instead. I’d made the transition to teaching on the advice of a dance counselor, and I knew I would never look back.

I ended class with some easy stretching and accepted the cute hugs and calls of “Thank you, Miss Juliette!” as my class filed out to their waiting mothers [and two fathers, bless their hearts.] Once the last girl had left I quickly packed my bag as Madison pushed her way in through the door.

“Oh my god, are you excited?” she asked me as I traded out my slippers for sneaks and pulled on a pair of comfy sweatpants and a hoodie over my leotard.

“I’m so nervous I could puke, but I won’t get an opportunity like this again. And I feel like I’m finally ready,” I grinned, making sure I had everything I needed in my bag for the audition I was already running late for. “Thank you for subbing my next class, I appreciate it, Mads,” I grinned, giving her a hug.

“It’s no sweat, now go!” she laughed, fairly pushing me out the door. “And break a leg!” she giggled as I groaned inwardly.

I rushed out of the dance school and hurried along Balderton Street to Oxford, heading toward the Bond Street tube station and taking the train across town to the Paramount studios on Chiswick. I snacked on a protein bar to keep my energy up while we rumbled over the tracks, doing a few stretches to keep my muscles loose as I wouldn’t have much time to warm up again when I got there. If anyone was staring at me, I ignored it, but I’m sure the tube riders had seen far worse than a few grand plies.

Once I arrived at the studio I hurried through the check-in process as quickly as possible. I was issued my number and told which group and studio to join before I rushed off to the bathroom to change. I’d chosen a sparkly magenta pink leotard I’d used for a performance piece years ago for this audition - I was trying out for the dance ensemble cast for Rocketman, the Elton John biopic, so even if it was a bit over-the-top I felt it was appropriate.

I pulled on tights and a black ruffled short skirt over that and strapped on my character shoes. I let my strawberry blonde hair down out of its tightly woven bun and dashed on a bit of thick eyeliner before affixing my number with safety pins. I put on bright pink lipstick and grinned at myself in the mirror. I certainly looked the part, I thought, stashing everything else in my bag and going to find my group.

I dropped my dance bag against the wall with everyone else’s stuff and found an open spot on the floor, sitting in a deep split and doing a few stretches while everyone else either chatted excitedly or went through their own personal warmups. The buzz in the room instantly cut out as a trim stately man strode in; I instantly recognized him as the choreographer we’d be working with. Waves of excitement and nerves washed through me in equal measure as we all stood and lined up without being instructed to. Several other people came in and took seats along the wall; I presumed they were likely producers and crew of some variety.

I tried to secure myself a spot in the middle front; even if I wasn’t feeling the most confident, I could certainly fake my way into it. This was my first professional audition since I’d made company - and later principal - for London Ballet Company. All of my dance dreams had shattered after the injury that meant I couldn’t do pointe work any more, but I’d thrown myself into classes in other styles as a sort of rehab process and in an effort to diversify my skill set, and found I loved jazz and Broadway the most.

So here I was, giving my all through the brief warmup, across-the-floor exercises, and combinations, hoping to catch the choreographers’ eye. I knew I was one dancer in a field of hundreds, some coming from other countries just for this chance. But I also knew how badly I wanted a spot in the ensemble, to be a part of such a spectacle.

My favorite combination involved a bit of a complicated leap into a fan kick; I could see other dancers struggling to get elevated but I felt so completely in my own element, soaring across the floor and losing myself to the music, which unfortunately wasn’t actually from Elton’s catalogue. We were split into smaller groups to perform the series of steps for the choreographer; at the end of it, I added my own little flourish, dropping into a very Fosse-style pose with curved shoulders and tilted hips. The choreographer brushed past me as he circled our group, muttering “very good” so only I could hear. I couldn’t help but smile, but kept my eyes low.

We were given a twenty-minute break after everyone had a chance to perform, and the choreographers from each room of dancers would be making first cuts before we would all be shuffled together and given a full routine to learn and perform on an actual stage. I dearly hoped I’d be making it through the cut, but sometimes not getting a part had nothing to do with how good a dancer you were. Directors sometimes wanted a specific “look,” and I had no idea if this would hold true for Rocketman or not.

The hallways were far too noisy for me so I stepped nimbly over dancers sprawled on the floor as I traveled away from the studio rooms, trying to find somewhere quiet to listen to my music and try to find a bit of peace. I filled my water bottle at a drinking fountain before turning a corner and leaving all the other dancers behind. I probably should have just plopped myself here, but curiosity got the better of me, so I followed down this hallway too, my character shoe footsteps echoing in the quiet even as I tried to walk softly. I plugged my headphones in and was just about to hit play on my Spotify playlist when I heard a couple of voices coming from a cracked doorway. The room had a bank of sweeping windows and I couldn’t help peering in; some day I would learn to tame my incessant curiosity, but today was not that day.

Three men stood inside, involved in what looked like a serious discussion. I couldn’t really make out much of what they were saying, their voices just low murmurs, but I thought I might have recognized one of them. Just then they all turned to head toward the door, and I ducked away from the window, hoping I hadn’t been seen. As I slowly tried to sneak away, the door swung open rather suddenly and flew straight into me, sending me sprawling onto my hands and knees, my phone skidding across the floor.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” the handsome young man I recognized said, instantly offering his hand to help me up and looking embarrassed. I took it, noticing how soft his skin was but how strong he felt as he helped bring me back to my feet.

“It’s alright,” I said with a laugh, brushing off my knees and hands and retrieving my phone from the floor. “Nothing hurt but my pride,” I said as he looked me up and down, taking in my obvious dance garb.

“Here for the auditions, then?” he smiled warmly at me, as the other two men carried on their conversation.

“Um, yes, though I’m hoping I’ve danced with more grace than I just displayed,” I grinned good-naturedly. “Though I should get back to that now.”

“Well I wish you best of luck, Number Two-Nine-Four,” he read off my assigned number with a smirk.

“It’s Juliette,” I supplied with a laugh.

“Juliette then, you may call me Taron,” he replied, smiling so widely his dimples showed through.

“Holy shit, you’re Elton!” I gasped, covering my mouth with my hands and making the other two men halt their conversation mid-sentence as they gawked at me.

“That’s up for debate but yes, I’ll be attempting to play him,” Taron grinned at my shock. I knew now how I’d recognized him, from the Kingsman films. But standing here in front of him was an entirely different thing. He was totally unassuming, just dressed in jeans, a black sweatshirt and a ball cap with “twenty-two” scrawled across it.

“I’m sure you’ll be wonderful at it,” I laughed lightly, trying to not feel shy in front of him, but for his part he did everything to try and make me feel at ease.

“I suppose if I was shit Elton wouldn’t have chosen me,” Taron just chuckled.

“No, I don’t think so. Well, it’s very nice to bump into you but I really must get back,” I said softly.

“Wouldn’t want you to be late, love,” he said with a wink. “We’re heading to the stage now,” he added, making my insides feel rather funny all of a sudden. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”

“Maybe,” I agreed a bit faintly, hurrying back down the hall the way I’d come, my heart pounding and unaware that Taron’s gaze lingered on my willowy frame. The hallways were already deserted and I worried I was late, but I slipped back into the studio room just in time, as we were all called to line up again.

The choreographer was holding a notepad and after thanking everyone for coming out and giving our hardest work, told us only five numbers from our room were advancing to the stage routine. I closed my eyes at that; five out of a room of 35. There’s no way I’m getting through this cut, I thought. I was confident in my abilities but there was so much talent it was practically dripping from the walls.

“If your number is called, please come join me up here,” our choreographer said, and rattled off the first number, 162. A spry male dancer who had all the marks of “ballet” written in his physique left our ranks and joined the choreographer at the front, fairly beaming to be one of the chosen. Next up was 052, a fiery redhead with a pretty face; 291 [so close], a black muscular male with a sweet expression; and 112, a tow-headed boy who looked barely out of secondary school.

I closed my eyes and held my breath as the last number was read, even if I had no chance. “294!” the choreographer called, and no one moved a muscle. Someone next to me tapped me on the shoulder, my eyes still screwed shut tightly.

“Hey, I think that’s you!” a girl whispered as the choreographer called my number again.

“Oh,” I laughed in disbelief, walking to the front in stunned silence as the choreographer clapped for us and everyone else joined in. After more thanking of all the auditioners, the people who hadn’t made it were dismissed, and after much chatter and shuffling of bags, it was just us five left. We’d all been told on the audition notice to bring black pants and a white button-down shirt we could dance in and tap shoes, though the particular style they had left up to us, and we were now instructed to change into those clothes and join all the other dancers in another studio room in ten minutes. I decided to leave my leotard on under my shirt, only doing up three buttons so it could still flash through. I switched my character shoes out for actual taps and then dashed off a squealing text to Madison that I had made it through the first round of cuts.

<Oh my god, that’s so exciting! So what happens next?> she texted back immediately.

<But you’ve been taking hours and hours of classes! I’m sure you’ll do great> she sent back with about ten winky-face emojis. I had to laugh at that.

<Gotta go, I’ll let you know if I make it through to solos.> I stashed my phone in my bag again and made it to the large studio room in time, lost in a sea of other black-and-white clad dancers, all of us trying to individualize in some way, with bright lipsticks or colored socks or patterned scarves tied round our heads. We were all handed cheaply made top hats and shown where to stand. The dancers from each room seemed to band together, so I was in line with the other four from my room, trying to give them encouraging smiles.

“We’ve got this,” I said under my breath to the tow-headed boy next to me, who looked incredibly nervous though he was probably one of the best talents in the room, even so young. He nodded at me and smiled kindly in appreciation, so I gave him a goofy thumbs up before the choreographers addressed our room.

There were about 60 of us, and I strained to hear what was being said over the coughs and rustles as dancers adjusted their clothes. Still, I got the gist of it and then we were hard at work, learning pieces of the routine, repeating each small snippet over and over and then quickly breezing through the next. It felt like a blur, but I did what I knew to do best in these situations; I linked each piece of choreo to an image in my brain to keep the sequence in order, building on it as we moved through the 2 minutes of routine the way a child might play a game of memory.

We were all sweaty and out of breath when our thirty minutes were up, and soon we were herded to the stage to perform the piece all on our own, as the choreographers and producers and maybe even the director for all I knew sat in the audience. Oh, and Taron, I reminded myself, trying not to let that make me suddenly nervous. The last thing I needed to do was forget the choreography. We stood on the stage under lights, staring out into the darkened auditorium. If I squinted hard enough I could make out the shapes of people in the seats but had no idea who they were. I wondered if Taron was out there looking for me, and the thought of it made me smile.

The strains of music began and soon we were lost in the whirlwind of the dance, performing the piece like we’d been rehearsing for months. It was nice to feel like I could rely on the dancers around me as much as they could rely on me. Sure, we were all competing against each other for those coveted spots, but we were also performers at heart. And so, for those two minutes, we leaped and we spun and we tapped and we shone.

When the music was over we all stood around on the stage together, whispering and waiting as the shadows in the audience deliberated our fates. I didn’t think I had missed a step, and I looked forward to giving my solo, a piece I had worked hard on and that had made Mads cry when I performed it for her. Still, twenty people wouldn’t be making it through this round and that made me even more anxious than I already was.

After about ten minutes someone called for order, and we quieted down immediately. Numbers were called quickly, dancers cheered or groaned, and I was thankfully called up somewhere in the middle of the pack this time. My relief was probably evident. We were given about twenty minutes to prepare whatever we needed to; I chose that time to eat another protein bar and chill out to some music. I had a simple costume for this piece, wanting my dancing to be center stage. I kept the black pants but exchanged the leotard and shirt for a black dance bra and black vest. I slicked back my hair into a sleek ponytail and pulled a hat low over my eyes. I wiped off the pink lipstick and left my lips neutral, but painted my eyelids black. It was a dramatic effect and exactly what I was going for.

We had to pick numbers and of course I chose the last slot, so I had a lot of time to wait around. We all were told we could sit in the auditorium seats if we wished to watch each other at this point, and I sat with my new-found “friends” from my original group, all of who had made it through the tap round. There was Pietre, the soft-spoken young boy; Dennis, the athletic black dancer; Leah the precocious redhead; and Markus, the handsome ex-principal. Markus was quite funny, and I enjoyed sitting next to him as we watched other dancers perform.

Slowly, our ranks got smaller and smaller as each dancer went onstage to perform and was subsequently dismissed. We wouldn’t be told if we had gotten the job until the next day, so this was our last real shot to make an impression. I wished Pietre, Dennis, Leah and Markus all good luck, and their solos were all amazing. It was going to be a tall order for the choreographers to make their decisions, whittling us down to just 30 core dancers.

And then it was my turn. There was no one else left to watch except the people judging me. But as I made my way up the stage stairs, I noticed someone standing in the wings, and realized it was Taron, waving at me and giving me a thumbs up. Had he really stuck around this long to watch me? I was a little dumbstruck at that and ended up stumbling over my own name when I was asked to introduce myself, even though they had my audition sheet in front of them. Get a grip, I chastised myself, stealing another glance at the wings. Despite the low light I could see Taron’s eyes glittering at me and I could feel his eyes following me as I took my place on the stage. I took a few slow breaths to still my mind, needing to go to that place where I was beyond my thoughts, where it was nothing but light and color and music.

I’d chosen Annie Lennox’s “Cold,” a song that was dreamy and ethereal and yet somehow heavy. Lines like “Dying is easy/It's living that scares me to death” and “But the more I want you the less I get/Ain't that just the way things are” hit me in the chest and had stayed with me ever since I heard the song, but when “Catch me and let me dive under/For I want to swim in the pools of your eyes” the image of Taron flashed through my mind, and the words gained a new meaning as I couldn’t let go of the way he looked at me.

When the song ended and I had struck my final pose, the auditorium was dead silent; I could have heard a pin drop aside from my own heart beating. I stood back up and took a small bow, turning to leave because I didn’t think anyone was going to say anything before suddenly someone in the auditorium was clapping, the sound hollow in that giant space. I glanced over at the wing, but Taron wasn’t standing there anymore and for some reason that made me feel empty.

“Thank you for your time, that was lovely. We’ll phone you tomorrow,” one of the faceless shapes from the auditorium told me. I gave them my most winning smile and then was dismissed. I was sweaty, sore and exhausted by the time I gathered my bag up, changing once again into sweats and ready to just head home and tuck into a bowl of homemade Thai peanut chicken curry. I’d done my best and the rest was up to someone else. I had my hand on the exit door when someone called my name. I turned to see Taron jogging toward me, a bit out of breath.

“You were brilliant. They all said it in there, you should have heard them after you left,” he grinned. “You left us all absolutely speechless.”

“I, uhm, thank you,” I replied awkwardly, trying to wrap my mind around what he was telling me.

“You’re absolutely a shoe-in, no question, but you didn’t hear it from me,” he said, winking at me for the second time that day. I let out a nervous laugh at that. “I look forward to working with you, Juliette,” he added, and I couldn’t help my legs feeling a little weak at the way he said my name. I was glad I was still holding onto the door handle to steady myself. On second thought, this might be a major problem, I thought, but he was an actor and I was just a dancer and I didn’t think we’d be spending that much time on set together. Besides that, Taron was on a whole other level from me, so I figured he was only being kind.

“Me too,” I finally managed to reply. He bid me have a good night and then disappeared off down the hall, to do what I didn’t know but he seemed intensely focused on every aspect of this project. He had certainly left an impression on me though, and I could feel my cheeks were flushed.

I finally made my way to the tube station, taking it across the city to my flat and letting myself in gratefully, instantly greeted by my fluffy 2-year-old golden retriever Troy. “Hey boy, mommy’s home,” I grinned, ruffling his fur happily. Madison had stopped in earlier to check on him and let him out, and I was forever grateful to her. Mads had been my biggest cheerleader and supporter since I started working at DanceWorks, and I had never met a sweeter, kinder soul.

<Finally home. We’ll know results tomorrow. Everything seemed to go really well for me> I texted her as I tossed my sweaty dance clothes in the wash.

<Think you’ve got the job?> she asked back.

<Not sure, these things are never certain even if you feel good about it but I did my best and something tells me I impressed the choreographers> I wrote back. Or rather someone, I thought, a small smile drawing across my face.

I set about making dinner, feeling half-starved now, and did my best to relax in front of the television, catching up with my favorite shows. I took Troy on a quick walk around the neighborhood in the late evening before finally taking a long soak in the freestanding bathing tub I’d invested good money in. There was nothing better after a long day of dance then letting my muscles unwind with lavender Epsom salts.

Tired and fully worn out, I stretched out in my bed, ready to catch some shut-eye but of course every time I closed my eyes I could see Taron’s handsome face floating in the dark. I wasn’t about to delude myself into thinking I had half a chance with Taron. From all accounts he was just an absolutely caring and sympathetic man and his co-workers always spoke so highly of working with him. But I could definitely say there was now more than one reason why I wanted the chance to dance on Rocketman.

Keep reading: Chapter 2 HERE

#taron imagine #taron egerton #taron x reader #rocketman fanfic #taron egerton fanfiction

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mediaeval-muse · 4 years

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Book Review

Spin the Dawn. By Elizabeth Lim. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Genre: YA fantasy

Part of a Series? Yes, #1 of the Blood of Stars duology

Summary: Maia Tamarin dreams of becoming the greatest tailor in the land, but as a girl, the best she can hope for is to marry well. When a royal messenger summons her ailing father, once a tailor of renown, to court, Maia poses as a boy and takes his place. She knows her life is forfeit if her secret is discovered, but she'll take that risk to achieve her dream and save her family from ruin. There's just one catch: Maia is one of twelve tailors vying for the job. Backstabbing and lies run rampant as the tailors compete in challenges to prove their artistry and skill. Maia's task is further complicated when she draws the attention of the court magician, Edan, whose piercing eyes seem to see straight through her disguise. And nothing could have prepared her for the final challenge: to sew three magic gowns for the emperor's reluctant bride-to-be, from the laughter of the sun, the tears of the moon, and the blood of stars. With this impossible task before her, she embarks on a journey to the far reaches of the kingdom, seeking the sun, the moon, and the stars, and finding more than she ever could have imagined.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: blood; violence; torture; mentions of slavery, misogyny, sexual content

Overview: I can’t remember how this book fell under my radar, but I decided to pick it up because the emphasis on sewing was appealing. I’m a bit tired of fantasy books which focus entirely on fighting and devalue “soft skills,” so it was a refreshing change to read something that centered the labor that goes into garment-making and imbued it with a kind of magic. While the plot was very strong, in my opinion, the main thing that prevented me from giving this book a higher rating was the writing: so much happens in this book that some things felt rushed, and I would have liked to see more poetic prose when it came to describing the garments of the magical elements in Lim’s world. But other than that, Spin the Dawn was an enjoyable read, and I’m very much looking forward to the sequel.

Writing: As I mentioned above, Lim’s writing has a tendency to move too quickly. At times, this quick pace was great - Lim doesn’t stretch out scenes that don’t need it, reminding me a bit of Tamora Pierce’s books. But at times, it was somewhat detrimental. A lot happens in this book, so Lim had the challenge of getting everything in without extending the length too much (my copy is 387 pages). As a result, there’s not really a lot of time for suspense. Major events are over in a few pages, and emotional scenes are whipped through quickly in order to get to the next plot point.

The quick pace also means that not a lot of time is given for description. Sometimes, the lack of description was fine - fantasy has a tendency to overdo it, so it’s nice when an author is discerning with what gets described and what can be glossed over. In this case, though, I was hoping for a little more, especially when it came to describing the garments that the main character makes. With noticing and making clothing such an integral part of Maia’s identity, I was hoping for more vivid imagery when she notices or creates a garment - something a little more than a dress being light blue or a sleeve having pearls and embroidery. She does a little of that when she makes a magical dress, but in my opinion, it should have happened every time. I wanted the clothing to come to life before my eyes, especially since most of the garments are made using magical assistance.

Along similar lines, I think Lim could have done more to bring the language of sewing into the way Maia sees the world. The prologue and opening chapter in which Maia describes her family is very good with this - she describes her story as a series of “knots,” talks about how one of her brothers gave her a poetic vocabulary to describe colors, and even refers to clouds having “seams” at one point. I wish Lim had carried over these stylistic choices to the rest of her novel; her prose for the rest of the book seemed sparse in comparison.

A couple of nitpicky things: one, Lim has the tendency to explain to the reader what can be inferred. The story is narrated in Maia’s first person POV, and there are many times when Maia would bluntly state something that was pretty obvious from the context, or when showing would have worked better than telling. Lim also has a tendency to use exclamation marks in Maia’s inner monologue, which I personally don’t care for. But these things happened infrequently, compared to other novels I’ve read. They were noticeable, though.

Plot: This book follows our protagonist, Maia, as she enters a contest to become the next imperial tailor and as she is tasked with fashioning three gowns using the laughter of the sun, the tears of the moon, and the blood of stars. The narrative elements themselves were engaging; I think Lim did a good job of crafting a story while keeping sewing and tailoring at the heart of the adventure. At first, I was worried that sewing would take a backseat to politics, but Lim skillfully ensured that the sewing was always at the center, and that it was intertwined with the politics in ways that meant it couldn’t be discarded.

I do wish more time was given to creating suspense within this narrative. As stated above, this book moves quickly - so quickly that there isn’t really a lot of time to be worried about whether a character might succeed. While the story itself was fun, and I am in no way advocating for it to be made darker or more violent, I do think the book could have benefited from a slower pace where it was warranted, such as in each trial to obtain the materials for the dresses.

I also wasn’t very convinced by the “big bad” who shops up towards the end. Without giving anything away, I will say that their motivations were somewhat flat - it seemed like they just wanted to be bad because they were bored or something.

Characters: Maia, our protagonist, is fairly likable as a girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to prove something to a patriarchal society. I really liked Maia’s internal struggle over whether or not magic enhanced or undermined her skill as a tailor, and I also liked that she was direct and blunt when needed. I do think, however, that she is a bit too reliant on others to the point where she is somewhat passive. She only really initiates her own actions at the very beginning and very end of the book. Everything in between is determined by others - Edan, for example, tells her where to go to get the materials for her dresses, as well as what to do to pass the trials. He also manages their travel, their rations, everything, so that Maia seems to be just along for the ride. Aside from deciding to disguise herself in the first place and deciding how to handle her fate at the end, Maia shows little initiative. Placing more emphasis on her active decisions could have helped, even in situations when she was being acted upon or responding to something.

Edan, the Lord Enchanter and Maia’s love interest, is charismatic and teases Maia without being cruel. I liked that he was presented as someone who actually cares for Maia - he notices what foods she likes and what her favorite color is, and though he teases her, he’s never a gruff, jealous, violent asshole in the way that so many YA love interests are. I also thought the limits to his magic were interesting and helped temper his abilities so that he wasn’t over-powered as well, though I disliked how he was also used to conveniently explain lore and worldbuilding when Lim could have done that in other ways.

Many of the side characters were also nuanced so that they felt like complex characters with clear motivations. Lady Sarai, the emperor’s reluctant fiancee, is constantly making the tailors do ridiculous or impossible tasks, but it’s revealed that she does so to prolong her engagement and, possibly, defer the wedding. Thus, she appears simply cruel at first, but her homesickness and frustration as being a pawn in a larger political game makes her sympathetic. Likewise, the emperor is given some nuance in that he’s seemingly kind and fair to whoever he meets, but is reliant on Edan’s power to a concerning degree. I liked that his reliance on Edan and magic was understandable (he’s trying to prevent war, after all), but the personal costs of that reliance were questionable, making for an interesting moral dilemma.

But again, I disliked the “big bad.” I didn’t think they were woven very well into Lim’s world, and they appear so suddenly that they felt convenient for plot to happen, rather than a real threat.

Other: While the worldbuilding of this book was interesting, I think Lim could have done a lot more to make it seem more real and intwined with the lives of A’landians. Much of the information about magic, religion, history, etc. is dumped on the reader by Edan simply explaining things to Maia, making the worldbuilding feel like it existed only to make plot happen (rather than make a rich setting in which plot happens, if that makes sense). Out of all the things, I think the Seven Years’ War was the best incorporated because there was a personal element to it - Lim spends the opening chapters detailing how two of Maia’s brothers are killed and how a third is crippled, all while narrating how Maia and her father have to get by on their own. The complex feelings about the emperor and the shansen (the antagonist and whose daughter is the bride-to-be) were thus well-placed and felt real. The magic, however, seemed to appear only once Maia left her home. Maia has magic scissors that belonged to her grandmother, but she never knew about until the contest, and so little time is spent to thinking about who her family is and why the scissors only work for her that the magic didn’t feel personal at all (until the very end, conveniently). But aside from Maia’s personal story, I would have liked magic to be a little more integral to the world of A’landi, even if it was only reserved for the upper class. The same goes for the religion - apparently, religious figures and stories are at the center of Maia’s impossible dress-making task, but Maia is something of an atheist. While I did like the personal angle that explained why she doesn’t worship any gods, I do think religion could have been more integrated into the story to make it feel present (for example, maybe during the contest, people are given breaks to worship at the temple, and it’s understood to be mandatory - just an idea). Same thing with the inclusion of ghosts and demons - they only showed up when convenient.

A few words about the romance: I did like that Edan was attentive and not a raging jerk, as well as the reason for why they couldn’t be together. It made for an interesting predicament, and I’m interested to see where things go in book two. That being said, because this book moves so quickly, not enough time was devoted to developing the emotional connection between Edan and Maia. I would have liked to see more examples of how they enrich each other’s emotional lives, not just how Edan finds Maia interesting for dressing as a boy and refusing his assistance, or how Maia benefits from Edan’s magic. The teasing was fun and helped make for a cute dynamic, but I wanted a bit more. For example, how does Edan bring out the best in Maia, and vice versa?

Continuing with the Series? Yes.

Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re interested in fashion, dress-making, magical garments, sewing contests, and court politics.

#book reviews

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honeymoonjin · 5 years

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런닝맨 방탄 Running Man Bangtan - Part Two

A/N This final half is just shy of 7k words, so a bit smaller than the last one, but believe me when I say a lot happens. Read part one here.

Warnings: cursing, explicit sexual content (exhibitionism, unprotected sex, handjob)

Summary: You only have one challenge left to complete the second year anniversary episode, but will you succeed and find the spy in time? After filming, the Running Man Bangtan gang return home to celebrate, but Y/n and another member decide to continue the festivities a little longer.

Your final challenge awaited you, and with the amount of time left on the clock, you knew it would be a big one. The rest of your team were in varying states of exhaustion, but it was getting late, and if you stopped for a break now, you'd have to wait a whole day so that the light visible from the windows still looked the same to viewers. Director Lee had decided to just keep rolling.

The brief respite you did get was to change out of your hoodies and jeans and get into some workout gear. That made you all a little nervous for what the challenge could be.

After getting changed, the eight of you were led back into the studio proper, where the production team were spread out across the mirrored wall. A production assistant shuffled the eight of you into place and cameras rolled once more.

Letting out a yawn, you leant your head against the solid body beside you. Namjoon grunted a little but didn't make a move to push you away.

"You will complete your final mission in the Running Man Bangtan Studio. Currently, you have 2 hours and 38 minutes on the clock to complete this mission. However, if you fail this, there is no second chance, and you only get one shot to successfully complete it."

You scrunch up your face in concern. Over two and a half hours was a really long time, too long, so clearly it was going to be something crazy elaborate, or at least time-consuming.

"Your mission is to learn and perform a three minute choreography in pairs."

You blink. All of the members simultaneously relax a little.

"However," Lee cautions, "each dance duo only gets one shot to perform their choreography without any mistakes. If any of the eight of you make a mistake, the whole team loses the mission, and in turn, fails the entire game. You can practice as much as you want within your remaining time," Lee finishes, looking particularly smug as he reads off his iPad.

There it was. The classic RMB twist that kept the show so popular. Either a challenge so complex for so little reward, or a challenge that's extremely simple, but with sky high stakes. You stand up straight again, suddenly more awake than ever. This was the perfect challenge for you.

Director Lee made you draw lots for the dance pairs: Namjoon was with Taehyung, Yoongi was with Hoseok. After opening yours, you cross your fingers in the hope that you'll be with Jimin, or at least the golden maknae.

Of course, putting the good dancers together wouldn't make very interesting television, and the variety show gods certainly want an entertaining show. Jimin and Jeongguk are put together, and Jin turns to you with a cheeky smile.

After the lots were drawn, two dance instructors are led in to begin teaching you. The dance is pretty simple, but there are a lot of moves to remember in three minutes, and even the more qualified out of you begin to feel that this is a losing battle.

"Okay, Jin-oppa, we can do this! It's not that bad," you start, but cut yourself off as Jin goes off the book and starts slut-dropping to the music, holding uncomfortable eye-contact with you the whole time. You look away, sighing. "Every morning I knock on heaven's door but God won't answer. He lives in fear of the mess he created."

"Ah, come on, it'll be fun," he insists, still in a squat on the floor. "We can add a little flair to it, make it sexy."

From across the room, you can hear Jimin's classic whine. "Nobody wants to see that, hyung! And the whole point is to stick to the moves they taught us! At least you don't have to grind on this little freak," Jeongguk pauses in his superhero pose, looking affronted that he's been called a freak. His outstretched arm lowers in defeat, before Jimin tugs him away to go over the steps again.

The room is a disaster by the time you've been practising for an hour. Hoseok has his dance nailed and is parading around the room going freestyle to impress the teachers. His partner awkwardly hip thrusts and wiggles to open air, looking like he wanted nothing more than for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

Jimin and Jeongguk's dance doesn't look particularly safe for public viewing; even after Jimin's periodic complaining, they dance a lot closer than the instructors asked them to.

Poor Namjoon and Tae are still trying their best to get the hang of the third move, but they're very serious and invested, monopolising the instructors time, and shoving Hoseok away every time he comes to show off.

Jin and you? Well, surprisingly enough, he has a lot more potential than you had initially expected. He's always in rhythm even when the moves are completely wrong, and that's always the biggest battle.

It's been almost a year since you've been dancing regularly, and even you need to ask the teachers over every now and again to get your part sorted. As time trickles down, teams come and go to take breaks and get food, figuring that it's better to conserve energy rather than using it all in one go.

After an hour and a half, Jimin and Jeongguk feel confident that they have theirs sorted, and after a few full practices, the rest of you pile up against the wall to watch them do their final performance.

The song is upbeat and flirty, but Jimin and Jeongguk look like they're moments away from ripping their clothes off. After the three minutes, those not dancing are in tears at their over-dramatic moves and face acting. It's a relief when the dance instructors give them the all-clear, and the two dancers, still panting, just about melt into the floor, slugging over and collapsing against the wall with the rest of you.

At one point in practising, you are mid-twirl when you see Yoongi whispering quietly into Jin's ear, and the two of them walk out of the room, Jin shooting you a half-assed apologetic smile. You shoot a confused look over to Hobi, but he just shrugs.

They're gone for five minutes, a cameraman following them in, and when they finally return, staring at you in suspicion, you huff and get Jin to take it from the top.

It's Yoongi and Hoseok who perform next. After swanning around for over an hour, Hoseok finally decided it was time to try and teach Yoongi instead of letting him suffer on his own, and he makes an amazing teacher. Yoongi isn't a quick learner, but Hobi is patient with him, encouraging him when he messes up and cheering when he gets something right at last. It's more than you can say for your own team, as every time you try and explain something, poor Jin looks more confused than when he asked.

The remaining four of you join Jimin and Jeongguk at the side of the room and watch with baited breath as Yoongi walks the tightrope of almost forgetting a move or being almost too slow, but they end with success. Instead of joining Hobi in the celebrations, Yoongi chooses to collapse on the couch in the breakroom and take a nap while the final four struggle it out.

When the dial falls below one hour, you turn to Jin. "I think we need to do our last full run-through and try it."

He widens his eyes and rears his head back comically. "Are you crazy? We're not ready!"

You go back to the starting pose. "No, we are ready! Okay, let's do one more run-through, and if we make a mistake, we keep practicing, but if we get it, we're done."

He considers it for a moment, then reluctantly places a hand on your shoulder for the first move. "Fine then, let's go."

The first half of the team sit and watch the last four practice (with the exception of Yoongi, who made Hoseok promise not to wake him until the last team does their performance), and you feel a sense of pride when the three minute track goes by without a single mistake on either end.

Even more begrudgingly, Jin allows you to call the instructors over to watch you submit your final performance. Everything is silent except for the catch music.

Jin's hand begins on your opposite shoulder, and when the first line in the song begins you brush it off and twist. Now facing your back, Jin reaches out and leans as you bend forward out of his grasp. As each pulse of the bass goes, you turn, flick, step, step, bend, drop, pose in time with the music, pleased when Jin keeps up perfectly, albeit with a constant look of horror on his face.

The first minute passes by with the impassive faces of the instructors watching you carefully, and then the second. Towards the end of the dance, there's a series of steps in a grapevine pattern that are paired with turns, body-rolls, and hip-thrusts. It's the most complicated part of the dance by far, and the stress of being the second to last team, so close yet so far from victory, the moment when you are meant to clasp onto his hand, you go for his shoulder instead accidentally.

You realise your mistake as it happens, eyes flying wide open and mouth slacking, but Jin's hand comes up on the beat and quickly latches on to yours, completing the move correctly.

With a racing heart, you turn away from him and let your linked hands fall across your chest and pull your body against his for the ending pose.

The pair of you stare nervously at the instructors, but they haven't reacted. Nobody breathes for a few seconds, but after what feels like an eternity, the pair share a look, then nod at you two. They didn't notice, or if they did, it wasn't enough to be a mistake.

You exhale noisily, letting your dead weight fall against Jin's broad chest. You feel it rumble against your cheek as he half-carries you over to the wall, loudly declaring that he was the best dancer on the team, and even if they made a million mistakes, his dashing good looks would distract the judges so much they'd never notice.

The two of you are giddy with relief when you finally slump against the wall, Jin shifting to lie down, head in your lap, staring outwards as Namjoon and Tae look just about green in the face.

At some point, Yoongi wakes up naturally and comes back to the group, leaning against Hobi's shoulder and immediately falling back asleep.

Jeongguk is to your left and you make quiet conversation with him while the two stressed dancers freak out ten feet away. His voice drops into a conspiratorial whisper, not that his body mic wouldn't pick it up anyway. "It's totally Hoseok," he insists.

"What?"

"The spy, idiot. Whenever he gets chosen as the spy he always acts like this. He gets all over excited to try and avoid suspicion."

You eye him up. "What happened to sitting and waiting for the spy to reveal himself?"

He raises an eyebrow and gestures down at himself. "Would you not call this sitting and waiting?"

You laugh at him. "Fair enough. I kind of thought it was Namjoon until we got that hint about dancing." The pair of you wince as Namjoon elbows Tae in the face as he does the final spin. "Maybe that's the grand twist. Namjoon isn't a bumbling nerd, he's been a mastermind all along. We'd never see it coming."

"Plot twist of the century. Our ratings would skyrocket. Fans would revolt."

Once the laughter dissipates, the two of you fall into a comfortable silence. The friendly camaraderie lasts up until the final twenty minutes come along, and Namjoon and Taehyung still haven't performed.

Fifteen minutes ago, Jimin had gotten up to help Tae out with his part, while two instructors did their best with Namjoon, and it had certainly helped.

They knew all the moves, but they were too terrified to perform, what with all the pressure on them to succeed.

"Hey, oppa," you call out to Joon. He looks over at you with exhausted eyes. "If we make the two of you our penalties, then it doesn't matter if you win or lose, you'll be getting the punishment anyway."

Your genius idea doesn't go down so well. Namjoon simply sighs and goes back to one last run-through, but Yoongi, half-asleep but holding on out of curiosity, sits up and furrows his eyebrows. "If they're going to get punished anyway, why would they even try to succeed? That's terrible advice."

"Ah." You blink slowly. "You're right. I just figured if they didn't feel so much pressure they might do better."

"They'll get it," Jimin enthused, joining you on the floor as the final duo took their places.

Their performance was like art. Certainly not a beautiful landscape that was framed in a gallery, but more so the garish, graphic street art that was meant to 'challenge you'.

You felt like you had never been so stressed in your life. Their dancing, while technically correct, was so horrendous that you had no idea how they were still somehow succeeding. Namjoon's look of pain for the whole three minutes, their weird tendency of standing as far apart as they could get to avoid hitting each other, their almost mechanical progression of steps struck fear in the hearts of all the other team members, as you waited for the inevitable moment when they would cross from awkward to wrong.

But they never did. They finished, Namjoon holding Tae to his chest, both men stiff as a board, and the judges shrugged a little at each other, then nodded.

There was a moment of complete shock and silence, then Jimin's triumphant hoot caused the room to erupt in cheers and laughter.

The LED clock ticking down in the corner was at 12 minutes and 41 seconds when Director Lee stopped it. It was almost midnight, but the eight of you were too wired from the seemingly impossible win you had secured to feel sleepy at all.

They had paused filming long enough for you to get back into your hoodies and jeans from before, and to have the stylists blot away the sweat and powder your shiny faces one last time.

While getting changed, you had seen Jimin chat with Yoongi, then make his way around the room, chatting to each member quietly. You stick with Jeongguk, who was always the first to get changed, and once the other two maknaes came over you sorted out your voting strategies, all three of you agreeing to go for Hoseok.

As usual, voting was simply writing a name down on a slip of paper in an envelope, and getting Lee to tally up the votes. He went through a reminder, mostly for the audience, rather than you guys who knew the drill by now, that if the spy wasn't correctly guessed they'd get a reward, but if they were guessed they'd suffer a penalty. You were all still riding the high of getting the full-team reward, and none of you really cared who the spy was, more concerned about not being drawn to do the penalty when the rest of their team were enjoying some unspecified reward.

Lee, after counting and re-counting the votes, leant into the microphone. "There is one vote for Hoseok."

Both you and Hoseok's mouths fall open. Hoseok, of course, is annoyed that someone would suspect him. You, however, immediately turn to glare at the youngsters beside you. That one vote was yours, which meant that the other three hadn't listened to you when you said to vote for Hobi.

You gasped, affronted. "You sneaky brat, Ggukie, voting for Hoseok was your idea!"

"Jimin told me that Yoongi told him that the first hint was the spy being a bad cook. So we figured it had to be you. I just thought Jimin was trying to get me off his back, but he managed to convince the rest of us." He flashed you a shit-eating grin and turned to high-five Jimin and Tae.

"The majority vote, which will be the one counted, is seven votes. The person voted out as a spy is Y/n."

You throw your hands up in defeat, shaking your head at the seven guys around you whooping and hooting at their successful blindside.

"Y/n, are you a spy?"

You knew what came next. Sighing, you let Jeongguk turn you around so that your name-tag was visible on your hoodie. He grabbed one corner and tugged.

There was an almighty cheer as your identity was revealed, hiding beneath the name-tag.

스파이. Spy.

At this point in the show, the producers would go back to the interview you shot two days ago where they sat you down and told you your secret mission objective. Everybody always hated being the spy, possibly except Jin who loved the drama of it, and your attempts at trying to fuck up challenges without being caught didn't work on either level.

Director Lee continued, saying of course that you would get the punishment as you had been correctly chosen. "And since you failed two challenges and decided to pass them by putting two names up for punishment, we'll draw short straws for the two other players who will receive the punishment."

You glance at Yoongi, who's looking like the cat that got the cream, and he sends you a smug wink when he catches you glaring. "Wait!" you yell before any members can grab a straw. "Can I choose who gets to go on the penalty with me?"

Yoongi pales and his smile drops.

Director Lee allows it, as you knew he would, and suddenly it's you who's laughing. "I'd like to choose Hoseok, since I like his company the most and also he didn't make a very good scapegoat, but instead I'm going to pick the two idiots who got the rest of you to vote for me instead. Yoongi and Jimin." You finish your short speech and relish in the sounds of Yoongi and Jimin desperately trying to get you to reconsider.

As usual, the moment the cameras stopped rolling for the day, and the episode was over, all the over-acted power plays and rivalries fell away. It was late, and the antics of the day were finally catching up on you all. Director Lee's final words to you all were just to let you know that the punishment would take place Monday of next week, and that he'd email the three of you that were doing it with more details.

Mondays were the regularly filming days, so you figured it would be a split episode: half of the team get to enjoy some good food, relaxing and easy challenges or exciting activities, while the losers drudged about cleaning a stable or something horrible like that. Even though it sucked that you had to do a penalty, you were glad it wasn't on top of another normal filming day.

The lot of you had the luxury of a short elevator trip down two floors being the only transport needed to get to your group dorm. When Namjoon unlocked the door, you all piled inside like zombies, Jin making his way to the kitchen to make a midnight snack for you all, you and Taehyung making your way to the lounge to find something good to watch on Netflix, and the others disappearing to their rooms for quick showers.

It was tradition for the Bangtan dorm to pull an all-nighter after a late-night episode. You found it was generally impossible to get any decent sleep after being paraded around Seoul for all your crazy challenges, and it was nice to just enjoy each others presence for a while. You'd get some warm food, watch some dumb movies, and camp out in the lounge, eventually falling asleep one by one in a massive pile of bodies, blankets and pillows on the floor.

Namjoon had once confessed to you that this tradition was on hiatus once you moved in to start the show after one year. They had gotten so used to it being the seven of them, that they had kind of expected that they wouldn't get along with an eighth member, and a female no less. So for your first few weeks, they would all pretend to go to bed in their double rooms, then sneak into Jeongguk and Tae's room to have a secret sleepover without you.

Those first few weeks felt incredibly lonely for you, and awkward for them. It wasn't until you actually sat down for one of the planning sessions and spent some off-camera time with them that they got to know you.

After a while, they began holding their post-filming cuddle-fests in the lounge again, saying you were welcome to join or to sleep, whatever you felt comfortable with.

It seemed like far more than a year ago now. Now, you felt like part of the family. They happened usually once a week, and you had fallen into a routine of snuggling with one of them for a while, until they fell asleep, then moving on to somebody else, and rinse and repeating until there was nobody else to move to, or you yourself fell asleep.

Tonight, when the ending credits of Paddington came on at about three in the morning, Hoseok and Yoongi had long since fallen asleep, Yoongi with his head draped on Hoseok's shoulder, Hoseok with one of his legs thrown over Yoongi's. Namjoon was on his phone, with Jimin sleeping peacefully on his curled-up legs, letting out a little grunt or whine every now and again. Jin and Jeongguk were tops and tails on one of the couches, and you and Tae were on the other one, you leaning on his chest, his legs on either side of yours.

Each breath he took caused your head to lift up and down again, and listening to the deep tenor of his breathing was better than any sleeping pill. You stayed awake long enough to turn off the TV, then settled back down in Tae's warm embrace, clutching at the corner of your blanket. You imagined a stranger walking in on this would consider it weird; in fact, you yourself probably would've found it weird had they continued their routine when you first arrived. But after living with them, it was so clear that they were a family. Closer than family, sometimes.

Now, you were lucky enough to be a part of that family. Even if you maybe stared at their chests when they got up in the morning for a little too long, and maybe you pretended to struggle to get to sleep some nights so that one of them would let you sleep in their bed with them, but they were your family first, and extremely hot guys second.

When you were away from all your other friends and family for this long, and spent almost all your time with the same seven people, it just became natural to lean on each other like this. Snuggling up to whoever was closest so that you could calm down enough to sleep after a filming day. Jin never complaining when he had to cook for eight people every day. Namjoon sitting with you patiently to help you with your English so that you could interact with fans on twitter. Jimin sneaking out of his room to call his parents so that he didn't wake Yoongi. You taking every opportunity to hug Hobi tightly when you could see he was upset because he hated to be the one needing help from others. You knew each other like the back of your hand, and you loved each other more than you could really even explain.

When you all finally fell asleep you would probably lie in this pile until near midday, each person that got up being extra quiet to let the others have their sleep. The day after filming was always an off day, so that you could recover from whatever the producers threw at you the day before. The afternoon would go by slowly and leisurely, the eight of you eating lunch together, then falling away to spend the time doing whatever you pleased. Jeongguk and Tae liked to hole up in their room and play video games until dinnertime. Namjoon sometimes asked you to go on a walk in the park with him so that he could get some fresh air. Yoongi had bought himself an 88-key digital piano that he was still getting used to using, and if you asked nicely and bribed him with a cup of coffee he would let you sit on his bed while he played a tune for you, something thoughtful and patient or maybe something catchy and hard-hitting.

Jimin was trying to learn how to cook better so that he could help out his hyung, and he loved spending his free-time in the kitchen, watching YouTube videos on how to make fried rice, sneaking around the dorm with a spoon to get Jin to try it. Hoseok would always hang out at the kitchen bar while Jimin fussed around in the kitchen, helping to measure out ingredients and cut vegetables while they chatted amiably about whatever was in their minds at the time.

Jin himself liked watching movies with you but was occasionally found in Tae and Jeongguk's room describing, sports-commentator style, the gameplay as if he had any idea what was going on.

Most of the guys had been living with each other long enough that they were happy to go off and do their own thing when they had the chance, but you still found yourself floating from member to member, wanting desperately to enjoy their company.

But for now, you simply aligned your breathing with Tae's and relaxed, shuffling around so that you could face his chest instead of the ceiling. As you moved, his chest hitched, and you paused, pushing up to see if he had woken up.

His heavy gaze was on you when you looked up at him. His hair was mussed up on one side and flattened against his temple on the other, but his alert gaze told you that he probably hadn't fallen asleep fully in the first place.

You shot him an apologetic smile anyway, and continued wriggling around, stopping only when his hands shot up to hold your hips firmly.

You were still looking straight at him, but you failed to see the problem. It wasn't until you tried to shuffle up again that you felt it.

He raised an eyebrow when your eyes widened in realisation. "Sorry," you mouthed, placing your hands on his chest so that you could hop off him, but his hands didn't waver, in fact pushing down ever harder so that your hips shifted against him. He groaned, and you felt him against your lower stomach.

Although your crotch was on the couch, and not receiving any action at all, the feeling of his hardness against you caused a jolt of energy to shoot through your stomach and down between your legs, where your thighs clenched uselessly together in the hopes of creating some friction.

Of course you had messed around with the guys before. Not that you would ever tell another soul, let alone sweet, innocent Director Lee, but the policy of not having any sexual relations with other members was broken long before you arrived. Your presence certainly exacerbated it, not that you would ever complain.

But most of the time, it was comforting another member, or making drinking games more interesting. Very rarely had anything happened when both (or all) parties were fully stable-minded.

You searched Tae's eyes, which were hooded slightly, for a sign of his intentions. He just breathed out shakily and gave you the slightest nod.

Your gaze fell to the guys around you. There was the youngest and oldest on the couch on the other side of the room from you, both snoring away, and then four more on the ground between you. Namjoon, who just moments before was blinking blearily into his phone screen, had put it down and was stretching out to sleep, but you had no way of knowing if he was actually asleep already or not.

Tae hummed a little, and took one hand off of your waist to turn your chin back to him. With a gentle but mischievous smile, he brought one finger to his lips, pouting a little in a silent 'shh'.

You couldn't help but grin back, nodding your consent, and moving your hands to his shoulders so that you could slide yourself up a little more, dragging slowly over him until your legs lifted up and around him, and two layers of underwear where all that separated the two of you.

Of all the people in the dorm to have initiated something at a time like this, you really hadn't expected Taehyung. He almost always treated you like an older sister, coming to you for advice and comfort rather than plain old company. Even if he did choose to come on to you at all, you figured he would've invited you to his room, or caught you in the laundry room and locked the door, or something equally secure.

But here he was, one hand still on your hip, encouraging you to grind on him while his hyungs slept peacefully three feet away.

It was embarrassing how quickly you soaked through your panties, soon enough feeling the textured drag of wet fabric rather than soft cotton rubbing against your clit. Your breaths were coming out ragged, but still quiet, thankfully, and you were more than content to get yourself off by rolling your hips against him desperately.

Tae had other ideas. Hard as a rock, he lifted his hips so that he could push the fabric of his boxers down. You paused your ministrations and raised yourself up on your knees to give him space, holding back a disappointed whine at your throbbing clit going untouched.

Taehyung was one of the few members, perhaps even the only member, you had never seen fully naked. A little less showy than the others, he hadn't fooled around with anyone much during your drunken truth or dare sessions, and you could honestly say now that the anticipation was truly worth the wait.

If you didn't have to be quiet, you would've asked him where the fuck he hid that thing, but your slack jaw probably gave away the general gist. Your hand fell down between you to hold him securely at the base, marvelling at how heavy he felt in your palm.

He threw his head back at first contact, eyes fluttering shut, abs tensing in an effort to push himself into your hand. Your thumb didn't quite meet your fingers when you grasped him, and you weren't sure you were going to be able to take all of him in this position. You collected some spit in your hand to lube him up enough to start stroking, enough pressure to give him some relief but too slow to get anywhere with it. You sat up onto his thighs so that your other hand could come down too, using your pointer finger to collect the precum leaking from his tip, and bringing it to your mouth. It was a shame he still had his eyes shut and missed it, but you savoured his taste anyway.

After a few minutes of your patient stroking, Tae realised you weren't planning on speeding up, and he tipped his head back down to gaze at you, eyes almost black with dilation. He bats your hand away and reaches out to hook a finger into the sopping fabric between your thighs. His nail scrapes accidentally against your swollen clit and in your surprise, you can't help the desperate whine you let out as your hips shoot forward.

The pair of you freeze, him still with a single finger across your slick folds, you holding your mouth with the hand you had just been jerking him off with.

All is silent. You can hear the whistle of someone's nose as they breathe, a few different pitches of snoring, and Namjoon's periodic sleep grunts. It seems like nobody heard, or at least nobody woke up from the noise.

After a few beats, Taehyung begins to move again, pulling your panties to one side rather than dragging them off you. He puts his other hand around the back of your neck and bend you down until your face is buried in his neck, his pulse jumping against your cheek.

He turns his head slightly so that he can whisper directly into your ear. "Do you want me to finger you first or are you ready for my cock now?"

Hearing your sweet, seemingly innocent Tae whisper that in your ear in the dead of night has you more desperate than ever. You mumble "just fuck me" into the side of his neck, and while he probably didn't hear you, you know he got the sentiment.

He lets go of the back of your neck so that you can straighten up, dragging your now-bare pussy against his cock, lubing it up even more. He stares intensely at the space where the head of his dick slips between your folds.

Slowly, you guide it to your entrance and try to push down. You know that he probably should've fingered you first, but your impatient excitement has you ignoring the searing stretch and pushing yourself down onto him.

The first few inches take a while, both of you sweating with the strain, but once you get the right angle, you slide down, almost bottoming out in one go.

His dick drags against the top of your walls, pushing onto your pubic bone from the inside, and you shudder, clenching around him. Tae's eyes are squeezed tightly shut, brow furrowed as he tries not to thrust up into you before you're ready.

In an effort to take more of him, and feel fuller than you already do, you rotate your hips around him, feeling him hit every spot inside you.

It takes a few moments of muffled groans and bitten lips to get you all the way down, and you feel his cock deeper than anyone's been before. The feeling intensifies when you bend your top half over to lean your elbows on either side of him for better leverage, sucking in an unsteady breath as he moves inside of you.

The muscles in your legs are jumping as you rest on your knees, and you nod at him once your body stops clenching around him so hard. He nods back, and starts to gently buck his hips, rutting into you.

You haven't had full-blown sex with anyone since joining the show, and the feeling of him inside you, the friction against your walls, and his heavy breaths in your ear are enough to get you close to orgasm in minutes. You're finding it harder and harder to keep quiet, and you know he is too with the tightness in his jaw.

Every time he thrusts up into you you clench around him reflexively, and he has to work harder to move at all around your vice-like grip. After a while, your legs start to tire from holding you up, and he struggles to get a steady rhythm from below you.

You shove the blanket off you and onto the floor, not caring if it lands on the carpet or on the body of the person closest to you, and Tae's arms cage you in to his chest, holding you steady as he lifts himself up, still deeply rooted inside you, and shifts you two until you're below him, head leaning back over the armrest.

With better leverage from above, Taehyung grips one of your ankles and lifts it up, pushing your knee into your chest. Your time doing ridiculous stunts on Running Man has surprisingly left you more flexible than you thought, and there's just a small pinch in your inner thigh when he holds your legs open for him.

You expect him to keep his slow, deep rutting from before, but when he looks down and sees you clenching around him, he swears softly under his breath and begins slamming recklessly into you.

Your hand flies up to your mouth to muffle the keening sound that leaves you, the delicious stretch and constant dragging against your upper wall too much to handle. Your ab muscles are going haywire and your back arches up wildly.

The pleasure he's striking inside you is too much by itself, especially as you find yourself hurtling towards an orgasm, and in your lust driven haze you don't even realise how loud each thrust is. With eyes rolling into the back of your hand, you use your free hand to rub frantic circles against your slick clit in the hopes of cumming as fast as you can, holding your breath as you focus intensely on that beautiful edge.

When you begin pleasuring yourself, you hear a whine, and it surprises you that Tae would make a noise so high-pitched, but you're too far gone to care. With one final thrust, you're thrown over the edge, and your legs latch around Tae's behind, ankles interlocking to hold him as close as you possibly can.

He groans deeply as your muscles squeeze him, and he struggles to move. You continue rubbing your clit, biting your other hand as you finally come down from your high.

Once you do, your legs ache from being overworked in such high bursts, and you finally relax enough to let Tae move again. You shudder one last time when he slips out, pussy still pulsing regularly, feeling emptier than ever.

All of your energy has been sapped, and you let your legs fall down uselessly, trying to catch your breath.

Tae has one hand propping himself up, and he reaches down with the other to chase his own end, the wet noise echoing in the silent room. With a few more pants, he lets out one slow breath, and you feel his cum fall onto the bottom of your stomach and the front of your panties, ruining them if they weren't already.

He collapses on top of you, probably smearing his cum into his shirt, but he doesn't seem to care. If any of the members were to wake up, turn the light on and see you there, you're sure you both would've looked atrocious. You, in a baggy t-shirt and soaked panties, still bunched up and exposing half of your pussy, and Tae, with a sweaty shirt and boxers around his ankles, exposing his ass to the open air.

The pair of you sit like that, heaving, for about half an hour. Once you finally get the energy to stand, you hear someone shuffle around on the floor, presumably getting comfortable in their sleep.

Taehyung gets up and pulls you up off the couch with him, using the light from his phone screen to make sure there are no wet patches or puddles of semen on the couch. Once he's satisfied, he leads you to the bathroom.

The bright light causes you to squint, and your legs are still shaky, but you grab a packet of wet wipes from in the vanity drawers, and wipe up as much wetness off of you as you can. You strip out of your underwear and shove them in the trash can, glad you had put on raggedy black cotton panties instead of any decent pair.

Still silent even though the other guys wouldn't hear you from there, the pair of you went back to your room so you could grab some fresh underwear, then Tae's so he could swap out his stained shirt.

Before he leaves to go back to the lounge, you wrap your fingers around his wrist, stopping him in his tracks. He stares at you expectantly.

"Do we-" you break off and clear out your throat so it's not so unsteady, and try again. "Do we tell the others? Or keep this a secret?"

He sighs deeply, eyes wandering around the room as he considers. "We can be honest if they ask, but we don't have to tell them anything straight away." You nod slowly. He smiles down at you, then tugs his hand in a gesture to keep moving. "I had a lot of fun, but I know it's not fair to expect you to just be with one of us. We're all in this together."

Maybe if it wasn't almost four in the morning, you would've been able to process what it was he meant by that. But it was almost four in the morning, and he had just fucked your brains out while in a room full of sleeping people, so you just nodded again tiredly and let him lead you back to the couch.

The pair of you were asleep within minutes, leaving only one person still wide awake.

A/N: Here is the smutty sequel (yoongi x reader x hoseok) as promised :)

#bts x reader #running man bangtan #bts fic #bts au #bts fanfic #bts scenarios #bts imagine #bts smut #namjoon x reader #jin x reader #taehyung x reader #taehyung smut #taehyung x reader smut #yoongi x reader #jeongguk x reader #jungkook x reader #jimin x reader #hoseok x reader

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alubanana · 5 years

Text

For Our Entertainment

For @gentronlegendaryfriendships

Day 4: Mistaken for Couple I Dancing

Characters: Pidge and Keith

Read it on AO3!

Keith tucked both legs underneath him, the high boots of the formal Altean suit he had been forced into wearing digging uncomfortably into his thighs. Across him, Pidge sprawled in the most unladylike pose Keith had ever seen wrangled the long sleeves of her dress back into something reasonable-looking and held up her hands again.

“Let’s try this again,” she said. Keith glanced down at her hands, one palm up, the other palm down. They’d been trying for the better part of an hour to teach Keith how to play Lemonade Crunchy Ice, but he just couldn’t seem to get the movements down. And while it was a welcome distraction from engaging in the loud, obnoxious party inside, Keith wasn’t sure if he could get the hang of flipping his hands every time they went up. Regardless, he held his hands back up in a mirror of Pidge’s and they tried again.

The aliens they’d saved were definitely up there on Keith’s ‘Top Ten Weirdest Aliens’ list. Partying was a regular form of socializing, so common in fact that there had been at least three all going on the day the Galra had invaded and Voltron had intervened. They saw it as a way of life and the more extravagant the party, the more important it was deemed. And this one - held in the city central hub with every single person in the city in attendance and then some - was of the highest importance.

Voltron were the ‘Guests of Honor’ and after Coran and Allura had wrestled everyone into formal wear, they’d been shipped off to suffer in a room full of a thousand drunk aliens for an entire night. And - once Shiro and Allura had made if very clear playing hooky on this particular party was not allowed - Keith and Pidge snuck off first chance they got to stay away from the loud voices and the crowd.

“Lemonade,” Pidge recited, watching Keith as he tried to focus on the movements of his hands. “Crunchy ice. Beat it once, beat it--no, Keith you forgot to flip your hand again.”

Keith threw his arms into the air. “This is impossible!”

Pidge put her hands in her lap, giving Keith a lazy grin. “It takes practice. Here, we could take a break and I could teach you the cup song instead.”

“The...cup song?”

“Yeah, you know,” Pidge made a show of tapping her fingers against the ground and moving an imaginary cup to the right. “The cup song.”

“I do not know the cup song.”

“Well, you will in like fifteen minutes,” Pidge grabbed Keith by the hand and hauled him to his feet. “Let’s go grab a cup.” Keith glanced anxiously into the crowd inside and Pidge gave him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. It’s super easy to learn.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Keith muttered.

Pidge looked at the crowd and worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “I mean...as long as we don’t let go of each other’s hands, we’ll be fine.”

Keith squeezed Pidge’s hand in his own a little and she led the way back into the party. They ducked in between the shouting, cheering aliens and Keith could barely make out Lance having the time of his life and teaching a whole crowd of aliens how to do the macarena. He rolled his eyes and ducked towards the table covered in strange alien punch and hors d’oeuvres. The beat of the music made his teeth rattle and he could already feel the anxiety creeping up on him. He hated it instantly, tightening his grip on Pidge’s hand and using her as her anchor. He couldn’t see Shiro over everyone’s heads and she was the next best thing.

When they got Pidge instantly went for a cup and a new plate, shoving the latter of which into Keith’s arms with the instructions to get as many snacks as possible.

He did as he was told, picking up one of everything on the table, and two of the things he’d thought Pidge would like while she got them drinks and subsequently, the cups she wanted to teach him to do the cup song.

Very suddenly, the loud pumping music with a beat that made Keith’s skull rattle cut out. He paused in picking up something that kind of resembled an eclair and turned to look at what was going on. The DJ sitting at his table said something that made a huge cheer go up through the aliens and the techno music was suddenly replaced by something much slower. Far more relaxing. Keith understood instantly what it was meant to be and hurried over to Pidge to escape before he was dragged into dancing with someone he didn’t know.

“Oh thank God-” Pidge said when she noticed him. “Come on, let’s go back outside before we get forced into this thing.” She hurried through the crowd with two drinks in hand and they made their way back out to the quiet and seclusion of the balcony. Instantly, Keith could feel his shoulders losing their tension and he let out a sigh of relief.

He really hated crowds.

Pidge put down their drinks on the railing and motioned for Keith to do the same with his plate. He did so with a quiet click and the two of them stood in a comfortable silence, each allowing the other to recollect themselves after what had just happened.

It was Pidge who finally spoke first. She set down her glass with a quiet clink and glanced at Keith. “Have you ever danced before?”

“Uh-” he blanched on an answer, drumming his fingers around his cup. “No? I-I mean once in like...third grade but uh...no. Not since then.”

“Same,” Pidge grunted, picking the skin off of what Keith was pretty sure was a grape. “Well, I mean Dad tried to teach me and Matt for important Garrison balls he had to attend, but we let him do it like...twice before he gave up on us.”

“Oh,” Keith suddenly found his expensive glass a lot more interesting. Pidge’s family had always been a sore point for her. He was surprised she was even talking about them, given how defensive she was prone to getting.

Pidge ate her grape. “Do you want to try?”

Keith’s head snapped up. “Try...try what?”

“Dancing,” she said with a shrug. “Maybe we can figure out some weird interpretive dance for the music or something.”

“Wh-What about the cup song?” Keith asked, despite his glass being nowhere near empty enough to use it.

“We can do that later,” Pidge was suddenly looking eager. “C’mon, let’s just try it for like...five minutes. And if you’re not into it, I’ll teach you the cup song. Deal?”

Keith slowly set his cup down on the railing beside him. He glanced into the crowd where the music was still blaring like no tomorrow and hesitantly nodded his head. Pidge took him by his hands and led him to the center of the balcony where they stood there for a moment, hands clasped in each other’s, trying to figure out where to begin.

“We could follow Lance and Hunk’s lead,” Pidge suggested, jerking her head back to the party. Keith could barely make out the two in question, doing extravagant two-step around the entire dance floor that they were clearly making up as they went along.

Keith strangled out a laugh and instead just followed Pidge’s movements as they started to sway gently. He tapped his foot to the practically nonexistent beat of the slow song.

“Full disclosure,” Pidge said. “Matt is the only other dance partner I’ve ever had and the two of us were awful.”

“We’ll...figure it out as we go,” Keith said, watching his feet to make sure he didn’t accidentally crush Pidge’s under the ridiculous boots.

Pidge laughed. “As a part of my space family, I would be absolutely livid if you can’t dance as poorly as Matt.” Her tone was teasing and it made more tension bleed from Keith’s shoulders.

The two of them were a force of nature as they awkwardly made their way in the messiest dance Keith had ever seen. Neither of them had any idea how to dance and while they were constantly tripping and stepping on each others’ toes, Keith found himself grinning despite himself.

He was actually having fun.

Their dance was messy, and the weirdest thing anyone had ever seen, but it was theirs and suddenly Keith understood why Lance and Hunk seemed to be having the time of their lives. He wouldn’t be jumping at the chance to do this again, but dancing and fooling around with someone he’d started to view as a little sister...it was nice. It was fun.

Ducking under Pidge’s arm as she lifted it to spin him, she burst out laughing when he nearly tripped and fell. Keith did the same - loud and genuine - when Pidge stumbled and did an awkward pirouette motion to keep on her feet. The moment the song drew to a close, the two of them paused in the middle of reaching down like they were about to touch their toes and then straightened up.

Pidge gave him a lopsided grin. “Congratulations, bro. You’re just as bad as Matt.”

Keith returned it. “I don’t think you’re much better.”

Pidge snickered and made her way back to their forgotten plate and drinks and picked up her glass. She drained it in practically one gulp and Keith followed in her footsteps, realizing just how parched he was. He glanced down and rolled his wrist to swirl the contents of his cup and glanced back at Pidge.

“So, about that cup song,” he started awkwardly and Pidge snorted, picking up another grape to start peeling the skin off of it.

“It’s super easy,” she promised. “You’ll get the hang of it in like ten minutes, tops.”

He did not get the hang of it in ten minutes.

But that was okay. He spent the evening learning the (in his very justified opinion) over-complicated cup song and listening to Pidge’s careful instructions. It was nice to just sit with his little sister by bond and pretend like the world didn’t exist for a little bit.

And if they went back to doing the world’s most ridiculous dance a few more times over, who could blame them?

#voltron #chocodoesthewriting #gentronweek #prompt: dancing #keith #Pidge #writing

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aerialflight · 5 years

Text

BTS fic recs (or: a continuation with less magic!aus but there still is some on this list)

It’s been around six months and I’m again sucked into the BTS fandom, mostly because of the BTS World album and game. Seriously, how they manage to spit out so many songs so fast is amazing. And you can thank my dad for getting me back into the fandom cause he is just as obsessed as I am about BTS, which I find hilarious and my mom long-suffering XD.

Anyway, so I’m recommending yet another list that has cumulated over the months, some recommended to me by @onceabluemoonwrites (thank you for the recs and continuing to spur my obsession) and those I stumbled upon and ended up loving. Hope you all enjoy and I apologize that there aren’t as many magic!aus in advance, but there still is some since it wouldn’t complete without it!

girls just want to have fun by fitzgarbage

Ship: Suga/J-Hope

“Namjoon told me you’d probably be haunting a corner. I didn’t know what he meant, but I think I get it now.” He’s breathing hard. “I knew you right away. You look really good, by the way.”

(suga is transgender, he's a she in this fic. suga is amazing and the background ships had me invested and oh man, this is one of those fics that steal your heart if you let it.)

Stars Lost in the Sea by smiles

Ship: Jin/Suga

2018 In a desperate attempt to overcome his writer's block, Kim Seokjin rents a cottage by the sea on a remote island in the southern part of Korea for the summer, intent on successfully completing a story.

1933 Min Yoongi spends his nights tending the lighthouse, providing a light on the horizon for lost sailors to navigate safely, all the while feeling lost by himself, a lightkeeper without a guiding light.

There are some people who are meant to cross paths, even if it means time itself must bend to accommodate them.

(editor!Jimin is high strung and gungho and this alone made me fall for this fic for giving me this. this story is the definition of ‘star-crossed lovers’, i was rooting for them so hard. bless.)

rumour has it (but maybe it'd be better to just ask me) by Curionenene

Ship: Jimin/RM

"Tae! I think Kim Namjoon asked me out on a date?”

That, makes Taehyung look away from his phone for once. “The Kim Namjoon? Sex on walking stilts, Kim Namjoon?”

“No, Kim Namjoon who’s my cousin third removed. Of course, the Kim Namjoon, you walnut.”

“Walnuts are actually really good for brain development.” Taehyung says distractedly before he frowns. “Wait, Kim Namjoon is your cousin?”

(Or: Namjoon and Jimin like each other, Taehyung and Hoseok are great friends, Seokjin and Jungkook aren't as great, and Yoongi is paid far too little for this.

Oh, and there are rumours. Supposedly, Namjoon is a sex god. Everyone is saying it, so it must be true.

Spoilers: it's not.)

(you know those fics that has gloriously disasterous characters that makes you feel like you’re less of a mess than they are? this is it. this is your pick up fic. so pick it up please.)

jack i'm flying! by ameliabedelias

(honestly though, this author has written some of the funniest bts fics i’ve ever read, definitely recommend)

Ship: Jin/Jimin

“Are they okay?” A concerned booze cruise attendant walks by. “They’re not gonna jump, are they?”

“Please, just ignore them,” Hoseok sighs, flopping into one of the deck lounge chairs as Seokjin and Jimin get into position. “They’ve been doing this for three years now. It's kind of their thing.”

Or, five times Seokjin and Jimin do the Titanic Pose™.

(this fic is proof that this is the most chaotic pairing i’ve ever seen the sheer chaos man i’m not kidding. this is gold. solid gold.)

you are so gorgeous it makes me so mad by ameliabedelias

Ship: Jimin/RM

Park Jimin is Instagram famous. Or he was, until Kim Namjoon walked into one of his pictures and stole the spotlight.

(same author as previously, i just had to people this fic is incredible. jimin is characterized so beautifully here. the title alone should make you want to read it.)

light at the end by fruitily

(you don’t know what you were missing in life until you read their fics)

Ship: Jin/Jungkook

death follows jungkook. death is crashing at his place and not paying rent. death is eating all of his cinnamon toast crunch.

(seokjin is not death. he’s just the guy who’s nice enough to take you to the last stop.)

(i cried tears of laughter enough to fill a lake. jin is a grim reaper. yes. you heard me right. and jungkook has to deal with it. its amazing.)

in all dishonesty by fruitily

Ship: Suga/V

while taehyung is trying to figure out whether or not min yoongi wants to stab him with a fountain pen, they find out they make an excellent team when it comes to board games.

(this gave me so many flashbacks to when i was a kid. they are perfect for each other and my brother laughed so much when i read him a few lines. because he is a cheating cheater who lies and is very impressed by this pair. you'll see what i mean.)

can't get it up without you by Curionenene

(i love their fics. LOVE)

Ship: Jin/Suga

“Actually,” Seokjin speaks up then, because it looks like Yoongi's friends are having a hard time believing him. “I think the most dramatic one was when we literally tried to migrate to escape each other, but our planes went down, and we both drifted to the same deserted island.”

Now even Taehyung looks incredulous. “You're kidding.”

“No. We ended up fucking just so we could hasten the process and go onto the next life. Because the mosquitos there? Worse than death.”

“Wait…” Jimin says slowly. “You mean you actually die?”

~*~

(Or: Yoongi and Seokjin are soulmates. They hate each other.)

(the summary should be enough incentive to be honest, but yeah, if you want to die laughing, please read this. p l e a s e.)

So Collapse, Fall. by Curionenene

Ship: Jungkook/V

“Mmm… but what was it that made you decide to come back?” Seokjin rephrases.

Taehyung glances at Jungkook, and deliberately, his lips twitch up into a smirk, eyes darkening just a little bit. “I’m a human after all. Foolish. Figuring out my intentions shouldn’t be rocket science.”

For a moment, the other three in the room just stare at him. Taehyung doesn’t let the stares unnerve him, only deciding to cock his head to one side, eyebrow raised as the silence drags on. And then finally it breaks when Jimin shakes his head before letting out a true blue giggle, “well. He’s interesting at least.”

(or: Jungkook is a god, Taehyung just wants to be his friend. They both end up as something more.)

(i actually usually don't get into this pairing (surprising since this pairing is actually the most popular on ao3), but the worldbuilding and magic pulled me in.)(laugh and point at me for finding another magic fantasy fic. i won't blame you.)(i love v's characterization in this. he's delightfully complicated and straightforward and manipulative in a good way? i know it sounds weird, but you'll know what i mean when you read it.)

you say witch like it's a bad thing by Curionenene

Ship: Suga/Jin

“It's still a lot of work, even if you have magic on your side.” Yoongi glances over at a jug filled with what looks like pieces of pineapple. And then, as both cat and witch stare at the jug, the pieces are suddenly no more, instead replaced entirely by liquid. “Heck. Magic is draining. I’m going to need a nap later.”

“Why do you think I start at 5 am and only open at 11?” Seokjin grumbles, before he sighs, “yeah, okay. I get your point. No tea then. But we gotta think of something to make with avocados.”

“Why the fuck are we doing avocados?” “Because I ordered avocados.”

“Oh. Ok. Let me rephrase that: why the fuck are we doing avocados?”

~*~

(Or: Seokjin is a witch, Yoongi is his familiar. 99% of their life is bickering like this. The other 1%? Well, you'll have to read and see won't you?)

(blue recommended this to me and i read the whole damn thing. and let me tell you, it wasn’t the magic (well, not just the magic since the worldbuilding makes me want to swoon) that made me stay. it was jin. and his goddamn puns. puns galore. puns everywhere. every shade of pun imaginable, it’s all here. suffer with me along with yoongi. it is glorious.)

something tells me we'll be alright by czar (cmajorchords)

Ship: RM/V

“You’re absolutely right. This is a childish, petty feud, and I’m sure Kim Namjoon is an upstanding citizen and exceptional researcher. I’m sure he is a thousand times more of a professional than I am, and isn’t late to work all the time, and probably doesn’t occasionally sneak into the lab after hours so he can touch the pretty little vases with bare hands instead of using gloves –”

“Doesn’t what?”

“- it’s just that I don’t think I can work him. On, like, a moral level. Like an ethical one. An emotional one? Maybe even metaphysically?”

His supervisor sighs loudly. “So what’s the problem exactly?”

Taehyung scrambles for the first thing that comes to his mind. “Once, when we were at a mixer, he ate the last cranberry-chocolate chip muffin and didn’t even offer to split it.”

Six weeks in the desert at an archaeology dig sounds like everything Taehyung had ever dreamed of. Too bad Kim Namjoon's coming, too.

(this is a really cute fic and just, namjoon is this rambling mess and v is so humanely insecure and all of it is just, ugh. ugh i couldn't stop grinning.)

Fixing Christmas by jeoncrocs

Ship: Jungkook/RM

Namjoon is having the Worst Christmas Eve ever, and it's chiefly his own fault. A kind stranger turns it around.

(I COULDN’T STOP LAUGHING THIS WAS SO FUNNY XDD)

Hold Still by Oh_Hey_Tae

(i’ve recommended a fic from them before and there’s a reason for it. all their fics are just, yes.)

Ship: J-Hope/Jungkook

Jungkook’s going to say that he wasn’t scared, but he literally screamed and was about to throw down with a pan so he says instead, “How’d you get in, anyway?”

“Door was unlocked. Didn’t think anyone was home. Be glad I’m not an actual creep.”

And then this amazing thing happens.

It’s small and simple, quick as can be, but it leaves Jungkook stupefied, mind melting, like he’s lost on a wave.

Jung Hoseok winks at him.

Oh, no.

(Or: Jungkook falls in love easily, Hoseok doesn't open up easily, and somehow they manage to meet in the middle.)

(jungkook is precious here. precious. i want to wrap him up and hug him tight. and i really like how they portrayed hoseok here. and also, theres some representation and i connected to this. a lot.)

Words of Power by rkatz

Ship: Suga/J-Hope

All words have power. Some more than others. And none more than a name.

(behold, a magic!au soulmate fic with stellar worldbuilding. seriously, i am crying over how creative this is, i want to pick at this author’s mind and ask how they came up with this. thank you blue for recommending this!)

Law of the Jungle by MmeIrene

Ship: Jin/RM

“You’re an actor,” said Namjoon after a moment, and Seokjin nodded, looking pleased with their progress.

This was decidedly different, Namjoon thought, staring at Kim Seokjin’s bemused expression, than how it went in movies. Which, all things considered, was terribly ironic considering that Namjoon was being told he couldn’t study in his own library so that the aforementioned Kim Seokjin could film there with his movie crew.

Or, Namjoon is a frazzled grad student who just wants to finish his thesis, but somehow ends up getting cast as an extra in a movie instead.

(you know this is good when a character is accidentally in a movie. any student who wrote or is writing a thesis will understand namjoon’s dilemma on a spiritual level. he stole my heart in this fic, he really did. i don’t blame you one bit jin for falling for this boy.)

#Fanfiction #AO3 #Fic Rec #Fic Rec List #BTS #magic!au #Jin #Suga #RM #Jimin #J-Hope #Jungkook #V

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littleredroseonthevalley · 6 years

Text

The Crossing of the Lethe

Summary: Liam is murdered by rebel terrorists. Riley is hailed back to America to try to come to terms with it.

Rating: M - Not suitable for children or teens below the age of 16 with non-explicit suggestive adult themes, references to some violence, or coarse language.

Mentions of murder and oral sex. Reader discretion is advised.

Words: 1672

Notes: So, I did it again. I remembered another fanfic from a different fandom and tried to recreate it to a Choices audience. It probably does not suck.

Hope y’all like it!

Maxwell remembers when Liam was born. Well, not remember, he was younger than his King, but the story was very popular amongst the idle courtiers, and so he had heard it several times.

Queen Carmela is said to have had Liam in a thunderstorm, over the edge of her four-poster bed while squatting on a pile of blankets.

Much is pandered about the feeling of chaos at the palace, as the roads down the hill were closed due to severe mudslides and the power was cut by a stray branch, but if her portrait is anything to go by, he preferred to imagine it as a different story. If anyone were to ask him, he would say she kept him snuggled close to her breast, whispering gently in his ear that he would be great and loved above all. Her son's bright eyes and toothless smile would break her as she remembered.

Maxwell did not expect Liam to die like that.

Anytime he clenched his eyes close, Drake's pallid face would twist in his overactive memory. He'd relive the moments when their commoner friend busted through the doors at Beaumont Manor and, rather uncharacteristically emotional, told them that Liam died at the strike of a hundred stab wounds by assassins posing as guards. The memory may still be fresh, but he would bet it would be as clear in fifty years as it is today.

Maxwell watched Riley.

She was so young. Them all are so very young. Her, however, seemed to him at the moment so resembling a doll, with sunlight tainting her skin a brownish gold and eyes the colour of the seas.

Liam has always had good taste, in his humble opinion.

"Would you like a refill on your iced tea, Maxwell?" Savannah asked from the doorway.

That was what brought him back to the present. They were all in Georgia, at Mrs Walker’s ranch, which he heavily suspected was financed almost exclusively by Drake’s excessive Crown Attorney-General salary, hiding from the public eye.

Sponsor and sponsored sat at the porch, observing the expansive fields of Southeast United States. He had remembered Riley spoke fondly of American iced tea, and had the Walker women to maintain a steady influx. Preferably, with a touch of peach, he ought to indulge himself a little, too.

"Would you like some tea, Riley?" He asked. The woman shook her head without sparing him a look. "Please drink it, or eat something. Now, above it all, is not the time to behave as if Liam had just one person who loved him."

"I'm sorry, Maxwell," Riley said, "but I'm just not in the mood to drink tea or do anything."

Maxwell felt like he was supposed to insist, to use force if necessary.

Riley did not mention anything, but what ran through her mind at the moment, and most of her waking moments ever since, was Madeleine coming to her in the middle of the night, invading her tiny one-bedroom apartment on a modest neighbourhood near the old town in Valona.

With an emotionless glance, her trademark at this point, Madeleine told Riley that she knew it all.

"Liam is dead," Madeleine said, "and I know you fucked him."

In the kitchen, Hana and Savannah cooked dinner, Bartie watching the odd couple work. Drake must be pacing nervously at the living room, where he was banished for pestering Riley.

Them all should be overhearing whatever Maxwell and Riley discussed on the porch, but neither seemed to have the energy to care. It was still a huge step up from the unnerving watchful eye of Cordonian society.

Nobles and commons alike.

It made sense for them to find Riley and have her to join them in the United States. The Parliament was seeing into instating a regency, trying to make sense of the realm’s outdated laws and figuring out who would head the State the forthcoming years.

They had an heir to think about.

He sipped his tea.

Riley admts to having had sex with Liam in the palace’s hedge maze the night he announced his engagement.

It was not a good experience. Sloppy and painful was more like it. Even as a young man, Liam was a complicated person. So prim and proper, so contained, and yet so conniving, so used to living a lie he could fool everybody else.

Liam was a ticking time bomb, if nothing else. The eternal burying of true thoughts and feelings that burst on the first dedicated provocateur.

She had had magical moments a girl may only dream of, but they meant nothing compared to the time Liam confessed to her.

It happened in Valona's warmest summer day. They held a ball for the closing of Parliament, as they did for about any other occasion. She had attended the celebration as Drake’s date, who, despite now being of nobility himself, could hardly stand social gatherings, much less those attended by the crowned heads of the realm.

Claiming to feel ill, he escaped to the gardens, leaving her all to herself at the bar.

As the party went on, and it gradually evolved from partisan soirée to plain, old upper crust debauchery, as it often did in Cordonia, Liam approached her seat to ask how she was doing. A blur, then he told her he still loved her. Their kiss was not hot, sloppy, and uncomfortable then.

Better, it was much more like sweeping her off her feet, or falling into a fiery storm with a man she never thought she still wanted. Not after his own betrayal.

In that regard, Riley related their escapade to being forced back into a burning house. They stayed in her room. She rocked her hips over him, arched her back over her knees with her hands pressed over plush sheets, and took him in her mouth.

She spent the night on her back with his lips touching the tip of her ear. With each thrust, and a shuddered voice, he told her he could not let her go.

Then, she decided she should be the one to let go, and yet she tried to, but Liam always grasped and dragged. He would kneel and beg and hold her hips and cry, begging her to stay.

She wanted to end it the month before he died, but he walked into the guest room of the Seehof in Davos and locked the doors. Liam took her mouth in a wet spin and she could not help but go along.

He had her propped on her vanity and took her. Sweat and skin slapping gently with wet slicks that echoed in the bedroom.

"I love you so much."

And she forgot his wife and the world, kissing him back and murmuring the same. She was glad she did.

Riley did not talk the entire time while the fine, upstanding ladies of the Kingdom of Cordonia smuggled her to Georgia.

Bartie was yet too small of a child who still didn't understand the sin his godmother committed, and while Savannah did understand, her romantic, dramatic mind seemed to find a way to excuse it. Olivia watched her from a distance without saying a single word to her. Hana tried to seem like she cared, but Riley knew she was just as angry as the rest of them.

As the men, Drake and Maxwell, joined them on their third night in the Deep South, they brought no happiness or energy with them, but rather added to the knitting circle of sorrow at the too-small of a house.

She thought she was alone in all of this, doomed to a dishonourable exhile, until some palace maid called her a concubine on her way home from sitting on the well, at the center of that infamous hedge maze.

She could have done something, but in a blur of red and white, Olivia had the poor woman face down on the marmoreal floor in a chokehold until her face began to turn blue.

She did not speak until Hana screamed for Olivia to let go, until Drake had to restrain her physically.

It was of little consolation, in any case. Perhaps it would be better if she was actually alone.

She had just fornicated with a man twice her age but dressed well enough to be presentable when Liam asked her to meet him in the lower dungeons.

This was the night before he died.

Sunken, Liam looked like a cart dragged him half a mile around the countryside, tired and forlorn as never before. "I need you to do me a favour."

"Oh? And what would that be, your Serene Highness?"

She'd been playful, all swollen lips and sore legs. Liam never asked for favours, he was too independent, too protective to do it even when necessary, but he looked at her so long that she let go of the playfulness.

"She's expecting." He said, simple.

"Which one?" Was the response.

In all fairness, it was a question that needed to be asked.

Liam glared. Olivia always figured out his secrets, no matter how much he tried to hide them from her. It was frightening, even if he was sure she would never talk of them.

"I need you to look over her. Just in case something happens."

Olivia laughed with a quirk of her lips, "You speak as if you're facing death. Thinking of leaving us so soon?"

Liam smiled, "Just in case."

Riley's face crumbled. Olivia did not understand. They were talking about the weather, and how Georgia’s damp summer was so dreadful, she would rather the dry heat and foliage back in their homeland.

It was all fine, until Olivia reminded her that Liam would hate to be at Georgia with the humidity.

Olivia did not want to think about it. She squeezed until Riley's body felt warm and her thin arms latched on around Olivia’s neck.

"We'll take care of it. You will not be alone and you will have a healthy one, just as the doctor says. Do you understand?"

Riley held her tighter, fingers digging deep into her skin.

She watched Riley walk on the fields to sit and listen to the sounds of crickets and cicadas singing praise of the season.

Just as fast as Riley wept in her arms, Olivia knew that she let Liam go off into the orange and purple skies as the bugs lapped around her feet.

Pitiful girl.

Taglist: @boneandfur; @cora-nova; @mfackenthal; @theroyalweisme; @zilch3

#the royal romance #liam #drake walker #maxwell beaumont #hana lee #olivia nevrakis #savannah walker

32 notes · View notes

contrariancy · 5 years

Text

liner notes for ‘reach’.

So, uh. When I write, whatever I write, I always keep a separate “notes” file with things like general plot points, timelines, stuff I’m debating putting in, cut things, and deleted/rewritten bits. And needless to say, the notes for reach got a little, well, long.

Some of the cut stuff I’m actually repurposing for an upcoming series (tentatively titled ‘iƒ’, based on branching points in ‘reach’), but even when I remove that, it’s a lot. So I figured I’d just dump them here and hopefully someone will find them interesting or what have you.

➤ this fic was how I coped with chapter 295; chapter 1 was written almost in its entirety before 296 came out. I acted cool on tumblr and twitter, but I was absolutely sweating bullets and fully prepared to write bizarre fix-it fic because I wanted it. After 296, I lost some steam, but I had a couple friends tell me they really liked the first chapter and thought it was a good concept. I’ve done enough "lost scene" fics that I wanted to try a new challenge and see if I could create an engaging AU fanfic.

Here is exactly what spawned this:

➤ there were a few rules I created for myself before I got started. The first one was that I couldn’t post anything until the fic was mostly done and once I started posting, that was a commitment to finish it. The second was minimal to no OCs — I had to bend this later with Bathin, but I compromised by making his power fear-based and having him take other forms.

The third rule was that any character introduced had to have some sort of role to play; they couldn’t be there just to "be there" and exist to boost up other characters. Zeal was the only character in it out of necessity, as Guila would have been written entirely differently if she didn’t have her brother with her. Even then, I tried to give him something that wasn’t "[X] in distress." I think the character that came closest to being that was Hendrickson, honestly.

➤ originally, Hendrickson was going to have a phone that he talked to and would have run into Dreyfus while exploring the city. I opted against this because I didn’t want to write any OCs in this and a phone counts. Also, it would be ten times more interesting to have him bounce off of Dreyfus instead of some phone that the reader does not care about. It was also important to me that Dreyfus get introduced as soon as possible, especially in a fic like this where the reader is being asked to accept something different from the top.

➤ Jericho and Howzer were not in the initial draft notes. Then I came up with the pair concept early on (after realizing there was a pattern with Guila-Zeal and Hendrickson-Dreyfus and I could play with that for the eventual Merlin reveal). Fraudrin was an actual character briefly before I decided that Fraudrin as a villain was kind of a tired thing; if I was going to write for him at this point, I would want to explore more of the shades of gray with his character, and this fic would not give me the time or leeway for that. So Howzer became Gil’s paired partner instead, also because I just wanted to write Howzer. Jericho offered the most opportunity for writing things, and I wanted to play her off of Hendrickson and Dreyfus.

➤ Merlin was always going to be the deus ex machina. Merlin was always a factor and always the only Sin I was going to put in. The only thing that changed is she went from sweeping in and completely taking out Bathin and Fixing Everything Ever to coming in for the assist at the end with her OP skills.

➤ Helbram is only in it because he was the first dead character I thought of as a potential partner for Zaratras. I wrote the first half of interlude 1 before anything else and I loved the odd couple pairing, so he stayed and became kind of essential. He’s also very fun to write for and I thought he would be an interesting contrast to the others.

➤ Bathin was going to originally be a straight up Fraudrin clone and just the entity Bathin using Fraudrin’s guise as a persona or whatever. Again, I decided Fraudrin as a villain was a tired thing at this point and having the villain just be Fraudrin again was a bit of a cop out, even if I really didn’t want to write any type of OC. Bathin is like Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist, later complete with Velvet Crowe from Berseria’s arm (which is. also Meliodas and Derieri and I went "oops oh well"). I liked the mental image of Margaret beating everyone up too, so that’s why that happened. It’s also because they’re the two figures in Hendrickson’s life that get possessed and Bathin poses as both of them.

Bathin was meant to be cruel but fun, like an animal that plays with its food. His downfall is his hubris! He thinks he’s on top — and it’s his world, why wouldn’t he think that? — so he doesn’t see anyone as a real threat. The unknown terrifies him though, and that’s why he was tearing his hair out over the 'interloper.'

➤ ftr, Bathin is one of the many demons referenced in the Lesser Key of Solomon. I’d originally considered something else and even looked into a lot of Arthurian lore, but since Nakaba mines those for canon and I didn’t want to risk any overlap, I swerved in a different direction all together.

➤ epilogue 1.0 is hot garbage, I started writing this before 296 came out and it was built on assumptions that thankfully turned out not to be true. I trashed it quickly and I like 2.0 much, much better. It’s embarrassingly bad though and this is why you edit, okay. Also, it focused solely on Hendrickson and Dreyfus when the fic did become an ensemble piece and therefore, the other characters deserved to get closure. Some of the sentence structure and imagery got cannibalized for the very last part of the new epilogue, though.

➤ most of the chapter titles stayed the same from the beginning; only chapter 5’s changed. It was originally "in which a good boy questions a demon’s fashion choices" which was a reference to Howzer switching sides and Bathin-as-Fraudrin stuff. Bathin shifted to chapter 6 entirely though, so it became less relevant. The placeholder title was 'in which lightning strikes twice’’ which is a reference to Gilthunder and Zaratras, but since Zaratras doesn’t actually fight in that one, it didn’t make sense.

Everything from here on is from my notes in my project file; the only things I’ve done are rearranged the order for clarity and expanded on shorthand, though there are a couple of italicized notes in parenthesis that I added in later. Some of it is pretty disjointed tbqh! I have a bad habit of not writing in order.

Like I said before, I do a notes file for pretty much anything I write, as it’s where I dump ideas so I don’t forget or move cut text to in case I decide I like the older version better later on (it’s happened). This one just got ridiculously large, so hopefully someone besides me gets a kick out of it.

General notes

Hendrickson wakes up in an apartment, everything is taken care of, wtf

maybe Zaratras has been there for a bit and they're like ARE WE DEAD?? and he's just all HA HA you better not be.

Zaratras is the guy who has just been there!! Forever!! He runs a bar.

Gil is from just before the Kingdom Infiltration arc, so he is just sad and tired all the time.

Howzer is from early and a good boy but also devoted to Dreyfraudrin so it’s like. ??? When he sees those two. He will bond with Hendrickson and this time it will be Hendy’s turn to be like hey. Come. It’s fine.

The ultimate goal with Gil and Howzer is basically attempting to make people whisper "who hurt you."

Merlin shows up in the end like hmm you were all pulled into a pocket dimension but don’t worry, you should be expelled right back into the timeline where you left. No big deal. Bye.

Helbram and Hendrickson kind of. They’re not OKAY but they realize they are both shitty people who were in an impossible situation. Helbram is the petty type, so he’s not really going to forgive him, but Hendrickson doesn’t need his forgiveness either. The two of them work together though because it’s the only way out

Helbram just dunks on Hendrickson constantly because of course he does

Guila is from the same period as Hendrickson and Dreyfus, but she has been there for months by the time they arrive. Zeal is there too because otherwise she’d destroy everyone and everything.

They come in pairs, from similar points in time?

Guila and Zeal are just before the holy war, around chapter 252. Team smartass gen z

Hendrickson and Dreyfus are post 266 / 285 or whatever. Team old man

Zaratras and Helbram are team post death. Team DEAD

Gil and super early bro Howzer who work for Dreyfraudrin. Team dumb boys

Jericho and Merlin. Merlin just lurks for ages, there should be hints about her from chapter 2 on then she’s like lol hi. Post 197 for Jericho, Merlin plays coy because who cares. After 197, Merlin senses Bathin and is like gimme. Team Jericho Broke Nothing

Bathin notes

It’s powered by a crystal that preys on their fears?? Hence Dreyfraudrin existing. Zaratras kind of knows what’s up because he can sense it, since the energy sort of started when he got there, the dude gained a form when Gil showed up, then power when Guila arrived and later Jericho, and now Hendy and Dreyfus sort of complete the collection. It’s their fears all manifested. Merlin has no impact on it though and actually weakened it because ha ha ha you think she has fears, that’s cute. (this shifted to Bathin’s true form being a crystal — I was trying to stick to my "no OC" rule.)

Beleth or Bathin, a fragment of the sangréal? <— too complicated, stick with Ars Goetia lore interpreted for nnt-land. (I think my plan here was some ancient artifact?? Like the sacred treasures. It got really complicated really fast which is no good.) Belialuin Bathinal

Bathin is a demon, its true form is the crystal, it feeds on fears and created the pocket dimension to try and regain a more viable physical form, the weakened state is why its legions are so weak.

But also Bathin feeds on fears and craves Hendrickson and the others’ fears of Fraudrin and everything, and when Bathin finally gets Hendy and is like aren’t you afraid?? He’s just. Yes. I am absolutely terrified. But because Dreyfus took the time to punch him in the heart repeatedly he’s not going to roll over, he has to keep going. Helbram also yells at him like HOW DARE YOU. YOU CAN’T. (This shifted to Jericho in chapter 5 so it could become a more solid arc in the end with the confrontation in 6. Helbram got his moment with Hendrickson and Guila instead and, later, his goodbye.)

Bathin appears like Dreyfraudrin and Margaret, so when they strike Fraudrin down and are like ok?? We good?? Margaret turns and cuts them?? You have until chapter 6 to decide. (it’s pretty obvious what I decided.)

Outline

Hendrickson is the perspective character. Only the interlude, which is Dreyfus-centric, isn’t. (The other two interludes were added as I was writing later on.)

Chapter 1: Hendrickson and Dreyfus and general scene setting. Chapter 2: They actually go around town, Guila and Jericho are super introduced, we get glimpses of Gil and Howzer and they kind of talk to the latter. Kind of. Chapter 3: They get to the bar where there’s a bartender that dresses like a mysterious knight, spooky scary etc etc. It’s Zaratras. Helbram is there, too. More on Gil, Howzer should be questioning. Hendrickson leaves Dreyfus at the bar, runs into Howzer on the way out. Interlude 1: Dreyfus figures out Hendrickson’s plan re: Ludociel. Interlude 2: Jericho and Guila on Helbram. Interlude 3: Howzer and Gilthunder. Chapter 4: The confrontation between Dreyfus and Hendrickson. Howzer crashes their place because of course he does. Chapter 5: The Dreyfraudrin chapter. Vs Gilthunder. Zeal will guide them; alluded to in chapter 3. Chapter 6: The source, Bathin, is revealed, Merlin shows herself. Epilogue: The end. "I’m going to make you see how wrong you are." —> this promise HAS to be fulfilled.

TIMELINE:

Five+ months — Zaratras and Helbram

Five months — Gilthunder and Howzer

Three months — Guila and Zeal

A week — Jericho and Merlin

~Days — Hendrickson and Dreyfus

Setting

Eighteenth Plaza — Bathin is the 18th Goetia. Based on Shibuya 109 on the outside.

Pub’s name — Wandering Knight, Silver Helm

Possible Combos - Shot Purge (Guila-Hendrickson) —> Holy Shot?

Flats are like a venus fly trap, lulling them into a false sense of security and complacency so Bathin can keep feeding off their fear?? Maybe it was and then Merlin showed up like lol hi. (I dumped this because it overcomplicated things a lot; it just became very subtly and only partially implied in chapter 5 but ultimately not very important.)

Cut lines

Chapter Two: What the four of them manage to put together quickly — really, Guila and Hendrickson exchanging theories and ideas while Jericho and Dreyfus watch from across the booth in silent wonder, occasionally exchanging glances as if to say what is wrong with these two — is this: (I wish I could have kept the Jericho and Dreyfus bit, but it didn’t work. This was when they were in the booth, exchanging information.)

“Now hold on a minute, Gilthunder!” Dreyfus turns back to face him, squaring his shoulders. “This— this isn’t what you think! If it’s about M—”

It’s Hendrickson’s turn to yank Dreyfus back, hissing in his ear. “Don’t.” (I didn’t want to complicate it with Margaret. This was before I’d decided to have Bathin use Margaret as a guise as well, but I’d still cut it even if I knew.)

Chapter Five: “You should be.” Hendrickson counters, resting his hands on the back of the couch, leaning forward to look down at Helbram. “Because he brought you and Zaratras here before anyone else. It’s likely that he preys on the souls of the dead.” He pauses at that, glancing over at Guila who nods in agreement, before shifting his attention back to the fairy. “Even if we ‘get out,’ you can’t just live here. Bathin will continue to eat away at your very spirit.” (there are several logical flaws in this that got cleaned up in the final version, which reads very similarly.)

“That should be plenty of time.” Guila pats at Zeal’s shoulder lightly. “Some of us won’t even need that much time, certainly.” (The scene was dragging on for too long and this was ultimately unnecessary. I tend to be really wordy and not know when to stop a scene, so I cut a lot for the sake of flow later on or rework things.)

“Especially since this isn’t Dreyfus’s field of expertise.” (This was cut from the conversation Hendrickson had with Zaratras -- about strategy -- because frankly, it isn’t true and even if it was, Hendrickson wouldn’t say something like that. I cut a lot of stuff like this where it works for the plot but doesn’t track with the character. editing good!!)

The screech of tires can be heard in the distance.

“Ah, I believe they’ve managed to find a vehicle!” (god I really wanted to put Zaratras commenting on grand theft auto in this, even if it made no narrative sense.)

Chapter Six: “Huh?” Jericho gives her a confused look before looking back over her shoulder, where Bathin and Gilthunder were battling it out hand-to-sword. “Yeah, I just— this place is starting to fall apart.”

“Yes, it is, which is why we need to be careful. If you could provide a distraction—”

“Oh!” She snaps her fingers in response. “Yeah, okay, I can do that!” (Jericho was a bit too passive here and it was difficult to transition to the next beat. I reworked it in the final version.)

“Be careful. He’s using his weight as a weapon.” (This was somewhere in phase two of the Bathin fight. I was trying to set the character apart from other demons that they’ve fought, but this was too expository. Hopefully, the sentiment got across in description and whatnot and if not, uh. Oops.)

As he pulls away, flying off towards solid ground, the ice begins to audibly crack. Hendrickson stares up at it, almost resigned in a way. “So this is it,” he murmurs to himself, watching the cracks spider-web their way along the platform (I removed this and tweaked the final paragraph because it didn’t quite line up with Hendrickson’s character in this, especially given the turning point that comes only a paragraph or two later. That one line doesn’t line up with the rest of his arc in the entire fic; I was trying to make it obvious that the ice was cracking and wasn’t going to hold, but uh. This was not the way to do it.)

As an amicable silence falls between them — a far cry from the silence that lingered the last time he took this elevator up — (The transition in the elevator was hard.)

Gilthunder clenches a fist. “That’s exactly why I can’t forget. If I—” He swallows hard. (A lot of stuff gets cut because I start typing and can’t figure out where to go with it. It just didn’t work in the sequence and was too emotional for Gilthunder’s canon point.)

“By the way, have you seen Helbram?” (Zaratras was going to ask about Helbram as well, but that would have dragged the pacing down. Besides, I’d like to think that after their time together, Zaratras ‘gets’ Helbram on some level and knows he’d want to head out on his own terms.)

The orange hue fades into the black of the night, growing brighter and brighter with every passing moment, much like the world around them. And then, it reaches a point where it becomes blindingly bright, like a warmth washing over all of them at once. And then—

And then— (Did you know that this was basically the same format I used to end the pentultimate section of another fic because I sure didn’t until I just so happened to reread it before posting this one. god. damnit.)

Epilogue:

“I’m getting better, right?”

Jericho looks over her shoulder at Hendrickson, then gestures at a small patch of ice in front of her. The druid glances between her and the patch, looking mildly uncertain. “It’s progress,” he admits after a moment.

“You should have seen it the other day, though!” She stomps her foot. “Sir Dreyfus told me I had a lot of potential. (This was originally how Jericho’s epilogue was going to start. It didn’t seem right for her though, especially given the ‘reset’ tone, so I cut it and started from scratch. This would potentially work if it was Dreyfus, but not Hendrickson.)

Detailed chapter breakdowns

Chapter 3: Helbram is disguised, Zaratras is in his armor, it’s a pub and they’re INCOGNITO ok. Helbram spills a drink on Hendrickson like an asshole before the reveal. They figure out that the bartender and server aren’t on the same “script” as the NPCs.

CHAPTER 4 ends with them meeting up with Guila and Jericho, Guila is like this is Bathin, the Eighteenth Duke of the Demon Realm.

CHAPTER 5 is the big planning chapter + infiltrating and fighting Gilthunder. At the end, Bathin’s legions converge on Eighteenth Plaza and Dreyfus stays behind to stop them. Zaratras helps, brothers!! They can have a sad scene with Hendy.

CHAPTER 6 will have a big fight scene in it, this needs to be carefully blocked and mapped out. (narrator voice: it was not carefully blocked and mapped out.)

THE PLAYERS

Bathin — via Dreyfraudrin and Margaret. A lot of darkness, demon powers, fear manipulation. Teleportation? Dreyfraudrin has strength, Margaret has Velvet Crowe-esque hand bs? Dark tendrils, like a cat’s tail.

Hendrickson — Purge, Acid. Purge can weaken Bathin’s power. Dreyfus — Break, Full Size. Full Size might be too much for the building. Dreyfus and Zaratras could hold off Bathin’s legions? Guila — Explosion. Combo with Hendrickson at one point. Jericho — Ice Fang. Someone can get thrown out the elevator at some point and Jericho uses ice to extend a platform and keep them from falling. Eventually uses ice to root Bathin in place so she can PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE!!! Howzer — Tempest. Gilthunder — Thunderbolt. Short circuits the electronics? Helbram — plays his part disguised as Gil to get everyone in, fucks off partway through. Returns to yell at idiots. (This plan was too complicated; what I settled on works better character-wise and narratively speaking.) Zaratras — Great Thunder. Works with Dreyfus to hold off Bathin’s THIRTY DEMON LEGIONS so the others can take him.

Merlin — Infinity. She needs Bathin to be weakened and have his guard down to strike, which is why she slinks in the background and waits. Probably steps in after they’ve done that but Bathin is like YOU FOOLS!! Etc etc. Uses infinity to keep the Holy Shot effect goin’ (see above notes about Merlin)

THE SETTING

Top floor of Eighteenth Plaza. There’s the massive office, the long hallway, and the elevator. This is the main area for Bathin.

In the lobby, Zaratras and Dreyfus will take on Bathin’s legions of demons after freeing Gilthunder from his influence.

Guila and Hendrickson get thrown out the glass elevator window, Jericho creates an ice shelf that they cling to, Howzer and Gil work on keeping Bathin busy while Helbram flies out and grabs Guila at Hendrickson’s urging. Hendrickson falls.

Small brief flashback to super young Hendy and Jenna? A call back to being shown how wrong he is. Jenna’s just like LOOK YOU’LL BE FINE, YOU NEVER LIKED IT HERE ANYWAY!! Gosh you’re such a dour kid sometimes, geez, but don’t worry, someone’ll show you how wrong you are someday.

Full Size Dreyfus catches him because gratuitous yes.

Bathin is unfair but so is Merlin.

. . . and that’s it! Hopefully that was interesting to someone and if not, uh. I’m very sorry. Thank you for reading! 🙏

#nnt #fic #liner notes

5 notes · View notes

raendown · 6 years

Link

I finally got around to taking part in @dahtwitchi‘s Dick Pic Project! And in time to be allowed my repost of her delicious artwork! The image I am posting is ever so slightly doctored, just cropped a little, but with permission from Twitchi.

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 4121 Rated: M Summary: Madara isn't sure what he thinks about being given a third chance at life. He's glad that he has his brother and Hashirama with him, although he's pretty sure he could live without Tobirama being there as well. What really makes things things interesting is all this new technology. He particularly enjoys his new 'cellphone'.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

Rapture On The Lonely Shore

As much as Madara appreciated being given another chance at life, there were still moments when he wondered if this was all just a little too much trouble. He had lived his life – two of them in fact! In that time he had committed his crimes, died for them twice, and seen about as much of the world as he’d thought he would ever want to. Getting dragged back in to the land of the living for a third go around wasn’t really in his plans.

Having both of the Senju brothers tag along for the ride could be nothing but karma trying to kick him in the ass and have a good laugh at him while doing it. Some days not even the fact that Izuna had also clawed his way back to life was worth the aggravation of it all.

Certainly on the surface everything was fine and dandy. The citizens of Konoha had at last reached a point where they were content to ignore him so long as he remained docile and afforded them the same discourtesy. Hashirama had fallen so easily in to the patterns of friendship they enjoyed during the few shorts months he had been able to peacefully exist within the village they built together. Spending his days with Izuna as he had always wanted to was a joy he’d long stopped believing could ever be possible.

The problem, as always, was Tobirama. To an outsider’s point of view it would appear that Tobirama had given up all animosity towards the Uchiha brothers he once carried so much hate for. And that would almost be considered correct, Madara had to admit. After finding themselves alive in a time period far passed their own, all of them had found it much easier to lay down their anger and simply enjoy the time they had been gifted, allowing the sins of the past to stay there and looking forward to the future with lighter hearts. Tobirama spent most of his time these days devoting his mind to the science he’d always loved.

He spent the rest of his time bothering Madara.

It wasn’t the same sort of hatred which had existed between them before when Izuna lay buried beneath six feet of earth and neither Tobirama nor Madara could look at each other without seeing the blood of their lost kin. Back then they had both done everything in their power to get in each other’s way, to antagonize and impede and irritate in every way they could just for the pleasure of knowing they had ruined even just a moment of the other’s day.

Now Madara wasn’t sure what he would call it. Without the weight of the world on his shoulders Tobirama seemed to have discovered a new side of himself that very much enjoyed poking fun at other people. He found a great deal of amusement in pulling small pranks and Madara, unfortunately, was his new favorite victim. Even more confusing was that none of it seemed to truly be mean-spirited. Tobirama switched out his reading glasses and put dye in his shampoo bottle, he laughed at the results until he was rubbing his sides with glee and then – amazingly – he would return Madara his things or provide him with the cure for whatever chaos he had caused. Then he returned to his lab until the urge for this new brand of fun rose again.

Several years had already gone by since the Fourth Shinobi War and all of them were fairly well entrenched in their patterns. Izuna in particular still struggled to remember the availability of new technologies like electric stoves and lightbulbs. On his part, Madara had been enamored with the concept of a cellphone since he was first handed one and the concept explained to him. That changed when Tobirama got a cellphone of his own.

Now here he was eyeing the small bar across the lock screen which indicated that he had a new message from “That White Bastard”. Madara sighed, drumming the nails of his other hands against his thigh as he wondered if it was worth his time to open the message. Last time he gave in to curiosity he’d gotten a series of eight picture messages of the same stupid leaf from different angles. Just a dumb waste of his time, something harmless that did nothing more than irritate him yet caused no real offense, that was the basis of all their interactions now. Madara had stopped checking Tobirama’s messages since then and started deleting them on sight but today a pattern had been broken.

Today he had received one picture message followed by no less than fifteen text messages in rapid succession. The constant ding of his phone was both annoying and slightly alarming, holding his attention if only for the way the messages just kept coming all at once. That wasn’t like Tobirama. It was more like Tobirama to wait and send each message in short intervals for maximum irritation value.

With a roll of his eyes and a heavy sigh, Madara unlocked his phone and fumbled around for the messages app. He wouldn’t be able to think about anything else until he solved this mini mystery so he might as well get it over with sooner rather than later. As soon as he opened it, however, he narrowed his eyes in confusion, anxious worry rising up in his throat as he read through the immediately visible messages.

No Seriously Do not I mean it, don’t scroll up If I send you enough messages it won’t be visible Just don’t scroll up I mean it Uchiha Don’t fucking do it If you want to keep your sanity DO NOT SCROLL UP

Madara caught his bottom lip between his teeth and nibbled viciously with indecision. He’d never seen Tobirama come even close to panic before but these messages, the speed with which they had all dropped in one after the other, it felt a lot like panic to him. The last message in particular caught his attention. He wasn’t sure if the wording was meant as a genuine warning or as a some kind of threat but all it had really accomplished was to make him incredibly curious. What could that idiot Senju have possibly sent him that would be followed all of this?

It took exactly half a minute for Madara to cave to his own curiosity. Whatever had been sent to him, it was obvious the Senju didn’t want him to see it. He might be holding amazing blackmail material in the palm of his hand; he would be stupid not to investigate that. Scrolling upwards only increased his confusion at first as it became more and more clear that Tobirama seemed to have sent him something by accident, something he truly did not wish for Madara to see, true panic clear in the messages where he seemed to realize he’d made some sort of mistake.

DON’T LOOK AT IT I DID NOT MEAN TO SEND THIS IMAGE Believe me when I say I meant to send something else This was an accident Do not scroll up Do not look at that image No Seriously

And then Madara found the image itself.

If he had an ounce less self-control he would have thrown his cellphone across the room on mere reflex, an instinctive reaction to the immediate influx of conflicting emotions. Of all the possible things Tobirama might have sent him, even accidentally, an image of the other man in the nude had not even crossed Madara’s mind.

Alright, so Tobirama wasn’t completely nude in the photo, although he might as well have been. His torso was bare and the pants he was wearing were opened to allow his impressive erection to rise out and stand perfectly centered in the frame. Madara couldn’t decide if he wanted to stare at the most delicious cock he’d ever set his poor shamed eyes upon or if he wanted to trace the shape of the tattoo he’d never known about. Tobirama’s pale white skin made a perfect backdrop for the red ink of a tiger to claw its way up and around his shoulder, the stripes of the beast’s arm running down Tobirama’s. The man’s other arm was pulled up behind his head to draw Madara’s eye to the third surprise: apparently Tobirama had seen fit to pierce one of his nipples.

Madara swallowed thickly, both hands clutching his phone so hard the metal casing gave a protesting creak. The part of his brain that had been raised in a war with the Senju was a little disgusted with himself for even entertaining the ideas this image was clearly meant to inspire. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to inspire those ideas in him but the other part of himself, the one that had put the war behind him and was slowly learning to trust again, was already rerouting blood to some very interested parts of his body. A few years ago he might have scowled at this same image with nothing but revulsion. Now he sank deeper in to his couch cushions and palmed the front of his trousers.

Two could play at this game, he thought with a grin. It had taken hours to teach him how to use the camera function on this overly complicated device but it was time he appreciated as well-spent now, reluctantly backing away from the messaging app so he could open up the camera and fiddle until he remembered how to turn it around to face himself. Then he unfastened his pants and pushed them down.

He wasn’t nearly as naked as Tobirama, he noticed. Staring back at the image of himself made him wonder if he should set the scene a little. Maybe take off his shirt? Pose? What expression should he make? Madara shifted and watched his cock bob from side to side, leering at the reflection his own hardness when an idea occurred to him.

It took several tries to get a picture he liked that actually stayed in focus, then several more tries to figure out how to send it back to Tobirama. If he said so himself it was quite an attractive image with him hunkered down in a similar lounging pose as the other man with one of his hands stroking himself and his eyes closed in bliss.

When his phone began to ring he nearly jumped out of his skin. The screen told him that Tobirama was calling him and Madara stared at it for a few seconds, terrified enough that his erection wilted a little. He didn’t think Tobirama would call him. He’d just…actually he had no idea what he’d meant with this stupid idea. Tit for tat? Payback? Mutual teasing with naked bodies? But if he didn’t answer then he ran the risk of Tobirama just popping in with that infernal jutsu of his so Madara accepted the call with one shaking thumb, his other hand still wrapped protectively around his own cock.

“Hello…” he mumbled, unsure of what the protocol was for talking to someone he’d just sent a racy picture of himself to.

“I thought I told you not to look at it.” Tobirama’s voice sounded oddly breathless in his ear. Madara swallowed thickly as his mind supplied him with several possible reasons why. His thumb absently rubbed small circles around the smooth head of his cock, making him shiver.

“You made me curious,” he admitted.

A few beats of silence followed before Tobirama spoke in a husky rasp, “I think I made you hard.”

“Perhaps. And you?” This was all stupid, so stupid, a bad idea shaped from adrenaline and the shock of sudden arousal. The percentage chance of this all blowing up in his face was astronomically high and yet he couldn’t stop his thumb from continuing to trace light circles, closing his eyes and dropping his head back to strain his ears for the sound of Tobirama’s voice. Had the man always had such an attractive voice or had Madara just not been listening properly?

“Madara…what are you doing right now?”

There were a hundred possible answers he could have given, a million different lies he could have told to stop this situation before it got too far out of hand, but the only animosity left between them was harmless pranks because they made Tobirama laugh and Madara had just enough courage to make a leap of faith. He took a chance in a way he never would have done in the world they lived in before.

“Right now? I’m touching myself while I think about that picture you sent me.”

“Oh.” Tobirama cleared his throat but it didn’t erase the fact that they both heard his voice crack. “R-right now. You’re–? Okay.”

“Do you know what would help?” Madara grinned listening to Tobirama’s breathing speed up.

“What?”

“If I could listen to you touching yourself at the same time.”

He never would have guessed how satisfying it would be to hear the hitch in Tobirama’s breath and the stuttering inhale that followed his statement. Madara shifted his grasp on the phone and squirmed as his thumb moved a little faster. Every fiber of his being wanted to move the entire hand, his blood boiling with anticipation at just the thought of it, but he held off for now. How much more satisfying would it be to have Tobirama join him? To listen to each other fall to pieces even though they were half a village apart.

Very likely he would have trouble looking Tobirama in the eye the next time they saw each other but that was a problem to be considered later. He could worry about his own recklessness and the possible fallouts of this after what promised to be a very satisfying orgasm.

“So, what, you would just…if I…?”

“You’re already touching yourself aren’t you?” Madara cut in smugly.

“Are you?”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Tell me how you’re touching yourself Tobirama.”

The voice in his ear stumbled through a few syllables, clearly having difficulty doing both tasks at once, but finally he managed to say, “Slowly. I like to do it slowly. With light touches at first.”

Madara kept his eyes closed and groaned freely as his hand began to move at last, root to tip, consciously mimicking the things that were being described to him and trying to imagine it was Tobirama’s pale hand working him. Unsurprisingly, it was pretty easy to imagine. He’d never been more thankful for the perfect recall his eyes granted him.

“Never knew you had any other tattoos. If you were here I’d be tracing it with my tongue.” Madara bucked helplessly in to his fist when Tobirama groaned in his ear. He waited to hear something back, silence stretching until he realized the other man either had no idea what to say or was still too embarrassed to say it. Feeling reckless, he continued to speak his mind without thought for the consequences. “And that piercing. You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you? I’d love to get my teeth around that.”

“It was a dare,” Tobirama murmured finally, making him chuckle.

“Dare you to stroke yourself a little faster,” he said darkly. The other man let out a keening sound that sparked down the length of his spine like a jolt of electricity.

When the breathing in his ear started coming in fits and starts Madara swallowed thickly and moved his own hand faster as well, thrilled in a way he couldn’t describe to know that Tobirama had done so at his behest. His other hand absently pressed the phone so hard to the side of his head he feared the screen might crack, unwilling to miss even the slightest sound.

“You’re close, aren’t you?” he asked, grinding the words out between his clenched teeth.

“Fuck – yes – fuck…” Tobirama paused and then he whispered, “I want…to hear youcome.”

Madara groaned again instead of answering. If he had a second hand free he would have reached down between his legs to tease his entrance, maybe spit on his fingers and pressed in with just the tip of one, but to do that he would have to drop the phone. The last thing he was willing to do at that moment was give up the sound of Tobirama right at the edge, so close to glory. So instead he squeezed his eyes closed tighter and constructed the image of the other man on his knees taking Madara in to his mouth, the heat and the suction and the way his red eyes would be narrow and unfocused.

It was just enough. With a violent shudder he came, back arching and teeth grinding, a wordless growl ripping up his throat and immediately echoed from the other end of the call. Madara felt his jaw drop open in a gasp when he realized that Tobirama was coming too, reaching his completion from listening to Madara’s own.

When the pleasure bordered on pain he let his hand come to rest and slumped backwards against the couch cushions to listen to Tobirama’s panting. His mind was blissfully empty of any thoughts other than how incredibly satisfying that had been, more satisfying than taking care of things himself usually felt. It took several minutes for him to realize that he and Tobirama were sitting in silence and listening to the each other recover in the aftermath. This was a man who, until a half hour ago, he would never thought himself to have any attachment to, had never even considered him as an option. Their shared past had blinded him to any possible attraction before now.

Now he wasn’t sure he would be able to look the man in the eye without wondering what he would taste like in the throes of ecstasy. Madara snapped both eyes open and stared at the ceiling with muted horror as he slowly realized what he’d just done and who he had done it with.

It seemed Tobirama’s mind was following the same paths.

“May I point out,” he heard the man rumble, “that it truly was an accident, me sending you that image.”

“Hmm. You say that and yet I cannot think of any other reason for you to possess something…like…that…” Madara’s voice trailed off as a sudden thought washed over him like ice water. Why indeed would Tobirama have taken a photograph like that? Had he meant to send it to someone else? Had he taken it for a another person? His panic was cut short when Tobirama snapped at him, slipping easily in to defensive mode.

“You’ve called me narcissistic many times yourself. If you can’t tell what that image is for then I don’t know how to break the news to you.”

“Well I just thought, you know, if it was meant for…”

“Someone else?”

Madara pulled the phone away from his ear so that he could scowl at it briefly, hoping Tobirama would feel his irritation through their connection. Then he brought it back to say, “Clearly. I seem to remember that Inuzuka boy blathering on about something called ‘dick pics’ while he was trying to explain the camera function to me.”

“It was meant to pander to my preference for exhibitionism when at the time I lacked a partner to exhibit myself for.” He paused, a moment in which Madara strained his ears for more. “I am, in fact, still without a partner. A life partner, I mean. Or, well, that’s a bit presumptuous, clearly not every relationship is meant to last for life but what I mean is–”

“Are you asking me to be your partner?”

“Well I was going to but not if you’re going to interrupt me in that tone.”

“Because you don’t actually hate me or because I got you off over the phone?” Madara huffed, using his sticky hand to wrench his clothing back in to place with something like offense settling in his stomach.

Tobirama echoed his huff. “Impossible man. Just hold on a moment.”

Before Madara had time to question what the man wanted him to hold on for there was a surge of chakra across the room and then he was very glad he’d taken the time to stuff himself back inside his pants. Tobirama’s head swung from side to side as he took in the room he had just appeared in, clearly looking for Madara, and he narrowed his eyes when he spotted his prey.

“Are you deliberately this obtuse or do you somehow go through life with your eyes closed without noticing?” the man demanded, crossing the room with long strides to lean over and brace himself against the back of the couch with one hand, shoving his face right up in to Madara’s.

“I am not obtuse!”

“You can’t even tell when someone is flirting with you!”

“That’s – you’ve been flirting with me!?” Madara shoved the idiot away from himself so that he could rise to his feet with indignation. “What are you, five? A little girl pulling pigtails? You annoy me every chance you get and call it flirting? Not even your stupid lump of a brother is that poorly socialized to think that any sane human being would see your actions as some form of courtship ritual!”

“Would you shut up?”

Tobirama sneered in irritation and then hauled Madara up on to his toes for a searing kiss that cut off all further comments. As much as Madara wanted to cling to his argument that absolutely no flirting had happened, he gave in to Tobirama’s very convincing rebuttal rather quickly. It was hands down the best argument he’d ever lost and he did have to admit that the benefits of going along with this far outweighed the downsides. Actually, he couldn’t think of any downsides at all.

He very deliberately avoided thinking about what Hashirama’s reaction would be to this little development.

Groaning in protest when the delicious lips assaulting his own pulled away, Madara gathered what little cantankerous irritation was left in him and glared up at the man towering over him, a little insulted as he always was whenever he noticed again how much taller Tobirama was than him.

“You did send me that ‘dick pic’ on purpose, didn’t you? I know you did.”

“I maintain that it was an accident.”

“Bullshit.”

Tobirama shrugged. “Believe what you will. Although I should probably mention that I believe it was your brother which started the betting pool on when precisely you would clue in to my attentions. I’m not certain who has the spot for this month but we may wish to be discreet for now.” Madara pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I changed my mind. You’re too much trouble, get out of my house.”

“Hmm, so that’s a no on taking a few more personal photographs? These cellular phones are incredibly useful, wouldn’t you say?”

Madara paused to close his eyes and draw in a deep breath, letting it back out slowly before cracking his eyes open again for a very hard glare. He was sort of hoping his new partner might cower under the force of such a sharp expression but instead the only response he got was a single raised eyebrow.

“I hate you,” he grumbled.

“You’ll love what I can do with my tongue, though.”

“Can I take pictures of that?”

Tobirama didn’t answer him but Madara did notice the other man made sure to grab his cellphone as they stumbled down the hall towards his bedroom.

He still didn’t understand for what purpose he had been given yet another unearned chance at life. Madara had no idea why he and Izuna and the Senju brothers had all been pulled away from what should have been their final rest. But that mattered less and less with every kiss the two of them shared on their stumbling journey down the hall. There didn’t need to be a reason for any of this; what mattered was the fact that he hardly remembered what it felt like to truly hate someone, that he had the life now he had dreamed of for so many years before.

What mattered was Tobirama and the oddly peaceful feeling of leaning in to his embrace. This new future with its strange technologies was no faultless paradise but it certainly had quite a few perks he very much intended to take advantage of like cellphones, dick pics, and the dimmer switch on the electric lightbulbs in his bedroom. Madara had no idea why he had been granted the life he’d always wanted – but he was happy to finally be happy.

#rae writes #art by dahtwitchi #madatobi #madara #tobirama #fanfiction #fanart #naruto shippuden

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