#there were some funny jokes and while I zoned out for most of the bullying bbh again bit to finish my essay I still listened to some of it

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Derision

Well, here we are. This is the episode you've all been waiting for me to cover. The one people claim is the cream of the crop when it comes to badness, not just for the insane amount of retcons and cases of character assassination, but for how it retroactively makes one of the most criticized parts of the entire show worse by comparison. If you've seen the episode, you know what I'm talking about.

Let's get into the fourteenth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Derision

We start off with Marinette waking up for the day before getting a call from Adrien, who gives one of the clunkiest pieces of exposition I've ever heard on this show, and that's saying something.

Adrien: I was just going to tell you how excited I am that we're meeting at the swimming pool later, and to wake you up just in case you were still sleeping.

Just as she hangs up, Marinette's hands start to tremble, having visions of a locker, hinting at some old memories resurfacing. Just to get this out of the way, but one thing I want to give this episode props for is the way these panic attacks are portrayed. The colors change, the environments warp around, and it gives off a very uneasy feeling. It kind of reminds me of this one episode of The Twilight Zone, “Little Girl Lost”, which used similar visuals to depict the otherworldly atmosphere of another dimension.

Marinette meets up with Adrien at the local pool, and has another panic attack. Kim and Ondine seem to notice this.

Kim: Woah, Adrien. That must've been some prank you pulled to make Marinette freak out like that. What did you do to her?

Ondine: It's not funny, Kim! Can't you see Marinette's not okay?

Kim: Oh, come on. She always reacts like that when someone pranks her.

Kim then proceeds to tell Adrien and Ondine (and by extension, the audience) about what he means. I'm going to talk a lot about this, so to make things easier for all of us, I'll give you the short version so you have an idea of what happened.

About a year before the events of “Origins”, we see Chloe was bullying Marinette even more than she did before then, constantly pulling sadistic pranks Megan from Drake & Josh would find to be overkill, while making her late to class. To make things worse, none of her teachers believed her and took Chloe's side all the time, giving her detention on the weekends. Mylene, Rose, and Juleka try to help Marinette, but apparently, Chloe orders them to not talk with her before saying that “she'll be there to make Marinette's life a nightmare”.

The only person with the common sense to help out Marinette is Socqueline, that girl from “Jubiliation”. Socqueline learns that Marinette has a crush on Kim, who is even more of a jerk than he was during the first half of Season 1, and when Marinette thinks about asking him out to the swimming pool after school, Socqueline advises Marinette to be careful. Sabrina tips off Chloe to Marinette's plan, so Chloe goes to give Kim advice to pull a prank on Marinette. At the pool, just as Marinette confesses her feelings to Kim, Kim gives her a box full of spiders, causing her to panic and fall backwards into the pool. Chloe films the thing with the intent to make it go viral, but Socqueline stops her plan before she can upload it. Kim doesn't seem to see what he did was wrong, seeing it as a harmless joke as Socqueline tells him to piss off.

It's here that Marinette determines that if she ever has feelings for a boy ever again, she'll need to be super prepared, explaining how much she knows about Adrien and his schedule in later episodes. Chloe then gets Socqueline expelled from school just a few weeks before the end of the school year. Marinette blames herself for what happened, but Socqueline tells her that sometimes, no matter how dire the odds seem, she needs to muster up the courage to fight the good fight.

Oh, and Marinette was almost akumatized by Monarch again, but it's really just an excuse to keep her away while Kim tells the story.

So... let's talk about this flashback. Clocking in at about ten minutes, almost half of the episode's runtime, this is easily the part everyone (myself included) seems to have problems with, for all kinds of reasons. Let's break down each and everything wrong with this flashback.

#1: The Portrayal of Chloe

Surprisingly, this is the least of my problems. Compared to Kim (who I'll get to later), Chloe is mostly in character with how she's usually portrayed by this point in the series. She's egotistical, she orders Sabrina around, she hates Marinette, and throws her father's name around over and over again like it's a boomerang. My feelings on the wasted opportunities with her character aside, this does make sense seeing how this takes place before Season 1.

But there's the problem. This takes place before Season 1, and Chloe does things she never did in Season 1, or any of the other seasons for that matter. She clearly has the teachers and principal doing what she wants, she can boss the other students around (which I'll also get to later), she pulls sadistic practical jokes on Marinette, and even uses her dad's name to get Socqueline expelled. In the show, she doesn't really do any of this. Sure, she can occasionally use her dad's influence to get what she wants (Lady Wifi, Rogercop, Frightningale, Determination), but it was never to this extent. While she also tried to act like she was better than the rest of her peers, barring Sabrina, nobody ever listened to her or took her seriously. Chloe also tended to focus on bullying Marinette, but she didn't do these kinds of practical jokes. Usually, it was either sabotage (Mr. Pigeon, Despair Bear, Gabriel Agreste) or just general name calling, and she picked on other students too (Dark Cupid, Reflekta, Antibug, Sole Crusher, Penalteam, Deflagration).

The point I'm trying to make is why the hell did Chloe stop acting this way? What caused her to stop being as bad as she is here? I get the whole point of this episode is to show how terrible Chloe is, but you're showing off all her bad moments in a flashback and never considering the other things she's done that would be just as effective. Wasn't the main idea behind Chloe's “damnation arc” that she started to change, but went back on her ways and became worse than before? If that's the case, I have to reiterate, why was she even worse in this flashback?

I also have an issue with making the cause of all of Marinette's trauma because of this prank by Chloe. Yes, the prank was terrible, and trust me this isn't me once again going “GRR! CHLOE STAN ANGRY BECAUSE RICH GIRL IS EVIL IN FLASHBACK!”. It's more along the lines of “Really? We're really doing this?”. While I'm glad that after Chloe's betrayal at the end of Season 3, the show is finally considering the idea of making her more than just comic relief as a villain, it feels like a case of too little, too late.

After so many years of making Chloe out to be harmless unless she screams her daddy's name, now you're treating her like a serious threat who traumatized Marinette for life? Chloe is the cause of Marinette's trauma? This is like if the person who killed Bruce Wayne's parents turned out to be a joke character like Egghead or Crazy Quilt. Just because a serious villain does something important to the story, it doesn't automatically make their prior unfunny antics go away.

But my main gripe with the portrayal of Chloe here is that this flashback fails to do something that still hasn't been done in almost five seasons and eight years: Explain just why Chloe hates Marinette so much. Chloe is unusually cruel here, and doesn't even have a reason to torture Marinette like this. Usually, Marinette gets in the way of what she wants, but here? Marinette doesn't do anything to warrant this level of dedication. You would think for a flashback sequence focusing on her and Marinette's history, they would actually explain why Chloe likes to single out Marinette, but they don't. The writers would rather take time out of the episode to remind the audience of why Chloe is the way she is, and why it isn't acceptable, than clarify what Chloe's deal with Marinette is.

Rose: She’s this way because her mother left her when she was young.

Mylene: So did mine, and you don't see me having fun bullying Marinette.

Gee, I wonder if Astruc himself had a part in writing that exchange or not.

If you're willing to acknowledge previous episodes while also discussing how poorly Chloe treats Marinette, it would help if you finally did something to inform the audience about why Chloe likes to torture Marinette in the first place. Did Marinette show Chloe up at a fashion show? Did Marinette impress Chloe's dad one time? Did Marinette just spill coffee on Chloe's shoes? I will take literally anything, no matter how stupid the explanation is, over getting nothing after eight years.

It's also pretty rich that that scene was trying to say that what happened to Chloe doesn't justify her actions when not only do we never get a scene like that pointing out how creepy Marinette obsesing over Adrien was, but later in the episode, Marinette specifically pins all the blame on Chloe in one line.

Marinette: Adrien! I know what's wrong with me! It's not my fault, and it's not your fault, either! It's all Chloe's fault!

So remember kids, just because bad things happen to you, it doesn't excuse your unflattering actions... except when it does, and in that case, it's all the fault of the person who wronged you in the first place.

#2: The Portrayal of Kim

I'll admit, I'm not really the biggest fan of Kim as a character. I don't hate him, but it feels like after Season 2, he just became that guy who really loves to swim, where even characters like Max, Marc, and Nathaniel had more depth to them. This episode however? Yeah, I couldn't stand Kim here.

Just like with Chloe, Kim is sort of in character as the same eccentric dude who has a habit of being insensitive and accidentally upsetting people (Animan, Syren), and I need to emphasize the “sort of”. Just like Chloe, this goes against his characterization in Season 1, where he was shown to be a bully like Chloe was (Lady Wifi, Timetagger, Origins) before later episodes made him a nicer person. However, unlike Chloe, the show sort of tries to retcon Kim's rude behavior to be more in line with his Season 5 self by portraying him as more of a bully who simply isn't aware of how harmful his jokes are, but it doesn't work because of how cruel he seems, and he doesn't have the excuse of knowing how terrible he is like Chloe does.

There's also how easily he goes along with Chloe's prank when she literally insults him and Marinette to his face.

Chloe: I heard Marinette asked you to go with her to the swimming pool.

Kim: Yeah, we’re going swimming together. Cool! 'Cause I love to swim!

Chloe: That’s not why she asked you, dummy!

Kim: It's not? Then, what are we going to do? Chloe: She wants to declare her feelings for you! Kim: For me? But why?

Chloe: Probably because she's utterly ridiculous, and so are you, which makes you two perfect for each other!

Kim: Oh? You think so?

There's not being aware of how insensitive of how you are to others, and then there's not being able to comprehend basic insults. Chloe doesn't even try to give Kim a backhanded compliment or secretly insult him (“You really like swimming, don't you? Good thing you can swim better than you do in class.”). She just calls him a dummy, and Kim still falls for her trick. If you want to have Kim fall for Chloe's plan, don't make her so obviously cruel. For God's sake, you're making the class in the Lila episodes look smart by comparison.

And even after retelling the story, Kim still thinks Chloe highly, not only saying how pretty she is right in front of his girlfriend, but he still thinks the joke was the funniest thing ever. After five seasons, Kim of all people should know about how mean Chloe is, given he was literally kidnapped and brainwashed into serving her while she sided with Hawkmoth (Miracle Queen).

The worst part is that Kim has nothing to do with this story at all. You could literally replace him with any other guy, even a nameless background character with no lines, and nothing would change. Hell, I'd argue it'd be even better as having Marinette be embarrassed in front of some rando would highlight the impact it had on her self-esteem when she tries to go after someone of a higher social class. It would also better justify the spider prank if someone else pulled it because “Darkblade” established that Kim was afraid of spiders.

And if you think I'm talking about Kim after this part, believe me, there's more to this schmuck than meets the eye.

#3: The Way Everyone Just... Lets This All Happen

Look, I get what the episode is trying to go for, narratively, and realistically. Sometimes, teachers and other authority figures just don't do their jobs when someone gets bullied. Hell, I was bullied for years by someone who liked to take advantage of my anger issues, and it wasn't until my last year of middle school that the faculty finally decided to do something about it. I also get that this entire flashback wouldn't happen if the teachers realized how cruel Chloe was and got her expelled. What I don't get is how the flashback portrays anyone who was there as unwilling to do anything to help.

First off, Marinette claims that the reason none of the teachers believed her was because they're all too afraid to stand up to Chloe, since she can call her dad and cost them their jobs, but that's far from the truth. The only time we see anyone actually being afraid of Chloe was when Mr. Damocles went back on refusing to expel Socqueline before Chloe threatened to call her dad and get him fired. Other than that, while we only see Ms. Mendeleiev and Mr. Damocles in this flashback, neither of them really show any signs of being afraid of Chloe. They just go along with what she says, and they don't even try to take Marinette's side. Just like Kim, this would be more understandable if these were different characters who were never shown to be this cruel to Marinette in earlier episodes.

Second, while I can sort of buy the teachers not caring about Marinette, the fact that her classmates don't do anything is another story. We saw Mylene, Rose, and Juleka trying to help Marinette, but right after they talk to her, Chloe just orders them to go away, and it's never explained why. Marinette said the teachers were afraid of Chloe, but does that mean the students are too? Again, later episodes would establish nobody takes Chloe seriously as a bully, so this part of the flashback makes no sense. What changed to make them stop being afraid of Chloe anyway? Once again, if these were a bunch of nameless characters who were more apathetic to Marinette's situation, that would make sense, retroactively showing how much Marinette's friends care for her. Instead, it's like that scene in RWBY where the main characters watch a student being bullied by a racist classmate, and all they do is say “Wow, racism really sucks, huh? Anyway, not our problem.”

Third, you're telling me that Marinette came up with multiple excuses not to go to school even with a few weeks left in the year, and Marinette's parents didn't see anything weird about it? They didn't think that something must be making Marinette want to do anything but go to school? I don't think they were even informed about the situation at school, unless you want to be generous and say they knew Marinette got detention. You can't even make the excuse that it would work if these were different characters, but these are Marinette's parents. You know, the same characters the show portrays as loving and affectionate to their daughter? You're telling me they didn't even think to look into the situation, much less talk to Marinette about school?

The problem with all the other characters in this flashback is in order to make what happens possible, they have to be as apathetic as possible. There's being unaware of a situation or being too afraid to stand up (which is unfortunately something that happens when people bullied sometimes), and then there's just not caring about the bully victim at all. It's ironic how even though a big part of the flashback was to show how awful Chloe was, it unintentionally make everyone else in Marinette's life seem just as cruel to let her suffer like that.

But I know what you're thinking. “What about Socqueline? She was there to help Marinette, so why didn't you mention her?” Well...

#4: Where the Hell Has Socqueline Been All This Time?

Like I mentioned in my “Jubilation” review, Socqueline is yet another unnecessary addition to the already overcrowded cast of characters in this show, and it seemed like this episode was meant to justify her inclusion, but it only raised more questions.

Just to remind you, this flashback establishes that Marinette was constantly bullied by Chloe until a nice girl in glasses stood up for her, and inspired Marinette to be more confident.

SOUND FAMILIAR?

Yeah, this flashback is pretty much the same as Marinette's arc in “Origins” was, only with Socqueline in Alya's place. We get it, writers, Season 1 was good. Constantly repeating stuff like what happened in “Mr. Pigeon 72” isn't going to win you any favors.

This really highlights how pointless of a character Socqueline is, as despite supposedly being a really important person in Marinette's life, Marinette herself never thought to tell anyone about her, and judging from how Marinette described her to Tikki in “Jubilation”, I don't think she even stayed in contact with Socqueline after she was expelled. It's not like left Paris afterwards. All we know is that she went to another school and got a job at a local arts and crafts store, so why did Marinette just stop talking with her? Even with Felix and Zoe, they had the excuse of being in different countries, but you can't say that with Socqueline.

Also, this was something I just realized, but if Mr. Damocles got her expelled, why the hell did Socqueline treat him like he was any other customer at her job, much less compliment him as a principal?

#5: The Handling of Trauma in General, and How This Impacts Marinette as a Character

Like pretty much every other serious issue it tries to tackle, Miraculous Ladybug has always had a poor understanding of mental health. When it comes to portraying characters who struggle with some form of grief of trauma, like Adrien, Felix, Chloe, Zoe, and even Marinette, the responses usually amount to some variation of “Grow a pair and get over it, you big baby!”.

With Felix, Chloe, and Marinette, even if their actions are partially motivated as a response to either losing a loved one, trying to emulate their neglectful parent, or as a defense mechanism to avoid repeating an already traumatic experience, they're all proven to be in the wrong, and it's not to teach a lesson about alternative coping mechanisms or support systems. The show just says that they're automatically wrong for what they do, what causes them to act the way they do is never acknowledged, and instead, we're supposed to just act like they're being jerks for no reason. Compare this to Adrien and Zoe, who both had rough lives losing their mother at a young age or living with an abusive mother respectively, and rather than go into detail how it affected them or how they managed to become decent human beings in spite of it, the show just says that they're nice people, so people like Felix, Chloe, and Marinette have no reason to be mean to others.

This is honestly why I feel like this episode's depiction of mental health and dealing with trauma falls flat. In case you didn't know, I asked my followers who had to deal with some form of trauma to share their experiences and how it compared to what Marinette went through in the episode. For the most part, the common consensus seems to be that while the symptoms of Marinette's trauma and her reactions to it are very believable, a lot of it is contradicted by previous episodes, and it seems like it was only there to do a story about dealing with trauma.

So many episodes across Seasons 1 through 4 show Marinette dealing with Kim and Chloe without really any issue, and she showed no problem with starting relationships with Luka and Cat Noir, to say nothing about Nathaniel's brief crush on her in “The Evillustrator”. If Marinette was so traumatized by this prank, why did she want to go swimming in episodes like “Gorizilla” and “Mr. Pigeon 72”? Why did she bother to help Kim confess to Chloe in “Dark Cupid”? Why did she team up with Chloe to sabotage Kagami in “Animaestro”? Why did she suggest Chloe could change for the better throughout Seasons 2 and 3? Why did she continue to let Chloe and Kim use the Bee and Monkey Miraculous respectively, even after they got them from outside sources? This flashback is desperately trying to tie previous events of the series together together, but it only works if you ignore all the times Marinette has interacted with Kim and Chloe without having a panic attack.

Then there's how the flashback tries to connect this to Marinette memorizing all of Adrien's schedule to make sure he won't hurt her, an obvious attempt to rebuff one of the biggest criticisms of her as a character. Here's why it doesn't work.

First off, the setup doesn't work because while Marinette vows to do a better job getting to know the next person she falls in love with and how, in her words mind you, “He isn't friends with Chloe”. Putting aside the kindness he's shown her in “Origins”, she kind of failed to really consider her choice to pursue him if he stayed friends with Chloe if we're going to believe Chloe traumatized Marinette so much.

It also doesn't really explain the more predatory actions Marinette has taken whenever another girl tries to get close to Adrien (The Bubbler, Volpina, Animaestro, Oni-Chan, Heart Hunter), or how she tries to rig up situations to get closer to him (The Gamer, Gigantitan, Backwarder, Party Crasher, Felix, Psycomedian, Glaciator 2, Simpleman). And that's not even getting into how obsessive she is with him in other areas, like repeatedly playing a commercial he was in (Gorizilla), making a bunch of presents for him in advance (Christmaster), trying to kiss a wax statue of him (The Puppeteer 2), sniffing his pillow (Cat Blanc), or all the other times she's creepily obsessed over him.

But of course, you've probably noticed that I've forgotten to mention one key thing about what this flashback means: You know how Marinette tends to act nervously and stumbles a lot around Adrien when she isn't meticulously documenting his schedule? Yeah, they were essentially panic attacks brought on by her PTSD, and the episode tries to act like Kim did to her wasn't funny afterwards. Here's the problem with this.

YOU MADE MARINETTE'S TRAUMA YOUR PRIMARY SOURCE OF COMEDY FOR THE PAST FIVE FUCKING SEASONS!

You do NOT have the right to act like what happened to Marinette was bad when you were constantly playing her anxiety up for laughs for almost EIGHT YEARS at this point!

In addition to all the other examples I mentioned, we had episodes like “Psycomedian”, which confirmed that the same behavior that this episode is trying to say is connected to her trauma was hilarious to Adrien, as well as “Backwarder”, which thrived on playing up Marinette's anxiety towards Adrien and was said to be one of the funniest episodes of the show to work on by Astruc himself.

THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES

#6: Why This Flashback Is Ultimately Pointless

But above all, the biggest problem I have with this flashback is because of how pointless it is. It's trying to better go into detail about why Marinette acts the way she does around Adrien, but did we really need to do that?

This flashback doesn't really reveal anything that we didn't know already. We know Marinette was bullied by Chloe, we know she was a lot more meek and needed others to stand up for her, and we definitely know that we're not supposed to like Chloe. Adding to my earlier point, if we actually got more insight into the origin of Chloe's obsession with Marinette, that would have at least made this flashback important to watch, but once again, despite being a flashback episode, we learn nothing about the characters that we don't already know.

But this flashback is also meant to explain why Marinette is so hesitant to embrace her new relationship with Adrien when we already got a reason for that last season. The first half of the season has made a big deal about how much her feelings for Adrien cost her the Miraculous, so why not focus on that? This flashback just feels like it's here to give more Marinette angst instead of focusing on the things they've already established. And that's not even getting into what she saw during “Cat Blanc”.

Why couldn't we just have a story about Marinette's own insecurities causing her to doubt she can make her relationship with Adrien work, seeing how poorly things ended with Luka? Have her worry that something could go wrong as a result of her need to overcompensate, or worry that Adrien could betray her. That way, you could have Adrien supporting Marinette in a way that reflects their partnership as Cat Noir and Ladybug respectively.

But no. Instead we have this flashback that's taken me about ten pages to fully dissect. And the worst part is that I still have the rest of the episode to talk about. God help me...

So after Adrien and Ondine explain how this prank could have done a lot of damage to Marinette's psyche, Kim decides to find Marinette, and apologize for being so—Ah, I'm just messing with you guys. After all, that would actually make Kim likable. So what does he say instead?

Kim: Come on! Loosen up, you guys! It's like you can't even speak your mind these days.

Ondine: That doesn't give you permission to hurt other people!

Kim: Whatever! I'm the way I am and I'm fine that way! It's not my fault you guys have no sense of humor!

Yep, rather than having Kim realize the error of his ways and maybe be akumatized out of guilt, Kim just whines about how everyone else is just a humorless pansy these days. The writers pretty much made Kim's motivation boil down to “It's just a prank, bro!”. Even Monarch seems to go along with this, as he refers to Kim as “A free spirit feeling unjustly rejected”, when this was right after he called Chloe the prettiest girl in front of his own girlfriend's face. So Monarch sends his Akuma to Kim's goggles, akumatizing him into Dark Humor. Yes, that's really the name they're going with.

Dark Humor is a pretty forgettable recolor of Dark Cupid. Other than inverting the red and black color scheme and giving him a targeting scope on his right eye, there's not much else to say other than the incredibly on the nose name they gave him. His powers are sort of like Dark Cupid's, only now, instead of turning people heartless, they now share his soulless brand of “humor”. At least, I think it is. His Alliance power is the Monkey Miraculous's Uproar, but it's not really clarified if he's only using Uproar arrows or not, judging from the use of the rubber ducky that we've seen King Monkey use before.

Marinette and Adrien transform into Ladybug and Cat Noir respectively, but once they meet up, we get the most controversial part of the episode that isn't connected to the flashback scene: Cat Noir gives Dark Humor the beatdown of his life and is about to Cataclysm him, for pulling a bad prank on Marinette a year ago. Yeah, a lot of people have pointed out that Adrien felt a lot of remorse for Cataclysming Monarch earlier in this season, yet here, Cat Noir looks like someone told him that Kim just shot the Pope. For God's sake, writers, you're five seasons in! How hard is it to determine whether or not you want your hero to be okay with killing people or not?

And of course, this bites him in the ass, as Dark Humor stabs Cat Noir with an arrow, not only changing his Cataclysm into something that creates a bunch of balls from his hand, but also making him just as insane as the rest of Dark Humor's victims. You know, I'm this close to starting a “Remember Season 1” counter, because this is just glorified fanservice.

Ladybug tries to summon her Lucky Charm, but is stopped by Dark Humor, so Ladybug transforms back into Marinette, transforms into Ladybug again, and summons her Lucky Charm for real this time, getting... a toilet. Of course, the only way to combat Dark Humor's bad jokes is by using even worse jokes! Genius! Ladybug places the toilet over Dark Humor's head and breaks it along with the goggles, freeing the Akuma.

Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma, uses Miraculous Ladybug to fix the damage, gives Kim a useless Magical Charm, and Cat Noir apologizes for murdering Kim by saying his emotions got the better of him, which is like saying OJ Simpson and his wife had a minor disagreement.

Kim apologizes to Marinette for traumatizing her, and I guess that's enough for Ondine to forgive him for saying another girl is prettier than her.

After Marinette sort of explains what happened to Adrien, he goes over to tell Chloe to apologize, and we get... this scene.

Adrien: I know about everything that you did to Marinette last year, Chloe. You're going to go and apologize to her and prove to everyone that you can change. I'm sure she'll forgive you.

Chloe: (laughs) Forgive me? What do I care about her forgiveness? I couldn't care less about Dupain-Cheng's feelings! She and the likes of her only exist to suffer for my entertainment. Why bother having power if you can’t use it against those who don’t have any? You’re the one who’s getting things wrong, with your baker girl! You’re a prince! You belong with me, the princess! You’re in this world to shine! To make fun of all the losers who are only good enough to be used as doormats!

Adrien: You're nothing like a princess, Chloe. I supported you. I gave you multiple chances to become a better person. Everyone reached out to you, including Ladybug and Cat Noir when they gave you the Miraculous of the Bee again. But all you ever think about is yourself.

Chloe: And what else IS there to think about? Losers and nobodies? The little bees? The planet?

Adrien: We will never be friends again, Chloe. You and I are done.

Chloe: Traitor.

Okay, first off, “She and the likes of her only exist to suffer for my entertainment.”? That's the line you're going with? She sounds like a dark lord in an RPG game. How is this the closest thing we ever get to an explanation to why Chloe hates Marinette so much?

Second, ignoring the fact that we already had Chloe end her friendship with Adrien last season (Queen Banana), it's pretty weird that this is the breaking point in their friendship. Adrien doesn't mention all the other times she's bullied people or when she sided with Hawkmoth even when he brought up her time as Queen Bee. He saw her being mean to so many people over five seasons, yet only when he learns Chloe did something to his girlfriend that he decides to finally confront her. If we at least got a line where Adrien acknowledged that he essentially enabled Chloe for so long by thinking she could change, that would have at least sort of worked. Instead, he makes it about how she refused to change herself. Dude, you had the chance to stand up to her for years, and you even did so in one episode before you went back on it (Despair Bear). You have nobody to blame but yourself.

Finally, Chloe is pretty out of character here. She's way too calm about ending her friendship with Adrien compared to what happened in “Despair Bear” and “Queen Banana”. You'd think if the writers wanted this to be a big moment of catharsis for the audience, Chloe would at least beg Adrien to stay a little. But no, Chloe brushes it off when it could easily justify her getting worse in later episodes, and even Adrien doesn't even consider how much he thought Chloe's friendship meant to him. Because these writers are dedicated to making sure that any identifiable trait Chloe once had is removed so you have no choice but to hate her.

But hey, at least the episode's over. What did I think of it?

Yeah, it wasn't very good.

I just... what else do you even want me to say here? I spent about ten pages going over why the flashback sequence doesn't work, I've already ranted about Cat Noir trying to kill someone with his Cataclysm in previous episodes (Hack-San, Jubilation), and I think you all know what my feelings on the portrayal of Chloe and Kim are.

I guess I can answer one question you may have: Is this episode worse than either “Penalteam” or “Queen Banana”? Eh, not really. Let me explain.

The problems with “Queen Banana” and “Penalteam” went beyond the treatment of Chloe with the way the stories were handled, with “Queen Banana” being a cheap jab at critics and TV executives while propping up their new character Zoe, and “Penalteam” being an excuse to have a soccer episode while making Cat Noir look like a buffoon right before the finale. Most of the problems with this episode have more to do with how they affect the way we see previous episodes, and why some scenes that were already unfunny are even less funny now.

With this episode, you can at least tell there was some effort being made to tell a more serious story here that went into what made Marinette tick. Yeah, it and the themes of mental health and trauma were handled about as gracefully as a ballet dancer trying to get a bear trap off their leg, but there's at least an attempt here.

Of course, this episode is still awful. The conflict with Kim not getting how much of a jerk he was after a year was dumb (as was him being even more of a jerk as Dark Humor), the fact that Marinette's trauma seemed to come and go when the plot needed it to really showed off how forced it is, and it only ends with you having more questions about Marinette and Chloe's rivalry rather than answering them.

While I'm still not a fan of this episode, and would still place it in my top five least favorites, I don't think it's the absolute worst. Although it's still the worst one so far this season from a technical standpoint.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS...KIM

It says a lot when Cat Noir actually tried to murder someone in this episode, yet not only is he not even considered for the award this episode, the person he tried to kill ends up being the bigger idiot. Not only did he easily fall for Chloe's plan when she insulted him to his face, he failed to understand how it affected Marinette for a year, and when he was told about how bad it was, he refused to take responsibility for his actions, blamed it on other people not being able to take a joke, and only gave the smallest apology after he was almost killed for his attitude. It's honestly funny how he somehow comes across as more unlikable than Chloe, the character this episode was made to make you hate even more.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #adrien agreste #cat noir #chat noir #gabriel agreste #hawkmoth #hawk moth #monarch #monarch miraculous #le chien kim #dark cupid #dark humor #chloe bourgeois #socqueline wang #ondine #mr damocles #Youtube

[tubb0]

this was not a good stream to happen while I’m trying to write

#I like having streams on in the bg while I do homework so its not so quiet #but this one is a lot #very funny but very distracting #I am writing an essay about a communist terrorist group turned political party in colombia if you were wondering #you werent but yknow #I’m adding to this with my opinions on the stream bc its resulted in controversy and I have thoughts but dont want to make a whole post #there were some funny jokes and while I zoned out for most of the bullying bbh again bit to finish my essay I still listened to some of it #and it was kinda the worst (and by kinda I mean most definitely) #I’m not particularly attached to bbh but man even if they’re all friends idk how he stands them #they just go too far and get so annoying constantly I could never withstand it as long as he does #and all the stuff going around about the jokes being homophobic... #I agree that those jokes definitely suck coming from cishets #as a queer person I found some of them funny in the moment but looking back. theyre. not great #but I also typically never find the patronizing of bbh funny (whether its inherently homophobic or not) #so not only did I stop listening for the most part but I no longer cared enough to form opinions about it #but reading everyone’s analysis its quite frankly a horrible bit #(I think I hate the bit so much because the way the pick on him (like their tone of voice and such) #reminds me of my step father and step brothers picking on me for little things that I usually can’t help but hey thats trauma babey) #(I actually wouldn’t really call is trauma #a therapist might #but to me its just general discomfort and frustration) #this became a lot. if you actually read all of this... no you didnt

[nonbinaryspacegoo]

so anyway i finally got around to looking up the clips of travis mcelroy playing among us that people are big mad about and i gotta say

its not that deep bro

as a certified neurodivergent its like yeah it be like that sometimes and while you should try to keep a handle on it because it really isnt pleasant for other people sometimes your adhd brain is racing around and bouncing off the walls and you act a lil obnoxious without realising

and look i dont know the man but from my own experience and the experiences of a lot of my neurodivergent friends? those kinds of outbursts of being completely caught up in your own little world are almost always quickly followed by a hard crash of realising you were being annoying and then feeling like absolute shit and wanting to just curl up in a hole and never come back out

was he being pretty obnoxious? yeah. but like. its not that deep bro. it really isnt.

people saying that hes only tolerable when he has his brothers as a buffer really hits on my, and like a LOT of neurodivergent people i know, 's insecurities

like i have friends that help me manage some of my less digestible symptoms so i dont annoy or overwhelm people and its a legitimate debilitating fear that i might only be tolerable with them around and a lot of the comments ive seen regarding how hes behaved during that stream really just straight up gave me really upsetting flashbacks to how people treated me before i had a better handle on my symptoms. now you might read that and say "oh but that was when you were a kid, travis is pushing 40" but the thing is i still have those episodes where im too hyper and push a bad or mediocre joke to far and too hard or am just generally too caught up in what i was excited about to consider other people, or when i was trying to express how i felt about something that hurt my feelings in the moment without properly analysing if maybe i just needed to take a step back from my emotions and be ok with other peoples jokes or whatever.

idk i was kind of dreading checking out what people were mad about but having watched it im just

it seems completely understandable from my perspective. not saying he shouldnt have taken a minute to sort himself out, or that he wasnt being annoying or unreasonable, but it just seemed like a fairly normal issue that neurodivergent people have. it just be like that sometimes, yknow?

and again it just sort of reinforces, to me, that a lot of people really will advocate for neurodivergent people but then turn around and behave indistinguishably from an ableist bully when a neurodivergent person presents or has a moment when an aspect of their neurodivergence isnt digestible and either pleasant or negligible for the people around them, when their symptoms are too loud or make people uncomfortable or overstep someones comfort zone

and look.

this isnt a "boo hoo poor travis" thing or whatever, while i enjoy a lot of his content and relate to a lot of the struggles he is quite public about, i make an effort not to form too strong a bond with people i dont know personally. travis will most likely be fine, hes a grown man whos financially very secure and has a strong support network.

my issue isnt people dunking on a minor celebrity, my issue is the effects it has on people who share his struggles. i know that it hurts me personally to see comments on how he shouldnt try to publicly interact with people or how his, lets admit it, fairly minor and harmless outbursts of inconsiderate or strange behaviour indicate he is actually a Bad Person, and i genuinely believe that it hurts other neurodivergent people as it reinforces attitudes that do real harm.

idk i just

it reminds me that its very easy to be supportive of neurodivergent people when theyre being funny and relatable and charming, but that a lot of allies are more than happy to turn on us as soon as we're not palatable. as soon as we fail to be perfectly accommodating and easy to be around.

i guess if i had to say something to the people making sport of dunking on him at the moment itd be

remember that neurodivergent and mentally ill people are watching and theyll remember how you behaved when you say youre an ally

this post is ok to reblog but i am not taking constructive criticism thank you

#ableism #travis mcelroy #among us #long post #idk man ive been trying to not engage but i just blocked and unfollowed someone whos content i really enjoyed because they were making some #uuhhh jokes #and it just really messed me up #mine #ok to rb #mcelroys

[hangezoeenthusiast]

Minecraft

m!reader

pronouns:he/him

fluff

person: sapnap (im not going to use his real name, since he is uncomfy with people using it)

words: 1530

warnings: cursing, yelling

you were at sapnap's house on his bed, watching him stream and play minecraft. he was trying to speedrun minecraft. "hey babe, what'cha doing?" he asked. "just watching you." you replied.

"you wanna come over here?"

"but what about the face cam."

"chat could give less of a shit, or i too."

"ok then babe, let me just get some water."

you went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, then went back to the room. you grabbed one of sapnap's extra chairs and sat next to him. "hey chat, how you doing." chat spammed y/n so many times, you could barely see anything else in there.

"hey my boyfriend, how you doing." a dono said

"im doing good y/nismyboyfriend, good name btw, how are you?"

"heyyyy, your MY boyfriend." sapnap whined. "it's ok baby, im yours and your mine." chat spammed simp, then sapnap buried his head in your heck. "y/nn, make chat stop bullying me." "chat stop bullying my WONDERFUL boyfriend." you emphasized.

after that little situation, you just sat in your chair, zoned out, and just watched. "babe, hey babe, baby are you ok?" sapnap asked. you jumped at the sound of his voice, "sorry, i zoned out, what were you saying." "damn, im not that important to you then that you zoned out." sapnap pouted. "oh shut up you big baby."

"excuse me, don't make me fight you bitch." "sapnap, do you realize i took karate as a kid right?" "that was years ago." "so sapnap, i can still beat your ass with a blindfold." he looked shocked and amazed at the same time. "ok then." he said shyly.

you looked content (like this face 😏), "so what you needed sapnap?' "oh yeahhh, do you want to play minecraft on here?" you were absolutely shit at minecraft, you already tried once, you weren't going to try again. (flashback to the conversation you had with sapnap the first time you ever played minecraft)

"sapnap, how do you move on this thing, this is so complicated" "it's just because your a boomer y/nnn, here, its wasd." "EXCUSE ME SIR IM NOT A BOOMER, APOLOGIZE RIGHT NOW." "NO I WON'T APOLOGIZE, YOU APOLOGIZE." "WHY DO I HAVE TO SAY SORRY, YOU'RE THE ONE WHO WRONGED ME." "AHHHHHH" you guys are so weird :/ /j

"no, im not, im shit at it, you made fun of me plenty of times, no, no times infinity." "come on baby, that was what, like 1 time." "YEAH, ONE TIME TO MANY." "pwease, for me." he whispered. you looked at his pouty face and didn't crack (MOMMA DIDNT RAISE NO SOFTY /j). "ok then, but the second you make fun of me, i will beat you up so bad that-" sapnap interrupted you, "THANK YOU SO MUCH BABE, but i wont guarantee that i won't make fun of you." he got up, put you in his chair, and standed behind you. "now y/n, the last time you played, you sucked absolute balls, so NOW i will guide you through everything, yaknow, be your sensei." you made a straight face, and looked behind you, seeing him look at you as well.

you had a staring contest. both eyes were locked, eyes squinting, trying to withstand the others. his blinked first, "YES I WON, WHAT'CHA GONNA DO SNAPCHAT, WHAT'CHA GONNA DO?"

"just forget everything that happened in the last 10 seconds, let's do this thing." he guided you towards everything, like moving around, crafting, fighting zombies and skeletons, and even breaking blocks. you were doing fairly well, but there was one, no two, no three things you absolutely sucked shit at that you HAD to master. one was mlg watering, two was building a nether portal, and the last was fighting the ender dragon.

you goal was to beat the game and make new records ;), well, you did, but not without some challenges.

1. mlg water

you crafted a bucket and went to the nearest river/sea. you filled up the water bucket. "hey sapnap, what do we do next?" "next, my darling y/n, we shalt try to mlg." "so what do we do?" "we first, tower up." you pulled out your stacks of blocks, and stacked all the way up to the sky. "so what do i do next?"

"so pull out your water bucket, and then when you almost hit the ground, place the water on you." you jumped of the tower, and failed mlg. it was so ridiculously bad, that goddamn satan wouldn't let you in hell for that little stunt. "NOOO, WHAT THE FUCK, I PLACED IT BELOW ME." "You didn't do it good enough." "SHUT THE FUCK UP SAPNAP."

2. nether portal

obviously if you failed mlg, you would SUCK at making nether portals. "since you fucking sucked at mlg, lets try making a nether portal, it's kinda easier, but still hard. so what you do is make that shape there" "oh no, do it there." "nooo y/n, you're doing it wrong, do it that way."

you made a nether portal, but you obviously messed up, there was cobblestone everywhere. you pickaxed it, but that didn't come with a good thing. "NOOOO, FUCK, WHY WAS THERE LAVA." yeah, that's right, under the cobblestone was lava, and you fell in it, barely salvaging any of your items. well that attempt went horribly

3. ender dragon

after getting to the nether, getting blaze rods and converting them into blaze powder, trading with hoglins to get ender pearls, not having enough ender pearls from the hoglins, killing endermen and dying from them while getting ender pearls, crafting eye of enders, finding the stronghold, placing the eye of enders in the stronghold frame, while dying along the way, you finally got into the end.

finally all this suffering and mocking from sapnap would end, and you would finally beat the game. but, obviously, with you having little to no minecraft skills, it came with A BUNCH of problems, like destroying the crystals, making sure you wouldn't anger endermen, avoiding the dragon of dealing damage to you, and flying into the void.

1. destroying the crystals

sapnap ordered you, "use your bow to destroy the crystals." you aren't and weren't no minecraft god, so you couldn't destroy all the crystals, but you did one of them tho 👍

so he gave you another try, to use blocks to climb the side of the pillars, and destroy the crystals that way. you died, to put it shortly and bluntly. "AHHHH," you screamed. you got exploded by the crystals. that happened with EVERY. SINGLE. CRYSTAL you happened to try to destroy.

but eventually, you destroyed all the crystals.

2. endermen

after you destroyed the crystals, you had the task off not angering the endermen by eye contact. that went horribly wrong. sapnap had the courage to tell you that you couldn't look them in the eyes, and that you would anger them if you would. "WHY ARE THEY CHASING ME," you shouted. "y/nn calm down, just kill the ones that are angry at you."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ALMOST ALL OF THEM ARE CHASING ME." you overaggerated. "no, it's almost 3 dude, just kill them."

you killed them, and then you had the task of the dragon.

3. the dragon dealing damage

sapnap took control of shooting the dragon in the air with the bow and arrows. when the dragon would come down to the middle, you would hit their head (im doing the enderdragon as nonbinary, yaknow, they are a lesbian, nonbinary lesbians are vaild :D).

4. the void

the last thing you had trouble with in the end was the void. the darkless pit that leads to nothing except death. the dragon was throwing you around like a little puppet, you doing nothing except being flung around the place. "FUCK, FUCK YOU DRAGON," you screeched. the dragon was getting on your last nerve.

after all the trouble,and death, you finally beat the dragon. "YESSS, YESS, FUCK YOUR DRAGON, SUCK ON MY 10 IINCH DICK." sapnap cheered you on through your little victory speech. "bye chat, imma stop streaming now, since it has been 6 hours, we need to go to sleep." "bye, chat, love you guys."

you and sapnap ended the stream, feeling exhausted. you went to do your skin care routine, and found sapnap waiting for you in bed. "how was the stream y/n, did you enjoy it?" "yeah, i enjoyed it, only the dying part i hated."

"it's ok, babe, we can try it another time, maybe next time you won't die as much, at least you made a new record."

"what record sap?"

"the record of dying the most in minecraft." you slapped him around his head, not finding his joke funny. "hey, don't hit me, i'm fragile."

"sorry you big baby." you responded. you both got under the blanket, and snuggled (i don't know why, but the word snuggled is enchanting), huddling together, and basking in each others warmth. even if you died 4,234 times in minecraft, at least you had your favorite person at your side while doing it.

#mcyt x reader #mcyt #dream smp #dream smp x reader #dsmp #mcyt x y/n #mcyt x you #dream smp x y/n #sapnap #sapnap fluff #sapnap x reader #sapnap x you #sapnap x y/n #louistommosnesquickmilk writes #louistommosnesquickmilk

[sweetpeasgirl]

Treat You Better | Sweet Pea

Description: Based on the song “Treat You Better” by Shawn Mendes, Jughead and Y/n’s relationship is at it’s bittersweet end and Sweet Pea, her best friend, is there to defend her

Word Count: 2.3k

Pairing: Sweet Pea x Female!Reader

Warnings: Kinda angsty but not really

Tags: Angst, FLUFF

The White Wrym is not where you thought you would spend your Saturday night but Jughead had said that he needed to take care of a few things and you didn't want to be blown off again. You understand that he's busy, you really do. He's the son of the former Serpent leader; of course he's going to have a lot more on his plate. You just didn't think he'd push you off of it- the plate.

Sweet Pea had warned you about that. It was the latest topic of argument between you. For best friends, the two of you fight a lot. You know he's just trying to look out for you, that's been his role since the two of you were kids. He's in the grade above you, and was originally your older brother's friend, but they fell out a couple years ago. He never left you though.

He's always been the one watching your back. At first he just kept you out of harm's way, whether that be from grade school bullies or the men who lurk in alleyways when you're trying to walk home. Now, though, he has to watch out for boys who say they care about you but don't. He has to watch out for heartbreak.

That's where Jughead comes in. Sweet Pea is just being his overprotective self, like usual. Sure, you've had your fair share of walking out into the busy street with your head down, and he's had to pull you back quite a few times, but this is different. He can't save a heart that's supposed to break. Jughead does care about you, or at least he did when you first got together last year. Some things, however, just aren't meant to last forever.

Forever is a long time and time has a funny way of changing things.

"Juggie, it's your turn," your voice is quiet as you hand him the wooden pool cue, trying not to draw attention to yourself.

It's cold in the bar and you had been alerted so suddenly that date night was getting moved here that you didn't have time to grab a sweater. You can feel the stares burning into uncovered shoulders. It puts you on edge as Jughead accepts the cue from your shaky hands and takes his shot absentmindedly. Something's going on in his head, you can tell by the way he furrows his eyebrows and watches the people around him.

You, meanwhile, are trying hard not to look anywhere but the green felt of the pool table. There's commotion all around you. Shouts can be heard from the bar and the sound of smashing bottles that accompanies them. There's laughter coming from somewhere else but it doesn't sound friendly. Whatever it's about is cruel; it’s something that should not be made a joke of.

You're definitely way out of your comfort zone. Hell, you're way out of your un-comfort zone. You're just plain scared and, with the lack of conversation that Jughead is providing, the regret is bubbling quick in your chest. You almost wish he would just break up with you so you can cry and move on already.

"Jughead," a loud voice breaks the awkward silence around the crowded pool table, "there you are boy. We can finally discuss what you wanted to talk about now."

A tall, middle aged man with light brown hair and a weeks worth of beard growth pats your boyfriend on the back. Jughead shoots you an apologetic look as he passes the pool cue back to you once more. Your blood runs cold as he starts to walk in the opposite direction with the newcomer. He's seriously leaving you alone, in a room full of people who honestly aren't the safest characters, on what was supposed to be your night. Something happened to the boy you first knew and this just settled what you already thought. It’s over.

Your eyes blur with unshed tears at the hurt and fear circulating through your veins. He disappears from sight and the dark atmosphere gets hazier as you grip the side of the table to keep yourself steady. You can once again feel the stares burning into your back. It's like they were waiting for you to be left unattended. When you're with Jughead, the heir of the Serpent crown, you can't be touched. When you're with Sweet Pea, their deadly warrior, you can't be touched. When it's just you, though, anything goes.

You don't know what to do. It's only a matter of time before someone approaches you and when that happens you'll be in a situation that you probably won't be able to get yourself out of. That's the one thing your mother always told not to do; never put yourself into a situation that you can't get out of. Sweet Pea would not be happy.

"Y/n, what the hell are you doing here?"

Case in point. You jump at the sound of his voice but spin around instantly and bury yourself into his chest nonetheless. The tears fall down your face before you can stop them but you really couldn't care less. The smell of leather and pine surrounds you and warmth finally fills your body. Apparently you're colder than you had originally thought.

The relief that fills you is unmeasurable and you cling to Sweet Pea tightly, "It was supposed to be our night but-” you hiccup, tugging on his jacket- “I didn't want to miss another date night-” another hiccup- “I didn't want to-” you rub your forehead against his chest, your voice now just a whisper- “he left."

Your thoughts come out scrambled and between ugly sobs but it's enough for Sweet Pea to gather the overall picture of what happened. After all, he has been doing this for a while. He tightens his arms around you, the anger radiating off his uncovered skin in heated waves.

"He left you? Here?" Sweet Pea is seething when he pulls back.

He lifts you to sit on the edge of the pool table, the game laying discarded behind you. The visual reminder only makes the tears come faster and the warmth leave your bones again. You start shivering but this time you can't steel yourself enough to stop, the realization dawning before you can lie to yourself again. You and Jughead are done. You have been for a long time now and everyone else saw it before you did.

"Pea, we're over," you can't raise your voice above a harsh whisper, covering your raw face with your hands to suffocate the onslaught of cries you can feel bubbling to the surface, "we're over now. You were right."

You close your eyes to avoid staring into Sweet Pea's murderous chocolate ones. All you feel now is the ice circling your veins.

"Baby, hey," a large jacket that smells too much like Sweet Pea to not belong to him is draped over your shoulders, "it's okay. We'll go home."

The anger seeps out of his voice and you peer up to see the concerned face of your best friend once more. He's looking at you in the same way he was the time fell out of Jughead's tree house. You had blacked out from the fall and woke up in the hospital with a broken leg. He was so scared that he didn't leave your side for a minute. But it's different now, you're not physically hurt, so he shouldn't look worried.

You let out a sorrowful breath and just nod your head, a deep weariness settling over your being. At least you're getting what you had wanted. A clean break.

"Y/n, can we talk?"

You hadn't noticed Jughead come back but now he stands a little behind Sweet Pea who is still in front of you. Sweet Pea instantly turns at the sound of his voice, the rage back and in full swing. You just lower your head, too tired to keep it up.

"Jones you're so lucky I'm not beating the crap out of you right now. I didn't think you were stupid enough to leave her here but I guess I was wrong! You're just lucky I happened to be here. And that she doesn't hate you." Sweet Pea spits his words at Jughead

"Look, man, can I just talk to my girlfriend?" Jughead's voice is monotone, both of you knowing he's just calling you his so that he can officially end it once and for all.

It's for the best and you both know it. His phrasing, however, doesn't go over well with Sweet Pea.

"Are you serious right now? Or is this a sick joke? You forfeit that title when you left her as free game for anyone in this place,” Sweet Pea steps towards him and you hold your breath, knowing quite well who would win the fight if one were to ensue. “You're dating the most beautiful girl in this shitty town and you treat her like she doesn't even matter! If it was me she wouldn't be crying on a damn table, she would know damn well just how much I love her!"

Your head snaps up at his words, your breath hitching in your throat. The commotion of the bar is drowned out around you and all you can see is Sweet Pea's back. He can't really love you, can he? He's just making a point, being the best friend he always has been. The logic makes sense to you but you can feel your heart breaking for the second time tonight because of it.

You place a hand on Sweet Pea's shoulder, drawing his attention back to you, "it's okay Pea, I should talk to him at least."

He doesn't look happy but he nods, helping you off the table and moving to the side to let you pass. You look at Jughead and toss him a melancholy smile. It's wrapped with bittersweet memories from all your late night's at Pop's and early mornings coming back from the drive-in. Jughead and you had some pretty good times despite your inevitable end. Maybe, just maybe, though, you can make it a peaceful end.

"Y/n I do love you," Jughead takes his beanie off and runs his hand through his already messy, raven locks, "but not like I did before. Somewhere between moving here and, well, taking on the role of my dad I let us fall apart. I'm sorry."

"It's okay Juggie. I probably wasn't putting as much effort in as I could have," he scoffs at that, a guilty smirk on his face.

You both know that you gave this relationship your all. But, standing here now with Sweet Pea's eyes searing into your back, it's pretty clear that your heart was forming attachments with another person. Which means that sooner or later you and Jughead would have fallen apart anyway. Sometimes these kinds of things are no one's fault. It's a mutual heartbreak and when it needs to happen, it needs to happen.

"You know, y/n, I don't feel too bad about losing you to him."

You furrow your brows at his comment, your voice cracking slightly when you speak, "what do you mean? He was just saying all that stuff. Pea doesn't love me."

Jughead rolls his eyes and glances quickly at Sweet Pea before walking closer to you. You can tell he doesn't want him to hear what he's about to say.

"Y/n that boy is in over his head. It's a feeling I can relate very much to but listen to me," his eyes capture yours in a serious stare, "he's going to treat you better than I ever could. He's not going to leave you in dangerous situations or bail on plans. Can't you see he'd take a bullet for you?"

Your heart races at his words and you spare a glance at Sweet Pea. He's already looking at you, the worry back in his mesmerizing eyes. He raises an eyebrow at you, pulling a smile to your lips. Maybe Jughead is right. Maybe you love Sweet Pea as more than a best friend.

Looking at him now, his tanned skin glowing under the dim lights and his dark brown hair pushed behind his ears, there's no doubt in your mind that you're attracted to him. Sweet Pea has always looked handsome in your eyes, even after a fight with purple bruises staining his face. You think back to all the times he's been there when you needed him most. That boy drops whatever he's doing when you call; no matter if you're just bored or looking for someone to nap next to he’s there next to you. You've always felt at home when you're with him. Hell, you have a drawer in his room devoted to your clothes.

Sweet Pea loves you and you're pretty damn sure that you love him too.

Turning back to Jughead, you nod your head, "I'd take one for him too."

"Good. I think I'll leave now. Thanks for everything, y/n," Jughead pulls you into one last hug before heading out the door.

You pull Sweet Pea's jacket tighter around you as you walk back towards him. He gathers you once more into his chest and you let the last of your tears fall. There will never be a time when parting isn't such sweet sorrow. It's the beginning of something new but also the end of something that you once thrived on. However, wrapped completely in Sweet Pea's scent, you've never felt like you belonged somewhere so much.

"Ready to go home baby?"

"Yeah Pea. Let's go home."

#Sweet Pea #sweet pea riverdale #sweet pea x reader #sweet pea x you #sweet pea x y/n #sweet pea imagine #riverdale #riverdale imagine #jughead jones #riverdale series #reader insert

[constellaj]

just ran into your art today and. would you like to elaborate on your gay lucky in love rewrite 👀

boy would i

as always shoutouts to @crystalfloe for pitching + workshopping w me on this, ESPECIALLY on this one since it was mostly her idea!

we open up with a shot of shadow circling through amity park, looking in the windows of various citizens. danny is face-down, fast asleep; valerie is repairing some gear; tucker is being a gamer; sam is watching a horror movie; paulina is also watching a horror movie. shadow passes by all these houses and gets more and more annoyed, until he peeks the window of a large, elaborate house:

dash has drawn the curtains, turned the lights off, turned a fan up. this is his deep dark secret. he’s sitting on his bed, face lit by the dim rose glow of his laptop. the volume is turned down so low but the viewer still sees and hears him whisper along to the movie: “but we could never be together, jessica...” “but... I love you...” he’s watching a HORRIBLY cheesy hallmark romcom.

but of course nobody can KNOW he’s into chickflicks and romcoms! he’s a tough football man and it would trash his rep if anyone knew he secretly craved those deep but silly romantic stories... the tenderness, the love...

shadow has specifically been looking for a romantic.

shadow slips in and ‘possesses’ dash. possesses in quotes, because, well, even though dash is dumb and therefore easy to possess, shadow is ultimately a glorified dog, and not a fully sentient ghost; he doesn’t have any total agency in dash, and the most he can do is mess around with his emotional and hormonal balance. shadow is DISMAYED, upon entering, that dash’s deep romanticism is so repressed, and so immediately gets to work digging it out of the recesses of his brain, putting it in the forefront.

(see, what danny and the audience will learn later is, shadow is a ghost that subsists off of love. romantic love especially. he first found a ‘host’ in johnny (before he died!) because johnny and kitty were madly, ridiculously in love, and johnny especially admired kitty beyond words. they still do love each other, of course! but like all healthy relationships, they’ve learned to take breaks, and they have a ‘break week’ once every few months.)

(this, naturally, drives shadow up a WALL; after a certain level, displays of romance become like dog treats, and shadow has been downright spoiled by the overabundance of love between the two. when they take a BREAK WEEK and aren’t constantly showering each other (and therefore him!) with affection, he needs to go find another host, because clearly they do not love him and have forsaken him. they kick miette.)

since shadow’s prime host for so long has been johnny, his understanding of a few... norms... are bleeding over. dash shows up to school with a leather jacket and a motorcycle (his family’s rich, of course he’s had one). his hair is slicked back and the cologne is overpowering. while danny and others think it’s just another asshole stage of dash, kwan (as well as the popular kids, but kwan especially) notices something’s wrong. it’s not quite... dash. 

yeah, he’s happy-- well, he’s also strangely flirty with everyone (shadow is testing the waters, trying to find out who is the best match). and kwan LOVES that he’s happy. but he’s a little too daydreamy, he laughs a little too long. he is having horrible luck all day, but he just keeps taking it in stride. dash is concerned with appearances, but this is the first time he’s put in effort like it was for other people to see. he’s a little too suave. his eyes reflect just a little too much light.

and then-- luck of luck-- shadow finds the big name repressed crush.

fenton! of course!

danny did NOT want to deal with dash towering over him and slamming him into the wall, but he didn’t KNOW how to deal with dash leaning over him and telling him he looked cute. danny’s flustered! of course he is! well, yeah, dash is an asshole, he knows that, yeah he’s a stuck up rich kid, YES SAM, he knows this (sam is not fooled by a little hair gel and some high heeled leather boots), but you can’t deny he’s, well, built. and he’s weirdly suave? and nice. he’s actually being really nice. what no of course DANNY hasn’t had a crush on DASH this whole time or anything. shut up.

the fact that dash asks him to meet him in the woods at lunch (because sam, jazz, and even tucker are increasingly concerned with dash just making moves on danny, afraid it’s some new form of abuse; and lancer keeps perceiving it as bullying since that’s their dynamic and breaking it up) and he GOES is just. well. that’s unrelated isn’t it.

they kiss and danny is starting to maybe think dash just had a homophobic middle school experience like everyone else when- his GHOST SENSE GOES OFF. RIGHT HERE? RIGHT NOW??? (gee what could be causing it?) dash cracks a joke about him using too many breath mints and danny panics, bullshits an excuse, and runs off to transform and find the ghost.

dash thinks he’s been rejected and almost shakes out shadow’s possession from the sheer dismay, but shadow doubles down. no, no, we can find another crush. somewhere.

...oh hey! the ghost boy!

time to double down on the ghost aesthetics.

danny’s just finished fighting kitty (”where’s your boyfriend” “that’s none of your BUSINESS!”) when there’s a motorcycle rev underneath him. there’s... dash, again, but.... something feels very, very wrong.

danny lands, cautious. “hey phantom... you into biker dudes?” “don’t you have... a boyfriend...” “heee sorta dumped me in the woods”. and then danny gets close enough for his ghost sense to go off. and it clicks.

“dash, you’re possessed”

this is the ONE THING that shadow can’t have. this could be the perfect romance, and THIS GHOSTCHILD thinks he knows more about ROMANCE than SHADOW??? PSH. cue fight scene! dash of course is grappling with both not wanting to hurt phantom, but wanting this ghost out of his system, because of COURSE he’s possessed geez why else would he want to kiss FENTON of all people-- but shadow REFUSES to leave, slowly building more and more monstrous elements onto dash, darker eyes and claws, erasing his legs until it’s not dash as much as it is a large shadow monstrosity with dash at the center.

danny eventually realizes he needs a new strategy and runs for it. after a decent amount of bickering with sam/tuck, they realize that the only ones who would know how to tame shadow are.... kitty and johnny.

turns out, when shadow went missing, kitty NOTICED. (johnny didn’t! he was having a fun alone time working on his bike with loud music.) this is bad. why? well, johnny is NOT a very powerful ghost. in fact, he’s sort of the opposite. he and shadow have a symbiotic relationship of sorts; it’s shadow’s residence in him that gives him any powers at all, like the basic healing factor a ghost has, or phasing, or flying. without shadow he’s essentially a zombie, who can still be hurt in the ghost zone. NATURALLY, kitty decided to run off and retrieve shadow (because this isn’t the first time he’s run away on break week, always throwing a tantrum) before anything horrible could happen to Johnny; this is what she was doing in Amity in the first place

this is the part of the story where i reveal that the ending isnt fully fleshed out yet. in the rough conversation right it ended up with kitty and johnny trying to FORCE shadow back into johnny, and they’re getting annoyed by it, and kitty goes “well this wouldn’t be a problem if YOU weren’t so LOVING AND SENSITIVE” and johnny goes “well i wouldn’t LOVE YOU so much if you weren’t BRILLIANT and BEAUTIFUL” and they have a whole argument like that. its very funny. and shadow ends up still running away and possessing dash again.

ah, in typing this out, i have figured out an ending!

the above fight and run away happens, and there’s two endings: one where shadow possesses dash, and one where shadow possesses danny. in both, of course, the other party realizes the only way to get shadow out is through making shadow feel safe enough to leave, aka... flooding the room with romance. if dash is possessed, danny and co. realize that danny’s the prime candidate to... be the suave lil boy. if DANNY is possessed, sam and tucker begrudgingly explain that, uh, yeah, phantom might have a crush on you, he’s just really controlling of his emotions. (also kwan! kwan definitely plays a part if dash is possessed, maybe even in saying “uh... he has a bigger crush on Fenton. can you guys get him instead?” and danny. explodes)

blahlbahblah luring shadow out by being gay happens and shadow gets scooped back up by the 13s. as much as the previous argument is funny it might also be very funny if johnny literally noticed none of this, and kitty shows up like ‘you lost this’ and johnny is like. ‘...shadow? when did you leave’. anywho.

that’s the concept! the MAIN difference is that johnny and kitty actually have a very healthy and sweet relationship, and the conflict, ironically, comes from the fact that they love each other TOO much. i do love ‘dash finds out’ reveals but as far as an episodic romp goes, this might not be the best ep for him to discover the secret in. however in a oneshot or something of course you could slot that in there excellently i believe.

#danny phantom #dash baxter #fic #ish... sort of. not really i guess LMAO #ask #dashposting #lucky in love #johnny 13 #kitty 13 #Anonymous #adpRewrite

[0606-hyuck]

a letter to my lover | park jisung

♡  dear y/n, i’m writing you this letter in the hopes that it gets to you well. our relationship has been tumultuous, that’s for sure, and i thought it was high time i wrote you a letter detailing all the times you said "i love you" that are important to me.

genre: jisung x reader, fluff, supernatural!jisung, werewolf!jisung

warnings: mentions of vomiting (not in an e.d sense), mentions of breaking bones and transformation

word count: 2.5K

tagging: the lovely @roses-of-the-moon ♡ @mora134340

Dear Y/N~

The first time you said “I love you”, I vomited on you.

God, I can’t explain how hard I cringed while writing that. Every time I think back to that first time, my body just wants to turn inwards on itself. The first time you said it, we were both participating in an anti-bullying course at our middle school. I remember our teacher, Miss Son, had the whole class pair off with someone they’d never talked to before and tell the other person they were loved and appreciated. Everyone was quick to pair off, and as one of the quietest kids in class, I was naturally without a partner. You noticed me from the other side of the classroom and, probably wanting to be paired with me rather than that weird girl who bit people, you made your way over and we became partners for the exercise. Miss Son made us face each other, hold hands, stare into each other’s eyes, and say something nice. You offered to go first, and I didn’t know what shallow back-handed compliment you were going to say about me, but I could guess some of the more popular options. “I love that you’re so quiet and observant, Jisung.” “I love how you don’t care what other people think of you!” And my personal favourite, “you’re actually not as weird as I thought you were!”

So, when you straight up said, “I love you, Jisung,” I was so surprised and embarrassed that my lunch decided to make an appearance. Why would you say you loved me? You barely even knew me! I could feel a blush heating up my cheeks and my hands became so sweaty and I knew you were waiting for me to reply but all I could focus on were the butterflies in my stomach that were churning my half digested chicken sandwich, and I opened my mouth to reply and suddenly my lunch was all over your t-shirt. I remember the disgusted cry you let out which caused all our classmates to turn around and see you covered in my vomit, and when I realised that I’d not only embarrassed myself but you as well, the water-works started. While everyone else was laughing and pointing at us, and I had horribly warm tears streaking down my face, you managed to pull the both of us up and march us to the bathroom without a second glance back. You handed me a bunch of paper towels and sat me on the toilet seat to calm down, while you tried your best to wash your clothes. 

I remember how hard I tried to apologise to you, my misery and embarrassment causing me to choke up multiple times, but you wouldn’t let me. You said, and I quote, “shit happens”, ordered me to give you my jumper while you removed your ruined t-shirt, and that was that. The top was thrown in the bin, my tears wiped from my eyes, and you took us back to the classroom. Miss Son was, understandably, worried for both us and your clothes, but you told her not to worry, and for the next hour you stayed by my side and any time someone tried to tease me about what happened, you glared at them until they backed away. 

I thought you were so cool and cold-hearted at the time, but I would quickly realise you were anything but.

The second time you said “I love you”, I was already telling you all my secrets. 

After the incident, which we both refer to as the “Chicken Sandwich Crisis”, we became friends. Middle school can be rough for anyone, and especially hard for people like me who were labelled “weird” and “friendless”. But you didn’t care about any of that. I noticed you started hanging out with me on the playground more, and when we had to pair up in class you were usually the first (and only) to offer to be my partner. Soon, it became natural. No longer was it just, “oh, it’s Jisung,” it was, “oh, there’s Jisung and Y/N.” Your friends teased you for associating with a weirdo like me, but when I asked you why you kept picking me over your friends you simply said, “they’re not my friends any more.” 

It was almost a year after the Chicken Sandwich Crisis that I asked you about it again. I wanted to know why you had said “I love you” rather than literally anything else you could have said at that moment. So I did. I thought you might be angry, or at the very least embarrassed, that I was bringing up the whole vomiting incident, but you just laughed. Super loudly, by the way. Like, literally right in my face and it took you a whole three minutes to calm down again, Y/N. You said you’d never let me live that moment down, and in that instant I was once again reminded how embarrassing it actually was. Anyway, you explained that although you didn’t know me, you also had no reason to hate me, and the best way to tell someone they are loved is to straight up tell them. You then countered that, yes, your phrasing had been a little strange at the time, but we were both eleven and you didn’t mean anything by it.

I was glad I’d asked you, because in the year we’d become friends I’d realised something crucial about you. You were someone who wore your heart on your sleeve (and your emotions plain for anyone to see). You didn’t see the point in trying to hide your feelings or twist your words to mean something else. If you were happy, everyone knew about it. One look at the gigantic smile on your face and genuine laugh that started making my heart skip a beat and anyone knew you were happy. The frown, piercing glare, and occasional rolled eyes meant you were unhappy. If someone was bothering you, you told them. If something I did made you really happy, you let me know so I could do it again. I come from a family who are almost physically unable to lie, but I'd never met someone as honest as you. 

So, I didn’t think twice when I told you about that family of mine - about who I was. When I told you I was actually a werewolf, you laughed your head off. Then, when you realised I was serious, the genuine curiosity radiating from you let me know you believed me, and then you told me so. I’d never told anyone that I was not human before, but it felt so right to tell you, my best friend. I was worried you wouldn’t accept me, but I also knew that would never be a possible outcome. After I told you, nothing much really changed. You treated me the way you had before, although you asked me a lot of questions about my family and my species. It was nice talking to someone about myself and knowing I could spill all my secrets and they would be totally and 100% safe with you. 

A year later, I realised I had another secret I hadn’t told you. I was utterly and madly in love with you. As we had gotten to know each other over the past two years, we spent almost all of our spare time together and I had fallen for your charm, kindness, and your honesty. You had accepted me when no one else would, even before you knew what I was, and that was the best feeling in the world. I think, Y/N, I had known I was in love with you for awhile. Or at least I knew it wasn’t natural to get so nervous to be alone around my best friend, for my heart to try to jump out of my chest when you wrapped me in a hug, and for me to get butterflies every single time you shot your bright smile my way. 

In our friendship, you were usually the one who had to convince me to do things, to go out of my comfort zone, but now I knew this was something I’d have to take the lead on. I was so nervous to tell you I loved you that I blurted it out one day when I was over at your house, determined to just get it out there and wait for your reaction. I remember throwing a hand over my mouth when I realised that was not the romantic gesture I had imagined, and burying my head into your bed sheets only to be pulled back up and kissed sweetly on the cheek. Although I had totally embarrassed myself in front of you again, you found it cute how nervous I was and from that day on we were dating.

The third time you said “I love you”, I was introducing you to my parents. 

And my nine siblings. 

Okay, so it wasn’t actually the first time you’d met my family. By this point you and I had been dating like, what, seven years? I’d introduced you to my parents almost immediately after we had started dating, after I admitted I was a werewolf, and you became a regular around at my house. Our Sundays were spent having dinner with my family, where you just loved to joke with my parents how you should have known I wasn’t human, what with my lanky limbs and perpetual clumsiness. For a few days each month you and I would go with my older brothers and sister on a hike through the forest and mountainside that our community was developed near, and share funny and heartfelt stories around the campfire we’d built. In a short space of time, you had integrated yourself well and truly into my family circle. 

This wasn’t just a regular dinner this time, though. We were both in our early twenties, and you’d just made the biggest decision of your life. You were going to become a werewolf, just like me. Ever since I’d told you my secret, we’d entertained the idea of being together forever. Obviously, you were human and I was immortal, so the only way we could live together was if I gave up my immortality, or you became like me. Werewolves are notoriously pack-focused animals, so there was no way my family was going to allow me to become human, but you were willing to give up your mortal life for me. For us. 

My mother had agreed to turn you, and in order to be able to do so she would have to be in her wolf form on the night of a full moon. My mother was chosen to do the turning because she was the one who was most likely to be in control when she changed. I would have done it myself, but I don’t think I would have been able to restrain myself once I had changed forms and picked up your scent.

That night, you told me you loved me twice. Once was while my family were all still in our human forms - you gave me a long kiss and told me that no matter what happened you loved me. The second time was after the thick clouds dispersed to reveal the moon, in all of her full glory, and after the sound of mine and my family’s bones breaking and shifting resounded through the clearing we were in as we all transformed. I wasn’t able to be close to you as the turning process would be painful for you and my family were worried I might try and interrupt it. And although it was the first time you’d ever seen me in my true form, you’d called out that you loved me as my mother bared her fangs and stalked towards you.

The last time you said “I love you”, we were watching a terrible 80s film.

Y/N, it was so terrible. So, so bad. A movie about a giant alien coming to earth and then having to attend public high school, while also trying not to fall in love with an undercover cop with daddy issues? I have no idea why you thought it would be a good movie, Y/N. But one of the positives was when you got bored of the movie, you turned to face me and started kissing my cheek and telling me how much you loved me. That was kind of cool. 

If you’d asked little eleven year old Jisung where he thought he’d be in ten years, he definitely wouldn’t have said “cuddling on the couch in my home I share with my werewolf soulmate”, I can tell you that much! But he would definitely be happy with how things turned out. 

I never told you this, Y/N, but I was so terrified when you were being turned. My mother had never turned anyone before, and the way you screamed when she sank her teeth into your neck is something that will, unfortunately, stick with me forever. My father was the only one of us who had witnessed a turning before, and, according to him, you weren’t reacting the way you should have. When my mother withdrew from you, your body went so pale and limp I automatically thought I’d lost you. 

Usually a human would start the transformation right away, but it was hours before we noticed any change in you at all. The first transformation for anyone, natural werewolf or not, is painful and traumatic, and it was so hard for me to sit back helplessly and watch you go through that. The moment you recovered enough to walk around and get used to your new body made it all worth it. As the youngest sibling out of ten children, I never expected a time where I would have to show someone all the ins and outs of being a werewolf, but it was a role I relished in. 

Y/N, you are one of the most beautiful people I have ever seen. Your werewolf form is even more powerful and raw than I imagined it would be, and it always astounds me how, despite everything you’ve given up for me, you still remain the kind, strong-willed, honest person I fell in love with. Getting to watch you grow from a cute little eleven year old into the wonderful adult you are now is an experience I will forever be grateful for. There’s nothing I want to do more in my life than to grow old together with you. And because of your sacrifice, that’s what is going to happen. 

And to think we wouldn’t be here without the Chicken Sandwich Crisis!

Lots and lots of love, 

Jisung ♡ :)

© 0606-hyuck 2021. All Rights Reserved.

#neowritingsnet #cznnet #nct-writers #dreamwritersnet #nct #nct dream #nct dream jisung #jisung nct dream #jisung nct #jisung #park jisung #jisung x reader #jisung imagine #jisung scenario #supernatural nct

[izzabeean]

Chapter 8 : Restless

SUMMARY

Now that you’ve temporarily moved into Oikawa’s apartment, you feel like you need to do something in return for his and Iwaizumi’s generosity. Yet, just when things start to look up, there’s always something that brings you back down.

pairing : ushjima x f!reader / oikawa x f!reader / iwaizumi x f!reader

genre : angst + fluff

word count : 5,474

content : profanity, smoking

tags :  alternate universe - college/university, post-break up, friends to lovers, pining, slow burn

a/n : a bit of a longer chapter, I'm sorry if the ending seems a bit rushed. I tried to have two perspectives in this chapter and I’m not entirely sure if I like it, but here ya go! Also I hope you like it! (Pardon my errors, I only proofread once)

Post Thursday evenings PST, if not latest by Friday.

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“I’m thinking… Curry!” you exclaim while you begin to collect the required ingredients at the smaller grocer.

Dinner wasn’t going to be anything too elaborate or fancy, just something simple. It’s the least you could do for Oikawa and Iwaizumi, letting you stay at the apartment until the disaster at your place ends. Though you weren’t much of a chef, you were really good at making a delicious pot of chicken curry. Truthfully, you’ve never cooked for anyone but yourself before, even Ushijima didn’t have the chance to taste your cooking, so you were quite nervous about the outcome. 

Nonetheless, this was your opportunity to do something for all that they’ve done.

“I can’t even remember the last time I had homemade curry,” Iwaizumi says while the corners of his mouth slightly curl up. You think he could probably light a room up with that smile, even if it’s so stupid for you to admit it, but you were really happy Iwaizumi offered to accompany you.

“Well you’re in for a treat!” you giggle. But you're finding yourself distracted watching every move Iwaizumi makes in search of some sort of confirmation that perhaps he is attracted to you too. You know it’s your own fault for clinging onto the tiny chance of hope that it’s more than him being a courteous gentleman. 

You’re practically floored when you accidentally brush each other's hands reaching for the same item at the same time. You blush from embarrassment up as you shoot him a sheepish smile and quickly pull your hand away.

Oh god, what is going on with you? Can’t you just be normal for once? You think, attempting to talk yourself down from the severe sweat your body has broken out in.

There were only a couple more things on your list you needed and advised the rest would be found down the aisles. Rounding the corner you begin to walk down the row of groceries on the hunt for the curry roux to complete your dish. At first, you’re too busy ignoring your hyper-awareness to Iwaizumi's presence to notice, but once you do, your heart sinks to your stomach as a familiar figure stands the opposite end of the aisle.

Quickly, you back out of the aisle pushing Iwaizumi with you. He doesn’t necessarily respond, but the unexpected reaction on your part definitely surprises him as he glances down at you with wide eyes.

“My ex is here,” you breathe. 

You can feel yourself shutting down again. You at least hoped that living in a different neighborhood, you’d avoid running into Ushijima, but it seems like no matter where you go you always seem to find him. It’s almost like the universe forbids you to get over him.

Iwaizumi tries to push past you, but you shove him back.

“No, no! He’ll see you,” you warn, hands pressed against his chest. Your mind takes a step back realizing what actions you’ve committed while the tips of your fingers and palms of your hands feel his toned chest beneath them. You feel your face warm up and it doesn’t help that you feel like you're burning under Iwaizumi’s dark, intense gaze. 

“Let me look,” he argues. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t.”

Putting your hands down, you watch him go. Your shoulders lock up as you ball your hands into fists. 

Fuck, fuck, FUCK! Your brain screams.

You turn on your heels preparing yourself to bolt if Iwaizumi has been spotted. Instead, he turns back and looks at you in shock. 

“I didn’t know that was your type,” he teases.

You furrow your brows at his response. “And what did you think my type would be?”

“I don’t know…” he clears his throat. “Oikawa?”

“What?” you shout. A look of annoyance flashed across your face, you try to sound polite, but the words come off as irritated with a hint of attitude. 

He laughs in response. “Let’s go,” he says while walking past the aisle. 

You catch your breath and hesitate, not wanting to be seen by Ushijima, but at the same time, you want to see if that girl is with him. Slowly you poke your head out to get a better look. He appears to be alone on the phone with someone, you can't hear the conversation but you notice by the way he's standing it isn't a good one. You know his mannerisms better than you'd like to admit and one thing he would do when he was having a difficult conversation is pinch the bridge of his nose. It wouldn't happen often, but when it did he would always tell you nothing was wrong when it clearly was. 

It's strange looking in from the outside, unable to comfort or distract Ushijima from his worries. 

“Pst,” you look over to Iwaizumi, snickering to himself. “Done spying yet?”

His comment startles you as you swallow hard convincing yourself to walk past the aisle to join Iwaizumi. This sad feeling hangs in your chest, a bit sharper than when you were blindsided with a break-up and a bit deeper than when you saw him with the girl. It almost like everything you’ve known was just pulled from under you, as if the last couple of years never existed, it was all a dream and now you're strangers. 

You take a deep breath as you follow Iwaizumi to continue gathering the rest of the ingredients. In your mind, you’d imagined that anger would have encapsulated you in this orb of revenge but instead, you have this longing for wanting to know if any of what you had with him was real.

As you leave, you check behind you wondering if you’ll see him again. Hoping perhaps he will see you too. But you don’t. 

“Something wrong?” Iwaizumi asks.

Your face pales as you think up a broad way to express how life just keeps getting worse and worse. 

“No, life is just weird now.”

“Cause you’re new roommates are two immature boys?” Iwaizumi jokes.

“That’s the least of my worries,” you answer, letting out a dry chuckle. 

Because I get to see you.

The grocery bags bounce against your leg as you look up at the clear sky feeling the sun’s rays kiss your face with warmth. Was it possible for you to like someone this fast? It’s easy enough to get over a break-up when someone else is in the picture, but what if that someone was a person you crossed paths with when you were younger? Was it meant to be? Or are you just imagining things?

The tension feels overwhelming as a fire lights in your stomach. 

“You know, I never thought I’d ever see you again.”

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi says peering at you. “It really surprised me too… In a good way. But it seems you can’t keep yourself out of trouble.”

You feel a big surprise overcome as you shift your gaze to him. He’s referring to the sparkly gel pen the bully took from you. You’re certain. 

“What can I say? Trouble always finds me, I don’t go looking for it.”

You both laugh, filling your body with relief as the tension in your shoulders relaxes. This feeling of warmth blossoms throughout your body as the sound of his laugh echoes in your ears giving you the perfect amount of serotonin you need to alleviate your earlier worries.

How the hell did you get lucky enough to hear it? 

Your eyes glimmer and you feel butterflies erupt in your stomach. The giddy sensation gives you the confidence to slip out the next sentence you didn’t fully process--

“It’s kind of funny because I used to have a crush on you.”

You start to sweat realizing the words that just came out of your mouth and you’re silent. This isn’t exactly how eight-year-old you wanted to confess, honestly, you were going to take your crush on Iwaizumi to your grave. And now here you are. Oversharing. Something you don’t pride yourself on doing. In fact, now, you’re just worried about what he will say.

“I know,”  he replies, avoiding eye contact rubbing the back of his neck.

“What?” you start, stumbling over your feet.

You feel like you didn’t hear that right. Yes, you would see him every day because you were in the same class. But you barely spoke to each other, keeping to yourself most of the time. You were discreet, to say the least.

“How?” is the only thing you can think up to say.

“I mean, you weren’t really good at hiding it, with you staring at me all the time,” he says. “But also Hina told me.”

Hina, an old ‘friend’ of yours from elementary school. You recall her pestering you about who was your crush and stupidly told her who. And what does she do in return? That’s a low blow for an eight-year-old.

Brushing it off with a dry laugh, you add, “Well that’s embarrassing.”

“I wouldn’t say so,” he shrugs, looking at you in his peripheral vision. “We were just kids.”

You open your mouth to speak but the words die in your throat.

“It’s not like you still have those feelings,” he continues.

Oh.

“God no,” you exclaim, sounding a bit insincere. But you’re trying to act unaffected by the strength of his words that made you feel like you just got hit by a car.

“Do you?”

“W-what?” you stutter flustered. “I-I don’t know what you’re asking--”

“I was joking. It was a joke,” Iwaizumi interjects realizing maybe he’s pushed it a little too far then playfully nudges you with his shoulder.

Your whole body tingles from the short contact. In a way, it feels like he just unknowingly friend-zoned you in a matter of seconds. But it was truly your fault for thinking that some sort of fate brought you both together. You feel like you’ve been pulled out of the strange lull of not knowing how the other person is feeling. Now you just feel like an idiot.

“Right! Just a joke!” Changing your entire expression to a more vibrant smile.

Part of you wishes you didn’t get your answer though. 

------

Dinner doesn’t take as long as you suspected, especially with Iwaizumi’s help, speeding up the process without you stressing over getting it done at a reasonable hour. It isn’t overly delicious as you taste the final concoction, but you still find it good enough to serve your friends.

“Thanks for the help,” you smile.

“No problem,” he says.

“What time is Oikawa coming home?” you question while turning down the heat and covering the curry with a lid to keep warm.

“He texted me back saying--”

“I’m home,” a voice calls from the entrance. Oikawa walks into the kitchen nose carried by the rich smell of spices. The corner of his lips curls up into a coy smile as he eyes you up and down while you stand in front of the stove with an apron on. “Didn’t know I could consider you wife material.”

“Remind me to not do something nice for you again,” you retort, irked by the shit-eating grin.

He blinks when he peeks over your shoulder realizing the delicious smell is coming from a pot on the stove. “You made dinner?”

“Yes, as thanks for letting me stay here, but I can just throw it out if you’re going to be an asshole,” you argue while staring at him intensely. It strikes you that you’ve forgotten how ungrateful he can be and perhaps making dinner was just a bad idea to show gratitude. 

“No, no, I was just kidding,” he begs. “Looks good.”

“Go sit,” you scold. 

He’s taken aback by the sternness in your voice and slowly back off to the dining table in the other room. 

Iwaizumi passes a plate of rice to you, noticing the aura of rage exuding by the way you slop the chicken curry onto the plate.

“You ok?” he asks so matter-of-factly that you could punch him as well.

“I’m fine,” you reply quickly while you finish plating that last portion. 

Walking into the other room, you set a plate down in front of Oikawa who marvels at the mouth-watering meal. 

“Thanks for the meal,” Oikawa says, delving into the curry. His eyes light up at the taste as he happily chews the tender chicken. “It’s good!”

“Thanks,” you mumble. But your anger hasn’t dissipated as he can immediately sense it whilst you refuse to look his way. “Iwaizumi helped too.”

“I can’t take credit for all your hard work,” he adds.

You look up at Iwaizumi giving him a soft smile then turn back to the food that you’ve barely touched as you continue to play with it on your plate. You’ve lost your appetite.

“I think I’m going to go to bed,” you utter getting up from your seat.

“What? Aren’t you hungry?” Oikawa asks. 

“I’m just tired,” you reply, bringing your plate into the kitchen. 

No one else says anything else as they watch you go, they just pause unable to process your sudden exit. The next thing they hear is the door shut to Oikawa’s room. They exchange glances before continuing to indulge in their meal. 

Collapsing on the bed you exhale deeply. It’s too bad you couldn’t sit down and enjoy the meal but everything seemed to hit you at once. You could only take so much, from seeing Ushijima yet again to the disappointing rejection from Iwaizumi to Oikawa’s snarky comments. You don’t know why his comment jabbed you so deeply, normally, stuff like that doesn’t bother you, but you suspect all the stress and surprises you’ve endured in the past three days, you were definitely on edge.

You knew you were lashing out, but you couldn’t ignore the pain you felt inside. Maybe sleeping it off could help. Just maybe.

------

The night felt endless. Shifting in the sheets you bury your face in the pillow; it’s not the same familiar scent as it is back at your apartment, instead, it’s a mix of fabric softener with a ting of cologne that most certainly smells like Oikawa. 

Didn’t know I could consider you wife material. 

The same words repeat in your head causing you to toss and turn, unable to fall asleep with all the anxiety pent up inside. His words make sense though. If Oikawa couldn’t even see you that way, how could Iwaizumi? 

You know you’re not going to get any more sleep with your thoughts racing, so you climb out of bed and throw on a jacket.

Slowly turning the knob, you pry the door open and creep into the hall. The apartment is dark and quiet except for the subdued sound of Oikawa's snoring trailing from the living room. You study him in his deep slumber while a trickle of the light slips in through a crack of the closed curtains. You still can’t believe he gave up his bed to let you sleep in it. Lately, he’s been awfully nicer than usual to you. 

As you reach the foyer, you crouch over to slip on your shoes to lace them up. Suddenly the air in the room shifts as a hand emerges from the darkness to cover your mouth. Your fight or flight instincts kick in as you try to tear the culprit's arm away from you. But when you do, your eyes are met with Iwaizumi holding his index finger to his lips. You send him a wide-eyed glare in disapproval of his actions, you thought you were going to have a heart attack.

“Go,” he whispers, gesturing to leave.

Putting on your other shoe and quickly tying it, you get up to unlock the door.

Click!

The sound wasn’t that loud, but in the silence of the apartment, it feels like the noise shot and reverberated off the walls. You close your eyes and strain your hearing to listen for Oikawa's snoring. And it stops. But for a moment, before continuing.

You sigh as you shoot Iwaizumi with a look of relief and walk out of the apartment.

A shiver goes down your spine as you breathe in the fresh dewy morning air while the birds chirping in the background with the sun just about to rise. You lean on the railing taking in the peaceful surroundings having a newfound appreciation of how beautiful everything is.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Iwaizumi asks, shutting the door behind him.

“Not really,” you groan. “You?”

“I have a weird sleep schedule,” he continues, his voice a little groggy probably from just waking up. He takes out a pack of cigarettes and offers you the pack as a way of asking if you’d like one. “I like getting up early when I can.”

“Yeah I’m a bit more of a morning person myself,” you reply, accepting a smoke. As of lately you’re a morning and night person but didn’t think it was not worth mentioning.

He lights the cigarette and passes you the lighter. You watch him press his lips to the smoke, you wonder if they’re as soft as they appear providing that he seems so gentle when inhaling the toxins. Then he exhales the smoke, you watch it curl into the air and the sweet smell hits your nose urging you to light your own. In your fantasies, you imagine sharing a smoke as a form of intimacy, passing it off to each other, but obviously, this is real life and not some romance novel so you push the thought away.

“So, what do your parents do?”

The question feels like a forced form of conversation that you ask someone when you don’t know what to talk about. You know after yesterday’s adventure to your parent's home, there must have been a lot going through his mind as to how they have such a big house with so many rooms, but the inquiry is always deeply triggering. It’s not that you don’t want to answer, you just don’t like to talk about your parents much. You wouldn’t think that you have the healthiest relationship with them and you definitely didn’t believe now is the best time to give a full autobiography.

“... They work in medicine,” you try to sound enthusiastic but the words leave your mouth sounding bitter and resentful.

“Ah, both doctors?”

“Mm… Kind of,” you mutter, taking a hit from the cigarette realizing you’re going to need another one soon with the way this conversation is going.

“You don’t like talking about it?” he exclaims, noticing that you are extremely reticent to the topic.

“Not really…” 

You didn’t feel like outlining how they forced you to go to university when you weren’t completely sure what to study. And you didn’t want to tell him that they were absolutely livid when you refused to go to school. And the only compromise you could make with them is that you would go to university if you were allowed to move out to live by yourself. 

“They’re great in a sense they take care of me, but not great in a way that I am able to choose what I want to do…” you mumble, already dreading the fact you’re starting to overshare. Sure he asked, but you can’t help but feel guilty for even talking about the subject. 

“Well, what do you want to do?”

You pause. Despite his firm demeanor, it wasn’t something you expected to hear from Iwaizumi. At all. What did you want to do?

Go somewhere far away, where no one can find me, leave everything behind, become the person I want to be without any judgment… Is what you wanted to say, but instead, you murmur, “I don’t know… I’m hoping someday I figure it out.”

“No harm in that,” he responds.

“You’re lucky you know what you want to do,” you utter, peering at him. “I wish I did.”

Iwaizumi exhales and looks up at the sky that’s changing to a golden color with the sun about to rise.

“It's okay to not know what you want right now,” he begins. “It’s hard to commit to something that you’re going to do for the rest of your life.”

“How did you know?”

“One day I just knew,” he shrugs.

“I don’t think I can,” you object, fully knowing you’re being difficult. 

Instinctively, you don’t think something like that can appear before you so easily. Here you are, almost four years later, completing a degree you don’t necessarily care about, but feel like you have to do in order to get your parents off your back. You understand it’s your life and you have the full ability to make your own decisions but all you can feel is fear and anxiety wash over you at the thought of thinking where you could be in five years. 

“What about your ex?” 

You blink unsure if you heard Iwaizumi right.

“What?” you answer almost coldly.

“Do you want to get back together with him?”

“No,” you snap hostilely, raising your voice. 

“There, you made one decision,” he points out.

“Not when he’s found someone else,” you whisper.

You swallow hard as he glances up at you, his gaze finally meeting yours for the first time this morning. The statement takes you both by surprise as your words linger in the air between the two of you. Iwaizumi’s eyes are wide like he’s heard this fact for the first time.

“Didn’t Oikawa tell you?” 

Iwaizumi shakes his head. "What happened?"

You feel yourself emotionally facepalm yourself as you draw the conclusion that Oikawa didn't actually tell Iwaizumi everything. Now you'd wish you had clarification of what he was told.

“I saw him the other day, when I was out with Oikawa, with someone new,” you confess, taking a deep inhale you feel your eyes start to turn glassy and your heart dip. It’s a mix of feeling like the world is about to implode and embarrassment as you come to realize the amount of word vomit that leaves your mouth in Iwaizumi’s presence. 

“She knows what she wants, that’s probably why he left me. Probably smarter too and definitely much prettier,” you add, not knowing why you’re continuing to go on about it.

Yes, you’re tired and upset that all this dumb bullshit keeps happening to you, all you wanted to do was talk about it. Even if Oikawa offered, there’s this unexplainable uneasiness of being vulnerable around him. 

The next few minutes are painful as you stand in irrefutable silence that seems to speak louder than any words of comfort. You wonder if you’ve overstepped your boundaries by telling him more than he probably cares to know.

“I hear that you’re smart,” Iwaizumi finally says. “Oikawa says you’re always studying hard and getting high marks in your classes…” 

Frankly, he didn’t have to try to console you. He has no reason to. And he can’t lie, he feels a bit guilty for bringing it up.

“And I doubt she’s prettier,” he utters.

Your chest tightens as you look at Iwaizumi with bright eyes. He takes a long drag of his cigarette before breathing out looking in the opposite direction. You know you’re a bit insane for getting your hopes up slightly, but you can’t help it with a comment like that.  

Why do you feel so nervous? 

“I’m going to go inside. See if I can get some more rest before class,” you assure, putting out the cigarette. You know you're running away from the conversation but Iwaizumi's comment was more complex than you wanted it to be.

------

It’s been almost a week at Oikawa’s apartment.

You thought it was going to be endlessly chaotic with lots of annoying bantering on Oikawa’s part, but it’s been quite pleasant. However, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t manage to get a good night’s rest. You blame the unfamiliar atmosphere, with the unfamiliar sounds coming from outside and the unfamiliar smell that most definitely is a ting of Oikawa’s clone. Each night you find yourself shifting around, unable to get comfortable, trying to plead yourself to sleep so you can survive another day. But even when you do fall asleep, you find yourself waking up every hour, checking the time on your phone, checking for missed calls or messages. 

Yes, you did in fact still have that sliver of hope Ushijima would reach out.

Yet, whenever the phone illuminates your face waking you up, even more, your notifications are empty. And honestly, your heart was too, yet also so heavy.

The past couple of mornings you’ve had classes later that day, you manage to sleep on and off until you had to drag yourself to campus in time.

But oh my god. Class is nothing short of boring making time feel like it’s moving alarmingly slow. You think perhaps you can get away with taking a nap, seeing as you are seated at the back of the class. Except as you’re about to, the professor designates a group assignment.

Fun. 

Gathering your stuff, you move to a desk to sit with your group members the professor assigned. As you scan the other student's faces before opening your textbook up, a small commotion at the front of the classroom distracts you. A student files in apologizing to the professor for her tardiness. At first, you don’t recognize her familiar appearance until she approaches your group to sit down across from you. But once you do, you realize you are met with the girl you never thought you’d see like this. 

The transfer student.

Infuriatingly enough, she’s pretty wearing a nicely put-together outfit with a face full of makeup perfectly applied. You notice the soft shine from her sparkly gloss as she smiles flashing her pearly whites. The atmosphere seems to shift as her smile radiates before speaking up. No wonder Ushijima has a thing for her. She's gorgeous.

“I’m Sara,” she announces. “I look forward to working with you all!”

The student beside you nudges your arm, gesturing you to introduce yourself.

“Oh, I’m Y/N,” you say softly, trying to revert your eye contact with the new member whose eyes sparkle while gazing at you. 

Then it strikes you. Does she even know who you are?

-------

Back at the apartment, Oikawa enters his room to grab his homework and textbooks. The room is a mess with clothes thrown on the floor and your belonging placed unorderly in random spots. He shoots the room with a sour look, a bit displeased seeing as he always thought you were much tidier than this. Approaching his desk, he notices your pile of clothing holding his textbooks hostage, drooped all over his desk. He starts to sweat as he slowly pries his books from under hoping the heap of clothes won’t fall. And he’s lucky for a moment until a couple of articles crash to the floor.

Oikawa sighs as he begins to pick them up to place them back on the desk. But as he grabs your jacket, he hears a small thud as cartilage hits the floor. He looks down to see what’s been dropped and spies a pack of smokes. 

He hesitantly picks them up analyzing the half-used pack unsure why it was in his pocket.

“Hey are you-- What are you doing?” Iwaizumi scolds pausing in the doorway staring at Oikawa in surprise. He looks down to where Oikawa’s eye line meets.

Oikawa turns to Iwaizumi, “She smokes?”

“Uh, no,” Iwaizumi spouts out quickly, walking up to Oikawa taking the pack away from him. “She’s holding that for me.”

“Don’t bullshit, I know you don’t smoke this brand,” he sneers, face flickering with disgust. “Why are you covering for her?”

Iwaizumi is quiet as the shame he had hoped to ignore fills him with guilt.

“Fuck,” Oikawa snaps storming out of the room.

------

“Y/N,” a voice calls out to you from behind. Class finally ended and you had rushed out in order to get back to the apartment at a decent hour. Meeting Sara really put you in a bad mood and the last thing you wanted to do was linger after class for some forced conversation. Yet when you turn around to see whose voice it was, Sara stands before you smiling.

“What do you think of going out for dinner tonight? I thought it would be a good idea for our group to get to know each other more since we will be working together for the rest of the semester…”

She’s polite and soft-spoken, a seemingly large contrast from your loud and fiery personality.

“Um, I’m not sure…”  you say after a long pause. 

“Please! It will be fun. You can even bring some friends.” she pleads, perhaps more appealing than you wanted to hear.

There’s a strange excitement to her voice that makes you feel like you need to say yes as you think about it for a moment. Her invitation must mean she doesn’t know that you are her new boyfriend’s recent ex-girlfriend of 3 days. With that in mind, your curiosity grows about what kind of person Sara is.

“What time?” you reply.

------

“I’m back,” you call into the apartment. Surprisingly, you are a bit enthusiastic to tell Oikawa and Iwaizumi about the invitation. It was your chance to spy and you knew Oikawa would definitely be down to join.

Oikawa rushes out with a stern look on his face just moments after you announce your arrival. He was ready to confront you about what he found today, but before he has a chance to you speak up.

“I have a favor to ask of you,” you say while unlacing your shoes.“I met the transfer student today, her name is Sara. I didn’t realize she’s in my class.”

Oikawa remains silent, cluing into the way you radiate as you speak; it’s been a while since he’s seen you this way. Your voice seems to chirp at a higher note and the way you’re carrying yourself seemed lighter as well.

“She asked me to go out for dinner, to get to know me better,” you threw up a couple of air quotes to mock her. “You, me and Iwaizumi, we’re going. I have to see what she’s all about.”

You look at Oikawa who still hasn’t spoken and shoot him a concerned look, “What? Did I do something?”

“Dinner? With your ex's new girlfriend?” he mutters, sounding not even remotely pleased with your explanation.

“Apparently she doesn’t know I’m his ex,” you answer coy. “Or I doubt she would have invited me.”

You may not have all the answers you want, but you sure as hell know you can find out something.

“I mean, you don’t have to come, I’m sure Iwaizumi will be fine just going with me,” you smirk.

“Uh, no I’ll come,” Oikawa responds quickly, realizing he’s going to have to keep an eye on you. Right now, you don’t know that he knows you’re smoking and maybe instead of confronting you there was another way he could stop you from continuing the bad habit. He most definitely could have brought it up now, but seeing you in a happier mood, for once, he didn’t want to ruin it.

Suddenly, the door opens behind you and Iwaizumi appears glistening in sweat from his afternoon jog. He looks like he’s glowing as he wipes the sweat from his brow and gazes at you in the entrance. “What’s going on?” 

“Y/N-chan’s exes new girl asked Y/N to go out for dinner, but we assume she doesn’t know about Y/N and Ushijima… You in?” Oikawa explains.

Iwaizumi isn’t sure he understood the entire explanation but doesn’t seem to care as he notices the stars in your eyes waiting for his response. He can tell he wants you to go.

“How much time do I have to get ready?”

------

The restaurant is lively, full of patrons talking over each other while they argue over who’s going to buy the next pitcher of beer. You feel your nerves start to explode as you check the crowded room in search of Sara and your group members. Fortunately, a hostess greets you and you ask her in regards to where a big group of people would be sitting. As you follow behind her deeper into the restaurant, the more everything starts to feel real. You are on the cusp of turning around and getting out of there. 

Did you really want to see what she was like? Were you that desperate for answers? 

But you’re too late to turn back as Sara’s face lights up when she sees you. 

“You made it!” she smiles.

But you can’t meet her with the same bright smile because right beside her is Ushijima. 

#haikyuu x reader #haikyu x reader #haikyuu angst #haikyuu fluff #oikawa x reader #oikawa x y/n #oikawa tooru #iwaizumi x reader #iwaizumi hajime #ushijima x reader #ushijima x y/n #ushijima wakatoshi

[youreacowgirllikeme]

Blind Date

 

Note: just an idea I had, hope you like it. some soft fluffiness, but also smut bc I’m still h word for Jake, especially after how he looked tonight on tv.

Pairing: Jake Tapper x reader

 Warnings: smut, NSFW

 

(sorry for eventual typos, I wrote this in a bit of a frenzy)

enjoy

 

“You look horrible. “Abby stated matter-of-factly as she sat down in the restaurant chair across from you.

 “I missed you too, great to see you, thanks. “you responded, not even bothering to argue with her.

Abby was your best friend since college, if she said you looked horrible it was either a joke or a fact. Considering the way she was looking at you, probably the latter.

“Hard week at work?”

 You let out a tired huff.

“You have no idea. We got this new client who booked us for a nation-wide tv ad, and they’re so incredibly demanding. I’ve been working overtime for three weeks straight, it’s a miracle they didn’t call me in today.”

Your monthly Saturday brunch with Abby was sacred, work be damned.

Your friend was giving you a worried look across the table. “Well, I’m glad they didn’t, you deserve a day off.”

 “Enough of my sad life, how is it going over at Fake News?” you joked.

 “Amazing actually. You won’t believe it, but I’ve heard through the grapevine that they’re thinking about offering me John’s Sunday spot on Inside Politics. Can you imagine, my own hour, as an actual anchor. It’s nothing official yet, but I’m so excited.”

 “Oh my god, Abby, that’s awesome. I’m so proud of you. We should celebrate.” you exclaimed, beckoning a waiter to order two glasses of champagne.

 Abby gave you a warm smile.
“Thank you, babe. But let me be honest, I’m worried about you. You look exhausted, even your voice sounds tired. When was the last time you did something actually relaxing?”

 “I’ve watched a movie, like, a week ago. And I do yoga, at least sometimes.” You tried to argue, not entirely sure if you wanted to convince Abby or yourself.

 A smirk settled over your friend’s face, and she looked at you like she just had the most brilliant idea ever. You did not like that look at all, it usually meant trouble.

 “Well todays your lucky day, because I know just what you need to de-stress a bit.”

 You just raised an eyebrow at her. 
“Care to elaborate, genius?”

 “You, my friend, need to get laid.”

You snorted. “Fun times, Abbs, you almost got me,”


“I’m serious, Y/N, when was the last time you had sex?”

“Okay, it’s been a while, but I’m fine. I don’t need a man to interfere with the little free time I have. And it’s not like the streets are full of men chasing me. I don’t have time to date, and, like I said, I’m totally fine with the way things are at the moment.” You tried your very best not to sound defensive. 

The expression on Abby’s face told you everything you needed to know. She didn’t buy a single word coming out of your mouth.
“Y/N, trust me when I tell you, blowing off a little steam would do wonders for your stress level. And maybe you’d even meet someone nice. And, lucky for you, I know just the guy. He’s someone I work with, and I think you’d get along perfectly.”

 “You’re not actually suggesting setting me up on a blind date.” You couldn’t believe your friend. The last thing you needed was an evening full of awkward small talk with some boring, sleek CNN guy.

 “Come on, Y/N, take a leap of faith. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

+++

 (One week later)

 “I can’t believe I actually agreed.” You murmured to yourself as you rummaged through your closet, looking for an outfit to wear on that damned date Abby bullied you into.

You thought about the peaceful evening you could have had, curled up on the sofa with a glass of wine, maybe getting some work done.

But it was too late to back down now.

 “Let’s just get this over with” you told yourself, applying some lipstick as if it was war paint. “Let’s hope that the guy is at least good-looking.”

 The restaurant Abby sent you to was nice enough, a small and intimate place, perfect for a date. You couldn’t wait to have your first glass of wine, because you could feel your nervousness increasing with each passing minute.

You entered the restaurant, looking for the third table on the window side that Abby had described to you…and directly turned around, practically fleeing through the door again as soon as you set eyes on the man sitting there.

 Back outside, you took your phone out of your bag and furiously dialed Abby’s number. She picked up right away, but you were shouting at her before she could even say a word.

“You better tell me that you did not set me up with Jake fucking Tapper.”

Was she out of her mind? This was the Jake Tapper, the face of CNN, hell, the face of the media in this country. What the fuck were you supposed to talk to him about.

But your friend just chuckled at you through the phone.
“When you saw him on TV some months ago, you said he was your type. Plus, he’s intelligent, funny, and single. Perfect for you. And now stop making a fool out of yourself and go in there. You got this, girl. Love you, bye.”
And with that, she hung up.

 You took a deep breath and tried to calm your nerves. You could not just leave now, and stand up Mr. Breaking News himself. So you pocketed your phone again, squared your shoulders and went back into the restaurant.

You made your way over to the table, coming to a stop in front of it. The man sitting there looked up to you and smiled. And wow, what a beautiful smile it was, sincere, warm and inviting, taking over his entire face.

“Hi.” You said, trying to sound confident.

“I’m Y/N, Abby’s friend.”

 

“It’s so nice to meet you, I’m Jake. I’m working with Abby, but she probably already told you that much.”

“She did, but I’ll be honest, I know you, of course. Big fan of your show.”

God, why did you just say that. He was probably going to think you were some kind of crazy fangirl now.

 But he just continued to smile his open, friendly smile at you.
“Always happy to hear that.” He chuckled, pointing to the opposite chair. “Do you want to sit down?”

 “Yes, of course, sorry.” You said, feeling silly because you totally forgot that you were still standing. You quickly sat down and tried your best to appear calm and collected, even if your insides were in turmoil.

 “Would you care for some wine? They have a pretty impressive list, I could pick one for us if you don’t mind.” Jake asked.

 “Wine sounds fantastic. I love it, but I’m not really an expert, so go ahead.”

 Jake took some reading glasses out of the pocket of his suit jacket and put them on his nose. 
While he was studying the wine list, you took your time to study him instead. He appeared to be in his late forties, so there was an age difference of probably 15 to 20 years. You didn’t mind that at all, older men had always been more your type.

He had a really handsome face, kind eyes that looked even better when he had those glasses on, and you loved his salt-and-pepper hair. He was wearing a light blue dress shirt with a dark grey suit jacket. You caught your mind wandering to how he might look underneath his clothes and gave yourself a mental slap on the wrist. This was your first date, no need to get ahead of yourself.

“Everything alright over there?”

 Shit, he had caught you staring.

 “Yes, sorry, I zoned off for a moment. I had a stressful week at work.”

“Oh, yes, Abby told me you’re working in advertising. Any interesting projects at the moment?”

You went on and chatted about work a bit. You were fascinated by what he was doing, and taken aback by the confident, yet humble way he was talking about it. This was absolutely not the behavior you were expecting from the leading anchorman of the nations most renowned network. He wasn’t arrogant or self-centered at all and you were definitely charmed.

The wine Jake ordered arrived with your starters, and soon after you had your first few sips you felt some of the initial nervousness fading away.

Soon, the conversation was flowing freely, and you discovered that Abby was right, you really did get along perfectly. Jake was incredibly funny in a dry and witty way and his sarcastic remarks made you laugh more than once. You also discovered your shared interest in graphic novels and argued a while about weather DC or Marvel was the superior comic universe.

Jake showed you one of his own cartoons on his phone, and with each moment you found yourself more drawn to the man in front of you.
At some point his hand started to lightly brush against yours on the table, and each touch sent a warm feeling through your chest.

You talked some more over dessert, had some more wine and overall, a really good time.

The alcohol gave you a pleasant, fuzzy feeling, and the desire to just get up and crawl on Jakes lap grew with each look he gave you.

 “Excuse me, Ma’am, Sir, were closing up now.” A passing waiter told you and put the check on the table.

 “Let me take care of that, please.” Jake said, taking out his wallet. You just thanked him and enjoyed the view of him putting on his glasses again to read the check.

 He really was a perfect gentleman, you thought to yourself, as he got up to hold your coat and then the door for you on your way out.


“I really had a wonderful evening.” you said softly, as the both of you were standing on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. Jake shot you another one of his brilliant smiles, and you could feel your heart beating faster.
“Me too.” He replied. “I really enjoyed spending time with you, and I’d like to see you again.”

Now your heart was almost jumping out of your chest, and you could feel your own smile taking over your face.
“I’d love that.”

 Jake took one step closer, now standing so close you could almost feel the warmth radiating off his body. One of his hands came up to tuck a lock of hair behind your ear, his thumb slowly stroking over your jaw. His touch sent goosebumps all over your skin, and you slightly parted your lips, looking him directly in the eyes. They were warm, and dark, and you felt like you could get lost in them. And then he leaned down and pressed a kiss to your mouth.

It felt incredible, a kind of warmth that was totally unrelated to the wine spreading through your body, your skin prickling where his hand was still on your face.

You put your hands on his arms and kissed him back, enjoying the feeling of his soft lips against yours. He still tasted slightly like red wine, and you wanted nothing more than to explore the rest of his body with your mouth just as thoroughly.

 First date, you reminded yourself, and broke free from the kiss before your lust-clouded brain could make you do something you might regret later. You glanced up at Jake, who looked at you with an unreadable expression. Then, after what felt like forever, he finally spoke.

“Could I maybe have your number?”

 

“Of course.” You said, with maybe a bit much enthusiasm, but Jake didn’t seem to mind. You quickly typed your number into his phone, and just as you were finished, the cab you had called earlier was arriving.

Jake held the door open for you, and shot you one last, beautiful smile. “Good night, Y/N, get home safe.”

“Thank you for the wonderful evening, Jake. Good night.”

 You closed the door and the taxi drove off. You already missed his face as soon as he was out of sight, and you turned around to watch his receding figure through the rear window of the taxi.

Great, you were already down bad after one date. The man really got to you, and you desperately hoped that you would hear from him soon.

 As soon as you were home, you really felt the effects of the wine, so you quickly went to bed to get some sleep. Just before you were nodding off, you sent Abby a quick message.

 

You were right, he is perfect. THANKS xxxx

 

When Abby answered five minutes later, you were already asleep.

 Told you so ;) xxxx

+++

 When you woke up the next morning, there was a new message from an unknown number on your phone. Your heart made a flip in your chest, and you opened it as fast as you could.

 

Hi, this is Jake. It’s probably way too soon to text you, but I just wanted to let you know, again, what a great time I had yesterday. If you’d be up to it, I’d really like to see you again soon. Let me know if that would be alright with you. And have a nice Saturday :)

 

He had already texted you. That meant he didn’t think that you were crazy, or awkward, and that he wasn’t just acting nice, he genuinely wanted to see you again. You were filled with a giddy sort of happiness, and decided to answer him right away, there was no need to play any games here. Leap of faith, just like Abby said.

 

Good Morning Jake, I really enjoyed yesterday as well. I’d love to spend some more time together; would tomorrow evening be too spontaneous? I could make dinner, to return the favor since you paid yesterday ;) my place at eight?

 

As soon as you hit the send button you started getting anxious again. What if tomorrow was too soon? What if he thought you were being too eager?

“Stop it, Y/N!” you said out loud to interrupt your mental spiral. You wouldn’t make a fool out of yourself for this man, even if he was handsome, and intelligent, and funny. No way.

 But as you were standing in the kitchen five minutes later and heard your phone chiming from the other room, you were there in the matter of seconds to read the new message.

 

Tomorrow sounds perfect, just text me the address. I’ll bring the wine. xx Jake

 

You clutched your phone to your chest, the biggest, goofy smile on your face.

 You spent the remaining day extensively cleaning your flat, stressing out, going grocery shopping and stressing out some more. You face-timed Abby and bullied her into helping you pick out an outfit, since she technically was the one who got you into this mess in the first place.

Jake was occupying your mind whatever you did, and when you finally got into your bed that night, all you could think about was how his lips had felt against yours. Those thoughts sent a hot, burning feeling down between your legs and when you finally touched your pussy, you were already so wet and aroused that it only took you minutes until you reached your peak, Jakes name falling from your lips.

+++

To say you were a nervous wreck the next day would be an understatement. When you woke up, you decided to watch some TV to get yourself a bit of distraction. An ad was currently playing, and so you decided to check your mails first.

 

“Good Morning from Washington, where the State of our Union is in turmoil over the latest…”

 

Your head snapped up at the sound of the familiar voice coming from your TV, the voice that occupied your mind ever since your blind date on Friday. You had totally forgotten that Sunday morning meant Jake Tapper time on CNN, because usually you were either asleep or at work at 9 am. But now you took your time to really appreciate the man on your TV.

He looked way more serious than the Jake you got to know, no smile, just a stern expression and a dark suit and tie. Which didn’t mean that he wasn’t looking totally hot, and his intelligent and sharp remarks did nothing to calm your fluttering heart or the heat in your lower abdomen. You definitely wanted him, bad.


This is getting ridiculous, you thought to yourself, and turned the TV off to take a very long shower.

Afterwards, you spent the whole day pacing around your flat and annoying Abby with numerous text messages and another two face time calls. She assured you multiple times that everything would be just fine and by the time it was 7:45 p.m. the food was in the oven and you sat on your couch, waiting for the doorbell to ring.

When it finally did, you all but ran to the door only to stop and force yourself to take a couple of calming breaths before opening it. Jake stood outside, a bottle of red wine in his hand. He looked amazing with his white dress shirt and dark grey slacks, but again it was his smile that got your attention, he looked just as happy to see you as you were feeling.

Out of a sudden impulse, you surged forward and threw your arms around the man, hugging him and burying your head in his chest. He seemed surprised, but still put his free arm around you, embracing you.

“Hi.” You whispered, suddenly shy, but as you looked up to meet Jakes eyes you could see nothing but warmth in them. “Hi.” He replied, pressing a kiss to your hair. “It’s good to see you.”

 You slowly let go of him so he could actually enter your apartment. He followed you inside and you fetched some glasses for the wine. You talked about everything and anything over dinner, family, football, the book Jake was working on. You listened closely, and so did he as you told him about your passion for art and music. He even asked you to put some of your favorite records on as you moved over to the couch after dinner.

You were still talking animatedly but having Jake in closer physical proximity made it increasingly hard to focus on what he was saying.

Instead, your eyes and mind wandered to his hands. Without thinking, you reached out and put one of your hands into his, He stopped speaking, and looked at you. You could see the kind look in his eyes being replaced by something darker, more passionate.

 He spoke again, voice lower this time. “I’ve been thinking about you and our kiss without a break since yesterday. And just as long I’ve wanted to kiss you again, touch you again.”

He reached out, cupped your jaw with one of his hands and slowly ran his thumb over your bottom lip. It took every willpower you had not to suck his thumb into your mouth. This man had you hot and aching for him with just a single touch and a couple of words.

“Is that something you want me to do, Y/L?” his voice was only a low rumble now.

 

“Oh my god yes. Yes please.” You whispered, not really trusting your own voice to come out steady enough. 
The hand on your face slid to the back of your head and you uttered a surprised gasp as Jake just grabbed a fist of your hair and pulled you close, until your faces were only inches apart.

“You are beautiful.” He said, looking you deep in the eyes.

And then he kissed you again. And as soon as his mouth connected with yours, you realized just how much you had missed the feeling of his lips, the warmth of his body. But that was where the resemblance to the kiss you shared last night ended. Because this one was more.

More passion, more lust. Jake softly bit your bottom lip and used your surprised gasp as an opportunity to slide his tongue into your mouth. The kiss deepened and you could feel small sparks of arousal all over your body with every touch of tongue and every time he lightly tugged on the hair in the nape of your neck.

Your hands found their way around Jakes shoulders, roaming up and down his back. You were really glad he was not wearing his full State Of The Union Outfit, even if it had looked extremely hot, because as soon as you could feel the solid muscle through his thin dress shirt, you knew that those clothes had to come off at some point.

You lightly tugged on the hem of his shirt to pull it out of his pants and spread your hands over the warm skin underneath. Jake broke the kiss as soon as he could feel what you did, just to tilt back your head and kiss your exposed neck.

You couldn’t stifle a moan as he lightly sucked on your pulse point.

The feeling of his mouth on your skin made heat coil between your legs, and you tried to shift even closer to him, until you were almost sitting on his lap.

Jake continued to kiss your neck, while his other hand crept under your shirt to palm your breast through your bra. He lightly squeezed it and you moaned again, you nails raking softly over his back, making him groan against your skin.

“You like that?” he asked, and pinched one of your nipples through the thin fabric of your bra, and you could feel your panties getting soaked with arousal.

You decided that it was time to get rid of some clothing and started to quickly unbutton Jakes dress shirt, revealing more and more skin with each button undone. As soon as you were finished, he pulled the shirt of his shoulders and the view of his body made your mouth water. You ran your hands over his muscled chest, and you could see the way his eyes darkened again.

“I can’t wait to touch you everywhere.” He said in a husky voice and pulled your shirt over your head in a swift motion, and instantly his lips were on yours again, his hands roaming over your back, unclasping your bra. When your nipples came in contact with the skin of his chest, you couldn’t contain yourself anymore.

“Jake, please. Touch me, kiss me, anything. I need to feel you.” You pleaded, your voice slightly breathless.

 

“Take the rest of your clothes off, now.” Jake said, his commanding tone sending another surge of wetness between your legs.

 You got up from the sofa and stood in front of Jake. Slowly, you opened the zipper of your jeans and pulled them down, leaving you only in your black lace panties.

Jake was watching you, his intense stare burning on your skin.

“Everything. Off.” He said, never breaking eye contact.

Having the undivided attention of this man was so hot, you almost got lightheaded.

You slowly dragged your underwear down your legs, and as you were looking up again, you saw that Jake was palming the bulge that had begun to form in his pants. You wanted to touch him so bad.

“You are gorgeous. Amazing. Beautiful. Stunning.” Jake said, taking in the sight of your naked body. His voice was strained, this was clearly affecting him.

A light flush was beginning to form on your skin, you weren’t sure if it was because of arousal or embarrassment, but you definitely knew that you needed Jake to get his hands on your body, now.

You made your way over to him again and leaned down to open the fly of his trousers. His briefs were already tented by his erection, and you palmed him through his underwear, making him groan.

“Those need to come off.” You whispered, smiling at Jake, who just nodded and lifted his pelvis so you could pull down his trousers along with his underwear.

Finally, he was naked in front of you. He grabbed you by your waist and pulled you down on the sofa, lying on top of you. The feeling of his warm skin against yours was thrilling, you tried to get your hands on every part of his body you could reach, stroking his back, pulling his hair. Finally, you wrapped your hand around the base of his hard cock, giving it some light strokes.

“You feel so good, Y/N, I’ve been thinking about doing this since I first laid my eyes on you. I’ve been in a state since we kissed, and now” he whispered against your neck „I can’t wait to finally have that sweet pussy of yours.”

You couldn’t believe the words coming out of Jakes mouth, hearing him say filthy things like that was turning you on more than you could’ve ever imagined. Obviously, your thoughts were written all over your face.

“You like it when I talk like that, don’t you, sweetheart.” He said, pinching one of your nipples as he did.

“I…Oh shit, yes, yes I do. Please.” You whimpered, almost going you crazy with the need to finally feel him. 

He had mercy on you, reaching out between your legs. When he touched your pussy for the first time, you felt like the pent-up tension could make you faint any moment.
“God, you’re so wet, Y/N.” He thrust two of his long fingers into you without warning, and you almost screamed.
“And so tight.”

“I need you, please Jake, fuck me.” You were begging now, way beyond caring about any sort of decorum as his digits touched that sweet spot inside of you again and again.

 He withdrew his fingers and shifted on top of you before he put his hands on your tights, spreading your legs. You couldn’t even begin to complain about the loss of his fingers, he was already lining up his cock with your entrance, and pushed in, slowly, filling you inch by inch until he bottomed out with a deep groan. His length stretched you in the most delicious way, and you cried out as he was starting to thrust in and out of you, leaving you almost no time to adjust to his size.

You couldn’t talk coherently anymore, you were just chanting his name over and over as he was fucking you into the sofa. Your nails clawed into his back as he was leaning over you, his hair falling into his face. Just as you thought you couldn’t feel any more pleasure, he grabbed one of your legs and probed it onto his shoulder, the new angle making you see stars with every move of his hips.

“You feel incredible, so tight and warm around me, you are amazing.” He looked down on you, taking in your face, squinted with pleasure, his name falling from your lips over and over again.

He reached between your legs and started rubbing your clit, never slowing down his relentless, hard thrusts. The combined stimulation was almost too much for you and your orgasm was approaching fast.

“Don’t stop, please, just don’t stop.” You cried out, the pleasure running through your body like a wildfire.

“Look at me when you come, I want to see you. Look at me!” Jake growled, breathing hard as he sped up even more.

You hit your peak with a cry, sparks dancing over your skin as your walls clenched around Jakes cock. Your eyes were fixed on his, and he looked at you like you were the only person on the entire planet.

Seeing you come undone beneath him, Jake only lasted for another few deep thrusts before he came, shouting your name and spilling his hot release inside of you.

 He laid on top of you afterwards, his face on your shoulder, breathing deeply. You pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, and he turned his head to look at you.

“Hi” you said.

“Hi” he replied, your favorite smile spreading across his face again.

 “I liked that very much.” You said, pressing another kiss to his lips. He chuckled and propped himself up onto his arms with a small sight, rolling off you. Luckily, your sofa was large enough so you could comfortably lie next to each other.

“Me too, that was fantastic.” He replied and pulled you closer, putting his arm around you. You buried your face into his chest, soaking up the heat of his body and his wonderful smell.

 “Maybe you should come over more often.” You suggested, sounding a bit nervous again. You didn’t want to appear clingy. But this man had just rocked your world, and you couldn’t just act like nothing happened.

“I’ll come over whenever you want me to, sweetheart. Consider me at your beck and call.”

 “Stay the night?” you asked in a hopeful voice. You had work in the morning, but you just couldn’t imagine letting him go anywhere now.

He just nodded, smiled, and kissed you again. That soft, tingly feeling in your chest increased even more, and you just happily snuggled up to him.

 Later, as Jake was already asleep next to you, you took up your phone and sent a quick text message to Abby.

Next brunch is my treat! I owe you xxxx

#jake tapper #jake tapper x reader #jake tapper fic #smut #cnn #cnn anchors #sorry not sorry #fanfiction

[iwaisa]

request. hey bubs can i request o, q, r, t, u, and Y for akaashi kuroo and tendo - anon

a/n. yes of course !! the name bubs is making me so happy wiehiwhf

► now shuffling...

o - open (when would they start revealing things about themselves? do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

↳ he would probably start opening up a little later, but he’s not so worried about it. relationships are supposed to be relaxing, so why worry you with his anxiety? he doesn’t feel the need to worry you, so he tells you real quick, making sure you have enough time to tell him about yourself if you want.

q - quizzes (how much would they remember about you? do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

↳ he remembers everything and he’s not ashamed about it. he wonders why anyone would feel ashamed to remember things about the person they love?

r - remember (what is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

↳ when he first asked you out. he was out jogging and he couldn’t stop thinking about you and your supportiveness towards him and the team and your cute face and- oh. he’s at your house. it’s now or never. 9 pm, he let all his feelings pour out as his eyes are facing the ground, clenching shut as he waits for you to tell him off. except, he receives something warm on his cheek.

t - try (how much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

↳ a lot of effort!!!! he’s a homebody so i believe he would rather stay close to home to avoid any anxiety-inducing situations. he loves buying you stuff even if it’s not for a special occasion.

u - ugly (what would be some bad habits of theirs?)

↳ he forgets to help himself. he’s so focused on helping pick bokuto back up that he forgets he needs someone to be there for him. this cycle goes on and on until he just self-destructs, pushing people away. even bokuto.

y = yuck (what are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

↳ i believe he’s open to being with anyone, crazy or shy, but he absolutely does not like someone who’s solely dependent on the assurance of others.

o - open (when would they start revealing things about themselves? do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

↳ i think he would start talking about things right away. probably even before the relationship starts. he trusts you with his whole being <3

q - quizzes (how much would they remember about you? do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

↳ he remembers a lot. like a lot a lot. remember that time back in junior high when you said something funny about cats? you don’t? kuroo remembers.

r - remember (what is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

↳ you had promised him that he would pass his test, and he did. you also promised that you would give him as many kisses as his score said. he got 97% so, naturally, you gave him ninety-seven kisses. some of them melted into each other, while others were simple pecks that made his heart race just as much as the makeout sessions ;)

t - try (how much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

↳ he would try to impress you LOL. he’d act like it’s a competition. kuroo, honey, a competition against who?? seriously, he’d try to take you to the most exciting dates, he would buy you expensive gifts, and he just keeps setting the bar higher each passing day.

u - ugly (what would be some bad habits of theirs?)

↳ he begins to shut down occasionally. he’s naturally shy since his childhood, so when he feels his new personality slipping and he reverts to his old ways, he begins to beat himself up for not being stronger.

y = yuck (what are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

↳ girls with short hair 😌 IM JUST KIDDING IHSUIUHEH he doesn’t really like when people are show-offish. he believes you need to be humble. he just doesn’t understand why people feel the need to boast about things.

o - open (when would they start revealing things about themselves? do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

↳ he waits and waits. for a super long time. it’s excruciating to him because he’s begging himself to let you know exactly what people think and always have thought about him. that he’s a monstrosity; a human devoid of normal emotions. he’ll let it all spill out, whilst letting the tears flow freely.

q - quizzes (how much would they remember about you? do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

↳ he literally remembers the weirdest things. not even major things like what your cat’s name is, but weird things like what you named a worm you found on the street when you were five.

r - remember (what is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

↳ tying back to letter o; once he looked up to see if you were now disgusted by him, he was dumbfounded by how quickly you rushed to defend him. you were an angel to him, always making him feel as if he were floating. you saw past his differences, letting him into your life. you wrapped your rant up by telling him you loved him.

t - try (how much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

↳ HE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO TRY 🥺 bby is so excited to finally be able to go on all the fun dates he’s always dreamt of. he loves buying you clothes and pulling you out of your comfort zone, while making sure you’re not uncomfortable. you like those boyfriend jeans??? he wants to see you in them. he must buy.  

u - ugly (what would be some bad habits of theirs?)

↳ (this is NOT an ugly trait to have!!) he has PTSD. from the teasing, the bullying, the name-calling. he has those days where he feels off and he knows he’s being rude, but he can’t help it. he’s bottling everything up and it’s on the verge of spilling into something terrifying. he’ll yell at people to leave him be, he’ll scream that he wants to be normal. will he show his friends what he’s really like? or will he push you away and assure you that yes, from the very beginning, he was a monster.

y = yuck (what are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

↳ he cannot handle people who don’t know when to stop the joke!! the insult was funny at first, but now it’s just downright bullying. stop the teasing! it’s going way too far and tendou knows.

issa’s 200 follower event! - now closed

#issa's 200 follower event! #haikyu!! #tendou satori #akaashi keiji #kuroo tetsurou #tendou x reader #akaashi x reader #kuroo x reader #satori tendou #keiji akaashi #tetsurou kuroo

[obsidianfr3sk]

the star of my sky

@renegadesnet event 8: friendship february

↪ [ Kasumi Hasegawa & Evander Wade / “If you'll be my star, I'll be your sky.”]

Summary: She could imagine her future, but she couldn't imagine herself not being friends with Evander. Kasumi would never be able to take her things and move to another place where he was not part of it. Because Kasumi would never voluntarily leave her home. And Evander had been her home since the first moment he walked through that door.

AO3

Hi, there!! This is my entry for the event 8 of @renegadesnet. I hope I’m not too late x’d in my time zone, it’s 9:06PM right now, so... I guess I’m fine. I feel like an irresponsible high schooler summiting her homework at 11:59pm... No, wait, that’s actually what I am.

Well x’d as you could see from the caption, this a fic focused on Evander and Kasumi’s friendship. I don’t even know why I’m so invested in this... made-up relationship (since they didn’t interact at all in canon) but I think it all began because when I started writing fics about the Council, I remembered Hugh and Simon weren’t the only members of it and that the rest of them needed to have, you know, personalities and relationships between them, details that MM seemed to forgot jaja. And these two just inmediatly made click with each other, at least in my head, and I’ve been dying to write something about them for a long time, but I think I never worked up the courage to actually do it until now:’) I’m even thinking about a small sequel but yeah

Despite what I said before (that for me the interest in these two started when I began to write my own fics) my dear mother Dawn ( @honey-hippie-harper) had a lot of very interesting headcanons about the whole dynamic the Council had during the Age of Anarchy, and two of those headcanons are that they all slept in the same bed they had at Simon’s basement and that when Adrian was born they decided that it would be better if some of them moved somewhere else, so it would be harder for people to discover their true indentities. Georgia and Adrian moved to an apartment Simon got for them, Simon and Hugh move to another one, and Tamaya got her own place, while Kasumi and Evander stayed at the Westwood house. So, for this fic, I decided to write based on those two specific headcanons. All credits to her!

Also this is gonna sound super weird but here I mention that Evander wears a cap x’d and that’s based on my other mother Wins ( @healing-winston-pratt) design of him, which you can find here! You know the drill, gente x’d go, like and reblog it!

Dawnie, Winston, this is a fic dedicaded to the two of you. Thank you for being such good mothers and friends to me✨

Since this an “unpopular” brotp I’m not quite sure who to tag, I really don’t want to bother anyone x’d but, @all-weather-is-bad and @ifyouhadntbutyoudid, I know you guys also love their dynamic so I think you may be interested on reading this! And if you also like my work, please like and reblog, it means the world to me <3

Also please forget any grammar/spelling mistakes, I feel phisically sick right now because I took a pill and it’s making me so freaking dizzy I think I’m gonna throw up or something x’d

I live to let you shine,

but you can skyrocket away from me,

and never come back if you find another galaxy,

far from here, with more room to fly.

Just leave me your stardust to remember you by.

The last days they spent living in the house were somewhat chaotic. Perhaps a part of it was due to the fact that now that Adrian was with them, they were all deprived of sleep. However, Kasumi was sure that it also had a lot to do with the fact that they had not realized how much of a mess the whole house actually was until the time to move out came and they couldn’t find their things.

Well, she wasn't moving out. But the rest of them were.

And that was something that Kasumi had been thinking about a lot since the moment that Georgie's pregnancy was made public, but that she had never dared to say it out loud because she was too afraid of the answer.

She didn’t have to say anything though. They gave her an answer as if she had asked them; her family loved to give their opinions even when nobody asked them to do it. 

It turns out that they could no longer live in Simon's house.

At least not the six— seven of them.

The city had gone crazy with Adrian’s birth (or Baby Indomitable, as they had affectionately named him), and while it was a good type of crazy, it also made them a little nervous that this new member of the family would put their secret identities at risk. Now, every time they came out in their civilian form, people were going to be looking everywhere for a woman who looked like Georgie, was holding a newborn baby and, as a bonus, was accompanied by some blond or brunette guy, a red-haired boy or a girl with dark hair.

Yes, they couldn’t take that risk.

“… But when you want to open that door,” Simon was telling her, “you have to push it with your shoulder, because if you don't—”

“It will not open,” Kasumi said.

“It's not going to open,” Simon agreed.

“She lives here too, Simon,” Tamaya said washing the glass in which she had been drinking water. “She knows how to open the door.”

All six of them were sitting at the dining room table. Georgie was nursing Adrian, while the rest ate a tasteless soup that they had made three days ago and that was surely going to spoil if they did not eat it that night.

“Yes, but there is anything wrong with remembering important points,” Simon noticed. “It is the first time that she will live alone.”

“She won't be alone,” Evander exclaimed suddenly. “She's going to be with me,” and he continued sipping the soup.

Hugh scowled at him. “Stop sipping your soup, Evander.”

But that only made him sip the soup harder. Hugh rolled his eyes and Georgie put Adrian on her shoulder to make him burp.

“I still can't find my cap,” Evander continued, touching his hair. “It seems to me like you have it in your box and wanna steal it.”

“Why would I want to steal your cap?”

“Maybe because you don't have one.”

At that moment, Adrian burped and Hugh's face lit up.

“That's what I think of your stupid cap,” he replied, pointing at Adrian.

Even Kasumi laughed at that joke. But Evander didn't find it funny.

“Good thing you're leaving now,” he said, clenching to the spoon with which he was eating his soup. “I don’t like any of you.”

“You don’t even like Kasumi?” Georgie asked, pretending to be surprised. Simon took Adrian in his arms so she could adjust her blouse properly.

Before Evander could answer, Hugh did it for him. “I heard him say in his sleep that he hated Kasumi the most.”

Evander tried to throw the spoon at him, but Tamaya grabbed his wrist and nearly ripped off his hand.

“Not in my watch, you fu—”

“Tamaya,” Georgie scolded her. “Remember what I told you.”

Tamaya looked at Adrian for a second and then focused her gaze on the ceiling. “Not in my watch, you ... f-u-c-k-i-n-g punk.”

“Are we spelling curse words now?” Simon asked.

“Jesus fu—“ Hugh stopped himself. “Wait ... f-u ... c ... k ...”

“Uh, someone can’t spell f-u-c-k-i-n-g,” Evander laughed out loud.

Georgie chimed in before Hugh threw his spoon at Evander. “At least when we're in Adrian's presence,” she said. “I don't want him to learn those words from you. Now that you are his aunts and uncles, you have to set a good example for him.”

Simon passed Adrian to Georgie again, and Kasumi stared at him, wondering if she was going to be able to set a good example for him and what things could she teach him to do. 

Perhaps she could teach him to swim. Or to dance. Although Kasumi did not know how to dance, and the truth was that she did not think she would be able to explain why she knew how to swim. No one had ever taught her to do it; she just knew it. She wasn't quite sure how swimming worked on people who didn't have water-related powers. (Tamaya had once told her that babies could be thrown into the water and their instinct to swim would come out on their own, but Kasumi would never throw a baby as pretty as Adrian into the water.) (She would never throw a baby into the water in general though, even if the baby was ugly.)

Or maybe she could teach him to play with dolls. Several Christmases ago, the others bought her an old rag doll with their savings, which she named Aiko. Kasumi took her everywhere, pretended to share her food with her during dinner, and tucked her every night in a shoebox that she had found and now used as the doll's cradle. The others realized how much she liked her gift, so for her ninth birthday, they gave her a beautiful doll with blonde hair and a pink princess dress, named Isabella. Kasumi didn't realize how much she was playing with the new doll, until one day she was having a tea party with Hugh and Simon (because that's the kind of thing Georgie told them to do, so Kasumi wouldn’t feel alone), and Hugh asked her, very into in his role of a rich lady from the Victorian era, why Duchess Aiko hadn't attended that afternoon. Then, Kasumi remembered that she hadn't gotten her out of her bed that morning and she began to cry.

Simon immediately went over to hug her and asked Hugh to hand the doll to him, but Kasumi was so embarrassed, she didn't even want to look at her in the eyes. When Hugh tried to give her the doll, Kasumi screamed as if she had seen a rat and not her favorite toy, which made Tamaya go downstairs to see what was happening, probably thinking Hugh and Simon were bullying Kasumi into insanity or something.

Now that she thought about it, it was kind of funny to remember the face Tamaya made when she saw Kasumi screaming, clinging to her two friends with all the strength she had, and without them taking off the fake pearl necklaces and hats they had put on for the occasion. It had probably been very funny to her too because as soon as saw the scene, she called Georgie and ran away from there, with one hand over her mouth and making strange noises.

Georgie played dolls with her more often from then on. When Kasumi overcame her fear of running out of love to give her toys (and made it known to her friends as if she had learned how to drive or graduated college), Georgie bought her a third doll, which had bunny ears, a white apron, and had Mimi embroidered on her hand. Now that they had three dolls, Tamaya was able to join them during their games, but Tamaya always came up with very morbid ones, such as that the dolls were a family of poor girls who had to play the guitar to earn some money or that they were housewives of wealthy gentlemen who mistreated them, so they planned to poison them during a business dinner to keep their money. These games scandalized Georgie, but Kasumi did like them and when they started to stop playing with her, she would sit her three dolls in a circle and stare at them, fantasizing about the outcomes of those stories they had left incomplete.

Those were the kinds of things that made Kasumi think that she had a good childhood. And that wasn't something many child prodigies could say.

If Adrian turned out to be a prodigy, she wanted to be a part of those kinds of stories so when Adrian grew up and remembered how his first years were, he would be able to say that they had been good and that Kasumi had the honor of being part of them, in the same way Kasumi could say that Georgie (his mother) had done the same for her. 

Simon had told her that the place Georgie and Adrian were moving to was not too far from the house, but Kasumi wasn't so sure. 

Everything would be easier if they all stayed together.

Although she supposed that having her family separated was better than having no family.

Right?

***

Not all prodigies were lucky enough to have a home.

Kasumi, for a long time, had been one of those prodigies. Her parents abandoned her when she was a baby, and she didn't think orphanages could be considered homes. Mainly because "home" wasn't the brick structure with four walls and a roof that protected you from the heat in the summer or the freezing winds in the winter.

A home was made by the people you lived with.

And they had proved it to her.

Georgie had told her a little bit about the days she lived on the streets after escaping from her father's house and told her that while she was wandering around town, she had seen a few children (who clearly were all prodigies) looking for food in the garbage or fighting each other over a piece of blanket to cover themselves from the sun. That she, at the time, had criticized them for behaving like savages, but that now, she could only feel sorry for them because it was probably the only thing they knew and it was their way of surviving, wondering if she had ended up like that too.

Kasumi… all of them had been very fortunate to have found a home in each other.

That was why it hurt so much to close the door behind her and realize that the house felt completely empty for the first time in all her life.

The first hours being in the house alone, Kasumi tried to distract herself by embroidering. She took out a pink sweater that she had wanted to embroider daisies on for a while now and she sat in the living room. She thought about whether it would be a good idea to turn on the television, but the only thing she could watch were very tacky cartoons some cheap animation studio made about the Renegades, and she didn't have the strength to be angry at the horrible (and even offensive) way they were drawn, especially the girls, Simon, and herself, so she just tried to blank her mind and focus on the task.

Georgie had taught them to embroider and Kasumi was obsessing over it. She had already embroidered their names on all the pieces of clothing they allowed her until Hugh had to put an end to it because they simply couldn’t be giving away personal information to strange people on the streets (“Yes, Kasumi, having our names embroider on our clothes is giving personal information to strangers, I’m sorry.”). Simon also no longer let her do that whole name thing, but he did let her embroider a tiny skeleton with an arrow going through his heart on the edge of his jeans. Tamaya was the one who had more difficulty learning how to do it, but over time she kind of got the hang of it, and Georgie spent much of her pregnancy adding details to the simple onesies she bought for Adrian.

Kasumi didn’t want to brag, but she was the one who had learned to embroider the fastest. She remembered taking Evander’s old clothes to practice and even embroidered golden stars on his white pajama pants. She wasn't quite sure if he was still wearing them, but she thought they look really well, especially when she (unintentionally) compared it to the other’s work.

However, Kasumi couldn't smile right now.

She may have learned to embroider faster than them.

But she was growing up slower than them.

She was not talking about her physical appearance or things like that. Despite eating a very poor diet, Kasumi had managed to grow ... what she had to grow. She was not abnormally short and, when she got up, she did not get dizzy, like Simon (who spent a week having panic attacks every morning, thinking they were signs of early anemia). Yes, Tamaya and Georgie already looked like grown-up women, but it was because they were grown-up women. Besides that, Georgie had told her all girls were different and beautiful in their way; the important thing was that Kasumi was healthy and that she felt comfortable in her own skin. Now, Kasumi did not feel super comfortable in her own skin, but perhaps it was because she was a teenager, and as someone who had lived with teenagers before, she knew they could be deeply insecure about their body.

(Kasumi practically grew up listening to Simon crying about his body hair, Georgie complaining about how greasy her skin got when she was about to have her period, Tamaya ranting about his wings and nose, and Hugh saying that he felt he was too big and grotesque to be a real human being. She did not understand why they thought such things. She considered that if Simon grew a beard in the future it would look very good on him, Georgie had a beautiful smile, Tamaya's features reminded her of those of a goddess, and... fine, she wasn't quite sure what exactly Hugh was complaining about, but it didn’t feel right to tell him how to live his insecurities and tried to be as assuring with him as she was with the rest of her family when she heard them make those comments about themselves.)

No, what Kasumi was referring to was that they all seemed to be growing in other areas of their life.

And she did not.

Georgie was a mom now. A single mom, who had her own apartment, in a beautiful area, near a park where she would surely spend hours fooling around with her baby. Hugh and Simon were officially a couple, and they had moved in together in a seedy, filthy, smelly apartment, but they talked about it like it was their dream house or something. Lastly, even though Tamaya wasn't living with anyone in particular, she thought that moving into her own place was a big step and that it could be good for her.

And again, maybe it was because of her age, but… But Kasumi didn't see herself doing any of those things.

She couldn't imagine having kids. She perhaps could imagine herself holding someone's hand and looking at each other with the same adoration that Hugh and Simon looked at each other, but that person still did not have a face in her imagination, which according to her family, “was the most vivid imagination it had ever existed”. Much less did she see herself capable of taking her things and simply moving to another place, as if it hadn't taken her years to find a place (find people) that she could call home.

Kasumi pricked herself with the needle.

She knew they weren't abandoning her. They would continue to see each other very often, at the Headquarters or during the missions. Tamaya had assured them she would visit them constantly to make sure the house was not on fire, and the others had said similar things, hinting that they would be doing the same thing.

The backyard door opened. “Kasumi!”

But even if she knew it, even if she was aware that all those feelings of abandonment were completely irrational, her anxieties were more powerful.

“Hey, Kasumi.”

What if they found another Kasumi? What if they found someone who loved them the same way she loved them? What if their interests changed over the years? What if, after meeting new people and having new experiences, Kasumi seemed more and more replaceable over time?

“Kasumi ...”

What if Kasumi was left so far behind that she ended up getting buried by all their new memories, forgotten behind the door of an empty room, which was as dark as a starless night sky?

“Zoomie!”

She pricked herself with the needle again and realized that Evander had been talking to her.

She put her finger to her mouth and raised her eyebrows. Evander wasn’t wearing his shoes, but the edges of his pants covered in mud, hinting that he had been playing outside. He was wearing his cap. Apparently, Hugh hadn't stolen it.

Kasumi wondered where he had left it and how he had found it.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” he announced. “Or… do you wanna take a shower first?”

Kasumi shook her head; she had already showered earlier that day.

“Well—” she looked at the sweater that Kasumi was embroidering. “What are you doing?”

She took a look at the sweater; the daisies were pretty nice. However, when she looked out the window, she realized that it was already dark outside and that her eyes were getting too tired. 

“I’m… I’m going to sleep,” she replied.

Evander nodded and she headed for the basement.

***

If she believed that being in the lonely living room had been a nightmare in which her most invasive thoughts had taken complete control of her, it was because she had no idea what kind of things awaited her in the basement.

The basement. That basement where they had all slept together for so many years, and that a few days ago had seemed too small for them, but now it looked huge. 

Never in her life had she had a bed to herself. At the orphanage, she shared a bed with other girls, and when she arrived at Simon's house, the five of them took turns to sleep in the twin-sized bed. Later, when Simon's parents left the house, instead of going to sleep in one of the upstairs rooms like normal people, they brought the double bed to the basement and put them together to create a larger bed.

There was something about sharing a bed with your family. A new kind of intimacy that Kasumi never thought she would ever experience.

Because she never thought that she would ever have a family in the first place.

She had to admit that it could be awkward at times. In the summer, the basement got very humid, and Kasumi, who slept between Georgia and Tamaya, felt like she was suffocating, and during winter, it was an eternal battle for the blankets. 

There were also times when Georgia and Tamaya would talk late into the night. Kasumi didn't participate in those conversations but she did pay a lot of attention to them, turning to see the one who was talking and then turning to see the other, as if her eyes were following the sound of their voices. Although they tried to keep their tone down, they couldn't contain their giggles. One time they were so loud that Simon told them to be quiet while calling them “scandalous chickens”. Tamaya went wild over that comment and only calmed down because Simon almost burst into tears as he begged her to forgive him and assured her that he wasn't trying to make fun of her.

And, a few years later, he arrived.

“Zoomie—”

This time he didn't have to call her twice for her to hear him. “I already got out of the shower.”

Suddenly, she could see Hugh and Tamaya sitting on the bed. She was lying on her stomach and he was leaning against a pile of pillows, loudly arguing about why putting ketchup on the pizza was a crime against humanity and that Hugh should see a psychiatrist for thinking "that fucking shit" tasted good. But when they listened to what Evander said, they suddenly interrupted their discussion, and said, “Thanks for telling us— ” “ —but literally no one asked, ” before starting to yell at each other again.

If she didn't feel like she was going to cry at any moment, she probably would have laughed a little. She always laughed at Hugh and Tamaya's jokes.

“I mean… in case you wanna take a shower now.”

Simon was there too. He was pulling his pajamas and a pair of socks (that used to be white but had turned pink after finishing in the wrong batch of clothes) out of the drawers, and said, looking disapprovingly at the others, “Well, I did ask him because I do want to take a shower.”

He and Kasumi had that in common: they like to shower every day, and if they didn’t, their anxiety kicked in. 

“Or if… you know, you want to brush your teeth. I already brushed mine.”

Then Georgie walked over to them, gently took Evander by the cheeks, and said, “Let me see; blow” in the same tone she used to order him to show her the empty plate after making a dish that had lots of vegetables on it, or when she asked him to close his eyes each time they came across a particularly violent scene while they were strolling through town in their civilian clothes.

She never needed to ask her to do that. Kasumi didn’t lie about brushing her teeth, she ate all her vegetables and she did close her eyes when she saw people (not villains or heroes; people) fighting in the middle of the street without anyone having to remind her. 

In a blink, they all disappeared.

But Kasumi was still there.

And Evander too.

“I WANT THIS ONE!” he squealed before getting into the larger bed. He took one of the pillows and began rubbing his head against it. “Finally ... a bed all to myself.”

At least one of them was happy about it.

***

When Kasumi came back from brushing her teeth, put on her pajamas, and braided her hair so it wouldn’t get all tangled during the night, Evander was staring at the ceiling, completely still. He did not greet Kasumi when she entered, nor did he say anything to her when she sat on the twin-sized bed.

The beds were still together, but Kasumi felt like they had already separated them. 

Then, she remembered that they had left the blankets drying in the backyard. Terrible decision. They were going to freeze to death. 

She sighed and fumbled for something to cover herself while she went outside to get them when Evander stood up on the bed and spread with all his might a heavy (and filthy) red blanket they weren’t able to fit inside the washing machine and was left there on the floor like it was nothing. 

Kasumi felt the blanket as the warmest of hugs. It covered most of the twin-sized bed and half of the other.

“If you steal the blanket,” Evander said lying down again, “I'm going to put my cold feet on you.”

She lay down too.

She did see him capable of doing that.

Evander was capable of a lot of things.

***

When Evander arrived, one of the first things she did was ask Georgie where he was going to sleep.

Oh, because Kasumi knew they were going to keep him. They just had to. 

Georgie told her that he would sleep with the rest of them, and that was completely fine to her. At least until problems started to appear. 

To begin with, he didn't fit in the boy's bed; he and Simon would do it perfectly, but Hugh was too big and took up much of the mattress.

“You are a monstrosity of a human being,” Evander blurted out. “No offense.”

“I'd take it as a compliment,” Hugh assured.

In the double bed, they were going through a similar situation. The three of them fit, but barely, not to mention that Tamaya had to sleep in very specific a position so she wouldn’t hurt her wings. Georgie assured that she would not let anyone sleep on the floor.

So Evander ended up sleeping in the space between the two beds, one part of his body over one mattress and one part on the other.

Kasumi wondered if he had difficulties adjusting to this new lifestyle. Although he hardly spoke about what his life had been like before joining the Renegades (as he had named them), she had heard Georgie tell Tamaya about how much he kicked her during the night or that Hugh confessing to Simon that it saddened him to hear him cry for his mom during the night (“Don’t tell him I said that though.”)

Maybe it was that Evander was not used to sharing a bed with other people, and he was even less used to those people taking years to react when the two beds accidentally separated, making him fell and hit his head.

‘Cause that happened.

“Georgie… the kid fell.”

“Hey, you asshole, stop cuddling with your— friend and help him.”

“We’re preparing him for the blows life is going to throw at him.”

“Simon, darling, I'd expect that kind of comment from Hugh, but from you—”

“I think I’m bleeding…”

That was enough to make Kasumi react. She got off the bed (kicking Georgie and Tamaya in the process), helped him get up, and, after making sure he was not bleeding, dusted off his clothes and hair.

“Are you okay, Vandy?” she asked him.

Evander looked at her with teary eyes and told her he was fine. Hugh put the beds back together (after Tamaya threw a shoe at him to make him react) and Georgie cuddled with her (probably to prevent her from throwing more shoes), so he and Kasumi slept next to each other the rest of the night.

She did not quite understand what Georgie and Hugh were talking about in those conversations that she overheard them having with Tamaya and Simon. Evander didn't kick her and she didn't hear him cry.

The next night, a few hours before making their first public appearance as the Renegades, Kasumi was in the living room, playing with her dolls (or staring at them while imagining the scenarios) when Evander appeared.

“How old are you?” he asked her.

“Excuse me?”

“How old are you?” he repeated.

For some reason, Kasumi had a little trouble remembering how old she was. “I'm thirteen,” she finally answered.

Evander nodded and sat on the floor, between two of her dolls, without Kasumi inviting him. She didn't quite know how to feel about it.

“Georgie is nineteen,” she kept saying. “And Tamaya eighteen, and—”

“And Simon and Hugh are sixteen,” Evander finished. “Yes, I know. I've asked them.”

Kasumi looked down. Thanks for telling us, but literally no one asked. 

“I’m nine years old—” and he showed her nine of his fingers.

She wanted to tell him she thought he was a lot younger, but… yes, no one had asked. So she kept quiet.

The next thing Evander asked was:

“Do you like to play with dolls?”

So Kasumi smiled, and answered him:

“I love playing with dolls.”

“I never play with dolls,” Evander told her wrinkling his nose. “It’s for… girls.”

“Georgie says that all games are for girls, boys, and anyone who falls in between those,” Kasumi quoted solemnly. “Hugh and Simon played dolls with me all the time.”

Now it was Evander who looked away. “I don't think Hugh and Simon want to play with me,” he muttered.

“Why?” she asked him.

He shrugged. “It seems to me that… older kids have other things they worry about. Also, they’ve been friends since before I arrived.”

Kasumi thought that the word "friends" was not the most appropriate word to describe their relationship. Or that was what she had heard Tamaya say that afternoon, and when she was thirteen, all her opinions were opinions that other people had before, like the one about “All games are for girls, boys, and anyone who falls between those” that Georgie told her.

Speaking of them…

“Tamaya and Georgie don't want to play with me anymore,” she confessed quietly.

“Were they friends before you arrived?”

Kasumi shook her head and played with the loose thread on her skirt. “No, but I guess… people grow up. People grow up and that's it.”

Who knows if Evander understood what she meant by that. Kasumi herself didn't know what she had meant.

But Evander asked another question again.

“Can I play dolls with you, Kasumi?”

And Kasumi smiled.

Again.

“I'd loved if you played dolls with me, Evander.”

“You can call me Vandy.”

Kasumi smiled even more. “Seriously?”

“Yes, I really liked it when you called me that yesterday,” he replied. “Actually, I hadn't spoken to you all day because I was looking for an equally cool nickname to give you.”

She supposed that if he was already talking to her, that meant he had found a nickname. “And which one is it?”

Evander smiled at him too. “Zoomie.”

Zoomie was the best nickname anyone could have come up with.

It turned out that Evander was even better at imitating Victorian lady voices than Hugh and Simon. He was also not scandalized by the dramatic stories she invented, and even came up with the plot’s darkest moments. They had to be dragged to bed, and Georgie made the serious mistake of letting them sleep together again; they talked for hours until Simon asked them to be quiet with a not very family-friendly vocabulary. He even used the F-word (the same one that Hugh apparently couldn't spell). It was kind of shocking, but they let it go because it was Simon, and Simon would have done the same if it had been the other way around.

The third night they slept together, Tamaya snapped and threw her other shoe at them. In her opinion, the situation had become insufferable and others supported her. Georgie sat them at the dining room the next morning and told them that although she was very glad they were friends, she will have to go back to sleep between them because they were messing with everyone’s sleep schedule. 

It was the first time that someone addressed them as "friends." Kasumi was so happy about it that she didn’t even complain about Georgie’s decision. 

She had never had a friend just for herself.

But even after this new adjustment, Evander kept being… a mess. He kept talking before going to sleep, just that this time, his partner in crime was Hugh. At first, Kasumi thought Hugh was going to ignore him, but he genuinely seemed interested in the comic books Evander talked him about and even began reading some of them. Tamaya threw at them all the shoes they had, but not even with that she managed to shut them up, and they had to took away all the objects that could be thrown that were on her side of the bed so that she did not end up seriously hurting someone. Simon once remarked that he almost fell out of bed because Evander just moved too much, and when they hinted that he was just angry that Hugh no longer cuddled with him while he slept because he was too busy talking with Evander, he ignored them the rest of the day. Georgie kept waking up feeling her body all soar (“Evander kicks like a soccer player, I swear”), but she still was the first to comfort him when nightmares haunted him in the middle of the night.

She had never seen him like that though.

Not until now.

Kasumi felt the bed so empty that she couldn't fall asleep. Her eyes were closed, but her mind was racing, thinking about all the scenarios in which all had gone wrong and now her family (Adrian included) was being taken to the cathedral to be publicly executed by Ace Anarchy himself. She felt the other bed's mattress and the blanket moving at the same time that Evander did, while he babbled things that Kasumi couldn't understand.

At least until she felt a warm pair of her hands grip her wrists so tightly that it made her open her eyes violently and scream.

Her first instinct was to think those hands belonged to some anarchist, ready to pull her out of bed and drag her into the depths of limbo, but it didn't take her long to recognize them.

They were the same hands that played dolls with her when she was younger, that gently pulled her ponytail when she zoned out in the middle of interviews and wanted to make her react, and they were the same hands that took hers and rubbed them during cold days because he knew Kasumi didn’t like wearing gloves but her hands were still so cold that he feared they would get all frozen and fall. 

Evander was so close to her, that even in the dark, she could see that he was frowning and clenching his jaw while moving his legs as if he was trying to get away from something.

“Stop… stop, stop… stop,” he pleaded with someone who wasn't really there.

But Kasumi was there.

“Evander, Evander, it's me,” she whispered. “Evander, it's me.”

Evander kept kicking, kept running, and kept pleading.

“Stop, stop…”

“It's me, Evander,” she insisted. “Evander…”

Then, she remembered what the keyword was.

“It's me, Vandy—” she put a hand in his hair “—It's me…”

Evander progressively released her wrists, and as he did so, he opened his eyes, filled with tears and fear.

Kasumi felt her lips tremble, and she…

Understood. She understood those conversations she heard them had.  

But what she did not understand was how they did not break with him to see him like that. All trembling, teary, and…

Small. 

Really, really small. 

She really didn’t.

However, a part of her must have understood because although Kasumi felt a bump in her throat, she did not shed a single tear. Not even when he, with a voice more broken than she had ever heard came out of him, whispered:

“Zoomie?”

She didn't stop stroking his hair. “I heard you talking in your sleep.”

“Zoomie—“ he put a hand on her cheek “—Zoomie, I had a bad dream.”

She was not surprised.

Kasumi put her free hand over his. “Do you wanna tell me about it?”

She had always been told that sharing dreams, especially unpleasant ones, could help. Kasumi was very lucky that most of her dreams were pretty ones, like days at the beach, swimming with dolphins, or romantic boat rides because she dreamed pretty often. Simon also dreamed a lot, but they were more nightmares than anything else, like when he dreamed that a couple dressed in black came to the house and wanted to take him out of the city, speaking in a language he did not understand and calling him “Simón” instead of “Simon”. The others did not dream as often as they did, but Georgie once dreamed that she crashed into a plane while flying and the plane exploded with a lot of people inside, Tamaya that some goats chewed the feathers of his wings, and there was a time when Hugh claimed to have constant nightmares about everyone in the house dying of a mysterious illness and school recitals (“... and I've never even been to a school recital!”)

She knew all that because many times they had come to her and to tell her, “Kasumi, I just had a horrible nightmare and I hope you can give me tell what it means.”

Maybe if Evander told her what his dream was about, she could help him.

However, Evander told her that he didn't feel like talking about it.

Kasumi got it. After all, it was the first time she woke him up from a nightmare. 

Nightmares could be very private.

“It's okay ... will you ... will you let me rub your back, then?” she asked him. 

He nodded very slowly and Kasumi moved closer to him, to the point that they both were practically over the space between the two beds. She had half of her body on one mattress, and him in the other.

Kasumi had war flashbacks, and Evander too.

“This are the blows Simon told me life will throw at me,” he stammered with a sniffle.

Kasumi gave a soft laugh and started rubbing his back. She discreetly smelt his hair. “Your hair is really soft after you wash it.”

“Thank you.”

“You should probably do it more often...”

Evander didn't respond.

He just burst into tears.

“You aren't gonna leave me, are you?” he asked her.

“What?”

Evander tried to wipe the tears away with the blanket, but that only made him cry even louder and his sentences get more incomprehensible. 

“Like— you ...” he sobbed, “you aren't gonna leave me like the rest of them, right?”

Immediately, Kasumi knew who he was referring to and her heart shrunk as her brain was able to process what he had said.

“They didn’t leave us,” she replied, brushing his hair behind his ears, “they just—”

“Grew up.”

Kasumi got chills. His tone had felt so cold and distant for a moment. “Yeah. That’s kind of how life is.”

Instinctively, the two of them pressed their foreheads against each other, and Kasumi noticed that Evander was sweating, but she was not disgusted by any means.

She was just deeply concerned about him.

“You're getting older,” Evander whispered. “You're probably not gonna like me in a couple of years.”

She already had the answer for that on the tip of her tongue. But she remembered all her insecurities and she stopped being so sure if she would be telling the truth if she were to answer him at that moment. 

And she would never lie to him on purpose.

So although Kasumi did not like to imagine how her life would be in the future, she tried to do so, only to confirm her idea.

She imagined herself as an adult. A little more confident, powerful, and, God willing, a little taller. She envisioned a future in which none of her family members would forget her and she could become part of Adrian's childhood memories. She would help Georgie to take care of him so that she could spend time by herself because only God knew how much that woman needed time for herself. Tamaya would introduce them to the young man she had talked about so much lately, the doctor who helped her heal when her wing got hurt and he would be as nice as she had promised. She was even able to see herself being a bridesmaid at Hugh and Simon's wedding when they finally made her relationship public and reminded the whole world that it was still possible to love in a city that seemed so full of hate.

She could imagine her future, but she couldn't imagine herself not being friends with Evander.

Kasumi would never be able to take her things and move to another place where he was not part of it. Because Kasumi would never voluntarily leave her home.

And Evander had been her home since the first moment he walked through that door.

“Don’t be silly. I'll always like you,” she assured him, stroking his hair again. “And most importantly... I will always be here for you.” And unintentionally, she added, “Even when you grow up, and you do not like me anymore.”

Evander pulled away slightly from her and stared into her eyes for a long time. She thought maybe that's how she looked when she was imagining something too.

Only... with a less puffy face. 

“I'm always gonna be there for you too,” he replied. “And I’ll always like you, and I’ll always love you. You know that, right?”

Kasumi didn't know how to answer.

She… she didn’t.

Like— she knew he liked her, but she didn’t think he loved her.

It was a nice thing to hear.

“No,” she mumbled, brushing off the tears that rolled down his face with her thumb. “But ... thank you.”

Then, Evander was able to regain his composure and rubbed his hands all over his face tightly as if he was trying to wipe the tears out of his eyes. Kasumi took that opportunity to change her position and allow him to put his head on her chest.

“When I'm rich and famous, I'll buy you a house,” Evander told her, trying to hide the nasal voice that had remained after crying as hard as he just did. “It will be near my mansion.”

Kasumi pinched his cheek. “So you get a mansion and I get a house. How nice of you.”

“I know” he replied with a proud smile.

The audacity.

But that was not the time.

She took the tip of the blanket. It almost fell from the bed during the attack.  

“Come on ...” she whispered, covering him up to his chin. “Go back to sleep.”

“Are you going back to sleep too?”

“Yes,” she lied to him.

But as Evander immediately knew he was lying, it didn't count as a lie at all.

“Liar,” he laughed. “Don’t be silly. I wanna stay up with you too.”

Kasumi didn't find a reason why she wouldn't let him.

After all, there was no one to throw shoes at them or to shut them up unkindly anymore. There wasn't even someone who would leave them on the floor if they fell out of bed or who would come between them anymore because they all thought putting them together was going to cause the apocalypse or something.

It hurt a little bit to think about that, but at the same time, it hurt less than before.

“Did I tell you I found my cap?”

Kasumi remembered the entire cap fight. “No, but I noticed.”

“Do you wanna know where it was, Zoomie?”

“Where was your cap, Vandy?”

Evander not only told her about how he had found his cap; he also talked to her about her whole day in detail and made jokes that made Kasumi laugh out loud and her eyes itch. 

She didn’t know if it was because she had been holding back her tears for so long, or if it was because it was during the night when one could see the stars, and Evander was pure light in those very moments.

The next morning, when they saw the others again at the Headquarters, Kasumi no longer felt abandoned, or as she was going to fuse with the darkness of that empty room where they supposedly left her because there was no room to begin with. But even if that did happen, and she ended up becoming one with the night sky, she knew that she was going to at least have one star to shine on her and assure her that neither of them would ever truly be alone if they had each other.  

#renegadesnet #renegades #archenemies #supernova #renegades trilogy #kasumi hasegawa #evander wade #obsi's writs

[charmed-asylum]

👨‍🍳#𝓕𝓞𝓞𝓓𝓲𝓔👨‍🍳

Summary: Something happening in Easter Hills. Something that effecting everyone under the surface. Could this just be a phase a trick that no one can shack off? Is this something that will pass with another or can we all be heading for destruction

Declaimer: #Foodie has some curse words, blood,cat fight, mentions of bullying and eating disorder. Also, I do have dyslexia who happens to do her own proof reading so be easy with me!!! 

A/N: This chapter is a filler before things start to go to shit in the next one. Let me know what you think or want to be added to the tag list. xoxo Tia

MASTER LIST // Previous CHAPTER 2

Tagged: @weapinggwillowss​ @kittykatlow​ @alagalaska @deansblackbeauty​ 

The journey to school was a blur. I don’t know how or by what grace of god but I made it come Monday. It has been one hell of a week but that be an understatement. In reality, it wasn’t just this week it was these last month or so. I tap my number two pencil a few times against the desk waiting for my name to be called. Ms. King was an older lady full proud of the fact she been teaching since 1968. While it was an achievement to the only thing she to show was  13 cats waiting for her at home. The simple 10 minutes routine took her much longer and left us 20 minutes to cramp everything in. Today this lovely dry hot day was pushing 22 minutes. Taking a deep breath I look away from the heart diagram and look up to see what was taking so long. Class of normally 27 students was a minor fraction of 18 if that. I would think nothing of it but as I chew on the nasty no taste but death eraser it hit me. It was the same thing for all my other class different students were missing, I heard principal Ratchet mention the flu or mono. Just did not feel right.

Eraser still hanging from my mouth as I think of that day. Mind rush back to sitting in the back of the ambulance. Flashing blue and red light blur my vision only clear thing was KP looking like a superhero. His huge rough hands play in his hair as he let a huge breath out from his chiseled chest. Eyes darting back from the black bag and the sheriff. I was gonna speak but KP knows what is best and having me talk wasn’t it. Men stuck in his ways talking to the freak was never useful. The only words that came from his mouth addressed to me were,” Second time in a month you got something going on with you and these damn woods. You doing some witchcraft or something. Weird girl”. I chuckled under my breath at the joke he was. But he was right two times in a month this time I’m alone. No parents no reassurance. Blood mix with the dirt covers most of my clothes. KP didn’t mention much just that we saw the body out of nowhere. Not that it was still alive barley but alive not that it said anything just that it was dead when he checked. The next thing I remember was me in the bathtub still in my clothes as he cleans me off. Water was mix with soap water and dirt. I practically begged him to stay not to leave with tears rolling down my cheeks eyes red with fear and pain. With a kiss on the crown of my head, he promises me before carrying me to bed. We lay snuggled together his hands holding me tightly his hands and mine laying close to my heart. By the time the rosters call to wake up the night creatures, he was gone.

Bell took me out of my mind back into reality. Slowly grabbing my thing I rush out to my locker to see if Janet picks up the note I left. Peaking over my shoulder I shield myself as I put in her combo. With a tap it open with the note still there. SHIT JANET. Besides the creepy 3 words messages, I haven’t heard from her. Just had to focus today thing on Janet.

Corner of my eye I could see few people going towards the cafeteria. I swing my bag over my shoulder and ran off to the cafeteria. Even though my lunch period was for another two periods. Pushing through the sea of people looking for her. Crazy how classrooms were getting more and more empty but the cafeteria was getting more and more crowded. Pushing people who were waiting on the growing line to get food I look around for Janet. She has been having lunch during this period and her regular one with me for a month. Turning shoulders calling she was nowhere. FUCK.

My fresh white polish nails comb through my hair as I tried to remain calm. Closing my eyes I pray to the lords for help a sign. Anything to prove  I’m not losing it once again. As I started to relax I could hear a noise a voice. Looking up I thank god before following the voice. Now before I explain to you what saw a person should know in this school I’m a freak I’m okay with it, I accept it, I celebrate my flawless in the eye of my peers. One of many things is my strict unorthodox eating habits. I have been called every word in every dictionary. Something I never wanna contribute to, Tiffany though is a 500 calories a day type of girl. Once someone gave her a regular coke and she beat the poor freshman right to ER. She screams Malibu Barbie with matching purse. Flawless. She Janet’s level flawless just with an eating disorder. This Tiffany if it wasn’t for the 5,000 purses and that annoying voice, this girl looks nothing like her. First, it was the fact all my years of knowing her she only wears a crop top and thong poking out now in size large sweater with purple unicorns and leggings, that she probably got from the local theft shop in town. I almost piss myself. Then was her plate. The fact she had a plate was a shocker.  She had two things of chili fries, a sloppy Joe, and three pudding cups. Sipping from a BIG BOY slushie from the gas station down the road. Unknown to me I was currently in front of her table mouth open till one of her minions toss a fry at me.

“ Tiffany. Hey huh, Tiff” I said still unsure.

If I was shocked before when she turned to me made me beyond doubt stun. She had a ton of acne and her face look a bit puffy from her skeleton skin-tight face not so long ago.

“ What do you want? “ One of her minions ask as she was chewing on some sour union flavor chips.

“ Have you seen. Janet today? We got a project due tomorrow and I can’t find her” I said spit balling as went on.

They look at each other and giggle. Tiffany looks at the other and like that her mood change she sat up a bit more and turn to fully look at me. With her stain shirt and food on the corner of her mouth. She looks at me with hungry in her eyes with a quick lick around her smug lipstick lips grind at me.

“ Actually no we haven’t but we were gonna look for her. Hey, you got any Trippie on you” Tiffany said with joy and lust in those hazel eyes.

Step back and put a hand to my hip. I look at her as she waited for my answer. This gosh darn drug again. The reason why I and Janet been at odds, to begin with.

“ No. I don’t take that stuff. Tried Popi. She the one who had it in the 1st place. You haven’t seen her she usually here with you during lunch” I pressed. Look of doubt of cross all four girls face. Who was spotting a similar appearance to their leader?

“ Come on. Smith your join to the fuckin hip. You must know where we can find her or some of the drugs. We ran out quicker then we wanted to. Takes longer to get it up. Help us. We do anything. Tell Janet we are willing to do anything “ Zoe said grabbing tight to my wrist. Her grip was airtight that I felt the pressure. Almost like how it was with Janet that last time. Same look in the eyes too.

Pulling away from her grip with all my might I stumble back. I look at the girls as their expressions started to change to a dead zone look in their eyes. Like they were on something. My mouth became dry my brain ache from thoughts that were running through my head. My eyes darted from one to another to another.

“ Lik-”

Tiffany ignore me and started to laugh after taking a few more bites of her sandwich. Drops of it left on her shirt one just by the corner of her mouth.

“ She not gonna tell us. She wants it all to her self. It’s fine we figure it out we are not selfish people” Tiffany said laughing between each chew. I clench my jaw till I felt something swooshing in my mouth a bitter taste.

“ Like I said. I don’t take that stuff. I care what goes in my body and I don’t trust it” I said before turning to leave. I got a few steps in before I heard more laughter. I stop and chuckle to myself what was so funny. Sound like she was mumbling something. “Excuse me” I said turning back around.

“ You know what. Why did I even ask you? Face it. Without that candy eye boy toy or your American pie girlfriend you nothing but a fuckin virgin who can even drive. Your nothing only thing you were made to do was to worship and praise others. Look at you Janet doesn’t give you any attention finally realize what dead weight you are and left you. I bet it hurts knowing that you are nothing. EVERYONE LEAVES YOU. But you are one thing. Very good at if I may say. Being a pathetic bitch. Roof roof” Tiffany said with a smile on her face and a wheeze of a laugh. I hated her I know I should not but I did. Hated that she was mostly right I hate that I let this get to me and most of all I hated I was entertaining it. It was too late I felt the tears in my eyes. So I did the only thing left to do and that was to mirror her. Show who she was I am good at pretending so much so I don’t know if my mind grew up with my body.

“ Funny you say that. Because the only thing I see is a bunch of mystery meat slops of shit. Yeah, you almost was right but you forgot about one thing. Tiffany, I’m not someone bitch I am the mother fucking  animal control. I round up all those rodents pest and I put them down. Don’t test me, ugly soul. Because next time I put you down maybe just maybe finally allow your groupies some air to think for once” I said got closer to her till I was nose to nose.

Taking my thumb I gently clean her of the sloppy Joe that settles on the corner of her mouth before rubbing it on her shoulder. A smile with victory as she remains silent from my death stare. Lips cover in raspberry flavor organic lip-gloss roll off a bit from my tongue as I move it across. Stepping back I flip up my middle finger high in the air and turn around probably too quick because next thing I know something pulls me close and punches me square in the face knocking me slow motion down to the ground. Light flicker a bit before with rainbows and glitter before it all fades to black.

Drips of water fell down my forehead. The buzzing was the first thing that caught my attention, the buzz from a circle ceiling light with a cool white tent. Buzz hypnotize me Mumbling back noise stop but my eyes remained on a poor dead fly t stuck in the filter.

" Oh, Ms. Smith you awake. That was a nasty fall. I will be back in a second" Nurse Jane called out.

The nurse’s office like this fly in a black hole stuck in the 1950s with a wall of fame for Nurse Jane prize dog. Yup, Mr. Fuzzy Bear. Elvis Presley played in the background. I look at the wall  Mr. Fuzzy Bear look completely different then dog I saw a few weeks ago. Tap on the shoulder shocks me to the core as I scream out and throw the now baggie of water into the floor by my converse. Hands shake with fear my breathing getting shorter as I hold onto the wall of trophies. Trying and failing to catch my breath. Another tap sent me to the floor crawling to the corner covering my ears and tried to control my breathing.

" Oh, I'm sorry. Ms. Smith. I was seeing if you were okay. Sit here let me get you some water" Nurse Jane said. I could smell whiskey on her breath as she spoke to me. Mix with the cheap drug store perfume they sale but no one brought due to the reaction most got.

Looking up I watch as she walks off. She had far to much hair spray that perfect her scoop with a white daisy in her hair and the white long sleeve white nurse uniform. My eyes went back to the daisy I study flowers out of boredom and that one something was off. Slowly getting to my feet I follow her to the front till I stop and see the puddle I felt. CRAB CAKES I said to myself as I got on my knees to clean up my mess.

“ That’s a new daisy huh Mrs. Cruise. Might need to clip a few and add it to the garden” I said

“ Oh, this little old thing. My little boy was playing out in the fields and found some. Next to this strange patch of grass. Probably weed. Anyway, it was the prettiest thing I have seen had to cut one of myself. But don’t let your self eat it. My poor baby eats some and well that how he ends up going to see you” She said handing out a can for the trash.

“ How is little guy anyway. Not eating any more chocolate or flowers I hope” I asked dusting off my rip denim jeans.

She looks at me strange her head tilt to the side hair staying in place. A huge grind plaster on that clown-like makeup face.

“ Smith. My baby has been with you all this week. I took my little fuzzy home and he started to act like he was from the wild. Brought him back so the good lord of a doctor can make him all better” Jane said.

I wanted to laugh because last I check he wasn’t there. Words stayed at top of my tongue. My eyes dart to her and the wall of trophies back to her.

“ Oh yeah. Ethan got hurt had to get someone over from next town over. Sure he is back to the cute button he always is in no time. If I may ask because well new doc might make a fuss where was this planet at” I asked.

“ Well, I was on my daily work out power walk so mmmm somewhere by the old wooden bridge in Lovers. Such a pretty sight” Jane said. Before I can speak the phone rang. I slipped out as she turns to answer it.

I look in my hand was the white tissue with the daisy I snatch off of her. Something was off. Maybe if Janet didn’t want to tell me I figure it out myself. Something was wrong and I attend to figure it out one way or another. The first stop was to work.

Most don’t know because my family likes to keep it hush back before Ethan came into town my dad family own Easter Hills Animal Hospital for over 60 years. Still does as a private owner. Ethan was like the fun aunt and each time I had nowhere to go she would sit me on the desk and teach me things. The first animal I cut open was a raccoon at the age of 7 with Ethan of course helping me every step of the way.

Lights in the hallway were dim fluorescent lights. With my phone in my hand, I tap on the flashlight and slowly walk into the back. Maybe I can check a few of the animals and the daisy I snatch to see if anything was similar. BING BING I glance down to my notifications to see a text from KP. Asking me if I am okay. I cared about him but there was too much at state. I need to know. Call it a hunch.

It smells like trash and cleaning supplies for some reason. Like the hardcore, stuff police use to clean a crime scene. I should know each night I clean the operation rooms and front area. The stuff we use was the general store brand. And it smells and looks too perfect. The new vet hasn’t arrived yet, so who did this? The keys dangle from my left hand hitting me as I walk down to the back where the files would be at. I just had to check to see if the dog was still here. As I got close something wasn’t right. There was a brand new lock on the door. I was here not so long ago this heavy-duty lock wasn’t here. Clipping the keys to my hip I glance around before I tried to jiggle at the lock. No luck. Looking around I tried to think on my feet. Shit. Lending against the wall  I see a light on in Ethan office. Alright, that can work. Pocketing my phone in my back pocket. I sneak into her office.

The walls were cover in wine red wallpaper with cherry dark chocolate wood floors. Her office looks nothing like the one you would assume a veterinarian office would look like. Everything from the desk to the chairs was expensive something Ethan insisted. There was a black bookshelf that lay against the wall with matching black gold nods desk. Chairs that were a whopping 2,000 each sat perfectly insight. Awards plastered on another wall with pictures of her many accomplishments. She looks print-ready perfect. Along with all her pictures was one in the corner row of her with my parents when I was younger. I remember that day like it was yesterday. The first day she started almost 10 years ago. She had a short boy cut with dyed blonde hair that made her features pop. I didn’t know much about beauty but she and my mother are what I imagine. Most look at Mona Lisa or Marvel statue for reference me I had two prime examples just for myself to see each day. Kinda like what I felt when I saw KP for 1st time 6 years ago. For so many years  I was lost in the woods unable in away to find my way home. At first, it was Ethan and Janet who hold me close then shortly KP. 

A loud bing drum though my ears. Clinching onto my ears I start to breathe again. Calming myself before I slip again. I had to focus. My eyes gaze to the computer. Ethan was many things but OCD was one. She always had copies full of details. I couldn’t get into the back room but maybe this could work. I rush over almost knocking over a picture of Ethan's two older daughters to the desk. Shaking the mouse I wait till the computer comes alive. My left hand cradling my face biting my thumbnail. Taste is nail polish with taste funny but I chew and spit it out without thought. CRAP. Password. Taking my hand away I tap the keyboard. It could be an endless list of it could be one. Sitting back in the plush comfy desk chair lean back and rock back and forth. Great way to putting all those AP and college courses to good use I thought to myself. Tapping my sneakers against the wood floor I loosen my messy bun and run my fingers through my hair. My ring KP gave me tangle through my hair. I stop thinking and reach to type something in quickly. WINE. Nope, crap. Pulling out the draws I look around for something. A hint clue maybe like many older people password somewhere.

While her office was perfect these draws were nothing like it may be the OCD part was probably the wrong word. It had five draws: 1st had simple office supplies and a pill bottle of viagra, 2nd had appointment book and business card old open bag of photo chips, 3rd had a prepaid phone, key to the safe, and thing of condoms. 4th one had a bottle of cheap whiskey, two glasses, and a few files full of pictures and post it’s. The draw in the center didn’t budge. Feeling around the smooth polish surface I felt something off. Stretching down a bit more I felt it. A huge grin spread across my face as I grab and quickly tried to open the back door with it. Still, it did not budge. Running back I did not see the front door was wide open letting in a cool breeze. Driven by excited I tried for the desk draw and heard a click. Opening it. I saw a phone book and a journal and right on the front corner in a bright pink post-it was the password: 2HOT4THISISH. 

My laughter was cut short when I heard heavy foot shuffling outside the crack door. I pause and tried to figure my next move. With my eyes on the door, I quickly shove the papers from the files in my bag. The journal replacing it with a book another that was on the table and putting everything back to what it was. Before I could slip out the door open with a loud creak sound. Panic took over and I quickly bundled tight under the desk with my legs squeeze tight to my chest a gentle rock not make a sound. I could hear wheezing. My eyes were full of tears as I tried not to panic. Who could it be? My eyes drift off to the side and I could see a pair of Black Jimmy Choo nearly 3 feet from my hand. I quickly move it and watch the shoes. It was there for another 10 maybe 15 minutes before I heard a rattle of keys and shoes walk away. Towards the end hallway I heard some more noise but this time it was from the back door I tried to open earlier. Whoever it was the person did whatever to the lock.

I jolt awake from the sound of my phone going off. I glanced down to see it was KP. And it was going at 11 o’clock. Fudge I slowly got up from the floor and sat in the chair.

“ Hey baby I’m so sorry I got lost in my work and fell asleep” I said rubbing my eyes.

I could hear a deep breath in and I could imagine he was rubbing his forehead with a thick strong finger.

“ Sweetie. You had me worried. I had to hear from someone else you got in a fight with that toothpick girl. Tiffany something. Why didn’t you call me” he asked with a bit ignored.

I look around at the office and back at the computer it was still on. I rest the phone in the crook of my neck and type in the password.

“ I know I didn’t want you to worry. I’m sorry. I should have told you. Do you wanna snuggle tonight Phillip. We can snuggle and I can give you kitty licks or something” I said trying to get him to lighten up. The home screen came up. There was normal stuff internet, virus protection filed, a few others. As I waited I click on to each and look to see what I can find.

“ Oh really. You know I love your kitty licks Issac. I gotta stay in late today probably till about 2 in the morning. But I can still come over. For some snuggle, if the offer still open” KP tease.

My smile drops when I saw something I didn’t mean to click. It had pictures and pdf of things I never have seen before. I hold the clicker to print everything out.

“ Of course. You know where the key is. Just bring some milk if you come. Mr. Cereal cruncher uses the last bit the other day” I said with a giggle.

“ Will do. Sorry I been distant. Perks of small ass town are not many folks to call if there a crisis. I never get how a town of 203 people can have a police unit of 12 people which includes the old man club who just sleeps in the police car. One day this mentality gonna bit them in the ass baby. Baby are you still there” KP asked.

I wasn’t listening but instead reading what I found. It was my reports I send for. For the drug, dog, and something unknown. I glance at the date and it was of a few days ago. Each had this strange code at the end of each page.

“ I’m sorry about that honey. You know this town stuck in time. I know things are hectic with you. I wish I could make it perfect like the way you are. But I can only be your snuggle bunny and talk to you and be here for you” I said packing my bag and looking some more.

“ That’s all I ask for baby. My beautiful snuggle bunny. God your -“ KP stop talking and shot out to someone. “ Huh. I gotta go another fuck up animal. Just pop up by lover lane” KP said disappointed.

“ It’s okay. Hey, hasn’t it been a lot of that lately? We don’t get those anymore. You cheating on me with another animal lover” I teased. It was silent only I could hear was a deep breath from the other line.

“ I am joking. I’m gonna be wearing your favorite plaid shirt to sleep. I love you. Stay safe for me please” I said in a mouse-like whisper.

I need this stuff. Looking in my bag I pull out my key chain for my USB drive. I looked around before plugin it in and copying all the files. As it got to 100% I quickly unplugged it and fix everything to was before I came. My bike was a half-mile away hiding behind trees and some branches. Midnight sky dance high. Times like this I would stop and lay on the road and look up now I’m filled with this void. This feeling was creeping from the corner of my eyesight. Feeling of claws pulling at your flesh. Ahead I could see some birds flying south. A huge flock like it was on my date. They always know I wish I could just have left with KP and not look back. Even with that would I be escaping the danger or welcoming another.

I sat Indian style on the floor with a pencil in my bun and a yellow highlighter in my mouth. Looking over the papers and files scattered across. The more I read more I could tell something wasn’t right.

“ Baby why are you up ?” a voice said for behind me. I jump up almost choking on the highlighter falling in the papers behind me.

KP stood tall with his sleeve rolled up to show his god-like muscle hairstyle slick back looking like a Ken doll.

“ Sorry homework” I said looking up to him. He chuckled and bend down on one knee to get a better look at me. He took my hand and slowly help me up in. I could smell the coffee from his breath mix with some gum. He smokes even though I told him how much I hated it. More he smokes a brand that not even available anymore. Which made me madder at the money he spent.

“ You know you keep it up with the donuts and cigarettes your not gonna be able to promise me that forever. Mister” I said with a bent brow at him.

With a finger, he played with my hair a bit before meeting my eyes. Sweet sparkle that makes anyone weak to the knees and a smile to match. Coming closer he kisses me with such hunger. I reach for the back of his neck to help me out as I deepen the kiss. Til I taste the cigarette and stop.

“ No kisses till you brush your teeth. Yucky “ I giggle in his neck. My hands still playing with his neck hair. His hands move further down my back till it reaches my rear.

“ But I’m sleepy. I don’t wanna. You said you are my snuggle bunny” He said with his puppy eyes. I hit his rock hard chest playfully before pushing myself backs away from him laying on top of the papers so he couldn't see it.

“ And we will when you brush your teeth. Or you can quite” I said with a fake shock face.

He laughs and walks to the bathroom join to my bedroom. I turn to watch as he walks off. God his butt was a thing of beauty.

“ What type of work are you doing “ He asked from the bathroom.

I slowly got up when I heard the water and quickly move all the papers and shove them in my bag.

“ Research paper for history. You know how Mr. Burns is a pain in my buttocks “ I said checking around for anything else.

KP wall out with a mouth full of mouthwash gave me his serious look. I walk over to a bin under my bed full of some clothes for him and toss him over some sweatpants. Getting under my blankets I waited for him to come out. My cell started to ring from my bedside table. Reaching for it I answered it and walk out to the hallway.

“ Janet is that you. God, I have been worried” I whisper into the phone. Nothing.

“ I forgot you quite. Tiffany came at me looking for you. Be proud I told her off” I laughed. Still nothing.

“ If you are in trouble I can help. And hey if it’s something legal then fuck it. You are my friend I can talk to KP. He here..hello” the phone click and I heard a dial tone.

“ Who was that” KP asked standing in the doorway arms cross over each other.

“ Janet. She has been calling and saying nothing. I’m worried “ I said looking up to him. He pushes himself off and wrap his arms around me and squeeze me tight. Tears fell onto his bare chest.

Master of Puppets began to blur though the tiny radio. Fiddling around I press onto the snooze buttons. KP was still sound asleep with his arms wrap around my small of my abdomen. Head in the crook of my neck snoring. I glance back and kiss his forehead smiling. The clock read blink 6:03. Taking his hand I slowly ease myself out of the embrace and out of bed. He snuggled into my pillow and started to snore once more. Flipping my alarm off grab my outfit I had plan night before and headed into the bathroom.

It still early so I decide to open the windows to let some fresh air in. After a few minutes, I hop in. I scrub some shampoo in my hair and hum this morning song to myself. I reach back and let the water hit my face run down to the rest of my body. Taking the dirt and worried away. A cheep cheep stops me as I tried to figure out what it was taking out last bit of conditioner. I felt something coming around me then more cheep cheep. I wipe my eyes to my surprise I saw a bird no five maybe more in the shower with me. I tried to move but more I did more they attack me two in my hair other hitting me with its wings. My breathing started to fall short as panic set it. I tried not to scream thinking to all the safety videos I would watch growing up but it didn’t work. I tried pushing away shooing them but still nothing. The anxiety got so bad that after trying to hold it in I scream. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. They kept attacking me this time pecking me over and over. Taking my hands I tried to push then away. Still, they came after me. I grab for the shower curtain tight trying to find some escape. AHHHHHHHHHHHHELP. With one last scream, the curtain I was holding onto with my dear life suddenly gave. Suddenly everything faded to black. The only thing I could hear was the birds still chirping. 

#foodie #food #science fiction #scifi #gore #birds #smut #angst #short story #horror #high school #isolation #anxiety #Aesthetic #moodboard #trippy #janet #kp #isaac #amaryllis #grunge #pale #young adult #dark fantasy #fantasy #dark aesthetic

[inumakkis]

Chapter one ; lost and found

warnings ; light angst ( okay maybe a substantial amount )

It's gonna be posted to be my ao3 when I actually edit it more because we know ao3 is superior . ( .lichtenberg is my username ! ) Stay safe guys ! I haven't properly proof read it because I'm tired but I'll probably see a mistake in a week and then fix it then after panicking .

-----

Things were always tough for Hitoshi Shinsou. That's how life was for him , he'd wake up and go to school only to be faced with the relentless bullying from his peers which his teachers dismissed. In a world full of quirks, he would much rather be quirkless.

Everyday felt like a battlefield , trudging through the trenches , avoiding any hits from the enemy and soon enough, he was at the front line. His guard was up and yet everyone saw the little cracks on how to get him down.

It wasn't so bad at first , the occasional taunt , nothing that he couldn't manage . though when he got to middle school, things got worse, kids got meaner. Well, so did he . A strong hatred grew towards the world from his bones that supported his figure.

Yet , the blond boy in class 1a would disagree . He never thought that Hitoshi was mean . No , he found his reserved and quiet . He enjoyed it . He enjoyed how he would follow Shinsou around like a lost puppy ( though Hitoshi would change that to a cat ) and the purple haired teen wouldn't spare him a glance.

Yeah , in Denki's mind ? Things were great .

23rd of June

Denki asked Hitoshi out after sitting besides him at lunch for over a month now . He turned him down.

27th of June

Shinsou had a bunch of lavender dropped at his doorstep , all plucked from the ground . He didn't even need to read the note to see who they were from . He simply tossed them on top of his desk before going back to reading.

29th of June

It was Kaminari's birthday and much to his distaste , there was no happy birthday from the boy he wanted to hear it from the most .

Shinsou knew the date , how could he not? When it was all the blond talked about within the recent week, eyes bubbling with happiness, only getting a glance from Hitoshi and maybe a nod of the head.

He would rather people think that he doesn't care then face the pain that comes with having a friend.

30th of June

Denki still hung around him , acted as if he didn't ignore the day he was most excited for out of the entire year . Shinsou didn't say a word.

1st of July

When hitoshi woke up , he had a gift at the foot of his bed and he wondered how Denki managed to break in to the dorms to drop it off. With tired eyes, he grabbed the note taped to the package .

— to toshi shinsou

“ I understand that you may not like me but I like you dude ! You think you're so tough but you're totally not . I hear boys like handwritten notes and I should know that since I am one but I have yet to receive one so it's a new experience for me too !!!!! Hppay happy birthday , I'm not mad at you . I know you don't want to be my friend and that's a-okay ! Just please let me down slowly ? I won't hang around with you anymore if that's what you want . I mean, you probably didn't like me in the first place and you wouldn't be the first so don't worry ! Pikaboy is fine with it ! Happy birthday .

Ps . A thank you would be greatly appreciated.

Pss . Also come on a date with me this Tuesday? I'll be at the restaurant down the road at 7pm . ”

Sincerly sincerely , Kaminari. :)

Shinsou paused . They were back to a last name basis now, Denki had officially removed his nickname from his vocabulary.

He pondered on why Kaminari would constantly go through trouble to make him happy and yet didn't even get a smile in return. Heck, by the last sentence , Denki seemed happy enough to be stood up publicly. Could he really do that to him though? Judging by the ink smudges on the paper , he couldn't . Sunshine boy had either spilt water very precisely or cried while writing it . He hoped it wasn't the latter. It made his chest ache and twist as he reread it four times . He noticed the spelling mistakes and how there would be another teardrop straight after as if he hated himself more for ruining the letter .

Hitoshi eventually tore his tired eyes away from the paper and opened the box which was at the bottom of his bed. He couldn't help the sweet laugh that escaped him. There would be no point hiding it now , after all no one was here to judge him or swear they say him show more than a stoic look.

It was a hoodie , purple and a few shades darker than his hair with the word ' mind fuck ' written across each sleeve while the front was decorated by cats .

Custom made , suddenly a tear dropped and Shinsou stared at it as if it had personally insulted him. He watched as the hoodie took it in , leaving the wet mark for show.

He would turn up to that date . He refused to wear anything fancy but he couldn't let Kaminari know .

5th of July

" dunce face , he isn't going to come ! He hates you ." Bakugou exclaimed as he watched Denki apply his eyeliner for the fifth time. Each time he applied it, he would cry it off .

" you think I don't know that ? I have to try though ! We're meant to help people and if my purpose is just getting myself involved in things that he doesn't like just to show that I care then I can proudly class myself as a hero !"

Mina rested a pink hand on his shoulder , wiping his eyes once more. " Come on, Danks ! He's gonna come , Bakubabe is just jealous because he can't get a date with Kiri ."

" WHAT THE FUCK DID I TELL YOU ABOUT CALLING ME THAT, RACCOON EYES— "

Hanta laughed from the background , playing some weird game on his phone . " Bakugou and Kiri sitting in a tree , K-I-S-S-I-N- OH MY GOD." The boy exclaimed as he ducked from an explosion that was sent his way .

Denki only laughed as Mina tilted his head back to stop the tears and began giving him some sharp winged liner . " Right , you look hot now go get that outfit on and get your sweet ass back here so i can do your hair."

" but I already did my ha-"

Mina out a finger to his lips. " Ah— Mama Mina knows best now hurry up . "

It turns out that Mama Mina did know best because low and behold, Shinsou was waiting right at the restaurant , 7:01 sharp. Hitoshi was far from a people pleaser , perhaps the opposite to Denki. He could give less of shit about what everyone else wanted but when someone had shown him unconditional care ? He knew he had to do something because what kind of hero would he be if he let them suffer due to his ignorance ?

" Let's make this quick." He commented , eyes sharp as he looked to the bubbly boy who had just turned up. It was clear that he wasn't expecting the other man there. His face lit up.

" O-oh yeah ! Sure dude !" Denki managed to get out as he walked inside the restaurant. It was far from fancy, that was clear . " Hey hun !" A woman gave a wide smile to Denki who wrapped his arms around her.

Hitoshi's mind wandered . Was this some kind of joke ? Why was he hugging a girl on a date with him ? Did he say date ? No he meant an outing because he felt sorry for him. That's it . Yeah -

" and you must be the boy that Denki has told me so much about - "

" AOI !" Denki's face flushed scarlet .

" sup, I'm his sister . "

Oh. . .

Oh .

That makes sense.

He looked between the two of them , why didn't he see it before ? The golden yellow hair , sitting in spikes across their heads , though hers was much shorter. They had the same smile and same eyes , the only difference was that her hair had a sideshave with the lightning bolt there.

Needless to say, Hitoshi felt dumb which wasn't meant to happen.

" that's very nice , I guess ?" It came out as a question , he had no idea on how to interact with people. That kind of went with his whole " no friends " thing .

" yeah , so get us a table , pronto !" Denki exclaimed and shoved Aoi along . " I'm going ! I'm going! There's a table over there , it ain't nothing fancy but you'll live. Your date " she wiggled her eyebrows at Denki who groaned. " doesn't seem like a people person , who knows why he's hanging with you - wait , sorry! I've been calling you a he ! You are okay with that , aren't you ?" Her attention turned to Shinsou who only managed to get out a little nod.

She let out a sigh of relief as she handed them both the menu's as they sat down. It wasn't long until she was off to go flirt with someone. Classic Kaminari's.

" She works at an lgbtq+ shelter for teenagers so she's really hyper aware of everyone's sexuality and stuff. " Denki commented , tapping his fingers on the table .

" that's good, I guess ? " Shinsou pondered their background for a moment before the blond boy pulled him from his thoughts.

" hey , my back hurts -"

" what? Why ? "

" from carrying this entire conversation." Kaminari let out a laugh and Hitoshi gave a fond roll of his eyes in return along with a chuckle.

He didn't realise his mistake until it was too late .

" you laughed at my joke ! You laughed ! Fuck yeah ! "

" wait no I didn't !"

And so came joke galore from Denki for the rest of their date . Kaminari wasn't funny , but the way he delivered each joke made Hitoshi's chest pound more and more.

He had been ignoring this .

As they walked out after a very full stomach and a very large discount, he tried to ignore the guilt eating up at him.

Denki had cried because of him, he had cried because he was ignored and he was now acting like Shinsou hadn't done anything to offend him ? What had this kid gone through ?

" so I said - hey are you listening ?" Denki pulled away from his ramble that he was on about Sero and Mina.

" uh yeah , Sero accidentally kicked Ashido in the face and she fought him."

Denki's face lit up and he continued to talk. He tried his best not to zone out this time .

Yeah , things weren't perfect but he could make an effort . Right ?

#shinkami #bnha #kamishin #shinsou #kaminari #denki kaminari #shinsou hitoshi #i havent proofread properly cba #mha

[rotzaprachim]

Thoughts on Kaz as a politician

One of my favorite crack-y yet somehow still plausible headcanons for Kaz is that he gets pulled, kicking and screaming, into being one of Kerch’s greatest reformist politicians and legislators, while convincing himself it was only about the Profit and the Power all the way. 

He’s proud cutting up the city now, but he’s seventeen. What’s he going to be like at twenty seven? Thirty seven? 

Getting initially involved in politics is entirely accidental.  Maybe it’s due to some weird zoning flaw he manages to exploit, or a loophole that the Merchants’ Council’s been trying to cover up. 

Or maybe the Crows enter his name to stand election as a joke, and Kaz goes to undo it and then realises there was never any way he could have won to begin with, because the entire city’s gerrymandered from top to bottom so that no one from the Barrel could ever possibly win. (To which he thinks, challenge accepted.) 

But the point is, he shows up, expecting to just take his name out of the running and be done before lunch time.   Maybe even gets roughed up and intimidated by a couple goons sent to scare him out of standing for election. And realises, in all of it, that this is where the real power and profit is, and where the real sharks are. 

So he ends up as a politician, and the real fun begins. 

Of course, he’s still strictly using his position to Profit. But then he starts to realise just how fucking easy it is to make a profit, when you’re in government. All the tax loopholes you can exploit. All the public funding you can drain into your own public interests. It’s just too easy. And, well, he likes a challenge. He wants to take a few of his competitors out, even the playing field a bit. Make sure that none of them can get up to worse crime than he can. 

Which is how Kerch ends up with the most progressive tax code they’ve ever seen. And a graduated income tax. And for the first time, an actual protocol for finding and prosecuting tax evasion, from a man who actually knows how it’s done. 

(Turns out he can make many more, and more dangerous and powerful, enemies from fucking tax codes than anything he ever did as a gangster.) 

But he’s only in it for the money. And power. Pushing a massive reform of how district lines are drawn in Kerch so that working-class farm kids, up-and-coming rabble rousers from Zemeni and Ravkan immigrant neighborhoods, established community leaders from the poorer sections of the city, can now stand elections. It’s only so he can get a wider voter base. Really. 

Social services? Finally getting something like the start of a foster care system or a few public high schools in the Barrel are only to cut into rival gangs’ recruitment strategies. Same with, over the next few decades, clean roads, public baths, food stamps, immigrant aid societies, halfway houses, funds for single mothers and orphans, and a ruthless reformation of the Stadwaatch. (One day he’ll specialise in telling gruesome stories about his Childhood on the Streets to disbelieving interns who cannot ever imagine that The Barrel was ever anything like that.) 

Of course, he’s still a gangster. His methods are .. . often brutal, to say the least. They involve a lot of backroom dealing and money passed under tables and sketchy alliances. On the whole he’s not any different from most of his opponents. But hell will come to you if you take bribes that aren’t from him, or decline to disclose campaign funding, or try to break up labour unions. He’ll know. 

But over time, he becomes, in some circles, something of a legend. An established figure, to be sure. Because he’s a gangster. He’s terrible. He once came to blows with a Merchants’ council member on the floor of the exchange over agricultural policies. He’s got half the Stadwatch in his pocket. He knows compromising information and he will use it. 

But for a certain broad swathe of Ketterdam, he’s become the man you want on your side. 

He’s the one who’ll filibuster for ten hours straight to keep certain health services legal. He’s the one who’ll wall himself in his office in the wee hours of the night and live off coffee until they can get a budget past that actually includes public education, funding for medical research, and a social safety net for orphans. 

It’s all about the money. And the power. That’s all it ever was. 

            It is also, in a way, about the revenge. Because I think that Kaz would stay as angry as he is over his past, over what happened to Jordie, as he was when he was a teenager. But I think that anger would expand. It wasn’t just Pekka Rollins’ fault. It was the bankers who turned a blind eye to what men like Rollins were doing. It was the bought-out Staadwatch. It was the complete lack of a social net for orphans like him, common victims in Kerch’s rush to industrialisation and urbanisation. It was the plague that disproportionately affected the downtrodden and that the Merchant’s Council turned a blind eye to. It was all of those things. It was the shape of a society. So yeah, maybe he can rip Pekka Rollins’ empire apart brick by brick. But I think an older Kaz might realise that he can also bully and bribe and gerrymander and filibuster and write his way into making sure that never happens again. 

Which is why, ironically, after his death, old, grey, and succeeded by a whole flock of political minions/younger politicians that he, in a strange sort of way, mentored, Ketterdam has a HUGE funeral. Even names the new economic high school after him. There’s a bronze statue of the man with the cane who liked to feed the crows in front of the Exchange, the man who bled for his city. (If there’s anything Ketterdam teaches you, he once said, It’s that you can always bleed a little more.) Nina and Jesper, both barely middle-aged in terms of Grisha lifespans, think it’s a fittingly darkly funny end. They cry a bit when the schoolchildren make their commemoration speeches. The Merchants’ Council may be cursing his name, but MP Kazimir Rietveld, Honoured, doesn’t lack for mourners.

(Rumours of his death, of course, maybe greatly exaggerated. There may be a little old man in a little town in southern Kerch who feeds the crows and seems to dislike almost everyone and argues with the weather. A man who waits at the dock and looks out at the sea. And there may be a little old woman there, too, that tends to flower beds. But who’s to know?)

#kaz brekker #six of crows #inej ghafa #my writings #soc #grishaverse

[mythykl]

if naruto characters were your desk neighbours~

i lowkey miss the chaos in school, and not the actual school,, also recently rewatched the final battle between sasuke and naruto- this nostalgia overloaded. ya

Sasuke

popular- yet pretty unapproachable and an introvert,, you can clearly see why

kinda emo hair, kinda emo vibe, kinda emo clothes, just- wears all black

got piercings just last week and you totally find it cool-

 tho he seems content, he has an vibe of restlessness- always fiddling with pen and makin’ shit on his desk fall- that’s how you guys started talkinn’

well, long story shor- you joked- he gave a soul piercing look- attempted to joke for some reason- it was a bad dad joke- he simply decided to act as if nothing happened- you blurted out another joke at that and started laughing historically-

end of the day? you guys stayed late after school hours- as he showed you pics of his cats- nice.

pays attention in class- like a hawk. has pretty messy notes- and draws in his texts

Sakura

saku- no it’s the class rep we’re talkin’ about-

she came off as kinda phony and arrogant at first but she’d super sweet-

and a good cook-

and real scholar- except in sports-

amazing artist

and brings you chocolates everyday, but you ain’t complainin-

is secretly a hAIKYUU!! FAN and you suspect that she has a tumblr blog dedicated to them- i mean lmao-

ya book rec buddy~

hmmmmss~ a LOT

vintage and beanies- le vibe-

Naruto

though he won’t bother you and let go of his rEPUTATION of being loud af this year- but, holy crap you were wrong-

comes in late- legit everyday and acts like nothing happened,, yet emits energy like a fuckin sUN

hella funny and has the coolest fashion sense.

never pays attention in class- and asks you what’s going on and stuff

if given an opportunity- you would have a whole ass picnic in the back of the classroom

but,, you guys are strictly been told to sit on the first desks- cuz odc-

 cheats off your answers- and you’re not a snitch or anything bUT YOU”RE SO CLOSE-

lowkey scared of empty classrooms and hallways, 

Shikamaru

sLEEPS ALOT- thus, making it embarasing for you when sensei spots him and ask you to wake him tf up~

always asking for pen and pencil- has almost lost five erasers since the last three months

since this fucker never has anything with him- you decided to present him supplies for Christmas

doesn’t understand a shit in literature and social science lectures~ but fuckin’ aces at physics and math

many people call ya friendship weird cuz’ he’s more outgoing w you than w anyone else- liitle do they know thaT YOU GUYS BONDED OVER THE MUTUAL HATRED FOR SCHOOL SYSTEM- and mainly,, exchanging homework and test answers

just recently, he shared his playlist- and it’s fuckin’ good.

never takes notes- 

Ino

new hairstyles every fucking day,, i mean are we even surprised??

you wanna know the real vsco girl?? that’s her-

texts you while in class- more like sends you weird and funny shit she comes across on twitter

hence- aLWAYS ACTIVE-

AND TYPES SUPER FAST-

don’t know how but you guys just naturally started talking-

the epitome of foolishness was achieved by you guys in a french lecture when she was tryna say something to you- leaned too much- thus, ended up falling down along with her chair and desk-

and you guys just started crackin’-

which earned you both detention instead of asking her if she’s hurt but. nvm.

she would even throw cranes at you while teacher’s speaking

you guys have opened up about your kinks already- chill-

Hinata 

doesn’t seem like that- but she’s a cosplays

-and makes tik toks

and always listens to lo-fi and also reads lotta manga

she’s shy and speaks the most valid and deep shit ever shit lmao- just randomly throwing realizations at you like a shuttle cock lol

has all tHE SUPPLIES- and expensive ass highlighters and notebooks- 

rich. rich. rich.

pianist as well- you many a times see her hand doing the weird movements as if she’s playing keys- something that she does unconsciously-

being desk partners for a while earned you a selfie with her- she’s kinda camera shy when it comes to close ups-

Kiba

many say he’s loud, but he’s pretty quiet in class

has a three dogs- and has akamaru’s baby pic as his lockscreen- and it’S THE CUTEST THING ever~

k pop- ya

he tExTS LiKE tHiS aNd iT’S fUcKiNG aNNoYiNg

him and choji once deadass ate ramen in class and teacher didn’t gIVE TWO SHITS- oh okay-

when finals are almost here him and naruto are usually at your place- studying

your house? no- that’s the haNGOUT SPOT skjskjskj

has videos of you caught in the moments when ya brain just went sayonara~ which includes you zoning out in lectures-

he films you on snapchat and kinda bullies you:(

breakin’ the 573 streaks if he-

seems as if he exists merely for your entertainment well ofc it’s not so

btw,, i totally would love to have kiba as my bff~ just sayin

i would love to write imagines for minato, kushina, kakashi as well under this title lmso- lemme know. cool.

TOODLES.

#naruto #sasuke #sasukeuchiha #naruto imagine #sakura #ino naruto #Kiba #naruto meme #naruto headcanon #naruto fanfic #naruto fandom

[queen-scribbles]

🖊?

You, dear patient anon, get me rambling about my boy Phillip, bc I’ve had this brewing in me pretty much since my fist time through the @speakergame​ demo and I need to let it out, just kept procrastinating about actually doing so :D

I need to gush about his friendship with Lily, bc even if there was no crushing involved on his end, she was a very, very important part of his life until they got split up.(and also maybe a bit about his teens in general. It sort of all ties together.) 

Phillip was noticeably less reserved as a kid than he is now. He was never especially bold or sought out the spotlight, just more... willingly social. He’s always been an introvert, but I guess you could say he went longer before needing to recharge his batteries as a kid. And he had(still has) a mischievous streak that pretty much solidified him as Lily’s best friend when they were, like, three or four. He helped her plan and perpetrate pranks of all kinds through their younger years; everything from glitter bombs in bullies’ desk to a couple fire-alarm pulling stunts that were close enough together the pair of them got suspended and very nearly got expelled. Phillip was almost always the distraction/lookout, being equally good at thinking on his feet and talking,  absolutely ride or die committed to having Lily’s back. Seriously. There was one time when they were eight he did the whole “Whoops, I fell” thing to distract a teacher and actually nicked his ear on a metal cabinet door he hadn’t noticed was partially open. (It didn’t even hurt that bad, but it did bleed like crazy, and he will absolutely joke their friendship scarred him for life, even as he winks at her or gives her a side hug etc. :P) 

The one time they switched roles they were about.... nine; Lily played lookout so Phillip could sneak into the teachers’ lounge and swap both the sugar and the powdered creamer for salt. >:) They absconded with the sugar for personal enjoyment, but the powered creamer was put to nefarious purposes.

Lily’s also to blame/thank for his artistic bent; she’s the first thing he drew when it started being more than just doodling in notebook margins. It’s not very good (better than he thinks it is, though), and he’d probably die before he showed it to her. (His mother is the only person other than him who knows it exists. Far as he knows.) He has several notebooks from the last year or two before they got split up where the margins and covers are full of doodles or sketches of the two of them--some serious, some silly, most with “SHENANIGANS” written over their heads with a rainbow or sparkles or something (Steph’s addition, to tease him).

And then came the split. Sure, the school probably had a system that was fair and impartial behind deciding who went to which school, but trying telling that to a thirteen year old boy who just found out he’s not gonna get to see his partner in crime best friend every day anymore. He was convinced he and Lily got split up on purpose, because they were Too Much Trouble when they were together. Also, he hated the new school. He got in three fights in the first two months bc kids wouldn’t stop picking on Stephanie for being “weird” and he’s extremely protective of his sister. He did’t win any of these fights--his finesse is a BIG FAT 0--but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t stand up for her anyway. (He can’t make the visions go away, so protecting her from other stuff is the best he can do.) 

He didn’t go sulky-quiet in the new surroundings, but he did get a lot more insular those first couple years before he balanced out to “introvert with a wicked, dry sense of humor who could charm the socks off just about anyone if he had a mind”. He started drawing and reading more(already things he loved doing, they just got more of his time bc he didn’t click friendship wise with anyone), spent all of high school trying and failing to work out time to hang out with Lily somehow; their schedules were just too different; he’s busy when she’s free and vice versa. It still takes a while for him to finally give up. (They came really, really close once when he was seventeen, but then Steph Saw something imminent and terrible and their family had to go blazing halfway across the country last minute to stop it. That was what did it. Even when everything else in life is willing to cooperate, what- or whoever is behind those damn vision thinks it’s funny to fuck things up so FINE. He’s so pissed at The Universe he deliberately doesn’t try for four months. Which turns into five... six.... a year and, well... *gestures at the story*)

After that, after he finishes school, after his and Steph’s parents move, he still thinks about trying to reconnect, but now they’re in that zone when it’s been long enough it would be weird. Awkward. He doesn’t know if she’s moved on and made other friends, maybe she’s... outgrown(?) their friendship and it’s one of those cherished memories but not something she’d want to renew, so he chickens out(”For now, maybe I’ll try later...”), and the longer he puts it off, the more awkward it feels like it’ll be without a Good Reason. He can’t just call her out of the blue after all this time; that would be like stalker-weird, wouldn’t it?

And then Steph has the RK vision and it drops the perfect excuse to reconnect with the Cowles family in their laps and he jumps on it. He and Lily slip right back into their friendship without missing a beat. Like they didn’t spend a decade apart. And Phillip is very grateful his overthinking induced worry couldn’t have been more wrong. He missed her.

#phillip prince #speaker